Chương 31: Day Thirty-One

Dear Diary, Not much to say about World Cultures and Geography today. We studied the next closest City, Calverton City. I'm not sure, but I think it's down near where DC was back in my old world. The population is pretty much the same components as Phileo City, but it breaks down a lot differently in terms of how many of each race live there. They've got way fewer Dan, way more Humans, and almost no Bag, and most of the Bag who live there are outright slaves.

The Dan are all part of or sworn to the ruling family, the House of Calvert. Really original naming there. What with the House of Orange running a constitutional monarchy and the House of Calvert doing the old school 'one man, one vote', with the current King being the one man with the one vote, I realized I'd been lucky to land in Phileo City. Or maybe I hadn't been. I don't know why, but I suspected my aquarium octopus friend hadn't brought me here by accident.

Then again, maybe I'm just a little on edge after yesterday afternoon. So, after devouring everything at the ROTC table except the other ROTCs and the brave gobbos, I wandered out into the city. When the guard asked me were I was headed, I told him, "I'm looking for Chinatown."

"Uh, what town?" I shook my head. No Italian Market, even if the South Ninth Market made a decent attempt at that, and now no Chinatown.

"I'm really just trying to get to know the town better. You know, at street level. I'm gonna go to City Hall and then wander around southeast of there."

"Will you require an escort?" His tone of voice almost begged me to say 'yes', but not only wasn't I the kind of punk who needed bodyguards, walking around with them would kinda defeat the purpose of getting to know the town.

"Nope. I'll be fine. Thanks for the offer."

"Very good then," he sighed. I chuckled and headed out the door. Southeast of City Hall I found a weird mix of upscale stores owned and run by Dan, with mostly Humans doing the actual work, and little hole-in-the-wall or second story storefronts mostly owned and operated by Bag, with one or two Human operated exceptions. The Dan store owners typically took one look at me and fawned over me, or more frequently set one of their staff to fawning over me.

I shouldn't have been surprised; Heroes have a lot of sway in Phileo City, and anybody wearing the same uniform as me basically counted as a larval Hero. I got a couple knickknacks for free from particularly obsequious assholes; a dagger with a fancy hilt and sheath and a shitty blade, a couple pair of costume jewelry earrings, and a 'solid gold' signet with the PCHA crest along with some 'high quality' sealing wax.

I pulled the signet off as soon as I left the store, and the gold leaf peeled off the inside and stuck to my finger. The further southwest I went, the fewer Dan shops I saw. Eventually I hit a block with nothing but Bag stores. I hit a roach coach for a midafternoon snack; deep fried falafel on a hoagie roll made me miss cheese steaks and wonder where a certain someone got them.

The Bag stores had nothing nearly as fancy as the Dan boutiques, but what they sold came in two more-or-less clearly delineated categories. The first, cheap shit that they made no claims was anything but cheap shit, they priced accordingly. The second, handmade, well crafted, durable stuff they charged way more for, but not even in the same ballpark as the Dan stores price-wise, even if it might have been better quality.

Right before I decided to head back, I stopped in one final store with some herbs hanging from the sign outside. Inside, the powerful scent of spices overwhelmed everything else, although a faint herbal scent tried its best to avoid being completely blotted out. I think the owner was Bag, but I'd never seen one quite so tiny and wizened.

"Hey, do you have any powdered jalapeno? Or even cayenne?" The woman smiled, "It's been too long since I heard civilized language. Yes, I have both of those. How much would you like?"

"It's a knack. How much do they cost?" The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. We dickered a while over pricing, and I eventually got her down to about three quarters of the price she originally quoted. I suspect if I wasn't in uniform I might have gotten a better price, but that might have been my own prejudice against cops talking. It felt really weird to basically be in training to be a cop, while still not liking them one little bit.

"Should I send these over to the Academy?" I shook my head, "Nah, I don't know whether they'll appreciate them or confiscate them or something. I'll carry them, if you can package them up?" She nodded, folding my spices into little wax paper packets, then folding both packets into an impromptu envelope made out of much heavier paper.

"Be careful. It's dark soon, and not all the nightwalkers like your jacket." I thanked her and left. She hadn't exaggerated; the sun was maybe three fingers above the horizon. I made the best beeline for the Academy I could, cutting through alleys and minor streets to straighten my path as much as possible. I made it within two blocks of City Hall before my choice of alleys bit me in the ass. About halfway down the alley, a guy straightened up from behind a dumpster.

"What do we have here, boys?" The guy talking reminded me of nothing so much as a shorter, scrawnier Marie, but something about him screamed 'guy' where I'd never thought of Marie as anything but female. I slowed as I approached him, and spotted two short, scrawny, filthy flunkies flanking him. So small and dirty they blended with the filth next to the dumpster, I hadn't noticed them; the taller one stood maybe waist high on me.

Both of the little guys carried knives, while the guy who had spoken had the same kind of claw-fingernails as Marie.

"Look, I don't want any trouble, I'm just trying to get back to The Academy." My name dropping didn't have the desired effect. The leader chuckled, and both his flunkies took that as their cue to chime in with evil little laughs. I heard another three voices laughing behind me as well.

"Oh, we don't want any trouble either. We just want your jewelry." I flinched a little, "Really? I mean, if you really want it, I'm not attached to it or anything."

"See, boys? Not every Cadet is a stuck up prig. Maybe she'll even see her way clear to coming back home and partying with us a while." If skinny boy had opened with the offer instead of trying to rob me, I might have taken him up on it. I've partied with sketchier guys a time or two, and other than having Marie's creepy vibe going on, he wasn't actually ugly. His flunkies set a new low bar for stink and dirt, though.

"Yeah, no. I think I'm just gonna keep walking." I walked forward, angled to pass him on his right side; the shorter flunky stood on that side.

"Tell you what. You give me your jewelry, your purse, and whatever's in that envelope and I'll let you go for the low, low toll of a kiss." He leaned forward as if getting ready to pucker up, and I caught a whiff of his personal odor overwhelming his buddies by proximity. They smelled like garbage. He smelled like rotting meat.

"I'm sorry, dawg, but there's just not enough beer in the world." He snarled like I'd slapped him.

"I'm no one's dog!" he shouted as he stepped closer and took a wild swing at me. I reacted without thinking, bringing one forearm up and stepping toward him. His swing carried his forearm into mine, and I slid my arm down and grabbed his forearm, pulling him toward me as I lashed out with the palm of my other hand. Between one arm pulling and the other punching, his nose broke with a satisfying crunch. He wrapped his other arm around me, trying to grapple, and I just... Stepped past him.

I wasn't even sure what I'd just done, but I was past him and face to face with Tweedle-dirt and Tweedle-douchebag. I brought one knee up in the shorter one's face, lunging forward as he swung his knife at me. Of course my pants took that as an excuse for the seams to split. My thigh had more reach than the little guy's knife, and my knee connected with his jaw. He spun, the knife slicing across my front as he did. I took the opportunity to book it.

Yeah, I'm in really good shape, way better than Skinny and the Stinkbugs, but with six of them and one of me, I knew the only reason I'd done so well was their own overconfidence and surprise. At the same time, I don't think any of them could manage a hundred meter dash, let alone a marathon. So, what with discretion being the better part of valor, and cowardice being the better part of discretion, I valorously ran all the way back to the Academy.

Some time a couple blocks into my sprint I couldn't hear them any more, but I figured they knew the city way better than me, so while I didn't sprint the whole way back, I never dropped down further than a steady run. I didn't stop until I got midway up the front steps, where I pulled my jacket off and slung it over my shoulder, which hid the slash across the front. I loosened up the ties on my shirt as well, letting the loose fabric blouse around my waist and disguise the rip that way.

When I stepped into the entryway, the door guard took one look at me and asked, "everything okay, Cadet?" I grinned sheepishly.

"Yeah, no. I got a little too energetic in my explorations, and the crotch of my pants split." That got a good chuckle out of him and his partner, and I used that opportunity to pass by them and head for my room. On one hand, I now had a crew of miscreants who owed me a beatdown. On the other hand, I was way more apprehensive about how Marie would react to how badly they'd mauled my uniform.