The World Forgot (8 page)

“You's pilot! Ha-ha-ha!” Stout N. Smelly bellows, spittle wetting the whole side of my face. The others join in on the laughter. “Fellas, look it the lady pilot!” He calls to anyone within earshot, pointing at me. “Gov'ner must be dreggin' the mist if he's brung pretty things as pilot!”

The laughter is spreading, and it's getting under my skin. I keep telling myself to let it go and let these Neanderthals have their fun, but no one ever accused Elvie Nara of being without a temper.

“While I'm sure that would be funny if I had the slightest idea what it was you were trying to say,” I say before I can stop myself, “I am a pilot. I flew to this piss bucket easy enough.”

“Fancy pretty pilot with the mouf,” Long Beard says, chortling. I give him my most condescending smile, the one I used to reserve exclusively for Britta McVicker.

“Smelly fat ass with the breath,” I say. To my continued annoyance, my snark is simply making them laugh more loudly. And worse, I'm starting to gather an audience. Other bar patrons hover near the table, while my new would-be drinking buddies are crowding me on either side. I look around for my rescue, and as if on cue, Ducky parts the crowd and emerges in front of the table . . .

. . . carrying a tray of mugs.

“Hey there, guys,” Ducky says sheepishly. “I, uh, didn't bring any credit with me, so, um, the bartender said he'd put it on your tab.”

The table goes silent. Long Beard rises slowly from his seat directly across from where Ducky stands. His mouth has become tight and small, and his eyes seem to have grown to compensate. Ducky shakily puts the tray down on the table and lifts one mug in offering, with a look that says,
Please don't break my arms, cuz I'm really rather fond of them.
Long Beard reaches out—only, he doesn't take the mug. He grabs hold of Ducky's forearm and squeezes. His other hand shoots up and clasps Ducky around the back of the neck, and before I can move, he has pulled Ducky in toward him so that Ducky is leaning precariously across the table. Their faces are so close, I'm sure that the dude's breath is going to dissolve Ducky's corneas. Then, just when it appears the guy is going to make balloon animals out of Ducky's body, Long Beard lifts his head and plants a big wet kiss on Ducky's forehead.

“Luffly! Look, boys. Table serfice!” he bellows, and with that, all his cronies burst out laughing again, each grabbing a mug off the tray. Stout N. Smelly rises up, grabs Ducky roughly, and shoves him back into the booth next to me, slapping him on the back so hard that he nearly chokes.

“That went slightly better than I'd feared,” Ducky says, checking his arms—to make certain they're still there, I suppose.

“I thought you were going to get help, not to actually get drinks,” I hiss at him.

“I couldn't find Marnie anywhere,” Ducky says. “She must have wandered off somewhere to find her contacts.”

“Well, what about Cole?”

“He's, um, at the bar.”

There's something in Ducky's voice that makes me think there's something going on with Cole that I definitely don't want to know about. So of course I tilt as far back in my seat as I can, so I can know about it.

“What the . . .” I start. Leave it to Cole to find the one woman in this entire bar and start hitting on her. Seriously, cliché much? He's leaning with one elbow on the bar, swishing a drink in his hand and making eyes at his new lady love.

Although, I notice that every three seconds or so he darts his eyes my way, to be sure that I'm noticing.

Ducky puts an arm on my shoulder. “Just leave it,” he tells me. “He's not doing any harm. Let's talk to these guys and wait for Marnie.”

“Yeah,” hoots Long Beard. “Speaks t'us, luff.” He turns his attention to Ducky. “You's pilot, same?” he asks.

“Oh,” Ducky says, startled. “Oh.” He looks at me. I know he's trying to get me to read something in his face again, but I'm only half-paying attention. I'm focusing every ounce of control I have on
not
turning my head again to look at Cole “Dingbat” Archer, who's over at the bar
ruining our only chance of finding our daughter, in order to flirt with some chippie
.

“Uuuuuh,” Ducky says, drawing the syllable out as long as possible. “Uh. Actually, I'm a sanitation engineer, myself. Not a pilot, not me.” He lets out a fake laugh. “Ho, ho! That's a good one. Right, Wanda?”

I'm assuming I'm meant to be Wanda.

“Sure,” I say. “Right.” I take a quick swig of my beer, and immediately regret it. “Oh God, that's bad!” I choke, allowing half the mouthful to dribble out onto my chin. “Duck, what did you
order
?”

“My name is Alfred Sniggle!” Ducky shouts,
much
too loudly. “I'm twenty-one years old! I've never been to prison, and my favorite cheese is bleu!”

Oh dear.

“He specky, this one?” Long Beard asks me. He looks pretty concerned. So do the other guys, actually, and the half dozen or so other patrons who have decided to stop doing whatever it was they were doing before and stare at us instead. Way to fly under the radar, Duck.

“He's fine,” I say quickly. “Sometimes he has episodes. Alfred, did you take your medication this morning?” Ducky hunches back in his seat and nods painfully. And I think the stench of this place must be infecting my brain or something, because before I realize what I'm doing, I've lifted the mug to my mouth again and—“Shit, that's
terrible
!”

Fortunately for us, the group of dudes in front of us seems to find the whole thing rather hysterical. Perhaps they've decided that Ducky and I are this evening's entertainment. Long Beard lets out the most raucous laugh of all of them. “Needs getting used to,” he tells me.

I set the mug down on the table with a clatter. “I don't think I could ever get used to that,” I reply.

“Pinchin noses helps,” Stout N. Smelly tells me.

“And shuttin eyes,” adds Chip Tooth.

“And stoppin breathin,” says Scrungy Neck.

“Here.” Long Beard lifts my mug out toward me. “Give her 'nother go.”

Well, at least I've managed to divert their attention from the master spy technique of Alfred Sniggle. “Hey, now,” I say in my coyest voice. I take the mug from old Long Beard and smile at him. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to get me drunk.”

“Oh, the luff knows good,” Long Beard says with another laugh. The others join in. Next to me, my buddy Sir Sniggle is starting to relax just the slightest. I have a feeling these guys have finally decided we're harmless weirdos, and are doing their best to initiate us into their group. I'm actually considering taking another sip of the vile concoction, when—I swear not on purpose—I glance back over at the bar and get my first good look at the woman Cole is talking to.

She's no woman at all. She's, like, my age. Skinny little tart with straight black hair, like mine but sleeker (as though she somehow managed to lay her hands on some styling cream in this hellhole, which must've been a feat). Thick arched eyebrows, like mine. Seems Cole went out of his way to find my prettier doppelganger just to flirt with her right in front of me. He gives her his nothing-up-my-sleeves-but-my-killer-biceps move, and then darts his eyes my way again.

Which I guess would explain why I'm not really in the right headspace when Long Beard reaches over toward my boob and declares, “Ain't this suffin, then!”

In a gut-reaction move of self-defense, I flick my mug at Long Beard, shooting the entire contents directly into the very large fellow's very dirty face.

Chairs screech across the bar floor. Mugs slam down on tables. All conversation stops.

It is only then that I realize that my bearded companion was reaching not for my breast but rather for the raggedy facecloth still draped over my shoulder.

Oops.

“Way to blend, Wanda,” Ducky whispers at me as he does his best to shrink into the wooden bench. There isn't a single person in this bar who
isn't
staring at us.

I am suddenly feeling like I played this very, very poorly.

Chapter Six

Wherein the Hits Just Keep on Coming

I've pulled a lot of chromer moves in my time. (Let's not even
discuss
the high-waisted shorts fiasco of '71.) But even I have trouble processing that I just dumped the universe's grossest beer on some dude the size of a yeti.

“Uh, sorry about that,” I say lamely, making quick eyes at Long Beard across the table. I have no idea what the dude is thinking. Maybe he gets beers dumped on him every day and he thinks it's hilarious. Maybe he's contemplating how best to remove my head from my shoulders. What I do know is that I need to make this situation right as quickly as possible, or all our asses will be floating lifelessly out into space before ­Marnie can dig up any dirt, and then we'll
never
find Olivia.

“Everything okay here?”

And now here's Cole, who has ditched his hot date to come jump into the role of Elvie's manly protector. Like what we really need now is Cole using his righteous alien superstrength to punch some Neanderthal in the face, blowing our already shit cover for good.

“We're fine,” I tell Cole. Long Beard is busy wiping his chin off on the hem of his shirt, and I still can't get a read on his face. His comrades are watching in stunned silence, presumably waiting for their leader to tell them precisely which grade of pulp we should be turned into.

“It's my fault,” I tell Long Beard. “I saw you reaching out of the corner of my eye, and I just overreacted.” I hand him my haggle rag so he can better mop his face. “I don't know what got into me. I'm an ass. Forgive me?”

Long Beard stares at the rag like I've just handed him a precious heirloom.

“No ass, luff,” Long Beard says, mopping his face. He finishes and hands me back my rag like it's a lap-pad full of irreplaceable baby pics. “Things happen. We's move on.”

Around us I can feel the energy of the bar shifting. People murmuring in begrudging acceptance. Even Ducky eases up a little on the bench. So kudos to me, I guess. Elvie, massager of awkward situations.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, Cole doesn't seem to get the memo re: chillaxing.

“You make friends wherever you go, don't you, Elvs?” Cole says.

“Wanda,” I say, giving him a hard look. But Cole never was any good at charades.

“Wanda? What? What are you talking about? Why are you throwing drinks in people's faces?”

“It was an accident,” I say. “You're not helping.”

Cole's eye twitches. Oops. That must've been a chord I just struck.

“Not helping? What would you like me to do, then, Elvs? Should I start dousing people in cheap beer? Or maybe I should start a fistfight? Would that count as being helpful in your book?”

“Can you stop being you for just two seconds?” I ask.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“If you weren't you, you'd know,” I say. “Just . . . go away. Go flirt with your bar floozy some more.”

“What do you care who I flirt with? I'm currently unattached, remember?”

“You are such an ass.”

“I'm an ass? I'm. An ass. That's rich. Coming from the queen bee of asses.”

“The queen bee of asses? Do you even formulate words in your head before you speak, or do random sounds just fall out of your mouth?”

Across the table Long Beard slowly rises to his feet. “Seems nuff from you's,” he says, pointing at Cole. “Luff said sorry. You's do it now.”

If I were Cole Archer, and a giant bearded redwood of a man were standing in front of me asking me to shut the hell up, I might think about obliging.

But Cole, as we know, doesn't have the sense God gave a mannequin.

“Apologize? She's the one who doused you with swill,” Cole continues. “She's the ass, not me. In fact, I think I'm gonna write it on a cake. You'd like that, Elvie, wouldn't you? You like cake. What if I have it written on a cake? ‘Elvie's an ass,' in chocolate frosting.” My eyes dart to Long Beard, whose face is dark and expressionless as he listens to Cole bluster.

“And I know what you're thinking too,” Cole continues. “That I'm such a nimrod, I can't spell ‘ass'? Well, how's this for nimrod?” He gets right in my face. “
A
.” There is a bit of spittle on my left cheek. I bite my lip and pray for this whole ridiculous fiasco to end soon. Where the hell is Marnie? “
S
. . .”

Before he can get to the last letter, he up and gets cracked in the jaw with a beer mug.

“Whoops,” says Long Beard. And I have to say, he's got Cole beat in the sarcasm department. “Guess 'haps I'm an ass too.”

The crowd roars, dripping with joy. Ducky, for his part, looks like he's trying to melt into the bench and disappear completely. I'm pretty sure my eyes are frozen, watermelon-­wide, in shock and terror.

And Cole?

“Ow,” he says. With about the depth of feeling you might have if you accidentally drank orange juice right after brushing your teeth. Which is probably not the reaction the crowd was expecting from the dude who just broke a beer mug with his face.

“I mean . . .” Cole snaps a quick look at Long Beard, and then suddenly seems to remember that he's posing as a human and not a freakishly strong alien hunkazoid. “I mean . . .
ooooh-OW
!” he hollers, jumping completely to the other end of the pain spectrum. We're talking branding-iron-to-the-groin level. He collapses to the floor.
“Elvie, I think I'm dying! My jaw! He hit me so hard on my fragile human jaw!”

I move to the ground next to Cole, although until I'm there, I don't know if I'm going to cradle his head or slap his face for making Ducky look like a world-class sleuth.

“What the bloody biscuits?” says Long Beard.

There is a chorus of agreement of that very sentiment.

“Do you think they bought it?” Cole whispers at me from the floor. He's clutching at his chin. “I'm acting hurt.”

I tug him to his feet. Reach out for bench-Ducky, too. “I noticed,” I say.

The skinny flirt at the bar, I see, has completely disappeared.

Not a terrible idea.

Or . . . not.

I don't take one step before Long Beard slaps a strong hand on my shoulder and forces me back into my seat. He doesn't look so interested in protecting my honor now. Neither, for that matter, do Chip Tooth or Scrungy Neck. Or really any of the other approximately four-point-eight-million people in the bar who are staring at us with more than a little curiosity. “Suffin fishy's startin ta rot,” Long Beard says.

Understatement of the millennium, Mr. Beard.

“They's cahooting wif tha Guv'na!” someone calls out from the crowd.

And you know how you're not supposed to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater because it makes everyone go raving nut bars? Apparently, here on New Moon, you shouldn't shout “Cahootin wif tha Guv'na!” in a cantina.

Major ruckus, that's what I'm getting at.

“We're not cahooting with anybody!” Ducky shouts over the sudden chaos. Scrungy Neck has him by the collar and is probably trying to blind him with his vinegar breath.

Cole, who apparently would hold out approximately three seconds longer in a torture/interrogation situation than Ducky, shouts to the man at
his
throat. “I don't even know
how
to cahoot!”

For my part, I'm being pressed into the back of the booth by Long Beard's sausage of an index finger. “Luff, you bess tell us truths bout who yous is and what yous doing, or these lot might jess eat yous all, pretty or no.”

“They're with me,” comes a new voice from the crowd. A figure presses through, but when it reaches us, I have absolutely no idea who the person is. A man—no a boy, a teenager, probably not much older than me—with long dark hair and more than a bit of swagger in his step. “Hamish, ease up on them,” this new mystery man tells Long Beard. “You don't wanna get involved, trust me.”

Long Beard/Hamish darts eyes between his captives and the greasy-haired youth. “They's acting s'picious,” he says. “Rousing in 'at.”

“We're very roused!” calls one particularly loud local from the back.

Beside me Ducky is entering full-on panic mode, which is never a pretty sight. “I lied before,” he tells Scrungy Neck. “About the cheese. My favorite's really ricotta. Please don't hurt me.”

“Do what you will,” Mystery Teen tells Long Beard. “But if you hurt them, Hux is gonna have your hide.”

Well. You should hear the crowd go silent
then
.

Long Beard looks about as confused as I feel. “You's throw wit' Huxtable?” he asks me.

“Uh, yeah,” I say slowly, following Mystery Teen's eyes as they dart sideways to Long Beard. He nods slightly:
Go with it
. And really, what have I got to lose besides my teeth? “Hux,” I say. “We're, uh, working with Hux. For Hux. He's really gonna have your hide. Whew, boy.”

Well, sign me up for CIA duty right now. I mean, I am
nailing
this shit.

Mystery Teen takes advantage of Hamish's confusion to reach out and tug me out of his grip. He does the same with Cole and Ducky, whose assailants aren't so thrilled about letting them go but grudgingly allow it. “Seems we should be going,” he tells the crowd, and just like that, he pulls us from the fray.

It isn't until we reach the far less crowded corner of the bar that I notice Marnie, standing with her arms across her chest, shaking her head at us.

“Cannae take ye
anywhere
,” she scolds. When Mystery Teen releases us into Marnie's custody, she offers him a peck on the cheek—and I
know
Ducky must be shaken up, because he doesn't even seem to notice. “Thanks, love,” she tells him. Then she turns her attentions back to us. “Everyone, meet Dodge. Dodge, everyone.”

Marnie's contact—and our new best friend—slides into the empty bench at the table Marnie has been guarding, and cocks his head to take us in, smirking. “Pleasure,” he says. Then he turns back to Marnie. “I don't know what you're after, but the price just tripled,” he tells her.

•    •    •

I'm staring at a plate of what I've been told is food, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me of that. If I'm being honest (and more than a little gross), I'd say this looks like something Ducky would bring back up after a particularly nasty trip in a space elevator.

“What is this?” I ask, poking the soggy lump of
something
. It's swimming in a thin blue-white liquid that I can only imagine unicorn tears must look like.

“It's a curry,” Dodge says as he mops the substance up from his own plate with a hunk of rye. “Well, sorta. It's good if you sop up the juices with the bread.”

I consider my own piece of bread, turning it over in my hand. A shower of crumbs falls onto my plate. I rip a piece off the edge and give it a munch.

“It's stale,” I say, forcing it down.

“I know. Great, isn't it?” Dodge says. He slurps the soggy end of the bread in his mouth, sending the juices dribbling down his chin. “Usually you gotta pick out the maggots first, but we must've gotten lucky with the last shipment.”

Marnie leans over to me. “Try it, Elvie,” she says.

“I'm not all that hungry.”

“Try it.”

It's clearly not a suggestion. I look for sympathy from Cole or Ducky, but they're having their own curry issues at the moment. Cole is simply tilting the plate back and forth to watch the gelatinous substance slosh around. Meanwhile, Ducky looks like he's doing a pantomime of eating, complete with rubbing his stomach after each phantom bite.

“It's good,” he says in a completely unconvincing voice.

Marnie's gaze has not left me, and now I realize that Dodge is watching me expectantly too. I take a deep breath, dip the hard bread into the slimy liquid, and take a tentative bite. Immediately my mouth is overwhelmed by the most pungent form of vinegar I have ever tasted. It spreads across my tongue like an electrical arc, making my eyes water. After the initial shock of the vinegar, I realize that my mouth is
on fire
. Like, fifty-two-alarm-chili level of spicy.

“Oh God!” I say, spitting the food out onto my plate and coughing. “What'd they do, drop a whole jar of devil peppers into this crap?”

“Elvie, fer Pete's sake,” Marnie scolds.

“Oh, it's all right, luff,” Dodge says, laughing. “I wouldn't expect a bunch of zoners to take to the seasoning right off the bat.”

“What's a zoner?” Cole asks, using the question as a distraction as he clumsily pushes his own plate away.

“You lot,” Dodge says. “Living planet-side, enjoying the little bit o' ozone we provide for you up here? Zoners.”

“Why in the name of all that is holy would you eat this . . .
this
?” I ask.

“Bein' out here too long, your sense of taste and smell start to wane,” Dodge explains. “After a few years you can't taste anything unless it's flavor-blasted.”

“I think I'd rather eat that protein gel crap we had in Antarctica.”

“Protein gel?” Dodge whistles. “Well, aren't we the fanciest of pants? You want protein here, best wait for the next bakery delivery and pray for maggots.”

The conversation has turned Ducky a color not unlike the milky slop on our plates. He tries to mask a queasy burp as he slides his plate away, knocking my plate in the process and nearly spilling it over the edge onto my lap.

“Watch it!” I cry. “You think I want to smell like this stuff until the end of time?”

Dodge is laughing hard now. I guess watching others suffer amuses him? I dunno. He wipes tears away from his eyes and stands up from the table.

“Why don't I get you guys another round to wash the food down, eh?”