The Lost Puzzler

Even with my back to the yard I could sense there were people watching me with professional interest. From the edge of my vision I saw a slender figure, perhaps a woman, stepping to a large bonfire, the only source of light in the area. As soon as I was out of the cage she picked up a burning log and waved it several times in the air. The cage jolted and disappeared into the darkness above.

I took a step and barely managed to stay upright. It was not just the rocking motion of the cage that had made me unstable; the ground was shaking. This was yet another phenomenon peculiar to the Pit. It was called the Downtown Swing or the Newcomers Half-Step—a slight rattle that was enough to make some visitors walk unsteadily or even seasick, and mark them as easy prey for the locals. It was just one of the many reasons why visitor protection was such a big business in the Pit. Walking without it meant you were either competent or a fool, and locals knew exactly how to differentiate.

The Pit was always a wild place. Years ago the ShieldGuards had full control of most of it, but things have changed. Nowadays it was the part of the city where you had to fend for yourself, or pay for someone to protect your back. Whether coming through Cart’s Way or dismounting from one of the discs, buying visitor’s protection was as close to an orderly affair as you could get in the Pit. Mixed groups of men and women were spread around the perimeter like a welcoming committee. Officially they called themselves Guides, but everyone referred to them as the Companies. All were armed to the teeth, of course, and consisted of ex-Salvationists, now unemployed augmented Trolls who needed to pay for their Skint addiction, a drug that was becoming dangerously sparse in the city. The different company groups had names such as Metal Fists or the Bloody Blades, wore colourful matching uniforms, and stood next to signs indicating prices, which were, unsurprisingly, pretty much the same. You could, of course, walk away without hiring anyone, but your chances of keeping your belongings, or your life, were nothing one would wager on.

I, however, was not walking off a disc or climbing out of a cart, I had just climbed, arse first, out of a rusty metal cage. If the Companies were generally made up of thugs who would rob you if they weren’t paid to protect you, the people who surrounded me were the kind Companies thought of as too unstable to employ. There was no etiquette here, so when I heard heavy footsteps behind me, accompanied by the unmistakable metallic whine of unoiled hinges, I had a pretty good idea what I was about to face. Still, the mountain of flesh and rust I confronted when I turned around left me speechless and gaping.

When Tarakan artifacts were found and reintroduced to society, there were plenty of men and more than a few women who were tempted by the idea of inhuman strength, stamina, and speed, and thus Trolls came to be. It was only natural that some people would take their lust for physical superiority to an obscene level, collecting and attaching augmentations to their bodies with no sense of what they were doing to their appearance or their mental stability.

The Troll facing me had only one healthy eye; the other was a messy, stitched-up job, most likely the remains of a botched attempt at attaching an aiming mechanism. His right arm and shoulder were completely covered in metal, as well as both legs from the knees up. Where the right arm should have been was an enormous power cannon, braced to his rib cage with metal rods and poorly attached wires that ran up the right side of his head. That was the prettiest part, the rest was too much to take in.

I didn’t need my enhanced sight to notice the distinct green markings around his nose, a clear sign that the monster was a hard Skint user. Skint considerably dulled the pain when the body tried to repel the attached augs, but too much of it made Trolls even more unstable and susceptible to violent episodes.

This Troll—I couldn’t decide whether to call it a “him” or an “it”—prodded me with his free left hand and said, “You need protection.” There was no question in his tone whatsoever. He had a squeaky, unnaturally high voice, which would have been absolutely hilarious if I were telling this story over scented wine to a bunch of drunken friends in a tavern up in the Upper Spires, but it was just scary and odd from where I was standing.

I glanced nervously to my right; the slender figure kept her distance.

“Hey, don’t be looking over there,” barked the mountain of metal. He prodded me again. “I’m your Troll. Look at this cannon, eh?” He waved the massive cannon in front of my face as if it were a children’s toy instead of a weapon that normally needed the strength of three men just to be picked up. “This baby can blast through stone walls, eh? Clean a whole street in two shots. Mister, you want me”—he pointed the cannon at himself—“protecting you”—and aimed it at my face. There was a very distinct suggestion of threat in the Troll’s voice, but the high pitch made it dangerously unconvincing.

I peeked to my left and spotted a man who was watching us from a short distance with what I instinctively felt was quiet disdain. He had a white beard, cropped short in a fashion long out of style. It was probably the individual whom the gang leader so helpfully recommended just before throwing me off the ledge. I caught his eye. He nodded once and began walking slowly towards us. This time the prodding from the huge Troll was strong enough to make me take a step back.

“Hey, don’t be looking over there. I’m the escort you want, man, twenty in coin or kind. We have a deal?”

The man approaching us was a Troll as well, but the old-fashioned kind, not an oversized, crazed junkyard who pumped himself up with Tarakan toys. He looked like the Trolls who used to do Salvation runs, back when that wasn’t just a suicide mission. He certainly showed more flesh than his bigger version, and there was no trace of Skint on his face. Metal gauntlets covered his arms from the elbows down, the back of each hand marked by three dart ducts. Short tubes were protruding from the side of his neck, in the classic fashion of a Salvationist crew tactical Lieutenant, but no wirings were attached to them. The rest of his body was covered in flex armour so worn that it was grey rather than black. From the way he walked I guessed he was also wearing a torso brace and a spine protector.

“Hey, look at me, fleshy. Twenty, yes?” insisted the giant, but the man was now close enough to intervene. He eyed my face just for a heartbeat, taking in my facial tattoos, and nodded at me.

“I believe I can counteroffer this … man.” His tone of voice was mild, but the word man was overpronounced and probably meant as an insult.

The metal monster sure seemed to take it that way. “Lift up, sucker,” he warned, but the man ignored him and fixed me with a calm stare.

“Where are you heading?” he asked.

“Atrass District, but perhaps other places as well,” I answered, trying to ignore the cannon swinging angrily above my head.

“I said take a lift, Galinak,” the large Troll squeaked again.

“Twenty-five in coin, no kind,” the man said, not taking his eyes off me.

The bigger Troll grinned in triumph. “Don’t listen to the old man—his metal is rusty. I tell you what.” He leaned close enough for me to smell the stench emanating from his metal-tipped teeth. “I’ll sweeten the deal. Fifteen in coin or kind, special price for you, deal?”

I looked back at Galinak, who shrugged and said, “Thirty in coin, no kind.”

That didn’t make sense. He was supposed to be haggling the price down, not up. Even the big Troll managed to work out the rudimentary economics and laughed out loud.

“See? The flesh brain is at the top tower. What you want? Flesh hookers? Dope? I know everyone here. I’ll take you around the block for some good time, no problems. Now give me fifteen.” The last phrase was said with desperate urgency.

Galinak raised an eyebrow and said, “I am about to raise the price to thirty-five.”

“Thirty,” I said quickly, knowing I was paying Company price for an old, burned-out Salvationist with no visible weaponry while making a very unstable giant of a Troll who was holding—I read the letters as he repeatedly swung the cannon by my face—a “GY blaster 2015-d special edition” extremely angry.

“Agreed,” Galinak said, and we shook hands.

It took the giant a few heartbeats to realise what had happened, and when he finally did I was sure he was going to shoot us both. The colourful obscenities that came out of his mouth were impressive, but he turned out to be all bluster and no blaster. Galinak shot the Troll a threatening glare, and we walked away without incident.

A few streets away Galinak stopped me with a touch to my shoulder. “Where exactly you need to go to in Atrass?” he asked.

“Margat’s Den,” I said.

He grimaced. “Look, if you want hookers, I know some real nice, clean ladies with interesting augmentations that could touch you in places you never thought …”

“I don’t want hookers,” I said hastily. For some reason I was anxious to convince the old Troll I was not another sleazy merchant looking for a cheap lay.

He nodded and tried a different tack.

“If you need suppliers, or have anything to sell, I know one guy with even scales. He’ll give you a fair trade, and yes, before you ask, I get a cut.”

I shook my head again. “I need to meet someone.”

“At Margat’s?”

“Is there a problem? Because I just hired you for Company price.”

“Not for Margat’s Den you didn’t,” he answered drily. “You’re looking at fifty starting price and two escorts plus extra if something exciting happens. And something exciting always happens.”

I swallowed. “So, you’re out?” I asked. “Should I have hired the big boy with the big gun?”

“No, I’m in,” he responded a bit too quickly. Clearly, he needed the coin. “But on two conditions.” He waited for my full attention before continuing. “I get fully paid two streets before the Den—” he saw my expression and raised a metal-wrapped, claw-shaped hand to stop any protest “—no negotiations. That place is dangerous and I’m only going in there with hard coin in my pocket.”

I had no choice.

“Fine,” I capitulated. “And what’s your second condition?”

“I’m hired to protect you. I watch your back and peel off trouble, but I am not finishing off a fight you start.” His tone suggested previous experience. “If you’re one of those mad tower-heads, wanting to bleed your knuckles in the Den just so you can boast about it to your friends, you’d better learn to fight for yourself.”

“I assure you I have no intention of initiating a fight,” I promised. “Just take me to the place as quickly as possible.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he nodded and we resumed walking, me at the front, him at my side but slightly behind me, covering my back while ordering me to turn left or right. Before I knew it, I was completely lost. I could hear the noise of the ever busy main street ahead of us, but Galinak directed me to walk down small, half-deserted streets, where there were no shops or taverns, just a never-ending series of hovels containing the poorest and weakest. The only source of light was the occasional reflection of the lamps high above us in the Central Plateau as the Tarakan lifts crisscrossed the skyline, creating a disorienting display of light and darkness. The stench was close to unbearable. I began to suspect he was leading me somewhere quiet to rob me, but just as I was about to get really nervous we emerged into Downtown Alley, the Pit’s most notorious street.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were walking up and down the narrow street, moving between street vendors and food stalls, passing scantily clad prostitutes, drinking houses, and gambling dens. “Walk casually and avoid eye contact,” instructed Galinak from behind me, “especially the women.”

I nodded, feeling Galinak tense and move closer to me. With every step we took, all around us, a dozen things were happening at once. Throwing my instinctive caution to the wind I enhanced my vision, and every movement, every gesture, became achingly sharp. A nude hooker haggled over a price with two customers. Three heavy Trolls accepted a sweet-smelling pipe from a young boy, their own hands too clumsy and weapon-loaded to fill the pipe themselves. A robed soothsayer argued over turf with a mental-witch. A smiling, half-naked fat man gestured for visitors to enter his gambling den. A juggler threw apples in the air, cutting them with a machete and catching them as they fell. There was a part of me that wanted to stop and take it all in. Bukra’s balls, when was the last time I touched a woman? I was a newcomer, a first-timer, and what was wrong with slowing down and sampling a little of Downtown’s famous pleasures?

Whether he was aware of my inner turmoil or just wanted to get on with the job, Galinak pushed me forward relentlessly, and soon we turned away to a side street and were enveloped again in relative darkness. I used my sight without fear of reprisal. In Downtown Alley you were a freak if you didn’t have tattoos or augs. If Galinak had or was using enhancements I couldn’t tell, but he kept pace even in near darkness.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked, suddenly curious and trying not to think of the red-haired hookers that we passed.

“Ask, but I might not answer.”

“How old are you?” I felt foolish the moment I said the words.

“Old,” he chuckled.

“So were you—” I hesitated, but decided to complete the question “—a Salvationist?”

“What are you, one of those religious quacks?” His voice rose in annoyance. “Going to lecture me how I brought this on us, eh?”

“No, not at all, I’m just curious.” I turned my head but could only see his shoulder.

“Well, you’re not paying me to satisfy your curiosity, so keep walking.”

“It just seems to me that you are a bit—” I hesitated again, feeling I might be pushing my luck too far, but to my surprise he laughed again, softly, as if to himself.

“—too old for this rust?”

“I was going to say ‘too professional for an escort job,’ but ‘old’ will do.”

He was still behind me, but I had a feeling he shrugged to himself.

“I am old,” he admitted, “too old, but with all my age and wisdom, I never learned to play my cards right and when to call it quits. So I need to pay my debts.”

“But you were a Salvationist,” I said. “Those must have been glorious days—”

“Pha,” he cut me off dismissively, and stopped. “If any Salvationist tells you the old days were one long, glorious adventure, know that he’s on a Skint trip or serving you liquid metal for a drink.”

I turned back to face him, “But the stories? The books—”

“Guild-dictated crap. They were running out of troops so fast they were shipping fresh recruits every day in crews of five to eight, sometimes thirty crews a week. We used to call them ‘spare parts,’ if you know what I mean.”

He looked straight at me, but his eyes were seeing something else entirely. “Most of them survived till the fifth or sixth outing, then they would get cocky. ‘This isn’t too hard,’ they would say to each other at the bar, ‘ just popping lizards and collecting heads for rewards.’ With the metal they earned from Lizard popping they would upgrade their weapons and Tarakan augs or use the coin on purer Skint and other drugs, which would make them even more arrogant. Then they would chase a Lizard down the wrong rusting shaft or get too close to the City within the Mountain, and suddenly they would be surrounded by a hundred of those fucking buggers. A solid crew can probably walk away from that with only two or three casualties. But a new crew that barely knows each other and carries weapons and augs they haven’t learned to use properly? One would bolt and try to run away, he’s a goner; one or two would try to save the runner, they’re goners, too. The rest would be overwhelmed so fast you wouldn’t have time to pinpoint their screams.”

I felt an involuntary shudder running up my spine as the veteran Salvationist added, “And that was just Lizard popping, easy clean-up stuff to make way for the experienced crews who went into the actual City within the Mountain. When you entered that place, there was no telling how you might die. Those traps reset themselves or somehow appeared in places where they previously weren’t, and if you stumbled upon a nest, well, even if you survived the encounter you never wanted to go back there again. Oh, and I must apologize.” There was the sudden sound of a power buildup.

“For wha—” I began to say, but then he hit me hard in the chest with open palms. It felt as if I’d been slammed by a power hammer. As I flew backwards I was blinded by a flash of searing light that passed through the space I’d occupied only a heartbeat beforehand, followed by a deafening explosion to my right. I was grasping at empty air in panic, knowing I was about to hit the ground and hurt myself. Galinak somehow managed to jump back while pushing me out of the way of the energy blast. His right hand was raised, already aiming at whoever shot at us from the dark street on our left. Something thin and silvery shot from his gauntlet.

I hit the ground hard as pieces of stone, burning wood, and hot, bent, metal debris rained down on me. My only piece of luck, under these circumstances, was the fact that most of the ground in the Pit was soft muck, so I wasn’t knocked out. For a while all I could do was shield my head and roll from side to side, praying I wouldn’t get squashed by a large slab of stone. I was already on my knees when a strong arm gripped me, and I was hauled to my feet. When I could take in my surroundings I saw a gaping hole to my right where a makeshift house used to be. The edges of the hole were still smoking, and a small fire burned in the exposed room. I could hear shouts but couldn’t discern which direction they were coming from.

Galinak looked at me calmly and simply said, “You are unharmed.”

I could only nod as I checked my head with my hands, they came back filled with muck but no blood.

“Can I let go of you?” he asked.

I nodded again, though it took a lot of willpower and pride not to collapse once Galinak released his grip.

“I’m fine,” I brushed away the dirt from my shoulders and lower back, thankfully I was wearing black, “but what in Bukra’s balls was that?”

Galinak strolled to the left. I followed him and saw the large and still-twitching body of the huge Troll who had aggressively invited me to employ him.

“I heard him a while ago,” he said, kneeling down to check the Troll’s pupils. “He was making so much noise trying to shadow us, I’m surprised you didn’t hear him.”

“Is he dead?”

“No. I used a shock dart, and an expensive one at that.” He plucked the dart from the Troll’s shoulder and looked at me as if this was entirely my fault.

“Now what? Are you going to kill him?”

Galinak shook his head. “You’re quite bloodthirsty, even for a newcomer.”

“Well … he did try to kill us.”

“No. He tried to kill me. You he just wanted to rob and maybe throw around a bit for good sport. But his brain is so full of rusting metal he used his cannon, which would have fried us both with nothing for him to pick up afterwards, unless he was planning some odd kind of a barbecue.”

“And you saw him coming?” I was hoping Galinak didn’t spot the shudder which coursed through my body, but I suspected he did.

“Of course I saw him coming,” he said calmly.

“And you let him pull the trigger?” I was suddenly very angry. “Is this a kind of a game for you?”

“No,” he said patiently. “I simply knew exactly when to move. Once he powers up the cannon there’s a brief delay during which the weapon locks up and is immovable. If you know what you’re doing, you just need to move away when you hear the sound. It’s very distinct.”

He gestured toward the cannon. “I remember finding a stack of these little honeys on our fourth deep run into the City within the Mountain. We were a happy bunch coming back. Originally, I think they were meant to be some kind of mining equipment, self-mounting and probably automated, without the need to use a Gnome or a cheap body-fixer like this.” He gestured at the bracers holding the GY blaster 2015-d special edition. “But some Trolls fell in love with the idea of having one of these babies as a personal weapon, and who wouldn’t, I ask you? We sold them like fresh bread and made a fortune, then we celebrated in style.”

He shook his head. “If there was a time I could have walked away from it all and lived a quiet life, that was the time. I had the coin to do it, but those were good times. We had a strong crew, good people, we were even hoping to get enough between us to buy a Puzzler, you know, go solo—” He stopped abruptly and shook his head slowly, as if pulling himself away from the memories. “No need to stay here,” he said, and even I spotted the approaching silhouettes.

“What about him?” I pointed down.

“He’ll come around soon enough, and anyone trying to detach his augs will find that the knockout effect wears off really fast, so let’s move.”

He began walking away and I trailed after him, still shaking. “Won’t he come after us when he wakes up?”

“I doubt he’ll remember a thing. Anyway, he’s tried to kill me before.”

“Really? How many times?”

Galinak’s expression indicated mental calculation. “I think six, perhaps seven if you count trying to kill me during a Skint rage, although it wasn’t personal that time.”

“And you don’t mind?”

He shrugged and tweaked his short white beard. “Not really. Every man needs a hobby.”

5

For many years, Margat’s Den was nothing more than a locale for the toughest inhabitants of the Pit, who only wanted a quiet, nonwatered drink after a long hard day. It was one of those places where you were polite to the people around you and avoided eye contact. You drank inside and brawled outside, like civilised men.

It all changed a decade ago, when a tower-head walked in on a dare and started a fight. Miraculously, the boy lived to tell the tale, with only a few broken bones and several missing teeth. This minor incident inspired other brash youth living in the upper regions, and very soon it became a rite of passage for the privileged and foolhardy. They descended on the establishment in droves, looking for fights. The owner of the Den, in a moment of epiphany, saw the potential for profit; the tower-heads brought plenty of the Council’s steel coin with them and spent to impress. The Den was now the largest, most profitable legal establishment in the Pit. There were fighting tournaments and duels, along with good, old-fashioned bar brawls, some planned, some authentically spontaneous. Margat’s Den was not the sort of place you went into for a quiet drink anymore, although if you kept to yourself and had good protection, you could probably get in and out without a major confrontation. Basically, you had to pay your coin and take your chances, which was what I was going to do.

The clearing in front of the Den was lit by more than a dozen sources of flame, and there were people lying about, most of them nursing wounds. A few bodies I was only guessing were unconscious were sprawled on the ground, prize possessions taken either by the victors of whatever confrontations they’d had or by one of the many local opportunists prowling the area.

Four guards stood at the main entrance to the place, armed to the hilt with every weapon known to Trolls and looking alert and ready. I made a point of not looking around with too much interest, but sensed a few more guards lurking in the shadows.

Considering its reputation, it was surprisingly calm outside; the Den’s proprietor wanted to keep any fighting inside his establishment. Still, I felt my stomach clench with fear as we approached.

A young man, who looked no more than sixteen years of age, was being searched as his escorts stood waiting. The kid had two fighters, a massive Troll and a street rat, a sure sign that looking for trouble in the Den with minimal protection was still a trend. He was clad in full body armour, which was inscribed with Salvationist crew symbols. I recognised the markings of at least four rival crews on his back alone. Heaven knew where he got it from, but when he closed his visor he looked like a colourful drawing of a medieval knight. As we waited our turn, three concealed weapons were confiscated from him. Blasters and guns of any kind were forbidden, along with all Tarakan weapons. Official escorts were exempt, as a sign of respect, but even they were warned not to use a forbidden arsenal on pain of … well … severe pain.