Futuristic Noblesse Oblige

[Nevix]

Seventy-two people lived in Red Dust. There were no other settlements with more than fifty people for miles in any direction. It was the jewel of its particular stretch of depleted wastes. All around it was red-sand desert. Visitors were rare, and visitors who meant well were rarer. The seventy-two native residents usually glared at the occasional drifter, but not today. Today, the strangers had been invited in. The sun was going down, and the heat wasn't so oppressive as it had been a few hours ago. Most of the residents were already inside for the night, aside from those few at Lou's saloon. Them, and the two older men walking alone down the street, heading toward the saloon.

The older of the two was named Hiram. The younger was Abram, his brother. Hiram had been tall once, but was now stooped with age. White hair had fled completely from the top of his head but stuck out in great tufts on the sides and back. He had sharp, intelligent eyes, and a harsh, wind-bitten face. His brother was once shorter but now the two were the same height. Abram still had a full head of hair, and even some brown scattered amongst the grey. The both of them had been born in Red Dust, Hiram about ten years before Abram. The younger brother had lived there his whole life, but Hiram had traveled in his youth. He had spent six years in the wastes and returned a different, wiser man. The other townspeople had noticed this. There was no real municipal government, no actual regional authority, but all the townspeople looked to Hiram for guidance and leadership.

"How many did we get?" Hiram asked his brother. Abram frowned.

"Seven or eight, but we can't expect all of them to take the job." Abram sighed. "Or any of them, really. They'll be going to Elysium, after all."

"You don't think this will work." Hiram said, matter-of-factly. Abram looked away. "Brother, my daughter went with them. My only-" The old man's voice broke, and both men stopped walking for a moment. Abram put a hand on his brother's shoulder, but Hiram brushed it off.

"Hiram, you know she's not coming back." Abram said, low. "None of them are. Even if they made it."

"I am old, Abram. I am not a fool." Hiram said, and started walking again. "I just want to know if they're in Elysium or not. If they're safe." He looked around at the rickety buildings. Most of them were boarded up, abandoned. Some of them, though, had lights visible through the windows. "Red Dust has trusted me for thirty years. Thirty years, I've looked after this town and its people. Now twenty of us are gone, and I can't sleep easy without knowing what happened." He turned to make sure Abram was still following him. "One of them, at least, will take the job. We'll offer more gold if we have to."

"You'd bankrupt this town to find these people?" Abram asked, an edge to his voice. "They left six months ago, Hiram. You've been out there, you know what its like."

"Yes." He said, flatly. "And you haven't." Hiram picked up his pace a touch. "Come, the sun will be down before long."

---

Hours earlier, Colm was standing outside a crooked wooden building near the center of Red Dust. He was smoking a cigarette. It was an unfortunate and illogical habit, he knew. In his home, they'd had hundred of medical textbooks. Whole chapters of which were sometimes dedicated to smoking and its negative effects on the lungs. He couldn't remember exactly how he'd started, only that it had been shortly after James had died of a fever. Shireen had made relentless fun of him for it, but now she was dead, too. He finished the cigarette and flicked into the sandy earth, stamping it out with his boot. He would have to quit before he returned home, he decided. Just not now.

At his feet, a little to his left, was a dead man. His name had been Morgan Malloy, and in his day he had killed many. Colm had not known the man well, outside of the information provided by the sheriff in River's Reach, but what he did know painted the picture of a man who did not hold human life with any regard. Still, Colm hadn't wanted to kill him. He had intended to bring him to Red Dust alive. It hadn't worked out like that. He'd caught Malloy at a shack with his partner, a few miles east of Red Dust. On his own, Malloy may have surrendered. But his partner drew a sawed-off shotgun, and Colm had gunned them both down. His partner had no bounty, and so Colm had buried the man out there by the shack. He'd shot that man in the head, but he hit Malloy in the stomach and chest and it had taken him a moment to die. His last words had been that he was afraid, and that he wanted a cigarette. Colm had obliged, putting one in Malloy's mouth and lighting it, only to realize that he'd died before he'd even gotten the cigarette out.

The whole thing had left a poor taste in Colm's mouth, and he was glad to be rid of the dead man. Red Dust had no sheriff, but for half of the bounty money there was a woman who would take the body to River's Reach for him. All the better, because he'd heard word of a job coming out of Red Dust. The woman who would transport the body stepped out from the doorway of the rickety building, which had once been a house but was now something almost like a post office.

"I'll take your dead one." The woman said, and spat on the ground. "Bounty checks out, they got the notice from River's Reach a few weeks back." The woman looked Colm up and down and raised an eyebrow. "Say, I don't see a horse. How'd you get the old boy into town?"

"Walked." Colm said, flatly. "Dragged him. I used rope, and sticks." He didn't elaborate further. The woman cleared her throat, put off by his awkward, clipped manner of speaking.

"Right." She said after a moment. She reached into a satchel and withdrew a handful of small, smooth gold nuggets. "Malloy's bounty was five-hundred Marks. This ought to be worth your two-fifty." He opened his hand and she dropped the gold into it. "We can weigh it, if you want." Colm shook his head. It was a good deal for both of them. Colm got gold, gold he could use anywhere he might end up. She would ride into River's Reach and come out with five-hundred Marks, paper money, in a region where there was enough infrastructure to make paper money useful. He didn't mind if he was shorted a little bit. Fifty miles west, the gold would be worth a different amount of a different currency and it wouldn't matter anymore.

Colm helped her lift the dead man onto the back of her horse and nodded goodbye as she rode the opposite direction he was headed. He started off toward the Saloon, figuring that was as good a place as any to find work.

---

Later, as Hiram and Abram were walking to Lou's Saloon, Alys Dunn was summoning every bit of strength she had to restrain herself from attacking another hunter in the saloon. She hadn't caught his name. He was a short, pug-faced man with stringy blonde hair. He was there when she'd gotten there some three hours ago. They'd been the second and third of the hunters to file into the saloon, respectively. Both of them had been beaten there by a tall, skinny, dour-looking one that had been silently nursing a beer in the corner the whole time. The short one had gotten drunk almost immediately. He'd pestered the piano player for an hour and a half to play the same song over and over again. Some cloying folk sing-a-long tune that he sang along to off key the whole time.

For the past half hour, he had been bothering the skinny one, who had simply nodded and said 'mm-hm' at him until he got bored and walked away. Now, he was talking to Alys.

"Pretty girl like you-" He slurred, interrupted by a hiccup. "Pretty girl like you shouldn't be hunting. Shouldn't have to carry no guns." Alys didn't look at him, clenching her fist under the bar. If they weren't in town, she'd have killed him an hour ago. She'd killed better men for worse reasons. "You ought to have someone to take care of you." She was trying to ignore him, but she couldn't help but let out a bitter, two-note laugh. "Something funny?"

"I'm just thinkin' about what'll happen to you if you keep talkin'." She said, chuckling. The man blinked at her, not understanding.

"I'm jus' sayin'." He said, and laid a hand on her shoulder. That was all she could take. In an instant, the man's arm was bent behind his back and his face was pressed into the bar. Alys held him there and drew one of her pistols, placing it against the back of the man's head.

"The way you talk, I'm thinkin' there might not be any brains in that skull o' yours." She said, and spat on the floor. "I could find out for you, real quick-like." She pulled the hammer back on the revolver, and the man whimpered when he heard the click. Before she could think about pulling the trigger, the skinny man in the corner spoke. She hadn't noticed him stand up and make his way over, but he had. She looked back at him and realized that the entire bar was now looking at her and the short man.

"He's drunk." The skinny man said. "Drunk and stupid."

"He's right!" The short man bleated, desperately. "I've had four glasses of whiskey and I- I don't even know how to read!" Tears were streaming down his face, which had turned almost completely red. "I didn't mean nothing, ma'am, I'm-" He interrupted his own sentence, yelping as Alys twisted his arm harder.

"You shut up." She growled, then turned to the skinny man. "And who the fuck do you think you are?" She had the thought that she should point her pistol at him instead of the short man, but thought better of it when she saw him tapping a finger on the grip of his own pistol in its holster.

"Colm." He said, without expression. "Who are you?"

"Never mind who I am." She said, glaring at him. "Why do you care what happens to this little freak?"

"Don't, really." Colm shrugged. "We're all here for the same reason. Work. Unsure anyone will get a job if one of us kills a man in town." She continued glaring at him, but Colm's expression didn't change. Finally, after a moment, she holstered her pistol. She held the short man against the bar for a beat before she released him. He stumbled away, and almost ran into Colm.

"Thank you! Thank you." He said. He tried to reach out and hug Colm but got an armful of air as the taller man stepped out of the way.

"You should go." Colm said. The man looked confused.

"But-"

"Sooner, the better." Colm said, and walked back to his corner. The man stared at him, dumbfounded, and then started to walk toward the door.

"Leave your iron." Alys called after him. The man paused for a moment then, without looking back, removed his pistol from its holster and set it on the floor. He hurried out of the saloon as soon as he could. Alys looked at Colm, unsure if she was impressed or annoyed. Colm didn't meet her gaze, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him. She scoffed, turned away, and decided it could be both.

---

As Hiram and Abram approached the saloon, a short, terrified-looking man hurried out of the doors and past them without a word. They turned to each other, shrugged, and stepped in the doors. There were nine people in the saloon, including the bartender. Eleven, if you counted Hiram and Abram. A few of them were locals, so Hiram fixed his attention on the five or so strangers. A month ago, he'd used mail and word of mouth to spread word of work in Red Dust. He'd left the details vague on purpose. The hunters and gunslingers in the saloon knew only that the job would take them far away and pay reasonably well, half up front and half upon completion of the mission. One or two of them might have gotten the idea that they would be looking for missing people.

The saloon was quiet except for the out-of-tune piano, played softly by the old man who'd been playing it for years now. The place was normally rowdier, and Hiram wondered if the relative quiet had something to do with the man who he'd seen leave in a hurry. He shrugged this off and slowly sat himself at an empty table. After a moment, once most of the patrons were looking at him, he raised his voice.

"If you're here for work, I'd ask that you join me here." He said, his voice surprisingly strong for a man of his age. Abram hovered over his shoulder for a moment before going to the bar and ordering drinks for the two of them. "We've much to discuss."

 

[Lucyfer]

“You’re a hunter, right?”

The woman sitting outside Holliday’s Saloon lifted her head to look at the blonde woman who approached her. The black hat she wore kept her gaze shadowed, but she did not lift her hat to adjust it for the comfort of the white-gloved lady.

She only offered a drawled, “Of some things,” to insinuate she wasn’t about to take up any old job.

The lady wrung her hands – and, the huntress noticed, a bit of paper – before shoving the paper towards her. She considered not even taking it, given the rude way it was offered. However, money was on her mind. Her most recent job hadn’t paid much. There were fewer and fewer jobs for what she usually preferred to hunt.

Vampires were a dying breed.

She unwrung the paper, and skimmed the bare details of a hunt in Red Dust that called for hunters far and wide. The pay indicated wasn’t bad, and apparently they were looking for a group – so they had funds extra to spare for one willing to bargain. However, it didn’t say what was being hunted. It didn’t flesh out the job other than traveling far out of Red Dust. Layla lifted her head again to the woman, who was waiting.

“What kind of nonsense is this?” she waved the paper, and the lady snatched it back.

“If you’re not willing—”

“The pamphlet tells me nothing,” she interrupted, and rose. She stood taller than the lady by a bit, and now, no doubt, she could see the way the black lines crossed her face, and were woven into the whites of her eyes, even beneath the shadow of her hat. “It doesn’t tell me what I’m hunting, or where I’m going, or what I’m doing, at all.”

The blonde woman looked down, “It’s to find people,” she murmured.

The huntress wasn’t even sure she heard her right, but she stayed silent a moment to let it register, rather than ask. Finding people.

Someone dear to this woman to be out this far. “Hiram is arranging it,” she found her voice, and looked back up. Fear stung the blonde woman’s gaze now, seeing the monstrosity in front of her. Still, she found her steel, “If you go to Red Dust on two week’s time, you can get all the details we have at Lou’s Saloon.”

“I specialize in one sort of hunt,” the huntress said, to try and pry more information out of the woman.

The woman pursed her lips in defiance of the tactic.

The huntress relented, “You’re lucky that type is known for kidnapping, so I’ll give it a listen.”

That was how Layla Settie, the vampire hunter, ended up in Red Dust upon the back of an irritated sleipnir – a mutated strand of horses that somehow survived and reproduced with eight legs, tusks now quite visible at the end of their muzzle, seeming rather like fangs, but the horses were still herbivores.

And still useful for carrying around those who traversed the Frontier and didn’t care to get any pure strains of beasts of burden.

Red dust puffed up around Layla’s booted legs as she dropped off the side of her pale sleipnir, touching his neck as she moved away, “Stay here, Reginald,” she murmured as his head was already sinking into the water trough.

The water was not as free for people, as Layla would learn when she found a corner to situate herself and watch the entertainment of another hunter ousting a drunken fool. Layla was a bit relieved it didn’t escalate further, and that it was interrupted abruptly by the ones who were apparently in charge of the bill.

Layla slid off her stool and went to the table where the old man was, “Layla Settie,” she offered her name to him, removing her black cowboy hat then, but didn’t sit immediately. She was watching for a reaction to the mutations, but she wouldn’t speak to it if there was one. Much of her was covered, hands wrapped in leather gloves, purple shirt sleeved, black jeans full length, so she’d done what she could to appear as human as possible until then. “I don’t want to waste your time, even if I like the amount being offered. I’m a specialist,” one look at the others told her they might not be, though she still gave another look.

The dark-haired and violent woman would be good in a fight, but she wondered how good against the supernatural. Would her reactions be swift enough?

The pale-eyed one who had interrupted the dark-haired woman seemed…off, in that way Layla had come to recognize as unexpectedly dangerous. Likely, the one who ran off, sensed it, too.

The others were a varied mesh of souls, although a brunette man had on a shirt with a high collar. Those sorts of things always made her paranoid, but she wouldn’t press that. It wasn’t her concern right then.

“I hunt the so-called Nobles of the Frontier, so if this job doesn’t deal with that, I’ll get on my way.”

“Nobles?” that brunette with the suspicious collar asked.

She shifted her weight to her opposite leg, but spelled it out, “Vampires. You know, the boogiemen who kidnap people and enslave entire cities to their bidding with a bite,” she wiggled her fingers in front of her face as a crude gesture of hypnotism.

Suspicious brunette’s eyes widened, “They’re still around?”

“Barely enough to make a living on,” Layla admitted with a bit of a wry grin.

 

[Nevix]

Alys and Colm both found their way to Hiram's table with the others. Both remained quiet while the one named Layla Settie introduced herself. When the topic turned to vampires, though, Alys's demeanor shifted. Her look of bored disinterest was replaced with an eager grin.

"Oh, they're around, alright." Alys said with a chuckle. "I've personally sent three of the bastards to hell, myself." Alys looked at Layla, and was suddenly self-conscious. She'd actually never met anyone else with her interest in hunting vampires, and had no idea if three was a high number or not. "And that's three for lack of bloodsuckers, not for lack of tryin'." She looked around the table, taking stock of the other hunters. She instinctively did not like any of them, but she liked the brown-haired one with the silly shirt least of all. Something about him seemed almost worm-like. She figured he'd lose his nerve and run off as soon as they left town. "I'm Alys. Alys Dunn. I kill things need killin'."

Colm, for his part, hadn't taken much notice of the brown-haired hunter. His attention was focused on Layla. It was hot inside the saloon, oppressively hot. It was even warmer outside. Maybe it was because he, himself was wearing long sleeves to conceal that tattoos that covered his arms and torso and marked him as an Archivist, but he couldn't help but wonder why she was so bundled up in this heat. He shook himself away from his thoughts and introduced himself.

"I am Colm." He said, flatly. "Just Colm. Hunted for some time. Never ran into a noble." He shrugged. "A job is a job. We will bring garlic, and stakes."

"Wait a moment, all of you." Hiram said, eyeing everyone at the table. Just then, Abram returned with two beers and handed one to Hiram before sitting down himself. Hiram took a long pull from the glass before he continued. "You are not being hired to hunt vampires. You're being hired to find people." He sighed. "Last year, we had a drought. A bad one. We didn't have enough water for all of us to drink, and we didn't have enough for the crops." He looked down at the table. "There'd been a rumor kicking around for a while. Elysium. A moving city where no one lived in fear and no one wanted for anything. Things were dire, here. Bleaker than they'd been in recent memory. About twenty of us left to go find Elysium. That made it possible to ration our water and raise our crops. The people that left were supposed to come back in six months if they couldn't find anything, and send word back if they did find Elysium." He paused, his hand shaking as he took another long drink from his glass. He set it back down on the table, hard. "The six-month mark was three months ago, now. We haven't heard anything." He looked around at the hunters. "Originally, we were going to mount a search party ourselves. But then we heard another rumor. Supposedly, the one behind Elysium is a Noble. We don't know if that's true, but since there's a chance, we figured we ought to hire hunters." Hiram drained his beer and then stood up, pacing as he spoke. "If you choose to take the job, you'll receive half of your pay up front and half upon your return. I want you to try and find our people. If you find survivors, bring them back if they'll come or proof-of-life if they want to stay. If you find them dead, bring back remains. You'll still be paid if you come back empty-handed, but there's more money for you if you come back with something." Hiram's voice broke as he finished, and he had to take a moment to collect himself. "I apologize, but this is very personal to me. My-" He stopped again, sighed, and continued. "My daughter and her son were among those who left. I tried to keep them here, but they left in the night. If you could find her, or her boy, well I'd probably give you the whole damn town." He looked specifically at Layla and Alys as he said the next part. "If they're dead, well then I want the bloodsucker that killed them dead, too. Does everyone find this agreeable?"

"I will do it." Colm said, almost immediately. He didn't have to think very hard about it. The story spoke to him. He, himself, had been forced to leave home to save resources. All too often, he wished that someone from the compound would come looking for him. Alys seemed less sure. She frowned as Colm spoke, and then looked at Hiram.

"Well, Hell." She said. "Do we know where they were headed? Where they were last seen?" She spit on the ground. "And what the hell do we know about Elysium? Just that it moves and there might be a vampire there?"

"Our people went west. They were last seen about twenty-five miles from here, a trader passed them as he was coming to town." Hiram said. "I wish I could tell you more about Elysium, but we don't know much at all. We're not even completely sure it exists." He was still standing, and now he leaned against the back of his chair. "I think it's out there, though. We were hearing a rumor about it every time someone passed through town, there, for a while. Besides, we're not the only place with missing people. All across this piece of country, there are people who left their homes to find Elysium. None of them ever come back. If it didn't exist, you'd figure at least a few people might show back up empty-handed, right?" He shook his head. "The wastes are dangerous, but they don't have a 100% mortality rate. If I thought our people had just starved or gotten lost or ran into bandits, I wouldn't be bothering with hunters."

"Well, then." Alys said. "I guess I could do it. But I'm not going alone with this freak." She said, gesturing toward Colm. If he was offended, he didn't show it. "Someone else please tell me they're along for the ride."

 

[Lucyfer]

Three was probably impressive for a normal human, with a normal human lifespan. Even so, Layla arched a brow when Alys’s gaze met hers, seeming to search a moment, seeming insecure. Layla did nothing to abate that anxiety, offered no acknowledgment that it was probably a good number, only let her attention return to the ones who mattered – Hiram and Abram.

He offered the magic word: Noble.

‘Elysium.’

Layla knew nothing about this mysterious city, which struck her as funny. A moving city was news. Cities didn’t move anymore. There were relics of cities that used to move, now crashed forever into the ground. It was hard to believe, even for Layla, that cities could move, and stop, controlled by mechanisms only the Nobility understood. ‘One is definitely involved.’ And moving about, spreading stories of a paradise, to trap people.

Layla could feel her blood boil at the thought of more innocents to the slaughter.

Colm signed up without hesitation.

Alys hesitated.

The brunette spoke up, “I’ll come along! I—I’ve never tangled with a Noble,” he confessed, “but if we have two experts, I can sure follow instructions and help not be a hindrance,” he said it as a bit of a joke, but it was evident his nerves were high – as was his excitement. There was a queer, eager gleam in his eyes, “Oh, uh, my name’s Percy Allegros,” he offered.

Layla barely acknowledged him, except to notice when he stopped speaking, “I’ll go. A Noble’s the only sort who could operate a moving city. If Elysium’s real and moving, you can bet one of those bastards is there,” that didn’t bode well for their loved ones. She wouldn’t say that, “If revenge is needed for you, I’ll take it, and I’ll bring proof.”

“How many have you killed?” Percy suddenly jumped to ask, “you seem so sure. Alys has taken on three—”

“I haven’t bothered to count,” she could, if she wanted to stop and think about it. She knew their names, she knew their faces, but she didn’t keep a running total in her head like Alys. It was her main job, after all.

Percy frowned, apparently not at all liking that answer. “We can discuss strategy if it comes to that,” and she looked at Alys with that, since she was the only other offering up that she’d killed any. She was certainly curious how Alys went about it. Colm seemed to understand a couple of things, at least, but Alys had done the work. “Anyone else?” perhaps it wasn’t her place to ask, but she wanted to get moving.

West.

It was a piss poor clue, but others would certainly know more once they started in that direction. Even if it was nine months ago.