At that Tiago’s blood really boiled.
He waded through the crowd, bellowing “Out of my way!” The voice of his garbage body was tremendous, hollow, echoing. The people tried to comply, scurrying away in all directions.
Tiago met the cops and stood staring down at them. Looking stunned, they stared back at him. The crowd pulled back in a big circle around the confrontation.
“Leave these people alone!” he told them.
One cop stepped forward, leveling his rifle at Tiago. “This is police business! Cai fora!”
He picked the man up and shook him until the gun flew from his hands, then set him gently down. He wavered momentarily, then collapsed to the floor.
Tiago looked around, but no one else stepped forward to challenge him.
“The ones without guns haven’t done anything but look for a good time,” he said. “Just let them go home! The bandidos … you can do what you want with them.”
A few audience members edged toward the door, reached it, sprinted into the darkness. More followed them, then more and more.
Tiago stood, hands on hips, staring down at the cops, while the crowd flowed past them. No one tried to stop them.
Soon the dance floor was mostly empty, and some of the cops were handcuffing the gang members Tiago had thrown into the dumpsters. But other cops were conferring, looking over their shoulders at him, maybe planning a concerted assault. Plainly it was time to go.
But for some reason he suddenly felt very tired.
As a matter of fact, he had to sit down right now.
He sat down harder than he’d planned, bits and fragments clattering off him as he slumped to the floor. Gently, quietly, he relaxed, his giant trash body slowly sagging into a pile of random garbage with a skinny curinga teenager lying in the middle of it.
Somewhere, something was dripping. Somewhere close.
That’s a lot of blood, he thought, and passed out.
* * *
He awoke to find himself handcuffed to the side rail of his bed.
The metal rail of the bed, in a white, sterile room that stank of antiseptics. The hand that wasn’t cuffed had tubes taped to it. It itched. There were beeping noises.
The thing that had woken him up was the sound of shouting from the hall outside. He couldn’t make out the words, but through the frosted glass of the door he could see several figures and much gesticulation.
Then the door opened, and a woman in an expensive suit came in. A pale woman, with lipstick and high heels. She had a briefcase. In the hall behind her, a uniformed cop and a doctor were both yelling at her.
“Take it up with my lawyers!” she told them, and slammed the door.
She closed her eyes, took in a breath, and released it. “So,” she said brightly, turning to him, “I’m Cristina Moraes from the Rede Globo television network. I gather you are Tiago Gonçalves?”
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital. I’m told you will recover nicely, but you lost a lot of blood. The bullet nicked one of the big veins in your leg.” She gestured to his leg, which he saw was elevated and bandaged. It itched too, now that she mentioned it. “You’ll be here for a while yet.”
So apparently one of the bullets he’d shrugged off had made it all the way through his armor of trash to the real body within. He would need to be more careful next time.
If there was a next time. The presence of cops and lawyers outside his hospital room implied that he was in a lot of trouble. “So what’s going to happen to me?”
“Well, that depends on you.” She set her briefcase on the bedside table, sprang open the catches, and brought out a sheaf of papers. “If you sign this contract, we will make all those pesky criminal charges go away, and you will be a contestant in season six of Heróis Brazil. You’ll appear on television, earn a nice little weekly stipend plus expenses, and maybe win a cash prize. But the real money is in endorsements and speaking fees. Depending on how well you do in the competition, of course.”
Tiago flipped through the contract … pages and pages of fine print. “And if I don’t sign?”
She shrugged. “Then I walk out of here, and, well, whatever happens to homeless orphan curinga boys with big legal troubles and big medical bills … happens to you.”
“I see.” He closed the contract. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”
“I’m glad you understand.” She looked at him, tapping her lower lip with one finger. “I think we’ll call you … Garbageman.”
“No,” he said, and she blinked. “I don’t just pick up garbage and take it away. I turn garbage into something useful. Call me O Reciclador.” The Recycler.
She paused, considering. “I think we can work with that,” she said. “So do we have a deal?”
“There’s just one problem.” He looked at the contract, and his eyes stung with tears. “I … I can’t read. I can’t even write my name.”
Again the pale woman blinked. “Well. We’ll have to do something about that.” She held out her hand. “In the meantime, do we have a handshake agreement?”
His right hand was the one cuffed to the bed, so he shook with his left.
About the Author
David D. Levine is the author of over fifty science fiction and fantasy stories. His story "Tk’Tk’Tk" won the Hugo Award in 2006, and he has been shortlisted for such awards as the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and Sturgeon. His stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, five Year’s Best anthologies, and his award-winning collection Space Magic. He lives in Portland, OR with his wife, Kate Yule. Arabella of Mars is his first novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Begin Reading
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by David D. Levine
Art copcyright © 2016 by John Picacio
Discards Page 4