“Repetitive,” I said to Mateo. “You dropped the last one too.”
“Not repetitive to her. It was her first time.”
“Right. Well, I hope she enjoyed the demonstration. Did you break her arm too?”
Mateo pinched the girl’s wrist, lifted it and released it. “Sadly, no.”
“Jolene,” I said, “upload the vid of her ignominious arrival and landing to Marconi. I estimate it will take him ten seconds to call. Sixty seconds after the Old Man tries to reach us, I’ll take his call.”
“Giiirl. You do like to tie a man up in knots.” Jolene punched a key on her camo-ed metal arm. “Vid sent. Comms to you. Countdown is set to your morphon, to initiate upon receipt of incoming call. When it hits sixty, take the call all by your lonesome. I’m fixin’ to go inside and brew some sweet tea for the lunch crowd, and release Alex and her mama, Wanda, from protective custody. Mateo,” she said without raising her voice. “Stick that little nutjob into a medbay. She’s clearly jonesing for Devil’s Milk.”
“Yeah?” Mateo bent over the object of his demonstration of warbot suit camo and defensive measures. “Affirmative on the withdrawal symptoms. Shaking, sweating, pale, clammy. She looks puny.”
He picked her up again, this time by both legs, and carried her, dangling upside down, toward the UC. The Urgent Care trailer had several medbays, and I was sure one would be capable of mitigating Mina’s symptoms. Not that she would ever be totally clean. Once a human was addicted, they were always addicted. Except Mateo. My nanobots were healing (had healed?) the former starship commanding officer. Too bad my nanobots and the medbays currently available to me couldn’t regrow limbs and brains.
I pushed up my sleeve to reveal my morphon. I already had an urgent summons from Marconi waiting and he’d had the vid for maybe eight seconds.
Twenty seconds into my countdown, before I pressed the button to accept Marconi’s call, I heard Mina’s squeal from the back of the roadhouse, the high pitched noise changing to hissing and screeching. “She’s got DM! She’s got it. I want it. It’s mine. I’ll kill you all—”
Mina’s tirade went silent. I assumed Mateo had shaken her or hit her. I hoped he had held back. At least a little.
I accepted the call and put it on speaker. “Junkyard Roadhouse and Motorcycle Club, Shining Silver, Prez, speaking.” Just to remind Marconi that I had power now, too, and also to remind him that he wasn’t a prez of anything yet, just the Hells Angels Charleston chapter house president. Admittedly, it was a powerful position, especially now, when I had gifted him a fortress in the hills outside of Charleston, West Virginia. Before he could reply to my hello, I added, “How’s the new place I gave you, Marconi? You making friends with the locals yet?”
Marconi, his voice colder than hell, said, “You. Have. My. Daughter.”
“Yup,” I said. “She came onto my territory,armed. She entered the roadhouse grounds,armed. She aimed a loaded weapon, with intent to kill, atme. I would have been within my rights to shoot her and give her to the cats.”
The ambient noise changed and a woman with a lovely Italian accent said, “Forgive my husband. Most men think with their fists when their daughter is in danger. Good morning to the president, from HA Charleston.”
“Good morning, Lucretia,” I said to Marconi’s wife. “It’s always nice to speak with the real power of the Charleston chapter.”
“Humph. You flatter well. Is my daughter alive?”
“Of course. Maybe a little bruised. Maybe a little concussed. Maybe a lot addicted.”
There was silence in the background and I figured I had been muted. While the Marconi’s debated their next move, I gloved up and righted the damaged bike, kicked the twisted front wheel until it was mostly front-facing and pushed it toward the repair shed. The covered shed was the latest addition to the roadhouse. Bikes always needed repair, and with parts in short supply, and mechanics worth their weight in gold and rarer thanthe aforesaid gold, bikers needed a safe place to trade parts and fix bikes, gossip, and fight. Fighting not allowed in the roadhouse itself, only in the parking lot, so the shed was close by to accommodate the necessary violence.
Jolene wanted to add a beer tap to the shed, so greasy, mean-assed bikers would stay outside, but I had nixed that plan because letting customers have access to a tap could cost me money, and I was not about to lose any of that. I had been poor for too many years. I was curious how long it would take Jolene to figure out how put in the tap and still charge for the beer, without one of the roadhouse members having to be on site to monitor the tap and take money. Knowing the AI, it wouldn’t take long.
I shoved the damaged bike to the side and left it, heading back into the roadhouse and out of the cold. The call resumed as I closed the swinging spaceship doors on winter.
“Good morning, Shining Smith, President of the Junkyard Roadhouse. I hope your day is progressing well,” Marconi said.
“That’s a bit better. Want to try a sincere apology?”
Marconi snorted.
I laughed. A VIP in a motorcycle club never apologized but the niceties had been concluded. “So, what made you call?” I asked. “Was it the sight of Mina flipping in the air or her landing?”
“How badly is my daughter broken?” he asked.
I had answered that twice, but maybe he wanted specifics. I sat in my favorite stool and tapped on the countertop. The keyboard appeared as thin lighted lines, letters, and numbers. It checked my biometrics and opened a screen over the bar. A second tap brought up the UC medbays. Both prisoners were receiving treatment. The readout above Mina’s bay told me shewas being sedated and scanned. A soft beep indicated a prelim triage.
I said, “No broken bones. Pissed off as hell. Fighting being sedated with amazing strength of will. What dose were you keeping her on?”
Marconi went silent again, but this time I hadn’t been muted. He must really be upset.
“We didn’t want to put her on the . . . DM,” he said, in case someone was listening in on comms. His words were heavily laden with guilt and fear.
