by Tex Leiko
He walked over to his bed and sprawled across it, lying on his back. It was merely two in the afternoon, but it had been a long day. He closed his eyes, and as his mind wandered off, he couldn’t help but think of what had just happened, what had been said. Memories of the last few years kept striking his mind as lashes from a tormentor’s whip. It was what drove him, but he didn’t like dwelling on it.
Too late. He would have to face his memories tonight.
Chapter Five
Getting to the Show
How long have I been out? Why is it so damn hot in here? Why am I shaking? What is this I feel? Max awoke at his desk, sweating profusely and feeling nauseated. He could vomit at any second and his vision was blurred. It had been a long time since he had used a boost. I am so tense, he had reasoned before he had pushed down the plunger that would re-ignite his nightmare.
Back in college, he had been equally as neurotic as he was these days. He worried over everything. Whether he had passed the test or not. What girls liked him? What teachers hated him? Even stupid things like what he would have for lunch he stressed about.
Max was intelligent, maybe too much. It’s what caused his great anxiety. He couldn’t shut off his brain; he couldn’t sleep. He was unnatural in his ability to work on complex projects and thoughts. As a child, his parents had him “upgraded” with every last intelligence booster Synaptix had to offer, so it was a terrific understatement to say he was smart.
As he progressed in school, the learning and the practical application were a breeze to him. What was difficult was not stressing over whether or not he had stepped on that flower on his hurried way into the classroom. Complex issues were a breeze, but daily life for him became torture. He had to tie his shoelaces “the right way.” Sometimes this meant he would tie and retie forty, fifty, sixty times to get them exactly “right.”
The neurosis started taking over his life. That’s when, at the ripe age of twenty, he was introduced to stims and boosts. Stimulants, or stims for short, were drugs one could purchase anywhere—grocery stores, plasma shops, or even vending machines. They were used to treat a variety of issues. Anything a person wanted, he or she could find—muscle building stims, relaxing stims, concentration stims, agility stims; you name it, they could be found.
They often came in generic-looking bottles with only one or two words on the label telling what they were for—strength, mass, tone, speed, concentration, relaxation, joy, and the list went on. They were color coded so that nobody mistook one for the other. Really, even the biggest simpleton could find what they needed and use it, absolutely legal. However, not without risk.
Stimulants had to be taken daily and took about a week to build in one’s system to achieve the desired result. There was a list of side effects and warnings on the back of each bottle due to the fact that it was required to be printed. Full disclosure was the only law companies had to follow these days. Stims were typically pretty benign with the side effects; however, they were still addictive.
The typical case of stim addiction took about six months of use followed by the user trying to quit cold turkey; cold turkey was never advised. The discreet user of stims knew to give their body frequent breaks to avoid addiction. Also, the use of a boost with the same effect as a stim was never advised. The drugs metabolized in such similar ways that it would cause an amplification effect that the body, although being able to process it, would begin to wear the user down and cause an early demise.
Stimulants, kept in their place, were great for anyone seeking an easy solution to a result they desired. They were relatively safe and effective. They were intended for the patient user who didn’t mind waiting for the results and who didn’t mind the results being often times subtle.
That wasn’t Max’s style, however. He wasn’t patient when it came to the things he wanted. He wanted peace. He wanted to be able to shut down his brain and relax. Every waking second, he heard his own voice reasoning on a hundred different things. He always felt sick from a lack of sleep and he didn’t know how to control his creativity or his intellect properly.
His obsessive compulsive behavior was all-consuming and he wanted a quick fix; he didn’t want to wait. Even more, he didn’t want a subtle change that helped him turn off his brain. He wanted something fast, nearly immediate. As quickly as his brain worked on and processed information, he wanted it to shut off at command even quicker. He couldn’t do it on his own, though.
That’s when he turned to boosts. Twenty years, one month, seven days, thirteen hours, eleven minutes, and thirty-three seconds. That’s how old Max had been when he injected his first boost. He had been counting his age in his head right before he slipped the needle into his arm.
It was glorious; it was everything he had imagined. He had been standing in his room right near his bed, pacing back and forth. Another sleepless night, he imagined. He couldn’t take it. If it continued, he would jump off a roof. So he did it, a tenth of a cc of serenity straight to his arm. It was the lowest dose available; there was such a small amount of fluid in his syringe he doubted it would be enough.
He was already in medical school and he thought that the drug would only be absorbed by capillaries in the muscles and dermis and not even be able to circulate in his system. He didn’t think it was possible that five seconds later, his legs would drop him to the floor. He hadn’t studied pharmacokinetics or pharmacodynamics yet. He ignored the warnings that boosts were highly addictive even on the first use; he was ignorant. That had been fifteen years ago now, roughly. He was much more informed; he should know better.
“God damned addicts,” he muttered aloud, confirming what he was to himself.
Max stood. His shirt was covered in sweat. His body ached. It hadn’t felt a boost for years and now all the cravings he had subdued came crawling back under his skin. He tossed his used syringe into a garbage can and shook his head violently; it throbbed.
He pushed back in the drawers of his desk that he had left open before he had abandoned himself to the effects of the serenity boost. His legs were still shaky; his body wasn’t as good at processing the drug as it had once been. He looked at the clock on his desk and saw that it was ten at night. He needed to be to his house—which was miles away—in an hour to meet with Crimson.
He stumbled over to a mirror to check his appearance. He scanned his figure up and down. He was short, about five-foot-five. His hair was short and blonde, looking quite disheveled. His forehead was decorated with thick beads of sweat and his face was flushed from his cells rebelling against his will, craving more of the drug. He remembered this feeling, the slavery, the lust, almost always ending in him abandoning himself to the boosts once more.
He looked down to his hands; they were veined and masculine. He had a working man’s grip and musculature to go along with it. This, he had worked for, not cheated to get with stimulants or boosts. He couldn’t stop his hands from having violent tremors, another effect of addiction.
“I hate you!” he screamed at himself in the mirror.
His voice mixed with the sound of glass shattering as his scream echoed throughout the small office. Before he had even realized he had done it, he had struck the mirror with a closed fist in a tantrum of self-loathing. The glass had shattered at the force of his blow with his right hand and lacerated his knuckles. He was fortunate to not sever any digits.
Blood flowed from his hand profusely; he should have stopped to treat it, but the adrenaline now was taking over and overriding the after effects of his bad decision to use a boost. He didn’t bother to wrap his hand in a bandage. He just looked at it and thought, And then this happened.
His mind was raging. He had already made a fool of himself in front of Crimson. He already looked like an idiot. What more harm could him arriving late and bleeding do? None. She’ll understand, maybe.
He grabbed his keys and his credit chip and stuffed them in his pocket with his left hand. He was bleeding all over his office floor, but his obsessive n
ature couldn’t handle the thought of any of his blood staining his clothing. He opened the large black security door that led out to the slums. They were always dangerous, but even more so this time of night.
He slammed the door behind himself and locked it. He looked into the direction of his home. About three miles to the west of his office. He could make it well within time if he ran. He crouched low with one knee to the ground, the other to his chest, and both palms on the concrete sidewalk. It was the same stance an athlete would take before hearing the shot that would signal the start of a race.
* * * *
Zarfa woke in a puddle of stale, sticky, stinking blood on his bed around him. The shot had grazed him a little harder than he had imagined. He still couldn’t tell if he was awake or dreaming. He was discombobulated and wasn’t even sure where he was. He had gone to bed at two in the afternoon. It was now nine.
The last seven hours had felt like an eternity. His mind had been racing with thoughts of his recent fight, the events at Max’s office, the woman he had seen on the street, his sister, her abduction, and the death of his parents at the wasp raiders when he and Sarah had been both mere children.
It was torment, one flashback after another. This is hell. I did die. But he shrugged his shoulders and twisted over to his right side, planting the palms of his hands on the bed and pushing his upper body up. He could feel the blood. His brain had a hard time grasping where it had come from. Finally, he realized it was his.
He slung his legs over the side of his bed and felt a sharp pain from his side where the bullet had glanced him. He put his hand on the wound; the bleeding had slowed and his shirt was ruined. His fifth and sixth ribs on the left side were fractured and no doubt oozing blood. They ached as he took every breath and tortured him.
I should have asked for painkillers while I was at the doctor’s.
He drew his hands to his sides and planted his feet on the floor in front of him. He looked down at his feet. No wonder they were sore and felt sweaty. He hadn’t even taken his boots off before he passed out. His mouth was dry; the blood loss and the hours without fluid had dehydrated him. He stumbled over to his kitchen sink and filled a glass from the tap. He gulped the water down as fast as he could. It tasted metallic and was repulsive unfiltered, but he was so thirsty. He poured another. As he finished drinking, he looked down at his side. He couldn’t see much through his blood-stained, torn t-shirt, but it looked bad.
That’s going to get infected, and it hurts like hell. I’d better see if the doc is still around.
Zarfa filled his glass a third time, drank it down as fast as he could, and prepared himself to go back to the clinic. He had no idea if Max would still be around, but he had to try. He felt the inner seam of his pocket. He had passed out with the gauss pistol still holstered there. Stupid. If the gun hadn’t have been empty, he could have blown his leg off in his sleep, or worse.
He went over to the bed, picked up the two devices that the assassins had been wearing, and put them in a small backpack lying by his bed. He assumed them to be cloaking devices and probably of some value, even if he didn’t know how to activate them. He had never seen some of the technology that prevailed in Alexarien. He couldn’t be faulted for being ignorant as to how it functioned, but one thing he knew well from his home was the art of bartering.
Zarfa slung the backpack over his shoulders and winced. It hurt moving his left arm. He was glad he hadn’t been shot on the right. He was ambidextrous, but he did tend to favor using his right. He looked around the make sure there wasn’t anything else he thought he might need to take with him. He didn’t see anything. Considering his condition and the part of the city he was in, he began to wish he did know how to use the cloaking devices.
“Oh well.” He sighed to himself as he walked out the door.
* * * *
“Where ya goin,’ docta?” questioned the leader in a group of five men approaching Max.
They were obviously a gang and out seeking some easy money. Max thought he could hold his own against one if he was in peak condition, but right now, his body was wracked with the effects of a boost addiction.
His heart began to pound; he was afraid. It felt as if there was a stone beating against his rib cage. He no longer worried about getting to his house on time; he was now worried about getting there alive.
Why did I lock the door behind me? Why didn’t I look around more carefully? I know it is dangerous out here.
“Only trying to get home and see a girl, gentlemen. No need for violence and robbery.”
He didn’t stand. He stayed in the position ready to sprint, wishing he had done so only moments earlier.
“Who said anything about that sort o’ nonsense, doc?” the leader questioned, approaching Max at a calm pace.
There was still some distance between Max and the gang. He didn’t recognize these men as any of the junkies he had shooed away. He didn’t know them at all. The only reason they know I’m a doctor is the big, stupid neon sign right above me. Curse my luck.
These men feigned innocence, but they had a threatening semblance. They appeared as a pack of wild hyenas smiling, laughing, goading as they approached, waiting to encircle their prey. Two of them were fat, merely bloated bodies to add intimidation by numbers. The leader, however, was well muscled and carried himself like a leader of vermin would. He appeared to be fast; his stature seemed strong. The other two men in the group appeared to be his support, and all of these three apparently had seen their fair share of fights, or muggings anyway.
“Looks like you should see a doctor,” the leader said with a chuckle, his eyes resting on Max’s right hand.
“You’re right, I should. Why, I hadn’t even realized I was injured,” replied Max sarcastically.
The men in this gang were grinning wide, evil smiles. Smiles of destruction, smiles of executioners. Despite the playful banter, Max could tell they weren’t in the business of leaving men alive.
Enough games, it’s time to leave them in my dust.
Max took off in a sprint, running to the right of this pack of evil men; he was trapped on his left because the buildings lined the sidewalk. But to the right was the broad, open space of the road. Hovercraft passed by at an alarming rate, but the streets were far from crowded right now and he felt safer taking his chances there than on the sidewalk with those five rabid dogs who claimed human suits.
The burst of energy let forth from his leap off the ground was enough to get him going at a good running pace from the get-go. He ran down the street, avoiding the men entirely. A hovercraft passed between the group and Max right as he had started his run toward freedom.
Hopefully, they won’t chase.
Max turned his head to look behind and saw he had no such luck. The two fat ones stayed behind, but as for the leader and his two cronies, they were in hot pursuit of what they saw as easy prey. In only seconds, Max had made it to the end of the block and hooked a sharp left at the intersection. This turn would take him toward the direction of his house and a better part of town. One where there would be a police presence that would stop an unseemly affair such as what was going on here in the slums.
Only three more miles of this. I can do that.
Suddenly, his optimism left him as he felt a rope wind around his feet. One of the men was an expert with throwing weapons and had a shiruken-type device with a rope on it to catch a person’s feet. As the rope wound and twisted around both of Max’s feet, he tripped. Everything felt slow motion as he began to fall.
His head, face first, struck the concrete with a strong force. The blow dazed him and he felt as if someone had kicked him in the head. He tried to shrug off the pain and get back up; it was hopeless. His feet were bound and he barely managed to roll over onto his back by the time the three had caught up with him.
“Here’s for trying to run,” one of them said as he dropped to the ground beside Max and punched him square in the nose.
The man then climbed on t
op of Max and proceeded to hit him in the stomach. If he wanted Max dead quickly, he would keep working his head. He didn’t. This sadist wouldn’t be happy until Max’s internal organs were liquefied from his intense pummeling.
Then suddenly, a crack. It sounds like lightning. Great, I get rained on when I die. And new pain was no longer upon Max. Just the dull ache from falling and taking several blows. The man who had been hitting Max was now lying on top of him, limp. Lifeless.
Max had no idea what was going on. He was confused by the unpredicted onslaught of the ambush right outside his clinic. He was baffled by how quickly he had been caught. He was thrown into utter bedazzlement by the rain of blows he had suffered, and now, the man dead on top of him didn’t make sense.
Did I kill him with my mind? What’s going on?
“Unless you all want to die like your friend here, I suggest you leave. He makes the third life I’ve taken today. I’m not afraid to go as high as seven!”
The voice of a guardian from the void, of a stone cold beast, of a dark mystery that had seen horrors Max couldn’t even imagine. A voice of familiarity, even though he had only heard it a few times earlier that day.
“Zarfa?”
“Yeah, Max. Stay down until I tell you.”
Max peeked out from under the corpse of the man on top. How did he kill him so quickly? Zarfa stood like a gargoyle ready to fend off any evils that may approach. Max couldn’t have had been more grateful in that moment.
Another crashing crackle came and the sky lit up with magnificent white light that revealed to Max that Zarfa was injured. This time, it was lightning, which meant one thing. Rain, great. I do die in the rain.
The remaining four approached Max and Zarfa, intent on killing them both. They most likely weren’t going to let Max live before Zarfa’s intervention. However, any chance of a peaceful resolution was completely gone from sight. Zarfa took a relaxed stance and seemed to be leaning back with his hips jutted forward and his shoulders slinking back. Max thought it was a bizarre way to be standing if you valued your life.
