Chapter 13: Hostile Acquaintanceship
Kyra stared ahead, her knees up to her chin as she tried to cancel out the noise. Her imagination was her shield, her focus her shelter, and her resolve her earmuffs. As she stared at the doorway, she wondered how far she would get before she was captured, as it didn't seem likely that Barabbas was in any position to stop her, but it wouldn't take her long, considering her luck, to run into the first patrol. From that point, her mind raced with however they'd punish her, the more merciful simply escorting her back to her cell with her jailer, and the crueler…
She brought herself back to earth as the other woman let out a cry. Cheslie wasn't someone Kyra was especially fond of. Whereas most of the harem were members either through purchase or coercion, Cheslie was the daughter of a senator who, in a rarity for women in the territory, had complete control over her life and future. It was something that normally Kyra would admire, even envy, were it not for the girl's propensity to remind her fellow women of that, lording her status and privileges over the slaves. Unlike Kyra, she wanted to be Barabbas's pet.
Cheslie let out a shudder as Barabbas climbed off of her. For a brief moment, Kyra and Cheslie's eyes met. I bet you wish you were in my position, Cheslie taunted. All of your family's wealth and power, and somehow you choose to be a whore, Kyra retorted. Cheslie picked herself off her stomach, pulling herself up to Barabbas as he lay on the mattress. "My dearest master," she purred. "I'd hate for your bed to remain lonely this night. If you would be so generous, allow my body to warm yours. Spare yourself the indignity of enduring the judgment of your slave. She will never understand your mercies, and will forever forsake her duties and-"
"I'm done with you," Barabbas bluntly stated. "Leave."
"…Of course, my master," Cheslie acquiesced as she picked her dress off the ground. She left for the doorway. Before leaving, she shot one last look at Kyra. Have fun, tonight. For once, Cheslie bade her unwilling rival farewell. As she shut the door, Kyra stuck out her tongue. A quiet chuckle came from across the room. "I had a feeling you two wouldn't be friends," Barabbas muttered as he dug his head into his pillow.
"You seem to get along with her just fine," Kyra whispered.
"I'm not interested in companionship," Barabbas muttered.
"I can see you don't value the women you share your bed with," Kyra replied. "You only love women who share your blood."
Barabbas turned his head over to her and stared. "…Do you have something to tell me, for once?"
"…Your people have no interest in finding your sister," Kyra said. "I can tell from their whispers. They will never find her, even if they could."
"They will listen to me," Barabbas growled.
"They will send men to the west. They will scour trading posts and border stations. They will question their friends and allies and encourage them to answer correctly. And they will find nothing and no one," Kyra answered as she pulled her knees to her chin.
She heard two feet plant themselves onto the ground. Three long strides later, a massive hand gripped itself around her shoulder and pulled her off her mattress. Barabbas brought her to eye level. "And who are you that so knows my Legion so well?" he rumbled, his eyes hard and unyielding.
"…My apologies, master," Kyra broke. "I forget my place," she added as she averted her eyes. Barabbas dropped her and made his way back to his own mattress. She had best learn how fortunate she was to have such an understanding master. Those like Scorpio and his own father would not have allowed any impudence to go unpunished.
"So tell me I'm wrong."
Barabbas looked back to the woman sharing his bedchamber. Kyra was looking at him, not accusingly or with judgment, but merely quizzically. "Tell me that you are correct about your followers and that I am wrong. Tell me that your sister will be returned by those you have sent."
The room grew silent. Barabbas avoided eye contact, his mind glancing up at the ceiling as he pondered what she said. Though he was loathe to admit it, intentionally or not, there was enough truth in her words to concern him. He was the highest ranking leader stationed in Fort Wrath, but in ways others could not realize, he was beholden to a select few. For every order he gave forth, it was run through another for approval. And that one, he believed in his heart of hearts, was the reason for Pariah's continuous disappearance.
"…I thought so," Kyra finally broke the silence. "You are as powerless as I am."
"What did you say?!" Barabbas snarled.
"You are little more than a dog. Attack when commanded to, stay when told, speak when ordered. You are even expected to breed like one, the indignity of it all," Kyra scoffed. "If you want to find her so badly, why not send me to the west?"
"…I see," Barabbas growled. "So that's what this was all about."
"I have no home to return to," Kyra shot back. "No family and nothing with which to start anew with. If I find your sister, all I request is my freedom on top of whatever reward you offer."
Barabbas' lip curled. "And you believe you are fit to survive by yourself?"
"Whatever fate awaits me, it is surely preferable to bondage," Kyra shot back.
"…I am not so desperate to send a bed-slave alone to liberate herself," Barabbas snarled as he turned towards the broken windows. "Cease your prattle, woman, else I remove your mattress."
"So brave," Kyra muttered, sarcastically. "And so capable. Why not just find her yourself?" she said aloud as she snuggled into her blanket. Why, indeed, Barabbas scoffed to himself. …Why not, indeed?
Shots rang out in the air as the pack of dogs let out some yelps and snarls as the guards stormed towards them. The man in front, a grim looking individual wearing a bowler hat, fired his carbine in the air as the last few remaining dogs snapped and whimpered away. He glanced over at the damages to the side of the wall, a hole in the wood that was big enough to allow all manner of wasteland pests to pester their settlement or, in this case, eat their food. The man glanced inside, staring at the damages as his weathered face made something that seemed like a cross between a grimace and an amused smirk.
"What the hell is happening now?!" a voice rang out as the primary overseer of the settlement arrived on the scene, late as per usual. The man, despite being in his sixties, had an element of boyishness that somehow exuded from him, the only sign of his age being his salt-and-pepper hair. He was flanked by a number of attendants and retainers, signatures of his status in this peripheral petty kingdom he found himself running. And, despite being close to dusk, he was wearing sunglasses.
"That's, what, the third wild dog attack since last week?" the man shook his head. "Man, what are things coming to these days? You would think being instrumental to our eastern leaders would net us better help, but I guess we just have to learn to make do with what we've got, eh Kekos?" the overseer asked rhetorically.
"Thinking whoever's leading them must be rather persuasive?" Kekos replied.
"Hah! Good one! They're animals, Tom, ain't no use looking further into it. They're hungry, we've got food, what else is there to know?" Markus Dinero shrugged.
Dinero and Kekos had been members of Caesar's Legion for over four decades. As a reward for services rendered in bringing various Arizona holdouts to heel, they had been privileged with running an administrative role deep within Colorado, a mining town located within the outer borders of the Legion's territory. A tragedy, it was, that they had missed out on the Mojave War, but their business had them isolated, and Dinero had his hands full running the show here to keep the Legion supplied with copper and tin, as well as his own knack for drama amongst his admirers and staff. Even after monumental shifts in territory, Dinero's backwater miniature empire remained steadfast, his own private kingdom provided he didn't skimp on his tithes to the new consulate. He had floated the idea of a senatorial run, but believed that politics would cramp his style and eat into his free time. (Not to mention Caesar Lanius scared the shit out of him)
"Well, if nothing else, the men won't be able to use hunger as an excuse anymore," Dinero yawned as he turned to his chief of security, a doughy legionary holding a police baton. "Tell them their breaks over and start digging again! If we don't hit the quota this month, I'm fucked. And if I'm fucked, whoever Dallas sends to replace me is going to fuck the rest of you!"
"Aye, boss," the guard strolled towards the cavern entrance, barking orders and kicking a few of the resting workers to their feet. As an empire on the periphery of Imperial Dallas, things were run as Markus Dinero saw fit. As someone who had not been born within the Legion, Dinero had crafted a rather lax enterprise that by and large paid lip service to the dress code and standard operations of their leaders stationed miles away. Having grown up rather privileged by wasteland standards, Dinero had spent the time he had to not worry about his quotas creating a comfortable and pleasant existence for his friends and enablers, er, allies. Good food, fine women, and the best amenities of the old world they could find. Sure, maybe some of the conscripted labor had to struggle a bit more than they had to, but that was just wasteland capitalism 101, baby.
"Well, if you don't mind, I'm going to get some shut-eye," Dinero started to yawn. "Wake me up when something interesting actually happens."
Kekos shouldered his carbine as the guards headed out to find some wire or loose lumber to seal the gap. Despite their best efforts, calling this little town ramshackle was a fairly generous moniker. Of course, this little town laid at the intersection between Markus Dinero's two desires; staying on the winning team and the ability to live and operate as he saw fit. So long as those two scenarios were met, there was no compromise too great for his boss, no moral qualm or boundary worth protecting. This was a town for the desperate and rotten, but compared to what they had left behind, it was the closest either would ever see to paradise again.
He heard something rustle inside the shed. Kekos looked around, seeing that the rest of the guards had left on their own errands. The old man sighed as he readied his carbine. "Better scramble, mutt, if you don't want a lead slug in your rear," he growled as he peeked inside the hole. It was far too dark to see anything, and Dinero didn't bother powering the storage areas when there were more important things to focus on, like his penthouse or the fence around the slave quarters. Grumbling to himself, he pulled out his flashlight and shone the beam inside. The sight of the retreating figure caused him to blink in surprise. That clearly wasn't a dog paw.
Resting his carbine against the wall of the shed, Kekos slowly began to crawl inside the shelter, ignoring the hissing and snarls of the trespassing occupant inside. His eyes never left the shivering figure as he picked himself up and got a better look at them. "Well, now, how did you get here?" he muttered as the intruder tried to bury themselves between two sacks of potatoes.
The figure was barely four and a half feet tall, from what he could estimate. The quivering figure huddled in the corner, their worn feet covered in crude bandages that only highlighted how deathly pale their skin was. A matted rug of hair covered most of their face, and a mouthful of broken, crooked teeth hissed at him as the flashlight shone over the thief.
"Hey, Kekos, what's keeping ya?" Dinero called outside as he poked his head inside, finally catching a glimpse of the occupant. "Whoa! Where did that come from?"
"Must've came in with the dogs," Kekos replied as he kept his eyes on the thief. A thin arm reached into a nearby sack and pulled out a potato, chucking it towards the flashlight, though it came up way too short, rolling pathetically to Kekos' shoes. An audible rumbling cut into the standoff, and the intruder began clutching their stomach.
"Got any orders, boss?" Kekos asked as Dinero squeezed his way inside the shed.
"Just stand back and let the charmer handle things," Dinero said as he smoothed out his hair. "Hey, you doing ok?"
The intruder just grumbled.
"You're stealing from me. I ought to send you into the mine to pay it off, but seeing as you look a little-" he paused, "-delicate for labor, not unlike yours truly," he laughed, "how's about we get you out of this shack and get you cleaned up and fed?"
"Boss, you sure about that?" Kekos asked. "We don't know anything about this kid and you want to feed em?"
"You see a burden," Dinero began. "I see opportunity. Look at him. Half-starved, tired, scared, nothing to fall back on? It's perfect! I get a chance to be an uncle! A cool, fun one! A chance to raise a child in my image. It's like that one book, the one about the chocolate factory, where the pimp weeded out his successors to pick out his ideal lieutenant? Only I didn't have to murder a bunch of kids to get one, ha!" he grinned.
"You're putting a lot of trust in a child you have only just met, boss," Kekos replied as he noticed the child sniffing the air.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Dinero stated as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a Fancy Lads snack cake. "I was saving this for a rainy day, whenever that is. C'mon, kid, it's safe. I won't bite."
The kid took the offer, launching themself from their hiding spot towards the pastry, jaws first. They missed. A howl echoed throughout the camp.
In the following hours, Dinero and Kekos would learn more about their guest from the servants who they tasked with taking care of the child. For starters, he was a she, a pre-teen girl who had been wandering the wastes for what seemed like weeks, starving herself all the while. Next, she seemed to be completely mute, though she had no trouble understanding other people around her. Finally, and this one seemed to unnerve most of the servants, her eyes were completely white. The servants took it as an ill omen, and advised Dinero and Kekos to take the girl far away and leave her to fend for herself again, to which their "employers" responded by taking the girl to the "penthouse" and telling the servants that she had just become their third in command, mostly as a joke to watch the reactions on their faces, but by now the servants had resigned themselves to the eccentricities of their masters. They knew this wasn't going to end well.
The team had just reached the base of the mountains, finally catching their breaths and preparing to set up camp for the night. In the morning, they'd head for the bunkers, get resituated and resupply, wait for their next directives. Brodie threw down his gear as he cracked his back, keeping his eyes on the horizon. He had the oddest feeling he was being followed, and at the moment he couldn't figure out by who.
Sitting on the ground and taking off his boots, Brodie looked to the eyebot accompanying him and asked for info. "Status report, Abacus. Who else is in the area?"
"Scanning. Feedback system authenticated. Registering. Three liquidation teams in area."
Brodie cocked his eyebrow. "Three in one place? You got something going on?"
"Basic intersective traversal. One tasked with an escort, one tasked with acquisitions, and one is being sent to explore tactical opportunities to the south," the eyebot continued.
"Couldn't you just have had us do it?" Brodie groaned. "We were just down there!"
"The opportunity being assessed requires a rather… specialized touch," Abacus explained. "The Securities Committee was near unanimous on his selection."
"The hell they were!" Brodie complained. "I am on the Securities Committee! I didn't vote!"
"An absentee ballot was prepared in your stead. You didn't check your messages," Abacus explained.
Brodie fumed and debated with himself whether or not to kick the floating squawk-box. It was then that some rustling was heard in the dead foliage near their position. Some of the men readied their guns. "Hold!" Brodie ordered. He glared at the scenery. "Prudence!" he called out.
"Agitate!" came the reply.
Brodie let out a sigh of relief as his men put away their guns. The men by the trees came out, rifles over their shoulders. They wore hunter garb, mountaineer style as the grizzled men glared at the raiders. The leader, a skinny, bald man with a tattoo of a chain around his skull, came forth to approach Brodie.
"Acquisitions, huh?" Brodie said as the smaller man came to a stop. "Should've known."
"Heard you let a little fish escape your line," Claude giggled. "Should've had me there. I'd have broken the bitch."
"All the good it would've done us. We got jumped, Claude," Brodie sniffed. "Anyway, I thought you guys were in the east, that's where your market is, anyway."
Claude wheezed out a laugh. "Raiders in the north are paying more for their enemies families. Just sold some kidlings to the Cult of Donner," he laughed. "In exchange, the Harriers will be asking for some extra womenfolk."
"They're always so happy to see you," Brodie rolled his eyes.
"Hem, hardly. They just hate each other more than they hate me," Claude cackled. He peeked over Brodie's shoulder to eye up Dak. "Long time, no see, Dak!"
"What's up, Claude!" Dak waved in reply.
"Business," Claude grinned.
"Prudence!" a voice rang out.
"Agitate!" Brodie called out.
Another gang approached the meeting. This new group dressed like desert wastelanders, like proper road warriors of the south. Leathers, dusters, cowboy hats, the works. Real and proper outlaws, here for the caps and the work. Their leader approached Brodie, her hands on her hips.
"You're late," she said as her two bodyguards flanked her.
"Got a bit held up," Brodie muttered lamely. "I didn't think they'd send you to pick me up."
"What makes you think that?" Ariel Ximenez replied as she folded her arms.
"Abacus said you'd be running an escort, I didn't think they'd go through the trouble of sending you," Brodie continued as he looked away.
Ariel turned up her lip. "I'm afraid you aren't the escort. You can take care of yourself, can't you?"
"I mean, sure but… would've been nice to hook back up with you, I MEAN…!" Brodie tried to correct. Ariel rolled her eyes as she turned to her charge. "Could you give me a moment?" she asked. Turning back to Brodie, she grabbed him by the beard. "Listen to me, you oversized shit! We WERE together once. We ARE just coworkers, now. You have nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that I still miss! Do you understand me?!" she gritted.
"I GET IT, I GET IT, JEEZ!" Brodie cried out as she let go. "What crawled up your ass and died?" he muttered.
"I've been tasked with escorting our mutual friend down to Flagstaff because Abacus wants some of those assholes down south to actually put up a fight against California," Ariel scoffed.
Brodie looked up and down the guest. "They're sending that?" he asked, skeptically. "That's who you voted for?"
"I voted to stay home and let the events play out, but most of the merchant barons think this'll open up opportunities for us further south if we can beat back California," Ariel explained. "I'm getting paid half-an-half for the job, so it's no big deal for me."
"You know, it isn't just Cali that's sending troops," Brodie spoke up. "There's quite a few of those Mojave lawmen in the group to. Wouldn't sending you down there lead to a bit of a conflict of interEEEGH!" he cried out as Ariel cracked her knuckles against his chin.
"Wouldn't asking stupid questions be bad for your health?" Ariel mocked as she parted ways from her ex. Her charge followed, with the rest of her crew trailing close behind.
"I swear, one of these days I'll figure out how to hook up with a guy and not regret it," Ariel groused to herself.
"I would figure romantics would be beneath you, Miss Ximenez," her charge replied.
"Part of it is my fault," Ariel grumbled. "I gave the domestic life a shot, but couldn't make it work."
"Hmm," her charge mused as he pondered his own fate, such as it was.
"So, what are you going to do when you… get back home?" Ariel asked, hesitating.
"I'm going to do what I was trained to do. Take groups of hundreds of people going in thousands of different directions, and give them a singular goal and purpose," the spry young man next to her explained as he gripped his fist resolutely.
"…Right," Ariel muttered as she fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Best of luck getting them to follow you."
"I don't need luck, Ximenez. I have something better. I have credibility. I know how to fight the bear. I know how to make it bleed. And I've had time to think and plan and correct. No more trusting freelancers. No more waiting games. Intelligence meeting aggression, Ariel, that's how I intend to finally defeat California."
"Spare me the supervillain speech," Ariel shot back. "Focus on getting results."
Vulpes Inculta grinned. "Why, Ariel, I couldn't dream of anything else."
Excerpt from the Judicial Marshal Basic Training Guide and Manual
Frumentarii: Vestiges of an organization past its prime. They were once the most feared element of Caesar. Then Hoover Dam. Then Lanius took the throne. Then Fort Tandi. Then the betrayal of Vulpes. Now, with their credibility on the wane, their focus will be less upon striking at their enemies, so much as it will be saving their own hides. Do not expect to find many in the Unclaimed Wastes. None worth the threat of their reputation. Vegas means nothing to Lanius but his failures, his eyes will be elsewhere, as will all that remains of the Frumentarii -Ulysses
Immediately kill upon positive confirmation -Deputy Chief Craig Boone.
If the characters of Markus Dinero and Tom Kekos sounded familiar, it is because they were also loaned to me via Interfectorum, via his story The New West.
