Chapter 5

Night came and the entire family gathered on the street of their enclave to debate what needed to be purchased first with the money. Slugs disappeared too quickly for them to just be put in a bin and held indefinitely. The argument swirled around the usual issues of security and space. Should they pay to break out the back wall for more space, making room for a bigger family or should they upgrade the entrance?

Doyan used long, thin and well trained fingers to snatch an ancient device that manufactured linked carbon chains. The machine was not even a meter square although it was unusually heavy. If a carbon rich material was fed into one end and the proper sequence entered into the onboard comp, a sweet sugar was produced at the other end. If they could get the machine to produce more, maybe they could start a family business. As for Doyan, she remained silent as to the actual procurement of the device. Doyan was a master of weapons training for the family, Benni had little doubt that her story of procurement was violent. She had slit his throat so many times in practice that he had stopped counting, or flinching for that matter.

A family business meant drilling a new room, if such a thing were possible. Upstairs seeded the ground with seismic devices and even booby traps to keep the Temperdis contained within its borders. The rewards were worth the risk though.

Shasa sat between Dember and Benni with her arms hooked through one of each of their arms. Dember seemed unusually tense while Benni acted as if he really didn't care that much. The debate descended into a match of bluster and verbal brawn between two family members and two others, which actually piqued Benni's interest. A good fight always got his attention. Then Dember put the kibosh on all of the antics when he stood up and demanded to be heard. Shasa shushed Benni's disappointment grunt of dismay.

"Last night was not a fluke," Dember declared. He scanned the family, daring anyone to challenge his statement. None did, giving him leave to continue, "Either we move up a level, or we get a wire-fortified polymer barrier for the gate. One simple, easy to make mistake with the old barrier, and we won't survive the next poison release."

Someone challenged him, "The news sheet says the Enforcers closed down the lab early this morning; no one was left alive in the room anyway. The money can be better spent on a family business now that the threat is gone."

Dember stared the dissenting voice down, "Who says the next 'accident' is going to come from this level instead of from a lower level. Shit rises to the top. Everything below passes by our enclave on the way up. Everything," he added with ominous emphasis.

The challenger, older and with more senority, harrumphed with undisguised displeasure.

Everyone wanted to ask what he knew was cooking on the levels further down, but again, no one did. They knew better. Nagala called for a vote, and a new chemical barrier won on a unanimous vote. Dember, remembering his manners, walked over to the brother who challenged him, and gave him a smothering hug and whispered something in the man's ear. Benni saw the offended man nod and smile, which gave Benni a reason to sigh with relief: the family was whole.

Those with extra slugs immediately departed for Flagers to drink and celebrate. Benni was in a rare, carefree mood. With both Dember and Shasa to egg him on, Benni climbed into the ring for a spot match. He hadn't chanced one for months. In a spot match, two people stripped to the waist, male or female, and a spot was lightly glued to their stomach and to the middle of their back. The object was to rip both spots off of the opponent first. No head shots were allowed, and a five minute time limit kept the bouts moving quickly; the winner got a cut of the betting. Benni left the ring with a nasty bruise on his thigh and over the back of his shoulder, but with one spot still intact. His opponent ached even more, but had managed to keep one spot as well. No slugs changed hands for a tie.

Benni bought a minor pain tab before he left for the night, knowing he was going to be pissing blood in the morning. Although Benni did not think of Shasa as a tagalong anymore, she still acted as though she were in front of her blood brother. Benni wanted to ask Shasa to sleep on his mattress again, but she stayed close to Dember. Benni wasn't going to solicit her in front of her "bro-bro", adding to his frustration. When he admitted defeat and ducked into his room, she was still talking to her heart friend at his doorway. Despite his disappointment and the pain, sleep claimed him easily.

The next morning Benni confronted image after image of spacemen on the walls of every level he passed through on the way to work. The only true secret of the Temperdis is that there are no true secrets. The arrival of their saviors was the conversation of the bodegas and concourses. The seers writing in the news sheets prophesied that soon the gates to Upstairs would be torn asunder, and the people of the Temperdis would return to the stars. The dream was whispered over and over, until it nearly reached a fever pitch.

A knife fight broke out on a stairwell when one man expressed disbelief that anything would change. His body bled down an entire flight of stairs. Benni was pissed at the blood on the bottom of his shoes, cursing the dead man for not keeping his fool mouth shut.

As Benni exited at Level Five he heard a roar above him that could only be the start of a minor riot. While he was tempted to wait for the chance to filch the pockets of guaranteed dead bodies, he knew his master wouldn't tolerate his tardiness.

A major change in the Temperdis usually means more business from Upstairs. The specter of spacemen coming might be one of those changes that signaled an opportunity for slugs. He hurried through the last checkpoint, and almost breezed by Ceema, his fuck companion in the storeroom from yesterday. She called him by name, and signaled for a formal conversation which usually meant business and profit. Benni signaled her back to meet him at the checkpoint gate at the end of the day shift, and jumped back into the crush of hurrying bodies.

As expected, requests came and documents flew out the door. Something was definitely afoot Upstairs, The day passed quickly, a minor mercy, and the daily struggle for slugs came to a halt. Tuto came back to pick up his last delivery, and Benni stepped out into the passage with the big man, leaving his master to the private work that the apprentice was forbidden to see.

At the gate Ceema gave him a silent gesture to follow, and he marched behind her, merging with the traffic on the major concourse. They turned onto a smaller artery that ended in a local stairwell that led down to Level Six, and then down again to Level Seven. The plastmore walls of Level Seven were a bit rough, as if the builders didn't understand quite what they were doing, learning the skills as they erected the walls. Ceema slid over to a kiosk to purchase coded passes without asking Benni's opinion.

With a brief signal to follow her, they plunged down a dark alley and pulled up short in front of a fun bunny club that Benni had never seen before. Fun bunny clubs are natural places to conduct business because sex isn't sold, only tease and taste; they are necessary establishments that lent a touch of balance to the world of the Temperdis. They are also expensive. The coded passes let them in. They deposited their weapons, and Ceema paid the hostess slugs for a private booth. The booth had them sitting squeezed together shoulder to shoulder with their feet pressing against the closed door.