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It was pathetic. The rainwater trickled down the walls and a stale musk hung in the air, filling his senses with the feeling of death and waste. The tiny bundle in the doorway of this dank hole was softly whimpering to itself. Rice kicked at it and it fell quivering into the puddles in the street. Pathetic.
He pushed past the piles of garbage in the hallway and made his way up the stairs that creaked ominously beneath him. The doors all had numbers scrawled in faded green paint, each one displaying the hardship that only the desperate could call home. Rice hardly noticed these hallmarks of decay; his purpose was higher than pity, his ideals transcended words-but he would call them justice.
The final door, covered in a spider's web of police tape, was shattered and lay in three pieces in the hallway. He peeled back the tape and walked onto the tattered carpet inside, stained with day-old blood and branded with burn marks from cigarette ends. The tang of ozone from the streets below him mingled with the scents of the room, coalescing into a miasma that spoke of hate and the stagnant side of humanity.
He moved slowly, checking each detail of the place with the report he had read that morning. Until then, his quest had been the fumblings of a lost child: now he had a purpose, a direction, a name to hate and battle. The warrior had finally found an enemy worthy of him, and the name rang like the sound of the Devil's unchained laughter in his ears.
* * *
"Frisk" was sat on the park bench, investigating the contents of his left nostril with some interest, when the others arrived.
"Hey Frisk, stop poking about and listen up."
"Huh?"
He didn't see the blow until it struck him and the ground reached up to meet his fall.
"Hey..."
His attacker towered over him as he lay picking the gravel out of his grazed palms. He recognised the face and wondered, not for the first time, why he was friends with "Spit".
"You lisnin yet, Frisk?"
"Yeah, I'm lisnin',"
"The lads is bored again and you has to think up what it is that we is going to do. Cuz you know you do think up the best games, don't you, Frisk."
"I'll think about it."
"I don't think you're listenin' to me, Frisk. The lads and I are bored now."
Frisk's eyes became wide with panic and he tried to stand, as if it would help him in his current dilemma.
"Err... we... err... could... err..."
"I'm waitin', Frisk."
"...Food riot?"
He noticed the slight nervous twitch acting up on the side of Spit's face, giving him a rabid appearance and a slur to his speech.
"Thatsh not very orishinal, ish it, Frishhk?"
"But the lads enjoy it."
"True enuf. Lead on puny Frishk. We ish going to have some fun."
* * *
"SANT!"
Sant groaned and let his coat slip off the peg and onto the office floor with a wet splat. Moving like a mourner following a hearse, he walked the few short yards to Jacobs' office door, and pushed it ajar just as the second yell echoed out across the office.
"Yes, Captain."
"Sant, come here."
The captain was standing by the window, significantly blocking out the light in the room, his fingers prising apart the blinds and his face pressed close to the opening.
"What is it, sir?"
"Filth, Sant. Filth and crime and poison."
Sant inwardly groaned: the captain was about to launch into a tirade of pretentious garbage about "policing a corrupted city".
"Fix it, Sant."
He was stunned.
"Sir?"
"Fix it. The mayor wants us to sort out his problems, the corporations sit snug and safe behind paid security and morph weirdoes. We need to start enforcing the law, not pandering to limp-wristed yippies."
"How would you like me to do that, sir?"
"The old fashioned way. Wrap your fist around the streets and squeeze 'til it's clean."
Dave Watson, 10/11/00
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