Slumrat Rising

Vol. 3 Chap. 15 A Big, Clean, Job

Truth was in an odd mood as he drove back to De’Ponte’s club. He had more or less ignored the club the first few times he went in, still in his “drifting ghost” mentality. Now, he could confidently say it was crap. Not as good as the Garden Club Etenesh had taken him to in Xandre, and definitely not as good as the clubs his clients preferred in Harban. Not an entirely fair comparison- high-end clubs in two major capitals versus a club in a third-rate city. Still, some things were universal truths. One of those things is that floors should not stick.

It was mid-afternoon. There was a very, very bored woman pushing around a mop with almost criminal ineffectiveness. The mop was supposed to be enchanted, just activate it and let it go. It was also broken. The club’s decoration was pretty lousy, too- mirrored walls, tiny light talismans scattered around, loads of bench seats, and tiny tables that were tall enough for people to stand next to. And they would have to stand, as no chairs or stools were provided. Long, steel-topped bar, no stools again. All the bottles had been taken off the shelves at the end of the night.

They had tried to do some branding with a stylized cartoon of a palm tree. It didn’t particularly work. The club was in the back of a shopping plaza near the center of the city. To Truth’s quiet frustration, it appeared to be modestly successful.

De’Ponte was in his back room, reading ledgers and sending notes. The crane on his neck was out again, silently looking over De’Ponte’s shoulder. It looked up and spotted Thrush.

“This is no place for you, Imp.” The crane demon’s voice was rich, melodic, and cruel. “But you know that. What drove you to dare appear before me?”

De’Ponte looked up, curious. Twitchy.

“My master’s will, naturally. Since that Great One will not condescend to appear in this place, he sent me to carry word of his bidding.” Thrush preened casually.

“He commands that a team of disposable pawns numbering not less than ten be assembled. They are to be equipped with vehicles capable of carrying significant loads, such as might be suitable for a mason or other building trade. He will arrange for a way to be open, leading to the interior of the Totte distribution hub on the outskirts of this city. Your thugs are to steal all they can and smash all they cannot take, leaving fire, destruction, and ruin in their wake. Your reward will be one hundred percent of the profits from what they steal.

“Your animals are to be assembled with their vehicles at the ”Sweepstakes” restaurant off exit one hundred and eighteen, at five in the afternoon tomorrow. I will appear, and they will follow me through the prepared route. That is all.” The little demon turned to leave.

“The Hell it is “all,” Imp!” De’Ponte shot to his feet and slammed his hand on the table. “Who the FUCK do you-”

Truth had been waiting for that. He grabbed DePonte’s stylus and jammed it through his hand, two centimeters deep into the table.

It took everyone in the room a good couple of seconds to process what happened. De’Ponte grabbed his wrist, a high-pitched whine coming from between clenched teeth. His forehead beaded with sweat.

“I saw nothing, my Prince. Not even a whisper of a spell.” The crane demon Pealon said with quiet urgency.

De’Ponte heaved a few breaths, then dragged his attention back from his hand and onto Thrush. “Why? What does your master get out of this?”

“I have no idea. It’s no business of mine. Or yours. Until tomorrow, then. For one reason or another.”

Thrush flew off. This time, no one tried to stop him.

Truth watched a moment longer, then followed. It would work, or it wouldn’t. But he knew a fellow rat, even if it mistakenly believed it was a cat. He left room for the rat to run and even put a bit of meat at the end of the path. De’Ponte would send his most disposable, degenerate thugs. Not even “his” thugs, more like anyone he could sweep up and press into service. He would seize whatever loot the survivors returned with, either paying them a pittance or directly murdering them to sever any connection back to him. Probably the latter. He would also betray this anonymous “master” at the very first opportunity.

Perfect.

____________________________________________

It had been a long time since Truth really buried himself in the art of talismans. He was trained in maintenance, not creation, but you couldn’t really maintain something without some understanding of how it was created.

He could remember when he started the maintenance classes. He had chosen it purely because it seemed like the best shot out of the slums, not for any particular love of talismans. The memory of the classroom was blurred with time, as was the lesson, but the emotion stayed with him.

The teacher had a simple diagram of a basic spell array up on the blackboard and walked through the parts. He didn’t remember what exactly it was. He just remembered the click. The moment where he got it. Like a falling rock or the lift of a lever. It had to work that way. The logic of the whole thing demanded it. This connected to that, which drove this third thing. It wouldn’t work if you put this there because there is too far, interferes with the transmission of energy, or takes up space needed for another component. There was a right answer. It was knowable, provable, repeatable. And he could learn it.

Later on, he discovered why talisman maintenance was considered a skilled trade, and that there were often many right answers, and far more that were “right enough” to get the job done on a project. But the feeling of satisfaction never really left. Seeing something wrong, knowing how it should work, then returning it to order. He never tired of it.

What he was putting together now would be, in his professional opinion, “jank.” It would work, in a crude, brutal sense. Not nearly as durable, reliable and elegant as a properly, purpose built talismans. But they would work.

An intricately carved “gem” (a manufactured stone containing not less than eighty percent quartz, per the package) was repurposed from an industrial noise insulator into a area wide noise isolator. It would only work for a short time before burning out, but it would work. Same as the lock breaking and alarm negating tools. Tools for capturing and binding hostile spirits. Tools for keeping them away.

Most of the talismans were already in usable or near usable shape. An angle cutter doesn't care if you are cutting metal pipe or a lock, after all. Nor does a glass cutter care who owns the glass being cut. There are likewise many perfectly valid reasons for having lots of commercial grade cleaning supplies. Especially the ones that destroy all traces of biological and magical remnants on surfaces.

“Magus, most of these petty tools are quite useless for you. May I ask why you bother with them?” Thrush hopped around the table, examining the fruit’s of Truth’s labor.

“Two reasons- I enjoy it, and it is always good to show people what they expect to see. So when they wonder how I defeated their surveillance, they will see counter-surveillance tools. And then they will believe they know something about me, and my capabilities.”

“I see. Devious.”

“Nah, that’s just the basics. The really devious bit is coming next.” Truth tidied up, taking particular care to scrub down every surface he might have touched. The cleanser was used aggressively and in more than the recommended concentrations. It had a pungent artificial grape smell, Truth noticed, one designed to linger for hours. He even swept up the trash, burned it outside, and buried the ashes a meter deep.

“You are erasing your presence here?”

“My presence is already erased. I am erasing the traces of the work I did here.”

“My meager intelligence fails to appreciate your genius. Please, instruct me.” Thrush groveled. And if you believed him, more fool you.

“Not much to it. See, what most people don’t consider is that investigations cost money. Even just the cop’s time or a security team’s time. That’s coming out of a budget somewhere. And any time they spend investigating, there is some other work they aren’t doing. You may need to have someone cover that work, which is more money, plus your time organizing that coverage, which is MORE money. Then you have things like equipment, sacrifices, disposable charms, the goddamn necromancers, loads of things that cost loads of money.”

“I follow so far.”

“So most investigations that should happen don’t happen because of money. Then the investigations that do happen get half-assed because of money. Then you finally have the full effort, no expenses spared investigations. These cost a hell of a lot of money, so they better get results, or it’s going to be somebody’s ass. They are going to go over every little thing very, very carefully BUT!” Truth smiled angelically, which meant something rather nasty on his little planet.

“They also are looking for the things they expect to see. They- cops, security, whoever, know that criminals know cops either don’t or barely investigate most of the time. So they don’t do a good job of erasing their traces, and when they do try to hide them, they do so in the most low-effort way possible. Masks, change of clothes, that kind of thing.”

“You are… once again shaping their opinion of who you are. A meticulous individual, a schemer. One determined to erase all traces of themselves, who works through disposable pawns. Hence the nonsense this morning with the human serf and his master.”

“You know, I think I could even be a sinister mastermind, pulling the strings on the criminal underworld. Or, more dangerous still, a revolutionary.”

“A revolutionary?”

Truth carefully made a rubbing of a piece of one side of the demon contract he got from the hotel. Then he equally carefully burned it and dumped the ashes in the toilet. It looked like not quite everything went down with the flush.

“Oh yes. A revolutionary. One careful to erase all evidence of their existence, moving through the masses like a fish in the sea.” Wait, where had he heard that expression before? Probably unimportant. “And, crucially, one a half step behind what the state of the art is in crime scene reconstruction.”

Thrush thought through everything he had seen that day and started laughing. “I have truly missed you, Magus. Truly missed you.”

__________________________________________

At exactly five pm, three large white panel wagons pulled into the parking lot of Sweepstakes. Fifteen men, five from each, stepped out and assembled in front of a tiny black bird sitting on a chain link fence. It looked them over and nodded.

“Very good. You will follow me. Stop when I stop, go when I go. If there are barriers, a way will be made. Surveillance will be defeated. Guards will be distracted. You simply go, take, destroy, and leave. Or you will perish, and I will have a quick meal.” Thrush flew off and perched on a street sign at the end of the driveway and looked back. Waiting.

The thugs looked at each other. None of them were good people or easy to get along with. Many of them were high. They had the morale of wet bread. They also had the uncanny certainty that if they didn’t get back in their wagons right now and get moving, they would die.

They couldn’t see Truth sitting up on top of one of the wagons, ready to make that belief a reality. They certainly could feel his killing intent. Truth smiled as the wagon pulled out of the driveway. He had promised to induct the gangsters of Jeon into his revolutionary organization, and he was already making good on it. Perhaps, in some far-distant future, they would even be remembered as heroes.

They rumbled up the access road, speeding up as they charged toward the gate to the distribution center. Truth flicked his hand, and Incisivesliced open the gate. The talismans and charms were in place and running. They would be effective for a minute or two at least.

The martyrs of the revolution cheered as they rushed in. Driven by forces they were unaware of, serving goals they didn’t understand, laboring for the illusion of profit. Truth rode the vertigo. He didn’t know what the world should look like. He just knew this, this world, this system of the world, was intolerable. Truth didn’t realize he was grinning like a skull.

“Sergeant Truth Medici, back from medical leave, here to collect my back pay!”