Tonight was slow. If there was one thing that Slick hated, it was slow nights. On slow nights, Boxcars would get out his fucking weird-as-shit heart porn or whatever it was and giggle like an idiot in a corner. On slow nights, Droog would be even more of an insufferable asshole, in that irritating, silently-judging-you kind of way that he had. On slow nights, Deuce would just be…well, Deuce was a general fuck-up no matter what the speed of the night.
Droog had once suggested that it wasn't that everyone else got more aggravating on slow nights, but it was that Slick just got a thousand times more irritable on slow nights. Slick resented that suggestion.
Thing is, this slow night was worse than all the other slow nights Slick had ever experienced, because this was the fifth in a series of slow nights. And that was five too many in a row for anybody.
Normally, those roaches that called themselves the Felt would have disrupted their peace and quiet and sped the night up pretty damn fast. But there hadn't been ugly green hide or shameful horse shitting hair of them for a whole fucking week. It made Slick suspicious and even more irritable than he'd be on any other slow night. And more than that, it made him impossibly, intolerably, and uncontrollably bored. If something didn't happen, and happen soon, Slick was going to go topsy-turvy.
"Hey, um, boss," a small, low-to-the-ground voice piped up. Slick took a break from repetitively stabbing the wall and gave Deuce the most fear-inducing glare he could muster at this level of boredom. Deuce flinched for a second, but quickly recovered and held out what appeared to be a newspaper. "I thought you'd want to see this, boss."
Slick snatched it away, quickly making sure it wasn't one of Droog's private reading materials. And with that look, Slick saw the most infuriating headline he ever had the displeasure of reading: THE FELT STRIKES AGAIN; MIDNIGHT CREW STRANGELY INACTIVE. A quick run-over of the following article indicated that in the five days the Crew had been waiting for the Felt to stage some sort of ambush, they'd been busy wreaking havoc on the town. Robberies, hold-ups, vandalisms….The list went on and on. With a enraged snarl, Slick jerked his knife from the wall and used it to shred the newspaper, until confetti-like strips littered the floor around his feet.
"How could I not know about this?" Slick raged, beginning to pace back and forth. "I mean, we're the fucking Midnight Crew! This makes us look like a bunch of losers and ding-bats. Like the Felt's washed their hands of us. Last week's news!" With another snarl, he hurled his knife at the wall, lodging it firmly in the crumbling concrete. Deuce jumped, surreptitiously scuttling to the other side of the table. Slick was pretty unpredictable when he was truly pissed off.
Droog, who had been sitting calmly at the table with his legs crossed and his feet up, straightened and leaned forward. "They got other things goin' on, Slick," he said. "Wonder if you saw. News says they got a mysterious new member. She's been getting a reputation for herself." Slick glared at Droog, baring his teeth in frustration. Was that lump of shit saying that he knew about this and hadn't told anybody anything? Slick woulda liked to put some metal through that secret-keeping throat, but- "People have been callin her 'Little Sn0w.'"
Slick's rage skipped for an instant, just long enough for the idea to sink in. "What the hell kind of name is 'Little Sn0w'?" he snapped. Droog shrugged.
"I'd guess that it's because Sn0wman herself trained the new kid," he inferred. Slick's eyes twitched, trying to comprehend what this meant. Another member of the Felt, trained by Sn0wman. Another cold, crafty bitch, taught in the ways of snarkiness by the queen of horse shit herself. It was a fucking nightmare.
Slick stalked over to his knife, still stuck in the wall. Once again, he viciously tore it from the cement, a few crumbs of old concrete falling to the ground. As carefully as his temper would allow, he checked the edge. Despite the abuse it took, the edges were still deadly. However, it'd need to be sharpened soon if it was going to retain murder-quality danger levels. And Slick knew just whose carapace he wanted to sharpen it on.
Slick turned to the rest of the Crew, who were watching him warily. Well, Droog and Deuce were watching; Slick was pretty sure Boxcars, who was still immersed in his disgusting personal reading material, had missed the entire episode. That aside, Slick tucked his knife into his suit, hiding it in its accustomed, easy-to-reach sheath.
"I think it's time we paid the Felt a friendly visit, boys," he said, just barely keeping his voice at a calm, cool volume. "We oughta give that new member a real Midnight Crew welcome."