#built-in water filtration

[emergencyplumbingil]

Smart Sinks and Faucets : What Are They, and Why Do You Need One?

A Happy Customer’s Smart Kitchen Transformation One of our customers in Highland Park recently decided to upgrade their kitchen with a state-of-the-art smart faucet . They wanted a solution that combined modern convenience with eco-friendly features. After reaching out to Emergency Plumbing, they scheduled a quick appointment with one of our licensed plumbers, who immediately got to work. The installation process was seamless. Our professional plumber took the time to answer all the customer’s questions, explaining how the smart sink would reduce water waste and make everyday tasks more convenient.

Why Choose a Smart Faucet?

Smart faucets and sinks are designed to offer both style and practicality. Here’s what makes them a game-changer:

Enhanced Functionality: Touchless controls, built-in water filtration, and temperature sensors make everyday tasks easier and more hygienic.

Eco-Friendly Features: Save water and reduce waste with advanced flow controls.

Modern Aesthetic :A sleek design upgrades the overall look of your kitchen.

Whether you live in Highland Park, Deerfield, Northbrook, or other Northwest suburbs, our team of local licensed plumbers can help you choose and install the perfect smart sink for your needs.

What Makes Emergency Plumbing the Best Choice?

At Emergency Plumbing, we’re proud to serve customers across the North Shore and Northwest suburbs with top-quality service.

Transform Your Kitchen Today.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a 'replacement era' where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan--but isn't being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can't afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration--and with this being portrayed in media as a "moral failing" and short-sighted "choice," rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i'm just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here's praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023

[limnologylover]

look gotham probably has lead pipes, iykyk

[aito-mation]

got too scared abt surveillance n forgot im disabled n have to overshare to experience a fraction of human connection,, everything is pissingggg me AUF lately like its partly this hot ass weather but its also other stuff. organizing my flash drives, n going thru my old family photos like huh y was i in charge of this when i was 12, w like a huge emotional storm in my peripheral vision, not quite here yet but we should b preparing for cover yknow

[aquanutech]

For the best hot water dispenser faucet and instant hot faucet only, visit AquaNu Tech.

[thesiltverses]

(Follow-up question): what’s the safest a human can reasonably be in the TSV reality then? The equivalent of modern-day ultra-wealthy doomsday preppers hiding out in their underground titanium bunkers with radiation-proof vault doors, self-sufficient water filtration systems, enough shelf-stable canned food to last 10 lifetimes, solar-powered hydroponic gardens, downloaded-and-backed-up Internet, and a genetically diverse pet population for happiness purposes?

I imagine a hyperfixated TSV doomsday prepper might accidentally worship the idea of independent survival so hard that the bunkers ascend & eat the human inhabitants bc the humans are volatile variables that threaten the bunker’s systemic stability?

What is the most reasonably safe way a powerful but normal human in TSV can plan out the rest of their natural lifespan?

Something that occurred to me last week while working on the book is that inhabitants of the setting are likely given to lots of little bits of extra social etiquette like 1) glancing at people and things more often out of the corner of their eyes, 2) refusing gifts as a matter of courtesy but also self-preservation, 3) considering it bad luck to whistle or hum at random, 4) the polite thing being to enter through a door ahead of someone else, rather than holding the door open for them. All of which I guess would be everyday measures to ensure that you don't accidentally call a god down upon yourself or become the victim of a sacrificial prayer-mark.

But yeah, I 100% imagine that the landscape is littered with bunkers built by preppers who then found themselves trapped in there and fighting for their lives, having called down some horrible god of isolation (or tinned food!)

[mollysunder]

You know as funny as it was to see Ekko give Jayce a hard time about the hexgates's failsafe being built into Zaun, it was a bit jarring for Heimerdinger to be there and Ekko not say anything to him. Yes, Jayce built the hexgates, but Heimerdinger made it clear that he would oversee and advise on all developments. This design was approved by him, and Ekko has nothing to say?

I can see an argument be made that Ekko's more critical of Jayce because Jayce is still on the Council, but Heimerdinger was still there for the construction. Jayce is also leaving the council, he hasn't been to any of the recent war council meetings, he's practically in the same position politically as Heimerdinger. Yet Ekko's ire is reserved for Jayce.

Slightly unrelated, but the reveal also implies that Viktor knew about this as well, and was a part of it. Maybe any concerns Viktor voiced carried little weight because he was a Zaunite, but that implies Heimerdinger didn't take zviktor seriously. And that also means Viktor didn't warn any communities in Zaun that might be affected, since the failsafe connected to air and water filtration.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Hi Derin! Sorry if this has been asked before, but I'm amazed by the vast array of cultures and gender norms in TTO:U. How did you come up with all of it?

I just thought "hey wouldn't it be funny if there was a little guy" and then made them, and thought "hey what norms would exist in a culture under these conditions" and then made those.

In all seriousness, most of my worldbuilding comes down to tearing down assumptions. Brennans exist because I fucking hate gender and I'm sick of seeing the gender binary or "gender binary Plus Nonbinary Extra People (who still live in a world that assumes a gender binary)" as some immutable natural law that all societies will forever cling to, and I wanted to make a society that was harder for readers to inevitably sort into a binary as they always, always fucking do. (Partial success; I have seen some absolutely rancid takes on the TTOU gender ternary that make me want to break my computer.) The array of different cultural family structures exist because those are different ways that societies can be built on smaller units. The Arboreae and the two space elevators and the Khemin exist because that is a potential response to a critical climate crisis.

On top of that, most of my ideas are stolen. I once read a short story about people who lived under the ocean on an alien planet and spent most of their time just cruising around the ocean in big bubble-like biological submersibles and that was their job, because their submersibles cleaned the water by feeding on things in it; they were employed to be part of the ecosystem. The Khemin, wandering about the ocean as both environmental monitors and trash-gatherers, were inspired by this; from there, I just thought on what sort of family structure and traditions such a group would develop for a stable society. When I was a teeny tiny child I saw a guy on Ripley's Believe It Or Not who was trying to build a self-sustaining floating island to sail around the world on. Absolute disaster of a plan, man knew shit about ecology or farming, but a bit later on I got really into swamps for awhile and started thinking of using plant roots as water filtration systems and, with an eventual biotechnology degree, multiple years hyperfixating on ecology and evolution, and touch of Magic Future Genetic Engineering, that eventually became the Arboreae. The social structure of Hylara is somewhat inspired by CJ Cherryh's azi, particularly the way that Florian and Catlan are raised in Cyteen. The Hylarans are very much not azi (the azi being slaves brainwashed from birth via hypnosis) but the way they are raised fed into building a society batch-raised by robots and each other with no natural family unit. You can just steal concepts from the real world or from scifi and build them into your own thing it's fine.

Anthropologically speaking, the golden feature of any social structure or cultural practice is *stability*. This is the one feature upon which everything is judged. Just or unjust, productive or unproductive, authoritarian or free, structured or unstructured, when developing a society your key thing to worry about is "is this stable? Would a society survive for multiple generations on this norm?" and if your Weird Idea isn't stable, either ditch it or -- far more interesting -- adjust it and your parameters until it is. Different norms will be stable in different environments and built on different histories -- Khemin and Hylaran norms are not interchangeable because of the environments, tech, political climate and reproductive methods the two cultures have. But if it's stable, you can throw in whatever weird shit you want.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Today, we have a bunker for sale. It's not as interesting as a decommissioned missile tower. "Originally constructed in the 1960s at a cost of $4.5 million, an equivalent value today exceeding $34 million, this bunker represents the pinnacle of security and resilience." Located in Polo, Missouri, 35 min. from Kansas City, it has 4bds, 2ba, $2M.

The entrance hall has an industrial look, but they tired to make the home look elegant.

It has 2 massive 3,000 pound blast doors, 2.5-foot-thick concrete walls, additional layers of earth & EMP-resistant copper shielding, plus an emergency escape hatch and a towering 177-ft communication tower.

it's roomy- look at the size of the living room. One must wonder why people decorate these with traditional furniture. It needs colorful, modern stuff.

There's a bar for entertaining.

One of the bathrooms.

This is a soundproof room- it's not as if there are any neighbors around, though.

They have a home office here.

Laundry and stuff. The self-sufficient home has a private water well, a pump, and a 10,000-gallon stainless steel water storage tank, all connected to a Water Filtration System.

And, here's your new hobby- it's a glass blowing studio. I wonder if the owner would teach the new owner how to use it.

Looks like a massive air system.

Above the workshop is a large loft area.

There's a family room- notice the windows above, they are for some of the bedrooms. There's also supposed to be a home theater room, but it's not shown.

On the 2nd fl. is the 2nd bath. Not liking the hole in the wall behind the toilet.

This is the kitchen.

This is an odd place to locate the kitchen w/all this other equipment.

Through the kitchen you can see the upstairs living room.

You can see that the kitchen is on the other side.

The bedrooms are off a hall off of the living room.

The bedrooms.

This area serves as a closet.

The plot of land is 10.5 acres and the real estate description suggests that you can built your dream home on it, over the bunker.

[oh-nostalgiaa]

thank you to @therebelcaptainnetwork for hosting secret santa again, which is the most wonderful time of the year (and the only time i muster enough energy to write, wah)!

my gift is for the lovely @toooldforthisbutstill, who asked for fluff, snow day/rest day, green/earth tones, or hope. i'm sorry i couldn't manage historical or fantasy, but i hope this small slice of life pleases nonetheless.

you can also find this fic at ao3! without further ado, here is:

you're gonna lead me home

The thing about peacetime is this:

There is no manual. There isn’t a set of instructions to follow in order to live in it to the best of one’s ability - especially if one (or two, in this case) are far more used to (and suited for, all things considered) doing whatever it takes to survive wartime.

You are simply taken from everything you’ve ever known and thrust into an entirely new situation with no guidelines and you are told ‘hey, good luck’.

While Cassian concedes that it’s not entirely true that he and Jyn had been airdropped into the unknown since they had been offered an apartment in glittering Coruscant and declined, but it still feels overwhelming at the best of times. This small, nondescript home on a small, temperate, mid-rim world is theirs to do with as they please.

At first, what they do is take stock of their new surroundings, taking careful note of what needs repairs or upgrades, what they can realistically immediately renovate and what may need to wait. More importantly, they examine every inch of their home and the land that surrounds it and they make intricate plans for how to keep themselves and this place safe.

You can take the soldiers out of the war, after all, but the war never really seems to end.

Cassian used to like to pride himself on how quickly he’s been able to adapt to any number of situations during his years as a spymaster, but another thing he’s learning is that the skills he’s gained from years of doing the hardest work imaginable don’t always translate to his new life.

And learning on the fly isn’t always quite so easy when there’s not the threat of death hanging over his head if he fails. Still, sometimes he thinks that death might be slightly easier to bear than disappointing Jyn.

Okay, so that’s a little dramatic, but not entirely inaccurate.

They have both spent most of their lives never staying anywhere long enough to put down roots. The relationships they have built have been superficial at best, because no matter how much it’s hurt to do it, they knew that disappearing was always what they were best at and what was necessary in order to survive another day. They have kept to the shadows and engaged in distasteful things they’d rather forget because there simply wasn’t any other option at the time. They looked over their shoulders constantly, because they never knew when a blade might be plunged into their back, metaphorically and literally speaking.

And that mindset is perhaps the hardest thing to rid themselves of.

Some days are easier than others. With no strict timetable to follow, new routines must be created, otherwise they both bristle at having so much free time and nothing to fill it.

Cassian finds that he’s rather adept at some of the repairs that need doing - the leak in the water filtration system comes to mind - and what he can’t figure out on his own, the holonet helps him learn. The same with cooking, actually. As it’s turned out, for as capable and dangerous as she can be in other areas, Jyn Erso is a complete disaster behind the stove and doesn’t quite possess the patience to want to learn to be otherwise. So Cassian has shooed her out of the cramped kitchen and taken over the cooking duties. He’s surprised by the natural affinity he seems to have for it and sometimes (when he’s feeling maudlin) wonders if in another life, that’s a path he would have gone down.

Some days, life doesn’t feel quite so difficult to navigate. Some days, he’s almost convinced that they’ll manage just fine.

And then there are the bad days.

There are days when one or the other or both of them revert to a state of readiness (and paranoia) that something’s going to happen if they are not hyperaware of every single thing in their immediate vicinity, every tiny noise more than enough to ramp emotions to the point of no return. And stars help them when they cross that point, because the blowup is not pretty. Neither is the aftermath.

If they’re lucky, the result is simply snapping at each other and then pointedly avoiding the other until their tempers settle. They would never put hands on each other, but when snapping turns to worse - well, they can wound each other terribly using just their words.

Icy little shards of insults that hit their target with startling accuracy every single time.

What’s worse is that neither are accustomed to apologizing, despite knowing when they’re in the wrong or when they’ve taken one step too far.

Sometimes, Cassian chooses to focus on repairs to keep himself busy, and if he feels like a particular argument requires more of a distance between he and Jyn, leaves a message letting her know he’s heading into town for supplies. Despite any simmering bad blood between them, he’s perceptive enough to know that not leaving that note would only just make everything all the worse. The sense of abandonment still runs deep in her veins, even though he has promised over and over again that he is with her come what may.

He leaves her to get her aggression out in her garden, or chopping wood, the type of hard physical labor that results in a good, deep sleep once the day is over with.

Repairs get done quicker than anticipated when there are a spate of bad days in a row, and soon, the barebones skeleton of their new home starts to come together in earnest. He only hopes that in time, they’ll both learn how to enjoy it without the fear of everything falling apart hanging over their heads, and that they’ll be able to build the life together that neither believes they truly deserve, deep down.

Sometimes, when the blood runs hot, not bad, they find themselves taking their frustrations out on each other physically - not sparring, although that is an option, but in a much more intimate and pleasurable way. All they need is the closest room or free surface and eventually, verbal jabs turn into gasps and moans, and when all is said and done, they may be disheveled and sweaty and breathless, but any annoyance felt toward each other has disappeared, replaced by satisfaction.

Things are still awkward afterward, as they are wont to be when a real apology hasn’t come, but Cassian’s learned that he and Jyn still find ways to offer one without words.

He’s learned to read her body language like a book and knows when she’s got a headache. He doesn’t say anything, but gently sets a steaming cup of tea down in front of her that he’s sure will alleviate her symptoms enough to allow her to participate in her usual activities. Thanks, holonet.

And Jyn's observation skills are unmatched. Even if Cassian never complains out loud, he will sometimes find exactly what he needs waiting for him, and he knows there’s only one person that could have done it. He tears his favorite pair of gloves, and later finds them stuffed in the pocket of a jacket, carefully darned back together and stronger than ever.

A tool needs replacing or a knife needs sharpening? He’ll find them exactly where he’s left them last, brand new and glittering or looking sharp enough as though it’s never been used countless times before.

I’m sorry may not come very naturally to them, but by stars, they are doing their best. As far as he’s concerned, that’s got to count for something.

Sometimes, on particularly clear nights, an apology can look like curling up together on the soft grassy hillside to silently stare up at the sky together, letting the peace and stillness wash over them as they watch shooting stars overhead. Those times, nothing needs to be said. It’s enough that Jyn’s resting her head over Cassian’s heart, letting the steady beating of his heart lull her into relaxation. It’s enough to be able to press a gentle kiss to the top of her head and be assured that even if he can’t see it, she’s smiling.

Sometimes, it’s enough to know that through it all, the good days and bad days, the lessons they’re still learning about how to live, the love always remains.

The rest will come in time.

[watcheraurora]

supernatural frat is INTRIGUING me,,,

XD Okay. So.

Supernatural Frat is exactly what it sounds like XD (My temporary titles are often kinda basic descriptions of what the fic is about)

So I have Grian, Scar, Impulse, Skizz, Etho, Joel, Jimmy, and Tango all living together in a fraternity, going to college/university. But all of them are some sort of supernatural creature. This is a contemporary fantasy fic where there are supernatural creatures hiding among human society, and this fic is no exception. But the humans in the area know supernatural creatures exist and know that this university is kind of a hotspot for them to go to school, but all supernatural creatures at this university tend to live in private, exclusive fraternities or sororities for the safety of the supernatural world.

I won't tell you what everyone is, but Jimmy is a merman who is largely unimpressed with life on land. Although he's very much attracted to his goofy, blond roommate

Anyway, the TIES crew are a punk band who all lived at the same frat last year, while the Bad Boys + Scar are the newcomers to this frat, and are greeted their first morning after moving in by the punk band playing music

And thus starts off a university school year to remember!

-

Here's a lil snippet!

"You know. That pond outside our windows isn't actually a pond," Tango remarked. "What?" Jimmy peered out the window. "What is it, then?" "One of the guys who lived here before I did was a... crap, what was the term again?" Tango's brows scrunched. "They have seal coats..." "A selkie?" Jimmy asked. Tango snapped his fingers. "That's the one! Yeah. One of the guys was a selkie. The frat chapter had one of those natural pools built in for him. It's technically a pool, but the filtration is all natural. Vegetation and stuff. That's probably why you and your guys were selected. Reasonable accommodations for your true nature." Jimmy stared at the pond. "Oh," he said. "The window should be wide enough for you to slip out right onto those rocks next to the house," Tango said with a wink. "You can sneak out and swim whenever you want." "And I won't get sick from stagnant water?" "Shouldn't. But what do I know? I avoid swimming if I can help it."

[lbulldesigns]

Zaun (AITAH Arcane AU Mood board)

The City of Iron and Glass, and revitalisation

Seventy years ago, Zaun, still going by the moniker of the Undercity, was in a constant state of desperation.

The mining colony turned city, was no stranger to hardships. From unsafe mining conditions to unsafe working conditions within the factories jammed packed within the city, to unsafe living conditions due to poor maintenance to residental structure and over pollution brought on my the factories and the toxic gases from the deep mines being compressed within the underground city.

All of this was due to the conscious negligence of Piltover. Whose one and only concern was image and wealth. To them Zaun was an eyesore but they refused to acknowledge that this was due to them.

They preferred the image of being righteous and a city of academics and kept their well-shoed foot to Zaun's throat by unleashing their Enforcers upon them who dealt their "justice" in brutal fashion.

This continuous abuse and oppression had to come to an abrupt end, however.

In 1954 Piltover and its Enforcers had stepped on Zaun and Janna's (Goddess of the Wind) final nerve.

When during an arrest of a factory worker voicing his outrage for being unfairly fired, an officer took liberation to bludgeon a 12-year-old girl who had stepped in to beg her father's release before shooting dead the distraught father.

In this moment something snapped within the people witnessing the scene and every Zaun citizen present attacked the Enforcers without conern for their own lives. This attack would go on to inspire more within the city to take up arms and riots broke out everywhere, with the intention to put as many Enforcers down.

Janna tried to protect as many innocent lives caught in the crossfire as she could, but the death toll was climbing with her people dying in droves.

When Piltover took to trying to blow the bridges and starve the residents in Zaun, Janna had reached her limit and decided something more drastic had to be done.

For a month, the Goddess of Wisdom and Harmony became an unyielding and unrelenting, furious storm.

She took the fight straight to Piltover and wrecked havoc upon the city. Gleaming, unblemished structures that reached to the sky came crumbling down as if they were sandcastles within the oceans reach.

She dispersed her followers to ransack the city of the progress of food, clean water, and medicine. And kept the Enforcers secluded to Zaun, without backup and provisions and many beaten Zaunites looking for their own pound of flesh.

After a month of nonstop terror from the Goddess and many injured and homeless within Piltover, its Council flew up a white flag and begged for an audience.

Upon the Bridge of Progress, Janna stood mighty, if not unproud of her destruction, and yet resolute in her decision. She was done watching the mindless cruelty and violence to her people and would be ruling over them from then on.

An accord was struck that day.

Zaun would be its own nation from then on, and Piltover would pay compensation to the people for their negligence, in the form of money, technology, healthcare, and education.

An accord, that Piltover had no other choice but to agree to.

And this is how we come to Zaun today, under Janna's rule.

A city crushed by oppression and poverty, now turned metropolis of renewed vigor and spirit.

Zaun has transformed within the past seventy years into a technological paradise, built of off science and magic.

Its once toxic air has been dissipated by the trees that now grow within and upon every building, sustained by the HexTech-empowered artificial sun bolted to the cavern ceiling, and scheduled rainy days using the sprinkler system stretched out throughout the city. Water filtration has drastically improved drinkable water, and botany has become an essential subject in every school.

Zaun is now the cultural hotspot in Runeterra, with many coming from all over the world to visit or call Zaun its home.

You'll now find many cultures thriving within the city, as well as old structures standing proud against the tides of time.

One such building is a bar/pub called The Last Drop.

Religions of all caliber operate in Zaun, but none hold a candle to the temples of the Wind Goddess.

Mages with elemental talent, are often in high demand as they assist in the evironmental stability of the city.

And although Enforcers do still operate within the city, their presence holds neither respect nor true authority. Many Zaunites will opt to seek the services of private security firms, such as The Eye Of Zaun or the newly formed Firelights flying through the city on their chem tech-powered hoverboards; invented by 15-year-old Ekko Bennet in 2015, making him one of Zaun's first adolescent millionaires.

However, Enforcers have been reported to tiptoe on the boundaries of the two cities accordance.

With reports of Zaun civilians being killed just on the outskirts of the city, and more than a few being assaulted and/or killed within back alleys of Zaun. It is not difficult to discern what is happening.

The Enforcers are either trying to return to their old ways, or someone is looking to profit of off a potential war.

Either way, Zaun will be ready for what comes at it.

It vows to not wait for their gentle Goddess to bloody her hands again for them, they are the warriors who built this town.

[radiofreesanjak]

People often ask us about what good they can do for Sanjak. They send blockade runners, and for this we are thankful. We eat in part on your generosity, but more often the utility of the aid is in the medicine, the ability to produce housing and omnihooks, our water filtration, and the laughs of our children.

All of this is help, but running the blockade is a hard task that not all are suited to, so here is another way I speak of less:

Bring the New Era to you. Utopia is a great beast bearing gifts, who may have brought great prosperity to some, but to those who struggle in its wake I tell you that a New Era is possible and it is something you can make. Organize with your peers. Make holes in the walls of the structures built to harm you. Yell your anger at the world as it is, and tell your fellows that we do not need to concede to the state of this unkind world.

The greatest kindness you can do to me is to see the world made better. Put faith in your comrades, as we have, and fight for a better world.

[fatkish]

This is my Boku No Hero Academia O.C. in her hero costume. In case you can’t read my handwritten notes I’ll write them below.

Hero name: the observer from the shadows hero Voror

Birthday: April 26

Height: “5’ 2”

Quirk: Angelic Wraith

Her helmet has a screen that can display information, record videos and sounds, act as a communication device and has a built in computer. The helmet protects her face and head from damage as well as cold temperatures. It also has a gas mask/air filtration system.

Her body suit is made of steel infused, fire/water proof and bullet/tear resistant fabric. The suit is designed to keep heat in and cool out to protect her from cold air while flying. This is also why the suit is non conductive to allow her to fly even during lightning strikes so she isn’t shocked.

She wears tactical gloves with reinforced knuckles. She has a cargo sword holster. Each pocket contains first aid supplies such as disinfectant/iodine, medication such as antacids, motion sickness pills, cough drops, headache/painkillers, gauze, sutures, bandages, etc. she also wears tactical knee and shin guards. The side pockets contain survival tools such as flares, fire starters, etc.

Lastly her boots are steel toed and heeled. The soles are made of military grade shock absorbing rubber.

(I drew this myself)

If anyone needs help designing or drawing their own OC please feel free to leave a request

[duffyyy911]

𝙰 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔: 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 3 - 𝙼𝚞𝚛𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚝

Summary: Instead of sleeping like a normal person, the detective decides to go to the Sump and then hang out with a homeless man. Content Warnings: Physical violence. Mentions of alcohol. Mentions of smoking. If he existed in League, I'd blame Ronald Reagan. Word Count: 7.6k Author's Notes: Finally at chapter 3. I know this is a reader x Lest fic, so sorry we had to do without for today and it almost killed me. Here's your plot contrivance chapter lmfao. Proofread by: @madschiavelique @6selkie

Masterlist: Here

Even if it weren’t the middle of the night on the surface, the lowest levels of the Sump would still be shrouded in pitch blackness. No amount of sunlight could reach this far down, past the levels of Zaun and its crumbling infrastructure all the way to the bottom levels that collected Zaun’s runoff. What was once another district, far gone and far forgotten, had been reduced to the shattered ruins of bygone prosperity. Just a chasm of collapsed buildings that toppled down the face of the fissure and interweaving between each other, arching over your head like predatory teeth. You could barely see more than ten feet in front of you, even with the bright mining lamp you had picked up in the boundary markets before you made the descent. Heaps of cans, bags of trash, glass dust, faded shells of tools and machinery crumpled under your boots as you scaled through the mass. 

You felt like you were wading through a river of lost time and ill begotten memories. Like the remnants of an entire century lay in dormant sleep under your feet. The dripping echoes of running water bounced around the walls of the fissure, trickling down and pooling between the masses of junk. Sometimes on the higher levels of the fissures, the rain pouring from the topside would find its way down and trickle through cracks in the roofs of homes or spill in and pool up in the markets. But down here, the rain never made it. The sound of running water was a collection of runoff and liquids trapped beneath the surface, never having the sunlight to evaporate. Nothing lived down here, not even the rats.

Along with your hand lamp, you had scored a shoddy filtration mask. It was bulky, its filtration ports were unnaturally heavy around your mouth and the strain in your neck from keeping your head upright was starting to wear on you. The thin visor that ran up from the mouthpiece and over your face fogged up in the hot condensation of the deep. You hated wearing the thing, but you weren’t about to get any number of the diseases or poisoning one could find by breathing in the Gray down here. You wiped away the droplets of condensation from the mask, your filthy fingers smearing wet grime against the flexible plastic. 

You scanned your lamp around to what was in front of you, but all you could see was more heaps of junk and shells of collapsed buildings. You inched forward, your light shining against the knob of a door still in its frame. From what you could see, it was an entire segment of a wall that had fallen down the chasm and tore itself from its structure, wedging itself between rock. You gripped the knob and gave it a twist, pushing against the doors mangled hinges until it gave way and opened up. You almost fell right through and tumbled into another pile of refuse, but you caught yourself by hanging onto the knob. You looked up, finding yourself before a wider opening in the depths where the faint light of the upper slums shone down into the dark and illuminated the area like an imitation of moonlight. 

You could see the outline of the factory Aquil had told you about. An industrial behemoth of a structure built tall against the rock, like it had always been there and had just been waiting for you. From what you could visualize in the dim light, it looked as if a rockslide broke free of the fissure and caved in on part of the tall squarish structure, crushing brick and stone and collapsing the back half of the building. You felt another crunch beneath your foot, and you looked down to see the shards of glass and filament of a lightbulb beneath the tread of your boot. This had to be the factory where the meeting was going to take place, there were no other options. It felt like the complex was the only thing left standing at the bottom, like it was trapped in time.

You trod past the crumple remnants of a chain link fence surrounding the building, taking careful steps not to skewer your foot on mangled wire. You approached the heavy doors of the entrance to the structure, taking a moment to look up at the partially standing smoke stacks towering above your head from over the roof. This was the place. It was almost midnight, five minutes if your watch was correct when you checked it. You wanted to light a cigarette while you waited, you were desperate for a smoke. But there was no way you were taking this mask off. Not for a million dollars.

“Psst.” You hear a faint muffled voice echo out from the dark around you, like the hiss of a piston. You spun about, flaring your lamp’s light wildly from the fright.

“Come out.” You commanded with a robotic voice, the filters of your mask crackling as your breath passed through. You flashed the lamp light at a pyramid of huge iron spools standing in a stack far to your right. The light illuminated strands of dirty blond hair and reflected off the glass of another mask. Someone was hiding behind the crates, and doing a very poor job at that. “Don’t make me walk to you.” You warned again.

The familiar thin frame and blue jumpsuited body of Aquil slowly rose up from his hiding spot. You couldn’t see his face from behind his banged up gas mask, but you took the notion that he looked just as much of a little rat man as he did when you interrogated him. He slowly raised his hands up, taking careful steps as he approached you. “Don’t shoot, man.” He asked in a hushed tone. “I got the machine, it’s inside. You’re early, man.”

“It’s none of your concern how early I am.” You aimed the light to the ground and away from his face. “And why’d you put it inside already? Are you setting me up?” You took a stride towards him, grabbing your dusty hands around the lip of his collar.

“No, no, man! It’s like heavy and shit, man. I couldn’t just keep holding it out here,” Aquil begged, cowering as he wormed in your grip. “No tricks, I swear man!”

“How is this going down then?” You let him go slowly, almost dropping him to the ground as you did. “Are they expecting just you? Or should I just follow you in.” You looked to the front set of doors to the factory, still and motionless in the ages it has spent down here.

“No, man, they’re expecting just me. They see you, and they won’t even show up.” Aquil rubbed his hands together a bit, very rodent-like as you had made note of before. “There’s old vents in this place, man. Like some kind of hvac that’s been gutted or something. It’s real wide in there, you could just crawl in.”

“Yeah, so I can trip the wire to a grenade trap, right?”

“Where the hell would I even get a grenade, man!” Aquil stammered. He was telling the truth from what you could tell. You must have really scared him enough to pull this off, because the little rat looked like he was about to piss himself. You let out a slow sigh, looking back to the rusted doors.

“Fine. Just do the trade. And remember, I’ll be watching you.”

You walked through the empty and dark halls of the factory, its insides barren and gutted from decades of scavs passing through. You glide your fingers across the rough surface of the degraded walls, the stone and concrete slowly breaking down after decades of ruination. Nothing remained besides the machinery too heavy to lift and anything that was too useless to steal. Sopping wet sheets of paper sprawled across the teal tile flooring, the remnants of ransacked offices and disregarded ledgers. The first doorway you found in the long, dark hall was left open, its door taken off and away some time ago. You walked into a bare square room, shining your light around the darkened place carefully. 

The entire room was gutted like the rest of the factory, but an overturned desk hid itself away in the corner. On the wall above it, just a bit over halfway up, you saw a grate to what you could only assume was the ventilation system. You stood up on the old desk carefully, and shined your light down it. Aquil was telling the truth and that the shafts were wider than usual, not huge but spacious enough to just barely fit an adult body. You could definitely slip in, but where you’d go was another matter. You reckoned if you took two right turns and then a left, and so long as you were going up in elevation, you’d end up just above the factory floor. There was only the front half of the building left after the remnants of the rockslide you saw earlier, so if you took a wrong turn you’d eventually end up outside again anyway. 

You pulled off the vent cover, then wormed your way into the vents, dragging yourself up bit by bit until you had entered into the tunnel fully. If the outside of the factory was filthy, the inside of these vents were downright disgusting. You felt like you were crawling through an ocean of dust and ash, your mind begged for a shower that was nowhere in sight. You were pretty sure you just brushed past the corpse of some small animal, but you weren’t about to back up and check either. You had to see this through, it was your only lead, and if this fell out, then you were back to square one. You eventually crawled up a slope in the shafts, rising in elevation before the tunnel leveled out again. You came to a stop before another ventilation grate beneath you, and you made your camp there.

The factory floor was as dark as the rest of the place, but your time in the low light shifted your sight and you could make out the faint outlines of objects. Conveyor lines, the large fitting machines, soggy cardboard boxes of half-built light bulbs spilling off the lines and across the smooth stone floor. And there was the machine, the one Aquil had said he was building. You couldn’t make out its features, just its outline, rectangular with a wide heavy base and the shape of some kind of tubes or piping sticking out its top like the silhouette of a cathedra. You got glimpses of it as you watched Aquil nervously amble about the floor and shine his flashlight around. You waited for a moment in silence, your only company being the hiss of the filters. After a while that seemed like hours on end, the sounds of rusted doors opening echoed through the hollow factory one after another. Aquil spun about nervously, but eventually turned to face the back entrance of the floor. 

Two men, unidentifiable in feature in the dark, moseyed in through the open archway at the back of the floor, one that seemed like it went back out into the Sump. You couldn’t see their faces at all, just the shape of their frames and their heights. One was a very tall figure, lean but not skinny. He barely made noise as he walked about, pacing around the perimeter of the factory floor. Like he could sneak up on anybody at any time. The other was larger in frame, and you weren’t sure if he was well built or heavy, but you could hear that one walk from a mile away. He waddled with a weird tilt when he walked, like one of his legs was bummed. He rasped like an old accordion through his mask, like he was constantly out of breath and could never catch it. These two were the ones picking up the machine, and if you could find out where they came from then you could follow the paper trail.

“The machine’s here, man.” Aquil patted the outline of the device he had constructed with a nervous shake. “Followed the instructions to a T, man. It’s all accounted for, I even tested it.”

“Very good.” The heavier man coughed out. His voice was muffled and crackled in the filters, but he had a strange accent. The kind of thick accent you could find from the people living in the lower slums of the fissures. His voice was deep, not naturally but more as if his throat was scarred. “Where’s the sample, then?” He looked about.

“I.. Uh.” Aquil stammered. He didn’t have the sample because you had it. You held your breath, piercing daggers into the back of Aquils head as you watched him without blinking. He better not sell you out. “I don’t have it anymore, man.”

“What? You took it all?”

“Uh. Yeah, man. Sorry, shit was tempting.”

The heavier man said nothing in return besides the rasping of his mask, looking about at the darkness inside the factory floor. He looked at the taller man, who turned back to him and nodded. The taller man walked forward and picked up the device with relative ease, like it barely weighed anything at all. 

“Your help is appreciated. But you won’t be paid because of that.” The heavy man rasped out.

“But!” Aquil squeaked, then paused when it looked like the man had given him a glare. “No, that’s like fine and shit, man. Take it.” He backed off. Aquil watched the men take the machine in silence as they went back through the passage they entered through. It would have been as simple as that, you were planning to interrogate Aquil about who they were once they left. But he just had to open his big mouth. “Tell Lenare she’s like welcome and shit, man. It was hard to make.”

The men stopped in place, like they froze when they heard that name. They looked at each other for a brief moment, silently communicating. The taller man holding the machine stepped forward into the shadow, though you heard no footsteps of him walking away. The heavier set man turned about and approached Aquil once more. “Where’d you learn that name?” He wheezed. “How do you know Lenare?”

“The prints, man. The way I built it, it looked like it plugged into one of them golems and shit. I figured it was Lenare who wanted this built, man. It was no problem.” Aquil stammered out.

The heavy man looked at him in pure silence, like he was mulling something over. The man began to reach behind his back and to his beltline as Aquil kept stuttering on.

“I mean. Like it’s smart and stuff, man. Like it’s really ingenious, I would be willing to work on it-”

The shot rang out like the crack of a whip, bouncing off the thick walls of the factory and rumbling through the thin sheet metal of the ventilation system. You blinked, processing what had just transpired. The man had taken out a pistol and put a bullet right into Aquils head. The pittering sound of blood splat against the concrete before his body even dropped. You felt a bad taste in your mouth, a tangy metallic hue like you had swallowed a coin. Aquil’s body crumpled to the floor with a heavy thud like a ragdoll, his genius being reduced to nothing but a gaping hole and a fine red mist. You felt your stomach churn as your mind caught up with what you witnessed. You felt like you were going to puke in your mask, and you struggled to keep it down so you didn’t have to take it off and breathe in the Gray. 

“You should have shut up.” The man put his pistol back into his beltline, taking a moment to stare at Aquil’s still body laid out on the ground.

“Come on, we don’t have the time to do this shit!” The taller man called back through the door. He had a far fairer voice, like the accent of an upper city dweller that had faded after years away from home.

“Sorry, my finger must have slipped.” The heavier man called back and hurried to join his partner at the door. “We’re still meeting up at the same location?”

“Yeah, same place.”

“Let’s drop it off and head somewhere fun. I’ve had enough of dealing with this for today.” The heavier man began to leave, leaving your line of sight through the entrance. “I need a drink.”

“Man, they couldn’t pull you off black cat with a pry bar you sick fuck.” The taller man laughed deeply as they exited.

The still silence of the bottom of the slump returned. Nothing but quiet and the ring of the shot echoed in your ears as you watched from your hovel in the vent. You weren’t sure how to react. You’ve seen people die before, anybody growing up in the underground has. It was just a way of life. You could count the times you saw chem gang members shooting each other up on the district blocks with both hands. But you haven’t seen something like that. That was cold. Instantaneous. The man shot Aquil like he was screwing off a lid to a bottle just to get to the water. Like it was just a thing he did and he didn’t think anything about it. You hissed out a silent sob, just one. Your nose ran a bit and you could feel the faint emerging of tears from the corners of your eyes. You took a wounded, jagged breath in, pushing the feelings down until they went away completely. You steeled yourself, closing your heart off to it. You didn’t even know Aquil. Hell, you didn’t even like him. But to be shot like that? Left here? You wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy. You couldn’t even take his body. You wondered if he had family. Yet, you could do nothing to reconcile any of this. You just had to go.

You had no lead anymore. This whole plan had been botched far worse than you were expecting. You almost wished Aquil had ratted you out, then you could have at least made a quick escape and he would have fled. But you didn’t. You just watched. You took a moment to wipe the condensation from your mask again. You weren’t even sure what to report back with. The man had mentioned getting a drink, and a black cat. You wracked your brain for any kind of answer to what he was talking about. A drink. A black cat. There was a bar up on the Entresol level called the Black Cat. It was a joint frequented by chem gangs. You had to salvage this. You had to find that lead. You weren’t going home until you did.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had taken you hours to climb out of the Sump. It was hard walking back to the upper levels, your legs felt so weak that you could have collapsed on any step. That ill feeling at the bottom of your stomach never left, like you had swallowed a bag of stones. Even now, while sitting on a damp bench in the Blacklanes, your hands couldn’t stop shaking. Your fingers trembled as you brought up your lit cigarette and inhaled deeply from it. You held the intake, feeling the smoke stirring in your lungs before you exhaled it all steadily through your nose. You looked around the dark lane running between the tall Commercia Hall buildings from your spot near some makeshift stalls in the market square. Your eyes felt stiff from minutes on end staring at the ground, lost in thought. You couldn’t peel your thoughts away from what happened. The sound. The taste. Watching a body fall like that. You’ve seen too much harshness in the underground, you’ve suffered through just as much. But not something like that.

You watched the ripples in your styrofoam cup of cheap coffee as you tried to keep a steady hand to take another sip. No matter how much you washed your mouth out with the bitter black drink you couldn’t remove that metallic taste. It just wouldn’t leave you, like it was atomically flashed onto your tongue. You dumped the cup out on the ground beside you, the splattering of the coffee only reminding you of what you saw. You looked back to the torch and filter mask laying on the table you sat upon. You decided it was best if you just left them there, somebody else would swipe them by dawn and take them to sell. You got up, dusting the vent grime off your faded jeans only to notice more had transferred onto your filth covered hands. You began walking down the empty lane of the Boundary market, passing by the doors to the steel shack commercial halls that were locked up tight for the night. The street was purely empty, not a soul in sight besides yourself, and you planned to keep it that way.

You noticed a small faucet sticking out of the wall by one of the doors to the halls, a water pipe for merchants to draw from. You took a moment to kneel down and twist the stiff faucet valve. Ice cold water came rushing out onto the stone pathway, splashing your bent knee. You quickly scrubbed your hands thoroughly, as if washing off the grime would somehow make you clean again. You couldn’t forget, though. You hadn’t given yourself time to even think about it, not by a long shot. You cupped your hands to collect some of the icy water before raising it to your face to wash it too. The chill on your skin mixing with half of the cup of coffee you had just poured out kept you wired in the early morning. 

As you were twisting off the valve, you heard the scuffle of many shoes scrape against the rough pathway stone. You looked about, then down the lane in the direction you were heading in. A small gang of hooded ruffians were making their way towards a display window for one of the many halls. One took a brick from the street and tossed it through the glass, shattering it. The rest were quick to hop in through the now open space and start looting what was out on display. It was a strange sight to you, like watching termites eat away wood at lighting speed. They came as quick as they left, fleeing away from your direction with armfuls of mechanical junk and novelty devices. Like rats scattering from a pantry with their latest hauls. You dried off your hands with a series of flicks, then stuffed them into your jean pockets to warm back up. You slowly approached the storefront curiously, minding the huge jagged sheets of shattered glass as you looked in through the store window. 

Not much was left from the shop, but the few things left behind gave you an impression it was a store for novelty gear-wound devices. A few wind up cymbal monkey toys lay in a row, toppled like dominoes. A cube like object held another shard of glass up, a common puzzle toy that you remembered from your childhood. In the center amongst the pulverised shards, a gun-like tool had been crushed by one of the delinquents when they hopped up. You picked it up, inspecting the thing. It was an entirely cylindrical device, save for the handle and trigger, made of what was most likely brass. You carefully looked down the wide circular barrel, spying the sheen of what looked to be a barbed hook. Was this some kind of grappling gun or something, you wondered? You took aim with it, pointing it at the unscathed display window directly adjacent from the looted one. You pulled the trigger slowly, but the gun refused to fire, only clicking dryly. You considered tossing it back in the wreckage, but a little idea that you should hang onto it wormed its way into your brain, and you did so by stuffing it under your beltline. You flared your shirt a bit, covering the handle up so nobody would notice you had it at first glance.

You continued your walk down the lane before the path split into a cross intersection. To your right, a large road opened up to a chain of equally packed storefronts. All the lights were off, retaining the stillness of the night. Save for one, whose foggy glow pushed through green stained glass and cast faint rays onto the street. A low hanging sign was perched above the door in the shape of a walking stylized cat painted black. This was the bar. You took a moment to cut your nerves, shaking your head rapidly to get back into a train of thought. You were out of leads, but you weren’t going to accept that. If those men said they were going to the black cat, then this was the only place they had to be. And if they went here, then one of the patrons surely would be able to identify them. Hell, you couldn’t even identify them with it being so dark in that factory. But you knew the way they talked, the way they walked. That was enough for you, you could bullshit the rest just like everything you did when you were in way over your head.

You opened the door of the bar, heading in with a steady head. The cold night air in the underground began to mix with a stuffy warmness flowing out of the quiet room. You could hear the hum off a small heater as you squinted your eyes to adjust to the orange brightness of the interior. The hum was accompanied by faint music, a sappy slow dance song played quietly from the speakers hooked to the corners of the room. You shut the door behind you carefully and took a silent look around the room. It was as usual as most dive bars you’ve frequented. Unfinished wood board floors, open space with a high ceiling. An overly decorated bar with an absolutely bored tender behind it flipping through a magazine as he leaned against the sill. Booths chaining along the walls with vagrants face first into the tables, fast asleep. Two men played pool at the table to the far side of the room, you standing between the bar and them as they gave you shifty looks before going back to their game. The one thing you noticed between everyone you could see is that they all wore the same type of leather jacket sporting a blue armband. These were chem gang members, that was no doubt. You stepped carefully across the bar floor and approached the sill, walking past an older looking man sitting on one of the stools. He didn’t wear any of the insignia the others were wearing, just a raggedy parka jacket. He had to be over six and a half feet tall from the way he hunched over as he sipped from a low glass. Yet he gave you no glance or look as you passed him by to the sill.

“What do you want?” The scruffy bartender asked your order in a monotone voice as he flipped another page in his magazine lazily, not even glancing up at you. 

“Uh.” You blinked as your thoughts trailed back into numbness. “Just whiskey, I guess.” You pulled yourself back from distraction, then leaned up against the sill of the bar. 

The tender straightened up, then pulled a dusty bottle of brown whiskey from the shelf behind him. He was obviously giving you the cheap stuff without asking, which means he’ll probably charge you the price of something better. You didn’t care, though. The last thing you needed to worry about right now was money. That was a first.

You watched him slowly pour your drink into a short glass. As he passed it over, you leaned in close to ask him something. “Hey.” You cleared your throat, then gave a glance back to the men playing pool behind you. “I heard that someone here knows where to score some Jitter.”

The bartender blinked passively at you without even a flex in his expression. He passed the glass slowly over to you as its bottom dragged against the dry wood of the bar. “I think you’re mistaken.” A sadistic smirk crossed his lips, complementing the tenders' deep sleep deprived eyes. If he was charging you extra just for a drink, then he most definitely wasn’t about to tell you anything useful. “Just drink your drink, buddy.”

“No, seriously.” You leaned in further. You took the glass in your hand and quickly downed the whiskey, ignoring the burn without any problem because of your wracked nerves. “Look, I’m not a mark or anything. Just help a guy out, y’know?”

“Go back across the river, Piltie.” One of the men playing pool called to you as he eavesdropped in on your conversation. He was tall, but lanky. A Chirean punk with shortish black hair. His buddy was just as shifty looking as he was, who was snickering away as he putted the cue ball.

You look at him from over your shoulder, giving him a disgusted sneer like the fact he even spoke to you was a crime. It was becoming apparent that all three believed you were an enforcer or at least a small-time beat cop. “Look, man. Just help me out? It’s kind of urgent.” You fibbed as you turned back to the bartender. You didn’t pull off the desperate junkie look, but your next plan was to flash some actual cash that could change his tune.

“Just go home.” The bartender rolled his eyes, turning back to put the bottle back on the shelf.

“I just-” You paused your sentence when you felt the tight grip of a hand on your shoulder pull you back and spin you around. The man heckling you from before had gotten straight in your face, grabbing you by the lapel of your jacket as he pressed your back into the smooth lip of the bar sill. You could smell the cheap beer on his breath, and the faint stain of too many cigarillos wafting from his dirty jacket.

“Daz. No.” The tender pointed at him without much effort to break the confrontation up. “Not in my bar, take it outside.”

“You fucking enforcers come in here thinking you can just walk in and say ‘one drug please’ and just get handed it? Fuck off back across the river, pony boy.” He looked at you, then to the tender as he kept a hold of you. “Are you just going to let trash like this walk in here?”

You could handle being called any name in the book. But being mistaken for someone from Piltover? That would not fly, no, not for a second. “I’m not a goddamn Piltie, get out of my face before you regret it.” Your hands wrapped around the wrist of Daz, slowly but surely forcing him to let you go as you struggled against his strength. 

“Fuck you.” He practically spat in your face, reaffirming his grip on your collar. You glanced at his buddy, who was sitting back on the edge of the pool table and snickering as he did before. You look between them, then at the bartender, then back to the guy grabbing at you. You really weren’t in the mood for any of this shit and if you knew anything it was to not let some smartmouth think he owns the place. You reel your head back and smash your forehead straight into Daz’s battish nose. You could hear the crunch of what little bone there was breaking as you connected. Daz stumbled back in a daze, letting you go and bringing a hand up to his now bleeding crumpled nose in disbelief.

“I said take it outside!” The bartender barked at both of you, throwing a finger to the door. It was too late for any of that, though. You knew the minute you did what you just did, it’ll be all over in a flash. One move was all you got, maybe two, but it had to be quick.

Daz closed his bloody fingers into a fist and reeled back for a swing at you. You ducked under the right hook in one smooth motion as his fist just barely grazed your hair. As you straightened back up, you moved forward to grab him and to throw him to the floor. He brought down his elbow to plant it into your back, so you quickly changed your intention mid-motion and opted for a swift punch into his gut while his guard was up. Daz let out a low heaving wheeze, as the punch had knocked the wind far out of him. He stumbled back, knocking into the large greying man who was sitting quietly on his stool, not even looking at the fight unfold next to him. Daz caught himself on the bar before he fell completely over, and in the process he elbowed the strangers drink and spilled the whole glass. 

“You’re dead!” Daz’s buddy called out to you as he strode towards you from the pool table, wielding a cue like a baseball bat in preparation to wrap it around your head. You looked to Daz, who had just pulled himself back up onto his feet, then to the other guy approaching you. One you could handle, but two? On good days you could hold your own, but you hadn’t the energy to keep up with it tonight. 

Just as Daz surged forward to grapple with you, the large man he had bumped into finally stood up after staying perfectly still. Before Daz could even cross the gap between the both of you, the taller man brought his fist down. In one swing, Daz was suckerpunched straight into the back of his head as he surged forward, knocked clean out. As he collapsed at your feet, his buddy wielding the pool cue stopped in his tracks at the sight. 

Before any of the recent events came a truly ravenous crescendo, the singular ring of gunfire cracked and billowed through the room. You flinched hard, your eyes twitching in reaction but not peeling away from the man in front of you. The larger man whose beer you had spilled before now stood over Daz, who was still reeling on the harsh floorboards. You glanced away from the man wielding the pool cue, who took a few slow steps back as he nervously returned the cue to the table without turning away. Your eyes flicked back to the tender behind the bar, who had took stance and fired a scrappy but intimidating pipe revolver at the ceiling only a moment ago. He glanced at you with a stern furrow in his bushy brow, the tip of his tongue gracing his lips as he decided what to say. From behind you, you could hear the patrons asleep at the booths begin to shift and wake up after the still ringing shot, all giving the bartender the half-present attention that was demanded.

“First off.” He spoke up, raising his voice so even the still half-asleep could hear him. “You.” he pointed to you with the end of his revolver as if it were his finger. “Get the fuck out of my bar, you’re banned. And you.” The barrel flicked to the tall older man who had knocked Daz clean out on the floor. “You’re on thin ice, go home. The rest of you, pay tab. We’re closed.” 

The man didn’t say a word in response, he only took his coat and headed towards the door. You watched your unlikely ally leave, then looked to the friend who was about to jump in. He gave you an equally mean glare back, but you cut the exchange short as you too went for the exit. The tender had just walked around the bar by the time you had reached the door you had walked in through. 

“That’s enough shit flinging from you two. Take him home.” You heard the tender mutter to Daz’s friend as they pulled him to his feet. “The backdoor.”

As you returned to the cool crispness of night in the fissures, you stopped to think for a moment before taking another foot beyond the sidewalk. You shut the loose wood of the old door behind you and you hear the fair click of its latch as your eyes drift down the street, looking for somewhere to nest as you thought. The factory was your only lead. Besides that, it was this jitter stuff that Lest had told you about. With those two options now completely gone, you were beginning to think that this whole adventure had fallen through before the interesting part had even begun. And what were you going to report back with? ‘Oh hey, I know I only had one lead but I saw its brain being blown out the back of its head so I went to a bar but not to drink or anything!’ yeah, that’d really be a great excuse. 

Jitter. If the Jitter was being produced, then the machine Aquil had been working on couldn’t have been the only one. If it was, then it wouldn’t have been distributed this quickly. Aquil mentioned that the machine looked like it connected to something, something he described as ‘golems.’ Then he also mentioned a Lenare, who he may have thought was the one to order something like this. But you have no idea who this Lenare person was either. Yet given all the other information, a workable theory is that whoever this person actually is, had to be a machinist of some kind. You were hoping to find a source to the jitter here, or at least any identification on the man who shot Aquil. Yet fist fighting and then being banned ruled out interrogating any of the men in the booths.

“You’re not even going to offer me a light?” You heard a coarse but hollow-ish voice speak to you from over your shoulder. 

You turned about, snapping from your deep trance in thought and pulling yourself back to the land of the living. Behind you was that man from before, the one whose beer you had spilled by shoving that chem ganger. Your first observation was entirely right, because the guy was definitely over six and a half feet tall. He wore a grey-tan truckers cap, whose logo had cracked and fractured off from what looked like years of wear. It fitted to a scruffy head of dry gray hair that he tied into a shoddy bun at the base of his nape. He wore a frayed wool red-black mackinaw under his jacket and his cigarette hole burned denim jeans were kept up by two thin leather overall straps. Because of how fast the recent events had occurred, you really never stopped to get a proper look at the fellow. He held a long cigarette between his lips as he sparked a cheap lighter that just refused to light.

“What?” You blinked, then looked at his cigarette. “For you? Sorry.” You shake your head with a sheepish smirk as you slinked your hands into your jacket pockets to warm up.

“You know, you make a horrible plainclothes.” The man coughed before putting his bad light back and rooting around in his back pocket for what would assumedly be a second one. “You don’t look like shit enough to pass as a jitter addict, but props for effort.”

“I’m not a-” You paused yourself before explaining something you shouldn’t even have had to explain. “Look, if you want me to pay for your drink it’s a bit too late.” 

“I mean, if you’re offering.” The older man harrumphed, then finally retrieved a second lighter from his pocket before taking a not-so-steady moment to light his cigarette. “I was wondering if you were still looking.”

You paused with confusion, looking up the street then back down it. You wondered if this was just another joke and if it would be best if you just went home instead. “Looking for what?” You feigned ignorance.

“For drugs, idiot!” The man laughed with a wheeze like a muddy whistle. “You really are a shitty enforcer.”

“Why does everyone think I’m a cop!”

“Because your eyes are too shifty! You look around like you’re a little kid trying not to get into trouble. Plus you don’t walk right, and you talk like you have somewhere to be. Chem addicts have nowhere to be, besides taking chems I suppose.”

“Says you.” You scoffed. The stranger didn’t look all too impressive either, to be fair. Though the answer to the question of how to properly define and identify a Zaunite is a difficult one to find in all truthfulness. “You- You..” You stammered, trying to come up with any kind of comeback that went beyond the scope of playground taunting. 

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” You paused again. Who? “Who even are you?”

“Ronk.” The man stated, squinting one eye as he let his cigarette roll to the corner of his wide lippy smile. You could mistake this man for anybody else in the underground, not even identify him in a crowd. This might be exactly who you were looking for. Not somebody with any power or know-how, but somebody on the street long enough to have learned a thing or two. Or even seen a thing or two. “What about you?” He nodded.

“Ronk?” You asked with amusement. Who names their child Ronk? Was this ancient dinosaur even a child once? He looked like he sprouted from the ground that way and started drinking the remnants of the bottoms of beer cans and eating old cigarette butts for sustenance. “That can’t be your real name, can it?” You stifled a laugh.

The man thought about it for a moment, taking a short bit to mull it over and shift the way he stood. He returned his lighter to his pocket, gave his cigarette a puff, then nodded slowly as his half-lucid stare returned to you. “Dave. That’s my real name.”

“Keep Ronk, I’d say.” You chuckled. You began to pace a bit as you stood in front of the closed bar past midnight in the Entresol. You ought to be heading home to try and catch the sleep that would never come, but standing out in the cold with some random bar fish who helped you out in a bar fight might as well be just as good a use of your time. “If you thought I was a cop, why do you want to sell me drugs so badly?”

“I said that you were a bad cop, not that you were a cop.”

“You’re going in circles now.”

“What I mean.” Ronk cleared his throat, then spat coarsely on the ground next to his dirt crusted work boots. “Is that if you were really an enforcer? This whole block would be shut down for just that little stunt.”

“So?” You shrugged.

“So. We’re still here. And that asshole in there currently isn’t getting a perp walk and a one way ticket to Stillwater. So you’re not a cop.”

“Wow. You’ve got such a sharp eye we could switch jobs.” You remarked sarcastically as you absentmindedly redid the buttons on your faded jacket. “I can spend twelve hours a day drinking, and you can go crawl around in shit and mud and do whatever the hells that was in there.” You articulated as you paced.

“Detective, then?”

“What?” You spun about on your heel again to face him. You had been in such a nervous spin about what you were going to do, you hadn’t noticed that you were beginning to pace circles around the scruffy man as you two conversed beneath a stark street lamp.

“You’re a detective, then. Not a cop, but still the same kind of bullshit.”

“If you say so.” You gave him another respective glance. “So?”

“So.”

“So, are you going to sell me Jitter or what?” You spoke up. Conversing with Ronk felt like you were being sucked down into a grain silo but instead of suffocating, your brain cells were being eaten one by one.

“Right, right. You still owe me a drink, though.”

“I told you. I don’t have any money, old man. No lighter, no coins, nothing.” You fibbed turning out your coat pockets. You had money, plenty wadded up in the wallet in your pants pocket, but you weren’t about to set your budget and have him meet it. For all you knew, you were being sized up and that tomorrow afternoon you were going to end up being mugged in some out of the way alley.

Ronk stopped to think for a moment in his increasingly usual old man way. He ashed his cigarette into the open breeze, then looked back and forth up the street with a whiny pensive hum. 

“I reckon you could owe it. I know a better place that’s still open. You follow me, pay for my drink, I give you that information. Everybody is happy.” He breezed past your mention of no money, it was an obvious lie.

“This better not be a trick. Or a mistake.” You huffed.

“What? Are you scared of having a good time?” Ronk motioned up the street to where you came from, then began to slowly hobble down the street and away from you. He gave you an encouraging motion for you to follow, then continued walking. You were out of leads, and it was this or go home and feel worse about it.

“Not this early.”

𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛

Taglist: @6selkie @madschiavelique @roku907

[aquanutech]

AquaNu Tech’s mission is the core element that drives their daily business and underpins every decision they take. Their aim is to deliver eco-friendly, next-generation products that are not only futuristic but are also available in the present. Their manufacturing and product design methods are in line with their commitment to the environment, and they strive to offer their customers products that help them save resources. They offer the best on demand hot water dispenser and hot water dispenser faucet.