Luck and Death at the Edge of the World, the Official Pirate Edition by Nas Hedron Page A

that world is nothing but a story passed down by their parents or grandparents. The street, illegal squats, begging, and dumpster diving are the only life they know.
    Neighborhood patrols used to try to chase the homeless away, but they would just end up in someone else’s backyard and get chased right back, so eventually everyone gave up. Now we just ensure that our buildings have decent security so that once inside we’re safe from crime, from pleading faces, from emaciated children and bad smells. I can’t say I’m better than anyone else. I pass several hundred of them in the space of a few blocks—indistinct figures fidgeting about in their rags and choking on the city’s exhaust—but I don’t really notice any particular one of them except for a young girl who almost steps in front of my bike and forces me to brake.
    Despite the old-world traffic and the new-world quarantine, I eventually make it home. I park the bike underground, then check in quickly at the office. Burroughs Oversight operates around the clock, and as I enter Rollie is just relieving Jessie at the main counter. The office is spare—it could be a car rental counter or an escort agency. Everything that matters—all the cool stuff, all the scary stuff—is hidden in a warren of work spaces in the back where the customers won’t see it. The carpeting is high quality, to project success, but khaki-colored, to remind people of our military pedigree. The counter is made of aged wood that I salvaged from a demolished building. It has a rich, golden color, and gives a sense of history and permanence, making the place look a little less fly-by-night.
    “Hey Rollie, what’s the news?” I ask, though I don’t really want to know.
    “Not a lot Gat.”
    No one uses my first name except the L.A.P.D. To everyone else I’m Gat, the abbreviated form of my middle name, Gatineau, which is apparently the location of our ancestral home up in the Grey Area that used to be Canada.
    “What does ‘not a lot’ translate into?”
    “Well, TJ is on Pileggi. No action there. Jenna is still following up on that wandering husband, Tenenbaum. She’s got Prender with her, getting him used to civilian protocols.”
    Prender is fresh out of the Forces and is still making the adjustment to non-military operations. I don’t usually do non-corporate work, like surveilling cheating spouses, but I took the Tenenbaum case just for him—it seemed wise to put him in a low-key situation his first time out. I wander behind the counter and take a look at the holo traffic but it’s routine stuff: bills, accounts paid or due, status reports on equipment orders. With relief I realize that there’s nothing here that needs my attention.
    “Okay buddy. I’m going upstairs. Here’s to a quiet watch.”
    “You bet. There’s a good fight on tonight.”
    “You got anything riding on it?”
    “Just enough to keep me interested. Can’t afford more on what you pay me.”
    Rollie’s paid very well—it’s just the usual bullshit banter.
    “Sooner,” I say, an old Forces habit. It’s an abbreviation of “the sooner the better,” something you say to your buddies when they’re off to battle and you’re not. The sooner you see them alive again, the better: fewer hours of waiting and wondering, accelerated relief.
    In the lobby, I pause for a moment and then, before going upstairs, I step outside onto the sidewalk and breathe the late afternoon air: car exhaust, barbeque, cooked vegetables, fish—the usual fragrances of Chinatown. Neon is just starting to show here and there, and soon the day trade will make way for nighttime pleasures. There are restaurants, live theater, movies, and bars. Mingling with the residents and the gawking tourists are a few low-key prostitutes and, if you’re known, there are places you can gamble. I can’t understand a word I hear. I take a deep breath and bask in the peace of being home.
    I go back inside and ride the elevator to my floor.