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A Question of Taste – Denny Flowers

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Terminal Overkill’

A Black Library Publication

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A Question of Taste

Denny Flowers

Tempes Sol smiled as he felt the Motive Force radiate from the factorum’s antiquated machinery. Even after all his years of service to the Mercator Lux it still felt like a minor miracle – the raw power of a distant storm or blazing star harnessed to light a flickering lumen or initiate a chemical processor.

He glanced at the foreman as the factorum shunted into life, seeking recognition in his haggard face. But the older man’s expression was sour, as though he were chewing a spoilt rat-steak.

‘Is that it then?’ he said, the roar of the machines seemingly insufficient evidence of the power tap.

‘Yes,’ Sol replied, keeping his tone neutral. ‘The Foundas contract is complete.’

The older man frowned. ‘You sure? We’ve had outages before.’

‘That was under your previous contract with the Mercator Pyros. Now that your power is provided by the Mercator Lux there will be no further shortages. Providing you pay your bill.’

‘And how do we resupply?’

‘You don’t resupply,’ Sol sighed, irritation creeping into his voice. ‘The factorum is now powered by a solar array. So long as the sun burns, the machines will run.’

The foreman grunted, clearly dissatisfied. He leant against the railing, peering down at the conveyor belt below, where the workers had begun loading the first shipment of slag. Sol found his gaze creeping to the square of the man’s back. It would be so easy to give a gentle push and bring the conversation to a satisfying, if abrupt, conclusion.

The foreman turned, glancing at the guilder from over his shoulder.

‘What happens when the sun is gone?’ he said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I know the sun goes away at night,’ the older man continued, a smug smile staining his face. ‘I might not have been outside the hive, but I’ve heard stories. What am I supposed to do when there is no sun?’

‘The sun doesn’t… At night the factorum will run off the spare capacity harnessed during daylight,’ Sol replied, swallowing his frustration.

‘And if it doesn’t come back?’

‘If the sun stays dark?’

‘Exactly.’

Sol sighed. ‘I can only assure you that in the event of the sun disappearing, running this facility will not be your prime concern.’

The foreman grunted something in response, turning away.

Sol stepped forward, resting his weight on the rail, his gaze directed at the conveyor belt below.

‘The Foundas contract has been negotiated and sanctioned,’ he said. ‘If you are at any point dissatisfied with the service provided, I encourage you to direct your concerns to my representatives. But unless you encounter an actual problem, I consider the matter closed.’

‘The Guild of Flame powered this place for a generation,’ the foreman muttered. ‘Every quarter of a cycle we’d be resupplied. We knew the weight of each barrel, how long it could burn, how much could be done. Then it’s all changed. No one talks to us. No one cares about the people running the place.’

Sol turned his head, his gaze meeting the foreman’s. Perhaps something carried in his expression, for the older man took a step back, his hand running nervously through his thinning hair.

‘Look, I don’t mean to disrespect–’ he began, but Sol cut him off with a wave of his hand, the fingers glimmering, slivers of microcircuits embedded beneath the skin.

‘You are unhappy with the new arrangements?’

‘I just don’t understand why–’

‘There is a great deal you do not understand about the arrangements,’ Sol continued. ‘For that you have my sympathy. Like you, I am not privy to the reasoning behind my superiors’ decisions. It can be frustrating. But I have been tasked with finalising this power tap, and I will do what is required to ensure it is a success. If you do not feel you can be a part of that I can only say I admire your dedication to your principles and offer you my hand.’

He extended his right hand, the microcircuits glinting.

The older man stared at it a moment.

‘… No,’ he said. ‘I understand my place. I did not wish to offend.’

‘If only the God-Emperor granted all such wishes,’ Sol replied with a tight smile. ‘With that I must bid you farewell. I have a prior engagement and I am already running late.’

Credence Sorrow was based out of a pristine hab-block he’d named the Memento Mori. While most of the building was given over to his regular operations, he had kept the thirty-third floor entirely for his own private use.

When Tempes Sol arrived breathless at the building’s main entrance the doorman was waiting, expectant. It was difficult to tell if he’d encountered the man before. The thralls of the Mercator Pallidus all bore a certain similarity, their onyx robes and ivory collars insufficient to mask the wearer’s bulky frame. There was something in the eyes too. Sol felt as though those eyes were looking through him to the meat and bone beneath his skin, but he was greeted graciously enough, the slab of a man offering a low bow as he gestured to the main elevator. Still, he could not ignore the distinct crimson tint that was visible beneath the man’s fingernails – a reminder of his less genteel duties.

The elevator glided silently upwards, time enough for Sol to adjust his robes and at least attempt to look presentable. When the polished steel doors opened, Credence Sorrow was waiting for him. As always, he was immaculate, every hair perfectly positioned, his robes impeccable. He was clad solely in midnight, except for a gold signet ring on his left hand, set with an amethyst gem.

‘My dear Tempes,’ he said, leaning close and planting a chaste kiss an inch from Sol’s cheek. ‘I was starting to worry that something terrible had happened to you.’

‘My apologies, I was delayed downhive.’

‘I can see that from the state of your boots,’ Sorrow replied. ‘You must have been wallowing in the very dregs of the underhive. Do please enter.’

Sol crossed the threshold, his footsteps resonating against the polished floor. He glanced down, frowning at the unfamiliar material.

‘This is new?’

‘Wood. Imported from off-world,’ Sorrow replied with a pained smile. ‘Terrible choice in hindsight – extortionately expensive and requires near constant maintenance. But I wanted to treat myself. I’m sure you understand.’

He motioned for Sol to follow, gliding soundlessly though the entry hall towards the rear chambers. Sol struggled to keep pace, trying to ignore the clunk of his own footsteps, his dataslate clutched to his chest.

‘Auroras is already here,’ Sorrow continued as they threaded a path through the myriad doorways. ‘She just concluded the clean-up after that messy business in Salvation and is really looking forward to seeing you – it’s been an age since we’ve dined together.’

‘There was the Dust Falls Symposium.’

‘Yes, but our more senior partners did insist on dominating the conversation. I prefer when we three can gather in a more intimate setting. Chew the fat, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

He turned a corner. Ahead lay the main dining chamber, its doors flanked by servants in sombre robes. Neither was quite the doorman’s stature, but each wore an echo of his expression. They bowed as the guilders approached, grasping the doors’ ivory-white handles and drawing them open.

The room beyond appeared almost intimate, the table a modest circle of polished silver, lit only by the ornate ivory chandelier that loomed above. But Sol knew how Sorrow could play with the space, using light and shifting partitions to reconfigure the room to his needs. There had been banquets here where two dozen chairs were arranged in neat rows. Now there were only three, and none were occupied.

Sol frowned, glancing around the chamber. The candlelight revealed little, but he could just make out a woman’s silhouette by the window, her form framed by the neon glow emanating from Hive City.

Auroras Drift turned as he entered, her head nodding in acknowledgement but her eyes divulging nothing. The rest of her face was hidden by a gilded respirator, silver cables trailing to a canister discreetly secured at the rear of her corset. Her hands rested on a sceptre of office, adorned with the symbol of the Mercator Temperium.

‘Well met, Lord Sol,’ she said. ‘I trust you are well?’

‘And I you, Lady Drift,’ Sol replied with a slight bow. ‘How is the air trade?’

‘Buoyant,’ she said without a trace of humour. ‘I have just concluded purifying the plains of Salvation. I hear you secured the Foundas contract from the Mercator Pyros. My congratulations.’

‘They elected not to bid for it. I’m surprised you weren’t aware of that.’

‘I’ve been busy and neglected to keep pace with your dealings,’ she shrugged smoothly. ‘My apologies for any offence.’

Before Sol could reply Sorrow stepped between them.

‘There can be no offence between friends,’ he said with a smile. ‘Now, would you please sit? I have procured some wine from Helmawr’s own vineyards. Don’t ask me how I got it – let’s just say nothing is too good for such lovely rapscallions as yourselves.’

He clapped an arm around Sol’s shoulder, steering him towards the table, Drift trailing in their wake. Sol moved to sit but Sorrow’s grip suddenly tightened, his ring digging into Sol’s shoulder.

‘Not there,’ he said. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to wake a sleeping zeph.’

Something bobbed beside the chair, a hideous airborne sack of teeth and stubby limbs. It was snoring from half a dozen mouths at once, the sound reminiscent of a swarm of rats being strangled by a melodeon.

Drift sat beside the beast, patting it absently on what might have been its head. Sol found his own seat, adjusting his place setting to make room for his dataslate, ignoring the slightly pained look that crossed Sorrow’s face. A servant emerged soundlessly from the shadows, filling their glasses. Sorrow raised his.

‘If you will indulge me, I would like to make a toast. To good friends and greater profits.’

Sol echoed the gesture, taking a sip of burgundy liquor. It was irritatingly perfect. He glanced at Drift. Her respirator was still in place and she drank from a silver tube resembling the proboscis of some grotesque insect. His gaze shifted to Sorrow, who was doing his best to ignore the slurping noise.

‘Well then,’ Sorrow said, gaze fixed squarely on Sol. ‘Our first course is something new. I’m not going to say too much, and we’re still playing with the recipe, but the flavour is delectable.’

More attendants appeared from the shadows that surrounded the table, placing before them dishes of polished ossein upon which a tiny portion of lucid pink mousse quivered expectantly. Whatever his other sins, Sorrow could never be accused of gorging his guests.

Drift glanced at the appetiser, appraising it as her fingers made a minor adjustment to her faceplate.

‘I do wish I could persuade you to remove that device,’ Sorrow sighed. ‘The air in this room is entirely breathable. Your people saw to that.’

‘Sadly, I must decline due to a delicate constitution,’ Drift replied. ‘But I have filtered the aroma for impurities and can confirm that what remains is entirely pleasant.’

‘Well, that’s gratifying,’ Sorrow smiled, before turning to Sol. ‘And you, my friend? Thoughts?’

‘I was thinking about the Catallus contract. I believe you are overseeing the bids?’

Sorrow tutted, waggling his finger as though scolding a wayward juve.

‘My dear friend, I invited you here to sample some of the delicacies we’ve been developing. I need you to focus your refined palate and give me constructive feedback. Once dinner has concluded I will be happy to discuss your little proposal, but for now please focus on your meal. Now – how do you feel about the consistency? Too dense?’

Drift’s laughter broke Sol from his stupor.

He blinked, focusing on the glass. He’d drunk too much, the wine pairing perfectly with the main course of charred grox-steak with plum dressing. He had to concede it was excellent. He’d only dined on real grox meat once in his life, but from what he could remember the synthetic meal was virtually identical. He could barely taste the acidic tang common to corpse-starch.

He hadn’t meant to drink. Perhaps it was nerves. He wanted the presentation to be faultless, his cadence precise. Still, his dining companions did not seem to have noticed his lapse. They were occupied discussing the furnishings.

‘I do so adore your chandelier,’ Drift said, gazing at the candles flickering above. ‘Is it a Gi-Ger original?’

‘You have a fine eye. Well, two in fact,’ Sorrow replied with a smile. ‘Yes, I was lucky enough to commission this piece and actually watch the artist install the work. His reputation as a genius is richly deserved – what that man can produce from the human spine is truly remarkable.’

‘Is that the only medium he’s used?’

‘Indeed, each piece handcrafted,’ Sorrow nodded. ‘Expensive, but I felt I was owed something after the profits made from that unfortunate incident in Slate Town.’

‘That was the nitrogen leak wasn’t it?’ Sol asked, interrupting. ‘As I recall a thousand dead from a faulty regulator.’

The barest frown creased Drift’s brow.

‘I believe it was not the regulator that was at fault,’ she said, voice terse. ‘The workers miscalculated the processing volume.’

‘Indeed,’ Sorrow nodded, his expression momentarily grave before brightening. ‘Still, I was fortunate enough to have a team of grinders in the area, so nothing went to waste.’

‘And are these taken from the bodies?’ Drift asked, gesturing to the chandelier.

‘Would that they were,’ Sorrow replied. ‘That would be real poetry. Sadly, those workers didn’t have the bone density for this sort of piece. This is mainly House Goliath, though I think some of the bobeches were carved from the vertebrae of House Delaque. It is apparently better suited for detail work.’

‘I’m surprised,’ Drift said. ‘I was not under the impression House Delaque had spines.’

They both broke into braying laughter.

‘What about you, Tempes?’ Sorrow asked, turning to him. ‘How was your main?’

‘Filling,’ Sol said. ‘Now, regarding the Catallus contract, I would–’

‘Dessert first,’ Sorrow smiled. ‘Let me just freshen your glass.’

‘I’m fine,’ Sol replied as the attendant refilled his drink, ignoring the objection.

‘What is for dessert?’ Drift asked. ‘I cannot believe you can top the main.’

‘Ah, now this I’m really proud of,’ Sorrow said. ‘I think it will prove popular with Hive Primus’ more prosperous citizens. Luxuriously soft and sweet with just a little crunch. Old Terran recipe, only possible with Grade A refined corpse-starch.’

‘Good to know,’ Sol replied. ‘I have heard some rather troubling stories about a contaminated batch turning up downhive.’

‘I’m afraid I have no idea what you are talking about,’ Sorrow replied with a fixed smile. ‘No doubt just another fanciful tale from the underhive. Then again, I don’t find business taking me downhive much any more. You’re the one with his ear to the underground.’

‘If by that you mean I listen, then you are correct. I admit it is a tad galling that you do not extend me the same courtesy.’

‘Fine,’ Sorrow sighed. ‘If you insist on being a bore then we can do business first and dessert after.’

He leant back in his chair, glass in hand. ‘Well then?’ he said, nodding to Sol.

‘… Are we alone?’

Sorrow rolled his eyes, rising from his seat and making for the door. He tapped a sequence on a discreet control panel tucked against the frame, before returning to his seat.

‘There, the room is hermetically sealed,’ he said. ‘Can we please get on with it?’

‘I want to bid for the Catallus contract,’ Sol replied, his fingers dancing across his dataslate.

‘Understandable,’ Sorrow nodded, leaning back in his chair. ‘Sadly the bids have already been received and the contract will almost certainly be awarded to representatives from the Mercator Pyros.’

‘I can run it more efficiently and reliably,’ Sol continued, handing the slate to Sorrow. ‘On average I can save six per cent in the first year, and that’s not accounting for potential supply disruptions. The promethium pipelines feeding that sector are antiquated – you should anticipate significant delays at least thrice per cycle for maintenance and so on. If you work with me, I can guarantee reliable power.’

‘I see,’ Sorrow replied, briefly glancing at the reams of data. ‘Well, I would not question your calculations, but this contract is not just about numbers. There are some political complexities that have to be considered.’

‘Nepotism,’ Sol muttered, draining his glass.

‘Now that’s unfair,’ Sorrow said. ‘If I were to award you the contract, then the Mercator Pyros might choose to take some of their other business elsewhere. Half my holdings are powered by the Pureburn family. You do not have the infrastructure to fulfil those contracts, they do.’

‘The Pureburns!’ Sol spat, slamming his glass down. ‘They’re the worst of the Mercator Pyros. Headed by a geriatric who clings to his privileged position, and by doing so condemns Hive Primus to stagnation.’

Sorrow shrugged. ‘Be that as it may, they are still my business partners.’

‘How unfortunate. I suppose one bad deal inevitably leads to more.’

Sorrow tensed slightly. Even Drift, who was currently feeding a treat to her half-awake zeph, noticed. Sol caught a look of amusement flash across her eyes.

‘I do not make bad deals,’ Sorrow said, his voice dangerously calm. ‘And that is in part because I know that business is more than numbers. My business is about people.’

‘And mine is about power.’

‘And yet you lack even that.’

‘I suppose you are right,’ Sol sighed. ‘Perhaps I should reflect on how I do business. I never seem to stumble across opportunities like you two.’

‘Stumble?’ Drift said, raising an eyebrow. ‘I do not stumble across anything. A shrewd trader creates opportunity.’

‘Ah, I must have misunderstood our earlier exchange,’ Sol said, glancing from one guilder to the other. ‘I thought it was just luck that Lord Sorrow had a grinder team near Slate Town prior to the – how did you describe it? – unfortunate incident?’

The corpse guilder frowned. ‘In a sense. But I ensure my teams rotate their routes and keep a close eye. That is how you create opportunities.’

‘And what an opportunity it was,’ Sol continued. ‘A low-productivity plant plagued by delays and disgruntled workers. But introduce a little nitrogen imbalance and those workers drop like flies. I doubt they would even realise anything was wrong until it was too late. Very convenient.’

Sorrow was no longer smiling. Drift’s expression was difficult to make out beneath her breathing apparatus.

‘I’m assuming you have a point?’ Sorrow asked.

‘I merely wondered whether those deaths were an opportunity stumbled across, or one created through the appropriate connections?’ Sol mused, directing this remark to Auroras Drift. ‘I do so hope it’s not the latter. Imagine if there was some nefarious plot by a rogue Mercator Temperium operative to poison a whole refinery, just so Lord Sorrow could make his corpse quotas. Think of the scandal. I mean, someone owned those workers. Their deaths would cause the Mercator Pallidus considerable embarrassment. Dare I say, strict sanctions might be employed?’

Sorrow reclined in his chair, his gaze drifting upwards towards the bone chandelier, and the slowly dying candles.

‘That sounds remarkably like a threat.’

‘It is speculation, at least at the moment.’

‘Threatening a member of the Mercator Pallidus in his own home?’ Sorrow continued, raising an eyebrow. ‘I suppose it shows a certain amount of gumption. But is that contract really worth the risk?’

‘This is not about a contract, this is about Hive Primus finally waking up and realising what we have to offer. The Mercator Lux are superior to the Mercator Pyros, and I am better than any Pureburn. But opportunity is denied to me because of hazy politics and outdated alliances. I know you are not a fool, Sorrow – you can surely see I’m right?’

Sorrow offered a thin smile.

‘Perhaps,’ he conceded. ‘But by now you should know that it is not our place to decide what is right. Lord Helmawr is the arbitrator of morality. He sanctions the rivalries and conflicts that keep our people strong.’

‘Then he would approve of my methods.’

‘You are too wedded to logic and numbers,’ Sorrow shrugged. ‘The Mercator Pyros dominates business in Hive Primus because they have already won the war of ideas. It does not matter if they provide the best service, only that they are perceived to do so. That perception is the truth. Statistics on power fluctuations are simply statistics.’

‘A perception you could help change,’ Sol shrugged. His voice sounded slurred.

‘Perhaps a compromise can be struck,’ Sorrow offered. ‘Forget the Catallus contract. There will be opportunities in the future. If we take the appropriate steps, I am sure that some equally lucrative business can be directed your way.’

‘This isn’t about credits,’ Sol murmured. He wanted to say more but it was getting hard to think.

‘Well now you have lost me,’ Sorrow shrugged, setting his glass down. ‘Perhaps the wine has gone to my head. Is it stuffy in here?’

Sorrow tried to rise but staggered, his hand seizing hold of the table to steady himself.

‘Why–’ he began, his voice hoarse, before he collapsed to the floor. Sol too tried to stand, but stumbled and fell, the room spinning around. He wheezed, struggling to draw breath. Something was wrong.

On the far side of the table Drift got to her feet, sceptre of office gripped in her hand. Behind her the zeph rose from beneath the table. It had almost doubled in size and was still swelling, like a tumour, multiple mouths sucking greedily at the air, stealing the oxygen from the room.

‘My apologies, dear Lord Sorrow,’ she said, glancing at the fallen corpse guilder, ‘but I fear you have gone soft. There is only one way to deal with threats.’

She strode towards Sol, sceptre clicking against the mahogany floor, until she stood before him, the swollen zeph hovering above her shoulder.

‘As for you, Mr Sol, I do offer my condolences. Setbacks are, regrettably, a part of life. But, frankly, your unwillingness to compromise is what has led us here. We would all benefit if such an intransigent player were to be taken off the table.’

Sol didn’t reply. He did not have the breath. The light was bleeding from his eyes, a circle of darkness closing in. He could just make out Drift bent over him, perhaps wishing to experience his final breath.

His hand snaked out, closing around her staff of office. He felt the hum in his shoulder as the surge flowed through the neurone circuits mapped along his arm. There was a tingle in his fingers as the current was channelled through her staff.

Drift’s scream was gratifying, her respirator sparking as the power flowed through her, the current forcing her hand to remain closed about the sceptre. Sol caught the familiar scent of burning flesh, but did not release his grip, not until every amp had been discharged.

As Drift fell lifelessly, her zeph loomed over him. His vision had all but faded, and it was hard to make out the size of the beast. It seemed to fill the room, numerous mouths stretched open as it descended on him, yellowed teeth glinting in the last of the candlelight.

Sol knew he had nothing left.

A searing beam of light pierced the creature, bursting it like a pimple. The sack of skin withered, the stolen air released into the room. Sol gasped, glancing to the far side of the table where Sorrow stood, an elegant respirator over his mouth, smoke rising from the digilaser concealed in his amethyst signet ring.

He glanced at Sol, as though weighing his options. Then he shrugged, stepping over the prone guilder towards the window, his fingers tapping against the control panel. The glass opened, a blast of cool air filling the room.

Sol managed to rise to his feet, one hand clutching the back of his chair. Sorrow detached the respirator, glancing to Sol.

‘Could I interest you in some recaff on the balcony?’ he said lightly. ‘The room needs to air and I’ve lost my appetite.’

Sol watched as Drift’s corpse was dragged away, along with the remnants of her zeph. Sorrow had his back to her, his gaze intent on the neon lights of Hive City.

‘You can dispose of her?’

Sorrow glanced at him, one eyebrow raised.

‘Dispose of a body? I think that might fall within my remit.’

‘I meant discreetly.’

‘Of course,’ he said, sipping his cup of recaff. ‘We will grind her up and feed her remains to the masses. Depending on the damage you inflicted I might keep her skin, though – all that oxygenated air made it wonderfully supple. I’m thinking some new boots. Do you need boots?’

‘Do we need a cover story?’

‘I wouldn’t think so – all we did was confront her about the incident in Slate City. She then fled, probably to the underhive. Let someone else chase her, we have done out part.’

Sol nodded, his gaze also shifting to the neon glow of the city lights.

‘How does that leave things between us?’ he asked.

Sorrow shrugged. ‘I see no profit in an adversarial relationship. For what it’s worth you are right – the Pureburns are a relic, and not the good sort. Did you hear what they did at Salvation? Two rival gangs burnt to ashes.’

‘Certainly their modus operandi.’

‘Such senseless waste,’ Sorrow sighed. ‘No one pays for ashes.’

‘I take it you still won’t grant me the contract?’

Sorrow did not speak for a moment. Sol glanced at him, trying to read the expression on his face. Finally he sighed, his mask slipping just a fraction. He looked tired.

‘It is not my decision,’ he said quietly. ‘For all intents and purposes the Lord Anthropopha has already awarded it to the Pureburns.’

‘So all this was for nothing.’

‘I don’t know,’ Sorrow shrugged. ‘New boots are always a cause for celebration. It is a shame about Auroras, though.’

‘She tried to kill me. And you.’

‘Indeed,’ Sorrow smiled. ‘A bold move. Then again, risk assessment was never her forte. Or yours for that matter.’

‘I merely wanted to convey the seriousness of my intent.’

‘I wasn’t referring to your little outburst,’ Sorrow said. ‘My concern is this fixation with the Pureburns. If you keep pushing they will retaliate.’

‘I do not fear them.’

‘You didn’t see what they did at Salvation.’

Sol raised his eyebrow. ‘I never thought you squeamish.’

‘There was nothing to be squeamish about,’ Sorrow replied. ‘It was burned clean, nothing left but rock. Auroras only made a profit by fabricating the air purity reports. There weren’t even fumes.’

‘What sort of weapon could do that?’

‘An expensive one,’ Sorrow sighed. ‘At least for me. Immolation is bad for business.’

Neither spoke for a moment. Sorrow sipped his recaff, delicately placing the cup on the balustrade.

‘You keep mentioning this incident in Salvation,’ Sol frowned, his gaze intent on the corpse guilder

‘Do I?’ Sorrow mused, straightening his collar. ‘Perhaps the topic keeps naturally arising in conversation.’

‘You could try being direct.’

‘To my mind, one can either be direct or discreet,’ Sorrow shrugged, resting his weight against the balustrade. ‘For example, when Auroras submitted the air purity reports I was discreet, and when she provided suitable compensation she was direct.’

‘Did you and Auroras share any other discretions?’

‘One or two,’ Sorrow smiled. ‘And some quarrels. Almost came to blows on one occasion.’

‘I am sad I did not see that,’ Sol said. Sorrow pretended not to hear him.

‘Most of the gangers were reduced to ash,’ he continued. ‘But I came across one survivor. Well, I say survivor – he was barely clinging to life. Normally I would have delivered his soul to the God-Emperor’s embrace and his flesh to the grinders, but Auroras thought he might be worth more alive.’

‘Drift took him?’

‘And compensated me accordingly. His survival was left unrecorded, though. She was quite insistent on that.’

‘Is he still alive?’

‘I have no idea. He was barely responsive, but it’s possible.’

Sol frowned. ‘My superiors want an update on the Catallus contract. They seem very interested in the Pureburns’ assets. This man may be of interest to them.’

‘Then perhaps you should retrieve Auroras’ dataslate on your way out and see what you can uncover.’

‘Perhaps I will,’ Sol nodded, turning away. He glanced back from the doorway. ‘I fear that war is coming.’

Sorrow had his back to him, his gaze lingering on the distant city.

‘My dear friend,’ he said with an audible smile, ‘I am rather counting on it.’

The medi-unit was off the grid – an automated unit concealed beneath a warehouse in Hive City. The patient within was unresponsive, his charred flesh sustained by a network of tubes and wires, his agony barely suppressed by a row of stimm injectors. Oil-soaked bandages were laid in place of skin, but their touch could not soothe the burning. His face was likewise bound, his eyes having boiled from their sockets. Yet in his brief moments of lucidity he could see the light that had stolen his sight and ruined his body, the burning brightness that had consumed the plains of Salvation and devoured enemy and ally alike.

Yet he could see a shadow standing at the eye of the maelstrom of fire and light, a figure untouched by the inferno.

It looked almost human.

About the Author

Denny Flowers is the author of the Necromunda short story ‘The Hand of Harrow’ and novella Low Lives, featuring the characters of Caleb and Iktomi. He lives in Kent with his wife and son.

An extract from Terminal Overkill.

My mother’s name was Red Tori.

She had high, genuine rat skin boots, rockcrete-hard legs, a half-shaved head and a shock of auburn hair that she spiked into a knife’s-edge mohawk. She lived by a simple code. Kill or be killed. The hive itself was her teacher and she was in a state of constant learning.

She was not the soft, gentle, mothering kind you hear about in uphive tales. You know the type – the kindly noblewoman in her seventh cycle of rejuvenat who finally gives birth to her first and only child; a loved and cherished infant who is raised with kind words, an indulgent nanny and a gang of smart nursery servitors, kitted out in the finest spider silk harlequin outfits, to order around and play with.

No. None of that crap.

My mother had no softness. No pity. She was an Escher gang leader and she was as gentle and soothing as a necklace of razor wire. She passed on her experience with snappy lines. ‘Got a problem, get a gun.’

Or, ‘When you have no enemies, you’re dead.’

Or, ‘Shit doesn’t arrive with a bell about its neck.’

Or, ‘Come on. It’s only pain.’

Or, ‘Never met a dead Goliath I didn’t like.’

But her favourite saying was what she shouted to her gangers when they were sprinting into battle: ‘Be bold, scummers! Life is short. And it’s getting shorter.’

There were hushed rumours about what had driven my mother down this low, to Meander’s Gate. She’d murdered a guilder. Poisoned her gang leader. Fallen foul of the Heavy Flamer Crusade on one of their fanatical purges.

I never dared ask.

When one juve did, a nondescript woman named Torlith, my mother went from standing still to a roundhouse kick in a thrilling blur. Her boot connected with the juve’s jaw before Torlith knew what was coming.

Bam! It was magnificent. The stupid girl was still spitting out blood and teeth as my mother turned and strode back to the ganghall. ‘Frekking idiot,’ she muttered.

‘That wasn’t fair,’ one of the other gangers said to her when they got inside.

My mother’s cat-yellow eyes flayed the women with contempt. She couldn’t stand whining. ‘Get over it. This hive isn’t fair.’

Whatever crime had driven my mother downhive turned out to be a blessing. She’d prospered in the deadly, treacherous world of shifting no-man’s-lands, and fought her way up to form her own gang. She named them the Wild Hydras.

All her gangers came from a vast distillery named Femdrake Pits. I pieced together a view of it from the stories they told. A cyclopean dome with heavy rockcrete buttresses, stacked habs alongside crude stills, condensing pipes and steaming holding vats. A place where a misstep could drop you into a tank of mandrake concentrate, necrosis gel, neural-block, hemolysis syrup or slab-vat hormones. That was the stuff that was sold to the Goliaths. It was a powerful solution, used in minute quantities for each batch of Goliath mewlings.

Blackeye had many stories about that place. She told me, ‘My sister fell in. It went through her skin. Her mouth. Her nose. We dragged her out. She was crying and moaning. Her body was growing and swelling. Her skin started to stretch. It was as taut as a bladder-wrack. Then she started to tear, like a snake shedding its pelt. Her skin split and her body oozed out. She was howling like a mutant. I used a blade to open up an artery, just to stop her screaming. Even when she was dead her muscles kept growing. I could hardly watch. Last time I saw her remains she was as big as a hab.’

I stood open-mouthed listening to it all. You could imagine the horror of it from the look on Blackeye’s face.

‘When it was done there was nothing human left. My sister was all lumps of accelerator-grown muscle slab and vat-meat. That night I packed all my possessions and the next day I got the hell out of there.’

‘Is that true?’ I asked.

Clete slapped me around the head. ‘Of course it is!’

All the Wild Hydras had similar tales. All had fled downhive. All of them bore their scars. The tox-plants of House Escher were a deadly breeding ground. That much time spent around poisons exacted a heavy toll. My mother took them in. Being in a gang gave them new hope. A new purpose. A new edge. Femdrake survivors made good fighters, she liked to say. They were all cut from similar cloth. They held the same grudges and had the same attitudes.

‘I’m their mother,’ she said, without warmth or tenderness, though she was more like a strict master. ‘But they do not give me as much trouble as you two.’

‘What trouble?’ I demanded.

She fixed me with her yellow eyes. ‘Making sure that no one kills me…’ she said, the end of her sentence hanging in the air, ‘…until you’re old enough to take revenge.’ She tapped her razor-nails onto the hammered tin tabletop for emphasis – a sound like the rattle of wild gunfire.

When I was young I thought the Wild Hydras were an impossibly glamorous band of gunslingers and big-talkers with their huge hair and high boots and swirling blue gang tattoos. They were the meanest bunch of women this side of Lightshaft 9.

We lived in the DimZone – a borderland between the settled reaches and the underhive. Above us trillions of tons of rockcrete and people reached up into the clouds. Whatever they were.

‘Clouds are like water,’ Clete said, but that sounded daft. ‘Think of steam,’ she said, but it was clear that she was just repeating things other people had told her.

‘Clouds are like pollution,’ Blackeye said, and I believed her. She had that matter-of-fact confidence. And we knew all about pollution. DimZone was the dump into which it all fell and flowed.

I lay imagining uphive sometimes. It seemed an extraordinary place. Millennia of design and expansion, collapse and repair.

Higher up, I heard, the hive was lit with lightshafts and the Necromundan sun. There were domes so vast that they contained mountain ranges of compacted trash, their summits so high that they were lost in darkness; seething rivers of bubbling effluent; deltas of tox-swamps where skiffs of sumpkroc skin skimmed off by-products; and dense forests of fungus. They would take weeks to cross. So boundless that they had their own microclimates and species of flora and fauna, their own stories and myths that made sense of their world. Reaching slabs of stacked-habs set one by the other, the narrow canyons in-between whipping up dirt and debris with each downdraught. Suspended cities of spherical steel-pods, hundreds of them hanging from great chains linked with swing-wires, gantries and stressed-cable bridges.

That was what people said.

But none of us had ever been so high. DimZone was a buffer. A compressed series of strata where the rockcrete domes were broken and crumbling. Where tunnels had collapsed into perilous squeezes, sump pools, sinks and tunnel-siphons. Where the desperate clung on as their feet dangled over the edge. Below was the underhive – and nothing good came from there.

We all wanted to get the hell out of there, but despite that we were fiercely proud to live in the DimZone. We were better than those beneath us, and by Throne, one day, we vowed, we’d get back up to the more civilised areas, and we’d do it the hard way.

We lived on scraps brought down from the city above. We wore fourth-hand clothes. Lived in habs built of old flakboard panels of pressed mushroom starch or rusting sheet metal. All detritus discarded from above. Brought down to our level by the dumpload in heavy cargo lifters of rusting steel. Unloaded by hydraulic claw-arms, and dragged about the tunnels by sweating haulage servitors, their lobotomised bodies embedded in the cart-yokes, their unwashed flesh stinking with years of toil and filth.

The DimZone got its name because the few functioning lightshafts directed only a thin dusk-light down to us. And we were too deep to tap into the working energy cablings that powered the hive’s factorums above. We ran our lumens with an ad hoc mix of wheezing methayne generators, effluent-electric turbines, dams and, of course, the Lightning Farm – a colossal external structure flung out into the void around the outer-spire that channelled raw electric power from the atmospheric turbulence. It was the main source of power for the lower courses of the Western Districts. We all relied on it for our water siphons, the air pumps and scrubbers. It was an erratic energy source. When the weather was extreme the lights would flicker and spark, and the water-stills would run on double speed. When there was a lull, there came the dull rumble of the Chem Falls hydro plant whining into action. The only time the power died was when the gangs who owned it started squabbling.

There were no vast domes near us. Not the kind that featured in stories of uphive. They had been here, I was told, but they’d all collapsed as the hive grew over our heads. All that had survived was a confused and tangled web of small domes, service tunnels, excavated halls, pipes and chasms. It was a compressed zone, being slowly crushed and repaired with each hive quake season, each time a little tighter than before.

Lower down was a slum of lawless wilderness that stretched into the very roots of our world. A foul, foetid, stinking, desperate place, home to mutants and creeping creatures of scales and slime and fangs and bestial hungers. A place that offered escape, flight, deliverance, evasion, forgetting. A place for the shunned. The insane. The absconders. The redeemed. The excluded. The hunted. The damned.

‘But,’ Blackeye said with a wink, ‘it offers certain opportunities.’

Deep, deep down, in the forgotten depths of mines and shafts and chasms, were the scattered remains of the very first settlements upon the planet. It was said that fabulous treasures of art and archeotech were there for the finding.

That wasn’t a trade we dabbled in. There was too much bargaining and bartering for my mother. She liked danger and risk and the kind of problems that could be fixed with the knuckle or the gun. The Wild Hydras were warriors and they guarded the caravan route that went down to the underhive through a maze of tunnels known as Meander’s Guts. It was a perilous descent, prone to hive quakes and floods and all manner of dangers. When an immense rift opened up at the bottom of the Guts, our dome suddenly became an important hub. It was named Quake Chasm, and the Wild Hydras made a fortune keeping the approach tunnels clear of all the dreadful underhive monsters. The gangers brought back trophies of skulls and pelts and fangs and claws. Things that had names, and those that were unique creations of the tox-pools below, and which crept upwards in search of human blood.

We made a fortune charging tithes on each hiver heading to the Quake Chasm. Some went game hunting with cherished hotshot and long-las rifles slung over their shoulders. Others needed to escape, and fast. Others still were simply adventurers. Brave, heedless, desperate: they paid their credits and passed downwards with big hopes, big words and big guns. Most never came back. The underhive consumed them. Kept their bones and their names hidden deep in its bowels. Let nothing return.

Once news of the first discoveries started to appear then it didn’t take long for the guilders to hear. The Merchant Guild. In a world of murder, felony, bloodshed and lynching, they were the untouchables. The power brokers of the hives. The grease that kept us all working. Or so they told us. And if you crossed them then they used their massive financial muscle to squash you like a spitting-roach slammed with a power hammer.

Killing a guilder would bring swift and brutal retribution. It was a terrible crime that was spoken of in hushed voices, and the faces of the guilty were daubed all over the Western Districts – hoardings plastered inches thick with placards, posters and signboards bearing sketched mugshots, and the familiar stencilled words, Wanted: Dead. It was an easy way for the insane to make a name for themselves. They got their fifteen minutes of infamy.

So when news came that the guilders were on their way, my mother was edgy. It was both a threat and an opportunity. Which way the credit fell was up to her.

She prepared herself as she did for a battle. Spiked hair, vivid make-up, guns and knives loaded, oiled and honed.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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ISBN: 978-1-78999-243-4

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