Wired Bone: Chapter Four (Patreon)

Chapter Four

Gibson Heights, to the unprepared, was a nightmare that bordered on the Escher-esque.

The DeRose apartment was the only actual living space in their building’s thirty-fourth floor. Everything else had fallen apart or been turned into a business. Just outside Lucas’ door was a ramen shop, opposite to a thrift shop and next to a tattoo and piercing parlor. Everything else was uninhabitable like a foreign planet.

Lucas moved out and towards the stairs, rolling up the huge sleeves of his hoodie on the way so that they wouldn’t cover his hands and putting on the hood as he moved forward.

After going down two levels, he went through a doorway missing its door and ignored the threadbare used mattress in a corner as he walked through the hole in a wall and over a few planks, briefly going outside at several meters of height.

Experience suppressed vertigo, and he managed to go through without thinking about how little time he’d have to regret tripping if he did.

Once inside, he ignored the used syringes and vials discarded by the thirty-second floor’s outside entrance and made his way back down the stairs.

Lucas and Victoria lived on the southwestern building of the nine that formed Gibson Heights. By going through the bridge, he’d entered the western building, which had the bottom ten floors completely collapsed and unnavigable. Because of this, the western building was generally full of the more unsavory businesses and activities that you didn’t want to be easily found by the authorities, in the off chance that any actually came to the Heights.

Thanks to his hood, Lucas didn’t have to try particularly hard to avoid looking at the sex shops and brothels that occupied what had previously been apartments. He did have to go through a redpop den, though.

The thick clouds of genetically-modified opium smoke, a reddish tint of grey, made breathing a little difficult. Lucas had to hold his breath and rush through, receiving small bits of jeering from the usual morning crowd as he made his way to the entrance to the lower floor: a hole in the ground with a rope hanging over the edge.

Ignoring the rope, he took a small jump and dropped into a mass of trash bags full of rotting biological waste meant to be recycled at the indoor gardens.

A few bags burst from the impact, leaking rotting garbage all over the floor, but his boots were made waterproof and impenetrable by any manner of mysterious liquids that one might find walking through a modern city-state. He could walk on a biological weapon and only die from anywhere except his feet.

Eventually, with a little while and some more navigation of the type, he got to the twentieth floor—which had the most apartments in the building.

Stepping through a puddle of some mysterious oil and shaking off some unrecognizable horror that clung to his shoe, he knocked on a door and waited.

Silence reigned in the twentieth level.

Years ago, when Lucas and his mom started living at Gibson and he’d come here for the first time, he’d been somewhat nervous. These days, he just let his mind wander while he balanced on his feet, occasionally knocking again.

His mind wandered to that one article he’d read about the high-rises he lived in, the one that had brought attention to them for a hot two weeks a few years back.

The article had been written up by some up-and-coming journalist who’d found work with one of the more reality-minded pulp magazines that occupied Third York’s printing presses. It had detailed what Lucas had always taken for granted about his own residence.

Gibson Heights consisted of nine buildings, built in a square pattern, which had been designed to prioritize efficient use of the available space in a single block over the mental wellbeing of any of its prospective tenants.

Because of this, the building at the center of the block got no natural sunlight except from directly above it, the only gardens were either indoors or bits of overgrowth that burst through the concrete between buildings, and the outsides had been designed to be as hostile as humanly possible to homeless people and vermin.

There were half a dozen apartment “blocks” like this in Santo Ataúd, Lucas’ neighborhood.[1]

According to the history this journalist had dug up, they’d been built in response to rapid immigration as the walls were coming up, and upon being deemed “good enough” for a population of eight thousand six hundred and forty people[2] per “block”, then were promptly abandoned by the Councils for bigger and more important projects.

Naturally, this quickly led to decay of the infrastructure, and since the immigrants were already subjected to poverty, Gibson Heights became a hotbed for criminal activity through no fault of its own.

More than a few parts of the buildings had collapsed due to poor planning, which meant that hazardous workarounds had to be made while people were forced to live closer together and, as rent rose, invite even more people in to divide the costs.

As apartments were judged unfit to live in, they were not judged unfit to work in, which had led to quite a few become some sort of business of questionable legality and hygiene, including a single pharmacy that was kept from being raided through careful application of a shotgun to the kneecaps of anyone that tried any shit.

And as holes formed in the outer walls of the buildings, it occasionally happened or was made to happen that two buildings had holes opposite to each other, which were then connected through loose planks or the occasional improvised suspension bridge.

By the time Lucas was ten, the Heights were twenty years old, and living in them had become a sort of lifestyle of its own, to the point that there were some people who did not leave them for months or even years, even if it made them a bit mentally unstable.

The article had become wildly popular, especially with the accompanying pictures the journalist had taken that showed things Lucas saw every day. The general reaction had been of shock, disgust and empathy. More than a few people had cried that “something must be done”, or that “someone should do something”, only to turn around and offer no “something” or “someone” that could get any doing done.

And then someone had pointed out that Gibson Heights, and other high-rises in the area that had developed similarly, were basically proof of concept for arcologies — buildings designed to be essentially miniature cities. After all, if a bunch of immigrants with no resources could build a miniature city on accident, what was stopping the better-to-do members of respectable society from doing better?

The idea caught the fancy of a few cogs, and now that Lucas was twelve there were three arcologies in the better parts of the city. They all got tons natural light, water flowed freely for the people living inside, and they had people on payroll to clean it.

People started calling Santo Ataúd’s apartment blocks “prototype arcologies” or “proto-arcs” for short. A recent magazine article had called Gibson Heights and its like “the most important contribution to Third York’s architecture from the immigrant population”.

As he stood there, waiting, observing the humidity damage that surrounded the doorway like a halo, he considered the possibility that even if people recognize your contributions to city, state and culture, they will not always reward them.

It was an odd thought to consider for him.

He was interrupted from further introspection on the subject by the door opening, revealing a young man thinner but a good head taller than Lucas. His name was John Locke, and he was Lucas’ best friend.

Pale and blonde and blue-eyed, the only visible trait the two shared was a tendency to be covered in bruises of varying ages and colors from climbing things and scrapping, oftentimes against each other.

When John opened the door, he was wearing a shirt sized for someone quite a bit bigger than him, tied in a knot at the waist, and he was holding a bowl of cereal that had been soggy before nearly-expired milk was added to the equation.

Lucas noticed with some anger that there was a new bruise on the side of his jaw.

“Hey,” John greeted. “Headed for work?”

“Yeah,” said Lucas. “Wanna come with? I’ll split pay.”

John sniffed, tilting his head to the side. “The house today?”

“Yeah.”

“… alright.”

Lucas didn’t really understand why John pretended to think it over every time he asked him to come with. According to Crane, it was a matter of pride. No one had ever accused Lucas of having an excess of pride, which might have been why he struggled to understand it, but he performed dozens of ridiculous social rituals he didn’t understand every day anyways, so he just indulged his friend.

John stood aside to let Lucas pass and they walked further in. The Locke apartment was emptier and less lived-in than Lucas’ home, with nothing decorating the wall but humidity damage and nothing to sit on except plastic crates and a single stained beanbag.

The only clean thing in the living room was a mirror, laid on a table made from a repurposed door. It had white dust stuck in the corners.

They moved through quietly, making as little noise as possible. John laid the bowl on the table next to the mirror, careful not to spill, and they entered the room.

Posters of Buzzter Rabbit and Captain Bastion in various heroic poses decorated the walls. John’s dirty clothes sat on a chair, piled too high for anyone to sit, waiting for the next time Lucas stole them to clean them and return them. His mattress rested on four pallets, next to a heater they’d built with help from Moss.

“Your parents still sleeping?” Lucas asked, walking forward to lift the mattress, standing off to the side.

“Yeah,” said John, moving aside a pallet and revealing a small hole in the concrete floor.

“They were at the party?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm.”

John reached inside the hole and started pulling out things. Lucas listed them in his head as they came out, making sure nothing was had been taken.

Captain Bastion comics? Check.

Buzzter Rabbit comics? Check.

Stack of bills? Check.

Second stack of bills? Check.

Third stack of bills? Check.

Loaded gun? Check.

Extra magazine? Check.

Bag of loose extra ammo? Check.

Bundle of dope vials, held together by a rubber band? Check.

John brushed his arm free of grey concrete dust once everything was out.

“Leave the stash,” Lucas directed.

John nodded and put two of the money stacks, bag of ammo and the bundle of vials back in the hole. He bent the comics in half and stuck them in his back pocket, tossed the gun and extra magazine at Lucas’ feet and then put the pallet back in place.

Lucas dropped the mattress and picked up the gun, putting the mag and cash in one of his pockets and the gun down the back of his pants after checking the safety was on, hiding it with the bulk of his hoodie.

Once they were sure the stash was hidden, they walked out.

“Wanna say bye to—”

“No.”

“Okay.”

To leave the western building of the Heights, they climbed the rope back up to the redpop den, went back up the stairs until the improvised bridge to Lucas’ building, back down the stairs, they climbed down a mess of rubble through what used to be someone’s home (now housing only a torn teddy bear), through a suspension bridge into the southern building, past the gym to say hi to Grandpa Walt, and finally using the pulley system to get to ground level.

And then the day started its slow descent to being the worst day of Lucas’ life so far.

“Shit,” said John, who had a potty mouth.

Although Lucas agreed with John in this instance.

Sitting around the southern entrance were a collection of older boys and girls, more than a few visibly holding weapons. A few were smoking, either weed or tobacco, and pretending not to choke on the smoke. An empty beer bottle rested on the floor close by, and one halfway there was being passed around despite the early hour.

They all aged somewhere between seventeen and forty, though adults were in the minority and absent in maturity.

The leader, Carter Wilkes, smirked when he spotted them approaching. He was a black boy reaching the age of getting called a man by strangers, with a patchy beard starting to decorate his cheeks. He had piercings on his ears and nose that he’d gotten at the parlor near Lucas’ home, and a scar on his forehead from a knife fight he’d had near John’s apartment.

Through a combination of natural charisma, applied cruelty and owning a shotgun, he had formed a gang at a young age.

Now, he and his followers were pretty much the sole form of authority in Gibson Heights, handling matters such as security, business safety and other matters that gave excuses to say that it would be a shame if something happened to this or that home, business and/or family member.

“Hey!” he said, smiling upon seeing them “It’s my best buddies!”

Well, perhaps he wasn’t faking his cheer, Lucas reasoned. As Carter approached, sawed-off in hand, he considered that maybe the gang leader was truly happy to see them, knowing that they usually carried money on them.

“Hello,” he said, attempting diplomacy.

“That’s enough lip out of you, freak.”

Yeah, okay.

Instead of glaring more at Lucas, Carter chose to focus on John. “How’s it going, Johnny?”

“… fine,” John grumbled.

“Aw, no smile for me?”

“… no.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Johnny.”

Lucas sighed quietly.

He really didn’t get why Carter felt the need to do a whole procedure about mugging them. Sometimes it went on for almost an hour, and he got aggressive if Luke checked his watch, so he kind of had to just stand there looking into the distance, pretending to pay attention.

It was like school at home.

Luckily, that day Carter chose to be expedient, saying, “I’m going to need you to pay for emotional damages, Johnny.”

Relieved, Lucas reached into his pocket, pulled out the usual amount without removing the stack from his pocket so that Carter wouldn’t demand more, and put his hand forward.

Carter looked at Lucas out of the corner of his eye, then focused back on Johnny, saying, “I asked him.”

Lucas and John sighed, then the former gave the money to the latter, who offered it to Carter again.

The young adult took it with a smile. “Needed a loan again, huh? How much is that by now? Few thousand? Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll pay it back any day now.”

John grit his teeth and walked around Carter, with Lucas following without a word.

As they walked out, his voice called out, “Pleasure doing business with you, boys!”

The two friends walked out a short distance out of their home, which was enough for John to feel comfortable spitting out the word “Bastard!” through grit teeth.

Lucas patted John’s back, not knowing what he could say. Still, John seemed to appreciate the gesture, as he gave a small smile at Lucas.

The two bumped shoulders and strode forward. The day waited for no one.

0 * + * 0

The world outside of Gibson Heights wasn’t too different from inside it, as far as Lucas was concerned.

The proto-arcs and their surrounding architecture cast wide and long shadows over the ground, illuminating narrow streets and narrower sidewalks, the latter interrupted only by a few trees planted by Victoria DeRose’s generation of immigrants in an effort to liven up the area they were shoved into.

Through neglect and a surprising endurance to contaminated weather, the trees had grown large and their roots had broken through the concrete that boxed them in, displacing tiles and making the ground uneven.

The resulting cracks and valleys gathered odds and ends of human waste, such as cigarette butts, empty or broken lighters, random plastic junk, and filth of all varieties. Small puddles of rainwater from the previous night’s storm littered the streets still, their oily surfaces shimmering in technicolor under the day’s sunlight.

Even ignoring the proto-arcs, buildings in Santo Ataúd were pretty cluttered together with no gardens and little to no alleyways. Still, efforts had been made to make the place livable. Plants had been grown in vats or indoor gardens then transplanted to a pot and placed outside of a window or entrance.

Splatters of green and vibrant white, purple, blue and red that interrupted the grey of concrete.

In the night, when they would be harder to spot, the job would be taken by the neon signs that decorated most business fronts. Along with the orange streetlights, blue, purple and red glows dyed the streets and bounced off of the windows, creating a hazy atmosphere.

The stench of the city wasn’t too bad thanks to the air purifiers provided by the Council with every streetlight, though the purifiers were severely outdated and more than a few were broken. A soft breeze ran through the street as Lucas and John walked down it, warmer than the morning had been but fresh enough that John shuddered a bit.

“Want my hoodie?”

“I’m good.”

They went through a couple blocks before stopping at a newsstand. John investigated the drink selection and made small talk with Joel El Canillita while Lucas looked through the literature.

A while later, they resumed their walk with the former holding four glass bottles of lemon soda while Lucas read a new book while he moved, trusting John to stop him when they got to a street and guide him around potholes and people.

The book seemed promising. It was a fairly thick paperback piece story about the people working in a floating base for a warlord during the third world war. Lucas wasn’t usually one for historical fiction, but it had come with Joel El Canillita’s highest recommendation, and the man had bought Lucas his newest favorite hoodie during his last birthday.

So far, the book was fine. A little dense, but the prose was well executed and not too purple. It was a bit alarming that the dramatis personae was five pages long, though.

Supposedly, those flying bases had required a lot of manpower to manage.

Eventually, and with only a few things colliding with Lucas by stubbornly refusing to get out of his way, they exited the part of Santo Ataúd that had the buildings and reached the part that had the houses, vacant and occupied alike.

The houses were mostly distinct from each other, with a few having their own flair or creative architecture from those that designed their own homes. This was a section of El Ataúd that had the middle-class citizens, even if they were on the lower end of that middle class.

The House, nicknamed that way because everyone that cared about it lived in apartments or worse their entire lives, was a two-story piece of brick and cement with a small neglected garden around it, now littered with trash and an overgrowth of sickly grass.

It lacked windows on the second floor, the first floor had every orifice boarded up, and it had been covered in a colorful variety of tags, ranging from actual drawings to doodled names to bold statements about the sexuality of the tagger’s acquaintances.

There was a rusted and barbed wire fence surrounding on both sides and the front — though the fence’s door had been torn off a long time ago — and the back was protected by a small concrete wall, to the top of which several pieces of shattered glass had been attached with cement.

The boards at the front door had been kicked in to allow for shelter for homeless people, though these days it mostly served as a base for Lucas’ gang, who numbered five, not counting Lucas.

Those present were Will and Seph, who were something like leaders among a group of people that disliked being told what to do.

Willard Bishop was a stocky, short mixed-race teenager with delusions of facial hair who wore his hair in an afro ponytail, while Persephone Booker was a malnourished slip of a girl, dark skinned with her head shaved. They’d apparently known each other for a long time, but Lucas didn’t know much about their lives.

Both wore some jewelry; a golden chain for Will, earrings and rings for Seph. Will preferred jeans and large, loose white shirts while Seph usually wore a letterman jacket.

Will was playing solitaire at the foot of the main door, while Seph was standing on a corner, hands in her pockets and looking around with a bored expression.

“You’re late,” said Will, not looking up from his cards as he played.

Lucas bent the corner of the page to mark his spot and stuck the book in his back pocket.

As he did so, he discreetly checked his plastic wristwatch.

Gang’s didn’t have an exact clock-in hour, but it was nine forty-seven in the morning and the streets were empty. He wasn’t entirely sure how he could be late when business hadn’t really kicked off.

In any case, he explained. “We had to make a quick stop to get mugged.”

Will looked at him, then turned his frown towards John.

Taking the message that Lucas didn’t parse, John handed three of the bottles to his friend and ran off to deliver the last one to Seph.

“Carter?”

“Yeah.”

Will’s frown deepened. “You know it doesn’t look good when one of us pays that asshole.”

Lucas didn’t think enough people knew about them that seeing him get robbed would affect the gang’s reputation, but he was at least smart enough not to bring up that point.

Instead, he said, “Sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

“Yes.”

“The fuck’s that gonna do for me? ‘Sorry’ doesn’t fix rep, Luke.”

Lucas said nothing.

“Could you at least fucking look me in the eye?”

Lucas did not.

Will glared at him some more, then rolled his eyes and gestured towards the house, “Guard the stash, pass me the shit when I ask. Don’t let white shadow over there make noise like last time.”

“Yes, sir.”

Will moved aside to let him pass, and Lucas did so, handing one of the bottles on the way.

Will took it with a grumble, and stayed on the side just long enough for John to rush by in pursuit of Lucas.

The inside of The House was dusty, dark and stunk powerfully of humidity and rot. Well accustomed, Lucas and John put a small stick between a window frame and one of the boards to let a sliver of light in, almost without looking, then grabbed the usual boxes they sat on and took their position next to the small hole where they hid the product.

Upon sitting down, Lucas untensed his shoulders and removed his hood, running a hand through his wavy hair to scratch at his scalp.

John pulled out his comic, Lucas pulled out the book, and in dim light that would probably call for corrective eye surgery somewhere down the line, they got to reading.

Time moved forward, pages were turned. Will occasionally whispered an order signaled by Seph after receiving the money. Lucas handed him the correct number of vials or baggies, which were then taken around a circuitous path to another part of the block, where the buyer met with Will to receive his product.

The sun moved across the sky over them, altering the lighting from the window. John read both of his comics and left them at Lucas’ feet for him to read when he wanted to pause on his book, then left the vacant to pick up some new comics from Joel El Canillita.

He came back, they kept reading, they occasionally made small talk. When he first asked Crane to give him a job, two years before, Lucas hadn’t been expecting it to be this dull.

At one point, Lucas marked his spot and went back to the beginning of the book to read it out loud to John, who never said he liked it when he did that but he also never complained about it or asked him to stop, so maybe he did like it.

After using his range of three notes to make funny voices, John smiled for the first time all day. So that was enough of a success for him.

Time moved forward.

0 * + * 0

Eventually, they got out of the damn House.

Will and Seph were already splitting the cash between the three actual members of the gang. It had been a fairly busy day, nothing record breaking since the location wasn’t the best for selling, but they’d made a steady sum before splitting.

After splitting… it would be enough to contribute to a household’s essentials, and not much else.

Will, who had apparently stopped frowning at some point after Lucas and John entering The House, notably did not make an ass face[3]upon seeing the amount.

“Lucas,” he said as he handed him the money. “I’mma need you to stay back a second.”

Seph gave a dubious look at her sorta-leader, but did not say anything beyond her goodbyes as she walked off.

Lucas nodded, counted the money, gave half of it to John and put the rest in his pocket, waiting.

John accompanied him.

Then Will glared at him, John got the message and bid goodbye to Lucas, leaving the two alone.

The fresh air was starting to cool, and it burned Lucas’ nostrils as he took a deep breath of the cleaned air as the sky dyed in hues of purple and orange, while the clouds tinted pink. Feeling a chill creep up his body, he zipped up his hoodie and unfolded his sleeves, letting them fall past his hands.

“Take off your hood.”

Lucas looked at Will, black eyes meeting brown ones for a fleeting moment.

He grimaced, but did as asked.

“I got a job for you. Comes from the family.”

Technically speaking, Will, Lucas and the others were something called a “baby gang” by laypeople; satellite organizations staffed mostly by teens and the occasional preteen which were loosely associated with larger, more powerful criminal organizations.

They bought their product from them at a slight discount, and in exchange they occasionally pulled of jobs for them or, in more long-term relationships, got a bigger discount by making up the difference with monthly payments to them.

The family Will mention was one such larger organization; the Blackfish.

They were the biggest crime family in the borough of Siegfried, where Santo Ataúd was located. They were associated with Will in the most technical of terms, and did not even offer much of a discount to him.

Crane had been an enforcer for them, and it had been at his request that they’d set up his employment under Will. He’d asked for Lucas to be employed under someone who would see little risk and success. While Lucas didn’t think anyone had told Willard that, he had the suspicion that the older boy already knew.

For them to have a job for Will and company was… unexpected.

“What is it?” Lucas asked.

“There’s been someone making trouble for an uncle, they want him taken care of.”

The world seemed to freeze. It did not stop Willard Bishop from speaking.

“You’ve got your iron, right?”

[1]Though, as an exercise in perspective, residents like to reassure themselves that at least they didn’t live in Villa Doscientos, the next neighbourhood over, which was a 220mx110m mass of 200 individual buildings, only traversable through humid alleyways where the sun rarely reached the floor.

It hosted 356k people, and most of whom worked out of their homes by selling products through their living room windows or some such mix of home and labour.

[2]Divided among nine buildings, each one with forty floors designed for six apartments, each made to host a maximum of four people.

[3] Common Argentine expression — originally “cara de culo” — means to frown extremely deeply, enough that a line forms down the center of your face. Typically used in a mocking fashion.