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Four groggily sipped her coffee. A blow dryer worked in her right hand, drying out her stomach and legs, as she sat on a stool beside the bathroom door that she finally managed to pry open. Bryce hadn’t come to her in her dream last night. A small comfort.
An impatient knock rapped across her door. Four rolled her eyes. “Headphones are in the mailbox, Cody.” She called out.
“What?” A muffled, feminine voice replied. Four tensed. Not Cody. “Oo, are these new?”
“Lane, no!” Another voice- equal parts measured and exasperated. Sanchez.
Lane responded with an annoyed grumble. Then, she turned to the door. “Can we come in?”
Four stood up, using the iron hoops set on her wall to hop towards her closet. “Uh, one sec. Getting dressed.”
“Oo-” The door opened an inch, then closed shut again.
“Lane, no!”
Four smiled in spite of herself and slipped on one of her long skirts. “You’re good.” She said. Her top was mostly fur anyways- and still drying, at that.
The door swung open. Lane was clad in her bizarre choice of clothes- this time, a leaf-green band tee (“Midnight Matinee”- an older synth-rock group. Four approved), a transparent rain jacket and torn jeans with heart patches sewn into them. Behind her, Sanchez just wore a different shirt under the same jacket, but had slicked back her black hair. A blush colored her ears, and she turned away. “O-oh, sorry, I thought you said-”
“Yeah, you’re good, Sanchez. It’ll be a bit before I’m dry anyways.” Four flicked some water from her ear. Using the rings, she hopped over towards the corner kitchen beside the entrance. “Coffee?”
The two tourists were soon sitting on the small couch, while Four sat at the end of her bed. All had a mug in their hands, though Sanchez practically had more sugar than coffee in hers. Four leaned onto her knees. “So, what brings you my way? Didn’t you get a new escort?”
Lane rolled her eyes. “Ugh, you mean the bull man? He’s boring. And dull. And he didn’t let us do anything.”
Sy? Four recalled the hulking, bull-headed beast-man- one of Arbiter Wolf’s first converts. More of a bruiser than a talker. “Yeah… I could see that.” She said. “So, is he downstairs?”
“Hm? Oh, no, we ditched him at a lingerie place down the street. He’s probably still waiting on the street outside.” Lane nursed her cup with an amused grin.
Four sighed. “He’ll stick around all day…” She decided she would need to text him. Later. “Still, why come to me? You could just as easily explore on your own.”
Sanchez kept her gaze firmly on her dark cup of sugar. “Um, well, we noticed that the controller, he seemed to be after you, not us.” She explained. “According to Sylvester, the Savari Suit and tech weren’t recovered from the fallen Cage, and that the controller would still have it in their arsenal…”
“What Rosa means to say is that she’s worried.” Lane interrupted.
“About my investments. I’d spent quite a lot on those parts.”
Lane snorted. “Rosa, you hang out with me. There’s no shame in admitting you have no friends.”
“Lane!”
Four smiled, sipping her dark roast. “Well, regardless, I’m heading out today. Lowharf, one of the deeper neighborhoods in the Dim City.”
Sanchez froze, and turned to look at Four curiously. “Lowharf?” She repeated. No doubt she had heard the rumors. “Why?”
“I have a lead on the controller. Or, at least, on someone who could help me find a real lead.” Four barely needed to lie. She set down her cup and leaned over to grab the scattered components of her spare leg and the revolver she would hide inside. “It’ll be dangerous, if you want to come with. I’d appreciate the magic.”
“Yes!”
“No, Lane.” But a sharp pin of curiosity twinged Sanchez’s voice. It took only a moment for her to cave. “What will we be doing?”
A thick blanket of music, saltwater, and all manner of smoke pressed down onto the crowd around a cylindrical tube of water, which quickly fogged with blood. Someone writhed inside, covered in the bladed tendrils of the octopus-like alien and firing off rippling, deep-green spells through the water. Each blast dislodged a tentacle, slowly pushing the aquatic alien away. A scar-laden man yanked himself free, carefully keeping the air tank on his back away from the bladed arms of his opponent. He pushed back to the side of the cylinder, condensing the water between his palms as the octopus prowled near the bottom of the tank.
The tentacled monster bent and twisted with a bony consistency not found in its Earth cousins, clambering up through the cylinder. The mage focused, and pulled apart his hands. Blood floating in the water bent down towards the octopus as a rippling wave of pressure smashed it down onto the ground, its clawed tentacles screeching against the sides of the cylinder. A panicked look shot through its black eyes as it strained upwards.
It slammed hard against the ground, and a buzzer shot off loudly. The man had won his second bout of the set.
“Fuck!”
“It’s okay, Lane.”
Four’s ears flicked towards the edge of the crowd, hearing Sanchez and Lane grumble over the results of their bets. The assassin sat at higher ground, where all manner of non-Earthen card games were being played in iron-capped tents, protecting them from the seawater leaking down in a constant drizzle from the shore above. Beyond the fighting tube and the gambling tents, steel railings and rusty walkways connect to the holes bored into the very foundations of Alloton, connecting to other buildings, hovels, and gang-controlled gambling dens like this one. Four didn’t make a habit of visiting Lowharf.
She played her hand face-down onto the larger pot in the middle, confident in its strength. Her competitors- a savari and two elderly men- played toward the smaller pots on the side, while the younger savari dealer looked on approvingly. Four hoped she didn’t have much of a tell, because she was beaming inside- Catcatch was the only alien game she knew how to play, but she played it well. She leaned forward. “Anyone want to challenge for the middle?”
Her competitors were silent, hoping to instead get money off of their competitor’s smaller “cat” pots. A conservative playstyle. Four never played that way.
The cat plays were revealed first, and Four’s heart leapt. The blue-green card in front of the suspenders-clad old man bore the Nightfolk symbol for 7- the card that the dealer would have needed to play to beat her hand. She leaned back, the round a foregone conclusion.
A shit-eating grin broke across Four’s face as her hand was revealed, and the table groaned. The dealer barely bothered to look at the hand he played- card counting was an inherent part to Catcatch, and they all knew she’d won. She took her sweet time gathering her pot- a mixture of Coalition, Canadian, and Metro dollars- before putting her cat up into the new center pot and re-upping her ante. The dealer slowly collected the cards as a thick hand pressed onto the table.
The man it belonged to leaned down. His hair was threaded into a three halos behind his head, which then connected to the three red tattoos that continued the circle down below his nose, lips, and chin. A Shackle Killer. “I did not expect one of the Pack in my house.” Four couldn’t place his accent, but knew by his tattoos it must be from somewhere in southern Africa.
Four tried to act nonchalant, placing the last of her ante as she spoke. “I had a day off.” She said. “Name’s Four. You?”
“You smell like slaver’s ice.” He growled.
Four blinked. “Ice? What-” Her mind struck back to last night, where Sleet Scythe had dispelled the ice over her body. He could still sense it after she’d showered? “I was in a scrap. Sleet Scythe.”
“The Vigilant?”
“Who else would name themself that?”
“Ha!” He puffed a laugh from his nose. He sat down beside Four, who shuffled her stool to the side a bit. “Deal me in, Anchev.” He plucked a gold ring from his thumb as his cat pot. The dealer deftly flung cards across the table. The man turned back to Four. “I am Thuku. Me and my brothers run this little corner of Lowharf.”
Four looked over his low-cut, navy shirt, landing on the tree-like symbol tattooed on his neck. Not a gang she was familiar with. “I’m actually hoping to meet someone here today. Might be a regular?”
“Hm?” Thuku raised a thin eyebrow.
“Cordelia Reese.” Four explained. “Do you know her?”
“That swindler?” Thuku’s face scrunched in distaste as the group grabbed their cards. “You’re a day too late, number-girl. I hear she pissed off the Mohns. Probably being torn apart by a Hound as we speak, if she’s lucky.” He placed a card down to mulligan, catching the replacement thrown by the dealer with deft expertise. “I hear the little Mohn, the youngest son, is a freak. And not in your way- no offense.”
“Some taken.” Four had to mulligan nearly her entire hand. Just her luck. “Should I ask what kind?”
The man shrugged. “I just heard rumors. Buys some messed up shit on auction for his personal collection. Wants to be a filmmaker, I hear. But, uh, I don’t traffic with the Family. Just pay my dues and fuck off.” He shook his head. “If only that was enough.”
“Wise to stay out of their way, though.” Four played on her own cat. Nobody played onto the central pot, and the round completed quickly, as the pot grew bigger. She anted up for another round. “Sounds like you’ve got something against them. Maybe something the Pack could fix?”
“I don’t need an assassin with the Mohns.” The others at the table tensed at Thuku’s words. They hadn’t known who they were playing with. He leaned in before the cards were dealt, whispering into her bent ear. “But, if you were to ensure that you leave with something of theirs, I can get you in as a messenger.”
The Mohns were old money, and reclusive, at that. Wolf’s influence wouldn’t get her very far with them. Four played her hand. She lost some money, but no one won the center pot, so her previous ante held. She chewed on the man’s offer. Anchev shuffled the cards in a dextrous swirl that only a four-armed savari could manage.
“Alright.” Four returned Thuku’s whisper. “What’s the item?”
“A rebreather, made for the fights in the Tube.” He jutted his head towards the water-filled cylinder, where two of those octopus-like aliens were wrestling each other towards one end. “The bouts are dangerous, but Lucretia Mohn, the older daughter, has insisted she wants to fight. Take the rebreather, and she’ll be forced to wait for a replacement, and I can arrange some fights that won’t end with a Mohn corpse in my house.”
Four leaned back, looking over her hand. She placed down two cards as a mulligan- they would have combined well with the other three, but rejecting them would mislead her opponents. She spoke out loud to Thuku. “How many visitors do they normally get?”
“Plenty enough for you to do your job.” The man insisted. Enough that the theft wouldn’t be traced to her specifically. He played for the center, without even replacing his cards. “Anyone going to challenge me?”
Nobody did.
“The Mohn family? What do you want with them?” Sanchez gently patted Lane’s head as she skulked from her lost bets. “I think we’ve had dealings with them before. Candy store, right?”
Four cocked her head. “Uh, no. Drug dealers.”
Sanchez looked right and left, her arms tensed. “That’s what I meant, Four!” She protested, but looked around. Though they were walking down the narrow, gray crystal tunnels that connected the different parts of Lowharf, a couple hawkers, beggars, and sex workers looked on from the buildings carved into the sides of the tunnel. None seemed to look twice at the statement. “Oh.”
“Cops and Vigils don’t bother here, Sanchez. You can talk pretty freely, so long as what you say wouldn’t be valuable to one of these lowlifes.” She smiled and grabbed her hand. They squeezed past a small crowd around a drunken fistfight. “Officially, this place doesn’t exist.” Four waited a moment for Sanchez to respond. When didn’t, the assassin dropped the topic. She never saw how intently Sanchez was looking at their clasped hands. “Uh, anyways, what’s ‘candy store’? Some old time slang?”
“It’s perfectly normal where I’m from!” Sanchez’s voice squeaked a little. The group turned down a wider street, past an old man selling churros from a cart.
“You’ve got code for every job down south? What’d I be? A cleaner?”
“Shut up.” The woman grumbled. “Anyways, you never answered my question.”
“The Mohns are holding someone I want to get out.” Four explained, turning away from her teasing. “Thuku’s given me a pass in exchange for a little favor, but you two could join up if you want. If not, the lift back up is pretty close.”
Sanchez thought about it, her eyes narrowing. “No… no, this might be a good idea. Get some contacts for my father. One of the reasons I came this way to begin with.”
Lane rolled her eyes, hopping over a discarded trash bag. “Booring.”
“Unlike you, Lane, I can’t just coast on my magic alone. I need to build reputation.” Sanchez flipped her black hair back over her head. The drizzle of rain-like saltwater had frizzed it out in spite of the gel she had so meticulously coated it in this morning.
Their next turn led up a couple of stairs- and with it, the first set of Mohn guards. Mercenaries adorned with pressed suits and Chinese automatic rifles. Big enough to put a hole through a stone mage or small tank. They let Lane skip by, but one butted in front of Four. He squared his conical beard and scarred face with the rabbit-woman. “What’re you doing here, beast? We already have enough of you in our house.”
Four spoke with a level tone. “I’ve got news for your betters. From Thuku.” A blank stare. “The Shackle Killer in the Pits.”
He nodded slowly. “Right. Alright, leave the message with me, I’ll bring it in.”
Four leaned in, glowering up at the man. “Maybe you didn’t hear me.” She spoke softly. “If Thuku trusted someone of your caliber to deal with this, he wouldn’t have sent a Pack member and two mages.”
The man’s eye twitched. “Listen, asshole, we’re at fucking capacity. I’m not letting anyone else in.”
His partner- a man wearing heavy, black body armor with several Savari augmentations- placed his hand on the guard’s shoulder. He spoke through a gray helmet with a distinctly hawkish design. “Hey, I’ll bring them in. We don’t want to piss these people off.”
“And who’s fucking in charge here, rookie?” The man spun on his partner, bristling with righteous anger.
“Sir, this is the pack. She either comes in where we can see her, or she kills us when we don’t. This is above our paygrade.”
Four frowned as she listened to the armored guard. His voice was muffled, but familiar. His posture was too straight, and his assessment too quick. Clearly from a different group- maybe one she’d worked with? Hopefully not one she’d worked against.
The other guard relented, releasing his pent up breath in a long, dismissive sigh. “Fine. It’s on your fucking head.” A sideways glance shot daggers at Four. “Don’t make me regret it.”
The three followed the armored man as he led them through the ‘house’ of the Mohns- what these gangs call their home turf. The streets were geometric, twisting at sharp angles and using small, wooden lifts when it bent up or down. The labyrinthine halls splintered off of each other, with buildings in between, bending in on themselves in a featureless fractal, all dusty, gray crystal. The armored mercenary followed a map on his watch.
He walked in silence, almost commanding attention from the group. Something about his gait was familiar. “Hey, we’ve worked together, haven’t we?” Four decided to ask.
The man’s stride didn’t slow, but he looked back. Four’s face reflected in the warped, black visor. “Hm, maybe. I only just joined this crew. Ever work in Nahuatl?”
Four shook her head. She’d never traveled outside of the city.
“Huh. Probably not, then.”
They turned down a narrow switchback, and the cavern expanded in front of them. The Mohn’s mansion and the cave it was situated in stood in stark defiance of Alloton’s architectural chaos. The cave above was carved into twinkling, crystal chandeliers. The house was perfectly symmetrical, an upside-down ziggurat of white plaster and sterile, glass doors, opening to a balcony surrounding each of its five stories. Four waterfalls from each corner of the building fed the artificially square lake it rose from. A marble bridge led to the only entrance.
The mercenary stopped at the edge of the gate, extending his arm to bar Lane just behind him. “Hey, butler. It’s me and three others,” he called out towards the bridge. “Guests. Run a pot, alright?”
The water rippled, and a bony tendril slapped over the edge of the bridge. Yanking themself up and onto the deck, the octopus-like alien that had been hiding in the moat balanced themself on its rigid tentacles like a long-legged spider. A Nightfolk- sun allergic aliens with a penchant for berserk rage. A ridge of bones created a crown around their body, while an expensive, plastic muzzle flickered to life around their beak to translate. “As you will.” The automated voice buzzed through the water clinging to its speaker. They looked pointedly at Four. “It can wait with the other.” The nightfolk guided the group to the doorway, opening it with a laminated keycard.
The plastic door peeled away like a curtain, allowing the sterile light of the room to pour through to the bridge. A glass archway of an elevator was propped up by a steel cord in the center. Four’s eyes flicked around, quickly analyzing the place. The slanted, white walls undoubtedly hid the supports that kept the house upright. A silver chandelier hung gently on each of the four corners. Their light didn’t illuminate past the ventilation grates- betraying the cameras hidden there.
The nightfolk led them to the elevator, inputting a code onto a small keypad faster than even Four could track. Their translator buzzed to life. “Of the Mohns present, young master Silvio and lady Lucretia are both busy with their… hobbies.” Their mechanical voice warbled as the translator struggled to find an appropriate word. Four wondered what they had really said. “I do not advise disturbing them. If you wish to meet with another member of the family, you may wait in the drawing room with the other guest.” They leaned back as the others step onto the elevator, their wide gait preventing them from coming with the group. “I will prepare the library for a meeting.”
“Thanks.” The armored mercenary nodded, then pressed one of the many unlabeled buttons on the elevator’s side. He flipped out a lighter and a cigarette, lifting his helmet an inch to breathe life into the smouldering thing. A speckled white goatee sprouted from his chin.
The arch jolted upwards, the cord creaking as it lifted the guests and the mercenary up through the floors. They passed through multiple identical, square rooms, with curtain-like, synthetic doors leading to other wings of the house. It stopped three floors up.
The man exhaled, filling the room with a deep blue smoke. Too much smoke. Four’s gun popped out from her leg and was pressed into the small of his back. He smiled, raising his arms. “Suspicious, aren’t you?” He said. The grit in the back of his throat- with his voice now freed from the mask- sounded familiar. A celebrity, maybe? “Just like her to pick someone like you. The smoke will only loop cameras for a few minutes.”
“Who are you?” Four growled, her eyes flicking around. True enough, the smoke clung to the vents in the corner of the room.
“I work with a certain Shackle who thinks she’s a detective,” he explained carefully. “You’ve been making waves, acting out of line. We’d like to know what you’re planning.”
A hand grasped Four’s shoulder, yanking her back. The snap of another limb aimed straight for the man’s face- and then slowed. Lane’s magic failed her an inch from the man’s helmet, and her fist limply slapped against the dark helmet. She pulled back her hand, rolling her shoulder. A simultaneously smug and scared expression peeled across her face. “Apocrypha?”
Four’s mind shot back to the voice. She’d never heard it in person, but in public addresses, in recordings, and state of the city speeches. Apocrypha- leader of the Alloton Vigil. Once ally- and now sworn rival- of the Wolf.
The legend doffed his helmet. “Guilty as charged.”