Story code: ST-001297
Part 3: Dead Man’s Hand
The heavy, tinted glass of the rear window descended with a nearly silent whisper of expensive electric motors, revealing the pitch-black interior of the backseat. Walt held his breath, the worn walnut stock of the shotgun pressed hard into the pocket of his shoulder. He narrowed his eyes against the harsh afternoon glare, trying to pierce the gloom of the vehicle’s artificially cooled cabin.
Something inside the darkness moved. It wasn’t a person. A matte-black mechanical armature unfolded from a recessed cavity in the car’s ceiling. Tiny, high-torque servos whined as a cylindrical device lowered into the open window frame. A brilliant red laser flared to life on the front of the cylinder, sweeping out of the car and painting a vivid, perfectly horizontal crimson line across the dry dirt, the rotting porch stairs, and directly across the center of Walt’s chest.
Walt didn’t know what the machine was, but the red line resting over his heart triggered a primal, instantaneous survival instinct. He tightened his grip on the pump-action shotgun.
“Shut that thing off!” Walt barked, his gravelly voice echoing off the hollowed-out shells of the distant auto plants.
By the driver’s door, the young corporate agent froze, his bureaucratic annoyance evaporating into sudden, wide-eyed alarm. “Wait! It’s just a LIDAR array! It’s a surveyor drone mapping the topography! Don’t shoot the rig, it’s worth more than this entire block!”
Walt ignored the man’s plea. The red laser continued to sweep across his torso, blindingly bright even in the daylight, scanning the peeling wallpaper of his entryway. Walt didn’t care what the suit called the machine. He wasn’t going to stand on his own porch and be targeted by a piece of corporate hardware.
Walt shifted his left hand on the grooved forestock and violently racked the action.
*Clack-clack.*
The harsh, mechanical violence of the heavy steel slide chambering a twelve-gauge shell cut through the humid summer air like a thunderclap. It was a universally understood sound, raw and completely devoid of negotiation.
The sound absolutely broke the young man in the suit.
His polished corporate arrogance shattered in an instant. The transparent glass tablet slipped from his manicured fingers, hitting the pulverized asphalt of the driveway with a sharp crack, the glowing screen splintering into a spiderweb of dead pixels.
“No, no, no!” the man shrieked.
Sheer terror seized him. His right hand dove frantically beneath the lapel of his tailored charcoal jacket. The movement was clumsy, driven by pure panic. The fabric snagged, but he wrenched his arm free, suddenly pulling a compact, matte-black 9mm handgun from a concealed shoulder holster.
Walt’s reflexes took over. He instantly swung the heavy barrel of the pump-action shotgun away from the automated scanner in the backseat, leveling the dark, hollow muzzle dead center at the man’s chest.
“Drop it!” Walt roared, his voice tearing through the stagnant heat.
The young man didn’t drop it. He gripped the 9mm with both hands, thrusting it out in front of him, using the open door of the white vehicle as a flimsy shield. His silver-rimmed sunglasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, revealing eyes that were wide, watery, and completely consumed by fear. His hands were shaking so violently that the muzzle of his handgun drew small, erratic circles in the air.
Walt stared down the barrel of his shotgun, his finger resting lightly against the trigger. His heart hammered against his ribs, but a cold, familiar stillness washed over his mind. He was looking at a dangerous amateur. The safety on the 9mm was off, and the suit’s finger was fully inside the trigger guard, twitching with every frantic, hyperventilating breath.
“I have a permit!” the man screamed, his voice cracking, pitching up into a desperate, high-pitched octave. “I am legally permitted to carry! Put that shotgun down!”
“You drew a weapon on a man standing on his own front porch,” Walt said, his tone dropping to a low, deadly calm. He didn’t move an inch. “A piece of plastic in your wallet doesn’t stop a twelve-gauge slug. Take your finger off the trigger, son. Before you do something that gets us both killed.”
“You’re not supposed to be here!” The man’s chest heaved beneath his crisp white shirt. Sweat beaded on his forehead, dripping down his nose. “My name is Julian! I’m just a site manager! They told me this sector was empty!”
“Does it look empty to you?” Walt demanded, keeping his sight picture locked on the center of Julian’s torso.
“You’re dead!” Julian yelled, a note of hysterical disbelief bleeding into his terror. The 9mm continued to shake in his unsteady grip. “The registry says Walter Vance is deceased! The company said this was a hazard zone! Feral dogs and violent squatters! That’s why they told us to carry protection!”
“Who told you?” Walt pressed, his jaw tightening. The realization began to crystallize in his mind, cold and heavy. This wasn’t a clerical error. It wasn’t a missed tax bill.
“Genesis!” Julian stammered, tears of sheer panic welling in his eyes. “Genesis Holdings! They said the last holdout died six months ago! They filed the death certificate in probate court so they could fast-track the demolition permits! You don’t exist!”
The heavy, humid air between them seemed to completely stall. The robotic whir of the surveyor drone continued behind Julian, its red laser endlessly sweeping the ruined yard, completely indifferent to the lethal intersection of steel and desperation playing out beside it.
Walt looked at the terrified corporate agent. The corporation hadn’t just bought his debt; they had actively erased his life to steal the very dirt beneath his boots. And they had sent this frightened, trembling kid into the ruins with a loaded gun, fully expecting him to encounter nothing but ghosts.
Julian stood frozen behind his shaking handgun, his chest heaving, his desperate eyes silently begging Walt to put the shotgun down, utterly paralyzed by the reality that his employer’s lie had just cornered him in a deadly trap.