Chapter Text
Beggars, Techno reminds himself, staring across the table of the shitty coffee shop, can’t be choosers. No matter how much he’d like to exercise some, uh, discretion right now. The window yawns to his right and his first contact’s left, a man who’d given the name Soot in his response to Techno’s coded advertisement; now Techno studies him coolly, the way he hasn’t touched his coffee (probably for the best - it wouldn’t be poisoned, but it certainly tasted like it), the way he has his shoulders angled to the door, the way he studies Techno back.
“I hear,” Soot says, steepling his fingers, “you need a strategist.”
“Yeah, uh, sure do.” Techno takes him in: a strange juxtaposition of life and pallor, with curly dark hair tumbling across a pale face, impeccably combed despite his unshaven jaw. He’s dressed like he’s come from a funeral and discarded his suit jacket somewhere along the way, Techno observes drily - the witch’s mark on his inner forearm is faintly visible through the white fabric of his dress shirt, and the top button’s undone, revealing some kind of cord like he’s wearing a charm around his neck. Every so often, his eyes search the cafe around them, like he doesn’t want to be seen - wary but not antsy. He doesn’t fidget, but oh, he stares. Still, he’s hoisted into place an aura of unflappable charm, and Techno’s almost fooled - everything about this man is almost citizen-passing, almost put-together, but strangely dishevelled despite it.
He was the first response Techno had gotten to his coded message, scrawling a name, time and place on a scrap of hologram left in a hidden dead drop box: Soot, he’d said, McCoffee’s, 2901-10-06 09:00. Soot. Techno knows the name, though he can’t place it. Perhaps he was familiar with the code Techno used, an old one that was common in fugitive bars a few years ago, or perhaps he’d just made the decision the moment he’d untangled Techno’s message: Taking the Silverling, it had read, in decoded form, liberating the City. Need a strategist.
‘Liberating’ had, of course, been euphemism.
“Well, uh,” Techno says, glancing down towards his mug of terrible coffee. “What’s got you interested in the job? You a big fan of risking life and limb?” Never let it be said that Techno’s one for sugar-coating.
Soot drums his fingers on the table, a smooth clean motion like waves, beginning at his pinkie, ending with his thumb; it’s repetitive, calm, a nervous habit. When he shrugs, it ripples through him like the ocean breaking upon the beach. “I want,” he says, “to see this place free, before I leave. And apparently you’re the right person to talk to about that.” When he says free there’s a certain inflection to it, one that begs to be picked apart, one that sounds like terrible promise - and yet he means it, it carries weight and conviction. Liberating. Euphemism. Clarity. This man, Techno thinks, is made of juxtapositions, and contradictions, and intensity.
He has a certain feeling - he knows Soot’s type. “I kinda need a demolition job,” he says, dressing up his words, trusting this man of euphemism to unravel them once again. “Any change you’d know anything about, uh, who I could ask about that?”
Soot’s lips twist, quick, into a barely-there grimace. Then he’s settling back into that damnable smile. Techno has a feeling he’d hate this guy if they weren’t on the same side here - but something about the way he says free strongly implies that they are. And he’s a witch. While they aren’t Ancient, the very act of donning a witch-mark is shrouded in enough mystery that it’s said to be an act of rebellion against the City - not enough to make one a fugitive, because there’s always the defense of It was a mistake in my youth and no one can prove it wasn’t there yesterday, not with the way it twists its way into old photos and sometimes old memories, but just enough to inspire mistrust. Witches are not inherently anti-City, but … they tend to be.
“I guess that brings us to collateral,” the witch, Soot, says. “You … you and I, man, we aren’t so different. If you think about it.”
Oh, Techno’s been thinking about it. “Honestly,” he says, “you’re probably right. What’s this about collateral?” He hadn’t even asked, but if Soot is so desperate to offer it then he’s committed. Techno had mentioned it, he thinks, in the coded message he left; still, the very fact that Soot proactively brings it up is a point in his favour. He wants Techno to have something to hold over him, something he can cash in with the City for the prize of turning in an insurgent if Soot stabs him in the back - he wants something to hang over his head, the exemplified weight of his promise. He wants to force himself not to back out. Only madmen and dead-walkers tend to do that, Techno thinks drily; he wonders which Soot is. Mad, or someone who faked his own death, desperate to get out. To leave. The least charitable answer would be both.
Soot glances around the shitty little cafe one more time, lowering his voice. “Eight hundred and fifty,” he says, a smile quirking its way across his lips, lighting his face, blossoming across it. “Pretty damn big number, isn’t it?”
“Uhh,” Techno says. “Sure.”
“Certain rituals,” Soot says, “can add a hell of a lot of kick to garden-variety TNT. If you know what I’m saying.”
Oh. Oh. “In storage?” Techno demands, because that’s not just gutsy, that’s stupid. Eight hundred and fifty synthesis bombs - magic and gunpowder, wedded in fire. Just sitting around. He has to fight to keep his voice steady - can’t afford drawing attention. If he had any doubt Soot wanted to see the City taken out, it’s evaporated, like dew on a rooftop in the morning. “Where the hell are you keeping them?”
Soot leans back in his chair and smiles, catlike. The shadows yawn under his eyes. “They’re planted. Here and there.”
“Eight hundred and -” Techno’s jaw works. “Planted.”
“As a last resort,” Soot says, lightly. Too lightly. “How’s that for collateral?”
Techon takes a deep breath, steadying himself. He’s hit some sort of jackpot with this guy, alright, but he doesn’t know if it’s one he wants to chance - but who else, he supposes, would risk life and limb for the fucking Silverling? Techno refuses to call it a suicide mission, but plenty of other fugitives wouldn’t be so kind with their words. (He doesn’t sugarcoat, but he may, on occasion, lie to himself.) “Yeah,” he says, gustily, “yeah, okay. That’s - that’ll do. Will you need … compensation?”
“Just pay me enough for me to get out of the city, alright?” Soot’s composure seems to dissipate, briefly, like a string tugged from a tapestry bringing the whole thing into unravelling. “I’m looking to - to start afresh. As one does.”
“As one does,” Techno says drily. “You gonna leave that collateral behind, when you go?” Definitely a dead-walker, this one. Witches are good at that, with the way they can meddle with memories. Maybe he has come straight from his own funeral.
“How’s that any of your business, man?” There’s a curious light to Soot’s eyes, a half-curling smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a name?”
That’s bold of him, but Techno’s willing to oblige; with one careful blink he activates the chip in his right eye. He’s gotta do preliminary checks, if he’s giving this guy his name. Of course Techno wouldn’t be enough for any witch to have power over him, in its abbreviated form, but it might be enough for the City to identify him, were Soot to turn him in, or be bugged, or be cursed. The implant flashes, and Soot gives a sharp inhale as he notices. Techno shrugs. “Gotta be done,” he says airily, as data scrolls over his vision, projected infinitesimal distances before his retina by the chip in the corner of his eye.
No bugs, no plants, no trackers. This guy’s cyber-clean, at least. “It’s Techno,” he says, peering more closely as magical data begins scrolling in - and oh, that’s alarming. That’s - that’s not good. That’s not good at all.
“Just let me know when you’re done ogling the curse,” Soot says acidly. “Trust me, man, I know it’s there. You can call me Wilbur. For what it’s worth.”
“Suuure,” Techno says, still focused on the data feeding in from his chip’s scan of Soot - Wilbur - and his shadows. It’s good tech, this chip - not a whole lot of machines out there that can read magical signatures, not like this can, but it was able to return Category Five Curse, if not much else. “And, uh, does this curse happen to be contagious?”
“Only to everyone I love,” Wilbur says, flashing another one of those sharp grins. It occurs to Techno that they’re bitter.
He swallows. One last light flashes in the corner of his eye; the scan’s complete, and it’s returned all the data he can. “Oh, well, that’s fine then,” he says, trying to make light of it. This is awkward. Hastily he reaches for his coffee, sculls it in one go, sets down the cup with a too-sharp clank against the metal table. “And you’re gonna want the artifact -” More euphemism. They both know he means the Silverling - “to cure it, I assume.”
“Incurable,” Wilbur says, too brightly.
“No curse is incurable,” Techno objects.
Wilbur snorts. “What, they teach you that in school? I know the cure, but it’s quite literally impossible.” There’s a strange kind of melancholy hanging over him, like he’s given up on whatever held-together act he’d been putting on earlier; Techno doesn’t miss the way his eyes dart to the window. “I don’t need the artifact. I just want to - Y’know. Like I said. Liberate some shit, free some people, get the fuck out of this place.”
There’s some subtlety to this, something Techno isn’t picking up, and it’s bugging him. He drums his own fingers on the table; Wilbur’s coffee sits discarded to their left, next to Techno’s empty cup. The coffee’s helped clear his head, collect his thoughts, but still he’s missing something. “Alright, man,” he says, “whatever floats your boat. We can do that.” Something compels him to ask: “Where are you even gonna go?”
“Somewhere new,” Wilbur says. “I want to start again.”
Techno snorts. “If you say so.” Hey, maybe he’s one of the Ancients sympathisers who genuinely believe in a world beyond the City - Techno doesn’t judge. “Hit me, strategist. What’ll we need?”
“Well.” Distance crawls over Wilbur’s eyes, as though in Traveller’s trance; Techno risks a glance down towards his sleeve, but the witch-mark isn’t glowing, so it must be a more mundane sort of haze. “You’re a hitter, pure and simple.”
“Hey,” Techno objects, “I’m not too bad at infiltration.”
“Maybe if you were invisible,” Wilbur says drily. And he is, admittedly, right; the few jobs where Techno has been primary thief, another witch had cast invis over him. But if Wilbur isn’t suggesting that, maybe he can’t cast it, or - maybe it wouldn’t work. There could be anti-invis alarms in the Museum. “I can handle, ah, demolition supplies. We’ll … probably need a thief, given the way that place is laid out.”
Techno frowns. “I can probably find someone.”
“Alright,” Wilbur says. He leans forwards, his eyes still strangely unfocused, as though, mentally, he’s already lining the Museum with synthesis bombs, planning a path through the place. That’s the mark of a good strategist if Techno’s ever seen one, but also a loose fucking canon. Stars, he’s taking a mighty risk with this guy.
“We’ll definitely need a druid,” Wilbur says. “Synthesis infiltration, and all.”
Techno swallows. A druid reclaiming the Silverling - now that’d be something from the prophecies of old. Stars know the old spark-huggers want it bad enough. “You know as well as I do they’re pretty much all dead.”
“Not quite,” Wilbur says, and smiles. Now he leans back in his chair. Produces a holo-pad from somewhere in his sleeve and a pen from one of his pockets, scrawls something on the projected pixels, tears the scrap of hologram from its projector the way only witches can do and slides it across the table. That familiar, looping handwriting, the one that had proclaimed itself Soot - now it bears another address, a rooftop not far north of here, and a date and time for midday tomorrow. “I can find one.”
Techno blinks. “If you … if you say so.”
“I do,” Wilbur says, standing. He tucks his chair back underneath the table and turns, leaving unceremoniously, disappearing into the crowd; Techno stares after him, just a little shell-shocked.
It’d be a fool’s errand to try to lift the Silverling from its place in the Central Museum, and Technoblade is assembling a band of those foolish enough to take it on. This is definitely a bad idea, Techno knows. But for this job, he needs people with very little to lose, people who are unknown quantities to the City, people who could introduce just the right degree of chaos into the perfect clockwork metropolis for it all to come crumbling down - and maybe this half-mad witch, this man with delusions of freedom and hope and a place beyond the City, is perfect for it.
Doesn’t mean Techno trusts the guy, and it doesn’t mean he actually knows much about Wilbur other than his capabilities. ‘Wilbur’ probably isn’t even his real name. But he knows enough.
And he doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of options when it comes to people to trust. For better or worse, he’s kinda stuck with the guy.