I miss real cigarettes. The indulgent masochism of real tobacco burning your lungs. There was something about the grime of that habit that felt like a real reflection of humanity to me. Humans are not noble. We cheat, we steal, and we murder. At least on Earth, the planet had been slowly adopting that dirty, polluted veneer. This world was far too clean.

Humans were the same scum they have always been, but Qi gave the world a feeling of vitality and life that it did not deserve. The air felt like it was trying to make me healthier.

The sorry excuse for a cigarette that I had dangling from my mouth was the same. I took a deep drag on the annoyingly minty fresh spirit herbs. I had to. The constant ingestion of herbs was the only thing that slowed down the calcification of my cultivation.

I sat in an empty train car. The only other passenger had disembarked from the newly constructed locomotive two stops ago. I was the only fucker stupid enough to be going to Asani, instead of leaving.

I thought I would never return to the sun-blasted town but as I watched the scenery turn ever more barren and desert-like, I felt a pang of homesickness, I had thought long crushed out of my soul.

I wasn’t pining for Asani. The whole town could burn to the ground as far as I was concerned. I was thinking of my real home, New Mexico. The home I had left behind forty years ago when I transmigrated to this disingenuous world of Qi and Cultivation.

I miss the optimistic teenager who had signed up to join the police academy. I had been so sure back then of what was right and what justice truly was.

I shook my head and ashed my cigarette out of the window. That naive youth was gone now. I killed him. There was no justice on earth, just as there was no justice in this world of might makes right.

The cigarette burnt down to my fingers, and I flicked it out of the window. No chance of starting a fire in this wasteland.

The train started to slow down, and I swung out of the uncomfortable wooden pew that I had been sitting in. I reached into to my military coat pocket for another smoke. That was one thing I appreciated about this place. The coat was in the style of eighteenth-century redcoats back on Earth. Except this coat was black with gold finishings. It certainly had a lot more style than my old police uniform or military fatigues.

At the front of the car the conductor poked his head in and shouted at an unreasonable volume, “last stop! Last stop Asani.”

The train pulled up to a rickety wooden platform that constituted the Asani train station. I stepped off, swinging my travel sack of spare cloths over one shoulder and lighting up my cigarette with the other. I did not use a lighter but rather coated my thumb and index finger in metal qi. Striking them together, I created enough of a spark to ignite the bundle of herbs.

It had taken me awhile to figure out that trick, but I seemed to be the only person who smoked in this world. Lighters were not one of the Clockwork Emperor’s modern inventions. The bastard only seemed interested in ground-breaking changes, like aqueducts and trains.

Something felt wrong to me about Asnai as I looked over the battered crags and crevices that made up the landscape.

I chuckled to myself and focused my cultivation so that I would experience the temperature. The heat hit me like the smell of a midden heap.

“That is how I remember you,” I whispered to myself.

I was broken out of my nostalgia by a voice that squealed out, “I am not leaving Protector Bai. We own this town why should I leave? Besides I will not learn anything at our sister sect that father cannot teach me.”

I looked over to see that an unlikely pair had joined me on the platform. A boy no older than sixteen and wearing the robes of the Sun Gate Sect was pulling his arm out of the hands of a much older man who was trying to pull him onto the train.

The older man, Protector Bai assumably, was about to respond when he saw me looking at them. He squinted and coming to a realisation said with a patronizing grin, “Sun Wei, I thought you would never come back to this little backwater of ours.”

He looked at the stripes of rank on my shoulder and grimaced. He spat and continued, “I suppose I should call you corporal Sun now.”

“I don’t care much for formalities, Bai Ping. That was always more of an issue for you Sect types,” I said returning his scorn.

I looked over the boy he had with him with more scrutiny. I nodded and questioned, “is that Fan’s kid? The boy has his looks. If he is still alive, I guess he must have won his little succession spat. Is he sitting in the big chair on that hill, your sect calls a mountain?”

Protector Bai growled, “You should show Patriarch Fan some respect. You are back in Asani now and the emperor’s armies are far north from here.”

I felt him flexing his qi and could tell that we were about on par in strength. We were both at the peak of the energy focusing stage. Still, I could take him. I had to stop myself from wincing at the thought of the pain that kind of battle would bring to my battered meridians.

It would hurt if it came down to a fight, but I was not going to give the stuck up prick the satisfaction of backing down first. I took a long puff of my cigarette and blew out the green smoke that the herbs produced.

“The emperor’s armies are not that far away old timer. I am right here, aren’t I?” I spoke while letting some metal qi drip down my meridians to my fingertips.

The tension between the two of us was broken by the kid. “Sun Wei? My father told me about you. He said you were some kind of cultivation genius back in the day.”

He looked at my greying temples and sneered. He joked, “you cannot be that much of a genius if you are already aging. You are the same age as my father, but he does not look more than twenty-five. Is that why you came back? Did the army kick you out for being weak?”

The kid wasn’t far off the mark, but I still chirped to Protector Bai, “Kid certainly has Fan’s self-importance.”

Looking to the boy I replied, “I came back for some tequila. Cannot find any decent agave up north. All they drink up there is spirit wine.”

The Train gave a sharp whistle and started to pull away from the platform. Protector Bai looked like he wanted to force the boy onboard, but Fan’s son shook him off. The arrogant boy remarked, “the young master of the Sun Gate Sect should not leave the sect. If I left to study with another sect how would that reflect on us?”

Protector Bai gave up and threw hands into the air. He turned to me and said, “enjoy your return, Sun Wei. I hope it will be brief.”

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I let the heat continue to pound against me. It made me sweat, and I had to undo the front of my coat, but I enjoyed the reality of it. Cultivators spent too much of their energy trying to be perfect.

Protector Bai and his charged had walked north, to the section of Asani everyone called uptown. In that direction the nicer shops and houses surrounded the Sun Gate Sect’s hill.

I on the other hand took off south, to the slums. Asani’s slums were not particularly populous. The slums in the larger towns and cities to the north were crammed full of desperate souls. Asani’s slums on the other had at least allowed for a modicum dignity. They were spread out shacks built in the shade of a particularly large old quarry. The old quarry was the only reason that Asani had been established in the first place. The whole town used to be a satellite settlement under the protection of the Sun Gate Sect in their heyday. Before the Sect was forced into making their base here their primary centre of power.

I walked slowly back through my old neighbourhood. To be honest, I was not sure what I was doing back here. I had boarded the train with the intention of heading south to the Capital and then for some reason I just stayed onboard until the last stop on the line.

It was true that my house here was probably the only thing I owned apart from the clothes I was wearing and the spare shirts in my bag. I had always been told that cultivation required the shedding of worldly goods.

That all sounded great until you hit a wall in your cultivation and realised that you had nothing else. I suppose I should stop dragging my feet.

I picked up the pace for the last few hundred meters to my door. My house was large for the slums. It had been the only property that my parents in this world had left to me.

Out of work stone masons could not have afforded much better. They both died while I was still a baby. The only thing that kept me alive was the kindness of a few neighbours.

The house was a wooden building built into the stone of the quarry wall. Some of the interior rooms were dug into the rock itself and the house stayed cool year-round.

I let my Qi trickle through my fingers into the old arrays I had placed on the house. The silver metal Qi seeped into the carved grooves of the array. Slowly a symbol could be clearly seen on the door. It resembled a hexagon with separate symbol hanging over each of the corners.

There was clicking sound and the door pushed itself inward. I grinned at the quality of my own work. It was amazing how long these old defensive arrays had lasted in my absence.

I pushed through the door and instantly froze. Someone else had been here. Recently too. Wincing at the pain, I slowly started to cycle my lethargic qi through my meridians. As the qi circulated my senses became heightened.

I sniffed the air. Definitely a stranger. Female, most likely young. It did not smell like she was still here though. I did a slow circuit of the entryway careful not to disturb any dust on the floor expect around the edges, where only I would think to walk.

There were distinct footprints. A woman’s prints judging by the size. This whole scene was peculiar. The feet were bare which implied either someone poor or crazy given how hot the stone walkways of Asani were. What I could not work out was how she could have broken into my house.

The defensive arrays should have kept anyone out that did not simply break the door down with overpowering main force. Perhaps she had tunnelled in through the stone at the back somehow.

I made my way as quietly as possible through the entryway and inspected the other rooms. It was easier to keep quiet on the stone floor than it would have been on wood.

The house looked lived in but not clean. Whoever had moved into my house was not a big fan of dusting. The kitchen was full of dirty dishes. Well full might have been overstating it slightly. I had only left about four plates in the place.

A quick inspection of the basic flame array I used as a stovetop showed that it had not been used. The interloper had been cooking in the fireplace instead of using the array. Perhaps they misidentified the array as a trap of some kind.

Apart from one of the bedrooms having an unmade bed there was nothing else to find in the place. I let my cultivation stop circulating and my senses dulled. I seemed to have picked up some sort of squatter. I had no idea how she made it through my defences but when she came back, I would ask her.

I moved one of the kitchen chairs into the entry way scraping the back legs along the stone floor as I dragged it. I settled down to wait with my elbows resting on the top of the chair back straddling the seat and sitting backwards.

As I waited my mind started to wander. What now? I did not have a plan. My life in this world had always been driven. I had wanted power. To live this life on my own terms. Unbound by the dictates of a capricious government or other authority.

Strangely enough, the military had been perfect for that. Sure, I had to take orders, but I had never been given one I was not happy to follow. It had mostly been clamping down on arrogant Sects who would not bend the knee to the clockwork emperor’s new rule.

That I had been happy enough to do. The Emperor was at least trying to appear like someone who gave a damn about the rights of non-cultivators in his empire. It was all just for show I knew. The Emperor just needed the excuse of mistreatment so that he could crack down on the sects.

The real reason I joined the military was that they gave out cultivation resources like water. I had planned to leave when I had squeezed out enough Qi filled goodies to fill a garbage truck.

Now I had been kicked out. Officially I had been granted medical leave to ‘fix’ my cultivation. A heart demon like mine wasn’t something that just went away though.

A memory of a woman’s dead body splayed out on a New Mexico driveway flashed through my mind. I quickly chased the image away before I became embroiled in memories I would rather forget.

Suddenly I was lifted out of my foul reverie by a loud popping sound. Out of thin air, a metal package had materialized on the floor in front of me. The package was made out of gears and as I watched in shock it began to whir to life.

It produced several clicking sounds before a disembodied robotic voice sounded out, “Corporal Sun Wei of the fifth Imperial Legion, acknowledge.”

I let my military training kick and answered, “yes sir!”

The whirring box trilled and cracked open to reveal a metal badge and a letter. I stooped down to pick the objects up. As soon as I removed them the metal box vanished with another pop.

I shivered at the amount of qi that kind of instant teleportation required. There was no doubt that this had to come from the office of the Emperor himself. I felt myself sweat when I thought of the implications of the Emperor knowing about a nothing washed out Corporal like me.

The badge was a simple metal disk with the words “Marshal Sun” carved into the steel-like surface. On the other side, a short statement read, “the Marshal represents my will in matters of justice.”

That last word hit me like a ton of bricks. What did the Emperor know? It also disgusted me. The Emperor was not a force for justice just as the police force had not been a force for justice back on earth.

The note was written in impeccable handwriting, almost mechanical in its perfection:

Dear Corporal Sun Wei.

It is my understanding that you have been granted medical leave from the fifth legion and have returned to your hometown of Asani. I do not know precisely where this package will find you, but I hope that your medical leave has been productive. Unfortunately, I am forced to cut that leave short. There are no other Imperial law keepers in the Asani area and the local sheriff has disappeared.

You have been called up into active service as one of my Marshals. I expect you to keep the peace in Asani and act as you see fit to ensure justice is done in my name. The badge I have enclosed gives you sweeping official powers including the right to kill in my name. Present the badge at any official Imperial Bank to claim your pay.

May we both work for the good of the Empire.

Liu Tao, The Clockwork Emperor.

The note made me feel relieved and flummoxed at the same time. The justice bit was not directed at me it was just a turn of phrase. I could not work out why the Emperor himself would bother assigning a lawman to this backwater nowhere town. Sure, Asani was still a part of the Empire but there were plenty of small dustbowl towns in the empire that would go years without seeing any kind of Imperial authority.

I stuffed the badge and letter into one of my pockets as I hear footsteps outside the door. At least whoever was at the door would answer the mystery of the uninvited house guest.

I felt the arrays begin to loosen the defences and I circulated my Qi to the max. I pushed out metal qi to my palm and prepared to unleash the energy into the intruder’s shoulder when she came through the door.

It was not enough to kill but it would certainly have enough stopping power to stun her and give me a chance to get some answers. The door opened and I unleashed my strike towards the opening.

At the last second I pushed my hand offline, shouting, “Jesus Christ,” when I saw who came through the door.