Yet the Traitor Stands in Worse Case of Woe
She’s one of us now!” Piston swept her up to the bar and into a bracing hug with his metal arm. Titanium ceramic composite, built himself with scrap from the very junk pile Kerr had just found.
Kerr reddened, but relished the accolades. It distracted her from the soreness in her feet. Her mother’s combat boots were too big, but seemed fitting for such a grand occasion. She knew Saoirse would be proud of the two new circles branded just under her left eye
“Caoimhe was always one of us, dad. She was born here,” Chalice slunk around the other side of Piston, leaning her elbows on the great block of rusted iron that functioned as a bar top.
Typical pettiness, Kerr thought. She’d thought that a lot lately. Thought about leaving. But that’s all they were. Thoughts. And their current situation made it more difficult.
“Kerr,” Piston corrected. “She’s Kerr now.”
Kerr flicked her eyes between Chalice and Piston, grateful he’d said something. It itched that he had to.
“You were born here too.” Piston reminded his daughter.
The quiet gruffness in his voice said everything.
He wouldn’t push too hard, but everyone knew Chalice’s mother was a sore point.
Piston might have organised the Chargers and gotten most of them off of Chem, but Lydia hadn’t been among them.
Chalice had never quite forgiven her for it. Or Piston. Or Kerr.
Kerr tried to project something like sympathy through her eyes, but Chalice was staring off into the middle distance, lost in her Opti and ignoring them both.
She thought she saw the hint of a smirk before the clink of glass on metal interrupted her borrowed family drama.
A shot of ethanol appeared, along with Greasegun’s smiling visage.
“Congrats.” They arched and lowered their eyebrows.
“Now you can drink here while you complain about her.” Greasegun tilted their head toward Chalice as if she couldn’t hear them.
The phantom smirk became a scowl. “Fuck you, Grease.” Chalice pushed herself off the bar. She stole Kerr’s shot and downed it. “I’ll be upstairs.”
Greasegun lowered one eyebrow, wiping a glass. Piston put a hand on Kerr’s shoulder. He would handle it.
Kerr stared at the empty space where the shot had been, comically short legs dangling off the stool.
“Another,” Piston grunted before taking a deep breath. “You don’t have to put up with her shite, you know.” He said it to the bar, not to Kerr.
She gave the giant man a side eye. “And then? You only took me in because we’re together.”
“No, I took you in because we look out for each other.” Piston tilted his nearly empty glass. Greasegun refilled it before he had to ask.
It was true. Piston had accomplished a feat no-one else had managed – take the refuse Tyton had cast off and give them hope.
At one time, Chargers were synonymous with rubbish.
But now? While the other gangs spoke of them with derision, they also left them largely alone.
They would even negotiate for services occasionally.
“We control another building. Smaller.” Piston took a drink without looking at Kerr. Eye contact felt too personal, too involved, even though he undeniably was.
“It’s not The Glacier.” Greasegun leaned over as if anyone had invited them. “One of my boyfriends lives there. Say hi to Frankie if you see him.”
“Frankie?”
“Actually, kick him in the nuts if you see him.” Greasegun seemed more amused than bitter, a jovial prank rather than assault.
“You still believe you’re going to save enough to get into The Glacier?” Piston scoffed. “You’re delusional.”
“One day,” Greasegun looked wistfully at the cracked Hexaline wall with a mouldering water stain. “I’ll have enough scrip and I’ll disappear. You poor wretches will never see me again.” They tossed their rag on the bar top and walked off to talk with another customer.
“Sure, Grease.” Piston finished his drink and leaned over to reach into his pocket. He pulled out a keycard and set it on the bar. “If you change your mind.”
Kerr looked at it and then back at Piston. “You don’t think it odd that you’re not defending your own kin?” Kerr worried that this was less about Chalice and more, that he wanted to be rid of her.
“You want me to make this about you?” Piston slid the keycard closer. “Fine. She’s not in a good place and she needs a kick in the pants. But Lydia went down in the same incident as Saoirse. She needs space. From everyone associated with that whole thing.”
“I’m the one who should be upset. Lydia was the one who…” Kerr didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to speak ill of his late partner. “I lost a mum too.” She dropped her gaze to the bar, channelling the unfairness of it all into her shot glass.
“Doesn’t matter.” Piston lowered his voice. “Death happens in this business. You coped. I coped. Chalice will cope, but she’s not there yet.”
“Feels like she just wants to take it out on me forever,” Kerr mumbled.
“Uh huh,” Piston agreed. “And if I’m gone tomorrow, are you gonna stick around, let her take that out on you too? For how long?” Piston poked a meaty finger into the side of her head. “Don’t waste your life on someone who’s gone.”
“I know.” Kerr remembered his words from Saoirse’s wake. Grieve and get back up. Otherwise, that’s two lives gone. Hard, but practical in this city. Inspirational to the Chargers he pulled out of their addictions.
“Listen to an old man who’s seen this play out a hundred times before,” Piston said. “She’ll come around faster without you as her punching bag.”
“I’d listen to the old man,” Greasegun called over the din of the crowd.
“This doesn’t change anything between us.” Piston picked up the keycard and put it in her hand. “You don’t have to decide today. Hold onto it.”
Kerr let his words stew for a moment. Then she nodded before sliding off of the stool. She would tell Chalice she got one more chance and then, that would be it. Picking her way through the growing crowd, she opened the door to the filthy stairwell.
MB12 – Tyton’s shittiest tower. The monument to poor planning hadn’t even found corporate naming rights.
Phase One construction had barely finished before it overflowed with Chem, Chem-laced human excrement, and people selling body parts for Chem.
At one point, not a single legitimate business existed in this building.
Doing so meant, you would be robbed and murdered.
Your implants would then be sold for Chem.
MB12 was the last stop before you ran out of juice for your cyberware and had to move underground.
So naturally, it was the first bit of turf acquired by the Chargers after Piston managed to organise them. They might not have much, but after years of living off of broken shite, they got pretty good at fixing shite that was broken – including MB12.
Functional – not pretty. Filth still accumulated in the corners, along with piles of rubbish.
A lifetime of hoarding other people’s refuse on the off-chance that it might be useable one day made for a near-pathological aversion to throwing anything away for good.
Olfactory implants had dampener settings for a reason, after all.
Kerr ran a hand through her strawberry blonde hair.
Sure, Piston had advised her to leave, but she couldn’t help feeling like it was a betrayal.
Like she didn’t appreciate taking her in after the incident with the Styx.
Yeah, Chalice treated her like trash, but Chargers didn’t let trash go far.
It could always be fixed with a little luck and the right parts.
Kerr gave herself a moment to appreciate that mental witticism before opening the door to their flat. Immediately, she could tell something was off. A muffled sound. Scraping? Tuning her audio processors, Kerr crouched, not that it would help. Most people overlooked her standing at full height.
Reaching across her body to Mercutio, her heavily modded IntelArms pistol, Kerr angled toward the sound. Mercutio whirred to life, registering two biosigs – faint through the walls, not enough to identify, but definitely two. Chalice wasn’t alone.
Throwing herself against the door, Kerr tumbled and trained her sights on the intruder. A gasp, a lamp toppling over and the electric whine of the pistol finding targets before her Opti adjusted to the low-light conditions.
“What the fuck?” Chalice’s head popped from between Manifold’s thighs.
“Pure hell, Chalice!” Mercutio fell with a heavy thud. “Again?”
Chalice wiped her mouth. “I never promised I wouldn’t.” She turned to the half-naked woman on the bed, gathering her clothes.
“The fuck, Chalice? You told me you were over.” Manifold briefly made eye contact with Chalice before hastily donning her underclothes. She didn’t bother looking at Kerr, but she muttered “Sorry. Cheating isn’t my kink.”
“You didn’t use your safe word, though.” Chalice raised an eyebrow suggestively.
“My safe word is fuck you. That’s not how scenes work and you know it.”
Kerr’s eyes bored into the woman refusing to look at her. “Wait, what?”
“You didn’t know she does scenes either?” Manifold finally gathered the courage to look at Kerr. “You’re pure shite, Chalice. Don’t call me again.” She fastened her belt and shoved past the door.
Kerr stared at the depression on the bed for a few moments before deciding to sit on the floor, back against the wall. She couldn’t sleep here anymore. Piston was right.
Chalice ran her tongue across her molars before she said anything. “Going to cry about it again.”
Once that might have worked. Kerr might have burst into tears. She did last time. For some stupid reason, she believed that she was a hero for staying when Chalice kept trying to push her away. Love being enough, and all that. But now, she just felt numb. “You need to tell me something, yeah?”
Chalice seemed taken aback by Kerr’s response. She waffled for a moment before sitting on the bed. “What?” Acid still dripped from her voice, as if this was all Kerr’s fault.
Kerr reached over and gathered Mercutio. It looked ridiculous in her small hands. “Why string me along? Why not break up with me?” She rested her wrists against her knee, waving the barrel of the pistol around the room as she talked. “What do you gain out of all this?”
Chalice frowned and then squinted. For a moment, Kerr thought she might actually get a real answer this time. “It’s just sex. It has nothing to do with you.”
Kerr wanted to stand up. Wanted to cross the space between them, grab Chalice by the collar of her shirt and shake the answers she needed out of her.
But deep down, she knew she wouldn’t get them.
Knew that Chalice likely didn’t have any answers to give her.
Likely that Piston was right. Likely that she was hurting and blindly lashing out. But she didn’t have to be here for it.
Kerr fished the keycard out of her pocket and scanned it before sending the address to Chalice’s Opti. “When your dad gets in, tell him thanks. Then send my things to that address.”
Chalice went pale, hastily getting up from the bed.
Kerr held up her hand before she could speak. “You can call when you fix yourself, but I won’t promise that I’ll pick up.”