City of Darkness

by D P Wright

  “Doc, we don’t have time for this.” Kessler looked nervously around the lab.

  “Butchers. All of them.” Beck’s face was turned away from the wall. He slouched against a table to support the weight of his heavy load and rubbed the gills on his long neck.

  “It seems as if Merryll Laboratories have brokered a pact with Dai Lung Tech. They were sharing notes on the potency of mutations they found.” Doc spoke, his face lit up in the blue light of the screen.

  “Dai Lung Tech? Their deal is usually high-end military-grade tools. Real nice expensive stuff. What do they want messing with Mutes this far down?”

  A crash, glass shattering, metal rattling, tiles cracking, cut through the air and drew their attention to the far side of the room as a large shelving unit came clattering down. Doc pointed over the monitor and shouted, “Something’s over there behind the table!”

  “Doc, watch Beck and stand back.” As Kessler powered up his Luther, he moved forward, his large frame using the carnage littering the room as cover. Leaning flat against an overturned surgical table, he could see that Doc had taken cover behind a bank of trashed monitors. Beck was nervously muttering to himself and, after a quick signal from Kessler, Doc gave the innkeeper a sharp blow to the head with the butt of his rifle which immediately quietened him. The detective tried to slow his heavy breathing and listen. Moments passed until a clatter from somewhere across the room broke the silence and was quickly followed by a hurried shuffle. It, whatever it was, was getting closer. His thoughts returned to the Seeker back at Beck’s place, its claws, razor-sharp teeth and its monstrous strength. He readied himself.

  Kessler raised his head above his cover just as a shadowed form, arms flailing wildly, emerged from a pile of boxes just a few yards away and threw itself towards him, catching the detective fully in the face and collapsing on top of him. The sudden, frenzied attack caught him by surprise and forced his Luther from his grip resulting in the weapon skidding across the floor beyond his reach. Bloodshot, blackened eyes peered down at him from a scab-ravaged face. He tried to free himself but both hands were pinned to the floor underneath the weight of his assailant. A howl emerged from a toothless mouth as the creature raised its hand, a viciously jagged blade clasped in both its hands ready to strike. Kessler braced himself as the knife plunged down towards him just as an explosive crack thundered throughout the room.

  He opened his eyes, quickly wiped the thick, dark blood from his face and spat on the floor to clear his mouth. Next to him lay the emaciated body of his assailant and behind him smoke curled up into the air from Doc’s Lazarus rifle. Kessler shouted over to him, “I’m glad to see you still have your aim.”

  “Yes, lucky for you.”

  “Yea, whatever,” Kessler muttered as he heaved himself to his feet and went to retrieve his carbine. He took off his optics and rubbed his eyes, holstered his weapon and stood for a moment with his back to both Doc and Beck. He felt old. Past it. His reactions were shot and his nerves at breaking point. He took another hit of Ox.

  “You ok, Kes?” Doc shouted.

  Kessler breathed through gritted teeth. He was too far into this to give up now. It was not just his life he was messing with, Macy was counting on him and then there was Bethany. He stared at his left hand which shook slightly before running it through his hair. “Think of the creds.” He mumbled to himself as he took out a cigar from a pack he had lifted from The Crow’s Nest, lit it and savoured its taste before turning to Doc, “Bring Beck over here.”

  Doc pulled the innkeeper’s protesting form to where Kessler was kneeling over the body, “I don’t want to see it. Leave me be!” Beck snarled at Doc.

  “This doesn’t look like one of those Seekers.”

  Beck’s face was turned away, his eyes closed, “No. It’s Chaff, or that’s what the Malebranche call them.”

  Doc poked the body with the nozzle of his rifle and knelt down to examine it, “Chaff? Looks like a disease-ridden Dreg. Its wearing what’s left of a Merryll lab coat, like his friend over by the door. And those black eyes…”

  “Yes. Chaff are those addicted to Lux. This one was starved of it. Once they have danced in the light they will do anything to get back to it.” Beck licked his lips as he spoke before he sneered, “Chaff are very useful to the Malebranche, we’ll do anything for our next taste.”

  “Seems these Malebranche have thought of everything. Once you start taking their filth you dare not stop.” Doc reached into his bag and produced a small empty vial and some tweezers and began picking at one of the corpse’s sores.

  Kessler looked across the lab and immediately saw the caged shaft below the large black printed words; ‘Authorised Personnel Only’. He pointed in its direction, “That the service tunnel?”

  “Yes,” Beck mumbled.

  The cage swung open to reveal a series of cables running down into darkness and, alongside it, a large platform. “You say the Malebranche used these tunnels to enter the district?”

  “That’s what I heard. What a surprise it must have been for the Merryll docs,” Beck spoke with relish, “they were the first to taste the Malebranche’s anger, although, as we have just seen, some chose to embrace the light.” The innkeeper chuckled to himself.

  “And this is where they would have taken Bethany?”

  “Yes, or one like it. As I said before, there are quite a few labs in the sector.”

  “Ok. Doc, let’s suit up.”

  Beck unbuckled his burden and stood up rubbing his sore shoulders, “Ok. I will be leaving you now, I’ve done what I said I would, guided you to the service shaft.”

  “Sit down, you’re not going anywhere.” Kessler began to take off his gloves and coat.

  “You don’t understand, I can’t go down there with you.” Both Kessler and Doc ignored Beck as they unpacked large, heavy suits from the bags the innkeeper had been carrying. Beck began to fret and mumble to himself, “You, you see that creature that just attacked you? The teeth gnashing, the claws gouging?” He closed his eyes and whimpered as he spoke, “Howling like a beast?” He walked up to Doc, “You’re frightened of them aren’t you, doctor? Well, that will be me in a few hours if I don’t take more Lux.”

  “But the chem will kill you,” Doc said flatly.

  “I’ll die anyway, the light calls to me. Wants to take me away from the darkness of Dis, but wasting away like that starving Chaff,” Beck pointed to the corpse and shook his head, “will not be good for any of us.”

  “Not be good for you, you mean.”

  Beck threw himself at Doc and grabbed him by the coat, “I have seen it in others. Those starved of it. The voices become more clear, you do what they ask. Violent, horrible things.” Beck, now on top of the doctor who had stumbled to the floor, looked at the detective, “You see, Mr Kessler? If I come with you I’ll be a danger to us all.”

  Kessler looked up from the bag he was knelt over and into the black eyes of Beck Goodfellow and paused in thought for a few seconds, images from his nightmares flashing through his mind. Eventually he reached down into his pocket and threw the innkeeper a cap of Lux. It landed just to the right of him and he pounced on it, before taking hold of the vial in his shaking hands and quickly injecting it into his eye. The rushing hiss of the chem drew Doc from his shocked silence, “What are you doing? What…” Doc grabbed hold of Beck’s shaking and grinning form, “You filthy, low city Mute! Kes, what have you done?”

  “Easy, Doc.”

  Doc dropped Beck to the floor and turned to face Kessler, “Why did you give him that? Did you not see what just attacked us? Have you not been paying attention to what has been happening these past few days?”

  Kessler looked at Beck who writhed on the floor, his arms outstretched, hands tensed to claws as the chem took hold. His body danced to a tune Kessler was all too familiar with and the detective’s thoughts turned to the caps of sim, ordinary street chem, white and brown, not the black of Lux, which he had made Beck source back at The Cro
w’s Nest. Yes, he thought to himself, he understood Beck’s need. The itch scratched at him too. “You stare at him. You may as well be licking your lips you chem head!” Doc knelt in front of Kessler and with his hand turned the detective’s face towards him, “It’s chems that have caused all of this. Made you the wreck that you are, yet you are still desperate for your next hit?” Doc shook passionately as he talked, his spectacles falling from his face to the floor.

  Kessler spoke as he bent down to pick them up. “You’re wrong.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not chem that’s the cause. It’s Dis. The city is just layer upon layer of towering filth. Look all around you, you can see it everywhere, in everyone, and we are all swimming around in it trying to survive. Chems?” Kessler looked at Doc straight in the eye and nodded, “Sure they’re no good but we do what we do to survive this place.”

  “They have gone to your head.”

  Kessler nodded, “Better that than letting the city get its claws into you. Like I said, we do what we do to survive.”

  “And the creds you owe little Chi? Creds borrowed to pay for your chems, no doubt. Is that survival? What does Macy think of you doing what you can to survive?”

  Kessler lunged for Doc, his large hands gripping the doctor’s delicate neck, “Careful Doc, your words cut too close to the bone. I would do anything for that girl, you know that,” he growled.

  Kessler’s grip tightened and Doc’s face reddened. Eventually the gasping doctor raised a hand and backed away as he frantically gulped down the stale air and quickly reached for his inhaler. “Ok. Ok.” He sighed as a hit of Ox filled his lungs, “That was a low blow, I’m sorry.”

  “The chem helps me forget, helps me get through the dark days.” He cleared his throat before continuing, “But this Lux is different. It’s something else, something not from here. It comes from deep down, in the fires of D5. Monsters leap at us from the shadows, good people, the few that live in this damned city, are plucked from the streets to never be seen again, voices in heads, and strange words…”

  “Lux Ferre.” Doc whispered.

  “Yes.”

  Doc spoke low, almost beyond hearing, “I hear it. In my dreams. They…”

  “Call to me.” Kessler finished Doc’s sentence and they both looked at each other. The doctor’s brow was furrowed as his nervous lips mouthed silent worries. After a quiet moment, Doc nodded and Kessler spoke, “We do what we must to survive.”

  “Yes, I suppose we do.”

  “Look Doc, you’re right. I need Bethany’s credits to pay off Little Chi, but I can’t help thinking of her with those creatures, these Seekers and their masters, the Malebranche or whatever you call them.” Kessler struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar name as Beck cackled with laughter in the background at something only he could see. Doc turned to stare at the innkeeper and Kessler continued with only the sound of his own thoughts in his ears, “She’s not like us, Doc. All she has known, all that held the city back from corrupting her, has gone. She can’t survive in a place like this, not by herself.”

  “I know.” Doc adjusted his spectacles and returned to sorting through his bags.

  Kessler took Bethany’s cross from his pocket and held it out before him, allowing the necklace to dangle on its chain. He watched as the blood stained cross twirled and swung back and forth, the silver sparkling as it caught the light. After a moment’s thought he placed it in the side pocket of his bag. He cleared his throat, “Doc, I know I forced you to stay down here, away from your lab, your business, your home. I’m sorry but I need you.” Doc did not respond but continued to take what he needed from one of the large sacks. Kessler reached down into his pocket and took out a cap of sim and stared at its pure white liquid as it swirled around in its soft plastic vial and took another look at Beck’s now prone, shaking body. His glance eventually returned to Doc who was muttering to himself, and, after a pause, put all the caps in his bag. “We have dawdled here too long. We must get the heat suits on, quickly.” Kessler cursed himself for his time wasting and became a flurry of movement as he laid out the large bulky protective clothing, which Beck had been labouring to carry from The Crow’s Nest, and began undressing.

  “You think the air is bad here? Nothing like down below. Every step feels like ten, every breath weighed down by a tonne weight!” Beck rolled around laughing.

  Doc stopped donning his suit and pointed at the innkeeper, “You see what you have created?”

  Kessler threw a cylinder of Ox at Beck which caught him hard in the stomach, knocking the wind from his lungs. “Shut up and get changed.”

  THE DESCENT

  Kessler stared at Doc as he tentatively pulled the heavy suit over his skinny body and up to just under the hairs on his chin. “I have never felt more ridiculous. How am I going to walk in this contraption?”

  “Get used to it. Down in D5 the rads are so hot and the air so foul that this heat suit is all that will stand between you and toast.”

  Doc held his synthleather coat in his hand and began to pack it away. Kessler shook his head and sighed, “You should leave that behind.”

  “Behind?” Doc looked aghast.

  “Unless you want to carry it? With these suits being so heavy we best carry as little weight as possible. Leave it here and put what you need into these satchels.” Kessler threw a small bag over to Doc.

  “Do you know how much this costs? You can only get this quality of synthleather above Hightown 3 – a merchant who lives in Celestia Sector. He would not in a million years think of setting foot in any of your markets in Midtown.”

  “These suits are just as expensive. I’m told the corps miners and engineers use them when they’re working down deep in the furnace rooms. It was very good of Beck to give us them.” Kessler chuckled and glanced at the mutant, who, still enjoying the intensity of Lux, just smiled back, his large head bobbing back and forth. “I’ll replace your coat with the cash I get from Bethany once we get back.”

  “And my Excalibur?”

  “Ok. Ok. But remember you owe me.”

  Doc stopped what he was doing and shook his head, “And you will never let me forget that, will you?”

  “I will. Once we get back and this is done.” Kessler returned his attention to packing the provisions for the trip down. He kicked the third heat suit over to Beck, “You have five minutes to get that suit on or I am carrying you down there without it.”

  “We don’t have much water. We’ll need more, we’ll be perspiring a lot in these suits and once we become dehydrated we won’t be up to much walking never mind rescuing a girl who is probably already dead.” Doc fretted

  “Yea, well, it’s all we could find so we just go easy until we can get some more.” Doc threw Kessler a couple of Nutri Bars and immediately he opened the foil packet, “Corps rations. I hate them.” The detective bit down hard in disgust and winced as the dried husk crawled down the back of his throat.

  “The amount of energy we’ll be using walking about in these things you’ll be glad of them, trust me.” Doc spoke as he pulled on the heavily-padded gloves.

  Once Beck had been forced into his suit, both Kessler and Doc picked up their helmets, dragged him into the cage and closed the metal shutter. Doc and the shaking Beck sat on the floor as Kessler pulled the lever and, after a quick lurch of the gears, the chains began to move with a series of sharp clicks. The service lift was a simple metal box which ran on tracks that disappeared down into the darkness below their feet. Beck sat in one corner, his knees drawn up to his chest, still enjoying the buzz from the Lux, Doc was next to him with his legs crossed and his arms resting on his rifle, Kessler dropped their three bulging bags in the centre of the platform and sat down opposite them.

  They turned their torches off and allowed the dim red light from the elevator’s console to keep the darkness at bay as the cab rocked hypnotically from side to side. Kessler knew that it would take some time for them to get all the way down to District 5
so he tried, unsuccessfully, to make himself comfortable. Silence descended on the three as their carriage took them deeper and deeper into the depths of Downtown, the mechanical hiss of Doc and Kessler’s inhalers and the rhythmical clack of the track, their only company. Kessler pulled at his suit in a vain attempt to loosen it, it chafed at his skin and the heavy material grated against his injuries.

  After a while, Doc leaned forward, “We will have to keep these on now for the rest of the journey, the air is too toxic down here.” He tapped his breathing apparatus and showed Kessler the screen of his wrist monitor that was flashing red, “Breathe slow and steady and keep an eye on your Ox levels.” Doc’s muffled voice was hard to make out from behind his vent. Kessler lifted his helmet and placed it around his head and Doc kicked Beck to do the same. The detective took a couple of long, deep breaths and acknowledge he was receiving fresh Ox by giving the doctor the thumbs up.

  What seemed like an age passed, time lost all meaning and Kessler began to feel lightheaded. Sometimes the rocking carriage felt as if they were travelling at a fast pace, and at other times the cab seemed to crawl down the tunnel. He was not sure if it was the last embers of sim still in his system, tiredness or the heat that threatened to suffocate him, but he began to feel lost in the dark. Through the haze, images of Bethany’s broken body began to appear before his eyes together with the monsters, with their slick black scales, sharp fangs and large snouts snorting and sniffing as they searched for what they most desired, “Do you think that we really do all have a soul? That there is something more to us than all this?”

  Doc’s voice sounded tired, “What’s wrong with you, Kes? Of course there’s not. We are just skin and bone. All we got in life is this damned city, all we have to focus on is survival, getting through the days, that is all there is to life.”