Ah, Sector Seventeen. Land of scrap metal, garbage, and corpses. Fragrant and majestic. Spire Circle is the spine of the city. Sector Three is the eyes. Six is the brain. Fifteen is the muscles, Eleven is the mouth, Eighteen is the stomach. And Seventeen is the colon. Definitely not the most glamorous of body parts, but I’ll tell you this much - if your colorectal organs suddenly went missing, you’d be in a pretty desperate situation.

Some might call Seventeen an ignoble and rotting jumble. A scab on the scarred hide of Wellspring City. A box of trash that no one important would be interested in - and that’s sort of true. Slums, graveyards, crumbling tenements, and cracked concrete populated by souls as eclectic and shabby as the towering scrapyard piles. A place for lost and discarded things. If you throw something away, it’ll wind up in Sector Seventeen eventually. If someone goes missing, their body is probably in Sector Seventeen. If you lose your wallet, you might be able to buy it back from someone in Sector Seventeen. People with clean clothes have no real reason to ever come here and typically look on it with no small amount of revulsion, but Sector Seventeen doesn’t care – no matter how high you think you are, when your time is up, chances are good that you’re going to end up down here with the rest of the corpses either way.

Standing on the train platform, I’m struck again by how weirdly clean everything always is around here. The buildings are old, the streets are in bad shape, and everything in sight looks like it’s been recycled nine times over, but there isn’t any garbage anywhere. The broken avenues are nigh-on spotless. That seems kind of paradoxical considering half of this sector is literally full of refuse, but it makes sense when you consider who lives here. This is a society that’s treated trash as currency for a few hundred years now. Would you let free credits gather up in the gutters? With the right processing facilities, even slime can be gold. Littering isn’t just a crime here, it’s a literal waste of money.

Alright, let’s see… the Horsebreaker family lives in the shadow of a biotrash rendering plant, not far away. Can you imagine what that must do to someone’s nose after a few years? I wonder if anyone around here even has a sense of smell anymore.

I start off down the street toward the residential areas. Slums made out of reclaimed metal and plastic, held together with wire and optimism, all stacked haphazardly. Rusty gray-orange sheet metal awnings covering junk hawkers, calling out for passersby to examine their refurbished and scavenged wares. You always hear stories about these junktown marketplaces - tall tales of people finding ultra-rare bits of machinery, lost art, and other incredible trinkets. The vendors are incredibly aware of this, and loudly embellish their stock as potentially full of hidden treasures. In these alleys, trash gets compressed by rumor and lie into suspiciously affordable diamonds for those not observant enough to tell the difference. The sellers aren’t as dumb or simple as they’re trying to seem - they’re keeping the actual treasures for themselves, and laughing all the way to the bank.

It speaks to the mentality of the people here. It feels kind of like Thirteen - people that look like they’re on the bottom rung of society’s ladder, but if you ask them, they’re on top of the world. They don’t have anything but scraps, so they’ve learned to get by on resourcefulness and trickery. I can’t help but respect it. I’d do the same thing if I were them, but I’d probably mess it up - I don’t have a single mercantile bone in my body.

Speaking of bones and bodies, it’s kind of refreshing being in a place where clank is a bit more common. I see one lopsided guy with a colossal hydraulic loader for a right arm. That thing could squish a human skull in an instant, but he’s using it to put some apples in a grocery bag. He probably makes a killing in arm-wrestling tournaments. There’s a little old grandma in a pink sundress with a huge electromechanical mess where the right side of her head should be, sunk right in the poofy white nest of her hair, complete with frightening red camera eye. She probably uses its x-ray emitter to cheat her friends in card games.

Most people in Seventeen make their living doing very dirty jobs around heavy machinery, and sometimes safety takes a backseat to productivity. Infections and injuries aren’t uncommon. They get around the cost the way they do everything else - every old cybernetic implant is going to end up in one of these scrapyards eventually. They just clean them up and sell them at a discount. This hilariously oversized hydraulic arm and decades-outdated ocular implant might not be cutting-edge, but they’re better than living half-blind with a clipped wing. It’s a longstanding rumor that you can make a pretty killer living here doing back-alley biomech surgeries if you fail out of medical school.

After a bit of walking and resisting the shouted advertisements of the junk dealers, I find a quieter, more shadowy side street near a towering facility with huffing smokestacks. The workers don’t exactly live a high life, and their jobs literally stink out loud, but trash processing companies in Wellspring City have some of the most secure profit margins in the world, so they’re able to afford their drones some pretty decent benefits. Mostly so they don’t quit in droves. These hab blocks are pretty humdrum and cheap, but it’s definitely better than living in a sheet metal shack or a gutter. I find the one I’m looking for - Unit 105, on the ground floor of one of the anonymously-numbered apartment complexes. And thank goodness - after this afternoon I don’t know if I can handle any more stairs.

I knock on the flimsy-looking door, and hope they’re home. It’s after shift time, so chances are good, but you never know. Hopefully they want to talk. I would have called ahead of time, but Horsebreaker didn’t have a registered phone number. Guess they don’t come standard around here.

A plain, tired-looking woman with graying hair opens the door. Mrs. Horsebreaker, I presume. She does the same thing most people do when I come knocking - looking where human faces usually are, then having to rise up to where mine actually is. Her eyes go wide when they meet mine, and I’m afraid she’s going to panic, so I raise my hands in surrender.

“Easy there, ma’am. I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m Baulric Featherlight. I know you weren’t expecting anyone, but I’m here to talk about your son, if I haven’t come at a bad time.”

Mr. Horsebreaker, a balding, tanned old fellow with a very dad-style mustache, appears next to his wife while I’m speaking. He looks like he’s ready to grab a weapon, but doesn’t move.

Ma doesn’t seem any more relaxed at my words. “What do you know about our Aklei? Has something happened to him? Father Below, do you know where he is?”

I shake my head regretfully. “No ma’am, I don’t, but I’m working with the Watch to try and find him. So I’m here to see if I can gain any insight, from the people that know him best. If you’ve got the time.”

Pa narrows his eyes at me. “How on earth do you even know who he is?”

I reach into my wallet and hold up my ID card. “I’m a mage too. We talk to one another. I don’t know your son, but word gets around. I get not wanting to talk to the Watch, believe me, but they got your son’s name anyway. He’s involved with… another case. A case that I’ve been brought in on.”

Mrs. Horsebreaker looks like she’s going to explode with confusion and built-up fear. “What case?”

I sigh. “A murder, ma’am.”

She looks like she’s going to burst into tears. Pa’s face goes white. I take a little time explaining the whole situation so they don’t fly apart. I leave out the more secretive bits, but assure them that I’m not completely convinced of their son’s guilt (partially true, anyway) and to think of me as a free private investigator. It takes a bit of talking, but they come around to believing that I am who I say I am and look ready to cooperate.

Pa holds the door open and steps aside, saying wearily, “You’d better come in, then.”

I squeeze inside. Their home is like every other company apartment in existence - all concrete and drywall, with some decorations to soften it and make it seem like a home rather than a temporary holding cell between shifts at the plant. There’s nowhere for me to sit, so I just stay standing while they take the threadbare couch.

We talk for a while. Mrs. Horsebreaker spends the conversation on the verge of tears. The man of the house is made of stone - gridlocked between worry and cold rage at his own impotence. They tell me about their son. Like I expected from his writeup, he’s a quiet boy, doesn’t get into trouble, and as his dad puts it, “not exactly the brightest lamp on the street”. They’ve only seen him use his magic a couple times since he was twelve - he doesn’t appear to have a lot of natural power or any particular inclination to use what he has. Doesn’t have a ton of friends, spends a lot of time alone listening to music, which is one of the only things the kid’s ever shown active interest in, apparently. Ma says he’s getting pretty good on the guitar. Dad sarcastically says it’s about time he showed a bit of enthusiasm for anything at all. They love their son, even though he’s slow, hard to relate to, and a little dimwitted.

This is all very interesting, but it doesn’t get me anywhere - until I ask if he’s shown any unusual behavior within the past few weeks.

After blowing her nose, Ma says with a motherly razor in her eye, “Nothing really. Well, except him hanging around that Littlerock person.”

My oculars instinctively narrow. This is the cyborg equivalent of perked ears. “Littlerock?”

Pa’s brow furrows. “Monnert Littlerock. Some Lowlife drifter that’s taken to skulking around. I’ve met him. He’s a mage too. And a scoundrel, and a thief. Not good for anything ‘cept compost. I haven’t the faintest clue why Aklei started mixing with folk like him, but we were both against it. And I bet you my last credit that damn crook has something to do with this. I’ve tried looking for him, but no luck. Probably back underground doing who knows what.”

Cha-ching.

I fold my arms contemplatively. “Littlerock is one of the other missing mages. The other pyromancer. I don’t think you’re wrong, Mr. Horsebreaker. There’s no way it’s a coincidence.”

He looks surprised. “Littlerock is missing too? Just like that?”

I nod. “I didn’t know he had any connection to your son. But the fact that they knew one another is very interesting. Your instincts weren’t off - the man has a record. As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough to make Littlerock a suspect. Do you know anything about him at all, or what exactly his relationship with your son is?”

Mrs. Horsebreaker replies, “Aklei would sometimes go drinking with his friends after work. I think he said he met Littlerock there, at the bar. Some of Aklei’s friends already knew him.”

“Hm. Anything else?”

Pa grunts, “Not really, other than reputation. We didn’t like them associating, but… hell, Aklei wasn’t ever any good at making friends. We don’t like pressing on his privacy. He’s a grown man, he can pal around with whoever he wants. And dammit we shoulda pressed on this one. I knew I didn’t like that smarmy son of a bitch. He buzzes around like a fly, always trying to sell drugs to the plant workers. My crew knows better than to give him the time of day, but… Aklei isn’t on my crew. I shoulda been firmer. God dammit.”

This feels like one of those times where I should try and reassure someone. I’m not used to speaking to the loved ones of missing people - most of my quarry is unliked, unloved, and unfettered by many meaningful personal relationships. I don’t have to show any concern. There’s just the chase, and I win, and then it’s over. This is different. These people’s son is missing. They love him, and want him back, and they’re finding ways to blame themselves for something completely out of their control.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I take a deep breath and say, “We shouldn’t speculate, Mr. Horsebreaker. Not yet. We don’t have all the facts and we can’t form a complete picture. Let’s focus on the now and later rather than the earlier, and find Aklei. Alright?”

He seems to be looking in himself, and so is she. He nods to me, but doesn’t meet my eyes. There’s a little bit of self-consciousness there. A bit of shame for showing regret or doubt to me, and for what he thinks he’s done.

After a bit more talking, the Horsebreakers manage to put their heads together and give me the location of a spot where Littlerock was known to have done his deals - a bar a few blocks over, where the plant crews go after their shift.

I thank them, and even though they really have no idea who I am, they want to hear me say that I’m optimistic, that there’s no need for them to worry, that I’m doing everything short of digging for God to bring their son back to them. It doesn’t really cost me anything to say those words, so I do. The computer part of me really hates saying things that I know the facts don’t represent. Thankfully for everyone that has to interact with me, I don’t let that part behind the steering wheel very often.

Stepping out of their house and down the street, I take out a lollipop. I’m feeling strangely blue about all this and in need of guidance. And sugar. Give me a sign, candy oracle.

Hm. Strawberry. Basically the opposite of blue. I always associated the tangy flavor and color of strawberry with blood, for some reason. The taste always struck me as somehow… arterial. Suddenly I’m not so sure about my chances, if I ever was. Still tastes nice, at least.

The sun’s going down and the streets are starting to settle. It’s a normal night. Shift just ended, people are either going to their post-work places or to work itself. It’s not what I’d call quiet, but there’s that kind of early evening shimmer to everything. There are people talking, lights coming on, things being moved, but it seems quiet, even though it’s not. I always loved this time of day. It always feels like reality is being run through a filter and held up in a bottle for inspection. Hanging and clear.

Time to think. It’s gonna take me a bit to find this place, and I need to soak in the data and come up with an approach vector.

From the top, I guess there’s the most important question: Who the fuck is killing these people?

I think this is one that bears repeating. Yes, after factoring in the evidence that my own eyes have supplied me, the list isn’t actually that long. But it doesn’t really add up. It’s possible that it doesn’t have to add up at all - if the perps are crazy enough to murder the son of a Sector Lord with magefire, then they probably stopped listening to logic a while ago. But something Deepwell said to me a few years ago comes to mind: “There’s no such thing as no reason.” Writing off a perp’s motivations as the random thermal motions of a mind bubbling with insanity is easy, sure. It’s also really reductive, and does nothing to progress an investigation. There’s always a reason why people do things, even if those reasons are completely unreasonable.

Assuming these maniacs aren’t maniacs, then… what’s gained from these deaths? I can’t see a mage of any stripe getting anything at all out of Sidri Rediron’s charred skeleton.

Hmm… it’s true that the foundries employ a lot of pyromancers. Being around molten metal all day doesn’t bother them. If Rediron Jr. was starting to make the foundry bigwigs sweat… it could be that they started leaning on the employees about it. Reprisals for anyone that showed support for Rediron and his campaign for benefits. The mages would be especially vulnerable to this - getting hired anywhere else might take months, if anyone would take them at all. Could they have used their connections to somehow collectively coerce Littlerock into taking the job for them as a fall guy? He seems pretty expendable. If the foundry mages pooled their savings and made a pile big enough for Littlerock to switch from drug peddling to assassination… and Littlerock brought a patsy of his own along for the ride… maybe. I don’t know. Still seems like a stretch - too many links in that chain for me to have much faith in it.

And this is leaving out the other corpse. It’s possible that this Stonecutter woman has nothing at all to do with our firebugs. I don’t really know a damn thing about her yet. Possible isn’t the same thing as probable, though. Once I’m done here, I need to figure out a way to dig up anything I can on her. I’m not content with allowing any cog in this machine to remain unlabeled.

I need more information. Hopefully this is where I’ll get some.

Outside of this joint looking at it, you’d probably think it wasn’t much of an establishment. I’m looking at it right now, and I absolutely agree with you. What a dump. And this is an entire district of dumps, so they must’ve really gone the extra mile to make it stand out. The door’s being held on by two wires, for god’s sake. I take a deep breath and walk inside, out of the cooling alley and into what you could probably mistake for a pub if you were extremely nearsighted and already extremely drunk.

This place is about as sheet metal as it gets, and I mean that literally. I’m not even sure this actually is a building - the walls are so thin that I’m pretty sure this ‘bar’ was hung up as an illegal addition to the larger hab block it’s stuck to. Imagine an old tin of sardines that’s been left in a gutter for a few months. That’s what it looks like in here, but big enough to fit forty or so people in it. Kind of a shame that there are about sixty of them, then. Almost entirely men, slabs and skinnies, drinking, playing pool, throwing darts, and being extremely smelly from a long day at the trash plant.

Thankfully, no one pays me much mind. Some clanker slab in a dirty canvas coat doesn’t mean much in Seventeen, even if he’s not from around here. I pick one of the less-corroded reinforced stools at the bar and sit.

The bartender is a greasy-looking guy with a wide mouth, fat neck, and long, hairy arms. Kind of like if you crossed a frog with an orangutan and then hit the resulting abomination on the top of the head really hard with a mallet. He lopes over to me like a buttered wolf.

“Drink, stranger?”

“Beer.”

“Good or bad?”

“Bad.”

“How much?”

“Enough that it starts to taste like the good by the time I get to the bottom of it.”

This gets a smile out of him. I wish it didn’t. His teeth look like an industrial accident. He grabs a slab-sized glass stein and fills it from a tap. It’s yellow, it’s foamy, it smells like metal and tastes like very sad metal - that’s right folks, a warm, sudsy round of applause for vatbeer. Just strong enough to make you aware of everything that led you to this point in life, and cheap enough to trick you into thinking that it might’ve actually been worth it.

The bartender shimmies the full stein onto the bartop with both hands, then brings a money box up from below the counter. I pull my (only) credit chip from my wallet, scan it, and watch the little red number inch that much closer to zero. Apparently satisfied, Beerslinger the Hygienic goes off to slop another hog.

Vatbeer is terrible, but it does have the upside of making everyone who drinks it into an absolute master of their own mind. If you don’t have the mental discipline to force your tongue to completely ignore the chemical effluent you’re polluting it with, you’re not ready for vatbeer. I take a sip, taste nothing like the cerebral juggernaut I am, and start scanning my surroundings.

I’m looking for anyone that might have made a habit of buying from Littlerock. So, I’m looking for symptoms. If Littlerock’s the kind of cheapo I think he is, he’s probably not selling what I’d call luxury products. Scrub, dirty thermogenic uppers like thump and crackle, maybe some blackout if he’s in touch with a reliable supplier. Bad skin, too much sweat, eyes that won’t stay still, blackened teeth, jaundice from the liver shredding any combination of these will inevitably give you.

Shit. I’m in a low-income district of Sector fucking Seventeen. Everyone here looks like they’ve been run through a high-pressure acid filter then dunked in a vat of rendered corpse fat. I wish I had the money for a spectrosniffer like the one Ten bolted onto Featherlight 2.0. But I’m not a hotshot professional automech fighter. I’m an oversized imbecile with the paycheck of a uni-breasted prostitute with political opinions.

But wait. Something occurs to me. If drug deals are commonly made in this establishment, then the person running the joint has to know about it. Or he does if he’s got more awareness than a heavily concussed tortoise. And if he’s ambitious, he’ll be charging the dealer a fee for letting him do business under his roof without calling the Watch. Thank you, avarice, for throwing me a thread to tug on.

I flag him down and he flops his way over.

“Need another, champ?”

He’s polishing a stein with a rag that looks like it’s a few microbes away from starting an armed insurrection in the name of germ’s rights. Thank every god I’ve got a killer immune system, otherwise I’d probably be the first casualty of the uprising.

“Not quite yet. I like taking the time to savor. I am wondering if you know a guy named Littlerock.”

The drinks peddler narrows his puffy, froggish eyes at me. “Who’s asking?”

“A buyer that would prefer to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons.”

He scans me for a minute. Probably reasoning to himself (astutely) that there’s no way I could be an undercover Watchman. Still suspicious, though. I’m a suspicious-looking guy no matter what angle you look at me from. But his urge to skim a little more off the top kicks back in, and he relents.

“Yeah, I know him. He ain’t been through here for a few days, though.”

“I heard he stops here pretty regularly.”

“Yeah. But he hasn’t been. Haven’t seen him since last week.”

“Know where he is?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Plenty of dealers in this city, pal. Why you need Littlerock specifically? Got a crush on him?”

I shake my head. “Nah, I like my men a little cleaner. Too many scars.” I wrinkle my nose. “I’m poor as fuck and his shit’s cheap, is all. You don’t know the next stop in his rotation?”

“Nope. Not smart to give out that kind of information in his line of work, you know. But Littlerock is kind of a dumb fuck, so I know where he hangs out when he’s not working. I been thinking about paying him a visit. He owes.”

I nod understandingly. “Want to share that knowledge with me?”

He scoffs. “No. I’ll sell it to you, though.”

People just don’t know the meaning of the word ‘charity’ these days.

“If I’m poor enough to have to dig Littlerock up from his hidey hole, do you think I can afford to buy his location from you? Help a guy out, here.”

“No dice, pal. Sludge and lint.”

A Sector Seventeen phrase. Sludge and lint make a mint, meaning “grab every single iota of worth you can squeeze out of a situation, no matter how minor”. Used to illustrate the value of shrewdness and frugality. And extortion.

I sigh. “Okay. Tell you what. We’ll trade. You tell me where he is and how much he owes you, and if I find him, I’ll shake it out of him for you.”

The greasy tapper frowns and puts a hand where most humans have a chin. “Hm. You’d do that?”

“Sure. Look at me. I’m pretty good at making things shake. Sometimes I don’t even have to touch them. I go scare him for you, and come back with his debt. I get drugs, you get money. Win win.”

He mulls this over for a moment. “Hmmmm. Ordinarily I’d say no, but frankly, Littlerock’s been a bit of a mooch. Never liked the guy much. Plays fast and loose, not dependable, keeps breaking my damn glasses. I don’t think I require his patronage anymore. I’m tempted. How do I know you’ll come back?”

I take my ID out of my wallet and show it to him. Names have power in situations like this. He’ll know mine and I won’t know his, which will give him an inherent advantage over me if I welsh.

Both his eyebrows go up when he sees the purple plastic. It means that he doesn’t just know my name - he also knows he can look up my address in the Registry. So can the rest of the damn city. I’m not really concerned. Another drop in the bucket.

I pocket it again. “Now you know where to find me. We got a deal?”

“It’s a deal, Mr. Featherlight.”

We shake on it, and he tells me what he’s heard from eavesdropping on Littlerock’s drunken conversations in the bar. Apparently the pyromancer makes his home in a sunken bank vault under the border between sectors Eight and Thirteen. A lucky find for a Lowlife that can defend it, which Littlerock is prone to bragging about. If he’s lucky, his boasting might just save his life. And uh, put him in prison for murder. Maybe. Still working out all the details there.

For the record, I have no intention whatsoever of recovering the bartender’s money. I’m not a thug. Well - okay, I am a thug, but I’m not that kind of thug. He really should have known better than to take my word for it. He can bring as many friends to my front door as he wants. It’ll take quite a merry few to make me regret my deception.

I leave the bar and start my way home. Littlerock’s bunker isn’t terribly far from here, but it’s not going anywhere. Sun’s down. I can afford to get some rest and come back early in the morning when the Lowlifes are sleeping and less likely to spot me.

As I cross my way back over the yawning, empty backlot behind the processing plant, a voice calls out behind me.

“Featherlight!”

Oh. That was fast. I haven’t even swindled the guy yet.

I stop, and turn around.