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The Pine Clearing Dinette smelled.
To call it a bad smell would be missing the mark, too broad and ignorant of the fact that there are those souls—peregrines by profession—who cultivate an unlikely affection for the diner’s provocative, heady base of stale grease traps and millions of discarded coffee filters, with top notes of under-cooked rashers and overcooked toast, and its dominating middle note of second-hand smoke.
So no, the smell wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. It was just right.
In the corner by the entrance, a wood-paneled fruit machine merged with its surroundings, idle and forgotten; given that its payouts were still listed in pre-decimal potch one might wonder if its camouflage wasn’t a little too effective. At the other end of the building, a Disk-O-Matic™ jukebox tirelessly cranked through flutter and wow, some meandering yarn about how it gets mighty lonely out there piloting a dump truck full of compost mulch, while a motley crew of diners provided the counter-melody with the aimless tinkering of metal and ceramic and glass, and other noises too human to consider. Many of them occupied a line of swivel stools stationed along the diner’s counter, its former antiseptic white surface tattooed with abstract blots of brown sauce and strawberry jam. It ran lengthwise, parallel to the building, allowing a clear if regrettable view of the creation of one’s meal; diners seeking a less traumatizing experience had their pick of a few fatigued booths, each with its own window and mini-blinds of dubious mobility.
But the best thing the Pine Clearing Dinette had going for it was that it teemed with the kind of emotional remoteness that drives erstwhile country singers wild, especially here in Huczabac County—the rugged and thickly forested base of the Northern Outlands①—where those who were disinclined towards the organic mulch industry had few career options beyond piloting some kind of truck or a chartered tour bus, or else becoming a country music singer.
This was partly because of a dearth of commodified entertainment (e.g., cinemas, bowling, cable television, cosmic bowling, Tupperware parties, foxy bowling, etc.) in Huczabac, which meant that the onus of assigning meaning to life rested solely with the individual, and what any individual here lacked in modern vices, they made up for in spades with Kierkegaardian melancholy and pine straw and dobros. Fortunately it all worked out one way or another, for many a natural born Huczabac could discover lifelong fulfillment in saturating the home market with bark chips and very optimistic but poorly produced 45s or cassingles②, leaving many many many many many many many many many others to discover, sooner or later, that the best thing to come out of Huczabac is, in fact, the road to Crystal Valley.
Must be where they’re headed, Queen guessed as she attempted to glean a few particulars from an unmarked bus as it ambled onto the interchange, eventually bearing southeast on the N118. The tinted windows would make a character study of its occupants extremely difficult, but Queen stuck to her belief that there had to be at least one person on that bus who was reciprocating her casual interest, who was in turn trying to get one last peek into one of the Pine Clearing Dinette’s picture windows before the whole thing vanished forever into a speck in a rear view window.
Ah well. They were all probably better off not knowing a thing.
“…I’ll take my chances with it even if they don’t get it right. And I know that they won’t get it right because these places never get it right,” concluded Joker, emitting the kind of fermented little sough that only men of a certain age and a certain wont seem capable of emitting. However, some part of him still believed that he was better at being a mercenary than being an old souse, and he was determined to prove it with the help of something warm and caffeinated. Using one finger, he tested the temperature of whatever their hostess had just distributed into everyone’s mugs③ without question or answer.
“Get what right?” Captain Geddoe mused with carefully meted disinterest. He was still digesting the front page of The Huczabac Morning Star and preferred keeping his train of thought on the rails.
Joker raised his submerged finger and posed with it, ignoring the dripping; this was as close as he got to erudite. “It is a simple fact of geography that one cannot possibly expect to be served a proper—and I mean proper Spaghetti Toastie on this continent, let alone this hemisphere.”
“Jeez, we’ve only been here for like five minutes and the old man’s already bitchin’ about the food,” Ace observed from the relative comfort of his corner seat, in which he traded ease of evacuation for priority access to the booth’s condiments, including a surprisingly substantial selection of sugar substitutes.
“I’m not bitching.”
“Sounds like bitchin’ to me.”
“It’s not! It’s not—Queen. Was I bitching?”
Queen, despite having the relatively good fortune of scoring the other window seat, could only groan and massage her forehead at the sound of her name. Her utterances mingled seamlessly with those of every 18-wheeler and charter bus as they rumbled along the opposite road, mostly getting on or off the motorway but arousing every nearby molecule of dust and detritus regardless of direction. The flattened remains of a french fry sleeve cartwheeled across the car park in the wake of a particularly vociferous dumper truck, before meeting the curious but ultimately disinterested peck of a scruffy house sparrow.
Meanwhile Geddoe rustled his newspaper, grunting irritably. From the start, this mission struck him less like the “bread and butter borefest” promised in the brief and more like trying to assemble a proper Spaghetti Toastie (as Joker would define it) by pulling its component parts out of a darkened pantry, one by one, at random. They were lucky enough to start with the actual base—a single slice of plain white sandwich bread, bereft of redeeming nutritional value but ordinary enough, standard in shape, lending just the right sense of mundanity to the imbroglio. What could’ve been more mundane than a challenge issued to the entire SFDF, to flush out some rabble-rousing rune bandits in Higheast?
Next, that bread had to be buttered and toasted, of course. It was Ace who managed to pull this off, getting nice and hot with some weirdly pale, white-haired woman in a Sajah nightclub who not only wanted to dance with him, but was inordinately determined to cop a feel while doing so. But as the song faded and the disco ball retreated into its storage nook behind a ceiling panel, the woman vanished into oblivion without leaving so much as a fake phone number. How degrading. How objectifying. As if the only thing that mattered to her was grabbing a handful of the greatest tush in the 12th Unit. In Ace’s opinion that much was completely understandable, but this lady didn’t even care to learn that tush’s name, much less anything else about its owner, not even a summary of his thrilling, if occasionally grueling life as a mercenary accountant.
“How could any woman possibly expect me to satisfy her if I can’t even satisfy myself?” he moaned towards the bar while waiting for his Salty Zexen (on the rocks). “’s like they’re always lookin’ for something but hell if I know where to find it.”
Queen, neck deep in a Tequila Plane Crash, told him to try checking his back pocket.
And there it was: A note containing some official instructions from the Blueberries. It wasn’t even the least bit sexy. Ace declined to mention anything further about other blue things.
The note was another part of the recipe but somehow out of place. It wasn’t exactly wrong, but not quite right either—let’s say, a single raw tomato in pre-spaghetti sauce format—this time directing them to accept another message from an anonymous (but assuredly official) contact close to Crystal Valley, to be delivered at a specific time via numeric code over a clandestine broadcast on an unauthorized shortwave frequency. The message was a request and the request was polite, asking the 12th Unit—and only the 12th Unit—to take a brief detour into the Northern Outlands.
After so many years of dealing with Harmonian clergy, nothing flagged Geddoe’s flight-or-fight like a polite request.
Over the next several days he passionately argued the matter but only with himself, even as he kept up his famously adamant attitude, stubbornly stationed abaft the wheel of the company Vanagon, dead-eye determined to get his crew to the next objective without too much misadventure. His debate always ended the same way: What choice did they even have at that point? Sure, the raison d'être of the Mercenary is to fight, but philosophical excursions aside, Geddoe knew that he and his crew were already in too deep and too tight to even consider trying to worm out. Literally—a woman had stuffed her hand all the way down the back pocket of Ace’s lucky trousers for this. Surely they owed that much to that one bravely demented soul, to keep on truckin’, to see it through to completion.
But then they made the mistake to actually keep on truckin’, over the northern border into terra incognita, into Huczabac County, where cigarettes and bleary eyes started to pass for bread and butter, and they would eventually reach a point where there was nothing left in their pantry but individual strands of cooked spaghetti that somehow had to be assembled into a cogent heap. Sorite’s paradox, to be topped with grated cheese and grilled until golden. The ordinary desolation of an isolated podunk assumed a distinctly sinister facet when Geddoe and his crew discovered a magical mystery tour of Huczabac’s loneliest roadside woodlots and construction sites and abandoned shopping malls, places where their anonymous (but assuredly official) taskmaster continually ordered them to dispatch what Crystal Valley kept describing as “rabble-rousing rune bandits”.
One such mission was all it took for the 12th Unit to realize that whoever was writing their objectives either had a perilously rosy outlook on life, or a dearth of information regarding the nameless, formless, fathomless creatures awaiting to unleash their nameless, formless, fathomless savagery on any idiot mercenaries who dared trespass on their loitering grounds. In some effort to illuminate the suicidal dolts back at HQ, Ace consulted his thesaurus but ultimately decided that mortal language itself was a woefully inadequate construct. Honestly, Monsters? Fiends? Bugbears? Abominations, perhaps, but totally lacking physical features that could be identified with real words, save for the observation that they all bore unidentifiable runes with headache-inducing geometry.
Then, in the twilit thick of their bleakest battle yet, Geddoe never expected that the next noodle they’d pull would be a new recruit, a wholly unanticipated savior wielding an enormous bowgun with a shroud of striped feathers stretched across the limbs, giving it the appearance of a juvenile goshawk mid-flight. A young man, scarcely 20 or so, moving with preternatural skill and grace, as if doing what he was born to do.
Perhaps even nameless, formless, fathomless abominations had natural predators in this world after all.
Afterwards, in the peaceful still of a job well done, he stood solo amid a sprawling pile of nameless, formless, fathomless corpses. With that feathered crossbow strapped to his back, silhouetted against the blaring sodium orange of a twisted streetlight, Geddoe would’ve sworn that kid was some kind of avenging angel.
“Thanks,” was all he said, before uncapping a small bottle of apple juice with his rabbit-like front teeth.
No. Not an angel. Not with that scruffy blond hair and the dry voice and the woolly winter scarf enveloping his neck and mouth and shoulders, secured at the wrapping point with a modest collection of small and colorful pinback badges. One of them was electric pink, emblazoned with a single bon mot: “HELL IF I KNOW”. Words for the times.
Geddoe realized, hazily at first, that he knew this kid or somebody very much like him from somewhere, back in the fog of Long Ago. It was during a relatively brief but brutal war, when that kid still had a name and Geddoe still knew what it was.
That was half a century ago. That was last night. Who could tell anymore? For now, this kid seemed perfectly content in his quiet half-doze, lurking somewhere behind the mess Geddoe was making of the A section.
“I can tell our new recruit here appreciates the finer things in life, including a proper Spaghetti Toastie. He doesn’t think I’m bitching,” Joker insisted. “Hey kid, you don’t think your ol’ Uncle Joker complains like that, right?”
“…Uhh,” he gawked. It wasn’t every day someone got a new ol’ uncle.
“Don’t drag the new kid into your nonsense!” warned Queen. “Don’t worry about him honey, he’s taking the piss. Err—he’s joking.”
“It’s why they call me the Joker. Eh? Ehh?” He prodded with an awkward little laugh.
Eventually understanding, the New Kid replied with his own chortle, quiet and dawdling. He nodded wordlessly.
“Jeez kid, you laugh at Joker’s jokes, you’re gonna fit in with us like my ass in a new pair of gotchies,” said Ace.
Gotchies. The Zexen vernacular never failed to amuse Queen, but this conversation was now flying a little too close to the moon, to put it one way.
“The old kid glove metaphor too classy for this joint?” she mused.
“It may be classier but it’s a cliché. As a published professional④,” Ace emphasized all the wrong words, “I prefer employing more evocative language when constructing my rhetoric.”
“Evocative, yes. Unfortunately, we’re all thinking about your ass now,” added Geddoe, even as he refused to tear his attention away from what was no doubt an absolute corker of an article about this weird thing that some trucker saw climbing out of a dumpster behind a local Cock-A-Noodle restaurant drive-thru. “Even the poor new kid.”
“See son,” Joker quietly reached across the tabletop to offer a friendly pat for their tyro’s unassuming hands. Radiating about the older gent’s mouth was a faint aroma of something fruity and cask-aged. “This is what we mercenaries call a trial by fire.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with my ass?” Ace protested a bit too evocatively. “My mama gave me this ass. Compared to some we could name, I’d say it’s a ripper!”
“Yeah, and I’d say the new kid already got his trial by fire last night,” said Queen. “How was it, rooming with that lot?”
Realizing he was being addressed directly, the New Kid blinked, holding his pale gaze steady as he observed either everything or nothing at all. Possibly both at the same time.
Somehow that stupefied countenance told Queen everything she needed to know.
“I… Uh.” After a false start, the kid cleared his throat. “I liked the stories that guy started telling us.”
“What stories? Ace.” Queen’s glare was like a dart, and make no mistake, she was great at lobbing them.
“Alright, don’t hurdle your girdle. Joker and I were just trying to give the new kid a realistic—”
“—albeit respectful—”
“—very respectful, and educational—”
“—yes, very educational!” Joker agreed.
“A very educational, realistic, respectful overview of the mercenary life,” Ace concluded. “Sure, we’d had a few drinks—”
“—oh but, uh, fair warning, boss—he doesn’t drink,” said Joker, pointing at the New Kid.
Geddoe just nodded. His silent reception of the information seemed to carry a mote of approval. In reality, it was a recollection; his old comrade didn’t drink either.
“Pfft. Who ever heard of a mercenary who doesn’t drink? That’s the best part of the job, mate.” Queen suddenly paused, realizing. “Wait, how old did you say you were?”
“I didn’t.” The New Kid shook his head. “A-actually, I have a ques—”
“—more coffee?” Intercepting with a question of her own was a stout Duck woman, not quite elderly but certainly too old now to care about pin feathers, clad in a pale pink shift and a cheesecloth apron knotted around her waist, both garments decked with festive spatters of pancake batter and petrified grease. A tag tacked to her lapel read: Wanda. In the dexterous finger-feathers of her wing, Wanda balanced a tempered glass carafe brimming with either coffee or 5w30, expertly positioned to either refill everyone’s mugs in a single sweep or to saturate the tablecloth instead.
A vaguely unanimous mumbling arose from the table, but Wanda went to work regardless.
“This morning’s breakfast specials are the Little Smiler Sausage Special, that’s two fried eggs, sunny-side up, plus a grilled tomato and an assortment of sausages and rashers arranged in a smiley face on a platter, for 650 potch,” she droned as she tipped the carafe over each mug in turn, whether it needed a refill or not; needless to say, there was some overflow. “Then we have our Pine Clearing Pancake Platter—that’s three king-sized tallow-fried pancakes smothered in golden syrup, plus real dairy whipped topping, butter, and your choice of real fruit-flavored toppings, for 850 potch. And lastly, our locally-acknowledged Dumper Trucker Wafflette, now that’s a wafflette stuffed with—”
“—the hell is a wafflette?⑤” Queen asked under her breath.
“—spaghetti, diced ham, fried clam strips, baked beans, shredded cheese, hashed and fried potatoes and golden syrup, plus your choice of side item or biscuit, for 1250 potch, or 1350 if you want cream gravy with that biscuit.” Wanda capped off her recital with a smoky little quack and, with the requisite notepad and pen at the ready, she now stared at the group with baited breath.
Joker cleared his throat. “Forgive me, darling, I’m a little hung over.”
Wanda glanced at the ceiling. It was going to be a long shift.
“But I’ve already decided that I’m going to take my chances with your Spaghetti Toastie,” he said, with as much confidence one could possibly afford to the particular arrangement of those particular words in a single sentence. “I admit my expectations are low, but try not to disappoint me anyway! Heh heh heh!”
Wanda, coincidentally much like the author, had no idea what an appropriate response to that sentence would look like, sound like, or end up costing the restaurant’s insurance company in general liability damages. Wisely she kept her beak zipped as she jotted down his order, perhaps with an extra note to the chef that was better left undisclosed.
“Ma’am.” Queen inhaled. “Do you have anything that wasn’t like, fried in lard or bacon fat or isn’t totally dripping with sausage or pork ‘n beans—”
“—ope, here we go,” muttered Ace.
“I’m a vegetarian.”
“Well, we always got Corn Flakes.”
“Corn Flakes? That’s it?”
Wanda lowered. “You can have ‘em with strawberries, if that’s good enough for ya, princess.”
The New Kid leaned forward, suddenly catching the light of a sunbeam as it filtered through the mini-blinds. At once, his entire presence seemed to illuminate, including the dusty film wafting around his shaggy mop of chick’s butt hair. “Sounds good to me too, if that’s… Uh.”
“Strawberries?”
“Oh. Uh…” He shrank back into his shadow. “I don’t know if…”
Ace snorted in parsimonious glee; finally, a fellow mercenary after his own heart and not the contents of his wallet. “Jeez! Don’t sweat the strawberries, kid. Splittin’ potch over something that cheap makes you look even worse than the rest of us and believe me, that’s saying something. As for me, that Smiling Sausage monstrosity you got there sounds… mostly harmless.”
“Hey boss, what’ll it be?” said Joker, giving the man a nudge beneath the table.
Geddoe briefly lowered his newspaper, allowing everyone to take in the image of their beloved Captain donning a pair of reading glasses over his good eye and the patched one. “Already?” he stammered, derailed at last. “Oatmeal?”
“Plain or apple cinnamon?”
This decision wasn’t supposed to come with a fork; miserably, he pinched his brow. “Plain.”
“Rare, medium rare or well done?”
“What?”
Wanda clicked her bill. “Just a lil’ diner humor for ya there, sunshine. That’s one SOS, hold the disappointment, two massacres in the corn field, one little smiler ticker-stopper, and a flippy floppy hot ‘n gloppy for Mr. Happy here. I’ll be back with your grub in two shakes.”
Ace waited until the waitress and her carafe were both safely out of striking distance before resuming the banter: “Y’know this place is the real deal, get a load of that lingo. Very authentic. Oughta take notes.”
“They still won’t get it right, though, I’m telling you.” Joker softened his voice and turned to his neighbor. “Could I trouble yas for few of them sugar babies, sweetheart?”
For the record, Joker was, with one potential but hitherto untested exception, the only man who was allowed to call Queen that and get away with it with a full compliment of limbs and nipples, if only because she knew for sure that he meant it ironically.
“What kind?” she returned.
“What kind? The sugary kind.”
She rifled through the tray. “Well there’s blue kinds, yellow kinds, white, pink—I danno, pick your poison.”
Joker grinned; a gold-plated cuspid caught the sun and glinted faintly. “What kind’ll make me live forever?”
Geddoe cleared his throat and returned to his newspaper, trying in vain to pick up where he left off, but the rapid realization that this would be an exercise in futility saw him peeling several sheets ahead to the comics section.
“Here, this one’s got a warning printed on the back,” said Queen, digging out a few pink paper sachets and tossing them aside. “I’m guessing that means it’ll either give you super powers or rabies. Take it or leave it.”
“Imagine gettin’ super powers from a pack of Sweet n’ Fine™,” Ace scoffed. “Totally by accident! You’re drinking your coffee one morning and BAM!, now you got ESP.”
“Like, Joker’s just trying to get through breakfast without somehow accidentally inheriting the burden of eternal life, like someone ground up a True Rune in there.” Queen snorted. “And then he’s gotta call in for work that day.”
“I can’t come in today or ever again, boss,” moaned Ace, affecting a remarkably accurate parody of his older crew mate. “I got the existential angst real bad…”
“You’re not making this easier for me,” Joker remarked on their impromptu double act, unfazed and heedlessly tearing into one of the pink sachets. “Anyway, all it says is some mumbo-jumbo on there about phenyl… yuko… Something I never heard of so I probably don’t have to worry about it anyway.”
“Better to pick up eternal life from a cup of coffee than to pick up fleas from some woman you met in a duck disco,” came a rare comment from Geddoe, without skipping a beat or a single panel of that morning’s Pignuts⑥.
Ace came to a screeching halt, even his mouth, contorted mid-retort, failed to make any sound beyond a faintly strangled erk.
“Anyway, moving on.” Queen smiled. “Hey. New Kid.”
“It wasn’t a duck disco. Yeah, there were ducks in the disco, but—”
“—cram it, itchy. We’re talking to the New Kid now.”
“Well stop embarrassing me in front of him!”
Joker rolled his eyes. “Like you don’t already do that to yourself in front of everybody, every Saturday night at The Leda Garden Hotel⑦ karaoke lounge.”
“Aw, rack off you old pantywaist, I got—”
“—Hey!” Queen slapped the table, an impromptu gavel. “Hey. New Kid. Look, if you’re going to join us for real, we really need to get a better name for you, ne?”
“Mm, she’s right. ‘cause, assuming you don’t cark it like immediately, sooner or later you’re not gonna be New anymore,” said Ace. “And then you’ll just be That Kid, and then eventually you’ll get too old for us to keep calling you that, so then you get to be That Guy.”
“And believe me, nobody wants to be That Guy.” Queen subtly gestured to everyone present and nobody in particular.
The New Kid shrugged. “But my name’s—”
“—ah ah ah!” Joker intervened. “Defense Force mercenary code. You don’t ever have to tell us your real name, son. Not if you don’t want to.”
He stared down, focusing on a paper placemat that could not possibly be that interesting. “It’s Sovany,” he said before anyone could stop him. “Jacob Sovany. Actually, could I ask you a—”
“—Sovany, eh.” Geddoe rustled the comics section, gaze similarly fixed.
Ah yes. The fog of Long Ago lifted ever so slightly. His old comrade’s name was, indeed, Sovany. Not Jacob though. Something else. Arion? Aron? Armel?
Aurél?
“That’s right.”
Queen and Ace silently exchanged eyebrow wiggles and crinkled noses of mutual suspense, while Joker poured three more packets’ worth of aspartame into his coffee, stirring with his spoon as silently as he could.
Geddoe spoke again. “So where did you come from, Jacob Sovany?”
“Hey, boss—!” gasped Ace, lightly scolding.
“Yeah, and here I am talking about some Defense Force code like it means something—listen kid, you don’t ever have to tell us anything like that either, even if it’s the Captain who’s asking,” added Joker.
“He’s not in the Defense Force yet. Officially.” Geddoe finally lowered the newspaper; with it, he attempted to catch this Jacob Sovany’s eyeline. “So? How about it? You from Huczabac?”
The New Kid shook his head.
“Harmonia, then? No?” Say the name, kid. Help me remember.
Queen frowned. “Oh Geddoe, it’s really not—”
“—I’m from Tatra Kinan. Up north, in the V.A.T.,” said the New Kid. “Isn’t that where—”
“—Vooryka Autonomous Territory!” Ace took it upon himself to supply the full title. “That is way up there, kiddo. Don’t tell me you’ve been trying to walk all the way to Crystal Valley or somethin’.”
For perhaps the first time since they became aware of each other’s respective existences, the New Kid finally looked somebody directly in the eyes. Unfortunately, the recipient of that peculiar honor was Ace, and unfortunately the underlying message was: How else…?
Joker tested his altered coffee and grimaced on contact, smacking his lips a few times. “Hmm. Weird.”
“You’re telling me!” said Ace. “That’s not even part of the Outlands, that’s Harmonian. Autonomous Territories are always Harmonian. I read an article about ‘em in one of those stupid newsletters what’s always junking up the mailbox. Kinda like when they invade and take over a place but realize later that there’s nothing there that they actually wanted after all, but, like, they don’t want to admit they fouled up so they just kinda, um, let ‘em, uh, like—h-hey!”
He suddenly found himself very unceremoniously shrouded in The Huczabac Morning Star’s A section, with part of the B section and the Food Goblin’s weekly sale flier⑧.
“Here. Stuff your face, feed your mind.” Geddoe reached over the New Kid to decorate Ace with a couple coupons he missed. “Maybe you’ll learn more than I did.”
Ace’s arms became a Gordian knot of dun-colored corduroy in his heroic attempt to wrangle all the news that’s fit to line a hamster cage into a more portable format. Its final form would be a discombobulated wreckage of origami and coupons, destined to occupy precious backpack space for the next several weeks.
“Gee, thanks boss,” he moaned. “Why the bug up your butt, anyway?”
“It’s not like you,” agreed Queen, adding an apologetic glance for the New Kid. “It’s really not like him.”
But Geddoe rolled on. The memory was unstoppable now, a liberated tractor-trailer tire rolling down a steep mountain grade. “Jacob Sovany from Tatra Kinan, ancestral cousins of the Alma Kinan tribe of the southern Grasslands. Partners in ascetic isolation, experts in wildlife and survival.”
The New Kid validated all of the above with but a simple nod.
“Yeah, good on ya, ferreting out the New Kid’s whole damn life story.” Ace furrowed his brow, disapproving. “Who’s next? Joker?”
“Nope. Not me, boss, don’t even try.” The older gent made a zipping motion across his mouth. “My lips are sealed.”
“Forget it.” Geddoe waved, a tacit apology. “I didn’t mean to pry like that but I realized that I recognized you from somewhere. You must be Aurél Sovany’s boy, you look just like him. He was also one hell of a marksman.”
Queen crooked a curious eyebrow. “Who?”
“We fought together in a…” Geddoe paused. “…a war. More of a battle. Minor skirmish, really. It was before I joined the SFDF.”
The New Kid also appeared curious, as he turned a rare gaze towards the man. “I guess. Aurél Sovany was my grandfather. Died a long time ago, though. Long time before I was born. Twenty, thirty years I reckon. How did you…?”
An unnervingly dumbfounded silence descended upon the booth and seemingly consumed the entire Pine Clearing Dinette. Even the Disk-O-Matic™ yodeled to an abrupt stop, as if the long-suffering spirit of “Cow” Patty Parkel herself needed to hear what Geddoe had to say about that.
“Oh.” He coughed. “My mistake. Probably just a coincidence then. No worries.”
He would also decline to ask if Aurél Sovany was a very common name in the V.A.T. or what. He suspected he already knew the answer.
Joker drew another sip from his mug. “Very weird. Hm. Maybe pink was a mistake…”
At the other end of the dinette, the Disk-O-Matic™ once again fouled the air with its mournful truckers’ odes, thanks to some strong coaxing from a duck waitress’s webbed foot.
“Ahem. I mean, I guess it’s okay if we know your real name and all that, but you still need a code name if you want to work with the SFDF,” Queen picked up right where she left off as she, with deceptively patrician hands, dandled the barrel of her mug. “Some of the stuff we do is a little… Well.”
“But we’re not spies,” Joker emphasized. “Once in a blue moon, maybe spy-adjacent sometimes.”
Queen glowered into her coffee (cream, no sugar), mumbling something under her breath, unintelligible save for two words: Fucking and Nash.
“Yeah, plus it’s a Defense Force policy anyway and y’know red tape is like catnip to those fuckers up in—err—fine fellas, Queen—up in Caleria, so you’re gonna need a handle,” said Ace. “Like, what was the last guy’s name?”
“Eight of Clubs,” Joker recalled. “We just called him Eight. Jeez, it wasn’t that long ago.”
“Oh yeah, we were going for the Dead Man’s Hand, see.” Ace pointed at himself. “Ace of Spades. Eight of Clubs. Queen of… Uh…”
Queen smirked sweetly. “Hearts?”
“On what planet, babe? Ow—!!”
Said sweet smirk never soured, even as her posture shifted into a subtle backward lean, even as anyone could hear the swift strike of a tooled leather boot as it battered some unfortunately located shin.
“But never you mind all that, honey,” she resumed. “You can pick whatever code name you want.”
In response, the New Kid appeared to retreat into his encompassing woolen scarf, concern faintly evident in his eyes. “What happened…?”
“She kicked me, that’s what!” cried Ace.
“No, I mean, what happened to…?”
“Who?” Joker took another sip. “You mean Eight? Oh, him! Yeah, he, uh…”
“Did he die?”
“Nah. Just didn’t work out.” Queen shrugged. “He didn’t really mesh with us, so Geddoe had him transferred to a different unit. The 9th I think.”
“Pfft. Mesh. Guy was a total jack-off—” Ace cut his own disgruntled rambling short—well before he could get to his favorite part⑨—with a sharp gasp and a snap of the fingers. In that moment, the rugged contours of his animated mien caught a perfectly angled ray of sunlight as it filtered through the dust-caked mini-blinds. “—hey, that’s it!”
Previous experience with this very mien made Queen considerably more wary. “What’s it?”
“The new kid! Jacob! He can be Jack!”
“Ace!” she snapped.
“I don’t mean that like Jack-off—”
“—better not, we already got an Ace-hole.”
Ace ignored Joker’s contribution. “Like the card, right? Jack of Hearts. Or whatever. Hey kid, what do you think?”
While they were debating the finer points of rude nicknames, the New Kid had busied himself with removing his coat and loosening his scarf, baling yards of weather-beaten wool into a tidy wad in his lap. While reduced in presence, the lad at least appeared more recognizably human, the same way the orbulent white-throated sparrow shrinks to a more bird-like form when spring arrives with warmer weather.
“It’s alright. Call me whatever you like,” he replied, evenly.
Ace tilted his head; in his book, there was such a thing as being agreeable to a fault. “You sure? I can class it up a little. Make ‘em think we got something special.”
“Jacqueline?” guessed Joker.
“Yeah, or like, Jacques? Pfft. I’ll put down Jacques when I do the forms. Boss?”
“Fine with me.” Geddoe shrugged. He already transferred his attention elsewhere, his good eye focused on the small television set mounted high behind the counter, delivering the morning news in grainy black and white, in vision only. The astute would recognize that relatively youthful looking blob as one of Harmonia’s bishops, his cosmic omnipotence reduced to a talking head and a chyron, the contents of which Geddoe (who was, make no mistake, astute to a fault) could not quite parse from this distance.
“Ah, the Captain’s honored shrug of approval. Guess that makes it official.” Ace extended a hand to his young neighbor and grinned. “Welcome aboard, Jacques! Like I said, I just know you’re gonna fit in with us like my ass in the aforementioned, so…”
As Ace yammered on and on in an inimitably Zexen fashion, Jacques stared at his hand as if facing a precipice of utter perplexity. After several seconds’ cogitation, he mirrored the gesture, uselessly.
“Oh my god,” Queen muttered, hand hiding her lips.
Sheepishly, Ace tried to smooth the gaffe with a swift switch of the hand, grasping Jacques’ mistaken offering and shaking it vigorously, with a note: “Of course you gotta go through the rookie cutter first. Basic, I mean basic training.”
“Training?”
“Yeah, like we gotta fill in the gaps left over from whatever they didn’t teach you in, uh,” Ace mulled, “wherever they thawed you out.”
Jacques lowered his nose. “Oh…”
“Now don’t feel bad, son. I bet it must be very isolated up there in the V.A.T.,” said Joker, thoughtfully. “If it’s anything like your cousins in Alma Kinan, those gals living all alone in the woods like a bunch of hippie nuns, god only knows why. Bet you don’t even have television up there.”
“We do.”
“Pfft. Booshwa,” said Ace.
“Well, we have a TV,” Jacques clarified. “There’s even a video in the community club.”
“Color?” Ace watched Jacques respond with nothing but a sheepish half smile. “Ahh, see!”
The continuing banter melted into some middle distance as Geddoe settled back into his habitual ruminating. Something about all this (he thought, mentally gesturing loosely at everything) continued to bother him. His brain was an old toaster with half a crust of bread tangled within the elements, and the crust informed him that he was ignoring something, overlooking something, failing to remember something. However, the Pine Clearing Dinette was not the best place to think about somethings. Too many smells and sounds and old duck ladies wielding carafes like kettlebells.
Still he thought.
And thought.
Even as Joker whinged about spaghetti toasties and sugar substitutes, even as Ace forced everyone to visualize his backside and as Queen bruised shins indiscriminately beneath the tabletop.
Even as Geddoe visualized himself grabbing fistfuls of cerebral spaghetti from a psychological tin can, and even as he realized that he could not place any of them anywhere.
In the end, he binned all of it.
Instead, he would regard the New Kid once more, now “Jacques”, formerly Jacob Sovany, wandering grandson of another wanderer, Aurél Sovany from Tatra Kinan, a tribe so isolated that even the Encyclopædia Harmonia described them as possibly apocryphal, otherwise almost certainly extirpated, to say nothing about the rune—YES THAT WAS IT!—some bizarre rune that only they knew how to handle, their lifetimes spent monitoring and suppressing this rune's outbursts at the cost of their own self-determination.
The fact that the rune even existed at all was a deeply seated bit of knowledge that Geddoe knew he was not supposed to have, that he’d nevertheless gleaned from somewhere. A whisper in the static between TV channels. A backwards scrawl in the bathroom mirror of an illegal nightclub. A drunken Bishop’s loose tongue. An old comrade in arms who escaped from an isolated tribe in a place far north where the sun never fully rises or sets, speaking in confidence of a runic sigil so incognizable in shape that merely looking at it could…
But what did Aurél call that thing back then…?
Bas… Basi…
Basilisk…?
He regarded the television once more. The bishop and his chyron were gone, replaced with some cartoon cockroaches that would be almost certainly extirpated by the end of the commercial.
“Jacques,” Geddoe began again, carefully. “Again, I don’t mean to pry, but—”
“—so don’t,” Queen interfered, pointedly. “Usually you know how to do that better than anyone else.”
“If he doesn’t want to tell me, he doesn’t have to.”
Jacques shook his head but did not lift it. “I got nothing to hide.”
“Good. From my understanding—which is very limited, but from little what I do know about the history of your people, you’re supposed to be minding a very dangerous rune.”
“Mm.”
“Yes, the Basilisk rune, is it?”
“What? Applesauce! Captain, you’re not serious!” Joker blinked in recognition of a word that should fill any passable rune scholar with a healthy degree of make-believe dread. "That thing's not even real!"
Queen chimed in, whispering. “What’s a Basilisk rune?” She was not a rune scholar, passable or otherwise.
Geddoe lowered his brow; he was, back in the fog of Long Ago. “I also know that your people wouldn’t typically shirk that duty.”
Jacques nodded. “Nope.”
“And I also know that there is a very good reason why your people wouldn’t typically shirk that duty.”
Jacques mulled that one over, tipping his head. “I suppose there was, Captain Geddoe.”
Was? “Look me in the eye, Jacques. Before you go any further with us, I need to know why you’re here.”
“You asked me to join your crew, after I saved your life back there in that abandoned mall,” he replied, unmoved.
“That’s right. But you don’t understand what I’m asking you. Look me in the eye,” Geddoe pressed, gently, “and tell me why you’re here and not there. Tell me why you left Tatra Kinan.”
He watched Jacques shake his head again, wordlessly.
“You aren’t in trouble. Your story doesn’t have to leave this table, but I need to know.”
“I didn’t abandon anything, if that’s what you think,” Jacques finally satisfied the man with a shy flicker of a tête-à-tête. “There’s nothing left to defend. It’s all gone.”
“It’s gone.”
“Right. Everyone in Tatra Kinan, the rune and the shrine what kept it sealed up, that’s all gone too,” said Jacques, his voice low and steady. “I mean. We knew something bad was going to happen some day, the seal’s been breaking down for as long as anyone could tell. But nobody knew how to fix it, not even the Bishop up in the local council office. Didn’t you know?”
Geddoe frowned. “Why would we know anything about this?”
“You’re Harmonian mercenaries. Actually, that’s what I—”
“—well yeah, as far as our pay grade is concerned, yeah. But in reality, we’re all about as Harmonian as you are, kid.” Ace groaned and rubbed his temples. “But I can tell ya what this sounds like to my ears: A capital Cee Eff. For sure. I mean, if the boss says it's very dangerous—”
“—yeah, but you just said Vooryka is a Harmonian territory and I can’t believe they wouldn’t even try to keep tabs on a rune, any rune, really,” said Queen, sourly. “Even just a token mage force to keep up their oh-so-important appearances? I mean, if it’s as dangerous as everyone is saying, why wouldn’t they send help while they still had a chance?”
“Why indeed.” Geddoe rested his chin in his hand, face unreadable.
Jacques nodded at each of his new teammates, in turn. “But they did send help. Didn’t they?”
“I… reckon we’ve all lost the plot, son.” Joker hesitated. Something was dawning upon him and he had to wonder if anyone else at the table sensed it too. The encroaching fallout of a complete breakdown in interdepartmental communications always sounded just like this, like confused little fragments of questions and intangible nonsequiturs of answers and Ace groaning about pay grades in between.
Oh well. He would finish his coffee with a newfound appreciation of another simple fact of geography, that that there would never be enough pink packets in the world to replace the soothing esophageal burn of a neat dry gin.
“Perhaps it would be more helpful if we understood exactly what happened,” he resumed, optimistically.
“I don’t know what happened for sure. I was on night watch in the outskirts so I wasn’t there, I didn’t see or hear a thing. Only when I got back the next morning, all the people and animals in the village were gone, like thin air,” said Jacques, his voice almost imperceptibly soft. “Got a real bad feeling about the rune though. When I went to check the shrine, the whole thing was… Uh…”
“Stolen by Doremi Elves?” ventured Ace. He knew he was wrong, but liked the story it promised.
Jacques shook his head. “It looked like something melted it down from the inside, down to the bolts. Maybe the rune does that when the seal breaks, I don’t know. I never seen anything like it. But I couldn’t sense the rune’s power anymore neither. Not there. It… It has a smell, actually. Don’t know how to describe it, other than… Something wrong.”
Queen sniffed the air, just in case; stale grease, burnt toast, cigarettes, still not bad, still not good, still just right.
“And you’re thinking maybe this Basilisk rune did something to your village and vanished afterwards,” she said. “Not impossible, I guess. Aren’t most runes constantly looking for bearers?”
“Ah!” Joker never passed an opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge of runic lore, age spots and all. “It's just a legend, sweetheart. Now, I'm not trying to cast nasturtiums at our new friend here, but... Well, see, the Basilisk rune is just a legend, a myth. It's—”
“—poorly understood, to say the least,” Geddoe intervened. “What we do know is that it is probably real, in fact, and that anyone who so much as perceives its cursed geometry is apparently erased from this existence. If they’re lucky.”
“And if not?” wondered Queen, grimly.
“Then they are turned into some kind of abomination that defies comprehension or conventional destruction, especially if that person is bearing a rune,” he continued. “That's all according to the big hats up in Crystal Valley anyway, so draw your own conclusions. I've already drawn mine. I'm sure Jacques here has already drawn his too.”
At a glance, it would appear that Jacques' conclusion involved slowly drifting back towards the hard-earned doze he was forced to abandon a mere hour ago. Eyes closed, his head bobbed ever so slightly.
Geddoe exhaled and returned to Queen's original question. “Any road, I’d wager it’s impossible for somebody to bear such a thing proper, but that probably wouldn’t stop a rune like that from trying to find a host.”
“Man. What if those weirdo things we’ve been fighting up here this whole time…” Queen closed her eyes, inhaling quietly, perhaps finally able to assemble a nice Spaghetti Toastie of her own (minus the foundational slice of cold-cut pressed ham, of course). “Oh my god.”
“Now now, we don’t know anything for sure! I mean, it’s not like we’ve actually seen this happen to anyone. At least nobody we care about,” Ace presumed. “Hell, it could be nothing at all but this sprog over here not gettin' enough sleep.”
“Mnh?” Jacques briefly roused as the man whipped a rather friendly arm around his shoulders, just long enough to give him a bit of a shake.
“Right? Maybe you made a mistake?” continued Ace. “I mean, we just started seeing those monsters a few days ago. How long did it take you to get here?”
“Couple weeks, maybe more. I was trying to get to Crystal Valley but I’ve not much money or anything else anyone seems to want,” said Jacques. “So far I hitched some of the way, walked the rest. Most people here never even heard of Tatra Kinan. Then they start lookin’ at me like I got stoats crawling out of my ears if I mention the rune.”
“Don’t blame ‘em! Your story's totally bonkers. Look, you can't just start hitchhiking and telling these trucker guys about weirdo runes turning other truckers into vermiculated fractal-shapes from the deep unknown, they're gonna think you're some kinda nut.” Ace massaged the back of his own neck. “Hell, maybe you are—nothing wrong with that! But if you aren't, it sure sounds like somebody, somewhere, dropped one hell of a ball.”
“Yeah, and for once it wasn’t one of us, so maybe we should just call it quits here and now, report the whole thing to HQ and get the hell outta Dodge,” insisted Queen. “Sorry honey, but when you’re in the Defense Force, you learn pretty quick what you can and can’t handle, and what you shouldn’t handle even if you think you can. I mean us, we’re just mercenaries, we’re not Runebusters⑩. Okay?”
“She’s right, son. Now I myself am not ready to say definitively that the Basilisk rune is real, but either way it sounds like there is at least some kind of runic corruption on the loose, a deadly one at that. Hell, I’d wager it’s even worse than deadly. A whole town disappearing overnight’s like the stuff of bad science fiction and urban legends. So far we’ve all been lucky enough, but maybe it’s time to call for some real experts.” Joker furrowed his brow. “Say, how come you know so much about this, boss?”
Geddoe closed his eye. “That rune is—er, was one of Harmonia’s dirty little secrets.”
It was the quintessential non-answer, a necessary art he’d mastered long ago.
“But… But…!” Jacques stammered, anxiety apparent in the way his front teeth indented his lower lip, turning it white. In his youth, perhaps he had yet to master the necessary art of not getting frustrated with quintessential non-answers.
“But what, Jacques?” sighed Geddoe. This kid had no idea just how well he was fitting in with the rest of the crew right now.
“That guy, he promised me.”
Oh god. So there’s a That Guy now. I can’t… Geddoe really did give an honest shot at predicting what Jacques could possibly be going on about now, but the synapses in his brain had finally triggered some sanity-preserving shutdown, replacing any potentially productive rumination on the matter with a jingle for an old diaper commercial.
“What guy?” he asked, flatly.
Everybody loves a baby, that’s why everybody loves… Baby Bumbles! Baby Bumbles! sang his brain, inanely.
“I don’t know. Some Harmonian, called himself an embassary or something. He flagged me down at the border depot while I was trying to get a bus to Crystal Valley. Started swearin’ up and down that everything’s under control, that I didn’t need to worry about the town or the rune or the authorities or Bishops or anything like that, and that what I really needed to do was keep quiet ‘cause he was getting some of his friends to help me, some very skilled Harmonian mercenaries, and I could find them on duty right here in Huczabac.” Jacques’ eyes were like a pair of ruddy duck dobberts. “That is you, isn’t it?”
“What guy?”
“His name’s Nash, I think. Nash Pemdas…? Here. Here’s his card if you want it.”
Geddoe did not want the card. Ace took it instead, his face splitting into a jaw-breaking grin.
“I’ll be damned! Can you believe the goolies on that guy? Nash Pemdas—pfft,” he raspberried. “Seriously? Hey Queen! Look at this! Look, look…”
Ace kept laughing obnoxiously and flashing the card to his crewmate, who seemed to be having considerably more difficulty in seeing the hilarity.
“Oh my god, he gets cornier every time,” she grumbled, taking a generous swig of black coffee, now tepid in its stagnancy. “Fucking Nash.”
It was all she could do.
It was all anyone could do now that the 12th Unit of the SFDF had at last followed their tiresome Spaghetti Toastie hypothetical to its conclusion. Despite the meaningless mess it initially shaped up to be, its sine qua non—which happened to be perfectly rectangular, rendered in off-white card stock with That Guy’s latest pseudonym and fabricated title (“Emissary Parenthetical”) handsomely embossed in the center—could now be grated to a fine shred, to top the Toastie like a snow-capped mountain peak, to melt beneath the broiler and complete the easy 15-minute weeknight working class suppertime idea as promised in the magazine advertisement from whence it came. As with most works of culinary art, its deeper meaning would vary from person to person, but Geddoe decided in advance to attribute the bulk of it to whatever was about to transpire between himself and the pay phone just outside of the Pine Clearing Dinette. Incidentally, he had also very recently decided that this same pay phone would be the next destination on the mission itinerary.
Time would tell if it would also feature heavily in their next disciplinary action report.
Meanwhile, Ace started to whistle and hoot like a rapidly deflating balloon as he came down from his fit of irrational exuberance. “Goddamn! Talk about burying the lede, kid! Why didn’t you just come out and say all this in the first place?”
“I thought that guy told you everything. I thought you were waiting for me…” Jacques shook his head. “…you weren’t?”
With such a naturally blank face, any outward displays of emotion were rare but vivid, like a sudden swath of psychedelic paint. In this case, it was a keen despondency, a forlorn cast that could wrench even the stoniest gut.
Frankly, Geddoe had enough. Without looking back, he clamped one hand on the lad’s right shoulder, gave it what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze, and pushed himself out of the booth.
“Hey boss, where’re you going?” Joker gestured as his boss backed away, nearly straight into the oncoming Wanda, her wings burdened with their nearly forgotten breakfasts.
She quacked, wheezily. “Lost your appetite, sunshine?”
“I just need to make one phone call,” Geddoe stated as he zipped up his leather bomber jacket, adding his afterthought halfway out the door. “Queen, if something overly regrettable happens, you’re in charge.”
“Mm. Sounds like someone’s about to get it with both barrels.” Queen rubbed her hands gleefully, and not just because Wanda had just presented her and Jacques with the most tantalizing corn field massacres that either had seen in recent memory.
Jacques blinked, still staring at the space Geddoe was occupying seconds ago. “Am I in trouble…?” he wondered, dimly.
“Of course not, son,” Joker grinned, “but someone is! Thank you, dear.”
“One Spaghetti Toastie,” Wanda reminded him as she set down his plate, which the man immediately began to scrutinize.
“Yeah, Jacques. If anything, the Boss is P.O.’d on your behalf,” reassured Ace. “He’s just that kinda guy. Ope—!”
He lifted his resting elbows off the table, giving Wanda a wide enough berth to settle his plate before him. As one would reasonably expect from a pile of sausage and rashers, it radiated the aroma of something porcine and oleaginous, and appeared to be smoking faintly.
Queen eyed this with a troubled blend of suppressed longing and utter disgust.
“Will that be all, gentlemen?” Wanda nodded at Queen. “Princess?”
“Oh, I reckon we’re all just hunky-dory for now. Thank you, ma’am,” Joker spoke for the lot, and waited until the coast was clear before scowling. “I knew it! I knew they’d foul it up!”
“What now?” Ace paused with knife in hand.
“This Spaghetti Toastie, it’s all wrong. The bread is too thick and they used baloney instead of ham,” he complained expertly. “I think this might be real spaghetti too!”
“Well, what the hell are they gonna use? Fake spaghetti?” Queen suddenly appeared antsy, as if she intended to bolt any second.
“Not fake spaghetti, I mean the cheap kind you get in a tin. It’s counter-intuitive, but in order to make a proper Spaghetti Toastie, I mean properly proper, as god or whatever intended it, one needs to—h-hey, Queen?”
On her way out of the booth, she practically climbed over Joker as if the man was a playground obstacle course, something that was not capable of caring into which sensitive areas her boots happened to land.
“Hey!” he yelped again. “What gives?”
“I need to go powder my nose,” she said, finding her feet and using them briskly. “If I fall in, Jacques is in charge.”
“Mh?” Jacques resurfaced from his breakfast, cheeks fat with corn flakes.
“Hey, Queen?” Ace called out before she got too far, gesturing helpfully. “What are you doing? The Lady John’s the other way.”
He got nothing in return but a dirty look as she too evacuated the dinette.
“Huh! Well, that’s that. Just us guys now.” Ace relaxed visibly and turned his attention to the Little Smiler Sausage Special, wondering if this was the sort of thing Queen had in mind whenever she said she didn’t like eating anything with a face. He wasn’t that sentimental, but he did believe that the doomed should always be allowed their last words; he started manhandling some of the rashers that formed its mouth.
“Don’t touch my beautiful face, you motherfucker!” said the Little Smiler Sausage Special, in Ace’s worst falsetto.
“I do believe your breakfast just called you a motherfucker,” Joker observed.
“I believe it did. That’s why I’m gonna eat it,” said Ace, who wasted no time in commencing its demise.
“Aghhh!” screamed the Little Smiler Sausage Special, now spurting with violent, vivid gouts of tomato sauce, as Ace upended the bottle and emptied it all over his plate and bits of the surrounding tablecloth.
Joker rolled his eyes. “How old are you, seriously?”
But Ace was undeterred. Fork and knife at the ready (with their swaddling napkin somewhere on the floor), he decided to begin with the sausages.
“I’m telling you, Jacques, you’re just gonna love being in the 12th Unit. We may not be the highest ranked unit literally or even technically, but we’re still far and away the best just in general, y’know. We got the best Captain. We got the best van. We got the best airbrushed geese on the side of the best van. We got the best—uh,” he hit a stump… Or was it a bit of gristle? “Best dental plan, eh? Joker, show him your gold tooth.”
“I’m trying to eat my breakfast.” Joker made a swatting motion. “You show him how those front teeth of yours all come out in one piece.”
“It’s called a partial, old man,” Ace corrected him. “Nah kid, I’ll show you when Queen comes back, she gets real freaked out when I do it in front of her. But yeah, after we get you all signed up and sorted out, I bet we can fix that overbite.”
“Over… Bite?”
“We’ll getcha some braces or something. Birds dig ‘em.” He smirked. “If you go for that.”
Jacques nodded silently; he did enjoy birdwatching.
“I guess now is as good a time as any to mention that one of the unofficial rules of the Defense Force is that nobody ever has to listen to anything that comes out of his big mouth,” Joker pointed out as he dabbed at his own with his napkin, perhaps hoping his friend could take the hint.
“I’m just tryin’ to help!” Ace spat inarticulately, syllables straining from double-stacked helpings of sausage and fried egg. “I don’t think we ever had a real rookie before, huh. Queen was kinda young but even she was a transfer from another unit. Same with Elaine.”
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full?”
“But you, Jacques, you’re like a rookie rookie, like a real, uh, whatchamacallit…” He swallowed.
“Novice? Naif? Neophyte? Greenhorn? Tenderfoot?” Joker shrugged. ”Abecedarian?”
“Did you just make that word up? That sounds made up.”
“You’re supposed to be the bibliophile here, Ace.”
“Oh, so now you gotta start insulting me too? You’re somethin’ else, old man.”
“Yeah, for a start, I’m not an old man,” returned Joker, offering an apologetic glance for their newcomer. It was not the first, and he suspected it would not be the last one of the day either. “Sorry, Jacques. You’re probably not used to dealing with someone this vacuous but you’ll get used to it.”
Ace speared a chipolata and gave it an airy little twirl before devouring it. “Too right. I mean, have you ever even left your village before until just now?”
Jacques shook his head, his face a tabula rasa betraying nothing. “Not really.”
“That’s tough, y’know. I’m sorry about your town and all that, whatever the Captain was going on about, I dunno. I can’t imagine.” Ace paused. “I mean, I really can’t ‘cause I don’t know hot shit about runes, but. Just sounds like a real bad situation, eh? For sure.”
“It happens,” Jacques replied, calmly.
“Well aren’t you sad about it?” asked Joker. “Scared?”
“Very.” He bumped his head, then resumed churning the contents of his cereal bowl, preoccupied with what the others naturally assumed had to be some deep and inscrutable thought. By this point, the corn flake and strawberry concoction certainly lived up to Wanda’s epithet.
The lad left them to marinate in disquieting silence, an oxymoron that Ace absolutely could not tolerate during breakfast. “Hey!” he piped up. “Hey, Jacques, you know what, we gotta get you a headband at least, get all that hair out of your face… h-huh?”
Most people avoided coming within a certain distance of Ace—particularly his hands—but this young man seemed to have zero qualms about penetrating that Danger Zone in some sudden and far-reaching attempt to fiddle with the mini-blinds. Realizing what Jacques was trying to do, Ace helpfully twisted the wand until the slats went perfectly horizontal.
“What is it?” he asked as the dust cleared. “Oh, I see. Heh heh.”
From Jacques and Ace’s angle, they had a clear view of the Pine Clearing Dinette’s public pay phone. Their beloved Captain stood safely encased within its weathered cage of metal and tagged glass, looking unusually animated and perhaps grateful that it was at least partially soundproof.
Just outside of that, Queen loitered and paced and chafed her hands, and contributed some choice words to the conversation between drags off her rapidly dwindling cigarette.
“Is it Geddoe?” Joker shifted into Queen’s former window seat, craning his head uselessly. “Is he on the phone? Where is he? I can read lips, y'know.”
“Yeah, you keep telling us that, old man.”
“…No good, I can’t see him at all from this angle.”
“Jeez, he looks steamed, for sure.” Ace squinted. “Queen’s out there with him, glommin' onto the phone booth like some kinda groupie.”
“Is she steamed too?”
“Like a chimney.”
“Having a smoko, eh? I thought she quit?”
“Pfft. She quits like three times a week,” scoffed Ace, moving away from the blinds. “Aw, forget it. The boss is gonna be at it for a while. Hope he called ‘em collect…”
“His oatmeal’s getting cold,” Joker noticed, though he was already helping himself to a sample of Queen’s abandoned corn flakes, which were soggy and greying rapidly.
“Probably prefers it that way. You know what they say.” Ace prepared to misquote something he misread in either a classic novel or a parenting magazine he once rifled through while waiting to see a dentist: “Cold oatmeal, warm heart.”
“Is that right?” Joker knew it wasn’t, but he did know that there was never a good time to start arguing over the metaphorical particulars of rolled oats. Moving on. “Oh. Jacques, you kept trying to ask us a question earlier.”
“I was?”
“I think you were, yeah,” recalled Ace, now vainly trying to coax the remains of an especially crumbly rasher onto his fork.
“Everyone kept interrupting you. Word of advice, son,” began Joker. “You need to be a little more assertive around these guys or else they’ll steamroll you every time. Especially a loudmouth like this goit.”
“Look who’s talking, you old windbag!”
“It’s alright,” said Jacques. “It wasn’t important.”
“Well, you got the floor now kid, so you might as well use it.” Ace tapped his temple; a forgotten cigarette tumbled from behind his ear and plopped onto his plate, giving the Little Smiler Sausage Special a new nose. “We can be all ears too sometimes. Go on.”
“Okay. Uh.”
His audience was finally captive, anticipation palpable, and yet beneath such demand Jacques could only murmur into his cereal, his hands tunneling into the scarf he’d balled up in his lap earlier.
Finally, he remembered his one line, the thing he’d meant to say all along:
“I know you tried to explain last night, but I still don’t rightly know what a mercenary is. What do you… Uh. What do you do?” He thought for a bit. “What is your point…?”
Ace and Joker glared at each other from across the table. The latter finished choking on a wayward strand of spaghetti, then turned his bleak, baggy eyes onto Jacques’ humble form. The former shifted his attention to his digital wristwatch, almost afraid of what he might see.
He recoiled on sight.
It was only 7:17 AM, if that was any indication.
FOOTNOTES
① To elaborate, the Northern Outlands (also known as the Nameless Lands) was an anthropological patchwork of egregiously named states, city-states, counties, cities, county-cities and other etymologically arbitrary designations. Most residents possessed, at the very least, a functional understanding of the Common Tongue. However, their first language was almost always some regional dialect of Outlandish (yes, really), with most dialects having varying degrees of mutual unintelligibility. What this means is that interpersonal communication between Outlanders was always a risky affair as it was very difficult to predict whether a well-meaning comment about the hospitality of one’s host would be completely misconstrued as a saucy recollection of that host’s mother and her choice of bedroom footwear. (Back)
---
② An exemplary sampling of singles from a recent Huzcabac Hot 100:
- #100 - “Heart Like a Worn Out Brassiere” (Vera Juggs)
- #84 - “Ain't Shavin' My Legs For That” (”Cow” Patty Parkel)
- #78 - “Islands in the Mulch” (Kenny and Zagnut)
- #53 - “Dump Truck Convoy (Stinkin’ Up the Night)” (The C.B. Poughkipsie Original Hambone Band)
- #41 - “Dibs on Yer Dills” (Tammy Pickle)
- #29 - “Do They Know It’s Compost After All” (Organic Mulch Producers of Huczabac, Inc.)
- #22 - “The Ballad of Pork Chop ‘n Applesauce” (Booger Blackgum Jr.)
- #14 - “I’m Just a Gander (Looking for a Goosey Goosey)” (Clem “Quackers” McDohl)
- #7 - “A-L-I-M-O-N-Y” (Angel Mumpers and Tootsie Britches)
- #1 - “How Do I Love You? (Let Me Count the Beers)” (The Turkey Foot Dobro Wailers)
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③ Such things rarely warrant a description, but in the interest of scenic equity it shall be noted that these mugs were your typical heavy-duty red-eye diner jobs, glazed ceramic, cream white, with a reasonable assumption that any distinguishing patterns or maker’s marks or restaurant logos were long obliterated by countless trips through an industrial dishwasher. This was just as well; when the five occupants of this booth decided to breakfast at this eye-catching little joint off the N118 interchange called the Pine Clearing Dinette, at least two of those occupants could conceivably remember a time when this same place was still called the “Pine Forest Dinette”, and one of those two could perhaps even remember a time when the whole dinette part of the equation was but a mere twinkle in some young hash-slinging entrepreneur’s eye. (Back)
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④ This is a complete nonsequitur and by no means an attempt to somehow connect Ace, a simple mercenary accountant in the Harmonian Southern Frontier Defense Force (the 12th Unit, a.k.a., “Wild Geese”), to Hitman Bravo, the regrettably prolific author of the critically eviscerated Erk de Forever series. But while we’re on the subject, it bears mentioning that at the time of this particular mission, Hitman Bravo was attempting a series of children’s novels: The Big-Time Adventures of Erk Jr. One might assume that such an undertaking would allow Bravo to “dumb down” his (in)famously inane prose even further; indeed, according to a source close to the author, this is exactly why he chose this particular route. However, children’s literature standards set by the Zexen Educational Association forced the man to produce “age-appropriate content of high quality, such that it promotes moral and educational values in line with [the ZEA’s] chartered agenda”. To date, Bravo has only completed one Erk Jr. novel, a relatively dense (appx. 65 pg.) work titled Erk de Forever Jr. Discovers Church and Long Division. (Back)
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⑤ The wafflette is a specialty of the southern Northern Outlands, including Huczabac County. Essentially it is some portmanteau of a waffle and an omelet, though the ratio of waffle batter to omelet goo will vary from region to region and even restaurant to restaurant, resulting in a meal that’s as difficult to predict as the reception of a carefully researched Outlandish salutation. The Pine Clearing Dinette’s wafflette was known for being especially substantial, a burly breakfast affair designed to whet even the most savage of appetites and to support the weight of spaghetti, baked beans, fried clam strips, diced ham, hashed potatoes, and whatever else was leftover in the fridge from the previous dinner shift. (Back)
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⑥ A nationally syndicated, long-running comic strip by Two River City cartoonist Ward Faldo. Thanks to its international publication and extremely lucrative merchandising, there are few souls left in the world who wouldn’t recognize Faldo’s beloved cartoon poodle “Dinky” or his sad sack owner “Bum Gudgeon”, Bum’s wise-gal friend “Rudy” or any of the other colorful characters who occupy their witty, if strangely reminiscent universe. Geddoe held no special love for Pignuts or any other comic strip, but anything to look occupied enough to deter any unwanted questions or complaints or lurid descriptions of some disgusting something-or-other one of his comrades discovered in their motel room the night before. (Back)
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⑦ Taken from a brochure found on a rack in a Le Buque convenience store:
THE LEDA GARDEN HOTEL
70 E. Merope St., Caleria (CBD)
Enjoy first class accommodations at business or economy class prices
Daily, weekly, monthly rates - Special plans available for long-term accommodation
We honour cash, cheques, credit cards (Squab™, Excess™, HarmoniCard™, Senior Surfer™)
Sorry, no “I.O.U.s”
25 large, bright rooms
Colour T.V., runic air con., direct dial phone, “en suite” W.C., pillow mint
(NOTE: Pillow mint not available in all rooms)
Game room, gym, vending/ice machines
Free communal baths, sauna, in-ground heated sandbox, kiddie pool
Room service available for small consideration
Free transportation to Caleria Regional Bus Depot
SPECIAL! With compliments to our guests, two FREE “disposable” plastic cups per night
Recently renovated and fumigated … Now asbestos free!
Mercenaries Welcome - No Questions Asked
NOW OPEN! Magda’s Red Light Disco Diner and Karaoke Lounge
Try authentic Calerian cuisine with our extensive buffet menu
Live entertainment provided by uncompensated guests
Special Menu available for children under 10 or adults who don’t like snake-frog liver
Open lunch and dinner, Monday through Saturday
Special Sunday Morning Hangover “Breakfast & Aspirin”
It’s all here at…
THE LEDA GARDEN HOTEL
70 E. Merope St., Caleria (CBD)
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⑧ While these great bargains will probably have expired by the time this story is published, here is a small sample of what was on sale that week at FOOD GOBLIN, YOUR QUALITY 22-HOUR GROCERY STORE:
- Our Brand SHREDDED MOUTH cereal - 189 potch ea.
- Gobblin’™ TRAMPFINGERS cookies - Classic, classy shortbread - 229 potch ea.
- Ocho’s™ FROZEN DESSERT PIE - The kind of pie you'd bake in the oven, then stick in a freezer - 449 potch ea.
- Mama Petunia's™ SUPREME PIZZA FOR BABIES - 399 potch ea.
- Moby Dick™ CANNED WHITE WHALE - Certified tuna safe - 49 potch ea. or 148 potch / 3-pk.
- Our Brand MAYONNAISE - Sun dried and aged - 99 potch ea.
- Highland DRIED CARROTS - Assorted colors, styles, okayness - 89 potch / 5 lb sack
- Taste of Elsewhere™ OODLES OF MUNG BEANS instant soup - Original, Kimchee, Nacho - 39 potch ea.
- Squeaky Clean™ MOUSEWASH - 119 potch ea.
- Duffles™ Plastic PAPER BAG LINERS - Reusable? - 169 potch/box
- Vidal Bassoon™ WASH'N OFF - Shampoo/Conditioner/Hair Removal all-in-one - 379 potch ea.
- B-Gon™ HEAD LICE MOTEL - 79 potch / 3-pk.
- Swipe™ UNDERARM DEODORANT - Original, Smokey Mesquite and New Car scents - 149 potch ea.
- Blunderwear™ MONTHS OF THE YEAR UNDERPANTS - Mens’, Ladies’, Duck sizes - 399 potch / 9-pk.
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⑨ The less said in front of Ace about the incident, the better. Normally even the most off-handed mention of the former Eight of Clubs would kickstart a diatribe that might take up the remainder of the day, and quality of drinks and company depending, the rest of the night as well. Naturally the origin of their enmity was Some Dame but competition was inevitable between these two men as they were roughly of the same age, build and demeanor, even though either one would swear up and down that he was a far more attractive prospect than the other. They eventually arrived at the mutual understanding that it was logistically untenable for any one single mercenary unit to have TWO “#1 Desirable Man”s, so they both agreed that someone had to go. Eight himself simplified that decision greatly when Geddoe caught him engaging with an illegal Furfur fighting ring behind a casino in Muse City. Rather than report the matter to HQ and deal with so much embarrassing fallout, Geddoe allowed Eight to transfer to a different unit in exchange for his silence on the matter. (Back)
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⑩ In a world where runic magic runs the world on the most mundane levels—runic combustion-powered vehicles, lightning rune-powered appliances, water rune-powered plumbing, etc.—one might think that such sigils have since lost their mystique. However, the breakout popularity of the 472 horror comedy movie Runebusters firmly suggests otherwise. It’s the story of four unemployed Gregminster dental hygienists who make a new career for themselves battling bevies of runic corruption, from frightening fiends and twisted magicians, to the mysteriously minty blue slime flooding the city sewer system. The climax, where our hilarious heroes suppress an enormous, spectrally possessed manifestation of the famous Wee-Wee Supper Club Hot Dog Boy, ranks as one of the more memorable movie moments in recent years, to say nothing of its extremely catchy theme song… (Back)
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