“You’ve been doing a great job with the city.”
“We’re not all dead, if that’s what you mean.”
“Hank,” she said, turning her beautiful face toward mine, “why are you here?”
I took a deep breath.
“I need to know what you’re doing with Belvaille.”
“Nothing at all.”
“That’s not true, you talk to those wealthy people, invite them over. And you hired my Kommilaire or the feral kids or both.”
“I did that just to maintain the markets,” she said without hesitation, completely unruffled.
“You worked with the judges, skewing verdicts. You created your absurd list of candidates for the election. And—” I wanted to see how she reacted. “You hired a famous assassin to presumably kill a lot of the city leaders.”
She never lost her smile. Not a twitch.
“Hank, I never usurped your authority.”
“What authority? You were doing everything!”
“It was necessary to remove the impediments to true market forces. Belvaille can now function as the absolute center of a galactic commerce hub. The markets must prevail.”
I stood looking at her for some time.
I then gazed around the tenth floor. I had been so amazed by her appearance, I hadn’t bothered to look.
It was almost entirely one room, massive in dimensions. It was circular, of course, since the tower itself was a cylinder.
There were some chairs and a couch, both homey and almost humble. There were some thin, cheap rugs placed on the floor haphazardly, not even aligned with one another, producing an almost broken mirror effect.
Some dusty plants and mismatched tables were here and there.
Garm still stood smiling, confident.
“I’m not sure if this is something you would answer,” I said, “but are you a clone?”
She didn’t move. Didn’t respond.
After some time I took a step to the right and her head followed, with the same expression, but she didn’t speak.
“We’re sorry for the deception, Supreme Kommilaire,” I heard a familiar voice chime.
Two Ank walked toward me from some far off compartment at the edge of the room.
“What’s going on?” I yelled.
“It is much as you have ascertained. We were not aware you had learned so much.”
“We shouldn’t be surprised, however,” another said. It was difficult to tell which spoke since they had identical voices and were still some distance away.
“I don’t understand.” I said.
They stopped about thirty feet back, presumably because they were scared of me wringing their necks.
“We Ank have always maintained our neutrality. It was part of our racial makeup to not take sides.”
“But after the Colmarian civil war, we realized we had been short-sighted. Part of maintaining our business interests meant we had to take a more active hand in policy.”
“The Colmarian Confederation no longer exists. Incalculable resources were destroyed in the process. We could not let that happen again.”
“Why clone Garm?” I asked.
“Because she had decision-making powers. It was a small matter at first to bribe or otherwise influence her. Belvaille had long been run that way. But when she became reluctant to embrace our initiatives, we had to change tactics.”
“By cloning her?”
“First we abducted her and issued orders on her behalf. But yes, eventually.”
“Why didn’t you clone me? Wait, am I a clone?” I worried existentially.
“We needed your expertise in handling the city’s more unruly inhabitants.”
“And you turned out to be a truly excellent official. We mean that sincerely. Your Confederation is a colossal achievement because it removes decision making from the people.”
“People are what doomed the Colmarian Confederation,” one said, “we are pleased you saw the futility in giving them any real power.
I was aghast.
“That’s not what the Confederation is! I’m not trying to take away their voices at all. I didn’t expect to run it. I expected to set it up and die, and then they would run it.”
“You destroyed the Totki and Olmarr Republic and Sublime Order of Transcendence. You had to have fathomed the instability they engendered.”
“We had tried to infiltrate those organizations in our own ways, but yours were so much more direct. And permanent.”
“Belvaille will be the center of the galaxy. The other Ank Reserves have agreed. We will institute a new economy which will make war not only obsolete, but impossible. Every life will have a value. A definable, numerical value.”
“Currency. Finances. And the Market. Those are the only truths.”
“We would like you to remain with us, Supreme Kommilaire, Secretary of City. You will hardly have to change your behaviors and we can make your remaining years tremendously comfortable and rewarding.”
“Your legacy will be safe with us.”
I didn’t know what to say. It’s like I was having a heart attack except it was my brain.
All the while the clone Garm kept her fake eyes on me, her fake smile.
“I can’t let you do this. You have to have known that.”
I took a step.
“Hank,” one said.
I stopped. I don’t think I’d ever heard an Ank call me by my name. It was sinister even though it sounded as pleasant as ever.
“Garm knew she couldn’t harm you physically.”
“You were growing larger and more resilient with each passing year.”
“Garm trained as a Quadrad, an elite assassin. She was supremely cautious.”
“She never quite trusted anyone. Including you.”
At that, the floor suddenly opened underneath me and I fell into a pool of water.
I sank like a boulder coated in metal and shot straight down out of a cannon. I saw some rugs. A few small tables.
And Garm.
Clone Garm was in the water next to me. She apparently hadn’t been trained to swim. She wore the same smile and stared at me as she fell to the bottom, bubbles streaming up.
I looked around, trying to overcome my panic.
The pool was only about ten feet deep, but it might as well have been a thousand. I couldn’t swim even if I had a jet pack.
The pool had no stairs. No railings. No inclines of any sort. It was too narrow for laps. It was too deep for relaxing. This was designed as a trap.
A trap for me.
Garm had built this at the top of City Hall without me ever knowing. It must have cost a fortune. Not the engineering, but to keep its creation secret.
I wasn’t sad about dying. But I was sad Garm had felt the need for this back when we were on good terms.
I looked at Garm’s clone one last time. She really had been a fantastically gorgeous woman.
The thing was, though, I never really trusted her completely either.
I reached back and pulled out my colostomy bag. I held it as high above my head as I could reach.
Boom.
http://www.belvaille.com/hlh3/cityhall.gif
CHAPTER 68
There was nothing for it except to jump.
Ten stories.
I dented the metal road around City Hall when I landed. Debris was raining down on me from above.
My ears were ringing. My sight was blurred. I couldn’t breathe well. I may have been having a heart attack.
The usual.
I saw Garm’s guards. My Kommilaire. MTB. Valia. They all stood some ways back, not sure what was going on, but smart enough to avoid a building that partially exploded.
I screamed out in pain.
Slowly.
Slowly.
I stood up under my own power. Maybe the first time I had gotten to my feet without assistance in fifty years. I’d be paying for that in the morning. I’d be paying for a lot of things.
My arm that held the bomb was ripped and blackened. Even my blood was thick. It oozed like red mud. It looked like it didn’t want to leave my body and came off in hesitant glops.
My team hesitantly approached.
“Boss,” MTB asked, his eyes wide. “What happened?”
“Take the Kommilaire and head to the Ank Reserve. Put all the Ank in custody for Crimes Against the City.”
“The Ank?” he asked, shocked.
“Yes.”
“Boss,” Valia said. “You’re on fire!”
I looked around, and sure enough, the back of my vest was on fire. Whatever. I was too tired to deal with it.
“What was that explosion?” she asked.
“Delfiblinium. They once used it to push around comets and such. I knew a mutant named Jyonal who could make the stuff with his mind.”
No one had a follow-up question to that.
I took a few tentative steps that didn’t feel too good. I was pretty beat up.
“By the way, tell Rendrae that I am declaring myself the new Governor. Until we can have a proper election.”
“New Governor? Who was the old one?” MTB asked, confused.
“Just tell him! And say all debts will be settled. The Belvaille Confederation is alive and well. And the city is open for business.”
“Where are you going?” Valia asked.
“To lie down.”
CHAPTER 69
“What are they?” I asked Delovoa.
“Some clone thing,” he responded sagely.
“I know that.”
“Then why did you ask?”
We were in one of the upper floors of the Ank Reserve and nearly every room was filled with advanced technological equipment.
What was most disconcerting, however, were the tubes. There were tubes that were roughly Colmarian-sized. We figured they were used to grow the clones, store the clones, or hold the original people who were cloned. We weren’t exactly sure which.
The question was: what do we do with them?
“Can you open them?” I asked.
“Sure. Give me a hammer.”
“Can you open them without killing what’s inside, smartass?”
“I don’t even know what’s inside,” he said.
“Can’t you scan them or something?” Delovoa could be so frustrating.
“I guess,” he sighed, as if it was soul-crushing that he had to work. No wonder machines were falling off the latticework. “I’ll have to go back to my lab.”
I had my Kommilaire escort him, not just for his protection, but to make sure he came back promptly and didn’t get distracted.
The Boards continued operation despite there being no Ank. I was still deciding what to do with the Ank themselves. The values on the markets dropped steeply but they would recover in a few weeks. People wanted to make money. They weren’t going to stop trying to make money just because there were no Ank around.
You can get used to anything, really. You don’t have a choice.
One of my Kommilaire made me a big gold sticker and wrote “Governor” on it because they felt I should have something official. And because it was funny. I wore it on my chest.
My arm was still ruined and I was doing a lot of things with my left hand. I knew it would heal but it looked gross right now.
When Delovoa returned with all his equipment we found about half the clone tubes were occupied. Twenty-four. He discovered how to open them up and began doing so.
There were gang bosses, Order members, Olmarr Republicans, Totki, Kommilaire, and others. A diverse swath of Belvaille’s population. All these people were the original Colmarians who had been put to sleep and then replaced with clones. Some were captured years or even decades ago. Hobardi and Two Clem, and other major figures were among those found.
On the top floor of the Reserve we found the facilities for creating clones. None were being cooked at the moment, thankfully, so we didn’t have to address that.
We also found:
Garm.
It was the oldest tube in the building. A different construction, covered in dust, set back in the corner. It must have been the first one built.
I’d say my heart was in my throat as Delovoa was going through the procedure to release her, but my heart was too thick to get in my throat.
When the tube cracked open and the air cleared, I gasped. Even Delovoa gasped.
There was Garm. She looked exactly like her clone. She must have been in hibernation for at least half a century!
Her eyes fluttered open and her immediate expression was one of confusion.
She reached out a tentative hand and touched my face and stroked my hair.
“Welcome back,” I told her.
“Hank?” she asked. “What the hell happened to you? You look horrible.”
http://www.belvaille.com/hlh3/garm.gif
I put out arrest warrants for all the clones, but I had no idea how to handle them. Should we kill them? They weren’t real Colmarians. They only had partial brains and were programmed to act certain ways. But it wasn’t their fault they were made that way.
We tracked them down easily. Without the Ank guiding them, they were just dumb, fleshy robots.
We got a lot of appreciation for returning everyone’s lost companions. Even from groups like the Olmarr Republic. It also proved to the station why we had to remove the Ank. There were some doubts as to the scope of what the Ank had been doing.
The news organizations couldn’t keep up and I granted Rendrae a few exclusive interviews in repayment for his recent help.
Delovoa was concerned about who had been doing the actual cloning. It wasn’t a minor procedure and the Ank, despite their insane financial acumen, weren’t known to be great inventers.
I think he was upset he might not be the only mad scientist on the station.
Garm was appalled with what had happened to Belvaille since she had been away and it was a long process to bring her up to speed on our new society.
She also went on an extremely strict health plan when she saw what us old-timers had turned into.
“It’s good having you around,” I told her at my place. “I missed you.”
She knew all about my mutation and my heart attacks. When she looked at me nowadays, it was often with sad eyes.
“Do you really think Belvaille can recover?” she asked. “I never imagined it could be as bad as it is now.”
“It has to recover. If all these Portals start going offline, just think what will happen. Besides, it enjoys the best location in the former empire. If this city can’t make it, what hope does the rest of the galaxy have?”
“You need replacements for the Ank, but with accountability. They had too much power. They kept saying ‘free market’ but they manipulated everything. You have to root out all their back channels so no one else uses them.”
“Well, maybe you can help with that. I’ll make you Assistant Governor.”
“I don’t want to be Assistant Governor,” she said.
“Heh. Isn’t this funny? Like, eighty-something years ago, you were Adjunct Overwatch and were trying to recruit me for the military and I didn’t want it. Now it’s the reverse.”
“I don’t think it’s very funny.”
“Hibernation probably messed up your sense of humor.”
“At least I’m not two thousand pounds.”
“I wish I was only two thousand pounds. I’m more like seven thousand.”
She looked at me with pity again.
“How long do you have?”
“Who can say? Realistically, not that long. Now that you’re here, when I’m gone you can become Governor and Supreme Kommilaire and Secretary of City—actually, I don’t know if that position exists anymore since it was your clone that created it.”
“Hank, I’m a Quadrad. I ran Belvaille when it was a freebooter stronghold. Yeah, we had a small Navy presence, but there are millions of people here now. It’s a real city. I don’t have the skil
ls, the temperament, the inclination for this.”
“I didn’t either. I got fifty years’ experience on you.”
“I’m also not sure the city can make it. I mean, is it a lost cause?” she asked.
“Belvaille is like me: you cut it, you shoot it, and it heals up stronger.”
“Yeah, but scabbed and bloated and unable to stand up. Using yourself as an analogy isn’t a great endorsement. You have to see that even with an expert at the helm the city will be hard-pressed to survive. I’ve spent half my life asleep. I’m not an expert.”
“It requires patience and compromise. You need to listen, negotiate, reason. Every problem has a solution. Only rarely is it a violent one.”
She smirked.
“When did you become a pacifist?”
“When I stopped being able to chase people. Look, you’re the smartest, hottest, most dangerous person I know. You’ve got the skills—maybe not the people skills—but you’ll get the hang of it. You also got a long life ahead of you. You have to do something for the next hundred or two hundred years. Might as well save civilization. Just tell me you’ll think about it.”
She sighed. She reminded me of me at her age. Crazy kids.
“Alright. But I’m not making any promises.”
“Good. Just know that if you don’t take the job, my ghost will haunt you forever.”
“Your fat ghost would be too slow to be scary.”
CHAPTER 70
I woke up to a bright light shining in my face.
19-10 stood shimmering at the foot of my bed.
“Hi,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
“Do you know who I am?” 19-10 said. Its voice was a scrambly electronic hash, nearly incomprehensible.
“19-10. Some assassin.”
“But do you know who I am really?”
“Not…19-10?”
“You do know me.”
“Are you asking me or telling me? You’re hard to understand in that thing.”
“I’m saying you know me. Can you guess?”
I thought.
“Garm?”
There was a pause.
“Do I look like Garm? Could Garm fit in this armor?”
“Delovoa?” I asked.
“That’s…stupid. You saw me and Delovoa together at his apartment.”
Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck Page 29
