NationStates Jolt Archive

"And now on the bill Lord Cucharsey has suggested to us that tonight's blackout is completely without merit. King Hannon has seriously suggested this as a way to weed out the communist terrorist group Blue Face. According to our latest intel-"

"Damn your intel! Have you ever seen a riot on the streets of Birmingham? We'd have to conscript every soldier and Gardai in Alabama to stem their tides! And Lord Allah Buddh-"

"Fuck you Bill. Really, I mean....this is why your wife left you. You're fucking retarded. You want to allow Blue Face to wipe out our way of life. So be it the riots may! They'll come and they'll come again but you know what? Blue face has already commited two acts of biological terrorism against lizards in the Congo. I don't want that to happen again. Especially to a Camel."

The man named Bill whirled around in a gin soaked ecstasy and bared his fangs. The carvings on his forehead gave him away as an Afar. A man from the rigid depths of salt plains where the sun baked the earth and man ain't got enough time for war unless it's an old one. And he bared his fangs again. The white ivory tips gleamed steady and showed off some considerable polish. He smelled like grease and chicken backs and some type of cheap hooker marinated with something alcoholic.

All in all a good man to have debating the face of a nation.

"Do you want to see half of the Greek quarter burned? With this goddamn anti-Med thing going around I'm surprised more Italians ain't been attacked already. It's not just them either. Hell no, someone stirred up the CYML again and now the Scandinavians are looking over their shoulders every time they go outside of Little Fjord. Not to mention the Alexian gangs patrolling that region are a bit more sea legged than before."

"That's true. But Blue Face already hit Little Fjord. There's no way in hell anybody would think to attack them. They're just reasonab-"

"WHAT? What type of dumbass are you. All apologies my Lord but Little Fjord has been hit even more since the attack on Goldburg. Whole miscreant packs'll move onto some business in Little Fjord and wipe it out."

"Enough. I hear a salty word outta one more of ye and 'll be none of ye salty t' tay hoom. The lighs as goin' oot. And das das."

"Aye my King."

"Aye."

"Yessah."

It was the screaming and a hollering night that broke mens backs and threw them into tiny jail cells where guys named Bubba has a pention for them. Out on the docks near the grey Wal-Mart Row. A solid line half a kilometer long of nothing but trucks moving in day and night into Wal-Mart Row. It was actually Gardateach Center. The main house and home for all police units on duty in that section of town. It was an arsenal in and of itself.

Tobias MacSweel was standing on the top of the Gardateach Center and watching the trucks as each one that came in from the city stopped and didn't pull away. They were paddywagons and bar-ballbusters, engine drawn carriages of the peace. They had loaded up with a few outskirt gangs. The really violent ones. The desperate ones. They wore cat fur and killed any man that stole their birds during the Slaughter Season (a Camel Eaters tradition of firing sonic rockets into the great bird flocks that fly over suburbs and ghettoes and gathering all the ones that hit the ground. They will be eaten and sold at restaurants. The Slaughter Season just ended. Over five million birds were killed and four thousand sustained serious injury. One sued for harassment.)

"Toby! Vonka's got the lads and gals ready and armed. We're hitting Little Fjord for protection. The Ninth Arm's gonna swing up to Cyanide Downs though. Buncha newbs." Tobias hurried down rather quickly. He was with the Ninth Arm tonight and was one of the twenty Gullah translators that would be deployed.

Five Hand was steady and strong and virulent and viral and tempting and delicious and poor and meek and big and little and strange and crazy and bundled and let loose and ready. Backbreakback Vinny was the only girl who could lead the Catboys. She knew what they did to Sis Little Backbreakback. But Sis Little had to learn that if you wanted to play with the boys you had to be tougher than them. Vinny couldn't rightly think though. It was more of pictures. She saw pictures of Teeth Bare. She smelt him too. You see and smell the past in Five Hand though. You kill the future.

Uptown was ready. They'd already gotten permission from the police to put up electricity for security systems. They were in their homes. They were ready. This was something for Downtown to worry about. They worried too. People's people after all. The shelters would still be open.

Little Fjord, Goldburg, Cyanide Downs, Pigeon Blow, Five Hand, Cootuh, and Fuzzy Wuzzy. Everyone knew it. Everyone who was anyone knew it. Everyone saw before hand that the folks who lived in Downtown were gonna see hell tonight. And they were ready. The Peshmerga-Garda had already seen what this much black could do. Five Hand was seething to flow out. Little Fjord was ready to live. Goldburg wanted to draw sword and bunker and wait. Cyanide Downs and Cootuh were grinning their voodoo grins and twirling their voodoo sticks and crying their voodoo cries, Pigeon Blow was cowing before its Five Hand master, and Fuzzy Wuzzy was staring with those blue eyes and that black skin and that red soul. Something fucking dangerous was gonna happen.

And it was all gonna happen here.

One Dr. Jacob Seuss, an inhabitant of Cootuh, made a supreme effort to rise from the couch, but the alcohol was telling his brain one thing and reality another, and he only managed a slight lurch before crashing drunkenly back into the armchair. The TV flickered; he didn't care what was on. Trying again and this time using his arms, Dr. Seuss managed to drag himself upright. The discipline he had once prided himself on as an Inquisitor of the Imperium, in the Warmaster, was completely washed away. Rum will do that.

Birmingham was ablaze tonight. Not literally...but give it a few hours or so. Word was the whole city was about to erupt in a street war that would make WWI look like a civilized and orderly affair. Seuss was thinking of something...was he? No...he'd forgotten something. Had he? A tiny, insignificant, and generally ignored part of his brain desperately tried to tell him just how wasted he was. It failed completely.

The gangs, that was it. He lived in Cootuh. Not so far, actually, from other neighborhoods. He was in danger. And if there was thing that woke up the Inquisitor within the drunk, it was danger. Shuffling over to a cabinet, he opened it and grinned. A nice, shiny, Desert Eagle lay within, along with some other items that everyone needed: grenades, a shotgun...known to him as a damn good party.

"Goddamn bastards ain't givin me shit," Dr. Seuss slurred, and sat back again, setting the Desert Eagle down in favor of the rum bottle. God forbid the gangs disturbed him, lest their shit be ruined.

It's a strange thing how so many smart and good people in one area can become draconic thingamajigs with no real inclination to not being total dumbasses.

It's strange how they start out. Riots and all. A few people. A few weapons there. Anger sweeps them. South Goldburg right on the border of Little Fjord. The Celtic Youth Military League had made it past the Second Arm. They hadn't lined up. Oh no, they just came in slowly. With a slippery style. Down fire escapes and through the homes of sympathizers. Tunnels that were so dark a rat couldn't pick its way through. But they slowly emerged in Southern Goldburg. Most of them were from Cootuh and Cyanide Downs. Little Fjord had been a thorn in their sides for a good long while.

They weren't really from the CYML though. They knew it. They were Gullah. They were the Voodoo Lads. They'd been trained though. Trained to read the Italian gang signs. Trained to know what some Norseman would carry as a weapon. It was a scene from nowhere. A place that nothing was.

And then it was all on fire.

Two carbombs went off at the same time that the lights went out. Communications were shot. All telephone line were shut down and the Arms moved in. They grasped the city and held it. Roads were blocked and nobody could move. It was dark.

At Dansker Auto it was lit up though. The neighbors ran out to see if Vjor had a generator. They turned the children away though. So quickly. Don't let them see. The children all loved Vjor and he them. Don't look at the lightpole. There was Vjor Dansker waving in the breeze...like a flag.

On the corner of Multon and McNully on the east side of Fuzzy Wuzzy two hands touched long enough to transfer some simple bills and a key. One dark cloaked thing dissappeared into the dark and a young Han Chinese man gazed at the key. He knew the Dreddas. A disciple of Jol Witty he knew all the talk and walked all the walk and now it was his time. The Fifth Arm hadn't made it this far into Fuzzy Wuzzy yet. The rioters had held them off. A Dredda in every crowd. Passing out booze and weapons. The long electric batons of the police couldn't hit them all though.

He heard it off to the side. On Gilladown Circle. The big black boots marching on the cobbles. Right at the end of the street was Touch. A local whorehouse that the Dreddas called home. They funneled everything through there. Murphy Li heard it alright. Old Canvas Man calling out to the cops to leave. Screaming his half-eyed curse. Should hold them off long enough to get a few Dreddas out back and into Pigeon Blow. It was like a block away.

Murphy saw the Dreddas filing out the back. Then the small night ripping explosions changed his mind. Old Man Canvas wasn't shouting anymore. The Fifth had silenced him. They were running now. The girls in Touch were coming out too. Murphy saw it all from his little side nest on Multon and McNully. He smelt it before he heard it. He heard it before he saw it. He saw it before he understood it. Three Dreddas just fell to the ground. The girls dashed into every alley. Nobody was heading to Pigeon Blow anymore.

Sniper on the roof.

Murphy ducked out behind his corner and fired into the long night. An AK-47 answered. The Tommy Gun might make it in this fight. Might not. The Fifth Arm was appearing out the back door now. Dreddas in the alleys heading to Pigeon Blow. The girls were heading home. Murphy was heading away. The Fifth Sniper on the roof would probably be telling them now that he was in one of the three alleys near the Executive Buildings. Murphy Li was running now. But the lack of trash pick up for a week ahead of time meant he had to go over an eight foot mountain of trash. It was slippery and greasy and fecal and bullet absorbing. And that meant it was heaven.

But the Fifth wasn't firing at him. They were aiming at the executive building. Murphy took his last breath of fresh air and dove in. The little explosions tore through the night. It wasn't an Arm sniper.

Pigeon Blow, the only place where noodles move when you get them on the table. The Dreddas were in. They were armed. They were gonna stop the Five Handers from coming through. Pigeon Blow was the buffer to Fuzzy Wuzzy. And the buffer wasn't gonna fall.

Tobias MacSweel had never seen this many angry people at once. They were screaming to fast. He couldn't keep up. When Tuckrey street got over run with the mobs then the boys and gals of the Ninth Arm cut through the streets and out unto another. They'd lost Bo and Colin back there. The boys had gotten taken down on the riot line. A big cinder block on a string came out of nowhere and knocked their asses down. Toby was pissed as hell at Padraig. Padraig should've stayed back there and at least gotten Colin. Colin was still breathing. The crowds had dragged him away.

bump

Piruz Golzari sat in the rather high end bar, drinking a few glasses of cognac and smoking a rather large Montecristo cigar. He laughed a bit of the idea of this being 'one of the nicest bars in Camel Eaters.' It was tolerable, and had a good atmosphere, but was sorely lacking in opulence. There was no orchestra, and there was no splendid decoration like the high end bars back home in Persepolis. It was a shame the Camel Eaters did not appreciate the high life like Parthia. He paid his tab in Rials, then stepped out the door, walking into the street mildly inebriated, his two friends were out there already, smoking cigarettes. Shapur Pakravan and Khosru Tabrizi were both pretty drunk already, and it was getting late. Piruz's father had a Maybach 64, complete with driver ready to take the four mildly intoxicated teens home to the highrise complex in uptown where all their families lived. Their driver was a local, some Celtic fellow named O'Neal who sure as hell knew his way around town. Two of the 17 year olds were in back, while Piruz sat in the front seat. It was relativley normal, until without warning, the street lamps went out, leaving the car with its headlights the only thing illuminating the road. Things just got a bit problematic.

George Gromit was a Roach-Busterian ex-patriate who had lived in Camel Eaters for years. Unable to cope with the endless repression at home, he was allured to CE by its affable, laid-back, easy-going people, extremely libertarian society, and abundance of freedom. Gromit ran a small "hole-in-the-wall" restaurant called the Bear Claw that served pancakes, waffles, Belgian waffles, sausage, bacon, and eggs. It served primarily breakfast foods, yet was open every hour of the day. In keeping with Camel Eatersian liberal society, the waitresses were topless, and nude guests were a common occurrence. In fact, clothed guests were the ones who garnered puzzled looks and raised eyebrows. It was an average night, with the jukebox blaring, people eating soggy, bland pancakes drowned in too sugary syrup stickier than super glue, and lovers making out in the booths. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was only when the lights went out that things got strange. It was not a stormy night. Why should the power suddenly cut out? Gromit expected the worst.

Timmy Huang JimBob's Umm... "Coffee" Shop, Somewhere in Goldburg

Crazy..... crazy.... Man, this was just crazy. It rarely got this crazy in MassPwnage. For a nation of no laws and even fewer morals, MP was a surprisingly serene place, mainly because the people there were full of love and acceptance and all of that other good stuff that every other society didn't have. Then again, the rest of the world.... they were a bunch of barbarians. Why screw other people over when getting along is somuch simpler? But then again... then again. Timmy Huang JimBob, the old hippie, clicked off the safety on his BR-1 Mars. The high caliber battle rifle was nearly invisible in the dark, except for the moonlight glinting off its reflex sight. Absolutely nobody would get to his stash tonight. Absolutely no one. Of course, if they asked politely, he would probably give it all away, but of course, they wouldn't ask. They never did.

A raven haired young hybrid stood nearby, behnd the counter, swishing her tail, her eyes glowing blue in the moonlight. Her father's coffee shop meant alot, after all she just happened to live there. And people tend to get twitchy when other people are out there, determined to destroy their possessions and livelihood. She flexed her fingers, feeling her razor sharp claws, and got back to staring through the window.... So many people out there.... This wasn't going to be fun.

They'd heard most of it. The Five Handers had their two decent hands on the city's veins. They were Angels of Death. The nice nurse with the double Ds. They snuck about underground and caught you. And if you were caught you were dead.

Nobody really knew why.

Surely people couldn't be that hungry for a consistent amount of time.

It was going to be a show. Backbreakback Vinny had the Catboys right under Uptown. The Arms were shying about up here. Mostly some lads from the First. Those bastards getting to go inside nice cozy mansions and get some tea and maybe a biscuit.

And what decent criminal can really stand for that? Ehrid Alzahari had strung together some of the outcasts from Fuzzy Wuzzy. Great big Hadendoa men with oodles of hair that puffed out in afro style. This of course fit well with their rather laid back attire. Mostly consisting of a Sumerian kilt and maybe a t-shirt. Clothing was optional in Camel Eaters after all. Ehrid was at the back of course. The Hadendoa were big. The Afar were not. The Hadendoa could soak up more bullets, arrows, and stones than the Afar could.

Besides, what great military leader ever was at the front? Alexander the Great doesn't count. HAHA! Got ya.

Five Hand moved around the big riots. They bypassed entire Arms and crawled under the gangs. Nobody had the piece of mind to cut old Vjor down yet. He was their flag really. But then things got darker. Not just the absence of light.

The absence of everything else too. That's when people scurried in and loud noises were heard outside and all the homeless in the area disappeared and Vjor was gone. Ain't hanging up there no more. Just a flagpole with a bit of chain.

Murphy popped out the other side and into something entirely hellish. He gulped at air that was far from fresh but better than breathing with a dead rat halfway up your nose. The Fifth was getting angry now. They'd been a bit overzealous. A bit too angry. A bit too like the rioters. Both were dropping like flies in the crowded pathways and streets of Fuzzy Wuzzy. In the distance Murphy heard the very distinct scream of a cow. Now though. He was staring at an angry mob. Angry mobs never were fond of folk with guns.

And off he went. Going through a mental checklist. Go through Gilladown, avoid strafing fire from the Fifth. Keep going past Down Hole. Hop across the trolley tracks. Run faster away from the total darkness and horrid screams. Take a left on Maggie Lane. Two rights, past the old stop light that doesn't work and you're in Goldburg.

"All right! Keep the crowd thin on the edges and heavy in the middle. Fire over the line. Do not fire through the line! Chopper'll get here shortly with The Wall. Until the-" Then of course in fine comedic tradition the sergeant was permanently silenced by either the rock of hail of arrows that hit his head, chest, and neck.

Tobias understood their anger. He didn't see it from their point of view. He just understood what the hell they were saying when angry. Cinderblocks on chains just wasn't fair was all. A big grey one whizzed up and hit Gilda in the shins at about this point. Gilda's bones wobbled between annoyed and angry before settling on snapping.

The baton was not working. 'When the baton don't work, grab the Jackhammer and give it a jerk.' It hardly seemed fair really. An automatic shotgun versus a riot..........

Ehrid heard the shots a bit to the side. On the way towards the lines whole cliques of Dreddas had fallen into step. The shots didn't worry Ehrid really though. It was the whistling wind sound. Wind don't whistle when the air is stagnant. Not like that. One of the younger boys fell off to the side. He smelled just like palm leaves and dead grass for a moment. That moment was enough. The darts came hurling out of true darkness and into men's necks.

Some crazy bastard had cut directly in front of them. He looked Han Chinese. A Tommy gun poked out under his coat. Which incidentally was covered in the refuse of society. Darts flew all around him and a few more dropped. The pause of death touched each one quickly enough.

And then they all ran. Break cover and run away from the darkness. You always did that. Especially if you were from Pigeon Blow.

Five Handers are mortal, they cause death.

Five Handers hunt more than wild dogs.

They'll eat you raw.

Don't go past the fence.

And somehow they all made it into Little Fjord. The Mafia didn't look too happy.

Little Fjord sat comfortably under Goldburg and to the east of Cootuh. It sat not so comfortably to the west of Fuzzy Wuzzy. And it definitely was thinking about moving after it realized Pigeon Blow was just south of it. It was a nice enough neighborhood. Littered with weeks of trash and months of whatever had just been laying there the rats ruled the tenants. And the rats were truly relentless.

The lights were going on outside. Lightpoles were flickering for a few moments here and there. For most of the people who were stupid enough to be on the streets it was a godsend. A tiny on-and-off heaven in a great big hell. The sound of a kettle echoed off the hundreds of alleys in every direction. Someone squealed in the moonless night. It was a very feminine squeal as well.

"Sounds a bit like the gals found a bed."

"Lucky."

"Yes?"

"No. Not you Fishhonk. Not you. The girl was lucky."

"Are you sure Mikhael? I have all the right bits down there to qualify as a lad. If you're curious you could ask your mum. She knows all right."

"YOU BASTARD! Come ere into the light so I can find you and smack your smart hole. You ain't gonna get any of the good cheese no more either. No. I've cut you off."

"Fuck you and your cheese. Marta on Salt Street's got me sausages. All the left-over ones every Tuesday."

"Aha! Wait till I tell your granny. As if the whore watn't already broke and crying off your addicttery and being homeless. Now you're eating sausages! I think it won't go over well for that old woman!"

"And? Pork's illegal man! Won't do a damned thing."

"She doesn't know that!"

This of course started a race to get to Lucky Fishhonk's grandmother's house before the other bastard did. Lucky's grandmother lived in Cyanide Downs. She was a nice old Jewish lady who always gave a few dollars to the neighborhood boys to purchase sweets and greasy chicken backs from the Puerto Rican vendor across the street.

Mikhael, not being the sharpest knife in the crayon box, thought to cut through the section of Cootuh closest to Pigeon Blow. This didn't actually scare him though. Mikhael was a dirty ragged individual with tea rotted teeth and a distinctly dried tobacco mixed with a tannery smell. Mikhael was making good time. The Arms hadn't hit this section of Cootuh at all yet. It was free roaming and the air couldn't be fresher. (Aside from the trash and the dead things lying in the street) It was a good night to be out. Because then nobody really cared where you were going.

He saw the fence rather early on. It was that type that squeamish folk put up to keep all the ratty peoples away. Twenty feet tall and barbed from both sides with something that looked like rust coating each prick. Behind the fence was a very Zen styled garden of rocks, refuse, bottles and leftover condoms that extended for all of three feet out and continued behind all the houses. After the three feet of quiet contemplation was a big black sewage drain of the type that flooded only once every eighty years or so when the waters got high enough to float tanks.

Mikhael made it through the fence easily enough. A pair of callous hands and some boltcutters had gotten the job done. Granny Berkowitz (Fishhonk's real last name) would be delighted with him for revealing her grandson supposedly ate pork. So delighted that she might reward Mikhael........with a little something extra.

"Oh God!" The scream of Mikhael echoed into the night and caused several people to stop hiding under the sheets and go for all out hiding under the bed. Mikhael mentally bitch slapped himself for thinking about a seventy three year old woman like that. Not that it was wrong necessarily. People in Camel Eaters often hit 140. Just......eww.

Fishhonk hadn't been so lucky. Being an alcoholic his sense of direction sucked. He'd been wandering in Pigeon Blow for about five minutes now and still couldn't find a way out. They didn't even have street signs here. Or lights. Just things that were basically paved and went off in a direction. Fishhonk had never been a religious man but was suddenly aware of a giant white light coming towards him.

"God?" Unfortunately for Fishhonk it was in fact a truck.

The adrenaline was counteracting the alcohol in Dr. Seuss’s bloodstream. The alcohol was telling his brain to stop being a bitch and shut up, and the adrenaline was telling the alcohol to go fuck itself. This dispute between longtime enemies in Seuss’s world gave the man strength.

The Inquisitor’s mantra flashed through his head, accompanied by memories of torturing, forcing confession, of killing stealthily and openly both. His sacred oath to defend the ways of the Imperium heaved itself from the recesses of his mind, followed by the memory of the day of his exile...

Jacob Seuss rose.

Clutching his Desert Eagle and shotgun, he strode for the door. The gang war was going to tear Birmingham apart within...hell, it already had torn the place apart. Right now duty and primitive drive competed in his head, and their mingled voices told him to get outside and kill what he felt like...so long as it helped the Imperium. Whatever that meant.

The corridor was filled with empty beer cans, toilet paper, and a few empty bottles of air freshener. The lighting seemed dim, the ceiling oppressively low, the walls closing in on him.

The street was little better. The harsh white radiance of streetlights was absent; fires in the distance were scattered across the slums, ascending into the starless night. Seuss couldn’t decide where to go. Finally he picked a route at random. Crossing the street, he strode through alleys, climbed over fences, leading him toward Pigeon Blow. A shape! Seuss snapped the Desert Eagle up and fired with impressive speed. Unfortunately, on second glance, the cooling body turned out to have belonged to a gaunt cat.

“Fuck.” Dr. Seuss continued along his path, muttering curses, gun at the ready. A few minutes later he was standing before a house, guarded by a very tall, very rusty fence. When Seuss got closer he saw the expanse of ground in front of the house was a minefield of trash: condoms, a few rotting food scraps, bottles...incredible.

Movement again. Seuss looked before he leapt this time: a shape seemed to be moving through the fence, toward the house. How...? Then he managed to perceive the hole in the fence. Whatever the hell this man was doing, he was going to stop.

Seuss very carefully raised the magnum, sighted along it, aimed for center of mass as his firing instructor had drilled him to do years ago, and pulled the trigger. A deafening roar filled the night of Cootuh. The gun bucked. And an instant later, the sound faintly came of a body crumpling. When Seuss walked over to investigate, he saw the dead man was a beggar. Death had been living with the tramp already, infusing his rotted teeth and his filthy clothes. All Seuss had done was just inform the man of his status.

Dr. Jacob Seuss walked away from Mikhael’s body, picking through the fence and turning right along muddy, wet alleys.

Piruz Golzari was a bit concerned as the Maybach pulled into the high rise entrance. The emergency generator was on, and the bellman and the employees inside were carrying around flashlights to illuminate further the dimmed hallways. Three employees were to guide each of the three Parthians to their rooms. Khosru and Shapur lived on the 27th floor in some of the three bedroom condominiums, while Piruz lived on the 30th floor in one of the three penthouses. All of them decided against returning home sober, instead, they would head up to Piruz's penthouse and watch the riots from the balcony while accomplishing their goal of getting completley wasted.

Walking up, the three entered the neo-classically furnished two story structure, grabbing a few bottles of various drinks from the bar, a carton of cigarettes, and a few cigars. They opened the sliding doors of the terrace and looked out, noting a few of the fires in Pigeon Blow and the other southernly areas and some sporadic fires which looked like gunshots. Somewhat awestruck, they poured three shots of Jack Daniels and each drank it within a second, before lighting a few cigarettes and watching what Khosru described as fireworks.