Death Drive

Chapter 13

Thomas parked his car a few blocks away from the address Naomi had given him. The neighborhood had a bad name and character to it, and he did not want his replacement car to become the target of mindless vandalism. But turning the corner to a street he had been told to avoid his first reaction was one of surprise; the streets were pristine, like the stones were laid there yesterday and bright signs welcomed passers-by into the local establishments. Sure, the area certainly did not cater to one's best side - not with the large moving adverts promising cheap alcohol, drugs and women – but the front was meticulously kept. Only when he noticed a group of naked women writhing in a heap in the air above the entrance of a whorehouse he remembered that the glasses he was wearing didn't stop at simply passing the view of his surroundings through its lenses but actively added and removed things from it according to its programming. He took of his glasses and seeing the actuality was like getting spit in the face : the pavement was cracked and littered, dead cars lining the side of the road. Decrepit buildings were covered in graffiti, and many had broken windows. Neon signs had gone dark, store names painted into the brick and mortar faded long ago making it impossible to tell the establishments from one another. Only a few feet away there was homeless man sitting down on the street, wrapped in a blanket, his back resting against a building. Thomas lifted the glasses back up, a foot away from his face. Looking through the glasses like this was like looking through a keyhole into a fantasy world; a world where the blemishes were washed away. Even the tramp was edited out like the litter encompassing him, replaced with a virtual icon so people would not just trip over him. Thomas now remembered hearing in the news of decomposed corpses found in the middle of busy streets where people had passed them blindly for weeks before. He huffed throatily and placed the glasses in his pocket.

"Out of sight, out of mind," he thought as he passed the neglected buildings. People visited them daily, even procured extra money by running them, but renovation was becoming a forgotten art as it was both cheaper and more effective to just amp up the filters. The same also applied to apartment buildings; everyone got to live in their own personal fantasyland while the drab walls around them slowly rot.

His path took him through some back streets where he had to watch his step to avoid ruining his shoes with trash spilling from overfilled dumpsters, but he reached his target which appeared to be a run-down multistory parking garage. In the yard a group of people was congregating around flashy modified cars. Even from a distance it was obvious there was a disagreement between two men of the group. At first he planned to circumvent the gang but recognizing Jason as the other belligerent he headed straight for the pair.

"That's not fair! You can't just make demands like that out of nowhere!" Jason yelled to the hoodlum, a young Hispanic man polychromatic with his crimson dyed hair and extensively inked skin.

"Debts must be paid," the man said casually. "And you're out of credit."

A female member of the ring noticed Thomas approaching and gestured towards him with her cigarette. The rest turned to face him.

"What's going on here?" Thomas asked, stopping a few paces away so he could keep an eye on everyone at once.

Jason seemed more alarmed by his appearance than whatever conflict he had found himself in. He only managed to blurt out, "Thomas?"

The tattooed man he assumed was the leader of the gang seemed unconcerned.

"Your boy here plans to default on his debt." He spat. "We don't take kindly to that."

"I'll pay you back, just not today."

Thomas interjected before the argument could repeat itself: "And this payment you claim you're due would not happen to be that Maserati over there?"