Moral Zero by Set Sytes Page A

bastards, cause everthin on my level is empty, no sense of fuckin danger or immorality to get you hot inside, cause morality itself is like some ancient word it’s used so little and there’s lots that don’t know what it means. Everthin around me is washed fuckin clean of fun and that . . . that evil spark of livin that makes bad men do what good men dream. Y’know? Ground level’s not a playground no more, it’s fuckin sterile, and the ceiling’s so high to reach it may as well be the fuckin sky.
    Red sighed and coughed. He reached in his pocket for cigarettes and lit one and smoked it, tilting his head right back and breathing it out as if was nectar to share with the gods, as if every cloud of the day was formed from those who smoke at night. He held the cigarette burning in his fingers and spoke again, as if there was some need in him to explain that he had not hitherto felt.
    So you know what happens when you can do anythin and not have any threat of punishment, and that state of things ain’t just a temporary hole in things but it’s the real fuckin state of things? When you can do anythin you end up doin nothin. We thrive on conflict man, on the fuckin risk you are gaggin for me to avoid. Crime drops from all but that which the Elite do, which ain’t measured just seen by all. The upper class are gods, the middle class are escapists and the underclass are fucked. You don’t wanna see the kind of shit I’ve seen people from the families or employed by them get away with. Makes some of these people in Rule look like goddamn fuckin saints. Hell, everone else are just things to the Elite. The lower you are the more of a fuckin toy you are. Y’know? Shit.
    Red took a deep breath and smoked. So you see why I’m here, why any-fuckin-body’s here. We’re here to live man. And it’s worth the risk of inconveniencin ourselves.
    I didn’t rea lise death was an inconvenience.
    Red laughed. It ain’t that bad.
    Tell that to the dead.
    I have done.
    Mr White yawned and suddenly felt very, very tired. Alright. Let’s find a hotel and find some relatively comfy sheets to die in.
    What do you think we been lookin for this whole time? Red rolled his eyes at him. Neither of my eyes are on this conversation amigo.
    He stopped right there in the middle of the street and turn ed to his right and looked up. Let’s just take this one man.
    Mr White looked. No way, he said.
     
    HOTEL
     
    Unidentifiable insects roamed the walls with sneering abandon. This place was theirs first and would be theirs still after the humans and semi-humans and all their creations were long dead. Even the moments when you couldn’t see them you could hear them, tickling the inside of the walls, and in the silent seconds each of their tiny legs resounded like clacking boots.
    The last attempt to paint the place must have been in some previous age of humanity, when humans cavorted naked and whooping as nought but shaved apes. As if we had only regressed since then, evidenced in this maggot’s palace. The water ran, just about, and the plumbing worked on occasion, but any upkeep and maintenance more than that was the stuff of fancy. Was the place ever liveable? Perhaps in that previous age. Before whoever owned the place had turned their attention to things of greater import, such as dealing, gambling, prostitution and snuff rackets.
    The place was a front, that was clear. But Mr White kept his head down and his eyes blinkered and he made sure he knew nothing. They walked to their room on the ground floor, and any of the rotting wooden doors left open slammed shut as others heard their approach. Red narrowed his brow as they passed one, and evidently he heard something salacious for he smirked and shook his head. Mr White was not listening. He just wanted to sleep.
    They entered the room and were surprised to find it no worse than the hotel in District Five. Sure, the curtains were rags that had at no point ever been actual curtains except when