Chapter 15: Crazy Joe

  Sym left the HQ without dey, the sword strapped tightly to his back beneath the folds of worn fabric.

  The sky overhead was a dull gray, heavy with mist. The city never seemed to smell like anything else other than burned metal and damp rot, a smell he was growing far too used to.

  His boots echoed down the cracked walkways as he made his way back toward the ruined block, the pce where the two-headed creature had died hours before under the Order’s merciless assault.

  As he approached, the devastation became clear.

  Whole sections of the block had colpsed inward, leaving a twisted ndscape of steel beams, crumbling concrete, and shattered gss. Ash drifted in the air like dead snow.

  In the middle of it all, he saw them.

  A small cluster of people sat amidst the wreckage, their broken figures hunched over the ruins.

  Two adults sobbed openly, their bodies wracked with grief, their hands clutching a small, bloodstained cloth.

  The parents.

  Sym slowed his steps, watching them from the edge of the broken street. His hand twitched once, almost moving to approach them. But he stopped himself.

  Not now.

  Not with their hearts ripped open and the blood still warm.

  Instead, he scanned the area.

  Across the rubble, leaning against the cracked skeleton of a wall, a man in a grimy jacket watched the scene with dull, gssy eyes.

  A thin roll of something bitter-smelling burned between his fingers, the smoke curling zily around his hollowed cheeks. Despite the smoke, a pungent garlic smell seemed to surround the man as if it were the scent that his pores secreted.

  He looked like he'd seen too much death to care anymore.

  Sym approached him without ceremony.

  “You see what happened?” Sym asked, voice low. “Who took the strange body that was here?”

  The man gnced at him sideways, exhaling smoke through broken teeth.

  “Crazy Joe, most likely,” he said. His voice was rough, half amusement, half indifference. “And callin’ that frozen meatpile a ‘body’ is generous. The thing looked like hell chewed it up and spit it back.”

  He hacked a dry ugh.

  “Anyway, Crazy Joe. Old bastard’s always sniffin’ around after the fireworks. Runs a junk shop down the path, general mechanics, house scraps, weird shit.”

  Sym gave a small nod.

  “Thanks.”

  The man grinned, fshing a mouth half-empty of teeth.

  “Cost ya a note.”

  Without a word, Sym pulled a crumpled bill from his coat and handed it over.

  The man pocketed it with a zy flick, already turning his dead-eyed gaze back toward the grieving parents, watching their sorrow like it was just another show he'd seen a thousand times and stopped feeling a thousand tragedies ago.

  Sym turned and left without looking back, his boots crunching over gss and ash.

  Sym found the location tucked into the side of a crumbling block, a warped tin sign swaying above the door, half the letters missing.

  He pushed open the door, a small bell jangling somewhere in the rafters.

  A man was behind the counter; he was bald, with grease-streaked hands thick with calluses. He looked up with a frown.

  “You lookin’ for parts or problems?” the man said gruffly.

  Sym raised his hand, signaling he wasn't here for trouble. "Only problem I have is with my Izonic Engine."

  The man looked at him on the border of impatience and annoyance.

  That joke would have done numbers in space. Sym thought.

  "In space, Sym," Sage responded in his mind, if she had a head, she would be shaking it right now.

  “I’m looking for Crazy Joe,” Sym said.

  The man wiped his hands on a rag, studied him for a second, then jerked his head toward a shadowed stairwell behind the counter.

  “Down the stairs. Follow the hallway. Third door. Knock three times.”

  Sym nodded.

  “Don’t touch anything you can’t afford… If another one of his guests breaks my shit, I'll be breaking all of you,” the man added without looking back.

  Sym descended the stairs, each step creaking under his weight.

  Old machines lined the walls, twisted gears, dismantled pumps, strange tools half-eaten by rust. Some pieces buzzed faintly, leaking forgotten energy into the air.

  “Sage.”

  “Monitoring environment. No immediate threats detected. Caution advised.”

  At the bottom, a dimly lit hallway stretched ahead, narrow and barely illuminated by flickering overhead bulbs.

  He walked to the third door and rapped three times with his knuckles.

  “Come in,” an old, cracked voice called.

  Sym opened the door, and the scent of garlic attacked his nose.

  Inside, the space was cramped and custrophobic, walls lined with shelves stacked haphazardly with junk and stranger things. At the center, slouched behind a battered desk, sat Crazy Joe.

  He was older than Sym expected, his skin like old leather, his eyes sharp and hungry, moving too fast for a man his age.

  “Sit,” Joe said, waving a bony hand. “What d’ya want?”

  Sym sat cautiously.

  “I heard you had the… body. From earlier today.”

  Joe's grin widened into something not entirely sane.

  “Had. Sold now.”

  Sym’s face tightened, just enough to look genuinely disappointed.

  “Any chance I could find out who bought it?”

  Joe chuckled, a dry sound like leaves scraping across stone.

  “Nope. Not how it works.”

  Sym leaned back, trying not to show his frustration.

  Joe rummaged under the desk, then tossed something across the table.

  It nded with a heavy thunk, a compass, but unlike any Sym had seen before. The casing was made of rough, unpolished stone, the needle thin and bck, twitching softly even in the still air.

  The compass itself seemed to glow in a faint light.

  “You want pieces of things like that?” Joe said. “Follow that.”

  Sym picked up the compass, feeling the cold bite of the stone against his palm.

  Before he turned to leave, Joe squinted at the longsword strapped to Sym’s back.

  “Sell me the bde,” he said casually. “Got a buyer who’d pay good.”

  Sym shook his head. “Not for sale.”

  Joe shrugged, a slow, predatory movement.

  “Shame. Nice piece. Try not to die with it on you.”

  Sym left without another word.

  As he climbed the stairs, he whispered, “Sage, analyze.”

  “Stone compass. Design unknown. Function identified: directional tether. It points to a preset target location. Constant. Non-magical.”

  Sym tucked the compass into his coat.

  The mist was thick by the time Sym left Crazy Joe’s and headed back toward Richie’s pce.

  He kept his head low, his steps even, the stone compass tucked safely inside his coat.

  But the streets were never truly empty.

  He heard the shuffle of feet before he saw them, five figures slipping from alleyways, loose circles tightening around him like wolves scenting blood.

  Each one carried a knife, rusted, jagged things meant more for intimidation than actual combat.

  The biggest of them grinned, a row of gold-capped teeth glinting in the low light.

  “That’s a nice piece you got there, stranger,” the leader said, nodding toward the sword strapped across Sym’s back.

  “Hand it over. Maybe we’ll let you limp away.”

  Sym stood still, letting the tension settle in the air like frost.

  Five against one.

  Knives drawn. Adrenaline pounding.

  Sym’s face stayed unreadable.

  Instead of fighting, he calmly reached up, unstrapped the sword from his back, and tossed it.

  The heavy bde sailed through the air and nded at the leader’s feet with a solid thud.

  The thug stared at it for half a second.

  Then he lunged.

  He gripped the hilt with both hands, yanking it upward, only to stagger under the sudden, unnatural weight.

  But his face lit up anyway, greedy and feverish.

  "It’s mine!" he barked, hugging the bde to his chest like a prize.

  The others didn’t agree.

  Not at all.

  “Bullshit, it’s all ours!” one snarled.

  “You wouldn’t have it without us!” another shouted, stepping forward.

  Knives gleamed. Eyes burned.

  And then, like a match striking dry wood, the thugs turned on each other.

  Bdes fshed in the mist. Fists flew. Screams echoed off the broken walls.

  Sym stood still at the edge of the chaos, watching with cold detachment.

  And within minutes, the ground was littered with bodies, stabbed, choked, bleeding out onto the cracked pavement.

  The sword y nearby, almost humming in the heavy air.

  "Efficient," Sage remarked quietly in his mind.

  Sym walked forward, picked up the bde, and strapped it back across his back.

  Five threats neutralized.

  Without a swing.

  He turned and walked away without a second gnce.

  By the time he reached Richie’s and climbed the narrow stairs to his rented room, the mist had swallowed the scene behind him.

  Inside, the room was cold and dim.

  Without hesitation, Sym pulled up the training regimen Sage had designed within his mind: muscle work, speed drills, resistance focus, and began to move through it methodically.