reporting gunfire these days is fairly slim. Bring the gun to me and I’ll be able to judge for certain. As for the turn... I have no idea. You always get something you can’t explain, especially with murders.”
“This isn’t it. A man doesn’t gun down the love of his life and then turn a hundred and eighty degrees before blowing his brains out, for no reason.”
Valerie bit her lip, and I turned away. I could see that neither of us particularly liked her theories. The chances of a vengeful German survivor cell operating anywhere were small at best, while I still held the third theory with an air of doubt. The only theory which held water was the one that implied that, somehow, RailTech was involved. This didn’t help at all. RailTech was almost always involved, with everything.
“Get me the gun; that will clear up the silencer issue. If you’re going to pursue this, we need to get out of the cul-de-sac. Look around for anything interesting in the month before their death. Oh, and K—”
I felt the prick of the needle in my neck before I could turn around.
“Get some sleep. Lord knows you need it.”
There were sweet narcotics, and sweeter darkness. Valerie loved her morphine.
#0954
“Valerie... Don’t wait for this to finish playing... Start fixing me up right away... Just pulled a practical joke... on the leader of one of the bigger... gangs in the gutterage. Made him think... his food was poisoned... Looked so smug that he’d worked it out. Then I shot him... in the face. Heh... Guards couldn’t take a joke though... opened fire almost immediately. Got out... still running... took a bullet to the gut... Another to the hip... Stapled together to stop the bleeding. Just fix me up... I swear to god, if you leave... another piece of steel... inside me, I will kill you. Happy... April first.”
5: Exposition
Few things act upon my mind as bizarrely as morphine. Other than an occasional aid to sleep, I choose to avoid it, preferring to run with more mainstream pleasures such as murder, arson and digital piracy. It gets in my head and stays there, like a Russian ice-pick. I don’t think straight (do I ever?); instead, my mind follows strange patterns and fluxes.
When the world started burning, Germany burned brighter than everyone else. Maybe it was the political tension; maybe it was the suffering economy and rising taxes. It could have been anything, really. Maybe Germans are just extra-flammable. Whatever the reason, where England and France had widespread anarchy, Germany was pitched headfirst into something resembling a civil war. The world just dropped them. France was the first to shut off all borders to the refugees, and the rest of Europe followed suit. Nobody in, nobody out—a desperate attempt to keep the mindless German violence out of the rest of the mindless European violence. Needless to say, there were consequences. German relatives outside of the nation—many of them already involved in or affected by the chaos—became even more angry and disillusioned. Bombs went off in public spaces, adding to the terror. Proud landmarks which had withstood the wild population fell to concentrated attacks. It took months to root out the German terrorist cells, and in that time they successfully bombed the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and the Houses of Parliament, to name but a few. The casualties were enormous, but to the world they were just another statistic in a rising tide of statistics.
I guess the most critical effect morphine has on me is that it stops me from focusing. On small doses—ones that don’t render me unconscious—I turn dazed and distracted. It regularly seems like I’m about to change—
—topic, but usually it’s just a bait-and-switch. The double-vision and strange feelings of affection get in the way too. It’s like my mind is on vacation, and my mouth is–
Before Germany, there was Africa. In particular, South Africa. Appropriate, right? The cradle of humankind
“This isn’t it. A man doesn’t gun down the love of his life and then turn a hundred and eighty degrees before blowing his brains out, for no reason.”
Valerie bit her lip, and I turned away. I could see that neither of us particularly liked her theories. The chances of a vengeful German survivor cell operating anywhere were small at best, while I still held the third theory with an air of doubt. The only theory which held water was the one that implied that, somehow, RailTech was involved. This didn’t help at all. RailTech was almost always involved, with everything.
“Get me the gun; that will clear up the silencer issue. If you’re going to pursue this, we need to get out of the cul-de-sac. Look around for anything interesting in the month before their death. Oh, and K—”
I felt the prick of the needle in my neck before I could turn around.
“Get some sleep. Lord knows you need it.”
There were sweet narcotics, and sweeter darkness. Valerie loved her morphine.
#0954
“Valerie... Don’t wait for this to finish playing... Start fixing me up right away... Just pulled a practical joke... on the leader of one of the bigger... gangs in the gutterage. Made him think... his food was poisoned... Looked so smug that he’d worked it out. Then I shot him... in the face. Heh... Guards couldn’t take a joke though... opened fire almost immediately. Got out... still running... took a bullet to the gut... Another to the hip... Stapled together to stop the bleeding. Just fix me up... I swear to god, if you leave... another piece of steel... inside me, I will kill you. Happy... April first.”
5: Exposition
Few things act upon my mind as bizarrely as morphine. Other than an occasional aid to sleep, I choose to avoid it, preferring to run with more mainstream pleasures such as murder, arson and digital piracy. It gets in my head and stays there, like a Russian ice-pick. I don’t think straight (do I ever?); instead, my mind follows strange patterns and fluxes.
When the world started burning, Germany burned brighter than everyone else. Maybe it was the political tension; maybe it was the suffering economy and rising taxes. It could have been anything, really. Maybe Germans are just extra-flammable. Whatever the reason, where England and France had widespread anarchy, Germany was pitched headfirst into something resembling a civil war. The world just dropped them. France was the first to shut off all borders to the refugees, and the rest of Europe followed suit. Nobody in, nobody out—a desperate attempt to keep the mindless German violence out of the rest of the mindless European violence. Needless to say, there were consequences. German relatives outside of the nation—many of them already involved in or affected by the chaos—became even more angry and disillusioned. Bombs went off in public spaces, adding to the terror. Proud landmarks which had withstood the wild population fell to concentrated attacks. It took months to root out the German terrorist cells, and in that time they successfully bombed the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and the Houses of Parliament, to name but a few. The casualties were enormous, but to the world they were just another statistic in a rising tide of statistics.
I guess the most critical effect morphine has on me is that it stops me from focusing. On small doses—ones that don’t render me unconscious—I turn dazed and distracted. It regularly seems like I’m about to change—
—topic, but usually it’s just a bait-and-switch. The double-vision and strange feelings of affection get in the way too. It’s like my mind is on vacation, and my mouth is–
Before Germany, there was Africa. In particular, South Africa. Appropriate, right? The cradle of humankind
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