The Worldshift Chronicles: Monday

Chapter 7

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Chapter 7

The blue-eyed boy was the first thing I thought of when I woke up.

I was in bed. The burns on my abdomen had been treated and dressed. I was washed, and clad in a loose, white over shirt and pajama bottoms.

I sat up slow, groggy, my body sore everywhere. I looked across the room at a floor-to-ceiling window and knew I was home, on an upper level in the Citadel. Below, out past the window, slums and tent encampments sprawled outward in every direction. The sunlight indicated it was around midday. A thick cloud of campfire smoke hovered over the settlements. At the horizon, the mountains to the west rose into a bank of smudgy clouds.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Ouch,” I murmured as I stood.

“Yeah, ouch,” said someone.

I turned to the familiar voice. “Geez. Stalker.”

Maddy sat in a chair in the corner of the room. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep this much. Not even when you were a child. That must’ve been some temper tantrum. That kid who hauled you in says you blew apart half the forest.”

“Kid?”

“Yes, the disarming young man who dragged you down from the mountain to the outskirts of town, where one of my patrols found both of you. You’ve been out for two days.”

“Two days? Oh, buttered toast. Did he happen to introduce himself?”

“He did. It’s something we’ll need to palaver about, but first, you need to eat something, you’re spent. I’ll send up whatever you like…”

“No, I’ll go down to the cantina.”

“Are you certain? You’re still weak.”

“I’m fine. I need to walk. Stiff as a board. Where’s my stuff?”

I hobbled over to a mirror hanging over a small wooden desk and looked at my reflection. Could be worse. I lost some weight, yes. My eye bags were darkened. The bruises on my torso sang a song. Time and again I’d been battered while journeying, but the real issue was the emptied reserves. I could barely keep my head up.

That spell had been a glamour whammer. It made no sense. Up at the summit, before I blacked out, the boy in the House Gammon dressies implied he had something to do with it. I didn’t remember much else.

“In the closet there. There are coveralls and boots as well. Take your time, maybe shower…” Maddy trailed off, her voice trembling.

“Um…is there a problem?”

“Yes, Monday, there is a problem, a huge problem.”

“Geez, Maddy. Nothing’s that bad. Relax, you’re gonna blow a fuse.”

“The fuse is lit, young lady, for both of us, perhaps all of us.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Go get your lunch. Find your savior too, I’m sure he’s around downstairs. Bring him up to my private suite. He’s part of this now, and I think we’ll soon know why. There’s time wasted and we’re poor of it.” She turned away, dismissive, and left the room.

Okaaay. Whatevs.

I took a quick shower and availed myself of room amenities left for me, brushing my teeth and running a comb gently through my hair. My hair’s blonde stripe was more vibrant, thicker than usual. Maddy left med packs on the sink counter, and pain killer pharma too. Jacked up coffee from the cantina would do.

I went to the closet. The boy had thought ahead before leaving the mountain, as my gear was there, with its reserve of shells, my twinkie, its holster and bandolier, my rad gear suit, goggles, respirator, a few MRE rations, my canteen, and several magazines for my now defunct pistols. I put on the coveralls and boots Maddy had provided, and I filled the bandolier’s bullet loops with shells and strapped it across my chest. I attached the holster belt at my waist, sheathed the gun, and then I left the room.

I descended a cavernous stairwell, passing by patrons who could afford upstairs residency. Several merchant porters balancing luggage trudged upward. Then a trio of fully armored House Li paladins passed by me. Their greaves and gauntlets chittered in black and red nanites. The tower, fifty floors tall, cylindrical, and shining in reinforced steel and bulletproof glass, was once a premiere casino-hotel. After worldshift, everything went to seed throughout the rest of the metropolis. Its once ubiquitous skyline burned to the ground. Former denizens deserted the area or turned on each other. A group of holdouts banded together and entrenched themselves and their crews into the rooms, halls, and underground tunnels of the former resort, training outlanders to protect the place around the clock. Maddy was descended from that generation who’d turned the ruins of the second age city of Reno into a hub of post-worldshift civilization.

She became First Chair of the council, after her machinations helped absorb local fiefdoms and low-level warlords. It was her mediation skills that successfully disarmed tribal feuds. It was her forethought and planning which fed starving locals when trade resources ran dry. Eventually, Maddy became a rare leader amid the four cities, assuming stewardship of the sole bastion offering true sanctuary for folks from far and wide across the outlands who hadn’t a chit to their names. She presided over the reorganization of ranks, reestablished educational and vocational programs, spearheaded the formation of regulated merchant clans.

As power structures began flourishing in New Angeles and San Francisco, the leaders of the Citadel petitioned Maddy to take an official role. Thus, was House Cheyenne born, the last northeast outpost before the big, dead empty of the Famine Lands. Slums and shantytowns rose, burned, and rebuilt around House Cheyenne’s primary tower, and Madison Cabot oversaw it all, her people quelling violence, offering triage medical care, radio-scrubbed air to breathe, food and clean water.

It’s a living and that’s better than a’dying, Maddy would say.

That was good enough for me. The other three cities showed proof positive House Cheyenne was the only place at least partially invested in helping folks outside the gates. House Li’s militaristic authoritarianism made San Francisco a cold, oppressive, tech-heavy port, ruled by a sect of religious zealots who cared little for practicing meaningful acts of charity to non-residents. House Gammon was a wealthy but xenophobic community, its massive, self-sustaining geodesic dome impervious to high levels of radiation outside, yet its borders were strictly patrolled and its military let nobody within limits other than vetted trade wagons, occasional emissaries from the other houses, and messenger-couriers like myself. House Arroyo was a den of inequity, its citizens having formed a class of ruthless merchant thieves who prospered in the city’s anarchy, kept in check by its First Chair, Lord Cabo Diaz.

Much of the hardscrabble citizenry outside House Cheyenne’s gates found work in the factory lines beneath the Citadel. Maddy had overseen the underground expansion, her crews digging tunnels and mining caverns beneath the decimated remains of the former city. Folks toiled for years gathering enough street cred to gain official membership to House Cheyenne, whereupon they’d be granted living space within the Citadel’s gated acreage surrounding the central tower and limited tenure benefits for their families.

Among the four cities, the Citadel was the main source of protective rad gear and adaptive hazmat equipment, some of which shipped out to outlander settlements along the Sierra foothills, most of it traded for water from Tiwan, Frisco tech, or food stuffs and hydroponics from New Angeles. For more discriminating interests, House Cheyenne boasted an elite fleet garage specializing in high end hovercraft. That was the particular end of Citadel business that most often found itself in need of my services, for guard duties, delivering vehicles, and shuttling wealthier clientele to and from other hubs.

It was in the slums outside where I was raised in a hovel with several other children by an outcast couple paid to care for orphans. I was fed bowls of dusty gruel. Most of my stewards’ food rations from House Cheyenne were sold off in the street markets. I was taught my name and precious little else about my origins. When I queried my caregivers about where I’d come from, I was cuffed and ushered out into the alleys, not to return until supper.

It was a sparse existence, meal to meal, sunrise to sunset. I hustled for years as a kiddo surviving the ghettos of the ‘Del until a routine scrub detail from Maddy’s recruitment drives came upon me, paid a finder’s fee to my fosters, then brought me down to the worker residences beneath the tower. I was given a job assembling firearms, for which I was given room and board and chances for advancement. On my twelfth birthday, I took the standard rad-adaptive test and I’d not only tested positive as New Gen, but off the scale.

I’d been couriering ever since, under the tutelage of Maddy.

I knew where I’d been triaged in the tower. I’d memorized the entire building backwards and forwards, 57 stories roof to basement, upper ritzy apartments to lower level mercantile. I came out in the main lobby, abuzz with traders hawking and purchasing wares. A maze of merchant kiosks spread across the cavernous floor, booths of tacit goods as well as illicit offerings smuggled in from the outlands.

Here was a stand selling threaded meats, there a rack of bladed phase weaponry. Pungent aromas of de-con spray ammonia, burning sage, and livestock manure wafted in the air as I navigated the crowds, making my way to the cantina on the far side near the main entryway. It was a large concourse with dozens of community tables and two kitchens, one serving barbecued meats, the other offering vegetable soups and fresh baked bread.

I got in line for the soup kitchen, paid for a mug of coffee, a bowl of soup, and a couple of slices of bread and salted butter. I went to find a seat and looked for the blues of a House Gammon uniform, and lo and behold, there was my benefactor, sitting alone at a table chewing on a spitted leg of roasted boar, washing it down with a mug of ale. I made my way across the mezzanine and sat across from him. Thursday looked at me, wiping a smear of sauce away from the corner of his mouth.

“Hey, hey, it’s Monday, whaddya know? Finally roused from the deep of sleep, I see! It’s good to see you on your feet! Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve never seen you on your feet!”

He laughed, and it was a strange and wonderful sound, almost musical. He was buoyant. Happy-go-lucky types were as rare as armor-piercing ammunition. Most people my age tended to be dispirited, less than thrilled about the world they’d inherited or the frequently diminished roles to which they’d been assigned.  Even the spoiled kids in New Angeles, in which I assumed he held ranks, weren’t terribly happy in my experience. Still, what I knew about my age-commensurate peers was next to nothing.

“Is your name really Thursday?”

He took another bite of his barbecue. “As sure as your name really is Monday. But most folks call me Joop.”

I spread a pat of butter on my bread, fresh baked sourdough. My veggie soup broth steamed. It smelled of paprika and squash and mushroom.

“Your first name is Joop? That’s a heckuva name, Joop.”

“For a heckuva guy,” Thursday said, grinning. “By the by, that was super funzies, dragging you down the mountain. Truth be told, it was more like riding a sled. The ice did most of the work for me.”  That made me giggle, the thought of the dome kid coasting a litter with my sorry, laid-out soul down the eastern Sierra slopes.

“Thank you for that.”

“You’re more than welcome. You sprung me from that paddy wagon, seemed like the least I could do.” He eyed me, mischievous, as I dunked some bread into the soup and wolfed it down. “What’s your name-name?”

 “I don’t often share that,” I mumbled, my mouth full of bread.

“And I don’t often come across anyone who comes near walking a step in my shoes. Never, actually. More importantly, how are we going to take each other seriously when we’re both luckless enough to have been given these never-gods-awful surnames?”

He was funny. I didn’t know I liked funny. Apparently, I did.

“Fair enough. Blue. My name is Blue.”

Thursday sat for a moment, taking it in. “Your name is Blue Monday?”

“Yeah,” I said, embarrassed. “What can I say?”

“No, no, it’s a lovely name. It’s just, it’s such a holdout for an era gone by. Did you ask your mom and pop why they named you that?”

“I didn’t know my parents. I was dropped at an orphanage outside the gates here, and whoever they were, told my caregivers my name and that was that. What about yours?”

“My parents are also non-entities, I’m afraid. I too, was left to fare for myself, though my fate was dictated south of here, dropped from the stork in a basket at the motor pool’s hangar doors on the west side of the dome, so I was told.”

“You’re a legit House Gammon citizen?” I asked, motioning to his garb.

“I’m not a member of the federal guild. Still a civilian.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Given your obvious lowdown on the four cities, I imagine you know there is.”

“I limit my doings with New Angeles to drops and pickups only, unless I need supplies at the trader commissary outside the dome before heading back out.”

“Not all New Angeles residents are automatically consigned to House Gammon application. There’s a choice most have to make upon reaching the age of eighteen.”

“What happens to those who don’t want to sign up?”

He shrugged. “Exile.”

“Hey, I don’t judge, but I gotta wonder what a dome kid was doing trussed up in the back of a New Angeles prisoner transport?”

“I committed no crimes, I assure you, save for the transgression of having arcane ability. I think he was collecting types like us, regardless of house or standing. He cared little I was clad in the same blues as he was. I don’t think fealty is high on his list of priorities. You were, I think, to be his second acquisition. I would’ve warned you if I could have. Those back compartments were soundproof. I tried anyway.”

“I heard you bumping around. He told me he was hauling an animal.”

“I suppose he was, of a different sort. But that snatch n’ grab he tried with you up in the snow…crazy! When he corralled me, he’d only had a few soldiers with him and all they’d had to do was hit me with the stunners and I was out like a trout. Humbling, when compared to the firepower you apparently required. Some of those guys were still alive, by the way. But they were hurting, for sure. Just out of curiosity, um, no offense, but why do you think he needed so much backup for you, if you don’t mind me asking, apart from the magicks?”

“I guess he’d probably heard tell of my gunfighting rep, though he claimed he’d never heard of me at all when we met at the saloon in the Darkheart. Even so, it was overkill, way too much for one person, mage or not.”

“Are you sure? Considering what happened, it wasn’t near enough.”

“I’ve no idea why the spell manifested the way it did. Normally it should’ve just knocked them all out. Snapping trees in half was brand new stuff.”

“As I mentioned before you conked out, I’m pretty sure that was because of our mutually shared space. I’ve read about magi collecting more power by congregating together. Not that I’ve ever had the opportunity to test that option.”

I looked him over, chewing bread. “You really can? Work the juice? For reals?”

“That what you call it? The juice? I like it. Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are, in finding a like mind. Though I doubt I can wield arcana to the extent you can. Then again, I haven’t invocated anything around you yet. Maybe my sorcery will ramp up too, the next time I cast a lovely, if you’re anywhere thereabouts. I wager that’s more probable than not. Your matron upstairs says she’s got quite the fish story to share with us.”

“You think it has to do with the cheating…uh, the magicks?”

“You think using arcana is a cheat?”

“Sometimes,” I said, disdained. “What about you?”

Thursday leaned back in his chair, polished off the rest of his mug, and let out a satisfied sigh. “I think it’s more about access. Maybe people like us can see and feel and interpret those vibrations and frequencies of the universe more effectively than most people. But I’m not your first capable acquaintance, I’m guessing?”

“Just one other. Older guy. A friend.”

He nodded. “I expect you’ve had lessons.”

“I didn’t really pay attention to mine,” I admitted.

“What kind of stuff did he tell you?”

“Well, um. According to Bard, I’m a duality, New Gen and arcane sensitive. A human possessing both traits is more or less unheard of, he claimed, though here you are in the flesh, so I’m no longer certain about that. I’m sure you know the courier network was created to employ rad hardy younger folks for trucking between settlements?”

“That’s what they told us in school. Their natural protection enables them to endure toxic atmospheres and harsh conditions in the outlands more successfully than older, less immune citizens. I am New Gen myself, but the federals hadn’t gotten around to testing me yet. I only discovered it for myself when I started breathing outside the dome without rebreathers. I too, have never known any sorcery outside myself. I doubt there are any others in New Angeles. If I don’t keep my abilities hidden, I’m as dead as door nails.”

“Bard hounds me to keep the juice down low as much as possible. Too many folks would seek to take advantage. Not that I wouldn’t have anyway. I can’t stand using magicks.”

Thursday’s eyes popped. “For real?”

“For real. I find the required meditations aren’t practical in real life situations. There’s never time to issue conjurations when they’re most needed in the heat of moments. I’ve tried to explain this to Bard a million times. He insists I’m still in process of discovery, that peace of mind required for on-the-fly spell casting will eventually come. Which is a nice idea, mind peace sounds fine and dandy like sugar cane candy, but in the meantime, I still have to survive, thanks a ton, pass the bullets.”

“You do paint a convincing canvas when you put it like that.”

I slurped my soup down. “As a courier, it’s like this. I land a contract, I’m told what to do, and I do it. If I do it well, I get paid. If I perform poorly, I’m paid less. If I fail, well, it won’t matter. I’ll likely be dead, one way or another. It’s a living. Better than some, worse than others. Mostly better. Trust me, I visit enough outlander settlements to know.”

“I believe you,” Thursday mused. “Nevertheless, I wish I’d had the luxury of instruction from a true mage as you did. Mine was a bump and grind process.”

I decided to change the subject. “Do you think Lieutenant Crackers was working on orders from House Gammon?”

“As far as I know, New Angeles isn’t in the habit of collecting mage types. They’re supposed to be done away with on the spot, once determined, no leeway, no bargaining, no mercy, no due process, nothing. Death, or exiled off to the Ditch, never to be heard from again.”

“How do they determine who’s got juice and who doesn’t?”

I already knew the answer, though. It was in the eyes. When I fired up the jimmy-jam, my eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. So did Bard’s.

“There’s an optical test. It was administered to me when I was younger. But I passed, somehow. Or I’d be dead.”

“House Cheyenne has those optics scanners too, but use them rarely, as arcana is so rare it’s basically a myth.”

“Unfortunately for me, New Angeles takes sorcery very seriously. Everyone is vetted for it there, as are all incoming visitors.”

“Regardless, maybe Jack had a bounty hunting side hustle. He claimed he had a client for his ‘livestock,’ which turned out to be you. Maybe he was bringing you to someone, and had hoped to include me in his haul.”

“That’s the million-chit question, isn’t it?” He peered at the top of my head. I knew what was coming next. “I have to say, that stripe of yellow is quite fetching.”

“If you say one thing about skunks...”

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“How’d he snare you?”

“I was stupid. I had to leave the city anytime I wanted to practice. I’d hack an access code and slip out one of the unguarded, emergency exit doors at night. I’d head east and find some abandoned building in the desert with nobody around. Two weeks ago, I was at one of my usual spots and suddenly Jack was there, with three other soldiers. They surrounded me, he went on with a boring rant – man, that dude can chatter, amirite? – about uncontrolled power. Then I tried to jam them with the iggy, but they hit me with the sonics. When I came to, I was locked in one of those iron cages in the back of his rig.”

“Yeah, arcana doesn’t work too good around iron. What do you do when you’re not creeping out to mage up?”

“I wouldn’t say I have much of a career yet,” He looked down, embarrassed. “I’m still figuring it out. I’m not mechanically or agriculturally inclined, and I’m no gunfighter like yourself. You have quite a reputation around here. I’ve only been sitting here twenty minutes and I’ve heard at least three people mention you. They call you the pistoliera of the outlands.”

I scoffed and sipped my steaming coffee. “I’m just a taxi driver. Still, it must be nice, having the luxury of not needing a basic survival set. Good old New Angeles. Yet you knew how to fashion a makeshift litter.”

“I read a lot. That was my first foray into wilderness rescue.”

“Well, you passed your trial by fire. I’m finished with my soup. Maddy said to drag your hero butt upstairs after I located you.”

“I dunno, seems to me like some rando taxi driver saved me first.”

“Do you want to go or not?”

“One hero butt, reporting for duty…Blue.”  

I tried and failed to suppress a smile.

“Don’t you think you’re missed by now? It’s been over two weeks. Surely there are folks concerned with your whereabouts.”

“Not many. Perhaps a few. But there’s no way I can contact them. I have to say, it looks doubtful I’ll ever return. If Lieutenant Crackers is actually sanctioned by House Gammon officials, I’ll be put to death or sent to the Ditch if I go back. More important, I’m pretty intrigued in meeting a girl named Monday of all names, and I’d like to figure out what’s what.”

“A choir boy? I knew it. Sucker for lost causes, are ya? It does seem, as elders say, serendipitous. Not that I believe in that kind of quackery.”

“Don’t underestimate the fine bouquet of first-rate quackery, Blue Monday.”

“Whatever you say, Joop Thursday.” I finished the rest of my coffee. Then we stood, returned our trays to a nearby caddy, and angled our way back through the merchant floor to the tower stairwell.

“Hmm, what rhymes with Joop, one might wonder,” I posed.

“Exactly, sister-in-arms. Take it from an aspiring sidekick, one poop, esquire.”

Okay, this isn’t good.

I like him.

I had few close acquaintances, none my own age. Plenty of couriers tried getting to know me. The network was almost all boys, of course. My head wasn’t in that arena. Like I was going to worry about who wanted to take me to a hoedown dance in some backwater settlement when around the next turn a pack of screes might try and turn me into a meal? Who had time for that? Maddy, she encouraged me to socialize more. Once in a while I tried, around the Citadel, but I ended up wall-flowering a room or fiddling with my gear. Other kids approached me, they small talked, I grew bored, they moved on. I wasn’t too good at opening up. People didn’t intrigue me that much. I was hard to impress. I’d seen things. Couldn’t un-see them.

Frankly, regular day to day stuff kinda bored me, like engaging with some fella chatting me up at a commissary, or rubbing elbows at a shooting gallery with locals. Maddy tried to insist I attend the school she’d set up inside the Citadel, ‘if not for the academia, then the social interaction,’ she’d say. And I’d say, while other kiddies practice algebra and ABC’s, I’m out banging hash with outlanders, it’s not an apples and apples thing. Mads hoped I might at some future point join the tea and crumpets crowd, forsake the scout jam, and join her in her fortress. She cared for me, and I her, and she harbored a well of guilt for bringing me into the fold and setting me on my volatile career path.

She didn’t want me to end up like a good many outland couriers, many of whom met premature ends. I often had to reassure her she’d saved me from a miserable life of rats and tuberculosis. She took little solace in that, probably due to Bard jacking her up with his whispering wizardry once he’d determined my scarcer talent. It may well have been she thought the rats were safer companions than the company of the arcane.

I tended to agree with her in that regard. Vermin, I could handle.

Sputtering sorcery? Less so.

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