Learning the Hard Way 2

by H. P. Caledon

  This is gonna hurt.

  Keelan swung his backpack toward the man’s head. As hoped, the man blocked and Keelan attacked his midsection. He managed to get three good punches in before he was elbowed in the back so hard that he fell to his knees. He barely saw the guy before a series of punches hit him clean in the face.

  Keelan kicked wildly and heard an angry cry as his foot impacted something. The man fell on top of Keelan, who wrapped his arms and legs around the huge man to cling to him while hitting every weak spot on the body he could reach. The man’s arms were still free, though, and Keelan received several more blows.

  The man managed to turn enough to grab Keelan’s inner thigh, dangerously close to his private parts. Keelan chose to let go of the man before he found out he hadn’t managed to grab his nuts.

  But Keelan didn’t get far before the man was on him again and kneed him in the side three times. The man got up and hauled Keelan to his knees. He gasped for air and felt the pain in his side at every attempt. He’d broken at least one rib.

  “Whose murder were you talking about, sonny?” the guy huffed and threw Keelan across the floor.

  “The plan was yours,” Keelan groaned and tried to haul himself upright by the help of some racking.

  “So you think you’re worthy of someone decorated by the Order of the Three Clovers?”

  Fucking great! A decorated old leatherneck!

  “Depends on the rules of the ga—” Keelan tried, but was cut off by a fit of coughing which resulted in pain from his bruised ribs.

  “You know anything new?” The guy laughed and closed in on Keelan, grabbed hold of his collar, and pulled his head back to head-butt him.

  Keelan tried to stop him by grabbing at his eyes and nose while scrambling to find something to hit the guy with. He rammed his hand up under one of the shelves, which jumped off the bracket. Keelan grabbed the bracket and managed to pull it off before hammering it through the bottom of the man’s jaw so it pierced the skin and went into his tongue.

  “Yeah, that one was from juvie.” Keelan kicked the moaning man’s leg so he fell to his knees. “That one was an adult prison.” Keelan grabbed the man’s hair, pulled his head back, and held the shelf against the sharp bracket. “But this one’s new.” Keelan slammed his knee against the shelf, which in turn forced the bracket into the man’s brain.

  The leatherneck collapsed on the floor, and Keelan checked whether he was dead before he emptied his pockets for about five-hundred credits. Keelan pulled off another bracket just to not be completely unarmed before he limped to where he’d left his jacket and backpack and left the ship in a hurry.

  Great. I got that exercise I wanted.

  A good distance from the repair dock, Keelan slowed down. The adrenaline had kept the brunt of his many injuries at bay, but once he tried to walk normally, he could feel just how battered his body really was.

  I haven’t taken a beating like this since I won my freedom in the arena of Delta Zeich. Keelan ran his tongue over his teeth. He found a sore one, but it would probably stay.

  The invisible border to the slum was up ahead, and Keelan tried harder to walk normally and seem strong and capable while he discreetly divided his cash into different pockets, socks, backpack, and in his crotch.

  He wondered how much Red Turf had changed over the years. If it hadn’t, then he’d know where to find a place to rest for a while.

  Even before he made it to the entrance to the backyard he in his youth between juvie and prison had spent time in, he knew it was occupied. The door hadn’t been moved, but it was smaller than he remembered. Keelan pushed at the plate and was met by three teenagers looking tough.

  “I lived here first,” Keelan mumbled and smiled.

  The three boys puffed out their chests.

  “Can I stay a few days? I’ll pay.”

  “With what?” the oldest asked. He looked about fifteen or sixteen. But there was something else about the boy—something Keelan couldn’t place.

  “A hundred credits,” Keelan said and searched a pocket. Even though there was money in it, he pretended to have to search an additional two pockets before fishing out the money and handing them to the boy.

  “If you’re looking for trouble, you’ll find more here than you can handle,” another boy said.

  “Oh, I found the trouble I can handle so far, as you can see,” Keelan said and squeezed through the opening. It did nothing for his aching ribs. The oldest boy laughed dryly and nodded him toward the others. They took a seat around the fire while the oldest boy showed Keelan a spot in a container where seven boys were far away in a dream-crystal high. Darkness hid the rest if there were more.

  Keelan returned to the fire and brought some food from his bag. It took a while for them to let him get closer. The oldest boy finally turned his attention to the flames, and as the others did the same, Keelan approached. He found it odd that the unwritten rules of the streets had changed so little that he could still communicate with these boys without speaking. Red Turf apparently hadn’t changed that much.

  “You said you lived here once,” the oldest said and reached out his hand. Keelan handed over the money and some food—the latter earning him a puzzled expression.

  “Yeah, I was about your age, and there was only one container back then. And it was newer.” Keelan pointed to the one he’d been shown a spot in.

  “How old are you now?” another boy asked.

  “Plus cryo, twenty-seven.”

  “And without?” the oldest asked.

  “Around twenty-five. What’s your name?” Keelan asked in hopes he could find out why the kid seemed so different. Familiar maybe?

  “Fritz. And you?”

  “Dean,” Keelan said and was reminded of Saleek’s big, curious eyes. He smiled to himself and handed out food to the others. It was important to show goodwill if he had any hopes of staying safe there. But reaching made a rib bend more and he jerked back, groaning.

  Fritz chuckled. “Tell me, how big was the trouble you ran into?”

  “At least two meters tall and on hormones.” Keelan managed to twist out of his shirt. It needed to be washed, anyway, so Keelan bit down and wiped it across his face. Looking at the amount of blood that rubbed off on it made Keelan growl.

  “It needs to be cleaned,” said a boy who had just arrived with four others. Keelan once again got the strange sense of knowing the boy, but not in the same way as with Fritz. The new boy had dark hair and fair features. Fritz was a bit gruffer to look at and had auburn hair.

  “I’ve lived through worse,” Keelan said and sighed, leaving the thoughts of the boys alone. Right then, the frustration of not being able to figure it out just drained him.

  The fair boy sat closer to the fire. “Come on, let me have a look.” Keelan got up and took a seat on the appointed box. He already missed the warmth from the fire. “Look here.”

  As Keelan did, the boy began a not so gentle cleaning of Keelan’s split eyebrow.

  “You haven’t been here long,” Keelan noted.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I grew up here. It’s something in your eyes. Where did you learn to repair nicks and cuts?”

  “You get beaten up other places than on Verion four, you know.”

  Keelan just looked at him, and the kid finally pulled up his shirt and revealed scars on his back, which seemed to have been left by a belt.

  “Orlani?” Keelan asked. The kid just shook his head and looked down. “Okay.” Keelan inhaled deeply through his nose and caught a scent. He glanced at the kid.

  “What are you looking at? You’re not getting any!”

  Keelan snorted, and the boy backed away. “I’m fine without it, trust me. You just seem familiar.”

  A shock raced through the boy, and he packed up quickly and left. Keelan stayed, staring after him. Did he know the boy? Either way, the not so gentle treatment had left Keelan very tired, so he tiptoed into the container, hid his money, and
went to sleep.

  Keelan started awake and knocked over Fritz.

  “Hey, hey! Just wanted to let you know there’s breakfast if you want,” the boy mumbled and left. Keelan rubbed his face and regretted it immediately. To forget his self-inflicted pain, he rummaged through his pockets and found that he still had all of his money.

  After a short detour to urinate and splash some cold water on his face, he joined the boys. They turned out to be eighteen in all and roughly the same age.

  “Does anyone have a mirror?” Keelan asked and poked his face to see if he could guess how bad the bruising was.

  “There’s one in the other container,” Fritz said, pointing. The dark-haired, fair boy emerged from it. “Stevie, could you bring the mirror?”

  Stevie turned in his tracks, then handed Keelan the mirror and joined Fritz. He kept glancing Keelan’s way.

  “Where have you been since you lived here?” Stevie asked.

  Keelan sent him a look that made him look away. “You won’t share, and neither will I. And as I remember Red Turf, then no one wants to share. Neither possessions nor life stories.”

  “That hasn’t changed,” said a boy who, judging by the look in his eyes, was born on Red Turf.

  “How long are you staying?” Fritz asked.

  “I’ll be going tomorrow night.” Keelan took a bite of a piece of bread they had given him. “Have any of you heard of a Mr. Rick?” He got their attention, so they definitely had. “You have, so he’s still around.”

  A couple of the boys looked broken by the mention of his name.

  “Why?” asked the boy with the hard eyes.

  “He once told me never to set foot here again. Question is if he’d recognize me.”

  “Not even your own mother would recognize you right now,” a boy said and laughed. The others joined in the amusement.

  Keelan looked in the mirror again. He barely recognized himself with the swelling around his eyes and mouth. Colors had settled nicely, but luckily his nose hadn’t broken again. Hopefully, the swelling would be down before he left there.

  “You’re right, but I doubt she’d be able to anyway. She hasn’t seen me since feeding me to the rats behind the Mining-steps right after giving birth to me.”

  “Better than in box on a bonfire,” Fritz mumbled.

  “Yeah, it’s easy to find something more positive than this place,” Keelan said, quietly.

  Stevie looked like he was lost in his own thoughts. Then he pulled a news update from his bag. The other boys looked at him.

  “You can read?” Fritz asked.

  “Yeah,” Stevie said.

  “What does it say?” the others asked. Stevie looked a bit nervous, and Keelan knew for sure that the boy hadn’t been there for long. Especially as he began reading out loud with no hesitation or insecurities about a market to be held in a few days.

  “Good place for quick fingers,” a boy said.

  “Remember to bring the quick legs,” Keelan said. “Can I read it?”

  Stevie handed him the news, and Keelan speed read them to see if he was mentioned. He wasn’t, but it didn’t surprise him.

  Chapter Eight

  As promised, Keelan left the boys the next evening. They would be all right—they looked after each other. He wanted to warn them against their use of dream-crystals, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be thanked for advising them against the peace they could find from the crystals’ effect. At least they took turns keeping an eye on each other.

  He still hadn’t found out why the two boys seemed so familiar, and he was especially lost as to why one of the boys seemed to think that he should know him, too.

  He finally pushed the thoughts aside and entered a store to buy food. With his backpack full, he planned to walk the streets and try to remember as much as he could from back when he’d lived there. Especially from the months he’d been hiding from the law, but he wanted to find places outside of Red Turf. He might be an adult, but Mr. Rick was no joke—he owned it all.

  On a bench in front of the store, he slapped some bread together with some kind of pâté in between before he set off down a street that seemed familiar.

  It was so narrow that no transports could fit through it. From the looks of it, the living standards on Verion four hadn’t improved since, because the street was populated with people in boxes or tent-like structures. A small child around age five stepped out only feet from him and looked up at him. Or rather, stared at him. Keelan glanced under the tarp and saw a woman in a crystal high.

  “Here, kiddo,” Keelan mumbled and handed the child his pâté sandwich. He couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl. Either way, it was filthy and almost shaved bald. Little sticky tots still pointed in a few directions, and it had two clean stripes on its face—from eyes to chin.

  He looked away and continued down the street and finally emerged on a busy street. Two-hundred yards away lay Churchburrow.

  So that’s why this street seemed so familiar.

  He remembered Mr. Churchburrow having dragged him through the narrow street he’d just walked to take him to some missionary house. Keelan hadn’t been there since, but he did remember the old missionary beating his fingers with a cane. One had broken, and it still nagged him when it was really cold.

  Keelan noticed that he was moving the fingers on that hand, experimentally. He turned away angrily and walked the other way. He’d almost made it to the Mining-steps before he noticed where he was going. He wouldn’t find any pleasant memories there, either.

  Finally, he went into a bar and ordered a frontier wisky and a beer, which he brought to a corner of the bar. There he wondered why he’d come back to Verion four in the first place.

  A place to hide, he tried to reason. But all he knew there was the Churchburrow Institute, which was a place so secluded that no one ever really left, and Red Turf, which didn’t hold any better statistics than the religious house. He only knew a small portion of the city—Red Turf and some of the Mining-steps’ many levels and pathways.

  It even dawned on him that he didn’t know anyone on Verion four outside of prison. The few people he remembered were either long gone or dead. One had made it out for sure. He’d seen his name in the newsfeed. Berry Sole made something of himself.

  Suddenly he missed Saleek.

  For crying out loud! Don’t sit here and be so damn melodramatic. And drinking yourself senselessly stupid won’t help either!

  He emptied his beer and left the bar.

  Not far from the bar, he found a hostel, where he rented a room and took a shower before he turned in. But he was too restless to sleep, and after half an hour of tossing and turning he finally sat up. He found a stack of magazines on the nightstand and leafed through them absentmindedly. His brain finally registered what it was. Porn.

  Hmm, maybe easing the pressure could help.

  He tossed the magazine aside and lay back down. He closed his eyes and thought back on the one good experience he’d had on Verion four—Alice, the girl from Churchburrow. The memory of the glint in her eyes through the fence made him smile, and he felt himself relax before he reached down.

  Keelan was less restless as he got up the next day, but restlessness had certainly found its way back into his system before he left his room at night.

  He’d spent the day thinking of more permanent accommodations, but he also didn’t want to stay in one place for too long at a time. So far, he extended the rent of his current room and ventured out into the night to find more money, food, and clean clothes.

  As he walked the streets, it occurred to him that he’d forgotten more than he thought. It irritated him to find that he’d just walked in a circle and ended up on a street corner he’d been on not an hour earlier. The first trip hadn’t been good, as he was out the same time as the majority of the male and female prostitutes were. A young man who in Keelan’s eyes looked more like a boy than a man had glanced at Keelan’s crotch several times. To Keelan’s dismay, th
e boy was still there.

  “Change your mind?”

  “No!” Keelan said and moved on.

  “Then why are you back?” the boy asked and jogged to his side. Keelan sped up, and the kid finally gave up. Keelan remembered to take a right and not a left.

  Further up the street, two men were shaking a woman in very little clothes. She finally handed over her money, which one of the men pocketed. The other one stood behind him and looked watchful. A pimp and his goon, Keelan figured. The pimp gesticulated angrily and the goon puffed out his chest even more before they left the woman and walked in Keelan’s direction.

  Keelan hadn’t noticed that many prostitutes in the streets back then, maybe because he, himself had been one at the time. But that was only three times before he attacked Mr. Rick for taking too much of his earnings. He certainly remembered Mr. Rick’s ways of collecting the night’s earnings back then.

  Suddenly Keelan hated the pimp he’d just seen work, so he turned and sauntered after him and found a good place for an ambush. He’d have to be smart about it, since he was still hurt, so the bodyguard had to go first. He waited in an alley while the pimp and goon collected from another woman, and as they passed the opening, Keelan grabbed the goon and swung him into the wall. The pimp started running, but Keelan tackled him and allowed himself to land heavily on him, knocking all the wind out of the pimp.

  “You should treat the girls better. You don’t deserve these,” Keelan said, took the money and ran, trying to ignore his ribs. He needed to get off the pimp’s turf and growled in irritation as he yet again found himself on the same street corner as before.

  He needed to get to Red Turf because at least he knew his way around there. But that would mean he had to pass the kid. Again.

  Keelan found a place out of sight and counted the money before dividing the stack into smaller stacks which he hid in different pockets and socks and crotch. He’d gotten almost two-thousand credits.

  The boy only glanced at him, but Keelan needed a cover, so he went to the boy and put an arm around his shoulder.