Black Light: The Deplorable Savior

by Rich Richardson

  She was very surprised to hear that. “You are?”

  “Yes, and if we do then we’ll need enough supplies to last us several months.”

  The President started looking around the entire room, examining everything.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Did someone tell you to leave the city?”

  “No?”

  “Anyone threatening you? Forcing you to go?”

  “No?” I said, incredibly confused by her sudden paranoia.

  She stopped looking around and seemed to calm down a little. “Alright. I’m sorry, I just… it’s nothing.”

  “Ok?”

  She got up and went to the door. “Get fifty workers and twenty soldiers to report to the Presidential building tomorrow, and another hundred workers by the end of the week. In return, I’ll get you your fifteen units. Deal?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Then we’re done here, but if anyone talks to you about your plans to leave, tell them I was helpful. Alright?”

  “Uh, alright?”

  When we got outside I shouted “Tex Mex! Bring the kid back. We’re done here.” After he did, the President and her guards left quickly. I wasn’t upset to see them leave, especially her annoying nephew.

  “How did it go?” Tex asked me.

  “Better than expected. I need to make an announcement. Spread the word, and get everyone outside.”

  Chapter 40 - Revy Micer

  “That should be the last of them,” I said, pulling a tarp over the reaper’s cart, which was filled to the brim with vapor addicts; the last ones from the Gray District. “Take them out after nightfall, and stay out of sight, as best you can.”

  I walked away from him, confident that no one would ever learn the little detail I had failed to mention to Scott.

  “You know you’re a bad person, right?” I turned back, but the reaper was already gone.

  I wondered what he had meant. Logically, I was doing the right thing. We needed to get rid of the vapor so no one else got addicted. If that meant that the current addicts would die of withdrawal, so be it. It was for the greater good. Pure logic. No compromise.

  “Revy, I finally found you,” said Tex, as he ran up to me.

  “Yes, you did.” I led him away from the alley. “What do you need?”

  “Scott is going to be making an announcement any minute about his meeting with the President. I need to get back, but you should come and hear it.”

  He ran off as fast as he could, even though he was severely out of breath and his eyes were bloodshot.

  I climbed the stairs to the highest catwalks before making my way down the road. I could already see a large crowd gathering, and could see a figure, dressed in black, speaking to them.

  I tucked myself into a secluded spot, where I could hear Scott without being too close to the crowd.

  “I know that you’re upset, but the President needs our help. If we help her produce food, she’ll give food to us in return.”

  The crowd was unhappy. In addition to booing in Scott’s direction, several who were close to me had also contracted the muscles of their mouth and nose into an incredibly ugly expression commonly known as a sneer. Angry people did the strangest things.

  “If we can’t help her produce food, everyone in the city will starve; the Presidential District, the Cages and even us.”

  “You sold us out,” said a Black Jacket, approaching Scott. “You want to send us to go and break our backs for the Presidential District? They never cared about us. Don’t you remember what they did to you when you asked them for food?”

  “Things are different now,” he said to the underling that I now recognized as Jed. I never liked that kid. He always assumed he knew best.

  “How are things different?”

  “The President needs our help. She can’t produce food without us, which gives us more bargaining power.”

  “Well, why should we bargain with her when we can keep stealing? Those cops are a bunch of pushovers. I should know, I’ve taken them on before.”

  “You went on one raid and took down one cop, and you only knew how to do so because I taught you.”

  “Scott, you've done a lot of good stuff around here, but I didn’t sign up to be the President’s bitch. I wanted to be a Black Jacket so I could finally start fighting dealers, shiners, cops and everyone else who was poisoning this district. I think it’s time for a change in leadership!”

  The crowd yelled, and, from what I could tell, about seventy percent believed what Jed was saying, despite the fact that, logically, Scott had the better plan.

  “Idiots.”

  While Jed continued stirring up the crowd, Scott’s head slumped and he rubbed his forehead with his right hand. Frustration.

  “It won’t work, Jed. We need to think long term.”

  “You know what I think? I think you lost your nerve. I don’t think you have the guts to do what’s necessary. Do you even have the balls to pull a trigger, Scott?”

  I couldn’t see his face, but Scott’s hands quickly balled up into fists, so I could only assume that he had become angry.

  “I think you’re turning into a big pussy, and it’s time for me to be in charge.”

  Ding! Crack! Crack! Pop! Crack!

  The first sound was Jed’s forehead slamming into the metal railing. The second and third were his ribs after Scott threw him over, making him bounce off of another catwalk below them. The last two were his elbow snapping out of place and his kneecap shattering, as he hit the hard concrete in the street below.

  I couldn’t help but laugh a bit. Not because of his pain, of course, but because of the irony. Scott’s attempt to shut him up had made him louder than ever. He just kept screaming and screaming. It was pretty funny.

  The mob was completely silent. The injured cretin reached out to them for help, but they backed away, as if they were afraid to touch him.

  They looked at Jed with pity, but they looked at Scott with shock and fear.

  “If one hundred people don’t volunteer to work by this afternoon, I’ll go door to door and grab the first hundred people I can find!”

  Chapter 41 - Ross Keller

  God, how many papers were left? It was just endless stacks of documents, each more worthless than the last. How could I ever have enjoyed this job?

  Pain shot through my finger and up my entire arm, overtaking my body. I flailed my hand and kicked the filing cabinet, while I shouted every obscenity I could think of.

  “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  “I slashed my hand open.”

  I held my hand out so she could examine it.

  “Ross, it's just a paper cut.”

  “No, it’s worse than that. There must have been a knife hidden in that stack.”

  She rolled her eyes and turned my hand around so I could examine it myself. It was just a tiny sliver, one that barely even broke the skin.

  “Well, that’s just my luck.”

  She kissed me on the cheek. “You should be happy. This is a good time for us,” she said, as she placed my hand on her stomach. She was just starting to show.

  “This whole city is going to the dogs. How can we raise a kid at a time like this?”

  “If I were you, I’d be more worried about raising her on an archivist’s salary,” she said, jokingly. Amy was always so positive, no matter what. It was the thing I loved most about her. “Don’t worry so much. Things will work out.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I’m always right. Now get back to work,” she said, as she wagged her finger in my face.

  She planted a kiss on my lips to say goodbye, then a second kiss, a third, and soon we showed no signs of stopping.

  “Do we have time?”

  “I’ll make time.”

  “Archivist Keller?”

  We broke away from one another so fast that I almost fell backwards.

  “I’ll just leave this here,” the delivery man
said, placing a letter on my desk across the room.

  “I have to get back to work,” I said. “I’ll see you at home?”

  “Of course. We’ll continue there.”

  I had to climb over several stacks of paperwork to get to my desk. Now that I wasn’t doing data collection in the field, I’d been sorting and resorting files for the past ten months. However, when I thought about my wife and future child, the tediousness of my job seemed a little more bearable.

  The envelope was bent and torn, like someone had hastily shoved it into a mail slot or under a door. I opened it up and read the letter inside.

  Mr. Keller

  I need your help. The Truands, are starving and in need. I ask for you to please petition to your government to assist us. We are not monsters, nor are we going to become them. We only wish to live in peace, and if we don’t escape the Sunset District soon, we will either die or be forced to take drastic action.

  Please help us. You are our only hope. Meet me by the barricade on third street, today at six. We can speak then.

  Fells Barrow

  I was their last hope? God, how could I have gotten sucked into this? I wasn’t a hero or a politician. I was just some guy.

  Six o’clock was in three hours, but would I go? Would I put my wife and future daughter at risk to save these people? Charge headfirst into this shit storm just to save a few beggars?

  I tore the note, crumbled it and threw it in the trash. I had my own problems to worry about.

  Chapter 42 - Ins Vera

  “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “I know. You’ve been saying that for the past half hour.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s just…” Instead of finishing his sentence, Nearly wrapped his arms around me, making me cringe just a bit. “Vera, you are all that I think about.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot.” As gross as it was looking at the metal plates welded to his skin and watching the bodily fluids flow through the tubes in his back, Nearly was incredibly sweet and I felt sorry for him.

  That said, I was still overjoyed when a Black Jacket opened the door and asked me, “Vera, can you come out here for a second?”

  “Sure.” I raced to the door, before realizing how rude I was being. Nearly didn’t seem to notice, though.

  “Will you come see me again, soon?”

  “Yes, sweetie. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  I felt both relief and guilt as I shut the door behind me.

  “What do you need?”

  “I was wondering if you could check on Tex. He’s been acting weird all day.”

  “Where is he?”

  “One level up. He said he was tired or something, so the boss let him work in the wacky shack today. I’d go myself, but I have to guard the cyborg.”

  “You sure are dedicated.”

  “I just don’t want to get caught shirking duty, especially after what the boss did to Jed. I respect him a lot, but he scares the shit out of me.”

  I started up the stairs, wondering what he meant when he said Tex was, “acting weird.” I didn’t see him around much, unless we had guard duty together. We’d never really been that close.

  I walked into the wacky shack, the small house where stacks of Nearly’s strange and sometimes incomprehensible drawings were stored. Tex Mex was inside, pacing back and forth.

  “Hey, are you ok?”

  “Vera? Don’t you have the day off?”

  “I was visiting Nearly and Tom asked me to come and check on you.”

  “Tell him I’m fine.”

  He kept pacing and even started twiddling his fingers, as if he was on an intense sugar rush.

  “You’re still here?” Tex asked me.

  “It’s only been a few seconds.”

  “Oh…”

  “Something is definitely wrong with you.”

  “No, it’s just… I’m trying to figure out what these drawings mean, but I’m tired and having trouble concentrating. Can you help?”

  “Sure,” I told him, mainly as an excuse to stay in the room and figure out why he was acting this way.

  He moved over to one of the tables, covered in both Nearly's drawings and documents we had permanently borrowed from the Jamestown archives.

  “This wall is definitely a map. Jamestown is this little shape here, but I don’t know what the rest of the figures are. Can you take a guess? You know Nearly better than anyone.”

  “I only met him once before, and it’s not like I walked into his room and immediately started looking for holy symbols tacked to his walls.”

  “I know that, but it’s just… I don’t know.” He kept twitching.

  I pointed to a spot down at the bottom. “This could be water.”

  “We already figured that out. What about the rest?”

  “Well,” my finger moved to a large area that was covered in small dots. “This could be sand. Maybe a desert?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Weren’t there maps in the archives we could compare this to?”

  “None of the archivists ever ventured out past the forest. In fact, only two people have ever actually left the city, according to the records I found.”

  “Who were they?”

  “One was a politician named Camden Rusk. The other was some guy named James Fischer Jr. They were both Sapiens from the Presidential District.”

  “Did they know each other?”

  “Maybe. I didn’t bother looking up any more details about them. Scott just wanted me to decipher this stupid map.”

  I took a second look at him. I noticed the growing bags under his eyes and his dirty nails. He looked tired, but there was something more than that.

  “What have you been using?”

  “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Is it vapor?”

  “No! I mean… it wasn’t all vapor.”

  “What’s wrong with you? How can you be using that stuff?”

  He looked me in the eye. “Don’t talk to me like I’m some lowlife junkie. I’m not going to die by the needle. Besides, my parents used to sell this stuff, so how bad could it be?”

  “What are you taking?”

  “A little vapor, but I’ve been cutting it with a lot of Hex, so it doesn’t show.”

  “Where the fuck did you even get drugs?”

  “I kind of… I kind of…”

  “You kind of what?” I yelled, angrily.

  “I knew where my parent’s stash was. It was still there after they got arrested, but I never told anyone about it or touched it until after… you know.”

  Silence filled the room for a moment. I hadn’t realized anyone else had been affected by what we saw in the Sunset District. I guess I had been too focused on my own pain to pay attention.

  “Every time I walk past a lamppost, I see someone hanging from it. I still remember how their noses and lips had rotted away, and the smell… God, the smell was horrible.”

  We sat in silence, once again, before I responded to him.

  “We’re all shaken up, but you need to get help. This isn’t a healthy way to deal with your problems.”

  “Fuck that.” I was surprised by his sudden anger. “I don’t need help.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I still do my job just fine, and that’s what’s important.”

  “Do you really think working on this map is more important than your drug problem?”

  “I don’t have a drug problem. I don’t have any problems. When something bad happens, you just bury it and move on. It’s what men do!”

  “Is this some macho thing? Not dealing with your emotions is manly?”

  “I guess so. I have to be tough and strong, no matter what we face. It’s what…” He trailed off, but I already knew what he was going to say.

  “It’s what Scott would do?”

  He looked down, unable to hold my gaze.

  Before he could make any more excuses, I strode out
of the tin house, intent on telling Scott that Tex needed help.

  "Vera, stop!" he called. "Please don't do this!"

  He barged out the door, ready to chase me, but I had already stopped on the balcony. I was unable to move. What I saw below me, at the entrance to the Gray District, almost made my heart stop.

  Chapter 43 - Ins Vera

  Over a hundred people were at the entrance to the Gray District, arguing with the Black Jackets, who had their guns trained on them. Scott caught me before I could get too close.

  “Vera, you need to go inside.”

  “Who are those people? What are they doing here?”

  “I’ll explain later, just get inside.”

  “Let go of me.” I pried myself free of his grasp. “Tell me what’s happening!”

  He grabbed me again, harder this time. “Tex, go find Jack and help guard the barricade.”

  “But Scott…”

  “Do it now!”

  Tex Mex ran off, and Scott started dragging me by the arm. I fought him as much as I could, but he was a lot stronger than I was. Eventually, I gave up and followed him up into the catwalks and into a house on the top level, one that obviously hadn’t had an occupant in many years.

  “We can’t let anyone know you’re here.” He let go of me only so he could lock the door. “Things just got a lot more complicated.”

  “What’s going on, Scott?”

  He hesitated before saying anything, but after taking a deep breath he said, “The Truands are trying to get inside.”

  “The Truands? You have to let them in!”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yes it is. They won’t hurt anyone.”

  “We don’t know that. The lykan attacks are still happening in the Sunset District.”

  “Well, then we need more guards. Send more men to help the police. We’ll keep them from coming in over the walls.”

  “Vera, they didn’t come from over the wall.”

  “Then how the hell did they…”

  I choked on my words as a realization hit me. Suddenly, I knew exactly what Scott was implying.