TABUN

The bronze horizon, stretched over the distant mountains, sprinkled with the essence of twinkling stars and the grinning, twin coral hue moons of backwater Kusenoa. A pumpkin-orange evening fog settled on the frontier, where a black cityscape scraped the golden dusk sky, beyond the boundless valleys of wheat. A stout sir squatted in the moorland, a tight-weave basket pack tossed over one shoulder; sported on a tough, hide leather sling. Slimy, grey-streaked black hair curved around a small, stubbly chin, and a single hollow grey eye surveyed the surroundings meticulously, before rolling back in a loose socket. Stubby, hook nailed fingers tugged at a few hairs of wheat.

“Triticum boeoticum.” There came a grouchy snarl from dry lips, as the man examined the specimen. Licking those cracked lips with a black, forked tongue, he slapped some of the grasses into his basket, and grunted once. Upon bending over for another snatch of weeds, he curled his hands into tight fists; the samples flurried away on the wind, at the mercy of a bike’s huffing engine.

“Man’vahs!” He sputtered, kneeling to recover the samples, his other fist flailed in the air at a troupe of four chortling teens atop a sleek, black jet bike; riddled with obscene stickers and peeling paint.

Allowing the kids to pass towards the city gates, he hiked up his work skirt, and waddled back to an oxidized, creaky cart; collapsing on the torn cloth seat, as it began it’s snail’s pace in the wake of a ruined wheat path; shredded by packs of hooligans. When the cart finally clinked against the ugly, jagged black metal wall of capital Palati-pori, he exhaled a repulsed sigh; the buggy chugging through a dematerialized façade, and clunked onto the cobblestones of Plepper’s Park; the blocked off square of science from the tranquility of the central city. A thick cloud of putrid smog collected overhead, rising from the many winding silicon laboratory chimneys, as he coughed with a large hand covering half of his stern, bony face.

A young boy leapt onto the cart, from out of the settling fog, and, with a wide grin, crossed his legs and prodded the disgruntled chemist on the shoulder, holding out two corked vials. One content was a bubbling, watery red substance that croaked in the container, with deeper scarlet flakes settled on the bottom, and a pungent odor that wreaked of fish.

“Mr. Pope’s passion potion, now only sixty-three gualm.” He paused, and set the vial carefully in the man’s lap, pressing the other on him. The sister concoction was in a smaller, slender tube, containing a thick draught that was translucent chocolate in color, but smelt like pineapple and mango.

“How ‘bout Mr. Pope’s tangy tonic; this one’s only forty-one gualm! Supplies are low, due to Association Law Nineteen! Get ‘em while you can!” He howled like a banshee in the chemist’s ear, covered head to toe in soot and a muddy, black lab apron.

The chemist snapped uneven, needle sharp teeth at the boy, and snarled. “Git off!” He smacked the boy across the face, and spat disapprovingly, chucking the products over the side in a spiteful manner.

“Mercy, sir! Mercy!” The little tramp threw his arms over his head, and wailed as a potion smacked him square in the back of the head, and disappeared into a sparse crowd. Otherwise lingering in the air was mediocre street violin music, and a painful, screeching opera voice; coin tins rattling on the street corner. This caught his eye far less than four blonde, thin women, garbed in pearl white Peacekeeper roberies, presenting the amber heavens with minute, iron goblets of a gooey, fizzing brown liquid, before chugging. Their crimson pupils dilated, bodies shivered uncontrollably, and sweat soaked their forms, but the chemist turned away before fate took the women.

“Mr. Pope’s curious concoction…” The innocent voice of the street urchin whispered in the chemist’s ear, and he spun around in his seat, the wide, pearly white smile of the boy tugged at the very edges of his mouth, and, before the chemist could decline, the boy retrieved a small vial from his apron, and shattered the glass against the chemist’s face, as dribbles of the liquid burned all the way down his throat.

His hands instantly sprung over his throat, and he choked on blood and vomit, spewing freely from a gasping maw. Perspiration dampened his clothes, and his whole body burned; eyes watering. Wheezing his last bloody breath, the man’s flesh turned ashen and cold, and his figure still as stone.

“Mr. Pope’s toxic Tabun! Twenty-seven gualm!” The voice ricocheted off of empty walls, as the dusk was overtaken by scheming moon, and the streets silenced in an ominous, chilled tranquility; all hustling and bustling had ceased.

The streetlamps flickered on, one by one, as lamplights on unsightly black windowsills faded into the shroud of night. Snow began to fall; to blanket the streets in a powdery white quilt of pleasentry. Illuminated beneath a stream of gloomy, somber street light, there lay a cardboard box, stomped upon, and wet with snow, where the label read, in a lime green and neon pink lettering: Mr. Pope’s Chemistry Kit, and a newspaper clipping that read: World War III: Atomic nightmares, a reality!