Chapter 5:

Chapter 5

FORCES


Clive sitting in a Cage district bar was enjoying drinks, which he does on occasion. He was pacing his vision around the atmospheric room as he then witnesses a savage, unusual rape begin to take place and nobody around him is doing anything about it. Everyone had acknowledged that it is most definitely happening but each individual has refused to do anything about it. The rapist was a woman sporting a strap-on, and her entire face was tattooed. A freak who finds pleasure in torturing other women she finds prettier as punishment for their looks.

Rushing through the crowd like a snake in the grass Clive ripped the rapist off the other woman. He immediately pulls out his sidearm offing the tattooed woman. He looks around at the people in the bar.

“You are all sickening!” Breathing heavily from rage rather than exhaustion, Clive stands in the middle of the bar clenching his gun.

“Humanity has never been more united, and at the same time more distant.” Clive puts his jacket on the rape victim who thanks him as he quickly exits the bar. “It seems as though I have just murdered.”

Back at the restaurant Mason escorts Jack to the restroom. “You have quite a talent mister.” Jack says while sitting in a bathroom stall. “What is that Jack?” Jack sitting on the toilet scratches his privates before elaborating “My auntie has been acting strange since she got a phone call from Wayne but as long as we have known Wayne it wasn’t anything he has done.” Mason thought back to when he stood up in front of Bellmore for her. He wonders if that was possibly why she is having this change in attitude.

“You see mister. My auntie laughed and smiled while talking to you. She doesn’t laugh and smile. Plus she changed her name! My sister likes how girly her new name is but I liked how cool her old one was!”

Mason can’t but think back to when he convinced her to change her name.

“Well kid, your auntie wasn’t given such a strange name selfishly and it wasn’t who she was. She made the right decision.”

“I guess you are right mister.” Jack then heads for the exit before a very unsubtle grunting is made by Mason.

“Call me Mason, not mister. In addition, wash your hands. That’s unhealthy. And disgusting of course.” Jack walks over to the bathroom sink. He washes with soap as the cold water gives him goose bumps.

“These district 2 bathrooms sure are nice huh?”

Mason looks around only seeing in his eyes would be a dirty movie theater bathroom or fast-food joint restroom. But to Jack it has significantly more lighting cleaner toilets that are the color white, and no rusty walls.

Jack and Mason sit back down at the table.

“So where are these kids parents?”

“They went to church, it is still a Sunday, and there are still churches.”

Mason had never even considered it. But he wouldn’t anyways. In order to not upset Sylvia he refrains from being snarky or admitting he doesn’t believe in Christ he just ignores it. It was better this way.

Mason looks over at Emily who hadn’t talked much the whole time, and basically allowed her brother to speak.

“What about you Emily, do you believe in Jesus?” Emily just shakes her head. She then says.

“Well I don’t think it is very smart not to believe in something. Also Jesus seems so nice so…”

On the way out of the restaurant Mason grabbed for Sylvia’s arm, and that militaristic instinct kicks in as Mason is kneed directly in the stomach. Sylvia runs to his side right away.

“Mason! Mason I am so sorry!”

Mason spitting, and choking puts his hand on hers.

“Don’t fret over me I’m fine. No I was actually wondering if you could show me the outside from up in the snipers nest?”

Sylvia who felt awful agreed to only after she dropped off her niece, and nephew. It takes an elevator to get to one of the sniper nests, and in case of emergencies there are more than one elevator. Once up there Mason felt a strange wave of nostalgia. Despite having barely been in this time period for long.

“Looking out there, makes me feel like I had been out there for years. Like I was born a few days ago but I am already old enough to have this feeling of remembrance.” Sylvia them put her arms over the ledge to dangle as the breeze cooled her arms.

“Today there isn’t a sniper on duty. It’s because there aren’t any soldiers on mission ya see. But in case someone seeks refuge in the city they have someone below us to keep an eye out. Doesn’t mean refuge will be given.”

Sylvia envied the soldiers on wall detail. They get paid a pretty penny for work that as important as it is it’s admittedly lacking danger. The sniper’s job is pretty simple after all. They sit up in the tower to defend the vehicles, and troops coming and going. The moat is the protection when nobody is out on a mission. Granted those opportunities are rare.

“I understand this city.”

Mason looks down from the top of the wall to the bottom. As his field of vision starts to slowly retreat downward it pans from a dessert plain full of beasts corpses to the crashing of salt water in a moat. Mason stares at it for a little while.

“I hate not understanding things. Hate it to my core.” Says Mason as Sylvia quits dangling her arms over the side.

“I never much thought about how something, or why something is. Just doing what I need to survive has kept me content.”

Mason just doesn’t understand Sylvia’s satisfaction from simple survival. Being content with just living even if you can’t enjoy yourself. Even when everyone you know could die at once. Maybe she isn’t satisfied. And her being in the military is proof of that. But Mason just rules it out as being simply the time that she lives in.

“I just can’t shake this feeling that I will have to go back out there.” Said Mason as Sylvia stares out into a wasteland of dirt, and dead irons.

“Well either way Mason. I am going back out there. Don’t know when but I surely will. I feel I won’t die unless I die out there.” Sylvia then points forward toward the rest of the world.

“Somewhere to the far west, that’s where I will die Mason.” Mason looks over at Sylvia.

“If I die, you should bury me in the west. Somewhere far from here.” She said staring at the sun.

It had been a few days since the death of Romeo. The funeral was held near the east side of the city. Atop the wall looking to the ocean, preachers and friends, as well as family came for the ceremony. People made speeches, a pastor gave a sermon. Even Wayne made a speech despite only having known Romeo for a short time. But one speech would be one that nobody would forget.

It was delivered by a girl named Sarah. Mason would remember it as well, for the rest of his life. Stepping forward was a somewhat strong, and brave girl. She had a silver ring around her neck that was attached to a chain. It was an engagement ring that was forged out of the love of a blooming romance, ironic, but still beautiful.

“My fiancé was a brave, yet simple man. The moment I met him, he seemed as though he was one, big, walking party. He drank, but never obsessively. He loved but rarely openly. But boy didn’t he love. He was a ladies man who tamed himself. He was the lion and the lion tamer. He named himself Romeo, because he was a ladies man. Little did he know that Romeo only had eyes for one woman, and those eyes were set on me. He loved me, and I loved him. His family loved him. And surely many of you came here today, because whether you knew him a day or a decade, you were charmed by him!”

A tear began to fall from Sarah’s right eye. At that moment for just a moment, Mason’s right eye felt a sudden yet sharp pain. Almost as if he felt her pain. Or was it actually his own pain he was feeling. He didn’t know at the time but he lost a friend when Romeo died out there in that desolate land.

“I believe that my fiancé, from his fiancée… Was happy to see how many people cared to see him off.” Sarah said as she looked over at Wayne and shook her head.

Wayne knew what the signal was as he shook his head back at her. He then looked down at Romeo. Romeo wrapped up in finely layered plastic. Airtight as to preserve his body. Mason observed this strange new ritual. Wayne squatted then picked Romeo up the looked over the side of the wall. Romeo was hoisted in the air by Wayne before being thrown off the side of Requiem and into the ocean.

Even though someone had told Mason in advance, the procedure still shocked him. This is why Sylvia wanted him to bury her in the west. She didn’t want to be flown over an edge into the water. Neither would Mason as he sat and watched it happen. It was only a ritual for soldiers but that would also apply to Sylvia, and even Mason.

“Rest in peace.” said the pastor.

Back at home, in bed Mason pulled the covers over his face gently. As to hide his face from the world. He has had a stressful day. A stressful week even. He wanted to just close himself off for a while. He wanted to go home. But there was work to be done.

“Romeo died by poison, how ironic.” Mason thought as he turned over own his side. He wasn’t satisfied. He was reading Miles’ notes but he needed more. He was a scientist, he wasn’t able to do anything but research. So he would do just that.

Mason picks up his phone. He dials Clive’s number, the phone rings for a while before finally he answered.

“Mason?” Mason swallows before speaking.

“I need you to get me an iron. And it has to be alive!”

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