Chapter 17 : Mobile lobotomy support vehicle

The Apple Cart twins,Jinx and Clove,were identical in the way housefires are identical: both hot headed , both loud, and both prone to running headlong into things they shouldn’t, nobody could agree on which was which, and neither could the twins themselves in truth . Their prized cart, Her Majesty’s Rolling Orchard, bounced along Brindlward’s cracked canal roads with the kind of haphazard dignity usually reserved for royal processions involving geese.

It ran without a horse.

They insisted it wasn’t magical.

Either way, the cart moved, the wheels turned, and nobody dared question it too hard.

Because you didn’t question the Apple Cart Twins. Not when they were on a mission.

And today’s mission?

Buttons.

Buttons of every size, color, and questionable origin.

“Next one who gives me a wooden button’s gettin’ it back in their soup,” Clove muttered, holding up a button shaped suspiciously like a goat’s regret.

“They count,” said Jinx, leaning back with his arms behind his head. “We didn’t say what kind of buttons.”

“We didn’t say anything. That’s the whole trick.”

Jinx grinned. “Exactly. Kaz logic. Set the trap vague enough and the world’ll fill it in for you.”

The cart gave a proud, slightly musical clunk.

They were rolling through the crooked arteries of the Brindlward, where laundry lines doubled as postal service and rats paid unofficial rent to the alley cats. Around them, the cobblestones shimmered faintly, uncertain whether to be honored or insulted by the attention they were getting.

People were whispering.

“Cobble tax,” they said, with a half-laugh and a sideways glance. “Kaz Swindleton’s up to something again, you’ll see.”

Because no one in the Brindlward took anything entirely seriously.

But no one dared to ignore Kaz either.

He didn’t lie without purpose. Not usually. Not when the orphanage was involved.

And Ms. Lorrimore’s kids? They were everywhere. Especially today.

Three such figures were now squeezed awkwardly into the back of Her Majesty’s Rolling Orchard, elbowing each other like siblings forced into a shared bath.

First was Duster,sweeping prodigy, pocket thief, and unofficial rep of the Sweep Boys. He wore soot like a badge of office and carried himself with the tired confidence of someone who’d outrun consequences before breakfast.

Next was Guppy, from the Mudlarks, who radiated the kind of scorn only a girl who’d stolen seventeen boots and not one complete pair could master. She scowled at everything, spoke only when necessary, and adored Kaz the way a feral cat might: all claws and hissing for everyone else, but soft as a kitten whenever he wandered by.

Last was Joy.

Just Joy.

A giggling chaos engine in a scarf too long and boots too big, who claimed to represent the Kings Own because she had “the most crowns drawn on her arms” and “was voted most likely to start a duel by mistake.”

The cart groaned as it turned toward the market,not under the weight of its passengers, mind you, but under the strain of a years-long argument that Duster just had to restart.

“It’s ingenuity,” said Jinx, who had never engineered anything in his life.

“It’s illegal,” muttered Clove, who had.

At the back of the cart, Duster lounged with his boots on a pile of button sacks. “So what’s powering it then? Gremlins? Rage? Divine intervention?”

“The fog,” said Jinx.

“Hope,” said Clove.

“An old enchantment our mama left us before she kicked the bucket ,” admitted Jinx, shrugging. “Might’ve once belonged to a funeral barge. Still had the smell.”

Joy peeked over the side, her scarf trailing behind like a flag of optimism. “That explains why it moans when we go uphill.”

“It does not moan.”

“It groans like a ghost with joint pain.” guppy remarked glaring at the wooden boards

“It’s moaning right now,” Duster added. “Listen.”

The cart chose that exact moment to emit a noise like a sigh caught in a woodwind instrument.

“Gratitude,” said Clove.

“Shame,” said Jinx.

“Same hat,” said Joy, and everyone let it slide.

They turned onto Spine Alley, which was barely wide enough for the cart and exactly narrow enough to cause drama. Half the stalls leaned in like eavesdroppers. The other half leaned away, having learned better.

Guppy, who’d been chewing on a twig with the vague intensity of someone imagining biting a person instead, narrowed her eyes.

“Stop wobbling the cart,” she snapped.

“I’m not wobbling,” Jinx said. “That’s the street wobbling under the pressure of our importance.”

“I will push you into the canal.”

“I’m immune to water-based threats,” Jinx said proudly. “I’ve been soggy since birth.”

Joy perked up. “Same! I fell in the docks when I was four and never dried out. Mum used to say I smelled like the inside of a well-seasoned bucket.”

Duster peered down at the street. “Speaking of docks,look.”

Ahead, a pack of orphans darted from a bolt-hole under a fruit stand, clutching what might’ve once been a uniform coat and was now a fashionable sack with ambitions. One of them waved a handful of buttons triumphantly.

“Oi!” Clove called. “That tax collection?”

“Partial,” the kid called back pulling out a button from his shoe . “Traded a boot from the canal for a silver one. Still had a toe in it, so he threw it right back !”

“Good lad,” said Duster. “That’s premium material. Might even be real silver under the foot sweat.”

They rolled deeper into the Brindlward, which smelled today of warm fish , damp stone, and enchantment runoff.

Someone was selling charmed umbrellas that opened right before the first raindrop, never earlier, never later. Close it mid-storm? Tough luck.

Another was shouting about discount curses.

And a dog was arguing with a goose. The goose was winning.

“Three brass,” said a boy named Plim, scrambling up to the cart. “From the lady with the copper kettle stall. Said she admired our entrepreneurial spirit. Also said to tell Kaz to stop sending children to do his dirty work.”

Guppy snorted. “She’s one to talk. Her kettle stall hexes people with boils if you haggle too low.”

“Got one from a thimble stitcher!” said Cobble, climbing aboard with a grin that suited her name perfectly. “It smells like soup and betrayal!” must be the magic ” .

“What flavor soup?”

“Trout.”

“Trout’s fair,” said Joy. “You cant use that for a hex, now a grouper though .”

They reached a wide bend in the canal. The cart creaked, sighed, and rolled onto a slightly raised platform made entirely of mosaic tile and civic neglect.

Jinx pulled out The Talker.

It looked like a doll someone had half-finished and then abandoned out of mercy. Its stitched mouth had a zipper across it. Its eyes were buttons: one red, one stubbornly spinning. Kaz’s sorcery at its finest,unreliable, unpredictable, and somehow still more functional than half the city’s scrying mirrors.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“You’re not really gonna,” Duster began.

“Shhh,” said Clove. “It’s dialing.”

He unzipped the mouth. The doll vibrated.

A second passed.

Then it spoke in Kaz’s half-mangled, weirdly translated voice:

“Tell Guppy that her socks don’t match, but her bite’s still worse than her bark. And tell Duster he left his decency under Ms. Lorrimore’s couch.”

Guppy scowled at the doll. “It’s lying.”

Duster shrugged. “Im Not denying.”

Joy leaned down. “Anything for me?”

The doll paused.

“You’re perfect. Keep smiling. Also, don’t eat the green tarts. You know the ones.”

Joy giggled. “Too late!”

Chaos bloomed in harmony as the cart trundled on, gathering buttons, trading banter, and dropping rumors like breadcrumbs.

“Is it true,” asked Cobble, “that if we get a hundred buttons, Kaz gets to take over the city council?”

“No,” said Jinx. “But if we get two hundred, he gets to rename a street.”

“I vote ‘Button Boulevard,’” Joy offered.

“‘Swindleton Way,’” Duster countered.

“Where They Bury the Evidence,’” Guppy snapped, clearly not impressed.

The cart groaned again, louder this time, as though sensing the plot thickening.

“Hey,” said Clove, pointing at the horizon. “Is that Pip?”

Sure enough, the small boy came skidding around the corner, breathless, grinning, socks mismatched. He carried a handful of new buttons and a rolled-up scrap of parchment.

“New orders!” he wheezed. “Kaz says,”

But what Kaz said would have to wait.

Because suddenly, from the far end of the market, a ripple of something not-quite-right moved through the air.

Something faintly magical.

Slightly electric.

And very, very wet.

----------------------------------------

System Trivia [Node: Dialogue Engine → Subroutine: Persuasion Layer | Anomaly Thread Active]

The Dialogue System is a handy little feature.

It lets you skip dull conversations with shopkeepers, breeze through bureaucratic exchanges, and speedrun someone else's tragic backstory with just one well-timed [CHARISMA 6+] check.

But did you know—

→ Charisma isn’t just charm. It isn’t just words.

→ High charisma stat counts as psychic pressure.

→ Your voice becomes a weapon. Your smile, a suggestion.

→ Your questions aren’t questions anymore. They’re installations.

Every dialogue option is a choice.

Every choice is a wound.

→ Damage Type: Psychic

→ Vulnerabilities: Weak Will, Fractured Ego, Guilt Adjacency

→ Standard Resistances: Mind Walls, Counter-Suggestion, Sleep

→ Final Line of Defense: Self-Nullification Protocol

Yes.

To survive some dialogue trees…

you may be forced to erase yourself.

→ Reboot Self: INITIATED

→ Wipe Memory Log: SUCCESSFUL

→ Reintegration: STABILIZING

Welcome back, user.

Do you like hands?

I like hands. I like hands a lot.

Oh—let me tell you. Let me tell you.

Hands are wonderful. Ten finger sticks, full of little ideas. Full of endings. Do you know how much thinking lives in a palm? All of it. Every thought, squashed into a wrinkle. Every wrinkle, a memory you forgot on purpose.

I once held a hand that wasn’t attached to anything. Still warm. Still dreaming.

I love when hands try to stop things. Try to stop doors, or knives, or gods.

They always fail. But oh, how beautifully they fail.

And have you ever really watched them?

The way they twitch when you're not looking.

The way they fold themselves into prayers even when you’re not religious.

Have you ever talked to your own hand?

No?

That's okay.

It’s been talking to you.

→ System Message: Dialogue Thread Hijacked.

→ Emotional Stability: Compromised

→ Memory Locks: Reconstructing…

→ Voice Persistence: UNK_SRC—Still Speaking.

Anyway.

Would you like to continue the conversation?

[YES] [YES] [YES] [THERE IS NO NO]

Isn’t that fun?

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