A serialised novel of sunless planets, hallucinogenic mushrooms, daemons, and... pizza rats. đđ
New chapters posted every Tuesday!
Available Chapters â Content Warnings
The drone was a monster, all searing lights and whirring metallic screech, and it had woken Tattie up. She finally abandoned sleep altogether and sat in the front window to watch it, one leg cocked against the fraying upholstery of her favourite armchair.
Sparking up a captube, she pushed the window open to blow great plumes of silver-blue smoke into the narrow alley below. When the drone swang back and made another pass of the street, splitting the simmering afternoon peace with its wretched robot scream, she imagined shouldering a rocket launcher, climbing to the roof of her apartment building, and gunning the thing down. The image made her lips quirk in a brief, tight smile. Tattie took another hard pull on the tube, squashing her tiredness and frustration with bitter, silky smoke.
âYou canât sleep, either?â
Paulâs voice was a nasal whine that made the small hairs prickle across the base of her neck.
âI wish that thing would shut up,â she said.
Paul slunk closer to the window, riffling the capdraw smoke with the stale non-breeze he trailed everywhere. âItâs counterintuitive. Whoever theyâre looking for would hear that beast coming from three clicks away. Whatâs the point of surveillance if the person youâre trying to surveil has already scarpered?â
Tattie finished the captube and flicked it from the open window, watched it fall to the ground to extinguish itself in a grease-slicked puddle. âI think itâs a warning. Someone, or something, pisses them off, so they drag out that ancient drone and wake the rest of us up. Just to remind us not to misbehave. Pricks.â
âYouâre going to be sunshine and daisies all night, I can tell.â
âWhen am I ever sunshine and sodding daisies?â
Paul waved a dismissive hand and turned in the direction of the kitchen. âIâll put the coffee on.â
Tattie let him go. She slipped down into the comforting cocoon of the armchair, disturbing Mr Meow who had been curled against one of the sagging armrests. The cat glared at her with baleful, pumpkin-coloured eyes.
âSorry, mate.â
Mr Meow arched his long bodyâpale orange silvered grey in the street light bleeding through the dirty windowâand stepped onto Tattieâs lap, giving her thigh a vicious needling with his searching claws before finally settling himself between her legs. Tattie stroked his head and he mewed softly, already half-asleep again.
âHow can you sleep through that noise?â she wondered.
The drone finally began to fade into the distance like a diminishing mechanical gnat. Paul returned, two mugs of coffee in his translucent, faintly shimmering hands. Tattie had stopped asking him why he always bothered making two coffees. She knew the answer anyway, and he always seemed so stupidly hurt by her insistent inquiries. She had even stopped getting annoyed when mugs full of cold coffee began to take over the apartment, pooling on the table and leaving oily rings on the windowsill. She would gather them up and dump them in the sink while Paul watched, mournful and pouting.
Paul placed the two fresh mugs on a low table and Tattie reached for hers eagerly, cupping it between her palms and letting the steam rise to warm her mouth and nose. Dark, roasted scents tickled the back of her brain.
âYou really should try to get some sleep,â Paul said. âYouâve got work in a few hours.â
âOkay, Dad.â
He flinched. He hated it when she called him that.
When Tattie wrenched her sleep-swollen eyes open for the second time, she thought she had slept through her alarm. Then she realised that the ragged sound bleating through the heat-stale room and throbbing against her temples was the apartment buzzer. It was being pressed repeatedly in a way that suggested husks or debt collectors. As far as she was aware, she was in trouble with neither.
She groped for the congealing coffee Paul had left on the table, swallowing down half the cup in one dry swallow. Cold coffee was still better than no coffee. The buzzer continued to sound.
âPaul? Is that you dicking about with the door?â
For a moment, she couldnât see Paul in the airless dark of the room. Then she made out his familiar, opalescent form pressed against the door frame. His eyes were wide and the outline of his body was frayed and gently rippling. He was afraid.
Tattie put the coffee back down and hauled herself from the chair, narrowly avoiding stepping on Mr Meow who jumped to the floor and bolted for the bedroom. Paul shook his head at her as she walked to the door.
âWho do you think it is?â she hissed at him, âThe Reaper finally come to collect your sorry arse? Make yourself useful and get lost.â
Paul complied, but not without one last sorrowful glance in Tattieâs direction. Then he dissipated, a glowing shape curling inward until it collapsed and rolled away across the carpet in insipid pearly tendrils.
Tattie slammed the heel of her hand against the intercom. âWhat the hell do you want?â
âTattie?â The voice sounded fearful, but also relieved.
She cocked her head, dark eyes glittering. Her mere presence didn't usually inspire relief, and there was something about the accent, caught even in that one brief word. Something about the inflection at the end. Something that prickled at the flight centre of her fight-or-flight monkey brain.
âTattie?â A pause, and then, âItâs Brax.â
Tattie removed her hand from the intercom and took a step backwards. She was cornered, finally, like a rat boarded up in a pipe. For a full thirty, beautiful seconds, her tired brain attempted to convince her that by doing nothing, by standing so silently even Paul would think she had somehow fallen out of space and time, this situation would simply go away. She would be able to go on. She would go to work, feed Mr Meow, goad Paul, and drink the gutrot that passed for cocktails at the Bunker until she was an old, old lady and none of this would matter anymore because sheâd be infirm or senile or dead. Then the buzzer sounded again.
âFuck.â
This was a shorter chapter, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Next week, Brax will get to see Tattie face-to-face for the first time in years. Surely, that can only end well?
Content Warnings
Smoking, swearing.