Arkaneh Frye sat against the wall in the spacious interior hall at the abandoned factory that was used as an outpost for Men of Midas. Connor Griffiths, one of Reus Mallistrom's two lieutenants, sat in the corner of the room with his escort girl. All she wore were her pink lace panties, her face powdered with heavy make-up. She sat on the OldGen lieutenant's lap, grinding against his groin and licking her lush, red lips. While Griffiths was smiling a lascivious, teeth baring smile, Arkaneh simply sighed to himself and looked away. Such trivial things didn’t appeal to him.
On the other side of the room sat 3 other members of the organization, or as the lieutenants liked to refer to them, brothers. None of them are brothers of mine. Arkaneh despised the idea. The three were drinking beer and laughing out loud as they listened to stories which Arkaneh could only describe to himself as idiotic and childish.
He tried taking his mind away from the frustrating things around him, but every thought that crossed his mind was soon interrupted by the men's boisterous laughter. Such short minded buffoons. If I were Reus, I would be ashamed of my own men.
Everything was upsetting Arkaneh at that moment. From the lowlifes around him to the hideous excuse for an outpost that he was sitting in. The walls around Arkaneh were peeling and almost out of color. Trash like empty beer cans and cigarette butts were found everywhere around, and the loud traffic from the nearby road denied him any silence.
"This is what happens when you send morons like Seramoy and Heycliff to these things! They couldn’t even rob a fucking convenience store!" said Ferro, the first of the three men who sat at the table, a large guy with a long Mohawk haircut and a rough voice. Muscles for brains, Arkaneh thought as he looked at the man.
"Would you keep it down, goddammit? Griffiths is right there! If he hears you trashing Heycliff like that…" Graysen warned him.
"He's right," said Tylen, the third man of the bunch. "Talimay may not be here right now, but if it gets back to her that you're trashing her dead brother, she’ll fucking throw you in the Wailing Lake."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it…" the large man sighed. They're right, you damn fool. Talimay can be a dangerous individual.
Talimay Singh was Reus's second lieutenant. Even though Arkaneh considered her to be the sanest person in the organization, he didn’t find himself affected by her absence. Talimay's brother, Heycliff, was one of the three guys who had died trying to rob a convenience store in Ussermis recently. She's been absent in mourning for a few days now.
"We looked like fucking amateurs on the goddamn news," Arkaneh overheard Ferro going on. "We should retaliate. Let the news have another story, this time showing that we’re not the clumsy fucks they made us look like!" Such vulgarity… such ignorance…
"Yeah, Ferro’s right," said Graysen. "I say we burn down that store where our brothers died." The three started yelling in excitement, hitting their fists at the table, all in agreement with the idea. A mixture of cheering, laughing and rabble, all flavored with such moronic enthusiasm. I can’t take this anymore, Arkaneh thought.
"Don’t be stupid," said Arkaneh. The rabble quieted down as Ferro turned around. Arkaneh’s eyes were facing away, refusing to gaze at the mighty brute as he approached him with heavy steps.
"Did you say something, little guy?"
"I said, 'Don’t be stupid.'" His eyes finally turned to stare right at the grunt, full of confidence, lacking any sign of fear or fright that any other man might have shown in his place. "If you want retaliation, you should take it to the Justicars. They’re the ones who killed those brothers. Burning down the shop would only matter to the shop owner, who didn't do anything, which you’d know if you’d listened to that news report."
Ferro let out a burst of laughter. Arkaneh remained the same, holding a serious expression on his face, and sending dead, cold eyes right at the laughing brute.
"You're a funny man. What's your name, funny man?"
"Arkaneh Frye. And if I made you laugh I apologize, that was not my intention. I actually simply wanted to show you how dumb you are." Ferro's face turned red within half a second.
"You fucking piece of—"
"I wouldn’t recommend doing so much as touching me. You know Griffiths isn’t very intolerant with brothers fighting among themselves, and he's right there." Arkaneh pointed at Griffiths, as the old lieutenant moved his hand softly over his prostitute’s body.
Ferro made a grunting sound while Arkaneh kept provoking him with his fearless appearance. Eventually, Ferro went back to his table without saying a word, resuming his conversation with his brothers instead.
Arkaneh looked around the great hall. Rusty machinery and walls covered with stains and dirt surrounded him. Rust and filth are all I see here, he thought. About a dozen people were in the outpost, and none of them were doing something Arkaneh wouldn’t consider disgraceful. It was either drinking beer and talking non-stop about idiotic topics with a lack of any intellect in the conversation, like Ferro, Graysen, and Tylen, or people being pleasured by the warm touch and comforting care of prostitutes. Those girls… the way they dance and parade around these wretched animals… it's almost as if they enjoy it. No… they're not enjoying any of it, they're just trying to please the lieutenant. Griffiths must have 'borrowed' them from Kleon Hanford, the guy who's running the Godly Succubi strip club in Ashcote.
Thinking about places like the Godly Succubi made Arkaneh feel sick. The thought of a strip club where women are forced to undress and pleasure men for a living… not to mention the rumors about a private VIP section in the club, limited only to powerful and influential men, where they could get the same service from underage girls. Kleon Hanford, the club's manager, was notoriously known as a womanizer and a sex addict. He was also a member of Men of Midas, and so his club was giving the organization a percentage of its revenues.
Drifting away from such revolting thoughts, Arkaneh returned to focus on the three men, noticing their enthusiasm about the idea of attacking the convenience store in Ussermis. They're still talking about that? By now, Arkaneh had had enough of it and decided to do something about it. He got to his feet and started walking toward Griffiths.
As he approached, he saw the escort girl sending Griffiths a naughty smile while curving her body, like a wave in a wild ocean. Her hand moved over his chest, slowly and gently. Lieutenants are known for being spoiled by their ringleader, and Reus Mallistrom’s lieutenants are no exception.
"Can we talk for a second?"
"And who the fuck are you?" said Griffiths without even giving Arkaneh the courtesy of looking away from his girl.
"My name is Arkaneh Frye," Arkaneh maintained his composure, even though he was infuriated inside.
Griffiths now realized he was not going to enjoy his lap dance with Arkaneh looming over his shoulder. He shooed the girl away and finally took a long, hard look at Arkaneh as if he was trying to figure out just who was the man in front of him.
"You're a tenderfoot, aren’t you? I remember your face."
Tenderfoot… what an awful word to brand new recruits with. "Yeah," he reluctantly agreed to be called something so demeaning in his eyes.
"How long have you been in Men of Midas?"
"About a month or so."
"I see." Griffiths didn’t seem impressed. Arkaneh already knew some things about Griffiths from what he had heard from others. Connor Griffiths was a man who deeply believe in values of loyalty and family. Men of Midas was considered in his eyes a brotherhood, and he cared much for his men, yet he was also known as a man with some distaste for tenderfoots. "So what is it that you want, Arkaneh Frye?" Griffiths asked.
"Those men over there," Arkaneh shamelessly pointed his finger at the 3 brutes sneering at the table amongst themselves. "They want to have a rampage at that convenience store from the news."
"Yeah, I could hear them all the way from here, so what?"
"You're a lieutenant. That attack, like all actions of the organization, is going to have to be sanctioned by you. You have to deny it."
"And why would I do that?"
"Because that won't make any sense—"
"Why the fuck not?" Griffiths raised his voice. "Let me ask you something, tenderfoot, do you think the people of Lady Dread, Code Sanguinary, fuck, even the fucking Ferals don’t ever watch any news? When they see these kinds of things, it makes us look weak, which is something we can’t have them thinking. Otherwise, they might try to take advantage of that. As long as it makes the news broadcast something that might mend that reputation we got from those 3 idiots, it's fine with me."
Arkaneh could see the point behind Griffiths' words. Our image has great importance in this line of work. They say up until 10 years ago or so, the state of Georgia in the US had a few biker gangs running in it. Many of them were too scattered and weak as far as manpower went, and once the larger group, Harley Nation, started a territory war with them, it ended up with some bloodshed and a merge of all remaining members of the weaker gangs into Harley Nation.
Still, Arkaneh couldn’t ignore the ever-bothering thought that that plan was a pure waste of time and effort, on top of being a risk for his so-called ‘brothers’, as they could end up just like the 3 who had gone there before them and got themselves killed. "The Justicars should be our real target," Arkaneh said.
"Don’t think for a second that I've forgotten about the fucking Justicars. They’ve been a massive pain in our fucking ass recently. Seems like everywhere we go now they’re just happy to be there and ruin all the fun." Arkaneh was already aware of the Justicars’ recent interference with their activities. I wonder… thoughts started running through his mind.
"How long have they appeared like that?" Arkaneh asked.
"A few months now, I guess." Griffiths shrugged.
"I see," he stroked his chin. "And I'm guessing you're not only talking about robbery attempts like the recent one."
"No. Drug buys, gun trades with Code Sanguinary, heck, we even had a run-in with them when we were buying some new girls from Lady Dread at Herkin Port a while back." Arkaneh pondered to himself. "Why? What's on your mind?" Griffiths wondered.
"Nothing," he reassured Griffiths. "Regarding attacking that convenience store, I guess you're right. Maybe this course of action would be wiser. I’d like to be a part of it if you don’t mind." Griffiths shrugged and quickly called his seductive mistress back.
Arkaneh started walking away. He couldn’t help but let the sparks in his mind bounce between the walls of his head. He had thought of a great idea, one that not only tested a theory of his but also might make that attack more profitable for everyone, especially himself. His face was cold, yet his eyes burned.
They see me only as a simple tenderfoot. They think I'm just another member who's going to make some quick cash and get shot at some point. But they don’t know me. They don’t know my intentions. And by the time they will… they will all know my name.
