Critical Mass, Chapter 1: Thorsson Krey

He had been running through the maze of city streets and broken down cars for what seemed like half of the night. Of the five who were chasing him, three were still right on his heels, occasionally yelling obscene threats at him. One had dropped out from sheer exhaustion before it started raining and another slipped coming around a corner and hit his head on the curb. His accomplices didn't even look back as his agonizing cry echoed through the deserted streets. The streetlights had long since been broken out, but light flickered down from the traffic on the matrix of overpasses above, reflecting off of the glass on the skyscrapers and the layer of water on the street, creating a bit of a psychedelic effect as his headset blasted one of his favorite thunderous songs, and he smiled, not even winded from the chase. Three were still right on his heels, because that was exactly where he wanted them.

The time was nigh, and for a moment he sped his cadence, causing them to accelerate desperately. He let the one who was closest reach out to grab the back of his jacket and almost get a grip on him before he dropped to one knee and hunched over forward with his head down, sending the man sprawling over him, face first, onto the pitted asphalt. The next in line, wide-eyed with his feet skidding on the wet pavement in a sudden attempt to slow himself, had his arms out to the sides, flailing around as if reaching for something to grab onto. In one fluid motion, he pivoted around 180 degrees to the left on the balls of his feet, raising his center only slightly, and thrust a powerful punch with his right hand directly into the defenseless attacker's grossly over-exposed solar plexus. The man made a horribly deep wheezing sound as his feet lifted about six inches off the ground and he folded nearly in half, stopped right in his tracks, and dropped like a sack of potatoes to the street, where he tipped over sideways in fetal position; alive, but unable to move. The third man made no attempt to slow down, and actually lunged at him, hurdling over his fallen comrade in an attempt to tackle him while crying out in a blind rage as he flew through the air with his arms extended. Gracefully, he simultaneously caught the back of the man's left wrist and hand with his right hand, while pivoting to the left and stepping back with his left foot, just clearing the man's line of attack and dragging his momentum off course and toward the ground. He suddenly reversed the flow and twisted his attacker's wrist back the way it came, pivoting at the waist to the right, and backing up the motion with his left hand, dislocating his elbow with a loud snapping sound as he caught him in the face with his left elbow, sending him reeling onto his back a few feet from his partner. A large knife bounced out of his coat and clanged to a stop several inches from his head, but he made no attempt to grab it, and instead rolled toward his wounded arm, moaning in pain, with blood oozing from his mouth and nose.

His medium length hair, drenched from the rain, whipped an arc of water into the air as he spun his head quickly to the left and turned his attention back to the first man, who was already clambering up from his spill. He reached down to his waist and turned off his music. The man was looking over his shoulder, reaching into his coat for something, and desperately trying to get to his feet, when he ran right by him on his blind side, giving him a taunting pop on the back of the head on his way by. The man made it to his feet and produced the pistol he had been fumbling for.

"Freeze!" he yelled, pulling the slide back and aiming at the back of his head.

He knew if it was loaded he would have been shot at a long time ago. He kept running, and after a brief pause by the gunman, the chase resumed. He darted in between two abandoned cars and up onto the sidewalk, running along the series of broken out and decaying store fronts on his right. Still gripping his pistol, the man winced as he struggled to catch up, his face badly gouged from the fall. Nearing a familiar intersection, he noticed the light of approaching headlights from around the corner, and was debating whether or not to alter his course, when he heard the sound of a police radio, and decided to press on.

As he rounded the corner, the cops in the patrol car barely glanced at him, rounding the corner in the opposite direction, nonchalantly, and passing right by his armed pursuer as well. The police had long since written off the entire underground as a liability, and were scarcely seen down here at all. Their job was primarily to protect the upper crust from the dregs that still lived here. In the daytime, in barricaded zones, it was not uncommon to see them protecting a truck delivering or receiving goods through underground warehouses, but even then they were easily bribed into complete uselessness. One car? At night? These two must have been down here to buy drugs, arrange a hit, or kill somebody themselves. At any rate, they were completely uninterested in the lives of those who lived here, and that was fine by him.

Things had not always been this bad. As a young boy, he could remember these streets bustling with life. It was an expanding hive of people, cars, and commerce more diverse than the mind could keep up with, and it was magical. At any time, day or night, you could walk these streets and still be surrounded by people. There was always crime, but people lived their lives pretty much oblivious to it. That changed at a pretty frightening rate.

There has been much speculation and controversy as to what point it was that it became irreversible, but the hard fact is that humans overpopulated the planet to the point of sociological and economic critical mass. Somewhere around 2048, less than ten short years ago, mankind had reached a global population of nearly 11.5 billion people before things got so bad that the growth actually flat-lined and the mortality rate finally equaled the birth rate. Despite all the warning signs and attempts to educate the masses by the conveniently ignored minority of people interested in sustainability in the 20th century, mankind marched merrily into the future, interested only in economic growth, while defeating even that possibility by throwing billions of dollars a year into programs designed to kill the weed by hacking off it's branches while the root continued to grow deeper and deeper.

The ensuing depression, also both economic and psychological, gave birth to the rampant practice of every desperate act man is capable of. While some innovative solutions had been found to address the environmental holocaust that was staring them in the face, the sociological condition was irreparable. With the middle class all but extinct, the rich needed to find a way to protect themselves from the poor, and a new kind of segregation was taking place in most of the major cities of the world.

Out of the ashes of the war torn inner-city jungles, cities were being constructed right over the top of themselves. Access to large buildings was being sealed from below, and a matrix of new freeways and viaducts was connecting them together at higher and higher levels. It started as an attempt to ease unbearable levels of traffic congestion, but evolved without resistance into a convenient way to leave the unfortunate ones behind.

Denial in every form pushed the poor further and further out of society. What started as being barred from employment at anything that paid livable wages, and being unable to open a bank account, quickly turned into class-based discrimination toward patrons upon entering a store to spend what little money they did have, and eventually, logistical denial of access to their world at all. The poor had been reduced to a barter system and a state of undeniable anarchy, where the strong survive, and the weak get trampled. Thorsson Krey flourished here. He and a very tight-knit family, known on the streets as The North Clan, had found numerous ways to get whatever they needed.

He hooked left at the next intersection, the man behind him now breathing so hard he could hear him from ten feet away. There was an eight foot high concrete barricade across the entire width of the road, building to building. The man slowed as if to rest a bit, assuming the fight would take place here. Without looking back, Krey trotted up to the graffiti-riddled wall and leaped up, catching the top edge with his finger tips and vaulted over using his powerful forearm as a fulcrum. He landed almost silently, as the exhausted attacker scrambled to catch up. The beaten man clumsily threw himself over and landed with a loud thud, nearly losing his balance and falling over sideways before breaking into a run.

They were nearly to the next intersection by the time he was close again. Krey saw headlights again, but this time heard the whine of a high-torque cargo truck. He hurdled himself up a row of dead cars parked along the right side of the road, running on the rooftops as the man jumped up to follow. The last one was a van and it gave him just the height he was after. He leaped up, out, and to the right, just as the truck was going by. He had enough momentum to clear it, but held back a little, then turned his body around in mid-air, came down right behind the moving truck and grabbed the bumper. He squatted and slid on his feet for a second or two, then let go, spinning around to face his opponent who had jumped straight over, hoping to land on him. The unsuspecting man had not seen his maneuver, and was facing away from him, looking up the street to see where he went. Krey jumped silently at him and scissor kicked him right between the shoulder blades so hard that his head flew back with enough force to cut off the blood flow to his brain and knocked him unconscious in much the same fashion as a boxer's most menacing uppercut to the chin. The man sprawled forward like a rag doll, ten feet out into the street, where he skidded to a stop on his already wounded face. His gun flew a bit further, and finally landed across the street, bouncing under an old Volkswagen bug that was tipped onto it’s side, impaled by a fire hydrant.

Laughter erupted from behind him, echoing through the buildings. Familiar laughter. He turned around, smiling, to see a hooded old man in soiled and tattered clothing through the broken out windshield in front of the van he had jumped off of, cloaked in a blanket and nursing a bottle of something nasty.

"Did you like that?" Krey asked sarcastically, bowing with his arms out to his sides.

"Man, that was that funniest fucking thing I've seen in a week!--- 'cept you made me piss my pants, mother fucker!" he exclaimed, still laughing out loud. "Jumpin' off a mother fucker's roof 'n shit...damn," he mumbled, laughing again.

"He'll be out for about ten to twenty minutes..." Krey said, gesturing at the dark lump in the middle of the road, "the Glock under the car is unloaded, but it should fetch you a few meals at Vinny's..." He turned and started to walk away. "You might want to make yourself scarce... These assholes have no sense of humor."

"Hey Dragon!" the old man called out.

Krey stopped. "Catch!" he ordered, grinning, and slowly reached into his pocket with his back still turned.

The old man, still in the van, raised a cup and tilted it toward him. Krey spun around, squatting low and snapped a shiny quarter out from between his thumb and middle finger with his hand inverted up near his ear. The coin zipped through the air and landed directly in the cup from about 20 yards out with a dull thunk. The old man busted up laughing again.

"Sounds like you didn't do too well today..." Krey jabbed, turning to leave again.

"Already spen' it, brotha," he replied, tipping his bottle toward him and nodding with gratitude. "Already spen' it." Though most of the upper crust had made currency obsolete years ago with scannable implants and electronic funds, a buck was still a buck down here.

Krey walked off smiling and shaking his head, murmuring to himself, "Thomas, Thomas, Thomas..."

Thorsson Krey was recognized by many, but few knew his real name. He was known on the streets as "The Dragon," due largely to his intense fighting style and Norse tattoos, but in slightly tighter circles he was called "Thor." Even fewer knew where he and his family resided. They were known mainly by reputation. Well liked, greatly respected, and deeply feared, they conducted their business relatively unscathed because they weren't in the habit of creating enemies, and the enemies that chose them as targets were dealt with swiftly, and generally made an excruciating example of.

©2010 Gunnar C. Garisson, All Rights Reserved

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