I step through a door and wind up back in my apartment somehow. The Librarian must have matched the exit he showed me with my bathroom. Maybe he was trying to be funny. I’m gonna stop thinking about it now though, because the door I opened doesn’t even open in the same direction as the one that just closed behind me and I’m pretty sure I’ll short circuit if I try to figure it out.

Once my body enters my dingy concrete-y abode, it falls over and immediately tries to die. Or live very aggressively, it’s hard to tell which.

My heartbeat fires like a diesel engine, like a flock of sick hummingbirds, like it’s going to crack my sternum and escape someplace where it doesn’t have to deal with this shit. All my muscles are on fire, like they’re being hauled between two bulls charging in opposite directions. My brain aaaaaaauuugggggghhghhghhhnnnnnnn nnnnnnngragjbgggghghgghhaaaaaaaaaaghghgrualghih74lihwt4i5aey5anhal3irasg8

I just lie on the floor, curled in a quivering ball like a scared 800-pound kitten, and wait for it to stop. Time flies apart and loses its meaning. At some point an important and rarely-used part of my brain comes back online and orders a trickle of extra vitae be run through my system, because that generally does something when I’m hurt and fuck does this hurt. It helps a little. I think. At this point I think it’s like trying to use an aspirin pill against an incoming sledgehammer, but it’s better than nothing.

At some point I feel like I can get my feet under me again, and that’s great, because it restores my ability to get over to the toilet and puke, which I’ve wanted to do very badly for… three hundred years at this point? It doesn’t matter. Once that’s done I just go back to lying on the floor. The stone tiles on my bathroom floor are very cool and reassuring. They are my only friends in this new reality of nausea and paralyzing agony I’ve found myself in. I start counting them, both to distract myself and to check that my brain actually still works. It’s a testament to my focus that I can do this with my medical software shrieking and screaming and flashing red alarm lights in my face the entire time.

After a long, long time spent whimpering and shaking in the dark, I feel more or less like myself again. My heart comes down, my guts stop washing back and forth, my head turns around from its dedicated trip to the stratosphere. This is a marginal improvement over being the embodiment of human illness and suffering. That was like food poisoning, a hellfire hangover, running 20 miles, electroshock torture, and nine days of sleep deprivation all at the same time. I’d rather hang a hammock off a Wellwarden’s back and live there than ever go through that again.

I get in the shower and brush my teeth. I’m not entirely sure why, other than these are normal things to do and I would like an order of normal with some hot running water on the side right now please.

My guess is that the human (or human-adjacent) body fucking hates what the Library does to it. I guess that kind of makes sense. I’m not a doctor, but having every one of your metabolic processes completely halted can’t be good for them. They’re kind of not supposed to ever stop.

Actually… was I dead? I guess I was, from a certain perspective. Let me tell you, folks - if it’s ever offered to you, maybe think twice before you opt for resurrection. I’ve done it and it is just absolutely awful. You’re probably better off without it.

I get out and put new clothes on, then check the time, because honestly it could be the dawn of the next century by now and I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.

01:02. One in the morning. That doesn’t… No, that can’t be right. Maybe the power grid skipped while I was out. I tap my data engine awake to see what it has to say on the matter. It reports the same. One in the morning.

My internal clock reads 16:08. I was only down there for a few fucking hours.

Fucking stone on a riverbank my ass. Of course there’s a time differential between the Library and the rest of reality. There’s more than enough spatial differentials, why wouldn’t there be? Fuck. It’s a good thing I did what I did and got out quick. If I’d taken my time, time would have taken me on one hell of a ride. If the ratio holds steady, a few days in there and you’d probably come out in the middle of next month. Old bastard probably doesn’t even think about time the way the rest of us do anymore. I'm surprised he even speaks the same language as me.

Speaking of which…

Hm. One in the morning. I’m not even close to tired, so I’ll take the next sleep train. The city’s dozing, sinking into syrupy, half-remembered dreams. Good time to slither down into the Subterrane and see if I can find Littlerock’s place. Hopefully come back up with something useful before dawn.

I take the mechanical kitten out of my coat pocket. It mews at me, tilting its head a little and regarding me with eyes full of molten arcane light. I put it down on my bed to see what it does. It circles once and sits down, tail around its feet, still looking at me.

“If I leave, will you stay here?”

It doesn’t reply with words, which is great, because that would be more perfect blood terror than I have time for at the moment. Instead it makes another metallic kitten noise and lies down on its forepaws, still looking at me.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Don’t eject any plasmic discharge on my laundry or anything. And if anyone except me tries to come in, destroy them with the might of your ancient forebears.”

There’s no response, but I feel like we’re on the same wavelength. Next unlucky motherfucker who steps in here without my say-so is getting a faceful of magical kitten death laser. I’ve never been this confident of anything in my life.

I probably don’t need to take the sword down there with me, but it could come in handy for scaring away any Lowlifes that decide to get cute. But it’s not going to fit on my back with my vitae tanks taking up space back there, so I re-rig them, hanging a tank on either hip. Makes it slightly easier for someone to fuck with them, but at least I’ll be able to see it happen if they do. I cinch the big weapon on. If anyone tries to fuck with me about it, I’ll lead them on a chase over to Rimegold Manor. Everyone knows Teltanigan Rimegold has a suit of dragonhide armor on display in one of his parlors. If that’s not illegal, then this isn’t.

A few more lollipops in my pocket. I’m starting to run out again. Which is sad, because the money ran out first. I might have to pick up smoking again. It’s cheaper and makes you look like you’ve got gravitas. Yellow teeth are very… gravitic.

Out into the cistern, and the cool desert night. Almost room temperature out here now. Winter. We might even get some rain soon, if the southern swamps will let us borrow. I take a big, greedy breath - night air. So loaded with that strange dark potential that you could drink it. I can hear the city breathing with me.

The bartender with the neck like a thigh said that Littlerock camps out underneath the border between Eight and Thirteen. Sunken bank vault. For a Lowlife, that’s basically a castle. There’s no way he’d be able to defend that kind of primo territory without his fire backing him up.

It’s a bit away, so I’m going to have to take the train. It ends up not being a big deal - platforms are mostly empty this late at night. I’m the only guy around at the train square, aside from some starlight shifters having a smoke outside of one of the plants. They nod at me when they see me, in that single upward head tilt way big men do. Night workers have a bit of that old creature in them, that ancient inner being that only comes awake out of love for the moon and stars. And creatures understand one another, even if they’ve never met. Everyone’s equal in the dark. I nod back, and get on my train to Thirteen.

While the rooftops and creaking, cooling streets wash past below my feet, I get my brain ready for going underground.

I don’t spend a lot of time in the Subterrane. Most people don’t. There aren’t many reasons to. The Lowlifes are only there because they feel they have to be, and the rest are just visitors that only ever have a handful of explanations for why they’d risk their lives like that. Because it is a risk, see. There’s a chance every time you go down beneath the earth that you’re not going to come back. And the strange thing is: I think people know that. And not only does it not stop them, I think it might be the main reason they keep on doing it.

The Subterrane is like a trap. A morsel at the bottom of a smooth unclimbable shaft. Not everyone is going to be hungry enough to think they can get down there, grab it, and come back up. But some people are. They have been for hundreds of years - spelunking down into the millennia-old ruins beneath the city has been a past time since there was a city at all. Some lucky few find something amazing and strike it big. Others come back with nothing but less money and time. And still others just don’t come back - slipped and fell down the throat of the earth.

It’s treacherous down there. Water eating away at the rocks. Human troglodytes that stopped seeing their fellows as anything other than a meal or a payday. Darkness. And, if you listen to people like Delpo… other things. Things that reject explanation as much as they’ve rejected the sun. I’ve even heard from some shiny-heads that it might not even be things at all - that the space itself is hostile. Something about the buildup of old magic, or something to do with the Wall, or some other mysterious force. Something that twists the ways, moves the earthen bowels around you without moving you at all. You go down one passage and hit a dead end, try to go back - but now there’s a dead end behind you too. Wander down a long passage that’s supposed to link to something else, but never does, so you end up walking and walking until time comes to collect. Come across an incredible ruin, a beautiful sunken cathedral of gleaming stone and light, untouched by time and ripe for exploration - but when you come back to prove what you saw, it’s not there anymore.

That and more, depending on who you talk to.

I’ve never seen anything life-changing down there, but I’m also not a cave cricket. I really only go to meet the Consortium, and they never convene further down than the first level. That’s Lowlife territory, and they live there just fine, for a certain definition of “live”. If they were being preyed on by scary cave monsters all the time you think someone would have noticed. Probably.

I get off the train in Thirteen, and gird myself for the mood shift. The rest of the city might be asleep, but Thirteen is where it dreams. Neon light spray all over the place like spilled paint, rust and concrete stalls being patronized, crowds of people bouncing from bar to bar, looking for whatever’s next. I don’t get so much as a glance from any of these wide-eyed moonwalkers, sword or no. You need a weirdness differential in order for there to be a realization, and no one around here is normal enough for me to stand out. A guy over there just set his own head on fire. The crowd around him whoops and applauds. A woman in scintillating lightshow coattails removes her top hat and bows to her audience, as a rainbow flock of trained glow-in-the-dark lizardhawks swirls and swoops around her in dazzling formations. A freelance gene artist showing off her wares. Those laser light birds are definitely for sale, and they’re definitely cheaper than it seems like they should be, because they’ll only live for a couple weeks.

I find an alley with only a handful of lurkers in it and get my bearings. My nose twitches. I know that smell. The ghouls size me up through the haze of the halluco they’re smoking, but either judge that an unusually large patch of rainbow patterns isn’t a threat considering what the rest of the world looks like at the moment, or that I’m too big to shake down. I love psychedelics. Not much of an indulger myself, just a tab now and then for the funsies when I can afford it, but they have a way of taking the scramble out of someone’s breakfast, and as a man of peace I appreciate that. Why fight when you can sip chemicaff and look at the pretty colors? They’re so pretty!

Shit. I can’t remember where the nearest way down is. I can’t even remember if I’ve ever gone underground from Thirteen before.

I look over at the three guys. Their eyes are stuck to me like flies on paper. I’m either really beautiful or their hypothalamuses have been piledriven so deep into fight or flight that they’re trying to do both at once and their muscles are just throwing errors at one another until one side gives up.

“Hey.”

They don’t move. One of the guys, the one on the right, actually starts drooling.

I take a step forward and snap my fingers in their faces. I’m a big guy with big hand muscles - my snaps are like little gunshots.

The middle one goes “Aaaah!” and throws his hands in front of his face like I’m going to hit him. The one on the left falls backwards on his ass. The one on the right keeps drooling like nothing happened at all.

I take the guy’s wrists between my thumbs and forefingers, and lower them to his sides manually. He’s still scared. I smile reassuringly. He shouts and raises his hands up in front of his face again. I sigh and lever them back down.

“Buddy. Relax. I’m not gonna hurt you. I just want to know the way downstairs, is all.”

He looks like he’s going to short-circuit. The halluco on the streets these days must be way stronger than the stuff I smoked as a kid.

“D-downstairs?”

“Yeah. The Subterrane. Can you point me in the right direction?”

His eyes widen. “Oh my god. You’re from there. You’re trying to go home. Before the sun comes up and you melt.”

I blink.

“Yep, got it in one, bub. Nobody wants to melt. My birthday’s right around the corner, and no one wants to give presents to a puddle. Help a guy out, huh?

He nods, eyes wide as teacups. “Yeah. Yeah. You, uh. You go that way,” he points behind him and to the left, “then right on 77th. For a few blocks, like… four. Then an alley on your left. There’s a maintenance hatch that goes down. One of the double-door ones.”

I pat him on the head gently. “Thanks, buddy. When we rise up, I’ll tell my friends you’re one of the good ones.” I take a lollipop out of my pocket, tuck it behind his ear, and stride past him.

Behind me, he says, “Happy birthday!”

To my surprise, his information is good, even through a solid wall of Rainbow D-Lite™. Above the recessed double metal hatches, there’s a sign scratched onto the bricks. Looks fresh. First is a symbol that looks like a fang, then a big X, then kind of a cartoon necktie-looking shape.

This means this area, both above and belowground including this access point, is contested territory. It originally belonged to the Fangs, but the Grandsons are coming in to try and take it away from them.

Fuck. Fucking double fuck with a lemon twist.

This doesn’t mean I can’t use this tunnel, necessarily. It just means I’m going to have to be extra triple sneaky about it, because there is a very high chance that I’ll be attacked if I do.

Allow me to briefly explain.

The Fangs are a gang. You probably figured that out already. And they’re awful - infamous for not bothering with that whole ‘honor among thieves’ concept. The worst of the worst. They’ll trade in anything, kill anyone, do anything for a payday, or just for a little endorphin squirt. They’re complete animals. Jith Landup was a Fang. Strake’s old business was initially funded and thoroughly patronized by the Fangs. I’m not really a violent guy, I don’t haul off, but… let’s just say back in the day I treated Fang screams like collectible trading cards.

Everyone hates them, including other gangs. Even the fucking Thunderbolts think the Fangs take shit too far, and their leader is basically a hedonism elemental. But they’ve got the Lowlifes in their pocket - most Lowlifes miss a sense of community, and the Fangs aren’t choosy enough to turn them away. The Fangs probably remember me from back in the day, and I can guarantee there isn’t any love lost between us. I’m pretty sure the only reason they haven’t come after me is because I’m in debt to Electrofuck and I talk to Deepwell too regularly.

The Grandsons are… sort of the exact opposite of the Fangs. They hate the Fangs more than basically anyone else - the blood feud between these two clans is the stuff of legend at this point. They’ve been at war for years now. They’re also one of the only reasons the Fangs don’t make headline news every week. One of the main reasons for this is that there are very, very few slabs in the Fangs, if any at all. There aren’t that many slabs in any gang, aside from the Grandsons. This is because the Grandsons are a slab gang. The only slab gang.

They’re not the largest gang in the city in terms of numbers, but they don’t need to be - all their members are literally three times the size of a normal person. There used to be more slab gangs out there, but Grandpa unified (“unification” here mostly meaning a lot of curb-stomping and neck snapping) them a couple decades ago with a revolutionary new concept - slab supremacy. Grandpa mythologized himself with a lot of rhetoric about how slabs are just as oppressed as mages are (they’re not) and how important it is that they all gather together to resist, and undermine, the society that’s been keeping them down. Most slabs being in the mental state that they are, having been treated the way they are, it wasn’t really a tough sell.

No one’s really sure where Grandpa came from or much about him at all, really, other than he’s supposed to be the oldest slab in the city. Knowing our usual lifespan, that means he’s probably somewhere in his mid-fifties. He’s a consummate gentleman, highly intelligent, and totally fucking ruthless to anyone who stands between him and what he wants. He’s a megalomaniacal drug-peddling control freak, but he does have standards, to an extent, and he hates the Fangs, even though you’d never catch him admitting it. They’re lawless, directionless, debased, and bestial - everything Grandpa despises.

You may be wondering how I know all this. Well, I’ve met Grandpa, face-to-face, a while back. So, as you’ve probably guessed, he and his whole gang hate my guts. Not to the point of attacking me in the street or anything - Grandpa doesn’t play that way. But definitely to the point of not doing me any favors, up to and including giving me immunity if I show up in contested territory.

Yes. I’m in it with three different gangs. Four if you count the Consortium, and five if you count the Watch. I’m a mage and a slab - I can’t exactly park my oversized ass behind a desk and be an accountant or a cook or whatever. It’s either intrigue or death.

I could just go find another way down. But that could be literal miles away, and I’m not keen on wasting more time. People are missing. If I can figure out where Littlerock went, maybe he knows where Horsebreaker is. And I can give those people their fucking son back. And maybe prevent a minor totalitarian crackdown upon my friends. Maybe.

Honestly, at this point, if any gangsters want to stand between me and a resolution to all this, they’d better have a reinforced skeleton and a whole lot of moxie.

I lever the dark metal doors open, and slip under the skin of the city.

Looks like we’ve got a long ladder going down this time. Some kind of old maintenance shaft. What a thrill. My night vision reveals no ghoulies or ghosties waiting for me at the bottom, so I concentrate on my grip and make my way down.

The ladder stops at a metal platform in a room that probably used to house water equipment of some kind. I can see some familiar brackets on the ground where pumps might’ve been mounted. But they’re gone, and so is a pretty significant portion of the north wall. Metal torn right in, looks like from the outside. Not recent, some long-done act of illegal excavation. These diggers sure know how to get creative - you’re not getting through this much steel paneling and concrete without expertly-placed explosives.

Through the breach is a normal-looking Subterrane tunnel - hastily dug, not visibly reinforced. Like something an oversized mole would make.

Before I go, I look around for signs of recent activity. If this is contested territory, there’s no way this entry point isn’t being watched or at least patrolled. Hmm. A length of old high-voltage wiring here, which I roll up and put right in my coat pocket, thank you very much. I’m shocked everyone’s just walked right past this, it’s gotta be worth at least a few thousand credits in copper salvage. These gangsters just don’t know how to scrape anymore, I’m tellin’ ya.

Some grime. Scratch that, plenty of grime. If you set off an industrial solvent bomb in here I think the room would just disappear. Looks like greasy soot - maybe a fire led to the original abandonment. Some shit. Not a lot, and old. My guess is a stray venalid marking its territory. And… a-ha. What have we here? Over by the ladder, looks like a… yep, we got a butt here. I kneel to get a closer look.

Easy to tell who left this - it’s huge. Slab cigar. Just the very end, but I can tell from a very small amount of remaining purple wrapping paper it was a Sunset Royal - expensive Valtean tobacco. They came out with a line of slab-specific products a few years ago after detecting a hole in the market, and they’ve been making bank ever since. Not with normal civilians obviously - your average slab can’t afford these. The Grandsons aren’t average, though. Grandpa ensures that his boys get to enjoy the finer things.

Thoroughly chewed. And still damp. Whoever left this came through not long ago. My guess is that it was tossed before going deeper into the dark, as a glowing red cigar is a great way to tell your hiding enemies exactly where your head is. They might even still be down there.

So, chances are the Grandsons have taken this tunnel already. That’s unfortunate. They might be slightly more willing to listen to reason than the Fangs are, but nowhere near as easy to intimidate. Or beat up. Because I’m having to pick on someone my own size for once. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s an even playing field.

I start down the tunnel, moving as silently as I possibly can. My size and weight kind of throw a wrench in any cat burglar aspirations, but if I shut off my lamps and go infrared, I’ve got a major advantage in the dark.

Still can’t hear shit, though. If I had the cash an aural amplifier would be the first damn thing on my shopping list. They’re expensive, but you have no idea how useful super listening would be in my various lines of work. That’s how the cybernetics industry gets you, see? Every cyborg’s a fucking addict. Once you get one, you want the rest.

Even without special computer ears, these guys up ahead aren’t making it tough for me. I come to a bend in the tunnel, and some distance past it there are voices. Can’t exactly make out what they’re saying, but they’re not trying to be sneaky. They’re too far away for me to feel their vitae, but there’s at least two. I’ll have to round the corner to know more. Ugh. A remote camera drone would sure come in fucking handy here, too. I don’t do enough stealth ops to be reminded of how embarrassing and pitiful my implants are.

Keeping as low as I can, I advance, ready for anything. The tunnel curves gently off to the right and I stay as near to the wall as possible. After a while my knees feel like someone replaced all my joint fluid with iron filings, and you could fucking toast a sandwich on my thigh muscles. This is why the Surgeons are so good at what they do - you need regular medical reassembly to do this sneaky shit all the damn time.

Then I come into magic range and I stop to get a better look.

Two vitae clouds, standing next to one another. My guess is they’re on either side of a door or entrance of some kind. One’s blood red with veiny orange streaks running through it. Gelatinous and twitchy. Visceral and ready for a fight. The other is made of an array of lenses, yellow and blue panes of clear glass, that scan and swoop and orbit in circles. Watchful, alert, analytic. A halo of electric eyes. My guess is this one’s a professional scout or spy. He’s in charge, Blobby is just a blunt instrument in case something happens.

And with this pattern… honestly it wouldn’t surprise me if this cat was an arcanist of some kind. I’m not the only slab mage in the city, they’re just rare, and obviously in extremely high demand for the Grandsons. They usually join, too - life’s hell enough when you’re part of the two most marginalized groups in the city, so why not trade citizenship for companionship?

“Oi, you!”

What. I whip my head around. No one can see me.

“I can hear you, fucko. Come on out nice and easy and maybe we don’t have to play rough.”

Great. A fucking telepath. I fucking hate telepa-

“Yeah yeah, we’re the scum of the earth, et cetera. Quit bellyaching and come around, or else we’ll... second threat of increasingly specific bodily harm yada yada. C’mon.”

I roll my eyes, stand up, and come around the corner. Just like I thought, there’s a breach in a wall that leads to a wider cavern, and there are two guys standing on either side of it. One, the aforementioned blunt instrument, is a hefty, blubbery piece of work wearing what looks like an entire mattress’s worth of black padded armor. He’s so layered up with both fat and ballistics weave that you’d need a bandsaw and an afternoon to get through him. He’s nursing a gigantic autocannon that was very definitely stolen from a Centurion and his steady, meaty gaze is locked right on me. My bet is that Boomer here really enjoys his blasting and only hasn’t lit me up because the punishment of doing it without Spec’s say-so would be pretty miserable.

I call the other guy Specs because of his crazy oculars. They’re way crazier than mine. My eye implants are compact, streamlined, and relatively unobtrusive, but a little low on functionality compared to some. These are the kind of “some” I’m talking about. This guy’s face looks like the product of an intimate evening between a dragonfly and an optometrist’s office. It’s all plates and lenses of different colors and sizes, from the middle of the cheeks up. Kind of trim for a slab, though - maybe only about four hundred pounds. That probably doesn’t matter much when you can read minds and diagnose a guy with atherosclerosis by looking at him.

Once im out in full view of the little orange lamp they’ve stuck above the stone arch, Specs smirks and says, “Optometrist’s office. That’s pretty funny. You’re one of those internal monologue types, huh.”

I frown, because I hate telepathy. “Yeah, kind of.”

“Must be a lonely fucker. I like lonely fuckers like you. Standing near them is like a free radio show. What are you doing in my tunnel, Chunk Lonesome?”

He shifts his weight from one buttcheek to another on his rock. Sitting on rocks is uncomfortable. As he does, his lens rig sparkles in the lamplight like a freshly-dug geode.

“I’m surprised you have to ask.”

“I have to dig for memories, anything below the surface. Easier if you just tell me. Or I can grab my shovel, up to you.”

I do not want him to grab his shovel. It’s impossible to tear information out of a person’s brain without hurting them, and someone who doesn’t feel like taking the extra effort to minimize that pain, or actively wants to hurt you, can make a telepathic probe more painful than just about anything on the planet. Like someone tapping a rusty iron spike into your corpus callosum, bit by bit. I fucking hate telepathy.

He smiles. His teeth have a layer of glow-in-the-dark enamel plated on them. Sky blue. “Yeah. Better if you just tell me.”

It’s a good thing I’m not on a secret mission.

“Two pyromancers went missing recently. A Lowlife and a Sec Seventeen kid. I think one or both of them might have something to do with an ongoing murder investigation. And whether they are or not, I want the kid back with his family. The Lowlife used to live down here, somewhere nearby. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him? That’d make my life a little easier.”

One of the larger lenses on Spec’s rig whirs in its recess, focusing on my face. “... Damn, wait a sec. I know you. You’re that streetcleaner guy. Featherlight.”

“I see my reputation has preceded me once again. One of these days I’m gonna put it on a fucking leash.”

He points over my shoulder. “What’s that, there?”

“That’s uh. My broom.”

He snorts. “Bigass broom. Sharp broom. You clean up with that?”

“I only just got it, but once I get an opportunity, yeah. Bet it cuts grease like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Ha.” He turns and thumbs at me to his partner. “Got a swordsman here. Street knight. You should hook him up with your hardware guy, maybe he’d live longer.”

Biggun doesn’t say anything, just smokes his cigar and glares at me, huge autocannon one upward swing from turning my spine into cream gravy.

Specs turns back to me. “He’s on payroll more for his aim than his repartee. Okay, Sir Featherlight. We was briefed on you, you know.”

“Oh joy.”

“Yeah. Grandpa had the idea you’d be showing up, couple days. Grandpa sucks at being wrong.”

I don’t say a fucking thing. Insulting Grandpa is a great way to get the Grandsons to make tasteful home arrangements out of your digestive ribbons.

Specs frowns at me. “Good move, fucko. He said you’d probably own up to it if asked, too. Says you’re mostly honest.”

“He’s right, I definitely am mostly honest. I didn’t know Grandpa was watching me.”

Specs tilts his head pensively. “I dunno if I’d say watching. More like, keeping tabs. He likes to stay updated on what the movers and shakers are doing.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be. He also appreciates a good farce. And he’s been known to play with his food.”

“I don’t feel flattered anymore.”

“We moved in down here sometime last week, cleaned it out. We know where Littlerock’s hole is. We was gonna politely convince him to share with us the whereabouts of his Fang customers, but he hasn’t been to his place the whole time we’ve been here. He even left his stash behind. Wherever he is, he’s probably staying there.”

“Did he leave any indication of where he went? Or that anything happened to him?”

“We didn’t perform a fuckin’ crime scene investigation, we’ve just been waiting for him to come back.”

“Well I want to do the crime scene investigation thing.”

“Yeah, he said you would. He also said to let you pass, but not before passing along a message.”

“I’m all ears, Eyes.”

“Grandpa said he would appreciate it greatly if you would join him for lunch sometime this week. At your convenience.”

“... Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“First course is what, strychnine soup with a light mauling on the side?”

“Nah. Probably bread and mélange resplendissant. He likes that fancy vegetable shit. It’s a fucking meal and a talk, not an attempt on your life. I’d go, if I was you. Boss eats like a damn prince.”

“... Well alright. Message received, then. Should be a grand occasion.”

“Yeah. I’m sure it will be.” He waves a hand into the passageway. “Might still be some stray Fangs hiding in there. Watch your back. Maybe be a pal and practice your fun new sword on them a little bit, save us some work.”

“Nope! Thanks anyway, though. You cats have a super fine morning.” I stride on past like nothing happened. And I get well out of range before I continue making my noisy-ass thoughts.

If Grandpa wanted me dead, I’d have been dead years ago. And he’s not stupid enough to try and twist me for anything - I don’t have anything. But that might the key here. I’ve got less than nothing, and if he’s been watching me, he knows all about it. Which means he can swoop in and offer to bail me out, thereby purchasing my debt. He’s rich enough to pay off Electrofuck with interest, and has enough muscle that even the Brotherhood wouldn’t be able to get their claws on me without starting a daytime war. Sounds insane, but to Grandpa, I’m worth it. He’s got every other piece and he wants the entire collection.

I’ll talk to him. He’s playing the long game with me. If I say no, he’ll just smile and send me on my way, then go back to waiting. Waiting for me to be so desperate and miserable that I’ll have nowhere else to go, and he’ll be there with a twinkle in his eye, smiling and smoking with his arms out for a warm embrace. You can always count on your Grandpa.

What a fucking freak.

This cavern is huge. Ceiling’s low, almost low enough for me to touch, but it goes out wide, out into the darkness past vision. And it isn’t smooth - whole space is broken and busted up. It’s like an underground parody of an aboveground pastoral scene - with warped stone hills, cracks, and groves of stalagmite trees. Even some crystal flowers here and there. Big ones. Just quartz, but even quartz can look like diamond.

They call this cave the Badlands. One of the biggest rooms in the whole system, but it’s flat as a pancake. Takes up a good amount of the area below Thirteen and part of Eight. The rock here is salted and crumbly, not hard to get through, and all the features make it pretty easy to hide. A lot of stuff happens at this dark crossroads. These rocks have been washed with blood more than once. All I know is that I’m headed northeast until I see a particularly gigantic stalagmite, then a right turn to reach Littlerock’s metal hut. I settle into a gloomy cruise. Eyes down so I don’t snap an ankle. Eyes all around too, so I don’t get a free sample of the Subterrane Shuffle. For all I know Specs was under orders to wave me right into a trap.

It’s cool down here. The many waters running underneath the city have a way of washing out all the heat coming down from above. The boot-melting steel and asphalt of Sector Thirteen is only about a hundred feet over my head, and that’s what I’m used to. Hot, dry, and bright. Down here it’s cool, wet, and dark. I don’t belong here, and I’m not sure anyone does. I try to shake off goosebumps.

I think about the case instead of the darkness watching me.

What awful toy has the Brotherhood built now?

I’ve got the best piece of evidence right on my damn hips. There’s no way these rune bottles aren’t being used in whatever thing they’ve cooked up. Pyromancers go missing just before a high-profile activist and royal gets incinerated in an alley. A low-ranking Brotherhood initiate gets smeared. That one’s less clear, but more mages of different flavors could have been taken. The Brotherhood knows who they all are, and lots of them are homeless. That scribe could have accidentally seen something he shouldn’t have.

Yeah. You’ve probably come to the same theory I have.

They’ve come up with a way to suck the magic out of people and use it for themselves.

It doesn’t necessarily count for all the pieces perfect, but it makes the most sense. The runes. This Copper Dawn guy’s fanaticism and his previous working relationship with Voldzet. The motive is perfect - think of what they could do if they kept this hidden. They could exterminate every living mage and get everyone to think that we did it to ourselves. While taking the last vestiges of the world’s ancient power all for themselves. It’s poetic. It’s the culmination of the Brotherhood’s dominion over everything - mankind bottling the very forces of nature.

I think the word hidden is key here though, for a few reasons. I don’t think this research is out in the open even behind Brotherhood doors. The bribery, the hit attempt from the one merc that very much is but very officially does not work for the Brotherhood? Something tells me this project is off the books. Even if the Prime Controller’s bought off on it, he won’t have signed a damn thing. Too much liability. That way if this aggressive field testing goes belly up (and it’s going to), they can just autotomize whoever was responsible and claim they’d gone rogue.

It’s perfect. It’s exactly what I would do.

All that leaves is what this creation actually is, what form it takes. It could be a lot of things, I guess. This whole… arcanology thing is basically a new science. They could have come up with anything.

Technology just keeps marching and marching. Metal boots on deckplates for decades and decades, never stopping…

Wait a fucking second. Metal boots. Marching. A picture of Tennima and Mr. Crunch flashes in front of my readouts. She said she was sponsored by Halfmoon recently. There’s no way of knowing how deep they’ve gotten, how much they’ve managed to learn now that she’s in corporate pockets. Tennima’s smart but she’s not exactly what I’d call political. The Brotherhood has a claw in every little pie, they make deals in boardrooms all the time…

This is already a black project. They’re already working with stuff the official scriptures say is too icky to touch.

I stop walking. Something lands on my shoulders and I’m just too heavy to move anymore.

What if it’s a fucking automech?

Oh my God. It almost makes too much sense. It’s been years and years. Piece by piece. But now they’ve got every part they need. They invented a fucking robot wizard.

I realize that probably sounds completely insane, but stranger shit’s happened in this world. It’s too perfect. I might be wrong, I sure as hell hope I’m wrong… but I don’t think I am.

It’s the perfect agent. It can’t disobey. It can’t be traced. It’s beyond legality, beyond human fallibility. Magic without a mage.

Okay. It’s a good theory, even factoring in the insanity. But I have to prove it. I can point fingers and shout all I want, but I don’t have shit for proof, and without proof I’m just begging for the jaws of the law to turn on me. All I have to do is see the fucking thing, my eyes will take care of the rest. Which means I have to hunt it down.

No, that might be impossible. A top-of-the-line automech… or, now I’m thinking of it, an animech, while we’re going off the rails here, would never let me catch it, no matter how hard I tried. There’s no way they wouldn’t have pulled out all the stops on this one. If it exists, it’ll be fast, strong, and totally indefatigable. Chasing it would probably be a fool’s errand.

But the one giving it its orders is quite certainly made of slow, squishy, highly punchable meat. All I have to do is find them. At least I already have a pretty good idea of who that is.

I’m getting ahead of myself. The priority needs to be finding these two guys. Though, if my theory is correct… I don’t know. Shit. I don’t know how you use machinery to draw the magic out of someone, but the process can’t be pleasant. It may not even be survivable.

But I’ll tell you this much - after I’m done here, I’m gonna have another talk with Voldzet, and we’ll find out how survivable Copper Dawn finds me.