FPS Scenario

It was one o’clock in the morning when my phone rang. I jolted awake to the loud, obnoxious tone. Slowly and wearily I stood up, rubbing away sleep from my eyes.

Again the phone sounded.

Well at least I’m awake, I thought as I pressed the receiver button on my desk. The holographic image of a tall, masked man flickered to life in the air in front of me.

“Is this Nathaniel Faulkner?” the man asked over the hum of static. I stared back at him unblinkingly, wondering what I had eaten last night.

“Yes,” I replied. I was getting more and more aware, and thus further agitated. Funny enough, I get calls from masked weirdoes almost every day. I work for the Chicago Area PD… their only private detective.

“Meet me on the south side. In the alley next to apartment block seven thousand.”

I sighed in exasperation.

“Listen, I’m really tired right now. You see, unlike you, I enjoy this thing called sleep and--”

The figure of the man disappeared, replaced instead by a grisly visage of a dead body. Fighting back nausea, I turn my head away from the picture.

“You will meet me on the south side,” the voice said. “You have a half an hour.” The hologram dissipated once more.

Ever feel like a conversation has just been dropped off a cliff. That’s how I felt now. I stood for a moment, somewhat nonplussed from this recent development. Then, I shook it off, and started out the door, shrugging into my long, black duster on the way.

The elevator ride down to the Police Department lobby is a long one. Two hundred and one stories tick away pretty slowly with nothing to do. Finally, the doors open with the faint hiss of hydraulics. I stepped out and into the lobby, my boots clacking on the polished marble floor with every footfall.

It was deserted, except for a short man in a brown, leather coat. His head darted nervously back and forth, chasing shadows across the room. He was a weirdo… always kissing up to The Boss. In fact, the boss is the only one who ever talks to him.

“Carmichael,” I said, making him jump and look at me a little weirdly.
“Yes?” His voice was timid and wavered a bit.

“What’re you doing here this late?” I asked, completely aware that I was here as late as he.

“Warning you… I heard you talking upstairs. Tread carefully, Nathan.”

I arched my eyebrows questioningly.

“You’re relatively new at the PD… we do things a little differently than you did. Every case you take must go through The Boss. Absolutely no independent investigations allowed.”

The way he said it really boiled my blood today, for some reason. Maybe it was just his obnoxious air of authority that set me off. No matter, though. I wanted to check out this south side murder myself.

I stepped outside onto the deserted streets. Rain fell heavily from the clouded sky, pattering down upon the hard concrete. I pulled my coat tighter around me, trying to keep relatively dry, but water was seeping through its heavy canvas cloth and onto my clothes beneath.

The south side was about five blacks away, and home to some of the nastiest living quarters in the world. The government had managed to cram over 7,000 apartment blocks into the entire city of Chicago. The lucky people, like me, get a job at the PD, and get free housing in the upper level of the city.

Ahead, I could see the powerful forms of Watchers marching in columns out of the alley. Their beetle black suits of armor gleamed silver in the soft light of the moon. They moved like puppets… blind, mute, and deaf to all but the commands of The Boss. Mounted upon their dark helmets and visors were bright spotlights that cut through the darkness like knives.

They continued marching down the street, not turning even once as I ducked into the alley. It was dark, and the only discernable shape was a towering heap of something towards the back wall.

Forked lightning split the sky, and a hellish white light lit the city. A morbid picture flashed to life in front of me. Human bodies lay piled in large, disordered heaps on the ground. They were old and decrepit… some still hunched in wheelchairs, white and rigid from rigor mortis. The sight was enough to make my stomach turn, and I was happy when the darkness swallowed the city once again.
I walked forward, feeling my way through the seemingly endless dark. Where was that mysterious man I spoke to on the phone? Could he have killed all these people, prompting the Watchers to come take him away?

Lightning tore through the sky once more as the thought played across my mind, thunder following with a deep and sinister rumble. In the momentary light, I saw something at my feet. I stooped down and picked it up gingerly. It was a small capsule, about the size of one of those diet pills people were popping into their mouths all day. Glowing, red diodes covered it entirely, flickering on and off sporadically.

“Sick isn’t it,” said a familiar, silky voice from behind me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and . “Don’t turn around… its best we remain anonymous.”
“I… what happened here?” I asked, trying to express my own confusion to the man. Right now my heart felt numb and void. “I mean, who would do this?” I trailed off.

“Didn’t think this was possible, right? Didn’t think something this atrocious could fester for almost fifty years in the heart of our ‘Great American Utopia.’ It all comes down to that little thing in your hand.”
I looked at it a bit more closely.

“But wait,” I said, a bit of understanding creeping into my voice. “This is the government health capsule they issued almost forty years ago. But why--”

“Correct,” the man interrupted. And as you know, the effect was all but positive towards society. The population skyrocketed and the government decided to put on a show of discontinuing the capsule and surgically removing it from everyone who had purchased it before.”

“That’s what I thought… but why?” I replied. It was the only thing I could think to ask.

“The reason you hold that today is a disturbing one. The government never removed the capsules. They just planted new, less intrusive ones to help them control the massive population spike. These were set to administer a lethal shock to the system when the implanted person reached seventy-five years of age.

“This is what happens when life is devalued… when it can be dictated by anyone who signs a contract. In all these years of progress you’d think life had more value than before. To the world, we have become little more than a cluster of nerves and tissues… with no more worth than--”

He was cut off by the resounding crack of a gunshot. I spun around quickly, only to see the limp form of the masked man slump to the ground. A Watcher stood in the middle of the street, smoke rising from the barrel of his rifle.

I yelled, and tried to run, but felt my feet knocked out from under me. A second Watcher strode up from behind me, grabbed my right arm, and twisted it forcefully behind my back.

I felt the bones in my wrist snap… heard the sickening pop followed as he pushed my arm further up my back.

A heavy, steel studded boot came to rest on my head, pushing my face up to the cold, wet pavement. The storm was worsening, and the rain fell harder than before.

Suddenly, a pair of black leather boots came to a stop next to my head, followed by ornamental cane made of ebony. I strained to see the face of this new figure, but the heavy boot kept me from doing so.

“Mr. Faulkner,” drawled the voice, which definitely belonged to a man. It carried a mocking tone of almost forced civility. “You think you can beat my system all by yourself? That’s simply not how it works around here.” He placed high emphasis on the last statement.

There was a small click, and the lower half of the cane slid away, revealing a long, thin blade.

Silence… then another click.

A clear and opalescent liquid spurted down the length of the blade, dripping down onto the stone in front of my face. The man gave a mirthless laugh as I tried to twist away from the cane-knife. He began to pace around me now.

“You see, Nathaniel, I can’t just let people go out and masquerade my little secret. The cold truth is best concealed when the people… do not… talk.”

“You’re mad,” I managed to hiss.

The boots came to rest once more in front of my face.

“You don’t seem very inclined to talk civilly to me, Mr. Faulkner,” the man said softly. I saw him raise the thin blade.

I tried frantically to twist away, but the pressure of the massive boot on my face was too much. I felt cold steel slide into my arm. I convulsed violently, tearing the cane from the man’s hand, but the foison had already begun to settle in.

The man bent over to pick up his cane, and on the way, I glimpsed his features. He turned towards me, a grim smile upon his all-too-familiar face.

It was Carmichael… The Boss. No one would expect it… no one would ever learn.

Then, suddenly, my mind was blank; and my world ended as quickly as it had begun.