Prologue
Click-clack. Click-clack.
The rain spat down, knocking against the dirty corrugated plastic sheeting that covered the stalls lining the alleyway and tapping a steady percussion. But Michael Torvandis wasn’t listening. Torvandis was running.
Ohfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck…
He scampered down the alleyway, careening off idling pedestrians huddled close around the food stalls as the fragrant steam mixed with the wet night air. “Move it!” he barked at an elderly beggar as he vaulted past her, bouncing into a side street.
Torvandis was whip-thin, but more from malnutrition than from fitness; and it had been a long time since he had done this much exercise. His heart pounded a staccato rhythm in his chest, and his whole rib cage felt like it was going to burst. Even if a bullet didn’t catch him, he felt like a heart attack might.
…fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckstupidfuckshitfuck…
His foot caught a gap in the pavement; and he stumbled, sprawling across the damp concrete, greasy hair leaving strings in his eyes. But he couldn’t stop, not even for a second. He rolled to his feet, staggered against a wall, and then went off again.
They were coming for him; he knew it. He didn’t know where they were, or how they had found him — he had been so careful! But now they were coming, and it was only a matter of time before they had him.
The alleyway had been steadily getting darker as it traversed away from the main streets. The flickering neon signboards of the main pedestrian area were gone now, and Torvandis found himself alone. He stopped, collapsing against a wall and pausing to catch his breath. He coughed. The air in Atheon rarely met the minimum health standards, especially out in the boondocks. The city was the heart of the mighty Empire; but power breeds commerce, commerce breeds industry, and industry doesn’t always bear other considerations into account.
Torvandis himself was an odd-job man. If friends ever asked what he did for a living, he’d say “A bit of this, a bit of that.” And with a sly smile, that would normally be the end of it — or it would be, if Torvandis had any friends.
The dull crack of a bullet impacting the wall next to him ended his brief respite, terror punching into his stomach like a sick fist. The chase was on again. Torvandis ducked reflexively, bolting sideways for a rusty ladder. Scaling it, he leaped awkwardly onto a nearby roof and sprinted across the rooftops, his tattered coat flailing behind him. He zigzagged through the vent stacks, praying it might make him harder to hit.
…fuckingfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck...
He didn’t know where he was running to. But he knew that if he intended to survive, he needed to break their line of sight somehow. He spotted a ladder and leaped for it, sliding down into the darkness of another alleyway stinking of piss and half-rotted garbage. Hitting the ground, he backed away slowly, his eyes pointed toward the rooftops, scanning feverishly for his pursuer.
It was then he felt a hard shape pressing into the small of his back. “Hello, Michael,” a dark voice oozed from the shadows.
“I... I didn’t...” he gasped before a deafening crack filled his ears, and everything melted away.
There were twelve dead in Atheon, city of a billion souls. And it was only Tuesday.
