Jade War

CHAPTER 36 What You Deserve

Bero and Mudt sat on the floor of Bero’s apartment, drinking and practicing their Channeling on a pair of rats that Mudt had lured and captured in a plastic bucket in the alleyway behind the building. “I say we learn how to make shine ourselves,” Bero said. “Then we can sell it and save what’s left of the good stuff for ourselves.”

“Sure, keke.” Mudt opened a bottle of beer and took a large swallow from it. “You got a lab to synthesize chemicals?”

“We’re not the fucking Espenian military,” Bero scoffed. “You can make street shine if you can get syrup.” The main ingredient in SN1 could be found in small quantities in plant-based remedies that had been used since ancient times as a health aid; if you could steal or smuggle prescription medicine out of a hospital or pharmacy, you could distill it into “syrup” and amplify its potency with industrial chemicals.

Bero hovered his hand over the bucket on the ground. If he closed his eyes, he could Perceive the rats more clearly, as thrumming hot spots of energy. Trying to visualize his own jade energy as something he could extend beyond his own body, like a sharp weapon held in his hand, Bero Channeled into one of the rodents with a two-fingered jab. The animal fell stunned onto its side, legs twitching in pain, but not dead. “Godsdamnit.”

Mudt handed the beer bottle to Bero. “Have the rest.”

“I thought you liked this stuff.”

“Not anymore. It’s cheap Ygutanian shit.” Mudt put his hand in the bucket, his face tight with a concentration that looked almost angry, and touched the other rat. It gave a little jump, staggered in a circle, and keeled over dead. Bero scowled and drank the rest of the beer. Since when had Mudt gotten better than him at Channeling? Had he been practicing?

Bero admitted there had not been much else to do for the past three months. They hadn’t seen or heard anything from Soradiyo. The ungrateful barukan sheep fucker had cut them out and was probably giving all the jobs to Mo and Shrimps now. Which meant that Bero once again needed to think about how to bolster his income stream. “I already have clients who buy from me, regular,” Bero went on. “All we need is to set up our own supply.” He wiped the back of a hand over his sweaty brow; the last typhoon of the season had brought down the lingering summer heat but also knocked out the power in Bero’s building, so none of the fans were working.

Mudt said, “Your clients don’t come to you for the weak stuff cooked with drain cleaner that’ll make you go blind. They come to you for quality shine.” He turned to Bero, his small eyes dead cold. “Shine you stole from my da’s storeroom after he died.”

Bero stared at him. He’s drunk. But Mudt’s gaze was steady, his face flushed from anger, not booze. Bero growled, his voice a low threat, “Are you calling me a thief?”

It was a cliché, posturing thing to say—the sort of challenge that started bar brawls—and Mudt just laughed in an oddly high giggle. “That’s real funny, keke. We are thieves, remember? We’re the lowest of the low.” His voice took on a strange edge. “But you… you’re something else. My da gave you work and paid you good money, and then when everyone was looking to have you killed, he saved your life. And you took his shine for yourself and you sold it, and you pretended the whole time like you cared to help me avenge him, but you never did. You only kept me around because I was useful, but you never intended to pay my da back for anything he did for you. You’d never stick your neck out for anyone but yourself. You’ve got jade, but you don’t know what to do with it because you’ve got nothing to live for. I might be a thief, but at least I’ve got reasons. You’ve got nothing. You are nothing.”

It was the longest speech that Bero had ever heard the teenager give. Bero stared at Mudt with astonishment. Then he exploded. “Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to me like that? You think I need you? If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even have jade. I came up with the plan to get Kaul’s jade; I got us into the Rat House; I got us the scavenging work—everything’s been my idea all along, you’re the one who’s nothing and you’re saying that I’m nothing? I ought to—”

Bero lurched up to grab Mudt by the throat, but the boy leapt up and scrambled out of Bero’s grasp. Bero lunged after him, but suddenly the ground seemed to tilt under his feet; he staggered and fell against the sofa. A wave of dizziness swept over him and his head swam. He hadn’t had that much to drink yet, definitely not more than Mudt, and Mudt was standing with no problem, watching him impassively, expectantly.

In one sharp instant of clarity, Bero realized what was happening. He stared at the empty bottle of beer he’d knocked over on the floor. He remembered that he’d once told Mudt why his face was crooked—had explained with regret and yet some pride that he’d almost managed to steal jade straight off a drunken Green Bone by drugging his drink, years ago.

“You fucker.” Bero tried to shake the descending curtain out of his head; he blinked and cursed and crawled forward toward Mudt with murder on his mind. “You shit-eating little rat fuck.” Bero’s stomach churned and convulsive spikes of pain shot through his guts. He tried to summon his focus; with a snarl of effort, he unleashed a feeble Deflection in Mudt’s direction. It went wide, knocking a lamp off a table and sending it into the wall with a crash. Mudt didn’t even move.

Bero curled on the carpet, sweating, clutching his stomach, tongue lolling. Through a fog, he saw Mudt approach and stand over him with something in his hand. Bero couldn’t see what it was until his betrayer bent down and jabbed him in the thigh with it. Mudt depressed the syringe, shooting a triple dose of concentrated SN1 into Bero’s veins. Enough to send his heart into convulsions. Enough to kill him.

Bero tried once more to wrap his hands around Mudt’s skinny neck, but the teenager used his Strength to break Bero’s grip easily. He sat on Bero’s chest, pinning his arms, and as Bero’s eyes rolled and his mouth worked frantically, Mudt removed the string of jade from around Bero’s neck and placed it around his own. Bero’s world dimmed. The poison in his drink, the overdose of shine in his blood, the jade being torn away from him—he couldn’t tell which of the three was most rapidly robbing him of the ability to move, to speak, to think.

Mudt stood back up. “I’m not sorry for you,” he said, but he sounded hesitant, as if he were saying it to convince himself. He stared at Bero for a long moment, then said, with greater conviction, “You’d have done the same to me if you were in my place. You’re only getting what you deserve.”

Bero’s fingers clutched at Mudt’s ankle. Mudt stepped out of reach, and Bero flopped and rolled after him on the ground like a fish flung onto the deck of a boat. He heard Mudt walking away, and then he heard the sound of the apartment door opening and shutting. Mudt was gone, and he had taken Bero’s jade and left Bero to die. Mudt! That greasy little kid, that nobody, that boy who’d worked in the Goody Too and had always seemed so dim. He’d been killed by Mudt, who was supposed to be weaker, supposed to be the sidekick, and who had become the only person Bero might’ve called a friend—and the irony of it was such that Bero was overwhelmed by the desire to laugh and to scream and to bash in the boy’s skull.

With this last surge of hate, Bero crawled to the apartment door and heaved himself against it; the loose lock popped and he fell across the threshold, and then it seemed he was being dragged backward down a very long, dark tunnel.