Soldier of Fortune: Gideon Quinn Adventures Book One

Chapter 33

"Wendell was after his monthly payment," Tiago, the young man Gideon had theoretically assisted, explained as he poured tea for his guests. "Which wouldn't normally be a problem, but that the university bursar's office was closed by the time I arrived yesterday, and now it's the weekend, so there's naught I can do until Monday. Wendell didn't like hearing that," he added, one hand waving over the bruise on his jaw. "Obviously."

Forty minutes had passed, and Mia and Gideon were now seated in the closet-sized kitchen of Tiago's flat, in one of Lower Cadbury's more habitable buildings.

Or rather, Mia and Elvis were seated. Gideon stood in the doorway, slipping one of Tiago's shirts over the multitude of wounds their host had cleaned and dressed.

Tiago, it seemed, possessed a great deal of medical experience, along with the spare clothes.

He wasn't quite as tall as Gideon, but was also not quite as emaciated, so the clothing fit well enough, even if the shirt's sleeves didn't quite cover the ligature marks on the older man's wrists.

For her part, Mia was just relieved Gideon no longer smelled of blood and compost.

She couldn't tell if Tiago had been impressed or appalled by a savior sporting a prison tattoo, and looking as if he'd just come off the battlefield. Either way, he'd done the needful for Gideon, and in her books that made Tiago a decent sort.

"I'm guessing this payment has nothing to do with rent," Gideon said, beginning to button the shirt.

"Security." Tiago confirmed the supposition.

"A security racket? Here?" Gideon asked, looking at Mia.

"There's more a' that in Lower Cadbury than the other neighborhoods," she told him. "People with less to lose being more eager to keep what little they got."

"From the mouths of babes," Tiago murmured, laying a squashed packet of biscuits before Mia (and thus unknowingly saving himself from a tongue-lashing for referring to her as a babe). "I run a free clinic, here in Cadbury."

"You're a doctor?" Mia asked, crumbs spewing forth with the question, much to Elvis's delight. "Sorry."

"Fourth-year student at Yousafzai's Medical College," Tiago replied with a small smile. "I am one of the three Tenjin Corporation scholarship recipients for the class of fourteen fifty. This includes a stipend for housing, but I thought the money would be put to better use helping my neighborhood, so I live here, and use the stipend for medical supplies for those in need."

"Damn," Gideon said.

"Oy! Language," Mia chided.

Gideon gave her a look, then sat down at the little table. "Tell me more about Wendell," he said to Tiago.

* * *

It was a story as old as Fortune.

Older, Gideon figured, as every bit of Earth's history he'd learned supported the notion that crime was as endemic to the human race as war.

In Wendell's case, it was a simple matter of being the toughest bully on the block, or blocks, in Lower Cadbury's case. The neighborhood, in the farthest outskirts of Nike's Ninth District, had fallen on hard times during the earliest days of the war. A rare airstrike in Avon had hit the area hard, and with most of the city funds supporting the colonial Corps, nothing was allocated for rebuilding.

Now only those too poor or too stubborn to relocate remained, including, Tiago explained, a number of veterans, mostly those too physically or emotionally damaged by the wars to slide comfortably back into society, and Tiago himself.