The harsh excesses of Meetaneshi's red light district had faded into obscurity now, replaced by the thick layer of industrial fog that hung over the city like a stained rug. The sky would be turn from a faecal brown to a sickening orange as the day progressed, and the sun would set basking the night in a black, star less noir of darkness.
The streets meandered in and out of a maze of badly laid out urban dwellings. Their placement was patchy at best, with little thought given to their geographical location on the cityscape. Viewed from above they would probably resemble more of a mosaic of square tiles, dotted here there and everywhere, interspersed with small streaming roads which pulsated with traffic like veins carrying blood to the vital organs.
In the muddle of biotechnological grotesqueness, lay Tem's tiny apartment. Number 46-B of apartment block 743, in some nameless street, in some nameless district. The inability to discern one's dwelling from the next only served to underline his sense of dreary anonymity that hung around this area of his life like the putrid cloud that lay over the city.
A small turbolift would take him to level B every night. The lift would trundle and groan out it's sad song, almost in a sad ritualistic fashion if announcing it's own imminent demise with a funeral lament. On each trip to and from his apartment, he feared that the elevator would seek to release itself from the durasteel bondings that had grown rusted over the years, and send its weary body crashing into the concrete below, ending its pain. He envied that lift sometimes.
Once on level B, a series of catwalks led outward like a star toward each of the six apartment blocks spattered around in an what one could only describe as a near-circle. Like the elevator, and most likely everything else in the whole complex, the catwalks groaned when tread upon, crying out their pains to the world.
The flimsy walkway led on toward his apartment, which at this time of night remained the only one unlit. Even in the evenings, the smog forced an artificial daytime on Meetaneshi city. Few lights went unlit even in the brighter hours where it was clearly unnecessary. Some claimed the fog was a government plot to rake in money with unthinkably priced electricity bills.
His key slid in the lock with a crack, whirring as he turned it. A rush of mouldy air whooshed through as the door slid open and the smell of rotting flesh violated his nostrils. Inside a faint buzzing could be heard, accompanied by a dim white glow coming from the sitting room. Tem ran his hand around the inner binding of the door, his fingers finding the light switch.
Wait! If you turn that on, they'll know you're here.
The thought played in his mind, willing him not to flick the switch. If there were intruders in his home, his chances of being rid of them would be far more favourable if he still had the element of suprise on his side.
Resolving his momentary conflict, Tem removed his hand and began to slowly tread inside as his right hand made a sly grab for his gun. His leather shoes crunched on the carpet which was riddled with a combination of broken glass and splintered wood. It appeared as though the screen door through to the sitting room had been taken out with some force, shattering all over the place.
With gun drawn, he swung around the jagged pain of broken glass. The laser pointer on the tip of his weapon pinpointed that the bluish hue had come from his television set, seemingly left on, by someone.
Static played across the screen, accompanied by the inherent buzzing that followed. On the top of the set, a small pool of thick, crimson liquid had collected and was slowly ebbing down the glowing screen in streaks.
In the relative ambience that had accompanied his entrance, the small droplet that suddenly and furiously drove itself into the pool on the TV was like an echoing laser blast by comparison, causing him to startle.
As if reacting on instinct, he flicked the nearest light switch, which happened to be for this room, and flooded the room in a yellow flash.
His eyes slowly fixated on the crimson pool, and as if in fear, were initially reluctant to move up to the apparent origin of the droplet. Gulping as if to swallow his fright, he glanced steadily upward and was greeted by the unwelcome sight of the body of a man, no more than his early thirties, pinned to his ceiling, soaked in blood.
Dead, seemingly from the massive pike that protruded from his midsection.
A confused frown of disappointment spread over his features, as if he was let down that it was nothing more than a regular body. Just another, average corpse. He was expecting some fiendish creature to jump down from the roof, and the two would engage in a violent fight to the death. But his hopes had been seemingly dashed by this which to him was nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing unusual, that was, until he noticed that at the base of the pike, as a blood soaked, if still readable note, pinned to the mans upper breast.
East Gitihara, 4 am., read the note, accompanied by a familiar half crescent moon symbol, painted in jet black, that of the Satesoshi syndicate.
It had seemed that Tem's job prospects were looking up this week.
