“Excuse me,” I said, walking past one of the soldiers.
The man moved back as I approached the Captain.
I put my fingers down the front of his armor by the neck, wiggling them to get purchase.
“Stop it! What are you doing?” the Captain exclaimed.
I put the fingers of my other hand down the back of his armor.
I then pulled my arms apart and ripped his body armor off like the shell of a nut. I did that to let the others know that their cool armor wasn’t significant to me. I held the rather startled Captain with my left hand and put a pistol to his chest.
“You all need to disarm or we’ll disarm you. And by ‘disarm’ I mean we tear off your arms,” I said.
“Hank,” one of the soldiers said. “White banner.”
Hobardi had raided the gangs when recruiting his troops, so they knew the terminology and rules. Hobardi had needed real soldiers who knew how to use guns and beat up people. Not train spiritual people how to be killers—the Captain appeared to be the exception to this.
“Gang protocol applies to gangs,” I told the soldier. “You’re some weird religion thing. You have no rights. What I can do, though, is get you employment in the gangs of this station. Maybe even get some of you jobs in my Kommilaire, if you’re good enough. That is, if you don’t want to hang around chanting and dancing and singing with everyone else out there.”
A silent moment.
“Which gangs can you get us work with?” one soldier asked.
They probably didn’t like working for Hobardi, but he paid extremely well and he hadn’t made them do anything. But now that he was gone, they were just travelling on momentum.
“Shoot this man!” The Captain yelled. “Your weapons will find purchase and your foes shall know ruin,” he said, obviously quoting some sacred text that didn’t know I was a level-four mutant.
The Captain kept raging and I realized I couldn’t get anywhere while he had hold over his men. There were still hundreds of well-armed soldiers in the Order. I was either going to have to fight and kill them all, or remove the leaders.
I fired, killing the Captain.
“Give him to your pals to prepare. I’m sure you have some special burial. Too bad. I can’t imagine this was his Amazing Thing,” I said.
“Oh, but it is, Hank,” one of the soldiers said. “The Amazing Thing is when we all die by fire.”
CHAPTER 63
“This is boring,” I nagged Delovoa.
“Your face is boring,” he answered, as he twirled and fiddled with controls.
We were at the telescopes and Delovoa was working at one of the stations.
“How long is this going to take, my feet hurt.”
“Well my ears hurt listening to you.”
“You’re not even trying to be funny,” I said.
“I don’t have to try. Watch.”
The regular operators were standing a safe distance away, overwhelmed at seeing the richest and smartest men in the known universe sharing the same room with them.
“Boo!” Delovoa shouted at the spectators, who then scurried away like frightened insects.
“That was dumb,” I said, unimpressed.
“You’re dumb.”
“Look, I got thousands of psycho Militia sleeping in the streets. Is this going to work?”
“Probably,” Delovoa said with confidence.
“Is it going to kill everyone? I’m breaking my back to save this city and it would be just like you to fry everyone’s skin off.”
“Their skin will be fine,” he said, unnecessarily specific.
“Can’t these things scan the whole galaxy? How big is one city? It should be done by now.”
Delovoa stepped away from the controls.
“Do you want to do this? I’ll take over the Militia and you fix the city’s infrastructure.”
“Fix it? Another part fell off the latticework yesterday.”
“Yeah, but it was in Deadsouth,” Delovoa shrugged.
We were trying to track 19-10. And for the last five hours we were failing. Delovoa said he had been working for six hours before that, but I wasn’t entirely sure I believed him. There were an awful lot of empty wine containers lying about.
“There!” Delovoa pointed.
I looked at the screens. Even if my vision wasn’t so poor, it would have been nonsense to me.
“What?” I asked.
“That signature can only be from the decay of chrodite-399. 19-10 must have portaled.”
“Where?”
“There,” Delovoa said, pointing at the screen again.
“Yeah, fine. But where is that?”
Delovoa sat down and began making calculations. It took him ages.
“Huh,” he said. “That’s City Hall.”
CHAPTER 64
Now that I didn’t need money, everyone was trying to give me some. Where were these people twenty years ago?
I was at a block party for Belvaille’s wealthy elite. Not the gang wealthy, but the rich and snobby.
Getting money from the gangs was easy: I simply asked them. I set up a fee structure for the Belvaille Confederation to pay for the Kommilaire. To show you how bad at finances I was, I got more money in a week than I did in six months last year. I was either going to have to give some of it back or start outfitting my Kommilaire in diamond body armor.
But I needed to involve the wealthy citizens of the city. These wealthy citizens.
I wanted them engaged in the ongoing welfare of the city beyond who had the most extravagant parties.
I needed to tax them.
If their money was directly being funneled into the city, they would have to become interested. But Belvaille never had a tax before and no one wanted to give money to a government of dubious value that didn’t exist yet. The City Council? Governor? No one knew who they might be. I was asking these discerning citizens to give a lot of money to potential bums and idiots.
It was a hard sell.
The Confederation was well and good, but the city needed ongoing repairs and upgrades. Delovoa couldn’t handle it all and at some point enough equipment was going to fall off the latticework that we were all going to die from cosmic radiation or something.
I needed a lot of money and I couldn’t wait for a fundraiser every time there was an emergency.
The block party had servants. Lots of servants. People whose job it was to open doors and look severe. Well, that and show off how much money their employer had. If you could afford to pay someone to literally stand around, you had some serious cash.
The wealthy were not as ingratiating to me as the gang bosses were. These people were not bred to be afraid of their superiors—I think because they didn’t recognize the concept.
Whole gaggles of them would walk up and touch me lightly on the arm or the shoulder or the side. They were touchers. After a while I wondered if they were trying to leave their scent marks on me.
The turnout had been quite a lot more than I expected and I found myself a bit flustered at how to proceed. These weren’t gang folks.
There were a few former thugs here and there that they had captured and tamed into being house servants. They stood like statues, not a trace of their former selves left. It was almost eerie. But I’m sure they were paid well.
I had said I was going to give a speech, but what was I going to say?
How come I had no problem talking to a Confederation of criminals but I was tongue-tied around these posh pants?
They hadn’t even brought out any food, or at least not in Hank-portions. I was handed a few dainty crumbs that were about the size of my thumbnail.
“Hank, splendid, splendid work,” a man said to me. His mustache curled and joined his eyebrows.
“Supreme Kommilaire,” his wife corrected. Her skin was extraordinarily wrinkled. It was a chemical process I had heard about. Instead of fighting the ravages of time they embraced and even accelerated them. “Do you know when the elec
tion will be reinstated? We’ve so looked forward to it.”
“Quite,” her husband added.
“Did you know who you were going to vote for?” I asked.
“Garm’s ticket seemed excellent,” the wife said without mockery.
“The dead people?” I tried to confirm.
“Garm’s ticket,” the husband stated.
“But it was dead people, right?”
“It was the ticket that the owner of Belvaille had constituted,” the wife said slowly, as if she were speaking to a child.
“I know that. But you understand they were all dead?”
Did they not want to admit it? They shifted uncomfortably, as if I had said something distasteful. What, did rich people not die?
“Is there any time frame you’re looking at, Mr. Secretary?” the wife smiled.
I threw up my hands—not my arms—which was as much effort as they were going to get from me.
“I’m working on it. I need to put down a few revolutions.”
“Of course you do,” the husband grinned, like I was the most precious thing.
Ah! These people were such asses.
I gladhanded another fifty people. They alternately felt me up and acted patronizing.
“Supreme Kommilaire, I wonder if you might tell me some of the companies or gangs that are going to be entering the Belvaille Confederation soon.”
It was spoken simply, with the man’s last words nearly drowned as he took a sip from his glass.
But the entire block at once grew silent.
It was such a noticeable change that I looked around and expected to see we were under attack from some Servants Liberation terrorist wing or something.
Instead, everyone was just standing there frozen. Pretending not to be listening to me but practically taking their ears off and putting them by my lips.
Oh.
If they knew which companies were going to join the Confederation, they would be able to invest in them early and make a killing. I hadn’t thought of that. I needed to monitor what I said from now on.
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge that information at this point,” I stated woodenly. “However, efforts are well underway to make as smooth a transition to a city that is—”
And I ran out of bubbly stuff to say. Everyone was standing there listening, their wallets burning in their pockets as I spewed gibberish.
“Independent and…vital…and stable…”
I was waving my hands now, hoping I might be able to fly away or at least cause some distraction.
“To gather the full…strength of the city…into one undivided…union.”
Pause.
And then everyone applauded!
They practically got in fistfights over who could shake my hand first and touch my shoulders.
Did these people simply not listen to anything? They were all tickled about electing a bunch of dead candidates to office, so maybe my fumbling speech was spectacular by comparison.
Bolstered by my success saying absolutely nothing, I seized the moment and took my place at the front of the block.
I would have liked to be on a raised platform so I could be seen easier but I would have also liked to not weigh nine tons.
Everyone stood at attention and seemed quite interested.
“Right,” I began. “As some of you may know, we have created a Belvaille Confederation—”
Applause.
“I’d just…I’ll just ask you to hold your applause until the end. I still need to go do Kommilaire stuff after this.”
Some small applause and shushes.
“So the city, Belvaille is your city. You are its key citizens. Its parents, if you will. Your good judgment, wisdom, and generosity are paramount to keeping the city operational for generations to come.”
Applause. And shushes. And angry back-talking to the shushers.
“Because you have the means to support yourselves that is in far excess of the normal, lowly citizens of Belvaille, your broad shoulders are capable of bearing a larger burden.”
I was hoping for some applause but it was silent.
“Um. So I’m proposing a…” I stared out at them and knew I couldn’t use the word tax. “A contribution,” I said. “To the City Fund. It shall be used to repair, replace, and renovate the city. Such as the docks, port, the telescopes, and the latticework. We need to build schools and hospitals and shelters in the west if we ever want to permanently remove the feral blight. In short, we need capital to not only live, but to live well.”
It was very quiet for a long while.
“Look, we’re on a space station. A pile of money won’t do you any good if we’re all floating dead in the void.”
The silence was replaced with murmuring. My years of experience with court trials would say it was generally negative, but not outright hostile.
Fine, let them bellyache for a while. It still had to be done.
“An interesting speech, Supreme Kommilaire,” a gorgeous older woman said.
She had several male servants behind her and it looked like she shopped at the same twink emporium that Delovoa used.
“Thanks,” I said, hoping to stay for as little time as possible.
“It’s no wonder Garm places such confidence in you,” she said offhandedly.
“What?”
“I’m rather surprised you aren’t part of her ticket, but maybe you have something already arranged?” she hinted. “Though she didn’t mention anything.”
“When did you speak with Garm?” I asked, trying to remain calm.
“I suppose…Clorish, when did I last visit City Hall?” she said, addressing one of her servants.
The handsome man bowed.
“I would have to check, M’lady, but I believe it was three weeks ago,” he answered stiffly.
“And how often do you visit her?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t say more than once every three months. She’s very busy. But of course you know that. She entertains only the most important families. The most parental, to use your own wording.”
“Of course,” I said. “And what did you all talk about? I just want to make sure she’s not giving away any of my secrets.”
“Oh,” the woman said, alarmed. “She did mention you were working on solving the feral child, feral people issue.”
“That I was?” I asked.
“She didn’t say you, personally. She said your Kommilaire were.”
CHAPTER 65
After a month of trying to pin down the Totki I finally got a tipoff where they would be: from the Totki who came to my front door.
“We fight you!” The rat-faced little twerp said. Actually, that was racist. But he was very small and his face shared the characteristics of a rodent.
He was flanked by MTB and Valia and a dozen other Kommilaire to ensure he wasn’t up to any trouble. Or, any more trouble than threatening my life.
“Where and when?” I asked.
“Three day. Avenue With No Name. We give it name: ‘Hank Dead and Su Dival Avenge name’!” He said.
“Well, that will be a cumbersome street name. But fine,” I said.
There was a long road in the west that had once been Lin-Ling Avenue named for a powerful gang boss. But he had gotten into a war with another boss, whose name I forget, and he lost. The winner, in retribution, cut the first part off all the street names, with the goal of renaming them after himself. But he was killed shortly after and the avenue remained with half a sign ever since.
When the Totki left, MTB and Valia shared their concerns.
“You know they’re going to be prepared, Boss,” MTB said.
“Yeah, you shouldn’t go,” Valia added.
“Or at least let the Kommilaire join you. You can’t trust your Militia,” MTB said. He had not approved of me releasing everyone we worked so hard to capture.
“The Militia will never work with the Kommilaire, you know that. And this is my chance to get the Totki
. I’m sure they have something planned, but I’ll just have to be careful. I’ll tell you what, get some Kommilaire and put them in plainclothes and do reconnaissance of the Avenue. Look for anything out of the ordinary, like a giant ladle suspended above the street that pours molten steel.”
“I’ll handle it, Boss,” Valia said, departing.
I was still concerned that I had some snitches in my Kommilaire. I didn’t want to put too much reliance on their work. It was a crappy thing to admit, but I was about to go to war and I had more faith in my Belvaille Militia than I did in my Kommilaire.
The rich lady had basically confirmed Garm was hiring my Kommilaire to work with the ferals. She may have even hired 19-10 if Delovoa’s trace was accurate and Judge Naeb’s dying taunts could be believed.
I was going to have to deal with her sooner or later, but I had the opportunity to strike a blow against the Totki and my time was running out. The Militia had performed amazingly well for an entire month, but I didn’t have any delusions on how long I could hold them together. I was all too happy to grant a pardon if we could just remove this last major threat to the station.
I actually practiced with my guns for two days.
I never practiced.
Consequently I learned that I have really terrible aim. I mean, just bad. There wasn’t much I could do. Two days wasn’t long enough to become a marksman.
I couldn’t wield any hand weapons because I was too slow to use them. I was basically going to go out there and be a target when the enemy had specifically asked to fight me.
I decided to make a will.
I invited over the head judge who replaced Judge Naeb. I think he was quite relieved when he saw he wasn’t about to mysteriously commit suicide.
Normally I would have done this using gang rites and protocol. But I felt this was the next evolution in our society. Belvaille had to move forward, and that meant real laws and rules.
“Well, let’s start with the assets you have,” the judge offered, after we had been sitting for some time.
“I don’t have a lot, actually. I have this building. But that was never made official. It was just kind of known that wherever I live is mine.”
Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck Page 27