After the lights, the machines came on. Conveyors creaked alive. Stampers pounded empty molds, one bang after another. Ventilation ducts started sucking, a high whinny that set the air moving.

Rudyard Raines pinched his face like he was listening to awful music.

Sybil Fitzgerald plugged her ears with her slim fingers.

Durwood caught Carol Bridges's eye. He found the mechanical noises tolerable, even soothing. The mayor, a combat veteran herself, didn't seem to mind them either.

The racket got louder still when the riveter got into the act. Next came the pneumatic press. Toink-toink-toink-toink... A symphony of metal, gears, grease, and motion.

Sybil Fitzgerald barked to her yes men, "Cut the juice—go find the damn power. Some timer must've kicked in. Give me your gun, I'll watch them."

The yes men did as they were told and left.

Durwood reassessed the situation. Now there were four hostiles in the immediate theater—the lawyer boss, Chester Lyles, Rudyard Raines, and Raines's man Britt Holcomb. And facing those four, two friendlies. Three if you counted Sue-Ann. The numbers were improving.

Several minutes passed. Sybil Fitzgerald checked her phone.

"I don't like this," she said. "They should be back. How long's it take to flip a switch?"

Rudyard Raines nodded ponderously, then said, "Is anyone else aware of our presence here?"

Fitzgerald slid one hand down her hip, considering his question.

Durwood didn't think a timer or switch was at play. The factory was operating below capacity. Hogan didn't need to run a third shift. As far as motion detectors—any of them would've gone off long ago.

No, it must be a person. Security guard? Policeman passing in his cruiser, got curious? Either of these could be a help—unless they happened to be in the lawyers' or bankers' pocket.

There was a startled cry above. Loud grunting. Footsteps, or stomps—echoing throughout the factory. A blunt noise that could've been a fist hitting a jaw.

Then, "Argh-hhh."

Rudyard Raines looked to Sybil Fitzgerald with a cocked brow, seeming to question the competence of her men.

Now there were sharp words, now another anguished groan. The next footsteps were closer. Durwood looked up to find the factory's upper reaches crisscrossed by a catwalk. A catwalk with somebody walking on it.

The somebody passed into the light.

Deputy Gomez.

"Freeze and surrender your weapon!" he shouted, aiming his at Sybil Fitzgerald.

Though Durwood was a fair distance below, he thought he saw a smile behind the deputy's frantic expression.

Sybil Fitzgerald kept her gun on the mayor. "What did you do with my men?"

"Your men are tied up, they're disabled." Deputy Gomez's weight shifted from foot to foot. His barrel was moving too much. "I saw when you kidnapped the mayor from City Hall. I—I saw, so I followed."

He stared at the lawyer. The lawyer stared back. The machines kept chugging, cranking. Grinding. The catwalk above trembled—could've been its supports were leaning against a machine. Could've been the deputy's shaking knees.

Carol Bridges shouted, "Gomez, fire! Take her out!"

The deputy looked anxiously between the two women. "But she'll kill you."

"Doesn't matter," the mayor said. "The truth has to come out. Stop her and get the evidence—take the evidence to the FBI."

He said, "Evidence?"

The mayor looked to Durwood. He realized she didn't know herself. All he'd told her over the phone was that he had "proof" something hadn't been fair.

Durwood nodded to Britt Holcomb. "That one moved the chuck on the riveter. He sabotaged it, caused the defects that hurt them folks."

Rudyard Raines cleared his throat to dispute this and accuse Durwood of having "a fanciful imagination indeed." Sybil Fitzgerald chimed in, bragging her firm would've nailed Hogan Consolidated eventually—with or without the assembly defects. They'd been looking at other legal remedies. Accounting abnormalities. Incomplete SEC filings. When a white-shoe firm like Fitzgerald, Combs, and Doucey put an organization in their crosshairs, it was only a matter of time before they succumbed...

Wrapped up in her own words, the lawyer didn't notice Carol Bridges beginning to creep. The mayor stayed in the same line of sight, but backed towards the shadows. Knees bent, moving slow. Inch by inch. When Sybil Fitzgerald did glance over, she would lean toward her and appear not to have moved.

But she was moving.

Rudyard Raines gestured dismissively over his head. "He's a nobody, he won't shoot. Let's get on with the fire. Chester, go fetch the gas cans from the truck."

Lyles obeyed, slinking out through the delivery bay.

The banker grinned and threw back his shoulders, as if saying, here we go, now we're making ourselves some progress.

Durwood knew these men. They expected others to shrink at their confidence. They left details unconsidered. They believed objections or inconvenient facts could be steamrolled over. If you start life ahead through wealth or privilege, the method generally succeeds. You learn the world bends for you, so you bend it whenever the hell you want.

Carol Bridges was creeping again, halfway to the shadows. With Lyles gone, though, one fewer body on the factory floor, her movements were more noticeable. The next time Raines or Sybil Fitzgerald looked, they might well notice.

Durwood needed to be a distraction.

"Y'all are, uh, not getting away with this," he said.

The lawyer and banker scoffed to each other.

One time, as they'd been waiting for an Azerbaijani scientist to finish synthesizing the first ever element of the periodic table's eighth row, Quaid Rafferty had called Durwood "a conversationalist on par with cabinetry." Durwood hadn't argued. He fared poorly when he talked just to talk. Every useless word felt like a little roofing nail you had to find in the grass.

Rudyard Raines said, "Fire has a way of eliminating loose ends, I'm told."

"Well," Durwood said, stalling. "I guess even fires leave trails."

"Perhaps." Raines winked and added, "I like our chances with the Chickasaw Fire Department on the case."

Out the corner of his eyes, Durwood saw Carol Bridges grimace.

"Hogan's in the news, this big deal of yours," Durwood said. "Could be outside interest. Could be the FBI wants a peek."

Rudyard Raines explained that his ties to the federal government ran long, long and very deep...

As the argument continued, Carol Bridges kept making steady progress. Shimmying backward, her kneecaps low and moving side to side. Any sound was covered by the factory bustle.

Durwood kept yapping right up until she was in lunging distance of the shadows. Then he looked up to the catwalk. Deputy Gomez still had his gun on Sybil Fitzgerald.

Durwood gave his eyes back to Rudyard Raines.

"Yep," he said, "I imagine so."

Raines reared back. "I just told you you and that ugly dog of yours would be leaving this world shortly as charcoal briquettes—and you say, 'Yep?'"

Durwood joined his hands over his belt buckle.

The banker said, "I believe that hat's too tight on your head."

Using the smallest uptick of expression, Durwood cued Carol Bridges and her deputy.

Gomez fired his gun. Sybil Fitzgerald crumpled to one side—looked like he'd clipped her thigh. She pulled her own trigger on the way down, but Carol Bridges had rolled away behind a conveyor belt. Bullets plinged around the factory to no effect.

Durwood sprang forward, planting both hands on the concrete and whipping his boots around in a sidewinder kick that sent Rudyard Raines flying ten feet.

Britt Holcomb spun around looking for Carol Bridges, but she stayed out of sight behind the conveyer belt. He turned instead to face Durwood.

Durwood stood again and faced him back.

Deputy Gomez shouted from above, "Stand down now! I have you in my sights, stand down now!"

Holcomb ignored this and, crouched, started circling toward Durwood.

"I'll send you back to the rodeo, clown," he said. "Yeah I will. Take you down to Chinatown."

Durwood countered each of Holcomb steps with an opposite step of his own.

"Stand down!" Gomez repeated. "I said stand down now!"

The deputy came pounding down the rickety catwalk stairs. Durwood felt each step in his teeth. The impacts echoed off the machinery—erratic, abrasive. His approach seemed too loud, though Durwood couldn't have said how else he might've gotten down.

"Step away from that man immediately!" the deputy warned. "That's Durwood Oak Jones and he's a national—"

Deputy Gomez never got to say what sort of national thing Durwood was, because another blast sounded as he reached the final step.

The deputy fell into the railing, bleeding from his shoulder. Twenty yards away, Sybil Fitzgerald lay wincing on her side over a smoking muzzle.

"Hector!" Carol Bridges cried.

The mayor scampered away from cover and dove onto the woman who'd shot her deputy. They struggled on the concrete. The gun skittered away like rocks skipping over a frozen pond. Sybil Fitzgerald cursed vilely. She thrust knees, fists, fingernails at Carol Bridges. Methodically the mayor reversed each attack. She pinned the lawyer's limbs one at a time until the woman was subdued.

Rudyard Raines was still rolling around in another county, moaning. He was holding his heel. Likely he'd severed his Achilles.

Britt Holcomb slapped his chest with one hand, then the other. "You and me, clown. Time to get down—down and dirty."

Durwood tracked the man's showy approach. Holcomb made a quick spooky face. He feinted, then laughed at Durwood for twitching.

When Durwood took the energy to move, he moved with purpose. His boots traveled short, balanced paths to their next spot. The muscles of his arms readied. All around, machines methodically carried and shaped and polished invisible products.

Holcomb drove his foot forward in a heavy stomp. Durwood gave ground.

"Yeah, you're on your heels," the younger man said. "I see you. I see you scared, punk bitch."

As he talked, Durwood moved them with a sideways step, cutting off the man's angle of escape.

Holcomb was using recognizable footwork. Might've done some training at a boxing or mixed martial arts gym. Might've picked up his language there, too.

Durwood glanced away to check Carol Bridges's status. She was tearing strips from her own clothes to bind Sybil Fitzgerald, but the lawyer wasn't making it easy. She kept working a knee or knuckle free and giving the mayor a time.

To their left, Deputy Gomez had looped an arm through the last step of the catwalk stairs. His face looked white. He was losing blood fast.

Taking advantage of Durwood's distraction, Britt Holcomb rushed forward. He plowed into the ex-sodlier's solar plexus and drove him back. Durwood lost his wind, felt his boots raising off the ground. Holcomb's growl gritty in his ear, they tumbled to the concrete.

The nearby riveter's action throbbed in Durwood's cheek. He fought to free himself of Holcomb's weight but the man was a load—twisting, raging.

Their faces were four inches apart. Holcomb's straight white teeth shook in place. His eyes were green and ghoulish.

Straining, Durwood wriggled his knee loose and cracked it hard into the other man's thigh. Holcomb covered the pain with both hands, allowing Durwood to deliver a straight right to his jaw.

Holcomb flew off, but was up in a flash.

Durwood was up too. They faced each other in the same pose as before—both worse off by several bruises and gashes.

There were moments in battle when you bade your time and let the fight develop, and others when you followed your savagery down. Now was time for the latter.

Durwood ran at Holcomb. The green eyes wobbled at the sudden aggression. He tried slamming his joined fists down onto his attacker's head, but Durwood was already in his kitchen.

Durwood's momentum picked Holcomb six inches off the ground, then he slammed the bigger man down on his side. He kicked him in the neck. He drew back his boot to target the face next and end the encounter, then—hesitating—decided to kick the stomach instead.

That split-second gave Holcomb his chance. He caught Durwood's boot in his hands and twisted viciously, bringing Durwood down.

As he crashed, Durwood's knee felt like Grandma Jones' Thanksgiving turkey having one of its drummies twisted off.

Holcomb struggled to his knees and crawled to loom over Durwood.

"Better call that dog of yours," he said. "Get him to bail you out again."

"Her," Durwood said.

Holcomb squeezed his face. "What?"

"Her, she," Durwood said. "My dog's a female."

Holcomb sized up a punch as Durwood gripped his injured knee—writhing more than he needed to.

"What your dog's gonna be is dead," Holcomb said. "Dead like you."

As he drew back his fist, the factory pulsed through Durwood's beaten body. Its heft and heart and steady unexciting rhythms. Carol Bridges was watching across the floor. Deputy Gomez was wheezing, possibly hanging on to life.

Durwood grasped his knee and winced, pushing his chin forward. Making a target of it.

Holcomb clenched his own jaw, tucked his thumb into four red fingers, and swung.

Durwood spun away at the last moment. Holcomb's knuckles exploded against the factory concrete. He roared in pain.

"Aaah! Jeez, I—oh I broke it," he said. "I'll kill you!"

But Durwood had already hobbled around on his good knee and locked him up in a half-nelson. Holcomb bucked back against it, headbutting Durwood in the mouth. Durwood's grip faltered. Holcomb pistoned his legs to ram his whole body into Durwood's.

Durwood crabbed backward to absorb the blow, managing to regain his grip.

He squeezed Holcomb's neck, firmly back in control. "Are you done?"

Holcomb bucked again and whipped his head back and forth.

Durwood, keeping the half-nelson, used his other fist to punch his adversary's spine.

"Good 'nuff?" he said.

Holcomb said nothing.

Durwood punched his spine again. He heard Carol Bridges's voice in his periphery.

He said, "Good 'nuff?"

Holcomb was sinking to the ground now like a slab of butter left out overnight. He mumbled something.

"What's that?" Durwood demanded.

Holcomb tried mumbling again. "I'm...okay...I'm—I'm done."

Durwood, with a last squeeze of his biceps, released the man. Holcomb fell to the concrete.

Durwood rose to his feet with effort, one leg unable to bear weight. He planted his boot-heel in the small of Holcomb's back.

"Stay down," he said. "Stay where y'are."

And Holcomb did.

So Durwood stood in the middle of the factory. Bloody. Battered. Part maimed. He stood there and let the sounds wash his wounds. He let the solvents and grease smell be his balm. He allowed his mind to sail away from sufferings on the winds of the place—on its stubborn ugliness.

Because it would continue, this ugly work. In ten years it might be nothing but robots here. Might be every last thing gets made in China or Thailand or the next place.

For now, though, Hogan Consolidated was going to live. And its workers were going to work.

—

Follow Durwood's realtime adventures on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram [@]durwoodOakJones