It was raining.

  I was cold.

  I was wet.

  I was starving and that was the least of my problems.

  The cold I felt had nothing to do with the rain falling on my face and everything to do with the image of the lifeless face I kept seeing wherever I looked. It haunted me.

  The people who passed me in the street looked like him. The people who sat at restaurant tables looked like him. The people who huddled in the alleyways for warmth looked like him.

  I couldn’t get away no matter where I was.

  I ran and ran and ran after the incident happened. Even when my chest hurt and I found it hard to breathe, even when my legs screamed in pain, I just kept on moving, because to stop would be to review what I had just done.

  I don’t know how far I went.

  All I know is I kept on moving until weariness took over my body.

  I sat with my back slumped against the wall and just allowed the pitter-patter of the raindrops to fall onto my shoulders.

  I killed a man.

  I killed a man.

  I killed a man.

  I repeated the words over and over again in my head, while I hugged my arms to my body. Once again I asked how had life gotten so messed up.

  I buried my head in my knees and shivered as the rain made its way down my back. I had always tried to do the right thing. Always stayed inside the lines and never went off-script. I had my life all planned out for me.

  Go to school. Get a good job. Get married and have friends. Retire.

  But somewhere along those lines things blurred, and I hated my job with a passion almost as much as I hated my home life. It became a battle of staying late at a job I didn’t want to do, so I didn’t spend time at a home I didn’t want to go to. In those self-hate-filled days, I dreamed of escaping it all. I dreamed of travelling and doing the one thing I truly loved.

  Painting.

  It was a passion that grew from learning about one of my favourite painters of all time, Caravaggio. The bad boy painter of his era defied everyone from the Pope to the public. He cared little for what critics said and lived his life on his own terms. Growing up I would read about his exploits and dream it was me fighting in duels and bedding the models I painted.

  But as I grew older and my skills didn’t match my dreams, the crushing weight of life destroyed those dreams for me.

  I believed I was good, good enough to live the dream I wanted, but my parents—one an accountant, the other a lawyer—thought it would be better if I placed my efforts elsewhere.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  I chuckled to myself.

  If only they could see me now. See how doing the right thing, the accepted thing, and not placing my efforts into dreams had gotten me where I was today.

  I killed a man.

  There was that thought again, I tried to shake it but couldn’t.

  Every time I had a moment of peace it would pop into my head with such clarity it hurt. I hugged my knees and did the only thing I could think of; I cried. I cried for the unfairness of it all; I cried for the craziness of it all; I cried because it was the only thing I could think to do, the only thing that really made any sense.

  So I cried and cried while the rain washed away my tears.

  * * *

  I didn’t know how long I spent on the cockroach-covered ground of the alleyway, but I knew it was long enough for one of its many occupants to throw a waterproof blanket over me. I couldn’t remember anyone doing it so I must have dozed off through the night. I knew I couldn’t stay in this spot forever because I had sent instructions to Claire where to send help to pick me up, so I had to move.

  I slowly got up from the ground and gritted my teeth as stiff joints popped back in place, and cold muscles tried their best to move me.

  I looked up towards the sky and let out a sigh, as I made my way towards my pickup point.

  The journey took me longer than I expected, as I got lost on numerous occasions and had to ask for directions. Finally getting to where I wanted to be I stood across the road from The Office in a darkened alleyway and waited.

  I felt bad for Jerry as I looked at the damage the bar had taken. Windows gone. Sign half hanging off. There was not much left of the burnt building that was once Jerry’s pride and joy, yet repair work had already begun to take place on the building. Rickety scaffolding that would pass no safety codes back home covered the building, and there were piles of wood and materials stacked up in front of it.

  Work on the bar had appeared to stop for the night, with the odd customer walking up to it and raising their hands in shock and anger when they realised their local watering hole would not be open for the next few weeks.

  In the past, before WW3, most of the manual jobs in construction and labour had been done by capable AIs, but as the war broke out and AIs were used to hunt, kill and spread terror their presence amongst the public was never the same.

  They became a victim of their own success.

  Placed in folklore, music and movies their image became one of horror. They were used to scare little kids into doing their chores; they were always the bad guys.

  They became the enemy.

  Even now, hundreds of years later, when they could have fixed Jerry’s property in a matter of hours, their use was still shunned.

  That’s why it had been a shock to find one in the company of the Junk Yard Dogs. Such a valuable piece of tech would be worth millions, even though the AI butler wasn’t as sophisticated as the ones used for war.

  There had always been rumours about AIs still existing after what had now become known as the Dissemble, where all the world’s governments had tried to wipe them off the face of the Earth, but like humans the AIs had intelligence and with that intelligence came a need to survive and adapt no matter what.

  I stayed in the shadows for a few more hours until something caught my eye.

  A man I never thought I would see again took a seat in a dirty little café situated on the same road as The Office. He looked at the table in front of him in disgust before clicking his fingers at an annoyed waitress who had passed him by. She stared daggers at him as he placed an order before he waved her away dismissively.

  I sunk back further in the shadows unsure of what to do.

  I had asked for help, but I had thought it would come in the form of some lawman I could trust on this crooked planet, or a friendly face. Not the face of someone who turned my stomach cold.

  I paced back and forth while I watched him take the order he had placed.

  Porcelain cup on a saucer with a teabag placed at its side so he could dunk it in at his leisure, he worked on the computer on his wrist for a few minutes while he allowed the tea to brew before he took a sip.

  I could see his wet lips smacking from here in that disgusting manner he loved to affect, which would always irritate me.

  Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I walked out of the shadows and up to him, where I pulled out a chair and sat opposite him.

  “Hello, Gregory, long time no see.”