#264
Café Suicide
Part Two
Shane Crabtree has his dream job. He’s 23 years old and a
travelling researcher for Ryan Industries. He has been given the chance to see
that the world is a place with more complexities than even the human
imagination can handle.
My imagination can cook up some pretty fucked up stuff but
you probably know that by now.
No apologizes given, just hope you like what I’m giving.
The things Shane has encountered have stripped away all of
his fears and he is now wondering how he can deal with that because a man
without fear is close to becoming a man without humanity.
And that has brought him to today standing on top of a Ryan
Industries research facility in Miami Florida, Coral Gables to be precise. The
facility hasn’t been here long, just built a few months ago. Before this place was
built he always reported to another research facility in California.
Twelve minutes ago he delivered The Armor Of Achilles from a
recent trip to Rome. It was a hot summer in Rome but nothing compared to the
heat wave that’s hitting Florida at the moment.
He should have known another trip to Rome would lead him
down a bad road. The last time he was in Rome before this trip he faced a group
of white faced guys in robes who kidnapped him and tried to sacrifice him to
their Gods.
And that had nothing to do with his job, they were the
tourist board.
They didn’t like his choice in hats.
He doesn’t wear hats anymore. Someone trying to slit your
throat and blood drain you will make you rethink your fashion choices.
Now he is wondering if he can continue doing this for the
rest of his life. When your life is on a line that leads you into encounters
that almost get you killed because you liked westerns as kid, then maybe this
line isn’t your best possible line…. Wait, what was the line stuff about
anyways?
Away from my tangential writing brain and back to Shane.
The things he did to obtain The Armor Of Achilles is ripping
at his gut. The sacrifices that had to be made to get information. The deaths
that came because of his search. The deaths that came by his own hand. All of
this eating eating eating at him.
Now no one who works or has ever worked for Ryan Industries
could possible ever mistake it for church work but even dark corners have dark
corners.
Ryan Industries is one of those companies who has a really
good cover to its darker natures but those natures are so dark even people not
looking can see the darkness, know this company isn’t out to add decency into
the world.
He found the armor in the Colosseum; which when you think
about it is probably the sort of place if you searched hard enough you will
stumble across something old and probably dangerous.
The information that led him to the location of the armor at
the Colosseum is where the sacrifices come in.
The only lead the company gave him was Rome. From that he
followed false lead after false lead, fake story after fake story to locations where
it was said the armor could be but nothing and more nothing so he had no choice
but to go the route of sacrifices.
Now he didn’t have to sacrifice any lives into the arms of
Death but he did have to manipulate, twist people’s natural courses so their
destiny energies would transfer to him giving him a temporary form of narration
sight.
To accomplish this he hired a local Dusk Swindler who called
himself Juror. A Dusk Swindler is a non-coven associated Warlock who tries to
use the natural dark side of creation to his own gain. He has no alliances
beyond the deal and there tends not to be that many of them since Dusk
Swindler’s tend to make enemies of those from both the dark and the light.
Juror didn’t always live in Rome. He’s originally from
London but he had his reasons for getting out of the country quick and when he
caught a flight out he didn’t mind not being too choosey.
Shane told him how much energy he would need and after a
back and forth to come to price Juror showed a teacher away from a future where
she would have become a country hero and a government agent away from stopping
a terrorist bombing a week later in the city.
Juror and Shane parted ways and Shane was able to see where
the object would be located.
From there he had to be the cause of several deaths so he
would be told of how the armor got there because the true story of any powerful
object would help give you more control of the object.
To make these deaths happen he was put in touch with a
Viper. A Viper being a ghost creature that has one foot in the afterlife and
one foot in the living world. They make good assassins when someone
supernaturally connected wants to kill a normal person and not draw attention
from either world.
All Vipers are the same the world over. They don’t talk.
They usually are dressed in old suits but always black and white in color. They
are never female. They move super-fast and kill with a knife that leaves no
marks after death. To all medical examination the person died of natural
causes.
The Viper killed six people and Shane got his story.
The last person who possessed the armor was a soldier under
the command of Alexander The Great.
His name was wiped form history but we can call him Sam.
I’m watching a lot of Supernatural as I work on this; so
blame that on the show, not me.
It was a gift of Alexander himself to Sam in return for
uncompromising loyalty. All the stories you have read about Alexander The
Great’s exploits, well for all of those Sam was right there by his side.
The stories tell how Sam lost his sanity after Alexander’s
death. He flipped his lid the instant Alexander stopped breathing and killed
everyone around Alexander, including the offical painter who was there to paint
the last moments of Alexander’s life.
Sam went on a slaughter spree killing everyone who had ever
stood against or spoke against his friend. Be them of low or high rant. Be them
rich or poor farmers, all died who had stood against Alexander.
Sam took up combat by only himself against legions, killed
more than a few holy men, became a myth, lived a long life, and gave up one day
a century or more later in the Colosseum. The armor had granted him near
immortality but he didn’t want immortality of any manner.
Sam fell to his knees on the day he gave up, right in the
middle of the Colosseum, and prayed but by this time his Gods had left the
Earth.
The silence returned for his prayers made his heart stop and
the armor hid itself into an at the moment created chamber under the Colosseum
as Sam passed fully from the world of living.
Time and Destiny were so angry with him they wiped his true
name from history forever to never be known again.
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The sale of this book without its cover….well, is, sort of,
impossible since it really doesn’t have a cover but let us go through the legal
spray out anyways. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be
aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Hands up
to you who have books like this in your collection? Now that I put my hand down
we can continue with the credits and copyright and legal and stuff that people
just don’t ever pay attention to unless it is pumping their own horn.
An Original Publication of System* Publishing,
a Tin Universe book published by System*Publishing, a
division of System*Productions, Melbourne, Florida. This book is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events
or locales or persons, living or dead or living dead, is entirely and very much
so in the coincidental.
Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2015, Brian
C. Williams, System*Productions. Tin Universe Daily, and
all related titles, characters, and elements are trademarks of System*Productions.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form whatsoever. While unauthorized reproduction is sometimes
needed, please remember us writers types are for the most part a poor lot just
in search of a ways to tell our stories and enough money to add to our Doctor
Who collections….well, at least that fits me. For more information on Tin Universe Daily, the artists who
contributed to this book, and Tin Universe contact System*Productions at
hangofwednesday@gmail.com
Written by Brian C. Williams
Edited by Brian C. Williams
