Spoils Of War Collection

Chapter 2-1

“Hey Screw-Top, The Knob wants to see you in his office re your achievement assessment, I believe.” Lincoln delivered the news in a cheery tone, which was entirely fair since it wasn’t her who’d waste precious time in the company of Thobald Ivton the Third, Deputy Assistant Sub Manager for Branch 12 of Area 96884/AQ/X, known to all as The Knob, and my direct line manager.

Lincoln was glowing with pleasure at the near miss. The day previous, she’d been stuck for three hours in a presentation on the strategic direction of staff development and was happy to use all that she’d learned, even when merely delivering a message. Lincoln was an Ornamental whose ancestors had been bred to fill giant pools and fountains on a long-lost estate; they swam and darted between water sources, their wet blue skin a perfect backdrop for the sparkling light that burst through the droplets engineered to stay on them. Nowadays, she worked cleaning sewers.

“You know that’s a birth slur and an objectionable term under the objectionable terms rules, don’t you?” I stood up from the bench where I’d been putting on slurry boots.

“Really?” Lincoln replied with peerless innocence.” I read just yesterday that it was term of endearment among citizens who weren’t subject to a natural birthing process and could be employed to indicate friendship and respect for a shared heritage.”

“Stay off those Human Rights lines. They’ll lead you astray. Then what will you do when you find you’re the only blue-skinned citizen in a room of hungry Naturals looking for someone to blame for their body hair and lack of success in mating?” With that, I strolled from the locker room and headed up the lower depths to the Knob’s office. Unfortunately, he was in. I’d hoped he might have wandered off to another meeting and forgotten all about this one.

When I entered the dim office, he looked up. I say “he”, but the truth was that no one had the slightest idea what the Knob actually looked like, or if “he” might be a “she”. The Knob used a glamour charm keyed to the leading cast member of the top-rated show on the lines for that day. The worst “top-rated” show had spotlighted a semi-dismembered, decomposing corpse running for a seat on the Standing Committee; a huge hit, it ran for weeks through the election cycle. The charm called up the stench, as well as the look, and that stink hung like a bloodsucker, taking at least four showers to remove.

This time he was two metres tall with broad shoulders and a nipped waist, flowing golden beard, and long thick pigtail. Piercing sky-blue eyes were set above etched cheekbones. An air of casual, yet complete, mastery was wasted once he started to talk. Seated behind the desk, he waved me to a chair, strategically lower than the desk so I had to look up.

“Ah, good. Please sit down for this important meeting. A performance appraisal is a serious career event, a time for reflection and consideration … assessing what’s been achieved and contemplating what will be achieved. This is a moment to look back and to look forward from the firm footing of the present. We need to use it to read the lessons of the past and sow the seeds of the future, so we might harvest success in time.”

willHe beamed with benevolence and encouragement, and I did my loyal follower part by nodding agreement and sticking the pin I’d brought for this moment into my thigh to stop from laughing out loud.

“Excellent, excellent. Shanksworth, I believe your performance on the road-development project in Sector 15 was an example that all should follow. I’m delighted to tell you that you’ve been promoted to Assistant Lead Supervisor on the project. Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

I shook my head to convey modest acceptance of his gratifying, if not wholly deserved praise, and how overcome I was at his generous recognition of my efforts. I took the cue to leave and left to speak to Rosby, the Knob’s guardian angel.

“Hi Rosby. Would you let someone call Shanksworth know that they’ve been promoted? I’m guessing that they’re a StoneBeater, involved in a road project in Sector 15.”

Rosby smiled and I wished she hadn’t as it triggered a major reaction barely held in check by charms. She was another Ornamental, with lovely wings on her back made of the whitest feathers; when fully unfurled, they lifted her off the ground and transported her with considerable force. Rosby was tall and muscular, with olive skin, wavy jet-black hair and matching eyes. Usually dressed in flowing close-fitting robes, she was stunning … and enchanting when she smiled. While I struggled to move blood from my d**k to my legs so I could step away, Rosby placed a hand on my arm and asked, “You okay, my friend? You look like you’re going to faint.”

Her gentle touch burned my arm like a heat restraint and prompted my blood to circulate; the charms moved into overdrive and I was able to regain enough control to respond. “I’m fine, just experiencing a shock of relief. I heard last week he gave an execution order instead of a transfer. Getting an accidental promotion was too easy.”

accidentalRosby smiled again and waved me off as I walked with stiff legs, grateful for the alterations I’d made to my suit to accommodate such events. I took the long route back to the locker to let the reaction dissipate.

Lincoln was sitting on one of the many benches, clearly waiting for me. Her work comm blinked with unanswered calls. She eyed me with concern. “You took so long, I thought you’d received an execution order and I’d have to find a new drinking partner for tonight.”

I was surprised. While we’d been using the same locker room for the last 18 months, I’d been working for the Public Service Board. Lincoln worked in an office shovelling paper, and I worked in the sewers shovelling s**t. As a rule, the two groups didn’t mix at work or outside it. But Lincoln was a cheerful locker-room acquaintance, and we often chattered or batted insults. This was a very abrupt change. Even at the best of times (long-gone times), I’d never had the best social skills, so I was a bit stumped how to respond.

Happily, Lincoln knew how to take charge and move things forward, normally in the direction she wanted. “Scrub up and be at the Red Eye 20 after the shift.” With a nod, she left.

sheI finished dressing and headed to the gates where I found my Involuntary Public Servant crew standing around like a bunch of re-animated corpses waiting to be told what to do … which, incidentally, was exactly what they were (re-animated corpses, in case there was any question).

I formed them into a hollow square and stood in the middle. To my left, right, and behind, the Involuntary Public Servant staff were wearing chainmail trousers tucked into slurry boots. All had a nerve-stick with one setting that would kill any creature with a nervous system that it touched. The nerve-stick used on me when I entered the Public Service Portal was designed to subdue not kill, and the memory of that encounter still reverberated through my muscles.

In front were three Involuntary Public Servant members, wearing lighting rigs that illuminated the sewers for a 20-metre distance. Overlapping lighting meant no shadows for something to hide in and ambush us as we drew near. We were going to check on an blood lake inspection point. Our route would be outside any predators’ hunting range, but stupidity was always fatal.

Off we marched, with the Involuntary Public Servant crew falling into step with my pace. We managed to travel as a unit rather than stumbling scrum. It had taken me three months to figure out how to get them to work together and now we fell into it perfectly. The journey to the inspection point was uneventful—no attacks, cave-ins, or gas bubbles. The inspection point seemed ordinary enough too, at first. There was an anomaly, a recess in a sewer wall that wasn’t on the map or on any inspection reports I called up on the link. There was nothing remarkable about the recess in itself; it looked like an inspection port found near any blood lake.

That was the problem. We were too far from the nearest blood lake for there to be an inspection port, which made it very likely that it was in fact a smugglers niche—the point where an inbound courier dropped off a delivery and an outbound courier picked it up without the two ever meeting. Naturally, such niches had pretty serious security, way beyond anything I could deal with, and the best plan was simply to pass by.

Curiosity, perhaps the single most dangerous force in all the systems, causing more trouble, chaos and disaster than anything else, nudged me to request the nearest Involuntary Public Servant shine a light into the niche. It looked like a smugglers niche, four meters deep and empty, except for a glistening geometric-like pattern on a rear wall, above floor level.

Three things happened simultaneously. I saw the pattern, Jovial made a move, and I died.

There was a saying attributed to the Red Halls: it isn’t dying that kills you but waking up and realizing that there’s no rest for the indebted.

it isn’t dying that kills you but waking up and realizing that there’s no rest for the indebtedI woke up to the realization that my problems weren’t going to be escaped by something as simple as dying. I’d have to work much harder than that. The initial moment of wakeful clarity about the cesspit of my life vanished and the shock subsided enough to let pain register. I fell to the floor and screamed. This was the best thing to do as it triggered a response from an Involuntary Public Servant who stepped over and shot me with a cool dart. This was standard protocol for someone attacked by a blood-lake predator, which usually resulted in them falling down and screaming.

The dart numbed the pain sufficiently for the person to think and be mobile enough to move from the problem area. Finding no predator to kill, the crew re-formed, two supporting me, and we marched to a pre-planned recovery spot. Once there, I took the charm from my pack; it would speed up the recovery process so that I’d be reasonably functional within hours rather than weeks. With that, I lay down on the sewer floor and slept for the remainder of the shift.

The alarm awakened me, and I headed back to the office with myself and the crew intact, which made the day wildly successful, and one I was in no mood to celebrate. Which was very unfortunate as it appeared that Lincoln was, and she wasn’t about to let me escape. I saw her waiting at the Red Eye 20, and it was clear she’d seen me.

She ambled over and smiled gaily. “Ready for the night of your life? You’ll never have tasted beer like this before in your life.”

With that, she headed off and I followed. It took less energy than resisting and the prospect of cool beer was inviting. Lincoln walked past the office quarter and turned into the Old City, the remains of the original Thiegler, dating back to pre-war times in several places and no later than post-war reconstruction in others.

Lincoln was walking leisurely, so this time I could soak up the place. There was a jumble of building styles and sizes, no sense of underlying order, and it was impossible to keep track of where we were going. We turned at a large glass bowl of an edifice with rainbow colours and hazy shadows cast by movements and lifeforms inside. It was suggestive of stories of other lives and activities, and when I looked back, there was a diamond-shaped, metal-clad building in its place.