Fic: Altered Trajectory (cont)

[jeriendhal]

Rufus guided the cycle through the crowded streets of the port town. Old office towers stood like rotting skeletons in the sky, their windows long since broken out, the concrete pillars holding them up growing more cracked and unstable as the years went on. Lower to the ground ramshackle shanties held most of the populace, built out of old shipping containers or whatever building material could be stripped from the abandoned towers. Set on hills in the distance were the fortified walls of the local pirate lords and the few others who made a profit from Bolt Hole’s misery.


And the streets were filled with people, creo and human and galen and even a couple miserable blue skinned dragonian missionaries, trying to bring salvation to the poor souls stuck in this hell. Rufus honked his horn and moved forward, people dodging out of his way at the last minute, until he finally reached the thick stone and ferrocrete walls of Bird’s Place, swinging into an alley to park.


“Are you sure this thing is still going to be here when we get back?” Hazel asked as she swung off the cycle. She made a face as her flesh and blood footpad stepped into something unmentionable on the ground.


“Not to worry,” Rufus said, pressing a button on the cycle’s key remote. The faint smell of ozone tinted the air as the cycle’s metal surfaces were electrified. “Anyone who touches it will get a nasty shock for themselves. Non-lethal of course.”


“Of course,” she agreed. She followed him back out into the street, rubbing her footpad discreetly on the sidewalk, as they headed up toward the door. It was guarded by a beefy looking creo wit ha scar across his bald head and armed with a shock stick in his hand.


“I know you,” he rumbled at Rufus, poking him in the chest with the safe end of the shock stick. “You left here wit’ a big tab a while back. Bird wuz pissed.”


“Which I am more than prepared to pay now, my good man” Rufus told him reassuringly. “If you could take me in--, urp!” The bouncer grabbed him by the ruff of his neck and dragged him inside the bar.


“Oi! Let him go!” Hazel shouted, following them inside.


“No, no, it’s quite all ri--, oof!” The bouncer twisted his flesh arm behind his back and shoved him down until his chin rested on the questionable cleanliness of the bar top. He looked up as the barkeep, a slim galen woman inevitably nicknamed “Bird,” wandered over to stare down at him.


“Captain Brushtail, I do believe you owe me some money,” she said, crossing her arms and staring down at him in irritation.


“Which I have every intention of paying I assure you,” Rufus told her. “If you would be so kind as to have your trained gorilla let me up?”


“Let him up, Urgal,” she said. Urgal released his neck and Rufus stood up to reach into his pocket, peeling off more credit notes and wondering if he could possibly justify this expense when he itemized his bills for the mission to External Affairs. Bird pocketed the cash and motioned for he and Hazel to each take a bar stool. “You’re doing better than the last time I saw you, Brushtail, even missing your arm.”


“Life has been improving,” he said modestly, slipping his artificial palm into Hazel’s very warm and real one.


“I also heard you had a little something to do Mavra Chan being smoked by the GSA Navy.”


“Ah, that I can’t take credit for at all.” Thankfully. He wondered if that strange, broken alien boy was doing any better in arms his creator, now that his piratical tormentor was finally destroyed. “Though I will admit being in the vicinity of the event.”


“Really?” Bird asked, leaning forward. “I know a lot of people who’d pay good money to know just what happened that day.”

TBC

Comments

[tamhavik.livejournal.com]

Hmm, he could sell some information to make up for the bill he had to pay *grins*

On another not, I think you're missing some words here and there:
He wondered if that strange, broken alien boy was doing any better in the?
arms his creator.
For example.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Fixing now.... And his bar bill is the least he's going to have to worry about soon.

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

*poor Rufus*

seems to be getting worse for him now...

nice update though

mjkj


Typo:
"It was guarded by a beefy looking creo wit ha scar across his bald head and armed with a shock stick in his hand."
should read "with a"