《Sore Feet》 Pt. I Meet Rick I A nudge and Rick turns and finds himself face to face with The Rat, a man who is always around, always scrounging. "How''s it looking big guy, we getting work today?" He shakes his head unsure but hopeful. He doesn''t know Rat''s real name. Everybody just calls him that. Maybe because the man looks like one, Rick decides looking down at the smaller man. He has a tiny nose and pouty lips capped with a thin wispy mustache. He twitches all the time looking maybe for a missed treat or nearby danger. It unnerves Rick. Reminds him of the can. Rick looks solid. Big broad shoulders. Bull necked. Barrel-chested with arms to match. Basically a slab of muscle. From a distance, he cuts quite the figure. Closer up, it¡¯s more obvious his youth was long ago. White hair stained yellow from rollie cigarette smoke and a beard that still has a bit of red running through it. Face covered in crags and fissures. His face and head have the same length of growth on them because he goes to a shelter twice a month and does the whole thing when it¡¯s his turn in the shower. He does it with a little pink leg razor the shelter offers the indigent population of the city. It takes some time. Nobody complains. Nobody who has heard the rumors anyway. His main attribute has always been strength. And he has a bit of it left, but unlimited power and endless possibilities are long gone. Pain is his new daily friend. Pain and regret. The boy who lugged an M-60 through the jungle might have died there and never came home, and had a lifetime to lug cinder blocks and other things people needed things moved around. He tries not to complain, mainly because no one is going to listen anyway. And like everyone who has done time knows, everyone''s guilty of something. Another nudge and he turns to see The Rat offering him a bottle of Banana Red MD 20/20. Rick feels his mouth start sweating as a reminder what last night is still putting him through. But medicine is medicine and he takes a quick nip of the dog that bit him and passes it back with a look to see if anyone noticed.
It''s morning in the South Bronx, morning being after midnight. It''s 4 AM and he stands in a slow-moving line of men looking for day work. No one cares. Everyone here is probably still drunk also. Laborers. Outside is cold and wet. Rick says, "I need to cash a check today, or else I gotta visit Mama''s pantry." "She still make you pray for a sack of food?" "Haven''t been in awhile because she did last time." The line moves and they close up the distance. "With this weather turning cold and wet, it''s almost where I wouldn''t mind finding myself freshly shaved again and off the streets for a night or two." The Rat doesn''t respond and Rick realizes he doesn''t know how The Rat spends his own nights. Nobody knows anything about each other. Secrets are like currency. And Rick likes to keep his secrets close. Why wouldn''t everyone else? "It''s only October too. Every copy of the Daily News says the same thing every day: record rain. It was a record heat all summer long and I''m sure I''ll be digging myself out of the snow all winter long." His bones start to hurt at just the thought of it. He''d leave the city and work his way south before the cold weather hits, but can''t because what if he changes his mind? He needs to be close just in case his son needs him. His huge hands clench into involuntary fists. He isn''t even aware he''s doing it. The muscles in his arms and back bulge with his typical frustration. Under his white eyebrows, his sea foam-colored eyes look haunted. His dark brown face, shadowed by unwanted memories, not only because life has been hard and sometimes unfair, but also because he is trying to do math in his head. "What is a stiff back and sore feet worth?" he asks The Rat. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. "A six-pack of beer and a bucket of fried chicken, that¡¯s what." He sends the rest to his kid. Twenty bucks every time he gets a gig. He puts it in an envelope, sticks a stamp on the outside, and sends it to a mailbox on the Stony Brook University campus. He hopes the little guy gets it. He will probably never find out. He isn¡¯t allowed to contact him. Not after what he did. It has been so long since they last spoke, maybe a decade, maybe less. He stopped counting the years when he was in the pen. The line moves forward and he follows with a step. The sky is still dark. The hum of the city, of course, that never sleeps, but it''s the quiet bit of the early morning hours. He likes the South Bronx because it is mostly auto body shops and salvage yards, places that close for the night, and don''t mind a makeshift tent being erected in a vacant lot. There are many places to spend the night nearby, which makes getting to the Labor Ready easy, even if he is a bit hungover. He is a bit hungover this morning. Most mornings actually. The babble of the men standing around waiting for pick-ups or a job is loud, and his head thumps. The steam-heated air is thick with the funk of unwashed bodies and dirty clothes, rotted teeth, and rusting metal. Another ill-fated job seeker arrives with a gust of wind blowing through the open door with him, offering a bit of relief and a reminder of the coming rain. The line moves again. "This is about what one can expect from dropping out of school at sixteen, to drink all day with friends. I had one buddy who got to live in his grandparents¡¯ apartment after they died. Every day they would get drunk with him. Every day little teenage girls would show up and get wasted with them. That led to one little girl getting pregnant, which led to him being a father, but it was really the grandfather''s kid. Fucked up world, huh?" After Rick got released from his first stretch, he went back a few more times. Not because he missed it but because he didn''t mind putting someone on their ass. He taught lessons. Always did. And now he is an old homeless man waiting for death to come and make everything he ever did worthless. The line moves again. And again. And eventually it''s his turn. ¡°Name?¡± the fat Puerto Rican lady asks from behind the thick glass. He can smell her cloud of perfume and it give him a headache. Her hair is a crust of gel piled onto the top of her head. His mouth is set in a scowl of disapproval, lips painted with bright red lipstick that looks dry and clay-like. ¡°Johnson, Rick.¡± ¡°Can you use a shovel today?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± She types some info into her computer and the printer next to her spits out a receipt. ¡°Give this to the property guy, he will get you some gear. He waits. Usually they hand out metro cards to get to the job site. "What," the woman snaps at him. A bit of spittle flying an landing on his check. He leaves it there. The woman glares at him, eyes bulging, as if he dared to waste even more of her time. "Do I get a MetroCard?¡± ¡°You won''t need it. Next.¡± Rick steps away confused. The Rat shoves up to the window and says ¡°Hey beautiful, why you still working here and not down on fashion row being a model and shit.¡± Rick sees the obese woman smirk in a self-satisfied sort of way and, after a pause and some clicking around on her keyboard, asks ¡°Can you handle a shovel?¡± The Rat says, "You know it. And oh so much more.¡± Rick tries to not let it bother him. He has been losing for decades and doesn''t have a desire left anyway. But still, why does Rat get polite attention and he gets spit on? "I''m not too good to do some shoveling anyways," The Rat says, giving Rick another elbow to the arm as they walk back towards the property room together. There is no line. The old black guy handing out gear takes their tickets, gives them a glance before disappearing into the hidden corners behind him. He returns with a gas mask, plastic work helmet, thick rubber gloves, and an orange safety vest. He hands them all over and points to a collection of shovels leaning in a pile against the wall, "Take that shovel and that wheelbarrow,¡± he says pointing to a beat-up ancient-looking thing with rust pockets almost eating through the metal. Rick places the gear into the wheelbarrow and looks for the travel instructions on the sheet. It reads: go to the 170th Street subway station. Stand in the farthest corner of the Southbound track. And wait. Pt. II Rick and Rat take a Walk II
Rick and Rat walk the empty sidewalk together. Two blocks of barbed wire fences and corrugated metal security gates over the doors of locksmiths and hardware stores. The sidewalk is wet. Bits of gross paper are glued everywhere. Rick can¡¯t help being reminded of how disgusting humans are. How capable they are of destroying a good thing. Off in the east, the horizon has just started to turn orange under the cloud cover. On the other side of the downward sloping hill is a high red-bricked wall beyond that and an elevated tree-lined greenway along the on-ramp to Interstate 87. 87 represents freedom for Rick. A means to go beyond the never-ending urban sprawl that has spread from southern New York all the way to Philly and D.C. The South Bronx is famous for burning. Yankee Stadium looms as a bastion of all the things he can¡¯t afford. Manhattan is the place people like him go to when they got nothing else. Rick still has his strength and until that fades, he will not cross the river. They keep walking with Rat pushing the wheelbarrow and Rick carrying both shovels. After a block, Rat asks, ¡°You ever do work for the MTA before?" ¡°Never.¡± They are quiet for a few more steps, ¡°I think that¡¯s what we are doing, working for the MTA.¡± ¡°Has to be, right?¡± Rick guesses Rat doesn¡¯t say anything discernible. He does mutter about dark spaces and how much he doesn¡¯t like them. Rick stops paying attention to him, it¡¯s always better to let a man have an emotional meltdown without interfering. At least that''s what he¡¯d prefer. No attention. He got enough of that while being locked up. Prison had a ring and he liked putting men with big mouths down. And he was good at it. He ate good in prison because of his fists. His stomach rumbles thinking of the vittles his fame provided for him. The good thing about this particular neighborhood is the lack of delis. Not a single one in sight, not a restaurant, not a grocery store. And that¡¯s good because he couldn¡¯t afford to eat at any of those right now. His stomach growls again, and he knows this is going to be one long ass day. ¡°Hey.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Give me another nip on that bottle.¡± Rat hands it over. With a glug, he drains it and passes the empty back to Rat, who glares at him. ¡°That was half full, man.¡± The bigger man doesn¡¯t respond as they near the subway entrance marked by a glowing green lamp. A few of the less motivated homeless are camped out on the sidewalk on cardboard boxes near it, lumps in sleeping bags or covered in newspapers. They all look soaked. Rick has being homeless down pat. He keeps an eight by eight-foot tarp folded up with four bungee cords in the biggest pocket of his field jacket. A thing he doesn¡¯t take off ever, not even in the swampy heat of a New York Summer. The tarp is better than a tent and he bought it from Goodwill a few years ago for twenty-five cents. He keeps a small can of Sterno and a mess kit in the other large pocket. Matches, a simple Swiss army knife in the left chest pocket under the stitched U.S. Army, and in the other, gloves and his wool cap when it''s not on his head. He wears his jeans until he can¡¯t anymore, and will only wear flannel under his jacket and a wife-beater under it. Why? The heat doesn¡¯t bother him for some reason. The cold neither. On his feet are jungle combat boots. His one splurge. He has kept these boots soled and the green ripstop canvas patched up since ''69. Probably the only important thing he owns. Usually, his routine is to wait for nightfall, and then crawl deep into the shadows of some park and camp out. When they get to the subway entrance, Rat hits the call button for the elevator. Rick asks, ¡°Why?¡± before it arrives. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°I¡¯m not carrying this thing down there,¡± Rat responds. With a snort, ¡°wouldn¡¯t expect you to.¡± Rick grabs the wheelbarrow in his free hand and hefts it so it dangles from his fist behind his back. It slaps against him with a whump after each step-down. Once on the platform, he pushes the wheelbarrow to the metrocard readers. And looks at Rat, who is looking at him. ¡°The lady said we wouldn¡¯t need a metrocard,¡± Ricks states, looking towards the attendant booth, which was probably empty behind a glass so scratched up and graffitied that it was impossible to see through. The air is humid with the acrid smell of electrified metal and rust. The combination hits him in the nose and makes him sneeze. He can hear the scurry of rats and the flutter of loose trash in the tunnel. Trains elsewhere rumble. The fluorescent bulbs above flicker. Rat walks up to the booth to make sure it¡¯s empty, which he then affirms. From deep in the tunnel, he can hear trains rumbling along the tracks but none presently are heading this way. When a train comes it sucks the air out of the platform just before it appears. With nothing else to do, they wait. A man stumbles down the stairs. He sways in front of the card reader and tries multiple times to get his card to work. Bouncing off the security bar a few times before getting it right. He drags himself along the wall before finding a bench to fall into. Within moments, his drunken snores fill the station. ¡°He''ll probably fall asleep and ride the train until noon,¡± Rat suggests. Rick watches him thinking that¡¯s probably right when a shrill alarm sounds, grabbing his attention. He looks over and a metal gate blocking the kiosk area from the tracks pops open and slams against the wall of metal bars to the left with a loud clang. He walks over and with a quick look around to make sure he isn¡¯t about to fall into some kind of NYPD trap. Not appearing so, he walks out onto the platform with Rat following with his wheelbarrow. The gate closes behind them with another loud clang. There is always a first time for everything and for Rick, he has never seen a subway door act like this. His heart thuds a bit faster in his chest as he stands on the platform because the day is starting to feel out of control. Like any second, something crazy is going to happen and he can''t help wonder what it is going to be. Like most people who are tasked to go somewhere far away and kill other humans, Rick has a bad case of TSD. And stress makes him do stupid things. It makes him think crazy things. It makes him expect crazy things. Crazy things rarely happen though and today he will most likely be picking up trash in the tunnels till six, leaving him ten hours to knock himself out with cheap booze before doing it all again. ¡°The tracks catch fire all the time because of trash. It makes sense. Someone needs to pick up the trash,¡± Rat says watching him nod along as if it made complete sense. Maybe that''s something he has heard people do. It makes sense it would be a task the MTA would hire day laborers for. Few if any union guys would do a job like that. He¡¯s lost in the act of convincing himself things are normal when a sound from out in the tunnel distracts him. It¡¯s a chicka chicka sound. Chicka chicka, over and over again. The sound grows louder until from out of the black tunnel arrives a sort of horseless rickshaw with a tall oddly-shaped man sitting on the front bench. The rickshaw seems to be locomoted by a steam engine and clockworks that somehow balance the whole thing on two wheels. The vehicle stops with a horrendous screech and not only threatens to stall but sends a shower of boiling hot water in both men¡¯s directions. They move too late and suffer a few small burns. Rick glares at the man sitting on the bench. He seems unbalanced, flopping in all manner of directions at the waist and mid-chest. There were grunts and curses coming from armpits and knees. A tiny head protrudes from the MTA jumpsuit. He wears a Yankee ball cap over fluffy blond hair. Under bushy eyebrows are two huge blue eyes; under them, an impossible nose, both bulbous and too small for this person''s face, giving him an innocent quality that borders on creepy, Rick decides. Under that nose was a huge fake yellow mustache that droops over the corners of a mouth twitching as if trying to hold back a giggle. A tiny hand pulls a lever between its legs and the entire pile of whatever is happening here, almost topples over. Then the body wiggles as if an argument were happening underneath the coveralls like the chittering of two squirrels fighting over a nut. Finally, another tiny hand shoots out attached to an arm that seems far too short for the rest of the body. Rick stands there, unsure of what to do. ¡°Give me your worksheet,¡± The voice is deep but fake. Like a kid pretending to be older. Rick digs in his pocket and pulls out the crumpled receipt. He hands it over. The tiny hand seems overburdened when Rat adds his to the pile. The tiny hand disappears inside the coveralls where a sudden flare of bright light illuminates two small forms, three when the small head on top disappears inside. There is more chittering. And the tiny head reappears and so does the tiny hand with the receipt given to him by the Spanish lady. He reaches out and takes back both. Handing Rat his, he sees the look of disbelief on the muridae-like face. The fake deep voice says, ¡°Get in,¡± gesturing with a tiny thumb to the small platform behind the bench. There is space there just big enough for Rick, forcing Rat onto the upturned wheelbarrow with the shovels between his knees in the back. He looks unsure, if nothing else. Rick shares his trepidation feeling like he has signed up for more than he bargained for. The figure in front pulls the brake lever and his top half almost topples off onto the tracks, but somehow saves himself when two sets of arms reach out of the coveralls and grab him,. The rickshaw begins to pick up speed. Before they slam into the darkness of the tunnel ahead, Rick punches himself on the thigh, hard, just to make sure he is not still sleeping off the six-pack he downed the night before. The punch hurts. So does the feeling that he has been drafted all over again. Pt. III Rick Works III
Rick has ridden the subway since he was a baby, probably been on every single train the MTA offers rides on. He has seen every tunnel. When the Second Avenue subway opened, he made a special day out of seeing what all the fuss was about. It was short and disappointing, and one day he hopes they finish it. But today, sitting in the back of this rickshaw, Rick hangs on for dear life. To say that he is being given the scariest ride of his life is totally an understatement. It''s like day has died and only a starless night exists. Behind him, Rat has found a way to cope by screaming every curse word he¡¯s ever likely learned. He¡¯s taught three to Rick already. Futu-?i gatu? It¡¯s fun to say, certainly but he can only guess at its meaning. Du-te dracului and Du-te-n Pula both seem connected, and Rat keeps saying them over and over. He is thinking about the word dracului and how it sits so close to a certain vampire character he has seen about fifty movies about. The vehicle makes another sharp turn and the left wheel leaves the track before settling back down with a spray of ozone-scented sparks as Rat teaches him a fourth new curse word, Chi Shugra. Like falling down an endless hole, eventually you stop falling and just exist within the discomfort of near-death. In fact, he begins to look forward to the screeching complaints of rickshaw wheels against the track because it is only when the metal wheels spark that he is able to see anything in the pitch-black that surrounds. In the small showers of sparks, he sees the track hovering over a shadowy abyss below and a very far-away, rapidly-diminishing ceiling dappled with stalactites. He is almost happy until they fade and he is thrust back into the delusional blackness in which anything could be happening. The rickshaw suddenly descends. Then shoots back up only to slow down until it almost stops then after a pause, whoosh down an even steeper decline. Rick¡¯s butt actually leaves his seat and before he lands, he manages to catch both the wheelbarrow and Rat as they sail up and away. He puts them back where they belong, stomach lurching into his mouth. His heart is already living there so they should be happy together. The downward trajectory seems to go on for several minutes before ending in a sudden leaping of the vehicle from the tracks and a shower of bright sparks that reveal stone walls lining both sides. The stone looks ancient and reminds Rick of what he thinks the Great Wall of China would look like. He¡¯s never been. And probably never will go. As if the disappointment of Vietnam will be the most foreign place he will ever go. Without warning, the ride ends in a squeal of protesting brakes. Rick is thrown forward as the rear end of the rickshaw leaves the track. He tumbles into a darkness that feels like lukewarm soup. The black darkness is pervasive and stinks of rotten eggs. He feels it all over himself because it is, a sticky muddy goo. ¡°I don¡¯t know if OSHA would approve of this, guys,¡± Rat complains from somewhere in the dark. He wonders what would happen if he tried to leave. Would they let him reverse course back the way they came? He climbs to his feet and tries to step out of the ankle-deep muck. It sucks down on him. It is warm and wet and sloshes into the vents on the sides of his jungle boots and then through his toes. ¡°Fuck,¡± he whispers as he puts the foot back down and pulls the other foot out, experiencing the same. Where he imagines the rickshaw is, he hears three distinct voices arguing. The words don¡¯t come but he can definitely tell two were mad at one. Then some scurrying and whispered words that sound like cursing followed by, ¡°lucida lux vestra.¡± These words are screamed out with much authority by its tiny screechy voice. The command is followed by a blinding light that floods Rick''s brain with painful white. The light thumps against his eyes as it fades down to something manageable and he finds himself in a muddy area split in two by rusty train tracks that just end, disappearing into the mud with jagged edges as if they have been ripped apart by something with ferocious strength. Opposite the destroyed tracks are the ones they once connected to the ones dangling into the impossible abyss below. Those tracks stretch up until they disappear into a foggy haze floating far, far above. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Rick feels a sense of dreamlike wonder at it all; the light, the track, even the warm muddy goop. Deep within his mind, he knows that he should be concerned with, if nothing else, the fact a light has blown away the darkness with no discernible source, but instead, he finds that he is okay with it all. As if he is used to stuff like this happening all the time. Like every single day of his almost seventy years of life, an oddly shaped man, who may in fact be three little people standing on each other''s shoulders, brings him to a point so deep in the subway system that he doesn''t even recognize it as a subway tunnel anymore. ¡°Did you just make light appear with a command?¡± The unbalanced figure is reconfiguring itself within the coveralls. Once the shaggy head of blond hair, sans cap, emerges he finds Rat with his eyes and points to the rusty tracks, ¡°Dig!¡± Rick finds himself annoyed at this, which might be covering for the fear and uncertainty that is bubbling like lava in his chest. His fists clench. ¡°Is this a joke? What is happening here?¡± his voice betrays the emotions wrestling inside of him. Emotions like, I deserve better than this, and why me? Also, he wonders if this is all a setup and if he is the butt of some sick joke The head disappears back into the coat and after some whispering, reappears. ¡°Plastered on its face is a huge smile, fake, of course. ¡°Please dig the tracks free.¡± The voice is deeply accented with something mixed with Eastern European and someone from Bangladesh. Rick sighs. That''s what he does, he digs. He looks around and the floor is covered with a greenish muck. He is deciding whether to tell them to dig their own goop when a third hand appears up through the collar. Awkward with an armpit in his face, the blond says, ¡°Oh, yes! We will pay.¡± He almost reminds them they pay Workforce, not the workers when the small hand opens and sitting in it is a fat roll of cash. ¡°All yours.¡± ¡°Okay, fine.¡± He finds the shovels not far from Rat and the wheelbarrow, he lets him in on the plan then digs a path from where he is standing to where the tracks submerge in the mud. He pulls the wheelbarrow behind him and dumps shovels full of mud inside. Once the wheelbarrow is full, he dumps it off the side of the cliff. The first load falls for what seems forever until it disappears into a white wispy cloudbank far below. Rick is magic with a shovel. His old muscles mechanically turn the mud-covered track into something usable and the rickshaw driver sits slumped near his vehicle in three lumpy hills working on the engine with six hands. The rickshaw took a beating when it landed. Parts and pieces are everywhere, but each time Rick glances up at it, it looks more and more like the thing that picked him and Rat up at the 170th street station. He goes for a few hours without stopping, feeling satisfied with his efforts and knowing Rat is far behind him in terms of what he has done. But he is good company and Rick knows he would not like it down here without him. His touch of home makes this work feel not so unusual. Looking back on what he has done, he leans on the shovel for a bit of a breather. The area is nothing like a subway tunnel. Not to mention that he feels hundreds of miles of Earth above pressing down, complete with stalactites. ¡°Dig!¡± He shoots an annoyed look into the eyes of a red-headed man-child thing with huge green eyes. He blinks in shock and when he reopens them, the blond dude is back pointing just as aggressively. He gets a bit mad at this. ¡°Some appreciation goes a long way, man¡± The eyes that seem too big for the little head already, grow even wider as he recoils in fear before disappearing back into the coveralls. When he pops back up, after a bit of chittering, he says, ¡°Please?¡± sweet as sugar. So, he continues to dig and dump, and more of the track is exposed shovelful by shovelful. The sourceless, steady bright light in the cavern hides any sense of time and Rick does not own a watch. Nor does he have lunch or the money to buy it so even as his stomach begs for sustenance, he ignores it and keeps working. Work always ends. So he sticks the shovel into the muck and lifts it over and over again. Eventually, Rat¡¯s only job is to follow with the wheelbarrow and dump it when it is full. Rick doesn''t even notice that he stopped digging. His plan is to keep his head down, finish the job and get so drunk tonight on what they pay him that he forgets all about the damage he has done to himself and all the damage he wishes he could do to the world. He is a machine when it comes to digging. His hands are thick with rough calluses and he has come into the ability to just let his mind go free of thought and just work. After what could have been minutes or hours, a voice commands, ¡°Wait.¡± Then more skittering. He looks up, confused, wondering if the day is over. ¡°Venit cibum¡± in a commanding squeaky voice. And a table appears on the track behind the rickshaw, covered in a feast. ¡°Eat, then dig?¡± Buried deep inside his brain, Rick wonders if a table filled with food should just appear out of nowhere. Food like still-steaming roast chicken, cabbage rolls, a mushroom medley, honey ginger carrots, freshly baked rolls with salty butter, and a cinnamon torte covered in gooey icing. And one should certainly never eat from a table like that, but oh God, the smells. Like Thanksgiving day. Like entering a pizzeria and knowing one of the pies is yours. More skittering and the head disappears and then pops back up, ¡°please?¡± But that was unnecessary as both he and Rat were moving toward the table almost as mindlessly as two people can get. Rick obliges. He sits in the comfortably padded dining chair with arms and looks at the delicious spread wondering where to start. He pulls a leg from a chicken and takes a bite. It tastes like nothing he has ever eaten before in his life. So good. So amazing. As if he has never had chicken before. Around a bite, he moans involuntarily. After his first bite of food, he can¡¯t stop. It¡¯s as if the many years of going without were a dam and this food just breached his self-control. He eats so much that when he is beyond full and the table is littered with empty dishes, he finds himself falling asleep until a dangerous roar pulls him back from what would have been a very deep sleep. pt. IV Rick gets worked
IV The giant roar would have woke him from a deep slumber. He sits upright in the comfy chair looking around dumbly but feeling great. Rested, strong, ready to dig the rest of the track free. The table is still present and on the other side of it, looking equally startled, is Rat. The only difference is that in his hand now is an old .25 with an ancient patina on it and a shiny pearl handle. With no sign of trigger discipline, he racks the slide when another roar directs his attention properly. It fills the cavern. The creature and its war cry. The freshly dug-out track running through the middle and off into the abyss bisects two yellow eyes. The eyes peer out from the dark in front of him, not blinking just focusing on him as if he were a prize up for grabs. From it wafts the same rotten egg smell that he has been cleaning up since morning and it comes along with that wonderful old baby shit stench. The kind that lives in a diaper genie needing to be taken out, yesterday. Vile. There is the fast sound of huge paws clawing at the rocky surface of the ledge. Rick stands and moves behind the chair and table littered with dishes. There he finds his shovel leaning as he left it. He holds it in his hands protectively. He blinks in response as the thing enters the sphere of yellow light. He knows it shouldn''t be. It''s a thing from the old movies he watched as a kid, a green-scaled serpent. A slithering shiny thing with jaws lined with sharp yellow teeth and a slick pink tongue tasting the air. It moves on huge muscled legs and swings a broad tail behind it. Rick knows he is the giant lizard¡¯s target, the menacing yellow eyes never leave him. He doesn¡¯t know what anyone else is doing but finds himself unable to take his eyes off the giant lizard. His enemy. The danger that needs to die. With a roar, it skitters around the table and comes at Rick from the side. From its mouth, hitting Rick full force is the baby shit stench. He reels. Knees wobbly. And then it¡¯s here, the moment he dies. If, at the last minute, Rick hadn¡¯t shoved the chair he had been napping in into the creature''s snapping mouth. It bites down hard and splinters of wood go flying but the soft cushion gets tangled in the thing¡¯s teeth. It shakes the stuffing free even so the springs are still stuck squeaking as it opens and closes its mouth trying to free itself. It flops onto its back scratching at its mouth with its hind legs doing far more harm than good. Seeing an opportunity, Rick fails to utilize it fully and slams the shovel into the giant lizard¡¯s head. The spade rebounds, vibrating in his hands painfully as if he had hit rock. The lizard seems unfazed, but no is longer distracted by its snarled-up teeth. It returns to its feet by simply twisting and standing in one fluid motion, and Rick knows what is going to happen next. He is going to die for real. But instead of fleeing, Rick tries one more tack and stabs the flat edge of the shovel into one of the beast¡¯s yellow eyes. The shovel enters with an obscene pop followed by the spray of thick viscuous juice. The lizard screams in pain and slithers back through the mud trying to escape. The shovel slips free of the wound covered in eye juice. The lizard swats at Rick with one of its huge claws and catches the laborer on the shoulder. He feels the laceration as a stinging slice. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Another blow was coming but prevented when three pistol shots rang out, echoing in the dark. They don¡¯t do much, but they do draw blood and the lizard''s attention. Fucking Rat, Rick laments, now he has to save his ass on top of everything else. This is when Rick goes berserk. He screams. It¡¯s guttural. The shovel comes up for a third attempt and again bounces off the lizard¡¯s jaw, but this time; the creature''s head snaps back. The attack leaves the shovel in two pieces, a splintered end, and a free end which skitters across the ground and disappears over the edge of the chasm. Hefting the splintered end, Rick leaps onto the lizard¡¯s trapped jaw. Its head can¡¯t hold Rick¡¯s bulk up and slams hard into the ground with a hollow painful thunk. At that moment, he sinks the remaining portion of the shovel into the lizard¡¯s other eye. A stench, that dwarfs anything encountered thus far, shoots out of the beast¡¯s mouth obliterating the cushion springs still trapped there. Rick rolls free just in time, feeling the stench melting the hair off his right arm. He is up, slowly, feeling every bump but where he intended to be, right next to the other shovel. A thought enters Rick¡¯s head; he is probably going to have to pay for these shovels at Workforce later, but that doesn¡¯t stop him from catching the lizard just behind the head with another jab. It¡¯s a lucky attack. The shovel sinks through a thin membrane and enters the beast''s soft ear canal. The brutality of the attack allows the spade to puncture through the small bones of the ear and find purchase in the creature''s brain. Rick twists like he would if encountering a root or stone, or some other obstruction on his way to finishing a dig. The dragon attempts one last half-hearted swing but the only task it succeeds at is driving the shovel in more completely. It shudders and lands with a splat of the stinky mud spurting out of its body from beneath its now still tail. His mind seems to clear at that. All anger, gone and for a brief second ¡°Mother fucker, I was shoveling lizard shit this whole time!¡± Then the shock of it all settles over him. ¡°Did you just kill a dragon?¡± Rat says over his right shoulder. His squeaky voice which matches his outward appearance so perfectly, goes even higher and more shrill still. Rick reaches out to touch the thing with a shaking hand. He lays his fingers on smooth scales over a cold muscular body. A stench of pungent sulfur drifts lazily out of the giant nostrils. Standing back, Rick can''t help but notice, from snout to tip of tail, it¡¯s a good thirty feet in length with the heft upwards near a good thousand pounds. With that, the adrenaline leaks from his body. He shakes as if suddenly freezing, hand groping for the amazing itch of agony pounding from his shoulder. He accidentally sticks a few fingers in the gaping wound which makes the pain fire up and knock a few tears out of his eyes and not just a few exclamations from his mouth. He even tries on a few of the new ones Rat just taught him. Rat looks at the wound, shock evident on his face, ¡°Damn, you are straight cut to the bone.¡± Rick knows it¡¯s bad because he is bleeding in rivulets out the cuff of his field jacket. Another cold shiver runs through his body. His knees and ankles hurt too bad to stand. And as if he has suddenly gained a thousand pounds, Rick plops down onto the freshly cleaned ground. A moment later, he leans forward and vomits. But before the fuzz growing around his eyes and painfully seeping into his brain does its job he notices the Rickshaw is gone and so is his wad of cash. ¡°Not smart,¡± he slurs then promptly passes out. pt. v: Rick Recovers... Somewhat V
Rick crawls out from beneath a mountain of unconsciousness. He finds himself back in Nam. How he fell asleep is beyond him. The sounds of jungle surrounds. Immediately he goes defensive, alert, and watchful. Both hurt. It¡¯s hot too¡­ hot but there is an ice-cold shiver running through his veins. Not Vietnam hot. No, Vietnam hot was like being pissed on with actual urine. Hot greasy watery air, and it was even somehow worse when it rained. Yet where else has he ever encountered a jungle before? The waking-up part bothers him. He was never one to malinger. Especially in a warzone. It''s not like him. Not for the six years he did over there anyway. Wait¡­ His thoughts are blurry. Which tour is this? He is in the middle of a chirping jungle. It could be night or day. Suddenly it dawns on him how much he hurts. His shoulder. Was he ever wounded? No. He doesn''t want to touch it. How did he get hurt? Why doesn¡¯t his memory want to function? He sits up. Bugs swarm him, biting and pinching. They buzz in his ears and land on his eyes. He doesn¡¯t swat, veterans of the shit know that. Swat at them and they become even more insistent. Instead, he runs through a list of things he knows. One; is he hurt or injured?. Yes, he is injured, maybe worse. His left arm won¡¯t move at all and he knows the sickly sweet smell that is swallowing him is coming from that wound he can¡¯t see. Two; he is 20¡­ again. No, that¡¯s not right either. His thick fingers have grey hairs sprouting from them, odd. But before he can really devote any time to that he hears the angry chatter of a group of NVA soldiers. It sounds like a hunt. They smash through the bush shouting at one another. They are coming for me, he decides. Yet he remains sitting, staring, unsure. He reaches out with his right hand, if this is Vietnam he knows it will land on an old friend. Betsy. She went everywhere he did in the bush. Maybe she had different numbers on her butt, or was handed to him by different armorers, but she was always Betsy, his trusty belt-fed M-60. He does as much of a 360 as he can with one arm but the only thing he finds is a shovel. He picks it up and stares at it, unsure of the how and why of this thing. It''s a normal shovel. A hardware shovel to take it out back and make a garden-type shovel. Not an army shovel. Little bastards were weapons themselves. The shovel is stained with mud and a coagulated black substance. Seeing the mud on the spade brings it upon him and the other smells hit him. He retches. It¡¯s in the onslaught of those smells, he remembers. The odd trio of small people acting like one big person. The sulfur-scented mud. The lizard. Rat! He calls his friend''s name as the jungle begins to fade back into the shit-stained cave ledge. The track still stops just short of the chasm but continues into the dark cave entrance in front of him. He calls out for Rat again. The angry chatter returns but it sounds a lot less like rampaging Vietcong and more like his buddy telling him everything was going to be alright. "Careful there, Rick. I thought I was on a death watch." Rat puts his hand on Rick''s shoulder but the bigger man shakes it off. Now even the bugs were fading away. The biting and pinching was becoming a sharp tingling feeling he felt all over his body. He definitely feels sick. Really, really sick. But sick or not, he decides sitting still does nothing for no one. So, he stands, the stinging and pinching getting worse initially but fading quickly until he stumbles. On wobbly knees, but leaning over, Rat comes to his rescue. "Hey, fat ass, let me help." Instead of murdering him for the insult, Rick slumps some of his weight onto the smaller man, closes his eyes, and waits. Eventually, his blood stops racing and his head clears. He looks toward the cave entrance and the direction of the still intact rails. ¡°What do you want to do?" he asks Rat hoping for a sensible solution to come from him. "Unless we can fly, we ain''t going back the way we came. Not without that What-ever-the-fuck-it-was and its death machine.¡± Neither talk as they look into the pitch black behind them. Is New York City really up there? He tries to do the math of where they might be under it, but the ride here was too twisty. They could be anywhere in the world for all he knew. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Then in unison, they look into the dark cave beyond the ledge. Which way do you think they went. Rick doesn¡¯t reply. Mainly because he still can¡¯t get his tongue to find words but also because he isn¡¯t sure. The rickshaw and his money could have gone in either direction, he surmises, but going the easier way would be the preferred choice, so he says so. "We really need to get moving in case another one of those scaly fucks smells all this blood comes looking for an easy meal." Rat nods but says, "What if that''s where they live?" "Well, we are about to find out." His left arm hangs uselessly at his side and after a few careful, agonizing, practice swings with it, he hopes to God nothing attacks him again anytime soon. Shovel in one hand and after shoving the hand of his useless appendage into a coat pocket, they begin walking leaving the stinking carcass of his kill and the ruined remains of the wheelbarrow behind. "Wonder how much they are going to charge for that thing." His mind recoils at the thought, "it makes finding that wad of cash even more important," he says as they enter the mouth of the cave, his voice echoing loudly and resulting in the angry flurry of bats or something further ahead in the cave. Walking is painful. Every step puts pressure on his swollen joints. If they don¡¯t figure something out in the next couple of days it feels like he might be nothing but a memory anyway. A bad one for almost everyone he ever met. That thought brings his son to mind. Removing him from his dead mother¡¯s arms. And leaving. Leaving the war, and Asia. Coming home to New York and living an okay life. He was wanted as a deserter sure, but it didn¡¯t matter because labor was brainless and plentiful. Then it came out, like all secrets eventually do, and as little as he had, he lost it all anyway. The boy, whether for good or ill, was in fact stolen. Oh really, Rick took that kid home from Vietnam illegally! He tried to reason with them, ¡°What was I supposed to do, leave him there to die?¡± He and three other grunts were ranging through North Vietnam. That was their job, long-range recon,. Soldiers were picked from normal units because they had proven to be able to do superhuman things, like survive for months behind enemy lines. Away from air support. Away from legalities. They were a small fire team; three of which were KIA in the same firefight that killed the boy''s mother. Yes, he absconded with a baby. And got away with it for almost sixteen years, which at the end of, Sammy got his citizenship. That led him to have a fantastic life as a Ph.D. of literature, becoming a husband and father; and a published, respected author. It was worth it for that. Fuck what happens next. The twenty dollars he sent him, religiously, was just a symbol of a father who loves his son, regardless of what anyone said. He shakes off thoughts of his boy. It¡¯s not going to help anything to be on the verge of rage, he decides. He also decides to plunge through the cave entrance to see where it leads. Every step is agony until he gets his mind right. Pain does not kill. Those are the exact words he has screamed in many-a-ear of dying youths in the field. Was it pain that ultimately killed them? No, it was the sucking chest wound, or missing limb, or some other trauma of which there were many. But not the pain. Never the pain. Pain is a teacher. So, he tells his mind it¡¯s nothing but a lesson, and it is. If that is a special skill, to turn off one¡¯s brain when uncomfortable, then it¡¯s a special skill most men who have braved the infantry, in its many varied forms, have eventually attained. If not, they don¡¯t wear the blue for very long. Even shoved in a pocket the arm wobbles, so he lets it. as he sets his mind to getting used to the agony. Pain has been a lifelong companion anyway. He and Rat walk the track as it goes through the rock wall and runs for several hundred yards before turning right and heading toward a blinding light. Once inside, the first thing they notice are the tags. Graffiti. It covers the entire cave. Walls, ceiling, floor. The paint glows in places throughout the cave and because of it, he has no need for an additional light source. The images on the walls are amazing. Most of them were of home. They are so intricate that the location is obvious. The subway features prominently. And famous buildings at night. People sleeping. Back seats of cars zooming through the countryside. Some focus was placed on treasure and riches but mostly the images portrayed technology. Simple machines like toasters and Televisions, all the way up to nuclear missiles. Gears and levers and giant smoking factories that produced who knows what. By the end of the short hike through the cave, he isn¡¯t certain if he learned something or was just drowned in images, but is certain of one thing, he has never seen stuff like this before. Except one place. ¡°In New York, there were groups of homeless that lived in the subway tracks, right?¡± ¡°Yah, yah I remember them," Rat replies. ¡°Remember, like past tense¡± ¡°No one knows where they went." "But they used to camp with tags like these. I heard about them for that." They did. They left tons of art behind.¡± ¡°Where do you think they went?¡± ¡°Not a clue, where would you go?¡± Rick doesn¡¯t answer. Because the answer is very passive, he goes where his son goes. He wishes he could show this to him, nothing excited the boy more than the subway. Eventually, they arrive at the cave exit and penetrate the bright light streaming in, Once through, they are confronted with an enormous bowl-shaped valley covered with pines, firs, and spruces. But below deep is utter chaos. Flying contraptions that burp and fall out of the sky, others that zoom dangerously low as if without care, and others that look benign and safe. Fuzzy-headed creatures with small bulbous noses and giant eyes. And below the airborne is a thick white cloud that when the flying machines exit, they leave little trails of vapor behind. And when they enter they make a hole that hangs around for a bit. Through the holes, they see hints of a city that makes the chaos in the sky seem tame. "Holy God," Rick whispers. "They have to have gone done there, huh, Rick?" Rick is about to answer when from above, the screech of a hawk grabs their attention. They shield their eyes from a bright blue sky but as things come into focus they don''t see a hawk they instead see a net weighted with bolo balls coming straight towards them. ¡°Holy fucking shit! Rick tries to shield his head with his good arm. But it does no good as both are wrapped up tight as a bug in a bed.
pt. VI Ricks New Friends A hawk screeches close by and the whoosh of wings comes within inches above his head, but it only partially draws his attention as three little¡­ humans exit the forest. They couldn¡¯t be more different from each other except that all are short. One is as round and to get into how much she looks like a pig would take all day; the one with the hawk gear is thin as a twig with dark clothes hanging from his bony body doing little to conceal his weirdly angled shape; and the third looks like a sick mouse shaking and rubbing its face with its pink hands that could be human¡­ maybe? The hawk screeches from above, Rick tries to crane his neck to look but he is wrapped up too tight. Rat is in for it worse, pinned under Rick¡¯s left arm, face right in the armpit. He says ¡°hmmmpprpfdfff?¡± in complaint. Rick feels bad for the twitchy dude, and if he could do something about the situation, he would. Instead of finding the hawk, the hawk finds Rick¡¯s field of vision as it lands on Stick Man¡¯s outstretched arm, wrapped in what looks like very dirty, very used blankets. ¡°Martha¡¯s a very good girl,¡± says the hawker in a thick accent that Rick can¡¯t place. Is it Eastern European? Is it Indian? Maybe both. From his vantage point, he watches the bird take food from its master¡¯s mouth and reacts in disgust at how deep he makes the bird go as a face suddenly appears in his vision. A fat round face with tiny eyes and short greasy hair that looks gelled into a permanent curly crust. She wears a stained pink dress that at one point might have been bigger on her. Then her hand grabs him roughly, lifting him up and opening his shoulder into a fresh wave of agony. He screams in anger and pain. And as the world goes from normal to red and black, it is then that Rick finds the self inside his head taking a step back. This has happened before. It is like looking at his life through a door in a dark room. This time the door is very, very far away. In fact, he doubts he has ever been as far from it as he is now. Distance is key because it takes that long to even get into position to be in control again. With no promises that he can even wrest control from the monster he is about to become. First, Rick¡¯s self thinks, shit, I¡¯m going back to prison. Second, they deserve what¡¯s about to happen to them. Third, he decided this is going to be fun. Rick¡¯s body drops its feet, and, like an anchor, all effort by his captors is negated. Still with their little fingers entangled in the net, Rick strains. The owners of both sets of hands scream in pain, as they lose the fingers they were not able to get free as the net pops. Bolo balls go flying as if fired from a canon. The sounds of bones and skulls cracking is audible as Rick and Rat find themselves again free. Rat has his .25 out. But Rick¡¯s self is still free, separated from his physical form. If he could have added his two cents to the whole situation, he¡¯d say, ¡°Run!¡± But he doesn¡¯t and even doubts if not raging that he would be able to do much of anything at all. Separated, he can still feel the sickness working in his shoulder like icy hotness. Growing, consuming him. Here in the dark room, desperately trying to get to the tiny lit rectangle that is his escape, he knows he needs treatment soon if he is going to survive. And he doesn¡¯t have long before the rage falls away and he is left injured and useless again. Probably even more so because of what he just did to the net. Rat is already using his pistol and fires two shots. At what Rick has no clue. As he approaches the lit door, all three of their assistants seem to be down. The fight is over. But artificially. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Rat falls. One moment he is taking careful aim and the next he has a stupid look on his twitchy face, stiffens and falls nose-first into the ground. Rick¡¯s self feels his body¡¯s rage slipping. But he needs it to stay aware and stop his progress to the door. He demands his body fight through a rising dizziness. His body tries to comply but he finds himself again on his knees. He commands himself, ¡°Do not black out! Regain your feet, maggot!¡± But his body does neither. He can¡¯t fight hard enough to make himself obey the order, not with the drowsy warmth seeping all through him. The peaceful warmth is taking over. With darkness playing at the corners of his vision, growing, threatening to take over, a young woman around the age of his granddaughter appears in his line of sight. She is normal-sized with a glowing dark brown complexion. Her hair is bleached cornrows. As the world dims and the lit door is fast approaching he is desperate to avoid being back in his body, almost by pure force he manages to stop himself right at the door. Hands and feet braced, shaking. How long he can maintain this is unknown, but as long as she doesn¡¯t keep shooting him with darts he might can. She smiles at him, teeth white and sparkly, face friendly, until the blow gun is brought back to her lips and she fires a second dart into his neck. He doesn¡¯t go out. But the darkness grows to where his only awareness is the fight not to go out completely. The poor man. Considered by some the unluckiest man alive, he does not lose consciousness, however, he can not move at all either. ¡°Get him prepped, Mookie, I don¡¯t want the tiny shits to catch us on the ledge. We can¡¯t afford to spend another second in their freak show jail again.¡± The person named Mookie emerges from the forest. She ambles on one leg, bouncing just as quickly as a whole person can walk. She has a crutch pressed under one arm, but she isn''t using it for much as she moves. She has metal plates riveted into the place for a face. A slit for a mouth. Menacing pinchers for hands. Her one leg is an articulated pogo stick. It goes boing boing boing as she moves. When she gets to Rick, it turns out prepping him is strapping an odd contraption that she pulls from a cavity in her chest onto his face. The contraption seems part fire-below and part bread maker with a do-hickey on the side. She twists the do-hickey and the thing begins to smoke and chug and feed cold oxygen into Ricks''s prone body. Rat gets one also. Mookie grabs a fistful of Rick''s field jacket and Rat¡¯s trenchcoat and effortlessly drags them from the rocky ledge into to the pine and spruce forest. As the drugs wane slightly, he is able to regain more control over his situation, and passenger Rick is very grateful for this. He is still pissed as hell and as soon as they allow him to be able to, he plans on ripping their limbs from their still-breathing bodies and twisting them into a sculpture of pain and death. But first Mookie undertakes only a short journey through the trees and soon she enters a clearing which at the center has a giant red balloon strapped to a galley. A giant fire roars under a giant brass teakettle that sits smack dab under the giant balloon. A short stocky man wearing what looks like a navy uniform from the 19th century, a utility coat made from rich blue wool, under his coat is a brass bib with a green patina, and on his head is even a tricorner hat, pumps a bellows into the fire. There was a full crew of creatures running around the boat. Men that looked like rodents, pigs, and even a few reptile-looking folks, about ten various-looking aeronauts work the riggings and feed the fire. Mookie first puts Rick, then Rat, onto her shoulder, hunches down real low on her pogo-stick leg, and bounds up to the deck of the galley. Just after she gets on board, the bleached blonde climbs aboard. ¡°Capy, set sail.¡± In what could be mistaken for a thick brogue, the uniformed bellower turns and says, "Aye aye mistress. Where be the others?¡± ¡°Dead, but with the price these two will fetch, we will easily be able to replace them.¡± ¡°Dead?¡± Capy replies. ¡°Then these two are dangerous?¡± ¡°Very. But we won¡¯t have them aboard long. I¡¯ve sent Algernon ahead with word strapped to her talon of what we caught coming through The Gap. Our Lord should be satisfied. Very pleased with his new toys.¡± Pt. VII Part and Pieces of RIck VII
If Rick were a toy, he¡¯d believe it. He is handled roughly as the air changes from smog-clogged but with a breeze to stuffy smog-clogged with the stench of tar pitch. He is barely hanging on to the outskirts of his physicality as they attempt to secure his arms. And he has no plans of trying to take over control, not yet anyway. While his body rages, he can stay aware enough to listen in on what¡¯s being said around him. For a little while, anyway, until the effort gets too much. ¡°Why tie him up? Truly a useless endeavor at this stage,¡± says a squeaky female voice with much annoyance. ¡°The mistress¡¯s darts contain a neurotoxin. They wear off and we don¡¯t want this giant fool rampaging on deck and getting us in trouble with the Boss, do we?¡± These words are said by a gruff voice with a bit of an oink to it. Before this, it was just a lot of swearing and huffing and puffing as they put him where they wanted him to be. Now he gets a bit of personality and a sense of intelligence. They both sound stupid and more interested in avoiding trouble than doing a good job. Gruff Oinky has stubby fingers covered in sharp thick callus-tipped hoof-like nails. Every twist he makes with the rope, his hooves scratch at the underside of Rick¡¯s forearms. As he completes the knot, his-self is quite happy not to be feeling pain in this state. His-self allows his physicality to test the rope. He flexes and the rope stretches easily and he knows he can break it like a piece of string; if he wants to. So he does, easily. Oops. ¡°Crap, he just broke the rope.¡± A foot nudges him, ¡°You awake, fat man?¡± He pretends to be out, hoping to find out some info. The one thing he knows for sure is you don¡¯t tie someone up if you plan on murdering them immediately. ¡°The Mistress shot you with a neurotoxin. Don¡¯t try to do too much, or you could really fuck up your nervous system. Especially as old as you are.¡± ¡°Where¡¯d an ugly, stupid asshole like you get a neurotoxin?¡± is what he wanted to say, but nothing came out right except neurotoxin. The slap was so loud that his-self flinches and he barely manages to contain his physical rage. ¡°How dare you insult me. I have more smarts in my shit than you could have even after feasting on sweetbreads for a week.¡± Instead of crying out or answering, Rick goes quiet. ¡°What¡¯s a sweetbread? Gruff Oinky asks. Stupid Lady laughs soft and menacing and says, ¡°But of course we have neurotoxin. We have everything. We rob the greatest city on Earth every night at our leisure. Neurotoxins? They are sold like sand in Pit City. Most everything is. Including brains and air-ships. With limitless cash, we pirates be,¡± her screaming laughter is filled with ridicule. Before Gruff Oinky or Rick can fully comprehend all of Stupid Lady¡¯s words, he feels a soft tiny hand grab the meat of his shoulder in a strong pinch. If he were physically able, he would have said ouch, especially as a cold syringe is plunged into the fold of skin. Instantly a swirling blackness batters at him in addition to a strong shift of mood. His reality instantly becomes a game of is he dreaming. Is he dreaming that his skin is melting from his body revealing overlapping steel scales being riveted down into one another? They sizzle, exposed to the hot steamy air as they are. His nervous system pulses and throbs with endless agony, but to the beat of a song he thinks he knows. My Sharona? His teeth complain in squeaks and pain under the strain of a clenched jaw. Is his tongue a hideous slug too big for his mouth? It tastes like pus and rotten food and squirms like it is angry and wants to murder his teeth. Are his hands and feet always going to be hideous spasming claws? How are the bones of his arms and legs being twisted and pulled like taffy and not snapping into a million pieces? So many questions and he feels them all in their grotesque painful glory! Discomfort is not the opposite of comfort, however, but the absence. So he allows himself some comfort and allows his physicality permission to pass out fully. The time between that moment and the one he reawakes in is brief, too brief, and it almost feels like no time has passed at all. But when awareness returns, he is back in his physical form. His eyes are open and he thinks he is dreaming but the pain is still so alive that for a moment he thinks he is a part of it and not that it is a part of him. He wants the blackness to take him again. Especially when he sees three of the smallest people he has ever seen in his life cleaning viscera off scalpels and other implements of surgery. Two tiny human males who look identical to one another, except one wears a red jumpsuit and the other wears green. He does not recognize either. Both have bloody aprons covering their fronts. They have bandoliers of wrenches and screwdrivers that cross over their chests and around their waists. A hammer is tucked into a holster on Mr. Green¡¯s hip. The hammer looks like it has skin and hair flattened into the head. It looks mushy and on the verge of dripping free. The wicked-looking chisel on the Mr. Red¡¯s left hip still shines red from his efforts. The third person is the blue-eyed female version of the curly-headed thing that had its head popped up from the coverall. She glowers darkly, and though she doesn¡¯t look older than the males, something about her demeanor suggests she has many more years of experience built into her meanness. Her nose is a bit less bulbous from the coverall twins, but her eyes are just as large. She wears a stained doctor''s coat, the pockets of which are filled to bursting with various bits of tubing, wires and scraps of metal. Her pink hair is pulled into two ponytails that bounce on the top of her head as she stirs a bubbling concoction with the end of an ash wood rod long enough for her to use as a staff. It takes a minute to realize that there is no fire under the cauldron yet it boils angrily. Then extreme and utter agony comes from his left arm. He looks and knows immediately that he should not be having any pain whatsoever. Especially from his left arm, because it appears he no longer has a left arm. Once Rick completes this realization, he loses all sanity. He was doing good keeping it together up till now. Maybe it was all the acid in 70s that prepared him for there being a giant city beneath Manhattan run by little criminals. He was even okay coming into Workforce and seemingly set in the path of a giant lizard with no warning. But all he wanted was to trade a bit of work for some chicken and a sixpack and it cost him his arm. The scream he utters is primal and loud and reaches beyond the smog-cloud hiding the rock ceiling separating all this crazy from the real world far above. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. It echos off and rebounds over and over again for a long time before disappearing. ¡°What the fuck?¡± Stupid Lady turns and notices him awake, ¡°Fucking morons! He¡¯s awake! Knock his ass out again, I¡¯m not ready for the fucking questions,¡± she screams in a voice that could belong to Sunset Park Cafeteria worker. Memories of the middle school assault as Gruff Oinky seems to be pointing something at him. Oh, it¡¯s a stun-gun he decides just as his mind again floats away into nothing. This time he is only away for what feels like a single moment. He decides he has to still be dreaming until he tries to move. The agony ripping through every muscle and joint makes him moan loudly and shed a few tears involuntarily. Stupid Lady runs over, ¡°Don¡¯t move. You could undo everything. You aren¡¯t completely healed.¡± Her voice is squeaky and high-pitched and hurts Rick¡¯s ears. He means to ask, what happened, followed by, who are you, but both questions come out as one and Rick manages, ¡°What are you?¡± ¡°Rude! Don¡¯t sit up. I¡¯ve got a medicine that¡¯ll ease the swelling and make it hurt a lot less. You need to heal and this is going to hurt, but only at first. He hopes she¡¯s right as she moves back over to the magically bubbling liquid and removes a glass syringe that looks well-used and could have fallen out of the 1920¡¯s. She thrusts it down in the brown sludgy liquid and pulls back the stopper. Steams fills the syringe as the sludge follows. After squirting a bit out with an audible squelching noise, she puts a giant needle on the end. She nods to someone behind him and two sets of hands press down on him and with one quick movement, quicker than he can defend against, the needle is plunged into his right thigh. He feels the temperature of the boiling liquid first, then its thick clumpiness as it is pushed into his quadricep. He would scream because he really really wants to, but instead, he decides not to give her the satisfaction and takes it. Once the stopper has completed its journey she pockets the syringe in a pocket of her dirty doctor coat and looks at him impressed. ¡°Now you can sit up.¡± He does so and it is easy and pain free. In fact, all pain is gone except for the hot lava medicine but even that quickly fades as the concoction joins his body''s chemistry. He feels so good, he is able to test his constraints and finds himself no longer tied. Instead, a single steel cuff circles his left ankle, attached to a chain secured in place with four bolts to side of the airboat. Before he can explore this situation further, a glint of shiny metal catches his attention. The glint is from the corrugated steel covering his left shoulder. He tries to lift the arm. It goes CHUG, as if many little pneumatic hoses just filled with fluid. His arm shoots up in response. He turns his palm, CHUG, and instead of the appendage that has sat at the end of his arm his entire life, instead is something that looks like it belongs in a Tim Burton movie. It is built out of bits of odds and ends. Strips of metal. Coiled and woven copper wire. He taps on it with his right still-human hand. The arm doesn¡¯t sound hollow but is so rusty in places there are small holes through which he can see wires and mechanics. He makes a fist, CHUG, and his fingers join together into a ball, ready for the next order. Rick nods at the strength flowing there, strength similar to what he had before but different in that he could ramp up that strength as much as he needs. He decides to test it and puts the new hand on the chain and pulls. The movement hurts a bit but he manages and the wood he is bolted to begins to creak and bulge. Both of the male gnomes approach, one pulls out a blowgun and moves it to his mouth. ¡°No, no, mister wait. If you break the ship, the arm I built you won¡¯t do shit when you fall from the sky. Believe me, the fauna down there can¡¯t wait to munch on tenderized human. They don¡¯t get it very often and have to be sick of flattened gnomes.¡± He stills, thinking gnomes? And about falling from a great height and screaming for almost a minute before dying. He nods and lets the chain go. ¡°I have more medicine for you. It should help with the pain and, well, everything else also. She taps the syringe in her pocket. Not pleasant but if don¡¯t let me treat your attachment, you¡¯ll just die and all my work will be wasted. So chill the fuck out,¡± Stupid Lady says calmly, as if she has the situation well in hand. Rick does chill out. Surprised that he believes her. Looking around the hold of the galley, he sees twenty or so aeronauts working on dismembering the carcass of the giant lizard he battled. It has already been skinned and disemboweled, and its meat was being stripped from bone. ¡°We will split the profit with you of anything off it we sell. Dragon parts have much value. We have much thanks to offer the fools who hired you.¡± ¡°What was that thing?¡± ¡°A green lizard. A nasty beast. They usually don¡¯t get this far up without being stopped by the lack of carbon dioxide. Nasty things don¡¯t like air. They are the problem of the dwarves further below.¡± ¡°Dwarves?¡± ¡°Lazy good for nothing but mining ore and fucking each other. Stupid things don¡¯t even know female from male, it¡¯s just dig, orgy, dig, orgy. And the baby dwarves just keeping falling out dwarven wombs. Gnomes don¡¯t let them into Pit City. Ugly things belong below the oxygen line." It explains the mystery of why the tracks are covered in shit. ¡°Shit! I¡¯ve been shoveling shit!¡± ¡°Dragon shit.¡± ¡°Is that supposed to make it better?¡± The two males look at each other and shrug their shoulders. ¡°We have more important problems to deal with. Mainly that you can never leave.¡± ¡°What do you mean, I can¡¯t leave.¡± ¡°You are a slave now. A member of the Mistress¡¯s crew. You see that arm? It¡¯s a gift and a curse. It puts dragon blood into veins. Once you taste dragon blood," she holds up the filthy syringe, "you need it, bad. Just trust me, if you go without a shot of this stuff you¡¯ll beg me to fix you up. But don¡¯t worry, I got you covered,¡± she concludes, waving her arm at the steaming cauldron. ¡°Most likely you will never die, though,¡± Mr. Green offers. Rick smiles, ¡°really?¡± ¡°No. Stop telling tales, Cogsdale," Mr. Red replies giving the gnome in the green coveralls a scathing look. Stupid Lady turns back to Rick, ¡°You will probably die someday. Maybe tomorrow? It all depends if our mistress still has need for you, or not. And right now, she needs you.¡± "Why? What need could you have with an old man who sleeps on the street? I don''t even have a driver''s license." ¡°Your son is meddling in our affairs and we need you to stop him.¡± ¡°My what?¡± ¡°Your son, you know- the Emperor of the Under World, he is trying to bring dwarves, gnomes, hybrids, and humans together. And that can''t happen, our mistress likes things the way they are. Chaotic. Makes for an easier shopping experience if you know what I mean." Pt. VIII Rick Gets a Ride Pt. VIII
There is a smell to the air of the Underworld beneath New York City. To be frank, it fucking stinks. The populace of this fair? reality have stopped noticing. As a newcomer, Rick is finding it difficult to take. If you asked him what it smells like, he¡¯d say something like ¡°spoiled pudding on fire.¡± And that is really an apt description. It is also hot and humid and generally not very pleasant. It is within these atmospheric rules that allow for air travel. Zeppelins mainly, powered by gnome ingenuity, and hot greasy air. The same ingenuity that created the giant pistons holding New York City aloft. The gnomes are also the reason that those pistons are needed in the first place, but let''s not confuse things. Rick doesn¡¯t know any of that yet anyway. He won¡¯t really care when he does learn. To be frank, he would prefer it not to smell so badly. Because there was really only one question on his mind. ¡°My son?¡± Rick questions the gnome in Red. ¡°Emperor of the Under World?¡± Nothing made sense anyway, why not have this be true? The putrid air, the dangerous-looking contraption attached to his shoulder, his son not just being a professor of mythological literature but some king or emperor to these people? ¡°Cogsdale!¡± Stupid Lady yells. ¡°Look, it is too late. The ugly human thoroughly believes his son might be emperor of the Underworld.¡± Stupid Lady approaches and places a hand on his shoulder. ¡°Look, Cogsdale lies about everything. We¡¯ve never even heard of your son, before meeting you.¡± They are laughing at him now and he doesn¡¯t like it. He is bouncing between the idea he is dead or in some kind of deep coma. This sure as shit feels like some kind of sick afterlife joke to pay him back for all his misdeeds. Especially for the ones he did in Nam. Specifically, the one where he made his son with a woman desperate for comfort and safety. He doesn¡¯t like thinking about Vietnam. About all that lost time and all the lies used to get him to maim and kill the enemy. And he was good at killing. Willing also, which is really the hardest skill to come by. The Army can¡¯t teach a killer instinct. Yet here he is, mind dark with the one memory he wishes he could forget. ¡°Rick,¡± the voice is his company commander from sixty-four years ago. ¡°You¡¯re going out.¡± Going out meant get your kit and make peace with your God. ¡°Sir, yes sir,¡± he salutes at attention and moves off at a double time. Yah, he was that squared away. The tent flap opens into the gloom. It¡¯s a temporary base of Operations. They don¡¯t stay in the same place long. Dangerous for them and very dangerous for the unit they crash with. A week tops and they move on somewhere else. Tents and provisions are handled by the host unit. Everything except his kit. His kit consists of: (1 each) Map (0.1 lbs), compass (0.2 lbs), sextant (2.5 lbs), secure radio (2 lbs), binoculars (1.5 lbs), range finder (1 lb), compact spotting scope (1.5 lbs), semi-automatic Beretta M9 9mm lightweight (2.6 lbs) with three full 20-round magazines (3 lbs), Kabar knife (1.2 lbs), firestarter (0.1 lbs), package of water purification tablets (0.1 lbs), compact fishing kit (0.5 lbs), basic first aid kit with morphine (1 lb), camo poncho (1.5 lbs), canteen (3 lbs), roll of ripcord (0.5 lbs), all-weather notebooks and water-resistant pencil,(0.5 lbs), one set of ripstop tiger stripe BDUs (2 lbs), one pair of canvas-topped steel mesh-soled jungle boots (2 lbs). And nine high-calorie protein bars (2 lbs). The total weight he brings with him is 31.3 lbs. Everything, except the BDUs and sidearm, gets shoved into the frameless rucksack in a particular order. Everything is meticulously maintained. Metal is taped to avoid jingling or glinting in light. Items are folded just right to minimize spatial impact. It¡¯s not a lot of weight, but after a while, it becomes a bitch like anything else. So it has to sit perfect. It¡¯s all he will own until he is pulled out. Maybe a week, maybe more. His ruck packed, dressed, and face painted, he steps out of the barracks he shares with the other LRRPS and heads over to the company area. Every mission, Rick gives the company clerk the same letter, sealed and ready to be sent free of charge to an address in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He wrote the letter six years previous before going out on patrol with his first unit. The letter was to his dad, who asked for only one promise before Rick shipped out. ¡°If you die, I want it to be you who tells me,¡± Impossible old man was already dead when he made it back to the States with Junior. But that¡¯s nine months later, and some changes later. Infantry patrols were a dream compared to what he was about to do. But the fear he felt then was still as palpable today. He was always certain he was going to die. He never does, which does not make him feel better, just that it was still due to come true one day. The wait was torture. But it was the LRRPS life that prepared him for the streets. Being homeless was just another mission. Been there, done that. The only difference was in name, he had a job to do. Blow shit up. Covertly kill people. Basically, terrorize and record intel. Be a ghost in the woods. At his size, it was surprising to most that he was as good at this, yet he was. ¡°The trick,¡± he would tell someone decades later, ¡°is just to kill them before they see you.¡± The army trained him well. Airborne School, Ranger School, SERE School, Sniper School, Navigation and Orienteering, Close Quarters Battle, Communications Training, Jungle Warfare School, Desert Warfare School, Arctic Warfare School. Every year he was out of the nam was filled with training to get better at the Nam. He knows what to do because in the army every cog has to perform perfectly for the entire machine to work. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. His specific goal while out was to break shit, The clerk in what would turn out to be his last unit, 187 Rakkasans, is at work in Headquarters company. He is a corporal, ¡°Hey sergeant. Got the finger, huh?¡± Rick nods and wordlessly puts the letter on the counter. The clerk placed it under his typewriter and promised, ¡°I¡¯ll keep it safe till you get back sergeant.¡± ¡°Thank you, Pedro,¡± he says to the boy who is not named Pedro nor even Mexican. And honestly, Rick knows the nickname comes from the fact he smells like beans. Beans cold right out of the can. ¡°No worries, Sarge. Duty 222 waiting in the jeep.¡± And he was. Rick jumps into the passenger¡¯s seat with his gear on his lap. The L.T. drives through the camp fast, like he was the only one going anywhere. People scream, other vehicles honk, he creates bedlam in his wake. They don¡¯t talk and Rick¡¯s mind is completely blank, a skill the army bestows on all their enlisted soldiers. Blind loyalty. He never really thought about the war politically. Until he got back to the States with his son. Up till then, it was a job he was exceptionally good at. The plane is on the airport runway idling, waiting for him and any other fool getting dumped over a jungle. A small shack where parachutes are folded into packs sits right off the tarmac. He is always asked to save his chute, and so far he has never lost one. ¡°Evening Sergeant. Last bag of the night. How much you weigh again?¡± He takes down the offered 240 knowing it was a lie, and with a sigh says, ¡°I¡¯ll have to adjust some things, just a minute.¡± Outside he knows the C-130 crew has notified he is here when the engines begin to pick up power. ¡°The pilots obviously want to get this op over with,¡± he says to the tech-four.¡± ¡°Flying at night in a slow-ass cargo plane is like being in the middle of a lake with no paddle when the anti-aircraft guns start firing. No sir won¡¯t ever catch me up there like that.¡± Rick always hoped to be out of the plane when the anti-aircraft started. Not fun to find the thing keeping you a few thousand feet in the air developing new holes in its fuselage. It takes the rigger about fifteen minutes to do the additional deed and help Rick into the pack. He makes sure everything is secure and done right. Afterward, he steps back and salutes, ¡°Knock ¡®em dead, Sir!¡± Rick doesn¡¯t salute back, He is enlisted after all, but he does shoot the soldier, younger by four years, a smile because he gets the joke. He¡¯s a sergeant, he works for a living, hahaha, but honestly, Rick loves what he did. This was adventure beyond all expectations. He climbs onboard, takes his seat and ignores the safety briefing. His only job is to wait for the red light to turn green. It¡¯ll be an hour or so. Until then, he naps. Static line jumping is more loud than it is scary, at least at this point in Rick¡¯s military career. He¡¯s even forgotten the exact number of jumps he¡¯s done. A thousand? Maybe. The pilot knows for sure where to green light him and sure enough, the strobe light goes red and the crew chief opens the door. Rick stands, kit between his knees, and shimmies through the blast of wind. The chief yells go, but Rick was already gone. Soaring through the air weightless for a couple moments before the parachute catches with a jerk and he floats down to the rice paddy below him. Humid wind caresses him as he settles down into a paddy already picked by a pathfinder likely still in the area. They won¡¯t meet. Once Rick is on the ground, he heads directly into the woods and the Pathfinder heads to where ever he was told to go catch an LZ. It¡¯ll be the same scenario for Rick when he finishes his mission. A ride out on a Huey with no seats and an even bigger target on it than a C-130. Once on the ground, the real work began. Long-range recon is grueling. He¡¯s fifty clicks over the border. The plane doesn¡¯t even need to slow down to get rid of him and looking up to find would be a waste of time. Once down he hustles into a thick treeline, stows his chute and waits. In his left hand is his kabar. In his right the Berreta. He misses Betsy. He only brings it now when he is on patrol with his team. Four grunts, all sergeants. When they go out together shit burns down. He waited holding his breath to listen carefully. He hears farm life happening nearby. The complaints of the oxen. The only heavy equipment farmers get in Northern Vietnam. He hears a family inside happily sharing a meal. He is a bit jealous. His only family is his dad, but every time he gets to come back to Vietnam, he knows it just might be the last time he sees him. He is thinking about his father and looking as he looks at the map marked with his objectives. He chooses one of the closer ones, refolds the map, and stows it in the cargo pocket on his left thigh. Then he almost died. A squad of Vietcong walked right passed him. Four men all with AK-47s. Sandaled feet and the only giveaway, the thing that saved Rick¡¯s life, a half-full canteen sloshing with every footstep. He¡¯ll find out later they were all conscripts. No rank. Probably AWOL or whatever the North Vietnamese called it. Cowards and deserters, it¡¯s probably the same in English also, worthless and dangerous men. From the shadows he watches them approach the farm. He decides they must be hungry and desperate for food. After a brief communication, one of the men kicked in the front door of the farmer¡¯s hut. The terror inside was immediate. And Rick stood to be a good guy. I won¡¯t bore you with the details. I will just point out one tiny factoid. A kabar is one of the world''s best knives for killing your enemy close-up. It¡¯s the plunging power of a solid unbreakable rib of sharpened steel. The slashes engraved near the hilt break the suction when in the body and allow for it to be easily removed and thus reapplied to whichever vital spot was picked for destruction. That''s what Rick did to the last soldiers. The two who didn¡¯t make it into the hut. Their lives ended less than two seconds from one another. A bullet stopped the third¡¯s life. And the fourth knew he was fucked and pulled out a grenade. ¡°You can¡¯t believe anything Cogsdale says. There is something wrong with him¡± This pulls him out of the memory. He knows he wasn¡¯t here for a bit and isn¡¯t sure if they answered his question. So he says, ¡°My son is a professor of literature at Fordham University.¡± ¡°I know. Fordham. You mentioned him over and over again while you were out and we were working on you. I didn¡¯t care then and I sure as shit don¡¯t give a fuck now.¡± Rick is still shaking off Vietnam and doesn¡¯t respond. When he thinks of it, it is really like going back there for him. ¡°What happened to the three that contracted WorkForce for me?¡± ¡°They weren¡¯t eaten by the lizard? Not like a gnome to leave a lizard''s body behind. Probably was already leaning toward running. Honestly looking at you, I¡¯m surprised they even succeeded in getting you down here. What are you, 450 pounds? Anyway, that arm ain¡¯t free. We need to talk about what you owe me.¡± ¡°Not 450 pounds. Not even with Rat standing on my shoulders--- Rat!¡± Last he saw him he was about to throw some lead into some aeroship-pirates. ¡°Where¡¯s Rat? Where¡¯s the guy that you nettled up here with me?¡± She gets real uncomfortable at the question and answers in a soft empathetic voice, ¡°He didn¡¯t make it.¡± pt. IX Rick Settles pt. IX
¡°Close your fist,¡± Stupid Lady demands. And Rick assumes she means the mess on the end of his new arm and somehow it works just like his other one and the five segmented digits flex together into one perfect knot. ¡°Catch this.¡± And he does catch what turns out to be a little spanner. ¡°Crumple it like paper.¡± ¡°And he does. The metal screams in response as he crumples it into a new shape. He is truly blown away by the capabilities. ¡°See this?¡± she holds up an amulet with a red stone in the center glowing just slightly. ¡°This is what is powering your arm. Get too far away and It goes dead. Ever try and lug around 240 pounds of steel? It ain¡¯t going to be fun.¡± She finishes and stares at it as if expecting something more. ¡°Now what? He asks as if bored, and every day he becomes a slave. ¡°Go work.¡± Wait a second. So¡­ Rick is now just a resident of this NYC Underworld thing? No fight for freedom? No complaints? No witty banter with Stupid Lady? Oh, by the way, she does not like being referred to as ¡®Stupid Lady¡¯ and has asked Rick to stop. ¡°My name, oaf, is Doctor Sally.¡± ¡°What kind of doctor are you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a family name.¡± She also tells him the clipper is called the Merry Merrey Alle. And Rick tells her he misses Rat. Maybe it was the shared experience. Or the connection to a world that seems so far away, but a little camraderie would help all this go down a bit easier. He asked Doctor Sally, ¡°How did he die?¡± ¡°The idiot jumped off. Never saw anything stupider. Screamed all the way through the cloud bank.¡± He can picture it and feels bad for the man. He was a good guy to work a job with. They took turns with breaks when on a job. The one ¡®working¡¯ got to drink. The one on break looked out for the foreman. And with that same work mentality, he becomes an active member of the crew. At first, it was a lark. ¡°Maybe the old fat man climbs the rigging?¡± Followed by laughter until he did, snapping only a few fittings along the way. Afterward, the captain started taking him seriously. Put him with an old sea dog, ¡°Teach him how to fire the canons and what to do in the event of a boarding. Just be his daddy, Dog.¡± ¡°Aye aye, Captain.¡± Sea Dog looks the part. His clothes have been picked off the body of the dead over the years, he brags about it, especially his yellow scarf, which was far from those brighter days. One of his eyes was cloudy white and didn¡¯t move, the other was wide, crazy, and yellow. Sea Dog was in fact a person that looked very similar to a dog, right down to having ears and a tail. Not wanting to be rude, Rick doesn¡¯t ask. But he stares a lot at the bent and bow-legged thing, hobbling along with a cane banging against the deck but never not working as hard as anyone else. Rick has trouble keeping up at first. A life since Nam of bad food and lots of drink, but eventually it was like he was meant to be here. It was like nothing else to ride the winds. The grog was plentiful also and one break where much of the libation was had, he wondered aloud what it was they were even doing. ¡°We are air pirates, we soar the dark recesses of the Underworld and take what we want from that hellhole up there,¡± Dog answered. ¡°Why did you think the captain took me and Rat?¡± ¡°We steal everything. Then we determine value. Don¡¯t take it personally, but Doc fought against nabbing you. Captain insisted. Sees potential. Not many surface people make it down here. Two? You are worth something. If they find a price for you, believe you me, they will sell your ass.¡± ¡°Were you bought?¡± Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Nah, was always a part of this ship, I was. I come from beneath the abyss, that''s below the dwarves.¡± ¡°How far down are we now?¡± Your city is up seven miles, not an easy journey either. Airship is really the safest but the closer to The Up you get, the shittier the air is for flying. And you saw what happens to the tracks.¡± ¡°Lizards?¡± ¡°Nah, they rot. Only certain metals can survive in this humid nightmare. Metal only the dwarves can find.¡± Rick is completely surprised to find out they are seven miles beneath The City. Somehow the air seems even heavier by knowing it. They drink and time flies by. Someone nearby says they are beneath the Finger Lakes region. To Rick, it all looked the same. An endless black called the Abyss below and bedrock that glows. Rick can¡¯t help but ask how there is any light at all. ¡°Tis pressure on the stone, it''s glowing. Pressure from above and below. A war of physics mixed in with that crap the gnomes do. Them assholes are going to kill us all someday if they keep building their little projects.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± Old Dog¡¯s mood sours. ¡°I don¡¯t know, you ask too many damn questions! The only reason it hasn¡¯t happened yet is those sour assholes down in the Abyss. Every single thing they do is an attempt to keep the Up where it belongs. Not that foolish notion of engineering the gnomes came up with, I¡¯ll tell you that.¡± He almost barks his words with a discernable growl. He gets up from where they sitting and heads off towards his bunk clunking his cane along the way. For Rick, there was no difference between night and day, the only difference he did notice was in temperature. During the day it goes up like laying under a blanket on a sunny day and at night it gets a smidge cooler. He enjoys the night, and often volunteers for late watches. Bladder keeps him up anyway so he might as well be helpful. He is up walking the deck when from out of the fog ahead looms a sheer cliff of granite dotted with a small cave. Over the course of the next hour, the cave grows from small to quite large, covered and uncovered by a thick wall of yellow fog. Just as Rick thinks they are going to enter the cave, the sails die and lie flat against their masts. Then the captain calls the crew to their posts with three rings of the captain¡¯s bell. The captain is rumored to be a dwarf. Rick won¡¯t argue that he doesn¡¯t look like what he would imagine one to look like. The short man stands near the wheel with his grey eyes on the black cave beyond the wispy fog. His thick reddish-brown beard sits limp on his chest like the sails. His tricorner hat covers a grey plait. "All hands ready to stations," bellows the sergeant at arms ringing the shift bell three more times. Rick works his way to the canon he¡¯s been assigned to and notices the crew has become suspiciously quiet and there is a definite sense of anticipation in the air. Rick has been impressed with the crew. Hard-working and nary a problem or a Captain¡¯s mast his entire time on board, which he has been counting in wake-ups. Tonight was wake up 29. The captain sets the company of marines onboard to be ready with another bell ringing. Twenty run up from the hold and gather in a circle formation on deck. The Captain''s mood turns dark. "Trouble, ser?" the first-mate asks. "This I ain''t be knowing. Doth ye spy that quivering speck behind us?" The first-mate takes his brass scope out of his inside coat pocket and fixes it to his face. "On the white-tipped wake of fog?" "Aye." He nods that he does spot a vessel, "An old black two balloon cutter. Better them than a Kraken, I''ll hazard." The first-mate looks human but standing maybe five and a half feet tall, shiny shorne scalp with a rim of graying hair just starting to sprout. His guess is not as valuable to the captain as his own intuition. "Nah, I think me''d prefer a cloud beast to what approaches our aft." The pilot puts the glass to his eye again and notices the vessel does not fly any colors, "pirates?" "Aye, and not just any ole pirates, I be guessing." The captain glares behind as if he could light a fire with his eyes and melt the fast-running cutter into the abyss. "Quick time, ready the canons,¡± the first-mate calls. ¡°Be ready from all sides.¡± ¡°There are many pirate clans rumored to be operating along the rocky East Wall, but lately all whispers seem to point to one having claimed dominance over all others.¡± Dog says in a calm voice that gives Rick a little confidence. ¡°The rumor is this particular pirate king has a Minotaur on retainer.¡± ¡°Minotaur!¡± the exclamation is as much shock as doubt. ¡°He is not very good in the air, but he is a bit crazy so it all works out. They call him the Minotarius because he likes the net and trident. The pirate king keeps him below deck, well fed and uses him only in combat. His hooves make him almost worthless with deck work, but his strength is legendary in skirmishes. His reputation is told by a few survivors. They speak of how he can take an ax to the chest or neck and the only punishment felt is to the wielder of the attacking weapon.¡± Rick could question how a Minotaur becomes a pirate but doesn¡¯t. Instead, for some reason, a bit of lore from ancient Greece pops into his brain. The story starts with a bull owned by a King and an unsatisfied Queen. She would visit the pasture of a prized bull and one thing led to her giving birth to a horned devil. The result was the Minotaur. The king banished the demon kin to an island. The Minotaur''s only desire was to escape his labyrinthine island, but the only way off was by boat and only a fool brings a boat to Minotaur Island. Rick finishes telling Dog the story and they stare out into the clouds together, quiet. Rick half expects any moment to find a screaming minotaur there ready to take his head. ¡°Could it be that one they found?¡± Dog asks. ¡°How in the hell would I know,¡± Rick replies. Then hell appears as the fog parts revealing five airships surrounding the Merry Merrey Alle. Then the fog closes up again and from somewhere out there, a war drum begins to pound. Pt. X Rick and Dog make a stand
Pt. X Then a sixth boat peels away from the deeper layers of fog. A wicked black thing, blowing grey smoke, engine screaming through the deep dark shadows. Fog falls from the triple balloon rigging as blobs of muscle move along the deck. The chant of a war song announces their intent even over the extensive distance. Hoo-rah, hoo-rah, our blood runs hot, Hoo-rah, hoo-rah, we''ll claim our lot. A black muscly blob with horns bellows its own warcry that sends ribbons of fog away from itself. ¡°It''s the Rever, an orc-run skyship, otherwise known as death.¡± Dog sounds impressed. "Those fucks are the reason for never taking this shortcut,¡± he says waving an arm in the direction of the looming cave. ¡°What¡¯s an orc?¡± Rick can¡¯t help being curious because if gnomes are real, orcs could be also and thinking of things from all those fantasy books he read in Vietnam, he would rather not face them today or tomorrow. ¡°People from the Up that came down a long time ago. The whole group calls themselves the Roanoke. We call them orcs.¡± ¡°So they are human?¡± ¡°Not anymore.¡± The air is thick with the stink of the coming deaths, the sulfury-melt-the-hair-in-your-nostrils funk of doom. Rick wants Betsy so bad he feels the metal handle in one hand and the snake of the ammo chain in the other. He would love to tuck his baby under his arm and Rock and Roll. Dog comments on the situation, ¡°They are floating just out of range of the cannons. See?¡± Another aeronaut, this one a female¡­ gnome? ¡­mouse ¡­cockroach hybrid, says, ¡°Doctor Sally is likely getting her group of gnomes ready¡± their voice like chittering that Rick has trouble understanding. In answer to that, another who looks more human but squat, short, and greying, ¡°We could use an amp to give the cannons more range.¡± Many of the aeronauts around mutter how this looks like the end of the Merry Merrey Alle regardless. ¡°Why?¡± Rick asks. ¡°That asshole is the Pirate King. We don¡¯t do too well if he marks us for bounty. He controls thousands of ships. It¡¯s a if we win, we lose; if we lose, we are dead type thing.¡± He says with a little whine. ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Nobody knows the future, but it ain¡¯t looking good.¡± Dog is actually nervously panting now. Rick doubts that answer. ¡°The future is yours one moment at a time," he whispers looking through the fog at the six collected ships in an obvious offensive formation. The black holes of cannons point directly at them from the stern of each ship. This puts the situation in perspective for Rick; each has a clean shot when the time comes. ¡°Looks like we are sitting ducks,¡± Rick claims as if he knows anything. ¡°Nah, they have to be too far still. Captain¡¯s not that fucked in the head to let ¡®em get too close this soon into a battle.¡± Then a cloud of smoke from the ship farthest away. Followed a moment later by a loud crack, and a lead ball bounces off the main balloon and with a bang then dents the boards it falls upon. The old dwarf at the wheel of the Merry Merrey Alle curses. ¡°This boat has been in my family for a thousand years. You¡¯ll pay for every scratch," he screams at the armada amassed in front of him. He promises his crew off comm, ¡°If we survive, I¡¯ll pay double your bonuses at the next dock.¡± ¡°Too far away? Are you sure about that?¡± Rick asks Rick covers up as another ball is fired, this one short and bouncing off the starboard side near Rick''s cannon assignment. As a lark and certain to be punished for wasting munitions, he picks up one of the balls stacked in front of him and gives it a little toss with his new arm. The ball sails through the air in an orange arc and strikes one of the opposing pirates in the chest. What happens to the poor fellow is not visible below the bulwark behind which he fell and none of the sounds of turmoil the injury causes reach those around him, but it must have been bad because the little shapes running around are slipping and falling and coming up covered in what has to be blood. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. ¡°Holy shit,¡± Dog exclaims. Before Rick can reply, the other boat responds. ¡°Give up the old man!¡± the voice amplified by a device that offers as much squelch and static as it does volume. ¡°And we will forgive you for the murder you just committed.¡± The captain and the first mate confer. Rick picks up another ball and lets it sail. This one is a bit short but manages to clip the nearest galleon¡¯s rudder removing most of it. There is a bit of confusion on all boats, including the Merry Merrey Alle. Those around Rick obviously are privy so eventually the news gets around. After a bit, the first mate takes off at a sprint while the dwarf grabs the Merry Merrey Alle¡¯s comm system, a simple bullhorn hanging from the wheel console, and answers back. ¡°What¡¯s your definition of old? We got a 200-year-old dog over here, if you want him then you can come try and get him.¡± Then there is silence. It lasts a while. Enough time for Rick to wonder if maybe he missed something. There is a level of anticipation in the air, it crackles and pops. Any second he expects the opposing force to cross the T and begin firing barrage after barrage of cannonballs at them. No single ball is going to do shit. Especially if they want to make sure before they board. Rick has seen pirate movies since he was a kid, some of his favorite times at the movies were watching boarding parties hashing out the ownership of each other''s boats. ¡°Okay, fine. Gives us the fat old man you stole. We took him from the Up. He is ours. Let us have him and we let you leave alive. We will give you a minute to discuss and then we blows you out of the sky.¡± ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you be blowin¡¯ your precious fat man out of the sky also?¡± the captain replies into the bullhorn. ¡°He¡¯s better dead than not with us, forty-five seconds.¡± One of the best things about the Merry Merrey Alle is it comes manned with a crap ton of gnomes. They come and go as they please, so there is no telling how many are on board at any given time, though how they get off nobody can or will say. Ten gnomes appear from below deck, then twenty and before Rick knows it, the deck is covered in fifty little people with large tufts of hair in many shades of lime and pink and sky-blue. They all wear goggles. Dark-glassed goggles. Maybe too dark. They trip and fall about as they move around. The miraculous thing is they never fall overboard. Maybe it''s magic. Maybe there is a thing at play that keeps them on board. Maybe it''s the same system that works their ancient engineering. One male, with fuchsia hair and a mustache that dangles to his thickly padded knees, sets a tripod up on the ground, then he attaches a metal tube to it. Rick thinks mortar launcher, but he is utterly wrong. Three rotor blades erupt from the tube and begin to spin faster and faster until the tripod is pulled skyward. Three gnomes grab the legs of the tripod as it takes off. All around the fifty gnomes are setting up their own choppers and before the 45-second mark is over each and every one of those fifty gnomes are airborne. ¡°Tinkers can¡¯t leave anything alone. If they don¡¯t understand it, they take it apart to figure it out. If they do understand it, they take it apart to make it do better. Most of their results are spectacular and as much a surprise to them as to us,¡± Dog says randomly looking at the flying gnomes in awe. ¡°Doctor Sally runs the gnomes.¡± ¡°Nobody runs the gnomes except insanity and a constant need to ¡®improve¡¯ things.¡± Rick sees Mr. Green and Mr. Red engaged in a heated conversation on deck as they pick at a circuit board passed back and forth. Little sparks and whiffs of smoke result from their pokes. ¡°I am not sure what they hope to accomplish,¡± Rick begins but as a volley of cannon fire erupts from the ships ahead, he sees what the trick is. Between each gnome-flown chopper is a net that bounces the cannonballs back to whence they came. Then the captain of the Merry Merrey Alle yells fire and Rick picks a target and tosses another cannonball with his new arm as the ship¡¯s canon releases a volley of fire of their own. The balls zip through the air and some smash into the enemy ships. Rick¡¯s ball strikes the main balloon of the lead ship. The balloon instantly pops, the hot air wheezing free. The ship slopes forward and three enemy pirates fall overboard with terrified screams. There is never a splat or any indication they ever land as they dent the fog and disappear. Rick launches another ball, this one crashes through the bow. Splintered wood and screaming wounded aeronauts result. The battle is going in their favor. The gnomes are very good at not being hit by the cannonballs which fall harmless into the fog after bouncing off their nets. ¡°Huh, we just might win this one,¡± Dog exclaims between handing Rick cannonballs. Rick agrees until he sees something strange on the Rever. The black blotch with horns seems to have been thrown into the air by a huge mechanical catapult. The contraption goes twang as if it used quite a lot of G¡¯s to send the monster up. ¡°He¡¯ll never make it,¡± Dog brags. But Rick isn¡¯t sure of that after already calculating the parabellum and knowing if the minotaur¡¯s velocity remains constant, he¡¯ll be on board in less than three seconds. However, two seconds later, as Newton could explain, he is slowed by air friction and begins to sink. ¡°See!¡± Dog exclaims. But he is shut up moments later when a burst of flame from an unseen rocket-pack lifts the monstrous creature back into a perfect arc heading directly toward Rick.
Pt. XI Rumble Under The Bronx Pt. XI
The Minotaur is mostly bull. He is not from Greece. And he most certainly was not created when his mother fucked a cow. No way man, he is a Roanoke through and through. His mommy and his daddy could trace their genetics back to that North Carolina Island, and from there straight down a narrow near branchless family tree. What that means, among other ¡°issues,¡± is that the horns that have grown out of his skull are not horns but a bone disorder. The bone just kept piling and piling on the top of his head. When it reached a certain point it separated almost perfectly right at the middle but kept growing down and curving until ending with two sharp near unbreakable points on either side of his head. Fortunately, the residue from this defect also gave him the most amazing naturally produced neck, back, and core muscles. Of course, that natural strength has been augmented with daily horse testosterone treatments stolen from a farm-vet near Syracuse. They basically give the shit away and never notice the amounts taken to be used on the Minotaur. He soars through a gnome-provided barricade, splitting the net running between two of the machines and forcing the three gnomes on each to bail off. It falls, now smoking and ruined through the thicker layers of fog. For the gnomes, they are saved when paragliders pop out of their backpacks and unfold. Three of them. All in varying shades of a rainbow. One puffs bubbles for some reason. Another sparks. The third seems fine until Rick realizes the gnome it saved is riding on top of it and not underneath. The gnome is gripping for dear life and does not look happy about his situation at all. Then it dawns on him, he only sees three paragliders and remembers six gnomes went down. He is sad for a moment over the first casualties. But as they get closer it¡¯s easier to tell that two of the gliders are carrying more. Despite these hardships, none of the gliders have trouble getting altitude and making a pass on the Rever. While over it, they toss out little yellow sacks that explode on impact. The explosions are small but disruptive. Splinters sail, ending a few the option of two eyes. The boat is fine. The three crest down, picking up speed about to take another run. Two of the gnomes drop off onto the Rever and disappear quickly through the legs of the aeronauts massed there. But none of that takes away from the ferocity of the creature that maneuvers by firing his rocket pack, headed straight for Rick. By then it is too late for Rick as the Minotaur lands right next to him. What sound does a minotaur make when it crashes into the deck of a ship? Minotaur snorts and raises a rusty hunk of metal like an axe above his head and screams a mighty battle cry to be proud of and attacks, axe high, intending to administer a killing blow right away. His skin could be cured leather and glistens like he is coasted with motor oil. The distance between him and the old Vietnam vet disappears quickly. Ricks holds his ground. He doesn¡¯t even flinch. Likely because he is unaware Minotaur is about to cleave him in two. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. The Minotaur¡¯s axe is about to fall directly on its target until Rick bends down to grab another cannonball, perfectly on time to be out of the way. The forward momentum of the swing makes the giant horny thing topple off balance and fall over the side of the Merry Merrey Alle. He also notices the ugly brute left behind his axe. Rick continues the original intent and throws the cannonball. It takes out another balloon from the main ship, which begins to sink into the fog. The ships around it stop their attack and throw it lines which are quickly tied off but now the other two ships list in the direction of the lead ship, dangerously. But Rick¡¯s attention is elsewhere. He lets go of the last cannonball clutched in his good hand, more interested in Minotaur¡¯s ax. He rips it out of the floor with his gnome-created arm and notices it is perfectly balanced, weighs about sixty pounds and the edge is a two-foot wide perfectly honed wedge of rusty metal. Then he is attacked from behind. He and something incredibly heavy roll into the center of the ship. He recovers slower than the oil-stained thing that rolls away and kips back into a ready stance. In that time, Rick has managed to sit up. The Minotaur, rocket pack still smoking, kicks him in the chest. It is hard and painful and puts him back on the ground with its ferocity. Minotaur leaps on top of him and begins wildly swinging his arms pounding the ever-loving bejesus out of the vet¡¯s face. This is very annoying to Rick. He does not like being hit in the face, who does? Later when things calm down, he¡¯ll admit this is pretty much where his memory stops. Which might be for the best. Both of Ricks''s arms are pinned under Minotaur¡¯s knees. It looks like it is over for the senior citizen until he raises his new arm. Minotaur yelps in pain at the chaos, acting like a hand at the end of his arm, bites down hard on the shiny black ankle. Rick lifts the would-be circus freak¡¯s leg and then begins to twirl the three hundred pounds of lab-produced muscle over his prone body for a few seconds before slamming him back down on the deck. Minotaur is hurt. No air in his lungs, and his head rings. He might even have a broken arm, but the shock of it all hasn¡¯t worn off yet to tell for sure. Beneath him, the deck of the Merry Merrey Alle is bruised from the assault. This causes the captain to forget about the cannonballs he is supposed to be dodging and exclaim violently in Rick''s direction, ¡°That¡¯s comin'' out of your bonus, matey!¡± Rick ignores him because he has other tasks to attend to. First, he repossesses the ax from the deck, hoists it with his gnome-arm, and brings it down right in the center of Minotaur¡¯s chest. Minotaur doesn¡¯t die, even when Rick flips him over to remove the rocket-pack and place it on his own shoulders. It does not fit and as Minotaur gurgles on his own blood, Rick struggles, managing to get one arm fully in a strap but the other only up to his elbow. He decides; that will have to do. He takes the handle of the axe with his chaos and uses it, still embedded in Minotaur¡¯s chest, to drag him over to the bulkhead and toss him overboard. His chortling scream echoes through the clouds and keeps going and going before disappearing. Rick steps to the edge of the aeroship. He has the ax in one hand and the rocket packs activation button in his other and is about to jump off when Dog toddles up and grabs his elbow, ¡°What the fuck are you about to do? There¡¯s miles down there until the end. Death long before you hit the ground. You want that fat man?¡± Rick looks at Dog for a moment and with no words, jumps off. The rockets activate and for a second it looks like everything is going to work out, until the rocket pack sparks and the fire stops and Rick falls almost exactly through the hole created by Minotaur.
pt. XII Croatoan pt. XII
The Earth wobbles. And because of this wobble the planet can be closer or farther away from the sun. It is not on rails after all. During the time of the dinosaurs, the Earth was the closest it had ever been. During the Great Ice Age, it was at its furthest. With gravity and physics being constant in 1586, the Earth dipped deeply and moved just far enough away from the sun to inflict a mini ice age on the Earth. The equator experienced Fall for the first time since the Last Glacial Maximum, which occurred approximately 20,000 years before that. This time the ice sheets were certainly far from their furthest extent, but there was much potential for them to have done so. Humanity suffered greatly for almost two decades. Especially those unlucky enough to find a pristine island on a beautiful coast of a newly discovered continent to call home. ¡°Year two and there is still no sign of a return from England, I demand we seek solutions that are not suicide,¡± said the baker''s wife, still plump but a lot less employed since her home and business was flushed into the sea. ¡°The queen has not forgotten us.¡± the interim governor, Ananias Dare says pointing out at the crowd with a jabbing forefinger for emphasis. They are all members of the Roanoke colony, the survivors anyway, and among them many of the local Indian tribes facing the same problems have joined them. He is angry and it is coming out in his voice. Even he, a man with no formal education, knows that acting out in anger will only make things worse. The clouds are red. The wind is frigid and smells of snow. It¡¯s June, for Christ''s sake. Things are bad. Mini earthquakes keep shaking things up, daily. One occurred an hour ago knocking down the remaining portion of the church. They are getting it from both sides. An intemperate ocean on one side and an unstable earth on the other. This impromptu community meeting is a desperate attempt to get answers from a man who has avoided finding any by throwing himself into the effort of saving the colony. Fifty healthy individuals remain from the original 115. The number jumps to 80 with the children willing and able to work. Around 7 are bedridden, but that doesn¡¯t last long with the bedridden joining the dead before long. The rest are assumed with Jesus, but hope remains and he refuses to add many names to the roll of dead because of it. ¡°We must consider moving further inland, maybe even taking up the Croatoans on their offer,¡± another man demands. He is bare-chested and wearing a kilt with sturdy mid-length leather boots. He is known as a dedicated member of the colony. His words have much weight. ¡°Never,¡± a woman near the front says almost too quiet to hear. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t she abandon us?¡± another voice calls out. The man attached is red-faced and desperate. ¡°She calls her favorite back to England and he takes all her favor with him. Even God has abandoned us. We are all dead to her. We died the moment John White stepped off his tender in London.¡± Another quake. Soft. Not bad this time. The leaves fight each other harder in response. ¡°There is no mail service across the Atlantic, no daily newspapers. Weekly or yearly for that matter, also. Anything could have happened. The Rapture, another plague, War with Spain. Hells, the whole of Great Britain could have fallen into the ocean for all we know, but you¡¯ve lost faith in our blessed mother so easily? She would want us to survive. She would demand it!¡± Dare¡¯s voice is tired his body weak with weary and why shouldn¡¯t it be? Since the storm, it has been nothing but work. Work re-digging the well. Rebuilding barns and homes. Even the church was reduced to splinters. They haven¡¯t even calculated the full number of dead, some are still under rubble and already going back to the Earth. The smell was only tolerable in that nothing could be done. ¡°This is a failed colony!¡± This man wears the leather breeches and slippers of the Croatoan people, who have taken great interest in helping the residents of Roanoke Island. Without them, it is likely they would never have prospered and gotten to this point. ¡°You would have us join them?¡± ¡°They took amazing losses lately also.¡± ¡°They are not from Roanoke, why should we join them? They should join us.¡± Dare¡¯s wool British-style shirt is open to his sternum and stained with earth and blood. He has been in talks with an elder of the Croatoan people. Calm and reassuring, they passed a pipe and quietly studied each other through their language barrier. ¡°Their chief claims the Mother is angry and until she finishes her tantrum, all of her children should tremble. I believe God wants us to remain here and wait for Governor White¡¯s return.¡± The crowd grows hostile at this. John White left him in charge, left and never came back. Ananias Dare hates his father-in-law for that even more now that he is a widower who not only just buried his wife but also two of his children, the youngest two. Sally and Rose, nine and ten. He watched helpless, as they washed out to sea. He shudders thinking of their end. He almost wishes God would let him swim out after them. But no, he has a mission to save those that are left. Even those who have come to him for help. And maybe he is obligated because, over the last three years, none of them could have survived alone. It is while this near riot is taking place that a giant sinkhole suddenly appears in the exact center of the colony. And then through that sinkhole trudges a track-laying train engine shaped like a wedge. And in that train? How about the great Spanish Inventor Jer¨®nimo de Ayanz y Beaumont? Senior Beaumont is famous for railroad tracks and for going to the Americas in 1588 and not coming back. He was declared dead 25 years later. When did he die? Did he ever die? These are both very good questions, questions with no answers especially for Rick as he continues to fall through the fog. Pt. XIII Falling Far
Rick falls and has met terminal velocity, how long ago he is not sure. It¡¯s been a while though. He hits the rocket button and braces for the immediate slowdown. He loses his stomach, but knows it¡¯ll be back. Once every minute or so, he activates the rocket pack and it slows him down with the bonus being it doesn¡¯t fit, so when he fires the boosters it makes him do violent circles. It complains at this little activity with sparks and rising temperature forcing Rick to let gravity take him, again. He uses it sparingly, hoping when the time comes that he can activate it at just the right moment and come to a gliding graceful stop. High Altitude Low Opening (HALO), that was the point. And if anything his army training has given him, it¡¯s the faith that anything can be done if you set out with no expectations and a wide enough target. This does not have to be the end. Once the Army trained him, they loved testing it out in real-world conditions. He jumped from 70,000 feet, spent three weeks in the jungle, then swam out to a sub and was taken home. No problem. Killed 36. Ruined 7.3 million U.S. dollars in North Vietnamese infrastructure. And got a bounty on his head, Fat goatman, dead or alive. That reward was 10k. Major, who ran the LRPS said, ¡°I thought seriously of turning you in myself and getting that money.¡± ¡°Dude, that¡¯s not how it works.¡± But Rick stopped trusting his leadership after a few members of the team, with bounties, disappeared. HALO is five weeks of jumping out of planes. It¡¯s fun. He always wished the army would have let him do it more. Again at Fort Benning. The HALO school is where he discovered The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson. That series changed his life. The first ¡°real book¡± was published in 1977, but Donaldson was a grunt who did the cliche grunt thing and wrote his stories by moonlight while standing in foxholes. His protagonist especially resonated with Rick. Old Tom, a cynical leper, shunned by society, destined to become the heroic savior of The Land. After he discovered the stories at Fort Benning, he started collecting them fervently. Couple of mimeographed pages here, couple hand-copied pages there. The stories were developing a cult following where he and others could trade the parts they had. It was one of the first questions he asked any supply sergeant, ¡°Got any Donaldson?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Who here reads?¡± Simple as that. A good supply guy will at the very least have heard of it before, if not actively collect the pages already whether he reads the stories or not. Good supply sergeants have an eye on the bottom line because below that is their pocket. As the years went by, the stories kept finding him. By the end of his war, he surmises there might have been hundreds of different stories of Thomas Covenant losing bits and pieces of himself all over The Land. The Land? Really? Honestly one of the dumbest fantasy location names Rick ever read at first, but by his third story, he dreamt of the place and its purple mountains and blighted swamp. Paladins and dwarves. As he falls through the orangey glow of the heated rock, he thinks of Old Tom because it is hurting his old brain trying to do the math on how far he can fall before he has gone too far. He thinks the number is around three hundred feet. How far have you fallen already, smart guy? He doesn¡¯t know. Then it dawns on him; this information does him little good if he does not see the ground approaching anyway. And also he is not wearing a parachute, he is wearing a malfunctioning rocket-thing; both seem like ingredients for instant death once he finds the ground. Which is good because it certainly doesn¡¯t look fun recovering from something like that. The farther down he falls, the cliffs on either side glow brighter. It''s definitely growing hotter also. Even the air feels heavy. The amount and type of education Rick has accumulated doesn¡¯t give him the knowledge that he should be dead, that the amount of pressure alone should have killed him long before he shoveled his first shovel full of lizard shit. First, the temperature is a toasty 145 degrees here, a few miles closer to the ocean and he would have been saved a few tens of degrees, closer to Yosemite or any mountain/volcanic region can get closer to five thousand. Avoiding the active laval tubes is how it''s done. That Rick has even made it this far is unique. That¡¯s also something he doesn¡¯t know. Yah, so some people from the Up can make it down here, but beyond a few miles is deadly; for humans. But, again, Rick doesn¡¯t know any of that. He doesn¡¯t know that he isn¡¯t a ¡®real¡¯ human. He doesn¡¯t know so many things. He is pretty sure this is how things end for him though; in a puddle at the bottom of an endless chasm. He hits the button to activate the rockets, they fire and he slows down and everything is fine until one hundred and forty pounds slams into him from above. The one hundred and forty pounds says, ¡°Oof, mother fucker,¡± with Rat¡¯s voice. ¡°Rat?¡± Rick cranes his neck trying to get a look but instead, all he sees are two gigantic leathery wings stretched out from either side of him. The wings are braking like mad, wind filling the membranes between the bones. They make sort of a fart noise. Rat¡¯s face appears. A huge smile attached. He says, ¡°Hey, buddy. This ain¡¯t over yet. We need to land without you dying. You ready to do something crazy?¡± ¡°Why not, how much worse could things get?¡± ¡°On the count of three, fire your rockets again. This time, though, don¡¯t stop firing them until we are either safe or dead. Sound good?¡± he screams into Rick''s ear. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Rick nods. ¡°Rick,¡± Rat screams. ¡°Fire the rocket on the count of---¡± But Rick has already fired the rockets, and this time things are different. He slows almost completely to a stop. The wind stops whistling and the heat and humidity return. Stopped, he can see train tracks lined all along the wall. Built on sturdy tar-coated beams. The whole thing looks suspect. Rickety as hell. Then a train shoots by at breakneck speed, rocking Rat and Rick in midair with its turbulence. ¡°Okay, buddy, hard part''s over. Just gotta glide to a safe landing and we are done with stupid shit like falling to our deaths.¡± Over the din of the firing Rocket, Rick yells back, ¡°how close to the bottom are we?¡± Rat laughs, ¡°Nowhere, this stupid thing almost goes all the way through but cuts a left just on the other side of the core, but by then you¡¯d have been swimming in lava. For thousands of miles. ¡°How do you know?¡± ¡°Things call the active lava tubes home, some have mapped it out. Made a pretty penny. Then there was the Mad King who hired a team of gnomes to build him a fireproof submersible. You¡¯d probably be the second ¡®human¡¯ to go down there. No, wait, fifth, no, eighth.¡± When Rat put the quotations around the word ¡®human,¡¯ they dropped quickly out of the sky and Rick was sure he had gone back to falling. That¡¯s pretty much what made the sudden stop, five feet or so later, even more jarring. The rocket hits the floor and like a soda bottle being held underwater, it sparks and sputters and just acts like an asshole until it blasts off the rock ledge freeing itself from Rick¡¯s shoulders, disappearing into the fog above. ¡°Holy shooting star, Batman, how much fuel does that thing have in it?¡± ¡°Oh, it probably doesn¡¯t run on fuel. Pirates probably captured a baby dragon and had their gnomes rig its brain to a trigger. And please don¡¯t call me Batman. That¡¯s really insulting. I am not a Bat.¡± ¡°You aren¡¯t a Rat either.¡± ¡°Yah, but rats are cool.¡± Rick disagrees but keeps it to himself, wondering if he should ask if he has a name other than Rat. They are looking at each other when it dawns on Rick, ¡°Holy shit, You¡¯re alive!¡± ¡°Yep,¡± Rat smiles, showing his pointy brown teeth. He reaches into his trenchcoat and Rick finds himself tensing, not knowing what to expect. This is his buddy Rat, but is it his buddy Rat? Rick finds himself confused after the thought and trying to put it together in a way that makes sense, until Rat pulls out a flask. After the stopper is pulled with his teeth, he takes the plug and hands the flask over to Rick. Rick greedily accepts but before he pulls away, Rat puts both hands around the it with Rick¡¯s hand pinned between. ¡°It really is good to see you, buddy.¡± Unsure how to respond, Rick decides on a nod and lifts the flask to Rat before taking a sip. Grog is one thing but he just realized how much he missed the Rotgut. The silence continues and they drink perched on the edge of the platform, the tracks just beyond. Occasionally a locomotive will appear out in the chasm chasing its light up or down a wall before disappearing again. ¡°These are some of the most ancient railroad tracks I have ever seen.¡± ¡°Yep, the gnomes are pretty proud of it.¡± ¡°How come these aren¡¯t corroded like the ones near the lizard cave? These looked well-maintained.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because they are. The founders blew that track up centuries ago, and a bunch more. Severing our ties to humanity above. Things got too complicated. Now we aren¡¯t supposed to be going to the surface at all.¡± ¡°The rail was cut to keep you out?¡± Rat smiles at the question, ¡°But of course, things got bleak around the beginning of the 19th century. The gnomes went cloud crazy and started to build up. Had to stop them before they fucked the Up as much as they fucked up the Down.¡± ¡°What can you do when you build a giant ass city on holey ass bedrock?¡± ¡°No way to shore up every leak.¡± ¡°Hence the pirates.¡± ¡°Bingo, and hence people like you.¡± Again Rick is confused, but watching Rat put on his coat distracts him. Rat stands and wraps his wings around his arms and then shoves his arms into the sleeves of his trench coat. Once tucked inside, he passes for a furry faced person who kinda looks like a rat. ¡°So now what?¡± Rick asks thinking things are heading back to some kind of normal. ¡°Nice arm.¡± Rick says, ¡°Thanks,¡± and attempts to lift it to show it off to Rat but can¡¯t. The thing is glued to the ground. ¡°Holy crap,¡± he complains while mid-attempt to make it move even a little. ¡°Yah, we aren¡¯t going anywhere until the train comes and even then I hope the lazy ass porters help us drag you inside.¡± ¡°Why can¡¯t I move my arm?¡± and as if asking the question brings forth the answer, he whispers, ¡°oh.¡± ¡°Yah, you should have grabbed whatever charm they bewitched this contraption to.¡± ¡°A fucking medallion, Doctor Sally wears it around her neck.¡± ¡°Well, the good news is they won¡¯t just assume you¡¯ve fallen to your death. She will make that old dwarf captain come looking for you. I know it.¡± ¡°Why? I¡¯m just an old vet who likes fried chicken and copping a buzz.¡± ¡°Nah, you ain''t. I can¡¯t tell you anything, except maybe this one thing; you are not here on accident, dude. I vetted the shit out of you.¡± He trails off as if in thought. ¡°I guess we could hire a gnome to re-thingamabob your dealio here but I¡¯ve got zero cash. And I ain¡¯t never seen a gnome do shit for free.¡± The platform begins to vibrate. First slightly, but then growing more intense. ¡°Train is coming.¡± Rat stands and pulls up on Rick''s arm. He manages to make it leave the ground but has to drop it moments later with a thunk to go find his missing breath. With the train in sight, Rick hands the flask back to Rat, who gulps at it greedily. Rick climbs to his knees to give lifting it a shot with a better angle. It works. The arm comes up and he is able to stand, cradling it in his remaining real arm. ¡°This isn¡¯t going to work forever,¡± he tells Rat, already feeling like putting it back down won¡¯t be a choice. And over the screech of brakes and the sudden tumult that comes with an arriving train, Rat yells to Rick, ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. If we get through this next part, there¡¯s going to be luggage carts and wheelchairs galore to get you around.¡± ¡°Where are we going?¡± ¡°Back the way we came, back to the New World under New York City.¡± Pt. XIV Choo Choo goes the Rick
Rick stumbles toward an open spot on the bench running the length between two doors. It is painted green and looks like it came from a public park but comfortable enough. The train is set up like a subway car. Bars in the middle, though, are completely useless. Some were just straight-up invisible but of course, those were made of tough unfinished steel so hurt extra much when run into. The second kind is made of a rubber material that feels great in the hands but offers no stability and sags to the floor away from momentum. And some of the poles weren¡¯t even poles at all, but looked exactly like poles; for esthetics, but were, in reality, electrical conduits or piping for the cold and hot water the train, for some reason, needs pumped throughout. They sparked occasionally, or froze over, or glowed a healthy orange which was good for helping to avoid them. The sparks lit up the invisible ones and kids loved to play on flexible ones. But really unless you were lucky, there was nothing to hold on to. Oh, let''s not forget to mention that in every car they are in a different layout. Could be all of, or one, or maybe even nothing, no seats no walls, just a floor with wheels. Once a whole train rolled around the system for years with nothing but wheels. Moving toward his spot, he finds himself surprised at the amount of different types of faces looking back at him. No humanoid faces, nothing that reminds him of home. The array of creatures is incredibly diverse. Things that look like worms but dressed in so many layers they still shiver in the intense heat around. ¡°Lava Worms, they swim around in lava pools. They and the fire crabs did all the mapping. Bunch of Magma Salamanders down there also. You get me a gem crab, diamond turtle turtle I''d be the happiest Stone Person in the Under World. Rumors are a few core hounds also are frolicking around in the active tubes. Happy to know they are making a comeback. Almost got hunted out a few thousand years ago, almost got ¡®em all to those fucking Spartans. Oh, see those guys?¡± Rick looks where he is pointing and sees a confusing collection of sparkling spiky sticks. ¡°Crystal Spiders. Darkmantles,¡± he says pointing to a squad of squid floating among some octopi the both species, the same color of the wall behind them, old steel with rusty. Rick has to stoop as he moves along the car looking for a place to plop, but still manages to upset not a few of the fur-covered bats hanging from the roof. Mixed among them are shiny onyx versions that look at Rick with hungry red eyes. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about them, buddy. Most are vegans now. Those that aren¡¯t wouldn¡¯t be riding the train. Wait, or that the other way around?¡± Then he steps on some shrubbery seemingly growing from the floor. The shrubbery reacts violently to being stepped on by waving its branches and leaves around. ¡°Sory, sorry mate didn¡¯t see you down there.¡± Rick swears the plant throws a middle finger in Rat¡¯s direction. Tucked around here and there were other plants of various kinds, that all seemed to be locomoting on roots and twigs and conversating in rustling leaves, if they had them. Mushrooms walked around like little headless and wingless penguins dropping aprakling spores wherever they went. ¡°Shrooms are a problem. They won¡¯t stop making babies. And they taste like rust. Most of the humanoids you see are Stone People, like me.¡± ¡°Like you?¡± Rick asks getting more and more stressed. There were many new and interesting creatures on the Merry Merrey Alle but nothing like this. Serpents; boasting rock-hard scales, beetles; coated in unrefined iron ore, plasma Wisps; made of ionized gas, drift ethereally through the cars. When one passes instead of heat spreading from its flames Rick feels instantly cold like he rolled around naked in some snow. Metal moles, quartz birds, and radiant automaton golems, and everything dressed and acting like people. But there was a normalcy to just being on the train trying to get somewhere. It was a New York thing. People, or whatever, minding their own business. There are windows cut out of the car they are on but nothing covers them and a humid breeze fills the compartment along with the stench of baby poo which is back. Rat mutters, ¡°Smells so bad. Those fucking lizards are everywhere. Besides the pirates and like twenty, no fifty or so, other deadly things, those assholes are the deadliest thing we got down here.¡± He falls onto an empty portion of the bench, beside Rick, both exhausted. ¡°Thing is fucking heavy,¡± Rick complains, massaging the overworked trapezoid muscle above his new arm, staring at a puddle of black goo across from him. ¡°Don¡¯t stare dude, it¡¯s rude,¡± Rat says into his ear. ¡°He started it,¡± Rick says back, and right after the accusation the black goo parts like an eyelid to reveal a red irritated-looking eyeball staring right back. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Rat sighs with a sound so pathetic Rick feels bad for the guy if the car wasn¡¯t loud with wind and everyone yelling at each other in their various different ways to be heard. The cliff face is mere inches from the train car at times, and then in the next moment, Rick has to brace against the floor as the train leans almost all the way out over the yawning chasm. ¡°There is no glass in the windows?¡± ¡°Glass down here? Never going to happen. It would shatter. Too much pressure. Gnomes use mana.¡± There are so many confusing things happening around him, that Rick almost confuses rat¡¯s last word for mana. ¡°Did you say mana?¡± ¡°Stupid assholes aren¡¯t supposed to use it either. I mean just look at this train, gnome invention right down to the triple layer spring softened floor.¡± Because of the arm and his original bulk, he notices the floor tilts subtly in his direction. He finds it interesting that his arm isn¡¯t getting more looks. But augmentation does seem to be the norm. Across from him is a bronze-skinned woman using gems for some kind of visual aid. There are several bowls on wheels with water slouching around some horrid-looking fish or glop or goo, A man on the other end of the train car is perched on a unicycle wheel instead of legs and doing a fair job of it in the chaos called the moving train. Some are wearing what appear to be the somewhat normal rags of the everyman train rider, but if the lights flicker off the clothing flickers like a rollskating rink playing some ABBA. And those lights do go off often, resulting in a loud shrill alarm and then harsh flood lights becoming active and blinding everyone with their impressive lumens. Rick wishes he had his own gemstone glasses before long. It just goes on and on the list of strange things landing within his sight. Like everything else, the clothes everyone is wearing are worn-out random assortments of rags. All the metal has a patina of rust on it, or slight irregular dents or odd welds that look to just be holding things together. Then the noise of loose metal vibrates against loose metal. It really doesn¡¯t make a lot of sense to Rick that people who use mana for windows, sometimes, are just about shit at building stuff. He tells this to Rat and Rat frowns as if he were aware but what could be done. ¡°We basically have two choices, raid your world for what we need, or deal with what we can get down here. Thankfully we get a lot of your trash and the entirety of NWUNYC is powered on nuclear waste.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± Now not only was he riding in what seemed like a death trap but it seemed he was heading to an even bigger one. ¡°How do you allow the gnome-things to do shit like that?¡± ¡°Rick, the gnomes are the problem. For us, for you, and for themselves. They are going to destroy the world someday, one horrible industrial accident at a time. Trust me. But until then we get to ride in style.¡± Rat stretches out his legs and puts his hands behind his head. Rick studies his friend. A man he only knows through WorkForce. Who always came up to him. Who always got the same jobs. Who didn¡¯t mind sharing his hooch. He has a grey complexion, a scrunched-up nose that goes from skinny to big like a mini traffic cone in the center of his face before ending in two squinty black eyes. Rick has never seen him without that bowler on his head or that trenchcoat. He can¡¯t help returning to the moment Rat reappeared in his life. So random and perfectly timed. A bloom of suspicion matures in his chest, ¡°How did you find me?¡± ¡°Find you? The whole of the Under World is looking for you. You couldn¡¯t hide if you wanted to. But I tell you what, hitching a ride with those pirates was a genius idea. If I don¡¯t say so myself.¡± ¡°How though?¡± ¡°How what?¡± Rick is growing irritated. The noise, all the confusion of the last 29 times he woke up, took a piss, then walked around the deck of an aeroship; supposedly flying seven miles beneath New York state, until the need to sleep came on him again. ¡°They told me you died.¡± ¡°Obviously there is a big difference between suicide and taking back one''s freedom. So, after that I just needed to be patient because I knew two things; eventually, another ship was going to come along, and I knew ultimately that ship would eventually catch up with that antique piece of shit, Doctor Sally commissioned. Took the Pirate King¡¯s armada a week to catch up. I hung around waiting for two. Jumped on their rudder and one two equals poo.¡± He¡¯s laughing. Rick turns his face toward him feeling seething anger as an incredible heat building under his skin. Rat must have seen it also because he immediately stops laughing and looks nervous. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Mind if I clear some stuff up?¡± ¡°Of course,¡± Rat relaxes. ¡°Go right ahead.¡± Rick fires the first question, ¡°There is this old guy who thinks he was born in the Bronx, right? ¡°Is that you?¡± ¡°Just answer.¡± ¡°Hey,¡± Rat whispers. Rick rolls his eyes, ¡°What?¡± ¡°Were you born in the Bronx?¡± Rick just stares, the heat growing. Rat says, ¡°Yep, correcto.¡± ¡°But he wasn¡¯t?¡± ¡°No, he was. You were right?¡± Rick ignores his question, and shifts tacts, ¡°What¡¯s the deal with the big secret?¡± ¡°To be annoying mainly and once upon a time 70 years ago, a certain dwarf went on a walk. Big guy had a great time before he returned home. Met a girl obviously. Sparks flew and then years do what years do for the dwarfs they pass with little notice. Girl had a boy though. And some important people think that boy was you.¡± ¡°Me? I know my dad. He isn¡¯t a dwarf from the Under World, or whatever t his fucking place calls itself, he was a delivery driver for Food Mart until he couldn¡¯t drive anymore and he was forced to take social security.¡± Choo choo! The train¡¯s horn sounds at the same time as the brakes are administered. Rat sticks his head out one of the windows, ¡°Picking up some passengers. Oh, no! Oh, God. What the fuck! Shit.¡± Turning back around and sitting down Rat looks stressed. ¡°What?¡± ¡°We should probably get off and wait for another train.¡± ¡°Why? What¡¯s going on?¡± but Rat doesn¡¯t have to answer because there is nothing wrong with Rick¡¯s eyes. He is perfectly able to see the Minotaur stagger aboard and take the first open seat right across from Rick.