Entry for Blender #30

The words are: ninjas / kung-fu fighting / sweat shop.


        It was raining, in the city. It wasn't raining here, in a strict
sense of the word. More like dripping. I live in the burbs, and here the
rain doesn't really fall, it just sort of clings to the walls and
manages to pool on the ground in sheets.  The rain didn't used to be
this way. A long time ago, I hear the rain didn't make your hair turn
color or damage the paint on your car. Now it does, though, so everyone
who has a car has to keep it inside.

        My name is Jona, and I have lived here all of my life. I don't
know why I'm still here, except that I am. I work in a assembly plant,
putting together micro robots they use for toxic clean up jobs.  Since
they're used around acid and other stuff like that, they have to be
sealed really tight, so much that they actually pressurize them inside
to make sure that nothing can get in.  One time, a guy was working on a
defective one and it exploded, or imploded, or whatever happens when
they crack and depressurize all of a sudden. It tore his arm right off,
and killed the guy next to him.  The company didn't want us to see that,
so they marched in some guys with yellow radvac suits on to pick up the
pieces. I think his name was Johnny, I'm not really sure. You're not
allowed to talk to each other, in the plant.  They say that's what
causes the accidents.

        I don't like my job, but then again it's all that I can really
get. It's all anyone who works here can really get. If they don't like
you, or if you do something wrong, they throw you out into the street
and don't pay you anything.  They don't pay us very much at all here,
but we get lunch from the cafeteria, and that's ok. All of my money
seems to go to rent.  I live in public housing, and the council voted
another rent increase last March. I don't know how they can do that.
I guess it's because they live in gated communities that have their own
fucking army to protect them. We don't even have a security guard at my
complex.

        Actually, I was thinking about something the other day as I was
on the assembly line.  The burbs aren't really the burbs anymore.
They're just like the city used to be: huge buildings made out of metal
instead of high-pressure ceramics like they all are in downtown now. No
arcologies, just tenaments and torn-up sidewalks. I read that a long
time ago, people moved to the burbs to get away from the city; I can't
imagine anyone wanting to do that. I was actually thinking about that
when our company "changed hands" last week.

        It all happened so quickly, that I still have a hard time
remembering it. I remember reading in the news last week that TXTech
(the company I used to work for) was being bought out by Toyo-Hyundai,
which is pretty strange when you think about it. Why would an automaker
want a chemical cleanup company? It didn't make a whole lot of sense at
the time.

        I was sitting at my bench last week, and someone whispered to me
that the buyout didn't happen.  They couldn't get enough shares to have
a majority.  I shrugged and went back to calibrating one of the gyros on
the robot I was working on.  I should have realized at the time that
since the buyout didn't work, they'd be attempting a hostile takeover
instead. And it was very hostile.

        It was when I was using a hand lens to try and fit some of the
servo pins to the controller board that it all started happening.  The
steel doors at the end of the workspace in our building were blown open
with a tremendous force.  The people closest to them were actually
thrown from their seats onto the floor from the blast.  The assembly
line stopped, and the smoke began to clear.

        It was at that point that my blood ran cold.  About twelve men,
all dressed in black body armor, swept into the room.  Two of them
covered the corners, and the rest started taking retina scans of everyone
in the room with their scanners.  The red light danced from one person
to the next, and I winced when it flashed into my eye.

        One man stepped to the front and began to speak.

        "This building and all of it's occupants are now property of
TH Incorporated.  Your previous employers have been persuaded to drop
all claims to ownership of any property or employees. From this point
forward you will be working for TH Incorporated, and all non-disclosure
agreements from your previous employer are still valid. I have been
instructed to inform you of these changes, and your continued presence
on the premises indicate your consent will all practices of TH
Incorporated."

        At that point, a guy near the front bolted for the side doors.
They were timelocked, but he still struggled momentarily before a beam
of red centered on the back of his neck and covered the door with his
blood.  I saw the beam through the smoke; it came from one of the
windows near the roof. I could see a reflection on the goggles that
covered the snipers eyes.  Even if it was pitch black, he could still
eliminate every single person in the room in under thirty seconds. It
was then that I knew these guys weren't just some corp team, they were
yakuza.  A corp team wouldn't have a sniper just to cover a room.  If
anything went wrong, they'd just blow the place, their team be damned.
The yakuza apparantly knew the value of their team members; in a twisted
sort of way, they were more humane than any corporation I knew.

        After that guy got blown, everyone just sat there.  After a
short pause, the man at the front spoke again.

        "I take your continued presence to indicate conset with the
        policies of TH Incorporated. That is all."

        He started to turn around, but suddenly fell to the floor.  Like
he was being crushed by something.  All of the other guys turned to
look, and all the saw was a pool of crimson start to spread from his
neck.  The sniper was getting nervous; the red beam swept over the
entire room.  Why didn't he just use his infrared to find out what was
going on?

        At that point, something came into focus next to the corpse on
floor.  I rubbed my eyes as the light seemed to bend and warp, and
suddenly a man was there, crouched naked on the floor.  He had his head
shaved, and it was hard to make out if he had anything in his hands.
That's when everyone started to panic.  All of the armored guys at front
started aiming at him with their bullpups which swivled on the stock
attached to their shoulder pads.  And then he was gone again.

        One of the guys closest to where he was jumped. Or at least
that's what it looked like.  He jumped again, and then was thrown about
twenty feet across the factory floor and landed on top of toolbox.
After that, everything is sort of a blur.  One guy's head snapped back
and he didn't move after that.  Another was thrown against a wall, and
his face was covered in blood.  The sniper was going crazy and just
started shooting. People were dropping left and right, and suddenly the
naked guy appeard again, jumping onto the wall below the sniper.
Somehow, he managed to climb the crumbling cement, and then the sniper
was on the floor, his helmet caved in on itself.

        Then there was silence.  The naked guy was just standing there,
bleeding.  He'd been shot in the chest twice, but it didn't seem to
bother him too much.  He said something in Cantonese, I think, and then
left.

        The funny thing was, is that the alarm hadn't gone off while any
of this was happening, and then it was on and there were the guys in the
toxic suits again coming in.  Some of them started picking up weapons
and bodies and stuff, and one guy with a bullhorn just started yelling
something.  Then everybody came out of their trance, and just rushed the
back doors.  The timelocks were off, and everyone poured out into the
street.  I ran, I ran as fast as I could to the El station so I could
get onto the train and get home.  I as probably as scared at that point
as ever I had been.  I looked up to the roof of the building, and I saw
three figures standing there, outlined by the gray clouds above them.

        After I got home, I just sat on the foam of my bed and breathed
in stale air.  After awhile, I fell asleep.

        The next day the only thing in the news about TXtech was that
the buyout had been unsuccessful.  I didn't go to work that day, and
neither did anyone I know.  I just sort of sat around trying to figure
out what to do.  I was thinking about the guy, the naked guy, and who he
was and who he worked for.  He was some kind of secret operative.  I
mean, he had some crazy shit.  He just.. disappeared.  When you tried to
look at him, your eyes just went out of focus.  That kind of stuff must
cost some serious money.  And how did he cave that guys helmet in?
Magic?

        I asked my friend Frank, who was near the front and heard what
the guy said before he left, and what it meant.

        "It was in Cantonese, and it was sort of weird."

        "What do you mean?"

        "Well, he just said: 'I am the Saviour'."

        And then he was gone.