Hammers and Nails

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  Lucia’s breathing was getting shallow, but she forced herself to calm down with long, slow breaths. “So, what do I do?”

  “You choose, Lucia.” The old man sounded broken. “You can keep things the way they are, and try to manage the changes yourself with cognitive therapy and other psychological techniques, or I can adjust them to see if we can restore a healthier emotional balance. I honestly don’t know which is the better path. You were a child when I did this to you. You had no choice, then. This time you do. You tell me what you want them to do for you and I’ll do it.” There was a long pause as the doctor searched for words, “Unless it will harm you. Then I won’t. I’m just not strong enough, Lucia.”

  “Whatever you choose,” Roland finally had something helpful to say, “I will help you. I’ve walked this road longer than anyone.”

  “Let me think about it for a bit. In the meantime, repair my boyfriend please?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Paulie took a herculean swig from his flask of vino and exhaled with a thunderous whoop. His breath was searing flame in his nostrils as his cry of elation ended in a series of hacking coughs. His crew echoed this sentiment with a raucous chorus of their own.

  “Told you limping fucks this was gonna be a good gig!” he belched to the remains of his team. The assorted crew of unkempt men and women responded with enthusiasm fed in no small part by adrenaline and ethanol.

  They had lost sixteen men in the raid, but this was acceptable considering what they now knew about the opposition. There were always more hungry young mercs looking to hook up with a crew, and Paulie was already circulating the boards with the new job openings. On one hand, they had failed to pick up Sid, which was disappointing, but she had never been more than a secondary objective. Reynard wanted the loan shark and Roland’s girl, but not badly enough to risk the primary mission over it. Paulie had made one good pass at those goals but wasn’t too dejected about not achieving them.

  On the other hand, they had massacred every Boss at the party except The Widow, and they had done it with that big fixer bastard right there, too. This was the sort of mission that made a crew like his into legends. Paulie’s team had just toppled the most powerful crime syndicate in the galaxy, after all. Even the cocky prick, Pike, couldn’t say he’d ever accomplished that. Paulie indulged in a smug private smile at the thought of finally besting Pike’s Privateers at something. The brash mercenary leader could not contain his glee, “Come on, boys!” he slammed the tabletop twice, making a crash loud enough to cut through the boisterous chattering of his team. He raised his flask and shouted an irreverent mercenaries’ toast, “Put ‘em up for slain friends, in life they fought well!”

  The crowd responded in fervent unison, “We’ll keep all their pay, ‘cause it don’t spend in hell!” Forty men and women banged their flasks, mugs, bottles and jugs against the tables as one and then erupted into boisterous cheers as they chugged their beverages with suicidal abandon. Paulie grinned like a monkey. He had a good crew, and he knew that to be a rare thing among the Galapagos mercenaries.

  They had all assembled in the lowest level of a rented office building for what amounted to a ‘debriefing’ amongst Galapagos crews after the mission. This was not the sort of group who compiled careful after-action reports and discussed intelligence gleaned and lessons learned from a mission. Mostly they drank too much and told wildly exaggerated stories about their own prowess. Horrible lies were told to each other about how many enemies they had killed, and nobody called anyone on it. Even old Torvald had been dis-mounted from his armature and his life-support pod brought into the hall for the celebration. The old codger had fairly danced with glee when they took him off the bench for this run. Few Earthside jobs called for a heavy armature like his. Getting them approved for entry and licensed was always such a massive pain that most companies avoided it. Furthermore, there was very little opportunity to use a machine of Torvald’s size in a crowded urban environment.

  A few hours’ research on Roland Tankowicz had convinced Paulie no expense was too exorbitant when it came to handling something like Tank. He walked across the room and plunked himself down on a bench next to Torvald’s pod. The plastic and metal cocoon rolled on large motorized wheels and covered everything except the old man’s head and arms. Torvald shot Paulie a lazy salute as the commander made himself comfortable.

  Paulie offered his flask, “Vino? I make it myself.” Paulie was an irreverent sort, and not prone to dispensing courtesy or respect to anyone. But Torvald was different. One did not make it to a hundred years old in this business without some serious know-how.

  The ancient mercenary shook his head, “Sorry, Commander. That stuff makes this thing,” he gave his life-support pod a sharp rap with his gnarled knuckles, “all goose-shit crazy. Anything stronger than beer and it medicates me with all sorts of shit.” He raised a pint of beer to Paulie, “Cheers and all that.”

  Paulie returned the salute and pulled from his flask. Wincing in approval, he asked the old man, “How’d it go with Tankowicz?”

  “He was all beat to shit when he got to me. Those railgun crews softened him up real good.”

  “Gods rest their doomed souls, the unlucky bastards.” Paulie winked at the older man, “but you sound disappointed!”

  “I am. Even chewed up he was fast as hell and stronger than any other light cyborg out there.” Torvald made a sour face, “I can take him. He’s still too fucking small, and he ain’t got anywhere near enough mass to punch it out with me.”

  “But he’s fast,” Paulie knew how to drag a decent debriefing out of the old cyborg.

  Torvald nodded agreement, “Very. And he wasn’t even running all that hot. Like I said, he was tore up real good.” The old man took a sip of his beer, “The hard part will be getting him to slow down or hold still so I don’t have to chase him. But once he settles down to fight, it’s pretty simple. I’ll pull him apart like string cheese.”

  “That easy?”

  Torvald didn’t rise to the bait. “Didn’t say ‘easy.’ Simple? Yes. Easy? No.”

  Paulie shrugged, “My mistake.”

  “Any chance of gettin’ my guns?”

  “Not likely. Even the Brokerage has limits, and your kind of toys even the cops here don’t use. We can find you some locally sourced hardware, but I’m gonna be honest, here. Cutting loose with the heavy shit is liable to fuck this whole operation up. We’re talking Council troopers and PD and a whole bunch of other hassle.”

  “Any railguns survive the raid?”

  Paulie shook his head. “Afraid not. We had to abandon anything like that when it came time to bug out.”

  “They cycle too slow to be much good to me, anyway.” The cyborg nodded with a knowing smile, “Guess I’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way, then.”

  “You’d know best, old man.” Paulie rang the pod with an affectionate slap. “You are definitely the expert on all things old-fashioned!”

  “Young punk!” It was a good-natured mumble into a fresh sip of beer, and he was smiling.

  Torvald’s impressions were dovetailing neatly into his own. The cyborgs’ duel had occurred before they picked up the two women, and thus Paulie suspected Torvald had not witnessed the full fury of Tankowicz. Seeing what happened when Roland got riled up had been an eye-opening experience. Reynard had hinted that messing with the Ribiero woman would set him off, but Reynard had been wrong about Roland before. Paulie wanted to see the big ape in the field with his own eyes and from his own perspective as a fighter. Endless hours of watching video of Roland in action had not done the man justice. There wasn’t a commercially available light armature strong enough to peel the roof off an APC like that, and unless his math was wrong, the giant had run from the garage to the intersection in just a few minutes. That was a lot of speed for something without wheels.

  Physically, the fixer represented a thorny problem, but Reynard had been correct in his a
ssessment of Roland’s tactics. This was not a subtle fighter, and such flaws made him beatable. Adjustments would have to be made for Mindy and the Ribiero woman, too. Mindy was a known quantity, thankfully. Paulie had rather enjoyed sparring with her, to be honest. Even when she’s trying to kill you, that little blond bimbo is sure easy to look at!

  Far less lecherous were his thoughts about Lucia. Paulie had enough reflex and kinesthetic augmentations of his own to necessitate a fairly hefty running tab with his local body shop. Maintaining his neurological health with hard-wired reflexes was a complicated and expensive process. Paulie had pushed his reflexes as far as he could without impoverishing himself or frying his brain like an egg. It was further than most, yet Lucia had been faster than him by more than just a little. If not for his armor and enhanced strength, he’d be wearing an air brace and walking on crutches for this party.

  Or possibly something worse than that, he acknowledged internally, thinking about the fates of the men who tried to subdue her in the stairwell.

  This was an unknown variable in a very complex problem, which Paulie did not have the energy to solve right at this moment. Sober and centered, it was the sort of equation he would puzzle at until he figured it out. But his cognitive faculties were currently ensconced in a solid fog of alcohol and dopamine, and drunk-happy Paulie hated algebra. The point was moot as the mercenary leader did not get the chance to ponder it.

  “Hey, Paulie!” came the boisterous cry from across the room, “Let’s get some whores up in this party!” The mercenaries howled in thunderous approval of this suggestion, and their commander was forced to admit that whores sounded like a fantastic idea right about now. He held up a hand, “All right, all right you fucking animals. Let me make some calls.”

  He staggered out into the hallway to use his comm. If the local mama-san or Madame heard the kind of party they were having in the background, he would be hard-pressed to get any decent hookers to show up. His time working for Sid had clued him into the professional companionship scene for this part of town, and he fumbled through the screens of his handheld with fingers made clumsy by industrial-strength hooch. In the process of finding his way to the directory, he noticed he had a message waiting.

  Fucking Reynard, he groused silently. He swiped past the notification because he was drunk and in the process of ordering up a crop of prostitutes for a bunch of bloodthirsty mercenaries from a lawless section of unregulated space. Paulie was a leader in the old Viking tradition. His crew loved him and followed him not because he was a compassionate and paternal leader, but because he made them rich and got them laid. When this crew wanted some tail, it was a wise commander who went ahead and made some available.

  These freaks would gut me and leave me to die if the time ever comes where I can’t get them cash or ass. The thought was not an uncharitable one nor did it bother him. He was from Galapagos, and that was simply the nature of the beast. Unlike the soft-headed corporate armies Corpus Mundi or Gateways fielded, a Galapagos crew was bonded tightly with the best glue in all of human history. Paulie snorted a drunken giggle at the thought of it.

  Mutual self-interest is a fucking magical thing.

  When Sven Paulsen had been a younger man, competing for a seat in one of “Red” Hans Dekker’s boats, the famous raider had laughed to see the young Paulie attempt to sabotage a competitor. Dekker was already an old man by then, and soon to die at the hands of the Pirate King, but he gave Paulie the best advice he had ever received that day.

  “Never fuck over the other guy to put yourself ahead, dipshit. If you really want to get ahead, convince him that you can get him ahead. Then do it. Men will follow you into hell itself if they think you will make them rich for the trip.”

  Paulie served with Dekker until the battle of March Hare. Only himself and a few squads survived that disaster, and he escaped the carnage in a small troop ship. Since then he had been building a crew of his own to rival his old mentor’s. Even Paulie wasn’t sure if his lofty ambitions were a testament to his old commander or simply to spite the mean old monster. He was not a very evolved thinker when it came to his own emotions and motivations, and while intelligent enough to acknowledge it, he did not consider this a deficiency meriting any effort to correct. He saw little profit in nostalgia or sentiment, and the sudden turn his thoughts had taken surprised him. Christ, I’m turning into an old man. Getting misty-eyed over a bastard like Dekker when I should be ordering some ass for the crew.

  But now that his mind had turned away from the thought of pleasure as only dedicated professionals could administer it, he swiped back and pulled up Reynard’s message.

  It was short, and vaguely complimentary: “Good work tonight, too bad you couldn’t get the women.”

  Text was a dry medium, but Paulie could hear the admonishment in Reynard’s voice as he read it. With a drunkard’s scowl he scrawled his reply and sent it back.

  “Fuck you. You fight him next time.” Paulie’s brow furrowed with irritation at the thought of a fat administrator like Reynard telling him how to run a combat op. Working Earthside always left a bad taste in his mouth. The hierarchies, the oversight, the soft condescension of weak-kneed middle managers were foreign concepts to men and women forged in the anarchy of the frontier systems. They just did not have these kinds of issues on Galapagos boat crews. Paulie’s team was a strict meritocracy; everybody fought, everybody worked. The commander was expected to take a turn at every duty, same as the crew. Nobody ever knew how many troops would return from a raid, so everyone learned to pull the oars. No one could be essential because they were all expendable, and Reynard’s message betrayed just how clueless the man was when it came to field work. People like that got ejected from airlocks where he was from, often for offenses less severe than this.

  “Fuck that prick,” he slurred, too much vino finally outrunning his natural tolerance. He swiped back to his directory with a sneer and dialed the local whorehouse.

  Reynard was in his command center when the message arrived. This was unsurprising since he spent nearly all his time in the command center. His past failures and their consequences had educated him on how much a of a distraction the luxury of his former life had been. He viewed the message with a soft, sardonic smile. Paulie’s irritation and belligerence were expected, and Reynard was fine with both. He had offered the man advice on how to handle Roland, and for the most part the mercenary had taken it. His intelligence assets had already relayed the relevant details to his screen, and he was generally satisfied with the results. They had bloodied Roland’s nose tonight, which was something that did not happen often. More important than that small happiness, the raiders had massacred Combine leadership entirely. The night was a sterling success overall, and Reynard allowed himself to take much of the credit for this.

  But it would be a lie to say he was satisfied. A thought filled with irritation bordering upon petulance invaded his otherwise happy mood.

  Securing Lucia Ribiero would have virtually guaranteed the success of the larger plan, and this Sid woman knows far too much to be left out in the open.

  Reynard knew all about loose ends, and he had taken the harsh lessons of his past to heart. Both women created complications requiring careful management. It added uncertainty to a game already fraught with risk. Grabbing them should have been a higher priority to the barbarian from Galapagos, but on this point his advice had gone unheeded. The old Reynard, the man who had once been Leland Fox, would have been furious at this. The new man, who his cell mates had called “la renard,” had learned to work with a person’s personality and proclivities rather than try to direct or subvert them. Paulie would be more effective and more reliable if he thought he was a partner and working under his own direction. Reynard simply built the man’s foibles into his plans and accounted for them within his contingencies.

  I spent too many years building machines that act like men, he mused, I need to remember men will always do as they wish, and it is my job to make them w
ish to do what serves my purposes.

  Sending that message to Paulie had been a deliberate attempt to antagonize. Reynard had the man pegged, and it was easy to see Paulie was motivated by spite. The next time he had the opportunity, Reynard was sure he would go after the objective far more forcefully. If only to demonstrate his superiority as a field commander, which was conceit Paulie was very invested in.

  Fucking barbarians, Reynard thought to himself. Then he sighed, stood up from his workstation, and headed up to bed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  News feeds across the entire planet were squawking like startled grackles as they tried to piece together the greater story of the battle at Belham Tower. Most were leading with a terrorism angle, which was a testament to the Widow’s disinformation engines. Generally speaking, the Uptown citizenry bought the story, but if any one of those lily-white, clean-shaven, well-dressed holovid reporters had bothered to ask the folks living in the lower districts about it, they might have heard a more accurate version of events.

  But no one smart enough to make it Uptown was dumb enough to ever go to Dockside for anything other than entertainment of an illicit nature. So, the terrorism story led, and nobody who mattered bought it. Lucia watched the various infonet aggregators spin their fanciful tales over breakfast at Roland’s apartment. Roland’s own informants, mostly low-level street hustlers trying to curry favor with the big man or to sell information they thought worth hard creds, were equally busy running down every rumor and unsubstantiated bit of scuttlebutt available to the darkest denizens of the New Boston underworld. The information they brought back was not of a nature that bode well for the stability of the local economy. Only Wade Manson and the Widow had survived the party, and even the most obtuse mugger plying his trade in Dockside knew what that meant.