Chapter 21 - Pre-Pre-Apati!

Apati was amazing. Better than I could have possibly imagined.

First off, it was organized, which I really appreciated after living with Fang.

He had no respect for personal boundaries. Also, cleaning. He’d just spritz everything with a little mist and call it done. Or leave his garbage wherever, most likely in big heaping piles right in the middle of my kitchen. And don’t even get me started about the fit he pitched when I told him the wagon was full. He wanted to cram even more stuff in!

But I don’t have to tell you. You remember the ratholes, right?

That really is a much better name…

Anyway, after a while, I just stopped arguing.

Although, my ratholes sometimes deposited stuff on the side of the highway. Out of sight, of course. I was discreet. I guess the moral here is that sometimes we have to lie to the ones we love. We have to help them help us… which allows us to help them again in the future… sometime… maybe. It’s like a great circle of lie-helping.

Huh, you look confused. Also, a little judgy.

Shit… this sounded better in my head.

So, uh, moving on seamlessly – in stark contrast to the lair and the wagon, Apati was flawless. The streets were constructed in a perfect, grid-like pattern. The different zones were even labeled with color-coded bars. That blew my mind. I didn’t even know that could be a thing! I mean, of course, I knew labeling was a thing. But a whole city that was into labeling things? This place was just perfect.

Even the air made me feel nostalgic. The whole place was covered in an incredibly thick, mist. Except this fog was colored a dark gray. You know, from all the smoke – from the “factory,” Fang said – the one I couldn’t see through the haze. Either way, it reminded me of Anchon. Also, the lightless hell sewer. There had been lots of smoke there too.

Although, this place was much warmer.

Almost like we were being lightly boiled.

Fang had to maintain his mist just to keep cool.

However, the smog came with some side benefits! First, it warded off the terribly bright sun and produced a perpetual darkness that I found strangely comforting for some reason. Plus, it created a fun ambiance to the town, especially since the smoke vibrated in time with the constant, metallic clang that reverberated through your bones. Almost like the pulse of some monstrous, corrupted beast with obsessive compulsive tendencies.

Frankly, it felt like home.

Although, visibility was an issue.

Which was actually great since I had to… err, dismantle the gate. Between the haze and all of the noise, no one seemed to hear my solution for getting the wagon inside the city.

The smog was also likely why the residents felt the need to paint glowing colored bands on each of the buildings. I used PK’s poison to make my signs – it glowed a nice bright green. But how did they get the reds and yellows? Spirits maybe? Or some sort of phosphorescent ink? I couldn’t wait to find out!

I’d have started demolition immediately, but Fang insisted that would be “rude.” Also, “crazy.” Also, “a clear violation of Rule #3.”

Fair enough. So, I had to content myself with just looking.

And only a little touching…

That’s how I figured out that the taller structures we were passing were residential. “Apartment buildings,” Fang called them. Green banded, of course. Each building was exactly the same height. Five stories. Built of more overlapping sheets of metal. Windows punched into those sturdy walls at perfectly even intervals. I’ll admit, the symmetry appealed to me, but what was inside those apartments had my inner interior designer purring in satisfaction. They were all exactly the same. The furniture inside was all made out of… ahh, you guessed, it more metal. I double checked.

Plus, someone even had the foresight to weld the furniture to the floor.

Which was a fantastic choice, honestly. It was more durable that way.

I can’t tell you how many guests came through my lair – primarily because most of them died before I got a chance to say hello – but one thing I learned was that salvaged, rotten, shit-covered wood conjured from the Flow’s asshole really just couldn’t hold up to any more abuse. Metal was a solid choice. Or poo-crete in a pinch.

But that just raised more questions!

Like where had all the metal coming from? I mean, there was so much of it – almost like it grew on—oh, shit. Maybe metal trees grew here out of the wasteland and they shed metal leaves? That would have been really cool, right?

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Unfortunately, the more likely answer was the dock. And boy was it bustling. I thought Anchon had a large operation, but I was wrong. So very wrong. Dozens of ships were perched inside an artificial bay – one carved out of the shoreline and circled by a really thick, really tall harbor wall. Again, also made of metal.

But how did the boats get through the—

Woah. Woooooaaaah.

The harbor wall opened. At least, that’s what [Engineering] told me.

It also said those were “cranes” lining the docks – a few lifting cargo free of the ships. You know, the really heavy pallets that were likely loaded down with all the metal.

Which came from somewhere presumably. It could still be metal trees.

Ahh, what was that? How did my Death Wagon fit in the city?

Good question! Whoever had built this place had the foresight to construct an extra-wide commercial lane straight down the middle of the city. Probably for death-adjacent recreational vehicles like mine. Honestly, it fit perfectly. Almost like I’d somehow known the measurements in advance, which was impossible, of course. We only occasionally scraped the front of a storefront. You know, the yellow-banded buildings that lined the street.

The only downside?

I was feeling a little self-conscious.

I mean, it had been a long, long time since I’d been in a public setting. You know, after being locked in an extra-dimensional pocket universe full of shit and pitch. The Lair Warming Party had helped… a little. But I hadn’t even gotten to talk to anyone! Just followed Fang around and picked up after him! And it’s not like I’d had lots of friends back in Anchon – mostly just tormentors. And a surprisingly high slavery and childhood death rate had really helped wean the pool of potential friends further.

And now I was five cycles older and I’d heard it was harder to meet new people as you grew older – you know, now that you weren’t given communal beatings or forced into indentured childhood servitude together. It was harder to find that connection. That common hatred directed at your parents and the elders and the mantras.

Even our family road trip had been a relatively solitary adventure. I mean, we met PK, of course. And all those demon monkeys.

But it was still nothing like this. All these people.

So, it was natural that it felt like they were all staring at me.

Right, sure, I know. That’s just in my head—

“No, they’re definitely staring at us,” Lili added, sounding conflicted.

Ahh, yes. I guess they were.

And I want to be clear here, I don’t see species. I look straight past things like scales and really sharp teeth and glowing, snake-like eyeballs… usually to the sweet, nimbus filling nestled inside and just waiting to be devoured. I guess what I’m saying is that I see food—

Ahem, sorry. That might be Lili’s influence.

What I mean is I only see people.

But most of these “people” looked a lot like Fang.

Again, not because all savrans look the same – although, they kind of do.

“At least, they’re glaring at us with different colored eyes,” Lili offered. “And they aren’t screaming or attacking. That’s a pretty big difference.”

She was right again. They just stared silently – no one moving a muscle. Not even the people standing in their apartment windows. Or the dock workers we passed. And not even when I popped my head into a window to get a good look at one of those apartments. Although, some of the people on the street did move. Out of the way mostly. That was fair.

It was like they were all stunned speechless.

Probably because they’d never seen a wagon this awesome before.

“Or it could be the noise,” Fang hissed, his eyes appearing above the lip of the wagon, Pietr sitting beside him and twitching slightly as the paralytic gradually wore off. We couldn’t just leave him at the gate. That would have been unsafe.

Especially after I got done with it.

Ahh, but Fang could be right. We were moving pretty slow – you know, since it was just me hauling the Death Wagon. By myself. The wagon covered in blood and carrying an insane payload of demon monkeys and screaming bamboo. The babies needed to “stay out of sight” to “avoid a riot.” Fang was right. They were cute – almost too cute.

But the wagon still made this delightful moaning grind as it creeped forward.

Then we reached a four way intersection.

Which was a problem since Fang made me hide my emergency brakes—

A sharp, stabbing pain rippled through my left hand.

Ahh, I meant my beautiful babies. Sorry, Maribel.

Luckily, Fang indicated our destination was straight ahead before slinking back into the wagon bed so no one could see him. Best I could tell, if we turned right, that led to the docks. And left… well, it was hard to tell through the smoke. Although, I could see some sort of structure glowing in the distance.

Oh, well, we could go on a tour of the city once we checked in at the hotel. Fang said he already had a room reserved and everything – that he “knew a person.” Probably the same person that was setting up my surprise party—

Although, all of those thoughts fled as the smog peeled away to reveal an impossible sight… but not for the reason you’re probably thinking.

I mean, to its credit, the building at the end of the road was huge. Fifteen stories of glowing red perfection. At least 100 smokestacks pumping out enough toxic smog to tell me someone around here knew how to stoke a furnace. Many massive warehouses. They probably needed all that room for the people. You know, the bustling army of little sociopathic lizards making their way inside without killing each other somehow.

All of that was pretty incredible. Insane really. But still possible.

And it wasn’t even the logo on the side of that huge building. The one I recognized.

How could I not? I mean, I grew up in the home of the Fin-Fans.

Or, at least, I thought I had? I was second guessing that now.

It wasn’t even the questions that bubbled and frothed in the back of mind. You know the ones I hadn’t thought to ask before now? I mean, obviously, we’d been sending a lot of raw materials north along the river cycle after cycle, but what happened to it after that? Hell, we didn’t even can most of the silver fin meat, did we? We mostly just smoked it on the shore and stored it in huge crates, right? So… had we always had a factory here? One that no one in my village had ever told me about? Or ever mentioned – even by accident?

Maybe this had been some incredible, sprawling conspiracy to avoid telling yours truly? Which was flattering but probably unrealistic…

Or, more likely, did they just not know?

Those were all fantastic questions that made me feel super uncomfortable and start to question everything I thought I knew, but my attention was captured by something else.

No, the true marvel was beside the giant factory full of terrible and possibly soul-crushing answers that threatened to destroy my already fragile psyche.

Specifically, it was a bookstore – yellow banded, of course.

The one with the cutout of Horus in the window.