i wander the city a monument to misery with all it's blood soaked history and conflicting power struggles and shattered dreams in downward spiral, the corporate nightmare in four dimensions, the junkies and the prostitute children, the mavericks and the resolute, the sinners and the saints the television queens and the kings of empires. here where the children are born grown up, the pennies trickle down from skyscrapers build from blood and this criminal elite with cameras on every corner of every street, monitoring suffering and sickness as they brain wash us with political beliefs and hope for the hopeless.
i blend with the shadow, merge with he dark, i'm neither here nor there, no one knows me, no one cares to ask, no body ever questioned a man who is not there. i have my resources my survival needs are few, i'm paid in cold cash for services that lay under the radar, i don't have an id that you could authenticate, i'm only found by those with the ability to locate, i'm not for public consumption or the market would collapse, my energy is lethal, i'm the psychic detective, you can call me mission.

i've lived to long amongst men, their corruption betrays like the stench of an ugly dog.
i'm forlorn with their behavior and contradictory ways, i'm aghast at the horror, just like kurtz, i'm adrift in my own madness, devoid of constructs imposed or propositioned, here in my own landscape there is no discrepancy, i am the purest anarchist, true only to myself and that is a lie.
i saw them struggle to build a society, a civilization we can be proud off, ha! instead we get this new babylonian testament to . where the corporation reflects the individual at his psychotic worst, the puncture through the mind set reeling the truth can only hurt. a place where every man scavenges around in competition with the rats.
this planet is ravaged by greed as its ancient wonders are plucked, the trees ripped from their fabric, the oceans plundered, the environment rebels and time slips faster towards the event horizon, while people are blinded by plasma tricks and microwave ovens and reality tv shows and newspaper lies. but the fools at the bottom drink their arena games and suck down amber fluids to numb the pain.

i read their minds like the pages of trashy novels, throwaway lives, dedicated to misery, the sadness weeps out from under the skin, like a cloud of gas escaping. old women with broken souls wander the streets pushing shopping trolleys with possessions and memories of a life they once had, while men drink in bars to forget something they can't recall. the ground level is where no sunlight gets in, dark and musty and avenues lined with decomposing corpses and scavengers. there's rats that roam in broad day light, some on their hind legs, some even speak, some are even bilingual.
why just last night when i was trawling the streets working a case i stumbled onto a vampyre sucking a midnight feast from some poor girl, he had already torn open her heart and was draining her dry, i could see her eyes flicker as she took her final breath, i could read her last thought, 'peace.' i could see her soul rise. the vampyre being fed and recognizing me stepped back into the darkness in fear. even children of the night fear me. for when your darkest thoughts are laid bare and exposed what else is left, the truth is an ugly beast kept hidden under masks, even the wretched fear exposure. their fatal flaws revealed, their shame known.

the case i was working on was tricky, a rich couple had tracked me down at the old library building. it was a standard missing persons case, their daughter an twelve year old, last seen on the upper levels of the city, where the affluent inhabit, they get natural sunlight up there, they get real food to, and the few times i've been up there i see the way they live, despising the lower level, a class structure built on hate. two extreme lifestyles, one living upon the blood sweat and tears of the other, just like every other place, to many people down ere in the squalor and a handful of people up there in society.

the girls name was lucy, it would be her birthday tomorrow, which meant i knew where to look for her.
the parents were frightened. they were nervous as my reputation was whispered in nefarious circles, they had managed to find me which is the reason i took the case. i needed some opium as well. they would give me a years supply which seemed a deal favored in my direction seeing as i knew where to look for lucy.

down ere amongst the low life, there are many communities, societies and cults. mostly unsavory. a particularly nasty one was the 'oblique sphere' an occult group who had a reputation of sacrificing virgins, particularly on the eve of their thirteenth birthday. when i was assigned to the dark crimes squad in the old days i came across their modus operandi but the cases were always unsolved because missing persons had become as blasé as jay walking and dark crimes were moving more into corporate and cyber crimes as resources dwindled. the idea of a police force was about as worthwhile as attempting to control the tide with a pencil. eventually the dark crimes squad just kinda dissipated into me and the secretary stacy and the chief who was not really human. one day i signed in and we all sat around drinking coffee pondering the futility of carrying on, it was agreed that all things considered it was best if we all cut our losses and walked away. that was seven years ago. history.

now i had about 14 hours to find young lucy, i had two places to go, one was above ground and one was under ground, i didn't want to waste time so i consulted the i ching.

i got FU. TURNING BACK
After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has
been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force.
The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time;
therefore no harm results. Societies of people sharing the same views are formed.
But since these groups come together in full public knowledge and are in harmony
with the time, all selfish separatist tendencies are excluded, and no mistake is
made. The idea of RETURN is based on the course of nature. The movement is cyclic,
and the course completes itself. Therefore it is not necessary to hasten anything
artificially. Everything comes of itself at the appointed time. This is the meaning
of heaven and earth.
the moving line read.

Six in the second place means:
Quiet return. Good fortune.

Return always calls for a decision and is an act of self-mastery. It is made
easier if a man is in good company. If he can bring himself to put aside pride
and follow the example of good men, good fortune results.

as usual it was ambiguous but my enhanced intuition understood it immediately, i was going up, but i would respect the moving line and find good company to assist. besides i was looking for a reason to call stella, we had unfinished business.

stella had a gig training people in combat, i found her at her makeshift office, she had her head buried in something, her hands clasping a few precision instruments and a spot light attached to her head, she was playing with a new gun.
'it's a pulse gun, evaporates you from the inside, i'm calibrating it, very delicate job let me tell you.' her head stayed focused on task.
'i need your services stella, i'll pay you cash upfront.'
'oh yeah, if i had a dollar for every guy that said that.'
'stella, it's a case. oblique sphere.'
that got her attention.

we were drinking whiskey in her office, a small room crammed with weapons and old magazines of exotic holidays in tropical places.
'you planning a trip.'
'i always wanted a place in he sun, you know the real sun.'
'yeah, every one wants a place in the sun stella.'
stella drinks her whiskey like a man.
'i'm going to get out of this shit hole one way or another, its only a matter of time.'
we reminisce a bit, she gets sentimental when we talk about the cases we solved, she likes going over her kills. half a bottle later she's agreed to go up level with me. up level, the heights where the elite live is more dangerous than down here. up there you can't see your enemy coming.