Quantum wrath, p.14
Quantum Wrath, page 14
“Baldy’s pocket,” she said innocently. “Got some cash, too.”
She pulled out a handful of tiny palladium nuggets and juggled them casually.
“For all you know, that gum could be laced with fucking Tress.” I sighed and gave my head a quick, hard shake. If Blondie wanted to risk a lifetime of addiction, she was welcome to it. “Anything else?”
“This.” She flipped me off to reveal a gleaming gold ring with a big, spiky black gem in it.
I gave her a long, hard look, and she blinked at me innocently.
“What else?” I asked in a level voice.
“Does it matter?” she huffed and stamped her foot.
“Yup.”
She scowled at me, reached into the waistband of her borrowed pants, and pulled out a gleaming metal rectangle about the size of a cell phone. It was an iridescent, purple-green color, with threads of gold swirling through it like a driftwood grain.
It was perfectly smooth under my hand as I took it. Lu clung to it for a brief moment, and then released it with her lower lip jutting out like a kid whose toy had been taken away.
I tilted the metal rectangle testingly in my hand. A small weight shifted inside it, and the motion automatically made me tilt my hand downward.
That’s when I felt the switch.
I debated for a moment, and then shrugged to myself. What was another little roll of the dice?
The switch clicked softly under my finger.
The rectangle had appeared completely seamless, but now it separated into two pieces and locked crisply into place in an L-shape.
With a fucking trigger.
Well, if this wasn’t just the tiniest little gun I had ever laid hands on.
Or that’s what it seemed like, anyway. But after what I’d seen happen in the jail cart earlier, I decided this random back alley wasn’t the ideal place to test it out.
So for now, I snapped the two pieces back together, pocketed it, and smiled at Lu.
“Thanks,” I said briskly.
Then I turned and walked on in the direction of the volcanoes.
“Wait!” She rushed to catch up, and then she kept pace with sideways skips so she could face me. “Heath. Heathy… You’re a big, tough, scary guy. You can take care of yourself. And I know you’ve already got some weapons, anyway. So why not let this one be mine? Look at me. I’m just so veeeery small. Definitely need something to protect myself wi–”
“Nope,” I said calmly. “If anything, this place needs protecting from you, not the other way around.”
“Fuck you,” she hissed. “God, why do you have to be so uptight all the time? Live a little!”
“Pipe down, short stuff,” I yawned. “And anyway, don’t you want to hear about what that guy had to say?”
“Other than sniveling about me giving him one tiny booboo, you mean?” she snickered. Then she shrugged. “I assumed he was just hoping to rob us and acquire some cash to feed his dust addiction or something.”
“The dude clearly wasn’t a crawler,” I pointed out. “And you’re the one who found those palladium nuggets in his pockets. He wasn’t broke. Why would he need to rob us? And even if he did, why choose the biggest dude on the street to try and rob when he’s not desperately out of it?”
“Oh, good point.” She frowned as she blew another bubble and popped it. “I dunno. I didn’t really think about it, to be honest. Got too caught up in having my fun.”
“Yeah, that’s all you ever seem to do,” I grumbled before I gave her a brief rundown of what I’d gathered so far.
“The obelisk?” she repeated with an intrigued look.
“Yup. Out east. He said that’s where Alvari is. Wanted to turn us over to him to get in his good favor.”
“Alvari.” Her eyes flared. “The big baddie!”
“That’s the one,” I said with a nod. “And that’s not the only thing. You know that crazy noise you heard out by the lab?”
“You mean, the wooo-shhhhp–”
“Yeah,” I cut in. “Well, that sound came from the direction of the big creepy tower we saw when we were approaching the city. Which is…”
“Out east,” she breathed with a fanatical light in her hot-pink eyes. Then she gave me a triumphant little smile. “So, that’s the obelisk where the big bad wolfie lives. And it’s also quite possibly where he keeps his best weapons?”
“There ya go,” I said dryly as I looked around. “I’m not entirely sure if we’ll sleep in the city yet. There’s a raid scheduled for moonset, so I’ll want to figure out if there’s anywhere near The Peaks available, and how safe it might be. Let’s see if we can find out.”
We had just entered the region with the pumpkin-shaped buildings.
Before we could do more than look around, a stout woman approached me. She had a head of iron-gray curls and an underbite like a bulldog, but what stuck out to me most was her crisp, tight black jumpsuit and wide-shouldered cape.
Mostly because it reminded me of nothing more than an idiot super I might’ve encountered back on Earth a hundred or so years ago. Now those costumes were the stuff of old TV shows and mockery back home, though.
Lu let out a strangled guffaw at the sight of the woman, but I shot her a glare, and she turned it into a coughing fit.
The woman didn’t give her a second glance. Instead, she addressed me.
“Interested in one of our yurts?” she asked with a pearly smile. “They’re made of pure vyathum. Holds up to sixty-three percent of volcanic eruptions! And no pesky raids to break up your sleep. Or your ribs.”
I didn’t bother asking exactly how she had come by the volcano statistic, but I did give the structures an appraising look. The biggest of them was about fifteen feet in diameter at its widest point.
“How much for a few nights?” I asked.
“Depends on how many people you’re willing to share space with,” she said. “Three of our units are full right now with ten occupants. Two have six people in each of them. Then we have a unit with four people, and a unit with two people. It’s like having roommates– the less people in a unit, the more expensive it is.”
I thought it would only waste time to point out that this concept wasn’t quite the same, considering every single unit here was about the size of a single goddamn bedroom, so I just shook my head. I didn’t want to have to sleep worrying about crushing someone when I rolled over, much less with the risk that someone might try to rob me and use my palladium to buy some ground-up concrete and Tress concoction.
“We’re looking to rent a place for just the two of us,” I explained.
“Ahhh.” The woman shook her head. “Well, if you’re feeling risky, you can try the Shipyard. Closer to the volcano, and they almost always have rooms free. They’re quite nice, too, although they’re made of wood. Yes, a lovely place to die in if the volcano erupts and scorches you to cinders.”
She smiled sweetly and waved goodbye.
“Hag,” Lu muttered as we walked away.
“You couldn’t even understand her,” I sighed.
“Yeah, but she looks like a hag,” Lu said with a careless shrug. “I was merely stating an observation.”
I gritted my teeth and walked onward.
The Shipyard was nestled in the flat open space between the three volcanoes. As we got up close, I saw that it was about the last thing I would’ve expected to see here.
It was a big flat area covered in fine, silvery sand, and the buildings weren’t exactly buildings.
Apparently, the Shipyard was very much a literal name, because the buildings were all ships. Huge ones made of wood. The type of thing that hadn’t been seen on Earth in centuries, although I had no idea what things were like here.
But compared to the chaos of metal that made up the city, this was definitely an outlier in terms of architecture.
The ships were all turned upside down, so their hulls formed the roofs, and each one had an arched doorway and round windows carved into it.
“Umm, ahoy?” Lu giggled as she looked around.
As we entered the area, I saw that some of the ships had bigger, arched entryways in place of doors. Some were covered with hanging cloths that looked like repurposed sails, but others were open and showed bars and tables inside. There was a small, scattered array of people inside these, but overall the place seemed nice and empty compared to the rest of the city, just the way I liked it.
I approached one of the bars, and Lu immediately perked up.
“Are we actually doing something fun?” she breathed.
“The best way to learn about a place without looking too weird is to go out where the locals are,” I said with a shrug. “Of course, this volcano place seems like it’s shunned by a lot of the population, so it might not be the most up-to-speed on the city at large, but it’s something. And it’s better to eat and drink the same stuff they do, so let me do the ordering. We’ll grab a bite before turning in for the night.”
To my surprise, Lu accepted this command with a simple nod. She seemed weirdly introspective as she followed me to the bar, and I kept an eye on her just in case she was actually plotting some new evil plan.
There was a big glowing sign above the bar that might’ve said what the special was tonight, but unfortunately my translator only applied to spoken words. I glanced at what the people inside were eating to see if I could make some assumptions from that.
But then the man behind the counter called out to me.
“Evening,” he grunted. He was tall and lanky, with a grim, grizzled face and a gray beard that was long enough to tuck into his belt. “You’re almost in time for the gig. Want a plate and a table?”
Next to me, Lu frowned in confusion, but after a glance at the moon that was still riding high, I just nodded at the man.
“Thanks,” I said.
He passed over two plates, some silverware, and two steel mugs. Then he limped over to haul one of the tables outside.
Lu blinked. “What–”
I shook my head and went to help.
Just outside the ship-bar, the man straightened up and nodded in thanks. Then he limped back behind the bar.
“What are we doing?” Lu mumbled.
“Watching a gig, I guess,” I said blithely.
“But where’s our food?” she hissed.
“Dunno.” I shrugged. “But where there are plates, there’s generally food. Try having some patience.”
“Patience is for losers,” she informed me.
But she watched with intrigue as other people started to drag their tables outside of the shops. They all had empty plates and mugs, too.
Then a small troop of children came scampering into view. They were carrying a huge, round purple rug, and they worked together to unroll it. Then they set up something that looked like a trampoline.
A few adult men came marching out with a big metal frame hoisted between them. They spread it out and set it all up with a process that was so complicated I almost lost track of what the hell they were doing. The frame seemed to do half the work for them, though. It clicked, stretched, and locked itself into place with progressive movements like some giant metal spider.
In the end, there were several ladder-like legs coming up to support a crisscrossed metal framework on top.
I watched with intrigue as people scrambled around like monkeys to hang swings, ropes, and ribbons from various points on the frame.
Then the silhouettes of a whole troop of people came into sight, and they were all heading toward the area.
The audience in the tables all burst into whistles, cheers, and claps at the sight of them, and I did some reluctant clapping myself to blend in.
Lu rolled her eyes and lowered her forehead to pound it against the table.
I was briefly tempted to reach over and slam it down hard enough for her to black out, but instead I flicked her on the ear.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said in a low voice. “We don’t want to stand out too much. I don’t care how cringey you think this shit is, act like you enjoy it.”
“Fine, Heather-man,” she grumbled.
When the people got closer, I saw that they were all in tights, body paint, and masks.
Lu’s face brightened, and now it was my turn to roll my eyes. Of course the batshit baby villain would like this. She pretty much belonged in a circus herself.
The troop all turned in every direction and bowed low to the tabled audience. Then they were joined by a collection of people with bizarre-looking instruments.
By the mishmash of metal that these instruments were, I half-expected them to produce nothing more than discordant jangling.
But then a gleaming spotlight flooded the purple rug, and the band started to play.
The first was a tall, sinuous horn. It let out a haunting braying sound.
Suddenly, three antelope bearing human riders came loping into the spotlight, and I stared at them in confusion.
But when they started to move, I realized the animals weren’t real.
They were costumes.
From what I could tell, they functioned a bit like a cloth dragon in a Chinese dragon dance, with the people underneath operating them almost like a giant puppet. But these animals were made out of something that looked almost like colorful chainmail when I squinted hard at it. The scales draped over each other to form a shape that was surprisingly flexible, but held in place by a hidden metal framework.
If not for the soft clink of the scales, it would be easy to forget that the antelopes were made of metal. The people beneath it moved with a grace that made the animals seem real, and they supported their riders with ease.
The antelope raised their heads. Their long snouts opened, and the horn let out another deep, baleful sound. The riders raised mock guns and shook their fists as they swaggered in their saddles.
Then trumpets sounded out. People in gunmetal tights came hurtling down from above like bullets. They released the swings they were on to drop directly on the antelope and jabbed mock metal spears into the beasts, who went stumbling. Their riders tumbled dramatically to the ground and then scattered away into the darkness.
Just after, a group of kids with platters went flitting around from table to table and slid what looked like seared steaks onto everyone’s plates.
“Oooooh,” Lu whispered. “Dinner and a show.”
The spotlight drifted over to the other half of the circle, and I saw that people had been busy assembling a gleaming metal tower in the shadows there. It was made up of scales like the animals’, but the big hoops holding it together were more visible.
Still, it looked incredibly imposing for a structure that had been set up in a few minutes flat, and an eerie green light glowed from the windows.
A man with a gray helm stuck his head out of the top window of the tower, and a deep, horn-like blast from the band underlaid his roar.
More trumpets sounded out. A woman on one of the dangling ribbons came sailing down from above with red and orange silk trails streaming behind her like flames. She leveraged herself around to crash into the tower feet-first, and a shower of red light and sparks erupted from the area.
The whole crowd burst into cheers as the tower collapsed in an impressive shivering and crashing of metal. It was like watching a spring coil up. The second the frame hit the ground, the man inside came leaping out through the top and landed splayed out on the ground like he was dead.
Then people in tights came dancing out. Others followed them in a sort of skipping march while carrying a coffin between them. They lowered the coffin to the ground, and then everyone proceeded to toss the fallen man unceremoniously inside. He was eerily flexible, and he flopped into the coffin in a way that was almost grotesque.
Someone slammed the lid shut, and the whole crowd burst into cheers and applause.
Then the children went scurrying around and served coffin-shaped pastries with meat like hot dogs inside.
“I’m sensing a theme here,” Lu giggled as she stabbed into hers with a fork.
“Yeah, me too,” I muttered.
The performers had been careful not to make things too similar to reality: The animals in the play had been antelope with pronged horns rather than the hulking, antlered steeds we had spotted earlier. The man inside the tower had been purposefully nondescript.
Still, there was enough resemblance to the Unit that I couldn’t help but wonder if the shady overlords knew these types of shows were held. It seemed to be a regular thing.
But maybe they just didn’t bother themselves with this type of shit. After all, the population as a whole seemed so beaten down. At the moment, most of the people arriving were just now settling down or seeking a safe place to stay. And half the permanent inhabitants were apparently being consumed by addiction, other than those inside the ultra-rich housing we had passed by earlier.
The show continued with its stunts and themed food, and by the time it was over, Lu was clapping the hardest out of anyone there.
After it was over, I worked my way methodically through the rest of my food and listened carefully as the people at the neighboring tables launched into discussing the show.
“Bet that man in the tower was s’posed to be Alvari,” one of the younger kids snickered.
“Shut up, child,” an older woman hissed.
“Oh, let the youngsters have their talk,” a wheezy old man intoned. Everyone immediately quieted down to listen. “’Vari doesn’t trouble himself with what we say, and we’re safe from the raids here anyhow. Other than that little pastime he’s only concerned with screwing over the poor bastards in the slums who fall prey to Tress. Or the people who he thinks are powerful enough to oppose him, and those are long gone. His absurd statues don’t function here, anyway, and his lackeys are too scared to do anything more than skirt around the fringes of the Peaks, quick as they can.”
“Still,” the older woman said with a scowl. “At least he keeps his men in line here compared to the whole rest of Ryuqin. We should be grateful.”
I raised my eyebrows. If keeping his men ‘in line’ meant regular raids and snatching people from the streets to drag off to a weapons lab, then whatever constituted ‘out of line’ for this guy must be fucking extreme.
