The armoured fist smashed through the boomer's metallic skin. The fists' finger's opened, reaching through the coils and cables to enclose around the pulpy silicon core that was the boomer's heart. With a sicking screech the fist and core ripped out from its entry point.
The fist raised the beating core high and after a testing squeeze, splattered it down the fist's blue arm.
"Good job, girls. Time to get leave," Sylia announced over the intercom. "Clean up boys are incoming."
Priss threw the remains of the core to the ground without a second thought and ignited her jetpacks. After the first hop she was gone.
"Linna, can you help me out?" it was Nene, still in the dumpster having been thrown there at the start of the battle.
Linna jumped up onto the lip of the dumpster and reached down to grab Nene's hand, "Get's go, Nene. Better luck next time."
The Knight Sabres were back in the Pit, changing out of their hardsuits.
"You know, Priss, you could have given Nene another shot," Linna said.
Priss just shrugged.
Linna huffed.
Sylia came down and after a quick debrief handed over the night's mission pay. "Don't go spending it all at once," she finalised before returning back up to her apartment.
Nene was the first packed and ready. "I'm heading home, see you guys next time. Bye Linna," the normally upbeat girl said sullenly.
"Oh – ok, Nene. I'll call you later," Linna smiled at her friend and gave her a pat on the shoulder. After Nene left Linna turned on Priss who was pulling on the last of her boots.
"Hey, you could have said something."
Priss looked up at Linna wit her infuriatingly don't-care look.
"She's upset."
Priss stood and tapped the money packet into the palm of her hand.
"You going to try to lecture me or do you want to help me spend this?"
The earlier terror and chaos gave way to the busy nighttime streets.
Priss and Linna walked slowly through the citie's nocturnal inhabitants.
"So, where are we going? It's not shopping?"
That was the fastest way Linna spent Sylia's money. When it wasn't going towards her rent.
"Nah."
"God, Priss," Linna sighed, "You can talk the ears off an elephant."
Priss stopped and smiled. "Good joke."
Linna grimaced and rubbed her temple.
"Don't worry about Nene, Linna. Fighting isn't her thing. Even in a hardsuit, no point messing with a boomer if you don't know how to kill it."
"Yeah, but you could," a sigh, "be a bit more graceful about it."
Priss snorted. "Sylia doesn't keep me around for grace. That's what you're for."
"Wha? You should give me more credit, too."
Priss slapped Linna on the back. "I'd never get the job done as quickly without you."
"Is that your joke?"
Priss shrugged again and pointed over the road. "Let's go there, its decent enough for you."
"Gee, thanks. I don't know if I'm going to like the way this is night is going," Linna looked over the road to where Priss had pointed, a blue neon sign 'Chameleon'.
"It'll be – crap."
"Crap? Priss, what?" Linna turned.
Priss folded her arms watching her reflection disappearing as the cruiser window powered down. A thick arm in brown leather rested out.
"Well, well," said ADP Detective Leon McNichol, "if it isn't the Hot Legs singer."
Linna stepped next to Priss.
"Who's this guy?"
"ADP."
"Oh."
"Don't let that chase you away," from out the other side of the car Leon's partner, Daley, stepped out. "Hello to you both, a nice evening isn't it?"
"Uh, yes it is," Linna replied.
Linna looked back at Priss, who was in a machismo staring contest with Leon.
"We're just out for a little drink."
"Little, eh?" Leon said.
"Little." Priss replied.
Priss and Leon slammed down their thick-glass ice-chilled pitcher mugs, drained and "Aaahh"'d at the same time.
"This could be a long night," Daley said gently twirling his wine glass by the stem.
Linna grimaced. "He always like this?"
Daley grimaced. "Most of the time." He turned his attention away from the drinking competition. "So..." he had to look back at Priss, "How did you to meet?"
Linna glanced at Priss. "An accident, literally."
"You're an odd couple."
Linna coughed, checks coloured gently. "We're not a couple-"
"I know," Daley laughed, "I don't mean it like that. I just mean, you know."
"Okay, I get you. Like how a 'normal' girl like me winds up hanging out with a biker chick?"
"Like that."
"Who wouldn't want to be best friends with a rock'n'roll star, right?"
Daley raised his glass. "Absolutely, to rock'n'roll."
"Enough of me for the moment. How do you put up with that thing?" Linna jerked her head in the direction of a chugging Leon. Drunk number four.
"He Tarzan, me... brains. Simply. We were partners well before we transferred to the ADP. I try to figure things out, he gets to blow stuff up. Works for both of us."
"Did you two grow into it, or were you assigned?"
"Both really. Like an arranged marriage you might say. Got along, professionally. The police... aren't the best places for thinking men. While Leon was breaking rioters heads after the quake and … skulling beer; It took me a bit longer to find my place. When the Chief teamed Leon and myself things all got settled down and we've been a team ever since."
"That must have been hard."
"It was, can still be sometimes. I like the job though. And him. Most of the time."
Linna smiled. "Not right now?"
"This is fine. It's when I have to take the lummox home. Getting him up all those stairs," Daley stretched his back and groaned, "No, don't like that at all."
"I can imagine."
"His breath." Daley waved his hand across his nose.
Linna laughed.
"I don't want to imagine."
"Do you think she can keep up?"
Priss. Her cheeks red.
"She'll go down swinging, if she can't." Linna finished her – first – beer. "Never one to back down from a fight. Although..." she shook her head as Priss ordered another two, "She can be wearing. I hope I don't have to carry her home tonight." Taxi to Sylia's, hardsuit to Priss' trailer. No taxi would take them there.
"Now that you're done," Daley put down his glass, "would you like to leave these two destroyed livers and go 'bust a move'?"
Linna smiled. "Yes, Detective Wong. I would like that."
A truce was called. Half a dozen pints. Leon had to do relieve himself.
Priss rested her head in her hands. It she didn't she felt it would spin off.
While she waited for his the continuation s inevitable return and continuation Priss tried to spy out Linna. She had registered somehow that Linna and Leon's partner, Daley, had left them and gone onto the floor.
That would have been the wiser choice, she told herself. Instead she was engaged in binge drinking. It'll be hell tomorrow. She spotted them, sticking close, using each other to fend off unwanted attention.
A thud announced Leon's return.
"Ahhh, I needed that. Hey, where are the othershhh?" he slurred.
Priss waved her hand. "Dancin'."
"Dancin'? Daley? With a girl? Ha!" Leon slapped the table.
"Why'z that so funny?" she was watching Linna dance; the country girl needed some rythym. Daley wasn't so bad. Ginda girly though. Lots of arms and hips. "He going to make a move?"
Leon burst out laughing and nearly fell of his chair.
"What's so funny?" Priss growled.
"Don't worry about Daley. She's not his type."
Priss moved her attention over to Daley. "If you say so," she shrugged, "Not sure what Linna's type is anyway."
Leon didn't seem to hear her and kept rambling as the intoxicated do, "Daley – De tec tive Wong, my partner, my best friend, the man who I would take a bullet for - anyday – likes men. And anyone, anyone who has a problem with that has a problem with me."
"What?"
"I said-"
"Linna'll be fine then. She'll be bummed when she finds out."
She noticed Linna looking at her, waving, and gave a quick wave back.
"Looks like she's got eyes for someone else," Leon reached for his next beer. "You'd think, after all thish time that, that it wouldn't be a problem anymore." He bleched.
Class act. Priss reached for her own. It would keep the headache at bay until the next day.
"I mean, let people be happy. Boys and girls, boys and boys, girls and girls. Whatever. The number of heads I had to crack in the force to get them to shut up. Ahh. Pisses me off still."
"He any good?"
"The best. The ADP wouldn't know what to do without him. That's what makes it worse! Taking down boomers, that's all the people think we do. That's the easy part-"
"Easy?" Priss snorted, "Don't those Sabres do all the real work?"
"That's shit! We do plenty, lose plenty. But there's something bigger than the boomers. That's what Daley will find out. Nothing else matters."
"Yeah, so you beat other cops up for him?"
"Needed to happen."
"He know?"
"No. If he does, hasn't said."
Priss rolled an empty glass from side to side. "I wouldn't like it if someone did that. I'd want to handle it myself."
"As I said, it would be best if it no longer happened. Been a cop a long time. Had to deal with a lot of shit. Pulling drowned bodies out of the river; guys – and girls – who had the shit kicked out of them by rednecks and preachy folk. Finding some mother's kid lying in a bathtub red with their own blood.
Fuck. Transferring here to the ADP. That was an easy choice. Five years of beat work, body work and the wreck to lives some pretty simple words can do. I thought it was going to be easier here, more polite; queer, gay, homo – every language has them.
You might be strong enough to handle it, or think you are, it gets to too many." Leon took a long pull. "Wasn't going to let that sit."
Priss remained silent. She knew how it had been on her streets. She knew what people could be like.
"Too many kids. Couldn't handle it anymore. Boomers were my way out."
Leon put the empty glass down. Didn't feel like drinking anymore.
"Haven't depressed myself like this in a long time. Hope I haven't killed your night."
Priss stood up, swayed, put a hand on Leon's shoulder. There wasn't anything to say even if she could find the words. She gave the shoulder a squeeze, no mean feat the size of it, half intentionally to give her a push off to her own relief.
Yeah, that kinda killed it.
Daley and Linna returned to the table. Leon was staring into the depths of a glass.
"Time to hit the streets?"
Leon grunted.
"Get up big man, you should have come out onto the floor. It was a blast."
"Daley's a great dancer," Linna nodded, "He makes Priss look like a loaf."
"Gee, thanks," Priss had returned.
Daley was helping Leon up, aware of the maudlin funk he occasionally fell into.
"Is he sick?" Linna asked.
"He'll be better when he gets to shoot at something."
Linna laughed nervously.
"A crack at the Knight Sabres," Priss sat back down. Linna looked at her alarmed.
A calculated bet that put a spark back into Leon's eyes.
"Those bitches!"
"Settle now, big man. Ladies present."
Priss waved the profanity away. "All's good."
As the two ADP Officers started to head their way out Priss turned in her chair: "Drop by the club anytime, I'll buy you a beer."
Leon put his hands into his jacket and rolled his shoulders. "Your story next time."
"'Night, ladies," Daley said and escorted Leon out to their patrol car.
"Your story?" Linna asked intrigued.
"So, you said I dance bad?" Priss ignored Linna's line.
"I didn't say that, Priss-"
"Really." flat.
"What do you think of him?"
"Who, Daley? My parent's would be all over him. Manners, educated, sophisticated, a Detective-"
"Out to catch us."
"There is that," Linna chuckled. "And yet, you invite him to your gig."
Another shrug.
"You know, Daley likes men," Priss said matter of factly.
"Uh-?"
Priss stood up. "I feel like a ride. Think you can hold on tight enough?"
Realistically the idea sent a shiver down Linna's spine.
"Just don't do anything too crazy, okay?"
Priss gave her trademark smile followed up by a lyric: "Crazy, baby, you gonna scream for more."
Without a glance back Priss strode out of Chameleon, Linna nervously following in her wake.