Hell Is Empty

by Travis E. Hughes

  “That he is a proficient killer, that’s for sure,” Grover said without thought. “He brought some dangerous men down in a flash. These men were professionals. They weren’t a bunch of farmers with shot guns.”

  “We know that,” Roslyn said. “Did you know of him before this? Did his reputation precede him to camp?”

  “No, I never ran across his name before,” Grover said, shaking his head. “This is going to give us enough juice to run a freezer and a refrigerator and lights? We can be open at night?”

  “Oh heck yeah,” the electrician said typing instructions into a small transponder. “You can even have electric advertisements and stuff.”

  “What are you going to do with him, when we bring him to you?” Roslyn asked.

  “Public hearing?” Grover said. “Firing squad or hanging? What do you think?”

  “Like a kangaroo court?” Roslyn said, proud to use her college education in a practical setting.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Grover said. “But he killed eleven men.”

  “Why do you care so much about those men?” Frank asked. “Is this about revenge, really?”

  “My friend, I hate to tell you this, but out here, in the lawless expanse of space, well, all you have is posturing and bluster,” Grover said. “We have no real law to protect us. Those of us who can afford it, can hire protection. But when someone threatens us and kills our protection, then we can either cower and run or we can stand and fight back and show that there is accountability. I will not be strong-armed out by bad men. I have a right to my claim. I will stand up to them. I will put them on notice. So that the next bad man who comes along will see what happens.”

  “What about those who can’t afford protection?” asked Roslyn, feeling suddenly self-righteous.

  “They’re screwed,” Grover said, leaning slightly forward as if it were a dirty secret.

  The next morning the crew headed back to town looking for places a reckless kid with a sudden payday might blow his wad. Roslyn sent Siringo and Grace to set the holoprojectors in strategic places around the camp. A two hundred byte reward was offered for credible information on Kidd Wylie.

  A food truck with a decent replicator arrived in camp that morning. Roslyn recognized the name as being an offshoot of a food truck in New Vegas. The new truck drew a large crowd for lunch and the team moved among the diners.

  “A guy like that,” Frank said to Roslyn as they meandered slowly through the picnicking crowd, strung out along the southern boarder of the camp. A small creek cut a tree-lined valley that was pregnant with campsites. They split up into smaller groups to spread out over the area, hoping to catch wind of even the slight mention of Kidd Wylie.

  “Like the kid?” Roslyn asked as they passed a couple making out under a sapling. The tree, seemingly having had enough PDA, suddenly moved away from them toward the beach of the creek. Roslyn chuckled when the couple realized the tree had moved away from them. The man laughed. The girl looked embarrassed and covered her face.

  “Right. A guy like that,” Frank said, deep in contemplation, working it all out. “What are we looking for here? What patterns of behavior can we expect to find with this kid?”

  “Very little regard for human life,” Roslyn said, stepping over a pile of refuse. “Someone needs to come clean this shit up. We should hold the truck accountable for this mess. They can make a profit here, they can keep it clean.”

  “That’s the beauty of being mobile,” Frank said. “They can move on. No, but you are correct. To kill eleven men for the sole reason of a payout, that was not, I might remind you, part of a pre-existing contract but done purely on speculation. That’s a cold and calculating psychopath. Not a sociopath but a psychopath. You understand the difference, right?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Roslyn said. “I did go to cop school and all.”

  “An argument can be made that the people who have made this area their temporary home should be held accountable for keeping this place clean,” Frank said, pointing to a stack of plastic cups with a swarm of furry insects floating about it.

  “Well, that’s true,” Roslyn said. She spotted Talbert and Siringo in line for the truck. Siringo spoke with a pretty lady in front of him. “This truck has only been here, what, three to four hours, depending on when it started serving breakfast and look at the mess already.”

  “You hungry?” Frank asked, watching Talbert and Siringo follow the pretty lady and her elderly companion, most likely her mother, judging by the similarities in build and hairstyles, to a shady spot recently abandoned beneath an older, already rooted tree.

  Roslyn ordered a pastrami sandwich on rye with extra mustard. It had been a favorite from her New York days. There was a deli in her building that served the best pastrami. This wasn’t a bad duplicate, she thought, swallowing her first bite.

  Siringo waved them over to the tree once they had their food. Frank had a salad with walnuts and cranberries.

  “Guys, I want you to meet Yolanda and Josefina,” Siringo said as they took their seats on the blanket the ladies had laid out for their picnic. As indicated Yolanda was the daughter.

  “I hear you’re paying for information on Kidd Wylie?” Yolanda asked, after the cordials had been completed.

  “And I take it you have said info?” Frank asked, crunching a walnut with his back teeth.

  “I don’t know how much its worth, but I know his girlfriend, Silvia,” Yolanda said eating potato salad with a plastic spork. The ladies had a bottle of white wine that they offered. But the agents declined, they were working. Though it made Roslyn’s mouth water.

  “He has a girlfriend?” Roslyn asked, surprised.

  “Does she live in camp?” Frank asked.

  “She left camp after what happened to her little sister,” Yolanda said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  “And what happened to her sister?” Roslyn asked after they had waited a bit for elaboration.

  Yolanda made a face suggesting whatever it was didn’t make for proper picnic conversation.

  “Horrible,” Josefina said, with a shudder.

  “Where’d they go?” Frank asked.

  “I’d guess someplace a little more civilized,” Yolanda said. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her since then. We used to be corn hole partners. There was a league. There was a small prize, people would put in. Then the league was robbed and we stopped playing.”

  “How long were they together?” asked Frank.

  “I don’t know,” Yolanda said shrugging with her bottom lip.

  “Did they arrive in camp together or did they meet here?” Frank pressed. Roslyn wasn’t certain why it mattered.

  “I only met him like twice maybe,” Yolanda said.

  “When did… whatever happened, happen to her sister?” Frank asked, not pushing to find out what ever it was, but assuming the worst.

  “Six months ago or so. Maybe even more like seven or eight months ago?” Yolanda looked at her mother for confirmation and was met with a shrug.

  “You want to come out here and try to strike it rich,” Josefina said, pulling back her jacket to reveal a large pistol in a shoulder holster. “You have to know how to protect yourself from these scumbags.”

  “That or hook up with a guy who can protect you,” Roslyn said. “Which is what this Silvia did I suspect,” She immediately thought of Grace with Dogg Holly. Grace and Hattie were canvassing the casinos and the bars in the camp’s heart for information as they spoke.

  “Who needs a man when you have a Kirkland Four-Sixty Classic?” Josefina said with a grin. The older lady flashed a gold tooth. Roslyn immediately liked her.

  Roslyn decided their information was worth the price of lunch and a couple of bottles of white wine and paid them accordingly.

  She then looked around for a suitable place to dispose of their lunch refuse. After searching for some form of garbage dispenser they all opted to put their plastic wrappers, cups and cutlery on the pile behind the
food truck. Hoping perhaps that the truck’s operators would feel something akin to responsible for the cleanup. But something told Roslyn that if she were to return the next day the pile would still be there, even if the truck had hovered away.

  “We find the girlfriend,” Roslyn said as they headed back to their cabin in the woods. “We find Kidd Wylie.”

  “A place more civilized?” Frank said, rubbing his dimpled chin with his white glove. “New Vegas?”

  This caused Roslyn to laugh.

  “Thanks to you, my dear, New Vegas is the most civilized spot in North Vader, thus far. Unless they jumped a shuttle to Annabellus,” Frank said.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Can we pull up the file on Kidd Wylie?” Frank asked as the lights came on in the boardroom of the new IPKDA headquarters and the senior agents filed in. Sage found and procured them the third floor of a former hotel, turned office building. The goal was to eventually buy the entire building. Despite the creepy factor, Roslyn missed the solitude of the slaughterhouse headquarters back on Potter.

  “What are we looking for?” asked Roslyn taking her seat at the head of the table. The holoscreen projected the image of Kidd Wylie. His long thin arms jutting out of his tight suit jacket. A tall blue feather protruded from his bowler hat.

  “That’s what I thought,” Frank said reading something below the image. “He was originally from Danaus.”

  “You think he might still have family here?” asked Siringo.

  “Frino, what town or at least what area of Danaus is the kid from?” Frank asked, typing a search into his transponder and then sending the search to the holoscreen.

  “I’m the tech guy, not the information guy,” Frino said, holding up his hands.

  “Who created this database?” Frank asked, looking at Talbert.

  “That’d be Allan and Chester Sumag back in the early days on Athena and then when Chester retired, Zlatan Bhatia took over the maintenance of it,” Talbert said. “What was that about five years ago?”

  “Is there a way I could ask him if he could find out more information about Kidd Wylie?” Frank asked. “Like what’s his real name?”

  “Well, you’d better text him,” Roslyn said. “You can’t confront him in person.”

  “Confront him?” Frank asked with a frown. “I just want to know if there’s a way of following up on what we know about this kid.”

  “Right, but he feels threatened by people talking to him in person,” Roslyn explained.

  “Fine. Can I have his transponder number then?” Frank asked. Roslyn pulled up the contact on her transponder and sent it to him.

  “Each field report goes into the database as well,” Roslyn said in her sternest voice. “It’s why, guys, I keep on you, each report needs to be thorough. The more details you include, Bill, the more details go into the database and can be called up in situations like this.”

  Siringo laughed. Talbert tugged at his ear and then sucked his teeth.

  “The thing is, Kidd Wylie was homeless and alone his entire childhood. He has no emotional ties to anyone on Danaus, despite some blood relation,” Roslyn said.

  “You might be right, but it doesn’t hurt to follow up,” Frank said.

  “Let’s go out tonight to various hot spots in town and see if we can’t get lucky and come across a kid with money burning a hole in his pockets,” Roslyn said. “This case has priority, guys.”

  Roslyn, Grace, Hattie, and Frank decided to get dolled up and hit the busiest club in town, formerly called Belle Star, presently called Pretty in Sphinx. Talbert and Siringo hit the other casinos in town, while Hassan Sardana, Berry Gould, and Sixter Windlestein cased the smaller clubs and dive bar scene.

  “We have to be careful,” Roslyn yelled over the thumping base. “We don’t want to tip him off. Let me take the lead on questioning people, m’kay?”

  “Is okay, you talking. I am drinking too much I’m afraid,” Grace said, moving her hips to the music.

  “You’re already drunk?” Roslyn asked.

  “No, but I am seeing the future,” Grace said, spinning in place.

  While Grace flirted with a couple of men at the bar, Roslyn and Hattie made their way onto the dance floor. Frank arrived after them and did not engage the girls. Instead he made his way to the far end of the bar to keep an eye on the place.

  Roslyn stopped dancing when she saw the first Red Scarf making his way up the stairs to the VIP section. The second emerged from the crowd to follow him up. Roslyn nudged Hattie and motioned with her head.

  “Should we try to get into the VIP section?” Hattie asked.

  “You don’t think…?” Roslyn said, trying to move to see if she could get a peek inside as the doors swung open. “He couldn’t be.”

  Roslyn recognized the android behind the main bar. Hattie followed her through the gyrating bodies to Charlie the android bartender.

  “Would you like another whiskey and water, with a pinch of sugar?” Charlie asked after scanning her face. “Might I suggest substituting sugar with honey?”

  “You have honey?” asked Roslyn pausing in her train of thought. “Not right now, but yes when I’m ready for another one. I have a question, though.”

  “What can I help you with?” asked Charlie, a perpetual smile on his face.

  “Who’s in the VIP lounge tonight?” Roslyn asked, motioning toward the stairs.

  “I’m sorry, I’m programmed to make drinks and small talk.”

  “I saw a couple of guys go up wearing red scarves,” Roslyn pressed. “You know anything about that? Are you familiar with the Red Scarf organization?”

  “I have served men and women both, who were wearing red scarves, but also scarves of various colors. We do not discriminate against people wearing scarves or other accessories around their necks or heads. Would you like a drink?” Charlie’s smile felt extremely hollow. A couple of people waved their arms at the android, trying to get his attention to take their orders.

  “No. I’m good for now, thanks,” Roslyn said, turning back to Hattie. “I wonder if Frino could hack into Charlie?”

  “I don’t know how that works,” Hattie said.

  “What about you?” Roslyn asked. “Can you like send your mind into the room?”

  “Maybe,” Hattie said, looking around at the raging crowd. “This place is very distracting though.”

  “What if we went outside?” Roslyn asked.

  “Maybe,” Hattie shrugged.

  The Da’akwood walls muffled the thump of the club but it was still quite loud. The street was crowded with people waiting to get into the club and people moving along to head for other clubs and bars and restaurants. Downtown New Vegas was a happening scene.

  “Maybe around back in the alley?” Roslyn suggested. She noticed Frank Lee exiting the club. He didn’t directly acknowledge them but there was a quick glance that let her know he was watching their backs. Roslyn felt a ruddiness in her chest. His suit fit him quite well. His long black hair, streaked with red, was pulled up into a loose ponytail that fell out of the back his crooked top hat.

  A couple of large furry insects scuttled along the base of the building and vanished into of a trash pile. Hattie paused before passing the stinking heap. She wasn’t wearing her sword even though she reached for it. Instead of a sword handle she grasped at air.

  “I don’t think they bite,” Roslyn reassured her and moved to take the lead. Behind the club there were more trash piles. She needed to address sanitation with Bat Matters, she told herself. They would need to form some sort of city council. The confined air in the alley between the buildings caused the smells to combine into toxic fumes. She couldn’t remember to what purpose the building behind the club had been used for most recently. Its trash suggested something to do with flesh. Perhaps it was a butcher’s shop?

  “If you can ignore the smell and the rodent insects, and get past the music and all the people laughing and screaming and basically causing a
general ruckus,” Roslyn said, feeling warm cheeked. “Maybe you could take a look up there into that room, you know, with your mind?”

  Hattie nodded. “Scrimchi,” she whispered.

  “Yep. Scrimchi,” Roslyn nodded back. “Find your karythm, girl.”

  Hattie took in a deep breath through her nostrils. Roslyn in contrast concentrated on breathing through her mouth. But this only allowed for her to taste the stench.

  Hattie closed her eyes and let her head fall back, facing the sky and the two quarter moons squinting overhead. Roslyn watched her and shivered as a cool breeze swept along the alley, tunneled by the wooden buildings. This kicked up even more rank smells and caused Roslyn’s stomach to turn. She sure could use that other drink now, she thought. She decided to concentrate on Hattie and to try and block everything else out. Memories of college flooded her. There was the time she met Hattie’s parents over Spring Break. Her mother had been a tall, demure woman, who came across as shy or extremely reserved at least. Her father was a short man who cracked jokes. She wasn’t sure but Roslyn thought perhaps Hattie’s father had hit on her. But he pretended he was teasing her, making jokes. Hattie had been an only child. Perhaps that was why she was socially awkward.

  “What is happening here?” came a voice from behind Roslyn. Roslyn’s gun was out before she spun.

  “We got us a séance going on?” said the tallest Red Scarf in the group of four. She noticed these red scarves were sewn of a silkier material than the ones worn in Yanker. They also didn’t have the frayed ends.

  “Move along, sir,” Roslyn said, aiming her pistol at Tallest.

  “Aren’t you a feisty little one?” said Tallest and his friends chuckled around him. “You going to shoot me?”

  “If you don’t keep walking,” Roslyn said. Tallest laughed.

  “We’re just doing our jobs and walking the perimeter,” said another Red Scarf. “I think we should bring them inside.”

  “I think you’ll keep walking,” came a man’s voice behind the Red Scarves. Roslyn recognized it as belonging to Frank Lee. He emerged holding two pistols. He aimed at the two on Tallest’s right. Hattie had opened her eyes, Roslyn assumed at the first voice, but she just now noticed.