A serialised novel of sunless planets, hallucinogenic mushrooms, daemons, and... pizza rats. 🍕🐀
New chapters posted every Tuesday!
Available Chapters — Content Warnings
The shutter protested when Tattie pulled it back across the wardrobe, startling Brax from an uneasy sleep. He stared up at her from the dusty cocoon of an old padded coat. Tattie tried not to meet his eyes as she rubbed out the sigil with the heel of one hand. It smeared pinkly across the door.
“I have a new chip for you,” she said.
Brax seemed reluctant to move. Maybe he was still in shock. He’d traveled halfway across the Bleak to find her and she’d greeted him with a fist in the chest and a cramped night folded between her modest collection of boots. If she was him, she’d be disorientated too.
“You don’t want to stay in there, do you?”
Tattie reached a hand inside the wardrobe, trying not to react when Brax laced his cold fingers through hers. She pulled him out into the bedroom and forced herself to look at him. The creases beneath his eyes had deepened to a dark grey, and his shoulder-length hair was ruffled on one side. Mostly, he was angry, she could see it in the set of his jaw. But that was good. Angry was better than hurt. Angry she could deal with.
“You left me in there for hours,” he said.
“I told you I had to work.”
“I wouldn’t have left the apartment. I would have waited for you, you could have trusted me.”
“Once, maybe.”
The silence that flattened out around her statement was brutal. Unable to take the ugly words back, Tattie reached into her pocket and offered Brax the chip instead.
“I know someone who prints these things,” she said. “We just need to swap out your old one and you’ll be able to move around without getting stopped by husks. That’s if you manage to stay out of trouble. Slid some credits on there, too.” She attempted to raise a smile, but Brax failed to reciprocate.
“Tattie, I don’t care about the bloody chip. We have to talk about Rakkone. You can’t run forever, and we need—”
“I didn’t run, I left. I relocated and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You can sod off back there if you want to, but you’re not getting further than the end of the street with that antiquated chip in your wrist. It’ll ping every scanner within a five-mile radius.”
She grabbed his hand and dragged him across the room, stopping before a desk fixed beneath a viewscreen. The desk was empty save for the sleek, gun barrel shape of an illegal chipper. Brax squinted at the viewscreen, watching it flash dejectedly between the same two images of a mountain range hazy with purple heather, and a cartoon fish wearing red underpants and sunglasses. Tattie flipped his hand over and reached for the chipper, sweeping her thumb across the underside of his wrist until she found a small, hard lump beneath the thin skin.
“They did a crappy job,” she said, turning his wrist in the pallid light flickering from the viewscreen. “Left a scar.”
“Manny did it.”
Tattie fought not to react when he mentioned their old friend’s name. Manny had been there when they dragged her to the Manse. It was a grey memory now, fuzzy with time. Manny watching the Elders’ laypeople grabbing for her arms and legs. Manny doing nothing when they held her down and bound her with saltrag. He’d always been a gutless idiot.
Brax was still staring up at the viewscreen. The fish’s underpants flashed crimson across his face.
“Why don’t you get this fixed?” he said. “It would drive me insane, looking at that.”
“I’m already insane, remember?”
Tattie hooked the steely end of the chipper into the underside of Brax’s soft wrist and activated the incisors. They moved rapidly, neatly parting the skin and removing the chip beneath in the time it took for Brax to glance away from the screen.
“What was that?”
“I can’t leave the old chip in there, can I?”
She tossed the tiny green square to the floor and slid the new one inside. It nestled in pale meat, blinking languidly.
“The flashing will stop once we activate it.”
It occurred to Tattie that Brax probably already knew that. She bit her lip in faux concentration and pushed a second switch on the chipper. This time, Brax was watching everything she did. He stiffened, braced for pain.
“Don’t be a baby.”
Tattie triggered the chipper and it roused to life with a low hum, the incisors glinting cherry red. She pressed it against the incision. Brax’s skin flexed and melted back over the wound, sealing the chip beneath like a little silicone pharaoh in a fleshy tomb.
“That hurt,” he said, pulling his arm from Tattie’s grasp and holding it to his chest. A curl of smoke peeled away from his wrist.
“You can take it. Can’t have hurt worse than those clumsy sigils you scratched on your arms.”
Rakkonian skin was famously resilient and the interlocking brands on Brax’s forearms were already fading, but Tattie could still see the indecisiveness hidden in the shaky sigil work. He had carved them in a hurry.
Brax looked down at his arms. “I didn’t think they were that bad. In my defense, I haven’t cut a sigil in years.”
“Even though Rakkone’s on its knees?” Her words were barbed with more sarcasm than she’d intended and Brax’s eyes darkened in response, his lips pressed thin.
“The Elders moved me into the Manse after you left,” he said. “They thought I helped you escape, wanted me far from the frontlines where they could keep an eye on me. I’ve spent the last fifteen years handing out daily rations, and the guy who has to tell families they’ve already blown through their weekly limit is the least popular guy on Rakkone. I’ve been spat on, I’ve had hair ripped out of my head. One time, this mother and her daughter—” He stopped, took a breath. “As if you give a shit. You never stopped to wonder what would happen to me after you legged it, did you?”
Tattie leant against the desk. “I gave a shit.” She winced at the sound of her own voice, low and wavering. Pathetic. “I didn’t think you’d be punished for what I did, though.”
“That’s the problem. You didn’t think. You’re still not thinking.”
The old comfort of her anger roused and Tattie smiled grimly. Angry was always better. “I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that Rakkone is an archaic, pious backwater that deserves everything it gets. I’m thinking that if they’ve punished you for fifteen years, you should feel the same way.”
“Maybe the Elders deserve everything they’ll get, but what about everyone else? What in the Five Planets happened to you, Tat? This isn’t you.”
“How would you bloody know?” Tattie knew she was verging on hysteria, could feel her face contorting into an ugly, feral mask. She knew she should pull back and calm herself, but she ploughed ahead. “You don’t know who I am. You haven’t known me for fifteen years. We were kids when we were together. That doesn’t give you the right to turn up on my doorstep like a bad stink. You can’t demand fuck-all.”
Tattie expected Brax to reciprocate. She watched his face, waiting for his expression to match her fury. When it failed to happen, she wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or mortified.
“You’re right,” he said, all the energy leaving his words. His whole body sagged. “I don’t know you anymore. It was stupid to come here.”
Tattie thrust her hands into her pockets, fingers curling into secret fists. She had a decision to make, and she hated being forced into making decisions. She opened her mouth, calm now, ready to tell him that yes, he was stupid for coming here and he should absolutely leave.
Instead, she said, “Want to do something?”
Content Warnings
Description of cutting/laceration, swearing