Bad Seed

Noak followed a bobbing lantern through the dark tunnel. He was good at stalking prey on the surface, but the dirt-encrusted owner of the light noticed him straight away and grumbled unhappily about shankers and light-snatchers. Noak trailed the man until he emerged at the bottom of a deep ravine, then hung back to get his bearings.

Wonky buildings and patched-together stalls filled the space. Noak kept to one side of the narrow path, hoping not to be noticed, but the inhabitants seemed to sense he was different. Those on the street stepped out of his way and those standing behind counters watched him, guarded and wary. Several times Noak tried to start a conversation with a passer-by only to be ignored. They lowered their heads and hurried away before he’d even finished his greeting.

Soon, he felt eyes tracking him. An old man leant on his shop bench with his face twisted in a scowl. When he was sure he had Noak’s attention, he placed a shotgun on the table.

“In case you get any ideas.”

Noak drifted over to the store and inspected the stock behind the old man. He saw tight rolls of kenafi logs, lamp oil, candles, rope, and blankets. He had a sudden memory of another place with similar items. Somewhere warm and bright. A place with a giant register filled with numbers and names, and a man with ink stains on his hand muttering to himself as he counted through a pile of shiny gold tokens.

“I thought you could only find these items in the city?”

The old man drew his bushy white brows low over his eyes. “What are you, a guard?”

“What do you think?”

The old man rubbed the dark skin at his cheek. “You’re no guard, but you don’t much look like a Smoker either. You could be a citizen—you talk like one and judging from your size you must eat like one too—but a citizen wouldn’t be caught dead in that get-up of yours.”

Noak shrugged. “I’m after someone of information and discretion.” He pointed to the man’s stock. “You look like you’re in possession of both.”

Bushy eyebrows rose. “I am.” He tapped his chest. “The name’s Rusty.”

Noak went to give the shop keeper a false name in return, but Rusty cut him off. “I’ll save you the hot air you’re about to waste; I don’t need a name to do business. What are you offering?”

Noak pulled a single token from his pouch and placed it on the table.

Rusty touched the coin. “Where’d you get this?”

When Noak didn’t answer, the shopkeeper picked it up and turned it in the light.

“It’s old. First run I’d say, before gold got scarce. You don’t see many tokens like this around here.”

“Are you interested in doing business?”

Rusty lowered the coin, but didn’t return it. “What is it you want to know?”

“I want information on the Guardhouse.”

The old man whistled. “That’s not a good place, and that’s the honest truth. You’ll stir up trouble if you mess with the guards.”

“I asked for information, not an opinion. What’s beyond the entrance on the lake?”

“Another cave. The Guardhouse is built within. Never been there myself, thank the light, but people talk.”

Noak was getting somewhere. “Is there only one entrance?”

“I’ve heard rumours of another.”

“I need more than that.”

The old man scrunched his face while he thought. “I might know someone. I could give you a name, for proper compensation, of course.”

Noak put down another token.

“The man you want is called Viktor,” Rusty said. “He works at the Guardhouse, cooking their meals and organising supply runs to the outpost guards. You’ll find him at the tavern down Quarry Lane. Scrawny man, with scruffy grey hair and scars on his face you can’t miss. That all?”

Noak looked behind the storeowner to the rack of shirts and pants. “Not quite. How much for those?”

***

Noak’s new clothes smelt of sweat and ash. The coat fit snugly across his back. Gaps appeared under his armpits where the seams pulled, and the pants had thick patches sewn at the knees. Still, in these ill-fitting clothes he blended in better.

Following the shopkeeper’s directions, he located the tavern at the end of Quarry Lane. A one-armed man danced before the building with a tin cup clutched in his good hand. He sung a tuneless song with only one word. “Grog, grog, grog, grog.”

A large bald man sat at the entrance, ignoring the drunk’s repetitive lyrics. He blocked the door with one leg. “You got coin?”

Noak nodded.

The man sized him up. “You’re a big bloke, but I’m bigger. Cause any trouble and I’ll throw you down the hole.” Having delivered his threat, he allowed Noak to pass.

Noak entered the tavern and scanned the shabby room. A fat man watched him from behind the counter. Patrons sat at scattered tables, alone or in quiet huddles. He wandered between the groups, searching.

He found Viktor at a shadowy corner table, slumped beneath a broken light bulb. The Smoker sat alone, his back to the rest of the gathering. He looked like every other person in the room—dirty and wretched—but as Rusty predicted his scars gave him away. Viktor turned to order another drink and Noak saw the puckered mess of skin on the Smoker’s right cheek clear across the room. The scar formed the letter “G”.

Noak took the seat across from him. The man lifted his disfigured head from his jar of spirits and glowered. “Plenty of seats in the room. I suggest you pick another one to have your drink.”

“I’m not here to drink.”

“Yeah?” He scratched a second ‘L’ shaped scar on his left cheek. “If it’s conversation you’re after, you’re in the wrong place. Try the Lonely Flame.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Rusty sent me.”

Viktor’s hand clenched and he sucked in a deep breath. “You tell that old bastard to back off. I’ve still got a day left to pay what I owe him.”

“Your debt is between you two. I’m here for my own reasons.”

“If you’re not here to break my legs, or throw me down the pit, I’m not interested.” Viktor gulped a mouthful of his drink and burped. His breath stank of vinegar and bile.

“You’re a cook up at the Guardhouse,” Noak began, “Rusty said you also do deliveries to the outpost guards.”

The man slammed his jar on the table. “I’m out of here.”

Noak grabbed Viktor’s wrist before he could storm off. The Smoker pulled against his hold, rattling the table. “Get your stinkin’ mitts off me!”

Noak drew on the Source and squeezed. Viktor’s eyes widen at the unnatural strength in his grip.

“Sit down,” Noak said, noticing a few of the braver patrons had turned to watch their table. “You’re making a scene, and I don’t like the attention.”

Viktor’s mouth opened and closed. “You’re no Smoker,” he hissed. “What in the darkness are you?”

“That doesn’t matter, what matters is that I’m using a tenth of my strength.” He tightened his hold a fraction more to prove the point. “Are you willing to listen now?”

Viktor swallowed and nodded.

Noak let go. “I need to get into the Guardhouse.”

The Smoker fell back into his seat and rubbed the red mark on his arm. “No person in his right mind wants to go into that place.”

“You work there.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Viktor said.

Noak brought out his money pouch. “It’s very important I get inside.”

“You think your coin’s going to turn my head?” Viktor said. “You don’t mess with the guards. Ever. They don’t play nice and they don’t give second chances.” He pointed to his face. “I know this from first-hand experience.”

“Seems to me you’ve got concerns closer to home. You said it yourself, Rusty’s men are coming for you. I could help you take care of that problem.”

Viktor snorted, “No one has that much coin.”

Noak flicked him one of the gold pieces from his pouch. It clinked as it hit the table, spinning on its side. Viktor scooped up the token in one greasy hand.

“Go on,” Noak said. “Take a look.”

Viktor opened his palm and his eyes widened.

“You help me. I’ll take care of your debt.”

Viktor’s gaze was stuck fast to the coin. “Give me the money now and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“You’ll get your payment once I’ve completed my mission. Otherwise, what’s to stop you from going to the guards?”

Viktor gave a quick scan of the room. “Listen, I’ll level with you. Rusty’s got me barred from pretty much every establishment in the Darkzone except this one and only cause Dapper don’t care who you pissed off as long as you’ve got coin. I’m living off entrails and garbage scraps, and—”

“I don’t have time to hear your problems. I’ve got my own. What are you proposing?”

Viktor shuffled his chair closer to the table. “You give me half the coin you’re offering—that’s all I’ll ask for—and I can go to Rusty with some dignity before my shift today. I can show him real tokens instead of empty promises and get an extension on my debt.”

“You think he’ll buy that?”

Viktor nodded. “With a down payment I could convince him to lay off the heat a little.”

Noak considered Viktor’s request. He didn’t trust the Smoker, but what choice did he have? He could take the man outside and beat on him until got the information he needed, but who knew how long that could take, or how the guards would react if their cook failed to show up for work?

Noak handed him the half-payment.

“Talk.”

Viktor hid the coins and tipped the final dregs of his drink onto the table. He drew a map with the moisture, starting with a wonky circle to demonstrate the cavern. “The Guardhouse cave is big. It serves two functions for Haven, power generation and drainage.”

“Drainage?”

“Yeah, you know, diverting water from the city to the lake. Can’t have those Citizens getting their precious silk slippers wet, am I right?”

He didn’t return Victor’s smile. The Smoker cleared his throat. “Anyway, you got two very important assets just sitting in the middle of the Darkzone and it’s the Black Guardsmen’s job to make sure they never end up in Smoker hands.”

He thought back to the Guardhouse and Ysolde’s description of the protected bridge. “Are you saying it’s impossible to get in?”

“Through the front door, yeah,” Viktor said. “But there’s another entrance.” He tapped the sticky circle, smudging the line. “Like I said, the overflow water from the mountain gets redirected around Haven into these giant canals.” Viktor added a dozen lines off his circle until it looked like a badly drawn sun. “They’ve got these wheels every hundred metres or so, they make power for both the Guardhouse and Haven. You get yourself into one of these channels and follow it to the waterfall at the end.”

Viktor added crosses to each intersection of line and circle. He pointed to the closest one to the main entrance. “This waterfall here, that’s your way in.”

Noak studied the crude map. “A waterfall? You’re sure?”

“I knew a guy who did important jobs for Dapper. He used it all the time.”

“What kind of jobs?”

Viktor glanced over at the chubby man behind the counter. “Piggybacking off the Guardhouse’s power supply, among other things.”

“Piggybacking? You mean stealing?”

Viktor shrugged. “Call it what you like, Dapper certainly doesn’t run this entire place off that old generator outside.”

“And the guards don’t notice?”

Viktor rubbed his hand across the table. The map became a smear. “As long as Dapper’s paid up in the right places, they turn a blind eye.”

“This friend of yours, can he show me the way?”

“Not in this life.” Viktor wiped his hand on his shirt. “He disappeared about a year ago. Some say he got his electrical wires crossed and died a painful death by one of the waterfalls, others that maybe Dapper wasn’t as paid up as he should have been.”

Noak nodded his head. “How do I get to the water channel?”

“Follow the power lines from the tavern. It should be simple.”

“It better be simple.”

“It is,” Viktor said and tilted forward. “Since we’re partners of sorts, are you going to tell me what’s given you this pressing need?”

Noak’s frown deepened.

Victor threw up his hands. “Okay, okay. I get it. It’s not that kind of partnership.”

***

Noak left the tavern and circled around to the attached distillery, his eyes scanning the building for the tell-tale power lines. Workers in overalls fussed over a collection of copper stills. A boiler shuddered and gurgled at the heart of the operation, throwing out the scent of yeast, wood and grain. One of the men saw Noak lurking in the shadows and yelled at him to get lost. Noak searched faster.

He found a bundle of power lines threaded through a hole in the tavern wall. The black cables stretched from the tavern to the rock face, where they ran in a cluster along a deep groove in the stone. He followed them. The cables disappeared into a hand cut tunnel at knee height.

Noak removed his boots and coat, hung them around his neck and entered the squeeze. He crawled forward with his bare feet and elbows, away from the dim light of the cavern. The slow and uncomfortable process left him sweating and puffing for breath. He scraped his forearms and shoulders on the sharp, uneven rock and cursed his large frame.

Far into the access tunnel, he stopped to listen. The sound of machinery and rushing water told him he was heading in the right direction. Noak continued until he felt a subtle change in air pressure. He closed his eyes and drew on the Source to help him pierce the darkness. When he opened them again, a green-grey light tinged the tunnel. A hole lay ahead, the jagged edges showing the mark of a pickaxe. The cables entered the Smoker-made hole and disappeared.

Noak wiggled across chunks of broken concrete and poked his head through the opening into a vast concrete pipe. A giant wheel blocked the pipeline to his left, its curved blades rotating slowly in the low current.

The cables swooped down into the pipeline and attached to a row of floating paddle generators tethered to bolts along the wall. The Smokers had built these machines from old vehicle parts and fashioned the blades and pontoons from scraps of wood, metal and plastic. Other cables branched from this group and locked onto the generator of the giant wheel, ‘piggybacking’ as Victor had said on the Guardhouse’s power supply.

He pushed the rest of his body out of the crawl space and skidded down the curved edge. Noak landed in icy water up to his waist, deeper than he’d assumed. The smooth, slick concrete beneath his feet made it hard to remain upright. The current pushed him forward and he let it take him downstream, gently nudging the makeshift generators from his path.

The pipe tapered, going from a width of twenty men to fifteen. The water deepened, climbing to his chest, and a width of fifteen men became ten. The current responded to the shrinking tunnel. It rushed, faster and faster, strong and urgent. He lost touch with the bottom and the current threw him forward. He discarded his boots and coat, letting the water carry them away, and swam on.

A glimmer of light shone ahead. It grew and rounded. A grill of wide bars and hard mesh loomed before him, stretching across the pipe. Helpless debris pressed against it, and Noak fought against the current’s desire to do the same to him. He swatted aside clumps of rubbish and an old bicycle wheel studded with tin cup paddles—part of a broken generator.

Noak felt along the slippery metal bars, the water pounding against his back. It was a relentless weight, and he was tiring. He ducked beneath the water and searched the grill until he located a gap. Someone had already cut into the mesh. Noak widened the gap. He pulled and worked at the mesh until he felt it shift. He resurfaced for a fresh breath and dived. He squeezed through. Sharp wire dug into his flesh.

The current yanked him through the other side. He made a desperate grab for the grill, got his fingertips to it and lost his grip. The water immediately hurtled him forward, towards another half-exposed power wheel, its horizontal blades blurring together in the fast-moving flow. Noak’s feet refused to find purchase on the channel’s slimy bottom and his attempts to swim against the current failed. The wheel roared louder. He tensed, but before he could smash into it, two hands grabbed onto his collar. They pulled him away from the wheel and wrenched his torso onto a concrete slab. Noak scrambled the rest of the way out of the water and collapsed. He felt like a fish gasping for air.

The hands left him.

“Harvill, quick! Help me before that rubbish jams the wheel.”

Noak turned his head to the side. The water shot forward down a narrow trench to hit the power wheel’s metal blades and was spat out on the other side as a frothy white cascade. The guardhouse cavern lay beyond, or at least Noak assumed it did. It was hard to be completely sure, lying flat on his back as he was.

“Stop messing around,” the voice from earlier added. “Grab the damn thing!”

“I’m trying, Cooter,” another voice complained. “It’s slippery.”

Two men in black uniforms knelt on either side of the trench, stretching out to grab a bicycle rim that had followed Noak through the mesh. It bobbed on the surface of the water just beyond their reach. A guard lunged for it and missed.

“No, no, no!” One cried.

The rim disappeared beneath the turbine balanced on the edge of the waterfall. The wheel locked with a crunch. The internal gears whined and jolted, and the generators bookending the turbine gave off acrid puffs of smoke. In the cave beyond the waterfall, a cluster of lights went out.

“Oh for darkness sake!” Cooter said. “The damn Smoker’s blown part of the lighting network. We should have let the wheel mulch him!”

The water level in the trench rose with the backlog. Rubbish and oil scum lapped at the concrete slab.

“Shit, shit!” Harvill said, running his hands over his thick eyebrows. “Burton’s gonna kill us.”

The guard, Cooter, had a wide mouth that drooped easily into a frown. He turned, the beam of his head torch pinning Noak. “Right, you light-sucker, get on your feet!”

Noak took his time. He made his legs shaky and stooped his shoulders. He wanted them to think he was clumsy and weak. “Don’t hu-hu-hurt me. Please.”

“Stop your blubbering!” Cooter snapped. “Harvill, pat him down.”

Harvill smacked at Noak’s legs and torso. He confiscated Noak’s knife. “Well, well, well, a forbidden weapon. That alone gets you a few days in the Shower.”

Cooter kicked the edge of the turbine. “Damn piece of bat crud machinery!” He turned assessing eyes on Noak. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’ll take the Smoker in,” he said. “We’ll tell Burton about the rubbish and make sure he can’t pin this on us.”

Harvill nodded. “Really, there was nothing we could have done.”

“Absolutely nothing,” Cooter agreed. He pushed Noak roughly towards the open ledge.

Eleven waterfall outlets, not including the one Noak had just jammed, emptied into the cavern below. The roar from the water made his head pound. Harvill shouted at Noak over the noise to move faster and shoved him onto a suspended platform. Noak righted himself and had his first proper view of the Guardhouse.

The imposing building perched on a central island, like a castle surrounded by air and mist, unreachable without a bridge. He sharpened his eyesight and picked out the skeleton frame of a rail bridge, connecting the island to the main entrance. It seemed to be the only way in and out of the cavern. He surveyed the Guardhouse building. There was a central courtyard. Noak took note of the training area and some kind of deep, square pit. Where would they be keeping Finn?

Harvill and Cooter climbed onto the platform behind him. Cooter took a key from around his neck and inserted it into a panel attached to the thin railing. He pressed the button beneath and the platform shuddered a moment before descending.

Noak glanced through the grid-worked base of the platform into the emptiness below. The tumbling white water from the falls disappeared into the deep black void. Without the lift, a person would have a hell of a time reaching the main plateau.

The platform lift met another walkway and halted with a jolt. Cooter smacked him in the back of the head. “Ride’s over. Get moving.”

A lanky worker in green overalls exited the Guardhouse and marched towards them, a distraught expression on his face.

“Here comes Burton,” Cooter hissed. “You let me talk. Keep the lid on your temper.”

“No arguing,” Harvill said. “Got it.”

Burton stormed down the walkway and halted before them, an angry red flush on his neck. “Well, this is just fantastic.” He pointed to the dark lights on the ceiling above. “Care to explain?”

“The Smoker cut through the grill,” Cooter said, “and jammed the final turbine. There was nothing we could do.”

“Absolutely nothing,” Harvill agreed.

“Unbelievable,” Burton said, shaking his head. “Of course he got through with you two imbeciles on duty!”

“I’ll admit, we messed up,” Cooter said. “We didn’t expect this guy to swim down the pipeline and be able to pull back the metal grill. That’s on us. But it was rubbish that jammed the wheel and that’s on you. Your people are supposed to clean the trap.”

Burton spluttered, “Supposed to?” The flush swept further up his neck and turned his face a deep shade of red. “You want to talk about supposed to? You’re supposed to get to these Smokers before they damage anything! You’re supposed to protect the power supply. That’s what I pay you to do, out of the Engineering Guild’s own allocation.”

“That’s rich,” Harvill said, ignoring Cooter’s warning look. “You pay the two of us a pittance to patrol all twelve wheels in our free time because you’re too cheap to hire a proper contingent of guards. There’s hundreds of these pit-sniffers and we can’t be everywhere at once.

Burton frowned. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’m not paying you two, not this time. This man’s little stunt has set production back at least five percent, right when output is at its lowest, and he’s not the first to cause this kind of trouble. I’ve had enough. You’re both done. I’ll find someone else who’s happy to take our ‘pittance’, as you call it.” Burton took a deep breath and gazed up at the stationary wheel. “Now, I’m going to fix your mess.”

The engineer stepped around them and marched down the walkway to the platform.

Cooter and Harvil chased after him, dragging Noak behind them.

“Hey!” Cooter called. “Wait!”

Burton stepped onto the lift platform and inserted his key.

“Wait!” Cooter placed his hand on the railing. “You can’t not pay us,” he growled.

“Watch me.” Burton slapped the button. The scaffold rose and the engineer called out, “Just be happy I’m not reporting your failure to the captain.”

The lift took Burton out of sight and Cooter cursed, “that was a damn disaster!”

Harvill roared. He grabbed Noak’s collar and pulled him towards his face. “You just cost me my grog money. You’re rat meat now, buddy!” He shook Noak hard enough to rip the worn material of his shirt. “You hear me? Rat meat!”

Noak forced down his instinct to rip out the man’s throat. He buried his rage deep within him and took the blows that followed with his head down and his body bent in an unnatural display of weakness and fear.