Chapter 108: Tale 11, Ch 3: Blood and Coal

With surprising speed, the detective stood up and reached to a film-covered plastic coatrack where he grabbed a gray trench coat. From what I could tell, the coat used to be green and had the same distinct burn marks as Donnegan’s hat.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Robbery. Construction job got its payment from the coal company today. Sometimes gangs decide to steal from the unions’ payroll, thinking it an easy grab. Most times, one side or the other, people get hurt,” Donnegan said. He reached into the top drawer of his desk, spilling several papers onto a gathering pile on the floor, and pulled out a tiny cardboard box jingling with bullets.

“The new coal plant.” I paused, thinking. “That’s out of your district.”

“They need backup.” Donnegan grabbed a cracked plastic bike helmet that had goggles with one lens missing. He blew a thin layer of dust off them and jammed them into his coat pocket.

“Your gas-bike a two-seater?”

“Yeah, but I only got the one helmet.”

I tapped my blessed Golden helm.

We arrived at the scene quickly. It would have been faster if Donnegan’s weight wasn’t bearing down on the gas-bike so much. But there wasn’t anything to do about that.

The coal-fired power plant looked like a large cage. Miles and miles of pipes and ventilation shafts snaked around the exterior. The thing had been completely rebuilt, the old building razed to the ground and remade. From the thick layers of black dust clinging to the entire structure hidden behind the pipes and vents, I could see that they didn’t bother using many new materials.

A fence lined the exterior of the structure. The many smokestacks that shot up from the site’s underground generator house aided this barrier. At this line stood a dozen forest green-colored police cars and blackened gas-bikes, along with about a hundred union construction and electrical workers. A large ambulance looked like it had just pulled up when we did.

“What’s the situation?” Donnegan asked when we arrived, walking toward the most senior-badged policeman. The senior officer looked back to Donnegan, holding a plastic spyglass in one hand.

“Who are you?” the man, Captain Rosen by his badge, asked Donnegan with disdain. He opened his mouth to say something but froze when he recognized Donnegan. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Donnegan took the spyglass out of the captain’s hand and put it to his eye, peering into the windowless compound.

“Haven’t seen you since you left Bells District, Donnegan. I thought they might call you.”

“I’m at Trains now.”

“I guess he’s been…” The captain stopped talking when he noticed me walk up, my helmet revealing what I was. He cleared his throat.

“I am Mec of the Gold Prophets,” I said, and extended my hand.

“Captain Rosen,” the captain said, and shook my hand. “I didn’t realize the Prophets were handling minor crimes.”

“I’m looking for Shane, Captain, and as far as I’m concerned any violent crime in the city is a clue leading to his capture.”

The captain laughed. “You got a lot of ground to cover then.”

“I don’t see anyone,” Donnegan said as he looked through the spyglass. “Did the witnesses say anything?”

“Twenty men raided, went below to get the coffers and kicked all the workers they could out. Ninety-eight union boys were in there, though, and only ninety-four of them have been accounted for. We found four of the thieves.”

“Where?”

The captain pointed at the main smokestack. The long, cylindrical tube shot up hundreds of feet in the air, surrounded by a complex cage of pipes and ducts and walkways, all covered in coal dust. I followed where he pointed and saw a streak of red, followed it further up, and saw the source of the blood. Three men were skewered on a single broken pipe. The fourth man couldn’t be seen, but it was easy to tell where he had been. A giant red splash shimmered on the coal-covered smokestack near its top.

“Shane,” I said.

The captain darted his eyes toward Donnegan, then back to me, and said, “We can’t be sure. The workers who got out said the thieves had weapons, and with a facility that big, it’s gonna be impossible to make a safe entry, or even find them.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“You think thieves put three men up like that?”

“Those three are wearing foe-leather red, Dreg’s gang,” Donnegan said, and handed the captain his spyglass. “Dreg’s gang’s got hostages then. The four workers left in there.”

The captain nodded. “We can’t go in till we know they’re safe.”

“Why would Shane kill the thieves?” I asked.

“Excuse me?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t make sense. Captain, have the thieves made any demands for the release of the hostages?”

“We haven’t even seen any of the gang boys since the call was made, least not till those three showed up.” Captain Rosen pointed up at the three skewered thieves.

“They got hostages, Prophet, that’s all I need to know,” Donnegan said, and leaned against the chain-link fence that separated the crowded sidewalk from the smoky metal of the power plant. “And there’s no other way outa that place. All we need to do is sit back and let them stew in there.”

“And give Shane a chance to get out?” I asked.

“No way outa there except through this gate, Mec. That or the train tunnels and we got both ends of that sealed up with squad cars.”

“He’s a Red, detective. He’ll find a way out.”

“Even if Shane is in there,” Captain Rosen said, “I can’t send anyone in because of the hostages.”

I looked at the pipes, the vents, the thick metal housing where all the coal and burners churned and choked smoke and dust. Numbers flashed through my head, deaths and crimes and potential for development. I saw the future of the city based on my decision, and came to a proper conclusion.

I stepped around Detective Donnegan and walked toward the broken little door of the power plant. My rubber-soled shoes cracked against the gravel, muffled with the layer of ash and soot in the rocks.

“Mec, where you going?” Donnegan asked.

“Inside,” I replied.

“There are hostages in there, Prophet,” Captain Rosen said. “Wait until we hear from the Dregs Gang.”

“If Shane’s in there, I can’t wait that long.”

The captain actually stepped away as I went forward, his eyes darting in and around the complex of the power plant. “Prophet, it’s too much of a risk.”

“Don’t worry.” I tapped my helmet. “I’ll be fine.”

“It’s not you we’re worried about,” Detective Donnegan said as I reached the open doorway. I stopped and turned back toward him. The detective licked his lips, took one step forward, then pulled back quickly. “Four workers’ lives are not worth losing to capture Shane, Mec.”

I cleared my thoughts of all emotion, letting the serenity of calm wash over me like a thick coat of mail. With my mind clear, I focused all my energy on the power given by my blessed helmet. It lit up with a dim, golden light.

“That’s why I’m going now, detective,” I said, and walked into the dark power plant.

The door stood on a single hinge, marks of a crowbar on the bottom the obvious sign of a forced entry. A single yellow and dust-covered light swung on a cord above my head, jostled by the vibrations of the massive generators below.

The chur-chur-chur of the rising steam and coal pulverizers made a sporadic pounding noise throughout the first few dark hallways, mixed with the constant hum of the generators. The place smelled of smoke and metal, a common stench in Prosperity amplified by the surroundings.

I kept my hands at my sides and my eyes focused on the dim and darkening hallways. I approached a doorway that read Stairs to Minus Levels. Opening the door, I peered down the steep, metal rungs heading down a blackened hallway, its lights shattered. I couldn’t see all the way down, the dim light from my helmet only allowing a short distance to be seen.

“Hmm,” I said, wishing I had a little more versatility with my Gold powers. Most Golds, even the beginners, could light up a stairwell this small with ease. My capabilities were a little more focused on a single aspect of the Golden gifts.

With as much speed as I could use while still keeping my ears and eyes ready for Shane, I made my way down the thin steps. My hand on the railing, I didn’t pay attention to anything more than the dust covering its cold surface, till my hand squished into what I thought was mud.

I stopped, turned, and examined my hand in the golden light of my helmet. A purplish, not quite maroon substance covered my hand. The thick soot from the stairwell had mixed with a red, coagulating liquid. I traced the flow to about half a meter down and found a revealing clue. The metal handrail, covered in blood, had been split. One part of the railing jutted out while the upper section still rested in its proper place. This was not a welding failure or a simple bend. The metal had no rough marks from tools. The cut was clean, sharp, and smooth, the work of a Red Prophet’s blade.

Down at the bottom of the stairs, I found the bled-out body that had caused the stain on the railing. It wore the red jacket Detective Donnegan had described as a Dreg gang member’s. The dead body stared up at me through hallows where his eyes had been plucked out.

This was the level where the pulverizers were, and I opened the door at the first minus level and walked in. Clang-ka-clang-ka-clang! Night and day, massive cylinders spun to turn the stones of coal into dust, better-suited for burning in the generator furnaces. A simple concept, really. Lead balls the size of a child’s head were placed in the cylinders along with a hefty amount of coal. As the cylinders spun, the balls would tumble and fall, pulverizing the coal as they slammed into the cylinder’s steel sides.

Eight cylinders lined the chamber on either side. In the middle on the left, I saw through the haze of dust-filled air, one of the cylinders not turning. As I walked through the dark chamber toward the door on the other side, leading to another stairwell, I wouldn’t normally have cared about the machine. What caught my eye was the red jacket lying on the ground in front of the cylinder that was turned off.

My eyes followed the jacket to the hatch that allowed workers to scoop coal into the cylinder. Thick drops of black ooze dripped out of the hatch, pooling on the ground. The hatch wasn’t latched, but hung closed. Putting my hand to my nose, I quickly lifted the hatch and leaned down to let my helmet shine light into the cylinder.

What I saw, I will never describe.