I'm dashing up the stairs, taking them two at a time and holding my bags, knowing I might need them. I pass my floor and burst through the door of the eighth floor, running as fast as I can and not looking back. I hear the door close behind me then burst open, swinging on its hinges and slamming into the wall.
"Stop!" the man yells. I don't.
I round the corner in the hall, not looking back, just trying to put distance between me and the invader. I had gotten a good look at him, but I hadn't recognized him. I don't think he was from my building. There was more yelling, getting louder behind me. A sharp crack reverberated through the hall, impossibly loud. I rushed through the door to the stairwell at the other end of the hall and ran down, returning to my floor and rushing into my apartment, out of breath and sweating profusely. My heart is racing in my chest, and I drop my bags on the counter when I shut the door behind me.
Vivian is up from the couch now, trying to read my face, and I tell her to give me her phone and lock herself in the bathroom. I take her phone and check for a signal, there isn't one.
Moving to our bedroom, I reach down under the bed and pull the small black case out. I unlock it on the bed and pull out the matte black handgun, sliding a magazine in the weapon and pulling the slide. It's a nine millimeter, and it will do the job. With shaking hands, I flip off the safety and return to the living room, standing in front of the door in my apartment and waiting for any sounds. There's another gunshot from somewhere in the building followed by uncomfortable silence.
I stand silently, listening and trying to control my breathing. I send a text message to the Corporate Police, giving them my address and a brief account of what's going on. The gun is shaking in my hand, but I keep my finger off the trigger like I was trained to do in my lessons from corporate. Since I had initially signed on as a courier at Rogers Shipping, I was required to carry the weapon on my belt in addition to training to operate the security drones that rode on the side of the vans we drove. When I had been promoted to a desk position working logistics, they hadn't asked for the gun back. The blue logo of Rogers Shipping is etched on the side of the gun in anodized titanium.
'We're sorry, due to increased volume of messages and regularly scheduled outage of the phone networks due to the mandatory curfew in place, we're unable to respond to your query at this time. Our office will open to normal queries at 6 AM, and we'll follow up with you as soon as possible.'
I curse and drop my phone on the table, no one's going to help me, and I can't let this idiot hurt Vivian. There's a harsh knock on our door.
"I know you're in there. Open it up and give me your point chips and no one gets hurt," he calls.
"I've got a gun, if you try to come in, I'm going to shoot!" I yell back, my voice wavering as I work to stabilize the gun in my shaking hands.
"Pal, we both know you don't have a gun," he calls.
"I called the Corporate Police, they're on their way, so you better get out of here."
"Phone lines are out," he said, calling my bluff. He kicks the door, the thud and vibration of impact booming through my apartment, but the heavy door holds.
He kicks again, and appears in the doorway, holding his gun to the side still. I see blood splattered on his clothes, and it leaves no question of his innocence. He looks at me with surprise in his eyes, his weapon still not aimed. It looks like he really didn't think I had a weapon. Acting on instinct, I shoot three rounds into his chest before he can raise his weapon. Vivian screams in the bathroom, and I walk over to the body, kicking his weapon, a cheap Chinese concealable by the looks of it, out of the way.
Blood is pooling on the flooring of my apartment and the concrete from outside, but I don't touch anything, not even the dozens of point cards that are spilling from the pockets in his jacket. They're worth hundreds of points combined, but I know better than to touch anything on the scene of a crime. The nine-millimeter rounds had no trouble punching through his coat, and at least his death was clean. I'm surprised that I'm not feeling anything other than the twinge of electricity in my veins from the adrenaline rush. I killed the man on instinct and adrenaline alone. I had to protect Vivian, so that's what I did.
"Vivian, stay in the bathroom, I'm fine, and no one is going to hurt us now."
"What happened, Mike!" she yells.
"Stay in the bathroom, I'll tell you when you can come out."
One of my neighbors peaks his head outside and yells in surprise, it's Alec, the man in his fifties that does some freelance AI work for some of the information-based corporations.
I shove my weapon into the pocket of my coat. "Alec, he's dead," I say.
"That was the thug that was mugging people in our building?" he asks, inching into the hallway.
"Yeah, I shot him when he kicked down my door," I say.
"Why do you have a gun?"
"I used to be a courier driver at Rodgers Shipping, they never took back the gun."
"You're licensed to carry?" he asks, still standing close to his door, as if afraid to look at the body."
"Yeah, I am. I've been trying to get a hold of the Corporate Police, but they're unresponsive. I don't think I should touch the body since there weren't any witnesses. I don't want my prints on him."
"Better not, the Corporate Police won't be here until the morning. We'd better go see if anyone else on the other floors needs help, I heard shooting earlier as well," Alex says, closing the door to his apartment and walking toward me.
"My wife is still locked in the bathroom, I need to talk to her," I say.
Alec nods, waiting in the hallway and staring at the body.
I walk back into the apartment, stepping over the growing pool of blood on the floor and move toward my bedroom. I eye the weapon case for my nine-millimeter, but decide to carry it with me just in case. With all the craziness happening, I want to be careful.
"Vivian, it's me. Can you open the door?" I say, tapping my fingers on the bathroom door.
A few seconds later, Vivian inches the door open. She looks afraid, but she's not crying. "What happened, Mike?"
"Someone was robbing people door to door. I took a picture of him to send to the Corporate Police, and he came after me. When he kicked down our door, I shot him," I say.
"Oh my God," she says, raising her hands to her mouth. "Where is he? Is he dead?"
"He's in the door frame of our front door. I can't move the body until the Corporate Police get here in the morning. They're going to need to investigate, and I don't want my prints on the body. Alec is out in the hall, and we think other people in the building may have gotten hurt so we're going to see if they need help."
"I'm coming with you," she says.
"I'd rather you not, Vivian. I think you'd be safer if you stay here, and you don't need to see the body," I say.
"Mike, I'm coming with you. If people need help, then maybe I can do something."
"Okay," I say, just close your eyes while we walk and I'll guide you," I say.
"I'll be fine, you saved us, Mike."
"Our stuff," I say. Without a front door, anyone could go into our apartment and steal our food and water while we're gone. We can't both go, and I'm not sending Vivian on her own. I also don't want to leave her alone in the apartment.
"Alec, is your wife home?" I ask.
"Yes."
"Could she wait in our apartment while we're checking on people? We can't lock up, and with everything the way it is, people might try to loot the place while we're gone."
"I'll ask, but it should be fine," he says, disappearing into his apartment and returning with his wife, Cynthia. The woman had put on her coat before walking into the hallway, but she is moving cautiously, as if afraid to see the body. She's carrying a pump action shotgun and nods at both of us before walking toward our apartment. "I'll hold down the fort while you're gone."
With Cynthia guarding our apartment from potential looters, we head down the stairwell to the sixth floor. People have gathered around a body of a woman that's in the middle of the hallway. A knife is held loosely in her hand. A man with a handgun steps forward, pointing it at us. "Is that him?" he asks the others in the group.
We raise our hands, and I move in front of Vivian to protect her.
"No, that's not him," someone calls from the group and the bearded man in front lowers the weapon.
"Sorry about that, we just don't know what's going on," he says.
"The intruder is dead, I shot him," I say.
"Where is he?" the man asks.
"Upstairs on the seventh floor."
"He stole my point cards," someone says. There are murmurs of agreement.
"Look, the Corporate Police won't be here until morning, and you don't want your prints on the body. You all know as well as I do that those CCTV cams are just for show," I say, pointing up at the fake cameras that line the hallways. Our intruder knew that too, otherwise, he wouldn't have risked the robberies without a mask."
"Or he was desperate enough not to care," a woman says.
"I say we go take back our point cards from the body," a man says.
The bearded man in the front with the handgun turns to face the others. "This guy is right, we don't want our prints on anything, and those point cards are part of the crime scene now. You can file claims with the Corporate Police in the morning to get your property back."
"Says the one that wasn't robbed. I bet you're still below one hundred too," a man in the back says. The bearded man turns to glare at them. "Trust me, you don't want to go to jail over this. You know as well as I do that people in Jail get culled." That seems to silence them, and eventually, the crowds disperse. The woman that had been killed apparently thought that the intruder's gun was either a fake or he didn't have ammo, and had tried to fend him off with a knife.
Vivian, Alec, and I return to our floor where others stood inspecting the body. Cynthia is standing over it with her shotgun, keeping people from grabbing the blood-soaked point cards.
"We're going to have to guard this until morning," Alec says. Cynthia and I can do it so you two can get some rest. I wanted to decline his offer, but I need to go to work tomorrow. Since I still don't know my score, I need to see about getting some extra hours in to get more financial security.
"If you're sure you don't mind," I say.
"I work my own hours, and I know you're in a bind without the graveyard shifts. We can't help you financially, but we can help with this," Alec says.
Vivian and I thank him, and I help Alec move his recliner out into the hallway. He plugs in his laptop to a power socket on the wall and leans back in the chair, coding away at something with his shotgun rested across his lap. It's a strange sight, but it keeps people away from the body.
As I'm getting ready for bed, I get a message on my phone through the internet, it's from Corey.
'Don't go to work tomorrow. Cullings will start again and people will riot on the streets. Check your email and delete it once you've opened. The points are clean.'
'How do you know?' I respond, opening my email to see a message from some cryptic address, it looks like old internet protocol, an IP address from a server with a long chain of characters for a name. There are two buttons in the email that say 'click here'. I punch the buttons and my phone vibrates, indicating that I'd received one hundred points, about a month's worth of salary for me.
Vivian is yelling in the other room, calling my name in a mixture of confusion and excitement. My score finally updates on my phone.
32.4
'Glad the points made it through. They're clean, so don't worry about that, but we should meet up and talk,' the new message from Corey reads.
'We've got a situation here at the apartments, I won't be free until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.'
'McLowen's at 8 PM, be there, and delete that email with the points,' Corey's message reads.
'Deleted, and I'll be there,' I respond.
How does Corey have access to that many points? How does he know what's going on? I'm scared, but I can use all the help I can get, and if the points are clean, then Vivian and I need them. I have to trust Corey for now, he's been my best friend for fifteen years, but I need to find out what he's hiding before it's too late.
"Mike, someone sent me points, it's from an unknown address, I'm back to a forty-five," Vivian says, rounding the corner in her nightgown. Her baby bump is easily visible, and for now, all I can do is be thankful that our situation has improved, even if there is a body in our entry way. I have to keep Vivian and my daughter safe, and that starts with finding out what Corey is up to and figuring out what's going on.
I fall asleep with Vivian, trying to get a few hours of sleep before we have to deal with the Corporate Police.
---
Thanks for reading Glitch Zero. If you enjoyed the read, please vote, comment, and follow!
My professionally edited cyberpunk novel, Absolute Knowledge, is available for purchase on Amazon in print and digital format. If you enjoy my writing, then I know you'll enjoy Absolute Knowledge and you can read the first two chapters on Wattpad.
Since I'm actively working on book two of the Absolute Knowledge series, this book won't be updated that frequently, but it is my next major publishing project after I complete book two of my trilogy, Absolute Zero.