3 – In the Club

Sitting in a corner booth of the dimly lit club bar, watching as more and more people filed in and the house turned on their big subwoofers to give real depth to the music they were streaming out, Tony couldn’t help feeling a bit of his old self creeping in from around the edges. He drank his first drink—the one Torque paid for—too fast, and he caught himself staring at people the way he used to when he was sporting tier-two and tier-one augs. He shoved that part of himself away, violently kicking it toward the box in the corner of his mind.

Addie either didn’t notice his shift in demeanor or she didn’t care; she was having a lot of fun. She was slowly sipping her drink—some kind of berry-flavored house cocktail with a fancy name—and ogling the many varieties of night-going patrons that the Ninety-Nine attracted. “Oh my gosh! That woman has a pink snake around her neck!”

Tony looked and nodded. If he were a betting man, he’d say she was a pleasure doll—dressed in bright, semi-transparent, skin-tight clothing and obviously auged to emphasize her feminine qualities. “I know you don’t go out much these days, but did you used to? How about when you were a teen?”

Addie, already a little red in the cheeks from her drink, might have blushed a little more as she quit staring at the woman and looked down at the table. “Um, no, not really. C’mon, Tony, you know me by now. I’m not outgoing like that, and, well, I was always too aware of the statistics.”

“Glad you’re having fun, then.” He slid his glass over the table and clinked it against hers. It was his second drink, but he was taking this one nice and slow.

Addie smiled, still looking down, her eyes now on her drink as she licked her lips and started to say something. She stopped, taking another quick breath before looking up at Tony, locking those bright blue eyes onto his. “Did you go out a lot? When you lived in New Manhattan?”

Tony nodded. “Yeah. Even when I wanted to relax at home, someone usually wanted me to go out—if not for fun, then for security. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I embraced the life big time when we first started getting bigshot gigs. Me and Eric, I mean.” As he spoke, images flashed through his mind, including a few he’d forbidden himself from thinking about, foggy memories, torn and disjointed by the trauma of what they’d done to him—the beating, the rough removal of his PAI and data port, and the drugs. He saw a pale chest and a splash of bright blood, accompanied by a deep, gut-wrenching sense of panic and loss.

“Tony?”

He searched his mind, desperately clawing at the memory, trying to grab hold of it. His mental fingers slipped through the tatters as he kept returning to the memory of him and Emily lying in bed—her whispering to him, planting the idea that he ought to run for it, that he could get out from under Jen’s stiletto-heeled boots if he’d just make the move… That wasn’t the last memory, though, was it? It was just the start—

“Tony, are you okay?” Addie reached across the table to take his wrist, but Tony jerked his hand away and stood up.

“I gotta, um…” He looked around the club, saw the signs for the restroom, and nodded toward it. “Be right back.” He stumbled away from the table, two halves of his mind battling as he worked his way through the crowd. Part of him was desperately pushing the memories and questions back into the box while the other half was trying to tear it open with bloody, broken fingernails.

He threw the swinging door open, slamming it on the wall, and stumbled into the dark, black-painted bathroom. Beyond the sinks, urinals lined the left wall, and four stalls were on the right. He ignored them, turned to the sink counter, and stared at himself in one of the mirrors. “Don’t go there, you dumb motherfucker,” he ground out between clenched teeth. He leaned on the counter and drilled his gaze into his silvery iris. “Put that shit away,” he growled again.

No matter his demands, the images kept flitting through his mind: Eric’s wide, startled eyes; Jen, smirking, holding a chrome two-barreled stinger—smoke streaming from the barrels; Tony, horrified, staring at blood-drenched hands. “Stop it!” he hissed, leaning forward, staring into his eye, his breath fogging the mirror. “Fucking stop!”

The images kept coming: white-hot rage stepping on top of his sudden grief; his plasma forge crackling with a surge of power, then…needles—dozens of them. Wasn’t it strange that Jen’s boys had been carrying autoneedlers? Didn’t they usually just have their custom, shined-up tens? Then the questions were gone, and everything was black.

Tony slammed his palm over his chromed eye socket and squeezed tight his other one, tears building in it as he refused to turn his mind’s eye to the thing he was hiding from—the source of the blood. “Put it away,” he gasped. He slapped himself—hard—with his human hand, then turned on the water. Leaning over the sink, he threw cold water on his face.

It felt good. The coldness stole his attention and woke up his skin. With the distraction of the repeated splashes, he finally managed to shove his memories deep enough to lock away and focus on something closer at hand. He thought first about Addie, then about the job they had before them, then about what they’d do with the money and how they’d prep for their next job.

Those busy thoughts pushed his consciousness back into safer waters, and when he stood up to hold his face in front of one of the auto dryers, he was a little surprised and amused to realize several other people were in the bathroom with him. Two of the stalls were occupied. “Guess I was out of it,” he muttered, and a guy beside him, a chrome kid with neon pink spikes for hair, laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t trust every pill you take, Fido.”

Tony nodded. The guy lightly punched his shoulder and walked past him to the door. Fido—it had been a while since Tony had heard the lingo. Chrome kids liked to label each other with clichéd pet names. He took a deep breath, blew it out with a heavy sigh, and then returned to the club, hurrying toward Addie and hoping his little breakdown hadn’t caused her any trouble.

He could see a guy leaning over the table, chatting her up. He looked slick—tall and wiry with shiny gold eyes. He wore a synth-leather vest and slim-fitting black slacks over big, “I’ll stomp your ass,” boots. Tony could see the grip of a pistol under his vest. He didn’t say anything as he walked past him and slid back into his seat. When the guy broke off what he was saying and looked at him, Tony ignored him, eyes on Addie.

“Yo, you got a—”

“Mint, this is my partner, Shepherd.” Addie was all smiles as she gestured to him. When neither man said anything, she added, “Mint’s an operator. He works as muscle.”

Tony looked the guy up and down as though he hadn’t already. He sniffed. “Yeah?”

Mint smirked. “Yeah. You care if I spend some time with your coworker? There’s an empty spot at the bar for you.” He nodded toward the crowded bar top, where indigo lights illuminated the undersides of the stools.

Tony shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Why don’t you skip, though? We’ve got shit to talk about.”

The guy’s ruddy skin got ruddier, and he scowled his hairless brow over those glinting eyeballs. “You fuckin’ what?”

Tony just glared at him, and then Addie kicked him under the table and said, “Sorry, Mint. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Nice to meet you, though.”

Mint stared at Tony for another long second, then scoffed. “See you on the streets, Shep.” He sneered the last word, then looked at Addie and, in a much softer tone, added, “Later, Ember.”

Tony watched him leave, mainly to ensure he wouldn’t hang around and contemplate breaking the club’s rules by doing something stupid. Addie, meanwhile, glared at him until she finally broke and asked, “Why’d you act that way?”

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Tony scoffed, arching an eyebrow. “Seriously? He tried to get me to leave the second I showed up. That’s pretty ballsy to assume—”

“That we’re not together?” Addie arched an eyebrow of her own, and Tony couldn’t miss the self-satisfied little smile.

“Heh, yeah, I guess.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair while he picked up his drink. He squinted at it, flicking through a bunch of visual spectrums, trying to assure himself that nothing had been added to the liquor. It seemed reasonably uniform—straight, no-name whiskey, neat. He sipped it, hoping Addie would change the subject. She did, but not to one he was eager to discuss.

“What took you so long? You ran off like you were about to have a bathroom emergency. Are you sick?”

Tony chuckled, wondering if his pride would let him run with that excuse. The words that rolled off his tongue actually surprised him. “Nah, I wasn’t sick or anything, but—well, shit, Ads, I can be honest with you, right?”

She leaned forward. “Of course!”

“All right. Well, being in this club was bringing back some memories about my past that I wasn’t ready to deal with. I had to go to the bathroom and splash some cold water on my face. Is it cool if we leave it at that?” His blunt honesty left the conscious half of his brain a little stunned, and he sat there, a passenger in his own mind, watching as Addie’s eyes went from irritated to interested to sympathetic in the space of a few sentences.

“Oh my gosh, Tony! I’m sorry about that. I suppose me asking you questions about your past didn’t help…” She looked down, swirling her empty glass.

“Nothing you did wrong. But we can move on, yeah?”

She looked up quickly, nodding. “Yeah.” Her eyebrows shot up as her eyes widened. “Hey! I have a question.”

Tony grinned and nodded to her empty glass. “Did you order another drink yet?”

She nodded. “Sure did, mishter.” They both laughed as her tongue found the wrong spot in her mouth. “Anyway, why’d you get that advance out of Torque? What equipment did you have in mind?”

“Well, the main reason I did it was to get him to see we weren’t gonna be pushed around like nobodies. We might be new to our SOA career, but we’re not punk kids trying to get a taste of glory. Cert?” He chuckled as he used the street slang, mostly joking around.

Addie grinned hugely, though, as she nodded. “Certified, partner!”

Tony’s smile grew along with hers, and he held his fist out over the table. Addie thumped the top, knocking his plasteel hand into the table hard enough to rattle the glasses. He laughed, enjoying her enthusiasm. “Anyway, you need another drone. A crawler.”

“Oh!” She leaned forward and began to ramble, “I’ve always wanted something like that! A spider or ant drone! They go for a couple of k, though, and I’m broke, I—”

“Chill!” Tony laughed again. “I have enough to cover it, but the advance will make it easy. We’ll get you a bug drone, and”—he made his fingers crawl on the tabletop—“you can drive the little creeper into wherever our mark is having his meeting. You’ll get video and audio all in one shot, none the wiser.”

“Yes! I was trying to think of a way we could get Humpty inside a hotel room or whatever, and I wasn’t feeling too confident.”

“Exactly. We’ll get a tiny one. I’ve seen ’em small enough to fit on my thumbnail. If I have to drill a little hole to let him in, I think I can manage.”

“We could make a distraction! Something noisy in the street!” Addie looked like she would say more, but a synth arrived with her drink, and she got quiet for a second while it set it on the table. It wasn’t much of a synth—all gray plastic with a painted pink heart on the chest and pink LED eyes. It didn’t speak, but it performed a mock curtsey before turning to walk away. “That thing creeps me out a little,” Addie whispered.

“Why’s that?”

“I think it’s the silence and the way it goes around acting like a person. Do you ever wonder if a person could get so many mods that they start looking like a synth? What if a person had that done to them and then they were trapped in that body with no vocalization and then—”

“Ads!” Tony laughed. “You’re crazy when you're drunk, you know that?”

She smiled, her eyes looking mischievous. “Am I? Drunk, I mean.”

“I don’t know about drunk, but you’re feeling it.”

Addie picked up her blue-tinted beverage and took a good-sized swallow. “Might as well finish the job then, yeah?”

###

Addie could feel her heartbeat in the back of her skull. It was a throb that pulsed through her head and ended with a stab of pain behind her eyes. She groggily opened her bleary eyes and stared into the sunlight streaming through the windows, blinking as her disorientation slowly faded and she remembered who she was and where she was lying. “Oof! Why?”

“Good morning, Addie!” JJ’s usual cheerful greeting sent sharp needles of pain from her ears to her eyes.

“Hush,” she croaked. She stood and stumbled to the bathroom, then, after relieving herself, dug around in the little cabinet, trying to find a pack of Numbstrips she was sure was in there. She came up empty. Groaning, regretting her third, fourth, and fifth drink with every fiber of her being, she shuffled out of her room. Her dad wasn’t there. Glancing at her AUI and seeing the time was closing in on eleven AM, she groaned again—more of a raspy wheeze, really. Of course he wasn’t! He was probably wondering if she was sick or something.

She had a blinking message icon, but it hurt her eyes too much to try to read, so she went into the little kitchen and dug through the fridge, delighting when she found an old energy drink—Blastoff!—and immediately cracked the tab, draining half of it in several long gulps. The crisp orange flavor was like heaven on her throat, and she finished the little can in several more big swallows.

She scanned the counter, hoping beyond hope that her dad had made pancakes or something, but only found a loaf of white, fortified bread. She put two slices in the toaster and rummaged for the jar of nut butter she knew was somewhere. As the caffeine from the energy drink began to kick in and the throbbing in her skull receded a bit, she thought it would be wise to drink some water, too.

The filter machine slowly drizzled a stream of clean water into a glass, and she spotted the nut butter behind her dad’s KitchenHelper machine. “Things are looking up,” she sighed as she went to work, slathering her toast.

JJ, for once, knew to keep quiet. She gobbled her food, finished her glass of water, and then, after brushing her teeth, she went downstairs, fully intending to raid her father’s “Medicine” shelf. When she exited the storeroom, she was a little surprised and a lot annoyed to hear Tony and her dad chatting away, chuckling at something one of them had said.

How was he doing that? He’d been up just as late as she had! He’d drunk just as much…right? She frowned, not really sure. When she came around the corner, she waved off their chipper greetings and walked, zombie-like, to the shelf where her dad sold bandages, analgesics, antacids, and the like. Her eyes zeroed in on the green and black packages of Numbstrips and snagged one off the shelf. “I’m stealing these, Dad.”

She heard Tony chuckle as her dad asked, “Aren’t you feeling well, honey?”

Addie didn’t respond as she ripped the plastic backing off two transparent strips and slapped them behind her ears. She sighed, not feeling any relief but knowing it was on the way. “Coffee?”

Her dad was always so good to her. He smiled and nodded, pouring her a cup. Addie felt her grumpy funk fading as he also took the time to stir in a few packets of sugar. “Thank you, Daddy.” She blushed a little, using the endearment in front of Tony, but he only smiled and watched as she sipped the less-than-delicious brew. Bert Jones might not make good coffee, but it did the trick.

“Tony was telling me you got your first job! Drone surveillance, huh? I’m excited for you. I hadn’t figured you’d be able to use your talents so directly.”

“Yep.” Addie smiled, her headache pain already fading to a distant throb.

“That’s great, hon.” Her dad’s face was so happy as he sat on the stool, folding his arms, watching her sip her coffee that Addie’s overstimulated heart felt like it would burst.

Tony cleared his throat and said, “I was talking to your dad about my debt. I think we’re going to be pretty busy, so my time in the store will be limited.”

“I told you, Tony, there’s no hurry. That arm wasn’t going anywhere fast—”

“Anyway,” Tony interrupted with a chuckle, “I told him I’ll pay him out of my cut on our first few jobs. Shouldn’t take too long. Speaking of which, you ready to head out when you finish that?”

“Head out?” Addie frowned. What had she forgotten?

“You know. To Dino’s? We need to shop for a new little friend for you.”

“Oh!” Addie set her cup down. “That’s right! Yeah, let’s go there, but we should give my dad orders for stuff like that in the future if we can. That’s another way you can pay him back—some extra business.”

Tony nodded, turning to look at her dad. “For sure. If we know in advance that we need something and give you a heads-up, how long do you think it would take to get something in? I mean, like a specialized piece of equipment.”

“I can get almost anything from within the metroplex the same day I order it. Otherwise, it’ll be here within two or three most of the time. Sometimes, the checkpoints between districts slow things down. I had a delivery stalled for almost a week while the corpos took their time searching an automated transport trailer.”

Tony looked at Addie. “Sounds pretty great, huh? Same-day delivery? Shit, if we weren’t going to start our job tonight, I’d say we should order the spider drone from your old man here.”

Addie’s dad waved his hand dismissively. “Next time! Go on and do your thing. I’m just thrilled you’ve already got a gig.”

Addie felt her eyes watering up—probably emotional from the hangover or something—listening to him speak. He was such a good dad. Again, she embarrassed herself by blurting, “I love you, Dad.”

“Come here, honey.” Her dad moved close and squeezed her into his ample belly. He chuckled and winked at Tony. “I don’t know what you’ve done with my daughter, but I appreciate it.”

Addie grinned as she extricated herself from the hug and downed the last of her coffee. “Let’s go get me a bug, Tony Baloney.”