Sages of the Underpass

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  “Babes are people too, and that will never be my game. Park in front.”

  Teddy pulled the van up.

  Niko turned, grabbed his gear in a leather satchel, and got out.

  Mrs. Villareal threw up her hands. “Niko! Thank goodness you are here. My computer, it won’t work. It won’t turn on. I tried to turn it off and on, like your father suggested, but it’s no use! I need to send this one email. I don’t know what else to do!” Mrs. Villareal’s head was covered with a cap, like what you wore when you didn’t have a wig on. He’d only ever seen her with her hair on.

  Teddy joined him as they walked into the house. It was a bit cluttered, but Niko had seen far worse. Sometimes home visits were just gross, hoarder nests of dead rats and dog poop. Other places might be cleaner, but the people might be too creepy. Every now and again, Niko would wind up at a full-on prank house. He hoped that Pete wasn’t doing any prank. That stuff burned out your core to get you high.

  Mrs. Villareal’s computer was at a desk in the living room. Niko bent, rummaged through his satchel, and brought out a daemon meter. He turned it on, adjusted some settings, and ran it over the dead PC. Nothing registered. He brought out a Whitney unit containing a level-one drode, the simplest of daemons. Thank the Zodiac, but this was going to be a quick call.

  “And you are?” Mrs. Villareal asked Teddy.

  Teddy put on his serious-bullshit expression. “I’m Niko’s bodyguard. I’m here to make sure nothing happens to him on late-night calls. He’s a genius, but fragile. I’m the heavy.”

  “Heavy?” Mrs. Villareal was clearly skeptical. “Well, it certainly looks like you’re a fan of all-you-can-eat buffets.”

  Teddy laughed. “Damn, fat jokes. Ouch. As a matter of fact, I do like a good buffet.”

  “So do I.” The woman, though, was still frowning. “But Niko isn’t fragile. He was a Battle Artist in high school. We all thought he would go places.”

  Teddy feigned shock. “Oh really? Did you hear that, Niko? You were going places.”

  “I was. That’s the key word there. Was.” He connected a cable from the Whitney to the computer’s USB port.

  “Why did you stop?” the old lady asked.

  “You can handle this one, Teddy. I have to concentrate. We don’t want a rogue drode getting out.” Niko checked his connections, his settings, and then clicked open the container. Red lights flickered across the small square box.

  Teddy cleared his throat. “He lost his eye of the tiger.”

  “Come again?”

  “He lost that loving feeling.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He lost it all to the night.”

  Mrs. Villareal grunted impatiently. “That last one is a song. Are you making fun of me, young man?”

  Niko took over before they pissed off the client. “My family needed me. You know, running a business is hard, and I had to help out. In the end, I had to choose between being a Battle Artist, a serious one, and being a good son. It wasn’t much of a choice.”

  The container went from red to blue. On the display, a text showed him the transfer was complete. He reached and switched on the computer. The monitor, sitting in the center of a ton of paperwork, flashed to life. Niko shoved his tech back into the satchel. He stood up.

  The lady wasn’t looking at the screen. She was frowning at him, her brows furrowed. “Niko.” This was going to be another lecture, sure, but that was okay. He would listen to it, and then they could get on home. His bed, which he needed desperately, was thirty-five minutes away.

  Mrs. Villareal continued. “Family is there to help us, not hurt us. If you spoke to your parents, they would understand. You do not want to grow old with regrets. Trust me. I know.”

  She wasn’t kidding. And if anyone knew about family, it was Mrs. Villareal. She had a dozen brothers and sisters, at least, a big Portuguese family with numerous connections and obligations, spread across the Bay Cities.

  “It wasn’t them,” Niko said. “It was me. I chose to help them.”

  “There is still time to choose again,” she said. “But I won’t bore you. How much do I owe you?”

  Before he could answer, Teddy stepped in. “I want to be bored. It’s the least I can do, since I joked around with you. Lamely.”

  Mrs. Villareal eyed him. “Yes, lamely. When I was a girl, I was an Artist. It was a long time ago, before things were coed. We had the girls’ team, and the boys, and the boys got all the attention and money, and the girls were something of a sideshow. Now it’s far more civilized.”

  This was all new information for Niko.

  She saw his interest. “Well, I chose family, Niko, over the Arts. I didn’t go to college. When I graduated from South Valley High School, I got a job at the airport, using my Third Study to clean planes. Steam does wonders for aircraft, inside and out. Every so often, we’d need to de-ice the wings. I could help with that as well.”

  “You were a Luna?” Teddy asked.

  “July 7. I won’t say the year. I don’t want to embarrass myself. Suffice to say, through two husbands and four kids, I worked at the airport until I retired. Granted, I have a pension, I have a very comfortable life now, and grandbabies, Lord, I love my grandbabies. And yet, sometimes, I wonder what might have happened if I would’ve pursued my passion.”

  Niko had to glance away. Her gaze was a hard thing to take.

  “How much do I owe you?” Mrs. Villareal repeated her question.

  “We’ll bill you.” He shouldered his bag. “It’s late, and we don’t have to worry about money now. You should be good to go. You just needed a new drode. It’s not a big deal. The old one burned out. There’s residue but you don’t need to replace anything. The new daemon will power things just fine.”

  “A tip then. For you? I appreciate the visit, and I appreciate you listening to me.”

  “It’s not necessary.” Niko turned his head to look at the door.

  “I have pie. Is that tip enough?” Mrs. Villareal asked.

  Teddy sighed long and hard. “Pie.”

  There was no getting out of that. It was cherry pie, and it was worth the extra fifteen minutes.

  On the drive north to Apricot, Niko finally relented. “I’ll check out the critique group. Are you happy?”

  Teddy was. “Cherry pie and a dream undeferred? Yes. I’ll help, Niko, you know me. Maybe I can take some calls for you. I could use the extra cash.”

  Niko didn’t like the idea, for a variety of reasons. He kept silent, though. He’d done enough talking that day. With any luck, his folks would be asleep when he got home.

  He wasn’t that lucky.

  The Family

  NIKO RODE SHOTGUN WHILE Teddy drove himself to his apartment complex, a rambling batch of ratholes in the worst part of Apricot. It was past midnight, but the noodle shops and taquerias were open, their neon signs fuzzy in the wet fog. The smell of grease scented the mist when Niko walked around the front of the Pig and got into the driver’s seat.

  He and Teddy would be seeing each other the next night because Niko had given in to the temptation of seeing Coffey fight again.

  Niko drove home to the Fix-It Shoppe, in Old Town, in a strip mall off Main Street. It was small triangular parking lot, and they fought about parking, all the time. He was glad the normal spot for the Pig was open.

  In the strip mall, shops were at the rear end of the triangle, all of them two stories. All were still open, their neon signs in various stages of flickering. To the left was the Punjab Conveniently, in the middle was the Happy Noodle, and the Fix-It Shoppe took up the last two spaces. The pagoda roof of the restaurant swept its eaves over the entire set of buildings. The Happy Noodle’s second floor housed more tables and a balcony, while the second floor of the other shops were apartments. Pete’s room was right next to the Happy Noodle, and it could get loud there.

  Niko had no idea why his parents’ store was still open. As for the Happy Noodle and the Punjab Conveniently, th
ey were looking for the bar traffic. They’d close when the 2 a.m. traffic slowed to a trickle.

  The worst neon sign by far was the Punjab Conveniently, a tiny grocery store run by a Sikh family. Gobind Singh wouldn’t waste money on something as petty as a nice sign. Gobind was the worst about parking, a turbaned, bearded scowling man. They’d basically known each other for decades, but you’d never know it. Even Teddy had trouble with the guy, and he’d been working at the store for a couple of years now.

  The Zhao family were the exact opposite.

  The owners of the restaurant were far more friendly, and they swapped noodles for Polish food all the time. And then, on the right end, was the Fix-It Shoppe. They had leased two spaces. If only Niko’s family had bought it twenty years ago. Real estate in the Bay Cities had boomed and boomed again. Their landlord, Ana Silva, was an ancient woman, as Portuguese as Mrs. Villareal was. As long as she held on, things wouldn’t change much. The minute she died, the hope was each of the families could possibly buy their stores and the apartments above. Or it could be, once Mrs. Silva passed, her family would kick them all out, and some developer would scrape the land and put up a skyrise of apartments. More and more, people were building upward in the Bay Cities, since the Cambion Crisis had pushed everyone into the urban centers.

  When Niko saw the lights on in the Fix-It, he sighed. He just wanted to go to bed. What were his parents still doing up? Probably worrying over Pete. The entire family did that, except for Pete himself, and Aleksy, the eldest, who had turned tail and fled the family drama.

  Niko went through the front door. The bell tinkled, and it was all so familiar. That was good and bad—annoying and comforting and somewhat stifling. To his right, customer electronics filled a metal shelf, tags on each of the devices. TVs, computers, DVD players, and some cell phones. The place smelled like it always did, a little grease from the Happy Noodle, the ghost of the dinner his parents had cooked in the apartment above, and the slight metallic stink of the Whitney units.

  Directly in front was Tato’s desk filled with papers orbiting two monitors. Long fluorescent lights gave the place an industrial feeling. Pictures of their Polish ancestors hung from the walls as did a few certificates Tato had gotten from tech school—an American diploma and one from Kraków, where he’d grown up.

  Tato was at his desk, reading glasses perched on his big nose. He’d let his white beard grow, and he had a full head of hair. He wore his khakis and button-up shirt, like always, white hair poking out of the collar. His big belly pressed against the gunmetal drawer of the desk, which sat like a decommissioned aircraft carrier in the office.

  At the bell, his mom came out of the back room, which was nothing more than electronics piled floor to ceiling, as was the space next to them. Those back offices also had a variety of Whitneys, containing extra daemons they could swap out, which is what they did most of the time.

  Mamo Kowalczyk was a big woman as well, with brown hair going gray, and a round, smiling face. And a very Polish nose, a ridge at the top, flaring down to wide nostrils. Her smile made you forget about the nose. Niko took after his father, but Pete had the nose, as did Aleksy. Or he had. A little rhinoplasty later, and his beak was a lot smaller.

  “Niko!” Mamo said. “Did everything go all right with the client?”

  “Yeah, her drode went out on her PC. It took five minutes. I said we’d send her a bill.” Niko put his satchel down at his own desk, off to the left, a little wooden space that he kept clean. He had a monitor from this century flanked by antique lamps. It had a certain charm to it, but Niko rarely sat there. He was mostly out, driving around, handling customers.

  Tato leaned back, his chair squeaked, and again, it was all so familiar. He gave his stomach a sharp slap. “Good. We can charge after-hours prices. That’s good. If it weren’t for the Villareals, I don’t know what we’d do.”

  Mamo leaned against the doorframe. She rarely sat. Her desk was in the back room, crammed between the stairs leading to their apartments and the alley door, where the dumpsters were. Highrise condos butted up against the alley. “Did you eat?”

  That was Mamo Kowalczyk, asking about food. “There’s leftover golumpki. I could warm some up for you.”

  It was tempting. She made good golumpki, spicy meat wrapped in cabbage leaves, but the cherry pie had filled him up. And if he were hungry, he could get the Singapore noodle bowl from the Zhaos. Lots of greasy carbs before bedtime was always comforting and gave Niko interesting dreams.

  “No, I ate.” Niko paused. “Cherry pie. Any word from Pete?”

  Mamo shook her head. Tato let out a hiss. “Nothing. That boy. I don’t know what we’re going to do about him.”

  That was an understatement.

  “How was your battle convention?” Mamo asked.

  He could say fine. He could just go to bed. But the roar of the audience, Mrs. Villareal’s warnings about regret, and Teddy’s encouragement made him rethink that. “I fought today, at the Con, just a quick one-round match.”

  Tato dropped his glasses on the desk. His smile made his eyes shine. “You did? Did you win? Who did you fight? What was the Zenith Spin? Tell me everything.”

  “Are you okay?” Mamo asked, her expression hard to read.

  “I’m fine. Tired, though. I haven’t fought in a long time.”

  “Five years!” Tato swung around. “It’s been five years. Of course you’re tired. How did it go?”

  Niko gave them a brief summary. He left out getting to his feet when he was at zero sharira. That would worry them.

  “How did it feel, Niki?” Mamo asked. Again, was that concern or suspicion in her voice?

  He couldn’t tell. He felt like he was five years old again. “It felt good.” No, that wasn’t right. He had to be honest with himself. “It felt great. Andrew J. Coffey asked to see me. He invited me to a critique group in the city. Barton Hennessey uses it to look for talent.”

  Mamo crossed her arms. Concern or suspicion?

  Tato leapt to his feet. “Wait, the Andrew J. Coffey? I saw him fight a dozen years ago. He wasn’t such a big deal back then, but now? And you said Barton Hennessey? We talked to him. Do you remember? It was your senior year. You were at the state tournament in Angel City. He was very interested in you. Did he remember you?”

  “He did.” Niko gazed at his mother while Tato hugged him. “The critique group meets on Wednesday nights. If it was local, I could take the on-call phone, but it’s in the City. I’d be gone all night. Teddy did offer to help with calls. He could use the extra money.”

  “So could we,” Mamo said softly. Okay, she was both concerned and suspicious. “We cannot rely on Peter. If only we could.”

  Tato didn’t let that bit of darkness dim his excitement. “A little vodka to celebrate!” He left Niko and went to the back room and up the stairs. They heard him tromping up above them.

  Mamo shook her head. “Niko, this might not be a good time for this. I know the Arts are important to you, they always have been. And your tato and I, we know it’s been hard for you. It’s just...”

  “You don’t want me to get my hopes up.” Niko stood there awkwardly. He and his mother were on the exact same page.

  “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  She didn’t mean physically—the Arena Masters and their Assistants kept Artists safe.

  Tato came tromping back with shot glasses and his bottle of Żołądkowa Gorzka, the liquor inside a honey-golden color rather than clear. It was big news for Tato to bring out the Żołądkowa Gorzka.

  He poured each of them a tiny bit in the shot glasses on his desk. “I heard this talk of hurt. And yes, there will be hurt. But Niko is a man, now. He can decide. And we can get by. Yes, I am not too old to drive the Pig, and Mamo refuses, but Peter will come around.”

  There was more to it than that. Mamo had been attacked during a call, the police had been involved, and she’d sworn off home visits ever since.

  Tato continued. “And
if not Peter, then Teddy. He is driving our van all the time anyway. Insurance be damned! We can do a tax form on him. It will work out. My Niko, fighting again. And Barton Hennessey will see his talent.” Tato snapped his fingers. “Monday, Niko, you should go to the apothecary, Wochick’s. He can evaluate your prana, and I know, I know, you don’t believe in tinctures, but you need to get your strength back.”

  Mamo tsked at the idea of tinctures, not because she didn’t see them as valid, but because they were expensive.

  Niko’s father raised his glass.

  Mamo took hers, and Niko went forward and gripped his. It was cold because the vodka bottle had come out of the freezer. Every Polish house had vodka in the freezer just like they had too much silverware and too many plates.

  Normally, Tato would toast with a hearty, “Za nas!” which translated as “to us!”

  This time, he went with, “Na drugą nogę!”

  For the second leg!

  Usually, that was a toast to drink more. This time, it meant something different.

  Tato drained his glass in a single gulp. Mamo sipped hers. As did Niko. The alcohol, a sweet orange and clove taste, went down smooth, with only a slight burn. His belly glowed warm.

  Mamo flipped the closed sign and shut off the outside lights.

  “You guys have to lock the door,” Niko said. “You shouldn’t be open so late. It’s not like we get foot traffic.”

  Mamo locked the doors.

  They made their way upstairs, into the cramped space. The furniture was all wood from Poland, piled with knickknacks. The windows didn’t have shades or blinds, nothing so American, but firanki, lacy curtains that let in the sun.

  His parents had the big room and their own bathroom in the back of the apartment overlooking the alley. Niko’s own bathroom and room were off the kitchen. He walked past dishes piled in the sink, to his little closet of a bedroom. He’d had to share it with Pete for most of his childhood. Bunkbeds had been involved. Now, Niko had his own single bed, and Pete had Aleksy’s old room, across the living room next to the Noodle House.