Hard Luck Hank Screw the Galaxy(68)

I avoided Garm’s apartment for the most part. In fact, I don’t think I had ever actually visited it. I just didn’t feel right about going to the Adjunct Overwatch’s private home.

But I wanted to talk to her free from other distractions.

There were guards posted outside. Guards inside. A guard at her door. Seemed rather excessive, but I suppose she was making more enemies than usual lately by forcing the bosses to purge their wares.

Having been announced, Garm finally let me in.

Her apartment, if you could call it that, looked like a palace.

Precious metals and gemstones were everywhere and the whole apartment was filled with items of wealth and extravagance. There were little figurines covered in glittering diamonds, on top of a bureau covered in rubies; so many expensive rugs on the floor that they overlapped bulkily; exquisite vases filled with fake flowers made out of mosaics of jewels; a giant antique mirror with hand-carved etchings that must have taken years to complete. It looked like someone had picked the good bits from a museum and squished it down to the size of a Belvaille apartment.

I had often mocked the bosses for their conspicuous lack of taste and over-the-top décor. But Garm had shamed them all. I had to admit, taken as a whole, which was not easy to do, her apartment was overwhelming. And maybe that was the point. Or maybe there was no point and she just really liked expensive junk.

“The ceiling?” I asked. “You have paintings on the ceiling?”

“What do you want, Hank? I have a lot to do.” She stood by a fanciful table covered in mythological beasts. She seemed to be studying blueprints.

“How are you going to explain all this stuff?” I asked, still looking around in wonder.

“This isn’t my official home. I live in a nondescript little place. But yeah, a lot of this is going on the fire,” she said with a sigh. “I’ve been avoiding it.”

“I’ve got some bad news and some really bad news,” I said. I felt I couldn’t keep this under wraps any longer.

“If this is some boss worrying about anything, you need to take care of it. Do whatever you have to do. I have more important things to deal with. The Portal is open and I haven’t heard word one from the Navy.”

“I have delfiblinium,” I said plainly.

“I asked you if you knew of some and you said no!” Garm bellowed.

“I know. I thought I could take care of it.”

“Hanks don’t take care of delfiblinium. Governments do. Huge teams of scientists. Why can’t you men ever admit you’re in over your heads? How much do you have?”

“A couple hundred pounds. About.”

Garm’s mouth dropped open and she sat down on a nearby gilded chair. Well, she fell onto it.

“You’re sure this is delfiblinium?”

“Yeah.”

“How in the million suns did you get that much?” she asked.

“I have a source,” I said.

“No. No,” she repeated, standing. “You’re going to tell me where you got it, where it is now, and who I need to have killed. Wait, does this have anything to do with everyone passing out?”

I thought about this.

“It does!” Garm began looking around and I was sure she was searching for her gun.

“Wait, that’s not the really bad news,” I interrupted.

Garm looked truly frightened and stood up straight, as if awaiting her execution.

“There’s…a Dredel Led still on Belvaille.”

Garm’s eyes darted around as she processed this, like it might be hiding underneath one of her golden tables.

“Delovoa kind of owns it. It’s in his basement. It was deactivated, but it somehow got turned on and now it follows him around.”

Garm was about to say something. Her lips formed and unformed multiple times.

“I guess he bought it years ago and it was inoperable,” I continued. “Then we were in his basement and it started talking. It hasn’t—it doesn’t seem violent. But it’s really large and I doubt we can damage it.”

Garm took a seat again and put her head in her hands. I waited, hoping she wouldn’t be too mad and might have some advice on how to proceed.

Then I heard an odd sound. I looked back and Garm…Garm was crying.

Garm. Crying.

I didn’t know what to do. It was like my reality was unraveling. Garm was unbeatable. Unflappable. And here she was, right in front of me, crying.

“W-What are you doing?” I asked dumbly.

She looked up and her face was red and tears were streaming down like two angry, feminine rivers.

“We are this close. THIS close to having the military just kill us all. Just wipe us away. And I’m doing everything I can, everything I possibly can to prevent that. And you tell me you just happen to have a damn continent’s worth of the rarest, most destructive substance in the galaxy. And we also happen to have an affable Dredel Led hanging out in someone’s basement.”