Living where none should live

[Marek]

The maintenance trailer was never meant to be lived in.

It was too narrow, too cold in winter and too hot in summer, its walls little more than thin sheets of aluminum riveted over a steel frame. Once it had housed nothing but spare rigging and electrical supplies, following the Carnival from city to city like an oversized toolbox on wheels. Somewhere along the years, Marek had simply taken it over. Nobody objected because it made sense. The tools already belonged there.

The trailer smelled of grease, dust, and solder. Coils of cable hung from dozens of hooks. Shelves bowed beneath neatly stacked bins filled with bolts, bearings, washers, and fittings collected from rides that no longer existed. Broken floodlights waited beside stripped generators. An old carousel horse's cracked fiberglass head leaned against the wall beside a milk crate overflowing with copper wire.

To anyone else it looked like junk, but Marek could have found any piece in the room with his eyes closed.

He stood at the ramshackle workbench, broad shoulders bent beneath the fluorescent strip light overhead, turning a socket wrench one final time before giving the repaired gearbox an experimental spin. The teeth meshed cleanly.

Good enough.

He wiped his hands across an already stained shop rag before tossing it onto the bench. His palms remained black around the creases no matter how often he scrubbed them. Grease had a habit of becoming part of a man after enough time.

The workshop occupied most of the trailer, but the far corner belonged to him. A couple of old chairs rescued from a roadside cleanup was squished beneath a battered flat-screen television mounted crookedly on the wall. The screen was older than most of the performers who wandered through the Carnival these days, but it still worked. So did the game console beneath it, its casing cracked and yellowed, both controllers repaired enough times that fresh plastic gave way to epoxy and tape.

Nearby a little fridge hummed beneath the window. Beside it rested an overflowing ashtray and a coffee mug filled with loose screws instead of coffee.

He rolled a joint with practiced fingers, struck a lighter, and leaned against the workbench while the first lungful settled into his chest. The tension behind his shoulders immediately loosened by degrees, but his thoughts wandered where they shouldn't. To a pendant of bone wrapped in copper and the line of her jaw disappearing in the cowl of his work coat.

He frowned and exhaled sharply through his nose, smoke following.

[Mikhail]

Mik wandered idly through the carnival. It looked pretty run down. The rides showed rust and oil stains, the slightly acrid smell of burned peanut oil floated over the food truck grounds, the music from the speakers sounded tinny and competed with the noise of the rides.

No fucking way would he actually go on any of the rides. Oh Mik had no issues doing risky things. But it was always measured against the reward. So bungee jumping was worth it. But some rinky dink rusted out Ferris Wheel run by carnies wasn't. That was all he needed, getting lifted in the car to the top only for 40 year old gear teeth to finally snap under the relentless stresses of continued use. He could see himself falling with the car, slamming to the ground.

Hmm...he thought. Could he use his gift to protect himself? He wasn't sure. Oh, not that it wasn't possible. It probably was. But it wasn't like he was trained or learned new ways to use it. Though come to think of it, maybe he should. No. No maybe. He just should. His fire work was pretty cool. But he'd seen others do some really cool stuff. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Lady, smirking at him. This time it was raven haired Queen Tatiana, skin tight booty shorts and a halter top barely containing truly spectacular breasts. The eyebrow over her piercing green eyes raised and he nodded. Of course, she was now in her 50s, though she still looked great. But when he saw her, it was the way she looked when he first stumbled upon her on his favorite porn sites. She and later Spectra Lin certainly occupied a lot of his time during his late teens. 

Yeah, he would need to see about getting someone to drop some knowledge on him. Worse come to worse, there was always the Consulate. But he'd beat the trees a bit, first. No sense making himself more visible to the government. He hadn't registered as a channeler. The Lady's appearance maybe meant that he'd find someone soon. But even if not, he'd chase it down. Now that he had the bug, he wasn't gonna let up.

Coming here was a whim. He saw the carnival from a distance and for some reason memories for his childhood came back to him. Pops and ma had taken him here, way back when. And he had loved it. But time told the truth. It always did. The place was a dump. Did he feel bad? Nah, not really. He knew how things worked. Nothing lasted. So he wandered around, cotton candy in one hand, as he tried to figure out what he wanted to do.

He pasted a trailer and the tell-tale smell of pot drifted out a window. He paused. He had some primo stuff on him. Red Hulk 24 really sent you reeling. He coulda gone home and smoked it. But eh, he was here. And you never knew where interesting people were. Fuck it!, he thought, and knocked on the door. Who knew what might happen?