short timers: Episode 1b

continuation of the Short Timers introduction

Jance wasn’t convinced, but he was gonna have to let it slide for the time being. He was about to try something that he’d theorized about ever since he’d first discovered the Psyche Field. If it worked, it was going to open new doors all over the place. If it didn’t, he’d probably end up a brain dead ball of mush on the top of this building, and his mind would be stuck out there in limbo, if he survived at all.

Morgan is gonna be pissed, He thought, and didn’t hide it very well. He could feel Stella smile in return.

Has he ever been anything other than pissed? She asked. He heard it, but it was far off like in a dream.

He was in the field, feeling the dark winds that move there. He was for the first time in his life…A real hunter.

Stella watched the docks carefully, the men hadn’t changed their positions since her last conversation with Jance about a minute ago. She could feel her targets minds, bouncing like little dark lights in the mist. She was about to move when she watched something incredible.

The men were grouped in a tight circle, two with their backs to her, two facing her, and one presenting his right side. He was the one with the cigarette, which was now a smoldering butt tossed towards the water that didn’t quite make it. The men were dressed much the same way as the last group that she’d killed…Casual but classy, sports jackets and jeans. All the jackets covered heavy weaponry, probably nine millimeters, forty calibers mostly. There might be a maniac carrying a Desert Eagle .50, as if a guy could pull the weapon and get a round off before getting his head turned to Swiss cheese by a guy packing a .22.

But the guy to the left carried a pump action shotgun, that could cause some serious problems. She also saw, on one of the men with their backs turned towards her, a thick strap probably holding an MP5 or something similar... not cool.

The suit’s the Short Timers wore were lightly armored to take some small arms fire, but nothing direct. If she got sprayed by either the scatter gun at close range, or the MP5 at any range, it would f**k up her day.

Somebody told a joke, and four of the five men were laughing. The fifth man, shotgun man, raised the weapon to the closest man to him and blew his head off, it evaporated in a thick red mist. There was a heavy concussive blast followed closely by the surprised shouts of the men around him. Stella heard a ‘what the f**k!’, from further down the dock. Followed closely by the sound of running feet.

Jesus Jance! What did you do!?

She heard pieces of the dead thugs skull hitting the cement in the distance. Stella watched the shot gunner ratchet another round in the chamber and aim the weapon at the next surprised thug in line.

Shotgun man pulled the trigger at point blank range into the chest of the next man. The surprised ’O’ of his mouth showed clearly in the muzzle flash of the shotgun. The body flew into the dark, out of sight in the darkening mist.

The other men, still recovering from the loud blasts started to pull their weapons.

She looked to her left, hearing the footfalls of the distant guards coming to the sound of  action. She decided to let things progress for a minute. She wasn’t sure what Jance had done, but so far it was working. The kid had accomplished something amazing, and in the seconds of violence on the docks, she gained a new respect for him

She heard another ratchet, a distinctive noise that can make the hardest man’s skin crawl. By now there was considerable shouting... ’Mark what the f**k are you doing!?’. ’Jesus Christ! He shot Joe!’.

BOOM! Another shot from the scatter gun, followed by a gurgling scream.

POP POP POP POP! Some return fire from a small caliber weapon. The last one was a distinct POP THUMP! Meaning the slug hit home.

The man with the shotgun staggered backward, his hand came up to his throat. That brief hesitation brought a barrage….

POP POP BANG POP POP BANG! Followed by a spray from a small automatic pistol.

Not all the shots hit their target, and Stella heard a scream from further down the dock, where the reinforcements were coming from.

Stella decided to join in. She bolted towards the group of men running towards them who were just becoming shadows in the mist.

Jance felt the slug hit his upper chest with an intense pressure and burn, he bailed out of the shotgunners mind when he saw the others bring up their weapons.

But it was weird…when he sucked back into his own body, he could still feel the burn of the slug and the heat in his own chest, like he’d brought the wound with him.

Stella! I’m shot!

I kinda doubt that kid, all the action is going on down here. Not on the roof. Now shut up, I’m busy. I dunno what you did, but I’ve gotta take advantage of it.

Stella slid low into the mist, nearly crawling on her stomach. One guy, running with gun drawn came within a few feet of her and she snaked towards him, hoping the covering gloom and surprise would keep them from noticing her so close to the ground. With her scythe blade she hacked through his hamstring. The angle worked, and no one noticed her.

Working with blades could be very difficult. Unless there was opportunity for a direct stab or a throat slice, it was tough to get enough leverage to do any real damage. In this case she wasn’t necessarily trying to do damage, just cause some distracting pain.

He screamed when she slashed through his leg, loud enough to grab the attention of the men around him. He’d been running so fast that when he finally stopped he was more than ten feet away from her. He landed hard on the filthy concrete and continued to scream.

The bullets had quit after the shotgun man had been slaughtered. These men were disciplined enough to stop firing, which was a pity. She’d hoped for a few more casualties before she got into the middle of this mess. Stella assumed that Jance had taken over the shotgunner, God only knew how, or somehow convinced him that shooting his buddies was a good idea. But either way he’d effectively removed four of her threats, and confused the s**t out of all of the ones that still survived. They were on high alert, but not expecting her. They’d heard gunshots, and screams, they weren’t expecting a freak with a couple knives. Even the guy she’d sliced open thought he was shot, not cut. He kept yelling, ‘I’m hit! I’m hit!’ Like he was on the front lines of World War II.

The last two alive from the original group stood over the body of the dead shotgunner. They still had him covered with their weapons. In the gloom she could tell they were very confused, and very pissed.

Two guys decided to come over and take a look at their wounded comrade…

“Hey! Anthony’s been hit. Somebody go get the little s**t some help. See if he’s gonna die, and save us all some f****n headache!”

The men knew that Anthony needed to earn his bones, he needed to have his head examined too. He was the Don’s youngest and favorite son, and was being brought into the family the hard way. All the older sons had been sent up and had some pretty heavy police records, so the snot nosed kid was the family’s last bet. Supposedly. He was green and stupid, and really not too good at being tough. It was up to them to thicken his skin, and give the spoiled little f****r some sand. Even though the men knew he was set up to inherit everything his father owned, they were the ones who controlled his information. They had him convinced that he HAD to get shot in order to be in with the guys… no matter what the big boss daddy said. Anthony had bought the bullshit, hook and sinker, and was actually looking forward to the sting of the bullet.

Two men, with plenty of grumbling and bitching, walked slowly over to Anthony. He was rolling around clutching the back of his leg, yelling about being shot.

They heard a sound, hollow and deep, followed by a quiet gurgling. They could only see the lump of Anthony in the mist, with no distinct features other than a raised knee in the darkness.

“Anthony?” The one on the left asked, raising his weapon a little.

They walked another ten feet and saw his twitching form on the ground. He was quiet. He was also bleeding out fast from a slit throat.  

Stella waited a few feet away, watching them move in on the body of the dying young man. As soon as they came in close enough she sprang up, and sprinting towards them. She slammed the thick metal spike in through the first ones temple and removed it like a hummingbird’s tongue, she didn’t bother hacking open this one’s throat, he was done. She leapt onto the other one with her other hand held forward, the scythe blade penetrated the back of his skull and sliced through his brain cavity as she pried the blade loose. They died quickly and quietly, the sound of their bodies hitting the cement was masked by the sound of the chatting men standing around the body of the shotgunner, talking loudly over the ringing in their ears.

She took a quick count. Five left. Six men had come running to aid their friends. Three were now dead, she could see one of the men favoring his left leg, he was the one who’d been shot in the cross fire of the earlier exchange.

Five left, all of them distracted, and one of them wounded. She would have to kiss Jance when she saw him again. If he was still alive.

She crawled low on the ground towards the five, like a stalking cat. Her blades were held in a reverse grip, and the metal ticked against the concrete dock. Her eyes were locked on the back of the first man. They glowed bright in the dimness of the mist surrounding her boiling black shape. She heard one of the men say..

“What the…?”

She ripped into them.

Fifteen seconds later… she was the only one left alive on the dock.

Her job was done, she walked away into the gloom of the deepening mist.

Jance lay on his back staring at the sky, for one of the only times in his life he wasn’t really worried about thinking. He just stared at the sky, seeing the dark shapes of clouds move across his vision in alternating patterns of white and grey even in the gloom of night. The light of the city reflected down into his eyes.

He thought he was dying. He still felt the pain in his chest from the shot. He expected to hear his heart slow, and waited for the feel of his skin to cool off.

He saw the glowing eyes of Stella instead.

Get up you p***y. She said, smacking his forehead lightly with the butt of her black blood covered knife.

He sighed to himself. Damn. Of all the things he wanted to deal with before dying, Stella‘s reproachful smart a*s attitude was last on the list.

Despite his curiosity for science, he’d crossed a very hard line tonight and turned into a murderer. A fact that he simply couldn’t shake. Which was in it’s own way a little weird, He’d killed before, but he counted the previous times as self defense.

But tonight was different.

He’d traveled through the ether, with no clear idea as to what he was planning other than he needed to find a way to help Stella. He found the shotgunners mind, and tried to convince him to shoot his fellow mobsters. But it didn’t work out that way... but somehow... feeling the thugs mind opened up something. There was a pulse that Jance identified with, something that he could tune to.  

So instead Jance kicked him out of his own body for a few seconds and shot those three men with no reason or warning. He remembered hearing the man’s screams in his mind. As Jance aimed the shotgun at the other gangsters face and pulled the trigger. There was a split second of flashed gore from the muzzle flash, and then the confused yelling of the men around him, along with the ringing in his ears from the gunshot. He remembered, looking briefly out of the corner of his eye in Stella’s direction. He thought he may have seen her eyes flashing in the darkness of the entrance of the alleyway, but he couldn’t be entirely sure. It could very easily have been a stray cat.

After that, it was ratchet shells and look for a shape to shoot at. Nothing really registered in his mind aside from pump and fire, pump and…

Then the slug hit his chest and he bailed.

You kinda shut off there for a bit kid. I thought you were toast. Stella was trying to lift his head to get a better look in his eyes. She couldn’t communicate with Morgan from this distance unless Jance was functional. Jance wondered briefly what his… possession?… of the thug looked like on Morgan’s screens. He smiled to himself, their leader must be pitching an absolute fit. They’d been out of communication for about ten minutes.

Ow… I thought I was toast. I still feel the shot, would you check my upper chest and see if there’s anything there? It’s not rational that there would be, but it’s not rational for possession to work either. All I know is that it hurts.

Stella paused for a second, and stared at him. Her eyes seemed to bore into him. Can you move? She asked.

Jance tested the movement of his shoulders. He felt that the slug had hit the collar bone and shattered it. But his shoulder movement didn’t cause any more pain, and he felt no limitation to his movement.

He was intact. The pain was still there, but as soon as he realized that he still had movement beyond what the wound should actually allow, it started to recede.

I’m alright, and the pain is going away. He paused, and sat up. Have you ever been shot before Stella?

She unzipped the front of his suit and exposed his chest. The nano cloud that usually shifted and boiled over the surface of the suit went into sleep mode. They landed on the surface of the suit and waited for new instructions. The actual suit was a dull gun metal gray with a few raised surfaces that showed the built in armor plating.

Yeah, I’ve been shot before. She said, looking over his chest. It’s no fun.

Jance looked out across the docks. Yeah. No goddamn fun at all.

Stella slapped him lightly in the chest, and zipped his suit back up to his neck. You got out lucky kid, no blood and no holes. Pretty cool to experience getting shot without having to worry about the holes. I think you’re the only person in the world that can say that. Congratulations. She helped him to his feet. And they walked away from the edge of the building.

Jance felt the pain ease away, and swore to himself that he’d never attempt something like that again.

So are you gonna let Morgan back in? I’ll bet he’s shitting canaries wondering what the f**k is going on.

Yeah, I’m sure he is.... Stella, if he gets too mean will you just take that spike of yours and bury it in my temple?. He relaxed his mind and opened himself to the psyche field.

Sure kid. She said.

Morgan was there, as expected. It was like opening the shutters when the hurricane still raged. 150 miles an hour of pissed off… all the sudden in your living room.

What, the f**k, happened? He said, in a mental voice like an acid container about to burst. Jance winced at the sound, knowing he was in for some deep s**t when they got back to the complex. Stella saved him the embarrassment of having to respond.

The mission is complete Morgan. The south side of the dock is clear.

There was a moment of intense silence from Morgan. You could taste the anger through the field.

Ed and Jimmy are enroute to burn the boat. Morgan said.

Jance piped up. Do they need any help?

Morgan’s response was instant. No. Get your asses home. Do not wait for them. Tsang will shadow you on your way back.

Why? Stella asked.

I figured you were both dead. Morgan said, and severed the link.

They slid through the darkness of the streets as quietly as shadows. There wasn’t any traffic in this part of the city, which made their travel very fast. They had a long walk home... ten miles to the complex, but as soon as they were closer to humanity they would have to hit the sewers. Neither of them were looking forward to that part of the journey.

The buildings were all empty here, the mob liked to make sure they had privacy when they were unloading their shipments, or at least a good amount of warning if there was any possibility of company. So they’d bought up nearly all of the warehouses along this section of coastline to ensure the safe transfer of their heavy shipments. Normally it was a plan that worked well for them.

But not tonight.

The men in the syndicate weren’t prepared to deal with this kind of damage, and Jance was sure that some old men who’d bet the farm on this shipment of drugs were gonna find themselves in shallow graves come the end of the week. The Short Timers had handed out some serious damage to the drug trade across the East Coast, and it wasn’t over yet. But eventually the mob would wise up, or be obliterated completely. In which case, the Short Timers were going to need another target. Who that was exactly was known by only one person…Morgan.

Jance. Speak of the devil. The charge is five minutes out on detonation, are you and Stella at safe distance?

We will be in about twenty seconds sir. Jance said, checking the Field casually to make certain there wouldn’t be any obstructions to deal with.

Ok, get there. Tsang should be waiting for you when you go below. Get your asses home, and be quick about it. The connection was cut.

Jance heard a heavy sigh come from Stella who was in the lead, slinking through the shadows in a crouching run. That b*****d seriously needs to ease up. She said.

Agreed. He replied.

Stella slowed up and turned around. Jance did the same.

There was a bright flash that lit up the buildings for a split second, and a reverberating boom a split second later.

Jance grinned. Jimmy does like to blow things up doesn’t he?

Yes he does. Stella responded.

The decision to blow the ship had been Morgans. He wanted the syndicates ability to transport drugs overseas broken as well. Jance felt the explosion could be problematic, in that it may bring attention from other organizations… Government organizations… that may make their lives a little more interesting should they decide to try to join the search for their little group of mob killers.

Jance had voiced this concern during a meeting with Morgan.

Morgan had brushed the issue aside saying. ‘They’re already on the hunt… and have been for the last few months. They’ve been looking, but not that hard. This might change the intensity of that search, but that won’t matter much. We’ll be done with this chore soon.’

This statement had left Jance confused, but not surprised. Morgan had his agenda, and dictated the missions based on his own considerations. If he let anyone else in on the planning aspects of his mob hunt, Jance wasn’t aware of it.

Stella turned away and continued on towards the entrance of the sewers. Jance was curious, Morgan had mentioned earlier about witnessing something strange pass between her and one of her victims earlier in the evening. He thought that now would be an interesting time to question her about it, and see what she actually had seen.

Stella? He asked, falling in step behind her.

What’s up kid? He hated being called kid. But everyone seemed to do it. He wasn’t really that young. He shook it off, he was really interested in what she’d seen. He was a little nervous about questioning Stella, she could be as direct and sharp as the knives she carried with her. The last thing Jance wanted was to feel the sting of her attitude, let alone the sting of her blades.

Did you see anything weird tonight? That was a stupid question, he thought. But it was already out there, too late to take it back. Now he was certain he was going to feel the sting.

Stella stopped and turned back to look at him. Her eyes flashing reflected light at him in the darkness, and the nano’s boiling like tire smoke.

Yeah. She said. I saw a dumb a*s kid possess a dumb a*s gangster and make him shoot his friends. I’d say that was a little weird.

I know… Jance stammered, I didn’t mean that. I meant…

I know what you meant kid. I’m not an idiot. Her tone was flat and graceless, even for a mental voice. Are asking for you? Or are you asking for Morgan.

He sighed. No sense in lying, she’d just see through it, He thought. Jance was the most powerful mentalist they had in the group, but somehow he couldn’t lie worth a s**t to any one of the other members.

Both. He answered. But right now I’m just asking for myself…What happened? Morgan said it was like you had a religious experience?

She stared at him hard, and then looked off to her right, seeming to dismiss Jance completely as she thought about the event.

Jance felt her mental energy shift ever so slightly, and he became very curious. He leaned in towards her a little, closing the distance between them in the darkness so that he may catch a scent of what it was she felt.

In a very small voice she responded to Jance. I felt…Something…. She shook her head, and became stern.   But I don’t know what it was. Don’t worry about it kid.

They traveled in silence for another few minutes until they reached the manhole cover that they would use to get them the rest of the way home to the complex. The street was still, the air was still, the stink of the coast was gone but there was still the heavy feel of water in the air. Jance could feel it in his lungs. He breathed deep before they slid the heavy iron cover off and descended into the GI track of the city.

When he was younger, he’d lived near a better smelling coast. He used to like to go tide pooling, and dip his feet in the frigid waters. It was looking at those trapped sea creatures that began his first moments of questioning. Later he would learn how to answer those questions, for himself and for others. But even though he knew what the creatures in the tide pools of his youth were, he could never know what the creatures felt. Thus, began his thirst for knowledge and experience.

Crawling through the intestines of this city, after committing multiple acts of homicide, was the last place in the world he would have expected to end up if he was still that little kid, dreaming about his future, and answering the question, ‘whaddya wanna be when you grow up?’.

He knew that he was going to have to face some tough questions when he got back, but he really wasn’t too worried about it. He’d made a major breakthrough tonight when he’d transferred his consciousness to the guy on the docks. He would have to collect his thoughts in order to answer those questions posed by Morgan. But he was excited. This was what he’d become a scientist for…Discovery. No matter how pissed Morgan was. The hard line leader of the Short Timers would have to see the potentials posed by this new development.

Stella and Jance traveled in silence. They both knew that Tsang was probably shadowing them, but neither one knew where he was. And the short Japanese Yakuza didn’t seem to need to make his presence known.

It was tough to feel comfortable knowing that Tsang was around. The  assassin was extremely stealthy, and damn good at killing.

He was never sent on assignment with the rest of the Short Timers, at least that any of them knew. He was around… but he wasn’t. He never talked about himself to any of the others, and never asked about anyone either. He was just there, but not there.  

Stella and Jance were just about to exit the sewers when they caught sight of him, staring at them from the bottom of the stairs leading to the street. He looked calm and somehow natural, even with the cloud of nano’s flowing around his body. A man perfectly comfortable looking like a demon from hell.

Even seeing the man would usually set Stella into a bad mood. No one really knew why she hated the little man so bad, other than he represented her steepest competition. Jance honestly expected to hear, or feel, a few of her curses spit at the oriental through the shared link of all of them. But she surprised him this time. The small man just looked at them, saying nothing and blocking their way. And Stella just looked back at him, saying nothing and waiting for permission to pass.

Finally, Tsang nodded. At both of them. First to Stella, and then to Jance. He then leapt up the first few rungs of the ladder and disappeared into outside world above them.

Jance looked at Stella, and she stared back at him. Both of them were thoroughly confused by the exchange. But Jance felt that a little of Stella’s menace towards Tsang had melted away.

This was an impressive exchange in Jance’s view, something that would have to be thought about and understood later. However, for now he just wanted to get up the ladder and out of his stinking suit. He wasn’t looking forward to the decontamination process that they all had to go through when re entering the complex. It took about twenty minutes, and was probably overkill. But, considering the short life expectancies of all of them, most of the Short Timer’s suffered through the process without much complaint. Anything designed to extend or preserve their lives was welcome.

Five years.

Sixty months.

That was as long as they were expected to live. The usual recovery process averaged around three months. Training and conditioning took another three. After that it was out in the world killing people, and robbing their cash and drugs. The cash used to support the facility, and to buy raw materials, the drugs were stripped down and altered to create the chemical mixture that allowed the Short Timer procedure to work. There were three different strengths to it, each with various effects on their physiology,  psychological, and neurological systems.

The first stage effected memory and neuropath communications. This version of the drug was used primarily on the science group. The basic effect was photographic memory and higher intelligence. The possible side effects were increased chances of various neurological disorders later in life, higher possibilities of psychological disorders, and also a few mood disorders.

Most of these side effects were studied and understood, and to a certain extent they were controlled with other drugs and psychotherapy.

The second stage was stronger dosage of the same. Kind of like a booster shot.

The third stage encompassed all of the first two, plus added a third physical component. The third stage was the Short Timer stage. The physical body went through a drastic revamping system. The metabolic rate went off the charts. Muscles became dense and strong, so strong that they could snap the bones of the individual if they weren’t reinforced. Neurons throughout the body fired faster, healing systems worked faster, and senses became sharper. Short Timers were highly aggressive and competitive. But it was theorized that despite the advantages of the procedure, between the body running in super high gear, and the massive amount of physical alterations done (bone reinforcement being the most traumatic). The science group estimated that each Short Timer would have around five years of operational stability before the bodies resources simply ran out. And the DNA replication processes started to fail. A wide variety of physical systems were expected to just spontaneously fail. Like rapid aging.

Jance had volunteered for this shortened, but fully experienced life. Ed and Jimmy were volunteers. Morgan (as far as Jance knew, Morgan was the first Short Timer) had volunteered. But there was a new trend taking place, having been dictated by the science group just after Jance had volunteered; they were starting to force some individuals to take the procedure.

As far as Jance could figure out, Stella and Tsang were the only two Short Timers to be brought in based on this forced servitude. Tsang never spoke about it. Stella, however, was far more vocal about her indignation. Though lately, over the last few weeks, her complaints were becoming fewer and fewer. She’d adapted to her knew life, wearing the skin of a killer as though she were born to it. Which made some sense to Jance, only insofar as he considered the line between thief and murderer a very thin and transient thing. Because really, it wasn’t like she’d started out working for Burger King.

Stella headed up the ladder, stealthy as always, her instincts for quiet and careful movement as natural as any predator. With the nanos floating around her form, breaking up the hard lines, Jance imagined that she was a demon heading up hells birth canal to wreak her havoc on a world made ripe for reaping, by a horrible perversion of natural selection. The weak and sick had taken over the landscape, and their mating had produced a disease of apathy and meanness. There was no mistaking the cruelty of this world, but justifying slaughter was easy to the creatures that Jance and his new friends had become. In a world that all but craved violence and pain, the Short Timers were the alphas. The best of the worst, formed into monsters by science, and living nightmares to their prey. Jance smiled to himself.

If the devil ever spent time as a child, cowering beneath covers of fire, staring into the open maw of his dark closet and torturing himself with nightmares of the creature beneath his bed of nails. Jance believed that the devils tormentor probably looked a lot like a Short Timer. Speaking in shadow tongues of telepathy and covered in the blood of thousands of murdered sinners, the Short Timer gently whispered the devil's lullaby.

Jance snorted to himself, sparing one last glance at the dark hole behind him. The strange hollow silence of the man made cave stared back. Who was he kidding anyway? Maybe Morgan was right and Jance really was completely full of s**t. If that were the case, his miles of s**t slime and urine covered walls made the perfect commute to a dead end job that gratified nothing in the operator save for the grotesque curiosity, like televised war.

Maybe he’d talk to Morgan about recording their missions and publishing them on YouTube. That might earn him a laugh. Or a kick in the nuts. Either would be appropriate.

Jance grabbed the rungs and ascended the stairs, trying to mimic Stella’s movements and silence.

He imagined laying under the devil's bed, chuckling to himself in madness and good humor at the young demons cries above him, as he reached the top of the cement tube and pulled himself into the street.

He’d descended this evening with essentially a clean conscience.

But not anymore.

Now he was just another killer. He thought about that a little, and as he entered the building that served as his home, he decided that he was OK with it.

Just another killer, in a world filled with them.