Dead Man in a Ditch

by Luke Arnold

  Victor and the man behind him turned on the spot to look back at the room. The obedient workers picked up their tools. Soon, the air was filled with the sound of snipping and tapping as the copper was shaped into little caps.

  I opened the lead box. Sure enough, it was full of red dust. I’d seen the damage a spoonful of this stuff could do. There was enough powder on my table to kill a dozen men. In this room, enough to wipe out a village. In this city? Who knew?

  Victor was wheeled out of the room into a narrow hallway. A minute later, the man in the charcoal suit came back out and went off in the direction they’d taken the injured Werewolf. Once he was gone, I got up and went down the hall. A few eyes glanced at me but I didn’t care. If you look like you know where you’re going, people rarely speak up. Especially those who have just been reminded how disposable they are.

  The hall had doors on both sides, leading into offices. I looked in each of them, all empty, until I came to the last doorway and heard Victor Stricken give the kind of sigh that you only do when you’re alone: exhausted and broken and just a hair away from tears. I went into his room and closed the door.

  “You’re a long way from home, Vic.”

  His raised his head and I got my first good look of him. I hoped that my Werecat mask hid most of my expression.

  Two of his teeth were missing and half his face was paralyzed. He still wore his wolf pelts but the wheelchair was a sad replacement for his mechanical leg. All his earrings were gone and the holes where they’d been were torn through. They’d been taken out by force. I put his story together without him needing to tell it.

  He didn’t recognize me. Maybe it was the disguise. Or maybe the torture had rattled his wits.

  “You asked me to destroy the first pistol, Vic. Why the hell are you making more?”

  That jogged his memory. He chuckled when he realized who I was, but I’ve heard more happiness in a funeral march.

  “Hello, stranger. What are you all dressed up for?”

  “Oh, you know what it’s like. You start out trimming your beard, get carried away, next thing you know you’re chasing mice and shitting in a sandbox. What the hell happened to you?”

  Rather than answer, he looked down at his hands and I saw for the first time that they were strapped to the arms of the wheelchair.

  “What do you think happened? They dragged me out of the valley and tortured me till I told them how to make these things. Then the bastards gave me a choice. Either leave me there, legless, or come back to Sunder and work for them.” He was drooling a bit. Still getting used to his missing teeth. “At the time, it didn’t seem like much of a choice. I guess your ideals can only carry you so far when they don’t have legs to help them.” Then he shook his head. “I thought I was stronger than this.”

  “Shit, Vic. Nobody would blame you.”

  “You really believe that?”

  I wanted to. I knew a little something about siding with the enemy.

  Vic twisted around in his chair, pulling against his straps.

  “Get me the fuck out of this thing.”

  I reached down and tried to untie the knots that were holding him in place.

  “What’s it all for?” I asked.

  “All what?”

  “The factory. The machines.”

  “For profit, of course. To begin with. But you don’t start making weapons unless you’re getting ready for war. Now, hurry the fuck up.”

  The fake nails on my left hand were making it impossible. Then Vic starting thrashing around, shaking his whole body so that he almost tipped over. I grabbed his chair and steadied him.

  “Untie me, for fuck’s sake!” He shouted. I hoped the workshop was loud enough to smother his voice or we’d soon have company.

  “Vic, be careful.”

  I grabbed my knife from my belt and cut him loose. He ripped his arms free, stretched them out, and gave a shattered grin.

  “Ooh, that’s better.”

  He wheeled himself out of the room and all I could do was chase after him.

  “Vic, how are they doing this?” He went back up the hall then spun himself into a doorway on our left. I went in after him. “Sunder hasn’t had real power since the Coda. They must be smelting and forging to make these parts. Where are they getting the fuel?”

  We were in someone’s office. Vic went behind the desk and opened up all the drawers, searching for something.

  “The same place they always have,” he said. “Same as it was from the start.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ahhhh.”

  He found what he was looking for and lifted it up to his chest. A machine. One of the new mass-produced ones made right under this roof. He held it to his chest and stroked it like it was a treasured family pet. All his fingernails were missing.

  “Victor, let’s get out of here.”

  He pulled off his goggles and looked at me with vacant eyes. Whatever piece of him was here, it was only an echo of the surly Goblin who’d shared his stew.

  Footsteps came down the hall. They went past our room to the one where Victor was supposed to be waiting.

  “Victor?” said the voice. Not worried. Just annoyed.

  The Goblin gave another one of those gruesome smiles.

  “Like my da always used to say,” he spun the gear of the machine so it rattled like a carnival game, “today’s as good a day as any to stop being a prick.”

  The footsteps came back. Stopped at our doorway.

  There was nowhere to run.

  “What the hell happened, Victor?” The voice of the charcoal suit stepped right up beside me. “You’ve blinded one of our workers. Maybe killed him.” He hadn’t noticed that Victor’s hands were out of their restraints. He hadn’t noticed what they were holding. He turned to me. “What are you doing here?” It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. His face and voice were inscrutably uniform. “Who the hell are you?”

  I’ve never seen so such happen at once.

  An explosion of sound rebounded off the walls of the tiny room. I went deaf. All I could hear was a piercing, ringing sound, like someone had tapped a tuning fork against my eardrums.

  At the same time, a spray of blood and brain matter shot out of the head of the man standing next to me. It painted the ceiling and the walls and everywhere I looked. My body was in shock. I felt the urge to burst into tears.

  Victor was holding up the machine. The telltale wisp of smoke floated up in front of his face. His lips were moving but I couldn’t hear him. He mouthed the words again.

  Go.

  I do as he says.

  I stumble out of the room, back into the hallway. The floor is slippery from the spray of blood. I turn. Eyes are on me. More men in suits at the end of the hall. They look at me, accusingly. I step forward. They’re yelling. One comes right for me. Their faces open in fear. Another explosion from behind me. The suit drops to his knees with his hands on his chest. Everybody is running. I’m running. I trip over. Still deaf. Disoriented. Someone stands on my fingers. I get up. A hand grabs my shoulder. Someone else trying to flee? No. It’s another suit. He punches me in the face. He’s wearing rings and they cut me up. I punch him back. Harder. I break away and let myself get carried by the crowd. We go out the way we came in. Through the ammunition room and the assembly room and past the breakfast table into the outside world. Some workers stop here. Others scramble up the hill. I follow them.

  I hate running. I’m not made for it. The old pain in my chest hates it even more.

  By the time I got to the top of Mt Ramanak, I was dealing with a dozen different kinds of pain. I went down the first familiar street, found a tavern, went straight to the bathroom and cleaned my face of blood and whiskers and ginger eyebrows. I flushed the eyepatch and threw away the stupid stump of a tail. I ripped off the top half of the uniform. Nothing but a white shirt underneath, so I was going to freeze, but it was better than being spotted by anyone from the factory.

&nbs
p; It wasn’t perfect but, at a glance, I wasn’t the same man who’d come running in. I left the tavern and went west – cold as hell and with blood still pouring from my forehead.

  Machines.

  A whole factory of pistols and powder-filled shells. I’d thought mine was special. Not anymore. The Niles Company were ready to make them as common as house keys.

  We’d all been waiting for something new. Finally, it had arrived. The future was here and it was mind-blowing.

  Just ask the guy in the charcoal suit.

  58

  It was warm inside the surgery. My shirt was off and the two Succubae were on either side, stitching up the cuts on my face. I’d come in heaving and bleeding, making a spectacle of myself and ranting about Victor Stricken’s explosive outburst, but things had calmed down. I was sitting on the mattress and Hendricks was at a nearby table with maps and papers spread out in front of him.

  I’d managed to wheeze out most of the story. Hendricks was pleased with what I’d brought back but disgusted by what the Niles Company was doing.

  The surgeons sewed up my forehead where the guy had punched me, then I laid back and they stroked my hair and Hendricks congratulated me on a job well done.

  It felt good. Better than stumbling up my stairs to crawl into bed alone and bloody most nights of the week.

  The Dwarf came in with warmed whiskey mixed with honey and herbs and I sat up to sip it. Exina took the dirty surgical equipment away but Loq stayed with me on the low bed.

  In the old days, I would have been wary about getting too close to a Succubae. But as we were in a post-Coda world, I let myself relax when she curled up on my chest. It felt better than medicine and almost managed to push out the memories of the suit’s exploding head.

  “This is fantastic progress,” said Hendricks, “but it only gives us a piece of the puzzle. You’re sure that they weren’t making the actual pieces of the weapons there?”

  “From what I gathered, they were just putting them together. The pieces were being delivered from somewhere else. Wooden handles and metal pipes. Copper sheets for the ammunition. Desert dust. All kinds of things.”

  “It’s the metal I’m most interested in. To smelt that, they’ll need more energy than they can get from the Sunder City grid.”

  “Maybe they’re bringing them in from out of town. I saw plenty of trucks on the road.”

  “Perhaps at first, but they’re talking about putting the lights back on Main Street. They must have some energy supply hidden in this city that we don’t know about. They’re buying up every business they can get their hands on: blacksmiths, mills, whole residential blocks. They’ve even bought the stadium. It’s clear that they’ve got more planned for this city than just building weapons.”

  “The stadium?”

  Hendricks examined one of his stolen maps.

  “East of Main Street, just south of the archway. Isn’t that what it is?”

  “It is now.” I excused myself from Loq’s arms and went over to the desk. “But it used to be the first fire pit. Weren’t you the one that told me that?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “Oh, yes. You’re right. I’d quite forgotten.”

  “I asked the Goblin where the factory was getting its power. He said it was the same as at the start.”

  Hendricks looked at the spot on the map where the stadium stood.

  “You think he means the first pit?”

  Weeks ago, when I’d been out there with Warren, the stadium was abandoned. When I went back to test the machine on the dummy, someone had been tearing up the earth.

  “Some kind of construction is happening out there,” I said.

  “But the fires went out as soon as the Coda hit.”

  “I know, but…” I thought back to the Faerie in the church. They’d been cold and dead for six long years but when Tippity tore them apart, a final piece of magic was still alive inside them.

  “There might still be something down there,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like with the Fae. The magic is gone but their bodies still hold a piece of their spirit.”

  “You think the fires might have also left something behind? A shadow of their power?”

  “And the Niles Company is digging it out.”

  Hendricks laughed and jumped up, slapping me on the back.

  “This is good, boy. Very good. We have our next target. Well done, well done!”

  That was the moment to stop the world. What else could I want? A job well done. A puzzle solved. A warm drink. A beautiful woman on the bed and a good friend at my side. Let time stop turning. Throw an anchor around the sun. Board up the windows so no more life gets in.

  We did stop. We locked the doors and drank in celebration of a successful mission. Hendricks and Exina disappeared into another room; it appeared that I was right about those two having some history. Loq didn’t seem to mind that he’d taken her partner away. I supposed a Succubae would be the last kind of creature to be squeamish about such things. She stayed with me on the mattress and did her best to make me forget about tortured Goblins and walls sprayed with blood.

  I’m glad that we stopped. Just for a moment.

  Before the horrors came tumbling in.

  59

  We slept through the middle of the day and made our plans for the night. An hour before sunset, Hendricks and I headed downtown. The ladies had patched me up pretty well and the Dwarf had even done my laundry. We had a good feed. A little wine. The air was cold but for the first time all winter, I liked the feel of it.

  We were in the bad part of town but that didn’t stop us from taking in the sights. Laughter tumbled out of bars and drunk lovers spilled onto the streets. We passed delicate piano music coming from an open window and kids on the corner throwing snowballs.

  I’d been walking these streets for most of my adult life. Every single day since the Coda. But that night, they felt different. I felt different.

  I’d been searching for something when I first went with Hendricks into the Opus. But I hadn’t found it. So I went looking for it with the army, which proved to be a mistake. I even waited for it after I wrote Man for Hire on my window. I don’t know what to call it but it doesn’t come with a uniform and it doesn’t come with a cause and it certainly doesn’t come when you’re out on your own just trying to keep your mind busy so you don’t do yourself too much damage. Maybe it’s a feeling that you can’t have in real time. Only in retrospect. In memories.

  “Why did you let me join the Opus?” I asked.

  I was surprised that the question came out. Most thoughts never made the brave journey from my brain to my tongue. I suppose my guard was down. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t watching everything I said.

  Hendricks didn’t seem so surprised by the question.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, no Human had ever been in the Opus before. So, why me?”

  “Why do you think?”

  Goddam Hendricks. Loved nothing more than turning a question back on itself.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on! What do you think it was? Your unmatched strength? That dazzling intellect? Your famous wit?”

  I already regretted saying anything.

  “Well, someone told me that it was about creating an alliance. Showing the Humans that we could work together… or something.”

  “Interesting.” He nodded thoughtfully, like the idea had only just occurred to him. “Eventually, I suppose I saw the value in that. But that’s not why it happened. Not really. Do you want to know why I really enlisted you in the Opus?”

  He stopped. I stopped too.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He stared into me with those centuries-old, pale green eyes.

  “Because you asked. And, because you were my friend, I accepted your request. That’s it.” He must have seen that I’d been hoping for something more. “Everything that has happened to you has been your doing. You chose to
leave Weatherly. You chose to join the Opus. You chose to leave us and sign up with the army. These are the facts. If you’re looking for some greater meaning behind anything that happened, there’s only one place to look.”

  He started walking again. His cane happily clicking against the road.

  “I’ve still never met another one,” he said.

  “Another what?”

  “Weatherite. Or Weatherian? See, you’re so rare out here that we don’t even have a name for you.”

  “You think there might be others who got out of Weatherly.”

  “There must be. I’ve just never met one. I always wanted to. Especially after meeting you.”

  I didn’t know whether to be flattered or brace myself for the incoming insult.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re a strange one, Master Fetch, but I don’t know how much of that strangeness is you and how much of it is because of where you grew up. I have nobody to compare you to. I am supposed to be the world’s greatest diplomat. I know all the Dwarven handshakes and what words to avoid in front of each species of Lycum, but with you, there was never any way of knowing what might set you off.”

  I didn’t like thinking of myself as being from Weatherly. When I was there, I already felt like an outsider. But I can’t deny the fact that it had an influence on me.

  “What makes me so strange?”

  Another one of his secret smiles that would never be fully explained.

  “The way that so many things seem to shock you. I thought it would wear off in time. Don’t you remember how Amari used to play with you? It was so easy for her to stir you up.” It was the first time he had mentioned her name, and the sound of it stopped the conversation dead.

  I felt like Hendricks was waiting for a response, but I couldn’t really remember what we’d been talking about. We fell into a silence that carried us all the way to the southern end of the city.

  The stadium came into sight sooner than I’d expected. It was buzzing with the same electric lights as last time but now there were many, many more. The whole place had transformed into a bustling building site. Canvas tents, crates of equipment and uniformed workers filled the space.