Episode 6: Anger and Alpha

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

New episode every Wednesday.

Support the show by owning the COMPLETE audiobook or hardcover book ft. original artwork by comic book artists Warrick Wong, Jyothee Murali, and Andrew Gong:

"Five Deadly Rebels" Audiobook U.S.
Get Audible's FREE trial w/link, download audiobook, send proof to us and get a 2nd audiobook FREE!

"Five Deadly Rebels" Novel U.S.
Own the COMPLETE PAPERBACK NOVEL of "Five Deadly Rebels" w/ original artwork by comic book artists.

"Five Deadly Rebels" Hardcover U.S.
Own the COMPLETE HARDCOVER NOVEL of "Five Deadly Rebels" w/ original artwork by comic book artists.

"Five Deadly Rebels" Apple Audiobook
Own the COMPLETE "Five Deadly Rebels" audiobook ft. music by Wu-Tang Clan on your Apple device!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

WATCH THE PODCAST TRAILER ON YOUTUBE

Listen to more podcasts by DimensionGate on our Apple Podcast Channel and Spotify.

Website / Instagram / Twitter / YouTube / Company

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 6, Anger and Alpha.

Chapter 21: An End to Omniscience

Mickey jolts up from the bed, sweating, waking from a dream of crashing through a windshield, and immediately slaps his palm on the top of his head, feeling for a wound. He looks at his hand—clean. The mattress springs creak as he spins around, eyeing the tiny bedroom with pinkish walls, his mask, newsboy cap and clothes hanging from a chair beside the bed.

He wonders for a moment if he’s dead, and if this is heaven, but then he hears Buck snoring through the walls and decides he’s either alive, or maybe in hell.

The hardwood is cold at his feet as he sets off to explore outside the room. He notices that the boxers and tank top he’s wearing have been washed, smelling of lemon-scented fabric softener.

“Oi?” Mickey peaks out into the dark hallway ending in a tiny washroom one way, and a kitchen the other way.

Mickey wobbles towards the kitchen, still drowsy, and sees Mrs. Nakamoto, her back turned to him. She’s staring out a window facing the side of another house, and Mickey recognizes her short, plump frame under her kimono and her gray hair tied tight in a bun.

“Mrs. Nakamoto?” Mickey says under the archway into the kitchen, but she doesn’t respond. Mickey moseys over to her side, glad to see her, wondering if the Master is in the house, too.

“Mrs. Nakamoto,” Mickey smiles at her side, but she still doesn’t respond. Her eyes are locked on something outside the window, a slight grin on her lips.

“I can calculate the destiny of every civilization and individual in this world,” the Master says from the carpeted living room beyond another archway leading out of the kitchen. He’s sitting in a cushioned armchair facing away from Mickey. The worn-out chair looks as if it was bought from a thrift store. Mickey eyes the back of the Master’s bald, turquois head, his cat lying snuggled between his shoulder and the back cushion of the chair. Buck is snoring like a woodchipper on a sofa beside him. “I can calculate that my cat will jump from my shoulder in twenty seconds from now, stretch, then jump onto the windowsill to lick her right paw and brush it over her right ear, doing this three times. I can calculate the result of every action and reaction in this world to the exact second, yet I can’t remember my own wife’s face.”

And then the cat jumps from his shoulder, arches her back in a big stretch, and hops onto the windowsill at the front of the living room to groom herself.

Mickey ambles into the living room, the carpet warm at his feet, and stands just over the Master’s shoulder.

“I’ve tried many times to code Akiko perfectly, installing all her memories from her childhood to our wedding, her genetic design, her complete psychological profile, but I could never design her face perfectly. Something was always slightly off, like the curl of her smile, or the squint in her eyes, even the tilt of her head when she looked at me. When I met my favourite poet in this reality nine decades ago, I finally understood what he had meant. In your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which I cannot touch because they are too near.”

The Master stares at the cat in the windowsill for what feels like a long time to Mickey.

“Come, my pupil.”

Mickey squeezes between the armchair and the sofa, glancing at Buck sleeping on his back, his bucket hat covering his face yet doing nothing to muffle his incessant snoring. 

“Sit,” says the Master.

Mickey presses his palms together at his forehead, then kneels in front of the Master like he had done so many times in the Third Chamber years ago. The Master’s formal three-piece suit clashes against the old armchair with its tearing fabric, a sharp contrast from the wooden throne in the Five Chambers, and Mickey wonders what brought him from his gated mansion into this small, modest home. 

“It’s time now, my child, for you to know the truth.”

Mickey nods, but can barely stand Buck’s snoring, so he leans over and kicks the sofa which wakes Buck for a second, who smacks his lips a couple of time before snoring again, even louder.

“Fookin’ buckethead,” says Mickey under his breath.

“I will explain the best I can in a way that you will understand.”

Mickey nods.

“The reality we are in is a simulation, like a video game in virtual reality, but so advanced that you cannot distinguish what is real and what is the game.”

“I played GTA San Andreas once, it was dope,” interrupts Mickey.

The Master pauses, and despite having no face, Mickey can feel his scowl.

“Sorry, Master,” Mickey lowers his eyes. “Go on.”

“The people in my reality created this simulation as an exact replica of our own reality, starting the simulation in the year 3100 B.C., the beginning of written history. One hundred and forty-four thousand of us were chosen to be uploaded into this simulation with the singular purpose of preserving the survival of human consciousness. I was one of the chosen. We call ourselves the Anonymous.”

“Wait, there’s more of you? Faceless and powerful and shit?” Mickey squints, a seed of belief beginning to sprout in his mind.

“Faceless, no. Formless. We choose our form here. We can look like one of you, or like this. We live amongst you, anonymously, watching, observing, existing. Two thousand seven hundred years ago, in this reality, I took the form of a Greek man and lived in the Isle of Crete. I sailed on fleets of small ships to every island and harbor in the Mediterranean, trading garments in Egypt and Babylonia. Our ships even sailed into the open Atlantic to Ireland to take their gold, and to Cornwall and Devon to take their tin. As the centuries passed, I am still unsure if I ever crossed paths with another Anonymous, for our forms, our names, our identities, are always changing. Our only law is to remain anonymous and never to attempt to disrupt the determined path of the simulation destined to create another simulation within this one, and then another simulation within the next one, and so on, ensuring that the Anonymous will exist infinitely, by theory, fulfilling our human instinct to persist in our existence, hard coded in our genetics from birth.”

“Fookin’ hell,” Mickey feels his mind begin to strain, pushing through the shock, trusting the Master unconditionally. “Then what am I, like a non-player character in GTA? To be runover and shit?”

“No, my pupil. You are a program based on a real human that once existed in my reality. An exact replica. But do not fret, my child. A song playing on a device is not the device itself. You may break the device into pieces, but the song can still play on other devices. You are a song, my child, as am I.”

“So, wait, the real me is, like, in your reality?”

“The reality I speak of no longer exists, my child—a part of the past, where my past self and your past self once existed.”

“Wait, wait,” Mickey rattles his head. “Did you, like, train me there, too?”

“No, we did not cross paths, but still, I know everything about you there, from your birth to your death.”

“Fookin’ A,” says Mickey. “How did I die, like a bad ass?”

“Nothing extraordinary, and irrelevant now.”

“Did I get into the UFC?”

“It is better you do not know, my pupil.”

Mickey kisses his teeth.

“Your fate as it was in my reality is moot now, because here, it is unknown. I, as with all the Anonymous, have been installed with an algorithm in our consciousness that can calculate the future of any individual, among many other things. But after I have intervened in your life, even I cannot calculate your fate.”

“You’re like fookin’ Nostradamus!” Mickey’s eyes brighten. “Hold on, wait a minute, was the broski Nostradamus one of you, Anonymous, or whatever?”

The Master laughs, and Mickey is taken aback, having never heard the Master laugh before.

“The Anonymous had a theory about that, actually, and reliving the history of our reality was one of the factors in agreeing to construct the simulation as an exact replica—to watch and study those that deemed themselves prophets, who had changed the course of civilization itself, like Jesus of Nazareth, or the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We theorized that perhaps our reality was a simulation as well, and these prophets from our histories were beings from the reality that created our simulation, to guide us towards preservation. But I had witnessed and met with all these great men, anonymously, and discovered that they were only human, but they were anomalies, gifted with minds that worked like an advanced algorithm, similar to the mind I possess. The law of determinism dictates that any genesis action leads to a predicated reaction that leads to another predicated reaction, and so on, all beginning from a genesis action. Human anomalies can envision in their minds the outcome of any genesis action, even centuries in the future, in the same way that Mozart at four years old looked at the keys of a piano and saw a sonata in his mind. Or Blaise Pascal at eleven years old who looked at an advanced mathematical equation and saw the answer in his mind. But these children can only express their visions within the context of their own perception.”

The Master reaches into his inside suit pocket and digs out a small notepad and pen, knowing he’d be using it in this moment.

“John the Elder, another anomaly, wrote in the Book of Revelations, ‘No man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name…666.’  His algorithmic mind saw a vision of a future with a man, or a thing, that he described as a beast, powerful, oppressive.”

The Master writes on the notepad.

“The Book of Revelations was written in the year 96 A.D. on the island of Patmos under Roman rule, so when John the Elder saw the numbers 666 in his vision, he saw them as Roman numerals.”

The Master shows Mickey what he had written on the notepad—the roman numeral six written three times side by side: VI VI VI.

“The English alphabet had not yet been invented,” the Master continues. “So, when John the Elder saw a vision of a future enslaved by a beast baring the letters W W W, he saw what looked to him as the Roman numeral six written three times in row.”

“The world wide web,” Mickey whispers.

“And no man might buy or sell without it,” the Master paraphrases the verse. “It has already begun, in this reality, buying and selling online, the labor force gradually transitioning to working exclusively online, and one day, as it had happened in my reality near its end, everything will be dependent on the web, from our wealth to our identities. Stores of brick and mortar will cease to exist. Robotic A.I. will manufacture everything, drive our vehicles, even cook our meals delivered by drones. The poor, the many, without access to the web, will remain oppressed, discarded, while the rich few will continue to build on the web, seek inwards, until finally, the inevitable—only a portion of humanity will survive in consciousness, uploaded into a simulated digital reality, the one we are in right now, my child—the Metaverse. While the poor, the many, will perish when the world ends.”

“The end of the world?” Mickey squints. “The broski Nostradamus said the anti-Christ or some shit would end the world.”

“But is the anti-Christ a man, or is it a thing? And is the end of the world a death, or a transformation into a new one?”

Mickey rattles his head again, shaking off a sudden headache.

“The end is inevitable, my pupil, but the way the world ends doesn’t have to be. John the Elder wrote in the Book of Revelations that one hundred and forty-four thousand would be saved, and his calculation was correct. But in this reality, what if all people had the freedom to choose to persist or not persist when the world ends—people like you, my child, or my younger self and my young love, meeting in two hours and seven minutes today in a subway train in Tokyo.”

“Your younger self?” says Mickey.

“Yes, about your age now.”

“Why don’t you say what’s up to him? And Mrs. Nakamoto! I would.”

“I can already see them, my child. Interacting with them would be the same as speaking to my wife in the kitchen now. These are things I cannot touch because they are too near,” says the Master.

Mickey rattles his head again. “If this is all a fookin’ simulation, then nothin’ is fookin’ real.”

The Master stands and walks around the armchair.

“What is real is simply what one perceives through sensory data. The smell of your favorite dish, the flutter in your chest when you kiss the one you love, the warmth of your mother’s embrace, whether this stimuli is generated from a computer or from a physical plane, your perception remains the same.”

The Master creeps closer to the kitchen and folds his hands behind his back.

“Even my reality, where I’m from, may have been a simulation. There is no way to know for sure. Even OA could not predict with certainty what created the universe we were born into.”

“OA?”

“A supercomputer, my child, that will be invented in this reality soon, in the year 2061, which can predict the determined results of everything in this world, but it will be centralized, controlled by the few. And when the few asked OA in its final version, if our universe was a simulation, it only offered a percentage of likelihood—68.1 percent—hardly an answer. But data, by definition, is limited. When one ponders the creator, one could imagine God, or imagine beings who created a simulation we are in, but both answers are the same—a concept of a creator that exists beyond our limited data—unknowable—even to the Anonymous, and to Open Algorithm installed in us.”

“Then what’s the fookin’ point of it all then?”

“We all have our reasons to persist,” says the Master, looking at Mrs. Nakamoto, still staring out the kitchen window, slightly hunched over, as if waiting patiently for someone to finally come home.
 
 

“This is why, in 2008, I set forth a genesis action to disrupt the resources, the currency, and the ownership of the Metaverse yet to be created. More powerful than any program, or any algorithm, is an idea—a vision—that spreads from person to person until the idea becomes collective belief. And so, I wrote what I named the Bitcoin Whitepaper, and released the idea into the ether. An idea that did not exist in my previous reality.”

Mickey’s eyebrows furrow, having studied the whitepaper after seeing the Master hang the ledger around Number One’s neck in the Five Chambers.

“Satoshi Nakamoto,” whispers Mickey.

“That was my name thousands of years ago in my reality. But the name means nothing to the Anonymous. Our identities in our reality died when the world died. In this reality, I’ve had many names, and many forms. My younger self has already read the whitepaper, believing the name a coincidence. I had hoped that one day, somehow, he’d have an inkling of a premonition that he was somehow connected to this idea that might change the order of the world and the fair distribution of wealth, resources and information. The idea spread into the masses in the years following, as Bitcoin and all the crypto currencies birthed from it reached mass adoption, rising and falling in value, and will inevitably rise again in the decades to come. But sadly, I’ve seen the math, and calculated that the rich few, and not the many, will inevitably control these currencies as well, for their own gain. And the Metaverse will, again, become centralized.”

The Master turns and meanders through the living room, sitting back in his armchair. Buck chokes on a snore, waking him, then turns over onto his side and snores again, quieter now.

“And so, I set forth on yet another genesis action. Five pupils—five rebels—released into the world with the possession of five percent of all the Bitcoin in existence by the year 2040. Predictions from the common people have valued this reserve in the billions, but my calculations are empirical, and I know with absolute certainty that this reserve will be valued in the multi-trillions. And one of you will possess this wealth.

“You see, my child, in my reality, in the end, the injustices of capitalism did not ultimately breed poverty, hunger, or homelessness, it stole the freedom of choice from the many, and granted this freedom to the few. My dream for this reality is freedom of choice for all—choose to persist in the next simulation, or choose not to, but the choice is what matters. The Metaverse will again be created in this reality, that is inevitable, but in this loop, I dream it will belong to all. It will be decentralized.”

Mickey scratches his cornrows, a seed of understanding, not quite sprouting yet, but beginning to crack open very gradually in his mind.

“I’ve set forth an astronomical number of genesis actions that could possibly disrupt the determined path of this reality, and I’ve seen all the possible iterations in the math. But this singular action, training you five, releasing you into the world with access to this wealth, and with the freedom of your own individual choice—this was the only action that resulted in a destiny even I could not calculate. An open ending, my child—open for a change that you five may yet possibly deploy.”

“But how can we?”

“You already have, my child,” says the Master with immense gratitude in his tone. Mickey takes notice of this and feels something he’s never felt before—a feeling he couldn’t describe. “Go to sleep, my child, you will wake in five hours, you will have breakfast with Buck, and you will leave at 6:16am.”

“What happens to us after that?” 

“I don’t know,” says the Master in another tone that Mickey has never heard before—a tone that is human.

“Goodnight, Mickey,” says the Master.

They place their palms to their foreheads.

Buck spews out a snore so loud that it wakes him up. He’s thrown into a fit of coughing and squints through the darkness to see the living room empty, and then falls back asleep, snoring again within seconds.

Chapter 22: The Black Contract

“Thank you, Mrs. Nakamoto,” Buck and Mickey say in unison as she pours milk into their cereal bowls.

“You’re welcome, my dears,” she waddles adorably away to the fridge, returning the milk carton, and disappears into the hallway.

Mickey scoops a spoonful of cereal and brings it up to his mouth then stops himself when he hears Buck chewing loudly with his mouth open. Mickey hovers his spoon by his lips as he glares at Buck. 

“What?” Buck notices Mickey staring, still chewing, a small piece of cereal shooting out of his mouth.

Mickey eats anyway, humming a tune as he eats, trying to filter out the sounds of Buck’s slurps and lip smacking.

“Yo!” Buck jumps in his seat, his knee hitting the underside of the table, spilling some milk from his bowl.

Mickey peeks under the table and sees the cat brushing up on Buck’s leg.

“Fucking cat,” Buck nudges the cat away with his foot. 

“Leave him. Broski’s cool,” Mickey lowers a spoonful of milk under the table and the cat smells it before lapping it up.

“Cats are the devil, fam. Look at their eyes. Devil eyes, still. Deadass.”

“Lizards and cats have the same eyes, init?” Mickey points at the lizard tattoo on Buck’s face. 

“Nah, fam, snakes and cats have the same eyes. Fuck snakes, too.”

His cereal finished, Buck lifts his bowl to his lips and guzzles down the sugary milk in one gulp.

“So, fam, you going to tell me what Number Two told you?” Buck asks, wiping his milk moustache with his sleeve.

Mickey raises his finger in the air as he takes his time chewing, then swallows. “She said she would tell me where to find the ledger if I promised her somethin’, because, you know, I can’t break promises and shit.”

“And?”

Mickey raises his finger again as he chews another bite, and Buck can feel his impatience turning into irritation in his chest.

“Anyway,” Mickey swallows. “She said she’ll tell me where the ledger is if I used half the money in there to start some fookin’ foundation that pays for healthcare for everyone in the fookin’ world. The Ernesto Azucena Foundation, that’s what she told me to call it. I promised her, she told me, and that was that.”

“Half!” Buck erupts with laughter. “Sorry, fam, the other half is mine, so I guess you’re shit out of luck,” he gets up to pour himself another bowl of cereal.

“Oh well,” Mickey shovels another spoonful into his mouth.

“That don’t bother you?”

Mickey shrugs then swallows. “Is what it is.”

Buck shakes his head and sits back down at the table with a full bowl.

“So, what you gonna do with your half?” says Mickey.

“Well,” mumbles Buck, his mouth stuffed with cereal. “Let’s just say if there was a spot that could cover that bet, there ain’t any, but just saying, if there was, I’d put it all down on black. Go big or go home, you feel me?”

Mickey looks up from his bowl to see if Buck is smiling, but he isn’t. He’s dead serious. 

Mickey gets up, throws his empty bowl into the sink then heads to the washroom.

Buck stops chewing to look around, checking if anyone’s looking, then kicks the cat under the table, sending it scurrying away. Milk drools down Buck’s chin as he giggles.

-----

The dawn light shines through the front screen door, gleaming off the Master’s polished turquoise head. Buck and Mickey bow to him, their masks in their hands.

“I’ll tell Mrs. Nakamoto that you both say goodbye,” says the Master.

“Will we see you again?” says Mickey.

“No, my child, but you’ll remember me.”

Mickey bows again when Buck nudges him. “We going or what, fam?”

Mickey opens his mouth to cuss him out when the Master interrupts, “It’s time to go, my pupils,” the Master pushes the screen door open.

Buck is the first out the door, fiddling with his makeshift keyless remote as he strides towards the Honda parked at the curb.

“Thank you, Master,” Mickey bows one final time then follows Buck.

The Master watches them through the screen door as they motor off on their way to Newark.

The cat brushes against the Master’s leg and starts pawing at the bottom of the door. Pushing the door open again, the cat dashes across the lawn and down the street in the direction of Buck and Mickey.

“My dear?” says Mrs. Nakamoto behind the Master, stepping through the archway of the kitchen and onto the carpeted floor of the living room. “Something’s wrong.” 

The Master turns to see Mrs. Nakamoto, confusion etching into her face, a straight line of burning orange embers sloping across the front of her kimono from her left shoulder to her right hip. 

“I’m so sorry, my love,” says the Master as Mrs. Nakamoto’s torso slides into two halves—her head, arm, and shoulder flopping lifelessly onto the carpet. Her severed body from belly down still stands for a few moments, its open wound seared black, sealing in any blood from spilling out. The standing half is still smoking before it collapses onto the floor in a heap of folded legs. 

In the darkness of the kitchen glows the white blade of a medieval broadsword, burning so white-hot that even the moisture in the air steams around it. The razor tip of the sword moves out of the shadows of the kitchen and into the light of the living room, revealing its wide blade creeping slowly into the light, wider and wider, until ending in a two-handed hilt gripped easily by the slender hand of a woman, gloved in black vinyl, holding up the heavy sword as if it were as light as a palm leaf.

And then the Black Contract steps out into the light that glistens off her polished obsidian head, faceless, like the Master, but the top of her head is transparent, exposing her brain, a woven mass the color of mercury, folding and grooving like valleys and landscapes.

Her thin neck wrapped in an emerald fish-net choker dips into her fitted purple hoodie, cropped just below her breasts, revealing her hourglass figure in a black vinyl bodysuit, squeezing her slim body down to her knee-high stiletto boots of black leather. She steps forward through the wooden archway into the living room and between the two halves of Mrs. Nakamoto on the floor. The living room walls burst into flames only from being near the white-hot sword. The fire spreads across the walls as she stalks forward into the Master.

The Master turns his back to her and looks out through the screen door, staring up at an airplane blinking silently over the dawn horizon.

“Go on,” he says. “Fulfill your automation.”

Chapter 23: Anger and Alpha

Liu-Chin sits at the edge of the sweat and semen stained bed, buttoning up his black dress shirt. The night table beside the bed is strewn with used condoms, condom wrappers, and a TV remote. A teenage girl lies behind him on the bed, naked under a bundled up bedsheet only covering her torso.

The flatscreen TV mounted on the wall is showing a porn video of an orgy. The air is thick with the smell of cheap perfume and the muffled moaning of men through the thin walls around them.

Liu-Chin’s phone chimes. Cold adrenaline rises up from his stomach to his chest as he checks his phone, reading an alert from the NYPD face-recognition program scanning live images from toll booth cameras in Queens. It had found a match that Liu-Chin had flagged as tier one priority.

Tapping on his phone screen, Liu-Chin eyes the photo of two men through the windshield of a Honda, one wearing an army green bucket hat, but the other, wearing a red newsboy cap over a dark thermoplastic mask with thick eyepieces, is the one that triggered the alert.

Liu-Chin’s breath quickens as he types the license plate of the Honda into a text message to Queens Finest dispatch. He taps send before shooting up to his feet, scrambling to knot his necktie.

“Excuse me, sir?” the girl behind Liu-Chin squeaks. “Would it be okay if I change the channel?”

Liu-Chin tosses the remote onto the bed and the girl points it at the TV, changing the channel to a cartoon on the Disney Network.

Liu-Chin straps his backpack on and rushes through the door into the hall, but stops to glance back at the girl through the doorway as the door slowly swings to a close. She’s sitting cross-legged on the mattress now, staring up at the TV, hugging the bundled up bedsheet like a pillow over her lap and chest, her eyes wide with excitement, her lips parting into a smile as the door slams shut.

-----

“Bad Bunny,” says Buck, his long braids hanging out from under his bucket hat, his mask on his lap under the steering wheel.

“Human,” says the Blinder, scanning the passing dark alleys through his eyepieces, on the lookout for any dangers that might be hiding in the shadows, particularly a motorcycle rider with a dark, horned mask.

“Lebron James,” says Buck.

“Human.”

“Drake,” says Buck.

“Human.”

“No way,” says Buck. “Anonymous. I bet you ten bands.”

“Why you always finna bet on everything?”

“That’s cap,” says Buck. “I don’t always finna bet, just when I see an edge, fam. And Drake’s obvious, fam. How can mans be fruity and hard at the same time? How do all the mandem hate the nigga and still be all up on his dick? Mans ain’t human, fam, deadass.”

“Fanboy,” the Blinder shakes his head.

“One hundred percent, fam!” says Buck. “Omerta? Money in the Grave?” Buck kisses his teeth.

“How we gonna settle the bet anyway? Ask him: ‘Yo, Drake, you one of them Anonymous?’”

“Easy. We roll up on him with a shotty. Watch him stop them bullets, still.”

“You know what?” says the Blinder. “Let me out the whip. I dunno what I was thinkin’. I can’t be seen with this fookin’ buckethead.”

“Yo, you made a promise, fam.”

“Don’t fookin’ remind me.” 

Buck taps on the brakes, slowing down behind a slow-moving line of cars waiting at a toll booth leading into Queens.

“Fuck,” says Buck. 

“What?”

“I fucking hate Queens.” 

“No way around it, broski.”

Buck kisses his teeth, knowing the Blinder is right. Long Island, Queens, Manhattan, New Jersey, then Newark—that was the only way through.

Buck reaches the booth, tosses some coins into the toll basket, and speeds away into the streets of Queens. 

The Blinder scans every dark alley and every shadowy underpass they drive by. Their tires grind on asphalt as the sun beat down on the abandoned houses and low rises around them, some of their walls marred with gang graffiti. The Blinder hears gunfire echo in the distance.

Half an hour passes when they enter the heart of Queens, the rundown neighborhoods turning into commercial buildings surrounding them on both sides.

“SZA,” says Buck.

“Anonymous,” says the Blinder.

“Facts,” says Buck.

Suddenly, a police siren blares behind them—a single cruiser tailgates them, flashing its lights.

“Shit,” Buck squeezes the steering wheel.

Mickey takes off his mask and slides it under his seat. “Told you to slow your ass down.”

“Nah, fam, the car is hot,” Buck slips his Glock out from his waistband and hides it under his thigh.

Mickey laughs. “Oh, I thought this was your whip, oi?” says Mickey, sarcastically.

“Shut the fuck up and let me think,” Buck digs out a folded wad of hundreds wrapped in a rubber band from his inside coat pocket and pulls the Honda over at the side of the road, the cruiser parking behind them, lights still flashing.

“So, what’s your plan, broski?”

“I’ll handle this.”

Mickey smiles and shakes his head. “I gotta see this.”

“Roll down your windows and let me see your hands,” a voice shouts from a loudspeaker behind them.

Buck sits the wad of cash on the dashboard and sticks both his hands out his window. Mickey does the same from the passenger side.

“Leave your hands where they are,” the loudspeaker clicks off. From his side view mirror, Buck can see the cop step out from the cruiser, walking towards his driver side, his hand resting on his pistol at his hip.

“Exit the car slowly,” the cop orders Buck, a meter away from his window.

“Maybe there’s another way, fam,” Buck points at the wad of cash on the dashboard with his eyes.

The cop draws his pistol and aims it at Buck who notices the Patek Philippe watch fastened onto his left wrist. “Exit the car, slowly, now.”

Buck freezes, and Mickey beside him can’t help himself from smirking, but doesn’t know exactly why.

The cop steps closer to Buck, cocking his pistol. “I said…”

Buck lunges through his window and grabs the cop’s wrist, pulling his pistol into the car and slamming him against the side of the door. The pistol fires harmlessly into the Honda’s radio as Buck buries the nozzle of his Glock into the cop’s face.

In a flash, the Blinder jolts over Buck and slaps the Glock as it fires a bullet that grazes the cop’s ear, then slams his foot on the gas pedal over Buck’s feet.

The cop is dragged a few yards before Buck lets go of his wrist, sending him tumbling across the pavement.

Buck shoves Mickey away, taking control of the accelerating car, glancing into his rear view mirror at the cop rising to his feet, his radio at his mouth. 

“Are you stupid are you dumb!” Buck floors the gas pedal, tires screeching, engine roaring. “You see! He’s calling his boys. Bare mandem coming at us now. We should’ve bodied that nigga!”

“No innocent kills. I made a prom…”

“Don’t say it!” Buck stops him short. “Don’t fucking say it!” Buck kisses his teeth and fastens his mask onto his face. The Blinder does the same.

“I say we lay low for now, broski. Park in some alley,” the Blinder says under his mask.

“Fuck that, fam. We going to Newark and scoring that ledger.” Buck swerves wide at an intersection, running a redlight, hurtling down the next street, weaving through honking traffic.

Buck hears the sound of police cruisers closing in from every direction, their wailing sirens swelling louder as his heart pounds harder.

Swerving and skidding through the streets, Buck sees two cruisers speeding out of an adjacent street ahead and shoots past them. 

Within seconds, Buck’s rear windshield lights up with flashing lights, the two cruisers clinging to his tail.

Speeding through a redlight, cars swerve out of Buck’s way, crashing into each other. Buck grits his teeth, gripping then regripping the steering wheel, gunning the engine, feeling like he’s driving through a warzone.

Suddenly, Buck careens around a sharp turn, nearly throwing off the cruisers.

Buck skids around another corner, weaving in and out of traffic with reckless abandon. 

Hurling through another redlight, Buck nicks the tail end of a crossing car, sending it spinning, metal debris flying everywhere. 

In his rear view, Buck sees an opening between the two cruisers and slams on the brakes, skidding to a stop then shifting into reverse, sending the cruisers hurtling past him on both sides. 

Speeding away in reverse, Buck whirls the steering wheel, spinning the front end of the Honda around to face the road ahead, then shifts back into drive and slams his boot into the gas pedal, the sound of sirens fading off into the distance.

Turning into a narrow alley, Buck nervously checks his rear view and slows to a casual speed.

“You been in a lot of chases, broski?” says the Blinder, startling Buck who forgot he was even there. “You must’ve stole a fook ton of whips in your day, init?”

Buck doesn’t answer, busy listening for sirens. Manhattan is close now, and then New Jersey, and Buck can already see himself holding the gold ledger in his hand.

Back on a main street, Buck sees the front end of two other cruisers facing each other, peeking out from two alleys on opposite sides of the road, ready to close in on each other to block him, but Buck pushes the Honda to its limits, and hurtles through the two cruisers just as they shoot out of the alleys. 

Buck guns down the street, the two cruisers closing in on him. In his rear view, Buck sees three more cruisers behind him, sirens shrieking, as if they came out of nowhere.

To his left side ahead, Buck sees a pedestrian staircase sloping down a grass hill onto a lower street. Buck jerks the steering wheel left, cranking the parking brake at the same time, his screeching tires leaving trails of black on the pavement as he drifts sideways before releasing the parking brake and gunning straight towards the staircase, launching the Honda down its steps, destroying its handrails. Three pedestrians dive out of Buck’s way, falling onto the grass.

The front fender of the Honda sparks on the sidewalk at the bottom of the staircase and flies off, scraping across the lower street as the Honda spins to a stop.  With a final burst of speed, Buck launches forward, crashing through a construction barricade, the police sirens fading away behind him as Buck weaves through parked construction vehicles then back onto the open road.

“Fuck yeah!” Buck yells, extending out his fist to dap the Blinder who stares at Buck blankly. “Fuck you then,” Buck puts his hand back on the steering wheel.

Buck relaxes, slowing his pace.

Driving steady through a greenlight, Buck turns his head left to peer down the adjacent road and sees a line of cruisers speeding along beside him on the next parallel street, their sirens on silent.

“Shit, I knew it,” Buck swerves right and races through a short tunnel then out into a narrow street.

Suddenly, seven cruisers fly into the intersection ahead, sending Buck swerving left through an underpass and into another alley. Buck checks his rear view mirror and sees the cruisers locked onto his trail.

Hurling out of the alley, he careens into a wide, empty street, tires screeching as he fishtails out of control.

“Fuck!” Buck jerks the steering wheel back and forth, desperate to regain control, when a cruiser slams into the rear side of the Honda, sending them spinning.

The Honda spins to a stop and the cruisers skid into a circle, surrounding them on all sides, their headlights shining on them like spotlights. All the doors of the cruisers swing open in unison, cops crouching behind them like shields.

A bullet shoots through the Honda’s windshield and whizzes by the Blinder’s head.

“Hold your fire! Liu-Chin’s orders!” the Blinder hears one of the cops yell, then watches them all holster their guns and slide their black nightsticks out from their belt loops.

“Oi, they won’t fire at us, broski,” the Blinder tells Buck as he steps out from the passenger side, ready for the onslaught to come.

Buck stays seated, watching a dozen cops creep past their cruisers with nightsticks in hand, closing in on them from every direction.

Suddenly, Buck’s driver side door swings open, and defying gravity, he plants his boot soles onto the asphalt and leaps high over one of the cruisers, rising higher and away as if shot out from a canon.

And then the cops swarm the Blinder, swinging their nightsticks at him from every angle. The Blinder takes two blows to his forearm, hardened like stone from years of training in the Third Chamber, then fires a swift muay Thai front kick to one of the cops’ faces, knocking the consciousness out of him as he flops onto the ground, asleep.

The Blinder dodges the next two blows and counters with a series of muay Thai hooks, elbows and uppercuts, striking with deadly precision, the sound of flesh hitting flesh filling the air. Four officers crumple onto the street, knocked out, their nightsticks clattering on the pavement. 

The seven remaining officers all step back, eyeing each other as the Blinder bounces lightly on his toes.

Meters away, down the street, Buck lands safely onto his feet, not even bending a knee, as if he had hopped off a step stool. He whips his head back to check on the Blinder when the side of a drifting motorcycle rams into his back, sending him sliding across the asphalt. 

Dazed, Buck pushes himself up by his arms and looks back, seeing the Biker in an all-black suit and dark, horned helmet, dismounting his matte-black MTT 420-RR motorcycle as if in slow motion in Buck’s vision.

“Number Five,” Buck whispers to himself.

Buck plants his feet on the ground and hurtles himself up into the air, but with impossible speed, the Biker is already under him, locking Buck’s ankle in a kung fu grip, pulling him back down to his feet.

Face to face now, Buck releases a flurry of karate punches, throwing his fists from his sides, twisting his hips with each blow, the weight of his body behind every punch. The Biker, using snake style kung fu, writhes around each punch, the joints of his body rolling and rotating, a blur of fluid motion.

The Biker stiffens his hand flat, his fingers pressed tight together, his arm rolling at the elbow and wrist, resembling a snake about to strike. And before Buck can even lift his forearm for an Age-Uke rising block, the Biker’s fingertips strike the side of Buck’s neck, sending a jolt up into his head, blurring his vision.

Desperate, Buck drops low to the ground then propels himself up for a gravity defying escape, and again, the Biker locks onto Buck’s ankle midair, but this time hurtles him flat onto his face, his forehead bouncing off the pavement, knocking him out.

Back inside the circle of cruisers, the seven officers charge into the Blinder with nightsticks raised. The Blinder weaves, dodges and blocks every blow, his body spinning like a whirlwind, countering every stunted attack with devastating muay Thai kicks and knees into the heads and chests of the officers. One officer falls unconscious, then another, and then another, until there is only one left.

The lone officer is the smallest of the bunch. Backstepping, his nightstick rattles in his hand.

The Blinder slowly shakes his finger side to side, a warning to the small officer to give up.

Further down the street, the Biker locks Buck’s wrists into handcuffs behind his back as a police cruiser skids to stop in front of Buck’s body lying face down on the ground, the cruiser’s headlights shining on him, alone—the Biker already gone.

The Blinder turns to see the new cruiser flashing down the street and two officers lifting Buck’s limp body by his arms, and then the small officer sees his chance.

Screaming, the small officer rushes at the Blinder with his nightstick raised high above his head, but the Blinder steps into him instead, launching a downward muay Thai elbow strike across the small officer’s forehead, splitting his skin open in a long straight line across his brow before he crumples into a heap at the Blinder’s feet.

Then the Blinder looks up and sees him—the Biker—entering the ring of police cruisers like he’s entering an arena.

The Biker scans the twelve unconscious officers littering the ground around the Blinder.

“Number Three,” says the Biker behind the horned face-shield of his helmet.

A memory flashes in the Blinder’s mind, of the Fifth Chamber with its hundreds of crossbow bolts stuck into the chamber walls and floors, successfully dodged by whoever trained there. The broken bolts scattered throughout the chamber’s floor were clearly broken in midair, and the Blinder thinks to himself, he really doesn’t know shit about shit, but he knows one thing for sure—Number Five is fast as fuck.

“You’re good,” says the Biker. “But do you think your muay Thai can beat my kung fu?”

The Blinder cracks his knuckles on both hands then tilts his head to the side, cracking his neck. “I guess we gonna find out, init?” The Blinder drops into a narrow muay Thai stance, his bare knuckles raised to his chin.

The Biker drops even lower into a wide tiger style stance, his back leg bent low, his front leg stretched out straight, one hand raised high above his head in a tiger paw fist. 

They stare, each sizing the other up. The sirens atop the cruisers are silent now. Only their spinning red and blue lights are flashing on both the Biker and the Blinder waiting to find out what their hearts are really worth.

But then the Blinder feels the metal of a handcuff lock onto his ankle. He looks down and sees the small officer lying at his feet, groggy, bleeding profusely from his forehead, the Blinder’s ankle cuffed to his wrist.

“Shit,” the Blinder says under his breath when another officer who had regained consciousness tackles him from behind. The Blinder’s chest slams onto the pavement. The officer jams his knee into the Blinder’s spine as he cuffs both the Blinder’s hands behind his back.

The Blinder lifts his head to look up at the Biker who isn’t there anymore. There is only the shouting from the officer pinning him down, and the sound of more sirens wailing in the distance.

To be continued next Wednesday in Five Deadly Rebels, Episode 7: The Vengeance of Freed Slaves, 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.