The Lost Chapters
Part 6

Where do you start looking when you don't know what you're looking for?

Okay, tell a lie, I know what I'm looking for, but what with the clubhouse being a hands-down washout, where else can you go? Bars are out of the question, considering they'd all have at least a minor A.O.D. presence, so asking around there about ex-Lost bikies would be suicide.

The census office would be a decent idea, if I wasn't in the country illegally, and my dad was probably under the radar himself.

I was nowhere near connected enough to try and get some info out of the LCPD, even if they were the most incompetent police force in the country. Plus, I'd heard horror stories about what happened to people who thought you could screw with crooked cops. They screwed you right back with a 25-to-life.

That left the final option - get in on the ground level.

By majority vote, with my ego screaming blue murder in a corner, I stashed the gun and ammo down the back of the mini-bar in the ice box. I'd never fired a gun in my life, and having one and not knowing how to use it was ten times worse than not having one and knowing how to use it. And in any case, my clothes hardly have room to hide it, short of stuffing it down the front of my trousers, which would probably give a lot of people the wrong idea.

The cash went in my pocket, most if it, anyway. I left about $500 in my bag as an emergency stash, then locked the door and trotted back down to reception.

'Are there any mechanics around here? Workshops, you know.'

The old boy looked me up and down, to his credit he didn't leer, then slid a phone directory across the counter.

'Every Axle's in Liberty. Under services.'

'I was thinking more...independent.'

Better than a Mason, this guy was. You can keep your wiggly handshakes - all you need is eye contact and intonation.

'There's a place down by the docks in Bohan. Guantanamo Avenue.'

I couldn't be bothered with a cab, so I decided to walk. Note to self: Never do that again. The sidewalks were choked with crazies, executives, hot dog vendors and crazy executive hot dog vendors. The streets were bumper-to-bumper snakes of metal and smog and blaring music. I wasn't claustrophobic, but fighting my way through seven streams of human traffic at once was putting me in a dark frame of mind.

By the time I got to Bohan, I was one more 'Nice Ass!' away from biting someone's nose off.

Guanyanamo Avenue wasn't much, just a tight side-alley running parallel between a warehouse and a half-finished bridge. The workshop itself was one of the arches beneath the bridge - the only one not derelict or full of junked cars. An unseen radio blared RockN'Roll, amplified by the echo, interrupted by the squeal of a gas axe cutting through metal.

Not one for formal arrivals, I found the radio and dropped the volume. A few heartbeats, then a figure emerges from underneath a wrecked car. Scratch that, a wrecked car and a bike - the latter having hit the car so hard it had almost fused to the bodywork.

'The fuck are you?'

He was just about my height, maybe an inch or two more, wiry and smothered in grime and grease. A welder's mask that'd obscured his face was snapped up, revealing pinched, gaunt features. The gas axe hung loose in his hand - even if it wasn't on, it was still a hot lump of metal that would ruin anyone's day.

'I heard this was a good place to look for work.' I clamped my voice to an even level - try not to play up the accent too much.

'Does this look like an employment agency?' He waved an arm at the scrap. 'I cut fucked-up bikes from fatal crashes. I don't need a secretary.'

'Neither do I. I'm a lousy typer. But I think you need parts, right?'

'...you a cop? I know my rights - you've gotta say.'

I sighed, but took it in good humor. 'Yeah, Scotland Yard. You're under arrest for being a greasy, thick-headed wrench jockey.' I caught another look at the wreck behind him. 'And unless you want to blow yourself up, I'd stop using the gas axe. That Lycan's got the custom dual-input system, if you hit that with the torch, you'll light it up like a Christmas tree.'

For a moment, I didn't know if he was going to laugh or wallop me. Lucky for me, he went with the first option.

'Okay, smart-mouth.' He fished around in his overalls and pulled out a notebook. Consulting a few pages, he began writing down models of bikes, some vanilla, some with modifications added in brackets. In all, he put down five, two vanilla, two lightly modded, one heavily, on a chalkboard.

'If you want a job, you work for me. Exclusively. You don't get paid up-front, you get a cut of each sale I make, say, fifteen percent. I've got a lot of turnover, but the only hard part is getting the shit I need that I can't touch. I expect all five by the end of the week.'

Digest it all, remember it all.

'You can talk with my boy - he's all up with those computers, he'll run through the police database and find the bikes. You just find 'em, boost 'em and deliver 'em. Got it?'

'Got it.' Database? Fucking jackpot.

'Good. Any problems, you call me. I'm Gus. My boy's Sale.'

'Pleased to-

Gus shook his head, then flipped the mask back down. 'If you ain't dead within a week, then you can tell me your name. Go see my boy.'

As I walked around the back, I saw the little makeshift office, wired into the overhead current and phone lines. The door was half-open, more music, hard, screaming, very metal. Against all common sense, I knocked, then realised if anyone was in there, they wouldn't hear anything short of a hand grenade going off inside their own head.

Risking a few steps inside, when the door swung to, it took my eyes a few seconds to refocus to the gloom, the only light sources coming from a shuttered window and the light of the computer monitors filling half of one wall. Even as a self-confessed no-hoper in terms of computing, my jaw was in the unlocked and impressed position. Three banks were displaying schematics for various bikes, one was dedicated to the music player, another to an open browser and one for minesweeper.

At the nexus of it all was the stubby silhouette of who I could only assume was Sale. I tapped him on the shoulder - at this range, the noise was a physical force, no point in shouting.

He hit a key and suddenly the noise vanished. I felt my eardrums gratefully return to their normal shape. Another key brought up the blinds, filling the space with light.

I'd been expecting the poster boy for too much bandwidth and not enough exercise, scraggly, unhealthy, pale, and in all but one aspect, I wasn't disappointed. His hair and beard were fighting for supremacy in the 'best glued-on-ferret impression' and he was definitely unhealthy, possessing a body sculpted by energy drinks and ergonomic furniture, but he was clearly, as my mother would have put it, 'of mixed parentage'.

His lips moved.

I blinked and wiggled a finger in one ear until feeling came back.

'Sorry, what?'

'I said, can I help you?'

'Yeah. You're Sale, right?'

He smirked, 'you're an observant one. Pop take on some new help, huh? Give you the whole no name speech?'

I nodded.

'Didn't you wonder why?'

I was starting to get the picture. 'Something tell me it's not because I get medical comp.'

'True. But the main reason is he likes to rip the A.O.D. for the parts whenever he can, and they don't like that one little bit.'

I opened and shut my mouth, feeling the slow, cold, creeping dread fill me.

Oh...fucksticks.