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REQUIEM FOR A RAT
T’Empire…
Seems like it’s been here fo’ever. T’was here long ’fore I was born and t’will be here long af’er I’m dust.
Huddled under a narrow slash of dim and dust-filled light in a debris-strewn alley, seventeen-year-old Donovan Washington Rush scribbled the words across the dry and yellowed parchment pages of a small hand-bound journal. Everything written, he thought to himself, nothing digital where “Boss Man’s” eyes could find it. Though hiding carefully, and clearly worried about discovery, Donovan penned his words slowly and deliberately. The book once belonged to his father, Dr. Princeton Rush. It was his journal, and this was the very first time that Donovan had dared add to it.
The weathered book was filled with words on escape, freedom, tyranny, and rights—the very kind of ideas that a lowly Sewer Rat had been conditioned to never fully understand. As far as most in the Sewers knew, these were all exclusive to the Empire. They were dangled as gifts that could be bestowed or taken away on Imperial whim. According to Dr. Rush, it wasn’t always so. The Empire had hijacked these words and concepts and changed their use and made them property, condemning their original intent to die off like the aging witnesses of a long-ago war, once gone, their lessons forgotten and buried with them.
That said, the hand-written journal still had two distinct sets of interpretations, and Donovan had initially considered them both. Either the tome was filled with the delusional rantings of a madman or it was a stroke of absolute and forbidden genius. Once enticed by the latter, Donovan had shared some of the words with his closest and most trusted friends, those he grew up and survived with. Together, they had built a kind of secret order based on the writings, one that had spread through the shadows of Donovan’s land. They named themselves the Brothers and Sisters of the Sword, and they adopted the slogan “Freedom or Death.” It was dangerous stuff—subversive, yet possibly entirely pointless. Regardless, Dr. Rush’s journal would forever be precious to Donovan. It was the only thing his father had left behind before he vanished into the very same shadows that Donovan now clung to for protection.
Dr. Rush wrote that his journal was full of secrets worth dying for. That meant the book contained secrets that, if true, were worth killing for as well. Still Donovan had read every line, absorbed every passage and illustration, notation, crease, and fold until he finally reached the point where he felt comfortable adding his own marks next to his father’s.
Sensing people approaching from the jagged, street shadows beyond, Donovan finished making his marks, surreptitiously knowing that the mere act of writing was a punishable offense. Even here in the relative security of darkness, Donovan knew he was being watched, not just by the all-seeing eyes of the Empire he wrote about but by something far more insidious. He knew he was being watched by many of the people themselves, looking through the lens of the Empire’s carefully engineered fear of reprisal that was drilled into them. They, too, Donovan thought, are the Boss Man’s eyes.
As Donovan ducked down to hide his face under an angled tricorne hat pulled low, he thought about how he had chosen those first words and his motivation for writing them. Like his father before him, Donovan expected to vanish for what he knew and meant his new inscriptions for anybody that followed his path, for those who’d remain after he was gone. The teen also knew that, like his father had stated, the words meant nothing unless put to action. If his father had indeed risked death, only by taking the same risk could Donovan find the truth and power, if any, behind the words.
Before moving on to his next illicit sanctuary, Donovan stopped to dwell on the book’s cover. It was aged, pitted, and stained, the leather grain filled with dirt and grease of time and human touch. How many hands? Donovan wondered. How many minds have pondered the words inside? Has this book made any difference at all to anybody before me, or are they just ghosts long since devoid of power over human affairs?
Donovan continued to run his fingertips over the volume, stopping at the center of the cover. Scarred into the leather by firebrand was a crude, slashed form of a raised palm with a star emblazoned in the center. He studied how it was carefully filled in with gold paint, rubbed by hand into the deep marks to preserve them with meaningful purpose and reverence. And what of the single word that had been burned across the palm? What of Libertatem?
After scanning and rescanning the dark cobblestone streets beyond him, Donovan flipped backwards through a handful of dog-eared pages and paused at a series of carefully hand-drawn maps. Like the book’s cover, both maps and pages were badly faded and worn, every word and image rubbed dim by the repeated touch of his and his father’s hopeful fingers. Whether the words were true or not, they offered something quite unique to Donovan’s world—they offered hope.
The initial target of the teen’s attention was the one map that detailed his present location, a long straight thoroughfare marked Regent Street, one of the area’s oldest. Using it as a guide, Donovan pointed the tip of his pen to the Northeast Quadrant of the Under City. Regent Street was
only three Under City blocks from a darkened and nondescript area that Donovan’s father had noted as “Perimeter Five.” That was the boy’s destination, the place where his father’s cryptic breadcrumbs seemed to lead. A series of arrows then directed Donovan to turn the page to the next group of maps showing Perimeter Five in more detail.
Even in simple map form, the area seemed darker and more foreboding. A tangled grid of streets was left unmarked; shapes and buildings and landmarks were hastily sketched as if done from memory or on the fly. If Perimeter Five was Donovan’s main goal, it was an uncertain one at best. As for what came after, it seemed only his father knew. Surrounding the diagrams of this shadowy place, Dr. Rush using his old quill pen like a knife had dug two hard notations into the paper. The first read, “Black Flag,” with an accompanying death’s head and crossbones. The second notation had the same star and palm from the book’s cover. Next to it was the same word: Libertatem. Next to that was a tiny drawing of what looked like the lower part of a statue—specifically, just the legs below the knee. Freedom either didn’t or couldn’t run anymore, Donovan thought. Neither can I.
Looking into the dank malaise of Regent Street, Donovan took in the musty air and dingy sights of the only world he’d ever known. There was no observable sky, but massive dirty icicles hung from immense nondescript structures far above. Donovan wondered, Is that the very boundary of the Empire? If so, it’s a fitting sight. The massive ice spires seemed like the foreboding and deadly daggers of some great trap poised to smash down on anybody who dared ponder what was out of reach. Icy and putrid meltwater rhythmically dripped from the massive stalactites and down to the hot cobblestones below where it formed into brackish puddles of germ-infested wastewater. The steam from the cooling water in turn created an eerie, accompanying ground fog.
Just above this dank atmosphere, ancient four and five-story brownstones and low, rickety wooden tenements leaned into each other like old and dying prisoners huddled at assembly. Their lantern and candlelit windows flickered off into the darkness like hopeless eyes or fading embers of a long-neglected fire. Every few hundred feet, massive stone and rusting metal columns rose into the foreboding shadows to
meet the icicles above. Everybody knew what lay beyond, but few knew the details—and then only via secondhand accounts. It was the Empire, as if its very weight seemed to crush down on Donovan’s whole world. Compelled by the gravity of it, Donovan scribbled more into the book.
I was born not far from here, in this forgotten hole un’er t’Empire streets. We call it Under City, but ’tis wot’s known in t’Empire as “T’Sewers.” ’Tis the place where Boss Dog Magistrate hides t’prisons and dumps his trash. ’Tis where he dumped us too, generations ago as legends tell, af’er a great war, as my father accounts.
They call us “Sewer Rats” and according t’my old man, These Sewers once made up t’original city, t’very seat of t’Empire. ’Tis t’seat, for sure, right un’er Boss Dog’s ass.
Just as Donovan scratched out the last period of the last line, a strange moving spotlight appeared far above and a couple blocks over. It probed the darkness with an icy cold blue light, like an alien craft. Donovan knew the light all too well; everybody in the Sewers knew. Its origin was the Colonies, an off-limits part of the Empire—off-limits to “Rats” especially. It was a Colonial Lawbroker patrol. These dangerous two- or four-officer hovercraft rarely ventured from the Colonies to come through the Sewers and when they did so, it was mostly for show. Even though the Lawbrokers had plenty of lethal firepower at their disposal, they never approached close to the Sewer streets unless the population required a public reminder of the deadly face of Imperial power. The Empire preferred to maintain some officious air of false propriety and not soil its hands directly with Sewer issues.
The powers above left that show to the Colonial Constabularies and their boots on the ground, mostly local criminals pressed into service to catch or kill runaways like Donovan. They were called the Sewer Guard, a kind of local militia that ran on bribery and fear of punishment from their own masters above. The deal was simple: Be useful or be jailed or be dead. These lost boys and girls were empowered to kill, catch, or torture lawbreaking Rats. The Empire had dangerous eyes indeed.
Donovan had felt the Sewer Guard’s brand of state-sponsored discipline before. The
Guards carried an electrified livestock prod that doubled as a sort of musket rifle. It was known throughout the Sewers as a Barking Iron and many Rats had died from its bite.
Colonial Lawbrokers only fly down here t’keep us scared and in line. Technically, t’Sewers are property o’ t’Empire but those Mules would n’er sully their hands on us. For local law, they use our own kind ’gainst us, t’Sewer Guard. As if there was anythin’ o’ value down here. Wot better way t’keep t’straight ’n’narrow than t’have your own kind tossed a few extra rocks t’guard the borders, ’n’ given e’en bigger rewards fo’ killin’ runaway knucks like me.
A smart Sewer Guard could make a bounty o’ coin in ransom from both family and Empire by holdin’ an escaped Rat. Sure, t’Mules got a hefty reward for each kill but most often, they’d do both, take a ransom, then kill t’Rat and pawn off t’poor sod’s property to the local “Boxman,” or wot we Rats call t’undertaker-pawnbroker.
I been lashed ’n’ beaten just fo’ eyeballin’ a Sewer Guard ’n’ felt t’sting of their Barking Irons too. ’Tis that all keeps us in line you might ask? Would were that ’nuff. Boss Dog and his Empire have carefully set up a system o’ punishments and rewards. Work harder, obey more rules, serve t’Empire, or be turncoat by yer own family and friends. Do a good job, be a good turncoat, profit t’Empire, maybe, you might win your freedom.
After a few fruitless searches for Rats to scare off, the hovering Colonial Lawbrokers grew bored and moved on. As soon as their unnatural and disembodied light looked elsewhere, Donovan stashed the book in his long waistcoat and bolted for his next stop, a sliver of deep shadow between two badly decrepit tenements.
Regent Street was fairly busy today. Its trash- and debris-strewn cobblestones were populated by Sewer Rats of all ages and ethnicities, going about the grim business of Sewer survival. Wearing a similar range of long waistcoats, hats, and cloaks, they traded scavenged items in dark foreboding sidewalk bazaars that brimmed with damaged and recycled goods. Some better-off Rats with corrupt, black-market Empire connections dealt in more functional technology, along
with old canned goods and other purloined supplies that had little use in the Colonies and Empire short of selling off. Despite the energetic activity, though, Sewer Rats barely got what they needed to survive, and the Regent Street markets were little more than second- and third-hand stores, a vast system of trickle-down economics until what trickled was fit for a Sewer.
There were no self-powered vehicles of any kind in the Sewers, only horses and wagons, swine and mules. Whatever rare, familiar-looking parts of the chassis and wheels of once-motorized machines there were to be found were pulled by people and animals alike. Any little bits and bobs of truly usable technology consisted of random and broken pieces and parts of something else. Donovan thought about how it all had such a faraway quality, an affluent feel somehow, but, like the Rats themselves, it was the Empire’s trash.
As he ran to his new spot, Donovan struggled to hide the sound of his boots on the greasy and hard cobblestones. ...
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