Midnight Metropolis: Chapter Thirteen (2/4)
Everything That Goes in Must Come Out
A serialised novel of sunless planets, hallucinogenic mushrooms, daemons, and... pizza rats. 🍕🐀
New chapters posted every Friday! Scroll to the bottom for content warnings.
Flannigan fried off the fungus flesh in an aged metal vat fixed to a rudimentary hotplate. Ginx watched him, growing bored and hungry as he poured in a generous helping of grey synthetic hardener. The hardener was thick and syrupy and when he brought the mess up to a boil, it blew a reek like dried puke around the confines of the pizza stall. Flannigan had to hose down every portion with cold spray before he could slice it into oily bricks.
Just as Ginx was beginning to think she might shrivel up and die from sheer tedium, Flannigan announced he was done. He layered the bricks into pizza boxes, presenting them with a small nod. He would never admit it, but Ginx thought he’d secretly enjoyed taking a break from preparing the same greasy pizzas he’d been slinging every night for the past fifteen years.
He’s been slinging pizza for twenty years. Some people have no ambition.
If Ginx had been alone, she’d have told the daemon to zip it.
I was just making an observation. Tattie’s coming back, by the way.
Ginx turned with her arms full of sagging pizza boxes, irritated when she had to wait for Tattie and Brax to drift back to the pizza stall and take their share of the load.
“These stink,” Brax complained. His face creased further when he realised a brown fatty substance was leaking from the cardboard.
“No thought for old Flannigan,” Flannigan said. “I’ll have to spend the rest of the night scrubbing out my hotplate. No one’s going to buy pizzas tomorrow if they smell like death.”
“You could market them as death pizzas,” Ginx said. “Might be a hit.”
Flannigan waved her away with a grim smile. “Perhaps you’ll order pizza next time, eh? Like a normal person.”
“Perhaps.”
It occurred to Ginx that if events unfolded as she hoped, she’d probably never see Flannigan again. She pushed the thought from her mind as they walked across Palm Plaza, tried to focus on the plan.
“Are the husks really going to eat this muck?” Brax said. “If they gag on it, we’re never getting inside.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic,” Tattie said. “Believe it or not, this is a very close approximation of the crap they’re fed.”
Ginx shifted the boxes in her arms, starting to lose her grip on the slippery cardboard. “How do you know that?”
This is the first time you’re asking? You’re far too trusting. You’re lucky you have me looking out for you.
“I met a guy who made the stuff once,” Tattie said. “Came into the Bunker for a reading. He worked at some factory, and he said the bricks they cooked went straight to the Noctarum. He was weirdly proud of it.”
“Proud of feeding husks synthetic slop?” Brax said. “I’m surprised you didn’t dropkick him into the street.”
“Well, I did overcharge him. And I told him his partner was cheating with a Valley pensioner.”
“Were they cheating?”
“No bloody idea, but the guy had a shitty attitude and a wicked case of halitosis, so I wouldn’t have blamed them.”
Everything they blather about is so asinine. Do you really want to share a ship with them? We can take anything we want. You could be breaking sky in a luxury cruiser or a fully automated—
When Ginx cut the daemon off, she swore she heard an angry intake of breath. It was a dry shiver beneath her ribcage, like wind raking through gravel.
“It’s weird to think about the husks eating,” she said, trying and failing to picture them chewing and swallowing, stiff jaws working in perfect robotic sync. “I thought maybe the N.E.X. shot them up with some sort of protein infusion.”
“Maybe it’s easier,” Tattie said. “Maybe the N.E.X. won’t pay good credits to have someone shooting up husks twice a day if they can feed themselves. They’re nothing if not stingy bastards.”
“Do you think husks shit?”
Ginx immediately regretted the question when they both glanced at her over the top of their pizza box stacks, faintly revolted.
“Well, I suppose everything that goes in must come—” Tattie stopped herself. “Actually, I don’t need to know, and I don’t want to know.”
They had reached the end of a narrow residential street cluttered with blacked-out windows. Tattie made them stop, peering around a tight corner to survey the wider road beyond. A van was idling six feet away. It was nothing like the smooth white boxes of the gliding N.E.X. vans. This vehicle belched a constant frisson of smoky sparks from a sagging exhaust pipe. One of the back panels was dented and the logo spray-painted across the side was faded, haloed with rust. Ginx could just make out the words, Shillo’s BioBricks.
“Exactly where I said it would be,” Brax said.
Does he want a whole parade or just a medal?
“Your charm game’s not too rusty, then,” Tattie said, her voice edged with the merest hint of jealousy.
Here we go.
“We needed access to the van that delivers the husk bricks, and I found out where it would be,” Brax said. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? That is what you asked me to do.”
Tattie held her pile of greasy pizza boxes closer to her chest. A thick trail of muddy ooze ran from a lid and slid between her fingers.
“There were other ways of doing it, though.” She hissed, keeping her voice low. “That woman was about to key your digits into her port. She was ready to drop her bloody pants.”
They fight like jealous children, for no reason that matters even the slightest bit.
“Don’t be disgusting, Tat.”
“What woman?” Ginx asked, utterly lost.
“The van driver’s sister,” Tattie explained. “All Brax had to do was flutter his pretty eyelashes and she gave away her sister’s van route. Apparently, they live together. She couldn’t wait to reassure Brax her sister would be busy tonight so he could pay her a private visit. That’s sibling loyalty for you. I’m glad I was an only child.”
Who cares?
The driver opened the door and jumped down from the van. Tattie drew back into the dark mouth of the side street.
“I’ll deal with her,” she whispered. She reached for her knife, her fingers wrapped so tight around the handle her skin blanched.
There’s no need for Tattiana’s theatrics. The driver will be occupied for at least thirty minutes.
“Wait,” Ginx said, placing a hand on Tattie’s arm. Tattie flinched.
“Wait for what?”
Ginx nodded towards the driver. She was crossing the road, her powered-down van temporarily abandoned.
“Where’s she going?” Brax said. Tattie and Ginx both shushed him.
The woman moved slowly but with purpose, her head down and her hands thrust in her pockets. That side of the street was a steady glare of revolving lights and arching holoprojections.
Step inside and spin the wheel of flesh!
The cleanest hemo-slots in town or your next sani shot is free.
Win a three-day shuttle pass to Mustara Edge.
Half-price holowhores - Mon-Wed.
Holodice now malware-free!
The driver stopped before Voidspire Slots, a towering arch of a building dressed in the long fluttering skirts of a dozen holoposters advertising organ poker and exotic shard dancers. The woman deliberated for a short moment, then walked between the fluted bone-white columns and disappeared inside.
“This is a stroke of bloody luck,” Tattie said. She slid her knife back inside her jacket. “Our mark’s gambling on the clock.”
“Isn’t she worried the husks will wonder where their food is?” Brax said. “Won’t they be waiting for her delivery?”
“I don’t think the husks wonder about much of anything,” Tattie replied.
Ginx tried not to take offense on Toni’s behalf. All of this would be sorted by the end of the night, even if she had to rip the Noctarum apart bare-tentacled and drag Toni away in one tightly curled, suckered appendage.
“If we’re going to move, we should do it now,” she said.
About bloody time. These two are all yap and no action.
Tattie nodded her assent. She put her pizza box stack on the floor and ran across the pavement to try the van’s back doors. They slid open easily.
“It’s like she wants to get ripped off,” she said. “Let’s get rid of these bricks, then we can replace them with ours.”
They worked swiftly and quietly, dumping that evening’s supply of Shillo’s BioBricks in the side street and packing the empty crates with spiked mushroom facsimiles. When they hurried back to their hiding place, a posse of yellow-toothed rats were already sniffing around the rancid pile. Ginx and Tattie took turns kicking out at them, shooing them away amidst a spray of grey protein sludge.
“Quiet,” Brax said, his gaze trained on the van. “She’s back.”
They watched the woman jog across the road and pull herself up into the driver’s seat. The van rolled away with a wrenching squeak amid a short flurry of hissing exhaust sparks.
“There was a definite spring in her step,” Brax observed. “I bet she was lucky.”
“Come on,” Tattie said. “Let’s go see if our batshit crazy plan actually works.”
They walked out onto the pavement and began to follow the van. At the end of the long, straight road—empty save for the occasional speeding skaterat—was the Noctarum. It rose like a solid sheet of glistening steel against the plum purple of the hazy sky, daring them to roll through its doors.
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Content Warnings
Mild swearing