XVII Malcolm

Sitting in his well-appointed office, Malcolm found himself in a break between meetings. He pulled out the folder on his hunt for Marco. He had disappeared, but by all accounts, he was just your typical lower city thug, which meant one thing—he was at a hunted “shelter,” glorified feeding pens. As a shelter, you could either sit back and collect payment twice or do the honest thing, help a bunch of lowlifes, and get a bullet in the head as a reward. The lucrative nature, of course, meant that too many shelters tended to open. Where there are crumbs, there are birds—though, in order for the Bureau to keep friendly relationships, they did make sure to strictly control the bird population.

As an active hunter, he had connections with all of them, of course. He even got a discount because he agreed to wait for a fortnight to be contacted after the prey left. If you wanted, you could always pay them extra to more or less deliver them to you. But where would be the fun of that?

Strange. It had been months, but none of the shelters reported having him, and, by now, any off-the-books shelter should have been found out. Malcolm sent a member of his staff to search the premises and interview the cousin. Marco wasn’t there. And while she said she didn’t know where he was, the agent suspected if given the right “encouragement,” she would. Malcolm wasn’t the sort to torture collaterals. Not that that was a common view amongst hunters—it was, of course, not permitted to do so, but what the law says and what the law was were functionally two different things entirely. Some things could be purchased with money, other things status. If you were high nobility, you could get away with doing just about anything to a copper so long as you were willing to dish out enough coin and a few favors. It was apparent to him that this reality was not lost on those meek scurriers. This made being among the creatures rather tiring. Normally he only entered the lowlands on a hunt, but his interest was piqued enough that he decided to give the girl a visit. 

The girl answered the door, shivering. No doubt her friends have been filling her with horror stories.

“Do not worry, miss. I am not here to hurt you. Just a bit of your time.” He said, trying to adopt a gentle tone.

“Yes, your lordship, please come in an’ ‘ave a seat. Would my lord like some coffee?”

“Please. I would not have expected to receive such a warm welcome. I thank you, but you do realize who I am? Why I am here?”

“Nuthin’ to hide here, sir. You can check yourself, and you’re not gonna find him. So come on into my hearth and home.”

The apartment was small but surprisingly well kept for one of the old public housing units in the lowlands. Most of the furniture was what he would expect aside from a tasteless overstuffed chair covered in cigarette burns, most likely a recent purchase. He couldn’t smell any smoke in the apartment. Moving closer to the chair, he gave it a light sniff. There was but the faintest hint of the cheap tobacco. There were errant dark purple stains, tigal. It was surprising how often tigal stains had come in handy. It was almost impossible to completely clean. The cocktail of drugs found in it made spilling all but a certainty for habitual users, and tigal stains grew darker as they oxidized but at a relatively slow rate. The lightest color stains on the chair had been made months ago. Malcolm turned his cool blue eyes to the girl. She was pretending not to look at him as she ground some coffee beans. She was definitely nervous, but more deeply than that, she was confident. He had expected a penny like her to make a cup of instant sludge. Clearly, it was something she was proud of. She probably offered coffee to everyone who came in. A reliable and comparatively low effort way of building social capital. She added boiling water to the grounds and stirred, winding her odd crescent moon necklace after pouring in the rest of the water.

“Where did you get that necklace?”

“If ya don’t mind, please keep your questions to Marco.” She said, crossing her arms in a defensive pose.

The necklace dinged. She plunged down the filter and handed Malcolm a coffee in a grey cup.

“Of course, my apologies, miss,” Malcolm said. “So, about Marco,” He took a sip of coffee. It wasn’t horrible. He gave her a considerate nod, “Do you know where he is?”

“Outta your reach, hunter. Other than that, I got no clue.”

He took out a piece of paper and a palladium fountain pen and wrote a number with a series of zeros on it. Passing her the note, he said, “Would this change your recollection?”

“Nah, sir, but this check sure is fine cardstock—too fine for the lowlands. Here, take it back with you.” She said, passing it back.

Good. That was more than he had been willing to pay to find Marco, but he had a suspicion she wouldn’t take it, and he loved being right. He updated his model, thanked her for the coffee, and walked out of the hovel.

She clearly knew something—she was terrible at hiding it—but she was genuinely loyal. Her demeanor indicated she was pretty confident. Somehow Marco had slipped out of the city undetected. An impressive feat, though it was so unusual that the substantial bribes would be easy to trace back.

It was also clear that whatever was going on, it wasn’t the work of this Marco. The necklace was almost certainly a gift from whoever helped Marco evade him for this long. It was an odd roughly made one-of-a-kind piece shaped like a moon. It was an unlikely coincidence that her name was Luna. It was made as a french press coffee timer, something almost unheard of in the lowlands to begin with. If it had been a gift from a family member or simply bought off some junk merchant, the reaction would have been different. She was defensive, trying to redirect, clearly having something to hide, someone she was trying to protect.

He supposed that it could be a woman behind the scenes, but he gave it a less than five percent chance. A street tough like Marco is unlikely to swallow his pride enough to seek such advice from a girl, and then there was the necklace. He could have Marco’s and Luna’s acquaintances dredged up until he found out which mutual friend of theirs fit the profile. From there, it would probably be trivial to figure out the rest. But this was at least so far mildly intriguing he was in no rush to skip straight to the end.

The reports flowing back to him showed no sign of a Marco, which meant that he must have a fake ID. But how could someone like that get access? A fake was one of those things that required more than just money—it required serious connections. He had his agents bribe the various transport officials to get details of bribes they had received lately and found several instances of similar bribes within the postulated time frame. All the men had bribed in order to get female accompaniment onboard without ID. Almost all of which going to boomtowns. Each with implausible backstories of traveling with their daughters even in the face of obvious lack of large age gaps between them. ID numbers were not required for those under the age of thirteen. Marco must have a fake ID, but his companion Ira must not have. Showing the unknown helper had limited resources in terms of ID creation. Still, it was impressive to create such a relatively large smuggling operation just to help his client have company.

He put out feelers to the peace officers in the different cities to look for newly arrived people from the lower classes. Specifically looking for the names Marco or Ira, for those spending or having beyond their means, and for those who don’t get jobs or quit their jobs while being able to pay off the deposit against becoming a guarantee worker. Had it been any other hunter with a no-fight contract, an anonymous one no less, they would have just claimed to have killed Marco already and bought a justice contract to make themselves feel better about it. But to Malcolm, the challenge was the reward. He felt this quarry would, in the end, prove to be quite fallible.