Darwin, Australia
9.FEB.2283
IN THE MIDDLE of the road, Skyler dropped to his knees and erupted into a bitter laugh.
The gate to Prumble’s garage lay in a broken pile of twisted iron. Debris littered the street in front of the building, a pair of rag-clad pickers filling burlap sacks with the choicer pieces. They scattered at the sound of Skyler’s laugh.
My ship destroyed, my friends killed or captured, my hangar looted, and now this?
Skyler glanced over his shoulder at the Elevator. It had never seemed farther away.
Numb, he forced himself onto unsteady feet. One foot in front of the other; repeat. He lumbered to the garage entrance and shuffled down the ramp. The smell of smoke overwhelmed his senses. He pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose.
At the bottom of the ramp Skyler flipped on the light attached to his gun barrel. The inner door leading to Prumble’s warehouse had been smashed away, along with most of the surrounding wall. Beyond lay charred, shattered shelves and overturned plastic bins, their sides partially melted.
Prumble must be dead. Dead, or gone. Nothing of value remained here. It had been ransacked, then scuttled. At the back of the garage, Skyler found Prumble’s office. The meat-locker door lay on the ground, crumpled like a discarded lager can. Scorch marks marred the ground around it.
They’d used high explosives. Skyler had no doubt who the culprit was.
New goal, he thought. Find Russell Blackfield and put his eyes out with a hot poker.
One more check box on a growing list of impossible tasks.
He left the garage, his feet moving on their own, for he had no will to keep going. He took shelter from the rain in a building across the street and doubled over from pain. A pain born not of his injuries but of despair. His hope of fixing the Aura, and returning to orbit, faded, stomped out by the cards that fate had given him. He had to turn his focus to survival now.
Maybe he could go to Grillo and beg for a job piloting one of his shitty boats. To come this far, only to join up with that bastard? It almost seemed the perfect end to this series of tragedies.
Perhaps he should just walk away, into the Clear, as Skadz had done. Leave this mess to those forced to wallow in it.
He thought back to the day he’d met Prumble at the café. The feeling he’d had seeing that satchel full of pristine bills.
The café. Prumble had joked of retiring there. Half joked, Skyler thought. He certainly knew the owner well enough. And he did say it was where he met his contact from Nightcliff.
Skyler thought that maybe if he waited at the coffeehouse long enough, the man from Nightcliff might come in again, looking for Prumble. He lived in Nightcliff, and that meant a potential way in.
Or perhaps the old woman who owned the place had heard from the big man. Maybe she even knew if he’d survived the attack on his home.
Near exhaustion, devoid of other options, Skyler did the only thing he could do: walk.
He arrived very late. Between the hour and the heavy rain, the streets were mostly empty. Only one other shop was open near Clarke’s: a one-room card house. The occupants, four elderly men, huddled around a table playing mah-jongg. They barely registered Skyler’s passing.
He breathed a sigh of relief. The café was open. Even better, it was empty.
The old Sri Lankan woman sat behind the counter, knitting. She eyed him with suspicion but flashed a toothless smile nonetheless.
Skyler couldn’t recall her name. He asked for coffee, plus a bun filled with some kind of bean mash. He tried not to imagine the origin of its contents, and wolfed it down before he was even seated. Belatedly he wondered how he would pay for it.
When she brought the coffee, Skyler thanked her, and said, “Do you speak English?”
“Little,” she said.
“Have you seen Prumble? The fat man?”
Her eyes narrowed. The smile remained. She shook her head slowly.
“Please,” he said, “his garage was attacked. I have to find out if he survived.”
“I no know him,” she said.
Terrible liar, Skyler thought.
He looked at his coffee cup. “He gave you the coffee beans, yes?”
Her eyes shifted, uncertain.
“I retrieved those for him in Vietnam. You know Vietnam?” She just stared. “Prumble sent me to retrieve some parts for an X-ray machine. We dropped on a military hospital, looking for them.”
The crone just stared at him. He wasn’t sure if she understood any of it.
The details of the mission flashed through Skyler’s mind like a daydream. “I remember we found the parts we needed straightaway, and had some time to explore. Skadz and I went to a house on the base; it belonged to some Communist Party official. There was a whole cache of supplies stacked in the basement, including a case of preserved coffee. Coffee, yes? In a special can.” He approximated it with his arms. “Had a white stripe across it, diagonal, like this.”
Her eyes briefly shot toward the bar. Skyler hoped he was getting through to her.
“Yes. From Vietnam. From Prumble.”
She shuffled away, under the flimsy wooden plank that was the bar, and through a curtained doorway.
“Look,” Skyler called after her, “Prumble met a man here a few weeks back. A man in a long overcoat. I need to contact that man. If you can help …”
No sound from behind the curtain. Skyler gave up and sipped his beverage, enjoying the rich flavor.
He looked out the dirty window and watched the rain pummel the alley beyond. Merciless, tonight. He looked up the side of the building directly across. On every windowsill, containers of all sizes and shapes had been set out, precariously, to catch what water they could.
He wondered if anything would ever change here. The city was gradually dying. Entropy would win.
Sound from behind the bar caught his attention, and he turned back.
Prumble stood there, leaning on his cane, a huge grin across his face.
“I can scarcely believe my eyes,” he said.
“Prumble!” Skyler stood and embraced the man.
“I figured you were dead,” Prumble said, laughing.
“Likewise. I went to the garage.…”
“Ah, yes. Blackfield’s work. I was inside at the time.”
“And you survived? Well, clearly. What were they after?”
Prumble sighed. The old woman set a cracked mug in front of him, and he thanked her. To Skyler, Prumble said, “Dirt on Platz. Something tipped them off.”
“I may know something about that,” Skyler said.
“Oh?”
Skyler leaned in closer. “Have you heard anything about Sam, or the others?”
The fat man shook his head. “I’ve been keeping a low profile. But your question fills me with dread.”
“A lot has happened.”
Prumble picked up his mug. “Come with me, and tell me all about it. I prefer not to sit next to a window under Nightcliff’s shadow. I’m a wanted man, after all.”
Skyler followed him through the curtain behind the counter, and up a narrow, steep flight of stairs.
“Renuka was kind enough to offer me a room,” Prumble said as he foisted his girth up the steps, “as long as I need it. Her husband and her son have both passed away, it seems.”
They entered a small room, with Prumble only just fitting through the door. It stank of old socks, and measured barely three meters on a side.
However, devoid of furniture, it provided enough room to survive. Instead of a bed, layers of threadbare carpet and blankets covered the floor. Moth-chewed pillows filled one corner.
“It’s comfortable enough,” Prumble said, carefully taking a seat on the floor. Skyler sat opposite him.
Prumble busied himself for a minute, adjusting the stack of pillows behind him to support his bad back. “Tell me,” the fat man said.
“In a moment,” Skyler said, lying down on the soft floor. It felt warm, and smelled of cinnamon. He closed his eyes.