Tag: Cyberpunk

The Collective: Part 2

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

2.

The Collective

Lex was clad in leather, swords at her back as the neon of billions of signs and lights threw a sickening array of colors at her. She’d already taken the liberty of dying her hair– jet black with streaks of silver. Her heavy, blue eye shadow was accented by black eye-liner, as much for fashion as concealment. When coupled with her ultra-pale skin, black leather duster, skin-tight clothing and calf-high boots, she appeared more like a terrifying wraith than a twenty-six year old woman.

The streets were mostly empty, a frightening prospect for any one that might have seen Tokyo in the past, before The Sleep– what Lex and the people like her called the shift that the world had taken. Before then, Tokyo was the most densely-populated city in the world. Over fifty-million people would daily flood the streets and sidewalks of the metropolis. Doctors, lawyers, fireman, police– any occupation or type of person thought to be named was found ten times over in the insanity that flowed along daily routes to the tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of businesses spread through the city’s sky-line. All this, to say nothing of the tourists and foreign business people that flocked to the city in untold numbers.

Now, it was a ghost town. At least, it looked that way. Lex’s boots crossed the vacant sheen of oil and water over the white-lined cross-walk. Even if anyone cared to look at her, the katanas at her back were hardly noticeable in the glare of color that assaulted the senses. She wasn’t worried in the least, instead determined. Her focused myopia was evident in the rigidity of her spine and the deliberate steps that propelled her into a narrow alley-way.

Lex slunk into darkness, blinded given what she’d come from. She nosed out a metal door in her shifting night-vision, banged a balled fist against it twice, then hesitated before a third knock. An face-height panel slid open to a lone pair of almond eyes. Harsh syllables from a native Japanese rolled into softer consonants to from a question.

Lex’s eyes were forward, body straight, “Tell Ryo the message has been delivered.”

The eyes moved with a nod. The panel grated metal, slid shut. Lex turned on-heel to follow the alleyway through, her destination slightly less clear her intent to reach it.

She’d lived in Tokyo twenty years, had grown up in its hustle and bustle, met more than her share of its underbelly, upper-belly, and expats like her parents. There wasn’t much about Tokyo she didn’t know or hadn’t seen, yet paradoxically, it was eternally changing, different with each breath: Maybe that was how the Collective had been able to do what they’d done. It was certainly plausible; Tokyo’s people were used to the fast-paced, respectful turns Japanese culture and society had taken, were trained from birth not to linger, think. Lingering was inefficient, unproductive, and thinking meant wasting time in place of getting things done– what a great irony that all the people did now was sleep.

The profundity wasn’t lost on Lex as she stepped across once-crowded streets. The only signs of civilization were a trio who’d managed to retain a modicum of self-reliance, left their figurative beds to retrieve food between bouts of sleep. Most things were drone delivered nowadays, daily food shipments too. Fresh-vegetables and full-meals were as much a given now as they had once been a luxury. Such was the way of the world that even these simple contrivances of life had been relegated to programs, code, and machines. The Collective had seen to that.

They’d also unwittingly signed their own death-warrants. Twelve men and women of various nations came together under a singular creed; pacify the world and take its money in the process. Politicians were lobbied and bribed until governments were largely useless, entirely in the pockets of the group. The insidious nature of the Sleep began with technology replacing the people, was a decade in the making. Eventually, no matter the outcry, it was obvious jobs were better handled by algorithms and unmanned vehicles or machines. Out went the laymen and blue-collar workers.

With them, municipalities became controlled by super-computers that watched and listened in on everything through massive surveillance networks. They were always collecting data, analyzing it, processing results faster and more responsive than humans. Fire-fighters turned into automated water-carrying drones and doubly powerful fire-suppression systems with countless redundancies and built to never fail. Police were down-sized into private armies, their orders given by A-I’s that adhered to the Collective’s programmed tenants as if the words of God. They killed or imprisoned without mercy, the former more likely now that fewer people toed the lines each day from fear of one or the other.

Even Lex was cautious of the drones; katanas were useful against flesh, but even the sharpest blade couldn’t sunder the thick, military-grade armor-plating of the flying menaces. She and the others like her relied on their wits, abilities to vanish, or evade their presence altogether. It was for that reason Lex crossed the empty street again, cut-through another alley way to emerge on the far side of an intersection, begin a zig-zag through various alleys toward her destination.

The drones didn’t sweep the alleys anymore; nothing that took place in them would ever last long enough to be caught. The worst of atrocities had largely been weeded out when the Sleep hit in full force– there was hardly an opportunity for pick-pockets to pilfer when no-one left their homes. The same went for killers, would-be kidnappers, or even rapists. In those ways, the incalculably infinite V-R worlds were a good thing. They kept the freaks at bay and their victims safe– but the problem of their existence wasn’t solved. They’d merely been hidden, their crimes relegated to sick, virtual fantasies. The people would just as soon be out in the real world living those fantasies out if there were enough people to enact them on.

The veil had to fall. The true face of the world had to be revealed to the people. They needed to know of their own, willing enslavement. With the Collective’s death, the VR Sleep would die too. Lex swore her life to it, tasted the death on her tongue and felt the Collective’s blood wash over her. The twelve that comprised the Collective would soon share those feelings. One-by-one, she would coat her blades with their blood until their empire weakened, fell atop their lifeless corpses.

Lex lingered in the shadows of the last alley on her route, watched the street ahead beneath a massive, LED television that flashed product ads in vain at the empty road. The distant sound of tires on the road was only just audible as the rain returned, gathered strength. The lights’ auras were muffled by the sheets of water that quickly descended over the city.

A tire splashed a puddle as it rounded a corner at Lex’s left with a silent, electric engine. The stretch limo eased into place beneath the television with a squeak of ceramic brakes. Its black, glossy finish was freshly waxed. Water beaded along the slick surfaces, formed miniature streams along the reflected, neon city-scape. An automated door opened for a man in a suit to step out, pull open an umbrella. Lex’s eyes homed in on the couple behind him; an aging, Chinese man, well past his expiration date, and a woman half his age with equally as much power.

Lex knew both him and the woman by reputation and the general ire of others like her. She’d long ago sniffed their details out: The man was Qiang Li, head of the Global Agricultural department, and now responsible for roughly ninety-five percent of the world’s food supply. China’s immense agricultural land had been divided between a few agencies and corporations as the Sleep deepened. In a short time, the world’s roughly twelve billion people were eating from a singular source– one that Li controlled. Even asleep, the people were hungry.

Her eyes narrowed on Li as he mocked chivalry with an extended hand that met the nimble fingers of the soft-skinned American woman and helped her from the car. She wore the high-powered dress of the wealthy elite, her posture more rigid and predatory than even Lex’s. She was Michelle Kay, recently appointed head of Global Weapons Research and Distribution, and sole remaining arms dealer. She supplied weapons for the former US army, now operating under the name of Global Security Solutions and leadership of Collective member James Hobbs. The few aspects of the military not phased-out into autonomous hands were special-ops groups– Green-berets, Navy Seals, SAS and the like. Those ultra-disciplined men and women were the only human element that remained to keep the world secure. Every country had some contingent of Hobbs’ men, all experts of lethality, and armed by Kay.

One side of Lex’s mouth snarled in disgust as she started across the street, made it to the front of the limo. She began to round its edge when the trio finally caught her approach. The umbrella-carrier began to speak. Lex’s blades scraped metal against fabric, slid from their sheaths to their downward point. They remained still as she stepped within reach of the trio.

She struck; screams shattered the rainstorm’s white noise. Her leg went up, struck the carrier’s chest. He flew back winded. Lex’s weight rounded mid-air, blades parallel with a wide slice. They cut deep along Li’s torso. His intestines spilled out with a gallon of blood as he fell to his knees with a rasping scream. Before he landed, the blades were already buried in Kay’s chest. Her eyes bulged. Adrenaline fried her nerves. Blood leaked down her lip, dripped along her blouse. Lex gave a twist that crunched bone, forced the blades lateral. They met, edge-to-edge, withdrew in a flick. Kay crumpled to the ground.

Lex’s left hand angled a swipe across Li’s throat as she turned for the winded man on the ground. He skittered back, clutched his throat and choked for air. Lex loomed over him as her blades left opaque droplets on the sidewalk. He rasped sharp attempts to breath, fought tried to drag himself backward.

Lex slammed a booted foot into his sternum, stuck the tip of a blade up against his throat to hold him in place. She met his eyes, unaffected by the carnage, “You will take over Michelle Kay’s place, and ensure you have a say in Li’s replacement, then await further instructions. Is that clear?”

He nodded, struggled to breathe as he replied, “Wh-what if I can’t… a-a-arrange it?”

Lex’s face remained blank, tilted to one side as her blade’s tip stretched his skin, “That is unacceptable.” He acknowledged with a nod. “This conversation never happened.”

His eyes said he was more certain it hadn’t than anything in his life. She gave a satisfied sneer, lifted her boot from his sternum, then slammed the opposite one against his temple. He was unconscious when she turned away, blades whirling to fling away water and blood before they slipped back into their sheathes.

“Two down,” she muttered. “Ten to go.”

Missed part 1? Read it here!

Short Story: Modern Day Trojan Horse

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 6 Comments

England had become a police state. It was all over the news; coppers in riot gear, clouds of tear gas, the city on fire. London burned. It wasn’t the first time. No-one was fool enough to believe it would be the last either. Nothing could stop burning, not then. Hell, maybe not ever.

It had started in Paris, with something called the Paris Incident. Basically, every cybernetic and bionically augmented person in Paris had finally had enough. They rallied to march on the city of light, waving banners to protest the corporate occupation there. Every major corp had some outlet in Paris then, still do now– almost makes everything that came after seem pointless.

The numbers were never officially recognized, but everyone saw it; thousands and thousands of people clustered butt-to-gut together, stomping their way through the city. They chanted, thrust signs upward; some with obvious bionics, others with theirs carefully concealed by proto-plastics that resembled skin. Still more were bone and flesh, normal humans fed up with the mistreatment of their friends, family, lovers. If they’d know then what was about to happen, maybe they would have run. Hell, maybe they wouldn’t have. Maybe it would have made them all the more determined to stand their ground, and they would have made a difference.

What sparked their tempers was a string of bad decisions that even today no-one understands. I know I don’t. Though the Augs had rallied behind a single image, an icon, for what became known as the Paris Incident, each of them had their own reasons to be there. Renee Lemaire was just the tip of the iceberg, a rally cry for a people already subjugated, oppressed. She’d supposedly been murdered after it had been discovered that her neural augs had been activated without her knowledge. Simply put, she was brain-hacked by some entity to do their dirty, wet-work. The casual observer of her eventually-public revelation would have blamed the French Government, but everyone else knew the Corps ran the government.

Even before she was killed in a car-bomb, supposedly another “tragic loss” for Locust Group Inc, her employers, the augs had long been mistreated. Corporate Security had taken over the streets of Paris in the years preceding the event, were particularly prejudiced against augs. Corp-sec had developed a strict beat-first, question-later policy. Just about every Aug in Paris had felt some measure of that prejudice.

So what the French had was a largely lawless flame burning in the hands of the Corps, and a powder keg of resentment in the form of mistreated, augmented humans. There was no way that shite wouldn’t catch, explode, and blow a few thousand people the hell. Christ, these people were the very reason half those corps had as much power as they did. Almost every Corp had some stake in physical or cyber augments. Half were even software providers for Neural and prosthetic augs from the other half. Still their own people were prejudiced against them. It was almost dizzying the level of hypocrisy: the augs kept the Corps in business, and the Corps paid corp-sec the augs’ money to beat ’em senseless.

I guess we should have expected the fucking horror show that came. Everyone had Lemaire as their symbol, but in their own ways, they each had their “Lemaire moments”– those times where because of what they were, or were associated with, they’d been looked down upon. Usually that downward look came from the end of a corp-sec barrel or fist. For those lucky few that escaped unscathed, the look came from at least atop a high-horse, however rare that was.

After the initial march began, it was clear that corp-sec wasn’t going to be able to contain thousands of people to the streets. Damn near all out chaos broke out then. No-one was sure what happened first– if someone threw a punch, a rock, a bullet and then corp-sec responded, or vice-versea– but it wasn’t long before they tear-gas was nearly choking people to death, and others were dead or bleeding from random shots fired into the crowds.

Paris became an all out blood-bath. Augs and norms alike were attacking corp-sec, corp-sec was attacking everyone not in their color uniform, and anyone not being attacked was fleeing before they were. I happen to know for a fact Aries Security Corp even took out a couple of Warhound Protection squads in the insanity. Whether this was an accident or just an opportunity to dent a rival corp’s bottom-line, no-one but the corps could say. Let’s face it though, if corps could talk, they still wouldn’t give a shit about telling the truth.

What I can say is that the blood bath didn’t end for almost two straight weeks. There was nearly a full-on civil war that raged after those first shots were fired. It was a while of people attacking corp-sec on hit-and-runs before they rallied to fight back… fight back, right. What the corps did would be classified as a war-crime if there were any governments left to charge them.

Basically, the corps banded together for once. A terrifying thought for a group hell-bent on cutting each other’s throats at every opportunity they got. Clearly it was in everyone’s best interests to nip the bud before it bloomed though. I think even the augs would have quit while they were ahead if they knew what was to come.

The mega-conglomerate dropped a few special deliveries on the 14th night after the marches turned into a massacre. Both Aries and Warhound birds– supersonic jets composed of all menacing points and screaming turbines– flew in squadrons over twelve different districts of Paris. Each one was residential, outside the territory of the corp’s own housing buildings. The packages they delivered lit the night sky with fountains of blood and fire.

Everyone in the world saw that. The corps wanted us to. It was a message; those of us that wanted could rationalize the move however we chose, but the corps were in power. To go against them in such a way as the augs had was to risk their wrath. And if the news-vids were anything to go by, that wrath was smite and hell-fire.

Of course everything was “authorized,” and “sanctioned” by the various governments, but those of us that knew the truth about the governments didn’t even bother to listen. The battle was polarizing. To a point where countless cities rose up in attempts to kick the corps out or offer safe-haven to the augs, or even declare their allegiance. Berlin was one of the safe-havens– notice past tense, was. To see it now, you’d almost think the blitzkrieg had turned on itself. I guess, in a way, it did.

London though, we’ve been of the first group. The uprising started roughly around the time the corps declared war on the people that didn’t serve them. Really, those people are slaves. They don’t have the same chains around their necks, or whips at their back, but crushing corporate debt and fear of stepping out of line work all the same.

I wish I could say I have hope, but I don’t. We’re really just trying to survive. We’re like Paris in a way; outlets of all the major corps nearby, and half our historic sky-line bombed to rubble. See, the thing is though, we’re English, so we don’t quite do things the same. We prefer to infiltrate the corps, poison them from the inside, then get out before the whole damned entity dry-heaves and withers.

I can’t help but straighten my tie in the mirror with a smug grin. I’m the Bond of the twenty-second century, and my evil villain’s my employer. I live large– as large as I can– off the corp while I sequester a little away for myself, or to the side for my comrades in the ghetto. I can’t help but feel a little sympathy for them, stuck in the damp and dank, wet cold while I’m riding penthouse suites to the bank. But I never forget my job here.

My counter-surveillance software makes sure too, that the corps don’t know I’m wired to the teeth with augs, neural and otherwise. One day, it will all be worth it. Until then, I just bide my time, feed a little information to the others like me. Or else, I fuck with the Corps a little more to keep them on their toes, keep them from watching when we extract someone important, or steal something to help us bring them down.

I’m like a modern day Judas and Trojan Horse all in one, and sooner or later, I’m gonna’ open up, bring this place to its fuckin’ knees. Lemaire might be dead, but the rally cry lives on. Whatever its purpose, I’m with the others; Viva Le Revolution!

The Collective: Part 1

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

1.

Declaration of War

Her crème white skin gleamed in the dimmed light of overhead LEDs, tinted with a plethora of colors from the 3-D holo-vid in the room’s center. Her body mirrored that of the projected woman before her; legs and back straight, eyes forward, and arms at her sides. In her hands, two, razor sharp Katanas gleamed with hints of light and caricatured reflections. She began to move with the projection; her feet parted, braced her exposed torso as her arms drew the blades up to rest on her shoulders. The cold steel triggered waves that coursed through her body, tickled thin, light hairs along her arms and neck, and refined the shape of her nipples.

With a fluid motion, the blades lifted. A foot kept her balance in a pivot while the other leg swept sideways to come about. The blades’ hilts touched, began to whirl as one entity with graceful movements. She urged them apart and into a vertical tumble. Balanced extensions of arms and legs moved her lower, forward. The blades made long, controlled swipes as she pirouetted to bring their blunt edges in toward one another, form make-shift bars of death before her face. Her dark eyes closed in a meditative trance, and the movements flowed into one another again, faster this time.

The nudity wasn’t required for her practice, but she couldn’t escape the freedom it brought. To be one with the sword required she be willing to dance as naked as it was. The two were beautiful beasts, as graceful and ready to love, embrace passion as to murder, spill bloods.

The movements became faster with small leaps. The room’s layout was clear in her mind as her muscles worked. Despite the darkness, she saw the room with light– an unnecessary luxury given her routine. She was as much dead to the world now as anyone who might cross her blades would become. At that, it wouldn’t be long before the polished steel ran crimson.

They were already watching from the cameras embedded in the apartment. She knew who they were, had seen them before. In that odd way that memories sometimes manifest from the aether, they appeared in portents of violence. The visions were stills of things yet to happen, as though made of old, analog film left on the cutting room floor of time. For her part, she would see the film joined by blood.

Her style of practice was something of Tai-Chi mixed with Ballet, both forms of bodily training lost to the world in the rise of self-medicating technology. Before the Sleep, it had surrounded people, become so much a part of their lives most hadn’t noticed it any longer. Now, it was their lives; virtual worlds had become as real as the Earth itself– moreso even, given the untold possibilities V-R allowed for. Everyone was now a buff-stud or supermodel in a world of their choosing, lived out through the use of special chairs, visors, and neural adapters. Nowadays peoples’ avatars were more them than their chair-bound vessels ever could be.

The world had gorged itself on greed and gluttony when all but a few jobs became automated, relegated to synthetic workers, robots, or intelligent software. The World Economy had begun to collapse then. Ninety-eight percent of the world’s work force was laid off. Before it could decimate the planet entirely, steps were taken, precautions put in place. The populous was given living stipends, needs and luxuries made available at fractions of the cost to ensure complacency.

Most of the world saw the change as a positive, but not Lex. She saw if for what it was, and in some instances, what it would become. There were no more wars, sure, but there was also no more freedom, no property but what was allotted. There were no avenues to pursue hopes or dreams, and given time, there would be no hopes or dreams anyhow. The world’s peoples had become victims of their own hubris, compromised fertility for longer life, vitality for luxury, and mental health for quick fix pleasures that would only lead to stagnation. All the while the rich got richer off it, did whatever they wanted. The global population had compromised fertility for longer life, vitality for luxury, and mental well-being for the quick-fix of pleasures that would only lead to stagnation.

Lex knew that, and so eschewed all but the most necessary luxuries, stipends, or pacifying technology that would allow her to achieve her goals. Those things couldn’t stop her from pursuing the future she sought, nor eliminating anyone in her way of it. Her only dream or hope was to change things– by force or reason, whichever was fastest, easiest.

That was how they had found her; through a few, overlooked surveillance devices embedded in common goods. Then, once surveillance had begun, they’d come in when she’d been away and planted more equipment to build their case. All she’d needed was the sense to investigate at the scents of foreign sweat, leather. When she did, she realized her mistake. Regardless, it only served to hasten her plans.

The world was the oyster of a very select few whom had carved it out for themselves over the course of decades. They had private armies– whole governments even– on their side, had otherwise pacified any other resistance against them. They’d drugged, imprisoned, or neutralized anyone that might stand against them, refused to sleep. They would kill anyone, no matter their station, to ensure the status-quo.

And now they were here.

The door to her apartment burst open. A flash-bang went exploded. Lex remained poised, blades touching before her face. Her ears rang, but she felt the vibrations of a half dozen feet charge inside. It was one of the few squads of police left in Tokyo– the whole world at that. The bulk of their numbers had long been reduced to drone patrols with high-powered tazers or small chain-guns mounted to their bellies, but these were foot soldiers.

They filed in. The latest, high-tech battle-rifles in their hands rose on her. Shouts of Japanese and English commanded the American-born woman to drop her weapons. They flowed in, fanned out in a half-circle around her. The commands never ceased.

Her arms lowered deliberately, swords in a downward-point toward the floor, her readied poise. The squad flinched. Shouts grew louder, repetitive. Rifle’s shook from adrenaline and fear. A few sparks of arousal in men and women left them half-dazed at Lex’s beauty and nudity.

In a blink, she leapt forward. A foot landed on the ball. Her hands flashed. The blades sliced up, in, down, flourished with a backward flip. Lex landed back in place as if she’d never moved at all. The only evidence was the slow river that flow form the blades’ tips, dripped crimson onto the metal floor. The squad blinked in disbelief as the lead man disassembled, arms severed from his torso and head from neck. His corpse fell to a heap.

Someone fidgeted, fingered a trigger. Lex leapt, spun. Blades sliced air, marred flesh, sundered bone and spinal nerves. Two of the left-most squad were decapitated in a flick of wrists. The others reacted, moved to take aim. Rifles were kicked from hands, bodies winded and propelled back with tremendous force. The dual blades mutilated wrists, incised throats. Screams turned to gurgles and bubbled whispers.

The room went silent again from the dead and wounded.

Two soldiers remained. One reached for her side arm, the other on her back on the floor, dazed. She gasped for air. Lex landed beside her, jabbed the left blade down into her chest, pierced her glossy body armor. The blade wrenched with cracking kevlar and bone. Blood spurted from an opened heart. Lex’s movement became a raised-leg spin that struck the side-arm. It flew across the room as the blades went for the woman’s throat, poised on either side to cut. She backed her up to the wall, forced her to her knees.

Lex stared down, blood spattered along her silken body, “You speak English.” The woman nodded. It wasn’t a question. “Tell your bosses I’m coming.” The woman nodded again. She raised her back up to her feet. “Tell them what you’ve seen here today, and that you know I could have done the same to you.”

“Wh-why?” The armored woman asked.

Lex chose her words carefully, “Mercy is a gift not often given. The world is about to change. You may choose to change with it, or die by my sword.” She locked eyes with the woman, “The choice is yours.” The woman sensed her conviction, swallowed hard. Lex sneered, “Leave. Do not return.”

The blades fell back to Lex’s sides in their readied poise. The woman bolted, stumbled over bodies for the door, fell through it only to scramble up and flee.

No matter what happened now, the Collective would know she was coming. They’d forced her hand, but she could use it, show them the stakes so they might watch, see the carnage about to befall them. Only then could they begin to feel fear– fear that would force them to make rash decisions, position their empire to be crumbled as they were taken out, one-by-one.

One way or another, an end would soon come.

Short Story: A Job to Do

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 1 Comment

Smoke curled and rolled beneath a low-hanging light, dissipated by the wave of a wrinkled hand. The man it was attached to hunched forward over the table beneath the light, in a booth seat of a dank bar most just called by its designation. Officially it was named The Oldhouse Tap. Unofficially, it ran by other names, most as unappealing as its never-swept, never-mopped tile floors. Even the walls had felt the rigors of age, their wall-paper stained and peeled like a cheap motel.

Another man sat before the smoking man, both with large mugs of beer that were more foam than brew. Such was the way the burnt-out bartender poured her patrons their poison. She cared about as much as they did. Most people in at this time of day were still on company time, the others hiding from their wives or families when they should have been at the unemployment office, or one of the half-dozen places through-out town with help-wanted signs in their front windows.

Instead, they were spread out around the bar, staring up at a television that never strayed from its Info-Corp news channel. Like them, the two men at the booth were mostly quiet, but when deigned to speak, did so in low, hushed tones. The second man hunched forward over the table, parted the smoke with his wrinkled, black, sunken eyes.

“I can have the money in a week, all I need’s more time.”

The smoking man took a drag from his cigarette with a few, resolute nods, “And you’re sure of that, yeah?”

The other man began to launch into a tall-tale. Of course, he started by explaining his position; like many others, he’d been laid off due to the shaky economy. No amount of groveling or employment seeking would help. All those help-wanted signs were for men and women twenty years younger. The shops in town didn’t care much for the older generation with their responsibilities, bills, and needs. They wanted expendable assets to leash one day, and kick-out when they were no longer cost-effective.

The other man went into detail on his experiences, “I was in with a shop down Main St, a coffee place– nothing in the front mind you, they don’t want the geezers working the front. They’ve got an image, you know.”
“Hmm,” the smoking man said with a long drag. He blew a long plume, “Got to have appeal with the kids.”

“Exactly.”

He went further in the same vein, but the smoking man was no longer listening. He’d heard all the tales a million times over. Everyone had their sob story, and everyone thought theirs was worse than everyone else’s. In truth, the smoking man knew they were all the same. It wasn’t his business to care, but he knew nonetheless. Each of the men and women he’d met were cut of a similar cloth; all older– his age really– out of work, and needing money. In a way, he sympathized; it could just as easily be him. Well, not him, but him in another life. He could have just as easily found himself in their shoes were circumstances even a little different.

Alas, no amount of empathy, sympathy, or cold beer would change what he knew now. He wasn’t like them. He was what they wanted to be; well-aged, still sane, and with immovable job-security. He even had spending money, something in direly short supply these days. Hell, he thought, probably not a one of the patrons in the bar today had that. They were all likely drinking on tabs that would follow them past their graves.

He listened to the sob-story a little longer, if only for courtesy’s sake. He already knew what would happen. It wouldn’t be another month before he was back in here to discuss the terms of the man’s repayment, only to be begged and pled with to hold off on collecting. Unfortunately, begging and pleading only went so far. Maybe the man hadn’t personally helped to tank the economy, but he had to deal with it the same as the rest. The problem was, dealing was all they ever tried to do. Not a one of them had learned to hold to their word.

He’d been in the banks’ employ long enough to know that the defaulters knew the stakes. Loans were an uncommon luxury even in the best of times. Now, they were downright impossible to come by. Even so, most of the people that had signed on the dotted lines had still refused to cop to the responsibility inherent in signing. Then, when the smoking man came to collect, they bargained and begged, and pled for more time.

His job wasn’t the most pleasant by any means. He could think of thirty or forty jobs off the top of his head that he’d rather have if only they were quite so secure in their need. That was the interesting thing though, as much as people wanted what he had, they never wanted to take the opportunity to get it. It left him as the sole member of an occupation where help-wanted truly meant it. But it wasn’t a fun job, most certainly unpleasant even with the best cases. Too many people defaulted nowadays, and by the first and fifteenth of every month he was expected to be in fifty places at once. Most places weren’t much different than this one.

Sure, a few of the people would repay the debt, or else shake his cynical core to feeling with their real misfortune. In those rare cases, he’d leave with a thankful politeness, possibly never to be seen again. Or else, he’d promise to return, understanding of their unfortunate circumstances. Whatever that latter groups circumstances were, he was certain he would never find any of them in a dank pit like the Oldhouse.

That was how the smoking man could tell the unfortunate from the dead-beats: when the unfortunate were down-trodden, lost for hope, they ran to their families to spend those possibly last moments with them. Conversely, the dead-beats were always in bars, restaurants, what-have-yous, running up tabs and knowing their last moments were upon them. It was an effective system, one that only a man working so deeply under the table for the banks could have established– or even distinguished.

He listened to the man tell his woes for another half-cigarette, then stopped him mid-sentence.

“I can’t help you,” he said as he rose from his seat.

He pulled his over coat open on the one side while the other man stammered and choked on his beer. A moment later a gun was out. A single, suppressed round ended the man’s life. He fell forward onto the table, blood leaking from a wound in his head. The rest of the bar had watched, each of them fearing they might be next. The smoking man replaced the gun into its shoulder-hoslter, then stepped over to the bar to drop a wad of cash on it.

“The bank will send someone by to collect the body,” the man said as he snuffed a butt in a tray on the counter. “You all have a good day. I’ll be seeing some of you next week.”

Most heads were hidden as he turned away. He had work to do. There was such little job security left in the world, and though it was messy, it was still a job that needed to be done. Even if there was no-one else willing to do it, few would do it as well as him.