Episode 7: The Vengeance of Freed Slaves

"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.

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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 7, The Vengeance of Freed Slaves.

“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 24: Pit Bulls and Gorillas

The officer escorting Buck from behind squeezes his handcuffs, biting its metal into his wrists, and uses Buck’s bruised forehead to slam open the front doors of the police precinct in Queens.

“Fuck!” Buck yells and stumbles onto the cold linoleum floor of a long hallway gleaming with harsh fluorescent lights and stretching out into the echoes of men shouting, the occasional clanking of metal bars, and the constant cursing of male unrest.

The Blinder follows behind them, escorted by two officers on each side, gripping each arm. The Blinder thinks the other cops he thrashed earlier must be in the hospital now because these officer’s faces are fresh and pumped with aggression.

At the end of the hallway, a large space opens up into the deafening cacophony of overlapping voices shouting gang signals and street blocks. This is the largest precinct in Queens, and the Blinder has heard of it before—Queens Finest HQ. 

A long, raised counter guards the entrance into the vast, chaotic room behind it—its countertop eye level to Buck and the Blinder now pressed up against the counter’s steel rail. A stocky officer, chewing on a big bite from his sub sandwich sits on a stool behind the counter, towering above Buck and the Blinder.

“Throw that one in Queensbridge,” the stocky officer motions to Buck. “And that one in Southeast. Take off their fucking masks.”

“Liu-Chin wants them on,” the officer behind Buck says.

“Copy that,” the stocky officer swallows his food and doesn’t think twice about it.

The officers lead Buck and the Blinder around the counter through a dank, open area with wooden benches against its walls, then into a wide corridor between two long jail cells on each side, stretching out into dark corners where the ceiling lights are either turned off or broken.

The cells are crowded, bristling with restless energy. Some of the cellmates pace the floor like caged animals, their eyes sparkling with unpredictability. Others sit on metal benches mounted to the walls, but even their eyes glare with an undercurrent of tension, always present.

The cells seem like living, breathing entities within themselves, the Blinder thinks to himself—beasts in their own right. And the Blinder minces forward, ready to be thrown into the belly of one of them.

But Buck is first. They stop as Buck’s officer unlatches a long key on a big metal ring from his belt, unlocks the heavy door of the cell housing the Queensbridge gangsters and shoves Buck inside. The barred door closes behind him with a hollow clang that echoes loudly, even in the noisy room. 

“Grab the bars,” the officer orders. Buck knows the drill. He backs up and takes hold of an iron bar in each hand as the officer removes his handcuffs.

Buck rubs his wrists as he scans a sea of hostile stares, but Buck meets all their gazes, unwavering. His cell isn’t as crowded as the other, about fifteen or sixteen men by Buck’s quick count—half the crowd of the other cell. This makes Buck feel like luck is on his side once again, and he smiles under his mask, strutting his way to an empty bench against the wall. 

The Blinder knows the drill just as well as Buck, and after going through the motions, he finds himself inside the cell full of gangsters from Southeast Queens. He feels a familiar tension knotting his muscles as he treads through the floor of pacing cellmates, well aware that any accidental collision or eye contact can break into open violence that the Blinder was simply not in the mood for.

To minimize the violence, or rather the hassle of violence, Queens Finest strategically separated the Queensbridge gangsters from all their ops repping Southeast Queens, jam packing the Blinder’s cell with gangsters from South Jamaica, Shady Ville, Hollis and FarRoc. Way too crowded, the Blinder thinks to himself. The Bloods and Crips from Southeast Queens held a decade-long truce, but still, both factions and some smaller crews all create invisible lines within the cell, all keeping within their boundaries. But Me Loco paces freely through every line. 

Me Loco is the Shot Caller of the 99 G’s in FarRoc that consisted mostly of black members from Jamaica and Haiti, but they all followed this Latino brute, almost seven feet tall, his face covered with so many tattoos that it seems to be completely painted in black ink, even his eyelids. 

Along the benches sits a crew of Somalians, a skinny white kid with a tatted up forehead, and some Vietnamese gangsters bearing the tattoos of the defunct Chinese Triad Motorcycle Club, now broken up into smaller crews doing small time shit just to survive.

The Blinder plods towards a dark corner where the benches are empty when a foul stench stops him in his tracks. Looking down, his eyes meet with the lifeless eyes of dark-skinned kid, barely out of his teens, his corpse lying on its side and tucked away under the corner bench.

“Broski’s dead,” the Blinder says out loud, eliciting a wave of muffled laughter around the cell.

Swallowing down a sudden punch of nausea, the Blinder turns and sees an open spot on a bench beside a West Indian dude. Probably Trini, the Blinder thinks to himself. The word HOLLIS is tattooed on the side of his clean shaven head. His thick arms bulge out from his black wifebeater and the Blinder thinks he’s a man who can take care of himself if needed to.

“Wham on yuh eyes, padner?” the Trini says to the Blinder, taking the seat beside him. 

“Can’t see without ’em,” the Blinder says.

“Glaucoma? Meh nani got dat,” he says. “Aye za Dooby,” he extends his fist for a dap. 

“Blinder,” the Blinder taps Dooby’s knuckles with his.

“So how much babylon tryna lick out from yuh?” asks Dooby.

“Nothin’,” the Blinder shrugs.

“Ah eh able! Yuh here legit?” Dooby laughs.

“Legit?”

“All de badjohn here for tribute, padner. We waitin’ for hoss to pay babylon, one time. Yuh understand?”

And, as if Dooby manifested it, the front doors to the precinct open and a tall, lanky Somalian kid in a black hoodie strolls up to the stocky officer behind the counter and hands him a brown, paper bag. The Blinder can see the officer dig out a thick wad of fifties and twenties and starts counting them.

Dismounting the tall stool which seems to exert some effort from the stocky officer, his boots clomp on the hard floor as he lumbers over to the cells. “Which of y’all are with this guy?” he points at the Somalian kid.

The Somalian crew stand up from their bench in the cell, all four of them, shuffling to the cell door as the stocky officer turns the lock and swings the heavy door open. They all lower their gaze as they brush past the officer and scurry out of the precinct with the lanky kid. 

In the other cell, Buck slouches on his bench, his arms crossed, his back resting against the wall, and his eyes closed under his bucket hat lowered over his mask. He doesn’t even notice the five Queensbridge gangsters looming over him.

“What’s up with the mask, homie? Who you hiding from?” says the big one. “You from Corona?” 

“Naw, I seen this hoe in Ravenwood,” says one of his cronies.

“You from Ravenwood, homie?” says the big one. Buck makes like he’s asleep, not to avoid the question, but because he doesn’t care to answer.

“You know some hoe with a bucket hat smoked Zeebo last week,” says the crony. 

“Was that you, homie? You from Ravenwood?” says the big one. 

“I think he is, look at him, all scared and shit,” says the crony.

In the other cell, a light-skinned kid with red lipstick limps over to the bars closest to the stocky officer at the counter. He grabs onto the bars as if holding himself up. “Off…officer. I’m…I’m sick!” he shouts.

Me Loco is sprawled out across one of the benches now with his forearm over his eyes. “Shut the fuck up!” he yells.

“Please! Off…officer! I need to go…go hospital!” the kid starts sobbing, black mascara running down his face. 

“Are you deaf, bitch?” Me Loco rises to his feet and marches up behind the kid. But before Me Loco can raise a hand, the kid turns and vomits a pool of pink and white onto the floor, some splashing onto Me Loco’s white size 22 kicks.

Groans of disgust and curses spread through the crowded cell as Me Loco backhand slaps the kid, knocking him onto the puddle of his own vomit. The kid curls up into a ball, his sobs turning into wailing. 

“I said shut the fuck up!” Me Loco kicks the kid’s ribs with the rubber toe of his giant shoe, knocking the wind out of him, ending his wailing, ending his breaths.    

“Leave broski alone,” says the Blinder a few benches down.

Me Loco spins around, eyeing the crowd who all seem to lower their eyes, their chatter stopping.

“Who said that?” says Me Loco, a dark aura swelling around him.

The Blinder and Dooby look at each other.

“Doh,” Dooby shakes his head. “Yuh dotish awah?”

The Blinder raises his hand, meekly.

And then a look of amusement seeps onto Me Loco’s tattooed face. “You’re sweet, you know that?” He swaggers towards the Blinder. Some cellmates pacing the floor move out of his way. 

Towering in front of the Blinder now, still seated and eye-level to Me Loco’s crotch, Me Loco shoots up a Blood gang sign, and the Blinder suddenly realizes he’s wearing red. “Who you under, little man?”

“What?” says the Blinder.

“Who gave you your shit?”

“You wouldn’t know him.”

“You ain’t no Blood,” Me Loco laughs. “You a wangster.”

The Blinder laughs awkwardly with him, but isn’t sure why. 

“You got some cojones on you, little man. I know you must be rollin’ with someone. Last time I’m asking. Who you with?” Me Loco’s tattooed face suddenly turns grim.

In the other cell, Buck still makes like he’s asleep, listening to the five Queensbridge gangsters banter around him, hoping they’d get bored and walk away, eventually. But then again, Buck thinks to himself, stupid shit happens most of the time when mans get bored.

“Let me see your face, homie,” the big one reaches for Buck’s mask. 

“I wouldn’t if I were you, fam?” Buck says.

“What chu say?” the big one’s voice shoots up an octave, his arm dropping to his side.

This catches the attention of the ten other Queensbridge gangsters in the cell who all roll up behind the big one and his cronies.

“You don’t got the odds. It’s a bad bet, fam,” says Buck.

“The odds? What the fuck is you talkin’ ’bout, homie?” the big one reaches for Buck’s mask again but Buck grabs his wrist and yanks him in closer. He strikes his temple with a shutō-uchi knifehand chop, snapping the big one’s orbital bone in half, dropping him unconscious over Buck’s knee like a child ready to be spanked. The thought of spanking him for shits and giggles crosses Buck’s mind for a split second, but then the cronies swarm in. 

The big one flops onto the floor as Buck shoots up to his feet. The first crony lunges at him, a telegraphed punch flying at Buck’s face that he could see coming a mile away. Using the same shutō-uchi knifehand chop technique, he blocks and redirects the crony’s punch, then pivots his hips, throwing the weight of his entire body behind his counter punch from his other hand, plummeting into the crony’s face with brutal force, caving in his nose as he crumbles at Buck’s feet.

Three more converge on Buck at the same time, all throwing sloppy punches, Buck thinks to himself. He calmy side-steps, dodging and redirecting every blow. He counters with powerful elbows, front kicks, and side kicks with deadly precision, sending one crony sprawling across the cell, and another crumpling on top of another crony already knocked out.

Unlike the Biker’s fancy, fluid kung fu style of fighting, Buck’s Shotokan karate style only has one objective—to end every fight as a quick as possible with one, powerful, well-placed strike.

Everyone from the other cell hears the commotion and rushes to the bars to watch, even Dooby, leaving only Me Loco towering over the Blinder, still sitting, each of them never breaking their stares despite all the cellmates cheering and the sound of flesh pounding flesh in the other cell.

Buck never takes a single step forward, letting them meet him, swallowing them into a blur of precision and brute force, dropping them one by one, as if being sucked up into a vortex of violence that is Buck.

Suddenly, the stocky officer rushes to Buck’s cell, one hand pressing a mouth guard over his nose and mouth and his other hand emptying a can of pepper spray into the cell, but it’s too late, all of Buck’s cellmates lie motionless on the floor, and Buck bows to their broken bodies in the Shotokan karate way, his chest heaving, his mask protecting him from the fumes.

Clouds of pepper spray drift into the other cell, and everyone at its bars back up against the far wall, coughing, lifting their shirt collars over their mouths. All except for the Blinder, his mask filtering the gas, and Me Loco, standing there, breathing in the clouds of pepper spray like it’s dry ice, staring down at the Blinder, menacingly.

“I’m with broski over there,” the Blinder looks at Buck. Me Loco follows his gaze and finally peers through the bars separating the two cells, seeing fifteen unconscious Queensbridge gangsters sprawled out on the floor at Buck’s feet. 

Me Loco glances back down at the Blinder and a smile grows steadily on his tattooed face. He shoots the Blinder a wink then strides over to his bench. A few cellmates sitting there, still coughing, realizes he’s coming and scatter out of his way.

Me Loco stretches out across the bench on his back, placing his forearm over his eyes like he’s ready for his nap. 

The Blinder looks over at the light-skinned kid with lipstick now sitting up, his back against the bars, removing his overshirt wet with vomit and wiping his pants with it. The paleness on his face is gone now, his sickness freed from his body and now a puddle on the floor. Poor kid, the Blinder thinks to himself, but safe, for now.

The Blinder looks back at Buck who’s squatting down, wiping the blood on his knuckles on the chest of one of the Queensbridge gangsters, out cold.

Chapter 25: A Judas Contract

“Yo, little man!” Me Loco’s voice echoes through the precinct, reverberating off the steel and concrete. “Gimme a slice of that,” he’s talking to the stocky officer, now with a box of pizza laid out behind the tall counter. Against the wall beside the counter stands a tall firearm and ammunition cabinet of muted steel—a silver latch with a keyhole secures its double doors shut.

The stocky officer turns to meet Me Loco’s gaze. The screen lights from the monitors behind the counter streaming live video from security cameras mounted on the ceilings inside the cells casts a scowling shadow across his face. 

“You pigs gonna feed us or what?” Me Loco growls.

The stocky officer pulls out a greasy pepperoni and cheese slice from the box. The slice is so thin that it folds down from the crust, and the stocky officer raises the slice over his head and bites the hanging end, never breaking his defiant gaze at Me Loco.

Me Loco spits through the bars and continues pacing the cell. 

The fifteen Queensbridge gangsters are huddling in the dark corner beside the dead body, forced to squat on the ground by a half-circle of their Southeast ops cornering them, whispering all the terrible things they’re going to do to them, and occasionally stomping on one of them if they strayed too far from the huddle. One of them is still unconscious and another is constantly checking if he’s alive. Another tilts his head back and pinches his nose to stop it from bleeding.

The Blinder on his bench hears the front doors of the precinct open. A lump forms in his throat when he sees Detective Liu-Chin Chan swagger in, his crisp black suit without a single wrinkle, his slick black hair perfectly parted, a black backpack hanging off his shoulder. The Blinder is forced to swallow.

The chatter in the cell ebbs away into silence, the half-circle of ops cornering the Queensbridge gangsters slowly scatter away in different directions, and even Me Loco stops his pacing and takes a seat on a metal bench, pretending to be too preoccupied with picking dirt from under his fingernails.

The Blinder glances at Buck sitting alone in the other cell who’s already staring back at him, a look of understanding on both their glares, despite the masks covering their eyes.

“Why’s he in there alone?” Liu-Chin points at Buck as he parades around the counter and into the corridor between the two cells.

The stocky officer drops the half-eaten slice of pizza on a sheet of paper, wiping his hands together hastily, and clumps off his tall stool to meet Liu-Chin’s side.

“Protection,” the stocky officer mumbles, his mouth full.

“From who?” says Liu-Chin.

“Not for him…” The stocky officer points at the fifteen Queensbridge gangsters squatting in the corner of the other cell, bruised and bleeding, “For them.”

“Hmm,” Liu-Chin nods, not too surprised.

He scans the now docile crowd of cellmates filling the benches, end to end, all lowering their gaze, even the Blinder, understanding now why Liu-Chin ordered the officers to keep their masks on.

“Let this one out,” Liu-Chin points at the Blinder as the stocky officer fumbles in a rush to unlatch the key from his belt. “Get up,” Liu-Chin orders the Blinder.

The Blinder looks to his left and right then points to his own chest. “Me?”

Liu-Chin doesn’t bother answering, only holding his stare at the Blinder as the heavy cell door swings open.

“Should I cuff him, sir?” the stocky officer asks.

“No. You’re not going to do anything funny, are you?” Liu-Chin says to the Blinder.

“Nope. Not plannin’ to,” says the Blinder. 

“Is that a promise?” Liu-Chin smirks.

“Sure,” says the Blinder.

“Good. Now, come,” Liu-Chin curls his index finger towards him.

The Blinder lets out a long sigh. “Later, broski,” the Blinder daps Dooby before toddling out of the cell to face Liu-Chin standing an inch or two taller than him.

“Yo, fam,” Buck yells from the other cell. He’s now pressed up against the bars, grabbing one in each hand. “Don’t trust this sweeterman. Mans is sus, still.”

“Follow me,” Liu-Chin leads the Blinder down the opposite end of the corridor towards a pair of metal double doors. The sound of the cell door clanks shut behind them as they strut away.

“Fam!” Buck yells, trying to squeeze his masked face through two bars. “Truss, fam!”

The Blinder follows behind Liu-Chin through the double doors and into another corridor that snakes out like a path into a different beast. The low hanging ceilings are armed with pulsing fluorescent lights casting a heartless shine on the slick, linoleum floor. Steel-blue locker doors lined up with military precision hunker down along one wall.

Liu-Chin’s light footfalls end at the door of an interrogation room with a tiny, wired window.

“After you,” Liu-Chin holds the door open for the Blinder who feels like he’s going into surgery or something like that. 

At the heart of the sterile room, devoid of any comfort, squats an aging steel table, ringed by a pair of chairs on opposite sides. The walls are shrouded in antiseptic white, giving the illusion of cleanliness, but a closer look reveals the tabaco stained fingerprints on it.

“Sit,” orders Liu-Chin, taking a seat and resting his backpack on the table. The Blinder sits opposite and runs his hands over the scarred and scratched tabletop—a dull metallic ashtray between them. A lone, harsh light hangs from the ceiling, slicing through the gloom and onto the Blinder only.

The one-way mirror on the wall beside them hides a dark room with a camera on a tripod, but the Blinder, with his mask on, can see into the room and knows that the camera is turned off, and no one is inside listening.

Leaning forward in his chair, Liu-Chin digs into his backpack and slides out a dark Kevlar biker’s helmet frilled with horns. He rests it on the table facing the Blinder, then leans back in his chair as if it was his throne—a king presiding over his kingdom. His eyes, a scar running across one of them, bore into the Blinder like frost.

But the Blinder doesn't flinch, doesn't blink, doesn't even take a breath. He just sits there, his gaze steady on Liu-Chin, gauging his worth. The room seems to hold its breath with him.

“Fight clubs? This is what you choose to do with your gifts, Number Three?”

The Blinder shrugs.

“Number Five. Ha!” Liu-Chin scoffs, shaking his head and tapping a nicotine-stained finger on the table, each hit echoing in the sterile silence. “I should have been Number One. Not that pussy killed by a fucking woman.”

A slow, cynical smile crawls across Liu-Chin's face.

“So how did you find her?” says Liu-Chin.

“Followed her from the fight club. She was a baddie, that one,” says the Blinder, proudly.

“Not bad enough, I guess,” Liu-Chin’s face turns grim. “You know I beat Number Four, no problem. Easy. But he’s worth shit to me. Because you already know what he knows, and more than that, too. Am I right?”

The silence returns, thicker now, punctuated by the relentless ticking of the wall clock. 

“You seem smart enough,” says Liu-Chin. “You know I can keep you locked up for a long ass time. Grand theft auto. Resisting arrest. Assaulting officers of the law. Have you ever been to Rikers, Number Three?”

The Blinder doesn’t react, listening, waiting for what he knows is coming.

“And it would be legit, too. Even the Feds wouldn’t stick their pussy noses into it,” a look of harsh disdain creeps over Liu-Chin’s face. “The Feds are all pussies if you ask me. Fair play to their SWAT teams. They get into the shit and get things done, but at the end of the day, they all would rat out officers of the law on their own fucking turf, so how can I respect that?”

The Blinder shifts in his seat, itching to get to the point. “So, what you want?”

“I want you, Number Three,” Liu-Chin lights a cigarette. “You’re the only one I can trust. Well, at least I can trust what you tell me.”

“Okay.”

“I know Number Two told you where the ledger is,” Liu-Chin spews a cloud of smoke onto the Blinder’s masked face. “I know you know Number Four’s words. Tell me what you know, and I’ll let you walk out of here right now.”

“No can do, broski. I need the ledger me self, and half of what’s in the fookin’ thing. I made a promise.”

Liu-Chin bellows out a sardonic laugh, cutting through the silence like a dull knife. “You have no idea how much half of what’s in that ledger is worth, do you, sweety? You wouldn’t even know what to do with it if you did.”

Liu-Chin crosses his legs under the table and sucks in another drag from his cigarette.

“Tell you what,” Liu-Chin says, smoke seeping from his mouth and nostrils. “I’ll give you ten million from the ledger. That’s more than enough for a man like you, wouldn’t you say? You can even give your degenerate boy out there a milli. He’ll probably blow it all in a week anyway, but it’s whatever. I don’t judge.”

“Like I said, broski. I need half.”

“No, you don’t, sweety,” Liu-Chin butts out his cigarette on the steel table beside the ashtray. “See the streets out there? I run this whole thing. I run New York. Without me, none of this happens. I run this whole thing. Everyone out there does what the fuck they’re told, except for me; and rightfully fucking so. But I want more than just the streets. I want more than New York City. You understand? I don’t give a shit about what people say. I never did. I never do. I told you before, I’m Number One, and I’m telling you right now, I’m Number One.”

“Either way, broski, I made a promise,” says the Blinder, steady.

Liu-Chin pauses, the hint of a demonic smile playing on his scarred face. Then he chuckles, a dry sound that bounces off the sterile walls. “I get it. You got your code, and I got mine. We’ll split it then. Fifty-fifty.”

The Blinder looks down at his hands spread flat on the steel tabletop. He searches his conscience for a feeling to stop him from agreeing and leaving Buck with nothing, but no such feeling rises up. He knows in his heart that his fifty-fifty deal with Buck is under the condition they find the ledger together, and in the deep shit they’re in now, with Liu-Chin holding all the cards, the Blinder thinks there isn’t any other way.

“If I lead you to the ledger, broski, and tell you what I know…” the Blinder looks up from his hands. “How do I know you won’t wet me right there and then, take all the shit for yourself?” 

Liu-Chin grins and unbuttons his suit jacket, letting the Laughing Buddha handle of his Magnum drop low and hang down from its holster. “You can hold my gun; just promise you won’t shoot me.”

“Don’t matter no way, broski, you can disarm me before I can even blink.”

Liu-Chin laughs with a certain pride, flattered. “You’re smarter than you look, sweety.” Liu-Chin drums his nails on the table, holding his stare. “Well, I guess you’re just going to have to trust me then. Do you trust me?”

“Not really,” the Blinder shrugs. “But it is what it is.”

“Like I said, smarter than you look.”

“Another thing, broski. Order your boys to let Number Four walk.”

“Not a problem. After we get our hands on that ledger, he’s free to go. I give you my word, whatever that’s worth to you.”

The fluorescent bulb above the Blinder flickers once, twice, as if the room itself is sharing in the Blinder’s wariness.

“First, show me your words, then we have a deal,” says the Blinder.

The quiet bristles, the proposal hanging in the air as tangible as the stale cigarette smell everywhere. 

Liu-Chin snarls, then loosens his tie. He unbuttons the top three buttons of his black shirt and opens it up, revealing the centipede tattoo slithering between two words tattooed under each collar bone.

Power

Glory

The Blinder leans back in his chair and hesitates for what feels like a long time. “My words are Hard, Truth. And Number Four? His words are Risk, Reward.”

Liu-Chin’s snarl morphs into a smile. “Okay, then, you lead the way, sweety.” He pushes himself to his feet, chair scraping against linoleum, and extends his open hand across the table, his pinky finger missing. The Blinder takes his handshake—a desperate pact, he thinks to himself, but what else can I fookin’ do?

The flickering bulb buzzes above as they both stride out of the room and back through the corridors between the cells.

Buck sees them and jolts up from his bench. “Fam!” he dashes to the bars and presses up against them. “Where you taking mans, fam? Don’t you fucking trust that mans!”

“I’m gettin’ you outta here, broski,” the Blinder says over his shoulder as they pass. “Don’t you worry.”

“That ain’t what I’m worried about, fam!” Buck’s voice trails off as Liu-Chin and the Blinder march out of the front doors of the precinct and into the labyrinth that is the city, the sky already turning dark. The Blinder thinks to himself, he really doesn’t know shit about shit, but he knows one thing for sure—it’s going to be a long fookin’ night.

Chapter 26: The Vengeance of Freed Slaves

The nighttime draws a hush over the precinct. The harsh fluorescent lights inside the cells are turned off, leaving only the lights in the corridor casting long shadows from the iron bars over the cellmates sprawled across the hard benches or curled up on the linoleum floor. The daytime echoing of restlessness and chatter is now replaced by the symphony of snores and the occasional rustle of tossing and turning.

The stocky officer is joined by another officer sitting behind the counter, their figures etched in the screen light of the security camera monitors on the counter, their voices a low murmur.

But Buck couldn’t sleep, pacing his cell back and forth, his head hanging low, going over every possible scenario in his mind, none of them leading to the ledger in his hands. “Fuck,” he whispers under his breath and continues to pace.

The front doors of the precinct slam open and a familiar laughter pierces through Buck like a spear into his gut—the high pitched laughter of Officer Gavin Carter. Buck stops in his tracks and thinks back to the time he heard that same laugh years ago at the Queens Casino in Chinatown, and then he thinks about the last time he heard that laugh behind him in a dark alley later that night.

Buck backpedals to a metal bench and sits. His palms grip then regrip the edge of the bench as he watches through the iron bars. Gavin strides in with his pale shaven head and slender frame, his partner, Officer Ahmed, walking beside him on his bony legs.

The two saunter around the tall counter to relieve the stocky officer and his partner from their shift. They each take a stool behind the tall counter as the stocky officer and his partner collect their lunch bags and keys before leaving through the front doors together.

Gavin is still laughing, telling some story to Ahmed, not even glancing back into the cells behind them since coming in.

Buck sits there and stares at Gavin’s thin lips moving, talking shit, and Buck’s mouth begins to water.

Gavin finally looks over his shoulder at the cellmates sleeping in the other cell, and Buck lowers his bucket hat over his mask and pretends to be sleeping, too. Gavin shifts his gaze into Buck’s cell, seeing him sitting upright against the wall with his bucket hat low and his arms crossed over his chest, but doesn’t give him a second thought before continuing his story to Ahmed.

Gavin laughs again, and again Buck feels a stabbing sensation in his belly, but he ignores it, sitting completely still, only his eyes darting around under his mask, his brain searching for an edge—a search he’s done a million times before.

-----

An hour into their shifts, Gavin and Ahmed are already bored. Both of them are still slouched on their stools, staring down at the lighted screens of their phones. Ahmed is watching a video and Gavin is playing a puzzle game amid the stillness and snoring of the cellmates behind them.

Ahmed hops off his stool and stretches with a yawn, “I’m going for a smoke.”

“Grab me a shawarma while you’re out there,” Gavin grunts.

Ahmed gives Gavin an okay by raising his hand, his back turned to Gavin as he strolls away through the front doors.

The chimes and bleeps from Gavin’s game echo faintly through the precinct. “Fuck,” says Gavin, a low tone sound effect plays from his phone.

Gavin drops his phone on the counter in front of one of the security camera monitors. His gaze rises up to the monitor showing an empty cell.

“The fuck,” Gavin whispers under his breath as he spins on his stool to face the cell—completely vacant.

Springing to his feet, confusion creeping onto his face, he treads towards the empty cell, squinting into its shadowy corners.

At the cell door, he crouches, peering into the shadows under the benches but sees nothing.

Instinctually, Gavin rests his hand on his black Beretta at his hip as he unlatches a long key from his belt. Unlocking the cell door, slowly pulling it open, the far dark corner of the cell catches his eye.

“What the fuck you hiding there for, homeboy?” Gavin lurks forward into the cell towards the dark corner, unclipping the strap holding down his Beretta. 

In the center of the cell now, he hears a whistle from above and shoots his eyes upwards. An icy shiver spreads through his body as he sees Buck lying on his back on the ceiling, his legs crossed and his arms folded under his head like a cushion.

Gavin fumbles for his Beretta as Buck drops from the ceiling, hurtling down a karate hammer fist pounding dead center on the top of Gavin’s bald head, jolting a shock through his skull and down his spine.

He crumples onto his back on the hard cell floor, dazed, eyes crossed, staring up at Buck looming over him, doubling in his blurred vision.

“Gavin, Gavin, Gavin,” Buck hisses. “What am I going to do with you?”

Gavin’s eyes uncross and there’s a brief moment of recognition and terror as Buck winds his knee up, and with all the force from his hips hardened from years of training in the Fourth Chamber, he stomps his booted heel into Gavin’s face, caving it in like a sledgehammer to a watermelon. Gavin lies twitching on the cold floor, one of his eyeballs hanging out of its socket, dangling beside his right ear. Pink brain liquid, not blood, begins to pool around what’s left of Gavin’s head.

Buck squats over Gavin’s quivering body, takes his Beretta and searches his pockets, finding the keys to his police cruiser. Buck’s bloody boot stomps across the floor and out of the cell.

“Padner!” Dooby from the other cell yells out, standing on a bench, looking over the tall counter and through the front door windows. “Babylon comin’ nah.”

All the cellmates are awake now, rushing to the bars. Buck crouches behind the counter, cocks his new Beretta, and listens to the front doors opening and Ahmed’s boots clomping down the hallway—the same clomping Buck had heard a long time ago in a dark alley in Chinatown, Queens.

Ahmed notices all the cellmates pressed up against the bars. “What the fuck y’all doing?” he yells, oblivious, holding two wrapped shawarmas in each of his hands as he turns the corner of the counter and sees Gavin’s half-headless body sprawled out on the cell floor, its barred door swung wide open.

Ahmed doesn’t even have the chance to feel shocked as Buck rises to his feet behind him, aims the nozzle of his Beretta at the back of Ahmed’s head and squeezes the trigger. The two shawarmas hit the floor before Ahmed’s face does, smacking wet with blood against the linoleum. Buck stares down at the Patek Philippe watch on Ahmed’s wrist and doesn’t feel anything about it.

The familiar cacophony of overlapping voices erupts throughout the precinct, all the cellmates shouting for Buck to let them free, but Buck has something more important to do.

Marching down the hallway to the front doors, stuffing Gavin’s keys into his pocket and his Beretta into his back waistband, he stops short when he notices red and blue lights from multiple cruisers flashing through the front door windows, and he’s hit with the sinking realization that Gavin must have triggered a silent alarm before checking on the empty cell. 

Buck turns and rushes to Ahmed’s dead body, unlatching the key from his belt. He tosses it through the bars of the cell, and it clatters onto the cell floor. The cellmates scramble for it, but Me Loco gets to it first.

Buck darts to the firearm cabinet beside the counter that he’s been eyeing ever since first entering the precinct. He shoots a bullet into the lock and the cabinet’s double doors swing open, revealing an arsenal of shotguns and pistols on racks above drawers filled with ammunition.

Before Buck can even grab a shotgun for himself, Me Loco shoves him aside and takes two pistols in each of his grizzly hands, his fingers curling around cold steel as more cellmates swarm the cabinet around him, looting the rest of the firearms and ammunition within seconds. The clacking of shotguns pumping and magazines locking ring throughout the pandemonium inciting inside the precinct. Some cellmates scramble through the double doors at the end of the corridor, stumbling over each other, while others make a mad dash to the front doors.

The police reinforcements outside barrel through the front doors, unaware of the chaos within.

No police commands are yelled, no loud curses of surprise, not a single word is even uttered as the reinforcements gun down the cellmates charging at them in a blaze of gunfire and smoke.

Then the top of an officer’s head splatters open, and another slinks forward, cradling his bleeding belly, as Me Loco, Dooby and other cellmates barricade themselves behind the tall counter, firing a barrage of slugs at the oncoming officers who retreat back through the doors, taking cover behind them.

One of the officers shatters the door windows with the hilt of his gun and empties his clip at the counter before ducking back behind the door.

Dooby reloads his shotgun and notices Me Loco standing very still, then slowly toppling backwards like a giant tree breaking under its own weight. He hits the linoleum floor with a loud splat, a red hole the size of a dime sinks into the bridge of his tattooed nose.

Buck, frozen, stands in the large space lined with wooden benches between the counter and the cells. More gunfire rings out, bullets ricocheting, sparks flying, the air filling with gun smoke and screams. He looks up and sees a coffered ceiling, not the concrete ceiling of the cell.

Defying gravity, he bolts up the wall and crashes through the coffered ceiling panels and finds himself in a tight, shadowy space between two ceilings—a network of support beams, wires, and ventilation shafts hidden from the room below.

Defying gravity again, he crawls upside down on the solid upper ceiling through the web of metal beams and cables humming with electricity. Dust particles float in the dim space, lit only by the faint streaks of light filtering from the tiny holes of the coffered ceiling panels under him. His heart pounds harder as the echoes of the battle below fade further away. 

Buck stops at a large ventilation shaft ending at an outer wall, and with a guttural karate kiai, he side kicks the shaft from his crawling position, breaking it from the wall, revealing a wide metal grate drawing in the scent of outside air that has never smelled so fresh to Buck in his life. And with another loud kiai, he hammer fists the grate, popping it open from its screws as it clammers onto the asphalt outside. 

Unafraid of any height, Buck shoots himself out from the open vent before even peering out, and plummets straight into the police parking lot, deserted except for a lineup of silent cruisers. He can still hear the roaring chaos in the distance when he digs out Gavin’s keys from his pocket, presses a button on the car key, and to his surprise, the police cruiser beside him unlocks.

A smile grows under his mask as he pats his gambler’s gut. “Still got it, Buck.”


To be continued next Wednesday in Five Deadly Rebels, Episode 8: Money in the Trenches, anywhere you get your podcasts. To learn more about the podcast, visit our website at fivedeadlyrebels.com.  This has been a DimensionGate production.