Time: Late Morning
Location: San Francisco, Safe House
Interaction: Sanzhar
@The Man Emperor
The next morning Jace was up and cooking breakfast. Some bacon, eggs & sausage links were all he required to be ready. He decided to cook up some extra and leave it on top of the stove covered up in case his new friend wanted any. A long night of rest combined with a couple corona’s had been enough to get him rested & relaxed for the next day. As he was wolfing down his breakfast he was flipping through different news channels to get more intel about recent events with altered humans.
“Great so this Lori chick is fucking it up for damn near everyone, she don’t walk around at Godzilla size so I gotta find her and wring her neck.” Jace spat out angered by her violent actions downtown, and his inability to confront her yesterday due to being drained from engaging the mutant & fleeing the authorities afterwards.
He fetched a piece of paper and a pen. He decided to leave a message for Sanzhar in more traditional means since he’d terminated his phone the day prior out of fear of being traced by authorities. He paused for a minute to think about what he was going to etch on the paper before settling on a message.
Yo it’s ya boy no name needed cuz ya know haha
Anyway I’m sliding out yeen got no phone so
I’m writing a message down
The rest of the breakfast on the stove is yours if you want it big dawg
I’m headed out to meet my home girl to ask her about your situation
And handle some business of my own
There’s guns underneath the cushion of the couch
And guns in the drawer by the stove
And more guns in the back of the fridge behind the orange juice
If I don’t come back within 24 hours I probably got double crossed by this chick
Not that I expect you to do anything but forewarning I’d make my way out
Of this spot after a whole 24 go by.Jace finished the letter and wrote his burner phone number on the bottom of the paper, not wanting to risk leaving his real phone number out. He’d deliberately not written his name or his alias as shade on the paper, again not wanting to implicate himself. After that he left heading out the front door, he took out his car keys for the jeep but recalled that he abandoned it in the forest area 23 minutes out. Considering the chase he had he figured it wasn’t a smart move to retrieve the vehicle any-time soon as it was probably swarming with cops & soldiers. Even if it wasn’t he was paranoid they could have found out and left a trap, or a tracker on it.
So he went the opposite way from the way they came yesterday evening from dropping off the car. After about 25 minutes he’d reached civilization, he decided to leave his backpack with his SHADE gear at the safe house. Especially since he was on foot he didn’t want to be spotted with the gear, the only things he had where his regular phone, Burner phone, a pistol tucked in his jeans, Air Pods,
Wallet & some cash. Luckily he’d stashed his duffel bag at Nikia’s store in a spot out back while he was over there yesterday.
He briefly pondered on the cash’s safety there, but neither Nikita nor her mother knew where the spot was or how to access it meaning it would be out of their Hands. While he trusted Nikita somewhat, his mom didn’t have that same courtesy extended to her from him. Really he didn’t trust either of them with those sums of cash, but in hindsight it was good he didn’t bring them to the safe-house because he wouldn’t have left them over there with metal man. He might have had friendly streak yesterday to save him from military & monsters but people were funny around money.
He opted to call an Uber to a used car dealership he was familiar with. On the ride there whilst in the back-seat he recounted the travel money he had with him around 20K. After giving the driver a generous $100 tip he went inside to handle his affairs. He ended up purchasing a used 2012 black charger for around 9K in cash after haggling the dealership owner down from $12,500. He also convinced or rather pressed him into letting him borrow the dealer tag that was already on the back of the car.
The last thing he wanted to do was be riding around with no tag at all, and the fact that he hadn’t submitted to the blood test meant he still had his old form of identification. A quick google & twitter search alerted him to the fact that now In order to purchase vehicles one required the new license that included your altered status. President Forrester’s new laws weren’t going to be easy to get around, and especially so in San Francisco after Lorizilla’s attack downtown. He was just happy that he had another vehicle that wasn’t the jeep, and some temporary tags to keep him from getting hemmed up in a regular traffic stop.
Now that he had transportation, he needed to get in contact with the FSS woman from yesterday. He had felt a little iffy about a partnership with a Russian spy, but perhaps he’d made the best choice after all. The laws here were extremely oppressive of his kind, and he felt a double whammy being an African American male & a superhuman.
He could only imagine how much worst it was in other states for people with his combined discriminated status such as Georgia, Alabama, & Mississippi. His next step was one of upmost importance as well, he ended up running by a burger joint to grab a bite to eat. Sure he’d scarfed down some breakfast earlier, but he’d split his portion in half to leave some from Sanzhar. Partially to be courteous to his guest and partially to not give him another reason to leave & wander around the safe-house. It dawned on him that he knew little about that man besides the fact that he was a journalist, had the power to control metal & saved his life yesterday from two simultaneous threats that almost ended it.
While he was still grateful, that really wasn’t enough. At the same time he was a man of his word, and offered that man safe housing at least until he could get in contact with Anya to confirm whether or not his true identity had been compromised during the conflict yesterday. But what if it had was he going to remove him from the safe house & toss him to the wolves. Not only did he have it’s location he also knew of his dual identity as Shade, which even Nikita & his own family wasn’t aware of.
Jace took a seat at a table in the burger joint he’d ventured out too. Grabbing the bottle of ketchup he sprayed some down on his burger & fries before going to town with his strawberry lemonade handy.
“What a fucking day.” Jace said aloud to himself as he sated his hunger with a handful of fries.
Looking out the window he admired his new charger, it was the perfect excuse to splurge on a new vehicle. The jeep being compromised made it practically necessary so he had no qualms on spending drug money on the vehicle, and he’d managed to stay under 10 thousand to avoid the transaction having to be reported.
“I’m gonna need to find a new way to spend that money, maybe buy my way into partial ownership of Nikita’s mama store, that’s one way to get Lionel off the back, but it might get me into some shit with the IRS. Then again after what that ruthless bitch did yesterday there’s bound to be people hurting, people need help, I can’t believe she whacked the fucking hospital.”Jace was talking to himself quietly about what his next move would be. When Sanzhar had asked him yesterday, he’d deflected and simply stated it would be business as usual. But so much had changed in the past 24 hours. His new association with the Russian agent, the violent altered attack on his home-turf and strangest of all was the mutant attack. Aside from Lori & Lionel beating down his girlfriend’s mom for funds he found that to be the most alarming. He’d dedicated his life to using his newfound powers to rid the streets of crime one body at a time. So in a way he felt he was obligated to confront altered human criminals as well.
The only problem aside from how much more difficult that would be then tearing apart high school drop out thugs was the attention it attracted from law enforcement. In combination with the strain it put on his powers to go against worthy opponents he didn’t want leave himself vulnerable enough to get nabbed by regular street cops or worst heavily armed soldiers. He’d read about how the President had deployed the actual U.S Military to San Francisco this morning & rumors of the city being put on lockdown in the next 48 hours.
“Whatever” Was all Jace had to say about that as he went back to his meal. Soon it would be time to regroup with the agent from yesterday. He was looking forward to that, more so about the promising intel on the mysterious Liberty organization she’d brought up yesterday. They seemed to be the most credible & dangerous threat to him posed by government forces. He’d went out of his way not to use his powers in a brutal manner against his would be captors yesterday, but Sanzhar had played a large role in that.
The nature of his powers left him little non-violent options against anyone trying to enrapture him. But with people like Lori wrecking the city & slaughtering thousands he wouldn’t always have the luxury of being able to diffuse conflicts with the national guard & police non-violently. At least not without tag teaming with Sanzhar, and he wasn’t in the mood or business of working with others as a full time thing. He was much more comfortable doing this as a solo gig for a multitude of reasons least of which was the fact that he didn’t want to incriminate himself for multiple murders around another person who wasn’t bulletproof like him.
His phone buzzed and he went to pick it up. He saw a strange image of Shade standing on a rooftop.
“The fuck?”He swiped to the right to see it was from an unknown number. Seeing three gray dots at the bottom alerted him to the fact that the person was in the midst of typing a message.
“Who the hell is this”The next message caused him to be concerned it simply read “I know who you are, and what you do.” Jace paused feeling his anxiety he never knew he had starting to kick in, even lessening the taste of his half eaten delicious cheese burger. He didn’t respond causing another message from the random number to come through. “I have proof of what you do, and I’m willing to share it to the world, unless you help me save my own world.” The message came through and struck Jace like a bullet from a semi automatic weapon.
Who the fuck is this, and what the fuck are they talking about? They can’t know who I am, but they sent that picture of Shade. Is it bruh from the crib, does he have another phone did I make a mistake, I swear I’ll kill that motherfucker with my bare hands The confusion and anxiety were now being intertwined with rage and the sting of betrayal. He thought about hopping in the charger and speeding off to the safe-house to kill his new house guest. He paused as the phone began ringing, it was the unknown number.
“Hello” Jace answered right away half expecting to hear the journalist’s voice on the other hand telling him he got played.
“Hello Mr. Williams, I must say I’m quite the fan of your work, a bit bloody if you ask me, but who am I to judge, after all that right is reserved for God” the voice on the other end of the line was one Jace did not recognize, for a brief moment he was happy it wasn’t Sanzhar. That was followed by more confusion & fear of who the hell he was talking to.
“I don’t know what your talking about buddy, but you got the wrong fucking idea.”“Really okay, how about this I’m going to send you a link to a private youtube video. Go ahead open it and enjoy the contents, I’ll stay on the line Mr. Williams.”
Bing Bing, sure enough the link was sent. Jace muted the caller and opened up the video. His eyes widened in shock, there he was in 4K fighting the mutant. The moments he captured were of the initial battle he had against the mutant before he’d managed to knock it away and retrieve his mask from the bag. That meant it was a bystander who instead of fleeing from the beast that was ripping people to shreds stayed back to catch him on film. Jace closed the youtube app and returned to the call un-muting the mysterious man on the other end.
“Okay you got my attention, apologies that I didn’t let that motherfucker kill you, clearly I made a mistake, I didn’t know.” Jace spoke with anger in his tone, starting to get the picture that this stranger with the nerve to capture his heroism on camera was someone he’d saved.
“Alright so we’re both aboard this truth train. You may call me Adam, I’m what you might call an admirer. You see I’ve gotten tied up in some real messy business, taking some money from some very violent people, and let’s just say I’m short a couple…hundred….thousand.” Adam added the last part on the end and Jace laughed.
“So you got involved with some loan sharks and now they finna kill you, man sounds like you shoulda fed yourself to big, tall and ugly yesterday huh, I’m happy to know I only prolonged your suffering on earth.”“Oh but no you didn’t you see of the men who I owe money too, two of them were already silenced by Shade, I guess for their involvement with the distribution of some pretty nasty narcotics. Suffice to say the remainder survived and they now want their money more than ever since there drug flow cash has been wiped out permanently. I need you to kill them and if you don’t I’ll be telling the entire world about your true identity, I’m quite capable with drones by the way. I actually had one follow you for quite a bit after you split, oh and I managed to get your sidekick on footage too both before and after putting on his mask, all in one continuous video, hold on I’ll send the link for that as well.”
Bing bing, oh brother the same deal. Jace eyed the footage from the second youtube link and almost crushed his phone in anger. This Adam guy had some nerve, gets his life saved and now wants to blackmail both Jace & his new journalist ally into committing murder.
“Oh so your trying to make sure you get killed huh either by me or them, your not good at this whole surviving thing are you” Jace retorted with venom in his voice.
“On the contrary Mr. Williams I believe I am doing spectacular compared to yesterday morning. Anyway I’m a generous man, so even though I lack time I will offer it to you. I’ll give you 24 hours to make your decision do you want to fix my problems or gain some new ones for yourself. Exposing you will ruin your life, it won’t save mine, but at least we’ll both go to hell together. I’ll be calling you around the same time tomorrow to see what you decide, enjoy your day Shade.”
Click, the phone went dead and Jace set the phone down on the table. Looking at his food he turned away he’d lost his appetite. It seemed the age old saying was still true, no good deed goes unpunished.
Time: Late Morning
Location: San Francisco, Middle Class Suburb
Interaction:
“PLEASE NO!!! SPARE US!!!! Rita we’ll have the bread tomorrow, trust me the guy we gave it to he’s suppose to give it back tomorrow, we just need a little more time.” A Vietnamese man dressed in business casual was speaking pleading with the Salzaras siser.
He had two associates with him, one black man & another a white man. They were all gathered in the living room in a nice suburban neighborhood. Rita had loaned the trio $50,000 dollars for some project they claimed would triple her returns in a week or two’s time. The problem was that it was getting close to a month, in fact one more day and it would be that exactly.
“Listen to me Chang, I don’t have time for this, I told you I need my money now. Something’s come up and my man won’t be happy if I’m not bringing that fifty back now your telling me this project involved a fourth person? Sadly they’re not here to feel the burn are they? Lucky them right?” Rita taunted the trio who seemed to be cowering in fear.
The caucasian man decided to speak, he was dressed in goth attire & had dyed his hair red. “Listen Rita I.”
“Shut the fuck up Rob! You will speak when spoken to, honestly you all should be more like Nate he ain’t said a word unless he’s been addressed, in-fact Chang I’ve always hated you the most.” Rita’s hands lit up with fire which elected screams from all three men. Rita unleashed a funnel of flames that consumed Chang.
The Vietnamese man screamed in agony as the fire engulfed him. Rob & Nate both sept out the way as both Chang & his couch were engulfed in fire. The smell of burning flesh assaulted their nostrils as Rita poured more flames onto the man. Incinerating him, his skin, his body, and his furniture. As the flames spread and danced towards the remaining duo who were on the verge of tears. Rita snapped her fingers and recalled her power. The flames that were beginning to spread through the living room were all dragged back into her hand.
Chang’s corpse lay on the carpet unrecognizable and charred.
“Unless you two want to join him in HELL, I suggest, I ENCOURAGE & DEMAND you bring me my motherfucking money immediately!!!!!!! I figure if there’s a fourth guy then one had to go, three’s the limit, and besides as Chang said he was the least involved so he was the least likely to be able to cough up the money right?”“R..R..R. right Rita, We’re going to get in contact with him right away, we’ll have the money tomorrow night.” Rob yelled
“Fuck that, tomorrow afternoon! Rob is tripping, he’s tripping! Don’t burn us please!!!” Nate pleaded, the first words the black man had spoken in the past twenty minutes of their encounter.
“Yeah what he said, I’m tripping, falling, no balance all of that.” Rob added in-between gasps of fear from witnessing Rita’s violent display of her flaming powers.
“Hmph tomorrow afternoon it is, and please don’t try running, I have people with eyes everywhere, if you want to test that theory it’ll be your last test ever in life. And I’ll take my time burning you both to a crisp slowly, like a turkey roast if you try. I need my fucking money yesterday!!!!” Rita screamed at the men.
Finally feeling as though she instilled enough fear in them she left slamming the door on her way out. The two men were shaking with fear at what just happened, the third member of their musketeers was fried alive. Soon after both men got up, and we’re moving with purpose. They’d pissed off a Salzaras and now they were suffering the fiery wrath of one.
“Yo fuck! She killed Chang, what the fuck are we gonna do! I think I got like 5K in my savings, and I can borrow 2 from my credit card, what do you have?!”
“Me?! Fuck I mean I’ve got 4K in my joint savings account with my wife, and like $1500 in cash, and if I sell the rest of my perks I can make that 2 bands, but fuck this. We shouldn’t of listened to Chang, talking about give the damn bread to Adam, I knew it! We shoulda just fucking re’d up on crystal and stuck to what we was doing, but nooooo we gotta listen to Chang, cause his buddy Adam is the fucking plug for money huh, that’s why I’m finna sell my fucking medication and your getting a cash advance from your fucking American Express right?! Even if we do all of that shit, that’s 13K, we’d still be short 37 grand. No fuck that, I don’t give a damn if Chang is dead, Adam’s going give us that bread.”
“He’s not going have it till tomorrow evening that’s what he said, and he’s been bullshitting us for two weeks. I’m thinking whatever he tried to do ain’t work we might be dead, we gotta run.” Rob replied to Nate who responded by pulling a gun out.
“No fuck that we ain’t running, you ain’t running! I gotta a wife, and two kids. I can’t go no fucking where, you two the ones who got me roped into selling meth cause of y’all fucking problems. Yeah I wanted the money, but now a super powered drug lord’s sister is coming up in my house burning people alive and my $1300 couch! My Wife is getting back from Hawaii next week!!!!! Enough is enough, clearly whatever he did ain’t fucking work. Adam gotta cough up that 50 bands, and not tomorrow evening, tomorrow fucking morning or I’m gonna blow his fucking head off. “
“Oh yeah killing him going get the bread back?!”
“So you think we going get burned alive, and that cock-sucker going live, you got me 100 million percent fucked up!” Nate responded angrily almost growling.
“I’m just saying why you ain’t point the pistol at her, you shoulda shot her ass when she turned around if anything.” Rob replied frantically this whole situation was one giant mes they were roped in financially and otherwise.
“He’s on trial for insider trading for 40 million fucking dollars!!!!!!!! HE HAS a 50 piece tucked away somewhere, I don’t give a fuck if it’s his LAST his EMERGENCY money, this is an emergency! Look over by where my couch use to be, and you’ll see a charred asian man on the ground! “
“Fuck I mean wasn’t he shopping with Chang on crystal, he mighta snorted or smoked that shit away, you said it yo self if he was hitting for 40 million he mighta burned through his emergency cash, he thought he was rich, he was rich, hell that’s why Chang gave him our bread! He said he was going turn our 50K into 5 mill, and we split three ways, pay off Rita & get out the meth game.” Rob responded as he put his hands on his head rubbing his temples angrily while stressing out.
“Well that motherfucker better un-snort or un-smoke that shit or we gonna be smoked FORREAL! Give me ya phone or I’ll kill you right now.” Nate screamed and snatched Rob’s phone texting Adam furiously that he had to meet them in the morning with the money or else.
“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, this is crazy this is crazy!!! “
If only I ain’t spend all that money on that girl I met on that roleplaying site, xoxomissclaire, fuck fuck fuck!!!! I had to have spent at least 50K on her alone over the past four months, damn it!!!! All those oh thank you Magix, oh your the best Magix, wow I’ve never met a man like you magix, fuck I was so stupid!!!! Rob was filled with regret for the money he wasted simping over a girl he’d met on an Internet forum. He’d blown through his savings as he was living off the money they were making from selling crystal. He had reached a breaking point his life was falling apart.
“Come on let’s go, we ain’t finna just sit here, we finna keep an eye on that motherfucker, just in case he tries to pull some dumb shit, we need to be ready, if he do try to run he going take some money with him, and that’s when my Glock going go bow bow, either way whether he give us that shit in the morning or try to run with it, we going get it. I’m not finna get lit on fire, and I’m not shooting Hector Salzaras sister either by the way you dumb motherfucker. Cause getting chopped Ito tiny pieces or fed to alligators or both at the same time is almost worst then being burned alive, come on.”
Nate commanded as he tucked his gun and motioned for Rob to follow him out of the house. He didn’t want to stick around and ponder the depth of their situation not with there friend’s roasted corpse looking back at them on his now burnt carpet. All he was thinking about was getting paid, getting that money to Rita & then going back to his life before selling meth without ever looking back.
Meanwhile Rita was back in her car and had pulled out of Nate’ driveway a while ago. She’d stopped at gas station to fill her tank. She sighed as she pulled the pump out and placed it back on the rack. Usually Floyd was the one who filled her gasoline, but he wasn’t with her right now. This was a horrible day, nothing like last night when she was excited about him buying that bar & strip club. She’d offered to go half on the expenses with him, which she regretted today.
The drug warehouse they had was littered with dead bodies & destroyed product. She only had 22 grand to her name in cash, the rest of the money was in her bank & stocks. Pulling out the money she needed from her stocks wouldn’t help her in 24 hours as it took a few days to liquidate. As for the bank that would raise questions with her brother who she was skimming drugs from. He was well aware that quite a bit of narcotics were missing from the last few shipments, and by now she knew he’d asked his girlfriend Cynthia who was out in California to investigate.
She regretted loaning the money to Nate. But he’d been a consistent client for meth for the past few months, and had always done business before the last two weeks. He claimed he had a money move that would bring her back an extra 100K which was an offer she was tempted by. Sure just like Floyd they didn’t now she was stealing drugs from her brother to sell them, but they weren’t stupid enough to cross her. She was a Salzaras, the sister of the most notorious & now most powerful cartel in California ever since the energy plague got the border closed down yet Hector was still able to get drugs flowing into the states.
She started up her car and lit a Newport once she was away from the pump. She felt like she was stuck between a rock, a hard place & an even harder place. The joint drug warehouse she had with Floyd was a total loss, she’d loaned over twice the amount of cash she had on hand to her biggest meth dealer only to experience “complications” for the first time ever. Hector was on to the fact that drugs had went missing and no doubt if she made the wrong move he could figure out was her. She couldn’t risk doing anything out of the ordinary like randomly pulling 25K out of her account which her brother monitored to make sure she wasn’t trying to kickstart her own operation out in California. Then Floyd was trying to buy TAP in the next 24 hours, and she didn’t have the cash she needed. The last thing she needed was for him to get wind of that and start asking questions that would cause everything she built with him to collapse.
“Fuck!” Rita yelled out angry but this curse she let out wasn’t about the stress of everything that was happening. She noticed she’d left her card in the terminal at the pump, and gasped.
This is not the time for me to be leaving my card! With the current financial crunch she was in, there was no room for errors as far as misplacing any cash or financial instruments what-soever.
Luckily she wasn’t but a small distance away close enough that she could see the pump and that it was still unattended. She spun the wheel around making a u-turn and zooming back to the pump. After coming to a screeching halt that left skid marks she hopped out the car & retrieved her bank card.
Rita was extremely grateful that she noticed the card had been left behind right away & that no other unsavory character had managed to snag it. Getting back in her car she opted not to pull her seat belt around her figuring that she only had a short distance to get back to her place from here. Potentially getting catapulted out her seat was the least her eyes, not with everything else that was happening at the same time.
Rita was logged into her mobile bank app to check to make sure no one had used her card for gasoline in the extremely short time it took her to come back to get her card from the pump. Whilst that was mostly just her own paranoid thoughts considering it was where she left it she didn’t need any more problems. Seeing that everything was okay Rita decided to go inside the gas station to get a beverage. Unfortunately for her "problems" came looking for her when she stepped back out the gas station walking back towards her car.
“HEY BITCH!!!!!!!!! HOPE YOU LIKE IT HOT, CAUSE HELL IS FUCKING BURNING SALZARAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The screams of a loud woman immediately snatched her attention away from her phone. She looked up to see a woman she didn't recognize jumping out a jeep that was now hurtling towards her. The woman none other then Paige Turner hit the ground pressing a red button on a black detonator in her hand.
BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!“Oh-shi” Rita exclaimed as Paige pressed down on the button the second it collided with the pump triggering a fiery explosion that engulfed the entire gas station in flames. Several people were heard screaming as the combination of the bomb & gasoline filled pumps created a massive fiery spectacle that swallowed up the entire area.
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