Kincade recoiled at the rain running like a river onto his face from the sidewalk overhang. He was still drunk enough, but not so many sheets to the wind as to pass out. Yet he was Sober enough to realize it was time to murder that bastard who started this year of pain and suffering in the coal and fire-filled hell of that airship.

The building and moonlight work together to cast shadows in every corner and narrow alley. Kincade moved from one side of the road to the other, slipping in and out of the darkness, heading for the Cuba district warehouses. After a while, you feel that it's not that you arrive at the Cuba district so much as realize that you have stumbled into it.

The nature of the buildings became ramshackle, and many were little more than wooden tents. The difference between the worker and master to the eye is under-scored in architecture. Like a layered cake, the town was cream filling, a beautiful top layered, and a slightly burnt and crusty lower layer. This part of the city was the burnt stuff you scrubbed out of the pan, a mix of one-room worker cottages housing generational family units, grandparents, parents, and children living in the home. Parents worked for a penny a day at jobs in a place that cost two pennies a day to live, and the money lenders were always busy.

Should one house fall to sickness, then every home in the street would wonder when the reaper would knock on the door. And in the middle of it all, Harry had started a factory close to the dock of the Duppa Bay, named after the English immigrant George Duppa, a family friend of the Rollins, one of the first to settle the Duppa Bay area. The rumor was to be believed a millionaire, earned by force of will and maybe squatting a large part of south island cattle land without payment to the authority or the Iwi tribes of the Maori. If memory served, he mentored "Do what it takes" Harry McCabe.

Kincade placed his hand on the factory side door handle and twisted it, pushing gently.

"Dam it to the Kraken's left nut," Kincade said. The door rattled but was barred by unseen means. Stepping back and looking to find another way in, he could see what must be the office and Harry's current location. Fortunately, it was the only part of the factory that was lit. The rest of the site was washed in the early morning darkness, occasionally lit by moonlight as the clouds rushed across the sky.

Looking from the door along the ally, several tea chests and creates were packed against the wall, and above them, an open window. Kincade stacked the empty boxes one on another to build a stairway. As he worked, he was unaware that he had taken upon himself one of the sailor habits and sung under his breath, "To bring sugar, tea, and rum. When the tonguin is done, we will take leave and go." And soon enough, the work was done, and the stack was ready to climb, so he did.

"I am telling you, Johnny, I heard a sound like a tea leaf was at the boxes." A deep voice filled Kincade's ears and was coming from the corner of the factory.

"Look, it be them rats again." Replied another, even deeper than the first. Kincade froze at the top of the boxes he had been climbing, an outstretched hand on the window sill.

"Yeah, sure enough, but Mr Harry says we are to keep watch on this place, and a watch we will." The first voice replied, "Anyway, did you hear our Meg talk about the one they caught last week?" The man continued.

"No. What? A rat? Sure, as sugar in our tea on a Sunday, we catch a few a night. The nippers nab them and treat them like a dam game chasing the younger kiddies. Disgusting things, to be sure." The second man replied.

"Anyway. This one was as big as a dog. My Meg told me that she was told. A family across town cornered it. One of the big ones with a lit torch swung it in the thing's face and then brained it with a shovel. But this is the thing. It didn't die. It just snorted and looked angry, and then it took on this look in its beady black eyes that shone like something from hell itself." The first man continued.

"Get about with yourself; that is just a tale." The second man continued as they walked further into the alley near Kincade and his dodgy watch tower. From the top of the stack of boxes, he watched. The formula of science and reason battled with the desperation and blood lust over the plan in his head and the need to leap to the open window.

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"No, for sure, I would swear before the magistrate that hell rat leaped for the torch bearer and took his hand for his part in the whole sorry night." Continued the storyteller.

Kincade's knees started to wobble at the top of his perch as the tea chest below his feet betrayed him. A crack of wood and the pandemonium of hell's door opened for the hoard to rush through.

"What the bloody hell!" both men called out from the ground as the boxes fell before them.

"What was that? It got to be? I am no-go-in to lose my hand.." The storyteller yelled and pointed at the window as a shadow disappeared.

"Don't be a daft bam pot. It's got to be a thief looking for the office cash box." Replied his friend.

Inside the warehouse, Kincade fell from the window, head and shoulder first, into the darkness. At the moment that passed, Kincade's grog-filled mind cleared, and he remembered he had climbed reasonably high to get in the window. His arms flailed around, and his forearm hit hard against a railing. The rough milled timber scrapped along his forearm until his hand caught the railing. For the first time, he blessed his time and labor aboard the airship for his strength as he pulled himself up, falling onto the walkway.

He was breathing hard and fighting to get his bearing. "It is lucky I am still drunk. No way a sober man would survive that." Kincade thought to himself.

He started to move down the walkway in almost total darkness, and a light spilled out from the office window at the end of the path. For all Kincade knew, it was an indoor privy complete with a gravity-feed water flush.

Or if he was lucky, and he was, for no ordinary man would be alive after the year Kincade had lived through. Standing before the office door, it loomed before him.

It was a typical door to a standard factory office, except for one significant and unique difference on the upper glass panel. Stenciled on the glass in gold letters the name Harold McCabe, sole owner and proprietor, and the too boot, the light was on. Kincade reached out and placed a hand on the ceramic door knob. It was cold to the touch, not what Kincade had expected. Yet, in his other hand, the dagger felt warm and familiar, a tool to do the needed job.

The Knob turned, and Kincade rushed to the threshold. The door slammed into something as Kincade ran through. With a quick scan of the room, he only saw an upturned chair, a desk, a series of plan boxes, and a ledger neatly stacked on the desk, but no Harry. Spinning to look behind the door, he came face to chin with Harry McCabe.

Then, an intense pain in his neck as Harry's fist slammed into Kincade's jaw and pain in his back as he hit the desk. To Kincade, these things had become background pain in a life hardened by suffering, and he was upright quickly, knife still in his hand. He had to tilt his head upwards to look at Harry's face.

"What, not even a word for a friend and partner?" Harry asked, stepping out from behind the door as he did the pneumatic joints of the armored power suit. Kincades own invention. It made a swish sound followed by a clomp as the boot's metal landed on the floor.

"You took my life, you bastard; I will kill you!" Kincade screamed.

"You gave it away with your stupidity." Harry spat back. A swish and a hand grabbed Kincade by the shirt and shoulder, flinging him out the door onto the walkway. Somebody has set the factory lights. As industrial electrics flicked to life, a voice called from below.

"We know you're up there, thief! Your nicked, get your arse down here, and we take you down the clink for a wee cap-a-tea." The new voice called out. Harry stepped onto the walkway, the power suit in full display bands of steel around his legs, arms, and torso, all connected by a frame of metal rods with pipes running along them. On each of Harry's joints was a box the size of a big man's hand and as thick as a matchbox. Flexible pipes all ran between them. From his prone position, Kincade looked up and noted that if he were to cut a tube, then the suite would lose power. Rolling backward onto his feet like a circus acrobat, Kincade found his feet under him, ready.

"Oh, how wonderful the police are below, and I am above," Harry said, taking a step forward. "You know, a thought occurs to me that if I were to toss you from here, you would hit the floor. That constable would say it was for the best. You know what? That is exactly what I will do." Harry continued.

"Common Harry, you don't need to be that way. All I want is my due. And a dance on your grave," Kincade said.

"Your due? You are due nothing. You are a simple ratchet monkey I have been carrying for years. Little more than a servant." Harry returned,

"But my ideas and my plans. You are wearing them right now, and I deserve something for that? I deserve everything as the inventor." Kincade stepped forward, the blade of the knife along his forearm and the handle in his palm.

"No! No! You're going to kill. Me, please, police, hurry." Harry yelled out. He launched himself forward, swinging his robot-assisted arms. In turn, Kincade held up his forearm with the knife blade out. Harry's blow connected with the Kincade's outstretched arm.

Kincade, musing and bet, paid off the knife's edge, made contact with the hose pipe running along the arm, and carved a large piece of rubber off the tube. The cut revealed that the rubber pipe had been reinforced internally with crisscrossing wire, preventing it from being cut through. Kincade felt the thud of the attack hit hard against his arms. The force transferred through to his shoulder, then his torso. He dropped the knife, growled in pain, and was knocked back towards the stairs.

Kincade looked at Harry, then spat on the ground, "I am going to kill you." He said. Then, from behind, someone charged into him from a stern, drove him into the walkway decking, and landed on top of him, forcing air from his body. Next, another set of hands grabbed him and pushed metal bracelets around Kincade's wrist, then the other.

"You're nicked. You toe rag." The policeman yelled into Kincade's ear. Kincade didn't hear the copper. He only heard Harry laughing.