by Lee Bond
Dom spat to rid his mouth of the foul taste. Taken as a percentage, it would seem that the entire Universe was full of lads and lasses as wanted more than they could ever have or use or afford –he assumed a world like this one, with all it’s complexities and all would have some kind of a currency system as had been born in Ickford- and that were stupid.
The Regular laughed mockingly at the dimly lit expanse of city before him. They went to work and did things they probably didn’t enjoy, surrounding themselves in the process with people they definitely couldn’t stand, to pay for things they assuredly didn’t need.
Life wasn’t supposed to be this complicated. Dom knew it, e’en Chevy –who, though he did make things more complicated when he were on the job, most of the time it were because he were poking fun at things or people in the process- knew it well enough, hey?
“You’re a sorry sodding lot of plodders and arseholes.” Dom laughed again. “In me old home, I had all I ever wanted, hey? And it weren’t much. Never wanted nuffink save me armor, me helmet, me Book, a good cuppa after a long day of greasing out gearheads and mayhap a good old roll ‘twixt the sheets every now and again.”
Dom paused for a moment, considering what else he might’ve liked. “And of course,” he amended solemnly, hand over his heart, “the chance to avoid Nannies whenever and wherever possible.”
Thinking about home –about Nannies and Chevy and Book and e’en Master Nickels to an extent- reminded Dom about the stuttering lights in the back of his brain and the general map as was laid down over top it all like some kind of maze.
It’d come to full fruition right in the middle of his vicious –but legitimate- treatment of guards as had held him ‘gainst his will so odd men in white coats could treat him like a freakish gearhead. Since breaking free o' the building altogether, well, them lights hadn't gone away, assuring Dom that it weren't no trick of his now dead jailors.
“On the contrary, it’s only gone and gotten brighter still, hey?” Dom exhaled noisily.
All them lights save one were on the move now, weren’t they just. The one in the middle. Right down below his feet, right that second, Book sat, unprotected, powered up, ready to be used.
There weren't no tellin' how far down luvverly Book lurked, hey, but the Regular reckoned quite reasonably that 'ere he grew closer, flickering light would grow stronger still, and that were all a lad needed.
That were a thing he wanted. It were his by right, weren’t it?
Dom ran a lonely hand across his chest. Nickels had ruint his Book, so it were the only fair thing in all the world that he be the one to take that which had belonged to Nickels, right? Back in the Inside, that were how things’d been done since time immemorial and there never had been nor would there ever be a fairer and more just way of righting wrongs.
“Only them others is on the move as well, hey?” Dom focused on the mobile beads of light in his brain and tried to ignore how queer the whole thing felt.
Aye, same as last time; they were on the move, all three, none moving too fast or too slow, but all of ‘em moving in the general direction of Book’s position.
“Reckon one of you is my old partner, Chevril.” A small wave of regret billowed through Dom, but only a small one. The elder Gearman had made his bed, now he were going to lie in it, weren’t he just. “If only you’d seen my way of things a little clearer, Chevy, we could be rushing towards Book together, hey, instead of against one another, for that is what’s bound to happen, don’t you know? I hain’t going to let you lay your hands on Book, not for nowt in this whole Universe of the Outside, and the same goes for t’other two as well. I don’t know nor care one little whit who or what they might be, save only they’s doin’ the same as the two of us. Book be mine and that’s all as matters.”
Dom nodded firmly to himself and redirected his focus on the sorry lot of lads –and quite possibly lasses, it were hard to tell on account of how they were all dressed and how they acted- as were just on t’other side of the road and down a ways a bit.
It were this lot as had him pondering on the nature of need versus want and all; upon leaving his blood-soaked prison, Dom’s crafty eyes had fallen on the lot –about fifteen in all, rude and crude and rough-looking and quite reminiscent of wardogs wi’out a gearheaded leader to provide 'em proper focus in life- as they looted and pillaged buildings on all sides.
They hadn’t been –and still weren’t - all that good at it, as they avoided the high-value targets –like Voss_Uderhell- with their bountiful wealth in machinery and sellable goods in favor of the lesser protected and infinitely less impressive booty. E’en though he were a Regular, Dom knew that risk equalled reward, and them dirty dingy Outsiders weren't takin' no risks atall.
They were either very new to the game of Let’s Take Someone Else’s Stuff or very old and had fallen on hard times.
Either way, Dom knew the type. He’d seen the hungry looks often enough in the eyes of gearheads and wardogs, and knew just what to say.
***
Zorno muttered back and forth to himself, flecks of spittle and other substances spraying his lips. These people and their security systems, who did they think they were? They were all assholes, is what, with their heavy doors and unbreakable windows and all that crapcrud bullshit. They were supposed to be inside one of these places already, looting and pillaging and possibly even finding food to eat that was better than the rotten waste they dug out of the garbage whenever they could.
He took another hit of Qastrel and felt the drug worm it’s way into his system. Delicious. Simply delicious. He howled at the watery thin light so high above their heads, the only light in this sector still to have juice.
“Soon we’ll all be in the dark.” Zorno announced direly before howling at the light a second time. His crew joined in the hilarity of the moment, even if they didn’t really understand why they were howling and shouting.
Lovely Vess, all stained in grease and sweat and filth, came up to him, panting and wheezing and massaging the shoulder she’d used tried pounding the door to Transicom Medical Supplies down with. “This place isn’t going to open so easy.”
“Y’said the same thing about yourself, Vess, when you first came to join my crew.” Zorno laughed at the look of weary disgust on Vess’ face.
He knew he was ugly, suspected he wasn’t nearly as good in the sack as he liked to pretend and knew that she actually preferred the company of women, but there were some things in this world that you just did to make your life a little more comfortable.
Besides which it wasn’t like it took too long, right? He wasn’t interested in foreplay. Just needed to get that old urge out every now and again and if he had to think about doing it to grotesque old Mamie –who was that second trying to pry a security shutter loose with a long length of pipe- with her floppy titties and mingy slit, he’d throw up everything he’d ever eaten, right up out his nose.
“’scuse me, squire, but wot is all this as is goin’ on here, hey?”
Zorno whirled around, fighting club at the ready; brain caught in a lurch of confusion as the Qastrel had him hungering for a moment or two of obscene lust with Vess and the sudden appearance of a mystery man with an absolute shit accent, Zorno realized with a shaky grin that he had no clue what to do.
Vess looked the arrival up and down with a look of embarrassment all her own, but shot out a quick whistle that had the rest of Zorno’s crew back and away from trying to bust into Transicom Medical Supplies very quickly.
Zorno flashed Vess a quick smile of thanks. She’d earned herself a moment of respite from the quick thrusting and poking he wanted, though hideous old Mamie wasn’t going to be too happy about finding herself back in rotation.
Zorno waved his fighting stick –a massive ten pound tube of steel-VII with an amalgamation of sharp metal bits wrapped around one end- back and forth, back and forth, like a metal snake, summing up the man who’d dared sneak up on them. He snorted. Not even a tall man. Short, bar
ely even six foot, but with hair so blonde and eyes so blue and skin so fresh it was pretty obvious that whoever he was, he wasn’t from around these parts.
Not unless he was one of the zex who worked in one of the buildings they’d spent the last six hours trying unsuccessfully to break into, only that didn’t make sense because zex had security forces. They got shuttled up top where it was safe, trusting in internal security systems to keep all the prizes behind impenetrable doors.
“What the fuck?” Zorno asked at last, an equally acceptable question both for asking what the man had said and for figuring out the man’s inexplicable presence.
Dom smiled casually, then gestured at the building this man’s lumpy crew of misbegotten toys had been trying to batter their way into with the wave of a hand.
“I asked,” he said slowly, sensing that not everyone in the world had the mental capacity to understand King’s English, “wot is it you are trying to do with this here building, hey?”
Zorno looked to Vess, who looked at Mamie, who turned her sideways eyes at both Grumpy Tom Zhenzhen and Ketch.
“Are you all right in the head?” Zorno asked, giggling at the question because that was what happened when you were on Qastrel. It made your mood unpredictable.
Maybe that was why the man was out here in the streets with the rest of the gangs. He wasn’t right in the head.
Dom set his lips firmly together, pressing them so hard together that –were he in Arcadia- entire crews of gearheads would be fleeing the other way, so desperate to get away from the unhappy Gearman that they’d voluntarily jump right into a Shaggy Man pit. He’d try again, e’en though it were well likely this crew were the stupidest crew in all of existence and e’en if he were successful in getting them to come along wi’ him, it were a dead cert he’d bail on them the moment some other gaggle of Outside gearheads showed their presence.
“Are. You. Trying. To. Break. Inna. This. Building. Right. Fuckin’. Here.” For a little added flavor, he jerked his thumb at Transicom Medical Supplies.
Zorno actually physically jerked when the words coming out of the younger man’s mouth made sense. “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Gotta be drugs in there or something. Says so right in the name. Medical Supplies. What kind of accent is that? Are you speaking another language? Did we all just learn a new language?”
Vess stepped forward, eyeing the blonde man in the blood-spattered clothes quite cautiously. “Zorno ain’t all there at the moment, mister, he’s done a popper of Qastrel. Makes him miss stuff. Like the fact that you’re all covered in blood and carrying a bunch of weapons.”
Zorno blinked, blinked again, did a double take as the aforementioned blood stains and weapons almost magically popped into view all over the man with the yellow hair and before he knew what he was doing, he was shoving Vess out of the way and bellowing angrily and surging forward with his heavy fighting stick.
Dom stepped out of the way of the brutal mace gracefully, shaking his head in disappointment. It were obvious the man –indeed, all of them- were carting around ‘neath their skin some kind of Outside version of Dark Iron, but it weren’t nearly as effective, were it?
The big one, the one the girl with the badly drawn tattoos across most of her face and arms had called ‘Zorno’, was obviously the leader of this pathetic gaggle, mostly because he was bigger than the rest of them by a fair margin; whatever strength enhancers he had ‘neath his sweaty, greasy skin were of a better grade than the others, but they weren’t nothing compared to what he had inside him.
Wotever it was.
“Now you lads and lassies,” Dom blocked a savage swing with a forearm and delivered a nice little front kick to Zorno’s unprotected midsection, “stay right where you is, orl right? I is taking care of Master Zorno here, and when we is done, proper words shall be had ‘tween all of us.”
Zorno smacked the top of his own head with a brutal open-handed slap. He was seeing red again. Red was everywhere, pushing the Qastrel out of his system, which was yet another burst of fuel to an already raging fire. “What the fuck are you saying? Why can’t I understand you? I feel like I should! I hate you! I’m going to kill you!”
Vess and the others shifted their feet uncomfortably. While they honestly didn’t owe any particular loyalty to Zorno, he was big and strong and brutish and used those natural talents to their benefit by terrorizing local shops into giving them enough food and money and the occasional place to sleep for the night. Without him, they were just a pack of local losers. They weren’t even supposed to be in this area. This patch belonged to the Back City Breakers. They were further in right now, pushing along the edges of the Righteous Rollers because that’s what everyone was doing; trying to get somewhere better thanks to this lock down.
Because everyone knew that when the last of the juice was gone, they were going to be in near total darkness.
And then it was going to get real bad.
Dom swatted another angry swing from the truly impressive mace out of the way, trying to decide whether or not he was actually going to do for Zorno. He didn’t much care for the way the man took drugs, oh no he didn’t, but he reckoned that were summat that nearly the whole population of this rotten den of spoiled meat did to get through the business of living their wretched lives, hey?
Who were he to decide how a man or woman dealt with the darkness, when it all come right down to it?
“I must ask, squire,” Dom punched Zorno in the face with the least inspired punch he reckoned he’d ever thrown in his entire life, “is you ‘ave some sort of martial training? Was you in the military or summink? I ask as it is obvious to me that your implants or wotever they is are better than the others in your motley crew of scallywags, and while you are right now lumbering around like a drunken, obese barnyard animal, there are signs ‘ere and there of proper training.”
“I … I fought.” Zorno winced as the blonde man with the blue eyes punched him in the nose a second time. Broken for sure. “In the Army for a bit. But I have,” he swung his fighting stick downward in a move designed to squash the man flat as a pancake, “irreconcilable and deep-seated anger management issues and an unrequited Napoleonic complex.”
Dom –eyeing the mace as it came downwards with every intention of turning him into paste- kicked Zorno in the sternum so hard he felt something crack, then stepped inside the man’s arms. The mace crashed into the ground with a wobbling bong sound.
“Most of them words,” Dom whispered gently to the wheezing, confused and altogether panicked Zorno –indeed, the man’s drug-addled eyes were whirling crazily in their sockets and his breaths were coming in quick, short, puffing pants-, “hain’t mean a thing to me, squire, not really. I hain’t from these parts y’see, but wot I do know is that you and your grimy cabal of would-be thieves need proper direction, yeah? It’s why you is out here, well past where I reckon your normal stomping grounds is located, right? Lookin’ for summat as to raise you up a bit as you is fallen so far down you hain't e’en see the sky no more. Allow me to introduce myself, now that we is done dancin’ for the delight of your friends.”
Dom kicked Zorno in the shin. Not hard enough to break anything, but precisely hard enough to drop the ex-soldier to the ground with a caterwaul of pain that echoed off the impassive buildings that rose up on either side of them like silent sentinels.
“My name, boys and girls, is Dominic Breton. I am an Arcadian, and I find myself in need of a gaggle of gearheads.” He bowed low and deep to the handful of mute criminals. “And whilst I normally do not prefer to associate myself with lowlifes such as yourself, this is a time where beggars cannot be choosers, hey?”
Vess took a tentative step forward, with Tom Zhenzhen and Ketch following suit; Mamie, the oldest one in the group, sidled around beside the so-called Arcadian so she might take a look at poor old Zorno.
“What’s a gearhead?” Vess asked softly. She’d seen a lot of fights in her life, had seen a lot of cruelty and a lot of violence. They all had, and they all
knew one thing for sure; though the fight had been quick and one-sided, the man calling himself Dominic Breton had been playing with their leader the entire time, and that was something! For all Zorno's faults, and there were many, with more on the way as he grew older and meaner, taking him down wasn't an easy thing.
He was big and tough and mean and cruel, and all those things went to making him a tough combatant. He’d even once gone up against Singleton Jon, leader of the Back City Breakers. He’d been beaten, sure, on account of Jon had cheated, but that was something everyone still talked about.
And then, of course, there was Dom’s eyes. They were crazy mad. Not like Zorno’s. Not like anyone’s. They spun like insane stars filled with blackness. Vess supposed Zorno was lucky Dominic Breton wasn’t wearing his head as a crown and riding his headless corpse around like a horse.
“A gearhead is what you lads and lassies are.” Dom replied. “As you’ve got gears and such inside your skin to make you faster and stronger, hey? Not like you was when you was born, hey?”
“What…” Zorno struggled to a sitting position, clutching his stomach with both hands, “what the fuck do you want with us? Couldn’t you have picked some other crew?”
Dom turned to Zorno, a wild smile on his handsome face. “In truth, squire, I cannot, because as I said, beggars cannot be choosers, and I is on a shortened timetable, aren’t I just? And as to wot I want with you lot, is it not obvious? I require your hands for a job. A most wonderful job, one that will, when we are successful, allow me to give unto you near on anything you might ask for.”
Zorno narrowed his eyes, and motioned for his crew to stay calm. He knew these words. He knew these sentiments. This man was talking about jobs and bonuses and hazard pay, but what he was really saying was ‘I am going to send you out to the front lines and watch you die while I get all the rewards’.
