How i got that scar
Oct. 3rd, 2017 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rich_mc posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
diasporawedding*Takes place in the downtime period after the wedding, and may not make a lot of sense without context... but its a bit of fun.* Also a response to 'Assignment' from Laura.
I bet Val is having a lovely time, I thought to myself. I bet she is on a horse, wind in her hair, sun on her face… meanwhile, here I was. Day four of what would on the paperwork be written up as ‘long term in situ surveillance’ but was perhaps best described as being convincingly homeless.
The first day was enough to confirm this was the place. Two of the dealers, ‘limpy’ and ‘chuckles’ came in and out reasonably regular, and a few more known associates were seen before Jim, practically unrecognisable pulling a rickety wooden cart filled with some sort of stinking foulness made his way along the street. I give him the signal and we quickly exchange information, and he is on his way.
The second day, marked by a slight lightening of the ever-present gloom here in the shadowlands, I build a nest out of half a crate and some mouldy tarp in the space between the crumbling brickwork and stained steps leading up to the tenement I’m watching. I feign sleep, clutching half a bottle of gut rot in hands bandaged in filthy rags. Just another industrial accident, another disposable person. Nothing to worry about.
I count them coming and going.
It doesn’t really rain in the shadowlands. No sky leaves little opportunity. But the steam and smoke of the factories rises to the rock above and condenses what little vapor there is to drip back down as unending drizzle, like the wet breath of diseased lungs. This miasmic updraft deposits its load of soot and industrial effluence onto the rocky underbelly of Upper Radovich, staining it black and deep red, forming stalactites of foulness to mirror the broad sunlit uplands on the flipside. Occasionally one breaks off to plummet down, random death and destruction from the uncaring roof of the world.
That night, a snatch of conversation as chuckles and another I have not seen before share a smoke in the doorway. They are waiting for someone, a regular collecting the product of the kitchen we believe has taken up the second floor of this decrepit building. They talk of a gathering, all the heads of the operation coming for a happy little chinwag. It’s what we have been waiting for.
On the fourth day they come. scuttling out of their rancid little hidey-holes, some as badly dressed as me, in my worn dockers overalls and makeshift hooded poncho. Others projecting a superior air as their ill-gotten gains have afforded them finer clothes. The rage burns, rage at what they did, but I clamp it down – not to suffocate it, but to condense it, make it burn hotter and harder so it can be used, not so it becomes a distraction.
I count them coming, one by one.
Time drags here, marked by the shift change bells of the factories more than any circadian rhythm tuned to dawn and dusk. It gives an insomniac look to the weary passes by as they trudge from home to work and back.
You can hear the stairs complain as they climb them. Groans in the walls that reverberate to the heavy footfalls of thugs and pushers and they clomp about mere feet from my head. Echoing thuds through the wall of my little nest. All but two climb those stairs. I see the shadows at the end of the street move only because I am looking for it, and so I climb to my feet. I wobble out of my nest with all the grace of the terminally intoxicated, though not a drop has passed my lips. The two thugs watching the door see me emerge from my bed of detritus, bandaged hands clutching my bottle, filthy clothes hanging loosely. Feral grins turn up their mouths at the prospect of relieving their monotonous duty with a little sport.
I gesture with clumsy fists and mutter unintelligibly at them. it is all they need to begin the usual, predictable monologuing that proceeds an act of unnecessary violence. The self-justification of the idiotic aggressive. I provide the appropriate reaction, playing my part as they expect and start to back away from these intimidating specimens of manliness. And like the apex-predators they so obviously are they come stalking after me. They don’t see the shadows move. They don’t hear the footfalls behind them. One moment they are kings of all they survey, the next they are lumpen meat, who should consider themselves lucky that they will wake up with only a splitting headache and lengthy sentence in the morning. Jim steps over one of the fallen figures, slipping away his brass knuckles as he does so. I am still impressed at how large a man can be so quiet, even after all these months of working with him. He nods at me, ‘gear up’, he points to the mouth of an alley where the agents had come ghosting out from. ‘We’re going in behind them’. Over his shoulder I see black ghosting through the doorway, guns out.
I strip the rancid clothes off in the shadow of the alley. Worm into simple black pants, shirt and coat. Not my own, but ones more fitting to the shadowlands. More importantly a pair of pistols and belt of bullets. I am buckling the belt when the gunfire starts.
I meet Jim on the second floor, having passed a fair few signs of a hasty, failed, defence on the way up. The remaining targets, eight if my days of counting the comings and goings are correct, have barricaded themselves behind a reinforced door. There are six agents in the corridor. Each has a shotgun and pistol, and have taken up staggered positions in the doorways to the left and right, weapons levelled towards the metal ribbed door at the end. I slide up opposite Jim. “Okay probationer. Make the call.” he says.
I look at him for a moment. I have expected a test, but not here. Not with these particular scumbags, not after what they did. But I am not about to turn down the chance. I poke my head around the corner to get a good look. It is perhaps ten meters long, the room beyond is no more than seven to the back way of the building. All that stood between our guns and theirs was a single armoured door.
I wonder if it’s something about the criminal mind… well the low down scum sucking mind like this anyway… that thinks to reinforce the door… but not the walls. I tell Jim the play. A single raised eyebrow is all I get in response. He passes the orders.
It’s in the timing, and not mine. I have too trust them… after four months of being the probationer I realise I do. Gun in each hand I run at the door as fast as I can, ten meters… five… at one I hear three blasts and the hinges and lock are blasted out of moulding plaster walls by furious shotgun blasts. I hit the door before it has had even a moment to settle and it bursts into the room, toppling forwards to slide along the floor, its thick metal bolts letting it slide like hobnailed boots on marble. I ride it in.
The killing began.
For a second or two I was the focus of attention, it was enough. My guns speak, receive replies, Agents shotguns join the conversation and everything descends into the familiar chaos. I got hit, not too bad considering. I’m breathing heavily, too much adrenaline and I can feel the warm blood on my face and soaking into my collar. A shadow passes over me and I look up. Jim is looking down at me. “On your feet Jagervitch. you need to see this…”
Not probationer… Jagervitch.
I stand. Suddenly, I feel taller.
I bet Val is having a lovely time, I thought to myself. I bet she is on a horse, wind in her hair, sun on her face… meanwhile, here I was. Day four of what would on the paperwork be written up as ‘long term in situ surveillance’ but was perhaps best described as being convincingly homeless.
The first day was enough to confirm this was the place. Two of the dealers, ‘limpy’ and ‘chuckles’ came in and out reasonably regular, and a few more known associates were seen before Jim, practically unrecognisable pulling a rickety wooden cart filled with some sort of stinking foulness made his way along the street. I give him the signal and we quickly exchange information, and he is on his way.
The second day, marked by a slight lightening of the ever-present gloom here in the shadowlands, I build a nest out of half a crate and some mouldy tarp in the space between the crumbling brickwork and stained steps leading up to the tenement I’m watching. I feign sleep, clutching half a bottle of gut rot in hands bandaged in filthy rags. Just another industrial accident, another disposable person. Nothing to worry about.
I count them coming and going.
It doesn’t really rain in the shadowlands. No sky leaves little opportunity. But the steam and smoke of the factories rises to the rock above and condenses what little vapor there is to drip back down as unending drizzle, like the wet breath of diseased lungs. This miasmic updraft deposits its load of soot and industrial effluence onto the rocky underbelly of Upper Radovich, staining it black and deep red, forming stalactites of foulness to mirror the broad sunlit uplands on the flipside. Occasionally one breaks off to plummet down, random death and destruction from the uncaring roof of the world.
That night, a snatch of conversation as chuckles and another I have not seen before share a smoke in the doorway. They are waiting for someone, a regular collecting the product of the kitchen we believe has taken up the second floor of this decrepit building. They talk of a gathering, all the heads of the operation coming for a happy little chinwag. It’s what we have been waiting for.
On the fourth day they come. scuttling out of their rancid little hidey-holes, some as badly dressed as me, in my worn dockers overalls and makeshift hooded poncho. Others projecting a superior air as their ill-gotten gains have afforded them finer clothes. The rage burns, rage at what they did, but I clamp it down – not to suffocate it, but to condense it, make it burn hotter and harder so it can be used, not so it becomes a distraction.
I count them coming, one by one.
Time drags here, marked by the shift change bells of the factories more than any circadian rhythm tuned to dawn and dusk. It gives an insomniac look to the weary passes by as they trudge from home to work and back.
You can hear the stairs complain as they climb them. Groans in the walls that reverberate to the heavy footfalls of thugs and pushers and they clomp about mere feet from my head. Echoing thuds through the wall of my little nest. All but two climb those stairs. I see the shadows at the end of the street move only because I am looking for it, and so I climb to my feet. I wobble out of my nest with all the grace of the terminally intoxicated, though not a drop has passed my lips. The two thugs watching the door see me emerge from my bed of detritus, bandaged hands clutching my bottle, filthy clothes hanging loosely. Feral grins turn up their mouths at the prospect of relieving their monotonous duty with a little sport.
I gesture with clumsy fists and mutter unintelligibly at them. it is all they need to begin the usual, predictable monologuing that proceeds an act of unnecessary violence. The self-justification of the idiotic aggressive. I provide the appropriate reaction, playing my part as they expect and start to back away from these intimidating specimens of manliness. And like the apex-predators they so obviously are they come stalking after me. They don’t see the shadows move. They don’t hear the footfalls behind them. One moment they are kings of all they survey, the next they are lumpen meat, who should consider themselves lucky that they will wake up with only a splitting headache and lengthy sentence in the morning. Jim steps over one of the fallen figures, slipping away his brass knuckles as he does so. I am still impressed at how large a man can be so quiet, even after all these months of working with him. He nods at me, ‘gear up’, he points to the mouth of an alley where the agents had come ghosting out from. ‘We’re going in behind them’. Over his shoulder I see black ghosting through the doorway, guns out.
I strip the rancid clothes off in the shadow of the alley. Worm into simple black pants, shirt and coat. Not my own, but ones more fitting to the shadowlands. More importantly a pair of pistols and belt of bullets. I am buckling the belt when the gunfire starts.
I meet Jim on the second floor, having passed a fair few signs of a hasty, failed, defence on the way up. The remaining targets, eight if my days of counting the comings and goings are correct, have barricaded themselves behind a reinforced door. There are six agents in the corridor. Each has a shotgun and pistol, and have taken up staggered positions in the doorways to the left and right, weapons levelled towards the metal ribbed door at the end. I slide up opposite Jim. “Okay probationer. Make the call.” he says.
I look at him for a moment. I have expected a test, but not here. Not with these particular scumbags, not after what they did. But I am not about to turn down the chance. I poke my head around the corner to get a good look. It is perhaps ten meters long, the room beyond is no more than seven to the back way of the building. All that stood between our guns and theirs was a single armoured door.
I wonder if it’s something about the criminal mind… well the low down scum sucking mind like this anyway… that thinks to reinforce the door… but not the walls. I tell Jim the play. A single raised eyebrow is all I get in response. He passes the orders.
It’s in the timing, and not mine. I have too trust them… after four months of being the probationer I realise I do. Gun in each hand I run at the door as fast as I can, ten meters… five… at one I hear three blasts and the hinges and lock are blasted out of moulding plaster walls by furious shotgun blasts. I hit the door before it has had even a moment to settle and it bursts into the room, toppling forwards to slide along the floor, its thick metal bolts letting it slide like hobnailed boots on marble. I ride it in.
The killing began.
For a second or two I was the focus of attention, it was enough. My guns speak, receive replies, Agents shotguns join the conversation and everything descends into the familiar chaos. I got hit, not too bad considering. I’m breathing heavily, too much adrenaline and I can feel the warm blood on my face and soaking into my collar. A shadow passes over me and I look up. Jim is looking down at me. “On your feet Jagervitch. you need to see this…”
Not probationer… Jagervitch.
I stand. Suddenly, I feel taller.
