Glass Cities

“The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed- It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.” William Shakespeare


In hood he walked down the sidewalk at a steady pace studying the buildings around him. Construction workers in neon orange vests tore up the street and laid down new concrete. People lined the streets with shopping bags dangling from their wrists and food falling from their mouths. His hands in his sweatshirts front pockets, his head down, no one looked at him. There were too many people in Portland for people to give a shit about him. There was an exception to that however and that was when a mother pushing a stroller gave him a look of disgust and moved to the side. He would show them though that he was worth more than the group he was threw into

He pulled out a cellphone and dialed the number written in ink across the center of his palm.

“Code number 087698134,” he spoke into the microphone.

“Initializing, please state command”

“Initiate Red 070.” He hit end and tossed it in a trashcan on his left.

His gaze shifted to across the street where a woman smashed through the window of an Old Navy rolling at least three feet onto the side of the street with speckles of glass lining her back. She laid there for a second and then started to go into convulsions her head bouncing in the scattered glass leaving blood behind each time. It started to spill from her mouth as she began to cough and then she just stopped.

“What the hell are you people waiting for? Someone call a damn ambulance,” a women shouted running to the dead woman. No one moved. The woman’s head begin to rise as she sat up. She turned her head forty-five degrees to the woman coming to help her and seized her leg and began to gnaw on it taking a chunk of flesh out.

“Holy sh---,” was all the woman managed before a bullet pierced her left eye leaving the socket empty and bits of skull in a puddle behind her. The lady on the ground started to pick herself up, but was right back on the ground with hole in her forehead. People started screaming running down the streets. Cars collided and the drivers immediately jumped out inhaling the smoke and followed the rest. Gun shots from down the street echoed off the windows of skyscrapers on each corner. He looked up to where the first bullets came that brought down the two women. A man looked over the edge saluting him with his aviators and gently placed them back on his face. He disappeared with the building’s height and once again Koen felt alone.

He zipped his jacket up further and ran to the office building the man was shooting from. Another gunshot sounded outside. When he looked back he could see a man’s body lying in the doorway facing him. He continued across the carpeted floor coming to the elevator. Jingles came through a little speaker and the door slid open. Three men were crouched over another body ripping out its stomach and without looking, smearing their bloody hands across the walls. One of them looked up. His face so unrecognizable not even a picture held up to it would show similarities. He maneuvered around the other two running at Koen with his hands outstretched. The man barely got a foot before a woman walked out of the stairwell with a gun out in front of her. She clicked the trigger once, slicing his jugular, again putting one through his mouth.

“Who the hell are you,” he asked panting.

“What? No thank you for saving me or hi how’s your day been,” the woman remarked flipping her hair into a ponytail.

“Sorry if that may have seemed impolite, but when a chick comes out of nowhere guns blazing and a guy covered in blood just tried to eat me, I think there possibly, might be, a problem, don’t you think?”

“Well you got a point there, but that’s still no reason to not ask me how my day’s been and by the way I’m doing just peachy.” She laughed light heartedly.

The dimples on the side of her mouth faded and her whole body seemed to prop up more, “Hold on a second. I have unfinished business.” A gun cocked and he heard the jingle again. Crack…Crack…Crack…three shots and three moan like screams that reeked of the innocence of the damned.

A uniformed body fell face first out of the elevator revealing a belt of tools around its waist. Koen eyed the pistol in its black leather holster and reached for it snatching it in his hand. Holding it close to his waist he walked back to the woman.

"Well, if you're not to busy you can join me," she said.

"Just where exactly are you going, just exactly who the hell are you, just exactly what the fuck is going on, sorry if I sound upset?"

"As interesting as those questions are and as much as I'd like to answer them I'm on a schedule and I have to stick it. I've already spent too much time saving your ass. Now you can either stay with me and keep up or you can stay here and get your ass chewed out, literally."

She ran back through the stairwell door with him close behind. When they reached the thirteenth floor, instead of clearing another set of stairs she stopped at the exit door and knocked seven times. They waited and the door opened to the man in the aviators aiming at shotgun level with their heads. He didn't need to adjust considering the two were about the same height. She pulled the door shut behind them and the man backed up three steps. He slid a metal briefcase across the floor to the woman. Her fingers slid across the touch sensitive keys and the air-locked briefcased unsealed and opened to two sets of hand shaped plates with one side covered in needles.

"What are they," he asked.

"B.A.P.U.'s ...Blood Analysis and Purifacation Units...very, very expensive units proven to be 87.7% accurate in making sure we don't have--it--I mean what's happening outside and what you saw downstairs. Any number over two on the counter and he'll,"she pointed to the man,"blow you away."

She picked one up and placed the hand shaped plate over her hand. The centimeter sized needles inserted all over her hand and remained for only seconds. The plate came off and the number counter on the back remained at zero. He followed her lead. Cold beads of sweat ran down his neck and he gulped. Microscopic puddles of perspiration formed on his palms as he placed the plate over his hand and activated it. The counter's numbers climbed and ascended until stabalizing on a neon green one-point-three. The man lowered the shotgun and picked up the case walking back into a door to the right...

"Looks like we check out, huh sunshsine."

He nodded in agreement as they walked the ten foot stretch of gray carpet with multi-colored stitching to the expanse of window-scape. A dim, foggy light pierced the layers of glass as they looked down to the chaos on the streets below. He could see the exact spot he had been standing only twenty minutes before; clueless to what was happening in his surroundings. He shifted his gaze about six feet to the middle of the street where the two bodies of the women still remained lifeless.

“Why me,” he asked.

“What do you mean, you?”

“The sniper, he was on the roof at the exact moment I was walking into that little scene. He looked right at me and that straight face of his turned to a grin real quick when he shot the two women right in the face.”

“It’s quite simple rea—,”

“Oh is it.”

“Yes actually. You were just in the right place at the right time and stop shaking, you’re gonna need it for later considering what you see down there is just the beginning and what you saw in the elevator was…well, let’s just say it was kid shit compared to what you’re going to see. That is if you man your ass up and live long enough to see it.”

A sound in the stairwell alerted her attention to the fire exit.

“This might be your chance to show that you’re not going to get us or yourself killed, now go check the stairwell and make sure the safety is off.”

He smiled and pulled the pistol from his jacket pocket, “I don’t know about this, but if this is what it takes to be a man in his and your eyes then all I have to say is, I like proving people wrong."