Where Is the Edge?

“When will these idiots ever learn?” asked Victoria Flare as she leapt from neon-lit building to neon-lit building. Her dark cybernetic body blended perfectly with the night sky. Even the neon signs did a piss-poor job of illuminating her most important features. Victoria took note of some of these signs: porn theaters, bars, strip clubs, and pawn shops. Just how far into the underworld did this briefcase thief go and would a bottle of Axe body wash be enough to get the grunge off of Victoria’s body? Why homeless people would ever want to look for handouts in a place like this, she would never know.

“The sooner I’m done with this, the better,” she said to herself while monitoring the radar screen over her eyes. Just a few more buildings to leap from. The blip was as obvious as a nun at a porn convention. Or in this case, a homeless thief in the back alley of a porn theater. Victoria shivered for more reasons than just being out in the frigid snowy night. But when she touched down in that slim alleyway (next to the dumpster no less), her business attitude was more radiant than any neon sign in this disgusting town.

She ejected two handguns from her wrists and pointed both of them at the heavily dressed drifter huddled against a pile of trash. She took note of the way he rocked back and forth in the fetal position while singing lyrics to the Within Temptation song “Where Is the Edge?” That voice was so raspy and damaged, yet angelically familiar. But even such marvelous singing couldn’t snap Victoria out of business mode. “Hands where I can see them, scumbag! Drop the briefcase and turn around slowly!”

With his body convulsing in the snowy weather, the drifter did as he was told down to the letter. He was hard to make out with the fuzzy hood over his head, but that damaged face was clearer than the starlit skies. The five o’clock shadow, the wide nose, the scars that would never heal, and the yellow teeth with one missing: this had been the very portrait of a once beautiful human being. “Waldo? Is that you?” Victoria asked.

“Oh dear god, Victoria…what the hell are you doing here?” asked the newly identified Waldo Spiegel, still adhering to his captor’s orders.

The cyborg mercenary lowered her weapons and said matter-of-factly, “I guess I could ask you the same thing. You’ve got something that doesn’t belong to you. Kick it over here and I’ll be out of your hair…or at least what’s left of it.”

“You think this is a joke, don’t you?” rasped Waldo as he lowered his hands. “There’s enough money in this briefcase to start my life over again, to stay out of the puzzle factory, to stay away from drugs. And now you, my oh-so-loving ex-girlfriend, have come to take that away from me. Anything else you want to take away from me? You want my soul? You want my balls on a platter? How about I just rip my heart out of my fucking chest and let you have that.”

“Don’t act like such a victim, Waldo,” grunted Victoria as she slowly advanced toward her former lover. “I didn’t take a damn thing away from you. You took it away from me. You want to talk about stealing hearts? That’s it, man! Remember that night at Tony’s Restaurant? The night you went fucking ape-shit? The only way I could ever be at fault for this is not seeing the warning signs sooner. You’re a loony, Waldo. You’re a fucking fruitcake.”

“Fruitcake? Fruitcake?!” shouted Waldo while kicking over a nearby garbage can. “You think I chose to go insane? Does anybody really want that for themselves? I tried my damnedest to keep my shit together. I never wanted to be locked up in a padded cell. But you…you turned me over to those white coats and now look where I am! You insensitive piece of shit!” Waldo’s fury was punctuated by him throwing trash from the spilled receptacle at his ex-girlfriend.

“Enough!” belted Victoria as she swatted away a tin can and ended Waldo’s barrage of filth. “You’re really going to blame all of this on me? What was I supposed to do, just let you go nuts again? You really think I could ever keep a stable relationship with a weirdo like you? Looks like the both of us would have worn white at our wedding, but at least my arms would have been free!”

“Fuck you and your lame ass jokes!” roared Waldo as he heaved the knocked over garbage can over his head and launched it at Victoria, who shot it down with a few bullets from her wrist weapons. He then blitzed up to her and shoved her around a few times while Victoria blankly no-sold his offence. He then ran around in circles screaming, cussing, and throwing punches at thin air before crashing in a heap and crying his eyes out.

Victoria’s stone-faced expression softened, but only with horizontal eyebrows instead of diagonal. She never forgot what she was hired to do, but also couldn’t help but take a modicum of pity on her train wreck of an ex-boyfriend, who rolled around on the snow and trash-covered ground bawling like a baby. She slowly approached him and tried to comfort him by peeling back his hood and petting his bald head.

The drifter swatted her hand away and sobbed, “Don’t touch me, Vickie. Don’t fucking touch me. It’s too late to save me now. You already made yourself clear when you dumped my ass all those years ago. If you want the briefcase, just take the fucking thing and get out of here. Leave me in peace.”

“If I leave you out here, Waldo, you’ll freeze to death,” whispered Victoria.

“What do you care if I die out here?” said Waldo while pie-facing her. “I’ve got no fucking future. That money’s going to run out eventually anyways. Who’s going to hire me? Who needs an ex-marine with a head full of sick and twisted shit when there’s a perfectly good cyborg who’ll gladly take my spot?”

“You want the truth, Waldo?” asked Victoria while holding his shivering hand in hers, to which he didn’t resist this time. “That puzzle factory as you call it was the best thing for you. You had access to the medicine you needed and you didn’t have to hang out with scumbag criminals who were beneath you. More importantly, you weren’t able to hurt anybody. You came very close to killing that taxi driver that night at Tony’s. Killing isn’t new to you since you were a marine, but I know you wouldn’t want to live with taking an innocent life like that. Do you remember now?”

Waldo breathed heavily as he tried to recall the memory. “I can’t remember a damn thing anymore. All I see are nightmares. Lots and lots of nightmares. Breaking up with you was one of them. You were my only real shot staying in control…and then you drop me off at the loony bin and never even bother to say hi every once and a while.”

“What if I promised to help you get back on your feet again?” asked Victoria.

“Nobody can save me!” shouted Waldo. “There aren’t enough drugs in this world to keep those nightmares out of my head! There aren’t enough social workers to keep me off the streets! Everything is about money these days! Why do you think this place is run by mega corporations?! It costs money to get help and it costs even more money to stay sane! That briefcase might sustain me for a little while, but I need something permanent, damn it! Who’s going to give me a chance now, Vickie? Who?!”

Victoria’s eyes dampened at the thought of her boyfriend making complete sense amongst all of the madness. She wiped away a single tear with her wrist and asked her boyfriend, “Do you want me to take the nightmares away? Do you want something permanent? There’s only one way I can do that, Waldo. You know what it is.”

Waldo wiped away his own cascading eyes when he peeked down at Victoria’s wrist guns. He shivered hard as he contemplated this decision and Victoria could feel his fear and sadness radiating off of him like an angel’s halo, which he would need when he nodded in approval. “Let’s do this. Please, let me go!”

Victoria hugged Waldo’s head tightly as the two of them sobbed together and sang “Where Is the Edge?” in perfect harmony. She said, “Even after all of the drugs, you still have the most beautiful voice, Waldo Spiegel.”

“I love you, Vickie!”

“I love you too, honey-bunny. Close your eyes. This won’t take long.” The homeless marine did as he was told yet again, though his eyelids served as a piss-poor levy for his flowing eyeballs. Victoria’s own eyes were burning with sadness and rage as she held the wrist gun to her ex-boyfriend’s chin and took her sweet time in pulling the trigger. “You’re free, my darling. You’re finally free.”

BANG!

Waldo’s head exploded and his body went limp instantly. Victoria stood up and wiped away her burning eyes, not knowing what to do with Waldo’s corpse. He needed a proper burial, but this was hardly the place to do it with all of the trash and pornography on the ground. She retrieved the briefcase full of money and tapped her radar visor, ejecting a Bluetooth microphone towards her lips.

“The mission is complete, Executor. I have the briefcase. The target has been neutralized. I did everything you asked me to do. But you’re not getting this money back, my friend. Since you and your corporation won’t do it, I’ll donate these greenbacks to a schizophrenic charity. There should be enough here so that what happened to the thief won’t happen to anybody else. And by the way, that thief has a name: Waldo Jeffrey Spiegel. Remember that name until the day you die. I know I will. If you want to come for me and the briefcase, you’d better bring the National Guard, motherfucker, ‘cause I’m not letting this shit happen again!”

“….Good luck, Miss Flare! You’re going to need it!”

CLICK!