Chapter Text
“Do you know how to get back?” Zion asks, her attention focused on cleaning up the pancake-stained plates in the workshop sink.
Pitching Machine wracks her brain for answers. Her only recent memory was the taxi she took to Zion’s workshop.
“Not really.” She checks her pockets. No cash. Seems like the slip of paper with Zion’s address she got from Vito Kravitz was gone, too. “I think I spent all my money getting here. I remember… some sort of wooden structure, like a really big treehouse.”
Zion looks out of the window, and Pitching Machine follows her gaze. Several large wooden structures stand miles apart in the distance, built directly on top of stocky houses of similar heights. Roiling clouds of bat-beasts and birds swirl around them, blotting out the suns.
Pitching Machine’s heart sinks.
“What about the train?” Zion changes the topic. “Our public transport’s pretty good; it costs basically nothing. I can spare a few coppers.”
“Uh…” Pitching Machine recalls the high speed train trips she’s taken from the edge of the underworld to the Sixth Circle Stadium and back. “I’ve only taken the line that goes straight to the stadium. Which Circle am I in, anyway? Can I just take that one?”
“We’re in the Twenty-Seventh Circle,” Zion replies. “Pretty far away from the stadium. On the bright side, we’re pretty close to the edge already! One short train trip and you’re out of here. There are several trains you can take. Here, I’ll dig up a pamphlet for you—”
Zion flits over to the other side of the workshop, returning with a roll of black paper. Dust clouds billow as she sets it down and unfurls it.
The public transport map is huge in its entirety, its ends spilling over the sides of the table. Hand-drawn inks of various colours form numerous overlapping circles on its surface.
“This one’s pretty old, but it should be… mostly correct. Mostly.”
“That’s a lot of circles.”
“Hades loves circular infrastructure. I’ve never flown high enough to see it, but they say the streets are organised like spokes in a wheel, branching out from different district centres.”
“Uh-huh.” Pitching Machine nods robotically, Zion’s words barely registering. The spider-like handwriting that spelled out the station names was incomprehensible.
“Houses get built on top of other houses around here. Hence the big wooden sky-temple things.” Zion continues. “The owners let the imps build on top of them for something in return, Bat-beast meat from the butchers that live up there, perhaps. Or blood. Or freshly baked bread—”
“Hey, Zion, is there an... an easier map?” The worry in Pitching Machine’s voice seeps out despite her best attempts to hide it. Oh god, she wasn’t going to cry again, right? Right? She had already cried once in front of Zion, which more than she had ever planned to do in front of anyone, ever.
She exhales shakily.
Okay, good.
Keep it together, Pitching Machine.
She clears her throat. “Just so you know, I wasn’t going to cry.”
“Okay, you weren’t.” Zion smiles. “I’ll walk you to the nearest station, then?”
*****
“I always thought Hades looked a little… too grand?” Pitching Machine tries her luck at some conversation. “Y’know, the fancy castles they always put on the postcards.”
“Hades is old, not grand,” Zion replies. “It only looks grand if you’re visiting the centre because that’s where the land planning bureau focuses most of its efforts. In the Outer Rings, people just keep adding on to the infrastructure–like that.”
She points down a road to their left. The asphalt is cut short, blocked off by a concrete wall much newer than its surroundings. The words ROAD CONTINUES are spray-painted in neon blue, and several ladders of different sizes dangle wildly off its edge. Pitching Machine watches in amazement as a squad of pale goblins with golden teeth begin work on a wheelchair-friendly ramp.
“Huh. What’s behind the wall?”
“Hm.” Zion puts her hand to her chin in a contemplative pose. “I have no idea. I hope it’s a new supermarket.”
The two of them keep walking.
*****
The smaller woman ducks under a signboard and leads Pitching Machine along into a temple courtyard. The two of them store their shoes in the complimentary paper bags handed out at the entrance.
They walk through the temple’s dusty halls in bare feet, painted murals of unknown gods on rice paper screens surrounding them. In the distance, trumpets wail. It's twelve o'clock.
Pitching Machine squints as she exits. It’s bright outside. Several horned ladies zoom past her on motorcycles, their robes a blur of oranges and reds. The loud music from their blaring speakers comes and goes in an instant.
She grins. Hades is beautiful; full of places sacred and liminal. She decides not to say it out loud – too sentimental, she thinks. The two of them fall back into a comfortable silence and continue walking.
“Hey Zion,” Pitching Machine asks, a question popping into her head. “We’re avoiding the main roads. Why?”
Zion takes a while to formulate an answer—no one’s ever really asked. “The side streets are always faster. The god-damned land planners always build curved main roads, see? But the most direct path between two points is a straight line, generally speaking—”
“So we take the shortcuts,” Pitching Machine interrupts excitedly. “Like a fastball instead of a breaking ball.”
Zion beams. “Exactly.”
*****
“These things only exist in Hades. You’re making shit up.”
“Pitches—“
“Disgusting. What the fuck even is this thing?” Pitching Machine jabs an accusing finger at the red-and-green object in question. The foot traffic in the alley grinds to a halt as Pitching Machine stands stubbornly between the fruit stall and the alleyway exit.
“Pitches, I hate to be the one to tell you this. Dragonfruit exists outside of Hades.” Zion tries her best to steer Pitching Machine away by the shoulders. No such luck.
”You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re joking. It’s gross. Look at it.”
“I’m not joking.”
Pitching Machine buries her face in her hands. “This is the worst day of my life.”
*****
Zion frowns darkly. "We’re here, but the station–well, it looks like a firestorm torched this place. Or a rampaging demon."
She points to one of the many boulevards in their field of view. A mosque, its gold trimmings and deep red brickwork blackened with soot. Further beyond that, the ashy skeleton of an apartment block. Ghosts mill about near the train tracks, their white bodies standing in stark contrast to the rubble.
"Oh.” Pitching Machine wasn’t sure what to say. The car-sized dents in the road look like large footprints. Zion was right about the rampaging demon, I guess. Her inner voice is antsy; she chews on her lip. That’s scary.
“Don't worry.” Zion shoots a reassuring glance in Pitching Machine’s direction. “There are a lot of little ones nesting in the rooftops. The damage will heal pretty quickly."
Pitching Machine looks up at the balconies. Above her, an angel lights a cigarette using the cracked halo behind their head. They wave and Zion waves back. Pitching Machine is awestruck; she watches as the halo weeps molten silver and the cigarette balances between the angel’s bandage-wrapped fingers.
“Hades really is beautiful,” Pitching Machine says out loud, after a while. God, that sounded less embarrassing in her head. Whatever.
“Yeah,” Zion laughs, and Pitching Machine feels a little better.
“Where do we go next?”
“Hm,” Zion hums. She’s resting her hand on her chin again, Pitching Machine notices. “Guess we can’t use this line for a while. There’s another station that serves a different line we could go to, but it’s on the opposite side of the workshop.”
“More walking? Then what?”
“Then I give you the direction to the outer edge of Hades; you take the train to the ferry terminals and… Charon takes you back, I suppose.” Zion sighs. “That’s it.”
“Oh.” Pitching Machine exhales sharply. “That’s it, huh.”
“Yeah.”
The two of them turn around. Pitching Machine throws one last look over her shoulder; she watches the stormclouds on the horizon warily. Guess I can’t hang around much longer today, anyway, she whispers to herself. Looks like it’s going to rain.
*****