Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.-Pablo Picasso
Tonight, Zoku city played host to whatever acts of sordid depravity or godless violence took place. The city was nothing more than a glorified hovel to the twisted and sick, catering to an entire spectrum of morality. Once the prestigious capital city of the northern continent, Zoku had given birth to the forefathers of the modern government, a government that struggled to keep order in an increasingly rebellious and discordant time.
An entire variety of outlaws and scum frequented the seedy place, contributing to it's fervent stench of lawlessness.
What fragile peace there was, was maintained through the criminals and underworld factions governing the real businesses that kept the city alive, patrolled by their own police force of hitmen and various intimidators.
Organised crime, prostitution, drugs and gang warfare had replaced the fishing and farming trades that once flourished only years before, keeping the city alive and prosperous. Within a few short years, everything had been crushed under the growing thumb of the crimelords and triad gangs, each stepping over one another, and the general populace, to maintain control over their volatile share of the whole.
At the center of it all stood the Kan-Zen and the Kuzoway Triads, who stood locked in an unquenchable blood battle for complete control over the rich opportunities that Zoku beheld.
More recently however, Zoku had received a much welcome lull in the bloodshed, attributed to the recent arrival of the mysterious Solar-X group.
The Solar-X group was a huge conglomerate of the most powerful corporations that covered the globe, and were rapidly growing in all aspects of business, be it legitimate or otherwise.
Home to the largest starport on the planet, and a thriving (if corrupt) corporate powerhouse, Zoku City was the biggest business opportunity their rapidly increasing sphere of influence had yet to engulf. Word was out on the street that those in the higher echelons of Solar-X were eager to get their hands on the spoils of Zoku and were planning their move, the Kan-zen and the Triads were equally as on edge surrounding the new player in town.
Their ongoing tussle for power had abated somewhat, but tensions ran as high as ever throughout the Zoku City underworld.
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Zoku City-Red Light District- 2:35am
With an old bronze coin, Tem scratched laid score after score into the tarnished wood of the bar. He reached over and took another purposeful sip from his glass, letting the brown grotesque liquid cascade down his gullet. The glass' disgusting contents scorched the back of Tem's throat, causing him to gag and splutter onto the floor beside him.
"Another?" Enquired the pungent smelling barman.
"Yes." Coughed Tem. "And this time, leave the bottle."
The barman's concerned facade was quickly wiped into extinction when Tem threw several sparklingly clean credits in his direction.
Tem gazed toward the slender neck of the brown glass bottle which was less of an attempt to concentrate on his pouring but more to try and stop his vision from blurring. His head bobbed back and fourth as his eyes strained to focus. Slowly but surely the lip of the bottle rested on the edge of the glass, spilling its rusty contents into his tumbler, staining it in a cloud of brown.
He imagined to little effect that he was back drinking fresh gadop juice at the orphanage with his friends. The thought did little to mask the effect the putrid drink had on his queasy stomach.
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Along with Tem’s sobriety, the harsh excesses of Zoku's red light district had faded into obscurity now, replaced by the thick layer of industrial fog that hung over the city like a stained rug. The sky would be turn from a faecal brown to a sickening orange as the day progressed, and the sun would set basking the night in a black, star less noir.
The streets meandered in and out of a maze of badly laid out urban dwellings. Their placement was patchy at best, with little thought given to their geographical location on the cityscape. Viewed from above they would probably resemble more of a mosaic of square tiles, dotted here there and everywhere, interspersed with small streaming roads which pulsated with traffic like veins carrying blood to the vital organs.
In the muddle of biotechnological grotesqueness, lay Tem's tiny apartment. Number 46-B of apartment block 743, in some nameless street, in some nameless district. The inability to discern one's dwelling from the next only served to underline his sense of dreary anonymity he had managed to achieve while living under Zoku’s thick fog.
A small turbolift would take him to level B every night. The lift would trundle and groan out it's sad song, almost in a sad ritualistic fashion if announcing it's own imminent demise with a funeral lament. On each trip to and from his apartment, he feared that the elevator would seek to release itself from the rusty durasteel bondings, and send its weary body crashing into the concrete below, ending its pain. On days like this he envied that lift.
Once on level B, a series of catwalks led outward like a star toward each of the six apartment blocks spattered around in an what one could only describe as a near-circle. Like the elevator, and most likely everything else in the whole complex, the catwalks groaned when tread upon, crying out their pains to the world.
The flimsy walkway led on toward his apartment, which at this time of night remained the only one unlit. Even the daytime, required a reasonable level of lighting to be maintained by households in order to pierce the artificial darkness caused by the fog. The more eccentric of Zoku claimed the fog was a government plot to rake in money with unthinkably priced electricity bills.
Swiping his keycard into the reader, the heavily vandalised door of Tem’s apartment shuddered open. The unfamiliar smell of stale air laced with cigarra smoke rushed out and molested Tem’s Nostrils causing him to instinctively draw his sidearm. Due to the nature of modern life in Zoku city, firearms were a necessity, regardless of their profession.
“I have a proposition for you Mr Hadar, please come in. . .” Came a voice from within the unlit apartment.
The owner of the voice sat cross-legged on a leather armchair in the center of Tem’s apartment. Clad in an expensive dark suit, the man was either excessively rich or one of the worst vagrants he’d ever seen. The man stood up on his tall thin legs to introduce himself.
“I don’t hold a taste for introductions so I’ll cut right to the thick of it. I represent the board of directors of an organisation known as Solar-X, I’ve no doubt you’ve heard of us by now, and we wish to borrow your, shall we say, unique ability for rubbing out certain ‘roadblocks’ in people’s paths.
It just so happens we have one such ‘roadblock’ standing in our way and we need you to help us.” Explained the man.
“Ok . . . I’m listening.” said Tem, intrigued.
“Good.
As you also may know the leaders of the Kan-Zen and the Triads do not factor in to our future plans for Zoku.
They are becoming rather troublesome as of late, their open defiance to our interests in this city and the prospect however unlikely of their powers becoming combined would present a serious threat to our business ventures.
We wish to have them removed.”
“Lemme guess, that’s where I come in?”
“That is Correct Mr Hadar, we require you to remove the leader of the Kan-Zen. We must make this look like a triad hit so as to reignite the flames of war between the two.
As the attitude of both parties stands now, neither will side with us, however if the two were at war, they would be powerless to resist the offer of a third-party in order to help them wipe out the other.
And in their weakened state, they would easily bend to our every whim.”
Tem paused for a second before enquiring “So uh . . .how much are we talkin’ here?”
“Oh yes, your salary. Well, upon completion of the hit, a sum of fourty thousand credits will be deposited in your account,”
Tem whistled in amazement.
“, and assuming all goes well afterward, we shall deposit a further twenty thousand.”
“I suppose that seems fair,” said Tem, trying to downplay his enthusiasm, “I accept.”
“Good, here, “ the man said, tossing him a brown envelope, “this dossier will tell you everything you need to know on where and when you will need to be for the hit.”
“How will I contact you when I’ve finished?”
“That won’t be necessary Mr Hadar, we will find you.”
With that, the man swiftly made for the door and disappeared into the labyrinth of streets outside.
Tem clasped his hands over his head and stared down onto the brown envelope below which now contained the key to his future.