Chapter 1: Piehole

“I’m gonna check in with Elliot, you wanna start unloading the truck?” Cliff gave a little smile as the middle knuckles of his first two fingers drummed softly against the dusty black door. It may have sounded like a question, but Kolya knew the tone of his friend’s voice meant otherwise. His reply was a little nod upward before turning his attention back to the clipboard in his hands. Cliff had barely made it three steps past the threshold before being stunned into a slack-jawed expression for a moment. His eyes darted back and forth as they adjusted to an odd mix of sudden darkness and bright beams of sunlight.

Despite the confusion of his pupils blurring his vision slightly, Cliff caught that some of the chairs had been broken and posters that had been hanging up just two days ago were on the ground with shattered frames. A mixture of broken glass, wood, and drywall blanketed the floor on the right side of the bar as well. All this was accompanied by a nauseatingly sweet smell that hung so thick in the air, he was suprised he couldn’t see it alongside the dust swirling in the rays of sunlight that punched the darkness. Rubbish crunched loudly under black work boots as he approached the counter and when the reason for their presence at the bar came into full view, he froze and all tact fled his body. With no respect for the early morning hour, Cliff loudly blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“What the hell happened here?” His head snapped from the hole in the wall to the bar, fiery eyebrows bent in confusion as he and the tall brunette man behind the counter locked eyes.
“No clue, I just know it’s a mess and we need these repairs done as soon as possible,” replied the man flatly before he went back to absentmindedly arranging bottles of liquor.
Cliff squinted at the lanky bartender’s back. He knew a lie when he heard one. He was preparing to press the bartender again when the owner of the bar stepped out of the back room with a broom in his hand.
“Elliioot,” Cliff called out to get his attention but the old man didn’t even look up, just walked around him and started sweeping.
Cliff persisted, “What happened last night, man?”
“No idea, wasn’t here.” Elliot still didn’t look up from the ground, hoping his body language would discourage the prying young man. The curt response made Cliff’s face twist up in a sour expression.

Elliot Skinner had no trouble lying right to someone’s face. It didn’t matter who they were either. In fact, in all the years he’d owned a bar, he’d only been completely honest a handful of times. He liked to play big, bad, and mysterious whenever he could afford it. Like when trying to impress beautiful young women or gain respect from fresh-faced soldiers and sailors but around cops or the man who held his lease, Elliot was a lamb. Cliff had always figured he was an exception to this behavior though, especially when he was there on business. It disappointed him to find out that he wasn’t. This made him desire a real answer even more, so he continued to badger the old man with his questions.

“Riiight. You really want me to believe you weren’t working last night?” Cliff narrowed his eyes, knowing that Elliot worked every night.
Frustration began to heat up in Elliot who, after being harassed for hours late last night by both the municipal and military police who came to collect statements about the incident, was beginning to feel like he was back at the station house. He huffed, rolling a pair of tired, puffy, brown eyes before glancing over at the young man but his eyes couldn’t survive the intense gaze of the nosy redhead and he averted them to the ground without answering. He cleared his throat and just swept the same small pile of glass and dust. All the avoidant behavior in the world couldn’t have stopped the curious young man at this point though. He turned up the heat on his approach.

“So all this…” Cliff gestured vaguely to the destruction around them, “Just went totally unnoticed? Nobody even told you about it? Cmon I’m not a cop, man. Just spill.”
A sharp sigh passed the lips of the weary old man, an admission of defeat. Elliot threw a few quick, paranoid looks around before turning back to Cliff and gesturing for him to come closer. Excitement bubbled up in the redhead as he took the steps to close the gap between them and leaned in eagerly for the story.
“Okay… There was a fight last night, obviously. First one in a few weeks but… easily the worst we’ve had here in a while.” Elliot spoke in a hushed tone Cliff hadn’t ever heard him use before.
“You can say that again.” Cliff looked past him to the hole in the wall with awe. “Anybody we know? Locals, sailors, or what?” Cliff’s hands moved back and forth as he listed the options. Elliot shook his head.
“Nah, I’d never seen any of ‘em before. Just some randoms who got into it with a few visiting sol—“
“Soldiers!? Oh yeah, that definitely explains the person-shaped hole in your wall. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance I bet.” Cliff tutted and shook his head in mock-sadness.
“Don’t be rude, you damn know-it-all! It was a soldier that went through my wall, for your information.” Snapped Elliot, who crossed his arms in a huff as he remembered the fighting between seven men last night.
“You’re kidding. That’s ins—“ Cliff was interrupted by a loud bang from a hammer being tossed into the bar through the hole. The chatty pair turned their eyes to the source of the karmic interruption to see an upset Kolya, who had been unloading tools and materials from their truck by himself until now. He shouted through the hole in the bar’s wall, which was big enough to give Cliff a perfectly clear view of the agitation plastered on the young blond’s face. Something about seeing his friend’s face through the rough outline of a man made him want to start laughing but he knew that would actually piss Kolya off for real. So he let his lips curl into a small smile instead and stifled any laughter that tried to escape. Despite being five years older than him, Cliff avoided anything he knew would genuinely upset Kolya. He made the mistake of joking around with him too much when they first met and his nose’s permanent slight right tilt has served as a good reminder to reign himself in when it came to pushing the teenaged boy’s buttons ever since.

“Oh please, Kay. We both know those tool bags aren’t heavy to you.” Cliff retrieved the hammer from the ground, shaking off the residue from having landed in a pile of plaster dust.
“That’s not the point. I want to finish this up as soon as possible and besides, who cares that some soldiers got into a fight? Nothing new, that happens all the time.” The way the repairmen were treating the man-made gap like a chat window irked Elliot inside.
“Listen, I get that being underwhelmed is your ‘thing’ and all, but even you have to admit it’s wild that someone got put through a wall like this!”
“If I admit that, will you get over here so we can start this patch already?” Kolya’s raspy voice conveyed irritation too easily. “We’re not hourly right now and like you said: we’re not cops.” At the last part, he made his voice cartoonishly deeper which produced a low chuckle and snort from his nosy coworker. Elliot shooed Cliff away and started sweeping up the inside of the bar for real. Kolya held a bag of tools out through the hole.
“Cranky today, huh?” Cliff asked with an edge of playfulness that the blond boy quickly shot down.
“Look. It stinks in this alley and I’m starving because SOMEONE went and burned up breakfast,” Kolya glared up at him. “So the faster we finish this, the faster we can leave and the sooner I get to fill up on lamb pie at Genie’s.”

With the thought of lunch on their minds, the two men set to work on repairing the wall. Cliff’s curiosity about what happened last night only grew as they worked. He thought about what the people involved might be like, picturing cliche images of mercenaries and prize-fighters who frequented the city. Hearing passersby mutter rumors about the incident as they stepped around him only served to make Kolya more aggravated since the only thing he could hear over their hushed voices was his own stomach growling. After hours of manual labor and paperwork, Elliot paid them and they took off in the black pickup truck heading north up Main Street to their favorite bakery.

The bell hanging on the door frame chimed as it was hit by the door opening and shutting behind them. At the sound of the bell, a bright, sweet voice rang out from behind a wall of beautiful baked goods to greet them. “Welcome to Genie’s! Just a minute!” Kolya and Cliff inhaled all the wonderful smells of the bakery, a nice change from the stench of the bar and its alley. They admired all the food items on the wall and in the display case. Meanwhile in the back, a young woman with copper hair checked the ovens and removed several large pans of meat pies and fruit-filled biscuits, transferring them to tall cooling racks. When she came around the corner and saw who had entered her shop, her eyes lit up and a white, toothy smile tore across her face. “Hey guys! Come sit down,” she wiped the counter in front of her with the towel that was slung over her shoulder. “I just pulled a batch of pies out of the oven.” There was less artificial sweetener in her voice this time as she spoke to the repairmen.

The tired pair fell into their usual seats at the counter and the woman turned around quickly, sending her high ponytail swinging back and forth as she disappeared back around the corner. She returned a few minutes later, two white plates in her hands that held two small pies each. “Eat up!” She sat the plates down in front of them and they didn’t spare a single second before digging into the steaming, golden-brown lamb pies. Only the sounds of chewing and silverware scraping porcelain came from them, both too hungry to make any conversation. Watching them lose themselves in the food she made prompted an amused snort to escape her. She adjusted her apron and resumed her duties, darting around the place attending other customers and tidying up as she went. Halfway through their second helping, they regained the energy to speak. Compliments and praise for the food poured out of them.
“Seriously, Jean. I think these pies are the best you’ve ever made them.” Cliff said, his mouth half-full.
Kolya, his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk, just nodded in agreement. An award-winning smile broke out across Jean’s face again at all the praise they gave her new recipe. “Aww, thanks little brother,” she teased.
“Been a while since I’ve seen you two eat this much at once!” Now she was smiling at the way Cliff’s brow furrowed. He couldn’t help being annoyed from getting called that by someone only three minutes older than him. He just scoffed at her and rolled his eyes. Kolya, who had just cleaned his second plate and was finally giving himself a chance to breathe, offered an explanation to their ravenous state.

“Well, we didn’t get to eat breakfast,” he cut his eyes at the redhead next to him who had burned everything Kolya planned to cook that morning thanks to lack of patience. “And the first job we had today was this ridiculous hole in the wall at Elliot’s. At a flat rate too.” He ran a hand through his blond hair and stopped to rub the back of his neck.
“Ah!” Jeanette slammed her hands down on the counter, startling the both of them. She was just as bad as her twin when it came to discussing current events.
“I saw that happen!” She was wide-eyed with excitement and her brother quickly matched her enthusiasm, leaning in to express his interest.
“The whole thing?!” He gestured with his fork, sending a single pea flying to the floor.
“Oh—no. I saw the guy come through the wall though. I wasn’t actually there, Sloan and I were across the street on the roof of another bar.”
“Elliot told me it was some randoms who put a soldier through his wall.”
“Yeah, Sloan only saw one of them flash their dog tags, and from what I’ve put together, it wasn’t even the one who put the soldier through the wall.”

In Strell, dog tags are a status symbol. They mark soldiers and mercenaries who operate in cooperation with the military, stating all their personal information in perfectly embossed letters. The most important pieces of information being their rank and class. Just wearing tags wasn’t any cause for alarm (usually) but when someone holds them up to another person, they take on new meaning. Doing that is a declaration of superiority, a threat that uses rank as evidence that you have what it takes to back up whatever you’re saying. Flashing your tags at another person is like saying, ‘beware of the dog’.

“Jesus…” Kolya interjected before taking a long pull from his drink.
“Two more people, another dude and a woman followed the guy out. He yelled something at the soldier laying in the street and then they all took off together.”
”You didn’t catch what he said?” Cliff’s voice had an edge of disappointment to it and when Jean shook her head, he emitted a low groan of frustration.
“Great,” Kolya rolled his eyes at the story. “Three more psychos on the streets of our lovely city.” He closed his eyes, crossed his arms, and shook his head in disappointment. Jean and Cliff both laughed at his seriousness.
“Man, you know how this city is!” Cliff chuckled, nudging the blond with his elbow.
“Yeah, it’s a homing beacon for assholes.” His deadpan delivery left the statement to hang in the air and after a few silent seconds, all three of them burst into laughter.

Kolya wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest. Majuku City is an adult playground. Sloan called it ‘heaven for troublemakers’ once. It turned pleasure, entertainment, and vice into its top commodities. With lax rules, legalized drugs, and lots of hedonistic tourist attractions, it not only draws out some of the most violent and dangerous people in the country, but it breeds them as well. Even the more harmless people in this city would be considered villains anywhere else. Rumors travel fast here too, thanks to all the lips loosened by liquor from any of the many bars, clubs, and casinos that exist up and down the main drag in the middle of the city. It had been pretty quiet the last few weeks though, so the incident at Elliot’s kicked the rumor mill up into high gear once again. Everyone who had been at the bar or around the southern side of the waterfront where it began to bleed into Main Street caught a glimpse of the action or the aftermath of last night’s violent spectacle. The man-hole was the story on all their lips today. It was a game of telephone where every time someone told another about what they witnessed last night, the details got more fantastic and further from the truth. Not that the truth mattered much to people in Majuku City, as long as they weren’t being bored to death, they’d accept almost anything at face value.

The trio were busy catching up and cracking jokes with each other when both of the boys’ cellphones chimed in unison. Kolya was first to fish his out of a deep pocket in his cargo pants and the text that flashed across the screen made his smile die. His laughter stopped, which made Cliff get curious and lean over to see what was wrong. A look of dread fell on both of their faces and Cliff went for his own phone, all color draining from his face as they looked at their screens and read the message in unison. Jean just looked at the two of them in slight confusion, but she didn’t get to ask anything before a table of three called her away. The two repairmen looked at each other anxiously, no words needed for the “should you call or should I" debate they shared in looks. Kolya put his left hand up in silent surrender, got out of his seat and signaled the other man to follow him outside. Jean’s bakery was on a nice, quiet street that currently only served to make their anxious thoughts deafening. Kolya took another look at the message. CALL ME NOW — three words were never more menacing. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and pressed the little green receiver icon. The phone screen went black save for the call option icons and one name: DAMIAN.