It was my dad that taught me to paint; it was right here on the balcony actually. Though I’d been around his artistic creation my whole life, I became interested in painting only after he told me about the time he saw the sunrise. He said it was the most beautiful yellow he’d seen. I wanted more than anything to see it, so I stayed up every night … I still do.

Though civilization reset their clocks the best they could, the clear definition of day and night slipped from our knowing and Los Angeles became a place where people lived at their own pace and on their own schedule … a city that never slept. There was another city like that once, but it was one of the first to go in the war. People say it was hit so hard, and from every direction, that it was reduced to scolding ruble within seconds, and that it was completely swept off the map and into the Atlantic when the tsunamis hit the North-East shore. They say the steel wreckage from the super-high rise buildings alone destroyed surrounding cities.

Decimation Day happened sometime in 2012. It was the first and last nuclear world war the planet would experience, and it all lasted just under three minutes. Some would say that Nostradamus was right, others believe the Mayan’s called it in their calendar, but the fact is, they were wrong. Sure, the world pretty much came to an end as everyone knew it, but there was something the soothsayers didn’t foresee … survivors. Of the billions of casualties, time seemed to be one in particular that affected the planet for centuries to come.

It was like a never-ending foggy night. The only light you could really see in the sky was the light from the neon metropolis below.

Rain fell from the dark, blanketing clouds as I sat at my canvas. I’d been working on this particular piece for the past few months. I thought about it night and day. I dreamt about it every time my eyelids shut.

The canvas was still blank though.

I had ideas. They ran through my mind with the force of ten tsunamis, but ideas combined with talent proved to be dangerous in this world, and like many artists, I inherited my parents’ talent. This is why my ideas were dangerous. Though, it was also because they weren’t necessarily ideas of art at all … pretty much the opposite actually.

My parents were murdered. I saw who killed them; it was a friend that did it. There had always been rumors behind the deaths of represented artists in this city; most consisted of strange disappearances, sudden deaths from disease, or the most popular of all, Cloud Lung – a cancerous disease triggered by breathing too much of the unseen radioactive waste in the clouds. Though this was claimed to be the number one cause of death in the city, it was widely believed by the underground that the agencies were more dangerous than the clouds. The agencies, also known as bloodhounds, were the ones behind every sale, every promotion, and every professional artist in the city.

The filth of the city gets to you fast. There’re things that happen in the middle of the night that no one should see – or even know about for that matter. Last night I spent twenty minutes in the pouring rain with a guy who had been stabbed in the gut. I could hear the medivista’s siren just a few blocks away when the guys gut split open from the pressure, spilling all thirty feet of his small intestines into the gutter, which the rain then swept into a storm drain. Luckily for him, the intestines were still attached to his body, so I was able to retrieve them from the drain. I remember feeling extremely numb while carefully fishing out the never-ending entrails. Then, a jolt of energy that could power a vista for a month shot through my chest – there was a dark figure climbing up toward me from the bottom of the drain. I tore away as fast as I could and returned to the injured man. I felt bad for him. It’s not every day that a stranger piles your own intestines on your chest, and tells you it’s going to be okay.

The rain was hypnotizing as it trickled down the glass of my squad vista, blurring the lights of the neon city. It blanketed the interior from the outside with its smoky, blue tint – the dirty rain was just one of the remnants from Decimation Day. I kept the smoke-shield wipers going so I, too, didn’t doze off; I heard stories in the academy about officers who fell asleep on duty and never woke up … the people in this city are animals. It truly is every man for himself in today’s world.

The computer suddenly came alive with bright LCD light and the radio blarred a long, loud BEEEEEP. I started the vista and prepared to slam it into gear if we were called. Philly was sound asleep. I waited as the radio fell silent for a moment – it was this moment that everyone held their breath … unlike a regular 507 or 415, the long beep was the dispatcher’s way of calling everyone’s attention … it was this moment that decided your fate for the night. The system was a bit out of date … definitely an oldie but goodie. The new police vistas did away with the old CAD system, replacing it with what was called the AID One, or Artificial Intelligence Dispatch. And then it began.

“Alameda to 23, 24, 25, bravo 20 and K9-2, signal 10-71 and 0 in progress at the WorldTime Tower,” Eloise, the dispatcher, called. One nice thing about getting called was Eloise’s voice; it wasn’t like the homeless bag lady’s hoarse voice or the high-pitched hooker’s voices on Sunset Boulevard, it was normal. It wasn’t like the AID One or A.I. around the city, there was emotion, a sense of humor, honesty, and empathy.

I didn’t bother waking Philly … figured the ride there would toss him around a bit.
“10-4 Alameda, 23I slammed the stick into first, hit the siren, and the vista lifted off the slippery street – emergency vehicles were capable of hovering seven feet above surface streets, allowing us to navigate safely through traffic. I spun the wheel, slammed the throttle, and sped over the street toward the WorldTime Tower looming over the horizon of buildings.

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The destruction of the legendary Golden Gate Bridge would trigger another panic. Authorities were already investigating the scene. People were already recording the chaos and spinning their own take on what happened. There was one thing they all shared in common – they didn’t know who was behind it. They had ideas … but the mystery older built momentum – momentum as powerful as a vintage Shelby GT.

While they watched the towering flames consume the oh-so legendary bridge, they failed to look up … look around as a mysterious figure passed by, snagging a set of keys on the way, and head away from the scene. That’s what’s wrong with people these dark days – they’re all rubber neckers with out the slightest idea of what ‘s really going on at any given moment.

Not me. My eyes are wide open. I am alive and I realize that when the time comes I won’t be aware that I’m already dead.

I couldn’t help but glance back at the glowing bridge with a smirk.

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