Interlude - A Crackshot's Crack Shot

"What are my chances again?" he asked.

It took a moment for Enyries to reply in his head 'Still not great. You have a one in seven thousand-two hundred chance.'

That had gone up a little since last time. Not much, but a little. "A chance is a chance," he said. "You miss every shot you don't take."

'Well, yes, but sometimes you just miss regardless of whether you took the chance or not.'

He chuckled. "I get that, yeah. But if the world ends, then I want to go out knowing that I took that chance. It's a man thing."

'If you say so.'

Buying a Romance Chance Calculation Software catalogue had been a weird choice for him. Not that he'd go back on it. It was interesting seeing the results pop up whenever he looked at someone. Some were interesting. Grasshopper was not romantically interested, period. Tankette, however... wow, that lady had wandering eyes.

It threw up some weird results sometimes. Hedgehog was... kind of just a picky dude, but that was all. Crackshot had his thing shut off for anyone under eighteen, not because it couldn't work on them, but because it squicked him out something mighty.

Gomorrah was obviously into her maybe-girlfriend, but the Complication Matrix levels there were stupid high. Stray Cat and that Lucy girl? They had the same metrics as some couples he'd met who were happily married for thirty-plus years, which was wild.

Cat was one crazy lady, in his humble opinion, and it made him worried about that Lucy girl too because there was no way she was sane if she was into that.

None of that mattered at the moment. He was just distracting himself so that he didn't have to think of what was coming up. He got off his iron horse, then tugged the horse's rear-view mirror to the side to get a better look at himself.

He was in a nice button-up shirt. All the buttons nice and shiny right up to his neck, collar on proper-like. It was a beige and red plaid-like pattern that he enjoyed. His jeans were nice and neat, pleated down the middle because he'd starched and ironed them himself. Bit stiff, but he could live with it.

Boots were spit-shined like new. He'd even oiled his spurs.

"Right," he muttered. "Now or never."

The place was one of the biggest shopping spots in New Montreal. Big enough that even his country-bumpkin self had heard about it in ads and in passing. It was the kind of place that people would take a detour to visit if they had business in the city, just to say that they'd been.

It was also where Emoscythe stayed.

That might have been part of the mystique, he figured. A woman like that--not just a samurai--staying around was good enough of a reason for anyone to want to visit.

He stepped into the place and soon enough he was lost in the crowd.

It always unnerved him, how many people there were in the city. Back home the population was in the low thousands. He couldn't say that he knew everyone, but he knew enough people that everyone he did meet had a friend in common. Everyone was someone's cousin, neighbour, in-law, or something like that.

Out here, in New Montreal? A million people could be on the block he was on and there wasn't a chance in hell that he'd get to meet even a thousandth of them.

He was just some guy in a sea of people, and that unnerved him something fierce. He was dressed a little weird compared to the locals, but not so weird that it stood out.

There were two young women giggling next to one of those cardboard stand-ups of... was that that Arm-a-Geddon guy from down south? They had neon hair that waved with their laughter.

A group of mercs stomped by further in, six of them circling a totally average looking man. Too average. He looked like Crackshot's cousin who'd gone into accounting. His cousin never needed an escort like that.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

An elderly man was standing off to the side, doing a weird old dance while Cringecore music played from his walker.

Ads blared all over, of course, but there were street vendors shouting over them anyway, because even without Enyries filtering out the more intrusive ads, there was just something about a man calling out for your attention that worked.

And then he was in the main bazaar and walking towards a backroom exit. The place had guards. It had electronic surveillance, key-card access on the doors, and turrets hidden in the floor and others in plain sight. None of it tried to stop him.

That still felt weird, being someone. As much as he found some of his new samurai... friends a little weird, he did envy some of their confidence. Miss Stray Cat seemed the sort to walk in front of a bus, entirely confident that it would stop for her, and it probably would. Some of the others were more humble with their power and selves, but there was still that undercurrent of... weight to them.

None more than the woman he was visiting now.

It was a short ride up an elevator, then down another corridor into a lobby space where he was let in without any trouble. The floor was glass, overlooking the bazaar below. He didn't pay that any mind, not when she was right there.

His mouth suddenly felt dry at the sight of her.

Emoscythe Mordeath Noir.

She stood in the centre of the room like the statue of a goddess ought to stand in the centre of a temple. But she wasn't a thing of cold marble. No, she was all blacks and black and blacks. Layers of blue-black and purple-black and black-black, slightly different, subtle, all layered over each other in a dress that hinted as much as it shouted.

She looked at him for a moment, and then she smiled. A quirk of her purple-painted lips to one side, a flash of perfect teeth. "Hello, Crackshot Cowboy," she said. Her voice was...

It was like a cold glass of ice water on one of those days when it got so hot he thought his trailer might melt.

"H-howdy, ma'am," he said.

"I wasn't expecting you, of all people," she said. "But it's a pleasure nonetheless. I see you've been taking my advice to heart."

"Yes ma'am," he said before he quickly removed his hat. Curse his fool brain, he was forgetting his manners. "Ma'am, I'm here to ask you something that might be inappropriate."

She blinked. "Go on?"

"I... I wouldn't normally ask this sort of thing. I'm hardly a brave man, I'm afraid, but I suppose the world ending and all had shaken things loose. Miss Emoscythe Mordeath Noir, would you mind if I asked you out on a date?"

She stared for a moment, then laughed, but she covered her mouth. There was mirth in her eyes, but not rejection. "How old are you?" she asked.

"Twenty-two," he said.

"I'm thirty-two, aren't I a little old for you?"

"I don't mind that at all," he said. "In fact, I rather like it. Just how I like all the rest of the things I know about you."

She tilted her head, exposing just a bit of lace-covered neck. By god, this woman would be the end of him. "You're bold, aren't you?" she asked. "I admire your courage, at least."

"I reckon it's not the sort of time for cowardice and hesitance," he said.

She laughed, and he felt some of the tension in his shoulders loosening up. "Very well, Mister Crackshot Cowboy. I'll allow you to take me out on a date."

"Really?" he asked. "I mean, yes ma'am. Thank you, ma'am! How's dinner sound?"

"Right now?"

"We've only got hours to go," he said. There were quite a few hours, of course, but still. He had to move while his bravery lasted.

"I suppose I could eat. Dinner?"

He nodded. "Dinner with you sounds lovely," he said honestly.

The world might be ending but that didn't mean this wasn't the best day in his life.

"One in seven thousand, eh?" he muttered, a smile sneaking onto his face.

***