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Rise of the Rodent

Chapter 2

by Draconicon

West-Side was never quiet, but it came closest after the sun went down and the Bridgers had finished coming across from the other side of New Adar. In those hours between their arrival and the night shift going down to the docks, there was less traffic - of the foot and vehicle variety - through the entirety of West-Side. Everyone was either focused on the meal at home or sitting on the banks of the Rumis, staring out at the rich people on the other side and hating them, as the pastime of the poor.

Salla avoided the busier streets, heading to the family apartment four streets back from the bank and two away from the local hospital. It was simple practicality to know where the hospital was in the city, particularly when there was no guarantee that you could get yourself taken there if something went wrong. The ambulance drivers had their wages paid by those on the other side of the river, and if they had a priority - whether or not it really was one - they were the ones that got taken there while you just waited on the street, dying.

It hadn't happened to any of his family, but it was something that they all worried about.

The white mouse shook his head as he stepped inside, the roasting smell of peppers and onions over the kitchen fire telling him that the stove was broken again. He went over the numbers in his head and sighed; no guarantee that they were going to be able to replace it this month, even with the paycheck from the Councilman. Perhaps if his mother got a bonus -

No, that wasn't likely. She didn't get enough work for that. Not when everyone was cutting hours these days. They'd just have to try next month.

He passed through the stone-walled living room, tossing his stuff into one of the many carved-out alcoves in the wall as he followed the food-smells to the far end of the house. Along the way, he spotted several hats hanging on the walls, as well as several face-wraps. Before he rounded the corner, before he even heard the voices, he knew that the neighbors were around again.

He paused, hesitating at the corner as his ears flicked. It was an old habit, born out of the many times that there had been complaints about him. Back when he still had a father rather than two mothers. Back when Amar had come across the bridge to spend time here before that was reversed and he was forbidden to ever see the elephant on this side of the Rumis.

This time, however, they were angrier. He leaned against the wall, tilting his ears forward.

"I tell you, Maryam, I tell you, he isn't doing enough," one of their rat neighbors said.

"Then you, then you tell me. What should he be doing?"

"Telling them off, of course. That Mensur -"

"Bold, thinking my son has the influence to tell him off. You think you'd be so bold?"

"For my family, yes!"

Seemed like there was already something happening, then. Not what he wanted to walk in on, and it sounded like they were already ready to blame him.

Well, might as well let them have the chance.

"Sorry I'm late getting home," Salla said as he walked around the corner. "Am I interrupting something?"

The kitchen was occupied, and then some. The majority of them were rats and cats from some of the neighboring apartments, some of which were familiar, some of which were not. The ones that knew him narrowed their eyes, sniffing before turning away, while those that didn't shook their heads at him.

His mother, her white fur standing out amidst the grays and blacks and speckles of other colors that the other women were sporting, shook her head. Her snipped-off tail tip flicked towards the door.

"No, Salla. They were just leaving."

"We -"

"Leaving."

"...Yes. We were leaving," the rat that had been so snippy with his mother said, shaking her head. "We will talk about this more later, Maryam."

"I'm sure. Now, off you go."

As the women left, most of them in a quiet snit, Salla just watched. As soon as he saw the last one leave the house, he reached to his pockets and pulled out the bills that the elephant had given him. He fanned them, counting them out as he laid them on the kitchen table.

"Should be enough for rent this month," he said. "And that's without anything from your job."

"You're not going to ask?" his mother said, turning back to the cast-iron over the makeshift fire.

"If it's serious, you'll tell me."

"Smart-ass."

"Learned it from you."

"You sure that you didn't learn it from my wife? You weren't like this when you still had a father," she said with a small chuckle.

"Probably for the best. He probably would have beat it out of me." The mouse reclined over one of the chairs, resting his feet on the ground and throwing one arm over the back. "But you're gonna make me ask, aren't you? More about me having a job over there?"

"Something like that. Half of them have been evicted."

"What?" Salla sat up straight. "But what -"

"The other half are being investigated by the police, and some of them have lost their husbands to raids down on the docks."

"..."

"They said that it's part of the new 'cleaning up' of the city."

His mother looked over her shoulder as she spoke. She wasn't saying anything, but he knew the look. He sighed.

"The Councilman mentioned something during a press release. Something about cleaning up West-Side and giving everyone 'equal opportunities.' Guess he just means equal opportunities to fail." He shook his head, looking out the window. "Or just equal opportunities for everyone that wants to live over here. Not sure why anyone would."

"There's not much room on the other side. And the company's not got much to recommend it."

"Are we doing this again?" he asked. "Don't tell me that you're going all anti-'Bridger', mom."

"We need what you bring back, I'm not going to deny that." She sighed, pulling the pan off the fire. "I'm not keen on the company that you keep, though. I doubt that you can do anything over there -"

"I can't."

"But you'd do it if you could. Yes?"

"...Mom, are you seriously asking me that?" He shook his head. "Are you seriously asking me whether, if I could, I would stand up to the most powerful man in the city, look him straight in the eye, and tell him that he can't be doing the thing that I don't even know for sure that he's doing? Is that what you're asking me?"

"Yes."

Salla sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"You vastly overestimate how much anyone over there listens to me."

"You have your friend. And your friend's father -"

"Look. Let's say the Councilman listens to me, at all. Which, he doesn't, but let's say that he does. The only person that he listens to less is his own son. Amar's there as a thing for him to groom and get ready for something else later in life. I'm just there because he knows that I'm smart enough to get the job done, and not ambitious enough to actually steal from the house. If I was any less intelligent, if I talked up at all, I'd lose everything, and so would you."

"That's not the answer I wanted to hear."

"And it's not the answer I want to give. But it's not..." He groaned. "Look. I'll talk to Amar later. For now..."

"Yes. Let's eat."

His mother laid out the bowls, he laid out the silverware, and they settled in around the table to devour the dish. It was a simple thing, peppers and gravy over some couscous, but it was better than nothing, and filling enough.

Conversation, as ever, was sparse, and worse than usual. That said, with everything that they'd discussed, perhaps it wasn't so surprising. She wanted him to stand up for the others in West-Side, while he wanted to survive.

He thought that he had the better idea.

#

They split for the night after that, and he laid in his bed, staring up at the cool stone ceiling. The curved roof rose into a dome over his head, leading to the strange feeling that he always had of falling upwards when he was tired. It always felt like there was something in the distance just waiting to pull him towards the other end of reality, as if there was more than just the ceiling and the sky beyond.

He didn't let himself linger on that. There were greater problems to think about. Namely, the Mensur family.

If he's kicking people out of their homes...

That could only mean that his thoughts of 'cleaning up' and 'equalizing' West-Side meant that he wanted to clear out everything that was 'wrong' with it before installing choice people from the eastern edge of New Adar in their place. It would keep his promise, at the very least, and it would put a great deal of money where currently only the poor lived. He imagined that there were many that were supporting that elephant that would be more than happy to see him succeed, and more that would be happier to see the poor of West-Side dislodged and sent elsewhere to be someone else's problem.

And they would be a problem. There were a lot of them.

Salla rolled onto his side, looking across the room at the phallic device that he had purchased some months back. With Amar's regular offers to pay him for 'other things,' he'd known that it was only common sense to be prepared in case he ever took it. The toy that he'd had shipped in was, while not quite elephant size, still considerable. It made him ache to look at it, though not necessarily in a bad way. He had taken it only a few times, enough to know that size was something of an appeal for him if he had to go down that road.

It was tempting to reach out and see what the elephant would offer. Amar had made the same offer time and time again, asking Salla to basically be his kept boy-toy, something that would have sent the Councilman up in flames of fury. Salla had turned it down so far, and he imagined that he would continue turning it down, but if things ended up going pear-shaped...

He thought of himself and his mom being dislodged from their house, same as the others that had come to visit. He wouldn't let that happen. Even if it cost him that much of his dignity.

He reached for his phone, dialing the old number. The line rang twice before Amar picked up.

"Hello?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Salla asked.

"Tell you - what? What are you talking about?"

"The thing that your father's doing."

"What is he doing?"

"You live under his roof and you seriously don't know?"

"Man, I could live in his bed and I wouldn't know what he was doing," Amar said. "What's going on?"

The unfortunate thing was, Salla could completely believe that. For as much as his friend was an oblivious man, in this case, it was more the fact that the older elephant played everything so close to the vest. There was never any sort of explanation of what was going on, never any leak of what his plans were until they were already in process. If Amar said that he hadn't known, Salla was willing to trust him.

"I'm going to talk to him tomorrow."

"You - why? What the hell is going on?"

"He's arresting people, Amar."

"...They probably deserve it."

"They don't."

"Salla -"

"No, listen. Amar. I'm going to talk to him tomorrow. I..." He thought about it. He lowered his voice. "I need...I need help. And I'm willing to do...things...for that help. If you get me."

"...You...you are?"

"Yes." Though not as much as the elephant was probably hoping for. "So...please...try and have him in a good mood when I come over tomorrow."

"Dude, I'll have him so ready -"

"That's all I need."

"Salla...Just tell me one thing."

"What?"

"...Are you okay? Are you...are you serious about this? Are things that bad?"

"...They're not good. But one way or another, I'll figure it out."

"Okay. Well, I'll, um...I'll see you tomorrow."

Click.

#

The next morning, Salla woke up earlier than usual. Knowing that he had at least two hours before he had to be over the river, the mouse got out of bed, got dressed in slightly fancier clothing - a slightly more elegant red vest over his black shirt, and a dark pair of khakis that were a little more 'western' for the sake of his friend - and left the house. His mother was still asleep, and her wife had come back sometime late at night, the rat's tail poking out under the sheets of her bed.

He put that out of his mind as he walked down to the warehouses and the docks. He found a comfortable place to sit on one of the mooring pillars that wasn't being used, leaning against it as he looked out at the bay.

Not fair that we have to live so much worse than they do...

It was the same thought that every person in West-Side had at least once a day. All they had to do was look across the water to see those that had a better life than them, and they constantly lived with the reminder that they were never likely to see anything like that for themselves. Even the Bridgers like him, gifted with the chance to see it all up close and able to live among it for part of the day, were well aware that they were guests and nothing more. They would never be allowed to stay.

And now, the other side was trying to clear them out of the little that they had gained for themselves. He shook his head, wondering how they were going to pull themselves back from the brink this time.

"Where do you think you're going?"

His ears twitched, the mouse already half-ready to run as he turned in place. The shout wasn't for him, he realized, but for the rats that were slinking away from a pier two slots down. Badger cops were out of a cop car, chasing three of the rats down while two more had a fourth rat pinned to the ground. No weapons were out yet, but they were struggling to keep the rodent down.

Salla approached carefully, moving slowly and silently as he kept an eye on the chase and the capture. The badgers were grunting, one finally pulling his knee up and jamming it under the rat's ribs.

"Stay down, vermin. You're under arrest."

"What are you arresting him for?"

The badgers whipped their heads around. Salla was surprised at himself, considering the talk that he'd had with his mother just the night before, but his mouth was already running ahead with him.

"Far as I could tell, he was just doing his job."

"You stay out of this. You don't know the facts of the case," one of the badger officers said. "Stay back or we'll have to take you in, too."

"For a case I'm not even involved in?"

"You think you can get smart -"

"Wait a second," the other badger said, grabbing the first by the shoulder. "Isn't that -"

"Let go of me."

"Wait, wait. That's the mouse that was with the Councilman, right?"

Salla nodded, knowing that it was the only thing keeping the badgers off him at that moment. The cops looked at each other, gritting their teeth -

Then the rat slipped away. He ran off, the badgers clearly pissed about it, but with him watching, they didn't seem willing to actually chase him down. They were, however, more than willing to glare at him.

But they didn't come for him. Councilman Mensur's name was enough to protect him. For now.

The cops turned to leave, muttering to each other, and Salla breathed out slowly. He was going to have to run, now; if he didn't, the Councilman was going to hear about this, and then he really would get in trouble.

The End

Summary: Salla finds out some of the bullshit that's going on and is asked to do something about it. The mouse considers the implications carefully.

Tags: No Sex, Patreon, Series, Mouse, Elephant, Badger, Cops, Poor, Classism, Salla, Implied Prostitution, Offers, Sexual Offers, Abuse of Power,