Chapter 23 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 23 — The Molly Maguires

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: Havana · Previous: Chapter 22 — Uzi Jesus · Next: Chapter 24 — Raul · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

I took a quick glance over my shoulder to make certain there were no fellow crawlers watch

Summary

Carl, alone, view counter spiking, into the Penis Parade (achievement 'We Want Meat! We Want Meat!': ten gold for tips and a bottle of hand sanitiser; 'the deeper the floor, the higher the quality of the performers'). Author Steve Rowland, level-50 forest troll, naked with a club and a mohawk; Bucket Boy; Rosemarie the elderly dwarf with Bernie the cattle-dog-patterned mole, aiming coins at eyes; a crowned skeleton DJ ('If he loses an eye again, you're paying for the healer'); Dong Quixote, seventy, conquistador helmet, half his muscles turning to flab when he exhales ('It's been a while since I've tilted a giant'); Anaconda the quarter-naga, Donut's favourite. At the dark end of the bar, facing away, over tea and a book: Damascus Steel, level 75, Ifrit — metal to the touch, smoke off his skin and from his white eye sockets, baby-goat horns, faded ink, demon wings round an anatomical heart, talon scars; demons leak up from Sheol on the fifteenth floor into uncleansed places; 'Where there is sin, there are Ifrit'; 'He, interestingly, has the exact same elbow tattoo as you.' He reads Carl's Enemy of the Church snakes. 'Donut speaks highly of you.' 'Walk with me' — past the private cubicles ('Thou hast seen nothing yet!'), a slap on the ass, a purple-shag closet with a buckled swing, and a portal to a torchlit brick hall: 'Entering the Guild of Suffering.' At the spiderweb door, the achievement The Molly Maguires: the kinds of secret society (Ivy League, orgy, altruistic, the island panda-eaters who price-fix galactic markets — 'Yes, those groups really exist'); the Avondale mine fire of 1869, John Siney on the cart ('do not longer consent to die, like rats in a trap'), the Workingmen's Benevolent Association broken by 1875 because it played by the rules — 'How can you win a deliberately unfair game when the rules are written by your opponent? […] You will never win. Not as long as you follow their arbitrary guidelines.' Then, out of nowhere: 'She's been teaching me so many things, about who I am. About what I am. What I really am. About what must be done.' The Mollies, the Pinkertons, the hangings; the weak gathering in secret, dying with their boots on for their family 'not for some rich, nameless organization that gives no shits whether they live or die. Or go extinct. Or are trapped for a millennia after they're done being used.' Then: 'What does all this have to do with what you’re going to find on the other side?' The notification rewrites itself into a standard one in the history tab; Carl had already copied it. 'Don't be a coward. Go in, get it over with, and come out.'

Characters

• Carl — Into a male strip club alone; reads the AI's confession at a door.
• Damascus Steel — Ifrit, assistant lead dancer, a spider of the guild; walks Carl in.
• Dong Quixote — Seventy, oiled, deflating.
• Rosemarie — Dwarf coin-thrower with Bernie the mole.
• Author Steve Rowland — A troll dancer with a coin in his eye socket.

Locations

• The Desperado Club — The Penis Parade on the top floor; a cubicle portal to the guild.
• The Guild of Suffering's hall — A hot brick hall behind a strip club; a spiderweb door.

Motifs

• The System AI — 'She's been teaching me so many things, about who I am […] What I really am. About what must be done.'
• The Guild of Suffering — 'Welcome, spider. Welcome home.'
• The Ring of Divine Suffering — The tattoo as membership; Damascus has the same.
• Achievements — The Molly Maguires: a history lesson that retracts itself and rewrites its own record.
• Sheol — Demons leaking up from the fifteenth floor.
• The gods — The ball of snakes read by a demon.