Angel.

By: Olivia Black

prologue

This prologue is not a prologue in the traditional sense. There is no epic myth setting up the context of the story. Nor some great prophesy that details how the world will come to an end if one man does nothing to stop it. This is more to provide background information. Let’s say that ten to twenty years from now everything sucks much harder than it does not. I think you can see just by the way things are going now how shittacular the future is likely to get.

The government implements strict regulations requiring every person to show I.D. chips before doing anything. Grocery shopping, checking your e-mail or even simply entering a building for work in the morning. You name it, you need an I.D. for it. These thin little wafers are your single most important possession. This 2x3 piece of plastic contained all the data ever collected on you. It’s your passport, medicare card, license, insurance card, credit cards. With this thing wallets become obsolete. This is necessary to combat online criminals and they ever growing threat of terrorism.

As with everything the government does there are flaws in this system. Loopholes that allow people, mostly street punks and anarchists to travel freely in and out of places undetected. There are also people known as Scramblers who spend their time manipulating the wireless signals that automatically update the I.D. chips. Of course the people who have learned to navigate the system freely have been condemned to the life of outlaws and used by the government as proof that these harsh measurements are really necessary to our safety and security. What a load of bullshit, the bigwigs are just scared of the potential those few individuals who live outside of conformity have to damage the system. Bullshit or not people swallow it by the truck load.

The savvy business people clued into the fact that the public will believe anything if you scare them enough and began to hardcore abuse their power. The government starts to take control over everything. Next thing you know we’re living in a totalitarian country. Now your probably thinking Hitler or Mussolini but this is much worse, much colder. There is not nearly so much bloodshed. Naturally when they have access to every last bit of information about you from your favorite brand of cereal to how often you call your mother a month it goes beyond your run of the mill totalitarian government.

Right now, you probably don’t believe how bad things could get. I don’t think you understand the extend marketers go these days to get you to buy, buy, buy. There are huge databases where market research companies have compiled information about everyone who has bought anything in the past decades. They know where you live, how much money you make annually. Big Brother is really watching you.

Hitler’s got nothing on these guys. Except this time instead of using a racial group as scapegoats, it’s the poor and disenfranchised. Everyone is poor but it’s always other people who suffer. You are the exception. You are special. All just tricks to keep people happy and satisfied while they are being enslaved. If you thought Big Brother had complete control in 1984 the government is worse, a lot worse. They know so much about you, they can anticipate what you will be doing five years from now. The worst part is that this take over and shift from democracy was all done subliminally. You have to know what you were looking for to see it and there are very few people who know the system that well who aren’t in on the game.

Everyone who wasn’t in on the game was in denial. People have more freedom and are safer than ever. There is only one problem with that. You can’t be free and safe at the same time. Life doesn’t work that way. Being free just means being fearless. So even our fearless leaders are really trapped in their own cages. They battle with the fear of losing all power that only grows the more powerful you become.

/prologue

chapter: 1

Picture this: Big black leather boots stomping down a narrow, dingy subterranean corridor caked with decades of grime. The metallic echoes of the footfalls ring against the walls. Look up and the wearers of said boots are helmeted soldiers decked out all in black dragging a young woman kicking and screaming to her cell. Her thin bonnie arms are shackled together by handcuffs that could fall off at any moment. Her long legs are stretched out trying to hook on to anything that might help her stop the progress of her brutal escort. All this while screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Help! Somebody help! Let go of me you brutes! You can’t do this to me! You don’t have the right! I didn’t do anything!”

Finally, after more effort that she is really worth they reach her cell, cell zero. It takes three men to haul her to her feet, only to shove her roughly enough into her cell that she falls face first onto the cold, metal floor. The heavy, much clawed at door is slammed shut on her.

She lay motionless on the ground as the sound of retreating footsteps fade away. Sitting up and looking around she can’t see much. The only light is the harsh fluorescent light leaking in from the corridor via the small barred rectangular hole in the door. What she can see is a section of dirty wall, even dirtier floor and the foot of a cot. The cot looks none too reliable with it’s thin mattress and even thinner blanket. She choses rather to curl herself up in a corner and pray that when she wakes up the next morning it would all be just a horrible, horrible dream. This is how Angel Thompson found herself in prison. The first time.

/chapter: 1

chapter: 2

He ran his fingers over her ribs which poked out of her skin quite visibly. They were in bed, half naked, for the first time in weeks. Zeke had been missing for weeks and he finally got around to finding her again. Her hands were in his black spikey hair as she stared into his black ringed downcast eyes. He was staring at her emaciated figure. She’d been starving herself again in his absence. He hated the things she did to herself as he trailed kisses up her navel. She moaned in pleasure. When he’d come home she’d greeted him with a shattered bottle to the wall beside his head. He feel into her arms, weak with relief.

She lay lazily on the bed, topless, as he cried with his head on her stomach. She wondered what horrors he’d seen as he wandered the streets in a drug induced stupor. She’d seen the track marks. Neither of them knew why he did this really but it wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. Zeke couldn’t live in the system that was forced on them. He knew enough to know that they weren’t really free. The only problem was that he was never strong enough o live the life of true freedom.

He handles her with care because he knows those faint red marks all over her arms and ribs will be turning black and blue by then end of the night. One of these days she was going to have to start taking better care of herself or he would end up finding her lying face down in an alley as he wanders the streets. Her nails created shallow trenches on his back.

They could exist in this moment forever. It’s 1:00AM and there is no chance of life interrupting for hours. The land lord had already been by to harass them about the unpaid rent on their two room hole in a wall. Rent kept going up, soon they wouldn’t be able to afford even this place. These thoughts were pushed out of mind by hard impatient kisses on hot lips. His stubbly cheeks rubbed against her skin leaving a map of his travels over her body.

The room was dim and silent except for the television which was spouting static snow at them. They sat quietly chain smoking until the sun came up. She turned over so that her bare back was facing him. The movement brought his attention back to her. On her back the word “Angel” had been burned and scared into her flesh by an angry former lover, or john or boss. He wasn’t quite sure, she never gave him the full story and he didn’t ask about it. Parts of it were still red. He cringed every time he saw those letters marring her creamy skin. He wondered how she could put up with that kind of abuse.

/chapter: 2

chapter: 3

Angel wakes with a start, cold, alone and shivering. She is only wearing a thin worn out t-shirt and her tight pants end just under her knees leaving a large chunk of her calf's exposed before her unlaced boots start. The shit brown blanket is moth bitten and encrusted with what looks like blood, excrement and twenty years of bad food. She rather freeze to death than touch that filthy sea of germs to her bare skin.

There is no way of telling how long she’s been there. All she really knows is that the lights are on and she wishes they were off again. In the corner at the end of the cot there is a dingy scum covered sink that must have been white at one time. Above the sink is a mirror, dusty, smudged and cracked but it still works just fine. She stands up painfully, her body sore from sleeping in such a cramped position. With one hand on the wall she staggers over to the mirror to stare at her pale reflection.

Her face is thin and her skin wax like. What is left of her hair after she’d attacked it with a razor hangs limply around her face. She looks like shit. Which makes perfect sense considering she hasn’t eaten or slept much since she’d been detained. Unjustly so at that. Anger rushes up in the pit of her stomach, bringing the taste of bile to the back of her throat, as she remembers how she got into this horrid place. She has been helpless countless times before but never has she been so powerless in any situation in her life. The porcelain is cool under her thin hands as she grips it tightly.

Who ever did this to her, she would have their head on a platter as soon as she can figure out how to get out. She would need access to the net. Assuming this place is actually on the grid. There are few places that aren’t on the grid but this place looks like it would be one of them. She doesn’t even know where this place is, not that she knows anything at this point. What she does know is that someone with enough clearance had tampered with her I.D. chip. Either that or someone who could dance fancy enough to mess with the wireless signals. She can dance fancy enough herself and set up a way to figure out who was messing with her. The only problem is that she has no way of accessing the net and her computer thus rendering all her hard work coding useless. Most of her plans to get out are useless. There is nothing she can do from this cell but go crazy.

It isn’t until her stomach roars in protest of it’s mistreatment that she notices a tray of food sitting in front of a slot at the base of the door. The food, if you could call it that, is still warm so she concludes this is what woke her up. Soon enough she’s devoured all the food on her tray which is not much and finds herself splayed out on the cold floor. Staring up into the ceiling light as her mind begins to wander and her body shake involuntarily from the chill of the floor.

/chapter: 3

chapter: 4

Zeke was standing in the bathroom fully clothed and staring at his reflection. His face was gaunt. His gray, conflicted eyes were ringed with days old smudged eyeliner and deep set bags indicating just how little sleep he’d been getting. There was blood in the sink from the broken skin on his knuckles and the cut on his cheek. He could see her in the doorway just behind him. As usual, she wasn’t wearing any pants.

“You trashed another motel room, I see.” She stated lightly.

“You got a problem with that?” He shot back glaring at her reflection.

“No, just... I would have liked to have slept in the room before you trashed it.”

“I didn’t think you’d show up.” She stepped forward to wrap her arms around his waist and lean her head between his shoulder blades.

“You drop off the face of the earth for three weeks and then think I’m not going to show up when I finally track you down?”

“I don’t understand why you bother.”