Scirocco’s thumb was ground raw by the wheel of his lighter. The paper of his cheap cigarette had turned soggy around the filter.
“C’mon, c’mon. Fuckin’ thing, Oi Kuvie!” He called out to Kirche who was preoccupied powering up the passenger mover.
It was nearing the end of Dawn, Kirche wanted them to have already been well on their way to Ingram by now, but vehicle troubles along with her supposed escort had halted that. They were still stuck in the ashy lot outside the Ironworks. It’d still take an hour or so to gather up her team, a time she desperately dreaded spending with Scirocco.
“Ksh!” Kirche hissed at the machine. “Where are those two tech freaks when you need them…” Another turn of the key that accomplished nothing.
“OI! KIRCHE!” Scirocco called again, not moving from the cool, shadowy wall he was leaned against.
“Presence grant me patience- WHAT?” She screamed.
“Got a light?” He called back. The redhead leaned out of the window with a snarl.
“No! Make yourself useful or fuck off!” She jabbed a finger back towards the tumorous office unit. “See if there’s anyone that can start this thing!”
“Tsk, moody bitch.” Scirocco said under his breath, tucking the fraying cig into a breast pocket. “Fine, just honk or whatever if you figure it out.” He waved lazily while strutting past the vehicle, blind to the aggressive gestures being thrown towards his back.
“Gonna kill him. Gonna make it slow, make it good.” The Shoulder muttered in between turns of the key. As if it was just as relieved as she was that the wiry man was out of sight, the mover thrummed to life. “Finally, what would one of them say about now…” She uncomfortably stroked the control wheel. “Good girl? Boy? Nah that’s weird.” Her hand hovered over the wheel, not committing to the honk. Kirche pursed her lips in thought.
“Well, I’m in no rush to call him back, how about you?” The machine's startup process dimmed in volume, returning to an idle state. The air conditioner caressed her with cool, fresh air. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Won’t kill the others to wait for another ten, twenty, whatever.” She smirked, fishing out the worn novella from her jacket and leaning back in the seat before meeting the electric eyes of the dashboard. “It’s crazy! Right as you came out it started up! Well no time to question it, let’s get going! Think he’ll buy it?”
The vehicle didn’t respond to her rehearsal or question.
“Yeah me either...Damnit, I'm becoming like them, you can’t hear me right?” She shrugged after waiting for a reply that didn’t come, still opting to switch off the non-necessities of the vehicle and leave it barely idling. “Just in case…let’s both take it easy yeah?” Kirche stretched across the cab seats, kicking boots up onto the open windowsill, zoning out into the lurid book.
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“Damned uppity… whatever.” Scirocco fumed. He wasn’t sure who to look for, or even if he would bother to. Maybe if he just slipped away into a side room somewhere he’d be forgotten for the job. Maybe could suck up to King a bit more and get out of it, offer to deal with paperwork or say he’ll organise a catchup with Seere. He figured he should check in with the clerk girl at least, see if King was even around to begin with.
If he wasn’t too caught up in his frustrated fantasies of flogging off work, he’d have noticed the clerk already talking to someone.
“Oh, Mr. Reyar? I think he’s left with Kirchy. I mean, Ms. Kuvie, they’ve got a job somewhere today.” Scirocco turned into the lobby, focusing after his name was mentioned. Talking to Wren was a pair of large men in rounded, dark green body armour, identical to the pair that escorted Garum. Cassie caught his gaze in between them “Oh!”
Scirocco violently shook his head, rushed a cutting motion at his neck, but he was too late. “There he is!” She finished.
His demeanour shifted in a blink as the pair turned to him, strutting up to them with a wide smile and open arms.
“Ha-hey there fellas! How's business at Seere? You know I was just thinking about a catch up, we should schedule that, huh?”
“We’re free now.” One of them said,
“A catch up sounds good.” The other finished
“It really does! But I’m just so swamped.” He sidled between them towards the clerk desk. “Hey Missy, when’s my next free day?”
Cassie looked taken aback, not quite sure what was happening, and certainly unsure what the pleading, rapid blinks from Scirocco meant.
“Umm, you don’t really have a schedule, Mr. Reyar. But aren’t you meant to be out today?” Cassie shrugged.
“Oh! Yes Ms. Wren, you’re entirely right! I better go check on Kuvie and get moving.” He tried to pivot and slip between the pair again. They’d formed a solid, shoulder-to-shoulder wall.
“This won’t take long.” One of them growled.
“Well that’s… yeah. But I’ve really gotta go, we're already behind schedule so I’ll just…slip behind you here and-” A gloved hand clasped into his shoulder, much harder than necessary to halt his movement. “...And let’s go have a chat!” He twisted his neck towards the confused clerk. “Hey doll! Can you let King know we’ve got some guests in!”
“He’s already in a meeting.” She shrugged, and looked even more confused at whatever Scirocco silently screamed at her.
“We’re not here for King. Scirocco.” The one that wasn’t in the process of dislocating his shoulder said. He jerked a square jaw to the side and his companion began leading Scirocco along.
“Oh…That’s fine. Just a chat for us blue-collars then…” He winced out, unable to slip from the crushing grip. A joyless, cold huff of a laugh came from the one holding him.
Out of sight, Cassie tried to figure out the silent words Scirocco gave her.
“...Rapid ditch?...Doesn’t seem right.” She shrugged and returned to organising paperwork.
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“Well boys, I think you’ve done enough ligament damage for the day, care to loosen up a bit?” Scirocco pleaded, another attempt to duck out from their grip had resulted with both his arms in a painful grasp now. He was getting dragged through the ash-coated floor of the Ironworks more than guided now.
“Do you ever shut up?” One of them jerked him along, taking out their frustration on his shoulder.
“Garum said he had a mouth on him, also said we weren’t allowed to fix that.” The other added.
“Shame.”
“Yup.”
“Oh, Garum’s here? That’s good, he’s reasonable.” Scirocco cut in, though the fact they both gave him that awful, mirthless chuckle sent a chill down his spine. “Uh, boys, I think you’re a bit lost.” He tried to add when they turned into an eerily quiet hall in the damaged half of the factory. They didn’t answer, dragging him to a door they shouldered open.
The pair threw him to the tiles before stepping in and closing the door behind them. That now familiar impenetrable wall of muscle and armour blocking him away from it.
“Mr. Reyar.” A cold voice slithered across the tiles, shocking Scirocco back to awareness. He raised himself to his feet, uselessly trying to dust the ash from his suit shirt and regain some composure. The ratty man looked around while adjusting his crooked tie. It looked like a shower block, one in dire straights. Mould and mildew creeped like vines across the shattered tiles, brown water still occasionally dripping down from cracked pipes. Light piped in through gaps in the wall, illuminating the room in thin sunbeams.
On the other side of the room investigating himself in the least-broken mirror was Garum. His odd, bulky cybernetic eyepiece rested on the basin. Scirocco squinted through the half-light as he slowly stepped towards the man, he was poking at something on his face. No, rubbing something into it. Scirocco stopped a few metres away from Garum.
“Hey Garum, gonna guess this isn’t a friendly visit.” Scirocco tried to joke. The room was dead silent in response, no clacking of shoes on tile, no slow dripping of water, nothing. Nothing except the faint clammy sound of some unknown ointment being rubbed into flesh, with the occasional stifled hiss of pain.
“Come closer.” Garum ordered through gritted teeth.
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“I’m good here, thanks.” The guards at the door took a small but loud step forward. Garum didn’t need to say anything else, Scirocco just sighed and slowly stepped forward.
“I realised something about you, Reyar.” Garum kept investigating himself while speaking. “You’re a bad liar.”
“Oh dear, I’ll stop the presses, big news.” Scirocco cut in, about a metre away from Garum now. He swallowed back disgust at the sight of his face. The upper right side of his face, normally obscured by the cybernetics, was a swollen mess of cracked, pulsing flesh. It was glistening with slickness from whatever ointment Garum was treating it with.
“Don’t think you can get cute with me. You’re a bad liar, because you can’t even accomplish anything with it.” Garum turned and stepped closer to Scirocco, grabbing his wrist to stop him moving backwards. The damaged eye became clearer, the vacant socket bordered by interfacing wires and braces. A silver glimmer reflected from the back of the empty space where the primary plug was built into Garum’s head. The repulsive, infected tissue spread from the sockets, mirroring the webs of mould around them.
“I spoke with Torres. You couldn’t even convince him, a senile old fool pretending to be a king, to make the correct contract.” It gave Scirocco a moment of pause, it had been a while since he’d heard King’s true name, he’d made a great effort to make it forgotten. He didn’t want a Simon Torres to have ever existed, only King. “You had everything you needed, he had money on the table to be won, your word that the Splinter was a lethal danger to his interests, and that he could have it killed like that!”
Garum didn’t accentuate his point with a snap, opting instead for a rapid blow to the liver. Scirocco fell to the dirty tiles with a groan. Garum’s hand wrapped around his throat and turned his face back to his sick visage.
“One job, you useless wretch. One job to convince a man on the edge of dementia that a monster needed killing. How bad a liar are you? It wasn’t even a lie! All you had to do was tell him that he killed my men. How did you POSSIBLY fuck that up?” He hissed into Scirocco’s face.
“I-I-gruh” Scirocco struggled to stammer out anything past the spittle pooling in the back of his throat. Garum released his neck, letting him fall choking to the damp ground.
“I…Might’ve embellished the details a little.” He managed to hoarsely stammer out.
“Embellished the details enough that he didn’t buy it, I’m surprised the old bastard can still spell ‘Investigate’ but I saw the contract. All this investigating, all this mention of a disturbance. All it needed was Kill the Splinter. HOW HARD WAS THAT?” Garum’s boot slammed back into his liver. Scirocco doubled back over, coughing up acidic, stinging bile.
“This. THIS. Is what I hate about you. You think you’re special, you think you’re better than what you are. You’re not a snake, you’re not even a rat.” Garum booted him back down when Scirocco tried to right himself. “You’re beneath that! You’re a cockroach digging around in the shit! And you have the GALL to overstep your bounds, to think you’re better than that! You think you’re a contender in MY game? You’re not even on the board and you managed to fuck it up!” He crouched down, grabbing Scirocco by the hair and bringing his gasping face to his own.
“You’ve got one more chance to make this right. Tell me what you’re going to do.” The broken cracks of Garums face weeped clear, oily pus, glistening in the sunbeams. He jerked Scirocco’s head, beckoning him to speak.
“Ki-Kill the Splinter.”
“Good, why?”
“So…” He stopped to clear the acid scalding his throat. “So Seere can start on the town, undisturbed. No risks, no variables.”
“That’d be a good answer from anyone else. But for you, try AGAIN!” With a roar, Garum planted Scirocco's face back into the broken tiles, thin cuts from the cracked ceramic spread across his cheek.
“I don’t - I don’t know!”
“Think harder then!” Another forced push against the floor.
“Buh-because…” Scirocco started, lips wet with mildew and blood.
“Good, because why?”
“...” Scirocco’s throat pulsed, knowing the words but finding himself unable to say them, unable to lower himself to saying it. Instead of another facefull of ceramic, Garum yanked him back to his face.
“Say it.” He hissed, tears of pus running down his cheek.
“Because you said so…” Scirocco whimpered, and was rewarded with the release of his hair.
“Better, you’re starting to know your place, trash.” A small metal object clinked to the floor in front of Reyar. A preloaded Aurum-Standard Credit key. “Two-hundred Oz, there’s your down payment. Use it to get whatever you need to kill the beast, when that’s done you get the other three.”
“What about my out? You said it yourself man he’s going senile, I need to get out of here!” Scirocco begged after pocketing the key.
“You lost that privilege when you made this complicated. Consider yourself lucky you’re walking out of this with anything more than the skin on your back.” Garum returned to the mirror, righting his suit and grimacing at the state of his face. Garum clicked his tongue, grabbing his eyepiece before turning towards the exit. “Keep in mind, you fuck this up again and we’re gonna have words about that.”
The pair of bruisers clacked their boots on the tiles to back up his point, Scirocco jumped at the sound. The hiss of his eyepiece locking back into place seemed to return Garum’s professionalism.
“Good day, Mr. Reyar. I believe you’ve got work to do.”
Scirocco stayed on his knees, not raising his head to look at Garum as he strode past him.
“Oh. And one other note, if the opportunity arises, if any of your King’s’ favourite contractors are out of the picture along with the Splinter, well that's just a bonus for me, call it futureproofing. I trust you'll use this information wisely. Good day.”
Garum left, his guards at his heels, leaving Scirocco leaking tears on the shattered tiles, desperately holding onto the Oz key for dear life.
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Kirche woke with the slam of a fist against sheet metal, her novella falling off her face as she shot up.
“Damnit, now i’m gonna lose my place…what the hell Rocco-oh wow.” She was stunned when she saw Scirocco’s torn up face, the sheer hatred in his eyes.
“...I see you got the mover started. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Yeah crazy that, I gave up a bit ago to be honest, call it a miracle of the Presence…the hell happened to you?”
“...fell down the stairs.”
“From heaven?”
“Shut up and move over.” Kirche obeyed, not wanting to push the simmering man any further, not when they had a long drive ahead of them. He silently got into the seat beside her.
“...hey, still got that dart?” She asked as the vehicle rumbled back to life. Scirocco fetched the tattered cigarette from his pocket.
“Guess so.”
Kirche fished a metal, reliable lighter from her jacket, flicking it alight between them.
“Just keep the window down, but hell, I think you need it.”
“...Yeah.” Scirocco agreed, accepting the offered flame and letting the tarry, burning tobacco flush away the taste of blood, acid and salt.
They were well on their way to Razgrith and Antonio’s unit when Kirche broke the silence.
“You know, I never thought I’d say this. But I think I prefer you with your lips flapping. Silent Rocco is just creepy.”
Scirocco sighed, stretching out his bruised jaw.
“Keep your opinions to yourself, bitch.”
“That’s more like it.”
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“I dislike this.” Rhapsody said, glitchy and unstable through new speakers.
“I figured, the endless complaining was a hint.” Soune remarked, making sure all his cables were connected as solidly as possible. Many of the wires were roughly spliced together, sealed by wraps of electrical tape. If Rhapsody’s assembly was rough before, it was downright haphazard now. “I guess we’re lucky Kirche is so late, running down to the wire with this.” An exposed part of the cabling stung her fingers. “Ow, was that you?”
“No.” Soune wasn’t convinced by her machine.
“Whatever, I think I can hear them, this’ll have to do.” Soune tested the connection between Rhapsody and the vehicles basic comms system for the umpteenth time. “...This is the best I could do, sorry Rhap.”
“It will do.” He replied after a contemplative pause. Soune offered him a quick smirk, then placed his sensors on the dashboard.
“You know what to do if something comes looking, right?”
“Activate the vehicle, run them down.” Soune tapped his housing to chide the robot, receiving another shock from the rough electronics.
“I really hope that was a bad joke. On both parts. Record them, asshole, and if they find you just run-” Soune cocked her head “-drive, I guess.”
“...And then what? Rust to nothing in the wasteland?”
“No, never. You remember the outcrop we stopped at-?”
“Where you endangered yourself?
“Where I had lunch, but sure. Go there. I’ll find you.”
“...Confirmed.” The machine's morosity was clear through the garbled speakers.
She turned her head towards the yard gate. “Yeah, they’re nearly here…Stay safe, Rhap.”
Soune left her companion with a gentle hand on the housing, all she could offer to the machine that had been further crippled and forced to watch its Handler go where it couldn’t follow. She paused before fully closing the door of the large mover.
“Rhapsody?”
“...yes?”
“I won’t abandon you. I’ll come back, I promise.”
“I know… Go, do not raise suspicion.”
“Atta boy, I’ll contact you when I can.”
“Goodbye Soune. Be safe.”
She didn’t have the heart to reply with a smirking ‘never’, just closing the door to the vehicle and stepping away after retrieving her equipment from the back seat. The vehicle seemed as disguised as it could get, tucked away as out of sight amongst the newer sections of the scrapyard. She hoped any intruders wouldn’t scrutinise the differences in rust or stripped parts. It was the best she could do.
The loud horn of the vehicle cut into her thoughts. She walked backwards, away from her companion with a twist in her chest. Soune forced herself to turn away, walking briskly towards the yard gate.