My name is Dreamer because I say I’m leaving this place one day. Everyone laughs because no one ever has, but they can laugh all they want to. I’ll be laughing when I cash my ticket out of here. After that, I’m gonna find some tropical place where it's cool and quiet and nobody's around. Then I’m gonna sit my ass down and get some sleep... prolly sleep for a while.

“Wake up, Sleeper. Time to go.” Mackie said, his gold teeth flashing at me through a smile. He’s the only one that calls me Sleeper. Says I’m never awake. I guess he's right. I sleepwalk through most days.

I wrenched myself up from the crunchy old couch, particles of dust trailing my coat tail. In time for my rise, the windows of the slum apartment shined briefly as headlights filtered through the grimy glass. The call of motorcycle engines reverberated downstairs.

Mackie peeked through the blinds, down at the street. He nodded and we headed for the door.

A picture frame by the exit caught my eye on the way out: a young woman with a baby boy in her arms. The picture’s glass was layered in grimy dust built over years of neglect. Just for a brief moment, I remembered this place was somebody’s home. Now, it was just another slum apartment on the edge of Lowdown; a vestige for drug dealers, criminals in hiding, and people like us, schemers.

“Don’t look Razor in the eye," Mackie mentioned as we descended the building's shaky staircase, "That’s how I lost one of my fingers.” He held up his "good" hand to show me. Sure enough, a sparkly metallic finger took the place of his middle. I shivered thinking about the process. He was smiling, though.

Mackie was a psycho. He’d lived almost twice as long as I had and I was lucky enough to make it thirty. Nearly fifty years in Warzone can drive anyone nuts, though I bet he was like that well before me.

The stairs creaked under Mackie's weight. A hulking lump of flesh and metal, I'd lost count of how many surgeries, and prosthetic replacements he'd had. Most of his body was regrown tissue, fake organics, or flat-out machine implants, now. Like his right arm for instance. It was full machinery, wires, gears, and all. I feared the weakened boards beneath him would cave, taking us down together.

“So this Razor... how’d he get this shit for us?” Razor… What a stupid name. Assuredly though, like with everyone in Warzone, he’d earned the name somehow. I wondered how many other Razors there were walking around.

“She. And you know. The usual.” That meant they'd jacked it from someone else. We’d been promised a streetcar. They’d procured one for us, apparently out of the kindness of their hearts… just one problem.

“So, it’s hot? Didn’t you tell them we needed a low profile get-a-way?”

“Yeah. I did. Cept, they don’t like taking orders. I was being fragile with their egos. You know how that goes.”

“Right. And we’re the ones that go away for ten to twenty for carjacking. We should’ve hired a wirehead for this job, instead of leaving it up to these greaseballs.”

“Yeah? Well like greasers, wireheads don’t open lines of credit. Unless you have the cash ready.” That shut me up quick.

It was unusual for Mackie to outsmart me. I didn't like the feeling. The rancid smell of rotted wallpaper was causing my head to hurt, too. This job couldn't end quick enough, and it hadn't even started.

The door out stuck so Mackie kicked it in. Aluminum crumbled like soft dry cheese. Out in the alley, the gangers switched off their bikes. The exhaust was dizzyingly heavy in the small space.

There were too many of the bastards to count. They were at either side of the apartment door, gathered in the street in a large crowd and parked around the entrance of the slim alley. A couple were off their bikes already, walking toward us.

My hand went to my trench coat pocket instinctively, wrapping around the handle of a nine-millimeter semi-auto, but I acted cool. You couldn’t show fear to a ganger. They’d never let you live it down.

Speaking of which, these guys were the toughest, meanest-looking crew I’d ever seen. And what a sorry lot they were too.

Strung-out juice heads in leather, and roughed denim with heavy black boots. Some were even barefoot. Rough and tumble brick houses with red eyes, wearing scowls, with black tattoos up both arms, sometimes on their bald heads. Tired seat wenches with black eyes and hidden blades in their bras.

They reminded me of growling dogs, the meanest of which was a thick woman with arms the size of my head. A thick bushy mohawk matched her eyebrows, and on the back of her sleeveless denim jacket was an intricate skull shaped by barbed wire.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Two gangers came stumbling out of the dark like drunken stray mongrels with sharp fangs.

“Mackie!” A gruff voice called out as the dirtiest man I’d ever seen made his way towards us. His leather jacket had been torn at the arms to expose ash-pocked skin, gold bands on his wrists, and various scars from burns, blades, and bullets. He had three silver studs haphazardly poked into one of his cheeks, a crudely shaved head, and though he smiled with missing teeth, the ones that remained were silver-capped. He had that sort of look, like a snake before it strikes.

“Rigger!” Mackie faked with arms outstretched. He was acting too enthused, but the ganger didn't notice.

“Come here, ya bastard,” he said, with cigarette breath. They embraced for an intimate moment before walking back to me with Rigger’s arm slung awkwardly over Mackie’s bulk. “You about to make us a lot of money, huh?” He was uglier up close.

“Yeah. Got everything set for us? You made sure our shit was fast right?”

“Shit brother. It’s the fastest. We don’t do it unless we do it right. Who’s this? Your new boy toy?” He was trying to get a rise out of me, but I stayed quiet, making sure not to look anyone else in the eye in case their nickname was Razor.

“Nah, this is him. Sleeper. He drives like a motherfucker.”

“Is that right? He looks a little skinny to me. He ain't got the shakes does he?” Mezadone was a popular drug in Warzone. It could knock out a rhino, but was expensive and very addicting. Someone experiencing withdrawals from the drug shook like they had Parkinson's disease.

Of course I would look like a Mezzer to you, you dope headed fuck. You're the source for half of them. I hated Gangers. They were the cause of a lot of my bad nightmares.

“Nah, he’s alright. Cuts down on weight. Makes him quick,” Mackie tried to joke. Rigger didn’t bite. Instead, he let go of Mackie and walked up excruciatingly close to me.

“I don’t work with someone unless I shake their hand first,” he said, making it a point to stare right at me with his hand out until I turned to him.

I didn't let it bother me, putting up my tough front. His piercing gaze was chilling though, especially with those beady black eyes and his firebeaten hand outstretched to me. I could feel him sizing me up, and he already didn’t like what he saw.

His hand was rough, coarser than sand paper. I didn't let the pressure of his grip intimidate me, but I knew he was making note of how soft my hands were in comparison. I met his gaze with courage, but something in his face told me he knew it was forced. Rigger held my hand for a full minute, staring at me with those junked-out peepers of his.

He was trying to make me uncomfortable, to fuck with me, and it was working. After a moment, my chest tightened from anxiety. I wasn’t sure if he was about to hit me or have his boys rip me apart. All it would take was one word. And they'd be happy to do it.

In fact, they were waiting for it, salivating like wild animals for my blood. As soon they'd pulled up, they could smell it on me, that scent of prey that War Zoners carried. They all had that intuition.

They were teetering on the edge, each one of them wondering what they needed me for. They were all drivers of their own machines. Why'd they need a War Zone rat as a getaway driver? I could guarantee that once they were done with me, they would make sure I'd get what was coming. Maybe that's what Rigger was thinking too.

After an eternity our handshake ended. He stepped back, his glowering softening, but his gaze not. I tried not to wipe my hand on my coat. It felt like I'd just shaken hands with the devil.

“So what? We doing this thing?” Mackie asked, trying to pull attention away.

“You know it, brother. We’re all ready.”

“Well, what’s up? You got our ride?”

“Yeah, we got it. Roxie! Pull em up,” Rigger shouted down the alley. My eye followed his gaze.

Beefed up men and women watched from the end of the alley, their heads shaven, shorn, or wildly overgrown. One particular woman, in a biker jacket, a knife wrapped in razorwire as its emblem on the back, stood with her arms crossed. Her hair was jet black, and cut sharply into a mohawk, which she tied the long end of behind her in a bushy tail. Dark eyeliner accentuated her black eyes… no, I think it was grease or biker oil. A scar ran up one side of her mouth.

The woman had the look of a trueborn killer. Something in her eye, a lack of… humanity betrayed the nature of her animal. Around her neck was a necklace of various "trophies" she’d collected over the years– trophies that had belonged to someone else. Six fingers, two ears, five toes, and a nose were strung on the necklace alongside a series of animal bones. Suddenly, it hit me who I was staring at. One of those fingers was surely Mackie's.

Just then, the woman felt eyes on her. She snapped her attention towards me, but I had already looked away. Just in time…

Through the alley came a pair of bikers, nothing special, on two decent looking motorbikes. Usually, biker gangs in Warzone rode on Plymouth bikes, or old-school chain bikes, like the ones you'd see in ancient biker movies. These were newer models, Japanese brand. They looked sporty and slender.

A sinking feeling started in my guts. I hoped they weren't our get-away rides. The pair pulled right up to us and parked them confirming my worst nightmare. Mackie was trying to hide his confusion, searching for some avenue through the discussion.

“What are these?” He finally broke.

“Motorbikes. Picked them off an impound on a raid into Lowdown. Ugly, but quick little bastards.” I felt sick. Stupid bastards. They fucked it up just as I'd predicted. We needed a car -- a car! You wasteland idiots.

We needed a car for a lot of reasons, safety, anonymity, etc. but more so for one reason in particular. I'm sure the bikes were fast. The only problem was... I’d never driven one before.