Chapter 20: Heart of the Matter

Kiara sobered up quickly. The woman who had thrown her behind bars sat across the table. Scar, unwilling to drink the swill the Blackguard Inn called beer, satisfied herself with clear hard liquor. The alcohol had been decanted into a clean glass. She sipped it with an elegant slowness.

“Well?” Scar asked, brushing a strand of loose red hair behind her ear. It had escaped from her tight bun.

“Why do you want to help?” Kiara was suspicious of the unprompted aid.

“Those reasons are my own.”

“They are not,” Kiara said with a brave stupidity born from her tipsiness. “If I’m going to allow you into my crew, into my force, I need to know your reasons for joining. I’m not going to trust you otherwise.”

“How about I pay a small tribute in sincerity?” Scar asked, sipping from her glass.

“Not everything can be purchased,” Kiara replied. She pushed aside her mug of beer. Although she had mostly finished it, she lost her desire to drink more. She wanted a clear mind and a decisive answer to the question this woman posed.

“Do you not know where you are?” Scar laughed. “In Invernstead, everything is for sale.”

“Except for slaves,” Kiara responded curtly. “Even high-rollers like you, in this town, have limits. We’re attacking the only settlement in these parts that lack any form of compunction.”

“Compunction?” Scar raised an eyebrow. “A big word for a small woman born into the nothingness of the wastes.”

Kiara, in her anger, stamped her feet, almost rising from her chair. She stopped her flared fury. She was in no state to fight this woman. Moreover, Scar was the law as much as the law existed in Inverstead.

“No? Not going to solve your problem with violence?” Scar sipped her drink. She had no desire to rush to her point. She wanted to make Kiara boil. “Very unlike the peasantry.”

Ash turned from Scar and looked to Smiles. He had beaten the old man twice in a fight, but, now, he seemed calm, pacified. He hid himself behind his beer. The old man glanced at him and turned away almost shyly.

Kiara tried to compose herself. “Either you join me in this adventure, or you get out of my way.”

Scar smiled as she took her next sip. She licked her lips slowly and put her glass down.

“You know, you remind me a little of myself. Maybe one day you’ll find yourself working with militia and mercenaries. Heck, you’re organizing your own little armed force. Inspirational, really. So, you want my help, or not?”

Kiara’s eye twitched. She had to keep herself from exploding in anger. Instead, she rose from her chair slowly. As she got to her feet, she swayed noticeably. The intoxication hit her. She took a deep breath. “Thank you for the offer, but, perhaps, we’ll talk some other time.” Kiara hobbled away from the table. As she passed Scar, the woman’s hands shot out and grabbed her wrist.

“You need me. Think about it.”

Kiara ripped the woman’s fingers from her wrist and went to her rented quarters.

“And you?” Scar turned her attention to Ash. “Would you like my assistance?”

Ash looked at the table. He processed the possible reasons this woman would help them, especially with Smiles at her side. Ash lifted his mug of beer, the one he didn’t want, and drank deeply. He put the mug on the table and looked back at her. She continued to stare intensely in his direction. Ash never saw her blink.

“The offer is kind,” Ash tried to speak diplomatically, “but I feel as though our history is a little checkered. Kiara is right to doubt your offer, as am I with my history with Smiles.”

The old man grinned his rotted grin.

“You won’t have to worry about Jack,” she said.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“And why is that?” Ash asked.

Scar took the old man’s hands into her own and gave it a slight squeeze. “He and I have a long history. Combat sports. He taught me the basics.”

Smiles huffed and finished his drink. “Scarlett is being too modest. It’s fine though, Caz. I don’t hold it against you.” He touched the wound on his neck, the one that Ash had given him with a shattered pool cue. The wound hadn’t healed completely. “Not any more.”

Ash recalled the sound beating he had given the old man in prison. He was ready to kill him.

“I don’t know,” Ash said. He began to feel uncomfortable. He looked around the bar and saw Sander laughing at the bar with Brigid. She had been speaking to him since the moment he had moved there. “Look, it’s late. Maybe in the morning.” Ash thought about Kiara and her inevitable hangover. “Or late afternoon. We can discuss things. Me and Kiara and Lewis. Maybe a few of the other members of the crew. I can’t promise anything.”

Scar shook her head in disappointment. “You’re going to miss an opportunity you can’t afford.”

“Maybe,” Ash said. He stood from the table. He wanted to go to bed. “But that’s a mistake we’re going to make.”

“Alright, Casper, we’ll be seeing you.” Scar finished her drink and touched Ash’s forearm with a tender touch. The contact sent shivers down his spine. Without another word, she and Smiles stood from the table, paid for their drinks, and left.

Ash cleared the table and brought everything to the front. The night seemed to wind down, but it would be a while until every single patron left and he could do a quick clean of the place. He took a spot beside Sander, who watched Brigid attend to another customer.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” Sander said with uncharacteristic vulnerability. It was the alcohol.

“I’m surprised that you’re letting yourself feel this way.” Ash looked at Brigid. He knew she, like everyone else in this inn, was fake, a digital creation within a large machine. Only he and Sander were the exception.

Sander shifted his jaw and turned his attention to him.

“I don’t know why I’m going to tell you this, but I’m going to. There was a girl once. In here, not out there. Well, there was a girl out there too, but she died before me, without a back-up. I thought I’d be single for the rest of my life. In here, however, I struggled with the reality of everything. I thought about whether I could love again and whether loving someone in here mattered. Could it be love? Would it betray my previous love? A real woman who died before her time.” Sander stopped himself and looked up at the ceiling. He remained fixed in that position until Brigid came back. She slipped another mug of beer in front of Sander.

“Hey, Caz. Need another?”

“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

Brigid shrugged her shoulders and poured the half-eaten contents of her customers into a large bin. She and Francis tried to make use of the scraps. The extra from the kitchen went to some of the local colour, the street folk who supplied them with inside knowledge of new city happenings. The rest went along the rails that extended across the city into the compost dump that helped reinvigorate the small patches of arable land.

“Hey, I’m going to turn in,” Sander said to Brigid. The woman gave him a petite smile and nodded a silent good night.

Sander placed his hand on Ash’s shoulder and guided him from the bar and into the hallway. They stood outside their room.

“I did fall in love again. And you know what,” Sander said, swaying a little from the drink. “I was rewarded with watching her die. Stupid me. Honestly, I have no clue how you haven’t died. Everyone I associate with dies, or leaves. Stupid to fall for some hologram of a real woman, a simulation, a simulacrum. And now? Look at me! I swore it off. I swore off women. Never again. Never again. And then Brigid. I…” Sander closed his eyes and swayed a little. He finished the conversation in his head.

Ash supported him. He unlocked the door and saw Kiara sleeping in her cot. She had thrown her blanket over herself and faced the wall. She seemed incredibly weak and innocent in the moment. Ash supported Sander to his cot. Sander flung his feet onto the cot and stretched out. His mouth moved, but Ash was unable to hear him. Ash brought a sheet over Sander and tucked him into bed.

Ash moved to his own cot, trying to avoid making noise. He sat on the cot and looked at his two companions. Both of them mirages in this digital world. Only one of them, a reality. Ash thought about the others. Sander had tried to open his heart to Ash. He struggled with the same thoughts Ash had, but he had five years to waffle back and forth on the matter. It seemed as though Sander had softened on the position again. All that was needed was a woman giving him the right kind of attention.

Ash had never been romantically successful. Schools in the real world had been segregated by gender. The State had decided that this divide benefited the physical and psychological development of its population. In many ways, it did. Ash grew up among young men and experienced the world as they did. Certainly, he had been on the smaller side, the slighter side. He never managed to win anything physically, but he worked hard. Outside of his family, the only women he had met were those in his volunteer brigade. The whole experience left him tongue-tied.

Kiara was different, Ash thought, albeit his introduction to her was a shotgun shoved into the back of his only friend in the Wasteland. But what was the point of having a relationship in here? Ash wanted out. He would get out. He would help Kiara with her raid against The Cuffs, and, after that, he would finally start his journey to finding a real solution to his predicament. He would return to the real world. Any romantic distraction was precisely that: a distraction. He wouldn’t be able to build a worthwhile relationship when he planned to leave this digital dimension for the real world. Romance could only be a distraction.

Ash laid onto his back and pulled the sheets over his body. He turned his head to the room and let his eyes move over Kiara’s body as she slept. He bit his lip and turned back to the wall. He tried his best to sleep before Francis called him for to clean the main room.