Jolie Mons was on her fifth drink of the night when her guilty conscience finally caught up.
Kwa-Hon block, Vents, highlayer. Twenty years since the street fires, ten years since she’d been roped into cleaning up the most obvious mistake of her twin brother’s life. Elbows deep in a sternum-thumping electroclub whose name she’d stopped remembering four drinks ago, she was far past the point of caring about the time or the tab. All that mattered was that the responsibilities of the surface world stayed where they belonged.
Lighter haze stung her nostrils. Liquor stung her throat. Bass-heavy club music vibrated up the floor through her flats through her bones to her eardrums. Neon flashed and swept through the club’s darkened interior; the dance floor a deep-sea blue. Escorts flirted with her, sat on her lap, unbuttoned her buttons, till she brushed them aside and ignored them and lost herself in the music and they finally got the hint that so many others had over the years: Miss Senior Fight Promoter didn’t care much for the boys or the girls.
That didn’t keep her from taking the free drinks, though. Most people liked the Showmaker’s famous twin sister, even if she didn’t like them back.
The night was like all the others: a loop inside a life that was also a loop. Wake up in her office, bleary-eyed and an hour’s worth of messages backed up overnight. Sip caf. Work. Be human. Let her responsibilities cajole her around. Work more. Pass out. Forget the loop. Et cetera. Until she’d run enough circles that couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Then it was the club, or places like it. The dark ones where she could get away from it all. Head banging, darkness sweating, vision swimming. Losing herself, only to end up back in the office, somehow, just to do it all over again.
Not a bad loop, all things considered. Most of the people in the club around her had it worse. Didn’t stop it from feeling as hollow as it had become, wondering if this is all life had, if this was all it’d ever be. That’s why she drank. Those kinds of silly questions stopped bugging her pretty damn fast once the liquor hit her empty stomach. Things were smooth. For a while, at least.
The joint was popular- a one-of-a-kind attraction spanning a seam in the crust of the city. Lower deck for the Venters, upper for the topsiders. The music was good. The bartenders knew her in the way that everyone in the city knew her. Ms. Jolie Mons, the power behind the throne, out of her office for once in a blue moon. She hadn’t paid for a drink in years.
It was only on that… fifth, stop by the bar? That she saw the huddle of Venters gathered around a stream screen above their bottles, drinks clenched, knuckles white, muttering and then clenching fists in victory as explosive amounts of firepower ripped across the feed. Then a closeup of her brother’s battle-hardened face took to the screen, and Jolie Mons stepped out of the forgetfulness in a brief moment of guilty clarity.
Someone put a Sixer in front of her; amber-yellow drink. Two ice cubes clinked as she sipped on it and pulled out her JOY, took it off mute. The messages poured in like a dam unblocked. Notification after notification from interns, bosses, bosses of interns, friends, ex-friends, ambassadors, businessmen, spam mail, everyone wanting something that only she could help with. And right at the top, priority status so she couldn’t ignore it, were seven unread messages from her brother’s big mistake.
Her JOY vibrated in her hand.
Make that eight.
Cognizant of how much she’d been drinking and how little it was making her care, Jolie browsed the messages with a distant gaze, each stretching her sympathy a little thinner than the last. Dad said he’d come home. Dad isn’t picking up. Auntie, I can’t reach Dad, can you talk? And in a surprising amount of awareness for a nine-year-old, Auntie I’m scared, can you please call me? Followed by increasingly unhinged begging for someone, anyone, to answer her.
Sorry kiddo was the first thing her fingers wanted to type.
No shit her father wasn’t picking up. He wasn’t going to be picking up till the press conferences wrapped up in four hours, and in all likelihood he wouldn’t be making good on that promise to come home for another week. But how was a nine-year-old supposed to understand the responsibilities of the adult world? She’d had a bad dream. Her little world was caving in.
It wasn’t even her fault that she was being hung out to dry, again. It was Mars’ fault for adopting her out of pity in the first place. He didn’t have the time for a kid. And he knew it, but then he’d seen her weird missing arm during the press tour at the hospital, knew no one else was going to want to help that, pity struck, and the rest was like every other story of Mars Mons stopping to help someone.
In a way, it wasn’t even his fault that he couldn’t be the father he so desperately wanted to be for her. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that their world was broken and someone had to fix it.
Yet every time Mars had to answer that call, his little girl got left holding the short end of the bargain, and someone else had to parent for him.
Usually that someone was Jolie. And she was fine with it. Usually. Even if she didn’t like being the one to clean up her brother’s bad decisions. But when she saw that first message come in as she was walking into the club, she put her JOY on mute faster than a Gunslinger on the draw. The little runt could wait.
It’d been so justified when it was just one message. But seeing them all lined up, seeing what was happening to that little girl while Mars went up on stage to be a hero again, a sobering level of sickness took root in Jolie’s stomach.
Yeah. Time to go clean up that mess.
The beat of the music helped her back to her feet. The world swirled as she threw back the rest of the Sixer. Thumbing her lips dry, she paid out of habit, stood, and had to keep an iron grip on the bar as she walked very, very carefully towards the surface exit. Her path slurred a little, wobbled a little, but this wasn’t her first rodeo. Vaguely, she was aware of someone following her from the bar, leaving the pack of Venters watching Mars’ fight. They got lost among the others heading up to the surface; mostly topsiders, a couple Venters. Her focus was already on the drive.
The door hissed open. Summer humidity drenched her already sweat-damp shirt. Nighttime neon smeared the hot parking lot. Autocabs drifted along the highway nearby. On the skyline horizon, the lights of the Metro Blockhouse speared straight up into space.
Jolie stagger-walked towards where she’d parked her autobike. Not really focusing on the bigger picture of her vision, just relying on cues of small details to find her way; hunting for the black gleam of the Shimano Industries frame. The bike’s stabilizers and autonav would help her once she was on the road. And there it was, parked right beside a graffitied mural of a black-white revolver with a rose growing from the barrel. She was about to key it on when that person who’d been following her from the bar finally caught up.
“Promoter Mons!” A heavy hand gripped her by the wrist. An overweight man’s raspy, out-of-shape breathing. “Ms. Mons, hold up. You should keep off the sticks tonight. Let me get you a cab back to the arena.”
Jolie jerked her arm back and whirled, stumbling a bit. “Who the fuck are…”
She knew him, vaguely. One of Mori’s diversity hires. Martial Artist trainer for the minor league. Nan… Nabu something. Nabuna. Nabuna Nagori. Hairy, paunchy stomach, big square-shaped cap, leathery skin, thick moustache, one hand held up, palm empty. Always saw a little too much for a Venter.
“Thank you for the concern, but my business is none of yours,” she said, doing a perfect job of elocution. Not a syllable slurred out of place.
Another Venter jogged up behind Nabuna. “Hey. Is she…?”
Nabuna motioned the woman back. “No, no. I was just helping her get a ride.”
Jolie’s JOY vibrated against her hip. Clicking her tongue, she turned away from them and moved for the bike. “This is my ride. Please, go back inside. Enjoy your night.”
Someone else stepped to block her from the front. “Ms. Jolie, we can’t let you do that. You’ve had way too much tonight-”
“Hey!”
More footsteps jogged near, encircling the group already forming around Jolie. One hand already on the sticks for balance, she looked up to see another group of five approaching from the club. Two uni students, someone in a Metro Blockhouse jumpsuit, and of all people, Winter. Long-legged, icy hair, fire in her eyes as she stomped towards the Venters and shoved one roughly in the chest.
“Hands off and back up. Don’t you recognize the fucking Showmaker’s twin sister?”
“She’s my boss,” Nabuna growled up at her, not budging. “As her employee, it’s my responsibility to-”
“It’s your responsibility to shut the fuck up and do what you’re told. She knows what she’s doing.” Winter snarled. She took a step towards Jolie, shielding her from the Venters. “Come on Jojo. Boot up the bike, I’ll-”
“She’s plastered! The bartenders asked us to-”
“Bartenders don’t give orders to a major leaguer, jackass-”
“Ms. Mons, you’re not in a right state of mind-”
“Stop moving!”
“Get your major league ass back-”
It happened fast.
There was a grunt. The familiar whumpf of human striking human. Jolie didn’t see the brawl starting until the Venter in front of her went pitching back with his nose crushed into his face and blood spurting out of it. Someone grabbed her arm and jerked her sideways. A twisting braid of Winter’s hair went down as she was tackled onto the concrete. People shouted. Jolie stumbled, her JOY falling from her hand to crack against the pavement. One of the uni students fought towards her, shoving off another Venter. A fist blurred towards him. Then a flailing shoulder struck Jolie from behind and that fist was blurring towards her face instead.
Pain exploded into her head like a hammered nail. Plastic shattered and glass crinkled as her glasses bent inwards. Thrown back, Jolie hit the hard metal frame of her bike and went spilling down onto the ground as a metallic crash shattered the conflict.
The silence that followed lasted one shocked heartbeat before the sirens began.
----------------------------------------
Her fourth time in jail.
Drunk tank, general population, somewhere up in E-Town. As best as Jolie could piece together, everyone in the brawl had been taken in together and mixed in with the rest of the night’s misdemeanors. Hours later, police were still trying to untangle the stories and security footage. Only Winter had been locked up separately- even without a JOY, no one was taking chances putting a major leaguer in with civilians.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Pale overhead lights pissed down from the bland grey roof of the jail cell. Jolie worked her way up into sitting with a groan. Glanced around through bleary vision, felt around for her glasses where they usually hung at her neck, then remembered the crunch when they’d been punched into her nose and sat back with a grunt. Her head pounded where it touched the wall.
She was on the only cot in the space. Apparently, her fellow inmates had unanimously decided to give it to her while she’d been out, even though most of them had clearly gotten worse injuries in the brawl. Likely had something to do with the cabal of Venters, Electric Towners, and university students arrayed protectively around her cot; all differences forgotten.
She sagged against the wall, feeling exactly as sick and beaten as she was. A disastrous hangover pulsed through her veins, her head. Strands of sticky red hair hung past her eyes. She gathered them up in a dour ponytail. Touched her face, winced. Reached for her JOY, remembering why she’d been in such a hurry to get out of the city. Winced again. Her hand patted around her breast pocket, pulled out a flask, not a drop left.
In the weathered metal, a stretched and warped reflection of her pallid face stared back at her. A lump rose in her throat as she saw herself. Pressure built in her tear ducts. She didn’t let it out.
Slipping the flask back into her breast pocket, Jolie rested her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands, head hanging. “You can’t keep doing this.”
The conversations out in the hall slowly trailed away. Not all at once, but like a slow-moving blackout was coming towards her cell from far in the distance. Sensing the coming disturbance, the inmates around her began to quiet almost as one. Respectful silence, all ears perking up as the warm, tired tones of a man’s voice began to reach them.
From the highest skyscrapers to the lowest Vents bridges, there wasn’t a single person who wouldn’t recognize the maker of that voice. Trailed by a pair of exhausted workers, he walked up to the cell doors, said, “I’ll only need a minute,” and left it open as he came right on in with the inmates.
Not a single person made a move for the open door.
A ki fighter’s warm aura flooded calmly into the cell, sharpening the air with that special intensity common to all leaders of men. It was an honest, everyman’s intensity. One that didn’t have to ask you to be better, because just feeling it was enough to make you want to be better. And it was a perfect fit for the person who made that aura. Those indigo eyes crinkled by laugh lines, that hint of a father’s smile always on his face- Mars Mons was the sort of man anyone wanted to be liked by the moment they met him.
Everyone in the room except Jolie started sitting up a little straighter, putting on their best behavior as the Champion of their people glanced around the room’s twenty-something occupants.
“Can I get some privacy?” he asked.
Almost jumping to obey, the disparate inmates filed out and found orderly seats in the hall instead, slouching and leaning against the walls. No one so much as thought to run.
Last to leave, that Venter coach Nabuna was the only one to say something.
“Sir, with all due respect, it was my fault in the first place,” he said. “I was the first one to follow Jolie… I mean, Promoter Mons, up to her ride.”
Mars waved him on through with the others. “I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding.”
Then the door shut and it was just the two of them, minus the audience watching through the bars.
Grabbing a mop bucket from beside the door, Mars Mons, seventy-third Champion of Section G, flipped it over and sighed onto it in front of his twin sister, finally letting something else take the titanic weight off his broad shoulders. Halfway through his thirties, his hair was a longer, deeper shade of red. He was like a giant compared to her; nearly fifty kilos of fighting muscle denser and skin rippling with a ki fighter’s signature aura.
Those indigo eyes took their time in examining Jolie. His hands, heavy and scarred, rested awkwardly on his kneecaps.
“We can’t keep doing this, Jojo,” he sighed. “Someone’s actually going to get fired this time.”
Jolie didn’t look up.
“Who?” she asked.
“Nabuna.” Mars tilted his head towards the unaware Venter. “Starting a street fight and punching the Senior Fight Promoter of the Metro Blockhouse has to have some sort of punishment.”
“Someone shoved me into him. It wasn’t his fault.”
“I know that. Any martial artist who saw the tapes would know that. But the court isn’t going to see it that way. Someone has to take responsibility for what happened.”
Jolie’s eyes traced the tiled floor. Her fingers worked in knots.
“This is the fourth time I’ve had to bail you out of the drunk tank, Jojo.” Mars put a gentle hand on her leg. “I’m worried about you.”
“You’ve got bigger things to worry about than me.”
“Clearly, I need to go back to worrying about the small things.”
“Then you should start with your little goblin, Mars. Not me.” Her gaze snapped up. “Want to know why I was going to my bike while five drinks in? Because your daughter was texting me all night while I was fucking clubbing because she had a bad dream, her dad wasn’t picking up the phone, and she was crying for someone to come hold her.” She snatched Mars’ JOY from his belt, keyed it open with the password she’d made for him, read the time. Two in the morning. “You’re treating her like a pet that you can just… pick up and put down a relationship with whenever you feel like it.”
Mars’ tone dropped to a dangerous low. “We’re not talking about Tetsuka. This is about you.”
Genuine, fiery emotion spilled over into Jolie’s voice. “Maybe we should talk about her, Mars. That kid loves you in a way I don’t think you’ll ever really understand, because you’re not the one who has to see the look on her face when someone tells her that daddy’s not coming home. Again.” She scoffed loudly. “That is why you’re bailing me out, brother. Because I’m the one cleaning up your messes. I told you that you never should have adopted-”
“-and who do you think is cleaning up your messes, Jolie?” Sudden fury sparked in Mars’ eyes. “A good man is going to lose his job because you can’t get a hold of yourself. Don’t pretend to be some moral authority, especially not on parenting. Not when you’re a serial alcoholic who hasn’t had a sober month since-”
Jolie’s face paled. Her hands clenched, white knuckle grip.
Mars’ eyes widened. Like a wind-stripped sail, the fire bled out from his shoulders first, then his hands.
“Is that all that’s really going on?” he gently asked. “If it is, if you didn’t want to help with Tetsuka in the first place, you should have said so. I can find someone else.” He shook his head, pulling back from her. “You don’t have to keep doing it. You’ve got enough to deal with as it is.”
Jolie just sat there, staring at the floor. She already didn’t have much faith left in life. That moment, two A.M. in an Electric Town jail cell, listening to the one person she still loved telling her that he didn’t need her anymore in the nicest way possible, that she was one of those problems he had to fix, was where she lost the last of it.
She made the choice right then.
Emptiness settled inside her, stilled her tapping heel. An emptiness of finality. Of knowing none of it mattered anymore. The rest of their argument slid right off her.
Mars gathered himself up and stood, picking up the bucket. “Come on. Let me get you back to your pad. I’ll take the couch. We can get your bike from the impound lot tomorrow. Maybe swing by the Main Street diner too, just like old times.”
She murmured something inaudible.
He paused. “What?”
“I said to punish me.” Sitting back, Jolie slouched against the wall, indigo eyes drifting to the line of inmates waiting outside the cell. Done with the conversation. Done with it all. “Don’t clean it up.”
Mars’ shoulders sagged. “Rebun’s going to have to put you on probation if not fire you. I can’t do that to you, Jolie. You love your job.”
“I’ll be fine. He won’t fire me,” she lied. As if it mattered anymore.
“…Are you sure?”
Still holding Mars’ JOY, Jolie paged over to his priority messages. Twelve from Butterball, left on read.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “I’m sure.”
----------------------------------------
“Pull over, please.”
Her driver glanced over from the other seat. Midnight countryside blurred outside the windows. “Right now?”
“Yes.”
His golden eyes returned to the highway. Gentle gravity pushed against Jolie’s back as the brakes engaged and they drifted to the gravelly side of an empty country road.
Eight years after that jail cell, hundreds of miles between nowhere and somewhere, the supercar’s passenger door swung shut behind Jolie as she climbed out into the frigid midnight. Her overcoat’s empty sleeves flapped in the breeze, hanging unworn over her shoulders. Steam plumed between her lips as she rested against the idling car. Valleys of moonlit farmland stretched endlessly on every side; rice stalks swaying like waves of liquid silver. The only sounds the chirping of crickets and the moan of the wind.
Her heartbeat slowed once the lighter reached her lips, body already relaxing for the calm to come. She held the lighter between two aristocratic fingers. Took a long drag. Let it burn in her lungs. Let it out even slower, smoke mixing with the steam of her breath.
Her jittering fingers stilled. Far in the distance, a full moon shimmered over the peaks of the Section’s northern mountain ranges.
A crunch of boots against gravel brought her back.
Jolie glanced over as Thane rounded the back of the car; hands bundled in the wooly pockets of a thick winter coat. Savage black hair, perceptive golden eyes, eighteen years old and already almost a man. In so many ways, he already carried the responsibilities of one. His problems and his life were not those of a uni first-year. Nor was the homesickness in his gaze as he looked out over the fields, thinking only of the girl and the house they were heading to see.
He was a good kid. One of the few she didn’t mind spending time with. He was a realist. Like her.
Taller and broader than his father had been at the same age, Thane settled against the car beside Jolie with a calming ease that reminded her so very much of her twin brother.
“You’re too young to start smoking,” she said, taking another drag.
“When did you?”
“When my boyfriend died of cancer.” She breathed out. “He was twenty-two.”
They watched the moon together. Thane knew when to let a silence speak for itself. A chill rippled past them when he quietly shifted a class. Elemental fire wreathed his hand before floating down to form a campfire orb just above the ground, taking the edge off the night. Wavering shadows and tongues of orange light danced across the grass.
“Earlier in the car, I shouldn’t have asked,” he said. “It sounded harmless in my head.”
“It was harmless. Don’t apologize. We were just talking.” Jolie shut down her lighter and slipped it into a pocket, thumbing over the warm metal. “That’s always been the difference between me and Mars. He’s always had bigger things to live for. I was always living for other people.” The rhythmic motion of her thumb stilled. “The older we got, the less people needed me, but I still needed them the same. Then Mars and I had that argument, and all at once, I realized just how far we’d drifted. He still had his purpose. The only things I’d ever lived for had already outgrown me or passed away. I was just distracting myself from it as long as I could.”
A lone tear froze halfway down her cheek.
“Don’t you ever tell them. But I was going to do it that weekend.”
Thane watched her evenly.
“I thought about it the whole drive back to the estate that weekend. Decided to put it off for a night. Didn’t help, of course. So I had some caf out on the porch in the morning. Had the pills.” A cold breath sighed out of her. “Then Tetsuka came out crying and she just… fell onto me. She needed somebody. Anybody. And I held her and shushed her and let her ruin my shirt with snot, then I took her inside and made her the breakfast I always made for Mars after he lost a big fight, and I forgot about the pills until I went out to have my caf the next morning and saw them lying there; right on the porch where I’d left them. But I didn’t want them anymore.”
The empty sleeves of Jolie’s trenchcoat fluttered around her, putting a sad smile on her face.
“Turned out, I needed someone too,” she said. “I’ve always hated children. They’re annoying, they’re needy, and they’re illogical. But I’m glad I made an exception for her. She’ll never know she saved my life that day.”
“She’s lucky to have you for a mother,” Thane said.
“That’s sweet of you to say, kiddo. But I’m just her aunt. She’ll always be a daddy’s girl.”
“Mars might have trained her, but you raised her.” Stooping, Thane opened up the car for her. “She takes after you more than you realize. And she loves you. There’s a reason she calls you first.”
Jolie’s eyes watered in the cold. Taking a last look at the silvery moon, she wiped the moisture away and ducked into the car. “What did I tell you about patronizing, Thane?”
“Is it patronizing if it’s true?”
“Does anyone ever tell you that you’re too smart for your own good?”
The door shut behind her. Then the driver’s side opened a moment later and Thane slid in, a rush of cold air chasing him inside.
“My sister. From time to time,” he answered. His fingers danced over the dashboard, golden eyes hued by ion-blue light as he fired up the car.
Jolie snorted. “Good. Someone needs to keep you in line.”
A wry smile, so comfortingly reminiscent of her brother, slashed across Thane’s face.