What a thundercunt!

  I sat in a chair that poked the small of my back as if it were robbing me of all the money I possessed; more chairs like it were positioned around a large conference room that appeared to stretch for miles. Motivational posters hung on the drab white walls and coffee stains covered the glass table in front of me.

  I worked for one of the largest corporations in the galaxy, so you would think they could afford basic shit like a cleaner, to make sure the conference table was clear of marks and a fresh lick of paint on the walls to improve morale, but no, apparently the year’s earnings had been below what we were expecting, although the directors still got their yearly bonus.

  “Listen, people, this year’s figures aren’t what we expect here at Xcorp; the overall margin is down one point five percent from last year and the board is chewing my ass because of it. Our shareholders expect year on year—”

  The person who was speaking was Gregory Goodwin. Balding on the top, although in his early thirties with an ever-growing spare tire around his middle, Gregory was the poster boy for the company.

  “I don’t care if you dimwits have to stay all night, but I will get these financial figures back on my desk, by close of play tomorrow.”

  A tentative hand rose from the table. “Yes, Trina?”

  “It’s my youngest’s birthday today and I promised him—”

  “I do not give a fuck if a family member is dying of cancer, I do not give a fuck if you only have a day to live, and I especially do not give a fuck about some snot-nosed brat who doesn’t give a shit if you’re at his birthday or not, as long as he has the latest toys. Everyone works until the job is done!”

  Like I said, thundercunt.

  “Oh, stop crying like a weak bitch, Trina, we all have to make sacrifices for the company. You think I got to where I am by not giving my all? I worked through birthdays, holidays, weddings and deaths, to get to where I am today, and you can too if you just put the extra effort in.”

  It was the same speech he always gave when he wanted to motivate us. But most of us saw it for what it was, a half-ass excuse for him to get away with the bullshit he always got away with.

  “Are we at least going to get paid for the overtime we do for once?” asked Nick, a small Asian man with curly black hair.

  “I’m afraid not,” Gregory said, trying to look apologetic. “You know how it has been.”

  That was it! That was his explanation for Xcorp’s yet again not paying us for all the hard work we’d had to put in over the last six months. It wasn’t even an explanation; it was just… more bureaucratic bullshit we had to swallow with a smile.

  “Right, I think that’s about it for today’s meeting,” Gregory said, dusting down his pinstripe Armani suit. “Oh, before I forget, Quinton, you’ll need to take a short trip off-world to one of our space stations and deliver something for me. The board asked me, but I couldn’t do that date as it conflicted with an important appointment I had.”

  “When is the trip booked for?” I asked, looking up surprised.

  “In two days.”

  I opened my mouth to say something but he cut me off. “That isn’t a problem is it?”

  I shook my head softly from side to side and lowered my gaze to the floor.

  “Glad to hear it,” he said, walking out without a backward glance at the boardroom.

  * * *

  I stepped out of the entrance doors of the Xcorp office building and allowed a heavy sigh to escape my lips; I looked at the computer glass covering a small portion of my forearm and shook my head.

  It had gone past midnight.

  I checked to see if there were any missed calls or messages from my wife, but there were none. Swiping the computer off, I pulled up the collars of my tatted full-length jacket and began to walk home. The night air was chilly to the skin but at least it wasn’t raining.

  The night lights of New-London, so named after World War 3, were dazzling to the tourist and first-timers whose feet touched its soil. But that soon wore off after the first week where they were conned out of everything they owned, the constant rainfall soaked them to the bone and the price of everything was triple what they normally would pay back home.

  I continued until I came to a transport tube, which ferried commuters through tubes that crisscrossed over the New-London sky, through buildings, water, and even underground, and grimaced at the length of the line. Even at this time of night, the queue to get on was still ridiculously long.

  A face I recognised from work was waiting in line for his turn to get on. Burying my head deeper into my coat and lowering my gaze I continued on by.

  The walk would do me some good anyway and clear my head from those numbers I had to stare at, while Gregory was nowhere to be seen. He no doubt had left shortly after the meeting and gone home, to his trophy wife and two model kids.

  I continued walking until I stopped in front of what was once London Bridge; broken in two it lay across the Thames like some disused toy.

  A relic from a bygone era.

  WW3 had taken everyone by surprise in the early 2020s; tensions had been mounting amongst European countries and the United Kingdom, plus what was once America had its own issues amongst its people triggering a civil war, which the Chinese and North Korea saw as the perfect time to attack America.

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  The devastation that followed almost killed the planet, making war between countries illegal. There was still crime. There was still murder. But now only on a smaller scale.

  After the dust settled and the tempers lessened everyone did their best to make Earth a safer, better place. They fought against pollution; they did their best to save the forests, but off-world was a different matter.

  Like wars before it, WW3 advanced technology at a breakneck speed. Computers got faster, weapons got more advanced, and the power of interstellar travel was birthed. Ships that could travel faster than light grew from the ashes of war, and humanity used them to populate planets in and beyond our solar system.

  Out there in space, anything went, with the world government doing its best to police vast areas between colonised planets, but it was a losing battle.

  Space was too vast.

  People too greedy.

  London Bridge and monuments like it were left as a constant reminder of what human nature could lead to, and it had worked up to a point, but as the days slowly slipped into years and the years into decades and the decades into centuries, nothing had really changed.

  Yes, there hadn’t been a war since, but like the saying went, there was always more than one way to skin a cat.

  “Quinton? Quinton Blake?” came a voice from behind me.

  I turned around and from the shadows of a building, a man approached me. His movement was rat-like, head constantly shifting to the left and right; the faded black hooded top he wore shrouded most of his face in darkness, making me take a hesitant step back.

  I looked around and to my dismay found the streets deserted. It would be my luck: the one time London Bridge is deserted is the time I get killed by some junkie.

  I wasn’t sure if I should run. This man knew my name, but why approach me like this?

  “Do I know you?” I asked, trying to get a look under his hood.

  “You did once, but some time has passed since then.”

  He stopped in front of me and lowered his hood. Sore-covered lips greeted me in a smile below sunken grey lifeless eyes; wisps of patchy brown hair sat upon a head which looked more bone than flesh. I stared into a face waiting for some recollection but failed to find any.

  “It’s John,” he said in a whisper, “John Brown.”

  My mouth opened in shock as I stared at the person who was once my best friend. We had gone to school together, then university, but had parted ways sometime in Uni. We were inseparable. Both from small middle-class families, boys whose own siblings were vastly older than they were, we bonded over our love of cartoons and video games.

  “Long time no see, John,” I said.

  “I would say you look good, Quinton,” he said, looking me up and down, “but I would be lying. I see you don’t hit the gym as much anymore; you used to love that exercise shit.”

  “Yeah, well, what with my career and family...”

  “You remember the bitch you used to date in Uni? It was shortly after we stopped hanging out as much, what was her name?”

  “Claire Rogers.”

  “That’s the one,” he said clicking his fingers. “My god, she had you under the thumb, there wasn’t a thing you wouldn’t do for her. You were like a little lovesick puppy always running after her, always doing what she said. Between you and me I heard she was sleeping behind your back. I wonder whatever happened to her.”

  “I married her,” I said in a dead voice.

  “Oh, err....” John scratched his arm while he looked off uncomfortably into the distance. “Congratulations, I guess.”

  “Anyway, John, it was good to see you—”

  “Got any kids?”

  “Two.”

  “Right. Right.”

  “Anyway, like I was saying—”

  “My folks passed away, you know,” he said, taking a step forward. I could smell a faint odour of stale alcohol and tobacco on his breath.

  “Yeah, they passed away a few years back. Got sick and never recovered; if I could afford the medical treatment they would still be alive today. After Uni, I went travelling—you know, I wanted to see the ruins, explore sights—but I fell in love with a bastard of a man who took me for everything I had. Scuba diving instructor—how cliché can you get?”

  “Yeah, I remember you saying you wanted to. Ever go off-world?”

  “Nah, got as far as the Galapagos Islands—well, what’s left of them—before I was taken for a fool. The next stop would have been Mars.”

  “Well... that’s life, I guess,” I said weakly.

  “Yeah, I guess it is,” he said, taking another step forward. “Not. like you, ay? You had your head screwed on right. A’s in school. ‘A’ student in Uni. Never put a foot wrong. Got recruited by Xcorp, the largest company there is, right out of Uni. You must be living the dream.”

  “Yeah... yeah, I guess,” I said with a shrug. “Anyway, I gotta be going, before the old ball and chain wonders where I got to.”

  I turned to leave but as his hand clamped on my shoulder, I know it would not be that easy. It never was with John.

  I turned back around and the rotting smell of his gums washed over me, forcing me to take a hurried step back.

  “Listen, man, I’ve fallen on hard times and I could do with some help—”

  “John, let go of me!”

  “Man, you don’t know how hard it’s been living on these streets. Going from hand to mouth. Always struggling. Always trying to survive. It’s been easy for you!”

  John always had a problem. One of the reasons we stopped hanging out was his love for drugs. I partied like everyone in Uni, smoking a bit of weed here doing a bit of ecstasy there, but that was never enough for John. He always wanted more. From coke to heroin, to even the new shit like T12.

  “John,” I said, taking his hand off my shoulder, “you’ve got a problem; you’ve always had a problem. Since we were kids you always had to push further; nothing was ever enough for you. I put in the hard work to get to where I am, hours of study, hours of sacrifice, when you didn’t. I couldn’t help you then, and I sure as hell can’t help you now. You need to get some help and I’m not the person who can give it to you.”

  I walked away, but he called out to me.

  “That’s it, walk away, Mr Never Breaks The Rules! I just tried living a little, is that so much to ask for? I may be an addict but at least I’m not dead inside, living a life I hate—I can see it in your eyes!”

  I kept my head down and kept on walking. What the hell would he know? How did he even find me anyway?

  Running footsteps forced me to turn around just as John grabbed me once again by the lapels of my jacket.

  “Look, I’m sorry, man,” he said in a raspy voice. “I’m sorry, I just need a little dough to tide me over. Not much. Just something to keep the edge off, you know? Just something to help me sleep.”

  “Get the fuck off—”

  “I’ll suck it!”

  “What?” I demanded, pushing him off me in disgust.

  “I’ll suck it, I’ll suck it like it’s never been sucked before. I know you’ve always wondered what it’s like to be with another—”

  I pushed him hard in the chest with everything I had, knocking him to the ground. He looked up at me with a hunger that turned my stomach.

  “For the love of God, John, get some damn help.”

  I turned around again, but it was a mistake. Something heavy and metal hit me in the back of the head, forcing a cry from my throat as I dropped to my knees. I protected my head with my arms as another blow rained down from above; I curled in upon myself as a kick knocked the wind from my lungs.

  “I tried to be nice, but you didn’t want to listen, did you? All you suit-wearing bastards are all the same. Only caring about the bottom line,” said John as his boot made contact with my ribs once again.

  “What would you know about suffering, Quinton?”

  Another boot made contact forcing me to whimper.

  “Look where all your hard work has gotten you! Facedown in the gutter!”

  I felt his hands invade my pockets and I tried to fight him off, but I just wanted it to be over, just wanted the beating to stop.

  He placed his mouth against my ear, till all I could smell was poor decisions and regret. “The difference between us has always been, I’m willing to take what’s mine and you’re not.”

  I could hear the rustling of my money in his hand as the edges of my vision began to turn black.

  “Where’s all your hard work got you now?” he asked as I fell into unconsciousness.