At the edge of a bare field of chocately churned earth dipping into the waterway, jutted out the dead stump of an old mushroom tree. A young woman in work clothes named Bean chopped away at the turnk with a large axe, splintering it apart. The fields around her were practically endless and close behind her was a two story farmhouse with an adjacent barn. Bean focused on the stump as the sun rose in the distance.
When she was done chopping away, Bean fiddled away with a garbage can sized device and with a crackle of mechanic thrusters, it floated up and over her fields. She could hardly see the nearly translucent chemical it sprayed down.
After she made some coffee for herself, Bean sat down on a rocking chair and mimed smoking an invisible cigarette. As the morning light changed from steel blue to clear white, Bean continued rocking gently, fake smoking and drinking coffee.
In a farm house bedroom, Bean did not bother opening the drawn blinds, instead keeping everything dark. She stepped in and put her hand on the sleeping boy's foot. "Come on, baby," she said, "time to get up." She started cooking eggs but stopped suddenly as her front door banged. She looked up and watched as the screen door banged back and forth in the wind. Walking over, she inspected it and sighed when she noticed the broken latch. She froze when she looked through the screen door and noticed across the front lawn, there was a man standing solitary in the waterway as if he belonged there. He watched her every movement and she watched back for a long moment before she grabbed a devolution gun mounted above the door. When she plowed outside, the figure disappeared behind the field, but she noticed that he never walked into it.
Nevertheless, she stormed down the front lawn, devolution gun extended. She didn't slow her pace until she was ten footsteps away from the edge of the field and the waterway. She planted her feet and started shouting, "Listen up, headache! I have shot and buried three vagrants in the past year. If you want to know Kamek's honest truth I'm starting to get a taste for it. So I don't care what hobo sob story you've got, I get a dozen a week and it's no cash with me. It's me and my husband here, we're broke and angry at our lot in this world and heavily armed. So take some crops and move on, but if you show your face again I will devolve you all the way down."
Her answer was silence. Just wind in the field. After a long heartbeat, Bean turned and briskly walked back. Moments later, Luigi's face poked out the edge of the field. He took in the farm, the barn behind it and the entire field. He sat down at the same spot, a bit behind the field and in the waterway but with a clear sight line at the house. His Poltergust rested gently on his knee.
Luigi sat in that water for hours. Ever since he had become the kaptain, he'd felt a lot more comfortable in water than he did on land. Yet, the only reason he was even in Buoy Base was because of how much he missed the land.
And then, he looked in the water at his reflection and noted how pale his face was. He was… sweating? Something was wrong. He winced and pinched his eyes. Oh no, he had a headache. No, it was a migraine.
The sun was suddenly burning a lot brighter than it was a moment ago. He looked at the torn piece of paper again and started whispering some church prayer he learned as a child. He just had to keep his mind off of everything and anything.
Popple stood fuming, surrounded by two of Cackletta's whores and the madame herself stood in the background while Slim Bankshot sat before him like a child in detention. "Well," he huffed. "You found him and you russeled up a posse and went to get them. Like a good little cowboy from one of your movies. Without telling me."
"I can do it again!" insisted Slim Bankshot and Cackletta picked up two hammers.
"You can screw up again?" asked Popple. "Really. You know what happens to me if I don't get that old piece of trash? I've got too much riding, Slim, I can't afford a mess-up playing cowboy. Put your devolution gun on the table." Fighting tears, Bankshot obeyed the order but did not remove his hand from the gun.
"I wanted you to say I did good," shuddered Bankshot, "that's all I wanted. This is all I have." Popple put his hand on the gun, noting Bankshot's fingers were wrapped around the trigger. After a tense moment, Popple pulled the gun away from Bankshot all the way across the table. "Please, just give me one more chance, I'll bring him here alive and hold him and you can put a bullet in his brain!"
Popple grabbed a hammer from Cackletta's hand and stomped it down onto Slim Bankshot's bad hand, crushing it. Bankshot howled as Cackletta's whores grabbed him and dragged him up the stairs. They gave him to a pianta who pushed him through a twisty maze backstage, past women and gangbangers. All the time, Bankshot blubbered and bled, publicly humiliated. About halfway through, he somehow managed to pull himself together.
"I'm going to make this good again," he whispered to himself. "I will. I'm going to be back."
The pianta pushed Slim Bankshot out of the back door into the alley behind Chauncey's club, letting him soak in the rain. Bankshot instinctively turned to the street, but the painta steered him towards the depths of the alley. Everything changed as Bankshot realized what this meant. He tried begging and fought in vain against the pianta's grip, clasping at whatever he could grab. Then they turned a corner to the alley's dead end. Cackletta intended for him to die.
When he started shrieking, the annoyed pianta threw Bankshot hard to the concrete. The pianta pulled his gun and raised it without ceremony, but then his face exploded into a mass of primordial ooze as body dropped like a doll. Bankshot lay in the rain, hyperventilating like a child, holding the devolution handgun by the holster at his left pant leg.
Cradling his crushed hand, dazed, Slim Bankshot scampered off like a soaked rat.