Skid. Mr Skid. Scratched his baldish head with blackened fingers. Toothy smile. Eyed his pouch. Hmm, delicious, ain’t them balls getting moist? Overgrown nail on little finger dove into the pouch and scooped out a lump of ‘kinda’ white powder. He spilt it onto the polished table and lined that bastard up. Sniff, snuff, Mr Skid, ain’t it just whatcha need me ol’mate? He raised his baldish head. Eyes dilated as his face lit up in toothy grin. He licked cracked lips and tasted gushing blood from overused nose. Them veins ain’t up to the task are they?

  He stood. Time to work Mr Skid. What’s this? Ain’t it like what? Maybe 30 hours straight? God, he would have dropped down in exhausted stupor had it not been for magic, whiteish, powder. Well, MachineTown don’t run on fairy juice does it? And Skid was the fucking man... He was the tinker. The greaser of greasers. The head honcho in an army of slithering, wasted, overworked rats which comprised the TinkerBelt. Shit, it keeps the whole thing running. The whole city. Power and fly carts and elevators and catastrophes, stinky gaslights, stinkless gaslights everything happened on Mr Skid’s say so.

  He was understaffed as usual. It din’t pay for the city to educate too many people to work mechanics and shit. Wouldn’t do at all. All sorts would come up with strange and possibly damaging shit nuggets of ideas. So it was that Skid stood and pulled on his greasy blue overalls over his impossibly colourful shirt - full of strange pictures of trees and yellows blobs and all that shizz. If you asked Skid about it he’d say it was a relic. A piece of memorabilia handed down from generation to generation. All the way back to them mysterious ancient folk that spent their time in the antiquitous legendary past. It bloody looked it too. All ripped and patched and threadbare. You really could believe that it was that old.

  Skid left his tiny room. He glanced, quickly, sentimentally at a picture on his table. You know? That family that he din’t have any time to see. He sure as shit sent all the spare money back to them and he thought about them all the time. But thems the rules ain’t it? You get could get good pay to work in the TinkerBelt, the glorious MachineTown, and being head honcho Skid got paid buckets but he weren’t allowed to leave. A tinker is a tinker for life. Had to cut all them ties. But Skid knew, din’t he? He’d sacrificed it all so his family could have a better life. They could live in the inner circle and get jobs in the Ministry and stuff. He wondered what they were up to. Fuck it, time to work Mr Skid.

  MachineTown was an oddity in Lux. A three square mile patch of city made exclusively from tinny metals. Warehouse after warehouse each with a specific function. Flying high above them tin roofs were various cranes and waterwheels and all sorts of esoteric and oversized machines with mysterious purposes. It was up to them Tinkers at the top of the ragtag pile to fit all the shit together. Had to keep all the squibby labourers from understanding the age old technology. So it was that Skid took the thingys from Warehouse 1 and screwed it into the Whatsits from Warehouse 4 and so on until each contraption was completed and rolled into Terwall Station on a secret underground passage fitted with a loading train.

  The whole of the TinkerBelt was fenced off from the City Proper by incredibly tall wired fences - electric of course - yup, that’s right, just stick your pinky on it and you went up like a pissing bonfire. Wheeee, people skirted a wide birth round the MachineTown.

  The only way in or out was the heavily patrolled gate sat at the south side of the Town. It was almost always shut save for the rare ‘inspection’ from overblown and overfed ministry types - and of course the weekly food dump. The rations contained contraband drugs yet everyone looked the other way. Keep that green rolling man and people

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  ‘s integrity went out the fucking window.

  It was home to thousands of people. Mostly squibs who’s only discourse was to permanently indenture themselves to this ‘not exactly’ prison. Then there were the Tinkers. People with some fucking brains. Top of their game. Yes Sir. In MachineTown they were fucking royalty.

  Skid was walking down the board walk, the common road that connected all the industrial units, the road was exceptionally clean. A pair of squibs were furiously mopping a grease spill, they stopped and nodded in respect to the passing Skid. Skid smiled, not at the squibs, he smiled cos his kingdom was doing its fucking job. His smile ran away from his face as he walked past the TinkerBelt ghetto. That’s where all the common labourers lived. Dirty, pissing squalor. Men and women openly fucking. Shoving their stinky, oil smeared bodies together like wild animals. Skid shook his head. The people ain’t people, he thought, just god-damn rodents.

  ‘But ain’t they your rodents Skid?’

  ‘Aye. Loyal rats.’

  ‘Ain’t you just the fucking Pied Piper?’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  Every now and then some of them tried to escape. Skid could still see the last attempt. The mutilated, charred corpse was slowly disintegrating on the fence. A painful reminder that those in the TinkerBelt were there for life.

  Head down Skid. Gots to get back to work.

  He entered Warehouse 15. Red rimmed eyes surveying the machine at work. People running here and there, perfectly choreographed. It was beautiful. Din’t the order just make them balls moist? He fucking loved it. All his years of hard work and the product? A smoothly run MachineTown. Each person had a job and did it well and to quota. ‘cept not everyone.

  Skid eye balled someone in particular. He was there. What’s his name again? Skid just knew his number. 712. He locked in on him. Darting through the industrious masses ‘till he was stood at 712’s side. 712 looked at Skid. He was quivering. He averted his gaze. Got back to shovelling raw coal into waiting furnace.

  Skid lifted his arm and clicked. A clip board was issued to his waiting hand. The responsible secretary scuttled off. Efficiency. That’s what we like thank you. He peered through them bloody eyes at the information on the board. He held it up to his face. Had to be scrupulous man. Ah yes, got it. Shit. 712 weren’t keeping up to schedule was he?

  ’712?’

  ‘Aye Sir. That’s me Sir. Pleasure Sir.’

  Haha weren’t that bastard shitting his dirty underpants? ‘See you’s a bit under on your quota there?’

  ‘Aye. Sorry Sir. It’s my back Sir. Devilishly painful. Hard to keep shovelling with it you see. I’ll pick it up Sir. Work late.’

  ‘Yah. Sure.’

  712 carried on with his monotonous task except now there was a slight quiver in his shovel. Knees a’knocking just a little. He pissed himself, just a little bit. Skid had a reputation for being a hard assed bastard.

  ‘Thank you Sir.’

  ‘Aye,’ replied Skid disinterestedly. He went back to studying his clip board. A minute past, 712 still shovelling coal, and Skid set down the clip board. He stretched lazily. his hands meeting in front of his face. Pressure applied and his overused joints clicked and clonked in screaming protest. Whoop de doo.

  He moved fast. Quicker than you’d think he could. That magic drug working wonders on his frayed nerve endings. He was coiled tight. He lifted 712 bodily, high above his head. He pulled him down till their noses were almost touching. Panicked eyes bulging out of the emancipated skeleton of a man. He tried to say something but Skid was past listening to the fuckhead.

  Skid roared in the poor man’s face, ‘it just ain’t fucking good enough! This is business you dick hole and you are the weak link.’ Wheeeeee 712 did just fly through the air like a pinball, straight into the yawning mouth of the furnace. Skid kicked the door shut and plastered his face against the glass of the porthole. His skin started to burn and crack but he din’t look away. He watched as the wretched 712 burst into a ball of merciless fire. Up and up, crackle, wooo delicious sizzle. Skid salivated at the scrummy smell of cooked man flesh. His saliva fizzing into vapour as soon as it left his mouth. He smiled his cracked smile. Laughing.