Chapter Eight - The Bar At The Bottom of The City

“You want seedy? You want a grimy pisshole where the beer is definitely watered down, and the inspectors have literally never reached the place?

You want to see homeless idiots beating on each other for a syringe full of nostalgia? Want some ass?

Then come to the Halfstar. The name’s our rating.

You’ll regret it in the best way.”

--Ad for the Halfstar Bar, 2037

***

I watched Black Bishop stumble towards his buddies, then the lot of them scampered back into the factory as if they were mice who’d just spotted a hungry tiger. It was kind of amusing. Probably not in a healthy way, but I’d never really stopped myself from doing something just because it was terribly unhealthy before.

“So, the Halfstar. Sub-level two,” Gomorrah said. “The bartender agreed to keep Franny busy, but we don’t have forever. Franny won’t like being held back.”

“Alright,” I said. I turned and moved past my favourite nun and knelt next to Raccoon. The girl had pushed herself back and was sitting up against the rusty rails of the catwalk. She looked a bit better. Her skin was healing well, the discolouration around her ribs and face fading already. “You okay?” I asked.

“You’re a samurai,” she said.

“Yeah. Are you alright?” I asked.

The girl’s head bobbed up and down so fast her ponytail bounced. “I’m fine,” she said. “I feel... uh, actually kind of good.”

“That’s great,” I said, smiling even if she couldn’t see it. There was something in the voice when someone smiled that made it obvious, regardless of whether their mouth was visible or not. “Let me just check on this, okay?” I tapped the machines still connected to her, and she nodded.

The Regenerative Suite has run out of nano slush, but that’s expected. The current read-outs from her body indicate that most of the bruising has faded, and her bones have been reset. The medical suite is doing what it can to repair the more long-term damage to her musculature, organs and skeleton. They will continue operating until they run out of power.

“When will that happen?” I asked.

That would depend on the task. Within forty-eight hours, the last of the nanomachines will have run out of power.

I nodded, then gestured to the tubes poking into Rac’s skin. “Can I?”

Retracting.

Raccoon gasped as the tube around her arm and leg popped, then reeled back into the box by her side with a zip. “Whoa.”

“You should be right as rain,” I said as I stood back up and extended a hand.

Rac hesitated for a moment, then she picked up the Nano Regenerative Suite and grabbed my hand before bouncing to her feet. She hurried to put her mask on once she was up, for what little good it would do with the air around here.

“Are you ready to go, Cat?” Gomorrah asked.

“Yeah, sure thing,” I said. “Will you be alright, Rac?”

“Let me come with you!” Raccoon said. “You’re looking for stuff down here. I’ve been everywhere. I know people. I’ve stolen just about everyone’s trash before. I can help.”

“You know that we’re pretty much just looking for one girl, right? And we know where she is.”

“Then, then let me go with you that far; I’ll help!” Raccoon said. It was verging on pleading.

Gomorrah looked at Rac, then back to me. “We... could bring her to the church, I suppose.”

“The church?” I asked. “Why would we bring her there?”

“Because they’d feed and shelter her.”

Well, there was that. I’d feel pretty awful if I just left the kid behind with nothing to show for it. My plan with Rac was to give her a good chunk of credits after everything was done, enough for her to get by for a while. But she wasn’t an orphan, she was a street rat; that was, like, an entire level below what I’d once been.

There was always someone in a worse situation than you. It was one of those small comfort things. Some of the people who worked at the orphanage would point out kids like Rac and remind us that we could be like her if we didn’t want to enjoy their generosity.

“Rac,” I started. “We’re heading up a bit. Now, I’m not keen on charity and shit, but if you do a bit of work for Gomorrah and I, we’ll pay you for it, alright?”

“Yes!” Rac said. “I’m ready to go now.”

“Right,” I said.

“I can find stuff for you; I’m good at that. And I know how to fix things, and give me three minutes and a screwdriver, and I can open any trash can ever made.”

I laughed and rubbed the top of her head again. “If we run into any violent trash cans, you’ll be the first I turn to,” I said. “So, where’d you park?” I asked Gomorrah.

The nun pointed across the doughnut we were in, and I followed her finger towards a grey smudge moving through the air with frequent jukes and twists. It looked almost like a drunken fly the way it bounced around. Still, the car was making good time.

“Whoa,” Rac said as God’s Righteous Fury slid up next to us and hovered in place as if it was on solid ground. “Nice ride.”

The car was nice, there was no denying that. I didn’t know how Gomorrah’s aesthetics resulted in what looked like a high-tech muscle car with more glowy bits than a rave DJ, but it did, and there was no denying that the Fury looked like it could punch through a skyscraper and come out the other side without a blemish.

The front door opened, and Gomorrah slid in without comment, then the car backed up and spun around so that the passenger-side doors were facing us. They both slid open. “In the back,” I told Rac.

She scrambled in without protest, wide eyes soaking up everything as I dropped down next to Gomorrah.

“So, the Halfstar next?”

“Before Franny gets some idea and runs off,” Gomorrah said. The doors closed while I was still trying to get comfortable in the passenger seat. It wasn’t designed for someone in armour, though the seat was moving and expanding and basically doing its best to accommodate.

Gomorrah spun up around and we shot out, only narrowly avoiding a few girders as Gomorrah juked us out of the way. “Franny won’t stay put for long; she’s too... active for that kind of thing.”

We dove out of the doughnut that housed all of those factories, and Gomorrah shot across a few lanes of automated traffic, then up and out of a large opening in the metal sky above. We were back out and in the open, the sky no longer an oppressive ceiling. Well, if one didn’t consider the smog oppressive. Rain battered at the windshield and was wicked off almost in the same moment as Gomorrah swept up around and back into a building.

The tunnel we flew through had a few other cars darting through it, but Gomorrah seemed content to dodge those at the last minute while poking at the screen in the middle of her console.

“Fast, fast!” Rac cheered from behind.

“Um,” I said.

“Here,” Gomorrah said just before turning the Fury around so that its bottom was facing where we were going. It slowed us down just in time for Gomorrah to drive us into what looked like a maintenance alley. At the end of it was an open area, with a tall ceiling and a parking space with a few boxy maintenance vehicles collecting dust.

“The bar is around here?” I asked. We were definitely still above ground.

“No, there’s access to the elevator banks going down from here. We could have walked from where we were, but this is faster,” Gomorrah said. “At least, according to Atyacus.”

Gomorrah set the Fury down and put it in park, then she stepped out. Raccoon and I followed a moment later, though the girl had to figure out the handle for a moment. As soon as she was out, she glanced around, then nodded. “You’re trying to get to the Halfstar?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Then you don’t want to take the big elevator. There’s this other one, a service elevator that goes up the spine of one of the scrapers here. It’s not for the public, but the keypad code is 1234 and people from above use that to get to the bar. I’ve used it to go trash hunting before.”

I raised an eyebrow, moderately impressed. “People go there often?” I asked.

“It’s a popular place, I guess,” she said. “Big. They have fights and sometimes rich people come to bet on them.”

“Well then,” I said. “Lead the way.”

Raccoon nodded and zipped ahead of us.

“You sure bringing her along is wise?” Gomorrah asked, her voice transmitted directly to my augs.

I replied after flicking on a few options with my mask. “No, but it’s better than leaving anyone down there, isn’t it? I can’t save everyone, but I’ll save those I can, you know?”

“Hmm,” Gomorrah replied. “You might do well in a convent after all.”

I laughed and walked a bit faster to keep up.

***