The Scorpion and the Desperate Line

Vapor danced and sizzled above the streets. Poor ventilation trapped the stench of filth laden, brackish water, in the small, tight places. A vagrant emerged from an alley, a wad of bills, clenched in his fist, then emerged another, and another. A stake-bed truck waited in the street.
     I couldn’t see the driver. I jumped down from the fire escape and crept closer. The darkness relaxed as I closed, revealing a line of street people. Seated on a wobbly chair, pulled to a plain table was a man in a long white coat; behind him, a seven foot hulking brute with antlers protruding from his head stood on guard. The behemoth had a cruel and detatched expression.

     The man in white spoke melodically to each vagrant as they approached. “Signing this, I’ll give you twelve dollars, a full week’s pay anywhere, then go to the truck and ride where it takes you.” He delighted as they accepted the money and made their mark in his journal, even clapping his hands together, gleefully, under the table. Nothing was illegal…just bad. It all seemed really bad.  I was once a criminal in the Great War. I know the score. I know what evil looks like; then, or in 1933.
     I didn’t have my long coat, so I didn’t have my Tokarevs. I drew my curved jambiya dagger and dashed forward; moving low. I rose suddenly, attempting to startle everyone and create a panic–clear the alley; Save the innocents; foil the villain’s plan. Instead, as I rose, a vice-like hand closed around my throat, hefting me off the ground. All of the cruelty of the man-monster’s formerly disinterested face, now seemed fully locked on mine.
     I was caught and lacked the strength to break his grip. I didn’t try. I let the dagger go to work. While holding me, he was immobile; an easy target. Nope, wrong again. He was fast, and combat clever. No sooner than I raised the dagger, he sent me careening into a cobbled stone wall. People began to scream and run from the violence. The melodic man and the giant fled from the alley, towards the emptying truck; not in fear. It was simply time to go.

     A wooden crate caught me flush as I attempted to follow, launched by the titanic brute. It exploded into splinters. I was down again; my targets were at the truck. I had one chance. I threw my jambiya hard at the vehicle, burying the powerful blade into the exposed fuel tank, spilling its contents.

     “Get him Subject 14,” insisted a melodic voice.

     I withdrew a Zippo lighter, flicked it open and ignited it with one hand, reached back to throw, and then he was on me. The massively muscled frame of the horned god was as fast as it was freakish. The struggle that followed seems a violent blur. I escaped, barely; slashed up and battered, but alive. The victims escaped; all that mattered. The villains escaped–nuts. I never saw the driver. I did manage to capture the journal in the chaos. Hiding behind a dumpster, I looked at the book. The names were incomprehensible scribbles, but that was it, just names. No offer, terms, or contract. It was otherwise blank, without answers, absent of purpose.

     I didn’t sit for long, I knew they were looking for me. I knew this city better than anyone. I moved steady and pragmatically, choosing paths no one knew about. When I finally got back to my townhouse, I began to plan a strategy. There will be a rematch and I will be ready.

Desperate people think with their stomachs and evil people know this. Unfortunately, to be so poor and to be so hungry is to be equally vulnerable.