Chapter 4: Rebel Scum (Patreon)

“Hello?” Smartass said into the dark of the abandoned building written on the crumpled note she held in her hand. “Anybody here?”

There wasn’t much in the room aside from some old crates that smelled of mildew, and a faint flickering light from the docks, that made all the shadows seem to come alive, following her around. Occasionally a breeze would roll in and the giant meathooks hanging from the ceiling would ring against each other, creating a gloomy music.

Smartass straightened her shoulders, and assumed the attitude Jeb would have.

Alright, mean and jaded. Smartass passed her hand over her face, fixing a scowl onto it.These creepy meathooks bore me with their…creepiness. Yeah. I’m tough as nails and stuff. Not scared at all.

Being scared was a completely new sensation and she DID NOT like it. She assumed acting like Jeb did when he was scared would help, but for some reason she couldn’t manage to figure out how he turned it off. The fear just wormed her way into her stomach and lived there, rent free, as Jeb would say.

It didn’t escape her notice that if she were truly copying Jeb, she would have ignored the letter. Pftt. Jeb just doesn’t know what’s best for him sometimes. He’s not as experienced and wise as me, after all. When people offer help you take it, duh.

“Hello? We got this letter.” She held the crumpled letter above her head.

“Something about helping Jeb out? He really needs some help, and if you could get the bomb out of his Impact, that would be great?”

Maybe I got the wrong abandoned meat processing plant? Smartass frowned, holding the letter up into the wavering lamplight from outside, just barely bright enough to make the white sheet of paper legible.

Nope, pretty sure I got the right place.

When she lowered the letter again, there was someone in front of her. A giant bird, looking down at her with it’s oversized beak that oculd snip her in half as surely as a pair of shears.

Smartass let out an unintentional yip as she leapt back from the kitri, hands raised in a traditional fairy-fu chopping stance.

“Peace, fairy. I have no ill will towards you or your owner.”

Owner!?Smartass spluttered for a moment before she began the longprocess of explaining to this ignoramus  about power dynamics and in light of that, exactly who owned who, nearly missing the continuation of his speech.

“The bomb in Jebediah’s Impact is well within our means to remove, little fairy.”

“Oh, good. Because if he doesn’t get that taken care of soon -” Smartass made an exploding sound while expanding her hands apart. “The whole city could be wiped off the face of Pharos. Maybe worse. It’s really stressing me out.”

The kitri’s breath hitched for a moment.

“Yes…we are aware of the urgency.”

“Phew. So you guys will get it plucked out tonight then?”

“We count among our number some of the most powerful healers and agents of divine miracles. Piwaki Yiki and Kiyaku Uapi, to name a few. While it may be within our means, our assistance is not without cost.” The kitri rubbed his leather bird-fingers together, the universal symbol of money. “It is a rather expensive proposition you ask of us, and we will need some manner of recompense.”

“I didn’t wanna do this, but you leave me no choice,” Smartass said, reaching into her pocket and brandishing her secret weapon.

The Kitri’s neck went stiff.

The laffy-taffy she’d saved from the vending machine raided a week prior slowly sagged in front of the Kitri’s perplexed expression.

“This. Is a laffy taffy. Basically the most intense sugar rush you can legally acquire. It makes snorting pollen off a strippers genitals feel as boring as Sunday mass.” she said, stroking the bright red packaging lovingly. It’s breaking my heart to part with you, dear laffy taffy, but to keep Jeb, and more importantly, myself, alive, I need to make some sacrifices. I’ll always remember your scent.

“We don’t take payment in candy.” The kitri said, his tone flat.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Smartass said, a wave of relief flooding her. The relief was so overwhelming that it shattered her week of self-control and she devoured the laffy taffy on the spot.

“So whaddya want?” She said around the wad of chewy sugar in her mouth. “Blood, babies?”

“The emperor is a fraud.” The kitri said, his neck stiff with anger. “He has usurped his position from his the true emperor during the battle of Garenth Falls, falsely claiming his death and imprisoning him without cause in the deepest dungeon in all of Mestikos, hidden away from the world under lock and key, while he treats the administration of the empire like a child’s game.”

The kitri went on a long diatribe about how poory the current emperor was bungling every aspect of governance, which went straight over Smartass’s head.

I’m big enough to admit it.

And he ended the tirade with a note about his sister, who was apparently a Damsel kept as a power-boosting trophy by the despicable cretin.

“Uh huh, uh huh,” Smartass said, nodding along with the explanation while the kitri exhausted his avalanche of vitriol. Once he had finally settled down, she adopted Jeb’s Resting Bastard Face and asked the obvious question:

“And whyshould I care?” None of it was more important than a laffy taffy, after all.

Turns out, a Kitri splutter of indignation is more of a ‘honking’ type situation.

Good to know,Smartass thought, taking another bite of sinfully sweet and sour chew.

“You should care becausewe’re all children of the empire, it’s our responsibility to make sure it carries on for our children, and our children’s children.”

“Fairy.” Smartass said, poking herself in the chest with her thumb.

“Is there…Is there someone else I could speak to? I understand that Jebediah felt the need for secrecy when he sent you, but this conversation is getting –“

“Nope, Jeb threw your letter away after calling it ‘spam mail’, so I don’t think he’s coming. I came here by myself!”

“What’s ‘Spam Mail’?” the kitri asked.

“I don’t…know.”

The kitri shook his head. “You said Jebediah isn’t coming?”

“Smartass!” A distant voice echoed across the sky.

“Not for you, anyway,” She said with a shrug.

“Then take this,” the kitri said, passing her a flat disc of metal that seemed to be grown from bismuth. “If you bring it into the emperor’s palace and leave it in the east wing, you will have saved the true emperor of Mestikos, and earned Jeb’s salvation.”

“Neat.” Smartass said, hefting it over her shoulder. That sounded like a really simple deal.

“Waaait a minute,” Smartass said, looking back up at the bird with some of her newfound ‘critical thinking’ skills. “This isn’t gonna blow up on me, is it?”

“Of course not. It is a bomb, to be sure, but all it does is release a magnified pulse of Myst collected from the great escape artist Kiwifui. We’ve discovered that the true emperor is held against his will below the East wing. That spell-bomb will unlock every door, loosen every restraint, weaken every binding enchantment in a two-block radius. The true emperor is strong, and should have no trouble securing his own freedom afterwards.

“It’s notgonna kill anyone?”

“No.”

Phoo.Smartass felt a complex wave of weird feelings. Normally she would have justbeen disappointed it wasn’t going to blow up, but mixed in there was a…heavy sigh/relaxation feeling. Something that put her at ease, because the bomb wasn’t going to blow up on her.

And a nagging sensation that Jeb was going to yell at her for something. Thatemotion felt like little biters gnawing at her guts, and she didn’t like it.

So many weird feelings all at once!

Smartass did what had worked with the feelings so well up until recently: She ignored them.

“Smartass!” She heard Jeb’s voice calling again, this time closer. The achy feeling in her gut redoubled, and suddenly she wanted to hide all of this from Jeb at any cost if it would make that achy feeling in her stomach go away.

“Now let me show you how to use –“

“It’s fine, Igottogobye!” Smartass turned and ran, tucking the heavy disk under her arm

“Spin the dial to set the timer!” The kitri yelled after her. “Only when –“

“Jeez, I got it,” She muttered as the fancily dressed bird’s voice faded into the distance. Acting like she’d never handled a dial before.

When was the last time I handled a dial, anyway? Hmm…well, it’s probably fine.

Smartass tried to shove the bismuth disk in her oversized front pocket as she entered the alleyway, but there was simply too much candy in there to fit it.

“Smartass, come out here right now!”

“Eep!” Jeb sounded mad.

In an act of unconditional love and pure sacrifice, and definitely not because she was terrified of getting caught, Smartass turned her candy pocket inside out, dumping her precious sweets into the street before shoving the disk into the place they had occupied, then packing a pitiful handful of hard candies around it to hide it’s shape.

Farewell, she thought, eyes brimming with tears as she left her innocence behind, in the shape of a pile of candy the size of a man’s head. She dried her face then headed towards the sounds of Jeb’s voice.

***Jeb***

Jeb gave up the slums as a possible hiding place, then went to where Borg was searching, walking along the street beside the docks, looking for the errant fairy.

“Smartass!” Jeb’s voice rang through the evening air…only Jeb didn’t scream.

“Why are you doing that?” Jeb asked, landing on the street behind Borg.

“I figured using your voice would make Smartass more likely to respond.” Borg responded, unphased by Jeb’s sudden arrival.

I guess I can see that, but…

“Why are you wearing my clothes and walking like me?”

Borg had adopted the hitching step that Jeb carried as he trudged down the street, calling Smartass’s name in Jeb’s voice.

Borg looked down at the homespun shirt he was wearing and shrugged. “Research?” he offered.

“You’re reminding me of Lando Calrissian. Don’t do that.”

“You’ve put it in terms I can understand, thank you.”  Borg loosened up his leg and began walking normally, continuing to call for Smartass with Jeb’s voice.

Jeb’s eyes narrowed in thought. I think I’m gonna use Borg as a guinea pig for new spells. He had to fine tune some spells that weren’t necessarily force and heat, and the zombot seemed like an excellent target.

“Young master, please wait!” A kitri cried, chasing a rather well-dressed bird-person through the streets, flinching away from the puddles and the occasional land mine dropped by the city’s beasts of burden.

Jeb and the ‘young master’ shared a glance before the kitri put his head down, covering his features with a silk hood.

What the hell is that kid doing out here? Jeb wondered. You don’t get a lot of rich kids at the docks. Matter of fact, you don’t get a lot of kitri at the docks at all, it was mostly those brightly colored gecko people, who had somewhat webbed feet and enjoyed the moisture close to the ocean.

Hmm…

Jeb fixed his head back on straight as he hand Borg kept looking for Smartass. A few minutes later, they came across the fairy losing at dice against children…badly.

“NOOO!” She shrieked, clutching her head as she lost another piece of candy to the up-and-coming confidence-child.

“Yo, Smartass.” Jeb said, tapping her shoulder.

“AIII!” Smartass gave a shriek and raised her hands in a chopping motion.

“You startled me! How could you be so cruel!? My heart!”

Jeb decided to cut to the chase.

“Smartass, were you meeting with rebels?”

“Whaaaat?” Smartass’s eyes drifted away from him as she skirted the line of telling a lie. “He never said he was a rebel.”

“Lesson one about rebels,” Jeb said, holding up a finger. “In real life, they never call themselves rebels.”

Jeb held up another finger. “Lesson two. Always demand payment up front from rebels. Their promises for payment are always predicated on the event that they win their insane gamble, which is just bad business.”

“Lesson three:” Jeb said, ticking off another finger “rebels are –“

“Always the good guys.” Borg said.

“Nnnooo.” Jeb said, eyes sliding towards Borg, who looked genuinely baffled. “Making the good guys the underdogs is a plot device to maintain tension. In the real world, true good guys are…rare, and even less likely to compete over the throne. More often it’s two opposing factions of bad guys.”

“So Amanda and Brett are bad guys?” Borg asked.

“They’ve got a serious hedonist streak, so I can see how they might corrupt easily, but it’ll be their policies that define whether or not they – Goddamnit, I didn’t come here with the intention of talking politics with you!”

“How did you know?” Smartass asked quietly.

“Because the letter I threw in the corner of the room was gone.” Jeb responded, kneeling down into the filthy street to be closer to eye-level with the fairy.

“Smartass, the reason I tossed the letter aside was because it had no specific details about my situation, nor was the messenger able to risk being caught. That implies the party who sent the letter didn’t know enough to be specific, nor did they have enough power to move freely through the city. Ergo, someone who didn’t actuallyhave the power to help me, like a rebel. There could have been other explanations, but rebel was high up there on my list.”

“But he said they could remove the bomb from you!” Smartass whined.

“Did you mention the bomb first?” Jeb asked.

Smartass’s gaze slid away from his.

“I feel like a stupid fart,” she said, deflating.

“Everyone feels like a stupid fart…” Jeb thought back to high school. “Eventually.”

“Even you?” She said, looking up at him with watering eyes.

Jeb sighed, offering Smartass his hand. “Let me tell you about the three girls I had crushes on in high school and the Valentines Day I wish I could take back.”

***Smartass***

Yess, I have successfully distracted Jeb from asking any more nosy questions, Smartass thought, hiding her grin in her sleeve as she half-listened to Jeb’s story about ‘peacocking’ and shamelessly handing out cheap candy to girls he liked when he already had a girlfriend, with every intention of making them into a harem.

It’s a good thing those people aren’t rebels, because they’re totally trying to free the real emperor, so that makes them not rebels, like, by default. Whatever the inverse of rebels are.

And THAT means they really can help Jeb remove that bomb!

I am so freakin’ smart.

***Jeb***

“So anyway, I used that line, and I didn’t really think about how cringy it really was until I read that exact same combination of words on a woman’s myspace page about her boyfriend trying to pressure her into sex, and once I had an objective view of it, I realized how shallow and manipulative I really was. Nowadays I try to be…more nuanced when I manipulate people.”

Jeb shuddered in remembered disgust at his own antics.

“What’s Myspace?” Borg asked.

“Like Facebook, but less successful. This was in two thousand and nine, so Myspace was still a thing,” Jeb clarified as they marched up the stairs of their hotel and into the hallway that led to their hotel room.

“I see.”

The party of three came to a halt when they spotted a Melas staring into their room. The man was just staring, standing still, as he gawked through the open door, that neither Jeb nor Borg had left open.

Okay…That’s odd,Jeb thought, spinning up some Myst as a proto-shield, just in case. Better safe than shrapnel.

“Hey there. Something wrong with our room?” Jeb asked as they approached.

“This is your room?” The melas asked, turning to Jeb. No horrifying disfigurement or empty eye sockets, so far so good.

“Yes?”

“I think you might have a problem,” The melas said, brushing past them as he left.

Jeb carefully peeked his head around the doorframe, not sure of what to expect: Best case scenario was a prank, or a kid stole his furniture. Worst case scenario was a bunch of pissed-off Reapers or an eldritch horror.

With that in mind, Jeb was surprised when he spotted the two piles of ash around the blue scroll radiating ominous vibes.

One pile had a small knife and a set of rough-sewn clothes sized for a small man or an underfed teen.

The other pile had expensive Kitri clothes, and a golden medallion that identified a imperial valet.

“Ssssssssshit,” Jeb cursed, edging his way into the room, taking the long way around the blue scroll rather than stepping over it.

“Nobody touch the scroll, I’ve got a hunch it disintegrates people.”

“Roger.” Borg said.

“It seems fine,” Smartass said, picking it up and inspecting the ominous object.

Jeb’s heart stopped for an instant before he swatted it out of her hand. Neither of them disintegrated, so that was good, but Jeb still wanted to keep the scroll on the No-Touchies blacklist until he knew for sure what actually happened. Maybe it just wasn’t hungry at the moment.

“We’re in trouble,” Jeb said, running his hand through his hair. “Fuck my life.”

“Why’s that?” Borg asked.

“Because high-ranking Imperial Valets are usually the children of someone important getting experience in the world of politics, and it doesn’t look good when they turn to ash in your hotel room while you were out meeting with rebels.”

“Ah. Yes, I can see that.” Borg said, nodding. “You’re in deep shit.”

Thank you, Borg, for stating the obvious.

Smartass bit her lip. Felt bad about getting someone killed and causing trouble for Jeb, maybe?

Jeb scratched his head.

I need friends and I need to get ahead of this. They could run, which would make them look more guilty and inevitably see them chased out of the capital, or they could take a gamble. As long as the dead valet wasn’t too crazy important, he could get it swept under the rug by rubbing elbows with very important people.

Namely, Emperor Pikaku and Vresh Tekalis.

Jeb groaned, went over to the bag at the foot of his bed and started pulling out his writing supplies before drafting a couple letters on the nearby floor.

“Don’t touch the scroll!” Jeb shouted at Smartass, who was edging closer to the treated blue leather.

“Just wondering what skin this is made of. Do you think demon skin or eldritch abomination skin? It’s probably not human, unless there are blue humans somewhere I don’t know about?”

“Not interested.” Jeb said, pondering the best way to frame this as a failed attack by an unknown enemy without lying. A moment later, he dipped the pen in the ink and started writing.

To whom it may concern:

The blue scroll may disintegrate people. I regret to inform the state that the valet assigned to me is believed to be a pile of ash in the middle of my room, having touched the scroll out of curiosity, arriving at my room while I was not present.

I humbly request that the state send an expert in disposing of harmful artifacts of a potentially divine or eldritch nature.

Jeb tweaked the letter a few times in order to make himself sound as blameless as possible before he started working on his second letter.

-Dear Vresh.

How’s it going?

I’m fine too.

Say, how does the aristocracy avoid culpability for accidental dead people in your hotel room?

Jeb crumpled the letter up and flash-burned it in his fist with plasma, because it was absolutely terrible. This was the kind of thing that should probably be said in person.

Well, I do have three days before the meeting with the Emperor. I can visit her directly. Jeb rubbed his temples.

His reunion with Vresh was going to be nowhere near as good as he had been imagining it. He wasn’t going to ride in on a white horse and offer her the balm to her worldly problems in the form of his penis, before riding off again into the sunset with a tearful farewell.

Instead, he was going to drop a heaping pile of extra problems on her plate, and quite possibly involve her in a scandal.

Is that something I really wanna do to her?

Jeb’s eyes caught the crimson lipstick on the opened letter beside his pillowcase.

You know what? I am gonna do that to her, because that lipstick kiss-mark at the bottom was way too good of a hook to go unpunished.

“It doesn’t smell like human leather,” he heard Borg’s voice, and glanced up from his writing to see the cyborg with his nose less than an inch away from the rolled up piece of blue death, inhaling deeply. “You can tell because the balance of salts are way off. I’d actually guess eldritch, because demon skin has more sulfur in it. This smells faintly of ozone and void.”

Borg inhaled deeply and smacked his lips a bit, like some kind of wine connoisseur trying to roll the flavor around in his mouth.

“How many times do I have to tell you guys to STAY AWAY FROM THE SCROLL!?” Jeb shouted. It was like he’d been left in charge of a bunch of toddlers locked in a room with a sensitive explosive.