Nemesis Games

He took an automated electric cab from the train station to his old neighborhood. Even at the street level, the city looked the same, more or less. The streetlights had been swapped out for a different, boxy design. Some of the streets had changed from pedestrian-exclusive to mixed use. The thugs and dealers and sex workers were different faces now, but they were all on pretty much the same corners and stoops their predecessors had worked. New weeds growing in all the city’s cracks, but they were the same cracks.

He had the cab let him out at a corner coffee stand that was licensed to accept basic ration cards. It was in the exact same location as the last place he’d ever eaten in Baltimore before he left. The cart and the franchise brand were different, but the assortment of rolls and muffins looked identical.

“Tall cup and a corn muffin,” he said to the girl working the cart. She looked so surprised when his terminal transferred actual money instead of basic ration credits that she almost dropped his food. By the time his Ceres New Yuan routed through the network and into UN dollars, with every exchange and transfer tacking on fees, he wound up paying triple for his snack.

The muffin tasted like it had been recycled from old, previously eaten corn muffins. And the coffee could have passed for a petroleum product, but he leaned against a wall beside the stand and took his time finishing both. He tossed what was left into recycling and thanked the girl. She didn’t reply. His space money and foreign clothes left her staring at him like some sort of alien creature. Which, he supposed, he sort of was.

He had no idea where to start looking for Erich. But he didn’t have to walk far before a teenage girl with machine-quality braids and expensive cotton pants drifted out of a shadowy doorway.

“Hey,” he said. “You got a minute?”

“For you, Mongo?”

“Name’s not Mongo,” Amos said with a smile. He could see fear in her eyes, but it was well hidden. She was used to dangerous strangers, but part of that was she knew they were dangerous.

“Should be, brute like you.”

“You’re local. Help a guy out.”

“You need herbage? Dust? I got neuros, that’s your thing. Make you fly outta this shithole.”

“Don’t need your stuff to fly, little bird. Just a question.”

She laughed and gave him her middle finger. He wasn’t a customer, so he wasn’t anything. She was already turning back to her dim doorway. Amos grabbed her upper arm, firmly but gently. There was a spark of real fear in her eyes.

“Gonna ask, little bird. You answer. Then I let you fly.”

“Fuck you, Mongo.” She spat at him and tried to pull her arm out of his grip.

“Stop that. Just gonna hurt yourself. All I want to know is, who runs your crew? Looking to talk to a guy called Erich. Messed-up arm? If your crew ain’t with him, just point me at someone who is, sabe?”

“Sabe?” She stopped struggling. “Speak English, asshole.”

“Erich. Looking for Erich. Just point me and I’m gone.”

“Or maybe I bleed you out,” a new voice said. Someone big came out of the same doorway his little bird used. A mountain of a man with scars around his eyes and his right hand inside the pocket of his baggy sweatshirt. “Let her go.”

“Sure,” Amos said, and turned little bird loose. She bolted for the steps up to her doorway. The walking mountain gave him a nasty grin. Taking Amos’ compliance for fear.

“Now get gone.”

“Naw,” Amos said, smiling back. “Need to find Erich. Big boss now from what I hear. He running your crew? Or can you point me at a crew working for him?”

“I fucking told you to —” Whatever else the mountain was about to say turned into a gurgle after Amos punched him in the throat. While the mountain was trying to remember how to breathe, Amos yanked up the bruiser’s sweatshirt and plucked out the pistol he had tucked in his belt. He stomped on the back of the mountain’s leg to drop him to his knees. He didn’t point the pistol at him, just held it casually in his right hand.

“So, this is how it goes,” Amos said in a voice low enough the mountain would hear him but no one else would. Embarrassment was the number one reason people fought. Reduce how embarrassed the mountain was, reduce the likelihood he’d continue fighting. “I need to find Erich, and either you’re my friend on that, or you’re not. Do you want to be my friend?”

The mountain nodded, but he wasn’t talking yet.

“See, I like making new friends,” Amos said and patted the thug on his beefy shoulder. “Can you help your new pal find his other friend, Erich?”

The mountain nodded again and managed to rasp out, “Come with me.”

“Thanks!” Amos said, and let him up.

The mountain shot a look at the dim doorway, probably signaling little bird to call ahead to someone – hopefully Erich’s crew – with a warning. That was all right. He wanted Erich to feel safe when they met. If he had a lot of guys with guns with him, he’d be more likely to relax and listen to reason.