Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck

by Steven Campbell

  “What’s the point?” I finally asked, frustrated.

  “The point of what?” the judge replied.

  “This whole mess? Will you get to it and charge me with something or do you just want to smell your breath when you talk?”

  There were some chuckles from Belvaille, but mostly there were more boos and catcalls.

  I didn’t care.

  If the city wanted me out, that was fine by me. See how long the peace lasts. I’m happy to go…fishing. Or whatever. Plant flowers. Or not flowers, but something to eat.

  Just find a nice, non-toxic planet to settle down on and get off this metal heap. I bet I’ll even stop having heart attacks when I don’t have to worry about this place anymore.

  “I’ll have you know, you are on trial, Supreme Kommilaire,” the prosecutor blared with great umbrage.

  “When you’re in my courtroom you will address me and our judicial process with the respect it deserves,” Moer-lox-n added.

  “You owe me ten thousand thumbs,” the plaintiff fired, since everyone else was raising grievances.

  I waved them away.

  “Get on with it. You’re not getting paid by the hour and I’m hungry,” I said.

  They all sputtered and spat and the judge finally gaveled.

  “Two, no, three hundred thumb fine!” He yelled.

  “For what?”

  “Civil disobedience!”

  “And who is going to take my three hundred thumbs? You? You’re going to have a tough time yelling your moral indignation with that hat shoved down your throat.”

  I was not winning the popular support of Belvaille from what I could hear.

  “Your size and position does not make you immune to the law,” Judge Moer-lox-n stormed.

  “What laws? There are no laws. I decide how to keep this city safe.”

  “You work within the boundaries set by the adjudicators,” he countered.

  “Who are you kidding? Adjudicators are just fancy tiles on a bathroom floor. Their only value is to count their swirls and loops while you’re taking a crap.”

  The judge, prosecutor, and entire city were hollering at me.

  What a waste of time. And I didn’t even mean this trial, I meant the last seven decades I had been trying to save this worthless city.

  I wouldn’t miss it. I should take Delovoa with me, just to nail this coffin shut definitively.

  As I sat there stewing, I saw a courier travelling up the street.

  The galaxy, with teles gone, had to rely on antiquated methods to communicate. Belvaille used bicycle messengers.

  They wore gold uniforms and zipped through the streets. They carried packages, messages, and delivered price updates to neighborhood markets from the Ank Boards. They were so omnipresent they were usually ignored.

  But seeing one riding up the street during a trial was unusual.

  The crowd grew quieter as the courier pedaled onward. Only the prosecutor and judge continued their rants against me.

  At the edge of the bench, the courier ran up to me and handed me an envelope. I signed for it and the courier got back on his bike and rode down the street.

  Now everyone was silent as I opened the outer envelope and found another, red envelope inside.

  I opened it and read the contents of the letter.

  I couldn’t believe it!

  I sat there, uncertain what to do. My mind raced through the repercussions of this message. There was nothing good that could come from it.

  “Well? Supreme Kommilaire, may we continue the trial?” the judge asked.

  I reluctantly read from the letter.

  “Judge Moer-lox-n, by order of the owner of this city, you are hereby stripped of your authority and position within the government and any legal proceedings you are administering are invalidated forthwith. Signed, Garm.”

  CHAPTER 39

  Outrage!

  But also confusion.

  Didn’t Garm hate me? Rendrae testified that she hired an assassin to have me killed.

  I didn’t get it either. What was Garm playing at? She hadn’t done me any favors by dismissing the judge. It saved me one useless trial at the expense of making everyone detest me even more. Not only was I a bully, a dupe, a fat blunderer, but I was immune to even the most basic prosecution.

  Hobardi declared his candidacy for Governor almost immediately.

  Then Peush declared.

  Hong declared as well and also filled in forms to run for every seat on the City Council. I wasn’t sure if he could do that, but I wasn’t sure he couldn’t.

  They were all taking advantage of the sudden, and violent, distrust in the current leadership. If there really was an election for Supreme Kommilaire, I was pretty sure I would lose out to anyone who wasn’t a serial killer. And even then it really depended on who they had killed serially.

  The Ank Boards crashed.

  The prices for food and precious commodities and interest rates shot through the latticework. Company stocks and disposables plummeted to nothing.

  I wasn’t an expert on trading, but I had worked with gangs and helped negotiate transactions for a couple centuries. I understood that if companies couldn’t pay back their debts, they’d have to fire people, or cut wages, or close shop. Then people lending money would stop lending money, and the same things would happen to even more businesses. Then I’d have a city full of unemployed people.

  If things were bad now, when no one had a job they were going to be a lot worse. And that was the good scenario. If people couldn’t afford food, we’d have city-wide riots within a week.

  I had to go talk to the Ank.

  Someone must be manipulating the Boards. I knew it was…possible. I had heard lots of talk about it at the Athletic Gentleman’s Club. There were people who did nothing but invest in the Boards. They didn’t actually own anything or produce anything it was all just Board chalk marks and tickets.

  I didn’t comprehend how it was done, but I assumed it was screwing up Belvaille’s economy.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled as people cursed at me as the heavy lifter trundled toward the Ank Reserve.

  They could say what they wanted, I was a big boy. I saw a guy about fifty feet ahead winding up his arm to throw something at me and I took out a shotgun and aimed it at him.

  The cursing died down substantially and the would-be thrower decided to rub his shoulder nonchalantly instead.

  The area outside the Boards was chaos. They were always chaos, but I could sense the panic. Traders were screaming and clawing at each other.

  The values on the Board were changing so fast they had double the usual personnel setting prices. I stared at the numbers, but it was all Qwintine to me.

  The Ank had increased security, though I saw a few fights break out in the trading pit.

  Inside the Reserve, I was left waiting as usual.

  Two Ank finally joined me and when we adjourned to the nearby meeting room my knees were aching from standing for so long.

  “We are glad you came to visit us. What may we assist you with, Supreme Kommilaire?”

  “The Boards. You guys need to fix them. People can’t buy anything. Half the local markets are shut down. My Stair Boys had to break up a riot at Grain Street.”

  “The Boards are correct,” one of the Ank responded in his sing-song voice.

  “The market is always correct,” the other added.

  “Correct in what? You got traders punching each other in the face right outside your front door. A lot of companies are going to go under. Even gangs.”

  “Then that is correct.”

  “I’m not getting what you mean,” I said, the Ank making me feel even dumber than usual.

  “The Boards reflect the sentiment of the people,” one started.

  “Their fears, their hopes, their present situations,” the other said.

  “The market takes every variable into consideration. It is a living organism.”

  “What? Really? I thoug
ht they were just big chalk boards,” I said, now really confused.

  “We do not mean literally. But they are a representation of a living organism. In fact, they are a representation of all living organisms that contact Belvaille.”

  I sat there. I had just looked at the boards and I didn’t get what they meant.

  “When people are afraid, they buy certain things.”

  “When people are comfortable, they buy other things.”

  “That affects prices.”

  “Well, those prices are wrong,” I said. “People can’t afford stuff.”

  “There are no wrong prices. The Boards understand and react to the supply and demand of the people,” the Ank said.

  “People are going to go hungry and die, though.”

  “And the Boards will react to their deaths.”

  That kind of stunned me.

  “So you’re just going to let people die because the Boards are being manipulated?” I asked.

  “We do not interfere with the market.”

  “The Boards are far more knowledgeable than we are about what is needed and what is not.”

  “If we interfered, we would only create a false market which could not be sustained and which would have even worse consequences.”

  “But the Boards are just chalk on blackboards, right? Why can’t you go up there and make food less expensive? Or lower interest rates?” I asked.

  “Because that is not what the city wants.”

  “Sure it does,” I countered. “A bunch of people just came to me and said so.”

  “If it was, the Boards would already show it.”

  “Why do you keep pretending that the Boards are some intelligent things? They’re just guys yelling at each other and your employees with chalk. Companies are going to go bankrupt and people are going to starve.”

  “Then that is what the market demands.”

  “Every person, every company, every Kommilaire on this station has a value that is represented on the Board. Not always directly, but indirectly. Some will fall, fail, or die, others will rise, succeed, or be born.”

  Wow. I really needed to get a translator. Because I totally didn’t get these guys.

  “So you’re saying I’m listed on the Boards?” I asked.

  “Your value is implied.”

  “And likely far-reaching given your status. But it would be difficult to extrapolate.”

  That didn’t help.

  “Death is as necessary to competitive growth as life,” an Ank said.

  “That’s fine, as long as it’s not people dying,” I replied.

  “Sometimes that is exactly what is required by the market. If a person is overvalued they should either be adjusted or eliminated so that someone more appropriate may take their place.”

  I blinked a few times. I didn’t talk to the Ank a lot, but:

  “What the crap!”

  “You do the same yourself when you remove undesirables to the Royal Wing, as it is called. That is what the Boards do, but they do it with everything on Belvaille.”

  “And they are always correct. Every man has his value.”

  “Too true,” the other Ank replied.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t understand everything they spouted, but it seemed clear they weren’t going to adjust their omniscient Board prices.

  “We do have concerns over the recent candidates,” an Ank said.

  I looked around, waiting for 19-10 to appear out of nothingness.

  “I think maybe you guys should stay out of politics,” I replied hastily.

  “We had warned you that certain politicians were detrimental to the health of the market. Their activity—”

  “As well as your own recent activity.”

  “Has caused the Boards to respond in their current manner. Much to your consternation, it seems. The markets dislike doubt.”

  “So, you’re saying I should have not allowed Hong, and people like that, to run for office? Physically stopped him? Yet you won’t walk thirty feet outside, take a piece of chalk and change the Boards, even though doing so would have exactly the same results?”

  “The Boards merely respond to, anticipate—”

  “Aggregate, and display events. They aren’t events themselves.”

  “Sure they are! People can’t buy food, that’s a thing. It’s a real life happening!” I yelled.

  “As the market demands.”

  I blew a lot of calories by throwing up my arms in frustration.

  “So what do you want me to do? How do we fix the Boards?”

  “The Boards are inherently correct—”

  “You said that, already. But let’s pretend they aren’t. How do we get them back to the old correct when people and businesses and the city could actually function?”

  “You must reassure the market. Belvaille and its denizens are less valuable today because everyone believes they are less valuable.”

  I couldn’t speak Ank apparently.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Make it valuable again.”

  I realized I didn’t know how to do that. But I knew people who might be able to help.

  CHAPTER 40

  “What the crap is this?” I asked.

  I was surrounded by humble, obsequious prisoners of the Royal Wing who had just handed me the outline for their new laws. They stood on stacks of building materials, and clung to pipes and their makeshift homes so they could get a better view of me.

  I had a hope that if anyone could help me make Belvaille “valuable” again, it would be these guys. They had a true outsider’s perspective and could tell me what was good about the city and what was good about society in general. Then I could propose doing that on Belvaille.

  But they had given me one full page. And it was only a full page because they had written it in large type. Presumably so they wouldn’t tax my failing eyesight.

  If I could sum up the handful of laws it would be: “don’t be a meanie-face.”

  “Those are our laws,” Uulath, the mayor of Royal Wing, stated nervously. “That’s what we came up with.”

  “These aren’t laws. You can’t follow this. Don’t you guys know what laws are? How is anyone ever going to know if you broke the law? This is all subjective.”

  Uulath got cautiously annoyed.

  “We already had laws. You told us to make new ones,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “let me see your old laws. Maybe we could start from there.”

  “I didn’t…they weren’t really written down,” Uulath stammered, looking around at his fellow prisoners.

  “How did you know what they were, then?”

  “I said you were my inspiration. I kind of made them up as necessary,” Uulath replied.

  The people around us grumbled loudly, like a whole lot of engines had lost a whole lot of teeth on their gears.

  No wonder everyone hated me. I’d been doing what Uulath did for decades.

  I crumpled up the paper.

  “Well, this won’t do. You need to write some better laws. Way better,” I said.

  “We’re not judges, Kommilaire,” one prisoner complained. He was a bald man, thin and dirty. He was a former slaver as I recall.

  “If we knew laws we wouldn’t be here,” another added. The one who said it was a young man who had screwed over the wrong gang and when he went to trial, they threw him in here, even though his crimes were insubstantial.

  “Give us an example! A hint at least,” Uulath pleaded.

  All the prisoners grew deathly quiet and leaned forward. I couldn’t leave them with nothing. Not after I had planted this hope in them.

  “Uh…don’t, like, kill other people…unless they, like, tried to kill you first…and even then, like, if you killing them back might hurt other people, not…involved, then, like…don’t do it.”

  Man, writing laws was hard.

  The prisoners started repeating it religiously. Scribbling it on the ground.
On scraps of paper.

  “Don’t, like, kill other people!”

  “Might, like, hurt other people!”

  “Take out the ‘likes’ and pauses and make it sound good,” I warned. “This is your Constitution.”

  “What’s a Constitution?” Uulath asked.

  “I don’t know, just write similar stuff. But more. And better. That’s just me talking. You guys got time to think this through.”

  “Should there be one about taking other people’s buckets?” a man asked me, raising his hand. He had a puckered old face and his mouth seemed to sink almost to his throat as he breathed.

  “I don’t know. I mean, stealing probably. If that’s a big thing for you guys,” I said uncertainly.

  “What about lying about taking someone’s bucket?” another man asked, scowling at the first man.

  “Is it okay to kill someone if they killed a member of your family?”

  “What if you’re in a gang war? People used to kill each other all the time. Are gang wars against the Constitution?”

  “What if someone is going to steal from you and you can’t stop them unless you kill them? Or if you don’t know that you might hurt someone else, because they’re maybe hiding in a garbage can.”

  Alright, I was done.

  Valia had been right. These were not the people to make a utopian society. And I was obviously not going to be Hank the Lawbringer.

  “You guys need to work this out for yourselves. As a group,” I rambled. “I’ll be back and evaluate your progress.”

  I felt like I should at least reward them for trying. I could see they were giving it thought. Just sociopathic, criminal, get-me-out-of-Royal Wing thought.

  “Is there anything you all need?” I asked Uulath.

  “Well, since I can’t reward anyone with wives anymore. Could you bring some new mattresses? A comfortable bed is as good as being a monarch here.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  The prisoners were all debating and arguing loudly. They’d probably start killing each other soon.

  It was presumably still legal since the law hadn’t been codified yet.

  CHAPTER 41

  The Poop Wars had started.

  Or at least that’s what I called them. All the candidates of all stripes were taking to the airwaves, to fliers, to posters, to newspapers, to word-of-mouth, and mercilessly skewering one another.