Jack drops his head to the bar, arms dangling at his sides, and lets out a long exhale. Slim’s a good buddy and Jack got a good deal on the repair, but even ten thousand trade units is steep. And it’s going to hurt worse if business doesn’t pick up. He rolls the weight of his head so his cheek rests on the surface of the bar. He’s got a great view of how dreadfully empty the place is.

It’s not like he’s expecting a big fanfare or a rush or anything. However, today is the bar’s reopening, and it’s not like there’s another bar in this town.

“So what’s the name of this place?” Corva’s voice sends a jolt through Jack. He jerks his head off the bar and glares at her.

“Holy hell! You ’bout scared the crap outta me.” He squints. “How long’ve you been standing there?”

“Long enough to see you rolling your head on the bar. You taking a nap or is that some kind of special cleaning technique?” She smiles, full-toothed and genuine. It’s not an ugly smile, but all the same, it pisses off Jack. It’s smug, knowing.

“I wasn’t napping.” Reflexively, Jack grabs a rag and wipes down the oily smear on the bar where he’d planted his face. “And it doesn’t need a name. It’s just the bar.”

“But you could call it something else, though. Right? Like Jack’s Place? Or The Hole in the Wall? Or The Hole in the Floor?”

Jack squints at Corva before answering. Did she really just suggest naming the place after the hole—holes—she made? “Why would I call it that? It’s just ‘the bar.’ Most gray havens aren’t big enough to have more than one, an’ Bule ain’t no different. Coming up with a cute name only serves to annoy the thirsty pass-throughs who just want to know where the damn bar is.”

“But ‘bar’ means so many different things in English. Ooh, how about calling it a saloon?”

Jack can feel his irritation coming to a peak. If he were the old man, his eye would be twitching right now. “What’re you gettin’ at?”

“I’m just thinking that it seems kind of dead in here. Maybe a bit better presentation could help.”

“It’s just ‘the bar.’ Days are usually slower than nights.”

She crosses her arms and eyes him suspiciously. “I get ‘slower,’ but this is barren. Empty as a desert. Entregue às moscas.”

“Entr—I got no idea what you just said.” Jack tries a couple more times to sound out the words, contorting his face in a vain effort to replicate Corva’s accent.

“It means ‘abandoned to the flies,’ idiota!” Corva gestures to all the empty seats. “No one is here.”

“So … what? You think I shoulda put up a big ol’ banner or something? ‘Grand reopening!’ Something like that?”

“No, I—”

“Bars are high-traffic places. Most burgs ain’t got more n’ one. Bule’s the same. People want a drink, they come here.” He gives one more angry wipe to the bar and turns away, mumbling, “Don’t need no giant sign to tell ’em about the only watering hole in town.”

He turns his attention upward to the ceiling trusswork. “Zeke! I’m on my last rag. You usin’ the rest to build a nest up there?”

“Hey.” Corva’s voice is softer now. It doesn’t have the ragged tinge of sarcasm that he’s gotten used to hearing from her. “Hey. Calm down. I was just trying to say that maybe there’s a reason it’s so dead in here.”

“Reason?” Jack tilts his head back to her and raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah. A reason. You’ve been so wrapped up in fixing the place, you haven’t been out and around town.”

“Hell, you’ve only been awake for about a day. What do you know?” He pauses. She did spend part of the morning getting a few supplies while he went through the last few bits of prepping for the reopen. “Wait. What do you know?”

“Not a lot. The swap shop guy—Garth? Corn? Norm?”

“Gorm.”

“Yeah. Gorm. He seems to think that this place is going to come under new management some time soon.”

Jack’s eyes widen and he feels his face flush hot. He squares his shoulders and faces her directly. She’s got his full attention. “That sunnuvabitch.”

“Who? Gorm? He seemed pretty harmless. A big guy, sure, but—”

“No. Harris. Gorm is part of Bule’s security militia. Kinda their armorer. I funded a good part of the repair by trading him all those spent shell casings from the guns that got shot at you. He’ll repack and resell ’em.” Jack pauses a moment to silently congratulate himself. He got a really good deal on those casings. “But Harris, Harris runs the militia. That bald fuck has been angling to take over the bar ever since the old man died.”

“Old man?”

“Old Man V. The dude who used to own this bar. An’ me, actually. Got me for workin’ as a barhand when I was four. He died about a year back. The bar got left to me. Friggin’ Hairless wasn’t a big fan of that arrangement. Been trying to sappotach me ever since.”

“Sappotach? You mean ‘sabotage’?”

Jack pauses to glare at Corva. “Yeah. Sabotage. That’s what I said.” It’s not enough that this girl could beat him senseless with hardly a thought, she’s got to correct how he speaks with her funny accent, too?

If his tough-guy glare has any effect on Corva, she isn’t showing it. Her mind was apparently stuck on another thought. “Why fight to keep the place? Why stay at all? You’re free to go and do whatever you want.”

One name jumps to his mind. Lyia. She’s his “why.” The why. This chick doesn’t need to know that, though. “I got my reasons.” He turns back to look up at the ceiling. “Zeke! Get on down here.”

“You sure you want to do that? If he gets too close, I might have another … episode.”

Jack doesn’t look at her when responding, “He was able to hang from the ladder in my room without anything happening. I figure that as long as he’s at the other end of the bar from you, you’ll be fine.”

“I’m not worried about me.” She steps to the side, just within his field of vision. She’s pointing at the scabbed-over cut over his eyebrow. “By the way, that’s healing up nicely and everything, but are you sure you shouldn’t keep that thing covered?”

“Nah. It’ll gimme cred with the customers.” Jack frowns and scratches his head. There’s no movement in the spots where Zeke usually likes to sit.

It’s possible that the little monkey slipped out through the roof. He’s been spending more time up there since Corva’s fight a few days ago. It’s hard to tell what he’s been doing up there, though. He’s certainly not tending to the roof garden. There’s ladder access to the lookout scope, but Jack dismisses the thought. That would be pretty paranoid, even for Zeke. Probably napping. He best be around when some real customers come in.

Corva’s voice breaks through his thoughts. “You’ll get cred? By letting them know that someone else knocked you around?”

He lowers his head. This girl certainly has a way of striking a nerve. “Ain’t the damage in the bar enough to say that? This just means I didn’t puss out an’ hide in a corner somewhere.”

“But that cut on your face happened after the fight.”

Jack feels his face bend into a bitter smirk as he turns back toward her. “You just gotta be right all the time, don’tcha?”

Corva opens her mouth to respond, but is cut off by the sound of the front entrance swinging open. Two men step across the threshold with all the joy of someone who’s been slapped in the mouth. Sure, one of them is smiling, but it’s one of those unhinged sneers that gives the impression that the person wearing it has but a fingernail’s grasp on reality.

Jack’s heart drops into his stomach as his scalp starts to tingle. Of course his first customers for the day are outsiders looking for trouble.