(no subject)
Here we go. I'm still way behind as the official goal for today was 20,000 and I've got 16,624. Here's the latest 1,431 words. I'm kind of losing the plot. I need some focus. But for now, I need words.
I was nine when I started becoming more affiliated with the gang. I’d seen four deaths, and wasn’t fazed as much as I should have been. But the next one fazed me. When I was twelve.
* * *
A man dissects a lion, slicing meat off. He carries it back to the town center, deposits it and goes back to the kill. There’s four more with him. Together, they killed five lions in one area and are now each dissecting their own.
A man in red livery walks quickly through the town. I point him out to one of my bowmen who quickly shoots him. He won’t see anything more.
A platoon of twenty soldiers and fifteen bowmen marches off in the direction the red man came from. They’ll find his camp and destroy it if it’s small enough. If it’s not I can always send a few more platoons and maybe a couple of catapults. Thirty-five men should be enough.
It’s an old game. The graphics aren’t particularly amazing, although they’re very well done for the era. Shadows which move with the figures. Quite good as a strategy game, though. I know I’ve won this time, but I lose almost as often.
The computer’s amazing. Gone is the old twelve-inch screen, the hundred gigabyte memory. This model’s going to hit the stores in about three weeks. Five terabyte of memory, and most of it’s filled, with music, videos, games, miscellaneous programs. The screen covers half the wall. It took all the money from my last job with Joan. Weed again, in Canada. There’s a new government official at the plantation. We told him we came from Bridge Kanulu and he decided selling to us was his best option pretty much immediately. Apparently my little message hit the newspaper headlines the day after we left. He gives us good rates, and has never once sold us lavender. He’s happy with it now.
Joan and I have done about ten more jobs, always just a day now. We’re still using Jonah’s little note, and the new guy at the farm sells us all we need. My two-hundred fifty has ballooned to a million already. The trips aren’t quite as large, but there’s enough that the gang is known as the number one weed supplier.
There’s another job coming up. Joan says it’s not our usual thing, but I’m needed anyway. Only me, him, Julius and Job are involved. There’s some gear coming by ship, he says, and we’ve gotta meet it sometime tonight. I think I’m needed because I’m big, and I can do the work Joan would. It was Joan’s idea.
There’s a victorious-sounding trumpet blast. I look back at the computer and see the words “YOU ARE VICTORIOUS!” across the screen. Oh. Good. I turn it off, and push backwards in my office chair, into the middle of the room where I spin around in circles for a bit, then push myself over to the bookcase. There’s no time for another game before dinner, but I can maybe read a bit. I’m a little way into “A Painted House.” It’s good. I’m up to the bit where the big hired boy knocks out the pro wrestler. I think he sounds like Joan.
Ten minutes later, there’s a massive DONG, as Dad bangs the dinner gong, which Joan bought for him. I go downstairs and meet Joan coming out of the lounge. I let him go into the kitchen first, and close the door behind me. Dad’s made lasagna. Joan and I sit either side of him, Joan levering himself from the wheelchair onto his dining chair. Dad looks so small in between us, a dwarf surrounded by giants. I pick up my knife and fork.
“No, James, stop.”
I’d forgotten. I lay the cutlery back down and put my hands together above my plate. Dad does the same and Joan, smiling a little wryly puts one hand up, acting like the other’s there as well.
“Bless this food. Amen.” Dad always says grace. Before every meal. I don’t think he actually believes any of it, but he makes us do it as well. It’s just something he does. I pick up my cutlery again. I start cutting my lasagna up.
“I just got word, James. Tonight.”
“Okay. Do I need to bring anything?” I put a piece in my mouth. It tastes good.
“Nah. Just muscles tonight. It’s all being brought in, and we just need to move it and set it up tonight.”
“Okay.”
We don’t talk anymore about gang business at dinner. Dad doesn’t like it. I could see his face. He was about to tell us to be quiet.
After dinner I go up to my room and put on some music, on my computer. There’s so much I don’t know what half of it is. I just let it randomly shuffle as I change into dark clothes, then watch the sun set, the glowing orange ball sinking into the land, silhouetting Bridge Kanulu.
* * *
I’m underneath it later that night, waiting. Joan, Job and Julius are all there too. We’re all in short sleeves. Job is the smallest person in the group. No-one’s saying anything. We’re all just waiting for the boat. And here it comes. Not a massive boat, but huge in the river, like a scaled-down cargo ship. A couple of waves slop up on the shore, followed by the bow and the boat stops. Part of the front levers down onto the ground and a guy walks down. He goes to Joan.
“So you’d be Jett?”
“I am.”
“Right then. We got you one assembly machine and five part machines. It’s gotta be supervised by someone who knows what they’re doing or can figure it out. You got the cash?”
“I’m not the leader here. Job has the cash.” Job walks up. “Two million, we agreed?”
“We did. And you will get the machines for two million pounds.” Job handed it over. “Thank you very much, and congratulations.” Job almost smiled, nodded and turned.
“But there’s another consideration. A secondary consideration, as it were..” Job stops.
“Somehow I thought there would be. What is it?”
“Silence. I think that’s worth another quarter of a million.” Job turned around and walked back slowly.
“You know, I don’t think it is. Because, you see, this little exchange implicates you as well.”
“You more.”
“I agree, but not that much more. In fact, I think I’m only implicated more to the tune of fifty thousand.”
Only fifty thousand. Once I would have thought that was all the money that could possible exist. I’m a millionaire now.
“Two hundred.”
“A hundred twenty-five, last offer.”
“Done.”
They shake hands on it and Job counts out the money. He stuffs three hundred and seventy-five dollars into his pocket.
“There’s a tertiary consideration.” He seems a little nervous, but he wants the money he knows Job has. Job yawns.
“How surprising. What’s this one?”
“Life.” He pulls out a pistol and points it at Job’s head. I’m suddenly terrified. This isn’t what I expected. Job’s calm.
“In that instance, I believe you would be more in our debt.” He pulls out a pistol, fast as thought, and points it at the other guy’s forehead. Then he pulls another gun out from under his shirt and places it against his chest. I look around. Every gang member has a gun in each hand, except Joan, who’s only got one. He sees me looking and tosses it to me, then pulls another out. There’s guns pointing at people I hadn’t even seen. I point mine at the first guy and flick off the safety. I’m not scared anymore.
He looks around.
He hands Job a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, with shaking hands.
“Thank you.”
Job pushes a gun into his pocket and takes the man’s from his fingers, then calls out to the people on the ship. “Unload those machines! Anyone with a gun who does not give it to James will be shot.” He motions me forward and hands me a second pistol. “Get moving!”
There’s five guys on the boat, and they unload the machines with forklifts. Every single one hands me at least one gun. The third guy has five, and one of them’s a rifle which Job grabs. It’s an automatic.
When the machines are all of they get back on the ship. No more words are exchanged. The first guy goes on the ship, still with pistols pointed at him.
They move off..