Shell

Nick smelled the creature long before he saw it; a peculiar, pungent aroma like a wet sponge. It wasn't a scent he'd encountered before (at least, not outdoors; his bathroom smelt similar to this on a daily basis despite the cleaner's best efforts).

It had been a slow day so far. There had been an accident on the track he'd been going to practise on, forcing him to look for entertainment elsewhere. Usually accidents were easy enough for the medics to clear up – Nick himself had been involved in several since he first joined the racing scene – but this had apparently been an attempted suicide that had gone wrong.

With the whole day unexpectedly free, he'd managed to do a little last minute gift shopping for two of his friends, stopped off for lunch in a nearby restaurant, managing to lose the press beforehand after only ten minutes of ducking and diving. This had meant that he couldn't go to his favourite place for a meal, but the small restaurant he'd found instead had been surprisingly good. The Lysian approach to haute cuisine was to throw everything in a pot, simmer until the chicken was cooked (Lysians put fish or poultry in pretty much everything) or until you got bored, then dump it into a bowl and hope it tasted nice.

Curious and having nothing better to do, Nick followed the smell through the market, down several narrow back streets and finally tracked down the source in an alley that somehow managed to look dark and dingy despite the brilliant sunlight shining in from above.

There was a rustling sound from a pile of boxes in the corner, and Nick approached, reaching out a curious hand.

Hot pain flashed through his palm and he jerked back, swearing as he caught sight of the vicious and already bleeding bite mark on his hand. That was all he needed.

Then he caught sight of the creature that had bitten him and promptly forgot everything else, sore hand included.

The animal was two foot long, and solidly built. A hard yellow shell covered the animal's entire body in banded plates, from which six stubby legs protruded. Each leg had five short toes with large, shovel-like claws on the end of each one.

A rhumboll. Nick had seen them in books, but the real ones tended to stay clear of urban Districts like this one. They were desert creatures, digging lairs underground and living off spiders, snakes, scorpions and what little plantlife they could find.

A full-grown rhumboll had no natural predators, but hunting had critically endangered the species and most Lysians never saw a live specimen. There were numerous conservation societies dedicated to bringing the creature back from the brink of extinction, but plenty of people thought privately that they were fighting a losing battle. Female rhumbolls only had one clutch of around five or six eggs in their lifetimes. After that, the reproductive organs withered and died.

"What're you doing way out here?" Nick said aloud.

The rhumboll grunted at him, then attempted to drag itself away. Nick glanced at the creature's hindquarters and felt sick. You didn't need to be a vet to know that the rhumboll's back leg was broken, probably beyond repair.

"Well, wherever you came from, you're not gonna be going back there anytime soon."

Had it been smuggled in? Nick supposed it was possible. He didn't know much about the biochemistry, but he did know that grinding up a rhumboll's shell plates produced a powerful hallucinogenic drug that made heroin look like icing sugar, and which was the main reason for their being hunted. Street name, Shell, medical name, who knew? A single one of those plates was worth over ten thousand Lysiums on any street corner.

Rhumboll claws were also in demand - apparently they were a strong aphrodisiac - but Nick had never had any problems in that department and even the mere thought of eating what amounted to raw rhumboll toenails was enough to make him feel queasy.

Well...the rhumboll still had five good legs, even if the sixth was shattered. He could get it to a vet, get it fixed and then see what happened.

Probably ship it off to some sanctuary or other, he thought grimly. Rhumbolls took a long time to heal, and by the time this one's leg was fixed, it would probably have grown so used to having humans feed it that it wouldn't be able to survive in the wild anymore.

The problem was how he was going to transport it. Rhumbolls were protected; it was illegal to own or even handle one. Nick thought rather sourly that doing this good deed would probably result in his having the crap kicked out of him either by a rabid conservationist or a drugs gang...or both.

And having the press hound him for interviews everywhere he went wasn't likely to make travelling incognito any easier.

"I should have known I'd find you here."

Nick glanced around, seeing a tanned, dark haired young man leaning against the wall.

"Ash! Long time no see."

At sixteen, Ash was a year older than Nick, and a complete mystery. Even those few he dubbed 'friends' knew nothing about him or how he'd come to be in Scavenger City District. Although Nick knew him well enough to know that he wasn't included in the circle of Ash's friends, he and Ash were still on, if not good, then at least civil terms.

"I heard there was something like this going on." Ash never wasted words on something as trivial as 'hello'.

Nick glanced at him, taken aback. "Huh? Something like what?"

"You don't know."

It wasn't a question, and Nick bridled at Ash's superior tone.

"I'm a little out the loop."

"That's for damn sure." Ash shrugged. "It's the oldest scam in the book. Someone beats up a rhumboll, someone else picks it up and takes it to the vet, only they make sure it's too late to save it. Then they just take it away again and sell the body to their contact, who makes a killing on Shell, as well as other things."

Nick grimaced. "Like toenails?"

"Precisely. I imagine we're being watched right now. There's no way you'll be able to get that thing to a vet without being challenged."

Nick grinned at him. "Doesn't matter to me since I'm not taking it to a vet. I'm taking it to a hospital."

It was worth the pain in his throbbing right hand just to see Ash's expression at that moment.

"A what?"

"Hos-pi-tal," Nick repeated, raising his voice slightly. "They'll never find it there, and I'm sure there's a doctor or nurse who can patch it up."

"A doctor?"

"Yeah, a doctor. I mean, splinting an animal bone's no different to splinting a human one, right? And when they're done, I'll be able to smuggle it out to some sanctuary or other."

"Sanctuary?"

"Yes, sanctuary - you know, Ash, maybe you oughta get your hearing checked out."

Ash waved this aside. "You're nuts and you know it. They'll never agree to that!"

"They will. 'Cause, see, I'll explain the situation--" Nick hoisted the box containing the rhumboll into his arms-- "and tell 'em about everyone wanting to kill this poor little guy and junk, and they won't be able to turn me away 'cause if they do, I can go straight to the press and tell them all about how this hospital wouldn't help a creature like this one. And no hospital wants bad publicity, Ash; it's tough enough for them to get staff and funding as it is. Which reminds me, I need a favour."

Ash raised an eyebrow. "I don't do favours. You know that."

Nick rolled his eyes. "Oh c'mon, we're pals. I just wanna get from here to the hospital without being mugged. Think you can swing it for me?"

Ash scrutinised him coolly for several seconds. While Nick had no doubt that the other youth could do what he asked, he had even less doubt that he would do it for free. Ash didn't believe in altruism.

"A thousand."

"What?" Nick stared at him. "That's daylight robbery!"

"No, daylight robbery is when I take the money from your unconscious body. Of course, I'm just as happy to do it that way, if that's what you would prefer."

It wasn't just an idle boast, Nick knew. Ash had once told him that he knew at least three ways of rendering a person unconscious, and only one involved hitting them. Anyone who thought Ash was bluffing about carrying out his threats was in for a very nasty surprise.

"Fine." Nick glared at him. "A thousand."

Ash smirked. "Deal. Give me ten minutes and then you can take your little guest to any hospital in the District you like. I'll see to it you're not disturbed, and you'll give me the money by the end of the week."

Turning, he sauntered off towards the main part of the District. Like so many of Ash's remarks, the last part hadn't been a request or even a suggestion, but a simple statement of how the future was going to be.

Could Ash pull it off? Nick knew he carried a lot of weight with the District gangs, but this much? Would they wave goodbye to a hundred thousand lysiums' worth of profit just because Ash told them to?

Alone with the rhumboll, Nick shifted his weight, wishing Ash would hurry up, wishing that the other managed to pull it off and above all wishing bitterly that he'd taken another route home that day.