Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

“Ih—” she said, but couldn’t continue.

Her face was red and she was gasping for air.

“A corporation gave it to me,” I explained. I felt she was being childish.

She waved for me to stop and was shaking her head as if I were torturing her.

“It—” she tried again, but got no further.

Every time she looked up at me she returned to uncontrollable mirthfulness. Weren’t people supposedly scared of me? I had two plumbers giving me free maintenance work not a handful of hours ago.

Tejj-jo took a seat across from me and was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. I think her body was simply unable to sustain any more laughter. Pointing at my cap she said:

“That’s a diaper!” And lost control again.

“It’s a cap,” I disagreed. Looking around to see if anyone heard her.

Through her tears, she shook her head.

“That’s from my birth world. Look inside. There will be three blue squares and a red triangle.”

I took it off and looked. There were two blue squares and a red triangle under what I thought was the band. She saw the marks.

“Or two squares. It’s been a long time,” she acknowledged.

“What? I mean, how did…” I stammered.

“That’s a diaper for upper class families. That’s what the marks indicate. I remember my nieces and nephews wearing them.”

I quietly folded the ornate diaper, trying to make it as small as possible.

“Someone must have been playing a joke on you,” she said.

I nodded with a fake smile, but couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye.

So. I’ve been walking around for months wearing a diaper on my head. Okay. Fine. I can live with that.

Naked Guy didn’t exactly strike me as a prankster. But we’ll talk again at some point I’m sure. I’ll just table this discussion until then.

“Right. So what I wanted to talk to you about,” I started, but I saw she couldn’t focus while the diaper was in view. I put it on the seat next to me. “Have you seen any of these women? I believe they might be in some of the same cliques you’re in.”

I gave her the documents and she looked them over carefully. She lifted her face and addressed me seriously.

“I’m sorry for laughing at you earlier. I had heard about it, but I was just really surprised.”

“Myah,” I mumbled.

Going back to the documents she made the connection.

“This one isn’t using that name. But I recognize her. She is new to the station. She’s dating Zadeck,” she said.

“He’s straight?” I was surprised.

“I don’t think he’s dating her that way.”

I rolled my eyes. I guess that was the life of a courtesan.

“This other woman I believe is an escort. You might contact Leeny and see if she works for him. But people come and go.”

“Thanks. Hey. Can I ask why you decided to come meet me when I called?” I was wondering what tips for dating beautiful women I might have inadvertently learned.

“I thought it was prudent to visit you instead of risking you coming for me. I heard you were walking around barefoot, killing people, leaving their bodies all over the city, while wearing a diaper.”

Leeny was basically a pimp. A city-wide pimp. But not very pimpy. He was fatherly from what I understood and didn’t abuse his workers. He also owned a number of apartments and hotels.

As I was heading to his office, I exited one street and casually looked to my right to see if there was any traffic.

Sitting there, two blocks away, was a tank.

I paused.

That was a tank. Not an APC. It was not facing me. It was fully in profile and stationary. The corporate pattern painted on the vehicle was black with white circles and words written in yellow. I didn’t know it.

I squinted, looking at its armament closer. I recognized it. It was the same gun I currently had on my back.

“Hmm.”

I heard a loud electric whirring noise and saw the turret that contained the cannon was swiveling in my direction.

I turned and headed back to the street I just left, going as quickly as I could.

At this point, I was sure it was the same gun as mine because it fired at me. Though it was modified because instead of firing one round, it fired what must have been two shots every second!

Those guys also must not have listened to Delovoa because they were clearly shooting high-explosive shells. I could hear them hitting the buildings down the street from me and exploding.

The cannon was loud from the shooting side, but over here on the receiving end, with pounds of explosives detonating, I was completely deafened.

But they missed with all their shots, and missed far. I guessed they had gotten off eight before I made it out of sight.

Ahead of me was a full block of apartments with no side ways or alleys. If this tank chose to follow me, there was no way I could outrun it.

My heart was racing. I took out my own autocannon and secured it on my vest.

I heard the engine of the tank. It was unmistakably loud, as it had to push twenty-five tons of steel and weapons.

I realized if I went into one of these buildings to hide, this tank could just autocannon HE rounds in there through the front door and windows until everything was dead. There were few back doors in Belvaille.

I loaded an armor piercing round and leaned against the wall closest to the direction the tank was coming. If it drove down the middle of the street, I was only going to get one shot before they took their turn.

The engine got louder and louder and I felt the vibrations in the metal sidewalk.

It was doing what I had hoped.

The front of the tank pushed past the corner and it was only ten feet away from me. It had cut the corner and was driving on the sidewalk of the cross street.

Delovoa said my gun could shoot through a tank. Now I was going to put that to the test.

Kachooom!

There was a horrible grinding noise after that. But my first concern was getting off my back and onto my feet.

The hearing in my right ear was totally gone. Firing that close to the wall the sound wave had bounced off and probably burst my eardrum.

I saw the twisted metal on the tank where I had hit it.

But it was moving!

It admittedly wasn’t moving as fast. I had deformed part of the guard that covers the tracks and they were scraping loudly.

Wait.

Delovoa said this gun could penetrate the weak side of a tank.

I kept as low as possible and moved forward to the tank.

I literally passed under its gun and around the wall to try and get behind it.

If it backed up, it would run me over.

I moved further away but I wasn’t sure how much time I had. It was going to look down the street and see I wasn’t there. Once that turret swiveled, it could shoot me wherever I was. Even if I was too low, it could hit the wall with HE shells and scatter shrapnel everywhere.

I was now about thirty feet away.

I reloaded my autocannon and adjusted the straps so they were secure.

The tank had just cleared the street and the gunner must have seen my slow ass wasn’t there and there was nowhere to go but behind it.

The cannon began to spin in my direction.

Kachooom!

BOOM!

I saw the tank jump two feet in the air when it exploded! This was a fraction of a second before I was cartwheeled down the street by the force of the detonation.

The ammo inside must have been destroyed.

I had a three inch chunk of steel in my left forearm, a two inch one in my right leg just above the knee, and a four inch piece in my lower right abdomen.

My autocannon was down the street, the steel cables having been snapped like cheap twine.

“There’s your diaper!” I taunted the wreckage.