Warning: The Love Of All Evils

Flattened polygonal islands formed a jagged line across the south eastern portion of Eastern Capital. Rusty metal and concrete bridges led to junk yards, truck lots, construction headquarters, warehouses, and fuel depots. Chain link fences surrounded almost every property. The ground had an unearthed, raw, visceral, and dirty feel even at night. Ocean water splashed against cement walls. Traffic moved slowly on well-maintained roads under sparse yellow streetlamps.

A refinery centered the largest of the industrial islands. A series of colored pipes tangled in symmetrical knots pushed each other toward the sky. A vast array of reds, greens, purples, and faded whites tangled each other as if someone had opened several balls of colored yarn at once. Lights peppered the pipes like the hand of God had bought stars to Earth. Flames poured upward to make the air hazy. Towers crisscrossed with vertical and horizontal metal veins of colored yarn reached further still. Gentle white smoke reached to join clouds obscuring the moon.

Small red lights calmly blinked at their pinnacles. They reminded the lowly round storage vats of their place. The lights reached a square island full with under utilized warehouses.

A garage door rolled up. Darius pulled the small pick-up truck into the dark warehouse. A big hazel eye peered from the truck bed, only to sink behind cover as he passed. The dim cloud covered moonlight struggled through the skylights. The garage door slid down. A plume of industrial grade dust rose. It clung to the wet legs of his maintenance coveralls.

Pen light clicked on, but the light absorbed into the empty warehouse until he aimed it upon closer ground. Darius didn’t dare turn the main lighting on. He pulled his doctor’s bag, lanyard, and cap out of the passenger seat, then shuffled to the office where he flicked on a desk lamp.

A gentle light radiated from filmy windows paneled in rusty metal. Flecks of red lead paint peeled from metal housing the dirty glass. The patter of scurrying gribbles accompanied their squeaks. One rushed up the window so that its underside was visible through the glass.

Metal clasps of the black leather bag clicked open. Claws clicked before he reached in for the mop. He dumped it head first into an empty bucket. Then he pulled out a tied link of uncut roast ham with a skin. It plopped into his maw. Saliva dripped to the floor as he chomped lukewarm meat.

Gribbles continued to scurry about in the dark warehouse. They made little patters as their claws tapped against sheet metal.

Darius shrugged. The gribbles probably smelt the ham and got excited. Too bad he already ate it all. He flopped on his sleeping mat. First, he turned on his side and started to curl, but he forced himself to stretch out. The floor was clean though, at least in the office, so he curled the sleeping bag into a most pathetic horde pile before he curled around it.

He huffed through his nostrils while staring at the mop, “You really blew it. We gave them way to much info on us. Know that? In fact, I don’t even want to look at you. I don’t even know why I pulled you out of the bag. To think I even paid money for you.”

A slight flame flickered from his right nostril. Darius lumped the sleeping bag to sit on top of it. He faced away from the mop as his arms wrapped about his legs. His snout went down to rest upon them. Whiskers flared as his breath shuddered.

“I can sense your bloodlust mop. If you want to finish me off do it. I won’t resist.”

A stem of water rose from the mop. Liquid buds formed at the tip. The stem of water grew taller until it hung over her master. The buds dropped heavily. They opened into the shape of small flowers that drooped. The eyes inside looked downward. The vision resembled a compound eye. A kaleidoscope of Darius sitting crestfallen filled her vision. A flower became a drop of murky water. It fell upon his head but he didn’t even stir.

“What are you waiting for? They killed every other part of me. I’d rather something like you deny them the privilege of finishing the job.”

Zenobia shuddered to her core. More flowers formed. They hung heavily over Darius without dropping. She tried to speak. Vibrations gurgled through the water. Somehow, she understood him, even though she couldn’t speak his language. A flower wilted into a drop of water that fell upon his shoulder.

“Steal? Why?” she gurgled.

“You think I’m doing this money? It’s not about the money. I detest money. It’s about pride. My father ran a business for generations, a dice house. He ran a clean game. But the business itself had a lot of bad actors. The bankers came in and took advantage of that. Outlawed his business outright. He couldn’t pay the taxes on the property. Then came the bankers. They loaned their friends money. They bought my father’s land for almost nothing and built pachinko parlors. Social gambling outlawed and exchanged for cold machines. Soulless machines.

“My mother’s business carried the family. We had no debt. We weren’t hostage or bound to anyone. My father supported that for a while. But then came the bankers. Cheap soy sauce flooded the country. The people who made nice with the banks got loans to start large scale production facilities. Cheap, disgusting, swill that all tastes the same under a million competing labels. Then they moved distilleries to other countries and imported it even cheaper.

“Didn’t matter if we made something better. Didn’t matter if generations of love and culture had been poured into it. Our product became too expensive. We went under. Couldn’t even pay the taxes. The bankers were more than glad to help. The distillery was flattened into parking lot.

“My folks barely got a comfortable retirement. We got nothing. My brothers, my sisters, all promising dragons with spirit, sit at desks being crushed by corporate task masters. The same ones that took our family honor from us and gave us slavery. And they laugh at me because I’m blacklisted. I’m the only one who gets it!”

Three fists slammed into the sheet metal wall. The reverberations rattled through the office. Clattering of gribble claws renewed along the metal rafters.

“But I refuse. I guess you could say I’m the black dragon of the family. I want revenge. I want their system to break. I want this sun god forsaken culture to reach out of this phony numbers pit we thrust ourselves in. But you wouldn’t understand. Nobody understands. Nobody cares. They’re all too busy chasing imaginary credits that some clever dragons decided were worth something. It’s not even real gold damn it! Nobody values anything real. Dragons were made to horde things of value. But everything these days is fake. And it’s all because of them!”

Three fists slammed into the wall. This time a dent pushed into the sheet metal. Blood dripped from his claws. He shook his aching hand and hissed. His shoulder thumped into the wall.

Another flower formed into a drop before dripping against his right shoulder. Darius slumped against the wall with a sigh. Something gurgled again from behind him, like a voice trying to speak his language.

“What has plan?”

“I see you’re picking up Sunese,” Darius rubbed his aching bloody hand, “I started an illegal business. Made a bit of money, real money, gold doubloons. I’ve been collecting items of real value too. Slowly buying them out from under the bankers’ noses. That bag was my first find. It can hold a great deal of tonnage, and only I can retrieve it. The plan is simple. Collect all the nation’s real money, diamonds, platinum, gold, gems, and artifacts that they stole from us with made-up numbers. Take them right out from under their noses. Tonight was a practice run. A failed practice run.”

“Bank robber. Bad person.”

Darius clenched his fist but it ached enough to make him hiss again, “Maybe you should learn to speak less when you don’t understand anything, Ze- mop.”

The lights went on in the warehouse. It became bright enough that Darius’s pupils adjusted. He shook off his sleeping bag as he jumped to the doorway. Gribbles scurried for cover. The walls in the corner rumbled before a pile of debris toppled. He moved closer to investigate.

A large piece of sheet metal toppled onto some parts. He lifted it, but there was nothing underneath.

The mop gurgled frantically from his office, “Darius! Help!”