The Cyradine Way

Mouse never liked Cyradine. The bright colours, the loud noise of machinery and music blaring from the shop windows, the large spiring buildings going up and up and up, soaking up the natural sunlight for itself - and the incessant stench of lamplighter oil. She dropped off the side of the Cloudshear that she was impressed survived the journey intact. The airship docks in Cryadine were always busy enough so that someone disboarding an airship before it's stopped properly wouldn't be out of place. She rolled over one shoulder and settled into a relaxed pace down the solid wooden tiling, stretched over the copper and steel walk-way that extended several miles over empty space. Cyradine was a fine city, wealthy, influential, qualities that were very much on display upon arriving in it. Her previous visits to Cyradine had only ever been brief. This wasn't her scene. She looked too scrappy, and her best attempts to mask her accent would inevitably be picked up as either a disguise, or an attempt at social climbing. If she could have left this to a different courier, she would have, but there weren't many of them that transported the kind of cargo that she had carried over the previous couple of weeks. Best lie low, while waiting for the hand-off.

In some ways, Cyradine was like any other place where people gathered. It had an image to uphold, and along with it came a number of aspects that it desperately had to hide away if it wanted to keep up the charade. One only needed to look hard enough for those aspects to come to light. During her first visit there, she happened to find the space in between all the glitz and glamour of the visible city, at the feet of the largest buildings, where the engineers and machinists kept their insides ticking like clockwork. In the spaces between the machinery she knew there to be housing, small markets and pubs, everything to keep those people doing what they were doing, keep the heart of Cyradine beating strong and steady. She didn't know a direct path, but intuition told her to keep choosing paths that led downward, away from the intricate glass sculptures and shop-windows that featured emblems of the city at every other corner. The smell of steam and machine-oil began giving her clues as to where to go, when the natural light had faded into reflections of reflections on the increasingly less clear surfaces on the buildings. She didn't have a specific destination in mind when heading down below what the locals referred to as the "horizon layer", but she knew she was where she was going to stay a while when she came across a distressed wooden door with haphazardly placed copper plating where the wood was threatening to come apart. She pushed it inward, into a room that smelled of cigarettes and frying oil. Not street below the horizon layer would have business running on it, and the ones that were keeping themselves above water likely weren't completely honest about how they made their money. That was good in the sense that what happened there, was going to stay there, and Mouse was confident enough in herself that she could deter anyone from getting any stupid ideas.

She ordered something small to eat at the counter and took a seat at one of the rickety tables that were strewn about the place. The few customers the establishment had at that time ignored her, pointedly. Chances were, some of them were waiting for somebody, and were giving her the courtesy of respecting the same possibility for her. The food was passable, barely worth the money she had paid for it. Both her and the owner knew that the food was just an excuse anyways. What she paid for was the time. Music played through the tinny cone of an old phonograph. She could make out the lyrics of some saccharine love-song she wasn't sure she recognized through the scratchy slipping of the needle. Somewhere outside, there was shouting. Mouse could feel the tension in the room spike, and she couldn't help but stop eating as well, in anticipation. As well informed as she could be about a place, these situations didn't really get written about. She would have to go with the flow.

She slowly stabbed at her food with the fork, pushing it back and forth in a tense imitation of eating a meal, but never made the effort to put anything into her mouth. She'd choked too often when surprised while eating something on the go, she wasn't going to invite it now. Mouse waited, seemingly along with everyone else for the shouting to stop. Instead, the door flew open and about a dozen people flooded through the door inside, shouting various things. Some were already wrestling with someone, others quickly tried pushing some of the patrons to the ground. It took Mouse a brief moment to recognize it as a raid - probably an unsanctioned one. She tossed her plate and remains of the food at the head of the nearest officer, then dove behind the counter. While there was no way out the door, those spaces were usually the safest, and perhaps she could even make out a second exit from there. The owner had hunkered down there as well, pulling frantically on a drawer that refused to open.

"You get those a lot?" Mouse asked, bending down to check in the slight opening of the drawer.

"Every now 'n then." the owner replied "Come in here and break all the tables, arrest a few people who look at 'em funny -"

Mouse took his hand off the drawer "Let me" she shook her right hand, triggering the ejector mechanism and a thin blade extended past her hand. She jammed it in the opening and angled her wrist downward. It dislodged the drawer.

"Damn, lady. Raskellian gear in my humble restaurant?"

"I'm sure we'll both forget about that by the end of the day."

"Well, if you say so." the owner pulled the drawer open, and retrieved what looked like an axe on a small, flattened steampack. Some jury-rigged disaster made from parts that were just short of going bad, stripped down further so the end product wasn't as bulky. He slung it over his shoulder. He stood, and flipped a switch, pouring more steam into the implement than it was probably designed for. The high-pitched whistle of pressure escaping through the gaps in the welding filled the room.

"I'm gonna give you ten seconds to vacate the premises, and everyone who's still in here gets a whack in the teeth with this!" he shouted, voice breaking. Mouse thought that he seemed oddly used to it, but used her hidden position to act as if she weren't there. Maybe it saved her from having to scramble out into the streets with the rest of them. She spotted an apple that had rolled off the counter-top and landed not far from her and decided that she might as well try to finish a meal while restaurant emptied out.

"Thanks for the help." the owner said. Mouse pushed the last chair that had survived the raid into a corner to sweep the splinters and broken plates out the door "Eh" she shrugged "I had time to kill."

"Remind me, did you get through most of your meal before those knuckleheads came through that door?"

"I've had plenty." Mouse handed him the broom. He put it back behind the counter "Would you like anything to drink?"

"Scotch, if you've got any."

"Sure."

The fact that the scotch came in copper cups told Mouse that this establishment probably didn't serve alcohol to guests. Clearly he was making an exception for her.

"Have you ever had to use that?" she motioned at the axe on the counter-top. He shook his head "Cyradine's a peaceful place. It sucks in a lot of other ways, but threats are as far as most things go, even down here."

Mouse nodded slowly. She wasn't sure it was a good thing. There was still a place in Cyradine called "below the horizon layer". The way she was used to things working was that eventually, something had to give.

"Don't think too much about it, lady." the owner took a sip of the scotch "It's just how things are done here, and I for one, am fine with it. I'm sure they spill enough blood up there in the board-rooms."

"If you say so." Mouse finished her cup of scotch and placed the empty cup on the counter "My appointment's coming up."

"Good luck."

"Not that you'll get to use this info much, but you never wish a Raskellian Courier good luck."

"Really?"

"We find a way to get the job done. Luck's got nothing to do about it."

"Good to know."