Dirk the Duck

Dirk

"Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we weren't like this?"

Ruth asked, her eyes fixed on the swirling smoke of her cigarette. Dirk shrugged,

"Not really, I kinda like how we are."

Ruth chuckled softly.

"Me too, but sometimes I can't help but wonder what it would be like if we were something else."

Ruth and Dirk's relationship was a mystery, even to themselves. Despite knowing each other for a significant portion of their lives, they never quite fit into the traditional mould of friendship. Yet, there was an undeniable closeness between them, akin to that of a love labourer and a customer, in Ruth's case, or the bond between two regulars in the same sticky, damp, dark corner bar, all history with no future.

Currently, they sat on opposite ends of said bar's wooden counter. Just like them, the place had a history as well. It used to be called the YokoMono. It had been closed down for dubious reasons involving poor management, landlord disputes, and just that tiny bit of racial tension and gentrification. Anyhow, it had been closed and replaced by a hip coffee shop that was a lot nicer to look at, probably more profitable and certainly less prone to annoying the neighbours. It was also incredibly boring. Time went on and five centuries later, the coffee shops, had come and gone, to be replaced by a man named Stannislav Popow, who never paid homage to the past, but miraculously made a bar out of the place again, that resembled the old Yokomono to the grain of wood on the counter. Now it was called "Stanni's". It featured the same 500-year-old pool table, some benches, and tables tugged away in alcoves to sit at, a narrow corridor, a ground floor half a meter below street level sidelined by windows that from the outside were often considered doors, and a mix of people from all slices of life, practically living in there, and going about their day or night or whatever inconsequential number the clock was pointing at. Stanni himself was well-beloved, if not for his caring, indifferent attitude, then certainly for his signature drink that he never failed to talk his unwitting customers into trying. The "Stannislav's Russian Love" was a terrifying, taste bud killing take on what elsewhere would have been called a Cuba libre. It consisted mainly of home-brewed rum -being rum only in name, in fact the source of it was mostly mouldy potatoes that no one else bothered to buy- and it certainly had no lime in. It had something going for it though; it was cheap, and it made people drunk, and it had a hint of mint to it. The Bar was set, and filled with Russian Love. Stanni had his standards well established. To him, taste was overrated, in the end ambience and alcohol were where it's at, and that was exactly what made Stanni's remarkably ordinary, and despite popular opinion, successful. The business model, money for drinks and companionship, this age-old habit of the ape descended, had largely remained untouched by the digital revolution.

A permanent haze of cigarette smoke draped with a hint of sweat, coffee and old dirt swirled around the few words that were being exchanged at this time in the morning and vibrated to the low thrum of the beat. Besides Ruth and Dirk, there were a handful of others present. A group of young men were starting the evening off with a little Russian love and a terribly bad round of pool that seemed to take up the better part of the hour, and threatened a follow-up game. The occasional click of two or more balls striking together, and the more frequent soft thump of the white bouncing off the table walls, kept the quiet alive in a way that mere music never could. At a table in one of the two alcoves sat two women and held a quiet private chat while throwing occasional glances in the general direction of the pool table party, which were sometimes shyly reciprocated.

Dirk took a sip of his coffee. His day had just begun, and, as was his custom, he liked to start up his brain with drifting, unfocused, coffee drenched thoughts about the absurdity of his life, his universe, and the general predicament of the purpose of it all. The wrestling with low-key depression has apparently prevailed over the centuries. He considered it ironic that despite all the advancement's of the ape descendents had made in the neurosciences, this simple problem had only ever been attempted to be solved by shoving more nonsense information into the brains of the masses. As far as he could tell, even the latest generation of neural implants didn't offer a solution to this particular concern. Not that he would allow himself to fall so low that he would even consider giving some company access, not only to read his mind but also write in it as they saw fit. The mere idea of it already appalled him. There certainly were benefits to it, that much couldn't be denied, but the loss of control was unacceptable, or was it not?

Then again, how much control did he even have over his thoughts. His mind had settled on a comfortable conclusion, he had no clue. It was a bit of a habit. In his line of work, assuming truthfulness, but erring, could get people killed, and him in trouble, so he tried to stay away from it. And more so, he tried to keep his private thoughts away from work, but had a tendency to fail at it. Dead bodies had a way of creeping up on him, haunting his dreams, both asleep and awake. Very carefully, he nudged his consciousness away from them and gave himself new directions. It was an acquired skill, and a vital one at that, he developed and maintained over the years, lest he wanted to end up like his customers. In the early years of his career, the images of mutilated victims, had him drenched in sweat for nights on end and sometimes shivering unexpectedly during the day when for some reason or another he was reminded of something terrible. No, peace of mind was essential. "Be wary of your thoughts, they turn into speech, into action, into reality and shape the future" He quietly mumbled to himself as was his custom.

"Next coffee Dirk?" Stanni's voice shook him out of his introspection and pulled him back into the here and now.

"I'll be taking that coffee Stan, and put it on Dirk's tab, he'd just be letting it cool off without touching it anyway, so I might as well. Right Dirk?"

Stanni smiled and did as was suggested, it hadn't been the first time. At first, he thought it to be weird, but there was obviously something going on with these two and who was he to not sell a coffee that was ordered.

"Alrite, but don't leave me hanging here without something to drink"

Stanni already had a second cup in his hand as he turned to the coffee machine.

Ruth giggled her insane little smile and blew him a kiss.

"You're doing well for yourself today? What's got you in such a good mood?" Dirk sceptically asked.

"You remember when we first arrived here, and I refused to tell you how I managed to get us into the city?"

"Yea, it was peculiar, and you still owe me an answer to that even though I have been reluctant to ask, the curiosity of it has persisted: So how did you?"

"Oh wouldn't you like to know"

"Yes, if you'd finally be willing to indulge me?"

Ruth considered for a moment. She obviously enjoyed the attention and Dirks cluelessness. She had, at a point in her life, thought that they would make a great couple but blew it on several occasions, despite really wanting it to work out. It just didn't. She had dragged his sorry ass out of the drowning hellhole that had once been the great city of Amsterdam, just days before the Oosterschelde-Barrage had broken and given way to the North Sea, indefinitely ending the Netherlands and with it all hopes of staying. Dirk had been less than reluctant to leave but eventually given way to her pleas and went with her to Hamburg, basically one step up the ladder of pending disaster, yet for now the city seemed save enough. He owed her, and they both knew it.

"Never mind, you don't need to know"

"Fine, have it your way"

Dirk fumbled around in the pockets of his coat and drew out a pack, and lit a smoke. He hated that infernal woman, he loved her once, he knew she was trouble when he first met her. He just hadn't figured out how much. He was grateful, and owed her his life, maybe, and when they had first arrived here he had thought they would be having a family together. They didn't. Dirk had gone to do what he was best at, getting the lay of the land and solving its plentiful crimes. Ruth had done exactly the same thing, only that her vocation wasn't particularly family friendly. He had hoped she would eventually drop it and find herself a new work and lifestyle, but she didn't, and between his moody self, sullied by the dirt of the world, and her appreciation of other men and their money, whatever it was they had had, broke.

"Dirk honey"

He slid the pack over the counter. And looked at her. She was still beautiful, nearing 40 hadn't diminished her in his eyes. She was the kind of woman that was just naturally blessed with all the right features that made men of all ages turn their heads and salivate at the mere thought, however cut-throat she could be. Once, he gave way to his emotions and actually paid her for a night. He still regretted it. That had been the definite end to it all. Just another customer, he thought. She probably didn't see it that way exactly, but it was hard to tell and mattered little because for Dirk it was just that. It irritated him how she could sustain his presence and how they both kept ending up in Stanni's care despite neither of them actually wanting to meet, yet they were seemingly unable not to.

Dirk got up, he needed to leave, he didn't have anywhere to be in particular, but staying wasn't an option he cherished. His coffee sat at his place, untouched. He put some money under the cup and left it there for Stanni to collect, nodded to Ruth, mumbled something about work into his beard, and got up. It wasn't over. Ruth would continue playing him. His only sane choice was to leave.

The outside world, that greeted him, was the exact reason why most people in the city chose to spend their time behind closed doors. Schmuddelwedder, vies weer as he knew it, the local brand of murky air and a thick cloudy curtain that hung over the city like God's blanket of disapproval, as if he had decided to have seen enough and needed a break. Apparently, the man had a habit of doing that each year for the majority of the cold half of it – much to the dismay of everyone involved. Dirk contemplated what to do next, where to go, wondering if the city would throw him a bone, a lead. The nature of his work included quite a lot of waiting – his services weren't required on a daily basis, good for them bad for him, yet he needed to stay in the loop and remain sharp for when something happened. His smoke had burned down to the filter and reminded him of its existence by burning his fingers a bit. He cursed and dropped it, stomped on it angrily, and started walking. Without thinking, his feet chose to head straight for his office. He passed by the old Nazi Flak-Bunker, a huge, impressive castle made out of concrete that was topped off by a greenery hat. It had been a massive fortification designed to withstand continuous bombardment in the 2nd world war. Ironically, it had failed miserably at its intended purpose, shooting down aircraft, since the Brits always managed to take out its cannons on their bombing runs, but had proven to be a very permanent structure. Its two-meter thick walls were so impenetrable that after the war the Allied just decided to leave it be, for even trying to demolish it would have just levelled the surrounding buildings but not the Bunker itself. So instead, it just remained until eventually the city made use of it in quite a different manner than the Nazi's had intended. The first to come were the musicians, being very fond of thick walls protecting them from angry neighbours complaining about the awful noise, then the clubs and before anyone knew it a hole ecosystem had evolved and the once dark reminder of a crueller past had turned into a central node for social life. And did come in handy when the bombs fell. A surprising amount of musicians and DJ's survived the early days of the apocalyptic war inside its thick walls. Its greenery hairdo suffered for a few years, but came back stronger than ever as a veritably massive slightly irradiated jungle, looking a bit like nature's approximation of unkempt hair, until someone had the brilliant idea of making a climbable ponytail out of it.

Dirk passed it with a smile and strolled aimlessly around. He wasn't looking for anything in particular, and if he found something intriguing by accident, then that would be it. It wasn't a waste of time in his view. The city wasn't familiar to him yet. He knew its basic layout, what parts of it had once been brilliant areas that now lay flooded by the ever so slowly extending Alster, what had fallen into disrepair due to lack of population, what had been lost and reclaimed, and where one was likely to die of radiation poisoning or nasty encounters. In his first weeks here, he had taken it upon himself to explore. It's been a couple of years since then. He had done the tours, once. One though the port, in a little barge captained by a loud shouting man exclaiming trivia about the "Has been, Schönste Stadt der Welt", that tried very hard to look like an old sailor, but presumably liked sleeping on land better. The other tour he took was on one of those very British red double-decker tourist trap busses. Amazingly, they were still around and in active duty despite two centuries of war, famine, global warming, rising sea levels, radioactive winters, and fallout that would melt your skin off in a matter of hours -fortunately that last one had got somewhat better. Someone must have cared, cared enough to maintain this once rather silly import from another culture. In a way that was comforting, not because of the stupid busses no one needed, but rather because of what it meant. The people here, their political representatives, their senate made up of old money rich families that date back to the Hanse trade federation that were somehow still around, the city itself cared about history. So much so that at times living here felt to Dirk like being in a museum. He liked that about it, there was still much for him to discover. It had a similar vibe to his old lost home, not quite the same but enough to embrace it as a substitute home, as many others had. Refugees from all around the globe made up a significant chunk of the population, but had fit into it all like feet into slippers. Maybe that was a quality specific to here, maybe not. Dirk had no way to tell, travel from and to places was risky business, so people stayed in place. His guess was that the German's intense need for historic pride, had something to do with it. And it probably helped that much of it was drenched in regret and ancient guilt, to be found on small bronze plates embedded randomly in some side walks, sticking out just a tiny bit, making you trip over them, and read the names and causes of deaths of the Nazi regime's victims.

He trotted on, his legs a little shaky from not having eaten anything yet, and substituting breakfast today with a good look into his emergency bottle. Eventually he reached his office in Seiler Street 5 and flung himself onto his couch, determined to be productive today.

Good evening, Hamburg! Welcome to "Hamburg Aktuell", your go-to source for the latest news and updates from our city. I'm Julia Schmitz, and I'll be your host for tonight's program.

Let's start off with the weather forecast. Tomorrow is going to be a beautiful day with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-70s. So make sure to get out and enjoy the weather while it lasts!

Next, in local news, the Hamburg Senate has concluded discussions about next year's budget for the city's expansion. The proposed budget includes investments in several key areas, such as infrastructure, education, and public safety.

In other news, the new generation of the Stellerator fusion plant HSF is making significant progress in its development. The plant, which is being built on the island of Wilhelmsburg, is expected to be one of the most powerful and efficient fusion plants in the world. The Stellerator design is unique, as it uses continuous magnetic fields to contain the plasma, which is heated to millions of degrees Celsius to produce fusion reactions. The plant has the potential to provide clean, safe, and abundant energy for future generations. Despite the challenging circumstances, Scientists and engineers are working tirelessly to ensure the success of the project, and many are optimistic about its potential to revolutionize the energy sector.

Moving on to international news, tensions are rising between Riad and Mumbai over water rights in the Indo-Pacific region. Both sides are claiming ownership of the same water resources, leading to a dangerous standoff. Our sources indicate that military troops have been deployed to the area, and the situation remains volatile. This dispute highlights the increasing importance of water resources in our changing climate and the need for sustainable management practices.

In local news, a woman was found murdered on the Balduinstair earlier today. The victim has not yet been identified, and no suspects have been apprehended. Police are urging anyone with information about the incident to come forward and assist with their investigation. The murder has shocked the community and is a tragic reminder of the need for continued efforts to combat violence against women.

On a lighter note, Hamburg has some exciting events coming up in the next few weeks. The Hamburger DOM, the city's largest festival, will be returning to town, offering a variety of food, drinks, and entertainment options for visitors of all ages. Additionally, the Hamburger Kunsthalle is currently showcasing a collection of works by German expressionist artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, providing a unique opportunity for art enthusiasts to engage with his iconic pieces.

That's all for tonight's program. Thank you for tuning in to "Hamburg Aktuell". We'll be back tomorrow with more news and updates.

The feed went on, but Dirk had tuned out again. It was always the same, more of the same, more weather, more flood news, sometimes a discovery by a smart person, sometimes an interview with a not so smart person, politics, some socio-economic debate, and occasionally, actually useful information. Overall, it wasn't very interesting, but keeping up to date was a necessity, if only to not get caught in radioactive rain, and a bit of a hobby for Dirk. What really caught Dirks fears was innovation, not because he was a technophile, but rather because it scared him like nothing else. It was the inevitability of it that got to him. He felt like a horse. Back in the dark age, horses were ubiquitous, they had a number of use cases to them, personal transportation, agriculture, messaging, war, and more. With each century that passed, they became more and more obsolete as they lost their usefulness. First was the wire. Long range messaging via horse was just inferior to electric signals, so that was done away with. Same for their use in agriculture, a plough pulled by a tractor made a horse seem silly. And when personal transport vehicles and aeroplanes came to be, the world's population of horses went down to less than a quarter of what it had been a decade before. The only reason they were spared extinction was for their use as pets. A Human on the other hand, one might presume, is not a horse, and intrinsically more valuable for they are intelligent. That, however, is not true, and was a very serious miscalculation on the horse's part, and humanity as a species was about to make the same mistake, proving they were quite definitively not above horse kind when it came to planning for survival. Dirk saw it as a natural flaw of evolution. This Darwin character got most of it right. The universe was trying very hard to increase its complexity, to use all energy differentials, and whenever something was better at that job than its predecessors it replaced them via evolution. For humanity, this had played out awesomely over the last couple of millennia. However, evolution is not a concept limited to biological life, or life itself for that matter. Life was just the latest tool it used to create agents of entropy, burning away and spiralling out the complexity of the universe. Technology and its subsequent innovations were just another tool, one much better suited to the task. It always started with a discovery of sorts. The physics, which many thought to have been exhausted long ago, produced another carrot for the horse of technology, and the cart of humanity was dragged on into wherever that particular carrot came from, indifferent to where that may be. And it went on and on and on and on. Wooden boats? Yes, please, never mind deforestation. Steam engines? Of course. Coal power plants? Naturally. Atomic weaponry? We'll do it before anyone can say otherwise! Gene modification? More crop, more harvest, what's not to like? Self improving AGI? Gamble after gamble and none too risky to take. When would it finally be realized that the horse only cared for the carrot, and we were all sitting in a cart with no reigns? In a quite impressive feat of ignorance, when reality finally caught up and detonated half the planet in nuclear fury, the rest of us that were left went right back for the next carrot. Cart, carrot, and horse ready to go blindly and enthusiastically over the next cliff. Dirk hated it with a passion, and he was a sceptic by profession.

"In local news, a woman was found murdered on the Balduinstair earlier today"

Now this was something real that demanded his attention.

"… Police forces are not yet disclosing information, but assure all citizens that the case will be conclusively investigated …"

So it was a dud for the news for now. Very promising, Dirk thought, and quite unusual. Murder in the heart of the city, which was a very well observed and restricted area, usually came in the form of hate crime or just the usual drunk brawl gone wrong. This was something else, thus, there must be an angle into it for him. Time to get to work. Dirk shifted gears, gone was the dreamy laziness of the past days. He needed a lead, he needed to know where, when, who, how and who he could charge for this investigation. Never mind, he thought, someone would pay up. Although it had happened before that, all he got out of a job was some "sincere regret" and "heartfelt thanks" from the next of kin. Moving on.