Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (25 page)

I had bodyguards now, not of my choosing, but I
had them nonetheless. Whenever I left my place two soldiers would walk along
behind me. At first it was comical, but things were such a mess it became just
one more sign that Belvaille was finished as a city.

The number of arrests was pretty incredible as
well. You couldn’t be sure how many because there was no way for us to
communicate with one another. If you talked openly about it near the military,
and there was practically nowhere that was safe from them, you risked being
whisked away yourself.

There was nothing to do on Belvaille anymore. I
ate, talked to some people about inconsequential things, and went home and
stared at the floor.

I managed to recruit Been-e to bring supplies
to Delovoa since I couldn’t do it with the soldiers tailing me everywhere. I
figured it was the least he could do after shooting me in the forehead. And he
was an old-timer, he wouldn’t crack seeing the robot, and if there was anyone
who could slip through the security nets it was him.

But I was an old-timer too. Belvaille was done,
but where could I go? I’d have to start over in a completely new place, and
that’s assuming they’d let me leave.

As I walked to the train I heard an explosion.
I looked to the north and saw a giant fireball rising. The smoke and fire were
quickly buffeted and sucked away by the city’s superstructure, but the blast
must have been enormous.

My guards squeaked back and forth on their
military coms and then took off running without so much as a good-bye to me.

And then to my surprise my tele turned on. I
had nearly stopped carrying it after the Navy hacked them.

I saw Rendrae’s obscured face on a broadcast
message. He had on a face mask, but his fat lips were unmistakable.

“The revolution has begun,” he yelled. “Long
live Belvaille!”

Odd.

On the train the soldiers passed a lot more
messages back and forth and seemed to be on their toes. I turned on my tele and
called Garm. She had an auto-response saying she had been removed from office
and had gone underground. She was working with the resistance.

A guard walked up to me.

“Put that away,” he said, indicating my tele.

“Screw you, I’m friends with the Wardian,” I
answered as I began calling more people. What were they going to do, arrest me?
Shoot me? I wasn’t worried about it. At least it would be a change from the
monotony.

Then I heard some gunfire and explosions. I
looked out the train window and saw one of the street bunkers being attacked.
It was a whole battle in the road between soldiers and what looked to be
well-armed citizens.

Were they really doing this? Were the criminals
of Belvaille trying to start a war with tens of thousands of occupying
soldiers? It seemed like the height of insanity. They could just ram the
station with those battlecruisers and kill every one of us. I left a message
for Garm and Rendrae and a number of bosses. I also contacted Delovoa and asked
if there was anything special he needed.

He contacted me back right away, as he had
nothing better to do than sit there playing with his broken tele. He gave me a
list of some unusual industrial items, which would have been tricky to acquire
before martial law and were probably impossible now. They weren’t weapons or
anything, but I just couldn’t see the military letting me drag that stuff
around.

But with my escort finally gone, I figured I
could give it a try.

Soldiers were tense and kept trying to stop me,
but I had all my papers and they relented. Probably figured they had enough
trouble with the revolt without picking fights with people just walking around.

You could hear attacks springing up across the
city, but I didn’t see any more personally.

My tele was going absolutely haywire with all
kinds of codes coming in. I figured it was either secret instructions for the
revolution or the Navy trying to scramble our systems again.

Then I got a brainstorm to go to Delovoa’s
place to try and find his gear. Not his new home but his old one. It was a lab
and manufacturing plant after all. I just had to hope they had taken the Dredel
Led scrap and left everything else intact.

I got inside after getting the door code from
Delovoa. It took a few tries to reach him; tele communication was getting
spotty.

There were no guards, but the downstairs had
been gutted. It was almost completely empty. I’d never really appreciated how
big his place was: it was nearly an entire block underground.

All the weapons were certainly gone. Only bits
and pieces of equipment and the very largest of machines they couldn’t pull out
remained. I searched through the area and found a couple items that Delovoa
might want. It would give him something to tinker with if nothing else.

I put the things in a small trunk I found
upstairs and took a train home. I hadn’t seen Jyen and Jyonal in a while, and
realized, to my surprise, I missed the poor kids.

Jyen opened the door. I half expected her to
have polka dot skin this time, but she was merely blue.

“Hank,” she said, with her usual excitement,
and invited me inside.

“Hey.”

She looked up at me with her wet, panicked
eyes.

“We haven’t heard from you in so long. We
didn’t know if you had left us. Everything is so awful.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make us some food. Sit down, tell me how
you’ve been.”

“Is Jyonal here?” I asked.

“He’s sleeping. He’s—he’ll be sleeping for a
while. Sit down. Let’s talk.”

I sat.

“The short news is things aren’t good. The
military owns the station as you can see. There’s still no way to get out. I
have guards following me around and now it looks like a bunch of people are
trying to fight back.”

“Are you going to fight back?” she asked, full
of worry.

Good question. I started to answer and stopped.

“I don’t know. It really seems pointless.”

 “Then what will we do?” she asked.

We. The siblings could help—in theory. But if
the military learned Jyonal was here, I doubted they would hesitate sacrificing
all of Belvaille to get him back.

I shrugged.

“Do you want to be my boyfriend?” she asked in
the same tone, as if this were the next logical question. She wasn’t smiling,
or sad, or pleading. It was just some natural conversation switch.

“What?” I shook my head briskly, as if by
causing brain injury I might be able to understand her. “Why are you asking? I
mean, how did that come up?”

“It’s just, you might feel better. We might
feel better if we had someone.”

Those eyes. Those floppy ears. Those delicate
little lightning-spurting fingers.

“Jyen, my life isn’t perfect right now. I know
that. But it’s not going to get any better with the addition of another
person,” I stated conclusively.

“How do you know if you don’t try?”

“I know I’ll never be a ballerina, even though
I haven’t put on toe shoes. Because I’m not fifty years old,” I said, throwing
my arms up. “I’ve been around for a while. I’ve yet to be in a relationship
that didn’t have a lot of drama.”

“Maybe you haven’t met the right person,” she
said sweetly.

“Maybe,” I said, scrunching my face.

“But what are your plans for the next ten
years?”

“Ten years?” I asked incredulously. “I could be
dead tomorrow. What’s the point of planning that far ahead? I don’t know what
I’m eating for dinner.”

“If you want it enough, it will happen. I
believe that.”

“Want what? A relationship? I’m trying to tell
you I don’t want one.”

“Then what do you want?”

I paused a good while.

“I want things to be like they were. When
Belvaille meant something, even if it was sleazy. And I was, you know, a
somebody.”

“That’s it?” she asked, clearly disappointed.
“That doesn’t sound very significant.”

“Maybe not to you, but yeah, that’s it. I think
I’m joining the resistance.”

I wanted to see Delovoa to at least give the
poor guy the stuff I had picked up for him.

The trains were still deactivated over here in
the southwest. Not even sure they could be turned on. The few Navy bunkers I
saw were abandoned. Presumably they had shifted their men to the populated
areas to try and focus against the resistance.

I looked around to make sure the coast was
clear and then entered Delovoa’s.

“Hank,” he said, his voice weak from disuse.

I had seen pictures in history lessons of what
our primordial ancestors looked like. They seemed to be composed entirely of
hair and mud. Delovoa made them look elegant by comparison.

“I got you some things,” I said, putting down
the trunk of items. “It’s not a lot, so don’t get your hopes up. They stripped
your workshop clean.”

This news hit Delovoa hard. That was basically
his life savings, as it were. He was even so distraught he momentarily paused
looking through the gear.

“Hey, look what I found,” he said, popping back
to life.

And he spoke to ZR3 some word I wasn’t familiar
with.

ZR3 responded by spinning its torso around and
around as I watched, frightened.

“You’re teaching a Dredel Led to do tricks?”

“I really don’t think it’s a Dredel Led.” He
said the word again, and the robot stopped spinning. “That’s ancient Colmarian.”

“How do you know ancient Colmarian?” I asked.

“I don’t. You know the expression, ‘better than
to leurdenstae’?”

And at that ZR3 began swiveling its torso
again. I couldn’t concentrate well with the robot spinning like a top.

“Uh, sure,” I managed.

“You know what it means?”

I was still transfixed by ZR3.

“Like, at least it’s something.”

“Close. Better than wasting time. Better than
going in circles. That’s what ‘leurdenstae’ means.”

And at that word, ZR3 stopped again.

“Fine, but how did you know to say that?”

“I didn’t, I just said it by accident.”

“How do you accidentally say an expression like
that?” I asked dubiously.

Delovoa looked a bit embarrassed.

“I think I’ve been…talking to myself lately.”
And I let it drop at that, remembering how long he’s been alone. “His name is
probably the same. It’s not really ZR3—”

“Yes,” the robot answered dutifully.

“It’s probably some ancient Colmarian word that
sounds like that. Who knows what we’re really asking it?”

“Like, ‘say yes’?”

“Sure, or ‘are you powered on?’”

“But why does he have those letters,” I began,
not wanting to verbalize them, “written in Colmarian on him? And why is he
answering in modern language?”

“That’s just paint. That could have been put
there at any time. And maybe the word ‘yes’ didn’t change over the years. Or
maybe it means something else.”

This was definitely weird.

“Do you know any other words?” I asked.

“Only a couple. If we were in real space I
could maybe tele some research, but out here it’s too far, and my tele is all
messed up. Ancient Colmarian had a lot more flourishes and accents than it does
now. As we got more and more species we dropped them all until we ended up with
simplistic names like ‘Hank.’”

“I think it’s really dangerous talking to this
thing, Delovoa.”

“But I’m sure it’s following me because I
accidentally said something that sounds like ‘follow me.’ If I can just figure
out the counter-command, just a few words, I’ll be rid of it.”

“What if you accidentally say something that
sounds like ‘pulverize me’?”

“Well, that would be bad,” Delovoa said
quietly. “But you can help on this. Go to the library and look for some books
on—”

“Library,” I said, cutting him off. “Where do
you think we are?”

“We have a library, I’ve passed it a bunch of
times, just never had much of a need for historical works.”

“That’s just a building. We store junk there. I
don’t even think when the station was first built it had any reference items.
Belvaille library…” I shook my head at the concept.

Our talk got cut short, however, by an
amplified voice from outside.

“You are surrounded. Come out with your hands
on your heads and you won’t be killed.”

Oh, crap.

I moved to the window and peeked out and there
were dozens of soldiers stationed behind their vehicles. How did they find us?
Were they tracking me?

“What do we do?” Delovoa didn’t sound as
panicked as I thought he should. I think he was almost happy to have company,
no matter how unfriendly.

“If you go out there with a giant Dredel Led
trailing you they are going to cut you down in a panic. If you stay in here and
they see a Dredel Led next to you…same thing.”

“Can you explain the situation to them?”
Delovoa asked, finally displaying an appropriate level of concern.

I glanced through the window again. The
soldiers were getting restless and taking up advanced positions. I counted
quite a few rockets among them. They meant business.

“If I had a week or so, sure.” I stopped,
because I didn’t want to tell Delovoa he was doomed.

“Go out and stall them,” he said resolutely.

Then he walked over to ZR3 and began talking
urgently in what I assumed was ancient Colmarian.

I took that as a good time to leave. I rose to
my feet and with hands over my head, walked outside.

I counted quite a few more soldiers than I had
originally seen. They were up and down the street. They indeed had the house
surrounded.

“Funny story, guys,” I started as I walked
towards them.

“Get on the ground!” the one with the amplified
voice screamed. I got on the ground. I wasn’t sure if they could kill me or
not, but that many rockets could at the very least put me in the hospital a
good long time. And that was as good as killing me.

I saw some soldiers approaching me warily. As
if I was going to jump to my feet from a prone position and pounce on them
before they could act. As if I could pounce.

The soldiers stopped.

Then I heard a horrific twisting of metal
behind me. There was the whistle and tweet of the soldiers communicating via
their helmets.

Then a
thud
along with vibrations I felt
through the road. Another
thud
.

The soldiers decided it best to back away. None
of them were interested in me any longer.

Thud
.

My breathing was heavy. I was prostrate on the
ground and I knew what was happening. I saw twenty or more soldiers cowering en
masse.

Thud
.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever hyperventilated, but
if I did, it was now.

Thud
. ZR3 was right next to me. I didn’t know where
it was going. What it was doing.

Thud
. Another step forward. Its pillar of a leg was
now even with my neck. Road debris, from ZR3’s tremendous weight, spilled onto
me like water.

It walked past. It was most definitely headed
in the general direction of the soldiers.

Thud
.

They had nowhere to go. Not without running.
They had their backs against the building across the street.

Thud
.

Most of the soldiers got out of its immediate
way. They had their guns halfheartedly pointing at it. This was a literal
children’s nightmare come to life and standing right in front of them, in
ground-shaking detail.

ZR3 paused in front of one soldier, who seemed
to be trying his best to meld into the building.

There was no sound.

Then ZR3 spoke. In its sonorous, monotonous
voice.

I couldn’t understand what it was saying and it
seemed to be oh-so-bored with the actual enunciation itself. After a few
moments, it was done, and all was quiet again.

Then fast as light, ZR3 took that column of an
arm and spun it like a windmill, pounding the soldier a foot deep into the
metal wall. The shower of gore must have sprayed half the block.

Every soldier there, steeped in discipline and
coordination, reacted the same: they screamed and ran. I was only slightly
behind them, because I had to get to my feet first and was tripping over their
discarded weapons.

Delovoa went streaking past me a moment later,
his legs much more nimble than my own.

I could hear ZR3 thundering around but I dared
not look back to see what it was doing.

It was then that I truly understood the fear
the Dredel Led caused. It wasn’t all the stories we’d heard so many decades ago
in our youth, it was the fact that they didn’t care. You could hear it in its
voice, even if we had no idea what it was saying. Delovoa had given it some
kind of command, and to the machine, that order was no different than one to
walk through doorways or sit underneath a tarp in someone’s basement for years.
All things were equally unimportant.

What had Delovoa told it to do?