Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Irritable noise. Four men, they were pacing.
Sounds of splashing, shoes soaking in the water pooling from overhead leaks. The noise was sharp, irritable. No one spoke
Another man, tall and thin, handsome face, a healthiness in his complexion unbefitting this place. He was drawing diagrams on paper. A strange thing for these times.
The four men, well, boys, was more appropriate a word.
The four boys huddled around the sketcher, who proudly showcased his work like a kid at a talent show.
The wobbly lines showed how unfamiliar it was for the man. But the pleasantness of the drawing was not important at all. Its content, however, was as daring as it was impressive in its detail.
"This is fucking crazy, D. How'd ya even figure this shit out?"
A short, plump boy with dark features asked. His face expanded, each individual feature agape. Eyes, mouth, even his nose flared.
"It's my job, man. Gotta keep my sources quiet, though, a scout never reveals his secrets." D winked at him.
Another boy, this one a tall sprout, somewhat resembling a living broccoli. Straight-edged he looked, didn't stop a little bit of greed from showing on his face, though.
"Yeah, that's… that's great, D, but… but what are you planning to do with this?" He licked his lips.
"Isn't it obvious? We're doing a hit." It was so matter-of-fact, the way he said it. Even let off a slight huff out the side of his mouth. It was such an obvious answer.
"What the fuck?! What the fuck are you talking about D? This isn't like before man, we're basically going from taking candy from babies to stealing the nuclear launch codes."
This time, a plain-looking man interrupted, brown hair, brown irises, average height, though his eyes were of striking shape and intensity. Some might even call them pretty, fox-like they were. It's probably the reason the boys made him dress up and seduce men for their previous hits, but that's a story for another time.
"What are you talking about, man? We'd never steal from babies. What's wrong with you?" D mockingly smiled.
Normally, D's taunting would be met with a roll of the eyes. But the gravity of today's proposal… it was too heavy.
A chorus of protests rang out throughout the night. The scouting was impeccable, the plan was detailed, and the rewards would be lucrative.
It was fun to think about, but it was truly too ridiculous. Especially for their group.
"Come on, man, there's money out there, you don't have to mess with Almaz Corp."
Plain-pretty boy was the most vocal voice of reason.
Tsk.
D was getting pretty frustrated at the pushback. He fidgeted with the pen in his hand, spinning it. Round and around and around and around it goes.
There was another boy, quiet as a mouse, balled up below. The smallest of the bunch he was.
"Hey, Pip, you haven't said much, whaddya think? It's a good idea, right?"
The boy unfurled, he shifted nervously, making eye contact with the ground, hoping for it to swallow him alive.
"Erm, I… I don't know. I'll… I'll listen to what you say." He let out a soft whimper, "But… you know, it's scary those guys… I don't know if we can…" Pip trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.
D sighed, and he stood up from his squatting position.
"Alright, you wanna know why I wanna do this?" D said. "Well, I'm curious as to why you don't!"
"Look at this place!" D gesticulated dramatically, pointing at the mossy walls that boxed them in, the leaky pipes. "We've gotta gather round in this shithole, huddling like rats in secret just so we can talk about those guys."
"Well, yeah, D. We're planning a hit," pretty boy interjected.
"That's not what I mean — alright listen to this. It was from when I first moved here from Tyre. You'll see what I've got against that dogshit company."
D began narrating a story—one from years ago, at a tavern. Taverns don't really exist anymore; it was just a pub that branded itself so.
"I was talking to this guy, right, Rafael Garepo. Weird dude, uh. Interesting. Yeah, interesting, I guess. That's probably the nicest way to put it," he chuckled at the end.
D reminisced fondly as he explained.
It was a place I frequented a lot in those days. Why was a teenager a regular patron at a bar? Don't worry about it.
In a city unfamiliar to him, this place was one of the first to make him feel welcome. Almaz Daşlar was by no means a bad city, those were things of the past. However, life was still much, much tougher than in Tyre, with its lush greens and serenity. The group was left astonished at his descriptions of his hometown. They'd obviously heard about it but couldn't believe such a calm and quiet city existed.
When asked about his first impressions of Almaz Daşla, he said: Hustle and bustle. Everyone was busy here. Things were always on the move. Every inch of land was used for something. When man wasn't moving, then the machine was.
If Tyre was a city of tycoons, businessmen, and other elites, enjoying their lavish lives, more retreat and a retirement home than a real city. Landowners were like Lords and Barons, with large estates and lavish homes, and within their estates, their subjects. A city of high-level influence, wealth circulation, and abstract power.
Then Almaz Daşlar would be the city of labourers. This is where diamond was mined, plants were grown, and food was caught.
The city was a labyrinth of islands and platforms, connected by bridges and tubes. Like if you took a rig and stretched it to the size of a megacity.
Funny enough, he read about that in some trivia. The city started as a massive diamond rig operation, long before humans arrived here, the people of Earth looked at the raining diamonds of Neptune with their eyes yellowed from desire.
As soon as they arrived, the pioneers of Neptune scrambled to establish rigs, where the diamonds that were now within the depths of the "ocean" were lying in wait.
The rigs kept expanding, and then people had to come in to work on the rigs and facilitate the expansion. Then, more people came in, more artificial land was made for horizontal farming, aquaculture, and energy production.
The diamond rigs kept expanding in one direction, and the community in another, until a city of labourers was made. Though the planet had long reduced its intake of immigrants, practically to a halt, the rigs continued to be a core feature of the city, continuing to grow, and still made up just under a sixth of the surface area.
Despite its origins, though, you couldn't call it a hideous city, a dystopian cyberpunk of soulless silver steel. Amphriyamrra wouldn't approve of that, her scriptures were lenient in their instructions, but they did make clear her value for beauty.
They were not children of Tessarek who preached function over form, rather, it was the other way around.
One place in particular screamed out to him when he first explored the city. A beautiful tavern. It truly stood out. This city tried its best to mask its industrial bones with a layer of paint, adding artificial beauty to a bleak core with steel bridges painted blue, and neon lights distracting from dirt.
This place, however, emanated beauty from its core. It reminded him of Tyre, the architecture at least. But it also had the charms of this city, it had a soul. The group was slightly offended by his descriptions of their city. They were also confused by his comments about Tyre's… soul? D never really spoke about his time in Tyre, and it didn't seem like he was gonna elaborate this time either.
The entrance facing the canal had a beautiful patio, roofs draped in blues that reflected the sky and the ocean. The walls and the facade of the building stood out with their colored stones and polished marble. Mostly white but accented with more gold and blue.
Arch-shaped windows and doors were on all three floors of the tavern, about half a dozen windows on each of the top two. The window shutters were made of dark blue wood on the second floor, black and the third, contrasting with the white accents of the building. Their designs were intricate, a variety of floral-shaped holes within the rectangular frames casting gardens on the stencil of the shutters.
Ornate candles were scattered around the place, hanging from the patio, resting on the railings of the balcony.
The font on the patio roofs and the central wall on the second floor read out the name of the establishment.
Engraved was "Shanara Bay" in a bold, golden yellow.