Drabble #232: Treasure Hunt (Patreon)

With the prompts of 'why should it not be me' from Henri Black and 'that which lurks' from Sam C, we're back in Horrak-Sarn for another installment in the City of Shadows anthology. This time, some independent contractors are out to plunder some booty. And not in the fun way. Enjoy!

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Treasure Hunt:

“Sorry about this,” Jason St. Claire said as he twisted the knife and pushed Bill off the parapet. The breath driven from his lungs by Jason’s betraying strike, the other man couldn’t even scream as he plummeted down into the shadows. They were so high up that Jason didn’t even hear the meaty splat of Bill hitting the ground. The scavengers would have a nice mush to lap up. “But you were right.”

Jason supposed he did feel a little bad about stabbing Bill in the back – literally and figuratively – but it was as Bill had said himself. The haul they were aiming for was enough to set someone up for life. Someone.The more ways you split a pie, the less there was for everyone. That was just simple fact. Couldn’t argue with that, could you? Besides, Bill had been losing his nerve. They were so close to the prize and he’d started talking about turning back. Not after all they’d been through. Jason wasn’t going back empty-handed and suppose Bill did scurry off like a frightened rat? Well, he’d be sure to crawl out of his hole and greet Jason with his hand out, wouldn’t he? Not after turning tail. This was Jason’s score now. His and his alone.

He was almost at the point that the Turner’s Man had described. It was part of an old abandoned skyrail system. They’d had to cross the bridges and tunnels up above before making their descent. The ground wasn’t safe. Jason didn’t know why this part of the City had been abandoned, not that it mattered. Who knew anything about this place? Only the Masters and they weren’t talking. Jason ducked under some burnt refuse. The air here stunk of burnt hair and roasted meat. This had been a Craven nest. Poor, dumb Alice had figured that out when she’d rappelled up into it. They’d eaten her while she was still clinging to the rope, blood, scraps of cloth and denuded bones raining down on the last three members of the group.

This might be the roughest job Jason had ever run, but it was likely to be the most profitable. Back on Earth, he would have been considered an “independent contractor”. A fixer or a troubleshooter, doing odd jobs to handle situations, whatever those situations were. That had gotten him in a bit of trouble, leading a series of events that culminated in waking up in the cattle hold of an alien barge and five years of slavery before he’d been able to escape. He’d worked his way up the ladder, but being under someone else’s thumb had never sat well with him, so when the opportunity to duck out came up, he took it.

Since then, he’d been doing what he always did. Making his own way, looking out for himself. No one on Earth had been too fussed about his personal well-being, and that was damn sure true on this particular purgatory. He did the jobs that came to him, working his way up and building a reputation for success. Whatever needed to be doing, he could handle. Bring back a runaway spouse, servant or family member? Add a little extra security to establishments or expeditions? Help convince someone that owed you money to pay up? He did all of that and more, staying out from under the umbrella of the gangs and city bosses that ran the human districts. He was a free man and determined to stay that way.

This job had started out a little different than most. Bill saw this one hooker on the regular, but she also worked the Split Branch. Lots of Turner’s Men went there. She’d heard from some of those johns that the rebels were planning something big. Not an attack, at least not this time. It was something else. One of their scouting parties had found something, way out in the emptiest parts of the City. The man hadn’t said what that was, only that it was “big” and that getting to it would take some preparations. Half the original scouting party had died on the mission and the Turners were being cautious, especially as they were always trying to avoid attention.

Jason had pushed Bill to lean on his whore a little more and she’d given up the name of her soldier boy. Jason had got a couple extra freelancers and they’d gotten a hold of the Turner, tuning him up enough to get him to spill everything. Jacques had handled the cleanup, getting rid of the body. The Turners might be dumb shits with more idealism than brains, but they weren’t people to cross. Not unless you could get away with it. Not unless it was worth it.

And this haul was well worth it. If it was true. The Turners thought it was, at least enough to risk more of their people on it. That was all the confirmation Jason had needed. They didn’t throw good money after bad, so if they thought there was something to it, then there likely was.

Jason and Bill had planned it all out. They’d decided on a seven-man crew for this job. They couldn’t risk taking out anything heavy, not until they confirmed their target so they’d go in on four-wheelers and bikes. Keep it light and mobile. It would be a risk, but everyone Jason signed on was experienced with the City. Once they got to the target, then it would be worth it.

Their seven had become six on the third day. Ironically enough, Jacques had been the first to go. He’d stepped on a snare trap and gotten scooped up in a net of razor wire. Traps like that were often monitored, so they’d had no choice but to leave him. Better one die than they all get gummed up. He’d stopped shouting for them to come back after a while, probably passing out. Two days later, Gerald had gone out for a piss and never come back. They never found his body, only a puddle of blood and drag marks leading through a side alley and down into the Beneath.

Back on Earth, Jason had heard the phrase ‘concrete jungle’. He’d even used it himself, but places like Chicago, New York, LA – hell, even shitholes from third world countries didn’t even come close to what that really meant. Horrak-Sarn was an ecology unto itself, a world-spanning city filled with alien overlords, hundreds of millions of slaves, servants and allegedly free humans. It could swallow the worst of Earth’s cities and every bit of depravity, death and horror that purely human minds could think up and not even notice. All the gangers, addicts, junkies, corrupt cops, cartel killers and psychos would suddenly find themselves at the bottom of the food chain. Literally, in many cases.

No one survived here by being weak or letting themselves get taken advantage of. You took the opportunities when they came up and you didn’t look back. That’s how you made your way. Couldn’t argue with that, could you?

Four days after Gerald, they lost Kinney. A pair of Watchers got him; a couple of girls. One with black wings and one with white. Despite a few close calls, the group had stayed at four until Alice had climbed right into the nesting Craven. Jason had come up with the plan to burn them out. It had worked like a charm, the entire nest of vicious little beasts getting snuffed out in one fell swoop. Well, almost like a charm; as their nest caught fire, the Craven tried to swarm their way out. Andre panicked and nearly got them all killed. Jason pushed him into the shrieking creatures, man and swarm burning up together.

Seeing that, Bill lost his water. He wanted to cut and run, use their radio to call in the air chariot to pull them out. That would be a great thing, wouldn’t it? Give away what they’d been doing out here without anything to show for it. When Jason had refused to make the call, Bill had been willing to leave. And sure he would. Not just crawl into a hole and wait for Jason to finish things up and then pop out for a ride back like he’d been there all the while, or maybe he would head back only to be waiting for his “fair share”. Jason had worked with Bill for years, but he wasn’t going to let himself get screwed over now. Not by someone willing to cut and run on the cusp of victory.

So, yeah. A knife in the back, a tumble from a tower and then Jason didn’t have to share anything at all. That was taking care of number one, wasn’t it? Not letting yourself get screwed over. Couldn’t argue with that, could you?

Carefully, using Jacques’ cutter to slice through doors and debris, Jason continued on his way, following the painted marks that the Turner scouts had left behind. There was nothing between him and his goal now. Soon enough, there it was. The scouts pulled it inside, out of sight of aerial recon, but it was too big for a small team to move very far or very fast. A cargo crate from one of the Master’s barges. A big one, Pharaoh-class. No one knew what the Masters had called it, but to the humans it had been known as the Argo. It had been shot down on final approach to the docks more than four decades ago, crashing into the urban sprawl, leaving a furrow kilometers long through buildings, parks and skyscrapers. The ship itself had been recovered, as had much of its cargo, but as it had been falling out of the sky, a lot of its haul had spilled from its breached hull. For decades afterwards, bits and pieces from the Argo turned up... but nothing this big.

Whatever was in that crate was worth a Master’s ransom. It was big, heavy and reinforced. That meant that whatever was in there was valuable and likely had survived the impact. Jason circled the huge container. He’d already made arrangements with some trusted people, but he hadn’t let them know this was from the Argo. He picked up a small pebble and tossed it at the container. It made a dull thud. It was full indeed.

Everything had been worth it. The risk, the losses. He’d made it here. No one else had. Jason smiled as he pulled his radio out, ready to call this in and get the hell out of this patch of concrete jungle.

It was all his.

And you couldn’t argue with that.