“Sharkie!”

Alvar’s voice snapped me awake- not that I’d actually been sleeping, of course. Just letting my head nod down a little while I drove, resting my eyes-

Somebody flicked my ear from behind. “Ow! The fuck, Arc?”

“He’s right. Stay awake.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I insisted. She’d gone right for the Zandkat’s back seat when we’d left. Was this why, or did she just want to feel like she had a chauffeur?

I was a being a little generous with ‘fine,’ maybe. The adrenaline crash combined with general exhaustion had my eyelids feeling like they were cast out of lead. The whirr of the Zandkat’s turbines combined with the low, steady rumble of its tires to-

“Shit!” At least I got myself that time. I leaned forward and tried to make myself less comfortable, concentrating on the view through the windshield. Cracked, half-buried pavement, derelict cars, and windblown garbage spooled through the headlight beams as we rolled closer to D-block.

“Aren’t you guys tired too?” I asked to keep myself awake.

Arc yawned behind me. “No. Whyever would I be?”

“You think I can sleep right now? I have no idea what’s happening.” Alvar gave me a sharp look from the shotgun seat. “For all I know you’re going to shoot me ‘cause I’m not useful anymore, or just toss me on the street once we get to D-block, or-“

“Relax,” I interrupted, and immediately felt like a dick for saying it. Of course he was wound up. “I’m not going to kill you unless you give me a reason, Alvar. And I don’t think Arc is either.”

I waited for her to add something, but she’d fallen asleep against the window.

“Look, when we get back I’ll talk to my boss about it. We’ll get you an apartment or something, get you set up. Plenty of work for someone with your skills-“

“Sharkie, if you think I’m ever doing anything like this again you’re even crazier than I thought you were.”

I was slightly offended, but too tired to argue.

He sighed and went on. “I- I don’t know, I just don’t think I’m soldier material. Or merc, or assassin, or gangster or whatever you are.”

“I mean, the line kind of blurs after a while- but anyway. That’s fine. Like I said on the elevator- fuck!” I tried to swerve around a massive dogroach, but it was too late and the thing went under the tires with a disgustingly crunchy noise.

Another thump came from behind me as Arc’s head bounced off the glass. “Good fucking void!” she snapped, jolted out of sleep.

“Anyway, Alvar. That’s a good thing. I’m not exactly a good role model-“

“Kings,” he muttered, no more necessary.

“Easy, there. You could learn another trade, or go back to playing video games. Plenty of tournaments, plenty of money to be made.”

“Okay...”

I squinted at the GPS, took us through what might have been a neighborhood once based on the crumbling foundation pads running under the tires. “Yeah, definitely. Lots of betting. Just have to be careful you don’t get into fixed matches and shit. That’s how you end up as arpaste-

“Oh, great.” Despite the words, he sounded a little less despondent. Maybe. It seemed a little strange that I cared, that I really did feel bad about pretty much ruining his life. Easier to be sympathetic towards someone who was still alive, I guessed.

“But short term, you’ll have a place, food, somewhere safe. I promise, Alvar.”

He opened his mouth, just as quickly closed it.

I glanced at him. “What?”

“I-“ He sighed out a little laugh. “I almost said something shitty, like ‘Yeah, in D-Block’ or something. But hell, it’s still a free apartment, I guess…”

That made me laugh. “Yeah, I’ll find you something real nice, really get you immersed in the culture. A nice lean-to made of dirty sheets, prime barside alley real estate. Frame it with spent fuel rods so it doesn’t blow away, maybe some bags of medical waste for insulation…”

“Uh…” By the look on his face, Alvar thought I might be serious.

“No, you’ll have a nice enough squat. Maybe even in my building. We could be neighbors!”

Now he looked even worse.

“And where will I be staying?” asked Arc from the backseat.

“You’re staying?” I hadn’t considered it until now. When we’d discussed the Sculptor, though, Arc hadn’t sounded too excited to go back to her tower. My surprise must have come through in my voice, because I almost felt her rolling her eyes.

“So I’d assumed, but if I’m going to be such a burden on you then perhaps I-“

“No, no! Sure. I’ll figure something out. Free houses for everyone. Walker owes me after this one.”

Well, I felt like he did. Who knew if he’d agree, but this shitshow was supposed to be a recon mission. What had he said? ’Get out if things start looking sketchy,’ or something like that. I made an amused sound as I turned the Zandkat past the collapsed ruins of a tenement and back onto the Rue Pearl, which pointed straight at D-block. Arc and Alvar peered out the windows as signs of life appeared. At first it was just a few burning chemical drums, some half-collapsed structures with dim light showing in the windows. The road grew less and less covered with dirt, through the potholes remained. Finally we passed under the first flickering lifelight and into the block proper.

Parkside remained as well-lit as usual, the 24/7 clubs and restaurants sharing space with stolid office buildings like Tanje’s. Well-dressed- for D-block- people milled around on the cracked sidewalks, waiting to get into bars and dancehalls. Lots of people out on dates or with their friends, though I did see a Holy Bone, a low-level boss in a brass-studded vest, glaring machetes at a Blue Div enforcer in a cheap suit. She smirked and pushed her specs up with a KT Bureau middle finger, tapping the angular tats beneath her eye. I slowed down a little to watch, but miracle-of-miracles, the Bone’s girlfriend dragged him away and they didn’t take it any further.

“This part looks kind of nice, honestly,” said Alvar as we passed another club- Dvorak’s, said the plasmagram above the steel doors. The thick concrete walls were purposely rusted and acid-etched, making aesthetic patterns and silhouettes with bits of broken glass glued on for accents.

“Parkside’s where you come to blow chits and impress people, yeah. Just stay off the grass.” We rounded a corner, and I jerked a thumb out the window to show him what I meant. The foreboding mass of the Park hulked off to our left, a tangle of twisted trunks and mutant foliage.

“Why would you ever live near such a place?” Arc said behind me. “Kidding.”

I was about to give her some snark, so just as well. From Parkside we crossed a block or two of Eighth Ward, the conplas tenements and bare concrete warehouses as dead as usual. After that, though, we hit Central- a distillation of the D-block experience, if it could ever be so reduced. I rolled down the windows, happy to be back in civilization. A shithole, maybe, but a comfortingly familiar one.

I slowed down as traffic thickened, pulling in behind a gang of bikers on high-riding combustion off-roaders. I smelled hot metal and old concrete, diesel exhaust and hydroponic plants, frying arpaste and strong spices and harsh chemicals. Home. Growling yerroton and the squeal of pneumatic saws came from a chop shop with used bionics hanging garishly in the window. The noise competed with a busking slide guitar from across the street and the golden-oldies electro-western thumping from the open door of a barber’s next door. Gomi stands jostled with food carts in the spaces between various buildings: row houses, pawn shops, a grocery-and-gun store, a junk shop barely ten feet wide but three stories tall.

And all of it thronged with people, from the plainest of the plain to the pierced, tattooed, and chromed. Paste-vat hazmat suits and army jackets rubbed shoulders with optimistically-tailored suits, quarry-style vests, and carbon-composite arms stenciled with gang badges. On one side of the street, a bunch of schoolkids from a ward co-op went by, shepherded by a pair of shotgun-toting teachers. The guns weren’t meant for the students, or so I hoped. They went opposite a crew of vat workers in their rubberized suits, who soon themselves got jammed up by a bunch of clergymen waiting in line at an enchilada cart. The robed Dakessar priests chatted amiably with a couple of Kestite ascetics in their pale waxy masks, differences in faith forgotten or at least accepted. Alvar watched raptly out the window, and even on her second visit Arc was occupied with the view.Stolen novel; please report.

The lively tableau was only slightly spoiled by the presence of the warring gangs. A few Holy Bones crowded around the entrance to a pharmacy with its caged windows blown out. Their boots peeled up prints amidst a huge, tacky puddle of blood that had spilled over the threshold and onto the sidewalk. Some wore the stereotypical quarry jeans and vest, others more usual D-block clothes, but all were armed and most with long guns. The guy heading up the operation had cybernetic eyes that glowed a piercing orange, matching the dust-worn anodizing on his left arm. Looked like a combat-model Gyeoksung to me, with a bulge in the forearm that probably covered a built-in gun or blade.

Though most of the Bones milled around inside the pharmacy, a couple stood guard and watched across the street, where several Blue Div soldiers lazed around at a Sov-style restaurant’s outdoor tables. Suit jackets and untucked button-downs revealed a variety of firearms and cybernetics as they joked with each other in a cloying cloud of vape smoke. Central was too big, too full of people and too contested for them to really kick things off, but I still felt an almost electric tension when I had to scoot the Zandkat down the street between them. I wouldn’t be starved for work, that was for sure.

“Were those…” Alvar started to say.

“Holy Bones and Blue Division,” I answered, showing him my tattooed hand. “You can guess which I like more.”

I thought about that even as I said it. I could have ended up in the Blues just as easily if things had happened in a different way- plenty of assholes in both gangs, after all. On the other hand, I’d been pretty lucky with Walker and how accomodating he’d been. I might have chafed under Blue Div’s more military style. But on the other other hand, maybe they wouldn’t have sent me on all these fucked-up ops by myself-

I shook my head. I could spent forever wondering about what might have been. What happened, happened, and I was still here. I was better off than a lot of people.

“Not just made up for the holos, then…” mused Alvar. “They really run everything around here?”

“Them and the Guild, yeah. As much as anyone ‘runs’ things at all.”

“There’s a joke there about governments and criminal organizations, I’m sure,” said Arc with a yawn, “but you’ll just have to imagine I made it. I can hardly think I’m so exhausted.”

“I know what you need.” We weren’t far down the street from Walker’s office, but he could wait. I had a more urgent appointment. I stopped not far from the huge, rusting trellis of the Cage, parking the Zandkat right on the street. I’d be able to keep an eye on it, because right across the way was Collum’s Blade to Table. I’d passed it a few times and wanted to visit, and now was the perfect time.

“What exactly do I need, Sharkie?” asked Arc as we hopped out.

“Aren’t you guys hungry?”

The responses came instantly. “Kings, yes.” “Starved.”

“Well, this place is supposed to be great. Real food, too, not arpaste or processed.” I led them across the street to Collum’s.

Our first impression was either awful or amazing, depending on your tastes. There wasn’t really a dining area, just a few mismatched tables under a collapsible awning. The building itself was mostly open-fronted, like it was missing a wall. Beyond was a tile-lined space that looked like it might have been either a locker room or a surgery, once. Now, though, it was a butcher shop. Skinned and cleaned carcasses hung from a row of steel hooks bolted to the ceiling, blood sluicing into drains on the floor. I saw a couple of hogs, something that might have been a pergato, and closest to the front a huge meat lizard.

A dark-skinned man in a stained apron took it apart as we watched, expertly plying a couple of huge knives and laying the cuts on a heavy butcher block nearby. The top looked lined with real wood; it was probably a family heirloom. The man himself was built like a refrigerator, almost as tall as me and bulky with fat and muscle both. The one exception was his right leg, which was a crude steel truss-and-piston prosthetic that looked twice as old as my dad. Its foot was a four-sided rubbed pad that didn’t even try to resemble a human limb.

Embroidered on his stained apron was the name ‘Collum’ in fancy script. A bandana tightly wrapped the crown of his head, patterned with dancing pigs in various states of butchering. Looked like it belonged on a metal album cover, which I immediately loved. Leaning against the wall opposite him was a woman in similar dress, paler but nearly the same size. Reddish hair tried to sneak out from under her bandanna, which was covered in chibi skeletons and meat cleavers. Her name, according to her apron, was Mel.

“Get you something?” she asked as we walked up, unfazed by our bloody, battle-worn, and generally fucked-up appearance. This was D-block, after all.

“Three steaks. Big ones.” Belatedly I glanced back to make sure that was alright. Arc just raised an eyebrow, and an apprehensive-looking Alvar shrugged at me, so I figured yes. I reached into my pocket for some chits, but Mel waved me off.

“I know you’re good for it,” she said, pointing at my gang ink. She pushed off the wall and went to the butcher block, checking through the fresh cuts with a white-enameled bionic hand. “How you want ‘em cooked?”

“Rare,” Arc said immediately.

I grinned. “Rare rare. Like, it should hiss when I stick my fork in it.”

“Uh, medium?” Alvar said.

The woman gave him a suspicious look, but nodded. “Just a few minutes, then. You want anything to drink?”

“Got cold homebrew, if you like,” said Collum without looking away from his work.

“Three of them too, please,” I said quickly.

“You got it.” Mel smiled for the first time at the eagerness in my voice. “Sit anywhere you like.”

We found the least wobbly table and settled in. Mel came by a moment later with three beers in mismatched bottles- actual glass, which surprised me. She flicked the caps off with a cybernetic thumbnail that looked custom-made for the purpose.

“Put that together myself,” she said when she noticed me looking. “Ought to take out a patent.”

“You’d sell plenty. In Vitroix if not here, at least.” There and D were the only places you might still find glass bottles- for very different reasons, of course. That was funny.

“Yeah,” she chuckled. “I’ll be done with those steaks real quick.”

I’d already grabbed my beer by the time she’d made it three steps away. I had no idea what they brewed it from- rice? Mushrooms? Raw flour and sugar?- but it smelled like heaven. Tasted like it too, cold and fizzy and just the right amount of bitter.

“Kings damn…” I groaned before taking another drink. I heard meat land on a grill and start to sizzle nearby, a delicious aroma spreading already.

Alvar had a gulp of his, then sighed and pressed the cool bottle against his forehead.

“Glass bottles…you’re actually pretty rich down here, aren’t you?” he said without opening his eyes. I didn’t bother dignifying that with an answer.

Next to him, Arc gave her beer a suspicious sniff before chugging down half of it in one long pull. She sprawled out, tipping back in her chair. “I’ve never been much of a beer connoisseur, but that does hit the spot after a long day, doesn’t it?”

“Mm-hmm.” A long day…I had no idea what time it was. When I checked my slab, I was shocked to find out it was just before eleven the next morning. No wonder we were the only ones here for lunch. Well, fuck it. We’d earned a morning drink or two.

Mel returned with our lizard steaks just as fast as she’d promised, their weight rocking the table as she set them down. The thick slabs of meat resembled pork, though a little darker. They came on ‘plates’ that were just square cuts of bead-blasted sheet steel. Arc’s was nice and tender, Alvar’s a little more cooked, and mine swam in a little lake of bloody juice. Perfect. Though lizard tasted a bit like chicken- according to people who’d actually tried chicken, unlike me- it was a lot safer to eat undercooked. Or properly cooked, if you asked me.

“Shit. I’ll grab forks and stuff.” There was a brief but agonizing wait as Mel trundled off, leaving us to be tortured by the steaming plates before us. This close I realized there was some kind of seasoning rubbed into them too, spicy and tangy, mixing perfectly with the scent of the meat without overwhelming it. No telling what I might have done If Mel hadn’t returned with some mismatched silverware and another round of beers.

No conversation or apprehension, this time. The only sounds were the clicking of forks and the scrape of knives as we tore in like we were starved. Collum watched with silent approval as his steaks disappeared. Mine tasted just as good as it smelled, perfectly juicy, tender but not chewy. Good food, huge portions, no bullshit…I should have come here ages ago. Of course, on my old paycheck even lizard steak would be an extravagance.

I finished first, trying and mostly failing to quiet a belch. Arc and Alvar were surprisingly close on my tail, considering I had at least a hundred pounds on both of them. Al was almost panting with exertion when he set his fork and knife down.

I grinned at him. “Pretty good for D-block, huh? Lizard’s not so bad.”

“Had it before,” he nodded quickly. “Just not…like this. Thank you, that was amazing,” he said to Mel and Collum. They gave him a synchronized nod in return, as if to say they’d only done their duty.

“It was incredible, yes.” Arc’s utensils clinked onto her empty plate. “Could I see a dessert menu, though? And perhaps peruse your cellar for a digestif?” Collum and Mel had just enough time to raise eyebrows before she said, “Kidding.”

I snorted. That pan wasn’t just dead, it was six feet under and rusted to dust. I wanted to sit and recover for a few minutes, but I knew that if I did we’d all three be asleep before I knew it. Instead I dug some chits out of my pocket, what ought to be more than enough for six beers and three steaks, and stood up to pay Mel.

She glanced at the deng, then back at my face. “You sure?”

“About what- oh, right, no, I’m not…” She was asking about my Bones tattoo, and if I wanted to take advantage of it instead of paying. Delicious steaks made for a hell of protection payment, as well as an incentive to hold up our end of the bargain. That wasn’t how I operated, though. Not my branch of the firm, either. “Take it.”

She took it. “...Alright, but we don’t want any trouble…”

Shit, now she thought I was saying no, we wouldn’t protect them! “No, no, that’s- Listen. Anyone who can cook like that is a friend of the Bones, I promise. I’m happy to pay you for it, but I’ll put a word in too, don’t worry.”

“Sure. Thanks,” Mel said, sounding relieved. It seemed oddly emotional coming from this big, tough, low-key woman. Even the stoic Collum nodded quickly along. Just went to show that this gang war got to everyone. That constant, low-grade feeling of uncertainty and instability ate away at sanity like acid rain slowly rotting out a concrete wall. It would almost be worse not being in either of the gangs, I thought. At least I could pretend I had a say in the outcome.

“Feeling any better?” I asked Arc and Alvar as I returned to the table.

“Yeah. You know, this isn’t how I expected this day to go, but yeah.” Alvar stood up slowly, probably just as sore as I was.

“You’ve earned yourself about half an hour more of my company,” Arc deigned to inform us.

“And what happens after half an hour?” asked Alvar.

“I fall over and sleep for a week.”

“That’s fair.”

“Soon, I promise,” I told them, unlocking the Zandkat. “We’ll go see Walker and then we can all fucking sleep. I-“

Something caught my eye just before I hopped into the Zandkat. A young man and woman in orange vat worker’s jumpsuits stood on the steps of a nearby apartment building, having an intense conversation with a big guy in a quarryman’s vest and jeans. Or maybe conversation was the wrong word. It sounded more like he was threatening them. ‘Better pay up, you got three weeks, drastic kingsdamn measures,’ that kind of thing. I could see the Holy Bones ink on his hand from here.

Kings dammit, I thought. This was one of those parts of my job I didn’t want to think about. I was in the same gang as this guy and plenty of others who did the same thing, whether or not I participated personally. It was shitty, but that was how things were. Right?

I kept listening as Alvar and Arc got back in the truck. More standard threats, demands for interest payments-

“-and if you don’t get me the deng by Monday, guess what?” rasped the Holy Bone. “They won’t send me after your broke ass, no. I got it on good fuckin’ authority who they will, though. Sawyer’ll pay you a visit, and they’ll have to mop up what’s left of you afore they toss it in the vats.”

A variety of emotions flickered through me in a moment, but I quickly decided what I had to do. “Kings dammit,” I said out loud. “Gimme a sec.”

I walked up the street, deciding I’d head over to this guy who apparently knew me so well and really introduce myself.