Time to Bolt

Tatsuya loved cities. Especially Griza. The crowds ranged from tenth generation locals to immigrants from halfway across the world, cloudscrapers sprung up among the jungle of corporate buildings with views only normally seen from mountaintops and navigating the beautiful maze of city streets and alleys of the massive city was never boring.

What he didn’t love - were the city outskirts. It was only twenty-five minutes from downtown, but it felt like a different place altogether. Empty, vast and sparsely populated with none of the lights or noise he loved. This experience wasn’t changing his mind.

The ground was damp concrete, the one small led light fixture - broken and the room smelled of mildew like a load of wet laundry forgotten and left to mold. He heard the sounds of a guard’s footsteps fade further into the building. Good thing this was all a part of his plan.

Streetlings were disappearing right from under the Warder’s noses. They were supposed to protect the people of Griza. But no one cared about those poor homeless folk, so it was Tatsuya’s job to care. That’s why he got himself captured by the mysterious kidnappers and thrown into this cell somewhere in the outskirts.

Tatsuya’s hands were cuffed behind his back. Inconvenient, but manageable. He torqued his body, dislocated both of his shoulders and wriggled his body through his arms. A bolt chain hung around his neck - a last reminder of his father, and a useful little tool. Tatsuya lowered the bolt to where practiced finger muscles used it as a lockpick and a few clicks and clacks later, his hands and cell door were liberated.

Tatsuya barreled his way into the guard room. The first he knocked out with a well-timed bodyslam. The other, Tatsuya was surprised, was actually extremely well trained. The biker gangs of the outskirts were supposed to be a bunch of untrained thugs. He grabbed the guard’s taser and in a few seconds, he lay taking a break on the floor. Tatsuya pushed a few buttons on the dashboard as ambient music from an era past filled the hall before doors to the cells swung open and was greeted with streetling cheers echoing down the hall.

Storm clouds were roiling toward them as Tatsuya stood at the door of a warehouse, revealing them to be fifteen minutes from the biker district. He ushered the Griza citizens out - some he had to push physically to give them the courage to get moving. It bugged him that they had such trained fighters. Who were these kidnappers?

His mission was almost complete. A flash of lightning lit up the sky. A human silhouette stood at the roof corner at the end of the alley. Tatsuya froze. A second flash of lightning revealed only empty space. The last of the streetlings shot into the alley. Tatsuya knew this wasn’t over as he headed back towards the towers of Griza. Someone was going to come looking for him. He needed to be prepared.

THE END