by Tyler Vance
I’m sorry.
Sheikoh squeezed his eyes shut a second. Then he opened them and looked at the addict. Overlapping the heavy man… It was almost like…
He could suddenly see-
‘No!’ Sheikoh thundered at himself. No. Not now, hopefully not ever. He couldn’t let that old weakness play itself out. Legacy still had his number flipped. If the Four-dealer recognized Silence, there was every chance he’d shoot.
Sheikoh’s eyes raked Redhead for a single, dangerous moment. If he was being honest with himself, he would relish a screaming, raging plasmafight. But it was a very bad idea. His stupid vengeance would make things overly complicated. There was no way Sheikoh was trusting himself to Dekla’s boss; the dude was obviously trying to keep this on the down low. He took a deep breath and pushed the weight down his chest.
Sheikoh felt his eyes tighten and draw away from the raw feeling as he walked forward. When level with the pair, the Legacy guy winked and flashed him a leering smile. Sheikoh inclined his head without change in expression and almost imperceptibly quickened his pace through the alley. He knew Redhead probably thought that he was scared, that Sheikoh was running away. His fingers itched for the hilt of his pistol. He’d pay a quart of blood to disabuse the dealer of that notion. He ached to swing around and burning a few holes into the scum’s body. He clenched his fists, forcing himself to listen silently, as the dude picked on the helpless Four addict behind.
“You’ a piece of trash at my feet, kame? Bring that anywhere near me again, and you’ dead.”
Sheikoh’s face twisted into a savage grin at Redhead’s choice of words. A dealer calling an addict trash was like admitting that he was a maggot sharing their dumpster. Sharing their secrets and lies and filth. Sheikoh bit his tongue to keep from voicing the thought aloud and cut out of the alley earlier than he’d intended.
Sheikoh stepped into a busy, sunlit street, brooding. The itch it slice a dealer into pieces wasn’t there when he was nodding to the everyday drug vendors he got on with. Sheikoh sympathized with them; he knew about what kind of concessions you made with yourself. Surviving the heartless west left you with stains and impurities, accumulated along with each week of pay.
However, when it came to dealing Four, there were no words with any hope at exoneration. That crime amounted to a knife that’d been stabbed straight through Sheikoh’s and Dorothi’s hearts. Through their lives. Every happy moment came with an undercurrent of regret, with the reminder that Emili wasn’t there to share it with them.
Emili, the girl that’d saved his life. That’d rescued him from the gutter soaked in his blood. The friend Sheikoh had grown to love and cherish - the angel that recreated him, bound his life into a half of something worth living for.
Then he had been forced to watch her descent into the depths of self-mutilation and denial. He’d held her hand, as she fucked everything up, again and again and again. His street name, Silence, was a testament to the silent tears that’d marched down his face like conscripted soldiers to their deaths. All because of Four.
There were too many stories like there’s. Nobody wanted to be connected to another epidemic of the lethal Four, the most addictive and dangerous compound in all of the entire Intrasentient Empire.
He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. He had to stop torturing himself. His chest felt hollow and rotted out. It wasn’t empty though, he had Dorothi. He’d take care of her for as long as he could hold on to that ever-darkening sense of right and wrong that’d guided him to his point. For her, he would never join the ranks of the depraved, bloodthirsty demons that had ripped so many lives apart, literally in his case.
And not just regarding Emili.
His hand rose to caress the right side of his chest as he walked. He snorted with cynical laughter. It seemed that no matter what train of thought he boarded, its last station was always Emili…
The wall dominated his right side of the concrete sidewalk. Sheikoh slunk alongside it for a while, and then finally he made out the silversteel gate, the only passageway between the west and east. He glanced uneasily over the two Century standing silent vigil beside its silversteel. They were the only ones you could ever reliably expect to find in the west side.
Other than here, the west was undeniably under Legacy’s rule. Rumor had it that something had been brokered between Ghost, Legacy’s mysterious leader, and Centaurai Cylium Vest. What could the gang possibly have to offer worth half of Interium though? Did they have some kind of blackmail on Centaurai? And if not, why would the Centaurai quarantine the area behind a wall and then just leave it to fester?
Something didn’t add up.
As Sheikoh drew nearer, The Centurys’ reflective, black visors turned his way. He shivered at their bland featurelessness. The Centurys’ uniform hid any proof of humanity. Their faceless faces were outlined by a hood that flowed into a bone-white cloak. The pitch-black underlay beneath was only broken by the white of their chest guards, boots and gloves, all lined in skeletal black. The uniform hid every stray inch of skin.
Uncomfortable, Sheikoh held up his new deputy badge to the gate’s scanner. The metal door flicked upwards with a deafening clang, moving so fast that it was as if it’d disappeared. With the Centurys’ visors on his back, Sheikoh stepped onto the cobblestones of the east side, officially crossing the gate’s threshold for the first time in his life.
The east had a quaint, little cobblestone-village theme that ended at the sharp boundaries of egregiously modern buildings. The advertising was wholly silent, peering from behind stores’ perfectly invisible glass. Sheikoh took in the fountain in the center of the street, the two statues off to the sides, the hoovesback people wearing suits in varying shades of grey, black and blue and talking into monocles.
It was very different from the West Side. Much quieter. More subdued. Cleaner looking. The only sound was the gently clicking of hooves, echoing around the square. This is the first time he’d seen the East in daylight. And he had to admit; it was impressive. Sheikoh’d pulled a job or two over here, but only at night and never near as mysterious as his current one. Actually, one time he’d been hired to clean up for Interium’s Coascendant. That’d been fun.
Then he shook the hair out of his eyes to better see the immaculate, cobbled streets and the perfect little shops. The stone pathways and highways were all lined with flower speckled shrubbery and emerald grass. The stones of the street ended in a precise, little line. Underneath the cloud-streaked sky, the buildings clothed in greenery managed to feel both imposing as well as tranquil to Sheikoh’s eye. A signpost stuck out of the in the middle of a median. Sheikoh walked towards it, squinting his eyes.
“Okay... Myzeik Square. Made it,” he murmured to himself under his breath. “My kind of work.”
The well-dressed people rode their Swifthooves around him alone or in pairs almost exclusively. They all seemed to be trying to avoid eye contact of any kind. Many of them chattered into various designs of monocles. They looked a little bit crazy, as though they were talking into the thin air.
Sheikoh met a couple of light glances. When he locked eyes with East Siders, they all acted like he’d caught them in some embarrassing act. It was very peculiar. West Siders were rarely bashful like this.
None of them seemed overly threatening, but Sheikoh visually probed anyone who wandered too close all the same. He knew, no matter how unthreatening something seemed there was never any such thing as ‘too careful’. Sheikoh himself, or rather Silence, was a living lesson to the fact. He kept his hand on the hilt of his pistol as he strode towards a nearby statue of a marble man riding a horse into some unknown battle.
“You get em, Saint-of-the-Year…” Sheikoh murmured with a tiny smile.
He turned and let his body slide down the statue, coming to rest on the soft, emerald grass. He settled in for a wait, he flipped the hair from over his face, and then scanned the East Siders like they were a part of a mildly interesting play. His coal black eyes swept the area thoroughly
, at odds with his languid pose against the statue.
The few who noticed him in the shadow of the stone cavalryman took in his sharp features and even sharper eyes with the detachment that came from seeing a million faces a day. They inevitably tossed the information away though. What did it matter to them if a child chose to spend their free time lying against granite? All they saw in Sheikoh was a child. An adolescent, a nothing. Sheikoh knew it and he used it. Only a stupid person ignored their utilities, and as everyone who had heard of Silence knew, he was anything but stupid.
The sun climbed further and further through the sky. After a while, the statue’s shadow engulfed Sheikoh as he waited for the prearranged meeting to take place. Was he early? Sheikoh doubted it, but he pulled out his battered Trinity XI to check.
The Trinity was one of the old cellpads, basically a miniscule computer screen covered with a retractable case one opened like a book. It was a tiny phone that used to have internet capabilities, but nowadays they weren’t worth the wait to load. Totally outdated, especially when compared to the gleaming monocles over everyone else’s eyes, but what works, works.
Sheikoh’s finger twisted the case to the side, exposing its digital monitor and glanced at the clock. It read 4:13. Sheikoh flipped it shut and flipped his dark hair to the side with an irritated twitch. Apparently it wasn't enough to drag him all around Interium, His east side ‘contact’ had to be late too, just to show him who was boss.
He waited there for an indistinct amount of time. Breathing deeply, Sheikoh managed to chill his annoyance out, but something shifted. The atmosphere about the place had changed somehow. Sheikoh’s instincts sharpened to the point of a razor, and he scanned the lingering pedestrians, horsemen and carriages alike. There was an unease flickering in the back of his skull. Something was just… off.
His eyes narrowed. Sheikoh felt an uncomfortable presence behind him. A familiar presence. Right on cue, a cough sounded just behind him. Sheikoh‘s sixth sense for danger told him exactly who this was. He cursed under his breath, hoping against hope that he was wrong. This didn’t make sense.
Sheikoh flashed onto his feet with his pistol in his right hand and his electroblade in his left, looking every bit the assassin he’d been hired to play. The shadow that covered him wasn’t the statue’s anymore. He turned toward the presence behind him. Just this once, Sheikoh hoped his instincts were off. Just this once. But, of course, he’d been right, like always. It wasn’t much comfort.
He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with Indigo.
Chapter 3
Glimpse of Magic
“Indigo,” said Sheikoh warily. “Always a pleasure.”
“Silence. Been awhile,” Indigo responded. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes. Menacing silence stretched over a couple of heartbeats. Sheikoh’s mind was racing furiously, but he was getting nowhere besides question-land.
So… How’re the kids?” asked Sheikoh conversationally.
Indigo’s face broke into feral grin.
“If I ever meet one of em I’ll be sure to drop by and we can all talk.” Indigo told him. “If they live to learn how to talk, that is.”
“With a big toughie for a daddy like Indigo of course they will,” Sheikoh exclaimed.
A few east siders glanced their way. Good. Sheikoh straightened, hid his weapons, and stepped into warm, safe sunlight. They were in an east side square, meaning even Indigo had to watch himself. Strength is irrelevant when you’re outgunned. And Century outgunned ganglords, especially on this side of the wall.
Sheikoh turned his back to Indigo. The next instant, the ganglord grasped Sheikoh’s shoulder, stopping him in his tracks and then jerked him back into the shadow of the statue. Sheikoh’s carefree disposition was rudely jolted. He was too shocked even to slash out his electroblade; he simply gaped at the ganglord. Could Indigo have bribed a patrol or something? Did he really intend on attacking Sheikoh in the middle of the east?
Then the ganglord was hissing into his ear.
“Idiot. I’m not here to start a fight, I’m here to help you avoid one."
Sheikoh turned and eyed Indigo’s glare with disbelief.
“Sorry mate. I just can’t help but not take you at a word,” Sheikoh raised eyebrows at the ganglord. “I’m sure you understand.”
Then he screwed up his face, and thought about what he’d said. He wasn’t totally sure whether or not he’d added a pair of negatives into an affirmation or not.
“My boss sent me here to get you out before you wind up dead,” Indigo told Sheikoh, with deadly seriousness.
“Your ‘boss’?” Sheikoh giggled a little. “Never heard anyone call someone like Ghost their boss.”
“I’m not speaking for Ghost at the moment,” Indigo responded icily. “I have a different employer. Like your usuals, except… connected.”
Sheikoh’s smile dribbled from his face, and he narrowed his eyes. What was going on here? Was his contact really Indigo? Was this for real?
He really wasn’t betting on it.
“Cut the act, mate. What’s your game?” asked Sheikoh.
“I’m telling you the truth,” Indigo spat. “The one pulling the strings here is more powerful than you want to go up against. A Celestial.”
“So… we’re magical, super-powerful Celestial, lightning bolts from their fingers, laser eyes, and all that, huh?” Sheikoh asked dismissively. “Come on, mate. Even you can come up with something better than this.”
Indigo furiously opened his mouth, but Sheikoh wasn’t done.
“The Dekla thing was real overkill,” Sheikoh continued. “Still… if you can afford to dress a dude up like that, then my advice is to ditch the current outfit and go shopping.”
Sheikoh gestured at Indigo’s faded, over-sized jeans and the tee shirt under his grey jacket that had obviously started out white, but was now discolored a yellow color.
“I don’t know anyone named Dekla!” Indigo shouted with frustration. A few heads turned back their way so the ganglord lowered his voice. “Just shut up for a minute and let me talk!”
Sheikoh crossed his arms and began tapping his foot with exaggerated impatience.
“Okay,” Indigo began, rubbing the back of his head. “So… um… it started like this. A couple of days ago, Ghost sent me… wait… never mind, that isn’t really important. Well-
Rolling his eyes, Sheikoh cut over Indigo’s eloquent speech.
“Seriously, are you even trying?” Sheikoh asked sarcastically. “How about you tell me why this ‘Celestial’ would send Dekla if he was going to end up sending you the next day?”
“I told you; I don’t know anyone named Dekla!” Indigo hissed.
Then his face went thoughtful.
“Honestly, I’m not totally sure what we’re into right now, but you’re already in the heavy. The Celestial sent me to take out a couple of assassins that’re on your tail,” Indigo told Sheikoh seriously.
“Well… Thanks, mate, really considerate of you, offering to save my life.” Sheikoh rolled his eyes. “But if that’s all, I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
“Prince of hell, just gimme a second,” Indigo cursed, reaching deep into his baggy, jean pocket, just like Dekla had.
The next second, Sheikoh had his pistol pressed against Indigo’s ribcage. He hesitated, held back by the memory of Dekla, and then inwardly cursed himself, waiting for Indigo to smash him aside, and kill him. But it didn’t happen. Indigo’d gone immobile. And, if there hadn’t been a Dekla, the ganglord would have a brand-new plasma wound sizzling in his chest. Then Sheikoh realized, that Indigo was much too good to have to search his pocket for a weapon. If Indigo had been going for a weapon, it would’ve come out almost as fast as Sheikoh’s.
“I’m not going to attack you,” Indigo promised slowly and distinctly.
“Fair enough,” Sheikoh responded lightly, tucking his pistol away. He waved a hand, gesturing they should continue.
Indigo’s jaw dropped with in
dignation. Like Sheikoh’s apparent naivety was a personal insult. Then his expression smoothed itself out, and he went back to pawing through his pockets.
“So why did this ‘Celestial’ send you of all people?” Sheikoh asked skeptically. He believed that the ganglord didn’t intend on shooting him. That didn’t translate to believing his story. Sheikoh was going to need proof for something like this.
“I don’t know,” Indigo muttered back, still forearm deep in his pants. “Trust me, I wouldn’t be here if i had a choice.”
“Come on,” Sheikoh sighed, exasperated. “You’re smart enough to know I wouldn’t take you at your word. A Celestial has gotta have a bit more sense than that.”
“Apparently not,” Indigo leveled a sharp grin at Sheikoh.
Sheikoh pretended to think for a moment. “Remember that one time, a while ago? That time you were outsmarted by a thirteen-year-old…?”
Indigo’s face went dark with rage.
“What was his name...” Sheikoh wondered thoughtfully. “Oh! yeah! Me!”
He grinned at Indigo who was literally shaking with fury. Then the ganglord begin stringing curses together in ways that Sheikoh had never heard in his life. Sheikoh’s eyes widened, he hadn’t known that Indigo was this creative.
“Prince of hell! I thought you were called Silence! You should be called never-shuts-the-hell-up!” the dark ganglord finished, out of breath.
“Yeah, well, where’d Indigo come from? The color of your nipples?” responded Sheikoh.
“You want these guys to kill you? Fine by me!” spat Indigo. “There isn’t any payout worth dealing with a piece of gutter-trash like you! I’ll just turn around and walk away right now!”
Sheikoh narrowed his eyes at the panting ganglord. His hand tightened around the hilt of his pistol.
“So what are you saying, mate?” Sheikoh asked darkly. “We back to here?”
“Dumbass!” Indigo spat, pointing to the square behind him. “If you’d been listening, I already told you this part! You were followed here!”