Galaxy P.I.

   Light covers the city, even at night; a bevy of colors, my favorite ones being the variations of green on the white buildings. It’s a very bright place, especially during the day. The skies are almost always clear, but when it rains, it really pours. It’s like someone dumped the cosmic bucket of water down on the city.
   The skyscrapers stretch higher than my neck can bend from street level, but the sun still reaches us bugs on the street. Couple of the bigger places are as big as city blocks and act as cheap housing; they’re the tallest. Pretty fancy stuff for cheap living, at least by Earth standards. I got me one, near top floor. Everyone here is at least twice as big as a human, so my apartment is very spacious. Scary shit looking all the way down – hell, it scares me looking half way down – but the view over the rest of the city is magnificent! They’re not like the buildings back home.
   The indigenous species here are called something I can’t remember. Translated into a language I can understand, it means something like “Peaceful Conquerors.” Their language is too difficult for me to learn, so I spent a pretty penny on a nice piece of shared tech that translates every Earth language and about three hundred others. Gives the term “universal” a whole new meaning.
   My office is on the other side of the city. I feel like a kid sitting in the back of the taxi. My feet hover almost half a foot above the floor. At least the seats are nice and soft. That’s one thing about everyday items; pillows and couch cushions don’t mat down, so you never have to buy a new one. I was even able to commission an engineer to build a TV from their technology that picks up Earth channels. Cost me another pretty penny, but the money is really good in my line of work. Not to mention I get military benefits from back home. Full retirement. It really pays to keep dirt on your superiors. That’s how I got into this. After the military, I had a small P.I. gig. At first it was just a small business I ran from my apartment in Chicago. Then, we get this case that ends up taking me off world to chase down some alien psycho who liked to suck the skin off the fingers of little girls. I tracked him here, to this planet, and it ended with me putting a bullet in his squidy blue face. Turned out he was only right brained, so he survived and was arrested. As penance for my vigilantism, I have to work here doing the same job I was on Earth.  
   Can’t complain. Super spacious, more tech than back home, and the chicks love to hook up with the cute space man from Earth. It was weird to be garnering so much attention considering I was never anything special on Earth. Here, though? Everyone wants a piece, for better or worse. The better parts are the best. For worse, there’s Matilda. In the Marines, we had to name our rifles. She was Lola. She was also relatively useless when people wore magnetic shirts that could stop bullets and others had skin so thick I might as well have been shooting paper balls from a slingshot. Matilda shot a highly pressurized burst of air that was superheated. Yeah, you can call it a laser. I do. It’ll burn a hole into your skin a centimeter down, so it’s nonlethal for the most part. Just hurts like hell. Matilda bit the hand that feeds her when some punk blackjacked me from behind last year. I put my hand up, he shot. I had to work left-handed for a month while it healed. I don’t like using their fancy healing sprays. No telling what sort of adverse reactions it could have on a human that it doesn’t have on them.
   I also have Boomy. Sounds fancy, but it’s just a gravity enhanced stick. Nice little baton that I use most of the time. Damn thing is like a small bat in my hands. Lot of people get lippy and you need to put their disrespectful butts in place. So you crack ‘em one with ol’ Boomy, maybe dislocate their knee – easiest to reach with their height – then they’ll shut the hell up.
   I come through the door, embarrassed as always because I feel like the 8-year-old coming into work to see mommy. One thing they didn’t do for me was accommodate for my size. Didn’t feel the need since I was smaller instead of bigger. Made using the network easier. Nice big screens!
   I see my boss, Grak, sitting at his desk, suited to the nines in battle gear. His plasma rifle leans against his desk and his high power pistol at his side. I don’t know what the hell that hand cannon shoots, but they make a big bang. And a big hole.
   Grak is almost my age in Earth years. Much older in years where he comes from. Like me, he also had military service, but he really earned his stripes. Six off-planet battles and several scars to prove it. The most prominent scar on his large body is on a nice chunk of his face. Looks like it was carved up real good in some close quarters scuffle. I never did see any war time. Pay would have been nice. Did a few political protection runs, but nothing exciting ever happened. Grak, though, he is a hard ass. Drill sergeants didn’t shoot sunshine up our asses, but this guy shoots red hot solar flares up everyone’s ass. Doesn’t like me because I’m in a good position that someone else should have had. Someone else probably earned it, too. He also doesn’t like me because I’m human. I’m sure it’s not a racist thing. More of a “humans destroy everything they put their greasy little fingers on” thing. Can’t argue that.
   “Knox!” His deep voice grunts at me as I tread the blue carpet. “You’re early.”
   “You really going to bust my ass for being early?”
   “You can’t build up anymore comp time and we don’t give overtime. Don’t let it happen again!”
   I give him a half-hearted wave of compliance before getting inside my office. I still have to look at the prick, though. All the rooms have nano-fiber optic walls for ease of data sharing. Certain software from the company prevents us from blacking them out or putting up anything so we have something nice to look at other than each other. Every time he looks my way I get the feeling that he expects I dropped dead somewhere between then and the last time he looked at me.
   He only likes to celebrate one Earth holiday, Saint Patrick’s Day, and not even for the drinking. His daughter’s favorite color is green, so he makes the lot of us wear green shoes, hats, and suits on the day. Can’t complain about their fashion. Even if it is all one color, it’s reminiscent of something from turn of the century Chinese back around 1900. I always do a few faux karate moves in the mirror when I have to dress up.
   Yen’ajá comes into my office – I just call her Yena – with a fresh folder. I can smell the ink in the air. I’m willing to bet the paper is still warm from the printer, too. It’s probably someone whining about how I am on the street. She’s just doing her job, though. One of the better looking aliens I’ve seen on this planet, too. She’s from a few planets away where the people are smaller than the ones here, but still bigger than humans. Some place really humid, lots of giant blue mushrooms and misty rain. Everyone always joked about hooking up with some green skinned babe, but no one ever thought of her when they did. She’s one of the few who hasn’t found it a good idea to jump my bones. I’d happily give up all the rest for her.  
   “Another complaint,” her firm, aged voice dotes. “People are starting to form a negative opinion about you, Daxton.”
   “Most of the…‘people’ out there are over twice my size. I have to be rough with them or they’ll literally just walk all over me.”
   I felt like a putz for actually doing the finger quotes, but I don’t let it show. I just take the file and glimpse it over. The face is familiar. Skeletal and pale, eyes sunken so deep you might find buried treasure in them. Many of the druggies threaten to file complaints. He was the first one to follow through.
   “Has this already been put on the network?”
   “Of course.”
   “Good.”
   It gave me an excuse to use my favorite piece of paper disposal technology. I always thought paper shredders were cool when they cut the paper into tiny little squares so identity thieves had an impossible job at stealing your information. Here, though, there was no need for shredders. A persisting beam of super-heated air burned the paper. I love watching it burn.
   I smile big and she gets a short laugh out of my devil may care attitude. I don’t have the courage to chat her up more before she leaves. When she walks past Grak’s desk, I see him dead-eyeing me. I suppose he thought maybe I should have jumped into the paper shredder after the paper and do him a favor.
   My favorite time of day is lunch. I always eat somewhere away from work, lest Grak find the way I eat to be another of the many reasons to hate me. I like a little noodle place down on the opposite corner of the block, so I get to walk. It’s never packed, but always busy. More of a take-out place than a sit-in place. I enjoy sitting at the bar while the melodies play from their alien jukebox. The music sounds like concert strings and flutes mixed with electronic beats with little bass. As for the food, I never ask what’s in it. I like it, though. Bit of chew, like perfectly cooked linguine. The white noodles soak up the spiced red broth and change color. Long strips of indigenous vegetables accompany the noodles and tangle together.
   I enjoy a big steaming bowl of noodles with a side hunk of flat bread to squeegee the bowl with when I finish. Good to the last drop! On special days I don’t work, namely holidays like Christmas, I like to bring a bottle of imported sweet red wine and have them flash chill it to enjoy with my meal.
   My walk back is slow, always is. I get sluggish after a big meal, and lunch is the biggest meal of the day for me. The air is cool, aided by the wind. The combination of warm rays of sunlight make it perfect, better than any weather back home. Just before entering the building, I get shoved by a dark skinned native. I’ve had run-ins with him before. He always runs a few deep.
   “Pardon me, sir.”
   “Sir?” He was offended. “Do I look like one of you little Earth people?”
   “Just trying to bridge the gap in race relations, trade some lingo.”
   He kicked me in the stomach. It was as easy as kicking a ball.
   “Take that to the bank and cash it.”
   I took a knee on the white stone street and held onto my stomach.
   “That’s pretty good! You been watching some b-rate Earth movies?”
   He picked me up by the throat and carried me into the alley. His goons were already waiting for us there. They knew they didn’t need weapons. I never carry on my lunch break. I’ve also never been in an alley before, but they were surprisingly clean and dry. Not at all like you see on TV with puddles and garbage everywhere. Then again, this wasn’t exactly New York. At least some fresh blood would soon decorate the walls.
   The four of them give me one big beating all at once. When there was pain all over and blood almost the same, they took a breather. One of them cracked his neck. It sounds disgusting when you hear one of them do it. He clenches his fists and swings down at me. I flinch, but it doesn’t land. I hear a body slam into a wall and see a large muscular shadow stand over me.
   “The fuck am I going to do with you, Knox? How the hell do you get jumped at lunch?”
   Grak helps me up and hands me his gravity baton. I tap it on the ground a couple times to make sure it works. He never uses the thing, so I have to be sure it’s not faulty.
   “Go home, Kenerat. Take your crew with you. Killing you yields paperwork I’m just not keen on filling out.”
   Four against two are the kind of odds you can be pretty sure you can win if you’re on the bigger side. Hell, it could have been four on Grak and I think he could still come out on top. He’s not just a hard-ass. He’s just plain hard. When I first met him, he was training in a holo-simulator. Maximum difficulty, maximum opponents. Twenty guys with weapons and Grak with just his bare hands. Or lizard hands. Not sure what he is. I’d feel more accurate calling him a dragon.
   The strategy was obvious and simple. I go low, he goes high. I break knees, he breaks faces. They weren’t dead, but we sure took our time calling for medical to pick them up. It was the first time I ever fought with him. We had a natural chemistry. Our moves complimented each other, aided the other in their next move. It was pretty freaky, but really cool. A great deal of respect gravitated his way and mine.
   Sometimes, I still catch him looking over at me. The death stare is gone, but somehow I get the feeling like he expects something from me, maybe for me to show him what I’m made of and take him on myself. That just sounds like a death sentence. Then again, it could be really fun to fight a dragon.