Friends don't do that to each other

Marlo clutched at his arm. It blazed with pain, sending aching waves across his body. He fell to his knees and groaned. Nessa crouched by him.

“Let me see that.” She said. She touched it, but just a brush made Marlo almost scream. Monticello pushed her aside.

“Nessa, get out of the way, I come from a time a thousand years more medically advanced than yours. You focus on blocking the doors so that we don’t have to kill anyone else.” He knelt down next to Marlo and tore a piece off of the younger man’s shirt. He wrapped it around and around, and while it hurt like hell, Marlo managed to bite his lip.

“Doesn’t look fully broken.” Monticello said “Minor fracture maybe. We’ll likely have something to help with it. I’d say you’d have to earn it, but you got this to ensure Nessa made it on, so you can get that much for your efforts.”

“The only reason why she almost did make it was because of me.” Marlo panted. “Don’t give me credit.”

Monticello nodded approvingly “You fixed your mistake though, even though it cost you a lot. Could have done worse. You’re lucky this is one of the few things I remember.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Marlo was burning with curiosity. Curiosity and pain from his broken arm. He really wanted to know more about Monticello. He said he was from a thousand years ahead of Nessa, which placed him in around the seventeenth or eighteenth century. But, if he didn’t remember them, would even he know? And asking him about it would probably just make things worse.

“Uh… Monticello?” The pair turned. Nessa was stood across the train. She had twisted the metal to block the door, just as she had to close the gap. In one of her hands, flapping and crying out, was a woman. Monticello and Marlo stared for a few seconds. Nessa was holding her by the ankles, as easily as a backpack. She wiggled her captive at them “What do I do with this?”

Monticello unfroze “Chineke, what are you doing Nessa?”

“I did not want to throw another person out, but she seems pretty scared, and I know I am not the best in these situations so… she is clawing at my leg.”

“Let me down!” The woman yelled, scratching at Nessa’s leg, with all the effect of striking a tree with a toothpick.

“Let her down!” Monticello insisted, just as loud. Nessa did so, dropping the woman on the floor. She landed hard, groaned, and scrambled backwards, kicking at Nessa to stop her from following.

“Who are you people?” She asked. Her skin was the colour of cherrywood, her features were sharp, and her hair was jet black with pink highlights, a similar colour to her harsh, flint eyes. She looked perhaps in her early twenties, and her face was studded with piercings. Her jacket was leather, and her shirt and skirt pure black too. Massive boots and fishnet leggings completed her look, along with a large, blood-red pendant that dangled around her neck. “Why… you killed all those people but left me?”

“Those people aren’t dead.” Monticello reassured her. “DVIN are very, very good at stopping people from jumping from heights. Every single one will have been caught by a net drone; I guarantee it.”

The woman stared for a second, then asked “Why should I believe you?”

“I stopped Nessa from swinging you against a wall like a sack of sugarcane? I’m not finishing you off as we speak? Your choice, either way, I don’t much care.” He pulled the fabric tight around Marlo’s arm and nodded “That should do it.”

“Was that thing about net drones true?” Marlo whispered. Monticello gave him a look that he couldn’t quite decipher, then turned back to the woman. “You asked who we were? It’ll be for the best if you don’t know. That way, you can’t get affiliated with us. My advice, young lady, is to sit in a corner and pretend we’re not here. We won’t be here for long.”

The woman glared at him and got up. She walked over to a seat and flopped down in it. The action of his eyes following her allowed Marlo to see the rest of the subway car. It was long, thin, and grimy. Everyone inside the carriage was made a further fifteen centimetres taller by the layers of dust, and indecipherable gunk that was stuck fast to the floor. The windows looked tinted, due to the layers of detritus that encrusted them. The smell was abhorrent, halfway between pigpen and uncleaned garage. The train was built with that as its objective, seemingly seeing humans as no more than cattle to be ferried from point A to point B. It must have been built to pack as many people into this slender carriage as possible.

Comfort wasn’t second on the agenda, it seemed barely to be in the plans at all, the only concession being these seats. They were set into the wall, without cushions but still the best option on this train. Lines of lighter-coloured metal sticking out from the darker steel wall, a little less afflicted by the terrible grime. Deep purple lights gave the whole thing a strange ethereal feel, a sensation heightened by the cityscape whirring past the small sections of the windows that weren’t caked in dirt. Marlo, injured as he was, tried not to touch anything. The entire carriage was filthy beyond belief.

Nessa came over, head brushing the roof and pinched her nose “I hate these carriages. Shall we continue where I left off?”

“Err… sure.”

“Okay.” Nessa inhaled. “Wait. I do not remember where I left off. Hmmm.” She turned to Monticello “Where did I leave off, Monty?”

“How should I know? I wasn’t listening.

“You were not?” Nessa’s voice was suddenly shaky, and her lip was trembling.

“No. I was driving. So we didn’t crash and die or get caught by DVIN.”

“B…but… I was explaining to you…”

Marlo blinked. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Was she actually this upset about-

Monticello sighed “I already know, remember Nessa? You were the one who explained it to me, four hundred years ago.”

“Oh yeah!” Nessa suddenly was suddenly all smiles “So I did! You are forgiven.” Marlo stared wide-eyed. What was wrong with this woman?

“You!” Nessa turned, and pointed at the woman “Where did I leave off?”

The woman stared at her, incredulous. “What?”

“Oh, do not tell me you were not listening too!”

Monticello opened his mouth, but the woman beat him to it. “I wasn’t because I wasn’t there. I have no idea when you did this, but it wasn’t in the last three minutes, which has been all the time I’ve ever seen you.”

“Oh.” Nessa tapped her chin. “Well, why not help me explain?”

“Huh?”

“You are not that smart, are you?” Nessa smiled “That is okay. Talking to people with all kinds of different viewpoints, including stupid ones, is good for your understanding of the world. This is my friend…” she stopped and turned back to Marlo “What’s your name?”

Marlo banged his head against the wall behind him out of frustration “Tell me about the city!” he yelled.

“Really? Names in the future are weird.”

“Yes!” Marlo grit his teeth. “My name is Marlo.”

“Well, do not forget it next time.”

“I won’t. Now please, can you tell me-”

“So this is Marlo,” Nessa spoke over him, “and I am Nessa, and that man making frantic stop motions at me is Monticello. What is your name?”

“Aiyana.” The woman offered up her name without complaint, accepting the Nessa worldview that everyone was forced to obey when in her proximity “Aiyana Tso.”

Monticello banged his head against a wall too, making a beat with Marlo “And now you’ve told us your name, and you know ours. You’ll be implicated if there’s any cameras in here.”

“Monty, can you be quiet? I’m trying to make my new friends talk to each other. Aiyana, if you would talk to… this one, and explain to him how the city works, that’d be great.”

Aiyana sighed “Holding me hostage and then making me explain the topography of the city? You people really are cruel.”

“Hey, no one’s holding anyone hostage.” Marlo said, “You can go if you want.”

“Oh, great idea.” Aiyana stood up and walked over to the closest doorway. “Goodbye everyone, it was lovely being held captive by you-” she walked directly into the wall of twisted metal Nessa had made to block off the other carriages. “Hmm. Who could have foreseen this? Surely not me, the person trapped in a carriage with three people who just killed every other person in said carriage and destroyed my means of escape, before insisting that I am not actually their hostage. What would I know?”

“Not a lot.” Nessa agreed “You did just walk into a door. Want me to open it for you?”

“Don’t!” Monticello said hurriedly “Both sides are probably filling up with train security. Don’t open it before we absolutely have to.”

“But…” Nessa looked between them. Aiyana sighed and sat back down.

“Marlo, was it? You new here?”

“Yeah. Just died a few hours ago. Got hit by a train… do you know what a train is. Where they around during your time?”

“We’re sat in one, aren’t we?”

“Oh yeah.” Marlo coloured.

“You wanted to know about the city, right? I have no clue about how any other city than Asgard is built, but I’ll try. Right at the top, we have Nifl-heights. That’s where most people live, including me and the brother who will likely be very angry with you when I get back and tell him what happened-”

“Don’t do that!” Monticello interrupted. “We’re trying to stay hidden; we don’t need people to talk about us.”

Aiyana looked at the mangled doorways, and at the grooves carved in the grime on the floor of the carriage by the fingers of people who had been pulled out. “Doing great on that front. Fine, I won’t say, though he’ll probably work it out. I’m not a good liar.”

“Become one.” Monticello insisted.

“Or you’ll kill me?” Aiyana raised an eyebrow.

Monticello sighed. Aiyana nodded “Where was I? Below that is Muspel-mart, where I get to explain to my boss why I’m late for work… sorry not explain, and probably get fired. Don’t suppose I can apply to your terrorist customer service for financial compensation.”

“Terrorists? We’re not terrorists.” Marlo chimed in. He looked to Monticello, but he just winced. “We’re not, are we?”

“Well… you did just basically attack a public service.” Aiyana said. “Killed a good-” she saw Monticello’s expression “okay, displaced a good amount of people. And you know if those drones catch them wrong and they break some bones, that’s still your fault, right? Whatever. After that we have Svartalex, the manufacturing levels. That’s likely where I’ll have to get a new job”

“Don’t do that!” Marlo said, louder than he needed to. Aiyana, who had been staring at the ceiling in boredom as she talked, tilted her chin down to stare at him.

“Why not?”

“I mean… haven’t you seen them?”

“Yeah. They’re not great but I don’t really have many options.”

“But…” Marlo floundered. If she had seen it, how could she possibly entertain the idea? Working hellishly long hours in that death-trap of a factory, with the smoke and the noise, the blinding lights and the ceaseless, towering industry that would swallow you and not even notice. The pathetic rewards of a ration or two, engineered to make you feed further into the cycle. How could anyone possibly react so casually to the possibility of working there?

“Just… it’s so awful. It traps you. You become an endless worker, and not even to make anything of importance. How does that not terrify you?”

“It’s just how things are down here. You do what you must, to survive. You’re new here, so you don’t get that yet.”

“The kid is right.” Monticello said, “Going into them is a bad idea.”

Aiyana sighed. “Great, I’ll keep that in mind. The second Sahka stop buying up all the shops around, and Hirok stop bombing the ones they don’t get, I’ll happily enjoy my abundance of choice.”

“Who are they?” Marlo asked.

“Not who. What. They’re the two organisations that oppose DVIN. And they’re a lot worse. At least DVIN doesn’t bother us up in the top lands.”

Marlo stared at Monticello “But you said that DVIN were the only-”

“I’ll explain later.” Monticello said. “Below the factories are the Helheim Stations. And below them are the storage sections, along with a lot of offices which catalogue them. The warehouses are split into mundane and exotic departments, or Vanahold and Alfhold. Though, there’s been so many corporate deals, false packaging, and bureaucracy to keep resources away from people, that system’s completely defunct and it’s a real mystery what you’ll find in a room.”

“Below that,” Nessa added “There’s Midgency, the section which holds offices and archives. The Midgency section in the central DVIN tower has a library which has catalogued everything that has ever happened in Limbo. Every person who’s ever come here, and every action from the Nephilytes.”

“Even…” Monticello paused, not because he was looking for a word, but seemed to be trying to work out how to put it. “Kid, you know the Vikings right?”

“Like personally? I’ve only been here a day-”

“No, no just… you’ve heard of them?”

“Yeah, who hasn’t?”

“I hadn’t when I’d arrived,” Aiyana said.

“Me either.” Monticello agreed. “Anyway. Their head God. You know him?”

“You mean O-”

“Do not say it!” Nessa covered Marlo’s mouth with a hand. “You never say his name. He will see you if you do. He can see anyone. That is why he rules here.”

Marlo’s eyes widened, as Aiyana watched in bemusement. Of course, it made sense that as a god, Odin would have an ability, just like Hermes. But one that strong?

“Yeah. He,” Monticello leant in and emphasised the “He” to show who he was talking about “is a real whore for knowledge. Can’t get enough. So he keeps the book. Probably goes through it on cold nights by the fire, the old bastard. What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on it.”

“Stealing from the Allfather?” Aiyana asked, “You’re insane.”

“Shut it. Finish telling the kid.”

Aiyana rolled her eyes “Below that, we have the Jotunn-mansions, where DVIN’s finest live. Little palaces, holding up the towers. I lack the aspirations of your friend. Just living in one of them would be enough for me. Maybe I’ll see if I can get a job as a cleaner there. Snatch some free towels and drinks and stuff. Yeah, that’s the life.”

“Plan your social climbing later.” Monticello snapped his fingers. “We’re gonna pull into a station soon.”

“And all the way at the bottom, we have the Ragnarok streets. Never been there myself but I hear there are some awful things down there, just dreadful. There’s a reason the only people brave enough to build houses down there are the gods. Nasty stuff. There, I’ve given your new hire a lesson on the city, can I go home now?”

“The second we can get into the station, we’ll open this door back up,” Monticello wrapped the mangled metal that had once been the doorway that had almost broken Marlo’s arm “and get out. You stay around the station until the police arrive, where you tell them-”

“-three crazed people broke into the carriage I was on, killed everyone around me, and made me give one of their members a lesson in city planning?” Aiyana yawned. “I can just about get away with that.”

“Yeah, something like that.” Monticello conceded. “We’re almost there. Any second now, we’ll pull in, so everyone get ready.”

They waited. Marlo clutched his injured arm close to his chest. Him slowing down had cost them last time, so he couldn’t let that happen again. Nessa cracked her knuckles. Monticello’s hands flicked back and forth pre-emptively, the metal taking advantage of its painless nature to bend all the fingers back to the wrist, and then forwards to the heel, repeating the motion over and over several times a second, one after another in a rippling exercise. It was very uncomfortable to watch, and Marlo’s already strained tendons tinged in sympathy, so he turned away. This brought his eyes to Aiyana. She was looking around, seemingly for shelter. She got up and stared at the space below the bench but curled her lip at the piles of grime and rubbish. Some of it was moving on its own.

“Try holding on to the top of a handrail.” Marlo suggested. “Makes you look extra scared.”

“Wrap my legs around it and all? I’m not a cat stuck in a tree.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Marlo sighed “Sorry about… all of this. Thanks for taking it so well.”

“All this being taking me as a hostage?”

“Pretty much.”

“I mean… I got off best of the people in this carriage. So thanks too, I guess.”

“Don’t thank us for that.” Marlo cringed “We even made you explain stuff to us.”

“Listen, kid. I’m gonna be away from here in a few minutes. You have to live this now. Do you get what that means? Really? This is serious stuff here. Rebellion like this, it’s no joke. No one your age should be roped in this kind of thing, and definitely shouldn’t have to suffer what happens if you fail.”

“Hey, watch what you’re saying.” Monticello started, but Aiyana snapped

“The kid deserves to know! You can’t claim to be better than DVIN, or anyone if you rope him into danger without at least explaining it. I get the kid likely has no choice, because if he didn’t why would he be here on his first day, but at least keep him informed.”

“I…” Marlo swallowed “I understand the risks.”

“Do you kid? Because I feel like it’s going to hit you for real soon. Tonight, probably. This kind of thing cannot be done lightly. You’ve already probably had a few bad revelations today, not least being dying. Your mind is struggling to catch up, but you can’t avoid quiet moments forever. It’ll hit you and it’ll hit hard-”

“You sure seem to know a lot about this kind of thing.” Nessa said brightly. “You should join us? We are recruiting right now-”

“-We are?” Monticello’s eyes widened

“-and you talk just like Giuseppe used to. We need an extra gloomy person to really round out our dynamic.”

Aiyana laughed. “I’m flattered, but no. My current job is too important to me, and my boss would get mad if I cheated on him with other employers.”

“Thought you said you’d be fired after this?” Marlo asked. Aiyana paused, then smiled softly.

“See, upon reflection… I think I’ll be just alright.”

“Well, of course. Things will go great when you join us.” Nessa said. “As Giuseppe Two you can-”

“-Wait.” Marlo, getting better at tuning her out, noticed something. “Shouldn’t we have pulled in by now?”

Monticello’s eyes widened. He looked through the small slit of glass not obscured “Shit, they cut the carriage away. Someone must have called ahead to a station and had this line shut down. We must be a bigger deal to these people than I thought.”

“Well of course we are, we just got two new members.” Nessa said proudly. The second new member, Aiyana, didn’t look pleased to be included at all.

“Oh no. For you guys? They did all this for you? Could they possibly… no. they can’t have worked it out. But… if I stay here when it’s frozen… They’ll accuse me of working with you, say there were ways off.”

“It is okay.” Nessa said, still smiling “I can fly all of us down. It is not far from here to our base. Our team takes more than this to be-”

“I’ve got to take drastic measures to prove my innocence.” Aiyana stood straight up. “I’m really sorry about this, everyone, but if I make it focus on helping me, then maybe you can get away.”

“Wait.” Monticello started towards her “What are you-”

“We are technically competitors, and you know how things work here. Why suffer a competitor to take your customers, when they could suffer you taking their lives, right?” She inhaled deeply, and, wincing as she did so, yelled “I’m stuck on a train!”

“No! Stop!”

“Come help me out here… Odin!”

Immediately, the windows outside went dark. Monticello diverted, immediately turning from his path where he’d tried to grab Aiyana and making for the door. Marlo barely had time to react before an ear-splitting screech split the air. It sounded at least as loud as the train that had ended his life had been. The whole carriage rocked as something enormous and heavy slammed into the top of it, and the three of them were sent sprawling. He fell forwards and landed on his arm. Biting back tears from the waves of pain that were crashing down at him, he stared up, at Aiyana. She was stood, right in the centre of the corridor, gripping the same handrail he’d suggested.

“Sorry kid. Life as a cell member isn’t easy at the best of times.”

Marlo wasn’t listening. He was looking past her, at the six enormous claws, jutting through the sheet metal roof.

“No way…” He breathed. With twin shrieks, one from the metal and one from the beast outside, the train was split apart, the roof and walls tore clean off, and the floor tripled in size, as the torn metal flopped on either side. Marlo stared up, unable to move as biting, vindictive terror flooded his body, rooting his limbs to the ground. This was nothing like what he could have even imagined. Everything up to this point had been at least humanoid, but this was a full-blown monster. A gigantic raven, tip to tail longer than the train and enhanced everywhere possible to kill. Its claws were each bigger than Marlo, and were stabbed into the train, gripping and rending the steel like paper. Gasses hissed from the gaps between joints on them, granting it a hellish glow as it focused on its prey, who try as he might, could not make his body move.

Its face was covered in lenses, so that dozens of eyes of various colour and sizes glared down at Marlo, configuring and shifting to better observe him. Its feathers were coated in motor oil, which stank, and dripped all around it. Its six wings, two real, four mechanical, beat in a slow, steady, rhythmic, keeping it up. Marlo realised in terror that it had torn the train off the rail above it on landing and was now holding the multiple dozens of tons aloft. It drew back its neck, and metallic vertebrae along its spine set into place. Grapple hooks shot out on either side of Marlo, and he could hear them winding tighter and tighter, the cords screeching and almost tearing from the intense strain. It was a terrifying sight, and Marlo was frozen in front of it, and the augmented weapon strapped to its face that it was drawing back to flatten him with.

The beak stabbed down, towards Marlo, at deadly speed, the grapples reeling it in with even more force. He threw up his arms and screamed, but the metal shifted beneath him, the section below him inclining, and rolling him on a ramp. He just avoided the terrible impact, which hit like a meteor, but as the shards of metal were deflected, he scrambled to his knees and crawled to Nessa, who was frantically repelling shrapnel.

“Stay behind me, friend!” She yelled, over the terrible noises of the raven ripping its beak out of the metal. A wing came down, and she folded a large amount of the metal to block it, but the sheer force dented and warped it to the point that it hit her hastily constructed block and almost knocked her off the train.

“Don’t even try!” Monticello shouted, running towards them “This thing is as strong as Benkei, and the terrain is not in our favour. Just focus on getting away!” He leapt off the platform that had once been a train and fell out of view. Marlo watched him, and his already crazed heartbeat amplified even further when Nessa grabbed him.

“We are jumping friend. Whatever you do, do not squirm out of my grip, or I will likely not be able to catch up to you like last time, and you will fall to a grisly death.”

“Don’t I get a choice in this?”

“Not even slightly!”

As Nessa jumped, Marlo caught a glimpse over her shoulder. Aiyana was holding onto one of the tree trunk legs of the raven, and their eyes met. She mouthed something, though if it was an apology, a wish of good luck, or simply a word of caution, Marlo couldn’t tell. The world had simply gotten too fast, and too loud, and continued to get faster and louder as they fell. He screamed as they plummeted past floor after floor of bright lights, tumbling through a dazzling cityscape, and plummeting rapidly towards its foundation. On either side of him he could see hundreds, maybe thousands of floors of offices, desks, chairs, and people working, none noticing that he was falling to his death behind them.

Then, below him, something massive and pitch black unfolded, and Ness landed in what felt like a giant stretched-out parachute. it Strained awfully, and for a dreadful second, Marlo thought it was going to rip, and they were going to tumble through it and resume that unceasing descent into the depths below. But then it stabilised, and the rippling dark substance evened out, revealing Monticello next to them, holding his hands to the mass of the thing.

“Chineke! The jellyfish is not made for something like this. Still, it was this or death, because Dragon is much too temperamental to be summoned back so fast.”

Marlo flopped out of Nessa’s grip, and onto the membrane of the shadow jellyfish. It was a texture somewhere between the springiness of a trampoline, and the give of a waterbed. Far above him, he saw the raven spread its wings, give out one more horrific caw, and fly away, up and off into the sky.

“Okay.” He panted “Beginning to say why you shouldn’t say his name.”

“Glad you are kid. Shame she didn’t get the memo. I get she wanted to keep herself above water but doesn’t mean she had to try to drown us. She could have warned us. Still, she appears to have got it to take her away like she asked, so no harm done beyond the worst shock of my afterlife.”

“You can do that?” asked Marlo, who felt a lot more than just shocked.

“They have to pantomime sometimes that they work for the people. If you have the payment plan, you can call in this as an emergency service. Lady must have been more loaded than we thought.”

“You said… DVIN were the only company here…” Marlo remembered from the mention of payment plans “So what’s this about other companies making turf wars? If we really did get rid of DVIN… they’d just get worse right?”

“Shit, you remember that? Kid, we’ll talk somewhere better-”

“I deserve to know! If I’m going to be working with you, without any choice, then at least-”

“Who says you are, huh?” Monticello got in his face. “If you’re going to complain like this, maybe boss won’t want you! Maybe we leave you on the streets to fend for yourself. You’re more trouble than you’re worth Hyakku, we can all see that. At least pretend that you’re trying to fix that!”

“I didn’t ask for this!” Marlo yelled right back “You talk like I want to be here! If I knew this was what was waiting for me, I’d never had got in front of that train!”

“Well, you did, and you can’t fix any deaths, least of all yours. So just shut up and…” Monticello closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Listen. We’re all a bit… heated after the bird. I will explain things to you. In a place where we are less susceptible to that bird once it returns for a survey of the area. Or net drones. Or just being seen by people working in these offices. We are not far off the boss’s place. Just… hang on a little longer. And don’t trust what that woman said. She wasn’t your friend. Friends don’t call death birds on each other.”

Marlo nodded and lay back. After a second, his vision was filled with Nessa’s face, who looked down at him.

“Are we going to meet our other new member at the base?” She asked, entirely without irony. How earnest it was somehow made it worse. Marlo silently turned over, and closed his eyes, resting his arm as best he could on the flowing, rubbery material. It was starting to hit him just how serious his situation was. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t fight monsters.

“No one asked for this kid.” Monticello stared straight ahead, steering the floating jellyfish onwards, as sirens began to wail through the city. “Not a one.”

“Reincarnation would have been better than this.” Marlo thought before the pain from his arm worsened, and he gratefully succumbed to the overwhelming urge to pass out.