"Omega Chapter One" by Kate ´The Pirate´ Riley

Chapter One ;

The Infamous Pimp

186 Rosalind Avenue.

Chaz watched as the ink on the card ran and the letters began to fade and swirl into each other. Sighing, his heart sank into the the murky water along with it. The wind whistled in the dark corners of the street and swept his own icy breath against his face making him shudder. He could feel the rain as it crept down the back of his shirt, bringing with it the chill and hail of typical barabas weather, teasing the sore spot on his arm where he had been annoculated against several potentially dangerous diseases. Kind of a three for one deal ; two of them Chaz had never heard of. Exclusive to Barabas of course and all extremly contagious and even potentially fatal. Naturally. Over the last four days, Chaz had savoured everything Barabas and indulged in more than his fair share of it’s local traditions.

The first day had been the best. Simply because he could remember that whole day without things getting misty or blackouts clouding the voids in his drunken memory. He could remember stepping off the train and gazing up at this huge mechanical jungle before him. The mystery it beheld, the excitement the danger and the strange odour of this alien world drew him nearer and nearer to his downfall and further and further from home. The moment he had glanced back, but for a moment, through the endless crowds at the terminal, where the sun beckoned, promise and freedom, his naive impatience had wistfully carried him off into the darkness of Barabas. Impatience for life, impatient to be grown and a promise to redeem himself to his family back at home. He had left home so that he could return, to tell his friends that nobody could ever hold Charlie Finch down. Not even the Resistance, who would believe him to be unfaithful to their cause.

Home. Did the words even have meaning now, he wondered. Or did it all seem like some strange dream, like the the time he had vowed he would eat eighteen bowls of mustard in an hour and was sick after six. After that he could never lay eyes on it again. Would it really be like that if he did not get some money togeather soon ? Would he still be here years later, still drunk and penniless, not daring to reminise about home for fear it made him sick ? Sick to think about he gave up a perfect life for the sake of a few lies ? He could have stayed. Typically, Chaz had chosen pride over common sense though, and followed a bitter summons to the city of dreams, to prove he his loyalty to the resistance. A neon slum, withered and lawless with nothing but rain and poverty gracing its borders. He admired the advanced technology, was dazzled by the bright lights and shimmering glamour and dissappointed at the days that followed. Maybe there was a lesson to be learned. He decided the lesson was better off staying out of his way for it’s own sake. Like a lot of other things, Chaz’s own downfalls where better of out of sight and out of mind. If only was the only thing that still hung in his tired mind now. If only he could smell that fresh mountain breeze once more, the same sweet breeze that always filled his room with the scent of pine and salty sea air. If only he had been able to accept the ordinary maybe then he would have been safe in the company of his family and friends and kept his whiter-than-white reputation and all for the sake of choosing Dare over Truth. Stupid game. Stupid Friends. Stupid Chaz…

During his stay at the famous ‘city of dreams’, Chaz had been mugged twice, lost the key to his hotel room and drunk for the most part, after tiresomely wandering the streets like an estranged Eskimo. Now, his head pounded with four days worth of hangovers and the thought of a certain ‘Tina’…

His whiskers tingled at the thought of her and he licked his lips with lingering anticipation. Pouting red lips, huge green eyes and hair that fell about her waist as well as many other big and interesting…assets. They had met in a bar the night before. His charm and wit, a little sensitivity here, cheesy compliment there and a touch of false sensitivity had immediately captivated her. Fortunately for Chaz the women in Barabas would believe anything he told them; Apparently, Chaz had aged three years to be twenty and he was now a self employed law enforcer, fighting for truth and justice, inspired by a friend he who went by the name Mr Bartholomew Mann, but preferred to be known as Bat Man.  A few drinks later and she was so close to him that he could smell her coconut scented shampoo and see the tiny flecks of yellow in her eyes. She had even given him an affectionate little pet name.

“ So you’re the infamous pimp I’ve heard so much about,” She had purred down his ear as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “ You wanna show me what makes you infamous?”

Yes, Tina was great but like most things in Chaz’s life, this sweet girl had a less than innocent twist. Tina was a thief. The thing was, that the only thing that Chaz remembered his nightlong affair with God’s Gift to men was talk of a hotel room, then waking up in the worst headache ever and one hundred coins down in currency. That made three hundred coins in four days- Tina, Terri and Alexia.

Hauling himself up onto a nearby wall, Chaz tried one last time to get some idea of where he was. Hope began to wear thin as his gaze fell up on the endless spiralling streets and roads ascending and descending, above and below him. A whole labyrinth of neon streets and high-tech buildings menacingly loomed over him. This was a whole other world, a cross between science fiction and surreal reality. He wondered how much further the city ascended and watched a passing train disappear above the smog along a twisting highway. He wondered what was beyond the smog and if there was even an end to it. He felt so far form home. How he longed to see the sun, missed the security the difference between night and day brought, missed his family, satellite TV and even his mother’s half burned fish sticks and the monthly bouts of salmonella that followed.

He reached up onto his toes, to get a closer look at the smog. He reached up and shuddered as it passed in between his fingers and there he stayed for a moment, fascinated. Then the sky began to sway and his eyes began to roll upwards.

“ Whoa!”

Grasping at thin air, he teetered clumsily as the wall disintegrated beneath his feet. He felt the sharp corner snatch the side of his head as he fell to the ground, sore and cursing.

“ Ow!”

Adding insult to injury, a small chunk of rock bounced off Chaz’s already aching head. Almost without hesitation, he leapt up like a felidae obsessed and launched himself at the offending object, fists flying. It was only after he had beaten his fists to a bloody pulp that he realised what he was doing. He was fighting a billboard. Billboard number 190 to be exact. Endorsed by Rosalaland avenue fashions.

Chapter two

The Underground

She heard the clatter of glass and crockery. The breeze snatched itself back and the door closed abruptly. The lock was slid into place and then he was gone. Disgusted, Sophie Halliway turned to stand at her usual place, in front of the large barred window at the end of her small box-like room. Her eyes scanned the toxic landscape, remembering every detail. She would remember this place, just as she had remembered those who dared to abduct her before. They where all dead men, they could count on that. Once her friends found out. Once the Cult knew. She had a plan. She would keep her oath of silence and stand here until she knew this place inside out. Smaller details like her escape could wait. None of these men could stand against her anyway. It was just a matter of knowing who they were. Until then Sophie would be patient and play along until she knew the exact location. A quick exit would be no good. She would not have time to gather information. She refused to eat or sleep until they grew tired of waiting and they would certainly not kill her let alone touch her, even while she was in their possession. They were opposed to the Empire and the Empire only, she knew that much. They had their own rules too, just as the Cult had theirs. Just as Sophie’s oath bound her to speak with non-but the Cult, their oath forced them not to hurt anybody apart from The Empire. Even if they did, The Cult would kill them anyway.

Boredom loomed and she began to wonder how long she would have to wait before The Cult realised she was gone. Leaning against the bars of the window, she rested her head against the wall. ‘ Unfair’ just seemed like a second nature to her; unfair that she was a born outcast, unfair that she was stuck here and unfair that people hated her for simply existing. A half-breed, Sophie’s feline and canine parents had been unusually compatible and created a new species of Felidae, The Fenine, Sophie Halliway. It hung over her everywhere she went; ‘Freak!’ ‘Mistake!’ ‘Invalid!’ She had never understood why before. Why the other children where pulled aside by their parents and where told to fear her but as she grew, Sophie began to learn of a little thing known as Prejudice and racism.

A slight smile played on her lips now as memories of her childhood faded. Fear knows only fear itself, so she had decided to become that fear quite some time ago. Instead of hiding her cat-like tail and face, she now stood proud and pursued those who dared to taunt her with a flick of her sword and watched them run. Even though Barabas itself held no particular race it still opposed her and now? She stood out more than ever; intent on making those who hate her cower in fear. The black bandana across her forehead saw to that. The symbol of The Cult protected her from thieves as their eyes probed her for valuables from the feet upwards. As soon as the sly gaze fell upon the bandanna they would fall back into their own miserable world. Gangs wielding heavy blades would hate her from a far but would not dare to let her catch them looking over. That dangerous reflection of the pride and courage of outsiders was what kept her alive as well as her own wit and skill. What that flimsy strip of material represented washer life long allegiance to The Cult, fellow outsiders and allies for life. They would protect her as she would them. She would never be allowed to leave nor would she want to. To challenge their authority was suicide and for a long time nobody had, before The Gangland arrived in the city, by order of The Empire, to destroy all opposing factions and ward over the city.

At first, The Cult and the new gang had simply co-existed. Then it began. Members began disappearing, old friends of Sophie’s. For days they would vanish without a trace and then the first corpse was seen, dangling from one of the old streetlights outside the Cult’s meeting place at a local inn, mutilated almost beyond recognition. First Warning. More started appearing, almost everywhere Sophie went. The last lay on the doorstep of her apartment; she had been out to collect something and found the poor man when she arrived home an hour later. She knew it was the same person or persons, because each member came back with their deformity, the thing that made them outsiders, severed. Second Warning. The third had come a week later after Sophie had been hiding out at a friend’s place, after the seventh and last member had been found. Nobody else was taken. Then, when she finally decided enough was enough and stepped outside the front door-

Witch! Witch! Witch!

Her senses snapped awake. Alarmed, she turned anxiously, on her heels. Corners of the room, where the voices should have been, stood as dark and as empty as before. Turning again, to the city below, life in the slums trudged on, as it should. She was alone in the room.

The girl seemed to melt away into the dark shadows of the window, the light bouncing softly off her long golden hair, as though she where from another world altogether, the one with that stood alive outside the gates of Barabas. She had not looked like she had belonged nor could she hide the strangely familiar tint of green in her hazel eyes, even as she stepped back out of sight away from the window high above. Forever watching. Waiting, ready. She had stared straight at him, burning a hole into his soul. Chaz craned his neck to chance glimpsing her again.

Strange but she seemed very familiar. Like some distant memory, and he was sure he had seen her somewhere before although it seemed almost impossible that he could have forgotten that haunting icy darkness that seemed to linger all around her. Even the dim streets of Barabas seemed to brighten once she stepped away from the window. Chaz’s feline eyes slid into narrow slits and he stared long and hard at the pane of glass. She seemed to draw him to her, and he was sure he could soft whispers from all angles, bouncing softly off the walls, and he found himself waiting, out of pure fascination than anything else, for her to reappear. Although he could not see her, Chaz knew she was there. Like a fading memory, her breath still lingered upon the glass, soft but still reappearing every few seconds.  Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of movement. Glancing up at the peak of Billboard 186, he noticed a tiny device staring him in the eye. It was a peculiar little thing, which could have been no bigger than Chaz’s fist, which Chaz guessed to be some sort of surveillance camera, judging by the unblinking lense and narrow box-like shape. The peculiar thing was that it seemed to follow him with its ‘eye’ and he could have sworn that beneath its shiny black exterior, it was grinning at him. If not for it’s spindly metallic limbs, Chaz might have left it alone. Chaz jumped, startled, as it shuffled along towards the opposite side of the narrow ledge, carefully placing each of it’s crow-like feet one in front of the other so as not to lose it’s footing. Chaz mimicked its actions curiously, and then watched as it moved over a little to the right. Then left. Then right again, then a tiny bit over once more to the left, Chaz keeping up the pace. A few uneventful moments passed. It looked at him. He looked at it. Silence. Then a slight creaking noise. It came from beneath him and Chaz saw a tiny crack in the pavement begin to slowly open, as though it were being forced. Then he noticed it out of the corner of his eye; the camera winked at him. He squinted up at it to get a closer look. It winked again, but this time-

“ Aaaaarr….”

There was one less homeless immigrant on the streets of Barabas city as the ground opened up and swallowed him up whole.

“ -Rrrgh!!” 

Chaz surprised himself with the most unbelievably high-pitched scream as the he began spiralling downwards in a blur of fierce lights and dreary colour. He had time not to think about where he was going or what was to become of him when he arrived at the end of this tunnel, but of only what was happening right now, right at this very moment, of the horror of being thrust into this oblivion and of the almost unbearable friction between the tunnel floor and his backside and most of all how he on earth he could keep his slowly vanishing jeans from ending up around his ankles and try and stop himself from falling any farther. All he could see in front of him where his battered old trainers bobbing up and down in front of him and he began to wonder if he would be here forever…spiralling downwards for all time, in a never ending struggle of terror, despair and near nudity. Maybe he had died. Perhaps, he thought, that that camera wasn’t really a camera. It was a gun and it had shot him, and now all of the women he ever cheated on where getting their revenge. Maybe all three of them where cavorting. It could be witchcraft; he could be on his way to Hell!

“Ow!”

Chaz came out of his daze as he grazed his leg against the side of the tunnel…

“ NO!!!”

…Just in time to see his beloved jeans vanish completely into the darkness and out of sight.

Danny White waited patiently for his friend to come out of the chute. He could hear him drawing closer each passing second, with a sound so high pitched that could only come from Charlie Finch.

Zoom, plop !

For a breif moment, Danny was sure he had seen an unidentified flying object pass through the wall, and was stunned for but a second, before he realised the nature of the ‘ being’. It lay in a muddy pile on the floor, caked in dust and sewerage from the journey down to the underground, but nether the less, Danny identified the intruder as a pair of faded denim jeans with the name ‘ Chaz Finch’ embrodiered on the label. Sniggering, Danny shook his head in disbelief. It had been five years since he had seen the boy, back at his home town in RicoVillage, and even now it was quite plain to see that at seventeen, Chaz’s mother was still taking care of him. Leaning against the wall, Danny silently hoped that the Felidae that stepped out of that chute would be differant to the one five years ago, the dependant little urchin that used to follow Danny around like a lost soul wherever he went. The boy who knew exactly how to get people angry, and who thought he cuold charm his way out of anything with a sweet smile and those huge brown eyes. The boy who even at twelve years old had the labido the size of the Yusepe Continent and the Empire put togeather. However, even at twelve Chaz had been a valued member of the resistance his mother had founded and a technical whizz, able to program the latest technology as soon as it hit the markets. Shame about his slight cowardice though…

‘ Look out below !!!’

Thud !

Danny landed a hand on his stopwatch. As usual Chaz had managed to be late. Even by two seconds from the moment he entered the chute. A kind of trademark lateness, Danny had told himself before ; Chaz could not help being late. It was in his genes, Danny supposed. He was even late for his own birth by one month exactly, which was always Chaz’s excuse at school. He also felt obliged to put togeather a moral at the end of an excuse too, before the ritual sucking up ;

 ‘ –and my mum always told me, she’d say…’

This, Danny remembered, would usually be the point which made the class laugh. When Chaz did his impression of Mrs Finch ;

 ‘ Charlie me lad, you’ve got to start as ya mean to go on !’

Then followed ;

 ‘ but as I was late at the very start of my life, my sense of time is irreprerably damaged therefore I has no sense of time, miss.’

Then grovelling would commence and his teacher, Miss Muse would give him his daily lecture on the importance of punctuality and yet another letter to his parents for Chaz to casually toss in the gutter after school.

                               Danny chuckled to himself as a figure emerged, semi naked and covered from head to toe in sewerage and cobwebs. Tossing the faded jeans to the disgruntled pile of Boy, Danny had to restrain his laughter as his friend hurriedly pulled them on, falling over twice in the process of putting the other leg in. It appeared Chaz did not recognise him yet, as the last time they had seen each other, was when Chaz, his friends and Danny himself, had mooned the girls at the village hot springs in Rico, before Danny had left for Barabas to become a soldier and ironically ended up in the Resistance, just like Chaz. Chaz brushed himself down and wiped the sewer slime from his face in disgust.

‘ Nice place you got going here…’ He muttered in that familiar Rican accent. (We today would say it sounded Irish)

‘ Hey! Stand up straight when I’m talking to you, boy!’ Danny said in his best Barabas accent. Now seemed like a good time to have a little fun with Chaz and to test his courage.

The feline Felidae looked at him in surprise with eyes almost as wide as saucers, whiskers on end.

‘ Well ok then!’ He said sarcastically trying to look unafraid. Still, to Danny’s amusement, he stood defiantly stumped yet unable to meet Danny’s eye.

‘ Am I understood?’

‘ Yeah, ok.’

‘ I said am I understood!’

‘ Yes ‘sir’. Is that ok?’

‘ It’s a start. Now drop and give me twenty or I’ll have ye walk Da Plank!’

Danny frowned at him trying to keep a straight face, when Chaz retorted under his breath;

‘ You are a plank…’

Chaz shrunk back as Danny leaned over him, threateningly.

‘ What did you say?’

Chaz looked at him in bewilderment then burst out in hysterical laughter and Danny, who then took this as a sign that his friend had recognised him, joined in. Together, the two crumbed down in an hysterical pile of jokes and jibes at one another, each not really realising what the other had said, until a moment passed and a rather confused Chaz suddenly stopped laughing.

‘ Seriously though, why are you here?’

Danny returned to his straight-faced self and raised a hand to grasp at the growing stubble around his chin. He began to ponder on the subject himself suddenly and sighed, leaning against his usual place on the tunnel walls by the chute.

‘ I haven’t really thought about it,’ he said, for the first time speaking in his faded Rican accent.

‘ I suppose I thought of what happened back home. When I first told everyone that I was going to join the Empire. I didn’t realise the opposition I would face and then when I reached the camp, I saw the Commanding officer. He looked just like…’

His voice trailed off and his eyes met with Chaz’s.

‘ But somehow I ended up here.’