1 A rainy day

He looked out the window. The sky was black and the clouds were moving towards him. He heard tapping on the window and then the sound quickened. People ran for cover outside and umbrellas were opened. Puddles began plinking as the rain became heavier. The roofs of the cars danced with spray. He had been observing the mansion of the target from the coffee shop for about six days now. He was wearing a modified face mask commonly used on humanoid robots 10 years ago. It was cheap and effective. Not many people ever saw humanoid robots there. He was Andrei, 28 years old, average height.

There was a waitress there with 'Veronica' on her name tag. She was the only one paying attention to him. Her gaze cruised Andrei's figure. She noted that this man was eating leisurely and did not even move his right arm. Not many people could afford to eat like that, because of the overpopulation and food shortages most people ate like dogs. They would quickly gulp down their food. No matter how hungry they were, they would eat all the food in front of them. They had to survive by eating their food before another person stole it. Just 20 years of starvation had changed most peoples' eating habits. Even if someone had been given regular, dependable meals every day, he would still gulp those meals down in a flash, ensuring that nobody could take his food away.

Andrei was tipping her. Waitresses would receive different levels of gratuity based on factors such as age, sex, race, hair color and breast size. The size of the gratuity is found to be only very weakly related to the quality of service, meaning he had been showing off his money, and wanted to receive something of equal value from her. This man made her sick.

The man with the face mask knew that many women had to resort to prostitution just to make ends meet, but he was tipping her only because Veronica reminded him of his sister. The world was a better place for him when her she smiled. He felt her eyes, her lips, and her spirit all at once smiling at him. But in truth the waitress's smile was cheesy, very obvious and fake. Andrei thought that a smile is the presence of heart, it is the light that makes you remember your good times. Smile from someone special gives you the reason to live your harsh life. He thought he should go on a date with her. But what he needed now before facing death once again is the reminder that he lost it all. He gripped his prosthetic right arm.

Ten yeas ago, his father died without formally leaving a successor. His father was the head of the Bull clan, a clan that rose to power through blood and violence. Many powerful families had grudges against his family inside the clan, they just needed justification to start the bloodshed. He was forced to be a soldier, because he was the first born son, and at that time, most families would send their kids off to gain political influence inside the military. He remembered his downfall. He remembered the day his platoon commander requested his presence to anally rape him to fulfill a request from one of the families. The platoon commander was called Ervin. He was a slender and tall man with a lot of wrinkles. He had a crudely insulting stare and he thought he was in control, and nobody could possibly disobey him. After Ervin implied what needs to be done, the soldier in front of him took his gun out and shot him right through the balls. Ervin's brow furrowed as his mouth turned grim.

He knew this soldier was part of a big family, but the internal conflict made the soldier in front of him vulnerable, basically a human sacrifice. He got a special force soldier with a mecha suit from a family just for this meeting. He thought maybe this was a setup making him look like the bad guy and the special force soldier was here to protect Andrei.

Andrei got his right arm ripped off by the responding soldier in the mecha suit. He heard a wet snap before the pain came, like a carrot snapped in two, only much louder, a little more brittle sounding, then there was a simultaneous, gut-wrenching pain. His nonexistent arm went numb until his nerves assessed the damage, and after a second it felt like a gnome with a chainsaw inside his arm, and it did not stop. The pain followed a line right up to his head. He saw a white bone where his upper arm was supposed to be. The nastiness and the pain was beyond what he thought was possible to survive. The mecha's hand cut through his brachial artery. The floor looked like the bed of a woman with endometriosis after a heavy nighttime bleeding on her period. His arm was shooting pain like continuous stabbing with several hot knifes. The pain was throbbing in waves. As he saw more and more people appear, he felt as if he was having a tea party in hell, while being boiled alive.

Everybody rushed to the room out of curiosity. Not long after, his friends applied tourniquet to what's left of his arm. Those friends trying to apply the tourniquet really brought their A-game. All they did was inflict more agony on him. The guy in the mecha suit started laughing.

"I think you guys need some more training. Should I rip off his other arm?" Not many people liked Andrei, but now they knew that he lost his grace. One of his friend - called Boris - started laughing and said. "Bloke used to be a lot of trouble, now completely 'armless." The girl Andrei liked - called Claire - forced a smile on her face, then started laughing after grasping the situation, which sent shivers down his spine. "As your therapy nurse, Andrei, I say you can do just about everything with your prosthetic arm. Just about everything. Not so much bowling." She sounded desperate and miserable as if she was forcing herself to say this, but she was no martyr, her witty comment was for the audience, her diction was for Andrei. Andrei was in thought, was this a reference to a movie?

"Sorry son, you'll never be able to use your greatest wanking hand ever again. From now on hump only." Said Ervin, visibly happy, he was obviously blackmailed into this, knowing he succeeded he felt relieved. He sacrificed his balls for his family, "ain't a bad deal" he thought.

The guy in the mecha suit with his twisted personality, just could not stop his banter. "I hope Andrei is a left handed wanker, or he is in 'small' trouble.... Oh your arm." He picked it up and throw it in front of Andrei. "Cook it slow with chopped onion, bay leaf, and half pint of red wine.... 3 hours on low. Waste not, want not?" Being a cannibal was quite popular and generally accepted now, even in the highest parts of society. The food shortages were playing a big part in reshaping opinions and making inhumane customs. The face of the platoon commander curved into a depraved smile.

Andrei was about to faint when the guy in the mecha suit kicked him. "Think it hurts now? Wait until the adrenaline wears off, then that f*cker will really hurt." Andrei fainted before the man in the mecha suit could finish finish his sentence.

Andrei woke up in a hospital three months after this incident. He found out that his sister died from overdose and his mother and little brother died in car crash. Why didn't they finish him off? Every sane person would kill every root of the enemy. He will start a life of vengeance, did the clan not fear him?

He got months and months of surgery and healing for his nice new stump, nobody came for his life. He ended up with MRSA. That meant his stump never healed properly. It kept receding to the point where his humerus protruded about 2 centimeters (0.8 inch), with a raw, suppurating wound encircling it. Which obviously meant another amputation. He was given morphine shots before each cleaning. He screamed like a madman. His granny used to say "a bit of pain never hurt anybody", he still couldn't figure that out.

To go from the man - young, happy and successful - who would just refuse to complain, who would never ask for help to a weak as a baby, crying in agony, helpless mess. This carried on for a while. He ended up having to endure 3 separate amputations in 14 months. Bit by bit, each time hoping that the MRSA wouldn't flare up and start the whole thing over. His open wounds needed to be cleaned out twice daily. He hanged on with the thought "If you kill yourself before you take revenge, they will just laugh harder."