Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (16 page)

“He’s right,” I said. “I didn’t kill that robot
and I certainly didn’t beat up Wallow. But I fought that Dredel Led across half
the city and went a round with a Therezian and got shot by artillery. And I’m
still here. If you think you can do what they can’t, feel free to try.”

I walked right up to them. There was a man
crouching next to Ddewn.

“Move,” I said to him.

He moved.

I looked at Ddewn, who was clutching his chest.
I had hit him with the small-sized shot. The synth jacket hadn’t stopped it,
but it probably severely reduced its impact. Where the jacket was parted,
however, was covered in blood. And a few fliers obviously hit him in the neck,
as it was bleeding copiously.

“There are three hundred and fifty thousand
military coming to this station real soon,” I said. And though I was speaking
down at Ddewn, it was mostly directed to his men. I stepped on his chest and he
screamed. “I need to know that you’re able to be a team player.”

He hurled a string of obscenities at me so
forcefully I was surprised I managed to stay on my feet.

“I thought you were going to say something like
that.”

I fired a buckshot tube at his head, which was
instantly whisked from his body and almost uniformly spread to the clothes of
the men standing around him.

The room that had been a hair away from jumping
on me a moment ago was silent and pacified. Ddewn’s foot soldiers were beheaded
the moment he was.

“Right,” I said. “Who’s second in command
here?”

There was no answer. They hadn’t even made a
move to wipe the blood from themselves. The room was motionless except for me,
turning around to look at these thugs, their silly pipes and ropes feeble in
their hands.

“No one?” I asked incredulously. “Who is number
two? Come on.”

The men shifted a bit. They were coming back to
reality. I could see a small pocket being formed around the man who had been
kneeling next to Ddewn when he first fell.

“Okay, what’s your name?” I asked.

He told me and I didn’t catch it. I assumed he
was just nervous.

“What?”

He repeated it and it was clear he’d said it
properly.

“Uh, you got a nickname or something?”

“Big Moff,” one of them said.

I rolled my eyes at the adjective. Criminals
aren’t a creative bunch when it comes to names.

“Moff,” I said. “Good. You’re the new boss.
Garm is going to be coming by with her people and just cooperate with her and
whatever. And no fighting with other bosses. Okay?”

Moff looked at me dumbly. He probably thought
it was a cruel joke.

“Okay,” he squeaked.

And I guess that was it. We couldn’t very well
have Ddewn’s guys be out on the street. That’d be about as bad as a war.

“Cool.” I turned to leave when I remembered
something. “Oh, where is Oluv-Jos?”

The group parted and a man with blood on his
right pant leg was left all alone. He knew what the score was and dropped down
on his knees.

“Please don’t kill me! I was just doing what he
said. I didn’t even know what he was up to. Ask anyone. Kello, tell him. Big
Moff? Wennel?”

The men kept their eyes averted and their distance
from the condemned man. They no longer knew Oluv-Jos.

But I couldn’t kill a guy on his knees who was
pleading. Not when I didn’t know the details.

“Alright, alright. Um,” and I tried to think of
some smaller punishment, but what could I do?

“Moff, punish him. So the other bosses are
satisfied.” Then I thought of something else more important. “Oh, and you owe
me…seventy thousand credits.”

“What? Why?” He wasn’t upset, just perplexed. I
must have seemed like I was talking gibberish at this point.

“Because someone has to pay my fee for this
job,” I said, pointing to Ddewn.

“I don’t have that much,” he said feebly.

“Sure you do,” I answered, indicating the
restaurant. It was easy for him to not realize that, having only been a crime
boss for thirty seconds.

At that very moment a couple walked through the
front door, saw a bunch of armed men covered in blood standing around a corpse,
and paused.

“Closed right now,” I said helpfully.

After they left I was feeling pretty good about
all this. Took care of one of the biggest nuisances on the station and made a
good chunk of money.

“So if there isn’t anything more, I’ll see you
guys later.” And I left the building.

I had walked about a half block, my
appreciation of the Ddewn affair rising with each step, when someone jogged up
to me.

“Hank. Excuse me, Hank,” said one of
Ddewn/Moff’s panting thugs.

“That’s how we do it on Belvaille, eh?” I said,
pushing the thug’s chest, which was my version of a punch.

“Yeah,” he said politely. “Um, Ddewn had a
wife. And a daughter.”

I stopped walking.

“Really? Here?”

“Yeah. D block and 12
^th
, I think.”

Back inside Moff’s club, the men hadn’t moved
much. They were crowded closer around the body and talked in hushed voices.

“Hey, Moff,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” he answered immediately.

“You need to take care of Ddewn’s wife and
daughter, okay? You know like, make ‘em comfortable and whatnot.”

“Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I will.” And he looked
at all the men when he said it, as if it was a promise to them as well.

“Okay, then,” and I waved.

“Hank,” one of them said.

Uh, oh. I hope this doesn’t get complicated. On
the way back I had the nagging concern that Moff was the second in command
because he was the biggest toadie, not because he was worth a damn.

“What’s up?” I asked warily.

“Is the military really coming?”

“Yes, they are coming,” I said, and turned to
leave.

“What do they want here?” another one piped.

“Ahh. Ask him,” I said, pointing to Moff. “And
Moff, you need to…like, start talking to other bosses and stuff. And you’re not
allowed at the Gentleman’s Club anymore. Go to the Athletic Club.”

“Alright,” he said weakly.

On the way to the train, my solution was
starting to feel not as good as I’d originally thought. I mean I just picked a
random guy to be one of the top crime bosses in the city. But what could I do,
have everyone run a foot race and give it to the winner?

This stuff would shake itself out after the
Navy was gone. And if they didn’t leave, then it wouldn’t matter.

The next day I had over a hundred tele messages.
I’m sure I had people waiting at my door as well, but I was wise enough not to
go home.

There are some places you can still lay low on
Belvaille even when you’re me. I just didn’t want to listen to Garm or hear
about how the other bosses launched attacks or whatever nonsense was probably
going on because of my bonehead move of offing Ddewn.

I was really down on myself at this point for
how I had handled it. I had known what Ddewn was like, by reputation if nothing
else, and then I had pushed him and made him act exactly like logic told me he
would. And then I responded like I was some cheap hood trying to make a name
for himself.

I went to visit the scientist Delovoa. It was
about the least responsible thing I could do out of the giant list of
responsibilities I currently had. But I wasn’t feeling particularly
responsible. I mean, truth be told I should have been sitting in Jyen’s living
room having tea or doing whatever I could to keep those two freaks entertained,
or dealing with the certain fallout from Ddewn’s murder. But I’d take care of
all that later.

Delovoa was a mutant, but I think he was only a
class one. He could heat up surfaces about a half inch from his body. Not very
hot and I think it took most of his concentration, so not a particularly good
mutation, but that was typical.

He let me inside after the usual greetings and
took me into his basement. He was one of the few people that had an area below
surface level on Belvaille. It was chock-full of illegal hardware of every
imaginable type.

“What can I do for you, Hank?” he asked
jovially.

He was a man of middle height, slight build,
was always dirty, and had three irregularly spaced eyes on his face that
blinked independently. His lab was so full of chemical smells it was impossible
to tell whether he had any body odor. But he was a mellow guy in personality
and didn’t seem to have any crazy motives other than making crazy money and
building crazy stuff.

As I stared at the rows and rows of weapons I
had to wonder:

“What are you going to do with all this when
the military gets here?”

“Technically, I’m a certified Colmarian Armorer
because I supply the police here with weapons and gear. A lot cheaper than
shipping it in.”

I picked up an odd-looking gun.

“Yeah, but this stuff can’t all be legal.”

Delovoa laughed.

“Nothing is legal. In all the empire. I was
wondering the same thing you were, so I tried to get a list of what was banned
and there was something like a half-million different sets of regulations. If
they want to arrest me, I’m sure they can.”

“Laws. Now that will be an unusual concept to
deal with,” I said.

“Yeah. Did you really kill Ddewn?”

“I guess,” I said, still looking over his
merchandise.

“Well, I suppose he had it coming,” Delovoa
said indifferently. “Hey, you thinking about selling your pistol?”

“It’s busted.” Delovoa seemed more upset than I
was. All three of his eyes drooping.

“No. How?”

“Dredel Led.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll still buy it. Same price. It’s
no good broken, right?”

“What are you going to do with it? It doesn’t
even turn on anymore.”

“I’ll take it apart. Try and learn from it.”

“It’ll blow up!” I shouted, putting down a
small machine gun.

“That’s an old wives’ tale. Things don’t just
blow up.”

On top of all our problems, I didn’t need him
tinkering with alien guns.

“No thanks,” I answered.

“Hey, come take a look at this,” he said,
smiling. He led me to a long, broad table with a sheet on it. He waited for me
to get close by and, still wearing that goofy grin, he whipped the sheet off.

“Ah.” I jumped back as fast as I could.

“Haha. You’re the fourth person that’s done
that,” he said, truly enjoying himself.

It was the Dredel Led. What was left of it.
Delovoa had put all the pieces back in the rough approximation of where they
were originally, before Wallow had dismantled it. It was just so much loose
scrap.

“Take a look at this,” he said, getting a tool
in place above the heap of junk.

“I’m not getting anywhere near that,” I
protested. “I didn’t know they kept it.”

“Of course. Garm had me collect it all. You
think they were going to throw it in the trash? The Navy is coming to examine
it. Just come here and look. It can’t hurt you.”

I warily eased my way around the table and
looked. I peered through a magnification lens at a piece of the robot.

“This is ten times magnification. This is
thirty. This is 200. This is 550. Sorry, some dust from the sheet.”

Each click it seemed like we were looking at a
little city. And you’d think that was as small as it could get and then it just
kept getting smaller. Little cities inside cities.

“What is that?” I asked, amazed.

“I have some theories,” he said vaguely.

“Do you know how this thing works?”

“Some. I mean, I know what metal this is. It’s
really strong and there are no imperfections at all, but as for what’s inside
it, I doubt any Colmarian could tell you.”

Even though it was in pieces, I couldn’t
suppress a chill seeing it. As if one of those arm fragments was going to reach
out and grab me.

Delovoa was a real brain. No one else would
have nerve enough to pick up all that debris, let alone store the damn thing in
their house.

“Hey,” I said, remembering one of the reasons
why I was here. “Could you get rid of some delfiblinium?”

He gently replaced the sheet and gave me an odd
look, his several brows furrowing.

“You have some?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, other than blowing it up, you might try
storing it. I’m building these shielded cabinets for Garm to hide stuff in.
Should block most scanners, though no one can really scan for delfiblinium.
What, did someone give you a few micrograms?”

“Something like that. You know how explosive it
is by any chance?”

“That stuff is celestial. I think the
government uses it to nudge comets around on their orbits, you know, to clear
Portals. No person could really do anything with it. You probably don’t have
delfiblinium. People say all kinds of things. I could take a look at it for
you.”

“That’s okay,” I said, trying not to sweat. “I
think it’s nothing.”

“So you need anything else? I’m kind of having
a fire sale.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear. I want two guns.
Hidden in my boots. Just one shot is fine.”

“The shotgun I made you is pretty compact,” he
said.

I took it out in demonstration.

“This is snub, but it’s huge. You can’t even
carry it in a pistol holster let alone in a boot. I just need something for
close range. A few feet.”

The near-fight with Ddewn had got me thinking.
I’d never carried knives or anything before. I’m too slow to use them properly.
But if I start grappling with multiple people and I lose my shotgun, I want a
way to buy some more time. And everyone knows I’ve got that shotgun. If I get
some pistols, that’ll be my secret until I need them.

“Anything hidden won’t stand up to a scanner,”
he said.

“I know. I don’t plan on going through any.”

“Oh,” Delovoa said, brightening. “I have the
perfect thing.”

He ran off into the depths of his lab. I
checked out the different guns arrayed nearby. It was good to keep abreast of
all this stuff, as it started in labs like this and ended up in fights soon
enough, though I wasn’t sure how that would work with the military coming. Did
they really expect us to be unarmed?

“Do you know what the policy is for weapons in
real Colmarian cities?” I yelled to Delovoa.

“I think each one is different,” he yelled
back.

Figures.

He returned with a long, rust-colored tube with
some valves on one end.

“Try this. Point it that way, hold your arm
out, and press this.” He handed it to me and got well away.

It felt big, far too big for my boots unless I
made some very adventurous fashion changes to them.

I tried to press how he indicated and nothing
happened.

“Like this?” I asked, turning slightly toward
Delovoa to demonstrate. He practically dove into the next room.

“Watch where you’re pointing that,” he snapped.
“You got to push the two together.”

I tried, nothing happened.

“Is it broken?”

“No. Or I can’t remember, maybe you have to
push one then the other,” he said, from a safe distance.

“Well there’s three,” I began. Then
whoosh
.
A four-foot ribbon of orange flame shot out of the end of the tube.

I had not been expecting that and my vision was
momentarily spotted. When I blinked my eyes clear, I noticed the cuff on my
jacket was melted.

“Hey,” I said.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Delovoa answered proudly.
“I’ll sell it to you for a grand. And I’ll fill the first ten uses for free.”

“This stupid thing melted my jacket,” I said,
showing him the proof.

“It’s hardly singed. But yeah, I couldn’t stop
it from venting some gas out the rear.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have burnt my
hand off.” I checked and my right hand did indeed have some chemical residue on
it.

“Nah. I mean it would hurt my hand, but you
fought a Dredel Led.”

“And you want to sell this for a thousand? No
way. I’m the only person who could possibly use it on the whole station. I’ll
give you a hundred if you cut this barrel three inches.”

“It’ll burn your hand even more. And it won’t
be as narrow a flame. I’d recommend only taking off an inch. But 250 and you
got a deal.”

We shook.

“I want some other guns, too. In case this
doesn’t work out. I’m sure you got some little pistols.”

“Sure. I got guns like this big,” he said,
holding his fingers up.

“What am I going to do with that?” I said. “I’d
be better off throwing it.”

“I’m just telling you what I got. If you want
power it’s going to be big and it’s going to be noticeable. But let me go grab
some of my smaller stuff and we’ll see what we can do.”

He hurried off into his lab while I poked at my
wrecked jacket. It was getting hard to find clothes with the Portal embargo.
I’d soon have to start going to some tailors and get custom fit.

As I fretted about the state of my clothes, I
saw another sheet covering a large upright rectangle in the far corner. It was
maybe eight feet tall, four feet wide, and three feet deep. I wondered if this
was one of the cabinets Delovoa talked about earlier.

I pulled on the sheet to see what was
underneath. I tilted my head and stepped back to try and make sense of what I
was seeing. Then I screamed.

Delovoa ran back, carrying a tray full of
pistols.

“What?” he asked, alarmed.

I had my back against the wall, directly across
from the thing in front of me. I couldn’t even point.

Delovoa turned.

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s old,” he said,
indicating the giant robot standing in front of me.

It was a Dredel Led. But unlike the others, it
was massive and not remotely designed to appear like us. Its arms were square
pillars that hung below its knees and ended abruptly with no hands. Similarly,
its legs were thick rectangles with jointed knees and flaps at the bottom,
representing some kind of feet and/or toes. It didn’t have a head or neck at
all, but the front of it bulged and a dark hole in the center was reminiscent
of an eye. The whole of it was gleaming white and there were no noticeable
rivets or bolts or seams. In simple, yet large black letters on its right front
was stenciled “ZR3.”

I couldn’t even respond. This thing was at
least three times the size of the Dredel Led that had knocked me stupid across
Belvaille.

“No, look,” Delovoa said. And he walked up to
the massive robot and rapped his knuckles on its hull. It didn’t make a sound,
other than Delovoa’s flesh, it was too solid. “It’s inert. I’ve had it for
twenty years.”

“You,” I began softly, “own a Dredel Led?”

“It’s not a Dredel Led, I think. It was
probably from when Colmarians used robots. It’s ancient.”

“Why would you have such a thing?”

“I wanted to take it apart. Learn from it.
Maybe sell some of the technology, you know. I think we have way too many rules
regarding what can’t be owned.”

“It’s a Dredel Led!” I yelled. How was it that
Delovoa didn’t see the insanity of owning this? Did he somehow grow up with
different folk stories as a child?