Chapter Six

I dunno... generic overworld theme. Fuck you.

There was something about the rumble of the Schpeltiger that had a nice, soothing effect on Travis. Particularly when he jacknifed the thing around a corner and heard the sound of someone just managing to avoid being the victim of a hit and run. One of these days, the cops were going to give him a ticket, and he would actually honor that ticket. Neither of those things were going to happen today, however. Cops were practically an urban legend in Santa Destroy.

He caught a glimpse of the gym, as he blew past it at top speed. Looks like it's finally gonna open up, again, he thought to himself. Ever since he learned that Ryan, the previous owner, just so happened to be number... was it eighty five, or eighty four? The battles kind of started to run together, after the first fifteen. Anyway, ever since Ryan turned out to be part of the UAA, it had kind of been awkward trying to get mileage out of his membership. The poor leotard wearing bastard seemed to know that all that personal training was going to kill him, eventually. That being said, it was highly professional of the guy to do it, anyway. He even took a more hands-on approach, using some new techniques he invented. Travis had no idea there was so much power locked away in his glutes! He still tingled a bit, when he thought about it!

He thought about immediately swinging home, popping in his advance import copy of Bizarre Jelly: Fantastic Sparkle no Frendship Adventure, when he spotted the temp agency off in the distance. In the two or so seconds before it threatened to pass, he decided to pull a bootleg turn, squealing to a stop right in front of the door with only a mailbox and park bench suffering the wrath of his forced stop. Oh, no, wait. Someone's grandpa got it, too, but he was quiet about it. No matter. Travis didn't care about that; it was time to get paid!

"Yo, pops!" Travis said, almost before he'd managed to punt the door open. "I'm back. Job me!"

"Eh, what?" A goatee attached to a vaguely man-shaped mass of leather and muscle fiber glared at him from behind the desk. "You, again? I thought you'd be dead, by now."

"That's crazy," Travis replied. "I've been doing this for a while, now. I can handle your little goon squads."

"No, not them," Pops spat back, with a paradoxically belligerent smirk. "I meant actually having to work for a living. We still haven't managed to beat the slacker outta you."

Travis shook his head. "Well, then, I'm happy to disappoint. Now, have you got a job for me, or not?"

"Well, lessee..." Pops pulled up a set of papers, ignoring the stains starting to form from his eternally sweaty, callused hands. "Got a contract going for a new branch of Burger Suplex."

"What're they doing this time?" Travis asked. "Taco Suplex? Maybe Chinese Suplex?"

"Actually, they've gotten into the laundry business. After Pizza Bat went under, the ol' power vacuum resulted in a lot of industries opening up in places you wouldn't expect."

"Yeah, whatever. Listen, Pops, I was kinda hoping you had something a little more exciting lined up."

"And I was kinda hoping my wife would put out for me this month, and not the mailmain, but we can't always get what we want." If Pops seemed to be in a bad mood, he was either expertly masking it, or taking genuine pleasure in taking it out on Travis. "I don't need a strikebreaker, this week. Unlike you, I finally managed to get some folks who wanna actually work for a living." He shoved the by now sweat soaked contract to the front of the desk. "Take it or leave it, kid. Makes no difference to me, if you eat tonight."

Travis picked up the piece of paper with the tips of his index finger and thumb. "Whatever," he sighed. It wasn't as though being an unskilled laborer wasn't paradoxically more profitable in Santa Destroy than being an assassin, but God damn if it didn't get tedious after a while. He burst out the door about as violently as he burst in, ignoring the last little jab Pops had about his sneakers or whatever "young people" thing he took offense to, today.

Outside, he was surprised to see a trench coat hovering over his bike. Well, a trench coat and a hat. It was trying its darndest to look casual, as it circled around the back tire.

"Better be careful," Travis called out, grinning wolfishly as he let his free hand slowly fall back to the beam katana hanging off the back of his belt. "That thing's got a new paint job that's probably worth more than your life."

The trench coat made a high pitched little warble of panic, turning to face Travis with a move that seemed to cause its entire body to wobble and tilt dangerously. And then it ran off, its feet making a strange slapping noise as they hit the ground.

Travis didn't really notice the fact that the trench coat seemed to be running away on a set of barely perceptible black hands, instead just shrugging his shoulders at the missed opportunity for a fight. He climbed back on the Schpeltiger and promptly forgot about it.

In a nearby alleyway, however, the trench coat watched him leave with a nervous shuffle. A single robotic eye flashed to life, in the little opening made in the coat's chest. It looked down in the direction of its crotch, wondering to it if it managed to get the tracking device planted.

A black arm snaked out of the coat's bottom and gave an enthusiastic thumb's up, before slipping back into hiding.

The trench coat's gut began to chirp warily, as if concerned that the scary man might notice what they put on his precious motorcycle.

The chest shook its top hand back and forth, in a way that made it look like the hat it was hidden inside was saying "No." It wasn't like it mattered, it seemed to say. They did what the Boss expected of them, and it wasn't part of their programming to have to think any further than that.

The trench coat's groin began to chirp and whistle excitedly. Apparently, now that the job was done, it really wanted to head down to the shore and go collect coconuts, like the rest of the body promised.

The gut voiced its continued trepidation, being more than happy to remember just how mean the Boss could be, when they went off on their own.

However, the groin was adamant. After all, coconuts were apparently worth more than human life in Santa Destroy. Imagine what they could buy with all those LB Dollars!

The trench coat's chest was hesitant, fancying itself the leader, however it was predictable when it came to matters of money. It eventually relented, naturally phrasing it as though going to the shore had been its idea, the entire time.

The groin whistled in unabashed glee, sending the entire trench coat barreling down the road in a terrifying, wobbling mockery of human locomotion.

"Bladewolf, come in."

No answer. Raiden grit his teeth.

"Bladewolf, respond!"

Still no answer.

"Bladewoooooolf!"

Raiden shut down his Codec with a muttered curse. He should have known that screaming someone's name over radio communication wasn't going to make them hear you, but it was just so easy to forget that, in the moment. He put his finger back to his ear and began to pull up his lists of contacts.

Churrip, churrip! went the outgoing Codec call chime, followed a moment later by a familiar face appearing on Raiden's AR display.

"Kevin."

"Raiden?" The man on the other side ran a hand through his corn rows and sighed. "It's been a while. I was starting to think you lost this frequency."

"Sorry. Hope I'm not interrupting something important."

"No, not really. A couple of trade negotiations in Singapore are wrapping up, now, so they've got me on standby. What's going on? Where are you?"

"I'm back in the States. Santa Destroy, California. Bladewolf was here, but I lost contact with him."

Kevin huffed. "So, lemme guess. The only reason you called is 'cause you need my help."

"I'm afraid so. He said he was headed towards something called an Akashic Point. Any chance you can find out where that is?"

"Well, hold on a second." Kevin leaned forward, tapping away on the computer to which the Codec's camera was apparently installed, in the absence of the unaugmented human's cybernetics. "Uh... you're gonna have to narrow that down for me. Says here Santa Destroy's got three of them."

"Three of them? What even are they?"

"You know, I think I've heard of these places. They say the ghosts of violent killers congregate there, letting their negative emotions fester until they become demons."

"Ghosts?" said the cyborg soldier, formerly an agent of a league of supersoldiers nanomachined to the hilt. "Don't tell me you beleive that nonsense."

"I dunno. Says here a lot of nasty things have happened, there."

"It's probably something to do with this UAA business," Raiden insisted. "Can you send the information over? I'll try and figure out which one Bladewolf went to by isolating his last known location."

"All right. Sending it, now."

Raiden's Soliton Radar pinged, telling him that new information was available. "All right, got it. I owe you for this, Kev."

Kevin chuckled. "Hey, you can make it up by not flaking on me, again. Seriously, you've got friends here at Maverick. You don't have to be a stranger, just because you're out fighting your little personal fight."

Raiden's jaw set for a second, as he thought that over. "Yeah. You're right. Everyone else still on their old frequencies? I'll drop them a line, when I've got a moment."

"Pshh. You think Boris would shell out for new proprietary frequencies, if he didn't have to? The man's still as stingy as..." The sound of a deep-voiced, very annoyed Russian from off in the distance interrupted Kevin's thought. He mashed down on a button with a panicked. "Whoops. Gotta go!"

Raiden chuckled to himself, as he stepped over a half of a body and emerged from the alleyway. "Sounds like they haven't changed a bit." He stepped into another alley, which led around a building, and a few moments later a cyborg in a Hawaiian shirt was seen barreling down the road on a blue and black classic chopper, in the textbook definition of "subtle."