18 – Wasp’s Crew

  Tony leaned an elbow on the bar, shifting on the stool so he could watch the table in the corner. He’d spent days looking for that crew, annoyed the whole while about how much things had changed in the short time he’d been away. Nightlife in ’Hattan, especially on the edge, morphed rapidly, though. The clubs that were hot one week were old and tired the next, only to be cycled into popularity again a few months later.

  It wasn’t that the clubs changed; it was that the crews did. Someone died, someone scored big, somebody pissed off the wrong corp or another crew—there was always a reason, but sometimes it was hard to track back. Everyone had a different story, a different angle, a different reason for why one place was “flat-dead,” and why another was “liquid chrome.”

  The point of Tony’s meandering thoughts was that he’d finally found the place where the crews he used to associate with—the ones Eric liked to hire to back him up—were hanging. It was a club on the south side of the park, in the Royce Arcology, tucked away in the back corner of floor 112, called Leadhammer Red. It was a hard place, with lots of rough characters, both customers and staff, and the kinds of hangers-on who thought hard was hot. It made sense that Wasp and his crew were there.

  As Tony snapped a quick vid with his chrome eye before turning back to the bar, slouched, so his jacket’s high collar hid most of his face, he wondered if he was being stupid. However much he wanted to deny it, he wasn’t the old Tony. Was he biting off more than he could chew? Scowling, he practiced being a hardass by telling himself to shut up, then he pulled up the vid, making sure Wasp’s crew didn’t have surprises for him.

  The central character, the guy taking up all the oxygen in the booth, was the crew leader. Wasp was more than two meters tall, lean, hard, and half chrome. Tony knew he was fast, but not too fast—at least he didn’t used to be. He had blades in his forearms and subdermal armor, but not enough to stop his mass driver. Beside him was his main muscle: Koto. He was big, but not compared to Wasp or even Tony—definitely nothing like Beef. Still, he was strong as a bull and a hell of a fighter. “Slow, though,” Tony muttered.

  It was a descriptor only someone like Tony would use, because Koto was about as slow as a cobra; still, he couldn’t keep up with Wasp or Tony in a wired-up fight. He always carried a high-tech revolver with an extra-long barrel. It was his quirk; he fancied himself something of a samurai cowboy, but people who really knew him, people like Tony, knew it was a show. The guy couldn’t hope to draw that piece fast enough to beat a real slinger—especially from a seated position.

  Venus sat beside him. She wasn’t a fighter, and she wasn’t fast. She was a face, a social engineer, but Tony wouldn’t be stupid enough to turn his back to her. On the other side of Wasp was the fourth member of their crew: Bibi. She was a grease monkey, a tech-head, and she often carried grenades. Tony didn’t think he needed to worry about that in the club, especially with her and the others stuck in a booth, but he’d be ready for it, just in case.

  Finally, there were the civs—two dolls, fawning all over the crew like they were money trees with loose leaves. If Tony were guessing, he’d say they’d just made a big score. He counted four bottles of expensive liquor on the table, and two of ’em were empty. “Perfect,” Tony muttered, steeling himself with a final deep breath as he slid his feet off the bar rail and stood.

  He reached down and tugged on his pistol, making sure it was loose in the holster, then he let his fingers rest just beside the grip as he walked, nonchalant, past one, two, three tables, then a booth full of party-goers, until he stood facing Wasp and his crew.

  At first, they ignored him, probably thinking he was a wannabe coming over to soak up a bit of their shine. It was Venus who looked up at his face, looked away, then gave him a wide-eyed double-take. “J-Jesus!” she gasped. It was enough to get a reaction out of her crew. Tony forced himself to stay calm as they all turned toward him and their hands reached toward weapons as—some quickly, some more slowly—they realized who he was.

  Tony tapped his fingers against his pistol grip. “Ah-ah. Let’s keep those hands where I can see ’em.” Leadhammer Red wasn’t the kind of place to disallow weapons. They had two rules posted near the door: 1. Draw iron, draw blood - expect the same, and 2. Clean your own mess - one way or another.

  “Jesus, that you, T?” Wasp asked in his signature drawl. “Thought you checked out.”

  “Tony?” Venus asked, her voice high with alarm as she looked from Tony to Wasp. She knew what the score was.

  Tony kept his eyes on Wasp, but he’d been careful about his positioning. He wasn’t too close to keep them all in his field of view. With his left hand, he pointed to the two dolls, their flesh trying to escape their bright, synthetic clothes. “Take a break.” He flicked his fingers to the side, and something in his face or his voice must have tipped them off, because they didn’t argue; they scrambled out of the booth and hurried away.

  “Ah, T, that wasn’t cool. I liked the redhead.” Wasp smirked as he pointed to the empty spot on the bench seat. “Have a seat. I’ll pour you a shot. It’s the good stuff.”

  Tony, pointedly, didn’t even look at the bench. “Pretty cool for a guy who owes me a quarter million bits.” He knew the claim was inflammatory, so he wasn’t surprised when Wasp’s synth-flesh forehead wrinkled into a scowl and his lips turned down in a frown. He was a hard man, and he had face to save in front of his crew.

  “That’s some batshit noise, old boy. Ain’t you supposed to be dead, anyway?”

  Tony shrugged. “I feel alive, and my bit-vault feels light. You got my bits, or what?”

  “It wasn’t a quarter mil, T!” Venus whined, earning a glare from Wasp. Meanwhile, Koto moved his hand, almost imperceptibly, beneath the table, and Tony took a calculated risk and snatched his mass driver out of the holster, training the crosshairs on the man’s tattooed forehead. He pulled the trigger halfway, so the batts whined.

  “Don’t—even—breathe,” he said, voice steady as a metronome. Koto realized he was a millimeter of trigger-pull from being erased, so he froze, and, just as Tony had suggested, held his breath.

  Tony’s arm was fast—not quite as fast as his old muscles used to be when he fired off his wirejob, but it also didn’t eat any Dust. His reactor was full in case he had to fire the wire-job for a few seconds, and that suited him just fine. The point of the matter was that he’d beaten Wasp to the punch. If the man tried anything, he’d lose his right-hand man—his compadre, as he often introduced the slinger.

  “T,” Wasp said, putting the lazy drawl back into his voice, “let’s talk this out. What’s all this noise, anyway? Last I checked, we owe you something like 60k.” He glanced at Venus, who nodded.

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  Tony tilted his head ever so slightly, so his chrome eye fell on Bibi. “You trying to get your crew killed?”

  She visibly gulped and, very slowly, very deliberately, lifted her hands onto the table.

  “Get your crew under control, Wasp, or I’m gonna make a mess.” Tony inhaled deeply through his nose, then added, “As for the amount you owe me, I have to ask: did you pay Eric on my behalf? ’Cause I never saw a single bit.”

  “What?” Wasp leaned back, folding his arms, trying to look relaxed, but Tony could see his pulse throbbing on the side of his wiry neck. It was too fast. “Mate, everyone thought you were dead. Why would I pay out your cut of some salvage?”

  “Did we do a job together? Did Eric hire your crew? Were the terms of the salvage even cuts to all parties?” He spoke through gritted teeth, the whine of his mass driver accompanying his words, but his arm was steady as a rock.

  “Yeah, but—” Bibi started to say, but Tony cut her off.

  “I was being rhetorical.” He paused. “Venus, tell Bibi what that means.”

  Bibi bristled. “I know what—”

  “Tell her,” Tony growled.

  Venus hastily spoke, her voice quavering. “It, um—” She licked her lips. “It means he doesn’t want an answer.”

  Tony continued as if there hadn’t been an interruption. “So, Eric paid out your contract, but I never got my cut of the salvage. That right, Wasp?”

  “Yeah, sure, man. I’ll send you your cut right now, if—”

  “I don’t want my cut,” Tony growled. “I want to know how you knew you didn’t need to pay me. I want to know how it felt to sit two tables over and watch while Jen blew Emily’s brains out. I want to know what you thought when her boys pumped me full of tranqs and dragged me out. Did it feel good? Did you think to yourself, ‘That’s a guy I won’t have to square up with.’ Or—”

  “Tony, we didn’t—” Venus tried to interrupt, but Tony shifted his gaze to her and she clamped her mouth shut.

  “Or did Jen’s payoff cover up the guilt?” He was guessing at the next part, but he’d rehearsed the lines, and he didn’t allow an ounce of doubt into his voice as he said, “I saw you watching. I saw you ready to draw in case her boys weren’t fast enough. You got anything to say about that?”

  Wasp looked at Tony’s massive pistol, still trained on his partner’s face, and he let out a long, shaky sigh. “This is a harsh business, man. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Isn’t that what they say? Hell, I think I heard you say that! What was I supposed to do? Go up against Cross?”

  “You knew?” Venus cried. To her credit, she sounded genuinely shocked.

  Bibi also looked stunned. Her face was ashen as she blubbered, “We all mourned Emily, Wasp. You said you couldn’t believe it. You fucking poured one out to her”—she glanced at Tony—“and Tony!” Her heavy jaw quivered. “I swear, T! We were all fucked up over what happened.”

  Tony shifted his gaze to the man sitting under his crosshairs. “What about you, Koto? How much was your cut?”

  He shrugged. “Same as Wasp.”

  “You asshole!” Venus cried. She looked at Tony. “I’m so sorry, Tony! I—”

  Tony shifted his gun toward her, and she closed her mouth, her teeth clicking. “Don’t try your face bullshit on me, Venus.” He smiled cruelly. “When did you decide I was gonna kill Wasp and Koto?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond, turning his pistol and attention to Wasp. “Did you think she’d sell you out so fast?”

  He shrugged. “I think she’d sell her own mother out faster than that.”

  Tony kept his focus between Wasp and Koto, but he said, “Bibi, seems like your crew didn’t think you deserved a cut of that blood money.”

  “Nah,” Wasp drawled, “we just knew she wouldn’t go along with it. Would’ve cut her in if I didn’t think she’d squeal.”

  Tony nodded, then, quicker than most people’s eyes could track, he smoothly holstered his gun. “Sending you a vault address, Wasp. Pay me my cut of the salvage. I just wanted to clear the air—let you all know that I know. No need to try to pull my plug now that I’m back.”

  “Seriously? You’re back back?” Wasp raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. “Jen’s cool with you again?”

  Tony shrugged. “Not yet, but she will—” Tony didn’t get much of a clue, but he saw the tendons in Koto’s shoulder tense and saw his head tilt to the side a couple of centimeters, but the real giveaway was the look in his eyes. They went from passive to murderous, with a glint that was all too familiar to Tony. He fired his wire-job for the first time in too long. Dust exploded through his matrix, into his biomechanically enhanced nerves, tendons, twitch muscles, and even his synapses. The world brightened, and everything around him slowed down.

  He heard the leading edge of an explosion, like a slow-motion thunderclap, and he sidestepped as a jet of flame and smoke erupted from under the table. As the blast continued to unfold, hot lead sizzled through the air in the space where he’d been standing. Tony snatched his mass driver out of its holster, twitched the barrel up, and fired from the hip.

  The mag-rails screamed, and the ferromass slug, riding on a wave of plasma, ripped through the air, punching a fist-sized hole in Koto’s chest. Tony saw Wasp move, faster than he ought to be, considering Tony’s boost, and he shifted his barrel to the man’s face. “Don’t,” he snapped. He wouldn’t mind killing Wasp, but he had a role to play, and he didn’t want to let Addie down. Her plan required him to clear the air, not the table.

  As Wasp settled, palms flat on the table, Tony cut the flow of Dust to his wire-job, and the world sped up again. Plasma that had been hanging in the air sizzled into smoke, blood exploded from Koto’s mouth as his body rocked back and forth, most of his heart and spine buried in the booth’s cushion, Venus screamed, and Bibi fell out of the booth, collapsing onto the maroon carpet and gagging.

  “I didn’t want to kill anyone tonight,” Tony said, surprised that the club’s music hadn’t stopped, but well aware that bouncers were coming his way as the crowd moved back.

  Wasp looked at Koto’s corpse and cursed. “Damn. I guess you still got your boost, huh?” He stared at the dead man, face down on the table, a massive bloody hole in the middle of his back. “Guess he didn’t think so. To be fair, they said they stripped you.”

  “Let’s go!” A gruff voice said behind Tony, and he felt the muzzle of a large-caliber gun against his spine.

  Tony looked at Wasp. “I’ll be waiting for my bits. My PAI sent you the address.”

  The merc reached up to wipe blood off his cheek, but he nodded. “We straight then?”

  Tony nodded. “Yeah.” He looked at Bibi, sitting with her back against the short wall that separated their booth from the next one. She was staring into space, her face pale and drawn. “Sorry to ruin your party.”

  “I said, let’s go!” The muzzle pressed into his back again, and Tony turned to regard the bouncer—a heavyset bald man wearing too much synth-leather. He stared into his glowing red eyes until the man lowered his gun and took a step back.

  Tony nodded and holstered his gun. “I’m leaving.”

  He walked past the bouncer and the two others who were just arriving and moved through the crowd of onlookers—at least three dozen witnesses to the scene—and then out through the two security doors and past another pair of bouncers who watched him with a mix of hostility and admiration. No doubt the security footage of the shooting had already been circulated among the staff.

  Outside, in the midnight winter air, Tony exhaled, pushing away his stress as the adrenaline shakes started to hit. He walked to the corner where Nora had a cab waiting and climbed into the back. He was pleased with how things had gone overall. He wouldn’t have felt bad if he’d had to kill everyone at that table, but he was glad things hadn’t gone that far, for the sake of the plan—and Bibi, he supposed. He hadn’t been sure they’d known Jen was going to betray him, but he’d been prepared to act as though he was convinced of it. Finding out the truth stung more than he’d like to admit.

  “Run and tell Jen, you pricks,” he muttered, leaning back in his seat. “Tell her I let you live. Tell her I said we were good.” His AUI pinged, and he looked up to see a transfer alert—Wasp had sent him 75k with a note: Interest included.

  “Are you okay, Tony?” Nora asked, apparently having decided that things had cooled off enough for her to speak.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your breathing is erratic, and I’m detecting signs of emotional turmoil.”

  “Nah. It’s the aftereffects of the boost,” he lied.

  “Would you like to compose a message for Addie?”

  Tony frowned. Why was she asking him that? “Not now.”

  “I’m directing the cab to the Verdant Mile Complex. Is that—”

  “It’s fine, Nora. Leave me alone with my thoughts for a while, yeah?” She didn’t respond, and Tony, for some damn reason, felt guilty for cutting her off. Scowling, he pressed his head to the glass and tried not to think about anything for a while. He pictured an empty room with black walls and no lights, and he stood in it, soaking in the nothingness.