Stomping his way across Upper Bule, Jack still seethes. “Stupid bitch. What the hell does she know? And Zeke! That dick stayed with her! Whatever. They can have each other. Make little dreadlocked, lizard-monkey babies.”

He speaks loudly to himself as he trudges along the pathways and conduits on his way to the bar. “Corva don’t know nothin’. No sense of what Lyia n’ me got.”

The walls echo his voice as he tromps along. “So tired of this bullshit.” His face twists into an expression intended to mock, well, everyone. “‘You got no chance with Lyia, Jack. You can’t run the bar, Jack. You can’t stop the mercies, Jack. You can’t save the Fold, Jack. You couldn’t have saved the old man, Jack.’”

Jack squeezes his eyes shut as he walks, cutting off the tears before they get a chance to run down his face. “You ain’t no help to no one.”

He rubs his eyes with the back of his arm. The wet patches on his arm feel chilled despite the warming morning air. When his eyes open back, he can see clean smears in his arm among a thin layer of dust and grime.

“Fuck all ya’ll. I’m tired of being told what I can’t do.”

He pauses at the unpainted steel door at the entrance of Gorm’s swap shop. It’s unmarked and uninviting, but Jack knows the door isn’t locked and the shop’s open. At almost 11 a.m., it’s early by Bule time, but the big guy’s swap shop is always open. Mercs blow in and out of town at all hours of the day and it makes no sense to let that potential business slip away. Staying open also prevents break-ins at those odd hours.

Jack used to try to convince Old Man V to keep the bar open like that, but the old man never went for it. He had some pretty old-fashioned opinions about the necessity of sleep. Something about him being too old and Jack being too young to handle a chembraid, let alone the on-the-fly mix of uppers and downers it would deliver. The old man had promised they’d look into it after Jack hit eighteen years, but he went and died a year ago. Five years too early.

Speaking of not sleeping, Jack catches a glimpse of himself in the door. The reflection is distorted by the scratches and stains on the door, but even with that, he can tell he’s looking pretty rough. Barely an hour of sleep, a full night of training with Corva, and round-tripping Cliff City will do that to you.

Combine his current appearance with the unfiltered exchange he’s having with himself, Jack’s the very picture of madness in miniature. It’s not uncommon to catch an unkempt person mumbling and clomping along in an aimless patrol around town. However, it’s far less common for that to be someone everyone knows, like Jack.

Static from the talkbox just to the side of the steel door snaps Jack out of his daze. “Heya Jackie. You have another long night getting roughed up at the Red Light?”

“Kiss my ass, Gorm.”

A hiss of laughter rattles out of the rusty comm. “Hey, you’re the one tripping the prox on my door. You comin’ in to get something? Or are you just goin’ to block the way so no one else can come in?”

Jack looks back his distorted reflection in the door. Disheveled. Tired. Pissed.

He looks to his left and right along the corridor. No one else around. He shakes his head. What’s it matter? I’m grown. I can do what I want.

A couple long steps and he’s right next to the talkbox, his hand on the door handle.

“What’s the price on a chembraid like the one you got, Gorm?”