She was so busy chasing ideas around her own head that she didn’t notice the cries of surprise from the people around her, or the electrical smell on the air. A small arc of blue electricity leaping from the metal rims of her glasses to her nose brought her back to the present and she gave a small yelp.
And then a hole in the sky opened up. A huge silver figure pointed the accusation at her as an unearthly voice rang out: “—LIKE THAT?”
In his long military career, Machinist Second Class Moloch von Zinzer had sampled quite a wide variety of alcoholic concoctions. In good times they were made from potatoes, grapes, or sometimes barley. However, in his experience, decent brews could be wrung from wheat, oats, rye, honey, pears, melons, corn, apples, berries, turnips, seaweed, sorghum, sugar beets, buckwheat, zucchini, rice, yams, sunflowers, artichokes, cattails or giant mushrooms. It was sort of a hobby, and one that made him popular with his fellows.
One used what one was able to scrounge, which meant that the drinks were usually brewed up on spare bits of madboy equipment, so occasionally the stuff was blue, or caused you to grow an extra set of ears, but it usually got the job done. But this—this was a new low. He looked at the crudely printed label on the bottle in his hand. “Beetle Beer” it proclaimed. Fair enough, he thought, I can believe that.
Moloch sighed and took another pull. What made it even worse were the smells that even the dank air of the little back alley couldn’t hide. Shops selling all kinds of foodstuffs lined the streets, the rich aromas of cheese, sausages and pastries filled his head. To a soldier who’d seen the outside world, a world filled with shattered towns and endless kilometers of abandoned farms, the sight of shops piled high with food that could be bought directly off the street by anyone with a little money was astonishing. It was like stepping into a world he’d thought lost forever. The bread was the worst. He’d have killed for any one of the fresh loaves he could smell baking.
So what had Omar spent the last of their money on? Beetle Beer. Well, it was sort of like bread, and it was all the breakfast he was going to get. When money failed, philosophy would have to do.
Moloch took a long look at his brother. Of all of the companions that he could have been left with, lost in strange territory, his brother Omar was surely at the bottom of his list. He stood in the middle of the alley, despite his wounded leg, swilling his beer with characteristic nervous energy. Moloch wished that Omar would pull up a crate, relax, and for just once, not be poised to fight. Moloch was well-and-truly tired of fighting. Omar would never get enough. He had laughed off Moloch’s protests over the lack of breakfast. He’d find money enough, somewhere. Moloch didn’t like to think where.
Out in the street, shouts erupted. A bright electrical light flared, the shouts turned into screams and a girl wearing an overlarge officer’s coat ran down the alley toward them. In her panic she tripped on a box and landed sprawling at their feet. Her glasses flew off her nose and skittered out of arm’s reach.
Agatha blinked. There were muddy boots a few inches from her nose, and she realized that she had just missed plowing into their owner. She looked up. The uniform proclaimed a soldier, its condition implied hard use. Although his face was blurred, she could see that he was smiling, and that it wasn’t a nice smile. A bottle dangled from one hand.
Agatha had led a fairly sheltered life, but even she could tell that this person was bad news. Her eyes never left Omar’s as her hands franticly patted the ground about her, unsuccessfully searching for her glasses.
“Well! What have we here?” Omar eyed her speculatively. “Obviously our very own angel of mercy, here to help out a couple of poor lost soldiers who are down on their luck.”
Moloch could see his brother’s habitual nastiness gearing up. His heart sank. Begging and intimidation. So they were reduced to that. He shifted in his seat on a stack of crates. The girl started, she hadn’t seen him right away. “Ha. She must know that you just spent our last groat on this swill you call booze. Well, help her up, Omar. Show her we can be friendly.” Moloch tried to keep his tone happy. Maybe she wouldn’t notice the edge to Omar’s voice. Maybe she could be convinced to give them a handout quickly, and go away, before Omar had a chance to get them into trouble. Ho ho, look at us, two jolly soldier boys, just like in the music halls. Except one of us is a murderous bastard who couldn’t keep out of trouble in a locked duffel… He smiled at Agatha. “Spare some change, Miss?”
Omar stepped toward Agatha. He had got round her as she stumbled to her feet, and was now between her and the alley mouth. “Oh, no, she can spare more than that, look at that fine locket!”
Agatha abandoned the search for her glasses and backed up, eyes huge. Beetleburg was a safe town, but mothers still passed down stories about what soldiers did to girls who didn’t take care. Being mugged was a new experience, and her head was still humming from the shock of the apparition in the street, but Agatha still knew she was in trouble.
“A pretty little townie like this, she’ll have a whole box of the stuff at home. She’ll never miss a couple of small gifts to the deserving. And then—” Omar’s grin grew even larger. “Maybe she’ll let us show her just how nice we can be.”
While a lot of the advice and instruction that Agatha’s parents had passed down had been either tantalizingly vague or dryly academic, certain situations had been discussed in detail, as well as their possible consequences. This was one of them.
As Omar reached out towards her chest, Agatha sidestepped him neatly, grabbed Moloch’s bottle and in one fluid motion swung it round to connect with Omar’s face. Moloch had to admit that it was a superb shot, but with nowhere near enough force to do anything useful. Agatha looked a bit surprised at what she had done, but gamely swung again, and this time Omar was ready. He stepped within her swing, grabbed her lapel, jerked her off balance and delivered two quick slaps that set Agatha’s head ringing. As she slumped, Omar’s eyes narrowed and a grin of anticipation crossed his face as he slowly drew his fist back.
Suddenly Moloch’s hand gripped his upper arm. “That’s enough, Sergeant,” he roared in his best military voice. As he’d hoped, the reference to rank checked Omar’s swing.
Omar had endured enough punishment duty that its memory could stop him when appeals to reason failed. “She hit me,” he hissed petulantly. “I am not taking that from a lousy civilian!” He tried to shake off Moloch’s restraining arm.
“Stop it, you fool! Don’t you remember what they do to people in this town? Do you want to wind up in one of those damned jars?”
That stopped Omar, as it stopped a lot of people. The Tyrant of Beetleburg had little patience for those who broke his laws. A popular punishment consisted of simply placing wrongdoers inside large glass jars in the public squares. There they eventually died of thirst or hunger. Their bodies lay undisturbed until a new lawbreaker was put in. Consequently, the locals rarely broke the law.
Omar nodded to his brother, but a smirk twisted his face as he drew a dazed Agatha toward him. “Okay, doll, it’s been fun, but we have to leave. To remember these happy times—” with a flick of his wrist, he gripped, twisted, and snapped off the large golden trilobite locket at Agatha’s throat, “—I’ll just take a little souvenir.”