WILD ARMS: ZERO LIMIT
A/N: This may be hard to swallow, but I don't own Wild ARMS. The music used in specific chapters is the intellectual property and copyright of the respective songwriter or songwriters, and is used herein without the express written consent of those parties. Don't sue me.
IT WAS NOT long before I settled back into the old patterns of movement and motion. When you move, make it look purposeful even if you don't have a purpose; when you do something, do it like you're meant to do it. I'd only been here for three days and already people had forgotten me. I was part of the walls and I was buried in the floors. If you have a home, you know what I mean - there comes a time when familiarity settles on you like it belongs there, and you become environs and not the individual anymore. This isn't anyhow a bad thing, if you were to ask me. Fitting in is what I have to do to keep on my merry way, and I aim to keep on keeping on as somesuch.
Before, my life had been a constant ache, the kind of worry that feeds in the bones and decides when to leave all of its own conjuring. There's no cure for somesuch except to fix the worry, and in my case that wasn't anyhow possible - my worry, friend, was that I have no answer. All my days and all my footsteps are leading towards finding me somesuch answer, and eventually I reckon I may find what I seek if I keep at it. There's no method of finding what you seek if you stay in your environs your whole life; if there's anything about the White City I learned, I reckon it's that. So I cast my line in the Great Wastes, here in the Narrows where life is harder but holds more truths. There's nosuch way of having the grace of God falling out of the sky to save your life's blood when it's time to draw, so you draw and you make your peace with what you've done and hope you didn't come up in the red too high, or Mad Lucied will be sure to feast on your eternal Soul, if you believe any of that.
I am slight of frame and tanned enough to arouse suspicion, so I do not strut. Vagabonds and vagrants know when I say that being unassuming is the best way to survive. Nosuch uniqueness has ever made somebody live longer, and I aim to live until I can find my answer. To this end, I wear nearly nosuch but denim; rough, fading denim jeans, a slightly larger denim jacket with plenty of pockets, and a white cloth that I used to call a shirt underneath. I wear six watches on the same left wrist, but I don't much feel like expounding on that I reckon, and anyhow there'll be more if things keep up. And, of course, there's the ring I wear around my neck, looped through by a sturdy chain that was given to me by Take a while a-back before he expired on the streets of Valley Mills amidst a cloud of sanguine death.
Anyhow I reckon it's time to get down to dirty and explain while we're stopped up here at the Station. It's all his fault we're here to begin with; if it weren't for him and his method, I'd still be back in that nameless town gathering up before I was to a-shuffle away. In fact, I was getting close to the hundred I needed before he screwed it all up.
When he arrived, we - and by we, I mean the town - had been pretty stable. There were about seven of us there at the time, which is a decent number for a town that isn't near the River. I was living with two elderly men who constantly declared that they knew the way to solve all of Filgaia's problems if only more young people would listen. The town itself was covered, I thought (and still think) with a thin film of something - dust, maybe, or age. Whatever it is that time manufactures and puts on our surfaces while we are trying to live. Four buildings. There was the store, which only existed as a formality, because everyperson bought on credit or just bartered it out. There was the old brick house with the collapsed chimney that had never been repaired, the color of dull red and hues of white, probably the most covered by the film. A collective, a nice place where three or so people lived - I could never keep track, because we'd have no deaths but no familial visits, either. People just came in and came out, faded in and faded to black. And, there was the place I stayed at, with Mister Durant and Mister Cobb. Dilapidated, falling down, like the whole damn world. Wooden buildings make me a-frighted to this day 'coz of that house.
During the week I usually did odd jobs for various people, but I did them quietly and without consequence. I needed to hoard up before I shuffled off again, and at the time I had about fifty-six - not nearly enough to make it to Van Burace Station. I remember exactly what I was doing when the newcomer trounced into town like a stray dog; I was lifting crates for Mister Harris into his general store. The name of the store had been forgotten by everyone, including Mister Harris, after the sign had faded away. He was a congenial old codger with more liver spots than strands of hair on his head, and pretty much the whole town loved him. I had just finished dropping the second crate into the storeroom from the antechamber out front when a shriek like Death wailed out from the street (if you want to call it that).
It started as a low howl and quickly evolved into a high-pitched screech, and that meant it was a child or a woman. Now, I'm no prince but I'm no runner, so my ears pricked up and my nerves lit on and I bolted out the swinging door.
-OooooooooOOOOOHHHH!
It was a kid. A young boy, not a day older than six. Dressed in somesuch that a rag wouldn't call cousin, laying in the street like a dead animal. I recognized him because he was what everyperson called the Haunt; he was Diseased and he posed a threat to the town. His progenitor was a man named Clairmont who hated the wind and lived in a brick house, but after a while, everyperson forgot that. Time wipes all of that away.
I went over to him. He was Diseased but I'd seen the Disease before; he was too far gone to save, and the contagion had left his body and hiked the thermals to find a new life in a place not so dead. Unfortunately for the uncanny virus, there was nothing for sixty kiloms in any direction. Skin peeled away from his arms in great flaps, like the latchtop of a carrysack that had come undone and let the cloth waver in the gales. He looked like a bird that had tried to become a man and his feathers hadn't really gone away. Birds are birds and men are men, Little One.
-Ooooh. Oooooh. OoooooooOOOOOOOOH! he cried. Of course there is pain.
-Shh...quiet down now. You're okay, honey, I breathed into the shell of his ear. He looked at me with glistening blue eyes hiding behind torn blonde hair. He was a cute kid and he didn't deserve this, but it couldn't be helped.
-Ooooh, he replied. I stroked his hair and rubbed his back, and flesh shore off like a layer of dust. His inside was showing, his red cables of whatever lies beneath skin and all. There was nothing but white and red but he wasn't bleeding. He cried harder, and I hugged him close to me, on my knees now. I reached into my denim jacket with my free hand, found the shoulder holster there, and gripped the ass-end of Death. Cold steel death was waiting in the chamber of that thing, but it was quick and it stopped the inconvenience of the shrieking. People don't like shrieks, but I only wanted to cry.
-Okay, baby, I started to say before I could choke on it. Okay, baby. You're okay, baby.
But he knows. He just cries and cries, and hugs me tight. Nobody ever hugged him since he's been Diseased because it would mean chancing it. Nobody takes chances but us Drifters. It would be best to make the quick and cold death.
And then, just as I had nerved myself up for it and began to draw, the newcomer showed up. He had apparently been walking towards us for some time, but I hadn't looked up since I'd seen the Haunt, so I didn't see him step forward to us and kneel abruptly. No words, just - just there, now, all sudden. I a-feared the worst, that Clairmont had come down and was to mourn the fading of his boy, but no such. The boy who had approached us was thin and lean and young. He wore somesuch leather chaps over his tanned yellow slacks, belts and braces everyplace over his outfit that became little more than a shawl when you looked at his upper body. He wore nothing under it - his bare chest was browned considerable, but I couldn't see his hands on account of their being hidden beneath some strangely decorated gloves. They were red, black, blue, white, in patterns of concentric circles and in patterns I couldn't much ken or discern. They were oversized and would've fallen right off his lanky wrist had there not been thick leather straps fastening them tight to the middle of his forearms. He had kind eyes and feminine features, all narrow and feline, and his hair was at his shoulders long but splayed out in every direction like tendrils reaching for more air, and the same color as those kind eyes - a kind of opaque brown that eludes and can't define not because of malignity but because of incapability.
-Is he dead? he asked, quite plainly. His voice was much deeper than I had anticipated.
-No, I shook my head. He's still here.
-Let me see him, he said gently.
I released the boy, who had stopped crying and instead convulsed. His eyes were threatening to explode if they opened any wider, and his face was contorted into a look of horror and pain and suffering. The newcomer smiled wanly and parted the hair away from the Haunt's forehead, revealing those terrible, beautiful eyes. And, before I knew what had happened, cold steel death was produced from some kind of waist holster behind the form of the new one.
It was much different from mine. Shorter, more compacted - more easily concealed, I thought - with a kind of stubborn power residing in it. The grip was bigger than the young man's hand, and the trigger mount dwarfed his pulling finger comically. The barrel, though - the barrel was thick and monstrous and took away the humor. Had to be three or four cee-ems across and five cee-ems tall. No mounted sight, just a gaping maw in the end of the barrel. It was silver like Death, with designs on it I couldn't fathom.
-No! screamed Missus Jones. Dolph hasn't seen his boy yet! For the love of
She couldn't finish because the young man had pulled. There was a dull BANG!, nothing too extravagant, and the convulsing stopped. The eyes stayed open, but the light was gone. The film settled in on the Haunt almost immediately. I stood up and backed away with a shunted half-step, and the newcomer slowly drew up to his full height, which was about four - maybe five - cee-ems shorter than me.
Everyperson just stood and stared. In retrospect, I shouldn't have done a damned thing, but such of the dead Haunt and all, I reacted poorly. I drew on the newcomer with his Death hanging low in his left hand limply and willed his eyes to meet mine. When I first drew on another man, I had a feeling of pomposity, of ridiculousness; the way I deal Death is oversized and unsightly. It's a five-round thing, about as long as my forearm and one half again, and as jet black as the night sky without stars. There are parallel grooves in the end of the barrel beneath the muzzle, which has a compensator to reduce recoil along with the rubber grip. It fires .550s and those are getting harder to find, but I stocked up a while back when I was in the outskirts of the White City. Besides somesuch, it's a versatile killer that takes cartridges of any kind so long as they kill. Smooth, sleek, and black like Death would be, if silver hadn't dealt it first.
-You have an ARM? the young man said. I didn't know he had looked up.
-Reckon so, I whispered. My jaw was tight and I felt like burning, nerves still lit on like the blazes of disaster. The town was watching us in silence borne from fear and wonder.
-And you're going to kill me, came his reply. Not a question.
-Reckon so.
He dropped his ARM - his Death - to the ground and held his hands up to Fengalon. Not surrender, not prayer. I couldn't quite discern what it was. I was exhausted a-sudden.
-You know, if I hadn't shot him
-Killed him, I corrected. His eyes were up now, the opacity there but wavering, and he looked at me curiously.
-If I hadn't killed him, he would've suffered.
I knew that to be true. I had been considering it myself. But time wipes that away. I was too tired to hold up the ARM anymore, so I let it dangle from my wrist a-limp, like his had when he killed the Haunt.
-I would've done the same, I reckon. And I wasn't lying when I said that to him.
-I know, he replied. I could see it in your eyes.
I glared feverishly back at him. He held my gaze, but wisely decided to back down. He drooped, bent, picked up his ARM and spun it around his pulling finger thrice before sheathing it back behind him, on his waist. Mine went back into the denim of my jacket. The moment came and stayed a while, lasting much longer than a moment. There was no sound but that of the wind breathing down upon us all, not judging but not protecting. There is no protection in the winds, there is only change and risk and chance. I knew then that the young man was a Drifter. He sighed, and turned on his heel.
-Where are you going? I heard myself ask.
-The Station.
-Van Burace?
-I reckon so, he nodded in affirmation. The words didn't sound natural; they came out all contrived and planned and calculated. He was a Drifter but he hadn't always been - education hid in those opaque eyes the way life hid away from this dirty world.
I began walking, too. He didn't say a word, just matched my step. After all, I was at least a year or two older than he was. Best to defer to one's elders. I couldn't even stop to turn back and look into the faces of the people of that town. I do recall, however, hearing the wails of a father mourning his lost sun as daylight faded to the brilliant colors that reminded me of the autumn in history texts and finally the sun hid behind the horizon. Terra-forming, they had called it, at the hands of the Great Ancient Ones, had failed. We had harnessed the power of Guardians and yet here we were on a dead rock that claimed the lives of children whether they lived or died. I just wanted to walk and walk and walk and fall off the edge of the whole place, but I knew that wasn't an option. I'd just end up right back where I started, just like I always did. I walked and walked but walking never got me very far.
-What do they call you? he finally asked.
-Ezra.
More silence. Our footfalls left tiny indentations in the dust and film of Filgaia, but the winds would remove them. Time wipes all of that away. He stared at his feet as we walked, as if they contained the secret to life. No answers there.
-Aren't you going to ask me my name?
-No. I don't believe in askin'. You want to tell me, you will, I reckon.
He digested that for a few more minutes. The town behind us was fading fast and soon would be gone. Nightfall wasn't anyhow dangerous out here in the wastes - no cover, no place for a predator to hide. Nosuch meat on our bones to spite them, 'sides.
-Julian. Julian Hardaway.
I nodded and walked, and walked, and walked. Soon, there was so sign that we'd ever been walking at all.