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Torn kept his head low and his teeth clenched as he staggered through the streets of Haven City. He'd shed the majority of his battered armour at the first convenient point, though it would make little difference; not a single Krimzon Guard in the city could fail to recognize him.
The dull blaring of the alarm was more distant now that he was in the slums, but still a constant reminder of the manhunt that had bèen going on for hours. To complete the mood, it was also raining softly, though not hard enough to completely remove the bloodstains in his clothing.
He was numb to his own injuries, though; the enormity of what had just happened had yet to sink in. The wounds themselves were insignificant, but the events that had been their cause...
He could scarcely grasp it. He'd finally acted on months... no, years of growing dissatisfaction and conviction that staying in the Krimzon Guard was the worst thing he could do for his city.
He had done the right thing. He was sure of it.
So why did he feel so empty?
Unbidden, Erol's parting words to him returned--a shot, fired as surely as if from a weapon, aimed at his back down the maintenance duct he'd escaped into.
‘That’s right-- RUN, traitor! We’ll hunt you down like the rat you are!’ Laughter. ‘You’ve got nowhere to go outside the palace.’
The hell of it was, the mad upstart was right. Torn’s apartment was as good as KG property by now; probably the whole block had been locked down. Erol knew him too well to allow any of his old haunts to go un-monitored. If Torn had planned this a little better beforehand, kept his cool a little longer, maybe he could have started transporting his important possessions to a safe place where he could be picking them up now… Maybe he could HAVE a safe place, and not be cast completely adrift in the city with nothing to go on besides unsubstantiated rumours and guilt.
Instead, he found his feet taking him towards Dead Town.
That was the name it had taken on in the weeks since the bombing and subsequent lockout. The mood of the city had turned increasingly ugly; there was riot after riot, and floods of citizens flocking to the palace to protest, to beg, to return to the area to find family heirlooms or missing possessions or the bodies of loved ones. The Baron turned all of them down, with increasing force.
The gate was still guarded, but even alone and slightly the worse for wear Torn was fairly sure he would be able to incapacitate them and get through before significant reinforcements could be called. There would only be four guards, armed with tasers…
He was ready for the possibility of dealing with more KGs; they were a known quantity. What he was not ready for was a threat from a completely different source.
‘Hey-- hey! Check out the tats!’
He flinched at the sharp voice, glancing to the side towards the speaker-- one of the slum dwellers, a civilian.
Angry.
‘Is that-- it’s Commander Torn!’ said an incredulous voice from a little to his left. Torn blinked, suddenly uncomfortably aware of just how many people were around. Wrapped in his own thoughts, he hadn’t realized… The street was full of hushed voices, the exact words blurring together.
‘Where’s your army, Commander?’ said a tall, burly man, who’d crossed his arms over his chest. ‘What are you playing at, coming here?’
There is no army, Torn wanted to say. Just me. But instinct reminded him that speaking here could be worse than silence.
He was so tired.
He made to keep walking, but the man stepped forward directly into his path-- one more step and Torn would have bounced off him.
‘Where are you going, Commander?’ said the man, his face breaking into a broad and extremely unpleasant grin.
Another man, thinner, darted forwards to tug at the big man’s arms, darting wary glances at Torn. ‘It’s probably a KG trap,’ he hissed. ‘He’ll radio for backup as soon as--’
A huge hand reached out and grabbed at the mouthpiece of the communicator attached to Torn’s chest-- he’d slashed the wires leading round to the power pack on his back as soon as he’d left, and the damage was plainly visible for all to see.
‘He’s not radioing anywhere,’ sad the man. He shoved Torn backwards suddenly; the ex-KG staggered, turning his head to see that he was now completely surrounded by the slum-dwellers.
Words stuck in his throat, but he had to make some attempt. ‘Please,’ he ground out. ‘I just want to leave.’
The big man’s grin vanished. ‘I’m sure you do,’ he said. ‘Like the people you abandoned to die in the northeast quarter-- if you’d spared so much as a thought for them!’
Torn, who had thought of little else for the past month, stood in numb silence as more voices began to raise in shouts around him.
‘My daughter!’
‘My whole family--’
‘Fucking home’s become a metalhead nest!’
‘--left them all to ROT--’
‘KG scum!’
A blow to the side of his head knocked him a couple of steps to the left-- he tensed to run, but there was nowhere to go, as the group closed in around him. A punch to an already-sore spot on his chest doubled him over, and that was all the invitation the rest of the group needed to close in.
The big man’s fist connected with his nose and he could feel cartilege buckle; someone else swept his legs out from under him and he landed hard on the rain-slicked cobbles beside a couple of trash barrels.
The civilians were brutal but completely untrained. In peak form, if he hated himself less, he could have fought back-- at least enough to create an opening for himself to leave.
Less than a year ago, he would have felt no compunctions against doing so, heedless of the broken limbs doing so would leave behind. But now the mere thought of it filled him with revulsion stronger even than the pain of the kicks now raining down upon him.
Suddenly a shout of warning cut through the general noise.
‘Patrol’s coming!’
Suddenly the feet around him were all stepping back, the crowd thinning. He could hear the whine of a cruiser’s engine approaching-- the Krimzon Guard were on the way, and the mob began to break itself up before the guards could do it for them.
Torn began to drag himself closer to the barrels, trying to get his legs under himself, and suddenly a knee landed on his back, pressing him back into the ground.
‘You’re not going anywhere, Commander,’ a voice hissed in his ear, as a large hand fisted in his hair and raised his head off the ground.
Torn’s eyes widened as metal glinted in the dimming light, beside his face. The blade bit, cold, into the base of his neck, and then ripped sideways.
‘Your days of barking orders are finished,’ said the man, allowing him to collapse again; through a sudden roaring in his ears, Torn heard the last of the footsteps surrounding him leave.
The whine of the engines drew nearer, and he could hear the KG patrollers talking-- a searchlight flashed into the corner he’d fallen into, but he must have made an unimpressive enough huddle that after a few seconds the sound of engines moved on again, receding into silence.
He was alone-- truly alone this time. The strength was fleeing his limbs along with the blood that he could feel pulsing out of his neck. With clinical detachment, he noted that the cut must have missed all the major arteries, or he’d already be unconscious; the attacker had been sloppy.
But sloppy was enough to get the job done, as he no longer had the energy to move.
Torn closed his eyes.
He drifted back to near-consciousness again as footsteps approached. The rain must have increased while he’d been out of it, because the water had formed into puddles that splashed slightly at the newcomer’s approach.
The footsteps stopped just in front of his face and then… silence again. When unconsciousness did not oblige him by returning, Torn opened his eyes, looking up dully.
The silhouette squatting in front of him was short and nearly round, its form illuminated from behind by a single flickering street lamp as it was now full night. A mismatched pair of spectacles perched on a bulbous nose, leaning to the side as the man tilted his head. There was someone else there as well, another form standing behind the odd man, but Torn’s vision was too blurred to make out much more than that they were female.
‘You’ve landed yourself in quite a pickle, Commander,’ said the newcomer. A hand brushed against his neck, examining, heedless of the blood. ‘You’re lucky I came when I did.’
Lucky? Torn might have laughed, if he had the breath or the voice for it. If he hadn’t been bleeding his life out in an alleyway in the slums of the city he’d helped to ruin. Luck didn’t enter the picture anywhere. With every breath, a little more blood ran over his tongue.
‘I heard you were looking for information on me,’ the newcomer continued, producing something from a pocket that cast a greenish glow. ‘My name is Samos-- but you can call me the Shadow.’
The last thing Torn felt before he slid back into unconsciousness was the cool touch of green eco against his neck.