The parchment in the centre of the table, marked 'Laws to Protect the Chastity of the Five Colonies', continued to stoke massive interest.

“Who the fuck wrote this shit?!” The hollering clamoured throughout the noisy, cluttered room, the fires inside men and women in the tavern clearly raging. The dozens of people inside the establishment crowded into a kind of bar-space in the middle and a dozen individual rooms left and right; chairs and pillows alike available for anyone’s fancy. Many of the men wore thin, cotton clothes with wingtip collars, their thick jackets all folded up and placed at their tables; the women all wearing trousers like the men.

Another voice shouted out, “I dunno, you tell me! It’s like they want they want a fucking rebellion again!” A chorus of laughter sounded through the room, the echos deafening. Wei stared around and took the opportunity to walk up to the table where they had been reading the bit of parchment on which the five laws were written; his eyes widening as he ran each word through a translation.

“And… returned… or…” He muttered, a cold sweat flooding down his neck. His mouth ajar, he staggered back for a moment before tapping on one of the women and asking, “Sorry, does this part- does this part want all Ak… Aka…”

“Akari.”

“Right, those, to return or ‘remain in slavery’?”

“Yeah. What, you can’t read?” She remarked. “Besides, it’s nothing new, I’m surprised they didn’t make those filthy charcoal things all slaves earlier.”

As the woman turned back to her group amidst all the commotion Wei’s mind churned. Biting his lip, he stumbled away from the conversation and made his way through the dozens of people left and right to the counter at which a couple served up bottles and bottles of alcohol.

“Excuse me.”

“Be right with you.” The man said, before reaching behind him and pouring a drink into a cup to Wei’s right. “You there, Enik right? Your tab’s way too fucking long, coins ain’t gonna be enough.”

“Gotcha, gotcha… I’ll send two a’ my boys over to the distillery, run with ya for about… whaddya want? Two months?”

“Knock it down to one and a half, blacksmithing be taking a hit with this entire thing. Wouldn’t want to bother you too much.”

Wei’s eyes perked up. He tapped on Enik’s shoulder, the grizzled woman that greeted him tilting her head as she wobbled around. “Excuse me. You’re a blacksmith?”

“All day, every day. You a customer?”

He nodded. “Potentially ah… Do you have moulds?”

“Moulds? What kinda moulds? Axehead, spearhead? You gotta tell me.”

“Just confirming. I need something special.”

“Fuck off, I’m not producing special medallions for some rich man. You fuckers never pay.” Enik remarked, turning back to her drink and downing the entire thing.

Wei turned away, groaning; he turned back to the bar, facing the downward-pointing bottles all strapped together by the wooden grid lining the wall. He pulled out a small sack of coins and plopped it on the table, before turning back to Enik. “This enough?”

“Meh. Go find someone else to do your work.”

He sighed, standing up with the sack of coins in hand and disappearing back into the crowd. As he slipped it back into his pocket someone nudged him and said “Ay! Young’in! You up for a game of haus?”

“Oh, I-I’m-”

“Hey, come on. We need one more player for the game and I’m sure you’d do just fine. Coins on the line!” The blue-skinned man dragged him over into one of the small side rooms against his rapidly diminishing protests and pointed towards one of the two empty seats at the table. “Got one.”

“Speed it up! I need to be back after midnight!” One of the women shouted, while man screamed “Fuck yeah! Come on, get in your seat!”

Wei scampered into that seat, surrounded by people with no cards, no tokens and no symbols. All of them with a few gold and silver pieces lying in front of them he gingerly sat back and watched.

“Right. Kesthau begins.”

“Right... right.” The man two seats to the right of him groused, “we playing old rules or new rules?”

“Of course old. New sucks.”

“Right. Right. I wager… two coins, gold. Calling on a… lie of finances. Mang.”

The long-eared man opposite him shrugged, before leaning in and gesturing. “Okay. I got only fifteen silvers for a harvest of heifers… in the fall. After preservation. And then the man got robbed and died so I took back the heifers and got a few golds as well from his house.”

“What the hell? I’m calling truth, Mang. Easy two golds.”

“It’s a lie, I got three golds for the harvest.” He laughed, before tapping on the blue-skinned man who had just called him out. “Gimme those fuckin coins.”

“Sonnofabitch…” He muttered, flicking over two dimly-glimmering coins over to him.

“Alright, Mang, who you calling on next?”

“Our newbie here. You’re not gonna lie, right?”

Wei, who was still scratching his head, quickly nodded.

“Order… order says next after finances is… tragedy, right?”

“Tragedy, yeah. You’re up, kid.”

“Um… okay, so I’m just gonna say that uh, I just have to raise a tragedy, right?”

The tan-skinned woman to his left remarked, “Yeah, don’t matter what, you just gotta be telling us the truth. It’s a cycle. Lie, truth, lie, truth.”

“Right, then…” Wei paused, before sitting upright and glancing at the looks of everyone around him. “In 1962 - 58 years before I was born, 68 million died in a span of two hours due to a nuclear exchange which triggered a world war that lasted another 17 years.”

Silence.

Then chuckling. Laughter.

“Fuck, kid, you want out, huh? Calling a lie.”

Wei’s face continued to harbour a deadpan expression. “Nope. It’s the truth.”

“Fuck off kid, we ain’t gonna be scammed.”

“It’s not a scam, it’s real.”

The man who’d dragged him there snorted. “Aw, sheesh. Anyone wants to call forfeit rules on this moron?”

“Fuck yeah… I need to make good on those two gold coins…”

“All in favour, raise your hands.”

Unison. Total unison, every other hand that wasn’t his raised immediately. Wei quickly shot his up too.

“Alright kid, you’re gonna have to prove it.”

“Fine by me - what happens if I prove it?”

“We pay out half of everything we got to you. Which is never gonna fuckin’ happen.”

The grins around him only coincided with the drops of sweat running down his neck. Still, he stood firm, nodded, before pulling over the weapon strapped over his back and waving to the lot; some looking at him with narrowed eyes. Chuckling. Chuckling, everywhere.

As he proceeded out into the hallway the commotion turned on him. The players followed him out of the room and he could hear the murmuring of “Yeah, somebody’s actually playing the forfeit rule unironically” and “Damn he’s stupid”. Rolling his eyes he dragged the door open before stepping into the sunset gaze, a torrent of people flooding out into the road with him as he cocked his gun. Pairs of eyes set upon the look of his weapon and his tattered brown clothes while he gestured over to Tooru, sitting outside the building and intently watching him.

The lights of the town flickered on, men running down the street past him lighting lanterns as one of the players shouted “Alright, what’s your proof!” at him.

“Well you see, you didn’t believe that 78 million people could die in two hours. Allow me to prove you wrong.” The muzzle of his gun raised into the air; he adjusted his aim while continuous muttering emerged from the small crowd and suddenly,

*DA*

Silence and yells. The small grey whirl emerging from the muzzle blew away in the wind while Wei went back to the players and remarked, “You didn’t believe me?”

“T-that could just be a bom-”

*DA-DA-DA-DA-DA*

Wei’s shoulder hurt at this point, the continuous fire jabbing it and his arms sore from swiftly transitioning to aimed-down sights twice.

“Coins. Now. Please.”

The players scrambled back into the building as Wei raised a thumbs-up to Tooru, the crowd mostly still watching or spreading out over where he’d shot into the air, seemingly hoping to catch a glance of where or whatever he’d shot. He himself proceeded back to the counter, eyes fixed all over him, before he turned around and shot a glance at Enik, sitting there with a blank expression.

“You’re a mercenary.”

“Apparently I am now. You taking up my offer ah?”

“Not before I hear at least something about what the fuck it is, this weapon you’re using. And for good measure who you are and what you are. I like honesty with customers…”

“Tan Wei Ming…”

“...studied at N.U.S with honors in the Metallurgy course, sir. “

7 YEARS AGO

REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE

The sterile environment of the office did not go unnoticed by Wei; his nose sniffing at the all-too-strong lavender smell emanating from a small pot on the table of the man he was talking to.

“And you want to work with our firm as a junior consultant on… metallurgy.”

“Yes sir.”

“Tell me, what redeeming qualities would you consider yourself to have? Anything that our firm could use?”

“I’m hardworking, resourceful… know my way around research. Perfect memory. I’m also proficient with math and physics, which, I think could help the firm to a great extent?”

A droplet of sweat ran down his cheek. In a full suit, jacket, tie, belt; Wei peered intently into the eyes of an elderly, balding man whose gaze never seemed to meet his. That man continued to file through the beige file on his desk marked ‘Resume - Tan Wei Ming’, and he nodded every so often. Then, he read one page at the back.

“Well, Mr. Tan, I believe that you are a great and hard worker, but you’re just not what our firm is looking for at this current moment.” He remarked curtly, shutting the beige file up and tossing it over to him. “We wish you luck on your future endeavours.”

“I-I see…” Wei nodded, but his head continued to look downwards. Yet again.

“Please, if you’d leave faster… there are other candidates. Do call the next one in, please.”

“Oh - yes…” He plopped the file inside his briefcase before shutting it up and scampering out the nondescript white door, shutting it behind him before tapping on the shoulder of the young man sitting next to the entrance and whispering, “You’re next ah.”

One.

More.

Failure.

The air smelled just that little bit uncomfortable that day. Perhaps it was the thin undercurrent of sweetness that made it so peculiar; perhaps it was the cardboard-box flavour wafting through the annals of the hallways. As he passed by a sign reading “CHEONG WEE PTE LTD. INTERVIEWS LEFT”, he sighed once more and resigned himself to waiting for the lift outside.

The noise of the lift slowly but surely approaching deafened despite its softness. ‘Ding’ - the metal doors shuffled open, releasing its cargo of suited businessmen and one businesswoman as Wei waited by the side for them to leave, then swallowing him whole as he pressed the button marked ‘G’.

Blare, the little screen in the corner of the lift did. “This morning PM Chua announced a new plan to reinvigorate the economy with what is being called ‘Stimulus packages’ of about $1,000 dollars per person…” The white noise emerging from its audio systems mentally filtered through Wei’s mind and came out the other side entirely intact and unabsorbed.

The first thing he saw on that small screen in his hands was ‘Ministry announces new restrictions on terror organisers’, and he instantly powered it off as he broke free from the monotonous grip of the elevator, only to walk into the grey and dreary world beyond; the streets of Downtown Singapore drowning in the noise of traffic and music. Passing by the Taiwanese Embassy tucked into a corner next to Parliament he descended into the network of underground railways with a weapon in hand; a small wad of cash.

Tapping through the card gates always left him with a somewhat more peeved expression. Where another man in front of him paid a meagre thirty cents with that blue card he possessed only a flimsy bent card he shoved into the small slit that processed everyone through the gates of the system.

“Goodbye my heart and hello Siberia~” His ringtone rang.

He held his thumb on the keys of his pager, reading the message.

‘Blcklist expanding again.’

Wei grimaced.

‘Srsly? Couldn’t even get a job tdy’

‘Srsly ah? Didn’t you move the page to the back’

‘Aiyah they just check that page first thing and then shoot me out. Telling u ah, i should have gotten a job in m’sia’

‘Told you mah.’

Still typing, he sat down on the one seat he could find on the reserved carriages at the back of the train and opened up his briefcase; looking through his file again. No matter what his hands filed back to that one page he’d stuffed at the very back of the beige file.

And that one acronym.

“U.T”

He lied back on the wall of the train as he groaned.