Holden was still in pain, not as much as before, but it still hurt like hell, the machine helped him to breath, gave him plain killers when need be, but he was still messed up. "Look at what they did to me." He thought as he turned the page of Treasure Island, wincing in pain. There was little else to do now. He wondered if Deckard would get the bastard skin job that got him. Probably, Deckard was always the favourite.
"Mr Holden?"
"That’s me"
He said from the Iron lung, he didn’t bother using the mirror to view the female stranger. Another doctor or nurse, it didn’t matter.
"Were going to operate on you soon, I am going to start the pre-med. Ok?
"Find by me."
As the nurse injected the liquid in to the valve of the drip, Holden wondered how long it would take to kick in. He was worried about falling asleep, would he wake up? There were times when he didn’t think so. Or cared for that matter. He couldn’t believe the skin job had jumped him. He had never felt this bad before, not even after his first ‘retirement’
If he did live through the operation to make him more ‘stable’ then he would have to start on the long road to recovery.
Tim opened the fridge door and let it swing right open until it hit the cheap chipboard unit, making the fridge handle shape hole bigger. Before looking in to it he closed his eyes, and prayed.
"Please, God. Beer."
He was playing guessing game here, it was over two week ago the he put a four bottles of beer in there, two were defiantly drunk, and there was a half empty flat one over by the sink. Which left one, trouble was that he might have drunk that one as well, but was that the half drunk one or another one? God he needed that beer.
The bedroom window opened.
He opened his eyes.
"Thank you."
One golden beer left, he quick opened it by holding the bottle top on the unit edge smacking it down, popping the top off and also splintering the top of the unit more.
The man cocked the gun.
By the time he had walked into the room that he tried to pass off as a ‘living’ room half the bottle was drunk. Sitting down Tim rummaged for the remote, turned of the TV and relaxed, it was over with, he was home at last and he still had the tape.
BBC Three, twenty four hour news, it would be on there for sure and they would buy the tape, make Tim a rich man.
". . . Minister Beck is still in recovery after the attempted assassination and will be addressing the members of the press tomorrow, as you tell this is a very stressful time for Mr beck and his family"
Tim couldn’t believe what he was hearing ‘alive’
He looked at his tape again. Still didn’t make much sense, he slowed it down to five frames a second.
In super slow motion the assassin jumped up on to the stage, the Minister hadn’t stopped reading the speech, but the bodyguards were already moving to stop the assassin. One fired at the smartly dressed man, it must of hit, Tim look closer at the screen as the slowing falling assassin shoot bullets in to the direction of the minister.
The man was now in the same room as Tim. It was all over.
On frame 16664 Tim saw the back of the ministers head come off in a sickening red spay of blood and brains. There it was a man shot in the head, and yet the news said that in was just a flesh wound, why would they lie?
Tim would never know. All the questions and ideas that were in his head were soon replace with a high calibre bullet.
It had been weeks before anyone had come to visit, so it came as a surprise when Bryant came walking in to the room. He looked like the slob he always was, but Holden was happy to see him anyway.
"Holden! I see they got you out of that damn iron lung."
Holden cleared he throat and croaked out what sounded like a "yeah"
"What the hell, I thought you getting better here, you sound like crap you know"
"Operation."
"Oh I got ya, listen we go the Rep that shot you"
Holden already knew, all day he watched the news and read newspapers, of course they weren’t in the habit of writing "Read all about it, dirty skin job retired downtown!" But the clues where there. Deckard must have got to them, shit thought Holden, he felt belittled by his failure and Deckard’s success, but then on reflection he felt bad for that.
"Really?"
"Yeah, Yeah we got em, all of them."
"So what’s up."
"Hey can’t a captain see how his injured men are?"
"It’s been two months"
"Yeah I know, sorry, things have been going bad at station. I’ll fill you in when you get back to work"
Holden looked up from his copy of Treasure Island the he had read five times.
"What? Have you seen the state of me?"
"I seen a lot worse pal, anyway you’re on the transplant list, fix you up in no time"
"Apart from the three year waiting list"
"Three years, a? Try three weeks, I bumped you up the list, we need you back old pal, need the old magic."
"What about Deckard, he’s good."
"We would if we could find him, looks like he quit for good this time."
"I don’t know Bryant I think Rick’s got the right idea."
Holden wish he hadn’t said that, he could see Bryant wasn’t in the mood.
"You know as well as I do. PAL, you can’t quit, You’re not cop, you’re little people."
Bryant looked angry, he went to walk out of the door when he turn around to Holden, who had picked his book up again.
"I’ll see YOU when they fix you up."
It was an order, still Holden was lucky in a way, the waiting list of replacement organs was too long for his liking, not to mention expense, the department would pay for that, and that is what Bryant meant by little people. If he quit the force, that would be it for him, no job, no money, and no organs.
Peterson was not a happy man, He should be a happy man, and he was that head of a largest company in LA He had an office as big as most people houses. There was no doubt about it he had made the very top.
"About fucking time." He said to the Suit
"Sorry Mr Peterson, this sort of Information is top level only, it took some time of over-ride. . . "
"I don’t care about that, just fill me in."
The Suit looked at the file in his hand, then back at Peterson, he wouldn’t like it, but fuck him, Peterson had always been a brown nosing shit.
"Well sense the untimely death of Mr Tyrell company shears have fallen to an all time low. . ."
"Make a new model then. Nexus 7 or whatever."
"I am sorry Sir but we can’t just make a new Nexus, the old 6’s still need some work yet, anyway haven’t you forgot most of the sub-con’s are dead."
Peterson was well out of he’s league here, he WAS a brown-noser. He got where we was today by pretending to be the big man, taking the ideas from his piers, and now everyone would know.
"Ok Ok, you go and work on it, I’ll give you full control of the files."
"Yes sir."
The Suit walked out of the plush office in to the waiting room, the sun was setting at the edge off the second building, the owl turned and looked at him.
"Don’t you worry my friend he won’t last."
The owl didn’t understand, and turned back to the window.
James Lawman was always second best, to everyone. His brother, his father, in collage at university always ‘not quite the best’ that was going to change, there was no one left at Tyrell under him apart form Peterson, and he wasn’t going to last. Not at all.
Being a consultant had its ups and downs, looking after the best interests of the patents was his job but Dr Blacksmith had been in the game long enough to know one thing. Money Talks. So it was no surprise to him when some police type came in demanding the one of his "out standing officers" was to be put to the very top of the waiting list. He wasn’t at all surprised when the fat cop gave him an envelope stuffed with money and he was completely unsurprised when he was told that the order came from the very top.
So he when down to the lab, sixteen levels down in the hospital at three in the morning. When he should be at home.
"Harry!"
"WHAT!"
Harry looked at form the DNA matching machine, from where he had been working for the last six hours; he didn’t expect the head of department to standing over him.
"Oh. Sorry Dr, I thought you where some one else, I don’t get I lot of people down here. . ."
"Don’t worry about it Harry, I just popped down to give you this."
Blacksmith handed him the a small medical sample tube with the words
"DNA SAMPLE"
"SUBJECT : HOLDEN"
"No: 102934_RD"
"Another body part then, just put it with the other four hundred and fifty two back there will ya"
Harry pointed to a table covered in racks of tubes.
"No harry, this one’s next, comes striate from the top, they want this guy fixed up and out of here ASAP, so I want you to start a body culture on him."
"What does he need?"
"It’s in the file, new lung, a few bits a peace nothing big. They just want it fast, can you sort it for me Harry?"
"Yeah, I do next."
"Thanks harry."
Blacksmith slapped harry on the back, he was a good man, doing a hard job the hours were joke, they were understaffed by sixty percent in the organs regeneration labs, and the backlog of poor bastard wanting a new lung, heart or liver was growing by the day.
Twenty minutes past and Harry finished up in the case he was on, mixing up the pre-made DNA with the matching DNA form the patent, he put the dish in the freezer with the other nine he had done that night.
"Now then that have a look at what so important about you then."
Harry placed Holden's DNA sample in the machine, and looked down the electron microscope while try to get a match on the DNA.
Medical science in this field was cutting edge; Harry had in that night made nine cultures of cells ready to be grown in to replicant organs for humans. Using Rep technology and DNA splicing it was now possible to have an organ grown for transplant, a perfect match for the patience.
Harry had been doing to job for three year now and was no doubt the best in his field, but of all the cases he had seen, he had never seen this before.
"What fuck IS this."
Harry spent two hours on the sample marked HOLDEN; it didn’t make any sense. There was only one explanation for such a DNA sequence, and it put Harry in a compromising position.
Barker loved his job, special detective at Scotland Yard dealing with Replicants, one of only three in the building, him, his boss and his ‘understudy’ Naylor.
There have only ever been four replicant incidents in Britain and only six more in the rest of the United County’s of Europe, Reps had never been allow in , not even the almost robot-like ‘android reps’ of the past. The UCE was a very hard place to get into, border control was the best in the world, and it had been since the War. As a result Blade Runner type units were few and far between, the main two being in England and Germany. The unit in Scotland Yard was the biggest.
Barker was lazy, and that’s why he loved his job. That was way his day was ruined when the Vid-phone went off.
"Yeah?"
"..Barker..you got a case.. or something come over."
The Vid-phone switched off, Al Faulkner; Barkers ‘boss’ was wrecked again. Barker sighed, it looked like other day of actual work. He screwed up ball of paper that hi had been drawing on and through it over at the wall were it bounced off and missed the metal bin.
"oh, Shame."
He left the office, Naylor was around somewhere doing some sort of ballistics work. He could cover if there was a big rush.
The spinner ride took about ten minute, most of that was taken up with Barker trying to get the special detective’s spinner back off of vice, were they had been ‘borrowing’ it for the last two weeks.
"Bastards."
He said swiping off the plastic coffee caps and other assaulted food wrappers off of the dish and on to the floor.
Traffic was low and it was only a few minutes to Al apartment. Al never went in to Scotland Yard any more, he ‘worked’ at home. As Backer landed on the roof of Al’s apartment he braced himself for another drug-induced conversation.
Al Faulkner had been in the game for ten years, he moved over from CID when the unit was set up, apparently he was one of the best detectives CID ever had, but a few years on Al had lost it, he never got over his first retirement. He executed a fifteen-year old girl replicant. After that he had turned to cannabis and drink and never looked back, cannabis in the UCE was now legalised. Not the any member of the police was allowed to drunk or stoned will working, but in the special detective unit ‘work’ was something that rarely turn up.
Baker let him self in of Al’s apartment, Al had given Baker the key along time ago when they were still partners in the unit, before Al went up in the world. it’s seem odd that Al could ever have got into the police force let allow reach up to the dizzy highs up special detective chief. Still the UCE had ratter strange operating methods.
Barker walked down the hallway, which surprisingly was very modern and clean looking, as his open the door to one of the large rooms, and was hit but a huge cloud of smoke. The room filled with prints of modern art and wooden floors with glass and metal furnisher, very 1990’s, Al’ was sitting on an expensive looking lather chair working over a glass coffee table. Old 70’s music was playing.
"Fucking hell Al, your get the sack one day. . ."
Al looked up from the pressing business of making joints and drinking high grade Vodka to give a wide smile.
"Not today! Old man. Not-to-day."
He lifted the half made joint in to eye level , and with a display of immense concentration, rolled it up.
"In fact, If you play ya cards right you can have my old job. Sit down, your making the place look untidy."
He was slurring his words quite badly, still it was two o’clock in the afternoon, so on doubt his has been drinking and smoking for a coupe of hours. Have done paper work for coupe of hour before hand.
Barker fell in to a single sit, he sank down in to it.
"What this about man."
"I am moving up in the world"
Said al tacking a big gulp of vodka out of the bottle.
"AGAIN?"
Al laughed in put the roach in to the joint. lit the joint up, taking a very long puff and slowly blowing out, he looked at old friend.
"I do some VERY good work here."
They both laughed, the UK BR unit as Al like to call it was bullshit, only a few case ever turned up, no one did any sort of work and it has one of the best unions in the world, the police, hence pay was high. Murder it seemed had a price and it was high.
"The deal is I go up and along to internal security."
"And I get your job, and Naylor gets mine?"
"I wish . . . It was that simple, There are four contenders for the job; a German guy, a French guy, his good, and you.
"Very politically correct, and the Fourth"
"What"
"You said four."
"Oh, yeah that’s the problem, ya see none of you boys have ever retired a Rep, so first one wins the job by the looks of it. And the only SD with a case at the moment is . . ."
"Naylor"
"Yep."
"but his a junior, al the other two are my rank yeah?"
". . . Tell me, how would it look if he gets one and your don’t? Do you think they’re still going to let you up ahead of him, no chance."
Barker relaxed in the chair.
"So what now."
"So now, you get the rest of his case."
"oh come on! I can’t fuck Naylor over like that."
"You don’t have to, read the files."
Al tossed over a disk, it had the case files on it in KIA format. Baker plugged it into his KIA.
"Roll me one."
"okay man."
It had taken over an hour for Lawman to access the file. But here it was. He hoped that it would at least give him some of the answers to Tyrell Corporation problem.
The file in question was on a hidden server, inaccessible to anyone below Tyrell. It was only the use of a virus checker in this server that even pointed to its existence. A level ‘C’ programmer had pointed it out to lawman as he inquired; Lawman made a mental note to check what the Tech’s knew and what they didn’t.
The consequence was that Peterson took steps to access Mr E.Tryell’s personal computer files, operational papers and more importantly finance data could be access here.
It was only a matter of hour before the server was found on the top floor of the Tyrell ‘One’ building, then the Tech's. Simply cut it open, given the go ahead by Lawman. It wasn’t event worth the wait to see if one of them could crack the access codes to the computer, the data core was removed and added to another server’s. It was encrypted that was to be expected, at first this worried Lawman, but the technicians soon found out it had been set to an old RSA standard, it took minutes to unscramble the code with the newer Tyrell computers.
Lawman was fascinated by the prospect getting this inner most core of information before his boss, there must be a thousand and one gems here that he could sink Peterson with.
Lawman sat in his plush office, he would sit here and read it all, learn how it worked, and he would make it work for him.
Person was completely unaware that his fate was in the hands Lawman, as he relaxed in his upmarket apartment, no doubt he would be finished in weeks. However Lawman was completely unaware of the security protocol of the Tyrell’s mainframe.
Barker fought against the growing affect of the marijuana as he looked down at the two case files, stored as KIA data files, the case that Naylor had taken up seemed to have a lot to do with a murder three months ago. A shooting.
Even before the war the UCE had strict law about weapons. Something about a string of mass murders involving children in the UK as well as France and old US of A. As a result the crime figures in the UCE had fallen year by year, which of course meant the amount of money given to the armed police force fell year by year.
Naylor had been given the murder case not just because the CID in England was over stretched. (Not that the powers that be would have cared of such a matter.) As luck would have it for the rookie replicant Detective, the ammo found in the shipment of weapons for another case had also found it’s way in to the head of one of the leading replicant sympathetic activists one William Bagnall.
NIN: KL 06 20 19 M
NAME: WILLIAM JOHN BAGNALL
CORONER’S REPORT:
G.S.W. To the back of the head, subject showed no sign of struggle, implying no contact with murder prier to death. Death instantaneous. Possible assassination. Bullet appears to be designed to brake up after hitting the target I.E. designed to inflict maximum damage to soft tissues. 9mm casing, likely weapon to be a handgun probably silenced. Powder burn marks on the back of the victim’s head show weapon was fired at close range.
ATTENDING OFFICERS REPORT:
One Miss Samantha Bagnall called me to the location. The victim was identified by DNA by my self at West Sussex police station confirming the victim as NIN: KL 06 20 19 M, A.K.A. WILLIAM JOHN BAGNALL (Mr)
NIN, National Insurance Number, Every UCE citizen had their own number, given to them at birth, it was used for identification, the number was a reference of sorts to the central computer in London. Every time a person used their number, for opening up bank accounts to opening lift doors that required ID, It would know about it.
Barker read though the rest of the report; the usual documentation was there, including a VK output tape that Naylor had added to the case after accusing the sister of the Bill Bagnall of being a replicant. Barker laughed to himself, as if a rep would come to England, or indeed any of the UCE governed country, and then to live with a high up rep symph? Impossible.
"What’s so funny?" slurred Faulkner.
"Nothing, just Naylor’s case. Does he normally VK the bereaving family members of murder victims, or was this a one off?"
"He’s just trying... you know ‘get-up-there’"
"Yeah, anyway what does this have to do with a case for me?"
"Simple man, there are two problems here, one: a man is dead. That can be Naylor’s problem, Two: shipment of guns. Of which we know there are more of."
"But knowing Naylor, he’ll will follow up both cases, guns and gunner."
"Doesn’t matter what he wants to do, I reckon there’s enough work for two detectives here, and CID agrees with me."
Barker looked down at the KIA, then back at the now almost completely wasted inspector.
"So where do I start then?"
"If I was you I would be getting hold of Naylor before he solves both cases and get MY job."
Barker took one more drag out the burning joint, pausing, wondering how he could get a piece of the action without pissing on Naylor’s fire.
"Right then, I best go now while I can still walk"
"That my friend, is a good idea."
Barker uneasily got out of the over-comfortable chair, which had already imprisoned Al for the night, and staggered in to the hallway.
"You’ve got to sort it out Al, they wont let a pot head like you in to head office" he shouted as he left the apartment.
Al nodded, barker was right.
Barker remained seated in the police spinner with the door fully opened, fresher air cleaning his lungs. He was in no state to drive a spinner, drunk no doubt and defiantly stoned.
"Shit."
The most interesting case so far and he was to messed up to do anything about it. He thought of calling Naylor. No that reeked of effort, put the VK tape on instead.
The VK display screen appeared. The left half showed a woman’s face, crying her eyes red and puffy, although quite attractive thought Baker. On the right hand side of the screen was the close up of her right eye, then under that graphs of different data, finally at the bottom right were two dials, the only ones the Barker really ever looked at when doing VK test. Not that he got to do them that much, once a year at headquarters, it was standard procedure to have a line up of Reps. and humans to test the VK reading skills of the UCE offers. Barker was amazed that Naylor would be testing the woman just after finding the body of her bother with his brains blown out. Even is the VK showed up as positive, it would be argued that she was in a distressed state, dismissed in court. However Naylor would shot her if it was positive, then they would do a bone marrow, that would clear up the matter, Naylor would go down for ‘wrongful retirement of a human’. "So you lived with your bother, some would find that a little odd Miss Bagnall." "What .. do you mean? What are you trying to say?" The dials on the VK jumped to 5.5 and 5.8.
"Your walking in the woods . ."
"What are you talking about? My bother is dead! What are you going to do about that?"
3.5, 3.6.
"Please Miss Bagnall the sooner I finish with my test the sooner I can find you Bothers killer."
4.7, 4.9.
"You’re walking in the woods, along the path ahead you see a fox... Do you know what a Fox is miss Bagnall?"
"Yes of course, I am not stupid."
3.0, 3.1
"Oh. Right"
Naylor sounded surprised at her hostile response, most people had never seen a fox, owl or badger in years, he didn’t even he didn’t know what a badger was until two years ago, when he asked Barker. But then even before the war they were pretty rare.
"All of a sudden the fox is surrounded by hunters dogs..."
5.6, 5.7.
"... They rip the fox apart, you see the dogs faces covered in the fox’s blood, the huntsman ride past you laughing and cheering."
6.5, 6.7.
"That awful! Why are you asking these horrible questions Mr Naylor."
"It’s a test, designed to provoke an emotional Response."
"Emotional Response! My bother is DEAD ... killed by someone you haven’t found yet and you’re wasting you time on replicant tests? You’re sick. The murderer is still out there!"
7.1, 7.2.
"Miss Bagn . . "
"GET OUT! GET OUT! I WON’T SPEAK TO YOU ANYMORE!"
7.2, 7.3.
VK tape ended, Barker shook his head. What a bastard Naylor had been to that poor woman. It half crossed his mind to submit a disciplinary on Naylor. That was, of course, if it looked like Naylor might solve the case.
Barker didn’t much like Naylor, even more so now, not that they saw much of each other, Barker spent most of his time in the office wasting time, while Naylor sniffed around try to VK anyone he could. Naylor was the type of cop that would stab Barker the in the back if he thought it would get him a promotion, however he WAS a good detective Baker had to give him that. Which thought Barker, was why he didn’t like him.
Blacksmith nodded slowly, this was a problem, Admin must had made a mistake, this sample should never have been sent here, now he would have to clear it up.
Harry Continued:
"It’s good work, I might have missed it, but junk DNA my thing you see, did you know that they now reckon that..."
"How many people have you told?"
"Err... none, well you. Why what’s the problem Doctor?"
Blacksmith look at harry, his face pale, Harry noticed that this was more important then he first thought, no chance of getting his face in the paper now. "Lab technician Harry Wild: Blade Runner"
"w..what’s the problem Doctor?"
"Don’t you see, this come to me from high, HIGH, up, they must know already..."
"What a Rep. in the LAPD?"
Blacksmith grabbed his counter part by the arm, looking intensely into his face.
"It’s not a normal replicant thought is it? Have you ever seen anything like this before?"
"Well...."
Blacksmith backed up his point made.
"I bet it would past a Boneli test..."
Said the consultant half to him self.
"What?"
"Oh it’s an old way to test Reps. It doesn’t matter, listen, have you finished the culture?
"It ready to grow, I processed it while I studying this."
"Good. Tell no one about this, carry on as normal, it will be alright, if any asks you, don’t tell them about it."
"I understand."
Blacksmith turned to walk out.
"What about the markers on the new cultures?"
Blacksmith paused, the markers were left in and the Rep. was found out they would know that the organs past through the hospital.
"Leave the markers out."
Harry felt there could be trouble about this. He turned to the machine growing a right-hand lung and a section of spinal cord, rather like a microwave it could be seen though the door. Harry typed in the commands into the computer attached. He looked over at the table with the other samples. He sighed; he was behind by at least six hours.
A few minutes later Blacksmith was back in his office, at his desk, over a computer.
He was worried, he filed the Holden case hours ago, the ‘paperwork’ was already in the server, It would only be a matter of minutes before the replicated organs would be registered at Earth central. He saw what he had been looking for.
"Oh no."
It would have to be done the hard way now.
When would the pain stop? Thought Faulkner. His stomach groaned and convulsed as another violent delivery of dark orange bile left the body.
"Oh God."
Al Faulkner knelt by the toilet, his head resting on folded arms, head hanging though, sweaty, directly over the bawl. He was being sick nearly every five minutes now. He was in a bad way. To dizzy stand now he slid down to the floor to rest.
It was too hot in the elsewhere in the apartment, but here in the bathroom he felt at ease, the cold wooden floor cooled the otherwise intense heat radiated from his body.
As the still and darkness surrounded him, he wondered if he would choke in his sleep. Best roll over, face down, safer.
The junior doctor pressed the stethoscope on to the patent's chest, he was coming to the end of the shift, and another two hours and he could sleep. He was look forward to it.
"And in. And out. And in. And out. How does that fill Mr Holden?"
"Good, Really good."
Holden looked at the Asian Doctor, about twenty-five he guessed, the guy looked haggard. Properly been at it all day.
"Well that’s about it then Mr Holden, the replacement lung seems to have taken nicely."
Holden nodded, for the first time in months there was no pain when he breathed.
"Of course your have to take it easy. No chasing Replicants for a while." Joked the Doctor. Holden was glad that someone found the situation funny.
"Movement in the left leg will be unsteady at first, your body has to remember how to use it."
"Right."
Holden was reminded of Gaff, he wondered what was wrong his leg and why he didn’t get it fixed. Funny he never though of it before.
"Now then, keep taking the pain killers as and when needed, and remember your body is still repairing the bond between
the new organs, so stay off the drinking and smoking."
Holden sighed, He had been looking forward to a smoke. The Doctor heard the protest.
"Take this an opportunity to give up."
That would be idea he thought, cigarettes were so expensive these days, and he could do with the extra cash, his bounty hunting skills would be questionable for a while to say the least.
He thought back to Gaff, he probably had his job now, and with Deckard out of the picture... where was Deckard, Holden hadn’t seen him since after the Replicant... Leon was it? Got to him.
Faulkner woke up, for a second he wondered where he was, then slowly he remembered. His bathroom floor. The pain in his head told him that he had been drinking and smoking last night. To extremes no doubt.
He was cold, the floor was too cold now, he wanted to sleep, but here. He got up slowly, careful not to jar his head. He took a few steps to the sink. He touched the panel to switch on the shaving light; careful not to look in the mirror, he turned the tap on. He was lucky in this area. London still had some of the cleanest water in England. The Building also had a water filter, which he paid too much for, so he was safe to drink it. However he was in no state to be picky about it, he would of drunk the scum they past as mineral water down the shops at this time.
He rinsed the foul taste of bile from his mouth and swallowed a good few mouthfuls of water; he reflected how good is tasted. As his always did the morning after.
Eventually he plucked up the courage to look at him self. He wasn’t happy with what he saw.
Two half closed brown eyes, complete with encrusted filth and huge bags looked back at him. He gave a grin. The inhabitants of his mouth were a dirty yellow colour.
He splashed his face with cold water; a little too cold for his liking, the coldness on his face made his neck involuntary move back sharply. Causing a swift reminder not to do it again in the form of searing pain in the back of his head.
He picked in the toothpaste and squeezed a generous line state into his mouth, taking the toothbrush he brushed hard to loosen the incrusted remnants of past cleaning form the brush and the dirt form his teeth.
He made mental note to wash later and get a new toothbrush; he was too tied now. He left the bathroom and heading to the bedroom, all the light where still on and there was a faint smell of last night’s events. Walking past the front room he looked at the coffee table. It still had the array of equipment that had caused the pain he was in. An empty bottle of cheap vodka, a glass, cellophane wrapped block of resin, Some cigarette papers and rolling tobacco. And there on the table was the final nail in the coffin. A passport sized picture, of her. He closed his eyes.
"You don’t have to shot me Mr Faulkner."
"Yes...I do."
"You don’t have to kill me Mr Faulkner."
The sound of the shot echoed in his head now as it did then in the abandoned warehouse.
Never again he though, never again, he ment it this time. The promotion was due in two weeks. He had been informed that they would spring a ‘random’ drug test, but by then, it would all be out of his system. He hoped.