Titanium Texicans by Alan Black Page B

shook his head. “Don’t worry. I will have it taken care of. You were on the processing facility floor?”
    Tasso nodded, “Yes sir. How do you know?” He remembered with satisfaction that he’d coded the door locks on the flitter and the flitter would have to be cut into small pieces to get around those codes. Since Mr. Moffat hadn’t asked about locks, he didn’t mention them.
    Moffatt shrugged. “I’ve got a security report about a boy of your description running away from some people of mine. They were looking to help you get to the city to see your uncle.”
    “Oh,” Tasso replied. “They didn’t seem all that helpful, sir. Sorry.”
    “I’ve also got a police report about a boy of your general description beating up a couple of street toughs and then running away. I can see you in the attached photos, too.” Moffatt looked back at Bruce and tapped the shotgun, “Anyway, building security bounced him in the lobby. He lit up the metal detectors like a Landing Day fireworks display. It took an hour for my boys to wrangle him free.” Moffatt pulled the power node charge from the gun and stripped the ammunition chamber out, his fat fingers moving with expert speed. Dropping the charger and chamber in a desk drawer, he tossed the shotgun across the desk to Bruce.
    Bruce caught the gun and held it out to Tasso sitting behind him without looking.
    Tasso took his grandfather’s shotgun and slipped it back into the bag. A gun was useless without its charger and without anything in the ammo chamber. He hadn’t seen any stobor in the city, so he probably wouldn’t need the gun on most days. He had spare chargers and ammo in his bag if he did need them.
    “Did you get all of the documents processed, Moffatt?” Bruce asked.
    “One information block is still blank,” Moffatt said looking at Tasso. “I need the relationship documented.”
    Bruce said, “Nephew.”
    Moffatt shrugged and said, “Okay by me, but he doesn’t look like you and you don’t list any family on the Saronno census rolls. You have time for DNA testing and results?”
    “You know I don’t,” Bruce spat back.
    Moffatt shook his head. “I can file this with photographic data and your deposition, like I said, the boy doesn’t look like you.”
    “You can push—”
    “Yes,” Moffatt interrupted. “I can push the data into the database without question. There are automated system checks that no one, and I mean no one, can get around. Give me a quick family history and we can call this done.”
    Bruce nodded. “My baby sister came to the city for schooling. She met a spacer. She got pregnant out of wedlock.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “That is the result. My parents are both dead. There are no other living relatives.”
    Moffatt frowned, “What about the biological father? Is he still in the picture?”
    Tasso started to blush and began to feel hot under the collar. These two men were coming within a syllable of a sensitive subject. Still, Bruce was his uncle and he should trust that his uncle knew what he was doing. Moffatt appeared to be a city official working to expedite Uncle Bruce’s guardianship documents. He gripped the chair arms, vowing to keep his seat and keep his mouth closed.
    Tasso expected Uncle Bruce to say his father had run off in to space.
    “The man is dead,” Bruce said
    Tasso was startled into shouting, “What? No one ever told me he was dead!”
    Bruce ignored Tasso, continuing to look at Moffatt.
    Moffatt raised an eyebrow.
    Bruce sighed. “The man was staying at the Spacer’s Rest Inn. He went missing and there was no indication he left the planet on a ship.”
    Moffatt raised both eyebrows.
    Bruce said, “There isn’t any police report because they never found his body.”
    Moffatt nodded, “Garbage in and garbage out. It works for agricultural-processing units as well as computers, doesn’t it? That’s okay by me. This whole mess makes us even.”
    Bruce snorted. “We are even