Exoprox

 

“Passengers of the Power rail line, your service departs in 5 minutes”.

A voice booms in a busy subways PA system, with the press of a button and a loud screech the microphone turns off, A young man adorning a rather large hoodie, looking around with his hoodie, anxiously, holds a heavy Gym bag in his right Hand, his hands are like an ocean , exposed to the harsh winds of the station, his palms sweat, making the duffle bag increasingly harder to hold as it starts to slip a little bit, the subway is busy and filled with people pacing around and rushing to get on their train, there are many gangs of criminal and radical youth, and even criminals, Behind the Young man with the duffle bag, A Legion of Highly Geared and Highly Trained men, with fully automatic rifles, in shining armour and black visors that come off the lip of their helmets, rush down the stairs, nobody filches or even bats an eye to the yelling , this is a usual occurrence, the Armoured, rifled men, restrain a man by tackling him to the ground, beating him senseless as they restrain his hands, his nose shoots a strong spurt of blood with every punch and kick, the men deal to him, one of the Armed men, Aims his rifle at someone who was running away… the of the running person, squeaks as he runs for freedom, breathing heavily however, the armed man is halfway through screaming his command.

“Stop resi-“

A single shot rings throughout the subway as the squeak of the running joggers are replaced with a heathy thunk, like clockwork the men in their shining armour start radioing callsigns and immediately push people away from the body, the people on the side of the train station, as the young man with the duffle bag, don’t even bat an eye, or even flinch, our young man’s hands tremble a little but he quickly snaps out of it, and produces a small device, it is a square little device with a small monitor, it is warm, and has a few scratched stickers and etchings on it done by the young man, the power button is pressed and the LCD screen flickers, a playful logo appears before, the screen is filled a message that reads as follow.

“Music at your fingertips, to start listening please pay the music tax, see Leisure and enjoyment act -2043 for more info”
the young man exhales before raising the device LCD to his neck, the right side of the inside of his hood, quickly flashes blue, a auditory beep is heard, our young man lowers the device and the LCD, now displays a new message.

“You are now able to access music and other leisure activities for 2 hours, for more info check our…”
The text is too long, and our man having done this millions of times, closes the message quickly and brings the little device close to his face, the lights above him, make the screen green and hard to read so under his hood, the young man inhales as he firmly presses the buttons on the front of the device to navigate the UI and sift through the free playlists that are available to him, until he finds his playlist containing his music, It has 44 new notifications of which he has opened but cared too little to delete they were mostly about  his songs being removed and deemed as hurtful and removed, hidden now illegal to listen to, his playlist is 77 songs large, as he selects it, he is once more prompted by the Device, the prompts him once more with an error noise and a message is displayed.

“Please confirm to pay the Collection rights act of 2048, for more info see…”

The text like all the others runs off the screen and is shorted to a link he can open, however, instinctively our Young Man raises the device to his neck, and another blue flash irradiates out beneath the flesh of his neck, with a positive sound chime, his playlist opens, and our young man plugs his headphones in, listening to his playlist, it skips straight to number 26. On his playlist as all his songs before were removed and are now missing, the song plays, and the device finds itself now firmly tucked into the young man’s pocket, where it belongs, snug and cosy like it was made for the device.

While this transaction was occurring the armed men all start yelling and pushing people away, most people steer clear, however a few grow aggressive and shout, one man comes up behind a armed man and hits him to the side of the mouth with a aluminium baseball bat,  the start of a symphony of violence, the loud crunch of the bat as it breaks on the armed man’s head a bunch of men rush the armed men and a brawl ensues, they kick punch,  4 or 5 gunshots ring as 3 men lie dead, they carried about 3 bodies and one restrained man up the escalator, their heavy armour clanking and rattling and as their heavy footsteps march out of the subway, in rank single file all of the Armed men leave out of the subway, the blood that seeped from the cadavers sits , and dries into the concrete, some drips onto the train rails, trickling and dripping onto the iron tracks.

As the armed men cart the lifeless cadavers up the automated stairs, a trail of blood leaks from the bodies, leaving a bring train up the escalators, our young man doesn’t even turn around to see what happened, he and everyone knows what happened, he murmurs under his breath, in a saddened tone, his voice being surprisingly deep and raspy for his age.

“Poor sod..”

A train behind him screams as the brakes on the train desperately with all their might clamp onto the iron tracks, using all of their strength to bring the train to a complete stop, there is a lot of noise as people shuffle when the doors open, some people step over the blood, some walk through it uncaring, and others just avoid it and take a different door into the tram, after a good 10 seconds, the platform behind our young man, lies empty, his eyes scan the room, there are all sorts of people, different shapes, colours and sizes, different smells and stories, however they all shared the same grief, an older man, with two grandchildren laughs and plays with his grandchildren, his skin is dark and wrinkled, his hair white like snow, he wears a yellow coat and a wide smile while he plays with his grandchildren it’s strange, seeing such a public display of happiness, it confuses our young man, however the Oldman catches him staring, embarrassed the young man head snaps and locks towards the sign of the train time table and then, that terrible sound, the PA system turns on with a click followed up shortly by a loud buzz and a large screech.

“All passengers on the rail line to Power and Industry District your service departs in 1 minute”

The PA system peaks as a few beeps are heard and the device is turned off. Our young man stands idly by waiting, his train will be here any moment his hands are so sweaty now, infect he is really hot and sweaty in the hoodie, the beads of sweat heavy , slowly fall and leak onto his hands, his forehead shinning and glistening in the large fluorescent lights , however he keeps it on, he slowly and discretely unzips the bag he is holding and inside, filled to the brim, white boxes with navy blue formal prints and labelling, with big red stickers on them unorganized, un neatly are filled to the brim in the bag, our young man quickly zips up the bag as Infront of him a blur of a train Rushes past a loud terrible scream erupts from the tracks as the train comes to a complete stop, the breaks decompress and let out a loud exhale , releasing all of that pressure, the doors slide open with a beep and our young man enters the train heading to the left he walks past all of the indistinguishable cadavers, like sardines they are packed, our young man needs to constantly push him self around and squeeze through, the walls of the train are dirty and rust, however the LCD’s that are only playing ads are perfectly clean, recently wiped, A woman, with dark hair sits with her hand bag on the seat, she has black nails, and white skin, she is sitting with her legs crossed wearing a rather large coat and is sorrowfully looking out of the window our young man stands at the seat and the woman not realizing he was there gazes out of the window, she sighs as the train leaves the station and , outside of the window, she see’s the food and consumption district , it’s sky dark and Gray, the only light was that of the numerous billboards and street lamps, everywhere you looked, advertisements a false sense of familiarity and happiness arose off the advertisements with their forced friendly demeanour it was intoxicating, our young man cleared his throat and spoke.

“May I sit here?”

The woman quickly turns her head and removes her purse and quickly and repeatedly apologises, she says.

“I had no clue you were there, I am so sorry, truly, if I had known you were the rei would have moved it.”

Our young man doesn’t heard her well because of his music and assumes she was apologising and just kind of nods and murmurs at her, together they both look out at the district as it passes them by, miles and miles of Gray and brown destroyed or badly damaged buildings, where 90% of the people lived, the slums, the streets were packed all the time it was chaotic, and in some parts of the district you could see a muzzle flash far off in the distance, sometimes if they were close enough you could see and hear gunshots by the train, Big black armoured vehicles commonly patrolled the streets, with a single logo on their patches and on their vehicles, the logo of the United Districts.

Our Youngman, saw before entering into a tunnel a squad of United Districts peacekeepers, or what they were more aptly named, by the various graffito littering the city as “Death Squads”, march into a residence and drag a child and their mother away from a family and throw them back into the back of the black armoured vehicle, there was a large gathering of people shouting and screaming at the UD Peacekeepers  who stood forming a circle around the truck, that was all our young man could see before the window turned black. He sat, next to the woman and exhaled, looking around the train, on the LCD to his right, obscured by around 20 standing people, was an advertisement for some kind of soft drink, cancerous, cheaply made, liquid, that promised to do anything and everything you imagine, our young man thought to himself as he chuckled.

“It’s probably scooped straight from the basin...”

The woman beside him saw his huge duffle bag and trying to start a conversation she pointed to his bag and spoke.

“So do you work out?”

Our young man snaps his head and looks at her, he looks at the duffle bag which unbeknownst to her was filled with Illegal Narcotics. The young man pulled on his collar a little and spoke.

“Y-yeah.”

Her attempts at starting a conversation failed and they were both too inept to say anything else, after sometime the young man was questioned by the woman.

“What’s your name?” our young man look sup at the woman, now holding his duffle bag tightly, guarding it, the train shakes a little as he goes to speak.

“names don’t really matter..”

He says inspecting the passengers of the train, the train screams coming to a halt rattling so much some people standing up in the train lose their balance for a second. The woman lookback out of the window as the train doors open, and there is a great amount of movement in the train, countless unanimous hordes of metaphorically faceless droids, shuffle out of the train to fulfil the wish of their overlords, our young man turns his head and sees the woman looking out the window, she looks sorrowfully and expands, our young man quickly follows her eyes and sees a United District Peacekeeper, adorned in his shinning silver armour, made to stop bullets, he holds a homeless man, sleeping in a bench by his collar, and beats the homeless man with a night stick, constantly jamming the rounded stud into his face and shouting at the homeless man how effortlessly hands from the Peacekeepers grasp, face purple, yellow and red as his face is leaking pus and blood, when the homeless man tries to breath blood sprays out of his nostrils, the blood is mixed with snot, the peacekeeper upholding the peace throws the homeless man aside and produces a small a small device, it prints a thin sheet of paper with small numbers on it and sticks it in the homeless mans pocket and strides off in a militarist prideful stride.

Our young man, speaks.

“What’s your name?”

She slowly looks away from the bleeding, beaten man, and her gaze slowly meets our young mans gaze, they look at each other for a little, the train doors screech close and as the train takes off she speaks with a sadden tone.

“Sophia…”

He turns her head to the window once more watching the train pass through the dark tunnel. Our young man looks around the train cart feels more like a train rattling and bumbling down its tracks, rather than a sardine tin rolling on a conveyer belt, the young man checks his watch, 10:34 AM, he sighs in relief and quickly scrambles to grab a digital pamphlet of the train lines, I casts a blurry screen on its LCD,  and it has a easy to use interface, the interface takes forever to load but when it does load it asks for his trains ID, he quickly scans around the room ,but what he sees and hears is the old man with his two grandchildren, they are laughing and running around the almost empty train now, Sophia raises her head slowly and speaks.

“You know names do have importance…it adds familiarity, it’s more personal knowing someone’s name you know, and well, names themselves have meaning too..”

Our young man keeps scanning the train ignoring her, and finds the trains ID scribed into the wall, he quickly types it in and is met with another blasted loading sequence. He looks at Sophia and speaks.

“well, what does your name mean that?”

Surprised, Sophia springs up and begins playing with her hair and speaks nervously.

“O-oh..well…Sophia..is a word..from the old world, it means wisdom…”

She hides her face a little as the man she sits next to looks desperately into his pamphlet.

There is a long silence.

Finally uninterested but trying to sound interested, he speaks.

“ah..that’s..cool..”

Sophia ‘s ears sit up like guard dogs upon hearing him speak, she stops slouching, and quickly rejuvenated springs up and speaks to him in a positive tone.

“soooo you never told me your name what’s your name?”

Our young man says nothing for a little while, contemplating possibly? Maybe he did not hear it? Sohpia begins to slouch when his voice softly slips from his lips.

“Daniel.”

Her smile grew wide, she tried to hide it, but it could be seen from miles away it was subtle but shinned bright, brighter than the tungsten lights that beamed above them in the train carriage as the train rocked back and forth at a high speed on the rails, her lips parted.

“That’s a very good name, I like that...”

The children are loud now in the opposite end of the train, the old man is amazing the children with his fables, trying to illustrate a grand vista to the children, they are enamoured by his stories constantly interrogating and begging the old man for more. Daniel is listening carefully occasionally his slow to load train map, the old man speaking to his grandchildren says.

“In this land there was grass, there were deer, and birds! They were beautiful imagine for a moment you are lying down in the grass, and it is taller than you, you can barely see the horizon! There are chirping noises of birds and crickets...”

He sorrowfully looks away, looking out the window the old man watches as a Peacekeeper drone flies by the train cart with a thick trail of smoke bellowing from behind it, The children pick on him and tease the old man as he looks out into the brown and grey horizon , the lights of the city burning bright, showing all that man wishes not to see.

“Grandpa do not lie that never happened! there is no sun! The grass never grows tall”

They run around the train cart being loud before he snaps, a small tear runs down his wrinkled cheek.

“Get over here Lily…, and yes there was a sun just not anymore…”

The children stop their foolishness and silent huddle back towards their grandpa with their heads lowered

The old man gabs his grandchild close to him the old man sees our young, hooded Daniel watching him, Daniel quickly looks down at his pamphlet, it is finally loaded, however it plays an ad, the Pamphlet projects four ads one after the other, all the fifth teen second are Un skippable ads.

Waiting for the Ads to finish Daniel turns his head to Sophia who is now picking at her black painted nails with her other fingers, around her nails is white specks and lines as if she has bitten into her fingers or peeled back the skin and speaks.

“So, what does my name mean?”

She turns a little surprised, poises herself hiding her hand deep into her pocket and with a little bit of a red face, she sits up right and speaks.

“oh,,,D-daniel right? Sadly…I do not know..sorry…”

She says sharply inhaling, looking back at the window as a blur of brown grey and black pass by the train window Daniel respectfully nods, and picks up his duffle bag and makes his way down the train with his pamphlet, grabbing onto the seats as he walks down the tram aisle, as he shakes around, he sits across from the old man and his grandchildren.

The old man raises one hand off Lilys small head waves at Daniel with a wide grin, showing a grill of pearly white teeth, like marble they glisten in the tungsten lights Daniel places the LCD pamphlet beside him. And pats his chest through his hoodie a little and gains the courage to speak.
“I overheard your conversation of, well the old world, you don’t mind if I ask you about it?”

Daniel said intrigued, the old man's ears prick, his thick white eyebrows rise high above his eyes and containing his excitement he speaks.

“I am a relic of the old, look at me boy”
the old man with his free hand slowly brings his hand from his chest to his knee brace and returns it, to Lilys head, Lily is hiding behind her grandfather's leg watching Daniel fearfully.

Daniel leans back and seriously ponders his question, Daniels mind playfully ponders each question, and it takes him a good minute or two, the old man asks his grandchildren to hush as they tug onto their grandfathers' pants worried.

Daniel speaks in a calmer softer tone as not to scare the children.

“What happened to the old world?”

Danial said, the train cart fell eerily empty, the only noise coming from the breaks of the Train cart as, the train halted, sparks spewing up the side of the train, that you could see it behind the two men. The old man once the train had stopped screaming, like a bat out of hell spoke as the doors opened.

“My boy...it was long ago... but-”

Suddenly pausing the old man gently covers the ears of the children, cupping their heads softly, stroking them on the side of the head as he does so as not to alarm them, his eyes meet Daniels and his facial expression changes, his mouth hangs low, revealing a mouth that has now all but melted the smile away, he looks at Daniels neck, and then his eyes once more raising his eyebrows every time.
Daniel is puzzled a little bit but it quickly snaps in Daniels mind, he slowly raises his palm and places it firmly on his neck, Daniel’s palm rests on his neck, the thin piece technology is lodged deep within tucked behind the major artery on the neck, but rolling his neck flesh about he can feel the edge of it glid a little, firmly pressing into his neck once he centres his palm on the rough location of the chip, Danial nods.
The old man leans in towards Daniel and , his white moustache not even moving, utters the following.
“There is a lot too it but frankly my memory is hazy..where to begin...”

The old man making himself comfortable leans back, and slouches a little, holding his grandchildren near and with a sigh continues.

“all I can really remember is that, well my momma... And my dadda.. Were pulling me around scared, there was loud horns blaring not like we hear in the city but, loud real horns, the sky was filled with clouds and the streets were soon filling up with water before I knew it, there were boats fishing people out, but the smaller boats got washed away as more and more water...rose...”

He pauses, leaning over rubbing his temples and his face pushing together with all it’s might , he continues.
“i remember being throw in the waves and I awoke on a big boat, with no momma or dadda..”

He finishes with a heavy heart like as if a door had now opened that could not be closed, pouring in the cold winds out the harsh outside. He once more peers towards the window behind him, watching as the huge smokestacks pour thick black smog into the air and how in the puddles of oil, children in raincoats play while being shooed away by a security guard in his pristine tan uniform, his throat sore as if he could cry, the old man is barely able to speak, but he swallows his heart as it rose up his throat and speaks.

“My boy do you know how this place...the last city on earth came to be?..”

He looks into Daniels soul, Daniel pers behind the black pupils and sees a man, now quivering in fear inside, hiding it well on the exterior the old man is signalling something. Daniel shakes his head side to side signalling that he does not know, the old man wearily wears a smile and huddles closely with his kids, swaying with hem as he hums a tune to them, Daniel once more speaks up.

“I do not know could you tell me?”

There is an uneasy silence as the train at full speed flies down the tracks towards another stop, the old man ignores Daniel as if he had never spoken or even know he was there. Daniel stands up , his knees cracking as he stretches, with a groan he marches himself down towards the carriage towards Sophia who is now deeply invested into her device, it projects a light blue light, illuminating her face, Daniel stands at the empty seat and gently rests on it he watches the old man as he cradles his grandchildren , they laugh and giggle as if that whole altercation had never happened.

“So why did you talk to him anyway?”

Sophia spoke, she was focused on her device, more than anything else, aggressively scrolling and pressing the buttons on the device, not even looking up for a moment, Daniel peers over looking at the screen and on it is a chat board or chatroom with many people typing back and forth, it had been around 10 seconds or so since she had asked the question and not getting a response she peers up at Daniel  who quickly averts his gaze and speaks.

“Nothing much really...we kinda talked about the old world..do you know much about it?”

Daniel awaits an answer patiently and watches Sophia’s face for a solid 20-30 seconds until her eye twitches and she rubs her temples, she suddenly groans loudly and is out of breath, she holds onto the seat for support and rubs her forehead and temple with her free hands, she speaks in pain.

“Just stop...just go to another seat...”

Visibly in pain she ushers him away, and Daniel picking up his duffle bag stands up and quickly scoots down the passage to the doors and , watches his pamphlet that he left adjacent from the old man, his station he needs to get off at ‘Chinese sector 04’ is his next stop, there isn’t much to do in the train, it just kind of rocks about and makes a lot of noise, the old man was preoccupied with his children, and Sophia? Well, she was slouching, sore rubbing her head, something felt off in Daniels stomach, but he did not have the guts to talk to her again as she uncomfortable sat about in her seat, constantly moving and shifting position to try find comfort, but nothing worked, the more she seemed to fight it the more in pain she was in, it got so aggressive and violent that she began loudly stomping, kicking her feet around the floor grunting loudly as she did so tear began to fell as she now slouched so low her back was on the seat and her legs began kicking the seat Infront of her bending it little by little soon enough she began crying loudly as wailing as she began trying to squeeze her head convulsing. Daniel dropped his bag beside the door and begin to make his way towards her however, the train stopped as it howled along the iron tracks sparks spewing from beneath the rigid wheels onto the platform, there was a line of 6 men prepared at the train doored and as it opened, they rushed in, their footsteps heavy clanking with every step they took, they marched down the passage towards Daniel and with one swift movement pushed him aside into the seat and in rank, filed, they marched towards her, when she saw them push Daniel aside she got up grasping her head and began screaming as loud as she could, blood now falling from her nose.
She then ran down the hallway shrieking.

“Get the fuck out of my head! Get the fuck away!”

She continued to scream as she frantically tried to run from the peacekeepers, tears ran down her face as she filled the train cart and the station with her pleas and wails, but all was for nought, the peacekeepers marched down the cart, aiming their rifles at anybody and everybody in the cart, they begin shouting commands, Daniel was lying with his back on a pair of seats, he quickly darted up and what he saw made him weak in the knees

“Peace is a fulltime job.”

Inscribed on the back of a silver-plated man using the stock of his rifle to brutally bash the skull of the poor woman. Not much could be seen around the man, but between every smash there were screams and cries from the woman, the peacekeeper himself grunting and shouting commands  with every strike of his rifles buttstock. Eight or Nine strike from the rifle was enough to silence what could only be assumed to be Sophia, everybody who felt like doing something either had an aluminium muzzle break pointed at their chest or, too paralysed from the horror they just witnessed, a tribal type of brutality, that reminds man of his early years. The peacekeeper, once the cart had fallen silent and felt the woman’s legs go limp in between his thighs slowly stood up and from his rifle stock blood trickled down the grooves of the shoulder rest and dripped onto the floor, one, two , three, the blood dripped and small specks of white present in the blood began to appear larger as the blood trickled from the stock.

The peacekeeper who had carried out the assaults jaw lowered, revealing a set of unnervingly human teeth as it spoke.

“Right! Now get her out of here D-3!”

A man who looked identical with his armour that covered a majority of his face stoop tall saluting , he quickly scooted past, and as his armour clanked he planted his rifle onto his back holster and began to kneel to grab the woman’s shoes and remove her now limp corpse out of the carriage, When suddenly a slender man, wearing a skullcap reaches for the rifle planted firmly on the D-3’s back, grabbing onto the pistol grip and quickly springing up a barrage of bullets fly towards the peacekeepers who were chatting amongst themselves in military Jargon, Daniel took cover grabbing his duffle bag tightly, screams erupted from the train cart until the gunshots stopped, Daniel in pure flight mode ran for the door in his cart as fast as he could, he leapt out and ran up the escalators as fast as he could not daring to look back, he could hear a legion of tin cans marching banging against each rigid plate as they rushed to the train cart. Men rushed past him in their bright silver armour down the escalator and Daniel ran for the exit, he stopped to pay his fee however when he approached the teller he saw a empty room, with half broken blinds and a myriad of Chinese food boxes stacked high, a dartboard that was all but dusty now and a container for a rifle now empty and the door open, Daniel taking the chance to save a few bucks quickly strut off through the teller and passed by the many confused people they kept trying to stop him and ask what was going on for all they knew gunshots came from the train and 10’s of men ran down, but Daniel shoved them away as he reached the outside of the station.

The streets were busy from the station, the sky brown it’s air smelling of garbage and shit and a myriad of Neon lights filled the streets the neon lights had all sorts of Oriental décor on them, from dragons to noodle bowls and characters in Chinese, there was the main road which he stoop Infront of, that was filled with small cars and vehicles, people uncaringly weaved through the traffic being beeped and honked at while they did so, the buildings were so tall it was like they were bending down and inspecting Daniel, watching him with a careful eye Infront of him, was a long alley with hundreds if not thousands of small shops and stalls with banners and neon illuminating the sky above, Daniel weaved his way through the traffic and made it across the street after a good minute or two of weaving and covering his ears from the loud horns, the machines spewed thick smog into the air contributing to the grim atmosphere.

Once Daniel made it across the street before him lied a myriad of stalls and shops with hundreds of people funnelling in and out of the shops. And passing the stalls buying pirated movies or stolen shirts and phones, sometimes even real phones but usually you wouldn’t be that lucky. To Daniels right was a payphone, old and rusted it wore a heavy mark of graffito all sorts of things were illustrated to provocative statements about the peacekeeper to cute little characters someone had painstakingly constructed under the watchful eye. And so standing in between the guiders of the phone, the screen was a tad bit smashed, but still readable, it had a large crack in the middle of the LCD and it flickered , what could be read was.

“To start a call, please stand within the guards and prepare for a face scan, by doing this - recorded.”

there was quite a few missing words obscured by the crack, but Daniel stood within the box displayed on the screen and a flash occurred , bright red as it took a picture of his face. Daniel than saw that the cover of the phone buttons had released itself and with a light yellow hue illuminating the space behind the keys, Daniel pressed the following keys.

‘041-232-711’

and with it the screen displayed behind it’s damaged surface a sigil indicating the phone was ringing, and the phone beeped with a small blue light, flashing every half a second. Daniel rose the phone up to his neck, and once it emitted a high pitch beep noise, the phone began to rang, Daniel slid the cold phone onto his shoulder and tilted his head, cautiously looking around him as it rang.

‘brrrrrrrt-brrrrrt-brrrrrt-brrrrrt-brrrrrt-brrrrrt—brr”

“Tangwu noodles what do you want to order?”

a small delicate Asian woman says on the other side of the phone desperately holding the phone that is a little too large for her head, she waits patiently with a pen n her hand ready to write down the order, eagerly fiddling with the pen in between her small fingers, the background loud with the sounds of steam cookers and friers roaring loudly, and what is presumed to be Chinese spoken in the background. Daniel trying to hear over the noise speaks.

“Are you lot in there busy today?”

The woman on the other side tries to hear what he had to say however, the noise is so loud she cups her other ear and speaks into the phone.

“Can you repeat that?”

Daniel looks around once more, there are two boys fighting with peacekeepers watching idly by, not intervening just watching talking over their radio that is mounted above where, their heart would lie.

“U-uh yeah.. Are you guys busy in there today?”

The woman with a sudden change of tone, clenches the phone tight to her chest and calls out in her mother tongue, and then brings the phone to her ear.

“Yes we are a little busy but your meal won’t take long if you order it, come in and grab a seat!”

She then quickly hangs up the phone leaving 3 long beep tones.

Daniel plants the phone softy onto it’s holder and slowly backs away, the phone sits desolate as people rush past Daniel quickly scurrying off to whatever it is they need to do, a wet droplet falls from the sky landing onto Daniels head, gliding down his hair it brushes against his cheek, Daniel wipes the droplet from his cheek and on his palm sits a small black puddle, With that Daniel scurries down the alley he saw inspecting the Neon signs, there were hundreds if not thousands of them, each step he stood, he began to get peppered more and more, quickly grasping his hood he desperately cloaks his head shielding himself from the relentless assault from the thick tar rain the puddles spray water as his boots plant themselves firmly into the depths below, may street vendors almost jump over their counter trying to sell their products.

“Steamed buns! Real pork! Very cheap!”
one man exclaims slowly almost chasing Daniel as he strides past, another vendor springs to life like a zombie hollering.

“Movies! DVD’s! Shirts and more! Buy now the latest action movies!”

As Daniel paces off urgently , a sign with a cat eating a bowl of noodles , stands alone in the street, the roller lies open with the tables almost all packed up, there lies 3 tables that are left out, one of them has 4 men sitting , not eating or chatting they’re just blending in, Daniel quickly rushes in with his duffle grasped tightly at his side, taking in the bright tungsten lights as he seeks respite from the harsh rain outside, with each step he takes towards the small young woman behind the counter , a trail of wet boot prints trail behind him, he places the heavy duffle bag onto the counter and speaks.

“So? Is uh…mutt eyes in?”

Daniel softly leaned in waiting for an answer, the men at the table eagerly listen. Daniel looks around, behind the men’s table there is  a large painting depicting an Asian man in a great green robe, holding a huge glaive, across from him is a small frail man in a equally beautiful garb playing a board game, with a older looking fellow with a scalpel digs deep into the green robed fellow, who dorms a red face and long black beard, the doctor looking calm and collected, the man with the red face and green robe, also remaining calm, it’s quite the scene.

The small woman once more speaks in what is presumed to be Chinese and the 4 men sitting at the table Infront of the picture, walk into the kitchen, there is some chatter as Daniel speaks to the young woman once more.

“Is he coming out now?”

The small woman softly smiles and nods quickly at Daniel, and as she nods, the bead curtain rattles and clatters as a well-built buff man , steps forth, wearing a white singlet his bulky arms adorning many tattoo’s, his face was sharp adorning a bring glistening bronze tooth as he smiled, using his right hand he waved in Daniel to the kitchen, than with a confident stride paced through the kitchen narrowly missing the busy chefs how were head over heels trying to manage such a busy and small kitchen, filled with steam it was like a maze of people, but through the steam Daniel could barely see the man’s tattoo’s ,he followed the dragon tattoo that effortless crawled it’s way around it’s bearer like a scarf the dragon wraps itself around the neck and shoulders of the large bulking figure, it’s scales glistening as beads of sweat run down his back and onto his singlet, through the hot steam a thousand Asian speakers can be heard, all shouting and screaming as they stir, if you squint hard enough you can sometimes see a flame or even a chef uniform, after a good 20 seconds or so of walking the muscular figure stops, reaching out his hand, grabbing a hanging sash off of the bag hooks that lied next to a great read door, barred with security features, the toned tatted man, turn swiftly and chucked the apparatus at Daniels feet and spoke.

“If you wanna speak to Laolong… you need to put it on, and tight.”

Daniel looked quickly around the kitchen once more but he could barely see through all the steam, turning back towards the muscled figure Daniel retorted.

“Every time I’ve spoken to Uncle Lao I’ve never needed to wear anything…a-and who the hell are you?”
the muscle covered man eyes grew angry, his smile widened as he folded his arms and straightened his back, while doing so tiling his neck , left and right, each motion making a cracking in his bones, he scoffed at what Daniel had to say and walked into the Steam, Daniel stood and went to open the red door when the toned man screamed from the steam.

“Put it on!”

Daniel watched the steam for a solid 10 seconds before, emerging from the steam a sheen of a large kitchen knife, slowly crept towards him, Daniel quickly picked up the belt and fastened it around his neck making sure to cover the implant on the left side of his neck. The toned mans bronze tooth could be seen as it glistened through the steam, the tooth grew brighter and brighter and the visage of a face appeared through the steam, with the dragon tattoo barely visible, the Asian man  approached Daniel and spoke.

“All you need to know about me is when shit hits the fan, I get shit done, now go, best not keep Laolong waiting.”

With the handle of the large knife, he loudly bashed against the door 3 times, the booms echoed off the red metal door, booming through the busy kitchen, and from behind the door a rusted hatch slid to the left revealing a pair of eyes, all the eyes sore through the steam was , a hooded white man and the shining bronze tooth. Like clockwork the door rattled and bolts slid out of place for what felt like forever, until the door slowly creeped open, it was dark, very dark behind the door and the tattooed man Pushed him in and followed him after, Daniel clutching his duffle bag watched as the buff man latched the door behind him, Daniel averted his gaze inspecting his surroundings, to his left was a staircase, with old worn and possibly mouldy carpet, which covered a very old wooden staircase, that despite it’s carpet padding still creaked loudly with every step, Daniel marched up about 26 steps when he reached the top and what he saw, was familiar to him, a dingey room , with broken blinds filled with a thin smoke that made the room reek, the kitchen that was Infront of the stairs was barely functional and had served as a bin, cockroaches scuttered around when Daniel reached the summit , the food containers that had littered the benches and the tiled floor mounted high, Daniel quickly scanned the rest of his surroundings, on a very luxurious couch lied a muscly man, just like the man downstairs in tattoo’s this was Laolong, a little older, as he shown some age in his face, but almighty in his rule was he, he lied, a pipe in his hand stained from heavy use his head relaxed all the way back, the tip of his nose aimed at the roof. lying on his lap and leaning on his shoulder, were 2 women, barely clothed passed and out, the boy that answered the door was standing next to the luxurious couch and leaned into Laolongs ear and spoke.

“Master Laolong…your guest is here…”
Laolong was a little hazy as if he was hung over barely able to see he rose his head and clearly not able to see properly he spoke in a very drowsy tone.

“Who dares disturb the emperors slumber?...”

He then giggled like a child and reached for a lighter however after 3 or 4 attempts he frantically started brushing his hand all over the desk within his reaching range, panicking and , in a plastic container a bright orange lighter flew into his palm, a sigh of relief exited his lips as he inspected his pipe thoroughly, the two women beside him how having woken up, drowsy looked around a little and spoke in what is assumed to be Chinese.
 Laoling quickly responded in monotone, long drawn out Chinese words.

All of them rubbing their eyes, they brought their attention to Daniel Laolings face grew wide as he stood he wore a bright blue silk robe, with the image of a orange dragon rising to the sky embroidered on the back, his unbutton robe revealed that all he wore underneath was a pear of small underwear, bags grew heavy under his eyes, the purple flesh drapping low looked like they weighed tons, his cheek bones must have needed to use all their strength , his smile grew wide and with arms extended to either side, showing off his fabulous robe , and well, his sculpted body, he spoke.

“Ahhhh my darling Daniel…I trust that you carried out my orders? Correct?”

Daniel only replied in a nod, lifting the duffle bag and plating it on the clutter filled desk, the two women have already gone back to sleep hugging themselves to keep their barely covered bodies warm, Laolong quickly unzipped the black damp bag, and his eyes shinned as what he found, was white boxed gold, his eye began to moisten and from his right eye a small droplet of water quickly ran before his over sized sleeve brushed across his face, he immediately grabbed a box and ripped  its plastic open, he pressed his thumb in fast towards the capsule, springing out two , circular blue tablets, with the label

“Exoprox 150mg”

Etched into the tablets, Laolong then grabbed his trust mortar and pestle which the inside of which was whitened by many years of use, he slipped the tablets in and eagerly grinded them into a fine dust the stone grinded together making a irritating noise but thankfully, this whole ordeal only took a good 30 seconds until Laolong excitedly poured the pouder on his desk, quickly grabbing a straw he snorted the two crushed tablets into his nose, closing his left nostril and five or six times he kept inhaling through his right nostril, he cackled and hollered loudly, slamming his fist onto the desk cheering, excited , amped up, full of energy he spoke.

“This is some high-grade shit bro! Gaibo put on some fucking music man! I told you it was worth the risk..”

His eyes dilated as he lied back down between the two women, who instinctively crawled back beside their emperor and embraced him clinging onto any warmth they could grasp, he gently patted their fine hands as he continued speaking to Daniel.

“ahhhh so please tell me…Daniel…Darling how it go? I trust you handled it well?”

The music he requested now began playing, a oriental tune started playing out of a small silver boombox that featured some electronical hip hop sounds intertwined with the classical instruments, Daniel watched as the boy, Gaibo bowed respectfully after accepting the request the two exchanged a quick gaze before Daniel spoke to Laolong.

“Well it wasn’t easy but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, you were right, it was in transport and so I stole it during transport.”

Laolong now slotting the blue tablets into his severely used pipe began melting the tablets, the room had a faint smell of vanilla as he did this, watching the flame heat up his pipe, inspecting the tablet slowly melt he softly spoke.

“Hao! Hao! Wonderful boy! If you bring me more of this I’ll pay you so handsomely you may live more luxurious than me!”

 he giggled at the thought and continued.

“So how did you do it D?”

Daniel looking to his left watched as the black rain trickled down the glass pane which was slightly covered badly damaged blinds, each drop slowly splitting running down the pane as quickly as possible, Daniel slowly brough his eyes back to Laolong and spoke.

“Well surprisingly the transports aren’t that well protected, the peacekeeper drivers aren’t well armed, we took trashcans and lit fires in them, stabbing small holes in the side then placed the lid on the bin, we rolled them out filling the streets with smoke and well we all kind of agreed to take our cut and split, I know you would have wanted the entire truck but I couldn’t fit it and well, I couldn’t have done it alone.”

A loud laughter roars from Laolong as he slaps his knee almost crying from laughter, he takes a good second or so to calm himself down before he signals Daniel to continue with his story.

“ahahaha…yeah…anyway..so..uhhh..well we kinda just ripped the drivers out and forced them to open the doors to the van and well got our loot and scattered.”

Daniel than sat on the floor and watched Laolong boil the tablet, he wasn’t even really listening but more so eagerly watch the blue tablet melt in his pipe into a small puddle of blue, Daniel looked around the room, once more before lying down on the hard carpeted floor and spoke.

“Hey Laolong I mean no disrespect but as you can imagine I am very busy and I don’t want to disturb you any longer, may I leave your presence now?”

Laolong watched as the flame tickled the bottom of his pipe, watching as it was almost all melted by now the liquid began to boil Laolong was about to speak, when faintly over the music shouting and screaming could be heard.

The bronze toothed man, with his signature dragon tattoo marched up the stairs in a panic and clenched his fist lowering his head, he knelt on one knee and spoke.

“Master Laoling, the dogs have come back, but not at a stall , they are in our shop!”

Laolong not alarmed, as the shouting grew louder smoked fromhis stained pipe, blowing a thick cloud of smoke into the air the room fell silent, as the bronze toothed man knelt his head still lowered eagerly awaiting a response, a minute or two passed before the sound of plates being smashed could be heard, Laolong sat up from his slumped posture and spoke.

“you know where the guns are, you are smart enough to make your own decision.”

With that Laolong than fell deep into his throne resting his head on the chest of a woman lying beside him. The bronze toothed man rushed to the over of the garbage heap of a kitchen and opened it, inside lied 6 pistols and a larger gun.

The man grabbed two of the pistols and threw one at Daniel, Daniel quickly snapped his hands into the air, desperately clinging onto the pistol and catching it midair, felt the pisol slide naturally into his hand as the pistol grip slithered its way into his palms, Daniel stood up resting his finger inside the trigger guard and by his thumb, and infront of the trigger guard lied a switch, pressing on the switch quickly , Daniel not averting his gaze from the man yet, felt the magazine fall out of the bottom of the pistol grip, Daniel than caught the magazine and finally looked down at the firearm.

It was a Ito model .43 , a magazine fed semi-automatic pistol , it’s slide resembled that of a parallelogram, it’s barrel just sticking out, at the back of the slide, a blue screen lit up displaying the amount of rounds left in the firearm, at the moment it displayed zero with a red alert triangle.

Sliding the magazine back into the pistol grip the bronze toothed man than spoke.

“Brother Daniel, we must haste now.”

He said snappily, Daniel sprung up and quickly followed the muscular man, each step they took down the mouldy stairs, once they reached the bottom of the Stairs, the bronze toothed man spoke to Daniel.

“Brother D, i ask of you to follow my actions, if I shoot you shoot, we need to see how bad it is, if worst comes to worse, you need to go upstairs and Protect Laolong.”

Daniel firmly holding his blaster which now displayed the number 11 on it, nodded in agreement, and with that the bronze toothed man opened the door quickly and Daniel quickly rushed out, the kitchen was still filled with the team from before, it was thicker somehow before and it was like he was in another world entirely, Daniel spoke over the screams of violence.
“Clear!”

The bronze toothed man quickly followed suite and bolted the door behind him, he ran into the steam to the left of the door like he did before, and came back with two cleavers, and handed one to Daniel. They both tucked their pistols away and slowly crept through the steam, each step became fainter and fainter as the screams revealed themselves.

There was a lot of Asians speaking their father tongue possibly Chinese but in-between it all there was some English

“Stupid bitch is that rat Lao here or not? Answer me whore? Dang Fu!”

There were cries and shrieks of pain as a metallic object hit a thick surface or object a woman’s voice cried.

In what is presumed to be Chinese, he screamed and wailed loudly, which could pierce anyone’s ears a mile away, it kind of made Daniel flinch when she whelped like a helpless dog, the well built bronze toothed man crept slightly Infront of Daniel towards the screams and as they peered their heads through the steam what they saw could only have been showcased in a horror story, the four men who had earlier been on guard, were slouched over in their seats, their fine black suits stained red with their own blood, one was on the floor just Infront of them, with a machete planted deep in his back, one of the men at the tables head, had been flatted from repeated strikes of a blunt force object, the painting of the green robbed figure, was miraculously clean compared to the rest of the dining area of the noodle shop, stained red, it was as if a painter had come in and repainted the entire room, it, so much violence had unfolded and sadly none of it made sense, in the middle of the room stood 5 men, Asian ,wearing shady clothing, all brandishing weapons of various sorts, clubs and knives. The sixth man was aggressively beating the woman which had once kindly served Daniel just a good ten minutes ago, Daniel saw the bronze toothed mans face grow red with anger as he slowly planted his cleaved in the back of his jeans and grabbed his pistol, he slowly slide the slide back, revealing a round in the chamber, and as he released the noise, made all of the men turn their heads the only word that was spoken was.

“Cover me.”

And from the steam, the Bronze toothed man, raised his pistol with his right hand walking out of the steam, the moment his sights were cantered onto the man who was beating the woman, he furiously pulled the trigger, the pin released from within the internals of the firearm, the pin striking the primer on the round as hard as it could, as the gunpowder ignites with the cartridge the slug cannot withstand the pressure built up behind it and , it releases itself, the slug effortlessly flies through the air, hitting the man who was beating the woman, the slug rips its way through his flesh, piercing his ribcage, losing it’s energy it barely pierces through his lung as the hot slug slides down inside of his lung and rocks back and forth, the man who is shot is frozen, unable to move, everybody else is too the shot rang loud followed suit, 9 more shots one after the other, fell into the mans corpse , he had probably died on the third shot, however blinded by rage the bronze toothed man unloaded everything he had. Between the flashes, the bright blinding flashes of the muzzle all that could be seen was the silhouette of the men, watching as, they saw their friend enter the afterlife in a bloody mess, his viscera exposed due to the hot lead that nested inside of him.

There was an air of silence as the bronze toothed man kept pulling the trigger, it clicked as his finger rapidly pulled it repeatedly, it took a minute for him to realise that, the gun was empty. The street outside of the shop was filled with horror and terror as people were panicking, the bronze tooth man quickly grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her away very quickly , than holstered hi gun drawing his large cleaver, Daniel stood with his pistol drawn, and followed suite by grabbing the cleaver he tucked away in his pants, with his left hand , Daniel was tense, his hands trembling calming himself he shouted.

“Right now what the fuck is going on here?”

The bronze tooth man now inspected the room, seeing the carnage the intruders have caused, when he slowly turned to face the stunned men, who were far younger, than the man beating the woman. Teenagers, they were, all young but adorned with tattoos. Suddenly a wide grin filled his face, revealing the signature bronze tooth as he spoke.

“Now who did this?”
he raised his cleaver and pointed towards the men at the table who had been killed and maimed. The boy’s terror stricken dared not to speak, and so he spoke in an Asian language.

The boys responded worried, pleading almost, and the bronze tooth man turned to the petrified woman and softly spoke to her, she nodded and responded in her mother tongue. The bronze tooth man in English spoke while watching the boys like a hawk.

“Brother D, Bring Qiao to Lao, Immediately, I will handle things here brother.”

Daniel stood, baited in breath, he reached for his leather collar, and unfastened it, his neck flashed blue 3 times rapidly, this caught the eye of the bronze toothed man and when he turned his head, he saw Daniel, with his index and middle fingers on his left hands holding onto the left side of his neck as he raised the firearm at the bronze tooth man, Daniel spoke.

“Dispatch unit 43-11 , it’s a positive, let’s wrap this up.”

The bronze toothed man is a little stunned at this and is in disbelief, but in the distance, the clacking and racketing of silver armour can be heard. His face grows visibly red as he screams raising the cleaver in his hand high above his head, in a swift motion, lowering onto Daniels Head, Daniel had pulled the trigger on the firearm too late, as the cleaver hit his head, and slide down the side of his face taking with the blade the ear and some of his cheek, Daniel stumbled back as the Peacekeepers aimed their rifles at the back of the Bronze toothed man as he he repeatedly raised and brought the cleaver down in a furious flurry of attacks, Daniel screamed violently as he was being swiped and hacked into and after a good second or two, in the midst of the barbaric grunts of the bronze toothed man Daniel wailed.

 16 gunshots would follow the Brawl, Daniel could see in front of him, the head of the bronze toothed man, compress and flatted as the lead flew through it, sending brain matter and chunks of skull all over the wall behind Daniel his face, was red, from the gashing deep wound caused by the cleaver, Daniel rolled on the floor in agony as he felt his skull leak, like a maggot in a microwave being cooked alive he squirmed and convulsed in pain.

Daniel was carried out by his brothers in arms, and escorted into an armoured car, while this was going on the strike team kicked down the red door, and marched up the stairs, in a panic Laolong grabbed his stash and leapt out of his window, breaking his neck on the fall, the young boys and the women were all brought in for questioning and the noodle shop ended up shutting down, and so the influence of a dragon had quickly vanished into nothing.