"Whatever you did to the hogger, he looks proper sad for once." The old pilot tips his drink to you.

"Whatever you did to the hogger, he looks proper sad for once." The old pilot tips his drink to you.

"Finally some decency around here."

"If you're pilots, why are you on the ground?"

"Ex-pilots." He growls.

"Does João there look like he could get anything up, let alone a plane?" He gestures towards the silent one.

"I wouldn't bet against him."

"Hh hh'ck hh'ck..." A kind rasping chuckle escapes from the throat of the man in question, but he still doesn't say anything.

Absent intensity. It's impossible to tell how much he even understands.

"What's his deal?"

"That's Loud João. He doesn't talk much."

"I'm PIGEON. That's SLAVA over there."

Alternative wording

"I'm PIGEON. And as for your friend, that's SLAVA." He nods at the cigar-smoker.

"How'd you get those call signs?"

"'Slava' used to be the name of a fish import company out of the North, my main cargo for a while. Packages stunk to high hell." He throws the ball to PIGEON.

"Guess." He jerks his head at you.

Callsigns aren't meant to be flattering. So if he was named after a bird known for its wayfinding...

"Bad with directions?"

"Allegedly."

"Man's got no compass. Him couldn't make it to the payphone without using radar."

"Joke's on you all anyway. I never minded pigeons. Tough little fuckers."

"A nuisance bird. Eats cigarette butts."

"Ha. Sure, why not."

A dirty little city bird. A winged rat.

"I don't really care, to be honest."

"Not really worth caring."

"I don't know, your nose?"

"Good to know." (Change topic.)

"If you say so." He shakes his head.

"So he's João, you two are...?"

"Loud João" He corrects you. "He doesn't talk much."

"Honestly, none of you do."

"Wrong. Me is a man of the skies, blondie, I'm just between landings at the moment."

'Permanently'.

A big hit of his own dwindling supply gives the old man a fleeting high.

"What kind of pilots were you?"

"I did 'clockwork freight'. Perishable goods -- fruits, marrowfish, whatever spoils quick."

"Military." A haughty tone to his voice.

The ranking system amongst pilots is all but official -- military is highest, followed by commercial, then cargo, then finally leisure. Jet pilots likewise command more respect than those flying traditional rotor planes.

"Hhewjj..." João's lips move, but the only sound that escapes them is an airy rasp.

The saliva smacking in his throat and mouth is louder than any words formed.

Tracing the shapes his mouth makes, you manage to make out the words 'I was', 'people', and 'land'.

"You were... people... land?"

"Sweet thing's got ears on her."

"Loud João was what they call a 'Lamprey'. People smuggler."

"You mean like human trafficking?"

"Legally, yes. But all his cargo were there voluntarily. Desperate, in fact."

"João ran low-altitudes missions in and out of the Territories for, what, ten years?"

"Yhhc." He nods.

'Territories' meaning, in this case, La Luz's island states -- briefly independent, now reannexed.

Far below the normal region of air traffic, almost skimming the dark water, a shuddering cargo plane crosses the Noscorrentes Sea, lights dimmed.

"Sick."

"Sick is what they do to you when they catch you." He nods at João.

Loud João just stares at you, his mouth twisted into a humourless grin.

What they did to him is the reason why he can't speak.

"Of course, a more technical pilot might have made it out, but.." He shrugs and takes a long sip of schnapps.

"Refugee flights, then?"

"Call them whatever you want. They wanted out."

"High-risk, high reward." (Nod.)

"Just high risk. The only reward is what happens to you when you get caught."

Loud João just stares at you, his mouth twisted into a humourless grin.

His reward was severe.

"That's way cooler than whatever you all were doing."

"Hhh'ck hh'ck!" Phlegmy chortles erupt from the man.

"Why do they call them Lampreys?

"Coyote of the seas." SLAVA recites, tiredly, as though rehearsed.

"He can't speak?"

"Oh, he can speak, just not a whole lot of sound comes out. A question of vocal cords."

"Cargo, military, disturbing whispering. Got it."

"What, João?"

"Hhggtl jjec..." Again, purposeful movement of the lips is accompanied only by breathy and mucosal noises.

"So where are you guys from?"

"Officially? We're Luzian." He chortles, and his companions join in.

"Hh'ck hh'cl hhjj!" Loud João's glottis spasms in silent mirth. Even PIGEON permits himself a chuckle.

"I don't get the joke."

"We're exiles. The Reunión came for us. We came here."

The laughter leaves in its wake something like conversational scar tissue.

"Coming from somewhere else doesn't in itself make you exiles, you know?"

"Heh. Well, I still have my Tenantry passport, stamped and all. Could fly back any day."

A particularly brutal annexation, the Tenantries were razed almost to the ground. What remains is a shrunken capital surrounded by non-arable land.

"Is there anything left to go back to?"

"Would you look at that, a Mircean who actually knows something about the world."

"Course there is, sugar. Bright sun. Sandy beaches. A mass grave somewhere with the bones of my parents." He smirks bitterly.

A joke in poor taste. A stamped passport for a country that no longer exists.

"You sure that's a good idea?"

"Oh, sure. And end up like João here, or worse?"

THE TECHNO-FASCISTS WOULD BRAND HIM THE SECOND HE LANDED, AND HE KNOWS IT. THEN THEY WOULD GET CREATIVE.

He spreads his mouth open in a vast, unpleasant grin.

"Then why don't you?"

"Nice. Good to have options."

All three of the old man break into synchronous fits of humourless laughter.

A chorus of hacking coughs, like cats throwing up furballs in unison.

"How'd you get here?"

The pilots exchange a look in silence.

"Tell you what, Mircea. You grease my gullet, I'll tell you some fucked up stories."

He means 'buy me a round'.

You know what he means, but you can't help it: an apple-sized dollop of lard melts between hand and chest as you massage grey-tufted folds of old skin.

"You think the Reunión is coming for Portofiro, too?"

"If it is, I won't be around to see it. Liver's on its way out. Cancer will get me before the Luzians do."

That smirk. Like he's somehow gotten one over on fate.

The signs are clear if you know what to look for: jaundiced skin, bilirubin-choked. The disease has taken hold.

"Maybe you should stop drinking."

"And what? Prolong the terminal phase? Yeah, brilliant idea."

"Those charlatans do love a dramatic prognosis, though."

"Anyway -- you're the foreigner here, Mircea, so you tell us. The Luzians -- think they'll be here any time soon?"

The subject, whether immediate or eventual, of the negotiations the prisoner told you about.

Were the talks not currently on hold, Portofiro would be being carved up by the drunken and otherwise degenerate diplomats representing the two rival powers of EMTERR and La Luz even now.

"How the hell should I know?"

"Either way, that's for you lot to worry about. I'm out the door."

"They think Portofiro's their territory. If they can take it back, they will."

"Mm. Hear that? Smart and good looking."

"I have it on good authority that it's being discussed this very moment."

"Hmm..." He looks at you differently.

Doused with cold water, all three of the pilots seem to sober up as your words hit them.

Fantasies of refuelling planes that no longer exist run through their eyes.

Spilling the People's secrets to the first drunkards you meet. This is why your internal clearance level is currently 'DO NOT INFORM'.

"You've been hanging out with the wrong crowd, sweet thing. Only bad people know good authorities."

"I'm one of those bad people."

"I'm just messing with you, I don't know shit."

"I wouldn't sweat it. It's just talk."

"And who's going to swoop in? Will Sweet Nestor emerge astride a white boar, death squads at his back?"

"Hwwrrch!" A whistle comes out of Loud João's throat that may or may not be an imitation of a boar's battle-squeal.

Sweet Nestor, famed dictator of Portofiro from some forty years back. Loved and reviled in equal measure, there's no denying he was a larger than life personality.

THE APPETITE OF EMPIRE IS SLEEPLESS AND INSATIABLE.

"Cancer's just a conspiracy made up by doctors to sell more cancer medicine."

"Conspiracy or not, Mircea, I'm dying anyway."

"She's right, though. Them doctors are a bunch of jokers. Almost as bad as suits."

"Time to crank up the drinking. Go out in style."

"Working on it." He nods formally and pours out another one for you. "Cheers."

"Cheers."

A few hundred brain cells pleasantly fizzle out in unison.

"Nah, I'm good."

"Drink. Talk." (Hand over a bottle of schnapps.)

"Ahem..." He prepares himself with a long drink.

"I flew from Tarisca. Small coastal town, north-east of St. Ulwen proper. Was seeing a woman there. Ripped a Vortex E6 right off the tarmac."

Light craft. Single turboshaft engine and a mere 120-litre biodiesel bladder. Favoured by the Aussaunnian militia and guerrilla groups.

"Quick to accelerate, quick to burn out."

The pilots trade another look. More than impressed, they seem put off by your technical knowledge.

Bandying about the fact that you're no common civilian is tantamount to wearing a sign.

"Luzian variant, in this case. Controls near illegible."

"Couple of days in, they started quelling the uprisings, and I'd heard enough about these things to know it was about to go down. So I hijacked her right from the hangar. Didn't even fully remove the tarp."

"How was it 'about to go down'?"

"They were going to make an example out of that city. Well, they did."

His face twitches on the razorblade between perverse delight and terror.

"Steep climb. Almost flamed out on the way up, but I rolled her clean over. Behind me, the city sprawled like veins in marble. Beautiful."

He edges out onto a thin sheet of memory, like a child on a frozen lake.

"No one came after you?"

"Luz scrambled three fighters -- mainlanders, not locals, they didn't know the territory like I did. They tried to box me over the Vioren canyon but I pulled a snap roll and kissed the ridges by a hair. Left them twisting in their own contrails."

"Soon, it was just me and the ocean. And then the light came."

"The sunrise?"

"Berrion bombs."

"Phhssssshhhhww!" The mute employs what little sound he is capable of making to create a grotesque sound effect.

"Soft, colourless at first. Then green and violet waves, all over the shoreline. And colours I didn't know existed, swirling like oil in water."

A painter's nightmare, etched in bodies and fire.

"Those bombs don't leave ruins, you know? Not even craters. Just smooth flatlands covered in fine grey dust."

And by some strange alchemy, somewhere is turned into nowhere.

"But... didn't you want to turn back? See if you could have saved somebody?"

"Ha. That's what most people say. I know two, maybe three that would have actually had the balls."

"You want more stories like that, sweet cheeks? We're full of them."

The stories affect them as much as any listener. They reopen the wound with every telling.

"Should have exterminated the people responsible. Every last one. Their families. Their dogs."

"It's a nice fantasy."

"There's no inherent value in survival. You're here, you're alive. So what?"

"Aye. Rats survive. Pigeons too."

"At least you got out."

"Aye. Well here I am." He takes another drink and sinks deeper into it.

"Fires?"

"Searchlights?"

Let him finish.

"What did the Tenantries look like from up there?"

"Same as they always did, except for the last time. I remember sun hitting the domes of the council houses. And the harbour... hundreds of iridescent green sails. Beetle shells, we called them."

Let him go on.

Say nothing.

"A plane, I'm guessing?"

"Round's on me. Spit it out." (Put 10 sol on the table.)

"Thanks for opening up." (Change topic.)

"Wish I could say could say the same, sweet lips."

The Reunión: La Luz's grand annexation campaign -- slow, legal, often bloody. A creeping tide reclaiming, every few years, one more of their old colonies.

"And unofficially?"

Luzian meaning from 'La Luz'. Officially 'The Illuminated Empire'. The technofascist power just across the strait from Portofiro, and one of your principal enemies.

It holds many territories throughout the surrounding regions, including, at one point, Portofiro, which used to be a Luzian penal colony.

"I want to hear more about your exile."

He nods gruffly.

"A round for that story?" (Put 10 sol on the table.)

"Sure. Said I would. Ahem..." He takes a long drink and clears his throat.

"What do you make of Portofiro?"

"It's a bit shit, but it's fine."

"Duchess is the only thing that makes this city halfway tolerable." He tries to joke, but his tone slips into moroseness.

"You're saying you only stick around Portofiro for the phone sex?"

Alternative wording

"I hear a lot of people come to Portofiro for the phone sex."

"Yhhej." Loud João nods curtly. The rest stay silent.

No translation needed, and not the slightest hint of irony. Yes.

"That's it? What about the people?"

"Sociable enough." He shrugs. "Like friendly dogs."

"It's got a couple things to recommend it, eh?" He wags a flirtatious eyebrow at his fellows.

"It's a bit shit, but it's fine." He ignores his companion's comment.

You picture the words in bold on the cover of the world's least enthusiastic travel brochure.

"'What do you mean, 'some things to recommend it'?"

"Oh, you know. Got some real friendly locals. Skilled, too." He smirks.

"You would be happy to live on a trash heap as long as you got to keep your phone sex, wouldn't you?"

He means the Miracle Line. They're regulars, all of them.

"Wait, Portofiro's specialty is phone sex?"

"Only if you're a dirty old man."

"He talks as though he hadn't racked up more hours on the Miracle Line than he ever logged in flight time."

The Miracle Line. You immediately recognise it as the card you found in PSEUDOPOD's pocket.

"I must have missed that part of the brochure."

"You're obviously new. Everyone knows the Miracle Line in this city."

"The phone-hogger you mentioned, what's his deal?"

Alternative wording

"The phone-hogger, what's his deal?"

"Just another foreign moneyman. City's been full of them lately."

"Stuck up little shit strolled in one evening, couple nights back, picked up the phone, and hasn't let go of it since."

"Rrghjj..." The third pilot emits a growl both disgusting and disgusted.

That was a growl, not an attempt to speak. He would be making the same noise if he could talk.

"Wait, who's he work for?"

"Who cares, sugar? No one in a suit ever did any real work."

"Come on. Foreign moneyman, in this city? EMTERR, obviously."

LIKE VULTURES TO A DYING ANIMAL. CARRION-TO-BE.

If that's true, he might know where you can find the Head of Human Capital.

In which case the phone-hog must be one of the negotiators Dante mentioned.

Wherever there is money, the bloody hand of transnational capital is never far away.

EMTERR, a.k.a. L'Empire sans Territoire, a.k.a. 'The Bank'. Equal parts global development fund and spy service. Linchpin of the Developed World.

"He's foul, but harmless. I don't see the problem."

"We all want our turn, sugar."

Alternative wording

"We all want our turn, sugar. Even you. We saw you over there, getting your kicks in."

"He's here every damn day. Stays on the line for hours -- doesn't care one bit if anyone else has had a turn or not, only shuffles off once the sun's set."

"Sounds like you're jealous of his stamina."

"Nothing to be jealous of. He's an empty suit. Not even the decency to be sad."

It may have been the techno-fascists that destroyed his homeland, but it's the entrepreneurial types that his disdain is really reserved for.

"Let him rot in him wealth."

"He's not rich, SLAVA, he just works for rich people." The old man rolls his eyes. "Ignore them, Mircea, they have no idea how money works."

"How are you proud men being dominated by a little salary weasel?"

"What are we going to do, fight him?"

"It's three on one. Easy."

"Even if somebody pummeled him half to death, he'd feel nothing. He's an empty suit. Not even the decency to be sad."

"You have anything better to do?"

"Alright, enough about the phone hogger." (Go back.)

"Believe me, we've all had enough of the phone hogger."

"Your turn at what, exactly?"

"The Miracle Line." An idiotic smile distends his features.

Even saying it gets him a little hard.

The Miracle Line. Must be what that card in your pocket is about.

"It's just a sex line, Mircea... though admittedly a formidable one."

"I've never seen a payphone fought over like that."

"That's cause you don't know the Miracle Line."

"What have you got against him?"

"You're men who've travelled the world. Ever come across a secret jail?"

Two of the pilots slowly turn their heads towards the third. The silent one.

"Hhhh.... Hhhh..." In the silence, Loud João's breathing resounds like ragged wingbeats.

A leaden silence descends. You have touched on something that should not have been touched upon.

"Now what makes you ask that?"

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Hh wss lch nnng." Again, his lips move, but no sound comes out.

The soundless words are clear on his lips: 'I was held in one'.

"If João wants to tell you, that's his problem. I'm not translating."

Look at João.

Steady breathing. A gaze as missing as it is fixed on you.

He will not lower it. Defiance keeps it aloft.

The glasses only magnify what is fundamentally missing from the gaze.

His companions may not accede to tell you -- but he will. If you can understand him, that is.

"What happened to him? I want to know."