Filcher walked down the street...

Filcher walked down the street, having one of the best evenings he had in weeks. He had worked his ass off, and now he was able to get his own little bit of sweet revenge. He patted his inner jacket pocket where the envelope was. When Alex saw this…when he saw her face…oh it was going to be SO sweet.

He passes a man in dark glasses with a heavy coat on. Filcher gives the man a polite nod.

The man returns the nods and then pauses. “Got the time, mate?” The man asks.

“Of course.” Filcher smiles as he holds out his golden watch on his wrist. “It’s about a quarter after…” His eyes go wide as he realizes what’s happening.

But by then there’s four men on him dragging him to the alley. Hand over his mouth. It happens so fast he doesn’t even have a moment to react.

They force him to his knees and make him look at a person walking towards him. Their face is covered with a black cloth, but one of their hands is open and holding a pile of what looks like white dust or sand. It glimmers in the light, slightly.

“You brought this on yourself, Traitor.” A voice says through a cloth.

They grab his head and force his right eye open as the woman blows the palm of powdered glass into his face and eye. It hurts like hell. Filcher grunts and does his best to get free, but with four men holding him, there’s no chance at all.

Then Filcher gets a blow to his head like a jackhammer and Filcher leaves the conscious world for a moment.

He remembers. There had been a time where he had climbed into a wagon to get warm. His eye was hurting then as well. He remembers the voices.

“Calm down! This is…complicated.” A man says.

“No. It’s not. We go in, slit her throat, and leave her for the pigs.” A woman says. (This woman sounds so much like Patience...or was it Alex...he's having difficulty recalling.)

“This is Pollyanna Filcher though. She’s a legend.” Another woman says.

“So you believe that he ‘Banged his head in the door’ or that she ‘Fell off the wagon?!’ She’s a monster. She’s DEAD.” The first woman says.

“It’s…just not that simple.” A new man says.

“Polly’s a very important part of the Tribe.” The first man says.

“She’s been under a lot of stress.” The second man says.

“They could have provoked her.” The second woman says.

“Are…are you KIDDING me?! No. I KNOW what this is, it’s because when we show up, she can smile, and con, and charm, and steal her way inside the walls. People WANT the scandalous, FAMOUS Pollyanna Flicher to come in. The Robin Hood of the Nyx! Our own celebrity…what a disgrace.” The woman who sounds like Patience says.

“We sleep inside the walls, we’ll survive. We don’t and we’re dead, or picked off by another tribe. I know you hate her, but right now, with things as bad as they are, we NEED Polly. She’s…charming. So…we have to look past the usual reactions and try and figure out this…situation.” The first man says.

“We can’t let them stay with her anymore.” The first woman says.

“Oh yes, no doubt, of course.” The second woman says.

“So…who’ll take them?” The first man says.

“Times are tight…I don’t think I can take more than one.” The second man says.

“Same.” Says the second woman. “I’ll take the girl.”

“And I’ll have the other one. The youngest.” The second man says.

“And the boy?” The first man says.

Silence.

“Well?” The first woman, the one who sounds like Patience says.

“It’s…It’s just…we’re at the Cold Logic here…we just…can’t. Well what about you? Could you take him in? With your own and Patience just born?” The second man says.

“…damnit.” The first woman says.

“He’s almost of age. We’ll talk to Polly. He’ll be fine.” The first man says. “This is for the good of the tribe as a whole. You’ll see. Things will work out.” The world returned in blurry detail and excruciating pain. Filcher pulled himself up using the wall. His head was spinning. They must have put something in with the glass. He grabs an old newspaper from the ground and puts it over the ruined mess that was his face. His mind swims again. He collapses onto the ground as his feet slip and he lands hard.

The people around him jeer and laugh at him. Taunts and jeers. Insults and accusations. More than a couple of kicks to his chest, and blows to his back, and globs of mud and filth thrown on him. ‘Traitor’ is a popular and oft repeated word.

The world blurs again and Filcher fades out once more. The tribe looks at him as his booted foot stands on top of his own glass knife, he grinds the shards into the ground.

The younger ones stare at him, not understanding.

The ones his age look at him, shocked and bewildered.

The elders frown at him, dismayed and upset.

His mother’s been dead for two years now, ever since she fell in an accident. (Heh, ‘Fell,’ yeah. Sure. He’d thank Patience’s mom if she wasn’t dead.) His sisters are well cared for. He isn’t asked to do half as much as the others. He’s part of the Tribe, and the Tribe has taken care of him well.

Shouldn’t he be grateful?

He looks at a few. The leaders.

They can’t look him in the eye.

He leaves. He doesn’t look back. A street doctor finds him on a stoop, bleeding and mumbling to himself. They take him to a safer place, and he gets bandaged up. When patrolmen arrive to ask about what happened, Filcher says he has no idea at all who attacked him. It was dark. They came from behind. Probably dock thugs or rioters, or Texans, or who cares…the city has enough problems. He’s alive, that’s enough. All he needs is to lie on a bed and rest for a night.

He is told that another man is pressing charges against him. Thelan something…a person in the beehive…he doesn’t remember the incident. He nods and tells them to direct any further issues to IA. There will be a hearing, eventually. He’s still waiting on the hearings that he has coming to him for his work in the STD. At this point, he doesn’t care any more.

He sleeps. Constable Nero Cartwright of the Special Tactics Division looks at the boy sitting in his cell. He opens the cell door and holds something out to the boy.

“Meat loaf sandwich and cocoa.” He says. “Eat.”

The boy eats.

“I’m going to start charging you rent, you’ve been here so often.” Nero says. “Where’s your gang, or ‘tribe’ at…I’m having a word with your folks.”

“I don’t have one.” He says.

“You dress like a Glass Knife.” Nero says.

“You dress like a queer.” The boy says.

“I am a queer, and this queer will smash your nose to pulp, if you use any term other than ‘homosexual’ from now on. Understand me?” Nero says, crossing his arms.

The boy smiles and nods. Mostly because the ‘homosexual’ cop HAS smashed his face in before. Him and his mass of badged lunatics in this drippy basement.

“I’m not one of them. I quit.” The boy says.

“You quit?” Nero says.

“Yeah. I smashed my knife and left.” The boy says. “Screw their tribe. Damn their ways. Just to Hell with all of it. I’d rather die in the dark, than be one of THEM.”

Nero looks at the kid with a tilted head. He’s always been good at reading people. He blinks and he drops his arms. “Oh…oh kid…”

The boy looks at the ground. He sobs. At the end of the day, the door opens to Alex’s ‘room’ (read: cell) and Filcher walks in. His face is still red and raw, and the patch on his eye itches like crazy.

Alex doesn’t look up.

“Here.” Filcher says as he hands Alex an envelope, with a few specks of dried blood on it.

Alex looks at Filcher for a moment and then opened the envelope and took out a piece of paper. A crayon drawing of scribbles that could possibly be people standing together.

“She left it at the last place they held her.” Filcher says. “I picked it up.”

“Filcher…” Alex starts to say.

“No.” Filcher says. “I…provoked them.”

He leaves.