So, in order to keep things from becoming too much of a wall
of text, I’m splitting this up into three parts. Any of my higher-ups reading
this should go through all three if they want the full report.
The Towerborn escaped in a roughly northeastern direction
from our establishment. After getting the necessary Newborn-hunting supplies, I
checked to see where he could have run off to hide and discovered one town
quite a distance away. It was either hiding in that town or it had escaped
into the Tower proper, in which case I was screwed until he decided to pop up
again.
A quick flyby confirmed what the map had told us, that this
town was the closest thing to our base, and that if the Towerborn was hiding
anywhere in reality, it was here.
I parachuted outside of the town, and walked in armed with
my cane and a small, Spiderman-esque acidthrower. The plan was to search the
area for a place where an injured Towerborn was likely to rest and restore
itself, and then wash it with acid until it was dead or immobilized.
The first thing I noticed was that while this town looked
passable from the sky, it wasn’t very big at all. After a quick walk around, I
found a town hall, a bar, a church, and a lot of squat, featureless buildings.
It looked like a set from those old westerns, down to the empty streets and
hostile atmosphere.
I figured the hall was the most likely place to find enough
technology for a recovering Towerborn, and so I searched it. I checked every
room, from the offices on the first floor to the mayor’s room. Not only did I
find the place untouched, I found it completely deserted. The entire building
was teeming with evidence of inhabitants, the seats were warm, the computers
were running, but there was neither hide nor hair of the workers. Even the mayor’s
office was deserted, a stack of papers half-filled out. Needless to say, I left
the town hall as quickly as I could.
I did another sweep of the town, trying to find some sort of
warehouse or storage facility, but I had given up by the time the sun had begun
its descent.
My next idea was to check the bar, if for nothing else than
to ransack it and enjoy a little drink while figuring out how to explain this
to the bosses. The bar, however, was not empty. The tables were filled with
people who eyed me silently at my entrance. These were working men, blue collar
workers, and for the first time I realized how out of place I looked in my
uniform. It was no longer clean or perfect, but in comparison to the trappings
of the people around me, I must have looked like a CEO. A CEO who just walked
into a bar in the middle of a hick town in Texas. A shudder ran down my spine as I took one of the two open
seats at the bar and signaled the barkeeper for a drink.
I don’t know how long I sat there, just staring at the
liquid. I lost track of the world around me, the noises disappearing slowly
until I was lost in the silence of my own thoughts. I had just wrapped my hand
around the mug to take the first sip, when I heard the door close, and the
footsteps of another person who walked up and took the seat next to me. I glanced over. The man wore a
ratty, dirty leather jacket that looked like it had once been a very nice
possession. He spoke to the bartender for a bit before turning to me.
“Yer havin trouble here, bucko.”
He didn’t say it like a question. It was a statement, as
grounded in fact as the color of the sand outside. I didn’t say a word in
response. He ran his gloved hand over his messy hair, and I realized that
something about him just struck me as odd in this place.
“Of course yer havin trouble. City slicker such as yerself
don’t just walk into town and get answers. Not here, anyway. No sir, these fine
people demand a price for their answers.”
“What do you want?” I finally responded.
“I don’t want nothin. I don’t want nothin at all. But ya
see, that ain’t what I’m gonna get, cause you brought yer trouble down here. Or
yer trouble brought you. Either way, there’s hell to pay fer yer tresspassin.”
“Tresspassing?”
“Listen, we don’t take kindly to yer kind around here. Here,
we’ve gotten ourselves a nice little equilibriem with each udder. You, and your
ilk, are jest the kinda people to go and ruin that. And we don’t want that, no
sirree.”
The man brought out a small box from inside his coat and
placed it on the table. I caught a hint of yellow on the back of his glove as
he pulled it back into his pocket. The bartender took the box from off the
table and stored it underneath the counter.
“Now I dunno what brought you here to this neck of the
woods, but if I were you I would leave, and let your little outpost fall to
whoever is messing with it. I’d highly recommend not coming back, either. See,
these people have a LONG memory.”
He stood up and tilted his hat towards the bartender.
“Pleasure doin business with ye, barkeep.”
“A pleasure as always, friend.”
The first words spoken by a resident of this godforsaken
town. Five words was all it took, five distant, uncomfortable words. I was
staring absentmindedly at my drink before but now I was at full attention. Out
here, in the middle of the desert, any liquid at all is appreciated.
Contaminate the bar, and you’ve contaminated the city.
I looked up at the bartender, and the bartender looked back
at me. I felt the eyes of each and every man in the building on my head. I was
stupid. I hadn’t prepared for something like this.
The roar of the stranger's motorcycle became the alarm for my escape. I
bolted towards the door, over chairs and tables, the eyes of the townspeople
calmly following me in my flight. It was only when I reached the door that they moved, in unison, like a finely tuned army. I heard the deafening
shuffle of every chair in that bar as the customers rose from their seats.
Outside, the hot sun beat down on the town where I now had to escape. The once
empty streets were already filled. The town that seemed deserted and hostile
was now fully angry.
I picked a random direction that wasn’t already cut off and
ran. I ran from the town, and I ran as far as I possibly could before I
realized how lost I had made myself.
I need to rest. The next part will go up later.
- Have a Nice Day
- Have a Nice Day
So, the stranger only wore the one glove? Was it on his right hand or his left?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure, I only ever saw his left hand.
Delete- Have a Nice Day