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The Darkness and the Light - Chapter 1:
Posted By: IAmDelta<mikemello176@juno.com>
Date: 7 February 2004, 4:09 AM
Read/Post Comments
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Author's Forward:
I set out to write a story that had some components which others lacked. I am not sure I have succeeded. Pending positive or even neutral feedback, I hope to continue to write this, and I assure you that John Glascow's place in the Halo universe will become more clear as time goes on. However, if this is crap, please tell me, as I do not want to waste my time. I know this first chapter is a little slow, but part of what I wanted to establish was a more complete background of my character than one gets in most fics. As with any book, there has to be development before the action kicks in. As time goes on the story will become more and more action/event based and less detail/background based (at least this is how I see it in my mind). I did my very best to create a plausible and realistic story concept, and I for one think it has great potential. Hopefully you'll agree.
-IAmDelta
You could have cut the darkness with a knife. It was black as pitch, and the only thing that allowed John Glascow to navigate through it was a lifetime of existence in this element. He was on the prowl; at least this was how he thought of it. A razor sharp garrote hung at his side. He had a pistol slung in a shoulder holster under his jacket, another in a holster strapped to his calf, and three throwing knives hanging from his belt.
Elsewhere in the city this would obviously have been suspicious, but in the Rat's Nest, as this area was affectionately called, John was considered only lightly armed. It was the way he liked it. It was actually more than he needed, and it still allowed him to move freely, silently, and securely in a world where sound was more revealing than sight. Of course there was normally no need for any of it, when brute force and a mention of his name was enough to strike fear in most hearts. John didn't enjoy killing, and had done no more than what he considered his fair share of it in his life. He was a more discriminate killer than most of his enemies.
It was not a good life. He could not trick himself into believing that. There was no purpose to it really. One had to steal, but nobody in the Nest had anything worth stealing except people like himself, other thieves. Money came into the system on a very limited basis, and those who did not have it usually didn't survive. Yet ever since an enterprising cat burglar had first made his way out of the Nest, looting the homes of Upper City dwellers who had grown complacent after their subconscious decision to relegate the lowest class to the gutter, the money had been there, as well as the idea. One stole enough money inside the Nest to buy one's way out of the Nest for as long as a temporary identification card lasted. You looted and pillaged, buying the weapons and food you would need to do it all over again, and then you brought what was left over back into the system where it could be used to fuel the "collective good". The primary social units of the Nest - the burglars or Rats - had long ago come to an unspoken yet unanimous agreement that killing each other would accomplish nothing. They stole from each other, yes, but killing only reduced the cash flow in the system, which was beneficial to none. John supposed the ultimate goal was to escape from the system, but generations of trying had so far proven useless, and he didn't really believe it would ever happen. It was just a way to occupy the time.
The futility was depressing in scale. The formation of the New World Government had only further solidified social boundaries. For a large majority, life had improved. The rest had been shoved aside into the slums of whatever city they lived in, into labyrinthine corridors formed by the supports of buildings which a mile or two farther up housed wealthy citizens of a prosperous Upper City. They were no longer even granted the courtesy of electric light. Even those who managed to stowaway on passenger shuttles headed for newly discovered planets - as John's grandfather had - had found the same rigid class system in place. And so it had remained for the past century.
Inside the Nest, things had taken on a necessarily simplistic yet somehow fulfilling character. Socially, it was interesting to see that in the depths of depravity, where the single living to be made was as a criminal, society had finally found it's way back to the old ideals it had been searching for for so long. Honor, glory, chivalry, and loyalty were seen as admirable qualities. Honor and glory were found in having and using superior skills, and chivalry in respect for those less fortunate that oneself. For those Rats who employed hit men and guards, loyalty was a prized quality, and a guard who abandoned a previous employer was discriminated against and would often never work again. It was common and expected for somebody who could help somebody to do so in any way possible, and many people, including John, considered such actions a point of pride. It was for this reason that he quickened his pace as up ahead he heard the desperate screaming of a woman echoing back and forth in the concrete corridor.
After a minute at a cautious run, he was close to the source of the screams. He couldn't of course see anything. Those who had spent more time above and become accustomed to the light instead of the dark sometimes carried flashlights, but he considered a flashlight a hindrance and knew that his biggest advantage in a fight was his ability to see in the dark without his eyes. At this point, however, he was disgusted by what he heard. In many ways it was more disgusting to hear than to see. It was simply a man grunting and a woman crying, but somehow he knew. He crept closer. He was right.
In another situation John would have waited and made sure nothing was amiss. Even with the unspoken neutrality pact, there was always the chance that an enemy might spring a trap. But in this situation, his immediate instinct, indeed the only right thing to do was to charge right in. And John always followed his instincts.
He could see it in his mind. The woman was on her back in the filthy grime of the cement floor. Her clothes were torn, her eyes were bulging, and she was fighting a man who was trying animalistically to spread her legs... John let out a roar, grabbed the source of the grunts by what happened to be the throat, and threw him into the wall. He placed one foot on the rapist's head to hold him down and turned to the source of the crying. He reached out and found her hand, pulling her up. She slumped against his shoulder and sobbed.
"You son of a bitch," John said to the man in a low, dangerous voice. The woman was gathering herself now and her hand came to rest on the gun at his breast.
"Who...?" she began. For a second she stood stock-still. Then she sprinted off in mid-sentence, firghtened out of her mind. John couldn't have caught her if he had tried. She had never even said thank you.
The man on the ground was stuttering meaningless gibberish. "Shut up," John commanded in the same threatening voice. The man did. Now what to do with him? He was trash in John's eyes, the worst kind of person found in the world. The Nest didn't need trash like him. He deserved no pity, no mercy. And he would receive none, John decided.
He drew his pistol, aimed at the man's head, and was about to pull the trigger when he remembered another thing he prided himself on, one of the things that made up his honor as he saw it: no unnecessary killing. There was a better way, perhaps a more just way of making sure this man would never commit this crime again. John lowered his aim slightly and fired twice. The man screamed and writhed on the ground. He would live, but not as he had once. This was justice. John calmly reloaded his pistol and melted into the night.
Tony Harris, or the Silver Rabbit, since John liked to think of his enemies by their nicknames instead of their real names when he stole from them, had just recently returned from the Upper City. This is what had initially piqued John's interest. In a couple of run-ins he had had yesterday he had learned the probable location in which the Rabbit was currently headquartered, and he had liked what he had heard. It was a location familiar to him, and there was a secret way into it that he knew of and bet his adversary didn't. He had created it himself, and he never told anybody about anything he thought was of value. It was the first thing he had learned down here. Don't trust anybody.
Tony was, like all of the top burglars, a mutual acquaintance of John's, meaning he had stolen from him in the past, but over all he ranked near the bottom of his respected list. He was one of those who John thought did engage in unnecessary killing, plus the fact that he was excessively arrogant about skills which John did not believe he had. John would enjoy his hopeful success tonight, and it would be a good beginning to the fund collection for his next trip topside.
According to the petty crooks he had interrogated yesterday, the Silver Rabbit was supposed to be residing in one of the Nest's main centers of "commerce", the Jungle. The Jungle was a monstrous pile of crates that had been thrown down here at some forgotten time in some company's history. The vast majority of them were for a product called AcidClean, which was supposed to clean by dissolving a small portion of the surface being cleaned, along with the dirt on it. As far as John could gather, the company had botched up an already idiotic idea and made the product entirely too strong. It had cleaned by burning through the entire surface instead of just the top layer. For obvious reasons, it was not a big success. The company had gone under, and in an attempt to save a few bucks their garbage had been thrown into the Nest where nobody would ever find it anyway.
The crates had been a gift in disguise. The inhabitants of the Nest had stacked the crates up to get them out of the way and had simultaneously created a slightly more permanent living space. It was not an uncommon place to find a Rat, although John thought it was entirely too obvious. It was an unpleasant place even by the standards of the Nest, but the combination of fresh loot and a healthy dislike for the Rabbit convinced John to call upon him there. It was to the Jungle that he was now headed after his short detour.
John stood in front of a wall of wooden crates, part of the outer edge of the Jungle. Although it was pitch black, he knew the one directly in front of him was numbered 12044. This was one of John's well-guarded secrets. To avoid scum, water, and liquid waste, inhabitants of the Jungle did not live at street level, but about ten crate-widths off the ground. At this level the crates had all been stacked to the same height, creating an even plane on which to nail together the remaining crates and create building-like structures. What had resulted was a sort of wooden street flanked by many "residences" and "businesses", all about forty feet off the ground.
What to John had seemed like simple logic nobody else seemed to have thought up. In a structure made of hollow wooden crates, it would be a simple matter to travel through them and come up in any number of places inside the Jungle, taking enemies by surprise. When he was just starting out, John had carefully engineered just such a passage and used it to gain his first foothold as a Rat. He did not think it was very well concealed, yet as far as he could tell, nobody else had ever found it. The entrance was hidden behind a generic AcidClean box on the south side of the stack, its only distinguishing mark being a small knothole hardly large enough for a finger. At one point John had been in possession of a flashlight and had surveyed his box. It was serial number 12044.
He stuck his finger in the knothole and pulled. A pre-cut section of the wood came with it, and he wriggled through the opening it revealed before replacing the wooden cover. Inside the crate it was even blacker, if that was possible. The passage consisted of adjoining holes cut in the sides of the crates, carefully designed not to weaken the overall structure and to maintain support for the crates above. He made his way through laboriously, using his hands and his own instincts, now truly blind. He ignored the numerous rats and other animals which inhabited the area. The wood was also beginning to rot, and the stench was overpowering.
After five minutes of this mild hell John abruptly hit a wall. He felt above him, and discovered a medium sized hole cut in the crates directly above his head. It was here that the passage departed from ground level and moved up towards the surface. He reached up and, grasping the edges of the opening, hauled himself through. Now moving steadily upward, he met several forks and chose from memory the way that led him, finally, out into a small alley in the rear corner of the Jungle.
As he emerged, all emotion, all nonessential feelings were washed away, and he once again was on the prowl. He checked that the safeties on both his pistols were off and quickly removed and re-clipped his knives to ensure they would be easily accessible if he needed them. That done, he crept silently toward the street.
John struggled for several seconds to make objects out in the gloom, before he gave up and shut his eyes to allow his ears the least distraction. Information poured into his brain. There were muffled voices off to the left, and people moving all around him. Through a thin wooden wall he heard a distinctive click, the sound of somebody cocking a pistol. A grinding noise on the other side meant that somebody else was sharpening a knife. His ears were telling him that there were enemies all around, and it took a conscious effort to maintain calm and remember that he was invisible.
To his right John heard a knock, knock, knock, the sound of hard soles hitting wood. Somebody was approaching. John subconsciously calculated his target's path and then moved to intercept. He timed it perfectly and the man walked right into his crouching form. John grabbed the man's legs, pulled them out from under him, and then caught his falling body before it hit the ground. One hand was over the man's mouth, and the other held a gun firmly pressed against his temple. The whole motion had taken only a split second and had been almost completely silent. John quickly pulled his captive off the street and back down the alley.
At a safe distance from the street, John carefully removed his hand. "Who are you?" he began, careful to keep his voice a generic baritone.
"None of your fucking business," the other man growled.
"Shhh," John warned. "If anybody hears you you're dead."
"Oh go to hell."
"You first." John pulled a knife off his belt and pressed it firmly against the man's throat. "I only have a few questions and I'll let you go. You gonna cooperate?"
No answer. He pressed the knife harder, breaking the skin. A few drops of blood dripped on his hand. "In fact, I don't even need to know who you are. Just tell me where the Rabbit is."
"Ahhh...why?"
"I'm asking the questions here. Where is he?"
"Here."
"Now do you think I'd be here if I didn't know that? Where is he staying?"
"Same place he always stays."
"Which is?"
"End of the street, on the right. He's the only one here with a light. I mean honestly, how hard can it be? Now come on, what the hell is this?"
"I wouldn't worry about it," John said. "I imagine you'll find out tomorrow. Sweet dreams." He slammed the butt of his pistol down on the man's head and lowered the unconscious form to the floor. Creeping back to the Jungle's main thoroughfare, he took a deep breath, steeled himself, and stepped out into the street.
His soft, rubber-soled shoes were designed to be silent. He moved slowly, fully alert. Ahead and to the right, just as the man had said, there appeared a dim light shining out from under a makeshift door. The light was obscured as somebody on the street walked in front of it, and he quickly ducked into another alley. He waited for several minutes, then resumed his approach when all was clear.
The first time he reached the light he kept walking, although his eyes were glued to the door. Two dark forms stood outside the doorway, doubtless Tony's guards. They stared suspiciously at him, and John silently insulted the man. It was weakness to use other people. John always worked alone.
He walked a safe distance past them, then turned and began to approach again, one step at a time, completely silent. The first time he had intended them to see him. This time they would not. The way the light bled out from the inside created dark spots to both sides of the doorway against the wall, and John was careful to stay in them, creeping painfully slow until he was only about two feet from the guard on the left. The next part would require timing and skill.
With his right hand John slowly reached down and pulled a knife off his belt, glad that he had oiled the release only the day before. His other hand rested on the garrote at his side. He could barely make out the guard across the light from him, but was eventually able to discern the head region. And now it was time to do his fair share of killing.
The knife shot from John's hand like chain lightning, the long blade striking the guard's neck, cutting through his throat and muscle tissue, and severing his spinal cord. He dropped like a rock. The guard next to John turned to see what had happened to his late partner, and John had the razor-sharp wire around his throat before he had time to register what had happened. He lowered the limp corpse to the ground and re-hung the garrote. He made to grab the knife, then thought better of it. He could buy a new one later.
Now John was at a loss, and he paused to rethink his strategy. Obviously the light would have to go. He was not used to it, and the Rabbit was. That gave his enemy an advantage. But John was used to the dark, and Tony was not. If John put the lamp out, he would have the advantage. But how to do it? The best plan would have been to scope out the area around the Rabbit's hideout and find a way to sneak in. But then he had just killed two men so that he would be able to go in the front. He regretted the decision now. No unnecessary killing echoed in his head. There was nothing for it. In order for his latest action not to be a waste, he would have to enter through the entrance he had just cleared.
He stood and drew his pistol. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a silencer and slowly screwed it onto the end of the barrel. He was not worried about other people hearing. In fact in the Nest gunshots were a signal to stay away, not try to help. But immediately after his shot he would need full use of his ears. And this meant that it was better to keep it quiet.
The "door" was simply another crate pushed in front of the opening to the structure. Light peeked out all around it, and when John stepped forward and put his eye to a crack, he had a clear view of the interior. The room was lit by bright white light from a single electric lantern that was sitting on a smaller crate functioning as a table. At first the room appeared to be empty, but as he watched a figure momentarily blotted out the light as it walked across the room from right to left. As his eyes adjusted, John observed a bed pushed up against the right wall. There was a form on it, somebody sleeping, but there was no way of telling if it was the Rabbit. After waiting another minute, he concluded there were only two people in the room, one Tony, the other probably a guard. No problem.
He spent several moments memorizing the exact position of the lantern, then stepped back and allowed his eyes a couple minutes to readjust to the dimness. He would only have one chance to make a difficult shot, and wanted every chance to make it work. He held the pistol with both hands to steady it as much as possible, and went over what he had to do one more time in his mind. Then in one violent motion, disregarding all caution, he kicked the crate inwards and to the left, leaving him a clear shot at the table. Time slowed as his mind calculated the perfect aim and shot orders down his nerves to his muscles. The result was a single spit and a shatter, then complete darkness.
As he stepped into the doorway, everything accelerated into real time again. He was incredibly alert. Every nerve was on fire, every sense attuned to the sound, the beat, the rhythm of the night. A scrambling to his right and a string of expletives told him that whoever had been in the bed was now awake. Footsteps were heard off to his left as the other man scrambled around, and a dull thud was heard as the first man stumbled out of the bed. John was still debating what to do when he heard a sickening click-clack from the region of the bed, and barely had time to throw himself backward into the street before the night erupted in a cacophony of gunfire and flashes.
He heard the wood where he had just been splinter as multitudes of high caliber rounds tore into it. Yells and screams echoed in the night as people were abruptly woken. He swore at himself. He should have expected it; Tony was packing heavy weapons, something John disdained, although he could not deny their effectiveness in a situation like this. The man was still firing, and John could clearly make out the origin of the shots from the monstrous muzzle flash. It would have been an easy shot, but he could not risk killing the Rabbit, if it was he that was firing. He needed Tony alive to lead him to his stash.
The man with the gun was clearly panicked and wasn't thinking. He had expended an entire magazine into the same spot, and began to reload his weapon. It was now or never. John made his move. Any pretense of stealth was lost as he sprinted toward the doorway, leaped over the hole torn by the bullets, and ran headlong into the man holding the heavy machine gun. John grabbed the barrel and forced it down, saving himself as the man reflexively pulled the trigger. The gun spat out another half a clip before John was able to wrestle it from the man's grasp. A knife appeared next, slashing John's upper arm. He roared in pain, grabbing the man's wrist and twisting it until the knife clattered to the floor. John kicked it under the bed and twisted the man's arm behind his back, finally managing to subdue him. He shoved him face first into the wall, drew his remaining pistol, and held it to the man's head.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?" the man yelled. With this first cocky sentence John knew he was holding the Silver Rabbit.
"None of your business."
"Glascow. I'd know your voice anywhere, you son-of-a-bitch."
"It seems to me you're not in the position to be name calling," John observed. "Now I know you just got home yesterday. Where's the stash?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh come on, don't give me that crap. You're not gonna put one over on me. Tell me what you got and where you hid it, or I might get irritated with you. I've already threatened one man at knifepoint tonight, and I don't feel like doing it again."
"...Shit!" Tony exclaimed.
"That's right. You have no choice. Come on, it's all in a day's work."
"Shut up!"
John laughed. "Take your time then. What are your options? What else can you do?"
The Silver Rabbit growled vehemently. Through clenched teeth he said, "It's...it's under this room. Under the bed. Two crates down, one over."
"You telling the truth?" John asked.
"What the hell choice do I have?" Tony snarled.
John smiled. "Right you are. Well in that case, you and I are going to have to go fetch it." Tony remained silent. "Under the bed you say..." John used his body to keep Tony pressed into the wall, held the pistol to his head with one hand, and pulled the bed out of the corner with the other. "What next?" he asked.
"Who told you I was here?"
"What next?" John growled, pressing the pistol harder to the Rabbit's head.
"Ouch! There's a hole drilled. Stick your finger in and pull up." John did, thinking how frighteningly similar this was to his own secret passage. The top of the crate came up with it, and he threw the piece of wood on the bed.
"Now do you go down or do I?" If he went down, Tony would be able to ambush him when he came back up, but if he had Tony go down, there might be something he had stored below, a weapon or the like, which he could use against him. John would have to go himself.
But first, he drew a length of cord from a pocket, tying Tony's hands behind his back. Then he shoved his back against the wall, and shoved the handles of the garrote into two cracks in the crates that made up the wall so that they straddled Tony's neck. If he tried to run or even move too far he would slit his own throat. That done, John descended, ignoring Tony's pleas and carrying a flashlight he had procured from Tony's pocket.
The passage was similar to his own, although not nearly as much attention had been paid to maintaining structural support. He found two large and heavy duffel bags sitting right where Tony had said they would be. Too easy, thought John.
He expected to find some cash and a lot of valuables. The cash John could use, but the valuables would only be valuable if somebody could buy them, which didn't apply in the Nest. One normally pawned what they could and saved the rest simply because there was nothing else to do. He unzipped one of the bags to make sure.
What John saw took his breath away. The bag was filled with cash, bills neatly counted and wrapped no less. He opened the other bag. It was the same. How had the Rabbit stumbled across such a sum? Now John understood why he had been so upset over giving up his loot. This was more than John would make in a year or two, maybe enough to set him up in an apartment up top and break free of this place forever. He sat for several minutes, pondering the possibilities, until the sound of the Rabbit's whining up above brought him out of his dreams and back to reality. He quickly zipped the bags and tossed them over his shoulder for the climb back up.
When he emerged he found Tony with tears in his eyes and shaking visibly in his effort to stay still. John quickly removed the garrote. He had to admit it must have been a horrible feeling. His good will was short-lived, however, as Tony aimed a string of insults and expletives at him. "Why you ungrateful little wretch," he said. Patting the bags, he said, "Oh well. I got what I came for." He knocked Tony on the head with his pistol, then untied his hands. He hefted the two bags and prayed there would be no further problems on the way out. Just in case he kept his pistol out and ready. "Better luck next time," he said to Tony's unconscious form, and stepped out of the room.
The gunfire had had the desired effect and scared away any potential enemies. The street was empty. He walked quickly back to the alley where he had made his entrance, passing the still unconscious form of the man he had interrogated earlier. He reached the entrance to the passage and, as he lowered the bags down, pondered again how the Rabbit had gained so much money so fast. He had been in too much of a hurry to ask Tony where the money had come from, but now he wished he had. It didn't make sense. You simply couldn't make that much, no matter how good you were. And Tony wasn't that good. It didn't make sense.
Whatever it all meant, he had been lucky today, and his plans for tomorrow had just changed completely. He had been following his standard reconnaissance and attack, the method by which he normally accumulated funds for his futile but enjoyable periodical visit to the upper city. Now in a single night he had accumulated all his funds and more, which meant he could move the timetable up. Tomorrow John would be going topside.
He finished lowering the bags and started to descend himself. As he was lowering himself through the hole, he finally remembered the shadow that had momentarily blocked out the light before he had entered the Rabbit's hideout. He remembered the scuffling he had heard on his left. And he remembered using Tony's flashlight several times to survey a completely empty room. He had forgotten in the heat of the moment, but now his memory was crystal clear. Had it been fear...or something else? Once again things didn't make sense. But he was tired of speculation, and he didn't really want to understand. He had enough trouble with cold, hard fact. So there it was, a cold, hard fact:
The other figure was gone.
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