Hammers and Nails

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  What should have only taken fifteen minutes took twenty-five, because the poor misbegotten vehicle was never intended to haul retired military ordnance. When they arrived at the Umas compound in Big Woo, the car did not so much ‘land’ as it ‘collapsed’ onto the pad with a heave and a bang that rudely slammed the passengers into the floor. The big cyborg heard Lucia yelp in pain and surprise, and he exited the cargo compartment with impressive haste to check for injuries. Not that he was worried about Lucia, but rather it was the driver Roland was worried might need medical attention. If not from the landing, but from the ministrations of his irate passenger. True to his suspicions, it was all Roland could do to preempt a fight between Lucia and the disheveled man. He inserted himself between the sputtering diver and the hyperkinetic martial arts expert and threw the man some hard creds from his coat pocket.

  Lucia did not normally have a particularly explosive temper, but the woman had been VP of Customer Engagement for a successful beverage company most of her career, and bad service could turn her into a real terror.

  And they say I’m a monster, he thought to himself. But I’ve never killed anyone because they gouged me on a cab ride!

  “Get out of here quick. I can only hold her back for so long.”

  It was an absurd statement. Lucia could probably fit inside his coat without leaving a lump, but placing himself between the furious woman and the aggressively cursing driver bought enough time for both to settle down some.

  Lucia threw a last rude gesture at the driver which she punctuated with a string of profanity so vile and creative it made Roland, a veteran of close to a hundred special operations missions and as hard a man as the galaxy had ever seen, question his own existence. Having known her father for a long time, he understood where the normally urbane and collected Lucia got her occasional outbursts from. Still, it was always rather jarring to hear the small, attractive woman suddenly explode with grotesque suggestions about the parentage of some unlucky bastard, or perhaps invite them to engage in improbably imaginative sex acts that would almost certainly be fatal if attempted by human persons. It would be funny if not for the terrible ferocity and apparent sincerity of these exhortations as she delivered them. He also found it charming because he was very much enamored of Lucia and he found most of what she did charming.

  She permitted him to guide her away from the driver who was now close to weeping at the utter rhetorical destruction he had just endured, and the pair resumed their journey across the landing pad where the lanky red-headed figure of Billy McGinty awaited them. Billy was clapping slowly and shaking his head, “Holy tap-dancing hell, Lucy. I have heard whores from Galapagos cuss out a john so bad I needed a bath afterward. I’ll tell you something, those gals would have retired to a convent after hearing that screed,” his eyes were alight with mirth, “Jesus wept, lady! Do you kiss your cyborg with that mouth?”

  “He deserved it,” Lucia seemed unperturbed, “damn near crashed and wanted to bill us for the damage. He knew the weight before he took the fare. It’s not my fault he doesn’t take care of his ride.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still not sure how his mother’s potential relations with Cygnarian slime eels factored into that. And how do you know if he even has a sister? Let alone one that does...” he shuddered at the unvarnished horror of her accusation, “... that.”

  “I knew a whore from the Czernobog station who did... that,” Roland began, then decided not to tell the story when he saw the look on Lucia’s face.

  “Christ, aren’t you two just a pair?” He waved them over, “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

  The headquarters of the Center Street Teamsters was much changed from their previous visits. The influx of revenue following Big Woo’s successful revolt against Combine leadership had gone a long way to improving the old Umas compound. What had once been the former Boss’s fortress of domination was now a thriving and bustling distribution center for all manner of contraband. Roland experienced deep unease at seeing all the drugs, weapons, and other illicit trade items being handled with such casual indifference, but there was little risk in consolidating the shipping aspects of so much rampant illegality here. Big Woo’s governing selectmen were still mostly corrupt stooges for various business and criminal enterprises, and the whole economy of this borough relied upon the drugs and smuggling. Those few pathetic laws Big Woo actually had against such things were enforced with only cursory attention to detail, and certainly not in any way that would hurt the flow of goods and credits.

  Most of the more cumbersome criminal enterprises that relied on New Boston for customers and revenue hid in the Woo for safety from the more stringent laws and less corruptible constabularies patrolling Uptown and the Sprawl. Even Dockside technically had police, even if they were mostly useless. After Roland killed Marko, the Combine Boss who ran the dirty slum like his own private kingdom, Billy had reorganized all the various gangs, drug labs, smugglers, gun-runners, and manhunters into a series of guilds. Everyone except the slavers, of course. Those Billy had killed and subsequently shipped their bodies back to all the brothels employing them with a sternly worded note about ethical sourcing of trade goods. The boxes were not large.

  Instead of structuring the rackets like a single business, he assembled them into trade organizations and established a free trade zone in Big Woo. The only difference between his free trade zone and a legitimate one was that his dealt in illegal goods and services. But now the market drove prices, not the whims of The Combine, and this had changed the economic landscape significantly for the poor downtrodden denizens of Big Woo. Billy had made it clear that like Dockside, there would be no Bosses in Big Woo, but the inevitable result of his leadership role in the revolt, and his position as the proprietor of the most productive drug labs in the area meant that everyone respected and looked to him for guidance. When the guilds met for their monthly meetings, it was Billy who chaired them.

  They met in Billy’s office, on the fifth floor of a boring gray central administration building. Billy sat down behind an old wooden desk and Lucia found a chair across from it. Roland, as usual, had to stand. Most of the furniture he encountered on a day-to-day basis would never be able to handle his weight. This was just something he had gotten used to over the years. His joints never ached and he could not really get ‘tired’ in the classical sense, so it did not amount to much of an inconvenience. Billy started with a big grin for Roland, “Just who the hell did you piss off this week, buddy?”

  Roland snorted, “Working on finding out. Thought you might be able to help.”

  Lucia interjected, “Somebody is tricking low-level hitters into taking a crack at Roland. Last guy tried it for sixty-five thousand.”

  Billy let loose with an explosive guffaw, “Sixty-five? To take a swing at this grouchy bastard?” He wiped his watery eyes on a sleeve, “Oh man! Who was it? Some frontier twit with a bionic arm or something?”

  “Guy had a decent set of body-mods, but no hardware.” Roland smirked, “I didn’t even kill him.”

  “You didn’t kill him? You going soft on me?”

  “I’m growing as a person,” Roland’s voice betrayed no sarcasm. “Plus, we needed him to flush out the client. He filed a grievance with the Lodge. Mindy took him over there now so they could meet with the steward.”

  Billy nodded, “Makes sense. Mindy’s word will carry a lot of weight with the steward. What do you want me to do?”

  Lucia had a grand repertoire of weaponized smiles. These were all dazzling and warm and generally charmed any poor sap who found himself on the receiving end of one. Roland freely admitted he lived to see her smile like that, even knowing it was usually followed by some request likely to leave you broke or injured or both. She turned one of these on McGinty before answering his question, “We have something special to ask of you, Billy.”

  Billy knew Lucia well enough to know what that meant, and he placed his elbows on the desk and shoved his face into his hands before responding. His voic
e was heavy with resignation and only slightly muffled by the shielding warmth of his palms.

  “Oh, fuck me sideways. I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Billy, who had found that the more pessimistic one was, the more prophetic they appeared, was correct. He absolutely hated the idea. He had to allow that it was not necessarily a bad idea, it was merely an idea engendering some risk to himself and his operations.

  “I’ve been a hustler my whole life, Lucy, and this hustle needs work.” Billy held up a hand to forestall her objections, “I get it. The best way to draw out the bastard is to offer up a sacrificial lamb, but why it has to be one of my lambs, I’m not so sure about.”

  “People know you and Roland are friendly, this means your people will have better access to him. They also know the shift in Big Woo leadership has you guys pulling in lots of new talent. It seems like a really easy play to have one of your guys take one of these shitty bounties and then have him claw his way toward the client.”

  “It ain’t that easy at all, lady,” Billy was not backing down, “It needs to be someone we trust, also someone fairly new to the operation if the ruse is going to be believable. Those two things are pretty much mutually exclusive these days.”

  “You don’t have any fresh meat that you trust?”

  “I have a couple new guys who I think are solid, but trusting them with this will be a big risk.,” he paused and frowned, “I just don’t like it.”

  Roland stepped into the conversation, “Willing hunters are going to dry up when the grievance hits, so this guy will be desperate. Who do you have that you do trust?”

  “I got a hardcase from Venus on-site who has been handling some protection gigs and scouting for the truckers. He was a separatist, by the way,” his gaze went to Roland, “that going to be an issue?”

  Roland spoke without thinking, “Nah. It was a long time ago.” A second later a wave of bad memories and buried rage washed over him like a flash flood. It had been thirty years since Roland had lost most of his body to a separatist trap. Those injuries had started a series of events leading to his subsequent transformation and enslavement. Roland was far too concrete a thinker to actually blame the separatists for what his own military had done to him and put him through.

  But still, if not for them...

  He put it out of his mind. Unless this person was well into his fifties or sixties, there was no way the guy had anything to do with the Secession War. If he was here working for McGinty, it meant he was probably as done with that conflict as Roland was. He put it out of his mind, “He got a card?”

  “Yeah, he’s registered with the Venusian Lodge, but he hasn’t taken a job in a long time. I think he lost his taste for hunting people.”

  “How much do you trust him?” Lucia sounded concerned. Everyone understood the risks, but the nature of Lucia’s augmentations made anxiety and panic her constant companions. It came out in her voice, “Will he help a guy like Roland? I mean, they were on opposite sides.”

  McGinty shook his head, “He ain’t old enough to have been in the fighting, and it's not like anybody knows Roland was there, right?”

  “Not to mention,” Roland added, “I looked a lot different then.” Which is to say he had arms and legs and wasn’t a giant cyborg yet.

  “But he can be counted on?” Lucia asked.

  Billy threw up his hands, “I mean, I guess? This is your plan, right? I get a good feeling about him, sure. He seems legit. But he’s only been around for like, two months, so I don’t have much to base it on.”

  “Okay,” Roland growled, “So we have this guy take one of these bullshit bounties. Then he will bring up the grievances currently being processed as a reason to either meet with or get more info from the client.”

  “Citing his ties to me and Big Woo as an avenue for actually getting you, right?” Billy was trying to follow the thread himself.

  “Right,” Roland nodded, “He is going to imply rather unsubtly that because of you, he can get to me in ways others can’t.”

  Lucia smiled and picked it up from there, “Then he is going to draw the client out by requesting intel or assistance that has to be rendered in person...” she paused, frowning at all the ways it could go wrong, “... or at least in such a way as to reveal who it is anyway.”

  “Like what?” The lack of detail was giving Billy pause, “What could he possibly ask for that would draw the guy out?”

  “A cash advance is the simplest answer,” Roland said. “Buying off you Big Woo types always means hard creds and person-to-person contact. He’ll tell the guy he has to bribe one of your top guys or something, and that he needs hard creds to do it.”

  Billy wasn’t buying it, “You think this guy is really going to come down here to drop off a payoff?”

  Roland shook his head, “Probably not, but he’ll send a courier, and the courier will know how to contact him. Or the courier will know someone who knows how to contact him. Either way, I’ll start clawing my way up to the bastard.”

  “This is a stupid idea, Roland.”

  “Got a better one?”

  Billy snorted, “Yeah. Start killing these assholes wholesale and send a message straight up to the fucker. Sooner or later, the Hunters are going to turn on him too. They don’t like being set up to die.”

  Lucia took the opportunity to get Billy back on track, “It may come to that, Billy. That’s why we are working with the Lodge on this as we speak. But I don’t want to miss a chance of getting him ourselves, and I’d prefer for Roland to not have to kill half the bounty hunters and assassins in the solar system first.” She smiled, “besides, I’m not exactly thrilled with the thought of constantly getting attacked. It’s all fun and games for this one,” she jerked a thumb in Roland’s direction, “But I’m not so durable. I’d rather not get caught in the crossfire while he stomps a mud hole into a bunch of rookie hunters.”

  “Right,” the redhead agreed, “There is that. Okay. Let’s bring him in for a chat, shall we?”

  Billy made a short call, and a few minutes later they were joined by a small thin man of medium height with dark hair and eyes. His skin was deep brown, and he moved and walked with a cautious tightness speaking to a history of surviving hard places. Roland had seen the look many times. People who grew up in war zones, or lawless colonies run by criminals and tin-pot dictators got that look before they reached adulthood. If they reached adulthood. The brown eyes darted to each of them, analyzing and probing. Roland could see the man cataloging escape routes, probable armaments, opportunities and liabilities with just a few furtive twitches of his pupils. Roland’s was a very experienced eye, and he noted that this man had the aspect of a survivor, but not necessarily the feel of a soldier. This was a runner, a thief, a pragmatist. In tough situations Roland was inclined to dig his heels in and fight. He preferred to see the enemy coming and deal with it. That had been his way even before his conversion. But he remembered the people who developed the look he saw in the young man. He recognized that type of intensity. On campaigns ranging over a dozen worlds he had seen them. They made terrifying guerrilla soldiers and powerful intelligence assets.

  The thin man’s gaze landed on Roland and stayed there. Roland knew why. Here was something the man did not have a reference for. Roland presented a new variable. It bothered the dark-skinned man to not know what to do, and Roland was fine with that.

  Billy broke the spell with introductions, “Everybody, this is Manuel Richardson. He joined the operation shortly after Marko had his little misadventure.” When Billy said ‘misadventure,’ Roland smirked. ‘Misadventure,’ in this case meant Roland shoving Marko’s face bones through his brain and out the back of his skull.

  Lucia cocked an incredulous eyebrow, “You and I have very different ideas as to what constitutes 'misadventure,' Billy. I once took a wrong turn in uptown and got a ticket for going the wrong way in a one-way lane. That was a 'misadventure.’ What happened to Mar
ko really should have a different label.”

  “Manuel,” Billy ignored her, “This is Lucia and her pet psycho, Roland. Believe it or not, she’s the scary one.”

  Manuel nodded politely and addressed Roland first, “Are you the ‘misadventure?’”

  “Among other things, yes.”

  Manuel turned to Lucia and smiled with real warmth, “Then I presume that you are what precedes ‘misadventure,’ then?”

  “Among other things, yes,” she matched his smile.

  “Then I concur with Billy. You are the scary one.”

  Billy laughed, “Told you he was smart.”

  Manuel presented his hand to Lucia, and she shook it firmly. Then he offered the same to Roland. When the giant paw was outstretched, Manuel frowned and did his level best to grasp it manfully. Roland accepted the gesture in the spirit it was offered and shook politely.

  “Manuel,” Billy began, “We brought you into this meeting to ask if you would be willing to participate in a little sting operation for us. Somebody keeps sending low-rent hunters after ‘misadventure’ here and we would like to know who and why.”

  “Ahhh,” Manuel nodded, “And since I am still registered, you would like me to see if I can draw the client out?”

  “Yes,” Lucia said. “We will fabricate some excuse for you to contact the client directly and hopefully find a thread we can pull on to lead us back to him.”

  “It should be money, then,” Manuel said quickly. “I am not so rich, and I will need an advance of some kind to go after so illustrious a quarry as the famous Tank Tankowicz.”

  Roland shook his head and Billy snorted, “So you did recognize him, huh?”

  Manuel smiled, “How many giant bald fixers named Roland are there in the region?”

  “Right,” Billy agreed, “So will you do it?”