by G R Matthews
“Thank you, Tom,” she smiled up at the barman as he placed her drink on the table. In return, he did something you rarely saw, he smiled back.
“Cheers.” I raised my beer glass and we knocked our drinks together, both taking a sip and completing the age old ritual of the drinker’s greeting. “To what do I owe the honour of this visit?”
“I wanted to check on you,” she said.
“I’m fine,” and up went my barriers. I had to take a breath and lower them again. She wasn’t here to pry and question. With Derva you got honesty. Either she was the world’s greatest liar or she was just as you saw her. Beautiful, kind and trustworthy. “My leg aches a bit, but the shoulder is healing just fine.”
I raised the beer to my lips once again, just to prove my point.
“Good. I feel a little responsible,” she said, looking me in the eye.
“Don’t,” I said, crumbling before those dark eyes. No man could look into those and not agree with everything she said. The Mayor had chosen his personal assistant well. “There was no way to know what the old lady was going to do. Security had checked them all out before they sailed. The briefing and details on the way in were good. I’m sorry the crew and other courier were killed. Were the contents of the briefcase worth it?”
“I assume so. I don’t know what was in them. Don’t give me that look, Corin. I was never told and neither was the Mayor. The NOAH personnel searched their database for the best operative to effect the rescue or recovery operation and the AI gave them your name.”
“Remind me to buy it a birthday present,” I said, swallowing the last of my beer.
“NOAH pays you a retainer for these kind of services. You signed a contract.” She sounded defensive and I took a moment to ponder her tone and words.
“I know they do, Derva,” I said lowering my voice. “I’m not blaming you at all. I’m just a wet-welder. I repair things and all I’ve done on the last two jobs is destroy things and kill people.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. She drank her drink in small, careful sips. I found myself watching those perfectly painted lips part around the glass and the cold liquid wash against them. I envied the drink.
“The next job will be easier, I promise.” Her glass was half-empty and condensation beaded the lower section.
“Next job? I’m injured.” Even I heard the childlike whine in my voice.
“It is a simple repair job,” she explained. “Nothing complicated, but the repair subs don’t have the precision to carry it out.”
“What is it?” They paid the wages, I took the chances. Life is like that.
“One of the power turbines in a city not far south has malfunctioned. They want it repaired.”
“Why not just replace it, or bring it in for repairs?” I asked. That was normal procedure for those things. The turbines were fixed to the sea floor but they could be detached from their base and brought into a city quite easily.
“The diagnostic showed it to be a simple wiring fault. The turbine picked up a vibration and managed to shake the wiring loose. The engineers tell us that a man in a Fish-Suit could access the panel and repair the wiring, and any other minor fault, with just a day’s work. It would take a few weeks to detach and bring the turbine in for repairs. This way is, we’re told, much simpler and cost effective.” She drew a picture on the table top, her finger trailing through the pools of condensation on the glass surface.
“Why doesn’t their user do it?” Most cities had one or two Fish-Suit users and most of them were on contract to the corporation. If I hadn’t killed all my workmates in the accident, I’d be that contracted user in this city. As it was, for years I’d had to pull my jobs off the board. Until Derva had shown up in the bar that is.
“She is out with a bad case of food poisoning. You are the closest available.”
“Food poisoning? I was shot,” I said.
“You said you were fine,” she countered. Damn my macho bravado.
My leg hurt, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The Fish-Suit supported my body. The Oxyquid buffered me from any knocks and the little exoskeleton could assist my movements. In a day or two, I’d be close to full health anyway. The shoulder and leg would ache for a bit. As long as I didn’t do anything stupid, I’d be absolutely fine.
“All right, I’ll go.” I cave in so quickly in the presence of a beautiful woman. I tipped my empty glass towards her. “Another drink?”
Chapter 6
She was wrong. It would be a two day job.
It had been a wiring issue and getting the cover off the panel hadn’t been difficult. My tool belt held most everything I would ever need on this job. I secured the panel to the side of the turbine by the simple expedience of a magnet and switched my white light on. At depth, white light didn’t travel as far as pure red, but without it I’d never be able to see the colour of the wires. Luckily, colour-blindness does not run in my family so once the light was on it was easy to see the problem wires. They were the ones not attached to the rest of the machine.
The HUD overlaid the correct diagram onto my visor and the simple task of checking the wire, plugging it back into the right socket and applying a little bit of solder to keep it in place was done in the space of an hour. However, when they tried to spin the turbine up it singularly failed to move. A further hour of crawling all over the propellers, cabling and structure revealed the fault. The wires had pulled loose because of vibration caused by a slight misalignment of the blades. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d suggest a large biotic, a fish or whale, had collided with the propeller.
The fix was simple. Realign the blade. It could be done by detaching the turbine and taking the whole thing into the city for a specialised crew to carefully and precisely move the blade back into perfect alignment. Or, I could loosen the blade housing, wrench it back into place and measure it with a precision laser. One would take a week, the other a day. They decided I could do the job. Funny that.
It did give me the chance to get a meal and a drink. More likely a few drinks. The corporation had been kind enough to spring for a middle of the price range hotel. I’d packed clothes enough for three days. They all fitted inside a very small bag. Two extra pairs of socks, underwear and two t-shirts. There was just enough room to fit my toothbrush in too. The hotel would provide shampoo and toothpaste. If they were lucky they might get to keep their towels. It depended how observant they were.
Changed into the nicer of the two t-shirts, the one without the stupid joke on it, I headed out of the hotel in search of a quiet bar. The company would pick up a reasonable expenses tab, but I didn’t want to eat hotel food. A bar that served food would be ideal and if there was a game on, something to keep me occupied for a time, so much the better. I followed the signs and made my way through the shopping district to the restaurant and bar area.
I chose a bar far enough away from the main thoroughfare to be cheap enough for my expenses to cover the costs. A table in the middle of the bar was free and I slid into the seat, shuffling a little to get the best out of the thin cushion that covered the chair. The menu, standing proud in the centre of the table, was scruffy, creased and spotted with mysterious blobs. It had nothing to be proud of in my opinion.
After a short scan of the selection on offer, I settled on a burger made of vat grown meat and a lager produced by one of the home-grown city breweries. I’m all for supporting the local economy, as long as it paid up on time and helped me back to bed if I’d had a little too much to drink. The waiter took my order with an ingratiating smile that reeked of the words ‘tip me’ and headed off to the back to convey my precise cooking instructions; make sure it can’t move on the plate and I’ll eat it.
He was back with the drink inside a minute. Another journey to the bar and back, and he placed my cutlery down. The knife and fork were wrapped in a white napkin. Some of the more expensive places will give you a napkin made of cotton, which they’ll throw out. It seems a total waste to grow the co
tton in specialised laboratories only to throw it away. I’ll never understand the rich. Throwing out perfectly good things was clearly a sign of power and wealth alongside a healthy dose of stupidity.
The bar filled up as I waited for my burger to arrive. A group of barely post-teenagers swaggered into the bar, bright shorts and shirts too big. Never a follower of fashion, I could only thank whatever gods had gifted me with the certainty that jeans and t-shirt worked in all social situations. Dressed like those boys, I don’t think I could have looked in a mirror without laughing and dying of shame. One of the boys, I couldn’t think of them as men, glanced over in my direction, a dismissive sneer upon his face. I tipped my beer in his direction and he turned away as if he had won some competition. Dickhead.
Other patrons came in, taking up the last of the seats and putting in their orders with the waiter. A couple, not much older than the group of boys, sat at the table next to me. The rest were middle-aged groups of men and women, still dressed in their work clothes. More than one group gave the boys a look and consciously moved away, creating a zone of exclusion around them.
The burger finally arrived, along with a second beer, and I tucked in. True to my instructions the burger had been cooked so well that it had transmogrified from reconstituted meat into a dried out husk. Not the nicest burger I’d ever consumed, but at least food poisoning wouldn’t be a worry. The red sauce they had spread all over the bun took the edge of the carbon. The fries were better. Potatoes grew well down here, under lights that recreated, I’m told, the exact radiation of the sun. Salt wasn’t in short supply and I’d long ago given up the idea that it might kill me before my time. The way things had gone recently, I felt lucky to have made it this far.
The couple a table down had their heads together, sharing a pizza, and talking quietly. Their eyes said a lot more than words could ever have done. I felt embarrassed just glancing at them. Clearly, he could barely wait for the meal to be over and for his body to be all over hers. Judging by the way she kept touching her hair and brushing her hand over his, she was wishing he would eat quicker too. Young lust, it’s hard to beat. I recognised the feeling, envy. Not of their incipient tussle under the sheets, but the feeling of being young, in love and alive. I took another bite out of the charred burger.
“She’s pretty.” One of the boys shouted across the bar.
A few guests looked up from their conversations towards the group of boys who had all turned from the bar, bottles of beer in hand, to look towards the happy couple. Beer in a bottle was just a waste of glass and money.
“Hey,” the same boy called. “I said she’s pretty. You’re well in there.”
I watched the waiter smile his apologies at the other guests and walk over in tiny, timid, steps towards the group. His hands gestured towards the tables and made placating gestures to the group of boys. I saw them exchange glances and burst into laughter, the sound carrying across the whole of the bar.
Next to me, the girl gave the group a nervous glance. Her boyfriend shook his head at her, a gentle reassuring gesture. She’s right, I was thinking, time for you to leave.
One of the boys saw her look and pointed it out to the others.
“You need some help with her, reckon she goes a bit,” the boy called over, pushing the waiter out of the way and leading his gang, which is what they had become, over to the couple’s table.
The other patrons were either focused on their meals, studiously not looking over, or had sat back in their chairs and were watching the situation unfold. A few, the bright ones, the ones who’d seen it all before and wanted nothing to do with it, paid their bills on the auto-tellers set into the tables and were leaving. No one wants security forces turning up on your doorstep asking what you saw, why you didn’t help out, or why you didn’t call them.
I’ve seen it hundreds of times, when I was teenager and in the years since. When you frequent as many bars as I have, you learn to catch the signs. The last of the beer slid down my throat. The glass went back onto the table next to the plate that held the crumbs of my meal, and I didn’t move.
“Go away,” the boyfriend said, shaking off the gang leader’s hand that had landed on his shoulder.
“You want a real man, darling,” the gang leader said to the girl.
“Leave her alone.” The boyfriend turned in his seat, but didn’t rise.
“Alex,” the girl said, “let’s go.”
“Yes, Alex, you go.” The gang leader gestured to the others and they filed around the table forming a semi-circular screen.
Alex stood up, he matched the height of the gang leader but there were four others he had to worry about. I could see the thoughts on his face, plain as if I was having them. Throw a punch, take out the leader, make a statement and maybe the others would back away. Grab the girl’s hand and escape the bar. Talk your way out of the situation. Be strong and forceful, don’t give ground. Perhaps they are just out for a bit of fun and won’t do anything.
If he thought any of the latter was true, he was kidding himself. The thing is, I’ve been in a few fights and I’ve been hurt. No one ever walks away from fight without some sort of injury, some new ache or bruise. Bullies are never nice and picking on a couple, making those comments to the girl, and thinking of her solely as an object? If Tyler had lived, would some dickhead be saying those things to her? And that’s why I hadn’t left when I knew I should have done. That’s why I stayed, waited and watched. Sometimes you just have to do what’s right.
“Leave them alone,” I said. This was going to hurt. I was already nursing a sore shoulder and half-healed leg.
Sometimes doing the right thing involves a little pain.
Chapter 7
“Stay out of it, old man,” the gang leader said. Two of his subordinates turned to face me, squaring their shoulders, and puffing out their chests.
“I don’t think I can,” I said, ignoring the two and focusing on their leader. Every group has one. The leader. The one they all follow even when they know they shouldn’t. I’d like to say we grow out of it as we get older, but that’s not the case. We grow out of it by learning from experience and, right now, this lot were going to get a life lesson. If I didn’t get hurt too much in the process, so much the better. “I came here for a quiet drink and you’re making that impossible. Don’t you get it? I’m on expenses here.”
“What?” The confused look on his face was worth it. He turned from his tormenting of the couple and faced me.
I moved out of my seat and the two stepped back. I’m not tall, big or heavily muscled, but I do wear a Fish-Suit and that thing is heavy out of the water. You have to be in reasonable shape to use it. They created some space for me stand and I was now between them and my table. Position is the first aspect of battle. Get that right, make them fight on your terms, and you’re halfway there. At least, that’s what my military instructors taught me on those days I listened.
“I said go away, boy. You’re spoiling my evening meal.” I pointed with my left hand towards the exit and whilst they focused on that gesture, palmed the fork with my right. Anything can be a weapon and if they wanted to fuck with me, I was going to fork with them.
“You’ve made a big mistake. Mister, don’t you know who we are?” The boy snarled, moving forward a pace, flexing his shoulders and neck.
“Nope. Don’t care.” Come on, I was thinking, throw the first punch, do something that means I can retaliate. I knew where the cameras were and that they couldn’t see I’d picked up the fork. I pushed a little more. “Piss off home to your mamma. She’ll change the nappy you’ve just shit into.”
“Fucker,” he said. “Get him.”
At last. I wasn’t proud of the line, but it got the reaction. The boy to my left moved first, swinging a punch towards my face. No training, no skill, no speed. Sure, a good shot to the chin or nose will take someone out of the fight, but they are small targets stuck on a small part of the body that moves quickly when it needs to. I pulled my he
ad back and swept my left hand up and over his arm, dragging him into the path of his friend. As he passed me by, blocking the other from getting to me, I jabbed the non-pointy end of the fork into his ribs, hard.
Even I winced as the boy’s grunt of effort turned into a high-pitched scream of pain. That would leave a nasty bruise. Every breath would remind him of what happened. One down, four to go and I was hoping one or two would make a run for it. No such luck.
The Gang leader came in hard and low, tackling me round the waist and pushing me over the table. My arms were free and it would be a simple matter to drive the fork, pointy-end first this time, into him. Might miss his ribs and hit something more vital, but I didn’t want to do that much damage. It wouldn’t do my reputation, such as the tarnished weight around my neck was, any good. I settled for letting go of the fork and, wrapping my arm around his neck, pulling him down with me.
The table upended and over we went. Me onto my back, him onto his head. I call that a win. He remained conscious and still full of fight. Oh, to be young and stupid. Releasing his head, I rolled away before one of his friends decided to stamp me into oblivion, I climbed to my feet, seeing him do the same, blood pouring from a cut on his forehead. Head wounds bleed a lot.
A quick glance to my left showed the boyfriend engaged with one of the others and it took me a moment to spot the other fellow. He was writhing around on the floor caught in a deliciously painful dilemma. Should he cup his bruised testicles or pull the fork out from his leg? The girlfriend had evidently decided that anyone coming between her and her man was fair game. Her hands were raised to her face in horror, perhaps she couldn’t believe what she’d done. The boy twisting in agony believed her.
Two down. Three to go.
“You are so dead,” the leader said, wiping the blood from his eyes.
