I Clean Gods to Pay the Rent

0002 Home and Family

    And a partner, too... If I can't find work soon, I won't even be able to afford a loaf of bread!

    Face dark, Cassius left the House of Buer and joined the long line outside the Public Sanitation Bureau. Staring at the shiny new badge glowing on his virtual panel — [42 Job Hunts, Zero Offers] — he let out a long, miserable sigh.

    The good news: he wasn't just a guy anymore. He was a guy with a system.

    The bad news: the system seemed pretty much useless for now, and every so often it even slapped him with some bizarre DEBUFF...

    He studied the pitch-black [42 Job Hunts, Zero Offers] badge, along with that lovely little "matchmaking success rate -80%" line, for a while longer. Then, shuffling forward at a snail's pace with the queue, he turned his attention to the other two badges currently in their "worn" slots.

    The virtual panel that had come over with him to this world had three badge slots in all. In the middle slot sat a badge glimmering a dull teal, radiating a gentle, cozy sort of warmth.

    [Man of the House at Eleven (Bronze): With your parents gone early, you took on the burden of caring for your younger siblings while still young — a responsible, dependable big brother, deeply loved and respected by them in return]

    [Worn Effect: When talking with minors younger than yourself, they will find it easy to place their trust in you; when emotionally stirred, they are likely to trigger the special state "Opening Up," confiding in you their troubles and secrets]

    [Advancement Path: None for now]

    [Hidden Trait: Not yet activated]

    Beside that "substitute big brother" badge sat one blazing like fire — a scarlet badge almost harder to look at than the sun itself.

    [Level-1 Certified Materialist (Crimson Variant, No Further Upgrades): As a staunch materialist, you hold that matter is the basis of all objective reality, that spirit and consciousness are products of matter, and that anything beyond your comprehension stems purely from your own understanding of the world being not yet accurate or deep enough]

    [Worn Effect: For things and knowledge you CAN understand, through your own analysis and reasoning you can grow familiar with and master them quickly, gaining bonus effectiveness in their use proportional to how well you understand them;

    For things and knowledge you CANNOT understand, by pushing out the borders of your own cognition you can immediately obtain fragments of related information, and — proportionally to your understanding — lessen the influence such things have over you when you encounter them]

    [Advancement Path: Highest level reached. No further advancement possible]

    [Hidden Trait: Not yet activated]

    "..."

    Going by the description alone, this variant badge sounded like a big deal. In practice? Not even close.

    It had fired exactly once — at the very start, helping him master this world's language well enough to hold a normal conversation inside three days — and then it had gone dead quiet, like it didn't exist at all.

    Still, hard to trigger or not, a badge-slash-cheat-code was not "normal" by any stretch. He wondered — would it count as one of those controllable "anomalies" the red-haired woman had mentioned? If it did... maybe he actually was a good fit for the Oddity Cleanup Bureau?

    He couldn't help glancing back toward the Oddity Cleanup Bureau — then immediately shook his head hard, strangling that ridiculous thought in the crib.

    Get real. That was a twelve-percent-a-year death rate!

    And judging by her attitude, the Oddity Cleanup Bureau was not the kind of department you could just quit. Odds were, signing up meant signing up for life.

    He wasn't even seventeen yet. If he had to work until sixty, that was forty-plus years of service — the death rate would stack up past ninety-something percent. Practically a guaranteed death sentence!

    If he were alone, fine — this life was a freebie anyway. Better to gamble it now than crawl into some mine or furnace room, break his body for a few decades, and end up like the neighbors down in Slow Fuse Lane: hollowed out by injury and sickness until the last of their savings ran dry, then dumped in a hospital corridor to die on a vomit-stained mattress. Might as well throw this rotten life on the table and let it ride!

    But... there were four mouths in this house. The two little ones didn't even reach his waist, and his next-oldest sister — only a year younger — had been sick from the womb, and after breathing in a lungful of alchemical waste gas during that reagent leak, her coughing had never really stopped. Heavy work was out of the question for her.

    HE could gamble his own life. But if he died at this "Oddity Cleanup Bureau," the family would probably work his eldest sister to death, then slowly starve the two little ones. All four of them, gone, one after another!

    "Dammit!"

    The thought hit, and Cassius lifted his head to stare at the still-endless line ahead, ground his back teeth till they ached, and spat hard at the carved flagstones underfoot.

    "God-awful world!"

    ...

    The sun sank west, its dying light filtering through the alchemical haze to fall on Smoke City's grimy streets — and beneath one young man's unbearably heavy footsteps, it was trampled into the dark, piece by piece.

    After two-plus hours of queueing and several rounds of checks and questions, the owner of the [42 Job Hunts, Zero Offers] badge was, unsurprisingly, cut.

    Even after Cassius threw away every scrap of dignity he had left — grabbing the examiner's sleeve, swearing up and down he could do the job, one hair short of dropping to his knees and begging.

    One look at Cassius's frame — malnourished, a full size skinnier than boys his age — and the fat official in charge of selection couldn't even be bothered to answer. He shoved him off with one slap of a hand, waddled to the next applicant, pinched disapprovingly at the man's arm and thigh, then stamped a red PASS on his scrawny chest...

    Bastards!

    Remembering the scene — human beings picked over like livestock, no different from a cattle market — Cassius ground his back teeth out of habit and heaved out a mouthful of the black weight that had pooled in his chest.

    Nearly three years in this place, and he still couldn't get used to how rotten it all was.

    Last time around, he'd never amounted to much, but his parents were alive, his home was warm, and he'd coasted along safe and sound for a good chunk of a lifetime. The worst hardship he'd ever faced was a boss tearing him a new one at work. Then he blinked and got dropped into this godforsaken world, where simply staying alive took everything he had. Honestly...

    Forget it. Instead of dwelling, better to figure out where to hunt for work tomorrow — something, anything, to bring a few extra coins home.

    One more corner, and he'd be at Slow Fuse Lane, where his family lived. Cassius stopped, kneaded his stiff face with both hands, and finally managed to squeeze out something like a smile.

    Working to keep that smile in place, Cassius walked into the badly lit lane like he'd done a thousand times, cut fast through the cramped, junk-cluttered old street in the dark, and headed for the low little house at the southeast corner.

    He'd just stopped at his own front door and raised a hand to knock when the rust-freckled old iron gate — a good deal older than he was — swung open on its own, revealing a face that might have been pretty and delicate if not for the unmistakable shadow of sickness on it.

    "Cass."

    She'd barely called his name, this thin, wispy girl, hardly gotten a word out about how his day went, when her brother outside the door frowned and scolded, dead serious:

    "How many times have I told you? Don't open the door for people."

    "I wasn't opening it for people."

    The scolding didn't sting her at all. She took Cassius's coat and patted the dust out of it, smiling as she said:

    "I know your footsteps. I only open it early when it's you coming home."

    "That's not good enough either!"

    At her words, a thread of warmth fought its way up through all the resentment in Cassius's chest — but he kept his face stern and lectured on:

    "This part of town isn't as rough as the slums outside the walls, but it's not short on bad people either. What if you heard wrong one day?"

    As if I could ever hear wrong...

    Her brother's answer drew a silent sigh out of the thin girl.

    Even here in Slow Fuse Lane, where everybody had it hard, few people walked with steps as heavy as her brother's. And since he'd pulled through that bad illness three years back, his footsteps had only grown heavier. Even dead asleep, she could pick out that tread of his — like a man hauling an entire great bell on his back.

    But sure as she was that she'd never mistake it, she didn't argue. She hung up his coat, went into the kitchen, and brought out supper, still steaming.

    When Cassius slumped exhausted into his seat and dropped his head to shovel food in, she settled in beside him at the wobbly old table — the one with the limp leg — propped her thin, pale cheek on a thin, pale arm, and watched him, soft-eyed, as he devoured bowl after bowl of plain stew.

    It's this late, and instead of resting you're sitting there watching me eat?

    A full day of hunger had him eating fast, and her staring made him squirm. He cleared his throat and said quietly: "The two little ones down?"

    "Mm."

    The thin girl nodded gently and tipped her chin toward the inner room, smiling.

    "Right at sundown they were still fussing, saying they'd wait up for you. Then they started rubbing their eyes, and sure enough they both conked out leaning on each other by the table. I only just carried them in to bed."

    "Next time, leave them."

    One glance at his sister's face — white as paper, not a drop of color — and Cassius couldn't help shaking his head.

    "Your health's no good, and the two of them have gotten heavy these past couple years. If it happens again, just let them sleep where they are, and I'll carry them to bed when I'm back. Toss a thin blanket over them so they don't catch cold — that's all it takes."

    "Mm-hm."

    The thin girl answered, soft as ever, still not arguing — just smiling and tipping her chin again, accepting her big brother's concern in full.

    And there it is. In one ear, out the other...

    Looking at her, Cassius shook his head, helpless.

    He'd never once figured out how to handle this sister of his — clean and soft as porcelain on the outside, stubborn as a mule underneath. Since lecturing did no good, he let it go, finished his supper in silence, and said, hesitating a little:

    "Today..."

    "Today is over. It's late."

    She cut him off and got in first:

    "The Department of Roads is so far, and you never spare the coin for a fare — you must have walked the whole way. If you're going back out tomorrow, you should be asleep right now."

    "..."

    "Mm..."

    She'd seen right through him — another failed day, then. Cassius sighed, brow knotted tight.

    "I'm useless. If I could just—"

    "Cass!"

    "Mm-hm. Not saying it."

    Fists clenched, resolved to redouble his efforts tomorrow and land a job no matter what it took, Cassius got up, put away the dishes, and headed for his little room, where he tossed and turned a good long while before worry finally dragged him under.

    But before dawn, a fit of violent, bellows-like coughing tore him out of sleep — and with it came his little brother and sister, screaming themselves hoarse.

    "Cass! Wake up! Come on, wake up!"