Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (14 page)

And he said it so earnestly I simply had
to know more.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He walked around to all of us and handed
us cards from his hat.

“My name is Aevenpor Rowden and I’m
running for City Council.”

I couldn’t read the card because the
writing was too small.

“What is the City Council?” Valia asked.

He almost jumped into her lap in his eagerness
to answer.

“I’m glad you asked, young lady. It is a
community representation empowering a voice of the people in the management of
their legislative process.”

“What a load of crap,” MTB said.

“In real words, what will it do?” I
asked.

“Make laws, spend the city’s resources,
set taxes,” he replied.

“Taxes?” I said. “Good luck with that.”

“Will it influence the Kommilaire?” MTB
asked.

“What’s that?” our budding City
Councilman asked.

“The police of the city,” Valia
answered.

“Sure. They’ll set all the rules they
have to follow and their practices. Work quite closely together.”

“Do you know—” MTB started to say and he
was pointing at me, but I interrupted him.

“Eh. Eh. It was nice of you to drop by.
We’ll definitely consider you,” I said.

“Thank you for your time!” He replied,
and showed himself out. “Have a fantastic day!”

“He’s probably the most qualified one,”
I said, when he had left.

Scree! Scree! Scree!

Even over the music the scraping could
be heard. I walked into the club dragging my “portable” chair. It was about a
thousand pounds. I attached the chains from my arms and scooted along.

MTB was with me and he peered around the
club like he was checking for trouble—which he probably was.

“Relax,” I said, “we’re on our night
off.”

“Do we get nights off?” he asked.

I pushed my chair by a table and
realized I had completely destroyed the club’s cheap panel flooring.

“Whoops.”

A server came over, looking concerned,
which was an appropriate reaction when the Supreme and Deputy Kommilaire step
into your place of business.

“Is there something wrong, Hank?”

“Yeah, we need drinks.”

“I’ll have a Voke chilled,” MTB said.

“Give me ten of those,” I said.

The server hurried away.

“What do you think of the new guy?” MTB
asked me.

“I like her. She’s smart. A little bit
headstrong. Feisty.”

“Is she going to replace me?”

“What? No. She’s new. Doesn’t know the
city. She’s not even a full Kommilaire yet.”

“She isn’t? What’s the next step?”

“I don’t know. We agree. Appoint her.
Give her a badge.”

“We’ve never done that before. I just
assumed everyone was a full Kommilaire. Is she a half-Kommilaire or something?”

“I guess we should have talked about
this. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

There weren’t a lot of people in the
club, but those that were here avoided us. It was obvious we were killing their
buzzes. But so what? We deserved a break.

“I think Valia can bring a lot to the
table,” I said.

“How? She’s tiny. Not great with a gun.
Bad in a fight. Talks too much.”

“We’re not the Navy, MTB. We got to stop
pretending we are. The Navy is gone. We need a softer handle on things.”

“You think the Totki will respond to
soft, Boss?”

“Remember a few weeks ago we saw that
woman in her kitchen.”

“No.”

“Her husband had just been stabbed.”

“Lot of those.”

“On 80-and-Three Street. End of the
day,” I prodded.

“Oh. What about her?”

“So I was the first one in the kitchen,
checking to see if it was safe, and what does she do?”

“Nothing.”

“No, she saw me come in and I’m standing
there all,” and I motioned up and down my bloated body, “and what does this
lady do seeing me?”

“Screams.”

“Then you go in. What does she do?”

“Screams.”

“What if Valia had gone in? Little
Valia. Red hair and freckles.”

“That’s discrimination.”

“Not if it’s good. We can’t push this
city around anymore. It worked for a while but it’s wised up to how strong it
really is. We can’t be a bunch of male chauvinists like we own the place,” I
said.

“We’re sitting in a strip club, Boss.”

I looked around at all the working men
and women dancing.

“Exactly. I’m old. Too old to change. I
have a panic attack if someone offers me a brand of beer I’ve never tried. But
I can get this city ready for when I’m dead and gone.”

Our drinks came and I slammed mine. The
alcohol would do little to me—it wasn’t Delovoa’s super toxins. But I liked the
ritual.

“You think we’ll survive the election?”
MTB asked.

“This is a good city,” I said, and MTB
gave me a skeptical look. “We only see the worst of it. But this city is full
of normal people who eat breakfast and do their nails pretty and buy black socks.
Not everything is a murder-robbery. Bah, no more work talk.”

A dancer approached MTB. I saw her glance
briefly at me from the corner of her eye, but otherwise she completely avoided me.
It wasn’t just that I was hideous. It wasn’t just that I was the Supreme
Kommilaire. It wasn’t just that people didn’t like stripping for folk legends.
It was also that everyone knew how clumsy and heavy I was and she wasn’t going
to jeopardize her career by getting her hip shattered dancing for me.

Here were women whose job it was to pretend
they were attracted to men and they still weren’t attracted to me. I didn’t
blame them or feel sorry for myself. It made sense and I understood it.

You can only feel sorry for yourself if
you don’t understand the problem or if you understand and don’t do anything
about it—and in the second case, you’re just whining.

“Fifty thumbs if you give him a good
dance,” I told the woman.

MTB seemed like he wanted to arrest her.
Arrest everyone here. But he put up with it.

“So should I be looking to recruit more
Valias?” he asked.

“If they’re qualified, sure. You got to
admit, we’re an ugly bunch of people. It doesn’t hurt having someone pretty
around, even if she can’t punch someone to death.”

I stared off wistfully into the club.

“Besides, Valia reminds me of someone I
used to know a long time ago. Before she locked herself in her tower.”

“This is going to end badly,” I said.

A few weeks later Hobardi and his
multi-colored, many-robed disciples were setting up tables and stalls in a
western part of Belvaille. It was a horrendously poor area, rivalling Deadsouth
for poverty.

But while Deadsouth was junkies and
drunkards, this area was where the feral kids lived. Though they weren’t all
technically kids.

It was a hardscrabble existence out here
in the best of times—and there were no best of times.

It was filthy. No one came here except
feral kids. They lived off our trash, so you can imagine that
their
trash, which they left everywhere, was pretty damn trashy. You couldn’t even
see the street.

But the Sublime Order of Transcendence
cleared out a space for their little festival. They all looked so happy and
purposeful as they prepared.

The Order had finally rescinded the
Brotherhood Commandment. Since Hobardi stole some of my Kommilaire he probably
figured he better not push his luck. As repayment, I agreed to lend my Stair
Boys as security for this event. The Order had their own special forces on the
roofs of nearby buildings. The ones up there did not look as transcendent as
their counterparts on the ground.

Hobardi and his Order served food, offered
counselling, provided some small medical services, and gave a bit of
entertainment to keep the ferals occupied.

Of course the real reason for all this
was public relations.

Hobardi was still angling for the
Governor’s role and everyone on the station was concerned about the feral kid
problem. Even the residents of Deadsouth, when they came out of their drunken
stupors, cursed the wretched children.

Hobardi had about thirty members of his
Order with him. His mutant wasn’t here. Maybe he was finally taking a shower. A
half-dozen Order security guards and my twenty Kommilaire were providing
protection.

There were some reporters present.
Hobardi wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. He had obviously invited them. Rendrae
was not here. That either meant he felt it was too dangerous, thought it wasn’t
news, or thought it was staged news. In any case, lack of Rendrae or one of his
employees was very telling.

A female reporter came up to me. She held
her clipboard to her chest like it would shield her from everything.

“Is it safe here?” she asked me.

“Does it look safe?”

Several dull hours passed until some
feral children finally eased out into the open of the festival. Probably every
instinct they had told them to avoid this area, which was clean, surrounded by
Kommilaire, and had weirdos in bright robes.

Hell, I’d avoid it if I could.

Some while later a confident Hobardi
approached me, marveling at his own handiwork.

“You didn’t think we could do it, did
you, Hank?”

“No, I didn’t.”

I had to give the Order credit. The
feral kids were eating and at least pretending to listen to the various
lectures and speeches. The puppet show was by far the most popular attraction,
however.

“That’s your problem, Hank, you lack a
basic understanding of people. They’re simple creatures. Just meet their needs
and they will be placated. If they don’t have needs, create some.”

“And what are your needs, Hobardi?”

Before he could answer, we heard a
shrill screaming and a swarm of feral kids descended. There must have been
hundreds of them!

They galloped over and under and through
each other like rivulets in a stream—a dirty brown, stinking stream that was
currently shrieking at the top of its lungs.

The tables were overturned. The displays
ripped apart. Soon, we couldn’t even
see
the festival as it was overcome
by the mass of feral kids.

The Order manning the booths got a few
steps before they too were swamped.

Hobardi turned to me and grabbed hold of
my jacket. Not in a pleading manner, but as if he were commanding me.

“Do something!”

“No.”

“Look at them!” He screamed.

“You look at them. You came here. You
brought your people into this mess.”

“You’re the Kommilaire.”

“And you’re the Sublime Order of
Transcendence. Go bless them or something.”

Hobardi looked up to his soldiers on the
roofs and he started to raise his arm. I stopped him.

“Why did you even bother putting out
food if you were just going to gun down some feral kids? You’re running for
office, right? Shooting them isn’t going to make you popular.”

“Why are you all even here? You said you
would protect us.” he yelled.

“I said I would protect
you
. And
so far it’s working, isn’t it?”

Hobardi watched in horror as the feral
kids tore through his festival.

The ferals were awful coordinated, in my
opinion. The first, tentative ones who had participated reservedly were more
what I expected.

Not this.

They were communicating with each other
in their half-Colmarian street tongue.

“That one,” I said, turning to my Kommilaire.
“Capture him and bring him here.”

“Capture?” Valia asked, frightened.
“There’s a lot of them, Boss.”

MTB smacked her.

“They’re ferals. The problem won’t be
fighting them, it will be chasing them. Come on!”

The Kommilaire took off at a dash and it
was like throwing a bucket of sobriety at the denizens of Deadsouth: they
scattered in a panic.

“Why didn’t you do that to start with?”
Hobardi asked.

I didn’t answer. But the reason was
probably because I wanted him to know what power we truly possessed, versus the
power he only thought he had. And I was also still mad about him poaching some
of my men.

It was twenty minutes later but my
Kommilaire came back with a handcuffed and exhausted feral kid.