Black Light: The Deplorable Savior

by Rich Richardson

  The Court of Myracell was an enormous circular room of concrete and metal, with rusty signs and broken clocks on every wall. The ceiling was an enormous rotunda and the floor was made of marble. Everything was lit by white crystals, which covered most of the ceiling both here and in the smaller rooms adjacent to it. However, they didn’t shimmer like the image of Myracell did.

  Fells took me to see the wings on both sides of the circular room. Both of these rooms were smaller than the main chamber, but still enormous. One had been turned into a bunkhouse for the dozens of Truands staying there. Wooden walls had been erected to divide the wing into sections, which Fells told me were each inhabited by a different family. The other wing was a marketplace. Here people traded goods like food, blankets, clothing and other amenities. I could only assume most of them were stolen.

  “Does it ever bother you that you’re begging and stealing to survive?” I asked him.

  “No.”

  I was hoping for a better answer than that, so I kept up the questions. “Don’t you ever think about the people you steal from?” I pointed to dozens of bags of dried meat from a table. “This is a lot of food. Don’t you wonder if the family this was taken from needed it to survive? And what about guilt tripping people into giving you money? Do you really think that’s ethical?”

  Based on his answer, which was the last thing he said to me before showing me to the door, I got the feeling that he had thought about this a lot.

  “Do you know what happens to a Truands when they apply for a real job or a decent living space? They get laughed at. Most of us have been stealing since we were born, but now that we have families and kids of our own, we want to have amenities like everyone else. We want to give our kids what we never had. Would you have reacted the same way if, instead of piles of healthy food and clean water, you saw us eating scraps and drinking from the toilet? Does having less opportunities mean that we aren’t allowed to dream of giving our children new shoes and toys? You still haven’t learned to listen. In fact, you haven’t learned shit. You don’t care that we’re thieves and panhandlers, because as long as thieves and beggars live in the shit filled corners you won’t touch, you don’t bother them. It's not that we’re poor that bugs you, it's that we still give ourselves luxuries. It’s not the fact that we’re thieves that bothers you, it’s that we’re good at it.”

  Chapter 14 - Scott Vale

  “I know what the truth is,” I told myself. “Byrd must be wrong.”

  Five.

  That was the number of fingers Turner held up. I thought back to what had led to this moment, crouched behind the crates, the three of us with our guns trained on these low level drug makers.

  Four.

  “Scott, I need your help.”

  “What is it?” I asked, so eager to please him.

  Frollo told me about the drug ring the police had discovered in the Sunset District. They were only observing the building for now, but would soon be infiltrating it. He needed a small team to go in, eliminate everyone inside and destroy every document we found.

  Three.

  “I don’t believe you,” I told Byrd.

  “Whatever. You’re the one who asked to see them.”

  “They’re all fake. I know they are.”

  “Bullshit! I worked hard to steal these! If you don’t believe me, why don’t you take a look at whatever documents are inside that building Frollo is sending you to. If you want proof, that’s where you’ll find it.”

  Two.

  "They used us," Byrd told me. "Frollo never cared about you. He doesn't care about any of us."

  It was all connected; their resources, the drugs in the Gray District and the building they wanted purged. They were covering their tracks.

  "You are the instrument of my will. Scott. I need your help to spread our way of life; the correct way of life."

  That was what he told me as I buckled on my shiny new armor and picked up my brand new weapon. Expensive toys given to me by my father.

  One.

  “Your father is dead, Frollo betrayed you, your first home was a slum and the second was a lie. Scott Vale, no one will ever care about you.”

  I needed to know if that was true.

  Bang

  Three perfectly synchronized gunshots were followed by the sound of three bodies crashing to the floor. Turner and Fox stepped out from behind the crates, while I stayed behind to cover them.

  "Clear," they each called out after a quick search of the room.

  We all pulled off our helmets and I followed after them, stepping over the bodies and into the lab.

  "Oh, God."

  "You ok?" Fox asked me.

  I wasn't. At the first whiff of vapor, I was instantly transported back to the Gray District. I was scrounging to get by, walking past junkies with every other step. It was a brutal and disgusting trip down memory lane.

  "Come on, Frollo gave us strict orders. We have to burn all this stuff," Turner told me, his arms filled with documents.

  “I’ll take care of it. You guys keep lookout.”

  “Why?”

  “In case the cops bust in.”

  “Isn’t that what…”

  “Now!” I screamed at Turner, causing him to flee.

  Fox wasn’t scared of me, but left anyway. I guess he realized I wanted to be alone. “I’ll see you at home, Scott.”

  And then, everyone was gone. Crates of vapor were to my right. A drug lab was to my left. Stacks of paper were spread across the floor and tables, and three dead bodies were at my feet. I continuously repeated to myself that the Men of the Temple couldn’t be connected to all this. I looked up to Frollo. This couldn’t have been him.

  “Impressive. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  It took me a second to find where the faint voice was coming from, but I soon realized that someone was speaking to me through the radio in my helmet, which was sitting on the ground.

  “Hello?” I said, after detaching the radio and wearing it like an earpiece, rather than putting on the whole helmet.

  “It’s me. I said, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Byrd?”

  “Were you expecting Durango?”

  “I wasn’t expecting anyone. Why did you call?”

  “I was just curious about what you found.”

  “Nothing yet. Give me a minute.”

  There were dozens of journals with brown leather covers, each with a date on them. When looking at the most recent ones, I realized that each spaced about two weeks apart. The journals themselves were just filled with numbers and names, but to fill up one of these every fourteen days… god, they must have been shipping their drugs by the crate load.

  “The Men of the Temple aren’t mentioned anywhere. You were wrong, Byrd.”

  “Keep looking. The proof is there. It’ll match the papers I showed you, I promise.”

  I regretted ever going back to him and asking to see the documents. I should have preserved my innocence.

  “No, it’s not. Frollo didn't-” I was cut off by what I saw next. Sitting on one of the tables was a red journal with no date written on it. It was older than the rest, but had no dust. It had been opened recently.

  “Did you find something?”

  “Shut up.”

  I flipped through the pages and what I found was far worse than I could have imagined.

  “It’s a notebook,” I told him, before reading it out loud. “The people of the Presidential District seem reluctant to begin using our product. Unsurprisingly, the blight has failed to take hold here.”

  Before finding their notes regarding the next district, I flipped through several pages of names, most of them either dealers I knew back in the Gray District or Men of the Temple.

  “The Cages are a special case. Our orders are only to infect one, two and three. They have been deemed unworthy, as they are the least genetically sound. Unfortunately, they are distrustful of our dealers. Every time they try to make a s
ale, either the citizens call them fairies and run off, or tattooed freaks show up and attack them. The one in the second cage is especially crazy. He’s actually killed two of our dealers. Once again, our efforts to spread vapor addiction have failed.”

  More pages, more names, more anger. I felt it building up inside me.

  “The Truands have refused us, but that’s not surprising. When we learned that many of the homeless Sapiens aren’t actually Truands, we tried to hire them to sell for us. We thought that having another dank dealing to them would make them more trusting, but even the bums refused our product. Every single one of them is distrustful of Homo Omniscients. We have failed, yet again.”

  The next set of notes were on the very next page, but my anger doubled in the time it took me to flip it over. I knew what was coming next.

  “The Gray District is the one place that has accepted our new product. The jobs have been drying up recently, ever since Frollo asked the people of the Sunset District not to hire them. He says they barely qualify as Omniscients, and should be subtly purged to keep the gene pool pure. Now that people are getting desperate, they need an escape from their problems. At least, I assume that’s why they love vapor so much. The blight has taken hold and within a few years I think we’ll have up to one fourth of the population completely addicted. It’s unfortunate that this is the only district where we’ve been successful, but perhaps the others will follow, given enough time.”

  “I told you they were selling vapor. You should have believed me.”

  “That’s the only time Frollo is mentioned. Maybe he didn’t know.”

  “Of course he knew about it! What the fuck is wrong with you? This whole time I’ve been trying to make you see…” He suddenly stopped, not saying anything for several seconds. I waited for him to speak, but when I finally heard his voice come over the radio again he wasn’t talking, he was laughing like a fucking madman.

  “I finally understand,” he said, once his outburst had passed. “When I first saw you, I knew we were one in the same. We’re determined, cold and vicious; the kind of people who’d kill to get what we want. That’s why I was so surprised when you didn’t want to expose the Men of the Temple. I thought maybe my instincts were wrong, but they weren’t; we just wanted different things.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Do you know what my childhood was like, living in the shittiest part of the city, while these pricks were raised with silver spoons in their mouths? I would rip the throats out of every single person in the Sunset District, without batting an eye. You, on the other hand, would kill to be one of them.”

  “That’s idiotic.”

  “Really? The proof is right behind you. You killed to stay in Frollo’s good graces.”

  I turned back to see the terminated employees of the drug lab.

  “I only did it because I was ordered to.”

  “That’s your excuse? You’re Frollo’s bitch?”

  “Shut the fuck up. I didn’t kill all of them.”

  “You didn’t kill ALL of them,” he said, in an overly sarcastic tone. “Well, in that case you’re a goddamn saint.”

  “It was only.. he was… they would have sent someone else.”

  “Stop giving bullshit excuses. You’re a killer, Scott. There’s nothing wrong with that, it just means we’re similar people.”

  As a new layer of guilt washed over me, I felt as if I was going to throw up.

  “I hope you’ll finally realize what I’ve been trying to tell you all along; they owe us. Everyone in this fucking district owes us, Scott.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything! They’re responsible for everything bad that ever happened to us, and it’s time we took revenge. We grew up poor, they grew up rich, so we should take everything from them, at the first chance we get. We should seize any opportunity given to us. We'll get girls, money, fame and get to watch those rich pricks crawl through the mud and fight for the scraps of food we toss them. It’ll be a better life for you and Tex. Hell, go home and get all your old friends. If they grew up like us, they deserve a better life. What do you say? Are going to help me kill a few more of these shiners?”

  “You want to kill people just because you grew up poor?”

  A long pause followed. While neither of us spoke, I took the time to look back at the man I had shot in the head. Fox, Turner and I had done this so casually. Perhaps it was only a few short leaps from paper targets to animals to human beings. None of us had even given it a second thought.

  All this time I’d been trying to protect my ignorance. I’d fought like hell to keep it and pretend like anyone could actually give a shit about me. But Byrd was right. Frollo didn’t care. He’d had his own agenda the whole time and I was just a pawn to him.

  I couldn’t stay there any longer, watching the blood and gray matter leak out onto the floor. I ran out the doors, past a very confused Turner and started sprinting for the Temple as fast as I could.

  I kept running, ignoring the weight of my armor and not caring that I had left my rifle behind. I ran through the streets crowded with Omniscients and Truands, and only stopped to catch my breath when I finally reached the doors of the Temple, ready to barge in and demand Frollo tell me everything. But just as I opened the doors, I heard the familiar half second of radio static before Byrd spoke. These were the last words he said over the radio, but not the last ones he would whisper in my ear.

  “Nobody cares about us. That’s why we have to be bad.”

  Chapter 15 - Ins Vera

  “I love supporting the arts,” said a young shiner girl, probably about nineteen or twenty years old. “The Truand’s culture is amazing.”

  “Yeah…” was all her boyfriend could mutter as he emptied his wallet. I always felt proud when my dancing managed to draw men’s eyes away from their significant others.

  Yeah, I was a real bitch back then and I loved it.

  On Sundays, the younger and more open minded shiners always showed up in droves, and they were very loose with their cash. Usually, it was a good day for the Truands all over the Sunset District, but none of us knew that something horrible was about to happen.

  All at once, we lost the people’s attention. A few started screaming, some of them began to run and soon it was a full-fledged stampede. I pressed myself against a building as tightly as I could to keep from getting trampled, and wondered what the hell was making everyone go crazy.

  Gunfire erupted from where the commotion had started and as quickly as people had started running, they stopped. Some even slowly wandered back.

  While the crowd was thinned, I went down the street to see exactly what people were running from and I almost couldn’t believe what I saw. I had only ever seen pictures of them before, but I recognized it immediately. It was a monster from outside the walls, and it was surrounded by bloodied human corpses. I might have thrown up at the sight of it, but instead I froze when I saw something scarier; soldiers armed to the teeth, covered in black armor from head to toe.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest you all take a good look at this body.” The voice came from the roof of the Temple. There, I saw another of the soldiers, but this one was different. His armor was covered in gold lights, including a glowing chest piece and a bright yellow mohawk on his helmet. “This is what we get when these Homo Sapiens are allowed to roam free. The infected vagrants turn into monsters! If the Men of the Temple had done more to push these Truands out of our district these infected tramps wouldn’t be here.”

  As more and more people continued to gather, the creature’s body was strung up for everyone to see, hanging below the man in gold.

  “The Men of the Temple tried to solve this problem, but their methods aren’t good enough anymore. Sapiens not only beg and grovel and manipulate, but they steal from you. How many of you have turned and found your wallet or purse missing, or come home to find your jewelry and family heirlooms gone? And now, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they’re in
fected! Soon enough they will all turn and attack us.”

  As the crowd started to buy into what he was saying, I tried to make my exit, but couldn’t get through the dense mob.

  Suddenly every billboard in the district suddenly lit up with his masked face.

  “People of the Sunset District, Lykan’s virus has arrived in Jamestown. The Truands are turning into feral creatures and the Men of the Temple have done nothing to stop it. You need to take action, for the safety of your family and friends.”

  As the camera showed the corpse of the dog creature up close, with its deformed limbs and hairy body, the crowd started cheering in approval. Meanwhile, I fought to get away from them before things got out of hand.

  “As of now, the Men of the Temple are done! Now the 80’s are taking over, and we will put down these walking time bombs one by one!” The crowd erupted, but I still couldn’t get out. I kept trying to claw my way through, until I ran straight into the chest of a large burly man.

  “Hey, I’ve found one! It’s a…” He was interrupted when he was struck in the face. Something was pulled over my head, and I felt myself being drawn away. I struggled and tried to tear the cloth from over my eyes, but did so without success. Whoever held me had an iron grip. I was dragged and dragged until I just gave up. I couldn’t escape it. This was the end.

  When my eyes were finally uncovered, I was in an alley with a different man standing in front of me. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  I had intended to attack as soon as the cloth was pulled off my eyes, but he seemed to have no intention of hurting me. In fact, he seemed genuinely concerned.

  “Yes, I think so,” I told him before noticing something strange. He was wearing the same black armor as the other soldiers.

  “Let me go!”

  “What are you doing? I’m trying to help you.”

  “You’re one of them. You’re one of the 80’s. You're trying to kill Truands.”

  “No, I just used to be.”

  I finally managed to pull myself away from him, but found blood on my arms.