The Lost Puzzler. Eyal Kless

themselves Guides, but everyone referred to them as the Companies. All were armed to the teeth, of course, and consisted of ex-Salvationists, now unemployed augmented Trolls who needed to pay for their Skint addiction, a drug that was becoming dangerously sparse in the city. The different company groups had names such as Metal Fists or the Bloody Blades, wore colourful matching uniforms, and stood next to signs indicating prices, which were, unsurprisingly, pretty much the same. You could, of course, walk away without hiring anyone, but your chances of keeping your belongings, or your life, were nothing one would wager on.

      I, however, was not walking off a disc or climbing out of a cart, I had just climbed, arse first, out of a rusty metal cage. If the Companies were generally made up of thugs who would rob you if they weren’t paid to protect you, the people who surrounded me were the kind Companies thought of as too unstable to employ. There was no etiquette here, so when I heard heavy footsteps behind me, accompanied by the unmistakable metallic whine of unoiled hinges, I had a pretty good idea what I was about to face. Still, the mountain of flesh and rust I confronted when I turned around left me speechless and gaping.

      When Tarakan artifacts were found and reintroduced to society, there were plenty of men and more than a few women who were tempted by the idea of inhuman strength, stamina, and speed, and thus Trolls came to be. It was only natural that some people would take their lust for physical superiority to an obscene level, collecting and attaching augmentations to their bodies with no sense of what they were doing to their appearance or their mental stability.

      The Troll facing me had only one healthy eye; the other was a messy, stitched-up job, most likely the remains of a botched attempt at attaching an aiming mechanism. His right arm and shoulder were completely covered in metal, as well as both legs from the knees up. Where the right arm should have been was an enormous power cannon, braced to his rib cage with metal rods and poorly attached wires that ran up the right side of his head. That was the prettiest part, the rest was too much to take in.

      I didn’t need my enhanced sight to notice the distinct green markings around his nose, a clear sign that the monster was a hard Skint user. Skint considerably dulled the pain when the body tried to repel the attached augs, but too much of it made Trolls even more unstable and susceptible to violent episodes.

      This Troll—I couldn’t decide whether to call it a “him” or an “it”—prodded me with his free left hand and said, “You need protection.” There was no question in his tone whatsoever. He had a squeaky, unnaturally high voice, which would have been absolutely hilarious if I were telling this story over scented wine to a bunch of drunken friends in a tavern up in the Upper Spires, but it was just scary and odd from where I was standing.

      I glanced nervously to my right; the slender figure kept her distance.

      “Hey, don’t be looking over there,” barked the mountain of metal. He prodded me again. “I’m your Troll. Look at this cannon, eh?” He waved the massive cannon in front of my face as if it were a children’s toy instead of a weapon that normally needed the strength of three men just to be picked up. “This baby can blast through stone walls, eh? Clean a whole street in two shots. Mister, you want me”—he pointed the cannon at himself—“protecting you”—and aimed it at my face. There was a very distinct suggestion of threat in the Troll’s voice, but the high pitch made it dangerously unconvincing.

      I peeked to my left and spotted a man who was watching us from a short distance with what I instinctively felt was quiet disdain. He had a white beard, cropped short in a fashion long out of style. It was probably the individual whom the gang leader so helpfully recommended just before throwing me off the ledge. I caught his eye. He nodded once and began walking slowly towards us. This time the prodding from the huge Troll was strong enough to make me take a step back.

      “Hey, don’t be looking over there. I’m the escort you want, man, twenty in coin or kind. We have a deal?”

      The man approaching us was a Troll as well, but the old-fashioned kind, not an oversized, crazed junkyard who pumped himself up with Tarakan toys. He looked like the Trolls who used to do Salvation runs, back when that wasn’t just a suicide mission. He certainly showed more flesh than his bigger version, and there was no trace of Skint on his face. Metal gauntlets covered his arms from the elbows down, the back of each hand marked by three dart ducts. Short tubes were protruding from the side of his neck, in the classic fashion of a Salvationist crew tactical Lieutenant, but no wirings were attached to them. The rest of his body was covered in flex armour so worn that it was grey rather than black. From the way he walked I guessed he was also wearing a torso brace and a spine protector.

      “Hey, look at me, fleshy. Twenty, yes?” insisted the giant, but the man was now close enough to intervene. He eyed my face just for a heartbeat, taking in my facial tattoos, and nodded at me.

      “I believe I can counteroffer this … man.” His tone of voice was mild, but the word man was overpronounced and probably meant as an insult.

      The metal monster sure seemed to take it that way. “Lift up, sucker,” he warned, but the man ignored him and fixed me with a calm stare.

      “Where are you heading?” he asked.

      “Atrass District, but perhaps other places as well,” I answered, trying to ignore the cannon swinging angrily above my head.

      “I said take a lift, Galinak,” the large Troll squeaked again.

      “Twenty-five in coin, no kind,” the man said, not taking his eyes off me.

      The bigger Troll grinned in triumph. “Don’t listen to the old man—his metal is rusty. I tell you what.” He leaned close enough for me to smell the stench emanating from his metal-tipped teeth. “I’ll sweeten the deal. Fifteen in coin or kind, special price for you, deal?”

      I looked back at Galinak, who shrugged and said, “Thirty in coin, no kind.”

      That didn’t make sense. He was supposed to be haggling the price down, not up. Even the big Troll managed to work out the rudimentary economics and laughed out loud.

      “See? The flesh brain is at the top tower. What you want? Flesh hookers? Dope? I know everyone here. I’ll take you around the block for some good time, no problems. Now give me fifteen.” The last phrase was said with desperate urgency.

      Galinak raised an eyebrow and said, “I am about to raise the price to thirty-five.”

      “Thirty,” I said quickly, knowing I was paying Company price for an old, burned-out Salvationist with no visible weaponry while making a very unstable giant of a Troll who was holding—I read the letters as he repeatedly swung the cannon by my face—a “GY blaster 2015-d special edition” extremely angry.

      “Agreed,” Galinak said, and we shook hands.

      It took the giant a few heartbeats to realise what had happened, and when he finally did I was sure he was going to shoot us both. The colourful obscenities that came out of his mouth were impressive, but he turned out to be all bluster and no blaster. Galinak shot the Troll a threatening glare, and we walked away without incident.

      A few streets away Galinak stopped me with a touch to my shoulder. “Where exactly you need to go to in Atrass?” he asked.

      “Margat’s Den,” I said.

      He grimaced. “Look, if you want hookers, I know some real nice, clean ladies with interesting augmentations that could touch you in places you never thought …”

      “I don’t want hookers,” I said hastily. For some reason I was anxious to convince the old Troll I was not another sleazy merchant looking for a cheap lay.

      He nodded and tried a different tack.

      “If you need suppliers, or have anything to sell, I know one guy with even scales. He’ll give you a fair trade, and yes, before you ask, I get a cut.”

      I shook my head again. “I need to meet someone.”

      “At Margat’s?”

      “Is there a problem? Because I just hired you for