Neon Haze: Snakes and Roses

by Chris Sherrit

  “FIRE!” Tom shouts. A couple of guards stutter as three unload their weapons at Tom and Dixon, both of them flinching as each bullet pierces through their bodies. Jimmy screams as he watches. Dixon still looking over at his friend can’t hear his screams, instead, everything seems to move in slow motion. The two of them step backwards as they are pushed back by gunfire.

  Blood drips on the carpet as they reach the edge of the window sill. Dixon looks into his friend’s eyes as he feels the cooling breeze of the air, so cold up here that he finds it refreshing compared to the warmth building in his bullet-ridden chest. Dixon steps back and smiles at Jimmy, the man who had done everything he could to help him. He would miss him.

  Chapter 27

  Jimmy gawked at the empty window in silence, where his best friend had just been standing. Blinking a couple of times hoping his vision would correct itself or he’d wake up from this nightmare. The gunfire stopped, the guards also look at the window, taken aback at the order to shoot at their boss. Some surprised that they had witnessed their colleagues execute such an order, and the others surprised further that they had actually executed it.

  Jimmy curls his head into his hands, holding back the tears he anticipates. Too shaken even to cry for his friend he wipes his face. Desperately trying to grab onto some train of thought in his now empty, head he remembers Dixon’s request. Grabbing the computer, he quickly sets to, transferring the videos to the computer and making a CEO level announcement. Every screen in the building, including the exterior marketing screens, flickers to display the video. Jimmy then sends the video out to as many media channels as possible, and sets the building's security to public, allowing anyone in the region to tap into the broadcast.

  The guards turn from the empty window and whistle of the passing wind, to the screen across the room which blinks to life. Abena Boro’s face repeating the words that Jimmy and Dixon had heard only hours before.

  Chapter 28

  “Hope you’re happy now,” Tom says as he hurtles towards the earth next to Dixon. Their wounds sending a spray into the skies above them, blood chasing them to the ground.

  “We’re both going to die,” Tom says, his voice muffled a little by the descent.

  “Yup,” Dixon says, a broad smile on his face.

  “All you’re doing is making a martyr of me you realise” Tom smiles back, trying to wipe Dixon’s away.

  “Think again,” Dixon says as the giant external screen of the building flickers to show Abena’s face. Tom screams at the screen, trying to punch it as the fly down past it, feeling like they take forever to go by its giant size.

  “Bit hard to be a martyr if everyone knows you’re a liar” Dixon shouts over the screams.

  “So what? You win? You’re still going to die!” Tom says after trying to compose himself in impending doom.

  “Yup, that’s a good thing though. I’m done with this world, done hurting, done hating, done holding people back.” Dixon looks down at the city as it grows closer.

  Tom searches for something to say, a reasoning, a comeback, an insult. Nothing comes to mind, nor did it matter. Nothing could change the fact that he was looking at his end race towards him. A building that scoffed at him. His last act to scream in terror as he is splattered into the roof, his body turning to a pulp and smearing some windows.

  Dixon misses the building and keeps falling, seeing all the different displays showing the videos of Boro. Jimmy hadn’t failed him, he’d saved him. He thought about all the times he’d heard people talk about your life flashing before your eyes before you die. He never really believed in any of that touchy-feely crap. On the brink of his end, he couldn’t help but look back on his years.

  Working all those shifts with a man he never thought he would like. A cheeky little fellow, who despite his handsome looks couldn’t seem to hold a relationship down. The man who had stood by him regardless of whether he agreed or not with Dixon’s motivations. A man who put everything on the line to help him, even if it was just to make his friend feel a little happier. Dixon felt sorry for all the times he’d told Jimmy to stay back and work with him. Maybe it had just been so that Dixon could get help with the pencil pushing, maybe it was so that Jimmy could become the amazing cop he was today. Maybe doing that was why Jimmy struggled to keep a significant other. He wanted him to know he couldn’t have pulled off anything without him. Wanted Jimmy to know that he never meant to hold him back from getting the wife and kids he always wanted.

  Dixon’s mind drifted to his own kids. His two daughters faces looking up at him from the breakfast table, smiling at him as he kissed them goodbye to leave for work. Their first days of school, hugging him close as he reassured them that everything was going to be alright. Opening presents on Christmas day and seeing them spellbound at the idea of Santa Claus bringing them the toy they’d been desperate for. Watching them play in the ocean as he looked on from the beach with Sadie.

  His heartwarming visions of seeing Sadie for the first time flooded his head. The way time seemed to stop as he saw her, he may have put on a tough exterior to hide his truth but he was always a romantic deep inside. The only person to really make him weak, and make him want to be weak around her. The way she tied her hair back when she tried to focus on something. Her frustration at Dixon when he’d forget to pick up something on the way home. Her quick wit as she’d forgive him with playful teasing. The moment she made him the happiest man alive by saying yes. When she’d told him that she loved him all this time even though he’d destroyed himself mentally and physically.

  The people he loved in this world had loved him regardless of what he put himself through or what he put them through. He smiled at the thought of being so lucky to have such people in his life. Feeling a well of pain as he knew that he would have laid his life on the line for them at any request. Hopefully, with his last act, he could be redeemed for any hurt he’d caused. And with that, he ended.

  Only a few people in the street reacted to the body colliding with the pavement in front of them. Most eyes were fixated on the displays.

  Chapter 29

  Jimmy pokes his head out from behind the table, none of the guards face his direction. All stare at the screens, their helmets removed and their faces stunned as the entire city hears the revelation and deceit. Jimmy slowly walks out of the room and cautiously slides up beside one of the guards, his gun leaning against the rail of the staircase. Another guard sees Jimmy, flinches and points his gun, blinks a few times and then lowers his aim and looks back at the screen.

  “What does this mean for us now?” The guard nearest to Jimmy asks, not looking his way.

  “It means we have a new world to build.” He says watching the video as it loops from the last one to first.

  “Are we going to be ok?” the guard turns to Jimmy, his face questioning and scared.

  Jimmy turns to the guard, takes a large breath while looking at the ground, looks into his eyes and says. “We should be fine” he nods, patting the guard on the arm and makes his way down to the lift.

  As he exits the building, Jimmy sees the extent of his work. Expecting that there would be a bit of surprise in the Halo staff, but seeing the public pause to take in the information, made the city appear like someone had stopped time.

  The cold wind brushing on his face, he zips his jacket closed, shoves his hands into his pockets and begins to walk through the crowd of living statues all looking up.

  Chapter 30

  Three weeks have passed and Jimmy still thinks back to that day. Today more so than ever as he stands at the grave of Dixon Callaway. A gravestone that Dixon might have approved of, Jimmy suspected his friend wouldn’t want anyone to bother with a funeral for him. It wasn’t a large fancy tombstone, but one placed next to his family. His daughters’ graves still covered in the moss and growth of years of nature. Dixon’s grave sits next to them, clean and proud. Sadie’s grave on the other side of the girls. A family together again.

  Jimmy can
’t cry for his friend, he still sees him. Looking back at him with his playful disdain for Jimmy’s wisecracking. The colourful insults and jabs at each other. He’d always looked up to Dixon when they worked together. He’d made him a better man, he knew that all the ribbing and roughhousing was Dixon’s way of showing his best friend he cared about him. He wanted to thank Dixon for all the years of service he’d given to the city, for all the days where he didn’t know he’d raised Jimmy’s spirit. He didn’t want to go home to his empty apartment and drink himself to sleep. Helping Dixon complete all that paperwork was therapy to him, therapy that only built a stronger bond between him and his partner, his friend. When Dixon broke and became and turned inwards there was no question that Jimmy knew he had to help him. He wouldn’t be the man he was today without him, how could he let him rot at the bottom of a bottle.

  Jimmy smiles, looking across the gravestones, thinking how much Sadie would be overjoyed at being with her girls again. How much of a hard time she would give Dixon, trying to make him admit how beautiful it was. The girls had their parents back, he swallows back the emotion in his throat as fingers interlace his right hand.

  Maria Sorensen smiles politely as Jimmy looks up to her. Her hair tied back and sitting under a black hat, she stands with Jimmy. Looking over the graves she lightly wraps her arms around Jimmy’s.

  “You did it, Dix,” Jimmy says to the cold stone standing from the ground. “You saved us all. I hope you’re happy now, you big schmuk.” He laughs a little as the tears come through. Maria leans her head on his shoulder, shedding a couple of tears herself.

  “Gonna miss you, buddy. Tell the girls I’m asking for them.” He smiles and wipes his cheeks. Turning to Maria he nods and they walk out of the cemetery. The warm sunlight hugging them close as they leave.

  Jimmy had finally managed to muster up the courage to ask Maria out for a coffee. With everything that had happened, she’d gladly accepted, and after she turned up to their meeting in a stunningly elegant dress, Jimmy realised she wasn’t just wanting to debrief. She’d made the mischievous remark that she thought he would have turned up in a suit for a date. Jimmy blushed as she said the word date, and by the end of the night, the two couldn’t be stopped from enjoying each other’s conversation.

  The majority of high-level executives had been dethroned. A few of them still surviving in their positions due to their friendlier dispositions and evident qualifications for their roles. The rest fending for themselves in a world where everyone of a lower class had worked hard to learn their crafts and figure out how to exist.

  The lowest levels had found so many new opportunities and acceptance that small businesses began to pop up on most street corners. Shops, barbers, supermarkets catering to a wide range of goods all being sourced locally. Communities no longer bunched together, trying to hide from one another, but looked to their neighbours for help and to assist. Suicide rates began to drop, drug offenders found it easier to find assistance. Crime was still prevalent in poverty-stricken areas, but to a lesser degree. Thieves and con artists were the most common criminals seen on corners now, no longer gang bangers and rapists. People no longer stood under the banner of the Halo flag, and there were whispers of the words “America” again. This time unlike all those politicians from history, the country really had been given back to the people.

  They didn’t want to argue and steal and hurt each other. They wanted to grow, to accept, to learn. The technologies around them had been expensive and unattainable. Now, without the fear of dying at every opportunity, they could build their own neighbourhoods into a pleasant place to live. They could joke and laugh and smile. The police were even accepted as a welcome sight around the streets. “Protect and serve” was once again respected instead of the fear of “dictate and intimidate”.

  Jimmy had been accepted by his fellow detectives and was promoted. When he walked around the precinct, people stopped to listen to him now. Even his funny stories of debauchery from years past were popular for his peers to hear. Guys he’d never met would offer to grab him a coffee in the morning. He would be asked for opinions on cases, and when he gave his take, people were impressed at his vision.

  There were rumours around the precinct that Jimmy had been offered chief of police but had turned it down. The idea amused Jimmy so much, he corrected anyone he overheard talking about it. Still, the change in his life’s tone was all too welcome.

  He sits down at his desk, a smallish pile of documents sitting at his table. Jimmy now requested that his cases be delivered to him in paper format. A gentle reminder of how he had got to this point. If it hadn’t been for Dixon’s primal rage and keen eyes they wouldn’t have stumbled across the undisclosed attempt to destroy their lives. A young cadet pokes his head into Jimmy’s office, knocking on the frame of the door.

  “Detective Kershon?” the voice calm and respectful, Jimmy still wasn’t quite used to people actually calling him by his title.

  “Yes, cadet. What can I do for you?” He says, looking up from his scribblings.

  The young man enters the room and stands to attention in front of the desk. “Captain has requested your presence, sir!”

  “Very good, thank you, cadet.” Jimmy stands as the cadet salutes him, he could only remember being saluted twice in his life. Once when he was sworn into the force, and when he received his promotion a week ago. Was this something he’d have to get used to? The two leave the office, the cadet returning down the stairs to his station. Jimmy turns in the other direction and walks into his captain’s office. A large room walled with glass, his captain sits behind the desk focused on taking notes and ignoring as many calls as possible.

  “Kershon! Glad you could make it” he smiles playfully.

  “You don’t need to send one of the rookie’s to get me, cap. My office is fifteen feet from you, you could shout and I’ll come running.” Jimmy says, standing in front of the desk in a stance not too dissimilar to the cadets at Jimmy’s desk. The captain looks him up and down and smiles again.

  “At ease, detective” he chuckles, standing from his desk. “I know it might seem a little pompous but it’s always good to be respected.” Jimmy curls his mouth a little, thankful for his captain's vague compliment. “It’s also good for the rest of the precincts morale to have a hero among them, someone to look up to.” Jimmy can’t hide his grin, nodding a thank you to him.

  “The reason I have you here though, detective Kershon, is that I have a case for you.” The captain brings his arm up, the holo-display glinting for a moment, Jimmy has to concentrate on it for a second and not look in awe at the decorated chest of his superior.

  “Yes, sir, what’s the case” his concentration drawn to the subject. He’d never been offered a case in this fashion.

  “There’s been three murders, two suspects, they have owned up to two of the murders respectively. Neither of them is taking the blame for the third death. Thing is, all of the murders fit the exact same MO. I want you to head up the investigation”. The captain taps his arm and Jimmy’s arm lights up in turn, the information transferred successfully.

  “Right away, sir” Jimmy smiles, nods and exits the room. As he crosses the bull pit, the captain shouts from his doorway.

  “Oh, and Kershon?” he watches as Jimmy turns to face him, eyebrows raised.

  “I’ve got a new partner for you”.