Wrong Turn

Occupational Hazards - Carver's POV

In the night, the city came alive.

Thousands upon thousands of lights illuminated the buildings and streets, turning the city into a gleaming gem with thousands of shadows. The streets were filled with people, a riot of noise and color and motion.

Ether-powered trams ran noisily through the streets and horseless carriages trundled across the aged cobblestones, carrying aristocrats dressed in the latest fashion to their night parties, their faces hidden behind stylish masks. Above, small flying kayaks drifted above the streets, unable to rise higher than the buildings. A veritable sea of red and blue lanterns floating above the buildings gave the district a cozy air.

Carver watched all of this from a dark, damp alley between two warehouses, keeping lookout while several of his men worked to attach complex looking devices to the side of the larger warehouse, which if they were right, contained medical supplies.

Silently, he struggled to keep his posture straight, to hold back the building need to chase something and pin it down, to be finger deep in its warm, wet chest. His heartbeat, normally steady, was now almost erratic, blood rushing through his veins with painful pleasure.

He bit down hard on his lip, sharp, barely elongated canines bringing the taste of blood as he struggled to keep his wildly firing instincts under control, chemicals running rampart through his blood.

By the Abyss, Carver, you're on a job. You can't do your part if you go on a bloody spree.

"You okay, Carver?" One of his men gave him a worried look, and Carver brutally suppressed a shudder.

"I'm fine." He growled in answer. "You get those explosives up yet? Wouldn't want a Patroller to walk in on us right now. Feeling buck naked."

"It's kind of a sensitive thing, setting off Poppers. Wouldn't want to blow off an arm." Fain growled from where she crouched before the wall, adjusting the bombs. She had massive a pair of golden goggles with ornate parts and multiple lenses pushed up her forehead, into her hair.

"Losing limbs is an occupational hazard." Carver quipped, and some of the Breakers watching her setup chuckled.

"Oh, keep laughing." Fain grumbled under her breath. "We'll see how funny it is when doc is trying to sew you back together."

"I'd rather have Dale replace my parts if I get blown up. If he does half as good a job as his own arm, its twice as good as any doc can boast." A Breaker commented. "Plus, the ladies love those kinds of scars."

Another round of laughs.

"Why aren't we going through the backdoor, boss? Even locked, would be much easier than this." One of the younger Breakers noted, raising his gloved hand like a schoolchild. Trip, the crew called him, for his nervous walk. His father would murder Carver if he knew he'd allowed the kid to join their excursion.

His father being the captain.

He'd wanted to refuse, really, but he somehow found himself saying 'yes' instead, and now... here they were. He'd do his best to protect the boy, but he wasn't sure how well he could hold to that promise with the songs of chaos playing in the back of his head. He was likely to lose it at the first sign of combat.

"Well, you see, young Trip... we're going to be robbing this bloody city best we can. To do that without getting caught, we'll need a big, loud distraction." Carver explained.

"Doesn't distraction mean you bomb somewhere other than the spot you're robbing?" The boy scratched his head, an uncertain expression crossing his face. Smart kid.

"It does, which is why I sent Fitz and some other lads to hit several spots across the city. The bank included, though we're not taking the cash. Don't want to piss off the entire city, just some of it." Carver explained, keeping an eye on a patroller that seemed awfully suspicious of their dark alley for no reason, pushing through the crowds towards their direction.

"When the bombs all go off, the city guard won't know what hit them." He added.

"Seems too complicated for a snatch-and-run." Another breaker spat on the cobblestone, startling an ugly gutter-rat that had been making a valiant attempt to sneak up on her.

Carver grunted noncommittally. They didn't need to know the whole robbery was more or less a distraction to kidnap their client up at the docks. The fewer people knew, the better, the captain had insisted.

He found it hard to actually care. Most of the crew was in the mercenary business for the money, some for the companionship of what was probably their only family and the occasional oddball hanging around for the chance to travel the world.

Carver was on the crew for the thrill of danger, the visceral terror of a battle followed by the inevitable joy of a successful hunt.

He shook away the maddening, chaotic impulses. Damn instincts.

"Done." Fain shoved to her feet, stepping back to the opposite wall. "Might want to step back."

"Don't tell me you've already triggered it." Carver shot to her side, half hoping, even as he saw the clockwork mechanisms under the explosive's housing turning.

"Gave all the trigger mechanisms to Fitz." Fain responded with a poorly hidden grin, already pulling on her heavy-duty gas mask. "The only command it's got is 'now'."

"Shit, you did that on purpose. MASKS ON!"

Carver swore half-heartedly, wishing Fain was less of a mad hatter. He and the Breakers scrambled to fit on the masks hanging around their necks or on their belts.

The explosion was not as loud as he'd feared, but the flash of light was quite literally blinding, even with his eyelids squeezed shut and an arm flung over his face. Any poor sap who had been staring right at it would have to learn to live without eyes.

Panicked screams rose across the block like an orchestra, even as thick, white smoke began churning from the gaping hole in the side of the warehouse, filling the alley and quickly pouring out into the street.

The Patroller that had been approaching broke into a run, tearing into the alley to find a group of masked robbers slipping into a breach in the factory wall.

"HEY!" he yelled, coughing as he pulled his ether-charged baton free. White lightning sparked across its surface, powerful enough to put down a grown man. "YOU CAN'T–"

The words were cut off as Carver struck from the shadows, chopping with the side of an open palm at the spot where the neck met the skull. The man dropped to the ground like a lifeless bag of sand, the baton dropping to the ground where it clicked off.

He grabbed the baton as a keepsake and ran hurriedly to the breach in the wall the others had disappeared to. He paused before he slipped into the darkness of the building, hearing the loud, echoing booms as several other explosions went off around the city.

"Time to party." He grinned, slipping inside to join his merry band of mad men.