Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  "Ygnaza are... facilitators. I speak a number of alien voices."

  "If you don't cause trouble, I can make use of you," Hephaestus said.

  "Seriously?" Syd asked.

  "Do you read Ygnaza?"

  "No."

  "Even if it's not a doctor, it's at least a better translator than we had."

  "I will serve in whatever capacity is required of me," Uth-sk said.

  "I don't trust him," Syd said.

  "I never said I did either. I just said I could make use of it." Hephaestus closed the window, plunging the back of the truck into darkness. Knowing he was no longer alone, Syd sparked up a light to keep an eye on Uth-sk. The alien stayed crouched in the front corner of the truck bed.

  "So you're not giving up?" Eugene asked, coughing the last word. Syd had folded the dust sheet back from the couch where he and Hephaestus sat. It had an ugly paisley pattern and looked almost unused. The third figure on the couch looked like a young woman with a black ponytail in a similarly-colored pant suit. Her blank stare into nothingness betrayed the lack of power running through her systems.

  "I'm still not sure where you got her from," Syd said, gesturing towards the gynoid.

  "It was pinned under one of the trees that got knocked down in the fight. I disabled it in the field, and if Eugene is up to reprogramming it, we can use it for Plan B."

  "The Community Fund has the alien ship, Hephaestus," Eugene said.

  "I'm less interested in the ship than in the nanoconstructor it contained," Hephaestus said.

  "What?"

  "I've been talking with our... guest. The ship itself was badly damaged, but the nanoconstructor is all we would need to build a replacement vessel in its entirety. It's much easier to capture and transport. It's... all of the alien tech in one box. Everything we could possibly want to know or make. At least for a long time."

  "You haven't got a long time, old man," Eugene said.

  "Says the man four-and-a-half years past dead. Don't underestimate my tenacity."

  "So, do you have a plan?" Syd asked.

  "First, we have to find out where they're going to stash it. Then we work on the specifics."

  "What makes you so sure they're going to stash it?" Eugene asked.

  "You forget, they don't know what they've got. They've captured a whole starship's worth of Ygnaza tech. They're not going to even finish the inventory any time soon."

  "That green dude is seriously creepy. I've worked with a lot of questionable people over the years, and I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him now. In fact, I'd light him on fire if I were you."

  "He has a skill set that will make things less problematic. I'm going to make use of it. I never said I was going to trust him."

  "Do you think Van Wyck has given up?" Syd asked.

  "No, but she's going to need new financing, that fight cost her a lot of daughters."

  "Funny thing is, if she'd gone legit, she'd be rich now," Eugene said.

  "She's not mentally stable enough to do that," Hephaestus said. "It's too much of a compulsion. She'd make her first billion and invest it in a giant robot crab."

  "If you want a giant crab, you just need a Doomclacker Talisman," Syd said, having missed the subtle hint of sarcasm in Hephaestus' tone.

  "What?"

  "It's a pressed-clay disk about the size of one of those gold dollar coins, only a quarter inch think. It's enchanted so that when you toss it into water it summons the crab demon Doomclacker. She's not very bright, but she's an ornery cuss and a royal pain." Syd looked at the blank stares he was getting. "It was in the Codex Daemones Inferiores. Come on, Eugene, you were the one who bought it for me."

  "There's a crab demon named 'Doomclacker'?" Eugene asked. He coughed. "No, no, there's a 'crab demon'?"

  "That's what you're fixated on?" Syd asked.

  "I think you need to learn when to shut up," Hephaestus said.

  "It's the easiest summons," Syd said. "The only reason people don't use it is because she's a crab, and doesn't have enough cognition to follow commands."

  "Doomclacker?" Eugene asked.

  "I didn't name it!"

  "Do you have to be there when it's used, or can anyone throw the talisman into the water?" Hephaestus asked.

  "Once you've enchanted the talisman, it's water activated, so I guess anyone can do it. Why?"

  "Just storing ideas. It seems like it has diversionary potential," Hephaestus said. "Can you make these?"

  "Sure, but you can only have one at a time. You enchant another and the last one becomes inert," Syd said.

  "You've got that 'twisted idea' look on your face," Eugene said.

  "We need to get to work on your upgrades," Hephaestus said.

  Ranger Roy the Rocket Rider

  Pam killed the engine and yanked on the parking brake. Her bright electric blue ponytail swung to the side as she looked over at Ben. He gave a nod. "You're improving, I wasn't terrified once during the trip." Technically, we were violating the letter of the traffic regulations. Pam was the oldest member of our team, but she only had a permit. Ben had a license, but he wasn't old enough to supervise a learner. Of course, the first thing we'd be asked for is our BHA cards, since we were all in costume-- except Xiv, who didn't need one. Pam's was the same bright electric blue as her hair with a white border. Her mask had an inverted color scheme, being white with a blue border. The only thing abnormal about it was the missing back. Since joining the team, Ben wore the green domino mask of his former mentor. Not figuratively, it was the same mask. The only problem was that it was a different shade of green from the weathered bronze color of his costume. The copper tracery on the suit was purely functional, helping to focus the electricity he generated to his fingertips.

  Next to me in the back seat, Xiv sat up. A hybrid clone of human and dragon, he couldn't pass for normal, so he didn't bother trying. His face was flat, absent a nose save for two nostrils mostly covered by flaps of skin. It was dominated by his massive eyes, pools of white in which his small pupils swam. A pale blue nictitating membrane occasionally blinked across their surfaces. His skin matched his eyes, being the color of newly-fallen snow. It was smooth and dry but had a sheen as if wet. He'd recently trimmed his mane of white hair, but it looked like a forest of bristles between the two ivory horns growing from the back of his head. His arms were also simple wings with the last finger forming the leading edge of the membrane. Generally, he kept the wings folded as much as he could. I gather it hurt when the membrane caught on something. His tail was only about half again as long as his legs.

  "So, what are we doing here, fearless leader?" Pam asked.

  "Practice, against real criminals," I said.

  "Where did you scrounge up real criminals?" Ben asked.

  "Recently, Roy Byrd's widow, Matilda Lee Byrd, auctioned off all of his memorabilia from both his days as a hero and his career in film. Among the lot were four costumes from the serials he starred in. Three of the four people who've acquired one of the costumes have had break-ins where nothing was taken. That store has the fourth." I pointed across the street.

  "Angry Earls' Warehouse of Memories," Ben said. "There's more than one Angry Earl?"

  "I guess. We're here to find out who's breaking in and what they're looking for. You guys take the lead on this. It will do you good." It felt odd talking like a mentor. I was the second-youngest one in the car, but, by the time the rest of them took up the mantle of sidekick, I'd already been in the life for seven years. I was the only fully-licensed hero of the lot.

  "So, do we draw lots, or take a vote?" Pam asked.

  "What?" Ben asked.

  "Someone has to coordinate. Normally that'd be Fearless Leader, but he's sitting this one out."

  "Actually, I'll be playing the
part of a regular team member," I said. "I can't actually let you leave me behind, it's against BHA regulations."

  "I vote Stamp," Xiv said. His voice was still rather child-like. Come to think of it, how does he sound so normal with a mouth full of blunt, conical teeth?

  "Any reason?" Ben asked.

  "No, not really."

  "Do you want the job, Cupric?" Pam asked.

  "No," Ben said. "I'll second Xiv's vote."

  "All right," Pam said. "Do we know how many entrances this place has?"

  "Three," I said. "Front door, loading dock, and a skylight."

  "You did your homework on this place."

  "I collected information that I thought we might need, yes."

  "All right," Pam said. "I want eyes on all three. Cupric, take up a position where you can watch the loading dock. Shadowdemon, watch the skylight."

  "Question," Ben said. "Why him and not one of the two of you who can fly?"

  "He hides better," Pam said, "I don't want to spook them before we know what we're up against."

  "Fair enough," Ben said, getting out of the car. "Comm check."

  "Check, we can year you." He hurried off through the pools of languid amber light covering the street. Vanishing down an alley, he gave us one last nod. I climbed out of the car and made a show of crossing the street without stepping so far into the illumination of the streetlights. The Warehouse of Memories was a brick building about four stories tall at the eaves, five at the peak of its roof. The fire escape up its side only stopped at two spots. This meshed with what I'd seen when I'd visited during business hours. It was mostly open space with a second floor along three walls of the interior halfway up the sides. A catwalk hung near the middle ceiling, probably to allow access to the crane that used to run along the tracks directly below it.

  I fired my line launcher at the wall face near the eaves and ran up the side of the building. Grabbing hold of the lip of the roof, I hauled myself over before I lost momentum. I landed in pigeon droppings, causing those roosting nearby to scatter slightly. The angle of the roof was gentle enough that I was able to make my way to the decorative facade at the front of the peak without any difficulty.

  "That was sloppy work, Fearless Leader," Pam said.

  "Thank you." I could picture her expression at failing to egg me on. The mental image almost made me laugh. I parked myself in the deepest shadow I could find and waited.

  "I'm in position," Ben said.

  "Where?"

  "Lets just say I'm glad this is commercial waste, there's less smell." The picture of Ben crouched in a dumpster beat out the last mental image, and I did chuckle slightly. Given some of the places I'd been, he was getting off lightly. And it wasn't as if anyone told him to hide in the dumpster. "Now what?" Ben asked.

  "Now we wait to see where these guys show up," Pam said.

  "How do we know that it will be tonight?" Ben asked.

  "That would be an educated guess on my part."

  "If they don't show, I'm going to blame you for having to spend a whole night here."

  "Hush," Stamp said.

  "Is that a two-legged dog?" Xiv asked.

  "Where?" I presumed he was pointing, so I extended a fiber optic probe over the facade to take a look at the street. The mutt pulling itself along the sidewalk was smaller than a German shepherd, but larger than a corgi. It had no rear legs, instead it was strapped to a platform with two wheels not dissimilar in structure to those of a bicycle. It was brown, with splotches of slightly darker brown. It would look piteous, if not for the way it was moving. It was looking around far too much while it continued to move forward. The movements were less canine and more like that of a human checking potential hiding spots. My suspicion was further aroused when he circled the warehouse when no other building seemed worth his attention.

  The mutt parked himself in front of the warehouse and moved a paw to his ear. As he did so, the paw became a hand, and the rest of him morphed into a human. The dwarf was still missing his legs, but was at least clothed-- in brown. He had short, ruddy hair and a bent nose.

  "Oh, don't tell me we're up against a crippled dwarf," Pam said. "That just has 'bad press' written all over it."

  "All clear," the dwarf muttered. Motion on the rooftops on the far side of the street caught my eye. A very long-limbed figure with steamers of cloth trailing from her ankles, wrists, and neck bounded from roof to roof. Flipping through the air, she changed between landing on her hands and her feet as she flowed gracefully over the facade. She landed on the sidewalk without a sound. Her stride was odd, as her body was normally-sized, but all of her limbs were far longer than typical. She was built like a bullwhip. As she moved into the light, I noticed that she was bundled in gauze and wrapped in strips of bandages. She wore ordinary clothes over it, though the sleeves on her blouse and the legs on her jeans did not come close to reaching the ends of her limbs. "Love the way you make an entrance," the dwarf said.

  "Thanks, Tex."

  "I can hear more coming," Xiv said.

  "Hold position," Pam said.

  "That's no entrance," someone said above me. I tensed up, but he drifted past, oblivious to my presence. Dressed in a gray, blue, and white outfit that looked like an attempt to emulate a hero suit with spandex, he looked fairly normal. He had dull brown hair, a tanned face, and carried a bag of tortilla chips in the crook of his arm. As he descended, he tossed another into his mouth.

  "You have no sense of style," the woman said.

  "Oh, really, Suture, and you do?"

  "Your father might have been big stuff back in the day, but he's still behind bars. What's it been, twenty years?" Suture asked.

  "Enough," Tex said, snatching the bag from the new arrival. "No crumbs, Earworm, we want to leave as little evidence behind as we can."

  "Sorry, Tex." He unslung a backpack and put the chips away. As he was zipping it back up, something hit the other side of the facade I was hiding behind. "Sounds like Birdstrike is here."

  "Stop calling me that!" Colors warped in the view from my fiber optic probe as whatever power camouflaged the new arrival shut down. The guy clinging to the W in 'Warehouse' had a lean, wiry build. He wore black pants and a gray, hooded sweatshirt with two slots cut in the back for his wings. His wings were clearly not what provided him with flight. They were long, sickly limbs covered in shaggy brown hair. From a distance they might resemble bird's wings, but up close they were clearly extraneous. 'Birdstrike' fell to the sidewalk. Earworm pulled a belt of pouches from his backpack and fitted it around his waist.

  "So what are we waiting for?" Earworm asked.

  "The guy who's paying us," Suture said.

  "Right. It's not like he does much."

  "His green is good," Tex said, "He doesn't have to do anything."

  "Should we move in?" Xiv asked.

  "On what? All they've done is assemble on a public sidewalk," Pam said.

  A dark green sedan of a relatively recent model year pulled up on the far side of the street. It parked in front of the alley where our car was. The driver got out. He was a rather ordinary looking man in his mid-forties or so. His once-copper hair was fading through the blond spectrum towards white, although the original coloration still dominated his temples. He was dressed casually and pulled a duffel bag from the back seat. He adjusted his glasses and approached the gang by the front door.

  "Right, Mister Byrd is here, we can get this over with," Earworm said.

  "By all means," Byrd said. "Open the door."

  "Are we going to rob the place this time?"

  "No, Earl and Earl will still have exactly what they thought they were buying come morning."

  "Then why are we doing this?" Birdstrike asked.

  "Because you're getting paid," Tex said. "If he wants t
o do some after hours browsing and leave it all behind, that's fine by me. Just so long as he keeps with the cash, I don't see an issue."

  "I like you Tex, you're straightforward," Byrd said.

  "How's a man supposed to make a name for himself if we don't actually do anything?" Earworm asked.

  "Stuff it and get with the lockpicking," Suture said.

  "Fine, I'll even disable the alarm while I'm at it." Earworm extracted some tools from his belt and turned to the doors.