“It would be well worth your time,” he said, as the car continued to pace me.
“What is this about?”
“About contracting your services.”
Man, let the casino you’re protecting blow up, your boss get murdered, and suddenly people come out of the woodwork to offer you jobs.
“I’m kind of booked solid right now,” I said, trying to quicken my pace, which was stupid since I’m slow and a car isn’t.
“The profit for you alone will be 500,000 credits.”
I stopped and turned to the car. I was hoping for some reaction, a smile, a grimace, some tell, but the man had no inflection at all.
My first guess when I heard that sum was: it’s a lie. Then I thought they must be after the same device the Navy was. There just weren’t a whole lot of half-to-million credit things to do around here.
But in a sense it was good to hear that, because a part of me still doubted the General. That such a weapon was here and it was so valuable.
“Who are you?”
“I am a representative of Colmarian United Supply.”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Aren’t you the Hank that fought the Dredel Led? That negotiated with the Boranjame? That eliminated the gang leader Ddewn? That secured the Independent Protectorate status of this space station?” he rattled-off with a dull voice. Even when he asked questions his voice did not rise at the end of sentences.
“Mostly,” I said, not sure how to respond.
“Then what is being requested should not be difficult for you to manage.”
“And what is that?” I asked. If he said the Navy thing, I obviously couldn’t give it to both of them, but I could use any information he had to help me find it. Then sell it to the Navy. Then run like hell from the corporation.
“I think it would be best if we discuss this in the car.”
I looked around the street. What could he do to me? I had my autocannon. If they tried to make a move I could blow us all up. Being bulletproof also allowed me to be slightly more trusting than the average person.
“Hold on.”
I walked around the back of the car, unslung my gun, and loaded a high-explosive shell, hoping he wasn’t watching me, or heard the very noticeable cycling of the round into the chamber.
I tried to put the autocannon in first but realized it was way too long to fit. I pushed and angled, but it wasn’t happening.
“Is that really necessary?” I heard from inside.
“Yeah it’s—ah!” I had looked in to address the corporate man and noticed that he was completely naked. “Come on!”
“What is your concern?”
“Where are you clothes? What is this?”
“I do not require any.”
“Can I just meet you somewhere?”
“You will not be able to cross our security without difficulties.”
“Stay on your side of the seat,” I warned.
I continued to try and angle in the autocannon. I had to face it into the front and actually hit the driver on the back of the head.
“Sorry, buddy.”
The driver was literally a faceless corporation soldier, wearing an armored suit and helmet. I don’t think I hurt him with the little bump, especially since he had on a helmet. But he didn’t even turn around in the slightest. These guys were disciplined.
I finally had the gun situated lengthwise across the whole car. Probably not-subtly, I had my hand on the trigger. I figured an HE round direct against the roof of the car would be really bad for all of us, especially a naked guy.
“What’s your name?” I asked my nudist co-passenger as the car headed off.
“I do not have one,” he responded.
These corporations were some weird stuff.
We drove through the city at a fast clip. After a while we entered a corporation zone and it was clear I would have had issues trying to meet him here. There were APCs and armed soldiers roaming everywhere. At one point we came to an actual roadblock checkpoint.
This could all be a trap. But I wasn’t sure to what end.
Belvaille had been under Navy martial law some years ago and they had poured tens of thousands of soldiers onto the station. It looked about that same level of security in this one area.
There were warehouses and manufacturing facilities here as well as what looked like housing for the soldiers. We stopped outside a building surrounded by troops and the naked man got out.
I checked around to see if there were any obvious signs of an attack.
The driver exited the car as well and I realized I was alone in a big metal box, which made a great target.
I opened the door and got myself and my gun out in about a tenth the time it took me to get in. Though I bent the car door a bit.
Naked Guy was waiting for me on the stairs to a warehouse and I hurried after him. I strapped my autocannon on in front. I wasn’t going to stow it away. Not being neck-deep in soldiers.
The gun wasn’t really designed for walking—wasn’t really designed for anything that Delovoa said it was. I had to lean way back to stabilize it and inch along at maybe half my normal speed.
I felt the canister round would be far better than HE at this point, but I would have to eject the current round, pick that up, reload a canister, and put the HE back or shove it in a pocket.
I suspected they might notice that. Especially the soldiers. I didn’t want to make any moves that might cause them to attack.
The building was a two-story warehouse filled with crates. There was no real second story, just a catwalk going around the top, covered with maybe a half dozen soldiers looking my way.
Walking behind Naked Guy, I had to remark at how much he wasn’t a gang boss. First off, he was naked. He didn’t even have a great body or anything. He wasn’t fit. He wasn’t fat. He was just normal. A boss wouldn’t ever show off unless he had something to show off. This guy was as disarmed as he could possibly be.
They didn’t even let him cut his hair. Now that he was outside of the car and walking, I could see his hair went down to the top of his rear. His beard almost to his navel. He was a hairy Naked Guy.
He had the mannerisms of someone who was subservient. Like everything was boring routine—a butler shining the same cutlery for the thousandth time.
And to top it all off, he didn’t even have a name. He could have been lying about that, but he didn’t seem to be. I had never heard of anyone not using a name. Or nickname. Or fake name. The Colmarian Confederation was a crowded place and we communicated by teles. The days of us simply being able to point at one another were long since gone.
In about the center of the warehouse, Naked Guy stopped.
I was anxious surrounded by all these soldiers. Though I had to admit my autocannon made me feel a lot more secure. I would at least be able to get off one shot—before it flung me across the building and onto my stomach.
“You are to gather a team with the objective of destroying a club,” he said, as if we were continuing a conversation.
“Huh?”
“The Ulzaker-Ses club is to be removed. Its contents demolished. Its inhabitants and employees killed.”
“Whoa. I’m not a murder squad. What’s this about? If there’s a problem I can talk to them. Work something out. That’s what I’m best at.”
“There is nothing required or requested from them other than their elimination.”
I stood there thinking about that. I had not been expecting this at all. I had been a hitman before, but usually for a reason. A gang war. Some act of retribution. But not going into a club and gunning people down.
“I can’t do that,” I said finally. Even if it meant this trip could get nasty. “I can’t kill everyone who happens to be at a club. That’s just…people don’t do that on Belvaille.”
He gazed at me for some time. His black eyes didn’t change. His manner didn’t change. His nakedness didn’t change.
I was waiting for him
to signal the troops. Do something. I was ready.
“What if it were late in the morning?” he said again, his voice not inflecting. “If there was no one inside?”
“I can torch an empty club, sure.” I was going to say that he didn’t need me for that when he had a zillion soldiers, but he was offering money.
“The club may be on alert, regardless. They may have security personnel.”
I supposed they had been fighting already. This was just some ongoing strife. One of the corporations taking over another gang outfit. I didn’t know who owned that particular club, it was relatively new.
“And you won’t let me try and work a deal? I could get you the place for a price, I’m sure. Maybe even less than you’re looking to spend on this hit.”
“This is the contract that is to be assigned.”
I sighed.
“I’m going to need help, then. Do you know how many people they have on security?”
“Approximately thirty.”
“Thirty?” That was huge. Whoever it was they were fighting had some money and wasn’t going quietly. I guess that’s why the corporation was coming down so hard. Maybe they had already tried the soft touch and it had escalated to here. To me.
“I’m going to need to hire a lot of people then. What about these guys?” I asked, indicating some of the soldiers standing on the catwalks.
“They have responsibilities already and can’t be put at risk.”
Yeah, let the riffraff fight each other. Fine.
“I’m going to need to hire like…” I fluttered my lips, blowing air out as I thought. “Fifty people. And we’ll need gear.”
“How much will you require?”
I just didn’t see how it was doable. A one-off job like that would be too much money. That’s why you had gangs to begin with. No one could afford to make and equip an entire gang just for a week’s work.
“You’re asking too much. Even if I could find guys that had their own weapons, going up against potentially thirty armed guys who are prepared, they’re going to want ten thousand at least.”
The naked man went to a tele on a nearby container and punched in some numbers. He came back with a token and handed it to me.
“Is this sufficient?”
It was two million credits. Two million! I was holding two million credits in my hand on an anonymous token. I could hop on a shuttle right now, rent passage on any ship, and become a well-off person on nearly any other planet in the Confederation.
That was a testament of how much money it was that not three seconds after I received it, I was immediately thinking of embezzling. I had never stolen money from any job. But maybe that was also an indication of what Belvaille had become.
What were these corporations? How could he just give me two million credits to be rid of a silly club? Money was just some completely different animal to them. I couldn’t fathom the ease of it. The Colmarian Navy was willing to pay a million for a stolen super-weapon and a corporation was willing to pay twice that for a bonfire.
I could buy the club with this and tell everyone inside to get lost—and they would do so gladly with this much cash.
“Yeah, this is plenty,” I said quickly.
“You will need to wear a uniform.”
“Oh, no! I’m not wearing one of those things. I might work for you on this job, but I’m not part of your corporation.”
“It is required to prevent any other unnecessary disturbances you might have with our forces.”
I took it he meant the APC.
“So your people won’t shoot at me?”
“That is correct.”
“But what about other corporations? You guys are fighting all the time. That just means one won’t fight me but the others will on sight.” I thought about it some more. “Besides, I’ll have a hard time recruiting people for this job if they think I’m corporate. No offense.”
“I have something you can wear. A helmet.”
He went deeper into the warehouse and I could hear him opening crates. I didn’t want to wear a helmet. Those things seemed impossible to see out of. And they looked silly.
He came back after some minutes holding an ornate piece of cloth.
I took it.
“This goes on my head?” I asked, trying to figure it out. It certainly wasn’t a helmet. It was very loose fabric with what looked like jade and gold inlays on it in a decorative pattern.
“Yes. The soldiers will be able to recognize it. But other corporations will not, so they will not target you, as you feared.”
I put it on. It was a bit snug. It was more of a skullcap with two long straps on each side covering my ears. The interior was soft and spongy and fairly comfortable. I had never been much of a hat person, but it wasn’t bad.
“Does this look okay?”
Naked Guy stared at me but didn’t answer. Judging by his mass of hair and general nudity he was not a person very concerned with appearance.
CHAPTER 15
I left the warehouse in my cap with my autocannon ready.
Some nearby soldiers turned to me briefly and then resumed their positions. Though they were all wearing full helmets so they could have been sticking their tongues out for all I knew.
Walking down the street I noticed on the tops of buildings there were soldiers with long weapons. Perhaps sniper rifles? Perhaps ones that could kill people on my front doorstep? They were too far to see clearly.
It was obvious no one was going to drive me home so I headed for the nearest train.
I must have passed a thousand soldiers, numerous cars, and APCs. Massive trucks also crisscrossed the streets picking up or delivering goods—or who knows, just driving around for fun. They certainly had the money to burn.
They all had the same corporate colors as the car Naked Guy had picked me up in: yellow with numerous thin red vertical stripes on the right side. I made note to avoid shooting at that pattern.
Eight years ago if someone had told me this was the situation I would be in, with a few million credits in the balance, I would have thought them insane.
When I reached the elevated train, I saw it had been disconnected. The route stopped well outside of this corporate-controlled zone and there were soldiers standing around to make sure no one bypassed it.
Garm’s group controlled the trains. So as much as she said she had nothing to do with the corporations, she was facilitating their operations. Of course if she didn’t cooperate, they would find someone who would. Her people might know all the ins and outs of Belvaille, but even I could learn how to run the trains for two million credits.
And that reminded me. Despite being bulletproof and carrying a weapon of lots of destruction, I still felt uneasy with so much cash in my pockets. I stopped and deposited the token into my tele. It would make accessing it more difficult later, because it had to transfer off-station, but it was just an accident waiting to happen.
I confirmed the transfer about ten times and stood there in the street refreshing and acknowledging.
I finally exited corporate land and was able to take a train back to my place.
As I walked up to my apartment I stopped short, noticing something different.
In addition to Toby, Byo’lene’s corpse, and a toilet, there were two Gandrine sitting on my front stairs.
“Come on,” I said to myself.
I stood a careful distance from the immobile creatures.
“Hi,” I said. “How you guys doing?”
Nothing. No sign they were living.
“I feel like we haven’t been properly introduced,” I said. “My name is Hank. I live here. What brings you two by?”
I couldn’t even tell where they were looking—if they were looking at anything.
“Do you want me to bring you guys something to eat or drink? I’m not…I don’t know what you guys consume.”
Silence.
“Have you met Toby? That’s the dead guy on the left. And Byo’lene is the dead
woman on the right.”
I was getting angry. This was my block. And my house. Who were they to muscle in?
“And this is my toilet,” I continued. “And now it’s on your head. Or I assume that’s your head.”
I balanced my toilet on one of them and thought that was pretty clever.
“Maybe I’ll use it since you guys don’t seem to mind.”
A grinding noise arose from the pair and to my shock I realized they were standing up. The toilet fell off and the two very large rock organisms slowly began to face me.
“Cool! It’s cool! My mistake!” I held up my hands in supplication and quickly backed into my apartment.
CHAPTER 16
When I went back outside later, the Gandrine were still there, staring at the apartment building across the street.
I walked well around them to the train.
At Ioshiyn’s I popped in to see about my clothes. I was running out of things to wear and didn’t want to do laundry.
“Hank, I got some good news,” Ioshiyn said, smiling.
He went to the side and pulled out a box. He opened it and held up for me a part of my pants, but cut about in half at the knee.
“Tada,” he said.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“They were torn to pieces, I couldn’t fix them. But I just cut the legs off and hemmed the bottom. They’re shorts now.”
“Shorts? When have you ever seen me wear shorts?”
“You got good-looking legs, you should show them off.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, I’m guessing. You’re a big guy. Women like seeing legs. Besides, these pants were tailored for you. It would be a shame to throw them away. You’re not going to find anything that fits you off the shelf. Trust me, it’s the latest style.”
I looked over Ioshiyn in his dirty shirt and trousers.
“These are my work clothes,” he said, seeing my glance. “But I design for the northeast snobs all the time.”
I took a pair, skeptical.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to my skullcap.
Hard Luck Hank: Basketful of Crap Page 8