Low Port Part 30

They'd think he was a total idiot. That was it, Hap thought in disgust. He would never fit in up here.

Antonio's mouth was pinched. He was either nervous, angry or both. "Sir, we're waiting for your decision. It's up to you. As you see, we're at your mercy. Of course you'd have to make a nondisclosure agreement, but you'll find us more than generous. Five million credits? Eight million? Ten million?"

Summoning every erg of his courage Hap waved his hand like he'd seen the man do in the vid. "Mr. Antonio, I've got a different proposition for you. I want an ID."

"Ah," Antonio exchanged glances with Chinn. "Of course. That would be the first thing, of course. Otherwise, how could you enjoy your reward?"

"No!" Hap shouted, then hurried on before he could have second thoughts. If he didn't get it all out now he'd falter, and they'd know how close he came... "It's not for me."

"What?" Antonio exclaimed.

"I want it for Soraya." Hap blurted out. "The girl you sent Belowstairs. She gets her ID back. And her job. And wherever she was living, she gets that back, too. You don't know what you did to her. And no retaliations on her, or on me. That's my proposition," he said, settling back in his chair with his arms folded. Then he thrust out a finger and pointed at the plate on the table. "Oh, and I'd like a case or two of all that stuff to take Belowstairs with me. New food, not recycled. Today, right?"

A few days later, fists pounding on the end of his shipping container blasted Hap awake. He groaned with regret. He'd been dreaming about the custard in that tart again. The treasure-trove of food from his visit Upstairs was long gone. As soon as he'd returned Below he'd shared it out with the Chief and everybody on his corridor. It didn't last, but he'd had some, and he had the fun of telling everybody about his adventures. He'd seen Upstairs, smelled the air and met some of the people. Now he had that memory for good. If he'd been a different person, been raised differently, well, he might be living up there now, but he was content enough.

"Food! Come on, share!" one of the men howled from outside the lift. Amlin put her boot in the intruder's chest and pushed him back.

"Make way for the rich man," she said with a sneer.

Rich man. Hap grinned. He'd never have dared to do it before, but the trip Upstairs had made a difference in him. He picked up one of the little fruit tarts and shoved it in Amlin's mouth. The crowd roared with laughter. With hate in her eyes she started to spit it out. Then her face changed. She chewed. And swallowed. And smiled.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned. I haven't had custard since my sixth birthday."

"Come on," Hap cried, hoisting the case onto his shoulder. "Chief gets first share, then everybody!"

The crowd cheered and fell in behind him.

"Philantropist, huh?" Amlin said, shouldering people out of his way with her rifle b.u.t.t. "Not everybody would be as generous with a piece of luck. Keep this up and you'll be Chief one day."

Hap grinned. Now, that was a goal he might be able to reach.

ZAPPA FOR BARDOG.

Joe Murphy

Wrappers make Bardog hungry; bottles cause thirst. But cigarette b.u.t.ts, those are best. Bardog puckers its maw and spits gravel onto the parking lot. Gray plumes of launch smoke hide the sun.

Tarmac warms its peds, but there, another crushed b.u.t.t. Soon the parking lot will be clean, soon no more to eat until skyblack and bandnoise. Wriggling, Bardog sniffs the crushed white stub.

This one smells of Jason. Bardog hunkers down, sucks the b.u.t.t into its foremaw where the stub won't dissolve too fast. Jason (yeah, baby) Hartach. Fast-fingered Jason with the ancient Fendercaster. Jason with dark eyes reflecting launch plumes.

"-wouldn't even look at me," the b.u.t.t said in Jason's methane-raspy voice. Jason leaned against the brick wall, swallowed a mouthful of beer, and took another drag. "Might as well been on Mars."

"Credit-grubbin' woman is what she is." Dirtman nodded over his own beer. "Sheeiit, not like you need her."

"How'm I ever gonna do better?" Jason shrugged. The night air smelt nasty, full of sulfur from the Companies, tanged with launch exhaust.

The sky rumbled; couldn't get away from the d.a.m.ned launches. Jason glared at the soaring flash that spread a harsh glow onto the slab tenements of Haightport before casting glittering diamonds upon the Los Frisco towers and vanishing over the Pacific. Turning away, he scowled at Dirtman. "Not with this face."

"So get skinned." Dirtman shrugged rumpled suit shoulders. "You got Medi-dole."

Jason shook his head, swigged the last of the beer. He poked a finger at Dirtman's scrawny chest. "A standard face? On me? That's all they'll pay for."

"Hey, man," Freddie yelled from the door. "Some Hee-Haw f.u.c.king with your Fender!"

"Jack'em up time!" Dirtman grinned and started inside.

Jason headed for the door, past an old caddy parked in the shadows. Matecca's caddy, Matecca the money grubbin' b.i.t.c.h is what she is. "Now if I had cash she'd be all over me," he muttered. "Cash makes the world go round." He took one last drag off his cig and flicked it- Bardog opens its eye. Good, Jason always lasts a long time, so full of flavor. But the lot isn't done. Bardog moves on.

Bottle gla.s.s! Matecca's bottle flavored with lip-gloss and Tri-Buzz Beer. Synthetic hops clouds the taste, but man oh man, Matecca's mad. Bardog settles down with a mawful of shards.

Matecca, all glow-in-the-dark garters, leather boots and HyperCalc mind. Profits and Overheads, beer orders and put off paying the band till Tuesday.

"-of course you come first," Matecca tried her most gracious smile. "Business is just a little off, you know? The Port Authority's gotten tight-a.s.sed again."

"What's that to me?" Mr. Gambo in his three piece frowned down at her. "I don't get mine; you don't get yours."

"But you'll get it, sir. And I'm not making a dime." Matecca stepped back against the Caddy's hot hood. "I just gotta pay the distributors first. No beer, no profits for anyone."

Gambo reached out and stroked her cheek with a white-gloved finger. His breath smelled spicy from off-world cuisine.

Matecca tried to look past him at the white light rectangle of the club's back door. She concentrated on the Fendercaster's wall, the back beat blues as his hand strayed lower.

"Let's go for a ride." Gambo stroked her hip.

"Business is good tonight." She pulled away. "I need to be here watching the till."

"Then have my money by the weekend." Gambo shoved past. He turned back to her, haloed in the light from the doorway. Could have been a laugh that came out of him, or a sob.

"Hey!" Matecca caught herself against the caddy. But the stark lines of his face, eyes more anguished than angry. Framed against the doorway he looked like a lost child. The image filled her mind; she could have painted him once, but that was long ago, another, better life. The beer slipped through her fingers- Bardog blinks and sits up. Lotta flavor in that one, yes indeed. More than Matecca's usual. Bardog rolls to its feet and swivels its head. Back to the lot. Plastic cup-not many of these high-priced drinks.

It flops down and slurps the cup into its maw. A zesty ammonia tang rolls over its tongues, salt, and olive oil. A Talto Stinger, so the drinker must be Glib.

Taltos don't come here much, not Haightport. Glib who looks like a giant jelly condom in a wide-lapelled suit, skinny little tentacles that dangled too far past the sleeves. Ever try to play a Fender without fingers?

Glib, lurking behind the audience, sometimes with a rental biomed just in case. Hee-Haw Glib!

"-Suzy Cream Cheese must rise again!" Glib stood, pseudopods wide upon the stage. The chord rang out, thrilled and frilled with feedback.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it!" Jason bellowed, stalking past an amplifier. "Get your s.h.i.t slime off my ax."

"I was just..."

"Hee-Haw!" Dirtman, the ba.s.s player, muttered behind Jason.

"Job thief!" Their drummer Freddie, short, muscled to the max added.

"First I must tell you..." Glib couldn't bring itself to use the Fendercaster as a shield and held the instrument out. Jason s.n.a.t.c.hed it and pa.s.sed it back to Freddie.

They blamed Glib for all Taltos: for the biom workers that made the companies rich without employees. For the Alliance War. Theirs was such a simplistic culture. Plastic People, the Eternal Frank would have called them; oh, what suffering He must have borne.

"I have no... t.i.tties to share but will buy beer." Glib offered a gold label bottle never found this side of the port. The other tentacle reached for its own drink.

"Share this!" Jason's many fingers closed into a hard knot that swept forward, growing bigger in Glib's oculars until it filled all s.p.a.ce. Reality rolled and tumbled Glib out into the parking lot.

Gravel cut into its tentacles when it tried to stand. Another suit ruined, but worth the price. It, meaning Glib, meaning Glibaster Yol Tomago, had mastered the C major chord!

For one brief infinity, the notes had wailed, soared, and caressed the ears of the universe. All hail The Eternal Frank Zappa! By the Holy Apocrypha of Joe's Garage-You only get one chance!

Glib gazed at the red-lit bar. What a dump. Poor management, it decided. No wonder humans lost the war. Of course, if Crechepriest Bobbibrown had its way this place would change. Glib crumpled the cup, and tossed- Bardog sits up and whines. Glib always tastes so different, so deliciously needy, but in the end always the same old mindache.

Parking lot still dirty but Bardog scratches its ear with a hindped. Nothing good to eat out here. Lotsa time before nightblack. It ambles towards the back door. Might be something better inside. Toilets hold a lot of flavor.

It pads up the back concrete steps, stops to suck up a grease glob and think about the frustrations of life as a cook, then starts for the tiny biom entrance.

"Hold it right there, Mister." Matecca smiles and waggles a finger before Bardog's eye. "You aren't done out here yet. Go finish the curbs. Watch for traffic though. I can't afford another trip to Bernie's Surplus. Even a half price broken down biom like you strains the budget." She shakes her head. "Could have paid Gambo off it hadn't been for you."

Bardog sighs, then tries one of the canine behaviors Bernie of the Tinkering Hands had inserted, slumping down on its torso.

"The lot first, then toilets." Matecca smiles, bending to ruffle its head.

Bardog licks her wrist. Pure flavor! Yet the image it brings is unfamiliar. Why would Matecca want to paint Gambo's picture? What flavor were oil paints?

Happiness is a dirty parking lot on a plumeless sun-bright morning. Bardog scuttles over to the curb, lowers its snout, and sniffs the metal cartridges. Teargas, not much flavor. Port police never very tasty, just a sour meanness that puckers Bardog's maw.

Over by the front steps, it finds better pickings. A glove, oh so yummy. Bardog crouches and holds the black leather in its foremaw.

"-have a warrant?" Matecca asked, and tried her iciest glare.

"Port jurisdiction, lady." Officer Wilc.o.x, according the tag on his black uniform, shrugged.

"No warrant needed," his partner added.

"Gambo put you up to this?" Matecca c.o.c.ked her head, folded her arms. They looked at her chest and grinned.

"Who?" Wilc.o.x glanced at his partner. They laughed.

"An a.s.sault took place last night." Wilc.o.x strained a thick neck to peer over Matecca through the brightly lit door. "Right here."

"You must be joking." Her ears still rang from the band's newest song, "Money Grubbin' Woman"; she hated that one.

"Not when it comes to the Taltos. The Treaty of Alliance now makes their safety imperative, sister," Wilc.o.x said.

"A Talto here?" d.a.m.n that Jason, Matecca thought, but a good band was hard to find, especially on what she could pay. "This look like a Hee-Haw hangout to you guys?"

"Looks like a biom pit," the second officer laughed. "Smells like one too."

"We know it happened here. The Talto wouldn't file a report but its crechepriest did." Wilc.o.x fingered a stunclub. "Now move. We're looking for your band."

Matecca sighed, slumped her shoulders, and stepped aside. The officers started into the bar. She didn't follow. She could still see Wilc.o.x's hefty backside when a bottle zipped past his head.

Matecca ran for the back door. Just past the comer, something wrapped around her. Her black-gloved fist lashed back, connected. A tight grip twisted her wrist. Going for her bra knife, Matecca slipped out of the glove- Bardog howls. The glove dissolves before Bardog can taste anymore. It looks up from the steps, along the wall. It sniffs the air. A cigarette, not half done, lies by the corner. Good flavor there, maybe familiar? Bardog plops off the stairs to find out.

Aaahhh, the flavor thickens. Bardog noses the cigarette then sucks the stub into its foremaw. But the parking lot isn't done yet and the bar is filthy. Whole lotta guilt going on.

-Jason sucked in a mouthful of smoke hoping it would kill the aftertaste of teargas that still clogged his sinuses. He glanced at his watch, almost five. The riot had been over since two and still no sign of Matecca. He pressed deeper into the shadows.

It wasn't like her to leave the bar, especially not with so much trouble. The place was her life, her heart, and her soul.

"Now I'm wishing I was a d.a.m.n bar." He scowled at the building. "I'd buy the place if I had the cash."

A launch plume flared. Jason scratched his scarred cheek and marveled as the mighty Los Frisco towers mirrored the launch. Once he'd ridden the launchers, a flashy way to a life of wealth.

He could jam on a Fendercaster, but not a launcher. He'd been good, just not good enough to calculate escape trajectories on the fly when a boostpak failed. His scars itched. Now disfigured and broke, he was lucky to be alive.

Where was Matecca? She was the best of everything. Man, he would ride her like a launcher; play her like a Fendercaster, and the music they'd make as they soared, better than Blues...

A black limousine pulled into the parking lot. Gravel popped beneath its tires. He inched around the building, hugging the shadows. No back up on this gig. Dirtman was home, nursing a broken rib. Freddie got slammed and wouldn't be out until his old lady made bail.

The limo stopped. A side door opened; light flashed, filtered through tinted windows. m.u.f.fled laughter, all too human in its meanness, floated over the lot. A dark bundle hit the ground, flopped once, and lay still. The bright dot of a cigarette arced past, bounced on the tarmac.

The limo peeled into the night, a launch plume highlighting its chrome fenders. Jason stared at the bundle, only a dark blob on the glittering tarmac.

Matecca?" He dropped his cigarette and ran- Bardog rises unable to help itself. Plenty to eat right here, but it pads across the parking lot on the memory of Jason's heels.

More than just eating. Flavors! Rich Flavors of memory, zesty Flavors of doing things besides eating. Its snout lengthens and snuffles over the spa.r.s.e gravel.

There, a smudge, gooey, brightly Flavored, right where Jason saw the bundle. Bardog's Little Tongue flicks out.

"-Please Miss Lady, please just listen." Glib held on, hoping Matecca would stop struggling. Its dorsal nostrils still smarted where she'd smacked it; a thick dollop of sap oozed and bubbled with every breath.

Glib held her in the shadows, moved softly away from the spotlights and sirens. Voices shouted from the bar. A chair flew through the window, showering gla.s.s down on them. Glib pulled its tentacle from her mouth.

"You!" Matecca shrieked. Her foot sank into Glib's torso; pain throbbed up its nerve bundles.

"We can escape," Glib managed. "Then I must tell you of Bobbibrown's..."

The female's fingers raked his skin nearly catching an ocular. Three loud pops echoed over the parking lot. Fragrantly scented clouds enveloped them. The female burst into tears, shuddering in its tentacles.

Glib hurried towards its battered Triduece Coupe. Just as it reached the door, Matecca delivered a splendidly vicious kick to its nostrils. Her high heel slammed into the car with enough force to rock the vehicle.