I nodded soberly, placed Joy in a pair of well-manicured hands, and made my way across the room. My goal was to get there in a short period of time but do it in a low-key, almost casual way. The usual pre-fight war of words was well under way by the time I arrived. I interrupted. “Good evening, gentlemen. Having a good time?”
The bigger of the two, a mean-looking dude with the words “Eat shit and die!” tattooed across his forehead and fists the size of miniature hams, looked me up and down. The sweet-sour stench of alcohol rolled over me as he spoke. “I’m going to rip this asshole’s head off and shove it up his ass. You got a problem with that?”
It’s always been my opinion that actions truly speak louder than words. That’s why I turned towards number two, smiled, and side-kicked number one’s left knee. Something crunched, and he went down gushing swear words.
Number two’s eyes got wide, like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just seen, and his right fist went back in preparation for a roundhouse swing. I jerked my head to the side, let it pass, and sunk my fist into his gut. He bent over, barfed on his boots, and fell to his knees.
Pain lanced up through my right leg. I turned to find that bozo number one had sunk his teeth into my right calf. I shifted my weight to that foot, back-kicked with my left, and felt his teeth tear loose. The rest was relatively easy. I bounced number one’s head off a nearby pillar, towed him over to number two, got a grip on both their collars, and dragged them towards the door. An obliging patron helped me roll them out into the street, where the Zeebs would eventually cart them away. I thanked him and followed the path of blood and vomit back into the night club. Betty was waiting for me. Joy had taken up residence on her shoulder. The nightclub owner smiled. “Your methods are rather messy, Max. I prefer bouncers who use as little violence as possible.”
I felt my heart sink. The brain-cell shortage had surfaced again. A normal person would have used psychology, would have bullshitted the drunks out onto the street, then sent them packing. But not me, oh no, I had to kick the shit out of them, and blow off the only job I was likely to get. I looked down toward her elegantly clad feet. “Sorry.”
“On the other hand,” Betty said levelly, “talk’s cheap and doesn’t work all that often.”
I felt my spirits rise and dared to look up. She smiled encouragingly. “Tell me something, Max, is your little friend for sale? She looks like a miniature version of me.”
Joy seemed oblivious to Betty’s words and toyed with one of her diamond earrings. The thoughts plodded through my mind. I needed money, that was true, and Joy would bring a pretty price. But you don’t sell friends, even if they don’t qualify as human. I shook my head. “Sorry, but Joy was given to me by a friend, and she’s not for sale.”
Betty nodded understandingly. “Good. I like people with principles. You’re hired.”
16
“Once entrenched, new technology grows like an evil weed. Given sufficient time, it will overwhelm the garden of man and destroy that which sustains us. Our task is to identify the first twisted tendrils as they appear above the ground and destroy them before they can spread.”
From an “Ecological Manifesto,” by Hans Schmidt, father of the Radical Action Committee of the group known as Green Earth
Visiting hours started at 1000 standard and we were there when the doors opened. The women’s surgical ward was just that, a big open room with two rows of bio beds, each adjusted to meet that particular patient’s needs. Depending on what sort of surgery they had undergone or were about to have, the women lay on their backs, sides, or stomachs. Tubing and multi-colored wires snaked all around them. Most were miners, clearly identifiable by their short, easy-to-wash hair, but there was a scattering of spacers, tool heads, and freelancers as well. No corpies, though, since they had private rooms with hot and cold running robots to keep them comfy. My calf hurt where the drunk had chewed on it. I limped slightly as I made my way down the corridor.
The kid was located about halfway down the ward. Pull-out curtains screened her bed from the rest. Someone had combed her hair and given the bed permission to prop her up. Sasha was pale, and somewhat emaciated, but far better than when I’d seen her last. She managed a smile and held out her hand. It felt cold and weak. “Hi, Max. Hi, Joy. I like your dress.”
The little android squealed with pleasure, did cartwheels up the bed, and snuggled into Sasha’s lap. I perched on the edge. “Hi yourself. Howya feeling?”
“Like warmed-over vat slime. How do I look?”
“Never better,” I lied cheerfully.
“Liar,” she said equably. “They say I can bust out of here in three or four days.”
“Glad to hear it,” I replied. “We’ll have the apartment ready by then.”
She looked to see if I was serious. “Apartment? What apartment?”
“The one I rented this morning,” I said importantly. “Gotta have a place to stay, you know.”
Sasha frowned, and I saw the wheels start to turn. “That was thoughtful, Max, very thoughtful. Can we afford it?”
This was fun. I grinned. “Yup…my job pays pretty well.”
She looked genuinely surprised. “You’ve got a job?”
“Sure do. I’m the bouncer at a nightclub called Betty’s.”
I watched her absorb and process that piece of information. She looked up to where the bandana and hat covered the top of my head. “I like the fashion statement.”
I almost said, “That isn’t a fashion statement, it’s a disguise,” and realized my mistake. I nodded wisely. “Thanks, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“A very good idea,” Sasha said seriously. “I hope you’ll continue to think along those lines.”
I winked broadly. “Don’t worry, Mary. I will.”
Sasha rolled her eyes at the sound of the phony name. “Good. See that you do.”
I was about to respond with something witty when the bed interrupted. “The patient is tired. The patient is tired. Please leave now. Please leave now.” I felt a buzzing sensation under my butt. I stood. Joy ran to join me.
“Okay, okay. I’m leaving, already. Take care of yourself, Sash, I mean Mary, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The kid smiled, held up a hand, and let her head fall back against the pillow. She managed to look pretty in spite of the eyepatch, pasty skin, and nonexistent makeup. Sasha was tough, you had to give her that, and I felt a sense of almost fatherly pride. I forced myself to leave.
The next couple of days developed into an almost pleasurable routine. Get up, shower, dump the fast-food containers left from the night before, drink two cups of Americano at the local expresso stand, visit Sasha in the hospital, and walk to work. Something I took seriously.
After some rather arduous thought, I discovered it is possible to handle most troublemakers without resorting to violence. The first step is to look intimidating. That’ll control about seventy or eighty per cent of your typical barroom yahoos right off the top. That’s why I took to wearing black leathers, chrome-plated chains, and a semipermanent sneer.
Of course, some drunks are talkers rather than fighters. Nine times out of ten you can bullshit them out the door, and as Betty likes to say, “Why fight if you don’t have to?”
Still, real honest-to-god barroom brawlers like to fight, and build their reps on how many bouncers they wax. The best way to deal with them is to launch a preemptive strike that is so unexpected, so violent, that they never have a chance. The trick is to sort them out from the rest of the crowd, and that’s what I was working on when trouble arrived.
The whole thing started about four hours into my shift. A few thousand miners had just come off duty, and two or three hundred of them had decided to spend some of their hard-earned pay at Betty’s. It wasn’t long before we had the usual number of arguments, squabbles, and scuffles. I sorted them out and took a break by the bar. Then something unusual happened. A set of honest-to-god, dyed-in-the-wool corpies walked through the doors, looked around, and headed for a recently vacated table.
I was clear across the room when they entered, but it was easy to tell who and what they were from the way
