Chapter 4 – by Tallulah
It was midday. Beat grinned as he finished his tag. Life was good. The sun was shining, he'd beaten the Noise Tanks, and when Matrix turned up she'd be forced to get busy with a camera…
Yup, life was good. Life was –
"Where is she?"
Beat jumped as Kell stormed towards him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, she was gasping for breath, and she looked worryingly homicidal.
"You tell me where she is or I – I –"
"What the hell are you talking about, Love Shocker?" Beat said. "Lost your teddy?"
Kell gripped him by the shirt, slamming him back against the wall. "Another of my gang members has disappeared."
"And I have something to do with this because…?"
"One of your lot was hanging around the half-pipe last night, and that's the last place Akina was seen. Now I bet you think this is funny, but I don't, so just quit goofing around and tell me where she is!"
"Maybe she just got sick of her paranoid leader and decided to quit. That occurred to you?"
Kell slammed her hand into his stomach.
Beat saw the sun-baked ground rising up to slap his face, and groaned.
"Listen." Kell snapped out the words. "She wouldn't quit. She wouldn't. If you won't give me answers, I'm going round the entire park until I find someone who will."
"That's…that's nice for you…" Beat muttered.
"Hey, Kell – he told you anything?"
Beat saw another pair of Love Shocker skates screech to a halt in front of his nose, and someone laughed. "You didn't have to kill him."
"Look, Dash, I'm in the mood for killing at the moment. First Shar, now Akina…damn GGs think they're it…"
Beat struggled to sit up before she decided to break his nose with her skate.
"Look," he said. "We haven't done anything to your pals. If we wanted you guys out of the way, we'd ten-tag you like normal rudies, not…I don't know, whatever you think we've done. So could you please stop hitting me?"
He looked up at Kell, who glowered, and said, "I don't believe a word you're saying, but I don't have time to pummel you into the dirt. I've got to find her. Come on, Dash."
As the Love Shockers skated away, there was a snort of laughter. Beat turned to see Scorn perched on top of the wall, looking down at him.
"Wow…the GG leader gets ground to a pulp by a couple of girls. And you guys are supposed to be tough?"
"Oh, shut up!" Beat glanced around for a brick, couldn't see one, and before he could think of some other way to retaliate, Scorn had gone.
Gum stood on the bridge, squinting down at the skate park. The sun was hot on the back of her neck, and seeing the other rudies lurking down in that stupid place wasn't exactly improving her temper, but she wasn't going to go away.
You're not going to beat me, she thought at the park. You are so not.
She narrowed her eyes, trying to pick out people she knew. She could see some Noise Tanks clustered around the left of the entrance to the park, round the full-pipe. Love Shockers, two of them, skating fiercely along near the top-right corner. Beat was lounging around a little way along from them…she felt her hands curl into fists.
He was supposed to be leader of her gang and he didn't even know she was there.
No. She had to stop this or she'd go mad.
Maybe she had already. In the burning sunlight there sure wasn't any trace of that weird hatred she'd felt last night. In a way she wished there was. Then she'd have a real reason for loathing this place.
But Garam was right. She was being too cutting. Way too cutting. If all the others were doing it, it couldn't be so bad…
Sheep, her mind taunted her. Sheep sheep sheep. That's the kind of stupid crappy thinking that – that bimbos do.
But she hadn't even been in the stupid park, not even once.
If only they hadn't built it…given a ton of dynamite, she would have happily blasted it to kingdom come. Then she'd be with the rest of her gang, being a rudie, and everything would be normal.
Pissing off the other gangs…dodging the Keisatsu…putting their tags on the highest places…
To her horror, she felt her eyes sting, and a tear oozed out of one of them, and ran down her face.
Oh, god, no! Now it was making her cry!
Angrily she scrubbed the tear off her cheek, but another one replaced it, and another.
"Gum, where the hell did you go?"
Garam. Gum silently cursed, and stared up into the sharp blue sky. Don't look, don't look, don't look…
"Gum?"
Gum swallowed, and said, trying to keep her voice steady, "I…got tired of it. That's all."
"Oh, for god's sake!" Garam's shadow fell over her back. "Look, I have had it with you! You moan there's nothing to do and then when we try and do something you just don't do that either, can't you quit being such a brat?"
"I am not a brat!" Gum yelled. "I just –"
Her voice shattered into sobs.
"Gum? Oh, lord, don't cry, I can't handle that…"
Gum snorted through her tears. "Wimp."
Garam crept closer to her. "Um – do you want me to hug you?"
"Bite me," Gum sobbed.
"You're like a cactus, did you know that?"
Gum rubbed the tears off her face. "Thank you. That's the most beautiful thing anyone's ever said to me."
"You're welcome. I can say more stuff like that if you want."
"No. Don't push it." She found herself grinning.
"We could…I dunno, talk to them." Garam indicated the GGs below them. "Ask 'em if they'd mind hanging with us for once."
"They won't come. They'll say why don't we come there. I've been watching them. They're having the time of their lives. Beat and Tab are acting like prats, Mew's getting a tan, Cube's putting the fear of God into every male who crosses her path…they're happy down there. Why should we make them come out and face the real world?"
"Things can't go on like this forever," Garam said.
"Oh, yeah? Why not?"
"Either they'll get bored, or you'll go homicidally insane and force them to come out at gunpoint."
"Now there's an idea." Gum sighed, and stared down at the park again.
"Look, doesn't it bug you?" she said at last.
"Sure it bugs me. But we gotta try and keep positive, or we'll be letting it win. Or whatever."
"I guess so."
"I know so. Come on, cactus. Are you bored enough to have sex with me yet?"
"Garam, you haven't had a cactus slammed into your balls with the force of a freight train, have you?"
"That was a hint, wasn't it?"
"You're smart for a gangless rudie."
"Come on. Let's go find some lunch."
"Why were the Love Shockers mashing you into the ground?" Cube asked Beat.
"They were not mashing me."
"Oh, yeah? What were they doing? Making you beg?"
"Look, their stupid leader was pissed cos she'd lost two of her stupid gang members and she thought I had something to do with it."
"Lost them?"
"They've disappeared. If you ask me, they've quit the gang to get away from their insane leader. Anyway, it's not my problem."
Cube shrugged, and leapt up onto the wall. Grinding along a few feet, she jumped off again, and said, "What're the Noise Tanks doing over there?"
Beat looked over to where she was pointing. One of the Noise Tanks stood on top of the telephone pole as Tab had that morning, surveying the park. The rest of them clustered at the bottom, shading their eyes as they stared up at him.
"See anything?" Beat heard one of them yell.
"Nope. No sign of her…"
Beat recognised the voice as Slash's. He glanced over at Cube, and gulped at the evil grin that was spreading across her face.
"Be right back," she murmured, and took off towards the pole.
Beat winced as she tore through the Noise Tanks, leapt, and kicked off from the pole. And just like Tab, Slash fell.
"You're evil," Beat commented as Cube skated back to him.
"I know."
"Look, just leave us alone!" yelled one of the Noise Tanks. "We got some serious shit to deal with!"
"Oh, yeah, what?" Cube called. "Power cut to the brain?"
"Real funny," the Noise Tank replied. "Look, go play with the Poison Jammers or something. We're busy."
"What the hell is wrong?" Beat said. "This place is supposed to be fun, remember? You lost something?"
"No, someone," Tracer said. "You guys seen Matrix?"
"She's still not turned up?"
"Nope. So we'd appreciate less dumb shit from you GGs till we find her. Come on, Slash, get back up there."
"Do I have to?"
"Move it!"
Beat glanced at Cube. "Matrix is gone too? Is it just me, or is something weird going on?"
"Could be. Or it could be Matrix is off taking her nudie pics, and doesn't want to face us."
"But where are those two missing Love Shockers?"
"Maybe they had a row with Kell or something. No one's searched outside the park, have they?" Cube sped up and jumped onto a wall again. "Lighten up, Beat. This isn't the X-Files."
"No, I guess not. But –"
"Beat! What part of 'lighten up' do you not understand? Chill, okay? Nothing weird's going on. The only weird thing I can think of is Gum and Garam are still doing their stupid protest."
"If they don't want to come here, that's their loss."
"Do you think they're gonna stick to that?"
"I don't know." Beat sighed, remembering how miserable Gum was looking lately. "It'd be cool if they came. And they'd like it, you know they would, they just…"
"They're just morons?" Cube said, grinning. "Well, Gum may be. Garam's just staying with her cos he likes her."
"You think?"
"I know." Cube jumped down to land in front of him, raising dust around her. "Anyway, if they don't…join in or something soon, they're gonna end up quitting the gang."
"What, actually leave? For good?"
"Well, it's not like we hang with them any more," Cube said. "I'd be sorry to see 'em go, but to tell the truth, this 'I'm too tough and cool for the skate park' act is starting to piss me off."
"Maybe we should…I don't know, go out on the streets with them a bit more."
"We both know that'd be totally boring. All the gangs are here, and all the rivalries and turf wars. And we've got way more to skate on, walls and pipes and stuff. There's no point in going out on the streets. If they want to ignore us, let them. They want to start acting like part of the GGs, they can come down here."
Beat sighed. What had Gum called them yesterday? Kept rudies?
But this place was so cool…
"Maybe too cool," he said out loud.
"Beat, if you don't stop saying dark things in that significant tone of voice, and looking around like you expect the creepy music to start, I am going to give you a punch in the eye. Now let's go tread on someone's toes."
Beat sighed, and followed her away from the Noise Tanks. She was right. Of course there was nothing wrong. This place was like paradise for rudies.
But in the movies, the people always move into the old house and say how great it is, and then the ghost comes out of the walls and brutally slaughters them all.
Beat considered this a moment, and then decided that Cube was right. He needed to lighten up. He shivered. The sun had gone in, and the shadows cutting over the park faded.
Then it rose out again, and he headed after Cube.