Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (21 page)

This wasn’t like the other Dredel Led, who were
cannon-toting and rather surly. ZR3 had a one-word vocabulary and enjoyed
standing under tarps for years at a stretch. Jyonal wouldn’t have to worry
about it attacking him at all.

I didn’t know how Jyonal’s powers worked. Did
he have to see the robot? Could he just think it away? I mean it was
undoubtedly the only Dredel Led on the station. Could he just say, “Turn all
the robots on Belvaille to rubber”?

I stopped at my apartment, first to change my
socks, then to use the bathroom. I still had the ore and Garm hadn’t given me
any hints on how to dispose of it. I suppose I could just leave it out in plain
sight at the docks with a sign over it saying, “Free delfiblinium,” for when
the Navy arrived.

I hopped across the street and went up to ask
Jyonal how he felt about killing robots.

The door opened and there stood Jyen with green
skin wearing even less clothes than usual.

“Hank,” she squealed and hugged me.

“Is Jyonal home?”

“Do you like it?” she asked, twirling around,
showing off her body like she had just discovered it.

“Yup, so is he here?”

“I wanted a change of colors. I’m not sure if
it’s better than blue. What do you think?”

“Great,” I said, trying to ignore the
half-naked, flirty woman next to me.

“Hey, now that the Portal is open, do you think
we can leave?”

I looked at her.

“You guys are leaving again?”

“Well, you’re coming with us, right?”

“Is that Hank?”

Jyonal walked into the room looking good in a
custom suit. The design had recently become popular; it was supposed to make
guys look tougher with angles everywhere. Both of them looked like true
Belvaille natives.

“Hi,” I said, rushing over to shake his hand.

“What brings you here?” he asked. “Want to go
clubbing?”

“Hmm. Maybe later. But I was just thinking,” I
began. Then realized I had not planned how I was going to broach this. “You
want some drugs?” I asked, holding up the bag.

Jyonal looked disappointed.

“Oh.”

Jyen stepped between us and took hold of my arm
with both hands. I’m going to have to remember to shove ice in my pants when I
come over here.

“Jyonal has given up drugs,” she said. “Both of
us are trying not to use our mutations…”

“It’s really done nothing but brought us
trouble,” Jyonal finished.

“Yeah,” I agreed quietly. “What if, though,”
and I tapped my lips thoughtfully. “What if there was a good reason? Like a
Dredel Led nearby.”

“We’d just ask you to kill it,” Jyen laughed,
bouncing on the balls of her feet like a child.

“But what if it was a really big Dredel Led
that I couldn’t kill? In someone’s basement, so I wasn’t sure if I could use my
gun on it and I’m not—”

“Is there a Dredel Led here, Hank?” Jyonal
asked.

I took a deep breath and held up my fingers as
if to say, “Let me explain.”

“Sort of.”

Both of them immediately looked frightened.

“Are you going to kill it?” Jyen asked
hopefully.

“Probably not.”

“And you want me to destroy it? If you can’t,
what do you think it will do to me?” Jyonal asked.

“It’s not—um, it’s not really…” How do I
explain this? “It’s just standing there. It’s not violent like the others
were.”

“It’s friendly?” Jyen asked with skepticism.

“No. It’s more or less dormant.”

“So it’s not alive?” Jyonal asked.

“I’m not sure robots are really alive,” I
philosophically opined.

“Alive enough to kill people,” he countered.

“Look, it’s got someone trapped in his basement
and we need to—”

“Trapped? If it’s dormant, how is it trapping
anything?” Jyonal asked.

I scratched my face.

“It moves. It seems to be following one guy.
Not attacking. Though it does tend to dislike doorways,” I laughed.

“What’s that mean?” Jyen challenged.

“Nothing. I mean it’s kind of clumsy, that’s
all.”

“Then why don’t you destroy it?” Jyonal asked.

“With what?”

“With whatever you killed the other ones with,”
Jyen said.

“I almost died and this one is much, much
bigger.”

“You said it was dormant,” Jyonal added with a
hint of sarcasm.

“It is now, but if people are hitting it in the
back of the head with a sledgehammer, I’m not so sure.”

“I don’t like the idea of Jyonal having to use
drugs and getting near a Dredel Led,” Jyen said firmly.

“Can’t you do it from here?” I asked.

“Do what?” Jyonal asked.

“I don’t know. Vaporize it.”

Jyonal looked at me like I was extraordinarily
stupid.

“I said it’s not magic. You can’t punch it from
here, can you?”

“I’m not a level-ten mutant. I don’t know how
you work,” I said defensively. “You didn’t see all those people when you
electrocuted them.”

“It was an accident,” Jyen blurted.

“That emanates outward. You’re right, in that
case I didn’t see what I was hitting. I can try and vaporize everything on
Belvaille if you want.”

“No, no, that’s okay,” I said quickly. This
wasn’t going as well as I had hoped. “So do you need to see it or what?”

“Yes.”

“He’s not getting near a Dredel Led,” Jyen
stated with authority. “Especially if you’re afraid of it.”

“I didn’t say I was afraid of it.”

“You won’t kill it,” she said.

“Oh, I’m afraid of standing there kicking it,
sure.”

“How did it get here? Is it partners with the
other two?” Jyonal asked.

“No, it’s…a long story. But we need to get rid
of it before the Navy touches down.”

“What happens if I can’t kill it?”

“And what happens if it attacks him?” Jyen
asked.

“I’ll grab Jyonal and run.”

“Do you run faster than you walk?” Jyonal
asked.

When we got to Delovoa’s place it was obvious
he had done a little walking around because the door frames were absolutely
wrecked, with the walls also dented, presumably from ZR3 following Delovoa.

“It did that?” Jyonal whispered with
trepidation. “Those walls are a foot thick.”

I shushed him and told him to stay out of
sight.

Delovoa had a beard, he must have lost ten
pounds, the circles under his eyes were deep blue. The Dredel Led still stood
sentry nearby. It was amusing in a sad way, but Delovoa might have been the
most protected man in the entire Colmarian Confederation. What a bodyguard.

While Jyonal stayed in the other room I spoke
down to Delovoa, who was still in the basement cornered by ZR3. I had to try
and organize this without revealing Jyonal, because of my promise to keep their
identities safe.

“Okay, I’ve got a way to help you,” I said
gently. I was still not overly comfortable yelling over a lumbering Dredel Led.

“Thank you!” he yelled.

“What I need you to do, though, is you have to
turn away and not turn back no matter what. And don’t—”

Delovoa immediately faced the wall. I was
pretty certain if I told him he had to gnaw off one of his arms, he would have
done it if it might mean the robot would finally leave.

“It’s going to take a bit. So cover your ears
and don’t look.”

Delovoa did so without a word.

I brought Jyonal gingerly to the edge of the
ramp to view the situation. He peeked past me, saw the Dredel Led, and hurried
back into the other room.

“No way,” he whispered, his eyes bulging in
fear. I should have given him the drugs first.

“But look, it’s standing right in front of some
guy. And we’re up here and it doesn’t care. Just think of it as a big metal
box.”

After some hesitation, Jyonal cracked open a
capsule and rubbed the contents together between his hands like he was trying
to warm himself. I wasn’t sure if that was the drug or preparation or what, but
I wasn’t about to disturb him.

If Jyonal could only manipulate things he could
see, how did he build his body? How did he like, make his heart? Maybe they
were exaggerating. He did look a lot better than when I first saw him, much
more complete. Something told me it wasn’t because he was taking vitamins.

Delovoa was patiently sitting in the corner,
not moving an inch. I don’t know why I told him to cover his ears; now I can’t
tell him to do anything else if we need him to—not without walking past the
Dredel Led, which I wasn’t going to do.

I stood waiting for a level-ten mutant to get
high while staring at a rather large specimen of an aggressive alien species.
It troubled me that this did not feel out of the ordinary.

How was I going to know when Jyonal was ready?
Did I point him like a gun and say “bang”?

Jyonal slid to the floor then fell on his face.

Next time I’ll ask about this stuff. If I go
over there and pick him up, what if he turns me to jelly? I opted to leave him
to his own devices.

Jyonal began mumbling to himself after a while,
which was highly unsettling. It was frantic, I’m-not-having-a-good-time
mumbling. I became concerned enough that I finally went over to try and rouse
him. Gently.

I got him to his feet and when he opened his
eyes, I was practically blinded by that eerie light he projected when he was
high. It’s easy to forget you’re standing around a living god when he’s not
earthquaking things.

I moved him to the basement ramp.

“See, Jyonal? See the robot? Remember?” I said
in a motherly voice.

“Robot. Yeah. Hi there. Haha.”

“Remember what you have to do?”

“I got it.”

He stood up straighter so that I was no longer
supporting him. Heat poured off his body, enough that I could feel it from a
few feet away. I was watching the robot, waiting for it to explode. I didn’t
look directly at Jyonal.

But ZR3 did.

It twisted its torso to face us. And then began
righting its legs, sending shock waves through the metal floor.

“Oh, crap.”

It took one step towards us and I heaved Jyonal
over my shoulder and did my best impersonation of an extremely panicked flight
out of the building.

The pounding footsteps of the Dredel Led could
still be felt as I left Delovoa’s house, a drugged mutant on my shoulder.

All I could hear, though, was Jyonal laughing.

A ways down the street, I felt my feet skidding
out from under me and looked down to see my boots had been changed into giant
clown shoes. Jyonal laughed even harder.

“Stop it!” I yelled.

The flimsy shoes honked in exaggerated
clownness as I ran. Then it began to rain.

I actually stopped and gazed upwards in
amazement. It was honestly raining. On a space station.

Jyonal wore a big, pleasant smile.

“Ah, don’t look at me,” I said urgently. I
didn’t want this freak’s mind wandering while he stared at my face. I might end
up with four noses.

There was no ZR3 that I could see. I don’t know
if it had only taken a few steps or if Jyonal had gotten rid of it. But I
wasn’t going back.

I skipped the train and walked with Jyonal. He
sobered up fairly quickly. Or became sober enough to talk to anyway, and his
eyes, thankfully, stopped glowing. It ceased raining almost immediately. I
think it was just in a tiny patch above us, but I couldn’t be sure.

“I need my old boots back,” I said, holding up
his creations. The clown shoes were poorly constructed and hadn’t fit well. But
it’s easy to be a critic.

He laughed at them.

“Seriously,” I said.

“I can’t. They’re gone.”

“Can’t you undo it?”

“I don’t even know what you were wearing.”

“They were black boots.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything, Hank.”

“And I had a cool gun and that’s”—I looked
inside the shoes to be sure—“not here.”

“Sorry,” he said, rubbing his head. “This is
why I gave up drugs.”

“Did you kill the robot?”

“No, I couldn’t see it.”

“How could you possibly not see it?”

“No, I could visually see it. But I couldn’t
‘see’ it. It wasn’t there.”

“What?”

“When I first started training, they would
teach me to tell the difference between hallucinations and reality because I
have to use so many drugs with my power. It was almost like that.”

“Hallucinations don’t tear up metal houses.”

“I’m just telling you what I saw. Or didn’t
see. It’s like it wasn’t real.”

Jyonal was really tired and I carried him on my
back the rest of the way home.

So we still had a robot and I had no boots.

I wondered if Delovoa was still sitting in the
corner with his hands over his ears.