Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

“We said twenty thousand? Or was it thirty?”

I didn’t know if she was testing me or was really this forgetful about money. But that seemed unlikely. No one is that absentminded. Not about credits.

“It’s ten thousand. I didn’t get it to you in 24 hours. Not even sure if it was 48 hours, I’ve been on a weird schedule lately, what with the robots and all.”

“Oh,” she said casually, like she was perfectly okay with giving me thirty grand for this mess of drugs she didn’t ask for.

“So then ten thousand?” She walked to a neat little section of belongings at the other side of the room and took out her tele.

“Actually, it’s just three thousand. I still have seven left over from buying.”

I don’t know. Maybe she needs the money more than me. For upcoming funeral expenses if nothing else. Or to buy a chair for this apartment.

Jyen looked back at me with an inscrutable expression. She started to beam me the credits when the building began to shake.

This was a space station. With metal buildings. Protected by all manner of shielding and engineering wizardry. Nothing shook here. Ever.

“Hey! Did you feel that?” I asked.

It was a completely foreign sensation, like being incredibly drunk yet with a clear head. And then I looked at the walls and they were bending. Warping, but not shattering or cracking like logic said they should. Maybe I didn’t have a clear head.

My first thought was that the Dredel Led were doing something. But when I saw the walls, I figured that some drugs must have somehow seeped into me or I had accidentally inhaled their fumes. Who knows what broke apart or came undone while I was carrying them? But I felt fine. I could see normally. My skull, when I shook it, did not feel clouded. I wished I had paid more attention to Grever’s drug talk so I could ascertain what I had absorbed.

And just as abruptly as the swaying and shaking started, it was over. Completely. I patted the cold metal wall next to me and it was as solid as ever.

I looked down at the drugs and they were still there. But Jyen was gone. Was I high? Had I simply imagined a blue lady, and if so, what was the psychological significance of me giving her such oversized ears?

No, she was real. My tele registered the new three grand. I left the apartment and briefly considered the elevator, but decided on the stairs.

I woke up to Garm at my front door. Sucks having a friend who doesn’t need to sleep.

“What?” I asked, resting my head against the door, my eyes shut.

She pushed past me and came inside.

“What do you mean, ‘what’? Didn’t you feel that this morning? It was like the whole station was going to break apart.”

“You felt it too? I thought I was going crazy.”

I went to my kitchen for something to eat. I found some packets of rations, a real space station staple from the early days. We had decent food now, but I had eaten rations for so many years I was used to them.

As I chewed, Garm paced around, agitated.

“They’re out there,” she said. “The Dredel Led. One of the techs, one of the old-timers, was looking through our computer systems and said someone broke in.”

“Could it be one of the bosses snooping around?”

“Why would a boss want access to our facilities? Besides, he could trace where the access point was. It was out west. No one’s going to be out there. Not with what was printed in The News . People are scared to walk outside, let alone the 220 thblock.”

Western Belvaille had been dark for decades. It was just too much hassle keeping utilities functioning across a sparsely populated city. When people left the space station after the Portals were closed, those folks that remained were forced to move east.

“I didn’t even know the street numbers went that high. Well, what do you want to do?” I asked.

“I want to go out there. They must have done something to cause that shaking.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. Do you want to wait a week? We might not be around that long. We tracked the break-in.”

“Alright,” I said with little enthusiasm.

A hot shower would have done me a world of good, but I changed my clothes, grabbed my guns, and walked to the door where Garm was waiting impatiently.

Garm and I were in the back of one car with a driver up front. The rest of her soldiers were in a separate vehicle. The car was spacious, with tinted glass, had six wheels. I think Garm had “commandeered” it long ago from a gang boss for some made up fraction. The other car was more functional and about half the length. I continued to eat my rations as we drove past apartment buildings.

“I wonder what parents tell their children in situations like this,” I said dreamily.

“I told my son to sit tight and not let his daughter go to school.”

I turned to stare at Garm.

“You have a son? Belvaille has schools?”

“You didn’t know that?”

This was like someone suddenly telling me that in actuality I was a twelve-year-old girl with pigtails and gap teeth.

“Who’s he work for?” I asked.

“Threezo-threez Finance. He’s an accounts payable clerk.”

“Here?”

I just couldn’t see any spawn of Garm being anything but some rough go-getter. I figured a junior gang leader at least.

“Not everyone on the station does illegal work. We have plenty of decent folks.”

“Yeah, I know that,” I said quickly.

“My son is just a nice kid with a good family. Though I told him he could do a lot better. The pay is good.”

“So you’re a grandmother too?”

Garm was now aggravated, her lips pressed so tight I thought they might burst into flames.

“Yes! Just because you’re anti-attachment…”

“What are you talking about? I have attachments. I know half the people on this station.”

“Half the felons, maybe. But as long as you’ve been here I bet there’s not more than a handful who even know where you came from.”

The car moved smoothly along, the hum from its engine a constant.

“I lost a daughter once, too. Bet you didn’t know that,” she said.

She gave a small shrug, not dismissive or uncaring, just something to do with her shoulders as she gazed at the empty streets.

This was a sorry topic of conversation. It never would have occurred to me in a million years she was a grandma with a sad past. Not that that carried any significance. It’s not like she wasn’t Garm because of it.

But a clerk? Really?

We came to the block that had been tracked and everyone got out of the cars. The soldiers were taut, their heads swiveling every which way as if they were trying to wrench them off their bodies. They had on bulky, padded armor connected by cords and topped with a hard shell. I’m sure it would protect great against rocks or debris hurled in a riot, but a Dredel Led seemed likely to laugh at it.

While there were small red emergency lights here and there, and the latticework shed some light in this direction, it was fairly dark for the most part.

I took the point and walked to the…I don’t know what you call it. I guess they’re all over the station, but it’s just one of those things you don’t pay any attention to. They’re maybe four foot tall cylinders a foot in diameter, spaced out along the sidewalk every few blocks.

This one in particular had been opened. Inside it showed all kinds of circuitry and cabling. I looked closely at it as the soldiers made a perimeter around us.

“This is where the Dredel Led tapped in,” Garm whispered.

“Should I put the cover back on it?” I asked her, not having any better ideas.

She made a series of hand gestures to her men. One squad headed off the way we came, guns at the ready. The rest fell in line behind me.