For Your Pleasure Tonight: Chapter 1

For Your Pleasure Tonight

Chapter:1

“The...time...is…9...0...0...p...m...Friday...23rd...of...March… 2035.” The alarm served it's purpose, as it always did.  And as always Sean had woken up minutes before it was set to go off. He loathed these minutes, for however short they technically were they always felt endless. Perhaps it was because they allowed him to question the morality of the night that lay ahead, or simply because these few minutes lead to the hour that stood in between him and his narcotic of choice.

Sean silenced the generic female avatar hologram projecting from the alarm clock and waved his hand in front of the anti-concussion window shutters’ motion sensor by the side of his single bed, allowing London's city lights far below to pour one inch at a time through the window, across the linoleum floor and up the white granite walls of his bedroom. The electric hum and wale of orange street bulbs and car alarms far below filled the once silent and stale apartment air.

He rose and massaged his left shoulder, the shoulder that would forever ache courtesy of some wayward shrapnel just a few years ago, though it now felt like a lifetime. He took his pre-rolled filter-less cigarette from the bedside table where he'd placed it along with a tattered book of matches twelve hours earlier. Tasting the earthy musk of the tobacco on the tip of his lips, the ex soldier struck a match and as the flame flared at it's brightest, he caught a glimpse of the garage logo on the side of the match book. He held motionless in the dimly lit bedroom drawing on his cigarette as he inhaled the first puffs of dry bitter nicotine deep into his lungs while feeling the warmth of the flame, so close to his face now. His cigarette lit, he slowly lowered the match, being careful not to let flame extinguish however.

Defiantly holding the burning piece of tinder between his thumb and forefinger, he stood mesmerised as the flame menacingly advanced closer to his flesh. As the scorching sensation grew stronger he began to contemplate how life would have turned out for him had he not found his way that garage after returning from the war. Dead, he concluded as always. Whether it was to b down an alleyway with a needle in his arm or in a cheap military boarding house room with a pistol in his mouth, Sean couldn't fathom any kind of life other than the one he was living today. At the feel of his finger-tips blistering he finally put out what little remained of the match. Sean knew he’d never truly come back from the war, not all of him. Something had been left behind; a void had been created and now that void needed to be filled.

He voice commanded the lights to be switched on and set about the same routine he practiced seven nights a week. He lay out a black Tuxedo with a matching black dress shirt completed with a black bow tie and silver cuff-links. Then came the black combat boots cleverly disguised as leather dress shoes, polished to military standards of course. After all, this wasn't an outfit. This was his uniform.

He fixed himself his usual breakfast, baked beans, two fried eggs a cooked Cumbrian sausage and three pieces of bacon all accompanied by a slice of buttered toast. He devoured it all in under five minutes and proceeded to take a quick shower followed by an even faster shave.

Now almost dressed, he walked back into his bedroom and picked up the fully loaded and ready to fire Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol that lay on top of his bedside table. Always kept within arm’s reach of where he slept. Satisfied with his inspection of the seventeen rounds in the magazine and the smooth feel of the sliding action, he re-chambered a round and slid the side weapon into a matching black holster that tucked in just below his left arm pit, concealed by the accommodatingly tailored tuxedo jacket that Sean now draped on and over it.

The ex-soldier took a breath as he felt himself relax ever so slightly. Something that always occurred, he came to realize, whenever he felt the weight of a loaded pistol on his person.

Before leaving his barely furnished nothing-but-the-essentials one room apartment, Sean paused and  turned on the same spot he turned every night to face the mirror next to the doorway. He examined his appearance. Turning his head from side to side, he inspected the dark haired military precise buzz cut he maintained on a daily basis. Satisfied, his eyes lowered to his face. Taking in two hazel eyes, a strong straight nose, gaunt cheeks, thin lips and a square jaw. He recalled a time as a teenager when he would have vainly obsessed over his reflected image, checking for acne and making sure his chestnut coloured curls were styled to perfection; but that felt like a very long time ago.

Deciding the rest of his appearance was to the proper standard, he turned back to the door and lay his palm flat against the grease proof biometric scanner to deactivate the locking mechanism. Once on the other side, after having voice commanded the lights off and the anti-concussion shutters down, Sean closed the door and reactivated the biometric lockdown. Being sure to listen for the heavy whirring and thud of each of the six individual steel bolts as they latched into place.

Stepping into the elevator and hitting the button indicating -1, the ex-soldier checked the wide opaque gel band on his left lower arm as four glowing numbers systematically circled around his wrist. 0...9..:..5...0. As always, Sean was right on schedule.

When the doors opened onto the deserted basement floor parking garage, Sean instinctively popped the button on top of his gun holster. While the building’s security measures were far above standard, the ex-soldier’s training wouldn’t allow him to ignore the fact that the basement garage was the weakest link in the chain. If there were ever to be an incursion from the outside, this would be the point of entry.

But as always Sean walked to his private parking box alone and undisturbed. Nobody but him and the sound of his footsteps bouncing around the darkened alcoves of the deserted parking lot. With another scan of his palm print, the heavy reinforced steel gate opened with a loud metallic rattle. After a quick satisfied bomb check under and around his car with an extended mirror; another paranoid habit he couldn't drop. Sean climbed into the reinforced bullet proof Land Rover, started the engine and began his transit to the exit, but not before making certain that his parking box was properly secured shut.

The thirty-two second drive to the two consecutive exit barriers lead to one final biometric read. Sean drove through the first gate and braked to a standstill while it slowly closed behind him. With a heavy steel clang the final exit gate rose before him, revealing  London’s all but deserted streets cloaked in a neon orange night.