Red Hand

Mayfair

2009-10-27T03:27:00.001-04:00

When the door of the booth closed, I found myself in pitch darkness. After a moment, I reached to open the door again, thinking the booth had malfunctioned, but the door didn't seem to be there anymore. It also seemed like the seat of the booth had vanished, along with the floor. In fact, the entire booth had vanished, and I was floating in black nothingness.

Well, finding Mayfair was turning out to be as weird as the rest of the crap that had been going on lately.

I floated awhile before an image began appearing, the kind of afterimage that is imprinted on your eyes after staring at a bright light, but quickly became realistic and lifelike. What appeared was the design that I had seen on Tub'la's book and tattooed on the angel, made of what appeared to be a multicolored diamond of a size that dwarfed me. The colors in the design began to shift and strobe, faster and faster, making my eyes water, until they finally resolved into a picture of Jack and I, sitting in a private room in Grindlebone's bar. I felt a jarring sense of being in two places at once, as I felt like I was both in the scene and watching it from somewhere behind my head.

From my divided perspective I watched my life of the past few weeks run again, from the moment before Tub'la and his men made their entrance to the room at Grin's. The dream of the angel, committing a kidnapping for Jubjub, and the meeting with Vard flashed past. Then came my abduction by and escape from the nightmare creature, which led to my strange arrival on the deck of Sachiko's ship, the Void Dog. Cobo Landing, the Blind Lady, being taken in by the Sig Nomad, my trek across the primordial desert; all of these happened again, and I felt each sensation associated with each experience. Awe, terror, desperation, safety, pain, comfort, thirst; each came back as I lived through the appropriate scene.

Finally, my life came again to the small information booth on the quiet street corner, and again I stepped inside. And darkness enveloped me, again.

Another period of nothingness passed, until finally more images began to appear.

I saw myself as a youngster. Living on the streets of a dingy city, I would snatch purses and wallets for money. I saw myself threading my way through dense traffic, a constable in close pursuit. I dodged and weaved my way across the street, then dove through a tiny hole at the base of a wall. Before the constable could make his way over the wall, I'd sped across the lot behind, kicked open a wooden door that lead out into an alley, and slid through a small window at the base of the building. I'd already skinned the money from the wallet and dropped it in a furnace by the time the constable's feet pounded by the window and out to the alley. Sit tight five minutes, then saunter casual-like somewhere to buy food.

But I could see that this time, I'd cut my left hand good and long on the wall as I rolled through it. And over the next months, I watched the infection spread and kill the hand slowly. Felt it, too, in the hand I didn't have anymore. It hurt, and slowed the younger version of me down enough that I finally got nicked. Time in the Gaol for theft, time in a government home for not having parents, time with doctors getting my dead hand cut off. Time fighting in the yard, finding out how to poke out eyes with my stump, how to hit the solar plexus right on. Then, one day it all went away, except for a flash here and there, nothing I could make sense of, except that the crimson metal hand that replaced my real one would flash by now and again. Then nothingness.

A huge image of the hand appeared, turning in the darkness. I felt a cold interest from the void around me, and I knew that whatever had studied me was studying the hand just as closely.

The angel design reappeared alongside the hand, and images of the angel and the book locket superimposed themselves behind it. Vard the demon swirled into view next to the angel.

As I thought the word 'angel', a sense of wrongness came from the void. An image of mind destroying beauty and light flashed in front of me, a feeling of purity and power came along with it, which made me cry out in shock and pain. The image was too much for any tiny being like myself to bear.

That was an angel.

What I'd seen in my dream was... angelic. That got a feeling of rightness from whatever it was that was surrounding me. It wasn't pure enough to be an angel. And Vard wasn't a demon, he was demonic. Neither one was more than a pale shadow of what the presented themselves as.

After the feeling I'd gotten from the picture of a true angel, I took a moment to feel grateful that whatever was running this show hadn't felt the need to display a true demon.

More images, with accompanying understanding, came to me. The angelic and the demonic didn't want me, really, they wanted... my hand? Yes, something about my prosthetic was what had attracted them. Tub'la and the nightmare creature, too, they had wanted to remove the hand from me. But the void around me, which seemed to know so much, couldn't say why the hand was important. It hadn't been able to unlock the blank period in my memory, which covered the time when I had come into possession of the hand.

As enlightening as this all had been, I had been getting more and more aggravated by the high-handed manner in which I'd been treated since entering the booth. I didn't like having someone, something, rummaging around in my memories. So I closed two of my eyes, and opened the third.

I wasn't in darkness anymore. I was surrounded by coruscating light. The booth, and whatever space I was now in, they were both extrusions of a higher dimensional being. This was Mayfair. It wasn't a person, moving by hidden pathways from world to world, but something above us; not a super-being, but a supra-being. Mayfair was holding me like a man would hold an insect, except that Mayfair could see inside of me, and into my mind.

With my Eye open, Mayfair's messages were crystal clear. It couldn't tell me why the hand was so important, but something in it held the key to something that a lot of people wanted. The hand couldn't be taken from me, or the hand's intelligence would rebel against the taker. But if I gave it up freely, it would be of some use in discovering whatever it was it held the key to. Some who were searching for the hand wouldn't care about that, and would kill me and take the hand just to keep others from gaining access to it. Mayfair had managed to divine one thing from my fractured memory: the name of a place where the hand might have originated.

Seeing the totality of Mayfair was more disconcerting than the rerun of my memories, so I closed my Eye and returned to the blessed darkness.

Home and away again

2009-10-15T04:33:00.001-04:00

Forty-eight hours after walking out of the desert, I found myself standing with Van Zandt on an odd street corner in one of the newly opened realities on the edge of Congeries space.

The intervening two days had been quite full. I'd intended to get to Grin's place immediately, but the call of a good night's sleep at my place in Paedarc had overrode that impulse. I'd showered, slept, showered again, burned the remnants of clothes I'd walked the desert in, showered a third time, then made my way to the bar. The welcome from Grin and Van Zandt was equal parts 'we're glad to see you' and 'where the hell has your dumb-ass been', which was seconded by Jack when he ran in a few minutes later. Ever been slapped in the back of the head by an all metal hand? Not a lot of fun.

I gave them the rundown on how I'd come to be missing for three weeks, local time, and we'd spent some time chewing over the various questions all of what I'd been through raised. No one was quite sure what had kidnapped me originally. Van Zandt was fascinated by both the deep ships and the Sig Nomad; Her interest in new cultures most definitely included the cultures of various types of travelers. Everybody was keen on the Sig Nomad's method of travel, and were very interested in Sachiko. Van Zandt and Grin shared a meaningful glance when I mentioned her. Sigh.

Jack had read the crystal I'd gotten from the Jubjub Bird, giving the location of Mayfair the ethnographer. Four different locations, actually, two of which none of us had ever heard of. The closest one was just a hop, skip, and Step away, though. But it did only give the location, not any clue as to who at the location might be the elusive Mayfair. The directions just said to go to a particular city, to a particular street corner, and look in an information booth. I suppose there couldn't be too many people in there.

Jack had also brought back a data stick from Charom, containing a copy of the mind of the recently executed Gundar Tub'la, the man who'd burst in so rudely on Jack and I a few weeks before. So far, all that he'd been able to glean from Tub'la's cyber-psyche was that Gundar was an angry man who didn't feel like answering any questions. The only thing that brought any type of other answer was when he was asked about the locket/book with the angelic design, which only made the display show the design itself. Interesting, but hardly informative.

The four of us talked for a good long time, and proceeded to get pretty well into our cups as the hours waxed on. Van Zandt finally helped Grin stumble out of the room, telling me she'd set me up with a place to sleep once she got the big guy situated. Jack and I chatted, and I was about to ask him if he actually got drunk, or if he just faked it to make his biological pals feel like he was part of the scene, but I fell asleep on the couch first.

I'm not sure what kind of arm-twisting Van Zandt did to Grin that he didn't object when she said she was coming with me to meet Mayfair, but given how sheepish he looked when she said it, it must have been something to see. Jack wanted to come, too, but the info on Milgrum, the just-opened locale where Mayfair was supposed to be, didn't say what the locals attitude towards non-humans might be. Jack could pass for a robot quite easily, but we didn't know if that would be any better. So it ended up being just Van Zandt and me. She was almost giddy when we headed out.

It took a few hours to cross the territory to a place where we could Step into Milgrum. While I'd been away, Grindlebone had used his connections to secure a list of relatively safe transfer points across the outer zone, where the area of the Traveler's Guild gave way to the unknown. Milgrum was right on the edge of the Guild's sphere of influence, at the point on the map where the gray of uncontrolled space turned to the black of the unknown. The Guild would not have been happy they knew where we were trying to go. This wasn't just a case of the Guild being contrary; the uncontrolled worlds didn't have any safeguards in place to minimize the risk of dangerous things crossing into world that weren't ready for them. Our crossing to the very edge of their space did represent a bit of a danger, but we weren't planning on buying any fruit, so I figured we were gonna be OK.

Milgrum turned out to be quite pleasant, all in all. The trees that lined the wide boulevards of the city we landed in were an odd brownish purple color, but otherwise it was like most cities I'd been in; Cobo Landing had seemed more obviously alien.

We landed a short distance from the location Jubjub had given us, and a quick walk got us to a deserted street corner. Oddly shaped vehicles rolled quietly past, but none of the locals seemed to be about. The only thing of any interest at all was a small green kiosk, which had 'Information' written down the side in white letters. Van Zandt and I spent almost half an hour loitering, making small talk, and shuffling back and forth nonchalantly, while no one at all walked by. Finally, out of bored desperation, I asked Van Zandt to go over what she knew about Mayfair.

I nearly jumped out of my skin, because just after I said 'Mayfair', the door of the green booth snapped open. The open door let us see the comfortable, if small, interior of the booth. A small screen above the door flashed to life, and words scrolled across it.

'Questions? Questions about Mayfair? Enter, and ask to your heart's content!'

The Long Walk

2009-10-06T07:56:00.001-04:00

Even through my dark goggles, the glare of the desert would burn my eyes when the sun was high. From rise to set, the sun would force my eyes into a tight squint and make them water. By the end of each day, each side of my face would have a line of salt running down it, marking the path my tears had taken. The heat of the sand rose through my boots and scorched my feet, and every breath was like inhaling fire while the sun was up. Time was broken not by seconds and minutes, but by single trudging steps taken up and down the slopes of vast sand dunes. For days I had followed the silent man through the desert, maybe weeks. I had lost track in the unchanging cycle of cruelly hot days and painfully cold nights.

In the few seconds of rest and clear thought I managed, in the moments just before exhausted sleep or just after waking, I would question my choice to follow the silent man into the desert.

When Sachiko had mentioned the Sig Nomad to me as an option for making my way across the unfriendly reaches of the Boundless Realm, she had spoken of them as a group of freedom fighters, striking against the Realm's Jump Cops. When I had actually made contact, though, I found out that the Sig Nomad which fought for free travel in the Realm was only a small part of a large confederation of wanderers, most of whom were only slightly concerned with the actions of the Jump Cops.

The majority of the Sig Nomad were just that, nomads who wandered all the paths between realities, no matter how basic or esoteric they might be. Most weren't concerned with annoyances like the Realm because the Realm's ability to hinder the Sig Nomad's travel was negligible, at best. The Realm simply didn't know enough to be able to stop the nomads from going anywhere they wanted to.

So the small group who, more as a lark than anything else, bedeviled the Jump Cops, had passed me on to other members of the Sig Nomad who they said would be better able to help me. After some discussion, the elder members of the Sig Nomad had decided that I could be helped. Maybe.

I had always thought of my being able to Step across dimensional barriers as a gift, something that set me apart from most beings I encountered in my normal life. Sure, they could travel from place to place by gate almost as easily as I could, but only almost. They had to depend on gates, and spells, and continua craft for their movement, while I could Step at will from place to place, anytime I wished, mostly. But the Sig Nomad thought of my gift as the bare minimum of what would be considered acceptable for a nomad. My ability was circumscribed in ways I didn't always understand, which they found both unacceptable and hilarious in varying degrees. To the nomads, a gate or a bridge or a spell of traversal, and even my ability, were expressions of a misunderstanding about the nature of space.

The nomads saw all places as one, the seeming separation being an expression of the limits of the minds of most beings. They 'walked' from place to place only because that was the easiest way for the three-dimensional brain to convince itself to shift its focus from one 'place' to another. True masters were said to be able to manifest themselves anywhere they wished to, and in as many locations as they wished to. Like masters of any art form, though, nomad masters were rare as true oracles, honest politicians, and real love.

So the Sig Nomad agreed to let me learn to 'walk' from place to place, if I could. I was taken to a town on the edge of a vast desert, presented to the silent man, and told to follow him wherever he went. If I survived, it was possible I'd learn enough to get where I wanted to go.

So I followed the silent man as he walked behind the caravan for days, and I followed the silent man when he left the caravan and walked into the desert.

If all places are one, then all deserts are one. If you walk into the desert, away from anything else but the sand and the air and the sun, and into the place where there is only desert, where you aren't in a desert but in the desert, the desert that is the mother of all deserts, it's just possible that you can pass to another place altogether.

If the desert doesn't kill you first.

The silent man could have lead me through a forest, or out into the ocean, or across frozen wastes. The details would have been different, but the experience would have been mostly the same. Humans, in particular, have to be damn near killed before they can give up the attachment to being in one place, and one place alone. It's remarkably hard to let yourself be... indeterminate.

There was a change, one day that was exactly like the ones before. There was a change in where I stood in the universe. I was nowhere, and I knew exactly where I was.

I knew if I went that way, I'd be near home. So, I walked that way. It wasn't until night fell that I realized that the silent man had been following me.

For two day, I knew I was walking in the right direction, but my destination grew no closer. I'd found my way to nowhere, but I didn't know how to get out. Another day of heat and plodding steps followed, another day of moving without getting anywhere. At midday I stopped, feeling the heat of the sun through my head cover, and the heat of the sand through my shoes, and the pull of the place I wanted to go in front of me, and the feeling of nowhere at my back. I took a step forward, but I didn't move. The pull ahead of me was no stronger, and the feeling of nowhere behind me had not lessened at all.

I stood with my eyes closed. I willed myself towards the pull. Nothing changed. I was suspended between nowhere and somewhere, perfectly balanced.

If all places are one, somewhere and nowhere are both here; Right where I am, I thought. One being in front and one behind was arbitrary. It might as well be that one was above and one below...

Suddenly I was falling. My feet were firmly planted, but the feeling of dropping precipitously was undeniable. I fell, the sand painful against my hands and knees. While I tried to collect myself, something became clear. The pull of my destination was stronger. I hadn't moved, and yet I had.

What if my destination was downhill?

I stood up, and trudged up the next dune, all the time sliding downhill in my mind. When I crested the dune, I could see, shimmering in the distance, a small fort on the edge of the desert; a fort where just a short while ago, I had kidnapped a man in exchange for information. A fort that I knew was only a short series of Steps from home.

I looked back at the silent man. We looked at one another for a long moment until, with a short nod, he turned and walked back the way we had come. Two hours later, I walked out of the desert.

Thoughts on troubles

2009-09-15T00:46:00.000-04:00

I don't know what was kept in the bag before it had been put over my head, but I counted myself lucky it hadn't been anything too stenchful. The ropes around my wrists and the manner I was being transported were both relatively comfortable, too. The Sig Nomad might have not been sure they could trust me, but at least they weren't making the experience of being taken to see their local commander more painful than it had to be. I sat, eyes blinded and wrists bound, in what, from the sound, seemed to be a horse drawn conveyance, listening to the men guarding me chat companionably about this and that, sprinkling insults on the Epsilon Soldiers liberally through their discourse.

The Epsilon Soldiers of the Boundless Realm, known colloquially as 'Jump Cops', didn't control individual dimensions or worlds, for the most part. What they did control was the means of traveling from one place to another, through their stranglehold on trans-dimensional gates. They were the only ones allowed to manufacture or operate the gates, and they were the only ones who had sensors that let them track any movement across dimensions, be it psychic, magic, or scientific in nature. If you wanted to trade with the world next door and you were in the Jump Cop's territory, you had to pay them, and you had to agree to enforce their rules. If you didn't pay, or enforce the rules, or kowtow to whatever their whims might be, your access to trade and travel could be cut off like wheat under the scythe. If you tried to trade without paying their tithe anyway, the Epsilon Soldiers would declare your world to be forfeit, which would mean invasion and destruction of a scale most places had never known. When the dust settled, the world you used to own would be theirs to use as they saw fit, and so would you. And no one would some to your aid, because no one else wanted to be next on the list for invasion.

They didn't trust magic, and they didn't trust psychics, and they had a habit of doing things to the ones they caught to keep these 'messy' forms of travel in check. If you were going to travel, you went through their gates, and if you went through their gates, they wanted to know why, and the reason had better be one they liked. Stepping under my own steam, I wouldn't have made enough progress to make it worth the energy it would have taken, or worth the beating I would have gotten once the Jump Cops got their hands on me. Trying to move through their gates would have seen me detained the first time I tried to cross, and held until they figured out what I was up to.

Which, given that Cobo Landing, where I was, had the whole of the Boundless Realm between it and Grindlebone's, where I wanted to be, meant I was in a bit of a pickle. It was theoretically possible I could have traveled by deep ship, or under my own power, around the outer edge of the Realm, but I didn't have the years it would have taken to spare.

Sachiko, the new friend I had made after dropping onto the deck of her deep ship in mid transit, had suggested I attempt to contact the Sig Nomad, who she said were dedicated to wresting free movement from the Realm. Doing so was what had led me to being in the back of this vehicle, blind and bound.

With this time on my hands, and very little to occupy my mind, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd ever make it home. There was a lot of distance and any number of obstacles between where I was and where I wanted to be, and there was nothing to say I'd ever make it back. I felt more alone than I could ever remember, and lost. Even Sachiko had only been able to say that the Sig Nomad might be able to help. They were the only hope I had, right now.

I had considered, briefly, seeing if I could use the hand to tear away another hole, like the one I'd used to escape the beast that had captured me, the hole that had led me to land on the deck of the Void Dog. Even if I had known how to make the hand do that at will, it still seemed like ripping holes in the local fabric of reality would be a very bad idea. Unneighborly, to say the least.

Right now, more than anything, I wanted to be back at Grindlebone's bar, sipping a whiskey and listening to Jack and Van Zandt trade stories. My life had been only moderately interesting before this week, and I'd quite enjoyed it that way. I didn't need angels and demons and monsters coming after me for reasons I couldn't seem to grasp. I didn't want armed thugs ruining quiet drinks with friends. I did want quiet uncomplicatedness.

But that didn't seem to be up to me, right now.

The Blind Lady's place

2009-09-12T01:57:00.003-04:00

The fortune teller Sachiko sent me to was not at all what I expected.

I'd hit the Sanctum of the Blind Lady directly after finishing business at Pendross' shop. The old man behind the counter had been fascinated by my left hand. He'd insisted on opening the whole thing up, kept muttering technical specs and oohing and aahing as he looked through its innards. I'd practically had to pry the thing out of his hands when I wanted to leave; he'd wanted to keep the thing for a night so he could take it apart. When he'd let go of it, sighing with regret, and asked me to do him the kindness of bringing it to him if the hand should ever need repair, but the look in his eye seemed to say he didn't think that would be any time soon. With the hand back in place on my arm, and the fear chip the old man had removed from it secured in a small compartment I hadn't known the hand possessed, I left Pendross' and headed to see the next person Sachiko had recommended, the Blind Lady.

Her shop was small, nestled between a bar and a large emporium, but seemed impressive nonetheless. It was light stone, a single story structure with a bowed front, and two large, curtained windows on either side of a solid wooden door. Above the door, there was a round window of colored glass, shaped into some sort of mystic symbol, or so it looked to my untrained eye.

I'd gotten a picture in my head of an old woman with paper-thin skin, wrapped in a shawl and sitting behind a table with a crystal ball on it, maybe throwing yarrow rods or rings to tell people their future. But when the door opened, after a small eye set in the door popped open and scanned me from toes to hair, I set eyes on a strong woman, a few inches taller than me, dressed in sweat-stained workout clothes. She had broad shoulders and her sleeveless arms showed well-toned muscle, and the only thing that seemed out of place was the blindfold of blue cloth embroidered with gold stars that covered her eyes.

“My apologies. I'd hoped to be cleaned up before you arrived, but the Sight can be a little off when comes to exact timing.”

“Ah... OK. I mean, it's fine. I mean, I didn't mean to be late...” I took a breath and got a hold of myself. “A friend of mine, Sachiko, she said it was worth coming to see the Blind Lady. My name's Red Hand.”

“I can see why. Sr. Pendross must have been beside himself with joy when you walked into his shop. Welcome to my house, Sr. Hand; enter in peace. I 'm Aisling Guida.” She stepped back and held the door wide, motioning me to enter.

The room I entered was spare, holding only a table and two chairs. Though the windows that flanked the door were curtained, the white-washed walls and floor spread the colored light coming through the upper window, and managed to make the room feel both open and intimate. A second door, opposite the door I'd just come through, lead farther back into the building, with the table directly between them.

At the Lady's gesture, I sat in one of the chairs. Settling herself opposite me, she laid her hands flat on the table and regarded me silently for a few moments. The cloth over her eyes didn't stop the weight of her gaze from settling on me. Then she nodded, as if satisfied, and relaxed a bit.

“So, how can I be of assistance?”

“I'm not sure. A friend of mine, Sachiko, she sails the Void Dog...”

“Yes, I know Sachiko.”

“Right, Sachiko said it might be worthwhile to see you, before I moved on from here.”

“Did you have a specific question you wanted help with?”

“No, not really. Like I said, Sachiko said it might be worthwhile to come, but I don't have anything in particular, y'know, she was right about going to Pendross', so...”

“Hmm. Well, would you like me to do a reading for you?”

“What would that entail? I mean, what do I do for that?”

“Nothing, really. Just clear your mind of any specific thoughts and give me your hand.” She said, extending her own hands towards me. Without really thinking, I put my metal left hand in hers. When I tried to pull it back, stammering, hoping she didn't think I was trying to be funny, she wouldn't let me. She pulled the hand closer to her, bringing my chest flush with the table. She leaned forward, bringing her clothed eyes near to the hand's reflective surface.

“My. My word. Mr. Pendross must have been very excited to see you.”

“He did seem excited, yes.”

“Your friend is old. Yes. It's memory is somewhere else, now, but the substance knows its own age. It likes you, very much. This is a gift, Red. You gained much more than you lost, when this hand was joined to you. The one's who gave it to you didn't know it. They had no idea, no idea at all.”

“Can you tell me about them? The people who installed it?”

“No... it was lost for a long time, and when it was found, you gained it immediately. Whoever gave it to you barely touched it.”

“Just my luck.”

“Again, whatever happened that brought it to you, you came out ahead.” Looking unsatisfied, she curled the metal fingers and let go of them. “There's quite a lot more, but it's beyond what I can see. I think you might have more success asking it yourself. Your metal friend is quite self-aware, and it trusts you much more than it trusts me.”

“That's good to know, at least. I just found out today how smart it is. Thanks. Sachiko said you'd work with me on some form of payment?”

“Drop anchor, there, sailor. Miss Aisling's wonderama and floor show isn't over yet. Give me your other hand.” She rapped the table twice and held out her hands again, smiling at me mischievously. I put my right hand in hers. She focused on it, running her fingers over my palm.

“You had a rough start. Not much in the way of being taken care of. You drifted, in more ways than one. Much of it you've locked away, and for good reason. Then, darkness falls... you didn't do it, it was taken away from you.” She turned my hand to catch the light better. “You've traveled far, and you'll travel farther still. You're not a hero, but you will be called on to perform as one, rising to the occasion when you must. Death will come near you, but not to you, many times before you end.”

“Should I be happy or sad about that?”

“That's up to you.” She flashed me another smile, then returned to scrutinizing my hand. “Those around you are oak, strong and constant. You flow like water, finding the path that others miss, that they cannot see, that even you may not see. Right now, there are a number of different forces centered on you, and your metal friend. There are different factions that seek to gain your allegiance, but none would benefit you more than keeping control of your own destiny would. They want to use you, not help you, but their greed gives you opportunity, if you can seize it. In the near future, answers will come to you on the journey you've become. By the time you reach your destination, you will have all you need to play your own game.”

“Should any of this make sense to me?”

“Some of it does, I know. The rest will only be clear in hindsight.” She smiled apologetically. “That's how fortune-telling works, most of the time. Sorry.”

“Can't complain, really. What I did get was... more than I thought I would. More than I thought you would get, I mean.”

“I hear that a lot.” She stood up and opened the door for me. “Good luck to you. You will need it, but I think you'll have it when the time comes.”

“So, what do I owe you?”

“I think I'm going to let you have this one on spec. Just... remember me when this part is all over. What's coming up now looks like just the start of a long road, and we might have a lot of business to do, sometime relatively soon.”

“Are you sure? I don't know if I'll ever be in this neighborhood again, y'know.” She nodded, and we shook hands. The Blind Lady's hand tightened on mine, and she reached out and held it in both hands for a moment before letting go.

“One last thing. When the big show starts, there have to be four of you.”

Talk to the hand

2009-09-10T06:13:00.003-04:00

The sign on the shop had 'Pendross Cybernetic and Bionic' in basic, blocky script. I stood in a shaded doorway across the road from the shop, one who's faded paint and dusty windows seemed to say it hadn't been used in a while. I'd been watching Pendross' door for ten minutes or so, holding my left fist, clenching and unchlenching, in my right hand. I didn't want to cross the street. I didn't want to go in.

I had come to Pendross' because Sachiko had said the owner might be able to tell me something about the prosthetic metal hand I wore on the end of my left arm. This suggestion had come after I had mentioned that I didn't know anything about my prosthesis. This was true. I didn't even know how I'd gotten it.

I have some things about my past I don't remember, that I don't want to remember. Most of my childhood is hazy, at best. It wasn't very pleasant, most of it. I don't have any memory of my mother or father, although I assume I had the usual compliment of both. There were a lot of years of living with different people, and a lot more living on different streets and different squats. A lot of living on scraps, and fighting for leavings out of dumpsters. It's all bits and pieces, without much continuity. And there's a decent stretch of time, I don't know how long, that's pitch black.

I'm pretty sure I got the hand during that period. I think I have might have learned to Step across dimensions somewhere in there, too, although some earlier memories seem to happen in a lot of odd places, so I can't really say. After the black period, the earliest thing I can recall is being escorted out of a place that could have been a laboratory, out to a street in a strange city. The two large individuals escorting me, who looked like men but weren't, took me to a room with a bed, where I slept. When I woke up, I was in a different bed, in a different room, and a different city. I stayed there for two days, mostly sleeping, until I was thrown out by a couple of people who didn't speak any language I could understand.

In the years since, I'd managed to carve out a nice life for myself, and I hadn't thought much about the past. I'd actively avoided it, to be honest. The days before the blackout, they were nothing worth remembering, and there were some things... anyway. The few times I'd tried to think about the blackout period, I'd experienced more than a little panic. Very bad panic. I'd ruined a very nice pair of pants, to be brutally honest.

I knew the hand had its own intelligence. There had been a couple of occasions where it, acting on its own, had saved my life. I thought of it as a friend, albeit one I could barely understand. Having it checked out was logical, though, something I should have done a long time ago. But it had never occurred to me before. I don't know why. Maybe there was a reason for that.

So I stood across from the cyber-shop, metal fist in real hand, fighting down an urge to run.

I looked down at the balled metal fingers. Something else I'd never thought of occurred to me.

“Are you afraid?” I asked, hunched down over the fist. “Is there some reason you don't want me to go in there?” The curled metal fingers loosed, and each one tapped the palm three times. The feeling of panic lessened just slightly. “It is you, isn't it? You're what's making me feel so frightened?”

The feeling vanished, like a soap bubble popping. But that led to a new kind of fear.

“How long... do you do that all the time?” The fingers spread wide, wider than my real fingers could. A point of light appeared on each fingertip, and each curled up until they were pointed at the palm of the hand, making five points of light on the red metal surface. The lights began to move, and letters formed, scrolling across the palm.

'no'

“But sometimes you do, right? You just did!”

'program activates when certain thought patterns emerge. neural feedback is initiated to cause flight response. not under active control. temporary program interrupt in effect'

“You can read my mind?”

'supposition incorrect. alpha waves are scanned for particular pattern. pattern emergence causes sensory interface feedback program activation'

“So, you were built to scare me if I think certain things?”

'supposition incorrect. feedback program non-standard, added as chipset just prior to unit installation on current user'

“You were altered to scare me just before you were put on me? Why? And by who?”

'supposition correct. reasons for alteration: unknown. identity of those responsible for alteration: unknown. warning: program interrupt will become ineffective in 69 seconds'

“Oh, man...”

'to prevent resumption of ill effects due to feedback program, unit must be removed. query: does user wish to remove unit'

“Yes! Now!”

The hand began to cycle through its removal process, releasing its grip and unplugging from the sockets on my forearm. As it finished, I took its weight onto my right hand.

“Is there any way to kill that program? And any others like it you might have in ya?”

'program is chipset. removal of chip from socket 3-SSA will remove program from unit. chip contains only non-pain related response program in unit.'

“Pain related response program?”

'unit can assist user by deadening pain at user request'

“Good to know. If I have the chip pulled, will that do anything to you?”

'unit's efficiency in completing primary function will increase by 1.392%'

“And your primary function is replacing my hand?”

'supposition correct'

“Any particular reason you haven't let me know any of this before now?”

'user made no request for information prior to this point'

“We need to have a long talk sometime soon. How long has it been since you were 'installed'?”

'unit installed on current user 11986355 seconds ago'

“Very informative. Were you on any other users before me?”

'unknown. unit memory begins 2100 seconds before installation on current user.'

“Nothing at all before that?”

'supposition correct. however, memory tags indicate unit memory archived and wiped just prior to installation on current user.'

“That's interesting. And I'm guessing the location of your memory archive is unknown?”

'supposition correct'

“OK. Just to be on the safe side, is there anything this guy might discover by taking a look at you that will get me into trouble?”

'unknown. unit is not familiar with laws of current locale'

“Well then, anything you need him to tend to in ya?”

'unit functioning near optimal, no service currently required.'

“Nine years without a checkup, and you're functioning near optimal, huh? Hardy fella, aren't ya?”

'supposition correct'

I laughed all the way across the street.

Starting homeward

2009-09-08T02:43:00.003-04:00

Three days after Sachiko found me on the deck of the Void Dog, we made port in Cobo Landing. For all three days, I had been feeling the occasional pull of a Stepping point as the spheres of different realities had revolved past the deep ship. Sachiko had found it very interesting, and had begun talking about the uses of having someone with dimension hopping skill as part of an exploratory crew. In the normal course of events, Sachiko would have had to 'land' the Void Dog in an unexplored dimension to find out anything about it, and actually finding the proper entry point was hit or miss, at best. But I could feel when Stepping points were approaching, and when they were closest. I actually got to earn a bit of my keep by Stepping to Cobo Landing and arranging for the slip Sachiko needed for the Void Dog.

Transferring to the slip from the void was very interesting. Stepping is like a bad jump cut in a film; suddenly the scenery is different. But docking a deep ship is gradual, like coming out of a dream. Shapes began to appear in the blackness, solidifying around the ship until the void was gone. In less then five minutes, we were fully docked in the Landing. It was fascinating to experience.

It was nice to be back on solid land, but that was balanced by the fact that I had no idea where Cobo Landing was, and how I was going to get back home. I had assumed that Sachiko's dislike of the Traveler's Guild put me somewhere near my normal stomping grounds, the section of the void she sailed turned out to be, by her choice, quite far away from anywhere the Guild controlled. She said that most deep sailors avoided the Guild worlds. The Guild had no way of tracking ships like the Void Dog, and tended to be heavy handed in their methods of trying to curtail the deep sailor's wanderings. Sachiko's normal route lay just outside the area controlled by the Jump Cops, the so-called 'Boundless Realm'. The Realm, while quite large, was miniscule compared to the Guild's Dimensional Congeries. The Guild's reach extended quite a bit further than I had ever thought. Sachiko had never heard of any of the places I named, except the Gambling Hell, which also seemed to be a much more widespread operation than I had assumed. Her collection of maps might have shown some areas I knew, but the deep sailor method of listing location names and relationships were too foreign to my understanding to be much help.

Sachiko did have some suggestions for at least finding my way back into the Guild Congeries, which might be all I needed.

“I wish you well in your travels, Runcible.” Sachiko told me as I stood on the dock next to the Void Dog. “It has been most enjoyable and illuminating to have you as a guest. Your help today was, also, much appreciated. I hope that your path back to your home is untroubled. Would it make you uncomfortable to receive a gift?”

“Sachiko, my friend, I would be more than pleased to accept anything you might offer.”

She stepped close to me, and placed a light necklace around my neck. It was shaped like a crescent, with the upturned points connected to the links that held the necklace to me. The crescent was silver, with a blue filigree pattern on it. When I slipped it under my shirt, it felt cold for just a moment, then felt like nothing at all.

“You've been very kind to me, Sachiko, and I feel lucky to have landed on the Void Dog. I wish you sailed closer to my home. I'd love to have you to talk to again. I also wish there was some way to repay you for your help, but right now a thank you is all I can offer. I hope to be able to return this gift in kind, one day.”

“The help was given freely, as was the gift, Runcible. The necklace will allow you to feel when a deep ship is near, and may allow me to sense you, if we are ever near one another again. Take care, and be well.”

“And to you.”

I walked down the dock towards the city. When I reached the end of the dock and looked back towards the Void Dog, Sachiko had disappeared.

Cobo Landing was a busy port, hosting port facilities for space, sea, and deep ships. Like any port city, it was bustling with traffic and business being done, both legal and otherwise. Drovers moved various loads in animal drawn carts, powered vehicles, and by their own strength. Vendors hawked dozens of types of foods and sundries. I enjoyed it all, and kept an eye out for pickpockets.

Sachiko had told me about a few places I should visit; a cybernetics peddler who might be able to tell me something about my metal left hand; a fortune-teller of good reputation; and a group who might be able to help me find my way through the Boundless Realm, known as the Sig Nomad.

I headed away from the deep ship moorings, heading for the cybernetics dealer. My mind was filled with thoughts of Yendin Baddo, and as I walked I clenched and unclenched my own left hand.

The hands of Yendin Baddo

2009-09-05T05:06:00.001-04:00

The next three days sailing the obsidian deeps on board the Void Dog saw great improvement in my physical condition under the ministrations of Sachiko. She was a fascinating woman, and was apparently descended from a long line of 'deep sailors', as they called themselves. I gathered that they looked upon people who traveled the dimensions only by using gates as hopelessly limited, never really knowing the wonders that existed in the rich vastness that was accessible to them, and thought only slightly more highly of those like myself, who could Step across realities under our own power. A ship like the Void Dog could safely reach places that were almost myths to me, so far off my normal path were they. Her attitude towards the Traveler's Guild, the most powerful cross-dimensional organization I knew of, was dismissive at best, and the invective she leveled against the Jump Cops made very clear her feelings toward those gentlemen.

The Void Dog was still a day and a half out of port when Sachiko compared me to Yendin Baddo. When I told her I didn't know the name, she related the story of Baddo and his miraculous metal hands.

Yendin Baddo, it seems, was the youngest son of Master Artisan Brethon Baddo, chief artisan for the Compact of 8 Kingdoms, a legendary union of advanced people long ago lost to the mists of time. Master Artisan Baddo, stories said, was the only person to master the crafting skills of all 8 Kingdoms, and as such could create items of incredible intricacy and beauty.

When Master Artisan Baddo's youngest child was born without hands, Baddo decided that she would give her son what life had not, and set about creating as perfect a mechanical substitute as was possible. For a woman of the Master Artisan's skill, giving Yendin, her son, hands that functioned as well as any natural hands was just a starting point, and, as Yendin grew, each new set of hands the Master Artisan crafted for him surpassed the last. When Yendin grew into full manhood, he was presented with the greatest pair of hands his mother could devise.

One hand was golden, the other crimson. Each one was strong enough to crush steel, and sensitive enough for Yendin to feel dust motes as they landed. Each one incorporated all that an artisan would need to work metal, or stone, or any other substance as easily as normal hands could work clay.

Yendin, while schooled in creating artifacts by his mother, and possessing great skill, was not interested in becoming a Master Artisan. Shortly after Yendin Baddo received his newest hands, he vanished from the 8 Kingdoms. The Master Artisan was brokenhearted, and while she continued to create, some spark had vanished with her son.

Stories of Yendin Baddo came back to the 8 Kingdoms, and to his grieving mother, over the next decades. The stories told of Yendin becoming a mighty warrior, of single combat with dragons and trolls, liches and vampires, of towns and princesses saved, and these tales gladdened the heart of the Master Artisan, for, if she must be separated from her favorite child, at least she knew he was a good man.

Gradually, the traveling bards had no more stories to tell, and nothing was heard of Yendin Baddo for more than three score years. Rumors of his death were told in taverns in the 8 Kingdoms, although no two were alike, and none could claim to have met any who might have sure knowledge of Yendin Baddo's demise. The Master Artisan grew old hearing these rumors, and created less and less as the years passed.

The stories of Yendin Baddo's heroism and death faded from public interest, and were told no more. The minds of the people dwelt, as always, on the day to day task of making way through the life they had.

When word of the Army of Brothers conquering the warring duchies in the Outmarches drifted to the Compact of the 8 Kingdoms, few, if any took much notice. Many had tried to unify the Outmarches, and none had succeeded for any length of time. Few noticed when the Outmarches declared they would now be known as the Empire of Brothers. Few cared when the newly minted Empire reached out and added Balykan to itself. Some expressed admiration when the Empire managed to subdue the mountain strongholds of Urk in the Star-Capped Range, and crushed the thief clans that ran roughshod over the cities on the edge of the Shining Deserts.

It was not until the borders of the Empire grew near to the borders of the Compact of the 8 Kingdoms that the common citizen began to become uneasy. It began to impinge on the consciousness of the mass of the 8 Kingdoms that the Empire had a habit of doing the unthinkable when expanding itself, and nothing had seemed more unthinkable that a direct threat to the Compact. Five thousand years had passed since the last invader had threatened the 8 Kingdoms, and they were long in the habit of assuming that any invader would look at the Compact as invulnerable.

When the war came, it was more destructive than any could have imagined. The Empire had vast numbers on its side, and they were led by the First Brother, a masked general of whom even his enemies said was the greatest war leader any had ever known. The 8 Kingdoms had shaken free of its complacency, and rediscovered the arts of war and of creating war machines, and fought the invading Empire for every inch of territory it took, but all came to nothing. Five years after the Empire's soldiers had crossed the border into the Compact, the First Brother himself stood in the highest chamber of the Compact's government and personally executed the last Sanhedrin of the Compact, and the 8 Kingdoms ceased to exist. The land that had belonged to the Compact was ravaged by the war, the cities destroyed, the forests burned, any semblance of order cast aside.

It is assumed that the First Brother thought he would rebuild the Empire's newly conquered territory, as immediately after victory, he had his men bring before him the Master Artisan Baddo. Her ancient eminence stood before the First Brother as his lieutenants asked her to put her genius at their disposal, so the Empire could begin its rise to surpass the 8 Kingdoms in every way. The Master Artisan stood silently, ignoring the entreaties, orders, and threats of the generals of the Army of Brothers and the leaders of the Empire. When at last one of the soldiers became so angered at the Master Artisan's refusal to respond that he made a move to strike her, the First Brother finally spoke, his voice halting the soldier and causing him to kneel with his face pressed to the stone floor in apology for having aroused the First Brother's ire.

The warrior emperor towered over the wizened craftsman, and he was forced to bend at the waist to put his masked face near to her ear. None could hear what words passed between them, but the Master Artisan became pale, and open despair was seen to break over her worn features. She spoke to him in the same near-silent tone. The First Brother straightened, and extended his arm towards the door of a small room, which they entered together, shutting the door on all others.

Two hours later, the First Brother's retainers screwed up their courage and broke down the door. The found the Master Artisan Baddo seated in a chair, wrinkled hands folded in her lap, a serene look on her face, dead. The First Brother sprawled on the floor at her feet; his face, for the first time any could remember, was bare, his dead eyes staring at the ceiling.

If any had still been alive to remember, they would have seen Yendin Baddo, First Brother of the Empire of Brothers, lying dead at his mothers feet, the stumps of his arm stretched out on either side of his inert form.

The Empire of Brothers fell apart without the First Brother to lead it, and the lands it had encompassed sank into anarchy. All vestiges of the Compact of the 8 Kingdoms, every wonder they had created, was destroyed by the centuries of petty war that followed. The hands of Yendin Baddo, the First Brother, became things of legend, and vanished.

The Void Dog

2009-09-02T12:01:00.003-04:00

The first thing that I became aware of while gradually returning to consciousness was the sound of creaking wood. Then there was the feeling of my weight shifting back and forth, in time with the creaking.

Various parts of my body were telling me that I was not in perfect condition. My left arm wouldn't move at all, and it was obvious from how it lay that I wasn't wearing my hand. There was a stretch of my right side, from below the ribs to the knee, where I was pretty sure I'd lost more than a little flesh. The ankle on that side didn't feel right, either, and the last two fingers on my right hand were braced as though they'd been broken.

Opening my eyes showed me a ceiling made of wide boards and thick crossbeams, all stained a deep brown. The boards seemed to swing back and forth as the hammock in which I was wrapped moved back and forth against the rocking motion of the ship. After a moment, I used my right elbow and left foot to slide my head towards the top of the hammock, to make it easier to dismount. The groan this caused brought some sounds of interest from the part of the room that had so far been hidden by the canvas the hammock was made from.

“Has the light of dawn appeared on the face of my passenger?” A lilting voice said. “How does the new day find you, stranger?”

I managed to raise my head high enough to peek over the edge of the hammock. Across the room, a woman had just risen from a heavy upholstered chair. She must have been reading the large book she had tucked under her arm, causing the silk chemise she wore to bunch up over it. The bright silk was the only bright thing she wore, as the shirt underneath and her dungarees were both of a dark gray, and her boots were a dusty brown. She did have hair of deep, shiny black, held up in a bun by two crossed sticks. Her face had an oriental cast, and she gave me a friendly smile as she waited for an answer to her question.

“Ahh...” I answered wisely. I regrouped, and continued, “The day finds me in more pain than I really like.”

“It is to be expected, stranger. You appeared on the deck of my boat in quite horrible condition, and while the three days passed since that time have seen you heal with impressive speed, there would seem to be some distance still to go before you can claim perfect health. Rest easy, as you are welcome on the Void Dog as long as it may take for such dearly wished result to be achieved.” The lady finished with a slight bow, accompanied by her extending her left hand, palm down, out to her side.

“Thank you. I hope to be able to return the favor, sometime soon.” I swung my legs, as gently as I could, so that my bare feet touched the wooden floor. “I'm sorry I've imposed on you, milady. I don't think we've been formally introduced. I'm Runcible Hand. People usually call me Red.”

“I ask that I be called Sachiko. Please know that there was no imposition in lending aid to one in such obvious distress as yourself. May one inquire as to how you came to be in such a condition of disrepair on the deck of the Void Dog, as we made course across the obsidian deeps?”

“Uh... I'm not sure. I know I was Stepping to meet my friend Jack...” Slowly, worked my way forward from there, telling Sachiko everything I could remember. She looked appropriately perturbed when I described the abomination I had run into, and more than a little interested when I described how my left hand had torn holes in the fabric of that place.

“Speaking of that,” I said, “Did you remove my hand? Or did I arrive one hand shy of the full compliment?”

“No one attempted to remove your prosthetic appendage, Runcible. As steps were taken to begin your healing, the process was unexpectedly aided by it, in fact. If you would please look at your arm...?”

I looked down at the shirtsleeve that was covering my left arm, and, before I could reach over to pull it up, the sleeve began to retract on its own. As the arm was revealed, I could see that the sleeve was being pulled back by small servos attached to the red framework that held my arm rigid. I held my arm up and the framework slowly straightened it out. When the arm was fully extended, the red framework began to slide down towards the stump of my forearm, shifting and twisting until it reformed into the metal hand I was used to. Unlike the rest of my body, my left arm felt just fine.

“Runcible, your metal symbiont seems to be quite useful. It would allow no interference with its repair of the arm, and I believe would have done much more to heal you, had it the power. As it was, it took some soothing before it would allow the treatment of your other injuries. We were able to reach detente quickly, though, once it began to believe my intentions were to help you. It is a most careful friend, indeed.”

“Yeah, I guess he is, at that.” I turned the hand back and forth. It seemed proud of itself and, all on its own, snapped its fingers.

A short while later, Sachiko and I stood on the deck of her boat. The Void Dog was about seventy feet long, and 20 feet wide at its widest point. Three masts extended 20-30 feet out from the boat on each side, diaphanous sails extended to catch whatever it was that allowed the boat to move. While the Void Dog moved by sail power and rocked like an ocean-going vessel on the water, the currents it sailed seemed to be pure void. Sachiko explained how the Dog didn't actually move, but entered the void and waited for the correct reality to rotate around to it, how the sensation of rocking was caused by the forces of various realities moving past us, and how what I had thought were sails were actually some sort of nets, used to capture 'cthonic energy', which she bottled and sold to a number of different customers. She and her assistant, who lived in a cabin below and tended the constant duty of collecting the energy the Dog's net snared, were the entire crew of the vessel.

“This one has heard many stories of odd things appearing from the endless void,” Sachiko said, adjusting the angle of a net just slightly. “Some were quite entertaining. All were folklore and hearsay, and descended from a rumor and something a mate had seen while drunk in a far off port. I did not doubt they were stories made up to pass long nights, and to impress credulous listeners who might be enticed to buy one a drink, until your battered form appeared sometime in the night. I should be vexed with you, I suppose. I do so hate being incorrect.”

“I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to be any trouble...”

“Not at all,” Sachiko said, laughing musically. “It was jest, pure and simple. Your appearance and your story have lent interest to an otherwise mundane transit. I have been enriched, and in no way put upon.” She took a closer look at me, the said, “You look as though you have enjoyed enough your time awake, strange new friend, but that you must now rest again. Allow me to assist...”

We made our way back down to the cabin with the hammock I had been enjoying. Sachiko made a quick check of various bandages and, after helping me to lie down again, fed me a tonic she said would help me to sleep deeply, and heal. “Rest well, there are three more days to heal, before the Void Dog enters port again. You have naught to do save gather your strength 'til then...”

A little slice of terror

2009-08-31T03:42:00.001-04:00

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

2009-08-28T05:49:00.002-04:00

"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

2009-08-26T00:55:00.004-04:00

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

2009-08-23T20:23:00.003-04:00

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

2009-08-21T13:00:00.002-04:00

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

2009-08-19T01:33:00.002-04:00

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

2009-08-15T10:53:00.008-04:00

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

2009-08-14T14:46:00.002-04:00

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

2009-08-12T14:20:00.002-04:00

“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

2009-08-10T17:09:00.004-04:00

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

2009-08-10T06:04:00.001-04:00

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

2009-08-10T06:01:00.000-04:00

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

2009-08-10T05:59:00.000-04:00

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.