08-23-2017, 03:36 PM
The sea of people covering the streets rolled like a human wave and the sounds of their chants were deafening. Torches burned in the night sky, scattered amongst the thousands and thousands of denizens that continued to protest and riot. Violence had shook the 34th Precinct to it's core that morning. After yet another power brownout during a hot summer afternoon, Officer Reyes had slain a tough talking kid during broad daylight. In the days to come, the police and Imperial controlled media would paint the youth as a punk criminal unworthy of the Emperor's Mercy, but the hordes of poverty stricken public that had long known the lick of the lash felt differently. The last straw had broken the camel's back with the boy's murder.
Though Reyes and his partner Mad Bull had evaded the lynch mobs… for now… that hadn't stopped the crowds from growing as the sun setted; they remained illuminated by the burning shops and cars, lit by the surging riot. The situation had become volatile, and rather than risk the lives of cops or troopers, the Authority had decided that if the local rabble wished to destroy their own city blocks in impotent rage, let them. Transport by train and bus had been suspended, the bridges across the East River raised, and the remaining roads out barricaded by uncaring auto-sentry turrets set to kill.
The teeming throng raged across the ward, egged on by scores of would-be revolutionary leaders pandering to the disenfranchised with promises of a new anarco-communist utopia. All the while, buildings, businesses and homes were consumed, the coils of smoke rising like the dark columns of demon souls flipping off the high heavens. Change would never come from this horde, but the agitators knew that the worse it became, the more the people would turn to their heretic sermons. Left with only smoldering tenements and looted grocery stores, the common man in the days to come would learn to hate the capitalist-fascists sleeping comfortably on the highest tiers, while they themselves were left to crunch through the rubble they had wrought by their own hands.
The roar of the crowd could easily be heard by the two embattled officers, but only through brief lulls in machine gun fire. Mad Bull had dispatched two revolutionaries standing between he and the stairwell leading up. The blast of his shotgun, however, had alerted every bloodthirsty revolutionary on the floor, and now they had gathered in the hallway, cutting Reyes and Estes off from the sweet escape promised to them on the roof.
BRAKABRAKABRAKA!
The two cops hunkered behind the safety of the wall, shielding their eyes from the chunks of plaster and wood peltered off by the constant stream of bullets. The shelter offered by the T-intersection was a lifesaver, but who could say how much longer it would take for militants to rally their nerves and storm Mad Bull's position.
“Fuck John!” Reyes bellowed through the ear splitting noise. “Let's just turn around the way we came!”
The burly Sergeant's mustache bristled. “That's the first good idea you had all day you rat-faced sonofabitch!”
Estes lumbered back towards the service elevator and looked through the metal accordion door and into the ancient dusty workings of the shaft. The elevator car had been called to another floor and the little light indicating the car's floor shown on number “5,” then it quickly dinged to “6.”
“SHIT!” Mad Bull exclaimed as he watched the mechanism coil upwards.
BRAKABRAKABRAKA!
KAPAH!
KAPAH!
Reyes sat against the intersection's wall, returning fire with his own meager service pistol. His face had sunken in further from his sickly yellow skin tone; his thin lips seemed to be turning blue and the badly injured officer could not even stay on his feet. Hopeless exhaustion shown through his eyes and his hands rattled the Glock limply gripped in his fingers. Mad Bull looked to his partner and felt a complicated mix of pity and revulsion, then back to the elevator dial that now listed the car as having reached the eighth floor.
The fearsome cop rummaged into his breast pocket and withdrew his last three shotgun shells. He inserted them one by one, his ears listening for the audible click of each shell slotting into the pump-handle’s magazine, even as the firefight continued and the ancient service elevator clanked upwards.
cha-CHUNK!
With a meaty fist, Mad Bull pumped the barrel and loaded the cannon. He stuck the long barrel of the Remington 870 through the metal mesh of the accordion door, pointing into the center of the shaft and into the complicated cogs of the machine. He turned away, shielding his eyes from the blast as he squeezed the trigger.
WAKOOOM!
cha-CHUNK!
Metal against metal clanged as the pellets exploded and ricocheted in the shaft.
WAKOOOM!
cha-CHUNK!
Violent screeching noises clamored from the blown gears.
WAKOOOM!
SNAP!
A horrible popping noise echoed in the shaft as the elevator cable split from the repeated onslaught of the high-powered shotgun. Gears whined along greased pulleys as the counter-weight whirled to the roof so fast it could have killed a man. Now untethered, the closet-sized elevator car was falling, dropping at a deadly descent speed that would leave all within a mangled mass of broken limbs the coroner would never be able to piece together. The impact was Earth shattering and sent a rumble through the entire building. In response, the machine gun fire down the hall suddenly stopped.
A massive plume of dust exhaled through the shaft and billowed into the hallway. The ancient elevator had given out it's dying breath and spewed a century of grimy soot-filled air. The cloud soon filled the floor of the tenement and both cops began to cough. Down the hall, the sounds of choking revolutionaries could be heard as well.
Between breathes, Mad Bull gagged, “Reyes! This is our chance! Reyes!?”
The beleaguered officer had finally slumped over and laid on the filthy carpet. Estes bent low and graspt the man by the collar with one hand, while wielding his Smith & Wesson NY-1 revolver in the other. With big, lengthy strides, Mad Bull raced down the hallway past the intersection, dragging Reyes in tow.
Though Reyes and his partner Mad Bull had evaded the lynch mobs… for now… that hadn't stopped the crowds from growing as the sun setted; they remained illuminated by the burning shops and cars, lit by the surging riot. The situation had become volatile, and rather than risk the lives of cops or troopers, the Authority had decided that if the local rabble wished to destroy their own city blocks in impotent rage, let them. Transport by train and bus had been suspended, the bridges across the East River raised, and the remaining roads out barricaded by uncaring auto-sentry turrets set to kill.
The teeming throng raged across the ward, egged on by scores of would-be revolutionary leaders pandering to the disenfranchised with promises of a new anarco-communist utopia. All the while, buildings, businesses and homes were consumed, the coils of smoke rising like the dark columns of demon souls flipping off the high heavens. Change would never come from this horde, but the agitators knew that the worse it became, the more the people would turn to their heretic sermons. Left with only smoldering tenements and looted grocery stores, the common man in the days to come would learn to hate the capitalist-fascists sleeping comfortably on the highest tiers, while they themselves were left to crunch through the rubble they had wrought by their own hands.
The roar of the crowd could easily be heard by the two embattled officers, but only through brief lulls in machine gun fire. Mad Bull had dispatched two revolutionaries standing between he and the stairwell leading up. The blast of his shotgun, however, had alerted every bloodthirsty revolutionary on the floor, and now they had gathered in the hallway, cutting Reyes and Estes off from the sweet escape promised to them on the roof.
BRAKABRAKABRAKA!
The two cops hunkered behind the safety of the wall, shielding their eyes from the chunks of plaster and wood peltered off by the constant stream of bullets. The shelter offered by the T-intersection was a lifesaver, but who could say how much longer it would take for militants to rally their nerves and storm Mad Bull's position.
“Fuck John!” Reyes bellowed through the ear splitting noise. “Let's just turn around the way we came!”
The burly Sergeant's mustache bristled. “That's the first good idea you had all day you rat-faced sonofabitch!”
Estes lumbered back towards the service elevator and looked through the metal accordion door and into the ancient dusty workings of the shaft. The elevator car had been called to another floor and the little light indicating the car's floor shown on number “5,” then it quickly dinged to “6.”
“SHIT!” Mad Bull exclaimed as he watched the mechanism coil upwards.
BRAKABRAKABRAKA!
KAPAH!
KAPAH!
Reyes sat against the intersection's wall, returning fire with his own meager service pistol. His face had sunken in further from his sickly yellow skin tone; his thin lips seemed to be turning blue and the badly injured officer could not even stay on his feet. Hopeless exhaustion shown through his eyes and his hands rattled the Glock limply gripped in his fingers. Mad Bull looked to his partner and felt a complicated mix of pity and revulsion, then back to the elevator dial that now listed the car as having reached the eighth floor.
The fearsome cop rummaged into his breast pocket and withdrew his last three shotgun shells. He inserted them one by one, his ears listening for the audible click of each shell slotting into the pump-handle’s magazine, even as the firefight continued and the ancient service elevator clanked upwards.
cha-CHUNK!
With a meaty fist, Mad Bull pumped the barrel and loaded the cannon. He stuck the long barrel of the Remington 870 through the metal mesh of the accordion door, pointing into the center of the shaft and into the complicated cogs of the machine. He turned away, shielding his eyes from the blast as he squeezed the trigger.
WAKOOOM!
cha-CHUNK!
Metal against metal clanged as the pellets exploded and ricocheted in the shaft.
WAKOOOM!
cha-CHUNK!
Violent screeching noises clamored from the blown gears.
WAKOOOM!
SNAP!
A horrible popping noise echoed in the shaft as the elevator cable split from the repeated onslaught of the high-powered shotgun. Gears whined along greased pulleys as the counter-weight whirled to the roof so fast it could have killed a man. Now untethered, the closet-sized elevator car was falling, dropping at a deadly descent speed that would leave all within a mangled mass of broken limbs the coroner would never be able to piece together. The impact was Earth shattering and sent a rumble through the entire building. In response, the machine gun fire down the hall suddenly stopped.
A massive plume of dust exhaled through the shaft and billowed into the hallway. The ancient elevator had given out it's dying breath and spewed a century of grimy soot-filled air. The cloud soon filled the floor of the tenement and both cops began to cough. Down the hall, the sounds of choking revolutionaries could be heard as well.
Between breathes, Mad Bull gagged, “Reyes! This is our chance! Reyes!?”
The beleaguered officer had finally slumped over and laid on the filthy carpet. Estes bent low and graspt the man by the collar with one hand, while wielding his Smith & Wesson NY-1 revolver in the other. With big, lengthy strides, Mad Bull raced down the hallway past the intersection, dragging Reyes in tow.