Slope

Description

The world is changing, and fast. The Narrator had seconds to make his contribution, and he succeeded. Problem is, the government is pissed off.

•••

Please note that this story is based on a dream.

Chapter One
Prologue

I stood face-to-face with Ceelo, the short, suit-clad man who had a gun pointed at my head. I smirked at the pathetic attempt at a threat.

"You know that won't work," I teased in a sing-song voice.

"Yes it will," He insisted, hopelessly clinging to what he thought of as reality. He pulled the gun's trigger, but the trembling of his hand was so great that he missed.

"Dude!" I yelled, turning my head to stare at the hole the bullet had left in the wall behind me. "I'm barely five feet away from you - how could you possibly miss? Give me that." I walked up to him, and forced the gun out of his hands. I took a few steps back, slowly making my way to the darkened screen in the corner of the room.

"How are you here?" he demanded.

"How did I get up here? Hmm, let me think," I exaggeratingly tapped my chin with my finger, then pointed towards the stairs at the opposite side of the room. "The stairs."

"I mean how are you alive?" He clarified. "You were killed many times."

"The Alliance isn't the only one with access to the code." I said cryptically as I stalked across the room.

His eyes widened, "You have the code?"

"I never said that," I smiled coyly.

He glared at me as I reached the screen. I pulled a thumb drive out of my pocket, and tried to force it into the rectangular hole at the bottom of the screen. It didn't fit, so I flipped it over. It didn't fit, so I flipped it over a third time. This time, it went in. Green letters and numbers appeared across the screen. They were encryption codes written in every language.

"What are you doing?" Ceelo demanded.

"The same thing as you, but better," I answered mysteriously.

"I was just trying to secure something for my family. No one would've noticed that. What you're doing," he shook his head, "That's going to get you killed."

"I'm counting on it," I said as I slid my fingers against the touch screen, inputting more and more codes. The security system was fighting against me, but I was more than a match for them. It didn't take long for them to cut the power, but by then, it was too late. I had accomplished what I'd come here to do.

I heard a thumping sound, and jerked my head over to face the stairs. After a moment, Ceelo did as well. Before long, there was a team of the bank's security guards coming up. Ceelo was freaking out.

"Put your hands up," demanded one of the guards.

I smirked at him, and laughed. He looked confused at that. I held up the gun I'd taken from Ceelo.

"Sorry guys," I cocked the pistol, " But I don't feel like hanging around while you redo the place."

I aimed the barrel at my chin, facing upwards, and pulled the trigger. The bullet silently flew though my skull. I lost my grip on the gun as I fell to the floor.

My eyes stayed open, but everything in my line of sight

slowly

faded

to

black.

Chapter Two
Introduction

I opened my eyes to find myself looking up at a row of hanging coats. I rolled over and stood up, groaning slightly at the effort. I squinted around at the darkened area I'd ended up in. My eyes quickly adjusted, and I discovered that I was in a closed shopping mall. I say closed because the lights would've been on if it was open.

I wandered around for a bit, and ended up in a bathroom. I climbed up onto the counter and sat there. I looked over to the mirror, and stared at myself. Pale skin, white hair, red eyes... I looked like a life-sucking demon from one of those old stories. I laughed lightly. I suppose I might as well have been.

After a while, I heard footsteps, and saw a circle of light appear. I turned, my face towards it. A large security guard was holding a flashlight. "What seems to be the problem?" I asked.

"What are you doing here? This floor has a curfew." He stated in a deep, accusatory voice.

A curfew? None of the floors I could think of that had curfews were rich enough to have the luxury of a shopping mall. Wait. "Is this floor 12?"

The man looked confused. "No. This is floor 14. How would you not know what floor you're on?"

"I got pretty high last night." I mused somewhat jokingly. "That might have something to do with it."

That last statement just made the officer get even more suspicious. "You're coming with me."

"Ok." I slid down from the counter. "Where to?"

He glared at me, and pulled out a thin metal rod. I held my hands out in front of me, but he forced my arms behind my back, clicked on a little button in the middle. I could feel the smooth warmth of a forcefield loop around my wrists. The guard grabbed one of my arms, and forced me to start walking out of the restroom.

"This seems unnecessary."

I didn't get a response, and remained quite as I was led out of the mall, and down an unlit street. The man walked quickly, and we soon came to a police station. I was brought into the building, and forced into a chair next to a desk. Unlike the mall and the part of the floor I'd been dragged through, the station was illuminated. There were a few officers scattered throughout what I could see of the station. There was a woman behind the desk I was now sitting next to.

The man who brought me in leaned over her, and explained to her about how he'd found me in the mall bathroom, as well as relaying all of my previous statements. He left, then the woman turned to speak to me. Her mouth was open, and she was about to say something when I interrupted.

"Hello, Aally. How are you doing this fine night cycle?" I smiled seductively. For a moment, she seemed confused when I said her name, but quickly figured out that I'd read her name tag.

"Excuse me?" was all she said before starting with the real question. "Never mind that. Who are you, and what you were doing hanging around a shopping mall after curfew?"

I squinted, and looked up at the ceiling in concentration. After a moment, I looked back at her. "I can't remember."

She sighed, then picked up a rental scanner from off of the desk, and aimed at my face. I didn't flinch when the bright line of green light shined in my eyes. She placed the scanner down, then pulled up a hologrammatic display from a small black circular device resting on the desk. I watched as Aally motioned in the air with frustration, not finding my face among the various peoples that the scanner had matched my eyes with.

After about a minute of searching, she leaned over and demanded. "Can you explain to me why I can't find any faces that match yours?"

"What makes you think that this beauty can be replicated?" I asked rhetorically before quickly following up with, "Check the trash bin." To avoid getting yelled at. She didn't look to be in that great a mood.

"The trash bin?" Aally repeated.

"Yeah." I looked off to my right, away from her. "Should be in there."

"Ok." She said in a trailing voice as she presumably clicked on the the application which led to the database of the deceased. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the display in front of her. She looked back over at me, then demanded, "Why does this say you've been dead for the past month?"

"Beca- Wait, what?" I stood up, and walked around to look at the display over her shoulder. "Its been a month?"

"More importantly, you hacked the system to mark yourself as deceased and then you decided to come up to a floor with a stick curfew in the middle of the night?" she started at me in disbelief as I walked back over to the seat to sit down. "I can't tell I should be amazed that you are intelligent enough to be one of the few who have been able to do the former or be amazed at how stupid you must be to have down the latter. Or did you get a friend to hack it for you?"

"Miss, I assure you that I have not done any of this. I did not hack the system just to make it look like I'm dead, though if that is what you wish to believe, then that is fine." I answered.

She clicked on something, which was probably my profile. I was no longer in a position to see the display, and didn't feel like getting up again, but it was probably an accurate assumption based on Aally's next words.

"Your first name is 'The?'" she looked over at me funny.

I nodded.

"Species, undefined. Family, none. Job, unknown." She continued to read off nearly all of the information on the page before stopping at the bottom, "Living DNA matched, 7?"

"I wouldn't recommend digging into that file," was my suggestion. Luckily, she listened to it.

"Alright then, Mr. Narrator. I'm going to edit your file so that you are no longer marked as deceased, then I'm going to be sending you down to level 32." She gave me a little smile after that last bit.

"Not 32!" I protested, standing up slightly.

"Oh, you want to go to level 50?" she raised an eyebrow as she smirked at me.

"No." I sunk back down in the chair, my ears flattening against the top of my head.

"Good." She turned back to the display and after a while - I wasn't really paying attention to the time - she finished doing what she was doing and said to me, "Tonight you'll be staying in a cell."

"Sure."

I laid on the floor of a small, empty room, staring up at the ceiling. The room was so dark that you couldn't see anything. Didn't stop me from trying - and failing. At one point I just gave up and went to sleep.