Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

“Rarayah!”

He ran away.

That was dumb, I should have asked him for food. Or water. Or directions. I was only vaguely aware that I was pushing my broken frame through the docks, but not necessarily the right way.

I took the risk of consulting my tele. I looked at the street signs. It seemed a tremendous effort to actually use my brain.

Contsu House. A restaurant. It was only eight blocks away! I headed towards it. But I made myself the promise that if it wasn’t there, I would eat the first living thing I could catch.

All along the way my legs felt like they were on fire. The pain was unbelievable. But the ache in my stomach was primordial. It was twisting my mind. I was looking at doors and wondering if I could eat them. They looked so similar to large crackers. I wondered why the asses who had constructed this city hadn’t left great piles of food lying around. What if people got hungry? It seemed a massive oversight. There was all this metal and no food.

I had to rest numerous times, leaning up against buildings. I didn’t dare sit down because I wasn’t sure my legs could get me back up.

In the distance I could see the restaurant!

It was at the end of the block on the other side of the street. I had to cross the street. Why did they put it on the other side of the street? What a terrible thing to do!

I lumbered to the door and pressed on it. It swung in.

There were customers everywhere. The wait staff behind the counter saw me and froze in panic.

I didn’t care.

I walked forward to the counter. Anyone nearby got out of the way. I could walk around the counter where the little door was and enter the kitchen.

Or.

I lifted my arms and brought them down on the counter. The surface cracked. I did it again and again. I then leaned into it and pushed my way through the counter.

The kitchen!

I grabbed handfuls of food and shoved it in my mouth. I was drinking cooking oil. I was eating flour by the pound. I chewed raw, space-sourced pseudo-meat like it was flower petals from heaven. My face was so covered in food I couldn’t see and I was groping randomly for things to eat.

It was all so delicious. So wonderful. Nothing could ruin the joy of this moment.

My whole digestive system from mouth-to-throat-to-stomach seemed ready for anything. As fast as I could scoop food into my maw it processed it. I was the most efficient machine on Belvaille. In the state of Ginland. In the whole Colmarian Confederation.

I wanted to eat all the food everywhere!

And I was making a go of it. As I barely escaped eating my own hands a blast of white obscured my vision.

I kept eating.

The blast happened several more times. I finally noticed enough to care and turned my head, though I continued chewing.

Garm stood there holding a fire extinguisher. Her eyes were wide.

She was trying to coerce me to follow her, but I wasn’t interested in leaving my food.

One of her soldiers came in and began packing up the restaurant’s grub in a large plastic container. Several customers helped him carry it.

It was then that I noticed the whole restaurant was milling around watching me—from a safe distance.

With the promise of the food container, I followed Garm to her car.

In the back seat I ate and ate and ate.

If anything was said that entire time, I didn’t hear it.

I woke up in a dingy apartment in a filthy bed with my legs in two casts, propped on a makeshift metal box. All I knew was that it wasn’t my apartment.

I was hungry again.

“Hello?” I asked.

No one responded.

I saw a gallon of water on a small table next to my bed but I couldn’t reach it. I tilted and twisted, but that made my legs hurt so I lay back down.

I couldn’t find my tele. That was more disconcerting than anything. Many people slept with their teles, that’s how integral they were to our being.

Hadn’t I met Garm? This certainly wasn’t her apartment. She lived in luxury. Other than a chair and the table and the bed, there was nothing in the room. Not even a carpet. It could be a flophouse in Deadsouth for all I knew except the room was too small.

But at least I was alive, which was more than I could say about a lot of people at that battle I’m sure. I was anxious to know who had escaped. How it all happened.

I felt very vulnerable lying in an unknown bed, no weapons, no tele, immobile.

I must have dozed off, because I came to and the medical technician Devus Sorsha was examining my legs. He was cutting the casts off with a pair of thick scissors.

“You awake?” he asked in a pleasant manner.

“Do you have any food?” I asked. “And will I be able to walk again?”

“I’m sure your legs are fine,” he said, discarding the casts on the floor. “In fact, your body’s mutation is quite amazing.”

He began jabbing my legs with a metal pointer. Not delicately.

“Does that hurt?” he asked.

“No.”

“Fascinating. Normally with wounds like yours we would have to graft whole new sections of skin. You just regrew what you needed and sealed the rest. It’s almost impossible to tell where the lacerations were.”

He stared intently at my feet and legs.

“Do you want to try walking?” he asked.

“No. I just regained consciousness. But I’ll eat.”

“I don’t have any food with me. I just came to check on your progress.”

“I thought you said you had food,” I accused him.

“No. I didn’t say that.” He stood up from the bed as if he was suddenly concerned for his safety.

“Who brought me here? Where’s my tele? Where is this apartment?”

“Garm brought you I believe. She called me to come last week.”

“A week?”

“Yes. We’re under City Hall. This is one of the jail cells.”

“Do you know where my tele is?”

“I don’t. But I’ll let Garm know you’re awake…and hungry.” He started to pack his few things in a bag.

“Is there anything I should do with my legs?”

“Don’t do whatever you did to hurt them.”

“No, I mean to heal.”

He shrugged.

“Get rest. Fluids. You seem to require a lot of sustenance. You ate a lot since you’ve been here.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes, well, let me contact Garm.” He started to leave.

“So am I okay otherwise?”

“Were you injured in other locations?”

This guy was terrible. He seemed to read my expression.

“We can’t scan you. We don’t know if you’re hurt unless it physically shows. Your lower legs and feet seemed to be the only areas that were substantially damaged.”

“Fine. Thanks. Wait. Who is paying for this?”

“It’s been taken care of,” he said magnanimously.

He gave a small bow, as if he were some important, knowledgeable person, instead of a quack, then he left the room.

When he was gone, I gingerly lifted my legs with my arms and slid them to the floor. They didn’t hurt.

I pushed off the bed and took a few steps. My skin felt thick and tight. Like I was wearing knee boots that didn’t flex at the ankles.

Was this what he had referred to before when he said my body was healing back denser?

I walked around the room and between my limp and my new legs I felt like I was waddling. I slapped my calves a few times hoping it was just stiffness. Stood on my tiptoes. Maybe I would get used to it, like I got used to my bad knee.

After some time, both Garm and Delovoa came in to see me practice-walking around the room.

“Glad to see you up,” Delovoa said.

“Where’s my tele?” I demanded.

“We all have to take them off,” Garm stated. “It’s these cells. Alarms go off if you bring teles back here. They’re just at the end of the hall.”