Chapter Eight – The Bar At The Bottom of The City

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’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.