Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Vendetta Theory ❯ Chapter 7

The boy stared at the monitor in disbelief. This was not good, not good at all. A group of men was congregating on the floor below him; armed men. He had watched the events proceeding in the lobby with cautious amusement. Then came the CSI team. Upon their entrance he figured it was only a matter of time before the young guard's body was found. He watched laughing as the tech, then Charles were forced to huff and puff there way up flights of stairs. He watched stoically as his nemesis called up a team for a job. The job? Erasing his existence. He even watched in silence as the squad checked, primed and loaded their weapons; but it was not a time for watching anymore. It was now a time for action.

 

He picked up a grenade and threw a small machine gun over his shoulder. He timed his throw with the troop movement up the stairs. He released the safety catch and plucked the pin. 5... 4... 3... Release the grenade bounced off the wall through the stair's doorway. 3...2...1... The explosion rattled his eardrums and he found he could no longer hear noise. His vision swam and blurred in and out. He curled into a ball and held his head to dull the assault on his senses. When the pain subsided he ventured back at the monitor. Nothing, blackness. The optics must have been knocked out. A noise distracted the boy from his problem, a gunshot. The bullet slammed into his shoulder like a bull. It threw him back across the top of the desk. His usable arm held him upright as he caught view of his assailant.

 

“Charles?” The boy croaked.

 

“Yes, me,” He looked as though he had been to hell and back. His shirt was tattered, great holes that were filled with shrapnel. His face was burned, charred, nearly unrecognizable. He was missing his left hand and blood flowed freely from the exposed wound. “you never told me your name boy. Perhaps that would be fitting before I kill you.”

 

What did it matter now, the boy thought I`ll be dead soon. “Marcus Valentine.” He said between sharp gasps of breath.

 

“Marcus, eh? Marcus. A fine name, a fine name indeed. It`s time to say goodbye Marcus.”

 

Yes time to say goodbye, to leave this existence behind. Whatever lay beyond this life he was ready.

 

“Goodbye Charles.”

 

“Goodbye, Marcus Valentine.” They came quickly. Three bullets in rapid staccato piercing his lower ribcage. He knew pain, then he knew no more. He fell unconscious, his life deeply woven into the web of fate.

 

 

When he awoke he found himself drifting in a endless expanse of gray mist. He moved his hand toward his face. It was still there but it appeared and disappeared like it would see if you were staring at a moving object in front of a strobe light. Was he in heaven? Was he in Hell, Purgatory? He hadn't a clue. Suddenly a man stepped out of the mist and brushed himself off. This man from the mist was quite strange indeed. He had on a black suit like one you would wear to a fancy party or banquet complete with wing-tip shoes and a bowler hat. This was not so strange he thought. However the fact that the man's skin was the color of a blank piece of paper seemed terribly queer.

 

“Come on now!” It chided, “I don't have all day. We need to get you to The Gate Room!”

 

“Now why would I go with someone I don't know, to a place I've never heard of, through a freaky porthole that I don't even know exists?” He wondered aloud.

 

“Well…” The being begain “ A rouge demi-god of the daemon's has begun massing an army of damned souls and is threatening the destruction of every world in the nearest,” He counted on his fingers “397,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0000 miles of here.” The man said this all very quickly running out of breath. “Other then that there really is no reason whatsoever except… ah I sense you have troubles with your law and well…” he gestured the endless expanses of mist around him.

 

“What the Hell is wrong with you? My records clean! Absolutely nothing is wrong with… What's your problem?” The boy snapped. It had winced at the mention of Hell. “What's wrong?” The boy taunted. “Don't like swearing?”

 

“No. But let me ask you a question. A simple, non-personal, easy to answer, yes or no, question. Have you ever been to Hel human? I think not. No matter what emotion you are feeling it will never be strong enough to describe the tortures of Hel. The very second you step onto the molten ground all happiness leaves you. You feel completely exhausted but you can never sleep. You feel starved to death, but no food curbs your hunger. You are parched, but no drink hydrates you. The smell is an eye-watering stench, it takes the breath from your lungs. It is a pain beyond pain. No one, not the worst being in the entire universe, deserves that. If you ever use that word in the wrong context in my presence again I swear to the Gods I cast you to the very depths of Hel itself. Have I made myself clear?”

 

The boy yawned “If your done lecturing me, why are you here again?”

 

It's eye twitched ever so slightly, but it managed to rid itself of exasperation and regain composure before stating “I can take you out of your troubles and bring you things you could never imagine. But we have to leave now, right now in fact. The offer is going once… going twice…”

 

“Alright I'm in.” The boy announced almost bored like.

 

“Sold to the man in the muscle shirt!” It cried joyously. “Drinks all around! By the way my good man what's your name?”

 

“Marcus Aurileus Valentine.” He responded.

 

“After the Roman Emperor?” It asked quizzically.

 

“Yes.” He replied bored as if this was an often asked question and its mere mention was not worth a lengthy explanation anymore. It shrugged It's shoulders. The answer was as good as any it supposed. `Simplicity's the best policy' some say.

 

“Right Marcus, come on, smartly now. This porthole closes in 15 seconds.” The being warned. Marcus stepped into the light and left the old world behind him and stepped into the new.

 

Through the seemingly innocent portal lied a stomach twisting roller coaster ride through a dimensional wormhole. Beneath him, above him, and all around him was a seemingly endless abyss of dark blackness.

 

Wham! With a stomach lurching stop Marcus fell over and began vehemently retching and vomiting. “Yes.” The being said. “They really ought to eliminate that nasty side-effect.” It then looked down at its pant leg and found it stained with Marcus's latest sickness.

 

“Aargh! It never ends!” It cried exasperated. “They don't pay me enough for this… hold that thought. They don't pay me at all!”

 

“Just who are `they`?” Marcus asked warily.

 

“They.” It sighed softly “Are my bosses. I'm just a guide who finds riff-riff like you off the streets and takes them were their raw skills can be honed and polished.”

 

“And just were are we going?”

 

“In due time impatient one, in due time. Now come on through the doorway watch your step.”

 

Marcus looked up and saw a large door It had opened. He took utmost care and looked around and around. The entrance he had stepped through was a brown oaken door with a golden handle and a matching gold plate reading 6102004 Earth. Down the hall in either direction as far as the eye could see were rows of doors, stretched along a ruby red carpet, the same as the one he now stood in front of except for the shining labels. It conjured the biggest chain of keys he had ever seen out of thin air. There were so many keys when it hung the ring from Its shoulder it dragged on the ground behind him.

 

Marcus found It's behavior as strange as It's appearance. It randomly walked from door to door knocking, sticking a key in fumbling for a moment muttering to himself then stepping back and trying the next door. Marcus followed him like a puppy dog until It finally found the door it seemed to be looking for.

 

“Here we are!” He announced joyously. He stuck the key in the lock and jiggled it. It didn't open. It tried the key again; then pounded on the door with It's fists.

 

“Oh for the love of! This will come out of my imaginary paycheck I`m afraid.”

 

It produced a ball of energy on his fingertip and raised it in the air. “Stay back please!” He systematically touched three spots on the door and snapped his fingers. Small yellow explosions appeared where It had poked the door, blowing the hinges and lock straight off. It then gently rapped once in the middle of the frame. With no support it tumbled into the gaping darkness.

 

“Watch your step young one!” It chided as It shoved Marcus through the opening.

 

* * *

After Marcus stopped vomiting It picked him up and briskly walked him through a long hallway with a rounded ceiling to a gigantic metallic double door entrance.

 

“This is The Port. The customs agency and help desk of the universe if you will. You might want to cover your ears in just a moment.” It knocked 7 times in an awkward manner. His hand rapped the door once. Then twice, then three times. He paused then finally tapped one last time. The door groaned and creaked as inch by inch it crept open. Marcus now knew why he was told to cover his ears. It seemed as though everyone was typing furiously at a computer, or screaming into a phone or at his or her patrons seated at identical cubicles, with identical desks and chairs. A public address system was shouting out direction's which he could not understand. It was the offspring of an office and an insane asylum. The room was a nebulous amount of cubicles stretching past what he could see. Some of the conversations could be heard clearly from where he had walked in but most were a jumbled mess of accusations, threats, apologies, and insults.

 

“What do you mean his left pinky is missing…”

 

“Radgar, what did I tell you last time about stabbing people in the face? You just can't do it…”

 

“Well of course his head exploded…”

 

“Just a moment I have to talk with my supervisor…”

 

His guide tried to tell him something through the din, but he was unable to hear him. He instead pointed down the long row of workstations and signaled for him to move in that direction. Marcus nodded and set off to a destination hidden somewhere within the hubbub of the room.

 

“I thought I said you couldn't keep them as pets…”

 

“You collapsed a TEMPLE on yourself…”

 

“Madame, there are truly no words in any of my 56 languages to express how sorry I feel about this..”

 

They weaved in and out of towering piles of paper, tangled phone cords, file cabinets, and slacking personnel. Down one row for a minute, then a sudden left, a right! Backtracking through the cubicles. Rows upon rows, columns, upon columns of plain white workspaces. It was enough to drive one to madness. At last after a final left they arrived in front of a bank of dark alcoves, ropes and harnesses ran down the center and dangled at waist level.

 

“What is that?” Marcus asked gesturing at a harness.

 

“A Verti-Vertigo. The elevators of the Port. They take you from floor to floor. You didn't think that such an important building as the Port would be a single story did you?” Marcus opened his mouth to answer but he was cut of by the guide “An absurd notion, simply absurd!”

 

“How does it work?”

 

“It matters not. Over there please!”

 

From the side stepped a burly, scaled, humanoid with massive muscles lining his upper body. “'Ello there!

This be yo're first time?” Marcus nodded “Well don't be worrying. They perfectly safe devices.” Marcus stepped through the leg holes and the man-beast pulled the shoulder straps painfully tight against his body. He jammed a helmet on the top of Marcus' head and gave him a thumbs up. He then strode over to a lever and placed his hand on it.

 

“Just wondering, how fast does this thing go?” Marcus inquired.

 

“Oh it floats on up there like a liddle cloud. You 'ill be able to enjoy the wondyful view on your way up.”

 

“Really?”

 

The man flashed him a toothy grin, “Nope!” The lever was pulled, and Marcus' organs were left behind him.

* * *

His mouth was wide open but nary a scream could be uttered, for the pressure of the wind rushing past his body was to great. The pure speed brought tears to his eyes and flapped his mouth around like a merry-go-round. This was ten times, no, a hundred times worse than any roller coaster that Marcus had ever ridden. The wall, or rather what Marcus assumed to be a wall, was nothing but a great brown blur. He heard a tremendous whistle of air from above and looked behind him just to see a great iron counterweight hurtle past him. The weight was at least 5 times as big as Marcus was maybe larger, it had missed him by only feet. Then he looked upwards and began to pray. Above him loomed the ceiling of this nightmarish ride, a ceiling that was coming frighteningly closer to his head as every second passed. 200 feet, 150 feet, 100 feet, coming closer, coming to close! 50 feet! He began to pray fervently, he could almost make out spots on the ceiling, he wasn't slowing down! 10 feet! He prepared for the impact, a bright flash pierced his vision, he was awaiting death … But it never came.

 

He had passed through the fake wall with no harm. It was a hologram, a damn illusion! There he was nearly pissing himself, all over some phantom wall that a cracked individual had thrown in just for kicks. He was so mad he forgot about his nausea. Well, briefly anyways. He began to slow down gradually and he saw a bright enclosure above him.

 

This enclosure turned out to be a room, a plain white room that lead into a great hallway. As he at last came to a stop he was greeted by his blank faced guide. He unhooked him form his harness and handed him to things: a bucket and a photo. The bucket was for throw up, a purpose Marcus quickly utilized as his nausea hit him like a bag of bricks. This was unbelievable, the third time he had thrown up in the past couple hours. After he was done expelling, his guide walked over and kicked the bucket into the dark shaft that Marcus had just gotten out of. Marcus looked at him curiously. He shrugged, “The ugly brute has to earn his pay somehow.”

 

“Why does every-single-thing-here make you throw up! Goddamn it! My throat feels like it's just spent the last couple hours drinking sulfuric acid!” he vented.

 

“You're just not used to it. Maybe you'll want to invest in a stronger constitution? Or you could've just taken the stairs like me.”

 

“STAIRS!” Marcus screamed. Though his guide did not laugh he could tell that if It's face bore a mouth he would be smiling mockingly. “I'm going to kill you, you son of a bitch!”

 

“My dear boy, you can't kill that which has already died.” Marcus's hands passed through the being's throat and he fell rather clumsily through his guide. It continued to walk onward catcalling back, “There's no time to sit and rest we have places to go, and people to see!”