Shit Business

The haze begins to lift and a prone Thorne reluctantly regains consciousness.

It's dark, too dark to see the room he is in ... and it is quiet.

"Hello?" - no answer, no echo, nothing.

Thorne gets a bad feeling about this; there is almost nowhere in this convoluted city that you can experience total quiet, unless you're deep underground or in a special facility.

"I'm in a shit business," he thinks to himself as he tries to sit up and a sharp pain shoots through his gut.

Thorne lays back and tries to collect his thoughts, assess his situation.

His hand goes to his stomach and feels the bandage, expecting it to be a hack job, wound uncleaned with blood soaking through. He finds it otherwise. Someone wants to keep him alive; the bullet wound is well dressed ... which is more than he can say about himself - no shirt, no shoes, no trousers and no gun.

And no cheque from Omni.

This was supposed to be an easy job, three retirements with their location known, but ... was this a setup?

Something clicks in his mind, he saw more than one Joseph. Is he a replicant?

Or a clone?

A sinking feeling stirs inside him as he realizes his situation.

• Whoever has got him knows who he his, as well as his aliases.
• They also know he's been hired by Omni for a sizable sum.
• He doesn't know who the enemy is, and he's wounded and unarmed.

"A goddamn shit business."

Date: 2002-10-17 23:30