While Lex is engaging in lofty diplomacy with Warden Morgan, Rach and Cannon are off on the other side of the prison complex engaging in a very different kind of diplomacy. This branch of diplomacy is flavored with delicate notes of knuckle sandwich, it is colored with the rich, crimson hues of human blood, and it is paraded to the fanfare of cracking skulls. Cannon and Rach fancy themselves quite the diplomatic pair, and they spare no expense when it comes to their ambassadorly duties.
Speaking of which, Cannon ducks left to dodge a blow from an incoming guard. He kicks the guard’s legs out underneath him, at which point Rach dives over and tackles the unsteady guard and wrestles him to the ground. A few fist-shaped words of negotiation, the guard has been successfully persuaded to have a nice little nap against the hallway wall.
Cannon and Rach take a moment to appreciate the fine dealings they’ve accomplished in the last twenty minutes or so. They’ve been shrewd negotiators, so shrewd that everyone with whom they’ve engaged in negotiations have left the negotiations with broken noses, unhinged jaws, and, of course, cracked skulls. If Mr. Guinness were still alive today, he’d be handing out trophies and taking pictures so Rach and Cannon could appear in his book as the Crack Sultans of Skull Crackery. There is no monocled man giving out prizes today, though. Instead, the prize they get to share is a moment’s rest.
Neither one realized how badly they needed a quick reprieve until now. Both of them are hunched over, hands on knees, wheezing air in and out like broken vacuum cleaners.
“Holy shit,” Rach says with several breaths between words. “We, oh man, I think we did it. I don’t hear anyone else, but maybe, whooo, that might be cause I’m breathing too loud to hear anything else.”
“What, ah you, hoo, fuck, ah you tiyahd? I could go anothah couple rounds. Hell, I wish I would, hoo, ha, wish theah was anothah couple guahds, uh, yeah, I’d show ‘em.”
Rach does a half trust fall back until she hits the wall, then slumps unceremoniously to the flood. “Yeah, you look like a real spring chicken.”
"I ain’t no chicken.”
“No, I-- whatever. No, you’re not.”
Cannon joins her in her wall slump. “Shouldn’t we be, you know, gettin’ to that closet with all ouah geah?”
Rach points down the hallway with a wet noodle of an arm. “That door, three doors down? That’s the one. We’re here. And I don’t hear anymore footsteps. I think we’re done.”
“Hell yeah. We make a pretty good team. Aftah we get outta heah, outta town I mean, you oughta come back to Old Boston. I could use someone to clean the bug shit off my countahtops.”
Rach laughs. “What, be your bar back? Yeah I don’t think so. Is that really what you’re gonna do when you get out? Go home and make pizzas?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. The hell else am I gonna do, eh? If Pops was heah, he’d tell me to get my ass back to the oven pronto, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”
“You’re not worried that Morgan’s gonna send people out there to get you?”
“Let ‘em try. Nobody takes Cannon from Old Boston.”
“Okay, but they literally already did take you once.”
“Yeah but they’ah not gonna be able to do it again. Especially not if you’ah theah to help do some skull crackin’.”
“Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. I think I’ll just go find some other border town, somewhere in York this time I guess. There’s bound to be another group of losers there. Probably around Stamford.”
“Everyone’s a losah in York, kid. Fuckin’ Yankees, I sweah, they all got rocks in theiah heads. Someone oughta loose a grizzly beah up in theah, knock some sense into ‘em.”
“Seriously, what is it with you and-- wait.”
“Wait what? I’ll talk your eah off about beahs--”
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“--No, shut up for a sec.” She springs up, her joints still heavy from all the recent action. “I hear footsteps.”
Cannon’s eyes go wide, then he jumps up as well. “Shit. Good thing I’m not tiyahd. Ready for anothah round?”
She puts up her fists. “Nope.”
Cannon only grins and readies his fist as well. They both hang back by the hallway corner, ready to ambush whoever comes around. As the footsteps get louder, they hear voices. Voices that they recognize.
“What the fuck? What did they do to my guards?”
“I’m gonna throw up.”
The first voice, sounding not so much like a human but like a clap of thunder, belongs to the Warden. The second voice, sounding not so much like a human but like a anthropomorphized gummy bear, belongs to Lex. Rach and Cannon look at each other with confusion, then drop their fists and poke their heads out from around the corner. They see Lex, Morgan, and Tay all running towards them. In a beautiful imitation of a barbershop quintet, all five of them in unison give their best:
“What the fuck?”
There they all, all five of them standing together in the hallway corner, exchanging confused and angry glances at each other in the world’s most flaccid Mexican standoff. Finally, Cannon breaks the ice.
“What the fuck?”
“What the fuck us?” Lex asks. “What the fuck you! You were supposed to be stealthy. Why are there a million dead guards here?”
Rach says, “To be fair, it was very stupid of you to assume that some people on my team would be stealthy.” She points at Cannon with both hands.
“Also to be faiah, I’m pretty sure most of the skull crackin’ we did was moah metaphorical skull crackin’ then actual brass tacks skull crackin’.”
“If I could translate,” Rach says, “He means that most of these guards are still alive. Just, you know, unconscious and probably won’t be very good at math or spelling when they wake up.”
“For every one of my men you killed, I’ll rip off one of your fingers,” Morgan says.
Tay puts up a finger. “Now now, remember what the prince said. You need us. At least for now.”
“Excuse me?” Rach and Cannon ask.
Lex says, “It’s a long story. But basically, Warden Morgan is temporarily on our side.”
“Bugs are swarming outside and he needs us to help him deal with it, especially because all of his guards have skulls that are too cracked to do the job,” Tay says.
Cannon shrugs. “Didn’t seem like too long a story to me.”
“Okay,” Lex nods, “Guess it isn’t so long a story. Point is, Morgan’s on our side.”
Morgan grunts. “More like you all are on my side, with a leash shorter than pizza boy here’s pecker.”
“The fuck kind of expression is that?” Cannon shouts.
“Easy, easy.” Lex raises his hands as if to capture the rising mojo of the room and tamper it down. “We’re all friends here. At least until the bugs are gone. Oh, also we need to get Morgan as much money as he’d been receiving from the Montego family. And also we need to beat Daisy Montego.”
Cannon shouts, “Aha! So that’s why you tossed me in jail. You’ah so fah up the Montego family’s ass you can see the light comin’ from theiah nostrils. Crooked cops, man. Makes me sick.”
Morgan grabs Cannon like he was a doll and jerks him into the air. “You watch your fuckin’ tongue, pizza boy. You’re on my leash, and don’t think for a fucking second I won’t yank it hard enough to watch your neck snap. I’d rather watch this whole town burn than watch you four go free.”
Lex says, “I think he’s exaggerating, but, seriously, guys, play nice. We want out of this, we play by Morgan’s rules. Cannon, you gonna behave?”
“Fuck you.” Cannon spits on Morgan. The warden’s eyes seem to glow red and he tightens his grip.
Tay says, “Put your ego away for five seconds and apologize.”
Being squeezed like a stress toy, Cannon is in a considerable amount of pain. However, the word the comes out of his mouth causes him exponentially more agony than anything Morgan is doing to him. “Sorry.”
Just like that, Morgan drops him. Without so much as a word, the warden stomps down the hallway to the door that Rach had pointed to earlier. He grabs the appropriate key from his keyring and jams it in the door before yanking it open. “Get your shit.”
Cannon, Rach, and Tay dig into the treasure trove of the room like children playing in a leaf pile. There are all manner of swords, axes, bows, arrows, and plenty of quirky dystopia weapons. Cannon dons his lacrosse pad armor and helmet, grabs his lacrosse stick, and slings his messenger bag full of lacrosse balls around his shoulder. Tay finds her satchels of sharpened metal credit cards and attaches one on either side of her waist. Rach procures a hefty wooden tankard. Attached to the tankard, on the opposite side of the handle, are brass knuckles.
Lex gazes at Rach’s brass knuckle tankard in awe. “That’s your weapon? That’s so cool!”
Rach shrugs. “Eventually you get into enough drunken fights that you find a way to win at both the drinking and the fighting at the same time.” She grabs it by the handle and lets loose a few phantom jabs. “Feels good.”
Morgan says, “Bet your ass I’m confiscating that back when this is all over. Now let’s go. Prince, Marauder, Pizza Boy, I want you three to--”
“Wait.” Cannon holds up a gloved hand. “I’m still lookin’ for all my stuff.”
Tay cocks an eyebrow. “You’ve got your armor, your weapon, and your ammo. What else could you--”
“--Got it!” Cannon picks up a golden chain, attached to which is a golden locket. He fumbles with it before finally placing it around his neck and shoving the locket under the neck of his shirt. “Got it, we’ah good. What’s the plan, coach?”
Morgan grumbles and rolls his eyes. “You three, you clear out the bugs from the big apartment complex in the central district. Rach, you’re with me on south district duty. The few guards who I still have are covering the north, they should be able to lock the place down soon - both to keep the bugs out and to keep you four in. Once we take care of all the bugs in town, we should be good. Do exactly what I say, don’t fuck with me, and I might be convinced to make your executions quick and painless. Everyone understand your job?”
Cannon, Lex, and Rach all nod in agreement without much fuss.
Morgan heavies his gaze on Tay. “Do I need to repeat myself, Marauder?”
Tay winces, but she shakes her head. “No, sir. Loud and clear.”
Morgan reluctantly nods, then leads the group out to the main entrance of the prison. When he opens the door, the group is hit with the cool night breeze as well as the sounds of people yelling, crying, and screaming. They all know they’ve got a hell of a fight ahead of them, but Tay knows that the fight will be harder than any of them realize. This is just the beginning.