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Mek looks up: the fissure climbs towards the heavens, vaulting iron and glass architecture as far as the eye can see, which isn't very far today. It's an industrial sky, its smog-like clouds raining down soot on everything. Residential buildings still cling to the natural rock like barnacles, inhabitants coming and going on a thin lattice of gangways, bridges, and spiral staircases. Below them and all around are factories, all lit and running at full capacity.
'Why are we even here?'
Mek looks down to the child at his side. She isn't looking back and he doesn't bother answering her. She knows why they're here. She's just looking for a reason to complain, and he isn't interested in helping her out. She's good enough to get there on her own.
'There's no point! How are we learning anything about the strike just standing there!?'
Here she goes.
'Why am I stuck with you? I could just go to—'
Mek grabs her by her collar before she manages to wander off.
'Let me go!'
'Be nice,' he grunts.
She makes a strangled sound like having to accept his order or even acknowledge it puts her in physical pain.
Mek snorts. She's great, this little girl. It's befitting of the boss, Mek thinks, that he'd pick up someone like her; half Zaunite, half demon. Ever since her sister joined, everyone's started calling her Powder, but Mek sticks with Jinx. It suits her better.
Jinx looks up at him now, squinting, probably wondering if he's making fun of her.
'You said you wanted to learn,' he reminds her.
'Spying, yes. Not hanging out in a street between factories kicking rocks!' She kicks a pebble to make her point. 'Silco said he wanted names. We're so not getting names. We've been out here for so long, it's stupid!'
Mek smiles and goes back to observing the non-sky above him. There are too many people out and about. People who should be at work or at home, away from the thick Gray and its promises of Lung Blight. He spots a gang of children, all six of them in patchwork rags that make Jinx look like some Noxian princess in her striped shorts and twice mended top. Kids who should be shovelling coal for a chance at a free meal and spare copper cog. Instead they call each other out as they run on the gangway, shoving past men smoking in silence, hunched over the railing, faces lost in thick puffs of lifeleaf smoke.
Jinx kicks a bottle, huffing, and Mek suddenly realises that he should probably be pointing these things out to her. This is supposed to be a lesson, after all.
He gives her a nudge and she looks up at him, bored enough to be curious.
'Look,' he says, pointing to the kids, to the smokers, to the women discussing outside their doors. 'You should be paying attention.'
'To what?' she asks, confused. 'There's nothing but factories down here. What's special about these Sumpies?'
'Afternoon shift isn't over yet. They should all be working, or be inside. They're all just talking, waiting.'
Jinx shrugs, unconcerned. 'Maybe the kids were working? Maybe they just did a job upside.'
'Maybe they are working...' Mek says, finding himself agreeing. Their pockets seem pretty full, and they're stopping at every door. 'Handing out flyers, looks like.'
He was one of these kids, way back when, stuffing Silco's handwritten pamphlets under people's doors.
'So what?' Jinx asks, sounding exasperated.
Mek shrugs. 'You know we're here to investigate rumours of the strike. This is what a strike looks like, before it gets started. People talking away from overseers, missing shifts to organise the union, see who's in. Threaten who isn't.'
'Yeah, and? Aren't we gonna question them? Spy? Get in there, get through their stuff? Why don't you ask them what they're doing out there, if it's so suspicious?'
Mek chuckles. It shows that Jinx spent the last five years under Vander's influence. The Hound had always been a man who could afford to come in swinging and get the answer he wanted.
'Step one is paying attention,' Mek tells her, counting on his fingers. 'Step two is to be patient. Ah—' A far away bell rings, rewarding said patience. Mek picks Jinx up in his arms, making her squawk. 'Step three is the spying you wanted,' he says. 'We're going to blend in. Don't talk.'
'What about asking—'
'No. No questions,' Mek cuts her off, walking towards the gates. 'Remember the briefing. Anyone asks, you're my kid. Observe, listen. Pay attention and don't talk.' Jinx opens her mouth to protest and he shakes his head. 'I'm serious. You need to be patient and silent. You'll see. It's acting. You can act, right? Keep your ears and eyes open, we're a team.'
She frowns, her blue eyebrows and button nose scrunching unhappily, her flinty eyes shimmering with green tones under the chemlights of the gates. For a moment Mek fears she'll throw one of her infamous tantrums, but she sighs, resigned to her fate, and wraps her arms around his neck.
The gates screech open and a flood of workers comes pouring out. It isn't sluggish, Mek notes as he steps into the flow. People are in a hurry to get away. He has no problem blending in. He isn't the largest man around, or the most tattooed. He isn't the only person carrying a child either. There are even children carrying smaller kids. Those take off for the access ramps and staircases, going straight home. Mek follows the throng of workers heading for the Rising Howl stop.
The funicular arrives and he hops aboard, squeezing himself against the far doors, head tilted back against the cool glass. He lets out a low noise, half sigh, half growl. The woman standing next to him grunts in wordless agreement. The Rising Howl starts the howling it's named after, wheels screaming as they chew into the metal ramps. The cramped space is dead quiet otherwise. Anyone speaking is doing so in hushed whispers. These are all people working in Spindlow's factories, and the misery and tension are universal.
It's actually worse than Mek expected, even with people out and about whispering to each other at odd hours. It's crazy, he thinks, how disconnected you get, living at the Last Drop, so high up in the Entresol. He should have known it was this bad, but he hadn't, until now.
Jinx drums up a rhythm against the back of his neck. She's looking about, finally catching on to the strained atmosphere. Mek gives her leg a small squeeze. They keep following the crowd when it empties out of the funicular. The crowd fragments more here, but most people are headed for the local watering hole, Mek and Jinx right along with them.
Mek orders a pint and a glass of juice for the kid. Jinx in arm and beer in hand, he makes his way to a large table made from a long sheet of metal, its feet bolted to the floor. There's one tool left at one end. Nobody protests when he sits down, setting Jinx on one of his knees, but people glance at him cautiously and conversations die down. They wouldn't have seen him around before. Or if they have, they don't know anything about him. Just another face coming and going around the low levels. But not one of them.
Mek lets out another tired sigh and starts nursing his beer, looking about the room lazily. When Jinx starts to fidget again he jolts her in a silent reminder. Though she doesn't react, he can see her shoulders tense, and he suspects Silco will be getting an earful about his treatment of her later tonight.
Conversation slowly picks back up around them, and Mek listens.
He sips his beer in silence, becoming the very picture of a bone-weary worker. Not one of them, but one just like them. No one worth worrying about. Soon he starts to overhear the workers' grievances. Within fifteen minutes he knows that a lad called Malek had his wages slashed even though his ma is sick. Yet another man lost his fingers to the same faulty engine that gobbled up the digits of three other workers. A certain Azie, who works with purifiers, was whipped in public by "that cunt". Mek suspects they mean the same supervisor who has threatened to bring enforcers down. He's the star of the talks this evening.
People get up to leave, new people sit down. Mek has Powder go to the bar and buy them refills, like a dutiful daughter. By his third pint, they're surrounded by new faces at his table. He was there before them, and that carries some shred of irrational authority. So when a particularly exhausted man collapses in the stool next to his, Mek leans forward, frowning.
'You alright there brother?' he asks, layering his voice with concern.
The man gives him a bleary look. They don't know each other, but they're very much the same. Two burly men, exhausted after a hard day, drinking in the same dive. The man smiles. It's small, but it's enough.
'Yeah man, rough one today. Had to stay behind, fix a turbine so the next shift doesn't get blown up.'
Mek nods his understanding. Jinx looks between the two of them, a little too curious. Mek pats her hair to keep her head down as he goes on. 'Been a shit week too,' he says.
His new drinking buddy rolls his eyes and turns to face him properly. 'You think you know, brother, but you have no idea.'
'Oh? Sounds like a story.'
The man laughs without cheer. 'Yeah, but not a good one.'
Everyone's ears prick anyway. Heads turn, paying attention. There's no good stories, down in factorywood. Never was, might never be. Everyone's keen for just a story, and a bad one's even better. Mek gets it. He's been there. Listening to other people's shit story, patting himself on the back for not having it that bad. It's also a nice feeling, to all be sorry for someone, to be upset or angry together. Nice bonding feeling, that. Perfect stuff to feed a good strike.
The man's name is Lint, Janna bless his mother! Jinx snorts into her glass of juice. Lint's story though is not amusing—definitely a bad one. It too involves "the cunt", who's a lad called Drexal.
Drexal is working very hard to push his workers over the edge, as it turns out, and as the stories keep unfolding, Mek grows increasingly surprised that a lynching hasn't happened yet. Lint is at the end of his own rope. He's been working extended double shifts for the entire week because of this Drexal, and several of his own subordinates have come to him for support and advice on dealing with the man after he harassed them.
'What am I supposed to tell them?' Lint complains, slamming his empty pint on the table. 'Cunt's a fucking Piltie meat puppet, but what can they do? Quit and go where? Only Grime's hiring right now, and he's way worse. He's got actual Pilties in the office, and the pay's even shittier. Anyway, can't afford to do anything but suck it up until the strike really gets going.'
Here it is, out in the open. Jinx perks up at that but remains blessedly silent.
'Mmmh.' Is all Mek says.
'What?' a swarthy woman asks him, leaning across the table from them. 'You don't believe in the strike?'
Mek gives her a bland look. 'Been on a lot of strikes,' is all he says.
Lint snorts. He looks to be in his forties, though it's hard to tell. Man's a real rugged local, he could be ten years younger. Still old enough to remember Zaun before the Lanes, when a strike amounted to suicide with extra steps. He gets it.
'They will listen, this time!' the woman exclaims, slapping her hand on the table. 'We'll make them!'
Voices rise up, shouting their support. Mek remains unperturbed. He looks down into his beer, waiting.
'Well, I hope we don't go on strike,' a tense voice calls out from a neighbouring table. 'I can't afford it! My wee ones would die!'
'You'll still be paid from the fund, Aro,' someone tells them.
'Couldn't feed a nest of rats with what's in the fund! There's two thousand of us!'
The argument spreads, more people joining in, getting up with their drink to get close to it. The majority of those who want the strike to happen are young. Names are finally flying, and Mek sips his beer, mentally cataloguing all of it.
Jinx swivels around and gives him a meaningful look. The "why won't you speak up" look. He smiles at her and hands her a coin.
'Fetch me two beers, sweety.'
If looks could kill, Mek would be disintegrated on the spot. She hops off his knees, lips pressed in a thin line, and runs to the bar.
Lint leans close. 'She's a quiet one,' he remarks. 'Yours?'
Mek shakes his head. 'My brother's.'
'Ah. Condolences are in order?'
Mek shrugs. 'Been a while. But it made her quiet.' He gives Lint a toothy smile. 'Not the chatty type myself.'
Lint laughs and slaps him on the shoulder. 'I noticed, but you're a good listener.'
Mek shakes his head, puts on a sorry face. 'Listening ain't enough. If I'd acted... Maybe my brother would still be alive.'
Lint gives him a knowing look, just as Jinx returns with the glasses.
'Good lass,' Mek compliments her. 'Give this one to our friend.'
Jinx offers the second pint to Lint and gives him a smile when the man pats her head affectionately.
'Yes, that's a lovely girl. We'll build a better future for you, you'll see.'
Lint has kids of his own, Mek knows just by the softness of his voice, the sad turn of his lips as he smiles. He hasn't managed to give them the better future he once dreamt of, so now he wishes it for their own children and that of others. He turns his attention back to Mek, the wistfulness turning more thoughtful. Mek remains impassive.
Lint takes a sip of his beer, a larger gulp, and then his mind is made: 'You need to talk to Finn,' he declares.
Mek frowns. Jinx hoists herself back into his lap, and the two of them stare silently at Lint.
'What?' he asks. 'You haven't heard of him?'
Mek and Jinx exchange a look. 'Have you?' he asks her.
Jinx shakes her head no.
'Haven't either,' Mek says.
A fat lie, of course. He knows Finn—fuck, he knows his tattoo artist. Lint doesn't need to know that though, only to spill the details.
'He's full young to be running his own place, but he just took over one of Grime's factories down by the Brand. I ken the man fancies himself a chembaron someday soon. He's looking for support.'
'And pushing for the strike?' Mek asks, free now to ask questions.
'Funding it. He wants Spindlow to go under, I reckon.'
'Take his place?'
Lint grins. 'I'd be down for that.'
Mek grunts. 'Spindlow's the demon you know though.'
Lint waves the argument away. 'I have friends in Finn's factory. He's a good boss. Like I said, bit young, but if he gets some good staff, solid workers who'll let him see a better way... I mean, we don't need to live like this, right?' His tone grows heated, his cheeks flushing. 'This ain't right. It's bad enough having to deal with Upsiders driving our wages down into the dirt, but getting fucked over by our own on top of that? We're already drowning in Piltover's shit. People like Spindlow are just keeping our head under.'
Mek suppresses a wolfish grin. If this isn't a new recruit for Silco right there, he'll be damned.
'I'll talk to this Finn. See what he's like,' he says mildly.
'You do that, brother!' Lint slaps his back. 'And let me know. The kids want a proper strike, but we've got to think bigger than that.'
They toast to that, and Mek means it too. Oh yes, he's going to let Lint know.
'What did you learn tonight?' Mek asks Jinx as they ride up an elevator later on, deserted but for the two of them.
The girl makes a face, like admitting she learned anything at all is admitting defeat somehow. 'The strike is almost certain to happen,' she says, enumerating on her fingers, 'that Drexal guy is totally gonna die, the man you should talk to is called Finn. He's paying some people? I'm not sure.'
'The real find is Lint,' he tells her. 'He aligns with us. He believes in the same thing we do.'
Jinx gives him a sceptical look. 'Isn't he just some guy?'
'I need more time to get to know him, but I think he'll be a great recruit. It's good to have locals on the ground. I'm also just some guy. You're just some brat. Anyway, not what I meant. What did you really learn?'
The elevator comes to a screeching halt and Jinx pulls on the doors and steps out. She looks up at Mek over her shoulder—glares at him, really—and remains pointedly silent.
He smiles. 'That's right. Sometimes you need to be quiet and wait.'
'I don't get it,' she says. 'You asked like, one question.'
'People hate silence,' Mek tells her. 'Always need to fill it up. You should try it too, sometimes.'
'It can't be that simple.'
Mek shrugs, unconcerned. It is that simple. In his case it's also helped by his looks, and where applicable, his reputation. But there's no point telling little Jinx that. She'll never get a reputation as a quiet girl or a meathead.
Jinx glowers at him, but there's no animosity in it any more. 'It was kind of fun,' she admits reluctantly. 'I'll come with you again.'
And with that she turns around and runs ahead, back to the Last Drop.