She’s not hard on the eyes, so what the hell.
She had long black hair that draped over the snug stacks of her V-neck. She showed, but she didn’t show too much.
She was the kind of broad you wouldn’t mind being seen out dancing with or at a Holo-flick, a real arm piece. That’s if she was the real deal she claimed to be.
Johnny vaguely remembered seeing her face in those glamour ads hung up around town, or somewhere else, maybe. She seemed familiar enough, almost too familiar. Hell, with a pretty face like hers, she didn’t look like trouble, but what did trouble look like these days anyway? With a couple of drinks in you, sometimes trouble could look pretty damn good. Needs were needs, circuitry or not.
“What’s this planet coming to?” Rangers muttered, bringing his narrowed eyes up to meet hers. “First inter-species marriages and now dames like you are buying goons like me drinks? Ain’t that a scream.”
“Well, call me a forward thinker and a good listener. What are you having?” she asked when the waiter appeared.
“What makes you think I want to talk?” Rangers answered, then to the waiter, “Hydro on the rocks, make it a double. Make it quick.”
“Sure, whatever you want.” The worm nodded and snuck a peek down the lady’s blouse. “And you, miss?”
“I’ll have the same. Thank you,” she answered, and the waiter took off with their order. “Everybody needs to talk about something to someone sometimes, detective…even you. And maybe even me.”
“You must be new in town. The creeps around here clam up unless there’s something to brag about,” said Rangers, with a groan. “If you take a look around ya, there ain’t much to brag about.”
“I’m not here to brag, Mr. Rangers. If you will indulge me, I only need a minute of your time,” she said, pulling a smoke from her cigarette case. Rangers noticed the way her hand trembled when she placed the cigarette between her lips.
“How do you know my name?”
She smiled. “I saw you on the Gravity City Report the other night. You’re hard to miss.”
Yeah, that’s what I am, an easy target. It didn’t help that Wally Bright kept running those ridiculous pieces on him in the news. Bright had even called him a vigilante, the jerk. He wouldn’t know what justice was even if it backed over him with a car. So what if he’d run over that perp with justice at least three times the other night?
He had it comin’. Who the hell’s Wally Bright to judge me? If he ever got his hands on that damn reporter, he’d make him eat his words, too.
“Call me Rangers,” he said, lighting her cigarette for her and one for himself. “After all, you just bought me a drink.”
“Well then, Rangers. Do you see the three men sitting at the bar behind me?” A wisp of pink smoke lazily trailed off her lips.
Rangers nodded. He’d already spotted Big Otis and his lackeys when they first sat their hides at the bar to watch the game, but not the girl.
He figured the goons were there for him and looking for a little payback for the last time he knocked their heads together. He was just waiting for them to make their move. Rangers had put those screwballs away more times than he could count.
“They followed me in here,” she said. The corner of her eyes suddenly crinkled with fear. “And I figured if they saw me with you, they’d…they’d lay off.”
“You’re gonna have to pay me a lot more than a drink for protection, lady,” Rangers scoffed. Suddenly, trouble was starting to look like trouble.
“I don’t want your protection, Mr. Rangers. I just need them to get the hint and leave me alone. I’ll pay you for your time, if you like,” she said, reaching into her purse.
“Save your bread, lady.” Rangers’ hand shot out across the table and slid her purse away from her; it was more of a precaution than a gentleman’s gesture. You never knew who was packing steel these days, and Johnny wasn’t taking any chances—dame or no dame. Yet nothing crawled up Rangers’ ass more than a bunch of goons harassing a pretty girl like… “What’s your name, doll?”
“Gosh, I’m so sorry,” she said, blushing. “Roxy. You can call me Roxy.”
Nothing crawled up Rangers’ ass more than a bunch of goons harassing a pretty girl like Roxy. And the tears, he hated seeing a pretty girl like Roxy cry.
“Got any idea why they’re tailing you, Roxy?” he asked, keeping his sights on Otis and the boys. They’d been throwing hard glances in Rangers’ direction the whole time.
“No, but I first noticed them this morning on Stardust Street, just outside my apartment. They’ve been following me ever since,” she answered.
Stardust Street, huh? Pretty ritzy. Miss Roxy was in the money if she could afford to live on one of the wealthiest showbiz streets in Gravity City. The question was, what was she doing here in this dump?
“I tell you what,” Rangers said. “I’ll go have a little talk with your friends, on one condition—the next round’s on me, and you let me drive you home tonight.”
“Thank you, Rangers,” she nodded, and then curled her fingers firmly around his wrist. “Thank you, you’re a saint.”
If you say so. What was it about this dame that made his knees feel like putty?
“Don’t go anywhere.” He stamped his cigarette into the ashtray and then headed over to the crew.
He tapped on Big Otis’s shoulder first; Otis half-turned and snarled. “Yeah, waddaya want, Rangers?”
“I’m putting you on notice, you heap o’ trash. The lady sitting over there is with me, so hit the shits,” Rangers answered.
“Get bent, scum. We’re just keeping an eye on the bupanta for the boss,” Big Otis grumbled.
“Yeah, blow off, pig.” Joe Simple, the scrawny wretch seated in the middle, cackled. The third, even scrawnier wretch, Sam Slick, cackled along with him.
“Still runnin’ errands for Jets, huh?”
All three goons turned on their stools and showed Rangers they were carrying pieces on their belts. “Yeah, and what of it?” Otis answered.
“Well, the good news is that I’m going to need one of ya’s alive to deliver a message to your boss for me. The bad news is, two of ya’s not gonna make it out of here tonight.” Rangers rolled up his sleeves and balled his fists.
“Dang it, Rangers, don’t go bustin’ up the joint again!” Blugo ducked and hid behind the bar. A chorus of barstools toppled over as customers scattered out the front door, except for the bum at the end who was too hammered to notice if the ceiling fell in on his head.
“Don’t worry, Blugo. I’m not even going to break a sweat disposing these waste buckets.”
“Is that so?” Otis laughed.
“That’s so.” Rangers nodded. “So, which two of you are feeling unlucky tonight?”
“After you,” Otis answered, gesturing to the back door.
Rangers shot Roxy a wink and went to it. “Watch my hat, will ya, Blug?”
The alleyway behind Blugo’s Bar was a clogged artery congested with graffiti, trash, bums, and a grody band of junkies hidden away in the shadows. Rain had started to fall, waking the deadly stench of the alley and slicking the ground with the sludge from the garbage and the gutters.
Yeah, it’s going to be one of those nights.
As cold rivulets ran down over his face, Rangers remembered it was always scheduled to rain in Gravity City on Saturdays. “Okay, maggots. I’m giving you one last chance to walk away while you still have use of your legs. What’s it gonna be?”
“Hmm, let me think about that…” Big Otis answered with a lunge and a haymaker. Rangers sidestepped, whirled around, and cracked Otis in the back of the skull with his elbow so hard his front teeth hit the ground before his face did.
When Joe Simple thought he had the jump on Rangers, he caught a face full of Rangers’ fist, flew back into a brick wall, and crash-landed in the garbage.
Rangers grinned. “Just you and me now, Slick.”
“Drop dead, Rangers!” Slick spat back.
> “And what, look like you?” Rangers pulled the Buster from the inside of his trench coat and aimed it at Slick’s head. “This Buster could pop your top with a single round and make a real mess of things. And by the look of it, this alley could use a new paint job. So waddaya say?”
“Don’t shoot, please!” Slick cried and threw his hands up at his face. “Tony Beepers only hired us to watch the girl. Honest, I swear!”
“Tony Beepers? What’s he want with the girl?”
“I don’t know!”
Rangers saddled the Buster back inside his coat and gave Sam Slick another careful once-over. Surprisingly, he was telling the truth.
“All right,” Rangers said, kicking Big Otis’s teeth over to Slick. “Take those back to Tony Beepers and tell him if I ever see him or any of his goons following the dame again, I’ll use that nice chrome head of his as a hood ornament. Now split.”
Slick bolted down the alleyway.
“Whoa,” Rangers heard a voice coming from behind him. He turned and saw a kid staring back at him from underneath the brim of a dirty, oversized newsboy cap.
“You’re…you’re…Johnny Rangers!”
“So they tell me.”
“How’d ya do that? You creamed them real good, huh, Rangers?” The boy excitedly reenacted Rangers’ punches in the air. Boom! Pow!
Rangers took a look around him. The goons were going to nap ’til morning. “What, ya’ writin’ a book or somethin’?” he asked. “Why ya out so late, anyway?”
The kid shrugged and gave no answer.
“Scram, get home. This ain’t no place for a kid.”
The boy frowned, turned on his heels, and headed for the nearest stack of cardboard boxes, a condominium for the derelicts, and then crawled up inside one the paper-thin enclosures.
The rain really lashed in hard then; a streak of lightning struck and slashed across the skies.
Aww, hell. Rangers thought, and thought some more until his dreaded conscience really started to nag at him. Hey, kid, he wanted to say. No. Leave it be. It is what it is. He headed back into Blugo’s to find that Roxy had taken off like everyone else, except for Blugo and the bum at the bend of the bar with puke in his lap. “Where’d she go?”
Blugo had already closed up shop and started wiping the countertops down. “I dunno, Rangers. The broad took off like her heels was on fire.”
Maybe she thought Rangers was going to get clobbered and high-tailed it out of there. Some faith.
“She didn’t leave any digits?”
“Naw.”
“Figures. A’right, night, Blug.”
“Get home safe, Rangers.”
Rangers collected his hat and then threw a couple of bucks down on the bar before doubling back to the alleyway.
Shadows scurried for cover from the downpour. He pulled his collar up against the rain and stepped out into it. “Hey, kid. Kid!” he called out at the cardboard ensemble until a large hat poked out.
“Hey, kid, ya hungry?”
The hat bobbed up and down.
“Well, crawl on outta there, then. Let’s go grab some grub.”
The kid shimmied out of the wall of wet boxes and followed Rangers out of the alley, splashing puddles along the way.
“What’s your name, squirt?” Rangers asked.
“Dirt,” the orphan answered. “My friends call me Dirt.”
“All right, don’t get cute, huh? Let’s get out of here before we catch our deaths from this rain.”
III
“How come your car don’t fly, Rangers?” Dirt asked, toggling the car stereo between stations. He was tiny underneath his oversized cap, and his feet hardly reached the floor. Rangers smacked the kid’s hand away from the dashboard and kept his eyes on the road, radio on, not much in the mood for small talk.
“Cuz it just don’t,” Rangers answered.
“Why not?”
“Cuz flyin’s for fairies. Now quit rattlin’ in my ear.”
Rangers preferred life on the road under the el. There was less traffic down there, ever since the city started handing out Skyway licenses to any shmuck off the street after that so-called automobile renaissance disaster back in 2098.
“I’m gonna fly one day!” Dirt exploded, weaving his hand through the air.
“Don’t do us any favors, kid. There are already enough idiots flyin’ the Skyway these days with their new shiny, flying heaps.”
Lay off the kid, will ya, Rangers? It’s not the kid’s fault the dame bailed.
“All right. See up there in the city’s new Skyway development, past the smog?” Rangers pointed toward Uptown at the ominous and jagged skyline, visible between the elevated train tracks. There were skyscrapers, spires, free-floating pavilions, and metallic formations, each one interconnected with another and as high as a hundred stories, maybe taller. Any taller and they’d be a hop, skip, and a jump away from the moon. Rangers heard through the grapevine that the developers couldn’t get the permits to go any higher. The balls on them.
Dirt gazed in reverie through the rain-riddled windshield. He’d never seen any of the city outside the edge of Downtown or City Limits. And beyond City Limits, all there was to see was infinite obscurity and the occasional speckle of stars that flashed on and off like light bulbs.
“That’s called the new Xanadu Skyways,” Rangers grumbled unhappily. “That’s where all the dicks and the richest of the rich live, kid. The higher up you go, the more loaded they are. One day those nosebleeds are going to all come toppling down and the bottom feeders are going to eat the rich bastards up alive.” It was just a thought.
A man can dream, can’t he?
Those thoughts led Rangers right back to Roxy of Stardust Street, her black flowing hair, her red shimmering lips, and the way she’d looked at him with those sweet eyes. She was a bright young thing.
He flexed his hand tight around the steering wheel, stretching the soreness out of it, pain from knocking those goons around in the alley for her, and focused on the road.
She took me for a ride and didn’t even say goodbye. I was fine before she walked into my life and ruined a perfectly good game.
Why? Didn’t matter now. If Rangers got anything out of it, it was sending the messenger boy back to Tony Beepers with Big Otis’s teeth. Then maybe Dickey Jets would get the message and do something about it, if he had the guts. And what the hell did Beepers want with Roxy anyway?
“What’s your real name, kid?” Rangers asked, suddenly wanting to get away from the thought of Roxy. “Dirt’s a stupid name for a kid. Anyone tell ya that? It’s no name for a kid.”
Dirt gave it a thought for a moment, his eyes going this way and that way, still drinking in the sight of the behemoth skyscrapers and trails of vehicles criss-crossing and dotting the skies high above the smog.
“My friends in the alley call me Dirt.”
“No. I mean what did your parents call you?”
“I don’t remember my central units. I just woke up one day in the alley and just was.”
Just was? Rangers hit the brakes hard, threw the car into park, and yanked Dirt toward him. He yanked the hat from the kid’s head then pulled him forward, then back, and gave him a little shake while examining him for good measure. “Oh, hell!” Rangers scowled. The kid was a damn droid, a defect, at that. A throwaway. He could see it in his eyes. The left one lazily drifted around in its socket until it centered itself again, and then there was a collection of brain fluid caked up in his ears. He wasn’t right, not calibrated properly, and most likely junked for it.
Not my problem.
Get out! Rangers heard himself shout from inside, itching to throw the passenger door open and shove the kid out of the car, but he didn’t. Instead, he just grimaced at Dirt for a moment and thought of how filthy he was, and how little and abandoned he must’ve felt, even if he was a droid.
These things are autonomous, they feel now, Rangers remembered, which was obvious with how Dirt looked back at him wit
h his big, round, frightened eyes. It wasn’t the kid’s fault, after all. And no, he wasn’t going to grow up one day, be a real boy, or fly, for that matter. He was going to be a runt for good, maybe with a limited shelf life. Rangers wasn’t going to tell him that, though. He finally softened his scruffy scowl and said, “I hope you like sandwiches.”
IV
Nebulas Diner was a slapdash sandwich joint in Mid-City. The food was cheap enough, but the drinks weren’t worth a damn. Luckily, the game was still on, and playing on the monitors hanging up everywhere in the place like some spectacle in Space Square.
It was a tied score with tensions dangerously rising in the arena, ready to go nuclear. It could go either way in the finals with one more game to go in the series. Luckily, the Mid-City trade was a little more civilized than the Downtown crowd was in that they didn’t beat the crap out of each other.
Rangers tore another bite out of his extra-deep-fried WumpMug sandwich and crunched away. He washed it down with some SKUD soda. “So, waddaya think?” Rangers asked Dirt.
Dirt peeked out from behind his sandwich. It was half the size of his head, and he’d dug into it good, using both his hands. Rivers of gravy ran down between his little fingers as if he was choking the life out of it. “It’s okay.” Then Dirt belted back at Rangers with a belch and laughed. He hadn’t had a meal since the one he’d dug out of the garbage that morning.
“Just okay? These are the best sandwiches on this side of town. Ain’t that right, Arnie?” Rangers hollered across the diner.
“Tha’s right!” Old Arnie saluted back with his greasy spatula from behind the grill.
“The soda kinda tastes like alley barf, though.” Dirt swigged from his cup and then swished it around before swallowing.
Rangers couldn’t agree more. “So you really don’t remember where you came from, huh? How long have you been living in the alley?”
“Nuh-uh,” Dirt mumbled as he chewed. “I woke up in the alley a few weeks ago and Sticky Pete and the guys called me Dirt. That’s my name. My name is Dirt. I’m good at fixing things, and one day I’m going to build my own rocket—”
The Cyborg Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) Page 11