Trouble Magnet

by Alan Dean Foster

  Alewev was not the worst district of the huge sprawl that was Malandere City. It was too poor to hold that distinction. Whereas other sections like Gijjmelor and Pandrome had cemented their status as sections of the metropolis that churned out evil as fast as they did credit, Alewev merely sustained a reputation for steady decay. Only occasionally did some exceptional outrage occur there that proved media-worthy.

  That was fine with Subar. He was not one of those middle-aged villains whose future was inevitably cut short by a desperate need for publicity. Much more logical, he reasoned, to operate under the scanner, as far away as possible from the attention of sensation-seeking tridee types and the perpetually harried authorities. He had no interest whatsoever in delivering Olympian pronouncements to the municipal media from the confines of one of the city’s overpopulated criminal holding facilities. Getting one’s image on the tridee was a poor trade-off for selective mindwipe.

  Besides, having to live in close quarters with his generally worthless, misbegotten relatives was punishment enough.

  He jumped the last level from the roof to the street and strutted the final couple of blocks to the baroon. Chaloni, Dirran, Zezula, Missi, and Sallow Behdul were already there, lounging on chairs or vilators on the second-floor deck out front. As always, his gaze was immediately drawn to Zezula. How she got her slender yet ripe self into the garment known as a twyne, much less kept all the strips of dark glistening fabric in place, constituted a demonstration of practical physics that far exceeded in interest anything he had encountered in the course of his occasional limited sojourns into academics. Sparkling like specular hematite, the lengths of black shimmer only emphasized the whiteness of her flesh. She looked, he thought deliciously, like a stick of some particularly exotic candy confection.

  Grinning, Chaloni welcomed him with a gentle chiding. “Better roll your tongue back into your mouth, Subar, before somebody steps on it.” The gang leader and Dirran laughed while Sallow Behdul, who rarely showed anything in the way of emotion, dredged a vapid smile from the depths of his gaunt, progeria-afflicted visage.

  Subar’s tongue was not protruding in the slightest, much less hanging out, but both young men understood the meaning behind the gang leader’s words. For her part Zezula ignored them both, in the way of those females who are young, beautiful, and aware of it.

  Taking care to position himself as gracefully as possible (in case Zezula happened to be paying attention), Subar flopped down onto a mist-lounge and as best he was able affected an air of sophisticated indifference. The pose was a complete sham, of course. Despite his best efforts, the teen possessed as much actual sophistication as the stuff one found washing down street drains. Only Chaloni, two years older and the more wizened for it, had spent enough time outside Alewev to claim such knowledge. That he rarely flaunted his experience was what made his nominal leadership of the group tolerable.

  “Have something,” the older boy offered magnanimously.

  Subar didn’t hesitate. Having nothing at home, he was not ashamed to succumb to Chaloni’s charity. There was a plate of small, locally made pastries; something purplish red, sweet, and offworld; mung drops; and geltubes filled with dizzle. As the latter sang in his mouth, he helped himself to a glassful of pale blue frolic. Twenty percent alcohol by volume from the bottle, it dissipated to less than 2 percent by the time it reached the stomach. One could get high on it, but never drunk.

  On the street below, pedestrians worked their way around slow-moving groundbound vehicles. The throughway was off limits to skimmers, which needed more space in any case in order to maneuver at speeds fast enough to render ascension cost-effective. One-way transparencies lined the sides of office and commercial buildings opposite the baroon, while seemingly weightless porches protruded from the apartments situated higher up. Occasionally a semi-legal flad would drift by, flashing its images and blaring its commercial message. These fled whenever an automated plad showed up in pursuit. Stay outside and observe the street scene long enough, and one was sure to see a municipal plad catch up to and destroy one or more of the illegal aerial advertisements. Those who programmed and sent out the flads counted such destruction against the cost of doing business.

  Stimulated by the food and drink, Subar soaked up the familiar clamor of the street and the chatter of his friends in equal measure. There was much nattering of inconsequentialities. Though shorter and stockier than Zezula, Missi conceded nothing to the other girl. Dirran talked as much as any of them, while Sallow Behdul simply sat quietly and listened. Subar chipped in when he had something to add. While he was as argumentative as any of them, he was careful never to directly contradict Chaloni. Subar knew he was smarter than the gang’s leader, and almost as big, but there were mysteries to which the other boy had been exposed that remained closed to him.

  Meanwhile, he bided his time and sucked up Chaloni’s largesse. He felt no shame in this. When one has nothing, one takes whatever is offered from whoever offers it. Insurrection is difficult to mount on an empty stomach.

  “Who’s got cred this week?” The gang leader sat up, his mist-chair hissing softly beneath him. Dirran immediately handed over his card. While both boys held on to the identification square of their respective chits, Chaloni touched the other boy’s to his own. A transfer was accomplished. The gang leader repeated the process with Zezula, Missi, and Sallow Behdul. He did not even bother to query the youngest member of the group. If not for Chaloni’s munificence, and a rare moment of pity, Subar would not even have a card. In any case, the balance on it rarely read more than zero.

  Touching a corner of the card to a receptor on his stimshades, Chaloni scanned his account’s new, uplifted balance. Satisfied, he ordered another bottle of dizzle, a different song this time.

  As liquid found its way to waiting, self-chilling glasses, Missi dared to voice a mild protest. “That’s three weeks straight, Chal. I’m tapped. My mother’s gonna have a Morion if she finds out.”

  Chaloni shrugged, grinned. “Don’t you secure your account?”

  The heftier girl looked away. “Sure, but sometimes she asks to viz the transfer, just to make sure everything’s opto. I can’t keep putting her off forever.” She looked worried. “One of these days she’s gonna ask where the cred fled.”

  Chaloni nodded, as if he had expected something like this from Missi all along. “I know I’ve been tapping youls hard lately. And that’s going to be fixed. Come morn after morrow, you’re all going to see your accounts floating higher than zeal on a holiday shrake.”

  Dirran was immediately interested. “What you got in mind, Chal? We gonna zlip another quicore?” He was remembering the last time they had boosted a couple of expensive players from a display.

  In ancient times, Subar knew, it had been easier. Payment was made with discs of gold and silver metal, or pieces of paper that stood in for cred. Except on the most isolated, backward worlds such mediums of exchange had not existed for hundreds of years. It was hard to be a thief when everything was paid for via a shifting of electrons. Hard, but not impossible. Physical objects still had value. A gun, for example, was always exchangeable for cred.

  “I’m ready.” Zezula’s response was a breathy blend of honey and disdain. Her reply could be taken different ways. Sopping it up, Subar’s respiration came a little faster.

  “Same here,” grunted Sallow Behdul almost inaudibly.

  “No quicore napping. Not this time.” Chaloni’s smile widened, the way it always did when he was preparing to spring some new surprise on them. He was letting the moment linger, savoring the incipient revelation. “Bigger strike. Bigger, and easier.” As he leaned toward them, his smile tightened. “We’re going to scrim a couple of visitors.”

  Subar’s gaze shifted immediately to the street below. They had scrimmed pedestrians before, sometimes profitably, sometimes incurring the risk for nothing. You had to be fast and careful, and burrow to cover immediately afterward. Swamped with casework, the municipal authorities
tended to relegate crimes of property to the bottom of their overworked agendas. Those crimes that involved assaults on persons drew swifter attention. That was because, Subar knew, a boosted and cleaned vehicle could not complain as easily as an injured citizen.

  “Who?” Dirran was asking. “Where?”

  “Something special this time. I’ve been scoping it for days. Got it locked down. We’re in, we’re on them, and we’re out. If I’ve evaled it right, everybody’s cred is going to wax max like you haven’t coned it in months.”

  Subar was no less intrigued than the others. They edged closer, their concentration now fully fixed on their leader. Well, almost fully. Always hungry, Subar continued to pick at the food while devoting the rest of his attention to Chaloni.

  “The location’s perfect,” the gang leader was whispering. “Bellora Park, east quad.”

  Missi frowned. “That’s not in Alewev.”

  Chaloni shook his head impatiently. “Huh-uh—Shangside. Easy transport, lots of connections at the nearest station. Afterward, we can each of us get home six different ways. Safe and sane.”

  Subar chose that moment to show both his smarts, and that he’d been paying attention. “You said you’d scoped ‘them.’”

  The gang leader eyed him approvingly. “Uh-huh. There’s just two. A senior female and one male attendant who’s always with her.”

  Zezula sounded uncertain. “‘Senior female’? What is she, some kind of government administrator?”

  The fact that Chaloni was probably zoffing her did not keep him from utilizing the opportunity to display his superior knowledge, tinged with just a hint of disdain. “That’s how you refer to a female thranx past egg-laying prime.”

  The two girls looked at one another. Dirran was startled into the kind of dumbfounded silence usually reserved for Sallow Behdul. It was left to Subar to voice what his companions were feeling.

  “We’re going to scrim a pair of thranx?”

  Chaloni’s tone had turned chill. He was all business now. “Why not? You got anything against cracking chitin instead of bone?”

  Reflexively, Subar shook his head vigorously from side to side. He had seen thranx before. Not just on the tridee but also in person, though only rarely. They had little reason to visit Alewev District. There was nothing for them there. But on a bustling, perfervid world like Visaria, where business was ongoing around the clock and cred was being accumulated by the nanosecond, every sentient species whose culture allowed for the accrual of wealth by an individual, clan, family, or group had an interest in establishing a presence in the capital city. Humankind’s closest and most important allies within the Commonwealth, the insectoid thranx had a similar appreciation for affluence.

  But to scrim one—or in this case, two—that was something Subar had never even imagined. As he sat pondering, his thoughts whirling, it was Zezula’s turn to press Chaloni further.

  “Why thranx?” she inquired huskily. “I mean, I don’t have anything against it: a boost is a boost. But why bugs instead of bipeds?”

  Chaloni nodded patiently, his body language showing that he had clearly anticipated the question. “Well for one thing, nobody’ll be expecting it.” His grin returned, twisted this time. “Show the media that we here in Alewev don’t discriminate. Bugs won’t be expecting it, either.” He fixed her with a mixture of sloe-eyed lust and testosterone-fueled dominance. “I told you, I scoped it. We’ll be in and out before anybody can raise an alarm.” Leaning back on the mist-chair, he folded his slender, muscular arms across his chest in a posture of youthful bravado.

  “Thranx are always loaded with the latest stuff from Evoria and places like that. You know what we take off scrimmed locals. Imagine what we’re going to be offered for out of the ordinary offworld gear.”

  “Weapons?” Missi sounded half thoughtful, half hesitant. She did not want to appear to be challenging Chaloni’s competency.

  He took no offense. “Scoped the bugs three different mornings. Didn’t see anything like that. Doesn’t mean they’re not carrying. But if they are, the stuff’s not patent. It’s kind of hard to tell. They both wear the typical everyday bug body pouches across the lower thorax. No heavy gear, since near as I can figure the morning walks they take are just for exercise. Then they call private transport to take them back to their hive-hotel. But the packs look like they’re always full.”

  His eyes glittered as he continued. “One morning, I saw them stop on the trail. The attending male kept pulling gear from his pouch and passing it to the female. Communications, body gloss sprayer, all kinds of stuff. All of it new and the latest. Probably a lot more stuff in each pouch. I hope he is carrying a gun. A bug weapon would be worth as much as everything else put together.” He took a long draft from his glass. “Just two bugs. Should be easy to take down.”

  Startling everyone, Sallow Behdul spoke up. His tone was as mournful as his perpetually sorrowful expression. “You ever scrim a thranx, Chaloni?”

  It took a moment for the gang leader to recover from his surprise at hearing Behdul voice a question. “Uh, no. So what? As long as we surprise ’em and make sure to cover the exits, it shouldn’t be any different from scrimming a human. C’mon, Sallow—you know bugs as well as anybody. They’re smaller than us, don’t weigh near as much. Grab one by the antennae and they’ll do anything you want.”

  Behdul looked less than completely satisfied, but under Chaloni’s even stare elected not to comment further.

  “You sure it won’t bring extra attention down on us?” Dirran inquired.

  Chaloni shrugged. “What if it does? Alewev is where we live, Alewev is where we hide. We’re crossing district lines anyway. The police won’t know where we’re from. It’s not like we’re scrimming Quillp or some neutrals. These are just thranx, people. Our blessed friends. No bug deal.” He leaned forward again, obviously pleased with himself.

  “And the best part of it is, being from offworld, they’re unlikely to hang around to help with identifications or testify in person. Visaria isn’t a tourist destination. This female’s probably on business here. That means she’s likely to have more business elsewhere. They’ll probably just take the loss as part of the cost of doing business on a less civilized human world and get on with their lives.”

  Subar had to admit that Chaloni seemed to have thought of everything. Two thranx or two humans; what was the difference? They would ambush the female and her attendant during their morning walk, scrim what they carried on their person, and vanish into the park and the city streets. By the time their quarry recovered from the shock of the confrontation sufficiently to communicate what had happened, Subar and his friends would have scattered in six different directions.

  His only real concern was the possibility of their action being observed, and recorded, by witnesses. But if Chaloni had scoped out prey this thoroughly, surely he would have chosen an appropriately secluded site, one that would conceal their activity from the sight of others who might be in the same area of the park at the same time. That was a leader’s job. Subar was good at following orders and taking action, but complex strategy still tended to confuse him. Not for much longer, though. He had no intention of challenging Chaloni directly. Instead, he intended to leapfrog the leader of the gang. Not for Subar the occasional zlip or scrim. His ambition was much greater.

  There were criminal organizations whose tentacles reached deep into Alewev. Subar knew of them, had seen some of their representatives going about their business. They were adults, engaged in adult enterprises. Already he had initiated a few tentative contacts. Such organizations were always looking for new, eager, energetic recruits. This might well be his last outing with the gang. He had plans, Subar did. Intentions to move on to bigger, better, badder things.

  But first, a brief morning excursion in Ballora Park. He needed some cred in order to make an important purchase. His share of the forthcoming boost should provide that. It would impress his prospective new employers considerably if he
arrived soliciting employment in possession of his own gun. Chaloni and Dirran had theirs. He was old enough. A child’s finger could depress the operating button or trigger of a weapon as easily and effectively as that of an adult.

  “Thaie, Subar!”

  “What?” Blinking, he saw that everyone except Sallow Behdul was looking at him.

  “Where you transposing to, kid?” Chaloni asked him.

  If there was anything Subar hated worse than seeing Zezula let Chaloni paw her, it was being called kid. He did not show any reaction, of course. “Thinking about tomorrow.”

  The gang leader sniffed. “Don’t hurt yourself. You do as you’re told; I’ll do the thinking.” Chaloni’s chest swelled as he peacocked. “That way we’ll all get out okay.”

  “Sure thing, Chal,” Subar replied dutifully. “Whatever you say.”

  They rendezvoused at the Yinstram nexus, where dozens of automated transport pods congregated in the early morning to solicit the business of those denizens of Alewev unfortunate enough to have to commute to their daily work. The subdued but steady chattering of citizens just waking up, devices offering services, and vendors both organic and mechanical made for a continuous hum of multiple consciousnesses doing their best to survive another day in Malandere.

  Dawn was suitably dreary. That suited the gang just fine. Fog was ever the friend of the scrim-inclined. Selecting a pod of sufficient size, Chaloni swiped his coded (and aliased) card to pay passage for the six of them. Though some conversation ensued as the pod chose a transportation path and accelerated to its maximum allowable velocity, the gang was unusually subdued. While they had run plenty of successful scrims before, this was the first time they were going to opt one on a pair of nonhumans. It was not necessarily a cause for worry, but it certainly was something to think about.