by James Hunter
“Listen, I know things ended poorly last time …” he said apologetically. “It’s the legs, partly made from a real spider, you know.” He scuttled a few more paces back into his lair. “Technomancy has some dangerous and often unpredictable side-effects—you know that—I can’t be blamed for my actions.”
I strode forward, ever nearer.
“L-l-loook,” he stammered, “we can make a deal. Things needn’t get messy. You must need something since you haven’t pulled the trigger.”
I squeezed the trigger ever so slightly, not enough to fire—there was quite a bit of tension in the trigger mechanism—but enough for him to know things could get real bad, real quick.
The fine art of negotiation for you. I am something of a diplomat.
“You tried to eat me,” I said, raising my hand canon level with his prodigiously pudgy head as I drew closer.
“And you knocked down my door, but it’s best not to point fingers.” He dry washed his hands, as if to say what’s done is done. His words actually gave me pause for a moment, I’d knocked down his door? Seriously?
“Harold, those are not comparable situations—I mean we’re talking apples and oranges here. On the one hand, permanent bodily damage, irreparable maiming, and possible death—gruesome death. One the other hand, a door. Get your priorities straight.”
“I do have them straight,” he muttered darkly, and a part of me wanted to pull back the hammer, just to see him squirm, but I resisted. I needed Harold. “But it’s all water under the bridge, Yancy. We can both be reasonable men. Let’s talk about this.”
I waited, letting the tension build between us. It was a calculating move, meant to make him think I was the one doing him a favor by, you know, not killing him. The tension was clawing at him—great blobs of sweat beaded on his head and rolled down his face.
“Alright,” I said, “let’s talk.” I released the slight tension in the spring and dropped the weapon to my side, glad I didn’t have to hold the damn gun up any longer. Heavy son of a bitch—I was already feeling it in my shoulder. I relaxed, just a little.
Which was when Harold flew at me like a pudgy, white wrecking ball. He may have been inordinately fat, but his mechanical appendages let him move like a friggin’ hawk with a jetpack. His weight slammed into me, knocking me back a step or two, while his arms sought to enfold me. I wrestled feebly, caught unaware and unprepared for this encounter. Harold isn’t known for his bravery, courage, or physical prowess, and I’d expected him to cower and give over with only a little intimidation. But that’s the thing about playing the thug card: if you play it too well, sell it too much, there’s a good chance you’ll put your target’s back against a wall.
When things—human or otherwise—are backed against a wall, with few options and death looming over them, they’re liable to respond in all sorts of unexpected, out-of-character, and often violent ways. I know this from a lot of personal experience, though usually I’m the one against the wall. It was like fat, plodding Harold the Mange had morphed into a crazy, nasty-ass, Honey Badger.
I flailed my arms weakly, but with no luck. His upper body was surprisingly strong, and he had little trouble wrapping me up and tossing me deeper into his cavernous lair. I extended my arms and tucked my body into a wheel, rolling over the uneven floor, and back upright.
I came to my feet and pivoted, holstering my gun in the process. Harold had his blood up now and I couldn’t risk accidentally shooting him in a tussle—as much as it pained me, I needed him if I was going to nab Arjun. I’d played a bluff and lost.
By the time I turned around, Harold was on me, filling my vision with his bulk. I lashed out with a solid punch, but he reared back with a metallic hiss and my fist sunk uselessly into his heavily padded mid-section.
I danced away, not wanting to stay still long enough to give him a chance to land a blow.
He lashed out with a metal leg, its wicked point aimed toward my knee but I weaved out of the way, darting first out and then in for another quick strike to the torso. The blows didn’t faze him in the least, there was too much mass between his vital organs and me. My strikes would never do any real, fight-ending, damage.
I’d need to tag him with a couple of solid hits to the head to end this scuffle, but those metal legs of his made that increasingly unlikely. Every time I moved in for a strike, he shifted out of reach with ease, and I simply didn’t have the height I needed to mess with his grill. Throwing down with a good ol’ fashion bout of fisticuffs obviously wasn’t going to get ‘er done.
He lashed out again with another metal appendage. I dodged without too much trouble, but another of his legs caught me smack in the stomach like a hammer. The blow was a serious one, momentarily picking me up off my feet while simultaneously emptying my lungs of air, like a couple of popped balloons. I stumble-walked, tripped over something, and fell into one of the bookshelves lining the wall. My head took a brutal bump, but I hardly noticed it as I wheezed, trying desperately to find some oxygen.
Harold the Mange was kicking my ass. The hell was happening here?
I could never, ever let anyone find out about this. Never. It felt like getting beat up by the supernatural version of Steve Urkel. In my defense, however, it’d been a rough couple of days. The way I figured it, there was a big asterisk next to this throw-down.
After a moment, I shook off the hit and reoriented on Harold. He hadn’t closed the distance, but instead was looking at me with a mixture of uncertainty and gloating pride. The conflict on his face was clear: should he play things safe and flee while he had the chance or press his advantage and kick my mage-ass right out the front door? Stupid move. He should have done one or the other, but waiting around was gonna cost him. Sometimes no decision is the worst decision you can make. Now that I had a little breathing room and time, victory was a sure thing.
I drew in Vis, creating a quick and dirty little construct. Force, raw and unseen, whipped out at knee level, a single strand of power as thick as my wrist. Harold couldn’t see the blow coming and thus stood staring on as my working crashed into his metal frame like a tractor-trailer. His legs rushed out from beneath him with a screech and his enormous torso toppled forward liked a demolished building.
Fear and panic raced across his face in turns, his eyes bulging as he hurtled toward the ground. He slammed into the rough and dusty stone floor with a dull thud that rattled the earth beneath me; the tremendous momentum from the fall rolled him onto his back.
I wasn’t about to waste my advantage like he had, so I gained my feet, darted right—deeper into the cave—and conjured a set of stone shackles which clamped down over his wrists and neck, securing him to the floor.
I rubbed gingerly at the back of my noggin, a small goose egg forming where my head had so kindly been introduced to the bookcase. It hurt and I wanted to punch Harold a couple of times.
“Ouch! Uncalled for Harold—not okay.” I prodded the bump gently. “That’s not the way you treat a guest, turd-bag.”
“You’re not a guest,” he said from the floor, his breathing coming in great labored pulls. “You’re a former enemy and a house invader pointing a giant, highly menacing weapon at me.”
“Yeah but … but you …” Well shit. He was right. Damn an ass whupping and an ethics lesson from Harold. Man was I off my game. “Fine … I guess you’re right. Stupid, asshole … tried to eat me …” I let the earthen bonds dissipate. “Sorry, I broke into your house and menaced you, Harold,” I said, tracing my foot through the sand like a five-year-old who’d broken a window after being told not to throw the ball inside. “That was kind of a dick move I guess.”
He ponderously made his way upright, breathing hard the whole while. The guy needed to see a doctor, he was scary-out-of-shape with all that huffing and puffing.
“Well, I did try to eat you last time, so maybe your response was not wholly unwarranted. I accept your apology—we can call it even.” He said, grumpy but mollified. He carefully brushed ro
ck dust from his chest and arms, the movement dainty, considering his girth.
“Yeah okay, even” I responded.
“So what drags you all the way into my neck of the woods,” he said eventually, “so far as I remember, you’ve never been a fan of the Hub.”
“You can say that again—every time I come here something terrible happens. Every. Single. Time. I just got my ass handed to me by Harold the friggin’ Mange.”
He shed a wicked grin. “You know I have surveillance equipment recording around the clock. I think our little tussle will definitely go into the archives.”
I moved my hand toward the butt of my revolver, and frowned. “Don’t push your luck ass-bag.”
“Of course, no need to be hasty. We can be friends—I assume you’re here after some information, or maybe a specialty item?”
“Got it in one. I need to find out about Arjun Dhaliwal. You know him?”
Harold snorted and shuffled over to a series of large silver file cabinets built into the cavern wall. “Do I know Arjun? Of course I know Arjun—I keep rough tabs on every mover and shaker in the game.” He fished a large metal key out from between several rolls of fat and unceremoniously opened one of the cabinets, rifling quickly through a set of folders within. “I’ve had my eye on him lately. Word around here is that he’s brewing up some serious trouble—there’s even talk that Vritra is stirring.”
Well crap. Vritra was an ancient, demonic, hard case. A Hindu deity, responsible for drought, famine, death, and a whole slew of other craptastic things. Vritra had been in the clink for a long, long time and for very good reasons.
“Yeah,” I said, “well I can’t speak to that, but Arjun and I have a dispute that needs settling—what’s your price for the info?”
“The info I’ll give you for free … let’s call it a peace offering. Plus, Arjun’s a real prick—one of those holier-than-thou types. Always going on about karma and moksha. We’ll call this one a freebie, an act of good karma …” He smiled, the grin downright devilish, “but that’s not all you need.” He pulled out a brown folder, faded around the edges, wrapped about the middle with a piece of twine. He scuttled toward me with the folder extended. “You don’t just need the info, you need a Way.” He thumbed his nose and blinked at me conspiratorially. “The info is free, but the Way will cost you.”
“Hold on now.” I snatched the folder before he could consider taking it back. “Thought we were on good working terms again—you’re going to gouge me here?”
“Its business, nothing personal.” He began dry washing his hands again, a shiesty used car salesman coming in for the kill. He knew I was going to bite, and I knew I was going to get a lemon on this deal.
“First,” he continued, “I want my door fixed. I want new defensive wards—and good ones—installed, both on my exterior and interior door. And I want one unlimited redeemable favor, good at any time, for any situation.”
I laughed, a raspy, wheezy thing I knew would grind his gears. Harold hates being laughed at. Who doesn’t? But he had asked me for the equivalent of a blank check, which was a ludicrous, laugh-out-loud funny demand.
“Now the door isn’t a problem,” I said, pretending to wipe a tear from the corner of my eye, “it’ll take some time, but I can get it done. A blank check favor, though? Not gonna happen, amigo. I’ll give you one reasonable favor and I get to decide which job it’ll be.”
“Define reasonable.”
“I’m not going to go kill someone and I won’t play your thug,” I said. “Everything else … ” I shrugged. “You make a request and we’ll talk.” I could see the wheels spinning in his head, his eyes had the light of speculation and cunning contemplation, which made me more than a little uncomfortable. Harold isn’t tough in the traditional sense of the word, but he’s crafty as a fox-in-chicken-drag, which is often more dangerous than brute strength alone. This deal would come back to get me sooner or later.
“Redeemable at any time?” he asked again.
“Yeah—but I get to decide whether the job is reasonable.”
“Fine.” He licked his lips, savoring the word. “You need only give me the specifications for the Way and I will build it to order—from one location to another, mind, and I will need a few hours notice. These things do take a little time. I will, of course, make it to specification, but I would like to cash in my favor now.”
“Funny Harold,” I said, “But I’ve got shit to do, so stop joking.”
“Not a joke,” he said again, dry washing his hands some more and giving a slightly apologetic shrug of his shoulders. “You said I could redeem the favor at any time and if you want me to build your Way, you’re going to have to abide by the terms of the deal.”
Ugh. My life. I knew this bargain was going to get me, but I hadn’t thought it would be this soon.
“Really Yancy, I literally cannot do what you want if you don’t help me—it’s in your best interest.”
“What’s the favor?” I grumbled.
“Please follow me. I’ll give you a brief on the way down to The Pit.”
“The Pit? Seriously?” I asked. “Not exactly filling me with overwhelming confidence here.”
He smiled and scuttled toward the back of his cavernous stony cave.
TWENTY-THREE:
Down the Rabbit Hole
The back of the cave tapered into a narrow tunnel, which hardly seemed big enough to accommodate Harold’s bulk. The guy was surprisingly agile, however, and he moved through the darken passage without thought, a spider patrolling his web with easy, familiar, movements. The surface of the rock walls were smooth, almost polished, bored out as though by the passing of a river. I knew better though—Harold can secrete a caustic saliva that’ll eat away rock or flesh with equal ease. He’d nearly slathered me with the damn stuff during our last encounter, the one where he had tried to cocoon and eat me.
“Making me nervous, Harold. This feels suspiciously like a trap—my trigger finger’s getting a little itchy. I’d hate to break our fresh new partnership so early on.”
“No worries, good chap,” he said, which did absolutely zero to ease my worries. “Trust me, I have no intention of seeing you harmed. At least not at my hands.” He chuckled as though making a grand joke. “Your break-in was fortuitous for me. Just a little further, now—I’ll show you.”
The path wandered for another five minutes, ambling left and right in a series of gradual and unpredictable switchbacks.
“You made this place right?” I asked, trying to fill up the unbearable quiet, broken only with the clicking metal of his spidery appendages.
“Yes, yes,” he said absently. “It is my home, my creation, my love.”
That wasn’t creepy or anything. After a moment: “Why in the hell didn’t you make it go in a straight line? What’ve you got against an economical floor plan?”
“This place is built in the Ether …”
“Yeah, I know. That’s my point—the Ether’s just like a bunch of empty black space—perfect for straight lines.”
“No, no. The Ether may seem to be empty, but it is not, as you shall soon see. No, the Ether is home to a myriad of things and there are all the other worlds to consider, each one unique, with its own atmospheric imprint upon the Ether.”
“Fascinating, Professor Science,” I said. “How about you get to the part where you answer my question?”
“Right, right,” he sputtered. “Well, you cannot simply traverse through the Ether linearly—there are unseen currents which must be accommodated for: fluctuations, quantum-foam, drifting dark-matter clouds … also, this twisting hallway’s loaded to the gills with traps of all shapes and sizes. A whole mile worth of them, each pulled from the deadliest regions of Outworld—no one will get to my hoard.” He cackled, more than just a little bit mad.
Yikes, a mile worth of booby-traps. I guess Harold might also be a teensy bit more dangerous than I gave him credit for. Check, don’t try to raid Harold’s boo
ty. Ewww. Harold’s booty—there was an unfortunate word pairing sure to haunt my dreams for decades.
“So if you’re all bunkered down for eventual Armageddon, what could you need from me?” I asked.
“Here we are,” he said as we turned a final corner which let out into a cavern, about the size of a large warehouse, housing rows and rows of metal shelving. The shelving units, in turn, housed clear plastic Rubbermaid tubs of artifacts. Strange and ancient stone carvings next to turn of the century brass antiques. There were also weapons of every shape and size—maces and swords, AT-4 rocket launchers and apace-age looking laser guns and doodads. Damn, his collection was more expansive than I ever would’ve wagered. I didn’t know what it all did, but a bunch of the stuff was probably dangerous as hell.
Cool. Harold went up a notch in my book.
We walked down the central walk for a moment or two, me staring around like a slack-jawed country-bumpkin. I have to admit, I’ve seen a lot in my days, so it’s hard to offer me something completely new, but Harold’s massive treasury—or maybe armory—had done the trick.
In the center of the room sat what could only be The Pit: a giant hole, thirty-feet across, recessed into the floor a good five feet, and covered with a massive steel door which looked like it belonged on a friggin’ space shuttle. A guardrail encircled the thing, interrupted only by a single set of wide metal stairs, leading down to the gargantuan, space-age, manhole cover.
I had no idea what it was or what it did, but I was immediately certain I was going to hate it when I found out.
“This,” Harold said as he gestured grandly at The Pit with both flabby arms, “is The Pit.”
“Gee,” I said, “and here I was thinking it was your indoor swimming pool.”
“Barbarian,” he said. “This is the machine which allows me to manufacture Ways—it is a permanent and malleable rift, which someone with the right ability can manipulate to create ripples in the Ether. Ways.”