The Audiomancer

Fully automatic pistol? Check. Blue trench coat? Check. Badass shades? Check. Nasty attitude? Double check. With his hands stuffed in his pockets, Edge Spider whistled a playful tune as he ascended the busted-up wooden stairs of the Neon Neighborhood Apartments. Through the mirrored shades resting underneath his afro do, he glared at the janitor at the top of the stairs, an old man in gray overalls mopping the floors. Edge reached the second floor and the elderly custodian never took his scowling eyes off of the cybernetic thug.

“Dude, what the fuck you lookin’ at, old man? I’ll kick your ass if you don’t take them eyes off of me! Keep mopping that dirt and don’t pay me no mind, bitch! Jesus!” threatened Edge as he scurried down the hallway to the apartment of his choice. He never turned around to see if the janitor was still glaring at him. All of his attention was on the number on the scratched up wooden door in front of him: 4B. “That’s the one.”

Edge knocked on the door several times and said, “Hey, Lisa! Come on, baby girl, open the goddamn door!” No reply. He knocked even harder this time and said, “Open the door, bitch! I ain’t got all day!” Still no answer. He then pulled a small wire from his trench coat pocket and fiddled with the lock until he heard a click. He chuckled to himself and said, “Bitch, you’re making this too easy.”

With one harsh swing of the door, Edge burst inside the shabby apartment and yelled, “Here’s Johnny!” in a prolonged voice. Not even the gangster’s obnoxious tone was enough to awaken Sgt. Lisa Baker, who sat hunched over at her computer lightly snoring with thick headphones on her ears. “Damn, that must have been some powerful shit.”

Shutting the door behind him with a loud thud wasn’t enough to startle Lisa, but slapping her in the back of the head and knocking her headphones over was. The blond ex-marine in a ratty pink bathrobe held the back of her head while stretching her sleepiness out with her other arm.

“Wakey, wakey! Eggs and bacey! Rise and shine! It’s breakfast time!” said Edge in a quasi-playful tone.

“Hey, Edge. How’s it going?” said Lisa in a languid, zonked out voice.

“Well, babe, I wish I could say things were going great, but they ain’t. I’ve been lookin’ at my bank account today and it’s getting pretty damn low. That might have something to do with you being late on those payments. So where’s my money, bitch? You obviously love them audio files I gave to you. Now you gotta pay for them sum-bitches,” said Edge while hovering over her.

“Listen, man,” said Lisa as he rubbed the exhaustion from her eyes. “Those files have done wonders for my PTSD. I’m grateful to have them, I really am. But I’m having a hard time coming up with money, okay? Ever since I came back from the war, I had a hard time finding work. Just give me a few more weeks and you’ll get your money.”

Placing a hand on Sgt. Baker’s shoulder, Edge said in a sarcastically comforting tone, “Okay, baby girl. I’ll give you a few more weeks. And then I’ll give you a few more weeks after that, a few more weeks after that, and a few more weeks after that. I could give you enough time for me to be in a fucking nursing home and I still wouldn’t get my money. Them audio files are making you lazy, bitch. You know how I feel about lazy people.”

His feelings were confirmed when Lisa’s head drooped over and she fell asleep again. “Oh, no, you didn’t. I know you didn’t just fall asleep on me.” The marine’s response was even heavier snoring than before. Edge gritted his teeth, grabbed Lisa by her shoulders, and tossed her across the room, all while yelling, “Wake up, asshole!”

The soldier slowly stirred from her slumber and gazed up at Edge with foggy eyes and a crooked smile. “Hey there, big boy. What can I do for you today?”

“Oh, you know damn well what you’re going to do for me! You’re going to break out that checkbook and give me what I came here for! If I have to throw your ass out the window, I’ll fucking do it! I’m telling you, you’re hooked on them audio drugs! I’m cutting your ass off until I get my money!” shouted Edge while pointing an accusatory finger at his victim.

Lisa made a flat tire noise and torpidly said, “Audio drugs? Babe, that wasn’t an audio drug I was listening to.”

“Oh, don’t gimme that bullshit! You was snoozing like a lazy little dog! I saw you myself!” snapped Edge. For full proof, he put the headphones on for a quick listen. His pissed off expression softened as he announced, “This ain’t no audio drug. This is just some new age piano shit.” He threw the headphones across the room and yelled, “Where the hell are my audio drugs, bitch?!”

Lisa’s laughter suggested that she was never tired to begin with as it was full of energy and gusto. When asked what she was laughing about, she said, “Word of advice, Edge Spider, if that is your real name: when you give painful audio drugs to complete strangers, do a better job of wiping your personal data off of them. Then again, it’s not really your fault, is it? You did everything you could. It’s just that my team was better!”

“Team? What’s all this about a team?” asked Edge before his confused expression turned into a full-on quivering lip. “You ain’t no marine with Pussy-Traumatic Stress Disorder! You’re a cop! You set my ass up!”

“I sure did,” revealed Lisa. “Somebody had to do something about those audio files crushing people’s brains. You’re no healer. You’re just a common scumbag drug dealer, Edge. Every file you gave me has been uploaded to the police database. If I were you, I’d run like the wind.”

Instead of taking that wise advice, Edge chuckled evilly, pulled his automatic pistol from his pocket, and aimed the Freudian weapon at Lisa with a cocked barrel. “They ain’t gonna take me if I have a hostage. You look important enough to them folks at the po-po station. So come on, baby girl: on your feet. Put them silky smooth hands of yours behind your pretty little head.”

Lisa did as she was told, but did so with a wicked grin of her own. “Okay, sweet cheeks. You win!” She pulled a knife from her thick hair and threw it with a blinding quickness at Edge’s gun, shattering the weapon into pieces.

At first the gangster looked down at the metal parts with fright, but then threw his arms in the air and smiled as he said, “Nah, nah, nah, cutie pie. You’re the one who wins this time.” In one swift motion, Edge threw a roundhouse kick at Lisa’s face, spinning her around in the air before she tumbled onto her shag carpet floor. Edge yelled, “I ain’t gonna spend my life in no federal prison! Fuck this shit, I’m outta here!”

Just when Lisa was stirring, Edge booted down the apartment door and sped down the hallway with every ounce of athleticism he possessed. The janitor was still glaring at him with viper-like eyes. “Damn, dude! The hell’s wrong with yo ass?!” shouted Edge as he shoved the janitor out of the way. It seemed like he would have a clear path to freedom with an empty lobby and an empty stairwell.

And then the drug dealer felt something hook his ankle, causing him to roll down the stairs and bang his body on every sharp corner of the stairs. By the time he reached the lobby, he was holding his ribs and head while whining in pain. Some of his blood painted the stairs and the railing on the way down.

Once his vision cleared up, Edge looked at the top of the stairs to see that the old man had a hook at the end of his mop before he concealed it again like a switchblade. Lisa held her bruised face as she joined the janitor, who then hugged her and asked, “Are you alright, Baker?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for the assist, Private. I’ll put in a good word for you at the station and we’ll see about getting you that promotion you’ve always wanted,” said Lisa. She looked down at the battered and broken gangster and said, “Here’s another piece of free advice, shit-head: treat the janitor with the same respect you give to the CEO.”

Edge spit out a wad of blood in a poor attempt to hit either Lisa or the undercover cop. “He ain’t no motherfucking janitor! Goddamn you two!”

The two cops trudged downstairs while the “janitor” ripped his wrinkly skin off to prove that he was actually a lot younger than his character suggested. Lisa rolled Edge on his stomach before cuffing his hands behind his back. “Edge Spider, I still don’t know if that’s your real name, but you’re under arrest for distributing illegal audio files. You have the right to legal counsel, which you’ll probably need since you can’t put together a decent sentence yourself.”