Live From the Underside

Over a thousand years ago, humankind left a dying, overcrowded Earth. They had searched for planets that they could survive on, the elusive goldilocks worlds, and with the help of their only allies among the civilized races in the galaxy, they were able to find some. But humankind had not learned from its past and immediately began fighting amongst themselves for the resources of their new homes. The slow to form unifying leadership of Old Earth had fallen apart as soon as the new outposts began to grow. Soon they were independent city states, climbing ever higher as ever more and more people crowded into them, the new building atop the old. Those with money and power stayed at the top, both physically and socially, and those without learned to live in the ruined metal husks at the bottom of metropolises grown as big as mountains. When one of these new city states fought with another, it was those poor who went to war. A new world, but still the same as it always was.

In these slums there were millions of people in communities still trying to live their lives. Industrial manufacturing was moved further down the city levels, out of sight of the elite above. The people there had little choice but to toil away in factories, scrounge for survival, or turn to a life of crime in one of the many gangs that controlled swathes of territory. Law and order were in short supply here, and often supplied by those who lived in the area rather than the stretched too thin constables that cared more for lining their own pockets and sending positive reports up the chain in the hope of getting a promotion further up the city.

A thousand years of “progress” to get here, in this place at this time, just to be playing lookout to a heist thought Jodelle, “Mouse” to her friends, due to her small five-foot 2-inch frame. She knew that she needed to put in her time now that she had been accepted into the Razors, and this was her first real job with the gang, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was being wasted sitting here behind the husk of some old piece of machinery (some type of tractor she thought?) with instructions to keep an eye out for any trouble. “This is real bullshit!” she hissed to Myka, the other neo in the group, looking around the ruined husks of metal and plasteel to keep an eye on the two guards in front of the warehouse the Razors were hitting tonight. “I should be with the others! They know I am a better shot than half the gang. Instead, I’m stuck here with this peashooter.” She glared at the handmade slug gun in her hand, a basic revolver that had been built from broken pieces of old guns and spare bits of metal. She was pretty sure the barrel used to be an oil faucet in in the factory her parents worked in.

“Thanks for the respect” he said lightheartedly as he ducked back around and looked over to her. “You know the drill, we all gotta pay our dues. Just because Axter runs the crew, doesn’t mean you get to skip the line, regardless of ability. Half the crew already looks at you like you don’t belong; you start skipping steps they all had to do, it’s just gonna get worse.”

“My brother has nothing to do with it!” she hissed back, but she knew he had a point. It was bad enough being a woman and wanting to run with the Razors, and then her size on top of that, but having her big brother be one of the three leaders added more pressure and hurdles.

“Let’s just get through tonight, then you can rail against the injustice of it all after we aren’t in danger of being shot.” Myka peaked back around the corner, checking to make sure the guards hadn’t moved. He pulled out a small metal box and began pressing the button on it, using predetermined patterns to flash a light on another relay box held by one of the Razors in the main group, letting them know the coast looked clear. The Razors would come in force and overwhelm the two guards and take off with the med supplies they were watching. The Razors would keep some and sell the rest on the black market. And since this warehouse was in Foul Lads turf, the hit would make the rival gang look bad and increase the Razor’s rep. A win all around. Assuming it all went smooth.

Within minutes Jodelle and Myka watched about a dozen Razors, led by Axter and Luback, another of the triumvirate that led the gang. Jodelle watched the two guards get gunned down in a quick mix of laser and slug shots before they had time to even get a shot off. A part of her mind knew she should feel bad for them, but the cold fact was that she didn’t. Life in the Underside, their stretch of slums here at the bottom levels of the city, was often brutal. They knew the risk they took on as armed guards in this area. If there was anybody to blame it was the Foul Lads, they took protection money on this turf, if they were a better gang, maybe the Razors wouldn’t have decided to hit the warehouse.

They watched the Razors head into through the roll up doors and begin looking around, two members that Jodelle didn’t recognize from where she watched ran back off to bring the buggy around to load up the loot.

“See Mouse,” Myka said with a smile looking down at her, “You weren’t needed, things went smooth, and that in turn helps raise our cred with the guys. Everything as it should be.” He went back to watching the front of the warehouse, waiting for the buggy to come so he could head over to help load it up before they began the trek back across the Underside out of Lad territory and back to the streets that the Razors claimed as their own and the security of their clubhouse.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she answered sullenly, sitting with her back against the ruined tractor (she was sure that was what it was) and looking down the street behind them. Suddenly something caught her eye. She sat up straighter and pulled her slug gun out. “There’s movement back there Myka!”

Myka turned around and pulled out his own gun, it looked older than Jodelle’s, but at least it looked like it was all matching pieces. “I don’t see anything.” he said doubtfully, pulling out a pair of low light binoculars that Luback had entrusted him with, along with a warning that any damage done to them would be done twice as bad on Myka. “There’s nobody there Mouse...” he started, before catching his breath, “Shit! There they are! There must be dozens of them. It’s the Foul Lads! They must have heard the shots, or somebody called them.” He ducked back down and pulled out the relay and began hitting the button in the emergency code, hoping that somebody was still watching it.

“What if they don’t see it?!” Jodelle said, her voice tight with adrenaline, fear, and excitement all at once. “We have to do something!” she said starting to stand and move towards the encroaching Foul Lads.

Myka reached up and pulled her back down, “What are you doing Mouse! They haven’t seen us. If they do, we’re dead. If we attack them, we’re dead. If we make a run to the warehouse they will see us, shoot us, and guess what? We’re dead! We have to hope the guys see the alert and are ready to defend and then we just wait. Once they start fighting back and get the Lads distracted, we can sneak over to them or find a way to help, but anything else is suicide!”

Jodelle shook Myka’s hand off glaring at him. Her mind brought up images of Axter lying dead in the street. She wasn’t afraid of these punk bastards, and she wasn’t going to let her brother die while she hid like a coward. “You know what will make sure the guys are alerted?” she asked.

“What’s that?” Myka questioned looking nervous to hear the answer.

“Gunfire!” Jodelle shouted at him and stood up and took aim at the nearest Foul lad, moving down the street towards the warehouse not even twenty feet from Jodelle and Myka. They outnumbered the Razors two to one, but it looked like they weren’t really expecting trouble, none had weapons raised. Maybe it was just bad timing that they came along right at this moment. The timing was about to get a lot worse as the group of Lads stopped and looked her way after hearing her shout and just then realizing that things were about to get hairy. She pulled the heavy trigger on her slug gun and felt the recoil as the powder went off and the metal slug shot out at the rival gangers, taking the nearest one in the face, dropping him. She got off two more shots in quick succession, elated even over the adrenaline to see that both hit their mark as she saw the blood splatter from the neck of a hulking Lad, and another dropped clutching a now bleeding gut wound. She heard Myka’s gun go off in three quick shots and saw another ganger drop after at least one slug hit him before she ducked back down behind the burned-out tractor (it was definitely a tractor she decided).

“What the fuck was that! We’ve gotta move or we’re dead Jodelle!” Myka screamed at her as bullets hit the broken machinery at their backs and the ground around them. “C’mon, this way!” he yelled, pulling her behind him in a crouch and into an alleyway as more shots landed around them.

The use of her actual name and not her nickname is what made it hit for her that Myka was truly terrified right then. She couldn’t remember the last time he had called her anything but Mouse, not since they were kids and she first met him and his twin sister Myla. That is when she realized that maybe she had made a mistake. There was no way the others had not heard what was going on and were prepared, but she didn’t hear them firing at the Foul Lads and if they didn’t soon, the whole group of them might keep following her and Myka until they were caught. She looked back and saw several lads coming around the corner after them, emptying her cylinder and reaching into her pockets looking for the loose spare slugs she had been given before setting out tonight and realizing with terror that they weren’t there, she had left them back at the clubhouse, so mad at her role as lookout that she had forgotten to grab them.

“Fuck!” Myka suddenly yelled as they ran up to a dead end, the alley coming to a stop against a solid steel door. “We’re dead, we’re dead, we’re dead...” he started muttering, turning, and firing at the gangers coming down the alley until his gun dry fired as he too ran out of bullets. He pulled out a long knife as Jodelle picked up a steel pipe among the trash in the alley, ready to make her stand until the end.

They heard laughter as the Foul Lads moved down the alley to them, realizing their prey were out of ammo. There were still over a dozen of them, and their eyes lit up with the prospect of violence, and Jodelle’s stomach dropped as they realized that not only had they captured rival Razors, but that she was a woman as well. She had heard horror stories about the treatment of women in gangs being caught by rival gangers after shootouts and clashes, but never gave it much thought until now as she saw the leering lust filled stare that the Lad in front was giving her.

“What do we have here?” one of the lead figures cackled as he reached for her. She swung her pipe at him, ignoring the gun barrels pointing at her, causing the Lad to step back and trip over his feet, his friends laughing even harder. At least until Myka, half forgotten by everybody, lunged forward and buried his blade to the hilt in the fallen Lads throat, his legs kicking as his blood poured out of him.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice.” Another of the bastards said, stepping up to Myka as he tried to get back up off the body of the dying ganger, putting a massive looking handgun to Myka’s head and blowing away half his face.

Jodelle wished whoever was screaming would stop so that she could think, and then she realized it was her. She closed her mouth and tried to look for a way out but didn’t see any hope. Why hadn’t she listened to Myka and stayed quiet! How would she explain this to Myla? How would she even survive to explain it to her? She gripped the metal pipe tighter. She would go out swinging and make these bastards pay as long as she could.

“Now then little lady, why don’t you put that down? You play nice for us, and we might end it quick when we’re done. You killed Kerrick and Spaz, so you ain’t leaving this alley alive, it’s just how much do you wanna hurt before we end it?” the Lad that had shot Myka said, with a bored expression on his face, as if it was all just part of a day’s work. The rest of the Foul Lads crowding around, cutting off any hope that she could escape.

Jodelle looked up, not wanting to watch them approach, and noticed a video drone watching the whole thing. She had a spark of hope that it was a constable drone and there might be a slim chance the law would intervene, however unlikely, but then she saw it was just a media drone. She had heard rumors that some of the rich fuckers in the city above liked to watch the violence below their feet on live feeds. Nothing more than snuff films half the time. She hoped they chocked on their fancy food as they watched their lives like a show. Looking back at the Foul lads in front of her she prepared to lunge at them with her pipe, when she noticed down the alley more figures coming up, but they wore the tell tale red slashed jackets of Razors, not the dark green long coats of Foul Lads. She smiled as she looked at the bored looking monster that had killed Myka then ducked down and shrank into as tight a ball as she could.

Gunfire erupted from down the alleyway, with the sharp crack of laser shots interspersed. She heard bodies drop and blood splatter the walls of the alley as slugs ricocheted around the small space. There was a little return fire, but the Foul Lads had been so intent on her, they were unprepared for the rear assault and in little enough time the gunfire stopped, and Jodelle looked up to see Axter running up to help her to her feet.

“You ok Mouse?” her big brother asked, worry obvious. It was enough to drop the bottom of her stomach out and she felt drained as she leaned past him and vomited all over the body of the Lad that Myka had stabbed, trying to hide the tears at the loss of her childhood friend so the others didn’t see it and think even less of her. She had fucked up so bad, she didn’t know how she would make it up. “You two saved our skin,” he continued as she stood straighter and looked around, “we would never have made it all out in a straight up shootout, there were too many, but with you guys drawing them away the way you did, it let us hit them unaware from the rear. Myka earned his full stripe today, and his family will know and get his cut.” The others nodded in agreement and looked at her more acceptingly than she had ever seen them do before.

She couldn’t believe it; she fucked up and it all came out as if it was a part of the plan. She wasn’t sure how she felt as she looked around, noticing that the bored looking thug that had shot Myka was still breathing and watching them. She brought up the pipe still in her hand and smashed it down on his head, over and over, screaming incoherently until he was just a mishappen lump of blood and hair. She looked up at the video drone and pointed the bloody pipe at it, “I hope you like what you see!”

“Yeah” yelled another Razor, Crispy, Jodelle had never heard his real name, just his nickname, named due to burns on half his face from a factory explosion he had been in. “That’s right fools! Razors coming at you live from the Underside! In all its fucked-up glory!” he yelled louder as he raised his rifle and shot at the drone, getting a glancing hit on it as it flew off into the night.

Luback was coming up the alley now waving them back, “C’mon everybody, the buggy’s loaded. Grab the guns and what you can from the dead and let’s get back to club! Leave the neo!” he added as he saw a couple Razors go to lift Myka’s corpse.

Axter grabbed Jodelle’s arm as she tensed to argue. “Let it go!” he hissed. “We don’t have room on the buggy, and we can’t carry him back the entire way. This was most of the Foul Lads, they’re gonna have trouble rebuilding, but the last thing we want is to get into another firefight tonight with the rest of them. Just c’mon, let’s get home.” All Jodelle wanted was to crawl into a bed and sleep for a week. She let her brother lead her back to the buggy and load her onto it, ordering another Razor to give up his spot to her, and as the buggy pulled away, the motion of the ride had her out within minutes.