Kid Win

Dennis looked at me.

"Back from Seattle already?"

"Yeah..."

I sat down next to him, we felt tired, exhausted, and used up.

"No jokes."

He had deep circles under his eyes.

"We're down to four people, for some reason I'm now in charge. You got mangled, Vista's out of it and Shadow Stalker might be a traitor on top of being a total psycho."

He closed his eyes.

"Goddamn."

"You know I remember that short period when she wasn't so goddamned, you know nuts."

He breathed in.

"It's fucked up but you work with someone long enough and they're, well hot a twisted part of you starts looking forward to seeing her."

I stared at him.

"Shadow Stalker."

"Imagine her... now imagine her not talking... If she is a traitor that means we're down to 3 people. Which means that we're in for some serious suck."

I felt tired already.

"So Piggot's gone, Calvert's dead, who's the new Director?"

"Some guy named Tagg, you still have access to the backdoors?"

I shrugged, there was a 50/50 chance that security codes had been changed, not that I was a good hacker, I just did some simple social engineering. I couldn't get the deep secrets though, just general files. I opened up a laptop and worked my way through the wi-fi network...

"I'm in."

I looked at the file, Tagg's file.

"Hmm."

"Good hnm, bad hmm, come on Chris this guy's going to be our boss."

I took in some air.

"He has a reputation for being, well kind of a maverick, um cowboy cop's the best way to put it. He's brave, has no problems going into the field. He was at the miracle of New Orleans."

"Really?"

"Yeah he was sent there as a punishment post, he has a tendency to make enemies. According to this he got out of the shelter at one point and unloaded his revolver into Bohu's body."

I paused.

"He obviously didn't get the kill but he says he wouldn't order someone to do something he wouldn't do... unfortunately for us he's done a whole lot of very crazy things."

I looked over the file and marveled at the sheer number of stunts he pulled.

"Ouch, and?"

"He actually mellowed out after New Orleans, the PRT pretty much uses him as a troubleshooter these days."

"And reinforcements?"

"Not coming."

"We've been through the fucking wringer, Chris!"

I looked up.

"So have a lot of cities."

"How about all of those Case 53's that come in?"

His voice was desperate, pleading.

"At least 40% of them flip to Tinker, those get sent up into the colonies, the rest get scattered around the US or their nation of origin, and not all of them end up in the PRT sometimes a company will buy up their debt and they will work for them for a few years."

"So out of that?"

"The war kills most of 'em, the vast majority of them, theres a clause where they have to fight and a lot of them don't survive their first battle. Then there's just the normal amount of people who die on the streets, and on top of that the PRT needs to have a presence on Mars and in the solar system. Everyone's bleeding for people Dennis."

He looked frustrated.

"So Void cowboy... he's a hero, if we got him in another Tinker could-"

"He said no... a lot of people have said no, Denis."

He punched a wall.

"We defeated Zeus, we earned some back up. We could barely keep the city together when we had everyone and now..."

I nodded my head.

"This space crap is a waste, we need people, we-"

"I can't do my job without those resources."

Chris stopped, I held firm.

"A city gets wrecked once a month Dennis, where do you think the steel for new buildings come from? The rock for the concrete, we can't depend on Earth based factories because you never know when the city they're in will be destroyed."

I closed my eyes.

"Gold, rare earth materials, silver, titanium, gems of all kinds."

I put one of my guns on the table.

"90% of everything here, electronics, the metal, the rubies they all came from off Earth, if I didn't have access to all of that stuff, and I have gone through a lot of stuff, then..."

Dennis tilted his head.

"So?"

"Look, how many hoverboards do you think I've made over the years?"

He shrugged.

"3 or 4 or..."

"25... every time I feel like I can make a better model like I've learned something new. I put in a request for more materials, more stuff, a wish list. In exchange I fix up my old hoverboard the best I can, a Thinker looks it over and calculates how long it would last without me maintaining it. In my case my stuff normally lasts 3 to 4 months which is not bad by tinkertech standards, and this is with the best stuff I can get. My stuff is then sent to some other city and I get the materials I need for my next hoverboard. They get tinkertech, I get materials."

I leaned back.

"Without all of that outer space mining all of that comes crashing down. That means less tinkertech for everyone."

"Meanwhile were undermanned and outgunned."

I took in a breath.

"You need to look at the big picture."

"WE LIVE IN THE SMALL PICTURE!"

I got angry.

"Then why did you push to have Golem transferred."

Dennis stopped.

"His father was freaking Kaiser, he..."

"Came to us of his own free will, he didn't have to do that and you pushed to have him transferred and now he's gone. In some other city being an asset to them."

"It was a conflict of interest, those people raised him we wouldn't be able to trust him."

We stared at each other. I heard a knock, Vista stared at us with dead eyes.

"The new director wants to talk to us."

"Thanks."

"Whatever."

She shrugged and trugged along, we all felt frustrated, tired, angry. The four of us assembled. He had greying hair, a suit and a I could see faint scars along his arms.

"At ease."

We stared at him.

"I am director Tagg, I won't bullshit you on how I'm going to make things magically better, or try to blow sunshine up your assholes. You're all veterans now, you've been through the fire and walked out the other side alive. It's going to take a whole lot of work to turn things around so it's not going to get any easier."

He paused, and brought out two jars, one of them was close to the brim.

"For some reason the PRT gets in a huff when their Wards cuss, every time you cuss on the job you have to put a quarter in this jar."

"The other jar?"

He tossed a few coins in.

"That's my jar, I'm not going to ask you to do anything I'm not willing to do. Every time I curse at all I put a quarter in the jar. If your collective jar fills first then the money in both jars goes to me. I might have a pizza party for the men and women in the PRT with it. If my jar fills.."

He paused and sighed.

"And it probably will fill first, then the money from both jars will be put through a coin counter and split amongst all the Wards..."

He sighed at the jar.

"So far no Wards team has ever lost this little contest against me, don't fu... screw up the record. We have tiny minded little bureaucrats who don't know anything about the goddamned streets to please."

He paused.

"Also all of you have been put through the wringer, so you're going to see a shrink."

Dennis clenched his fist.

"We're not crazy."

"Kid, mental trauma's just like physical trauma, you got to take care of it or it will only get worse, and this isn't just you. Everyone has to talk to a therapist, even the goddamned janitor."

He looked around and opened up his wallet, He pulled out 3 20's.

"Clock blocker, Kid Win, Vista, you 3 go get some R and R, Shadow Stalker? We're going to have a long goddamned talk in private."