Chapter 2

“If life ever taught me a more valuable lesson than ‘every windfall is offset by the cost of the tree it blows over onto your house,’ I can’t think of it.” ~ Shin Asado

The return trip from Gourmand’s, who being nocturnal, had him arrive home just before dawn. He only stopped long enough to drop an exhausted Fluffy off at her home to spend some quality time with her bed for a few hours. This gave Shin time to get a coffee, pay bills off in hard cash, have a second coffee, and make his way to the bank.

Everything was going even better than planned. Two of the individuals he owed money to were unavailable, which meant he could leave them rain checks. They only needed to know that he'd be back within two weeks. He left promissory notes with a 20,000 nbit late fee to keep the vultures at bay.

The idea of voluntarily offering more money than he owed made Shin feel ill, to the point of a full on stomach ache. But if it meant he’d have extra funds to work with on mission prep, it was more than worth it.

Unless they came calling before his team left. That might get awkward.

Shin sat on the bench outside of the Crown Capital bank, drinking his second coffee, and trying to keep from scratching the back of his neck for the 5th time. He tried to just watch the town wake up around him, and not focus on how badly it could all go downhill.

It wasn’t like everything could all turn to shit in the blink of an eye and ruin everything, so there was no point in getting up and pacing again.

He waited for the bank to open. He mused about where he was in life, and how for every bad turn, there was eventually a good turn.

It had rained overnight, so he could take his mask off and enjoy the sweet post-rain smell. Petrichor it was called. There was nothing else like it.

Novapol was on the outer fringes of the King's Territory. It was close enough to the King's Influence that Phantom Husks rarely made their presence known, but also far enough that people potentially took their lives into their own hands by living there. One of the ghastly things showed up every couple of months.

Three types of people lived this far out—or further—his Uncle Heckler had told him when he was a kid.

First, people who wanted to start a family needed to move out of the safer central areas of The King’s power. The safety from The King's influence also had an unfortunate side effect: the closer to its epicenter you were, the more challenging human conception was.

The second group wanted to be as far from the eyes of the Central Policing Authority as possible.

Lastly, there are night watches, hounds, troubleshooters, and flux divers—whatever subset of the various licensed paramilitary contractors like him. Each name implied specific specializations, but there was a lot of overlap. His family usually went with the title Hounds, because they specialized in finding things or people and bringing them back,.

Shin was born into the third group. His grandfather and uncles were well-known and respected Hounds, and other branches of the family worked in adjacent fields. His parents were a different story.

His mother and father had left to join a cult when he was five. A bunch of crazy assholes that believed the Earth was not real. That The King was evil. That fluoride in the water was what really caused sterility in the inner kingdom.

His grandpa had broken five of his father's ribs when they tried to drag Shin along. He’d been confused as a child, but grateful once he grew old enough to understand. What kind of idiots believed The King was responsible for the world being broken?

He spent six years living under the roof of one of the oldest living Hounds. His Grandpa had started a family when he was over 50. He was constantly regaled with stories of derring-do that filled him with a sense of wonder.

Thinking on the lessons of the past, he watched the clouds roll by, backlit in shades of red and gold by the rising sun.

He idly wondered where he would be today if he’d been more careful, and Razor had survived back then. Joloff Wod having mentioned it was a low blow.

He was so engrossed in his musings, so exhausted, and so hopped up on caffeine that he didn’t notice the presence of anyone else around him—not until someone dropped themselves onto the bench next to him.

“Heya, Shin.” A voice Shin was anything but enthused to hear cried out. “Just the man I was looking to see.”

“Hello, Chad,” Shin said through gritted teeth. He turned his attention to the crusty punk sitting beside him. He’d let his guard down.

“It’s Mad Chad,” The filthy leather-clad blond corrected. He stretched an arm out and slapped it onto the benchrest behind Shin. “I heard you just got a pretty big windfall.”

“And just where did you hear that at this hour?” Shin asked, glaring. He kept himself from flinching away from the encroachment on his space. Someone had tipped Chad and the EZ-8 Riders club off. It had to be someone he’d just made emergency payments to, most likely—ungrateful swine. Shin resolved to find out who it was and bait wild animals into their home while they were sleeping.

“Not important,” Chad replied dismissively with a wave of a gloved hand. “What is important, is this is an excellent chance to pay off your balance to the club early.”

He might be a month or two late on some payments, which wasn’t strictly speaking professional of Shin. But showing up and demanding early payments was much more unprofessional. At least, that's what he told himself.

“Yeah, that’s just the thing,” Shin countered, “My payment to you isn’t due for another three weeks.”

“Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?” Chad asked. “Besides, it’d look real good to the club if I made sure Pretty Boy Asado paid up, especially since you'll probably die on whatever stupid mission you have next.”

“Pretty Boy Asado appreciates your concern for his safety.” Shin said grimacing, showing some teeth. “But I’ll be just fine and set to pay you a week ahead of time already.”

“Yeah, but today would be so much better,” Chad suggested, “Right now in fact.”

“And why would I want to do that?” Shin asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Because that way, me and the boys won’t have to mess up your pretty face.” Chad gestured across the street. This turned Shin's attention to the three other punks sitting across the street on the hood of Shin’s car.

One of them waved politely, and another made jerking-off motions while sticking his tongue out. Shin ignored them.

“That’s a pretty bad idea, Chad,” Shin warned, hand straying to his knife.

“Nah,” Chad said, snapping his finger, “It’s a pretty good one.”

The moment the man's finger snapped, Shin found someone else's knife at his throat. Shin wasn’t sure whether the crusty punks in the lower ranks of the EZ-8 had gotten good enough to get the drop on him, or if he had lost his edge so badly even people one rung up from the gutter were enough to punch his ticket.

“Hey, is that you, Dale?” Shin asked cheerfully, recognizing the hand missing its ring finger wrapped around the dagger handle.

“Yeah, mate,” Dale said in the rasp of a smoker who was too cheap to pay out for lung resurfacing, “Don’t worry, I’m not here to collect on that finger you owe me, today.”

Shin was pretty sure he didn’t owe Dale shit. He’d lost that finger fair and square when he tried to pull a gun during a previously friendly blackjack game. But Shin didn’t think bringing that up now would benefit him.

“Now, let’s see what you’ve got in that suitcase before I have to start cutting bits off of you to feed to that little pet of yours.” Chad smiled broadly, showing solid gold teeth.

It was odd, he thought, if he’d used a rest stop on the way back from his meeting with the roach daddy, this probably wouldn’t have happened. The course of his life might have changed because he decided to hold it in. It is an odd but apt metaphor for his life.

“And here I was, wondering when the other shoe would drop,” Shin said with a forced cheer.

* * *

Novapol headquarters, such as it was, was a full house. It was just a small office, a reception area, and a meeting room. It was located just up the street from their transport, their real operations center.

The team sat at a conference table in the Spartan meeting room: the engineer, the magic user, the burly front line, and most importantly, the team mascot, Captain Morsel the lizard—also, one small six-legged interloper on the engineer's person.

Over a cheap trucker-style breakfast, Shin went over every element of the job point by point. He emphasized that it was within their capabilities, even if there was one extra mean Husk. They had killed targets this dangerous once or twice before, but it had been a near thing each time.

He whipped up the entire presentation with slides and ensured everyone was fed, all in an hour—the sort of effort that instilled confidence in one's employees. He omitted the bit about his little visit with Chad, and the team didn’t need to know about his problems.

“So…” Fluffy began. She fidgeted on her stool. Her unorthodox anatomical arrangement made it easier to use backless chairs. She sprouted a fuzzy metathorax just above her butt, like an oversized rabbit's cottontail or more accurately a moth's fuzzy behind. “Just a simple smash and grab? They seemed sketchy when we talked to them.”

In the past, the reputation his uncle's death had left him with made it necessary to embellish things. Pad them out a little. Imply things that might not be true. Lie his ass off to keep a roof over his head. He’d stopped doing that with friends and coworkers, but they still did their best to keep him honest.

“Simple, just a C-Class Phantom Husk.” The gray-skinned, blue-haired, wig-wearing engineer Terimalis half growled, half purred. She had that slightly husky ‘Elf’ accent. Her people weren’t elves - purely a thing of fantasy - but one of the 'castaway species.'

Most castaways came in ones or twos. Malis's people came in the thousands in a giant citadel meant by its creators to explore all of time and space. That ended differently than planned.

Her people were called the Dokleshee. They were the very junior members of a partnership with a race of older, more powerful beings—senior partners who regarded the world outside of their Red Citadel as a problem for The Help.

“I haven’t met a Husk that wasn’t flammable, yet,” Fluffy mused.

“We’ll need to bring the big guns so it doesn’t decide to punch holes in the rust bucket while we’re prancing around.” Suggested Dmitri, the seven-foot blond cyborg.

“Hey,” Terimalis protested, “That noble transport has a nom de plume.”

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She’d been with the group for four months, coming in just before the work drought. She’d previously worked for a small team that broke up due to ‘creative differences.’

Her love of arthropods, red meat, and sex talk in that specific order had made her a giant pain in everyone’s ass some days, but she was damned good with electronics.

She fed a small tidbit off of her plate to some sort of giant stag beetle that poked its head from her ample bosom.

The team watched as the blue metallic creature took a little bite of pastry from her. Then retreated into the untamed wild of his keeper's cleavage.

Captain Morself, the mascot of the Novapol group, lifted his head from Shin’s shoulder and watched the beetle with rapt attention. The dark blue and pink lizard was nearly six feet long and tube-shaped, with tiny, stubby legs. Its front paws kneaded Shin’s neck like a cat trying to make biscuits. It was evidently thinking about running and chasing the crunchy intruder.

“Is… Is that always there?” Fluffy said, voicing the question on everyone's mind.

“Only when it is bountifully blessed by lady luck.”

“Oh, a thousand pardons.” Dmitri scoffed after the moment had passed. “I’m sorry I besmirched the honor of The John Denver, Lady Galadriel.” His Slavic accent thickened with his sarcasm.

“Apology... Accepted.” Terimalis agreed with a smile and a slight finger waggle. That was her people's way of saying they were being playful. “But call me Galadriel again and I’ll turn the pilot seat into a projectile seat and launch you into the damn desert.”

“Anyhow, if we’re done flirting…” Shin interrupted testily. “Yes. It’s a standard smash-and-grab after a forced entry and data infiltration. Located in an isolated position with the potential for an unpleasant heavyweight.”

“Security safeguards?” Terimalis asked and arched one eyebrow.

“Top of the line, fourteen years before I was born,” Shin said. “I’m sure you can handle it easily.”

“Oh, Shin, I can handle anything you hurl at me.” Her mischievous smile made it hard to tell if she was genuinely flirting with him or torturing a member of the lesser species for funsies. It was probably the latter.

“Nope!” Shin slashed the air with a hand, scowling. “Not going there today.”

Terimalis sighed and raised one hand in a placating gesture.

“Now, as for the heavy ordinance,” Shin made near eye contact with Dmitri but glanced away guiltily. “In a rather unfortunate turn of events, it was pawned to pay all your salaries for the last four months.”

Dmitri executed a slow facepalm, “Pizedets.”

“Shin, what do you expect us to do if the thing decides to beat up poor John Denver while we’re out?” Fluffy asked, frowning. “The old girl has been through a lot. And I’m worried that Dmitri might get hurt if we try taking on something that tough without fire support.”

“I can take care of myself,” the giant blond slav interjected. “A husk took everything but my head once, and I went back and made it into a hammer once I got better. If this one tries anything, I’ll make a gilded toilet out of its skull, and we will all take turns-”

“Yes, Dmitri, you’re a badass,” Shin sighed, But do you expect me to deal with a C Class with my dick and a couple of knives?”

“A real man would need only his dick,” Dmitri corrected with a raised index finger. “If you played chess more, you’d understand how to utilize your assets better.”

“Do we really have to talk about dicks right now?” Fluffy whined, “You’ll make me lose my appetite.” She frowned and glumly pushed her sad-looking slice of pie around her plate with a fork.

“I could talk about the masculine members all day.” Terimalis sighed wistfully, resting her chin in her hands. “Clinically fascinating. Maybe throw in a little entomology if we’re already doing pillow talk. Combining both topics.... Did you know that some spiders have a vagina like a complex lock only a likewise lover of their own species can open?”

“Nope!” Shin said louder, smacking his open palm on the table. “As amazing as this spider dick might be, let's keep it strictly to business.”

He made eye contact with Terimalis, who rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Now, we don’t have the heavy ordinance available right now. But we do have a small budget left over from paying off the parties who would have been most inclined to break both of my legs.” Shin offered with a slight grin.

“How small?” Dmitri asked,

“Enough to get back one of the smaller big guns, 500 crowns,” Shin announced with a big smile.

The table went quiet as people glanced back and forth at each other curiously.

Crowns were the currency of The King's people. But, outside of those lands, a more universal currency was needed.

nBits, or nano assemblers, were a valuable universal commodity. Feed them a blueprint. They could quickly print almost any object they had materials for. Or even more of themselves at a drastically reduced rate of efficiency.

“Am I missing a joke?” Fluffy asked. “Because it sounds like you just said we’re broke again already?”

“I did indeed,” Shin replied. “After paying off the most urgent debts, our slush fund is only partially full. We’re sitting on less than 3000 crowns worth of nBits.”

The stunned silence continued for a moment. Shin realized he might have lowballed their budget for guns too much because everyone around the table looked like they were trying to decide the best place to hide a body.

Shin had been known to take small loans occasionally to keep the business afloat in lean patches. This stretch had been a lot longer than most. Standard practice was making necessary purchases before paying debts, but this time it wasn't possible.

“If we don’t have a good backup and things go south,” Dmitri warned, “This thing could kill you all. Long before I can finish taking it down on my own.”

“I think you might be exager-” Shin began, raising a hand.

“The Gourmand’s paid you a lot upfront. Are you not telling us something?” Fluffy asked, narrowing her eyes.

Shin was momentarily quiet as he made eye contact with everyone, Fluffy the longest. He practically begged her with his eyes, not to mention the Cat’s Cradle. He prepared to swallow his pride.

“The EZ-8 Riders might have cornered me on the way back.” Shin allowed, “And they might have strongly implied if I didn’t cough up all the money I had on me, they were going to castrate me and feed my nuts to Captain Morsel. And I might have thought you didn’t need to worry about that and kept it to myself.” He stroked Captain Morsel anxiously.

Captain Morsel coiled around Shin’s neck like an unusually friendly hangman's noose, almost like he sensed Shin’s discomfort. He gave a lick with his huge floppy neon green tongue. Shin absently scratched his smooth, scaly back.

Whether he was doing it out of genuine empathy or just because Shin’s neck tasted salty was up in the air. But mole wyrms were social in the wild, living in big communities and mating for life so he probably saw Shin as a big ugly mole wyrm.

None of them wanted to say anything and further on his pride. They were all happy to roast him when the situation called for it, but the man had to be allowed to keep at least a little face

Fluffy broke first. She scratched her neck and looked away. “Okay, that’s a good reason for us to be tight, but are you okay? You should have told us!”

“I’m okay, just a little pissed off. Our loan from them wasn't even due yet.” Shin sighed, reaching up to scratch Captain Morsel under the chin.

Captain Morsel lifted his chin as if trying to escape his human's ministrations, but the way he closed his eyes and leaned towards the scratching told a different story.

“My sympathy to you being rolled by greasy punks,” Dmitri offered. “But let us talk about what we can do for big guns. We need them. We’d still have them if it weren’t for those deadbeats who ran off without paying us, yes.”

“When we find them, I’m gonna to light their eyebrows on fire, yup yup.” Fluffy grumped, folding her arms in indignation.

“Yeah,” Shin said, feeling defeated but also relieved. “Those two really fucked us. I can probably buy back the Cloud Burst or the God Rods before we leave.”

“You can get back the Hellbender.” Dmitri insisted, slamming his closed fist on the table.

Shin’s eyebrow twitched slightly. The Hellbender cost almost as much as both of the other weapons combined. Coupled with the bills he’d just paid off and the extortion from the EZ-8, 90% of the down payment was gone already. “The other two guns would give us more options,” he countered. If we need to shoot anything smaller than the heavyweight, it’d be like killing a mosquito with an elephant gun.”

“You tried to bumrush a security guard last night, I thought overkill was your family motto?” Fluffy reminded him.

“It’s play with fire and get burned,” He countered.

“Which would you rather,” Dmitri inquired, “Trying to shoot an elephant with an elephant gun or shooting an elephant with a can of bug spray?”

Shin paused. Then he frowned. Then he scowled. Days when Dmitri made good sense always portended disaster.

“What’s an Elephant?” Fluffy stage whispered to Terimalis.

Terimalis shrugged. “Big-nosed naked cows with gray skin.”

“Fine.” Shin relented. “We can get the Hellbender, but that’s going to mean we’re not able to use the ship guns on anything small. Ammo for that thing is more expensive than my alimony payments.”

Dmitri smiled broadly. It was the performative smile common to Slavs. It could mean many things, but in this case it meant ‘I told you so.’

“And actual fresh groceries, this time!” Fluffy insisted. She carefully sat back down, plopping her rear in the chair. The slight impact caused her antennae to wobble slightly. “I’m not going to be in that steel coffin with all of you eating nothing but junk for two weeks! I don't want all of you belching and farting like you have butt cancer!”

Shin grit his teeth but held back a nasty response. Fluffy was very particular about the quality of food she liked, but she also ate less than everyone except Dmitri. Only his head and digestive tract were still organic. He could make specific allowances in light of that.

“We can afford some fresh food, vegetables at least. We don’t have fresh meat money right now, though.”

Fluffy nodded, taking a win. “I’ll need a pie, too.”

“Also, a fresh bottle of Vodka for the cockpit,” Dmitri said, hands steepled. “If I have to put up with all of you for that long.”

“You’re pushing it,” Shin announced, tapping the table with his left index finger. “Want anything else? Like maybe my shoes? The shirt off of my back? Or heck, what about the fillings out of my goddamn teeth?”

“I’ll need you to renovate my cabin with a wonderful wood interior. Also a fabulous four-poster bed, and a little lamp fixture full of-” Terimalis added, grinning ear to pointy ear.

“Fuck all of you,” Shin stood up, “Dmitri, you’re with me on grabbing the Hellbender. Everyone else prepares The John Denver. Be ready to leave by 6:00 pm.”

* * **

Very little in Shin’s life gave him as much pleasure as the lines and styles of machines from days long past. To that end, he and Dmitri were cruising down a deserted gravel road in a reproduction of a millennia-old car. He was told his ride made him look like he ‘belonged in a home for the schizophrenic and color blind.’

If others refused to let the pure love and joy that was a replica Plymouth Barracuda into their life, who was he to force his religion on them?

Besides its appearance and the simulated roar of its engine, it was thoroughly modern. It had liquid hydrogen fuel cells, an advanced navigation computer projected from the dash, and 1500 horsepower.

Maybe they were just jealous of the lavender paint job with gold trim. Perhaps the sunroof he'd had installed. Or the sick golden owl decal he’d added to the hood of the car.

With the car’s top down, the two cruised at 45 mph down the double-wide gravel road miles outside of town and enjoyed the weather.

Naturally, the Novapol Group had been named after the town, not the other way around. With their somewhat spotty reputation, this was a sore point for the city. The Sheriff had been subtly hinting it was time for their company to change names.

Shin knew that he was just an ornery old bastard. He hadn’t the slightest understanding of the importance of brand recognition. So Shin just nodded and smiled. One day, the town would be piggybacking off of their reputation, and not vice versa. Shin was sure of it.

“This is stupid,” the large man said in a stern tone as they made a turn toward their destination.

“What, driving down the road in style?” Shin gestured to the expansive open sky around them.

“No, fool,” Dmitri grunted. “That woman hates your guts, not mine. You should have had me go on my own.”

“It’ll be fine,” Shin assured him, shifting gears and reveling in the tactile sensation. His voice buzzed slightly. Due to their speed, his rebreather mask took in a greater-than-normal air volume. “Sally loves me. I’m like a favorite nephew who can do no wrong.”

For a beat, Dmitri said nothing. He pondered the sparse yellow and pink desert coral that dotted the valley. It was as if he sought the words he wanted to speak from without rather than within. But in reality, he was just trying to find a way to gently remind Shin he was full of shit.

“You live in your own little world.” Dmitri scolded.

“Oh, it’s not so much my own little world,” Shin hedged.

“Here comes the bullshit.” Dmitri griped, with a long-suffering sigh.

“As a simple truth I believe it in my heart.” He tapped his knuckle on his bare chest, having opened his shirt to enjoy the late summer breeze on his skin.

“Your stupidity will be the death of me, Shin.”

“If you keep saying that, I’ll start thinking you mean it.”

“My death sooner rather than later, I think.”

“Dmitri,” he spoke in a calm, monotone voice without a hint of play. “I’d never bring you here if there were even the slightest chance it would put you in unnecessary danger.”

Dmitri just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Shin turned into the driveway. It was a slight climb uphill to a weather-beaten store flanked by old-growth land coral.

The ancient fuzzy holographic proclaimed it as ‘Old Crap.' And further, that it was 'the finest purveyor of vintage hardware.’

Shin opened his mouth to tell Dmitri a fantastic one-liner about a replica CD player he'd bought here but was interrupted. The windshield spiderwebbed into a massive line of cracks radiating out from a hole the size of Shin's fist. That was a split second after a gunshot rang out.