06-16-2018, 09:35 AM
August 2011
Another refuge line.
The lieutenant shuffled awkwardly from side to side as she oversaw the process unfolding across the city square. If someone looked at the group of ‘survivors’ spread out in front of her, they might believe they were looking at the losing side of a war.
Yet, these were the winners, or at the very least, they were the lucky ones who hadn’t been shot, stab, crushed, incinerated, or otherwise slaughtered in the forty days of urban warfare that had reduced Central City’s once bustling streets and city blocks into a glorified ghetto.
“Lieutenant J?”
The redheaded soldier glanced at the young soldier who had been helping her the last few days. “Hey, ‘Bekah, you got today’s papers?”
“Straight from the printing press,” the pilot remarked as she handed them over to her interim CO.
“Lovely,” the lieutenant muttered.
And thus the refuges filtered forward to receive daily rations of food, water, and fuel. Most smiled warmly, while others made snide remarks that the standardized ribbons of meat paste were somehow smaller than they had been the day prior.
Over time, the morning line filtered away, save one man who had remained seated on the ruins of a fountain for the last few hours. Like many mornings, he sat and stared blankly at the blackened husk across the square. There wasn’t any significance in the building—it just looked like the best approximation of life in this post-Stallions world.
The man tilted his head and looked down at his left foot. How long had the sole been missing? His toes were dirty—there were clods of grime jammed into the corners and the cuticles were in dire need of a mend. His other foot? He’d lost that shoe three weeks ago. His right foot was swollen. A medic had told him he had likely broken one of the bones in his foot, but he didn’t feel like letting some fatigues-clad college student jam around in his skin.
Tattered purple trousers dangled around unshaven legs as Karl Jak tapped the face of his wristwatch. It’d broken a long time ago, but it had been a gift from ‘the Board’ following his first successful live event. That competition had featured just a dozen warriors locked in a house and tasked them with escaping within three days. Paranoia had caused them to start killing each other, and what was supposed to have been an escape game had become a survival game. Thus, the seeds of Karl’s millions had been sown.
Just because the Board was dead didn’t meant they had to be completely forgotten to history. Before the city had lost its cellular communications, Karl had learned that the majority of his coworkers were dead. Whether they were executives, office rats, or janitors… everyone was dead.
Sure, they had a few people who had been off on Namek. Karl had managed to find those news articles just before losing cell service as well: ’Syntech Corporation, including Syntech Studios, liquidated after catastrophe in Central City.’ The scavengers had sold off all the assets, including the company’s various branch offices across the North Quadrant. Worse than that, they’d killed him in the process.
‘Karl Jak, Syntech Chairman and CEO, among the deceased in Central City.’ It didn’t matter that Karl had escaped the headquarters—he didn’t have the means to be alive. Earth was a wounded, isolated beast who had crawled into its cave to lick its wounds. The politicians and bureaucrats weren’t stepping up in the aftermath of the defeated invasion, and the military brass had filed him away with the rest of the riffraff. While Karl hadn’t created the company, he sure as shit had helped bring Syntech from the doldrums and make it a multi-trillion-dollar industry since he had joined. He had the charisma and the business savvy, but there’d be a few hundred men and women who had played their role.
Now?
Now it was nothing. Karl would certainly wind up with a nice memorial somewhere… perhaps a pretty page on the internet encyclopedia that would paint him in a positive light for posterity. But Jason Jankins from Accounting? Or Sally from Marketing? If their families had survived, they’d be lucky enough to get a memorial page on social media with a couple followers.
Karl exhaled as he looked into the puddle of brackish water. He saw a shell of a man, clad in the rags of a purple business suit, looking back up at him. His bow tie hung limp on his neck. Both his sleeves ended somewhere between the elbow and the wrist—scavengers had jumped him because his cufflinks ‘looked like gold.’ While the fat lip and black eye had healed over a week ago, the broken nose and shattered ego still throbbed with pain and fury.
Earth had been saved by a madwoman, a lunatic in a spaceship, and an untimely betrayal in the enemy ranks. Among all of that, not a single one of the super-powered psychopaths who had participated in the various Dante’s Abyss events had appeared to stem the bleeding or stop the slaughter. None! They were more than willing to wander around the island and kill their friends, but when it came to defending the planet, they were nowhere to be seen.
That’s why we made so much money. People love to watch those self-loving types be laid low and broken.
With a frown, Karl shifted on the edge of the broken fountain. Wasn’t he supposed to have feeling in his right leg? Had the skin always looked so ashy? Hadn’t he washed up a week ago? The producer winced as he tried to clear his head from the haze that seemed to settle over it so easily. It had become so hard to focus lately, even after the crowds had dispersed.
“You okay, Mr.?” The voice shook Karl from his slight malaise. He looked up to see the redheaded lieutenant staring at him. She looked young, but her eyes were old… perhaps a few years younger than his. “You really should get your injuries checked out before you have any lasting damage.”
Karl Jak smiled and lifted a hand that sported three broken fingers. The woman reacted as you’d expect a half-caring Samaritan to act, but he recoiled when she took half a step forward. “No, no, it’s okay.” He whispered. Was that how he sounded? Like a ghost in the wind? Karl shook his head. “Vagrants, you see.”
“Why?”
“Shiny baubles,” Karl whispered with a smile. “Plus, I think they were most upset when I brought up their mothers during the preliminary stages of the beat down.”
“Lots of people are feeling a little crazy these days,” the lieutenant spoke softly. “Are you sure I can’t help you with your injuries? I’m told I have the magic touch,” she added without a single degree of innuendo.
Karl shook his head again. “Save your effort on the needier… I’ve already lost everything I can lose in this world.”
The woman frowned before she reached down to her side. The producer wanted to crane his neck, but the muscles were too store. Instead, he waited a moment until she lifted up a heavy sidearm and rested it on his lap. “Protect yourself. The crazy will settle very soon, I promise, and then it’s time to let the real healing start, you know?”
Looking down at the gun—a heavy pistol with a lot of thin surface cracks on its handle—Karl nodded slowly. “Whole new world, eh?” He asked as he looked back up at those warm, green eyes.
“It’s going to feel like a brand new one, I promise,” she added warmly as she nodded to the man. “I’ll leave you be, Mister…” she trailed off and Karl had enough semblance to know why.
“Don’t worry about it,” he muttered as he shook his broken hand at her. “Old name from a dead, old world,” he chuckled halfheartedly.
“Take care of yourself,” the lieutenant whispered as she turned to go attend to other matters in the shattered, broken city.
Karl nodded. “I will,” he added softly as he hooked his good hand around the gun on his lap. “Bon voyage.”
Bang!
The lieutenant—eyes wide—spun and watched in horror as the man sagged backwards into the shattered fountain. By the time she’d jogged back to him, he was already resting in a growing pool of blood from the gunshot wound that had blown through his chest and taken his heart with it.
Yet, there was a strange smile on the dead man’s ashy face.
“My name is Omni.”
Another refuge line.
The lieutenant shuffled awkwardly from side to side as she oversaw the process unfolding across the city square. If someone looked at the group of ‘survivors’ spread out in front of her, they might believe they were looking at the losing side of a war.
Yet, these were the winners, or at the very least, they were the lucky ones who hadn’t been shot, stab, crushed, incinerated, or otherwise slaughtered in the forty days of urban warfare that had reduced Central City’s once bustling streets and city blocks into a glorified ghetto.
“Lieutenant J?”
The redheaded soldier glanced at the young soldier who had been helping her the last few days. “Hey, ‘Bekah, you got today’s papers?”
“Straight from the printing press,” the pilot remarked as she handed them over to her interim CO.
“Lovely,” the lieutenant muttered.
And thus the refuges filtered forward to receive daily rations of food, water, and fuel. Most smiled warmly, while others made snide remarks that the standardized ribbons of meat paste were somehow smaller than they had been the day prior.
Over time, the morning line filtered away, save one man who had remained seated on the ruins of a fountain for the last few hours. Like many mornings, he sat and stared blankly at the blackened husk across the square. There wasn’t any significance in the building—it just looked like the best approximation of life in this post-Stallions world.
The man tilted his head and looked down at his left foot. How long had the sole been missing? His toes were dirty—there were clods of grime jammed into the corners and the cuticles were in dire need of a mend. His other foot? He’d lost that shoe three weeks ago. His right foot was swollen. A medic had told him he had likely broken one of the bones in his foot, but he didn’t feel like letting some fatigues-clad college student jam around in his skin.
Tattered purple trousers dangled around unshaven legs as Karl Jak tapped the face of his wristwatch. It’d broken a long time ago, but it had been a gift from ‘the Board’ following his first successful live event. That competition had featured just a dozen warriors locked in a house and tasked them with escaping within three days. Paranoia had caused them to start killing each other, and what was supposed to have been an escape game had become a survival game. Thus, the seeds of Karl’s millions had been sown.
Just because the Board was dead didn’t meant they had to be completely forgotten to history. Before the city had lost its cellular communications, Karl had learned that the majority of his coworkers were dead. Whether they were executives, office rats, or janitors… everyone was dead.
Sure, they had a few people who had been off on Namek. Karl had managed to find those news articles just before losing cell service as well: ’Syntech Corporation, including Syntech Studios, liquidated after catastrophe in Central City.’ The scavengers had sold off all the assets, including the company’s various branch offices across the North Quadrant. Worse than that, they’d killed him in the process.
‘Karl Jak, Syntech Chairman and CEO, among the deceased in Central City.’ It didn’t matter that Karl had escaped the headquarters—he didn’t have the means to be alive. Earth was a wounded, isolated beast who had crawled into its cave to lick its wounds. The politicians and bureaucrats weren’t stepping up in the aftermath of the defeated invasion, and the military brass had filed him away with the rest of the riffraff. While Karl hadn’t created the company, he sure as shit had helped bring Syntech from the doldrums and make it a multi-trillion-dollar industry since he had joined. He had the charisma and the business savvy, but there’d be a few hundred men and women who had played their role.
Now?
Now it was nothing. Karl would certainly wind up with a nice memorial somewhere… perhaps a pretty page on the internet encyclopedia that would paint him in a positive light for posterity. But Jason Jankins from Accounting? Or Sally from Marketing? If their families had survived, they’d be lucky enough to get a memorial page on social media with a couple followers.
Karl exhaled as he looked into the puddle of brackish water. He saw a shell of a man, clad in the rags of a purple business suit, looking back up at him. His bow tie hung limp on his neck. Both his sleeves ended somewhere between the elbow and the wrist—scavengers had jumped him because his cufflinks ‘looked like gold.’ While the fat lip and black eye had healed over a week ago, the broken nose and shattered ego still throbbed with pain and fury.
Earth had been saved by a madwoman, a lunatic in a spaceship, and an untimely betrayal in the enemy ranks. Among all of that, not a single one of the super-powered psychopaths who had participated in the various Dante’s Abyss events had appeared to stem the bleeding or stop the slaughter. None! They were more than willing to wander around the island and kill their friends, but when it came to defending the planet, they were nowhere to be seen.
That’s why we made so much money. People love to watch those self-loving types be laid low and broken.
With a frown, Karl shifted on the edge of the broken fountain. Wasn’t he supposed to have feeling in his right leg? Had the skin always looked so ashy? Hadn’t he washed up a week ago? The producer winced as he tried to clear his head from the haze that seemed to settle over it so easily. It had become so hard to focus lately, even after the crowds had dispersed.
“You okay, Mr.?” The voice shook Karl from his slight malaise. He looked up to see the redheaded lieutenant staring at him. She looked young, but her eyes were old… perhaps a few years younger than his. “You really should get your injuries checked out before you have any lasting damage.”
Karl Jak smiled and lifted a hand that sported three broken fingers. The woman reacted as you’d expect a half-caring Samaritan to act, but he recoiled when she took half a step forward. “No, no, it’s okay.” He whispered. Was that how he sounded? Like a ghost in the wind? Karl shook his head. “Vagrants, you see.”
“Why?”
“Shiny baubles,” Karl whispered with a smile. “Plus, I think they were most upset when I brought up their mothers during the preliminary stages of the beat down.”
“Lots of people are feeling a little crazy these days,” the lieutenant spoke softly. “Are you sure I can’t help you with your injuries? I’m told I have the magic touch,” she added without a single degree of innuendo.
Karl shook his head again. “Save your effort on the needier… I’ve already lost everything I can lose in this world.”
The woman frowned before she reached down to her side. The producer wanted to crane his neck, but the muscles were too store. Instead, he waited a moment until she lifted up a heavy sidearm and rested it on his lap. “Protect yourself. The crazy will settle very soon, I promise, and then it’s time to let the real healing start, you know?”
Looking down at the gun—a heavy pistol with a lot of thin surface cracks on its handle—Karl nodded slowly. “Whole new world, eh?” He asked as he looked back up at those warm, green eyes.
“It’s going to feel like a brand new one, I promise,” she added warmly as she nodded to the man. “I’ll leave you be, Mister…” she trailed off and Karl had enough semblance to know why.
“Don’t worry about it,” he muttered as he shook his broken hand at her. “Old name from a dead, old world,” he chuckled halfheartedly.
“Take care of yourself,” the lieutenant whispered as she turned to go attend to other matters in the shattered, broken city.
Karl nodded. “I will,” he added softly as he hooked his good hand around the gun on his lap. “Bon voyage.”
Bang!
The lieutenant—eyes wide—spun and watched in horror as the man sagged backwards into the shattered fountain. By the time she’d jogged back to him, he was already resting in a growing pool of blood from the gunshot wound that had blown through his chest and taken his heart with it.
Yet, there was a strange smile on the dead man’s ashy face.
***
“My name is Omni.”
![[Image: KarlSig.jpg]](http://omniverse-rpg.com/images/KarlSig.jpg)