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.”
