Undisclosed basement •Central Anaxas/Vienda
on the 21th of Loshis, 2716 • noontime... maybe?
Shit.
The strange woman and her compatriots led him along, their hands jostling and pushing and pulling. He wearing a blindfold, with no idea where he was being led. He may as well have been their prisoner. Formalities and circumstances aside, who’s to say he wasn’t?
Spreading those pamphlets sounded like a good way to get rid of people. His once sometimes-boss seemed to think so, emphatic about his reasons for letting Jobe do the deed. What could go wrong?. Job did have to concede on a few points. Discrediting people was more economically viable than killing them. No cleanup, no messy investigations, no family members looking for vengeance. Let the Seventen do the eliminating, and take the heat. And for a time it seemed very unlikely that complications would arise.
So much for that idea.
The Resistance was just a collection of whispers and folk tales to Jobe before this ill-fated trip that took him blind-folded to the great wherever. just a folk myth that gave otherwise good people stupid ideas. On the surface, on grounds of pure pragmatism, had he a say in what went on in other peoples’ heads, he would’ve put the very idea of the Resistance down like the lame dog of ideas that it was.
This vestigial hope kept the least of their kind going, holding them back. Giving comfort to accused rapers and murderers, fugitives. It seemed like a perfect snake pit for corruption and unaccountability to take hold. They were just another gang to Jobe’s reckoning. The difference, and it was a key one, was that where a criminal would tell you upfront that you could give him money or he would club you, the Resistance took good will, bodies and treasure, and thanked you with promises of a unspecified brighter future someday for your children. At least that was the pitch made to honest folk. Whatever they told the killers and rapers they took in, well that could be quite another. Jobe wasn’t so starry-eyed that he’d imagine the same hopes and motivations moved all men. He’d seen enough of conflict and what passed for war to know different. Some people just wanted to loot, butcher, and harm for fun. There was no underlying motivation or ethos besides.
Jobe could hear the motions of a crowd, coming from outside but unmistakable. So he knew he was in a city. Doors slid open, he was pushed along, and then shut behind him. Wherever their safehouse was, they were no less convoluted in their navigation than the worst puzzle box. At times he doubted that even his captors knew where they were leading him.
Nevertheless, he let them lead him along without a fight. They had taken him for one of their own, spreading pamphlets several days hence in Old Rose Harbor.
It was, in truth, a simple misunderstanding.
Not unlike that which preceded every other nameless body thrown into the gutter.
A misunderstanding.
Presently, they stopped. There was still that distant sound of people milling about a street. It might’ve been day or night for all Jobe knew. Until they took off the hood, and the lantern light nearby almost blinded him. No windows. Just four corners of stone and wooden frames, a table, a few chairs, and people to sit in them.
The man at the far side, he could’ve been anyone. The cobbler from Tanner’s Row, or the fisher living out of some shanty around the Wharf. He didn’t smell much better than either possibility.
”Sit.” he said, simply, gesturing to the stool opposite him at the table.
Jobe was pushed into the stool, and for a while they merely stared at each other.
The strange woman and her compatriots led him along, their hands jostling and pushing and pulling. He wearing a blindfold, with no idea where he was being led. He may as well have been their prisoner. Formalities and circumstances aside, who’s to say he wasn’t?
Spreading those pamphlets sounded like a good way to get rid of people. His once sometimes-boss seemed to think so, emphatic about his reasons for letting Jobe do the deed. What could go wrong?. Job did have to concede on a few points. Discrediting people was more economically viable than killing them. No cleanup, no messy investigations, no family members looking for vengeance. Let the Seventen do the eliminating, and take the heat. And for a time it seemed very unlikely that complications would arise.
So much for that idea.
The Resistance was just a collection of whispers and folk tales to Jobe before this ill-fated trip that took him blind-folded to the great wherever. just a folk myth that gave otherwise good people stupid ideas. On the surface, on grounds of pure pragmatism, had he a say in what went on in other peoples’ heads, he would’ve put the very idea of the Resistance down like the lame dog of ideas that it was.
This vestigial hope kept the least of their kind going, holding them back. Giving comfort to accused rapers and murderers, fugitives. It seemed like a perfect snake pit for corruption and unaccountability to take hold. They were just another gang to Jobe’s reckoning. The difference, and it was a key one, was that where a criminal would tell you upfront that you could give him money or he would club you, the Resistance took good will, bodies and treasure, and thanked you with promises of a unspecified brighter future someday for your children. At least that was the pitch made to honest folk. Whatever they told the killers and rapers they took in, well that could be quite another. Jobe wasn’t so starry-eyed that he’d imagine the same hopes and motivations moved all men. He’d seen enough of conflict and what passed for war to know different. Some people just wanted to loot, butcher, and harm for fun. There was no underlying motivation or ethos besides.
Jobe could hear the motions of a crowd, coming from outside but unmistakable. So he knew he was in a city. Doors slid open, he was pushed along, and then shut behind him. Wherever their safehouse was, they were no less convoluted in their navigation than the worst puzzle box. At times he doubted that even his captors knew where they were leading him.
Nevertheless, he let them lead him along without a fight. They had taken him for one of their own, spreading pamphlets several days hence in Old Rose Harbor.
It was, in truth, a simple misunderstanding.
Not unlike that which preceded every other nameless body thrown into the gutter.
A misunderstanding.
Presently, they stopped. There was still that distant sound of people milling about a street. It might’ve been day or night for all Jobe knew. Until they took off the hood, and the lantern light nearby almost blinded him. No windows. Just four corners of stone and wooden frames, a table, a few chairs, and people to sit in them.
The man at the far side, he could’ve been anyone. The cobbler from Tanner’s Row, or the fisher living out of some shanty around the Wharf. He didn’t smell much better than either possibility.
”Sit.” he said, simply, gesturing to the stool opposite him at the table.
Jobe was pushed into the stool, and for a while they merely stared at each other.
