Hard Luck Hank: Basketful of Crap (20 page)

I didn’t know where I was or that I
had even been unconscious until I woke up. That’s right, I was in the hold of a
ship.

Next to Bronze.

Who was dead.

I got to my feet and hobbled a few
painful steps and it was like my legs were fused together. Was this it? Had I
sustained so much damage that I was about to become a statue?

Looking at my feet closer, it
appeared as if I had rubbed ground meat all over them. My entire lower legs
were bloody and torn. Large chunks of skin were cut away or hanging. It was not
pretty.

I assumed a tank shell had landed
near my feet. Or…I don’t know what happened. Maybe I skipped through a
minefield. It didn’t matter. I frankly didn’t remember much of the fight at
all.

I checked my tele and it was back
online. I stared at it for some time trying to make sense of things. Yes.
Eighteen hours had passed since the fight. That’s how long I had been in here.

I wasn’t weightless and I wasn’t
dead, so the ship was still at port.

As the cobwebs began to clear from
my head and the pain started seeping into my legs, I felt an odd sensation.

I was terrified.

I was really unbelievably scared.
How was I going to get out of here? I had no weapons, meatbags for feet, and
somewhere between one and four armies might be out there looking for me with
enough firepower to kill me a million times over.

I recall they had jammed the teles.
Not sure how, but they did. I was afraid if I tried to call someone the
corporations might be able to track me.

I took a few steps to the door, my
whole body swaying with the effort. I estimated it would take me two years to
walk back to my place at that speed. And even then they might have three tanks
at my front door, keeping the Gandrine company.

It was absurd, but after all those
serious thoughts, my stomach rumbled so loud I worried the ship was going to
fall apart.

My body needs fuel to repair
itself. My mutation might be able to heal my wounds, with time, but I needed
food and rest.

I was so unbelievably hungry I
actually looked over at Bronze and absently wondered if I could eat him. He
wouldn’t mind.

Bleh!

Your mind goes to weird places in
the extremes of hunger. When you’re suffocating, the things you’d do for air
make no rational sense to your normal-breathing self.

Before safety, before a hospital, I
wanted food. Lots of it.

There weren’t any restaurants in
the docks. The buildings weren’t the right construction. I didn’t even have
saliva in my mouth to water when I thought of all the glorious food
possibilities. I was running on fumes.

It didn’t matter. I had to get out
of here. If there was an army sitting outside with their guns trained on the
door that was fine. I would eat one of them before they killed me.

I threw aside the crates that were
blocking the door with my newfound hunger-strength. I rushed outside, prepared
for a hail of bullets, but there was nothing.

I turned left and right, up and
down. Nothing. The lights were back on. It was as if our battle hadn’t
happened.

Part of me was almost disappointed.
I wanted to get thrown into conflict so I wouldn’t think about how hungry I was.

I dragged myself through the dock,
my legs screaming in pain, my stomach screaming louder. I had never been this ravenous
in my life and I was a person who was quite often hungry.

I checked all my pockets for
crumbs. Some food I hadn’t thought about. I put a piece of my shirt in my mouth
and began to chew on it. The action made me feel slightly better but it was
also frustrating.

What if Bronze had some food? What
if his jacket was full of rations and water?

I stopped.

No, he wouldn’t have anything. And
I was a bit frightened that if I walked all the way back and he had nothing, I
would do something regrettable.

The dock had very little activity,
probably because a war had been fought recently. But a worker turned a corner
and saw me. He stood a few feet away and he looked horrified.

I saw him mouth my name.

I don’t know why or how but all I
said was:

“Rarayah!”

He ran away.

That was dumb, I should have asked
him for food. Or water. Or directions. I was only vaguely aware that I was
pushing my broken frame through the docks, but not necessarily the right way.

I took the risk of consulting my
tele. I looked at the street signs. It seemed a tremendous effort to actually
use my brain.

Contsu House. A restaurant. It was
only eight blocks away! I headed towards it. But I made myself the promise that
if it wasn’t there, I would eat the first living thing I could catch.

All along the way my legs felt like
they were on fire. The pain was unbelievable. But the ache in my stomach was
primordial. It was twisting my mind. I was looking at doors and wondering if I
could eat them. They looked so similar to large crackers. I wondered why the
asses who had constructed this city hadn’t left great piles of food lying
around. What if people got hungry? It seemed a massive oversight. There was all
this metal and no food.

I had to rest numerous times,
leaning up against buildings. I didn’t dare sit down because I wasn’t sure my
legs could get me back up.

In the distance I could see the
restaurant!

It was at the end of the block on
the other side of the street. I had to cross the street. Why did they put it on
the other side of the street? What a terrible thing to do!

I lumbered to the door and pressed
on it. It swung in.

There were customers everywhere.
The wait staff behind the counter saw me and froze in panic.

I didn’t care.

I walked forward to the counter. Anyone
nearby got out of the way. I could walk around the counter where the little
door was and enter the kitchen.

Or.

I lifted my arms and brought them
down on the counter. The surface cracked. I did it again and again. I then
leaned into it and pushed my way through the counter.

The kitchen!

I grabbed handfuls of food and
shoved it in my mouth. I was drinking cooking oil. I was eating flour by the
pound. I chewed raw, space-sourced pseudo-meat like it was flower petals from
heaven. My face was so covered in food I couldn’t see and I was groping
randomly for things to eat.

It was all so delicious. So
wonderful. Nothing could ruin the joy of this moment.

My whole digestive system from
mouth-to-throat-to-stomach seemed ready for anything. As fast as I could scoop
food into my maw it processed it. I was the most efficient machine on
Belvaille. In the state of Ginland. In the whole Colmarian Confederation.

I wanted to eat all the food
everywhere!

And I was making a go of it. As I
barely escaped eating my own hands a blast of white obscured my vision.

I kept eating.

The blast happened several more
times. I finally noticed enough to care and turned my head, though I continued chewing.

Garm stood there holding a fire
extinguisher. Her eyes were wide.

She was trying to coerce me to
follow her, but I wasn’t interested in leaving my food.

One of her soldiers came in and
began packing up the restaurant’s grub in a large plastic container. Several
customers helped him carry it.

It was then that I noticed the
whole restaurant was milling around watching me—from a safe distance.

With the promise of the food
container, I followed Garm to her car.

In the back seat I ate and ate and
ate.

If anything was said that entire
time, I didn’t hear it.

I woke up in a dingy apartment in a
filthy bed with my legs in two casts, propped on a makeshift metal box. All I
knew was that it wasn’t my apartment.

I was hungry again.

“Hello?” I asked.

No one responded.

I saw a gallon of water on a small
table next to my bed but I couldn’t reach it. I tilted and twisted, but that
made my legs hurt so I lay back down.

I couldn’t find my tele. That was
more disconcerting than anything. Many people slept with their teles, that’s
how integral they were to our being.

Hadn’t I met Garm? This certainly
wasn’t her apartment. She lived in luxury. Other than a chair and the table and
the bed, there was nothing in the room. Not even a carpet. It could be a
flophouse in Deadsouth for all I knew except the room was too small.

But at least I was alive, which was
more than I could say about a lot of people at that battle I’m sure. I was
anxious to know who had escaped. How it all happened.

I felt very vulnerable lying in an
unknown bed, no weapons, no tele, immobile.

I must have dozed off, because I came
to and the medical technician Devus Sorsha was examining my legs. He was
cutting the casts off with a pair of thick scissors.

“You awake?” he asked in a pleasant
manner.

“Do you have any food?” I asked.
“And will I be able to walk again?”

“I’m sure your legs are fine,” he
said, discarding the casts on the floor. “In fact, your body’s mutation is
quite amazing.”

He began jabbing my legs with a
metal pointer. Not delicately.

“Does that hurt?” he asked.

“No.”

“Fascinating. Normally with wounds
like yours we would have to graft whole new sections of skin. You just regrew
what you needed and sealed the rest. It’s almost impossible to tell where the
lacerations were.”

He stared intently at my feet and
legs.

“Do you want to try walking?” he
asked.

“No. I just regained consciousness.
But I’ll eat.”

“I don’t have any food with me. I
just came to check on your progress.”

“I thought you said you had food,”
I accused him.

“No. I didn’t say that.” He stood
up from the bed as if he was suddenly concerned for his safety.

“Who brought me here? Where’s my
tele? Where is this apartment?”

“Garm brought you I believe. She
called me to come last week.”

“A week?”

“Yes. We’re under City Hall. This
is one of the jail cells.”

“Do you know where my tele is?”

“I don’t. But I’ll let Garm know
you’re awake…and hungry.” He started to pack his few things in a bag.

“Is there anything I should do with
my legs?”

“Don’t do whatever you did to hurt
them.”

“No, I mean to heal.”

He shrugged.

“Get rest. Fluids. You seem to
require a lot of sustenance. You ate a lot since you’ve been here.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes, well, let me contact Garm.”
He started to leave.

“So am I okay otherwise?”

“Were you injured in other
locations?”

This guy was terrible. He seemed to
read my expression.

“We can’t scan you. We don’t know
if you’re hurt unless it physically shows. Your lower legs and feet seemed to
be the only areas that were substantially damaged.”

“Fine. Thanks. Wait. Who is paying
for this?”

“It’s been taken care of,” he said
magnanimously.

He gave a small bow, as if he were
some important, knowledgeable person, instead of a quack, then he left the
room.

When he was gone, I gingerly lifted
my legs with my arms and slid them to the floor. They didn’t hurt.

I pushed off the bed and took a few
steps. My skin felt thick and tight. Like I was wearing knee boots that didn’t
flex at the ankles.

Was this what he had referred to
before when he said my body was healing back denser?

I walked around the room and
between my limp and my new legs I felt like I was waddling. I slapped my calves
a few times hoping it was just stiffness. Stood on my tiptoes. Maybe I would
get used to it, like I got used to my bad knee.

After some time, both Garm and
Delovoa came in to see me practice-walking around the room.

“Glad to see you up,” Delovoa said.

“Where’s my tele?” I demanded.

“We all have to take them off,”
Garm stated. “It’s these cells. Alarms go off if you bring teles back here.
They’re just at the end of the hall.”

“Oh.”

“I recovered your autocannon, it’s
at your apartment,” Delovoa said.

“How the hell did you get that? I
dropped it at the fight.”

“I know. I found it among the
wreckage and got a lifter to pick it up.”

“Why would—,” I started, but Garm
interrupted me.

“Listen to what he has to say.”

“There were three different
corporations there. Intergalactic Brands Ltd, who you were supposed to be
engaging. Northern Skies Ltd. The Colmarian Collective LLC.”

“I guess I’m glad it took more than
one corporation.”

“But it
was
one
corporation,” Delovoa exclaimed. “They all had the same guns. The same armor.
The same tanks. The same APCs. The same bullets. And I took blood samples from
the fallen soldiers in each corporation. They’re one hundred percent matches.
They only have one soldier—just a lot of him.”

“Then why pretend to be different
corporations?”

“They aren’t pretending anymore,”
Garm said. “They attacked the telescopes.”

“What?” That was truly shocking if
they openly went against the Navy.

“They rounded up all the workers
and forced them off the station in transports.”

“The Navy is going to blow us out
of space!” I said.

“Maybe,” Garm said. “But they
haven’t done anything yet.”

“Why would the corporations do
that?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,”
Delovoa said.

“Me? How would I know? I’ve been in
here for a week.”

“But you met with the corporation
when this attack was authorized,” Garm said. “It seems to me they wanted all potential
resistance removed from Belvaille. And it has been, for the most part.”

“I didn’t meet with the
corporation, I met with a flunky who didn’t have a name and couldn’t afford
clothes. I don’t know where their real leaders are or their plans. You deal
with them all the time, Garm.”

“No I don’t. I told you I just send
out invoices and notices. I’ve actually never met anyone face-to-face. I hadn’t
thought it odd until now.”

“Probably because everyone here is
a clone,” Delovoa said. “Except the person Hank met.”

“We know they are bringing in
military hardware, but we thought it was so they could fight each other. If
they are all the same corporation, why do they need an armed space station at
the edge of the galaxy?” Garm asked.

“I think your Quadrad sisters might
know something about all this,” I said.

“You’re Quadrad?” Delovoa asked,
impressed.

“It’s supposed to be secret. But
yes, I am. Keep it to yourselves.”

“The Navy is looking for the
sisters too. Well, sort of. They’re looking for something they stole. A
disintegrator.”

“There’s no such thing,” Delovoa
said.

“Yeah, tell that to the Navy. But the
Quadrad told me the other sister they paid me to find was going to use the
disintegrator on someone here.”

Garm was shocked.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I don’t know. You don’t tell me
everything.”

“But that’s pretty important! There
are not many people she would need to use it on.”

“Yeah, and I’m one of them,” I
said.

“I could be too,” Garm spat.

“Excuse me,” Delovoa said politely,
“but I’ve heard you two go back and forth before and I don’t think we have time
for it.”

We both paused to regroup.

“Bronze is dead,” I said sadly. “I
didn’t eat him.”

The second part only slightly
confused Garm. But she seemed resigned and merely nodded.

“How many people survived the
corporation attack?” I asked.

“Well,” Delovoa started, “just
you.”