The Mercenaries’ Tale – 1.07 The Fixer
The makeshift office of Harry “the Fixer” Kilroy took the form of a layer-cake of sheet metal supported by bars that had been welded into what could vaguely be called the building’s infrastructure, insofar that the place could be classed as a building with an infrastructure in the same way that a row of boxes could be classed as a efficient means of housing the poor; it did the job but didn’t do it particularly well. Stare too long at the walls and you’d recognise bits of repurposed billboard, sections of industrial walkway and even the odd vehicle chassis. Glance at the support struts in the wrong way and you’d recognise exhaust pipes and reinforced pistons rusted out beyond use. Even the lighting shared the eccentric Frankenstein architecture, with cars headlights, neon strips from old bar signs and the dull glow of industrial tube lights being the room’s illumination, aside from the few beams of genuine light from outside that shafted down through gaps in the jigsaw-like walls.
Harry Kilroy wore his office like a pair of comfortable pyjamas. He was a sweaty, squat man with dark greasy hair combed into a side-parting and a fussy little pointed moustache on his upper lip. A fat cigar sat between his equally fat lips, lazily waggling up and down in his mouth as he sucked on it, much like a child sucking on its pacifier. Today he was wearing his smoking jacket, along with a string vest and a pair of tropical boxer shorts with the crotch stitched up, and just to feel particularly relaxed he was wearing his cracked leather sandals. He was lying back in his armchair, a leather recliner that showed the signs of wear and tear from possibly two or three different previous owners, and put his feet up on his desk, which was part of an old aircraft wing that had been welded into the wall. There was a piece of paper in his hand that he’d been pondering, one with a fancy letterhead, one that had been addressed to him personally and had caused him a terrible amount of deliberation. He watched the passersby below through the one window in his office, a large elliptical frame with panes that had also once belonged to an aircraft cockpit, but not the same one his desk had been taken from. Harry was very much a pilot, but of the different sort. His job was to steer people to where they were needed, and he was very good at it.
From the control booth over the other side of the room, his large thug of an associate Rodney watched security feeds on a row of monitors, each of varying size and quality given the patchwork nature of the office. Rodney had a tall face and a bent nose, with a bowl haircut. He stirred from his dead-eyed stare at the monitors, and called over to his boss.
“Got McCracken, Blaise and their mage pal ‘ere for you, Mr. Kilroy. At the door.”
“Hmm,” replied Harry, sinking down lower into his chair, apparently in deep thought. He wiped a trickle of sweat from the end of his nose. “Maybe? Could I…? Should I…?” he murmured to himself. He looked at the paper in his hand once again.
“Mr. Kilroy?” repeated Rodney.
“…Bugger it,” sneered Harry, crumpling the paper into a ball and dropping it at his feet.
“Shall I tell ‘em to piss off an’ come back later?” asked Rodney.
“No, no need for that Rodders,” said Harry, hoisting himself back up into his seat. He had a nasal voice, one that sounded like it believed it was upper class despite all evidence to the contrary. “Let them in.”
Rodney thumbed a toggle switch on the panel in front of him and there was a sudden whirring from a distant generator. One of the strip lights blinked, crackled and then phased back to life as one of the walls on the lower floor began to clank upwards, hoisted by a rudimentary pulley and a series of gears. There was a clunk as the door came to the top of the mechanism, and when the sound of footsteps began to echo on the metal stairs Rodney toggled the switch again to lower the door, before going back to staring at one of the monitors which was depicting a fazeball1 game in monochrome with no sound.
Doug appeared in the stairwell, followed closely by Blaise and the robed man. They stepped into the office and stood for a moment. Harry perked up, the cigar rolling in his grinning mouth as he opened his arms wide in welcome.
“Dougie McCracken! Back so soon? Did you miss me?” greeted Harry. The mercenaries began to make their way towards his desk, the mage hanging back. Getting to Harry’s desk was a task in itself, what with the cables and piles of paper scattered around the floor. As they stepped around and over the obstacles in their path, three automated machineguns encased within half-domes in the ceiling sprang to life and started to track them, whirring on their axles as they maintained their line of sight with the approaching visitors. The mercenaries ignored them – they had been here before, and the guns were there just for Harry’s safety.
“Hello Mr. Kilroy,” said Doug, flicking away the dog-end of a finished cigarette. “Noticed we didn’t have to sit in the lobby today and wait. Only got Rodney on security?”
“It’s a slow day,” explained Harry. “And Trigger’s popped out to do a little message work, collecting from a courier. Have a seat, please.”
There were no seats for the visitors in front of Harry’s desk. Blaise sat on the corner of one of the generator boxes half-welded to the wall next to her, and Doug moved an old broken computer from the top of a wooden crate to the floor, before shifting the box closer to the desk and perching himself on top of it. The robed man remained stood a few feet back, arms crossed and looking around his surroundings.
“To business, then,” said Harry. “Where’s my fucking money?”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Kilroy. You’ll get your ten percent from the last job,” replied Doug.
“Thirty,” Harry corrected instantly, reaching for the cigar case on his desk and proffering it to Doug, who frowned as he selected one of the cigars for himself.
“Standard’s ten,” stated Blaise.
“But you’re not standard customers, now, are you? Or are you forgetting about the Dalminettis last month?”
“Oh, not this again,” Doug complained as he carefully lit his cigar.
“Yes, this again. Ol’ Harry had to run a bit of maintenance after you left him in the lurch on that. You’re lucky I managed to get them to come around to the idea that it wasn’t worth actively pursuing you lot. Until you pay me back for the trouble you caused, you, Blaise and Mister Twilight over there’ll be paying the extra 20 percent. I say that’s a good deal, all things considered,” Harry explained, his words stirring the mage.
“My name isn’t ‘Twilight’. It’s Gratin,” he replied, not offended but just stating a fact. Blaise stiffened in her seat, Doug puffed a smoke ring in a pause of expectation.
“I’m no bigot, friend,” said Harry, shrugging at Gratin. “There’s a lot of guys who’d never let your sort into their premises what with the current political climate, but given the circumstances I think I’ve been pretty nice so far, so I don’t particularly care what you want to call yourself, Mr. Cheese. Or do I have to apologise to the big mage who’s all grown-up and yet can’t stand a little name calling?”
“…Point taken,” the mage murmured.
Blaise pressed her finger against a post-it note on the generator she was sitting on and, realising that the grotty faded handwriting on it warned of high-voltage shocks, slid off of it on to her feet in a manner that implied that she was just bored of sitting and wasn’t really worried about death by electrical fault.
“So, how about a job?” said Doug, getting back to the topic at hand.
“As I said, it’s a slow day,” said Harry, slapping the monitor on his desk with the palm of his hand. It flickered to life, showing blocks of sentences with orange monotype on a black background. With a pudgy finger Harry pressed the screen and scrolled it down, looking through the slim pickings on offer. “Rogue scientist needs taking out, sounds a bit basic for you guys and the travel costs probably won’t be worth it,” said Harry aloud to himself, scanning through the criminal’s job board2. “…The Russians have a job, but it requires subtlety and will be in a public area so that rules you lot out…”
He scrolled through and tapped at the monitor, but after a few minutes he gave up, leaning back in his chair.
“I can’t honestly say there’s anything worth your time,” said Harry cheerfully.
“But-” Doug went to say.
“-Except! I’m Harry gods-damn Kilroy, and that means that I know of all the jobs that aren’t being circulated in the regular places. It’s why you come to me, remember?”
The familiar whirr began again as someone entered on the lower floor. The mercs turned expectantly as the tall figure of Trigger emerged from the stairwell, a blank paper folder in his hand.
“And here it is!” beamed Harry.
“Trigger’s got a job?” asked Doug, confused.
“Yes! Er, no. I mean, give us the file, Trig,” said Harry.
Trigger made his way across the room and passed the folder into Harry’s hand. He opened it and began reading from the pages inside.
“Mercenaries needed for search and destroy mission, main objective is sabotage prevention. Must be professional. Reward given upon deaths of targets. Good tracking skills and familiarity with explosives essential. Pay upwards of 10,000 Kronz.”
“That’s gotta be a typo,” Doug replied.
“No typo,” said Harry.
Doug surveyed his companions’ reactions. Gratin stayed as silent as ever, Blaise looked to be doing some quick calculations, her arms crossed across her chest whilst a finger idly tapped against her arm.
“Sounds as though they expect us to be disarming a bomb or something. We normally end up setting them off,” she pointed out.
“I have the utmost confidence in my ability to contain an explosion in such an eventuality,” Gratin interjected. “I do have a way with fire, after all.” Blaise couldn’t help but smile at the mage.
“How could I forget?”
“There’s no problem then, eh? It’s worth a look. How do we get in touch with the client?” Doug asked, turning his attention back to Harry, who proceeded to search the document for the relevant information.
“They’re holding a meeting to give a full brief to any applicants in an old warehouse up on Plate 3, I’ll write down the address. Looks like they’re treating this like a bounty though so you might have some competition, but I’m sure it’s nothing you guys can’t handle,” said Harry.
Doug nodded and once again looked to his companions to see whether or not it was a unanimous decision.
“Oh, all right. I guess it won’t do any harm just to look,” Blaise agreed. Gratin nodded to show his vote and Doug grinned as he lifted himself up from his seat.
“That’s settled then; we’ll check it out and wire your thirty percent to you if we take the job. Thanks Harry,” he announced, shaking Harry’s hand to seal the deal.
“I’ll phone ahead and give my endorsement to let them know you’re coming!” Harry announced as the mercs left.
Harry waited for them to leave, for the whirring of the door closing to stop downstairs before he reached for the phone on his desk, tapping in the number for the automated operator. Trigger leant down and picked up the crumpled paper ball at his feet, unravelling it and raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
“What’s this, Mr. Kilroy?” he asked.
“That, my good friend, is a very big meal ticket,” sneered Harry. The paper had the iconic diamond symbol of Salmanic Incorporated on it, as well as the address for Salmanic Tower up on the top plate far above them. Trigger looked over at the open folder in Harry’s lap, and noted that the pages inside it had the same icon on them.
“Hello?” said Harry on the phone, “Operator? Hello, could you please put me through to Salmanic Tower? Reverse charges? Oh I’m sure they won’t mind. Tell them it’s Harry Kilroy. They’ll know what to do…”
- Fazeball is much like a cross between British Rugby and American Baseball, in that it’s pretty much Rugby but the players are allowed to hit each other with baseball bats. The baseball bats are made of steel and are electrified – hence the ‘faze’, as that’s the sound they make when they connect with your face. ↩
- Since a staple of Lusinia’s work economy is crime, circulations of jobs for that sector are not uncommon. Bulletin boards, forums and even a weekly gazette are available for the career criminal looking for work that needs to put food on the table tomorrow, but word-of-mouth is still the traditional favourite for finding less-than-legitimate work. ↩
Post by Sean Patrick Payne | October 16, 2013 at 10:28 pm | The Mercenaries' Tale | 1 comment
Tags: Blaise, crime, Doug McCracken, Fazeball, Gratin, Harry "the Fixer" Kilroy, the Mercs, Undercit
This is bloody brilliant work ……the writing & the drawings bind it together…….one wouldn’t work without the other.Very talented couple well done & keep going with it .