by J. N. Chaney
Not only is the lot vacant, but the buildings surrounding this section of the city appear empty of anything but decay. Broken windows never repaired, clothing lines hanging lifeless from some balconies, the tattered rags on them giving every appearance they’ve been there for years, ruined by weather and pollution.
“I know you have to do this, but I’m warning you, take nothing for granted. You think the ice world was bad, or wherever you were before that? This block has a reputation deadly enough to scare away millions of people day after day. There has to be real danger to accomplish that.”
“Noted,” I say, then face my friends. “Are you ready?”
“One last thing,” Van says. “Can you take that bloody cat with you?”
The Hwelas freeze, then begin to chatter in their version of whispers.
I put on my most innocent face. “What are you talking about? Cat?”
Wak-wak and some of his friends gather around me. He’s very close. I feel something touching my hand, and then I’m holding a kitten behind my back.
“Didn’t I tell you they were fond of picking up strays? I’ve been lenient, but today hasn’t put me in a very good mood,” Van says. “In fact, why don’t you take the lot of them.”
“No way,” Shaina says. “Absolutely no freaking way.”
Wak-wak and the other Hwelas wail at each other. The noise splits my ears with each whistle and click—the later sound echoing like glass breaking inside my skull. I want to cover my ears, block out the shrieking, but I’m holding a cat.
Because that is just what I need right now, when the galaxy is coming apart.
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about, but good luck,” I say, then turn, deftly slipping the calico inside my jumpsuit the moment my back is to Van.
“If I find it, its fate is on you,” he says. “You’ve already got enough on your conscience. Tell me which of my Hwelas brought it.”
“Why?” I ask.
“I’ve got to set an example so it doesn’t happen again,” he says, one hand in his coat. Could he be reaching for a weapon? Maybe, but either way, I don’t like his tone or his posture. The guy is ready to get mean.
“Can’t help you,” I say. “Stop being paranoid, or at least worry about something that might actually be dangerous. Cats? Really? I thought you were a hardened smuggler.”
“You think you’re smart, don’t you, Doctor Murphy?”
I face him and hope the animal doesn’t start wiggling around. “I like cats and puppies and cute little baby goats, but they’re just animals, and I’m on a mission to save the galaxy. Stop wasting my time, and I’ll stop wasting yours.”
He points toward the aft of the ship where the loading and unloading ramp is. “Fine. Good luck. You still owe me, so try not to get killed. We’ll be seeing each other again, and you’ll be paying the debt with interest.”
I give him a sardonic wink and a double thumbs up. “If you’re lucky.”
We march off the ship, then stride down the ramp. Shaina leads us straight to the cover of a building with a wide awning in an abandoned lot that reminds me of an old movie theater. There’s even a glass ticket booth, I think. Someone firebombed it a while ago. Maybe it had been a security booth, who knows? Moviegoers must be a tough crowd on this planet.
We take over the lobby and then form a defensive perimeter with each of us looking out floor-to-ceiling windows while Zedas faces the darkness that is the interior of the building. It smells musty and abandoned.
“Should I search this to be sure there are no dangerous creatures living within?” Zedas asks. “I cannot predict how many rooms will be behind these doors.”
“We won’t be staying that long.” I stare across the vacant field toward the strange structure at the other end. It’s like somebody built a do-it-yourself Temple of Doom in the end zone of a lopsided football field. “As soon as the Serendipity is gone, we’ll head toward the gate.”
“I think we should stay close to the buildings, keep an eye out for trouble, and leave ourselves options for shelter if it gets hot,” Shaina says. “There were a lot of people camped here at one time. Long gone now, if the trash is a good indicator. Hugging the buildings will give us better options if we get surprised.”
“Agreed. One hundred percent. Wanna take point?” I ask.
She nods affirmatively. Zedas takes up the rear. Garin, me, and Patty-pats form the middle of our motley column.
I can’t believe I have a freaking cat. This day just can’t get any weirder.
Shaina takes us out the front door and then down the sidewalk toward the next building. I feel eyes watching us but don’t see anyone. My observations from the ship turned out to be accurate. The street is littered with garbage, but not from local residents. It appears to have blown in or fallen from vehicles passing overhead.
The graffiti ceases far from the DIY temple made of discarded trash cans, storage containers, and pieces of vehicles pulled into the pile and welded together.
Shaina draws us into a burnt-out police station, and we regroup. I’m assigning labels to these places without knowing their actual purpose. Guessing isn’t really my style, but it’s all I have time for.
Shaina points toward our destination. “I don’t know, Murph, that looks like a strange place to put an Orphan Gate.”
“I doubt anyone put the gate here. Probably the same with other gates. The structures around them most likely came later by civilizations who never knew the creators of the gates.”
Shaina cocks her head in agreement. “True.”
“I definitely believe this is how it is,” Zedas says. “What is more interesting is that gates on the surface like this one are rare.”
“Could be that’s just the entrance. The gate could be down in the basement or whatever,” Garin says.
I’m following their discussion but not really paying attention. Other details about this scene are distracting me, and the cat wants out of my jumpsuit. I pull Patty-pats free but then can’t decide what to do with her.
“Just put her down,” Shaina says.
Garin holds out his hands. “I’ll carry her.”
“Works for me.” I surrender the cat and focus on my real objective. The sounds of Garin laughing and the cat meowing lightens the mood. “Shaina, work around that next building and then cross to that abandoned hovel at the edge of the playing field. We’ll clear it to make sure there are no threats. I don’t want to get ambushed,” I say, then pause to survey the area with binoculars from my kit. I was wrong about there being no graffiti. There definitely is script on this end of the open area, but the symbols are strange, and it’s drawn in blood turned brown with age.
“Zedas, are those Prothean words?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Maybe if a drunk archaeologist tried to transcribe Dogan nursery rhymes, it would be like that.”
I put away the binocs. “Nursery rhymes and fairy tales are pretty dark where I’m from. There’s this one about a wolf eating grandma…”
“As wolves do,” Zedas says.
“Ah, thanks, Z-man. I should have expected that.”
He chuckles three octaves below my vocal range. “The Dark Eye told me the story of the small hood of red riding.”
“When?” I ask, trying to remember.
“You were sleeping. I was very bored, but the Robin Red Hood tale was intriguing. Why did the wolf work so hard to get grandma? Was there nothing in the forest?”
“You two having a nice time?” Shaina asks. “Telling cute stories. Stalling. Waiting for us all to get killed by whatever smeared the walls of that building in blood?”
“Understanding the language might be important. It could be a warning or a set of clues,” I say.
“It is gibberish. Nonsense words mixed with random drawings,” Zedas says. “We are not stalling, for the record.”
“Why don’t we just run over there and look?” Garin asks.
“Be my guest, kid,” I say.
“I’m not scared.” Garin shelters the cat in his arms. “Not much. Okay, some, but I’m just being smart. Can we please get this over with?”
I understand his impatience, but I don’t want to fail this late in the game. It’d be a shame to come all this way to drop the ball when we don’t have a handy smuggler’s ship for extraction. There’s a breeze, which brings a mixture of smells and sounds.
Someone is grilling a few blocks away, which seems improbable by the deliciousness of the aroma, but I don’t see anyone closer than that. There’s also the stink of chemicals drifting on the air from time to time, depending on how the wind shifts. And of course there is the sour odor of blood and decaying flesh. I assume whoever put this on display did it to turn people away.
I also hear voices from our right and then laughter.
“I don’t like that. Sounds angry, maybe drunk,” Shaina says.
“I am prepared to end their amusement,” Zedas says as he drops his blade and flail from his vambraces.
“We can hide, but I think we should talk to this group. Ask some questions,” I say.
Garin is the most skeptical. “That’s a bad idea. This gang doesn’t look helpful.”
And that’s just what it is, complete with tattoos, strange fashion choices, and a visible hierarchy in the way they amble across the field. They don’t go anywhere near the DIY temple, but we’ll cross paths with them unless we detour back into the buildings and come out from a different spot.
“You and me, Zedas. Shaina, stay with Garin and the furball,” I say.
She guides Garin back into the shadows. “Try to keep that thing quiet.”
“Here goes nothing,” I mutter.
20
Zedas and I amble toward the street thugs. They spread out, instinctively attempting to envelop us, but it’s a half measure, and I’m not worried about it. Two-thirds of their group hang back, obviously cautious. I wonder if they’ve ever seen a Dogan.
“What you do in our kingdom?” the leader asks, his words heavily accented.
I understand him, but just barely. It’s a type of Hadrian I haven’t heard before. Given our environment, I’m sure it’s mostly slang and profanity.
I point toward the doom temple. “I came to see that. Which one of you wants to give me a tour?”
They laugh, but it isn’t a good sound. The spokesperson sidles forward.
I speak quietly to Zedas. “He’s not a leader. He’ll test us, probably attempt to provoke me.”
He huffs. “That would make sense. I doubt they want trouble with me. Do you sense their fear?”
“Yeah, but they’re intoxicated or high.”
“High?” Zedas asks.
“They’ve ingested chemicals that alter their mental state. They look stimulated. Some of the ones in the back, especially the females, look like they’ve been taking downers or hallucinogens. The fighters will be jacked up on something and immune to pain.”
“Pain will not be an issue when I smash them against the ground,” Zedas says. “It is hard to fight when you are broken into pieces.”
“True, but let’s try to talk our way through this,” I say.
“Hey, intruder man. No more talking. You talk me. Pay me, pay my crew-crew,” the spokesperson says. He’s got red tattoos below his eyes and scrollwork of black, red, and green around his neck and shoulders. Like the rest of the fighters in this group, he’s not wearing a shirt over his excessively lean, muscular frame. There are four or five of them like this, each with rough canvas pants and heavy boots that probably have steel toes. These guys are the top dogs in a society on the brink of starvation.
“Listen, champ,” I say. “You really don’t want to mess with Orphans like us. We’ve got places to be.”
He snorts, laughs, and spits. “You ain’t no Orphan man. You intruder man. Got to give me something worth a pretty. Like now-now or sooner.”
“Yeah, that makes no sense,” I say.
“What?” he snaps his fingers into a fist, keeping it cocked near his jawline like a boxer. I try to see the other hand because it’s hanging down, very un-boxer like—which probably means his right hand is holding a weapon he doesn’t want me to see. “What you call me?”
“Tiresome,” I say. “I called you tiresome.”
“Maybe you thought it, but you didn’t speak the words. I would have heard you,” Zedas says.
“Play along, Zedas-Duryan.” I move a lot closer, almost chest to chest, nose to nose with the bully. “Maybe you should give me something. Pay me a tax. Then my friend won’t smash your legs off.”
His breath stinks. He says nothing, but his eyes work me over, taking in details, narrowing at my strangeness.
“Did you run out of tough talk?” I ask.
“You give me something for a pretty. Then go-go, yeah?”
“I’m a little short on cash, credit, or trade goods. So how about we jog over there to the Blood Gate and disappear,” I say.
He hops back, eyes wide, face flush with anger. “You crazy mad. Don’t be touching me. I don’t want to catch that sicko in your head-head.”
The leader steps around him. “Why you go?”
“I’m an Orphan. It’s what I do.”
“Through the gate-gate?” he asks, his words barely loud enough to hear. His breath doesn’t stink. He’s probably the only sober person in the group.
I hold my ground. “That’s the plan.”
“You a bad focker. Too bad for be living long.”
My eyes water from trying not to laugh at the nearly profane word focker. “Maybe, maybe not.” I tap my wrist where my watch should be, aware this probably means less than nothing to the gang leader. “I’m on a tight schedule, so if you don’t mind…”
He waves at the sky. “Getting darker. You gonna die anyway. Leave your good stuff. You won’t need it.”
On cue, all of the fighters stride toward me.
Zedas cuts them off, slamming his flail on the asphalt hard enough to send up chunks of debris.
They lurch backward, arms up defensively.
“Crawl away, scum. Or I’ll break you into pieces,” Zedas says. “Now-now!” he roars.
The entire gang flees. The slower, drug-addled group of followers get run over before following the fighters into the buildings.
“Well done, Zedas,” I say.
“Thanks, Murph. The smart one was right, though, it is getting dark, and I hear things coming out of the sewers.” Zedas retracts his sword but leaves his flail hanging. “One of the men dropped a pistol.”
“Grab it. Could come in useful,” I say.
Zedas doesn’t move. “I may not.”
This interests me. I’ve wondered why Dogans don’t use charge guns. None of his previous explanations, when he even offers them, have held water. Grabbing the weapon for him, I’m about to shove it in my pack when I realize it isn’t a charge weapon. “This is a regular firearm, I think.”
“From your world?” Zedas asks. Shaina and Garin edge closer, apparently interested.
I turn it over, careful to keep the muzzle pointed away from my friends and my finger away from the trigger. It has a cylinder like a revolver, but I don’t see how to pull the bullets in. Even if I could swing the cylinder out, there’s a cap covering the rear portion where the bullets would normally go in.
“Not from my world, but not a charge pistol.” I get an idea, an angle I might use to get more information from my Dogan friend. “It’s not a charge weapon, so maybe you should give it a try.”
He glares at me.
“What?” I hit him with my widest, most innocent eyes. Garin, bless him, joins in, instinctively understanding this is a ruse he should be part of. Looking at the kid, I want to tell him all my secrets. How can the Dogan resist?
“We are forbidden from using any type of gun,” he says. “And that thing is covered with rust. It’s junk. Throw it away.”
He’s not wrong
about the last detail, but I don’t want to leave it for these shady-looking characters to shoot us in the back with. I put it in my pack and press my questioning, hoping that just a little more pressure will get some results. “Seems like an arbitrary rule, one that could get us all killed.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to get killed,” Garin says. “And neither does Patty-pats.”
We look to Shaina, who sighs and gives a halfhearted testimonial. “I don’t want to die because of your dumb Dogan rules either.”
“Why are you ganging up on me?” Zedas crosses his arms, spreads his feet, and looks like he might stare us to death. “If there were a dire need, truly, I might attempt it. Without a special mandate from our homeworld, it is a violation that will make me truly an outcast.”
Shaina laughs out loud. “You’re worried about being an outcast? Maybe you should make some new friends. “Come on, let’s get going.”
She strides toward the blood gate. Deep shadows cover the entrance. Goosebumps pop up all over my skin even though I’m wearing several layers of clothing.
“Don’t ask me about guns again,” Zedas says. “I never ask you why you don’t use a sword or a flail.”
Garin looks back and forth between us. “He’s got a point.”
“Not the same thing,” I say.
“Hey, we might have a problem,” Shaina says, backing up from the blood gate.
We join Shaina, flanking her with our weapons ready. Even Garin holds a small charge pistol. Pairs of eyes open, suddenly appearing in the night as they reflect the ambient light of the city. The distant skyline is dim. So are other, more distant eyes, giving them an eerie quality that makes my skin crawl.
“Did those come out of the gate?” I ask.
“Where else would they have appeared from?” Shaina adjusts the grip under the pistol, picking a target. “I don’t like this, and there are a lot of them.”
I edge closer, using my Orphan Gate enhanced vision to get more detail. “Stay behind me, especially you, Garin.”
