2 – Settling a Beef

Tony held the handle of the electric pushcart while Bert rolled the two heavy drums of anti-bac onto its cargo sled. “That’s a lot of antiseptic.”

Bert nodded, leaning against his workbench. “It’s the good stuff, too. The drums plug right into the autodoc, and let’s just say I’m happy to know Peters will have ’em. He runs a free clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I’m pretty sure he’s been using saline solution the last few weeks.”

Tony felt another wave of vertigo and leaned forward on the cart, letting it take his weight as a cold sheen of sweat dappled his brow. He felt like hell—like he was coming down off a weeklong bender and, in a suddenly sober state, was finding out he’d been in a car accident and beaten nearly to death. The pain in his head was spiking, and with each thump of his heart, he felt a throb of pain in his arm and an answering echo in his eye socket.

“…probably should have Addie talk to ’em. She’s known Beef her whole life; I’m sure she can work something out for you.”

“Uh-huh.” Tony wiped his brow on the sleeve of his new-to-him tracksuit. It was comfortable, and though it had baby blue stripes, it was primarily black, and he didn’t mind it at all.

Bert narrowed his eyes. “You listening to me?”

“Um…” Tony coughed and shook his head. “Bert, man, I’m not trying to be rude, but I think whatever narcs those assholes shot me up with are starting to fade. I’m hurting bad.”

“Oh! I should have seen it. Come on, kid, come sit over here.” Bert turned and shoved some boxes out of the way so he could reach a cot and mattress he had standing up in the corner. He set the frame on its legs, dusted the mattress, and then flopped it down. “Here, sit down, Tony.”

Tony didn’t argue; he walked around the cart, nearly tripped over a couple of boxes, and practically collapsed onto the cot, leaning forward, his head between his knees. “My head’s pounding, boss.” The “boss” came naturally to him; he’d always had one, and, sure, Bert was a hell of a lot different than Jennifer Stavros, but he was his boss now. The sooner he came to grips with the current state of his affairs, Tony figured, the sooner he could start to change them.

“Hang on. I think I’ve got something.” Tony heard the stocky old guy rummaging through the cabinets that hung over his workbench. “Got a stim with an analgesic they gave me when I had my hip replaced.” Another cabinet door opened and slammed, and then he said, “Aha!” Tony looked up to see Bert holding a small, red auto-inhaler. “They warned me this can be addictive, but I think there are only three or four more doses. You should be all right. I’d tell you to sleep it off, but that arm looks bad. I want you to have Doc Peters check it out.”

The door leading to the narrow stairwell opened and slammed shut, and Tony turned to see Bert’s daughter there, holding a plate. His mouth began to water the second he saw Bert’s sandwich and chips, but he looked down before anyone noticed his longing gaze. Bert handed him the inhaler, and he grunted, “Thanks again, Boss.”

“What?” Adelaide peered at him, her dark brown eyebrows drawing together in a scowl. “What’s that, Dad?”

“Just something for his pain, honey.” Bert waved the question off, but Tony caught the worry in her eyes before Adelaide looked away. He could tell she didn’t like him, and he couldn’t really blame her. He’d come into her dad’s shop without a bit to his name—wounded, dirty, and dumped by people who weren’t exactly upstanding citizens. He sighed and sucked a breath through the inhaler. It hissed, and a minty spurt of heaven sank into his lungs.

“Ah, Jesus, that hits the spot.” He could almost feel his pupil contracting as energy and euphoria rushed through him. The throbbing in his eye faded, and, with it, the blinding headache he’d been coping with. He could hear Bert and his daughter talking in hushed voices, but the words didn’t click for him; it was just noise.

He stared at his hand, watching as the trembling slowly faded. He fixated on the blood and dirt under his nails—the scrapes on his knuckles. Were they from the pavement? Had he fallen on his fist? Had he hit someone? He couldn’t even remember what had happened when they’d nabbed him. Shaking his head, he slammed the door on those thoughts and taped a mental notice on it: OPEN LATER. Tony stuffed the inhaler in the front pocket of his tracksuit and stood up.

“…really don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

Bert shook his head. “Peters will clean up that arm when he installs the cybernetic one.”

Tony saw his moment to interject. “I feel much better, Bert. Thanks.” He tried to smile reassuringly at Adelaide, but she looked away, folding her arms as she shouldered her way through the swinging door.

Her voice drifted back to him, “Come on then, Tony. I guess I have to talk to Randal for you, too.”

Tony arched his eyebrow at Bert, glad he was still wearing the shades the old shopkeeper had given him—wouldn’t want his new boss to see how stoned he looked. Bert nodded and gripped his shoulder with his big, meaty hand. “She’s talking about Beef.”

“Ah, the banger.” Tony grabbed the handle of the hand cart and started trying to direct it toward the swinging door. He couldn’t get it to turn, not with just one hand. “Bert, if you’ll get this thing turned around for me, I can probably drive it forward all right.”

Bert watched him for a minute. Then, as though he, too, had been distracted by deeper thoughts, he suddenly sprang into motion. “Oh! I didn’t think of that! You’re not used to one arm, are you, partner?” He rushed over and brushed Tony aside. “I’ll get her out of the shop for ya.” With that, the old guy deftly maneuvered the hand truck out of the stock room, the little motor whirring as it went. Tony sighed, glanced at the empty sleeve where his right arm used to be, and followed.

Adelaide was at the sales counter, loading his “new” arm into a canvas bag along with the box containing the old Dust reactor and matrix Bert had given him. She didn’t look happy. As Bert drove the cart past her, Tony paused at the counter, awkwardly tapping the surface. “Hey, uh, I know you’re worried I’m taking advantage of your pops or something, but I want you to know I’m gonna make it up to him—all this stuff he’s giving me.”

She looked up at him, and, to his surprise, the smile she offered seemed pretty damn genuine. “I believe you believe that, Tony. You’re on a very long list of people who’ve felt that way about my dad, though, and the list of people who’ve actually managed to pay him back is a heck of a lot shorter.”

“Well, I—” Tony tried to run his fingers through his hair, but all he did was lift his stump like he was trying to wave or something. He sighed and shrugged. “I guess I can see your point of view.” With that, he walked to the door where Bert was wriggling the cart back and forth to get the central wheel over the lintel.

He followed the older man out, pushing the shades up on his nose when the sun streaming through the smog threatened to burn his suddenly sensitive retina out. He snorted at the thought; his Aurora Tech iris implant was supposed to compensate for pretty much anything up to and including flashbangs.

“Hey, you’re laughing!” Bert slapped his shoulder again. “Glad you’re feeling better. That stim’s pretty good, isn’t it? I started to really crave it after a few days. I mean, following my surgery. Had to buy a new bottle of rye to bribe myself to stay away from it.” He laughed, shaking his head. The door squeaked, and he turned to look at his daughter. His laughter suddenly faded into a faux growl as he dramatically scowled at her. “Addie! Turn that frown around, or I’m going to embarrass you with a big slobbery kiss!”

Tony looked at Addie standing in the doorway, and for the first time, he saw the resemblance between her and Bert. It was in the eyes, especially when they both glared at each other the way they currently were; they had the same angle to their eyebrows, and they both had wide, bright blue eyes. Maybe it was the stim, but he laughed when he saw them facing off that way.

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Addie shifted the bag on her shoulder and broke off the staring contest. “I’m glad you got your new buddy to laugh, Dad.” She brushed past Bert and pointed across the street. “Follow me, Tony. First stop is to talk to your banger friends.”

Tony watched her go for a minute, then turned to Bert. “She’s pretty mad.”

“Nah, she’ll cool off. She thinks I’m a dummy, always forgetting I grew up in this district, too. I’ve had a few folks take advantage of me, but plenty of the folks I’ve helped out have paid me back ten-fold. I’ve been on this street a heck of a lot longer than these gangs, and I know how to take care of myself. Still, it’s good she’s protective—I think.”

“It’s good,” Tony confirmed. “It means she cares.” He squeezed the grip on the cart’s throttle, and it started whirring toward the corner. “See you in a while, Bert.”

***

Addie hurried across the street, lugging the heavy bag. She’d wanted to throw it on the cart, but that would have interrupted her dramatic exit. She hated it when her dad made light of her genuine and very well-placed concern. He was so corny! Who threatens to kiss someone to embarrass them? It felt like she was frozen in time as a seven-year-old to her father. Was that normal? She glanced over her shoulder to see Tony struggling to turn the cart at the crosswalk.

“Oh, brother,” she sighed, feeling a little guilty. Yeah, he was hopped up on drugs, but he had just lost his arm. “Not for long,” she muttered, glancing down at the bag and cybernetic prosthesis it contained—another gift from her overly generous father. To be fair, she couldn’t see Bert selling that arm anytime soon. He’d taken it on trade, and it had been hanging with a handful of other cybernetic parts in the shop since… “Last Halloween?” The question was rhetorical; even her father wouldn’t know for sure.

She looked up the alley where Beef and his cronies usually hung out and saw them leaning on an old pallet, passing around a chemstick. She watched for a minute, giving Tony a chance to catch up. Jerry sucked on the stick, blowing out a cloud of blue vapor as he coughed and wheezed. He passed it to Beef, and Addie decided she should interrupt before he was too high to remember talking to her. “Randal!”

Beef lowered the stick and turned to stare down the alley. “What?”

As she heard the cart’s whirring motor approach, Addie adjusted the bag and trudged up the alley. “I need to talk to you about Tony.”

“Huh? Who’s that?”

Addie jerked her thumb at Tony. “This guy.” When Beef’s puzzlement only seemed to grow, Addie added, “I think you beat him up earlier? Doesn’t he owe you a hundred bits or something?”

“Oh shit, boys! Look who it is! Corpo-rat!”

Jerry, or as he’d permanently labeled himself on his forehead, “Reject,” laughed and pointed, “Oh shit! Nice tracksuit, Rat! Looks like you’re moving up in the wor—” His voice choked off in a grunt when Beef elbowed him in the gut.

“Quiet. Hey, Ads, what’re you doing with Corpo-rat?”

“Randal, he works—”

“Beef! Ads, why won’t you call me ‘Beef’?”

“Um, because it sounds idiotic?” Addie stepped closer, and she could hear Tony following close behind with the cart. “Anyway, Beef—” Why not humor him? “—the corpo-rat’s name is Tony, and he works for my dad now. He’ll pay the hundred bits he ‘owes’ you when he earns it, but after that, you need to leave him alone. Okay?”

Beef folded his enormous arms over his bulging belly. “Tony, huh? I dunno, Ads, I let him go with a pretty valuable eye; I was gonna make him pay me back for it over the long haul.”

“It’s not exactly your eye, Beef. C’mon, be nice about it. He’s going to pay you the hundred. That’s a good show of respect, right?” Addie used her “sweet” voice, the one she always put on with her schoolmates-turned-bangers, of which, she, unfortunately, had far too many.

“Well, I suppose I can let the corpo-rat slide.” His thick lips twisted into a sly smile, and he leaned forward to more easily look into Addie’s face; Beef was close to two meters tall, and she was quite a lot shorter. “I mean, supposing there’s a little something in it for me, that is.”

Addie folded her arms over her chest. “Like what?”

“Well, how about you let me take you over to Marzetti’s for a little dinner? I could—”

Addie felt her neck start to get hot. Not this again! “It’s not gonna happen, Randal.”

“Why not? You’re single! It’s not like this street’s crawling with guys trying to take you on dates. I heard about your run-in with Domino’s gang yesterday. I don’t suppose they were trying to treat you to a fancy dinner!”

“You heard about that, huh?” Addie felt the heat spreading from her neck to her cheeks. “I don’t suppose you did anything about it?”

“They stopped chasing you when you got to our turf, didn’t they? If I retaliate for every—”

“Oh, forget it! Anyway, I’m not going out with you. I hardly know this guy.” Addie jerked her thumb at Tony. She didn’t look at him, so she had no idea how he was taking things, but she didn’t care. “Why would I put myself on the line for him? You know my dad! You owe him. He’s vouching for Tony, so you gotta settle this, all right?”

Beef glared at her for a long, quiet moment, during which Addie could hear Lonny’s labored breaths hissing in and out through his filtration mask. After deliberating the matter, Beef turned his glare on Tony. “I want those bits by the end of the week. We clear?”

“Like diamond-coat.” The casual tone and turn of phrase caught her off guard, and she turned to look at Tony. She was a little surprised by the steadiness of his voice and his forward-leaning posture. Wasn’t he being a little too confident for a guy who’d just been rolled for everything he owned, including a limb? She supposed it could be chalked up to the stim.

“Thanks, Randal—er, Beef.” Addie flashed him her most winning smile and then continued past the trio of bangers. “We’re going to Doc Peters.”

“Tell him I’m coming by tomorrow. He still owes me for last week,” Beef called after her.

Addie felt the heat creeping up the back of her neck again. “He’s practically a charity, you know? He gives away more than he earns already!”

“Hey, Ads,” Beef held his palms up and shrugged helplessly, “I just do my job. If I don’t turn in my collections, it comes outta my hide. Capiche?”

Addie hmphed and turned, continuing down the alley. She heard the bangers tease Tony about being a “corpo-rat” as he followed. She was halfway to Garnett Street when Tony cleared his throat and called out, “Hey, thanks.”

Addie slowed, stepping to the side so she could walk beside the cart. “It’s nothing. I’ve known Randal since we were both in Boxer Primary.”

“Boxer? That’s the big corp around here, huh?”

“Boxer Manufacturing Industries.” Addie nodded. “They make a little bit of everything.”

“They in the, uh, NGT building?” Tony jerked his chin in the direction of the broken megatower.

Addie nodded. “Their corporate offices are, but they have a warehouse and a couple of factories on the district's south side.”

“That all that’s in that thing? The broken mega tower?”

“No. It’s full of apartments, a flea market, a park—even a shopping mall, but half the floors are closed down. Lots of banger activity and quite a few dustheads on some of them.”

“Dustheads, huh? Don’t see many in New ’Hattan.”

Addie nodded. “We get all kinds down here: dustheads, zippers, fades, warps. A few folks will claim to be glints and gleams, too. We have a woman on our street who says she can read your future ’cause of the Dust.”

“That right? I had a girlfriend who made me pay a small fortune so she could sit with a guy like that in the city.”

Adelaide scoffed and hurried her steps, moving ahead of the cart again. What was it with some people constantly feeling like they had to one-up everyone else? This guy couldn’t buy a mystery meat hotdog, and here he was bragging about spending stacks of bits on a fancy girlfriend. She could almost hear the wheels turning in his head as he tried to think of something to say but didn’t give him a chance. She pointed to the corner ahead. “Doc Peters is on that street. Just a bit farther, Tony.”

“Hey,” he called, twisting the throttle on the cart to jog closer, “you mentioned glints and gleams—you ever seen a spark?”

Addie slowed and turned to look at him, narrowing her eyes. “I’ve heard people tell stories but never seen one. I’ve got a video my friend sent me, but I think it was AI-genned.”

“I saw one once. It was either the real deal, or she had some tech that might as well have been magic it was so good.”

Addie turned the corner, waving to Mr. Rodriguez as he walked by with a sack of groceries. His head was down, though, his collar up, and he didn’t return the gesture. She paused to look quizzically at Tony again. “Are you just trying to impress me? Trying to make up for your…state?”

He barked a short laugh. “Nah, you made me think of it, that’s all. This spark, she could make wings sprout out of her back—like, fairy wings made of light and dust. She could fly! I mean, it could have been tech—some anti-grav device with a Dust engine, but she swore she was just burning pure Dust. She did other stuff, too—illusions and fire and tricks that made you think she might have teleported. It was all cool, but those things could’ve been magician’s tricks, you know? But when I saw her fly…” Tony’s words trailed off, and he tilted his head, staring up into the sky through the sunglasses her father had given him.

“How high are you?” Addie chuckled and turned, leading the way to the clinic. He never answered her, and by the time he wheeled the cart into the office, he looked ready to pass out. “Sit down, Tony. I’ll tell the doc what’s up.”

“Right.” Tony moved around the cart and collapsed into one of the hard plastic chairs lining the wall. He was one of seven people waiting for the doctor, but Addie didn’t take a number; she pushed the cart up to the reception desk.

“Hey, Tonya. Got some stuff for the doc here.”

The woman behind the counter looked up from the pad she was studying. Her eyes were a little glazed and dry-looking, and Addie knew she’d been jacked-in. She was a little older than Addie, with very curly black hair and a much more liberal belief in makeup. Her crimson lips curled in a smile when she saw Addie, and she blew a bright pink bubble with her gum before saying, “What’s on the cart?”

“Some anti-bac. I mean, a lot of it.” Addie gestured to the door leading further into the clinic. “Can I see the doc?”

“He’s in a procedure.” Tonya blew another bubble, looked down at her datapad, then waved a hand toward the door. “Go ahead.”