Harmony and Discord

[Pecan]

Getting your ass kicked is never a pleasant experience. Waking up after an asskicking, less-so. To tell you the truth friends, your boy Pecan was feeling a lot like Cevanti herself - a stiff chunk of broken down slag. At least Miss Fellon was nice enough to drag my unconscious ragdoll out of the sewers, but would it have killed her to set me under an umbrella or something? Acid rain soaked into my clothes and stung at the open wounds hiding beneath them. Every inch of my body was stiff and tender. If it wasn’t for the fact that I woke up to someone trying to loot my body I probably would’ve tried to sleep everything off. But as it stood, someone’s grubby little dickbeaters were fumbling around in my pockets.

“Fuck off,” I groaned and rolled onto my back.

Apparently surprised at my sudden revival our dear thief nearly jumped ten feet into the air. A ratty poncho covered in a sloppy white and brown pattern hung across her shoulders. Skin the color of bark and with a face that was equally greasy she was no doubt a scavver. A short-cut bright-red afro topped her head. She smiled and held up her grimy little hands.

“My bad dude,” She said, “Thought you was dead.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t.”

“Looks like ya should be though,” She responded, “This far out here in the wastes, covered in blood and face down in dirt.”

“Rough night,” I said and lit up a ciggy before asking, “Don’t suppose you’ve seen a seven foot tall metal-clad bitch wandering around here, can’t take a joke, carries a big ‘fuck-off’ kinda sword?”

She shook her head, “Nah, just you, some zoids, and that’s about it, really.”

Damn shame really, full-metal chika had started to grow on me. Something real exhilarating about a girl that can kick your ass, y’know? Not that it mattered, with no boom-booms left and only a couple mags of ammo she’s probably skewer me second time around. And on top of that, I still had bigger fish to fry.

“Watcha doing out here eatin’ mud anyways?” Thiefgirl asked.

“I wasn’t ‘eatin’ mud’ I was busy getting my ass kicked,” I answered.

“Looks the same.”

There was one thing that I couldn’t quite puzzle out though. Morene had slice me up real good, like sashimi chef real good. Yet, after a quick inspection of myself, I couldn’t find any open wounds, and I doubt out little red-headed miscreant would’ve wasted time patching up a corpse. Somethin’ was real fucky in Cevantitown. I stood up and brushed myself off. Maybe the arbiters took pity on me and gave me a free pass? Wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve been lucky enough to garner some divine intervention. Mama Pecan always said I had more lives than a black cat. ‘Course Mama Pecan also loved to huff paint cans so I suppose a grain of salt and all that.

“Hey,” I said to the vagrant, “Did’ya take any of my shit?”

She shook her head, “Nah, you woke up right when I started searching you, didn’t get the chance to. Woulda given anything back to you anyways, I don’t steal from alive people.”

What a paragon.

“Cool, which way is civilization?” I asked, “I’ve gotta get me a spaceship.”

She turned and pointed off into the horizon, “That way, I’m heading back there myself, you could tag along if you’d like.”

With her back turned I raised my machine pistol and lined the crosshairs right below her ‘fro.

“Nah I’m more of a lone wolf kinda guy.”

I pulled the trigger. Or rather I tried to pull the trigger. My finger refused to move. If my eyes could’ve popped out of their sockets, they would’ve. What was once as easy as breathing now proved to be an insurmountable task. I could not kill her, and trust me when I say this - it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. No, every fiber in my malevolent little being wanted to put a hot one right through her thinkpiece. Something refused to let me be me.

What are you doing?

Like the voice of a school teacher scolding a kid for eating glue sticks, someone spoke inside my mind. I dropped my arm and took a step back.

“I’m sorry, what’d you say?” I asked.

Thiefgirl turned around and said, “I asked if you wanted to tagalog, but if you’d rather be alone s’aight, I get it.”

“Ah,” I said and nodded my head.

I moved to raise my gun again, but my arm simply refused to listen.

Why are you trying to kill her?

It was at this point, my faithful reader, that your old pal Pecan began to question his mental state. You see, out of pretty much everyone in The Crossroads I was perhaps the most sane motherfucker out there. And, last time I check, hearing voices in your head was pretty much the calling card for every whackjob in the galaxy. But there I was, my head being filled up with the melodious words of some foreigner. Full-metal bitch better not have knocked my noodle out of order.

She did, but I put it back in order

Okay, so who the fuck are you and why are you hijacking my narrative?

My designation is HARMONY

Uh-huh. Well get the fuck outta my head or pay me rent, and seeing as how you probably don’t got any cash I’d prefer the former.

Apologies, I had to merge with your body to keep you from expiring.

Neat, well un-merge. You’re making me look like a psychopath in front of this scavver.

You tried to kill her. Why is that?

Why do pornstars fuck? Because they’re good at it, and baby, I’m damn good at what I do.

Are you proud of yourself?

Christ, you’re sounding like my therapist.

You don’t have a therapist, Pecan.

I was being facetious.

“Hey, you okay there?” Thiefgirl interjected.

“Yeah, yeah, just uh,” I stuttered, “Got a bit of a headache, mind leading me to town?”

 

[Pecan]

So there we were. Walking through the rusty remains of Cevanti. Thiefgirl, who told me her name was Rossi, took the lead. Rossi, like most young and mentally deficient scavengers, spent the time chattering away. Jabbering on and on about this and that, as if she had never talked to another human being in months. To be fair, it wasn’t that bad. Her constant jawing kept my mind from thinking too hard about my mental passenger. I decided that if this whole thing didn’t go away on its own I’d pay a back alley surgeon for a fukken lobotomy.

Please don’t do that.

There it was again. That chiding mommy voice. Belting through my skull like the voice of God. As if some nun had crawled inside my domepiece and started scolding me from there.

“You okay there dude?” Rossi asked, “You’re mutterin’ real hard to yourself.”

“Yeah yeah,” I said, waving her away, “I’m fine.”

She climb on top of an old pickup truck, leaving behind greasy little handprints. “So,” She began, “How’d you end up so far out here?”

“Well, I…” I began to lie, but then I remembered she was a scavver. What the fuck did she care? “I was a pirate, and--”

“Woah!” She interuppted, hopping down from the truck, “You were a pirate? Like a space kinna pirate?”

She got close. My nose filled with grease and sweat. Man, I wanted to just blow her away right then and there. My hand twitched towards my gun and my mental freeloader perked up in anticipation. But, don’t worry “Harmony”, your boy Pecan has some self control.

“Yeah,” I said, taking a step back, “Not just some scrub either, I was captain.”

“That’s so cool,” She swooned, “You must’ve had all kinds of wicked neat stuff.”

“Yes I did,” I said, “Had a real slick ship too, bells, whistles, lasers, this thing had it all.”

This chick had no sense of personal space. For about the fifth time that day the thought of murdering her surfaced in my noggin. Indulge, Pecan, indulge splatter her greasy little brains across Cevanti. My instincts cried out. On any other day of my life I would have had no choice but to oblige my bloodlust. But my hands refused to cooperate. I ordered them around her throat, but they sat limp and unassuming. She babbled on and on about how cool I was and how she had always wanted to be a pirate.

“I appreciate all the praise,” I said to her, “But, uh, can we keep going? I got a hot date tonight and need to freshen up.”

“Sure, sure,” She said, peeling herself away from me, “This way, Captain Pecan.”

Maybe she wasn’t all bad, but fuck me running if she wouldn’t make a better corpse.

You are so violent.

Yeah, yeah, and what’s your point?

Rossi has been nothing but kind to you, and yet you want to end her life.

And you don’t? I mean come on, she has no respect for personal bubbles. She’s just a fuckin’ scavver anyways. A vulture picking at the carrion of a dead world. Honestly I’d be doing her a favor.

You’re delusional

YoU’rE dElUsIoNaL.

Mature

Look, honey, you climbed into my head. You asked for this. I was all content off by myself, but you had to come along and fuck me over.

If I hadn’t merged with you, you would have perished.

And? Dead is dead, baby. That’s the way of the road. Ain’t nothing wrong with it. Death is the natural end to life. And if I had died there I doubt my corpse would’ve cared.

Do you really believe that?

Believe what?

That life ends in death.

And why wouldn’t I? I’ve been pumping that conclusion into people since I could hold a gun.

With all of the technology and magic in Crossroads, life doesn’t have to end.

Life ends. Always. Period. Trust me babe, I might kill people for fun, but I’m not dumb. I paid attention in school. Entropy. Everything decays, even immortality. And, at any rate, I’m done talking to you. You’re pissing me off and blueballing my trigger finger so kindly fuck off.

 

[Nico Cinder]

"GRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

A slightly distant, abnormally bloodcurdling scream bounced across the macabre expanse of the Cevanti badlands. The acoustics were strikingly impressive, but the falling star had more present matters to attend to. Nico had never been sky diving before, but he had played more than a few videogames so he kind of sort of maybe a little knew what the hell he was doing. He twisted in the air, dancing almost, trying to gain control of his descent. Eventually he does, spread eagle-ing like a flying squirrel towards a lone abandoned nuclear cooling tower.

Nico is a guy that often finds himself having a whole lot of ideas. They range anywhere from "making a deal with the devil for immortality and radical guitar skillz" to "Maybe I should be more closely monitoring the amount of drugs and alcohol I consume." Dropping in on the side of a giant structure meant to harness the power of a nuke like it was the old quarter pipe back home wasn't an idea he was expecting to have, and it wasn't one he really wanted to act on. Given the current situation, this is neither here nor there. He had never seen one of these things up close; what if he couldn't even ride the terrain or material it was made out of? Hell, this piece of junk looked like it had half a leg left to stand on. Half of the building was already sunken into the ground, the foundation formerly anchoring the base into the earth had been ripped up and out by some great force. It'd make a great ramp, but Nico wouldn't be surprised if as soon as he touched down, the rest of the vertical tunnel would fall away, burying the boy in rubble and poor decisions.

It doesn't go down like that, though. Nico twirls in the air, holding the board by the lip underneath his feet. The board's wheels catch concrete, his beat up canvas shoes sticking to the pitch black wood as if it were tar. Squinting against the wind dancing wildly past him, he crouches low to the board in an effort to center his gravity. The sound of the wheels roaring is intensified by their speed, filling his ears with a cacophony he can't get enough of. Nico's fall has become a descent, but it has hardly slowed down. Teeth clenched, arms outstretched, he shifts the weight of his back foot back and forth in an effort to expend all this kinetic energy, desperately trying to slow himself down. The tail of his board waggles, the tone of the screaming wheels change with his pushes and sways, creating a sort of musical noise.

He laces his way down the side of the nuclear tunnel, weaving a serpentine path towards the upturned foundation ramp. Nico had no idea what would happen when he hit that lick, where he would land or what he would do in the interim, but he decided that dropping in off of a nuclear whatever the fuck it was is an accomplishment he could die proud of.

VVVVVVRRRRRRRRRRwhfwooof

Silence.

Even the wind had seemed to die down, for a moment suspending Nico in quiet and calm. He was perfectly aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he was just doing a fancier version falling to his death, but in the moment didn't really see it as that way himself. While there was still hangtime, Nico deftly grabs the board in his right hand. He extends his arms out and his legs down and together, posing like Jesus on the cross -- a Christ Air. The first time he had ever managed to do that trick.

And then, as things that go up in the air tend to do, Nico began to fall.

 

[Pecan]

Just as I was getting nice and settled in to my new life of parasites in my head a terrible noise screeched across the sky. Rossi gasped and I snapped my attention towards the screaming object. It started as a black silhouette, but as it rapidly approached like a God-damned bat out of hell definition filled in any doubts of what the object was. A man, gripping a skateboard and howling in excitement. He tore across the skyline, flying with reckless abandon towards us.

“He ain’t gonna make it,” Rossi said wide-eyed and excited.

Preparing triage protocols

HARMONY’s voice rang in my head, ruining a perfectly good show. How could she be thinking about something so lame as healthcare in a time like this? Dude was literally about to pull off one of the raddest things I had ever seen and HARMONY was insisting on being a wet fuckin’ blanket. Fuck that.

“Woohoo!” I hollered and cheered as the crazy skateboard man barreled ever closer. I nudged Rossi’s shoulder and said, “Bet ya fifty coins he sticks the landing.”

“Nah, he’s dead as fuck,” She said without missing a beat, “Might as well hand those fifty coins over now.”

To be fair, Ol’ Pecan didn’t have a cent to his name. That’s what happens when you get mutinied and thrown overboard on a backwater rock. But, no one ever said that I was an honest man. Plus something gave me a good feeling about this kid. Mama Pecan always told me to wish upon a shooting star. And, as far as I was concerned, this was as good a shooting star as any. There was a lot of things to wish for, but in that moment all I wished for was Rossi to owe me fifty coins.

Then, just as I was about to talk some shit to Rossi, the skateboarder screeched overhead. As he angled further downward he seemed to pick up speed, crouching down and aiming towards a derelict factory behind us. Just as he was about to splat into the wall the skateboarder managed to catch his board on a length of telephone wires, grinding across them in a shower of sparks. Rather than eating shit he was able to kick off them and aim towards the factory. Like a brick he crashed through one of the remaining factory windows. As quickly as it began it ended as the man vanished inside.

Rossi and I shared a look before breaking into a dead sprint towards the factory.

“He’s sooo dead,” Rossi said as she tagged behind me.

“No way, those wires caught his momentum,” I answered, “The dude might have a few broken bones, but no way he’s dead dead.”

Chance of survival minimal

What a fucking buzzkill.

I kicked down the ramshackled door for the factory and we both burst in. Dust and detritus billowed up in equal measure, forcing us both to cough. Old carcasses of long-forgotten machinery sat quiet and unassuming. The whole building was quiet. Maybe the guy did croak. Fuck, and it wasn’t like I could just put a hot one in Rossi’s dome to skip out on my debt. HARMONY had some sort of complex about that.