CHAPTER 41: LAST EVACUATION | PHILTERWORKS—III

  COMMONWEALTH INDUSTRIAL PARK—NOVEMBER 20th, 1992 | EARLY EVENING

  ?

  Guts buzzed around Cameron’s head.

  “I know,” Cameron said, swatting away the green-white wisp.

  It’s singular eye bored into him, as if waiting for him to do something.

  “No signal. Leroy said two gunshots,” Cameron said.

  He’d been idling inside of the access stairwell for what seemed like half an hour, sitting on the first step with his hands resting between his knees. Fortunately, nobody had walked inside. All he had for company was Guts, windowless concrete walls, dim lights, and the ever-present sound of heavy machinery just beyond the door. Cameron had only caught a small glimpse of what the processing plant looked like when Leroy exited, and the smell, even now, seeped under the door and made his nostrils burn in protest.

  Cameron stared down at his hands and exhaled.

  No juice. He could feel it—a complete and utter lack of access to his abilities. He’d run dry before, but never quite like this. The last 48 hours had forced him to tap into every ounce of power he could muster, back to back to back. Even with breaks in between, the strain had started to weigh on him. Trying to call upon his abilities at this point would be like trying to do ten pushups after doing one-hundred; after a certain point, your body just quit on you, and there wasn’t anything you could do about it. Rest was the answer, but if he’d learned anything since becoming an underarbiter, it was that rest was a luxury.

  Bea’s Diner sounded good about now. Cameron’s stomach grumbled, and it grumbled again, and it grumbled a third time. They’d spent the whole day fighting, moving, and fighting, and moving. Her shitty coffee and greasy burgers sounded like a cure just about anything, hunger included.

  A meal would have to wait.

  Cameron lurched up and walked toward the door, much to Guts delight. He lingered a hand on the handle, and with his free hand, waved a finger in front of Guts. “Behave. You hear me?”

  Guts stared at him.

  Cameron shook his head, allowing himself a small smile before opening the door.

  Wherever Leroy was, Cameron figured he had it handled. Horrible as he was at planning, the man had a knack for getting himself out of the situations he created for himself. But maybe that was luck, and luck was a fickle thing. Inconsistent, unreliable, and somehow one of the only things Cameron could boil down to superstition in spite of every occult and arcanic thing that had proven itself to exist thus far.

  Cameron grabbed his black shirt and pulled it over his nose, coughing. The noxious scent was stronger inside the processing plant, and understandably so. Vats and tubes and whirring mechanisms took up the entire floor plan. It was late, too, and there were still plenty of busybodies tending to their work stations. All of them wore what looked like company-issued jumpsuits with cloth masks.

  As he walked, he felt the weight of his Reign 18, tucked squarely into the inside of his dusted beige jacket, and considered what Leroy had told him. Causing a scene would get people to run and leave, but everything around him seemed volatile. Unstable.

  An older man surveyed a group of workers, clipboard in hand, and Cameron approached with his best ‘how do you do’ face, which only prompted the man to take a step back. He wiped the falsehood off his features, cleared his throat, and reached for his pocket, withdrawing his underarbiter’s license.

  “Need to leave,” Cameron said to the man.

  “Ah. You’re with that man, then. He did quite the number earlier, on one of the guards,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction. A man in a kevlar vest was unconscious, his face bruised.

  Cameron slipped his underarbiter’s license back into his pocket. “Something like that. Look, you need to get out of here. Grab that guy and help him out.”

  “We have quotas,” the man retorted. “And, well, if I leave, the processing machines will need to be shut down, and dozens upon dozens of gallons of alchemical material will be lost—”

  “Do you want to live?” Cameron asked plainly.

  The man opened his mouth and closed it, only to clear his throat.

  “That guy you saw earlier. Both of us are here on official business, an arbitration contract, and you don’t want to be here when we fulfill that contract. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “I—... yes, in a sense,” the man mumbled, staring in subtle awe at Guts, who continued to levitate just above Cameron’s shoulder, a subtle breeze ruffling the fabric of his coat.

  Cameron furrowed his brows. “If you don’t leave, you’ll..”

  “I’ll?”

  “Die. You’ll die,” Cameron said curtly. “So go and shut down whatever machines you need to shut down, tell your friends, and get the fuck out of here.”

  “Right. That man, he—”

  “Is fine. He can handle himself,” Cameron stated. “Get moving. Now.”

  Cameron brushed past him and made towards the opposite end of the processing plant, rehearsing the same spiel to every worker he encountered. One by one, they shuffled towards various cranks, levers, and valves, shutting down the manufacturing operations piece-by-piece. A thunderous hiss slithered through the processing plant. Fumes lingered, but at the very least, Cameron could go without having his shirt covering his nose, and the air didn’t burn when he breathed it in.

  All that was left was the front of the building.

  Most of the workers had exited out a pair of twin doors that, presumably, lead directly to what must have been a lobby or an extra office space, or both. Either way, he had more ground to clear. Guts hummed beside him. Not a blink from the sprite. Not yet at least. Given the lack of security—not including the guard already on the ground—Cameron suspected Leroy had already dealt with whoever was guarding the processing plant, or was still dealing with them. Didn’t matter. That was his job, and Cameron had his own set of problems to deal with.

  He shouldered through the twin doors and reached his hand inside his denim jacket, gripping the handle of his Reign 18, gaze narrowed.

  Storage room, reception area, or both, or maybe neither. Cameron couldn’t quite pin it down, but there was an open area towards the proper entrance—far from where he was standing—of the processing plant with couches, tables,and potted plants. Closer to him was some sort of corridor, with doors on either side that had small annexes with viewing glasses, mixing tables, and what he assumed to be alchemical equipment.

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  Most everyone had already left, and Cameron saw the final of them exit the front doors. Good. It seemed that the man he’d spoken to earlier did what he was told, and his word spread like wildfire.

  Cameron rested a hand on his hip, only for one of the doors he’d already passed to open. With a sharp pivot, he withdrew his Reign 18 and pointed it towards the source of the sound, finger heavy on the trigger. Guts whirred around his head, but had yet to blink. He wasn’t in danger. Far from it.

  Gray jumpsuit, Bluestein Philterworks logo. Her cloth mask was pulled down from her face and rested along her neck, and she looked older, but not quite old. Probably early forties, if Cameron had to guess, with medium-length curly brown hair, and hazel eyes that looked far too tired for their own good, framed by bags that were set deep along her features. Bags that would never go away.

  A name tag was on her uniform: Janice.

  “Are you with that man?” she asked, briefly glancing towards Guts. It stared at her with its singular eye, then looked towards Cameron, humming its usual hum.

  Cameron lowered his Reign 18. “You need to leave.”

  Janice glanced around. “Please answer my question.”

  “Yes,” Cameron said curtly. “He show you his license?”

  Janice nodded. “I—look, I told my supervisor about him, and I saw him gather the guards and go look for him.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Cameron insisted. “But you won’t be, if you stay here. Come on, lady, just get out of here.”

  “That’s not—” Janice inhaled, and exhaled. “I’m telling you this because I wasn’t exactly forthcoming with your partner.”

  Partner. The words hit Cameron like an anvil, and a sickness brewed in his stomach. It wasn’t a word he’d ever use to describe his relationship with Leroy: his keeper, his warden, and the man he’d sworn to kill. He shoved the feeling down, and nodded towards her, waiting for her to continue.

  “He asked me if I knew about something, something called ether. I told him I didn’t know what he meant, and I wasn’t lying, because that’s not what we call it, but it wasn’t until after I spoke to my supervisor that I understood what he meant.”

  “You know where it’s being made?” Cameron asked.

  “Yes,” Janice answered. “But, the others, the ones who already left, they told me you were telling everyone to evacuate.”

  Cameron steeled his gaze onto her. “And you stayed. Why?”

  Janice stared down at the ground for a moment. Cameron saw a lump forming in her throat, and there was a redness to her eyes that threatened to take over. A preamble to tears that she was trying earnestly to ignore. “The capacity of my work here is not particularly noteworthy. I graduated from the Brinehaven College of the Arts, studied alchemy, and arrived here on the promise of a well-paying job at the Commonwealth’s premier alchemical company. It’s not on my nametag, but I’m a junior overseer, and something of an assistant to the man who handles the day-to-day here at the processing plant. I take numbers, record things, track adjustments. And there’s something I—”

  “You’re running out of time,” Cameron said plainly, his words sharp. “You want the honest truth? We’re here to blow this place up. At least, a part of it, and I have no fucking clue if that small boom is going to turn into a big boom, which is why I’m here telling you all to leave. As far as I know, my part—... Leroy has already done what needs to be done. Get to the point.”

  “There’s a woman. Sort of.”

  Cameron furrowed his brows. “What the fuck do you mean sort of? Is there or is there not a woman?”

  “She cannot evacuate herself,” Janice explained. “And she’ll need your—our—help to get out of here.”

  Cameron paced over towards her, and for a moment, thought about grabbing both of her shoulders and shaking some sense into her. “Why didn’t you start with that, lady?”

  “Sorry,” Janice mumbled.

  “Lead the way,” Cameron said, voice brimming with a subdued urgency. “And be quick about it.”

  ?

  Unbeknownst to Cameron, there was a stairwell that led to a second floor, which he completely neglected to consider when he entered the processing plant. From the outside, it was large, larger than large—big—but it looked like a massive shell or husk meant for all manner of industrial workloads. But there had to be rooms for storage. Files, alchemical materials, uniforms, so on and so forth, and as Janice led him up the stairs, they were surrounded by exactly that: room after room after room of shelves with jars of strange liquids, books, manila folders, and lockers.

  Cameron furrowed his brows and stared daggers into the back of Janice’s head.

  He didn’t like this. Not one bit. A feeling gnawed at his gut and he almost considered grabbing her, throwing her over his shoulder, and running out of the building to return her to her coworkers. Guts hummed and buzzed, but offered nothing in the way of a blink. Not even a weird mewl of surprise.

  Janice stopped at the far side of the room, and in front of her was a door. Sigilmasonry marked its surface, chaotic, and beautifully carved. The symbols stood out like a sore thumb in a room otherwise dominated by grays, metals, and the hallmark odds and ends of corporate occupation.

  She reached for a set of keys looped onto her jumpsuit’s belt and withdrew one. Sigilmarked.

  Cameron squinted. “Hold on.”

  Janice lingered at the door, glancing over her shoulder. Her eyes were wide and awkward. Uncomfortable, even, but as far as Cameron could tell, they were hardly deceitful. If anything they looked scared. Not of him, but of what awaited them both.

  He exhaled, and nodded, gesturing for her to continue.

  A distinct, arcanic noise, low and almost imperceptible, filled the air. She twisted the key into place and the door opened, and a whoosh of noxious fumes flooded Cameron’s nostrils once more.

  Dying whispers of clanking awaited them ahead, and the stillness of non-active alchemical processing machines was almost eerie. Where the door opened and ended, a catwalk began, and it ran directly over a massive metal cauldron of some kind. On the opposite end was another door, and even from this distance, Cameron could see that it was reinforced with sigilmasonry.

  Janice stepped forward first, and Cameron followed, immediately grabbing hold of the railings.

  The distance wasn’t an issue. No, maybe it was. There was enough height here to warrant fear inside of Cameron, but more pressing than that was the chance that if he fell, he’d fall straight into alchemical goo. Even with all of the machines turned off, the remnant heat was something to behold, and the smell was strong enough to let him know that if he fell, he’d be melted.

  “There’s something you should know,” Janice began, trekking along.

  Both of Cameron’s hands clung to the railings. He practically pulled himself forward with each step. “Yeah, sure, spit it out.”

  “Earlier, I mentioned that my supervisor took most of the guards to your partner—”

  “Leroy. Just call him Leroy,” Cameron said curtly.

  Janice cleared her throat. “My supervisor took most of the guards, or, I guess, all of the guards, in the processing plant to Leroy. But there’s more, up ahead, behind these doors.”

  Cameron grimaced. “So you lied.”

  “No—... what I’m trying to get at is that there’s more guards, and they aren’t meant to leave the room we’re about to enter, not unless they are switching shifts. I just wanted to let you know.”

  “How many?”

  Janice stared at the sigilmasoned door in front of her. “Around six, or seven.”

  Cameron turned towards Guts. No blinking yet. “You better cover me.”

  Guts whirred around his head.

  “Should I open it?” Janice asked.

  He reached inside the beige denim jacket and removed his Reign 18, holding it tight in a single hand. By now, he’d fully come to accept he was a piss-poor marksman. But a bullet was a bullet. Assuming Guts did what Cameron expected he’d do, he’d be covered, somewhat, and that might grant him enough time to get close. Sweat slid down the side of Cameron’s temple, and a tension tugged at his breath—made it tighter, like a cord being pulled on both ends. No juice, no white-ivory to cover his skin. He’d have to make do.

  “Yeah.”

  I double checked the Ritual poll, and it seems a few more votes have come in, with Bishop Hargreeves maintaining a slight lead over Rachel Chen. ??

  CAMERON KESSLER

  GUTS

  JANICE OLIVERA

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