I wasn’t used to being important enough for the leaders or the one-percenters of a motorcycle club to pay attention to me. Things had changed after the Battle of Warhammer’s Nest. Good and bad, my life had changed. I had to change with it.
Pop’s philosophy had always been, “Take no shit, mate.” Except he pronounced itshite. “Take no shite, mate.” Remembering that, I pushed my shoulders back, walked in, shoved Jacopo off his booth seat, and took his place, my back to the wall, facing the door. Everybody laughed, including Jacopo who scooted in across from me, saying, “Prez Smith.”
The honorific shocked me. Nodding at him, I decided to roll with it.
If I wanted to keep my people safe, that’s who’d I have to become. Prez Smith. Someone who took no disrespect from anyone and demanded respect from everyone.
I could do this.
Three cats came in with my people: Spy, Spot, and Narrow Stripe. They ran into the room, searching in the corners. Hunting prey. Great to know the place had meals for the cats. As long as the prey wasn’t also in the food. But no one had told me we’d have cats along, so they had been in hiding somewhere. I glanced at Cupcake who shrugged, her blue eyes avoiding mine, her body language saying, “What could I do?”
I held in a sigh.
My people took an empty booth beside the corner one, sliding in, some facing the door, some facing the rest of the diner. Excellent firing positions. I was so proud.
“What’s good here?” I asked when the waiter sidled up.
The pasty-skinned man looked shaky. Terrified.
All of us were armed. Looked badass. Were badass.
“Not here to cause trouble or hurt you,” I said, “and we pay our bills.”
“Hell,” Bengal rumbled. “Anybody cause you trouble while we’re here, we’ll end it for you.” He curled his cybot arm as if making a muscle. “No beef on the menu?”
The man shook his head no, looking as if he might puke. “We have beef at C-C-Christmas. Goat or boar sometimes. When my pa can hunt. Meat’s pricy.”
“If I shoot anything nearby, I’ll dress it and bring it to you,” Bengal said. “Until then, I’ll have the grilled cheese and the cabbage.” He grinned evilly down the table. “Ya’ll’ll be glad we’re riding separately.”
“Fart joke?” Jacopo asked.
“Not if I have to explain it. Damn. Tough crowd.”
???
In formation, Bengal and me in the lead, we took the cutoff toward the wartime mine. For the first kilometer, the road was fine and appeared to be in use. Abruptly, that changed. The road and three meters to either side had been intentionally destroyed, as if small bombs had dropped from the sky. Enough pavement remained for us to slowly negotiate our way around the holes, but after we spotted the first undischarged ordnance, we spread into a long single file, leaving plenty of room between us. The Quadros were a wider wheelbase and had a harder time negotiating the pocked roadway. We slowed. Our positions made us easy targets to snipers, but no one fired on us.
Stone, hauled from the mine had been broken, ores extracted, and the rubble discarded. It lay in piles everywhere across the landscape, some like small mountains, some no higher than my head, were I standing. Other piles looked melted, the result of the Bug ship beam weapons. We passed amachine that had once been big as a parking garage, melted into slag.
There was no green in sight. Everything had been bombed or blasted from space.
Yet, oddly, the trail we were taking still looked used. I tapped my morphon and said, “Head’s up, boys and girls. Muters on. Something stinks about all this.”
The vehicles went quiet.
Silent as a breeze, Mina sped up and passed me, taking point, moving fast. Jacopo followed, tight on her tail. They disappeared around a wide bend, crushed rubble on our left, the heart of the mountain on our right, unbroken stone rising hundreds of meters. The sun disappeared. The cold bit into my hands despite my gloves. The shadows darkened as we neared the heart of the mountain.
“Halting,” Mina said.
“We got squatters,” Jacopo said.
When the road straightened out, we saw what they meant. I came to a stop some twenty meters from the two, the others behind me. Mina and Jacopo were holding weapons, and each had targeted ahead with their bike weapons, blasters set to fire in a high tight sweep into the wall, centimeters above the crowd. Not that the people in front of us knew they weren’t being targeted.
I put my feet on the road, the bike vibrating silently under me like a big cat purring. I gave myself the leisure to see everything, keeping them waiting. Wondering.
I breathed in toxic fumes and dust and wanted to cough, but held it off.
A stone wall with a narrow gate had been built across the road. Currently, the gate was closed. To either side, poles had been raised. On them were naked bodies. Impaled. I hoped after death, and not before. Either way, they were warnings. Keep out.
