Vice Warden

The night stretched on inside the warehouse.

Jack leaned against a wooden post. Moonlight spilled through a hole in the roof and crept across the floor beneath his feet. When clouds covered the moon, the warehouse went dark as a cellar. Only the sound of the waves told him the sea was still out there.

He did not sleep.

Heartsteel's passive effect slowly repaired the wounds on his right arm. The skin around the tooth marks began to contract, new flesh filled them from the bottom up, and the scabs grew thicker and harder, turning from bright red to dark red, then black. By the second half of the night, the shallowest mark had scabbed over completely. Even the deepest was only a small pit, and the cracks in the bone were almost gone beneath his steel skin's self-healing.

His ribs were much better, too. The sandpaper scrape he felt when he breathed had faded to a slight discomfort. Deep breaths still hurt, but ordinary breathing no longer did.

He stood and flexed his limbs. His right arm could exert force normally, and the dull ache when he made a fist was faint enough to ignore. He did a few squats and push-ups. His muscles responded better than expected. Steel skin healed faster than any human body should, though it was nothing like the outrageous regeneration of some ability users. It was enough.

A pile of old clothes lay in a corner of the warehouse, probably left there when a storm tore off the roof three years ago. He found a dark gray coat. The fabric was thick but pilled with wear, and there was a hole in one cuff. There was a fisherman's hat, too. Half the brim had collapsed, but it would hide his face. He put on the coat, buttoned it to the top, and pulled the hat low over his forehead and eyes.

The old clothes smelled of mildew and salt, but they were far better than his prison uniform, stained with blood and fruit juice.

He crawled out through the hole in the warehouse and followed the coast toward Iron Cage City. He stepped lightly. Heartsteel's changes to his body had made him heavy enough to leave shallow dents in the sand, but he timed each footfall to blend with the waves.

Iron Cage City took shape in the darkness. A three-story main building stood between two low annexes, with the fighting arena and cage block underground. Lights still burned in the main building. Dim yellow light shone from a second-floor window, where someone moved about. The annexes were dark except for an oil lamp by one entrance. A guard's shadow swayed beneath it.

Jack did not use the front door.

Through his fights and daily training over the past few days, he had learned the terrain around Iron Cage City. A drainage channel ran from the basement on the west side of the main building to the sea. An iron grate sealed its mouth, but it could be pried open with enough force. He had entered that way once to check the basement's layout. Now it came in handy.

The water in the channel reached his ankles and was cold enough to bite. He walked hunched over beneath a concrete arch. Every few meters, light came through a grated vent, casting rippled patterns across the water. After about fifty meters, the channel forked. The left branch led to the communal cage block, the right to the laborers' quarters, and the passage straight ahead to the corridor beneath the fighting arena.

He went straight on, passed through the laborers' quarters, and entered the corridor beneath the arena. An oil lamp hung on the wall every ten meters. Their light was dim, stretching shadows long across the floor. His footsteps bounced between the concrete walls in dull echoes. He stepped even more softly, until he was nearly silent.

An iron door stood at the end of the corridor. Beyond it was the arena floor. He pushed it open a crack and looked out.

There was no match, but the arena was not empty. Several guards were straightening the cages in the middle of the floor, bending warped wire mesh back into place and twisting broken wires together with pliers. They were chatting quietly, but the corridor carried sound well. Jack could make out every word.

"...Mr. Bege's face was like thunder when he left yesterday."

"How could it not be? One bodyguard dead, three injured, and that fruit was worth two hundred million, they say."

"Two hundred million? I thought it was one hundred million."

"Who told you that? The Arena Master said it himself. Two hundred million. An Ox-Ox Fruit, bison model."

"Tch. And he just crushed it. Is that lunatic out of his mind?"

"Who knows? Anyway, the Arena Master hasn't left his office all day. Just sat there without saying a word."

"Scared, is he?"

"Who wouldn't be? You didn't hear what Mr. Bege said to him before he left, did you?"

"You did?"

"I was standing close. Mr. Bege said..."

The speaker suddenly lowered his voice. Jack caught only a few muffled syllables. He focused and pressed his ear to the gap in the door.

"...Handle it yourself. If you can't, you know the consequences."

A brief silence followed. Then came the creak of pliers twisting wire, harsh in the quiet arena.

"What's the Arena Master going to do?"

"How should I know? They spotted that lunatic near the docks tonight, but he got away. The Arena Master sent men after him. They found nothing."

"Think he'll come back?"

"Who knows? I hope he doesn't. If he does, we're all dead."

"You won't be the first to die. The Vice Warden will. Mr. Bege put him here himself. He has the Chain-Chain Fruit and handles the shackles for the important slaves. If that lunatic goes after the Vice Warden, he won't walk out of that room."

"Shame about that marine. They've locked him up. Whether they find the lunatic or not, he'll end up dead."

Jack eased the door shut and turned back.

The Vice Warden. The Chain-Chain Fruit. Handpicked by Bege.

The three clues fell into place. The Chain-Chain Fruit was a Paramecia ability. If Bege had installed the man, he was not the Arena Master's subordinate but Bege's eyes and means of control inside Iron Cage City. Handling the shackles of important slaves meant he had some way to restrain ability users, or at least anyone they needed kept under control.

He never handed off his shift. He kept the keys himself and let no one touch them.

Jack stopped in the corridor, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes to recall the layout underground. While exploring the basement, he had seen a separate room between the communal cage block and the laborers' quarters. Its sheet-metal door was twice as thick as an ordinary cell door. He had not known whose room it was then. Now he did.

The Vice Warden's room.

He opened his eyes and headed that way.

The sheet-metal door was unlocked.

Jack stood outside it, studying the handle. It was brass, polished bright against the rust that covered everything else in Iron Cage City. He gripped it and turned it gently. The door opened. The man inside had never worried that anyone would dare come for him.

The room was small, about ten square meters. A desk stood against the wall, piled with Beli and betting slips. Bundles of Beli, bound with rubber bands, formed a small hill of mixed ten-thousand, five-thousand, and one-thousand notes. Betting slips lay scattered beside them, marked with dates and odds. Some were stained with blood, their pages yellowed and brittle.

The Vice Warden lay resting on the bed.

He was around forty, bald, with an old scar running from the crown of his head down the back of his neck. He had broad shoulders and thick arms. His uniform sleeves were rolled to the elbows, exposing a tattoo on his forearm: a chain winding from wrist to elbow, with words etched between its links. Jack could not make them out.

Jack stepped inside.

He made no sound. Between the rustle of his old coat and the carpet muffling his steps, he was almost impossible to hear. He approached the Vice Warden from behind. Three steps away. Two. One.

The Vice Warden sensed him at the last second.

When he turned, he saw Jack.