Delete Anger and Reload

Delete Anger

and Reload

 

 

“Nothing ever burns down by itself, every fire needs a little bit of help.”

- Give the Anarchist a Cigarette, Chumbawamba

 

I kicked my way through the litter and smiled at my luck of finding a relatively unlooted corpse under a pile of slightly soggy cardboard boxes. I now had myself a full pack of cigarettes and a rather battered PDA, but it still worked okay, so I would sell it later at the markets next to the Strip Club.

The club itself was in what the Socialites viewed as the very worst side of the City, but I had called it home for most of my unexceptional life. While the building had no real name, those who frequented it, knew it as the Strip Club, although no one voluntarily took their clothes off there, but anyone who was not a regular would be quickly stripped of all their belongings soon after arrival.

The owner of the Strip Club, was a large black guy who went by the name of Sudds, he was an old school Punk and respected by all, he was the leader in a place where there are no leaders; every so often some strung out pup would make a challenge and little pieces of them would be found floating on the canal the following morning, far away downtown.

 

As I wandered down the stairs and into the club I was hoping for a quiet drink, some juicy gossip and a maybe a good fight later on; but it became apparent that a couple of gangs of half-arsed self styled CyberPunk Technogeeks, had decided to pay us a visit. Damn, those kids thought they were so cool with their pristine leather coats, dark glasses and latest hacked CyberWare. They all thought they were Anarchists, they all thought that they were so Alternative. Most of them truly lived in their parent’s basements or back on campus.

 

Sudds was binding his time with them for once, letting them empty their credit sticks at the bar. Then we would kick their lily white arses out the door.

So it looked like my fight would come sooner rather than later.

How the kids could be stupid enough to think they could step into our territory without been ripped to pieces was beyond me! They just laughed and joked with each other, occasionally eyeing up the locals as if they were pieces of meat. All CyberWare but no true brains, or at least not the right sort as far as I was concerned.

 Somehow, they didn’t notice the divide that had formed in the room, with them at one side and Sudds, with about twenty other regulars and myself stood at the other.

It would have just been the usual pasting, had it not been for the fact that another group of Outsiders had decided to pay us a visit that evening as well.

Suzie and her bunch of TradGothiks, had come for the weekly market that was held in the disused car park next door.

Of course Geek number one made a bee line straight for Suzie, no doubt planning to impress her with his over tight cheap PVC pants and crappy badly applied NanoHair.

I couldn’t quite hear what he said to her, but the reply of “What the F**k are you supposed to be then?” was heard by all.

Then the absolute idiot pulled a knife on her, no doubt scrambling for the last traces of his wounded masculinity, but little Gothik Suzie was one step ahead of him and sunk her petit but nicely sharpened stiletto heeled boots into where it really mattered and made her way coolly across to bar without looking back.

The laughter shook the room; it was at this point the TechnoGeeks figured out that coming here was probably not a good idea. They pulled there fallen comrade off the floor and attempted to make it to the door.

This was there second mistake.

 

While this scuffle was going on my mate Anger had stomped into the room, he had a thing going with Suzie from a few years back and still found it rather hard to take ‘NO’ as an answer.

He stood in the doorway with a face like fire, he was called Anger for the obvious reason, this guy would get mad or upset at the slightest provocation, but luckily he wasn’t that bright. That’s why I was his friend; I was always around to make sure he was pointed in the right direction when he let rip.

 

A skinny blonde haired geek was the first one to try and edge his way around Anger. A fist met his face before I could even blink, blood splattered on the floor, signalling the first fight of the night. Everyone jumped in, the past week had been too quiet and we needed a reason to have a little fun.

I pulled an always handy baseball bat out from under my coat, ran across the floor and brought it down artfully on the idiot with the most Cyber crap on his face. Maximum damage, at maximum cost, that was always my motto.

Anger by this time had laid low half the crowd, including a few of our own, but that was his way. We were going to teach these kids a lesson they would never forget, or so it had seemed.

Just as everything was calming down, a bright burst of neon yellow light spewed forth. One was the Technogeeks had fired some kind of fancy NanoTech LazerGun at Anger, swiftly melting my mates head into a stinking bubbling puddle.

Now this of course meant war!

 

In the ensuing chaos, the rest of the geeks escaped out into the street, knowing that revenge was going to be dealt swiftly and agonizingly.

It didn’t matter how much fancy Cyber crap you had, nothing was going to save them now from the fury of our gang.

Sudds threw me a shotgun, blessed good old fashioned weaponry. Didn’t need charging, wouldn’t overload, just the way I liked it simple and to the point.

The kid who’d killed Anger by now was fumbling for his next shot. He had obviously only recently stole his fancy new toy and pressed buttons manically, as myself and half the neighbourhood bore down on him and his trembling friends.

“I didn’t mean to do it! Honest” he muttered sobbing as he made one last attempt to get LazerGun working once again.

So I aimed my shotgun.

And I fired.

I will always be delighted by the effect that a simple 12 gauge round has on the most expensive advanced CyberWare. As the bullet headed through both gun and hand, the LazerGuns circuitry overloaded, sending a powerful bolt of electricity up through his arm, up into his head which in turn caused the kids eyes to glow, spark and pop out as he collapsed in agony.

All the happened in glorious slow motion and while I would have loved to stand and watch, I learned long ago that now was the time to run; as the LazerGun was now making a high pitched humming noise.

About thirty seconds later, the fuel cell in the gun reached critical and took away everything in a twelve metre radius.

Rather cool actually and a very fitting end.

 

I was really feeling quite annoyed by now, as I hadn’t even had a drink yet. Plus it was going to be hard to find a bodyguard quite as effective as Anger any time soon.

The hole the kids and their fancy gun had left on the street was actually quite neat and would hopefully serve as a deterrent, to some of the others Outsiders that had suddenly decided our territory was a cool place to hang out.

I wandered back into the club and sat back down at the bar. Suzie gave me a lazy smile and offered me the latest in noxious chemicals. I declined; I needed a clear head tonight. I had to go organise the local gangs to patrol the market and report online about tonight’s actions.

Fishing through my pockets, I came across the now crumpled packet of cigarettes and the PDA, I fired it up and logged into my avatar, changed my identity once again, out of some inbuilt paranoia and said my farewells to the only part of Anger still left and made sure any evidence of my friend’s existence was long gone.

$

cat anger.atr

core

worm seed

jewel

$ rm anger.atr

$ cat anger.atr

cat: anger.atr: No such file or directory

 

cat anger.atr

core

worm seed

jewel

$ rm anger.atr

$ cat anger.atr

cat: anger.atr: No such file or directory