The car quickly slowed to a stop, and a man from the other car came over. “Get your head down back there, son, “ my father quietly shouted at me from the front seat. I thought it was a cop at first as dad had been in trouble with cops before, but it didn’t look anything like a cop car, or an officer. After he had gotten to my dad’s door he had him roll his window down to talk.
“Come on George, no greetings for an old pal?” The man said with a chuckle.
“You know I’m out now, so why are you here, I have nothing to do for you anymore!” My father stated adamantly.
“Well, Boss doesn’t agree, he says one more job for him, just one, and then he’ll never bother you again with anything. He promises.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said last time, look where you are now.”
“Well, this is different, this one is your fault, you didn’t clean up shop before coming and telling us, so you have to fix what you screwed up.”
“Please, my son is with me, I don’t want him to get pulled into all of this. Please, just let me go and come get me before I go to work, you know where I work, I know you keep tabs on me.”
“He wants it done by tomorrow, so it’s now or never.”
“Ok, fine” He looked in his rear-view mirror in my direction. “Son come up here, and close your ears, I want to tell my friend here a secret.” I came up from behind the seat and lightly covered my ears, allowing enough space for mew to hear what he was saying.
“Last time you ‘helped out’ you left some loose ends, well, one in particular, and Boss says you clean it up and we’ll let you continue your life with your wife and kids, if you fail though…”
“I know, you’ll have to clean your loose ends up. So what loose end needs to be tidied up?”
“Mr. Guido, the Italian chef, he got out before the deed went down, and apparently he saw you and recognized you, now if you clean that up then you’ll no longer have to deal with…”
“No! I’m out of that, no more killing, all it does is makes a bigger mess. I’m not going to do it, and you can’t possibly motivate me to get back into it.”
“Ok, well, looks like you give me no choice.” He pulled a revolver out of it’s holster, put it near my dad’s face, and pulled the trigger, the sound tearing through my ears, the man looked at me, and rotated his gun towards me. Some people would say that I was lucky, and I guess in some way, some demented, and forced way, I was lucky, because this man had enough of a heart to let the little boy in back live. But to me, I was very unlucky. I wish the man had taken away all the pain, the agony, the torture of the years.
Then the justice system came into it. I’m not sure what the justice system is even for anymore. It doesn’t protect us, it doesn’t bring justice, all it does is gives people something to exemplify good when they can’t find a god.
I look at myself now and see just how sad my life was, between depression and constant anxiety my life sucked back then, and nothing really could change that. I always acted happy when people wanted me to be happy, and when I was supposed to be sad, I was. I’ve also learned that people can’t get close to me, they can for a while, but then my past comes in, and my anger releases. I’ve learned that getting close to someone is just another way to say your gonna get hurt.
Today changed a lot, both in what I believe and what I can do. It gave me meaning; I know what to do, how to do it, and why I’m doing it.
The doorbell rang as I woke this morning. Who rings someone doorbell at 5 in the morning. “I’m coming, just hold on a second”, I yelled to the door as I threw on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. I opened the door and there was a man standing there in a suit and tie. “What do you want sir? You do realize that it’s 5 in the morning, what if I had company?”
“Yes I do know what time it is, and you have no visitors tonight. I am from a secure government sector entitled ‘HRC’, or High Risk Crimes. I know your history and know much about your father, he worked with me for a while, and helped to pull down half of a large crime ring before he was killed. As you are now 18 you can now legally be part of this government program. This program was developed in order to do things your father tried to do but could not. It is a high-risk environment, and there is no guarantee that you will survive at all, but with all your personal training you have done throughout your life you are the most suited man for the job.
If you accept this you will be paid for each mission you complete, and you will also get a large structure to house all the equipment you will need free of charge. You will have all of this as your own, and if you wish to terminate the contract at anytime it will remain under your name, I highly doubt you will terminate it though with the incentive you will have.
Do you wish to accept?”
“What will I have as my equipment? I can’t really do much by myself either.”
“You will get whatever you deem necessary to complete the mission at hand. And you will not be alone. We have developed six specially developed droids for these missions; as well as a seventh for your own personal training and programming. As well as this if need be more special built droids will be manufactured and programmed for your needs in the missions. Will that work out well enough for you?”
“Certainly, I accept; on one condition.”
“Ok, what is your condition?”
“At any time I can break off from a given mission if information is provided on my father’s killer.”
“Of course, welcome to the HRC. We have your housing set up in the lower half of Queens; it’s a large abandoned warehouse. The droids will be there along with a car of your choosing outfitted to hold the droids at all times.”
“Ok, cool, sounds like a plan. What about everything here?”
“Anything here you would like transferred will be transferred on your time line.”
“Um, Ok,” Looking at his watch quickly “I’ll be ready around noon.”
“Ok, they will be here then.” The man turned around and walked out of the room. I just stood there; I wasn’t sure what I could even say to him as he left. This meant I could finally get what I wanted to have, revenge, and a sweet revenge it would be.
They finally got there at about quarter to 1. I was quite upset as I was expecting to be out of there by 1 and at this rate that wouldn’t happen.
“Sorry Mr. Robinson, but we were held up by very bad traffic. We will have your stuff out as soon as we can. Everything else you requested is at the location. We can escort you there, or you can just go there now, whichever you would prefer.”
He looked at me like I had something to tell him, I really didn’t, I had no clue what I was supposed to tell him, “Um. I’ll just go ahead now. Can I have the address?” He pulled out a paper and pen and wrote something down, I presumed it was the address, except that he then put it back in his pocket, and pulled out a packing slip.
“Here’s the address, it isn’t that far from here actually.”
“Thank you, I’ll see you when you get there then.” I walked out of the room, not even waiting for acknowledgement or affirmation of my statement; I really didn’t care what he had to say. I was out of that God-forsaken apartment.
As I drove to the new place I thought about what I was given, the opportunity to do pretty much anything I pleased and get away with it. Something anybody would want to have, I just feel that what I have is going to be more of a curse than a blessing. I drove up to the building, and on the outside it looked like nothing more than an industrial production facility. I hopped out of my little old BMW I got from my parents, and walked over to the door to the facility, a concrete door, looked more like a prison sentence than a way out, but I guess you can never get everything right.
I opened the door. The room lay dead, like nothing had ever been there, like it’s entire life it had laid vacant waiting for this very moment. I hoped that my presence would somehow rejuvenate it, but no, nothing, no sounds, just the dead silence and the lonely echo’s of my footsteps filled the room. I walked over to the area they had designated as my “house”. It was a fairly large 34’ x 34’ area in which I was allowed to put any of my personal effects when they got here.
I walked around the building a little more, I guess hoping to find something more than four concrete walls surrounding me, but there wasn’t anything but those 4 concrete walls. By about 4 PM the moving crew got there with all my stuff. I had almost everything brought over for my place, once I had moved everything it wasn’t nearly as empty, well, the part I got to myself was fairly homey, the emptiness still bothered me. About 3 hours later the HRC crew got there with all my stuff including the 7 tactical reconnaissance droids, as was labeled on the boxes they were hauled into the building in. Also was brought the car I had requested, a Ferrari Enzo, fitted to my needs precisely.
First thing I wanted to do was check out the droids, the one thing I actually knew nothing about by the time the HRC team cleared out. I went to the first box, it was unnamed, I guessed that one was the unprogrammed one, so I moved onto the next one. On the box was a manual for the “Light command tactical reconnaissance droid”, this was presumably the lead droid. I carefully pried the wood crate open, and slid the droid out on the dolly I had available. I looked at the droid looking for any way to turn it on; I finally gave up and consulted the manual. Turns out they are always on and just work on voice commands.
“Turn on”, I said in its direction. Once I said that it opened up and it’s ‘eye’, a red dot in the center of its head, turned on.
“What would you like squad leader?” The droid spoke as I walked to another crate.
“I would prefer you just refer to me as Luke, not squad leader, I hate formalities.”
The droid 'looked' at him with his single 'eye' located in the middle of the visor on his head. "Anything you wish, Luke".
"so your the lead droid in this squad then?"
"Yes, I am the squad leader for this squad, would u like some help in assembling the troops?"
"That would be great, I'm too tired to be moving all the boxes and opening them. By the way, I didn't get your name."
"My designation is razor. I will be the home leader, I will not be going on your missions, I will be your home base operator." As Razor was speaking he walked over to the crates that remained shut. He pulled the front of the crate labeled 'Rocket', in the crate was a huge droid, about twice as large as Razor was. He lifted his body and was almost 8 feet tall, and looked like he could have been the front end of a truck.
"Hello, Luke you say your name is?" The droid asked loudly.
"Yeah, I'm guessing you heard... So what do I call you?"
"My name is Rocket, I'm your weapons expert, I will be following you in your missions carrying all your weapons, and using heavy weapons, such as my heavy repeater," pointing to a large almost 300 pound weapon hanging on the wall, "and I'm also here as your strategic cooridinator.".
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