Sorin hadn’t expected to need to explain everything. Perhaps naively, he’d thought to merely let Bradford know the Hellions were causing him problems and enlist the old climber’s help in moving supplies and materials around. It was obvious now that this deal was going to be a little bit more complex than that.
“Let me preface this by saying that I still don’t know why exactly the Black Hellions are interested in me,” Sorin said. “I haven’t had any run-ins with them personally yet.”
He laid out Rue’s connection to them first. Bradford got visibly angry at the mention of Hellion spies in the Clubhouse, but he didn’t look surprised. Sorin hadn’t pegged him as a stupid man, and he’d no doubt been aware of the existence of spies, if not their identities, for a long time. Still it struck him as a sensitive topic, so he hurried to move on from it.
Bradford didn’t interrupt while Sorin sped through meeting and killing Jorn, Nemari’s apparent abandonment of the team, and discovering her being held captive to be delivered to the Hellions’ leader for questioning.
It was only after revealing that he’d been the one who’d busted up the trio of climbers escorting her that Bradford finally said something. “You want me to believe you killed a rank 5 in open combat. Okay, I can buy that. Maybe he was an idiot. Maybe you got lucky. Rank isn’t everything, but it sure means a lot, especially at these lower ones. But now you’re telling me you, a rank 2, met and defeated a rank 7, 4, and 3, all at the same time, while employing non-lethal methods and rescuing a captive.”
“To be fair, I ambushed them. The rank 3 was basically out of the fight the whole time, and the rank 4 ran off after Nemari immediately.”
“You realize how unbelievable that sounds, right?”
“I don’t have any reason to lie,” Sorin said. “I’m just conveying the background info for you and giving you things you can confirm independently. I’m not here to enlist some climbers to help me fight a war against the Black Hellions or the Sildfalls.”
“No, you’re here because they’ve made it impossible for anyone on your team to show your face in public. You need someone to do your shopping for you, which is dangerous because if the Hellions learn about that connection, whoever is spending your money is going to become a target.”
“I also need a fence,” Sorin added shamelessly. “We’re still climbing. It’s the only way out of this mess.”
“You’ll never climb fast enough to become stronger than the people who are after you,” Bradford told him. “That’s a ridiculous solution.”
“I’m open to better ideas if you’ve got one.”
Bradford blew out a long sigh and scrubbed his face with his hand. “Samael, you bastard. It’s never enough with you, is it?”
“You know him personally, I take it?”
“To my great displeasure,” Bradford said. “I used to be involved with the Union. About ten years ago, Samael showed up. He was actually about your age back then. Made a name for himself for punching above his rank, too. I don’t know if you’ve had much dealings with the Union, but they’re entirely profit-motivated. They’ll do all sorts of stuff to help climbers, just so long as you can pay for it.
“Well, Samael was a rich little shit. Looking back on it now, it’s pretty obvious that he got his money from various criminal activities. He was definitely involved with smuggling, even back then. Damn good at it, too. To my knowledge, he’s never been arrested carrying anything through the portal he wasn’t supposed to have, but somehow, he keeps bringing stuff down.
“Anyway, the point is he had money even back at the early ranks, so he bought himself carrying services. He wanted to jump up through the ranks, and he wasn’t interested in doing it the right way. My team took the contract. That was a mistake.”
“I’m going to guess he was a demanding client who pushed you into taking risks you knew better than to take,” Sorin said.
“It’s like you were there,” Bradford told him dryly.
Sorin could see that. The more he learned about Samael, the more certain he was that the guy was a transplant from another tower. He probably had his own Liminal Gateway that let him smuggle things down to Floor 0, but unlike Sorin, he’d apparently focused on building and controlling a criminal organization. It made sense, in a way. Climbing was expensive, and red tower society was especially materialistic.
If he’d had the money for it, Sorin might have considered hiring a carry group, too. After all, he had no need to go slow and learn the basics on the low floors. A quick rush up to even a moderate rank would have been an excellent start to his journey through a second tower.
“Well, we refused him, of course. Any smart climber would have done the same. But then we got greedy, and greedy climbers are dumb climbers. He started offering more danirs, ones outside the contract, money we wouldn’t have to report back to the Climber’s Union. You seem like a smart guy. I’m sure you can guess where this story’s going.”
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“Dead climbers, no remorse from Samael, and I’m betting it culminated with your retirement and the founding of this place as an alternative to the Union.”
“That’s about the size of it. Samael’s firmly established himself on Floor 0. He doesn’t seem to do much climbing these days, but why would he? He’s already stronger than almost anybody living down here. He’s got his fingers in every pie, just gathering blackmail where he can, making threats where he has to, and generally making life just a little bit more miserable for the rest of us.”
“And now he’s looking at me,” Sorin said.
“Yeah, and why is that?” Bradford held up a hand to forestall Sorin’s answer. “I know, you already said you don’t know. And I believe you haven’t sat down for a chat with Samael about his goals. I do. But I also believe you still have a pretty good idea anyway. If you want my help, and I can assure you, if anything, you’ve underestimated how much danger you’re in, I’m going to need you to be honest with me.”
Sorin considered how much to share. The truth was obviously out. He had no intentions of telling anybody that he originated from another tower, at least not until he was rank 50 or higher. And by then, it wouldn’t matter. There were other, lesser truths, though. One of those would probably suffice.
“You said he’s a smuggler, one who never gets caught. No one knows how he does it. It can’t all just be bribes to the guards. Let’s just say I have a pretty good idea how his operation works, and leave it at that.”
Bradford stared hard at him. “The only way you could know that would be if you were involved in his operation. You’d have to be part of his inner circle, but your rank is a little low for that.”
“I do not now, nor have I ever, had any affiliation with the Black Hellion or those of his organization,” Sorin said.
Bradford said nothing for a long while. Thoughts churned through his mind, evidenced by small changes in his expression, and finally the old man let out a deep, sad sigh. “I get the sense you’re not telling me everything, or even most things. You can understand why I’m hesitant to take any risks on you, given what you’re asking me to go up against. Samael may not bother me personally, but I don’t need the Hellions making aggressive moves against the Clubhouse.”
Samael doesn’t bother him personally? What does that mean?
Bradford must have seen the question on Sorin’s face because he waved it off and said, “Old debt. The man is scum, but he does have some honor left in him.”
Based on everything Sorin had heard so far, he wouldn’t put much faith in Samael’s word. People like that were only good to their promises as long as it was convenient. If push came to shove, he was willing to bet Samael would kill Bradford and step over his body to take whatever it was he wanted.
“So, you need a fence to sell all of your climbing loot, and a personal shopper to buy new gear and food, and it all needs to be discreet enough that no one looks closely enough to follow the trail back to you,” Bradford said. “Tell me, are there any other big families or underworld criminal organizations you’ve pissed off that I should know about before I recommend someone?”
“Now that you mention it, I had a run in with a guy named Yoru.”
“Of the Telpikes? Of course you did. Okay, two climbing families and one psychopath stalker. Well, you certainly lead an interesting life, Sorin.”
“Not by choice, I assure you,” Sorin said dryly.
“That always seems to be the case. Nevertheless, let’s talk about what exactly you’re going to need, and what you’ve got in your bags.”
What followed was more of a business transaction than a conversation, and Sorin quickly learned that Bradford was a shrewd negotiator. He wasn’t shy at all about leaning on the fact that Sorin was lacking options. Despite not knowing the local values of everything his team had harvested, Sorin had no doubt that he was not getting a great deal.
But then, as Bradford had reminded him more than once, there were severe risks associated with doing business with him, necessitating a lot more expenses than usual to ensure the confidentiality of his client. Besides that, Sorin wouldn’t be coming around to pick up his order, either. Having to do weekly dead drops was another service charge that Bradford happily gouged him on.
Sorin didn’t leave happy, but he did accomplish his goals. More importantly, as the owner of the Clubhouse, Bradford was in a good position to bring in lots of inventory for various climber needs. It wouldn’t look suspicious if he bought a little more than usual, not unless someone got looking at his books and realized he was short on basic supplies and had some unexplained materials and soulprints for sale.
Bradford also claimed to know a healer capable of fixing Sorin’s arm and promised to get in touch, but neither of them were under any illusions that the service would be affordable. Sorin thanked him for trying, but didn’t let go of his plan to heal himself.
His final order of business was to establish a new sign for Liminal Gateway nearby. They’d agreed on a dead drop location six blocks away from the Clubhouse, and he wanted his entry point to Floor 0 to be nearby, but not on top of that. Fortunately, the city got more and more disorganized the farther from the center it went, which meant it wasn’t too far out of Sorin’s way to find a new warren of twisting alleyways.
The problem was the sign itself. He carved it, the same way he’d done every sign over the last week or so, but it failed to work. At first, he thought he’d done something wrong, but it was a very simple symbol—just a circle with seven evenly spaced horizontal lines. The proportions looked good to him, though admittedly wood carving wasn’t a specialty of his.
Frowning, he defaced the symbol and tried again next to it. The new sign didn’t work either. Did I hit a hard limit? No, I’ve brushed up against that before. I’d recognize that. The sign is correct, so maybe it’s the location? Never had that issue before, but we’re making this up as we go, so who knows for sure?
He spent the next half an hour roaming alleyways, carving the sign in various walls wherever he could find a nondescript corner. Nothing worked, and he was finally forced to concede. For the moment, until he figured something out, he would have just one exit in and out of Floor 0. It was just his luck that it was inconveniently on the wrong side of the city.
Annoyed, he started trudging back toward his original sign. He was almost there when something pinged in his Blind Sense. Stopping just shy of turning the corner into the alley, he watched as no less than four men and women dragged the old man from earlier out of his home.
“You’re going to tell us everything, one way or another,” a woman told him. “If you don’t want to cooperate, that’s fine. It won’t change anything in the end.”
Hellions. How the hell did they find out about this alley?
