“Whatisyourname?” she managed.
“Enforcer Hanno, nobledam.”
Ah, that was interesting. He didn’t just reply “Hanno”. He reasserted his office at the same time, as well as acknowledging and downplaying hers. It left the none-too-subtle implication in her shapely ears that no one, not even nobility, was above the law. She smiled inwardly as she imagined him practising saying it in front of a mirror every morning.
Enforcer Hanno, noblesir.
Enforcer Hanno, nobledam.
Enforcer Hanno, citizen.
Enforcer Hanno, scum.
He certainly had the timbre just right to communicate the full force of the law at his command. Still, she knew his name now and he didn’t know hers. And she knew he was clever.
Oh, and she knew he was vain.
4: UNWELCOMINN
Mad Donna and chief watchman Hanno were facing off, eyes narrowed, hands over their guns, both ready to draw and fire in an eye blink. They were poised like statues, knowing the slightest twitch could be a prelude to an explosive gun battle at all of two metres range. With two fighters this deadly, it was guaranteed neither of them would be walking away from it.
Mad Donna spoke first, saying quietly, “You’re forgetting, Hanno, I know who really pulls your strings.”
“That’s not—”
“Fair? True? Perhaps, but if the folks around here even dreamed you were in the Cult of the Redemption, you’d be as dead as Hagen.”
“The path of the Redemption is the path of salvation for us all, D’onne,” growled Hanno.
“Don’t waste your dogma on me. You know I’m as irredeemable as the rest of the scum in here or out there.” Donna nodded towards the stockade outside, implying the whole of the Underhive. You also need every fighter you’ve got, otherwise those scavvies are going to be here to stay.”
Hanno’s eyes flickered uncertainly at the mention of the scavvies, which was weird because someone like him shouldn’t be frightened of them. Donna suddenly began to understand what was really going on in Dust Falls.
The Redemptionists were an extremist cult that believed in redemption through fire and penitence, that only through the mortal purging of sin in all its forms could man be pure enough to meet his maker. Sin took many forms, including drinking, gambling, fornication, shooting people—all the fun stuff basically. But it was the heretics, mutants and psykers that really brought out the mobs and whipped them into a fever pitch.
The Cult of the Redemption was a force to be reckoned with in Hive City. They had devotees and converts in every house, and virtually ran House Cawdor in its entirety. But in the Underhive, they were far less powerful, and their sympathisers were few and far between.
The Redemptionists came into the Underhive for only two reasons. Most settled in their own heavily armed and tight-lipped little communities to be away from the sinful temptations of Hive City or any other settlements. The others were the worst psychos, bullies and fanatics in the cult; men whose views and methods had become too extreme even for the ruthless Redemptionist hierarchs. These hardened few were sent below on “Crusade”, or given a holy mission to enter the den of corruption that is the Underhive to scourge and purge every sinner that crossed their path. Redemption crusaders persecuted mutants unmercifully, especially scavvies.
“You’ve been using Dust Falls as a front to arm the Crusaders, haven’t you, Hanno?” He looked shocked at that. Bullseye! Donna sensed weakness and pushed harder. She held up an elegant finger and ticked items off an imaginary ledger. “Caches of weapons buried in the Badzones, a little promethium for the flamers, some food at sympathetic holesteads, and all of it nice and handy to pick up before going down into the Abyss. I’ll bet you’ve made their purges a lot more successful of late.”
Donna shook her head sadly.
“Scavvies aren’t all that smart, but they can work out when their enemies are getting more ammo and weapons. And if they can work that out, they’ll figure that you’re getting them before going down the Abyss—that you’re getting them from the settlement at the top!”
Hanno was defensive. “It isn’t that simple. King Redwart’s been stirring up the clans, and those from outside have been yelling that he was coming with an army to burn the place. That devil Valois has been at work too. Plague zombies have been seen all the way up in the Looming Halls before the siege even started. These are evil times, D’onne.”
“Yes, there’s a world of sin out there, Hanno, but you’re ready to draw down on me because I’ve come by with an inconvenient request? Shame on you.” She was hammering unmercifully at his one big weakness—an overdeveloped sense of justice—and she knew it. Hanno was looking doubtful, which was a definite improvement over his stupidly determined face.
“Look, Hanno, just let me see the register and I’ll be gone. No one needs to know I came here. When I get out of Dust Falls, and you know that I will, I’ll tell the Watchmen—Throne! I’ll even tell the guilders—what’s going on so they can send help. You’re not alone, you know. There’s over five billion people just a few sewers away.”
Hanno smiled a little at the wan joke and some of the weight seemed to lift from his shoulders. “You’re right, of course. I’m acting like some medieval Baron and seeing Dust Falls as a tiny light amidst the encroaching darkness. Others will come to our aid.”
Donna laughed cynically. “They’ll come all right, if only to stop the scavvies before they get a success under their belts and become ten times as nasty.” She reached out and snagged the bottle of amasec and swigged some, savouring the slow release of tension as the stiff liquor tickled her palette. Hanno had, more than likely, left the idea of locking her up far behind and now she had become a potential ally in a time of need.
“You seem to be creaming them out there,” she observed. “They’re losing a dozen at a time rushing the gates.”
“But two or three dozen more scavvies turn up every shift, and they’re chewing through our ammo faster than we can make more. I’ve had to limit firing to las-guns unless the scavvies are threatening to breach a gate. We’ve only suffered a few deaths so far, but they’re starting to mount up.”
“Do you think King Redwart’s coming with an army?”
“No. I think the army is already here.”
“His name is Theodus Relli?”
“That’s right.”
Hanno’s old cogitator rattled and ticked for a while before lines of lurid green text ghosted into being across its window.
“Here we are. Nothing came this way from him in the last six months.”
“Where does he ship from?”
Hanno spun a small cog at the side of the window and the words retreated up the glass. “Down Town. He has a manse there registered as his shipment address, and seems to receive shipments of scrap, archeotech, stinger mould and lapweed. He also deals in weapons, ammunition, bionics, survival gear—all the usual stuff.”
“But he’s done no trading of any kind up the Abyss in six months? That’s weird.”
“There are some additional notes in the registry but they’re locked. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Want me to try?”
“Please, D’onne, remember who taught you to tickle a cogitator in the first place.” Hanno’s gnarly fingers flew with surprising delicacy across the dirty bone keys of the cogitator, the eagle tattoo on his hand swooping and diving like its living counterpart.
“Isn’t doing this for me a sin, too?”
“Technically, it’s a sinful theft, but the guilders are self-serving agents of corruption and hence it is permissible to use any means against them, so sayeth the lore.”
“I never knew Redemptionists considered guilders the enemy. They are purveyors of moral turpitude perhaps, but not really on a level with mutants and Wyrds.”
“There were some… incidents a while back that led to the guilders outlawing all Redemptionist Crusaders. They’ve even posted bounties on the Arch Zealot, The Redeemer and Father
Kaminski. They’re complete fools. The worst fanatics now have no restraints at all and those genuinely trying to protect us are hunted men. The guilders made a mistake aligning themselves against the righteous.” Hanno’s brow furrowed and the tapping of the bone keys doubled in speed. “Now be quiet a moment. I need to concentrate.”
Donna wandered across to the small barred window in the office and peered out. She could see the halo of light from the stockade, and fancied she heard the distant snap of weapons fire. The chalybeate roofs of Dust Falls seemed to huddle close below. Among them she caught sight of a lit sign of a slop shop in the next street. Originally, it had read “Come In!” but some wag had climbed up there with a can of paint and sprayed it to read “UnWeLcoMinN”. Donna wondered if that was where Kell Bak had crept off to after leaving here. She craned to see another slop shop nearby but couldn’t tell which was the closest.
“What are you so interested in?” Hanno asked from behind her. Donna quelled an urge to flinch.
“Just trying to see the stockade perimeter,” she lied.
“Well, I’m through the locks on Relli’s register entry and there’s something odd here.”
Donna came back to where Hanno was sitting and peered over his shoulder. After a moment she gave up and shrugged in disgust. “I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”
“Guilders don’t make their records easy to understand, it’s true. Otherwise, any scum could break in and find manifests, route plans and all kinds of useful information.” Hanno was warming to his subject. He obviously spent a lot of time thinking about how to screw over guilders. “But most of this is just simple acronyms, contractions and code numbers. See, look at this here.” Hanno pointed to a specific line on the screen and Donna looked obediently.
«.350.98/Ex./[email protected]/mbr.7/E.V.1293GC/ /F2R// Rclm.»
«.622.98/Ex./[email protected]/mbr.14/E.V.3571G C//F2R//Rclm pen.»
“You are seriously ticking me off, Hanno. What the hell’s all that supposed to mean?”
“It’s what Relli’s been up to in the last six months, and it tells us that he’s in a lot of trouble.”
“Do tell.”
“Well, this first part is a date stamp. The next is what Relli financed on that date, and these are normally caravans or partnerships or investments. ‘Ex’ is for expedition, which is usually sending a pack of gangers out into the Badzones looking for something.”
“Oh really? Like what?” Donna was getting impatient with the whole back to school act. Hanno blathered on obliviously.
“Could be after anything: scav, stinger mould, or even taking some Spire noble on a hunting expedition to bag spider mares.” Hanno cocked an eyebrow at Donna and her obvious impatience but she refused to rise to the bait.
“So what you’re telling me is, it doesn’t say,” she retorted.
“No, but the rest of the entry gives us more clues. The next part is a location index, and it’s one I’m not familiar with so that tells us it’s well out of the way. I can tell you that it’s pretty deep down, almost at Hive Bottom. Also, both expeditions were heading to the same place, and the little ‘at’ mark means they didn’t have a precise fix on the location.”
“Now that’s intriguing.”
“Oh, it gets better. The next two parts are about the expedition itself: the first one had seven members, and the second one had fourteen. The EV-number-GC part is the equipment value of the expedition in guilder credits. The first was pretty well-equipped, and the second even more so.”
“So what does F2R mean?”
“Failed to return.”
Donna felt a chill down her spine. Relli had sent twenty-one people to an untimely grave in some corner of the Badzones. What could possibly mean so much to him? And more importantly, why had he sent a message to her? She wished she knew who had been on those expeditions, whether any of them she might have counted a friend. She hoped not.
“So is that why you said Relli’s in trouble, because of all those people lost?”
“Oh, Donna. You still don’t understand what hivers are really like, do you? Especially guilders. People count for nothing. The reason Relli is in trouble is because the two expeditions have put him almost five grand in the hole with no return on his investments. ‘Rclm’ means he reclaimed the cost of the first expedition from the central guild funds, as guilders are entitled to do when they take a loss. But the second claim is pending and the other guilders are likely to ask a lot more questions about sending two expeditions to the same place and losing both of them. Once, you can put down to misfortune, twice will be read as incompetence.”
“So why’s he gunning for me?”
Hanno rolled his stool back from the cogitator. It sighed contentedly as it closed its window, safely forgotten and free to pursue its matriculations again. The watchman went to his desk and pulled out two dirty glasses. He frowned at them and gave them a guilty rub before deciding that alcohol would kill off any germs, far more so than his sleeve anyway. He poured a measure of amasec for each of them and sat back down.
“I don’t know, D’onne. Have you considered he might not be gunning for you at all? Shallej and Kell are smart, and they might just have intercepted the message and decided to be opportunistic with it.”
“And croatalids might fly out of my butt. Coincidences like this don’t happen in my life.”
“It’s true that everything happens for a reason, like when we met for the first time. Meeting you began a chain of events that convinced me to give up everything I had in Hive City and come below, because I discovered that I was needed down here more than up there.
“All I’m saying is that Relli may not be out to get you,” Hanno continued. “It’s more likely he wants something from you. You may not know it, but you could have information about those lost expedition members, or where they went. It’s well-known you frequent the Badzones more than most.”
Donna pondered this. Had Relli sent the hunters to catch her for interrogation? Had he sent the hunters after her at all? Since Glory Hole, she’d not had long enough to think things through, and information on Relli had been next to non-existent. He’d proven only to be a successful behind-the-scenes villain with the Baks as his brutish henchmen up front. Hanno was right. It could be, and most likely was, far more complicated than that. Relli had his own concerns, otherwise, no matter what his underlying motives, he never would have been desperate enough to contact Donna in the first place. There was only one sure way to find out.
“All right then, I’m going to find him in Down Town. He can tell me himself.”
Hanno’s eyes bugged out slightly and he said, “You never did take long making your mind up about things, did you?”
“Oh, I take forever when it comes to what to have for dinner or which lip gloss to wear, sweetheart.”
Hanno laughed in spite of himself, shaking his head again. “You may be a raging psychopath at heart, D’onne, but you always knew how to put people at ease and get them on your side. If you could just be responsible about it you would make a great leader.”
Donna’s tone was instantly scathing. “ ‘Saint D’onne of the Redemption?’ I don’t think so.”
“You know you could do a lot of good. You could turn your past into something positive for a change, instead of hiding from it down here.”
Donna threw back the last of her amasec and favoured Hanno with a withering glare that sent his gaze skating elsewhere. She got up and headed for the door. Hanno started to rise and said, “Wait, D’onne—”
Donna turned on him and cut him off furiously, her words coming in a rush. “No, Hanno, you wait. I cut you a lot of slack because of what you did for me. But…” She fought for calm, trying not to scream at him. “I am not going to have this argument with you. You’re stubborn and I’m mean and I like you too much to want to end up shooting you again.”
She pushed him back down onto his stool and kissed him on the cheek, turning away quickly so he wouldn’t see her tear
s. She was pleased with herself for not slamming the door on the way out.
Before stepping outside, Donna took a deep breath to calm herself. She shook out her dew sheet and wrapped the plastic fabric around her head and shoulders. With the filter can dangling down at the hip, a dew sheet made a decently improvised burnous, and it was common to see them worn in the Underhive. They also hid your face and hands pretty well, so they were popular for other reasons, too.
Donna made her way to the UnWeLcoMinN to start looking for Kell. What she hadn’t pointed out to Hanno was that the easiest way to find out more about Relli was to track down one of the bounty hunters. With suitable encouragement, like a gouged eye and a few lost toes, Kell would be willing to spill his guts figuratively because he wouldn’t want to do it literally.
Hanging lanterns and crackling neon tubes lit the front of the slop shop. It was a low, shed-like building that ran between two alleys with an entrance at each end. Pushing open the door, Donna was met by a wall of smoke, body stink and noise from inside. The place was full to capacity and the atmosphere was plain ugly.
Donna moved through the crowd cautiously, trying to get a feel for who was there without obviously staring. Most of the patrons were gang fighters or juves from different houses. She saw hulking, muscle-bound Goliaths with shaved heads and industrial piercings, hooded Cawdor in pseudo-medieval sackcloth, and long haired, leather-clad Orlocks. Different gangs had staked out various parts of the bar for themselves and were spending most of their time eyeing each other murderously. The slop shop’s barkeep and his flesh-girls looked harried. They were constantly moving between the different groups, trying to keep everyone happy and not provoke any jealousies.
There was a barely suppressed undercurrent of violence. Evidently, the siege was wearing on everyone’s nerves. These were all members of successful gangs; they were tough, well armed and experienced. They had come to Dust Falls to go down the Abyss and seek their fortune, but instead they found themselves bottled up with the very gun-scum they should be competing with (which is to say shooting at) in the Badzones.
Necromunda - Survival Instinct Page 7