GUN SALAD

Lochlan McQueen tumbled to the hard stone floor of Segue Penitentiary's darkest cell, sputtering all the while. “You won’t get away with this!” he squealed. “Gunn’s comin’ for you, sure as shit! And when he’s through with y’all, he’ll be comin’ ‘round to restore order! I’ll be–”

Marka slammed the cell door with a resounding clang, drowning out the rest of the former warden’s tirade. Antony nodded to him in apparent gratitude and produced a fully-loaded keyring from his pocket.

“Now, now, Lochlan. I did my fair share of fantasizing when I was behind bars, so I really shouldn’t judge,” he drawled, flipping through key after key until the one with the appropriate cell number–B11–crossed his palm, “but take it from me: shooting for at least some semblance of realism will pass the time much quicker.”

With that, he took up the key to Lochlan’s cell and jammed it into the lock, sealing him in with a smile of immense satisfaction on his face. “That’s that,” he declared, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the stream of vitriol spewing from McQueen’s mouth. “And if that impeccably-dressed friend of yours has done his job right, he should have plenty of neighbors to howl at before the day is done.”

“You can count on it,” Marka assured him. “He does his best work between hard surfaces.”

Antony chuckled to himself. “Marka, dear, you really must work on your phrasing.”

As if on cue, the doors to the cell block banged open to admit a herd of prison guards nursing hand wounds. From the look of things, each had been cleanly disarmed–not a single man among them still carried a weapon, with the exception of the dour-looking, pink-haired man taking up the rear:

Morgan Sarada.

“Ahh, speak of the devil!” Antony exclaimed, looking between Morgan, the keyring, and the long procession of shuffling guards. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

“Will you need any help getting them to their cells?” Marka asked.

The line of newly-freed inmates trailing along behind Morgan answered his question before Antony could. “I think I’ll be alright,” he predicted. “I expect you’ll be needed elsewhere soon, anyway… So I guess this is goodbye, hmm?”

Marka nodded absently, his mind already drifting to thoughts of Roulette’s well-being. “You have chosen to stay behind in Segue, then?”

“Wizards no. I’d never have chosen a dump like this,” Antony scoffed. “But, like it or not, it’s chosen me. With Copperlock gone, the enclave will need somebody to lead it and integrate all these former prisoners into Segue society… And I’m just arrogant enough to believe it should be me.”

“I can think of no one better,” Marka replied, grinning earnestly beneath his mustache. He extended a hand, then, shaking fondly when Antony took it. “Take care, my friend. I hope to see you again when this is all over.”

Antony withdrew his hand and smiled, turning to beckon the first of Morgan’s captives toward him. “Likewise,” he said. “...Now get out of here before I start to get misty.”

Marka left him to his work without further hesitation, moving to fall in step with Morgan. “Good work capturing all those guards without bloodshed,” he began. “It cannot have been easy.”

“Glad I lived up to your expectations–I reckon you’d have throttled me otherwise.”

“An error in judgment,” Marka said with a frown. “One I have paid for, and deeply regret.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s not so easy to live it down when a friend bares their teeth,” Morgan grunted. “I tried, but hangin’ off the side of Copperlock’s tower gave me a lot of time to think… Left me wonderin’ whether you’re really as invested in all this as you claim to be.”

It hurt to hear it, but if Marka was honest with himself, he had to admit that Morgan’s words were justified. In his anger, he’d forgotten himself–forgotten who and what he was fighting for. 

Now, in the clarity of his right mind, his true loyalties were obvious… But how long would it be before he lapsed into his old ways again?

“You can trust me, Morgan,” he said, though part of him still struggled to believe it. “I care for you. All of you. I will not let my fears blind me to that again.”

As they rounded the corner into the wide, dull hallway of the administrative wing, Morgan set his jaw. “We’ll see,” he said simply, looking ahead to the door of the infirmary. Before it stood Roulette and the older woman from before–CJ, she called herself. Marka wasn’t sure what to make of her, but she had saved Roulette’s life, and that certainly counted for something.

…Though, based on what he’d heard of their conversations thus far, that gesture hadn’t won Roulette over in quite the same way.

“You don’t always need to kill people, mother,” she hissed as they approached. It pained Marka to see her like this–deathly pale and covered in bandages from the nape of her neck to the ankle of her left foot–but, thankfully, her condition didn’t seem to have diminished her vigor; if anything, she was acting more spirited than ever.

“That’s rich, comin’ from you,” CJ snickered. “Aren’t you the one hellbent on revenge? What’re you goin’ to do when you find Gunn? Toss daisies at his feet until he surrenders?”

Just after he and Morgan came within earshot, the two women looked up. CJ crossed her arms and spat on the floor, regarding them with a look sour enough to peel paint. “So it’s you two who I’ve got to thank for enablin’ my fool daughter and her idiotic schemes?” she grated. “Let’s have it, then. What’d she say to rope you into it? She promise you fame? Fortune?”

Suddenly, she raised her eyebrows. “...Her chastity?”

“MOTHER!!”

“Relax, Petunia. We both know that ship has probably already sailed. You’re your mother’s daughter, after all.”

“She didn’t promise us anythin’, ma’am,” Morgan cut in. “We came along of our own accord.”

“Then you two are more fool-headed than she is,” she groaned. “My life… Did I really just shoot my partner in the back under the assumption you jokers could fill in? Must be gettin’ senile in my old age.”

Marka blinked rapidly, trying his best to adapt to the woman’s rough-and-tumble communication style. “...You are Catastrophe Joan, are you not? Wesson’s greatest hero?” he asked. “You are nothing like you are in the stories.”

CJ’s eyes flew wide, disrupting her permanent squint for the first time. “The fuck you just say to me?”

“Mother, no!” Roulette shrieked.

“Quiet, Petunia!” she rasped, striding up to Marka’s chest without a hint of fear. “What’s your name, son?”

“I am Marka Moukahla.”

“Well, ‘Marka Moukahla’, you’re clearly a foreigner, so I’ll just assume you never had the luxury of bein’ taught any manners at all.”

Behind her, Marka could see Roulette burying her face in her hands.

CJ spoke up again, ramming her index finger into his chest with every word: “I. AIN’T. GOT. TO. IMPRESS. YOU. OR. ANYONE. GOT IT?”

Marka looked to Morgan, hoping for a show of solidarity, but he appeared to have become very interested in a bare patch of wall to his right.

“Got it,” he said at length. “I did not mean to offend you, miss…?”

“Miss nothin’ to you,” she snapped. “Joan. Or CJ. Or Sir, if you like. And if I hear anythin’ else out of you, I’ll drop you like the two-slug mound of meat you are.”

With that, she stormed off down the hall, fists clenched at her sides. Roulette looked up from her hands, then, gracing Marka with a small, sympathetic smile. 

“Marka, I am so sorry,” she whispered. “She’s got a real mean streak when she’s angry… And, well, all the time. She was lookin’ for someone to take it out on, and you just happened to get in the way.”

“It is no trouble,” he replied. “I am mostly just… Confused. That woman is Catastrophe Joan?”

“Never meet your heroes,” Morgan intoned, smiling wryly.

He’d scarcely uttered the phrase before CJ came storming back, a withering glare on her face. “Well?”

Marka glanced between his two companions, but they looked as clueless as he was. So, at the risk of earning further verbal abuse, he chose to speak up:

“Well what?”

“Well as in, ‘well, aren’t you slack-jawed slivers of flizzard dung goin’ to come along with me? Or am I headin’ off to Ballistona alone?’” 

“Ballistona?” Morgan echoed. “Why? Are you fixin’ to turn us in to Gunn?”

“Fixin’ to–Hell’s bells, boy, you’re thick as mud! I ain’t interested in turnin’ you into Gunn–I’m gonna wring the answers I need out of his scrawny neck, and I’m invitin’ you along for the ride!”

Marka, Morgan, and Roulette exchanged another uncertain glance before Roulette posed the inevitable follow-up question:

“Okay, but how are we gettin’ there?”

“My car o’course,” CJ clarified.

“Only an idiot would try and walk across the range!”