by Ben Wolf
The Viridian’s crew looked at each other and then dispersed into the city on foot, each more or less taking their own path. To Justin’s surprise, not even Captain Marlowe and Arlie stayed together. They each went their separate ways as well.
As Justin set out down a busy thoroughfare, a voice called his name. He turned back and saw Lora standing there. Her purple-tipped hair stood out among the myriad of people passing by.
“I was thinking,” she said as she approached him, “we’re in this nice setting. City lights and all that. Maybe it’s a good chance for us to try again? We gotta find rooms for the night anyway. Maybe we get dinner, see some sights, and then share a room? Would save some credits, too.”
[Don’t fall for it, JB. This ain’t Paris. It’s a random colonist ship city that they’re gonna plant on some un-terraformed planet to start a new civilization,] Keontae warned. [And trust me—splittin’ a room for the sake of savin’ money is the last thing on her mind.]
Justin agreed with Keontae on this one. He’d planned to just grab a quick local meal, find a place to hunker down, and then maybe do some exploring. He could appreciate the idea of sharing those experiences with someone else, but given how everything had gone with Lora thus far, he had no desire to spend that time with her.
“Lora…” Justin started.
A hopeful smile brightened her pretty face.
[Be decisive, man, or she’ll turn it back on you like she did before.]
“…I’m gonna pass. I appreciate the offer, but it’s better that we don’t entangle ourselves like this,” Justin said. He wanted to add, “especially since I’m your boss now.” He figured saying something like that aloud would be akin to detonating a bomb in his own face, so he held off.
Lora’s optimistic expression soured. She slung a slew of curses at Justin, some in Spanish, and then disappeared into the city.
[Good enough.]
“Yeah. She left, anyway.” Justin walked in the exact opposite direction.
For the first hour, he roamed Nidus City’s downtown area, taking in the imposing structures and wondering whose brilliant idea it was to build and launch an entire city onto a new planet all in one shot. Hovercraft continued to soar overhead, some of them loud and rumbling and others as quiet as a whisper.
Men and women in fine clothes, most of them also glowing with some sort of neon light, usually in the lapels of their coats or along the seams of their sleeves, strode in and out of the buildings like colorful ants coming and going from a nest. Most hardly noticed him, but those who did looked him up and down with no small amount of disdain in their eyes.
The panes of glass—or whatever it was—that made up the buildings reflected Justin’s haggard appearance. He wasn’t one of these people, and he didn’t belong there. That was for sure.
The first restaurant he happened upon served only vegan food, grown aboard the ship, and the prices were astronomical. He didn’t even need to come up with a third strike against the place, and he moved on.
A few other restaurants offered either fine dining or cookie-cutter fast-food options, but Justin wanted something more niche, more local, if he could find it. Problem was, he didn’t even know where to begin.
He stopped a man in the street—middle-aged and with a decent-sized belly hidden under his glowing orange coat. Didn’t look too rich, but looked well fed enough. Justin figured he would know some good spots.
“Excuse me,” Justin said. “Love your jacket, friend.”
“Out of my way, vagrant.” The man huffed as he tried to get around Justin. “Panhandling is illegal, you know.”
“Sorry…” Justin stepped into his path again. “Not trying to panhandle. Got plenty of my own credits. Just wanted to ask if you could point me to some good local food.”
“Local?” The man huffed again. “Nothing here is ‘local.’ This is a colonist ship. Now move.”
Justin positioned himself in front of the man again. “Really sorry. Something ethnic, then? Unique?”
The man growled at him. “Head down this street, then take a right on 34th. Take it all the way down to the Asian District. Plenty of options there. Now I’m rushing to a meeting. Will you let me go, please?”
Justin stepped aside and let the man pass.
[Asian District, huh?] Keontae said. [I used to come down hard on some Asian food back in the day. You know… when I wasn’t incorporeal.]
“Well, maybe you can at least catch a whiff when we find a good spot.” Justin’s stomach rumbled. Asian food sounded pretty amazing. He set out for 34th Street and took his right turn.
The farther away from downtown he traveled, the smaller and less opulent the buildings became. Rather than covered in mirrored glass, they were constructed of concrete and metal, and he didn’t have to look up forty stories to see the tops of these buildings.
He noticed what looked like apartment complexes and shops, as well as a handful of restaurants. Some were chain stores, but a handful of unique stops were mixed in, too.
He almost caved and stopped at a small Greek restaurant with a blue neon “GYROS” sign in the window next to an image of someone he could only assume was a high-tech Julius Caesar, but he decided to follow through on his original plan and kept heading toward the Asian District.
Before long, the buildings took on a different tone. They looked to be about the same size as the buildings outside downtown, but they had a distinctively Asian flare. Justin had visited a couple of large cities on some of the planets where he’d worked for mining companies, and he’d visited similar Asian districts there, albeit only briefly.
Beyond the architecture, the neon Asian symbols and characters in the windows and on the sides of the buildings added to the effect. Justin spoke precisely zero words in any Asian language, so he couldn’t differentiate between Chinese, Japanese, or any other language. It all looked more or less the same to him, even though he knew it wasn’t.
Bamboo—possibly real, but possibly some sort of synthetic lookalike—adorned many of the shops and buildings, and red tiles that resembled dragon scales covered the tops of several of the buildings. Others had the same style of tiled roof, but in other colors—some blue or green or brown.
The deeper into the Asian District he went, the more the delicious aromas of food threatened to overwhelm his hunger. A series of food carts along the street, which had at some point shifted to a sort of cobblestone surface instead of standard concrete, beckoned him over.
Seared meats and vegetables, rice, and varieties of sauces, some hot and some mild, tantalized his senses. He found a vendor selling dumplings of some sort, but when he asked what was in them, he quickly realized the short, older man operating the cart didn’t speak English. Justin only got lots of head-shaking and shoulder-shrugging, both of which he returned.
“Please allow me to translate,” an unusual voice behind him said.
Justin turned back to find, of all things, an android approaching. It looked to be a standard human-shaped model like the ones at ACM-1134 had been, but it had a metallic blue body and limbs instead of chrome. The lights in its wrists, ankles, and chest glowed red, and a shining gold star on its chest told the rest of the story.
Justin’s first impulse was to extend his energy sword from his robotic arm and cut the thing down, but this security android wasn’t going to harm him. Still, he didn’t exactly trust it, either.
“Sure,” he agreed. “I just want to know what’s in the dumplings.”
Every culture ate different meats and vegetables, and even though Justin was exploring, he didn’t want to venture too far into the unknown.
The android translated for him, and the vendor replied.
“He says they contain pork, cabbage, and carrots,” the android relayed. “He has others that feature beef and chicken as well.”
[JB,] Keontae said, [if you don’t try ’em all, we can’t be friends anymore.]
Justin’s stomach growled in agreement. “Tell him I want three of each,
with a side of rice. And sauce.”
The android translated again, and the vendor smiled at him and nodded. He packed everything into a trio of paper containers, stuffed it into a paper bag, and dropped a pair of chopsticks in there.
Justin hesitated. “Fork?”
As he pantomimed using a fork, the vendor just shook his head and laughed.
Well, guess that’s my answer. Justin paid the vendor a modest amount of credits—super reasonable for all the food he’d gotten—and threw in a few extras as a tip for the vendor, who smiled and nodded again, and then he bowed.
Justin gave him an awkward half-hearted bow and a thumbs-up.
“If that will be all, I must continue my rounds,” the android said.
“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” Justin said to him.
“I am happy to serve,” the android replied, then it walked away with clanking steps.
[More of that shit again,] Keontae said. [A machine bein’ happy to serve.]
“Hey, don’t begrudge the machine its happiness,” Justin said. “You’re pretty much one of them at this point.”
[Say that again, and I’ll turn your next shower into an icy rain. We’ll see who’s happy then.]
Justin picked up a sweetened green tea from another vendor and carried his dinner over to a stone bench near a shop selling what appeared to be Chinese or Japanese lanterns. Even with the handicap of using chopsticks, he devoured all of it within a matter of minutes, and he savored every glorious bite.
[You done stuffin’ your face?]
Justin puffed his bloated belly out and grinned. “I wasn’t stuffing my face.”
[I’m right here. Saw all of it,] Keontae said. [You should be prosecuted for war crimes.]
Justin slurped down the rest of his tea. “You’re just jealous.”
[Damn right I’m jealous.] Hurt, and a bit of anger, lined Keontae’s voice.
“Look… I’m sorry I said that,” Justin began. “I was just trying to keep up with your banter. I didn’t mean to—”
[It’s fine. Can’t be helped,] Keontae said. [Ain’t mad at you. Just mad at the situation.]
Justin nodded. “Well, I’m sorry anyway.”
[Like I said, we’re good. Don’t worry about it.]
As Justin sat back, a flurry of bright neon lights materialized into a huge hologram before his eyes. The lights knitted together in a rainbow of colors, forming intricate patterns and images that gradually joined together as scales, limbs, and a massive head.
It was a classic Chinese dragon, the kind Justin had seen depicted in art countless times throughout his life. Here it was again, as a hologram, weaving and floating up and down above the street without a care in the world.
[Wow…] Keontae said. [That’s somethin’ you don’t see every day.]
“Incredible,” Justin said. “Looks almost real.”
[I love Asian culture, man,] Keontae said. [If I hadn’t been born black, I woulda wanted to be Asian. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai… don’t matter which one. It’s all legit, and their food is bangin’, too.]
“Got that right,” Justin said.
Justin continued watching as the dragon’s tail writhed into view, lithe and strong and brilliant with colors. The dragon wafted down the street, away from them, and it turned a corner instead of traveling out of the Asian District.
“You, guy,” a voice broke Justin out of his trance.
He turned. In the entrance to the shop stood an Asian guy about Justin’s age, wearing a white apron over his clothes.
“You go,” he said in broken English.
“Huh?” Justin stared at him.
“You go now. Stop talk to yourself and go,” the man said.
“Oh. Sorry.” Justin collected his garbage from dinner and stuffed it all into the paper bag. He looked around but didn’t see anywhere to drop his trash. He did, however, notice a group of four young men, all of Asian descent, staring at him from across the street. He ignored them. “Uh… is there a garbage can somewhere I can—”
“I take.” The man in the store entrance motioned Justin forward with his hand outstretched, and he took the bag from Justin. “Now you go. Big trouble, you stay. Go.”
Justin had no idea what he’d done to invite such treatment, aside from talking to himself, but he didn’t want to argue. The artificial sun had sunk toward the dome’s horizon, and night was descending over Nidus City. He needed to find a place to crash for the night anyway, and any further conversation wouldn’t be worth his time or the Asian man’s.
He started walking down the street. “What was that about?”
[Beats me. Probably nothin’.]
As he walked, Justin noticed the four Asian guys keeping pace with him, but staying on the other side of the street.
“That’s not a good sign.”
[Just stay over here. Forget about them.]
Hard to forget about someone—or four someones—who were practically stalking him like prey. Three of them wore short-sleeved black shirts with slits cut into them on the torso, revealing their glowing undershirts beneath. One glowed blue, another glowed green, and the third glowed with a violet color, like so many of the neon lights marking the various establishments in the Asian District.
The other one wore the same attire, only his outer shirt was white, and his undershirt glowed orange, making his torso almost look as if he were on fire. Maybe he was the leader?
Whatever the case, it was immediately clear they were not only together and unified in purpose, but they were organized, too. Maybe a gang.
Tattoos ran down the lengths of their lean arms to their knuckles and fingers, and more tattoos crept up their exposed necks to their jaws. Portions of their tattoos gleamed like shining metal in the light, but Justin couldn’t tell whether they were some sort of augmentation or prosthesis like his arm or if they were just really fancy tattoos.
[Don’t look at ’em, JB. Just keep walkin’.]
“Trying, Key.”
With everything in Asian writing, he couldn’t decipher what was what, so he’d been heading back down 34th Street toward the area surrounding downtown. In the distance, the downtown skyscrapers glowed. If he could get back to the English-speaking part of town, he could find a place to stay and put this very mixed experience in the Asian District behind him.
But as he advanced, the group of four guys sped up and stepped into the street ahead of him, blocking his path.
Justin stopped and stared at them, and they stared right back, unblinking.
The one in the white shirt had blond hair, definitely bleached and dyed and probably bleached again. The others had black hair, and all of them stared at Justin with dark, probing eyes.
“Can I help you boys?” Justin asked. He immediately regretted calling them “boys,” but it was too late now. He just hoped he’d come across as pleasant enough that it wouldn’t sound like an insult.
The sun now barely crested its digital horizon. Before long, it would be night, and everything about Nidus City would completely change, as happened in most cities at nightfall. Already, several streetlamps had begun to glow with golden light, each of them adorned with Asian ornamentations and symbols.
The one in white with the blond hair stepped forward. In accented English, he said, “You came to the wrong place tonight.”
[I swear, you’re a magnet for bullshit, JB,] Keontae said. [No wonder I’m dead. I hung around you too much.]
“You’re not dead… not exactly. And thanks.”
“What did you say? You trying to get smart with us?”
“No, sorry. Just talking to myself,” Justin said. “If you’ll let me past, I’ll get out of your way.”
“Too late for that,” the guy in the white said. “You’re already in too deep. Only way out now is to buy your way out.”
Yep. Definitely a gang.
“Guys, I barely have any credits in the first place,” Justin lied. “I work on a mining rig. Almost all of my money goes into my savings ac
count. Gotta make a trip to Bortundi Prime to see a family friend, so all my credits are going toward that.”
“Don’t care,” the guy in white said. “You’re on our turf. You want to leave? Then you pay.”
Justin despised these types of situations. He hated to lose control, to feel powerless, to be extorted.
He glanced down at the street and realized that the cobblestones were actually translucent—possibly Plastrex, even. Below them, soft light shone upward, and the colorful silhouettes of koi fish swam in an underground tank of some sort. It was a really neat touch, but he couldn’t appreciate it. Not right now.
He countered, “Then I guess I’ll stick around.”
The guy in white shook his head. “No. You got to go.”
“But… I have to pay you before I leave?” Justin clarified.
“Yes.” The guy in white stepped closer to Justin, and his three friends followed. “Right now.”
“And what happens if I don’t pay?”
[They’re gonna kick your ass. You never saw any old martial arts movies?]
Justin waited for the guy in white to respond.
“You will pay one way or another. That is for certain.”
“You got a name, chief?” Justin asked. “Chief” might’ve been a derogatory nickname as well, but at this point, Justin didn’t care. He wasn’t going to just roll over and let these thugs take what was rightfully his.
“Quan Yazhu,” the guy in white replied. “Remember that name before you come in here next time.”
“I’m just passing through, Quan. I don’t want to fight with you about this. Just let me go, and I’ll never come back, okay?”
Quan shook his head. “No. You’re in Ikari territory. Now you will pay. Make your choice.”
Ikari? Justin glanced around. Where was that damned police android when he really needed it?
“No one is coming to help you, miner,” Quan said. “Time’s up. What do you choose?”
The three other thugs encircled Justin, blocking any hope for a clean escape.
[Too late to run,] Keontae said. [I don’t think you got enough credits with you to satisfy ’em. You might be fightin’ either way.]
