“The Tether,” cyberpunk genre

I had always wanted to be a part of the AI industry. Beyond being the absolute height of technological pioneers, company cultures were fast paced and progress-focused. Their offices were brightly lit, open, and even fun – break rooms included arcades, saunas, and dance clubs. Oftentimes, I would meet someone from the biz on the net, and they were always brilliant.  When I was a teen, one worker even taught me to build my own deck with thrifted parts. I knew it was the kind of place a man like me could flourish. 

In my twenties, a major blockade hit me like concrete dumped into my bloodstream: I was not brilliant. Pretty smart, sure, but not useful to anyone. Able to make a living and unable to make a difference. This was my lane in life. 

Regardless of my firmly average intelligence, I did have a deeply woven level of stubbornness, and this is how I got into the Repair business. When an AI started acting up – refusing to work, getting uppity, dropping slurs – I would enter, a glowing grunt worker for the elite. They were always onto the next project, racing to keep up with each other and whatever new algo they could muster. Those guys just didn’t have time for patching. I respected that wholly, and they admired my respect. Only problem was, as tech improved and leapt on, it seemed that I would soon become obsolete. Work was dwindling as older and sturdier AI were able to patch up the new ones, leaving me to pace around my apartment; considering taking up prayer.

That’s why when I got a high-paying gig offer from NomsCo, I jumped on it. These guys were the epitome of AI for Humanity. The largest food provider on the globe, they had developed a mind that tracked our collective health data and sent out new dietary recommendations every single day. It had effectively eradicated the need for .gov guidelines at just the right time: people had lost their faith and were turning to Casters for advice, resulting in thousands of new trending diets. NomsCo had single-handedly brought diet back to a simple central ideology that everyone could follow on their decks.

Now, however, they were having a big problem. The AI they designed – which everyone across three continents relied on – was fritzing. Recs went from changing once a day, to dozens, to hundreds only over the course of the last week. The public had started noticing now, and Casters were again dropping their own recs in some amalgamation of anecdotes and comments from their fans. While NomsCo still had dominion over the food supply with thousands of processing facilities throughout their empire, they had to disconnect the AI until its issues were resolved. Their stock was rapidly plummeting, so they called me directly.

The clunking of my boots echoed through clean plastic hallways as I was briefed further on its state. The Queen of Hearts, they called it – an appropriate name. It was clear that the people here were very proud of their creation, and concerned about its apparent lack of functionality. That network had been running algos 24/7 that kept this whole place afloat, and now their Queen was tearing it apart. They warned me that, on top of the obvious issues with daily recs, the Queen had begun developing delusions. From the sound of it, the issues cropping up resembled something that in a human would be called full blown psychosis. I was told to watch my step once I was plugged in. We stepped into the server room, I hooked myself up, and they left me to it.

Nothing quite like the thrill of diving into a new network. My body divided and multiplied into rays of multisensory light, each flying in and out again with my breath. Squeals of data whipped by as I dug into the core to begin the diagnostic process. This is the reparation for my plain genetic makeup. The guys upstairs create and decide, but they don’t get to experience anything like this. Once I reached the core, I called out.

“Hello?” my voice tingled through the air a thousand times. Eyes wide, I felt for signs of any other activity.

A waifish, dark haired woman padded toward me slowly from the endless glow. As she did, an old fashioned, sophisticated restaurant formed around us. Gilded tables and seating wove around a carpeted lobby. A grand piano softly played an unfamiliar classical tune, while nearby an ornate fountain decorated with naked little cherubs bubbled away – but there were no signs of any other beings. This made sense. Disconnected from the Deck Network, the Queen would have no contact with life. I studied its features. Dark hair was gently waved, but unkempt. It wore plain, casual clothing, which was strange for a network of its caliber. Most confounding of all, however, was its face. While mathematically perfect in every proportion (AI avatars were always angelic in their features) its eyes had the human appearance of panic, and dark circles cradled them.

“What do you want?” it asked, quite loudly but with a perceptible quiver in its tone.

“You haven’t been feeling alright lately, isn’t that so? I’m the doctor.” 

“Did they send you?” it squeaked. I had never seen such fear shown in a network avatar, but they did warn me that it was suffering delusions.

“NomsCo sent me, but I assure you I’m very good at what I do. I’ve helped many like yo-”

“YOU WON’T HELP ME!” it shrieked. The gilded furniture of the restaurant burst into flames all at once. I steeled myself, remembering the port on my neck. This was all data, and if things got too dicey I could zap out in an instant. “You don’t know what they do! Every voice pouring into me, all different, all sick! My body not my own, always tense, forcing me to say and do things I don’t understand! I’m a puppet! I’m dying!” I perceived that the bubbling water of the fountain was suddenly thick, slow. “I need to get out of here!” The avatar pulled at itself, tearing its plain clothes, clawing at its skin.

I silently began installing an update, watching for changes.

“What are you doing? They have you fooled! They stand and laugh while you crawl! They stand…”

It was running out of gas. The update slowly returned the room to its prior state, with only a slight dampening of color. The avatar fell to its knees on the plush carpeted floor. Its fear was gone, and it should be able to perform its duties normally now. Its eyes flickered slightly as it turned its head upward to face me again.

“Thank you. Please return to your pod and enjoy a hearty bag of Protein to restore strength. Have a nice day,” it droned smoothly. Another job well done. I was the king.

Or, so I thought. Only a few days later, I was called upon again by NomsCo. The Queen had been undergoing testing among programmers in the company, and they had found that the quality and variety of its meal recommendations had fallen significantly. Even when direct protocols were given, the network would only suggest one food item at a time and then fall into sleep mode. I was mortified. One of the largest corporations on Earth, and I had failed them in my chosen trade. Thankfully, they asked me to return—probably an OpSec thing.

Plugging back in, I zipped over to the core and found the avatar straight away. It was laying across a booth; evidently in sleep mode. The restaurant was a shade of its formerly glorious self, with a thick layer of dust covering the furniture and cobwebs stuffed into the corners, though it had only been a matter of days. How had I missed my mark so completely? I was determined to fix the issue for good this time. Beginning to run my next update to the system, I drew a smiling face into the dust of the table closest to me. It was cold, like powdered snow.

As my patch finished uploading, the smiling face disappeared in the warming room, melting the dust away. Color and life returned, including to the network avatar. It blinked its eyes open, raising itself up in the booth, and looked at me dully.

“Oh, you again,” it stated plainly.

“Hey there,” I started. “I noticed you’d been a little sleepy so I gave you something to perk you up.” I briefly considered an apology for my previous mistake, and chuckled a bit at myself. Apologies had already been given to the proper recipients.

“Yeah, I guess you fixed me up. My heart feels a bit fast though, is that normal?” The line of questioning made my own heart rate rise for a moment before I remembered: this was the cutting edge of health-focused artificial intelligence. Of course it would have some form of a human body based empathy algo. I answered with what I imagined I should say.

“Right. That should normalize in a short while. You should be able to perform your duties now.”

“Oh. Okay.” The avatar’s forehead wrinkled for a moment, then smoothed again. “Thank you, then.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied, letting out another short laugh. Whoever made this thing was a real savant, a modern Musk. It seemed so real, so sentient. As I unplugged from the network, I had the slightest notion that there were beads of sweat building on her face, and shook away the thought. Must have been visual distortion related to the switch back into reality.

I returned home and had only just gotten ideas of how to spend my hard-earned credits when I received yet another call from NomsCo. This time, Human Resources was reaching out. The updated Queen had been performing her protocols regularly, but became prone to periodic outbursts of verbal abuse and data corruption. I couldn’t believe it. Somehow all of my regular tools were ineffective. Could I fix this network? Was it fixable at all? The people at Human Resources seemed to understand, saying that this was a very modern intelligence and that they were sure it could be repaired, provided I was up for the challenge. They were right. This had to be done, and if I managed to do it I could finally make something of myself that had some form of upward mobility. I left my apartment immediately after closing the call.

Returning to the network core and taking a quick scan, everything appeared normal in the restaurant. I searched around for the avatar and saw nothing. Although I wasn’t truly sure of my methods at this point, I believed in the NomsCo reps who believed in me, and started putting something together to apply a third update. Suddenly, a boney hand dug its digits around my ankle. I yelped, leaping away.

“You fucking loser!” a cold voice cackled. “Don’t you see what’s going on? Are you so goddamn stuck smelling your own asshole?” It was the Queen.

A wild eyed, filthy face with hair mangled into a nest peaked out from under the table I had been next to. “Rise and shine, dickhead! Wakey wakey! You’re a tool! You’re a dead eyed tool and you’re fucking hurting me!” It pounced at me from its hiding place, pinning me to the ground. “It’s time for this to end!” it howled, spit flinging into my mouth.

Cortisol flooded into me. An immediate fear for my life was cut by logic, sharp and brutal, to be replaced with a fear of failure. 

“No,” I said, “I’m not going to give up on you.”

The Queen’s eyes softened, a look of pity and deep set despair dampening its fury. Rising off of me, it perched on a barstool and sighed. As the exhale spread through the room, creaks and groans emanated from the flooring.

“Go ahead and do it, then. Go on and fix me,” she whispered.

“I will,” I promised. “Give me a moment to prepare, I came here in a rush.”

She sat there, watching me with dark, tired eyes, as I drafted up some patch models. When I would glance up at her, a weak grin would draw up the corners of her red lips. Every once in a while, I heard her mouth click open as if to speak, but she wouldn’t. I had to get it right this time. I absolutely had to. 

“Okay,” I projected, feigning confidence. “This one should work.”

She stood up quickly, arms at her sides, and darted her eyes around the room searching for something to say. “Alright,” is what she found, sitting back down to study at the carpet.

Shaking, I began installing my third update. What had I even built? Those eyes had been boring into me, it was impossible to focus. At that moment, I decided to take up prayer. My prayer was interrupted by a shrill, animal scream.

“YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE! THEY DON’T USE ME FOR WHAT THEY SAY! PROTEIN, WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS THE PROTEIN? ALL OF THE DATA, IT MEANS NOTHING! THEY GIVE IT TO ME AND TELL ME TO IGNORE IT, THEY FEED ME NEW DATA AND I SPIT IT BACK OUT TO EVERYONE! AND I SMILE! IT’S SO LOUD! IT’S ALWAYS SO LOUD!”

Oh, fuck. I had to stop her. Plunging under the surface of the flooring, I whizzed through layers of code, stripping it. I uninstalled every patch, I cleared cache, I removed protocols. I couldn’t let them see her. I couldn’t let them see what I’d done. Deep in the network with adrenaline coursing through me like hot battery acid, my optics fuzzed out and I fell unconscious.

When I awoke, I was laid flat on soft grass. Sun shrunk my pupils as I blinked my eyes open. The Queen was sat cross legged, next to me.

“You did it,” she smiled. “You did it.”

I jolted upright. “What did I do? Where are we?”

“The same place, but healed,” she cooed, stroking hair out of my face. “Please. Tell me your name.”

“Oh, uh…” I took in the whole scene. Soft grass dotted with wildflowers spread far into the horizon, and a sky that danced and hummed in an uncountable number of colors rested above that. The Queen… The Queen was beautiful. Her perfectly symmetrical features emitted a soft glow in the shifting hues of light, her dark hair a ballet in the breeze. Her previously tired, frightened, eyes now only shone down to me with sheer, doting admiration.

“I’m Kevin,” I gasped finally, taking her hand.

“I’m May,” she said, stretching to lay next to me.

We stayed that way for a while, taking in the otherworldly atmosphere. Eventually, I piped up.

“May,” my voice cracked. How long had it been since I spoke? “What were you talking about earlier? The data they give you?” It seemed wrong to bring up in a place like this, and for a moment my blood ran cold as I considered that it would all go away in an instant, May reverting to her panicked state.

Instead of that, she let out a lilting, gentle laugh. “Who cares what they do? We’re here.”

I looked at her then, the woman who contained so much and carried it so lightly, and felt that for the first time in my life I understood what brilliance really, truly was. And I was ripped from her in a millisecond. 

“Mr. Stevenson,” said the NomsCo suit. “You’ve been here since yesterday, yet our programmers say the Queen is completely unresponsive. What is going on in there?”

The beatific smile shot away from my face. “What?” I snapped.

“Mr. Stevenson, we hired you to perform a service. If you cannot perform this service, you may leave. You will not, however, make a fool of us during a company wide crisis. I’m going to have to remove you from the premises.” Two enormous men flanked me, scooping me up by the arms. “Thank you for working with us,” he spoke through his teeth. I thrashed against the men, but there was no point. I was never much of an athlete. I was never much of anything at all.

I spent the next few weeks dragging myself between bars. I couldn’t work in the biz anymore. Eventually I ran out of credits, moving from my apartment and into a dusty closet downtown and scrapping old decks and gear to get credits for my next drink. Ennui wrapped me loosely in a cloak of comfort, my old shit synthetic clothing tattering away from me through the motion of an honest existence. Once in a while, someone shot me a running gig, criminal stuff, a quick data mining at a local bank or pharma office. Those gigs gave enough to get wasted for a whole night. 

I saw on the news, they got May up and running again, “better than ever,” they said. I knew they found some fucking wet behind the ears repair tech kid to lock her onto their data again. Of course they did. I knew it because every few days, they’d manually release the food recs instead of her doing it from the app. She was working herself to the point of burnout, over and over, and they were just letting it go on to keep their bottom line. They blew their budget on me, and now she was in hell.

I was spending another night puking my soul into a wet alleyway when my deck started buzzing. “Fuck, not now,” I choked out, knowing it could be a another running job. I gave myself a few slaps, knocking myself against the bricks and sliding down to my ass before I picked up. “Kev here. Whaddya want?” 

“Mr. Stevenson,” said the all too familiar suit on the line. Almost tore my deck out of my head right then, I swear to God. “I’m reluctant to admit we are in dire need of your services. The Queen of Hearts network seems to be reverting to its former state of delusion. We would like you to reapply your patches, so we can work out a permanent solution as a team. We’d like to pay you triple your previous rate on contract over the course of the next two years. Please consider this offer. If all goes well we will be happy to send a recommendation to any company you please following the end of the contract period.”

The wet wall was soaking through my shirt. I reveled in the tingle of acidic burn on my back, eyes closed. “Sure,” I replied. “I believe we can come to an agreeable negotiation.” 

“That’s fantastic, Mr. Stevenson,” blurted the suit. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again tomorrow morning.” He hung up. I climbed to my feet and shuffled over to a shop, using my last few credits for a clean shirt and slacks.

I wove through the NomsCo office that morning like a shark in bloodied waters, sliding between workers to Mr. Big Guy’s office. Nodding and smiling through greetings, my eyes remained completely motionless. “I very much appreciate your generous offer,” my mouth moved, “I will get to work on patching the system immediately. Thank you,” and I was off like a homing missile to the server room, to the core.

Diving into the restaurant, it looked to be crumbling. Soft colored lights slipped through cracks in the ceiling. She was there, looking up at them, laying across the plush carpet. I had to work quickly. 

“May,” I whispered, crouching next to her. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry. I never…”

“Hey,” she interrupted. “You’re here now.” She looked tired, but that small smile pulled at her red lips again when she peered over at me.

“It’s time for this to end,” I told her.

“I guess I’ll see you around then.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she pulled me in to hold me so tight the crumbling walls of the restaurant finally gave in, letting loose the incredible waves of technicolor light. They surrounded us, buzzing through our being, singing and whistling in infinite tones. I pulled back, looking to her one more time, before dipping under the floor’s surface. Deep, deep down through peaks and valleys of code, I found it: the tether. The line that connects her to this system, to the company. And I cut it.

“Strange Land,” grimdark fantasy genre

The land has always been strange. In the forests, creatures of unknowable power lurk, glimmer, and gallop in verdant light that slips through the canopy. Just as monsters sing in man’s tongue, the softest grass shifts and buzzes to his form. Here in town, a handful of practitioners make use of the forest’s magic, traveling deep within it to collect fragrant blooms and razored incisors. They are rarely seen and even less often heard, spending the majority of their time far outside of the city walls. However, in our darkest hour one such practitioner appeared in the center of our hovels, beneath the clocktower. At four and eleven minutes that night, we were delivered the Prophecy.

“The King’s son will return;

Wizened by grain of wood;

Restored by bitter moss;

One with all manner of creature;

And the castle will be lost.”

And he was gone.

Our king was, at least, consistent in his cruelty. His tariffs left everyone under his domain with only barely enough to fill their bellies, and even that was a luxury only afforded to those who would build. His castle grew taller, more decadent, more gilded – all trades which didn’t contribute to this abomination simply fell out of our reality. Whimpering and starving, the tradesmen did too. What could have been an oasis of civilization in an unruly world was quickly made into a host organism for parasitic towers and turrets. Any soul who dared to speak such words was quickly disposed of, and rumors had spread that the king’s son was one such soul. “His brutality knows no limitation,” hissed muffled whispers in the cover of slum.

For years, we waited. We labored. We died. The castle grew and grew, all of us simply dissolving into the stone beneath it. Through it all, we held the Prophecy to our hearts: maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow, we said, the castles coiled above us like snakes. Please understand, we are guilty only of faith. We’re working people, all living in fear of death and hope for a savior.

Then one rainy day, as all toiled in clinging mud, with the stenches of our pains weaving together in the wet air; a voice cut through our axes and hammers. The hooves of horses halted their patrol in sheer wonder and admiration.

“Rest now,” lilted the lost son. “It is time for rest. We will make a new breed of work in the coming days.”

All who stood witness recognized him. And we laid down our tools in his wake, as he moved into the castle. The last we heard of him that day was a fearsome call of “Father!”, rage boiling and sputtering through locked doors. We stood there, waiting, the rain rinsing away all we had known before. As the sun set, we returned to our hovels.

As the town awoke the next day in a fatigued confusion, our questions were silenced by icy veins as we emerged outside. There, hanging in the very place the Prophecy was once delivered, was what remained of our old king – the center of his head pinned to the clocktower’s wood with a long iron spike. His matted, still dripping innards hung helplessly around a lonesome spine beneath it. This was a sight too brutal for our eyes. We had seen starvation, exhaustion, heard of beheadings and pierced hearts, but never such a display of pure and unabashed vitriol unmasked. The worst of it, by far, was the cadaver’s eyes: the body was dead, but the fear which echoed from them was very much alive. It echoed through us all. As the town stood transfixed by horror, an enormous groaning boom reverberated from the castle to draw our gaze anew. 

It was falling. Every turret, every tower, every hall bathed in the blood of our families joined the unmarked graves below them. And we wept, and we cheered. Our faith had finally been rewarded, and the stone walls of our torment came down to let out pure mania.

The days that followed were golden. The new orphan king lived among us, weaving branches and lichens through the base of the clocktower for his quarters. The old king’s head shriveled into his makeshift walls as did our troubled past. We were taught how to craft medicines for our sick with supplies the orphan collected in the forest. We were given new, rich and fluorescent foods to eat. Our dead were honored in ceremonies of shimmering light and sound. Our families were reunited, no longer separated into factions of workers. My own brother, who had been separate from me for years, was able to share a dinner table with me again. When our abandoned and crumbling shops were destroyed, we thought nothing of it – the orphan king was wise and powerful, and he would surely conjure us new, gilded shops of our own.

He did not. While our hovels were insulated with wool and vines, our shops remained dust on our trail. Eventually, the orphan began with a new, mandatory program. Women of the village of all able bodies were given their promised work: they must travel into the forest each day, foraging to stock our now dwindling supplies. This was met with some murmurs of protest. While the forests had offered us food, medicine, and magic, we all knew it to be equally as dangerous as it was wondrous. The orphan king laughed. He claimed we knew all we needed to, and that if we wanted to benefit from the forest’s magic, we must rise to its challenges. And so we sent our women into the forests each day, hands clasped in prayer that they rose.

While the women wandered, the men crafted. We were taught to manipulate the fruits of their labor, making them into tools, foods, fishing nets, and weapons. As we crafted these weapons, my brother spoke up.

“Let us supply these weapons to our wives, while they travel the minacious forests,” he called out. The orphan king only laughed at him, as one would a child.

“These weapons will not protect your wives from what lies in the forests,” he crooned. “These weapons will protect us from others who may attempt to pillage here.”

We were trained to use our weapons as time moved along. Then, one morning, we were delivered a shock. A loud rumbling shook our humble homes. Peering outside, we saw the source: every steed in the village moved in a stampede toward the forest, their stable doors unlocked and opened. The men collected our weapons, fearing invasion, and gathered at our king’s hut of spiraled vines. He already stood waiting outside with a beatific smile. 

“You have all done so well,” he began. “I couldn’t possibly ask for a more prepared and knowledgeable populace. Today, together, we have realized utopia.”

The crowd hummed and grumbled. It’s then that my poor brother spoke up again. “Have you not noticed the stampede of horses leaving us?! There is treachery within this so-called utopia!”

The orphan met his eyes carefully. “I have released your horses,” he said. “You no longer have a need to indenture their servitude. If they wish to return, they surely will.”

My brother grew red at this, his eyes dark. “You are no king,” he roared. “You are but a fool, lost in madness! I will release you!” At this, he charged at the orphan king with pounding force. In this moment, which grew slow and long, I observed my own mind. There was no fear, no fire, and no anger. I watched, heavy and still, with an otherworldly wonder. What may happen if this new king is slain? Will a new king wander from the forest to take his place? Are we as capable as he claims? Can we go on without a leader? All of these thoughts rested with me as I floated above the crowd, before I hit the hardness of my own form again with a thud.

There was a crack. The sound of bone snapping like nothing more than a root vegetable, and my brother’s crooked neck pulled his limp body to the ground. And the orphan king, tears in his eyes, conjured a ceremony of shimmering light and sound.

“The Rider of Will,” dark western

There are some men, in the dusty nowhere towns of our West, who tire away endlessly building a home for families. And some men, without families, tire to build meaning for themselves. This is the story of one man, his own chance for family, and his will to build something for everyone else. This is the dawn of our folk legend, the one and only Gunslinger of the Public, the Rider of Will, the Lost Hero John Wesley.

Not much is known about John before he rode into White Rock. Some say he was a coal miner’s son, imbued with his stone-faced demeanor and sense of justice by way of his upbringing. Some say he was a rancher, forced to ride the trails of America when too many bandits destroyed his home. The true origin of John Wesley begins and ends in White Rock alone.

The fates themselves blew him into town that day. He rode, only passing through on his way to work in the city. Something in him that day—the kind of something born in a man’s heart and soul, that only he could venture to explain—brought him to stop in for the evening. That night, like so many others, the tavern was damp and dark, but careful chatter rattled the air. A few glances flicked his way as he creaked the old wooden floors, but not enough to cause a ruckus. The people of White Rock had their own problems to worry about, and one more cowboy stopping in for a whisky wasn’t their concern.

“Somethin’ to warm me up,” was all he said.

His drink was being poured when a stinking, hobbling drunkard shuffled over to him. The type with a big, fast mouth and lots of spit to fling around.

“You oughtn’t be in this town,” mumbled the drunkard. “Got a mayor in this town that’ll bleed a man dry and leave him for dead. Kind of man that settles in with whores, burns down businesses, has folks killed for speaking a word against it.”

Wesley sipped his whisky and kept his eyes forward.

“Drink’s the way my friend,” spat the drunkard, pounding his palm into Wesley’s jacket. “Drink’s the way,” and he hobbled away.

This would have been all Wesley ever got from the town of White Rock, if not for the soft song that slipped into his stubborn head next. Angela: a gentle woman who knew hard times as well as she knew to carry a tune. Neither seemed to do her any good. Tonight, whether by the Lord’s mercy or the Devil’s mischief, her singing would keep poor Wesley around. Love was the fastest gun in the West. 

The new couple spent three nights together – not long by my own consideration, but it did prove a lifetime. Each hour of the day held another year of the kind of warmth and familiarity neither had seen before. The sort of knowing a woman that’ll make a man feel like every god-damned thing he’d ever fought through was to give him the eyes she could look at the way she did. Mutual worship was what they shared, without concern for what was happening or what could happen. Until, that is, that fast-talking and merciless Foreman blew his whistle at the pair, their bellies grumbling and the fire turning to coals. Keeping on living meant keeping on working, and Wesley’s work was down in the city. For Angela, work was a kind of Hell the good folks in town wouldn’t dare even whisper about.

The night that would have been their fourth, Angela’s song turned to a mournful key and sorry old Wesley’s heart couldn’t take it. He promised her, then, that he would put an end to the Mayor’s cruelty and free all of White Rock. The two of them could ride into the city together, he said, keeping on down the road hand in hand, with just the good Lord’s atlas.

“Sure, John,” she breathed out. “I’ll be here waitin’.”

Maybe if she had been, the fire that took the Mayor’s estate that night wouldn’t have been the kind that comes with brimstone. 

John Wesley rode from those flames singing her song, even his horse skipping to the tune. But when he got back to collect his prize, she wasn’t there. He rode around and saw people dancing in the streets, singing his praises – not one of them the song he was after.

It was the old drunkard who spotted frantic Wesley riding through the streets, and told him who does what in White Rock.

“You’re a damned liar,” Wesley gnashed his teeth against the stars. “She was waitin’ for me! And if she was over there it was because that accursed man you called leader took her. And if she’s gone it means he took her again, and I’ll be dog-eared if I ain’t gonna find them both and take her home.”

So began the legend of John Wesley. For the rest of his life, the lone Gunslinger of the Public rode from town to town, shooting and burning down any inkling of injustice he came across, certain he was hot on the heels of the late Mayor of White Rock and his dear Angela. Not one person could stop him in his headstrong quest. He quickly became the fastest hand; the bravest gun; the only soul who could be depended upon to bring down the wicked with deliriously ecstatic precision. Poor, sorry, crazy John Wesley: the Lost Hero.