The sun was out in all of its scorching fury this afternoon. It's brutal glow bent necks and squinted eyes forcefully as the city people went about their daily activities. Serious faces rested on tight black suits, some going for their next shift and some returning from one.
Doesn't matter who you see under the fiery sun, they are either going for work or returning from one in preparation for another. This is just the Law of the City. Hardly would you head idle gists or someone dosplaying his comic side to a circle of friends with a beer in hand.
The City Force are always on patrol, and anybody found frolicking around must surely provide the most convincing story to back up his "crime". But so far, nobody seemed to be able to impress the stone-hearted men of the City Force.
In the City, there is no hard worker or a special recognition for completing your appointed task on time. If it ever occurs that one carried a thousand pallet or bottled a million drinks in an hour, another million will be assigned till one's relieved of the job for the day— 5pm. It never goes beyond that time. Once the clock ticked five, a loud chiming sound reverberates round the city through a device stationed at strategic points near the busiest parts of the City. This sound is a cue for everyone to leave their posts and be relieved of work for the day.
This is Law. This is the City.
But lately, Grantomer Foeblaster the City Guardian has plans. Nobody knows why but more than half the City was to report for an impromptu duty at the City's Rocky Monster, as it is fondly called. It was named the Towering Tower by an unknown entity and this naming was rumoured to have happened after the influential man was drunk on crates of beer. He named it The Towering Tower and people laughed about it but after finding that it's become a rule, the populace took it seriously. But The Rocky Monster was later coined among the people based on the extra large mass of the building, made of stone and standing higher than any other building in the whole of the City. Anybody who cared to look eastward would understand why it was the Rocky Monster.
And so, the City Guardian, Foeblaster instructed every able bodied men within the age of 18 to 50 to ignore their jobs and come work at the Towering Tower. And yes, no one of them is coming back until they have accomplished whatever was there at the Tower to accomplish. So, every man was to say his goodbyes to his family, play one last gamble at one of the City gambling halls, down one last beer with friends, and enjoy the majestic view of The Rocky Monster from their homes one last time because, soon they would be toiling it's belly, and it sure won't be an interesting view down there.
With this mass departure, the City's flourishing life reduced to a gloom. Companies are now forced to hire kids from 15 years of age, women who had no idea what a factory life looks like, and some old men strong enough to last a few hours.
Old men, green boys and the feeble women are what remained of the City's populace.
Oh, the City Force too.
Nobody was called from the City Force and this could have been because of the recent happenings in the City. Delinquents from the ghettos have somehow started gaining entrance into the City despite the fat mass of stone fence built round the City. This fence stretched round giving the City a caged look from the outside world. It is thicker than most ghetto homes and second only to the Towering Tower in terms of height.
The walls were built for a sole purpose— keeping the savages and gangs and thieves and in fact, anybody who does not belong to the city, at bay. The City people believed that anyone born and bred outside these walls is a delinquent unfit for a life in the City.
So, the "savages" from the ghettos are called "Backfencers" by the City people. Most people do not even believe that there are living beings outside the City wall. They've always counted that story as rumour, and nothing else... Until lately.
The Backfencers can now be seen inside the City, living untrue to their name tag as people who's only fit for savagery and not "Cityzenry".
Thus, the City Force never left for the Tower, and of late, they have been permitted to shoot any Backfencer dead no matter the reason or excuse. The Force took this permission with glee, but so far, there has been no Backfencer death recorded. They always escape every time they were sighted. To where, no one knows.
Now, the most troubling part of this all is the frequent armed robbery going on in the late hours as of recent. Seasoned City Guards have been killed during those operations and wades and the perpetrators always disappear with no trace after making off with wades and bags of cash.
Of course, the Backfencers are the prime suspect, hence the shoot-on-sight permission for anybody who sees them.
Strict curfews has also commenced in the City. Nobody was to be seen outside their homes after 9pm. City guardian, Grantomer Foeblaster gave the City Force another permission to kill anyone outside at night— Cityzens or Backfencers alike.
The City became the shadow of its former self. Setting aside the youthful men's mass departure, the old men and the women and some kids old enough to reason with the elders about the state of the City and the economy, showed their discomfort about these drastic changes.
Coded protests began with graffiti art all around the street walls, alleys and even the large high fence. Every morning, people wake up to see signs and art saying, [BRING BACK OUR MEN] or [SCREW GRAND-DAD FOEBLASTER]. Some brave boys even went as far as painting the walls of the Force's station with a [F**K YOU, COWARDLY MINIONS] sign.
Some frowned at these protests, while some smiled. Many looked on, happy or sad, but not showing it and wanting to dismount off the carriage of suspicion.
************
One of the silent protesters was Jimmy Freckleton, a 15-year-old kid who— like many other boys— got his second name from his situation. He has a freckled face. So yeah, Jimmy Freckleton.
He's got dull grey eyes that looks as if to find fault in everything. He nose, the most freckled part of his face, is narrow near the eyes but broader as it traces down the bridge.
He scratched his wet brown hair as he jumped down the last of the stairs of their apartment. His mother is fast asleep by now, he knew. She has been sleeping so early since she started her job at the fabric production company. The unfamiliar stress during the day wears her out and when she gets home, she could only manage to down her dinner before dropping chest-first on her soft bed.
Jimmy has always been a pampered boy right from birth but that has changed since his father was called to duty at the Towering Tower, and his mother working at the factory.
Not that he missed the pampering— he had even questioned it all along— but the loneliness that set in after all these, has bore him to the bone. This left him with his frequent questions that had rumbled in his mind ever since he knew how to think for himself— "why?"
Long matters short, he was a philosopher with a million questions but never acted to find out answers. But to him, thus was about to change tonight. He wasn't going to sit back in his favorite sofa anymore. He needed answers, and there was the answer. There, high above anything else with its pointy top scraping the sky. There, with a thousand square eyes lit against the rising dusk. There, that fat mass of stone standing silhouetted against the rising moon and casting it's fatter shadow against the glow of the City. There, the Towering Tower. The Rocky Monster.
There was the answer.
Jimmy tied his shoelace more tightly as he pulled up to the street and flagged one of the rickety transport vehicle down. The young boy stepped in gingerly and called out to the driver his destination, "the Rocky Monster."
The old driver paused and looked back at him for a moment as if to stop him from going, but lated changed his mind. He geared the vehicle into motion and the City became a blur.
Jimmy didn't look back at his home. He hoped to come back before the curfew.
*************
Stormboy Luffinwattle, now a gang leader, looked back at his men one last time. Since he was appointed as the leader of this unit by the anonymous Underworld Lord, Storm had taken it upon himself to exercise his neck absentmindedly by looking back at his men hundreds of time before every operation.
"Just to be sure. Just to be sure," he always convinced himself.
He looked down at the building plan in his hand once more and after getting the satisfaction, he tucked it neatly into his small bag by his side.
Taking a deep breath, he feared that this mission will make him lose more men than any mission they had carried out. Well, might even be the death of all of them, him included.
This was a suicide mission but he was not bothered. He has signed up for suicide right from the first time he waved a gun at a security officer. Right from the first time he shot a City Guard dead. Right from the first time he left the ghettos. There was nothing to fear any longer.
Madness, but yes. They are going to infiltrate the Towering Tower tonight. They are going to sneak into the belly of the Rocky Monster. The Underworld Lord has something so precious to him hidden in that Monster.
Storm looked back one last time at the men, their hideout.
He didn't hope to come back from this.