Anthology - From the Street

X-Prime nodded at the hostess when he walked by her. She didn't acknowledge him.

The club was pleasantly noisy, a content buzz filling the air. The people who had come to drink so they could forget their troubles had succeeded and were settling into the good-natured stage of inebriation. It would be a few drinks more before they moved on to loud and obnoxious.

He walked up to the scarred but clean bar and slapped his hand on it three times, just like in the trids. And what do you know, a stein of ale flew down the bar and into his hand. He whisked it off the bar, spun on his stool, and lifted the stein to his mouth in one smooth motion. He would have felt really good about himself right then except for his dangling dwarf legs, which weren't quite long enough to reach the stool's foot rest. They'd grown shorter about half a year ago (thanks to that fragging comet flyby), and he still didn't know what to do with them half the time.

He drank, and pleasant haze filtered into his brain almost immediately. He remembered he hadn't eaten in about eight hours, then resolved to drink that much more to fill himself up.

An hour and a half later, X-Prime discovered that a normally simple task like listening took real exertion. Words came out of the mouth of the guy next to him – he was sure they did, he could almost see them sliding off the guy's tongue – but instead of going in X-Prime's ears, they slipped this way and that, and he couldn't seize them. He tried to focus, really tried, because the last remaining logical part of his mind told him he should be listening to what was being said.

"Just got beat up, you know, an incredible job," the guy said. He was short and wiry, bouncing around on his stool like a metal spring. His pointed nose twitched as he spoke. "I never seen nothing like it, he was one big bruise and had a few cracked ribs and fingers, but he was still alive, you see, that's the whole point, he was still alive, conscious even, and he felt every bit of the beating, that's the whole thing, he could feel the pain on every inch of his body. It was like art, that's what I'm telling you, this job was so perfect, it should be in a museum somewhere, except, you know, bruises fade, so it'd be tough to preserve. Maybe take a trid of the guy, but I don't know if that would do the whole experience justice." The guy shook his head. "Simply amazing."

X-Prime noticed that the guy had stopped talking. He tried to focus on his face, but his eyes would only squint, and the only thing he could see clearly was the glass in front of him and the thick, greasy black hair of the man across from him. He thought about trying to remember his name, but that was far too difficult. So he said something and hoped it made sense.

"I'll bet it really hurt."

"Yeah. Yeah. You got that right, chummer. You know what it was? You know what did it? It was the mercury."

"Mercury?"

"Yeah. In the arm. The guy that did the beating, see, he's got an implant. Cyberarm, Yamatetsu, top-of-the-line drek. It's got some of the usual equipment – you know, gun holster, shock pad, all that – but they also put in this hollow tube inside and put a glob of mercury at one end. So what happens, see, is he takes his arm back" – the guy made a fist and cocked his arm at his waist – "and some suction pumps pull the whole glob to his shoulder, then he swings" – the guy moved his arm toward X-Prime's chin in an uppercut – "and the mercury shoots forward, and if he times it right – and let me tell you, this guy always times it right – the mercury comes into his fist right when his fist hits your chin, so you get the punch and it's backed by a pellet of metal moving way faster than the guy's hand. Can you believe this drek? It just lays you out! And it works on other swings, like a hatchet motion, coming down on you, whomp, I'll bet that's how the ribs got broken, the sap was lying on the ground and the Yak comes up with a hatchet swing and the mercury flies forward and pow! Guy's lucky his lungs weren't crushed!"

This was penetrating the haze in X-Prime's mind. He tried to say several things at once, but only three words came out. "Burt the Toad."

The guy slapped his knee three times, his small pupils dancing in the middle of his wide-circle eyes. "That's the guy! That's him! Works for Kawasaga, right? You've heard of him?"

X-Prime tried to smile slyly. In truth, it looked like a corner of his mouth somehow drooped upward. "Yeah. You could say that."

The guy's eyes narrowed. "You know something. Yeah, yeah, I seen that look. You know something! What?"

"Nothing," X-Prime said airly. "Nothing much, really." He paused, milking it, savoring it. "Well, maybe a little."

"Oh, you've gotta tell me. What do you know about this Toad guy? Come on, come on, you're killing me here, killing me. What's happening?"

X-Prime looked one way, then the other, then leaned forward. "The Toad won't be hopping for long." He found that unaccountably funny and started giggling. The guy politely waited for him to finish.

"What are you saying?" the guy finally asked.

"That arm?" X-Prime said. "The one with the mercury and all that? Between you and me, it's coming off."

"Get out of here!"

"No. Really."

"Coming off?"

"Coming off."

"Wow." The guy puffed his cheeks and whooshed out some air. "Wow. Cutting off Burt the Toad's arm. Who's putting you up to it? Triads?"

"I don't know."

"Mafia?"

"I don't know, I said."

"Wait, wait, I've got it. Kawasaga himself. He knows the Toad is out of control, and he's reining him in. That's it, right? Right?"

"I don't know. Really, I don't. They don't tell me that sort of things. I just got a job to do."

"You're going to do it? I'm talking to the man who's gonna cut off Burt the Toad's arm? Unbelievable!" The guy was bouncing on his stool. "How're you gonna do it?"

X-Prime shrugged, assuming a cool, controlled look. "Cleanly. That's all I can say. It'll come off real clean. Still in working order."

The guy threw his head back and whooped. "You're gonna take the arm off in working order? That's great. That's great! It's gotta be Kawasaga, then. Probably wants it back so his investment isn't an entire loss. Get control of the Toad, get some money from the arm, cut his losses as much as possible. That's the only thing that makes sense."

"I don't know. I swear."

"Yeah, yeah, of course you don't. Kawasaga wouldn't want to let that out. Couldn't have people know he was cutting the arm off of one of his own guys. Doesn't look good."

X-Prime suddenly felt troubled. The guy sounded too knowledgeable about all this. Too interested. Had he said too much? Maybe it was time to go home.

"I gotta go home," he said.

"You do? Aw, it's only 2:30. Night's still young. Come on, stay awhile."

"No. I'd – better not." X-Prime stumbled to his feet. "I'd really better get out of here."

The guy accepted this. "Okay, all right. Good chatting with you. Don't always meet good talkers here."

X-Prime nodded. "Yeah. Thanks." He shambled away.

The guy watched him go, running his finger around the rim of his glass, then licking a drop of scotch off his nail. He smiled, grabbed his glass, and raised it in a silent toast. To alcohol, he thought. The greatest tongue-loosener ever invented.

Wednesday, 11:47 pm

The next night, X-Prime was Alex again. The cockiness, the swagger, the attitude had all last been seen at Crusher 495.

Cayman's little speech to the group earlier hadn't helped any.

"A good team's like a body," he'd told them. They nodded. They'd heard this before, plenty of times. "We have to be completely together, working in sync, balancing each other. No part of the body survives alone. You need a brain – that's me, and no smart remarks. Savini's the eyes, Spindle's the legs, Leadhead's the fists. We all work as a whole."