Hammered by Elizabeth Bear

I’ve got her nailed down to a state, at least. Barbara’s there now.”
    Holmes stood, strong and graceful despite the lines mapping her gracious face. “She’d better be everything you say she is, Fred. Her, or one of the others. After the—is
debacle
too strong a word?—you oversaw on Mars, you need a damned success more than I do. Which is saying something.”
    Understanding the note in her voice, Valens swallowed once.

 
    2000 hours, Tuesday 5 September, 2062
Bushnell Park
Capitol Hill
Hartford, Connecticut
    The western sky is still graying down to indigo, but the sun has long set behind the Gothic train station and crumbled yellow brick storefronts at the edge of the park. Hoodof a bleach-stained sweatshirt pulled over my hair, I lean against a tatterdemalion white oak near an unmaintained baseball diamond and watch the dealers and the prostitutes saunter past. There’s one little Latina with big brown eyes, skinny as a rake in a glow-patterned miniskirt and leg-breaking heels, who is shattering my heart with every
hey bay-bee
at a passing car.
    I bet she’s thirteen, fourteen. Same age as Gabe’s older daughter. Same age I was when I ran away from home. After Maman died, and I had had enough of Barb’s tender care.
    Doesn’t much bear considering. I turn away, watching the street kids and the adult predators and the vagabond lost weave through the night. A pair of Hammerheads wander by, check me out to make sure I’m not 20-Love or a Latin King. My sweatshirt is dark blue, nondescript, and they let me pass.
    The king’s men.
    They’re watchful, and the park is peaceful for now, but it’s too big a humpty dumpty to really put back together, isn’t it? I turn my head and spit, scanning the area with my bad eye as darkness swells, the heat of bodies shimmering green-blue, barely distinguishable against the warmth of the night. Cars swing down Asylum Avenue, headlights razor-edging the party girls.
    Ladies of the evening.
    It all sounds so genteel.
    That little Latina is getting into the passenger seat of a dark-windowed sedan, and I want to go drag her out by the ankles and tell her the rules. Rule number one, you
never
get in the car. But then the door shivers closed, and it’s too late to do anything. I hope they’re just going for a ride around the block, brief pause in a side alley, no longer than the time it takes to smoke a cigarette.
    I’ve moved as close to the little knot of dealers on the cornerof Asylum and Jewell as I can get without looking suspicious, but in the fading light I’m having a hell of a time seeing what they’re handing to the customers. Even low-light vision isn’t helping me—every little plastic twist, baggie, or vial is palmed to a client with a practiced flick of the hand just as the cash chits vanish into pockets. I even see some folding, old-fashioned American money change hands.
    Can’t have a black market without it.
    I’m still waiting while the Milky Way smears itself across the heavens and a a sliver of moon glides down the sky, shedding blue light. East, the lights of the Travelers’ tower drench the darkness, washing away the stars. I shove my hands into my sweatshirt and wander aimlessly toward the closest of the baggy-jacketed dealers, my boots scuffing dirt and dead grass.
    “Whatcha need, my man?” He turns to look me up and down. I stare at his shoes. Little lights flicker along the sides of shining white sneakers. Stupid if he thinks he might have to run, but there’s a lot of stupid on the streets.
    He’s checking out my sidearm. I keep my hands well away from it, shoving them deeper into my pockets.
There’s no danger here.
I even half-believe it. “I heard there’s some new shit. Army shit, make you ten feet tall. You got that?”
    “Ah, nah, babe. One batch came through, and some of the shit was bad. I got some tailored uppers though, good stuff.”
    “Maybe. You maybe know somebody who has some of the army shit left? Or knows where it