So. -A Wendigo -A Ghost-talker -A Programmer and her Android brother -and their weird Dogbot All decide to take down a corrupt corporate warlord... ...And nothing goes quite as planned --------------------- Independent RP/Askblog for a set of Motorcity OCs known as The Horsemen, and their HOUND. I track the DYSTOPIANDISASTERCONTROL tag!
That's a question. And for a moment, it makes Death pause just a little. He has to think about this, shifting the basket of laundry he's holding from one hip to the other.
"Last I looked, eggs don' come from plants..."
It's said slow, thoughtfully.
"Isn't that a cobb salad."
It's not a question, and he whirls around to regard the sudden shadow tiredly rummaging through the fridge in the kitchen. She wasn't there two seconds ago...
"Don't you be encouragin' him!" the short Haitian snaps back a reply before something else catches his attention.
He turns back to stare at Mike now, brow furrowed in indignant confusion. "...Better yet, who are you an' why are you on my couch."
"Oh, I'm well aware of what he can be capable of." There's a hint of venom in the words. After all he's put Mike's life and those of his friends in danger many a time. Even going so far as framing him for attacking every other gang in the city. He would do whatever he could to get things to go his way. And somehow it always was aimed at Mike...
The young man's eyes narrowed slightly, his head cocking to one side for a moment. The distant look in her eyes gave him pause. Something about it felt off to him. Yet he pushed the thought away when she came back to herself. This time he raised an eyebrow.
That's right. She lived in the space between Motorcity and Deluxe. Her and her crew. They were scarce around the city and he supposed they had their reasons. It was rare to see them if at all. It wasn't until he hit her with his car that he even knew they existed.
Mike moved his attention to the map again, studying the territory. His eyes narrowed again, this time scrutinizing the map. "Hang on a sec."
He gestured to the area near where the Duke was spreading his influence. "I know this area here. That residential that runs along it is neutral land. Think he might be gunning to take that too?"
Mike didn't doubt that he might. Considering the underhanded tactics and every other dirty way he's tried to get land or entertain himself, it was possible. There's another twinge in his chest, a slight wrinkle of his nose, at the thought of displacing people from the area. For a moment he almost looks like an angered hound. His whole body bristles at the thought of such a violent in and out. Perhaps it was his heightened empathy caused by his own past actions or it was simply his disdain for the Duke, but the whisper of a growl slip past clenched teeth.
She wouldn't need to manipulate him this time. His body language would give enough away already to tell her he was itching to move. His hand gripped the skull in his pocket tightly, a reassurance to himself, something solid to ground him through his gut reaction to charge in right away. A second later and the bristling softens. The tension leaving him is visible in the way his shoulders relax, letting out a breath he wasn't even aware he was holding.
"No arguments from me," his tone even and somehow calm. "I'd prefer that even, being close enough to manage him easier. Not sure how you feel it but, if he gets to out of hand, I'm going to have to interfere. Like you said, we know his tactics. We know it's going to cause a lot of damage, but mitigation might not be enough. If he goes too far, I can get him to back down."
It was equally not War's intention to have to evacuate and relocate civilians. It was bad enough she did it on a week to week basis, usually with Famine on the ground to coordinate getting people out of rickety structures and sending them somewhere safer.
It was worse when the courses of conflict were the reason innocent people had no home. That which was preventable.
It was for that reason permanent fixtures in Motorcity life were deemed as 'neutral territory'. Commercial, residential, industrial. Very few pockets of uninhabited space were also seen as neutral, usually for the benefit of the people themselves. Most of the factions were aware of this unspoken rule. The older gangs would even step up to defend their neutrality when younger groups tried to muscle in on them.
The Duke took what he wanted, when he wanted it. He'd done it in the past, it was not unheard of that he could slip around and stake his claims as he pleased. Although his movements were generally sporadic at best, unpredictable, he didn't like to follow the rules much. Never had.
War was willing to bet that he was trying to make a second scrapyard closer to his central territory. That or another one of his garages. Either way, the thought of the loss of the space was what had her truly worried. She knew people in there. She knew people everywhere. It was what kept her from losing herself and causing damage when forced into their space.
They were all Motorcitizens at the end of the day, trying to etch out their lives and living.
The whisper was back...
Mike's movement shook the rooting influence from her head. He pointed to the pocket space she had, saying exactly what she knew.
"All residential is neutral. These are innocent people, they have no means to fight back. All they're trying to do is live in a place still so hostile to them. The movement of Dukey's territory lines now suggest he is stretching toward the shelf just passed his core point. He may try to slip over it and take it, he's never been one for rules." she confirmed, taking another nonchalant drag on the cigarette held in her teeth.
His growl draw her eyes back to him. Tired, but curious, eyes. The sight of his bristle was enough to tell her that there was no need to twist his metaphoric arm into this. He was already raring to go. As suddenly as it started, she waited for him to wind down before continuing. Trying to talk further over a rush of adrenaline was like talking to a brick wall. An excitable brick wall, but a brick wall nonetheless. She knew he wouldn't hear anything that didn't fuel the fire otherwise until he grounded himself.
It was a moment more, to watch his shoulders relax and hear the breath leave him, before she continued on. "He tried to take the Cemetery last week. Came in person, even. Had the blatant audacity to knock over a row of headstones before I met him at the gate. I suspect he's still rather sore with the mess I left in his ... throne room in retaliation to that..."
The emphasis added to the heavy sarcastic tone, a quirk of her own brow in a mild amusement at the memory of it. Although she purposely left out the details, she was sure it still left an imaginative retelling.
"This is probably him trying to throw a temper tantrum in regards to that. Which makes him all the more unstable. If he comes at you with guns blazing, I don't expect you to stand still and take it. You have teeth..." A flick of her eyes to his mouth was given as though in emphasis before meeting his eyes again in sincerity. "...The scrappiest mutts always do."
A double-entendre. She did not doubt Mike's ability to bite, she was also keenly aware of Mutt's ability, eyeing the silent machine nearby. The flash of remembrance rolling over the hood, skidding across the roof, narrowly slipping beneath the fin. The bruises, the roadburn. If she hadn't given the beast dominance in that last moment, she was sure she would have been dead whereas she practically walked away from that. Broken and bleeding, but alive. That sublime green road terror most certainly had a bite to it...
"...You're welcome to use them as you deem necessary without provoking a response first. But. Your first priority is the people in this sector. Do not wait until it is too late. If you find no way out, get them out. Do not gamble, we can always take back what he steals, but not human lives."
She found it odd to say. The beast was built to not only take, but devour, lives. It felt like an oxymoron to think first of the living before the alternative, a thought that twisted her lip a little before she reached forward and picked up the piece of map schematic to collapse it like the windows had been previously. The roaring gargoyle icon stopped moving, anchored next to her head again before it disappeared.
"You are the first line of defense here. People like you. They trust you. You'll get them out if it needs to be done a lot quicker than I would. If you find yourself backed into a corner during your patrol, call for me. Dukey doesn't like me much, I put a little damper on his ego."
It was said with the lilt of mischief, a glinting flash of white over one eye before it was gone. Those whispers had grown strong enough, she gave the beast the briefest of dominion before pulling back. The low vibrations of action in her made the spiritual parasite rattle the bars of its metaphysical cage, but the briefest glimpse of control silenced it for now. She would have to get out of here soon, but there was one more thing to do before she returned to the Cemetery Basin to let it calm further.
"...Are you integrated with the Sentinel System yet?"
The political map schematics were public, the system updated them every few hours and sent them where it had instances installed. But it was not public knowledge such a system existed. Most anyone who used it had been told by someone else, through word of mouth. When the Burners showed up on the radars and maps, the world was in turmoil. There was hardly time to hear about it, much less install it.
"If you want to keep track of The Duke in real time, you should have it."
Messy was another word that came to mind. The ever shifting nature of the undercity, the way groups fought for power and territory, those that didn't care how they got it as long as it fell into their hands. The Burners were more mindful about it, or at least tried their best to be. The displacement of others was the last thing Mike wanted when it came to expansion of territory.
His past was a stark reminder of that. He didn't want to be the one responsible for so many people losing their homes, their ways of life, and their lives.
Yet there were those that didn't care what the side effects of their expansion was. Especially someone like The Duke.
He couldn't help the light chuckle when she mention about him getting antsy. Maybe it was just his own paranoia about what Kane was up to, or it was the stress of trying so desperately to be the ones to keep Old Detroit safe from Kane Co, but he'd always gotten restless in times like this. And maybe she saw it in the way he fidgeted, hand shoved in his pocket, fingers playing with the jewel-eyed skull.
Mike glanced at the icon, dark eyes following the map's movements. His gaze wandered over the projection, taking in as much of it as he could before each section vanished. He'd need to ask her more about Sentinel later. Chuck would have a field day with it. It was much faster then their own "real time" surveillance.
"You could stay that again..." Mike scoffed. It didn't matter to the Duke who got hurt or what happened to them in the wake of his attempts to cure his own boredom. The Burner leader grit his teeth at the mention of that self serving idiot's attempt at entertainment. Mike at least had the decency to look ashamed for falling for his little stunt. He was part of the reason those people had to relocate and put more stress on the Cablers. So he supposed it would make sense that he should help out and make up for that.
"Keeping an eye on him won't be difficult," Mike said. The Duke was loud, flashy and easy to follow. Even getting caught by him wouldn't be much of an issue. Regardless of his own personal feelings about him, it wouldn't due to underestimate him. As insufferable as he was, The Duke could still be a clever opponent when he wanted to be.
"Okay, so you want me to keep tabs on him. Simple enough. But does this mean you want to stop him from expanding too? Or just keep his wanton destruction as minimal as possible?" A few more details would be nice.
Yet that curiosity from before crept back in. Sure her angle was clear now, however, what was he getting out of this? Not that he actually expected anything out of this endeavor aside from curbing the Duke's hunger for territory.
It was a response to Mike's own verbal confirmations in memory of The Duke's antics. War noticed the way his jaw set in that moment, the ever-vigilant stare picking up the firm shift of muscle and tendons. She didn't have to be so detail-oriented to know that stint was a sore spot for him, as well.
Compared to other gangs and factions in the broad landscape of Motorcity, the Burners were a bit of a welcome exception. Many others thought solely for themselves and how to make a life worth living, some louder and more brash than others who were quieter and more introverted.
But the Burners had been inserting themselves into peoples' lives from the day she had noticed them. Not through force or violence, necessarily. Perhaps a bit awkwardly, not as much elegance or nuance as older groups would have. But it was the intrinsic need through them to help people. To understand consequence.
To show regret.
That is what had always been the separating line for the Burners, she thought. That they were thinking of more than just themselves in the broader picture. She could respect that.
Mike could logically blame himself for what happened, his notorious reckless nature had caused some of the damage. But at the end of the day, The Duke had fully orchestrated the event knowing he was putting people in danger and simply not caring that they were. And that was the difference between the Burner leader and their common-ground rival.
Her fingertips finally found what she was looking for, pulling out an old scuffed metal lighter pocked in rust and scars of its own, before sliding the cigarette between her teeth and flicking the flame to light it. A slow drag was taken to let it catch before she flipped the lighter closed and returned it to its resting place, paying mind to how her unwitting companion fidgeted where he stood. The shift of weight, the rustling in his jacket pocket. The inability to sit still, even when presented with something to do.
It was a tired smile that expelled the first cloud of smoke before she reached forward to enlarge the area of concern on the city's schematic with a few precise pinches of fingers. Now that the viewpoint was closer, the blob of The Duke's territory spreading was considerably more noticeable.
"He's easy to keep tabs on, but I don't think I need to tell you underestimating him is a bad idea. His eccentric idiocy is quite the façade. He knows what he's doing, he's smarter than he looks ... mostly ..." There was a hint of begrudging admiration in those words. She didn't have to like the man to respect him.
"Expansion is a part of the political life down here." War continued, drawing her focus back up to meet Mike's over the schematic map. "Groups of people tend to shift, depending on resources and space. To try to control that would make us no better than our favorite despot upstairs. It's easier to maintain permanent 'Neutral Spaces' than it is to tell others where they can and cannot go otherwise. We all need space, sometimes."
Another exhale of smoke was given as she returned her dark gaze toward the slowly spreading fuchsia, the light of the holo-screen glimmering in small patterns through the hazy cloud. She was thinking, and ignoring something that had begun to press against her head once she had even mentioned The Duke. Little nagging whispers that only she could hear, the brief dull glaze of her eyes centering on the light trails in the dissipating smoke cloud before she snapped back to full alert.
"...I don't come down here very often." she started.
Generally, it was a bad idea for her to be so close to people in a lull. It was why when she called for Mike specifically, the meeting point had been on a stretch of dark elevated road some ways away from the main populated centers. The view from this height was lovely, she would admit. The crisscrossing layers of road over endless stretches of glittering lights between the broken spires of old skyscrapers jutting up from the foundations. Almost at the center of the undercity, it was hard to see the Dome's walls and you had to squint to see the ceiling above.
It was a reminder of how many people lived here. Worked here. Had children, grew up, died here. The weight of the world in a scenic view. And it gave War distance from anything ... tempting.
"I come down here even less when Kane is not trying to throw his weight around. I don't think he'll be here for a while, though. You managed to send him packing back to his veneered paradise. But we both want the same thing, you and I. It's why I called you, specifically, here."
It was a partial truth. The long term goals of protecting people were shared with this hothead and his crew. It was the other reason she had called him. Even if Mike would not agree to it, she also knew how he could be manipulated into it. It was no big secret the young man wore his heart on his sleeves and while she did not want to use such underhanded tactics should it come to it, there were times she would if it followed her own goals. Necessary evil, and all that.
"The Duke can keep any territory he takes as long as it is won fairly between parties, it is not designated Neutral Land, or it has not been claimed before. But I do not trust this latest charge of his. Call it a hunch, he may be looking into taking this residential sector for his own. I don't know why, but his movements these last couple days have been worrying."
Sure enough, she poked into the viewpoint hologram, a pocket right below the column of The Duke's current territory core. Though the spread of color was slow, it was obviously in the way nonetheless. It would only be a matter of time.
"We are both ... intimately familiar with his tactics enough to know when he wants to move in, it will be a slash and grab. It is fast, it is flashy, and it is devastating. I can pool resources if we need to for any outcome, but I need to know when he acts, if he acts, and more importantly how he acts. Which is why I need your eyes on him, your boots on the ground.
"He won't do anything if he knows I'm the one watching, but he may try to slip a fast one passed you. Minimize his damage, assess the situation. That is what we need to know."
"Things are about to become extremely ... complicated ..."
'Complicated' was a good word for it. But the amorphous politics of Motorcity always were. It wasn't often that they came to the forefront, since any more permanent fluxes were interrupted by the front lines being breached on the regular and people had a tendency to drop their biases to push back a common enemy when they could.
But Kane's routine pushes down from his lofty tower in Deluxe had been ... irregular lately. Long periods between strikes where as before, War had been able to almost time her watch to them. The calm from above did not mean a calm from below, however. Without something to aim their energy at, the factions of Motorcity were beginning to find something else to occupy their time.
Territory lines were always shifting, that was the nature of the beast. But Sentinel had seen a large amount of borders moving in odd ways. And of course, there was one particular party at the center of it all.
"You're not the only one who gets antsy during the long lull."
Her voice was low, with a Stuttgart accent as dark and rich as fine bourbon. The taste of a grin where there was barely a quirk of a smile, the tone as heavy as smoke rolling between them and encompassing the space. War regarded the Burner with an equally-knowing side-eye, a subdued joking undertone to show the poke was not malicious.
She tapped the little red icon that had appeared near her left shoulder, and it unfolded into the mobile monitors of the Sentinel. Four windows, ringed in red, encircled the space around her head. The one farthest left still showed the gargoyle icon, the pixel creature roaring in intervals to indicate the system was active. A brief flicker of those dark eyes over the screens was given before she found the one she wanted, carefully minimizing the other three and pulling the fourth around.
"Here we are."
It was a map of Motorcity. Not unlike the maps one used for navigation in every day use, top-down and flattened. Until she turned it on its side. The paper-thin unfolded into a full model of the stacked under-city, calculating shifts in structure and rewriting the off-road roadmap in visible snips where changes had happened recently.
"Sentinel. Political topography."
Blobs of color began appearing across the schematic, fitted neatly to each other, or with gaps between the borders. Dead space, no man's land, places the multitude of factions had not claimed as their own for some reason or another. There was a blob of fuchsia near the center of the twisting ramps and roads and crumbled reminders of skyscrapers.
"The Duke. Real time."
The other colors turned off as suddenly as a light switch being flicked off, leaving the fuchsia blob left standing. The tick pause turned off, it was obvious it was moving. Expanding.
"Our true catalyst. I think we both know what happens when The Duke gets bored." She could not help the twinge of sarcasm that flavored her words, a long-suffering sigh that seemed to make the bags under her eyes grow darker yet and her shoulders sag a little more noticeably.
"He tends to hurt people. Not gangs, not bigger factions. Innocent civilians. Usually by destroying important infrastructure."
The thin smile was back as she reached into an inner pocket on her jacket. The blob was slowly getting bigger yet, reflected in the silver cover of the dented and scuffed case she pulled out. "I don't think I need to remind you that The Duke of Detroit Presents still displaced hundreds of people for three months because his antics destabilized an entire sector of terraces."
That was still a sore point with the Cablers, having to divert emergency crews from maintenance duty to make sure the terraces in question didn't fall in on top of themselves or others.
"This looks like another landgrab." she admitted, turning her attention to the case she opened in her hands, selecting and pulling out a hand-rolled cigarette from its confines. "But Sentinel can only see so far, and with Dukey, you want all eyes on him."
The case was closed, replaced in its pocket while she dug around into another one. "I suppose my angle is I want you to be my eyes and ears on this expansion, if you would. If he finds you following his movements, if you get caught. Do please tell him who sent you.
"Our sole purpose here is to keep him in line during this lull."
YO
i know im not like
here
very often, which is HILARIOUS because I just remade the blog
but if you’d like to poke me for plotting or chattering or gushing over motorcity in general, you can find me on Skype:
or for all you Discorddions out there:
feel free to come bother the hell outta me, im pretty a-okay with all of that
Pretty self-explanatory.
Stuff from the old iteration of the blog, returning to keep this one generally active.
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First-Hand Experience
The scar on her leg is hidden from view, and very few have seen it. It’s a surgical scar, long and clean, knit back together perfectly. Something morbidly pretty to hide the defect of how the bones beneath porcelain-pale skin healed. She doesn’t actively show the scar, but the limp is prominent.
She refuses a cane, always has. It holds no real support, she says, and only furthers to remind her that she is a cripple. It won’t help. It can only hinder her more. People respect that. Why should she need it when she hobbles faster without it than with it.
A little cube-avatar pops up next to her head, within the cylinder of blue screens projected by the little chip she has placed on the ground under her. One of the ceiling crews, those in charge of keeping the Dome far above from decaying and crashing down on the city below.
There is a panel loose, he says. They’re checking for any sort of damage to both the supports and the surrounding panels. They’ll rivet it back down when they’re sure it’s safe, but they’ll need the heavy guns next to the trucks. She relays the news to a small group of Cablers with little to do amid the hustle and bustle of the rest working to stabilize another skyscraper for anchoring. They will be on standby.
It started when she first started talking, a dull throb in her right leg. She shifts her weight more to the left, but it’s still there. For a brief moment, her face twitches in emotion. Lips drawn thin just a bit before resuming its usual apathy. The leg does this every time they talk of panels, a not-so-subtle reminder to herself of why the Dome panels are important. Why they were slotted into the maintenance schedules every week.
Dome panels are heavy. She knew that even before the first one succumbed to gravity. Almost twelve years ago now. It wasn’t long after they moved in, while they were slotting into their respective societal niches.
She’s lucky she wasn’t wholly crushed, it was her split-second instinct to run at the echoing sound of screaming metal that likely saved her from worse.
It’s only sad to say that her right leg wasn’t as lucky as she was.
It was the only time she remembers showing emotion publicly.
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Sky
We have a joke among us.
‘The sky’s the limit!’
‘That’s a pretty short limit!’
It’s a joke to us because of the existence of the Dome. It seems really far up there, almost like the sky from where we are, almost a full hundred levels below it. But we’ve actually touched it. That’s no sky. It’s no better than the artificial sky Kane puts over the top of Deluxe. It’s a really terrible substitute.
We’ve seen the sky. The real sky. It’s not something you can touch. It’s something to really aim for.
I remember on good days, it was clear and blue. Not just one shade, but several shades of blue, mixed and fading in and out of one another. There might have been wisps of clouds. Due to the air currents coming off the lakes, we didn’t get the big fluffy clouds too often.
The air never stopped moving, really. There were days when it would be a little slower, a bit of a light breeze to ruffle the grasses and trees some, but it never came to a standstill save right before a big storm. Living next to a lake the size of a small sea does that, keeps the air moving. Most of the time, if you didn’t get a whiff of Detroit, the air was permeated with the smell of cold fish. After a while, you get used to it and it doesn’t bother you anymore.
At night, the sky darkened to a very dark blue, though it had a warmer undertone, like a promise day would return. If you were lucky and Detroit’s light didn’t bleed too far into it, you could see stars. Pinpricks of light. The further you got from the cities, the more stars you could see until the sky looked like a black canvas that someone had splattered glitter and white paint across.
I remember the weather, too. The wind, of course. There was always wind at some level. I remember the rain the most. The best weather to me will always be rain. It washes away impurity. The world appears fresh and new after it rains. There’s a smell to it that you can never forget, one of cleanliness. It is immersive. You can lose yourself to it, and it gives you the hope that you can start anew. Snow was always a plus; it covers the world in white. All the blemishes given by nature were washed away, even if only temporary. It might be cold and harsh, but at the same time, it’s delicate.
I wonder if the weather still rages outside the Dome. I bet it does. The Dome can cut us off from the world. In here, where if something drips on you, you’d better get tested to make sure you’re not irradiated. But it can’t stop the world turning and changing on the outside.
'The sky’s the limit!’
'That’s a pretty short limit!’
One day, maybe. One day, we’ll see the sky once more.
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Awake
Awake I - War and The Beast
The pangs are prominent, and are what initially wake it.
Deep within the entangled mess of wires and cables up near the ceiling of the Dome, it wakes. A shuffling stir of heavy fabric against hardened nylon, the hum of electrical current droning out the sounds of outside.
It unfolds with a crickling snap of long-unused joints, yawning wide to display the tools of the trade plainly. Hearing returns, giving away nothing but the typical ambiance and in safety, it uncoils from its space to resume its vigilance above. Stretches to further limber are taken with every stride and movement, steps careful and practiced across the usual perch.
Eyes glint silver, color of snow and frigid ends, a brief shift before resuming the abyss of oceans; dark, cruel, unforgiving. Scan of below before it begins to bubble and boil, starting in its chest and pushing up through parted jaws thrown wide.
It starts as a screech, escalates to the sound of a roar over those below. An assertion of dominance over its hunting ground, a reminder of monsters of old rising anew to begin the hunt again.
Awake II - Death and Vatka
It echoes through the air, the roar of the unpredictable unlikely guardian living at the ceiling. Every morning, at this time, he hears it down in the depths. Too organic to be mechanical, reverberating with the stale wind off cables and wires over the Cemetery Basin. They vibrate eerily, a song of ghosts through makeshift tombstones and across painted imagery of gape-mouthed spirits swirling through the ruins of what was once the bustling hub of the city, a bastion of the old world.
The dead are disturbingly expansive, and for others it is a lonesome lifestyle. Not so much for him, who hears the speech of the passed in whispers and laughter. Nor for his hulking mechanical companion.
She follows him down through a carefully-wound path, from altar to the plateau, rising as he beckons from where she sat not unlike a living dog. He muses a little to her, and she titters in that strange way of hers at his revelations.
Greetings to early visitors, both to the cemetery and to the apothecary gleaming like a beacon at the center of the depression. It is a calm morning, and hopefully an equally calm day.
Awake III - Famine and Plague
The call is heard much easier in the upper reaches of the city.
It is far too normal to truly pay mind to, so muses the Russian behind a cylinder of interfacing consoles, eyebrow over one eye quirking. Not often emotion is expressed on that face, and even then, it is brief before apathy reigns it all back in and it falls flat.
Someone to her side asks about plans concerning the Dome above them. She whisks her fingers down and up, pulling a series of files out of the column of screens, a push sending them to the other's console. Banter back and forth, the sound of machinery drowning out speech.
A panel came loose high above them in the night. It's a hazard they can't leave; Dome panels are massive and can cause more damage than any one attack by Kane if they fall. She intercepted the messages and brought Plague to boot. Together, they arrived with the Cablers to the area. They've all been working since early morning.
Her android brother is with a group above, stabilizing equipment and tools, or holding the offending panel itself in place while his comrades work diligently to bolt it back down. Someone shouts from one corner, waving a hand to catch attention. The metal has rusted through in this corner. They will have to replace a substantial portion of it to ensure the safety of those below.
What should only be a morning job has just gotten longer.
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Morning Routine
Four-thirty in the morning was always a bit chill. Dawn usually was, even inside the Dome, but down in the Old Detroit Basin, it always seemed at least a few degrees cooler.
Not that Death minded it much, the Haitian shouldering a small pack to begin his usual morning trek to The Altar down in the bowl itself, a spot constructed crudely of chunks of concrete with the Loa veves for both Legba and Samedi scratched into the surface of a large flat piece, like a plaque. In giving offerings to both the spirits and to the ghosts that wandered the cemetery, the plateau would be approachable for the day. Which was exactly what he was after, since that was where the apothecary rested.
The lights on the surviving city block of the plateau shone warm and yellow, a beacon in an otherwise drab world. There were no lights directly in the cemetery that surrounded the upraised place of the past, leaving it with the residual lights from far above. He surveyed the land he had been maintaining for little over a decade, inhaling deeply the smell of stale earth and cool air before descending down the curling road into the basin below.
The light was faint and seemed to suck all the color out of everything, just bright enough to read the crude scratchings of names and dates, epitaphs and well-wishes in the here-after across makeshift tombstones made of any stony material people could get their hands on. Rows were barely existent, making it look like crooked teeth in an old giant's open mouth. Somewhere in the depths were the remnants of power lines and cables from generations before of what Detroit used to be, looking like tentacles reaching into the depression. The air moved a bit, displaced by people racing about in the upper levels and circulated with the massive ventilation fans in the upper curve of the Dome far above. It whistled through the old cables, making them vibrate in eerie twangs, a melancholy and impromtu dirge for those thousands buried in the soil that had been an older, free Detroit.
For anyone else, the cemetery would have been a dark and dreary place to spend one's existence. To the whistling Caribbean making his way down from the Cemetery Plateau and into the graves themselves, this was simply a way of life. Someone had to maintain the dead, as a reminder to the living and as a reminder to themselves. And that someone happened to be the Vodou ghost-talker making his way down predetermined paths, beaten flat over time into dirt roads that all converged on the center rise, where the last surviving city block of Old Detroit still stood.
Wisps played among the tombstones, bobbing shadows up and down. Once or twice, he caught the glance of eyes, or felt them looking in his direction. Whenever he actively caught them, a jovial wave was given. Just because they were dead didn't mean they didn't want to be treated like they were. It was a rule to greet placid ghosts, and these were only curious, as they were every morning.
The Altar rose in the dreary gloom, the pedestal approached with a sort of quiet reverence. Even those spirits curious and following the ghost-talker stopped at the base of the rise it sat on, overlooking the back half of the cemetery, that darker portion where the lights from above didn't penetrate.
"Bon maten." he addressed the veves carved on the back piece, stopping in front of the flat table in front of it and dropping the pack he had brought with him. "I hope y'two had a lovely sleep."
Another wind rattled the cables deep in the darker portion of the cemetery, causing a far-off clanging sound. He took that as his answer from the two Loa, pulling out a set of wooden bowls, dipping saucers, and cups; two sets each. These, he scattered routinely across the tabletop and set about pouring a half-bowl of something resembling cream, dabbling a bit of fresh honey into the saucers, and pouring cups of moonshine. It wasn’t the rum he had been taught to use, but any alcohol would do. To his left, he set a bundle of dried tobacco leaves for smoking.
"Hope y'enjoy breakfast, wi?" he added before picking up the shoulder bag and turning to leave. "Mèsi poutèt ou, for watchin' over all us in the Basin."
The unseen cables rattled again, brightening his unpainted face with a smile as he strode back down the rise into the cemetery again. It was going to be a good day, he reasoned, catching sight of a cluster of short shadowy ghosts ahead of him on his path back to the plateau.
"Ah, can't be forgettin' any of you, can I." he chuckled, setting about on the second task of the morning before the shop opened.
Before he had returned to tend the greenery he sold and paint himself for the day, small clusters of brightly-colored candies and toys, mingled with shot glasses of the same moonshine, added a sense of life into the otherwise colorless graveyard.
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