John Ringo: The Hero

The bus kept its altitude all the way in, coasting between ever taller buildings lit in varying colors. The older ones had plain illumination. The newer ones were lit with panels of color and images, turning them into three-dimensional artwork that rose for dozens of meters above the traffic. The advertisements rose higher than the buildings. Despite the domes and a state-of-the-art defense grid, large meteors were a common occurrence on Islendia, because of the nature of the Juliana system, and a twenty-five-megaton blast in the stratosphere instead of on the surface was still bad for structural integrity. None of the buildings rose above thirty stories. It wasn’t common for domes to crack, but if they did, the same shockwave would tear the edifices apart. Hence, most activity was indoors and underground, despite the complications of building down instead of up.

The driver landed them atop a platform in front of a complex, still a good ten meters up. The four were already crowding the door before it opened, and erupted as they would from an assault pod under fire, swarming out and toward the broad, anachronistic stairs descending into the Sector A club, its lights dim red to match the décor.

Thor was first, flashing an ID and waving his card at the sensor. He slowed just enough for the dye marker to slap coldly against his hand, and was already reconning the place as he passed inside. It was fortunate they were sober, as the flashing lights and shifting holograms made visibility an iffy proposition, and it was hard to tell substance from image. That was part of Sector A’s appeal. He decided on an empty corner booth, and arrived there at a run, beating another man who looked annoyance at him but didn’t dispute his claim. The booth was one of many set high on the wall, approachable from below only by a ladder, but low enough for “vertical envelopment” of the floor below. Thor scrambled up the ladder with the rest of the team following.

“Here we go!” Ferret called as he arrived behind Thor, taking the side seat. “A good, clear field of fire.”

“For you to puke?” asked Gorilla, whose height gave him an even greater view from the booth’s position high on the wall. His back was to that wall, too. The others couldn’t see past his imposing bulk.

Thor said, “Ferret, don’t get us thrown out by tossing beers, okay? Even if it’s a charitable thing to do, it’s messy and pisses off the goons.”

“Back soon!” Gun Doll yelled cheerfully, as she swung over the railing and dropped. One of the security goons started yelling at her as she bounced across the floor to join a man who was dancing by himself. She made a hand gesture in the goon’s direction that was at least as old as starfaring mankind and grabbed the dancing man by the elbow. At first surprised, he smiled shortly and they melted into the growing crowd.

Gorilla said, “Score one, Gun Doll. Are we going to hit on chicks? Or drink first?”

“Drink first,” Thor said. “That way when Ferret gets us thrown out it will hurt less.”

The place hadn’t filled to capacity before they grew bored and left. There was no time to develop an image or a relationship. Their needs were immediate, and constant movement the chosen means of finding company. That it was neither efficient nor cost effective didn’t enter into the picture. They’d hit club after club until luck, boredom or morning did them in. Any of them could have explained the folly in their approach, had they stopped to think, but thinking was to be avoided for the moment.

From Sector A they went to Eden, a club lit only by UV lights. Couples and small groups made out in the near-black corners and nooks built in for that purpose. The building was a converted police command post from the early days of Islendian colonization, and had numerous closets, lockers and offices, most now converted into open space, some left as lockable cubbies for trysts.

“Hey, look at the diplopukes!” Ferret said, a bit too loudly. “They’re wearing suits !”

Gun Doll played off it. “Hush, it’s not polite to stare.”

The diplomats appeared to be from somewhere in the Solarian Systems Alliance. It was always amusing to see staid, conservative representatives staring in awed embarrassment at painted men and women sweating off their lusts. They arrived expecting yokels. Everyone from their planets knew the Islendian Republic was populated by gun-toting, backwards farmers. Yet those farmers had a deep understanding of sexuality, and a devil-may-care attitude. Tomorrow might bring a meteor too large for the defense net, a feral Posleen to rip one’s leg off, or worse, a sport God King leading an oolt of fifty of the damned things to eat a school. So why not eat, drink and screw today, if the work was done and the bills paid?

There was a vivid liveliness to the confederation that was missing in the inner worlds. Although the inner worlds were far more technologically adept, it was the Fringe that produced the poets, artists and actors who created the entertainment the inner worlds craved. The daily drama of survival, the life-and-death nature of life on the Fringe seemed to bring out far more artistry than the placid, safe, lives of the Core.

Whatever the case, the “hicks” were both more alive and more sophisticated than the Core worlders and that life and sophistication was always hard for the Core worlders to fully grasp. Often they saw only a barbaric spectacle, but that spectacle held far more beauty than could be found from Earth to Antares.

Eden led to Mac’s Place, to four or five others they wouldn’t remember, but would track by the stamps on their arms. On the street somewhere between Sudsy Capone’s Laundromat and Bistro, which rated highly for its original theme, and The Orbital Room with its drunken young women and screaming music, Thor was struck by philosophy.

“Isn’t it odd,” he said, “how we, young, strapping, desirable hunks of flesh, Gorilla excepted, of course, on the prowl and itching to get blown, laid or whatever, have some of the poorest luck?”

“Speak for yourself,” Gun Doll snickered. She twirled a man’s underwear around her finger. “I had a quickie at Eden while you were busy being hosed by that blonde. And I think that was a guy in trans, anyway—”

Thor interrupted with, “I assure you she was female. Very female, and—”

“Yeah? So where’s her panties?” Gorilla asked. “You know the rules. No souvenir, no score for the board.”

Sighing, Thor continued, “No, we didn’t get that far. My point is, we seem to manage less action than the soft businessmen.”

“They’ve got more money than you ever will,” Gun Doll said. “Besides, where’s Ferret?” she asked rhetorically.

“Still at Sudsy’s,” Gorilla chuckled. “Last time I saw him, which is while Thor was taking that tumble in the air dryer, he was sneaking behind the machines with something that was very probably female.”

“Yep, saw that,” she agreed. “So there goes your profound theory, Thor.” Her tongue tripped over the phrase. She’d had a few drinks, too. “The score is one, Ferret and me, half point for you for style because we’re being generous, and Gorilla has none yet but the night is young.”

Thor pointed out, “It’s three ayem and we’ve got an oh seven hundred formation.”

“Yep, young,” she agreed. “I think I can score two tonight.” She was eyeing a man outside a bar, holding a drink and leaning casually against the wall. “Target acquired, fire for effect,” she said. Her voice was sultry and seductive and so out of place with her normal personae and the comment.

Thor and Gorilla chuckled. “Goodnight, Doll. See you in four hours.”

She waved her fingers behind her back as she sidled up to the stranger and smiled a smile that promised him a lot of intense, if brief, fun.