Discards (5 page)

A group of burly leather-clad
curingas
—Comando Curinga soldiers—came rushing from the stage area to meet them. But the invaders had the Curingas outmaneuvered and outgunned, and they were cut down by automatic weapons fire from both sides as well as from the main, visible group. Many audience members fell as well. The music stuttered to a halt.

Panic ensued, the crowd surging back and forth, but the invaders had men at all the exits. Then one of them raised his weapon and fired a long burst into the ceiling; Tiago heard the bullets ricocheting around the rafter space. The screaming intensified.

The man who had fired his weapon pushed his way to the stage, jumped up onto it, and grabbed the microphone from the lead singer. “Shut up!” he said, his words booming across the hall along with a squeal of feedback. “Shut up shut up shut up shut
up!
” he continued, until the crowd finally did just that. “Okay, listen up!” he shouted over the remaining moans and whimpers. “We are the Amigos dos Amigos and we are taking control of this dance, this
favela,
and this
complexo.
You will all line up over here”—he gestured to his left—“and give these nice men your money and your drugs. You can keep your phones and watches; we can't be bothered.”

“Fuck you!” came a voice from the back of the hall, followed by a hail of bullets. It must be the Curingas, counterattacking; apparently the Amigos hadn't gotten them all. The Amigos returned fire. The packed crowd heaved and flowed in every direction, running and climbing and crawling over one another as they tried to get away.

Tiago shook off the horrified paralysis that had overtaken him with the first gunfire. He should get to the stairs, get down to ground level, and get
out
of the building, right away.

That was what he should do.

But what he did instead was far stupider.

He jumped through the inspection hatch.

As he fell, he
pulled
with his power, harder than he'd ever pulled before. From the dumpsters in the corners of the hall, where they'd been shoved by the workmen who had cleared the squatters out, came huge quantities of trash—broken partitions, torn curtains, shattered tables and chairs—flying through the air and melding on to Tiago's plummeting body.

He hit the floor with an enormous crash, which stunned him and knocked the wind out of him. But then he shook his head and hauled himself up.

And up.

He was already twice as tall as even the biggest of the
bandido
soldiers, but he needed more. Again he pulled, and more trash sailed through the air from the dumpsters and the heaps in the corners and the piles behind the bar.

Tiago became enormous—a gigantic statue of a man made of wood and cardboard and empty drink bottles and torn posters. He stood in a bare patch of dance floor, the colored lights still swirling all around, as the crowd and both gangs scrambled to get away from him. But one of the Amigos took a shot at him as he backpedaled.

Instinctively Tiago raised a hand to protect himself. With a splintering
crack
the bullet smashed one chair-leg finger.

Tiago cried out—it hurt like a sonofabitch. But it was only wood; no matter how much their bullets had hurt his huge body of junk, the drug lords at the abandoned nightclub had not managed to injure the real body inside it. He shook the hand hard and it re-formed, pieces shifting and grinding, until it had five fingers again.

Then he reached down with the renewed hand and smacked the Amigo into the bar, where he lay still.

More Amigos opened fire on him. Or maybe they were Curingas. It didn't matter. He charged into the group, ignoring the tearing pain of the bullets striking his trash body, and picked up one
bandido
after another, flinging them into the dumpsters with the other garbage. Maybe some
catador
at the landfill would find them and make something useful of them.

Screaming from behind Tiago drew his attention. A huge wave of people was trying to leave through the front door, but they had crashed into a countercurrent: police in riot gear coming in. They were firing indiscriminately, hitting innocent audience members as well as
bandidos.

At that Tiago's blood really boiled.

He waded through the crowd, bellowing “Out of my way!” The voice of his garbage body was tremendous, hollow, echoing. The people tried to comply, scurrying away in all directions.

Tiago met the cops and stood staring down at them. Looking stunned, they stared back at him. The crowd pulled back in a big circle around the confrontation.

“Leave these people alone!” he told them.

One cop stepped forward, leveling his rifle at Tiago. “This is police business!
Cai fora!
”

He picked the man up and shook him until the gun flew from his hands, then set him gently down. He wavered momentarily, then collapsed to the floor.

Tiago looked around, but no one else stepped forward to challenge him.

“The ones without guns haven't done anything but look for a good time,” he said. “Just let them go home! The
bandidos
 … you can do what you want with them.”

A few audience members edged toward the door, reached it, sprinted into the darkness. More followed them, then more and more.

Tiago stood, hands on hips, staring down at the cops, while the crowd flowed past them. No one tried to stop them.

Soon the dance floor was mostly empty, and some of the cops were handcuffing the gang members Tiago had thrown into the dumpsters. But other cops were conferring, looking over their shoulders at him, maybe planning a concerted assault. Plainly it was time to go.

But for some reason he suddenly felt very tired.

As a matter of fact, he had to sit down right now.

He sat down harder than he'd planned, bits and fragments clattering off him as he slumped to the floor. Gently, quietly, he relaxed, his giant trash body slowly sagging into a pile of random garbage with a skinny
curinga
teenager lying in the middle of it.

Somewhere, something was dripping. Somewhere close.

That's a lot of blood,
he thought, and passed out.

*   *   *

He awoke to find himself handcuffed to the side rail of his bed.

The metal rail of the bed, in a white, sterile room that stank of antiseptics. The hand that wasn't cuffed had tubes taped to it. It itched. There were beeping noises.

The thing that had woken him up was the sound of shouting from the hall outside. He couldn't make out the words, but through the frosted glass of the door he could see several figures and much gesticulation.

Then the door opened, and a woman in an expensive suit came in. A pale woman, with lipstick and high heels. She had a briefcase. In the hall behind her, a uniformed cop and a doctor were both yelling at her.

“Take it up with my lawyers!” she told them, and slammed the door.

She closed her eyes, took in a breath, and released it. “So,” she said brightly, turning to him, “I'm Cristina Moraes from the Rede Globo television network. I gather you are Tiago Gonçalves?”

“Where am I?”

“You're in the hospital. I'm told you will recover nicely, but you lost a lot of blood. The bullet nicked one of the big veins in your leg.” She gestured to his leg, which he saw was elevated and bandaged. It itched too, now that she mentioned it. “You'll be here for a while yet.”

So apparently one of the bullets he'd shrugged off had made it all the way through his armor of trash to the real body within. He would need to be more careful next time.

If there
was
a next time. The presence of cops and lawyers outside his hospital room implied that he was in a
lot
of trouble. “So what's going to happen to me?”

“Well, that depends on you.” She set her briefcase on the bedside table, sprang open the catches, and brought out a sheaf of papers. “If you sign this contract, we will make all those pesky criminal charges go away, and you will be a contestant in season six of
Heróis Brazil.
You'll appear on television, earn a nice little weekly stipend plus expenses, and maybe win a cash prize. But the real money is in endorsements and speaking fees. Depending on how well you do in the competition, of course.”

Tiago flipped through the contract … pages and pages of fine print. “And if I don't sign?”

She shrugged. “Then I walk out of here, and, well, whatever happens to homeless orphan
curinga
boys with big legal troubles and big medical bills … happens to you.”

“I see.” He closed the contract. “I guess I don't have much of a choice.”

“I'm glad you understand.” She looked at him, tapping her lower lip with one finger. “I think we'll call you … Garbageman.”

“No,” he said, and she blinked. “I don't just pick up garbage and take it away. I turn garbage into something useful. Call me O Reciclador.” The Recycler.

She paused, considering. “I think we can work with that,” she said. “So do we have a deal?”

“There's just one problem.” He looked at the contract, and his eyes stung with tears. “I … I can't read. I can't even write my name.”

Again the pale woman blinked. “Well. We'll have to do something about that.” She held out her hand. “In the meantime, do we have a handshake agreement?”

His right hand was the one cuffed to the bed, so he shook with his left.

About the Author

David D. Levine
is the author of over fifty science fiction and fantasy stories. His story "Tk'Tk'Tk" won the Hugo Award in 2006, and he has been shortlisted for such awards as the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and Sturgeon. His stories have appeared in
Asimov's,
Analog,
F&SF,
five Year's Best anthologies, and his award-winning collection
Space Magic.
He lives in Portland, OR with his wife, Kate Yule.
Arabella of Mars
is his first novel. You can sign up for email updates
here
.

    

 

Thank you for buying this

Tom Doherty Associates ebook.

 

To receive special offers, bonus content,

and info on new releases and other great reads,

sign up for our newsletters.

 

Or visit us online at

us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

 

For email updates on the author, click
here
.