“Okay. You catch that B?”
“Yeah. I’ll keep an eye out,” Babylove said.
“Can you see Moha?”
“No, but I’m looking at the building he’s in right now. Tealson sent me the plans already. Only thing stopping me from starting my run is the force field.”
“Mmm mmm,” Low replied thinking about her phase transducer—Babylove didn’t know he knew she had one. “Casey?”
“So I told that motherfucker, hold on a second...wassuuup baby, never guess where I am. I’m on Screen with...who you again...that’s right, Jai News, and I was telling them about the time I had to take down two cops, and they were in exoskeletons too, and all I had was my fists but I’m from Afghanistan 73rd don’t be scared I know ya heard...kn’am-sayin’ and we don’t play like that so I had to show them niggas the truth. So I dropped the first sucker, kicked him like this, Pow! Right in his motherloving glass jaw. Yeah bitch! Then when the second, wait, what, where you going, listen don’t forget, buy local, buy organic... Wassup Low?”
“Once this force field is down I want you to create a distraction so I can sneak in. Then circle round to the van.”
“Cool.”
“Tealson?”
“Working on it. Boy, these motherfuckers got some sharp code but they don’t know who they fucking with.”
Low smiled and surveyed the scene. All the pieces in place, ready to be played. Nothing to do now but wait; adrenaline pumping, breath regulated, heartbeat steady, ready to jump the...
Ecila
...Gunshots followed by screams and I smelled blood on the air. People ducked and ran for cover. More gunshots followed. I watched a man get hit twice in the chest. He did not stand up again.
I dropped low and ran for the nearest corner where a group of folk were already hiding. The streets were filled with people running for safety. Bullets were flying like they cost pennies to keep us on lock-down. After a couple of minutes a few of the young boys ran up crouched low and dodging between burning cars and upended kiosks.
“What you got there, son? Molotovs. Yo, little man here got some of that loon-shine!” a bearded man said.
“My nigga! Go on back there and get us some more of those,” another added.
“Three fifty,” the kid said
“What?”
“You heard me nigga, three five oh. Matter of fact make that four hundred for wasting my motherloving time. They deading niggas out here, man. I’ll get you some more loon-shine but it’s gonna cost you... My crew came prepared, son.”
A tense moment followed then the kid said, “Just fucking with ya,” and the two of them handed out the cocktails and soon their backpacks were empty. As he did so the bearded man began to laugh quietly from deep in his belly followed by a few others.
“Funny kid,” a skinny guy muttered not sharing in the hilarity.
“Gonna re-up. Stay strong. One,” the kid said, and they loped away staying low.
Almost everyone had one including myself. I looked at the bottle. This was escalating fast. I could see my reflection sloshing about inside like a dreamer about to wake up to find his house burning. Someone flipped open a zippo and we leaned in to light up, a circle of heads throwing up shadows against the walls.
Moments later, I was racing round the corner and flinging the bottle from my hand onto the policemen, skidding to a stop behind an upturned bus as bullets whizzed past my head. The molotovs soared through the air, some sailing, others flipping end over end to crash onto the shields of the policemen and against the carapaces of Mechas, exploding into acid and flame on contact. I could hear screams of panic and pain.
Not for a moment did I stop to question my actions. As far as I was concerned, the police were dirty filthy criminals whose job was to keep the negro down for the benefit of the vampire elite and it was our duty to destroy them.
There’s a game they like to play here in the city. It’s called do or die. Everyone out there chasing after the prize: cold hard cash. Why? Cause you wanna eat, don’t you nigga? Unless you wanna eat out the garbage or some shit. You want to have nice things for you and the family, don’t you? Then you gotta hustle, my nigga, get yours while the getting’s good, ya dig? You can take the man out of the jungle but you can’t take the jungle out of the man! Do or die, nigga, do or die!
My hustle is simple. I just follow my nose, sniffing out the places that remind me of the village. I have slipped through the cracks of this city and discovered the earth is still there, ready, willing and able to be a home, even here in the heart of this concrete jungle. Somehow, most days, I find food and shelter worthy to be called such. When you ain’t got nothing but breath to sustain you, you come to understand the power of breath.
Whenever I can, I plant seeds in empty spaces to thank the Earth for her kindness to me. What Mother Nature truly desires from those she loves is for them to manifest the courage and wisdom to finish what she started. If we can’t do it, she’ll find another way. If only we mortals were like the heroes of our legends. If only we could rise up and live up to the promise of who we were meant to be.
But what can I do about Paradise City? It is too big and I am too small. All I can do is plant my seeds, pray for rain that the plants may grow—perhaps lightning that Babylon may burn— and cultivate my gardens, and be satisfied that some poor folk get some healthy food to eat every once in a while. I’m not the only guerrilla in the city. There are others and we are slowly but surely making a difference.
I have lived on the margins and been to the edges of the city and stepped in the interzone. Not long after I got out of the asylum, I stood facing the endless desert beyond. I wanted to walk off into the territory and disprove their maps. But looking into the vast wasteland crushed that dream like an ant beneath the cruel foot of a selfish, spoiled child turned rotten in need of serious discipline. According to everyone, if I started walking in that direction, I’d end up a xombie.
I ran through the streets from one barricade to the next, surrounded by death and carnage. I was slinging rocks at the cops, dodging between safe spots. It would have been a mismatch but these were no ordinary rocks. The Freaktown boys had worked some alchemy on them and the rocks exploded into acid when they hit the cops, melting through exoskeletons and the carapaces of mechas to burn the flesh within, that the motherfuckers might feel the pain of our suffering.
The village and the city are very different. Back there, everyone did everything, more or less. I mean, we farmed together, built together, hunted and gathered together. Everything was communal, everyone had enough and there was always plenty in storage for lean times. The only schedule we followed was that set by nature and our reward was a long, healthy and prosperous life. Of course people had their own specialities but we were all jacks of all trades.
Here in the city, people are far more specialised. They fulfil certain functions like interdependent organs, some cancerous. The street-sweeper, the doctor, the bookie, the policeman, the dealer, the lawyer, the pimp, the whore, the teacher, the hitman, the mayor... They follow the schedule set by supply and demand which follows a nature of its own, influenced as it is from on high, or is that down low, by the super-rich.
Money is like stained glass in a whorehouse whose reflected light throws up hypnotic illusions. I have seen them sell their bodies and their souls for money. I have seen people lie, steal, cheat, and kill for money, as if it were a god and not a tool.
That’s another difference from the village, people kill each other all the time out here. Maybe it’s because there’s too many of them. Of us. Or is that what the powers that be want us to believe?
Innocent folk stopped, searched, harassed, beaten, arrested, incarcerated, gunned down, or worse, by trigger happy cops, or taken out as collateral damage in wars between gangsters supplied by spooks and sponsored by secret societies. Everybody know who did it, but no one never do shit about it unless they after some player or other so they can rob ’em. The whole city is a warzone full of
filth and corruption. How many times have I stood on the street, watching the flashing lights and listening to the crying mothers and angry brothers? How many...
Something exploded next to me and I ran for cover.
Babylove Brown
The contours of my run lay out before me like prescience. The ledges and balconies, the contraction and the explosion, soaring over pitfalls and death-traps like gravity was my biaaatch.
There were other people on the rooftops besides me. Police and rioters playing sniper but when I’m on the edge, touching the void, I’m like the shadow you don’t see when you blink your eyes.
On the streets below it was carnage, but controlled. I could see the people working together to build barricades and advance forwards. Many were fleeing back towards Freaktown and other barrios and they weren’t being stopped, but there were several core groups serious about this fight.
The timing was perfect. I felt a little tingle as an invisible eel swam over my skin. Was it all a coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. I mean, there’s always something going down and every once in a while, a whole bunch of somethings go down at the same time, you feel me?
There were five main groups of rioters that I could see and many individuals scattered between them. The one furthest ahead was trapped behind several overturned public buses. Another two groups were flanking their position. I sailed past them and towards the police line. I was going fast and keeping out of sight but I could see only two choices ahead of me. One, drop down to the street and sneak through or keep on going knowing I’d probably be spotted when I crossed the lines. My heart said to keep on going. My right hand tapped my earstud and my vocal chords said, “Tealson?”
“I’m almost there...{screeech!}...circling round to the east side of the cordon...” I could hear the van skidding and gunfire from his location.
“Low?”
“I’m with Casey...[huff huff]...we’re a little busy.” It sounded like close quarters combat, exoskeletons clanging and fists pounding, a few gunshots, and the sound of men grunting and breathing heavily.
“I got a clear run,” I said. “I can get to Moha and get him out but the mechas are a little too close for comfort. I need you to create a ruckus, distract the motherfuckers and cut out. Head for the van.”
“Em...Okay...One”
“One.”
I watched and waited. A couple of minutes later there was an explosion towards the west. A mushroom cloud blossomed from atop a building. Sirens blared and the people cried out in alarm. The flames licked the building like a plasma tongue licking an ice cream then spread to the next. Soon half the block was on fire and a third of the mechas turned to investigate. I took a deep breath and leaped into my run.
Obram
They were killing each other out there. The police and the people were killing each other and I was caught in the middle of it. Mack was telling us to ignore the chaos and focus on finding the gunslingers but that was easier said than done.
We were too big to enter some buildings but TerraCorp teams in exos were on it. Just to be sure we scanned them all as we walked using infrared, heat, and motion and gait-recog detectors. Twice I’d spotted something and radioed it in. The exos had investigated but each time it had turned out to be a false alarm.
My team had swept most of the area by now. If we didn’t find them soon it meant they were long gone. Other teams were no doubt out there scouring the city but that wasn’t my concern. I was striding down the centre of the street, picking my way over the wreckage of vehicles and the occasional corpse when I turned a corner and saw Fanta battling with a small group of rioters.
“What the fuck are you doing, Fanta!” I shouted running towards them. The rioters saw me and some turned to face me. I know why they fired. They thought they were cornered. They saw a second giant mecha and opened fire. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have run. I should have walked. Actually it’s Terracorp’s fault. None of us should have been out there. We were trained to bag xombies not deal with rioters. I responded instinctively and shot back. Fanta and I caught them in crossfire and blew them away. It was all over in seconds.
“Holy fuck! Did you see that?!” Fanta was yelling, his face aglow with exhilaration. “That was straight up slaughter, son!”
“What the fuck were you doing? We’re here to catch armed robbers not kill people!” I screamed.
“They shot first! Man what was I supposed to do, just die? Fanta don’t go out like that. They was shouting ‘Kill TerraCorp’ and shit like that. Well I am TerraCorp and you’re dead, biatch!” Fanta stamped a mechanical foot on a dead man, breaking bones and splattering blood onto the concrete streets and stainless steel walls.
“For fuck sake Fanta! Let’s get the fuck outta here!” I backed my Mecha away from the dead and swivelled to walk away. Fanta followed.
“We are not TerraCorp, Fanta, we’re just mech riders, okay and we are not authorised to murder civilians!”
“We work for TerraCorp therefore we are TerraCorp, Bra. A corporation is nothing but its constituent workers doing their job just like a machine is made up of all little parts doing their thing. These people were attacking TerraCorp and TerraCorp defended itself. That’s all that happened here. Don’t feel bad about it.”
“Fuck you Fanta! Those weren’t xombies, man.”
“No shit. If they were xombies they wouldn’t be shooting guns at me.”
“And besides, we’re expendable, Fanta. Think! They’ll throw us to the wolves. The last thing they need, what with all that tainted milk on the screens is more scandal.”
“What, you think we’ll get fired?”
“Fired? nigga, if news of what we did ever leaks, we’re spending the rest of our lives trying not to drop the soap!”
“No!”
“Man, you got blood all over my fucking mecha!”
“Fuck, I don’t wanna go to jail, man!”
“The only people who know what went down are me and you.”
“Yeah. And any cameras in the vicinity.”
“Shit, let me think. You know Barrie, right? My wife’s cousin’s husband, the policeman. He got busted down to surveillance for some shit, anyways I can ask him to find and delete any footage for us.”
“He’d do that?”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe.”
“You guys close?”
“Nah, but I got some dirt on him that his missus don’t know about. He’s batting for the other side.”
“Man, let’s just get the fuck out of here.”
A few minutes later...
“Obram?”
“Mack?”
“Round up your team and bring them back to base.”
“What about the gunslingers?”
“The sector’s clear. They’re long gone.”
“Roger that.... {sktch]... Alright guys. We’re heading back to base,” Padox and Killer responded.
I turned back to Fanta.
“No, that’s bullshit Fanta! They are not our enemies and we are not at war!”
“Are you kidding me Bra? Look around you! Of course we’re at war. There’s too many people and not enough resources. Everyone wants to make it to Lagoon but Lagoon is only big enough for the rich, right? I don’t know about you but I ain’t bagging xombies for nothing. I’m never going to live in Lagoon but this job means that I can afford somewhere nice like Latier one day. These rioters want to shut down Terracorp. If they do, I’m out of a job, so fuck them and fuck you. They shouldn’t be shooting at me.”
“Fuck me? Fuck you! I have friends out there Fanta! All I know is I don’t want to kill no more people. You sure they shot first?”
“Look, I’m no fucking psycho aiiight? I don’t want to kill nobody neither. But life is tough. Everybody’s looking for something, Bra, but only a few make it.” Fanta shadow boxed with his mecha as we turned the corner and entered the TerraCorp plaza. Padox and Killer were already there with another team of four mechas.
As we joined them in f
ront of the TerraCorp building, the low rumbling I’d been dimly aware of grew louder and exploded into several hundred rioters running towards us, pouring out of the side streets like some amoeba squelching its way through the clogged arteries of the city.
What happened next changed my life forever. I saw one of the twins running towards me, her face contorted with rage. I saw Fanta firing his guns into the crowd and the other riders followed suit. I saw Mona or Mango falling down, shot or not, I know not, one of a multitude of bodies dropping like flies before the guns of my fellow mecha riders.
My mecha meanwhile was identifying multiple sources of gunfire from the crowd heading in our direction. I could feel bullets bouncing off my mecha’s shell. Almost before I knew what I was doing, I aimed my guns and fired... at the other mechas.
Why? I don’t really know to be honest. It was instinctive, like smacking yourself in the face to kill a mosquito. Was it the right thing to do? I don’t think there is such a thing as the right thing anymore. One thing’s for sure, no one was expecting it. Not them, not the rioters, not me.
High powered explosive tipped bullets and fragmentation grenades blasted out from my mecha’s guns and shredded through the other mechas. I aimed for their weak spots at point blank range and fired with everything I had. My fellow riders, my colleagues and friends who would have given their lives for me, were dead before they really knew what was happening.
Two of them managed to spray my mecha with bullets and I got hit twice in the left leg. My mecha was already working its micro surgery on the wounds but I was dead as well. Or I would be when the cops showed up.
The crowd was shouting like I was a hero as I walked to the side of the TerraCorp tower and climbed up the mecha ladder. I didn’t feel like a hero. It was black on black crime and I hated whoever or whatever had led me to this space-time where I was faced with such choices.
I moved fast, hoping I was fast enough. On the roof I stepped into the cupped hand of the catapult and pushed the release button without bothering to adjust the direction. I could hear alarms ringing and the sound of retribution coming after me: the piston-clank of mechas and the low whine of drones. The catapult needed a few more seconds to load and I kept my guns trained on the edge of the rooftop.
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