He found it. Daniel couldn’t believe it. He looked up at the fortress like structure. Wuimart, it was an ancient and archaic name, Daniel had no idea what it even meant. Daniel laughed to himself. But his head began to spin. Whatever qi he had was now gone.
“No,” Daniel said to himself. This couldn’t be it. He couldn’t fall asleep here. He needed to get back to town. He looked around. But the landscape in front of him was nothing more than sand. He wracked his brain, digging for the answer.
Daniel gritted his teeth. He would just pick a direction to walk.
But his legs didn’t agree with him. He only made it a few feet before his legs started to give out from under him. He fell to the ground, dispersing the sand underneath him. Some of it even got into his eyes. The sand stung.
The pain caused Daniel to cry out involuntarily. But even if it did, he was glad for it. At least it kept him awake.
“Just a little farther,” Daniel told himself. He set the goal for himself. He just needed reach that goal. He crawled towards a direction, not even sure if it was the correct direction.
Soon his body had become accustomed to the pain. It started to dull before the sleepy began to drag him under.
Night turned into day.
Daniel didn’t know how long he had been out for. When he woke up, there was no pain, but more importantly, he wasn’t in the dessert anymore. He found himself in a small room. There looked to be roughly enough room for maybe ten people to be squashed together. But at the moment, there wasn’t anyone here except Daniel. Over in the corner was a door.
Daniel tried to move, but he found that his limbs had been tied to a chair. His elbows and wrists as well as his knees and ankles were tied up.
As soon as he tried to move, he felt something sharp pointed in his back.
“Don’t move,” someone said from behind. The voice sounded to be male voice. Based on the voice crack, Daniel believed the person to be roughly a few years older than him. “Unless you want to be like the fish I had for dinner.”
Daniel let out an involuntary gulp. He heard back in the old days, people thought twice before torturing children. But this was the wastelands. It didn’t matter if Daniel was eleven years old or three. He had seen the remains on the side of the road to prove it.
“Put that down, Jace.” Someone else said. The voice was older, a woman’s voice. “We’re not even sure he’s an enemy yet.”
“I don’t like taking chances,” Jace said. He twisted the object. It didn’t break skin, but it sure helped to make his point.
“Is this good-cop bad-cop routine?” Daniel asked.
“What was that?” Jace shoved the sharp object a little harder. Daniel felt a bit of blood start to come out.
“I told you to put that away.”
As soon as he felt that blood, the sharp object was taken away. Daniel tried to look to see what was going on, but all he heard was someone screaming. The sound of someone getting smacked around. Daniel knew that sound all too well.
Jace spat blood on the ground. “That was uncalled for.”
“So was your reaction,” the lady said. “He was just asking a question.”
“Really, I heard a threat.”
“To you everything sounds like a threat.”
“That’s because someone is always threatening me.”
“Sorry about him,” the woman apologized. “He hasn’t grown up in the best situations.”
“I’ve grown up in the perfect situation,” Jace retorted. “I’ve seen it. This worst this world is and the worst everywhere, all around.”
The woman ignored him. “And what were you saying before?”
“My sifu told me about this routine,” Daniel explained. “He said that when you’re captured and questioned, people will send two people to interrogate you, one will be mean, threatening to beat or kill you. The other will act nice and earn your trust. People will either beg for bad cop to stop and confess everything, or believe that good cop is their friend and tell them what they want to know over time.”
Jace laughed. “Yes, that is the world. Conniving, manipulative. Trust no one. That’s how you survive in this world.”
Smack. Based on the sound, it sounded more like a slap, more sonorous than a punch.
Daniel heard a snort from behind. “If everyone in the world thought like that, then no one could trust anyone. If that were the case, then wouldn’t we have killed each other by now?”
Even if he couldn’t see it, Daniel could feel the glare from Jace. “You’re just thinking too much.”
The woman sighed and changed the subject. “So, are you going to tell us what you were doing out in the wastelands?”
Daniel tried to think of what to say. He hadn’t thought of what to say if he got caught. He pursed his lips. He couldn’t tell them that he was looking for the hideout for the Traditionalists. No, he needed some other reason as to why he was out in the wasteland.
“See,” Jace said after a while, “I told you, he was a spy. He was sent to spy on us.”
“I wasn’t sent by anyone,” Daniel said. With the time to think, he remembered what he thought the night before. He couldn’t believe it. How had he thought this was gonna work? His uncle trained him better than this. He guessed that the lessons hadn’t been beaten into himself enough.
“He’s not lying,” the woman said.
Jace grunted. “Fine, if you say so. But he still has to tell us what he was doing out in the wastelands, so close to our headquarters.”
“I got lost,” Daniel said. It was partially true.
“Lost?” the woman asked, slightly surprised.
Daniel then realized what this woman could do. His uncle told him of people who could read people, much like how Daniel was able to read people’s strengths. Only, these people were able to read body movements in order to tell if someone was lying to them or not.
“My sifu was late coming back,” Daniel explained. “So I went looking.”
There was a pause. Jace looked to the woman. She hadn’t said anything, hadn’t moved. “He’s not lying,” she said. She then asked Uri directly, “who is your sifu?”
“A wanderer,” Daniel said.
“I’m familiar with a few wanderers in the wasteland,” the woman said, “would I know this wanderer’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about you tell me, and I’ll judge for myself.”
Daniel gulped. He knew that his uncle didn’t have the best reputation. IF they knew who his uncle is, even if he wasn’t associated with the group that they were fighting with, they might just kill him on the spot. Daniel tried to think of what to say.
“Why are you hesitating, kid?” Daniel could hear the words practically hissed out. “Got something to hide.”
“Yes.” Daniel spoke before he even had time to think his words through. He bit his lip.
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“He’s not lying,” the woman said.
Jace laughed. “See, that proves it. He’s working for the enemy. Let’s kill him and dump him by the side of the road and be done with it.”
“What are you hiding?” the woman asked.
Daniel didn’t see any other choice. Maybe they knew his uncle, but didn’t know he worked for the organization. If that was the case, they might let him go free. “My sifu had been misunderstood most of his life. I’m afraid if I say his name, you’d kill me.”
There was a silence. Jace broke it. “Who’s your sifu?”
“Gram Rui.”
The silence returned. This one was even longer than before. Jace looked at the woman, but her face showed that she knew that Daniel was telling the truth. The two of them looked at each other. Neither one of them wanted to make a move. They looked between each other and the kid in front of them. He was just a kid.
They didn’t need words to tell each other what they were thinking because they were both thinking the same thing. Just how had this kid gotten involved with a monster like that?
“Is your sifu in the area?” the two of them asked.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. In all honesty, he had no clue. Maybe his uncle was out looking for him or maybe he was still asleep. There didn’t seem to be any pattern for his uncle.
“The western fiend is in the area!” Jace said. He tried to keep his voice low, as though he were far enough that Daniel couldn’t hear. He placed his hands on his head. “No, no, no. Why did we have to take this kid in?” He didn’t try to lower his voice any longer. “Do you think if we kill the kid now, no one will know it was us?”
“Shut up,” the woman said. She didn’t even hit Jace this time, she just rubbed her temples. “I’m trying to think.”
“What’s there to think about,” Jace gave a laugh. This was the kind that people had when they were both frightened and were about to do something crazy. “Why don’t we kill the kid and put a rumor around town that it was those other guys who did it. The Western Fiend would go after them instead. It’s perfect, right? We get rid of our enemies and rid the world of the Western Fiend.” There was a pause from the woman. “What are you waiting for!”
“And what if the Western Fiend doesn’t fall for it?” the woman asked. Her voice was calm, it was as though she had nerves of ice. “What do you think he’d do then?”
“Who cares what he does, so long as he doesn’t do it to us.”
“Listen to yourself. If he finds out it was us, do you think he’d give up. Can you kill the Western Fiend, because I doubt we can.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Jace began to pace around the room. “Oh, maybe we just give the kid back to him, he’ll know we haven’t done anything, right.”
“Except you cut him,” the lady reminded him.
“Well, how was I supposed to know he was the disciple of the Western Fiend?” Jace paced around the room. His breathing was loud enough that it was just as loud as him screaming. It was his screaming, a cry for help.
“I can explain to my sifu what happened,” Daniel said. While he didn’t like the one known as Jace all that much, the other lady didn’t seem to be too bad.
“Wait,” Daniel said inside his mind. What if this really was good-cop bad-cop working. They realized that torturing him didn’t work, so they were trying a softer approach. No, that didn’t seem right, the two of them didn’t react until he said his uncle’s name. Unless it was a ploy. Daniel tried to think back to everything that was said, to see if there was a hint that they were just using him.
There didn’t seem to be anything, but he knew better than to let his guard down against anyone, even his own uncle – especially against his uncle.
“You’d explain what happened was an accident, right?” Jace asked with hope in his voice.
“Oh, no,” Daniel said. “No he’d probably kill someone if he found out.”
“What?” Jace screamed. “Th-then what do you think we should do?”
“Hey kid, if we keep you here until you recover, do you think your sifu would notice?”
Daniel shrugged. “I already got enough scars that I doubt he’d be able to tell if another one showed up.”
The two of them let out a sigh of relief.
“Release him,” the woman ordered.
Jace didn’t even argue. He went over to the ropes, and with a single slice, he cut through them. Daniel could now put a face to the voice. Jace looked to be in his mid-teens, probably fifteen or sixteen. He had messy blond hair and an eye patch on one of his eyes. His body looked rather thin. Most likely he hadn’t been eating enough.
When he was cutting Daniel free, he gave him a smile. It looked rather forced on, and Daniel noticed that more than a few of his teeth were missing.
“I hope you won’t hold this against us,” he said.
Daniel didn’t say anything. Even though the guy was acting respectful now, he could see that the guy still didn’t trust him, and wouldn’t give a second thought if he felt stabbing Daniel would benefit his self-preservation.
Once he was free, Daniel scratched his wrists. Now that he was free, he found that the ropes were really starting to irritate his skin. It wasn’t an unbearable itch, but it now that he was free, he scratched away at the braised flesh. He looked down and noticed it was red, but there wasn’t any indication that it was from allergy, nor did it seem to leave anything that would leave a mark.
“Right this way.”
When Daniel looked up from his arm, he noticed the woman standing in front of the door. She looked to be in her late twenties with sun burnt skin. On her face was a genuine smile, not like the one on Jace’s face. Her hair was dark black. And her eyes- people said that eyes were the window to the soul. For her, they looked tired. Not as though she hadn’t slept, but the kind of tiredness one got when life too much of a toll on them.
She opened the door and Daniel could finally see what the rest of the fortress looked like. In essence, it looked like a poorly built maze. There were rows upon rows of shelves everywhere. However, the shelves had been left mostly empty.
Among the things on the shelves, there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to them. There were motor parts. Some Daniel recognized, others were utterly foreign to him. Farther down, he noticed that there were pieces of paper on them, words were written on them. Daniel took a look through them. Quite a few were made for people’s birthday.
Daniel frowned at them. Who would waste good pieces of paper telling someone happy birthday when they should just tell them to their face.
“Are you done looking,” Jace snorted. He pointed towards an area farther down the building. “Medical area is this way.”
“It was only just a little cut,” Daniel stated.
Jace didn’t seem to buy it. He held out his index and thumb apart. It was roughly half an inch apart. “It was this deep.”
“My sifu has done worse,” Daniel said.
The woman intervened. “Either way, we’d prefer it if we took a look. And we would also like to keep our privacy.”
Daniel put down the greeting card he was holding. It was actually quite a nice one. The cartoon dog popped out once he opened it. His father would have liked it.
“Keep it,” the woman said. “Most of us took some of the stuff anyway. And we’re not using it.”
Daniel looked at the card. He hesitated for a moment.
“Just take it,” Jace groaned. “We’re wasting time as it is.”
That was enough to convince Daniel. He took the card and placed it inside his shirt. There weren’t any pockets inside, but he tended to keep it tucked in most of the time. That tended to keep things from falling out. A trick that Daniel figured out for himself when he needed to carry a lot of food and his uncle wasn’t around with a sack.
With that out of the way, the two of them led Daniel through. There were quite a few areas that Daniel wanted look through, but it seemed too dangerous a risk. Jace was armed, and while the lady didn’t seem armed, he knew that she didn’t need anything but her hands to give Jace a thrashing.
“I’m Sarah,” the woman said.
“Daniel,” Daniel replied.
He looked through the aisles. The place may have been known as a tech cache, but there didn’t seem to be that much technology. The small area with motor parts didn’t really seem to have a whole lot to it. And the other areas were practically empty.
“You mentioned that your sifu is misunderstood,” Jace said, “what makes you say that?”
“He was reputed to kill his-”
Jace didn’t even wait for Daniel to finish. “I mean from what I heard, he’s a stone cold killer who kills anyone who looks at him wrong.”
“Well I guess he has-”
“Bodies upon bodies are left in his wake. But I guess that’s just the world for you. If you ask me, that’s most people in the world. They’ll gut you like a fish if you let them.”
While Daniel didn’t disagree, there were plenty of places that didn’t have people who were like that: Leo from the town, Margret from the Saloon, his parents. And that was just to name a few. There had been more, but it didn’t seem like Jace would listen to him either way.
Off to the side, Daniel heard someone laughing. He turned to see that Sarah was chuckling at Jace’s antics.
Jace continued to speak, not realizing that Daniel wasn’t paying attention any more.
“So how did you guys end up with a place like this?”
“Our parents were members of this organization. And their parents before them.” Sarah looked at Jace. “My father died defending this place. In that event, my mother was captured and taken by another organization. I was raised by my grandparents.”
“And Jace?” Daniel looked at the boy who was still talking. He hadn’t been paying attention to him and now he was making wide gestures with his hands. Daniel was pretty sure he was talking about pyrotechnics, but he wasn’t invested enough to piece it together.
“Traditionalists found where they had taken my mother. They slaughtered all the members of the sect. They learned that my mother died years ago, leaving behind a son, scioned by one of their elders and treated as a slave.”
Even though this was the reality of the world, Daniel couldn’t help but feel sick to his stomach. He still remembered the faces of those mutants all those years ago. He remembered how terrified they were when his uncle opened that carriage door.
“We’re here,” Jace said. He waved and showed off another aisle. Daniel looked at it, his expression not changing. He wondered if he was supposed to be impressed. It didn’t look any different from the other aisles. To him, it was just stuff.
When Daniel didn’t even react, he just sighed. “Ok. Well we should take a look at that wound. Go ahead and take off your shirt.”
Daniel grabbed onto his shirt and lifted it up. Daniel wasn’t shy. In the wastelands, it was hot enough that most people didn’t even bother wearing shirts any more. Daniel just wore his because when he fell on the ground from exhaustion from training, the wounds his uncle left him would sting.
As soon as Daniel took off his shirt, the others looked at him surprise.
“What kind of monster does this?”
Daniel had kept track of how many scars his uncle had left him. There were twenty scars left by his uncle from beats. Three that came from fights that his uncle and him couldn’t avoid. And one that was left by his mother. As for the cut that Jace left, with his qi, Daniel was sure there wouldn’t be any trace left in the morning.
Even though he knew what they were talking about, he tried to change the subject. “I remember once my sifu faced off against the Lone Rider Gang.”
“The Lone Rider Gang?”
Daniel heard the voice coming from behind. It was a menacing his that just oozed hatred. He felt a chill fill the air. And based on the expression of Sarah and Jace, they felt it too.