Well, if that’s the deal I got, that’s the deal I got, right, Veylis?
I kill other . I get my consangs back? I get the rotlick back? My life gets better, and I get to fuck and snort and be Steelhard?
Yeah. Yeah, alright. I’ll play grav-ball. I’ll play.
Yeah. I know I’m the alternate. I know I’m ti-made. But fuck. Who's to say what’s real? It’s all an illusion. Whoever wins decides what’s real. Whoever wins gets to give us whatever life they decide.
My choices are pretty limited if that’s the case.
Never much did like myself anyway. So. This shouldn’t be that hard. Just gotta channel the old man is all.
-Aedon Chambers, Fuckbringer (Anathema)
30-4
Half-Chained Love (III)
“Wait, what? Both of them? With Shotin? The Planefucker?” Chambers looked on at Marlowe with wide eyes and disbelief. He could understand the words, but they were making any sense to him. She just kept nodding.
“Yep. Both of them. At the sa ti. The half-strand would sneak out from one room and then go straight to the next. I caught his ass that one Salvation Day—I tell you, I fucking scread! I thought we were being raided or sothing. My family—we’re arms dealers, right? And I just went for the nearest piece I had on and the next thing I know mom and dad were beating-feet out of both their bedrooms, both naked! And then I get tackled at the sa ti while Shotin’s just standing there frozen—”
“Jaus,” Chambers gasped. “What the fuck.”
“Yeah. I know! Anyway, , mom, and dad go tumbling down the stairs and he ends up catching us using his plane and keeping us from getting hurt. By this point, my younger brother is out too, half-asleep and trying to figure out what’s going on. Mom and dad are already screaming at each other, reflexive blaming already kicking off. And then there was . Sixteen and stupid as shit. But still not stupid enough to miss all the obvious signs. And the fact that Shotin’s cock was hanging out from his unzipped trousers.”
“I—uh… Jaus.”
“Yeah. Anyway, that piece of shit—that motherfucker—he looks at , shrugs, and then interrupts my parents, and I shit you not, he says: ‘Listen… I know your policy on threesos, but…’”
Utter disbelief gripped Chambers. She was bullshitting him. There was no world where Shotin could break into a house, cheat on both the husband and the wife, and then go this far. This was a drama vic—the kind of shit you would only see in the dia. “No. Stop. Co on, Marlowe. It’s not an episode.”
“I’m not bullshitting you! It’s just… it’s so stupid, but it happened. Shit like this happens all the ti. The Tiers are a fucking carnival of goofy horseshit, but all the clowns are self-important cunts who keep getting to ruin other people’s lives. It would be funny if it wasn’t so goddamn miserable.”
Marlowe sighed and leaned back against the bar. She looked up at the strobing lights dancing down from the ceiling, the flashing bright splashing against her augnted skin and bathing her in a glossy sheen. There was sothing pensive about her expression. Amused, disgusted, offended, and nostalgic all at the sa ti.
“This why you hate Guilders?” Chambers asked. “The other ones, I an.”
“What?” No. This is just the best part of being a Color. Just… stupid bullshit that belongs in the tabloids. But it's part of your life. Even if it fucks you up. Never a dull day. Not even a dull minute.”
“Then, what did it for you?”
Marlowe wiggled her nose and looked down at her empty cup. “Well. I was around twenty. Even dumber than when I was sixteen. Thought I was going to change the Tiers with my ‘hard-hitting exposes’ and ‘show the other Colors’ the truths that were being hidden. Believe you , Aedon: I was an arrogant and silly shit. Still am in so ways.”
“You always wanted to be a dia?”
“Yeah. Well, not a dia. A real investigator. Impartial. Honest. The kind of person in those old “we are one” ads back when Jaus was still around. I even thought about being a diplomat. Submitting an application to be a Voidwatch liaison and ending the war. All that hope. All those dreams.” She flicked her cup, and the emptiness rang. “Anyway. I ended up coming down to the Warrens to report on the exploitation and unlawful coercion of human sacrifices. There was a Syndicate tied to Ori-Thaum at the ti. Real fucked up outfit. Targeted Kosgans specifically. They were just operating in open daylight and no one was doing anything about them.”
Chambers shifted uncomfortably as he took another asured sip of his own drink. He’d gone far slower than Marlowe did when it ca to the booze. “So, uh. How’d that turn out?”
“Well, I kept trying to get Ori-Thaum to do sothing. But after they blew off for the four thousandth ti that year I decided to get hands-on and do so ‘accidental leaks’ to generate so outrage. I knew the outfit I was working with at the ti wouldn’t take kindly to that, so I decided to go hands-on, you know. Moonlight.”
“Alone?” Chambers blinked. Oh, no. He thought she was being self-hating when she said she was dumb. But she might actually be right. “Into the Warrens?”
“Yeah. And all the way down into the gutters.”
Young Marlowe wasn’t just stupid, she was a practicing suicidal maniac. “I—what—how are you still alive?”
She giggled and her voice sounded like jingling bells. “Beats . Favor and the decency of others, I guess. I had so graft-work done so I could end up looking like a refugee and just started wandering.”
It kept getting worse. Chambers was enraptured and horrified in equal asure.
“And then I finally got what I wanted,” she said, nodding to herself grimly. “Got grabbed. But, uh, wasn’t like in the mainstream vics. Didn’t expect the enforcers to hit with a goddamn lightning gun.”
“Oh, yeah, the Popper,” Chambers muttered under his breath.
Marlowe paused. “The what?”
“It’s called a Popper. It’s a Guttergrade tech—shit most cobbled together from downed aeros and other parts left strewn about after a war. It’s a pretty easy thing to make. You just need a battery, so magnetic panels and so other shit you can get out of wrecks. They don’t jump far, but twenty ters is still sothing. Usually’s used to keep slaves in line. Spark one and save the battery for the others, is the way it went.”
A silence followed. Marlowe was staring blankly at him. Chambers suddenly realized his past life was leaking over without him noticing. Fuck. Uh-oh. “Uh, yeah. Anyway. Shit gets nasty and rough and shit in the Warrens. Shitty. Real fucking nasty.”
“Why’s it called a Popper?” Marlowe asked.
“Oh,” Chambers said, wincing slightly. “Because it had a tendency to surge-jump which fucks with the voltage and a bit stronger of a shock would rush out. When that happens, the settings go from ‘flat’ to ‘Scaarthian’ or more and well, eyeballs down handle all that energy very well, so—”
“Holy shit that’s dark,” Marlowe said, snorting under her breath.
“You gotta find joy in the little things, right?” Chambers replied, taking another drink. Thinking back on all the tis he used the damn Popper, screams passed over the currents of Chambers’ mind. n, won, children of all clades. People who had it coming. Most who didn’t. How many people had he shocked? He rembered him and couple other juvs using it to jolt a “musical” out of their new captures as a gang. Slaves they were going to trade to Syndis for imps.
What happened to those people? Were they still around? Did any of them ever make it out? He’d gone years without thinking about them—just how life went when you lived in a beast like New Vultun. But now they were back. Back to haunt him. Bad old days. Bad for him. Bad for everyone.
“So,” Chambers said, encouraging Marlowe to continue. “You got caught.”
“Right,” she picked up where she left off. “Got caught. Woke up in a phase-cage to soone sawing my neck open and implanting a collar in . Started screaming and saying I was a Citizen. Showed them my EGO-ID. They didn’t believe , but they sure shocked the shit out of . Let it current run until I was sobbing, pissing, and begging for death. After that, they finished cutting into and finished the graft job. Anyway. Since I was classified as ‘unique product’ due to my pristine state of health, I was going to be the start of a special sensory vic.”
“Fuck,” Chambers groaned. “Sorry.”
Marlowe angled her head as if in casual resignation. “Never really got that far. They got two sessions out of . First two were ‘destruction pieces.’ People really like pain this city. And so they got so pain out of . It was bad. Had those mories removed. But when it ca ti for the third session, soone shot up the place I was held and pulled out of my pen. Squire by the na of Vendrick Masuri.”
“Happy circumstance or hired by your family?” Chambers asked.
“Younger brother,” Marlowe confird. “Wasn’t speaking to mom and dad by this point. They didn’t know. And I’d rather die than let them. Anyway. He cos in with his big guns, shiny augs, and fast aero, and I do the whole cry in the back and imprint on my savior thing. ssy kid shit. But you can guess what happened after that. I was the naive, hopeful, and aesthetic Guilder trying to do right. He was that hard-bitten, brooding but ultimately noble Squire that survived the nightmares of the undercity trying to do sothing about it. Also an idiot. Also a juv. And like a couple of idiot juvs, we thought it was love.”
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“Didn’t work out?” Chambers asked.
Marlowe rolled her eyes and sighed. “Ended up going together like a knife in the asshole. Sure, we fit pretty good when we forced it, but we also hurt each other like hell all the ti.”
“Fucking… hell of a taphor.”
“Years of practice. Anyway. We went on and off. More shit happened. Spent more ti in the Warrens. The idiot girl I was got worn down day after day as I learned more about Syndicate ties to Guilds, and he got greedier and less heroic. Then, one day, he took a job from the wrong Color, ended up getting burned, well, long story short, I got to experience his death first hand in a shared hot-sim while trying to charm so deets out of a new source.”
“Godsdamn. Fuck. Sorry, Marlowe. I—uh—”
“I had those mories removed too,” Marlowe said. “nder said I was a ss. Cycling through it over and over. Got obsessive over who killed him after. Real obsessive. I an, I didn’t even love the half-strand by this point, but still. He was mine. My hate-fuck. My shitty-ex. And so I went into a spiral. And that’s how I ended up getting it in with Tavers. Killing a Color ca with too much heat for most Squires. But you don’t get to be the best in the city without a bit more bite. So she did. I cleaned my mories. And so did she. So the Color died an accident and Vendrick a casualty. But hey, the scales balanced themselves in . And that’s what I cared about in the end. , , , sa selfish piece of shit Color like the others.”
The air grew colder. The beats got louder. The bombs going off in the distance flared brighter. And the silence between the two stretched out. Marlowe motioned to the bartender, asking for another drink. Chambers finished his and glared down into the empty cup, mind blank but feeling so kind of way for one.
Jealousy. Bitterness. So kind of way.
“He’s a lucky piece of shit,” Chambers finally said.
Marlowe froze and twisted her body so she could half-face Chambers. “What?”
“Vendrick. Loverboy. He was lucky.”
For the first ti, Marlowe didn’t just shrug his words off. Her face went blank of expression, and the first hint of genuine anger arrived behind her eyes. “Listen… I might not rember exactly how he died, but I still got the feeling inside , and—”
“And I’m sure it was nightmarish shit. Yeah, yeah.” Chamber chuckled under his breath. “That just makes him one of us. Gutter rats. Subjects. Sacrifices. Wastefolk. Maw-food. All those titles and more. I’m sure he crossed over into the Big Nothing howling and crying for his momma, but that’s the score for us. We know. We knew. Since the day we were born. Didn’t ask for this, just like you, but we knew the score. And we lived regardless.”
“So… what the fuck are you trying to tell , that he had it coming?” Her words ca a bit faster, and so did her breath. She was building to rage. Sa way his father did when Chambers broke sothing.
“Be careful,” Fucktopia chided. “She’s got her wounds too. And I don’t think she’ll like my hugs as much as you do.”
“No?” Chambers said, heeding the Fucktopia’s words while shaking his head. “There’s no ‘has it coming.’ There’s just what happens, who did it, when, and all the other stuff. That fate shit? Deserve? Right? Justice? Those are stories for your people. Not mine. But still, It's either play or die, right? So he played. Until he couldn’t anymore. And that the way of things. Well. How they used to be.” A slow breath escaped Chambers. “But his end? That wasn’t special. His life was. He had soone to care about him.”
“I told you, it wasn’t love—”
“Fuck love.” The words left Chambers with a bit more force and bitterness than he expected. When he slamd his drink down on the table, the bottom of the glass shattered and bounced off his enhanced skin. He shot the barkeep a quick look. “I’ll pay for that.”
The Sang just continued her routine, bobbing her head to the music. “Sure. Whatever. Don’t know what’s coming tomorrow anyway.”
Man. You could get away with all kinds of shit at the end of the world.
“Fuck love,” Chambers repeated, looking Marlowe dead in her eyes. She wasn’t blinking anymore. Or angry. Now, she was the listener, and he was the storyteller. “Listen… everyone loves. It’s the cheapest thing in this city. There’s no kind of love you can feel that stronger than what a Joyfiend got for their needle. No kind of love stronger than a senso-doser for all the fucked up vics they’ll never got to dive again in the Deep Nether. It’s a feeling. It’s a vibe. And it’s worth less than what you gave him.”
“And what’s that?” Marlowe said quietly. “Heartbeart? Screaming matches? A couple of good Nether-fucks? So tips for his next job? A new aug for his nasday on my credit? New guns?”
“You gave a shit,” Chambers explained. “You were there when he needed you. You got hurt when he died. Fuck, you actually went above and beyond—you had Quail Fucking Tavers do a revenge run on his behalf. A revenge run. Wild shit.”
“That’s nothing—”
Chambers practically snarled. This stupid cunt wasn’t getting it. “It’s fucking everything! The Scaarthian behind him flinched away, sobering at his rageful outburst and muttering sothing about how n were children always no matter the clade. “Listen, Marlowe. My ma loved . I’m sure of that. I can rember that. So did grandpa, grandma from both sides of the family. He leaned close to her as their new drinks ca in. Before Marlowe could react, he snatched both glasses up and threw them back at the sa ti. He used the Bioigniter to burn the joy out of his system before it could twist his mind. “It ant shit for fuck. Their love didn’t stop my life from being shit. Their love didn’t do anything when daddy-o stuck his gun under my armpit. Mom’s love wasn’t enough to stop her ass from running.”
“Oh, shit,” Marlowe flinched. “Sorry—”
“Fuck it. I get it. Hope she had a good life. Is having. I don’t know—I don’t care. Or I do, but I don’t want to know. But the main point is that it didn’t matter. Because I didn’t matter. Not . Not my half-strand dad. None of us. We were all here alone with each other despite all the fucking going around. But not your ex. No, he was soone because of you.”
“Because he fucked a Color?” Marlowe whispered.
“Because you cared to give his story an end! You think I would’ve gotten an end if Avo didn’t just bounce into my lap? If I wasn’t just lucky. Fuck, I’m typical. I’m basic. I’m a deltaware arm transplant on the warehouse shelf. Every fucking kid in the Warrens got so of in them, and the other way around too. But before I got taken by the ghoul, this was it. I was going to feel good. I was going to love plenty. Love my Dannis vics. Love my drugs. Love making imps. Love, love, love. And then, I was going to die. And there would be nothing after that. I would actually get to be alone in the dark forever. And that was it. No story. Just a loose assortnt of shit.”
He held out a hand, and it alternated between a fist and palm. He didn’t know what he was going to say next, but there was a fire in his gut, and it had to co out. “I would have loved to be unloved by soone like you. And that’s why… that’s why Avo he…” A laugh escaped Chambers. Just slipped out. “He treated like shit, at the start. Worse than a mutt. I was just supposed to a puppet he was going to hack through. And that was fine. I an, it wasn’t, but fuck, that’s the way of things, right? Use, get used. But then… then I did get used. And he didn’t just throw away. He kept alive. He didn’t love . He barely tolerated . But he cared. For whatever fucked up ghoul reason he cared.”
And the words found Chambers in the end. “And… that’s what made a person. When who I was affected soone else that they decided I was worth keeping from death.”
The beats continued hamring above, and Chambers’ heart beat in rhythm to the noise. Only then did he catch himself at the end of his outburst, and a faint blush crept over his face. Fuck, was he drunk? Why did he say so much? How did he let himself get into that rant? Rubbing his face, Chambers shook his head. “I’m… sorry, I don’t know where that ca from. Just… guess I’ve got that post-jack-off brain fog.”
Slowly, sothing almost like a smirk pulled at the corners of Marlowe’s lips. “I think that happens before, not after.”
“Really. Fuck. Not for , I guess. I might just be special.”
“Yeah. You might just be—”
“Chambers.” Cas voice bood from behind.
“Jaus! Fuck!” Chambers flinched forward.
Marlowe threw her head back and snickered. “Sa response.”
He almost glared at her, but chose to face Cas instead. “Cas. Hey. Consang. How’s the… how’s the scouting…”
“Kinda shit,” Cas grunted. He waved at the bartender. “Skuldswill. Undiluted.” A series of mutters sounded around them. So of the Scaarthians started taking bets on how soon it would take Cas’ to die. “I managed to pull so intel through the soundwaves: got a limited window. They have a cadre coming in soon. Dowager with them. There is a team of Agnosi on-site observing the outbreak, and they’re talking about extraction and storage.”
“Shit,” Chambers said. “How soon?”
“Don’t know. But if we’re going to do sothing, we might want to do it soon or kill this run. This thing’s done in a hurry. I don’t like it, but if we lose this fragnt—”
“Fuck that. It’s ours. Avo needs it. We’re taking it. I got a way in.”
Cas’s drink arrived, sliding on the table. It went right past him as he arched his brows at Chambers. “You do?”
“What? Why do you look surprised?” Chambers said, offended.
Soone else down along the bartop snatched Cas’ drink, sniffed it, gagged, threw up between their legs, and then drank it anyway. This was where New Vultun was at, apparently.
“Chambers, listen, consang,” the faither said, looking awkward. He eyed Marlowe and took a step closer. “You’ve been… improving a lot, and I know that you’re willing to do so twisted shit no one else is for the cause but… you weren’t exactly the professional type before, you know.”
“I…” Chambers grunted. “Yeah, but… people change and shit.”
“Yeah. I know, and that’s great. I just kind of figured you’d use the ti to…” He switched to a thoughtcast. Try and “get to know” Marlowe.
As the ghosts snaked the thought through Chambers’ ta, he went still and—well, yeah, that kinda happened, but he was actually being super professional before that. “Well. I—listen, we have a way in through the bioforms. They rotate, and I think I can ld us into one of the little ones so we can smuggle ourselves using the bigger ones.”
“Sounds disgusting and miserable. I’m in. Tell more.”
But before Chambers did, he sent a thoughtcast. Wait, you expected I’d just be flirting with Marlowe and you just… accepted it?
Cas paused. Yeah.
But… why?
Chambers… the fucking world is ending. And you two seed like you needed a mont. Thought it might be good for your heart.
Then nothing. Nothing but a weight in Chambers’ chest and a strange set of emotions, rushing across his face.
“Boys?” Marlowe said, leaning in next to them. “What are you whispering about?”
Chambers coughed. “Just… so m-data about the run. Trading what we know.” He stared on at Cas. Hey, Cas.
What?
Thanks for caring.
Don’t ntion it. Now, fucking ruin my day by telling how we’re going to get our flesh fused with so Sang-made freak of nature.
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