Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2014-07-11 03:30 am
azurelunatic) wrote2014-07-11 03:30 am
story noodling
If an armed society was indeed a polite society, I mused, then this lobby was fuckin' obsequious.
I could see seven of the gun emplacements without turning my head, and the boss had thugs in suits arranged like so many pawns on the polished wood inlay floor. I stood quietly as I waited for orders to come back over their ear wires. Too cocky, and one might be tempted to take me down. Too meek, and one might *put* me down. I tried to look boring. And tried not to sweat. My sidearm, just genteelly over the legal minimum specs, had only five bullets. There were seven goons. Boss wasn't against stacking the odds.
The goons' posture shifted. I flinched involuntarily, but the rain of hot lead didn't come. The lead goon laughed at me. "It's your lucky day, KID," he said, with the insouciance of a man with job security. "Boss wants to see you." He pressed an embarrassingly large piece into my nerveless hands.
I didn't have a choice. "Thank you," I mumbled, and let the gun hang flaccid in front of me as two more goons sandwiched me into the lift.
***
Guns are mandatory. The effect was supposed to enforce civility. Instead, the rich buy protection. The arrogant ones even flout the law & go unarmed, surrounded by hired guns.
Women are treated like delicate flowers; anyone of reproductive age with a uterus is treated as pre-pregnant. Naturally the bearers of future citizens are not allowed to endanger themselves, so they have an exemption (a requirement for the opposite) from carrying. Basically they're not citizens themselves...
Shenanigans ensue.
I could see seven of the gun emplacements without turning my head, and the boss had thugs in suits arranged like so many pawns on the polished wood inlay floor. I stood quietly as I waited for orders to come back over their ear wires. Too cocky, and one might be tempted to take me down. Too meek, and one might *put* me down. I tried to look boring. And tried not to sweat. My sidearm, just genteelly over the legal minimum specs, had only five bullets. There were seven goons. Boss wasn't against stacking the odds.
The goons' posture shifted. I flinched involuntarily, but the rain of hot lead didn't come. The lead goon laughed at me. "It's your lucky day, KID," he said, with the insouciance of a man with job security. "Boss wants to see you." He pressed an embarrassingly large piece into my nerveless hands.
I didn't have a choice. "Thank you," I mumbled, and let the gun hang flaccid in front of me as two more goons sandwiched me into the lift.
***
Guns are mandatory. The effect was supposed to enforce civility. Instead, the rich buy protection. The arrogant ones even flout the law & go unarmed, surrounded by hired guns.
Women are treated like delicate flowers; anyone of reproductive age with a uterus is treated as pre-pregnant. Naturally the bearers of future citizens are not allowed to endanger themselves, so they have an exemption (a requirement for the opposite) from carrying. Basically they're not citizens themselves...
Shenanigans ensue.