To Be Free

The kids dribbled a little, and the liquid stung their cracked skin and split wounds.

Every now and then they toss animalistic glances of consideration towards the corpses, considering whether or not to take the plunge into further depravity.

Although the enforcers, were cruel, they too still maintained a semblance of what humanity had once been, and cannibalism, while at times necessary for survival was never a pleasant sight.

Jasper raised his firearm into the air before squeezing the trigger, letting the loud thud fire out to startle everyone around.

"Get the fuck back to what you were doing," Martin snarled.

The kids quickly scampered behind trash piles, well aware of the destruction those weapons brought.

Ambitan had now fully circled behind the two enforcers, and he had had enough of their cruel and twisted games.

Raising the cinderblock he held, he hefted it upwards with an underhanded toss to concuss Martin.

The throw didn't have much power behind it though and it didn't fully knock him out nor did it 'finish the job'.

However, it caused a brief moment of panic, in which the kids, seeing that the enforcers were currently being preoccupied, lunged forward towards them to try and wrestle for their freedom.

For the time being, the corpses on the ground were disregarded. And the swarm of children stampeded towards Jasper.

Startled, Jasper fumbled with the control, but he managed to grab hold of it before shocking the children.

Caught up in their momentum they hurtled forward as their muscles seized up. Their limbs spasmed uncontrollably but some of the most determined managed to struggle their way through the shock and continued inching forward, their teeth set with grim determination.

They screamed and howled as their eyes went bloodshot from the pain.

Ambtain swiftly scooped up Martin's firearm from the ground before firing a bullet to finish him off.

Jasper screamed as the warm blood splashed across his face like a grim water balloon had landed squarely across his jaw.

Ambitan swiftly turned and aimed the gun at Jasper now while Jasper fell over and was scrambling to retrieve the gun from his waistband.

The muzzle barked and the recoil sent a ripple through Ambitan as his shoulder buckled from the force.

His arm shook from the force and his grip loosened. For a split second, the gun dropped out of his grip but luckily he caught it but recklessly fired another shot in his haste to do so.

Jasper spurted out blood from where he had been shot, but he held on from slipping into unconsciousness, struggling to maintain a grip on his wounds to try and prevent himself from bleeding out.

"Stop! Stop!" he screamed, "Whatever you want I'll give it! You want the children? You can have them!"

"Information? Wea-we-weapons?" he stammered, reaching out for any straws that could potentially save his life.

However, his arm slowly snaked out of sight, reaching for the tucked waistband.

Seeing this, Ambitan sneered, "Slimy fuck," then the muzzle barked once more and the bullet zipped out to cleanly pass through Jasper's head with an audible squelch.

With a panic, Jasper's lips moved to scream but all that came out was the gurgle of a dying man.

Little spurts of blood flowed out and Jasper collapsed in a heap.

Slowly, Ambitan pocketed the gun he had used to kill the two men. Sure, he wasn't particular to the act itself, but neither was it something to squeal over. It's the slums, either move on or get left behind.

If you were to claim some trace of humanity it had long ago been discarded.

Slowly he walked over the where the remote lay on the ground, nestled in the dirt.

Bits of wires had fallen out and the screen was cracked from where it had been dropped.

Bending down, Ambitan turned it over and wiped the screen clear of the shattered bits of glass to reveal a completely dysfunctional device.

Startled by the revelation, he began to panic.

'Of course, the remote had to be trashy, what else was there to be built? If all the materials would be trashy then, of course, the end product would be fucking trashy as well.'

After all, it was practically a death sentence for the captured kids.

The collars would continue to administer controlled shocks, and while normally they were painful, after an extended duration, such an extreme amount of exposure would practically fry the kid's brains.

Without the controls, Ambitan wouldn't be able to disable the collars and the shocks would be continuously administered.

So he rushed over to one of the kids. He gripped onto one of the collars and tried to wrestle it off the kid's neck, thankfully enough, these kids weren't important enough to warrant an anti-tampering mechanism. But it still did possess a lock. Not the rudimentary, old tried-and-trued padlock from the days of old that were a breeze to pick but an electro-signature lock.

Something keyed into the blockchain that was entirely unique, therefore even if Ambitan wanted to forge a bump key, it wouldn't work given that it was completely singular in its existence in an unreplicable fashion.

Ambitan scrambled around, there was nothing around that could be used to shatter the collar.

The kid, Kent, clawed at his own neck, trying to rip the thing off his neck.

"Work with me! Work with me goddamn it!" Ambitan yelled.

The rest of the kids were flailing around in the dirt still, uncontrollably heaving.

Planting his feet on the ground, Ambitan tugged on the collar in two separate directions, and slowly it began to show signs of stress.

Then with another great tug, Ambitan heaved once again to finally shatter the collar in two.

With great pants, Kent took gulps of breath, glassy eyes locking onto Ambitan's with but the slightest trace of gratitude, not that Ambitan had time to acknowledge it of course.

"Come! Help me get the others off!" Ambitan beckoned.

And with that Kent bounded after him, snarling at the remains of the collar that now lay shattered on the floor.