Oh, not a drinker I see. Well, fair enough I suppose. Now what is it that you’ve come here to talk to me about?
What, that old gang? Really?
I mean, sure. Most people come to talk to me about the new stuff going on. The syndicates are for the birds, as my mom used to say. Not that she knew diddly squat about the syndicates or anything about that type of business. Would’ve killed her if she found out I had any part in it. Would’ve killed herself to hear the stuff I did for them.
Sometimes, you gotta smoke, you know? From the beginning. I was a kid when I joined the Red Dragons. There are many reasons to join a syndicate. I met this one asshole who claimed to have joined up because he had a vision that the ghost of William Blake told him to join one. Bastard ended up getting his eyes carved out when things went south. Fucking viscous, you know. I suppose the real question is who wouldn’t know.
Why did I join? I needed the money. I knew I wasn’t gonna make it big in the syndicate. No one ever makes it big unless they become the world’s biggest asshole. They have to kill at least five swimming pool’s worth of people before they could even be considered for a Capo position. God knows I could never even kill one swimming pool’s worth. That’s like 500 or maybe even a thousand people. Maybe, cumulatively, by the time I die, I’ll have killed 100, maybe 300 people. I couldn’t even bear to imagine the fucked up person who actually could do that.
But working for the syndicate… that was a no brainer. Sure, with my skills, I could’ve gotten work as a bounty hunter, but who wants to live paycheck to paycheck, half of which are just “exposure?” Fucking bounty hunters are just a bunch of idiots who can’t hack a real job like enforcer. That’s what I do, you see. I enforce the plans of the syndicate. Sometimes, that means hunting down an asshole who stole a shit ton of Red Eye. Others, it’s as simple as standing in a room looking intimidating. The day that things started to go south, I was working on an assignment on Venus when shit went down on Mars. The job was a simple intimidation of a rival syndicate. It was the first time I worked with one of the White Tigers. For a while, we were at war over territory or whatever. Politics was never my jam, you know? Anyways, whatever political shit was going on was supposed to be smoothed over that day. It wasn’t because someone decided to be a fucking asshole and murder both sides of the negotiation table. Fucking vicious, you know. So here I am on Venus, standing like I’m just itching to kill someone, when this giant green bird appears out of nowhere. I’m like, “Holy shit, a giant green bird just landed outside.” Nobody’s paying much attention to me, but that’s mainly because they’re dead.
Shit, did I skip over something? Sorry, I have this thing where I forget to talk about the important stuff like who died when or whatever. So back when I entered the headquarters of the Blue Roses syndicate, they were this new group that sprung out of nowhere taking over everyone else’s business as if we were just a bunch of kids who “borrowed” them for a bit too long. Had this childhood friend who would constantly steal all my stuff. Had to beat him senseless to get him to understand what’s mine is mine. So there we are, working with the White Tigers in dealing with these upstarts. I thought going in that this would be a one, two, bang, bang, bang sort of deal where it would be over smoothly. I was right about the Bang, Bang, Bang part of that.
They fired first, I want to stress that. There was this giant ass motherfucker with a fucking Gatling gun going du du du du du dudududududududududu all over the place. Half of our guys were killed by that bastard. Their blood danced across the sky like this was a fucking opera. It took us five minutes to get the guy dead. One of the White Tigers was able to sneak behind him and blow his head clean off. Guy was as small as a mouse, but somehow he could hold a hand cannon that big without flying in the air. Takes guts, you gotta give him that. Shame the rest of the foot soldiers had to come him and rip them right out of his chest. These guys were a lot easier to deal with. With the big mother fucker, we had to deal with body armor and the fact that he was clearly at least 98% robot. Good thing his head wasn’t, heh heh heh. But the rest of the mooks, they were just wearing suits. Mind you, there were a lot, and I do mean a lot of those fuckers. By the time we reached the top floor, only two of us were left.
Yeah, there were a lot of dead people left behind us. Most of them just bled out from losing their limbs or some shit like that. A couple were pretty much just shot in the gut and left to just bleed out. Only one that was really memorable was one of my fellow Red Dragons. We were on the third floor dealing with these samurai assholes. I mean, who the fuck brings a sword to a gun fight? Apparently them, as they sliced through the guy and cut him in half. The rest of us dealt with them quite easily, but seeing them cut a guy in half is quite something. But no one was disintegrated before me or had their eyes gouged out. It was nice, fair game. Apart from the fucking giant of course.
But the way things are supposed to be done is we let out a little blood, cull the chaff as they say. Then we make the other guys pay and pay dearly. None of this negotiation bull crap or massacres with gallons of blood spilt on both sides. We’re supposed to be professional killers, not mad men with a death fetish.
Well, to each their own, I guess. But at the very least don’t be a dick about it. There has to be limits. Take the boss of the Blue Roses. When I entered his office alone-
Oh, he died. Gunfire from the remaining two goons. He was a White Tiger, but he was alright, I guess. Anyways, when I enter to see the boss, he’s not got a gun on me or anything. He’s just drinking his whiskey as if I’m just some appointment he made three weeks ago. And it wasn’t even that good of whiskey. I had some after I killed him cause, hey, whiskey’s usually good. Tasted as spoiled and rotten as that little shit was.
So after all that, after they’re all dead and I’m standing there looking like an intimidating bastard when out of nowhere, this giant fucking bird appears. I mean, he wasn’t as big as you or me are, but he was pretty fucking huge. Bigger than a bird his shape ought to be.
Okay, you ever see a canary?
Yeah, imagine that the size of a clock.
No, no. Like those old clocks from when you were a kid. The kind that had that little guy come out of it and sing at the start of every hour. My grandfather used to have one of those. He-
Oh nothing, I’m just getting nostalgic. Forgive me, please.
So this bird, this giant green bird. He perches down by where I’m standing.
I had just gotten down the stairs, ok. So the bird lands right outside, and he’s looking at me. Not like a bird does a human or a worm or anything like that. He’s just looking at me. Or, I suppose, through me. He’s looking at all the people who stood where I was standing throughout all time and space. At first, I thought the Blue Roses had infected their air conditioning system with some sort of hallucinogen or something. But I was feeling too lucid for that to be true. Plus, why would it be so hard to kill all of us? I mean, if we were tripping balls while they weren’t, why was I able to survive?
Yeah, I suppose that’s possible. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is the bird. As it was looking at or through me, I thought of a song my mother used to sing. I forget the words of it though, but I do remember the melody. hm-HM hm-HM hm-HM hm-HM hm HM HM HM hmmmm. It was a soothing song that, no matter when my mother sang it, I would always fall asleep. I wasn’t falling asleep then. In fact, it felt like I was awake for the first time in my life. I know, bit cliché. But life is full of those cliché moments that don’t click until they happen. I saw my future as being another in a long line of bloodstained corpses. The chaff given way to the strong. And it was wrong. I wasn’t weak, I wasn’t weak at all. If I wanted to survive, I’d have to make a move. Not now, of course, but at some point. I will make my move soon. I’ve got it all planned out. First, you have to take over the Red Eye supply line, knock some heads here and there. Then you just bribe all the top players into joining up with you until you have enough support to take over.
You kill them, obviously. If they live, they can die. You have to evolve or die to make a new syndicate out of the ashes of the old. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t like killing people. In fact, I despise it. But, at the end of the day if it’s between you taking control and five or six guys who think they’re better than you… Not that hard of a choice, now is it?
It flew away, like all birds do in the end. There was a sadness in its eyes as it flew away. I couldn’t place what it was though. Probably nothing to do with me, birds have a life of their own, you know. But the bird being there meant that I was caught by the police. They let me go a little while later, does good not to lock up of the Red Dragons, especially me. I went back to Mars and heard what happened there. Shit was hitting the fan and it was my time to shine. We wouldn’t be led by some asshole who thinks a bloodbath and a statement are the same thing. Nor would we be led by a pencil pusher who’d rather talk things over than do business. No, what we need is a professional. Someone who can do the job and do it right.
Exactly! Exactly what I’m saying… err, you didn’t say what your name was.
Vicious, huh. What kind of name is-
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