Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

On the train to Zadeck Street I had a growing pit in my stomach. I didn’t go into the corporate areas, because I wasn’t corporate. But I wasn’t exactly afraid of them.

There were two streets that did frighten me.

One was a block that no one was allowed to use. Not even the corporations. It had nothing on it except a huge metal bubble constructed by a level-ten mutant who had long since left the station. There were permanent roadblocks at either end restricting access.

The other was Zadeck Street.

It was the most posh, wealthy avenue in all of Belvaille. It comprised three blocks of absolute ritzy splendor. The best shops were there. The best restaurants. Fine hotels the truly affluent stayed in for years at a time.

Unlike the drab rest of the station, every inch of every sidewalk was decorated. There was statuary and fountains and murals.

The wealthy paraded down the street like haughty birds displaying their plumage. In a city full of criminals and scum, this street existed because of one creature: Wallow.

Wallow the Therezian ensured there was no crime on the street. Despite his vast size, he could run from one end to the other in seconds—and without even stepping on anyone.

He was one of the greatest security guards in the entire galaxy and he was somehow on our space station. No one knows the circumstances of how he came here or came to work for Zadeck. It was exceedingly odd.

Whatever gang wars went on in the station, nothing touched Zadeck’s blocks. Because nothing could touch Wallow.

Unfortunately, Wallow didn’t like me much.

I had never been able to figure out why. I was a pleasant enough person, I thought. But it didn’t seem to matter. He had taken a dislike to me and made it known.

I inched my way down Zadeck Street with sweat pouring down my spine.

I felt a gust of wind and looked over to see Wallow standing next to me, squinting down.

He looked like a relatively “normal” Colmarian, just exploded to enormous size and his face had lots of ridges and bony surfaces. His enormous hands had only three fingers and no joints, which alone had prevented the Therezian species from ever becoming advanced.

Though when you had no need of anything and were impervious to everything you weren’t required to become master inventers. Necessity had left them altogether alone.

“Hi, Wallow,” I yelled up to him.

He stood there glaring at me. He had an evil face.

All the fancy shoppers clogging the streets practically tore their tendons racing to get away from us. It was well known how much we disliked one another. Truthfully, though, they were getting away from me. Whether I disliked Wallow or not was of little importance.

I continued walking, gently.

He watched me go and after I had taken maybe a dozen steps, he took one, keeping even with me.

We continued to walk the length of the street like this. It was very disconcerting of course. I was not used to fear, but I knew full well that if he punched me, I was in for another hospital visit. If he chose to punch me twice, which he had never bothered to do, I would almost certainly die on the spot.

We came to the gilded door of Zadeck’s headquarters.

The regular bouncers had seen Wallow coming and walked clear away.

I reached out to open the door when it stopped. Wallow had blocked it with his finger. A finger I could easily bear hug.

The door was open enough that I could probably squeeze in, but I thought about what would happen if I was halfway and Wallow decided to press against the door.

I waited for Wallow to say something. But he just crouched there, finger out.

“Wallow,” I yelled, “is it alright for me to go inside?”

I smiled pleasantly.

“I’m unarmed,” I said, as if that mattered.

“Who you?” his deep voice rumbled.

Wallow did not talk much. It was frightening when he did. If any shoppers had been curiously observing the situation from a distance, they made that distance much greater on hearing Wallow speak.

“My name is Hank, Wallow,” I said. I wasn’t sure why Wallow always did this. I couldn’t figure if it was his version of a joke or he was just really mean.

“Hank who?” he asked. And I think for the first time ever, I saw him smile. Because of his bone structure it looked like he was sticking out his lower jaw and exposing his teeth.

“Hank of Hank Block.”

“Your street stupid!” He said, and he jabbed his finger on the ground in front of me.

“Yes,” I agreed.

He stood up quickly, turned, and began walking down the street. People fled in all directions to clear a path, but he nimbly avoided them.

I was glad I hadn’t eaten or drank anything before I came because I would have soiled myself after that encounter.

I entered the building and was fairly dazzled.

Every surface, every crevice, was covered in some form of gleaming precious metal or bauble. It was like a thousand jewelry stores had exploded inside and splattered their contents against the walls.

A band of some sort was playing and there were dozens of rich people lounging around. Doing what, I could not tell.

What I thought was a very tall woman approached me until I heard his deep voice.

“Hey, Hank. What you doing around here?” he asked casually.

He was wearing a tall orange wig, had vast amounts of exaggerated makeup, big hoop earrings, was dressed in a long gown open at the chest which showed off his ample body hair, and he carried a painted submachine gun over his shoulder like a purse.

“What?” I stared.

“It’s me, Yimm’dus,” he said.

“Man, what are you wearing?”

“Eh, it’s the uniform here. You get used to it.”

“Why would you want to?” I asked.

“I made almost ten grand in tips last week,” he said coolly.

“Oh. I can see that, then. Is Zadeck here?”

“His office.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“I think so, yeah. She’s around a lot. She’s back there now with him I think.”

I stood up straighter. I wished I had my autocannon now. But Wallow would have crushed me if he’d seen it.

“Is she about this tall?” I asked, indicating with my hand. “And really thin?”

“Yeah, sounds about right.”

“And is she super muscular? Maybe has silver hair.”

“I don’t know how muscular she is. And her hair is blonde I think. Why you want to know?”

“Just curious. Hey, what is this place, anyway? I can’t figure out what your customers are doing.”

“Heh, I been here a year and I still haven’t figured it out,” he said.

“Anyway, can you take me to Zadeck?”

“Sure, but he might not see you. You know how he is.”

“Yeah.”

We walked along and I noticed Yimm’dus was wearing high heels.

“What do you do if you have to chase someone in those heels?” I asked.

“I’ve gotten pretty good with them.”

I gave him a nudge with my shoulder and he practically kicked me in the face he flipped over so fast and hit the ground.

I died laughing, but tried to stop when I saw how pissed Yimm’dus was. His dress was hiked to his knees.

“Hey! I have to pay for all these clothes!” He said.

I helped him to his feet and was still laughing but at a lower intensity.

“Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t know you would go flying like that.”

“Walking in heels and getting shoved in them are two different things. Why are you barefoot?”

“I can’t find anything I like. Your wig is lopsided.”

He took a moment to straighten it.

“Besides,” he began, “internal security is mostly just for show. We got Wallow outside and that’s pretty much all we need. Who’s going to try and cause trouble here?”