Armoring Shadows

Chapter 4: A dive called Paradise

The day it happened, it started out like any other. I remember it was a Tuesday. Nothing important was ever supposed to happen on a Tuesday. I was there minding my own business while getting wasted in Paradise, which was not as fun as it sounds.

The dive called Paradise is a sleazy little bar located at a crossroads in the maze of places that lies somewhere in-between the sections that connects all the kingdoms of the Sins. A clusterfuck grey area of lopsided neutrality composed of ruined streets, crowded pathways, and slums made from dropped buildings. The labyrinth city of shadows known only as Purgatory, existing within and under the city of lights like some kind of cancer, where all the working class of the city went to live in hiding. It’s a place that’s ran by gangs, wannabe royalty, and anyone else powerful enough to claim a tiny piece of this reality.

I could care less. I may not be a brave man, but I am a patient one. Eventually, they all end up paying me for some kind of information, or trinket they’ve lost. I just smile, nod, and call them by whatever title they want to fail at. I know that a king goes into the ground just as easily as a thief.

I go to Paradise for business and pleasure, and the fact I got the entire place tapped with my bugs is just another minor convenience. It’s a dirty, filthy, dangerous gloryhole of a building, but damn it, it’s my gloryhole, and I like it like that.

It’s also one of the few places I won’t get kicked out of for being a Foxfire. A single person is smart and can be reasoned with, but people in general and in large numbers are dumb as a box of rocks mixed with hair. Most of the public still thinks that Corruption is contagious so people of my particular social status are usually shunned and ignored in the best case scenarios. The worst case scenarios are about what you would expect. While the Corrupted like me are barely tolerated, in direct contrast, Sparkies don’t last long after they are discovered. People really haven’t changed all that much.

Those of us who can hide their Corruption do so, but for some people, like me who lights up like a glow stick at a rave, it makes it so much harder to be discreet. It’s a little difficult to remain inconspicuous when every inch of your skin has to be covered up in dark material. Around here, that either makes you a vigilante, a cult member, or an assassin so I tend to wear whatever the hell I want. That day’s outfit bought fresh off the rack was no exception, a tangerine dream of a dashiki made from synthetic silk that makes my skin look like polished teak marbled with Peruvian opal. Like I said, I don’t try to hide my Corruption so I might as well wear things that fashionably accentuate it, serving the world my own personal brand of drama.

“What are you looking to steal today, trouble?” Matt asks me as soon as I walk in through the door. Matt looks like the kind of guy who comes with the bar and building. You know the one. He’s always there no matter what time of day or night, standing behind that scarred counter like some stranded soldier, one who is deep in the trenches of a war that never ends. I have a running theory that Matt lives in Paradise’s dry storage with the empty beer kegs, but our relationship isn’t that cozy. I tip him fat, he gets me clients, and everyone’s happy, with no incriminating questions asked. Discretion is just another part of the service I provide, if you can afford it.

“Depends. Who’s asking?” I say, taking my pick of poison from him. It tastes like warm piss with more than enough burn to assure me of its very high alcohol content. I claimed it was a bar. I never said it’s a place to get a good drink.

“No one you want to mess with.” Matt huffs out, making a show of wiping down a glass. We both know it’s a futile gesture on his part. Around here, nothing is ever served in a clean glass.

All the usual suspects are crowded around their drinks. That old man who always sits in the exact same seat day in and day out, you know the type who will talk to anyone stupid enough or drunk enough to sit near him, is already chatting up his latest victim. A couple of bounty hunters passing through, noobs by the look of their guns being displayed so openly on their hips. Everyone knows that real professionals never show off their gear. The usual group of tourists looking to do something dumb and dangerous are also in attendance, already being too loud and cocky for their own damn good. The rules above do not apply here down below, and they were about to learn that the hard way if they keep drinking cheap booze like it was water. The rest of the space is filled with the usual ‘day in, day out’ mixture of killers, thieves, and rogues. I don’t judge. We’re all just trying to make a living, and get by.

“Try me.” I laugh, gesturing at him with my now empty glass. “I’m feeling lucky.”

“The Skin Queen.” The bastard waits until I’ve shot back the liquor to name drop. It’s almost enough to make me spit out my drink. I’m never quite sure what the hell Matt pours me. It does the trick though, so I keep that particular question to myself. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I really want to know the answer, even if it is currently trying to burn my tonsils out from my throat.

“You’re right.” I choke out. “I wouldn’t touch that job with a ten foot pole with someone else’s dick attached to it, which in her case, just might be an actual thing. Christ on a cracker, what does that crazy bitch want?”

“It’s messy, like wet work messy. How do you feel about fingers and ears?” Matt grins, the expression made more evil by that damn beard he keeps insisting on growing out. It’s patchy, and made all the worse by the beard oil that Matt keeps putting in it. He thinks it will make his sad attempt at facial hair fill out. I think it makes Matt look like a greasy, methed out hobo who’s off his meds.

“I would like to keep mine attached.” I grimace, “Damn it, now you’ve gone and ruined my day. I already know I’m not going to like this answer. Let’s get it over with.”

“She wants this pianist’s fingers. Wants someone to get them for her, and she really doesn’t care how as long as the fingers are still intact and in her possession within an hour of…um…procurement. Something to do with nerve endings, and being able to properly reattach them in time.” Matt says, pausing to wince so I know the next part is going to be pretty bad to get a reaction like that from this jaded bartender. “You don’t want to know about the ears, Ken. It’s beyond just bad. I threw up after I heard it so you know it’s nasty. You’ve seen me clean the bathroom floors here without any problem…”

“Stop talking. You’re right. I don’t wanna know. I get it, but that’s Pride for you. Always setting a new standard for nightmare fuel and mental scarring.” I cut him off, muttering into my drink to keep from reacting too expressively. I’m not the only one in this city who collects and sells information. As much as I would love to lose my shit right now, and kick in a wall or two, I had a reputable façade to maintain.

I felt bad for whoever that poor bastard pianist was though. The Skin Queen herself, the infamous queen of Pride, was incredibly picky about her bloody parts, and she didn’t give a damn who she took them from. She was beginning to get too careless now though, her particular addiction starting to infringe upon the other Sins.

The skin labs are all cloistered in Pride. If you need a new face, better boobs, a second dick or other accessories, or anything else you don’t like about yourself replaced, they have a Surgeon and a procedure for that. The Skin Queen makes full use of them. No one knows how old she is, but it’s rumored than she bathes in the blood of the broke to keep her seemingly flawless, ageless skin intact. I’ve come to doubt that any inch of it is really hers anymore. There is no one left alive who can remember what she or he originally looked like. The Skin Queen keeps changing faces and races and private parts whenever the mood strikes her, depending on what or whose look was in at the moment.

No one gave a damn about Purgatory, but her closest neighbors, Envy and Lust, would make the Skin Queen pay dearly if she intruded upon their business, or if enough people went missing. Gods help us all if her trespasses against them catches the attention of Perdition. As far as anyone could tell, he desires a proficient peace, but the King isn’t too picky either about how that is achieved or maintained. Worst case scenario, Perdition would open up the armored skies, letting the weather take care of the problem for him, like how chemo ravages a body to get to the cancer. Best case scenario, and I use that term loosely, the King of Sins would send in his very own pair of assassins to deal with the issue, permanently removing the problem. Much like true biblical angels, they don’t give a flying fuck about collateral damage either, innocent or otherwise.

“You know I don’t hock meat. Denied.” I remind Matt, feeling more than just a little sick.

“Well, tell her that. You don’t tip me enough to be that kind of messenger. Your name is really starting to get out there.” Matt said with a shrug. I don’t blame him for the flippancy. It mostly wasn’t his neck on the line.

“Yeah, it seems to all the wrong people.” I huff. Not to shock anyone, but stealing things for a living sometimes came with a hefty price that someone had to pay. Usually, it was in the form of a sweet payout, and as long as you didn’t get caught, an even more valuable reputation. Staying alive to reap the benefits of that reputation was another matter entirely. For longer life expectancy, I’m known as Ken, just Ken, for a reason. Mostly, because no one cares enough about a Foxfire to learn their full name. Here in this place, I’m just another down-on-his-luck drunk. Here, being ‘just Ken’ down below keeps me out of all sorts of trouble. Some of my best armor is other people’s prejudices and misconceptions.

Even in this day and age, knowledge is power. Whoever has it has the power, and a lot of people are willing to pay a lot of credits to keep that kind of power safe, or accrue more. Having a reputation for being able to get any job done in the information trade seemed to have gotten the wrong people’s attention though. I prefer dealing and trading in the written and spoken word. People and all their parts are rather messy.

Like I said, it was a day like any other day. I had been planning to knock back a few more drinks, get topside, and possibly go bother Chef. He’s always good for some random information. Being a king has never stopped him from talking to people like me, which is good considering we met cute while I was working. I was spying on him for a client who never got what they wanted in the end, the King of Gluttony’s real name. I’m the only one who gets to call him that now in private, and I’m told my former client was a delightful addition to the menu, especially when paired with Pinot Noir.

Since then, Chef and I have been an ‘on again, off again’ kind of thing. All behind closed doors, of course, because he is what he is, and I am what I am, and we can’t risk being seen that way. We trade in gossip and mostly meaningless secrets because it’s one of life’s sweetness. That, and you never know what someone is going to want to talk about in either profession.

Which reminds me...I step away from the bar to phone in a secure link, a jammer of my own creation insuring that the call will remain private and protected.

“What the fook do you want?” says the love of my life, my delicate English rose, the reason I take so many risks to get rich, and be worth his time.

“There is that dulcet tone I long to hear both night and day.” I croon back to be answered by a long suffering sigh. Chef is not a morning person, the man already growling while making disgruntled noises at me through the connection, like I just personally took a shit in his kitchen sink.

“I’m hanging up you, you daft bastard.” Chef sounds like he’s dying. There is a man who can’t function without coffee upon waking.

“Just calling to let you know I’m alive. I know you worry.” I tell him, feeling the eye roll from Chef in spirit.

“I imagine you’ll be round later to muck up my day?” Which is Chef’s subtle way of saying to come by, and muck up his day.

“Well, I’m certainly not going to cook unless you’re dying to clean up an inedible mess.”

“Idiot.” Chef says almost fondly.

“I’m your idiot.” I remind him.

“It’s too early to be threatening me like that.” Chef sighs, hanging up on me to go run his Sin.

Apparently, I’d had one too many conversations with the wrong sort of people though because the bar became suddenly full of Skinners. Timing wise, I knew this was none of Chef’s doing. If Gluttony’s king wanted me dead, my baby would have done me in his own damn self, Chef being an upfront sort of person like that. You may end up on the menu, but you’ll always know who put you there and why.

My simple plan for the day is actively going to hell in a handbasket, the bar named Paradise defiled by Skinners darkening its doorway. Anyone with half a brain is being very careful not to make any sudden movements as they exit the bar in mass, with the exception of the dipshit tourists staying behind to take pictures. The cherry on top of that shit sundae is all the Surgeons following in alongside the Skinners. The day takes a turn for the worse when I realize that all of them are looking at me.

Surgeons are the other permanent denizens of Pride. Skinners are bad enough, but they were merely the scavengers of Pride. They brought back parts and building materials, and in the end, they ultimately became parts and building material. The Surgeons are the sadistic bastards that performed all the procedures though. As awful as Skinners are, they’re merely poorly trained, mutilated dogs sent out to hunt. They are victims, but victims that no one has time to pity, being too far beyond help. All one could offer a Skinner is some sweet and easy peace provided by a bullet to their brain.

Unfortunately, I had a severe lack of bullets upon my person. I’m a thief, not a murderer. I never carry a weapon because there are some mistakes you can’t undo once they are done. Bullets are a little too permanent for me.

“Sorry, Ken, but the Skin Queen figured you might say something like that.” Matt says as he ducks down behind the bar, more than likely crawling into some hidey hole underneath there. “You don’t pay me enough to deal with this sort of shit, and they agreed not to turn my skin inside out. They even promised that I get to keep all of my organs if I helped.”

“It’s alright, Matt. That’s a pretty damn good deal. Can’t say I blame you.” I mutter, actually meaning it. I really don’t pay enough for him to negotiate on my behalf with the Surgeons, the hellish wet work, meat mongers of Pride, the Skin Queen’s very own happy helpers. I will also freely admit that I am not a brave man, though I am a one hell of a gambler. I like to take risks, but damn, I’m bad at playing the odds sometimes.

In my humble opinion, only angels and soldiers volunteer for this sort of shit. I swallow hard as Pride’s hellions circled me, approaching me like I was some sort of fascinating specimen. Up close like this, the Skinners are bad enough, smelling like meat gone bad and sour with a fever that never ended. The Surgeons are made all the worse by how fucking normal they looked, all serious looking men and women dressed in shades of sterile green scrubs, looking prepped ready for surgery. The Skin Queen must have really wanted those damn fingers. I wonder what she needed them for, but then I remembered Matt’s warning about the ears. I really don’t how I was going to talk my way out of this one.

And then, a beautiful woman walks into the bar.

It’s on a humble Tuesday afternoon when she walks in, on a day when nothing important is ever supposed to happen. This tiny woman, no more than five feet tall, struts into Paradise like she has brought the tempest in on her hips, like she can turn the tides of fortune with the fall of her footsteps alone.

Upon recognizing her, I realize that perhaps she could. Before this, I’d only ever caught glimpses of this living embodiment of cruelty in vids I wasn’t supposed to know about, or hear about in reliable rumors. She looks just as quietly vicious in person as she does in shadow and whisper. Her skin is pale, made more so by the sheer glittering midnight gown she has tightly wrapped over her small form. Contained in her forearms, her Corruption is a dark unpolished silver, mostly hidden behind the opera length gloves she wears. The metallic gold green of her eyes should bring warmth to her face. They don’t.

A man follows in close behind her, dressed all in night and leather from head to toe, and wearing his own pair of long gloves. It makes his caramel skin shimmer with golden tones, his Corruption as similarly odd as her own, but then, the pair are secretly famous for that. The bearded man has a striking smile and seems perfectly relaxed, like he has just wandered in off the street for a quick drink. He walks in like he owns the place, smiling wider the further in the thick of it he got. His glowing silver blue eyes should make his face seem cold. They don’t.

The pair are the Sin’s dirtiest little secret, only people in the know having the faintest idea about their existence, or the wicked extent of their talents, much less about the names that go with the faces. Unfortunately for me, I am very much in the know, my testicles repositioning themselves further up in my chest cavity than I would have thought physically possible.

“We need him.” the woman sighs, making a face at the Skinner’s smell. The room draws away from her without even knowing why. “Alive.”

Those four little words are all that I need to make fear dry out my mouth, chilling the length of my spine so quickly that if I hadn’t been sitting down already, I would have fallen over. A murder struts into Paradise, dressed black and evil as crows made from an oil spill. Always moving in tandem with one other, the matching pair are strangely lovely in their repose as they come to a stop at the counter to lean up against it, surveying the room. The Skinners and Surgeons parts like a sea for them, drawing back like the tide to avoid them. If anyone could, Pride’s citizens would be able to smell the blood on the man and woman, I was sure.

I don’t know where Matt is. For his own sake, I hope he slips out from wherever the hell he’s hiding, and remembers to curl up under something bulletproof. The bartender’s absence didn’t seem to faze the pair, the assassin I knew as Empathy hopping over the counter to help himself to all the booze. He mixs drinks seemingly at random, passing them over to his counterpart to try. The assassin I knew as Apathy looks equally unconcerned as she finally turns to smile at the room, unnerving all of us. Their calm set an edge in the air that made you want to reach for your weapon of choice. The two appear to be seemingly unarmed, not that such things matter in regard to them. When it came down to Perdition’s pet assassins, that was a someone else’s personal problem.

Those left in the bar who wanted to live kept very still, resisting their inborn flight or fight instincts. Others, who selfishly wanted to die quick and bloody while taking everyone else along with them for the ride, went for what they had. I guess the Skin’s Queen’s army and two secret assassins was a little two much to take in all at once. I dive under the nearest table, putting my head between my knees to kiss my ass goodbye. In my opinion, there is far less painful ways of committing suicide.

“Tick, tock. The clock has struck.” Apathy sighs like a disappointed lover as her gloves came off. When I say that, I don’t mean she took them off. More like the material broke down in such a manner that only I recognize. It’s something I see every day of my life when I call my scouts back to me, but I’ll get into the details of that later.

That’s where our similarities ended. Revealed, Apathy’s hands and forearms look grotesque, the meat on them gone, completely eaten up by her Corruption through and through. They moved like hands were supposed to, but should not have been able to, considering there wasn’t a speck of flesh left in them, caricature limbs of metal bones and tendons,

“Everyone come out to play.” Empathy grins, laughing as his own gloves dissolve. His forearms look the same as hers, hollowed out down to his metal bones and tendons. Both assassins have an immense surplus of bugs, the number of which I hadn’t thought was even possible.

From my thankfully limited point of view, I watch as the gloves came off, literally and figuratively, the soft panicky sounds I begin to make get lost in the symphony of slaughter. Silver finger bones make contact with surfaces as all hell breaks loose, heralded in by too much arterial spray. Like she didn’t have a care in the world, Apathy hurls herself into the fray. Empathy follows soon after her, airborne as he twist flips off the bar’s top. His strange parkour brings swift death from above as he bounces off people and other things. As they move, the assassins’ Hives swarm out from them, doing terrible and impossible things.

When the bugs were first introduced, they were toted as a cure, a medical miracle for all that ailed us. Cures can be made from snake venom too, and an excess of anything will kill you. The formally unarmed assassins clearing a path through the bar is proof enough of a cure gone wrong.

If the rumors had any merit, and sometimes they held a grain of truth salt within them, two very unfortunate strangers were made new family by some mad scientist’s terrible idea of human perfection. The end result of that was Empathy and Apathy. They are undeniably Foxfires on the cusp of becoming Sparkies, but their biotech viruses are being held at bay by something other than my own self-taught trick. If even half of what I heard about them is true though, I think I prefer the Corruption.

Unlike most, Empathy and Apathy only appear marked by it through their metallic eyes and hands. Terrible weapons connected to terrible hands made by their new flesh, the assassins’ touches alone taking what they needed to create in any given moment.

To give you an idea about just how bad their rate of exchange is, you’ll notice that I always wear enough jewelry to keep my Hive ‘fed’ so they can make more of themselves, the pendants and bracelets in direct contact with my skin being completely dissolved usually within a week. It’s something subtle, easily missed, especially if you just keep switching out jewelry.

Empathy and Apathy have all the subtlety of a foul word shouted in church. Empathy’s and Apathy’s power lay in their hands, the meat of them now living metal that housed their Hives in constantly moving colonies. Anything they touched deteriorated to be instantly repurposed by their Hive, their touch warping reality around them.

Before all this, I’d only seen vids of them working. It isn’t anything you wanted to watch on repeat, the pair creating a gun from one of their victim’s meat to fire bone bullets while still slowly gutting the guy. The amount of bots in their systems should have killed them, not made them stronger. It shouldn’t have be able to make them into monsters.

The silver scarring ran up their forearms all the way to their elbows before turning back abruptly into flesh. Whatever that living metal touched, it forced a change upon it, backed by a terrible will. I have a feeling that they’re not using the same trick I am to deal with their Corruption. I made a deal with my programing, giving my bots a diversion with all the hacking. My bots aren’t about to make me into a living weapon though, or heal anything fatal instantly for me. Whatever those two have going on, I’d say they got the better end of their deal with devils.

The assassins’ bugs literally tore apart whatever they descended upon, like metallic flesh eating ants that stripped down anything in their owner’s way. As destructive as they are, Apathy and Empathy’s Hives also seem to work in the extreme opposite direction, healing them both at an accelerated rate. From my spot under the table, I watch as bullets tore through their bodies to be barely acknowledged, the wounds filling in with clotted mercury before all the flesh heals back over. It makes their movements glitter, not a drop of their own bizarre blood spilling.

One of the bounty hunters actually gets close enough to Apathy to drive a rather large knife into her back, the tip of it coming out of her chest. I catch myself bodily flinching for Apathy as I watch him bring up a gun to start firing into her back as he holds the petite assassin in place with it.

It makes me realize that boredom can be found in any profession. In that moment, we both figure out that Apathy has allowed her would-be killer to do that to her. Apathy’s bugs rise up from her forearms like a wave of razors, the holes he has put in her body already sealing themselves. Apathy smiles at the bounty hunter who’s screaming as his arms is eaten away bit by bit the longer she holds him in place. The poor bastard is only finally able to fall back from her after he’s lost both his arms, but he doesn’t need to worry about those loose ends for too long. Reaching behind to pull the weapon out of her own back, Apathy guts him with a practiced ease with his own knife as her body expels his bullets like metal rain.

Empathy is not being idle either. Currently, that involves him pulling bones straight out of bodies to forge them into throwing stars. Swallowing back bile, I watch as monsters plunged their bare hands into their latest weapon cache, pulling people apart like ragdolls. The poor bastard is still very much alive and screaming as Empathy makes knives from his rib bones while Apathy turns his intestines and all the broken glass around her into a whip.

No one’s life is spared.

By the time they are done, the room is redecorated red and wet, smelling like iron, fear, and shit. The latter part of that could be all me though, upon noticing I am the only one left alive in the room. This could end up being a very good thing, or a very bad thing.

“That was fun.” Apathy says as she returns to the bar to finish her drink.

“You can come out now, you know.” Empathy tells me, grinning down at me like he isn’t covered in several different blood types. The Corruption that marks his eyes make them glow a bad moon silvery blue. It does very little to alleviate my stress level. It also doesn’t help that Empathy talks to you like you are some old buddy of his. In direct contrast, Apathy’s voice is either too low, or pitched too high to hear, making it difficult to understand her at times. I didn’t know which was worse, having to lean in closer to understand her, or to feel like I’m being yelled at.

“Drink this. You’ll feel better.” Says Apathy, handing off cocktails as I emerge out from under the table. I highly doubt that, but I take the blue drink of unknown alcoholic origin nonetheless. At the moment, I might be lightheaded and nauseous, but I’m hardly stupid. When a killer who is covered in the still cooling gore of her victims hands you a damn drink, you take it with a smile and a nod.

“I’m not dead.” I try out words, attempting to make my reality regain some level footing.

“No. No, you’re not. You’re so smart.” Empathy mocks gently with a grin and a wink, a cigarette clamped between his teeth. He lights it, taking a few puffs before passing it over to his partner in crime.

“Perdition wants to talk to you. So, congratulations, you get to live.” Apathy says, blowing out grey blue smoke through her nose. It’s hard to meet her eyes. She has an unsettling cat like stare that seems to look right through you. “For now, but no promises.”

I can work with ‘for now’ as long as I ignore that last part. ‘For now’ means I have value, which means Perdition wants me to do something for him. That puts me ahead in life above a whole lot of other people.

“What does the King of Sins want with me?” I lean back against the blood stained bar, playing myself off as cool and casual as possible. When dealing with predators, you can’t ever let them know how scared you are because if you’re stupid enough to run, you’re what’s for dinner. I try not to cringe as I sip my drink, the blue liquor too cloyingly sweet and orange flavored to be considered good. I also ignore all the blood and viscera I trying to avoid standing in.

“We don’t know,” Empathy begins.

“And we don’t care. That’s above our paygrade.” Apathy finishes, “Swallow that mouthful down like the pro I know you are, and move your ass. We’re leaving.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I grimace, slamming down the blue shit. The liquid courage doesn’t sit well in my stomach, souring it even, as I follow the pair out of what was left of Paradise.

Chapter 5: Going to Perdition

Walking between two the deadliest beings I’d ever had the extreme misfortune of meeting has its ups and downs. To keep stave off a panic attack, I remind myself that not everyone knows what I know. Since my main business is information, what better way to gather it than to keep close company with my captors? This could be a golden opportunity to observe the infamous duo up close and

very personal like, or so I try to convince myself.

Topside, they didn’t get to be wolves they are down below, their clothing and gloves made of bugs adjusting itself to cover up their Corruption while eating away any blood splatter. Empathy and Apathy blend in with the rest of the populace sheep because what they do in shadows isn’t exactly legal or even common knowledge. The nanotechnology records everything when you died, taking it into account how you meet your maker while using all your senses to determine just that. If someone straight up carelessly murders your ass, they are pretty much good as caught. In most cases, your very own eyes and ears are their judge and jury.

It is one of the many reasons the duo are so feared by the people in the know. Not only do they kill with extreme prejudice, they somehow always manage one hell of a hack job every time they do. There is no record of their misdeeds, public or private. Clips of the murder twins doing anything untoward to others is considered to be very rare pieces of evidence to come by. Now that I know about their Hives, it’s all starting to make sense about why there is no evidence. Their ‘hack job’ is them murdering your Core and Hive right along with the rest of you. If my own bugs hadn’t been in their hidey holes in very pertinent places doing their own surveillance, there would be no record of the duos comings and goings.

Not that they need to know that I knew what they did in the dark. I am a huge fan of living.

Empathy and Apathy are Perdition’s pet lapdog killers, but it doesn’t stop him from putting a bounty on their heads. It’s all for the sake of appearances, keeping the peace and certain people quiet. Wanting to appear benevolent, Perdition does try to seek cooperation without bloodshed from all the various kings and queens of the city. As he often tells those who dare to complain when the murder twins happen, anyone is welcome to come and claim the bounty. If they did, Perdition would pay up without hesitation. Needless to say, but there hasn’t been too many takers after the bounty got up into the high seven digits. Not when there are better ways to make money that involve less pain, mutilation, and death.

I had to give it to the guy though. It is a complete win-win for Perdition. Apathy and Empathy aren’t exactly on the books, so technically they aren’t in his employ so he has deniability. It goes like this. If Perdition just so happens to mention that he needs something horrible done to other people in the murder twin’s presence, and Apathy and Empathy just so happen to decide to go and do that, Perdition can hardly be held accountable for their actions. The higher the bounty though, the less likely people are willing to trifle with Perdition, or test out the assassins who have very little to no patience for other people’s bullshit.

Down below in Purgatory, Empathy and Apathy had free reign to be their terrible selves. Up top and in the light of a fake day, they behave themselves to a reasonable degree. It’s actually sort of terrifying to witness them become entirely different people for the sake of peace, or how well they compliment each other, always in synch.

Empathy is engaging, constantly stopping and being stopped by other people to chat. He generously smiles and chats with just about anyone who crosses his path. Here in the light, I am surprised by the amount of people who did so. They really don’t see the assassin for what he is. They will never know just how close they have come to death personified.

On the other hand, Apathy seems to click off entirely to become a social accessory, obviously happy enough to let her partner take the lead. Still offputtingly quiet, her features soften into something more approachable yet vacant. Perfectly polite, she smiles when Empathy introduces her to others, speaks when she was spoken to, but she gives nothing beyond that. For all intents and purposes, she is a living doll with polite preprogramed reactions and answers, lovely to look, but dead behind the eyes.

When the crowd thickens, I toy with the idea of making a break for it. My captors had the same thoughts as well, because Empathy turns to grin wide over his shoulder at me. I break out into a cold sweat as Apathy’s arm link with my own like we are just a pair of young lovers out on a date, taking a stroll through the city before taking a transport to see their boss.

Perdition is the unofficial King of the Sins. I say unofficial because he wasn’t appointed, or elected, or even inherited the damn title. After murdering a whole lot of important people, possibly including his own predecessor, Perdition had had enough foresight to set up camp in Hoover Dam itself, making it his own personal fortress while screwing over all the right people from the days of his hazardous youth. Perdition knew whoever controlled the power, controlled our high walls and the armored skies, which in turn, controlled the city and the lives of everyone who lived there.

Anyone of merit knows Perdition, or of him, even before his ascension to the throne. He’s a local boy, a real vicious up and comer. Strange thing though, no one is exactly sure how he got the keys to the kingdoms, if they were given to him or stolen, and he’s not telling anyone the whole story about that. From what I gathered at great personal risk and expense to myself, when Perdition was young man, he used to oversee the trade between the kingdoms of the Sins as a highly favored subordinate of the old king. If the rumors could be believed, apparently the old king had taken quite a shine to Perdition when he was a young man, and his family were still newcomers to the City. That’s where the story gets dicey and complicated though.

Something happened, either Perdition got greedy dealing with the Sins, or with his boss, or maybe someone else did. For whatever reason, Perdition’s entire family ended up dead. They were butchered in the family home, and left out for Perdition to find. Soon after that tragedy, Perdition was exiled, forced to leave the Sins to wander the wildness to seek refuge in another city, or simply die from the elements.

No one knows what happened to Perdition out in the deserts, or how he survived, but some decades later, Perdition returned to the Sins with Empathy and Apathy in tow. He didn’t waste any time with meet and greets, deciding to catch up with his enemies in other ways. Upon Perdition’s return, the vids play back that he opened up the skies just long enough to show everyone he could do it before slamming the armoring shut again.

While everyone was distracted by that, Perdition sent his new pets out into the Sins to let them have a field day there with all his enemies, making the streets literally run red with their blood. The new king made an example of anyone who had ever crossed him, including the old king. While the city was still reeling from the aggressive takeover, Perdition set up his place of power in the fortress of Hoover Dam instead of in the Sins itself like all the other rulers had before him. I personally think that Perdition did this to show everyone just how much he isn’t fucking around.

No one can confirm if the old king willingly gave Perdition all the secrets to the city when he was in his employ, or if Perdition had taken them all for himself upon his return. The old king is dead, and has been for a very long time, but even to this day, there are still whispered concerns about how he died, and why Perdition is in charge.

The Sins recovered, but never returned again to its former glory after most of its leaders were slaughtered. The mantles were eventually filled again, but it was a slow process with so many of new rulers wishing to remain hidden. Case in point, the Panderer is still to this day nameless and faceless, something they plan on keeping that way for the foreseeable future. Another case in point, the Skin Queen who keeps changing out her faces, putting on practically a new one every month. It’s rumored there is a room full of glass cases with the faces she favors, all kept on life support so she can wear them again, or mix and match parts.

Luckily for all of us, Perdition is a benevolent enough ruler to leave most of us the hell alone. No one knows what his end game is, but for the time being, it seems all what Perdition wants is a stable peace in the city. Preferring to keep people on their toes, he tends to only use Empathy and Apathy on smaller, more immediate problems now, and the weather outside on larger ones. Namely on the kingdoms who try to aggressively expand past their borders without telling their neighbors, or their King beforehand. We’ve lost entire sections of the city before when petty wanna-be-rulers have gotten into turf wars with one another. Perdition has no issue opening up sections of the lid on this tin can just long enough to raze and ruin the earth along with all the people who live there with it, the innocent dying right along with the guilty.

“Good evening, Mr. Shade. May I call you, Ken, or are you a Kenneth? Or would you prefer me to call you something else entirely? I would like to believe we can address each other as friendly people.” Says an all too reasonable voice that snaps me out of my moment of Zen. In person, Perdition doesn’t look like much, but then, neither do I.

The truly evil ones never do. You learn quick here not to take anything or anyone at face value. Appearances can be deceiving, especially in Perdition’s case. He could pass as someone’s beloved grandfather, an old white haired man of an undetermined ethnicity bent over a beautifully carved ivory cane. Dressed in an immaculate pale blue suit, his body may appear frail, but his dark eyes tell an entirely different story. I already know his tongue will poison me, the words falling from it his weapons of choice.

“Ken, just Ken, is fine, but you can address me as anything you like, as long as I am still breathing while you’re doing so.” I say. I am too busy rubbernecking to pay any real attention to the most important man of our fragile little world. I’ll get back to him eventually, but this is a rare opportunity. It appears we were going to have this discussion in some sort of lavishly decorated sitting room, the styling of it a mixture of the Avant-garde impractical and lushly organic. Its sole purpose is to impress upon visitors how cultured and rich Perdition is while reminding those visiting bodies how insignificant they are to him.

In my line of work, information is power and rent money all in one. There is fair amount of people who would give me their firstborn child upon request to know anything substantial about Perdition, including the interior layout of his base, and what’s in it. The contents in this one room alone would me set for life if I could strip everything from it, selling it off to Envy’s highest bidders.

“Do you know why I have invited you here?” Perdition asks, bringing the focus back to him.

“Oh, I was invited? I wasn’t told that part. An invitation suggests that I had the option to turn it down.” I say, my tongue getting away from me before I could stop it. I have the charming habit of saying exactly what I think when I am nervous.

“I am terribly sorry my message got lost in translation. My dear friends were ever so kind to go and get you for me, but they do tend to be a bit forgetful about the niceties.” Perdition smiles like a snake charmer I saw once as a kid. It makes my skin crawl even now, much like it did then. “I hope that you can forgive them, especially since you made it here all in one piece. Terrible things happen every day to good people. You can never be too safe.”

“Well, now that’s all cleared up, and no one’s feelings are hurt, what can I do for you?” I ask, now that we have gotten the ‘threaten the help for hire’ part of the conversation out of the way. That, and I’m genuinely curious to find out what the hell Perdition wants with me of all people. I mean, I am damn good at what I do, but the trio here are so far out of my league, we might as well be on different continents.

“You have acquired yourself a fine reputation of someone who has the knack to locate anything, as well as acquiring it quickly and quietly from other people. Am I right about this?” Perdition asks without really needing to, the prick. We both know I’m a dead man if I said anything other than ‘yes’. Now was not the time to be truly humble, or really honest.

“I don’t know about a fine reputation, but if you’re looking for a fine thief, I can fit the bill.” I say, making a show of looking in all the vases and boxes. All the while, I was getting closer and closer to a humble wall console. I didn’t need to touch it. I just needed to get close enough so that my bugs could get to it in a reasonable amount of time without being detected. As per usual, I’ve been shedding bits of my Hive this entire time, but I want a decent concentration of them embedded here in Perdition’s personal space with the tenacity of bedbugs.

“You came highly recommended.” Perdition says, nodding to a corner of the room I hate myself instantly for not checking. I assumed no one else would be here other than us, but there they stood, blending in and out with the shadows of the room. That was a very stupid, very careless thing to do on my part.

The Panderer, the ruler of Lust, grins back at me, teeth brightly sharp before they disappear in and out sight. The Panderer’s tactics are to show off, proving that they can more than actually trying to hide. If you know where and when to look, you can track the Panderer, but it’s like trying to predict a poltergeist who’s giving you a migraine for trying to clock it. I notice that the Panderer keeps a healthy distance away from Apathy and Empathy. The pair lounge on the other side of the room, looking like bored tigers draped over expensive fragile looking decorative couches that don’t look like they’re meant to be sat on.

I keep that in mind as I move in closer to the assassins to keep the Panderer in a place where I can track them. The sneaky prick has enough tech implanted directly into their skin and in the mask they wear to be a real pain in my ass, the purpose of all the camouflage being chameleon-like in nature. All the better to scare you, the Panderer can hide in plain sight, or even worse, pretend to be someone they are not.

Lust is where all the daughters of twilight and the fuckboys go to live and serve. If you are looking to slap, tickle, or press flesh, this is where you go, but buyer beware. Those who can’t pay their tab become the new meat on the market. I want them well back in their kingdom before proceeding forward with Perdition.

“I didn’t realize I had such an impressive reference on my resume.” I manage to say somewhat politely, rechecking the room for any other surprises before I resume my task. I would deal with that fucking prick later, if there was a later for me. The Panderer owes me a favor, a big one, so I have to figure out quick if this is actually a legit job, or if the ruler of Lust is just trying to kill me off before they had to pay up.

“I am a generous soul.” The Panderer whispers, and yet is still heard by all. I make a mental note to find out how the hell they do that.

“You may leave us. I have private business to discuss with this fine young man.” Perdition says, dismissing the Panderer like they are poorly trained hired help wasting all our time with their continued presence. From their abruptly still body language, I can tell that the ruler of Lust was not expecting that to happen for whatever reason. I find that very interesting. It makes me wonder what kind of conversation had led up to this meeting.

Giving that thought to a few of my bugs to do some follow-up later on, I get back to the business at hand once the Panderer has left. What I am about to do is my best party trick after all, the main reason I’m still alive, and also why I keep the ‘cure’ for my Corruption so closely guarded. The bugs aren’t supposed to be able to leave your body, or so we are told. It is common knowledge that bugs exchanged due to a blood transfusion, or any other body fluid transfer will simply deactivate due to being so far from their home Core. After that happens, the host’s bugs simply flush the ‘dead’ foreign ones out.

I guess none of me has ever been very good at listening to other people, much less following rules. Instead of exploding like they do in Sparkies, my bugs can come and go out of my body, which was a good thing because it keeps me from accumulating a deadly excess of the little bastards. I keep them so busy getting into other things, and focusing on constant communication with each other that they leave my body alone. With the exception of the network of glowing veins under my skin, I have none of the other issues that Foxfires usually deal with on the daily.

“What do you need stolen?” I grin, making a show of playing around with gravity’s patience while mistreating a rather expensive looking vase. The oldest trick in the book is to distract your audience into looking stage left as you make your mysterious exit stage right.

I send a mental message via my Core to my bugs to burrow in deep, to invade as much of Perdition’s part of the Void as they could on the sly. I mentally whisper my goodbyes to them as I wait for Perdition to inform me about what I would be stealing for him. I know my bugs will sit tight here in case I ever need them, powering down when they need to, or feeding off other power sources. As long as they can keep in contact with my Core, they will be fine. I just shed enough of the little bastards to keep up on my own personal version of ‘Telephone’, and of course, having Corruption makes that easily possible.

Through trial and error, I learned that each bug has a range to them. It’s small, about eight feet at best from your brain stem, but when your Core is endlessly replicating them, it’s all the range you need. As long as I wear enough metal and other building materials on my body, I just constantly shed my bugs wherever I go, creating my own brand of dust from them. The bugs keep in contact with me through their sheer numbers alone. I’ve made it clear what’s at stake so if any of them get detected or picked up. If compromised, my Core cuts off communication with the unlucky, usually making the disowned bugs explode. The order gets sent down the line, one bot whispering to the other as it’s passed along to its final destination.

When I need certain information, I just do an all-call to designated scouts who play their own unique hybrid version of ‘Tag’ and ‘Red Rover’, working their messages back up the line to me. As soon as they are within range to upload, the scouts debrief themselves to my Core, and then haul their little metal asses back out into the field to go get me more. If need be, they take along reinforcements for the ride. I always have more than enough to spare.

“Pardon?” Perdition says in a tone that hinting to me that I was beginning to skate on thin ice with him.

“Oh, I’m sorry that’s rather crass of me. Let me rephrase that. What would you like acquired from another person without their knowledge?” I say as Perdition’s look of such carefully maintained patience begins to sour around his edges. I have that kind of effect on people. It’s a gift really.

“That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble one day, Ken.” Perdition says with a note of warning in his voice. I am tempted to just let the vase fall, but then, I remember the pair of very bored assassins behind me, survival instinct making me peek over my shoulder at them. Empathy gives me a little ‘yeah, I see you, fucker’ wave while Apathy just stares me down.

Trying not to cringe under the scrutiny, I put the vase back. Ignoring the feel of Apathy’s heavy gaze upon me, I really hope that she missing the sleight of hand I am trying to pull off with my bugs. I hadn’t expected to have her full attention on me like that. It’s unsettling in more ways than some. She doesn’t move though, and I am still breathing so I’ll take that all as a good sign.

When you live your life being ignored by society for one reason or another, it’s disconcerting to be suddenly so seen. First and foremost in my case, it was usually for being Foxfire, and then again for being homeless because life loves to keep upping the ante of negative social stigmas on me. People always keep Foxfires in their peripheral, just waiting for them to spark, and turn into something dead. That being said, no one wants to live with or around a Foxfire, and very few are willing to rent out living quarters to potential walking fire hazards. Becoming a Foxfire usually means that you become jobless, friendless, and homeless.

I’m determined not to go out that way.

“So I’m frequently told, but right now, you need me alive, and more or less in one piece. Since it’s you, whatever I’m stealing has got to be invaluable or important, probably both actually. I don’t see you coveting something mundane. That must make it very hard for other people to shop for you.” I point out. You don’t ever run from predators. It marks you as prey. You either stand your ground, or create a diversion. I make a point of picking up some little statue just so I could put it back down again. I keep my hand where it is a little longer than necessary so that the last scouting party of my bugs can get gone.

As much as I would like to be treated as an equal by others, being a pariah of society has its advantages too. It makes my job that much easier when people refuse to stand near me, or my personal favorite prejudice, when they can’t even be bothered to acknowledge my presence in the first place. From what I can tell on the surface, Perdition is too busy posturing while asking for my help to notice. The murder twins seem more involved with each other, busy drinking their faces off than trying to follow the line of conversation, but this isn’t amateur hour. I’m not so easily fooled into carelessness. We’re all wearing fake faces, looking for the cracks in them.

“Very good, Ken. That is an excellent observation. With such generous friends of mine, I could not ask for more. They spoil me so.” Perdition says, gesturing nonchalantly to his killers. In my opinion, Apathy looks bored as all hell while Empathy toasts us with his drink. Like I need to be reminded about what was waiting for me behind door number one if I screw this up. “I need you to find something that was stolen from me. I need you to get it back for me. You need not worry about who you are taking it from. Empathy and Apathy will negotiate with them on my behalf about the terms of its return to me.”

Which is a fancy way of saying that Perdition is going to have Apathy and Empathy murder the hell out of anyone who has crossed him. I almost feel bad for whoever had the brass balls big enough to steal from Perdition, but hey, if you like to juggle swords, you can’t be too surprised when you lose a finger or two.

“You kidnapped the right thief then. What am I looking for, and where do you think it is?” I ask, now that we are finally getting down to the nitty gritty.

“Aren’t you going to quote me some exuberant price in your terms of service?” Perdition asks, looking amused.

“I’ll figure that out after I locate whatever the hell I am looking for. Something tells me it’s not going to be a walk in the park.” I say with a shrug.

“I hope you aren’t thinking about taking advantage of a frail old man.” Perdition says, looking far too keen in the eye despite his advanced years to be calling himself frail in that regard.

“Well, like you said, I have a fine reputation. I wouldn’t have it if I didn’t produce results. You’ll get your precious knickknack paddywack back, but the price depends on just how hard that is. I’ll try to keep it within your price range though.”

“Very well then. I guess I’ll have to bring you into the know.” Perdition sighs as he waves his hand over a console, the holographic images of two key popping up, one black and the other white. Both appeared to be ornately carved out of metal with some accenting filigree work. “I need you to find me the keys for the city’s shielding. They are missing. To answer your other question, if I had an inkling of a notion about their whereabouts, you would not be here.”

“Oh, is that all?” I wheeze out, caught completely off guard as I try to tap down my panic. The shielding is the only thing standing between us and the weather. If someone were to open them by accident, or more than likely, on purpose, the entire city and everyone living within it could be destroyed. Being one of those people living here, I am suddenly very much invested. “What am I looking at here? Are they actual keys in size and shape?”

“Two of them are as you see now. Two physical keys are needed to connect with the system’s interface. Once both keys are slotting into place, the third key will appear in coding, only accessible in the Void where it is hidden. If these keys were to fall into the wrongs hands, it could mean the end of us all. It takes a very gentle and patient touch to control the shields. Luckily, I am an old hand at it.” Perdition says.

Funny that. I didn’t consider us all that lucky to have him in charge. I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t ask for some set rules from the people he governs. I am positive that Perdition’s ‘benevolence’ is a front of some kind or another. I just can’t figure out his angle, or prove it to anyone else. Perdition isn’t a person that one gossips about lightly to poor company, or to any company for that matter.

“I’ll find your keys, but I want a favor in return, two in fact.” I say. I could already feel my little darlings nestle themselves deep within Perdition’s systems so I knew at least one thing was going right for me. To escape notice from the odd security scan, they’ll power down to minimal levels, ready and waiting if I ever need them as they creep around, or burrow down deeper.

“What kind of favor?” Perdition asks. He looks more curious than unhappy about it.

“Open ended.” I say, not expecting him to agree. To be honest, I don’t really care, but I have to ask for something absurdly expected. The information that I was going to skim directly from Perdition’s own Feed and other networks would be more than enough payment in full. Not that he needs to know that.

“I will agree to this as long as your favors do not interfere with my own plans, or threaten my life in any way.” Perdition says after a moment. I didn’t like Perdition, and I, sure as shit, didn’t trust him, but I do respect him. He’s a survivor, which means I have to be very careful around him.

You should never trust a survivor until you’ve find out exactly how they managed to escape their trauma. They didn’t survive because they were nice, or kept to a society’s coda. They more than likely compromised themselves. Survivors know just how low they can be brought, and how much lower than that they can go to escape.

“We have an accord then.” I say, doing everything I can to sound casually neutral about it. This is the biggest, most dangerous deal of my career. If I somehow manage to get out of this alive, I would be set for life. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure could fix a lot of life’s little problems.

“Forgive me, I almost forgot. Apathy and Empathy will be accompanying you every step of the way.” Perdition drops this bomb on me, making my stomach flip. I had not counted on that.

“I work better alone.” I counter. I already know it was lost cause, but I have to try. Having the murder twins follow me around would definitely complicate things. Nothing in my life is ever easy, I mentally sighed as I give my bugs their last revised marching orders.

“My friends will only be there to insure your safety while securing my interests. Nothing less, nothing more.” Perdition continues amiably like nothing was said, the fucking prick. “Whoever has done this must be dealt with accordingly, don’t you think?”

“I’ll take my leave of you then.” I say through gritted teeth, trying to sound all civil like about it. Apathy and Empathy reappear at my sides like they had never left. Oh joy, my life is complete.

“Happy hunting, Ken, just Ken.”