Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

“Yeah, this is plenty,” I said quickly.

“You will need to wear a uniform.”

“Oh, no! I’m not wearing one of those things. I might work for you on this job, but I’m not part of your corporation.”

“It is required to prevent any other unnecessary disturbances you might have with our forces.”

I took it he meant the APC.

“So your people won’t shoot at me?”

“That is correct.”

“But what about other corporations? You guys are fighting all the time. That just means one won’t fight me but the others will on sight.” I thought about it some more. “Besides, I’ll have a hard time recruiting people for this job if they think I’m corporate. No offense.”

“I have something you can wear. A helmet.”

He went deeper into the warehouse and I could hear him opening crates. I didn’t want to wear a helmet. Those things seemed impossible to see out of. And they looked silly.

He came back after some minutes holding an ornate piece of cloth.

I took it.

“This goes on my head?” I asked, trying to figure it out. It certainly wasn’t a helmet. It was very loose fabric with what looked like jade and gold inlays on it in a decorative pattern.

“Yes. The soldiers will be able to recognize it. But other corporations will not, so they will not target you, as you feared.”

I put it on. It was a bit snug. It was more of a skullcap with two long straps on each side covering my ears. The interior was soft and spongy and fairly comfortable. I had never been much of a hat person, but it wasn’t bad.

“Does this look okay?”

Naked Guy stared at me but didn’t answer. Judging by his mass of hair and general nudity he was not a person very concerned with appearance.

I left the warehouse in my cap with my autocannon ready.

Some nearby soldiers turned to me briefly and then resumed their positions. Though they were all wearing full helmets so they could have been sticking their tongues out for all I knew.

Walking down the street I noticed on the tops of buildings there were soldiers with long weapons. Perhaps sniper rifles? Perhaps ones that could kill people on my front doorstep? They were too far to see clearly.

It was obvious no one was going to drive me home so I headed for the nearest train.

I must have passed a thousand soldiers, numerous cars, and APCs. Massive trucks also crisscrossed the streets picking up or delivering goods—or who knows, just driving around for fun. They certainly had the money to burn.

They all had the same corporate colors as the car Naked Guy had picked me up in: yellow with numerous thin red vertical stripes on the right side. I made note to avoid shooting at that pattern.

Eight years ago if someone had told me this was the situation I would be in, with a few million credits in the balance, I would have thought them insane.

When I reached the elevated train, I saw it had been disconnected. The route stopped well outside of this corporate-controlled zone and there were soldiers standing around to make sure no one bypassed it.

Garm’s group controlled the trains. So as much as she said she had nothing to do with the corporations, she was facilitating their operations. Of course if she didn’t cooperate, they would find someone who would. Her people might know all the ins and outs of Belvaille, but even I could learn how to run the trains for two million credits.

And that reminded me. Despite being bulletproof and carrying a weapon of lots of destruction, I still felt uneasy with so much cash in my pockets. I stopped and deposited the token into my tele. It would make accessing it more difficult later, because it had to transfer off-station, but it was just an accident waiting to happen.

I confirmed the transfer about ten times and stood there in the street refreshing and acknowledging.

I finally exited corporate land and was able to take a train back to my place.

As I walked up to my apartment I stopped short, noticing something different.

In addition to Toby, Byo’lene’s corpse, and a toilet, there were two Gandrine sitting on my front stairs.

“Come on,” I said to myself.

I stood a careful distance from the immobile creatures.

“Hi,” I said. “How you guys doing?”

Nothing. No sign they were living.

“I feel like we haven’t been properly introduced,” I said. “My name is Hank. I live here. What brings you two by?”

I couldn’t even tell where they were looking—if they were looking at anything.

“Do you want me to bring you guys something to eat or drink? I’m not…I don’t know what you guys consume.”

Silence.

“Have you met Toby? That’s the dead guy on the left. And Byo’lene is the dead woman on the right.”

I was getting angry. This was my block. And my house. Who were they to muscle in?

“And this is my toilet,” I continued. “And now it’s on your head. Or I assume that’s your head.”

I balanced my toilet on one of them and thought that was pretty clever.

“Maybe I’ll use it since you guys don’t seem to mind.”

A grinding noise arose from the pair and to my shock I realized they were standing up. The toilet fell off and the two very large rock organisms slowly began to face me.

“Cool! It’s cool! My mistake!” I held up my hands in supplication and quickly backed into my apartment.

When I went back outside later, the Gandrine were still there, staring at the apartment building across the street.

I walked well around them to the train.

At Ioshiyn’s I popped in to see about my clothes. I was running out of things to wear and didn’t want to do laundry.

“Hank, I got some good news,” Ioshiyn said, smiling.

He went to the side and pulled out a box. He opened it and held up for me a part of my pants, but cut about in half at the knee.

“Tada,” he said.

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“They were torn to pieces, I couldn’t fix them. But I just cut the legs off and hemmed the bottom. They’re shorts now.”

“Shorts? When have you ever seen me wear shorts?”

“You got good-looking legs, you should show them off.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I’m guessing. You’re a big guy. Women like seeing legs. Besides, these pants were tailored for you. It would be a shame to throw them away. You’re not going to find anything that fits you off the shelf. Trust me, it’s the latest style.”

I looked over Ioshiyn in his dirty shirt and trousers.

“These are my work clothes,” he said, seeing my glance. “But I design for the northeast snobs all the time.”

I took a pair, skeptical.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to my skullcap.

“Oh. Some hat I have to wear.”

“It matches,” Ioshiyn held up a pair of shorts to my cap. “Try it on, you’ll see.”

I went to the small changing room and took off my pants and put on some shorts. My knees felt very breezy. I stepped out and did high-steps.

“See? A lot of movement, right?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I don’t feel like I’m about to rip my pants.”

I really did feel more mobile. Not like I was a pale sister or anything, but not bad.

“Put on the gun,” Ioshiyn said, with a discerning eye.

I strapped on my autocannon.

“Now strike a pose. Look mad.”

I did so.

“Hmm. I know the finishing touch!”

He pulled out a pair of boots from under the counter. They were big and metallic and he had to carry them with both hands. They had three large buckles on the front but the bottom part was metal and the top part was synth.

“Those don’t look comfortable. What happened to my old boots?”