Cheap Gin and Propositions

6 months later

A scrawny little punk in set of old camouflaged fatigues tried halfheartedly to wipe old lipstick from the plastic bottle of gin he’d stolen from my workbench.

"Oh yeah, just smear your dirty sleeve on it. I'm sure no boogers have been wiped on that sleeve," I groused.

“You owe me the money, Abby.” He said, then took a quick swig from the bottle and ran his gloved finger under his nose as if he could sweep away the bad booze burning in his sinuses.

“Are you sure this isn’t engine cleaner?” He gasped. Then he shook his head and pointed a finger at me.

“I’ve used it as engine cleaner,” I admitted with a shrug.

“I’ve given you time, because you were damn near my sister-in-law when you were with Kāne. But I have limits, Chica. Eventually, you have to either pay me, or we will have to settle the debt in another way. I can take the Razor-Track, even if it looks like an old electric travel razor.”

He paused. His leering glance drifted over my broken yet still feminine body, as his silver capped teeth became apparent in his smile. “Or we could make some other arrangements, you were good for Kane, you could be good for me too.”

"Kane was a mission capable special operator, a real pipe hitting bad ass. He could turn me on with a glance of those smoldering amber eyes," I said feigning arousal as I reminisced. Then turned my eyes to Seth, and allowed my expression to go flat.

"You've none of those attributes Seth. I mean your crew isn't exactly the fun loving hooligans Kane always talked about," I ran my dirty nails over the shaved side of my head, the scared side, and avoided his lecherous gaze. Maybe making the aroused joke wasn't a great idea, but I never said I had timing.

Glancing around the shop, I was almost hoping Beto would come out of his office, but it was just a distraction. I didn’t want Seth to see my right hand slide to the knife I kept concealed under my thigh. I hoped I wouldn't need the little claw, but my cutting wit could only go so far.

“The BLB.” I muttered, “I doubt Kāne would even recognize it now. Did you know it started as a ‘brotherhood of misadventure?’ Cops are the ones who turned them into a gang.”

“I was there when it started, you weren’t, Chica," Seth hissed.

"So, I don’t need to hear your bullshit! I want my device. With it I can shut down their tech and hit them when they least expect it. This city should be mine. I earned it.” He whined.

“Besides if you ever want another dose of Sertra, you need to give me what I want.” He sneered.

Picking up the continuity sensor, I pulled my prototype ambulatory support frame up on the bench and muttered, “Seth, what you want is something I can’t build easily. Its not like this frame, where I can take old tech and modify it for my personal use. The power source just isn’t available. You’d need battery powered by at least a gram of Amber 25.”

I straightened and ran a wrist over my forehead , then added, “I know I owe you, but just let me just pay the money back, give me a few weeks.”

“That’s not happening, is it, Chica? You don’t have the money and won’t ever get it. You’re a loser without Kane," he said and somewhere inside that remark stung with the flavor or truth. How had I fallen so low?

"You need the power source. You tell me where to find it and me and the crew will get it. It’s either that or the money or-” he chuckled a little and once more reviewed my figure.

I might not have any feeling from my waist down, but the muscle conditioners that helped cycle my body fluids was keeping my tone up. Adding on some body fat softened my edges in a way men liked, and I didn't need.

"What you going to go knock off Vision Dynamics? They're the only ones with that stuff. Even if you found your own out in the outlands, they'd either force you to sell it to them or take it from you. No, Its not possible and, no I am not fucking you. I'll get the money some how," I said, though I had no idea how.

"What you going to do, Chica? PTS owns any drone tech you build, and your combat services aren't exactly in high demand after that stunt you and Kane pulled," Seth said loudly.

Just being in that situation made me feel dirty. It was like I was living in a bad screenplay and the writer couldn’t come up with anything intelligent for the street hustlers to say, so of course he is going to want sex. It was like no one told him I was paralyzed from the waist down after the blast. It wasn't like he could show me a good time, or get more than an eye roll from me in response. Men are just fucked in the head some times I guess.

"Maybe I'll take a job building submersible drones on the coast. I hear they are finding good loot in savaging on the sea bed in Seattle and Portland. There has to be some valuable stuff I can bring up," I said as if discussing an public radio documentary.

“I don’t get it Abby. You could be living like a queen again. You know you loved the life you had with Kane, just think about it. Come be my woman, you can build me weapons, and I can have my gang carry you around like an Egyptian concubine."

I shot him a finger. Then leaning over my workbench and pretended work on the Ambulatory Support Frame.

"Cleopatra was a queen. I'm a Mercenary. I don't want an empire. I don't want anything you can give me, I've actively tried to avoid the clap, so no thank you," I said.

We’d bantered like this before, and both of us played like it was just funning around. We both knew he really wasn’t. He’d love nothing more than to be able to say he even owned Kāne’s woman.

He suddenly rushed me. His hands on my arm rests before I could react jerking me around to face him as he glared down into my eyes. The movement caught my nerve damping module at my back, and fire ripped down my left leg and I hissed in agony. “We could have this conversation in a little less friendly way Chica,” he spat, breath smelling of the bad booze and poor oral hygiene.

“That would be an unfortunate conversation, I’m sure.” I replied coolly and glanced down at the hooked blade of my Karambit knife positioned just under his crotch.

"You can't be a castrato unless this is done before puberty, otherwise you can't develop that sweet high voice," I said and looked at his patchy face hair and shrugged. "Well, maybe?"

For a moment he just held my eyes, then as if the universe thought we needed some comic relief a four legged advertising drone pranced by the shops open door. "Half priced hotdogs just for stopping in at," It said in a perfectly groomed voice, then another voice, greasy and rough cut in with. "Calvin's used furniture. You need the perfect space? We can put something together for you. Color coordination is extra."

Seth waited two more beats, then frowned and raised his hands, the plastic bottle in one hand, and the other open in surrender. “Easy, Abby. Like I said I’m giving you a chance because I respect our past, and your skills. I just need you to understand. I will collect. One way,” he glanced down at my tits and huffed out a little laugh, “Or another.”

Adjusting his weight, he made to move back, but I raised my wrist and sent the razor-sharp blade into the fabric of his pants, cutting it a bit, “And I need you to understand that if you ever tried it, I’d cut off your balls. Seth. If I can't do it on the spot, I will build a drone just to seek you out and cut off your dick.”

His head dipped in a quasi-nod, and I eased off the pressure, then returned it for an instant and glanced with a side eye at my bottle of gin. “Unless you’re taking that as payment, leave the bottle, and stop calling me, Chica, white boy.”

Seth handed the bottle back to me, and I let him go with a smirk. “White boy? Shit, you got a lot of room to talk, you crazy fucking bitch. I’m the new King of this pride, I’m the leader of the BLB,” Seth pounded his chest for emphasis.

“You are uncle Scar, sitting on Mufasa’s throne. Kane didn’t build all this for you, he did it for Zita.” I said, but those words only made his face redder, and sweat pop out on his brow.

“I knew I should have never loaned you money but Beto said you were good for it, and his word was always solid. Looks like maybe he should have stayed on as my lieutenant, at least then his reputation wouldn’t be being soiled by standing up for people like you.”.

I took a swallow of bathtub gin and wiped my face just like Seth had moments before. “Yeah, well, Beto had part of it right. I am good for it. But, I can’t do anything about his choice in companionship. Either way, keep this in mind, wannabe, I’ve killed more people than polio, and I don’t owe you anything more than money.”

“What the fuck you talking about? Polio? Shit, you crazy as fuck, you fly drones, you're no pipe hitter,” he stammered, then regained some of his cockiness as he found distance. “Just have my device by Friday, or we will be talking.”

“Stop talking like you've watched too many TV Gangland dramas, I’ve got a job lined up, you just keep your dick in your pants, and you’ll get paid.” I said, knowing full well I didn’t, but I lifted the bottle in a mock salute before taking a swig.

“I’ll find the Amber. You build the device.” He growled as he turned his back to me and walked away.

"Pick me up some working legs while you're off in fairy tale land!" I yelled at his back.

The Gin was medicine sweet, and it went down my throat like pine sol down a toilet. A pint of 30% swill wasn’t enough to get me toasty, but a full one would at least let me sleep a night. Unfortunately, it was a half-bottle to start with, and I needed more than a few swallows to ignore the neon signs, cacophony of city sounds and bad memories.

“What the hell do I do now?” I groaned and tossed the empty bottle back into my trike for recycling. Bathtub Gin was cheap, but most boot leggers would let you pay a few credits less if you have bottles to exchange, so I always kept mine. I also wasn’t above digging through a few bins to find them if I found them unguarded.

Back before Kāne died, I’d have never of fallen this low. He kept me on the path. He kept me strong. Without him, I lost my compass. Half of me, the better half, was just missing, and what was left was just rotting, like detritus does.

“You could do a mission.” Said the memory of Kāne’s little girl and I flinched at remembering my failure. The voice had been occasionally haunting me, more so when I had a few drinks to lower my mood. I didn't know if it was a product of the booze and drugs, or something broken in my head. I didn't really want to find out.

“Fuck that, Zita. There’s nothing but death, and spider drones, outside the city. Besides, no one will hire me anymore, they wanted Kāne. We all wanted Kāne,” I muttered more to myself than anyone.

“Seth gone yet? I really don’t want to hear him pitch way I should come back to the BLB,” Beto said. Beto spoke like English wasn't his first language. Like each word was weighed and considered before saying.

Beto had always been a big man, but it wasn’t his size alone that made him intimidating. He didn’t need the re-enforced titanium implants on his bones, or the Kevlar mesh that lined his torso. He’s scary because when it came to emotions, he was unreadable.

He always appeared clinical, even when he was taking someone apart. The only person he would even listen to was Stephanie, “Hope” St. Clair, and they had some history not even Rooker was privy to.

Moving to the lift, he turned his back to me, but even with his back turned, I knew he was aware of my every movement. As an enforcer for Professional Tactical Solutions, he was a model killer. As a leader of the Alpha team, Kāne’s old spot, he left a lot to be desired. Let’s just say he didn’t have a servant leadership mentality, even if he commanded respect.

“Yeah, he’s gone for now,” I sighed and rubbed my leg as it went back to sleep.

“He’s persistent.” Beto said as he looked up into the engine compartment of the classic Barracuda on the lift. “Might be the only thing he and Kane have in common.”

Pulling the Frame off the workbench, I took the right side and strapped up on to my leg, knee, and waist. I then repeated the process on my left and snapped the two pieces together at my waist once the power pack was attached.

"He's right, you know. You never were primarily a forward action soldier. Drone coordination and combat operations, stuff you can still do if you want to," he said, and I shot him a glare.

Once fully locked in, I moved smoothly. The whole rig was designed to move over un-even terrain, but it felt almost like I was riding a camel. It could be fast, it could be agile, but it didn’t do either smoothly. The nerve-to-tech bridge just wasn’t there yet.

Once more I hissed as the module slipped into the frame's sync, and fire ripped through me, but as it subsided my nerve interface became active and I could one more control it nominally with my own nerve impulses.

It wasn't like it just did what I wanted, like walking, it was more like a toggle in my head that responded to my thoughts. I though, 'Move forward" and it moved, but the reflexes weren't present, and either were the natural smooth motions that makes a human gate so distinctive .

"I got enough forward action experience to put me in this freaking frame. That's about all I need," I quipped.

“You look like General Grievous from that old Sci-fi Movie,” Beto said he has stood back looking it over.

“Well, from the waist down. What’s up with those bird-like feet?” He added.

“Who the hell is Count Grievous?” I scoffed, "I don't get your fascination with old stuff. The music you listen to is ancient, and the cars are internal combustion by design. They are extremely inefficient," I said, but Beto wasn't taking the bait.

“If you expanded the design to augment your upper body and sold it to Vision Dynamics you’d be set for a few years.” Beto said off-hand and closed up the motor compartment of my Razor-Track.

“Sell it to someone like Vis-Dyn, and get just enough money party for a week or two,” I scoffed and powered up the frame. Its familiar support was somewhat reassuring after being trapped in the chair.

“Or, you could save your money get a little apartment. You don’t need to spend all your free time down at the vet’s center getting shitty drunk.” Beto suggested.

“It wouldn’t work,” I said.

“The frame or living a normal life?” Beto countered.

“A normal life?” I wondered, and for a moment, the dreams of vacationing on the coast with Kane and Zita popped into my head. We’d talked about Mongolia, but travel and funds being what they were, we knew we’d never get further than the coast. It was something I’d always wanted to do, but with Kane gone I knew I’d never do it alone.

I shook the memory free and glanced over to Beto, who was looking at me with a puzzled expression.

"No one has a normal life these days Beta. You spend all your money on prostitutes' and fight mods. We all have our hang ups," I said with bitter words, but Beto didn't seem to notice the venom.

"PTS pays the big money, but when work is slim, everyone needs a side job. Except you, you have Seth for a sugar daddy, or will if you don't earn soon."

“The Frame isn't new tech, its been around for almost a hundred years, and it only has about four hours of practical use before the power supply goes dead. The damn thing eats power like no ones business, and I don't have a clue why. It would take a small Amber Pearl to power it effectively, and no one has that kind of scratch.” I said and waved off the suggestion.

The stuff, Amber, had nothing to do with the petrified tree sap but looked identical. With atoms twenty times more divisible than Uranium 235, it is the fuel that could save the world, if there were more than a few tones in existence. But, not a lot of new meteorites had impacted earth with any in abundance, and the ones that did were hard as hell to find in any significant numbers.

Once they liquified in the atmosphere and broke up into pea sized smooth, amber-colored balls, they solidified and impacted the earth like the glass rain on the blue planet HD 189733b. The major difference being the Amber Pearls are worth a fortune, with one the size of a marble powerful enough to light up a city. The issue was utilization. No one was interested in powering a city. They wanted to power weapons, mobile weapons.

Everyone had been working on a reactor small enough to make use of the stuff outside of a structure larger than a small town. It was something I’d been passionate about before my back was broken, which is why I drunkenly told Seth I could build his device. Sober, I didn’t even want to think about it.

"Yeah, well if they could move as fast, or nimble as that one moves, I doubt they'd agree with your assessment. That's some pretty advanced robotics," He said with shake of his head.

Standing, I moved over to where he had his pet project, the Classic 1971 yellow and black Barracuda, on the lift. While no one would believe my movements were natural, they were at least fluid. Like my drones, the ambulatory support frame. was designed to move with a flowing grace that was nearly natural. But, while maybe they wouldn’t know why anyone seeing the movements would see they were too measured, too precise.

“The original design was going to be an infantry mobile combat frame, but I never figured out the nerve to machine interface. Once my back was broke and I lost my own nerve to muscle interface,” I said flippantly, “I decide to go with a more autonomous version.”

“Besides, I don’t want any of those big Corporate Military Units to have that kind of an upper hand. They don’t need any more toys, and we could use the edge to stay competitive.”

Beto rolled his head on his massive shoulders and sighed. “They will eventually develop it for themselves. They’ve got the pearls, and you know they’ll develop their own battery with it, eventually.”

I shot Beto my best withering glare, that I hoped demanded that subject be dropped. I’d been researching how to build that reactor for years and come to nothing but dead ends. Still, I didn’t want that widely known. There is much to be learned from failure.

“They might build a Combat frame, but if its like their mechs, I'm not too worried. Besides, just like you wouldn’t want to sell out to another vehicle designer. They can be Edison, I want to be Tesla, ” I responded, bringing the topic back to safe ground.

Returning to the Razor, I got close enough to run my hand over the sleek silver surface. Beto had built it just so I could use my wheelchair with it, but with the new frame, I could sit on it like an old school motorcycle. I had to give Beto credit, compared to most tracked vehicles it was a bullet, in a go cart race.

“Hey, I just thought of something. I could name this, The Silver Bullet III. You know after the Stephen King Novel?” He said, and I laughed,” What’s that one of those, “Lifetime Presents” movies about wheelchair bound kids racing in down hill derbies?”

"You don't have any culture, Abby. It's upsetting," Beto dead panned.

The current configuration had me leaning forward like an old café racer, with a gray body and front fairing, and the bars positioned so I had to lean over the battery pack. It was built for speed, and the aerodynamic positioning suited me just fine. The mounting brackets for the mini guns were another fine addition. I don’t know what the Silver Bullet was, but if it had this much Fire Power, I’d be surprised.

"I have class, have you seen what kind of liquor I drink? Top shelf all the way, none of that bottom shelf swill for me," I said and flashed the big man a grin.

“You even sniff at appreciating something with class and culture, and it would run away screaming, Abbs,” Beto countered

I toggled the telescoping track to the full traction position and released the support struts. In traction mode, the multilayer track could climb up the side of a mountain, even if it were all rocks and hard angles. In escape mode, the track became a thin line, aerodynamic as hell, and twice as fast as a normal street rod.

Beto was a solid mechanic and engineer, which is why Rooker and PTS, or Professional Tactical Solutions, recruited him. They’d commissioned the Razor-Track for me, and perhaps I should have let PTS off the hook after that, but in my own way I stilled blamed PTS for the outcome of the mission. Even after I found out it hadn’t been a sanctioned job.

“Beto, you are too damn good to be working here. You could go corporate too, if you wanted,” I said, turning Beto’s suggestion back on him, only to find he was staring at me with big soft brown eyes as flat as the dead.

“What the hell would I do with a corporate job? I'd be just another monkey with a wrench there. No, I’m loyal. As long as I don’t get screwed over, and Rooker pays for those pork sandwiches down at Rudy's, I’m here,” Beto’s words felt too intense for the moment, and the odd shift left me unsure how to respond, until the moment became obviously awkward, then Beto looked back over at his work.

“Hey, you gonna stop in and talk to Rooker? He’s been looking for you.” Beto said with about as much interest as he had in the dirt under my shoe.

“Yeeeeah, no. You know as well as I do that no one talks to Rooker. You listen as he convinces you to sell him your organs, for half price. No, I think I will hang out here for a bit. Hey, is that a hydrogen/ oxygen engine?” I asked and pointed a dirty plastic tank filled with water, and expensive looking electronics.

“The nickel/nickel-oxide catalyst significantly lowers the voltage required to split water, which could eventually save a lot of currency in electricity costs.” He said and lifted the panel closed on it the engine compartment.

“That’s good thinking,” I said, kind of wishing I had a better look at it before it closed up.

“Hope St. Clair’s idea. She wanted the system added to the Heavy Boxers for backup power, but after the first one we couldn’t get enough good Nickle to pull it off. I scrapped the idea and used what was left over to put this back up on The Cuda,” He said, with what sounded almost like a hint of pride in his voice.

Boxer fighting vehicle with an electric assist, sounds nice,” I said but both of were staring at the Cuda with admiration.

“Well, it sounded cooler in my head,” Beto admitted, then his head suddenly tilted toward the office.

I shot a glance up to the offices and just then a husky west Alabama accent jarred me, as the door swung open, “Drink a glass of water once in a while, then drink about nine more. You’re so hung over that you smell like rotting fruit and sweat, it’s disgusting.”

"I paid good money for that perfume!" I mocked.

Swinging my head around in a lame attempting to see behind me I spotted Rooker standing at the entrance to the garage with a bottle of water, as always appearing in the last place I would expect him.

"Get your money back, or better yet, shoot the guy who sold it to you," he said.

Despite his angry words, his soft gray eyes shined with concern, so when he ambled over to me, I accepted the bottle and took it down in two swallows. Detox tabs can clear your body of the left-over chemicals, but you still need to re-hydrate if you wanted to get over the headache.

At least I didn’t shit myself.” I objected and reached out to him. “Help me into my Razor would ya, then tell me what the hell you are doing here, Rooker?”

Using his arm, and the handlebars, I pulled myself onto the Razor easily, never intending to put my frame bound foot into his side, or balls.

“I own this place, remember?” He scoffed as he stepped back and pointed to the large mural of a mountain goat with the Latin, "fratrem meum in aeternum," The PTS motto which basically meant, "Forever, my brother's keeper".

“Yeah, so? You aren’t exactly a fixture down here in the motor pool,” I shot back and adjusted my leg so I wouldn’t lose blood flow.

“Oh, fuck this,” Beto groaned and tossed a rag on the bench as he moved toward the door.

“You are leaving?” Rooker called and looked at us.

“Yes, before you two act like two goats trying to assert dominance with head butts, instead of just braying at each other,” He said, then sighed and paused just before heading out the door. " I'm off to Rudy's for that pork sandwich."

Rooker's gaze shifted to Beto’s retreating form as Beto added, “St. Clair is meeting me at, “The Artic Club” around nine this evening. If you two get done with your snark contest, it would be nice to catch up,” he said, then shrugged and walked out the door.

The Artic was a long way from the south pole, but as one of the few bars with effective air conditioning, it had earned its name among the patrons years ago.

“Don’t count on it,” I muttered, then saw Rooker was still staring at me.

“So, what do you want?” I asked and flipped the key to the ON position.

“What, two old army buddies can get together and go out to dinner and catch up before going out with our friends? You always think I have some altered motive, Bro,” he laughed.

“Motive? That would require prior planning, Rooker. From what I’ve seen, the only time you plan anything in advance is when it’s illegal, or immoral, and stop calling me bro.” I quipped, but knew he’d keep saying it.

“That’s not true, bro. I plan when making money is involved. From what I understand, you should do more of that.”

“Not everyone is all about the money, Rooker. I hope you have some news for me about Zita.”

“Everyone is doing what they can.” He implored.

“That’s not good enough. Damn it Rooker, she was Kāne’s kid, that makes her family! Good enough isn’t the best we can do for family,” I shouted.

“Hey, hey, we are on the same side here. That’s part of why I want you to consider this job. You will need to have your edge back when you find her.”

“What happened to just being two old buddies?” I growled and started to fasten myself on the Razor-track.

He sighed and ran a thick hand through his short brown hair as looked around my room. “I think you need to get out of here, Abby. You can’t sit here just mourning Kāne forever. Didn’t you used to do some farming as a kid or something?”

“What do you think I like this? Do you think I enjoy feeling like a faded campaign sicker on the back of some old vet’s truck? Tattered, incomplete, forgotten and no longer relevant?”

I shot him a warning glance and his hands came up as if urging me to wait.

“I think you need this job.”

He grinned wide and leaned against the workbench with his legs and arms crossed as he put on an exaggerated composed expression. “Have you ever heard of the outsider settlements?”

Rooker moved around to the front of the Track, completely stopping me from moving. My frustration mounted as once more my impairment was exploited at my expense. Briefly I thought about running him over, but something must have shown in my eyes because he stepped partially to one side.

“You know where I come from, asshole,” I said without heat.

“Yeah, well look, you are too talented, too well trained to just sit around and mope. You can’t just sit around your flat, drink and get lost as you tinker with drones. On this mission, these outsiders really need our help.” He chided me.

“With drones, no one gets killed. There have been no empty casket funerals when I stay in my shop.” I growled.

“Sure, but you also don’t live. Just hear the guy out with me, Abby. Just once for old times’ sake?”

Immediately I wanted to reject his offer, but then I saw the pill bottle in his hand and froze. Sertra-Modafinil Tabs. The little blue SMTs were five milligrams of Army grade, “Good Order and Discipline.”

My own supply has down to quarter tablets and the dust on the side of the bottle. That mixed with a liberal supply of booze had helped me keep it together, but while the booze I could make myself, the tabs were another matter altogether.

“I know you’re feeling like your nerves have rust on them, but let’s get you off the booze long enough to get your head straight.” He offered, and he knew he had me.

“What does he want us for? Some kind of protection detail?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.

A gleam appeared in his eyes, and I knew I messed up.