You slowly awake from your slumber. Your head aches like it has done so every time you woke up since you received the strange whiplashes across your back. You are lying in a strange apartment that you don’t instantly recognize. After clearing the fog from your mind you look around the dark room and notice the shallow breathe of someone next to you.
You see Nina lying next to you sleeping. She’s lying uncomfortably on one side as she tries to avoid putting any strain on her left side, there where the bullet caught her. The injuries she suffered last night remind you of your own and suddenly you are awash with stings and aches from all over. It is quite obvious that during your struggle with and flight from the LoneStar Officers you overexerted yourself.
Slowly you push the blanket away from your body and put both feet on the cold synthwood floor. You walk to the doorway that leads into the large living room and you spot the large floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over Seattle.
You grab a cool refreshing soydrink from the cooling unit in the integrated kitchen unit and walk to the window. You stare out over the large Seattle Sprawl. You scan the clock near the widescreen trid-unit and see that it’s around 3:00 am. You turn to face the window again and you notice the large vortex of dark clouds that have formed over the Seattle Bay Area. Lightning ripples along the clouds and a steady rain falls down.
The sight is truly breathtaking. You can see the Space Needle, Seattle’s famous landmark. You can see the large structure of the Renraku Arcology and it’s many tiered floors. You see several processing plants to the south of Downtown, large techno-gothic structures with tall spires that bellow smoke and fire into the grey sky. Also, you can see large traffic congestions along the I206.
Down below you see people swarming the shopping streets that surround the large glass-and-steel apartment complex. Cars seem like toys as they worm their way through traffic. Every now and then you feel a twitch of anger as you see a LoneStar patrol vehicle speed through traffic.
As you stand their watching the Sprawl you wonder how many people ever have the privilege to stay in an apartment like this one. Your vision turns into a stare as you think back of all the hardship you have seen in Europe and Africa. Europe wracked by war as small city-states declare independence and small districts defy their country by separating themselves from their ruling body. It reminds you of the fall of the USSR back in the end of the 19th century.
Suddenly after minutes of standing there, reminiscing about the past, you see the outside turn very dark enhancing your own mirror image. From below a light illuminates your mirror-self and you are shocked by its ghostly image. You see yourself standing out in the middle of the air some 20 feet away from the building, 25 stories up in the sky, naked except for a cloth around your waste that barely covers your private parts.
You watch yourself hanging there in that temporal void outside of the window. Your hands outstretched to your sides, your feet together. Your hair is longer and dishevelled and you are obviously thinner, even hallowed, and dirty. You see small drops of blood coming from large holes in your hands dripping down your arms and dripping down to the floor. A large hole in both feet spurts blood as well.
Suddenly a large wooden crossbeam takes shape supported by a vertical wooden beam and you are looking at a strange Christ-image of yourself hanging some 1,400 feet above street level. From the dark void you see slowly people take shape. Dancing happily and throwing rocks at you. Your mirror image doesn’t react as the rocks impact against your skin. Those dancing around the cross are people of different shapes and sizes. All have one identifying feature,...large bullet wounds all over their body.
As you stand their frozen with fear and morbid anticipation it slowly begins to dawn on you as you start recognizing some of the dancing figures around your ghostly image, that these people are people you have killed in the past. Their wounds are the wounds of your Twin Desert Eagles.
You fall to your knees in front of the window and drop the can of soy on the floor. You start sobbing as you look back up to the image. A man slowly steps forward out of the crowd. He is not riddled with bullet wounds and you don’t recognize him. You would have recognized him if you had seen him before because he looks very distinct.
He is wearing a strange black cape with a red lining. His skin has been tattooed with a strange red dye and you see that his has some obvious cyberware that adds to the macabre image. He has cybernetic implanted metal horns and fangs. Also his eyes are cybered, an expensive grade cyberware because they look totally real except for the snake-eyed shape of the iris.
He looks up at you and draws forth a curved, wicked looking knife. He jumps forward, almost seeming to crash through the window and into you. Your reflexes kick in involuntarily and carry you out of his path. But as you crash into the sofa standing not to far from you the image is gone and you stand looking at a normal view over Seattle Downtown,...your soy drink spill widening with every second.
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