Day 5

With Riot still notably absent and Mona still harbouring some resentment, it was just Sham that followed Tripe into the Great Allotments. Of course, Ariel had other duties, in that she was still leading an entire church in prayer and practice, and Asa… well, he was doing something similar, only it was a criminal organisation instead of a church. Besides, Asa had another matter that he was contending with, right now.

‘Too many strands,’ Recollection said. ‘Even I’m losing track. I’m not, of course—but I could be.’

I’m sorry if you thought a revolution would be anything but messy, Sham replied internally, not wanting to freak Tripe out any further about the new voice lurking in his mind.

They took the tram as far as the lines would go, alighting early in the Dripcanal. From there, they’d need to walk, as the tram lines did not extend any further north, into the part of town informally called the Great Allotments. In this northeastern area of Haven, there were fewer buildings, though unlike Crater, it was an intentional decision. Those few buildings that did exist here were filled with the allotment workers, and the allotments themselves filled the spaces between them—so much so that even the areas that should have been designated as roads required careful stepping to avoid destroying produce.

The vegetables grown in this part of the city went a long way to keeping the burgeoning population fed, with imported food only really being of the exotic variety, afforded exclusively by the wealthy denizens of the eastern districts. As Tripe led Sham down a road overgrown with squashes, he turned to ask a question.

‘How are you doing?’

Sham was so taken aback by the question that he stumbled slightly, almost careering into a long, thick stem in the process. So rarely was he asked such a question, especially by someone like Tripe, that he didn’t quite know how to answer. ‘Shouldn’t I be asking you that?’ he eventually replied, gesturing to his old friend’s head. ‘What with…’

Tripe waved Sham away. ‘I dunno if I wanna talk about that right now.’

‘Fair enough. Guess I’m managing alright. I only got the one voice, now, compared to the four before, so—’

‘No, I ain’t mean that,’ Tripe said, pausing at a junction to get his bearings. ‘Riot said you’d been sick. Physically, like.’

[REASONING] THE IMPLICATION: SUCCESS

He had to clarify, didn’t he? The implication seems to be “physically sick… in addition to mentally sick”.

Sham swallowed that particular point, not wanting to dwell on his mental health—or lack thereof—any more than he had to. ‘It’s…’ Sham found the words lost on his tongue, as though opening up about his illness—or, rather, being vulnerable in this way—was a source of discomfort. ‘It’s hard, yeah. Having to manage your energy levels at all times, or pay the price. And if you do overdo it, you’re bed-bound.

‘But that’s not even the worst of it…’ Sham felt the words tumbling out of his mouth, and found it hard to stop them now that he’d started. ‘The worst part is like… having a cloud of fog in your head. Like something you can’t see through, only it’s something you can’t think through, instead. It’s hard to explain, it’s just…’ He felt heat rise in his cheeks. ‘I don’t know,’ he finished.

Tripe stood still for a moment, considering him, and then nodded. ‘We’ll take it slow, then,’ he said. With that, Sham’s old friend turned on the spot and continued on through the overgrown fields of the Great Allotments.

Finally, after another pause to look around—one that made Sham unsure that the Recollection in Tripe’s head was actually doing its job—they swung a right onto a large allotment filled with plump, green cabbages. ‘Her,’ Tripe said, gesturing to a woman resting one arm atop a shovel, and holding a cigarette in her free hand. This woman seemed in no rush to get back to work.

‘Her?’ Sham replied, grabbing Tripe by the elbow to stop him. ‘She doesn’t look the type.’

‘Ain’t that the point?’

Sham opened his mouth to respond, but then accepted Tripe’s point as being completely valid, and shut it again. With a gesture of his right hand, he suggested that Tripe lead the way.

‘Lew Sawyer,’ Sham said as the pair approached the woman. ‘Tell us what you know.’

The woman said nothing, continuing to lean on the handle of her shovel and taking in another slow, drawn-out drag from her cigarette.

‘Told you, Sham,’ Tripe said. ‘Told you she’d need—’

‘Look,’ Sham said to the dealer. ‘We ain’t here to hurt you. We just want information. Can pay for it, even.’ He pulled some notes from his pocket—borrowed from Asa, in Riot’s absence. It wasn’t like it was going to actually be spent, once the Loop reset, after all.

Finally, the dealer spoke. ‘You ain’t gonna have enough there. Man’s a good customer. Spends a lot. I ain’t gonna be risking that, not for any amount of—’

‘Alright,’ Tripe said, resignation in his voice, and he whipped out a revolver from his jacket pocket. ‘We tried your way, Sham.’

At this, the woman stood up straight, allowing her shovel to clatter to the ground. She raised her hands—albeit half-heartedly—into the air. ‘Huh,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t’ve had you down as the sort.’

‘The boono,’ Tripe said. ‘Now.’

The woman swallowed, her eyes piercing into Tripe’s, but ultimately she relented. She sighed, took a step to the left, and kicked around some loose dirt, revealing a closed crate in the ground below. ‘What you want, then?’

‘All of them.’

The dealer’s eyes widened. ‘All of them? I got dues, mate. People I gotta pay. You can’t leave me with nothing.’

At the pain on the woman’s face, Sham’s resolve softened. Two men intimidating a woman in an otherwise empty space, putting her in danger… the idea didn’t sit right with Sham, but he’d do what he’d have to do, especially if the woman would forget about it, five days from now.

‘All of them,’ Sham reiterated. ‘And the information we’re after.’

The woman swallowed again, but, with her eyes fixed on Tripe and his weapon, realised she had no choice. She crouched down, sweeping the last of the dirt from the crate. ‘Lew Sawyer, yeah? What about him?’

‘What’s he buying from you? What boonos?’

The dealer wrenched the crate free, throwing it on the ground with enough force that Sham thought one or two of the boono vials might shatter. He heard no rattling sound of broken glass, though. ‘Just the one.’

‘Oh yeah? What one?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Charm.’

‘What?’ Recollection said, putting a word to Sham’s own thoughts. ‘That can’t be right, can it?’

Tripe’s head swung to Sham, this new information making his heart leap just the same as Sham. For a moment, Sham thought the dealer might seize the opportunity to try to disarm the man, but she stayed where she was, apparently not wanting to roll the dice on this one.

‘Charm?’ Sham repeated. ‘The Magnetism rip-off? Can’t be.’

‘Can, and is. Now, is there anything else you wanna take from me or are you gonna fuck off?’

‘Charm,’ Tripe said. ‘Huh. He’ll be needing some more super fucking soon then, I reckon.’

The dealer stared blankly on, not recognising Tripe’s words as a question.

‘When?’ Sham asked. ‘When’ll he need them next?’

‘Usually comes every three days or so. Manages about that and no more. Now, as I say—’

‘...fuck off,’ Sham finished for her.

As they hauled the crate of boono back across the city—Tripe doing the honours without it even being a question—Sham commented on this new information. ‘We’ve been working under the assumption that all these members of the Legion got their core skill the natural way, cos they were members of Legion long before the legendary vials were cracked. But clearly that’s not true. Clearly, the Legion cut all the same corners as the rest of us.’

Tripe raised his eyebrows. ‘He must’ve been… He must’ve been taking this stuff for fucking years.’ A smile crossed his face, one that was accompanied by a twinkling in his eyes; Sham recognised this look from his burglary days.

‘What you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking… I wonder what would happen if he went into withdrawal? Gotta be bad, at this stage, hasn’t it?’

Sham returned the smile. ‘No idea. But I can’t imagine he wants to find out.’

Day 8

‘You,’ the dealer spat upon laying her eyes on Sham and Tripe again.

Sham had spent the most of the last few days resting, mostly from the pews in the converted church of Crater. There, he and Tripe had revealed to the rest of the team—Riot aside—what they’d learned; that Lew didn’t have the Magnetism skill at all, but was riding a many-year high of boono vials. It was a habit that must’ve been costing him a fortune, but officers of Legion were surely on decent money, and the alternative was… Well, Sham didn’t expect the prime minister would respond well to the truth.

Mona had begun to speak to Sham again, though there was a distance between them now that Sham wasn’t sure would ever fade, or would at least take some time. It boded well, then, that time was one thing they had in no short supply. She’d released Verd “back into the wild,” as she’d put it, saying that the new Looper had told her she had some friends she could stay with. Ariel was the only member of the resistance nervous about such a situation, and Sham had volunteered her to keep an eye on Verd, just in case.

And, by day seven, they had a plan for the second member of Legion. It was simple, really: interrupt the supply of boono to the officer who depended so much upon it. They’d take the place of his previous buyer, give Lew just enough Charm boono to take in that moment, and then send him packing with dozens of vials of coloured water. By the time Lew would realise, the real boono would be destroyed, leaving him to face the horrors of withdrawal.

They couldn’t do that this time around, of course. This time around, it would be a mock attempt only, so that Enoch Chambers didn’t discover the truth. All they needed to know, they figured, was that Tripe could guide Lew towards drinking the real boono on the spot, and leave the “fake” boono untouched. In this Loop, the difference between the two groups would be imaginary only, in preparation for the Final Loop, where that would very much not be the case.

‘Yeah, us,’ Tripe replied to the dealer, raising his weapon. ‘Sorry.’ His tone of voice implied that he very much did not mean this apology sincerely.

‘Time for you to fuck off,’ Sham said, setting the crate of boono down on the ground. ‘This is our territory, nw.’

The dealer glared back at them, her lip curling into a snarl. ‘Nah, nah I ain’t doing what you tell me, this time.’

‘This woman? She’s kind of a pain.’

Sham couldn’t help but agree with Recollection; having someone so stubborn standing in the way of their proposed trap on Lew Sawyer was definitely going to cause problems. But that was nothing that a little Legendary grade Command couldn’t fix. That would be Tripe’s next vial, Sham decided.

Tripe adjusted his grip on his revolver. ‘Is that fucking right?’ he said. ‘And why’s that?’

‘Cos, mate,’ the woman said, ‘I got protection now.’ In a flash, she whipped her left hand forward, holding within it a revolver that she pointed squarely at Tripe.

‘Yep, definitely bring some Command, next time.’

‘OK, look—’ Sham started, but Tripe was way ahead of him.

His old friend squeezed the trigger, a single shot echoing out across the Allotments. Sham’s heart dropped—he didn’t want to see anyone killed, even if it would be undone, because what did that say about Tripe? But the round didn’t catch the dealer in the flesh, instead ricocheting off her weapon, knocking it from her grasp.

Sham jumped to put his foot over it, preventing the dealer from jumping back into action.

The woman looked from him, to his foot, to Tripe, and then back to him again, and then suddenly turned on her heel and bolted away from the overgrown cabbage farm.

When she was gone, Sham turned to Tripe, eyebrow raised. ‘Just where the fuck did you learn to do that?’ he asked.

Tripe responded by shoving his free hand into his jacket pocket, and pulled from it a small, empty glass vial. A boono vial. ‘Fluke,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t resist.’

Sham couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You’ll pay the price for that one, believe me.’

‘Oh, I know. But what’s the point in all this if we can have some fucking fun on the way?’

* * *

Tripe and Sham spent the best part of the next five hours sat in the allotment awaiting Lew’s inevitable arrival. The sun grew low in the sky, and great shadows from the centre of the city stretched across the cabbages, cast by the tall buildings of the Diplomatic District. As Sham and Tripe were beginning to wonder if Lew would show up today at all—whether the dealer had got her timings wrong—Sham began to idly leaf through the crate of boono.

There were vials of all shapes and sizes. Plenty of Charm—the dealer obviously knew Lew would return before long—but also Speed, and Happiness, and Cunning, and Intimidation, and even a good few Fluke vials still in there. There were vials to fulfil all needs.

And there, in amongst them, was one labelled, ‘Energy’. How could he have missed that before? How could he have not thought to look?

‘A poor-man’s Vigour,’ Recollection said.

What am I if not a “poor man”? Sham retorted. The boono wouldn’t be a long-term solution, not like Vigour had been. But for a day, for two, he might feel normal again. Every ounce of his being yearned for that; going back to being ill after having a taste of freedom had been worse than never having been “fixed” at all. And here was a chance to fix himself again, just for a moment. Sham stretched out his hand towards it, his fingers itching to grab at the glass vial, his heart racing, his—

‘He’s here,’ Tripe said, and Sham snapped back to reality.

The officer of Legion approached the allotment slowly, his eyes narrowing and fixed on Sham and Tripe. Too great was his need that some new faces would put him off; the resistance had been counting on this.

‘Where’s Els?’ Lew called out, coming to a stop a good few yards away.

‘Sick,’ Sham replied. ‘She sent us instead.’

[HEART OF JANUS] TEMP WORK: SUCCESS

While not a bad lie in itself, it does rather invite some follow up questions. You’re fortunate in that Lew Sawyer’s mind is elsewhere.

‘You got the vials?’ he asked.

Tripe nodded. ‘Charm. How many was it?’

Lew’s eyes narrowed. ‘The usual.’

Sham glanced to Tripe, and the shared eye contact here suggested that they were going to have to wing it. He turned back to the crate, removed from it three small boxes, and began filling them with every Charm vial they had. Once he was done, he looked to Tripe, and tapped twice on the top box of the stack of three—the signal that these were the vials they’d designated as being the real ones, for when the Final Loop came. He placed the three boxes at Lew’s feet, still stacked atop one another.

Lew picked up the vials from the top, open box, inspecting them through red-ringed eyes. Like he didn’t trust his new dealers.

‘As well he shouldn’t, to be fair.’

The officer of Legion let his fingers slide across the stoppers of the vials in the top crate—the “real boono”—and then stopped. Instead of opening one, he pulled the top crate off the stack and then began surveying the ones underneath. The “fake” ones. They’d need to—

‘You happy, or what?’ Tripe asked.

‘I don’t know yet,’ the officer replied.

‘Well, I ain’t got all day, have I?’ Tripe waved his hands with apparent disinterest towards the top box—the one set aside, filled with the vials they’d earmarked as being “real”. ‘You gonna try them or not?’

Sham was certain that there’d been a skill check in there.

Lew Sawyer, subconsciously guided by Tripe’s gesture, picked up a vial from the top box, yanking the stopper free. As he did so, Sham felt himself release a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. It worked! The plan worked. He was one step closer to completing the one quest that changed everything—he was one step closer to Killing The Legion.

QUEST LIST

KILL THE LEGION

Six officers stand between you and the prime minister. Eliminate them from the equation, and Enoch Chambers is vulnerable.

TROUBLEMAKER

There's one out there who would ruin everything if he knew what you intended. Keep him out of it.

THE VIAL

Discover the purpose of Riot's new boono habit.

Lew Sawyer smiled, staring into the now empty glass vial, as he recognised its contents for what he was after: Charm. The man’s eyes seemed to glaze over, the addictive element of the boono already seeping into his system. Sham and Tripe held the man, now, in the palm of their hands.

As the man with the manic eyes downed vial after vial after vial from the top box, Sham stepped a pace or two closer. ‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘Tell us. How’d you get to be Legion, anyway?’

And Lew Sawyer, in his moment of bliss, saw fit to do just that.