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Zero Percent [BBB2014; Mikey/Ray] ONE
RETURN TO MASTERPOST
ZERO PERCENT
by neelacuda
ONE.
Fuck Gerard.
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Fuck Ray, that fucking lying scumbag. Fuck Frank, that kid looks like he just came out of middle school. Fuck Brian and the fucking stick up his ass that he fucking has, he doesn’t know jack shit.
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Bob is okay though, he seems pretty chill.
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Okay, if Gerard wants a fucking preteen apocalypse novel memoir, they can fucking get it. I got nothing better to do in this shithole anyway. Fuck it, I’m writing this shit for myself. This is what happened, this is the whole true fucking story up to where I am now, and they can fucking deal, whether they like it or not.
When I was a kid, really young, I could barely tie my own laces-Gerard told me something that I never forgot, and something that has saved the skin on my ass so many times.
“Never forget that everyone around you wants to break you.”
Depressing words from a ten year old, but I guess they’ve always been erudite. I fucking trusted them with my whole heart soul body, and this is how they betray me. Fighting the Good Fight.
When I was small, there was this bird. We were playing with it, on the streets in the New Jersey district outside our building. The day was, like all days in the City, gray with a uniform temperature, not too hot and not too cold. The bird was even muted, its shades of yellow and brown accompanied with a distinctly gray undertone.
The bird flew towards me, right towards my head, and I reacted by setting it on fire.
My brother freaked the fuck out, and then made me swear, swear on my life that I wouldn’t tell anyone, not a soul. Especially not Mom, we couldn’t make her decide between being an Upstanding Citizen and someone who could go to a correctional facility.
They said that I was a mutant, that BLI hated mutants even though we’d done nothing wrong, said that I should never tell anyone if I valued my life as I’d known it.
They said they were a mutant too, and that they knew exactly how I felt, and then let me cry into their arms for ages, even though I got snot all over their jacket.
Then they said, “I’m gonna show you this comic, it’s really old and kind of illegal, but I think it will help.” That was the first time I read the X-Men.
100%
Mikey pursed his lips. They’re not getting anything out of him now, they couldn’t get anything out of them before, when he was slightly more inclined to speak. He looks stoic, but they’re better at it than him. They’re both at a stalemate.
If Mikey wasn’t handcuffed to a table and drugged to the gills he’d want to smirk. All he really wanted right now was to take a piss and-slash-or get out of this prison complex. They didn’t get Gerard though, so that was good. It was just him in this place, in damn Battery City.
Battery City was so corrupt nowadays-they just drugged you until you could barely stand straight you were so high - just so no one would notice their inhumane practices and the fact they’d completely ignored their mission statement. Battery City was just Japanese slogans and Porno droids now.
He wasn’t even that bad of a criminal, anyway. All he’d done is burn down a building. It was old and crumbling and he was tripping balls but he still knew shit from places people cared about and lived in. Most of the New Jersey district was cracked and broken and due a renovation anyway, he’d just been doing a public service. They should be thanking him.
“Michael James Way. 23. Resident of the New Jersey District. Unregistered mutant. Has not taken prescribed BLI pills in six months. Found with a blood alcohol content of 0.013% and traces of MDMA in the bloodstream. Felonies: arson, unregistered mutations, refusal to take prescription, assault of BLI representatives, consumption of illegal substances.” The droid was going on and on and on, reciting this shit like he didn’t know it. It’d been repeating his info and charges over and over again. Either they were waiting for him to crack in the empty whiteness they called an interrogation room, or they were stalling, waiting for someone human to come and see him.
In old vids the characters talked about getting lawyers - people to argue for them and make sure they didn’t get locked up or dusted or worse, but those hadn’t existed since the zones came about and the Helium Wars blew up the whole damn US of A. Mikey didn’t have a damn lawyer, didn’t have the fucking cash for a damn lawyer, and even if he did, he’d cut off his cock and balls if they argued with BL/ind and won.
He just adjusted his glasses with the one hand that wasn’t handcuffed. His mom couldn’t afford eye pills for him, and he just spent all his cash on illegal liquor and hallucinogenics. Glasses were cheaper in the short run, but only if you took care of them.
A guy with a bald head and dumb ruffles around his neck came through the sliding door behind Mikey. Mikey tried to swivel his head around, get a good look at him, but he walked calmly around Mikey and sat down opposite him. Mikey would consider that a dumb move, except every wall in this room had a sliding door that Baldy had a swipe card to. If Mikey went ballistic and tried to crisp Baldy, Baldy could escape or call for reinforcements quickly enough. He wasn’t handcuffed.
Baldy looked at him and Mikey looked back. So here they both were, at an impasse until one of them talked. It sure as fuck ain’t gonna be Mikey.
“Michael James Way, I presume?”
“You got the right room, Baldy.”
“You may call me Vladimir, Mr. Way,” he said, raising his left eyebrow in challenge. Mikey tried very hard not to gape.
That was an uncommon name, reminiscent of the old times, and the kind of gory horror that was illegal now.
Mikey was kind of fucked. “You can call me Mikeyway, then. That’s what everyone calls me. Since we’re being friends and all.”
“There’s no need, Mr. Way. Perhaps I shall if you accept my offer.”
An offer? That was interesting: Mikey was just expecting they’d make him do community service and monitor his pill intake for a month or so, make sure he was Reforming and being an all around Upstanding Citizen. But an offer? That wasn’t something he was expecting.
“An offer, huh?”
“Yes, Mr. Way. BLI has been monitoring your use of your mutative abilities, and we feel that as part of your Reformation, offering you the opportunity to be a member of the mutant subdivision of S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W would be the best chance for you to become an Upstanding Citizen of Battery City.”
“Shit.”
“Shit, indeed, Mr Way. This is a great opportunity to contribute to the wider community of Battery City.”
Mikey was still handcuffed to the table; he didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” he sighed, feeling very hard done by.
“Citizens of Battery City always have a choice,” Vladimir intoned, but Mikey knew what it meant. If he didn’t accept they’d look up his mom, look up Gerard, look up everyone he’d ever talked to and threaten them until he accepted. They wanted him, for some reason. They wanted his power.
“I accept, I guess. Might as well.” Mikey said, trying to seem as nonchalant as he could, being locked up in an interrogation room and all.
“Great,” Vladimir smiled a smile that looked more like he was baring his teeth at Mikey, and placed his swipe card on the table. The table lit up, recognising him and he started pulling files up for Mikey. “We welcome you to the team, Exterminator Way.”
Mikey felt grim. Kind of sick, really.
“As an Exterminator you will be required to go out with patrols within the City, as well as out in the Zones as you progress in ranking. You will not need to concern yourself with that quite yet. You have authorisation to use your mutative skills whilst on the clock, otherwise you are not exempt from Battery City laws. You will have a negotiable work schedule, a new regimen of pills, and a quite sizeable monthly income. Are there any questions?”
Mikey felt like he was going to puke. “Will I need to, like, Exterminate?”
“That’s generally assumed to be in the job description, yes.”
Mikey felt cheated and blackmailed. He said nothing else.
“Well! If that’s all, I should go. It was nice meeting you, Mikeyway. We shall expect to see you tomorrow morning at 0900 hours for your first day. Do not be late.”