And that certainly hadn't been a good idea. His stomach felt queasy, and stumbled into a convenient side alley and let loose with a multicolor slurry of old ketchup, hardened mustard, and a variety of relish and mayonnaise streamers that even the rats ignored.
Heaving one last time, he turned to a bum staring at him. "Hey mac, how about a buck?"
He stared at the bum.
"I said, how about you give us a dollar!"
His head cleared enough that he finally realized that this "bum" was probably going to remove more than a dollar if given the chance. Reaching into his pocket with a friendly "Ok, just wait...I need to get my wallet," his hand came across a hard rectangular shape. Why did he even bother bringing that along? Why did he even still have it? Those things didn't work when they were new, and this was almost 20 years old. But he thumbed the switch on the top, prayed to the technology gods, and almost cried when the box vibrated gently in return.
The bum started to reach into a pocket, but instead stiffened as his eyes went wide, an almost invisible arc of plasma having jumped from small black box into his chest and out into the wet sidewalk below. He watched as the bum fell, dead, onto the dirty pavement of the alleyway.
Breathing hard, he shoved the box back into his pocket as he realized he'd just killed someone. He made to move the body out of the way when something stopped him. There, under the torn cloth of a ragged shirt, a bright green 5-pointed star looked back at him. It was fresh, like it had been inked yesterday.
His heart pounding, he pulled the body out of the view of the street, pulled out his phone, and dialed a number he never thought he'd need to call again. The connection clicked, rang, and a friendly voice at the other end went "Alison's Plumbing Service, how may I direct your call?"
"Priority 1128229" he said, his mouth so dry it was hard to even say that short phrase.
The sound of keys clattering, then "One moment please."
"This is James."
"Goddamit, I thought you told me all the greenies were gone!"
"Who is this?"
"Fucking hell James you know goddamn well who this is!" he almost shouted into the mic. The fear of having killed someone had turned into the hysterical fear of something far worse.
"Roger..."
"Yes!"
"Roger, all the green stars are gone. You know that, you helped get rid of them..."
"Then. Why The Fuck. Am I Looking. At One NOW!"
"Roger, calm down. Tell me..."
"This bum, tried to get money...I hit him with a popbox...there's a fucking green star on his shoulder!"
"First off, why do you have a Plasma Box....no, we'll worry about that later. Are you sure that this is a g....."
"Fucking yes I am! I know damn well what that looks like!"
The person at the other end of the line sighed. "Ok Roger. Where are you?"
"Callon, an alleyway behind Morgan's Bar on 12th Street."
"Alright...hold on...(Alice do we...yes...ok, send them...) I have a crew coming your way. Red minivan, two guys and one gal, plate BRM-222. They're going to load you and this green star up, and I suggest you cooperate. Just having that tech means a lot of questions are going to get asked."
Roger was calmed somewhat at this point. "I know, but you know what this means. What it means if the green stars are active again..."
"I do. That's why you're being drafted back into the service. If this is real, then we're all in trouble."
"Yeah. I know."
"Just wait there, I'll see you in an hour."
"Yeah. Hour."
Roger hit the "End Call" button just as a red van pulled up. "Hey mac, you call for a ride?"
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. All I wanted was a quiet retirement. Guess that's not happening.
Fuck yes. This was excellent, probably my favorite thing yet posted on /s/therestofthestory
The story idea kind of meandered around, but ended with everyone in a facility in Siberia that was built during the Cold War as a joint venture between Russia and the United States (the cold war in this universe was a sham to keep the public ignorant of some massive leaps in energy weapon tech.)
Overpowered laser technology that was designed as an asteroid smasher (mining and defensive) but could be bounced off mirrors on the moon to destroy major western cities. That's what the green stars were trying to capture, and they are fanatical enough to die for the cause.
I get flashes of insight and put down paragraphs every now and then.
Who were the greenies?
oh no
Rofl
(post is archived)