Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (9 page)

“What did you do?” I asked her.

“No one reads that report,” Garm said weakly.

“What report?”

“Look, each Adjunct is allocated funds based on
population and infrastructure and military conditions and…mutant population.”

“What?”

“They figure, it takes more credits to look
after more mutants. A pretty reasonable assumption,” she said nonchalantly.

“Go on.”

“They just total it all up and we get money
based on that. You’ve been around so long there was no record on you. They
probably wrote it down on stone tablets. So I figured we could get some more
money if I bumped your level up a little.”

“You made me a ten?” I yelled.

“But no one reads that.”

“I did,” Jyen said helpfully. Garm scowled at
her.

“Has there
ever
been a level ten?”

“I think so,” Garm said sheepishly. “But they
died kind of quick. Hank, if I had known anyone was going to care about that
number, obviously I wouldn’t have used it. I figured it was like population. We
have eighty thousand people here and—”

“I thought there was 100,000,” I interjected.

“Yeah…,” Garm said, looking at the floor.

“So that makes sense,” I began. “The Dredel Led
got a copy of your stupid report and they figured they had to kill this guy who
might have the power to sneeze their race out of existence. Jyen, what are you,
like a level six? Seven?”

Jyen had a thoughtful expression and snapped
out of it.

“Me? No, I’m a level four.”

I almost hit Garm I was so angry.

“She can shoot lightning and she’s a level
four. What do you think a level ten can do? No wonder the robots are here.”

“And that’s why they came out when you were
there and we haven’t been able to find them since,” Garm said.

“Right, it was like, ‘Oh, hi, we’ve been
looking for you, dumbass,’” I said with no amount of joy.

“Though how did they know it was you?” Garm
asked.

“I don’t know, maybe because you kept calling
me ‘Hank’?”

“Still, it’s kind of a good thing. Because now
we know if you go out there, the last one will probably come and we can kill it
again.”

“We? They’re after me. I killed it. And even if
I do destroy it, what makes you think they’ll stop with just these two?”

Everyone was quiet, the only sound being water
dripping off me.

“I don’t want to have to move to another space
station,” I said, contemplating the terrible concept.

“I’m Hank! Hank is me! No one here but ole
Hank!” I yelled to the empty street.

I stood in the center of the road far out in
Western Belvaille. Garm and her men were five blocks away, armed with scoped
rifles. Some were positioned in upper windows.

This was the fourth stop we’d made and I was
getting bored. The immediate tension and nervousness had worn off hours ago.
Now my knees hurt and I wanted to sit down. So I sat down.

“Stand up, Hank. What if you have to run after
it?” Garm radioed to my ear.

“I’m not going to catch anything that has a jet
pack. Or that has two legs, for that matter.”

Yeah, I was grumpy. I was bait for a Dredel
Led, the twin of a machine that had practically knocked me into a weeklong
coma.

We were going on the assumption that what Jyen
said was true and these things were here to kill me because of my mislabeled
mutant level.

I held my plasma pistol on my lap. I hadn’t
actually checked it since the last fight but I didn’t notice any scratches.
Presumably it had to be fairly sturdy considering its beam sliced up buildings.

We waited around for another hour, with me
periodically yelling to the sky. We then drove to another location to try it
again.

After an hour there, Garm and her men walked up
to me.

“Let’s go,” she said, her eyes still scanning.
“Nothing’s happening here.”

In the car we talked. I had put off food for as
long as I could, I think partially because I didn’t want another story to be
about me eating. But I was really hungry and stuffed my face as we drove.

“See, you’re doing it again,” Garm chided,
unbuckling her equipment.

“What?” I answered, irritated. “I just stood
outside for seven hours tensed and ready for a Dredel Led to come kill me.”

“It was closer to four hours and you sat half
the time,” she countered.

I ate in silence.

“It might have known it was a trap. It might be
laying low because its partner was destroyed. We have to think how we’re going
to flush it out,” Garm said.

“If it’s after me, what more can I do? Walk out
there blindfolded?”

“We’ll try again tomorrow. This time we’ll stay
ten blocks away from you.”

“Make sure you use guys with good aim. I’m
going to be pissed if you shoot me.”

Later, I exited my bathroom and my tele was
sounding. It was Jyen and she wanted me to come over. She sounded worried, but
she always sounded worried. Or giddy.

I took my time, poured myself a drink that I
only sipped, cleaned the trash from my living room and moved it into the
kitchen, and basically did everything I could to put off visiting electric Jyen
and her loopy brother.

I buzzed their door, and once open, Jyen
motioned me inside.

There was still no furniture. The pile of drugs
was gone, or at least relocated. The small bit of clothes and belongings were
stacked neatly along one wall, and her brother Jyonal was slouched un-neatly
against another wall.

Jyen locked the door behind me. She had dropped
her traditional-style clothes and had on a slinky little getup that was pure
Belvaille. I’d never gone clothes shopping here for women, but I had to imagine
the selection was categorized along the lines of waitress, bartender, hooker,
dancer. And Garm. But she had her own clothes.

Jyen looked good though.

“Hank, thank you for coming. I want to ask you
seriously if we can trust you,” she said.

I shrugged.

This was apparently not the answer she was
looking for and she was crestfallen.

“What? I mean I bought you guys some drugs and
you shot me with lightning. That’s about as deep as our connection goes.”

Jyen pondered this intently as her brother slid
to the floor with a plop.

“Jyonal and I crossed twenty-six states to get
to Belvaille,” she began.

“Why?”

“To meet you. A level-ten mutant living what
seemed to be a normal life.”

“I’ve explained that I’m not a level-ten
mutant.”

“Yes, I know. But when Garm said there were no
other level tens because they had died, she was wrong.” Jyen’s eyes were
staring straight into mine. I could tell she wanted me to ask her to continue.
Push the story along.

But I was completely happy to not do so. I
knew. I was certain this story was going to suck—at least for me. I looked at
my shoes. How did I get the tread worn out differently on each one? Maybe one
leg is shorter than the other?

Jyen had just blue, blue eyes. Her skin was
nothing compared to her eyes, which were like crystals. I sighed.

“So. Level tens, huh?”

“Yes,” she seized. “My brother!”

My brow furrowed and I looked at Jyonal. I was
pretty certain he had no idea where he was. The idea that anyone was a level
ten was pretty far-fetched. The idea that they were on Belvaille was even more
so. The idea that one was embodied in the blob of organic matter that was
Jyonal was almost too insulting to bother thinking about.

Yet. This was a gal who had known Garm did in
fact classify me as a level ten and who was a mutant herself of no small
ability.

“And…,” I began slowly. “What’s he do?”

“Anything.”

“Like,” and my head bobbed around a bit
searching for words, “what specifically?”

“Anything.”

“Yeah, you said that. But what’s his mutation
allow him to do that is out of the ordinary?”

I was again at a different junction than Jyen,
which seemed to happen whenever we spoke. I was assuming she was being
defensive about her brother, saying in short, “despite his vegetable-like
nature, he is capable of being a productive Colmarian.”

“He can do anything, that’s his mutation,” she
said emphatically.

“So he can arc electricity like you?” I asked.

Jyen thought about this.

“You said he can do
anything
,” I jabbed
like a prosecutor, while motioning to the drooling demigod in question.

“Yes. He can,” Jyen said defiantly.

“Fine. Let’s see it. Not at me.”

I crossed my arms and waited for the show. I
wasn’t entirely sure what Jyen was getting at. She was a strange bird alright.
I couldn’t figure out her angle.

She went over and crouched by her brother and
began whispering to him. She had her arm around him and seemed to be cajoling.

Jyen reached over to a pair of shoes along the
wall and pulled something from inside it. She handed it to Jyonal. From my
experiences in Deadsouth, I knew it to be a drug whose name escaped me.

Jyonal then took the drug injection and applied
it to his arm. After using it, he sat bolt upright.

“You’re kidding?” I said. Of course he thinks
he can do anything when he’s high. What was this?

And then Jyonal’s eyes glowed.

Not like bulbs, but like spotlights. And he was
on his feet though I hadn’t seen him stand.

Then the room changed, the bare surfaces
inexplicably gone. It was now carpeted with lush fabric. There were shimmering
works of art on the walls. The ceiling had a chandelier.

But I noticed this all took place in kind of a
fish-eye perspective. The center of the eye was gorgeous and new, at the edges
it started to blur, while outside it, the old room with exposed metal was
everywhere.

Then I realized the fish-eye was centered where
Jyonal was looking at the time. As he moved his head, the room morphed.

“It’s an illusion,” I said. “A mental—a mental
thing.” I wasn’t sure of the term, but I had heard of mutants being able to
make you see things. He had to be in my head. Or warping light around.

“No, it’s not,” said Jyen, standing next to me
now, and she held my hand as if to prove it.

“Jyonal,” she said. “Show him.”

And the thing that was once her brother howled.
A booming wail that made me cover my ears. The floor began shaking and I was
thrown to the ground off balance.

As I was wondering if the building would
collapse, Jyen rushed to her brother, whose eyes were like laser beams, and
soothed him, stroked him, and gradually his eyes dimmed. The shaking stopped
and the walls ceased undulating.

But even after it was done, I was still lying
on carpet, the carpet that hadn’t existed when I came in. I could feel it.
Pluck at it. The walls were painted and held artwork—albeit amateur ones. The
chandelier was there, but half-fused and twisted. The fish-eye effect remained.
It was frozen into the apartment.

I got up and touched the walls at the edge of
it. The very metal held ripples on its surface; the color bled and faded as you
moved further out.

It wasn’t the Dredel Led who had messed with
the station, it was this guy, this druggie. He had shaken all of Belvaille with
just his mind, or his spleen, or whatever he used. I couldn’t imagine how much
energy that took. Thousands of buildings. An entire city. And it came from one
man! After soaking all this in I finally spoke.

“Why…,” I began weakly. “Why the drugs?”

“It’s what he needs for his mutation,” Jyen
said as she stood over her brother, who was now resting on the floor. “If he
believes it, it exists. Anything.”

My tele went off and with trembling hands I
took it out of my pocket. I saw it was Garm. I was about to answer when I
looked up and saw Jyen coated in her patina of crackling electricity.

I dropped my tele as my forearm and hand were
scorched.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I yelled.

“I asked if we could trust you,” she said, now
only mildly charged. “You can’t tell anyone about this.”

“Why?” I said, spitting on my sizzling hand.
“Don’t you know what he can do for us?”

“That’s what everyone says. That’s what the
government said. But they just wanted to use Jyonal as a weapon.”

“Well…yeah,” I answered.

“He can do anything. Do you think the Colmarian
Confederation is going to let him be just a regular citizen? This is him in
recovery,” she said, pointing at the man lying on the floor.

“With a new body he had to create for himself
after they practically destroyed his natural one.”