The place bore not resemblance to the gold painted landscape he had remembered, reminiscent of some 14<sup>th</sup> century painting of a black plague outbreak. It was calm like a dock on an early morning day, teal blue light poured in from the massive ajar hangar door painting the exposed half of the gray labyrinth of towers with it’s color. Chassis town was now a calm meditative pool of reflection, flooded with fog from outside. It had an aesthetic somewhere between an vine infested Mayan temple, and Miami Florida with Tether Root Palms sprouting from anywhere they could grasp an angle to binge drink the sunlight, with their tangled roots knotted around everything feet could not touch.
The platform made the sound the loud bellow as it forced the air below it out before locking into place. Geoffrey was mesmerized how familiar yet foreign a place could feel. With real light and real air he only experienced a couple times a year when visiting the outer deck prairies.
“Damn a man could get lost here and, and never want to find himself again.” he recited to himself as took in the city on his decent, considering himself perhaps retiring there one day. Flickering yellow lights, the bustling of human traffic, in the sea of blue buildings that looked like they had been submerged underwater in the current lighting. The elevation hangar fully docked upon a maintenance bay platform, a wide-open plateau that was still elevated higher than most of the buildings, it was essentially an aircraft carrier, that seemed to go along the entire interior mouth of Chassis Town. This docking bay was hoisted upon several ridge-like towers connected together along the wall making it aptly named ‘Super’ Force Base: Dragon Killer.
The massive wall of glass rumbled as it raised before him. He inhaled deeply through his nostrils soaking in very essence of the fresh air along with the radioactive exhaust odor that laminated everything in the city, which somehow made him feel more at home that the sterile scentless metal in his normal operating areas. Geoffrey walked out on to the bridge of infinitely chained together rooftop helipads, maintenance workers could be seen moving around the platforms, each running an inspection of some sort, if not wrenching on the aircrafts, which were an amalgamation of different models like some jury-rigged collection of a hoarder, giving them no uniform presence of intimidation. He wondered if some of them could even function safely, or at all.
A sharply dressed man stormed towards him, not fully dedicated to running but maintaining an unusual stride with a sense of urgency made him more noticeable from a mile away. His pristine suit even more lavish than some he had seen in the bridge city. His clean look was however interrupted by his dingy brown leather brimmed officer cap, that made him look more like a lad of ancient time about to solicit you for a shoeshine, made it know he had been an officer for a long time. His thick oversized rounded glasses took over his face, some custom welding goggles improvised for more casual daily use. A large, rounded steel bowl of a pauldron wrapped around the shoulder of one his glossy chrome robotic arm. Once in within about 5 yards of Geoffrey, he extended his human hand for an awkward left-handed shake and yelled “Jayce Vayne!”. Said the man yelling loud enough to wake a deaf man in space who was definitely accustomed to talking over aircraft engines, and perhaps was hard of hearing himself.
“Geoffrey!” he replied and immediately began clenching his teeth while attempting a smile, as the tight callus grip of a grease monkey began constricting his nimbler hand. He always was abrasive to the gung-ho types, considering himself more of a sleuth operationist.
“So you''re the new sacrifice sent to the thicket?!”
“Sacrifice?” Geoffrey quarreled, with a, look that called the man’s judgement into question.
“Yeah, you know when lone stragglers, get sent down here for things, they usually don’t come back, at least now who they were before. But I guess it’s easier than the difficult conversation of firing someone I suppose!” Geoffrey did not doubt the man’s words, he knew Greis wasn’t always known for his pristine ethics, but it still didn’t make any sense to him, he made himself a reliable asset. Was he too reliable? Was he a threat in some way? The answer still seemed to be “No”, Greis was reasonable, and he had given no indication of disloyalty, or taken no actions of superseding his authority, no matter how unconventional it seemed. He always saw Greis as some sort of slightly eccentric uncle or something, ever since he made his way to the bridge. No it must be something different. He speculated. “So what brings you down to my lair of despair, Mr. Geoffrey?”
The man’s charm had worn off, his pleasantries now seemed more like a condescending antagonistic death wish.
“Crucial Business. I’m on assignment to assail the captain himself, I presume inconspicuously.” Said Geoffrey firing back with a stoic authoritative answer that he was more important than some dumb young man in a sweat tainted tank top.
“The Captain” he said, tilting his head away as if something had erupted his train of thought momentarily, before his two placid black lake goggles back toward Geoffrey. “Now there’s an interesting man! Very Unusual. Doesn’t come through here very often, not that he would have great reason to. Been years in fact since I’ve seen the man, and I rather wish I hadn’t.” He Said lifting flipping open his goggle chambers revealing his eyes sockets. One of which looked more normal, the other looked very abnormal, but Geoffrey recognized the half mountainous gold crescent moon shaped iris that was common among “The kin of the captain” as they were often called. The bottom half of the skin surrounding the eyes was several shades lighter than the darker skin color that completely encircled his normal eye, making it look like a brown and white ying-yang sign, with the white part full of lightning bolts made up of varicose veins. The crescent stood out on the black surface of his moon eye. but curiously the eye with a traditional Iris, still surrounded by white, was a crystal blue color that seemed to be being overtaken by the black color which had already turned his whole other eye into some inhuman insect pupil. Geoffrey stared perplexed in disbelief, as is whatever the captain has, or was contagious rather than the rumored genetic anomaly or mutation.
“Damn! You some sort of cousin of his?” Geoffrey dredged for any ounce of details he could discover.
“Not as far as I know! Maybe now I am, who really knows to be honest. They say the man can kill you with just his eyes, and I can’t say I don’t doubt it. But I looked him strait in the eyes, caught his gaze, I think I caught him by surprise, he gasped at he looked at me. Then it felt like a demon crawled into my soul through my goddamn eye sockets, like I was staring into the sun, my eyes burned for days afterwards. It didn’t kill me. But some rank foul power that is, maybe a curse, maybe I will die sooner than I should. All I know is the light burns my eyes now, gotta where these goddamn ridiculous glasses everywhere. And all I can remember the prick saying afterwards was ‘Sorry.’ If I didn’t have good life, if I wasn''t who I was, and he wasn’t who he was, if were strangers in a dark alley I think I’d let the instincts take me over.” Sid the man with a tear, perhaps of anger welling in his still more human eye. Geoffrey stared back empathetically, know that the world was pain, some people could avoid a lot of it, as he tried to do with his catlike reflexes, and supernatural intuition, and cold calculated algorithm of reasoning. Those were his shields, his devices, his weapon against the world. But he knew sometime no matter how high you build your tower; pain will find a way to you.
“How could this happen? He’s clearly not lying; something must have happened. I''ve never seen anyone be stricken down by pure eyesight, that’s ridiculous. He had seen the captain briefly, numerous times, always vague, mysterious, brief, definitely introverted, but never even remotely intimidating to anyone. Something didn’t add up, something wasn’t making sense. But I’m on the case now, maybe that’s why Greis chose me.” He speculated to himself while gazing upon the man’s transfigured anomaly. He had never even heard of anything like this happening, and he heard a lot, this must be some deeper secret, and he would find it. He did recall a “Lightning Face Jayce” name he had overheard somewhere before suddenly came crawling back into his memory. It made sense now.
“So be careful out there Mr. Geoffrey, might find more than your looking for.” He said his pompous cynicism replaced by genuine interest and concern. “Got the requisition for your suit, it’ll be waiting for you down in the infantry arsenal maintenance bay, take the ellie down to the 52<sup>nd</sup> floor. Semper Fi, Mr. Geoffrey.” Geoffrey nodded back in concurrence.
He made his way over to a building that looked like a large utility shed, which did have a small outlet attached for exactly that, but was predominantly stairwell and elevator access. He made his way inside greeted to a brass lined stairwell with a beige mosaic tile pattern on the floor before the almost-gold brass elevator doors. A darker bronze metal made up the rails and the bars of the stairway system with the same beige design somehow overflowing on to the walls making the concrete slab staircase seem more inviting than any traditional military would have. “We are pirates after all.” he told himself upon inspecting the bronze chandelier that gave the room an inviting aura to traverse even for mundane tasks, Implying that financial incentive was ultimately what kept this flying fortress lubed up and running as opposed the to the malignant variant of patriotic rhetoric used to inoculate the denizens of the Federal Consortium. The ellie doors slid open to a rounded chamber looking more like a glass paneled, iron bared bird cage, with a continuance of beige tiles running inside with a browned yellow version of the “Dusk Skull” insignia on his jacket sleeve. He could see the entire city with a better view than the one he already had on the roof. “Damn, they did not slack when they designed this place!” he said aloud, “they” meaning the precursors of humanity during the Apocalyptic wars some nearly 300 odd years ago. He was impressed but somehow uneasy to feel himself hovering above the city, as if the curved wall of glass between him and a 100 story fall might be imaginary all together. He dialed 52 followed by the # sign in the elevator keypad to take him to his destination, a common insurance tactic to avoid some miscreant nuisance from slathering their hands over the buttons of all the floors at once. He did wonder if there was also some secret code, he could enter to perhaps take him to a restricted access floor, but he didn’t not let the thought continue to invade his mind. The door sealed behind him sealing him inside the tube. The elevator began to sink, as he stood hooked on the intangible view that he could not get anywhere else aboard the ship, or earth. His orange hazel eyes in the yellow light of the elevator seemed to clash against the frozen blue silver city. He watched as the city seemingly grew larger as he was taken downward, with a black steel shackle passing over the elevator window glass with each floor, obscuring his laser focus from drilling through the glass and into the city momentarily, the only thing reminding him he was still in his body and not some celestial entity descending upon the city. The elevator came to halt with a slight tremor followed by a curious chime played as the doors began to slide open, sending Geoffrey back into his body, begrudgingly. The door opened to a hallway thick with the scent of burning and metal, a gristly chasm of machinery haunted by grease drinking ghouls that seemed to nimbly crawl around whatever machine they were working on. A hallway of some nocturnal cluttered with generous sized cubicles, for assemblers and maintenance men to each have their own territorial domain for individual projects. On this floor the windows to the city were replaced by thick blankets of steel, maybe to stave away the ballista of light from their sunshine allergic skin, or perhaps to stop their catacomb of machinery colluding with the lesser mortal caste. The beings that dwelled here relished the dark and savored the sanctity of their seclusiveness. He stepped out into the T intersection of the hallway, that looked like it could have been a forsaken dentist''s office, that had now become a labyrinthine machine shop tunnel. Geoffrey stared down one side of the hallway that was roaring with any kind of took that could be heard. The darkness ruled area was lit by a dim amber cone of scattered light pouring from a bar grated panel on the ceiling along the walkway area, with flashes of light occasionally splashing out of the breaches in the cubicle courtyards, with one even spraying a fountain of sparks into the interior walkway, like some malfunctioning sprinkler of fireflies spraying the sidewalk instead of the lawn.
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He had only turned his back for about half a moment when a station attendant slithered up behind with an unpronounced speed that couldn’t be entirely human.
“Welcome sir.” the screech of the voice said like it was metal scraping metal.
“What?! the F…” Geoffrey for a brief moment startled by the unpredicted visit, that even his ultra keen senses could not detect. Geoffrey flicked himself around to see a sliver of man hovering just below his elbow.
“Minister Geoffrey, yes?” Said the abbreviated man like creature, draped in black suit coat that made its gray hands and face seem more human. It’s two beady glints for irises, like a neon signs mostly submerged in black tar syrup staring back up at him, inspired by some uncomfortable eagerness.
“Minister, huh?” He thought. That was a new one. “Some damn mutant, aberration of humanity.” he speculated staring down at the half man, briefly wondering where the elevator had actually taken him, as if in his trance he had somehow slipped into a new dimension inhabited by these elegant goblins. Once the shock of intrusion had fully discharged, he could more clearly assess the being before him. The slender angled chin of cunning negotiator, with some rock like cheek bones hoisted above his shallow cheeks. Its narrow-focused gaze made the luster in its nearly devoid eyes more prying with its lack of eyebrows. Its lightning blonde seemed to actually glow against the cacophony of its dark features and concrete complexion. If it was a normal human Geoffrey entrained, he could perhaps have been a celebrity model, among the mundane citizen world.
“Yeah…, I see you were expecting me.”
“As is my duty and my pleasure.” Said the elf like creature with it’s ear littered with gold piercings and the tops of it’s ears wrapped around like a tail hanging just under it’s earlobe, while giving a glimpse of his gray rusted metal teeth as he spoke.
“Here for a suit. Going outside the ship.”
“Yes we have one prepped for the specifications Greis personally requested, hopefully it will serve you and your mission well. Please follow me to the equipment bay.” said the nimble creature drifting in front of him toward one side of the hallway.
“Sure.” he replied and began tailing the creature who seemed to hover in front of him with its coat masking the rhythm of its soundless footsteps. He followed down the long canal pathway that ran along the interior side of the hallway. The path was a mosaic of flat symmetrical “L” shaped polished metal plates, with seems between where excess fluid could drain. As he passed every so many cubicles, he noticed a warped curvature in the floor with a circular drain sloped next to the path he was on, like a public communal shower one would preferably not walk barefoot in. He noticed black rivers of presumably, oil funneling into the orbit of the drains. Some of them pooled into big puddles that hid the drain and the curvature of the floor, that made it look more like a river basin swamp, that was in fact draining, just not at a pace fast enough to deal with volume of fluids. Peering into the cubicles he could see more creatures like the one before him, that seemed vastly more primitive than the one escorting him, like gray hairless monkeys driven mad by malfunctioning machinery. They did have some notion of human modesty most of them wearing some kind of clothing over their lower half, one hanging upside-down from a machine carcass with it’s iguana like feet, as it furiously cranked it’s wrench with a spiteful fanged grimace. His boots clanged against the metal plates on the ground but were mostly drown out by the sounds, rivets guns , saws drills and welding torches. “So if you don’t mid me asking, what exactly are you guys?” He said raising his voice to a shout loud enough to be heard over the droning of machinery. He remained quiet not sure if his words had made it to the beings ears, not wanting to repeat himself, Maybe it didn’t matter anyway.
“We’re a class of human, mostly. Just a product of the wasteland, an adaptation of The Annihilation Era. What’s more remarkable is that you’re still around, you know, traditional mankind. We call ourselves ‘Ayrvelen’ a kind of word somewhere between revenant and survivor. We unlike fragile humans are sturdy, inoculated to radiation, as a human’s skin would tan in the sunlight ours hardens in the fallout. There are stories of the early tribes unifying, making war with the beasts, as they inheritors of the surface. But legions of traditional humans did rise again as if in hibernation, with weapons of the old world.” The creature continued forward speaking in a very clear loud tone like a proper tour guide.
“Radiation Immunity is quite a gift, wouldn’t need a suit at all if I had that, but I’ve never heard of these creatures. A secret weapon against the Federal Consortium? That would seem too easy, they must have their own equivalent, if not a fully automated repair system. Definitely useful for us though.” he thought as he marinated on the words he had heard. “But what about you? The ones aboard this ship, what brings you here?”
“Same thing that brings everyone aboard The Mordant Despair, sometimes just a fresh start, but more likely revenge. The rise of governments saw us as something to be tamed, if not outright destroyed, we were hunted alongside the greater mutant beasts that had evolved to conquer the landscape. But the worst perpetrators were the ones know as ‘Game Wardens’ they took sport in hunting us watching us suffer, burning us out of our warrens, not even to just gun us down, but to laugh as we suffered as if lesser beings. For a time we hid, we ran, we survived, but now most of us have partnered with the “Selectively Secret Sovereignty (of Separatists)’ though the any nation would have us dumbly labeled a ‘pirates. One need only hiss the S.S.S. sound to another member to verify membership. But surely a minister of the top deck must be familiar with this?”
“Clever, trying to pick my mind too I see, I guess information is closely guarded on all parts of the ship, but maybe it’s not always best if the body knows what the arms are doing. Must be curious to hear about top deck affairs, can’t say I wouldn''t.” Thought Geoffrey now calculating a worthwhile response. “That’s definitely more of the sentiment aboard this ship. I’ve been to Pisswash Cistern, for our biannual dock there, A marvel of malice that floating island of scrap out in the middle of the Pacific. There is the whole ‘honor among pirates’ jargon some people throw around, but calling it an actual origination, is hopeful at best. Even the “Good” pirates are usually just out for themselves, meeting their status quo for survival, and the bad ones will cut a man down for a handful of Abes (pennies). It’s a rickety alliance at best, wouldn’t trust half the lot myself with my own fate much less the fate of humanity. But I am a betting man, And I’m doubling down on the ‘Holy Trinity’ so to speak. The Mordant Despair, The Cardinal Seance, and The Albatross Atrocity, the only pirates I know on an actual mission, ‘Rebuild the world, end the wars, stifle the Federal Consortium, or any government trying their hand ant global conquest. That’s something I can get behind, and the warring nations yeah they’re powerful, but they’re blind with top heavy leadership that even sabotage each other from within. In my opinion the whole state of the world is a castle on cliff with a crumbling foundation, ‘Death by a 1000 cuts’, I’m just making sure when the world does fall into chaos, someone is there to pick it back up again.” The two made their way around the corner of the building, to a break in the conundrum of cubicles. Passing an empty corner lobby area wedged between two cubicles itself with some benches and tables for reprieve, a coffee table overloaded with weathered magazines, the only new glossy one being, the monthly ‘Mordant Chronicle’ printed and distributed onboard. With a few ash trays filled with cigarette burial mounds on the end tables wedged between the benches. All pasted with the blue glow from the cornered windows giving an actual view of the city with a reprieve from the endless metal.
“Glad to hear you’re a man of integrity and Ideals, the world seems to be running short on those at the moment, at least the ones brave enough to act on them. I do agree we are in a tumultuous time, feel like the fate of existence is hanging on a coin flip.”
“Yeah that’s why I’m going to influence the coin flip if I can, or make sure, we’re the referees catching it.” The two approached a massive double sliding door with an adjacent kiosk.
“Well we’ll have you on your way minister Geoffrey. Here we are, the main sanctum requisition depository.” the being said as it flicked it’s had over the keyboard, entering the keys as if it had 6 finger on it’s hand casting the spell to open the door. The giant metal doors began sliding apart revealing a huge chamber reliquary arsenal. The two entered into the forest of machines, a labyrinth of 4-way intersections divided by refurbished weapons of war, that only a person familiar with them could actually find what they were looking for. “Ahhhh suits, I think there yours is here in this section.” Sounding just barely less certain about things than he had been maintaining before, straining to recall exact details. They approached a docking rig holstering the suit with arms and legs spread wide, for clinical detail inspection.