Pavement in the wrong part of the city. It was dusk, the street lamps, had they worked should have been on, like most things though in this part of the metropolis nothing much worked any more.
It was grey, the buildings were half ruins, windows smashed, paint flaking everything about the place betrayed the fact that this was a place of death, a dying place.
Dak walked along in silence, shadows played and danced all around him toying with him, conspiring to make him nervous. Yet he walked with the air of confidence that suggested he was home; but he wasn't. One look at the tall neatly dressed man would tell you that. The fancy watch, the expensive shoes, in this part of the slum he should have been prey, fair game for any desperate mugger and yet....
He passed a darken door way like a spectre when bang! Something slammCarrie sat in her office, sat at the pinnacle of her career, wealthy, a great husband and a daughter that she always wanted. It had been hard work but worth the effort. Sometimes her mind drifted back, back to when things were very different when things could have been very different and she wondered...
Dak walked silently along the ed into him, small and agile yet strong enough to knock him sideways. He looked round, a bedraggled girl, street walker was his first guess, and then he looked again. Too shabbily dressed; no make up and something shifty going on in those black eyes. Dak heard some sort of mumbled apology as he went by on his way. No receding foot steps, quiet, and stealthy he thought and agile, not a prostitute but a local. Dak came to a dead stop. That meant just one thing. He checked his right hip pocket and was not surprised when he found that it was gone.
The girl's thoughts were on a hot meal, a bath and a warm bed. Maybe her takings would stretch to some new clothes, a credit card maybe. Not much use to her but she was sure there where people that would pay for a freshly stolen card. That word, stolen brought a pang of guilt. A few months ago she would never have dreamt of such a thing, but now....
She thought about her mother and the quiet lonely funeral and in the background hovering like vultures ready to pick over a corpse, the social workers waiting. And she thought about all the vile despicable things that went on at that, so called care home, a brothel for the powerful, rich and famous. But then that should never be mentioned, because who's going to stop it, after all, it is the ones that are doing it who are supposed to stop things like mat from happening. Drizzle started to brush across her face, cold like the icy touch of a social worker. She climbed through a hole in the wire fence and scrambled over some waste ground vanishing into a small disused work-mans hut.
Daks watched from the shadows, he eased his big frame through the small hole in the fence. He saw a flickering light appear at the window of the hut. Was it a signal? Had he misjudged the situation? Was she after all working for them? Maybe she was working for them without knowing it. He knew well about the mind control programmes, how they compartmentalise
programming only bringing it forward when they want something. A simple trigger word and bam! A robot running a program, do the job and bam! Back it goes inside the head again, no idea what they have done.
She pulled out the soft brown leather wallet and turned it over in her hands. No markings, then it struck her; it was awfully light and thin. She opened it up and was shocked to find that it was empty; nothing, no cards, no money, not even a photograph of a loved one. Gold lettering on the inside of the wallet declared it genuine leather, genuine leather and empty. Why would someone carry an empty wallet, someone obviously not poor? She almost threw it onto the fire but unaccountably, she hung onto it.
Over in the corner by the door she heard rustling, rats she thought, the only other creature that flourishes in this dead hole. She slid the wallet into her jacket pocket and wanted to cry. Cry for herself, her situation and cry for her dead mother. Tears wasted in a cold hard lonely world, one lesson she had already learnt. She sat and hugged her knees and cried anyway.
"So, we meet again." A voice startled her ending her lonely solace. "You have something of mine." Then she recognised him, the mark, the man with the wallet. She felt ice fingers grip her spine and butterfly's playing havoc hi her empty stomach, feelings that have visited her all too regularly recently.
"I don't know what you're talking about." She tried to bluff it out but her own words sounded hollow even to her. She began to size him up. A big man with a friendly smiling face, obviously not poor and not a local. Why an empty wallet? What was he doing in this part of town and how much trouble or danger was she in? She pushed all thoughts of danger into the back of her mind realizing that panic and fear are her biggest enemy now.
He looked at her, duty, unkempt, probably not had a meal in weeks. She was scared but hardly showing it, that took courage, or desperation. He needed to know if she was working for them. If she was then he knew that his days were numbered. Dak looked around the small room; a small fire crackled in an open grate, laid out in front of this was an old sleeping bag. To the right of this was a small glass bottle containing a clear liquid, probably water. Nothing here said that she was anything other than what she seemed, but he had to be sure.
The silence unnerved her and she heard herself begin to talk to much as she always did when she was nervous. She kept one eye on the door and wondered if she could make it. The only chance would be if she were already on her feet. The tension grew and her talking grew with it.
"I want what is mine." Is all he said and it sounded all the more menacing said in the hushed tones that he used. She began to wonder why anyone would go to so much trouble to chase down an empty wallet. She went through the wallet again in her mind, she was sure that ii was empty, had she missed something? She began to let fear creep in as her vulnerability struck home. Was he like the care workers? She thought, I would rather die, I will kill myself. Her heart raced and she felt sick, her cool demeanour coming apart and suddenly almost involuntary she blurted it out. "1 threw your stupid wallet away."
The words struck him like a hammer blow momentarily, but in that instant he knew she was lying.. A moment passed and he eased a little closer. She jumped up agile as a cat, but her quick glance toward the door gave her away and as she fled towards it he caught her. She had moved less than four strides; he was quick for a big man. He dropped her. She had terror and revulsion on her face as she miss-read his interest in her.
"My wallet, please." He held out his hand
"What's it worth? I've hidden it somewhere you will never find it." Again in an instant he knew she was lying.
"What's you're life worth?" She looked at him briefly and saw not a threat but concern, she suddenly felt in control, she had the wallet and he didn't know where it was she was sure.
"Are you threatening me, if you hurt me you'll never get it back?"
"No I am trying to save your life; you asked what it is worth. That is what it is worth. If you do not hand it over they will kill you."
"Who? ... Will they pay me for it?"
"No, they will just kill you. You can't hide and you can't run, you're only chance is to hand it over now." She felt that at long last something was going right for her, she had something and it's worth killing for, this means it's valuable, at least to somebody"
"They will find you as quickly and easily as I did, no explanations no excuses. They will torment you and then, when they have finished with you, they will terminate you."
Her eyes flashed with rage. "Do you think that I am some stupid kid that would believe you're fairy stories?" She watched as his head lowered and he let out a sigh.
"Pay me and I will get it for you."
"You have no time, I don't carry money."
"Money first wallet second!"
"It has to be free will, I know that it is in your jacket pocket, decide now, hand it over and live, keep it and die." She went pale, how did he know? Why doesn't he just take it from me?
Free will, empty wallet what does it all mean?
"You don't have to understand Carrie but you have to choose now."
Again she felt shock, how did he know her name, her thoughts? She reached into her pocket and reluctantly handed the empty wallet over. He took it men put it back into his hip pocket.
"Would I really have died?"
"Oh yes, eventually." Dak said, he faded into a mist in front of her. "Your mother wants you to know that you can make it in this world Carrie, this is not the way though."