Write my name in bullet holes
While Ace Tactical’s position as contracted professional pawn sacrificers explained a lot of weirdness at the office, there was one thing that itched at the back of Luke’s mind, unresolved.
“Why not let A.T. get a kill once in a while? Throw a dog a bone? Probably wouldn’t even have to pay them extra, the way these fucking contracts—”
“No, trigger man always gets top payout, but that’s not the issue,” Car-Crash said. “They’re worried about the boards.”
After Luke had first gotten his name, Car-Crash had mentioned that Luke had earned his “first slot on the boards” and encouraged him to go look it up. Luke had assumed they were some kind of Ace Tactical morale boosting tactic and quickly changed the subject.
He had been very wrong.
“Jesus, no,” Car-Crash said, solemnly, after Luke admitted his misunderstanding. “The Boards are one of the great traditions. Every job is posted, in some fashion, on the boards.”
“Posted how?”
“Well, you got the team names, the name of the Hardworlder that made the kill, and a second slot for honorable mention, or best sizzle.”
“Sizzle?”
“Uh, like a sizzle reel, I think is the origin. Best move basically. Like one time I was on there for hotwiring a Police Bearcat. Something extraordinary usually besides the kill.”
“So, Constellation wants their guys on the boards. Why? Isn’t it just Hardworlders who care about it?”
At that, Car-Crash got all solemn again, and spoke in that tone of someone who had seen something beautiful tarnished.
“Wish that it were, be better that way. But at the end of the day, the boards are data, and all data will be assigned a price, eventually.”
“What?”
Car-Crash sighed and rolled into a position that let him talk at the hazy void-horizon while dipping one hand in the flowing crystal stream that ran among the rocks and soft grass and lilies.
“The boards are a live log of all the jobs going at any given time. I mean, of course there are some black jobs not posted, I’m sure, but a good analysis of the boards can tell you who’s getting jobs, who’s winning them, and who’s not. Long story short, they’re used to determine prices.”
“So, Constellation gets their dudes on the boards, and they can charge a higher fee, but what about A.T.?”
But Luke knew the answer before he even got the words out. No wonder he could barely afford his own mem while other Hardworlders were driving luxury crafts and tearing up the resort worlds.
“A.T. gets the jobs and pay Constellation assigns them. Crash teams are a necessity, but you want to keep them compartmentalized from your main squad for opsec. They’re a shell team. Staffed by rejects and addicts who won’t be believed if they go running their mouths, and won’t make it on another team if they jump ship anyway.”
Car-Crashed raised one dripping hand, letting the water catch the dreamy sunlight in micro starbursts of rainbow, and then, for some reason, crossed himself.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Then he turned on Luke.
“Which is why you gotta get the fuck away from Ace Tactical.”
Luke’s first question was going to be, how, but another one jumped in front.
“What about you?”
Car-Crash smiled, and there was pain and laughter in it.
“Oh, I’m a special case. Wanted to be a Hardworlder ever since I knew what it was. But every gunfight I’ve ever been in has gone completely tits up. So, at the moment, having fallen through various filters into the silt bed that is Ace Tactical, I’ve had a sort of personal come to Jesus moment. Realized my skills lie elsewhere. Now I’m just trying to figure out how best to use them before I give A.T. the finger.”
Luke rolled that around, imagined Car-Crash dropping his pistol or missing. Something clicked, and he smiled.
“Is that why you chose car crash? Did you get your first kill in a, uh, vehicular fashion?”
“We can fawn over that story another time. Right now, let’s discuss how you’re going to get out of dodge.”
“Ok. How?”
“By getting your name on those boards as much as possible.”
It was Luke’s turn to look out at the horizon.
“Oh, bro, easy.”
Car-Crash cackled, and the extractor shot off like the sound was a gunshot. Had this been a movie, here would have been a good spot to queue up whatever song the montage would be playing against, and Luke sensed that Dr. X had something equally cheesy in mind for the final product. But he didn’t care. This was one of his favorite parts. He tried to lean back and enjoy it, at least until that black storm in the distance made landfall.
With Car-Crash’s help, he smoothed things over with A.T. management, assuring them it had only been eager curiosity and not any kind of hey-wait-a-minute sense of injustice that had spurred him to look inside the big sausage making machine. They grumbled, they yelled, they had him sign a warning, and then he was back on the job.
The plan was to play it safe. Be the best crash team lead he could be, get moved up to that team 1 slot, right under the operators, then rack up a few spectacular kills before they could make the necessary personnel moves to run jobs without him, then when he was finally delegated to whatever the Hardworlder equivalent of the mail room was, he would start shopping for a new team. Car-Crash said he knew a few who hated Constellation enough just to take him out of spite, and maybe hire Car-Crash along with him.
But, something came up. Looking back, it was an unavoidable stroke of luck.
It was a late job. Orange evening dying under purple clouds, out over the power lines and oak leaves floating above an indistinguishable north Texas suburb. Target was in a safe house, snug as a bug in a rug according to dispatch, with a rolling gate and retractable spike strips on the driveway. It was a two-story new build, a brick box with black window screens that promised machine gun placements. Luke’s team had already wasted themselves in car crashes and police shootouts, so the assault team asked him if he wanted to come with.
Sure. Of course, ten seconds into the radio chatter he knew the score. There was no bag in their future. They would fall on the safe house with a bunch of noise like a bad Halloween decoration, the target would take to the road, and then Constellation’s chosen would make the kill. He let them give him his job, breaking into the neighboring house and shooting from the upstairs bedroom, and then he muted his radio.
He slinked into the backyard of the neighboring house, then got real close to the fence, moving his face back and forth in front of the cracks until he had the entire back yard mentally mapped. Once the gunfire broke out, big belches of automatic sprays that surely hit nothing but bricks and air, he went up and over and came down in a dead still crouch in the middle of a cluster of wild privet.
And there it was. On a concrete slab of covered parking under a sheet metal roof, next to old propane grills and half pallets of roofing supplies. A dusty early oughts Honda civic with extra dark tint with an old mud stained tarp half over it and, Luke noticed, not a spec of dirt on the glass. The tires had tread as deep as a floor models. The route from the back door to the sedan was covered, obscured from both sides, and cleared out methodically through the junk piles.
The play revealed itself in his head. His team had spent the half an hour before go time talking about the big, armored SUV that had rolled into the garage. It would break out A team style and barrel down the street, while this little armored nondescript wagon rolled smoothly out into the alley and off into the night. It was a risky play, one that relied on the attackers over zealousness and poor surveillance. Which made it perfect against Ace Tactical.
But, they hadn’t counted on Luke.