Gutter’s Rest Stinks of Promises
The settlement appeared out of the haze like a wound on the landscape—a sprawl of corrugated shacks and dead vehicle husks huddled around a single fuel tower that leaned at a drunken angle. Kaelen killed the racer’s engine a hundred meters out and let the dust settle around them.
“That’s it?” Zara squinted through the windshield, her fingers still twitching from the last stretch of driving. She’d taken over when his arm had started spasming again, the old cybernetics seizing mid-throttle. “I expected something with at least one functioning light.”
“The lights work. They just don’t want you to see what’s inside until you’re committed.”
Kaelen popped the door and stepped out. The air hit him like a wall—thick with burnt hydrocarbons, cooking grease, and the sweet-sour stench of unwashed bodies pressed together in close quarters. The Badlands didn’t have weather so much as it had moods, and today’s mood was desperation.
Gutter’s Rest wasn’t on any official map. It existed because the Spire needed somewhere to dump its failures and the Syndicate needed somewhere to buy them back at a discount. A scavenger town, the locals called it. A garbage heap with a fuel pump, more accurately.
“Stay close,” he said. “Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t touch anything.”
“You’ve been here before.”
“Twice. Both times I left with fewer fingers than I arrived with.”
Zara pulled her jacket tighter and fell into step beside him. She was good at that—moving like she belonged wherever she happened to be standing. A useful skill for a hacker. A necessary one for a woman with a Syndicate price on her head.
They walked the main strip, if you could call it that. A dirt path worn hard by countless boots and tires, lined with stalls selling salvaged tech, questionable food, and the kind of services that didn’t advertise their prices because you didn’t want to know them until it was too late. A man with a face like cracked leather waved at them from behind a table of rusted circuit boards. Kaelen ignored him.
The fuel tower was manned by a woman who looked like she’d been welded into her coveralls decades ago. She had a scar that ran from her left temple down to her jaw, and her eyes were the flat gray of someone who’d stopped being surprised a long time ago.
“Fuel,” Kaelen said.
“Scrip or trade.”
“Scrip.” He slid a stack of worn bills across the counter. She counted them twice, then once more for good measure, before nodding toward the pump.
“You got thirty minutes before I start charging storage.”
Kaelen nodded and turned to Zara. “Get the tanks filled. I’m going to find out what the local chatter says about us.”
“You think we’re already famous?”
“Mara’s got a long reach and a longer memory. If she’s put a bounty on us, it’s already here.”
He left her with the fuel and the welder-woman and moved deeper into the settlement. The shacks grew denser, stacked on top of each other like a child’s blocks left out in the rain. Somewhere to his left, a generator coughed and sputtered. Somewhere to his right, two voices argued about a debt that sounded like it would end in blood.
The bar was easy to find. It was the only building with a sign that wasn’t rusted beyond recognition—a faded image of a bottle and a glass, the paint peeling but still legible. The Rusted Nail. He’d been here before. The name was accurate on both counts.
Inside, the air was thick with smoke and the low murmur of voices that died the moment he walked in. A dozen faces turned to look at him, assessed him, and decided he wasn’t worth the effort. They went back to their drinks. All except one.
The man at the corner table was thin in the way that meant he hadn’t eaten well in weeks, but his eyes were sharp and they tracked Kaelen’s movement across the room with the precision of a predator. Kaelen walked to the bar, ordered a drink he had no intention of finishing, and waited.
The man approached him after a few minutes, sliding onto the stool beside him with the casual grace of someone who’d practiced the move.
“You’re the courier,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“I’m a lot of things.”
“You’re the one Mara Vex is looking for. Dead or alive, but she’s paying more for dead.”
Kaelen took a sip of his drink. It tasted like battery acid and regret. “That’s a shame. I was hoping to be anonymous.”
“Nobody’s anonymous in Gutter’s Rest. We just pretend to be.” The man extended a hand. “Name’s Corvin. I run information around here. You need to know something, I’m the one who knows it.”
Kaelen didn’t take the hand. “What’s the going rate for knowing things?”
“Depends on the thing. For you? I’d say the story of what you’re carrying is worth more than anything you could pay me.”
“I’m not carrying anything.”
Corvin laughed, a dry sound like stones grinding together. “That’s the problem with you Spire types. You think you can lie to people who’ve spent their whole lives learning to read the truth in a man’s posture.” He leaned closer, dropping his voice. “You’ve got something in that bag of yours that’s making the whole network buzz. Mara’s put out a call to every scavenger, every raider, every two-bit thug between here and the neutral zone. You’re worth more than most people make in a decade.”
Kaelen’s jaw tightened. He’d known the bounty was coming. He’d hoped it would take longer to spread.
“How many people know?”
“Everyone who matters. And a few who don’t.” Corvin’s eyes flicked to the door. “You’ve got maybe an hour before someone decides they want that payday more than they want to live. I’d suggest you get your fuel and get gone.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I don’t like Mara Vex. She burned my brother’s operation three years ago, left him with nothing but a hole in his chest and a debt he couldn’t pay. I figure any enemy of hers is worth keeping alive, at least for now.”
Kaelen studied the man’s face. There was something there—a genuine hatred that went deeper than professional courtesy. He decided to take a chance.
“What else do you know? About the Badlands, I mean. What’s between here and the neutral zone?”
Corvin’s expression shifted. The easy confidence flickered, replaced by something more cautious. “You planning to cross the whole stretch?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Then you’re either brave or stupid. Maybe both.” He signaled the bartender for another drink, took a long pull, and set it down with a heavy thunk. “The direct route is about four hundred klicks of open ground. You’ll pass through the Ash Flats, the Bone Fields, and the Cinder Wastes. All of them have their own particular flavor of death.”
“I’ve heard of the Ash Flats. Radiation pockets.”
“Radiation, sure. But the real problem is the drones.”
Kaelen’s arm twitched. The old cybernetics hummed with a low frequency that only he could feel. “I’ve dealt with drones before.”
“Not like these.” Corvin leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. “These aren’t Syndicate or Directorate. They’re old war machines, left over from the last big push. They’ve been out here so long they’ve gone feral. They hunt in packs, and they don’t care who you are or what you’re carrying. They just want to take you apart and see what makes you tick.”
“How do people get through?”
“They don’t. Not alone. You need a convoy, or you need a guide who knows the safe paths. And even then, you’re gambling with your life.”
Kaelen finished his drink and set the glass down. “Where do I find a guide?”
Corvin laughed again, but this time there was no humor in it. “You don’t. The last one died three weeks ago. Drone pack got him about fifty klicks east of here. They left his rig stripped clean and his body hanging from a dead tree like a warning.”
“Then I’ll find another way.”
“There isn’t one.” Corvin stood, adjusting his jacket. “But I’ll tell you what I told the last fool who tried to cross. The drones have a pattern. They hunt at night, mostly, when the heat from your engine stands out against the cold ground. If you travel during the day, you might make it. Might.”
“That’s the best you’ve got?”
“That’s the best anyone’s got.” He turned to leave, then paused. “One more thing. There’s a scavenger camp about a day’s drive from here, near the edge of the Ash Flats. They’ve got a comms array that still works. If you can get there, you might be able to signal the neutral zone for an escort. Might.”
“You keep saying that word.”
“Because it’s the only honest word in the Badlands.” Corvin walked away, disappearing into the smoke and the shadows.
Kaelen sat for a moment, letting the information settle. Four hundred klicks. Feral drones. A bounty on his head. And an eclipse that was now less than sixty hours away. The odds were getting worse by the minute.
He found Zara back at the fuel tower, watching the welder-woman finish topping off the tanks. She had a bag of supplies slung over her shoulder—rations, water filters, a few tools that looked like they’d been pried off a dead machine.
“Good news?” she asked.
“Depends on your definition.” He told her what Corvin had said, keeping his voice low. When he finished, she let out a long breath.
“So we’ve got a bounty, a pack of killer drones, and a deadline. Anything else you want to ruin my day with?”
“The eclipse is sixty hours out. Maybe less.”
“Great. So we’re on a clock, too.” She shook her head. “You know, when I agreed to this, I thought it would be a simple job. Get the chip, deliver the chip, get paid. I didn’t sign up for a suicide run across the wasteland.”
“You can still back out.”
“And go where? Mara’s got people everywhere. The only place I’m safe is with you, and that’s only because you’re too stubborn to die.” She slung the bag into the racer’s cargo compartment. “Let’s just get moving. The sooner we’re out of this town, the better.”
Kaelen nodded and climbed into the driver’s seat. His arm throbbed as he gripped the wheel, the old cybernetics sending a spike of pain up his shoulder. He ignored it. He’d learned long ago that pain was just a signal, and signals could be overridden.
They pulled out of Gutter’s Rest as the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon. The settlement shrank in the rearview mirror, swallowed by the dust and the haze until it was nothing but a memory.
The Badlands stretched ahead of them, vast and empty and waiting.
Kaelen drove.
“That’s it?” Zara squinted through the windshield, her fingers still twitching from the last stretch of driving. She’d taken over when his arm had started spasming again, the old cybernetics seizing mid-throttle. “I expected something with at least one functioning light.”
“The lights work. They just don’t want you to see what’s inside until you’re committed.”
Kaelen popped the door and stepped out. The air hit him like a wall—thick with burnt hydrocarbons, cooking grease, and the sweet-sour stench of unwashed bodies pressed together in close quarters. The Badlands didn’t have weather so much as it had moods, and today’s mood was desperation.
Gutter’s Rest wasn’t on any official map. It existed because the Spire needed somewhere to dump its failures and the Syndicate needed somewhere to buy them back at a discount. A scavenger town, the locals called it. A garbage heap with a fuel pump, more accurately.
“Stay close,” he said. “Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t touch anything.”
“You’ve been here before.”
“Twice. Both times I left with fewer fingers than I arrived with.”
Zara pulled her jacket tighter and fell into step beside him. She was good at that—moving like she belonged wherever she happened to be standing. A useful skill for a hacker. A necessary one for a woman with a Syndicate price on her head.
They walked the main strip, if you could call it that. A dirt path worn hard by countless boots and tires, lined with stalls selling salvaged tech, questionable food, and the kind of services that didn’t advertise their prices because you didn’t want to know them until it was too late. A man with a face like cracked leather waved at them from behind a table of rusted circuit boards. Kaelen ignored him.
The fuel tower was manned by a woman who looked like she’d been welded into her coveralls decades ago. She had a scar that ran from her left temple down to her jaw, and her eyes were the flat gray of someone who’d stopped being surprised a long time ago.
“Fuel,” Kaelen said.
“Scrip or trade.”
“Scrip.” He slid a stack of worn bills across the counter. She counted them twice, then once more for good measure, before nodding toward the pump.
“You got thirty minutes before I start charging storage.”
Kaelen nodded and turned to Zara. “Get the tanks filled. I’m going to find out what the local chatter says about us.”
“You think we’re already famous?”
“Mara’s got a long reach and a longer memory. If she’s put a bounty on us, it’s already here.”
He left her with the fuel and the welder-woman and moved deeper into the settlement. The shacks grew denser, stacked on top of each other like a child’s blocks left out in the rain. Somewhere to his left, a generator coughed and sputtered. Somewhere to his right, two voices argued about a debt that sounded like it would end in blood.
The bar was easy to find. It was the only building with a sign that wasn’t rusted beyond recognition—a faded image of a bottle and a glass, the paint peeling but still legible. The Rusted Nail. He’d been here before. The name was accurate on both counts.
Inside, the air was thick with smoke and the low murmur of voices that died the moment he walked in. A dozen faces turned to look at him, assessed him, and decided he wasn’t worth the effort. They went back to their drinks. All except one.
The man at the corner table was thin in the way that meant he hadn’t eaten well in weeks, but his eyes were sharp and they tracked Kaelen’s movement across the room with the precision of a predator. Kaelen walked to the bar, ordered a drink he had no intention of finishing, and waited.
The man approached him after a few minutes, sliding onto the stool beside him with the casual grace of someone who’d practiced the move.
“You’re the courier,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“I’m a lot of things.”
“You’re the one Mara Vex is looking for. Dead or alive, but she’s paying more for dead.”
Kaelen took a sip of his drink. It tasted like battery acid and regret. “That’s a shame. I was hoping to be anonymous.”
“Nobody’s anonymous in Gutter’s Rest. We just pretend to be.” The man extended a hand. “Name’s Corvin. I run information around here. You need to know something, I’m the one who knows it.”
Kaelen didn’t take the hand. “What’s the going rate for knowing things?”
“Depends on the thing. For you? I’d say the story of what you’re carrying is worth more than anything you could pay me.”
“I’m not carrying anything.”
Corvin laughed, a dry sound like stones grinding together. “That’s the problem with you Spire types. You think you can lie to people who’ve spent their whole lives learning to read the truth in a man’s posture.” He leaned closer, dropping his voice. “You’ve got something in that bag of yours that’s making the whole network buzz. Mara’s put out a call to every scavenger, every raider, every two-bit thug between here and the neutral zone. You’re worth more than most people make in a decade.”
Kaelen’s jaw tightened. He’d known the bounty was coming. He’d hoped it would take longer to spread.
“How many people know?”
“Everyone who matters. And a few who don’t.” Corvin’s eyes flicked to the door. “You’ve got maybe an hour before someone decides they want that payday more than they want to live. I’d suggest you get your fuel and get gone.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I don’t like Mara Vex. She burned my brother’s operation three years ago, left him with nothing but a hole in his chest and a debt he couldn’t pay. I figure any enemy of hers is worth keeping alive, at least for now.”
Kaelen studied the man’s face. There was something there—a genuine hatred that went deeper than professional courtesy. He decided to take a chance.
“What else do you know? About the Badlands, I mean. What’s between here and the neutral zone?”
Corvin’s expression shifted. The easy confidence flickered, replaced by something more cautious. “You planning to cross the whole stretch?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Then you’re either brave or stupid. Maybe both.” He signaled the bartender for another drink, took a long pull, and set it down with a heavy thunk. “The direct route is about four hundred klicks of open ground. You’ll pass through the Ash Flats, the Bone Fields, and the Cinder Wastes. All of them have their own particular flavor of death.”
“I’ve heard of the Ash Flats. Radiation pockets.”
“Radiation, sure. But the real problem is the drones.”
Kaelen’s arm twitched. The old cybernetics hummed with a low frequency that only he could feel. “I’ve dealt with drones before.”
“Not like these.” Corvin leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. “These aren’t Syndicate or Directorate. They’re old war machines, left over from the last big push. They’ve been out here so long they’ve gone feral. They hunt in packs, and they don’t care who you are or what you’re carrying. They just want to take you apart and see what makes you tick.”
“How do people get through?”
“They don’t. Not alone. You need a convoy, or you need a guide who knows the safe paths. And even then, you’re gambling with your life.”
Kaelen finished his drink and set the glass down. “Where do I find a guide?”
Corvin laughed again, but this time there was no humor in it. “You don’t. The last one died three weeks ago. Drone pack got him about fifty klicks east of here. They left his rig stripped clean and his body hanging from a dead tree like a warning.”
“Then I’ll find another way.”
“There isn’t one.” Corvin stood, adjusting his jacket. “But I’ll tell you what I told the last fool who tried to cross. The drones have a pattern. They hunt at night, mostly, when the heat from your engine stands out against the cold ground. If you travel during the day, you might make it. Might.”
“That’s the best you’ve got?”
“That’s the best anyone’s got.” He turned to leave, then paused. “One more thing. There’s a scavenger camp about a day’s drive from here, near the edge of the Ash Flats. They’ve got a comms array that still works. If you can get there, you might be able to signal the neutral zone for an escort. Might.”
“You keep saying that word.”
“Because it’s the only honest word in the Badlands.” Corvin walked away, disappearing into the smoke and the shadows.
Kaelen sat for a moment, letting the information settle. Four hundred klicks. Feral drones. A bounty on his head. And an eclipse that was now less than sixty hours away. The odds were getting worse by the minute.
He found Zara back at the fuel tower, watching the welder-woman finish topping off the tanks. She had a bag of supplies slung over her shoulder—rations, water filters, a few tools that looked like they’d been pried off a dead machine.
“Good news?” she asked.
“Depends on your definition.” He told her what Corvin had said, keeping his voice low. When he finished, she let out a long breath.
“So we’ve got a bounty, a pack of killer drones, and a deadline. Anything else you want to ruin my day with?”
“The eclipse is sixty hours out. Maybe less.”
“Great. So we’re on a clock, too.” She shook her head. “You know, when I agreed to this, I thought it would be a simple job. Get the chip, deliver the chip, get paid. I didn’t sign up for a suicide run across the wasteland.”
“You can still back out.”
“And go where? Mara’s got people everywhere. The only place I’m safe is with you, and that’s only because you’re too stubborn to die.” She slung the bag into the racer’s cargo compartment. “Let’s just get moving. The sooner we’re out of this town, the better.”
Kaelen nodded and climbed into the driver’s seat. His arm throbbed as he gripped the wheel, the old cybernetics sending a spike of pain up his shoulder. He ignored it. He’d learned long ago that pain was just a signal, and signals could be overridden.
They pulled out of Gutter’s Rest as the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon. The settlement shrank in the rearview mirror, swallowed by the dust and the haze until it was nothing but a memory.
The Badlands stretched ahead of them, vast and empty and waiting.
Kaelen drove.