A little slice of terror

The place I landed was dark, dank, and smelled of decay. There were no walls in sight, only oily shadows occasionally interrupted by massive pillars of crudely cut greenish, dank stone. The pillars rose out of sight, vanishing into darkness that was punctuated, but not illuminated, by leprous whitish green lights that oozed through the sky like diseased fireflies. Disturbing shapes moved and slid in and out of my peripheral vision, vanishing when I turned to face them.

A loud, horrible dragging, tearing sound came from the inky patch ahead of me. As I watched, seven rubbery phalanges flung themselves towards me, latching onto the pillars. The dragging sound resumed, and something hauled itself into the insufficient light.

Whatever the thing was, just the sight of it made my eyes burn, and the world seemed to bend in disturbing and impossible directions. Whatever the thing was, it had many, many tentacles, mouths, and eyes. Parts of it seemed to fold in and out of somewhere I couldn't see. Black, burning ichor seeped from it where it had torn itself open while dragging itself across the floor. It open its mouths and screamed, and the whole world tried to shake itself apart.

I turned away from it, covering my eyes. As the thing's jagged scream beat against me, compressing my skull, and making my brain feel like it was being pounded flat and folded, I tried to gain control of the disgust and terror that gripped me. I tried to feel out where I could Step to escape, but the odd shape of this space kept me from being able to sense where the threshold was; it would be there, then vanish and reappear somewhere else, with no rhyme or reason.

I needed to see more, and so the third eye in my forehead opened, exposing the glowing under-structure of existence to me.

Even through that eye, the world I found myself in was dank green and shadowed. But the shadows glowed, outlining the shapes it had hidden before. It became clear that the horrid abomination I had thought was in front of me in fact surrounded me. Even the sickly lights I had looked up at previously were revealed to more of the creature's eyes, hanging from the parts of it that were stretched from pillar-top to pillar-top.

The section of the thing that had dragged itself into my view screamed again, sending discordant vibrations cutting through me. I turned towards the open mouths, seeing clearly now how the thing was folding out from a direction I had never known existed. I stumbled backwards, pressing my back against the dank emerald stones of the pillar behind me.

As I watched, some of the unholy thing's mouths stopped screaming, which made it easier to think. Of course, the only idea I could really hold on to was that I was going to die very soon.

The mouths that had stopped screaming stretched themselves wide, and from each a large, moist tentacle shot in my direction. As I leaped to the right, barely in time to avoid the strike of the tentacles, I dragged the fingers of my metal left hand along the face of the stone pillar. As I landed on the ground, I could see that the tentacles had struck exactly where my back had been pressed against the pillar. Instead of the continuous stretch of stone I had felt against my spine, though, the mucous-covered appendages had struck some sort of hole in the pillar, which, even to my special eye, was just an irregular shape of perfect black, with a section of the stone hanging from the edge like a piece of ragged, peeling skin.

I scrambled to my feet, and stumbling, ran as fast as I could to hide behind another of the stone pillars. I could hear the wet smacking sounds of other out-flung tentacles striking the ground behind me as I ran, and then hitting the vertical stone of the pillar as it came between me and my attacker.

Hanging from the tips of my fingers were strips of the stone my hand had torn from the pillar, creating the obsidian hole. The strips still felt like stone, but it seemed like all of the underlying structure that made stone act like stone had been stripped away, so it hung loosely, floating back and forth as my hand shook.

Another tentacle flashed into view, wrapping itself around the pillar just above my head. As I fell away from the stone, yet another squidlike appendage whipped into view. Instead of gripping the pillar like its mate, it nosed back and forth, searching for me. My heels scrapped on the ground, and the slimy finger came right for me.

My arm lifted, and the metal hand, fingers spread, reached out. Somehow, the fingers gained purchase in the very air in front of me, and another hole was rent in the space between where I lay and the approaching end of the questing tentacle. Like the others, this one vanished into the black, and couldn't extricate itself. The tentacle that had sent me to the ground unwrapped itself from the stone. Ignoring me, it took a grip on the captured tentacle, and vainly tried to assist it in freeing itself. From where I stood, I could see the first group of tentacles. They were stretched tight between the hole in the pillar, and the writhing mass of creature from which they had been extruded. The main body of the thing seemed to have been pulled forward quite a ways, and its keening seemed to have taken on a frightened edge.

The two holes my hand had cut seemed to be calling to me. In the disturbing geometry of this place, to my eye they looked like the only solid points I could latch on to.

Without thinking, I lunged forward and cut the two captured tentacles nearest to me with the same hand that had torn the holes in this place. As soon as the outstretched tentacles parted, the section that connected to the hole shot forward and vanished into the blackness. The stumpy appendages waved madly in the air, spraying ichor, accompanied by the shocked scream of the creature of whom they were a part of.

The hole that had eaten the severed tentacles still floated in mid-air, gradually growing larger, seeming to be eating the very fiber of reality that surrounded it. But through the hole, I could sense a place where I might be able to make good my escape. There was a pull the hole was exerting on the surrounding area, and I could hear air whistling past my ear towards the hole. As the aperture grew, it's pull increased. Took two steps forward and leaped into the air, the hole pulling me towards it as I lifted my legs to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. In less time than it takes to say, I passed through the plane of the hole. The screaming of the creature vanished, and blackness surrounded me.

I was now less than sure this had been a good idea.

Some questions, some answers

"So, this was a demon, come to make yer confused self an offer o' some sort.” Grindlebone sounded more than a little confused himself. That made two of us.

“Yeah.”

“What did he look like?”

“He looked like a demon, like the devil. Red skin, sharp black fingernails and toenails, horns on his head, pointy ears, sharp teeth, general smarmy 'let's make a deal' kinda manner. And a lovely pinstripe suit. I mean, beautiful suit. I might be willing to make a deal for a suit like that.”

“Eh, probably wouldn't fit you right. Or you'd get a pin the ass every time you sat down.” Grin was sitting behind his desk, examining the card that Vard the demon had given, right before he popped me back into Grin's office.

“Grin, I thought nobody could teleport or Step into the bar.”

“Well, in the normal run o' things, I'd say that was right. Thing is, even the Guild Seals are only so good. Average yob like you or me'd never be able to swing the kinda power ye'd need for such a thing. A Power, though, a serious Power, it'd brush aside anything the Guild might use. Yer friend didn't even break through Ix's defense systems. Went right through 'em, or around 'em, without even sending a twinge to the alarms. Shouldna been possible, from what I know. I don't think I have to mention, Red, that if it was anybody but you, I'd assume the bugger'd overdone the sot-weed or such.” Grin leaned back in his chair, holding the card between two fingers. “This here's pretty interestin', as well. You can feel the heat off'n it. Near hot enough to light a pipe all on its lonesome.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. That's something, at least.” I drained the last of the fine whiskey out of my glass. “You know what strikes me as odd?”

“Red, I'll bet ya 40 Crowns you can't name something about all this that isn't odd.”

“What strikes me as odd,” I said, ignoring him and gazing speculatively at my glass. “is neither the angel or the demon actually told me what they wanted from me.”

“Howzat?”

“Well, the angel just beat a couple of people up and told me I had to come with him. And from the way Vard spoke, it seemed like he might not have known, either. So he and I have something in common, at least. Grin, none of this makes any sense.”

“Boyo, you're speaking the truth there.”

“Where's Jack, anyway? I need him to read this crystal Jubjub gave me.”

“Ah, about that. The Warden from Charom, the one what took that Tub'la fella and his mates off our hands, he got in touch with me. I'd mentioned to him that we'd no idea why that crew brought all the ruckus here. He wanted t'offer us a look at the ghost they'd made of him, before they ended him. Jack offered to make a run and pick it up.”

“Huh. That was awful friendly of the Warden.” Grindlebone, staring at the ceiling, grunted in agreement. “I've always wondered how it felt. I mean, you know you're gonna die, and then you wake up a fake brain in a computer. How does it feel, when you realize you are dead, really, and as soon as they've wrung your digital mind dry, you get to die all over again?”

“Anybody ever told you you're a morbid son of a bitch, Red?”

“Once or twice.”

I got up and poured myself another glass of Walker's. Grin waved me off when I offered to pour him some. Both of us, me by the bar and Grin behind his desk, spent the next few minutes in silence, lost in our respective thoughts. Might have gone on considerably longer, with all the mental fat we had to chew, if Van Zandt hadn't joined us.

She stepped to where I stood, giving me a kiss on the cheek and stealing my drink, before sitting on the edge of the desk. Grin handed her the card and gave her a short rundown of my recently ended meeting with Vard. I poured another drink.

“Red, you find the oddest ways to pass the time!” She laughed, raising my former glass to me.

“Grindlebone said you knew something about this Mayfair person? The one all the guys who looked at the book-locket thing told me about?”

“Oh, yes. Part of the reason I'm here is because of Mayfair. Nobody I've ever talked to has had any first hand contact with Mayfair. But everyone who's interested in finding out about whatever new peoples pop up out on the newly opened areas, reads the studies Mayfair puts out. They're incisive, with a surprising depth of understanding. No one knows how Mayfair does it. Whoever Mayfair is, they have been able to conduct simultaneous studies of as many as four different new peoples of vastly different type and in widely separated areas. Each one was of a quality to make every other specialist in the field green with envy. The most common theory I've heard is that an incredibly well-funded and connected secret organization sets up each study, and then publishes under the Mayfair name. If that's true, though, no one has ever met anyone connected with them. Oh, there are third hand accounts of secret job offers and clandestine meetings and various other types of jiggery-pokery, but nothing that can be confirmed.”

“Great. Might as well have told me only the Ghost of Christmas Past could tell me about the thing. Whatever Jubjub gave me about finding this guy is probably gonna be full on moonshine. At best. At worst, it's gonna be some exotic way to die, so there ain't any chance I'll come back to have words with him about it.”

“Well, now, Red, I can't make any certain statements about how honest another fella might be," Grin said, rubbing his chin. "but, for all he's as weird as a man with a pant-load o' squirrels, Jubjub's made his reputation on bein' on the level when he offers a sale. Just sayin' is all.”

“Eh,” I grunted. I took another sip of the Walker's. “When did Jack head out, anyway?”

“I saw him leave through the Parkside Door, mmmm, half an hour ago?” Van Zandt ventured.

“OK. Look I'm feeling too wound up to sit around and wait for him to get back. Grin, you got my cut of the bounty you got off the Warden?”

“Surely do, Red.” Grin did something down under his desk, and came up with a surprisingly large valise. “Here ya go. Your fifteen percent of the bounty. This doesn't include your cut of the weapons, 'cause I haven't sold 'em yet, so there's a bit more comin'. The case has a couple of little things Mr. Ix added to keep nefarious souls from figurin' out you're transportin' cash. Good?”

“Better than good, choom.” I knocked off the rest of my drink, then reached into my vest. “I'm gonna head to the Free City, have them worry about keeping my money safe. You mind holding onto the data crystal? If Jack gets back before I do, go ahead and have a glance at it, how 'bout?”

“Don't mind a bit.” He took the crystal from my outstretched hand.

“Thanks. You too, Van Zandt. I'll be back before too long.” I grabbed the valise full of my money and headed out the door.

Getting another offer

Having committed a spot of kidnapping, in order to obtain the location of someone who might be able to tell me something about an artifact I'd pulled off of a terrorist, which had a symbol on it that I'd seen tattooed on a angel in a very realistic dream, I was feeling less than proud of myself. Not out of pity for silver-toothed thief I had secured for Jubjub; He struck me as the type who was due for a richly deserved beat down. And not for committing a crime, as I am, at best, indifferent honest. But I like to think that I usually have better reasons for breaking the law. Whatever kind of kicking around the guy I'd snatched deserved, I felt like I'd delivered him unto it for pretty thin reasons.

Alcohol was the answer, as usual. When I got back to Grin's, the thing behind the bar had mind-waved me that Grin had asked that I be sent back to his office. That worked for me. Grin doesn't water his drinks, but the stuff he keeps in his personal bar are the best of the best.

I had a hard time choosing what I wanted. The Romulan and Andorian ales called to me; I'd been wanting to try them for a long time. I briefly considered making a gargleblaster, but I didn't want to get quite that messed up, not yet, anyway. The decision was made for me, though, as soon as I spotted the bottle of Walker's White Label sitting quietly in the back of the second shelf. The best whiskey ever made, I'd heard. I'd seen serious drinkers get misty just at the sound of the name.

Two fingers of Walker's and ice in a beautifully made glass, a seat in one of the incredibly comfortable chairs that Grin populated his office with, and time to enjoy both. It felt so nice I completely forgot about feeling like a heel.

I took one slow sip, and felt the delightful liquid burn smoothly down my throat and make a warm spot at the center of my being. I was considering a second sip when the world around me suddenly seemed to go thin, like it was all made out of paper. At first I thought that the Walker's was simply living up to its name, but it became obvious that something else entirely was happening. It felt as though a bubble was growing under the floor, rising up and causing everything, my whole reality, to warp out of shape. My soul seemed to stretch painfully. Then the bubble burst.

The first thing I noticed was that he was wearing a very, very nice suit; a black pinstripe three-piece, with a pearly white shirt, a red striped tie, and matching pocket square. Given that the head rising out of the collar, the hand coming out of the sleeves, and the unshod feet all had ruddy red skin, the fingers and toes had pitch-black, talon-like nails, and his forehead sported two spiraled horns that curved back over his bald head, it might seem odd that the suit was the first thing I noticed. On the other hand, it really was a lovely garment. I'd always wanted one just like it.

“Runcible Hand!” He said jovially, striding forward through the barren whiteness that we were standing in, hand outstretched. “It is good to meet you! It's my pleasure, believe me, to meet another up-and-comer like yourself. You would simply not believe how many rivals I had to destroy to land this gig, to be the one to bring you this Offer!” Reaching me, he seized my right hand and pumped it furiously. His crimson face was split in a wide grin, showing of dangerously long and sharp incisors.

“Wha?” I stammered.

“Oh, of course, you're still a bit thrown by the transition. Mea culpa! Take a moment, gather yourself!”

He waved a black nailed hand, and another chair appeared next to mine. He threw himself down in it and crossed his legs. “Lemme apologize for that right now, Red – you don't mind if I call you Red, do you? - but Lower Management says we have to make an entrance, y'know, play up the arrival, so there's no question in the rube's mind that we're the real deal. Not that you're a rube, of course, far from it. Heck, if this were a normal Offer, I'd be 20 feet tall, spitting fire, with a dozen helpers, and the landscape would be much less friendly, y'know what I mean?” Chuckling, he removed his sunglasses and wipe away a non-existent tear. “Just between you and me, Red,” He said, lowering his voice conspiratorially and focusing his red and black eyes on mine, “All o' that? It's BO-Ring! I mean, it's symbolic and all, I get that, it's what they expect, but after a couple of millenia, you just get so tired of it! You cannot believe how refreshing it is, just to be able to throw all of that out the window and just sit down with someone! On a comfortable chair, no less. Have you ever tried sitting on a throne made out of skulls? Two minutes, and your ass feels like you took a meat tenderizer to it! So, you just take your time, catch your breath, no rush at all! I could sit here all year!” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the chair, sighing contentedly.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. Blank white vastness, two chairs, proverbial devil sitting opposite me. Yep, this wasn't because of the whiskey.

“Uh...” I started. The devil's eyes popped open, and he cocked an ear towards me. “Who are you?”

“Oh, man, I'm a dope. I'm Alvavardinbeklamarol.” He leaned forward, offering me his hand again. His grip was firm, and not-unpleasantly warm. “I represent the Lower Management. Just call me Vard.”

“You're... you're a devil.”

“Ah, devil, demon, a nether-dweller, child of Lilith, take your pick. Technically, I'm an Enticer, but I'm pretty close to moving up to Beguiler. Working my way up the ladder in the Department of Temptation. Demon really belongs to the guys who work in Chastisement, and technically, there's only one 'Devil', y'know?” He said, flicking his eyes downward for a second. “Anyway, you don't care about that. Like I said, I represent the Management, and they've sent me here to make you an Offer.”

“Look, uh, Vard... I'm not really interested in selling my soul, y'know, or anything else, really...”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, who said anything about your soul? C'mon, you think they'd send me if they wanted something like your soul? Making that kinda deal takes big time mojo to set up a deal like that. I mean, gimme five more millenia, and maybe I'd be the guy to talk to, but now? Not a chance.”

“OK.”

“See, thing is, I'm not even here to make a deal right now. My bosses know you've been contacted by the other side. They want me to make it clear that we're willing to deal, too. They want you to know you have another option.”

“The other side?”

“Yeah! You think we don't keep an eye on where they go, and who they talk to? You better believe we do, and they follow us just as closely. It's about maintaining the balance. They appear to someone, we appear to them, too, and vice-versa. And you would not believe how many people take our offer when they make the first move. I mean, did they even make an Offer?”

“Uh, you mean the angel? No, not really...”

“Oh, you don't even have to tell me. I know these guys. Just showed up, right? No getting to know you, no handshake, not even a hello? Just gave you an order?”

“Well, no, he, it, whatever, he got into a fight with some friends of mine, actually.”

“Now, that kinda stuff really chaps my ass.” Vard shook his head in disgust. “I mean, just because their boss is supposed to be the creator of everything, an idea I'm not even close to being sold on, by the way, they figure they can do whatever they want, and nobody should ask any questions or look pissed or anything. I mean, where's the courtesy? Where's the friendliness? Would it kill on of them to take five minutes, make the guy they want something from want to help them? Maybe make the guy feel special for being approached to help them? No, it would not, but they go stomping in like Godzilla into Tokyo and expect everyone to bow and scrape. Freakin' zealots!

“Sorry, didn't mean to wander like that, but it bothers me.” Vard shook himself and refocused his attention on me. “Anyway, the Management wants you to know that we're prepared to make a very, very serious offer, if you decide to make a deal with us. I don't want tell tales out of school, but if come with us, you won't be dealing with low-ballers like me. Maaaaaaybe you'd be talking to my bosses boss, but it'll probably be his boss, at least. That's how serious we are.” Vard winked knowingly at me.

“Well, that is nice, but I'm not really...”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Vard said, cutting me off with a wave of his hand. “Don't worry!We're not trying to rush you into anything, I swear. This is just a handshake, a courtesy visit to let you know we're interested. I'm not even allowed think about trying to do anything else right now. We are in no rush, whatsoever. I mean, we have forever, and if you don't want to make a deal, maybe the next guy will. We like you, though. Like I said before, you're an up-and-comer, somebody we think has a lot of potential, and we wouldn't mind forming a relationship.”

“OK. OK, well, why don't you let... uh...”

“The Lower Management.” Vard prompted.

“Right, let the Management know that, uh, we had a good meeting, I guess.” Vard smiled brightly and nodded at that. “Let them know I'm not even close to making a decision about, uh, which way to go, there's a lot of stuff to weigh, a lot to think about...”

“Of course!” Vard stood up. “You take all the time you need. We're not going anywhere. Whenever you're ready, let us know.

“Just keep hold of this...” Vard reached into his coat and pulled out a business card, which he pressed into my hand. “I think I've taken up enough of your time today. Again, it's been a pleasure meeting you. I never get a chance to just sit and chat like this, We should do it again sometime.”

Vard slipped his sunglasses back on. With one last sharp-toothed grin, he snapped his fingers.

I had the sensation of being grabbed by the shoulders and shaken out like a sand covered towel, and suddenly I was back in Grin's office. In one hand, I still held the glass of Walker's. In the other I held a business card with raised crimson lettering that spelled out 'Alvavardinbeklamarol, Enticer, the Old Established Firm'.

Making a grab for the bird

Bloodflies are actually quite beautiful. They appear to be huge butterflies, sometimes having a wingspan of five inches, and their wings are delightfully colored and covered in fascinating patterns. They smell good, too. You want to get close to them, so you can examine the lovely wing pattern and marvel at the lively hues. You want to hold still, and let the thing investigate you, and find the perfect spot of exposed skin on you to land on. And it won't just land; no, what it'll do is spread its wings and flatten itself against you, at which point you'll feel a pinch that signals that the bloodfly has tapped into your circulatory system. And now you have the thing permanently attached to you, unless you remove it by force, leaving a huge scar that never quite stops bleeding, or until you die. Since bloodflies always travel in swarms, and the one that found you will alert the others of its swarm that it's found prey, death will most likely come very quickly, as they surround you in a brightly colored cloud, fighting each other for space on any exposed inch of flesh, and they suck you dry faster then you thought possible. People can, and have, studied them quite extensively, while sheathed in fully sealed containment armor.

I, of course, did not have containment armor. If I was very careful, I wouldn't need it. See, it is possible to get very close to a bloodfly swarm if you are very careful, while they are in their sleep phase. The get logy in cooler temperatures, and several infestations have been destroyed by approaching very, very quietly, and lighting the suckers on fire. Whatever makes their coloring so bright also makes them very, very flammable.

If I wanted to, I could take my lighter out of my pocket and apply it to the bloodflies that hung in huge numbers from the chandelier above me in the ruined ballroom, making it look for all the world like there was a tie-dyed Christmas tree hanging from the ceiling. Touching it to one of them would have set the whole swarm ablaze in moments. Of course, then I would have been buried under the weight of several hundred pounds of dead, burning insects, so I wasn't about to go for my lighter. I needed these things alive for a while.

Moving as quietly as I could, I moved to the center of the room, just under the chandelier on which the bloodflies were most heavily festooned, and pulled two things out of my pocket. The first was a small, round device with a ruby set into the top of it, and the second was a type of firework, designed to spray a shower of sparks about a dozen feet, when activated. I attached the activator for the spark-thrower to the ruby-topped device, and set both on the floor, directly under the lowest hanging part of the slumbering swarm. Then I turned the ruby one half turn in it's setting, and waited five interminable seconds until it began to shine. Then, almost shaking with relief, I Stepped out of that dimension, arriving at my final destination.

I arrived on the side of a rocky hill, looking out over a small compound set on the edge of a desert. I was hidden by a copse of trees to keep my arrival from being noticed, and after taking a moment to check the local landmarks to make sure I'd come to the right place, I began walking the half-mile to the gate of the compound.

I felt like I was carrying a couple hundred pounds of dead weight while walking up a steep hill. The mystical cord that bound me to the place I'd started out wanted to pull me back to that place, and each step was just a bit harder to take than the last. I was almost where I needed to be, though, and when I was, I could stop fighting it and let it do what it wanted, let it go home and take me with it.

The feeling of weight helped with my disguise. I was wearing loose, badly made clothing of the local variety, and a turban. My plodding walk and hunched posture, caused by the pull of the cord, made me look as beaten down as the locals, and, for added verisimilitude, I had removed the Hand, back at my starting point, and held the stump of my left arm against my side. I looked like life had worked me over pretty hard, and like I expected it to keep doing so. Just like the locals.

I arrived at the gate of the compound. A small hole, set behind a grate, popped open in response to my rhythmic knock, and then closed after accepting the note I proffered. A few minutes later, a door opened in the gate and I was pulled roughly through.

I found myself in a courtyard, surrounded by buildings that looked like adobe, and by a half dozen armed guards. They pushed me around a bit while passing my note back and forth, until what looked like their captain walked up, trailed by another of the guards.

The captain read the note. He sized me up with a beady eye for a moment before stepping forward and shouting something directly into my face. His breath was unpleasant, but his closeness did let me see that he had one silver tooth, right up in front. Jackpot.

Standing almost nose to nose with the foul-breathed captain, I said the one word of the local language I had learned. The guards around the two of us froze for a second, then began to glance at each other in that universal way people do when someone crosses a line and is about to get a serious beating thrown on them. The captain froze, too, his face turning a bright red. He grabbed me by the throat, and had opened his mouth to begin shouting in earnest, when I reached up to take hold of his wrist with my one good hand, and stopped holding out against the pull of the cord.

Instantly, the captain and I were pulled out of that dimension, the cord yanking my body in an odd direction, and him coming with me because of our physical contact. There were four pauses lasting less than a second apiece, as we were reeled back to my staring point. The first pause was in the ruined ballroom where I had set the spark-thrower under the swarm of bloodflies. The second found us on a a tree reaching across a deep gorge over a raging river. Third came a bubble of air, deep underwater, with us in the center of a circle of black boxes, and lastly we blinked through a metal room, the airlock of a space station.

Is we passed through each, the four small devices, inset with rubies, I had left at each spot activated another item I had left behind. If anyone in the compound we had just left possessed the ability to follow me across dimensions, they would find themselves stepping into something quite deadly at each Step. The spark-thrower would have already ignited the swarm hanging above it, filling the ruined ballroom with fire. Explosives on the tree would have split it and dropped it into the river below, leaving a pursuer to arrive without support in mid-air. The black boxes holding the bubble of air open at the bottom of an ocean would have deactivated, allowing the water to rush back and fill that area with its killing pressure. And the airlock on the space station would be opening, exposing the next person to Step into that spot to the void of space.

If there was anyone who could follow me and survive all of that, just to get the captain back, I'd probably just let them have him. They would be way out of my league.

Not that it would have been my problem, if someone had followed us to the end of the line, since the last stop was Jubjub's aerie.

Jubjub's raths, green pig-like creatures, took charge of the captain as soon as we arrived, and by 'took charge' I mean 'tackled and began to summarily pummel'. This set the borogoves seated on ledges all about the wide room to burbling and chortling in evident joy.

“Oh, frabjous day!” This came as a cry from across the room, where Jubjub had been lounging. It outgrabed loudly in happiness as it strode across the room. “Ah, Redhand, thou'rt manxome in pursuit of that which thine eye desires! Truly, it soothes my frumious temper to have this uffish oaf of a thief returned to me for well earned punishment. Beamish, I am, I say I am beamish, the mimsy mood has fled, with your galumphing back to me, bearing that which I requested! Callooh! Callay!”

If you're wise, you will never comment on how much Jubjub looks like an angry chicken. It's killed for less, much less. But this loud, absurd bird was also possessed information I needed. The borogoves, the raths, and the toves it employed were all constantly ferreting out secrets which were brought back to the mercurial Jubjub, who then bartered them to any who could meet his price.

The book-locket I had shown to Jack and Van Zandt had led her to suggest a few names as to who might be able to identify it. They had all come up empty, but each had suggested the same individual as the next person to ask. She, of course, had vanished some time ago, on one of the exploratory expeditions that were her specialty. And the only one, apparently, who knew her location, was Jubjub the information broker. So here I was, delivering the captain, who had stolen I know not what from the bird, in return for a location.

“Glad to hear it, Mes-sire Jubjub,” I said, feeling a load lift from me as the 5-dimensional cord that had reeled the captain and me in was removed. “Very glad. So, as I promised, your thief has been returned directly to you. Do you have something for me?” I went about reattaching the Hand and changing my clothes as nonchalantly as possible, praying there wouldn't be any complications.

“Aha, to business, yes, o manxome one!” Jubjub clucked, pulling a green crystal out from... somewhere. “All information, pertinent as can be, which you requested. Jubjub thanks you for your patronage, yes, and begs you to come again soon!”

Stories for Jack

Automatic Jack was sitting at the front bar, chatting with Van Zandt, when I came back up from making the deal with Grindlebone. Van Zandt is Grin's partner, in a number of different senses of the word, so, even though his name's on the door, it's her bar as much as his. She has some strong Asian genes in her make-up, and tops Grin by a couple of inches, although her thin build makes her seem a bit smaller. Number of individuals have made the assumption that Van Zandt is less dangerous than Grin, but they only do it once. Grindlebone's size keeps people from starting things around him, but Van Zandt is actually quite prepared to lay hands on rowdy customers in order to keep the peace in the bar. She's also a hell of a good bartender, the kind a place needs to give it a soul; She remembers names, faces, favorite drinks, good jokes, personal histories, and how long it's been since you've seen each other, and generally makes you feel like the party was just waiting for you to show up so it could start. A hell of a lady, in other words. Grin calls her his lucky charm.

She and Jack were laughing over a shared joke when I slid onto the stool next to Jack's angular metal form. Van Zandt drew me a pint of Shuggoth's Old Peculiar and listened in while I gave him the details of my little meeting with Grin. Jack was as surprised as I had been that Big Hairy and his boys were wanted for a terrorist action on Charom, and delighted by the percentage I'd managed to wring out of Grin. Hearing that I'd gotten 30% of the bounty earned a whoop out of Van Zandt and a couple of free shots; seems as though he'd sworn up and down to her he wasn't going to go higher than 20%, and had made the mistake of accepting her bet on it.

“But that wasn't the fun part, Jack.” I said, after raising my glass to Van Zandt and gulping down the Liquid Fire she'd filled it with. “The fun part was when Big Hairy, or Gundar Tub'la as his mother named him, managed to get himself free.”

“No skoob?” Jack said. “Well, I guess a guy like that has been restrained more than once in his time.”

“No doubt. When I got there, Grin had him trussed up to this chair, wrists, ankles, lap, chest, all strapped down, and the chair was bolted to the floor. And he didn't really get loose, he broke the chair apart. So, he's still strapped in, really, and he only managed to break one of the legs free of the floor, so when he tried to start walking, he fell over.” Van Zandt had her hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh out loud, unlike Jack, who was guffawing hugely. “Now, the fall managed to break the other leg free, but he couldn't really get up, because the band across his lap was still in place, keeping him strapped to the seat of the chair. So, he thrashed around for a minute...”

I explained to them how Hairy, or Gundar, had finally managed to push himself to his feet, and had danced around a bit, trying to keep his balance on legs he could only bend at the knees. I told them how Grin had used the time Gundar had spent thrashing on the ground to pick up and prime the stick-trap one of Gundar's boys had been carrying when they were captured, and how Grin had used it to trap the poor fool just after he'd gotten himself upright.

“Stick-trap? What's 'at?” Jack asked, tapping his empty cup on the bar.

“I haven't seen one in a long time, even though they're a perfect non-lethal way to take someone out. Thing looks like a chopstick, maybe a little longer than most, but, after you prime it, the next person that comes in contact with it gets caught in this cage of connected sticks, spreads all over whatever the person and locks them down. Real beauty of the thing is, it manages to lock them in in such a way that if they try to break free, the sticks will transfer the force back onto the person in the trap. Basically, they'd have to severely damage themselves to even get a hand loose. Last time I saw one used, the guy inside did manage to break a couple of the sticks around his hand, but doing it broke his leg, a couple of ribs, and his shoulder. Guy couldn't even fall over to take the weight off his broken leg.”

Jack gave out a low whistle. “Did Gundar try that?”

“For a second, until something o' his almost broke. Then he just stood there. Couldn't even move his jaw enough to yell at us. When the Chiromi came for 'em, they just picked him up, cage and all, carried him off. From what the Warden who took charge of him said, it meant Gundar'd be a hell of a lot less trouble that way.”

“So, that's the last of them, huh?” Jack said, sipping from the glass of oil Van Zandt had brought him.

“Looks like. The Warden said they'd been tried in absentia and found guilty. All five of them are headed to some Chiromi hoosegow, and they'll be executed in pretty short order.”

“And we got the bounty?”

“Grin and the Warden were taking care of that when I got the word you were up here. When it's done, Grin said he'd meet us up in his office.” I downed the last of my Old Peculiar. “I did want to ask you something, though. You too, Van Zandt.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a necklace, from which hung a large square locket.

The necklace was silver, and there didn't seem to be anything special about it. The locket, though, was made of a greenish metal, which seemed to have veins of a dirty white running through it. The metal had been shaped to resemble a book, with a hinged spine on one edge and a lock holding it closed. What I would normally think of as the front cover was blank, and the back cover had been engraved with a very strange design. I'd picked it out from the midst of the various gear the five dead men had been stripped of. Mr. Ix said it wasn't one of the things that had flummoxed the bar's security, so I'd claimed it as part of my share.

The design on the cover looked almost exactly like part of the tattoo on the angel from my dream last night.

“Have either of you ever seen this design before?” I put the locket and necklace down on the bar, with the cover bearing the design facing upwards.

Working out the percentages

I walked through the door of Grindlebone's bar just after noon. When I checked with the nearest bartender, he/she/it told me that her boss was expecting me. A small floating light was produced, and I was told it would lead me to wherever Grin was. I was also warned not to go wandering off on my own. Not that I was inclined to; I hadn't made friends with Grin by abusing his good nature.

I had expected to be led up to his office, but the light first took me through an obscure, semi-hidden door, and then down into the bowels of the building. Even if I had been paying attention, I doubt I would have remembered all of the twists and turns of our route And I wasn't paying attention.

Now, as with most of the morning, I couldn't help but come back to the strange dream that had interrupted my sleep the night before. I don't recall ever having had such a vivid reverie, one that I could recall in perfect detail the next day. Everything about the experience, from the moment I found myself in the room where all of it occurred to when I seemed to be engulfed by the eyes of the 'angel', I remembered with perfect clarity. I knew I'd never been in that room before. I'd never met a real troll, and I had no idea who the other individual the angel had attacked was. And I damn sure had never come close to an angel. If it had faded into the half-memory that characterizes most dreams the day after they occur, it would just be one of those things. But I couldn't seem to shake this one off. All day, my thoughts had been dragged back to those eyes cutting into the center of me.

I came back to myself with a start, realizing I had no freaking clue where I was. I knew I'd just come down a circular stone stairway, and now I found myself in a tunnel that looked like it had been built for a movie of 'The Cask of Amontillado'. The brickwork was rough, and covered with moisture, and there was a regular dripping sound in the distance. As we came around a corner, I really expected we'd fetch up in front of an iron-banded wood door with a small grill set in it, which would be opened by a hooded hunchback that would conduct us down to an even lower level, where its master would be working feverishly to reanimate the dead.

Instead, turning the corner led us to a large, round, well lit room which we entered by mounting five stairs and passing through an open pair of large, heavy doors. Oh, well.

Along the wall to my left were about a half dozen small cells, four of which were occupied by four of the gunmen who had threatened Jack and I last night. The fifth cell's door was open, and it's inhabitant, the fifth and largest of the group, was secured to a chair in the middle of the room. His clothing, and the clothing of his comrades, showed that the various weapons that they had carried about their persons had been removed without much care.

The guy in the chair, who I'd mentally tagged 'Big Hairy' last night, looked pretty ticked off. His eyes were fixed on the upper left corner of the room, except for a moment when the flicked onto me, as I entered. Unless I was mistaken, a look of surprise crossed his face when he saw me.

Grin was off to the right, talking quietly with two other men by a table covered in various weapons and miscellaneous other items. He, too, looked up as I followed the glowing light into the room.

“Red! Good to see you, good to see you!” Grin's big hand engulfed mine as I joined the group by the table. Light glinted off of his shaved skull, and a wide smile shone out from the huge beard that blanketed most of his face. “I owe you a bit of thanks, my friend! Lucky you are you didn't stay about last night, or you'd have been subject to the same dressing down I gave poor Automatic Jack, for bringing trouble into my bar.”

“Well, it wasn't by choice that the trouble came to us, Grindlebone. You know we'd never do anything so unseemly as be threatened by strangers in your house if we could help it. I'd think you've known both of us long enough to have settled that in your mind.” I could never help but fall into Grindlebone's flowery style when I spoke directly to the man.

“Aye, aye,” Grin said, lowering his eyes and holding up a hand, “I do at that; I surely do. But having my patrons threatened, and friends to boot, got my blood to boil, and these lot,” waving his hand towards the captives, “were in no fit state for me to express my anger on, and poor Jack to the brunt of it. Rest assured, it'll be made up to him, as best I can. I daresay no small part of my ire rose from the fact that I had to be flagged as to what was going on. A good barkeep should never be anything but the first to know what goes on in his house, and I failed in that, and you could ha' paid the price for my mistake.”

“Grin, unless I miss my guess, the gentlemen currently enjoying your hospitality were not only armed for bear, but also set up with some sort of device or charm designed for the express purpose of letting them do what they came to do without alerting you it was being done.”

“Ah, Red, you're a man of amazin' perspicacity, indeed. They were holding no less than four items that allowed them to pass my security unnoticed.” Grin clapped a hand on the shoulder of the individual next to him. “Mr. Ix, here, has been looking over these most of the night, and thinks they'll be quite useful. Mr. Ix, I'd like you to meet Red Hand, the man indirectly responsible for our acquirin' this little bounty.”

Mr. Ix looked, at first glance, like a tall and very thin human with dark bluish skin. When I grasped the hand he held out to me, and looked more carefully at his face, it became obvious that his 'skin' was a chitinous exoskeleton. The smile he bestowed on me was formed by small sections of his facial structure being retracted to expose an impressive number of teeth, and I could make out what I thought were a pair of mandibles held closely against it's jawline. Mr. Ix's hand felt smooth and cool, and his grip was quite firm.

“Ix greets you. Ix expresses thanks to you for bringing forth both questions and answers, Crimson Manipulator. Much is being learned.” Mr. Ix chattered in a mixture of tones of various pitches, with the words I could understand issuing from a small disc that seemed to be attached to it's thorax.

“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Ix. I'm glad you'll get some use out of them.”

“Oh, that we will, sir. Mr. Ix is of the mind it'll make my already formidable security system even more effective, which is always welcome. And that's not the half of it, Red. These fellas...” Grindlebone waved again at the captives, “These fellas, it turns out, are wanted quite badly by certain folk. Do you remember that ugly little business what happened at the Null races on Charom a while back?”

“The grandstand, you mean? I thought the Chir-Meeno Front was behind that...”

“As did I, Red, as did I. Seems, though, that Chir-Meeno was a little too worried about getting their tiny nadgers cut off if they was to do the job personally, so they went an' hired themselves a few freelancers to do the heavy liftin' for 'em. Would ya like to make a small wager as to who these sorry little men got to do their evil for 'em?”

I gaped at Grin. “No. These guys?”

“Oh, ayuh. Even as we speak, a number of grim lookin', serious men with grim lookin', serious guns are coming our way with all due speed, with the intent of taking these gentlemen off to Charom. Where at they will no doubt be tried, convicted, and executed in short order, and in accordance with civilized law.”

“So,” I said, rubbing my jaw, “If these men are so important to the necessary satisfaction of justice for the Charomi, would I be entirely wrong in thinking that some small amount of legal tender would be offered by the Charomi for their delivery?”

Grin guffawed loudly, and said with a wolfish smile, “Red, you would in fact be entirely right, indeed you would. And because yourself and Jack were the reason that this windfall has come unto me, I don't think I'd be able to live with myself if each of you didn't take, hmmmm, lessee... 5% of the bounty for these scoundrels.”

“Well, now. 5%, really?” I said, looking into the avuncular, fatherly face Grindlebone always wore when he was trying to get over on someone. “My word, Grin, I have to say, that is nice of you. Of course, 50% would be even nicer.”

The smile vanished from Grin's face, getting lost somewhere in the thicket of his beard, and the rest of his head turned pink. “50%! 50...” He roared, before catching himself. The effort of forcing his lips to smile again caused sweat to break out on his brow. “Oh, Red, you do like your jokes. I've always said you were a right funny lad. I see what you're saying I do. 5% is too small a cut, much too small, yes, and I think, in fairness, I couldn't see offering ya less than... 7%...”

By the time we'd managed to haggle to a solid 15% of the take, Grindlebone was covered in sweat and his smile was in tatters. But, that aside, I knew he thought he'd still managed to low-ball me.

“Apiece.” I said, as though it was an afterthought.

Grin went gray, and gaped like a just-gaffed fish. Before he could get a hold of himself and begin to flip his lid, I went on. “Now, Grin, you know it has to be 15% for both Jack and me. You know that. Adding all of this up, with 70% of the bounty, and most of these weapons and trinkets, here, you're coming out very much on top. And I know you want to get me down to 20% for Jack and I to split. Give us the extra 10%, and you still clear, what, same amount as four, maybe 5 days profit from the bar? Isn't that fair?”

While I was speaking, I could see Grin coming to grips with the idea. When I finished, there was a moment where I thought he might punch me, though.

“Fine. 30%, and you can pick over the gear. Ya thief.” He held out his hand and gave mine a bone cracking shake. “Yer lucky I like ya, Red.”

“Eh, it helps that you're a softy, Grin.” Grin got a nice belly laugh out of that.

Bump in the night

There was something odd about the person in the long coat, standing a few yards away from us in the huge room with the concrete floor. A long black duster, buttoned up to the neck and with its hem brushing the floor, hid their entire body, and a wide brimmed hat cast an impenetrable shadow over everything but their jaw and mouth. There didn't seem to be anything I could see that was out of the ordinary about them, but it almost seemed like some sort of disconcerting energy was rolling off of them in waves.

“Runcible Hand.” The words that came out of its mouth, for I was suddenly certain the figure in front of me was neither a him nor a her, weren't in any language I knew. Nevertheless, my mind rang with a painful clarity as to the true meaning of the strange words. It had called me by name. “Runcible Hand, you must come with me. You must come with me, and stand before my Master. You, and only you, are called. You and only you must come.” Like an inexorable tide, the words washed over me, and I could feel an almost irresistible pull towards the stranger.

My attention had been so focused on the stranger that I hadn't noticed the amount of space the figure standing right next to me was taking up. When it stepped forward, though, it seemed like a wall had moved, it was so large.

Eight feet of dark blue skin, covered in primal tattoos and dirt. Huge, two toed feet tipped with sharp looking nails. Hands so wide, they could have gripped a fifty-five gallon drum and covered it completely. A head topped with long, stringy black hair and featuring a jutting lower jaw with two yellowed canine teeth rising up, past the upper lip, seeming to point to the pair of reddish eyes that sat shadowed under the prominent brow and bushy eyebrows. It stepped forward, stamping a foot on the ground hard enough to crack the concrete below it, spread the arms covered in tattoos and leather straps, and opened it's mouth to bellow deafeningly.

A troll! For Amat's sake, it's an actual gorram troll! Holy crap, what was going on here?

The person in the black coat raised its thin, immaculate hands, and began unbuttoning the black coat, slowly and deliberately. As the white hands pulled the front of the coat open, its bare chest became exposed, displaying a pattern of red and black lines on perfectly white, unblemished skin. The pattern of lines, it became apparent as the coat slid off of the persons shoulders and dropped to the floor, continued over the shoulders and down the arms to the elbows, and disappeared below the belt of the kilt it wore, to reappear at the lower hem, and continued to just below the knees. The kilt was black and red also, and the belt, buckled with a wide silver buckle embossed with an eye-watering geometric shape, had a scabbard containing a sword attached to it. At first, I thought the tall, thin, ivory figure had been wearing a cape under its coat, but it quickly became apparent that the 'cloth' I thought had been covering its shoulders was actually a pair of huge, dark wings, extending and spreading on either side and above the figure.

A hand rose, and flicked the hat off of its head. Close cropped red hair appeared over its perfectly formed and serene face. And just above the hair, a bright blue halo floated like a ring of controlled lightning.

The Angel's left arm rose, as though it was going to touch its right shoulder. It made a fist. A point of light appeared on the back of its hand, and moved in a large circle, from the left hand to left shoulder and back again, leaving a trail behind. As it light completed its journey, the air inside the circle shimmered, and suddenly the Angel was holding a wide, silver shield, covered in the same impossible shape that was on the buckle of its belt.

The shield dropped to the Angel's side, while it's right hand rose. Raising the arm to shoulder height, the hand at the end of the fully extended arm made a gripping motion, and in its hand, the Angel suddenly held a spear seemingly made of darkness and fire.

It stood for a moment, shield at its side, spear at arms length and resting on the floor, dark wings spread behind it, and it looked directly at me. Its presence seemed more real than anything else I had ever seen; its eyes had a sharpness that threatened to slice directly through my mind, and my soul. It was beautiful to look at, and painful.

The Angel lifted the spear, and stepped forward.

The troll bellowed again, and rushed to meet it.

As the troll's rush brought the huge monster near to the thin white creature, the Angel lifted its left foot, pushing off with its right, and floated gently out of the way of the attack. It didn't seem to be moving with any haste, but the Angel managed to land and bend out of the way of the troll's right fist as it threw a vicious back hand. Straightening to face the off balance monster, the Angel's spear moved deliberately forward, and inserted itself into the shoulder of the troll, stopping the left arm from coming around and causing it to drop uselessly to the troll's side. The giant, groaning, stumbled backwards. The Angel released the spear, and it seemed like the troll had been impaled with a shaft of pure night.

The Angel floated towards the troll, ducking under another clumsy swing, and brought its shield around to strike the side of the troll's right knee. There was a cracking sound and a scream, as the troll dropped to it's knees. The pain seemed to focus the troll, and it tried to hit the Angel's gently smiling face one more time. The Angel caught the backhand on its shield, though, forcing the arm to rise and pass over the Angels head. As the shield lowered, I could see that the Angel had drawn its blazing sword, and it's eyes seemed to be studying the wide expanse of the troll's unprotected skin. Almost languorously, the sword moved forward, entering neat the center of the chest.

The troll, its arms spread wide, leaned backwards, arching its spine, facing the ceiling, making a low cry like a wounded dog. It kept leaning back until its shoulders touched the floor, moaning quietly.

The Angel looked at me, again. “Runcible Hand, you must come with me.”

I became aware of two forms coming up on either side of me, both bringing weapons to bear. On my right, my pal Automatic Jack had extruded two vibrating blades from his forearms. There was a sound like a weapon being cocked to my left, and I turned to see who was holding it. But I wasn't fast enough.

The Angel had moved to stand on the troll's arched body, and, as my head turned, it had seized its spear and pulled it from the troll's shoulder, then hurled it towards the figure on my left. I caught just a glimpse of the spear striking the form in the chest, the force of its strike carrying the unknown person backwards into shadow. From the sounds I caught, the spear might have impaled the person on the wall behind us. A pair of handguns thudded to the floor where the person had been.

I turned back to look at the Angel, whose gaze was now on Jack. Jack struck his arm-blades together, making a high pitched buzzing crash. He turned slightly, left arm extended, right arm back, both blades pointing at the Angel, ready to fight.

The Angel's crimson eyebrow twitched upwards. The halo above its head shot forward, towards Jack. Before he could move, the halo hit my metal friend in the gut, carrying him backwards into the shadow as the spear had done to my other, unknown friend. This time, the shadows were broken by a window, and I could see Jack's silhouette as he was thrust back though it, dropping and vanishing.

I turned back to find the Angel standing directly in front of me, sword in hand, shield by it's side. After a moment, it sheathed the sword, and, as it stepped forward, the halo reappearing above it's head.

With no prior thought, knowing it would be useless, I stepped forward myself, throwing my red left hand up, aiming to hit the Angel's inhumanly perfect face. Moving with the same unhurried speed that had marked it's every action, the Angel's hand intercepted mine, and pulled my fist to the side with inexorable strength. It leaned forward, it's diamond eyes cutting into mine.

“RUNCIBLE HAND,” it said in a voice that would brook no argument, “YOU MUST COME WITH ME.”

The eyes boring into mine grew larger, deeper, and the rest of the world faded and vanished. I stood on the edge of the world and those massive, deep pools.

Then the edge vanished, and I fell.

The sheets were soaked with sweat as I woke, gasping like a drowning man. I felt a weight on my chest like a stone, and in the darkness of the ceiling, I could still see the eyes of the Angel from my dream.

Me and the Hand

I'd picked up the building I live in for a song after working a little deal with another Free Roamer pal of mine a couple of years ago. It's conveniently off the beaten path, in Paedarc's industrial section, so by the time I got there, shortly before sundown, the area was deserted. Part of the reason I'd taken it was a faded sign on one of the outside walls which said the building was occupied by the Handred Company.

I let myself in the door under the sign, and took a quick look around the first floor before heading up the stairs to where I lived. Wouldn't want to be surprised by a squatter in the middle of the night, after all. But the building was just as I had left it, the only sign of any inhabitant being the footprints I had left in the dust the last time I had walked through the building. I jumped up to the second floor and, after a cursory check, unlocked the door to the corner section I occupied.

It wasn't a large space, but it was more than enough. Small kitchen, comfortable sleeping area, and a decent space for everything else. I turned on a couple of lights, opened window or two, grabbed a bottle of the good local beer, and settled myself on the couch near the window and took my boots off.

I'd put the couch where it was because, at the end of the day, there was nothing to block my view of the sunset. The district my building is in ran into the bay a couple of blocks over, and the only buildings between here and there were just one story tall. It was the perfect set up to watch the sun fall slowly into the ocean.

I put my feet up to let them breathe, wiggled my toes, took a couple of sips of the beer, and after a moment, I leaned forward to pull my coat off. Once I was free of it, I ran my right hand over the metal that composed my left, tapping it here and there, then turning a section near where the metal and flesh met. For a moment, nothing happened, but then a series of quiet mechanical noises started, and the forearm section popped, loosening it's grip on my arm. The plates of the forearm spread, then pulled towards the wrist, exposing a series wires leading to seven connection points spaced evenly around my arm. I took a grip on the hand near the wrist and touched a button with my thumb, causing the seven sets of wires to disengage from the connection points, and retract into the open forearm. I pulled the metal apparatus off of my arm and set it down on the table in front of me. The seven connection points, and the connector hub on the end of my stump, all pulled back under the skin, the flesh sealing over them and hiding them perfectly. The skin appeared unblemished.

I leaned back and put my feet up, rubbing the skin of my stump, enjoying the feel of the air on it. I took another sip of beer, and watched the hand.

The fingers twitched, then twitched again, then straightened out to full extension. They tapped out a complicated rhythm on the table, then began to bend backwards, curling back until the fingertips touched the back of the hand. The fingers extended out again, then curled into a fist, lifting the palm off the table. Once again, the fingers extended, and all five worked the hand near enough to the edge of the table, allowing the three longest fingers to curl over the edge. Anchored thus, the crimson forearm section rose up and over the back of the hand, leaning forward so that the entire hand could rise up onto its fingertips, looking like a bizarre red scorpion facing me from between my legs.

The hand shook itself, and two small sensors rose out of the open armature at the highest part of the forearm section. Glowing blue, they blinked on and off at me. The hand made a sighing sound.

“Hey there, little red.” I said, raising my beer to it, “How you feelin'? All systems go?”

The hand shook itself again, while small whirring and clicking sounds occurred inside it. Two small manipulator hands appeared out of either side of the armature from which the sensors had emerged. The small hands rose towards the ceiling, making a thumbs-up, while it chittered happily and then made a 'whaaaaaaaaa' sound.

“That good, huh?” The sensor stalks bobbed up and down in affirmation. “Good to hear. Well, I'm in for the night. Why don't you get some recharge time?”

One of the manipulators gave another thumbs up. Then the hand skittered towards my leg. The middle finger reached out and tapped my ankle twice.

“What d'ya want, ya weird little beastie?”

The forearm section turned, and the two little hands made a brushing gesture, accompanied by more chittering.

“No, I will not move my leg. I have been on my feet all day, while you have just been hanging off of me. Go around, or go over, beastie.”

Making aggrieved noises, the small hands reached out, gripped my pants leg, and, with a strong push from the large fingers below, flipped itself over my leg and off the table. It vanished over the side, causing a small 'thunk' when it hit the floor. Then, with surprising speed, scrambled over to the wall with the nearest energy socket. It leaned it's 'back' against the socket, and a pleased sigh emanated from it as it connected to the power source. Then, it sank down so that its palm and fingers were flat on the floor.

I love that little beastie. I barely miss my real left hand.

Heading home

“Jack, as much as I'd like to spend the evening drinking enough to make Grindlebone regret giving us an open tab, I think I've had just about enough for one day. I'm going to go home and pray nothing else exciting happens on the way.”

Jack was of the mind that he needed to soak up some more of the high-end, oil-based drinks Grindlebone kept in stock for his metallic customers. He also wanted to talk to Grin. Our friend was no doubt overseeing the interview his people were conducting with the five unfortunate gunmen who had threatened us, to obtain answers to a number of questions, first and foremost of which was no doubt about what the hell they thought they were doing, exactly, by threatening his patrons.

I had some interest in hearing those answers as well, but it really had been a long and busy day. I asked Jack to give Grindlebone my thanks and to let him know that I would be returning before to long to speak to him and give him more of my cash. I secured my share of the days profits on my person, leaving just enough cash loose that, were I robbed, I would keep the thieves happy and avoid having to kill them. I try not to spill blood unless it's truly needed. Then I headed out of the bar.

I did want to go home, but carrying such a large amount of ready cash about, even in the peaceful environs I live in, isn't something I'm comfortable with. Things do happen, after all, even in the most serene of locales. So I headed out the Door Grin keeps connected to the landing port at the Free City of Omicron Axis, where my bank is.

Omicron Axis is one of the most interesting Places I've ever seen personally, although I know some people who find it distressing. A long, long time ago, it was probably a Planet, or a Firmament, but nobody really knows. As I exited the landing port's airy arrival section, I was treated to a panoramic view of an endless blue sky, filled with an uncountable number of floating islands, mostly concentrated in a band that circled the bright sun overhead. On the sunward sections of the closer islands, it was possible to see evidence of human habitation. And on the largest island of all, a circular city of almost a hundred mile diameter gleamed in the light.

As I walked down the stairs leading out of the port, I thought, as always, of the genius of the unknown person who had placed the one location where you could enter this dimension. The port had been canted a few degrees off of the normal orientation for an island of its size, so that the Free City seemed to be rising into the sky in front of you, spread out like the largest piece of art ever created. It always took my breath away.

I gawked like a tourist as my feet carried me down the walk to where one could embark on a sky barge for the short trip to the city. That was part of the genius of the port, too, and why so many people chose to store their money in the Free City. Having the only means of ingress into the dimension on a separate island that could be moved at will made it functionally impossible for anyone to invade Omicron Axis. The limit on arrivals to just the port was guaranteed by the Travelers Guild, which by itself was worth more than any amount of money, but the strength of their guarantee was increased immeasurably by their long-ago decision to locate one of their largest chapterhouses in the Free City.

So, in short order, I found myself inside the City itself, and then in the imposing lobby of the Bank of Mhine Kromarty. If you're going to let someone else handle your cash, it might as well be an old, established firm. I checked in at the desk, and was directed to go through one of the hundreds of doors that lined the grey stone walls. Inside, after securing the door, I placed my hand on the Lifestone, looked into the Eye, and recited the words, and was asked what transactions I wished. My winnings were dug out from various places, and in no time I had been credited with depositing 15,000 Gambling Hell Exchange Vouchers, and had converted another 1000 into satisfying wads of a couple of different currencies.

It felt good to have that done with. Now, there was nothing to be done but enjoy a bit of nice rest.

Being flush at the moment, I considered staying at one of the posh flop houses in the Free City, but prudence won out, and I made my way back to the landing port and through a Gate to a nearby dimension with a less iron-clad rules of entry and exit. I walked a short way, jumping across several different dimensions as I went, finally landing in a shaded alley a short way from my home.

Paedarc was a very nice city that I could get into a lot of trouble for being in. It was a contested locale, which means that both the Travelers and Jump Cops would take a very dim view of my regular sojourns there. But each d-jump I had made had taken me to successively less and less patrolled places, until I could comfortably step into Paedarc through a back door.

Which is pretty much exactly what I did. I arrived just inside a short corridor leading to a rusty metal door that led to an empty building, and which was rusty enough to make it possible that it hadn't been opened since before I had been born. I had determined that my arrival spot was far enough out of view that no one looking through the windows of the building next door would be able to see me appear, and had carefully surveyed how little traffic the alley received.

So it was with no concern at all that I stepped out of the shadowed hallway, leaped up a few steps, and sauntered the two blocks to my quarters.

The unfortunate gunmen

There was a quiet moment, after the two large men with the equally large weapons had made sure that Jack and I were the only occupants of the small room they'd just burst into. In that quiet moment, I blinked.

Two eyes closed, but three eyes opened.

My third eye, centered low on my forehead just above my eyebrow ridges, combined with my normal sight to show me a world on fire, where the men in front of me were composed of knots or writhing energy, and the walls composed of flowing luminescence. And through the glowing walls, I could see the corridor outside, where three more men, armed like the pair facing me. The rest of the bar was laid out in my sight, as well, although the front bar of Grindlebone's was where my attention focused.

I could see the gold and shining black outline of Grindlebone standing behind the bar, with one of his drink-slingers working beside him. Grindlebone was occupied, working on a drink, but I concentrated, and the other tender looked up in my direction. I could see the confusion swirl around her head, followed by a sudden resolution. The last thing I saw as I blinked again was her reaching over to shake Grin's elbow.

Three eyes closed, two eyes opened.

As always, the world seemed flat and colorless through two eyes. It took me a moment to notice that one of the three men from the hall, and the largest of the five who had crashed our little party, had entered. He stood between the two door-busters, fingering a large weapon holstered at his hip and glaring from eyes that looked out from a narrow band of skin between the long hair that covered his forehead and the thick bushy beard that covered the lower part of his face.

I took a sip of whiskey.

The latest interloper took a heavy step forward, and pointed a grubby finger with a cracked nail at me. “E kou mikino bu teka, Ke'Taono.” Big Hairy jerked his hand back and pointed a thumb at his own face. “Mu tone ra Pooku, ban kobo neer yoot ganaco ghul pinpinko abanen puce loon.”

That was interesting. Grindlebone had outfitted the bar with a couple of systems that should have made Big Hairy's words crystal clear. That he was yelling gibberish, well, that added to an already odd situation. Jack and I exchanged glances. The pieces of black tin that Jack used for eyebrows were raised.

“NOOP TINGO AHHHHHHHHHH!”

That last bit probably wasn't what the big guy meant to say, but while he was bellowing he'd taken another step forward. Grindlebone had evidently activated some of his fine security systems, as the unfortunate fellow was suddenly wreathed in blue energy and seemed to be trying very hard to shake his own teeth out.

The energy field cut off after a few hilarious seconds. Big Hairy rocked back and forth for a moment, smoke rising from his charred hair and beard, before falling over backwards and hitting the floor with a crash. The four of us in the room who were still sensate stared at the prone, smoking figure. Just as that got boring, the floor opened beneath Big Hairy and he vanished into the darkness.

The gunman on the left leaned over and peered into the hole.

When the tentacle shot up out of the hole and wrapped itself the gunman's head, Jack and I barely had time to flinch before he also vanished down into the hole.

The other heavy almost managed to fire his weapon down into the hole before it closed, suddenly and silently. His attention quickly turned to us, which kept him from noticing that another darkness filled trapdoor had opened just above him. He brought the barrel of his weapon up, but it kept rising, against his will, as another tentacle, of the same green as the first, flashed down and took hold of it. The fellow struggled a bit, but his attempt to regain control of the gun was cut short by the appearance of yet another squid-like appendage, which took a secure grip on his skull. Both gun and man vanished upwards.

An incoherent yell pulled my attention to the still open door of the room. One of the two men who had been guarding the hallway appeared to be about to enter the room, I suppose to discuss where his pals had gone, when his face turned to look down the hallway. An comical look of surprise grew on his face, in the second before he was struck by the fast moving body of the last of our party crashers. Both of them flew out of view.

Jack made a tut-tut noise. I finished my whiskey.

A man in a black suit, with shoulders so wide he had to turn sideways to pass through the door and the sloping brow of a Neanderthal stepped into the room.

“Mista Grin'lbone would like to give his apologies for the bother. He would be 'ere to give them himself, but he is supa'vising the intaview with the gennelmen who caused the ruckus. He ast that you be tol' that your tab for the evening is covered.”

Jack and I nodded at each other, and Jack raised his glass of oil to the huge bouncer. Nodding, the bouncer turned sideways and edged back out the door.

The entire sequence of events had taken just over two minutes.

In which spoils are divided and drinks are spoiled

I figured I owed Automatic Jack a drink. Given that he'd been taken hostage while collecting money for me on bets I wasn't supposed to be making, and threatened with death as a way to force me to do something I really didn't want to do, it seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do.

So, immediately after handing a still warm, severed arm to the bastard who had been the cause of all of this, he and I made Grindlebone's our destination.

I call Jack a he, but it wasn't because of any obvious sexual characteristics on his part. Automatic Jack wasn't a flesh and blood creature, but an autonomous mechanical being. He might have been an actual robot, although his ramshackle, thrown together appearance suggested otherwise. I suspected he was either a spirit inhabiting a pile of random, humanoid shaped junk, or some sort of metal golem. I'd wondered about it, on occasion, but the situation had never seemed quite right for broaching the subject. I had quite a good friend in Jack, so it hardly mattered.

Grindlebone's, the location to which we conveyed ourselves, is one of my favorite watering holes. It managed to be both spacious and intimate through clever use of furnishings, had a number of Doors leading to a number of widely disparate places, and served surprisingly diverse and well prepared food, along with a vast array of drinks. Grindlebone often tends one of the scattered bars himself. He said it made the place more homey for the regulars.

Indeed, we saw the man himself as Jack and I entered through the Door leading from the Gambling Hell. General asking-after of each others health followed, and Jack and I were granted use of one Grin's private rooms. Jack and I had business to discuss, after all.

“Well,” Grin said, “You two head back on past the hall heading towards the pool room, walk through the next set of curtains, let yourselves in the purple door. I'll send Janx along with your drinks presently. And don't worry, it's a real quiet room. Oh, and avoid the back Oak Room, there's a bit of an altercation going on there, right now.”

Grin had added the last to let us know the room would be as secure as he could make it; some of his so-called private rooms were just private enough to let people think they weren't being watched. Not that either Jack or I had anything to hide at the moment, but it was a nice touch nonetheless.

So we wandered along to the designated spot, although we did take a peak into the Oak Room. A gang of the Red Brotherhood were lighting each other up pretty hard in there. They'd probably asked specifically for that room, too, as it was out of the way and the solid wood furnishings lowered the damage charges they'd inevitably be paying. The furnishings also made cracking weapons.

The room on the other side of the purple door was quite comfortable. The drinks that came along shortly after we arrived, whiskey for me, Bertham's Oil for Jack, made it even more so. Being metal and all, I don't think Jack could have been tired in the same way I was, but the day must have been quite wearing on him mentally, and for a moment we simply savored the alcohol and sat quietly. But there was business to be done, and we got down to it in relatively short order.

I leaned forward as Jack grasped the plate of iron covering his chest and lifted it off. Once it had been removed, two small metal grates that had been concealed underneath the plate swing open, and a box extruded from Jack's chest cavity. He removed the box and set it on the table between us, as the grates closed again.

While a bastard, the person who had taken Jack hostage had at least been a truthful bastard. He had promised, upon my completion of his task, to release Jack unharmed and with all of the currency he had been carrying. The cash was all Gambling Hell Exchange Vouchers, and it made quite a nice pile on the table.

Jack said, “I still can't say the day wasn't worth it, not while I'm looking at this much money.”

“Jack, my cast-iron friend, you are not wrong. By the way, I think I owe you an apology.”

Jack pshaw-ed the very idea, and we engaged in a friendly argument over who owed whom what, all the while dividing our large pile of money into two smaller, but still very attractive, piles. When the division was complete, we both settled back in our seats, and commenced with a discussion of what really quite clever and fine fellows we both were. And now moderately wealthy, to boot.

It was at this point that our budding mutual appreciation ended prematurely, due to the appearance of some heavily armed people, coming through the door to our room. Two hairy men in scruffy combat gear cleared the corners and then brought the muzzles of their guns to bear on Jack and I, still sitting quietly behind a table piles high with money.

Sighing, I took a sip of my whiskey. This day simply would not end.

In which I am chased by werewolves

I ran as fast as I could. I had been running for quite a while, so that was not very fast, but I was still moving. The pack of werewolves that was following me made sure of that.

They weren’t really werewolves, not in the classic sense. This particular Earth parallel had found its destruction at the hands of a plague that killed most of the population and drastically reduced the intelligence of the survivors. The few who were still alive had become feral creatures and responded badly to anyone that entered their territory. I had entered their territory. Now, I was prey.

Normally, I wouldn’t have had a huge problem with this. I can bridge across most dimensional rifts, so my normal response to having unfriendly locals chasing me was to ‘port myself to a more genial locale. This particular parallel, however, had been declared off limits by the Travelers Guild, in all of their idiotic wisdom. They had done whatever they do to keep people out, which meant that I could not open a bridge at will. In order to avoid the ‘werewolves’ and leave this place safely, I had to reach a stationary gate. Luckily, the locals really were quite stupid, and the gate was now very near.

Yes, I know that I ended my last entry in the midst of what should have been a very lucrative card game. Various things had occurred which led inevitably from that point to this. Suffice it to say that the Immunoman who had sat across from me during the card game, the Infected fellow in the full isolation gear, had turned out to be not very nice at all. When I had chosen to give up my seat at the table, he had accompanied me, and explained that I was going to undertake an incredibly dangerous trip to a forbidden, diseased world and bring something back, or else.

I scoffed of course, even going so far as to laugh into my whiskey and deride his intelligence. He had then explained that one of the officials of the Gambling Hell was well aware of my placing bets through a proxy while also receiving a percentage on my play from the house. This official, a close friend of the Immunoman to whom I was speaking, was prepared to issue a lifetime ban on me for breaking the rules of the house.

Furthermore, a close friend of mine, who had collected my winnings from Andros and X after I had left the Hi-Low table, had been taken as a hostage. In the off chance that I was willing to accept a ban from the Hell just to spite the Immunoman, who I had admittedly come to loathe in a remarkably short period of time, this friend would then be exposed to the Immmunoman’s touch, which would result in their messy and painful death.

Alternately, I could choose to accept the snatch and grab mission. Not only would my violation of the Gambling Hell’s rules be overlooked, I would be allowed to have the percentage I had bought from the house. My friend would be released unharmed and still in possession of the cash they had received before being kidnapped.

All that would be required was to step through a gate, and find something. Granted, on the other side of the gate would be a world in ruins. A world destroyed by a hideous disease, for which there was no cure. Once in this hell, I would have to search out the very dangerous, highly contagious locals, secure a piece of still warm flesh of not less than two kilograms, then make a happy jaunt back to the gate. What could go wrong?

This might seem like an odd and pointless thing to ask someone to do. Why not just leave well enough alone? You see, the Infected made their money by curing disease, oddly enough. Their mighty immune systems let them be exposed to infections that would destroy most other organisms, and distill a cure from their blood. They were unparalleled masters of curing diseases. They also needed diseases to survive, as a way to keep their immune systems occupied fighting outside invaders, and new sicknesses were always needed. A new, uncured disease could therefore be sold to both those who might contract the disease and to the Infected themselves. A third source of income could be gained by buying sole rights to the world the infection had come from, then allowing immunized colonists to reclaim the abandoned world and kill off the diseased original inhabitants. All of these together would profit the Immunoman who secured the first strain of a new disease immensely. More than enough to make the commission of bribery, kidnapping, and blackmail worthwhile, really.

This is how I found myself leaning against a wall in a room on the second story of a ruined house in the middle of what had been London, unless I missed my guess.

My gasps for breath served as a counterpoint to the constant thumping coming from downstairs. The disease that had run amok on this world had reduced the intelligence of the survivors to the point where I had bought myself some breathing room by simply closing the front door behind me as I entered the house. No longer understanding how doorknobs worked, the werewolves were reduced to throwing themselves against the door as hard as they could. One would beat itself senseless against the still solid oak while the others ran in circles, barking and yipping. Three to one said that if I just kept quiet for long enough, they’d forget why they had been trying to break through the door, and go running off, chasing birds.

Of course, there always have to be the smart ones, two of whom I heard coming up the back stairs. They must have circled the house and found an open back door. They had no concept of stealth, though, so when the door finally burst open, I was ready for them.

The first one through took a solid blow to the side of the head, delivered by the hunk of meat I was engaged in bringing back to the Immunoman. As the hunk of meat was most of a left arm, it worked quite nicely as a club. The werewolf fell into a heap under the window, as I punched the second one in the head with my left hand.

As I believe I mentioned, my left hand is not flesh, but metal. As such, striking the werewolf with it did me no harm at all, while doing a great deal of damage to it. My fist was in fact stuck in its skull, so that by turning and bringing my arm around, I managed to throw the now limp body at the other werewolf. Which worked out nicely, as both of them were pushed through the window, falling into the front yard below.

So I continued on my merry way. Down the rear stairs, out the back door, across the backyard, quickly over a wall, and there I was at the gate leading out of this place.

Well, now, there you have it. Blackmail, through a gate, stealthy search, steal an arm, a bit of running, some medium violence, back to the gate, and bob’s yer uncle, the job was done.

It started at a card game

Some people swear by card games like Dragon Poker, or Cripple Mr. Onion, or Damage, even Double Fanucci. Some people play Pyramid, or Tall Card; hell, I've known some who swear Cups is the greatest game ever invented. Personally, I like my games a little more basic. Blackjack works for me, War, and I have taken part in some very lucrative rounds of Combat 52 Pick-Up. Won an enchanted sword at that, one fine night.

But when I’m in the Gambling Hell, I play Hi-Low. Well, I bet on Hi-Low. The actual game is as simple as can be. Two to four players take turns drawing off a standard deck, and the highest card wins. Winner of the last round draws first, then draw proceeds around to the left, until all players have drawn, at which point all players show their cards. That’s the whole game.

Betting on Hi-Low, now, is something else entirely. You can bet on the winner, on who gets second, third, or fourth card; you can bet on whether one player will beat another, on the number of times a given player will win or lose, on the total number of wins or loses by a particular player, on the number of times a particular player will win or lose in a row, on how many times a particular suit or number will appear during a set run of draws. You can, in fact bet on anything that comes into your head, as long as you can find a taker. Some of these bets may seem like incredible long shots, involving sets of factors on which no person could possibly make odds. When the individuals who make up the betting pool include Demon Princes and hypermetric computational entities, psychic precognatives, persons with access to workable methods of scrying and divination, those who can speak to the unquiet dead, and Stochastic Men who read order into chaos, well, all bets are off, no pun intended.

So the simple game was really the quiet eye of a very complicated storm of wagers, some taking place before the game began, some taking place before each shuffle, some taking place before or after each player made their draw.

I’ve made a good amount of cash over the years, betting on my gut. Today, though, today I was flush, and felt lucky, so I’d gone whole hog. I’d bought a spot at the table, and hedged it so guaranteed to leave with at least something I wanted, and possibly a whole lot of it. See, along with my place at the table, I’d bought a percentage on my bets. That is, I’d bought, from the management of the Gambling Hell, a payback on winning bets placed on me. The Hell took a 1% fee for all bets placed, win or lose. Of the money they took for those bets based on my place in every draw, I got 2% of what they took. Way I figured it, if I stayed in the game long enough, I was bound to at least make back the cost of my place at the table, and maybe the percentage charge as well.

However, my real hope for cashing in lay with Andros and X, my betting partners. Andros and X were very successful professional Hi-Low bettors, with a clocked win rate of 56%. It wasn’t strictly legal, by the house rules, for me to have money on a match while I was getting the percentage back. You could get paid coming or going, but not both. It was one of those rules that everyone broke. It was a way for the Hell to toss out people they didn’t want around anymore. The Gambling Hell never let its own regulations get in the way of business. Bless the owners’ black and flabby little hearts.

So I spent ten hours sitting around a small, well-lit table, drawing cards, eating free food and drinking free drinks, listening to the joy and pain of the betting crowd roll over me at the end of each draw.

My fellow card players were an interesting lot, too. The fellow across from me was wearing a containment suit, with the most complete coverage I’d ever seen. Made sense, really, as he was one of the Infected, from a locality of such lethal diseases that that the local human stock had evolved to the point where they could survive anything but the absence of disease. The containment suit was as much for him as for the rest of us; if the illnesses he carried had spread, instead of re-infecting him constantly, his super-charged immune system would have begun to destroy him for lack of anything else to fight.

To the right, there was one of the Celestial Architects. This particular specimen might have been human or human derived, but who could tell without asking impertinent questions? It was humanoid, anyway. The Architects made their money by using proprietary dimensional and temporal technology to produce made to order planets, solar systems, localities, and other, more outré topographic places for customers with very deep pockets. I’d never been this close to one before. A bit staid for my tastes, but very polite.

Our fourth for the game was less commonplace than the rest of us. Wreathed in shadow, even under the table’s spotlights, it seemed composed of writhing tentacles, red, staring, only occasionally visible eyes, and distractingly misshapen appendages, it was an authentic Deep One, a horror from beyond space and time. It had spent the game snacking on small, screaming creatures it grabbed from a covered dish beside the table and speaking in a voice that was composed of hugely disconcerting buzzing, whistling, and screeching, which was only slightly improved by the cultured Indian accent that came out of the thing’s translation cube. For all of the Deep One’s off-putting presence, it did make quite amiable small talk.

And there was me. Compared to these three, I was as normal as could be, even with my third eye, and the left hand made of crimson metal.