Outlier: Rebellion (9 page)

A world without a screaming King …

Boldly opening the door, he finds just two occupants in the corner at a table eating soup, all the others empty. The slurps of broth and muted chatter is all he hears, and the aroma of the room is, regrettably, appetizing. He moves over the creaky linoleum floor, considers whether he should put his quaking stomach at ease and order a bowl when he notices Rone’s sister at the smoky bar.

“Hey.” Wick comes up to her side. “Is Rone…?”

“This way,” she murmurs, the first words Wick’s ever heard her say. With a healthy bit of reluctance, he follows her into a passage behind the counter and up two staircases cuddled by slanted wooden walls.

At the top, it opens up without a door to a large, cluttered landing. Everything is draped in scarfs, colored handkerchiefs, frayed tablecloths … Beads and charms and odd ornaments dangle from rafters in the ceiling, chains are secured along one of the walls, weapon racks and armor racks set beneath them. Large dusty tapestries seem to casually divide the back half of the room into several odd areas without apparent purpose. The air is thick and musky, the temperature like a sweaty hug.

There’s an echoing laughter from the end of the room somehow familiar and unfamiliar to Wick. Slowly edging across the landing, he finds the source behind a purple tapestry.

Rone? Is that you?
The words stick like honey in his mouth, for there’s a shirtless boy with a distractingly toned bronze body strewn across a litter of pillows on the floor. His arms flex as he grips the head of a long-legged woman with thick blonde curls of hair that dance with her every movement. Her movements being: a steady rise and fall of her tall head, up and down, at his hips. He lifts slightly, abs crunched up, and lets out a quivering moan like a shiver, and then he starts to laugh, throwing back his head. It smacks the floor and he hardly notices, still giggling, and when his eyes open, they’re wild and wet and searching for her—he flexes his arms again in the effort of bringing her face up from his cock. Her half-shut, wide-apart eyes, decorated with electric blue powder on the eyelids, flit to the side, spotting Wick.

Her own giggling is silenced at once. “Who’s this?” she asks, annoyed.

Rone seems mesmerized by her neck, ignoring the question and staring the way a child watches a rainbow. Then he looks over suddenly, noticing Wick, his eyes alight like sapphire torches in the bronze sea of his face.

“Sorry,” Wick mumbles, averting his gaze.

Rone smiles and says, “Wanna join in?” He laughs and runs a lazy hand down the woman’s face, which inspires an annoyed huff from her. The woman is dressed scantily and she wears a tight, permanent frown. “She’s very kind. And she’s—what’s the word?—
giving.”

“N-No, thanks.” What the hell has Rone invited him here for? Some sort of prostitution thing? Getting head from some slum woman with blue eye shadow?

“Oh.” A thought seems to cross Rone’s face. “Oh. I didn’t realize … Well, hey.” He stretches his abs, runs another lazy hand down them, grinning. “You can have a lick then, if you want. Guys don’t really do it for me, but I’m havin’ so much fun, can’t deny my buddy when I’m—Oh, or did you want—?” He grabs his cock, gives it a wiggle and lifts a brow. “Yeah? No?”

Somewhere between Rone’s first word and his last, Wick’s rate of breathing has tripled. He finds his eyes glued to the floor, unable to look at the sex buffet his friend is turning himself into. “I … No, I’m …” He shifts his weight, looks at Cintha for comfort—only to find that she didn’t follow him to this end of the room, still lingering far away at the stair and picking her nails.

“Again.” The woman slowly draws the back of a long hand across her mouth to wipe it.
“Who
… is this?”

Rone shifts himself, his still-hard cock flipping from one thigh to the other, casually answers, “Wick. That is my friend … My friend, Wick … and Wick is his name.”

She studies him, squinting as though through a fog. “What loving mother names their child such a thing?”

“He’s my
friend,”
Rone responds warningly. “It wouldn’t benefit us to scare him away so soon. He hasn’t seen me like this before.”

“Like what? Naked or high?” she asks innocently.

“Either. Unless he’s had a peek I don’t know about.” Rone lifts his chin at her. “Do
you
like me this way?”

“Are you any other way?”

“I’m several ways.” Gripping her firmly at the hips, he pulls the woman toward him and buries his face in her breasts—and for an awkward while, clothing and pillows and curly hair can’t be distinguished. Rone’s still hard, his moans muffled, and he starts to laugh uncontrollably. For whatever reason, so does she, throwing her head, all her wild curls and coils of blonde with it.

Wick looks away, uncomfortable. His eyes find the sister still far away at the stair. “Should I … go?” he quietly asks her. She doesn’t respond. “Should I go?” he repeats, a touch louder.

Suddenly Rone’s shoved the woman off him like a bed sheet and, despite her irritated moan, he’s to his feet and sauntering over to Wick, his dick bobbing left and right—Wick’s forcing his eyes at everything
above
Rone’s shoulders. “Pardons, my man. I’m so, so, so, so, so rude. Would you like a glass of chemical?” His pants are at his ankles, his belt clinking with his every step.

“Um … no.”

“But it’s so
good
for you.” Rone’s already pouring two. “Rids the mind of pesky things like common sense.” He’s already tipping his own glass by the time he gets one into Wick’s hand.

“I don’t …” Wick shuffles uncomfortably. “I’m—”

“Well don’t
waste
it.” Rone swipes the glass back from Wick and downs it himself.

He’s still hard.
I’ve seen more of my friend in the last five minutes than I’ve seen in the last five years.
Staring forcibly into his eyes, Wick asks, “Why did you invite me here?”

“Aren’t—Aren’t you having fun?” Rone hiccups.

Wick sucks in his lips. “Not as much as you.”

“What’s that ugly thing on your head?” Rone points belatedly and hiccups again. His eyes are glossed over, dulled a moment.

Wick brings a hand to his forehead, winces. “Bruise, I guess.”

Not hearing Wick’s response, or perhaps forgetting he asked a question in the first place, Rone nods at the woman on the floor. “That one’s Victra. Her name is Victra and she can see through others’ eyes … so mind where you’re looking!”

“Stop telling him things,” she whines, her face half-muffled by a pillow. “I don’t know if I like him yet.”

“He’s going to join, so you
must
like him. We must all like each other because that’s the rule,” declares Rone. “That’s the rule I made up just now.”

“Join?” Wick realizes he’s backed himself up against the wall. “Join what? Is this some kind of club?”

“I can’t tell you just yet.” Rone pulls up his pants, saunters back to the woman Victra, lets them drop again. “For now, why don’t you kick back and have yourself a swig of chemical? It’s paid for. It’s all good. C’mon. Stuff’s not so easy to come by. Victra, my wiener’s still awake.”

Wick stares at the skinny bottle of chemical. In truth, he’s never tried it, nor even properly seen a whole supply of it in person before. He’s heard it tastes salty and sweet and burns the chest from inside as it’s swallowed. After it’s in your system, however …

An entirely different, thunderous voice disturbs the scene. “Rone Tinpassage! Victra Kingsword!”

Wick spins, finds a bald middle-aged man with spotted lemony skin and wetted eyes standing at the top of the stair. His expression suggests he is less than happy with the scene he’s happened upon. The man is hunched over a cane, despite not likely being over forty or forty-five years old. A back injury maybe, or a disease of the spine … How could Wick tell, anyway? He’s no expert of the body; that’s his mom’s knowhow.

“You just said—He just said my
last
name,” Victra complains to Rone, who’s now frantically pulling his pants up over his still-invited-to-the-party boner. “I … Didn’t I just say I didn’t want this Wicky knowing my things? Hey, he said your last name too!”

“He’s a friend,” Rone explains, zipping himself up. “We … We … We grew up together, and—Listen, he’s not just
some
guy
I pulled off the street—”

“You two,” the man projects, his voice hard and loud. “Explain the meaning of this person, now.”

“Recruit,” the sister offers quietly.

Everyone turns, as though just now noticing she’s been in the room, still picking at her nails by the stair and not looking anywhere at them, her eyes glued to her fingers.

“A recruit?” asks the man of Rone firmly. “This kid? You’re the recruiter now? Is that how this works? Are you making the decisions around here?”

Rone holds a hand against the wall, realizes it’s the tapestry and not a wall, falls over. Getting clumsily back to his feet, he takes a few steps toward the man. “I didn’t tell him anything. I brought him here just like I was brought here once. Just like Sarra and Juston and the others. He doesn’t know anything. I … I left that to you.” Then he draws silent, rubbing his eyes.

The man turns to Wick, appraising him vaguely. He then crosses the room, cane stabbing the floor with every step, and pulls out a chair. “Sit, kid.”

Wick doesn’t argue. He drops into the chair by the large window, the only view in this room. He takes a glance outside. Below, there’s an alley where a pair of black cats fight as children watch, and above, the greasy-bricked buildings of the edge of the ninth ward squat just low enough to reveal the ominous shape of the Lifted City pressed dark against the haze of a starless night sky.

The man takes a chair directly across from him, locking eyes with such intensity it makes Wick swallow hard. “Listen well, kid. My name’s Yellow, and my power allows me to make you forget that. In fact, I can make you forget how you got here, why you came here, or how to get home. It would be in your best interest to cooperate and I will not muddle you. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“What did your friend tell you that persuaded you to come? Tell me. What is it you were hoping to find?”

Wick’s eyes wander to Rone and the woman, both whom clutch each other in an effort to stay standing as they witness this exchange. The woman, Victra, appears bored, more blue-powdered eyelid showing than actual eye. Rone’s sister waits at the other end of the vast and smudgy window now, still quietly studying her fingernails.

The answer comes almost automatically. “A world without a screaming King, I guess.”

Yellow leans forward, curious for a spell. Then he opens his thin lips and says, “Are you sure? What would our fine city of Atlas be without the Banshee King? You do realize that’s treason-talk, don’t you.”

“Yes.” Wick nods, incensed. “I know.”

“And still you say it? A world without a screaming King?”

Wick’s eyes flit nervously to Rone.
Is this a trap?
He clears his throat and decides to offer a few more words. “What I know is, my mom and dad both work full-hour jobs, sometimes my dad works well into midnight or past. My mom comes home aching with dirt across her face and my—and my brothers all work, and—” Wick swallows hard, finding his mouth has gone dry. He licks his lips from left to right before continuing. “No matter, it’s hardly enough to live. We’re slave rats beneath that Lifted City. The people up there, they shit on us.” He eyes the bald man for a reaction, chagrined to find none. “They
do
,” he insists, squinting. “The flowers my mom picks and the plants she grows and the seeds she sows, they’re for the people in the sky. Not you and I. And the weapons and the armor and the metalwork of my dad’s slave labor, it’s all sent upstairs. To the King. And what do we get? How are we thanked? … With threats? Laws? With … with starvation?” The resentment starts to sour the back of his mouth, rushing up and threatening to free his dinner.
I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud.
“I don’t want to be a slum rat my whole life. Why is it a King up there we have to fear? Some nights I can’t even—I can’t even
rest
,” he says, his heart giving a jump because he almost said another word, “because I can still hear the echo of banshee cries in the night sky.”

The bald man’s eyes never leave Wick’s face, eating his every word. The oily, lemony skin on his cheek twitches, his mouth parting. “Aye.”

Wick swallows again, licks his lips yet again, can’t seem to wet his own mouth properly.
I’ve said too much.
Figuring it a last and desperate measure, he adds, “But I would never try anything stupid. I wouldn’t attack a … a Guardian. Or plot some … some kind of plan to kill the King. You can’t kill him. There’s no way. Lowborn like us don’t even have access to the Lifted City, so … I wouldn’t … I wouldn’t do that. I just want—”

“Wouldn’t you,” replies the man, his eyes narrowing in a strangely nonthreatening way. “And why not.”

The bald man’s voice is flat, his questions sounding more like statements. Wick suddenly doubts everything, uncertain on which side, exactly, these people stand.
I’m being riddled.
Maybe Rone’s pulled him into something greater than he’d imagined.
Kill the King.
The words echo in his head, echo, echo, echo.
Kill the King. Did I seriously just say that?

“Is it fear that holds you back?” The man lifts his chin and pulls on an ear, idly toying with it. “If you had the means and no repercussions were to find you, would you, in fact, kill the King of Atlas? Answer plainly. You may not remember this conversation when we’re through. You may not even remember me.”

Kill the King.
Wick’s breath has gone so shallow, he has half a second of fearing he’ll pass out. “N-No.”

The thin, papery mouth of the man seems to make a smile, though Wick can’t be certain. Then the man leans back and says, “This may come as a surprise, but I wish the fucker dead. The city’s unjust. The King’s corrupt … and he will fall. And so will the three Marshals. Taylon, Janlord, Impis. They’ll fall too. And the Council and the Court and the Lifted City itself, all of it.”