The name's Nick Iron, I'm a private eye, and it's not everyday that I solve a case before breakfast, especially when my head feels like my brains are trying to swell up larger than my skull due to too a night of carousing with a certain dame whose number I still didn't get. I've decided this feat of deductive dexterity deserves a reward, and that this reward should be in the form of a nice greasy breakfast at Ernie's.
To speak truth, what I really want is a drink, but the Hammett doesn't open for another six hours and drinking alone in your office before noon is something alcoholics do, so I'm going to settle for Ernie's. What can I say? I'm a man who sets standards for himself, and doesn't compromise them ever... mostly.
Besides, a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, and hash browns is just what a growing boy like me needs; packed with the vitamins, nutrients, fats, and grease that my hangover craves. Sure it's all synthetic, but if you don't tell my hangover, neither will I.
Ernie's is a throwback to the old days where men were men, women were women, and the working class was just crap on the bottom of rich people's shoes... well, I guess everything hasn't changed. It's in one of the few parts of town that have not been razed and replaced with skyscrapers. Myself, I don't have a real problem with all those big buildings; they block out the sunlight, and that's just fine with my headache.
I park in the garage of the Klep Tower, and walk the few blocks to the restaurant. The sidewalks are mostly deserted, a lot of people don't even set foot on the streets anymore, so I get some time alone with my thoughts, interrupted only briefly by a homeless person hurling racial epithets at a sickly looking tree.
The restaurant is mostly deserted; it's between breakfast and lunch, so there's only a couple other people sitting at the scarred and stained counter. I see Ernie through the window, standing there in his food-stained white shirt and apron, rubbing the surface of the counter with a rag that may well be making the counter dirtier instead of cleaner.
Ernie looks up as the bell on the door jingles as I open it.
“Nicky!” he calls to me, and I wince at the noise. He notices, “What, you have a bit too much night last night?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say, “It's a bit blurry, but I know I ended up back at the office with this fantastic lookin' dame.”
“Oh yeah, what's her name?”
I stop for a second to think. Dammit, I didn't get her name either.
“A gentleman never tells,” I say, “but I can tell you that she has expensive taste in shoes.”
“Since when are you a gentleman?”
“Enough with the ha-ha's Ern', I didn't come here for your scintillating wit.”
“The usual then?”
“You know it,” I said, and take an empty seat at the counter.
“Hey Tinbo, one hangover special!”
Tinbo is Ernie's kitchen bot. It's a rundown piece of junk, just like everything else in this place, but what it can do to bacon and eggs, well... well, it's a crime really, but it fits my appetite. Also remember to keep it away from your hat unless you like having fedora omelettes.
Ernie pours me a cup of brewkaf while I wait for the tin man to produce my breakfast, “Did you hear that they are gonna let civilians move to the moon colony in the next few years? We live in the future, Nicky, we really do.”
“Call me an earthworm, but I think I'll just stay here with my feet planted on the ground,” I say, mixing sweetener into my kaf, “You thinkin' of signing up then?”
“Yeah, sure, why not? I could move shop there. People on the moon gotta eat too.”
“You think the stuff that you call food would do well with the sort of people that can afford to live on the moon?”
“Yeah, why not? All those rich people have gotta eat too.”
“I doubt they're gonna want what you serve.”
“What's wrong with what I serve? You keep comin' back.”
“I have low standards.”
Before Ernie can come up with a response, Tinbo beeps from behind him. I get a quick glimpse of the robot's dull metal dome and eye-stalk as it moves away from the window, leaving behind a steaming plate of the food my headache craves.
“You know,” Ernie says, as I contemplate my plate, amazed as always that the bot manages to produce food that is both burnt and undercooked, “I could fancy up the menu a bit.”
“Ernie, the only people up there who are going to eat your food are the people there now, the squints and the grunts building the place; the ones living on NutriBars and the occasional pot of instant noodles. The mills and bills are probably going to set up their own organic farms so they can have real food instead of this stuff. And, and don't get me wrong here, I love this stuff, but if you did this to real eggs and bacon I would toss you out an airlock myself.”
Th bell over the front door jingles roughly, and Ernie and I turn to see the newcomer who has slammed their way in. He looks young, skinny, dressed in vintage denim (almost certainly reproduction) with a blue and white bandanna obscuring his face like some sort of old-timey train robber, and looks like he has more than a passing familiarity with at least a couple illegal substances.
Oh, and he has a gun.
“Everybody freeze!” the kid bellows, and Ernie and the couple other customers in the place start to play statue. I cut into my eggs.
“I said freeze!” the kid commands, pointing his hand-cannon at me. It's an old piece, possibly belonged to his father or grandfather, or at least to the father or grandfather of whoever he stole it from. Judging by his appearance, I doubt the gun is even in any condition to fire without blowing off his hand.
“I'm not going anywhere, kid,” I say around a mouthful, “No reason to let my breakfast get cold.”
The kid fires the gun. It does not blow up in his hand. Now I don't know if it was a warning shot to make a point and he's got exceptional aim, or if he just can't aim for crap, but the shot hits my plate pretty much dead center. The plate doesn't break, but my food explodes like Tinbo had cooked a tiny bomb into it, splattering the front of the coat, hat, and face with egg, potato, and grease. The plate itself slides down the counter, taking my cup of brewkaf out as it goes
I turn to look at the kid, placing my fork down on the counter, “Now that was uncalled for,” I say calmly, “That food didn’t do nothing to you.”
The door to the kitchen slams open and the metal juggernaut that is Tinbo comes rolling out. His body is basically a cylinder with a dome at the top and dozen multi-jointed manipulators attached halfway down his height. He shoulda been recyc'd years ago, but Ernie is too cheap to replace him.
The kid's eyes widen as the six foot tall mech speeds around the counter towards him, arms flailing. He fires the gun twice, and Tinbo's domed skull erupts in sparks and smoke. The bot spins, overbalances, and tips over. It bounces off of the table in an empty booth on its way down to the floor.
“Whoa!” yells Ernie.
“If you're still feeling like shooting non-sentients, there's a chiller in back that I've always thought was kinda shifty,” I say, and start to rise from my stool, “Come on, I'll show ya.”
“Stay put!” the kid yells, pointing the gun at me again. Since it seems that he is a decent shot, I decide to listen, “You're Nick Iron, ain't ya?”
“Yeah, but if you were looking to procure my services I woulda been back at the office in a hour, and you coulda left the shooter at home.”
“This is my lucky day! You ruined y life,” the kid snarls, “it's your fault I went to prison.”
“So what, you miss your friends there and thought you'd pull this little caper so you could get sent back? You know the police are gonna be on their way by now, yeah?”
“I don't care about no coppers. There's nothing they can do to me that's worse than what you did to me.”
“You mean what I caught you doing, right? If you weren't doing something illegal, you wouldn't have gone to prison. So what did you do? I'm guessing you weren't just cheating on your wife. What was it, insurance fraud?”
“Drugs! You exposed my lab to the cops. I coulda just paid you off, but you had to go be hero.”
I remember him now, the bandanna deceived me. This is no kid; he's well into his thirties now. His name is Everett Malone, and he was a chemist at Genetitech. I actually was hired by his wife, pretty thing she was too, because she thought he was cheating on her. It turned out his mistress was the chemicals he was using to make a souped-up version of methamphetamine.
“I remember you now, you made that crap they sell on the street now as Grimeth. People die because of you.”
“And you're gonna be one of 'em”
“I knew I shoulda just let you burn when that lab of yours went up. Shows me for being the hero.”
“You shoulda just taken the money and pissed off. I lost everything because of you; my wife, my career, my freedom.”
“You were running a drug lab. If I hadn't caught you, someone woulda. Why don't you just put the gun down, turn around, and leave. I'm sure Ernie here will forgive you for plugging his cook, ain't that right, Ern?”
“What? Yeah, whatever! Just don't hurt no one!”
“See, here's a chance to call things even. You can leave now and not ruin your life again, or you can be stupid, stick around, wait for the police, and go back to prison. You're choice.”
The skin around his eyes reddened with rage, and he stalked towards me, “I have an IQ of 190; you don't get to call me stupid!” he held the barrel of the gun so close to my face that I could feel the residual heat coming off it.
Now I'm getting old, and I'm not as fast as I used to be, but I'm still faster than a drug-blasted nerd with a gun. I snatch his wrist with my right hand, and shove upwards. The gun fires into the ceiling as I twist his arm. He yelps like a dog roused from sleep by a swift kick to the guts.
I twist Everett's arm harder, and he lets go of the gun. It clatters on the counter in the splattered remains of my breakfast. Everett's head soon joins it as I slam his face down hard, harder than I need to, but not as hard as I want to.
With their normal impeccable timing, it is now that I see a police land out front. Better late than never, I suppose.
So now I get to look forward to spending the rest of my day giving statements to the police, my head is throbbing worse that ever, I need to get my coat cleaned, and I still haven't had my breakfast. Some days it just doesn't pay to get up off the couch.