The chapter title is, once again, from Resistansen, here concerning the wall full of pictures of those who didn't pass Marcello's test - a game of Russian Roulette.

The excerpt from the Equalist pamphlet is, of course, paraphrased from Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto, a slightly jokey reference to the obvious parallels between the Equalists and the early Communist movement. I imagine it continues along the same lines, i.e. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of struggles between benders and nonbenders."


I don't know how I got up that morning. I washed, I dressed, I oozed my way out the door, all in a daze, and it wasn't until I was at the grocer's down the street, staring at the cheapest pack of dumplings that I actually realised I had left my apartment.

This wasn't my first one-night-stand. Hell, those were my usual; I was never much good at relationships.

And it sure as hell wasn't the first time I'd gone to sleep in a crowded bed and woken up alone, either.

So I had some trouble figuring out why it was bothering me this time. I'd never even seen Amon's face, never learned his real name, where he was from, what he did. It was the very essence of a quick fuck, and yet...

In fact, the whole thing felt oddly dreamlike, here in the light of day. I looked back on it, a disjointed mess of feelings and emotions and that frozen smirk, couldn't grasp that the whole thing had lasted barely more than three hours. Hell, the bruises I'd earned myself last night looked almost too healed, adding to the surreality of the whole situation. Part of me was tempted to write it off as just that: a dream.

Only I'd still been able to smell him on the sheets when I woke up, and my back ached deliciously to the tune of nails and desperate hands.

But shit, life wasn't a cheap romance novel, and I still needed to eat and live, even if I couldn't stop myself from a heavy disappointment that felt rather too much like pining. I shopped, I cooked, I listened to the radio, I read the paper and, when night came, I slept again. And the next day, and the day after, letting myself heal fully.

After a week, the pretense had ground me down enough that I decided 'living and healing' needed something stronger to go with it.

It was drizzling, which suited my mood just fine, though the rest of me could have done without. I pulled up my collar and put on a hat with something like a brim, moved into the streets, crowded here in the time between shifts. The day-shift was making their way home or to the same watering holes as me, night-shift was trudging to work.

Losing myself in the crowd felt good. Closed in, like; a pleasant claustrophobia. I could pretend I wasn't looking down alleys for a pale, ethereal mask.

I made my way along soaking cobblestones, ducked between heavy coats and under tattered umbrellas, around quick-fingered street-kids, watched the reflections of neon on wet ground. I don't know what way I took, or how I ended up in front of the bar, but when I looked up, green lights shining bright at eye-level informed me I stood in front of Zen's. 'Happy Hour 18-19'.

Good enough.

The complete lack of national emblems, not even the Earth Kingdom crest despite the green theme, informed me that I had found a bar catering mostly to non-benders.

Even better. A quick scuffle would take the tension out of me, and the chances of that was better in a bender bar, but I felt too fucking tired. I just wanted a glass of something sharp and a place to nurse it.

I pushed inside and was greeted with a low murmur, a radio narrating probending matches, and the smell of forty people's worth of wet coats.

I settled at the bar, waved down the tired-looking man tending it and, in short order, found myself with a glass and a half-empty bottle of what I was pretty sure was rice wine. Night officially made.

The evening bled into a nice background-buzz, filling my mind and ridding it of too much thinking. The low hum of conversation, the hyperactive voice in the radio narrating six idiots throwing shit at each other, the pleasant haze the wine put over everything...

I almost didn't hear it when a guy two empty chairs over growled, "Amon," in a voice that sounded like tarmac smelled.

I snapped to attention, albeit subtly. Someone watching might have noticed a tensing of my shoulders, a tilt of my head; I knew better than to show too obvious an interest in a joint like this. Besides, unusual name or not, had to be at least one other Amon in the city-

"Yeah, I seen 'im. That mask gave me the creeps."

-but they were still talking about my Amon.

I threw back my head, downed my cup of wine, twisted in my seat to lean more comfortably against the bar and, entirely accidentally of course, turn my attention more firmly to the small cluster of four men speaking nearby.

"S'posed to. Keeps him safe."

"Nah, it's 'cause he ain't human."

Tarmac turned to the last speaker and rasped, "Don't be stupid, 'course he is. Yu's right; he wears it to hide his face. I figure he's someone important, can't let people know."

Something was sticking out of his pocket. It was all grubby white and red, but I recognised the stylised image of that mask, of that damned frozen smirk. I reminded myself to pour more wine, to not stare.

"See, I'm saying," Yu said, his voice bouncy and excited. He looked kind of like a fire ferret; 'bouncy' suited him. "The gangs ain't gonna like his kind of talk; gonna like it even less when they can't just smoke him." He leaned back, looked satisfied. "I'm tellin' ya, hotshot actor by day, Amon by night."

"Actor?" the critical one sputtered.

Yu shrugged, a little awkward. "Or somethin'! I'm just sayin'!"

"Either way," tarmac said, "he's speaking sense. He's gonna save us all, my man."

"If the gangs don't get him first."

Tarmac laughed harshly. "Yeah; if they don't get him first."

I'd heard enough. What the hell was Amon tangled up in? Gangs? Saving 'us'? Who the hell was 'us'?

I came to this city to make a difference.

I didn't even know what I was doing when I stood. I thought of fleeing, thought of yanking tarmac around and demanding answers, thought of laughing hysterically. Some dreamers don't give up, apparently. Just meant the city would crush him harder, and I hated how that gutted me.

It shouldn't. I barely knew him, hadn't even seen his face.

But the image of Amon in the ever-tightening clutch of the gangs made me sick to my stomach.

Finally, I settled for the toilet, lurched towards it, bumped into tarmac on the way.

"Hey!"

"Sorry," I sputtered, and it must have sounded like the wine was coming back up, because they all shied back from me. I continued on my way, stumbling, half-running. When I reached to push open the door, I realised I was holding the scrap of paper, Amon's mask staring up at me.

There was a half-open window in the toilet, up under the ceiling. Even my half-sauced ass could make it up there, and I was out and hurrying down the street by the time the door swung closed behind me.


I expected to see him at my next fight, but there was no sign of him. I hadn't even realised, till that moment, how much I was counting on him to show. I mean, shit, I had questions.

Holy hell, did I have a lot of questions. The scrap of paper, a small folded pamphlet as it turned out, could only answer so much, and I didn't understand half of it. Bending privilege? Tyranny against 'our brethren'? The text beneath the mask, even, read like a barely comprehensible poem:

Nonbenders of all nations, unite!
You have nothing to lose by your chains.
You have the world to win.

I'd believe Amon wrote it; it read like he talked, formal and distant.

So yeah, I had plenty of questions for the man, but the hollow disappointment hadn't drowned in the confusion. I wanted more than answers from Amon.

I scanned the crowd after Jiro pushed me into the ring and saw nothing but flushed, unmasked faces, screaming for their money's worth of blood and bashing.

I lost that day, and endured Jiro screaming at me while I was still coming to after half a minute of black oblivion. I don't know what he was in the air about; he had a proper job during the day. I was the one who had to live off cheap noodles and get back in the ring before my bruises healed, just for an attempt to win my rent.

Besides, I had more important matters on my mind.

When I limped away from the latest hide-out, it wasn't for home. The pamphlet clutched in my hand had half of an address on the back; not a wise move for someone preaching against benders, but it was helpful as hell to me, so I didn't worry.

Someone had been bribed good and proper, and I didn't have to walk far to catch a tram. I paid the two coins it cost me in the early hours before the rush, slumped into a seat, watched the garbage on the street go past. My cheek hurt like a fucker, and I could just barely catch my reflection in the mud-stained window; a nice bruise stretched over my cheekbone.

Good in case I needed an intimidation factor, I supposed.

The place wasn't classy, but it was further on the way there than my usual circles. 'Zheng Wei's Printery and Dictation', written above the door by a sloppy hand trying to look good and only partway succeeding. I checked the address again; not going to lie, I felt on the disappointed side, but at least Amon wasn't as stupid as I'd first thought.

A quaint little bell tinkled as I pushed open the door and stepped inside, looking around. Dingy, dim and smelling of ink and dust, and I could see a monstrosity of a machine through a beaded curtain. Yup; it was a printery, all right.

I expected the owner to be a mousy sort, possibly with a long beard and an old-fashioned hat, probably looking like something out of Ba Sing Se with a name like Zheng Wei, so when a skinny guy with not a single damn hair on his head stepped out behind the counter, I couldn't help but feel a little tilted off balance. That might have been the beating I'd taken, though.

"Can I help you, sir?" Zheng Wei - I assumed - said. "Do you need a letter dictated?"

"I can read and write just fine," I said, a little defensively. I wasn't some fresh-off-the-boat immigrant who'd come to Republic City to escape farming drudgery. I'd grown up in the dump, received the best schooling charity could run in the slums. Enough to damn well write my own letters.

I held up the pamphlet, let him see it, then placed it on the counter. "I'm looking for some information about this here. More specifically, about the guy who commissioned it."

Zheng Wei had turned a fetching shade of greenish white for a moment, then fumbled through a nervous smile. "We take whatever job comes our way. Certainly, we claim no responsibility for any views expressed in the material printed here, as we are but a humble-"

"I'm not from any of the gangs," I said. Best stop him before he went into gear. "Not here to trash your shop, or you, buddy. I need to find the man who commissioned these, or at least where to look for him. Come on, help me out."

He measured me, wrung his ink-stained hands, looked at my clothes, my face - no doubt noting the pallor of my skin, the icy blue of my eyes, and drawing his conclusions, the fucker - the cut over my cheekbone. He lowered his voice, tapped a finger on the pamphlet. "If you're looking for Amon," he said, "you need to head to the factories, to the bars there. Or the ones down at the docks. He moves between them."

I frowned. That was too damn vague, but it looked like it was all I'd get. "Why?"

He looked at me as if he pitied my unending stupidity. I very carefully did not attempt to cave in his bald skull. "Do you think this sort of talk is popular with the gangs?" he said. "He's hard to find, yeah; but he's also alive."


He'd told me he'd come from the docks. I had a few friends down that way. Tram went directly there. Wasn't a hard decision on where to start.

It was late morning by the time I made my way between mountains of coiled ropes, gigantic dirty drums and small piles of gecko-gull shit. I was crashing, felt the dull tightness behind my eyes, but I wasn't giving up and stumbling home to my bed until I'd gotten at least a few answers.

I avoided the obvious benders' bars; I'd gleaned that much from the pamphlet. I passed by the garishly decorated blue and red buildings, ducking down the alleys between. Most of them were closing up, though I heard drunken shouting from one firebender bar that might once have been a song.

Besides, I had a destination in mind. It wasn't my kind of place; plenty of sailors and dock-workers came to the fights, it was good, cheap entertainment, but that didn't mean they stuck around.

Every now and again, though, lines blurred.

Samnang was a sailor turned fighter turned invalid. Nothing to do with me; I was still green in the circuit when a badly aimed punch sent him tumbling ass over head into a pile of scrap-metal. He needed twenty-six stitches and an amputation by the time someone dumped him outside Katara General.

I knew he had a bar down here, had been invited down whenever the old man dropped by the fights for nostalgia's sake, but I'd never bothered taking him up on it. If I was going to get unreserved information on Amon from anyone, however, he was either the source or the key to unlocking the sealed mouths in the rest of the bars.

The place was nearly barren when I pushed through the door. No surprises there; most of the crowd had made their drunken way back home or to their ship or, hell, someone else's ship. Shit happened when you put sailors in with drink.

Samnang balanced, one-legged, behind the bar as if he'd never needed that second leg in the first place, smudging dirt around the bar-top. A little down the way, an old woman was hunched over what was left of a glass of dark, muddy beer. Her face was nearly gone in a sea of wrinkles, and her thick coat - clutched around her as if she was freezing - was mottled with salt and sunlight. All right, not all the sailors were gone. I mentally dubbed her Kyoshi; she looked the type.

Catching sight of me, Samnang raised his free hand and greeted me with a hoarse, "Lu Ten!"

I jerked up my chin in greeting, moved to the bar.

"Can I pour you anythin'? 'bout time one of you boys dropped by here."

"No, thanks all the same," I said, felt something vaguely like guilt in the pit of my stomach. I hadn't come here to let him wax nostalgic about the great fights of his youth, but he seemed to be gunning that way. I decided to dash that hope before it grew too big. "I just came by to look for someone, figured you might be able to help."

The disappointment radiated from him for a moment, then disappeared with a shrug and grin that had to have seen its fair share of fists and brine. "She worth comin' down here for, boy?"

"He," I corrected and folded my arms on the bar. "He's difficult to get a hold of, let's say."

Sangnam's bushy eyebrows rose, his crooked lips pursed, and understanding dawned in his eyes. "Oh. That kinda lookin'. Someone in trouble with you?"

Yes, if not in the way Sangnam meant, so I said, "Nah, nothing like that. He's interesting, is all. I'd like to talk to him some. Name's Amon; wears a mask like this." By the time I'd rummaged through my pocket and pulled out the pamphlet, I realised that it hadn't been necessary; Sangnam had fallen still at the mention of Amon's name, and even Kyoshi was glaring at me through narrow, golden eyes.

"Ah," I said, "you've heard of him."

"Heard of 'im," Sangnam admitted grudgingly. "He circles the bars down here for a while, disappears for longer, then comes back. Always brings trouble, that one. Was somewhere near yesterday, weren't he?" He looked at Kyoshi.

She sneered - I had a suspicion she was trying to smile - and said, "Aye. Was drinkin' down at the Lone Soldier when he showed up. Whole place in an uproar with his fancy yammerin'."

I turned to face her, more eager than I'd meant to be. "What did he say?"

"Dunno," she said and shrugged. "Left. Ain't my business none, all this fuckin' benders and nonbenders. I don' bend shit, never stopped me workin' a decent load."

"I've heard 'im a few times," Sangnam said. "Jao's place, I think he likes comin' there on account of Jao bein' all drums and bluster himself. Peagrapes in a pod, like." I looked back at him, silent, expectant, perhaps a little angry without knowing why. He fidgeted. "He was goin' on, is all, about how benders run the city, legal and ill, and yeah, all right, man's got a point, I admit it. The council, the gangs, all of it. But that ain't no call to go out there, mess up decent people's drinking with all his grand jawin'."

"Well," I found myself saying, "someone has to. Nobody'd pay attention otherwise."

"Oh, he's got plenty of attention," Kyoshi said, stiff fingers curling around her mug. "Got a right little gang of his own, don't he? Followin' him around, talkin' big when he ain't. Probably room for you too, boy; you look achin' to join up."

I couldn't even pretend she was wrong, and she knew it, flashing what few teeth she had left at me.

I sneered, turned away, tried to ignore her knowing little smirk. "D'you know where I can find him?" I asked Sangnam instead.

He shrugged. "No clue. Sorry, Lu Ten; he keeps his own schedule, that one. As predictable as the sea."