That day, after the fifth steam-burst, the clinic received an unexpected "patient."
With a clang, the iron door was slammed open. Five figures wrapped in waterproof tarps barged in. The girl in front swung a bizarre-looking pistol, and the screw-cap on her right ear—speckled with copper-green fungal stains—was painfully familiar.
"Heard you can cure Rustbone?" She heaved a twitching teenage boy onto the iron bed. When her cloak fell open, the rot on his neck was exposed, green mottling blooming beneath the skin. She pointed the muzzle straight at my eyes. "Fix Johnny. Now. Or I'll blow your eyeballs out!"
My exhaustion had made me slow. Before I could even react, Granny Marta's cursing rang out from the back room.
"Don't be scared. That little bastard's gun doesn't have any bullets!" She snapped the curtain aside and strode out, snatching the pistol from the girl's hand so fast my eyes barely tracked it. With a flick of her wrist, she dumped the "ammo" out of the magazine—several iron nails clattering onto the floor.
I could not believe the same granny who usually trembled like a leaf could move like that. "So, Red Flash, this is your act? Last time you used real rounds was when you were stealing my painkillers, wasn't it?"
"It was because the steam pipe under the moth nest blew!" the boy called Johnny struggled and protested. His rotting fingertips clawed at the edge of the operating table. "Those meds were for the burned kids!" He turned his soot-black face toward me and forced his thin little hand up to point at himself, voice cracking with tears. "I was one of the ones who hit you before, Your Lordship. Beat me to death to vent, I deserve it, I'm already like this…"
He was talking too fast. The words collapsed into wet, gasping huffs. "But after you're done… please save Sister Lucy. She's looked after a lot of us. Now she's got Rustbone too…"
"Shut up, Johnny," Little Spark said, yanking her own tarp back and stepping forward. She smacked him on the head and forced him flat again. "Big Guy isn't that kind of person!"
Then, grinning like it was all a game, she leaned in close to me and nodded toward the red-haired girl standing there in an awkward, defensive posture.
"This is the famous 'Red Flash' Lucy from No. 7 Depot—our boss lady." Then she widened those green eyes at me and deployed a weaponized, glittering stare that could have been stolen from a cartoon. "About the time we robbed you… yeah, it was all of us together. We're here to apologize. So, Big Guy, be a saint and help out, okay?"
With Little Spark taking the lead, the other tarp-wrapped teens began fumbling frantically through their pockets. In no time the counter was piled with a mess of offerings: two brand-new, shiny gears, three fat gutter-fish, a clean roll of cloth, even a big bottle of clear water… You could tell it was the best "wealth" street kids like them could scrape together.
Lucy spat, then tossed down a med-kit stamped with the double-headed aquila. "Pulled it off an Enforcers' patrol wagon. Enough to buy two cheap lives, yeah?"
She hesitated, jaw tight, then still yanked her shirt aside. Just below her collarbone, a coin-sized patch of ulcerated rot was visible. "I can't pay back your clothes. Treat Johnny first. If it works…" She forced the words out as if swallowing glass. "I'll do night duty here for three nights."
I bit back laughter as I debrided and bandaged Johnny's wounds, because Little Spark was behind me heckling like a little gremlin.
"As if he'd want your bag of bones, Sister Lucy—save it. Who was it that handed out all the stolen protein paste to the moth-nest kids and then starved herself chewing boiler scale, huh?"
A heavy thud and a sharp yelp came from behind. I didn't need to turn around to know exactly what had happened.
"Double the fee," Lucy said, face set in a mask of forced calm as she threw three unlabeled cans onto the table. "Don't get ideas. This is hush money."
When it was her turn, she stared rigidly at the ceiling the entire time, breathing hard. "You say a word about this…" She hissed the threat like she was reciting a explains-everything script. "I'll dump boiler cleaner into your drinking water…"
I only kept a crooked, half-amused look on my face and focused on the work—exposed skin, ulcerated edges, cleaning, wrapping, layer by layer. Wind turns, doesn't it? Huh? Huh?
When I finally sent the newly-treated teens back out into the alley, Little Spark didn't leave with them. Instead, she perched on a roof beam, legs swinging, whistling through her teeth, chewing on something that looked like half-melted chocolate.
"You really got a rare treat," she sing-songed. "Last time someone even touched her collarbone, she smashed their dentures with a crowbar…"
From outside the clinic, a shrill roar sliced through the steam-hiss of the night.
"Shut up! Or when we get back I'll stuff your hair into a grinder!"
The runaway kids' suppressed laughter mingled with the wheezing pipes and faded away into the fog.
After that chaos, I collapsed into a chair like a man-shaped puddle and sat there for a while.
When I looked up at Little Spark in silent question, she dropped from the beam with a heavy little thump, landed like an orange cat, then pulled something out with a grin so eager it was practically fawning.
"Hey, Big Guy, I just wanted to show you this."
She set the thing on the table, then tore the rag wrapping off with a flourish.
It was a statue.
About the height of a one-liter soda bottle, welded together from scrap gears, screws, sheet metal, and rods—pure, feral, punk-industrial style. It depicted a person standing upright in a patchwork coat. The craftsmanship wasn't fine. "Rough" was generous. The body, limbs, and cloth folds were barely suggested. Only the face was a bit more detailed, and the more I looked at it, the more it seemed… familiar.
I raised a hand and touched my own face.
This damn statue was me.
And the most outrageous part?
"One me" held up a massive pair of scissors (my "surgery shears"). The other hand raised a bottle high (no question, the alcohol bottle). The bottle's mouth had been shaped into radiating spikes, like it was scattering holy light across the world.
On the base, in crooked, ugly letters, a line had been carved. Little Spark jabbed a finger at it, then read it out loud in a tone that was solemn as scripture but buzzing with glee:
"Terminator of Rustbone, Purifier of Filth, Guardian God of the Underhive—The Pure Hand!"
"Pfft—"
The mouthful of water I'd just swallowed blasted straight onto the statue's face.
Granny Marta stopped what she was doing and leaned in to look. "An icon?" Her expression couldn't decide what it wanted to be. "They actually made you an icon…"
"Yup!" Little Spark puffed her flat chest like she was collecting a medal, then wiped the statue clean with her sleeve. "Everybody argued about your honorific for ages before we picked it! Now the whole No. 7 Depot and a bunch of nearby blocks say you're a saint sent by the God-Emperor. They say your hands can drive off any curse!"
She even looked like she was worried I wasn't taking it seriously enough. "Because of you, there aren't any Rustbone patients left in No. 7 Depot! The people coming now are all from other zones, and…" She lowered her voice, conspiratorial. "We noticed something. Every Rustbone patient who came for treatment was already sick from before. Since the day you showed up here, there hasn't been a single new case. Not one."
She lifted her head. Those green eyes glittered with a brightness that made my scalp prickle. "A lot of folks have your portraits and statues at home now, worshipping them. Little Cole who can draw, and Old Joe with six fingers who can carve, they've been slammed lately."
She leaned in close, eyes round as coins. "Big Guy… are you really a saint?"
I covered my face and had no idea what to say. What in the Throne's name is this supposed to be?
I looked at that crude statue. I looked at Little Spark's face—still childish, yet already soaked in hardship. I looked out the window at the eyes outside, eyes that still clung to hope even while living in pain.
And I realized: things had gotten big. Really big.
All I'd wanted was to be a slightly less heartless outsider, struggling to stay alive in this hell, looking for a way out.
But now I'd somehow—without meaning to—mixed myself into becoming the head of a cult…
No. A "living saint."
…Didn't the Lady Inquisitor worship this kind of thing too, at some point?
I rested my hand on the cold sheet-metal statue, feeling the rough welds under my fingertips, and a deep weariness surged up—along with a thin, stubborn thread of emotion I didn't want to admit was there.
I turned, lost, and looked to Granny Marta for a few words of wisdom.
She held a rag and a cup in her hands, staring out through the clinic window with a complicated look, murmuring to herself:
"Hard to say if this is a blessing… or a curse…"
"What kind of life is this…" I let out a long sigh and pulled the rubber gloves back on.
"Next!"
Outside, the cheers thundered.
The world beyond the window was still soaked in that dim, yellow light. My drowsiness insisted it was deep night. The day's sixth steam-burst rolled through the filthy fog, and somewhere within it, a faint song drifted by, as if carried on the pipes:
"…Holy water won't raise dead branches, a bishop can't cure a rotten gut,
Under Marta's roof new flesh grows back, even a poor man's bad bones can shine bright…"
(End of Chapter)
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