by Hugo Damas
“Now calm down, mister, there’s no need for violence, I’ll just be on my way, alright?”
Falk grinned, amused.
“Well, that is most unbecoming of such a world-renowned thief,” Falk said, calling attention to himself. The resident, a bit unshaven and balding, quickly turned his head and jittered, thinking about where to aim the gun. It all but confirmed he only had one bullet.
“Who are you?! Who are all you people?!??”
“We, sir, are thieves,” said Falk. The thief also looked alarmed, only a lot more suspiciously so.
“Shut up, man, go away,” his competitor pleaded, but his fate was sealed as far as Falk was concerned.
“Thieves? You two together?” Asked the seasoned man, in the heavy accent of the east.
“Oh yes,” said Falk, and the thief glared back and forth, confused and insulted.
“No, we’re not! What?!”
Falk gave his competitor a quick look from top to bottom, recognizing the devices covering his feet and some of the things sticking out of his backpack. He made a quick deduction as to who it was and felt quite delighted at his conclusion.
“I am the Mad Genius, papers would tell you…and my friend here is the Dark Runner.”
“What?!” The athletic and tall blonde man reacted in shock. “Look, I’m a thief, but I’ve got no intention to hurt you, I just want to go, ok?” He was sweating, but then so was the house owner.
One more little push.
“Yess…” Falk said, employing a suspicious tone of voice, “we just came here to steal, not to hurt…” he massaged his mechanical wrist, seeing the man’s eyes glancing towards it. Nervously jittery. “So just relax and my friend and I will both--”
Falk’s heart jubilated at being interrupted. He usually hated it, but the sound of gunpowder igniting was glorious, and more importantly, victorious. The Dark Runner’s body bounced off the wall with thunderous violence, leaving a small blot of red behind.
Lying on the ground, he had a look of utter shock as he watched his blood gush and gargle out of the wind. He shivered and sniveled as it began to pool around him.
The Dark Runner was gurgling his way to death.
The homeowner quickly turned the gun towards Falk himself. “I know you! I know your name! You’re a murderer!”
“I am a teacher,” Falk corrected, not withholding an evil smirk, “and an exceptionally well studied one at that. For instance, I am well acquainted with that weapon, and am very certain it can hold only one bullet, which, as it happens, you were already lucky enough not to have backfired on your face.”
“You are wrong, you know nothing! I’ve got a bullet for each limb of yours!” The man accused, the liar.
Falk’s heart made a one-eighty, and went dark, having been hurt and struck in the worst way. His smirk faded into a grin, a crazy grin that stretched his bandages enough that inches of the uneven burnt skin and bone behind them were visible.
The old man’s face lit up with fear, and he stepped back.
“Oh really? I am wrong then?! I’m wrong, is what you’re saying?” Falk marched towards the man who held the gun even while paralyzed by fear. “It is you who are wrong, fool sir! You who know nothing!”
Falk grabbed hold of the gun’s barrel with his prosthetic hand, and an empty click sounded out in return.
“N…no,” the home owner pleaded.
“Oh, but yes,” Falk said, smacking the man across the face with the butt of the rifle. In response, a woman’s voice came from his room, a yelp she was unable to shush. Falk glanced inside and, in one moment of clarity, noted no signs of them being parents. That, in turn, allowed him to get in a good mood again.
“I really am a teacher, such that I delight in ridding any and all existence of their ignorance. Unfortunately, and you must trust my judgment on this, for I am always right…” Falk aimed his hand at him, and the small gun barrels appeared from the top of his wrist, “you are nothing but ignorance personified. Why else would you claim me? To be wrong?”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry please, you were right, ok? I was wrong, I was--”
Falk shot the man in the head with a frown of disgust.
“You were wrong to injure the reputation of Falk Goldshmidt, yes you most certainly were. And you,” he turned to the woman, “you were wrong to announce yourself. But rest assured, I am certain you will serve your city as well as your husband did.”
The woman shrieked for but a moment before being silenced by a shot to the throat. And as she bled away, along with her husband and one of the thieves most likely to win the competition, Falk walked back out of the house
Despite his great victory, he felt disgruntled. Angry. Unsuccessful.
His poisoned, vindictive heart was overflowing with spite. “Brainless rejects. I have no doubt that being a lesson to your city about closing your bloody windows shall be the greatest achievement of your entire lives.”
Removing ignorance from the world always improved his mood so by the time he left the house he was already feeling better about the whole ordeal.
Falk knew there was a bit of madness to how his emotions flared at the mere mention of the possibility he might be wrong, but he bore no guilt over allowing it.
His past defined him, as it does everyone, and in his case, it had made him extremely angry. Ironically, it had been society that had turned him into what they considered a great many things, all of them dangerous.
Falk walked into another house and forced the widow there to show him her belongings. He pocketed them for the count and left for the next house. He had been making good time and good money, which left him confident he would certainly be moving forward to the next round.
And the Dark Runner was out of the run. That was a magnificent turn of events. He wondered if there was anything about it on the scroll, and so he opened it to look. Other than the countdown, which alerted him to the fact he had merely twenty minutes before the match was over, there was a message he had not expected to see.
A Tax Collector is now collecting taxes.
There was no news concerning the Dark Runner. He wondered whether they had a way to even tell of their status, or whether they would check only after the match was over. The mechanics of the occultist systems through which Shadow Conclave was supported intrigued him, as they should any true man of science.
Falk had already understood the teleporting pouch and had indeed postulated a way to reproduce it. It was based on two theories he had conjectured just then, but he was certain they would prove factual as soon as he teleported the entire confines of Fort Yurk directly into his possession.
Leaving that indulgent train of thought, Falk turned his mind to where he had left his capsule, taking a few seconds to make calculations as to how long it would take him to return to it. He had purposely walked in circles to avoid going too far apart.
Two more residences, I suppose, Falk decided.
He heard another alarm going off, and this was a lock-trap. Used to be, the lock-trap would squirt out acid and burn the lock-picker, but he had to change it due to the rules, and so now it existed as that less deadly and more complicated alarm mechanism.
“Mad Genius?”
Falk turned around, surprised at being called out, to find a man older than him. He was balding, dressed in an expensive suit with a red buttoned shirt which had a tie tucked underneath. He was smoking a large cigar and looking pretty happy with himself.
It was fairly easy to deduce which of the participants he was. “Don,” Falk retorted with a knowing smirk, “what a pleasure to meet you so soon.”
“It is you, then? Eh, you’re younger than I expected,” said the hard man.
“Only in appearance, I assure you.” Falk raised a knowing eyebrow. “The gunshot. That’s what drew your attention.”
“Of course, what d’you think?” The Don took a deep breath of his cigar, enjoying it, “I just robbed that house, see? Left a very fidgety man behind fiddling with some an
cient gun I didn’t even recognize. Was someone shot?”
“Unfortunately,” Falk said, smiling gladly. “In a sad, terrible turn of events, the Dark Runner has been shot.”
“Heh,” the Don said, smirking as well. “Yeah, that’s real sad, alright. He dead?”
“Very much so, I’m afraid,” Falk confirmed.
“How awful,” the Don said, smiling as he blew out smoke.
They looked at each other in a confrontation of confidence, but before long, it became more awkward than anything else. For that reason, Falk waved his hand dismissively to the side.
“Well, a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Don. We shall meet again, I imagine.”
“Maybe, maybe not. How much’ve you collected?” The Don asked.
“Like I would tell you the numbers,” Falk said, with a scoff.
“Well, I hope it’s enough, kid.”
Falk glared back in anger, wishing he could shoot the man. “It will more than suffice…old man.”
“Good, I’d hate for your placements to be affected by gettin’ put in jail,” the Don teased.
Falk snickered and shook his head, waving the bluff away.
“Please, like I’d--” sirens suddenly went out all over the city. Every single balloon of gas suddenly flared more powerfully, so as to greatly illuminate the streets.
“Wha--what is this?” Falk demanded.
The Don laughed. “It’s a raid. You really don’t understand how pigs work, do you? All you idiots getting seen and scaring people… ‘course they’re gonna raid the whole place, hah.”
“Well they still have to catch me,” Falk said, not losing an ounce of composure.
“They’ll catch us both,” he nodded, “difference is they respect me. You? You, they hate.”
“No, Don. They fear me,” Falk said, refusing to lose his composure and run before the talk was done.
“Ha, they fear us both, that’s true. Difference is they understand me, see? But you? Yer just a homicidal maniac to them, see? An unpredictable menace. So fear won’t do you any good, wise guy.”
Falk did not have a decent reply for that because the Don was right. That is what he had used on the man just inside the house to cause the murder. He tried to think of a superior retort, but he took too long.
“Good luck with that then.” The Don laughed and walked away. Falk felt insulted and defeated, two very dangerous feelings when it came to him, so he pointed his hand to kill the almighty Don.
No. He is not worth it, Falk thought to himself, as convincingly as he could, I can get him after I win the contest.
Falk slowly lowered his hand and shot nothing but a frown before turning around and quickly pacing back towards his launching capsule. He could yet evade the raid.
* * *
Walking briskly across the now multi-colored well-lit streets, Falk tried to appease his patience. He should be running, but he was incapable of doing something so beneath him as rushing.
Even when he heard the march of a patrolling squad speeding in his direction in a tumult of grunts and protest, Falk did not hurry his step. Instead, he noticed he was passing by a window to a bedroom, this one closed.
Falk grabbed an alarm mine and threw it hard through the window. It shattered loudly, startling the people inside into emitting alarmed whelps.
“Did you hear that?!”
“Over in that direction! The citizens!”
Falk turned a corner and, happy with himself, walked along the street. Meanwhile, he heard the alarm moving about and guards yelling out for surrender and halts and all the typical sort of droning that one grows to expect out of militia officers.
Seems I managed to stick the mine to someone inside. A strike of fortune is always welcomed, without a doubt.
Nothing now stood in his way.
Then, some kind of purple orb with a dark blue tint rose from the ground right in front of him. Falk stopped, but it hit his chest and made him feel an enormous dose of vertigo. His sight flashed with the same color as the orb, and in an instant, all his surroundings had changed.
Where am I?! Falk demanded in his mind, the most powerful place in the world.
The mind raced to produce the answers that most mattered and the answers he most wanted. Falk most wanted to know what had just happened, but he most needed to know where he was. His mind decided, of course, on what he most wanted.
The Sorcerer, Falk assumed.
It was most definitely a trap laid by the Sorcerer, which meant he had been teleported to someplace random within the confines of the competition. That, in turn, answered where he was, albeit abstractly.
Falk heard guards coming towards him from two directions and found no way to escape. He shook his head, still reasonably confident he would still be moving to the next round, even when allowing for the discount he would suffer for being arrested. However, the lack of full and complete certainty tugged at his patience like weed at a fence.
Falk wanted to exact revenge, he wanted to hurt someone.
And like that, he decided there would be no bribery involved in his escape from jail.
“Oh, you there, freeze!” Called the guard.
“Certainly,” Falk said, complying. He lifted his hands in surrender, “I will not resist.”
“Good,” one of the guards said, grabbing hold of his hands and bringing them down and behind his back. “One more out of the streets, boys. Go on ahead, I’ll take him in.”
Falk counted the time, making sure that the match ended while he was being pushed away towards his would-be cell. He was taken inside a large building adorned with the city’s banners, as well as the nations’, and there, he was strip-searched and relieved of his inventions, something that infuriated him further. Despite that, Falk endeavored to hold an easy, polite smile on his face.
Eventually, Falk was finally put in the cell along with two other individuals who were undoubtedly participants in the Shadow Conclave. One was a young woman, dark-skinned with aviator goggles pulled up to her forehead and a tight-fitting jumpsuit. The other was a man with some kind of custom-made goggles, also pulled up to his forehead, and what Falk could only assume was a suit of dirt and filth, and somewhere under there were shirt and pants that would remind anyone of a miner.
“I’m just saying, why invite us to this thing when the playing field is so stacked against us? Stealing into people’s houses is not what I do,” the aviator girl was saying.
“I definitely concur. I made my career digging into places, no one can claim to be my better when it comes to that, but this is--oh, hello.”
The guard pushed Falk inside while yelling at the miner.
“Shut up!” The guard hit the bars, “we dunno what you did to all the stuff you stole, but you’re all still spending a day behind bars, I can promise you that! You best hope we don’t find any of it!”
“I say, sir, refrain from yelling,” said Falk, patronizingly. “People are sleeping out there.”
“Ha,” they both laughed.
“Yeah, very funny, you’re still behind bars.” The guard left at that, walking away and purposefully ignoring Falk’s angry glaring.
“Wait. Gold mechanical prosthetics?” The dirty miner noticed, “are you the Mad Genius?”
“Wow, they caught the Mad Genius?!” the girl asked.
“Hm. Greetings,” Falk said, glancing back again to see if he could recognize them, now that he cared about making an impression.
“The Mole, I believe?” The man dug into fortresses and banks and palaces. He was very good at that, Falk had to admit. They had traded tech designs before, under the guise of aliases. He was an accomplished inventor who Falk could respect, and part of the same organization that Falk was a member of.
“Easy to tell, correct?” He dusted off his sleeve a bit, pretending not to know Falk at all.
Falk turned his eyes to the girl and peered her over. “I do not believe…I know who you are.”
“Oh, it’s ok if you don’t kno
w, I’m a first timer,” she explained a tad embarrassed. “They called me The Thieving Magpie, after the bird…because I normally escape by skydiving.”
“One who digs and one who falls…I can imagine this competition has been far from fortuitous for you two,” Falk said.
“You can say that again,” she said, shaking her head helplessly. The Mole just shrugged, indifferent.
“Well, first of all, I must insist you not call me by that ridiculous name that the media has slandered me with,” Falk told them. “You will call call me Dr. Goldshmidt.”
The girl looked at him attentively, and nodded. With an easy smile, the Mole sighed and stood up, scratching some dirt from his blonde hair and pushing it away from his eyes while he was at it.
“Hm? What is it, Mole?” The girl asked.
“Well, he’ll have us out in minutes,” the Mole said.
The Thieving Magpie turned her naive doubt on Falk. “Really? But didn’t they get all your stuff?”
Falk scoffed. He slapped his leg, and a small compartment opened for him to slide a gadget out of. “No force on the planet can take these limbs away from me.”
“Not without killing you, at least,” the Mole pointed out.
“Not just me,” Falk said, playfully. “But they would never. It’s not like the justice system to be so interested in achieving actual results. Not in this place, not in any place where communities have built the system that reigns.”
Falk placed the object in-between two bars and started turning a lever in its center, using his normal hand.
The guard turned up and towards them, having heard the noise. “Hey, what are you doing over there?”
“I hope you are not squeamish, I am about to murder our guards.” Falk said, not the least bit apologetically. He aimed his mechanical hand, opened it like before and it silently shot out a dart against the guard.
The guard was rendered silent immediately. By the time he tried to move, his legs didn’t respond, and he fell. He gasped for a few more seconds before dying.
“No complaints here,” the Mole commented with an easy shrug.
