Michael P. Calligaro - Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Fiend

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Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Fiend

by Michael P Calligaro

I stared in dismay at the teeming metropolis before me. Multiple streams of perps fed in faster than

pot-bellied pigs to a feedlot. There were 'pods floating down briskly moving canals. There were feathers

fluttering in through skyways. The large doors were full of uberlosks, and the short ones were full of

mites. Every possible entrance was packed and moving. The exits were barren.

"SLiH, what's this mark paying us again?"

Sammy's Little Helper held up all four hands, each with five fingers showing. I did some quick

calculations in my head. If I'd told my little robot we were making twenty, then we were really making

forty grand. Yeah, I lie to him. Anyone who thinks that honesty is the best way to build a relationship has

obviously never worked with something I programmed.

I whistled. "Combat pay. Well, we're gonna earn it today." I held out a hand and said, "Let's go, little

guy."

SLiH unbuckled his seat belt, hopped up, and troddled up my arm to perch on my shoulder, where he

grabbed on with his lower two arms. SLiH is egg shaped and about as big as my head. I once got out of

a jam with some two-headed male cranies by getting down on all fours and pretending to be one of them.

Granted, I don't look anything like a Cranie, but the only thing worse than a Cranie's eyesight is his

mental acuity.

When I got out of the aircar and closed the door, I found a good twenty pairs of beady little eyes staring

at me. Lot rats. As I pulled out my remote and locked the door, the rats started moving toward my car. I

enabled the security system, which caused the landing wheels to retract and armor plating to extend over

the windows. The rats kept coming, and a few of them pulled out blowtorches. I enabled the double

security system. A laser ball rose up out of the hood and fired a warning shot at the closest rat. The rats

paused, considered for a moment, then continued on. I enabled security system three: search and

destroy. The ball fried three of them before the rest gave up and went in search of less fortified cars.

I'm on an expense account so I can afford to park on the ritzy top level of the lot. You should see the

things that go on down below.

I looked both ways carefully before stepping out from between the cars. There was a screech of

compensators as someone raced around a curve to come barreling down at me. I leapt up onto my trunk

just before he nearly hit me. SLiH, used to this kind of thing, held on tight. Three more aircars raced by.

The fourth stopped and rolled down the window. A cute little trylobyte smiled at me and said, "You

leaving?"

I shook my head, "No way, sister. I had to circle for an hour to get this spot."

She pouted and said, "You sure?"

As trylobytes go, she was quite pretty, but I'm not into that sort of thing. It's not that I'm a racist. I just

don't find nine eyes and twenty-three legs attractive in a dame. Of course, I spent my formative years in a

universe populated only by humans. I'm sure that colored my tastes.

I nodded, "Sorry, darling, but I've got business inside."

She frowned and shot off in search of another place. After watching two more cars speed by, I hopped

down and sprinted toward the skybridge. About halfway there, the sound of another car caused me to

push it into overdrive. The rats had guaranteed that any car still here had a strong security system. I

wouldn't be able to jump up onto any other trunks.

The car revved its engines. Whenever someone got hit in the lot, a tow truck always came with the

ambulance to tow the driver's car away. So this guy had an incentive to take me down. I pulled out my

heater and fired over my shoulder, setting off a car alarm. That got his attention. He hesitated for a

moment, giving me a chance to make it to the skybridge.

I'd survived the parking lot. Now things would get ugly.

I got in the line for humans. In all but our home universe, we'd hardly rate our own door, but this was a

special occasion. When we discovered how to jump universes, we spread through them like a Molotov

Cocktail through a paper mill. And we tried to bring our traditions and our "culture" with us. All in all,

though, we failed miserably. This was the one and only tradition that had caught on.

I surveyed my fellow humans as the line ambled forward. Every single one of them was a man, and they

all had that, "I can't believe I'm here" look in their eyes. The women had taken care of their business here

days and even weeks ago. That left these guys, each and every one of them both lazy and desperate. I

gave them their space. You can mess with desperation, and you can mess with laziness, but when

confronted with the combination, step aside. Trust me on this.

When I reached the glass doors, I took a deep breath and stepped in. There was a small slidewalk that

took us through a long tunnel in which we were bombarded with directed advertisements. That is to say,

they knew we were all humans, and they knew we were all men, so ten percent of the ads were for

power tools and, the rest were for lingerie. Nice models, even if they were computer generated and over

endowed.

The slidewalk deposited me onto the lowest level of the place. It was an enormous atrium with

hundred-year-old trees packed in thick enough to make it look like a forest. A leaf fluttered to the

ground, where a cleaning 'bot immediately zoomed out and annihilated it with a leaf blaster. The trees

appeared to have reached about halfway to the glass ceiling, some two hundred and fifty stories above.

The cacophony of sound was deafening. There were probably five hundred thousand beings inside, and

at least a tenth of them were speaking at any given moment. Attempting to cover the voices was a sound

system belting out festive music in twelve languages simultaneously.

"Do you smell that, SLiH?" The robot made sniffing motions, and nodded enthusiastically. Cinnamon

rolls. Sugar, covered with syrup, covered with more sugar, and topped with non-fat icing. SLiH tugged at

my shirt. He couldn't eat, but I'd programmed him to pretend to. Robots without personality are

worthless. "Maybe later, little guy."

Moving forward with the tide of people, I looked around. There were twenty-five thousand stores here,

and I had to find a missing person lost somewhere within. Of all the places to get lost, why'd it have to be

in the Mall on the day before Christmas?

* * *

An uberlosk and a mite were going at it over the last Yule(tm) Log in the Holiday Specials store. The

'losk had incapacitated the previous three people who'd tried to get the log, and only the mite remained in

his way. Now the standard uberlosk, unlike the Anserbarian model, is twelve feet tall, with hundred

pound hooves and spikes running down its legs. Mites, on the other hand, never get taller than three feet

and have brittle bones that break if they so much as trip while running. But my money was on the mite.

When one party is willing to fight dirty, size doesn't matter much.

The 'losk's feet came crashing down where the mite had been a second earlier, smashing the floor and

sending up a cloud of shattered tile dust. Using this cover, the mite raced around the giant and climbed up

its back. The 'losk reared up, but the mite somehow managed to hold on to both the Yule(tm) Log and a

spine. When the 'losk returned to the ground, the mite raced the rest of the way up its back and popped

a pill into its mouth, causing the 'losk to immediately lie down and go to sleep. Triumphantly, the mite

puffed his chest out and strode to the cash register, where he paid for his gift.

I tapped SLiH on the belly and said, "Pay up, little guy." SLiH had put his money on the uberlosk. He

kicked me in the shoulder dejectedly and credited my account. I watched the transaction go by on my

corneal implants and noticed that he'd shorted me, but I let it slide. I owed him one from our last job.

I stepped around the unconscious uberlosk and went to the trendy shop next store. My missing perp was

a female of my own species. Yeah, I know that I said the only humans here today were male, but this girl

was a teenager. Though we're officially the same species, teens are a different race. If you don't believe

me, try talking to one.

We were about to try out our fifty-third teen clothing store, "The Limited To U," and it seemed to have

even more attitude than the others. As soon as I stepped in, alarm bells went off and lights started

flashing. Two holographic images of giant thirteen-year-old girls, braces and all, stared down their noses

at me.

"Like, what do you think you're doing here?"

Impressive acoustics indeed to make a voice that shrill still boom. I did my best to mimic her perturbed

expression. "Like, my daughter said that you've got this thing that’s just flightsville and I gotta have it for

her, ya know?" I put my hands on my hips. "When she ain't got it tomorrow, you want me to tell her it's

your fault?"

The holograms looked at each other, considered for a moment, then said, "Okay, but get it and get out.

We got a rep to protect here." They disappeared.

The register girl looked to be in her late teens and obviously didn't want to be there. She stared at me

with the kind of disdain only a teenager can muster, and said, "Whatdoyou want?"

SLiH held up a holoshot, and I said, "The girl's name is Deirdre Manasliva. You ever seen her?"

The clerk sneered and rolled her eyes before turning them to the picture. But what she didn't do is what

the clerks in the last fifty-two teen stores had done. She didn't laugh heartily and give me a lecture about

the sheer number of people she'd seen in the last day. That was usually followed by a cat and mouse

game of me trying to convince the clerk to show me her sales logs and her claiming client privileges, while

SLiH hacked into her register and downloaded those very files. I hadn't found my girl yet, but I was

starting to get a good feel for the trendy items this season. Fortunately, that information would be going to

waste, as I didn't have any teens to buy for.

Anyway, none of that happened here. Instead I saw a faint flash of recollection followed by a twinge of

guilt. The clerk hid it well, but not from me. Grilling info out of clams is what I do for a living.

She shook her head. "Nah."

I smiled pleasantly. "Thank you."

"Whatever."

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DiamondsAreAGirl'sBestFiendbyMichaelPCalligaroIstaredindismayattheteemingmetropolisbeforeme.Multiplestreamsofperpsfedinfasterthanpot-belliedpigstoafeedlot.Therewere'podsfloatingdownbrisklymovingcanals.Therewerefeathersflutteringinthroughskyways.Thelargedoorswerefullofuberlosks,andtheshortoneswereful...

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Michael P. Calligaro - Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Fiend

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