by Gary Denne
Sean was starting to get nervous. He discreetly glanced around, looking for a plan b in case his stage act was about to come undone.
The officer directed Sean to a pack of MADDSEC squad members on the sidewalk.
“Sir,” the MADDSEC officer growled, “see the officer standing just beyond the roped off area; I need you to go and give a full statement of what you witnessed right now. Go ... go ...”
They’d bought it. Hook, line and sinker.
Sean calmly stepped away from the MADDSEC officers and proceeded to follow the directions he’d been given. Behind him, he could hear the MADDSEC officer speak into his headset in the usual drawl and language reserved for highly-trained security units. “EMS requested, copy. Request permission for breach? Do we have a go?”
Aware that security was preoccupied on the M1 complex, Sean quickly diverted from his path and slipped into the crowds of people, disappearing from sight slowly but surely, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to himself.
The scene was rapidly turning into a mess. Residents were furious at the commotion. A few long-faced, grumpy-looking residents were getting in the hair of the MADDSEC team, wanting to know what was going on and why they were being disturbed. After all, in this city, the residents were never shy to voice their concerns to management on any disruption to the lifestyle they were paying handsomely for. Much like a guest staying at a fancy hotel retreat, Maddox treated Manhattan residents as royalty. In decades gone by, when local, state and federal governments of the land had increasingly stopped listening to their citizens and caused a great amount of anger and disconnect across the nation, Maddox knew that every resident concern and complaint had to be heard and dealt with. Sooner or later, the world would slowly get back on its feet and try to recover from the catastrophic collapse it had experienced, and Maddox knew it would be foolish to think that competition from other still-functioning companies around the globe would never come. The world had irrevocably changed for better or worse, but there were already rumors of replicating Maddox’s Manhattan business model to other secluded and viable locations around the world.
Sean had slipped away from security’s sight, but was still caught up in the commotion. He discreetly lingered near crowds, shielding himself as best he could from view. One of M1’s elderly resident was getting in the face of the MADDSEC officer nearby on the sidewalk. Seeing the moment of opportunity in front of him, as the officer tried to calm the angry old man complaining that he was hungry and had not yet eaten his breakfast, Sean quietly slipped past the M1 perimeter, unnoticed. Amongst the crowds on the sidewalk, more people were being drawn into the commotion, as Sean slowly walked away, towards what used to be Avenue of the America’s. He blended into the crowds, quickly removing the hat and apron as he got far enough from the area. His pace quickened. He took a few more glances back until he’d made it around the corner, onto Sixth Avenue. Caught up in the unfolding event, MADDSEC didn’t care in the slightest about a single hospitality worker. Resident safety was their prime objective.
On Sixth, people flooded the sidewalk, carrying on with daily life, not fully aware of the commotion going on down the block, except perhaps for the MADDSEC bikes and van parked erratically out front of M1. The faint sound of the fire alarm was getting lost in the crowd noise with each step Sean took. He planted his eyes to the pavement for a few more blocks until he was sure he was in the clear. Continuing down Sixth Avenue, he took a cross street. Times Square was up ahead—the perfect place to disappear.
Gaining a second wind, he decided to pick the pace up a little, drawing some attention from passersby. Unlike, the Manhattan of old, where city folk would always be in a rush to get somewhere, and time was the most precious of commodities, in this new city, there was no need to rush. The word has been stripped from the vocabulary. Jogging, unless in the park, was unheard of, and running to make an appointment, grab a taxi or catch a flight, well, that was also a long, forgotten memory.
As Sean shuffled along the sidewalk, he received glances from those in the crowds who noticed the blood on his arm and the cuts and scratches on his face. They too, were an odd sight in this city, and attracted just as much attention as his half-hearted pace was.
Heads turned as he passed through the crowds. Strange looks were on the faces of those, wondering who this man was. Sean held his arm as best he could to stop his blood dripping onto the sidewalk as his breaths became deeper, sucking in the air in extremely high humidity. Even after the short distance down the city block, sweat was pouring off him, his hair dripping wet.
Turning the corner into Broadway from 46th Street, he stopped and sucked in some air, recovering from his exertion. Above him, the somewhat clear skies from earlier in the day had now clouded over with a dark, menacing storm front, the second in as many days. He had made it to Times Square. For a brief moment, he gazed upwards. What used to be the iconic, advertising mecca of the world, known for its bright lights and monster billboards covering every inch of aboveground building space, was now a faded, run-down relic of its former self. The billboards were still there alright, towering down for public display, offering everything from airlines to perfumes, gadgets to soda, and sandwiches to diamond rings. Having once captivated audiences from around the globe, now the iconic area more closely resembled the seedy and dilapidated Times Square of the 1980s than the reinvigorated retail precinct those old enough would recall.
Above street level, many of the permanent billboards that used to light up and seduce the masses—telling people what to drink, eat, wear and watch—had their life support cut off and were without power supply. Light bulbs were idle and dusted. Many billboard prints were peeling from the sun beaming down hour after hour upon them. Banners had flaked. Paint had chipped away on signs. In fact, much of the advertising had been covered, removed or had simply weathered away, and what remained was only a tiny glimpse into the area’s former glory and of a once strong, global, consumer-based market. High atop some of the taller buildings there remained a few old signs for Coca-Cola, SONY, and even the iconic Golden Arches. But they looked old and weathered; nothing like the glowing, sparkly, Disney-fied versions from the 1990s.
Sean headed off down Seventh Avenue, noticing the large number of Maddox construction signs around the area. Several of the signs had been defaced. ‘Fuck Maddox’ read the spray-painted scribble. It seemed underneath the surface, this city was not without its problems. As he glanced up at various graffiti scrawls, the wheels of thought were grinding away in Sean’s mind. As if the sight of a rundown Times Square had perhaps stripped away some of the shine from Manhattan life. He looked around the city streets, wondering if the city was all it was cracked up to be...
Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. He was knocked around as people brushed past him in frustration, not anticipating his position or sudden halt. Despite the city’s more laidback, quieter atmosphere since Maddox’s takeover, the etiquette of a Manhattan sidewalk was still known to one and all, and Sean was clearly in breach of it by standing there frozen in the middle of the sidewalk crowd.
But he didn’t care about etiquette...
Something had his attention. For a moment, he couldn’t believe it. At the end of the city block, Roberts was staring him down with little emotion—his one beady eye locked straight on him. A soft clap of thunder rumbled above as they both stood in their places, looking at each other. Sean took his eyes off the old man for a spilt second, searching around for a way out. Maybe he could cause a distraction. A scream of ‘gun’ or ‘fire’ might cause the crowds to go nuts. But when he looked back through the crowd, down the block, the old man was suddenly gone. Vanished, without a trace.
With panic beginning to surge through his body, Sean swiftly repeated the same disappearing trick as his hunter, and removed himself from the street by going down; down the steps and into the depths of a subway station with commuters at his side. Reaching the station turnstiles, he quickly jumped over them. In previous decades, one w
ould’ve assumed he was simply avoiding the fare, but since Maddox ran the subway as a service with no monetary charge, it was apparent to the other commuters that Sean was in some kind of rush where every second counted. Several commuters briefly glanced at him, pondering what his emergency was.
In the grimy subway station beneath the street, a train was leaving the platform. It wound itself up in motion as its wheels clapped on the tracks, a sound that closely matched a clap of thunder above, only with a little more intensity. Sean walked to the platform and headed for the dimly lit north end. The station lights flickered above him thanks to the city’s somewhat inconsistent power supply in peak periods. Inaudible pre-recorded announcements came from crusty old wall speakers. The cold and grey concrete floor was full of layers upon layers of grime and grit, accumulating over the years like layers of the earth’s crust. It was one of the more rundown stations of the city’s transit network, and Sean immediately identified a variety of strange smells and the piercing noise of the trains as the two things he preferred not to endure. He passed subway network maps, aging gracefully on the walls. Next to them, thousands of hand-written adverts were haphazardly stuck over old advertising frames. Paper notes gently swayed in the soft breeze from the tunnels like palm trees on a Caribbean island. Fruit sat for sale in unmanned baskets with hand-drawn signs, growers all over the island trusting residents with a traditional moneybox honor system. Sean glanced to a musician drumming away in a corner of the station on a set of plastic buckets of varying size and sound. The man looked to be enjoying himself immensely as he provided musical entertainment in a pounding rhythm of beats. Wearing dark shades and a wide smile of crooked teeth, Sean could see he was oblivious to commuters around him. He looked completely zoned out to everything but his beats. Sean turned away. He seemed to take comfort in the fact that the station was crowded and busy, but he was still very much a man on edge.
He kept close to the tiled station pillars as he walked along the subway platform, using them to shield himself from sight. He was cautious and on guard as he anxiously waited for the next incoming train. Scanning the platform, he discreetly checked out those waiting alongside him. He was very self-conscious of himself and seemed aware that he was receiving brief glances from those around him. Either that or he was starting to become paranoid.
Suddenly, as if an alarm clock had started ringing in his mind, his face lit up like he had just remembered a friend’s birthday. The MET token ... he had forgotten all about it. He crouched down on the subway platform and lifted his jean leg up, inspecting his calf in front of other commuters. Thankfully, the black gaffe tape Violet had wrapped around his leg was still intact and gripped tight, however, as he ran his hand over his skin, he could feel the lubrication she had used was long gone. He rolled his jean leg back down and stood back up. His mind ticked over. There was nothing he could do about it right now; he certainly didn’t have a tube of anal lube handy in his pocket. But the idea that he was possibly being tracked only made him even more anxious, standing there, exposed and feeling extremely vulnerable. The grinning drummer bashing away in a fury on the tops of his plastic buckets didn’t help ease his tension, either.
Then, around him, a soft breeze started to pick up.
It gently blew on his face and he looked relieved.
A train was coming...
As it got closer, it pushed smelly, stale air through the subway tunnel to the station. Negotiating one final bend, it grated its wheels on the tracks and squealed like an animal caught in a trap, making several senior residents cover their ears in agony, perhaps forgetting that their hearing aids were turned up a little too high.
Still on edge, Sean took one last look back down the platform, towards the steps up to the street. People continued to flood down into the station, and the platform was packed with commuters eagerly anticipating the train. As it shot out of the tunnel it instantly braked and began to slow down. Commuters began to assess which carriage they would head towards. Sean did the same. The sooner he could get on board and those doors closed shut, the better. He was itching to get the hell out of there.
Sean took a step out from the pillar, anxious to get on board. But as he did, several grimy cream tiles suddenly shattered right next to him, smashing to the floor in tiny fragments. It frightened the living daylights out of him and he instantly reacted. The loud pop blended in with the noise of the train tracks, disguising what it really was—gunfire. Immediately, he felt his leg begin to sting like fire and he yelled out in pain, but his voice barely registered over the train’s brakes. He ducked back behind the pillar. Looking down, he saw blood beginning to seep out of a leg wound, just below the hip. And as soon as he made eye contact, the pain shot up in intensity and felt a thousand times worse. It began to throb and ache like hell. As the train opened its doors, having finally come to a stop, commuters began to exit onto the platform from the train before others boarded to take their place in the carriage.
Sean was paralyzed with fright, behind the pillar.
At the other end of the station platform, Roberts took slow, calculating steps. Either traveling halfway across the city on foot or the high dosage of Pump was beginning to catch up with the old man, as his face appeared quite weathered and aged in the harsh subway lighting—almost like he was channeling an Egyptian mummy. He approached his target with the knowledge it was trapped like an animal. Apart from the train itself, the only chance of an escape was down the subway tunnels. But Roberts was in no hurry now. He saw the blood. He knew he had wounded his prey. The hunt was coming to its evitable conclusion.
Walking down the platform, he headed straight for the final pillar. He held the revolver discreetly at his side. Nobody noticed. Even the shot he had squeezed off moments earlier was overlooked by commuters as they stepped into the train carriages, oblivious to what was happening right before their eyes.
Roberts was halfway down the platform when a chime began to signal from the train. No sooner had the melody echoed through the station did the train’s doors close shut. As it began to wind up and leave the platform, Roberts lifted his revolver, aiming it down towards the last pillar. He fired. Another single crack rang out, blending with the noise of the departing train, sounding a little like its wheels had gone over a kink in the track. Tile pieces shattered everywhere. Several commuters onboard the departing train looked out from carriage windows in disbelief at the old man holding the revolver up, his arm perfectly horizontal to them. They couldn’t believe their eyes. But after several seconds, they were gone down the subway tunnel and removed from the danger.
The old man looked pleased with himself. He seemed confident that his target was cowering out of sight behind the platform pillar, and had not snuck onto the train without his knowledge. As he got closer to the final pillar, he let out a wheezing, but menacing burst of gravely laughter.
Sean crouched down against the pillar. He knew the old man was on his way. His heart pounded inside his chest. His leg throbbed in pain. He needed to get the wound tied fast, otherwise blood loss was going to be a big, big problem. In the meantime, he placed his back to the wall and held onto his leg, trying to stop the bleeding with his hands. He decided to take a chance and look down the platform, thinking any gunfire now the train had gone would hopefully alert someone enough to call it in to MADDSEC. He turned to one side and slowly peered over his shoulder. It became his worst nightmare. Roberts was walking ever so calmly towards him, as a few people began to step onto the platform again, waiting for the next train, unaware of the game in play.
It seemed hopeless to Sean now. The train was gone and his leg was killing him. The expression on his face looked like he almost wanted to give up. What was the point in fighting some pumped up madman when the odds were stacked against him? But as he took breaths of the stale subway air into his lungs at a rapid rate, he decided if he was going to go down like this—if this was it—he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
Stepping out from the safety of the s
ubway pillar with what little reserve he had left, Sean was instantly slammed into by Roberts, feeling the kind of hit a quarterback might give during an aggressive football game, making him crash down to the ground. Sean pulled himself up off the concrete, gasping for air from being winded. He launched himself at Roberts, attacking him with rage. Somehow, he managed to knock the revolver out of Robert’s hands. It skidded along the dirty subway floor as the two of them grabbed at each other’s shoulders like a pair of wrestlers in the ring. Sean kneed upward with his good leg, hitting Roberts in the stomach. Roberts let his grip go and took a moment to recover, but then came back at him, picking up Sean and slamming him into what was once a glass, advertising frame for corporate marketing campaigns beaming back at commuters from the tiled subway wall. The glass shattered from the force of Roberts’ slam and splintered into Sean’s back.
Sean couldn’t take much more. But he didn’t give up. He dived for Roberts’ legs, pulling him down, making him crash into a pillar before he hit the solid floor. He could only give him a couple of weak punches before the old man surprised him with an angry head-butt, growling as he almost knocked Sean unconscious. Roberts delivered a blow to his gut, setting his head up for a slam from his knee. This was turning into a one-sided fight. And it looked like Roberts was getting immense satisfaction from drawing it out and being in control. He clenched his fists tight and took in a deep breath as his veins bulged, pumping dark-purple blood around his aged body. A few residents and entrants alike couldn’t help but now notice the struggle at the end of the platform, but they didn’t approach with any offer of help or assistance. The commuters waiting on the platform knew that what once might have been just another subway mugging or scuffle, was now most likely a PUMP game, and each of them knew to stay away and not get involved. It was common knowledge; a rule that needed to be followed. And in this city, rules were rarely broken for fear of Maddox applying a penalty.