Dirty Work: Volume 1

Lura - 7

I didn't bother going to collect the board, I just ran. I ran mostly because in the sheer terror of realising what the hell was going on, I forgot about the board. I was certain that the Red Rose guys would be tailing Markro and Lura, probably thinking that one of them would have some information about the package I had deposited in the Vaults. There were so many chills running through my body that my blood was beginning to freeze. As I ran towards the main street in that part of the Region, predictably, the rain came down again. I am more than certain that the weatherman has a ridiculously big rain fetish.

I tried contacting Markro on my way there, but he wasn't answering his Halo-Core. In an age of instant communication, there's nothing more nerve-wracking than knowing someone should be replying instantly and they don't. I think it's only thanks to situations like these that we still actually have physical contact with one another.

I took a shortcut through one of the areas small shopping centres, bright lights strobing into my temples. My head was starting to hurt at that point, with too much going on all at once. There weren't many people around at that time, and the music wasn't especially loud in the centre, but I still felt everything shaking, the ebb and flow of the music nothing more than harsh gratings on the inside of my skull. There wasn't much noise in that building, even with the echoes through the glass cavern, but everything was still amplified. All my senses were amped up, as if drug induced. I guess that's what fear does to you, and right then I was scared alright. I was scared of that gang with the Red Rose, and what they would do if they didn't find the information they were looking for. I was fairly certain that one of them had probably kept a low profile and followed Markro and Lura, hence the lack of communication with them, and it didn't help my nerves. I ran faster.

I headed down the streets, ducking into a small side street not far away from Markro's place. I took my gun out of my coat and primed it, a red canister full, primed and loaded to go. I took the time to catch my breath, to steel myself against anything I might find. I was worried, I'm not ashamed to admit, that I might find them with holes in their heads and another message from the Rose gang. That wouldn't make a good report back to the boss.

I slipped out of the alley and power-walked to the apartment. Tears shimmered in pools of water draining underground. The nearby Tower-Screen tolled a dull three o'clock in the morning. I hoped those three tolls weren't for Markro, Lura and I.

Approaching the building I looked up to Markro's window, three floors high, and saw shadows passing back and forth. None of them were of the two people I had wanted to find there. A shudder went down my spine and collected at the bottom where it would undoubtedly be joined by others later.

I went into the building and swiped a spare box from the lobby area, closed the lid and climbed the stairs.

'Hey!' a man said, sticking his head out from behind the reception desk. 'You can't just take that!'

'Who's using it?' I asked.

The man stopped, thinking. 'Well,' he said, 'nobody at the moment. But someone might. And it's not yours, that's the point.'

'I'll bring it back,' I said, smiling. 'And I'll try and keep the gunshots down.'

Before he could say anything else in reply I ducked into the main stairwell and ascended to the third floor.

I hid my gun behind the box and activated the Halo-Core on the door to Markro's flat. There was no reply, as I had expected.

'Hello! Delivery for a Mr. Markro!' I called, cheerily. As before, silence reigned supreme.

'Look, I know it's late, but it was a special delivery. And I was told to bring it to you and put it inside the flat and, and not let, let it go until I did so. My boss said if, if I didn't he wouldn't help, help, help me with my speech problems.'

No answer, yet again.

'I'll just let myself in and put it just inside the door, Mr Markro. I remember your code from last time. You've been so nice to me.'

I keyed in the code and opened the door, ready to throw the box off at a second's notice. The barrel of my gun was free to fire underneath.

They were waiting for me. Two of them, Markro and Lura gagged and tied on their knees behind them.

'Oh, sorry,' I said with two gun barrels pointed at my head. 'I didn't realise you had company.'

I shot, hitting the one on the right in the chest. I threw myself through a doorway into the small bathroom as a blast went through the open door and into the hallway. It burned a hole through the door of the apartment opposite.

I went through the door on the far side of the bathroom into the bedroom, the box now discarded, cover not needed. I swung around the door into the main room and shot, hitting one of the Red Rose guys in the chest. He dropped the key to Markro's cuffs and my friend got to work with his free fingers.

I ducked back into the bedroom to slam the door shut on the second guy who was coming through the bathroom. He slammed against it and the door rattled in its frame, splinters of plaster falling like powder snow from the ceiling. I swung the door open as soon as the hit was over and fired inside. It hit the man full on in the face, sending him to the floor with his hands clawing at the place his face used to be as it bubbled away to reveal the bone and pulp beneath.

I kicked the box across the bathroom back towards the front door and slipped into the bedroom again. I peered around to where key-man had been and sure enough, he was looking towards the other bathroom door. I aimed for him, hoping to hit the place where a hole was now forming in his chest. He twisted his arm to behind him and fired a split second before me.

Lura screamed as the man fell.

Markro and I cried out in tandem. I rushed over to Lura, hoping beyond all hope that the shot had just hit her arm. I could get her to a hospital within five minutes if that were the case.

She wasn't hit in the arm.

She was hit right between her breasts, dead centre. Even about to get hit a second time, the Red Rose thug had incredible accuracy. Blood seeped through the wound, a bloody rose now Lura's talisman of death.

'Lura,' I whispered, gathering her up in my arms. She gargled, blood seeping from purple lips.

'Tonight I...' she began, 'felt...'

'What did you feel? Hold on to it, what did you feel?' I asked.

She looked me in the eyes, my eyes seeing hers and hers seeing the stars.

'I, felt... beautiful.'

She said no more, and I smeared the traces of her Dirty Work make-up with my tears as I gave her soul a final, parting kiss.