Fumes of spent fuel, despite being unique and poignant in odor, were confused by Kane’s senses as he thumbed over the Aquila in his hands, the last symbolic remnant of the Guard he had once served. He smelled no form of fuel, but burning flesh, as he once had on his homeworld of Antlas. Burnt flesh was no appealing scent, yet it had been celebrated in the moment as sinners were cast to hell on the stakes before him, cries of heretic and traitor shouted toward the victims of the flames. Such cries may have left Kane’s mouth too, yet now they rung in his ears.
So much death. So much fire. And what had he done, but run from it?
Kane’s hands clutched at the wings of the Aquila more tightly.
He had witnessed the burning of sinners less than a decade and a half ago, and less than six months ago, he, with the assistance of some allies, fled his post to similar effect. Deserter. Traitor. Sinner. But still, Kane believed—or wanted to—in the Imperium. In the God-Emperor. Even though his allies had perished on their journey, and even despite his perceived transgressions against humanity, Kane still thought he could be of use to the Emperor in some way, some day.
Or, the doubt suggested, perhaps he would just become more of a sinner.
It was at that thought that his lander finished its journey. Calls went out to begin preparing for departure from the craft. Kane dislodged himself from his seating, but kept the Aquila within his grasp the whole while. It was the only thing he had left. He was not entirely alone; other deserters of Antlas beyond fed into a line in front of and behind him while waiting for the lander’s bay doors to open. Kane was but one of many.
When the doors did open, a rush of cool air washed through the bay, though it could hardly have been called a breeze so much as a depressurization. Kane’s line began advancing outward, albeit slowly. Someone—or something, Kane realized—was processing the refugees for admittance. It took until the line advance for Kane to emerge from the lander’s interior and stand atop its lowered doors to make out what was in charge. Kane did not recognize it; the Xenos had a vaguely humanoid shape, but its skin was deep blue, like the seas, and its head tall and thin, flat-faced. An automata of some sort, like a servo-skull but without the skull, hovered near to the Xenos. Such heresies all in one place!
Two other Xenos flanked the first, though they were much shorter and wider, and were armed and armored in thick plating and heavy weaponry. Their flesh was stern and rigid, as though cut from a slab of stone, and their eyes gazed onward almost lifelessly. They may have been servitors, Kane thought, but there were no apparent bionics embedded in their skulls as was commonplace for Imperial servitors.
“You! Gue’la!” called the blue Xenos, pointing to Kane. Kane snapped back to focus, and pointed to himself. “Sha, yes, you.” Kane stepped forward, nearer to the Xenos. “Surname?”
“Kane,” he answered.
“World of desertion?” it asked. The words pained Kane to hear, even though he had long known the truth of them.
“Antlas,” he answered again.
The Xenos flipped through some paperwork in its grasp, then ripped out a page and shoved it toward Kane. “Kane, I., of Antlas. Welcome to Eutophoria. Find work, live your life, keep the peace. Go on ahead. Next!”
Bewildered at the interaction, Kane nevertheless moved where his legs brought him, and walked past the trio of Xenos further ahead. He realized he was following the thinner stream of those in the line before him, now a greater distance apart from one another. Those ahead of him guided him across a landing platform and through some storage crates rearranged into a sort of checkpoint, after which a long road extended beyond into a city unlike any Kane had ever seen. Lights of all colors beamed out from all directions, bouncing off glass and Xenos material; it was as busy as a Hive, but not nearly as drab as the Pax Imperialis regulated.
Kane gripped his Aquila more tightly still, and walked on ahead toward the city.
A foreboding presence loomed in the backdrop behind Eutophoria, Kane realized. It took a moment for him to process what it was, but soon enough he connected the dots: a black hole sat some immeasurable distance behind the artificial city. Eutophoria was surely not within the beast’s event horizon, but the space and stars in the skyline above and behind the metropolis curved and bent back. Kane imagined that this was very intentional for Eutophoria’s placement—it likely made it harder to find by those zealous enough to want to destroy the coexistent-habitat.
Find work, live your life, keep the peace, Kane thought to himself, echoing the Xenos’s words. How was he supposed to do any of that? Once in the city proper, Kane found it quite busy. Xenos of all sorts and sizes lined its streets, as well as a good many humans, including some abhumans. Signage for shops and businesses adorned the infinite hall on either side of him, some of the text in Lower Gothic, most of it not. While scanning the new world around him, a sight caught his eyes, and he embarked to the edge of an alleyway to get a better look. Sure enough, Kane confirmed what he thought he saw: a fight club, of sorts, in the lower backstreets behind and beneath the main road of Eutophoria. A greenskin of some size was fighting another of the diminutive sort of Xenos that had flanked the blue one that had welcomed Kane to the city. The shorter stunt, by all accounts, was proving the superior fighter, and quite handedly at that, yet the greenskin seemed to be overjoyed for that. So much for keeping the peace, Kane thought, and turned around to return to his journey down the main road.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
And in so doing bumped into a creature much larger than he was. Shit! he thought to himself, and spun on his heels to attempt to apologize, but was taken aback by the nature of the being he had bounced off from. Human, most certainly, and feminine, yet far taller than he was. Defining features could not be well discerned on account of the long, crimson cloak the figure wore, which obscured much of her body and head, yet an Eviscerator of great size was stashed on the figure’s back. “My, uh, apologies, miss,” Kane stammered out.
The figure turned its gaze to face him, and while Kane could not make out her face from under the cloak, Kane did note that gold light seemed to shine out from where the figure’s eyes would have been. “Worry not, Ishmael Kane, the Emperor is with you yet,” she said, and then turned to continue on her way.
Kane stood stunned for a moment at her reply, and then forced out, “Wait, you—what? Wha—” He tried, and then jumped in place as a hand slapped onto his right shoulder from behind him. “What!” he shouted in surprise at the man behind him.
“Get inside, lad, quickly! Dorn’s teets, you must be new here, ain’t’cha?” the man said, urging Kane within a nearby building.
“But she—” Kane protested.
“Yes, she’s very captivating. That’s her problem. You don’t know any better yet,” the man pressed, all but shoving Kane indoors. The establishment was, at last, a familiar sight: a bar, of sorts, albeit with all manner of drinks and seating arrangements that were clearly made for more than merely humans. The man led Kane to a seat at the counter before encircling around its other side, apparently the bartender.
“What is it I don’t know?” Kane demanded, of half a mind to rush back out to the streets and question the woman he had bumped into.
“Not to mess with things you don’t know anything about,” the man replied, then extended an augmetic hand out toward Kane. Kane took and shook it, noting that the man had a great deal of augmetics over his body, coupled with a general lack of hair upon what remained of his skin. Neither of the man’s eyes were biological. “Name’s Cornelius. There, you know something about me. Let me see your papers.”
“My—oh, right,” Kane understood, and turned over the paperwork he had received from the Xenos before entering Eutophoria. Cornelius took the pages and scanned them over.
“Ishmael Kane, homeworld Antlas—sorry thing that, I heard about it on the news—, served with the Guard for nine years. Mmm, better than average,” Cornelius mused, then looked to Kane and sized him up. “You’re still in your prime.”
“Is that a question?”
“Can you fight?”
“I think so,” Kane nodded.
“Can you shoot?”
“As far as I know,” Kane shrugged. Cornelius paused, continuing to assess Kane’s being. “What’s this all about?”
“You need food, a place to stay, and something to do. I need a bouncer,” Cornelius answered.
“What happened to your last one?” Kane wondered.
Cornelius paused in his reply, then said, “He didn’t bounce.”
Well, that could mean anything, Kane thought. Then he said, “I don’t imagine I’d be able to keep from interacting with things I didn’t know much about as a bouncer.”
“Aye, bit of a conundrum there, ain’t it?” Cornelius agreed, then reached under the counter and dropped a stub revolver on the table between them. “It’s not loaded, though I do have ammo for it. Can get you a knife too. There’s a room upstairs, though it’s far from spacious. I’ll feed you on the house, but uh, you’d pay for your own drinks, and only off-duty of course. Interested?”
“Wow, that’s…that’s very generous,” Kane acknowledged. But that was no confirmation, and he sat to think about it.
“Yes,” Cornelius said, interrupting Kane’s thoughts.
“Yes, what?”
“My previous bouncer died on the job. You served in the Guard, so you know that your life is never a guarantee. Eutophoria is safer than anything you’ll have seen in service, sure, but piss off the wrong Xenos, and…,” Cornelius started.
“I won’t bounce,” Kane understood. Cornelius nodded. “Right. Can you teach me?”
“Teach you what?”
“What I need to know,” Kane said, and gestured around himself, referring to Eutophoria and all the Xenos in it.
“Some. The rest you’ll have to learn on the job, if you’re any good at it,” Cornelius said.
Kane nodded. “That woman?”
Cornelius shook his head and sighed. “That woman is not one you want to get involved with, ever. Luckily, she does not give patronage to establishments such as mine, so that shouldn’t be an issue. I don’t know much about her, other than that she’s bad news. Rumors and gossip say she’s a thousand years old, but surely that can’t be true. Trust me kid, when it comes to her, just don’t.”
“Alright, I get it,” Kane lied. No, the woman had left him in a pool of curiosity. But curiosity was known for killing cats, especially those that would not bounce. “Yes, thank you, Cornelius, I’d be happy to put my feet down somewhere. Here’s as good as anywhere.”
“That’s the spirit, kid,” Cornelius laughed, then reached over the counter and patted Kane’s shoulder again. “Eutophoria’s more than anyone can take in all at once. Don’t even try to. But it’s your home now, and listen—everyone is here because they don’t have anywhere else to be. Everyone outside those walls is disillusioned with their peoples’ empires and by their propaganda. Everyone’s gotten off that lander and strolled down that road alone at some point, human or Xenos alike. Most of them mean well. You feel alone right now. But you aren’t. You’ll learn that, in time.” Cornelius reached under the counter again. “Here’s the key to your room. Up those stairs, second door on the left.”
“Thank you, Cornelius,” Kane said, and rose to leave, key in hand.
“Kid,” Cornelius called back to him before he got anywhere. Kane turned back to his new boss, who then nodded to the counter, where the stubber and Kane’s paperwork laid. Kane laughed to himself and nodded, and took both into his possession before retiring to his new abode. It did not occur to Kane until his eyes were shutting in bed later that evening that he did not yet even know the name of the bar he was now working for.