The flight was uneventful. No messages from Jaquan. Nothing from Kiris. Of course, she knew that he knew how happy she was about all this.
Well, did she want a perfect relationship?
The evening traffic wasn’t as heavy as one might have expected, in comparison to the daytime one. Gaylen supposed everyone who could had gotten home early, and saved any errands for later.
With nothing to do he tightened up the fit of his boots, checked his belt, checked his pockets and accessories, and his combat gloves. Lots of little things could trip a person up, in those moments when little things could decide between life and death. And he had always been determined not to die to a little thing.
The aircar hovered into the Bay from an angle Gaylen hadn’t experienced earlier, and it took his brain a few moments to recognise the streets and their orientation. But it did make the connections. He was here.
He had no role even in the landing, a setup he’d never really been comfortable with in these things. He just sat where he was like a piece of luggage, as the computer guided the vehicle into an aircar parking spot.
An automated voice chirped something he didn’t understand, and the door opened. He’d searched for some way to make the thing wait for him to return, but not found one. These things were in high demand, it seemed, and not even money could make them wait around without a passenger. So he just took the cane and stepped out.
The voice chirped again, the door closed, and the aircar took off again as Gaylen began a jog. He kept it light, enough to warm and limber up without picking up fatigue. The Bay was just about empty of people. All of the businesses that formed the attractive front had closed, probably earlier than usual, and there wasn’t much in the way of street lighting. He thought of the more bitter reality hiding behind the facade. This was the time for the district’s flipside, the dangerous edge, that made people with regular lives hurry home as fast as they could.
He was almost there when even the meagre lighting went out. The change actually stopped him in his tracks for a moment. Gaylen looked around. Almost all of the city lights were out. The patterns and radar-like sense of the environment they’d formed were replaced with blackness.
In the distance a voice let out a long shout.
The Lawless Black had started. And a little ahead of schedule, even.
Gaylen started jogging again. Guill’s gambling hall had a private generator, it seemed. At least enough to keep the most basic of the exterior lights glowing. It was enough to illuminate the red-suited guard, who reacted to the sound of feet by sticking a hand into his jacket before Gaylen stepped into the illumination.
“Hello,” Gaylen told him, and switched to a walk across the final metres. “It’s me again.”
The guard, rather to his credit, didn’t make assumptions, and peered around in case there were others. He even brought out a little pocket light and shone it around into the dark.
“Just me,” Gaylen said. “I need a quick word with your boss. It’s important.”
“The boss doesn’t like you, runner,” the guard replied, as he put the light away. “And I’m getting tired of you myself.”
“I just had a meeting with the big boss,” Gaylen reminded him. “Your little boss will want to hear this straight from me.”
The guard’s look soured further, but he didn’t have an immediate rebuttal. After a few seconds he lifted a finger to point towards the top floor.
“He is in direct contact already. That was the whole point of you coming here.”
“Sixty seconds,” Gaylen said. “That’s all I need. Sixty seconds, that your boss will be very sorry he missed out on. Or have you just not heard how the police are busting places like this?”
Now the guard outright sneered. Gaylen wasn’t sure he really believed all this, but mere doubt was a powerful thing in a life on the wrong side of the law and society in general.
“I’ll mention that you’re here,” the guard said, in a voice that matched his look. “It won’t get you anywhere, but I’ll mention it.”
He opened the door, and put a foot inside. Gaylen swung the cane with both hands and brought the handle down between his shoulder blades. The guard fell to his knees and Gaylen took his hair with one hand and rammed his head into the door frame.
The man collapsed in a heap and Gaylen bolted over him and onto the main floor.
The card game had ended, but the players were still milling around. One sat on a gaming table, while the other was up to something by one of the desks. The man on the table shouted something, and the guard with the pointy beard emerged from behind the third-floor drapes.
Gaylen charged. The player stood up and extended a flick knife, but it dawned on him that Gaylen had a much longer weapon. He started falling back, in the uncertain, half-panicked fashion of people not used to straight-up fights, and Gaylen closed the gap before the man could make any kind of decision.
The guy evaded the first swing, and tried to get in a jab, but the cane came down on his arm and the knife fell from stunned fingers. Gaylen hit him in the head, and down he went. The other player came at a run and made a grab for the cane. Gaylen gave him a broken hand for his troubles, then kicked him in the shin, before a fist blow to the solar plexus that sent him to the floor.
The red-clad guard was coming fast down the stairs, shouting out behind him as he did. Gaylen would have been happy to fight him on even terrain, but he was in a hurry. One never knew what kind of reinforcements a den like this could summon on short notice.
So up he went, and met the guard in the middle of the wide, carpeted stairs to the first landing. He’d pegged the man as a decent fighter, and was proven right when the guy dodged a cane swing, shot a hand out to grab at the weapon, and actually succeeded.
The other hand joined him, and with that they were fighting for the cane. There was no fancy technique for this part: Just a grunting, sneering strain of muscles as they pulled, jerked and pushed. The higher elevation gave the guard an advantage, and after a few seconds of this another red guard came through the third-floor drapes.
Gaylen released the cane at a moment when the man wasn’t expecting it, throwing him off-balance for half a second. He drove a fist into the guard’s left knee, and the gloves lent some extra impact. The left leg buckled, and Gaylen grabbed the right one and gave it a hard pull. The guard fell, and couldn’t make use of the cane before a fist smashed into his jaw.
The third guard was coming, bounding down several steps with each stride, and he had a long baton in one hand. It hummed with electricity, and Gaylen hurried to snatch the cane back. He wasn’t a swordsman, but neither was the guard, and Gaylen managed a parry as the shock baton was thrust at him. The cane wasn’t conductive, and he immediately counterattacked. The guard retreated a couple of steps up, and now swung the baton. It made for an easier parry, especially due to the cane being the longer weapon.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Gaylen pressed the man, swinging at his knees and shin, forcing him up. The guard swung the baton wildly, like he was warding off flies, but just didn’t have the reach needed.
Once up on the landing, the guy turned and ran to one of the gambling tables. Gaylen couldn’t catch up before he took one of the chairs and threw it at him. The chair was heavy; a bit too heavy for easy throwing with a single arm. But it did hit, and bought the man a couple of extra seconds.
He used it to go around the table, put the baton on it, and pick up a chair with both hands. The guy screamed and made it seem like he was about to throw it, but went for a strike instead. It almost hit, too, in the narrow confines of tables and chairs, but it was a clumsy weapon and Gaylen could read combat almost as well as Kiris did emotions.
He dodged, then jabbed the cane handle into the man’s teeth, and it landed with a satisfying bang. The chair dropped to the floor, and the guard staggered back, groping for the shock baton. Gaylen smashed the cane down on his arm, then cracked him on the head.
The guard’s strings were cut, and he fell into a heap. Gaylen dropped the cane; he could recognise a proper knockout when he saw one. He took the man’s wrists, yanked him up, and threw him over one shoulder. Then he took the baton in his free hand, and started up to the top floor.
He didn’t enjoy making use of the exercise equipment on the Addax, but then, he didn’t enjoy ship maintenance, or wearing an armoured vest all the time. Some things just kept one alive, and that was that. So carrying the mumbling, concussed guard up a single flight of stairs wasn’t that much of a strain.
He went through the curtains, and caught movement on his right just in time to turn a little. Yet another guard, one he hadn’t seen before, stabbed downwards with a knife. The blade plunged into his colleague’s asscheek, and the man had just enough consciousness to let out a girlish yelp.
Gaylen jabbed out with the baton, hit the standing man’s midsection, and got a crackle and a scream as a reward. He let the other guard drop to the floor and touched the baton to his opponent’s knife-arm. The weapon fell, and the man sort of did as well. Gaylen banged him on the head with the butt of the baton, then did it again. That made him seem sufficiently woozy, and Gaylen turned him around with a kick. He flicked the electricity off, then hooked the baton around the man’s throat and pulled. He used his other hand to take the man’s dominant arm and wrench around and up his back, near to the breaking point.
“Up, up!” Gaylen demanded, and forced the man to his feet.
He pushed on, not giving the man any time to recover, or think, or find his feet. He just moved him mercilessly towards the office door. Gaylen didn’t like having his back to the two other doors, but quick looks behind him confirmed them to still be closed.
The office door wasn’t locked, and slid open as they came to it. Gaylen kept the push up, and found Guill inside. The man was crouched behind his desk, and that pistol from that one drawer was in his hands, aimed squarely at Gaylen’s human shield.
“Really?!” the man shouted. “The lot of you couldn’t deal with one guy?!”
The guard had nothing to say that wasn’t a choked gurgle.
“Why the hell are you even here, you pest?!” Guill went on. “Did the boss man not give you cookies?! Do you think you can just keep messing with me like this?! Let me tell you, you’re not the first-”
Gaylen activated the electricity again, and threw the baton. It hit Guill on the shoulder, and the man screamed as a shock went through his body. He slid down, and left the pistol behind on the desk.
Gaylen gave the guard a kidney blow, and charged at his boss. But the guard didn’t go entirely down, and had enough strength left to grab at Gaylen’s coat. He got a punch to the nose for his troubles, but in the meantime Guill rose back up to one knee.
The guard fell, but Guill was going for the gun, and there was all that wasted floor space between them. Gaylen ran. Guill touched the gun. Gaylen came to the desk, and Guill raised the weapon.
Gaylen jumped, slid across the polished plastic, and lifted the coat up in front of his face. Guill fired, and the armour weave in the lining held.
Gaylen reached the other side alive, caught Guill’s gun hand and wrenched it back. He drove the heel of his hand up into the man’s jaw, then finished twisting the pistol out of his fingers. Guill attempted a dazed, clumsy blow, but Gaylen stopped it easily and gave him a brutal body shot.
The man crumpled down to an ideal height for bashing his big, weird head into the edge of the desk, so that was exactly what Gaylen did. Then he did it again, and a final time until he was sure the man wouldn’t be pulling anything more. Besides, he was angry. A thin weave might save one from a small plasma bolt, but it still hurt like absolute hell.
He let Guill drop, then snatched that ring off his finger and took the pistol. He didn’t recognise the brand, but the design was basic enough.
Gaylen left the office, leading with the gun and ready to use it. No one else popped out of either of the other doors, and he heard no feet; only the groaning voices of the injured and semi-conscious. Still, he fired a single shot through the drapes, just to give everyone further pause.
He came up to the door opposite the office, took up position next to it, and waved the ring in front. The door opened, and a plasma bolt immediately flew out and into the office. Gaylen stuck the pistol around the door frame and blind-fired three shots. Then he actually looked, and saw the guard from earlier, bent over and panicked at being fired upon.
Gaylen shot him in the head, then strode in. The ring opened that robust door, and Gaylen found that boy, Emil, still inside.
Well, good this wasn’t all a waste.
“Hey,” he said in a clipped voice, then took one of Emil’s bound ankles and dragged him out into the hallway.
The boy was still wide-eyed and terrified. Gaylen wondered if he’d ever had an up-close view of what plasma did to unprotected flesh. Most people hadn’t.
“Hold still.”
He took out his knife and cut the ankle bonds. He didn’t take the time to be careful, and was pretty sure he’d nicked the boy. But what a small price for getting to live.
Next he cut the wrist bonds, then got up and aimed the gun out onto the landing.
“Do you want to get out of here?”
Emil frantically clawed at the tape over his mouth, mumbling loudly as he did so. His hands looked clumsy and weak; they were probably rather numb.
“Get up,” Gaylen told him sternly. “They might have called in help. Get up!”
He did hold out his free hand, and Emil accepted the help. Gaylen started walking, and heard the boy stagger along behind him. He also heard the rip of the tape finally coming free,
“W… wh… who are you?!” Emil gasped.
“Your lucky break. Savour it, because this basically never happens.”
He entered the third floor landing again, and found everything as he’d left it.
“People like you get vanished, they die. That’s how it works. So don’t let this happen again.”
He sprang out through the drapes, ready to be shot at. But while a couple of his earlier victims were starting to move, none looked ready to start anything. Gaylen fired a bolt into one of those faux-fancy chandeliers, and got a satisfying shower of sparks out of it.
“DOWN! GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR!”
He shot another chandelier.
“FACE DOWN! FACE DOWN OR DIE!”
He swept the pistol around at each potential target, and they did lie still. Gaylen rushed down, and Emil followed, probably aided by the biggest adrenaline rush he would ever experience. The boy gasped and hyperventilated, desperate with hope after an extended staring match with certain death.
The guard by the main door was facing down and groaning, but there was a somewhat fake sound to it, so Gaylen gave him a good stomp in passing. He stepped out into the street, and found no goon squad or gunfire. Just a darkened city.
Emil followed him out and gazed around with wide eyes.
“Well, I’m going,” Gaylen told him. “Don’t approach cops, if they really are that dirty. Go straight to wherever that High Justice guy has his office. Either that or a big news outlet.”
“But…” Emil’s voice was shaking. “But who are you, though?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll never see each other again. Just go. GO!”
The boy did start running, with that clumsy, desperate gait that would have looked hilarious if one didn’t know the story behind it.
Okay, are you done, asshole? Gaylen asked himself. Done getting involved with shit that doesn’t concern you?
“Yes I am,” he grumbled under his breath, and started to jog.