Chapter Eight

The Wastes

Peter spluttered, trying to spit the bitter dust from his mouth. It was clingy and dry, scratching at his tongue as it refused to be dislodged. It was in his eyes—gritty, making it almost impossible to open them. He understood now that it wasn’t light that stabbed at him as he was pulled from the coach’s boot; it was the rolling dust, digging its way deeper through his eyelids toward the blue pools beneath. He rubbed at them but only managed to grind more of the particulate into his sockets. He cried out in helpless agony.

“Hold still,” barked a metallic voice as something gripped and steadied him. Peter flinched as coldness struck his face, washing over it. Relieved, he realised it was water—one of the rangers emptying their canteen over him. He wiped away the water, working it into his eyes until they were almost clear of debris so he could open them again. “There you go,” muttered the ranger as Peter’s vision focused, and the man came into view. He handed Peter his canteen, and Peter drained the little that remained, washing his mouth out. He was grateful, but the precious little that was left was hardly enough to banish the chemical taste of the dust from his tongue, and the ranger snatched the empty can back; his generosity exceeded.

Mr Revel was also free. He paced back and forth a few paces away, hands on his hips, his wet face a mask of fury.

Peter’s shoulders sank at the sight of the Toff’s expression. He’d nearly gotten the man killed. It is a poor way to repay the kindness of saving his life twice. Naturally, that must have irritated Mr Revel; Peter had just begun to realise he liked the man, and now, seconds after that revelation, he feared the man would probably hate him. At the very least, he’d think Peter a fool. “Sorry, Mr Revel,” Peter said softly, his voice heavy with guilt.

Mr Revel halted and turned his ire toward Peter. Then the anger faded, and he smiled. “Whatever for, my lad?”

“I almost got you killed.” Mr Revel chuckled.

“My boy, are you the man who covered this world in dust?” Peter shook his head as Mr Revel began to approach. “Did you attack the coach and kidnap us?” Peter shook his head again, and Mr Revel stood beside him. “Did you build that dust dune?” Peter shook his head once more. “Pete, my boy,” Mr Revel continued, “someone out here is trying to kill me. I know that much, but it isn’t you.” He patted Peter on the shoulder before going to speak with the ranger leader.

Peter was too relieved at the revelation to give much thought to the words Mr Revel had said, but later, he would return to them. “Someone out here is trying to kill me.” It would echo in Peter’s mind.

The rangers had saved them. Peter’s digging had shifted enough dust to expose part of the coach’s rear, and seeing the two men in danger, they sprang into action. The heavily armoured crawler was raced down the dune, and a winch pulled the coach’s boot compartment from its burial.

Given their earlier indifference, Peter was surprised the rangers had bothered. Then, Peter remembered: they hadn’t done it to save him—they’d done it to save Mr Revel, the Toff. They hoped that saving one of the rich would yield a reward. Peter watched as each ranger took a turn checking on Mr Revel, who shook their hands and thanked them personally. None came to check on him. Mr Revel was worth saving. Peter wasn’t.

“Got everything?” Mr Revel eyed Peter’s collection curiously. He’d gathered everything he could from the coach’s boot—his packages, carry bag, bits of luggage formally belonging to the passengers and coachmen, and an emergency kit.

“Yeah, it's all still here. Well, minus the weapons you took—nothing we can do about that now. I assume one of these is yours?” Peter gestured to the luggage.

Mr Revel raised a quizzical eyebrow, then looked over the luggage. “I travel light.” Mr Revel refused the bags and headed off to inspect the wreckage of the coach. Scorch marks marred its sides, and the coarse dust had stained the metal, peeling back the silver paint to reveal dull iron beneath. The rangers were likewise examining it. “Any chance you can get her running?”

A ranger shook his head. “No chance – the batteries are fucked.” The ranger pointed to the compartment connecting the passenger and boot sections. The Bugmen had set that section on fire, igniting the lithium within and burning it out entirely. Coaches travel thousands of miles without stopping and require massive batteries for a round trip; with those burned out, the remains were little more than a giant weight, waiting to be buried.

Mr Revel frowned. “Well, gentlemen, it appears my companion and I are in need of another ride.” He smiled politely at the men. If the gesture was returned, it remained hidden behind their masks.

“We can get you back to Sunreach,” said the lead ranger, starting for the crawler with his men following suit.

“I’m afraid that won’t do. My companion is due in Saltwater Ridge, and so am I.” Mr Revel’s demeanour became more authoritative—his shoulders arching back, his head held high, his expression predatory. The rangers seemed to notice, shifting nervously. “I have business there.”

“We can’t do that,” stated the lead ranger.

“Can’t, or won’t?” The Toff squared up to the man. Mr Revel, who had seemed unimposing moments before, suddenly appeared broad and intimidating; his wide, muscular frame made the ranger look small.

“Can’t, sir,” the ranger pointed to the crawler. “The crawler has maybe two hundred miles left in it, at best. We can get to Sunreach, but Saltwater is four hundred miles away. Best we can do is take you back with us—another coach will be by in a month, maybe six weeks.” Mr Revel didn’t back down, his eyes righteous, burrowing into the ranger. The ranger glanced at his companions and then at the Toff. “Sorry, sir, but there’s nothing more we can do.” Mr Revel let the tension linger, and Peter feared he’d strike the man.

Peter didn’t think Mr Revel a violent man. He was perfectly gentlemanly—if a little intrusive. He was well-spoken and well-mannered, and Peter couldn’t recall a time when the man had raised his voice since they’d met. He remained calm and optimistic even when at the mercy of the bugmen. He was a gentleman through and through.

That didn’t mean Peter thought him harmless, far from it. Peter had seen Mr Revel kill at least two bugmen without hesitation and remain focused enough during the attacks to save Peter’s life. Peter knew Mr Revel was capable of violence; he just didn’t think him a violent man. The way the Toff squared up to the ranger seemed uncomfortably uncharacteristic, and Peter wondered if their near-death experience had riled Mr Revel more than he was willing to let on.

Then Mr Revel’s expression broke; his posture softened as he clasped the ranger by the shoulders and straightened his uniform. “Very well, my good man, there is nothing you can do. I understand.” Mr Revel spun on his heels to face Peter. “Looks like we’ll have to go it on foot the rest of the way, my lad.” Mr Revel spun back to the rangers, who were startled and muttering to one another. “You’re dismissed, gents. Safe journeys back to Sunreach now, you hear?”

Sullen that their chance of reward was now slipping away, the four rangers gathered to argue among themselves. For a moment, Peter feared the rangers might turn to robbery now that legitimate profit was off the table. Whatever they discussed, however, ultimately ended with them heading back to their crawler and driving away.

Peter wondered if going with the rangers wouldn’t have been the better idea. After all, four hundred miles was a long way to travel on foot—even without his packages to carry—and the danger of the wastes was beginning to dawn on him. Yet a six-week delay in delivering the packages would result in heavy deductions from his delivery fee, making the whole journey pointless. In the end, Peter was glad that Mr Revel had sent them away—and even happier that the man was sticking around to guide him.

“Come on, Pete, my boy. Best see if we can find anything useful before we head off.” Mr Revel headed to the passenger compartment door, which hung open on its hinges, and stepped inside.

“It’s Peter,” Peter mumbled as he followed.

Although now coated in dust, the stylish interior of the luxury coach remained undiminished. It seemed as if its every accent had been meticulously selected to present a picture-perfect image of class and exclusivity. It was an exquisite interior, one that few travellers could afford to enjoy. Yet, that didn’t stop Mr Revel from taking a crowbar and hammer to the walls, peeling back the faux wooden panels to reveal the coach’s ugly metallic innards.

“Help me with this one, lad.” Mr Revel forcibly pulled one large panel from the wall of the bar. Peter rushed to the man’s side, added his strength to the effort, and together yanked the panel free of its casing, nuts and bolts springing loose as it came.

Inside the now exposed wall were the inner workings of the bar, mainly a series of large liquid containers connected by various pipes and tubes. Mr Revel patted the largest of the tubs, a sloshing sound joining with the reverberating boom of the plastic drum. “See that? That right there is three hundred and thirty-six gallons of cool, clear, filtered H₂O.” Mr Revel smiled broadly at Peter. “That’s our lifeline.”

“Come on, give me a hand,” Mr Revel started busying himself, pulling smaller containers of liquid that fed alcohol to the bar.

Peter recalled Mr Revel’s generosity during the coach ride. He had covered the bill for almost every drink that had come out of the machine for days, often encouraging others to partake with great insistence. It had been part of his charm—he was giving. So, watching him pilfer the contents of the coach seemed oddly unlike Mr Revel, yet he did it with such ease. Peter decided that it was simply a case of “needs must.” He knew Mr Revel was a man of means—clear from his attire. He imagined that Mr Revel would take steps to ensure that The Mickelson & Mickelson coach company was compensated for its losses. He pictured a young accountant in some office receiving a letter of apology, a full accounting of the liberated possessions, and a banknote signed “Revel.” The idea made Peter laugh.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Mr Revel pulled another much smaller container from the bar's insides—one containing ale—and emptied it onto the coach floor. Then, with his container vacant, he refiled it from the water tank. “You empty, I’ll fill.”

Peter did as he was told, pulling another container filled with a strong-smelling clear liquid and emptying its contents. When Mr Revel was ready, Peter swapped his empty can for one filled with water. This process repeated several times until, as Peter pulled a half-full container from the bar, Mr Revel spun on him and, with lightning speed, snapped Peter’s arm in a vice-like grip. Peter couldn’t even struggle against the hold, his arm suspended as if in time. His heart began to race, and he couldn’t breathe—the sudden fright had stolen his lungs. Mr Revel slowly turned his wide, wild eyes to Peter and then to the can. Peter wondered what he had done that was so wrong that the man was so changed.

“Not that one, Pete, my boy, not that one.” Carefully, with gentle softness, Mr Revel took the can from Peter and placed it on the ground. “We don’t waste vermouth.” Mr Revel let go of Peter and turned back to his business as if nothing had happened. Peter chuckled nervously as he, too, returned to his task. The man likes his drink, Peter concluded.

“Now, what are you doing down there, my dear?” Peter thought Mr Revel was speaking to the dust, but then he saw it. Breaching the surface of the gathering particulate was a glimmer of chrome.

“What is it?” Mr Revel didn’t answer Peter. Instead, he leant down, picked up the chrome revolver, and shook the dust clear of it. “Oh good,” Peter exclaimed when he realised what the Toff had found. “I’ll get the box.”

“Don’t bother,” Mr Revel said, his expression somewhat credulous. Peter shot a quizzical look back. “It’s already been removed. One way or another, you’re getting deducted for that package—nothing you can do about it now. It’s better we keep this for ourselves to protect us from the wastes. Why don’t you see if you can find any other guns now that the dust has shifted?”

Peter thought it was a good idea; a few moments later, he found one of the fallen coachmen’s rifles and, beside it, a weapon with a long white plastic barrel, sun-bleached and stained by years of dust exposure. “Don’t touch that.” Mr Revel’s warning came sharp and immediate, and Peter pulled back his hand with fright.

“Why not?” Peter wondered what Mr Revel had seen. Perhaps a trap left by the Bugmen?

“They are DNA-coded.” Mr Revel walked to stand beside Peter, staring down at the faded white of the plastic weapon. He seemed lost in thought, and Mr Revel didn’t speak again for what felt like a long time. “If you touch that, it will not detect you as its user, and it will self-destruct.” Mr Revel grabbed Peter’s arm and pulled it up to his face. “And it will take your hand with it as it does.”

Peter snatched back his hand. “I didn’t know they even knew how to make them. Guns, I mean. I’d heard rumours, of course, but I thought they were just that—rumours. I thought the Chitirin just had spears and knives.”

“You weren’t wrong,” Mr Revel said, his eyes drifting back to the barrel. He spoke absently, his mind somewhere else. “The Chitirin didn’t make these guns. We did. That’s a Union rifle—military-grade, one of the most advanced on the planet.”

Peter couldn’t imagine how a Bugman had come into possession of a Union military rifle, but he knew it wasn’t good that they had.

Hours later, the two men had gathered two weeks' worth of water and food from the bar. Using scraps of faux wood, metal, rope from the emergency kit, and sacks made from the cushion covers of the coach’s seats, they jury-rigged a sledge to carry the goods. Each tightly tied a rope around their waists, allowing them to drag the sledge behind them as they walked.

After his first day on the trail, walking monotonous step after monotonous step, Peter finally began to understand what the dusters meant when they said, “The dust was dry.” It was a kind of mantra, repeated like some great wisdom by those who came to the city bars to wet their whistles and return to civilisation for as long as it would tolerate them. He’d taken it literally—believing that the dust was indeed dry—but now he understood it was more than that. The dust was dry. It was the driest thing that there ever was. It was the very definition of dry. You didn’t understand what dry was until you spent a few days out in the wastes, beyond civilisation.

Those unfamiliar with the wastes mistakenly believed that the heat would kill them if they ever found themselves trapped in its endless expanse. That was not the case, for the wastes were not particularly warm—quite the opposite, in fact. Those who had first settled the world had described it as being stuck in an endless, unchanging spring. The dust was cool—not cold by any means—but one would want to dress warmly.

No, it wasn’t the heat that killed you out in the dust; it was simply the dryness. The waste was rocky hardpan or dust dunes—seemingly nothing else in between. Nothing grew in the waste. There was no weather, barely any wind, and not a cloud in the sky to block the endless haze of the grey sun. Beyond the city's walls and town boundaries, the dust was lifeless, barren, and oh-so dry.

You felt it in your body: the skin would crack and peel, the lips would shrivel, and the tongue would desecrate. You craved water out in the wastes—a trick of the mind, as if the sight of the place made your body presume dehydration. Yet, you had to be careful, for water was limited. Satiate that craving, and you might doom yourself. There were no oases in the wastes; the water you took with you was all there was to find until you reached some semblance of civilisation again. It wouldn’t even matter if you did find water, as not a single drop of fresh water naturally occurred on the planet. Without desalination, the little water that could be found on the planet would only worsen the thirst. The heat didn’t kill—it was the dryness that did.

His legs hurt, calves throbbing with each step, his heels stinging with blisters, and his back ached—overstrained from the effort of pulling the supply sledge. His head was pounding, each beat in rhythm with his heart, the boom of it cascading from one side of his skull to the other. His vision swam, and he was constantly assaulted by fits of coughing as his lungs laboured to expel the dust he was breathing in. But most of all, he was dry. His mouth, his tongue, his lips, his lungs, his skin, his eyes—everything was so damn dry. Even his mind had become dry. No thought came beyond the pain in his body and the emptiness of his surroundings.

When Mr Revel finally announced it was time to find a place to camp for the night, Peter couldn’t have been more relieved. They found a small group of jutting rocks to protect them from the dust-ridden wind and took shelter. They prepared a meal using food salvaged from the coach, cooking it on the electric pilot heaters from the emergency kit. Then they drank water sparingly, Mr Revel mixing in the occasional sip of vermouth, and they prepared the two sleeping bags they’d recovered from the salvaged luggage.

As night crawled in, the temperature dropped.

It wasn’t so cold that one would fear for one’s life, but it was cold enough that Peter was glad Mr Revel had insisted on adding the heat lamp they’d found in the driver's compartment to their baggage. Wrapped inside the sleeping bag, his head resting on the lightly cushioned pillow, Peter quickly found sleep.

When Peter opened his eyes again, it was still dark. Mr Revel was not yet in his sleeping bag. He sat with his arms resting on his knees, perched upward like a carrion bird—his thoughtful demeanour made menacing by the low light of the heat lamp, reminiscent of a madman seen only in the last flickers of a campfire. The sight startled Peter, but Mr Revel didn’t notice him. He had business in Saltwater—he’d told the rangers, and Peter had heard him. Peter wondered what business this strange man had at the end of the coach line. Who was Mr Revel, really?

“What are you doing out here, Mr?”

Mr Revel didn’t react. His body remained still, his eyes fixed on the lamp, as if he hadn’t noticed Peter, yet he answered nonetheless. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“A man.”

“What man?”

Mr Revel’s gaze drifted slowly toward Peter; his eyes turned to flames by the reflection of the heat lamp’s light.

“The man who made me who I am.”

Peter didn’t know what that meant, but he figured he wasn’t going to get anything more from the Toff, so he decided to go back to sleep, although he slept less soundly now.

“So, what’s so important about this package?” Mr Revel’s question came out of nowhere. They’d barely talked during their journey. The relentless stubbornness of their unchanging environment had killed their imaginations and left neither with much desire for conversation. After six days of walking in near silence, Mr Revel’s sudden question was startling.

“I dunno,” was all Peter could think to say, the words painful to utter.

“Then why the determination if you don’t even know what it is?”

“What it is doesn’t matter.” Peter had to stop and take a deep breath between sentences—the weight of dragging the supply sledge made conversation challenging. “It’s what they’re paying.”

“Must be a tidy sum for you to go through all this.” Mr Revel sounded doubtful.

“Twenty-five thousand.” Peter hadn’t yet said it out loud. Now that he had, he could scarcely believe it, and from Mr Revel’s expression, he didn’t either. “I know. Sounds crazy. And maybe it ain’t much to you. But that’s more creds than I’m due to make in a decade.”

“It is not a sum I’d turn my nose up at,” Mr Revel nodded thoughtfully. “But I’m not sure it’s worth dying over.” Peter scoffed.

That's the typical attitude of a Toff right there. Mr Revel would have grown up in a warm, dust-free apartment in the sky towers with parents who said things like “Money isn’t everything” and “It can’t buy you happiness.” You know who thinks money doesn’t matter? People who have it. When you have none, money is all that matters. Money is shelter. Money is food. Money is water, status, and protection; money is what makes one street boy more desirable than the next. When you have no money, money is life, and its absence is death.

Money fucking matters.

Twenty-five thousand credits was hardly generational wealth, but it was more than most had. With that kind of money, Peter could buy his own pod in the Stacks and still have enough left over to cover him for a year—two hundred and fifty square feet all to himself, his own washroom and toilet. He’d never not shared a bedroom. He was happy to risk his life for the chance at a better one. And here was the Toff, telling him it wasn’t worth it.

How fucking dare he.

“What do you know, huh?” Peter spat the words out with more venom than intended.

“Excuse me?” The patronising shift in Mr Revel’s tone irked Peter beyond measure.

Suddenly, Mr Revel seemed more superior than he ever had before, more like the other Toffs who passed Peter and his kind on the street every day, never once noticing the plight of those beneath them. For a moment, Peter saw in Mr Revel twenty-one years’ worth of apathetic faces, and he raged against them.

Peter pulled the rope from around his waist and threw it to the ground, freeing himself from the sledge, but not his frustrations. “I said, what do you know? You and your fancy dustless suit and platinum cred stick. What do you know about what’s worth dying over? When have you ever had to worry about dying? You ever gone a day—even one day—without a meal? You ever drunk sewer water because you couldn’t afford any better? You ever wondered if the four other men sharing your bunk for the night were going to kill you—or worse? Honestly, what do you know?”

“Peter, stop.”

“No, I won’t stop.” Peter stomped his foot and began pacing, unleashing his rant with growing moral superiority. “People like you need to hear this. I don’t care if it offends your delicate sensibilities. You rich folk ignore what’s happening to those around you every day. You have all the power to help, but you choose not to. Someone has to tell you how it is now and then. And you shouldn’t be telling me anything. You don’t know anything. You don’t know what it’s like growing up in the streets. You don’t know what my life is, so don’t you tell me what I should and shouldn’t risk my life over.”

“I might not know much about the streets,” Mr Revel said, shaking his head, “but I know better than to walk up to a Dustshark when I see one.”

“What?”

Something gripped Peter’s leg—something strong.