by Lee Bond
Thug Three cradled his gun, wondering if he was going to get out alive. Their boss had said the guy was an easy kill, even for an Offworld Contestant, but this was plainly wrong. “You don’t belong here.”
Thug Four nodded vigorously, trying to find a way to aim his gun so it wouldn’t kill his buddy.
Garth squinted. It was nearly impossible to believe an average group of xenophobic gangsters would have the wherewithal to put together a plan involving sniper cannons, let alone the stones to get a weapon of that caliber ever. He was about to comment on that when his proteus started pipping loudly. Cautioning the thugs not to move with a scowl, Garth tilted his forearm so he could see the screen. According to the flashing, high-def minimap, local authorities were on the way, supported by an advance team of a thousand military-issue spEyes.
Garth cursed. He kicked his hostage in the back with enough force to send him sprawling forward. Using the momentary distraction to his advantage, Garth shot thugs three and four through the eye, then strode forward and delivered a double-tap to the back of thug one’s skull.
“Awesome.” Garth muttered under his breath, absolutely disgusted. If he was going to be asked to kill four gangsters a day, he was going to pack a fucking lunch. That shit burned a lot of calories.
The prote informed him there was less than thirty seconds before the spEye-wave rolled onto the scene, so he quickly wiped his prints from the Stretch with his shirt before placing it carefully back into Thug One’s calloused hand. He wanted to take the time to root through their pockets, but couldn’t. He didn’t know the specs for a military spEye, but it was a good bet he’d have a hard time getting away from a thousand of the wee sleekit beasties. No amount of ‘friendship’ with the OverSec’d keep him alive after killing four ‘innocent local boys’.
Muttering at the lunacy of the Latelians, Garth made his way out the other end of the alleyway just in time to miss being spotted by the spEyes. He put in a call to Jimmy, asking the cabbie politely for a ride and a first aid kit. And that he break every traffic law in the Universe to get there quickly.
“Wanna keep your eye on the fucking road, Jimmy?” Garth asked from the backseat. The cab driver was plainly freaked out by the amount of blood pouring out of the bullet wounds, as well he should be; a .60 caliber gunshot was not a pinhole, it was a faucet. To his credit, though, Jimmy was doing a better job than not. The problem lay with the fact that Jimmy was inordinately skilled at jerking on the steering wheel every time the pliers were at their deepest; instead of being pulled out, that last bullet was being jabbed, and jabbed hard.
“Sorry, sorry.” Jimmy switched lanes and angled for the freeway to Central. It might not be a place Garth wanted to go, especially if he was guilty something, but there was no other stretch of road long or straight enough to turn the autopilot on.
Garth took a deep breath and wiggled the pliers back into the hole, ignoring the sight of two inches of gory metal disappearing into his arm. This was cool, everything was cool.
Gritting his teeth to keep the scream in, Garth probed until he found the bullet. Again. Gingerly gripping the bullet, Garth cast a warning glance Jimmy’s way via the rearview mirror, then yanked for all he was worth. The ‘operation’ was a success, but in the process, a ribbon of blood splattered against the front window.
“Oops.” Garth said weakly, ignoring Jimmy’s squawk of protest. He dug into the pitiful first aid kit with one hand until he found the second roll of gauze tape and began applying a skill barely learned for the second time; he hadn’t been this badly hurt during a single mission, so his First Aid skills were non-existent. Even the barbarians on the other side of the Cordon had abandoned bullet-throwers in favor of the more obliterative energy guns. “Thanks, Jimmy.”
Jimmy looked through the rearview mirror, eyes hunted. “You … you … okay?” He made a second pass on the blood spatter with his handkerchief.
“Yep.” Garth kneeled as best he could on the seat and started looking at the graze-marks left by the sniper salvo. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t good. There was no blood, but he could use some antibiotic creams or ointments or whatever people used when getting shot full of holes, just to be on the safe side.
Completing the job as best he could, Jimmy considered his handkerchief distastefully before tossing it into the back. “This is making me very uncomfortable, Garth.” The friendly Offworlder was beginning to look more and more like the sort of person who’d get along just fine with his wife’s brothers and their friends.
Garth was in no mood to hold hands. “Uhuh, well, I’m paying you very well for this, so unless you want to turn me into the cops, there’s not much I can do about it right now.”
Jimmy opened his mouth to say something nasty back, but changed his mind. If he did or said anything to ruin his relationship with Garth, two things would happen. One, the readily available mountain of cash the Offworlder had at his disposal would vanish. Two, his wife’s brothers would become very upset; he’d already set a meet up and they weren’t the sort of people who took kindly to mistakes. “What happened to you?”
“Same old, same old.” Garth quipped while he tidied himself up. The nervous tension/spooky awareness was back, haranguing his general sense of calm and well-being. He caught Jimmy’s eye. “I went to a massage parlor. When I got out, a bunch of guys took exception to me defiling the pristine honor of Latelian virgins with my evil demonic presence.”
“But … they shot you. With … with guns.”
It was a shame that Jimmy was such a nice guy, and that he fell into that tiny percentage of people young enough not to have picked up the evil mindset of the generation previous or that he’d never fallen in with the wrong crowd. “Jimmish, when you think of Offworlders, you don’t imagine them as evil, or as wanting to take what you’ve got, or destroying your way of life, do you?”
“No.” Jimmish admitted. “I figure you’re just people, like us. Some good, some bad, all needing a ride somewhere.”
Garth actually laughed at that. “Well, a lot of Latelians, people you might even know, don’t particularly like my ‘kind’. I don’t know exactly what they think about Offworlders, or of Trinityspace, but I do know this is the second time in as many days that someone’s tried to shoot me. The first time was badly coordinated and I got away unharmed. This time was a lot trickier and way more deadly. The next time they’ll prolly get me.”
“You could always go to the cops.” Jimmish offered. He flipped a signal light on and merged with an overpass lane the moment he could.
“I wish I could, pal. Believe me.” Garth snapped his fingers. “Hey! I bet I actually could now.”
“I don’t follow.” Jimmy sped through the overpass, gunned the taxi across an intersection, then angled the car onto another pass that would put them back on the route to Port.
“I’m a citizen now.” Garth waggled his proteus. “Got confirmation yesterday.”
Jimmy, who’d lived most of his life in Port and as a cab driver, knew a large number of non-Latelian citizens. He also knew that it was actually a pretty big deal for the government to grant such a request. He’d always assumed the reluctance to let immigrants in was due to overcrowding. Maybe it had more to do with prejudice than room, though. “Congratulations!”
Garth smiled. It was good news. As a citizen, he’d have more freedom to wander around and poke his nose into places Offworlders were discouraged from visiting, and any trouble he’d get into would be ameliorated seconds later by proof of citizenship. Once locals got used to seeing his ugly mug around town, the stares and the prying would hopefully stop and he could begin the process of sneaking into the Museum. Hell, even surveillance would be easier now. He could go in in broad daylight to check shit out for a nighttime, afterhours visit! “Which reminds me, I need to get back to the Hotel, and double –no- triple quick.”
“Why’s that?” Jimmy asked even as he put the cab into high gear.
“Some rule says as a Latelian citizen
I can’t stay there. Gotta find out what the fuck they’re jabbering about.”
“Hm.” Jimmy said, suddenly pensive. He drove the rest of the way in silence, glad Garth wasn’t the sort who felt the need to talk all the time. A niggling feeling warned Jimmy his Offworld friend’s sudden change in status was going to affect more than his residence. It’d take a trip home to make doubly sure. If he was right, and when it came to the Game, Jimmy was almost always right, Garth Nickels had worse problems than finding a new place to live.
Garth might not even be allowed to fight Offworlders. He might have to fight Latelians.
As tough as the man obviously was, he wouldn’t get any further than the preliminary rounds. Truthfully, Garth would be lucky to come out of the first match with his head still on his shoulders. And winning The Game? Well, that was now a dream so distant it was on another planet, because even if Garth proved to be the greatest fighter on a thousand worlds, he’d still have to contend with a God soldier for the Grand Prize.
A frightening chill washed down Jimmy’s spine, and he felt like throwing up his lunch. In order to get his brothers-in-law on-board with meeting Garth, he’d gone ahead and told them about the man’s chances of winning the Offworld portion of the Game. Always eager for more money, they’d done some digging on their own, eventually deciding Garth was worth the risk; they’d wagered a ton of money on the outcome of the preliminary bouts, and were talking non-stop about how much money they’d make once the Final Game was fought.
If Garth Nickels was bounced out of the Offworld competition and into the Latelian one, all the money his bastard brothers-in-law had put down would be gone.
A heavily non-religious man like every other person he knew, Jimmy found himself suddenly praying he was wrong. His life depended on it.
xxx
Jimmy drove cautiously up the drive to the hotel, nervously eying the undeniable police presence covering a two-block radius on all sides of the ramshackle building. Unable to ignore Garth’s recent escapade in downtown Port City, Jimmy was shocked to see his Offworld passenger showing little interest. Even more disturbing was Garth’s no longer pain-ridden face; if Jimmy hadn’t seen the blood and the bullets with his own two eyes … A chime from his proteus drew Jimmy’s wandering mind back to the present. Garth had given him thirty thousand extra credits.
“For your help today, my man.” Garth gathered together the various odds and ends he’d used from the laughable first aid kit and stuffed them into a plastic bag from a local grocery store.
Jimmy nodded in thanks, then turned to look at Garth. “I was gonna call you later tonight, but since you’re here now…”
Garth sat back down. With all the police around, he was in no hurry to go strolling through the hotel lobby carrying a bag of bloody tissues and spent rounds. “Yeah?”
“My brothers-in-law want to, uh, meet you before they decide to help you get onto the Port without being, uh, seen.” Jimmish looked to the cops again, his face pale.
Of course they did. Nobody in their right mind would commit themselves to any kind of illegal activity without first checking out the people involved. It was damn fool dangerous to trust anyone further than the first thirty seconds of a conversation, which was why Garth preferred to do things on his own whenever possible. It irked him to have to rely on the essentially ignorant Jimmy, and it was downright irritating to have to work with his brothers-in-law, who were almost certainly Portsiders. “You got any idea when this is going to go down?”
“Well, they were kind of thinking really, really late tonight. You know, when most everyone’s asleep.”
Seeing Jimmy’s heart was going to crawl out through his mouth if he didn’t get off the premises, Garth clapped the cabbie on the shoulder. “Don’t sweat it, my man. Drop me a prote-line when you get the info. If I really do need to get a new place to hang my hat, I’ll fill you in on where I am then. Sound good?” He smiled warmly when Jimmy nodded, hesitantly at first, then with more enthusiasm. He stepped out of the cab and waved so long to the man, who beat a hasty, if law-abiding retreat.
The police officers -all lanky, armed and cranky- gave Garth the fish-eye as he made his way through various cordons and knots of Offworlders hanging around filling out statements and trying their very best to behave. By the time he made it into the foyer, Garth had a solid idea of what’d gone down in his absence:
Shortly after leaving for the House of Pleasure, the final batch of Offworld contestants had rolled in. Eager to defend their own ‘turf’, the ‘old’ crew had set down some rules and regulations for the ‘new’ crew. From some of what he heard being bandied about, he gathered that the people who’d been here first had tried to give the fresh arrivals the benefits of their longer exposure to the Latelians and their hostile passive-aggressive tendencies. Words got exchanged, followed by fists, followed by an all-out, nearly thousand-man strong riot, followed again by the presence of indomitable God soldiers; miracles of miracles, the people in charge of the sortie had managed to keep almost all of the Offworlders alive. From the meek, humble expressions on the survivors, riots in the Hotel Hospitalis were a done deal.
The prolonged military action had the potential to be a blessing in disguise for Garth, who prayed that the presence of so many officials and soldiers had forced Mijomi to stay at her desk. As long as his room remained untouched, there was nothing for him to worry about.
Garth breezed by the front desk, caught sight of Robret, and swerved to collide with the doughy-faced handler. “Robret!”
Robret heard his name and looked around muzzily until he saw Garth striding towards him purposefully. He was ashamed to admit he flinched, and badly. Mijomi, who stood next to him with a gas mask wrapped around her pointy-head, spat venom at Garth’s approach and disappeared into the office. “Sa … Sa Garth.”
Garth nodded towards the police, who were still taking statements. With all the action going on, it was a foregone conclusion that Mijomi was working on sending out those illegal, moneymaking feeds. “Hardcore, eh?”
“Uhm.” Robret nodded nervously. He grabbed hold of his head and physically stopped himself from nodding any longer; according to an ERT nurse, he was in a mild state of shock and should be in a hospital. The only thing from preventing him from following those instructions was Garth’s previous suggestion he wait. He wondered if he should tell a therapist that he was more afraid of an Offworlder than a God soldier. “Y-yes.”
“You miss the dust-up at the weigh-in?” Garth asked, leaning casually on the counter. He could hear frantic typing going on in the other room. Mijomi was either verifying the video footage of the altercation or deleting it. If she was smart, it’d be doing the latter.
“I … yes.” Robret wanted to nod, but kept his hands firmly clamped on his head.
“I thought all you Latelians loved this kind of whacky shit.” Garth saw a splatter of blood on the ceiling above him and whistled. Eighty or ninety tons of God soldier galumphing around the foyer must have been like watching armor-plated elephants on two legs playing football in an elevator.
“Well … er, y-yes, but…”
Garth grinned toothily. He knew what the problem was. Things were always different when it happened up close and personal. Dress the fight up in the disguise of a national sporting event, keep people just far enough away from the main center of action and anything can look less real. It was even better if they were forced to watch the worst of the crap on gigantic video screens; the impartiality of a monitor lent itself well to distancing people from the gruesome bloodshed, even if the real deal was happening only twenty or thirty feet away. Garth was used to the grim spectacle of combat, but if he had the choice between watching a God soldier rip someone’s spine out with their teeth ten feet away or on a monitor, he’d pick TV every time. Gross displays of physical violence, while interesting in the ‘Oh my GOD, would you look at that!’ kind of way were better left to cheesy movies. “Yeah, well, talk to your government reps if this shit makes you
sick to your stomach and makes you wish you weren’t Latelian. You do what I asked?”
Robret closed his eyes. “Y-yes, I did. H-he said he would have to get back to you later today.”
“Groovy.” Garth ruffled Robret’s hair. “Now go on, you silly mixed up kid, you. Get your ass to a hospital; you look like you need counseling.”
Garth debated on barging in on Si Mijomi and demanding that she stop what she was doing, but chuckled craftily when a better idea came to mind. He waved cordially to the extremely hassled-looking ERT woman who wasn’t any more a highly trained medical professional than he was before making his way to the elevators. He prayed Sa Herrig had a better grasp on what the hell was going on than anyone else around him.
Who Wants to be a Citizen, Really?
The first thing Garth did when he walked into his room was head straight for the armchair where he’d hidden the Stretch gun, the ammo, and the credit chips. It wasn’t the most original of hiding places, but he’d been too damned paranoid to hide it anywhere cunning. He flipped the cushion off the chair let loose a huge sigh of relief. Everything was still there. Garth rescued his bounty from their upholstered hiding spot, put the cushion back in place, and sat down, eager to finally use his new toy as it hadn’t been intended.
The Protipal 5000’s government clone bore only superficial similarities to the original. It’d pass the muster with someone taking a casual gander, but beyond the faceplate and button alignment, the two had nothing in common. During his illegal foray into the hotel’s primary systems, one of the things he’d noticed almost immediately was a series of slots set around the edges of the proteus’ screen and down the side of the least flexible parts of the arm casing. The old Protipal design only called for a single slot that Turuin had irrevocably keyed to his personal credit chip. The cunning bastards in R&D had gone a step beyond commonplace espionage with the additional slots by enabling them to scan any kind of device that could fit in the multi-purpose slots. The form suggested the possibility of hardware add-ons.