The crimson skies were scarred with smoke. The jarring hum of machinery echoed across the debris ridden expanse. Dirty children ran through the streets. Dubious cartels operated in the shadows. Many of the buildings were in severe disrepair.
Yes, this was the Works, a place where crime and distress bred in every corner, the bane of Coruscant. Palpatine waited outside the abandoned Facility 66 where Fex had dropped him off ten minutes prior.
Palpatine took a deep breath but then coughed. The tang of the toxic air stung his insides. He wrapped his cloak around him and swept past the abandoned shipyard that surrounded the facility. A sickly rat scurried over his boots which made him recoil in disgust. Yet he forged on slipping through the ajar rusty sliding doors of the facility. He assumed they must have been jammed long ago.
Slants of light streamed through the broken glass windows, casting the rusty machinery before him in a hazy glow. An escalator kept cycling parts of ships. Endlessly with no purpose, it clanked in a rhythmic pattern that echoed. A dusty droid slumped in the corner with its circuitry torn out of its chest plate. It still grasped a data pad in its left hand.
The building had been abandoned in a rush. The reason? Palpatine suspected he would never know.
The building seemed to stretch endlessly upwards. There was an intricate crosshatching of ramps and bridges above him. To his right was a set of stairs that wrapped around the perimeter of the building, supposedly leading all the way to the top. Directly ahead was a turbolift.
Palpatine took a gander at the steps considering it, but he dismissed the thought quickly. He stepped onto the turbolifts, pressing the button for the top level. The turbolift stalled and then shuddered to life. Its rusty innards began to turn for the first time in perhaps a century. Soon it picked up speed and the levels flicked by.
It was when he reached level 66 that things turned sour. The turbolift shuddered to a stop.
Palpatine muttered to himself, "I haven't reached the top. Why is it stopping?" He jabbed at the top button a few times but received no response. "Rubbish." He sighed deeply. "At least I'm just stuck."
There was a grating whine in his ears as the turbolift shut down. The blinking lights in the turbolift winked out. Palpatine felt the turbolift shift under his feet and then it went into free fall.
Palpatine fell backwards and was flattened against the wall of the turbolift at the sudden jolt. The level numbers above the turbodoors began to flicker by quicker than he could comprehend: 59, 51, 44, 31.
Fear surged within, a fire spreading under his skin. He outstretched his hand letting the fear take hold of him. His hand called upon the Force and the turbolift shuddered to a stop. The only thing between Death and his life was his fear.
Palpatine winced as he used the Force. Little by little the turbolift rose, level by level ever so slowly. Palpatine didn't dare open his eyes. He was using every last ounce of his concentration to keep himself alive.
Palpatine flinched as he felt another presence holding up the turbolift. A much more powerful presence, a very familiar one. "Plagueis?" he whispered. The turbolift zipped straight up to the top floor with ease.
The turbolift was hanging in place when a muffled voice called through the door. "A bit stuck, are you, Sidious?"
"Indeed I am." Palpatine tried to pry open the turbolift doors. "The doors are jammed!"
Plagueis answered swiftly. "Do not worry. I will hold the turbolift. Use your lightsaber to cut through the door."
Palpatine grimaced. He didn't like it one bit. He kept his eyes closed as he tried to unhook his lightsaber, blindly. Yet he tried to exert the Force onto the turbolift at the same time. His focus was spread too thin, and he found himself struggling doing both at the same time.
"Let go of the turbolift, Sidious. You can trust me," Plagueis assured his fearful apprentice.
Palpatine scowled. I can't trust him. I can't. "How about I hold the turbolift and you cut open the door?"
Plagueis countered. "I am afraid that you aren't strong enough to hold the turbolift any longer." He added, "Sidious…trust me."
Trust is a funny word.
Palpatine sighed, his feelings tugging him back and forth. Finally, he let go.
It stayed hovering in the air, thankfully. Palpatine unhooked the lightsaber and ignited it. He jabbed the lightsaber into the door, creating a jagged circle in the jammed door. It sizzled, the durosteel circle fell away. Palpatine saw Plagueis standing a few feet away from the door, holding out his hand.
"Come along." Plagueis motioned Palpatine to enter the room.
Plagueis' gloved hand dropped ever so slightly. Palpatine was about to step out when the turbolift jolted.
Palpatine's eyes went wide, and he grasped the flooring of the top level. CURSE YOU PLAGUEIS!
He inhaled sharply as the turbolift ceased free fall and slowly edged up to where Palpatine was hanging for dear life. Palpatine wasn't sure if his thin arms could hold himself up much longer.
Palpatine gained his footing and didn't hesitate as he stepped through the now cool laser cut entrance. A cold, low, and hollow laugh chilled his blood. Plagueis let his hand fall to his side. Palpatine flinched when he heard the echoey crash of the turbolift as it hit the bottom.
"Do you find my distress amusing, Darth Plagueis?" Palpatine threw the Sith Lord a scathing glance.
Plagueis scoffed. "You were in no distress." he paused, his crimson cloak swaying behind him as he crossed the ancient room. Red light through a horizonal crescent window illuminated the mask in a blood-orange glow. "You have yet to witness true distress, my very young apprentice."
With a guided motion of his gloved hand, the rusty doors slid open with the Force. The door led out to a durosteel balcony with thin inadequate railings and an overhang above. There was a chair, a desk, and a lamp near the edge. Palpatine noticed the perimeter between the overhang and railings shimmer: shields, he assumed.
At this level the smoke dissipated a bit more and the smell wasn't as pungently foul. Plagueis sighed deeply as he looked upon the baneful city. "The Works is a fascinating place, Sidious." He turned to Palpatine. "A place where distress can be found in its truest and rawest form."
Palpatine didn't know where Plagueis was steering this, but so far, he didn't like it. He had been told to bring his lightsaber. Was he going to train him or not? Palpatine opened his mouth but closed it as Plagueis went on.
Plagueis leaned his arms on the railings, gazing into the many lit small windows of rundown buildings. "You are an admirer of my work, are you not?"
Palpatine wavered but eventually answered. "Yes, of course. It is how I met you in the first place."
A few moments passed between them. Plagueis tapped the back of the chair and the small desk before it. "This is where it all happens…right here, in this very spot. It is where my operas are crafted and born." He reflected and turned to Palpatine. "The Works is where tragedy thrives and therefore what I thrive upon."
Plagueis motioned Palpatine to the railing. "What do you see, my apprentice?" The Sith Master sat down in his chair, his apprentice at his shoulder.
Palpatine wasn't quite sure what he was meant to be looking at. He studied the almost toppling buildings in the Works.
"Do not observe the buildings, young Sidious." Plagueis pointed to the countless small moving dots below. "Observe the people. They are who matter. They are those who live stories…are stories."
Palpatine looked down his nose at the riffraff scurrying underneath. Two Barghest were tugging on rotten meat in an alley. Cloaked citizens swept by on the sidewalk relaying dubious messages on their HoloComms. Filthy children frolicked in the streets. Shadows moved in the windows of rundown buildings.
Am I meant to be seeing something?
"Do you see that boy?" Palpatine's gaze followed Plagueis gloved finger.
Directly across from their balcony was a boy sitting in a dim room stirring his spoon aimlessly in a bowl of what one would hardly call food. Outside his window some clothing was hung on a line stretched to an adjacent balcony. The laundry appeared untouched, a layer of soot and grime was upon it. The window was battered and broken; glass shattered. The boy's lips were drawn into a thin line and the sparkle of youth in his eyes had long since winked out.
Palpatine furrowed his brows. "Yes. I see him. What of him?"
"You see, Sidious, from here I watch people of all sorts, I watch all sorts of stories play out. I watch…in order to write. I watch in order…to tell their stories, yes, of course I bend them to be more interesting but from here, I see it all." He paused and leaned back watching the boy continue to stare aimlessly into his bowl. "I call him…the Laundry boy. And his family, the Sadimrof family." Palpatine restrained a scoff. "I know, you must find it an amusing name but…it is truly what he is."
"I hope you shall lend me an ear, Sidious." Palpatine nodded uncertainly at Plagueis' words. "The Laundry Boy…ironically didn't do his laundry. I watched as his mother and father hassled him endlessly for countless nights to do it and each night, he refused. The family seemed happy, content, the worst of their worries their son's disobedience."
Plagueis sighed deeply. "And as I'm sure you know, watching can only say so much compared to words. So, one late summer evening when the boy was hanging out his clothes to dry, his father came home and began screaming at his son, for what reason, I cannot determine. The mother came into the room and reprimanded the father. However, the father drew closer and closer to her, cornering her at the open window and then…she died."
Palpatine spun around to him. "What do you mean…she died?"
Plagueis stared at the shattered window of the boy's home. "Buildings grow old and accidents happen. And the poor mother fell out the window, twenty stories high. The father, horrified by what he had done, fled into the night, and never turned back. The boy was left alone, and he has remained alone since."
Is this the basis of his opera "The Comedy of the Sadimrof Family"? Palpatine wasn't quite sure. He could tell there was a catch coming but he couldn't place when it would be.
"The Works is a tragedy…murder and violence linger in this place. It follows every soul who has ever lived here." He laughed to himself. "I suppose you could say I spend enough time here that I live here." He shook his head. "But it is very unlikely such a tragedy shall befall me."
The Sith Master gazed out, sitting in his desk chair with his apprentice at his shoulder. A strange silence weighed heavily in the toxic air.
Palpatine swept back his cloak, thumbing the hilt of his lightsaber, anxious to begin his training. The Sith Master clearly thought otherwise, springing from his chair and staring at his apprentice, his hands on the hilts of his lightsabers.
Plagueis drew his hand away as realization dawned and Palpatine sensed his alarm dissipate. "Ah…yes, you must be anxious to get started."
"Indeed I am." Palpatine swept his cloak around his lightsaber, concealing the weapon.
Plagueis put a hand on Palpatine's back and the sinister duo entered the large dome-like room. The Sith Master took a step away from his apprentice. In one quick motion both of his daggerlike lightsabers alit in all their glorious crimson. "Let us begin then, my apprentice."