Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (8 page)

I noticed I wasn’t directly mentioned
anywhere. Though as Supreme Kommilaire, presumably I had something to do with
it.

I looked up and could see some of my
Kommilaire looking out from their apartments. They didn’t want to step into
this fray. Or maybe they were, according to the pamphlet, too overpaid and
pampered to care.

I moved into the mob, wondering how I
could disperse them. I couldn’t just start shooting people. They cleared a
space as I walked. They weren’t so upset that they were ready to throw
themselves under my feet and get mashed.

They didn’t even seem to be mad at me.
They were yelling at the buildings. Buildings which they knew housed a lot of
the Kommilaire.

But their yelling was making my hangover
worse.

Suddenly the shouts turned to screams
and the street cleared like an umbrella had been raised in a heavy downpour.
Not that I’d ever used an umbrella. Or been in a heavy downpour.

“Hank!” A masculine voice yelled.

I turned and saw the source of the
commotion.

A man stood maybe a hundred yards from
me. He was a big, grizzled guy. He wore tactical body armor covered in wild
tribal markings. He carried a four-stack missile launcher on his shoulder. I
could tell it was old military because it was black and boxy and unsexy…and because
it said “Colmarian Navy” on the side.

Some of my Kommilaire had exited their apartments
at this. I spoke into my radio.

“Everyone stay back.”

The crowd was tense. Their protest
banners were limp in their hands.

I waited.

But nothing else was forthcoming.

“Yes?” I prompted.

“I’m Eshthus-Beuldarion from
Polgia-Moshtha-Urmia-Rezdunta!” He said, stomping his feet at each accented
syllable.

I actually laughed. I guess there were
some simple things in life I could still enjoy.

“Was that supposed to be dramatic?” I
called back to him.

“Prepare to die and draw your weapon!”

Odd way of phrasing it.

Let’s see, he was about a hundred yards
off. I looked at my assortment of guns. I hadn’t used this bolt action in a
while. I wasn’t very good with it though. I had cut off the rear of the stock
to make it smaller.

I couldn’t remember if it was cocked and
loaded. Come to think of it, that was a pretty bad thing to not know, being
Supreme Kommilaire and all.

I took the rifle off its hook, held the
foregrip with my left hand and I tried to pull back the bolt with my right and
I not only ripped it from the rifle, but I bent the chamber and split the
stock. It basically fell apart in my hands. I looked down at it.

At least it hadn’t been loaded. So I
didn’t feel so bad about that.

Whatshisface-from-wherever took that
opportunity to set his weapon, got down on one knee to brace himself, and
fired.

I got hit in the chest with a missile!

“Dammit!” I yelled.

I’m not sure what kind of missile it was
that hit me, but it wasn’t an anti-Hank missile. It hadn’t even budged me.
Compared to a heart attack it was like a fly landing on my ear. My hangover was
worse, however.

When the smoke cleared I saw all the
guns on my chest were destroyed. That had been like a decade’s worth of
top-quality firearms! I had some pistols that escaped destruction, and I
reached for one of those. I needed to get closer, though, so I began walking
forward.

“We need to help him,” I heard Valia say
from the sidelines.

“Just relax, new guy,” MTB replied.

My would-be assassin fiddled with his
missile launcher as I delicately cocked my pistol, trying to avoid breaking it.

A second missile hit me in the chest.

When I could see clearly, my pistol was
gone. Missiled away I guess.

“Dammit,” I repeated.

I knew I was now too close for him to
use his weapon. Missiles have to travel a certain distance before they arm
themselves, otherwise the user could get killed if it accidentally hits
something on the way, like a branch or pane of glass or wire.

He threw down the missile launcher and
pulled out a revolver and began shooting me. As if seeing two Navy missiles
fail to slow me it stood to reason that some really tiny unexploding missiles
would do the trick.

When that didn’t work, and I was getting
closer, he thought it prudent to return to his many-hyphened homeworld.

But the crowd surged back in and cut off
his escape.

I reached him and grabbed hold of his
neck. The protestors pressed in once he was in my grasp, standing on tiptoes to
watch.

“I sentence you to—”

I looked around at the crowd, whose eyes
were all agog in anticipation. All they wanted was entertainment and a gallon
of blood.

Which I gave them.

A gasp collectively went up as I dropped
the remains of the criminal on the ground.

Valia and MTB approached.

MTB looked at the deceased attacker with
unconcealed enthusiasm.

Valia had her mouth open, staring at me.

Out of nowhere, I saw an adjudicator
running up, waving his arms.

“Shut up,” I said to him, before he
could speak.

“Do you still want to be a Stair Boy?” I
asked Valia, at the entrance to her apartment, wondering if yesterday’s events
had dampened her enthusiasm for the job.

“Come in,” she said.

I did, as she returned to buckling her
boots.

“I understand why you killed that guy,”
she answered simply. “You had to break up the crowd somehow. Almost everyone
went home right afterwards. It’s like they came specifically to watch you fight.
And he
did
attack you.”

“I notice you haven’t asked for a gun
yet.”

She pulled out a pistol from her coat.

“Where’d you get that?” I said, annoyed.
“If you bought it on the black market, that’s supporting the exact stuff we’re
trying to end.”

“Be cool, I brought it with me to the
station. Your scanners are terrible. That’s probably why guys can walk around
with D78 rocket launchers and shoot at you.”

“Thanks for volunteering,” I said after
she was done dressing.

“What did I volunteer for, by the way?”

“We’re going on a special assignment
today,” I said.

“Just us two?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

MTB was a good Stair Boy, but he thought
all that was required was a firm fist. As Supreme Kommilaire I had to do more
than just beat up people. Yesterday I asked for volunteers and was pleased to
see nearly all my men trusted me enough to go on a special assignment with no
questions asked.

“Is that what you came over to tell me?
Or did you have other reasons?”

Valia undid her coat in a blink and
stood before me with her eyes narrowed and a devious grin. She had a much better
body than I guessed. Her clothes must be so constrictive I’m surprised she
didn’t have blood spurting from her ears.

She was almost completely naked straight
to her knee boots, waiting for my response, not the least bit shy.

I stood there for ages. This woman was
probably two hundred years younger than me, about the size of my arm, and about
the weight of my pinky. She was attractive enough that she could have nearly
any man on Belvaille.

“Are you making fun of me?” I asked her.

“Wha—no,” she said, surprised, her eyes
blinking.

“We’re going to visit Hobardi,” I
continued. Valia quickly buttoned her coat as I spoke. “He is a religious
leader on Belvaille. The Sublime Order of Transcendence. I’d guess about a
fifth of the station are members—including a number of the Stair Boys. This is
a problem. You understand?”

Valia was fixing her hair hurriedly and
straightening her outfit.

“Hobardi, yeah.”

“Let’s go,” I said.

Hank Block had moved numerous times.
Wherever I lived was basically renamed Hank Block. Its current location came
about because I wanted to have the closest access to the largest number of functioning
trains. It was north central in terms of the city.

Belvaille used to have trains
everywhere. You almost never had to walk very far. But the equipment to run and
repair them had been cannibalized for other purposes. Delovoa could fix the
trains, I’m sure, but his time was better spent elsewhere. He did make sure all
the remaining trains could carry me, however. Something I was quite thankful
for.

On the train I was thinking about the
meeting coming up when I remembered what Valia had said in her apartment. I
didn’t want her to be embarrassed about it.

I looked over at her and saw her staring
at me with the same cocky expression she’d worn when she was naked.

Meh, she wasn’t going to be embarrassed.

“What is the religion like?” she asked.

“Nut jobs. Total fruitcakes. But don’t
say that.”

“I’m not stupid…”

“Hobardi is a con man if there ever was
one. And like any good con man, he’s smart. He has a mutant who works with him.
I think my level or maybe even higher. He’s always with him. I want you to keep
your eye on him.”

“What are his abilities?”

“I don’t know. See if you can pick up
anything.”

After a train transfer, we were back walking
on the street. The clothes of the pedestrians had abruptly changed.

People wore long colored togas with
headdresses. There were whites, purples, oranges, yellows. The colors meant
something, but damned if I knew what.

Once we entered the main building of the
Church, the personnel changed yet again.

Instead of serene folks in bright togas,
it was sexy women in scanty clothes.

Hobardi was an extreme womanizer. His
religion probably had its origins in a complicated pick-up line.

I had ulterior motives in bringing
Valia. I wanted an extra set of eyes, but I also wanted to throw off the perv
Hobardi in our negotiations. I knew he would be enthralled with Valia, not just
because she was good-looking, but because she was a Kommilaire. There were
other female Kommilaire, it was true, but they tended to be a little on the
butch side with five o’clock shadows and deep voices.

An absurdly tall and thin man wearing
sunglasses walked to meet us. He was Hobardi’s mutant. My nose didn’t work
well, but he smelled bad.

“What do you want with the Grandmaster?”
he asked without laughing. That might have been his mutant ability: to refer to
a charlatan as a “Grandmaster” and not smile. His very dour expression made it
clear he was not kept around as comic relief.

“To learn at his feet,” I said, also
without laughing.

“You the guy that fought those Dredel
Led?” Which I thought was a weird thing to ask.

“Sure,” I answered.

He wordlessly walked with us to the next
room, which was primarily occupied by a large, heated pool. There were
recliners and exotic flowers and trees in here as well.

The room made me uncomfortable, as my
body was not able to regulate its temperature well and it was unbearably hot
and humid.

Hobardi walked up to us wearing a
bathing suit. He was a fit man, muscular and tan. I heard he took all kinds of
drugs and went through all kinds of surgeries and procedures to stay fit and
attractive. It was much easier being a cult leader when you were handsome.

Which left me out of the religion
business.

He wore necklaces and rings and
talismans but they were unobtrusive. He had high cheekbones, perfect hair, and
his constant smile was so white you could probably bounce lasers off his teeth.

“Hank, good of you to come,” he said.

He held out his hand in some gesture,
probably out of habit. I can’t remember if his disciples kissed or bowed or
what, but it didn’t matter to me, I wasn’t his disciple.

I merely nodded.

“Who is your friend?” he asked, his eyes
glowing with interest.

I was really hot. I could shrug off
missiles but a mist of warm water was incapacitating me. This was pretty humiliating.

“My name is Valia,” she said, noticing my
struggle.

I was worried my condition was going to undermine
my negotiations, but Valia again covered and she snapped off the top button of
her coat and flung her hair around.

“You’ll have to excuse us, we’re not
dressed for this sauna,” she said sultrily.

Hobardi probably didn’t even notice I
was there at that point.

“Valia. A beautiful name,” he said.
“Come then, let’s retire to a more comfortable area.”

Valia, Hobardi, and the mutant walked
out as I followed behind, wiping the moisture from my face.