In the previous installment, Unity finally puts her foot down and walks out on Azibo. After his increasingly erratic and sullen behavior, Azibo begins to see consequences. Feeling lonely and depressed, he assures himself he’s doing the right thing by intending to carry out the suicide mission for The Collective. Now, without Unity by his side, will he still go through with it? Or will he reconcile with her and drop his fanaticism?
Let’s jump into Part 12 (a much shorter scene), where Azibo considers what he’ll do next.
When Azibo woke up the following day, his head ached from all the drugs he’d taken. For a moment, he’d forgotten Unity left. Once he remembered she was gone, he felt a pang of longing as he slumped through the kitchen searching for something to eat.
He turned on the net and was greeted by the blue-skinned, perfectly symmetrical and beautiful face of Iris Greene, the star host of NetNow News. He turned up the volume when he read the caption on the screen: “Gov’t confirms rumors of Collective hit-list.”
“The Anti-Terrorism Ministry has confirmed rumors this morning of a hit list circulating underground among ‘members’ of the fanatical terrorist group, The Collective. An unnamed source says Oswald Doyle, Machina member and rumored presidential candidate, is at the top of the list …”
Interesting, Azibo thought. He searched the net for more sources and discovered the Collective had, indeed, kept a hit list and passed it around identifying top assassination targets. They used a point system: killing a Machina high priest earned twenty points and killing Doyle netted a whopping five hundred points. It was undoubtedly bad the government had discovered this list and the secret Collective communications.
Azibo knew intelligence gathering and policing would tighten up; there would be more eyes in the sky and on the street. Security detail at Portia Day events nationwide would be massive. Still, he felt determined to continue his plans to carry out his suicide mission.
But how would he get ahold of their contact? he thought. Unity had been the point person for everything; she received and sent all the reports. Just when he began to worry, he heard a knock at the door.
He opened it, and a teenage punk with pink hair stood there, with an envelope in his hands. “Yeah?” Azibo asked.
“For you.” The punk handed over the envelope, then quickly darted into the street. Within seconds, he was gone.
Azibo opened the envelope – it was a handwritten letter from Horace. He asked if they could meet at the park tomorrow night, just him and no Unity. He made a note of the time, then burned the letter.
He had a slice of cold pizza for breakfast, then sat around the apartment all morning. He opened Sebastian Fuller’s biography but got distracted and put it down. He was anxious about the meeting with Horace.
To be continued
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