Trouble Mathers smoked a cigarette in the alley, and listened to the rapidly diminishing gunfire outside what had almost been his new apartment.
It would only have been new in the subjective sense, as in “Trouble Mathers was just about to begin living there,“ rather than new in the objective sense of “this apartment building was built within recent memory.”
Its barf-grey surface was not improved by the presence of what appeared to be two sets of gangerpunks in shabby colors attempting to kill one another – over some issue possibly worth their lives to them, but not worth a pack of cigarettes to any sensible person. Hell… for all Trouble knew, they were fighting over a pack of cigarettes.
As the noise died away, Trouble risked a peek out of the alley, and saw that one of the combatants still staggered woodenly about, bloody and disheveled. Within moments, two ground vehicles, emblazoned with the logo of the FourStar security enforcement company, roared up the street from either end, and screeched to a halt to either side of the staggering figure.
The man immediately raised his hands into the air, dropping his gun from bloodied fingers.
Before the firearm hit the pavement, the FourStars dropped him with a hail of flechettes from the spin turrets atop their armored vehicles.
Bloody shreds hit the pavement in front of the building in a roughly v-shaped pattern. The point of the “V” began a few feet behind a twitching lower body that hadn’t yet registered the absence of its upper directive portion.
A loudspeaker blared, “Drop your weapon and do not resist, or we will use deadly force per our legally binding contract with the owners of the property you are currently in illegal trespass upon.”
The twitching legs finally fell to the ground with a wet splat.
The loudspeaker voice continued. “As you have elected to maintain control of your weapon, we are now authorized to exert lethal force, and will commence firing.”
Trouble picked the stub of the cigarette from his black lipped muzzle and tossed it into a nearby puddle with a clawed hand. Slinging his heavy grey duffle over his shoulder, he retreated backwards down the alley even as the armored FourStars finally emerged from their vehicles and began pumping single bullets into the heads of the other fallen combatants. Only one body twitched as they did so.
Right before reaching the other end of the alley, even over the faint ringing in his triangular, furry ears, Trouble picked up the subtle sounds of rapid breathing and fabric scraping lightly against the stucco of the buildings to either side.
To his genengineered senses, the smell of rank human sweat was easy to pick out even among the smells of rotting garbage, rats, and sour vomit. Layered within the smell was fear, aggression, excitement - two males, barely past adolescence, their sweat acrid from sort of stimulant.
Trouble suppressed a sigh. Half an hour off the bus from ChromaCorp’s penal facility, and he’d already discovered that he didn’t like the new apartment. Now he was about to take a strong dislike to the new neighbors.
There was no smell of gun oil, cordite, or the more modern chemical firing-chamber mixes. The chances of anyone in this neighborhood having access to a more modern and expensive weapon were minimal. So most likely, they were waiting with knives, clubs, or perhaps their bare hands.
Trouble didn’t even break his stride.
As he exited the alley, he grabbed the first hand to reach for him, and twisted in place, shoving the man into his companion. He dropped the duffle, and before it hit the ground, he’d twisted away the knife from the first assailant, and tossed it over his shoulder as the two dropped in a cursing tangle of arms and legs.
He didn’t wait for them to extricate themselves, but rammed his knee into the temple of the first mugger, smacking the man’s head backwards into the chin of his accomplice.
It was the work of a few seconds to twist the knife out of the flailing hand of the other ‘banger, before smashing both their heads into the building hard enough to crack the aging stucco - and probably their skulls.
Two more grubbily clad youths, standing by a nearby lamppost, decided that it was a lovely day for a walk – or a fast trot – elsewhere. They jogged off, looking warily over their shoulders.
The only other visible witness was an older man crouched inside a window across the street, who shouted “Gim smore hell! Gim smore!”
Trouble bent down and rifled through the filthy pockets of his would-be-assailant’s clothes. Neither wore a shirt or looked over twenty-one. Both were covered with clumsily-inked glowtoos proclaiming their allegiance to something called “Las Diabollos Vincentes.” The Spanish wasn’t even good. And these guys looked like white trash.
Well, “Unconquerable devils, meet the Wolfman.” He muttered, as he lifted a crumpled pack of cheap smokes from the pocket of one. There was a small roll of dirty scrip – nearly useless these days – a plastic bag full of cheap jewelry, and a grubby disposable netphone made of cardboard, whose blinking display announced that it contained two point seven minutes of talk time.
Trouble dropped all of these items, except the cigarettes, on top of the two thugs. The pack contained three still-usable smokes and a wad of half-chewed stimgum. Trouble stuck the gum across the bridge of one of his assailant’s noses and pocketed the smokes.
He retrieved the two knives, pleased to discover that one of them was a decent quality, wicked-looking hunting knife. The other looked like it cost less than a bus ticket. He collected the knife sheaths from the two fallen men, belting the good one around his waist, and stowing the other in his duffel.
Mathers took a few moments to relieve the two still-unconscious thugs of their shoes, which he tossed onto the roof of a nearby building, out of plain meanness. A lack of shoes in this neighborhood would be like walking on a cheese grater.
He turned his long muzzle to the sky just in time for the first drop of greasy Seattle rain to strike his upturned black nose. He pulled the collar of his faded grey trench up over the ruff of fur at his neck, tossed the duffel up over his shoulder again, and began to look for a bus stop.
--
“Hey! Dog boy! There a toll to use this bus stop. You gots to pay the toll!”
He’d walked at least ten blocks before he found a bus stop. The neighborhood was only barely good enough to have public transportation at all.
The young ‘banger who addressed him sported more acne scars on his coffee-colored skin than glowtoos, and reeked of synthroid abuse. The bulging muscles the youth sported undoubtedly came at the cost of sterility and early death from heart disease – although sterility was probably a benefit to society, Trouble thought, and the likelihood the young man would live long enough to have a heart attack was minimal.
“I said there’s a toll you motherfucker, gene-joke, stink-ass piece of hairy shit. You fucking deaf, dog boy? Those ears just for show?” Now the guy was waving his arms around, twitchily.
This time, Trouble sighed audibly.
“A toll, huh?” he replied. “Well, damn. That’s a surprise. Nice of you to let me know.”
“Fuck you. Gimmiecash. GimmieCRED!”
Trouble dropped into a crouch, grabbed behind him, and yanked the second banger - who discovered the hard way that his approach hadn’t been stealthy enough - over his shoulders and into the loud one. As they lurched to their feet, Trouble wrinkled back his muzzle, exposing curved, inch-long canines.
Through his low growling, he spat out at them. “Toll’s closed. Fuck off.”
Roid-boy didn’t have the sense to accept this turn of events, and Trouble ended up dislocating one of his arms at both elbow and shoulder – before stuffing him into a nearby dumpster.
The other tough decided to seek greener pastures early on in that process, but Trouble decided he didn’t want any more of what he was named after. After disposing of his most recent assailant, he trudged off to look for another bus stop in case the remaining ‘banger was off to get reinforcements.
Another ten-block walk, and he arrived at a bus stop just in time to see one approaching. He flagged it, but as soon as the driver got a look at the nearly seven-foot tall, wolf-headed, would-be passenger, he scowled, flicked the “Vehicle Full” sign on and sped past.
It took a half hour for another of the scraggly, sour-smelling, ethernol-powered buses to stop. During that time, Trouble gave away two cigarettes and half a protein bar to a panhandler so dirty and decrepit-looking that his age and ancestry were visually indecipherable. He smelled old.
This bus didn’t even have a driver – it was remotely operated or ran off an AI. Probably the only reason the damn thing stopped, he thought.
During the ride, a middle-aged Asian woman sat down across the aisle from him and asked him if he’d been saved. Without waiting for a reply, she began giving detailed instructions about how to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Mathers considered letting her know that not only had he personally helped many people enter the afterlife of their choice, but he’d already been up into the heavens himself – as an inmate at one of ChromaCorps’ penal colonies. He decided that neither of these things were much to be proud of, and would probably only encourage the woman to be even more convinced of the need for her particular flavor of religion in people’s lives.
When another passenger, a fat, sweaty, middle-aged man in a cheap suit, with green-tinged hair began to loudly argue with her that only humans had souls to be saved, it was a relief. The two of them continued their argument without any input or attention required from Trouble, so he ignored them completely.
He took advantage of the bus ride to check his credit account. His time on the asteroid-belt penal colony, with it’s attendant mining operation, carried the slight perk of enough credits to obtain a shitty apartment in the worst pest-hole part of Seattle – or to purchase a firearm and maybe some second-rate body armor.
The decision was easy, if reactionary.
It took the better part of the morning to track down an appropriate purveyor of such items, and to establish that at least some of his old contacts still remembered him – or were still around to remember.
The outdated flak jacket was enough to handle small arms fire – at least from the cheap handguns he was likely to encounter – and was large enough to fit his unusual body shape without much alteration. It would also stop or slow down a knife, and since he’d encountered more than anyone’s fair share of those on his first day of freedom, he considered that a good selling point.
The decision whether to purchase the small pistol shotgun or a more traditional large-caliber handgun was more difficult. The deciding factor was that more people seemed to be wearing handguns openly, and that on consideration, and he didn’t wish to go for the “about to rob a liquor store” look. Besides, he thought – anyone within the effective range of the shotgun he’d probably be able to deal with by hand.
Somehow, he felt safer carrying a weapon, though a part of him couldn’t help knowing that it was mostly a psychological crutch. He was entitled to a few neuroses.
Now that the purchase had been safely made, though, Trouble began to regret his decision. Now he had a weapon, but no place to live. He had a gun, and about fifty creds to his name – a name attached to an identity that wasn’t real enough to stand up to any sort of serious scrutiny. That hadn’t mattered when he was shuffled off to the penal colony. The only thing that ChromaCorp cared about was that he’d been captured during an illegal operation on their property, and that a big, strong genejoke like him could be made to pay off the insult of breaking and entering their facility with back-breaking labor on a penal mining colony millions of miles from home.
He felt confident that he could get back into the only game he knew, the only one he was really equipped for, and that would eventually mean a place to lie down where he didn’t have to break an arm or risk random bullet holes just to get to the door.
But until he could get in touch with the right people, get a contract for work – most likely violent, ugly work, he had nowhere to get out of the rain. Seattle had been famous for its rain for hundreds of years.
He knew only one person who wasn’t a complete criminal. He hoped that Tilo remembered him well enough to let a genejoke, humanoid wolf who’d just gotten out of prison sleep on his couch.
Of course, Tilo’s genes were a joke with quite a punchline too, and he wasn’t precisely a stranger to the criminal element. It was worth a try, at least, before giving up and sleeping outside.
--
It took five buses and some walking, but Trouble found his way back to the old neighborhood. The place wasn’t any Pleasantville, objectively, but after the neighborhood he’d just left, it looked almost Utopian.
The buildings were pretty tightly packed – various businesses, cheesoid storefronts, and a few dirty repair ships with mid-rent apartments over them. There were even a few streets with small houses. Although nearly every building that didn’t stop at the sidewalk had walls, and sported graffiti, the area was merely poor, not destitute.
It was almost like civilization.
The few people he passed gave him odd looks, but nobody actually called him anything, though one older lady crossed herself as he walked past, muttering, probably thinking he was out of earshot – or not caring.
“Éste con la cara de un lobo. ¿Madre del dios, por qué hacen estos monstruos?”
Something about God, and him being a freak, and why are there freaks like that. Trouble never really picked up languages all that well. Not that anyone ever really said anything new in any of the ones he didn’t know.
He didn’t know which was more annoying – the ones who hated him because they thought he’d been a human who had his body altered, or the ones who hated him because they assumed – correctly – that he was born this way.
He decided to reserve his major emotional reactions for the ones who tried to kill him or put him in a cage, rather than the ones that just talked shit.
Mathers found the mechanic shop, with it’s little attached apartment, looking pretty much the same as the last time he’d seen it five years earlier. The sign looked a little more faded, but it still said “Tilo’s Repair. I fix anything.” Underneath it, someone had scrawled with a marker “Fore armz are bettar then wun.”
That probably wasn’t an addition by Tilo himself. Tilo could spell.
It was getting on toward evening. The front looked closed, but there was a light on in back, and Trouble could hear movement, some kind of machinery or tools, and a vid unit.
Trouble lit a cigarette, and smoked it while he thought about what he was about to do. He didn’t know what he’d say to the man. He tried to convince himself that he was just trying to decide how to ask a favor from someone he barely knew, but failed. There was no earthly reason, he thought, that he should be standing out there, trying to work up the courage to ask someone to give him a place to sleep for a bit. He’d be no worse off with a “no” than he was at this moment, right?
Here he was, a genetic chimera engineered and trained for brutal warfare – a veteran of illegal mercenary ops and recent resident of a penal colony filled with people who made him look like an altarboy, and he was afraid of how it would feel if he asked “Can I sleep here,” and someone he barely knew told him “No. Piss off.”
Trouble knew what to do if someone tried to kill you. You killed them back. But he didn’t know how he’d take it if he asked someone for help, who had no reason to give a ratshit about him, and they just said no.
When he’d originally come up with the idea, he thought he was prepared. He’d just say “Hey, remember me? Can I crash here for a bit? I won’t be any trouble, and I’ll get out of your way as soon as I can.” And when the answer was no, he’d just sleep in the street, or a magtrain station or something for a few days.
He wasn’t afraid of sleeping in the street.
He was afraid he’d ask for help – come begging for it, and get “no” for an answer after he’d swallowed his pride and asked.
But he’d just taken five buses to get here, and there was his destination twenty feet away, and he’d feel like an asshole if he didn’t at least give it a try.
He was pretty sure he knew what to expect. He’ll look out his door, and see a damp genejoke, that he knows is a muscleboy for less-than-pleasant employers, carrying all his worldly belongings in a duffel bag from a penal colony.
The best he could reasonably expect is an uncomfortable shuffling of feet, and a “Sorry bro, I’d love to help you, but get the fuck lost.”
He finished the cigarette, tried to put his most innocent and unthreatening look onto his grey, wolflike muzzle, and rapped on the door with one furred, clawed hand.
There was no answer at first, so he banged again. He heard a familiar voice call out, “What? Who is it?”
He rapped again, not as hard, and heard a chair scrape along the floor, followed by approaching footsteps.
A barely-human face showed itself through the nearly opaque grime on the door-window. Trouble tried his best to duplicate a recognizably easy-going smile. It was hard – his instincts for body language and facial expression weren’t based on human expressions. Little things like eye contact and showing teeth meant different things to the people around him than they meant to his hindbrain.
The door opened a moment later, revealing Tilo. The other genejoke stood there, one eyebrow on his semi-human face raised in surprise and appraisal. One hand held the edge of the door, one came to rest against the frame, and the other two burly arms slowly came up to rest on narrow hips. Tilo leaned back a little on his broad, muscular tail, and just said, “Huh. Ain’t seen you in a while.”
Trouble lowered his muzzle a bit, and looked out over it at the man. “Hey. So, I guess you remember me?”
“Yeah. Sure. I remember you. Mathers. How many customers you think I get that look like you?”
Tilo opened the door a little wider and stepped back, looking Trouble up and down. “Come on in.”
Trouble stepped in, swinging the duffel off his shoulders to avoid the top of the doorframe. The place was full of every conceivable kind of technological or mechanical junk, parts, and tools. Boxes were piled on every piece of furniture or floor space. The nearby kitchen table was covered with whatever project Tilo had been interrupted at. Metal filings sparkled around a bunch of tiny machine parts.
Tilo glanced knowingly at his bag. “Nice duffel. Where’d you get it?”
“Prison.” Trouble didn’t think there was any point beating around the bush. Most people he knew recognized them. It didn’t help that the bag sported the logo of ChromaPen, and the slogan “Punitive workforce experts. Transgression – Repayment = Rehabilitation”
“Huh. Looks like the kind of bag you put all your worldly belongings in. So. I guess that last job didn’t go so well, then.”
Trouble chuckled at that, “It went south. Not enough for me to be dead – but it went south.”
“When’d you get out?”
“Today – got back today, anyway. Takes a little time to get back from the asteroid belt.” Trouble answered.
“I remember those kick-ass guns you had me mod. And the boots. Guess you don’t still got those.”
“Nah. They didn’t want me to have those on the penal colony. They took those.”
Tilo grinned, “Come on. Sit down.” He began moving boxes off the crumpled, aging couch, all four arms in smooth motion at once.
“Yeah, thanks. Listen. I know you don’t really know me that well…”
“Whaddya need?”
“Look. It’s just… listen, I don’t know anyone else. You’re the only person I know that ain’t…”
“Ain’t like a mercenary or gangboss or something?”
“Uh, yeah. Like that. Listen. Is there any chance you can let me crash here a couple days? I mean, I just don’t have any place to go, I just got out, and…”
“Sure man. I guess that’d be okay. You got more stuff? I can make some room.”
It took Trouble Mathers a moment to register that the mechanic had just said yes, without blinking or even taking a second to think about it.
“No… everything I got’s in this bag.”
“Right. All your worldly possessions.”
“Well… yeah. Except for a pack of smokes, and the clothes on my back.”
“Cool. Lemme have a smoke, and I’ll clear a space for you. I got an extra room, but I’ll have to clear out some of the junk piled in there.”
“I don’t want to put you to any trouble. I can help move stuff.”
“S’okay man.”
“Look, I’ll get out of your way in a couple days. I just need to call some people I know, see if I can’t get some work.”
“S’okay. Really. Don’t worry about it,” Tilo said, distractedly, as he dug around looking through shelves and piles of boxes. As he opened a closet door, a heap of boxes shifted and threatened to tumble out, only to be caught neatly and shoved back into place by Tilo’s two lower arms.
“I thought I had a sleeping pad or something around here, but if I do, I don’t know where it is. We can move the couch into the room, or you can use the cushions or something.”
Trouble looked at the couch and had to suppress a laugh. After heaven knew how long of having heavy boxes of machine parts on it, it’s lumpy, greenish cushions were maybe one to three inches thick in places.
Tilo looked genuinely apologetic. “Hey, I’m sorry man, we’ll find something for…”
“No. Really. It’s okay. Beggars can’t be choosers. It’s already good’a you to let me stay here at all.”
“No problem man. If anyone tries to hold me up while you’re here, you can rough ‘em up, if it makes you feel better.”
“You bet. Listen. You got a shower or something I can use?”
Tilo grinned, smugly, leaning back on his muscular tail, “Man, I got an awesome shower!”
--
It was indeed an awesome shower, as it turned out. After seeing the rest of the junk-piled apartment, Trouble expected something looking like the wrong end of a public toilet. But the bathroom was surprisingly clean and modern. After showing him to the bath and handing him a couple of big towels, Tilo excused himself to go get the spare room ready.
The stall was huge, and contained a ring of sprayers capable of cycling up and down, or of being adjusted to different heights. Temperature, direction, and speed of movement of the spray were all adjustable.
After five years on a penal colony inside an asteroid – where even recycled, water was at a premium – a shower of actual water would itself be a treat.
The sink was clear of clutter, and looked to be of genuine old style porcelain. The whole bathroom was roomy, even the separate area for the toilet. It occurred to Trouble that Tilo’s bulky and rather unusual anatomy probably prompted him to have a big bathroom.
The toilet itself was weird. Probably a custom job. It looked like you were supposed to sit facing the wall, presumably because its owner had a thick muscular tail as big around as a human thigh.
Both walls were mirrored, and the ceiling sported bright, natural daylight style glowstrips. Vents near the floor offered heated air.
The big lupine stripped off his heavy trench, and hung it by a hook on the back of the door. He ran a hand across the brush of his long tail, finally freed from the confinement of the bulky coat. He liked the coat, but it wasn’t made for someone with a tail.
He shrugged out of the flak jacket, and hung it over the coat before stripping off the thin, grey, syncotton tee underneath and laying it neatly folded on the sink.
He rubbed his fingers through the thick, grey fur of his chest and belly, and scowled at the oily, canine smell, dust and loose fur that kicked loose. He looked scroungy, and maybe even a little underfed, though years of hard labor had certainly provided plenty of exercise for his already muscular, genengineered body.
There was still a furless patch over his breastbone, where they’d only recently removed the prisoner-compliance implant that had haunted him throughout his stay on the colony. The small scar wouldn’t even be visible once the fur grew back over it – which was more than he could say for a few of the other scars criss-crossing his torso and legs – but the latter had come from a lifetime of violent action.
Trouble stripped off his boots. While made to fit his inhuman digitigrade feet, the customization was standard, low quality automatic tailoring. He’d definitely have to get better shoes as soon as possible. He stretched his newly-freed toes, curling them in and out of the bathroom carpet.
He undid the zipseal over his tail, and stripped off the thin, grey canvas pants, folding them neatly on the sink. He could hear Tilo thumping around nearby, shoving boxes, furniture, or pieces of heavy equipment around.
The waistband on the cheap plycry undershorts snapped as he scooted them down past his tail. He muttered a short imprecation – something else he’d have to buy more of. He only had two pair. Maybe he could stitch them up and get a little more use out of them.
He scratched at his groin, which prickled as it was released from the confines of the cheap underwear. Below the furry, wolflike, penile sheath, his sparsely-furred, black-skinned balls were scrunched up against his torso. He idly wondered if they served any purpose other than to provide hormones or for show. He knew that some of the others – other chimeras – apparently had working parts – it was cheaper than cloning each individual genejoke soldier from scratch – but some were altered to be sterile. He’d never bothered to find out one way or another. There weren’t that many of his kind anyway. He’d only ever known two females personally, and they were with each other.
Trouble Mathers decided that he probably wasn’t the type of guy to make a good father anyway. And if he ever had any sexual urges, he tended to shut them down. There’d simply never been any room for that in his life – and the few opportunities he might have had for experimentation in that regard weren’t terribly appetizing.
Apparently, according to his research on the subject, the main contributor in his chimera mix of genes – wolves – only went into sexual rut in the presence of the proper pheromones. That was probably a blessing, all things considered.
Trouble sometimes wondered what he was missing, but had long ago resigned himself to not looking for anything else in life that he might enjoy but couldn’t have. There were too many things like that as it was.
He stepped into the shower, and just let it blast against him for a good ten minutes, cycling up and down his body.
After a good scrub, and three separate latherings with liquid soap – Tilo didn’t have any hair, and thus no shampoo – Mathers figured he’d liberated all the grey murk and loose fur that would come loose. He scraped up the small pile of hair that threatened to clog the drain and dumped it down the toilet. He was already imposing on his host and didn’t think leaving him a drain full of dirty fur would be an appropriate gesture. He followed up by wiping down the walls and glass doors of the shower stall.
Mathers preferred to justify his action as courtesy to his host – rather than a compulsion to erase traces of his presence, or to adhere to a rigid habit of neatness drilled into him during his youth. His childhood – as a genetically-engineered chimera, created purely for use in military operations – had been spent in what amounted to a combination boot camp and prison. The money that ChromaCorp spent on training and indoctrination had succeeded in inspiring military-style neatness, as well as inhuman skill in combat, even if it failed miserably at generating a sense of obedience.
Trouble dried himself off with the huge towels Tilo had left for that purpose, and sprayed his body down with an aerosol anti-vermin treatment, despite the hateful chemical odor of the stuff. The last thing he wanted to add to his list of troubles was fleas, ticks, or god-knew what other kind of vermin frequented the fibercrete wilds of Seattle. He’d seen a dog with mange once, and had no interest in trying out the condition himself.
He wrapped a towel around his nether regions and stepped out to get some clean clothes from the limited supply in his duffel.
Tilo squeezed by in the hall, carrying three huge boxes of what looked like hoverbike parts, and wrinkled his nose.
“Jeezus. Now you smell like wet dog. You smelled better before you went in there.”
“It’ll go away after I dry out some more.”
“I hope you din’t plug up my drains. I ain’t got a trap in there, on account I ain’t got any hair.”
“I cleaned it out. I’m housebroken, I swear.”
“Best be. I don’t want no messes around here,” he said, smirking, moving into the chaos of the cluttered living room.
Trouble knew he was joking. He remembered Tilo tended to banter and joke around a lot. Folks who were born looking like a total freakshow to normal people tended to either become really bitter and taciturn or to develop a sense of humor in a hurry. Tilo had gone the latter route. Trouble wasn’t quite sure where he himself fit on that spectrum.
As Trouble finished pulling on his pants, a call came on in Tilo’s vidphone.
Tilo smacked the connect button with his tail, while setting down the load of boxes. The image of a youngish, pale-skinned human, with close-cropped brown hair appeared on the screen. The man’s face and ears were loaded with piercings and small tattoos. He looked a little twitchy, practically vibrating in place as he spoke. The signal was hazy and choppy, probably at least a moderately encrypted line.
“Tilo! Hey. Tilo. I got some work for you. You free? I need it pretty quick.”
“Hey. Luc. Whatcha need, my man?”
“I got this van, a real nice van. I need you to put some smuggler’s panels in the back. I got all the stuff. I just need you do to the work. I need it fast.”
“It’s a little late, but yeah, I can probably do it. I’ll have to see what ya need, but yeah. Bring it by,” Tilo responded.
“Okay man, how much it gonna cost?”
“I dunno, gotta see it. Bring it on over.”
“Okay. I’ll be over in a little while, man. Thanks a lot man. Sorry to be all in a rush, I just need to do this kinda fast.”
“All right. See you when you get here.”
The connection blanked out. Tilo shook his head a little, smirking.
“Here I was, worrying,” Trouble said, “about me showing up here and introducing a criminal element to your dealings.”
“I take all kinds of work. Can’t be too picky about that kind of thing. Luc’s an okay kid. I sometimes worry maybe he’s the type to get in a little over his head, but everyone likes him.”
The last time Trouble had been here, it was to have Tilo make some illegal modifications to some already pretty-damn-illegal military hardware, including some assault weaponry. The shop wasn’t in a terrible neighborhood, but the four-armed genejoke had a decent rep for doing all sorts of electrical or mechanical work, no questions asked, in a discreet fashion – as long as nobody brought trouble to his place.
In keeping with the policy of not allowing “trouble” into his place, Tilo always referred to Trouble as “Mathers,” and never by his first name.
Within moments, a van pulled up out front, accompanied by another, smaller, beat-up grey car. The van indeed looked pretty high-class – definitely not something from this neighborhood. The pierced, high-strung young man from the vidphone conversation hopped out and scurried toward the front of the shop.
“That was fast,” Tilo said to his houseguest. “Listen, I gotta go take care of this little bit of work. Make yourself at home.”
“You mind if maybe I make myself some coffee or something?”
“Be my guest. If you can find it, go right ahead. It’s probably in the kitchen somewhere.”
--
Tilo walked out to meet Luc, trusting that if his guest intended to rob him, he’d be more than capable of strong-arming, and wouldn’t need to sneak. Most of the stuff in there would have little value to anyone but him, anyway.
And Mathers always struck him as basically a trustworthy guy. That was the rep. Unlike some of the merc types he’d met in his line of work, he seemed to be pretty decent – granted the fact that anyone that comes to your house with assault rifles, to have gas silencers, magnetic signature dampers, and grenade launchers mounted on them probably does not-nice things for a living.
Luc was, as usual, practically bouncing from foot to foot. The kid always seemed to be hopped up on something, but whatever it was, it seemed to be the kind of thing that makes people good-natured and high about life, rather than belligerent and paranoid.
“Okay, Luc, whatcha got for me?”
“I got all the stuff I need, Tilo, I just need it mounted in the back of the van. It’s nice, huh? Wha ch’yoo think? Nice, huh?”
“Yeah. Lemme see what you need put in.”
Tilo ran around to the back of the van and opened it, and held up a long, thin, metal box.
“There’s four of these. Pretty slick, huh? Look.”
He pressed the panel against the floor of the van. At Luc’s touch, the surface of the box rippled a little and changed color, matching the texture and color of the plasteel floor panels.
“Nice. Real nice. These look pretty high quality,” said Tilo.
“I just need ‘em installed flush in the walls, here, here, here, and here. How much?” the little man said, pointing.
Tilo climbed in, and picked up one of the security boxes with one hand, while running two of his other hands over the places indicated.
“I hate to rush you. I know it’s kinda short notice, but how quick can you do it? Can you do it tonight? Like right now?”
“I dunno. I guess. Cost you ‘bout a grand, though. That okay?”
“No problem. No problem. But listen – I can give you half now, and I can get you the other half in like two hours. How long will it take you? Can you do it, in like, two hours?”
“Let’s see.. four boxes… I got four arms,” Tilo grinned. “Yeah. I can do it in a couple hours. Lemme just get my tools.”
“Awesome man. Awesome. Listen. I gotta… got some stuff I gotta do. I’ll be back in two hours, and I’ll give you the rest of the money. Just gimme a couple hours.”
“Okay, Luc. I ain’t worried about the money. You’re always good for it. If you take a little longer, I’ll just go over it and make sure everything’s perfect.”
“Nah, man. I’ll be back in two hours. Like I say, I’m kind of in a rush. Look. I gotta take off, okay?”
“Right. Two hours. See ya.”
Luc hopped in the waiting car, which practically spun out. Tilo shook his head, and headed back in to get his tools.
--
The job went pretty quickly. Tilo was preparing to set the final panel into the wall of the van, when the thing unexpectedly popped. Apparently, it hadn’t been properly locked. The front surface of the smuggler’s panel silently slid open, and a scattering of small, transparent vials came tumbling out to bounce around the floor of the van.
Three of Tilo’s arms whizzed around, snatching them up before they could roll off or get lost somewhere. He held one up before his eyes.
He realized he was holding a huge pile of the designer drug, grey bliss, in concentrated form. He let out a slow whistle. This was easily hundreds of thousands of creds worth of one of the latest, most popular, and expensive recreational drugs out there.
No wonder Luc was jumpier than usual. This was a deal way out of his league. Way, way, out. He wondered who’d decided to give the kid a chance at some sort of big time trafficking deal like this. He hoped his young customer wasn’t finally into something way over his head.
None of my business, he thought, carefully replaced all the fallen ampoules, and closed and sealed the box. Far as I’m concerned, I never saw it, he thought to himself.
Just about then, the big wolf ‘gener leaned out the front window, calling out, “Hey! You want coffee?”
“Yeah,” Tilo called back, keeping his face neutral. “Yeah, that’d be great. Took you that long to find it? Sorry ‘bout the mess.”
“Yeah, I had to dig around your kitchen a little. Cream and sugar?” his houseguest bellowed. The voice sounded like it was more comfortable saying something like “This area is off-limits,” or “You’re dead, motherfucker,” or something else from trid, than “You want cream and sugar?”
“Yeah,” he called back. “Both. Cream and sugar. Thanks.”
A minute later, Mathers approached, holding out a big mug of coffee.
“I brought you the one with the smiley face.”
It was the mug he usually used. he could probably smell that I use that cup all the time or something. Tilo thought, reaching for it.
“How’s it going?” the wolf asked.
“Almost done. Thanks for the coffee.”
“Yeah… Listen. I took it upon myself to clean up your kitchen a bit. Didn’t have nothing better to do. Hope that’s okay.”
Tilo nodded, distracted, sipping the hot drink with one hand, while working with the other three.
“I was gonna organize your spice rack, but all you got is salt, pepper, and ketchup.”
Tilo looked up, alarmed. “You didn’t eat any of that ketchup, did you?”
“Uh, no. No. I took the liberty of tossing that out. I make it a point not to eat anything I’d have to chip out with a chisel.”
“Okay, good. It’s been in there a pretty long time.”
“I’m guessing you don’t cook much.”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be able to eat much. There,” he said, surveying his handiwork, “That’s done.”
--
Luc didn’t show up after two hours. When he was about fifteen minutes overdue, Tilo rang him up on the vidphone.
There was no answer.
“Something wrong?” Trouble asked, from where he laid sprawled out on the couch.
“My customer’s late, and he’s usually not the type – he’s always in a hurry. And he’s not answering his phone.”
Tilo left a message. He figured that if Luc was involved in some kind of deal there was no point in hassling him. He’d call back when he could.
Three hours passed.
“That guy hasn’t called back yet, huh?” asked Trouble.
“No. I’m hoping nothing’s up. He said he was in a hurry, and well… he’s a nice guy, but he ain’t too bright. That makes me a little nervous.”
A call came in on the vid just then. When Tilo answered it, the screen showed a totally dark room. He could just make out Luc’s outline.
“Hey. Uh. Tilo? Um… heh. I saw you called. What’s up man?”
“Getting a little worried. Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Heh. Um. Yeah man. Sorry. Some stuff came up,” the man said, looking even twitchier than ever. “Listen. Don’t worry. I’ll get you the rest of the creds. Can you keep the van overnight? I’ll be there in the morning. I swear.”
“I ain’t that worried about the money – you always pay up. Everything okay?”
Luc gave a short, brittle laugh. “Yeah, Man. It’s fine. I’ll take care of it. Just some stuff came up. You still got the van there, right?”
“Yeah, Luc. Of course. It’s all right. See you in the morning?”
“Yeah. Look. I gotta go. Please let me just store the van with you till I can come get it.”
Luc’s thumb blocked the already dark screen for a moment, and the call ended.
“Shit,” Tilo muttered.
“Sounds like your friend’s got himself into something.”
“Yeah. Like I said. Nice kid. But he’s not too bright.”
“Maybe it’s not such a good idea to have that van parked out there. I’m guessing it ain’t exactly his. Looks a bit out of his price range. Is there anywhere else in the neighborhood we could park it?”
Tilo thought about it a moment. “That van’s really way too nice for this neighborhood. It’ll get jacked if we leave it somewhere.”
“You sure you want it here?”
“No. Not really.”
Tilo started calling up numbers of rental storage facilities on the wallscreen. He called a couple, until he found one about a mile away that looked like it had good security for pretty cheap.
“Hey. Mathers. Can you drive a van? I wanna take it to this storage place, and I can’t drive.”
“You don’t know how to drive?” Trouble said, eyebrows raised and ears swiveled.
“I never learned to drive a car.”
“You work on all this kind of shit, you can build a car, and you can’t drive it? Geez dude, you can make, like anything.”
“I can drive a hovercycle,” Tilo said, defensively.
“And you can’t drive a car? You ain’t even got a hovercycle,” Trouble grinned.
“I never learned to drive, okay? Sue me! And I do have a ‘cycle, it’s all around you,” Tilo responded, a little testily. Trouble could see that his normally easy composure seemed ruffled.
In a gentler, more neutral tone, he offered, “Yeah. Well. I guess I know how to use all these guns and I know how to drive, but I don’t know how to build a gun or fix a vehicle. So that makes sense.”
Tilo seemed to accept this by way of apology, and nodded, “See? There you go. So, can you drive this van for me?”
A moment later, Trouble was buckling himself into the driver’s seat. There was a hole burned in the dash that someone had probably made while ripping out a tracking device. Tilo swung himself into the passenger’s seat, and his extra set of arms were buckling the seatbelt even as he settled into place and closed the door with one of his other hands, all in one smooth motion.
“You know how to get there?” the wolf asked, his head brushing the roof of the vehicle so that his ears were flattened against it.
“Yeah. I’ll direct you. It’s only about a mile from here.
A couple of minutes later, Tilo was keying in the access code he’d bought through the net. A pair of automatic gun turrets surveyed the warehouse entrance – modern-day gargoyles in function. Trouble couldn’t help but examine them in a calculating fashion. They looked like they just fired small pistol rounds, but were probably sufficient to discourage the normal sorts of thieves who might break into a storage facility.
Within a few moments, they’d parked the van in a locked warehouse space, and were walking back the way they’d come.
“Thanks for the help,” the four-armed ‘gener said. “Listen, I’ll buy you dinner. You got a preference?”
“Somewhere cheap. And it’s gotta be meat, or at least meat-like, I’m afraid.”
“Right. Gotta be meatlike. There’s a chicken joint up the street. It’s about as meatlike as I can afford. They got burgers, too, that’re supposed to be one hundred percent meat, but I hear it’s mostly lung meat or something like that.”
“Lung’s fine,” Trouble grinned. “I can handle lung. Better than what I’ve been eating the last couple years, I’m sure.”
--
Luc did not, in fact, show up the next morning. But as Tilo puttered around the shop, and Trouble made a few preliminary investigations into renewing some of his old contacts – via a battered lapcomp Tilo had thrown together from parts – a vidphone call came in.
Tilo answered before the second beep, sipping coffee from the smiley-mug.
The face on the vidscreen was not Luc. The image revealed an unsmiling, pale face. A widow’s peak of slick black hair seemed to point downward at the hawlike nose over thin lips before tumbling heavily down the back of the neck in oiled strands. The man’s ears were studded with what at first appeared to be jewelry, but which Tilo recognized as small implanted cyberwear studs.
“You know who I am, right?” the man asked, without greeting.
“Yes. You’re Tucker. What can I do for you?”
Trouble’s ears twitched, and he took a quick glance at the screen out of the corner of one eye, closed the lapcomp, and picked up a magazine, pretending to read it.
“I have not worked with you directly before,” the man said. “You’re Tilo. Word has it that you have a good rep. You done some work for my guys sometimes, but never for me.”
Tilo knew Boss Tucker only secondhand, but the man had a reputation for ruthless control of his little corner of the world of organized crime. Some of Tilo’s customers worked for Boss tucker. Very few of them had been repeat business – one-off jobs that were always the kind of things you didn’t ask questions about.
“Yeah. That’s me. Something I can help you with?”
“You know Luc? I’d like to talk with him. I understand maybe he brought in a van for you to do some work on last night.”
Tilo paused briefly, and decided it was better not to dissemble.
“Uh yeah. Comes in all the time. He had me install some security storage panels in a van last night.”
“Did he come to pick up this van?”
“No, he was supposed to come back in a couple of hours, but he never showed.”
“I see. Well, I’ve been trying to find Luc. I’d like to talk to him about some things. But the van – it’s still there?”
“No, it’s not here, I…” Tilo began.
“Where is it?” snapped Tucker.
“It’s at a storage facility nearby. I didn’t want to keep it on the property. Put it somewhere safe – little storage warehouse with good security. I’m guessing the van is yours.”
“Fuck the van. Something in the van is mine. Something very important to me. I’m going to send a guy to your place. You can take him to this storage facility, and he will pick it up, on Luc’s behalf.”
“Sure, I guess that’d be fine,” said Tilo.
“When’s the last time you spoke to Luc?” Tucker continued. “Did he say where he’s going to be?” The face darkened further, “I mean, you’d tell me if you’d seen him, or spoken to him, right?”
“I ain’t talked to him since last night. Said something about he’d be by in the morning, but he didn’t show.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. Seemed nervous. That’s why I put the van in storage, instead of keeping it here.”
“Right. Well, if you see Luc, I intend to talk to him. Tell him that he shouldn’t go anywhere.”
Trouble had drawn up behind Tilo’s shoulder. He cleared his throat, and said “Excuse me, I hate to interrupt. But why waste your guy’s time? We can meet him right at the warehouse, give him the codes, and let him go straight in. No sense him having to come here first. We’ll save you some time.”
Boss Tucker’s eyes narrowed a bit, as he looked Mathers up and down. “Of course. That will save time. Give me the address. My man will meet you there. If Luc calls, you tell him to call me. And you call me. If Luc comes by your place to get that van, I strongly suggest that you bring him with you. He’s been… very hard to get hold of. I don’t like when I have to go looking for someone who has something of mine.”
Tucker made a gesture, and his face disappeared abruptly from the screen. A tall, thin-faced black man with a closely-cropped scalp took the information about the warehouse, and said, in clipped tones, “Meet our guy there in one hour. Sixty minutes,” before abruptly disconnecting the call.
Tilo sat staring at the blank screen for a moment, before Mathers spoke.
“You know who that was, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Tilo answered. “Some kind of heavyweight round here. I done some work for guys that work for him. I hear he’s a pretty bad guy. Boss Tucker.”
“You don’t know the half of it. This guy was bad news before I went in, and it looks like he’s only been doing better for himself. He’s fucking dangerous, and vicious. Your fuckhead little friend has involved you in some deep shit.”
Tilo’s brow creased. “I’ve been worried the kid was gonna bite off more than he can chew. I’m thinking that I just give this Tucker guy his van, and he’s off my ass at least.”
“Don’t count on it. If your little pal stole something from Tucker, then he’s the stupidest little street rat you’ve ever met. And he’s brought some real deep shit down on you. The smartest thing for you to do, I gotta tell you, is give these guys whatever they ask for. And if they want this dumb kid, you shouldn’t get between them and him.”
Tilo turned and looked at him, brow creased, and said nothing.
“That would be the smart thing to do,” said Trouble after a moment, in a lower voice. “I just gotta tell you that. But I feel like a shit saying it, since the smart thing to do would have been to tell me to take a hike when I showed up on your door yesterday. Look, lemme go with you to the storage place – I got your back.”
“I don’t want any part of this shit,” Tilo responded. “I’ll give Tucker his van, and if Luc is smart, he’s taking whatever money he’s got and get out of the city, right now. If Tucker gets his shit, that’s all he cares about, right?”
“We can hope,” said the wolf, “If we’re lucky. Any idea what was in the van?”
Before Tilo had to decide how to answer, the wolf ‘gener’s his ears swiveled and his head jerked around toward the back door of the apartment. Mathers stepped over a box of silvery net cable, to stand by the rear entrance.
“Someone’s coming up to your back door.”
“You got a gun in that duffel bag of yours?” Tilo asked.
“No,” Mathers said, producing the heavy weapon as if from thin air. “I got it in my hand.”
There was a tentative, shaky knock on the back door. Trouble gestured for the mechanic to back away, and crouched silently next to the doorframe. He silently mouthed one person, holding up a single finger, ask who it is.
“Yeah? Who is it? Whaddya want?” Tilo called from across the room.
A small, shaky voice issued through the door.
“It’s me, Luc. Let me in man. I like, gotta talk to you.”
Tilo moved forward to open the door, and gestured for the small man to come inside. Luc shook so hard that some of his piercings clicked together.
“Listen man,” he began, “I ran into a couple snags. I’ll get you your money and all, but…” he looked around nervously, rubbing his hands together. “Where’s the van? What happened to the van? I didn’t see it. Did someone take it?”
Trouble silently rose and pressed the door shut behind the twitching Luc. The little man whirled around, pale, eyes wide, taking in the nearly seven-foot-tall and decidedly unhappy-looking wolfen ‘gener. He barely came up past Mathers’ breastbone.
Black lips curled back just a little, revealing hints of sharp lupine teeth and fangs.
“Dumbshit. You got yourself in trouble with Boss Tucker. He says that van’s got something in it of his, and you brought it to my friend Tilo’s house and brought shit down on him.”
Luc went white, and his face sagged, lip quivering, as he looked from Trouble to Tilo and back. Tilo waved a hand at Mathers, as if to say take it easy.
“Luc,” Tilo began. You wanna tell me what’s going on here?”
“Better make it quick,” said Trouble. “We’ve gotta meet Tucker’s guy outside the storage place where the van is, and we’ve gotta walk a mile.”
“Shit man,” he said to the four-armed-mechanic. “I’m like, so sorry man. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Well, that makes it all okay,” grumbled Trouble, glaring as if he could bore through Luc’s head with his yellow eyes.
“Luc, you stole something from this maniac, Tucker?” Tilo asked.
“Naw, man, naw, nothing like that. See, I was supposed to get him some… some stuff he wanted, and I got an awesome deal. But when I got it, it was like really high quality stuff – I mean it’s awesome shit – and so I told him… I told him it was worth more than we originally agreed, and I said I wanted, you know, a bit more.”
“You tried to jack up the price on a guy like that?” Trouble asked.
“He uh, he said no. He said the deal was off, he wasn’t paying more. But then he said, just cause the deal was off didn’t mean he didn’t want the stuff, but he was only gonna give me like half price.”
Tilo nodded, and said, quietly, “And you ain’t got the kinda money for what I saw in that case, do you?”
“You looked in there? Geez man! You opened my stuff?” Luc stammered.
“Course I didn’t open it. You didn’t have the thing closed properly, and it fell open, and there I was, sitting in a pile of little vials of grey bliss. Looked like enough to be worth a fortune.
At the name of the drug, Trouble scowled. He’d heard about grey bliss from some of the newer inmates on the penal asteroid. New, popular, highly addictive, and expensive as hell.
“Naw, man,” said Luc. “I ain’t got the money for a haul like that.”
“So, you either stole it from someone else, or you owe someone a whole lotta credits – except Tucker says the merchandise is his now, and he ain’t paying you. So you took off with the stuff instead of bringing it to him, cause you owe someone else, right?”
Luc slumped bonelessly into a chair, put his face in his hands, and moaned “Fuck, fuck, what am I gonna do?”
“You might try starting out by coming with us to meet this guy of Tucker’s, give him what he wants, and explain your situation. They might not kill you, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Luc just looked up, shaking, lip trembling, at the huge wolf-man. “You think they’ll listen?”
“Probably not. But maybe they won’t take it out on Tilo if you go to them,” he paused, and then continued in a lower voice. “Tilo’s a good guy, and he doesn’t deserve to suffer because a dumb shit like you did something stupid. What the fuck were you thinking trying to jack a guy like Tucker? Don’t you know who you’re dealing with?”
Tilo held up a hand to Trouble, and turned to Luc, who was trying to wipe snot off his upper lip with a bare forearm. He accidentally tugged one of his own lip piercings and winced.
“Listen, Luc. Sounds like you got two different heavies that are gonna want your ass. My friend Mr. Mathers here thinks we ought to just hand you over, but I think they’ll kill you if I do.”
“You gotta help me man. Please,” wailed Luc.
“Calm down. Let’s think about this.”
He looked up at Trouble, “Look. I’m not the expert on these kind of things, Mathers. But you are. Will you help me here? How should we deal with this?”
Mathers just shook his head, eyes closed.
“Well, I think,” he said, looking meaningfully at Luc, “that the best thing for you to do is just let Tucker have the dumbass.”
“No, no, man.” Luc pleaded, quietly.
“But Tilo here’s too nice for his own good. And he’s been good to me when he didn’t have to, so I ain’t gonna tell him not to be. Besides, even if we get Tucker off your back, the guy you got that shit from’s probably gonna come looking around too.”
He looked up at Tilo. “Can you make a copy of the passkey for the storage place?”
“Course I can,” nodded Tilo, “I know I got something around here, the encryption on these things ain’t too strong…”
“I know you can do it, but can you do it quick? We only got a couple minutes before we have to leave. We gotta walk there, and it’s like a mile.”
“I got a car,” stammered Luc, “I’ll drive us all there.”
“No. If Tilo can make a copy of the passkey, you’re gonna drive yourself there, and let yourself in. You’re gonna get in that van, and drive it away, while we meet the guy and look surprised.”
“Got one,” Tilo said, holding up an old chipset and case.
“Won’t they just get pissed at you, if the van’s not there?”
“No. Because you’re gonna wait till the last minute, and you’re gonna come barreling out of there like your ass was on fire, and you’re gonna let them see your face, so they know it was you took the stuff. I’m gonna shoot my gun around, like I’m trying to shoot you, and if you’re lucky, the other guys who shoot at you will miss.”
Luc’s face was now so completely drained of color, Trouble thought he’d go transparent any second.
“The security cameras will have you breaking into the warehouse with your copied passkey, while we’re out front meeting the nice man who wants to cut your head off. When they ask for the security tapes, which are gonna be available to Tilo, cause he rented the space, we’re gonna give them over without an argument.”
“Done,” said Tilo, pressing the jury-rigged digital passkey into Luc’s sweating palm.
“Then,” Trouble continued, “You’re gonna give back this shit to whoever you took it from in the first place, take any money you got, and you’re gonna get out of town, and never look back. Now, is there any possible way that you could have gotten a duplicate passkey without coming to Tilo?”
“Course, man, I know all sorts of guys – everyone knows me, I…”
“Fine. Whatever. We gotta move now. Get your skinny ass over to that warehouse this second, and you wait until exactly noon before you take off. You screw us, and I’ll come looking for you, and that’ll make my friend Tilo feel bad.”
Luc scurried out the back door, and leaped into the grey, old-style hydrocell-powered clunker he’d driven up in.
Trouble turned to his four-armed friend.
“And if we’re lucky, Boss Tucker doesn’t already have guys watching this place, who saw that moron come in here or leave. If he does, we’re all fucked, already.”
Tilo looked worriedly out the window. “Fuck. You see anyone?”
Trouble scanned up and down the street. He didn’t see any cars that he hadn’t seen the day before, and there were few people on the street.
“No. But it don’t mean they ain’t there. If it goes down bad, look – you better just let this guy Tucker have what he wants, unless you think you’re ready to get your friggin head cut off, or move to another continent. Better Luc’s head than yours, Tilo.”
Tilo just looked at the tall, furry genejoke, smiling slightly.
Mathers let a breath whistle out between his curved fangs. “Look, whatever you decide, I’ll try to back you up, man. But these are bad fucking people. My ass’d be out of here in a second if it were just me. But I’ll back you up. I’m stupid like that.”
“Thanks man,” Tilo said, patting him on the shoulder with his two left arms.
--
Trouble didn’t see anything that looked like watchers as they locked up the shop and walked quickly towards the warehouse – but his skin crawled under his fur with the dread that they might be there, nonetheless.
As they neared the street where the warehouse stood, they heard the unwelcome sound of automatic gunfire, klaxon alarms, and explosions. A billow of smoke shot up into the grey sky overhead.
The two of them ran the remaining blocks to the end of the street where the warehouse was located. The gates were crumpled and fallen inward, and the two gun turrets were broken, smoking shells.
“Motherfucker,” muttered both genejokes simultaneously.
“What the fuck happened?” Tilo spat.
“Dunno. I’m gonna hazard a guess it wasn’t Luc. Maybe Boss Tucker’s guys got here early. Maybe someone else. Who knows? Let’s watch, but not from too close,” his furry companion responded, eyeing the twin streamers of black smoke.
A few minutes later, they stood in the parking lot of the chicken place, watching as two security cars screeched up, blocking the entrance to the warehouse. Mathers pointed down the street.
“That’s Luc’s sedan there, across the street, pulling up by that dumpster, ain’t it?”
Tilo shaded his eyes, squinting. “Yeah. He’s stopped in that alley. I think he’s just sitting in the car, watching.”
The tiny figure inside the car bounced around inside, in very Luc-like fashion. There was no sign of anyone that looked like they might be working for Tucker. A few minutes later, a fire control vehicle roared up, and began blasting chemical foam onto the still-burning turrets.
Luc’s car pulled slowly out into the street, and after a short distance, accelerated around a corner, belching vapor as its driver floored it.
The two of them waited another half hour past the meeting time, munching on more food from the chicken joint. Eventually, the fire control truck ambled off, it’s job done, but more security cars showed up, until the place was crawling with them. There was no sign of anyone who looked like Boss Tucker’s man – unless the private security enforcers worked for him. Trouble didn’t recognize the name of the security company.
“Come on,” he said to his four-armed companion. “We better get back to your place, so Tucker doesn’t think you’re avoiding him. If there ain’t already someone waiting there to talk to us, or if your vid ain’t blaring away with them trying to get through, I’ll be amazed.”
Tilo nodded. “Man. This sucks.”
Trouble only shook his head.
--
When they arrived back at Tilo’s shop, Trouble motioned for the mechanic to stay back. “Let me take a look, first.”
Nobody was visible on the street, and again, there were no unfamiliar cars. Trouble approached the door to the apartment – the front of the shop was empty – ears perked for any sound.
There was no sound from the apartment, but the sensitive black nose picked up a human scent at the door. Fresh, male, and no traces of fear – it wasn’t Luc.
He listened carefully, and picked up the faintest sound of cloth against cloth. He drew the heavy pistol from inside his trench, and carefully opened the door, facing where he thought he’d heard the sound.
There was a bald asian man in a carefully-tailored black suit, sitting on a chair in the front room, staring at the door. The man rose, looking unruffled by the sight of a nearly seven-foot-tall wolf chimera brandishing a pistol that would shoot through a fibercrete wall.
“Ah, splendid, you’re here. I took the liberty of letting myself in,” the man said, in perfectly gracious tones.
“Where is the… man… who owns this shop? I’m afraid I need to have a few words with him. Mr. Tucker isn’t very happy, I’m afraid.” The man said with affected sadness, as he straightened the cuffs of the costly suit. Trouble noted that the hands gleamed silvery, and looked like they were made of flexible steel.
Something about the smell of the man, as well as the fact that he seemed to have come alone, made Trouble fairly sure that the visible mods weren’t the only ones this guy was likely to have.
Trouble lowered, but did not put away, the gun. Tilo appeared in the door behind him, a black plasteel knife in each of his four hands. He put three of them away with rapid, obviously-practiced motions, and said, in his best “nothing wrong here” voice, “How can I help you?”
The man finished straightening his cuffs, and stepped forward nonchalantly, brushing silvery fingers through the patina of dust atop a pile of half-full toolboxes.
“Would you care to explain what, precisely, happened at the warehouse? You were supposed to meet us there at noon, to hand over some property belonging to Mr. Tucker, but instead, there was a great commotion, and a lot of security patrol. Mr. Tucker is not very happy about this, and would like an explanation. I am here to obtain that explanation from you.”
Tilo spoke up, “We don’t know what happened. We were on our way there to hand over the passkey to the storage unit, and when we got close, the place was on fire and crawling with patrol.”
“So you took off. I don’t suppose it occurred to you to ask the patrol about the security breach at the warehouse space you’d rented?”
“Right,” interrupted Trouble, lip curling. “Two genejokes walk up to a crime scene that’s on fire and crawling with hired patrol to check on the status of a stolen vehicle presumably filled with something illegal. I just got out of penal yesterday. No thanks.”
“Ah yes. Sometimes the people from those security companies can be so… unreasonable.” The asian man smiled and nodded, as if conceding a point in a fencing match.
“We waited around, at the chicken place,” interjected Tilo. “To see if anyone that looked like they came from Boss Tucker showed up. We didn’t see anyone.”
“We took a drive by, and didn’t stop to talk to the aforementioned authorities either. You must have missed us,” the man said.
“I’m guessing that it wasn’t you that did all that, and you don’t have your stuff,” said Trouble.
“No. But we’ve already made a few calls, and apparently…” the man clapped his shining hands together, in mock surprise, “the very unit we were interested in was broken into, and sadly,” he frowned elaborately, “Mr. Tucker’s property did not seem to be present, at least according to our initial sources of information.”
“Now,” he continued, pacing slowly back and forth, “I don’t suppose you know where our property is – or for that matter, where Luc is? Perhaps you’ve heard from him?”
“He called right as we were leaving,” answered Trouble. “We told him to meet us at the warehouse – that he was in deep shit. We advised him that Mr. Tucker wanted to talk to him, and that he shouldn’t make things more difficult. When we got there, he was across the street, in that crappy grey car he was driving yesterday, but he took off. You didn’t see him?”
“No, as I said, we didn’t…” he made a whoosh motion with a glittering right hand, fluttering the fingers, “stay around to talk with the patrol in person. I thought we’d come to speak with Tilo here, instead.”
“Listen,” said Tilo. “I didn’t know anything about all this. Luc showed up and asked for some work. When he started acting weird, and we got the call from Mr. Tucker, I didn’t want no part of whatever it was, and you’d a been welcome to come get your stuff. Boss Tucker said he wanted to talk to Luc, and when he called, we told him he’d better meet us there. I don’t know who got into that warehouse, but it wasn’t us, and it wasn’t even Luc.”
“We saw him driving away, and I doubt he took out those turrets,” offered Trouble.
“Really. I want no part of this. I got no interest in crossing someone like Boss Tucker. Luc dropped this shit in my lap, and I don’t want to be involved, and I’d be happy to hand over whatever Tucker wants, no question,” said Tilo.
“Oh, I’m sure that what you are telling me is perfectly true. I understand completely. Sadly though, while I am deeply sympathetic, this situation is now your problem, and like it or not, you are involved. Mr. Tucker expects that you will offer him your full assistance. Sometimes life isn’t fair, my friends. I’m sure Mr. Tucker can count on your full assistance in retrieving his property, and our wayward young Luc.”
“Yeah. Sure,” Tilo responded.
“The security camera footage, will of course be available to Tilo here, since he rented the warehouse space,” the oriental man said, mildly, gesturing with another flutter of fingers.
“Of course. No problem. I’ll see if the computers from the warehouse company will release them right now. I’ll make you a copy.”
“I’m so pleased,” the man said, with a predatory smile, “that you’re so eager to help. We will also expect your assistance in helping reunite Luc with his good friend and patron, Mr. Tucker. You said he’d called, and that you saw him?”
“I don’t know where he is. We saw him, but he took off, and he didn’t do it in the van. If you don’t believe us, maybe his car will show up on the building’s security cameras.”
The computerized informational system for the warehouse company was marvelously efficient. Not only was security footage ready to be downloaded once the access code for Tilo’s account was entered, but there were several recorded messages from the warehouse company saved in the message buffer on his vid.
The messages gave detailed instructions in case Tilo might want to hire law enforcement personnel to retrieve his property, an electronically-prepared report of the incident with flat video from the cameras, and a note explaining that if Tilo had purchased insurance, he’d have been able to file an automated claim already and might have been reimbursed for theft or damages within a week.”
“Fuckers didn’t even tell me there was insurance available when I rented the damn thing,” Tilo muttered.
The cameras from the front of the building indeed showed Luc’s brief appearance and disappearance, as well as the familiar van speeding out of the front gates a few minutes earlier, but the interior cameras had apparently been taken out along with the turrets. In the distance, a four armed figure and a tall, furry one were faintly visible at the end of the street.
“This doesn’t look terribly helpful, but I’m sure Mr. Tucker will appreciate all your cooperation,” said the metal-handed oriental. “Now. I wonder if you can help put us into contact with dear Luc?”
“I swear, I have no idea where he is.”
“And can you think of anyone who might be able to tell us where he is?”
Tilo didn’t answer, immediately, but Mathers spoke up, giving the mechanic a meaningful stare. “There was some guy who drove here with him yesterday, wasn’t there, Tilo?”
Tilo sighed. “Yeah, there was some other guy, with messy hair that came by with him. I didn’t know him.”
“Sadly, the young man who accompanied Luc on his errands yesterday is – well, no longer with us. He won’t be of much help. Now, excuse me for a moment.”
The man pressed a gleaming fingertip to his ear, turning his back. Trouble could see the man’s jaw and neck muscles working as he subvocalized, apparently into a comm implant.
A minute or so later, the man turned back to them, and said, “Mr. Tucker seems to be satisfied that you are telling us the truth. While I’m sure you will offer any assistance that we might request in the future – and I urge you to contact us immediately, should you hear from Luc – our business with you is… probably at an end.”
Tilo quietly let out a held breath. Trouble retained an impassive, unreadable expression.
“This is quite a nice shop you have here,” the man mused. “Seems like you have a nice setup, and are doing reasonably well for yourself. I’m confident that you wouldn’t be interested in jeopardizing that, and you’ve been most cooperative. But remember, if you should happen to run across Luc…” he waggled a chromed finger, eyebrow raised.
“Don’t worry,” growled Trouble. “I see the little shit, I’ll bring him to you myself, maybe with a couple broken legs. I don’t appreciate him bringing this trouble down on my friend here. How do we get in touch if we run across anything?”
The man brushed past, the two ‘geners, stopping in the doorway.
“If he comes here, see that he doesn’t leave, and call this number,” he said, holding up a small card.
“Listen,” Trouble said, taking it from the man, “If I can find the little shit, I’ll be happy to deal with this, to keep Tilo out of it. Tilo’s a nice guy, he’s just a normal businessman who doesn’t ask a lot of questions. He works with people like you from time to time, but he’s not…”
The black-suited man turned, smiling, “It warms my heart to see your concern for this honest citizen. But this is not the sort of thing that makes a difference to Mr. Tucker. Fortunately, as I said, I’m almost certain that our business with the two of you is concluded.”
The man tapped his chin, looking up at Mathers, “I remember you from somewhere, I’m sure. Few years back.”
“I been around. I’ve done business with people in the same circles as you. I just got back from a visit to an asteroid.”
“I knew it. I never forget a ‘joke.”
The man walked to the curb, and got into a somewhat less-than-classy, but obviously very expensive white hovercar. Thumping bass music pounded from the vehicle as soon as the door opened, the black-suited man waving his hands as if conducting an orchestra, and was silent as soon as it shut. The thing whizzed off, and was gone in moments.
“Do you think that’s the end of that?” asked Tilo.
“I dunno. I sure hope so. Cross your fingers. And hopefully that stupid kid is halfway to the West Canadian Sprawlzone by now.”
“Thanks for the help, Mathers.”
“You helped me. I don’t know why, but you didn’t ask me any questions. I felt like returning the favor,” the wolf rumbled.
“Hey, look, I wouldn’t mind you hanging around for a while, in case… but if you want to get out of here, in case this shit’s not over, it really ain’t your problem.”
“No. If you don’t mind, I’ll hang out with you for a bit, in case you need, you know… protection. I ain’t gonna be a parasite or nothing. I gotta get in touch with some people, see about getting work again, and I’ll get out of your way. But I’d feel better hanging around for a bit, in case anyone shows up that’s… you know… rough.”
“Hey, I wasn’t using the room for anything but throwing crap in. Listen, what kinda work you trying to get, anyway? Maybe I could find something for you to do around the shop here, till you get on your feet…”
“Hey, Tilo, I appreciate the offer, but let’s get real. What the hell good am I gonna be around here? I don’t know how to fix shit – I don’t even know what most of this stuff is. There’s only thing I’m good at. I don’t know how to do anything useful, except one kinda work”
“Yeah, well, I see that’s been working out real good for you. You got a great track record. Five years on a penal colony, mining asteroid-farts or whatever?”
Trouble laughed ruefully, “Yeah, but your ‘legitimate’ business seems to be scoring you some problems too, eh?”
“Yeah man, I dunno, as soon as you showed up, I get all this trouble. What the hell man?” Tilo said, laughing.
“What did I do? It was your stupid customer!”
“Yeah. Look, think about it, okay? I appreciate you looking for work, but don’t rush yourself. You were a big help. Do what ya gotta do. Take your time.”
“People in my line of work bring trouble to nice guys like you – the people I work with are usually even worse than Boss Tucker. Unlike Luc, I don’t think it’s okay to bring that sort of problem to your doorstep. Soon’s I get a contract or something, I’ll get outta here – but don’t worry, I’ll hang around and look out for ya for a bit, if you want.”
“Hey, I’ll even feed you,” Tilo offered.
“You don’t gotta keep doing that, I’m expensive to feed… the geektechs who brewed me up weren’t worried about the expense of feeding something based on large carnivore DNA, as long as it killed people.”
“I’ll deal,” said Tilo. “I’ll just have to put a drain-trap in the shower. And lemme see that gun of yours. I can probably trick it out a little for you.”