Dirty Work: Volume 1

Siala: Part 2 - 2

The inside of Harly's apartment was a complete mess. Empty boxes of fast food lay strewn everywhere, cans of drink half drunk on the side, dishes piled high in the sink. Shadows were thrown everywhere by the low lights, the only light at all in fact coming from a number of screens and projections in a corner in the main living area, which had been converted into a large workspace. The desk was cluttered with gadgets and devices of all various makes and models, including many I had never seen before. It looked more like a den or hideout for a resistance movement than someone's living place.

Harly removed his hood and I got a good look at him for the first time. He was in his mid forties, hair completely gone save for a few wisps on his crown. A scar ran down one cheek, and the other eye that I had not seen was covered by an eye-patch. He went to the main workspace, where he swept various items of clothing off the only sofa and bundled them up in his arms. 'Make yourselves at home,' he said roughly, moving through a door into the bedroom and dumping the clothes on the bed.

Siala and I sat down in silence, Rena going to say something before getting a harsh glance from her Androssian friend.

'You pick a very strange time to visit me, Siala,' Harly said coming back into the room, 'after all these long years of silence. Only when you need help do you decide to visit me and see what an old friend has been doing hidden away in the cold and the dark.'

Siala looked down, hair covering her face, finding the floor to be particularly interesting.

Harly went and sat down at his desk, waving away several projected screens and waving his hand over a Halo-Core in the wall to bring the dim lights on inside the apartment, which until that moment had been off. They took a second to turn on, flickering as if brushing off dust from a long period of slumber.

'So are you going to tell me what brings you here in the dead of night, dripping wet at my doorstep, after so many years?' he asked, attention focused on Siala and Rena.

'There's been an accident on the 1-17 Highway,' I said. He turned around to look at me, his single eye piercing and shaking, as if containing a hidden violence. 'Well, not an accident as such.'

'It never is an accident when people who work for the club are involved,' Harly said. 'So who were you shooting at?'

'Who was shooting at us, I think you'll find,' Rena said, speaking for the first time since being outside. 'And if we had known, we would have gone after them.'

'You never went after anyone in your life, you little flutter of feathers,' Harly remarked. 'You just sat on Siala's shoulder as the club mascot and shouted words of encouragement.'

Rena turned scarlet. 'Well, excuse me. Not my fault they don't make guns for us little ones. They're just too scared we'd slaughter them all in their sleep.'

Harly smiled ironically, 'Oh but of course. My apologies.'

The conversation lapsed into silence for a minute. Nobody would have called the silence comfortable, but it was perhaps the nearest to calm that I had been since the kars had swarmed behind us. It was eerie, and I remember my skin crawling as the silence dragged on.

Siala was the one that broke the quiet.

'So now you're a hacker,' she said. Harly turned his inquisitive eye to her, it seeming to scan her face, trying to download her brain somehow. Maybe it was my imagination, but I saw something shuddering under the eye patch.

'How harsh a term,' he said. 'A cybernetics expert would be my preferred title.'

'Either way you're breaking people's shit apart and making out with info for other people,' Rena called.

'I can't deny that I've done things like that in the past,' Harly said. 'And now you're doing nothing of note aside from getting shot at. The Dirty Work employees who got shot at, there was a nice crew of people. Whatever happened to Serbgae?'

'He got shot at,' I said simply. Harly nodded.

'Hardly surprising; I never did expect him to last for very long.'

Another silence ensued. Outside we heard the barking of a wild hyuntiger, a cry which was quickly cut short. In my mind's eye I could see the homeless, shrouded in a ragged cloak, slicing the creature's neck to be dragged into the dark and devoured at leisure.

'The club's been shot up,' I said. 'Around the same time as we were attacked. The boss told us to come here and keep out of sight.'

'A smart man,' Harly said. 'Always wondered why he never used all of his underhanded investments to expand that club; he could create an empire to rival Prosterothal itself.'

'The boss likes business,' I said, 'but he isn't a businessman. He enjoys the club too much, I think.'

'It has had the tendency in the past to get him into a great deal of trouble with those used to dealing with, and dealing out, trouble, however,' Harly remarked. 'As it seems to have done now. A direct attack on Dirty Work? Dear me, he's picked a very large fight this time, hasn't he?'

'A man by the name of Vayn Baron,' I said. 'Runs a gang known as Red Rose. A while ago they attacked me to try and get hold of a package, which is now locked up in Ochre Vaults in 24. I don't think they know it's there. They've tried to get it back several times, and we've shot holes in them at every turn. They've gotten desperate, so it would seem.'

'You think it was they who attacked us on the highway?' Siala asked.

I shrugged. 'It could have been, though I really have no idea. At this point I don't care. I just want orders from the boss as to what to do next.'

Siala nodded, numbing up once again.

'And to think,' Rena said, 'we only came here for a small holiday, visit the old sights, you know...'

'Was I included in your reminiscence?' Harly asked. Neither the Androssian nor the Harpi had anything to say to that.

Harly nodded and got up, walking into the kitchenette. I knew I should say something to ease the awkwardness between the four of us, but couldn't think of anything. There was past history at display in that apartment that I didn't want to get into. Their business was their business; their dirty work was their dirty work.

'Harly, we...'

'Shush, Rena,' Siala said. 'Now isn't the time to ask for forgiveness. We'll have bigger debts to pay before this is over.'

Rena nodded, leaning against Siala neck and folding her wings around herself, like someone pulling a shroud over their eyes. I was fairly sure that what I was seeing displayed by the little Harpi, unexpectedly, was shame.

'Your name is Xayne,' called Harly from the other room, 'right?'

'That's me,' I answered.

Harly was peering out of the window down into the street, the rain falling fast. 'You checked to make sure you weren't followed, right?'

'Right,' I answered again, feeling that knot in my stomach growing with the feeling of inevitability.

'Well you did a shit job of it,' he said, 'because there's about seven guys down there with hoodies and guns, and I think there are some emblems on the hoodies that look like flowers.'

You can never catch a break around here, I tell you.