Lord Rediron buries the blackened pile of briquets that used to be his son. He has been given an explanation, but he hates it almost more than the absence, because now there’s less call to be furious in front of the cameras. He still is, though. Just not publicly. And in Rediron Hall the Brotherhood may have found a powerful new enemy.
Across the city, people put down their pitchforks with pouty lips and crossed arms. A few little voices cry conspiracy, like they always do, but there wasn’t enough information to form a decent theory in the first place. Janny Everyday just shrugs, puts his pitchfork back in his closet, and goes back to work. There’ll be another one. A coworker comes by his station and says, Kind of an anticlimax, wasn’t it? And Janny shrugs again. Sort of. But whatever, these documents aren’t gonna document themselves. Modern life marches on. Hell, I got this cool sword and I didn’t even get to use it on anyone. How do you think I feel?
Sometimes shit doesn’t shake out the way it does in the movies. Sometimes there is no grand showdown or duel to decide the fate of the world. Sometimes it’s just some people talking in a room and then it’s over. But only sort of over, maybe three quarters of the way over. Messy, with not that much closure, and things left loose and confusing. A smelly pile of unanswered questions that no one knows what to do with. We live in a confusing fucking world.
On my birthday, it rains.
The water finally comes down and douses the last of the fires of old hatred before they get the chance to spread far. Across the city, people holler and cheer. Businesses close. People dance in the streets. They forget all about the news and the violence and the chaos that’s been boiling beneath the pavement for the last six hundred years. No one knows when First Rain is going to happen, but when it does, people don’t let it past them. And boy does it come down, in beautiful raking sheets. It washes away people’s worries, people’s discontentments, their angers and fears. There’s just relief, reflected in the shimmering streetlights and the rivulets running down sheet metal shacks.
Another one of my plans comes together today. I’ve been doing an awful lot of planning lately for a guy who doesn’t like doing it very much. This one turns out to be a success, which is a pleasant surprise.
I am having a birthday party.
Part of me feels dumb for even trying this. And there’s always that childish fear that no one’s going to respond to your invitations. I’ve never thrown a party for myself before and I don’t really expect anyone to come down to my sewer and indulge my newfound grasping sense of social responsibility. I dunno. There’s no manual for this shit. Sometimes you have to do stuff there isn’t a manual for, or so I’m learning.
To my surprise, Deepwell shows up first. He didn’t reply to the message I sent, so I didn’t think he was going to show. I can feel his vitae through the door before he even knocks. I pull the door aside and there he is, wearing civilian clothes. I didn’t think he even had any. And he came formal, which is making me lose my entire fucking mind. It’s a wastewater cistern and he’s standing there in a pressed white shirt, tie, and gray vest, slacks and shiny shoes. Hair tied back, beard all combed. He also has an entire keg of beer up on his shoulder, which for a skinny of any size is a pretty impressive display of strength.
He gives me an unsmiling upward nod. “Featherlight. Uh. Baulric. Whatever.” He pats the keg with his free hand. “Won’t stay cold forever and I’m guessing you don’t have a cooler, so we better get busy, yeah?”
I smile and take the keg off him. “Come on in, lieutenant.”
Behind me, he says, “Someone gave you a… statue? For your birthday?”
I have to stop myself from snorting. “Uh, yeah. Friend of a friend kind of thing.”
“Seems a little… grim? Or… I dunno, insulting? Of all the things to give an arcanist a statue of, a Wellwarden seems like one of the worst possible options.”
“Yeah, I didn’t quite know what to make of it either, but if it ends up weirding me out too much I can probably get a few creds for it. You have to at least admire the craftsmanship of the thing. I think the barnacles and whatnot are supposed to be… symbolic, or something.”
I turn around with two glasses of beer, one me-sized and one him-sized. He takes it and then holds it out to me. “Happy birthday.”
We touch glasses. “Thanks, Deepwell.”
After drinking, he kneels and picks up a case that I didn’t notice him walk in with, and holds it up to me. “Here.”
I take it from him. It’s pretty heavy. Has to weigh at least twenty pounds. “Aw, c’mon. You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“Yeah, but I did anyway. I didn’t wrap it. Because I didn’t feel like it. Take a look.”
I set it on the counter and undo the clasps with two blessedly crisp little snaps.
Inside the carbonate case, resting on a bed of foam like a sleeping dragon, is what I can only describe as a leviathan handgun. It’s matte black with a subtle green and gold pattern engraved on the slide and grip, and approximately the size of a building. This is a nearly cartoonishly gigantic weapon for me. For a normal person this would be outright impossible to wield, you’d never be able to aim it with your arms fully outstretched. It’s like an ingot with a trigger. This is barely a weapon - it’s a declaration of war upon the very foundations of restraint itself. The severed middle finger of some forgotten god of metal and spite. Next to it in the case are two dark magazines with similar colored patterns engraved on them, both loaded with bullets so enormous that I could probably kill someone just by throwing them.
I take my lenses off the beautiful monster and look at him. “Buddy. This is too much.”
“What, too big?”
“Almost! But no, this is too generous.”
“Nah. You need hardware, Featherlight. I see you going around bare-fisted all the time going on jobs and it gives me hives. You need to be able to defend yourself properly.”
“From what, aircraft?”
“Sure, if it comes to that.”
“What’s this thing chambered in?”
“Marrowpeaks.”
“... Deepwell, those are shells designed for mounted machine guns. For use against vehicles.”
“Yes.” I’ve never seen him this happy. There’s a glitter in his eyes and he’s looking at the gun like it’s a newborn baby. “You’re lucky I had to have it made for someone your size, otherwise I probably would have kept it. It’s compatible with scattershot, slugs, digpops, phosphorus, pretty much anything that’ll fit in there. The magazine with the blue-tips are digpops, the gray ones are high-pen hardhead slugs. I didn’t get you a cleaning kit, but… I dunno. Afford one. Because if I find out you’re not taking care of it I’ll come down here and confiscate it. And mount it over my fireplace.”
I shake my head and close the case, putting the dragon back to bed, then shake his hand earnestly.
“Thank you, Deepwell. This is a beautiful gift. I’ll try to be worthy of it.”
He laughs. “Don’t mention it. Literally. Do not mention who you got this from or I’ll be eating noodles out of a dumpster this time next week.”
I put the gun under my bed and we drink for a while until the other guests show up.
Emaphra arrives second, right on time instead of early. She brought two bottles of wine. I introduce the two of them. Instead of wearing anything special she just has on the jacket and boots she always wears. Em’s one of those “one outfit” people. She seems tacitly surprised that I’m stupid enough to invite my cop subcontractor to my birthday party, but to her credit it is absolutely not the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in front of her. She comes in and crooks her finger at me like she used to. I bend down so she can kiss me on the cheek. I open her wine and the two of us get to regale Deepwell with the story about how one of my nipples got torn off. Not being raised in Sector Nineteen like we were, he is suitably horrified, and we laugh.
Delpo shows up next, which is surprising. I have his pool address but I frankly didn’t think he was the kind of guy to check his messages. He’s fastened a perfectly clean dotted bowtie to the pressure ring at the base of his helmet with what I think is hot glue, but otherwise he looks the same as he always does. His offering is twofold. He unloads a foam heater pack of crunchy fried fish snacks, which he says he cooked himself and are “nutritious on a spiritual level”. With it is a large dusty bottle with no label. Delpo says this is “sailor’s milk”, again homemade, and described as a “tincture most considerable, for fortifying the hearts of the imperiled and valorous”.
Being who this is, these are extremely suspicious, but I leverage my unpoisonable body and taste-test them first. The fish crunchies are sublime. No notes, they’re instant perfection. Salty, spicy, and satisfying. The fish isn’t vat-farmed - it has the firmness and flavor of fresh caught, something I’ve only been lucky enough to taste a few times in my life. He could, and should, start a business.
The “sailor’s milk”, on the other hand, takes an evil cloudy bronze color in a glass, and tastes like industrial scouring powder mixed into walrus ejaculate. Not harmful, but disgusting, and judging by how much of a wallop it packs, the first fluid to somehow contain 104 percent alcohol by volume. I don’t know whether to call an ambulance or a physicist. We all kindly skirt around the bottle for the rest of the evening like it’s an undetonated naval mine.
Voldzet makes an appearance. His message said not to count on him because of some recent flare-ups at work, but it looks like he shook them. Voldzet isn’t the kind of guy who would leave someone needing medical attention to go to a get-together. It’s why he sees the sun less than once a week. He looks happy to be here, but tired, even with a brainwasher and the vitalizer plexus wreathed across his spine and entire endocrine system. You have to swamp a guy with nine guys’ worth of work in order to exhaust someone with those subsystems. He brought a bottle of Tarshire Earthblood, presumably stolen from some pharmaceutical executive’s private reserve. That bottle is worth more than everything else in this room, including the people. Its crystal brown contents catch the light from my fixtures and scatter it, disgusted to be made to refract photons as poor and low as these. I will revenge myself on its classist attitude by turning it into pee.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
On introducing Deepwell and Voldzet, there is immediate tension. I saw this coming, and I’m ready to intervene if the two of them are less gentlemanly than I thought they were. They shake hands.
Deepwell’s gaze is like an iron bar. It’s not quite a glare, but it’s unrelenting. “Dr. Summerstone.”
Voldzet smiles like a wolf smiles at a dead deer. “Lieutenant Deepwell.”
Both their auras flare to the point that I have to close my inner eyes to be able to see anything in the room.
“Oh! You two uh. Already know each other.”
They both say “By reputation.” at the exact same time, without looking away from one another or letting their hands go.
I step forward and take both their wrists between my thumbs and forefingers, and separate them gently, like unplugging an extension cord, then go to one knee so my head is closer to theirs. A heavy hand on both of their backs.
“Now now, gentlemen. I understand the philosophical and sociopolitical discrepancies at play here. But I consider the both of you friends, otherwise I wouldn’t have invited you. You’re a mancatcher, you’re a thief, I respect that. I’m both of those things, depending on how heavy my wallet is at the time, so why not use me as an ideological bridge and meet in the middle. Hm? Just for tonight. If not for society, do it for me. Don’t wreck up my party, now. It’d make me sad!” I make a very sad face to illustrate to them how sad it would make me.
They both nod, still looking directly at one another. If I put a hand between their eyes it’d probably get lasered off.
Deepwell says, “Get you a beer, doctor?”
Voldzet replies evenly, “Okay, Lieutenant. Care for a spill of this very exquisite contraband?”
“I’d drink Earthblood if you fished it out of a charnel vat. You’re on.”
And they go off to see eye-to-eye some more, hopefully. I stand up, and through the cloud of music coming through my terrible stolen speakers, I can see Em smiling at me, burning cool as ever.
Tennima’s the last to arrive. She says she wasn’t able to get out of her apartment in time and traffic is basically an obstacle course right now, with everyone stopped for the rain. She’s wearing a tasteful charcoal and slate gray suit that’s almost as smart as she is. I’ve never seen her dressed up so much, but I guess she’s sponsored now and has to look the part sometimes. It’s so adult my brain has to recalibrate for a second when I open the door. This isn’t the kid that used to ride on my shoulder all those years ago, and I have to swim up out of the past.
I hand her a can of juice, and she lights a cigarette and says hi to everyone. I can see her vitae gears stop and grind for a second when introduced to Deepwell, but they start running again once she realizes that I wouldn’t have invited him here for no reason.
Deepwell starts acting like a schoolgirl. He’s actually red in the face and smiling and really excited, and I’m about to give him a percussive recalibration to the head before I realize - he’s a fan. I keep forgetting that Ten is kind of a celebrity now, and I’m learning that Deepwell is a huge nerd. He can barely contain himself, he’s gushing like a split pipe about how awesome Mr. Crunch is and how much he appreciates her brutal-yet-elegant combat programming. After a few minutes of uncontrollable dorkitude he sort of resolidifies and begs pardon for his enthusiasm. Ten’s a good sport about it and signs an autograph for him, which for all I know he’ll frame over his headboard later.
She pulls herself away from him and comes over to me while I’m getting a new beer.
“Your cop friend is very… enthusiastic. I’ve met fans before but I’ve never met one who could quote my mech’s own torque metrics to my face.”
I snort. “You’re not gonna believe this, but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen his teeth. He’s really not usually like that, I had no idea he was such a lugnut.”
“Shame he’s a cop. I might’ve liked him.”
“He’s a good guy. Just, y’know. Misguided. Genuinely thinks he can knock over the institution from the inside.”
“While his friends knock over peoples’ front doors for having the wrong amount of money. Or being the wrong kind of alive.”
I take a knee while pouring to more correctly meet her eye level. “Look. I probably wouldn’t have been able to find the thing a few days ago if he hadn’t been willing to risk his career and leak to me. I don’t sit down to a hearty meal of fresh boot at breakfast and the only thing I take from cops is their dignity. Yeah, he’s playing for the wrong team, and if he were smarter he’d quit. But he runs interference for me all the time, and if he thinks he can make it being the only non-gangster cop in the city then as far as I’m concerned he can go ahead and try. I respect him too much to be his mommy. The guy bought me a fantastically illegal custom handgun for my birthday, Ten. He gave me scramblers so the Brotherhood couldn’t tap me. He smuggled me a police-issue splat gun when I needed one. He’s the guy who shot Jith Landup and he still has nightmares about it.”
That raises one of her eyebrows.
“I know you, you’re probably thinking he’s just trying to have me set up. Though for what I can’t imagine. I’m not a member of the Consortium and in terms of crime I’m so small-time that that gun he bought me probably equals all my illicit earnings from the last five years. At this point this undercover op is so pointless and expensive that if he is undercover we should probably look at it as a public service. Besides, if he tries anything Voldzet will just kill him, and I’m pretty sure he knows it.”
She’s looking at him talk to Delpo from across the party. “Mhm.”
I stand. “I vouch for him. I don’t need you to trust him or even like him, but I’m asking you to just… give him a shot. Alright?”
She sighs. “Alright. But if does pull something, Voldzet is going to have to beat Crunch to the punch. He’d be very upset to hear about you getting hurt.”
“Don’t put your career on the line. At least use that fight money and pay to have him assassinated like a normal rich person.”
She makes a face at me. I make a way, way sillier face back. She can’t help but laugh. My face is known the city over for its silliness.
Ten reaches into her bag and pulls out an unmarked plastic box, about the size of a sandwich. “Here.”
I open it. Inside is a rectangular box-shaped thing made out of what looks like duraplastic. It weighs almost nothing. I take it out and inspect it - there’s definitely camera lenses on it and probably some other electronic components inside.
“Nice. I always wanted an automatic rectangle.”
She rolls her eyes and takes it from me, then does some stuff to it. With a little click square-shaped frames unfold from its sides, revealing tiny fans. They start up and she lets go of it. The thing hovers in the air, perfectly motionless and silent under the noise of the party.
“Hoverbug. Vigilant Systems’ latest model. Customized by yours truly, obviously, I would never let you use the retail shit off the shelf. Entirely unkeyed and jailbroken. The ICE is all mine, handwritten, self-updating environmentally-derived encryption. Infrared, UV, spectrochemical, omnirecorder. Shell’s pulse-shielded and you’d need a hydraulic press or a big gun to get it open without the access code. Control’s neurolink compatible. You’ll get motion sick the first couple times, but you’ll get used to it.”
I admire the little robot while it hovers. “Woah… I could watch movies for free with this.”
She rolls her eyes even harder, turns it off, and hands it to me. “Yeah. And basically anything else that isn’t behind an airlock. Microbattery’s good for about 24 hours and it charges off your footsteps, light, a wall plugin, or air currents, so you’ll probably die before it does. Range is about a mile. You can technically go further if you pilot it through a proxy pylon, but I probably wouldn’t unless you have to. The ICE is good but it’s not gonna last long under a drill, so keep it on your own loop. Don’t lose it or I’ll kill you. Happy birthday.”
“Wow. Thanks Ten. Man, a sword, a gun, and a cool drone? All in about a week? I should consider mercenary work or something.”
“Yeah. With all this stuff you might not even get killed.”
We hug, and then get back to work. There’s a lot of mingling to be done.
After everyone gets settled in I pick up the keg and lead everyone outside, then up the access ladder to the roof. I’ve put up an old tarp for a tent and some cheap folding chairs.
After screwing on a flask of his sailor’s milk, Delpo entertains us by performing a kind of shadowplay show with his powers in the rain, making fish and flowers and birds and cats chasing butterflies, all out of nothing but moving water. After he’s done he says he’s never done that before. He’d read in a black book about how the swamp shamans in the Thousandmire used to bend the rain to tell stories, and how he always wanted to try it, but this is actually the only time he’s been aboveground and around other people during First Rain. He thanks us for indulging him, and we realize we just saw something very personal. So we thank him for being who he is.
The sun goes down and after some deliberation Deepwell drives to get some flatbreads for dinner. Nothing else is open right now, but they’re hot and good anyway.
We sit out and enjoy the rain with all five senses, drinking and talking. We admire the way the orange street lamps make cones of wet fire in the downpour, and listen to everyone else in the city enjoy the weather with us.
Once it gets late and everyone’s had as much as they want, the rain softens. It doesn’t stop, but it’s light, giving the night room to breathe. People start saying their goodbyes, wishing me a happy birthday and thanking me for a good time. They don’t know that I haven’t had anyone over like this in… ever, and I don’t know how to express the real depth of my appreciation without making it weird, so I keep it casual. Gotta stay professional. I guess there are times when a cybernetically-induced inability to cry has its advantages.
Emaphra doesn’t leave. She’s standing over by the concrete safety barrier with her back to me, looking out. She’s surrounded by a cloak of warm steam, framed against the distant street lights. The rain can’t hold her. Neither can I.
In an act of infinite mercy, she turns around before I can say anything, and comes over, back under the tarp. She looks up at me with an expression that I’ve been trying to read for twenty-five years.
“You’ve been in a lot of shit these last few days.”
“Yeah, well. You know me. Shit magnet number one over here.”
“You know I don’t blame you.”
She could be talking about anything. Or everything.
“I know.”
“For any of it, Baulric. Not the last week, or the last decade and a half.”
I have to look down, away from her. “Yeah.”
She sighs.
“But you treat me like I do. I don’t really know why. And I can’t make you stop, but I can tell you with every ounce of love in my heart that you can’t be blamed for any of it. Your mom didn’t blame you. Your dad didn’t blame you. My dad doesn’t blame you, and I don’t blame you.”
“No. I know, Em. They said so. And you’ve said so.”
“But here we are. Me across from you. You don’t call me, but you’ll ask for my help with a case. You don’t visit, but you’ll walk right into the Brotherhood’s living room and shit on their rug in order to get me away from them.” She shakes her head. “Why?”
Because I love you.
“Because I blame myself.”
Steam rises from around her eyes, now.
“I know.”
She puts her arms as far around me as they’ll go. She’s the warmest thing in the world. Her voice is muffled in my chest.
“So do I.”
It’s not enough. I can’t move. I’m still frozen.
She comes out and looks up at me again, and I know she understands. She hates it, but she understands.
And she leaves without another word.
Or she tries to. I can’t help myself, I see a dramatic exit and I just have to mess it up.
“Hey.”
She stops right before she can reach the ladder, and turns around.
“Do you wanna go see Ten fight in a couple weeks? I get tickets for free, you know. I’m a big guy with big connections.”
For a moment, her face doesn’t change. She still looks sad. But for just a piece of a second, flames flash in the rain around her shoulders and leave clouds around her head.
She smiles. One drop of water falls from my heart.
“Alright, big guy.”
Exactly what she said all those years ago, when I asked her if she felt like marrying me.
And she’s gone. For real this time, she’s got work in the morning.
But I’m still here. Somehow. Whether Beast or better.
I come out and look out over the big stupid fantastic city and let the rain weigh on me. It feels like the way things are supposed to be. Full of light and motion, and flowing to anywhere. Where the laughing shadows play. I used to be one of them, out there and flickering and feeling it all.
Time for me to get back to work, too.
THE END