The town is pretty quiet at this time, not being big enough to really have much of a nightlife other than a pub or two. Zash follows the buzzing sounds of people to try to find one and then hurries up a bit when he catches that there's some kind of commotion happening inside. He's at the door when he has to immediately dodge because someone is being bodily thrown out.

Two women walk out to follow the person, entirely ignoring Zash. "Pay for your own booze, old man," says one of them, grabbing a gun and pointing it at her target. "If you try to pull that on us again I'll fill you with lead."

    The man looks up at her without flinching, the tip of the gun touching the tip of his nose. He has a vague smile and reeks of alcohol, and the impression of drunkenness is exacerbated by how he sways in place even though he's sitting up on the ground and resting his weight on his hands too.

The woman tsks, making a disgusted face, and uses her gun to hit the man on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground, before walking back into the pub.

(No killing intent, though. That was a bluff.)

Zash rushes to the man's aid, dropping to one knee. "Hey, friend. Are you okay?"

The man, who is trying to sit up again and mostly failing, turns his dumb grin to Zash. "Heeeey... I recognise you..."

Oh no.

"You're my friend who's buying me booze." His eyes lose focus and he amends that to: "Friends! Twins. You didn't tell me you had a twin!"

...or not. "Come on, let me help you up."

If by "help him up" Zash means "support all of his weight" then this man is absolutely going to be helped up. "Waiiit, where'd your twin go?"

"He's in February."

"Feb" (hic) "ruary?"

"It's one of the big Cities."

"...izzit? Is, December, Julai, I" (hic) "Inepril, May, uh... uh... Oc... Oc..." He shakes his head and then squeezes his eyes shut for a second. "I guezz. Makes sense."

"Come on, friend, where do you live? I'll get you home."

"Home... izzzzz..." He points at the pub. "Here."

"No, that's the pub."

"Home izz" (hic) "where the heart izzzzz and my heaaart is the beeeautyyyyy..."

"Ah huh. And where do you usually sleep, then?"

"Innn..... some... where." Hic. "Friend, buy me a drink. Onnnne drink. One? Then home. I show you where home iz."

On the one hand getting this man another drink sounds like a terrible idea, but on the other Zash doesn't have a better idea for how to get this man home and besides people in the pub might be able to tell him where the town drunk lives.

"I'll think about it," he says, and then hyup he's mostly carrying this guy in now but that's okay he's stronger than he looks.

The two women who had been threatening this man look up at their entrance (as does everyone else, really, this is a small town pub) and give them a dirty look but don't otherwise object. Most of the others get back to minding their business, with the exception of the bartender. "You," she says, holding out a hand to Zash. "Gun."

"—eh?"

"You're not carrying a gun in here."

He nods in the direction of the two women. "They are carrying guns."

"I know them. I don't know you. Gun."

You know what, fair enough. He reaches for the gun he has holstered against his thigh then twirls it around to offer the woman its handle. "Can we get a table?"

She accepts the gun. "You payin'?"

"I'm paying."

She gestures at an empty, circular table with three chairs around it. "Good 'nough for me. Don't make trouble."

"Me? Trouble? Never," he says, adopting the most innocent-looking face he has.

She snorts and shakes her head. "Know your type. Sit. What'll you have?"

Zash brings the man to the table and places him onto a chair, but the man perks up when the woman asks for booze opinions. "How about... you give me a bottle of that one?" he says, pointing.

She looks where he's pointing, snorts again, and nods. "Comin' right up, pretty boy."

"Awww, you think I'm pretty?"

"Boutta change my mind about that. Sit down, I'll be with ya in a jiffy."

He obediently takes a seat across the table from the man. "So, what's your name?"

"What's yours?" he counters.

"I am Zavier Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gumbigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andres Charton-Haymoss Ivanovicci Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser," deeeeep breath, "the third!

"But you can call me Z."

The man blinks loooong and slow at that, his eyes sort of losing focus in the middle of it.

Then he shrugs. "Don't got no name. Lost it. While ago. Never" (hic) "got it back."

"Did you look under your bed?"

Hic. "Yeah. Errywhere. Lost for good. Mm."

    Bartender shows back up with an unlabelled bottle and two glasses. "On the house for the pretty boy."

"Whaaat? Hilda you never give" (hic) "me free drinks."

    "Maybe if you cleaned up I would."

"No fair," he sighs, but then he serves himself a drink and downs it in one go.

...then spits it out. "The hell, man??"

Zash was ready for it, though, and caught most of that spat out drink into his own cup. "Water. You get real dehydrated if you just drink alcohol and then tomorrow you'll have a killer headache."

"Hilda, you b" (hic) "betray me??" he whines, but the bartender just laughs and walks back to the bar. The man groans and turns to glare at Zash. "That was a dirty trick, friend."

"You asked me for one drink. Here's one drink."

"Not a drink."

"Drink that water and maybe if you start to look less like you're about to paint me with the contents of your stomach I'll buy you alcohol then."

He grabs the bottle again and serves himself some water. "Fine." He can down the water just as quickly as alcohol, too.

"Deal's off if you drink water so fast you throw up all over me anyway."

"Asshole."

"Is that how you treat friends who buy you drinks?"

Grumble grumble.

"...where'd you get your gun?"

"It was a gift from my twin."

"You don't have a" (hic) "twin."

"Yeah I do. Identical, too. His hair's platinum blond, though."

"Hmm." He drinks some more water. "What's his name? S?"

"Nai."

"...huh."

"Your turn. What's your story?"

"Don't got one. Lost it with my name."

"I think you're lying."

"An' I think you should mind your damn business."

"Whiskey? On the rocks?"

"...you drive a hard bargain, friend."

"Tell me one story and I'll get you that drink."

"There was a man. He was loved by ev'ryone, he had ev'rything. Money, looks, girls. Best gunslinger 'round these parts, an' a hero to boot. Protected ev'ryone.

"Then one day there was an accident. Or maybe it was pre, per, p—" He furrows his eyebrows then tries enunciating it slowly. "Pre-me-di-ta-ted. Dunno. No one knows. But breaks his fingers. All of 'em. An' he can't gunsling anymore. An' now he's sad and drunk an' alone."

"Your fingers aren't broken."

"Told you one story, not my story," he replies, grinning toothily.

"Touché and well-played. Finish that water and go pee and I'll get you that whiskey."

"Ha! It worked." He downs the rest of the water like it's alcohol and then gets up and staggers towards the bathroom—

    "Outside! I ain't having you piss all over my bathrooms again."

—staggers outside.

(The man's fingers aren't broken but they are very calloused, Zash noted. Calloused in a pretty specific way.)

(And people are very bad at inventing new stories from nothing, especially when they're drunk.)

(Curious.)

"Well I'm not going back on my word. Hilda, beautiful Hilda, don't make a liar out of me?"

"Pretty words from a pretty boy but I need to see some coin."

He has coin. He is not a liar.

Then she can get him his whiskey, sure.

"He's not worth it, you know," says a man sitting at a nearby table, leaning over to Zash. "Lost cause."

Zash shakes his head, smiling to himself. "No one's a lost cause. Everyone's worth it."

The man snorts. "Suit yourself. That idealism'll get you killed."

    "I dunno, did you see his gun?" asks one man who's sitting with him. "We all know Frank Marlons but that thing was beautiful."

"Beautiful don't win fights."

"I mostly try not to get into any fights to begin with."

"Then they'll find you and it'll be your funeral, pal."

"Lasted this long," he says, with a shrug.

"Hiiiildaaaaaa," calls the drunk, staggering back in. "Where's my booooooze?"

    "Aye, aye, sit down you bastard and I'll get you it."

Hmm.

Zash stands up and starts to drag his table to be next to that of the two people he'd just been talking to.

"—hey, what's the bright idea?"

"Drinking with friends is always better than alone."

"Hear, hear!" says drunk guy.

    "We're not friends," grumbles the first guy from the other table.

"Why don't we introduce ourselves? I'm Z, this guy doesn't have a name, how about you three?"

First guy snorts. "Gabriel."

    "Hal."

        "Paul," says the third guy who had been quiet until now.

"Nice to meet you all!" He fills his own glass (a separate one that does not contain spat-out water) with whisky (no rocks, though, ice is a commodity) and lifts it to the air. "To new friends!"

"To new friends!" says nameless drunk.

    "Hear, hear," sighs Hal, and the other two join into the cheers.

By the end of the night Zash has managed to turn the whole pub into one happy group of drunken people singing together (as opposed to various separate small groups of people being grouchy and quiet). The fact that he bought alcohol for others pretty liberally certainly helped matters, but he likes to believe that there was some amount of charm and charisma involved, too. Even the women his nameless friend had probably been harassing earlier in the evening for alcohol got over their grudge and joined in.

It probably also helps that it seems his nameless friend really is the town drunk and people are used to his antics. And they do know where he lives.

So as people start to file away, so too do the two of them, with Zash once again mostly-carrying nameless dude to get him back home. The guy falls asleep halfway there and Zash, after checking that there's no one nearby to watch them, easily lifts the man up in a bridal carry and effortlessly strides towards where he's been told he should go. Then it's a few seconds of patting his new friend's pockets for his key and they're inside his apartment.

Even knowing he's the town drunk this place is still impressive. The main item of furniture is empty bottles of alcohol, and they're everywhere: on the floor, on the tables, on the kitchen counter, in the sink, under the bed, in the bathroom. The smell is just as bad, a pungent mixture of alcohol, dust, mold, and sick that would get to anyone who isn't completely inured to it or at least too drunk to notice.

The man had probably been speaking the truth when he said he lives in the pub; he likely only spends any time here when he's forced to not be there, and he likely only doesn't die of hunger due to Hilda's kindness. There certainly isn't any food here.

Not really outside what Zash had expected, if pretty close to the worst case.

Well, he's got his work cut out for him, doesn't he.

He gently places his new nameless friend on his bed and gets to it.

The man wakes up and he doesn't have a headache. Well, he does, but it's such a small one he can't even feel it. At least compared to his personal longtime friend of every morning of the past several years. But he's still so used to it that he takes a while to actually open his eyes, what with the purely instinctive flinch reaction he has to light due to aforementioned frequent hangovers. But when he does eventually open them he's almost convinced the reason he doesn't have the headache is because he's dreaming.

What other explanation does he have for, for, for...

There's not a bottle in sight. His floor is spotless, his clothes are folded, he can actually see all of his walls.

The place is, in a word, pristine.

He almost thinks there's a bad smell coming from somewhere before he realises that what this is is a lack of smell. The place has no smell at all—except, perhaps, for a background note of detergent.

What the fuck.

He gets up, slowly walks around, and tries to remember the previous night. He was drunk, obviously, and at the pub—Lin and Eko got fed up with him and threw him out and Lin hit him with a gun—then there were those twins—no, it was just one guy, Z, but he said he does have a twin—and the guy asked where he lived, then gave him water, then whiskey, and then somehow everyone was happy and cheerful and singing and drunk together and then he passed out and...

...did. Did Z bring him here and. Clean his apartment. Overnight???

Well, he supposes it's probably afternoon already, judging by the light seeping through his blinds, but STILL.

He goes to his bathroom, turns the light on, and has to shield his eyes from the reflection. He doesn't remember the last time he saw the floor shining so much. The smell of soap is stronger here, and there definitely isn't a smell of sick anymore, at all. His toilet is clean, his sink is clean, his bathtub is clean, everything is so clean.

Maybe he went into a coma and Z spent a whole month here cleaning stuff for him. That'd make more sense than this having happened overnight.

He starts crying, and he doesn't know why, except he does know why, but he doesn't want to admit that this is the most kindness anyone's shown him in years and it was a stranger and.

And he's going to take a shower. And change into clean clothes. And then go look for this saint he seems to have run into.

The saint isn't hard to find; this isn't a town so small that they keep notice of every single outsider, it's in the middle of a trade route and has representatives of a couple of major banks (they even accept credit chits!) and even has a port for sand steamers that gets very occasionally used, but the bright red and yellow kid with the big orange shades really does kind of stick out like a sore thumb. After some asking around, he can eventually be found at the second street market helping Dennis peddle plant meat he's reselling.

"Nameless guy, hi!"

"Hey, uh, Z."

"Sleep okay? Hangover not too bad?"

    "I, uh."

"Z, he's gonna drive customers away, if you wanna chat take a break."

"Roger that. Back in a little bit."

No-name guy follows Z, looking over his shoulder in bewilderment a few times.

"Uh. Uh." He swallows then blurts out, in one breath, "Didyoucleanmywholeapartmentallbyyourselfovernight??"

"Oh, yeah, I did. Did you like it? I hope none of the bottles had sentimental value, I can find them if they did but it'd be a bit of work."

What do you even say to that. "They didn't."

"Cool, cool. Do I get a name, now?"

"...what?"

"Yours," he clarifies. "Am I allowed to know your name, now?"

"John."

"Nice to meet you, John, I'm Z."

John cracks a smile. "You said. And your twin is Nai."

"Oh, you remembered! Wasn't sure how much you'd retain, you were pretty far gone."

"Nahh, been worse. ...feelin' the lack, though. Don't suppose you could buy me some more?"

"Yeah, sure." He reaches into a pocket to grab a credit chit and tosses it to John.

Who fumbles and doesn't catch it but then plucks it off the ground. "...this is a credit chit," he observes.

"Mmhm. Passcode's oh-nine-oh-oh-eight."

"You're just. Giving me this???"

"Lending you this. I expect it back later."

"I could just run away with it. Or spend it all on booze."

"Nah, I trust you."

".................why."

"Got a feeling about people. Anyway, Dennis will be waiting for me, I'll catch you later."

"...bye."

Dennis only spends another hour at the market, though, and on the hour a tiny old lady named Mearii passes by on a tiny electric two seater to collect the money he earned and take it to the bank.

"So you do this hourly?" he asks her from the other seat where he's helpfully carrying the money for her in several bags.

"Ev'ry two hours," she replies.

"And people are just fine handing you their credit chits so you can deposit their money for them?"

"I don't like your implications, young man."

"No, no, I don't mean it that way, I just mean that most people are sort of not very trusting of others."

"I been doin' this forty years now. Ev'ryone knows me. And they only give me deposit chits."

"How do you even remember whose bag is whose?"

She gives him a look. "I been doin' this forty years now, young man."

"...fair enough. You're very good at what you do."

She grins toothily. "I been doin' this forty years now," she repeats a third time.

"And you get a cut of the money you handle?"

"Mm."

"You work for the bank itself?"

She shakes her head, making a sucking sound with her dentures. "No. Don't trust them snakes half 's far 's I can throw 'em. And that's not v'ry far."

"Why not?"

"They'll sell they mother if they think it gives them a profit. They'll charge ya soul for a loan."

So the typical crimes of banks, then.

"I hear they're pretty good for the town's economy, though. Lots of outsiders coming here on their way to other places and using the bank and all that."

"We don't need 'em. We're fine without."

"You'll definitely know better than me, I'm just an outsider."

"And they keep having them big metal cars over to move money around and need security, always a right mess. Should be gettin' another car in a few days. Always a mess."

"Yeah, that does sound extremely troublesome."

It also gives the Frank Marlon story a little bit more context; the locals probably don't love that the bank attracts the kind of crime that requires this much security, and Marlon was probably an important character in that little piece of societal conflict.

Despite her words, Mearii is well received and well liked by the bank's employees. There isn't much small talk, though, since she comes over every couple of hours; just an overall cheerful ambiance and a very efficient handling of money born out of habit and frequency. The most remarkable thing there right now is Zash himself, his tall brightly-coloured self standing out as usual.

He helps her with her money (which she only lets him do once he assures her he wants no payment for it) but doesn't follow her when she leaves, opting to explore this building a little bit.

There isn't much that's straightforwardly open to visitors. There's a lobby, understated but pretty, and you can talk to an employee to open an account or access your funds, but they don't have the fancy machines the big cities do that automate money withdrawal and deposit. There are a few booths out back when you need to talk to an account manager in private about anything, but you can't just go there without permission. There's the "public" safes with a little bit of money—only a small fraction of what the whole bank has—and which employees have direct access to on their day-to-day. And then there's the "private" safes, which are only accessible through a separate entrance, and which are heavily guarded and armoured.

What might be interesting to Zash in particular, however, is a little corner on a wall where a gorgeous double-barreled shotgun is on display inside a cordoned-off glass case.

Ooh, he is interested in that, that's true! He walks over to it to read the little bronze plaque under it.

The plaque informs him that this is a SS-38 double-barreled shotgun made by Frank Marlon in the year of 106 A.F. and which was used later that year by Marlon himself on the event that became known as the Warrens Rise-up. It has not been used since, however, and is now a piece of historical interest.

"She's a beauty, isn't she?" asks a woman wearing the uniform of one of the bank's employees. "Every now and then I come here to just admire her." She turns to look at Zash and smile and offer her hand. "I'm Jill."

He shakes it. "I'm Z."

"I've heard."

"I only got here yesterday! How's my name all over everywhere already?"

"Not that big a town, and you're very attention-grabbing. Also Hilda's my mum."

"Should've led with that. Guess I must've left an impression."

"You did, you did. So, what are you in town for?"

"I've always been really curious about the mystery of Frank Marlon. I assume you would've been too young to be there for the big event...?"

"A flatterer, too. That'll get you places.

"Well, come on, grab a coffee with me, I'm on my break and Frank Marlon's a special interest of mine. You're paying."

"Put it on my tab? I lent John my credit chit."

"...John. John the drunk? That John?"

"The very same."

"What for?"

"Booze."

".......you gave John your credit chit. So that he would buy booze."

"Yep."

"For... you?"

"For himself."

"Starting to reconsider this interaction. You may be clinically insane."

"Oh, don't be like that. It'll be fine!"

"He hasn't managed to hold onto a single double dollar in years. It all goes to booze. He'll drain you dry."

"Then I guess I'll learn a valuable lesson!"

"Well, I'm not putting any coffee on any tabs. ...do you not have cash?"

"Oh, I do, but I didn't want to sound like a country bumpkin in this modern town that has its own bank."

She snorts. "You were just trying to get out of paying."

"Or I was looking to have a character-revealing interaction with you!"

"...you're very odd, Z. Anyway, here we are," she says, pushing the door open for Zash to walk into the small cafe she's been leading him to.

In he goes. "Any recs? I'm not much of a coffee guy."

"Hmm. You look sweet." She walks in after him and, seeing as there's no line at this time of day, walks straight to the till. "My new friend here will have a double caramel moccha and I'll have the usual. He's paying."

    The man behind the till turns to smile at Zash. "That'll be $$5.60, sir."

Zash gives him a ten. "Keep the change."

Jill leads him to a small table next to a wall and takes a seat there then gestures at the seat opposite hers. "You're a bit too nice."

"Am I?"

"Lending drunk men your credit chits. Helping people out with their jobs at no charge. Letting the barista keep the change. What's your deal?"

"I'm an outsider, and I don't want to be the kind of outsider that contributes nothing to the place I'm visiting."

"Patronising our businesses is a contribution."

"...true, but it costs nothing to be kind."

"Costs your time and energy and whatever else you'd be doing with them."

"I like people. I enjoy spending time with them, helping them out. And, well, if you want a selfish motive, you're a lot more willing to tell me things about Frank Marlon than you'd otherwise be because of how nice I seem to be."

"...smart."

"The selfish reason isn't the main reason, though."

"It's just a conversation, I'm not gonna judge you."

He grins and shrugs. "So, you got a spiel prepared or should I figure out questions to ask?"

She lifts an eyebrow. "I'm not doing your work for you."

"Is he dead?"

She chews on her lips for a few seconds then says, "Can't say."

Zash thinks she means that literally, actually. Huh.

"What exactly is his story? Where'd he come from, how'd he just show up out of nowhere, and what happened to make him vanish?"

"He's from Warrens City but he was a nobody before that day. As in, no one really knew him very well, he didn't stand out. He made guns, but before that day most of us didn't carry. We certainly didn't know how good they could get. He armed us with his best, and his best was good." She pauses then says, a bit more uncertainly, "But you could probably tell? Mother said your gun looked very good too, though of course she didn't test it."

"Well I haven't actually ever used a Frank Marlon and looks can be deceiving, but... yeah that looked very good."

"Well, most of them are useless now, no one's been able to maintain them since."

"Since...?"

"So he became famous, right, and people started coming over to get his guns. He could've gotten really rich but he mostly didn't sell the guns; he took your measure and decided whether you deserved a gun and which gun if so.

"There was another robbery at the bank, and this time it went very south, and a few people died, including his wife and kid. The robbers had been using his guns."

"...oh."

"He sort of stopped, after that, and then he was... gone."

But not dead. She didn't say dead. He's starting to get a picture here.

"Had the robbers stolen the guns from other people...?"

Shrug. "Who knows. It probably didn't matter, to him. He still gave someone them and then they were used to kill his family."

And here's their coffees.

"Why did he give the guns away like that?"

"He used to say it was the great equaliser. The robbers could do what they wanted because the situation wasn't equal; give the people as much power as the robbers had and then it would work out."

"...and then he was confronted with the fact that everyone being equally capable of killing each other still means people die."

"Mmhm."

"Well that's absolutely tragic."

"That's a day on this wretched planet of ours."

"It doesn't have to be."

"You're very idealistic."

"...yeah I get that kind of a lot."

"I'd say that'll get you killed someday but mother's talked a lot about your gun. You've been around, haven't you? Either you're not that idealistic when push comes to shove or you're so badass that you can just be that idealistic and not die."

"Maybe I'm just a coward who runs from danger the moment it shows up."

Snort. "You're not. How are you liking your coffee?"

"Oh it's very nice. You got my number."

"That I do."

"A separate thing I was curious about is, well... Mearii seemed pretty down on the bank."

"...yeah. That. Is complicated."

"It sounds it."

"Warrens City has always been a trading outpost. It's a lot easier for people coming here and back to just sell their goods, buy their goods, then go back where they came from. If someone coming from Crane's End doesn't have to go all the way to Inepril to sell their raw metals and buy their manufactured goods then that's just a lot easier and cheaper for all involved."

"And the bank came after? Mearii says that the city was doing fine without them."

"Yeah. Banks are necessary for credit chits to be reliable, and carrying cash is very dangerous for the kinds of trading caravans that visit. Makes them a prime target."

"Sounds like a positive for all involved, but it's not?"

"Crime will go for the weakest targets. Before, that was caravans on the road; now that they don't carry any money and their chits are useless the city itself is where you go if you want to steal the money."

"So, more crime here even as everyone gets richer and the city grows."

"We didn't use to have a sheriff, before. Now we do."

"And the bank charges high interest on its loans and financing, high account management costs, and it draws lots more outsiders..."

"And most outsiders aren't nice well-behaved boys like you," she finishes with a half smile.

"You'll make me blush."

"I think I'd like to see that, actually. Want to grab dinner tonight?"

...aaaah, flirting.

"I'm afraid I'll have to decline; I'm otherwise committed." To never ever having a relationship again aah.

"Shame." She drinks the rest of her coffee, sets it down, then gets up. "My break is almost over so I should be heading back," she says. "But do let me know if you change your mind," she adds with a wink.

"Will do."

    "Hey boss," says someone who's been looking through a pair of long range binoculars for long enough he thinks his eyes might fall out when he stops. "Are we sure the armoured car's meant to arrive today?"

"No, numbnuts, I said todayish," explains said boss. "They don't keep set schedules."

    "That's such a hassle."

"Well if it weren't a hassle other people woulda stolen the money first and then we wouldn't be able to now would we?"

    "...guess that makes sense."

        "What if we run into Zash the Stampede, though?" says another accomplice.

"I've told you already," replies boss guy, rubbing his temples. "It's just some damn rumours, he's always five places at the same time, he's not gonna be here."

        "But what if he is?"

"Why me?" he says, looking up at the sky. "Why do I have to deal with these people?"

            "Coz you pay us," says accomplice #3 from where she's sitting in the shade reading a magazine.

"Not talking to you."

        "Who're you talkin' to? It's just us here."

"I'm talking to myself."

    "I think the sun's frying his brain."

            "Bold of you to assume he has a brain to be fried."

The one being called boss points a chonky double-barreled pistol at #3. "I'm going to shoot your tongue off."

            She sticks her tongue out to lick the tip of her thumb so she can turn the page of her magazine without looking up at the gun. "You're paying us to do a job for you. If you shoot us you don't get the job done. Basic client-employer relations, see."

"I am going to go pee," he says, groaning in frustration and resting his gun against his shoulder.

            "Go downwind, I don't wanna be smelling your pee all day long."

That evening Zash goes back to the same pub, wondering if John will be there again. He might in fact need his credit chit back eventually.

"You! Alphabet boy!" calls Hilda.

"Alphabet boy," he repeats, nearly choking on his spit.

"Did ya really give that useless lump your chit?"

    "Not lumpy," calls John from where he's resting his forehead on the table.

"Lent. I lent that useless lump my chit."

    "'M bein' bullied," he whines.

"Are ya very rich? Very dumb? Both?"

"Money's there to bring people joy. I wasn't using it so much, might as well give him some."

"He got lots of joy alright. Never had so much. Was passed out most of the afternoon."

    "Wazz not."

"It's seven PM."

    "Oh... guess I was..."

"Oh well, guess my purse needed lightening."

"...how are ya alive?"

    "Z makes friendzzzzz."

            "Wait, is that the answer?" wonders Gabriel from another table. "You're nice to people and they protect you?"

        "You're ignoring his gun again," says Hal.

"Speaking of," he says, then unholsters his gun and offers it to Hilda again.

"...keep it, alphabet boy. Ya need all the protection you can get.

"So what can I getcha?"

"Give me whatever he's having," he replies, hiking his thumb in John's direction.

"Really? That cheap shit? You're a weird rich dumb boy."

"Yes, really. I'm a smart rich dumb boy."

("Cheap shit", huh?)

"Can't figure ya out," she sighs.

"Thought you said you knew my type."

"Thought I did. Now, I'm not so sure. Jilly told me you chatted."

    "I hate that nickname," grumbles Jill from where she's drinking alone in a corner, mostly out of everyone's sight.

They're big enough to be a city but they gossip like a small town. It's very endearing.

"Suppose I'll remain a mystery to be deciphered."

"Then ya say things like this and sound like every other feckless boy what gone to their deaths in the wasteland. Water with your piss?"

"In a separate bottle, please."

"Don't worry sweetheart it's watered down enough by itself."

He sits at the table John is slumped over and grins at him. "So how's my favourite lump doing? Had a good day?"

"Bullied, I tells ye."

He's not gonna comment on the fact that when given free money out of the generosity of a chump's heart, he chose to spend it on the cheapest booze available and he didn't even drink enough to throw up (which Zash gathers is a common occurrence for him). Zash is pretty sure he's got John's number, by now.

Frank's number, he's pretty sure.

"How about I tell you a story about my life, then?"

"...what for?"

"You make friends by getting to know each other, don't you?"

"'M not tellin' you any more stories."

"I'm not asking for any."

"Then suit yourself."

    "Here you go, feckless boy, here's your piss and your water."

"Can I have some of the piss?"

    "That's between you an' 'im."

"Sure, you can have some of the piss."

"Cheers," he says, finally lifting his head up from the table to raise a glass.

"So," he says, filling John's glass and his own. "Let's see... Ah, I know which one.

"A while ago, must be a few years now, I went to this town..."

It was a much smaller town than Warrens, the kind that only has the one pub and the one diner. It was called Little Arcadia.

The only reason it managed to survive was because it had a plant. The SEEDS project had many ships, not all of which were the big ones housing humans or the plants carriers, and the smaller ones were still plant-powered, so small towns like this one were founded where people found the crash sites for those. And of course, whoever controlled the plant would control the whole town, and while most such places managed to stabilise into a regular mayorship this particular town was more of a dictatorship controlled by a small gang. They walked all over everyone and could have everything they wanted from them. So, while on the outside it was a normal town, it was very much the kind of place people left if they could.

And they did start leaving, though not anywhere the gangsters could see. People just... started disappearing, one day.

Turns out one family had found another plant buried underground and they were sharing its resources freely. Of course that beat out the controlling gangsters.

Zash was hired by that family as a bodyguard when the gangsters started sniffing around. They knew they were going to be found out eventually, and they knew it was going to be trouble when that happened, and they wanted to be ready.

(He elides a bit over the details, here, but the attentive listener will be able to infer that he sort of singlehandedly guaranteed the gangsters, when they did find out, failed miserably at actually hurting anyone. Somehow.)

The gangsters started getting really worried as their town gradually became a ghost town, and a new town started to sprout around that one family. The equilibrium was shifting, and not in a way they liked, and they were finding themselves not really able to do anything about it. So they went out and hired a famous criminal duo, the Nebraska family, to try to deal with Zash. They were a father and son, notorious for their large-scale robberies, and even more notorious for how it didn't seem like they stole much when they did. That was very curious, and Zash went to investigate.

Gofsef, the son, had some form of congenital damage that made him nearly tetraplegic. Radolph, the father, managed to procure some cybernetic enhancements for him from Julai, which made him a lot stronger and more resilient but which required constant and expensive maintenance. That was the only reason they turned to crime, it turned out. So Zash talked to the family that had found the extra plant and they reached an agreement: the Nebraskas would stop harassing them in exchange for some help from that plant to produce what it needed to help and to pay for what the plant couldn't produce so they could buy it elsewhere.

They won the Nebraskas over.

(Zash once again elides a bit over the details here but "get the plant to produce some specific things like that" isn't, really, something you can do using the kinds of standard plant engineering practices the majority of people can manage. It is extra hard to do so in a way that won't be extremely inefficient and that would inevitably consume the plant.)

Eventually the town was empty, and a new town had been born, and then...

...one of the gangsters came over to beg. In the middle of that kerfuffle their plant had turned red, probably because of all the extra strain they'd put on it to produce the stuff they needed for their little war. And they were losing, and without the plant they'd have to leave and figure out how to exist elsewhere when they had zero marketable skills. And the townies were enraged at the audacity. Some of them even suggested sending that one gangster's head back to the main gang to let them know how they felt about it.

The family that had found the plant disagreed with that, and instead told the gangsters they could in fact come over and make use of their plants. And Zash said, actually, let's bring the new plant over to the old one and hook them both together so they can help each other produce things; this can sometimes rescue plants out of red state, and the both of them can be more efficient and effective together than the sum of their parts. And the townies hated the idea, but they didn't have much of a choice in the matter, so they went along with it. The town was restored. The gangsters... were hated, for a while, but people eventually got over it. The new situation was much friendlier and better for everyone involved.

No one died. Not a single person.

"Oh, look at me, talking your ears off, I'm sorry that must've been so tedious."

(He says to his audience of "the entire bar": over the course of the story, more and more people started to pay attention, and many even brought their chairs closer so they could listen to him. Hilda eventually got people snacks. There's something really compelling about the way Z tells stories; they could almost feel like they were there themselves.)

John didn't, quite, sober up during the conversation, but he sure is looking a lot more alert and pensive than he's been. Something about this guy...

    "Wait, come on, what do you mean no one died?" demands Lin.

"Guess we were really lucky! It helped that these people had known each other all their lives. Some people got really badly hurt, it's true, but they didn't want to kill each other."

"Okay but, but accidents happen, you can't mean that."

"Like I said, we were really lucky!"

"You know, one time my dad's cousin was shot in the heart and it turned out it'd missed his heart by half an inch and he lived."

        "I heard a story of someone who was shot in the head and survived."

    "Now you're just making stuff up—"

            "No, I heard that story too, it's true! It was on the paper one day..."

And the bar once again dissolves into lively conversation, the spell cast by Zash fully broken and everyone returning to their own bodies and lives.

(Man he really needs to take care not to project so much, it really gets to people.)

"Zash the Stampede," says John when Zash once again plops him onto his own bed later that night after getting drunker again. "That'zz you, izzn't it?" he slurs.

"...the notorious criminal with a huge bounty on his head? Why the hell do you think that's me?"

He turns over and buries his face in his pillow. "The story, mm. Little Arcadia. Heard it before. Been 'round. Out the city. More'n most."

"Oh?"

"Mmhm. Story's diff'rent. But Zash the Stampede was there. Izz you."

"You really shouldn't believe all stories you hear, you know."

"I don't. Believe... anything..." He mumbles some sleepy noises into his pillow then says, "G'night Zash."

"...good night, Frank."

"Mmm."

And he's out.

He wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night.

"Zash the Stampede?!" he cries out loud, looking around in a panic, but there's no one there.

What...

...a dream. He'll go back to sleep. No... Stampede. Zzzz...

(He hopes John/Frank doesn't freak everyone else out tomorrow calling him Zash the Stampede, that'd be a bummer.)

He doesn't.

He takes a shower, again, and puts on clean clothes, again, and goes out looking for Zash, again.

Today Zash is helping some people load crates of nonperishables into trucks that arrived in the middle of the night from Clarke Town bearing textiles. He's the only one not shirtless while doing all that strenuous physical labour but he did take his red coat off and pull his sleeve up to his elbow, revealing a very badly scarred forearm. And he does, even so, look a lot less winded than the bigger, seemingly-stronger men who do this for a living.

"Afternoon, John!" Zash calls when he sees him.

"Afternoon, Z," he calls back, trying not to let his bewilderment get in his way. And also trying not to coil away from the sun; this is far too much light for so early in the morning day. "Can we talk?"

"Not right now but after we're done? Shouldn't be too long! Have you eaten? We could grab a late lunch over at Xander's, on me!"

"...yeah, sure, that works."

And so after they're done with this truck Zash begs off and goes to Xander's with John/Frank.

"I never gave you your credit chit back," he says, sliding it over the table. "...and can I borrow your shades, this light is giving me a headache."

"Sure, but just for now, I don't like to be seen without them," he says, taking them off.

He puts them on, but not before noting the unusual colour and—glow? the hell?—of Zash's eyes.

"So. I was right. Last night. Wasn't I."

"Was I?"

"...yes."

"Thought so."

"Why... are you here? Are you going to rob the bank or...?"

"—goodness, no. What gave you that impression?"

"Are you making fun of me?"

He cracks. "A little bit. But no, nothing like that."

"Then what?"

"I wanted to find out more about you."

"—about me? Why?"

"Call it idle curiosity. But I have a nose for the interesting and this smelled interesting."

"I'm not some circus attraction."

"Join the club."

"...okay, you know what, that's fair.

"What do you want?"

"What do you want?"

"I asked first."

"My answer depends on yours."

"That's stupid."

"No it's not."

"Oh, thank you, Xander, you're lovely."

"Don't mention it, Z," says Xander, having brought them their food. "Anything to drink? On the house."

"I'll have some water and I think John here will have a whisky?"

"...no. I'm staying sober right now. Water, please."

    "...you? Staying sober?" To Zash: "What miracles are you working?"

"I do what I always do: I show people that the world is made of love and peace."

"Whatever you say. I'll grab your water."

    "Love and peace, is it," says Frank once Xander's gone, sounding somewhere between sceptical and despairing.

"Love and peace!"

"There isn't love and peace," he snaps, starting to get irritated. "You know my story already, don't you?"

"You wanted to make the world more equal. Give power to those who don't have it so they might be able to stand up for themselves, so that all may be the same."

"Fucking stupid philosophy. Well now I'm being equal: helping no one, not even myself. Nothing more equal than that. Zero is the most equal number."

"So is that it? You want to just not help anyone, drink your sorrows away, suffer?"

"I miss them, man," he says, and actually maybe he should've gotten that whisky but he'll just stuff his face with food instead. He looks away when Xander shows back up with the water but when he's gone and John looks at Zash again there's water in his eyes, too. "And they're dead because of me. The world isn't okay and it's my fucking fault—" He sobs, and then puts more food in his mouth because that's better than starting to bawl in front of effectively a stranger.

This. This is why he's always drunk. If he's left alone with his thoughts then he remembers what he did and he can't actually deal with it.

"Yeah."

"...what the fuck do you mean, yeah? You're a kid. What the fuck would you even know?"

"My mother's dead because of me. If I hadn't—if she hadn't—it's not important. I know how you feel."

"...oh. I'm," sob, "I'm sorry."

Plus, you know, all those other people over the past hundred years, but Zash isn't about to talk about all of that. Luida's enough to make the point. He even means it.

"...but the world hasn't ended. Has it? And sometimes it feels like it should've. Sometimes—a lot of the time—most of the time, even—it feels unfair. It feels unfair that they're gone and you're not, that you're the one who has to still live in this world facing the consequences of what you did, of your own choices. And you have to face it without them. And that's the worst part. With them, you could take on the world; without them you just want to run away. Forget. And sometimes you wish you were dead, but you know they wouldn't want you to die, they'd want you to live even without them. Heal and move on. And so you're stuck in limbo, not knowing how to go on without them, but not wanting to end it because of them, stuck in place and unable to go anywhere."

He started sobbing freely in the middle of that, not even bothering to try to turn his face away anymore. Sobbing and eating because this is really good food and, and how dare good food exist when they're gone, when they're not here to taste it. What's the point.

"Get," sob, "get me that whiskey."

"...no. Eat your food. I have something to show you."

"You're not making me face all of my shit while sober."

"Yeah. I am. Eat up, Xander's a mean cook."

"Ugh. Fine."

Zash gives him time to finish eating and to put himself together, then he gets up, pays, and leads the way out.

The first place he goes to is back to the trucks, where the workers are now in the shade drinking water and spending some time together. The last truck's been loaded already and earlier than it otherwise would've so they're just killing time before their next task. "Hey Samuel, hey Reks, hey Hal."

"Hi, Z," they all say. "We don't have any more trucks today," says Reks. "But we have some more stuff at the warehouses if you wanna help with those?"

"Ah, I'm afraid I don't have a ton of time now, I have some errands to run."

"Shame. Nice having you here today, though, you were a big help!"