Saint of Whales - Chapter VIII

The gentle crackling of the low fire and the cool night air soothed Mz. X’s nerves as they leaned back against their saddle, while clearing some grime out from under dirty fingernails with the tip of a knife. Killing the people at the card game didn’t faze Mz. X too much. After all, while it wasn’t good business to walk around and waste any and all comers, it was a part of the business to make sure no doubt existed as to how fatal it could to fuck around. Still, as much as the guards, dealer, and card player fucked around and found out, there was a part of Mz. X that half-wished to have done things a bit differently. The guards, in a way, had to be done because they would have opened fire. The dealer was in the wrong place and the wrong time, and the instant the man raised his gun was the instant he punched his ticket, so shooting him wasn’t negotiable. 

The big knife, Crisis, spun around quickly in Mz. X’s hand before sliding into its sheath. Sitting up a little straighter, the bandit reached over to the right and grabbed the bag full of money and rested it on their lap before leaning back again. Irrespective of the men they’d killed, the robbery had been a pretty good haul, closer to a thousand dollars than not, and that was a good payday. 1890 Alberta living wasn’t cheap, and there were a lot of folx for whom any and every bit came in handy. Imperial Canada didn’t make it easy for any non-citizen to survive, especially when most people in Canada didn’t and couldn’t hold citizenship unless they chose to serve in one of the imperial ministries. Maybe immediately after the country’s founding in 1803 there might have been optimism in service, but after the First, Second, and Third Wars of Canadian Treachery, and the Western Canadian War of Aggression, the imperials clearly identified themselves as the enemy with their rule existing only due to sheer numbers and volume of weapons. The cyborg prime minster, Sir John A. MacDonald—addicted to alcohol, power, human blood, and an ultimate goal of forced transhuman conversion—fought ruthlessly and cruelly, to subjugate any and all he encountered, and sought to imprison or disappear any who desired freedom from under imperial rule. 

Sucking at their teeth, Mz. X set the bag of money down. Reaching into a pouch on their belt and taking out some snuff they packed it into the triangular depression at the base of their right thumb and stuffed it up their right nostril before wrinkling it around along with their thumb. Turning to the left, they spit on the ground and shook their head. Even thinking about the prime minister made Mz. X sick. Things changed quickly when he came into power in 1854 The Second War of Canadian Treachery shouldn’t have been a surprise in 1867, not when the first imperial soldiers were seen manning outposts as far back as 1856, almost MacDonald’s first day in office. It wasn’t too long after the appearance of the robots that the government started revoking fairly negotiated and agreed upon citizenship, but there wasn’t anything to which MacDonald held true, not unless it benefitted him personally. 

Mz. X’s parents had been hard, lifelong workers in the Vulcan mines, and they gave up everything to buy into the citizenship lotteries. All of their meager wages, any hope of owning a home or any land, even their children’s rights to pursue careers like a lawyer or a doctor, none of those things seemed to matter when it came to who got their passports and who didn’t. Seeing their parents come home after selling their respective testicles and uterus was indelibly burned in the bandit’s memory. The lotteries, of course, were a total hoax, farces of the highest order. The government took the wealth from their own people to fund research in which the harvested reproductive organs were put to use in the reproduction farms where children were bred in canisters to undergo operation after operation after operation and test upon test upon test, treated as fodder for the depraved pseudoscience of a lunatic cyborg seeking to find a way to breed organic machines. The citizenship lotteries were just another way for the imperials to take more and more and more, to further grind the people under the boot heel of the government. 

The act of banditry would have been considered sedition at best and treason at worst, the end result of either being a firing squad. It was interesting, however, that when the Royal Imperial Mounted Guard raided honest businesses or waylaid carriages destined for their own imperial banks, they weren’t held to account. If a citizen’s bank payment was late or fell through due to imperial raid, somehow it was the individual held responsible. In Alberta, late and missed payments could and often did lead to a sentence up in the oil patches. But if Mz. X were caught, going out guns blazing was the only choice. After all, when confronted with the choice of living under the boot heel of the imperials or not, death was the only choice. The only way Mz. X had seen someone live comfortably under Canadian rule was through collaboration, and even collaborators ended up shovel-in-hand at the end of the day.

Shifting a bit, Mz. X lifted a cup of cold coffee and sipped at it. Life on the other side of things wasn’t so bad, and it was a hell of a lot more comfortable than working whatever someone considered to be honest work. Owning a store, running a tavern or an inn, operating a taxi service, farming the land or mining in the earth—all those things were honest gigs, and Mz. X respected the people who put in the elbow grease to try and carve out a life, tried to live life in the right way, whatever the right way was. Their own parents toiled in the mines until black lung and consumption ate them up from the inside out. Aside from the imperially assigned recovery time after selling off their productive organs, neither parent had missed a day of work until they could no longer summon the strength to stand and when that day came along, the mine cut them loose and set them on their way. The dismissal hardly came as a surprise, what with the mining companies all in bed with the imperial government, and any attempt to gain some vague type of security was met with direct violence. Ms. X knew they would never shake the memory of the first time the JENEE robots arrived at the Vulcan mine, putting down a work stoppage with laser cannons, hangings, and beheadings. The governor of Vulcan saw a day’s production as worth more than the people in the mines, and revelled in the aura of fear he cast down. Mz. X’s uncle and two cousins disappeared in that work action, taken by secret police searching for anyone connected to anyone connected to the organization of the stoppage.

Compared to others, the impact on Mz. X’s family was a blip on the radar. They knew of entire families disappearing in the night, identities scrubbed, with faces removed from photos and names wiped from any and every document possible. The propaganda aired on the state-run radio and printed in the state-run newspapers pumped the tires of the imperial government, citing an outward appearance of respectability and grace, good relations and strong economies all around, and railed on about the vitality of the interior and the civic obligation to support the Party. 

Mz. X sipped more coffee before setting their mug to the side. Reaching into the left chest pocket of their shirt, they took out pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Twice, they rapped the top of the pack against the heel of their right hand before spinning the pack around and flipping it open with their left thumb. A quick flick of the wrist had a cigarette out and in a blink it was in Mz. X’s mouth, the lighter sparked, and smoke lit. 

If the radio and the newspapers weren’t citing about the healthy state of affairs within Canada, they were boasting about the safety and security of the country’s borders, citing gross statistics about prevention of crime through the diligence of internal policing services, or reduction in poverty with the continued establishment of professional reorientation retreats. Word held the retreats to be little more than forced labour camps where the dead were left where they dropped, and the ill and injured were left to rot. Of course, the government denied that such things occurred. Furthermore, there was always plenty of sabre rattling about impending rebellion on a vague timeline and the ever-present danger presented to the energy sector. A disturbing number of Canadians found deep satisfaction in existing within a climate of fear.

In more than a few ways, Mz. X was happy to operate on their own, and not acting in conjunction with anyone unless the gig and the pay were right. Life on the margins wasn’t perfect, and it was an existence without comfort and one with few certainties. Mz. X knew they could count on sleeping alone most nights, if not every night, and if there was anyone to grow close to, the chance of betrayal always existed. Civilians didn’t get into the mix with bandits, and if they did they didn’t stay in the mix. It was a dangerous path and even those who claimed to be committed to a gunslinger’s life, to always raising the middle finger to the establishment, could sell out in the blink of an eye. Mz. X understood holding a straight job, and respected the people who did so. As much as working in the mines was still working for imperial Canada, there wasn’t often much choice in ending up working in the mines or the oil patch. A gun to the head proved to be an effective recruitment tool. Selling out or collaborating, however, was a different thing entirely. Trading one’s own perceived safety and security for that of another, or actively licking at boots and lapping up leftovers could never be tolerated, never be accepted, never be forgiven. Mz. X adjusted the snuff in their nose and shifted in their spot again, letting their eyes drift up to the wide open sky, staring at the stars blinking down on the earth. One day, maybe there wouldn’t be a need to live on the wrong side of the tracks, but damned if anyone knew when that day would come. 

A burst of blue energy exploded about thirty feet or so outside Mz. X’s camp. Smoke immediately started spiralling into the air. The bandit rolled along their shoulders to the right, and continued up to a crouch, a revolver in each hand. Moving quickly, they scrambled to kick dirt onto the fire. It was times like this one they cursed never considering cybernetics in the eyes, something that would help in low-light situations, something that would have picked up quick twitch movements faster than a human eye or human brain. Trading a piece of one’s body wasn’t a casual decision, however. If someone would trade their eye to get ahead, who knew what else the same person might trade for their own benefit. Costs had a funny way of increasing and results always had a funny way of not being what one what expected. There would, however, be plenty of time to mull over the pros and cons of trans and post humanism. The task at hand was to check out the smoke. 

Keeping low to the ground, Mz. X moved quietly and quickly, knowing whether or not they could be seen directly might not make much of a difference. If a JENEE had landed, the robot’s infrared scanners would spot the bandit through whatever they were hiding behind. With that in mind, Mz. X flicked a switch by the hammers of both revolvers, turning on the energy supply to charge the bullets. JENEEs were tough customers and regular bullets, even ones the used by Muscle and Action, tended to do little more than scratch the paint. If the ammunition had an energy shell around it, that was sometimes a bit of different story, but only before the robot put its blaster shields up. Once those shields went up, the business became shit in one hand and wish in another. Mz. X, unsurprisingly, wasn’t the praying type, and kept moving to the site of the energy blast, weaving from left to right and right to left, hoping to at least scatter their heat signature somewhat. They tried to keep their breathing drawn out and slow, long inhale and long exhale. Staying calm and cool was a prerequisite for survival on the wrong side of the tracks, and steady breathing led to a steady shot, something for which Mz. X held quite a reputation. 

As the bandit got closer and closer to the pillar of smoke, burnt grass started crunching under their feet. A quick look down showed a perfect circle of charred land, and Mz. X lifted their gaze a little, focusing shifting to the centre of the circle with both revolvers levelling straight ahead at a white settler man pushing himself up from the ground. He staggered backwards, legs all rubbery and lacking strength and kept turning his head from left to right and up and down, looking like he’d gone on a bender and wandered off. Mz. X took another few steps forward and the sound brought the man spinning their way, and the gunslinger exploded to a stand, revolvers pointing straight at the man’s chest. 

“Don’t you fucking move until I tell you to move, white man,” Mz. X barked, cocking back the hammers on their revolvers. “What the fuck are you doing here? Who are you with?” 

“I-I-I-”

“OUT WITH IT. NOW.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know where I am. I’m not with anyone,” the man said, holding his hands straight up in front of him. 

Mz. X dropped the barrel of Muscle to the right of the man’s feet and pulled the trigger. A crackle of green energy fired out from the revolver, blasting a two foot hole in the ground and sending dirt flying up into the air. Mz. X aimed the revolver again at the man, cocking the hammer once more. “I’ve killed 35 men in a shootout. I hope you don’t think I give two shits about making that 36.” 

“I swear! I swear! Where am I? Where am I?” The man’s voice dropped away from trying to form words and settled into screaming at the top of his lungs as panic settled in. Before he could make a break in, Mz X closed the distance between the two and grabbed him by the neck, snapping his mouth shut with revolver barrel. His screaming stopped accordingly.  

“You get smart right now, whitey. You pull your shit together and maybe we find out what’s what. I don’t need to tell you the alternative,” they said.  “You feel me?” 

The man’s entire body vibrated and his brown eyes locked onto Mz. X’s green eyes. 

“Do you understand me?” Mz. X asked again, with rapid nodding coming in return. “Okay, good. You’re coming back to my camp and I’m getting some answers out of you.” 

The gunslinger turned the man around in front of them, and gave him a push. “Walk,” they ordered, and he walked. 

It was only a short distance back to the camp. A few coals still glowed in the fire pit. Mz. X shoved the man to their right, across from where they’d been sitting only a few minutes ago. “Sit your ass down while I try to get this fire back up. You try anything funny, I just shoot. No questions. Just shooting. You get that?” 

He dropped to the ground and stared blankly straight ahead, the silence being a good enough answer as Mz. X went about getting the fire going again. They’d started fires from less than embers a hundred times before, and a couple of minutes of puttering around for kindling, followed by gentle blowing on the embers led to tiny flames licking around the fire pit until the fire was enough to start adding larger pieces of wood. Once satisfied, the bandit set themselves up across from the man, setting their eyes on him again. With pasty skin, gaunt cheeks, and a skinny build, he didn’t look at all like someone who belonged in the hills in the middle of the night. Not to mention, he wore what must have been city clothing, but no city clothing Mz. X was familiar with. His attitude and energy and mood weren’t anything the bandit found concerning, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t being used by the imperials. The flash of energy had imperial technology written all over it, but there hadn’t been any sign of a drop from an airship, or of a convoy passing by. There were rumours floating around the taverns and inns of southern Alberta that the imperials were actually using cannons to shoot security forces across sizeable distances and the agents used repulsors to lower themselves. How true the rumours might have been, Mz. X didn’t know, but they'd seen repulsors used before and however the white man had arrived, it wasn’t by using an energy beam to slow his descent.  

“You got a name?”

The man stared dumbly into the distance. Maybe he was from Turner Valley, and had taken some bad drugs from someone in the town of rustlers and thieves and gang members, but it seemed unlikely. Looking how he looked, eyes wild like they were, he wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in the town. Turner Valley, lovingly called Burner Valley by locals, wasn’t somewhere the weak-hearted lasted. Not everyone lived on the margins there, but whether someone was a grocer, a banker, a ranch hand, schoolmarm, or preacher, everyone there had backbone and guts and knew how to sling a revolver if the situation called for it. The man sitting across the fire didn’t seem to have or know how to do any of those things, but assumptions could really put someone in a bind, so Mz. X chose to reserve their judgment for the time being. 

Holstering the blackened steel-and-gold revolver called Muscle, Mz. X snapped their fingers in the air. “I asked if you got a name.” With the free hand, Mz. X reached down for their pack of smokes and went about lighting one. They started to throw the cigarettes onto the ground before pausing and holding the pack out for the man. “You want?”

Once again, only a thousand-mile stare came back across the fire, and Mz. X took a long haul of their own before just tossing the cigarettes over anyway. The man moved and picked the pack up off the ground and signalled for the lighter, which the bandit lobbed over. Before long, the man had his own cigarette lit, puffing nervously away at it.

“So—”

“My name’s Saint. Saint Kinfail.” He exhaled sharply out his nose and licked his lips before taking another drag. “I’m from Calgary.”

Mz. X rolled their eyes and shook their head, blowing out their own cloud of smoke. “A cityslicker. I knew it.” Clearing their throat, they spit on the ground and took another drag from their cigarette. “What has you out near Burner Valley?”

“Burner Valley?” 

“Fuckin’ cityslicker.” The gunslinger snorted and spit on the ground again. “Turner Valley, dumbshit.”

Saint jerked back, and his head warbled around in exaggerated fashion. He stared up at the sky before craning his neck out and around. “Why isn’t there snow? What’s going on here?” 

“The fuck?” Mz. X said, pulling themself upright, and cocking their head. “It’s the fuckin summer, buddy. What you been smoking?”

“There should be snow,” Saint repeated, running his free hand along the dirt on the ground, before bringing his hand up to his face and staring at it. “It’s… it’s February. There’s supposed to be snow.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? It’s August, pal,” Mz. X said, scrunching their forehead. They were pretty sure there was a madhouse nearby in Okotoks. Maybe Saint managed to escape somehow and made his way out to Turner Valley on foot. Escaping an imperial institution was no laughing matter and if that was the case, Saint was someone to keep a close eye on.

He leaned forward, squinting and continuing to shake his head. “August?” He said, sitting back while his mouth dropped open. “August,” he repeated. “August.”

“Yeah, you got a mental problem or something? It’s August,” Mz. X said, shaking their own head. “Look, you seem like a bit of whiskey might sort you out. What do you say to that?” 

Saint slowed the shaking of his head to a stop and looked them in the eyes, having trouble stopping his own blinking. “If you got whiskey, I’ll drink some whiskey.” 

Mz. X twisted a bit and opened a saddlebag, taking out a flask and got ready to throw it across, before pausing and unscrewing the lid and taking a healthy swig. Screwing the lid back on, they threw it across the way. “Don’t drink all of it,” they ordered, watching Saint catch the flask, open it up and take a good taste of it. Clearly, he knew his way around the drink. 

“So, what you mean it’s supposed to be February?” Mz. X asked, as the whiskey took a bit of a hold in their guts. If Saint had escaped an institution, it was possible maybe he hadn’t been outside in months. Being locked up didn’t answer a thing about his clothes, but if he’d escaped he might have just grabbed whatever he could get his hands on. Mz. X gripped their revolver a bit more tightly, and signalled for the flask to be returned. Saint unscrewed the lid and took another sip, before closing it and throwing the flask over. The bandit looked at him with a raised eyebrow and their lips pursed. “Some balls there, huh? Taking another sip on the way back,” they said, snorting and shaking their head while picking up the flask and unscrewing it and taking sip of their own. “Speak up on that February tip.” 

Saint raspberried his lips and shook his head, shrugging and taking another haul on his cigarette before exhaling sharply. “A minute ago it was February. A minute ago I was in Calgary.” 

“Like a minute a minute, or a minute a minute?”

“What do you mean a minute a minute?” 

“Are you fuckin new or something?” Mz. X asked, shaking their head and taking another sip of whiskey. “Listen, you mean like it was a while ago it was February, or like it was just recently?” 

Saint rubbed at his eyes, trying to clear away the confusion. His left hand slid up and over his head, pausing on the back and wincing before running his hand across his right shoulder and along the arm to his wrist, where his faced twisted. Clearly, his right arm was injured in some way. “I slipped on some ice and I hit my head and I think I busted my arm. I… it all feels like it was a minute ago.” He lowered his gaze to the ground and shook his head again before taking another haul off his cigarette and looking up at Mz. X. “Where am I? Like, where am I?”

“I told you already. We’re outside Burner Valley. I was sitting here watching the fire and you blinked out of the air back where I found you,” Mz. X answered before shaking their head. They were the one asking questions here and things needed to back to that dynamic. None of this was right. They needed to get some sleep and in the morning the pair would make a trip to see Old Man Oh and maybe he would have some answers. Standing up, the bandit took a few short steps to stand over Saint and pointed the gold-and-blackened steel revolver, Action, at his head. The man’s eyes bugged out and he dropped his cigarette, scrambling backwards, trying to get to his feet but, unable to get them under himself, only tumbled back to the ground where he turtled and started screaming again. 

“Cut the noise now,” Mz. X ordered, taking a few more steps to Saint and cocked the hammer on the revolver. “You got five seconds or I cut it for you.”

The wailing tapered off immediately, and the man looked up blankly at Mz. X, his mouth hanging wide open.

“You’re gonna stay right where you are and I’m gonna tie you up over night. In the morning, we’re gonna go see someone and see what he's got to say about you,” the bandit said, while going back to their saddle and picking up the lasso hanging on it. Saint’s mouth began quivering, though he stayed silent as Mz. X walked back to him and waved their revolver at him. 

“Get on your belly.”

Numbly, Saint closed his eyes and rolled on to his stomach. Mz. X holstered Action and crouched, grabbing Saint’s wrists and binding them. He gave a bit of a groan as they touch his visibly bruised and swollen right wrist. The bandit’s eyes rested on the twisted and clenched fingers before evaluating the wrist again. Nothing looked broken, but Old Man Oh would be able to look at the wrist and hand and say for sure. With the wrists secured, Mz. X stepped back and grabbed Saint’s ankles, bending his legs up at the knee and binding feet to wrist. Maybe hogtying the man would prove to be unnecessary but 1890 was a funny time. 

Once confident the lasso wouldn’t give, Mz. X tipped Saint onto his side before walking around the fire and over to their pup tent. Low crying carried through the air as the bandit climbed into the tent, and unbuckled their gun belt and shoulder holsters, setting them beside their pillow. Mz. X hoped Saint’s snivelling wouldn’t keep them up all night, but that would play out how it played out. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t spent a night in abject terror before. Closing their eyes, they tried their best to push away thoughts of compassion. For the time being, Saint was just a settler who got lost, and that's what he would remain until there was reason to look at him differently.