Welcome to Gaia! ::

Again, I already posted this on main forums but it hasn't had any feedback. So here it is now. Very gritty portrayal of my home area...Stoke on Trent, 300 years later! Its not changed much.

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“Jack, get your a** down here as soon as you get this message. We’re being hassled by Bourne’s men again. We could use your negotiating skills.” The answer machine bleeped pathetically, knowing its dutifully relayed communiqué would fall on deaf, hung-over ears smothered by layers of clothing.

The alarm went off in Jack Conrad's desecrated apartment. Somewhere in the living room, an indeterminate jumble of clothes writhed. "The time is: Eight Thirty One, PM" the alarm reported tonelessly, a brief interlude from its insistant ringing. Conrad issued a muffled whine through something he hoped wasn't his own underwear. The ringing sounded so distant, he shouldn't have to worry about it. He kept his eyes closed and decided not to move anymore. Eventually, the alarm would go away.

"The time is: Eight Thirty Two, PM". The ringing seemed to return with renewed enthusiasm. Conrad sighed. Then jerked his head away from the appalling linger of his own breath. The motion suddenly brought the artificial light of his apartment to bear, and he clawed at his eyes awkwardly from his prone position. Why was waking up always such a s***ty ordeal?

The swamp of discarded clothes, month-old newspapers and magazines, empty takeout boxes, and thousands of assorted music and visual software devices covered the entirety of Conrad’s apartment floor. It clogged the doors, sparing only the bathroom and front doors which were the only ones that were ever closed. It seemed that, for all the technological wonders of the 23rd century, general household maintenance still didn’t take care of itself. The swamp seethed as Conrad roused further, this time tentatively feeling around for the alarm with one blind arm. He knew it was close by. It was so damn loud.

“The time is: Eight Thirty Three, PM”. It sounded smug. He’d make it pay for that. His hand found a bottle of something, no, a veritable stash of bottles of something, and dragged one beneath the waves of debris to be slurped at. Vodka was wonderfully rejuvenating when it was the first thing to pass one’s lips upon waking. Jack growled with the pain of swallowing the potent hooch, too lazy to get up and spit it out, too tender after waking to ignore the burn. He threw the bottle aside, heard it fall over. It didn’t matter. Whatever it sank into would be washed in time. Or better still, replaced with fresh clothes newly bought with a hefty collection. Yeah.

It could happen. Jack lost himself in happy dreaming, picturing what he’d buy with his big score, as soon as it came. Bounty hunting was one of those careers where it either didn’t pay enough to make the bills, or you got paid once and were made for life. So far, Conrad was beginning to think he just wasn’t one of the Association’s top guns. But he could be. When the mood took him. He nearly shot their best man in the back two months ago, the b*****d would never have known what hit him. Luckily for the Midlands’s top bounty hunter, Conrad’s pals had managed to wrestle the gun out of his drunken hand. It had been an excellent plan though – take out the competition, and suddenly the top-grade bounties would open right up again.

“The time is: Eight Thirty Four, PM”. Incensed at being jarred from his reverie, Conrad ignored the searing harshness of the light in his eyes and bared his teeth, consumed with the burning imperative to obliterate the alarm clock. He pushed up, but grossly underestimated the effects of his last night in, the sixth consecutive one of the week, and instead collapsed under the crushing weight of fatigue and nausea. And junk. He settled for slithering six inches closer to the damned thing, ready to make another push for the kill at its next chime. He would summon his energy until then. Seconds passed. Minutes, maybe. Had he finally won? The ringing had stopped. Perhaps he had finally outlasted it and could go back to sleep.

“The time is: Eight Thirty Five, P…”. The alarm clock went silent for a moment as an empty can of beer knocked it off the coffee table. It hit the floor with a broken chime. Then the bell started ringing again.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sylvester, Conrad and Wisp was one of countless desperate grasps for the fabled ‘big time’ in 2230’s Stoke-on-Trent. The city hadn’t changed much, or at least, it had changed in a circular fashion. Big business had come and gone. Much of it was now devoted to the relentless grind of industry, manufacturing gravplat parts and heavy mining machinery for shipment to the colonies in the rest of the solar system. Once upon a time, mining had been what this city was founded on, but now there was more money to be made salvaging the old machines and warehouses than in doing anything important. Trade Unions were massive here, as the countless millions trapped in dead-end jobs depended on each other to keep hold of a fair wage and treatment by the ever hard-nosed moneymen. Politicians took the fast route to power, picking a part of the city they didn’t like and blaming it for all the wrong doings, whipping up frenzies of support (and cash) to base their next extreme right or extreme left movement upon.
Then there was crime. An awful lot of crime. Crime had become something of a hobby in Stoke. Because the only things poor wages could afford you after all was said and done, were a few pints at the local (never enough, but usually too much) or a couple of hours on the slot machines. Safe entertainment – making full advantage of the technological wonders of the 23rd century – had inflated in price so much that the average household digilink cost about as much as a twentieth century car. So, booze it was, old reliable booze. And drugs. And gambling. And the occasional prostitute just to bring things back to reality. Crime controlled all of it, since all of it was illegal. And because it was illegal, it could charge whatever the hell it wanted. But the crimelords of the 23rd century in general, not just in Stoke, realised that not every hard-done working man can pay for the services they provided through cold hard cash. So, being the generous souls they were, they simply let the debtors pay their dues in whatever ways they could. There were always little jobs that needed doing. Packages that needed delivering. Little, little things that ordinary people ran the risks for, while the bigwigs made money and stayed safe.
There were no police in Stoke. Or there were, but their presence was not widely felt. A low police presence. The beat cops, who’s job it was to protect the everyday person on the street from the predations of small-time criminals, muggers, rapists and racists, generally favoured their own lives over those of their charges. The detectives and higher ranking officers were all largely owing favours to various criminal elements, which meant that very, very little executive-level police work got done. The cops who cared the most, generally, were the sergeants. Not high enough up the chain to be influenced by the crime bosses, and close enough to the ground to hear the pulse of the nation, they quickly realised that if there were people desperate enough to commit crime to get money, then there would be people willing to commit crime against criminals, to get money. They didn’t need the council’s permission. By 2200, crime had gotten so frustratingly hard to deal with, and police so hard to come by, that the government legalised freelance crime busters, represented by guilds or associations. More Trade Unions. The thing with Unions was, because they’re a body of people with a coherent leadership and policies, they can be gotten to. Before long, Bounty Hunters were being paid more to turn a blind eye to criminals than they were for catching them, thanks to the police’s laughable budgets available for bounties.
So now, the police generally looked for underdogs of all stripes. Vigilantes, unregistered freelancers. They used guises and fake businesses, but they all had the right aspirations in mind. They asked for little pay, and they were untouchable because they were already breaking the law just by existing.

Exactly what people like Sergeant Mike Townsend were looking for to do the work their men couldn’t handle. He smiled as he forwarded his squad’s ‘hit list’ to the groups on his email register. But he always sent a little extra to Sylvester, Conrad and Wisp…

* * * * * * * * * * *

The town council of Stoke on Trent, commonly referred to as a joke by the local community, continued to make haphazard and utterly meaningless minor changes, whittling its ever-diminishing budget away on road improvements, road improvements, and some extra road improvements. Despite the fact that roads were actually on their way out, thanks to the electromagnetic gravplats that next-generation vehicles used. Heavy taxes greeted those who couldn’t afford to buy a new-fangled efficient flying car.

As he trundled along in his relic of a Vauxhall, ignoring his intermittently ringing mobile phone (also a relic of the past replaced by smaller, more expensive technology) Conrad reflected that it was probably those very taxes that kept him this low on the ground anyway. He needed this crappy old car (graffiti covered as it was) to get around in, to make money, but before he could save any of that money it was already being spent on taxes and envirocharges. It was too little too late anyway, the environment was already f***ed, they were just trying to pretend they were doing something about it.

The car came dangerously close to insubordination as he forced it through Hanley, a central and popular nightlife spot in Stoke. Following the tight turns of the city streets, he practically crashed it in the car park outside the office block where Sylvester, Conrad and Wisp made its headquarters. His phone rang again as he brusquely walked to the lobby of the office block.

“Conrad.” He answered.
“Hey babes, where are you right now?” Katie Wisp, part receptionist, part vigilante, always gave an appropriately warm reception depending on the occasion. This time it sounded like the occasion was…well, urgent enough for her to need to be nice to him for a change.
“Just pulled up, coming through the front doors now. Trouble?”
“Yeah, there’s a couple of guys from Bourney here to see us, say its important.”
“It f***ing is!” A man yelled in the background.
“I already explained that you’re the one responsible for making executive decisions for the company…”
“Oh right thanks, so that means I can give myself a payrise, right?”
“Quit P***ing around Jack. Just get up here.”
“Where’s George?”
“He…I think he’s still on a case.”
Conrad sighed. Never being where he’s needed was typically George. “Have a whiskey ready for me.” Always plan in advance, he grinned to himself.
“What?”
Jack hung up and pocketed his mobile, exchanging it for a packet of cigarettes and his dubiously well used zippo lighter. Inhaling as the elevator doors closed behind him, he looked at himself in the mirrored walls.
What a wreck. He looked like someone who didn’t know how to use a razor, but had tried anyway. Not because of the knife scars over his left eyebrow and the right side of his mouth, but because his facial hair was growing in haphazard clumps on his face. He tried smoothing them over to resemble a vague moustache and ominous pseudo beard, but decided it would look like s*** whatever he did. His bloodshot eyes were hung with tired sacks so heavy it was a wonder he was still standing. His face looked pretty much as nice as the world he lived in felt like. Smoke, booze, and god knows what else he took on in the dingy shadows of the nightlife all showed on his grizzled face. It made his professional attire look ridiculous. The only items of clothing he had that ever got hung up, his suit, shirt and long coat were all in relatively good condition. But his bedraggled, medium hair hadn’t been washed in days and he generally smelled like cigarettes and whiskey backed with overpowering deodorant.
The heavy automatic slung in a shoulder holster under his left armpit was more like a memento of what he aspired to, rather than a symbol of office for what he was. He was no crime-killer. He was just another one of the shitty people, making a living off the rest.

The elevator chimed and Conrad stepped out into the corridor. He could hear shouting coming from the office at the end of the hall, on the right. His office. Advancing, he considered reaching for his pistol, but decided it would be better not to cause a scene.
He approached the door and waited, tried to gauge what was happening. It sounded like they were breaking things. He heard their old, old telephone – an antique, you might say – collide with something. Katie screamed as they pushed her around. Conrad sighed, and opened the door.
One of the men had Katie by the throat against the wall, while the other was scattering paperwork around the office like an irate lawyer. Everyone turned and stared at him when he opened the door. Conrad waited, pointedly glancing around the wreckage in his office, and his gaze settled on Katie. He took the cigarette from his mouth and exhaled a thick cloud of cheap smoke into the room.
“I thought I told you to get me a whiskey?”
“I know, but…” Poor Katie. She had no idea.
Conrad raised his eyebrows as if expecting an explanation. “Get on with it.”
“Jack!” She protested.
Conrad’s gaze shifted calmly to the guy holding her against the wall. A thickly set man, middle-aged, clearly an enforcer who’d been in the business a while. A tough guy, but not a ringleader. Just a goon. A runabout. “Well? Let her go, f***wit. You want to talk to me, I’m here, now stop molesting my receptionist and get to the point, you little s***s.”
Conrad pulled a couple of chairs upright and set them facing him. He himself remained standing – getting to his compulsory leather swivel chair would require walking past one of these goons. “Take a seat.”
The goons stayed standing and moved closer to Conrad, getting in his face. One tried to move behind him, but Conrad leaned on the open door, preventing him from getting around.
“We want you to work for us.” One of them leered.
“Well, normally a phone call is all that’s required…”
“This isn’t a f***ing joke, ‘Conrad’. You’ve got some of our boys on file. If you collect on them, we’ll collect you. Do yourself a favour and go after Harrogate instead.” The other bore down on Conrad, trying to make him take a step back. Conrad obliged, hearing footsteps in the corridor, and turned to see Katie Wisp bringing him a shot of whiskey. Or something. It didn’t matter.
“Thank you miss Wisp, that will be all.”
“Er…are you sure you don’t need any help with, you know, anything?” Poor Katie. Always looking out for him, never for herself.
“No, no, I’m fine. Run along now. We’re going to talk some business.”
“Well, if you’re sure…”
“I am. Goodbye. Right boys…” Conrad turned back to his unwanted guests with his best smile, and took the whiskey, which was actually a scotch but what the hell, in a single gulp.
“Be a shame to see you go under, after the contributions you’ve made to society. Be a shame to see another struggling ‘Private Investigation’ company like yours disappear. Its happened to quite a few in the last few weeks. They seem to think going after Bourne’s men yields a better bounty. Its dangerous work, isn’t it Johnny?”
“Yep, very dangerous. The nefarious characters of the underworld have all sorts of ways of getting to people. Friends, family. Receptionists. You sure that whiskey isn’t poisoned?”
Conrad grinned.

‘Johnny’, who was the larger of the two goons, exclaimed as Conrad vented the mouthful of whiskey he’d been holding into his face. The strong liquor burned
at the man’s eyes, blinding him. While the bigger man flailed, Conrad kicked his partner square in the crotch, doubling him over. Then he dragged deep from the cigarette and flicked its enraged embers in the big man’s face. The scotch ignited, and the big man fell about the room in panic, while his friend tried to catch hold of him and douse the flames. When the big man flailed near Conrad, he simply seized his suit jacket and hauled him out of the office. His friend lunged a punch at Conrad’s head. Conrad neatly ducked and hammered two swift blows into the man’s ribs, before hurling him into the wall facing his office door.
Now Conrad pulled the pistol out of its holster.
“Business is business gents. I make money by taking jobs no one else wants to do. If I let you convince me not to take those jobs, I’d be losing a lot of money. So pick yourselves up, and f***off. Commit some more extortion while you’re at it, make my life easier. Just get out of here.”
One of the men tried to grab at his legs, so Conrad kicked him in the teeth. They visibly considered taking him on, but surveying each other’s faces, they decided to leave things as they stood. They kept their eyes on Conrad as he watched them walk away. When they were in the elevator, the big man pointed at him and mimed slitting his throat.
“Learn how to take a drink, you w***er. Conrad spat. The elevator closed and they were out of his hair.

The wreckage in the office depressed him. Papers and files were strewn everywhere. Not that filing was paramount in their quaint little operation, but it was something of a necessity. Pens, notebooks, their nice old phone which was now smithereened, filing cabinets tipped over. Even the office cactus had been upended.
“Jack, are you alright? I thought they’d never leave.”
“Why the hell couldn’t you have dealt with that? Why is it always me who has to do the work around here? Where’s George b*****d Sylvester?”
“I…I don’t know….Jack I’m sorry…”
“Get this s**t cleaned up. And get me another whiskey. I’m going out for a drink.”
“But…I…” Kate gave up. She sighed and decided that the place would look better, faster, if she got everything standing up straight again.
Jack heard he struggling with one of the cabinets as his feet tapped down the hallway, but he really was in no mood to care. The place would probably be a burning wreck by the time he got back anyway.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Is this any good or not? Having no comments was about as useful as a chocolate saucepan.

Something like that. The uni tutor said we had to do a Noir piece, so thats what I kicked out.

I have to say, I'd had it in mind to include a scene where somebody spits whiskey in someone's face right from the start...but when the piece started to take shape I decided that would make a great crescendo for the short as it stood.

May work more on it, probably not though. Next uni wants me to write a romance...That'll be, uh, fun. sweatdrop

Thanks for the feedback again man pirate

Yeah I'd noticed it was a mite quiet...you seem to get very few speakers, but the ones who do post a heckuva lot.

Shame others haven't posted their work, whats the point in joining otherwise?

We should advertise, or something! Or devise some kind of uniform for avatars....or something.....hahaha. Everyone wear a particular kind of hat. Or shades. lmao.


Sorry, jibbering.

YES! Sold, you work for me now!!! pirate

Not looking forward to that particular assignment, it'll be tough for me, mr blood and guts. I suppose the jist of the problem being, I haven't got a clue about romance in the real world, so I wouldn't know where to begin writing about it in a fake one!

As for shooting people and spitting whiskey in people's faces, yeah, I do that all the time so its no biggie....

I am of course joking. Just in case anyone took my word for it.

I've *attempted* to include romantic interests in some of my pieces, but it always plays second or third fiddle to the rest of the story. For example, the 'love interest' of one of my characters is already dead and buried, and the details of their relationship, conveniently for me as an inexperienced romance writer, are too traumatic for him to remember clearly, so I don't have to go into much detail about it. I've never really tackled a romantic relationship between any of my characters head-on.

Well, actually, let me fetch another piece that I haven't posted on gaia at all yet, its the CLOSEST approximation I have to anything romantic. I may regret it. Let me just say, mute guy/glow-in-the-dark-faerie girl, and incompetent drifter/hard as nails amazon.

Hopefully it will make slightly (only slightly) more sense when I post it.

Be afraid, be very afraid.....