28 – Banger Party
Beef turned to look over his shoulder—not a mean feat with his enormous neck—and motioned for Addie to hurry up. “Stay close!” She nodded, hurrying behind him, invisible behind his bulky black leather jacket, while the rest of his boys spread out inside the warehouse. Over comms, Beef ordered, “C-Ball, climb that rack. Snatch, get up on those barrels. You two got door duty in case someone gets the word out for reinforcements.”
The two bangers, each sporting rifles that looked surprisingly small to Addie, rushed to obey the orders. Weren’t sniper rifles always enormous with huge, extended silencers in vids and sims? She was curious enough to ask about it, but it wasn’t the right time; Beef was already trundling into the warehouse, moving down a mostly clear aisle between two ten-meter storage racks.
Addie focused on Humpty’s feed, watching as the Black Jades crowded around the gently swaying, blood-stained walk-in curtain. They looked nervous, their fingers on their triggers, their knuckles white around their various melee implements. Addie couldn’t get over the surreal nature of it all. Was she really following Beef and his boys into a rival gang’s headquarters? Had she actually not only witnessed but orchestrated the murder of two bangers as they stood guard? Was it justified? Addie scowled and shoved the thought aside. Hadn’t she already been over this? They took Tony. They weren’t good guys.
Before she could dwell on it further, something happened. A big metal, rolling cabinet pushed through the curtain flaps, and the Black Jades arrayed near the opening went wild, opening fire on it as though they were sure a nightmare creature was hiding inside. As the shots rang out, Beef and his boys stopped in their tracks, hunkering down, perhaps afraid the bullets would fly their way. Addie spoke into comms, “They’re shooting up a metal cabinet that came rolling out of the walk-in!”
Beef grunted and started moving again. “This is us, boys. Unless you got door duty, hit ’em in the ass while they’re distracted.” He picked up the pace, his huge body lumbering ahead, and Addie wondered if she should still stay close. She hung back a little, focusing on the drone feed again. The metal cabinet was full of holes, oozing dark fluids that looked suspiciously like blood, but as the bangers stopped firing, another cabinet rolled out, and they went berserk again, emptying their guns into it.
The gunshots were loud but far enough away that they didn’t hurt Addie’s ears. Still, the warehouse echoed with the din, and, to her surprise, she could already smell the smoke or gunpowder or whatever the proper term was. She was still creeping along, far behind Beef and his boys, when she saw a figure slip out of the walk-in. She was sure it was Tony, but she had to do a double-take because he moved so quickly and confidently that she thought it might be a banger who’d gotten out of position and was retreating to reload or something.
No, she realized, as Humpty moved closer and zoomed. It was Tony—drenched in blood, a grim severity on his countenance that she’d never seen before. He lifted the axe and chopped Troy in his leg or stomach—it happened too fast for Addie to be sure—and ran past the banger boss, slipping into the stacks of pallets and baled cardboard. Addie quickly spoke into her group comms, “Tony’s out! He’s leading the bangers toward the opposite corner! Look out!”
Beef, who’d been giving orders in a constant stream the entire time, barked, “Get behind something and hit ’em when they run past!”
Addie didn’t want Tony to attack any of the Helldogs in the confusion of his flight, so she zoomed Humpty after him, hoping he’d recognize the drone and realize she was there with help. She found him and was closing fast when Beef spoke again, “Ads, can you guide him through our ambush? I think he’s taking a different aisle.”
“I’ll try.” Addie increased Humpty’s speed and zoomed in front of Tony. He lifted the axe but narrowed his eyes when he recognized the drone. Addie had it perform a little loop, then veered off to his left, pausing and looping again. He got the idea and chased after the drone. “He’s coming!” Gunshots, far more sporadic than when the bangers attacked the rolling steel cabinets, echoed through the warehouse, but Addie could see through Humpty’s rear feed that Tony hadn’t been hit. He dashed, zigzagging down the aisle, trying to keep boxes, pallets, and random equipment between him and the pursuing bangers.
When Humpty passed Beef’s location, Addie held her breath, praying Tony wouldn’t reflexively attack him, but Beef wasn’t taking any chances. “I’m here to help, corpo-rat,” he rumbled as Tony ran past his hiding spot—an empty section of shelving between two wooden crates. Tony grunted something but didn’t look at him. Was he trying not to give the ambush away? How could he be so clear-headed with bullets flying around?
The thought brought home the reality that Addie was only one turn and maybe twenty meters behind Beef and his ambush. She stopped in her tracks and found a gap between three big barrels to hunker down in, then focused her full attention on Humpty’s feed. Tony had run past two more of Beef’s boys and slid to a stop behind an old car engine sitting on cinder blocks.
Meanwhile, the Black Jades—nine of them from what Addie could see—who were pursuing him slowed and began walking toward the engine, firing their rifles and pistols. Tony had picked a good piece of cover; the bullets pinged and zinged off the metal or smashed into the cinder blocks, crumbling pieces of it off but failing to get through to Tony. Addie zoomed in, fascinated, watching as bullets carved grooves into the cement around his hiding spot. She switched the focus to his face and gulped.
He looked like a madman, his white teeth grinning through his blood-drenched lips. He held the axe in front of him as he hunkered there, his back to the engine, clearly waiting for the right moment to spring out, or maybe he was just waiting for someone to come into view—someone he could hit. One thing he wasn’t doing was cowering or getting ready to run; she could see that much in his silvery eye.
“Now!” Beef screamed, and Addie shifted her focus just in time to see the big man lurch out of his hiding spot and smash his cleaver through the top of a Black Jade’s head. “Surprise, meathead!” The cleaver sheared through the bone, carving straight down and out near the guy’s nose, and Addie felt her stomach lurch as half the banger’s brain was suddenly exposed to the air. More gunshots roared, and screams of pain and battle lust echoed through the warehouse, but Addie wasn’t looking. She’d refocused on what her eyes could see and crawled deeper into her hiding spot, trying not to retch.
She hunched there, listening to the echoing gunshots and the whoops and hollers of the bangers, hoping it would be over soon. Was this all her fault? Had she caused this massacre? What if Tony had been able to escape on his own? He was already on the loose, running for it before the Helldogs got involved.
It felt like hours that she crouched there, but she knew—mainly from the clock on her AUI—that, in reality, the battle only lasted thirty-four seconds. When she hadn’t heard a shot in several seconds, she turned her attention back to Humpty’s feed and surveyed the scene. Through a thick haze of gunsmoke—she’d settled on that term—Addie saw the Helldogs walking around, one limping, another cradling an injured arm, but all eight were alive, as was Tony.
He stood, axe bloody, over another dead Jade. Addie could see all the bodies and blood, but she refused to focus on any of them, instead viewing the scene from a wide angle, both to distance herself from the carnage and also to ensure no other Jades were approaching. It seemed Tony and the Helldogs had gotten them all.
She zoomed Humpty back to the corner near the walk-in and scanned the downed bangers there—only two outside, one of whom was Troy. He’d crawled a few feet away from where Tony had hacked him, but now he was lying still in a massive pool of blood. Addie didn’t zoom in. “I think they’re all down,” she said into comms, recalling Humpty and standing from her hiding spot.
She started toward the ambush site but only took a few steps before Beef and his boys came motoring around the corner, their arms laden with scavenged weapons, cyber gear, and even toolboxes and other equipment they’d snagged on their way. “We gotta bail! Word’s gonna get out with the Jades if it hasn’t already, and they’ve got four crews within minutes of this place. C-Ball jacked their truck; load up!”
Addie took the words in as they all ran past her, but then she called out after them, “Where’s Tony?”
Beef turned and shrugged. “Said he had to check something back at the walk-in.”
He didn’t slow, and Addie still had questions, so she asked in comms, “What about all this? Are you gonna get in trouble?”
“Huh? Hell nah! We wiped out a whole Jade hive! I’m gonna get a pile of juice for this. C’mon, Ads, hurry!”
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“I’ll see what Tony’s doing—get him to hurry.”
Beef groaned into the comms. “You probably have five minutes. We’re gonna load up what we can. I won’t wait, Ads!”
“I’ll hurry.” Addie thought about it briefly, then added, “Thank you, Beef, and thanks to all your boys.”
“You won’t be thanking me if we’re still here when two more crews arrive. Hurry!”
Addie didn’t wait for another warning; she was running through the warehouse, avoiding the aisle where the ambush had gone down, but when she got to the walk-in and its blood-stained curtain, she didn’t see Tony. Pausing, she flicked her attention to Humpty and scanned the area—no sign. “Tony?”
“In here. Don’t come in, Ads.” There he went, using that nickname again. Between him and Beef, she was starting to hate it less and less.
She approached the strips of plastic curtain. “What are you doing?”
“Two things.” His grunted words were accompanied by the clunk of something heavy falling on concrete.
“What?” she pressed before he could elaborate.
“One, seeing if these guys were as bad as I figured—spoiler: they were—and, two, looking for something I can use.”
“Something?” Addie wanted to go in there, but his warning had scared her more than she wanted to admit. What was in there? Her curiosity itched, and her pride, too; how was she going to call herself a journo if she hid from the real-life horrors of the world? She reached out and parted the curtain, tentatively slipping through. It was cold in there, and three bodies caught her immediate attention. Tony wasn’t near them, though. He was on the right side of the walk-in, going through blood-stained, insulated, plastic boxes.
He didn’t look up, and his back was to her, but he seemed to know she’d come inside. “Dammit, Addie, I didn’t want you to see this. Don’t look in these boxes. They’re full of…parts.”
“Parts?”
“From people.”
“What?” Addie stepped closer, holding a hand over her mouth. Thanks to the cold, she couldn’t smell the blood and…other things, but something acrid was in the air, something that made her eyes water.
“Yeah, these guys were meat grinders. This is where they did their dirty work. See the drain in the floor? They probably have an incinerator somewhere on-site, too.”
“But Tony, why are you looking…”
“Some of these boxes have non-biological parts in ‘em.”
“Cybernetics?”
He nodded, grunting as he shifted the box to the floor and opened another. “Yeah, and Dust-tech. I need a better reactor; no offense, Ads, but the one you had as a kid ain’t cutting it.”
“Tony, you can’t take this stuff. It was ripped!”
“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded, waving a hand. “I get that. I don’t feel good about this, but be reasonable; the poor sons of bitches who lost this stuff aren’t gonna be needing it.”
Addie frowned, not liking this side of Tony. He was still drenched in half-dried blood, going through boxes of parts taken from innocent victims like he was on a shopping spree. He said he didn’t feel good about it, but he certainly didn’t seem to be hesitating. “Oh! I just remembered; Beef says they’re leaving in, like, three minutes, and he’s sure more Jades are on the way.”
“Last box,” Tony shoved a container aside, then ripped the top off another. He sifted through something that squelched, then, after a few seconds, cursed and shook his head. “Nothing I can use.” When he turned and saw Addie’s face, his expression fell, too, and he looked away. “Sorry, Addie. I wish you didn’t see this.” Then, he walked past her, shoving the curtain aside. Addie followed him to Troy’s corpse and watched as he bent to go through the banger boss’s pockets. “He’s got my comm chip and my bit locker.”
Addie momentarily focused on Humpty’s feed and saw the Helldogs running around the warehouse near the entrance; some were sprinkling liquid out of large jugs. Was it something flammable? “I think they’re going to light a fire!”
“Got it. Let’s go!” Tony turned and grabbed her hand and started running, sending her heart into a stutter. “Sorry about all that back there—a longshot, I know. Odds are they wouldn’t have anything great to sell, but I was, you know, hoping.”
“If we had more time, I bet there’s some good stuff hidden in this warehouse,” Addie offered.
Tony grunted his agreement as he pulled her down a row of pallets leading toward the front of the warehouse. “They’re gonna burn it, huh? Bangers!” He said the last word with a chuckle, shaking his head.
“Why’d they take you, Tony?”
They came in sight of the box truck near an open bay door, its ancient combustion engine rumbling, and Tony slowed to a walk; the Helldogs were still running around, grabbing loot. He turned to Addie and arched an eyebrow. “You have to ask? They wanted to do to me what they did to the folks in those boxes.”
“But, like, why you? I thought Troy liked you.”
“Guess the bits sounded better to him than a new friend. Besides, I wouldn’t work with people that dirty.” Tony pointed toward the back of the warehouse where the walk-in of horrors sat. He lifted his shirt, pulled it to his face, and scrubbed viciously. “Don’t even like having their rotten blood on me.” When he dropped the shirt, Addie was surprised by how well it had worked. He still had dried blood up by his hairline and along the edges of his jaw, but she could see his face again. He looked at her for a few seconds, then turned to spit. “Sorry. How’d you make this happen, anyway?” He nodded toward Beef and his boys.
“It’s a long story.”
“No, but seriously, how’d you even know I was here?”
“Maisie messaged me. She was feeling guilty, I guess.”
Tony snorted and turned his head to spit again, and this time, Addie didn’t think it was because he had blood in his mouth. “Or she was trying to get you killed, too.”
“I don’t think so, Tony. Wouldn’t they have been ready for us if it were a trap?”
Before he could answer, Beef hollered, “We gotta move! C-Ball spotted a crew running past Highstreet!”
“C’mon.” Again, Tony grabbed Addie’s hand and pulled her toward the truck. When they stood near the waist-high loading deck, he turned, grabbed her hips, and said, “Hup,” hoisting her up. Then, he vaulted up beside her and pulled her to the side where they could each grab ahold of a cargo strap.
“Um, thanks,” she muttered, not sure she appreciated his assumption that she needed help. As the Helldogs piled into the cramped space, some climbing atop the stacks of stolen gear, she took off her backpack and recalled Humpty at his maximum speed. He whirred into the back of the truck and directly into her pack. Addie felt a little thrill of accomplishment at her deft maneuvering. As she zipped it up, Beef, on the outside, pulled the rolling door down, pitching them all into darkness.
She felt the truck sway as Beef clambered into the cab, and Addie slung the straps of her pack over her shoulders. At the same time, the truck lurched into motion, and she almost fell. Tony’s hand was there, though, grabbing her upper arm to steady her. “Thanks,” she said again.
“I think I owe you my life—again—so, yeah, no need for thanks.”
“You owe us, corpo-rat!” one of the Helldogs taunted—Addie was pretty sure it was Reject.
“Sure. Thanks, boys. You fought like real damn operators in there.”
“Yeah?” Runt’s voice came from just in front of Addie, and she tried to up the gain on her optics. There wasn’t enough ambient light to amplify, though, so she just saw gray instead of black.
“Yeah,” Tony replied as the box truck accelerated and hit a pothole. Everyone reacted with groans and curses, but Tony’s fingers tightened on Addie’s arm, and he pulled her closer. “Grab a cargo strap,” he said softly.
“Oh, right,” Addie reached out in the dark, following his arm with her fingers until she found the one he was gripping.
Tony wasn’t done shining up the Helldogs; clearing his throat, he said, “Yeah, boys. You were damn good in there. Took out a superior force and, what? Just a few broken bones among ya?”
Reject laughed. “Gob took a round to his ass, but yeah, that’s it.”
“Hey, it’s not funny, chem brain! My butt cheek’s swollen like a goddamn watermelon!”
“Chem brain? Shit, thanks for the reminder.” Addie puzzled over the strange statement until a spark ignited at the center of the cargo space, and she watched as a blue flame flared along with the sound of Reject inhaling deeply. Acrid, faintly cherry-scented smoke drifted into the truck, and Tony laughed softly. She could feel his chest moving with the motion and realized she was leaning against him as much as the side of the truck. She didn’t pull away.
In the weird, blue, hazy luminosity of Reject’s drugs, she looked up at Tony and found him looking down at her. As the bangers continued to banter, he smiled, maybe trying to reassure her, then whispered, “You okay?”
“I think so. It’s all still stinking in.”
Tony’s smile widened, exposing his bright white teeth, and he laughed. “Stinking in?” he tilted his chin down and noisily sniffed himself. “I see what you mean!”
Addie’s face reddened, and she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “No! I didn’t mean that! I—”
“Hush, I’m filthy. I bet it smells awful in here.”
“You can’t smell it?”
“Nah, I’m too much in it, you know?” He chuckled, then reached out and tugged her zipper up, tugging her collar up over her chin. “Tilt your nose down. Breathe through your coat.”
Addie nodded, pulling her collar up over her nose. It was stupidly simple, something anyone would think of, but Tony just seemed so competent, so casually cool. Why was he worried about what she was smelling after what he’d been through? The thought made her mind reel with the possibilities, and she looked up into his silvery eye again and asked, “Did they hurt you?”
“Hmm? Mostly my feelings. Like you said, I thought I was cool with those folks. I thought, you know, Maisie liked me.” He sighed. “It was stupid—how I got caught. I used to be a lot sharper. A lot more with it. You know?”
Addie nodded. She didn’t know, but she could understand his point, anyway. “I’m glad you’re okay, Tony.”
“Me too. Thanks again, Ads.” He spoke softly, and the Helldogs were so busy with their antics that none of them thought to step in again, demanding he thank them. Addie just nodded and leaned against him as the truck shuddered and rumbled, bouncing on its stiff cargo suspension as it trundled back to Helldog territory.
She wondered what the fallout would be for a whole cell of Black Jades getting wiped out, but she figured if Beef wasn’t worried, she shouldn’t be. Maybe he figured they’d done so much damage that the Jades wouldn’t dare go to war. Or, maybe he was hoping they would go to war now. It wasn’t like the Helldogs loved the peace. The truth was, she didn’t know much about gang politics, but, as she’d already decided, it wasn’t her problem. Beef seemed happy, and he ought to know whether he was in trouble or not.
The truck hit another bump, and she stumbled back, but Tony’s arm snaked out and pulled her close again, and then his voice came to her over the rumble of the engine. “Hey, by the way, where the hell were you last night?”