The fighting continued. Sharkey spent money to bring in elites, Sun Shots blew them to bits, and we struck back on the ground.

He was bleeding money and territory, and his income was plummeting. Gangs were abandoning him (and really wishing they could join us) and his rivals were closing in on him from all directions.

Days and weeks passed, and the shooting basically didn’t stop. I watched my Marked take down hardpoint after hardpoint, things blow up, and some of my kids die. Cyborgs and Walkers were the worst threats, of course, but snipers, assassins, and bombers with sneak attacks never really let up.

My Marked weren’t reluctant to call on me if they thought I was really needed, as they’d seen what I could do. But they were also improving very quickly themselves, and the first of them were hitting Five and getting Falling Star, the ‘I turn all attacks into touch attacks’ Feat, also known as Deep Impact. Suddenly, the armor of the cyborgs was useless, and all that massive damage from having Binary Suns was going right to the important bits.

He did try bringing in a couple Wilders at one point, having little to lose. Those Wilders were very unhappy to find out they were dealing with Nulls, and very, very shocked, too, seeing their Summoned Ectos getting torn apart with single shots, and their telepathic assaults hurting them more than their opponents!

They were also unhappy to discover that the Mentats were keeping an unusually close eye on this conflict, simply because of the number of Mindblades involved who had no other psionic abilities. My Marked were far tougher than normal psions; fast, agile, more skilled in combat, and uncommonly resistant to enemy attacks. When the Mentat Tens quite literally popped into the scene to take custody of the Wilders, that particular fight was all done, and no other Wilders were eager to step forwards afterwards. Two of the more kill-crazy borg-bots getting all of their limbs pulled off via TK might have had something to do with it.

The average Mentats also loved the Shield Foci, although it was the Coronal Knights who were clamoring for me to make more of them. They were useless unless you could manifest a mindblade, but it still meant the Mentats were maaaaaybe rooting for us.

Eventually, it was time to wind things up.

----------------

Sharkey showed up with two bodyguards to the meet. He was wearing bling in the form of Energized metals and gems, portable wealth that was actually enough to see him off-world or to another mega-city, and give him a stake there. The borgs were high-end mercs from the League of Iron, bought and paid for, and loyal to their contracts until death, enforced by brainbombs and the like.

Brekko was there, in a more sedate clerical suit, loose-fitting and mobile, his Sword and Shield Foci obvious and noted. There were half a dozen other members of the Green and Gold, all of them with Shield Foci... which naturally meant they were all Clawed.

Sharkey was a man of average height and swarthy complexion who could have come from any number of human heritages. He had once-black hair that had been growing very grey over the past two years, dark black emotionless eyes, and a long, sharp nose he’d carefully restored every time it had been broken. The combination of his dead black eyes and gleaming metal teeth implants had given him his name... as well as a known fetish for very fresh soylent, and pre-soylent, as it were.

“Who’re you?” Sharkey demanded, seeing the young man in front of him, although he already knew. “Where’s the Hag?”

“Ah, Sage Sama is currently twenty-four hundred and seventy feet underground next to the wall under Groosenblok. It seems a mutant Precreote Sand Wurm managed to bore its way through the shield wall, and there’s an open tunnel behind it other things from outside have been using. She’s sitting in front of it until the Themazons can get down there and fill the hole full of durabar and rockcrete. Since she’s earning a thousand creds an hour plus bounty on whatever comes in, she decided to send me. Whatever I decide, is what goes.”

The fact I was listening to and seeing all of this through multiple sets of eyes and ears was not mentioned, of course.

“I see.” Clearly he was unhappy, but then, he wasn’t really in a position to negotiate. “Shall we begin discussions?”

“If you don’t mind, we’d like to eat first. It’s not often we go out to this high-toned a restaurant. I already inquired after your favorite dish, and the chef assured me we could eat within minutes after you arrived.”

Sharkey’s eyes flashed darkly, but he took it in stride. “As you wish.”

----

The meal did indeed arrive shortly, and true to the price, there was nothing processed or vat-grown among the meat or vegetables. The younger folk there, all at least a decade younger than the youngest of Sharkey’s guards, ordered the fish, commenting to one another about the taste and texture, obviously superior to the vat-grown protein sticks mimicking it, while Sharkey had an obviously sumptuous cut of red meat and bright fruits and vegetables, enjoying it all with gusto and comments about the skill of the chef.

At last the food was done and plates quickly cleared away, and Brekko sat back to regard the zwilnik across from him. “So, Mister Sharkey, what exactly did you want to talk about at this point?”

The drug lord leaned back in his seat, flanked by the brawny guards who had not moved a muscle for the entire meal, studying the incredibly composed teenagers sitting across from them. He had kids older than any of them, but the eyes looking back at him had a grim willpower to them that he rarely saw in anyone, and they could meet his eyes, custom-made to never need to blink or focus and so unsettling to anyone who met them, without giving way.

They were hard kids. He’d seen a lot of hard kids, and watched most of them die, but these were something else.

“I would like to discuss and see if there’s a non-violent solution to the problem we have between our two organizations. I would like to see an end to hostilities, if the price is right, and bury our grievances.”

Brekko made a considering face. “Well, Mister Sharkey, as you know, this whole kerfluffle started when you sent one of your goon squads to harass me and my boys, and kidnap us, probably to turn us into brainboxes to be sent upspire. We took that kind of personally.”

Sharkey frowned on hearing that. This punk had been there when it all started? Damn, one stupid baby blade had cost him all this?

“But, it’s been a couple years now, and I’m the guy in charge right now, right? Can’t just think of things for myself. So, I could consider that, if it weren’t for a couple other things.” He sighed heavily, and Sharkey steepled his fingers despite himself.

“What might those matters be?” he asked after a long moment.

“Well, first, the poison in our drinks and food. The chef’s your man, and you replaced the staff, just in case. By the way, that’s his haunch you just ate.”

Sharkey looked down at the table despite himself, as did his guards. His favorite dish was indeed unprocessed soylent, but that wasn’t what he’d been expecting...

“Two, the missile team across the way, prepped to drive a hot load through the window into this room and kill everyone.”

Sharkey briefly glanced at the window, saying nothing. This building had been cut off from all coms the moment he entered... as these kids had insisted and made sure of. Even the land line Node had been shut down.

“Third, the stealth drone you ordered with a hot payload and internal explosives up high.”

To track them down and blow them apart on exit, if the missile team couldn’t kill them here.

“Fourth, that micro-nuke in your chest, tied to your autonomics and probably with a coded trigger, too.”

Now his guards did glance at him, but only that. They were code-slaved to him. If they wavered, he could blow both their brains apart through their implants, so they had no choice but to do as he said, regardless.

“For all those reasons, I’m afraid we’re going to have to decline your request for a parley at this time. Deals require good faith on part of both parties, and we just don’t have any faith in you.”

Sharkey narrowed his eyes at them, his stomach hardly troubled by eating part of one of his favored cooks. “You will regret this decision.”

And there was a spark, and he fell forward onto the table.

The guards were very quick, and their guns were in hand and pointing in literally an eyeblink. That eyeblink was enough time for the young man who had appeared out of nowhere to vanish with a small pop of replaced air, and for them to have no target to shoot between them. With wired reflexes, they didn’t shoot one another, only turned to look at the restraining bolt shoved into the back of their client’s neck, leaving him a twitching, paralyzed mess.

“Gentlemen, right now the only working thing on your client is his autonomics and his senses. He cannot broadcast a killcode to your brainbombs.

“Juris Bomb Disposal is on the way, and should be landing outside within a minute. In light of the fact that you probably did not know your client was in possession of forbidden atomics, I suggest you take a seat over there and wait quietly until his final deposition has been affirmed. I understand that in such cases the Juris usually unload the ordnance ten miles outside the city from a mile in the sky over the Spiked Plains.”

The two bodyguards looked at one another, at their client, and then at the six wrist-mounted dart launchers glowing with Suns and Stars all pointed at them. “Or we can plant you on the ground helplessly, and call the League to come pick you up after this is all done,” Brekko offered politely.

Darts sparked with hot pink voltage and concentrated Nimbus lights. The two big men considered silently, holstered their guns together, and turned around to stride over to a pair of heavy chairs off to the side and sit down, never saying a word.

-----

Juris Bomb Disposal did indeed land a hovervan within a minute, hurried inside with a Carry-Disk and remotes, and found the situation exactly as described. A quick assessment did indeed find the kiloton-yield device snugly fit there under his left lung, there was a thirty-second discussion over courses of action, and then Sharkey was thrown onto the Carry-Disk, still trembling slightly, and hustled out of the restaurant.

Of the twenty members of the serving staff who’d been quietly killed prior to their arrival, there was no sign, but the servers they’d replaced had all been called back in. They’d kept the extra pay for a day off, so there was no lapse in service, although the head chef did appear to be missing, and there had been some slight adjustments to the menu for the future.

------

Davro looked down at the Spikeplains below. They were so named because there was some form of extremely alkaline water bubbling up from below, and as the water boiled up, the crystals coalescing out of the water somehow aligned into jagged crystals, growing out of the corrosive pseudo-water unnaturally, ringing and moaning with the wind sweeping past them. The whole place was basically covered with sharpened mounds and trees of jutting crystals that made the air and earth shake when the wind blew through them, no sign of water to be seen.

Nobody had ever found a use for the crystals, given how impure they were, the mélange of colors clear indication of that, and they were incredibly toxic and corrosive, capable of eating away a hand brushing them.

Davro watched with cold eyes as the hoverwagon banked, and the back doors opened. The Juris stepped forward to do the job, but Davro raised his hand, and the lawman paused. Davro grabbed the back of Sharkey’s fine silk jacket, extended his touch-teke, and heaved.

Sharkey flew out like a thrown stone, unable to even scream, going down into the howling winds of alkaline sands. He wouldn’t have any skin left by the time he reached the ground in thirty seconds or so.

The hoverwagon banked and shot away as the doors behind closed, the force screen keeping out the corrosive sands that would eat into the metal. Davro stepped up to the windows at the back, as did the bomb disposal squad, putting on a pair of high-power sunglasses at a whisper in his ear.

The flash and boom going off was impressively radiant, even if it wasn’t that powerful from the perspective of a true explosive. It was still the biggest blast he had ever seen personally in his life, and it generated fine sprays of grit, ash, and its own small mushroom cloud.

It wasn’t intended to kill millions, merely those who killed him, and everyone else around, making sure that he would be remembered.

Now, he’d just been disposed of, and would quietly vanish into nothing.

Make me a braincase?, Davro thought quietly, clenching his fist, and feeling the psionic power thrumming through him. It had been pure damn luck that he was saved and met Sensei Sama, and he knew it. He had something that resembled a future now, and he wasn’t a commodity to be sold away by a damn zwilnik!