by M. K. Gibson
Reynolds left with the rest of the humans. While they plotted and schemed for more power, he simply thought of a future in seclusion.
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Now . . .
One Month Later
“Come on, Croaker.” I rolled my eyes at the old Maker. “This is quality stuff, man. I’m not asking for much here, just a fair price.” I held out the tech components. A lot of cyber tech lifted from some of the Fixers was valuable to the Makers. It helped them create new tools with lower manpower using automation. But the problem was, Fixers didn’t take kindly to their tech being in anyone’s hands but their own.
The Maker was called “Croaker” because he looked like a giant bullfrog. The hellion was surprisingly bright as hellions go. He was the front man for moving goods within the Makers. He had no clue how to make anything himself, but he did have an eye for valuable stuff.
“Gonna pass,” Croaker said, leaning back in his chair under his lean-to tarp. “Too much heat.”
“Heat?” I said, feigning ignorance. “Chael, are you aware of any heat?”
“Fire consumes, waters drowns, earth buries, and air suffocates. Deep down they lie, deep down they die, sleeping, waiting to taste the unlit sky,” Chael said, cross-armed, looking away and ignoring us.
I grinned. “See. No heat.”
“Hmm,” the hellion rumbled, his deep voice halfway between speech and a ribbit. “Heard there was a hit on a couple of Brutes moving Fixer tech. Then you show up here? Nah. No way.” Croaker shook his head and his green-gray throat wattle undulated hypnotically.
“And?”
“And that means they will come looking for it. This place ain’t so big that the owners ain’t gonna figure out we have it.”
“That was a double negative,” Chael said.
“He’s right, it was.” I smirked at Croaker, who then shot an elongated tongue at me, and I was forced to dodge to one side or else get a face full of frog-demon spit.
“Peddle your wares somewhere else, nomad. Maybe next time.”
“OK Honey Smacks, here’s the deal,” I said, getting a little forceful. Lightrunning and wheeling and dealing was what I was good at. And sometimes a client just needed to be reminded how much they needed something. Whether they wanted it or not.
I held up one of the tech pieces. “This is a power regulator for a mobile water purifier and desalinator. This alone is worth all kinds of currency. You can keep it yourself and make your own fresh water without relying on the Growers. Or hell, trade it to the Growers out of goodwill and get extra rations of food, I don’t give a shit. But if you don’t take this crap off my hands, then I am just going to tell whoever comes looking for me that you took it anyway.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Demon, please. You know damn well I would.”
The hellion looked away and crossed his arms, no doubt considering if he could reach his crossbow under the table and shoot me in the crotch before I could move. The next step in hostile negotiations was to yield just a little.
“Look, how about this. You take the crap. And if someone comes looking for it, give back a couple of the pieces, while keeping the choice stuff for yourself and tell them that was all I sold you. Then send them after me. It isn’t like I’m not used to it. But if you reach for the crossbow . . . well, it won’t end pretty for you. Will it, Chael?”
Chael smiled and drooled. Creepy and gross.
Croaker considered the deal. “Fine, hand it over. But I won’t cover for you. Fixers are gonna come looking for this stuff. When they do, I am going to point them in your direction.”
“Fine.”
“All right then,” Croaker said, accepting the tech. “What do you want for it?”
“Usual will be fine. Not looking for much.” The hellion reached into a lockbox on the ground beside him and pulled out a couple packs of synth-smokes, a lighter, ration credits for the Growers, shelter passes for the Maker’s cell block, two med kits, a brace of throw bolts with replacement rubber cord, and a sack of base metals and plastics.
“What do you do with that crap?” he asked, nodding at the sack.
I looked at him and shrugged. “I eat it,” I said, smiling. Croaker rolled his wide-set bulbous eyes. He didn’t believe me, which was fine.
“You’re a hell of a negotiator. What did you use to do before here?” Croaker asked.
“Would you believe I was a land baron?”
“No. Go on, get out of here,” Croaker said, and I nodded.
“Next time,” I said. I pulled my poncho hood up over my head, turned and headed out. “Coming, Chael?”
“I’m not even breathing hard,” he replied as he lumbered along behind me.
“Another typical deal with the Makers, eh?” I asked Chael, whose only response was “Spires turn ever inward, clockwork gears. The heart of the ancients pave the path and through that heart God may be reached.” I took that as a “yes.”
As the clans went, though, Makers weren’t so bad. They were usually the most pragmatic. A good deal was a good deal, no matter how hot the items were. Besides, I chuckled, smiling to myself, the items weren’t that hot. The Fixers were the ones who let me know about the Brutes’ movements. The power regulator was busted anyway. And it would take a Fixer to, well, fix it. And that would cost the Makers some kind of currency. Win-win for me and the Fixers.
We moved through the interior of the island, avoiding groups of other inmates. Some saw me alone and started to move my way, seeing an easy target. Then Chael would come along behind me. Once they realized who we were, they quickly turned another direction and kept walking.
My fight in the arena had gotten me some cred, but my survival of Brute attacks and consequent reprisals on them made me a dangerous man. That, and I was coupled with a walking engine of destruction. But I like to think it was my badassness.
But as badass as we were, that meant every slack-jawed half-wit, dim-wit and fuck-wit with something to prove had a target on my back when Chael wasn’t around. So they tried and tried. And when I beat them, or Chael maimed or killed them, I took their gear and sold it. Chael just wanted company.
Of course, said complement of fuck-wits targeting me aside, I had most of the independent Brutes looking to remove my lungs while I still breathed. So I did my best not to be seen by them while I was alone. Mainly because I liked my lungs. I needed them to smoke, even if they were only synth-smokes. At least they were menthols.
I slapped the smokes, packing them down, and opened them up, took one out and lit it. Better than nothing. Like any maximum-security prison, contraband from the outside was completely impossible. So of course people found a way, despite Mastema’s threat of complete independence. I still had no idea how it was done. But when you’re jonesing for a smoke, you really don’t give a shit. Let some things just be magical.
I offered one to Chael, who took it and ate it. One day I just wanted him to smoke it. Or say “Hodor.” Either way I’d be happy.
Suddenly, I heard a loud noise coming from above. I looked up and saw a fusion chopper fly by. A first-gen model, after fusion tech moved past the theoretical and into military production. The chopper was ugly and big. A cargo transport. The few non-prisoners on the island—Mastema, his human lieutenant Gerhardt, and a complement of soldiers—got regular supply drops. Maybe that’s where the smokes came from? Someone imprisoned here had enough juice to get them secretly dropped on the island? The chopper landed at the main house on the other side of the arena. The same place where the flesh golems took captives.
I sometimes wondered if that could be my way off the island, if I needed to break out. Too bad the choppers came on an atypical basis, or else I’d plan something. Hell, that was probably the reason they did that.
Ahh, no time to wonder what could be. I needed to meet Twitch and give her a rundown of my meeting with Croaker. Besides, breaking out was something I wasn’t sure I could afford to do. I didn’t know what the powers that be w
ould do to Löngutangar in retaliation.
Damn it. Mind on the present, Salem.
Arriving into Fixer territory, we moved along the stone buildings and pavilion tents through the back alleys and shadow spots. The Fixers and I had a decent understanding. They were mostly cyborgs and knew that I was some type of one as well. They weren’t sure what kind, but they knew I was too dangerous to try and take apart. Since I passed for human, I was their go-between. Just like the old days.
We reached the main compound and walked into the same alley I had been in last month when I was naked and starving and met Chael. I rubbed my leg in memory of that night. I tapped on the wall and a stone slid open in a spot where there had only been a concrete wall. I walked in, nodding to the big cyborg door guard, who nodded back.
“Twitch?” I asked, and the door guard pointed down. I slipped him a couple of smokes.
“Chael, you going to be cool out here while I chat with Twitch?” I asked. Chael just sat down and began slamming his head into the stone wall. I slipped the guard another couple of smokes. “Don’t let him break your wall.”
I made my way down the hall to the stairwell. This whole section of the Fixer cell block had been built in secret and was independent of the main building itself. The stairwell led down in the earth into a series of hollowed-out tunnels and hidden rooms. It wasn’t Maker quality, but it served well enough as contraband storage and a base of operations away from the prying spider eyes of Mastema.
Two male cyborg Fixers stood at the mouth of one of the chambers, standing guard. One of them held up a hand and I stopped short. Behind them I saw Twitch. She was a high-ranking member in the Fixers, their mistress of intelligence.
After the night when I appeared naked and fought off Toothless, it turned out the girl I saved was Twitch. She had kept an eye on me since then. When I was building my rep in the prison, she sent an emissary to seek me out and brought me into the Fixers.
She never apologized for not helping me that night. But that was Twitch. She didn’t apologize for anything. She simply offered me a business proposition. One that has been lucrative for her and gave me better chances for survival as a Nomad, with or without Chael’s backup.
Sitting at a Maker-made wooden chair and table going over notes, Twitch would read one, shake her head and then toss it into a scrap-made flameless heater. The little wads of paper would crisp and flare into ash. Handwritten coded notes were low-tech, but always useful. Once destroyed, the message was gone forever. Twitch shook her head, poring over note after note.
Her cybernetic augmentations gave her enhanced mental capacities and sensory augmentation. Not bad for a twenty-four-year-old cyber thief. She wore her usual patchwork clothing and her light brown hair was cut short in the back and chin length in the front. The “I want to speak to your manager!” haircut middle-age housewives made popular in the twenty-first century.
She was something of a savant when it came to hoarding intel and selling it over the Ultra Net. Like The Field, her implants made cyber-hacking a breeze. She was able to convert that intel into a very lucrative trade and blackmail operation. But youth cannot be contained. One day, she blackmailed the wrong demon, which got her narrow ass sent here.
“What’s up, Twitch? You look more pissed than usual.”
“Missing. More and more of the inmates go missing. And these latest reports say more Fixers are being picked up every day by those freaking patchwork monsters.”
“Rough,” I told her, lighting up another smoke. Twitch gestured at her guards and they let me pass. I gave them the stink-eye as I walked past them. They were both taller than me but neither met my eyes for long. Prison rules: Always put up a front. Weakness will get you knifed in the back.
I plopped down in a chair to her right and put my feet up on her desk. “Has anyone been able to bring one of them down yet?” I asked.
Twitch looked at my feet on her desk, then shook her head no. “Not that I’ve seen in my five years here. Well, except for your giant friend out there. Why does he hang out with you? Does he know how much of an asshole you are?” she asked as she elbowed my feet off her desk, hard.
Adjusting myself, I shrugged. “I think being an asshole IS why he hangs out with me.”
“Hmm,” was all she said in response as she went back to her notes.
“What do you think Mastema is doing to them?” I asked, and again Twitch shook her head.
“Dunno, but it can’t be good,” she said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. Twitch stood up and took my smoke from between my lips and puffed a few drags.
“I assume the Makers took the tech?” she asked, changing the subject to business.
“Yup,” I answered as I reached over and took my smoke back. “Thanks for that, by the way. Gave me a chance to knock around some Brutes and get some needed gear.”
“My pleasure. Once they realize they need us to fix it, it will cost them quite a bit. But I have another job, if you’re interested.”
“Yeah?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “What do you have?”
“A new batch of merchandise we’ve ‘acquired’. I just want your expert opinion on the value. We’ll make it worth your while.”
“Sure. Where is it?” I asked. Years of dealing in goods of all types had made me something of an expert appraiser. A skill the Fixers and the rest of the clans have come to value. Golden rule when trying to keep yourself alive: ABV. Always Be Valuable.
“Hidden storage bunker on the Grower territory border. We don’t like to keep anything too hot here until after it’s been evaluated and the previous owners don’t come looking for it.”
I had to agree. It was a good strategy. One I used to employ myself. I must say, if these were different circumstances, I would have employed her skills on the outside.
“Lead on,” I told her, standing and holding my arm out. Twitch looked at me and rolled her eyes. I sighed. That was the damn problem with youth. They wasted it on trying to act older.
I often wondered if I would ever “grow up.” I was pretty sure Father Grimm did as well. Prison life aside, I never really saw the need.
When I wasn’t fighting in a war, running for my life, or profiting from war, I found that nurturing your inner child generally made your life better. That was the wisdom that came with age that not everyone got: Once in a while, just be a kid again. Trust me, the world would ensure you had to act like an adult the rest of the time.
Grimm asked me once why I told jokes in the most screwed-up of situations. In truth, it was my coping mechanism. The only alternative was to deal with the horrible things on a real level. And that scared me worse. So I told jokes and sometimes acted like a goofy smart-ass. Beats accepting I was stuck in a torture prison with no hope of seeing home again.
Ugh, I needed to lighten up. I pulled another smoke and started thinking of dirty limericks. Hmm . . . what rhymes with Nantucket?
Twitch and the guards moved up the stairwell and headed outside the secret entrance of the Fixer cell block. Due to the nature of the clan mentality, I was forced to hang back. If I was seen walking with them, then they would have to claim me. And since I was decreed a Nomad, then Mastema and his minions would rain hell down on the Fixers.
Chael was just doing his normal thing in the alley—acting pleasantly lost.
“Yo, Groot, we got a gig. Let’s go.”
“Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they don’t. And sometimes, what comes back are the nightmares of the gods,” Chael said, and began following me. Times like this I wish Twitter still existed.
#Shitmyinsanehomicidalgiantsays
We hung back and followed Twitch and her entourage. The island was pretty crappy. It was fairly flat with little in the ways of trees or natural foliage. Now that we were well into December, the freezing rain and snow had made the ground hard and wet at the same time.
We walked a while in the cold overcast day until we came upon a spot in the shadow of another set of barracks near Grower terri
tory. Twitch had her guards reach into the dirt and pull on a set of heavy chains that were buried in the dirt and connected to a large concrete slab. The slab gave way, revealing a deep dug-out bunker.
“Let’s go,” Twitch commanded as she walked down a crude earthen ramp into the bunker.
“Chael, hang here. Looks too cramped for you,” I said. Chael happily loomed over one of the cyborg Fixers and smiled, no doubt thinking of horrible, guts-on-the-outside artwork ideas.
I followed Twitch. I got ten steps into the earthen tunnel when I heard extra heartbeats. Then I smelled demons.
Shit. I was set up.
I turned to get the hell out of there but two of Twitch’s guards who had followed us down had already drawn their Throwers—simple rudimentary crossbow/harpoon hybrids using a wooden stock, rubber tubing, and a trigger release that launched sharpened bolts.
The guards fired their weapons and my pinpoint shield went up, stopping the bolts, but the impact rocked me back a step. As my shield went down, I drew my own thrower from under my cloak and fired, nailing the first guard. I went to reload my thrower when I felt a deep, sharp, stabbing pain in my lower back, followed by the hard burn of a garrote around my throat. Twitch wasn’t that strong, but she didn’t have to be.
I was arched back from the knife in the back and the garrote and that gave her the leverage she needed to keep me from drawing enough breath to scream for Chael. Hell, even if I could, he couldn’t fit down here anyway. This was planned perfectly.
Fuck.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Prepared for the Beating
“Sorry, Salem. They made me a great offer,” Twitch whispered as she twisted the knife in my kidney. She pulled the blade free and I dropped to my knees. She held on to the garrote as I went down. I saw my blood on the ground. Dark blood. That was a bad sign. I felt it pump out of me. The ground was cold and I was beginning to shiver. Then I began to feel woozy, faster than expected with blood loss.