Trying to clean off what he could, Anson walked 50 meters in sewage that fell off in quantity the more he walked until he reached what seemed to be a swinging door. Breathing heavy, Anson took a moment to collect himself, clean off as much sewage as he could, and figure out what to do next. The obvious plan was to find Cyril and Deo. He could have stayed put, but he couldn’t risk The Scarred Man coming down and finding a defenseless Anson, so taking another breath, he opened the door.
Walking in he found it to be another cramped area with dimly lit candles running down until the end of the hallway, which then turned left or right. Gingerly walking down, he looked to both sides as he saw rows of makeshift doors with holes in the wall serving as windows. Inside sat people of all ages, looking back at Anson, wondering who this man was. Deciding that he didn’t want to find out what they would do if they decided to leave their cramped domicile, Anson walked faster as he reached the end of the hallway.
When he did, Anson looked to his right, seeing an open area like the one he passed through when he broke into the Sovan Local Chapter. After a couple of meters, the only walkway was a simple beam with ropes suspended on the side to keep a person oriented. Anson gulped at the thought of going on it, so he turned to his left first to see if there was anything of use.
When he did, he saw a hallway that only went a couple of meters before turning into a dead end, but it wasn’t lifeless. A seemingly a year or two younger than Anson sat there. He was perpendicular to the hallway with his back at one end and his feet at the other. Anson looked to his right once more, considering to just leave, but didn’t. Maybe this man laid eyes upon Cyril and Deo. Even if he didn’t know it, he thought.
So, inching toward the man, Anson whispered out to him. “Hello?” he asked, first in Sovan then Kadon.
The man turned and faced Anson. “Yeah?” he asked in Kadon. “What do you want?” His voice was tired and broken. As if he had just experience heartbreak or worked for 18 hours straight. Also, he had a very strong accent. Anson couldn’t place it but it was certain that he wasn’t a native Kadon speaker.
“You see two men pass by here recently?” Anson continued to ask in Kadon.
“No.” He responded. The man looked up at Anson in confusion. “You want to sit?”
Anson looked behind him toward the beam and sighed. “Sure.” He knew he shouldn’t have. Cyril and Deo could be anywhere, but he justified it to himself by wanting to calm down after that chase. “What are you doing down here?” Anson asked as he sat down. He remained in the middle of the hallway, keeping an eye out for anyone who could approach.
“Hiding.” The man responded. Anson nodded, not knowing how to expand upon the conversation. The man took his back off the wall and turned his whole body to face Anson. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Uh—” He didn’t know if he should tell the truth or not. “You could say that I am hiding as well.”
“From who?” the man asked.
“From the city guard,” Anson replied.
“A thief?”
“Yeah,” Anson said. He didn’t know why he was still talking to this man. He had no role in this operation, and he needed to leave, but Anson couldn’t bring himself to stand up again. He only just sat down. Instead, Anson looked at the man and noticed that he didn’t even look Kadon. “You accent?” Anson asked. “Where is that from?”
The man paused for a moment, biting his lip for a moment before answering. “It’s Dymish.”
“Dymish?” Anson asked, not believing his ears. “What is a Dymish man doing in the Lake Republic?”
“I just got here a couple of weeks ago. Snuck onto a trading ship from the Kingdom of Qar and have been hopping around ever since.” The man said.
“And you are now hiding?”
“Yes.”
“From?” Anson asked, tilting his head.
The man didn’t say anything, simply staring into Anson’s eyes. Uncomfortable, Anson broke eye contact, but the man kept staring for a moment. “You alright, man?” Anson asked.
“I killed people.” The man spoke.
“So, you are hiding from the city guard?”
“No. I got on that trade ship for a reason.” The man continued to stare.
“So why are you down here?”
“Because I don’t deserve to be around common folk.”
Anson couldn’t help but force a laugh from that comment. “If you think that killing of people is bad, then you have no idea about the people you think you don’t deserve to be with.” Anson was going to continue but stopped as he realize something. “How many people did you kill? He asked.
“I was a soldier in the mountains. I killed dozens of Borzors on the orders of my superiors.”
Anson stomach turned; he looked around to see if anyone was near. When he confirmed there wasn’t, beads of sweat began to form. The man’s eyes pierced into Anson’s heart. Is this man about to try and kill me? Anson asked himself.
“Have you killed anyone?” the man asked.
Anson didn’t respond, simply getting up and backing away. Nothing seemed right about this. Soon he felt the cool breeze of the water under the Canal Bridge. He was about to turn around and force himself onto the beam to get away from this man, but before he could, the man said something else as he went back to his original position where Anson found him. “You have, haven’t you. How did it feel?”
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Anson paused. He considered telling this man about Ahmed but decided not to. Ahmed was too dear of a friend just to go around and tell random crazy people about his early death. He turned around after thinking the man wouldn’t tackle him immediately. But once again, the man said something. “Whoever you are hiding from, they won’t leave. The prick in your brain won’t go away. Trying to make up for your past murders won’t help either. A death is still a death.”
Anson looked forward to the end of the beam. If Cyril and Deo were still down here, they might eventually end up here. Anson considered waiting for them, but like The Scarred Man in the sewage tunnel, Anson didn’t want to find out if he stuck around until whoever the man behind him decided to kill him. Anson tied to ignore what the man had said. He was clearly crazy, trying to justify his sad existence. What did he know of his situation. The Kingdom of Qar is nothing like the Lake Republic.
Stepping onto the board, the sound of water sloshing and ships passing underneath the bridge echoed throughout the tunnel as he found his balance on the wooden beam. Anson shuffled himself down the board as he shot his head up and down looking at what was underneath and in front of him.
He continued like this for another ten minutes as the underside became less dense the further he got from manhole. All around him were small pockets around five blocks apart of small collections of buildings. Were they homes? Places of business? Or something that the people who went to them would not want the outside world to see. That last one was what Anson worried about as right in front of him seemed to be the largest of the collection of buildings, with dozens of them spread out around a block radius.
Looking at his watch to see what time it was, Anson discovered that his watch had been dropped somewhere during the chase. The ticking sound was gone, but as he continued shuffling down the plank of would, it would seem as if it was still ticking, and Anson would reach into his pocket to see if it was still there.
Eventually, he reached a door leading to the collection of buildings and pushed open the door. Inside he saw about a hundred people huddled around the middle of a common area. The place was surrounded by brothels, bars, and homes engulfing any space that they could. Walking in between two bars, Anson went to see what was happening in the middle. Slowly pushing his way through the crowd, he eventually reached the middle and saw a horrific sight. It was Cyril, Deo, and most strangely, Zeki with their necks tied with ropes to wooden poles. He stared at them for a moment, not knowing what was happening, until the trio noticed Anson.
Calling to him, the three asked him to get them out of there, to which, Anson immediately complied, but as he approached the middle and reached for one of the ropes, a much larger man came from the crowd and threw him back. With his head slamming into the wooden ground, Anson laid there a moment before the man picked him back up and brought him to his feet. “Trying to free these intruders, eh?” the man said in a growling voice.
“Yeah,” Anson responded. “Now, unless you are the city guard, you need to let these men go.”
“And who are you?”
“More important than whoever you are.” Anson snapped back.
Not taking kindly to Anson’s remarks, the man dragged Anson to one of the poles, grabbed another rope and tied him next to Deo. “Great plan!” Deo remarked.
“What the fuck happened?!” Anson demanded.
“I think they want to turn us in!” Deo responded.
“To whom?” Anson asked.
“What do you mean to whom?”
“Sovans or Kadons?”
Deo paused for a moment before answering. “What do you mean Kadons? Are they on us too?”
“Yeah!” Anson responded. “The only reason I’m down here is because I was running away from them.”
The big man from before made them shut up by kicking them, leaving a wincing Anson on his side. A moment later, another shorter man showed up, who seemed like he was just woken up from his grave, tried to calm the group down. After failing to do so for about a minute, the big one grabbed one of the onlookers and threw them about ten meters. At first everyone got even louder, but after the big one yelled “Shut up!” in Sovan, everyone quieted down.
The tired one approached the four of them and asked who was in charge, with Cyril, Deo, and Zeki all facing Anson. “What are you doing down here?” the man asked with a groaning voice.
“Well, we got separated and need to place to pass through, but to be honest, I just got here, so I am also going to need an explanation from you about what is going on.”
The tired man faced the crowd before facing Anson again. “From what these people have told me, you have a price own your head. Our little community here would like to redeem it.”
“Who marked the price?” Anson asked.
The man smirked. “Don’t be ignorant.”
“No, I seriously don’t know. It’s been a busy morning.”
“The Most Serene Lake Republic,” responded the man. “Who else puts official bounties on peoples’ heads?”
Anson was stunned. How did the government find out about them so fast? How was information traveling across the city back and forth so fast?”
“How much?” Deo interrupted.
“10,000 Zinc.”
“10,000?!” Anson asked, shocked.
“You guys must have done quite a number on them.”
“Only?” Anson continued.
The man asked Anson to elaborate, but before then Anson turned to Deo and whispered to him asking where the duffel bag with the 15,000 shares was. “Zeki is here for some reason, so where’s the goods?”
Deo whispered back saying that they stashed it in between some support beams before they entered this little subsection of the underside, not knowing was on the other side.
Turning back to the tired man, Anson said: “We can offer you 30,000 by tomorrow if you let us go. And that amount is the minimum.”
The tired man became or alive at that proposition. “And where does a group of four men, with one of them covered in rags, get 30,00 Zinc within a day?”
“Do you even know what we are wanted for?” Anson asked. “We’re robbers.”
“So, you have the money?”
“Not exactly,” Anson responded. “We need to liquidate it first. We also need to rob more places before we can liquidate it.”
“Are you asking me to risk 10,000 Zinc with a guaranteed payout from the government in exchange for a very-low chance of 30,000 from a bunch of robbers?” The man asked.
“Yeah,” Anson replied. “Besides, if the government was all good, you lot wouldn’t be down here, would you?”
The tired man took a moment to think before deciding. Anson looked at Cyril and Zeki and found them to be involuntarily shaking, with their eyes staring straight at the tired man, who was now looking around trying to read the room.
Turning back to Anson, he asked one more question. “What are you even robbing?”
“Government Shares.”
“Do you have any on you?” the man asked.
“No, but I can tell you. However, I need you to let us out of these restraints first, get me some clothing with more pockets, and a watch. I do need some assurance I am getting out of here at all.”
The tired man laughed at Anson’s remark and accepted. A moment later, they were out of the restraints, with everyone breathing a sigh of relief. The crowd, though, seemed disappointed as they all went back to their business as the tired man asked where the collateral was. Staying true to the deal, Anson told them where the shares they stole from the first location was. “Quickly, you got two hours before someone gets there to pick it up. We set it up so they wouldn’t stay in one location for long, so get it while you can.” Anson lied.
The tired man accepted and sent two men to go retrieve it. They were also supposed to show the four robbers the way out of the underside, but before then Deo told Zeki what was stashed away. “Where is he going?” the tired man asked.
“To get our reserve weapons,” responded Deo. “If you touch it or we leave without it, you all die, and we don’t rob our other places.”
“Ok,” Anson said to Deo. “Let’s just calm down.”
“What? Killing doesn’t solve everything?” he responded sarcastically.
Anson didn’t respond, but simply sighed and waited for Zeki to come back with the 15,000 shares.