I figured I owed Automatic Jack a drink. Given that he'd been taken hostage while collecting money for me on bets I wasn't supposed to be making, and threatened with death as a way to force me to do something I really didn't want to do, it seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do.
So, immediately after handing a still warm, severed arm to the bastard who had been the cause of all of this, he and I made Grindlebone's our destination.
I call Jack a he, but it wasn't because of any obvious sexual characteristics on his part. Automatic Jack wasn't a flesh and blood creature, but an autonomous mechanical being. He might have been an actual robot, although his ramshackle, thrown together appearance suggested otherwise. I suspected he was either a spirit inhabiting a pile of random, humanoid shaped junk, or some sort of metal golem. I'd wondered about it, on occasion, but the situation had never seemed quite right for broaching the subject. I had quite a good friend in Jack, so it hardly mattered.
Grindlebone's, the location to which we conveyed ourselves, is one of my favorite watering holes. It managed to be both spacious and intimate through clever use of furnishings, had a number of Doors leading to a number of widely disparate places, and served surprisingly diverse and well prepared food, along with a vast array of drinks. Grindlebone often tends one of the scattered bars himself. He said it made the place more homey for the regulars.
Indeed, we saw the man himself as Jack and I entered through the Door leading from the Gambling Hell. General asking-after of each others health followed, and Jack and I were granted use of one Grin's private rooms. Jack and I had business to discuss, after all.
“Well,” Grin said, “You two head back on past the hall heading towards the pool room, walk through the next set of curtains, let yourselves in the purple door. I'll send Janx along with your drinks presently. And don't worry, it's a real quiet room. Oh, and avoid the back Oak Room, there's a bit of an altercation going on there, right now.”
Grin had added the last to let us know the room would be as secure as he could make it; some of his so-called private rooms were just private enough to let people think they weren't being watched. Not that either Jack or I had anything to hide at the moment, but it was a nice touch nonetheless.
So we wandered along to the designated spot, although we did take a peak into the Oak Room. A gang of the Red Brotherhood were lighting each other up pretty hard in there. They'd probably asked specifically for that room, too, as it was out of the way and the solid wood furnishings lowered the damage charges they'd inevitably be paying. The furnishings also made cracking weapons.
The room on the other side of the purple door was quite comfortable. The drinks that came along shortly after we arrived, whiskey for me, Bertham's Oil for Jack, made it even more so. Being metal and all, I don't think Jack could have been tired in the same way I was, but the day must have been quite wearing on him mentally, and for a moment we simply savored the alcohol and sat quietly. But there was business to be done, and we got down to it in relatively short order.
I leaned forward as Jack grasped the plate of iron covering his chest and lifted it off. Once it had been removed, two small metal grates that had been concealed underneath the plate swing open, and a box extruded from Jack's chest cavity. He removed the box and set it on the table between us, as the grates closed again.
While a bastard, the person who had taken Jack hostage had at least been a truthful bastard. He had promised, upon my completion of his task, to release Jack unharmed and with all of the currency he had been carrying. The cash was all Gambling Hell Exchange Vouchers, and it made quite a nice pile on the table.
Jack said, “I still can't say the day wasn't worth it, not while I'm looking at this much money.”
“Jack, my cast-iron friend, you are not wrong. By the way, I think I owe you an apology.”
Jack pshaw-ed the very idea, and we engaged in a friendly argument over who owed whom what, all the while dividing our large pile of money into two smaller, but still very attractive, piles. When the division was complete, we both settled back in our seats, and commenced with a discussion of what really quite clever and fine fellows we both were. And now moderately wealthy, to boot.
It was at this point that our budding mutual appreciation ended prematurely, due to the appearance of some heavily armed people, coming through the door to our room. Two hairy men in scruffy combat gear cleared the corners and then brought the muzzles of their guns to bear on Jack and I, still sitting quietly behind a table piles high with money.
Sighing, I took a sip of my whiskey. This day simply would not end.
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