Subject: [AUTHORITY] The Thunder of His Guns 1/1 Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 06:06:10 GMT From: gladiusdei@yahoo.com The Thunder of His Guns By: Kevin "Ramiel" Schmidt DISCLAIMER: I am not challenging any established copyrights with this work of fiction. FEEDBACK: Please. This is a wee bit of an experiment. Tell me what ya think. Once apon a time, a group of ideas gathered to change the world. Instead the world and a paranoid evil fuckwit killed them and disolved their bodies to goo with bioweapons. Ideas never die. They only change. Somewhere, a junkie begins to start healing the world that has become his village. Somewhere, a young woman replaces her blood with quicksilver machines. Somewhere in Chicago, there is the thunder of guns.... This is how it ends. Not with a bang or a whimper. But with greed, lust and a cliche. I miss the awful pain in my left arm. It throbbed quicksilver agony with every heartbeat. Now, it's numb and useless, hanging at my side wrapped in scraps of cloth that darkened by the second. My right hand clenches on the cold reasuring feel of my 45. Not police issue, but a lifesaver nevertheless. I am, for the record, a dumb ass cop. Walk a beat, take some graft, smash some heads. It's all good. But, as if I had Hammet seared into my brain at birth, I had to care. Buck the system. Find the curruption. Get shot. And now, in all likelyhood die here in a section of the Green that nobody goes into. All cause I had to change the world. I hear their footsteps getting louder in the stairwell. I slump back aganst the wall and watch the door, the 45 ready. The gun was older than I was but it had more class too. It also belonged to a dead man. He was a friend of my grandfather's according to the note that came in the ornate box holding the set of cannons. I figured on of his old cop "buddies" sent them out of some kind of perverse sense of humor. Address was somewhere in Paraguay. I remember hearing stories about my grandfather. He was everything I hate. The perfect example of greed and corruption in 1920's Chicago. He was drummed out of the force and locked up on a murder rap. He was working with the syndicate and ended up offing his own partner. Another dumbass who thought he could fight the system. The cops found Grandad unconscious and beaten. They said that none of them touched him. I get a chuckle out of that concept. I guess Grandad, out of guilt, tossed himself down the stairs a few times before shooting his own knees out. Damn. The things you think about when you're dying. It's supposed to by my life floating before my eyes, not Grandad's. The footsteps stop outside the door of the empty burnt out shell of a room I'm in. In a few seconds I'm dead. They've got guns, they're fresh, and they have the force of a city full of power and greed behind them. I've got a crippled arm, some usless ideals and an ancient hand cannon. And nothing to lose. The door slammed open and the thunder of guns split the night. If I concentrate really hard my legs will keep working and carry me away from this slaughterhouse. I ran out of bullets and there was still one guy left But now I'm all that's left. Me, a pair of empty chrome .45's And the rain. The warm summer rain that hammers down into me and washes the blood from my hands. Dad never let me visit Grandad. Understandably enough he hated the bastard. So he died in jail and I never got to meet him. But after I decided to become a cop and walked out of my family's house for the last time, an old reporter tracked me down. Over shots of far too old, far too smooth whiskey he told me a story. He was a cub reporter at the Tribune, making a name for himself in the wake of Ness heading out for Cleveland and the big shitstorm of destiny. He got a shot to interview my Grandad. Ask him why he did it. The answer was easy. "For the money." The real story though. The story that didn't make a lick of sense, was what got the reporter's attention. Grandad said it wasn't a cop that busted him up. Likely story. My legs start to seriously think about disobeing but I stagger over to my car, leaning aganst the hood, letting the rain pour over me. It wasn't cops, he said. It was the Devil. The Devil himself rose up out of billowing smoke and smashed him aside. The smoke. Flashing red eyes burning out from beneath a black fedora. Voice that resonated deep in his chest and knotted up his guts. The twin thundercracks of his guns. Sirens cut through the night. The others will be here shortly. Can only wonder what's going to happen now. Prison? Old age or a shiv in my back. Hero? Never in this department. My back would never be safe. I sigh, not caring about the pain or the numbness anymore. Just cursing the futility of life. I fumble with the car door and slide inside, lighting a cigerette and taking a long deep drag. I hold it in my lungs, savoring it before I blow the smoke out into the night. Something catches my eye in the pale glow of the cigerette. I see it and without knowing why I let out with a rip of laughter that echoes out into the night. Somehow it didn't suprise me. Somewhere in the depth of that laughter I find what I need to go on. I stay here, and eventually I'm dead. It might not be tonight, but eventually. I guess it's change or die. I take the black fedora from the seat next to me and slip it on my head. Beneath it, like a folded shadow lay a black trenchcoat. The rain hammers aganst my coat and hat as I slide out of the car. I watch the swirling red and blue lights approach from all angles. The cigerette falls from between my lips. Smiling lips. Suddenly, with an ease that seems natural and thrilling, I'm gone. Leaving my life. Dead cops. And a burning cigarette. To mark my passing. This is how it begins. -- Kevin "Ramiel" Schmidt sphinx@bright.net *** gladiusdei@yahoo.com