Gyaros Book One: The Mice Eat Iron (YA 17+ Sci Fi Adventure) (18 page)

As he worked, Miles carefully thought about his next move. For the time being he had food and shelter, which is more than most
new arrivals on Gyaros could say for themselves, but he knew that he'd have to stay alert. After all Miles did find a severed hand in the trash outside the diner. Was the rest of the body hidden in garbage bags too? Did Gideon kill whoever the hand belonged to? And if so, why? Maybe someone was causing trouble at the diner, maybe someone owed him some money or maybe he just felt like it! Whatever the case Miles could tell that Gideon wasn't the kind of man that could be easily trusted. But he wasn't going to ask questions, he knew that there wasn't much he could do at this point except work and keep his mouth shut, there was no time to even think about New Fortune or the possibility of returning to Carthage right now. He had food, water, and somewhere to sleep, he wasn't in a position to complain. All that mattered was surviving another day. Miles thought of Maxen, he felt a deep pain in his heart for the friend he’d lost the night before. ‘God damn it Maxen, why’d you have to go and lose your fuckin’ temper, what the hell am I going to do without you?’ He felt tears welling up as he thought about Jenny and how she would never know how her father passed away, or where, or when. Or indeed that he did so defending her honour. ‘Poor Maxen, if anyone should still be alive today it should be you. You were my ticket to New Fortune, but more than that you were my friend. I didn’t know you long but I’m glad we met, you’re the reason I still have a pulse and I won’t let that go to waste. I promise you that Maxen,’ Miles thought, scrubbing ever harder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 1
3

As Gyaros' artificial night began to fall and the diner closed for the day, Gideon met Miles in the scullery and handed him an old blue, worn out sleeping bag.

“That was a good day’s work Miles. Keep that up and there’ll be plenty more food and even a little money for ya. M
ake yerself comfortable, any spot’ll do,” he chuckled before heading into his quarters for the night. Jasper and Emmet had already retired to the small shack out the back of the diner. Miles was tired after a day of work and was still severely shuttle lagged from the trip to Gyaros, he laid his sleeping bag down on the steel floor of the scullery and climbed inside, it wasn't a pleasant way to sleep by any means but it was certainly a step up from the shoddy cardboard mattress he slept on the night before. He was inside, he was warm and he was safe. Miles closed his eyes and fell asleep almost instantly.

“Time to get to work boy,” Miles opened his eyes to see Gideon standing over him, he didn't know what time it was but it felt as if he'd slept longer than necessary.

Miles forced himself out of the sle
eping bag and up onto his feet. Noticing that there were already dishes that needed cleaning he examined the old digital clock above the sink. 11:56. Miles wasted no time getting started as Gideon left him in peace. He quickly rolled up the old sleeping bag and stowed it under the sink before taking the first of the dirty dishes in his hand. Miles could see Jasper through a little window between the scullery and the front counter. He was tending to customers and Miles assumed that Gideon must be the only one who prepared the food as Emmet didn't seem capable. ‘Speaking of which, where is Emmet. Hmm, probably still in the shack.’ The day continued relatively calmly as Miles kept himself focused on his work. Frequent shouting and the occasional gunshot could be heard from the diner which seemed to be quite normal in The Dustbowl but was definitely not something that Miles was accustomed to. A few hours into the day there appeared to be some trouble in the front area of the diner as Miles heard what sounded like a heated argument. Carefully placing the large plate which he was currently cleaning onto the side of the sink he moved closer to the small window just in time to see a heavy glass bottle brought down forcefully upon the head of a customer, smashing to pieces on impact. The attacker, an intimidating, muscular man bearing several scars across his body as well as a colourful array of intricate tattoos, then thrust the remaining half of the bottle into his victim's throat before calmly walking away. As blood poured rapidly from the neck of the unfortunate customer, covering the table and floor, no one in the diner seemed too shaken up by the event, they merely continued chatting and eating. An elderly man sitting in the corner even began laughing as if he had just been told a hilarious joke. Apparently, this kind of incident was no rare occurrence on Gyaros. ‘How could anyone get used to this?! These people are sick! Oh Hellen, how I took you for granted all those years. How insignificant our problems seem now.’ Miles returned his attention to work, the colour now drained from his face after witnessing the violent attack, he had a feeling that if he were to survive in this dangerous and unfamiliar world, he would have to somehow get used to shocking sights such as these and what he saw two nights ago at The Rusty Anchor. The dirty dished clattered loudly in the basin as Miles tried to control his shaking hands.

Night time came once again and Miles climbed back into his sleeping bag on
the floor of the damp kitchen. The work was easy enough, his employers did indeed keep him well fed and he was relatively safe working out back in the scullery. For now things were going well, all things considered. ‘I’ve just got to keep it together, keep my eyes and ears open, work and learn. Then I can think of a way to resume my journey to New Fortune. Right now I just need to keep my head down and play it safe.’

As he awoke the following morning, Miles could hear Gideon and Jasper talking from the next room. He listened carefully and managed to overhear the words ‘meat’, ‘hunt’ and ‘careful’. From what he could gather, it sounded like Jasper and Emmet were going out to collect supplies for the diner later that day. ‘Better them than me,’ Miles thought to himself as he rubbed his eyes and stood up off the kitchen floor with a yawn. While he was rolling up his sleeping bag to put it under the sink for the day, the door to Gideon’s quarters swung open and Gideon entered the scullery.

“Ah good, yer up!”
said Gideon upon seeing Miles awake and ready for work, his big goofy face grinning broadly, “now, Jasper 'n' Emmet are gonna be out pickin' up some more meat today, so I'll need ya to man the counter for a little while.” Miles, still half asleep, simply nodded in response. He didn't have much of a choice as right now Gideon was supplying Miles with shelter and hot meals in an extremely hostile environment, and although Miles was considerably afraid of interaction with Gyaros locals, he wasn't about to argue. After all this was his new home, he had to talk to the neighbours eventually.

“It ain't too hard, all ya gotta do is write down the customers' orders and bring 'em in to me
,” Gideon explained, pointing at the door which separated the scullery from the kitchen, “just don't forget to knock first,” he added with a wink.

“What about the dishes?” Miles inquired,
still rubbing his sleep filled eyes.

“The boys'll only be gone for an hour or two, so you'll have plenty of time for that
,” replied Gideon before returning to his room.

As opening time came, Miles began the day with his usual duties until about two o'clock when Jasper and his brother left the diner to
collect the supplies. Miles looked out the front window to see both of them climb into an old rusted blue pickup truck, the kind he’d only ever seen in a museum or on visor vision, and speed away down the rough dirt road and out of The Dustbowl’s gates.

“Alright Miles, time for you to take over
,” Gideon said, poking his head out from his door.

Miles took his place behind the counter, he was quite nervous about dealing with customers, having seen the kind of deranged and viole
nt individuals that make up a large percentage of The Dustbowl's population. He reassured himself however that, 'Jasper's still alive and he's probably worked this counter for years. You can do it Miles!' He then thought as he looked around at the unsavoury individuals occupying the tables, 'maybe there's some amount of respect for venders among these people. After all they’ve got to eat, right?'

Although some of them were fairly regular folk, m
ost of the customers Miles dealt with throughout the day were dangerous looking men and women, all with at least a few battle scars and some of them dressed in heavily blood stained clothes. But none of them seemed to cause much trouble, at least not with him. Still, Miles remained on edge, Gyaros was a terrifying and unpredictable place at the best of times. Every little noise made him almost jump out of his skin.

Miles knocked on the kitchen door which opened slightly, Gideon sticking his head out.

“One Ransom double with extra cheese and no onions,” said Miles handing him the order.

“Thanks buddy,” replied Gideon and he disappeared back into the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

Miles had just returned to his place behind the counter when
everything turned upside down.

“Pa! They shot Emmet!”
the front door of the diner burst open as Jasper rushed inside, his eyes wide with panic, tears streaming down his cheeks as he carried his unmoving brother in his arms. They were both covered in blood which was flowing from a large wound in Emmet's chest. The entire diner stopped and fell silent as the patrons looked on. Gideon quickly ran out of the kitchen, still wearing a bloodied butcher's apron.

“Get him in here, hurry!”
shouted Gideon. Jasper dashed into the scullery and laid Emmet gently down on the floor as Miles looked on through the small window. ‘Holy crap, what the hell happened to him?!’

“Is he gonna make it, Pa?” Jasper asked
with a warble in his voice as he looked down at Emmet.

“He's dead, Jasper
,” Gideon answered quietly.

“I didn't know they were gonna have guns Pa, I didn't know!” Jasper sobbed loudly
.

“It's gonna be alright son, just tell me what happened, are they after you?”
asked Gideon, putting his arm around Jasper.

“N-n
o, I killed 'em all,” Jasper sniffed.

“That's good son, that's good
.” Miles' body was frozen as he watched the scene unfold. Just when things were beginning to settle down, just when Miles felt like he had his life somewhat under control, something like this had to go and happen. He watched the miserable father and son sob together at the loss of their family member and Miles felt their pain. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if something like that happened to Chet.’

The Ransoms closed the diner early to bury Emmet in the red soil behind the building. Gideon and Jasper both said a few words at sunset as they laid their son and brother to rest. Miles stayed out of the affair as much as he could and remained inside the diner alone, watching the scene from the window in the scullery that faced toward the large dirt field out the back of the diner.

Later that
night, after the sun had set and as Miles sat at one of the tables in the front area of the building, Gideon sat down across from him and began to speak.

“I lost one of my boys today, this is the first time we’ve lost someone since Mary died in the fever of 53,” Gideon cracked the top
s off two bottles of beer handing one to Miles and taking a swig of the other, “it’s a sad day Miles, just me and little Jasper left. But we’ll survive, we always do because we’re strong. Unlike you we were born on this moon, it’s our home, we live and die by the way things work up here. You Carthaginians don’t wanna be here but we ain’t like that. We’re proud to be Gyaran!” he said with vitriol, raising his bottle in the air. It seemed like he was using Miles as a welcome distraction from the sudden loss of his son.

“
Poor Emmet, he never was quite right. Still we took care of him, treated him good. But deep down I always knew he was too soft for this place, he wasn’t made for it,” a look of deep sorrow filled Gideon’s small blue eyes. Miles was silent, he had no idea what to say at a time like this. He took a deep breath and wiped a stray tear from his cheek before composing himself and beginning to speak again.

“Alright Miles,”
began Gideon seriously, “maybe it's time I let you know how we
really
do things 'round here.” Miles’ heart rate rose slightly as he listened carefully, confused and slightly afraid of what Gideon was about to tell him. ‘How we
really
do things? What the hell does that mean?! Do I even want to know?’

“C'mere
,” said Gideon, standing up and gesturing for Miles to follow him into the kitchen. “Now, ya see, good meat's pretty hard to get off the animals 'round these parts,” he explained as they made their way to the kitchen, “there's hardly any farms left on Gyaros so most of the livin' creatures here are those wild fuckers ya see out in the desert,” Miles and Gideon walked through the kitchen and arrived at the door to the freezer.

“And then o' course,” Gideon said as he pushed open the met
al door, “there's people.” Miles’ jaw dropped and his eyes widened in horror at the sight now revealed to him, he wanted to run but his legs wouldn't let him. Inside the small room behind the door, three armless human bodies hung upside down with large meat hooks through their ankles, most of the flesh had already been carved off their backs and thighs, a large pile of bones and unused body parts sat in the far corner of the room and on a sturdy wooden table were several cuts of meat accompanied by a selection of sharp knives. Miles quickly ran to the nearby sink and vomited before looking up at Gideon in disgust and terror, his heart beating harder than ever and his entire body trembling with shock and fear. Gideon looked back at him and spoke again, “I’m not gonna mince words here, with Emmet gone, we need someone else to go with Jasper on the raids,” he paused briefly before continuing, “now, I know this is a lot to ask of someone like yerself, so I'll pay ya well, a thousand talons per job.” Miles continued to stare at Gideon before regaining his ability to speak.