War Dance

TWO: XAYNE - 1

Everyone else is getting someone to type up their own stories to add to this account of how it all went down. I, for my sins, am a bit of a narcissist, so bugger it. You get the unfiltered account of my view of the apocalypse.

Anyone who has read my diary-like accounts of how I ended up working at Dirty Work will know how much I like to use actual words. I could use pictures and mediaglyphs, but I'm a neo-romantic at heart, silicon everywhere except the thing that pumps the blood; otherwise known as a mess. Still, can't blame a guy for trying, can you?

This part of the account of what went on during those times sees the whole thing starts where most of my involvement with this kind of shit usually starts; at work.

I used to run the bar, stock the drinks, occasionally head the music for the girls. Once I ran the music for the guys, but these were strange times. There was a feeling in the air that something was coming, and it wasn't just another week of solid rain. Women rarely came in through our doors, and the gay guys hid away. Our main clientele at that point was straight dudes trying to prove they were ready to face whatever was on the horizon, and that meant being in the most masculine place they could find which didn't require them to prove themselves. A strip club serves that purpose well in this day and age.

I wish I could tell you that I remember that night perfectly. You read some stories and they seem to know every little detail down to a thumb print on a bit of chrome that reminded them of the way the wind blew, and how it was some kind of omen for what was to come. I wish I could tell you that I remember everything, down to the eye colour of every guy that walked in the door, whether they had zoom lenses behind their irises, the lot. I wish I could tell you I remember it so well that I knew who won the HyperGP that day. But I don't. I don't because it was a normal day, and normal days are like kars passing on the highway. You acknowledge they're there as the draw up alongside and then they're just one in a thousand identical hunks of metal riding through to the end.

That day, when it started, I was making sure we were OK downstairs, where we kept a decent supply of weapons just in case someone decided to get smart. We'd got some enemies, the place had gone up before, and if there's ever a siege, you want to know you're stocked up and armed to the teeth. Dirty Work had been caught napping once, and we decided when we rebuilt that lightning wouldn't strike twice. Thankfully for us, everything was in decent supply. We'd just received a crate of canisters for the guns, and I'd been checking them over. You get a dud every now and then, just something that happens off the production line, and when you're under fire and just reloaded in a tight spot you don't want to spend ten seconds wondering why the damn thing isn't firing.

I didn't hear Ashrore coming down the stairs. Whoever was on deck that day was busy blasting music to check all the systems were working. Never stopped something having a glitch halfway through, but at least they'd done everything reasonable beforehand to prevent it. Not, as I reiterate, that it stopped anyone from complaining and asking for money back. We always told them to jog on.

Ashrore put a hand on my shoulder and I jumped about a mile into the air. 'Sssssorry,' she said. 'Didn't mean to sssscare you.'

I snorted out a half chuckle. 'Just be thankful I didn't have one of these loaded and ready to go.'

'I would've been more careful.'

'You've never been one to be careful.'

'True that.'

'What's up?'

'Bosssss wantssss ussss.'

'Now?'

'Now.'

I looked at the racks of guns I'd just been inspecting. They were all named, categorised, stocked up and looking deadlier than ever. I'd even been tempted to start polishing them. I don't know if there's any psychological ploy involved with someone being confronted with a gleaming gunbarrel instead of a rusted hunk of iron, but what was the harm? Might get some light bouncing off it into their eyes, distract them a bit and give you half a tenth of a second. Or it could be complete bollocks, but who was going to do the hard grafting of the research paper for it?

I picked up a small firearm, an XF-58 Alpha, my personal favourite. Looked round at Ashrore. 'I'm going to need this, aren't I?'

'Probably.'

'Remind me what your personal preference is, again?'

'I like me a good 48. Never failed me yet.'

I worked along the rail, took one off the rack and passed it across to her. She dug into a box of canisters and took out a few filled with red liquid. Red death, easy enough to remember even for a pacifist. She passed some to me. I slotted one in, holstered it. When I got upstairs, I grabbed my jacket from one of the back rooms and slipped the spare canisters into a pocket.

Dirty Work isn't exactly reputable. Even in these enlightened days of sexual freedom, when the sex industry funds the entire planet of Kalvulseah, a strip club is still what it has been for millenia. It's still filled with sleaze, drink, drugs, and never a place to take your grandma for a fun time out. Still, as we headed to the boss's office, I took the time to breathe it all in nice and deep. Even though it was only a year or so redone after Red Rose had taken it to ground level, it felt like home. Maybe that was the people. Maybe it was that I owed it my life. I'd done my fair share of getting shot at and slashed at and dragged around behind kars on the highways, but at the end of the day, my job was to keep people coming in and parting with their money. Everything else, theoretically, was a side-hustle for the man in charge.

So the colour of the paint, the way the pink lighting made Ashrore's tail look like it was blushing as she walked all three legs ahead of me, the artwork on the walls; that was what I remember most from those seconds just before the world went dark for a final time. Just before the guard (a new guy, still Kakr, never found out his name) opened the door to the boss's office, that's what I tried to hold in my mind.

The boss, the big man, Grasslea, sat behind his sturdy desk. A great painting made with actual paint and canvas, hung behind him in a golden frame, depicting some ye olde nymphs frolicking in a stream. Sat on the other side of the desk, back to us, were two girls in jackets. When the boss called us closer, we saw that they had Red Rose insignias on their jackets.

'Ashrore. Xayne. Meet these two interesting ladies. Ambassadors for Carea Euphero from our friends at Red Rose. They claim they come in peace, and have come to set up a meeting between ourselves and their organisation. Have a seat and they'll fill you in on the details.'

I swallowed hard.

The end was here.