It's not like I can just kill him here. I don't really need that kind of attention right now after my string of hits.
Wait a second—i-is he…
Tavon heard faint sobbing from the table at which his target was seated. He turned his head to watch a tear roll down the face of the once influential crime lord. The man reclined in his seat and pressed his palms against his eyes to prevent himself from completely breaking down at the scene. He caught his breath and said to no one in particular, “Ah… I do this every time. The coffee here, I kept telling her it was a waste of money…” He peered toward the sky. “It's still funny. Her face changed when she knew she had no business drinking iced mocha in the winter. It's been too long.”
High Rise took a series of deep, meaningful breaths before hanging his head in grief.
When a target sat a certain way or made a particular gesture, Tavon would imitate it so as not to stand out as much. In his own way, he mimicked High Rise’s movements and absentmindedly sipped his coffee.
I almost feel bad for the gu—What the? How could he even drink this stuff; this isn't even good coffee!
Tavon redirected his attention once he noticed his target get up and begin to briskly move back onto the street.
It’d be so much easier if he would just like turn down an alley or someplace quiet…
Tavon fidgeted on the inside and continued checking the time although it was a meaningless gesture. He eventually slowed and accessed his Kom Cell as High Rise stopped at a local Sports Good store. From inside, he heard one of the cashiers yell, “Hey dude, haven't you heard? Without shoes, I can't offer you service!”
“Please. I just need one thing, and I'll be out your all's way. One thing and that's it, sister.”
“Ugh…” The clerk groaned. “Fine—make it quick, though; we can't have customers coming in and seeing you freely wandering around the place. Geez, dude, how 'bout a bath or something!”
“I apologize.” High Rise replied meekly. “I promise it'll only take a moment, ma’am.” He stepped through the glass-paneled doors. Tavon quietly followed in behind him.
While his target headed straight for the counter clerk, Tavon perused the magazine section and watched a soccer game on an old television monitor.
It's been a while since me and Silo played a match with his guys. That's the only sport that cat can play.
Silo was another of Tavon's closest companions and was off enjoying his enormous success in the Blue Sector of the Upper-City.
“Do ya'll still do the inscribin' thing on basketballs?”
The cashier glanced at High Rise as though she’d been insulted in some way. “'Inscribing?' You mean where we take letters and names and get the balls labeled with them and that stuff?”
“Yeah…” High Rise was vexed. “That's exactly what I just said.”
“It's been a long day, sir,” the clerk exhaled before immediately displaying an expression of disgust, “… and now it smells really bad in here—W-where's my air freshener?” She reached for a canister and sprayed generously around the store. “What do you need put on a basketball?”
High Rise chuckled. “I know it's, uh, silly, but could you just put 'I love you to the hoop and back,’ uh—signed, ‘I.R.'?”
“We sure can. We—”
“Sorry, but how much would that end up running me?” High Rise quickly interrupted.
“Standard pricing is about forty-eight, but since it's over the letter limit it might be a little bit more.”
“Heh, well that's about all I got so it's gonna have to do.” He smiled at the cashier.
She didn't smile back and retrieved a new basketball that she put through a machine which carefully inscribed the lettering she'd typed into it. Tavon busied himself reading the newest issue of Beautiful Beach Babes and nearly lost his focus on the target after finding an article detailing a celebrity who lamented nude photos of her having been leaked online.
“M'kay, and the total comes to fifty ninety-two. Will that be in cash or—”
“Is it okay if I'm a few cents short, miss?” High Rise looked ashamed of himself. “You said it'd be forty-eight—”
“—About forty-eight.”
“I… may have sold some of my belongings to afford this, miss.”
“Would some of that stuff include your shoes, sir?” The cashier chuckled sarcastically.
“Actually,” he scratched his head with embarrassment, “… Yeah…”
Her expression changed; she sighed, “Yes. It's fine. Just pay what you can and go.”
High Rise placed a damp, wrinkled wad of Federation dollars in her hands.
“Thank you so much, miss.”
He headed for the exit, and Tavon narrowly dropped his reading material when he realized how long he’d been ignoring his objective. He rushed toward the door.
“Did you find everything o—”
“Shut up.” Tavon replied darkly.
Just another person born into a stable position. Complacent with knowing nothing else… She has no idea about the other side of this world, and I really hope she discovers it one day. Everyone suffers eventually.
-
High Rise trudged down a street that was lined with a significant quantity of abandoned apartments and arrived at basketball court centered at the side of an old chapel. The only aspects of the church even resembling windows were stained glass depictions of “The Last Supper.” The skies remained overcast, and the Demons were down by only two points. The game was finally coming to an end after a drawn-out struggle between the Upper-City team and the Mid-City team and so was Tavon's contract that he'd initially expected to have proved much more challenging. The R Drop had activated some time ago; he was more than ready to pounce on his victim. To him, he was inches away from meeting with the Grand Master of Angelos and finally obtaining his goal.
Rise began dribbling his new basketball down the court and rushed in for a layup. He missed on his initial drive but caught the rebound and sprinted to the other side in an effort to score once again.
The ball passed through the net with ease.
“I still got it.”
He chuckled before checking his watch and tapping his foot impatiently. He started dribbling again and tried to make a shot at half court; a shot which rebounded hard enough off the backboard to bounce right back to his position. He put the ball up and bounded forward after realizing that he was about to miss! High Rise caught it and jumped high enough to deliver a solid dunk into the basket.
Rise checked the time on his watch, and Tavon appeared behind him.
It'll be a close kill. I'll sit him next to the goal post and walk away just as fast as I take him out!
Tavon readied his fists and closed in just as High Rise raised his head and turned to react—
The addict shrieked in agony as a lethal strike pierced and shattered the side of his abdomen! Tavon then followed with another, fatal attack, burying his fist deep into Rise's sternum!
The target looked up from his attacker's blood-drenched knuckles and uttered incredulously:
“You… —T-Tavon?! Why…”
His trembling body tumbled forward into the assassin, and his hands desperately clutched at the shoulders of an old friend.
And then, Tavon recognized him.
“Isaac!” He gasped as his eyes grew wide. “It's-it's you! No! Isaac!”
-
Tavon
-
I'm learning how to play for the first time at fifteen years old. Suddenly, a bigger kid races by, shoving me and sweeping the basketball from my grasp. I'm angry but this strengthens my determination; I pursue him and hurry before he can score on me. But instead of reaching him on time, another kid runs up and tackles my rival! He takes the ball, passes it to me, and I make a clean, three-pointer shot.
That kid's name, my teammate, was Isaac Reaver; the boy who grew up to become High Rise.
That day, Isaac and I left the court in the slums of the Lower-City an
d found out that we went to the same vendor for leftover food. He helped teach me about the Citadel, about how it didn't matter what age you were… people would beat you, sell you, and even kill you if they really felt the urge. He told me that I needed to always be prepared to fight for my life, and so we often sparred and would grab lunch together at the end of the week.
The two of us realized that while I was skilled at fighting, I couldn't exactly figure out why. He believed I was joking when I told him I couldn't remember how it all started, but he accepted me.
And after some time, we got on doing work for a local mob. I didn’t like doing slave tasks for some random gang member; Isaac, however, seemed to love it only because he saw it as a way forward in this world. He used to tell me that one day he'd play for the Demons—he was going to be just like Tony Fragal, a famous player who carried his team to victory in the Federation Finals. Isaac was known both for his drive on the court and his desperation to rank up so badly that other kids started calling him Rise.
We worked for an idiot who couldn’t care less about us, and he’d trained Isaac to push his crappy products on the streets. Police weren't going to mess with a kid as much as they would an adult, and so Isaac’s sorry ass was used for the longest.
I remember when our boss cut me lose, and he told Isaac that it was because I had a “big mouth,” that I was “disrespectful.” Isaac took his side, but he was still my friend and would throw me money whenever I needed it.
And so, there came a time, when we still rolled together, that the boss ordered him to take someone else's life. He promised he would return the favor by making him a “Bodyguard,” a sad joke of a position.
Isaac believed in him and would follow his people to the end of the world and back. I would’ve reasoned with him, but of course he would respond by telling me that I was just a kid—that I didn't understand the bigger picture: he was going to be just as rich as Tony Fragal. No more eating scraps from the streets and struggling just to survive because the Citadel cared not for us. Isaac was the smartest kid I'd known; he could read, he wrote poetry, he understood subjects like calculus better than all of us. Isaac was so ambitious and yet so naive: a victim of the system into which he'd been born. High Rise was asked to kill a man, and so he did without hesitation. And when he met up with me after the fact… nothing was the same…
I'd never witnessed so much remorse, as if his very soul would be forever trapped, emotionally atoning for what he'd done. He tried to talk to me about it, but he'd just ended up stuttering, sweating… shaking. I advised him to relax instead—not because I didn't give a damn but because I couldn't bear to see my closest friend endure it. Not long after the murder, the cops found Isaac and hauled him away to become another cog in the Citadel Prison.
He was my first friend, and I don't know if I’ll ever get over this. Isaac deserved so much better.
-
Janelle
-
Tavon embraced a companion he’d almost forgotten.
He felt a familiar pain deep inside of him that he'd not experienced for some time and said:
“Isaac… I-I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was you—th-they hired me…”
Tavon felt warm blood flow across his arms.
“It's… all right, my man.” Isaac twitched while growing rapidly weaker. “You probably d-did me a service anyway.” His features expressed a faint half-smile. “I could never forget her, man… s-shit. It's one of those things you can't—” Isaac coughed.
“Fuck! This isn't right! Why didn't I recognize you before—how could I forget?”
“You didn't…” Isaac placed a hand on him “You didn't forget. I-I'm just not the person I used to be.” Isaac grew heavier in his arms as he lost feeling across his body.
The basketball he'd purchased began to roll toward the nearest street until it was stopped by a foot much smaller than the likes of Tavon's or Isaac's.
“Dad…” uttered a frightened voice. “What's happening?”
Tavon became very still as he looked over to see a small boy who'd picked up the basketball and gazed at them with a terrified demeanor.
Isaac grabbed Tavon's shoulder. “The basketball! … It's for him. The last thing that I could give. Church takes care of him now… so please… make sure he's okay.” Isaac lost his will to live despite his old companion's protests.
“Dad—Dad!” The child came running toward them and discarded his gift.
Tavon gently ran his hand down and across his friend's eyes, closing them while quietly whispering: “Goodbye, Isaac.”
A gunshot rang out.
It was ten in the morning, the clouds parted, and the Demons had won…
6
Never Catch Me
EKWUEME WAS A CHILD OF WAR…
When he was just a boy, he inhabited the World Below in a quaint little village recently colonized by the Ogba people. They spoke a language and dialect very different than humans from other regions. Theirs was a relatively difficult way of life, and the Ogba were often reduced to drawing unclean water from rivers and lakes that had only recently lost most of their radiation resulting from the subsequent bombardment post Rift.
The Ogba thrived in a more tropical climate cast over a dominion which had been of the first sections of the world to transition to a less toxic atmosphere centuries ago. However, the heat as well as humidity remained intense and drained the Ogba tribe's efforts at sustaining themselves on a daily basis. They resorted to traditional hunting and farming and grew skilled at fending off the supernatural terrors prowling the land. The Ogba were reputed for their nearly invincible immune systems and advanced resiliency to unfavorable conditions. In time, they flourished into a successful tribe; that is, until they were embroiled in an ongoing war for control of their homeland.
Ekwueme was born to a strong-willed mother and a father who'd been assigned the role of a hunter within the community. His father, being a reasonable specimen of good health, was also one of the men tasked with helping produce as many children possible in order to allow the Ogba to grow and become a sizable nation. Therefore, he was given a number of consorts and proceeded to sire several more children with whom Ekwueme hunted and trained as he aged. Ekwueme speedily distinguished himself as a family member who would grow to surpass even the strongest of the tribe.
Despite being of small stature, he lived up to his name—one which meant: “He says, He does.” Ekwueme was known for spending extended periods of time in the jungles of the country in order to catch offerings he'd then give in contribution to his village’s food supply. It was a stubbornness and courage that was well respected by the Ogba people.
Ekwueme still fondly reminisced over his childhood; however, his years of being a boy were brought to a swift end when They came…
When he was only a young man, the Komutkan Army arrived in Ekwueme's village and demanded the Ogba tribe pay regular tribute and provide all able-bodied males from the age of seven to thirty to serve their cause. Additionally, they brashly requested that all females with the ability to bear children be lined up and ushered through a selection process so as to determine who would carry the future generations of the Komutkan Army.
The village elder angrily refused their demands and ordered them to leave. This, in effect, caused the army to retaliate by raiding the village with abandon. The Komutkan soldiers began their brutal pillage of the Ogba, slaughtering those who resisted, razing communities, and ravaging whoever they pleased as the tribe provided little in terms of defense against an organized military effort.
Ekwueme, at the age of eleven, watched in terror as his mother had her clothes torn from her figure and was violated by a gathering of wretched savages who finished by burning her alive in front of the boy. Almost simultaneously, his father was slain in battle; his head was severed and placed upon the spear of one of the Komutkan Section Leaders.
In a furious struggle, Ekwueme grabbed the pike of one of the fallen Ogba and killed his first man that day by
forcing the weapon through the throat of one of the more clueless soldiers. The Komutkan Army abruptly turned its attention to a boy who'd gone berserk and started shoving abandoned, poorly-crafted weapons through the backs of Komutkans who were too preoccupied with defiling defenseless villagers. Still others became obsessed with torturing to death as many as possible, allowing Ekwueme the perfect opportunity to subtly move while eliminating as many of the enemy as he could before he was overtaken by a mob of them who'd noticed his killing spree.
The boy was then subdued and viciously beaten, stabbed by men he despised, and so he gritted his teeth in rage when the Section Leader who'd killed his father approached and spat in his face. He was to be executed by the ruthless infantry… but his fate was circumvented when one of the Komutkan commanders, who was curious as to how a child could have slain so many of his own, reigned in his men. Ekwueme was released and fell to the ground weeping as the commander approached him. Disturbed and greatly angered, the boy leapt to try to kill the Komutkan with a shiv!
The commander stopped his advance with a hard kick to the face. As he collapsed to the ground again, the commander declared that Ekwueme would swear loyalty to new masters in the war effort. While enlisted in the Komutkan Army, he would assist in uniting surrounding territories. The commander insisted that the young man be groomed to replace his own position and that he would later be poised to become the most powerful leader for the sake of the cause. Ekwueme was told that his new father was Conquest, and his new mother took the form of Faith in the Komutkan Army.
That day transformed an eleven-year-old boy into a man full of hatred and contempt for the world because of what had been done to him.
So that they could mold him into the perfect “war hero,” the army began feeding him large quantities of the drug Safowei: a privately sold substance which completely numbed all emotion and memories linked to emotions. Ekwueme rapidly grew accustomed to slaughtering other child soldiers from rival tribes and soon graduated to slaying untold numbers of grown officers. He would be eventually incorporated into the Komutkan Army's new project…
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