Slumrat Rising

“I don’t give a fuck! She knows I can provide. You can't!” There was a hard slap sound from outside. Truth came out of the shack where he was resting. The Chief was lowering his hand, a Level Zero sprawled, bleeding in the dirt.

“Little bitch. That’s why “your” girl eats with me. I feed her good!” The Chief snarled. Nobody did anything. Said anything. They didn’t even watch. The villagers just silently went into their homes or found things to do on the dock.

It was a slum. It wasn’t just a rotten fishing village, Truth realized. It was a slum. In every house, there would be a conspiracy underway. Every Level One would be carefully making alliances, feeling each other out. Deciding, minute by minute, if it was better to stick with the Chief, find a new Chief, or become the Chief themselves. Waterborne slumrats, deciding who would be King Rat. Truth wondered how “Lukka” fit in. A low-level smuggler, presumably, subcontracting some work on the cheap. Another, slightly fatter rat, who could lord over “King Rat.”

The attack on the bird was a planned hit, as expected. He would find a spot a little way out of the village. Do a little cultivation and just generally rest and heal. Maybe run the Mediations a little bit. Truth flexed his sore muscles a moment. He remembered what it was like when the Anti-Theists emptied his cosmic energy. It wasn’t that bad. Not yet. Not quite yet. But soon.

Truth nodded grimly. Yes. Soon, the world would be too unreal to absorb cosmic rays. Starbrite and the System would be fleeing the world soon. A rat didn’t go down with the ship, especially if it had been the one gnawing through the hull. He had to work quickly. This… Lukka would lead Truth to his boss and then, from there, upwards.

In the middle of rotting buildings, rotting fish, and rotting people, Truth smiled with innocent pleasure. He was drafting all the gangsters into his revolutionary organization. They would help nail Starbrite’s foot to the floor while he was trying to run out the door. Truth didn’t see any need to inform the gangsters of this fact. Service was its own reward.

He could hardly wait.

__________________________________

The night passed peacefully enough for Truth, though he knew it was anything but peaceful in the village. Fishing boats were going out and coming back empty or with very little in their nets. More and more nets were being fouled by enormous jellyfish, with bells almost two meters wide and stingers tens of meters long. The bells were sort of edible, but clearing away what amounted to almost a kilometer of poison string per jellyfish made it not worthwhile.

On the other hand, the bastards ruined your net, and you were damn hungry. “Not worth it” was slowly becoming “worth it,” and in some households, simply necessary. There were long trestles for drying and salting fish standing empty. The smokehouse was cold. The icehouse was warm. No need to wear out expensive talismans if there were no fish to process.

There was little peace in those huts, but it was very quiet. You needed the right kinds of ears to hear that pain, and anger, and despair. Truth tried to sleep, or at least to lose himself in meditation. It was hard. It felt like home.

Morning came, and with it a wagon. A battered, ancient wreck,a Pandros model that would have been old before Truth went in the well. He remembered seeing them running around Harban. Everyone from painters, to delivery guys, to florists seemed to use it. It was cheap, reliable enough, and you could shove a load of crap into it. This one had been painted a muddy green years ago and was now strongly accented with rust.

Two hard cases hopped out of the cab. The driver was openly carrying a needler in the waistband of his pants. The passenger looked marginally more nicely dressed, in that his tank top was clean and he had a chunky “gold” chain. He was also openly carrying a Xio and VoungType 43 Wide Area Pacification Device, a goal the device achieved by firing spinning whips of acid in a cone shaped spray in front of the user.

Looks like Lukka had arrived. The Chief came running out to meet him. “Welcome, welcome! How was the drive?”

“It was fine. You got the shipment?”

“All fifty packages, no problems.”

“Good. Bring ‘em out. Del will check them as they get loaded into the wagon. You and I will stand right here and watch. And in the mean time, DEL!” Lukka yelled, then jerked his head at the back of the wagon. Del nodded and opened the rear doors. There were sacks of rice, onions, some shopping bags from pharmacies and spools of synthetic rope. Supplies, generally defined.

“Fantastic. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Mr. Lukka!” The Chief gushed, though Truth could plainly see the happiness didn’t come close to reaching his eyes. Lukka spotted it too.

“Yeah, be thankful. Prices have gone up everywhere, for everything. Can’t even buy some shit even if you do have money. Changeover is coming soon. Just be glad you can get this much for doing an easy job.” Lukka’s voice was harsh.

“We are thankful, very thankful. It is hard all over. But I have three hundred mouths to feed, and this…”

“Is what you are getting from me. Or I can look for another bunch with boats to collect my deliveries. Take it or don’t.” Lukka’s arms were crossed over his chest, hand nowhere near his weapon. It didn’t need to be. They both knew that he was untouchable.

“We will take it. Of course we will take it. But we are a well-run village, if I may say so. I don’t think you will find it so easy to find reliable help.”

Lukka snorted at that and shook his head. Del had the wagon unloaded in less than two minutes and loaded again in less than five. After carefully verifying the packages and taking a couple of samples, Del gave Lukka the thumbs up.

“Alright. I wouldn’t usually bother wasting my breath, but as a little thank you for not being stupid with the shipment-” Lukka made a casual flick with his hand. “Those Moon Jellys fucking up your nets? Starting to see them for sale at the markets in Sembok, two wen a hundred grams and rising.”

Lukka shrugged and climbed into the wagon. Del closed the back, not noticing Truth making a little seat for himself on the drugs. The wagon drove off, leaving a silent, watching village behind them.

Del was actually driving, controlling the wagon by means of levers and a wheel. No bound demon handling the navigation. Not that strange, especially on shitty country roads where the moronic things got easily confused. But they did come standard on this type of wagon. A replacement part should be cheap and easy to find.

After ten minutes on the road, Lukka finally let out a long sigh. Del fished out a bottle of schnapps from the side of the seat and passed it over. Lukka took a long swig, then a second.

“I hate those little shitholes. Hate ‘em.”

Del nodded.

“On my mother’s eyes, if Sammi wasn’t from that fucking pit, I would never-!”

Del nodded.

“Fuck.”

Del nodded.

Lukka took another drink and stared out the window.

A few minutes later- “How’s your mom?”

“Not doing so hot.” Del shook his head. “It’s that shitty apartment. Mold growing on all the shit. She keeps trying to use the same cheap-ass charm from the shop. Never works.”

“Tried an air demon?”

“She won’t have ‘em in the house. Says none of them are name brand.”

“None of the demons are name brand!”

“That’s what she said.” Del sounded exhausted. “I swear, I am this fucking close to painting a star on the back of a summon chip and saying I paid extra for it.”

Lukka thought about it a moment.

“That’d work, actually.”

“Yeah. Hope so. Nothing else is, and her cough is real bad.”

“No, well, yeah, that too, but I mean, like, we could sell that.”

“Oh. Yeah I guess. Cheap to stamp ‘em out, right?”

“Cheap to get stickers for the back too.”

“Stars comes down hard on that shit though.” Del cautioned.

“These days?”

“Maybe?”

“Nah, no chance.” Lukka shook his head.

They settled down into silence again. Truth felt the pressure slowly building. Finally, Del cracked.

“Lukka, how we getting paid on any of this?”

There was a long sigh from Lukka. “For today? Wen. Soon though? I have no damn idea. Probably the same as those dumbfucks in the village- in stuff. Food or whatever.”

“I ain’t gonna work for just food, Lukka!”

“You think I’m fucking happy about it?! Huh? I got kids, Del. You know how often kids need new clothes and shit? All the fucking time!”

Del slammed his hands on the sterling wheel. “It’s bullshit!”

“Yeah it’s bullshit! So what? What are you going to do about it?”

Truth tried to get comfortable on the drugs, unsuccessfully. At least the conversation was keeping him distracted.

“How can they just do that, though? How?” Del demanded.

“You think anybody gives a shit about Denizens, man? Let alone crims.”

“I mean, I get that. It’s bullshit, but I get that. It’s… everyone else, you know? Like…” Del groped around for the words and ideas, running straight into the same lack of education that had screwed over Truth so many times.

“Like that fucking guy. With the birds.” He pointed to a peasant on the side of the road, driving his flock from one field to another.

“Geese.”

“They’re fucking lunch. Point is, no bank will touch him. So no account, and no creds. How’s he going to buy shit? Or sell shit or whatever.”

Lukka just shook his head. “You know what I heard? This is when that prick came by, told us to set up the collection. Boss asked him the same question you just did, basically.”

“What’d he say?”

“He just grinned like an asshole and said “That’s not the question that should have you scared. The real thing that should have you scared is- how do they pay taxes? Because if the government doesn't give a shit about collecting, how fucked are they?”

Del and Lukka were not big thinkers. But the notion of not collecting money owed…

“You only skip collecting… if it don’t matter any more.” Del said slowly. “And it’s money. It always matters.”

“Yeah.” Lukka agreed.

“Money… don’t matter any more. Says the gov.”

“Not for denizens.”

The van was very quiet for a while after that.

“Shit, how do you pay off a fine, then?”

Lukka just shook his head.

Truth’s mind was racing. Can’t buy or sell in cash, only credits, and only for people who have access to banks. Which means at a minimum, provisional citizens, and really, citizens and up. And didn’t the hairs on his arm start to rise at the word “credits.” But why swap from paper wen to credits?

Access to the System Shop was always a perk for C-Tier and up Starbrite employees. Everyone else just got a discount card for when they bought from company owned stores. The whole point was that a credit bought a shitload more than a wen. Credits for the public is just normal money with extra steps.

The drive only lasted about thirty minutes from the village to a nothing town. It was nowhere Truth had ever heard of, and Jeon wasn’t that big a country, making this town extra worthless in his mind. They pulled into a big garage with a green tiger painted on the walls. A handful of gangsters were hanging around. Most were smoking, or watching the scry. Truth could read the tension in them from tens of meters away, clean through the windscreen.

Lots of people sporting green. A few green tiger tattoos. No points for guessing the name of the gang.

“Lukka, Del, where the fuck you been?” This from someone wearing mirrored sunglasses and chunky jewelry.

“Picking up the delivery, you know that.” Lukka said.

“Oh, now you talking back? Fuckouttahere. Unload that shit, De’Ponte gonna be here any minute.”

Lukka and Del just shrugged and did it.

Truth strolled out of the back of the truck, stretching with almost indecent satisfaction. God, he missed his iron horse. Should he get another while he was back in Jeon? Somehow, it felt like cheating.

Fine. He would just find some other ride. Steal a chariot or something, that could be fun. His head felt weird too. He had spent so long wearing that damn zeph, it felt strange going bareheaded.

“Hey, did De’Ponte say if he had more business coming for us?”

“That’s MR. De’Ponte to you, Lukka. You just focus on minding your business, you let me worry about the One Legged Bird Ring.

Oh? Now there was a name that rang a faint bell. Truth frowned. They must have run clubs or girls or something. Still, if he had heard about them in Harban while on bodyguard duty, that must mean they were national. Big players. Nice. Very nice.

Cops were coming up the street. Five of them decked out in just short of riot gear. Each of them had scattershot fetishes too. Nobody in the garage turned a hair. They didn’t even hide the piles of untaxed drugs. The cops marched right up to the front of the garage…

And kept right on marching. Didn’t even look over.

Truth raised an eyebrow. Even for a slum kid that was a bit on the nose. The cops not giving a damn was normal, but people not caring about the cops? Never mind respect, if the police had lost the fear of the public, was there anything holding society together? There must be something.

An hour passed. Truth joined the gangsters in watching the scry. It was some soap opera nonsense, but every time someone suggested changing to something else, they got shouted down. It seemed people needed their stories. Truth was pretty into it by the end. It was like watching a romance novel acted out. Very useful.

He missed Etenesh. And Jember, and even Merkovah. He definitely missed the canteen lady at Temple Nag Hamadi, he hadn’t eaten since getting back to Jeon. But mostly, he missed Etenesh. And he didn’t know what the Hell to do with that emotion. He was rescued from sinking into a spiral of negative thoughts by the arrival of a bright copper two-seater chariot, with color accent wheels, glove leather seats in rich cream, a retractable roof, and a spirit of music bound to the interior.

Music was blasting too. The driver hopped out, grinning behind his own mirrored sunglasses, looking around like he owned the place. Someone stuck an ornament on the hood of the chariot- a one-legged bird. Truth smiled. His next step up the criminal hierarchy. Ready to find some people who could really raise some Hell. And he even liked the ride.

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