125.

  So now I had a mysterious hacker who knew who I was. I had some sort of predator following me in the night that I'd never seen, but which had picked up my trail at least twice now, and that I had barely escaped with help. Oh, and now the police were investigating the Gutter Mage. It was a lot to deal with, so I did the mature, responsible thing and didn't deal with it. Instead, I went home that night, sat down with my gear, and began crafting as much as I could. It was a calming ritual. Crafting required so much concentration that I was unable to think about anything else other than what I was doing right in front of me.

  I made more Bang Rocks, cleaned out the Runes on my Jet Boots, and even went back to trying the Flash Coins again, still pondering the best way to utilize this new technology. I did anything I could to avoid thinking about the whirlpool of insanity that my life had become seemingly overnight. The second I decided to put the balaclava back on, it felt like everything had fallen apart again, and I was sucked into this world of paranoia, violence, and fear. But it was too late for recriminations now, I'd made my choice. Now I just had to blunder forward blindly until I was probably killed, or maybe even locked up by the police.

  I suited up and stared at my single brass knuckle. I still hadn't figured out what to do with it. I could easily procure another set of brass knuckles on the internet, I'd already searched for them and found a likely pair, although I was too poor at the moment to afford them. Fighting with only one Zap Knuck would come back to bite me in the ass eventually. Fortunately, my new metal had arrived for the Magnet Rune, so I was back to two, which I was grateful for. Climbing things with one arm was seriously doing my shoulder in. I geared up, strapped the carapace to my body, and was ready for another night on the rooftops. But what was I going to do?

  I still didn't know where the gun runner Danny was, and after the shootout at the nightclub, I assumed he would be lying very low. He was my only lead in the Syndicate and I had no idea where to start. So I decided the first thing I'd do was hit up Sherbert. We'd agreed to our usual method of communication if he had found anything out. I hadn't seen him at the homeless shelter that day, so I guessed he'd been out and about, and I hoped he had some information on those missing people. I guessed that if you were going to kidnap that many people, you'd probably start with the homeless population as they were the most vulnerable, and if they went missing, it was unlikely anybody would report them for quite a while.

  I stole across the rooftops, stopping to see if the silver-eyed cat would appear. But since I had taken back the Gutter Mage mantle, I hadn't seen the cat again, and I can't lie, I missed the little feline. I made the decision to keep leaving the tuna cans out and hoped it would come back, but so far the cans remained untouched. But I couldn't worry about that now. I had too many other things to worry about.

  It took me less than ten minutes to get to the park. I crouched on the rooftop and looked around, but I saw no telltale signs of being followed or that anybody was waiting anywhere. I gritted my teeth and slunk down to the park, hoping to see Sherbert's initials carved onto the pole, letting me know that he had something for me.

  The playground had gone to complete ruin. No one had repaired it after Brick destroyed it but people kept coming back here, and they kept leaving graffiti signs of the Gutter Mage. I'd never actually spotted them doing it, but every time I came here, I saw a new mural or tag dedicated to the Gutter Mage. The park had become like an unofficial shrine to the Mage.

  I stopped to admire the graffiti for a moment, then walked towards the large pole in the middle of the playground. As I got closer, I saw something twinkling on it. Instinctively, I activated the Zap Knuck, my other hand strayed towards Grandad's bat. As I got closer, I realised what it was. It was a dog tag. I walked up to the pole and pulled it off. It was completely black, with no writing on it. Nothing. I turned it over in my hands and then looked up at the pole, and my blood ran cold. This had been left for me, and it had been left in the same place that I would contact Sherbert from.

  Sherbert!

  My eyes widened, and I felt my breath catch in my throat. Not again! Not again! I turned and sprinted out of the playground. I flew up the fire escape and bounced across the rooftops at breakneck speed, almost flying off the edge of a couple of buildings, but I didn't care. They hadn't gotten Sherbert again, had they? I couldn't let them get him again.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  I flew between the building tops until I finally closed in on Sherbert's home. I skidded to a halt on a tall building that overlooked the alleyway leading to where Sherbert lived and scanned around, but saw nothing. There were no signs of anyone or anything. I fired my Grapple Cord at a lamppost, swung myself down, and slid down the pole, landing in a puddle at the bottom. I threw caution to the wind and tore down the alleyway. I couldn't see signs of a struggle, but that didn't mean anything. I skidded to a halt outside Sherbert's home. The metal corrugated door was still intact.

  I looked up and down the alleyway, then up at the tops of the buildings and saw nothing. I hammered on the door.

  "Sherbert! Sherbert!" I shouted through the door. "Sherbert, are you there? It's me, open up!"

  I heard a sound from within, then leapt back, drawing Grandad's bat and leveling it at the door. My heart thundered in my chest. Sweat dripped down my temple. The door slid back, and there was Sherbett. He looked like he'd been sleeping. I let out a loud, deep sigh of relief.

  "Sherbert, are you okay?" I asked, lowering Grandad’s bat.

  "Mister Mage," he said in confusion, rubbing his eyes. "What's going on? What's happened?”

  I looked at my friend and my smile froze on my lips. Realisation hit me like a semi truck. That marker hadn't been left to tell me they'd taken Sherbert. It had been left as a trap! I looked down the alleyway, the way I'd come, and there it was. The stalker in the dark was a tall, thin figure wrapped in darkness, slowly walking towards me. I heard the heavy thunk of its feet and that same pneumatic hiss I'd heard the night before. This was an ambush!

  "Mister Mage," Sherbert said again, seeing the terror in my eyes. Then he looked down the alley and saw the thing stalking towards us. "Mister Mage, what's that?”

  "Sherbert, get inside," I said quickly.

  "What?" Sherbert replied.

  "Get inside, grab your things, and run!" I said to him breathlessly.

  "But Mister Mage, what’s going on?”

  "Sherbert, they know where you live! Grab anything and run, and do not come back here. Go, go now!" I screamed at him, turning back towards the figure.

  The closer it got, the more terrified I became. It was unnaturally tall and had long distended limbs. It was maybe 6 or 7 feet tall but I couldn't figure out its silhouette. The figure’s face looked too lumpy and bulbous, and its body seemed to be swathed in some sort of billowing, tattered cape. Even its footsteps sounded wrong; there was almost something mechanical about them. It walked imperiously, showing no signs of haste. But then, why would it? Where was I going to go? This thing had chased me halfway across the city without me even seeing it, and now I was only a couple dozen feet away.

  I heard Sherbert scrambling next to me, but I couldn't risk taking my eyes off the thing in front of me.

  "Hurry up, Sherbert!" I snapped through gritted teeth.

  I heard his trolley squeaking, and I risked flicking my eyes towards him. There was Sherbert in his new coat with his trolley in front of him, panting and red-faced.

  "Run, Sherbert," I growled to him, "go somewhere away from the Mulberry and do not contact me again. Go!”

  "But Mister Mage…”

  "Go!" I yelled at him.

  Sherbert jumped and then ran, pushing his trolley in front of him and sprinting as fast as he could.

  I swallowed and turned back to the thing that had been stalking me. It stopped just shy of a pool of light cast by the lamppost, and in the darkness, it stared at me.

  "You are the one who calls himself the Gutter Mage?" The voice was tinny and echoey, as if coming through a radio, accompanied by a pneumatic hiss.

  I swallowed dryly and leveled the bat.

  "You're the thing that's been following me?" I managed to croak.

  Then it stepped into the light, and I couldn't understand what I was looking at. It was a man—or at least had been. He was tall with wiry, shoulder-length gray hair. He had human eyes that were cold and dark, but the entirety of the lower half of his face was obscured by some sort of breathing apparatus. It looked halfway between the breathing mask I'd worn in the hospital and a gas mask. Thick tubes came out from the side of the mask and disappeared under his cape, which I realized now was some sort of tattered army camouflage.

  As he stepped forward, I heard the hiss of more pneumatic machinery whirring, and the deep mechanical whirr of lungs that weren't human.

  "I am Gas," he hissed. “You have been assigned for termination.”