Regardless, I'm quite enjoying writing this character's descent into a fearful existence that forces her from her home by being outcast from her own society thanks to Bailes fucking Maina and his gospel. (The idea for the campaign, by the way, was the advent of Steampunk wherein much of society is fearful of the new technology, and I have pretty free reign on my character's backstory, so a drug-addicted lesbian punk tinker who rides a motorized skateboard was inevitably going to happen.)
If you're interested in more about the character, check out the story Punk Tinker that takes place before this story, but tells a very different aspect of her story than Nettles does. (This is the social, that one is the technical with most of the set-up.) Hope you enjoy whatever you read, and have yourself a lovely day! See you Friday for more.
Nettles by Mac Clevinger, May 9, 2017
Natalie, affectionally called Nettles by those dear to her, rubbed a tuft of acidic-green and maroon dyed hair between her fingers, biting her lip in growing worry as she paced the aisles. On either side of her sat long rows of waist-high crates, their contents, or lack thereof, a troubling site for the girl. In her mind, she saw the store as it had been months ago, brimming with the tools of her trade, but now the last haven for her ilk had been turned against them, and quicker scavengers than her had emptied it out.
She eyed the man leaning against the counter by the door, trying not to make her spying as obvious as his own was. She could feel his eyes, the once-harmless eyes that had rolled with mirth when she gave him years of patronage for increasingly complex projects that now bled suspicion, that saw the color she’d been painted by the people she’d thought were… not her friends, but hers as much as she was theirs.
She looked down at the clothes she wore: strategically torn black and purple striped leggings beneath a black mini-skirt; heavy, dark boots with glinting metal clasps; a black shirt emblazoned with a purple and white skull that she’d once been proud of making. She’d never really blended with most people, but that had never been a problem before Bailes fucking Maina opened his fucking mouth.
Natalie pushed her knuckles into the rim of a crate that used to hold gears of all sizes, looked in to the dusty crevices of another that once held springs, knew from having looked through the store every day of that week that there wasn’t anything that she needed for her craft here. She had checked every such store, and they had all chosen to dance to the tune Bailes played.
She wasn’t the only one that needed this stuff, but it had become synonymous with what she did, what all her colleagues did behind closed doors in their workshops. Suddenly, her miracles had become a black mark against her, the lights a heresy against the natural darkness, her constructs a facsimile of life that foretold humanity’s doom if they did not turn away from such a godless path.
Natalie could feel which way the wind was blowing, and it was stoking a fire.
“Where’s the jacket, Nat?”
She looked up in surprise at Bruce, a boy a few years younger than herself who had just entered the store. Sweat dripped from his brow, the only rewards from his labors he would receive from the glowering man behind the counter. He deposited a box on the counter, wiping his hands together as he caught his breath.
“What, that old thing? Threw it away, wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that ugly piece of crap.”
The memory came unbidden, of her selling it to a friend, desperately in need of the money to give to her dealer. The man behind the counter, Clayton, murmured to his son something Natalie couldn’t hear as she approached them. Bruce responded with his own glower and muttered phrase she could only hear the end of.
“– care what Bailes says, she’s my friend.”
She’d always liked Bruce, and had even respected his father before Bailes fucking Maina started spreading his rancid talk around town, stirring up the hearts and minds with his talk of fire and brimstone and the end of everything if she so much as touched a screwdriver. It was ridiculous drivel to her, but somehow it inspired people like Clayton to stop stocking her wares.
Bruce turned away from his father, contrary expression melting into a smile in one, smooth, move. He was a quick thinker, had a mercantile tongue, and was a pleasure to look at; a deadly combination for anyone that didn’t share her preference for the fairer sex. He made for a great friend in the better parts of town, though she wouldn’t be caught dead with him in her neighborhood.
“Aww, I liked the jacket. Black as your soul, with those nifty little pockets…”
Natalie smiled at the remark about her soul, catching Clayton’s slight stiffening as Bruce said it. She wished he could lighten up and be his old curmudgeonly self again; this was a different kind of disapproval. A dangerous one that she didn’t think Bruce deserved to be on the receiving end of. Clayton stepped around the counter, giving Bruce a sharp look as he stepped into a back room.
Bruce sighed, sagging from some unseen weight on his shoulders as he patted the box he had brought with him. She’d seen the look from his father, noticed the empty crates and slim pickings for her craft; she stood out, and now did so in a way that was bad for business. There was a terse silence for a moment as Bruce went about removing the top of the crate, opening his mouth and shutting it again as he tried to think of the words. She supplied them.
“Clayton doesn’t want me coming back, does he?”
Bruce sucked on his lip, distracting himself with the crate for a moment. The crate was of medium size, perhaps as large as Bailes fucking Maina’s fat head.
“Dad wants to turn the shop into a grocers’, because we’ve been losing sight of the important things, what with all this mucking about with things beyond our knowing, and need to return to supplying basic needs instead of giving heretics the tools to destroy us all.
“Out with the new, in with the old, and Nat… I’m sorry, but, yeah. You’re too new for him.”
It hurt her to hear it, but she’d felt it coming for a long time. Natalie nodded, feigning disinterest in being formally barred from the first store she’d bought scrap at and seeing a friend she didn’t have to perform for. She could only think of a handful of people like that.
“Yeah, no, it’s no big deal. I mean, it isn’t like I’ve been coming in here since I was yea-high and haven’t fixed or built half of this shit or – or – or… fuck. Fuck, Bruce. Just… fuck.”
Bruce looked sheepish, regret and sorrow painted across his face alongside the admission of his inability to do anything to help her. She understood; he’d probably been getting all kinds of grief from his father for sticking up for her for so long, but there’s only so long the fearful can be stayed.
“I’m sorry Nat. Honestly, the city’s a madhouse – I don’t know how you deal with it.”
Her thoughts flashed to her little street lit with glowing lights, its people appreciative of the gesture that she had planned to be a short experiment; to the community of fellow inventors who always had one another’s backs in the face of such unwarranted scorn; to the outcasts and dealers she walked amongst as a full-of-herself badass amongst similarly masked badasses. She sighed.
“There are still good people, Bruce.”
And if things ever got to be too much for her, there was always a stout, barricaded door in an alley behind which she could lose herself, watching her dreams of automatons wreathed in sour smoke. She hadn’t been able to find schematic paper lately, but the sour leaves had become more of a crutch to escape from the outside world than to create a better one, though she wouldn’t admit it.
“Well, to prove that I should remain in that category, my dear Nat, think of this as a customer-appreciation gift as you move on to a future as bright as those mystical lights that delight and dazzle all with the sense to appreciate such gifts.”
He removed the top of the crate, revealing an assortment of tinker’s tools and materials that startled her to see. She rifled through the box in disbelief, not finding everything she needed but enough for her to continue her work. She looked at Bruce with an eyebrow cocked, a question painted on her face.
“I might have held a few items back that were reserved for a certain customer in light of recent changes to the administration which could negatively impact local craftsmen and women and send them scurrying to empty out our shelves.
“It’s the least I can do, Nat. Stay safe out there.”
Natalie closed the crate and lifted it, wishing briefly she had Bruce’s muscles. She was, in all truth, frail and more gaunt than was healthy, side-effects of those sour leaves and just managing to make ends meet if she was only supposed to eat once a day. She was weak, but her constructs were strong.
“I will, Bruce, and… thank you. Not just for this; for everything. You’ve done right by me.”
Bruce scoffed, failing to mask his regret at her forced departure from the store in the blasé gesture.
“You’re acting like we’re never going to see each other again, Nat. Come on, I know you’re not going to be coming here specifically, but you’ll be in the area for a certain someone else. I would be devastated if you chose not to pop your head in here and corrupt our holy produce.
“When dad isn’t around, anyways.”
Natalie bit her lip, wishing she could be in her workshop away from people or at least have her arms free to hug her shoulders as she prepared to say it aloud. She swallowed, recent memories sparking tears in her eyes and drying her throat.
“I won’t be in the area, Bruce, she, uhm… We’re on a break, until her father is feeling more favorable towards me. He doesn’t want me… he doesn’t… she doesn’t… well, she does but he… he…”
A stark silence passed between them, Bruce paralyzed and Natalie trembling.
“Thank you, Bruce, but I have to go.”
She turned on her heel and left an astonished Bruce behind her, desperately trying to leave the store before the first tear escaped her eye. She heard muttering and the slapping of a palm against a counter from behind her, but continued to hurriedly depart. She’d had enough of people, of the fear, of the city; she needed to get away from it all the only way she knew how.
She kicked away a dirty tarp by the entrance to the store, uncovering a sleek, metal board. Stepping atop it, she pressed down with her heel and began to move through the city, an old act of amusement now one of rebellion.
She was stared at, not with disapproval born from a lack of convention but in distrust and fear. She tried to ignore the faces and focus on the crate in her hands, the road she was traveling on, keeping the tears from falling down her face. She couldn’t stop shaking, the world becoming too much to bear.
Taking a gentle turn onto her street, she was greeted by a sight that knocked her off the board. The crate flew from her hands as she collapsed, her momentum throwing her into a wall beneath one of her lights. Except, where there had been a glass orb lighting up the street, there was now jagged glass and something stabbing into Natalie’s arm.
Lifting herself unsteadily, Natalie looked along the street and saw that every light was broken. Deep breathing became hyperventilating, and she hurriedly collected the crate and her board and ran down the alley towards her workshop, avoiding the worried looks of the street’s denizens that had enjoyed the benefits of the light.
She ignored the graffiti and threw herself into the darkened room, frantic eyes sure that the place had been ransacked before remembering that she hadn’t organized it in weeks. Locking and barricading the door, she tossed the board away from herself and slammed the crate onto the table, ignoring it as she ran to the squat cupboard and retrieved the bundle of sour leaves.
Collapsing on the floor, she let out a hiccupping sob as she rolled the sour leaves between some paper and tried to light it in the dark, trembling hands extinguishing matches before one finally found its way to the paper tube and she could breathe in the smoke.
The sobbing stopped, her worries disappeared, and Natalie was gone in the curling threads of fog that filled the workshop. No fear, no worries, no memories; just her and the visions for as long as the sour leaves lasted; escape from a world that had turned on her and would soon break her completely.
Bailes. Fucking. Maina.