“I guess that does sound kind of bad. I don’t know. Paint pictures?”
Jorn-dole didn’t say anything. He just looked at my ham fists.
Belvaille had kept me on my toes for two centuries and now I didn’t know how to slow down. I mean I couldn’t hang out in a casino or bar every day all day. What did people do when they stopped doing stuff? I honestly had no idea.
What was Garm doing?
And more importantly, did she really hire 19-10 to come kill me like Zadeck and Judge Naeb had said—and Rendrae had unfortunately repeated.
Garm was not a name spoken often. In fact, very young people had likely never even heard of the owner of Belvaille let alone seen her.
But here she was, giving me lists of dead candidates, appointing me Secretary of City, and possibly trying to kill me. But those events seemed mutually exclusive.
Jorn-dole had taken his leave and I was still eating when three bosses approached me.
They were in some kind of trade alliance together and wore rich clothes and jewels. Wiessstauch was their bearded leader and did all the talking.
“Hank, you have a moment?” he said, taking a seat at my booth without me answering.
“I’m not in the mood—” I started.
“We had hundreds of thousands of thumbs invested in Judge Naeb and he suddenly kills himself? This puts us in space without a rocket.”
“Buy another judge, there’s plenty.”
“And is that one going to kill himself too? What’s going on here? You’re a member of this club. You’re one of us more than you are one of them,” he said.
“Who’s them?” I asked.
“Anyone outside this club,” he said.
“That’s like millions of people. You saying they don’t matter?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, they matter. But we make this city. We make it run. Some feral kids digging through your trash don’t contribute. When your Kommilaire need new equipment do you go to the millions or do you come to us? We can’t be blindsided like this.”
“I don’t have nearly as much control over this city as you might think,” I said.
“Granted, and I understand you got things to do and work at a different level than we do. But gang wars are one thing, killing judges are another. And fighting Garm? What will that do to those millions you were talking about?”
“I’m not fighting anyone.”
If Judge Naeb had been on the payroll to the tune of hundreds of thousands, Wiessstauch probably knew him pretty well. Wiessstauch had made it clear that he didn’t believe the suicide story because he said “killing judges.”
I wondered how many other people didn’t believe it.
Wiessstauch ordered me some more drinks and rose from my booth with a smile.
“Stability is what this city needs. We’ve had enough murders don’t you think?”
CHAPTER 36
I was out on a patrol doing patrolly stuff when I got a radio call from Delovoa. He had his own radio of course and his own interrupt frequency for emergencies.
“Hank, come over,” he said without urgency.
“I’m working. What’s up?”
“I have that visitor you said I should warn you about.”
“19-10?” I asked. He was awful calm.
“No, moron. Two Clem?”
“Two Clem is there?”
“What did you think I meant by visitor?”
“Okay, I’ll be there in a bit. Don’t let him leave.”
“How will I stop him?”
“Are you kidding? You have a street full of heavy machine guns and security guards.”
“I’m not going to kill him,” Delovoa said.
“He doesn’t know that. Just wait for me. I won’t be long.”
I talked to the Stair Boys I was with. MTB was still doing his Deadsouth beat so it was just Valia and a dozen people with me.
“I have to go run some errands,” I said. “Keep going to Ostliche’ Avenue.”
“Should we hit the Dog Parke, Boss?” Valia asked.
I was originally going to rough up one of the venues that wasn’t paying their Kommilaire protection fees. I didn’t want them to think that just because my name was getting dragged through the slop, we were going to back down on our usual activities.
However, with me gone, it was just them. And I didn’t want them getting shot up.
“No, just keep a presence. Hang around for a few hours. That should be enough to send a message without provoking a fight.”
“Right.”
I headed to the train. I wanted to do as little walking as possible.
In the past, I was pretty confident that if I had a heart attack and fell down somewhere in the city, I would be reasonably safe. I was a folk hero after all.
But with all the Judge Naeb and Su Dival and Garm and election nonsense, I didn’t want to risk a crowd of people standing over my drooling form trying to figure out how to kill me.
I got to Delovoa’s and was met by the usual handsome young men.
I was taken to a rear apartment where Two Clem and Delovoa were lounging and supping on wine and crackers.
Two Clem was not young. He had been a celebrity maybe a century ago, or even longer than that. Still, he didn’t look bad. Whether a combination of good genes, or drugs, or surgeries, he certainly appeared a lot better than I did after the same span of time.
“Two Clem,” I said, entering the room. “It’s good to see you again.”
He gave me an uninterested half-glance and went back to speaking to Delovoa.
“Uh, Hank,” Delovoa interjected, on my behalf, “have you met my guest? Two Clem, this is our Supreme Kommilaire and Secretary of City.”
This time he didn’t even acknowledge me.
“It’s been a pleasure as always, Delovoa. I’ll talk to you again soon,” Two Clem said.
With that, he wiped his mouth and removed some crumbs from his outfit, which I noticed was rather subdued from the clothing I had seen him wear in the past. Though our styles tend to change after eighty years. Actually, I was wearing the same clothes from that era, only wider.
“Hey,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”
He walked past me without a word.
“Stop him,” I said to Delovoa.
“Me? You could stop him with just your nose.”
But he was fast-walking to the door and I couldn’t fast-walk to anything. I could shoot him, but that’s not very useful against someone I wanted to speak to.
“You have a bunch of manservants, or boyservants, tell them to grab him.”
Delovoa rang his bell like mad and four twinks rushed in.
“Don’t let that man leave!”
As they reached Two Clem, he suddenly turned, and kicked the living crap out of them all!
There was no way he could beat up Delovoa’s chiseled man-muffins unless he was a mutant or something. The guy was likely within a few decades of my age, which meant he could reasonably be considered a senior citizen.
But he was a blur of motion and combat finesse. I had seen such skill exhibited only a few times: by Garm and other assassins like her from the Quadrad.
Other than bleeding on him, the twinks did nothing to Two Clem. However, they did manage to slow him down. And I walked past and planted myself in front of the door.
He was fast, I’ll give him that. But unless he could move eight tons, he wasn’t going to get out of here.
“Two Clem, I only want to talk,” I said.
Delovoa came into the hallway leading to the door and gawked seeing all his servants groaning on the floor.
“I would like to leave,” Two Clem said. His eyes did not focus on me but seemed to be looking past.
“Why are you and Hobardi on the outs? Did you know they are looking for you? Is this—” and I realized I didn’t understand most of what had just happened. “How did you do this?”
“I would like to leave,” he repeated.
I
looked back to Delovoa, who shrugged helpfully.
“What were you talking about?” I asked Delovoa.
“Nothing. Just normal stuff. He says he might run for office.”
“That’s not nothing!” I asked Two Clem, “Is that true?”
He stood there impassively.
The twinks on the floor warily scooted away when they regained consciousness and the use of their limbs. I kept throwing questions at Two Clem but he didn’t answer. It’s like he completely shut down.
“Do you think he’s hypnotized or something?” I asked Delovoa.
“I was talking to him for hours.”
“Why didn’t you call me right away?” I asked.
“I was lonely and wanted to talk and figured you would do something like this,” he said, as if that was a good answer.
I didn’t want to move away from the door and try and grab Two Clem because I didn’t know what that would gain me. If I had him in my hands what would I do, break his legs?
I wondered what Hobardi wanted done. Would he pay me for Two Clem’s return? Pay me for his murder?
It was ridiculous that I was thinking about sending a courier to go get someone else to give me information on the person standing seven feet away from me.
And then I saw it:
A light twinkled between Delovoa and me and this time I was ready.
“It’s 19-10! Get down.”
I had my guns out…about half as fast as 19-10 appeared, fired, and vanished again.
Two Clem hit the floor.
“Damn!” I shouted.
I walked to his body and saw he had four of those unique puncture wounds in his skull.
“Behind you, Hank!” Delovoa yelled.
I turned just in time to see 19-10 again. He fired. But it wasn’t at me. It was at the already dead form of Two Clem.
Huh?
Two Clem was shot again in the head.
As I was trying to see why, or what the pattern was, 19-10 disappeared from behind me and reappeared on the other side and fired four more shots and vanished. He kept hitting Two Clem’s head.
“Hank, he’s still here, remember?”
“Why is he still shooting him?” I said to the ether: “hey, he’s dead.”
“Who knows, cover him up,” Delovoa said hastily.
“With what?”
“Your body!”
I looked down just in time to see 19-10 appear again, fire, and disappear. Two Clem was shot in the head again.
I didn’t want to do this for a lot of reasons. I couldn’t get back up on my own. A dangerous assassin was teleporting around me. And I was going to squish the body a lot more than 19-10 ever could.
But he seemed to be aiming for the head over and over.
So I turned sideways and fell to the floor.
“Ow!” Delovoa said, presumably because of the vibrations in his feet.
I then reached out my arm and kind of pulled the corpse of Two Clem in like a morbid stuffed animal and snuggled it, keeping his head covered with my elbow and between my knee and chest.
“Now what?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Delovoa said, “this is as far as I thought.”
CHAPTER 37
“Is this going to give me cancer?” I asked, as Delovoa tried to fit his personal deep scanner into the space I was leaving for Two Clem’s corpse.
“You wish all you had was cancer. Actually, I’m not sure. But it would take longer to metastasize than you’ll likely live anyway.”
“Thanks,” I said gloomily.
It had been some hours since 19-10 had been here and I hadn’t moved much. He had appeared a few more times attempting to try and get shots on Two Clem, but I had his skull sufficiently covered so that it wasn’t possible.
Delovoa and I weren’t especially anxious for our own safety. If 19-10 had wanted to shoot us, he could have done so at any point in the past months. The more looks I got at 19-10’s guns, the more I was sure I wouldn’t even feel them. And Delovoa was simply too valuable to anyone who treasured their own existence and quality of life—at least on Belvaille.
When Delovoa had some of his personal security leave their posts at the walls and gates and come inside to protect my prone form, that was the last we saw of 19-10.
It was possible he was still hanging around waiting and watching in his other dimensions, but Delovoa figured he would waste fuel doing so. It’s not like that armor was a space ship with a gigantic fuel tank.
I had some of the twinks bring me food and drink while I was waiting.
A few hours past this and Delovoa had scanned, probed, poked, scraped, and otherwise examined the former Two Clem.
We were alone in the hallway, my side hurting from lying on it for so many hours, when he made his pronouncement.
“Ooh, gross,” he said, crinkling his nose.
“What?”
“He was a clone.”
“Two Clem was?”
“Yeah.”
That was…really odd.
“Is there anything else you need to check or can I stand up now?”
“Can you even stand up?”
“No, I’ll need help. But can I get off this body?”
“Yeah, I think 19-10 was trying to stop us from finding this out.”
“How?” I asked, as I slowly scooted away from the corpse.
“Remember how I found out those other soldiers were clones a long time ago?”
“No,” I said.
“Their brains. They aren’t fully-formed. They don’t need all the capabilities a true Colmarian has because they are built for doing specific functions.”
“So you think 19-10 kept shooting him in the head to destroy his brain?”
“I’m sure of it. If you see the scans, you can tell. A few more attacks and it would take me a month to try and figure out what had once been inside his skull. Because it would have been all over my floor in little tiny pieces.”
“Wait, didn’t they also have bad DNA?” I said, remembering I had been concerned about clones sneezing on me.
“Yeah, his is fine.”
“So he’s not like Naked Guy’s army of clones?” I asked, bringing up our encounter from decades past. Clones had been used to instigate the Colmarian civil war.
“No, he’s not like them. But close.”
“Do we have a million variety of clones or something?”
I had managed to get into a seated position with my legs out in front of me and I was taking a break.
“All the clones should have been destroyed in the war,” Delovoa said.
“How do you know?”
“Because, owing to their lack of brain, they aren’t good at doing much except whatever they were designed to do. In the case of the war, it was fighting. So they would keep fighting until they were killed.”
“Did you know he was a clone?”
“Yeah, I just told you he was.”
“But did you know when you were hanging out eating cake?” I asked.
“Of course not.”
“So there might be other clones who aren’t purely combat. And remember, you said the Messahn battlesuit was designed to be worn by a clone.”
“Yeah.”
“Why do we have all these clones all of a sudden? And who would want a clone of Two Clem?”
I used the heavy security door to pull myself to my feet.
“Maybe Two Clem created it himself,” Delovoa shrugged.
“That’s the dumbest…actually…that’s probably it. Two Clem was a huge narcissist. If he could have a clone of himself I think he would do it in a heartbeat just so he could be his own best friend. Or have sex with himself. And he could probably afford it—if such a thing could be bought.”
“I suppose they could. I just don’t know where.”
“And it doesn’t tell us why clone 19-10 would want to kill a has-been actor’s stunt double.”
“I didn’t say 19-10 was a clone. I said the armor was made for a
clone.”
“Who else could wear it?”
“Anyone who could fit inside and interact with the controls.”
“So no one.”
Delovoa shrugged again
“It’s a big galaxy,” he said.
“Why can’t you just say 19-10’s a clone?” I asked, annoyed. “At least concede that.”
“That’s not the way it works, Hank. The probability of there being a mutant like you, standing on Belvaille, talking about clones, is so infinitesimal that you would say it could never possibly happen. But you’re here and you’re doing it.”
“So he could be a rainbow of kitten flowers?”
“I barely know enough to keep this station functioning. You can’t expect me to know every mutation and species that exists in this entire galaxy. No one does. I doubt you even know all the different races on this space station,” he said.
“Well. Now I know there are clones here.”
CHAPTER 38
I was not very well-liked in the city. I could tell because on my way to my new trial on Courtroom One Street, I was booed by all the spectators.
It sure was a quick descent going from folk legend to having garbage thrown at you.
The judge was Moer-lox-n. He wore an enormous black furry hat that made it look like smoke was coming out of his head.
I had no idea what this trial was for. I had even thought of ignoring it. What were they going to do? Ask me to arrest me?
Now that I was here, I really wished I hadn’t come.
The prosecutor was rambling on about my excessive use of force and overstepping my bounds. I had been provided no defense.
The plaintiff was someone I didn’t even know, but apparently three years ago I had arrested him. Or confiscated his goods. Or beat him up. Or all three.
The case rambled all over with the judge, plaintiff, and prosecutor taking turns calling me names, basically.
This was just a ploy to embarrass me or harass me. I had been the bully of Belvaille for so long, now that they were able, everyone was going to enjoy kicking me in the teeth.
The judge would score political points and the prosecutor would score political points and the plaintiff would get whatever restitution he was looking to get. I sensed a long line of trials in my future if I put up with it.
Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck Page 16
