Nights in Skardak Tertium were possessed of a harrowing heat, but that did not stop Scodd Gronheim’s Gang from burning rubber in screeching and skidding burnouts. The asphalt-filled smoke that arose in the process was illuminated only by the pinkish hues of a lecherous holoboard, glitched—likely intentionally—to repeat its display of an augmeticly tantalizing female figure ad infinitum. Still, Harr thought to himself, the nameless augmetic woman did not match Carmichael’s natural form. It then occurred to him that he did not know whether Carmichael in fact lacked augmetics; it probably was not polite to pry in that regard.
Regardless of the attractiveness of the women in Harr’s head—holoboard or real—Harr still felt like he was in hell, and the heat seemed to suggest he was right. He was as far removed from the Light of the Throne, he felt, as he had been in serving a traitor Inquisitor. The irony that his service to a presumably-loyal Inquisitor put him in this position was not lost on him, either. But for all his internal discomfort, outwardly Harr did not evidence a single drop of unease. Sweat, sure, but otherwise he metaphorically kept his cool.
“So, Tareen tells me your group is looking to trade,” Scodd Gronheim asked Harr, taking a seat next to the undercover Guardsman at a ramshackle bar in what was otherwise the middle of nowhere. If there was a structure that once surrounded the bar, it had fallen long ago, and the ages had hidden its foundation. But still, the bar itself stood, likely preserved by dutiful patrons across the eons. Now, it was in Gronheim’s hands. One of Gronheim’s attendants served the young heir a drink, having already addressed Harr’s order. Two of Gronheim’s guards stood close by, laspistols in plain view below crossed arms. “Forgive me, I’m Scodd Gronheim, though I suppose you knew that. You’re…Godel, correct?”
“Yes, sir, that I am,” Harr nodded in a lie, raising his glass to toast the heir. Gronheim obliged, and the two shared a drink. The clinging of their glasses’ collision could not be heard over the racing vehicles behind the pair, and Harr swore he tasted a bit of asphalt in his drink. “And yes, we seek to barter.”
“And what is it you think I have to part with?” Gronheim asked before turning in his seat to watch the race, leaning back against the bar in the process. He held his left hand in the air at chest height, elbow bent, while his index finger drew circles around his thumb.
“Well you’re selling something to Amnes Minoris. And I think I have a pretty good idea as to what,” Harr replied, which was, again, a lie. They did not have a clue what sort of product Amnes Minoris was receiving from House Gronheim.
“Do you now?” Gronheim smirked. “And what is that, exactly?”
“It’s the sort of thing you and I would prefer go unsaid,” Harr wagered.
“Ha. And you want a cut, eh?” Gronheim laughed. Rather, he made a sound that would have been transcribed as laughter, but it was too monotone and dry to carry such an effect. “What do you suppose you have that would be of any interest to me?”
“Well, in that regard, I’m not sure,” Harr started, but Gronheim’s eyes narrowed and the heir cut him off.
“You’re not sure? Then why did Tareen insist on dragging me out here? You better not be wasting my time, boy, or all that’ll enter my possession from this discussion will be your eyes. And Tareen’s, for that matter,” Gronheim growled, his once-fidgeting hand collapsing into a clenched fist. Harr reflected for a moment on being called ‘boy’ by a man he reasonably believed to be his younger, but swiftly decided not to bring that up.
“I am confident my group can offer something worth your time, sir,” Harr assured the heir before taking a sip of his drink to cool his nerves. “However, truth be told, we don’t know what it is you want. So, suppose I had infinite resources—which I don’t, for the record—what would Scodd Gronheim most desire out of his time on Skardak Tertium?” Harr asked.
Gronheim glared at Harr for nearly a minute, then. Harr never broke character, outwardly, but he was pretty sure the heir was going to start plucking eyes at any moment. Finally, Gronheim broke the tiniest grin, and replied, “You’re familiar with…House Gangs, I assume?”
“You would be correct in that assumption, yes,” Harr nodded, and then elaborated: “Heirs are sent out to find a way to make a profit in the Underhives of their own accord before returning to the House proper with what they’ve learned.”
“Eh, close enough,” Gronheim sighed and shrugged. “Houses generally have a secondary goal to go with the process. So yes, I have achieved the former already—turning a profit off my sales to Amnes Minoris. But the secondary goal of House Gronheim is that of adventure. Howsoever that may manifest, I desire an adventure. Can you and your not-infinite resources give me that, Godel?”
Harr took another sip of his drink, then nodded. “I am rather sure we can, yes. I think you may wish to speak to my superior to hammer out exact details—a meet I can arrange.”
“I will arrange such a meet, Godel,” Gronheim growled, but pulled his glare away from Harr all the same and sat back again. “You’re sweating profusely. You’re new to Skardak Tertium.”
“New is a relative term,” Harr shrugged. His response didn’t mean anything to him, but maybe the phrase might find purchase with Gronheim.
“I suppose so,” Gronheim shrugged. Indeed. “What do you think of the city?”
“I think it’s friggin’ hot,” Harr replied, which at last sparked a genuine, barking laugh from the heir.
“Hm. Here, maybe this’ll help you settle in, then,” Gronheim offered, and reached into a pocket on the front of his shirt before pulling out a small, plastic bag. He handed it to Harr. “Careful on the dosage. Flects can be…volatile. But the trade is booming here ever since Scarus kicked it out. Amnes Minoris loves them—they buy in bulk; enough so that I assume they might not notice a couple packets here and there going missing. If you like the taste, eh, and if you can give me a suitable adventure, there’s more where that came from, Godel.”
***
“So, what’s a flect?” Jethro asked, looking at the little baggie dangling in Harr’s grasp. The Ratling was himself dangling from a small compartment formed of heat-warped shelving near the nonexistent roof of their abode. None knew how Jethro got up there.
Carmichael snatched it from Harr’s hands in the blink of an eye. “Something to be destroyed, and with prejudice,” she warned. “Good work, Godel. Scodd seems…forthcoming, I take it?”
“Very,” Harr nodded. “He’s basically a kid, after all.”
“Hmph. All power and no discipline,” Hager muttered, arms crossed. “Easily manipulable. The boss’ll have a field day with him when we’re done here.”
“And rightfully so, especially now with the confirmation of flect trade in the sector,” Carmichael agreed. “Scodd has given us a lot, but we still need more. Contacts, who on Amnes Minoris he’s selling to. Transport and planetary insertion codes, where he’s offloading his cargo. Some of this will be easier to get out of him, some of it harder. But he seems like a goldmine of valuable intel. Whatever sort of adventure he seeks, we’ll need to be ready to deliver.”
“Did he give any indication about what an ‘adventure’ means in this context?” Elraad asked Harr, who then frowned and shook his head.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
“Given the kid’s age, it’s probably something idiotic,” Hager muttered. “Or fantastically impossible. I guess that’d also be idiotic.”
“And what about this meet? How’s that going down?” Elraad asked.
Harr shrugged. “No real info yet. I’ll next see Tareen at the Starlight Club a few days from now—I assume I’ll get that info then. Scodd did tell me to bring my muscle, `cause he’d be bringing his. A formality, he called it.”
“I can’t tell, is that a good thing?” Jethro asked.
“Hard to tell, honestly,” Carmichael admitted. “A kid like Scodd is volatile, emotional. Could be him being polite. Could be him wanting all of us in one place to mow down. Either way, Boyle, we’ll want you on overwatch, as out of sight as you can be.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Jethro shrugged.
***
Spindown Cove was hardly the scene the name may suggest; there was not any great body of water to look out upon. Instead, the location was a dump, in the literal sense. Great vessels that once harbored Machine Spirits were abandoned en masse, ‘Spun-down’ from their nonfunctionality. A natural incline of the terrain dragged greasy oils and Machine fluids into a pale-brown lake of maximized toxicity; rivers of refuse coagulated at various chokepoints between the rusted towers of once-Machines, and the mud released either a hissing or a gurgling at one’s step, saturated with the grease of a forgotten age.
Why this was the location Gronheim wanted to meet, according to Tareen, Harr could not fathom. Or perhaps this was Gronheim’s way of telling Harr to frig off. Either way, the location, tactically, could not have been better for them. Somewhere Jethro was climbing high atop rusty once-Machines for the angle most snipers could only dream of having. There was ample cover around if a shootout ensued, and for the time being, that cover provided shadows for Carmichael to dwell in, further shielded from view by Hager’s imposing form. Harr took point, with Elraad to his right, and another of Elraad’s soldiers, Thex—that was their alias while on Skardak Tertium; Harr did not know their real name—stood to Harr’s left. A few more Guardsmen-turned-gangers dotted the scene around Harr, while Hager and Carmichael dwelled behind the forward trio.
For a time, it seemed as though the group was being stood up. But, eventually, the sound of an approaching Scodd Gronheim rattled off dilapidated steels, immature laughter giving the young heir away at a distance. His voice was solitary, but his footfalls were not; a larger, silent group sloppily dredged through the mud alongside their master. After a few moments, Gronheim and Harr came face to face once more. “You didn’t take it,” Gronheim greeted him in a sour, disappointed tone.
“I’m sorry?” Harr frowned.
“Me and the boys were betting on how frigged up you’d look after taking the flect,” Gronheim explained, gesturing to his allies as ‘the boys,’ who otherwise stood emotionless next to their master. “But you didn’t take it, huh?”
“You can tell?”
“Gradle…wait, no…Godel, a flect frigs up everything about someone. That’s why they’re so addictive—people like being, ehh, reshaped. You don’t seem much different. Ergo, I conclude that you didn’t take it,” Gronheim explained.
Harr shrugged. “There are people for that sort of thing. Not exactly the types you want arranging business deals.”
“Then there’s a bit of wisdom to this group of yours yet,” Gronheim smirked. “Pity. Frigging around with clueless minor gangs is always a bit of fun. So which of you is in charge, here, if it ain’t Godel? You?” Gronheim asked, nodding to Elraad.
“Not I, sir. We’re just the delegation,” Elraad replied.
Gronheim looked past the trio, then, and caught a glimpse of Hager in the background of the scene, standing defensively over a shadow. Gronheim was not, then, so naïve to be ignorant of who he should have been talking to. “Then why don’t you delegate that boss of yours out from the shadows, eh? We’re all friends here.”
“That can happen, but first why don’t you tell us a little bit about the adventure you claimed to have in mind,” Elraad offered.
“Well that’s just the thing, then, isn’t it? I didn’t claim to have one in mind, I said I wanted one. You are supposed to provide one for me, if you actually want to kick this trading arrangement off. And if you can’t, I may choose to just fabricate a little adventure here and now,” Gronheim sighed, and waved a finger in a circle before him. His guards snapped their weapons forward, a dozen lasrifles trained and powering up in Harr’s direction.
Harr’s crew began to go through the motions of preparing to engage, but were stifled by Carmichael’s call in the back. “That won’t be necessary,” she said calmly, strutting out into the open. Hager followed her like a brooding but loyal lapdog, which given the rest of Carmichael’s character at the time, may have been the point. Harr had often seen Carmichael in particularly flirtatious attire, but never in such a way as could be described as ‘revealing.’ That was, however, until Carmichael assumed the role of Selaina Poison, the boss of their little gang. Fake but entirely-convincing tattoos lined every corner of Carmichael’s previously-fair skin that showed itself from beneath torn leggings and a thin, v-shaped, open-backed top. Red eyes had been dyed to a heterochromatic green and purple, and with a hand on hip laid bare by uneven shorts, she strode forward beyond Harr’s trio to stand before Gronheim’s guns with nonchalant carelessness, once again wielding long, flowing blonde hair. “Out from the shadows, hm? What do you need to say to my face that you couldn’t say to theirs?” she asked Gronheim, who finally began to succumb to the heat while in Carmichael’s presence.
“I…uh…,” Gronheim muttered. He wiped a hand over a now-wetted forehead and then gestured for his goons to lower their weapons. As they obeyed, he replied, “You’re…uh…the boss of this little group?”
“Selaina Poison, and this is my muscle,” Carmichael replied, raising a hand behind her to Hager’s chest. “He’ll tear the lot of you to shreds if you give him a reason to. So, again, what do you need of me that my delegation would not suffice for?”
Claiming that Gronheim was visibly aroused by Carmichael would have been a severe understatement. It seemed, to Harr, that the young heir was putting a great deal of his focus into maintaining his posture alone, and that any utterances that emerged from his mouth which were not mere babbling were instead the product of a miracle bestowed upon the noble by the Throne Itself. Harr wondered if he had ever been so terribly seduced by Carmichael as Gronheim had been. Surely, he admitted to himself, some measure of seduction had taken place to allow for Carmichael’s infiltration of his unit on Canicus to go unnoticed. But unluckily for Gronheim, the poor lad was younger than Harr had been upon first meeting Carmichael, and she was also far more provocatively clothed. This was far from the first time the Inquisitor’s Stealth operative had weaponized her own appearance, and Harr reckoned that if they survived this encounter, it would be far from the last.
“I…uh…,” Gronheim tried, stammering and stumbling over his own words. He then cleared his throat and closed his eyes for a few moments, as though believing that, in re-opening them, he would find Carmichael less beautiful. If that was his plan, it did not work. “You’re…uh…you’re interested in joining the flect trade?”
“As long as you’re willing to strike a cut, doll,” Carmichael enticed him.
“I mean…what kind of a cut are you looking for? And I won’t just be parting with product for free, of course,” Gronheim told her, slowly getting his head back into his business.
“Of course not. Let’s suppose, as a trial run, 500 units at 70% of the rate you’re selling to Amnes Minoris?” Carmichael offered. “Provided we can give you an adventure that you find desirable, that is.”
“70%? Far too low,” Gronheim shook his head, appearing offended but still so attracted to Carmichael as to not flick to violence as he had in the past.
“Is it? Surely you’d still turn a profit from not needing to move product through two or more stages of customs across the subsector,” Carmichael offered.
“Profit is one thing, margins are another. Tell you what: 70% for your little trial run, as you called it, of 500 units. If we find the transaction goes smoothly, we can continue doing business, but at an 85% rate,” Gronheim decided.
The deal was more important than the numbers, Carmichael knew. They probably weren’t going to be ‘buying’ any flects, and instead if any fell into their possession, it would be through confiscation. So rather than risk a haggle, Carmichael declared, “Deal. My delegation can discuss the exchange of goods and funds. Now, as for your adventure, may I suggest—”
“Funny, I have in fact decided on something I want in that regard,” Gronheim interrupted her.
“Oh?”
“You.” An expectedly tense silence followed. Gronheim elaborated further. “You’re the face of this little outfit, hm? You certainly look better than all the rest of it. But regardless, power, and the display thereof, is terribly important down here in our world. I’m sure you understand. So I will take you for a day, do what I want with you for a day, and vassalize you and your little groupies here. I’m sure you’ll prove adventurous enough, won’t you?”
“That’s out of the—” Harr began. Other objections were raised in tandem, with only Hager—and Jethro, somewhere likely out of earshot to begin with—remaining silent. But all the objections were overridden by Carmichael, who held an open hand up to gesture for everyone to stop.
“It will take some discussion with my group, but I think that’s very manageable,” Carmichael replied to Gronheim, nodding.
“Well, take some time to manage it, then. But know this—we can’t leave loose ends—such as those that know about the flect trade—around for long. And we do know where your little gang resides. So you, Ms. Poison, have a day to come down to the Wyveria for…processing, and if you do not, we will see your group…evicted. Clear?”
“Clearer than a flect,” Carmichael nodded again.