Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion Page 2

  “It’s that, what, clerk something job, right?” said Mazik. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. That one should be no problem for you.”

  “I’m sure I can do the job, it’s just convincing them to hire me that’s the problem.”

  “It always is,” said Mazik. He took a long pull from his beer.

  “Well, I guess you both won’t need to look at this, but here,” said Raedren. He pulled a newspaper out of his back pocket and placed it in front of Mazik. It was open to the classifieds. “I picked this up earlier.”

  “Oh, thanks,” said Mazik, picking it up. He scanned through the listings. “Forgot to grab one today.”

  “Again,” said Raedren.

  “I like how he says ‘forgot’ when he’s never actually remembered,” said Gavi.

  “Hey, I remembered once,” said Mazik. “Probably.”

  “Uh huh,” said Gavi, rolling her eyes.

  “By the way, you sure you don’t need to be looking through this as well?” said Mazik, holding the paper out to Raedren. “You know you want to quit that boring job of yours.”

  “My job is … fine,” said Raedren, though he didn’t sound like he meant it.

  “Is that so…” said Mazik. He went back to looking through the paper. “How was your day, anyway?”

  Raedren’s eyes glazed over and he shuddered. “So much pus…”

  Mazik and Gavi looked at each other, and then shuddered as well. Raedren worked as an apprentice healer at a regeneration clinic, a job which sounds glamorous, right up until the first day of work. That’s when you realize how disgusting the human body really is, and that the vast majority of your time will be spent doing tasks so boring and repetitive they give new definition to the word tedium.

  It paid well, though, which was why Raedren was still doing it. That’s not a terribly good reason to do anything for nine-plus hours a day, at least until you consider the alternative of being paid markedly less or nothing at all. When your other options include starving, lucrative boredom starts to look good.

  Mazik and Gavi didn’t ask him to elaborate. They really didn’t need to know.

  “How about you, Gavs?” asked Mazik.

  “Let me fail at this interview before I start looking for other options.”

  “It’s never too early to start preparing for your next potential failure,” said Mazik, holding out the paper. Gavi shot him a glare. Mazik chuckled.

  “I actually meant your day,” said Mazik. “Anything interesting happen?”

  “Oh,” said Gavi. Her hand went to the silver arrowhead hanging around her neck. “No, not really. It’s just been long and tiring.” She traced the blunt edges of her charm. “That Jern guy was hitting on me earlier, but that’s nothing new.”

  “What’d you do to him?” asked Mazik.

  “Nothing. The owner was here.”

  The other two grimaced. Mazik turned around to examine the walls.

  “Over there,” said Gavi, pointing to a spot on the back wall. Mazik followed her finger and found a blade-shaped hole drilled several centimeters into the wood. It looked like it was made by a lance, possibly thrown by an angry troll. A troll family.

  “Glad to see he’s enjoying those knives I sold him,” said Mazik.

  “Oh yes, definitely,” said Gavi, nodding emphatically. “Of course, it helps that he knew he would get anything he paid for them back eventually.”

  “What can I say,” said Mazik, raising his mug. “I’m a giver.”

  The three of them sat there for a time, none of them speaking.

  “I need another beer,” said Mazik finally.

  “Me too,” said Raedren, downing his. “Or maybe something a little stiffer.”

  “Hur hur hur,” said Mazik. Raedren ignored him.

  “Well, you two have fun with that,” said Gavi, standing as the bartender finally freed himself. “I’ll just keep working while you two are sitting here, relaxing and getting drunk.”

  “Kaaaay,” said Mazik, with no evidence of sympathy.

  “What can I get for you?” asked the bartender.

  Gavi’s response was interrupted by a loud crash. They turned to find two men squaring off over a broken table, preparing to fight.

  “Oh great,” said Gavi as the drunk on the left punched his opponent in the head, knocking him on his ass. A cheer rose from the rapidly coalescing audience. Gavi glanced at the clock over the bar. “Well, the first one today started later than normal, so that’s something.”

  “Need any help?” asked Mazik. He, along with everyone else in the bar, didn’t seem particularly concerned about the men duking it out in their midst, save for those who were taking bets.

  “Naw,” said Gavi. She held a hand out to the bartender, who passed her a scratched wooden club. Her club. That was definitely a bad sign, though not for Gavi. “This won’t take long.”

  “Have fun,” said Mazik, waving lazily. He turned back to his drink.

  There was no change as Gavi walked over. Then the scuffle stopped. First there was Gavi’s voice, sounding reasonable. Then there was an angry bellow, followed by a meaty smack. Then everything got confusing, with fists swinging through empty the air and knees driving into stomachs, all jumbling together into a riotous, unintelligible mess. Finally, there was a sound like two electrified coconuts smacking together with a painful crack!

  There was a pained grunt, and then silence.

  The bar erupted into cheers and applause. The other patrons appreciated well meted-out violence, provided it wasn’t being meted out to them.

  There was a sound like a heavy sack of potatoes being dragged across the floor. “Gods, these guys are heavy….” said Gavi.

  There was the clatter of someone running into a table full of drinks, and then a dull thud. “Uhm. Okay, I could use some help getting these guys outside.”

  “Not it,” said Raedren.

  “Not i—damn!” said Mazik. “Aaaaall right, coming!”

  Once Mazik and Gavi dragged the two men outside and tossed them onto the street, they returned to where Raedren was sitting.

  “You’d think they would learn,” said Gavi as she deposited some coins on the bar, which she had lifted from the two men to pay for repairs. The bartender scooped them up instantly.

  “History would argue they will not,” said Mazik as he sat back down. He took a long drink from Raedren’s beer. “Hsssaaahh, that’s good!”

  “Hey,” said Raedren.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Mazik. He held out the beer. “Did you want some?”

  Raedren looked into the mug. It was nearly empty. “No, you can keep that one.”

  “So what are you guys planning for the rest of the night?” asked Gavi as she rubbed her shoulder where one of the brawlers tried to grab her.

  “Drinking,” said Mazik.

  “Until we can’t think properly anymore,” said Raedren.

  “And then probably a bit past that,” said Mazik.

  “Of course. It wouldn’t do to remember a night,” said Gavi dryly.

  “Exactly!” chirped Mazik.

  Gavi stuck out her tongue. “Well if you’re still conscious in about an hour, I’ve got a break coming up.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be pretty lame tonight,” said Mazik.

  “Why’s that?” Gavi deposited the club behind the bar and reclaimed her tray.

  “Since I didn’t sell anything today, I’m almost out of money,” said Mazik. He slumped against the bar. “Fuck me!”

  “Hur hur hur.”

  “…dammit.”

  *

  Mazik, Gavi, and Raedren were sitting around a table, in a bar, drinking. This was not unusual. They were relaxing after a long week, and had been there for some time. The latest bar fight had just concluded, and as the loser was being hurled outside, Mazik noticed a pair of errand boys near the door. They were chattering excitedly. One of the boys held out a hand, and a tiny flame of magick appeared for a split second.r />
  “I’ve got a good topic,” said Mazik. He thanked the waiter as fresh drinks arrived. “Let’s talk about when we were first learning magick.”

  “When we were learning about magick, huh?” said Gavi.

  “I bet that’ll lead to a few good stories we haven’t heard before,” said Mazik. “Or haven’t heard in a while, which is fun, too.”

  Raedren shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

  “All right! In that case, Gavs, what did—”

  “No way,” interrupted Gavi. “You brought up the topic, so you get to go first. I’ll start you with something easy. When did you decide to become a caster?”

  “Ohhh,” said Mazik, settling back. “You’ll like this one.”

  The teacher wrote MAGICK on the blackboard. “Can anyone tell me what magick is?”

  Six of the ten low schoolers5 raised their hands, but one of the other four blurted out his answer instead. “It’s what makes stuff explode!”

  The class giggled. The teacher shook her head. “Please raise your hand if you want to answer, Mazik.”

  The little boy raised his hand. “Explosions!”

  “That’s only part of it. Magick is the use of mana to create magickal spells. Now, who can tell me what mana is? Raise your hands.”

  More hands shot up. The teacher selected a girl in the front row.

  “Mana is a naturally occurring, ambient energy source that fuels magickal spells,” she recited.

  “Correct,” said the teacher. “There’s a lot we don’t know about mana, but we know it’s natural, it’s invisible, it’s everywhere, and it never runs out.” She drew a sketch of their planet, Aegis, and circled it. “Wherever you go, there’s mana all around you. Who knows what a spell is?”

  Hands shot up again. The teacher selected a little boy.

  “It’s the magick you can see!”

  “Sometimes, but not always. Spells are any magick created by a person. They’re made by moving mana in certain patterns. And a caster is…? Raise your hands.”

  The teacher selected a little girl in the back. “Spell caster,” she said, her voice quiet from behind her doll. “They make spells.”

  “Good, very good!” The teacher drew a stick figure with lines coming out of its hands. “Most casters are humans or orcks7, but some animals can learn spells too.” She added a picture of a dog, with lines coming out of its mouth. The children giggled.

  “Who has seen someone cast a spell before?”

  All ten hands raised.

  “Did they make funny movements with their hands, or say funny words?” The teacher wiggled her fingers.

  “Yes!” said the children.

  “That’s to help them make the spells work. Really good casters don’t need to say anything, though.” The teacher began adding more illustrations to the chalkboard. “There are lots of different kinds of spells. There are ones that make you strong,” a picture of a rippling bicep, “let you move far away things,” a hand, and a distant block hovering, “protect you from danger,” a barrier was added in front of the hand, “heal you,” wavy lines were added around the bicep, “and yes, make things explode.” The class giggled as the hovering block was obscured by a chalk explosion.

  The little boy in front couldn’t contain himself any longer. He jumped up and started punching the air. “Casters are so cool! When I grow up I’m gunna be a caster! I’m gunna be strong and do all sorts of cool things and it’ll be awesome!”

  “Mazik, please sit down.”

  “You don’t understand, teacher! It’s going to be so amazing! I can’t wait—”

  A sudden breeze ruffled the boy’s hair, and he fell silent. All of the children did.

  “I understand,” said the teacher. A ball of yellow light hovered over her palm, glowing warmly. “Now, who can tell me—”

  “So cool!” exclaimed the little boy. Then the entire class rushed to their teacher, all of them grabbing at her skirts and jumping up and down as they talked all at once.

  *

  Mazik yawned as he trudged down the street. It was the next morning, and back were his work clothes, his nice tunic and ironed slacks and his thick, heavy cloak, with the black case swinging loosely in his hand. Also back were his slumped shoulders and the dour look of a man who really didn’t want to be doing what he was currently doing.

  Mazik was not looking forward to work.

  He approached a drab square building on an unremarkable warehouse road, its brown walls and slightly upturned roof making it look like a cardboard box that grew up and regretted it. Scrawled in fresh white paint over the doorway were five words: THE ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT WEAPONSMITHS.

  Sometimes that made Mazik laugh, when it didn’t make him cry or drink. It didn’t matter that they didn’t have a single weaponsmith on staff, and bought their merchandise from a company running a string of sweatshops in Ghinaaro, a country where wages were cheap and life even cheaper. The Association of Independent Weaponsmiths just sounded better than what they really were—a group of amoral arms dealers who, by company policy, didn’t care who they sold their weapons to as long as they could pay.

  A cheery little bell jingled overhead, instantly filling Mazik with murderous intent. He was not a morning person.

  “Good morrow, Slick!” came a gratingly cheery voice from inside the building.

  Mazik winced. “Mornin’, Chzack.” Just my luck, thought Mazik sourly. He wished Chzack wouldn’t be so cheerful this early in the morning. As is, he was one bad joke away from needing to hide a body.

  “You look tired, Slick. Out late last night?” asked Chzack, a man whose sunny disposition was rivaled only by the shadiness of his business dealings and the size of his beer belly. Chzack slung a swarthy arm around the taller man’s shoulders. “Out drinking with your buddies? Or, perhaps something else…?” He waggled his eyebrows.

  “Just the former,” said Mazik tiredly.

  Chzack cocked his head to the side. He didn’t get it.

  “…the first one,” said Mazik, suppressing a sigh. That was his fault. He should have known better than to use multisyllabic words. Sometimes having an education was depressing, especially when you worked with a bunch of people who did not. That this didn’t stop them from being better at their jobs than Mazik only made things worse. Things like that could drive a man to drink.

  “That’s fun too, I guess,” said Chzack, clearly disappointed. As a married man who only occasionally cheated on his wife, he loved to hear stories from those who were still “in the game.” Mazik didn’t have the heart to tell him that even at his most popular, he never got as much action as Chzack. Of course, Mazik refused to pay for sex, so he was at a handicap there.

  “Morning, Slick,” came another voice, this one from behind.

  “Good morning,” said Mazik as the man walked past them, his bald head gleaming.

  “What, no greeting for me, Picky?” asked Chzack, loudly and right next to Mazik’s ear. Chzack half-skipped, half-waddled over to the broad-shouldered man ahead. “C’mon. How ya doin’ this morning?”

  “Fine so far,” said the man, whose name was Pickner. “I just came from—”

  Mazik zoned out. Shrugging out of his cloak, he followed the others on autopilot.

  “Good morning!” chirped the secretary, beaming up at him from behind her flimsy desk. Mazik grunted. She just went on smiling.

  Pickner strode ahead and opened the next door, motioning for Chzack and Mazik to enter first.

  Mazik remembered the first time he entered this room. What he didn’t know was, after having done it once, what possessed him to do so again and again, day after day, for longer than he cared to remember. When he first came to interview, the waiting room was bad enough, with its cheap wooden chairs filled with desperate, gloomy applicants, its meaningless paintings hanging from otherwise blank walls, and its single obligatory potted plant quietly wilting in the corner. The whole thing felt so fake, so temporary, like it was nothing but a thin vene
er thrown up to make it look like there was a business where none existed.

  But this room was another thing entirely. It had no furnishings. It had no decorations, no work supplies, not even a single painting or potted plant. What it had was three windows devoid of curtains, two chalkboards populated exclusively by the rundown dregs of the chalk herd, and people. A lot of people.

  This room was called the sales floor, and it was where all AIW salespeople gathered every morning for announcements, practice, sales reports, and “motivation.”

  It all had a kind of logic to it. What use was furniture to salespeople who would spend little time using it? This was a place for management and merchandise, more a warehouse than an office building, and pretending it was anything else would have wasted time they could have used to sell more weapons. Salespeople had no need to get comfortable, so there was nothing here for them to get comfortable with.

  Somewhere deep in Mazik’s soul, he cried. Most of his nightmares started in this room. Or he was sure they would have if he could remember any of them.

  Mazik looked around. Tall and short, thin and fat, male and female, and belonging to races and creeds of all kinds, other salespeople milled about in their fine suits and comfortable shoes, comparing techniques, swapping anecdotes, practicing pitches, and generally wasting time until things got started.

  Not excited at the prospect of another coworker latching onto him, Mazik quietly slunk into the corner. He nodded. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” said the man already there. His name was Tomar. Though only a little older than Mazik, Tomar sported a receding hairline and hardened cynicism that usually took a lifetime of bitter, caustic regret to acquire. He was Mazik’s best friend at work.

  With greetings out of the way, the two said nothing. They preferred it that way. It was too early in the morning for friendship.

  After an insufficient five minutes of antisocial peace, a small man blew into the room. Weaving around coworkers, he made a beeline for Mazik and Tomar. “Raeus8, I need to talk to you.”

  “Morning, boss,” said Mazik.

  Mazik’s boss was a small, wiry man with short-cropped, curly hair and a massive chip on his shoulder. He had what would have been called a Napoleon Complex, had a man named Napoleon ever existed on Aegis. Instead he had what Mazik thought of as a Rose Complex, after the man himself, Stahl Rosewat’r9. The “Rose” part wasn’t even some petty insult—that was the name he chose to go by, freely and of his own volition, which goes to show that he probably didn’t have the inferiority complex Mazik ascribed to him, or he had gotten used to the name, or he really liked flowers. Whatever the case, Mazik had no desire to find out, because that would have required spending more time with the man responsible for so much of his grief.