The Duty Free Shop: Sky City Stories, #1

By Jeremy Harshman

What does it mean to be free?

 

Is it even possible when you're born saddled with a debt it takes a lifetime to pay? This is the question the citizens of Sky City, the techno-metropolis floating over the ruins of Tokyo, must not ask too loudly or too often. And if freedom itself is out of reach, is there a suitable alternative? 

 

For some, like the blue suits of Sky Corp levying their perpetual tax, the answer is power — however illusory, however incomplete. Better to be one of the oppressors than one of the oppressed.

 

For others, the answer is lying flat. Opting out entirely, at the cost of everything society has to offer. For ones such as these, the Duty Free Shop is the last and only stop. A haven for those who can't afford to pay, as well as those who refuse to. 

 

And for Duo, living as a ghost down in the city's mechanical innards, the question doesn't bear thinking on. He's not interested in anything but his next meal and the next rerun of his favorite show. Sky City has no hold on him. But Duo has a debt of his own, and its repayment is long in coming.

 

Tonight, the man he owes his life to, a vicious Undercity gangster, is sending him topside, in search of the Duty Free and an idealistic politician he hopes can be corrupted. And as Duo steals through the city's airy streets, he finds the question of freedom — his own, and that of those around him — is one that he can no longer afford to ignore.

 

A novella, approx 100 pages

 

A Greyburne's story

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeremy Harshman
• Release date: Apr 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223795353

Book preview

The Duty Free Shop

Chuui, get over here. This is a good one!

A bowl of steaming noodles warming the inside of his elbow, a bead of salty broth running down his chin, Duo slid feet first into the cozy heap of clothes and blankets that constituted his couch and his bed, wincing as a hard corner—quickly identified as his remote—dug painfully into the underside of his thigh. He shifted his weight, and the nest swallowed it like quicksand over an errant boot. Above his shoulder hovered his lone companion: a moon-shaped bot, lenses trained obediently on the green-tinged, wire-tangled screen tenuously affixed to the wall before them. The familiar voice of the narrator brought a smile to Duo’s lips.

"Tonight, we find our hero in the direst of straits! Rudely awakened by a fire raging in his high-rise apartment, he sees no way out. The walls and curtains are aflame. Choking smoke fills the air, yet the night is oddly silent. Where are the alarms? Where the cries for aid? Our hero is alone, and with help out of reach, even his remarkable strength may not be enough to deliver him from this towering inferno.

"How will our hero survive?"

Wavy black hair plastered to his forehead, silk robe hanging open to reveal his rippling chest, Anthony Enoki emerged from his darkened bedroom to a world consumed by flame. He cast his eyes about, anvil jaw swinging, in search of a way out. He found none. But for Enoki, inaction was a foreign concept.

He charged left. The blaze flared before him like a rearing stallion. He charged right. A glittering crystal chandelier shrieked into his path. He stumbled backward, throwing up his hands. Reluctantly retreated, coughing as smoke filled his lungs.

This is a pickle, Enoki rumbled. Right enough...

And pickle it was. The fire ate greedily, and his feather mattress and linen sheets would make fine fare. Though momentarily safe, he had nowhere to go, for his lavishly furnished  bedroom was as windowless as the ice box at the county jail.

I’ll roast in here like a holiday ham, he muttered, unless I think of something lickity split. But no matter how he beetled his perspiring brow, he could see no way out of his predicament.

The flames were licking at his door when across the room his picture window exploded. Glass rained in with a deafening whoof as air rushed to fill the vacuum the fire had made. An empty brown bottle of Markie’s Old-Timey Sarsaparilla rolled to a halt by Enoki’s slippered foot.

Yoooo! came an unfamiliar holler. Yoo-hooo!

Wind sucked at the guttering flames, clearing a temporary path. Enoki dashed to the window and leaned out. There, hovering just out of arm’s reach, he found a portly mustachioed man behind the wheel of a cherry red Haida Flyer, detailed in chrome.

Hey there, fella! the man shouted over the leonine roar of Enoki’s burning home. Looks like you’ve hit a spot of trouble. Hop in!

Enoki glanced down. The building’s side briefly gave the impression of a checkerboard floor; the ground a very distant wall. The ruddy-faced man watched him from beneath the brim of a black top hat. Enoki pulled back, then vaulted across the gap. Slid smoothly into the passenger seat of the gleaming airborne convertible.

Yeehaw! the man hollered as the craft wobbled under Enoki’s considerable weight. Pleased to meet’cha. Name’s Barron. Robert Barron. And this blushin’ flower is my daughter, Else.

The fair-haired beauty gracing the back seat smiled at him from beneath a canopy of fluttering lashes.

Ma’am, Enoki tipped a non-existent hat.

Y’know, said Barron, you’re the spittin’ image of ol’ Anthony Enoki. National treasure, he was. If he weren’t dead, I’d swear you were him!

I get that, Enoki replied. Call me Nameko. I owe you one, pal.

"Well, Nameko, I’m sure you’ll find some way of payin’ me back." Barron’s laughter echoed as the flyer zipped off, its taillights leaving red streaks across the night.

Duo’s chopsticks glistened as he pointed, a noodle trailing from the corner of his mouth. That guy—

Bugles blared. The old Tokyo skyline on the tube was replaced by a flat expanse of vivid orange, across which dashed a silhouette: a hulking, masculine form that was mostly barrel chest. The curling hair, the jutting chin, the toaster-sized mitts were unmistakable. A gang of spindly figures appeared to block his way, brandishing two-dimensional heat.

WHAM!

The screen flashed white as one of those monstrous paws connected with a glass jaw.

POW!

An uppercut: swift, undeniable. A sledgehammer knee. Gangly goons soared skyward. Their confederates froze like frightened hares. Turned heel. Fled. Arms pumping, the outline Enoki chased them out of sight.

A twangy guitar picked the first notes of a manly melody while wood blocks and tom tom drums hammered out a beat. A drawling baritone dropped bars:

"They took everything he had from him and put him on a leash.

They threw ‘im in the gutter and they kicked him in the teeth.

He was high, they brought him low, they thought he was their man.

The one thing they could never steal was the power of his hands—"

KAMINARI! A harmonious wail.

That guy— Duo raised his voice over the second verse. "Real dirtbag. You don’t know it now, but he’s one of Kaminari’s fiercest foes. The Robber Baron. He orchest— He paused as a singularly unwelcome sound reached his ears. Aw Christ, Chuui. Is that the phone?"

His robotic companion dipped in approximation of a nod. An insistent ringing rattled his round chassis, ruining the rollicking theme.

Duo set aside his noodles to fish for the remote. Who’s calling? He shook his head. No. On second thought, I don’t wanna know.

Chuui beeped.

"I said I—ugh!" The remote stuck out its nose. Kaminari—the Man with the Thunderous Fists, Anthony Enoki’s alter ego—continued pummeling his enemies in silence. Silence, that is, except for the relentless ringing of the phone.

Say it goes to mail, Duo mused. He’d buy I was asleep.

Chuui booped, unconvinced.

Whose side’re you on? Duo flounced back with a groan. "Fine. Fine. Put him on. Traitor."

The ringing stopped, replaced by the static of an open line and the distant sounds of men at work. The greeting that followed was more unwelcome than the ringing. Duo. You decided to answer.

Sorry Moru, Duo affected a yawn. Caught me napping. What news?

At this hour? Moru tutted. The father figure was a favorite role of his. Well, I hope you’re sufficiently rested. I need you to pay a visit to the Duty Free Shop.

Duo frowned at the ceiling, tongued a green onion stuck between his teeth. The Duty Free? What—you running low on grub down there?

Hardly. No, you won’t be playing lowly errand boy today, but hero. Arriving just in time to save the day.

The crease between Duo’s brows deepened. Save who? From what?

"Whom. And you’re going to deliver Shoutou Kenji from the clutches the Overcity’s crooked police force."

Shoutou...? Duo racked his brain. The guy that hawks herbal remedies on late-nights?

"If you paid more attention, you’d know he now sits at the center of a growing populist movement. One questioning Sky Corporation’s right to tax the