Revolution
One Man Movement
((Jump in, oppose Rev, help him, as you wish. Open to anyone))
It was dark: the kind of slurry, warm darkness that stood as the limbo between dreams and the waking world. His consciousness, what little remained of it, bobbed about in that dismal comfort without aim or care. He did not quite dream, courtesy of the liquor that still pumped through his veins, but he could think.
In his isolation the isolation of his mind, all he could manage were questions. What, when, who, how, and everything in between. No answers came to him, save for one he knew intrinsically. It was a primal knowledge, instinctive even. It was a name - no, a title, an idea. He only needed to breathe life to it, say the word.
But how could one speak without a mouth?
That question went forgotten as the warmth began to fade. It dulled into a creeping cold that clung to him like a cloak, and all he could manage to think of then was how much he missed the heat. The light began to filter in shortly thereafter. It was faint at first, a twinkling around the edges of eyes he'd forgotten he possessed. Its soft golden rays swiftly gave way to searing, yellow beams that did not burn so much as they hurt. It was sharp and indescribable - an overload of data his brain lacked the hardware to process.
It was only when he instinctively raised his hand to block the sun's light from his eyes that he realized he was still very much a body - or was he a soul in a body? A soul and a body? Did they have to be mutually exclusive?
Much like the last, that question too was lost to the ether as the sound of his rasping lungs singing his own siren song greeted him. It sounded quieter than it should have, and his ears were possessed with a dull ringing that he registered as annoying before he could really grapple with the concept of the word. Slowly but surely, his blindness began to fade, aided, or so he thought, by the rapid blinking of his eyes.
He was in a room. It was a dingy hole in the wall. The carpet and walls were muddled and stained with various substances he couldn't begin to fathom, and the only furnishings were a mattress on the floor, a gnarled wooden dresser, and the window that had allowed the sun of whatever world this was to assault him into wakefulness. It smelled like dirt, mold, and people, three things he had little love for.
The pain made itself known then. It throbbed across his entire body, running down his veins like rivers, and seemed to pool in the center of his chest. Every breath was an inhalation of fire, every exhale a thunder bolt to the nervous system.
"Aaahhhwhhhehhhhhhghghhhh....aaaAGAGHGH!" The gargling grumble was choked out by the thin film of dust that had found a home in his throat. He rolled onto his chest, hacking detritus and spittle onto the rotten wood floor as he tried to steady himself. His arms responded at least. With a bit of effort and no small deal of agony, the man with no mind crawled his way onto the mattress.
"Okay, okay..." He sputtered to himself. His body moved with a muscle memory that eluded his mind. Trembling hands went for the black metal case at his belt and undid the latch. He snatched at one of the syringes within with clumsy fingers, popped the cap and ran his pinky down his right arm until he found the bump of a vein. He barely felt the metal pierce his flesh as he jammed down his thumb and injected the stims.
The seconds that followed stretched out into an eternity. They always did, that much he did know. The pain never left instantly; it had to be dragged out by its heels. Every throb dulled in its intensity, each heartbeat, each breath, growing more and more bearable. The stims felt like icy water as they travelled through his wetwork, dousing the fires of the night prior.
He was still sluggish, and his breathing demanded its due labor. He could think though, and if he could think he could function. With no small effort, he struggled up into a sitting position and cast a look around the room.
The bottle from last night greeted him. It twinkled in the light, daring him with what little of its content remained. Fe lunged for it without a moment's thought, downing the last few gulps of the bitter heat like an addict.
He wasn't one, of course. The drinks were more of an afterthought, a means of dulling the edge everything else he was on drove into him, and right now he needed it. That was what he told himself anyway.
"Whheeeeerrre are we?" He asked himself as he spied his glasses atop the dressed. Stumbling to his feet, the man wandered over and flicked the power button. A storm of messages splayed across the glass. He furrowed his brow and squinted as he read the contents.
Nothing good. Not at all.
"I got burned?" He, once again, asked himself. He reread the messages again, and found his disbelief replaced with a mounting anxiety that grew with every word.
The part of his brain responsible for memory seemed to sober up with the realization.
It'd been a pretty important job. Not politically or spiritually or any other king of 'ally' or 'ism', but rather for his pockets. Four hundred thousand credits and no questions asked, a dream job by his reckoning. He'd been paired up with some military sorts and tasked with jacking data from the personal terminal of some well-to-do mayor from Nar Shadda. Things went well, their intel was gold, and no one paid much mind to would-be janitors.
He'd jacked in, grabbed the data, those army guys drew down on him, and then...
"Call Maester." He muttered. The internal comm system welded into his skull complied. The line rung to nothing, then again. His growing frustration abated when it clicked to life on the third try.
"You've got a helluva lotta nerve calling me you dick." Her voice was sharp and warbling, its cadence utterly alien. He'd never met Maester in person, but he imagined her to be some kind of strange reptilian creature. The description certainly matched her attitude.
"Tell you the truth I really dunno why." His voice was both nasally and a craggy baritone at the same time. Wholly unpleasant, and another gift of his mystery night. "Wondering why my picture's on the holonet though."
"You killed the mayor." By the sound of her voice, Maester wasn't going to be working with her again. "Those guys on the op with you? Killed them too, and then the security, a few cops. Total disaster, all your fault. We're done Rev, and you need to get offworld. They got your face; they're looking for you."
Now that just did not sound right. He'd been sober then, or as sober as he ever was anyway. The army guys, yeah, he'd killed them, but then they tried to get him first. As to why, he had no idea, but the mayor he'd not touched. As far as he recalled, he'd bugged out, transferred the data to Maester, and found a bar the next sector over.
"Yeah, those assholes you stuck me with tried to shoot me in the back. I'm pretty sure they even got me a few times," his memory was a little fuzzy there, "I never saw the mayor though. Had to deal with some guards on the way out, but it wasn't anything excessive." He paused then, gazing out the window and realizing what he thought was sunlight was actually the beam of a spotlight from the roof of a casino half a mile below.
He was situated in a hab block on Nar Shaddaa; an old hideout in a sector of the city long since left to its own devices. This room in particular was a forgotten apartment hidden beneath a boarded off section of the block. It hung out over open space, the chasm-coated cityscape of the sinful world stretching out above and beneath it as far as he could see. All it would take was a strong bump to dislodge the whole structure and send him crashing to the city below in his metal coffin.
Utterly uninhabitable, perfectly secluded.
"How do they have my face?" Rev's voice took on its usual strength as he peered out across the expanse. "I thought you were running interference. The hell happened?"
Maester hesitated, the catching of her breath audible over the link. "I was, I did. Look, I don't know how they got through my soft, but they managed. I'm running too Rev, just not with you."
"And the data?"
"Just waiting on payment from the client. All direct to your account, don't worry."
"Uh-huh." Rev reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose and willed the accusation out of his voice. She'd hesitated, and she was too good at what she did to believe she'd just messed up. Still, he couldn't be certain. "That's it then?"
"That's it. Take care of yourself, Vikter." The slightest hint of warmth bled into Maester's voice. The hum of the call's killed whatever words were lingering in his throat.
"Six years, think you know somebody." He grumbled as he turned to find his kit. She'd probably traced the call, and if his hunch was correct, this safehouse was no longer the genuine article.
---
The moment the call ended; a ping was put out on the holonet. Its contents: a location, a name, and a reward of two-hundred thousand credits offered by the government of Shaddaa District Four-Thousand-Eight-Hundred-Fifty-Two, dead or alive.
It was dark: the kind of slurry, warm darkness that stood as the limbo between dreams and the waking world. His consciousness, what little remained of it, bobbed about in that dismal comfort without aim or care. He did not quite dream, courtesy of the liquor that still pumped through his veins, but he could think.
In his isolation the isolation of his mind, all he could manage were questions. What, when, who, how, and everything in between. No answers came to him, save for one he knew intrinsically. It was a primal knowledge, instinctive even. It was a name - no, a title, an idea. He only needed to breathe life to it, say the word.
But how could one speak without a mouth?
That question went forgotten as the warmth began to fade. It dulled into a creeping cold that clung to him like a cloak, and all he could manage to think of then was how much he missed the heat. The light began to filter in shortly thereafter. It was faint at first, a twinkling around the edges of eyes he'd forgotten he possessed. Its soft golden rays swiftly gave way to searing, yellow beams that did not burn so much as they hurt. It was sharp and indescribable - an overload of data his brain lacked the hardware to process.
It was only when he instinctively raised his hand to block the sun's light from his eyes that he realized he was still very much a body - or was he a soul in a body? A soul and a body? Did they have to be mutually exclusive?
Much like the last, that question too was lost to the ether as the sound of his rasping lungs singing his own siren song greeted him. It sounded quieter than it should have, and his ears were possessed with a dull ringing that he registered as annoying before he could really grapple with the concept of the word. Slowly but surely, his blindness began to fade, aided, or so he thought, by the rapid blinking of his eyes.
He was in a room. It was a dingy hole in the wall. The carpet and walls were muddled and stained with various substances he couldn't begin to fathom, and the only furnishings were a mattress on the floor, a gnarled wooden dresser, and the window that had allowed the sun of whatever world this was to assault him into wakefulness. It smelled like dirt, mold, and people, three things he had little love for.
The pain made itself known then. It throbbed across his entire body, running down his veins like rivers, and seemed to pool in the center of his chest. Every breath was an inhalation of fire, every exhale a thunder bolt to the nervous system.
"Aaahhhwhhhehhhhhhghghhhh....aaaAGAGHGH!" The gargling grumble was choked out by the thin film of dust that had found a home in his throat. He rolled onto his chest, hacking detritus and spittle onto the rotten wood floor as he tried to steady himself. His arms responded at least. With a bit of effort and no small deal of agony, the man with no mind crawled his way onto the mattress.
"Okay, okay..." He sputtered to himself. His body moved with a muscle memory that eluded his mind. Trembling hands went for the black metal case at his belt and undid the latch. He snatched at one of the syringes within with clumsy fingers, popped the cap and ran his pinky down his right arm until he found the bump of a vein. He barely felt the metal pierce his flesh as he jammed down his thumb and injected the stims.
The seconds that followed stretched out into an eternity. They always did, that much he did know. The pain never left instantly; it had to be dragged out by its heels. Every throb dulled in its intensity, each heartbeat, each breath, growing more and more bearable. The stims felt like icy water as they travelled through his wetwork, dousing the fires of the night prior.
He was still sluggish, and his breathing demanded its due labor. He could think though, and if he could think he could function. With no small effort, he struggled up into a sitting position and cast a look around the room.
The bottle from last night greeted him. It twinkled in the light, daring him with what little of its content remained. Fe lunged for it without a moment's thought, downing the last few gulps of the bitter heat like an addict.
He wasn't one, of course. The drinks were more of an afterthought, a means of dulling the edge everything else he was on drove into him, and right now he needed it. That was what he told himself anyway.
"Whheeeeerrre are we?" He asked himself as he spied his glasses atop the dressed. Stumbling to his feet, the man wandered over and flicked the power button. A storm of messages splayed across the glass. He furrowed his brow and squinted as he read the contents.
Nothing good. Not at all.
"I got burned?" He, once again, asked himself. He reread the messages again, and found his disbelief replaced with a mounting anxiety that grew with every word.
The part of his brain responsible for memory seemed to sober up with the realization.
It'd been a pretty important job. Not politically or spiritually or any other king of 'ally' or 'ism', but rather for his pockets. Four hundred thousand credits and no questions asked, a dream job by his reckoning. He'd been paired up with some military sorts and tasked with jacking data from the personal terminal of some well-to-do mayor from Nar Shadda. Things went well, their intel was gold, and no one paid much mind to would-be janitors.
He'd jacked in, grabbed the data, those army guys drew down on him, and then...
"Call Maester." He muttered. The internal comm system welded into his skull complied. The line rung to nothing, then again. His growing frustration abated when it clicked to life on the third try.
"You've got a helluva lotta nerve calling me you dick." Her voice was sharp and warbling, its cadence utterly alien. He'd never met Maester in person, but he imagined her to be some kind of strange reptilian creature. The description certainly matched her attitude.
"Tell you the truth I really dunno why." His voice was both nasally and a craggy baritone at the same time. Wholly unpleasant, and another gift of his mystery night. "Wondering why my picture's on the holonet though."
"You killed the mayor." By the sound of her voice, Maester wasn't going to be working with her again. "Those guys on the op with you? Killed them too, and then the security, a few cops. Total disaster, all your fault. We're done Rev, and you need to get offworld. They got your face; they're looking for you."
Now that just did not sound right. He'd been sober then, or as sober as he ever was anyway. The army guys, yeah, he'd killed them, but then they tried to get him first. As to why, he had no idea, but the mayor he'd not touched. As far as he recalled, he'd bugged out, transferred the data to Maester, and found a bar the next sector over.
"Yeah, those assholes you stuck me with tried to shoot me in the back. I'm pretty sure they even got me a few times," his memory was a little fuzzy there, "I never saw the mayor though. Had to deal with some guards on the way out, but it wasn't anything excessive." He paused then, gazing out the window and realizing what he thought was sunlight was actually the beam of a spotlight from the roof of a casino half a mile below.
He was situated in a hab block on Nar Shaddaa; an old hideout in a sector of the city long since left to its own devices. This room in particular was a forgotten apartment hidden beneath a boarded off section of the block. It hung out over open space, the chasm-coated cityscape of the sinful world stretching out above and beneath it as far as he could see. All it would take was a strong bump to dislodge the whole structure and send him crashing to the city below in his metal coffin.
Utterly uninhabitable, perfectly secluded.
"How do they have my face?" Rev's voice took on its usual strength as he peered out across the expanse. "I thought you were running interference. The hell happened?"
Maester hesitated, the catching of her breath audible over the link. "I was, I did. Look, I don't know how they got through my soft, but they managed. I'm running too Rev, just not with you."
"And the data?"
"Just waiting on payment from the client. All direct to your account, don't worry."
"Uh-huh." Rev reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose and willed the accusation out of his voice. She'd hesitated, and she was too good at what she did to believe she'd just messed up. Still, he couldn't be certain. "That's it then?"
"That's it. Take care of yourself, Vikter." The slightest hint of warmth bled into Maester's voice. The hum of the call's killed whatever words were lingering in his throat.
"Six years, think you know somebody." He grumbled as he turned to find his kit. She'd probably traced the call, and if his hunch was correct, this safehouse was no longer the genuine article.
---
The moment the call ended; a ping was put out on the holonet. Its contents: a location, a name, and a reward of two-hundred thousand credits offered by the government of Shaddaa District Four-Thousand-Eight-Hundred-Fifty-Two, dead or alive.
