{This post is part of @tygertyger's "Electric Dreams" contest, ninth iteration so far. Click here to see it... Tag along music for the post: "You're not supposed to be here" (HL2 OST).}

Image source here

- Feral canine -

And there my acquaintance teleported away - he got his debts payed back. But here I was stuck in time to do another repayment. It then looked towards me and smiled warmly... a certain upgrade to the mystery-inducing attitude from before. Yet It reverted back and stated:

“So with not many left, I leave it up to you to search and protect another ex-agent... I say it’s a feral canine, yet not a canine shamus... Hmm, I should warn you of recent nae-sayers - for they shall impede your progress. Squash them for me if you can... But I shall be watching you.”

Placing It’s hand on my shoulder, I transported through space-time to land in the same olden train in the void. But the door opening quicker and with a new light coming out - I proceeded to it as I did before. Yet I checked my gear, my lazer-mauser still intact and a torch with the same technological craft. Without wasting time, I jumped as before and went through the motions and found myself landing on top of field.

Cocking my head to both sides, I saw all around me just butterflies. Their elegant blue patterns striking my periphery and their patterns in flight making it feel as if I landed in an ocean. Yet the gaze was interrupted whence hearing of two sets of footsteps scrunching the long grass. I low-crawled out of the way that I thought I heard the source came from. They stopped and I kept quiet - now only the butterflies fluttering with the wavy grass dancing can be heard.

Then heavy gear crashed unto the Earth and unpacking began to take fold. By then I noticed I was decked out in camo resembling that of earthern plains - yet my inspection of gear turned towards to the pair yapping on:

“I am not eating that!”

”Really! What else did you pack - remember we agreed to not share our food.”

“Fine - but if I get sick...”

“Pipe down - it’s only one item. How bad can it get?”

“Yeah yeah. So, when we’re going to capture these creatures?”

“Soon, soon. Get the things ready and eat up so we don’t have to leave early.”

Deciding not to listen anymore, I low-crawled my fine ærs out of there. Ironically could I see their features - It surely as cryptic but the details that is given surely applies a whole lot. Guess every being is a... dog? Huh, they must be the canine shamus types - humanoid canines. So, what ex-agent imitates them but acts otherwise?

Yet my little inquiry was interrupted as I slipped my foot into empty space while kicking rocks into such. Twisting my neck, I saw a big ravine that I could’ve dropped into - clearly the falling rocks responding way later indicating the insane depths. Twisting back, I tried to spot the pair to see if they noticed. Their ears shot wide up and they started approaching me - I looked behind again but saw it was impossible to cross the ravine. Yet a reverse flood of blue butterflies came out and spread across the plains and certainly carrying away the canines.

Given the chance, I bolted away from the scene but I then heard their pouncing soon after. They screamed for me to stop and asked if I was okay. But my run outpaced them and I ended up in a woodlands area, I climbed up the trees and lessened my heart rate. Funny that my camo changed into woodland gear - yet good enough to trick them to not spot me. They decided to back track and get away - yet of course they panicked and dialed up their police to inspect the area. Now was the time to hitch it out of there.

Dropping down after they left, I bolted towards a woodlands path and followed close by ‘til I saw a parking lot that was soon to be teemed with police forces. So, seeing a close-by reserve building, I crashed into the place and awaited the police to explore the area. I rushed through every room ‘til I found the cellar and hid there - yet at an unease with a window that faced the lot. Yet, there was more, there had to be more, than that - I shrieked in fear as I saw It arguing with a detective-looking canine shamus. Weirder was that It up and walked away towards the concealed side of a billboard legs and never appeared after crossing the billboard supports. Now that I think aboutIt, It even looked at me and walked away into this building when I ran towards the reserve. It definitely wants debts to be payed - where could feral be at? Yet I stopped squirming about when I heard the stairs being accessed and tread upon, slowly it had to be for them. Why else?

Their torches began to lit up and I could see their beams in this near-dark room, three beams began climbing up. One by one with torches in their mouth and sniffing with their noses all around, they entered the room seemingly armed only with a baton and a weird small arms like that of a pistol. I tried to low-crawl my way out of sight, but one spotted me and told me to freeze. I then flashed my torch light at them, all but two dropped their gear and took a step back - that one merely blinked and widened their eyes. Signaling for me to attack the other while preparing to knife the other, I shot to the right of the feral as to cover their sides. With the deed down, they began to approach me and spoke rather hush while being jovial:

"Hue hue hue, finally I get to have my payday. Hurry, come with me - I know a way outta here. By the way, refer to me as feral - yes that's derogatory, but I cannot care anymore when applied to me. And yes I am a she, canine anatomy is rather strange - especially with human standards."

She helped me off the floor and we tread to the sewer system, I begged to ask how will they not sense her abandonment of the unit - her only response is that she snuck into the area whence she heard a cop dispatch signal played on her police radio. As indirect as that was going to get, it certainly hints at canine forces being as dumb as human forces at times. As soon as we made it into the sewers, we got on a hovercraft to steer through the sewers quick. Resuming the conversation she asked:

"I know that you are obliged to pay off the debt It owes to me - yet I feel like as if you should have a choice of what task I need to... have done at this point. It certainly would make my life easier, so want to have a say in the decision?"

"Sure. What you'd had in mind for a tasker of yours you wanted to be done?"

"Now all of these are rather convenient in the quality of payment due to how high this debt was, but I liken to only three really mattering to me right now: the first being of helping me assassinate a rival mob head and hopefully all their based henchmen in the HQ, the second of rigging of explosives under a certain pound to release my fellow imprisoned canines or the third being the take-down of a certain crook governor. Which one sounds appealing to you?"

"The first one rather sounds more interesting - might I ask if you are in a mafia?"

"Well all the "feral" mafias had been dead for three decades, ironically being replaced with gangs that I am a part of. The take-down the mafia heads only allowed decentralized gang activities to rise and build up more crime. Anyways, you said the first one? Well I'll have to make a pit-stop very soon to gear myself up and ready you for their HQ - they infest that building like rat swarms!"

On we stopped at one of her many outposts and geared up for a mafia... er... gang-styled infiltration and assassination mission of all HQ personal. This was a smoking operation if I were to be blunt, eliminate all threats that can certainly track us down and smoke us if we don't smoke them first. The HQ was certainly intricate, but had too many flaws and was attacked a wee-bit many times by cops - yet surprisingly never captured because they learned how "patch" up from their errors. Which was the reason she wanted to take them down, a model worthy of copying but a model that would certainly rampage across the city if they could stand a few more blows. The underground activities never really stood to surprise me - the mafia experience made all this... rather relatable and nostalgic at some points. But now was time to break the rules and put our hearts into it, start-line to finish.

So we raced against the dusk of night to reach the HQ, dead center of the city and one of the rotting hearts of this metropolis. We, with a few associates of the feral readied in the sewers, began to break in through their "secret" entrances and were in the basement - the drug den. Masking up, we covered our olfactories from the stench of the many drugs laced throughout - I noticed some of our members taking samples to test back at their HQ, but that's stock of the trade even with the Mafia business. Of course, wanting to secure a safe exit, we knocked all the "chefs" out and dragged them to a closet for them to wake up in later. As we got down with that, we approached the ladder-well and climbed each step carefully - for noise was as much of our friend as it was an enemy for us.

As reached the top, we stumbled upon the sentry's quarters. There we saw many a sentry posts, each dignified and distinctive with a specialized dog house. These certainly were veterans of their times with some of the awards that they pin on their dog house, yet undifferentiated they were in our silent take-downs of them. Why to bother with a fight that certainly wouldn't be in your advantage nor is commonplace in nowadays? Certainly it was a disgrace for me to not fairly see them on the streets and battle with them - but the Mafia certainly wouldn't be afraid to make a "red wedding" scenario when the Times weren't on their side. Afterwards, the canines decided that old habits die hard by pouring gasoline the entire level.

Then we move towards the commons space and saw nothing of interest but that of common items - I must add that although I expected it, there where copious amounts of my galaxy's dog toys laying around. To the point that the two associates scoffed and ridiculed the dog toys being laid around in such unsanitary environments. Yet as we moved more and more up, they became less frequent - but more and more of the gangsters we began to spot and couldn't take down so stealthily. We all agreed that even if we get caught, we had the upper hand and could plow through all this, so on the count of three we began rushing to the top and executing all gangsters that didn't eat that dirt and get handcuffed by us. The levels above us shook in thundering steps and barkings - but we covered ground quickly which made them more disoriented and made them whimper, like they saw death on two legs. With the building dead in the city, I expected cops on the scene - yet certainly someone was dumb enough, or certainly too smart to notice, that they denied the only aid that can slow down our rampage.

We managed our way through waves of gangsters that the battle was certainly ecstatic and made the aches feel enjoyable all throughout. And to think our rampage stopped when we approached the reinforced doors was mere whimsical idealism, we planted the charges unto the door and readied a breach in count. My Mauser ready at hand, lock and loaded, began to dictate once more whence the action flowed right back in. We were of one arm, one heart and one soul - killing everything in our periphery and asking questions later, liken to soldiers in the midst of combat. We turned entire posts into smithereens with the power of lead and lasers coursing through the room - but the panic room seemingly untouched by the chaos all around it. As my ecstasy simmered down, I noticed how ashy and bloody the room became - so did my fellow gangsters, one even puking after getting off their blood lust. For why to lie to myself and implicate what I did was wrong and, nevertheless, why did I need to be justify my actions here as a good? Urban combat certainly had begun dropping notions of good and evil as soon as the Mafia had taken hold and revolutionized how urban warfare worked.

And in this downtime of gathering breathes, I noticed in a reflection that It was standing there, smiling like as if the holiest and most ecstatic scene played out and had yet to discern the enjoyment from reality. But It nevertheless fixed the suit tie and walked away towards a dead-end hallway - I gave up on making sense of the ghosting. When the ghosting happened, I snapped back into my blood frenzy and we began to plant massive amounts of termite on the door. So with the same countdown, we once again breached through the door, we all had the guns pointed at the mafioso as he panicked under the desk - he raised as we barked at it to abandon his cover. We then all gave the honours to my lovely feral to do as she pleased as we ransacked the room - taking many a swag with us as began to turn towards the mafioso as he pleaded to live. However, the mafioso knew the life of crime and died in the pistol smoke. We began to track back downwards while transporting our captured convicts, which were put in cones of shame, and also lit the entire sentry's level while 'sploding the drug den right underneath it. No tracks are going to point to how we entered our escaped, we need nae fame nor infamy.

As soon as the prisoners got on the cages, awfully familiar to animal pound cages, and the crew situated on the craft, It walked towards us and gave the associates a shook that they almost retaliated. The feral ordered them to hold their fire while approaching It carefully, I followed suit closely but she told me to stay put. It convened with the feral and she smiled as she walked back to the craft and drove off. It then slowed "space-time" to a crawl, asking:

"It only seemed like yesterday you were there and now here. Certainly a due rest is in order, I presume. Hmm?... In any case, I have been extracting from you and building my debt towards you. And worry nae, it shall be payed in the most troubling times... I should mention that I did stick by my words and I am impressed at how you adapted quickly to a non-human World that certainly acted like one. I say that certain nae-sayers have been... squashed, even if it was indirectly that is. Now they are gone or work under me subordinate - I even am now being contracted to have certain tasks completed, so you'll won't run out of jobs to do..."

We then both teleported to the rusty train and It finished off by saying:

"In the meantime, this is where I get off and you get a rest... I hope stasis here won't be for long nor inhibit the natural mind's processes. As a matter of fact, you get to enjoy a little of nature for now."

Then the train zoomed into fields a plenty and a many. By then It walked off but now I shall wait for the next contract - clearly the name of the game had been set, but now who's taking the lead in all this? Under the table politics certainly would intrigue me right now, but this quiet before the storm shall please me for now.

Cited posts:

@tygertyger - "Electric Dreams no. 9"

Cited images

"Electric Dreams Cover art"