Nixon grabs the thing’s shoulders and spins it around, putting the Uzek between him and Uzel. Blaster fire catches the Uzek in the back. Uzel is shooting.
The Uzek falls heavy against Nixon. This thing is dead or dying. Nixon grabs the blaster that’s in the holster that hangs at the Uzek’s side.
Nixon fires one shot at the other Uzek that had been holding him to the wall. It hits the thing in the gut, and deep green goo splatter-paints the wall where it stands. The thing makes a guttural cry and falls to its knees.
Another blast from Uzel digs a small crater into the stone wall at Nixon’s feet. He fires a wild shot at Uzel that hits him in the shin. He falls immediately and raises the blaster from his back. Nixon fires a second shot at him that hits the blaster and blows off two of Uzel’s three fingers.
“Graaaaaaaa!” Uzel screams and grabs at what’s left of one hand with the other. “Nixon!”
Nixon pushes the Uzek off of him and slips the blaster into the waistband of his pants under his cloak.
The translator stares at him. He stares back, and for a moment doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what she’ll do. But she doesn’t do anything. Not for a long second then she drops to her knees to attend a still-groaning Uzel.
Nixon watches for a second. Uzel’s breathing heavy. He’s moaning without knowing he’s doing it. Then, in between two of those moans, he looks at Nixon and squeezes out the words “Dead. Man.”
Nixon turns and walks out of the alley.
“Dead. Man.” Uzel says, louder this time, like he’s used all of his energy to push it out.
Nixon gets to the end of the alley and looks to his left. There’s his market. There’s his crowd. He pulls the hood of his cloak up over his head and pulls his arms inside. He slips the Uzek blaster from his waistband. He keeps it pressed to his chest, a finger on the trigger. It’s hidden but ready to fire.
Then he stoops his body just so and disappears into the crowd.
02
Nixon sits at the bar of the Goodtimes Palace and wipes the sweat off the glass that sits in front of him. He wipes now-wet fingers on his pant leg and picks up his data pad. He opens it and pulls up his credit balance. It hasn’t miraculously increased in the ten minutes since he’d checked it last, and it hasn’t gone up from any of the other times he’s checked it since he sat down.
He doesn’t have enough credits for the drink that’s going warm in front of him. He definitely doesn’t have credits for the second one he’s already ordered. And there’s no way he can pay for the drink that Shaine just asked for.
“You look like a skeen cat got hold of you and you had to fight your way free.” Shaine laughs at his joke.
“Just about.” Nixon says. He fakes a laugh that jiggles his insides and a new wave of pain shoots to his toes. As bad as he looks on the outside, he feels ten times worse inside. That’s what an Uzek beating will do to you. It was the beauty in their torture. Even on the receiving end of it, Nixon could appreciate that.
The bloody nose and the gashed forehead, those were Nixon’s fault. Pay better attention during a footrace that he was going to win, and he doesn’t go down into the ground face first. He doesn’t slide a couple of feet on the hard-packed soil and go head first into the dried-mud alley walls.
He doesn’t do that and Uzel and his friends aren’t able to catch him and pull him off the ground and start putting their stun sticks hard into his middle. Adrenalin had covered the pain earlier. Now it’s fading, and Nixon can feel where every stun stick hit him over and over and over.
He grimaces and puts his hand to his side.
“Gonna tell me what happened?”
“Not tonight.” Nixon finishes what’s in his glass.
There’s a bell over the door to the Goodtimes Palace, and it rings everytime the door is opened. And every time that bell rings, Nixon flinches and shoots a look to the door. Uzeks don’t come to places like this. They don’t drink the kind of things served here. And even if they did, they wouldn’t come to a place like the Goodtimes Palace.
Nixon and Shaine are sitting at a table slapped together with shipping materials and the soft pinkton wood that’s used to make crates. Other patrons have picked at the edge of the table until the top is jagged on all sides.
Nixon looks down and catches a fingernail on a spot on the top and pulls. A thin peel of wood comes off in his hand. He drops it to the floor, and the bell rings again. He flinches hard. Waves of pain radiate out to his feet. Nixon checks the door. It’s not an Uzek, of course. Just some other guy who looks like he’s been up two days too long.
“You look like you’ve been dragged up and down the block, and every time that door opens you jump out of your seat. Your about snap your neck trying to see who’s come in. Are you expecting company?”
Nixon watches a Snapsit woman wave at a friend sitting in one of the tables behind him.
“Not expecting it. No.”
“But if you see someone you recognize. Or if someone coming in recognizes you …”
“Yeah. Maybe that.”
There’s a new drink in front of Nixon. The glass isn’t sweating yet. He picks it up and
