Episode 3: The Five Deadly Rebels

"Five Deadly Rebels",  featuring music by Wu-Tang Clan producer, "Cilvaringz",  is the kung fu cult classic film, "Five Deadly Venoms", meets the Gangster genre, meets Science Fiction, written by Goodreads acclaimed author, Ian Tuason, winner of a 2016 Watty Award, the world’s largest online writing competition.

From the five boroughs come five rebels of society—the gangster, the hustler, the raider, the gambler, the corrupt—each gifted with superhuman powers, each mastering an ancient martial art discipline—judo, kendo, muay Thai, karate, kung fu—through a mysterious being from another reality, known only as “The Master”, who launches the five into a dangerous hunt for a golden crypto ledger hidden within the criminal underworld of New York City—a ledger holding wealth that can not only change each of their hard-boiled lives, but the order of the world.

Enter the "the five chambers outside of time," and into a war against reality–if there is such a thing.

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Transcript

Five Deadly Rebels, a Kung Fu Sci-Fi Scripted Podcast. Hosted by Ian Tuason. Music by Wu-Tang Clan producer, Cilvaringz. This is Episode 3, The Five Deadly Rebels.

 “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666.”

The Book of Revelations 13:17-18

Chapter 8: The Blinder

A forensic medical examiner, skinny under his white lab coat, struggles to close the heavy door of the walk-in refrigerator storing bodies yet to be examined. He finally manages to shut the door with a loud clang, and turns to face the cold, spacious lab. Saws, scalpels, forceps, and other instruments hang on one of its walls in a neat row under a shelf holding jars and bottles filled with chemicals, solutions, and preservatives. The wall faces a metal examination table gleaming bright from a single overhead light.

A series of gurneys holding cadavers, all covered in crisp white sheets pulled up to reveal their tagged feet, are positioned evenly throughout the other half of the room.

The examiner snatches a clipboard hanging from one of the gurneys and brings it over to his assistant sitting at a computer desk in the corner, cluttered with paperwork. He drops the clipboard onto the desk when all the lights in the room—the ceiling lights, the examination table’s overhead light, even the computer monitor on the desk—all turn off at the same time, throwing the lab into pitch darkness. The sound of blowing air from the vents softens then dies out completely.

“Blackout?” asks the assistant.

“Blown fuse, maybe.”

The examiner blindly feels his way along the desk for his phone to call maintenance. He doesn’t even hear the Blinder’s dead silent footsteps enter the room, despite the hard heavy soles of his black Doc Marten boots.

The Blinder scans the bleak space through the thick eyepieces on his thermoplastic mask, snugging onto his face under the bill of his blood-red newsboy cap, and can see the entire room with crystal clearness, as if the lab was lit by sunlight.

He brushes inches past the examiner still searching the desk with his hands, knocking over some papers onto the floor, oblivious to the Blinder so close to him.

Breathing in the sterile air and the faint smell of disinfectant, the Blinder wades through the rows of gurneys and then he finds it—a massive frame under a white sheet, mocha-toned feet peeking out from under it.

The examiner must have found his phone because the Blinder can hear him yapping as he pulls the white sheet down off the massive cadaver, revealing its wide head and thick nose, then pulls the sheet even lower, exposing broad shoulders and a hairy chest with two words tattooed under each collar bone.

Iron

Fame

A gentle boom echoes through the vents and then all the lights in the room turn on. The computer chimes as it restarts, and the examiner turns to see the door to the hallway wide open.

Chapter 9: The Five Deadly Rebels

The last thing the Slugger remembers is falling asleep in Cesar’s bed, lying there, recalling the day that had passed, stocking shelves, sweeping floors, and stacking boxes in the bodega down the street, only to be denied his daily wage by the owner at the end of his twelve-hour shift. He remembers holding a box cutter at the owner’s throat, forcing him to open the safe in the backroom, and leaving through the bodega’s back door with thousands in cash stuffed into his pockets and waistband. And then he remembers smiling, there on Cesar’s bed, feeling the satisfaction he imagined the gangsters in his neighborhood must have felt when walking the streets, notorious.

Now, waking from a dreamless sleep, he expects to feel his body under sheets and blankets. Instead, he feels the sting of metal cuffs on his wrists biting into his skin as he hangs from chains, his arms spread wide above him, his back pressed against a rough stone wall, his toes barely touching the ground.

He opens his eyes slowly to see a dim orange glow through a thin horizontal slit, something cold and heavy fastened onto his face. 

Then the room beyond comes into focus—a circular chamber with five wooden doors and a faceless figure in a loud three-piece suit, its head made of polished turquoise, slouching on a wooden throne under a large lantern hanging from the ceiling. The figure grips the cloth-wrapped handle of a katana in one of his hands, its tip of its sheathed blade grounded between his feet. Hanging from his neck, heavy over his purple and black patterned tie, is a dark-silver chain encrusted with pink diamonds, and a single gold-plated ledger dangling from one of its links.

And then, gradually, he begins to remember the months—or years, or decades—he had spent in the chamber of standing pipes, training with the figure—the Master—yes, the Master, and suddenly he comes to know all that he had already known.

Along the circular wall, four others hang from chains beside each door of the room, all of them masked, their bodies draped in black Tang suits, pankou knots fastening their suit jackets closed all the way up to their mandarin collars standing high on their necks. 

“Listen, my pupils, for these are the last lessons I shall bestow upon you, and then you may never see me again,” the Master’s voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere.

“In the reality that exists above these chambers, you are rebels. Five rebels from each of the five boroughs. The gangster. The hustler. The raider. The gambler. The corrupt.”

The Master stands, bringing the katana up and resting it on his shoulder.

“But make no mistake, my children, you are all innocent. Hard coded from birth. I have seen the math and witnessed all your fates. That is, up there, in the river of time and reality whose flow is determined. But in here, in the five chambers outside of time and reality, I have tested your code through decades of iteration, and to my surprise, you have all reached the same numeric condition, mastering ancient disciplines, judo, kendo, muay Thai, karate, kung fu, to a degree that my calculations once rendered mathematically impossible.” 

Holding the katana wide across his body, the Master unsheathes its blade, electric bolts crackling around it, shining so brightly that the Slugger is forced to squint his eyes to look upon it. And then the chains that bind the five to the wall begin to swing slightly towards the blade, the backs of the five pulling away from the wall. Then the Master sheathes the blade, and the five once again drop flat against the wall, the room dimming.

“In here, the five chambers outside of time,” the Master continues. “You all have rendered my math irrelevant, proving to be anomalies, recalculating your own fates through your own choices. But up there, in the river of time and reality, your anomalies may have very little effect to the river’s flow. Like a pebble dropped into it, it will cause small ripples, an insignificant disruption on the water’s surface, but the river will continue to its determined destination. A destination I have seen through astronomical iterations.”

The Master approaches the Slugger with slow, deliberate steps.

“But if a mountain, not a pebble, is dropped into the river, not only will the direction of the river change, but all the land around it. And the result of this action—this addition to the equation—will be impossible to calculate, even for myself.”

The Master continues to pace around the room, passing each rebel in order.

“And so, I will make you all mountains with a simple addition to your code. A short line of code that will grant your rebel heart’s desire—the power to bend rules that bind you. A power, that if granted to others, will mathematically prove insignificant. But to a rebel, this power can mean everything.”

The Master, slowly circling the room, stops in front of the fifth rebel hanging beside the fifth door. His mask a dark helmet, frilled with horns. 

“You will all remain who you are, as I have not changed your core code,” the Master says. “I have simply added an element to your equation.” 

The Master turns to the fifth rebel, who lifts his helmeted head to face him.

“Number Five. The Biker. The rules of time will not apply to you. While others see the snap of a whip, you will see its slow unraveling. But be weary of your gift of speed, my child, because with it, comes the curse of impatience.”

The Biker bows his head low, and the Master moves to the next rebel, wearing an army green bucket hat over a carbon composite face protector, also military green.

“Number Four. The rules of gravity will not apply to you. You can bend them at will, but within limits. You will not be able to control the bouncing of a roulette ball, or the roll of dice. You are the roulette ball, Number Four. You are the dice.”

Number Four nods his head twice.

Then the Master stands before the next rebel, wearing a dark thermoplastic mask with thick eyepieces under the bill of a red newsboy cap.

“Number Three. The Blinder. A thief in the night, you will have sight in shadow. You will walk silently in the blinding darkness, though you will see. But the price you pay will be your lies. The fake masks you have worn, the fake names you have given, the lies you have told—to yourself and to others—will be removed from your code. And then you will discover who you truly are.”

The Blinder bows low and is still bowing as the Master makes his way to face the next rebel.

The next rebel wears a metallic jingasa, head bowed, shrouding the rebel’s mask under it. 

“Number Two. The Samurai. He who vowed to protect you was unable to protect you from yourself. Now, you will become his protector. And then you will know that the ones you protect are the ones that give you strength. Not the katana. Not Over Dark,” the Master raises the sheathed katana across his body as an offering. “But only through Over Dark, will you learn this truth, my child.”

The Master kneels at the Samurai’s feet and lays Over Dark on the ground under them.

Finally, the Master faces the Slugger, tilting his turquoise head up higher to reach the Slugger’s tall gaze.

“Number One. The Slugger. You will wield strength beyond human strength. Your body will be impervious to weapons—to injury.” The word injury triggers a memory in the Slugger’s mind, of the pain in his shoulder, his torn ligaments that stole his future of fame and notoriety.

“And so, you will be the keeper of the gold ledger,” the Master lifts the chain from his neck, slipping it over his featureless head, and slides it over the Slugger’s head, resting the ledger onto his massive chest. “Inside this ledger is an amount of wealth that has never been granted upon any one soul in this reality, in all of its history—this is the wealth that hangs around your neck. This is the physical burden that you must hold to keep your invincibility.”

The Master returns to his wooden throne, folding into it then leaning to the side, his elbow balancing on its armrest.

“I’ve tattooed two words on each of your chests. If you remove them, or tattoo over them, you will lose your powers. The words make up the twelve-word seed phrase for this ledger, from the words on Number One, to the words on Number Five, in that exact order. Only you know your own words. The last two words of the seed phrase, I will give to you now, so you all may know.”

The Master pauses before saying each word.

“You…choose…”

The Master straightens his posture on the throne, adjusts his suit jacket and tie, as if preparing to make an announcement commanding attention. 

“And so, I leave you with this final lesson. These masks you wear were chosen by you, not by me. I have seen them in your dreams. These masks are your true identity. They are the faces that you have chosen, not the masks of flesh that were bound to you at birth. To the ones up there, floating in the river of reality, your masks will protect your anonymity. But among you five, your masks will do the opposite, revealing your true selves to each other, your true powers, and your true desires. Only when wearing your masks will your powers be deployed. This code is true and absolute, save for one of you—Number Two; your power will be deployed by Over Dark, who is only loyal in your hands. But with your mask worn, the power of Over Dark swells tenfold.”

The Master shoots up quickly, standing straight and stiff, like a commanding warrior.

“Farewell, my children. I have given you gifts. And you all have given me my own—the gift of a future undetermined. A gift I have not indulged in in over seventy centuries.”

The Slugger groans under his iron mask, his eyelids growing heavy. He can see the Blinder rattling his head to shake off a sudden sleepiness. 

“Each of you will wake up in your own beds,” says the Master. “In your own boroughs. What you do after, and in the years to come, is your choice, and yours alone. Choose well, my children.”

The Slugger lowers his chin to his chest, unable to fight the sudden drowsiness, his vision going, and he lets the nothingness of oblivion engulf him.

Chapter 10: Sidra

Sidra peeks out from the backstage of the Brooklyn strip club in her leather strapped lingerie wrapped tight around her petite but curvy frame. Her skin is a lighter tone than most of the other Indian American girls she knows, but her hair is typically thick and heavy, curling halfway down her hourglass back. Her big brown eyes lined with long black lashes scans the crowd of middle-aged men and Wall Street yuppies acting extra rowdy tonight. The men are loud, spilling drinks on themselves, slapping servers on their asses without their consent as they scurry through a sea of testosterone. But then she sees Ernesto standing near the front of the stage, working as the head bouncer tonight, and she feels safe.

In a black suit over a white dress shirt with no tie, Ernesto stands shorter than most of the patrons at the club, but rock-sturdy, with defined muscles bulging out from his fitted suit jacket, earning him the nickname Manny Pacquiao, the former welterweight champion of the world, who happens to be Filipino, too.

One night, a patron made the mistake of underestimating Ernesto’s stature, pushing him away when Ernesto rushed at him for grabbing one of the girls on stage. The patron threw a punch that Ernesto intentionally took on his chin, unfazed, just to make a point. And then the patron woke up lying on his back on the sidewalk outside the club, his four front teeth missing.

But that patron got away easy. On another night, when Sidra was grinding her ass on the lap of some drunk college kid in the VIP section, he reached around and choked her neck gently at first, moaning, but then his grip got tighter. Sidra told him to let go, but he kept squeezing, stronger. Sidra stopped dancing, trying to pry the kid’s hands off her throat, when Ernesto lifted the kid up by his hair so hard that he let go of Sidra’s neck and grabbed onto Ernesto’s thick wrist to save his scalp from ripping off. The kid shot up to his feet, knocking Sidra to the ground, her forehead hitting the corner of a low glass table in the booth. When Ernesto saw a trickle of blood drop from Sidra’s hairline, his vision turned red, and Sidra turned away, not wanting to see what Ernesto was doing to the kid.

The kid was sent to the hospital that night, and a few days later, the club received a lawsuit from the kid’s lawyer, and Ernesto was put on unpaid leave for a month.

Tonight is Ernesto’s first day back, and Sidra feels a strange gladness to see him again, but then she reminds herself, he’s just a man, just like all men, so she shakes off the feeling and reminds herself, instead, that she has a job to do.

Sidra scans the crowd for a mark, someone sitting alone, well-dressed and ordering expensive drinks. Her eyes narrow at a man in a tailored suit, sipping on what looks to be a glass of scotch under his designer framed glasses. He waves down a server and orders another round, and Sidra thinks to herself, Just a couple more glasses of scotch and he’ll be playdough in my hands. 

-----

His name is actually Mark, which amuses Sidra, or at least that’s the name he gave her. They sit on a sectional sofa in the corner of his condo in front of a rustic coffee table holding a bottle of bourbon, two shot glasses, and a mirrored cocktail tray where Mark is breaking up some coke into lines with his credit card, but cocaine would defeat Sidra’s purpose tonight, she thinks to herself. 

“If you like blow, you have to try codeine.” She reaches into her Balenciaga bag and digs out a small baggie with four white pills. “Scoot over, baby.”

Mark obeys eagerly and leers at her thin waist as she leans over and crushes the pills with the bottom of the bourbon bottle, then breaks them down more with the edge of Mark’s credit card, sliding the powder into lines.

Sidra rolls one of the bills in her bag into a tight cylinder and hands it to Mark. “You’re going to love it, baby, especially with bourbon.”

Mark snorts up a line and tilts his head back, sniffling. Sidra takes the rolled up bill from his hand and snorts up a line of coke, hoping Mark doesn’t notice the difference, but when she looks back at him, her teeth already starting to feel numb, his eyes are closed.

Sidra pours them both a shot of bourbon, “Cheers, baby.” They clink their glasses and Sidra grins as she sips her shot, watching Mark down his in one swig. 

It only takes one hour for Mark to fall asleep on the sofa, and Sidra makes sure he’s snoring before rummaging through his condo, not ever wanting to repeat the time she was caught trying to leave a mark’s apartment with a gold watch and some cash, then getting slapped around for it, that was until she fought back, and then the slaps turned to closed fist punches. Sidra had to take a week off work until the bruises on her face healed.

In Mark’s room, she finds a collection of gold necklaces, rings, and twelve hundred in cash in a wooden cigar box. 

Mark snores even louder as Sidra slips on her quarter length coat over her leather lingerie and straps her heels tight onto her ankles.

Standing just inside the front door, about to leave, Sidra turns on her phone to call an Uber when she sees a text from her father who she hasn’t spoken to in seven years, not since she ran away from her parents’ house in Buffalo at sixteen and hitchhiked her way across the state to New York City. For years, he would text every month or so, despite never receiving a reply, but Sidra could never seem to block him, reading every single text. He’d text things like, ‘I’m so sorry, or we miss you, or let’s please talk when you’re ready.’

But tonight, she feels different about it, and blocks his number before sneaking out the door.

-----

In the strip club change room, she curses at the faulty digital locker when her four-digit code doesn’t work a second time. “Ya Allah,” the code fails a third time. Fuck these shitty lockers, she thinks to herself, adding to the disappointment of a wasted night at the club—not landing one single mark despite working the floor for nine hours straight.

“Fucking thing,” she hisses at the locker, even though it opens on her fourth try. She changes out of her lingerie and platform heels into her comfy Juicy Couture velour track suit and Converse Chucks.

Slipping her Balenciaga bag over her shoulder, she turns and notices that one of the lockers further down her row is slightly ajar, which happened sometimes with the faulty digital locks.

Sidra glances around the change room, listening for anyone approaching, before making her way to the open locker. Probably empty, unused, she thinks, but when she opens it and sees a set of keys sitting on a black wallet, her eyes brighten.

She looks over her shoulder again before peeking into the wallet, finding eight crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. Without hesitation, she slips the cash out of the wallet, but then sees Ernesto’s driver’s license inside, and a feeling of guilt hits her, the money still tight in her hand.

Ernesto is the only man she might feel guilty stealing from, but then she reminds herself, He’s just a man, just like the rest of them, and stuffs the bills in her bag.

Her eyes are still looking down for the zipper of her bag as she makes her way to a backdoor exit, but when she looks up, she sees Ernesto standing by the exit, and her heart jerks up into her throat.

“Leaving already?” Ernesto says with an icy tone, and Sidra knows that Ernesto saw everything. 

Her muscles tense up, preparing for a smack to come, like how she’s been smacked dozens of times before. Maybe it would be a punch to her stomach this time, she hopes, and then she wouldn’t have to miss work.

“Yeah, pretty dead out there,” she stares at her shoes. She tries to remember all the times she’s been beaten by men in her life, even before she became a hustler—before she was even an adult—and she was ready for it.

But then Ernesto just opens the door. “Okay then, do your thing,” Ernesto says, and she wonders if it’s a trick.

“See you,” she smiles and squeezes her bag tighter at her side as she brushes past Ernesto’s broad chest, her eyes lowered, waiting for him to snatch her bag away, or maybe grab her by the hair, lurching her back into the change room. He could snap her neck without even trying, she knows, but it doesn’t happen. 

Her rubber soles clomp on the pavement of the parking lot outside and she glances over her shoulder at Ernesto who shoots her a smile and disappears back into the building.

And then suddenly, Sidra is hit with the knowing—the feeling—that she is safe and slows her pace.

Chapter 11: Always Bet on Black

There’s a bounce in Buck’s step as he ambles through the narrow back alley in Chinatown, Queens, behind rows of herbal shops, counterfeit brand clothing stores and Chinese restaurants, breathing in the smells of fried grease and garbage. He always hated leaving his Park Hill hood in Staten Island, let alone leaving his entire borough, and even worse, leaving his borough to go to Queens, but tonight is going to be different, Buck convinces himself. Tonight, his luck is going to change.

His short, twisted braids peak out from under his gray hood and hang down his dark-skin forehead. He tucks both hands into the pouch of his hoodie, trying to disguise the huge bulge inside it coming from five stacks of ten grand each, all locked tight in rubber bands. Buck weaves and jumps over the puddles of rain and garbage juice scattered throughout the alley to keep his new Timberland boots crisp.

Buck never enjoyed gambling at the Queens Casino, playing beside who he felt were true degenerates, and dealing with the smug faces of Queens Finest who ran the joint, but it was the only underground spot in all the five boroughs that took the largest bets, and Buck just couldn’t help himself.

To Buck, there are only two feelings in the world that gets his blood pumping—one was gambling and winning, and the other was gambling and losing.

He reaches the unmarked metal door with a security camera mounted over it and he immediately feels his heartbeat speeding up. He wipes his clammy hands on his gray sweats before pounding on the door.

Officer Gavin Carter, who everyone just calls Gavin, answers the door in his NYPD uniform, his pale head shaved down to his skin, a Patek Philippe watch hanging loose on his slender wrist.

“Welcome back, big dog,” he reaches out and wraps his long arm around Buck’s shoulders and ushers him into a short corridor ending at a second door with another camera. “Sorry, big dog, policy,” Gavin says while frisking Buck. “Okay, we good,” Gavin spins his finger in a circle to the camera and the second door opens with a loud buzz.

Inside the casino, the sound of clinking chips, shuffling cards, and the smell of stale cigarette smoke hit Buck like a shot of adrenalin.

“Can I ask you a question, big dog?" Gavin says. 

Please don't, Buck thinks. “What?”

“It true what they say about you people, being late for everything?”

“I got the forty bands, and half an hour to midnight, still.”

“In that case, look at that table over there,” Gavin points to a roulette table with one dealer and one player. “Been hitting black nine times out of ten, all fucking night. I think it’s a sign, big dog. Since you got some time left, why don’t you win some extra dough first, then pay us back after?”

“Naw, fam, I have ten bands to grind later. First, got to settle with the mandem, still. Where she at?”

“The Sarge? She’s out back,” Gavin glances at a green door guarded by a uniformed officer. “She’s in a meeting, though. Tell you what, big dog, give me the forty G’s and I’ll give it to her right now.”

Buck hesitates. “I’ll wait.”

“Told you, big dog, she’s in a meeting. And you don’t got much time. Leave it with me and consider us settled; know what I’m saying?” Gavin shows his open hand to Buck.

Buck looks at the door for a few seconds before slipping four stacks out from the side of his hoodie’s pouch and lays them on Gavin’s hand in a neat pile. 

“Got you, big dog,” Gavin winks and heads to the door. The officer on guard opens it for him and Gavin disappears into the backroom.

Buck turns and scans the neon-lit casino floor packed with gamblers, huddling around blackjack, baccarat, pai gow, craps and roulette tables, all their eyes darting back and forth between cards, dice rolls and numbers. The smell of sweat and anticipation fills his nostrils and stirs something sweet inside him, and he thinks back to that exact night it all started. 

Buck moved to Staten Island from Little Jamaica, Toronto, when his mom re-married a guy who owned an auto repair shop where Buck eventually worked in the summers and afterschool. His stepfather was pretty well off, by Park Hill standards, anyway, and Buck knew he could have owned that auto shop one day. But then one night, he discovered his true passion. 

It started with shooting craps in the staircase of his building with some kids, then sleeping that night like a baby with fifty-five one-dollar bills, seven tens and one twenty tucked under his mattress.

Buck started shooting craps in the staircases of other buildings where the kids were placing bigger bets. After graduating high school, Buck started betting on fights in the Staten Island Fight Club where he made the most money he’s ever made, but that was only until he moved his game to the underground casinos in the Bronx and Brooklyn. It was only a matter of time, Buck knew back then, that he’d have to play for the biggest stakes at the highest limits in all the five boroughs—the Queens Casino in Chinatown, Queens, run by none other than Queens Finest.

On his first night gambling there, he lost everything he had ever won and everything he had ever saved—his entire bankroll—and even though Buck asked, Queens Finest wouldn’t put him on credit. 

Later that night, he couldn’t sleep, lying there awake in his bedroom in his parents’ apartment, obsessing about winning back everything he had lost. All I need is a new bankroll, he’d thought. 

The idea of working at his stepfather’s auto shop again to build his bankroll never crossed his mind, neither did asking his parents for a loan, nor stealing from them, not ever. Instead, he stole cars, applying what he learned from all the summers and afterschool hours at the auto shop. He sold every car he stole to a Godbody in Clifton who paid Buck fairly, and after that, Buck returned to the Queens Casino and won everything he had lost, plus much, much more. 

He would win big a few nights in a row, lose one night, then go on another winning streak that lasted weeks. Buck quit stealing cars after that.

But then Buck started losing, a few grand one day, more the next, and when he lost his entire bankroll again, Queens Finest put him on credit.

And when Buck lost forty grand in credit, Queens Finest cut him off from the tables and gave him a deadline to pay it all back—midnight, tonight. And Queens Finest took deadlines very, very seriously.

Standing there on the casino floor, he could still smell the pine-scented air freshener on his hoodie from the Porsche SUV he stole and sold only hours earlier.

A weird feeling rises in Buck’s gut when he looks at the time on his phone—11:44pm.

“Woah, woah,” says the officer guarding the green door as Buck storms towards it.

“Need to talk to the Sarge,” Buck says.

“She’s busy.”

“I got paper for her.”

The officer looks Buck up and down, then nods. “Go ahead,” he raises his hand to the door.

Inside the backroom, Gavin is spread out across a small sofa against a wall covered in peeling wallpaper. A tall, skinny officer that Buck recognizes as Officer Ahmed, leans his boney shoulder against the opposite wall. At the far end of the room, the Sarge leans back on her swivel chair behind a desk cluttered with stacks of cash, papers, pens, and a black revolver. She’s a stout woman, her NYPD issued shirt buttoned up to her collar, squeezing at her short neck. Her dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail so tight that it slants her eyes. A Patek Philippe watch squeezes onto her stubby wrist. 

“Just in time, Buck. You got something for me?” she says in a New York Puerto Rican accent.

“I gave it to mans over there,” he points at Gavin on the sofa.

“Sorry, you gave it to who, big dog?” says Gavin.

“You,” Buck glares.

“Gave me what?”

“Forty bands.”

“What forty bands?”

“The forty bands in your pocket, fam.”

“I wish I had forty bands in my pocket; know what I’m saying?” Gavin laughs, looking at Ahmed who chuckles silently, his shoulders bouncing.

Gavin looks at the Sarge. “Sergeant, I don’t know what homeboy’s talking about.”

“I gave mans forty bands, like ten minutes ago, no cap,” Buck says to the Sarge who stares back, oblivious.

“Yo, big dog,” Gavin says calmly, adjusting his holstered Beretta at his side. “We can do this real quick, or real slow like, know what I’m saying…dog?” He says the word dog soaked in venom. 

Buck looks down at his phone then turns to leave.

“Where you think you’re going, Buck?” says the Sarge.

“I have ten minutes left until midnight, fam. I’ll get you that paper,” Buck says over his shoulder, marching away. 

Back on the casino floor, Buck slaps his one stack of ten grand in cash on a roulette table beside one other player. “Give me yellows,” he says to the dealer wearing a white polo.

The dealer slips the rubber band off the money, counts the hundred-dollar bills on the table in ten neat rows, then slides a stack of ten yellow chips in front of Buck—ten grand barely two inches high. Buck peeks down at the notepad of the player beside him and sees that the last seven rolls landed on black.

“Place your bets,” the dealer raises his arm over the table and Buck slides the stack of chips over a black diamond on the felt. The other player leans forward, placing green chips on numbers all around the table.

The dealer and Buck have eye contact, and suddenly, he can feel his heart pounding in his chest.

“No more bets,” the dealer waves his arm over the table, reaches for a small white ball sitting on the slow spinning roulette wheel. The dealer spins the wheel faster and drops the ball onto it, clicking with every bounce, and Buck doesn’t even look, holding his stare at the dealer’s mouth.

“Black seventeen,” the dealer says, and slides another stack of yellow chips beside Buck’s other stack, equal in height. Buck combines his chips into a single, tall stack, twenty thousand high. Just one more double up, Buck thinks to himself. 

“Place your bets,” the dealer says.

Buck leaves the tall stack on the black diamond and stares at the dealer’s mouth.

“No more bets,” the dealer waves his arm again, and again drops the white ball on the spinning wheel.

Buck’s heartbeat starts to thump so hard; he thinks he can even hear it over the clicking, bouncing ball. Then the ball stops bouncing and rattles to a stop.

“Black twenty-two,” the dealer says, sliding a stack of twenty thousand in yellow chips beside Buck’s twenty thousand—forty thousand total.

I did it, Buck thinks to himself, but his heartbeat doesn’t slow. He looks down at the player’s notepad beside him—black hit nine times in a row. It can’t hit black again, he thinks to himself, the thought nagging at him. Ten times in a row—not possible, he thinks.

The next roll has to land on red, it has to, the thought gnaws into his brain.

He looks at the time on his phone showing 11:55pm when the dealer says, “Place your bets,” raising his arm over the table, signaling about ten seconds until bets are closed.

Buck lifts his hands to pull the chips toward him, but instead slides the two stacks of forty grand a few inches to his left, onto a red diamond, as if he’s watching himself do it from outside his own body. 

“No more bets,” the dealer waves his arm over the table, and Buck suddenly feels like he’s running down a long diving board above a pool, and when he hears the white ball hit the spinning wheel, he feels like he’s reaching the end of the diving board, launching, one toe away from flight, letting gravity take over.

And then his heartbeat begins to slow, and the casino noises around him turn into muffled sounds. For a moment, Buck is amazed, curious even, wondering why he’s never felt so calm in his entire life.

Finally, Buck turns to look at the roulette wheel, the white ball seeming to bounce in slow motion, his heart beating even slower.

Then the rush of time returns, and all the noises of the casino erupt around him as he sees the white ball rattle and settle on black four.

“Black four,” the dealer reaches over the table and drags in Buck’s stacks of chips that topples over onto the felt into a messy pile under the dealer’s hands. 

Buck’s eyes are still fixed on the white ball on black four spinning round and round in circles when he feels a slender hand grip onto his shoulder.

“Follow me, big dog,” says Gavin behind him.

Another wave of calm washes over Buck and he continues to wonder in amazement what it is exactly—relief, some kind of catharsis, maybe, he thinks to himself as he lets Gavin usher him through the casino floor to a different door at a far corner, Officer Ahmed following behind them.

Behind the door runs a long white-brick corridor leading to an unused kitchen with metal counters, industrial ovens and hanging cookware all collecting dust. They enter another door that leads to a short staircase that climbs down then turns sharply into a longer staircase, dark, unlit. Buck sees the outline of another door at the bottom of the staircase, backlit by the streetlights outside.

Outside now, in another back alley, narrower than the first one that lead to the casino entrance, Buck stands between two rows of connected buildings towering over both sides of the alley. The base of each building is covered entirely with graffiti murals and gang tags on top of more gang tags, no spots of the building’s brown brick behind the graffiti paint can be seen.

“Keep walking, big dog,” Gavin says behind Buck, the clomping from hard soled police boots bouncing off the walls around them. “You know, you people are all the same,” says Gavin, despite his black partner behind him. “Sometimes you got to count your losses and move on. You can’t scoop up everything in one grab; know what I’m saying?”

Buck looks up at a narrow sliver of night sky between the tops of the buildings beside him, and he’s surprised to see stars, not the usual overcast glow from the city’s light pollution.

“Buck, Buck, Buck, what am I going to do with you?” Gavin sighs.

“Body a nigga, I guess,” says Buck.

Buck hears the clack of a Beretta being cocked behind him. Still keeping his stride, he looks up at the sky when a bunch of pigeons take flight from one of the balconies above. And then he sees a figure wearing a three-piece suit, his faceless head made of solid turquoise, standing horizontally on the wall of the building, high up, as if the wall was the ground to this figure.

Buck doesn’t even hear the gunshot when all goes black.



To be continued next Wednesday in Five Deadly Rebels, Episode 4: Sidra, anywhere you get your podcasts. To learn more about the podcast, visit our website at five deadly rebels dot com.  This has been a DimensionGate production.