CHAPTER TEN
Joey awoke to find himself tied to a chair in a dark room that stunk of mildew and a tinge of sweaty feet. Dim light flashed from the center of the ceiling and the sudden illumination made Joey squint and hold them tight.
When he opened them he was staring at thugs posted up against the green-brown walls tiled with moist looking stone; from geckoids to dracoids, largaphs, lazhinians and yautgans. They all brandished pistols, knives and one largaph, Tomz, had Joey’s silver bat at his side in a firm grip.
The air was humid and uncomfortably thick with the heat of so many people inside, even though the space was quite large. Joey felt trickles of sweat running down his neck, but he managed to find the strength to say to Tomz, “Hey…that’s my bat you have there…”
Tomz, with a translator in his ear said, “Yeah. And I really like it.” He held it up and watched it reflect a patch of light. “Pure silver,” he looked at Joey, “where did you get it?”
Joey was pleased to still find the translator in his ear for him to understand. He tested his bound feet and hands behind him. The ropes were tight and wouldn’t budge.
Dammit!
Tomz stepped off the wall and slowly swaggered over to Joey with the bat swaying like a flower in the wind. “I asked you a question, punk?”
Joey heard the genuine maliciousness in the man’s voice even in the translator. But it wasn’t the first time Joey was ganged up on by men and beaten for things such as his money—yet still the little critter of fear was scratching at his mind to be cautious. He didn’t know what the faith of Lezura was, but he could only hope she escaped and was coming after him.
And the key!
“I asked you a question,” said Tomz, his voice icy.
“You didn’t say pretty-please Mr. Super Great Awesome Joey Sadowski,” said Joey.
Tomz grinned at Joey, and slapped him in the thigh with the bat.
“SHIT!” Joey screamed when the pain exploded, he hunched over, groaning.
“Did that get your attention ya little shit?” said Tomz with the bat on shoulder.
Joey shivered, he looked up defiantly and said, “Nope…My nerdy friend hits harder than you!”
Tomz grimaced. He prepared the bat to deal another blow. “You little prick—”
“That’s enough Tomz,” said a woman’s voice, loud but calm.
Tomz hesitated, finally he listened and lowered the bat and retreated back to his space on the wall.
From the shadows Joey saw the huge frame of the yautgan woman emerge.This time she was wearing white jeans with metal studs on the trim, a light green silky blouse and a sleeve-less shiny jacket with the collars wide around her neck like a frill.
“Oh… it’s the amazon, lesbian, lady,” said Joey.
“And you must be the strange midget alien who’s too short to even jump a two-feet hurdle,” the woman replied coolly with her hands on her hips.
The whole room erupted in laughter. Some men even fell to the floor; others were slapping their thighs and the wall.
Joey struggled like a beast in his restrains. “Just let me go and you’ll see what happens to all you assholes! Just let me get one hand loose and I’ll go buck-wild on your asses!”
Most of the men didn’t have translators to understand Joey other than the woman, Tomz and five others. But they just took Joey’s responses as futile tongue-lashings and continued laughing.
“That’s enough already,” the woman said with the faint trace of a smile. Once there was silence she said to Joey, “Your little face paint washed off. What kind of alien are you?”
“Human,” Joey said honestly, “a human that came here trying to make a living, and if you don’t give me back my stuff—especially my compass, I’m goanna make a living kicking all your asses!”
“That’s if you can reach our asses,” said a yautgan with a translator, but instead a chorus of laughter all he got was chuckles.
Joey realized that the men really obeyed this woman without question. Some bitch, he thought.
The woman folded her arms and walked to Joey’s right. “My name’s Yeltsa,” she said, “What’s yours, kid?”
“I’m not a kid, and it’s Joey,” he said.
“You know, Joey,” Yeltsa said, “I don’t know or care which planet or solar system you came from, but this’s something you should learn,” she leaned in closer, so that Joey could smell the lemony orange scent of her perfume; “never enter another gang’s territory unless you have a death wish.”
It wasn’t her words that affected Joey, but the smoothness behind them. He mustered up some courage and said, “Oh please, Zena Princess, I’ve had run-ins with gangs before, and they don’t mean crap to me. Now, I want my stuff, and my compass.”
Yeltsa straightened herself and said, “Anything that falls in my territory is mine, kid.”
Joey shouted, “You big bitch, people will die if I don’t get that thing back!”
There was silence in the room, followed by some murmurs. Yeltsa arched a thin, feathery eyebrow in surprise. After studying Joey’s tense muscle composure and the fierceness in his brown eyes like hers, Yeltsa concluded that this kid believed in what he was saying. With a quick decision she said, “Everyone, out!”
Without a question they all left through the discolored wooden door. When they did Yeltsa knelt before Joey, still a few inches over his head.
“Let me tell you something kid,” she said in a stone voice, “in this city my gang’s the biggest, and we run the Underworld here. You remembered what happened to those little dimwits that chased you here? Well that’s what happens to people who cross me. So now that you’re in my world, I demand to know what you’re talking about, now…”
Joey scoffed and said, “I don’t have to tell you anything. My friends and I almost got killed by orderrans a few days ago. You really think you can threaten me with your ‘big and bad’ crap?” Joey’s face took on a dull look as he remembered the people who died. “I got shot a few times too, back then. And that told me that what I’m doing here isn’t any kid’s Saturday morning cartoon. So for my friend’s sake I’m goanna keep my mouth shut!”
Yeltsa took a moment to think upon Joey’s words. She punched him in the gut and watch him hunch over, coughing and spitting.”
“You have a lot a balls kid,” Yeltsa said.
Joey took some deep breathes, said, “Nope…I think…you do…really!”
Yeltsa smiled. She stood up and folded her arms. “I kinda like you, kid.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Joey said in a weak voice, still drawing deep breathes.
“Tell you what,” Yeltsa said, slapping down a hand on Joey’s shoulder that made his bone shake. “You really pissed me off, but I won’t kill you. I won’t be that stupid to see a new alien race and not learn about it. I want to see what you can do, so I’ll let you do some work for me. Then I might just think about giving you back your compass.”
Joey was sure that Lezura was coming but she wasn’t here now. He knew he had to get things done; and right now he had to get out of his restraints and see what this woman was up to. “Alright, we have a deal…”
“Good,” Yeltsa said. She punched Joey across the face lightly, but it still knocked him out. “And don’t ever diss me again, little brat!”
Lezura’s data-scroll was seven inches long, two inches thick at the screen and three inches in diameter at the side handles, meaning it had a lot of software and could do a lot of things. One of those things was satellite tracking.
Long ago before she went to Earth, when Lezura was instructed with the key she did a little experimenting on it—which was copying its signal to the data-scroll so it could pick it up on anywhere is was located in the event it got lost. It was a good idea, but the Ixians weren’t too pleased with how Lezura abused the key, even though Fopi said it was quite fine.
So tracking down the Rakai by radar, it led Lezura to a part of the city known as Sty Avenue on Bal’s Street. From where she stood on Bal’s Street, she looked right down into Sty Avenue, and as the last time she was here, it wasn’t a heartwarming or hopeful sight.
There were dozens and dozens of ramshackle-houses that made even the tents of the travelers look like ten star hotels. The street was littered with potholes so ghastly Lezura thought they would generate some dark force to suck down even a hovercar. Rusty zinc fences surrounded most of the wooden and broken concrete houses, and the air smelt of animal feces and burning garbage.
Walking down the street Lezura saw some curious people sitting on chairs and tables outside their homes, playing a board game or just chatting with some vulgar additives.
They all stopped when they saw Lezura and fixed their stares on her.
Lezura walked pass some men that whistled to her to stop, and when she didn’t they offered up some profanity too colorful for her to repeat even in her head. The women who saw her gave her contemptuous looks and made snide remarks with each other. One of them walking down towards Lezura, a lazhinian, deliberately steered off course to bump into Lezura.
“Watch it, pointy-eared bitch!” said the woman, pushing Lezura away.
Lezura had some words in her arsenal she could have let loose at the woman, but that wasn’t why she was here. Her objective was to find Joey and the key and leave. Everything else was secondary.
Up ahead Lezura saw someone’s pet karoti stoop and drop a fresh pile of dung. Lezura steered into the street to walk away from it, nearly tripping in a pothole.
She checked her map once more, wary that the people here might try to rob her. She stopped, looked around and saw some men just so happening to all steer away from her, and looked back at the map.
On the screen was the three dimensional layout of a huge building that they key seemed to be mapping. She wasn’t expecting this, but it was damn useful and a saving grace! Lezura had spotted the only building of such a size in the area.
A couple hundred meters in the distance Lezura saw a twelve story building; an eerie silhouette against one of the artificial lights in the dome’s ceiling. It looked hollow and gutted with almost all parts rusted away.
“Hi there, young lady,” said a voice.
Lezura looked away from the skeletal remains of the building to a man standing behind a rusty, short mess-fence in his yard.
It was an old yautgan man in a khaki suit with the top unbuttoned to show his long grey tunic. His face was wrinkled, but his feathers were still a resilient pure red.
“Good morning, sir,” Lezura said.
“What’s a pretty lady like you doing around these parts?” said the man.
Lezura heard no malice in his voice, and decided she could at least answer him. “I am looking for my friend,” she said.
“Oh…” the man said. He scratched his face and said, “I don’t suppose you mean he went down there, did you?”
The man gestured with his head high in the direction of the building.
Lezura walked closer to the man’s gate so their conversation could be more discrete. Even though the man was old and less muscled than a young yautgan, he was still taller and larger than Lezura.
“What do you know about that building?” Lezura said.
The man shook his head. “That’s where the Skull Crusher gang hides,” he said grimly. “Run by that pretty lady named Yeltsa.”
“The gang is being led by a woman?” said Lezura.
The old man nodded. “Yes; was a nice little girl too,” said the man, “but she usually kept to herself. She came here seven years ago, and since then she’s worked her way to being the top gang of the Underworld here; beating up everyone else, robbing, even killing.” The old man sighed again. “She could have been many things, but she chose to have power by going down the path of crime.”
Lezura noted the look of not just shame, but disappointment on the man’s face. “It seems as if you knew of her,” she said.
The man smiled wanly, and said, “I should, I’m her uncle. She moved here to live with me. She wasn’t a bad girl to me, but she wanted power and control.” The man rubbed his neck in reflection, “I think she got it from her father…”
“Um…sir,” Lezura said, hating having to begin with the silly expressing, “I hope you do not mind me prying, but may I ask if she controls this area?”
“Yes,” he said, “she’s the crime lord for this area. She hijacks the supply train and convoys that come here from time to time. She sells the goods back to the people here, and that’s how she maintains power.”
Lezura said, “Not to be rude, kind sir, but why are you telling me this?”
The man said, “Because I believe that whatever you’re after is down there where she is. I think that you at least need to know a little about her.”
Lezura looked around and saw people staring at her. She turned back to the man and said, “Are you not afraid the people here wind find you a traitor for telling me this?”
“Now who would be so stupid as to mess with the crime lord’s uncle?” said the man.
Lezura smiled at him. She gestured for him to lower himself and she kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you so much,” she said.
As Lezura went the man called out, “Why are you here, anyway?”
“To end the Prestige System,” Lezura said.
Later the same day Joey was thrown into a small dirty room with just a stained white bed he refused to sit on, a chair in one corner and a dresser near the door, all illuminated by a flickering bulb that sounded like a buzzing bug.
Joey practiced his honoi techniques even still, the Bluebolt. He hoped the high level honoi attack was enough to take down the boss for this place. She took on three men on her own as if it were just child’s play. He didn’t plan on doing anything stupid too soon, but he had to keep the choice of escaping open.
He never had a doubt that Lezura would be coming for him, but as for when he wasn’t sure. It had slipped into his mind like a little demon that Lezura might have been in danger, that she might not have made it.
No! Cut that shit out. If a loser like you survived this then Lezura must’ve gotten away without a scratch, even if it’s just chance.
The wooden door kicked open with a bang. Joey instantly flew out of his seat, reflexively firing a Blueburst near the door.
The blast hit the wall in the corridor, leaving a ghastly mess of cracks. Tomz’s head appeared at the door and peeked inside. When he was certain Joey wasn’t firing anymore of the blue stuff Tomz looked at the ripped wall and said, “Damn!” He smiled excitedly at Joey. “You can even use honoi too? The boss’s goanna love you…”
Tomz’s stepped in, wearing a cleaner white merino and tight, shiny yellow trousers. He pointed a silver rifle at Joey; it has a cylindrical body with a separate section that narrowed to the barrel. It was a lance-rifle, fifty-caliber and held forty rounds.
Joey hadn’t seen any amazing alien pew-pew gun since he came here, but he knew that so far he only got shot in the less vital areas. A bullet to his chest or head would surely kill him, so he lifted his hands.
“Step out here,” said Tomz.
Joey did as he was told. He turned down the corridor as Tomz instructed, looking at charred, green walls riddled with cracks, peelings and some bullet holes.
Tomz kicked Joey in the butt. “Get moving!”
“You’re goanna pay for that?” Joe said.
“Sure…” Tomz said.
Joey was led past a room where he glimpsed men cleaning rifles. Tomz motioned for him to turn and ushered him up the stairs at the end of the hall, where he was led to a small corridor with a huge metal door on the right side with the handle shaped like two serpentine creatures.
“Open it.”
Joey pushed the door open, which was quite light on the hinges. Inside, the room looked like it dropped from some other dimension into this one. Unlike the rotted building this was lavish, with furniture of the richest gopto tree wood covered in red velvet. A chandelier like a giant squid with glowing tips at the tentacles hung over head, showering the room with orange light. There were some crossed swords on the dull brown wall at the back, with a shelf holding various ornaments, from bones, silver pendants and jewelry. Joey looked to see if the compass was there, but it wasn’t.
Joey stepped onto the mint green carpet forward into the center of the room where the men sat watching him.
There were six in total, a dracoid man, a geckoid, a largaph and two yautgans. And seated on the large couch in front of Joey was Yeltsa, her arms spread across the top and her legs cross. The tight white trouser hugged her thick thighs.
The shirtless dracoid laid back in a couch in just segmented yellow and pink shorts, smoking a cigarette and exhaled green smoke into the light that darkened. The geckoid in the grey-pull over sweater and purple jeans was seated on the carpet Yeltsa’s feet, absently bobbing his head to some music on his headphones. His head was concealed by a short blue cap.
The two yautgans were standing at the side of the door in easy positions, both wearing black tops but the one of the left had on white trousers and the other wearing dull grey jeans.
The largaph in the seat opposite of the dracoid was checking something on a small screen held in his hand. He was bare-footed and wearing a simple white top and bottom.
“So why did you want to see me?” Joey said, staring intently at Yeltsa, who only offered the faintest smile.
“I brought you here to introduce you to my main attack force,” Yeltsa said. “The dracoid there is Sperks, the little man hear at my feet is Worm. The largaph there is our little computer geek, Node. And those boys behind you are Bonner on the left, and Kane on the right. I’m sure you’ve been acquainted with my right-hand man, Tomz…”
Tomz walked to the side of Joey and winked at him. He lowered his rifle and went around to the right side of Yeltsa behind the chair.
“You have guys with code names,” said Joey, “that’s nice. But I’m guessing this isn’t why you called me hear.”
“We have a job to do,” Yeltsa said, “and you’re in.”
Joey ran at Yeltsa screaming. “I want my damn key, bitch!”
None of the men made any effort to move. Joey leaped in the air and set his feet to land a dropkick.
Yeltsa kicked Joey in the gut and sent him flying back to land right where he was standing.
Joey got up and said, “I’m not screwing around with you lady!”
Yeltsa grinned, showing for the first time white shark-like teeth that made Joey flinch. “I really like your spunk, kid,” she said. “I don’t get that kind of entertainment around here—except when Tomz gets drunk.”
There were chuckles in the room. Tomz fumed.
“Okay,” said Joey, “what kind of job?”
“A raid,” Yeltsa said, “and if you want back your stuff, you’ll do what I say.”
Joey shrugged and folded his arms. “Fine, whatever…”
“Good,” said Yeltsa. “First thing to tomorrow morning we’re going to move out to the location and set our ambush there.”
Yeltsa slowly got up from her seat and approached Joey, standing three feet higher than he did. Joey felt himself being squashed by her looming shadow.
“In the meantime,” she said, “I have a job for you to do…A really important one.”
Joey was deployed to the back of the building outside for his most important mission.
In Joey’s eyes where he stood was some massive balcony like a section of bright brown earth, bordered by a high mesh fence against metallic frames. It was dusk, and deep orange-red light shone through the cracks in the dome and onto the balcony.
He looked up and could see the last of the sunlight burning the sky and the clouds into a fiery lake. Cool air swept upon him from stories above, piggybacking the scents of the forest with it.
The balcony overlooked sections of the city which were already turning on their lights. There was an apartment complex a few meters away, separated from the older building by a seven meter high wall on the ground and the fifty meter distance between the two.
The great and glorious tasks that Joey had been appointed with, was washing Yeltsa’s clothes. He sat on an old crate wearing his grey undershirt and underpants. In front of him were three metal bath-pans. He had scrubbed-washed most of Yeltsa’s clothes already with the brush and hung them on the line near the fence.
He was about to do what he was dreading and had put on hold—washing her underwear. He had put them so soak for nearly an hour before touching them, grimacing as he handled the underwear.
“Can’t believe I’m actually doing this…” he said. He took up a panty and held it wide. His eyes flew wide when he realized that the thing stretched nearly twice as wide as his chest. Joey took a sniff, and coughed and turned up his nose. “Where the hell’s Lezura when you need her, man?”
Joey started to wash the ones he could. The more extreme one he put in the third pan to soak, hopefully he could forget them.
Joey looked at the other building, and saw two lazhinian women pointing and laughing at him through their window.
“Tramps; they’re all jealous because I’m not washing their underwear for them…”
A thing with fluttering wings flew near Joey’s face. He swatted it away. “Damn bug!”
“Joey that really hurt!” said a familiar tiny voice.
Joey looked and the thing flying in front of his face. It was in fact Lezura, in her faery form and wearing plant wrappings around her chest and waist.
“Where”—Joey stopped and looked around at the door on the wall leading into the building. He saw no one and went back to talk to Lezura—“where the hell’ve you been?”
“I have been looking all over the place for you,” Lezura said with her tiny hands on her tiny hips. “Why did you have to run so far away?”
“Waddya mean ‘why I had to run so far away’? Lezura I was being chased by gangbangers who wanted to rip me open!”
Lezura exhaled loudly and said, “Well, I am here now. I hid my clothes at the bottom of the building at the back. Come now; leave all of this and let us get going.”
Joey looked away with a sign of guilt in his eyes. He rubbed his neck nervously and said, “I…can’t…”
“What do you mean you ‘cannot’?” said Lezura.
“I can’t leave, yet, Lezura…”
Lezura frowned. “Why not?” she said.
Joey said reluctantly, “I don’t have the key,” as he watch Lezura gawk in disbelief he added, “A big, sexy scary yautgan chic took it.” He gestured energetically to the panties and bras. “And she made me wash her underwear!”
Lezura flew upon Joey, pounding her fists on his face. “You foolish little boy! How could you lose the key? How could you be so reckless?”
Joey grabbed Lezura by the waist and shook her. When he stopped Lezura was slumped over his hand with her eyes spinning. She uttered a long groan as she rose up, gripped her head and closed her eyes to fight the dizziness.
When her world stopped spinning she ran a system’s check on her mind to make sure that her brain didn’t get damage. She recited the first ten words in the beginning of “W” in the English dictionary, “W, wacky, wad, waddle, wade, wader, wafer, waffle, the second waffle; a small crisp batter cake that is eaten with hot butter or syrup, waft…” she sighed and opened her eyes. “Good…”
“Listen, Lezura,” said Joey, “I’ll get the damn key back. Tomorrow I’ll do a mission for the boss and she’ll give it back to me. If she doesn’t, I’ll blast her head off and take it!”
Joey let Lezura go. She flew onto his shoulder where she sat and said to Joey, “That is highly unlikely. Based on what I gathered about this woman, she will kill you after you have fulfilled your usefulness.”
She saw Joey’s Adam’s bop in a nervous gulp. Joey said, “So what should we do?”
Lezura formulated a plan within seconds. “The supply train is coming tomorrow,” she said, “That has to be her target. You stick as close to her as you possibly can, Joey. I will try to break you from their clutches once you have made an attempt to take back the key.”
Joey shook his head. “Her boys will just jump me before I do,” he said.
“Not unless they are occupied with the train’s security personal and the support from the city’s police,” said Lezura with a smug smirk.
Joey grinned at her, said, “Lezura, you’re a real little devil!”
“Do not insult me so, Joey,” she said with elegant flick of her foot, “I am just an innocent faery.” Something flapping in the wind caught her eye. “Wow, Joey! Did you wash those tights?”
On the clothesline twelve tights of different colors blew on the wind.
“Shuddup Lezura!”