Clang! Clang! Clang!

I swear on the genitals of every god, I’m moving. I’ll dig a hole in the fucking Subterrane or something. Hell, I’ll just punch whoever this is in the face, and keep punching until they’re a fine liquid. Prison would be better than anyone being able to walk up and bang on my door while I’m trying to sleep.

Clang! Clang!

I roll over, because my brain’s only been off for about two hours and I cannot withstand a mere taste of sweet, sweet oblivion. “Fuck off!”

“Either you open this door or I do, Featherlight!”

It’s Deepwell.

I don’t think the Lieutenant has ever shown up here before. He’s never had a reason to.

This could be bad.

I shed the blankets and ooze out of bed, lumbering over to the door and shoving it open. There’s Lt. Deepwell, uniform as blue and black and pristine as ever. He looks fine, but he’s got his hands on his hips like a miffed aunt.

He scrunches his orange, caterpillar-y eyebrows at me. More specifically, at my underwear, which is salmon pink with a repeating print of a teal and orange umbrella cocktail.

“I didn’t think you were the type, Featherlight.”

“I’m a man of fashion, Lieutenant.”

“The fuck are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“I somehow expected you to be gone longer than less than a day.”

“Me too. Expectations are funny like that. I didn’t tell anyone I was back yet, Lieutenant. When did you bug my apartment?”

“You bugged your apartment. The scrambler on your computer. It logs activity. I got to my desk this morning and saw it had your data engine coming out of standby at around one in the morning. So I drove over. I thought someone had tried to rob you or something.”

“Nope. Just me. You’d better come in.”

I let him in. He doesn’t look around a lot, because there isn’t really anything to see. I do see his eyes stop, very briefly, on the machinery panel leading down to my secret hidey hole. Because he’s a cop, and all cops are criminals that just happen to be part of the biggest gang in town.

I sit down on my bed, and wave at the chair. He spins it around and parks, reaching into his jacket.

“Can I smoke in here?”

He already knows the answer, because there’s an ashtray on my desk. He’s just being polite.

“Only if I can have one.”

He hands me a smoke out of his shiny pack of Crystalclears. They’re wrapped in blue paper. A no-nonsense middleshelf brand. Smoked by cops, accountants, dads, and anyone for whom musical theater is a death sentence. They taste like leather and professionalism. Lightning one might cause me to spontaneously grow a mustache.

We light and smoke for a second. Deepwell tries not to look at my body. It’s hard to do, considering it’s kind of horrible and taking up a good 25% of his vision at the moment. I might put something on just to spare him.

“How long were you in there?”

“Only a few hours.”

“That’s not really long enough for… any of the shit we discussed to actually happen. Or at least I wouldn’t think it is, I don’t know fuck all from magic.”

“Turns out I don’t either.”

I explain what happened. I trust Deepwell. I probably shouldn’t, but I do anyway. In the middle of the explanation, the animonculus decides to crawl out from under my bed and I explain that too, to momentarily widened eyes. I show off my cool new sword, because why wouldn’t I. At the end of the story I start putting on some pants.

He says, “So much for unlocking the mysteries of the universe, I guess.”

I shrug. “The universe will still be there when I’m ready for it. Until then, there’s a case. Have you heard anything?”

“Rediron’s still pissed. High Marshal has gotten together with a few of the other Lords to try and talk him off the warpath, but he hasn’t relented. The story’s already started leaking into some of the news feeds, which means WCBN is probably going to be given the go-ahead just to retain some semblance of credibility.

I haven’t heard anything about the Prime Controller weighing in on this, but a few of the Exarchs have formally filed for inquest. The High Marshal and his band are the only ones stopping it, and that’s just for now. Without some concrete results, the order will probably come down in a few days.”

“Have you found anything?”

He scoffs. “Since we last talked about it? Yeah, I have. This morning I found a notice in my mail informing me that the case had been moved to the Captain’s desk. I turned all the documents over to him before I came over here. And you know what that means.”

I sigh. “Yeah.”

It means no more consultant’s fees, and my involvement with the case in any semi-official capacity is out the window, sight unseen. Captain Dusk of the Tenth has made his stance toward me and those of my ilk very apparent over the years. It’s not a collaboration anymore - it’s a competition.

Deepwell continues, “So go nuts, do whatever you want. I’m just not officially allowed to clue you in anymore.”

“Officially.”

“That’s right. If I was to tell you that Captain Dusk’s initial plan of attack is to hard canvas the areas around the scenes in Ten and Thirteen first, and that you’d be better off hitting up leads a bit more esoteric or underground in nature, if you’ve got any? Well, that wouldn’t be official. So I wouldn’t tell you that kind of thing.”

Deepwell doesn’t like Cpt. Dusk. He thinks Dusk is a glory-thieving bigot who’s gotten where he is by parasitizing the achievements of others. He’s also the reason Deepwell hasn’t been promoted in a while, despite his arrest record - because Deepwell is prone to using people like me as informants and outside hires. Dusk taking the case from him means any success is going on his reports instead of Deepwell’s, so now Deepwell has very little reason to work anywhere near as hard. The Lieutenant is just following orders now.

“Well. Unofficially, I’m right there with you. I went to check out Littlerock’s place after I got back. Around 1.”

“Yeah? Anything interesting?”

I tell him the story.

Then I start on the second part of the story, but Rocky asked me not to tell people about him, so I lead off like he’s a confidential informant. Deepwell balks immediately like he’s got a fishbone in his throat.

“Woah woah woah. Back up. Confidential informant?”

“Yeah. They asked me not to reveal their identity to anyone. And they informed me of things. So. They’re a confidential informant. Are you new?”

“You’re not a cop, wiseass, you don’t get to have CIs.”

“Well, this individual asked me not to tell anyone who they are. And they provided me with information. Sooooooooo…”

He just glares at me.

I snort, “What are you gonna do, Lieutenant, arrest me? It’s not even your case anymore.”

“No.” He huffs a petulant puff of smoke from his nostrils. “I’m just curious. It would be obstruction, if I didn’t think you were probably the best shot at actually solving this case with minimal damage done.”

“Well I appreciate that greatly, Lieutenant. But I gave them my word. You get it. From one professional to another.”

I keep going until the story is over. I steer away from some of the details that might give away who or what Rocky is, but I still get some raised eyebrows.

At the end of it, Deepwell nods thoughtfully. “Who else but the Brotherhood. Fucking scum. You’d better find a way to break this wide open, or I’m gonna have to make a move soon. These chipheads treat the law like it’s a fucking suggestion and I’m getting sick of it. I can’t believe they’d kill one of their own just to… I don’t know, test something out. Freaks.”

“It’s not like this is a new development. They’ve taken a world war won six hundred years ago and used it as a blank check the entire time. They fucking take people, Deepwell. Hell, look at me. You think I’m some kind of accident?”

“I don’t know what you are, Featherlight. You’ve never told me.”

“You never asked.”

“Well I think that’d be pretty fuckin’ rude, wouldn’t it? Hey, what’s the deal with all the scars and hoses and metal bits on ya? Not something you just up and ask a guy. I know you’re a slab, you’re a mage, and you do dirty jobs. For lollipops, apparently.”

I wipe my face. “Suffice it to say, for now, that all this,” I wave at my entire self, “is the Brotherhood’s fault. I’ve got more cause than most to want to put them under my wheels.”

“Subterrane stakeout with your new friend, then.”

“Looks like it.”

“Stakeouts aboveground are tough enough.”

“Yeah. Related to that, I was wondering if, unofficially, you could find some way to get some… equipment, into my hands. On a borrowing basis.”

He narrows his wood-colored eyes. “What kind of equipment?”

“A splat tracker. With opened keys, so I can interface with the beacon.”

The Lieutenant rubs his beard pensively. “Hmmm. Could be tricky. That’s specialist stuff, needs forms attached to check one out.”

“Can you do it?”

“Maybe. I’ll have to come up with a clever justification. No promises. I’ll look into it and let you know by tomorrow morning. You think it’ll work?”

“Probably. Even if this… thing, is strong enough to rip off the flash glue, it doesn’t have skin. If it’s busy running away from us, it might not notice being shot in the back.”

“If you can hit a target from that far away. We don’t have any slab-sized splat guns, either.”

“I’ll make it work. If I’m lucky, I’ll be fast enough to catch the thing without it.”

I sit back down on the bed and the metal kitten crawls onto my lap.

Deepwell nods at it. “You think Electrofuck is going to go for that?”

Shrug. “Hopefully, if I talk fast enough. If not, I doubt he’ll kill me for trying.”

He shakes his head. “Well I hope you walk out of there with all your molecules still in the same places. Or most of them, at least. Maybe a couple missing here and there will teach you a lesson about borrowing money from a maniac’s loan sharks.”

“Make it so people like me can find consistent, gainful employment and put Electrofuck in the Arcanix where he belongs, then maybe this kind of thing wouldn’t happen. Move heaven and earth, Deepwell. Chop chop.”

“Sure. After lunch.” He stands up, then looks at my desk, pointing at something. “Is this Littlerock’s book, here?”

“Yeah.”

“And you said you couldn’t make north nor south?”

“Yeah, but I only glanced at it.”

“Mind if I borrow it? It’s not my specialty, but I know a guy in the crypto lab, and they decode dealer’s books all the time. They might be able to squeeze something out of it.”

“Okay. All yours.”

He pockets it. “I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.”

One hand on the door, he looks back and says, “Keep an eye out for chipheads. I’ll get in touch tomorrow morning. Don’t do anything stupid between now and then.”

I shrug my arms at the room he’s in. “My whole life is stupid, Deepwell.”

He smiles. “Better dumb than dead.”

And he’s gone.

I flip my coat on and make sure I have everything. There’s not a lot to have.

From my bed, the magitechnical kitten looks at me. Its eyes smolder with the light of ineffable ages, the glare of powers that my pathetic human mind has no chance of ever grasping. I stuff it in my pocket. It mews at me indignantly from somewhere around my hip. Yeah, you and me both, pal.

Time to face the music. Or, more accurately, time to face the murderous electricity wizard and trade him a millennia-old magical robot kitten for my life.

Y’know, just another morning for Baulric Featherlight.

Electrofuck bases his operation out of Sector Sixteen, right at the western corner where it touches the walls with Eighteen, Five, and Three. Staying near Sixteen I understand - Electrofuck’s appetite for thump is legendary and his thirst for flesh is a close second.

What I don’t get is why one of the most feared crime lords in the world would put his home base within coughing distance of Sector Three. Sector Three - the location of Thousand-Eyes Keep, the Hall of Resolution, and the Sink. Those are, if the profound subtlety of those fun-sounding names didn't give it away, the headquarters of the Watch, the city's courthouse, and the prison, respectively. The High Marshal lives in a literal castle not even an entire sector’s distance away. I’ve heard that it’s some kind of macho thing, and I guess I believe it. Electrofuck’s the kind of guy that will kill you for not looking at him funny (he likes attention) and then compare dick lengths post-mortem to make sure he was right.

I’m way out on the fringes of the sector, where the residential choke starts to give way to wider spaces and more utilitarian buildings. I’ve gone over what this place is like. At least it’s early in the morning and most everybody is still asleep. The swelling’s down for these inflamed streets, for now. There’s an uncommonly chill morning wind, bringing breakfast smells, dust, and plastic bags like a flock of birds across the pavement with me. They’re all the company I have here. There’s a lot of shadow. But it’s the wrong kind - softer. And not cast by the Wall, the sun’s too high now. I look up-

Oh.

Clouds. Heavy ones, like the sky is toast and someone just spread a big healthy layer of gray jam over it. They look hard and rough, like beaten iron. An armored sky.

It only gets cloudy in winter here, when the currents shift and carve some sopping wet air off the top of Thousandmire, dragging it north into the Desert. When I was a kid, I was trained to always look forward to this time of year, because the rain meant my birthday was coming soon. These days I’m just thankful for the break in the heat, like everyone else.

One of the warehouses around here is listed as abandoned, because the city long since gave up trying to figure out a solution to Electrofuck. You can tell it’s not abandoned, because there are a couple of big fuckers standing outside the front door, wearing gaudy lightshow implants, scrolling LED sunglasses, and spiked multicolored denim. Electrofuck tends to make his guys dress like him, which is to say, like a robot clown that was murdered in a hardware store. You can also tell this is Electrofuck’s warehouse because he had the facade painted bright fucking yellow, with big splattery black letters that say “THUNDERBOLTS” across the whole wall. Smaller black letters over in one corner also say, “ELECTROFUCK FUCKS YOR MOM”, in case you weren’t sure who could be responsible for this. The Thunderbolts are the only gang in the city brazen enough to shriek the exact location of their hideout like this - even the Fangs put up some pretense of hiding in between carving up civilians for their meat and hide.

I approach the door, and one of the bouncers levels a punch gun at me. I look down at him like he’s a fire hydrant. His vitae is mostly orange, and flapping like a flag in the wind. High as fuck, probably hasn’t slept in three days.

The other guy, who has bleach-blue spiky hair (another style affectation directly imitating their boss) is a bit more measured. Green and yellow. He just puts one hand on a hip holster and looks at me. I can tell he isn’t high, unlike his partner, whose eyes are buzzing like fruit flies. I’m not sure which of the five of me he’ll shoot.

Calm Son says, “The fuck do you want?”

I smile. “To get inside, please. I owe your boss a million credits. I’m here to pay.”

He holds out a hand. “I’ll get it to him.”

I look down at his hand, then back up to his face. My apertures narrow on him.

“Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?”

He smirks. “Not anymore.” The smirk melts. “Is that a fucking sword?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s fucking huge.”

“I’m fucking huge.”

“... Yeah. Take it off and leave it here while you’re inside.”

“No. By the time I get back you and your little friend here will have sold it for a bulk pack of lace doilies or whatever you people are into.”

“Then you ain’t gettin’ in, asshole.”

“This one has a punch gun. You’ve got a… yeah, that’s a slab stunner. I don’t think your mommies would approve of you playing with such dangerous toys. So obviously you’ve been hitting precinct armories, or you know someone who has. And there’ll be more shit inside. Do you really think Electrofuck is gonna give a shit if I bring a big knife inside? He’ll probably think it’s funny.”

He glares at me for a moment, then points behind my back. “Step back a minute.”

I step back. He turns around and picks up the receiver of a telephone box by the door. He has a brief conversation with someone, then turns around to face me again.

“Go ahead in.”

I nod thanks at him, then go through the door.

Electrofuck has spent a lot of time, money, and manpower turning the inside of this warehouse into a kind of insane sultan’s palace, the kind that a Valtean rancher baron with really bad synesthesia might build. There’s hanging curtains strung from every angle and in every color, breaking up the space. Rugs just kind of… tossed all over the place. Couches, chairs, low tables all burdened with pills and piles of powder of every description and side-effect. Most of the Thunderbolts here are lounging like well-fed lions. Draped over the couches dazing into a boiling rainbow galaxy that only they can see, grouped up in a corner playing with some stolen Watch weaponry. To my surprise, there’s a surprisingly well-equipped dining area off to one side, where some of the thugs are cooking. I didn’t know thugs knew how to cook, as a general rule. That kind of thing is generally why one becomes a thug. There’s fucking cats everywhere. Just… everywhere, relaxing with the gangsters like they’re all the same species. There’s got to be at least fifty of them.

And at the rear of the room is the sultan himself. The king of fear and dosage and cats, the ruler of a full quarter of the city’s underground substances trade, the one who’s given me money with one hand and yanked my leash with the other.

Electrofuck.

He’s part-sitting, part-lying in a huge throne that someone must’ve custom built for him, one leg over the armrest like a petulant teen. The thing goes all the way to the ceiling, covered in cushions and drapes of every color, forming a canopy over him that smears across the roofbeams and spreads to every corner of the room, like the web of a gaudy tie-die spider. There’s an orange-and-white cat lying on his belly, and he’s petting it very lovingly, making kissy sounds. He’s using a static electricity field in his fingertips to attract shed fur out of the animal’s coat, flinging it idly off the side of the great chair every once in a while. I know a happy cat when I see one, and there’s two of them.

Electrofuck is pretty big for a skinny, maybe a bit more than six feet and two hundred pounds. There’s not an ounce of fat on him. With his cream coffee-colored skin, he looks like he was chiseled out of a block of frozen caramel. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wear a shirt, presumably so he can show off his various implants, piercings, and tattoos. He’s got so many of each that it’s kind of tough to even tell where his outline is - the eye just kind of slides off all the art and metal. Electrofuck must also keep some kind of body carver on his staff, because in addition to the red LED lightshow implants in his biceps, pierced nipples (and navel and ribs and nose and et cetera), and cornea-scrambling tapestry of cartoons all over him, he has subcutaneous liquid crystal reservoirs that have been configured to flash with the electrical current given off by his heart. Every thump causes a brief glow under his skin, in a different color each time. It looks like if you cut him, he would bleed an entire rave, thudding dance music and glowsticks and all.

Like a lot of the cronies who have copied his style, his hair is threaded into an orb of bleached spikes the color of a periwinkle’s ghost. Even his eyes haven’t escaped the ferocious editing - he’s got some kind of electroreactive contact lenses that put a glowing yellow ring around his normally blue irises, making them look sort of like light bulbs.

His vitae is… imagine a huge thunderhead, dark gray and pregnant with storm, hovering over his head and all around him. The flashes rumbling inside it are purple and yellow, and it extends oily black-white-yellow iridescent tendrils all over everything around him, occasionally flickering and twitching with energy. It’s like a massive jellyfish made out of weather and directionless rage, draped over his shoulders and roiling above him.

There’s also a… guy, standing off to the right of Electrofuck’s throne.

Wait a second… I recognize that fucking guy. Wide straw hat. Blanket-y robes, wispy gray beard. This is the sleepy oldtimer who got on the train with me the other day like it was nothing. He’s leaning a bit on a metal staff, and I can see under the brim of his wicker hat that he is looking dead at my face, with an expression that’s resting comfortably between disdain and outright hatred. I wonder what I did to him. I’ve never seen him here before. Or anywhere else, before a few days ago. His vitae is the same as it was then, that strange array of gray and yellow magnetic field lines, slowly shifting and orbiting like the tide line on a beach.

I approach the throne, and as I do, Electrofuck catches a glimpse of me from the corner of one glowing eye. His eyebrows shoot up, and I can tell it’s taking every ounce of self control he has to gently pick the cat up and set it on the ground instead of exploding out of his chair like a volcano. Once the cat is clear, he leaps up off the thing and stands upright, looking down on me from the raised platform. He smiles. His teeth are all gold.

“The Beast enters my pleasure kingdom once again.”

I meet his eye, smiling neutrally. “How you been, Electro?”

“Oh so good, my heavy friend. So good. Everyone SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

He claps his hands together. This causes a brief flash of white energy to erupt around his hands and an actual thunderclap, the pressure wave I can feel from where I’m standing. Someone cuts off the blast metal music that was playing over by the kitchen. Everyone in the room freezes like a stuck videotape. Interesting, the old man by the throne rolls his eyes, and I have no idea what that implies. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

Electro takes in a deep breath, which means he is about to yell. Electrofuck likes yelling. For him, yelling is what causes the people around him to conform to his wishes. For him, yelling is really all it takes.

“WHY. Has NO ONE. Given my motherFUCKING friend BAULRIC FEATHERLIGHT a DRINK YET? Why the FUCK is one of our most favored guests APPROACHING ME without having been offered a FUCKING REFRESHMENT?!”

The silence in the warehouse is the same as the silence that follows a lightning strike. And there’s rarely just one.

Electro’s hands ball into fists. Furious ropes of lightning explode all over his skin, lashing out at the rugs and concrete - his face is twisted into a mask of total animal rage.

“FIX IT! NOW!”

In the flickering shadows cast by Electrofuck’s loss of temper, his cronies start scrambling like their pants are on fire, which might very soon be the case. Even the ones that are off in their own rainbow dimension, though they’re scrambling less efficiently.

Within the space of fifteen seconds, I am fucking swarmed by gangsters, each one desperately offering me some kind of something. No exaggeration, some of them are kneeling before me. Beer, whiskey, wine, laser gin, jus de mutant, packs of smokes, shiny plates of lines of powder. Some guy in a chef’s hat even brought me a platter of fucking bacon and eggs.

I take a me-size can of beer off one of the guys and say, “Fellas, fellas, it’s ok, I’ve got my drink.” I wave it helpfully at Electro, who has mostly calmed down. “Thanks, Boss, this’ll do me.”

A few of the kneeling gangsters, who ordinarily would knife me in the ribs for my wallet if they thought they could get away with it, look back at their boss, praying that this is good enough.

Electro waves a dismissing hand at them. “All of you fuck off. The next time a fucking gentleman and friend of the Thunderbolts walks in here without this treatment, recruitment posters are going up.” That means he’s going to kill a lot of them. In case you weren’t sure.

They all go away back to whatever they were doing. I open my beer and take a sip. Actually not bad. These guys make enough money to afford the good stuff. Maybe I should be a gangster.

Electro walks down a couple more steps. Predictably, he doesn’t go down so many that his head would wind up lower than mine. Not yet, at least.

“What blows you to my doorstep, big son? Work or play? Plenty of both here. Anything for my friend the Beastman.”

“I came to talk about what I owe you.” I take my smokes and lighter out of my coat, but Electro jumps down off the platform and smacks them out of my paw like they’re a lit bomb. I frown at him. He pulls his own pack of hyper-elite gold-leafed smokes out of his pocket, reaches up, and plants one between my lips.

He lights it very daintily, saying, “No pal of mine smokes that Outer Ring gutter-ass Shallowgrave shit. My friends smoke like lords.”

I take a puff or two, and god damn is he right. This stuff is genetically modified, top of the line, laser engraved tobacco from the kinds of laboratories that get funded by tax hikes. Precision engineered for the most luxurious death sprint one can possibly experience. These are what cigarettes turn into when they’ve died having lived a life devoid of sin and desire.

He stuffs the pack and the fancy black-gold butane lighter into my hand. These two objects are worth an amount that could feed a poor family of four for about a week.

Electro backs to a respectful distance, because he is an animal and sees me as another, larger animal, despite his objectively superior killing capability. Getting too close is a sign of aggression, and Electrofuck was only ever aggressive toward me the first time I met him.

This was years ago. To keep a long and very weird story short, Electro had gone to a merc board putting up a listing for someone to help find one of his cats that had gotten lost. Now, he put up this listing under his real name, and I didn’t know it at the time. So I took it, because the payout was huge, not knowing that everyone else had ignored it because they knew something I didn’t. I’ve done plenty of lost pet cases before, they’re easy when you can smell vitae and think like an animal does.

I showed up here, very confused, thinking the listing’s address must have been wrong. But nope. Electro was a fucking mess, crying, throwing bolts, wrecking up his palace over a single lost cat. I’d never seen a man so distraught. He made it very clear to me that if I came back with bad news, or mistreated his precious kitty in any way at all, I was a dead man. Some of those things not being in my control, I was pretty convinced it was going to end up that way regardless.

But I got lucky. Dr. Whiskers was less than a block away, mating with a stray in a drainage pipe. Guess he had a date and didn’t want to tell the Boss. I grabbed him and brought him back safe and sound, even fixed the loose ventilation panel that Dr. Whiskers had probably escaped through. And that was it - from that point on, to Electro, I was a prince. Best friends. He’d insist I come around to drink, party, be pals. You can’t really say no to a man like Electrofuck, so, I did, as infrequently as possible. A few times (while very drunk) I even performed feats of strength for a laughing audience of thugs. Benchpressing their biggest guy like he was a stick, using my magic to lift and throw cars. It was fun. Electro came to respect me in his own weird way, because strength talks in these circles. And that’s how I fell in the hole with him. He let me borrow when I was down.

That’s the trick with men like Electro, though. One minute he’s your friend. The next he’s atomizing a guy for overcooking his dinner.

He continues, “I heard the insects I sent to your place, to give you a helpful reminder, were disrespectful to you. They came back home to daddy, crying with shit in their pants, saying you were so mean.”

A raised eyebrow. He’s testing me, to see how I’ll respond to this.

“Yeah, I was mean. They shocked me. I’m mean to people who shock me.”

He nods, smiling, but with a regretful edge to it. “Yeah. They said. You know, Baulric, they took my fucking words. My words, you know? And they… scrunched them all up,” he crushes something invisible between his hands for emphasis, “into this… fucking fuck ball, and tried to give it to you. I said one thing, and they just… did something else. They thought- they thought, haha, that I meant to scare you. Can you believe that.”

I nod sagely. “Misunderstanding.”

He waves a finger. “They made me into a fuck-ball, Baulric. Me. What a guy says is what he is, and they enfuckened me into a wad of fuck by trying to shove you around. They hurt you. Now, now you’re the fuckin’ bull, two bugs aren’t gonna do shit to you. But they tried. And you know? You know what, my Featherlight?”

I smirk. “What.”

“You coulda stomped ‘em into sauce. Squished ‘em up into burger meat. But you didn’t. You sent them back to me, only, to tell me that you were gonna pay me back.” I swear he looks like he actually might cry. Electrofuck is a complex being capable of feeling many emotions, but he always feels them with their meter pegged to maximum. “I wouldn’t have even been mad, my chum. Not a little. But you didn’t harm a hair on their precious little moron heads.”

I shrug. “Not a big deal. I figured it was just a mix-up. It happens, water down the gutter.”

He walks back up to me and pokes me in the chest. I feel a little zzzt of static.

“You. Are. The. Big. Fucker. That’s what I like about you, Bauly. You don’t let shit get to you. It just bounces the fuck off. I don’t - haha. I don’t have that kind of self-control. Haha, when, when they came back? I fucking fried them so bad, haha.” He wipes a tear from his eye. “When they told me what they did to you. I was so fucking mad. I just! I just lost it! Completely! You don’t even do that shit. I wanna be just like you when I grow up, you fucking beautiful meat fuck. I could smooch you. I won’t, but I could.”

I smile at him, glossing right over the extremely possible possibility that he actually did tell those two poor fuckers to try to intimidate me, and just forgot about it. Or just meant it as a joke. It’s impossible to tell with him.

“It takes all kinds, Electro. This world needs some of me, and needs some of you. Otherwise shit would get boring, huh?”

He nods, hands on his hips, like I just said something very profound. “That is damn right, you know. That is damn right. Damn. Just… right off the top with that shit, huh. You’re like some kind of… wise old… fuckin’... guy. Just like that. Wow.” He shakes his head a few times, eyes wide. “So you got my money back? Shit’s turned around for you, huh. Knew it. Can’t keep a fuck like you down, huh. Haha.” A stray bolt flashes off him, and his head twitches.

I have to play it careful, here. Electrofuck cares about his money, and me phrasing this like I fucked it off will end poorly for me. But I can’t try and lie to him, or it’ll end even worse.

“I’ve got bad news and good news.”

He puts his hands on his mouth for a second. “Oooohhhh no. I hate this shit. What are you gonna tell me, bubby. What’s about to go down. You’re gonna scare me!”

“I don’t have any credits. There hasn’t been any work. None that I can do, or that people will hire me for, at least.”

Electrofuck’s thunderstorm vitae darkens. He isn’t smiling.

“That’s a real shame, my friend. My maximum guy. Because- because, it would be kind of, fucked up? If I thought you were, you know, taking advantage of me. Of our friendship. Like I’m some kind of fuckin’-”

Lightning crackles on his arms, like waiting, angry snakes, appearing and disappearing. Tzzt. Tzzzzt.

“- like a fuckin’ bank. I’m not a fuckin’ bank. I’m a guy. I’m the guy. I’m ELECTROFUCK. I own these STREETS. I am a BIG. DEAL. And a SERIOUS VIOLENCE DEMON. I am THE GRAND VIZIER OF THE ENFUCKENING.”

I have to head him off, or he’ll just work himself into a tantrum that no one will be able to bring him down from. And you can never just tell Electro to calm down - he sees it as an indictment of his character. You have to distract him. Thankfully, I brought just the thing.

Calm as a cream puff, I continue. “I went to the Library, you know. To find some stuff to study. I got back last night.”

He squints at me. “No shit? Big brain shit. Fat brain shit. Learning how to cook up strategies to pay me the fuck back, probably. Is my guess.” He’s still charging up.

“I met the Librarian. He’s a nice guy. He didn’t have the books I need, but he gave me this sword to make up for it.”

“Oh yeah tell me more about your cool new sword Baulric. Excellent fucking barbarian shit on you, really great and good.”

“I got something else from him, too.”

I reach into my coat and pull out the kitten, enclosed in my fist. I hold out my two hands and open them. Sitting in my palms is the dark metal masterwork of magical artistry, innocent and perfect. It gives off a tiny mew, while looking the crackling Electrofuck right in the eye.

All the energy goes out of him. He falls to his knees, right there on the steps leading up to his throne. His hands go to up to his hair and there are tears in his eyes.

“Oh my fucking god. Oh my fucking god Baulric. Baulric oh my god.”

He starts writhing around like a fish that can’t get its last breath.

“It’s so cute I’m going to fucking die Baulric. I’m gonna fucking croak. Please. I’m gonna die.”

I kneel down to his level on the floor, and put the kitten on the wooden platform. It stands, shakes itself, and rubs its head against Electrofuck’s knee. There’s a few little purple arcs between them at the contact. The animonculus starts purring, which sounds like a comm on silent mode.

He just starts crying. The tears crackle and spit a little as they run down his cheeks. He’s so paralyzed by love for the creature that he’s short-circuiting - I can see his heart rate going nuts under his skin. I’ll have to help him along.

“It’s called an animonculus. Made by the dustfolk before they went extinct. It’s thousands of years old. Doesn’t eat, doesn’t drink, and it’s completely indestructible. Doesn’t even need batteries. It’s magic. It’ll never die.”

I stand up, leaving Electro down on his knees, crying in total mental gridlock at the mechanical marvel that is trying to climb up his leg into his lap.

I say, “Pretty neat, huh?”

He sniffs. He hasn’t even dared touch the thing, not even to help it onto his lap. Because it isn’t his, and despite everything that Electro is, he respects when something belongs to someone else.

“Yeah. Pretty neat.” He’s wrapping around from raw unparalleled joy to abject misery at the knowledge that he does not own this thing. “Does she have a name.”

Now’s where I strike. I put my hands on my hips.

“That’s where I was hoping you could help me.”

Electrofuck, gang boss of the Thunderbolts, one of the most feared criminal organizations in the entire world, looks up at me with tears streaming down his face, barely holding back sobs. “W-what do you mean.”

“I’ll make you a deal, Electro.”

His eyes widen. I can see his pupils dilate. His underglow accelerates its pulsing. In an attempt to make himself weirder, Electrofuck has made himself extremely easy to read.

“I just can’t get any work, Electro. And I’m in the middle of a fucked up case. You heard about the thing with Sidri Rediron?”

He nods.

“I’m on that. I was gonna get paid for it, but the Watch fucked me. I can’t just let it go, though. Some people might get hurt, and I can’t take another job and let that happen. That make sense?”

He wipes his eyes, a little more together now. “Yeah. Yeah I get that. Honor shit.”

I nod. “Honor doesn’t pay well. But I can’t help it. It’ll be a long time before I can get your money. Too long. You know how shit is for me. So, here’s what I propose. You cut me a break on the money I owe you. Yeah, I fucked you, but I didn’t mean to. And I know that just sounds like excuses. So, how about I make good by leaving her here, with you.”

Fzzzzzzt. A ripple of current thrums across his entire body for a moment.

“Are you fucking serious.”

I nod, very seriously. “Serious. Call it a thank you gift, for being an understanding guy. I don’t want you to see me as a charity case, so here’s how I can square up.”

He looks down at the metal kitten with the most reverence I’ve ever seen a man express. Gentle as the antennae of a butterfly, he picks the construct up, and holds it above his head, more tears pouring down from his glowing, sparking eyes.

“HER NAME. IS. PANCAKE.”

A terrible discharge erupts from his entire body, and I have to step back to avoid getting conducted to.

The old man by the throne waves his free hand subtly. Something weird happens to his vitae - the field lines extend like the tentacles of an octopus, and connect to Electrofuck’s vitae, which is currently undergoing its own personal apocalypse. I can see the voltage run out of Electro’s aura and into his, where it just… disappears. The real-world visible electricity lessens to match.

I wonder what that’s about.

Pancake, for her part, does not give a shit about being charged with enough current to melt a solid steel block, and replies to Electro with a single mew.