Death Cap - Four - Ratesco's Union for the Poor and Enraged

I couldn’t learn too much about Ratesco’s Union. When I asked at the marketplace (usually asking some of the other stall owners that I’d gotten to know, if only in passing) the group was made to sound like terrible troublemakers. Respected, helpful troublemakers.

Asking too many questions always got someone to politely suggest that I stop asking, or else the Bullies might start wondering why I wanted to know so much.

What I did learn could be summed up in a few words.

The Union was a group whose main goal was to help normal people gain some degree of power over the factories that filled City Nineteen to the brim. I thought it was a noble goal, but some people felt that the owners of those factories deserved the share they were getting and more.

Most of their work came in the form of spreading information, some community outreach and money-gathering operations, and they were a counter to groups like the Bluertons.

That was too idyllic, and I was too much of a cynic to believe that the organisation was so charitable. If they were truly out to do good, then they wouldn’t be organised the way they were. They were a mafia, that was the long and short of it.

“You sure about this?” Stew asked as he loitered by the entrance to my farm.

I nodded and checked my satchel one last time. The satchel was a cheap thing I’d picked up at the market. It was made of that same canvas-y material they used to make potato sacks. It was filled with mushrooms, at least on top. The sack had a second pocket within it that took the bottom half of it. There was a little slit on the front for access, closed by a pair of buttons.

That second compartment was filled with [Dead Man’s Cough] mushrooms. One hard squish and the puffballs within would burst, then the spores would come out of the front. At least, that was the idea. I hadn’t tested it, for obvious reasons. I wasn’t sure if I could even survive that kind of thing.

It was my plan B, if talking nicely didn’t work.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said as I shut the bag up. The upper half was filled with mushrooms of the delicious sort, rather than the lethal kind. An offering of food.

“I don’t see why you need to go messing with that lot,” Stew said with a shake of his head. “They’re not good news, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “But I don’t think I’m their enemy. Not unless they make a habit of fighting innocent children from poor families. Besides, they helped my Dada in the end. I think I owe them at least a bit of courtesy.”

That was my excuse for now. I’d pop over, see if I couldn’t donate some food to their cause—food being the only thing I could offer—and then I’d ask for information. Simple and easy. The problem would come from maintaining appearances. I needed them to think I was some innocent kid while also taking me seriously enough to listen to me. It was going to be a fine line to cross.

Stew shrugged. “Your funeral, kid,” he said.

We started walking across the city, maintaining the slow pace that Stew was able to handle on his one leg. He had replaced his crutch at some point, the new one was nicer wood, with a metal band around the stump of his missing arm. It worked better than the chunk of wood he’d been using before.

“So, I haven’t seen Debra around in a day or two, she said that she was with you?” I asked.

Stew grinned. “Ah, well.” The man actually blushed. “Debs and I have been spending more time together as of late. I gathered enough coin from working with you to make myself look respectable, then I found a bit of work at the market. Not much, just tending a stall. It’s little, but enough to get an apartment.”

“Congratulations,” I said.

He nodded. “Thank you. It’ll be nice to have a roof when winter comes around. Soon now, I think.”

“And Debra’s living with you?”

His smile only grew. “She is! One of the stall ladies has been teaching her a thing or two about sewing. It’s not much, but with both of us scrambling for coin, we can keep fed and stock up on coal for the winter. As long as neither of us get sick, we should pull through.”

I nodded. “I’m happy for you,” I said.

“Thank you. And don’t worry. I can still help you with your selling. Better now, even. I’m getting to know the others at the market while I’m there.”

“That does sound helpful,” I said. “Do you know if any of them have kids around my age, or a bit older?”

“Looking for a friend that’s less than a decade your senior?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I’m looking for an employee. I can produce more mushrooms, but I’d be able to do more if someone else was doing the selling. It won’t pay well, but… I could lend out my table and cooking plate, teach someone to handle both, and then they can pay me for the mushrooms to cook.”

“You’ll cut into your profits,” he said.

“I won’t have to work as much in the markets,” I said. “And I think if I concentrated, I could supply two or even three stalls at the same time.”

I’d done the math, even being conservative on sales numbers, the whole thing would generate about the same amount of coin as I was making already. All I’d have to do for it to work was practice with my [Aura of Growth] and I could make enough mushrooms to keep a few stalls going.

Which begged the question: why was food so damned scarce in City Nineteen?

If one skilled six-year-old could feed three families with a tiny farm, then I imagined that a dozen adults with better equipment and training could feed a whole district. Yet here we are, scrounging for every last loaf of hardened bread and can of beans.

Setting up my own little informal business would give me one other advantage. I’d have a reason to meet with the Rats. If they were a crime organisation masquerading as something else, then I was certain they’d appreciate me coming to them to ask for protection, rather than the other way around.

Stew and I chit-chatted and gossiped about a few things as we walked towards the deeper parts of the slums. Further out from the Gutter, there weren’t as many factories, instead there were more apartments, often crammed in even closer together. The exception was along some roads that cross the city, those tended to be lined by factories and warehouses still.

The arteries of City Nineteen were clogged by industry.

I learned, from Stew, that my dad’s factory wasn’t the only one to try and unionise. A dozen others had protested as well. Some more forcefully than others. Of those, most had outright closed.

It was generally accepted that a factory that was unionised would either shut down immediately, or fold to the union. Some would try to replace all of the workers, but there was a stigma in taking on a job at one of those. It was bad luck.

I imagined that the superstition had something to do with the fired union members sabotaging the machinery before they left.

The Bluertons had been busy. A hundred dead over the course of two or three weeks, some of those amongst their own number.

The past months had been filled with Bully crack-downs across the slums. I hadn’t heard of those, but Stew had his ear closer to the ground.

Apparently some lower-class folk had gotten their hands on rifles, which levelled the playing field a little. That was the last thing the Bullies wanted.

“That’s the place,” Stew said eventually with a tilt of his chin to a building ahead.

It was a warehouse right up against the edge of one of the bigger roads. Horse-pulled carts were trudging past, carrying casks and crates on wagon-back. It was just short of noon, so the city was still quite busy.

That made the half-dozen young men loitering around the entrance of the warehouse all the more conspicuous.

“Walk proud, Stew,” I said.

He chuckled and followed after me as I walked right up and into the warehouse. The guys outside stopped to stare, but we probably fit right in, the way we were dressed.

The interior of the warehouse had been subdivided a few times. There was an office-building to one side, and a few tin shacks had been set up to the other side, with a gate cordoning them off. The central passage was still open and clear though, leading to more stuff at the back.

Someone had left a few rows of hip-high crates out. I could recognise a barricade when I saw one.

“Who’re you?” someone gruff asked.

I turned to the side with a start. I hadn’t seen the man… men, standing in the shadows. They stepped over, coming closer. “Gary asked you a question, kid,” the shorter of the two said.

Blinking, I took in their face and form. They were a bit taller than I was, but not by much, with yellow-ish skin, a hooked nose, and long ears.

“A goblin?” I asked.

And then, before I could blink or gasp, something punched me in the gut and pulled my legs out from under me.

***