In The Hole

Somehow after nearly ten minutes of running without a break, Ace still hasn’t lost the mob pursuing him. That’s why he dives down a narrow alley and into the darkness. He is sure he’ll be safe down here. Even if the mob comes this way they’ll almost certainly go right past the alley without checking it.

His breathing is ragged, but he ignores it as he instead listens for other sounds. Like the chanting, jeering, cursing, angry cries from the mob, if they are still being vocal that is, or the sounds of their surprisingly swift footsteps. Ace’s guess is that it will be the former, but he can’t rule out the possibility that it could be the latter. After all, they may have grown tired of the screeching and shouting that they have managed to keep up so far. And speaking of so far, he would have expected a bunch of men and women who’ve been drinking all night to be staggering, stumbling and slow, but they have proved to be anything but that.

So, as he stands in the darkness of the alley, partially holding his breath because of a subconscious fear of somehow being heard, he mulls over what the bartender said. He’d called Ace a Skin.

It seems clear to him that it must be a bad thing, but for what reason Ace cannot say. However, it must relate to the metal under my flesh. How is there metal under my flesh? Ace still doesn’t have a viable answer to that question. In fact, he wonders why he keeps returning to dwell on these questions at all.

If he didn’t have an answer for them before there was no way he was going to have one now. Not enough time has passed and even if it had he hasn’t been doing anything other than fleeing for his life to have had the chance to locate any information that might aid him in developing an answer. The only conclusion he has come to is that he expects the reaction he has witnessed from the bar patrons is probably the same one he’d get no matter where he goes in the city.

Maybe I should just leave, he thinks to himself as he continues to listen. He hears nothing, well nothing that sounds like an angry mob baying for blood anyway. There are plenty of sounds, but none elicit any sort of fear in Ace. Where could I go? He wonders before concluding that, anywhere must be better than here, surely. What if it’s not? What if everywhere I go people treat me this way? I’m clearly not the same as them even if I don’t know why or how. It’s a depressing route to be delving down but one Ace feels compelled to follow to its conclusion. However, the strand leads to no actual answers. Instead, it has led him to an unsatisfying dead-end.

The only positive is that now that he’s followed the only strand he could to its conclusion the questions have finally stop rolling around and around in his head. Because of this Ace becomes acutely aware of his racing pulse. If only it would slow, the red haired man thinks and then as if in response to his thoughts, it does exactly that. Ace blinks in shock. That has to be a coincidence, he tells himself before a voice in his head asks, was it? How can you be sure? Ace doesn’t know how he can be sure, but it just has to be. There is no way he can control his heart rate, at least not with a single thought. No person can do that. Such things are impossible.

Well that’s decided then, it was a coincidence, he hears the voice in his head declare with far less certainty than he would like.

Still, Ace hears no sounds that resemble those of a blood thirsty mob. A sigh of relief escapes his barely parted pink lips almost immediately. His relief doesn’t last however as he hears a sound coming from somewhere deeper down the alley.

Within the blink of an eye Ace whips his head in the direction of the sound and is just in time to see a club slam into the side of his head.

Ace lets out a rush of air in response to the blow as he stumbles away, his vision filled with bright spots, while his head spins and whirls somehow in every direction at once. Such a thing seemed inconceivable before the impact, but he can’t doubt that it really is happening now as he staggers about almost blind.

By the time he manages to clear his vision and regain his balance Ace finds he is back out on the street. The throbbing in his head is unlike anything he has ever felt before in his life. Even the pain from his shredded arm does not compare. That’s why though he is back on his feet and no longer feels unsteady; he refuses to remove his hand from the wound that he knows has been inflicted upon the side of his head. He knows he’s bleeding. He can feel it. But he doesn’t need to look at it. He’s had enough of the sight of his own blood for one night, so instead keeps his eyes glued on the dark alley. The red haired man doesn’t have to wait long before a cluster of people, who he recognises as patrons from the bar, step out of the pitch black shadows and into the bright street lights and neon signs.

“Why…” Ace begins to ask but never finishes asking his question as he becomes acutely aware that the cluster in front of him are just the tip of the iceberg and that in fact, he is surrounded.

Ace doesn’t know where the rest of them have descended from, but thinks that he might, just about, be able to break through and make his escape. How long it’ll last this time he cannot say. But though it’s possible he doubts he should try. The majority of the mob is armed, and without a doubt will land numerous blows on him if he attempts to flee like he did before. The red haired man can’t afford that and he knows it. He is also sure the people around him know it too. Then one of them answers his unfinished question.

“Because you’re a Skin and Skins are the reason this city has been brought low with violence and poverty. And it gets worse with the passing of every new day.” There is a pause and then the voice continues, “Synthetics like you took our jobs, the best jobs, leaving us to fight over the scraps in the dirt until the Protectorate came along and outlawed the lot of you, in our name.”

“Except the damage had been done and now whatever level of society we’re born into is where we stay.” Another member of the mob, a woman, adds angrily.

“But that was not me. I did nothing to you. I just want to live.” Ace fires back defiantly. But the people don’t care. To them Ace is just another Skin. He is just another representation of how their city and their lives failed. So they will take it out on him because they don’t have any other way of venting their frustrations. The Protectorate rules the city with an iron fist. They aren’t as bad as the Skins, but that’s only because they aren’t here to replace flesh and blood people. They are people; they are just higher people, who are more important, wealthy and respected than most of the others that call this city home. And they are all positions which they have been born into and so will remain in, forever. None of it was earned or worked for. It is just inherited.

En masse the mob attacks the redheaded man, who isn’t a man at all but a Skin, a synthetic that has been made to look like a man. He calls himself Ace, that isn’t his name, but it’s the one he’s chosen for himself.

They pile onto him in the moments after having tackled him to the asphalt covering of the wide empty street. The hour is early and it won’t’ be long before most of the city begins to stir again for the start of this new day.

But these people are oblivious to the new day as they kick, punch and jab at Ace who screams and begs for mercy. The people have no intention of offering any mercy or pause as they continue to act like lawless savages until finally Ace receives a hard blow to his head. Instantly he becomes disabled. It would be wrong to call it anything else as he isn’t an organic being.

A few minutes of continued attacks pass before the mob realise that the Skin, Ace, is motionless. They extricate themselves, helping one another, and then take a couple steps back so that they can stare at the sight of the lifeless mass. Every one of them has a satisfied look carved into their faces.

They feel nothing for the lifeless body. In their eyes it was never alive. It was just a machine made by people who themselves had made a grave mistake in ever creating the synthetic lifeforms.

Suddenly Ace twitches. In response every one jumps back. They’re all confused and the expression on their faces says as much. They were sure Ace was dead, but none of them are willing to take the chance that they might be wrong and so back up a little further. They don’t know what the Skin might do in its damaged state.

All of a sudden Ace does more than twitch. Instead, he rises from a heap on the floor back to his feet. Except his movements are unnatural now and could quite easily be compared to those displayed by marionettes.

Finally, Ace’s head lifts. It had been lowered so his chin was against his chest, but now his face is on full display. Except his face isn’t the same. The shape, colour and features are, but his previously pale blue eyes are now red and glowing.

Each and every one of the assembled group gulps audibly at the sight of Ace’s red glowing eyes. They feel nothing but abject terror fill every fiber of their beings as they continues to back further and further away from the Skin.