Hammers and Nails

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  “Wait!” Manuel blurted. “You’re that Mindy? ‘Mack and Mindy’ Mindy?”

  She smiled, but it was a sad smile. “That’s me.”

  “Ho-lee shit. Wow.”

  “Don’t get star-struck, kid. Ain’t no ‘Mack and Mindy’ no more.”

  “I heard. I also heard you killed the Pirate King because of him.”

  “Not by myself,” Mindy’s eyes, which had been sad and drooping as tough memories flooded her brain, picked up a twinkle as the conversation turned toward happier thoughts.

  “Yeah,” Manuel was remembering the rumors now. “There was a bunch of Pike’s guys and uh...” he paused, frowning, “Was it them?”

  “Who?” Mindy responded, all innocence.

  “Roland and Lucia. They were there?”

  “Yup. Roland beat the shit out of Grim Roper and Lucia killed the lady who murdered Pops Winter, all while I shanked Vlad the Impaler through his eye with a dagger.”

  Manuel’s face went agog as he put all the pieces together. This was so much bigger than he had ever thought it would be. He wasn’t just working with a local fixer. These were not gang leaders or businesspeople with axes to grind. Roland and Lucia were players in a giant interstellar crime war. A war spanning entire systems and was being fought on multiple fronts. The Combine, The Brokerage, Gateways Inc., all of them giants in an enormous game for control of vast power and mind-boggling sums of money. This was huge. This was dangerous. More to the point, this was all way out of Manny’s league. This conflict would shape the future of the entire galactic economy and Manuel Richardson had just blithely volunteered to be part of it.

  “Don’t worry, kid,” Mindy patted his cheek, startling him. “You get used to it. If you just do your job, don’t back-talk Lucia, and stay the hell out of Roland’s way, you will be fine.”

  “What’s he like, really?” The dark-haired young man had to know. Something about Roland frightened him. There was a darkness, a severity to the man that Manuel wasn’t sure the others could see. Lucia was in love with him; this much was obvious. Mindy respected his strength and capacity for violence, anyone who bothered to look would see that easily. But living underground with a group of people he only later realized were fanatical terrorists had taught Manuel to ascertain certain things first when he met someone. There was a void inside Roland Tankowicz that Manny didn't think the others had noticed. The young man had lived for years in the sort of depraved amoral darkness that drove men insane and brought out the cruelest, most abysmal tendencies in otherwise good people. He was born into it and had lived in it. He could see it in others, and he saw it in Roland Tankowicz.

  “You’re afraid of him.” Mindy presented it as a fact, not a question.

  “You aren’t?” he shot back.

  Mindy’s face changed at the question. Not drastically, but the lines of her eyes became sharp and shadowed. Her lips, a moment ago so luscious as to make a man hyperventilate, twisted to something feral and cold. Her whole demeanor darkened and Manny understood with abrupt terror that Mindy was as much a monster as Roland was. She was just better at hiding it.

  “Of course I am, boy. He’s a monster. A literal killing machine. They built him in a laboratory and designed him to destroy.” Her gaze was ice-cold, and it locked into his with unbreakable tension, “Do you know what they called him?”

  Manuel shook his head, not trusting his voice.

  “Breach, kid. They called him ‘Breach,’ because a bunch of sick military fucks in lab coats built him specifically to break things. And if he didn't want to break something?” She tapped the side of her head for emphasis, “They shut off his brain and made him do it anyway. They treated him like just another tool.” She brought a fist down on the table, and Manny jumped at the sudden sound. “He was just a big ol’ hammer they got to swing whenever they wanted at whoever they wanted.”

  She was too intense, too forward. Manuel felt himself shrink into his chair and tried to avoid her glare. She reached out and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look her in the eyes.

  “So, yes. I’m afraid of him. I‘m afraid of what he can do because I’ve seen him do it. I’m afraid someday the wide-eyed wannabe-hero soldier currently driving that half-a-fucking-ton of military ordnance will give up and die. Then, instead of goofy stupid Roland Tankowicz trying to be a hero, we will all get to play with Breach. Ask Billy or Lucia about Breach. Breach can’t be stopped, kid. Breach is not a hammer, little Manny. He is the hammer. Breach breaks shit because that is what he was made to do.”

  She let him go, “Have you ever heard a cyborg scream in terror in the middle of the night? I have. Roland has nightmares about what Breach did. Nightmares about what they used his body for. I’m talking about women, children, old men and innocents. He would wake up covered in their blood, or on a pile of dead bodies. Can you even imagine what that feels like?”

  Manuel’s stomach lurched and he felt his gorge rise in his throat. His hands gripped the table with desperate strength and drove his knuckles white with the exertion. He could not meet Mindy’s eyes when he answered, and his voice was a small, defeated murmur against the roaring of his own blood his ears.

  “Imagine? No, I can’t imagine it. But then again, I don’t have to.”

  Mindy blinked at his response, and when she saw the cavernous emptiness behind the eyes of the young man, she realized something horrible. Suddenly it was all so obvious, and her mouth drew into a tight white line. A Separatist, too young for the war but the right age for the troubles, suddenly leaves Venus and hides in Big Woo? There was only one logical conclusion.

  Manuel Richardson had the nightmares, too.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The chubby courier scampered from the Quinzy Lodge on feet made clumsy with fear. Things were wrong with this job and he could feel in the pit of his stomach that he needed to get away from this gig fast. His panic made him stupid and hasty, so he turned toward the Sprawl and pinged for a car. When one arrived, he slid inside it and gave his destination to the driver, who snorted at it and started the meter.

  As the car pulled away, the courier allowed himself to relax. Getting a ride would cost money, but speed was important and on mass transit he felt far too exposed. He took small solace in how difficult it would be for anyone to jump him in a random cab.

  Roland watched the cab pull away from the lodge and keyed Lucia on his comm, “He’s on the move. Tracking signal is good. Looks like he’s on his way to The Sprawl. In pursuit. Tank, out.”

  Roland did not like being called “Tank.” He felt it was a stupid and childish affectation, but the denizens of Dockside were simple folk, and when you were his size and had a last name like “Tankowicz,” people were going to call you Tank. At this point he had given up fighting it.

  “Copy that.” Lucia’s voice was curt and professional. “Mindy has Manuel as we speak. I’ll be on comms.” Lucia was not thrilled to be stuck with the overwatch position, but the potential for a nasty firefight and the nature of the bounties meant it would be best for Roland to take point on this operation. Lucia was pure hell in a gunfight these days, but she was not bullet-proof and until they had a better understanding of the strategic landscape, caution was the order of the day.

  The big cyborg let the car get a mile or two ahead of him before he moved. He started with a brisk jog, keeping off the main streets and using alleyways and side streets to keep abreast of the cab and even get ahead of it when a suitable shortcut presented itself. He had a general idea of the direction it was headed, and when he had the room, he extended his stride into a mile-chewing run. With enough space, Roland could run sixty miles per hour, though his weight and resulting inertia made steering and stopping at those speeds next to impossible. Even so, the cab never got away from him and with little effort he stayed abreast of it all the way to its destination.

  The cab stopped at a four-story commercial building on the border of the Sprawl and Dockside. Roland recognized the address as a counting house for a loc
al loan shark and money launderer named Sid. Sid had been a prostitute in Dockside for a while before her head for numbers and keen sense of financial timing had accelerated her into a more profitable career arc. Sid made good loans to bad people and bad loans to good people, but always seemed to turn a profit. Though young, she was a rising star in the shifting landscape of the New Boston underworld with a bright future. She had employed Roland a few times to smooth over issues with bigger rackets, and more than once to remind borrowers of their obligations. Roland had very little in the way of solid opinions on the woman, but he had to wonder what her involvement in these bounties was. He certainly did not owe her any money, he was sure of it. He liked this thread though, as it appeared the courier had led him one solid rung up the ladder. Sid was still technically considered small-time, but she was ambitious and that meant she probably had an angle. Roland would find the angle and exploit it, one way or the other. He had no reason to dislike Sid, so he hoped it would not have to be the other.

  When the courier left a few minutes later, Roland walked up to the counting house door and knocked. A speaker next to the panel crackled to life and a voice said, “Who is it?”

  Roland was never subtle, nor was he canny enough for extended banter, “You know damn well who it is. I’m here to see Sid. Open the door or don’t, but either way I’m coming in.”

  Roland hated closed doors. He was very specifically designed to breach fortifications, and closed doors were his natural enemy. Smashing through a barrier meant to keep him out was just one of the simple joys of his existence. He was denied that joy, as the door slid open on well-oiled glides and he found himself staring at a man wearing light gray tactical armor and more guns than Roland considered to be strictly prudent.

  Roland gave the man a humorless smile, “You sure you brought enough guns, buddy?”

  The man, who was lean and muscular and wore a scraggly beard, ignored his question. “What do you want?”

  “Told you already. Need to talk to Sid.”

  “Sid ain’t here. Leave your message with me.”

  Roland knew this was a lie. The courier would have never gone inside if Sid wasn’t home. He kept the fake smile on his face as he addressed the well-armed man before him, “You know who I am?”

  “I’ve heard of you.”

  “Good. I am going to be reasonable. I will wait right here while you go tell Sid that I need to speak with her. That I am going to speak with her. If you still insist that she is not home, then I will let myself in and speak with her anyway. You have ninety seconds. Go.”

  The scruffy man with the arsenal of guns didn’t move. He scowled the scowl of a man who had killed many people and was not at all impressed with pushy giants. His voice was calm and tinged with vague menace, “I get that you think you are some big deal, buddy. But shit don’t work the same in The Sprawl as in Dockside.” He met Roland’s gaze without flinching, “If I say Sid ain’t here? Then she ain’t fucking here.”

  “Seventy-eight seconds,” was Roland’s response.

  A voice, high-pitched and throaty interrupted the standoff. It came from behind the man with the guns and sounded annoyed, “Oh for Christ’s sake, Paulie! Just let him in!”

  ‘Paulie,’ as Roland correctly surmised was the man’s name, called back over his shoulder without taking his eyes off of Roland or his hands off his guns. “You sure? I heard of this freak. Like as not he’s here to wreck the place.”

  Roland had to admit the man’s caution was well-placed. His repertoire of investigatory techniques was distressingly thin and uncreative. When Roland wanted to know something, he usually found someone who had information and hurt that person until they gave it to him. Paulie seemed to have figured as much out on his own.

  The voice sighed, “If Roland wants to wreck the place, he’s gonna wreck it either way. Might as well see what he wants, first.”

  Paulie eyed Roland for one long moment, then spoke. “Listen, freak. You stay calm, you stay polite. You keep your fucking hands where they can be seen and you don’t pull no shit. Break my rules, I break you. Capisce?”

  Roland returned the hard glare, “I like you, Paulie. You’re my kind of mook. If I have to kill you, it’ll probably ruin my mood. I’m here to talk, so I’m gonna talk. If I was here to fight, you’d be dead already.”

  “Heard that one before. Last guy who tried it was bigger than you.”

  “Will you two assholes shut the fuck up?” Sid stalked into the foyer. “You’re like teenagers with that tough-guy bullshit. Paulie, Roland’s The Fixer, he’s obviously here to fix something. We’ll be fine.” The woman turned to Roland, “Come on in. We can talk in my office. Paulie?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You can take a break.”

  Paulie stiffened at that, displeasure written all over his tight features.

  “Seriously, Paulie. This is business. We’ll be fine.”

  Paulie looked directly at Roland while he answered Sid, “I won’t be far away if you need me.”

  “Perfect. Come on in, Roland. Follow me.”

  Roland followed the dark-haired woman as she led him upstairs. He had done some collections work for Sid during her rise to prominence, but other than that he did not know her well and he found himself really looking at her for the first time. Sid was pretty, he realized, with a body that appeared to be made entirely of curves. She had a manner of walking that made her simple red nightgown slide across her hips as if there were things inside actively trying to escape it. Roland had always been uncomfortable around overtly sexual women. Decades living inside an armored cyborg chassis had taught him not to look at women sexually if it could be avoided. There was no point to it and it made for little more than a painful distraction. Women were supposed to be frightened of him, which Roland understood and felt was appropriate. Any woman not frightened of him was to be avoided, because it meant he wasn’t as scary as he thought he was supposed to be. His past had left him with deep scars when it came to interacting with ladies who enjoyed and employed their sexuality in ways he could not understand.

  His relationship with Lucia had changed much of his thinking along those lines. For years, Roland had accepted that he was unlovable and therefore anyone who showed interest in him was broken or working an angle. But he was still a man, and knowing this did not prevent him from becoming a stammering fool when forced to deal with pretty women who batted eyelashes at him. Lucia had done a lot of work in correcting his thinking along those lines. Nowadays he realized how staggeringly dysfunctional his mindset had been, and his years of stupidity caused him no end of chagrin.

  As he watched Sid’s shapely form move up the stairs in front of him, he could now understand what was happening with far more clarity. The sway of the hips was deliberately in excess of what was necessary for balance, and her already short nightwear was being permitted to ride higher than was probably comfortable. Sid was staying far enough ahead of him on the stairs to keep her posterior in prominent view and he noticed her pleasant small talk was pitched half an octave higher than her regular speaking voice as she climbed.

  A few months ago, Sid’s carefully constructed display would have had him working very hard to not see any of it. He would have been gritting his teeth and squaring large numbers in his head to avoid the deeply conflicted feelings that would arise as result. Before Lucia, it would have taken all his concentration to ignore the fierce contest between his lust and his apprehension about anyone who did not hate him as much as he hated himself.

  But that did not happen now. He was calm, focused. The view was nice, but not distracting. He saw it for what it was.

  She’s scared, he realized. She thinks I’m here to hurt her and she wants me to be either distracted or attracted. It’s just a defense mechanism.

  At the top of the stairs, she turned to the left and opened a door at the end of a short hallway. “Come on in,” she invited, “make yourself comfortable. Want a drink?”

  Under normal circumstan
ces, Roland would have said ‘no’ to the offer. But he found himself embarrassed by how afraid of him she was. It was so obvious now, how she was trying to put him at ease. To make him like her. To make him want her. He did not believe she was truly interested, and he did not get the impression she was trying to con him, either. She had turned the vamp up to eleven simply because he was terrifying. It made him feel ugly and ogre-ish, and he found he did not like this feeling at all. “I’ll take a beer, if you have one,” he tried to sound as polite and disarming as he could, which probably made it worse.

  Sid hit an intercom button on her desk, “Stella? Can you bring us a beer and a merlot, please?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” came a voice through the speaker.

  “Thank you,” Sid cut the connection and turned to Roland, still standing in the middle of her office. “I’d offer you a seat, but ah...” she gestured to the two normal-sized chairs sitting in front of her plain wooden desk.

  “Don’t sweat it,” he replied, “happens all the time. Please, sit.”

  Sid did not sit at her desk, but rather swayed over to a divan near a window and reclined on it. Her nightgown, made of a light red shimmery material, crept up her legs and revealed an expanse of cafe au lait thigh as she adjusted herself to a comfortable resting position. Her neckline dived past her sternum in a wide V, and Roland could see how such an ensemble would probably reduce most men to gibbering baboons. His own urge to gibber was not so easy to ignore, as it was, and he was only one-tenth organic. Her fear was ruining the effect though. If Sid was just a beautiful woman being beautiful, his new enlightened state would have allowed him to appreciate and enjoy it. But Roland could see the artifice and the tactics of it. She wanted Roland to be attracted to her so he would not hurt her, and that pissed him off far more than he realized it would.

  Am I really such a monster?