I stood looking out the window of Pinetree Exports, also known as Alcazar’s office, which despite its small size and generally messiness would have been a much nicer place to stay than his apartment. I was watching the steady flow of pedestrian traffic down on the street as he looked for my file in his stacks of papers.
(translated from Spanish)
“What is the deal with this place?”
“You’ll have to be more specific, Madripoor has many ‘deals’ at any given time.”
I pointed down at the street “There’s a dude wearing like a space helmet. And the other day I saw a woman riding a bike whose skin was yellow, like banana yellow. I’m pretty sure I saw a guy jump into a second story window too.”
“That was probably Bayu, he jumps all over the city. Usually into the windows of married ladies.”
I turned and gave him a look “Hey can you do me a favor and be a little more nonchalant about impossible things people can do around here?”
He stared at me for a moment “Sorry, I guess I’ve gotten used to it. The ‘deal’ is that Madripoor, for this reason or that, has more than its fair share of NBHs – that’s non baseline humans – like you. And not for nothing, there may also be an alien or two in residence as well. The military usually finds aliens and shoots them in the head as soon as they crash-land but a few slip through the net.”
“Oh sure, aliens exist and are on earth and that’s normal. How about you give me a little build up to these shocking revelations? Are your CIA buddies the ones that kill the poor little green bastards as they stumble out of their wrecked saucers looking for their triple A cards?”
He snorted “If I was in the CIA it would have been much easier for me to get this.”
He waved a stained folder at me that had budget written on the tab, then crossed out and written 1968 redeposit which was itself crossed out and replaced with something I couldn’t read. I sat down across the desk from him, he handed me the folder and helped himself to a cup of coffee while I thumbed through the papers inside.
“So I’m dead huh? That’s very dispiriting.”
He nodded with a grin “I know, it’s a real shame you were cut down in your prime like that.”
“Who’s Duke Eaglevane and why did he blow me up?”
He raised an eyebrow “Don’t you read the newspaper?”
“Just the box score of the Tropics game and my horoscope.”
“Duke Eaglevane is someone who a man that was actually in the CIA would call a ‘bad guy’. He’s a super terrorist, or supervillain if you want to be theatrical. He’s maybe hundreds of years old and when he’s not killing German communists, he spends his time running the largest criminal organization in the world. An organization that does things like blow up pretty singers in the heart of the Coalition.”
“Why would he blow me up, what did I ever do to him?”
“I would imagine that you are what people who blow buildings up call ‘collateral damage’, I wouldn’t take it personally.”
“Of course not, it’s just my life.” I shuffled through some more papers “So I was blown to bits and then the government scooped up the pieces and put them back together? Like the Six Million Dollar man? That was nice of them. And then these Shadow Lords stole me? I would have expected the Coalition Super Soldier Division to have better security.”
“If I was with the CIA I could answer that for you, but since I’m just a humble businessman, all I can give you is guesses. I don’t think it was the Coalition, from what I gather a private organization did the Humpty Dumpty job on you. Maybe they sold you to the Shadow Lords, maybe you were stolen, maybe they were funding the whole operation, I don’t know. But it wasn’t the super soldier program, that medical report says you’re negative, this was something lower key. Just saving your life and giving you some ‘minor’ super powers. You’re stronger than you have any right to be but I’m pretty sure Angel would rip you apart, if she wasn’t dead.”
“Being dead does increase the degree of difficulty.” I flapped the folder at him “How did you gather all this, non-CIA man?”
“I have a lot of friends, I keep my ear to the ground. Information is critical in my line of work, other vague answers are available at request.”
I read from one of the pages ‘Due to the stimulation of neurological, chemical, and glandular activity, subject will suffer from chronic headaches and will need to consume fifteen to twenty thousand calories a day to avoid rapid weight loss and death.’ “Well that’s just great. I thought my head hurt because I wasn’t smoking enough.”
“You may as well smoke up, on the next page they anticipate that with your increased metabolism and all the damage it’s doing to your systems, you’re going to die of organ failure in another five to seven years. Live fast and die young, etcetera.”
I tossed the file on the desk “This day just keeps getting better and better. So who did the Shadow Lords want me to fight so badly that they went through all this trouble?”
“Other gangs probably. Or maybe they were going to rent you out as a mercenary, there’s always fighting on the mainland. Or maybe they wanted you for the tournament. Madripoor is the proud home of the only super powered death sport in the world.”
“That sounds pretty illegal.”
“Even though you’ve only been with us a couple of days, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that legality is a flexible concept around here, especially for people with money. And the psycho that does the annual tournament has gobs of it.”
“Lovely. This is all good information but how is the project of getting me home coming along?”
He leaned back and steepled his fingers for a moment “Not great. Since you’re legally dead, that complicates things. And being an NBH complicates things even more. It means that you have to register with all kinds of groups with three letter names. Smuggling you into the States would be super illegal. People are going to be very interested in you, Ela. It’s a good thing that I’m not with the CIA because if I was, you’d probably be knocking over some east African dictatorship right now.”
“I feel like you’re saying you’re not going to help me without saying it.”
He held his hands out “I ship matchbooks and crummy electronics, what do you expect that I could do for you? I don’t know anything about sneaking people through multiple countries illegally. You’re too hot for me to handle.”
“That would be a good name for a song.”
“I think Otis Redding already did that one.”
