I first wrote a short story about this character a little over ten years ago, and he's been with me ever since. That same craggy, leathery face, topped by a bare stubble of grey hair and general, uncaring malevolence. The type of character that epitomizes the phrase "if there's a will, there's a way." Because Kor just doesn't care. If it's the most efficient way of doing things, he'll do it, no matter what the personal cost or amount of pain.
And Kor is a man with a mission.
(previously, Kor Part 1)
"Yeah. I'm still paying "
Qivan stood in the open doorway of the slum building, the neon lights and bad LEDs silhouetting his form as he stood in front of the bullet proof glass. The building beyond was massive, open, like a world of its own, with strange smells wafting out into the street. He waved Kor closer.
Kor looked up and down the sidewalk, to the passersby who had done nothing to help the kid, or come after Kor in the aftermath. Such disdain, Kor could understand on a superficial level, but not deeper. Menelauns were brothers, sisters, jani. Family in arms. Survival of the fittest might have been the golden rule inside the agoge, but a bully of an outsider roughing up family? They wouldn't have walked more than five feet before catching steel between ribs, or monofilament around the throat.
Kor searched corners, nooks, and crannies as he moved.
"So whatchu need, uncle? Because I got public debt, now, and a cycle to close it. You paying, I'm your seeker."
Kor came to a stop in front of Qivan, looked around again. There was no telling what kind of surveillance measures could be in place. "Gear. Supplies. Personal protection. Know somewhere we can talk? Either private, or public? Secure?"
Again, Qivan looked him up and down. He didn't trust Kor, that was clear, and who could blame him? But it was impossible to discern what other emotions might be going on behind that damn gas mask.
"Know a place, yeah. But be quick?" The kid turned, led Kor in through the entryway. He looked back over his shoulder as the first set of bullet proof glass doors automatically wheeled apart on tracks. Cold, metallic air rushed over them both. "And no more funny shit," Qivan yelled over the roar of the air. "I'm helping because you're paying, uncle. Try that shit in here, Blues come for you."
"Blues? Friends of yours?"
"No friends of anybody. Run this block. Keep your head down, yeah? Get both ours clipped, otherwise."
They passed through the windshield and the sliding door shut behind them, sealed with an audible hiss. The air here smelled more living, and less industrial. Kor couldn't quite put this finger on the feeling while he'd been out on the street, but now he realized just how artificial the outside world had seemed. As if the city had been the output of an algorithm gone wrong, where life had been forgotten as a data point to be considered and was instead forced into the meager cracks that remained.
Here, inside the building's antechamber, it was as if he were standing at the precipice of one of those cracks. A crevasse, where lichen and mold and moss grew on all the walls and ceiling, proof that life was universal and always found a way.
"The Blues," Kor said as they approached a bank of revolving doors, his jackbooted footfalls heavy and hollow on their way past a derelict, long abandoned security checkpoint. "Talk."
"They's nuts, okay?" Laren Qivan said. "Simple. Chanty, religious nuts. Call 'em berzerk nuts cause their soldiers go in for that dwed weed, makes them hear and see the old net. You know the old net, right?"
Most of what Kor had read about Varis I before discharge from the service, and shortly before boarding the barely spaceworthy freighter on Zeus, covered economics, politics, and organized crime. Onboard cryo sleep lasted a month, and he hadn't had a chance to read further. The ship thawed him and the crew just before reaching orbit, and hours later they were on approach to one of the docking towers. The old net, whatever the hell that was, hadn't popped up anywhere.
"Not familiar, no."
Laren Qivan shrugged, pushed through the revolving door, went clockwise. Either the kid was being reticent on purpose, or he was just too young to realize not everyone knew everything he did. Kor figured it was the second of the two.
Kor grunted, stepped in the next little door compartment, hands on glass that matched the pressure doors out front.
As he followed the revolution, his ears popped from the pressure change, the air warmed and became more humid. The smell of life and spices and cooking filled his nose.
The revolving door opened into majesty. At least, that was Kor's impression as the spoke of a door spun around enough to release him.
He marched out, fought the urge to gawk and gape at the open space beyond. Maybe the view struck him that way because he'd seen nothing but the cramped space of the freighter for a month, then the inside of the long elevator after arrival here. Or the tiny and cramped offices of the cargo agent. And even outside on the street Kor had felt cramped on the sidewalk, with people and vehicles always passing.
The vaulted chamber, though, felt both wide and deep enough to comfortably house an Aegis class troop carrier. Kor knew that wasn't factually true, but he couldn't shake the feeling as his eyes scanned over everything, and his ears took in the roar of people and commerce. At least two hundred meters by two hundred, a bazaar had grown within the belly of the great building. Up above, clouds of smoke twisted higher and met clouds of vapor, obscured the ceiling.
Kor sucked in breath, felt awake for the first time in ages.
Kor exhaled, breathed deep again, took in the scent of recipes originally born on dozens of different worlds. Half were from within the Republic, worlds he'd dropped onto during border skirmishes. The other half were from his own long, stretch of the spiral arm to which the Arasti Dynasty laid claim.
The bazaar in the belly of the building started no more than ten meters away. Neat rows of canopies and tarpaulins suspended from poles wedged into the buckled tile, stoves and grills and woks turning raw ingredients into edible cuisine.
Kor followed Laren to the edge. He closed his eyes for a moment, only a moment, and let himself travel back over those war torn worlds. The sounds of mechanized units, the taste of the foods they'd foraged. One in particular, hazzel, that had a certain floral burn he'd appreciated. He smelled it now, smiled as he remembered Diana, a particularly good sniper he'd known. She's been strong, fast, and intelligent. Far more intelligent than Kor, and they both knew it. A better shot, too. Gods, she'd been beautiful, and deadly.
Kor smiled at the memory, opened his eyes once more.
The bazaar was still there. It hasn't disappeared or dissolved to smoke. He followed Laren down one of the lanes. People from all over teemed like bacteria in soil. Axke, with their naked tails and whiskers twitching. Gygaxedes of both genders rolled dice behind a tent flap, exchanging stories and stroking beards. Androgynous Urse packed one stall, their eyes bright and inquisitive as they conversed in musical tones. More races than Kor had ever seen in one place. Humans, too, who had shed their protective coats and gas masks, stripped to reveal their array of tattoos, ritual scars, cybernetic additions, biomechanical modifications, and hair every color of light's spectrum cut into styles from across the worlds.
"Don't see any security," Kor said as Qivan, or Driver, or whatever he called himself moved though the crowds, ignored the children running around at their feet. Laren only shooed once at two Axke pups who ran an infiniti symbol around the seeker and his client.
Qivan waved a dismissive hand behind him. "No one fucks with the Blues. They's too mean and too nice."
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I'll be posting what I have a back catalog of over the coming days, then posting will drop to once a week on either a Monday or Tuesday as I continue to accumulate daily posts from my instagram.
