42 - I Am Blackhand [Cherno]

There wasn’t an interrogation to speak of; the man spilled everything the moment he had a question to latch onto, and more, considering the stain forming on his trousers.

Soon enough they had the specifics as to where the Silberblut Coupler had been taken; Slaughterhouse Nine, the next stop on the Hashem train to hell. In this place, heretical grafters would harvest anything valuable from bodies deemed unfit for use by members of the Hashem Family or by “the Benefactors”, whoever that was. Krahe couldn’t stop herself from chuckling at the mention of that. The promise of shadowy string pullers was a half-step short from an invite to bed at this point.

There was, of course, a problem. The place was said to be heavily guarded, an important facility that low-rankers such as the ice-user weren’t even supposed to know about. Gangsters didn’t exactly have top-of-the-line infosec practices, however. She took the ice-user’s jacket before she left him, intending to use it to break up her silhouette and possibly pass unnoticed by a cursory glance on the way out.

Before she could lock him in that cell again, however, the ice-user managed to strike a weak point.

It was a question, one asked in the voice of a man who had been pushed past absolute panic to the point of accepting his own death, only to be denied that final catharsis.

“I get it. You’re letting me live so that there’s an account of what happened here. I know how these things go. Kill a hundred men out of sight, nobody bats an eye. Kill a couple and make sure there are witnesses, and you’re a boogeyman. Question is: What name should I attach to the green-eyed anathemist?”

Despite best judgment, Krahe answered. It came out before she could even think.

“Blackhand.”

The cell door slammed shut and its lock clicked into place just as the ice-user repeated the name. For once, Krahe had been the one manipulated; what he said had conjured that word, or at least the memories attached to it. The Blackhand was a semi-mythologized type of radiation blaster, the very same Krahe had hunted down and wielded in her past life. To boil men alive, melt solid steel, and fry the most shielded of electronics through solid concrete, that was the Blackhand’s touch. Even a grazing hit was enough to turn someone into a gibbering rad-zombie, slowly melting alive. Just having the unique parts to assemble one of the Blackhand’s emitter components was enough of a crime to warrant the death penalty, not that it meant anything in Megacity Gamma.

All the terror of a 20th-century fission bomb packed into a man-portable weapon, carrying with it the instantaneous killing-power of that nigh-mythical scientific breakthrough, but none of its grace. Even the near-instant death suffered by those who bore the Blackhand’s brunt head-on made death by a fission bomb's heat-blast seem merciful by comparison.

That was what she would be.

A walking war crime, pointed at the likes of Damrus Hashem and his “benefactors”.

Krahe didn’t need a personal vendetta. She had a megacity-sized chip on her shoulder and straightforward righteousness to drive her.

_____________________________________________________________________

“I shall have to ask you a great many questions once we are in a safer place, Lady Blackhand,” said the well-dressed banisher smugly.

“Any suggestions?” she raised an eyebrow, donning the ice-user’s jacket. “I am not particularly familiar with the city layout. And put on something less obvious; I saw rain cloaks in the office, at the least.”

The jacket was leather, halfway to what might be considered retro-stylish in some parts of Megacity Gamma.

“I will try to think of something. Let us get out of this dreadful place first,” the banisher said, retrieving a cloak from the guards’ office. Krahe followed him in order to check the place for any valuables, finding that it was nearly empty save for a ledger written in code. It was styled as a book of tenants, using nonspecific, coded verbiage to refer to where people and things were being sent.

“Nothing here. Hopefully we’ll find something at Slaughterhouse Nine. Can’t wait to pull the voidkey out of Damrus’s head…” she muttered offhandedly. She expected, as was reasonable, that a powerful mafioso would have an appropriately powerful voidkey, the best his fortune could buy. Thus, she had decided on him as her aspirational target, with Semzar being a mere stepping stone. Damrus, too, was a stepping stone of sorts; Krahe’s curiosity had been redirected to his shadowy “Benefactors” just by a single mention of them.

“Why? It will tear itself apart when he perishes,” Casus said, audibly confused.

Frustration surged inside Krahe as she realized that she wouldn’t be able to just murder powerful Thaumaturges through clever subterfuge to usurp their Voidkeys.

“...Of course it will. Should’ve assumed as much,” she sighed, glancing his way. “Mind elaborating on that? Just assume I don’t know anything, I’d rather hear what I already know than miss something crucial.”

“In the same way that a compatible grafted arm will eventually change colour and even shape to better fit the rest of you, a Voidkey will eventually integrate with the host further and grant increased benefits. The further-along the integration, the more likely a key is to become Sundered when the host dies, broken. A fair number of higher-grade Voidkeys also have security measures; some of these purposely break or otherwise disable the key if the host dies, especially agency-made keys. Others prevent anyone without an appropriate special boon from using the voidkey to begin with. A Sundered Voidkey retains a fraction of its power, and depending on the severity of damage and your means, it might be repairable… But that is a case by case matter, and a matter with which I am not familiar at that.”

This spiel went on while Krahe searched the office once more, discovering two spare fuel canisters for his belt as well as a small stash of funds. Two strings of rightly-stacked Calbian rings, and one Jas’raban Brass Coin. Krahe shamelessly took these for herself, and Casus gave no protest. He barely seemed to take note of the money, perhaps being engrossed in his own voice.