I Just Love This Town

By Benjamin Hanna

The Taxman’s Cull could lay easy claim to being the seediest bar in the country—and the country itself was no picnic. It was a loose confederation of drug kingpins, mobsters, and pirates—barely stately enough to call itself a nation. Police and military tried in vain to keep order, but the city of Oryphon overwhelmed them. The city was rotten to the core, and even the very streets oozed a kind of greasy oil in every weather. Jan Harkness strode with smooth, unhurried gait through these slick streets, trench coat flapping in the rain. The gun strapped to her leg bounced gently with each step, its weight solid and comforting. The soldiers were on their way, and the bar was her only sanctuary.

The Cull’s squat, ugly shadow hid three spice dealers and a collapsed, bleeding client, but Jan passed by the pitiful scene and pushed through the swinging metal doors. The outside hum of repulsorlift traffic and the drumming of the rain died away as she took quick stock of her surroundings. The rusty tables were crowded for a weekday evening, and every patron had a weapon belted to their body, but Jan was unperturbed. She’d grown up in bars like this, drinking, smoking, and fighting since age eleven. Few eyes followed her wet footprints as she padded across the sand-strewn floor toward the darkest corner table. Criminals and vagrants they might be, but everyone in Oryphon knew to mind their own business.

Jan had barely seated herself on a rickety wooden chair before a serving droid clanked its way over to her and buzzed a question. She ordered a truly disgusting mix of rum, whiskey, and cinnamon. The potent mixture tasted like jet fuel, but was the only way she could get drunk after a lifetime of substance abuse. Her drink arrived and she took an absent-minded sip. The fiery liquid burned its way down her throat, but her eyes never left the swinging doors. After a few moments, the portal swung open with a crash to reveal two black-clad shock troopers. The men pushed their way through the crowd of scum and villainy, ignoring the occasional protest as they stomped over to Jan’s table.

She raised a glass in mock salute and took another sip of the sickening concoction that could make a moonshiner go blind. The officers took seats directly across the table, effectively boxing Jan into her corner. Her pulse quickened. After a beat of tense silence, the taller soldier spoke, voice ringing hollow from inside his helmet.

“Give the data stick back, Jan.”

“No,” Jan said, tongue tipped with poison but sweet enough despite that. She went on glibly, “Do you have any idea how hard this thing was to steal?”

The two officers looked at each other. There was an uncomfortable silence that seemed to last an eternity.

Jan allowed herself a grin at their visible confusion and then continued, still sweetly, “Don’t all raise your hands at once. Yes, I stole it, and yes, it shouldn’t have been possible. Would you like to know how?”

The soldiers locked eyes again. The shorter said, almost timidly, “Well… yes.”

Jan shook her slender shoulders. Beads of water pooled in the sand beneath her feet. She yawned while her fingers caressed her gun beneath the table.

“There are four levels of security at the Spire, but the atrium is a public space, and mercenaries come and go at all hours if they have a pass. Now, I didn’t have a pass, but the atrium guards do—and they aren’t the brightest. Brush up against one and they’ll be so distracted they won’t see you lift a badge, and that’s the first level down. I had a researcher’s uniform on under my coat, so I ducked into a closet and stripped off the outer layer. Then I had to pretend that I’d lost my badge, but again, your guards aren’t the brightest, so that was my way through the second level. The third level is easier because it’s a laser grid, and I can dance with the best of them—and the fourth level, well, that was the one that tripped the alarms, but I got the data stick, didn’t I? Don’t know if you know this, but you can get past the turrets if you time their arcs just right. Burned a hole in my coat, though.” She lifted the flap of her garment.

The tall soldier broke in, “So why are you telling us all this?”

As if on cue, a distant hum pierced the steady drumming of the rain. The black-clad men stood as one and drew their weapons in tandem.

Jan shifted subtly in her chair. “I was just killing time. Had to wait for my ride, didn’t I?”

“Your ride?” The shorter soldier seemed especially slow on the uptake. “That’s a ship out there?”

Both men pointed their guns squarely at her forehead. The taller one almost barked, “You’ll never reach the door, much less your ship!”

Jan lifted her glass, drained it, then tossed it aside. The officers remained locked on target. She raised her voice.

“You’re the ones who won’t reach the door… This is O-Town, baby!”

An explosion of movement instantly drew the soldiers’ attention from their quarry. Every man, woman, and child in the bar had their weapons drawn and trained on the two officers. The clumsy troopers wavered, guns flitting indecisively back and forth.

Jan stood, pushed past them through waves of newfound allies, and kicked open the swinging metal doors. Out in the street, the rain swirled in the downdraft from the ship’s engines. Jan ran up the lowered ramp, boots ringing off the reinforced steel. Her pilot was waiting in the cockpit.

“Floor it.”

“You got it.” The man flicked a series of switches, and the ground began to fall away. “I take it things went smoothly?”

Jan let out a long breath and smiled. “Well… it is O-Town, isn’t it?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Benjamin Hanna is a full-time UberEats driver and part-time writer who’s completed two entire works and is presently working on two more.  He holds a degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Memphis that he acquired for interest’s sake. He is a Targaryen due to a strange combination of passion and mental illness, and pours both into his writing. His biggest dream is to go professional drag racing – track, never street!

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