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”Sir! Smeech’s goons are on the north side, demanding to speak with you!” Sevika’s exclamation came mere seconds after Silco’s office door slammed into the wall, startling him out of his musings. He’d had a knife in hand before his chair even spun around, but laid it calmly on the desk upon realizing who his impromptu guest was. She saw it, grimaced, and made a noncommittal noise that from her was something of an apology. “They… Some Piltie came down and commissioned augments, brought some of their own tech too. You know how that shit can go,” she jerked her head towards her own robotic arm, “He’s not handling the transition, they’re asking for the doctor.”
”They want the Piltie to die on my watch, in my territory,” Silco grumbled, “That’s all it is.”
”Probably, but Reveck-“
”Reveck has little interest in healing anyone, it’s only a side effect of his studies. Send a runner. Safe passage, bring him here. We’ll shoot him full of the good stuff and drop him topside,” Silco said, sighing, “Alley entrance, don’t disturb the patrons.”
Sevika nodded and beat a hasty retreat, the door still open behind her letting in the sounds of the bustling bar below. It was always off-shift for some measure of the population and the Last Drop slept less than he did. Getting up with a grunt at the effort he went to close it, hesitated, then grabbed his coat off hook by the door and left instead. When the other chembarons were involved, and on his turf, he should make his presence known regardless of the stupidity of the situation.
He was smoking a cigarette in the back alley, watched over by a guard at the street end, when Sevika returned as escort two several heavily robotically augmented goons carrying a limp body wrapped in a blanket. One pale bare foot hung limply off the makeshift stretcher, the other was a fine contraption of brass, expertly articulated and human in appearance if not in material - something far beyond the artistry of Smeech’s chop shops. Silco dropped the stub of his cigarette and ground it beneath his heel before approaching.
“What’s wrong with him?” He asked, Sevika shrugged and a man with a metal arm and shoulder mounted gun wormed past her.
“Either the brain picks up on the new bits or it don’t, and his don’t,” he said, “Got an infection or some other as well, whole operation went to shit. Needs to get topside with a quickness so we don’t catch a murder.”
”Mmm,” Silco said, pacing around them to get a better look at the patient - a tough ask when those carrying him shied away from his presence. The man was unconscious, shivering, mouth slightly agape as he struggled for air like a fish out of water. Delicately as if he had something catching, Silco grabbed the folded over front of the blanket and pulled it to the side, revealing a narrow, bony chest with sutures surrounding several metal pieces protruding slightly down his sternum, and one larger horizontal incision large enough for a hand to get inside and install… whatever that was.
”Fucking idiots…” he muttered under his breath, pulling the blanket aside further. The brass foot he’d seen was connected to an equally well-made leg; almost unnaturally spindly but in close approximation of his remaining flesh leg, besides the usual clockwork joints. it ended mid-thigh where the flesh was equally angry and reddened, sutured lines following along the outside of his leg, skirting around bronze implants all the way up to his hip. “He’s not Piltie.”
”What? No, he came from the Academy,” the head goon replied, “Little white vest and everything. Talked real proper.”
”He’s a trencher,” Silco replied, “So this better not be that you fucked it up to take his money; I don’t take kindly to that.”
”No! No, he paid real good, just askin’ for too much, augments are only as good as the body you’re putting them on.”
As if on cue, the young man on the stretcher stirred and moaned piteously, before his teeth chattered together. Silco tossed the tail end of the blanket back over him as if that would do anything against the fever chills. Still, that this wasn’t creating a political incident, at least not of quite the same sort as he’d expected, made Silco far more willing to do something about it. He signaled for the guard on the corner to join him, then looked to Sevika.
“Take him upstairs to a spare room,” he said, then turned back to Smeech’s men, “You have ten minutes to be out of my territory. If he lives, no one else will hear of it.”
”And if he don’t?”
Silco just smiled cruelly and followed his lieutenants inside and up the back stairwell. Why he cared so much, he couldn’t quite pinpoint. He’d killed more in collateral than Smeech had on his rise to the top, but this was… not that. This was a son of Zaun trying to survive what Piltover’s abuse had done to his body. Augments like that were unfathomably expensive to the average trencher; ones that weren’t just practical for work but were balanced, beautiful, crafted with artistry. Even if the man had Piltover money, it was no small sum. That there were very few trenchers who ever rose high enough to see the sun narrowed down the pool of who he could be, and the academy uniform even more so. If that were true, at least. It would explain the quality of the leg if it had been made at HexTech labs and, were that the case, Silco was now in possession of the largest bargaining chip he’d ever taken.
If he lived.
Silco’s private store of shimmer was locked in his desk drawers; small vials at the top already measured and dosed for his injector, larger bottles beneath to refill them, all so that he and the good Doctor didn’t need to meet in person often enough for their personalities to clash. They were the sort of friends for whom it was best they met intermittently. Below that was a small collection of variants; flaked and dried to roll into cigarettes, or small shimmering specks floating in sweet alcohol meant to produce a more aphrodisiac effect. He liked to sample all the new varietals, just to know. The proper medicinal kind would be best for this, or least detrimental, but if it didn’t work then the transformatory sort would have to take its toll in exchange for survival. He took the larger vial of his private store and a syringe with him to the spare room.
The man was laid out on a cot, sweat-soaked and shivering, lying atop the blanket he was brought in wearing nothing but his underwear. This room hadn't been used in years, there were no sheets on the bed and only one sad pillow that had seen better days. The chemlight bulbs still worked though, bathing the interior in warm golden light. Silco pulled over the room’s only chair, the abrasive scrape of its legs against the floor made him wince but the feverish man didn’t notice.
Drawing a syringe was so second nature that Silco watched the man rather than his own hands, eyeing the splotchy redness where metal met flesh that had begun to spiderweb up and out following the paths of his veins. Smeech’s chop shop didn’t exactly have the best record for cleanliness and given how thin the man was, and the chest augments, Silco could surmise the state of his health well enough; Grey-touched, like most his age from the lower levels. It twisted the bones in the womb and strangled grown men from the inside out. He took the man’s hand in his and turned it over, pressing two fingers over his wrist to feel his pulse. Surprisingly strong. Good, maybe he could survive. Dark blue veins evident beneath his skin were too deep or two feathery for his needle, the only he could manage was the back of the man’s hand.
Tracing the shimmer as it spread through his blood was even swifter than watching the infection spread; it turned blue blood to purple, sparking beneath the skin and making muscles contract and loosen involuntarily. There was half a vial left. The Doctor would have given him all of it, burnt out the sickness, the rejection, and half his mind in one go. If he was right on who the young man was, his mind would need to be spared. The body in front of him undulated, not quite convulsing as the shimmer took hold but moving erratically nonetheless, weakly, and he let out a breathy moan. Silco’s mouth pressed into a firm line and he shook his head. Watching him was pointless.
His chair scraped loudly back as he stood, leaving the vial and syringe on the bedside table. Sevika waited in the hall. “Set a guard, keep an eye on him, if he gets worse give him another,” he said, “If he wakes up, get me.”
She nodded her understanding but still asked the question that all in the building who’d now heard of this were wondering, “Why him?”
Silco huffed and shook his head. “It would serve everyone well to read the newspaper on occasion. That’s the man who designed the HexGates, and he’ll owe me his life,” he said, “There’s value in that.”
After settling once again in his office, Silco found he couldn’t focus enough to get any work done, not even after his daily injection that had the side effect of dulling his emotions enough to be able to focus on menial paperwork and reports for a few hours. His mind kept straying back to the man in bed down the hall; in his old room, the one he used to share, before he’d built himself a better apartment above. Before… everything. He’d laid in that bed wracked with a fever of his own making too, for far less virtuous reasons. At least then he’d had someone to comfort him. Now he knew all too well what it was like to be permanently alone, but at least he was home, in Zaun, in the Lanes, not far up above under the blistering sun surrounded by Piltover’s smothering perfection. Lingering on the past would serve no use. Silco poured himself a drink.
The man did not wake quickly, no one came to fetch Silco, nor asked for more shimmer, and after two days his curiosity got the better of him and he stepped past the bored underling charged with babysitting to see for himself how the patient was fairing. Someone had found him a blanket which was now pulled up to his waist while he slept in what looked like peace. Around his wounds the redness looked like one would expect a surgical site to be, not inflamed, just angry to have been disturbed, and he no longer shone with sweat. In a hospital they’d have given him fluids in a syringe to make up for what he’d lost, but they had no such luxury here and he would simply have to thirst until he woke. The shimmer was gone, the needle left behind, and Silco snorted derisively. Ah yes, the downsides of a defendant workforce.
Two more days passed before Sevika leaned in his door and said their ‘guest’ was awake. Silco tried not to look too interested and waved her away to finish the report he’d been reading before curiosity got the better of him. The man was sitting up, slumped over and examining his metal leg, folding and extending it from the knee and making considering little noises while fiddling with some adjustment in the back of the joint. Silco leaned against the doorframe and waited to be noticed. One could learn a lot in observation. The man extended his leg fully and glared at it with unrivaled intensity before the articulated foot slowly pointed it’s toes. He grinned crookedly, excitement taking hold, and swung his legs over the side of the bed, clearly about to try standing before Silco cut in.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said sharply, watching the other man’s eyes go wide as he scrambled back onto the bed in nearly comical effect. Still, he’d meant to startle, not terrify, and by the color-drained look on the man’s face he’d done the latter.
”Where am I?”
”Really, that wasn’t your first thought upon waking up?” Silco asked, looking around them, “Not exactly the Wave View is it? Not that I’d know, I don’t think they’d let me in.”
”Well, I wouldn’t know either,” he replied warily, “It’s two hundred gold hexes a night.”
”And what does a leg like that cost, six?” Silco guessed.
”Four hundred, for the surgery. I made the leg.”
”I figured. Quite the entrepreneur aren’t you, rising so high out of the fissures,” Silco replied, ”I respect that in a man.”
”…Thanks,” he said confusedly, “How did you know-“
”I guessed at what your augments are meant to fix, it’s not hard when you’ve seen it a thousand times,” Silco replied, then paused, “I fear I’ve lost my manners. My name-“
”I know who you are,” the man said darkly, “You’re the Eye of Zaun.”
”Bit of a mouthful, not what I go by in polite conversation, but sure,” Silco replied snidely, “And since we’re not falling on pretenses here, you’re Viktor, founder of HexTech.”
“Co-Founder,” Viktor replied.
”Hm, yes, but the only one I find to be interesting,” Silco replied, “More so since you chose to descend from the fine halls of the illustrious Academy to have back-alley surgery from Smeech’s choppers.”
Viktor pulled his metal leg up to his chest, resting his chin on it, and a look of confusion passed over his face like something did not compute. A lack of pain, or sensation. Making metal move was an art, no one had yet been able to make it feel. “All Piltover Med Center offered was an amputation and a chair, and I… can’t.”
”City of Progress,” Silco drolled, and Viktor snorted.
”Yeah, something like that.”
”Does anyone know you’re here, or are they searching for you up there?” Silco asked, glancing skyward.
Viktor shrugged. “My partner knows what I’m doing, he’s probably worried sick. No one else,” he said, then realised what he’d admitted and cringed, pulling a face. Silco couldn’t help but laugh, which wasn’t at all comforting in this context.
Silco grabbed the rickety chair from its place at the wall and turned it so he could sit, crossing his legs and watching Viktor. The steady thump of bass from music below and occasional spike of raucous laughter that made Viktor flinch were all that filled the air around them. “You’re not my prisoner, Viktor, you may leave when you wish but that leg shouldn’t be taking your weight yet, nor should you go wandering about in your underwear looking for a lift,” he said, lips twisting in an almost-smile, “You will be fed, and cared for, until you can be escorted to the bridge - which is better than Smeech’s men would have done; I’m surprised they even admitted their fuckup rather than just throwing your body in the Pilt.”
”Oh, so they didn’t just… sell me out?” Viktor asked, confused and still not quite believing that the illustrious Eye of Zaun was having a quiet chat and offering him an out.
“No,” Silco replied, shaking his head, “They figured I could fix you, or my doctor could or, perhaps more accurately, they wanted a Piltie to die on my territory so I took the hit from the Enforcers. Luckily for us both, you responded well to a medicinal strain of shimmer. I would suggest you take more, and take it with you when you go, it’ll help integrate your new parts.”
Viktor narrowed his eyes at him. “Why are you being so nice to me?” He asked warily
”I am from the fissures too, boy,” he said, “Escaped without much lingering effect, this-“ he gestured to his face, “-came later. I see the grey-touched every day and think there but for Janna’s grace go I. It’s almost enough to make a man believe in a higher power when all your peers coughed their lungs out a decade ago. Wherever we rise, wherever we go, we are still sons of Zaun.”
Nodding slowly, Viktor mulled over his answer but looked not entirely convinced. “So I’m to believe it’s just, what, empathy?”
”I think you know enough of me to know that is not the case.”
”Yeah, that’s my point. What does hospitality and an escort to the bridge, and presumably a pair of trousers, cost me?” Viktor asked, crossing his arms over his narrow chest.
”A meeting with Councilor Talis,” Silco replied, “I’m sure that won’t be so difficult for you to manage.”
”To discuss what, exactly?”
”Equity,” Silco said simply, “As well as a meeting with you, in better circumstances.”
”Why me?” Viktor said, forehead scrunched in confusion.
”To discuss whatever comes to mind,” Silco replied, “You’re a smart man, I’m sure you can find an interesting topic or two.”
His real reasoning would remain his own, and he thought about it walking away from what he’d begun to think of as the guest room, to his office, through work, to bed. Viktor had startled at his presence, but not his face, had looked him in the eyes as he spoke and never flinched. Sevika rarely even managed that and they’d been friends since before. He was a truly singular young man, and a part of Silco wished he hadn’t been so quick to promise he could leave.