9 – Dubious Backing

As they walked, Tony sipped from a can of Orange Nuke he’d picked up at Mr. Nguyen’s bodega. He’d paid using a couple of the extra bits he’d gotten from Addie’s Dad for the gun. He and Addie were looking for Beef and his crew so Tony could pay the banger off before he got too busy, forgot, and wound up getting on the Helldog’s bad side—something Addie said could happen despite her connection to Beef and his lackeys.

Addie, as usual, was leading the way. “This time of day, they’re usually hanging around near Sunny’s.”

“Sunny’s?”

“Yeah. It’s a diner; they mostly serve breakfast food, but Dirty Hank makes a good protein burger, too.”

Tony snorted at the outrageous name for a cook. “You buy food from a guy named Dirty Hank?”

Addie flicked some loose strands of hair out of her eyes as she turned to look at Tony with a little grin. “It sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? He got the name from his gang days. Rumor around the district is that he used to ‘clean’ messes for some of the shot callers.”

“Oh, no shit? And now he runs a diner?”

“Yep. I guess he met the right girl. He and Miss Alice have been running Sunny’s for as long as I can remember.”

“Huh.” Tony took another pull of the absurdly sweet, orange-flavored energy drink and sighed, trying to keep his mind from slipping off to dangerous places at the mention of meeting the “right girl.” He’d done that, met the right one, hadn’t he? She’d been right enough to start planning a getaway—right enough to think about life away from his friends, his enablers. Was that what they were? Sometimes, he wasn’t sure. Maybe he’d been the enabler.

“Deep thoughts?” Tony looked over to see Addie staring at him sideways. She’d been different towards him that morning, far friendlier and decidedly more upbeat.

“You worried about the star of your show?” He almost took the words back as they came out, wondering if he was pushing his luck—being too playful. She allayed that fear, though, by laughing.

“My German shepherd action star? Yeah, of course! I need you upbeat for the camera.” She shook her head, clearly amused, but then almost stumbled as she sidestepped a woman trying to fix a motorized wheelchair. “Oof! Lauren! Right on the corner? I didn’t see you when I came around.”

“I didn’t choose where this old thing broke down!” Lauren looked to be a middle-aged woman with two cybernetic legs that had long ago lost any sheen of chrome they might have once had. They didn’t seem to work at all, forcing her to shift around with her hands on her butt as she worked her way around the chair, fidgeting with wires and gears.

“Anything we can do?” Addie asked, leaning close to the chair and peering at the battery bank.

“Nah, it’s a loose chain; I can fix it.” The woman looked up with grease-smudged, swarthy cheeks and peered at Tony. “Who’s the tall drink of whiskey?”

Addie snorted. “I like that one! Care if I steal it?”

“I didn’t come up with it. Do what you want.”

“Hmm. Anyway, this is Tony. He works for my dad.”

Tony nodded. “Nice to meet you. Lauren, was it?”

“Yeah. Anyway, get lost, would ya? Nobody gonna throw me any bits with you two standing around.”

Addie waved and started walking, calling breezily, “Bye, Lauren.” She turned to Tony. “Anyway, about you being the star of my show—I was thinking.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Are you okay with people in the neighborhood figuring out it’s you? I mean, most of my views are from the greater metroplex, so most people don’t have a clue who I am in real life and won’t trace you back to me. If someone like Beef saw you in one of my vids, though, he’d put it together pretty fast.”

“I dunno. I don’t want any trouble to come back to Bert. Like, yesterday when I pissed T-bomb off; if he knew where I worked…” Tony trailed off, letting Addie connect the dots.

“Well, maybe that’s something we should bring up with Beef.”

“Come again?”

“We’re about to talk to Beef, and he’s an enforcer for the Helldogs. I’d say, as long as you stay on their good side, we’ll be all right. Other gangs won’t come onto Helldog turf. I mean, I’m just saying, if we don’t go around starting trouble, I don’t think we need to worry too much.”

“Well, sure, I guess. I mean, yeah, I didn’t think you wanted to start a fight club or anything.”

Addie laughed and pointed across the street. “There’s Sunny’s.”

Tony turned his head and squinted, irritated that his forty-thousand-bit Aurora Tech optics—what was left of them—couldn’t zoom or compensate for the glare or anything, thanks to that asshole, Chavez, pulling his data port and all his software. He made out a few darkly clad individuals sitting at a sidewalk table. “Is that them? They eat right there in the open?” He was imagining drive-bys and thinking about how vulnerable the bangers were on the street like that.

“Yeah. Bangers have to show the world they aren’t afraid, Tony. It’s actually a pretty fascinating sub-culture. If I have time, I might do a docuseries on ’em.”

Tony frowned at Addie as they waited for a gap in traffic so they could cross the street. “Why wouldn’t you have time?”

“Oh,” she shrugged, “I’m just busy, you know? The news never stops!” She chuckled—a new sound to Tony, almost like she was nervous. Before he could respond, she hurried across in the wake of an automated delivery truck. When they mounted the opposite sidewalk, she waved her hand over her head and called out, “Beef!”

The big man perked up at the sound of her voice, straightening out of a slump-shouldered slouch. He had a plate before him, but it was devoid of anything but a few smears of salsa. His two cronies, Reject and the skinny one with the breather, were sitting on either side of him, and they both stared hard at Tony as he walked up behind Addie. Beef sucked his teeth, leaning back in his chair, which threatened to collapse, protesting with several loud squeaks. “What’s up, Ads?”

“Well, Tony wants to pay you, and then I want to run something by you.”

Tony dug the bit-locker out of his pocket and tossed it to Beef. The guy didn’t even flinch—either he had the slowest reflexes in town, or he didn’t intend to catch anything. It didn’t matter, though, because the skinny guy snatched it out of the air.

“A bit-locker?” he sneered. “This guy doesn’t even have a bit-vault, boss!”

“Quiet, Runt. Just get the bits he owes me off it.” It was with that statement that Tony finally realized that “Runt” wasn’t just an adjective but, rather, was the skinny guy’s name. The fellow pulled a wire out of his wrist and plugged it into the little port on the bit-locker.

“A hundred and thirty-seven bits on here, Beef.”

“Just take the hundred he owes,” Addie said. “You promised, Beef.”

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“Whatever.” He waved his hand dismissively. “What you wanna talk about, Ads? We finally gonna have that nice Italian dinner?”

Addie folded her arms over her chest, hiding the dancing skeleton graphic on her T-shirt. “Nope. Listen, please; I’ve got a good thing going with my news page. I’m starting to get some serious views.”

“Oh?” Beef arched his nearly hairless eyebrows, carving vast furrows into his meaty forehead.

“Yeah, but you know how, when I leave the neighborhood, some folks mess with me? Like the other day when Domino’s guys chased me?”

“Sure, but I already told you—I can’t go into their turf to pay ‘em back without starting something really—”

“No! That’s not what I’m asking. It’s Tony.” She jerked her chin Tony’s way. “He defended me yesterday, and, well, he might do it again. I’m not saying we’re going to go looking for trouble, but I’m getting a lot of views from the vid. If one of the other gangs gets mad at him, they won’t dare come onto your turf to get him, will they? I mean, we don’t want my dad’s store to be in danger.”

“Look, sweet cheeks—” Beef leaned forward, clearly loving being the center of Addie’s attention, “—if you and corpo-rat, here, go around stirring up other gangs, there’s only so much I can do. I mean, if you’re just defending yourselves, though…” He pondered for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, they better not come onto my street for something like that.” He shifted his gaze to Tony. “So, rat, you’re some kind of tough guy, huh?”

Tony could smell a trap when he saw one. “Nah. I just didn’t think that banger should be jamming his finger into Adelaide’s chest.”

“He what?” Beef was on his feet. “What banger, Ads?”

Addie gave Tony a look that said she thought he was borderline braindead and then turned to Beef. “So now you care? Domino’s guys would’ve done worse than that! I’ve been slapped, kicked, had my shirt ripped, my hair pulled, had things taken from me—you never did anything any of those times. So, what, now that Tony stands up for me one time, you care?”

Beef shrugged and sat down. “Hey, I get mad when that stuff happens to you. It takes my brain a second to catch up and remember I can’t really go out and start a war just ’cause you’re poking your nose around the wrong neighborhoods.”

“Well, it’s nice to know you’re going to be upset for a few seconds when you hear about me getting killed.”

The skinny guy, Runt, said, “Ah, he’ll be upset longer than a few seconds.”

Beef’s meaty fist came down on Runt’s thigh like a sledgehammer hitting a ham. Runt moaned and stood, hopping on his uninjured leg as he rubbed the charley horse. “Why’d ya do that, Beef?”

“Don’t be a dumbass,” the big banger growled, then he turned back to Tony. “Listen, corpo-rat, if you wanna go around acting like a tough guy, you need to be ready to back up that swag, you hear?”

Tony narrowed his good eye and slowly shook his head. “Not exactly following—”

“I mean, if you piss some guy off, and he brings some buddies around looking to rearrange your face, I don’t want to have to fight ’em all off. I might just walk him over to Bert’s and tell him he can fight you fair and square, one-on-one. I figure if you run your mouth too much and the wrong guy comes calling, I’ll let him give you a good, solid beatdown, and then maybe all this nonsense will end. You get me now?”

“Nonsense, Beef?” Addie interjected. “I’m trying to help people! I’m trying to bring awareness—”

“Save it, Ads.” Beef waved his hand. “You and that little flying camera aren’t gonna change shit, and you know it. the Blast’s been like this since before we were born, and it’s only getting worse.” Addie’s face fell, and she looked away, crossing her arms again. Beef sighed and scowled his deep-set, dark eyes. “If you want me to work with you on this, then give me a minute with this corpo-rat. I wanna talk to him, mano a mano.”

“No, he’s—”

Tony put his hand on her shoulder, jostling her gently. “It’s all right, Addie.”

“Ugh! Fine! I’ll go and order a coffee to go.” She glared around the table and Reject, silent this whole time, lifted a gloved hand to wave at her. She sighed heavily, shaking her head, and went into the diner.

“She’s probably the only genuinely good person I know, corpo-rat, and she’s constantly sticking that pretty face too close to the fire. You know what I mean?”

Thinking about the Royal Breeze Apartments, Tony nodded. “Yeah.”

“So, I can’t walk around with her, and neither can my boys, not without getting into a turf war, but you can. You cop?”

“Cop?” Tony had heard the slang but wasn’t used to it. Before Beef could cuss him out for being stupid, he followed up with, “Yeah, I get it.”

“So, the problem is, corpo-rat, that I don’t want her to start getting a false sense of security. I don’t want her thinking your skinny ass is gonna be able to bail her out of every problem she runs into. I see you got your arm replaced, but do you know how to use it? Can you fight? Do you know how to get the hell out of the shit when it starts rising up past your knees? You know you can’t fight a bullet, right?”

Tony looked from Beef to Runt to Reject and nodded. “Yeah, I know how to read a situation.”

“Really? ’Cause to me, you look like a broke down, scrawny burn-out that got dumped like a piece of garbage.”

Tony folded his arms over his chest, scowling. Scrawny? He had to be nearly as tall as Beef, and he’d taken pride in building up lean muscles over the years. “The tracksuit’s roomy. I’m not a pushover.”

“Yeah? You can fight with one eye?”

“I mean, it’s not ideal, but I trained for situations where I had limited sensory input—”

Beef mocked him in a singsong voice, “Limited sensory input!” He laughed, his enormous belly jiggling up and down with the motion while Runt and Reject snickered. “Okay, I’ll give you a simple test. You ever had a slap off?”

Tony sighed. He hadn’t, but he had an idea what it would entail. “Just tell me what I have to do.”

“Well, it's something I like to make my boys do, to keep ’em sharp. Right, boys?”

“That’s right!” Reject nodded.

“Yes, Beef!” Runt stepped closer, reaching up to adjust his breather.

“So, corpo-rat, stand back there, away from the table, and square up with Runt. The first one to slap the other twice wins. Only face shots count. If you can do that, I’ll back you up so long as you’re working to protect Addie.”

Tony stepped back, but his mind was working against itself. Half of him wanted to slap the shit out of all three of the bangers, but the other half was wondering what the hell he was doing. Why did he care if this guy gave him his approval? Why did he even care about the whole thing? Did he really want to follow that girl around and help her with her videos? It was true that he was stuck in the district for now, but he wasn’t going to stay. He had shit to do, a life to get back to. This whole thing seemed like a waste—

“Go!” Beef barked, and suddenly Runt was weaving toward Tony, his movements surprisingly graceful and his feints almost too quick to track. Tony backed away, immediately on the defensive, thanks to his wandering mind. He wasn’t exactly his old self; his new arm was a little clunky, a little unrefined in its movements, and he definitely did have a depth perception problem. On top of that, he’d spent the last few years with plenty of Dust to fire off his high-tier wire job. His new reactor couldn’t even make his pinky twitch.

Even with all that considered, Tony knew how to fight. He’d been fighting since he was nine years old when his uncle first took him to the gym. His uncle—Tony grinned at the memory, weaving back to avoid a surprisingly quick slap from Runt. He almost backed into a pedestrian, but Beef stood up and hollered, “Get out of the damn way!” As a testament to his influence in the neighborhood, people stopped walking near Sunny’s, even crossing the street to avoid interfering with Runt and Tony.

Meanwhile, Tony’s mind had wandered back to his uncle—what a fighter! He’d taken three belts on the amateur circuit in Lower Manhattan, got picked up by an agent, and knocked out three pros in a row before his “accident.” That memory took the grin off Tony’s face—his uncle crawling up the stoop, both knees broken and his hands mangled to shit. That was the end of his barebones career, and there was no way he could compete in the augmented divisions—not without winding up dead like most of those poor bastards.

Tony had been weaving away from Runt’s blows, but when the little guy surprised him and slipped a shot in on his right—blind—side, grazing his fingertips along his jaw, Tony decided to get serious. Beef shouted, “That’s one!”

Tony slapped Runt’s next shot aside with his left hand and lashed out with his mechanical arm, careful to pull the blow, allowing his fingers to tap the guy’s breathing apparatus. “One to one!” Beef grunted. Tony’s back was to the diner, but he heard the door open and Addie curse under her breath. He decided he’d been playing around enough and sidestepped Runt’s next flurry, using his height and reach to make him look a little silly as he snaked his left hand in and tapped him on the forehead.

“Good enough,” Beef said. “Took you a while, but I guess you aren’t a total clutz. You should get a new eye, though.”

“Is this what you wanted to ‘talk’ about?” Addie made air quotes, glaring at Beef.

“I don’t want you walking around with a total goon thinking you’ve got backup.”

“Ugh! You’re so lame, Randal! If you’d just look at my page, you could have seen a vid of him making T-bomb look even sillier than Lester.”

“Hey!” Runt howled. “Don’t call me that!” Reject giggled, and Runt glared at him, “Shut up, Jerry.”

“Both of you shut up!” Beef growled. “Give this corpo-rat his bit-locker. We’re late.” Addie snorted, but when he glared at her and said, “What?” she just shook her head, smiling as she sipped coffee from a paper cup.

“Nothing. See you later.”

“Did you tell the doc I’d be coming around?”

“I told him, but he said he’s short. Don’t hurt him, okay? We need him on the block, Rand—Beef.”

“I gotta send a message somehow.” He shrugged. “I’ll do my best, doll.” With that, the trio stood and shuffled down the sidewalk. As they passed by Tony, Runt tossed the bit-locker to him. To his surprise, the skinny, breather-wearing banger gave Tony a respectful nod.

Addie came up beside him. “Sorry about that, Tony. I was afraid he’d pull some macho nonsense when he asked me to leave. I was watching, ready to, um, intervene, but I wasn’t too worried about Lester hurting you.”

Tony shrugged. “At least I’m loosened up. Ready to go see that fade?”

Addie smiled, swallowing a mouthful of coffee with a satisfied sigh. “Ready!”