“What’s a ticket?”
“Oh.” The host and hostess shared concerned looks as if they might have said too much. As if they should be privy to something the Supreme Kommilaire wasn’t.
“Well…” the hostess said, looking at her husband.
“I don’t suppose it matters,” and he magnanimously handed me a slip of paper from his jacket.
My hands were covered in food and the paper was folded like a billion times.
“Unfold it.”
He did so and handed it to me again.
It was hard to read because of my poor eyes and all the creases, but it was a list of candidates for Governor and City Council.
I read it. Read it again. Read it again.
I didn’t understand.
“All these people are dead,” I said.
“Yes,” the hostess confirmed without any irony.
“I don’t get it. How does a dead person serve?”
“Well, I assume they don’t,” the host said, also without irony.
“Then…what…is this how elections work? I’ve never been through one. Do people usually vote for dead candidates?”
“We think it’s more of the status quo,” the hostess said.
“For things to remain as they are. With you as Supreme Kommilaire, the judges making their rulings, adjudicators in the streets,” the host added.
And Garm still in charge behind the scenes? This was pretty shocking in a lot of ways. I really thought Garm had checked out for the most part. Mostly she just appointed judges.
“How’d you get this?” I asked.
“Oh. Well. I don’t want to go into those details,” the host said, taking the paper from me.
The host and hostess were sharing looks again as if they regretted telling me. Not because they were ashamed or thought I was going to get them in trouble, but that pompous look of, “he shouldn’t know.”
I reached out, took hold of the host by the shoulder, and lifted him off the ground. I did my best not to break any bones.
“Where did you get that?”
The hostess covered her mouth with her hands.
“Garm stays in contact now and then,” the host cried.
I dropped him.
“Garm?” I asked, dumbfounded. Garm had completely cut me off, and she’s communicating with these people?
“How do you know it’s her?”
“We’ve been talking for years,” the hostess said. “But we only ever see her at City Hall.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“Well, yes,” the host looked around and quite a number of people were watching our interaction. He leaned in to whisper to me.
“We weren’t supposed to tell you.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, and then grabbed his sore shoulder where I had held him.
“Ow. It’s just what she said. She only works through some families now. She said she leaves the running of the city to you.”
I was confused. Especially since I didn’t in any way “run” the city. I just put bandages on the biggest cuts.
“We guessed that her ticket was a kind of alternative to the extreme candidates who are running,” the hostess added.
“Dead is pretty extreme,” I countered. “How do you even vote for a dead person?”
“How do you vote for a live person?” the host asked.
I was about to grab him again when I realized he wasn’t being sarcastic. I had no concept of the mechanics of voting. How would you select anyone? Who gets to vote? How do they only vote once?
Ugh.
“Is everything fine, Supreme Kommilaire?” the hostess asked timidly.
I could see they were quite frightened. I looked around and saw the party had basically stopped and everyone was observing us.
I walked in between the couple and put my arms around them jovially. I then turned to the crowd.
“I’d like everyone to give a big round of applause for this most excellent night! This is the best party I’ve been to in maybe fifty years! Reminds me of Old Belvaille,” I said with gusto.
The aristocracy dutifully applauded. They were so good at faking praise you couldn’t even tell they were insincere.
http://www.belvaille.com/hlh3/hankeating.gif
CHAPTER 20
“Can you resurrect dead people?” I asked Delovoa at his place.
“Yes,” he said, while drinking his third glass of wine.
“You can? How?”
“Huh? Oh, I wasn’t listening. What did you say?”
I gave him a scowl.
“What?” he said. “Every time you come here you complain. Who do I get to complain to? You? I need a crapload of sulfur hexafluoride to fix our air scrubbers. If I can’t find it we’ll have to rotate them every few days or we’ll all pass out walking for five minutes. That’s me complaining. So what’s your advice on that?”
I sat there thumbing my sandwich.
“Exactly,” he said, slamming the rest of his drink.
“Have you talked to Garm?” I asked him.
“Garm? No. When would I ever talk to her?”
“She vanished, right?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged.
“But what if she’s still neck deep in things? Running it all from behind the scenes?”
“Then she’s doing a terrible job.”
“She makes the laws, though, and appoints judges.”
“That’s rare. How many laws do we have, really? Like ten?”
“I think about thirty.”
“You’re the Supreme Kommilaire and you don’t even know. That’s how important our laws are.”
I ate a few sandwiches as Delovoa rang for more alcohol and food. It was a different twink who delivered them. Where did he get them all?
Delovoa sighed.
“Garm took her money and retired. She always wanted the good life. And remember, her mutation was she didn’t sleep. That has to wreak havoc on a body after a while. Seventy years without sleep…not sure how healthy she is. I say just let her alone, if she wanted to talk she would.”
“What if she wants the city to be operating poorly?” I asked, after a moment. “I talked to some people and they said they were in contact with Garm. In person.”
“Why would she want the city to be running poorly? She owns it.”
“So no one challenges that ownership? I don’t know. Maybe she makes more money like that. The only reason I can think of why she would be talking to random people and not you or me is because we’ve changed.”
“I haven’t changed,” toothless Delovoa declared, reclining on his plush divan.
“I have. I’m a cop. I’m the city’s police captain. I used to be a gang negotiator. I broke people’s legs because I was paid to do it. I murdered people because I was paid to do it. Now I arrest people like that.”
“Let’s be serious here, you’re not exactly a great cop,” Delovoa purred. “You’re still doing gang negotiations and murdering people. You just wear a tacky uniform and blab your stupid trials on the loudspeakers when I’m trying to take a nap.”
“I didn’t say I was a super cop. But even a dishonest cop is really different than what I used to be. Garm’s not talking to me because she will never change. She is Quadrad. By birth, by death, she once said to me. She will always be an assassin and a grifter no matter how old she gets or how little sleep.”
“You don’t know. She may have fallen in love with someone else and wants to spare you. Or maybe she is ashamed of her appearance. Or maybe she’s found a really good book she hasn’t been able to put down for forty years. There are a million reasons she might have become anti-social and most of them have nothing to do with you. I swear, you date a woman for a month and you think she owes you her life? Who was doing who a favor on that one? Here’s a hint: look in the mirror.”
“Damn, man. Okay.”
I sulked and ate food.
“When’s the election?” Delovoa asked, as if
he hadn’t just ripped me a new one.
“Not sure.”
“Hank’s Butt,” Delovoa said, using a common exclamation which he knew I found annoying, “if you don’t know, who does?”
CHAPTER 21
I looked through the one-way mirror and saw MTB and Valia interviewing the feral kid we had arrested a few days back. He looked good and hungry.
Valia hadn’t gone motherly like I asked. She looked like a prostitute. Which either meant she disobeyed me or she’d had an odd childhood.
I couldn’t hear them, but MTB was playing hard as nails as usual and Valia was trying to seduce this kid. It was comical how bad it was. I started pantomiming what they were saying.
“So, cutie, what brings you here?” I said in a fake Valia voice.
“I’m going to pull out your teeth, fasten them to a leather strap, and then flay your skin off with your own teeth!” I growled like MTB.
“Sounds sexy. Here, look at my leg on the table. Can you tell I don’t shave?”
Even if the feral kid wanted to talk, I think he was too confused by my Kommilaire to answer properly. He just sat there looking back and forth between them, wondering if non-feral people were all insane.
I opened the door and stepped inside. The feral kid’s eyes bugged when he saw me.
“Stompa’ Man! No chew me! No chew me! I no big rise!” He squealed.
“Do you know him?” Valia asked me, confused.
“All the feral kids know of Hank,” MTB said.
I walked closer to the feral kid, not saying anything. Even in a steel alloy building like this, the floor vibrated as I walked. It was pretty intimidating.
I stood far enough away that he could take me all in.
“You a leader? A boss? A chief?” I asked him.
“I no big rise. No boss. You big boss, Stompa’ Man. You big rise.”
“You tell others to fight.”
“I say. They say. Good claw.” He tried to motion with his hands but they were secured to the table. The feral kid language was a lot of non-verbal. You point at something or someone and that’s pretty hard to misunderstand.
“Uncuff him,” I said.
MTB did so roughly.
The street lingo changed constantly. And since my arms were heavy and unwieldy, I couldn’t do their little sign talk. I tried to remember the words.
“Why you claw the…colors?” I said, trying to describe the Order members.
“Good claw. Big chow,” he explained, with an array of gestures thrown in.
“No claw. Uh, free chow.”
He cocked his head, not understanding. He didn’t know what free meant. That concept was lost on a feral kid.
“Charity. Give. You. Trash chow.” I was just guessing now.
“Junk?”
“Yeah!”
The feral kid seemed disturbed. Like he understood that they attacked people who were giving them help. No one ever helped the feral kids.
“Junk you,” I said. I then motioned someone having an item and giving it away, and then held my hands up like I was okay with that transaction.
He sat there blinking and then grew angry.
“Ghost arm,” he said.
Valia looked back at me.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“19-10,” I said. “Draw it,” I told MTB.
“I never saw 19-10, Boss,” he answered.
“I explained him to you,” I said, annoyed.
MTB pretended to be a teleporting four-armed battlesuit. It was incredibly clear he had never been an actor. If I hadn’t known he was trying to show 19-10, I would’ve assumed he was having a seizure.
“Quit it. Valia, you try.”
She hesitated and then drew in the air a torso, four arms, and two legs.
“Poof,” I added, opening both my hands, and then looking around.
“Ghost arm!” The feral kid confirmed, nodding. He also made numerous noises like pshoo and flashes with his hands and put them all over his body. That could be the golden-silver color of 19-10 and his armor reflecting light.
“What’s all this mean?” MTB asked me.
“19-10 got the feral kids to attack the Order,” I said.
“Why?” Valia asked.
“I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 22
I was back on the Royal Wing walking with Uulath.
I had some follow-up questions based on what the feral kid had said.
The Royal Wing had a lot of ferals. It was actually a pretty decent spot for them. Here they learned full Colmarian, learned to work in a kind of society, learned some skills. In some ways they were better off here than being out west in Belvaille.
A cage is still a cage, though.
As we were walking and Uulath was filling me in on details of some makeshift construction they were doing, I heard a woman screaming.
“What’s that?” I asked Uulath.
“Nothing,” he said.
I followed the voice, which was definitely high-pitched panic and crying out “no.”
“It’s a wedding,” Uulath declared, walking in front of me to try and slow me down.
“Wedding?” I asked, continuing to plod forward. “Doesn’t sound very joyous.”
“It’s how we do things here. A citizen has won the right to take a bride after dutiful service to the Royal Wing.”
“Does she have a say in this?”
“Eh,” Uulath stammered, making the answer clear.
As I kept going the citizens of Royal Wing stared at me. It struck me as poignant that I was far more a curiosity than one of their fellow inmates screaming.
“Hank,” Uulath pleaded, “this is our law. I have to be able to reward people. It’s either rewards or punishments. You know that.”
I paused, thinking, then continued onward.
There was a kind of hut made of some wires with sheets hung over it. I tore off the sheet and there was a lady on the ground fighting off a man. Both were clothed, if you could call the rags they had around here clothes, and locked in a ferocious struggle.
On seeing me, the woman stopped immediately. The man, noticing her gaze, turned and also froze.
I had no authority here. I dumped off prisoners and kept them on the verge of death until they eventually did croak. These people were the worst of Belvaille, which was not exactly a city of angels.
I recognized the woman. She had been a cook on Belvaille who poisoned several customers so she could rob them. But her face held fear.
I had let this prison exist because I had no other ideas what to do with its inhabitants. I never fixed anything on Belvaille. I just shifted the problem.
I think it’s because I didn’t believe Belvaille had a chance. I had seen the galaxy descend into civil war and then completely break apart. Things had gotten worse and worse every year since. The Belvaille of 150 years ago was a violent, criminal haven, that housed the scum of the empire, but it would have been absolutely terrified to see what the city was today.
But how was I better than anything I was pretending to fight if I could create a place like the Royal Wing?
Maybe what this prison, this city, this galaxy needed was some hope.
“Stop it,” I said to the man.
“Hank, it’s the law,” Uulath said.
“You live or die based on my whims,” I bellowed, “you’re going to tell me your laws?”
Uulath backed away, terrified.
“From now on, there will be laws here. Real laws.”
Some citizens drew near to listen.
“If you adhere to the laws, you will be rewarded. If you don’t, you will be further punished.”
“W-what are the laws?” Uulath asked, shuddering.
“Uh. I don’t know yet.”
“What rewards?” someone asked.
There was now a crowd of about a dozen prisoners standing around listening raptly. I spoke as clearly and loudly as I could.
“If you adhere to all the regul
ations, you may, after a suitable period of time, be allowed back to Belvaille as a true citizen. It will not be an easy task,” I warned.
No one clapped. No one smiled. They only stared. Maybe hope was not allowed under their current laws.
Uulath, however, fell to his knees, his mouth wide open. His hands went up to his face but didn’t quite touch it. He seemed to be legitimately in shock.
“Hank,” Uulath fumbled over his tongue, “we all thank you!”
“Come on,” I barked at him.
He jumped to his feet.
“You,” I pointed to the woman, “you’re not married anymore.”
I then pointed to the man and he bounded away from her like she was on fire.
After we had walked some distance I thought of something else.
“How many ‘marriages’ are there?” I asked.
“About sixty. Not many women here,” Uulath replied.
“Are they all like that one?”
“I suppose. Yes. No one came here married. But I think some have grown into them.”
“Damn.”
I took out my radio.
“Valia.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I need you to board the Royal Wing in a bit and validate some marriages.”
“Huh?”
“And ask MTB where we can put sixty-odd women on Belvaille long-term.”
I turned off the radio.
“Hank, we are all sentenced to life in prison on the Royal Wing, not Belvaille. Isn’t it unfair that women prisoners get better treatment just because they are women?” Uulath asked.
“Yes. But it’s also unfair they get worse treatment. Life isn’t fair. I’m just doing what I can to make it as close as possible.”
We walked for some time and reached the people I was looking for, some former feral kids now repairing the shanty homes of the inmates. Uulath called them over but they were still anxious on seeing me and it took some coaxing to bring them down from the second and third stories where they were working.
“The Supreme Kommilaire has some questions for you. Answer him as best you can,” Uulath stated firmly.
They looked at me timidly.
“You were in feral kid gangs, right?”
“I don’t know if they were gangs. It’s all very fluid,” one said.
Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck Page 11