Chương 68: New Faces III

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." - Helen Keller The N54 morning broadcast was running the same script it had run yesterday, just with updated numbers and a fresh coat of patriotic paint over the same shit stain.

"... Task Force Ironclad has secured the Tehachapi Pass corridor, effectively cutting the Free State coalition's last viable supply route between the southern Mojave theater and the Central Valley. Colonel Hansen issued a statement this morning confirming that NUSA forces have established forward staging positions along the Highway 58 junction, placing Militech armored elements within striking distance of Bakersfield.

Free State resistance in the region has been described by Hansen as 'fragmented and operationally insignificant,' though independent reports from embedded journalists suggest that Arasaka-advised militia units have begun implementing scorched-earth tactics along the Highway 99 corridor, destroying agricultural infrastructure to deny Militech's advance the logistical advantage of a functioning supply chain..."

I pulled a short-sleeve hoodie over my head and over the black t-shirt underneath, and checked myself in the mirror. Sweatpants, sneakers, the silver cross at my throat, and the Malorian Overture, which I tucked into the waistband of the sweats at the small of my back, the grip angled for a right-hand draw that would clear the hoodie's hem in under a second if the day decided that shit needed to hit the fan.

Mom was at the kitchen table when I came out, drinking coffee and slowly scrolling through something on her tablet. She kinda seemed like she was half-reading and half-thinking about something else entirely.

"I'm heading out," I said, grabbing the G240's keys from the counter. I didn't technically need them since my Neural Link could interface with the car's ECU and handle ignition, locks, and engine management without a physical key fob. But Mom kept the keys on the counter out of habit, and I kept picking them up out of the same habit. I guess some rituals survived even when the technology that had created them became obsolete.

"Off with that girl from yesterday?" Mom asked without looking up.

"Yeah. I'll be meeting Judy's contact out near the scrap mountains," I said.

"Should be back by the afternoon."

"Be careful, mijo," she said.

"No promises," I said.

"And tell that girl I said hello," she said.

"I'll pass it along," I nodded, knowing damn well I wasn't. I headed for the stairwell before she could add anything to the message that would surely end up making things much more awkward than they already were after yesterday's introduction. I made my way downstairs, crossed the ground floor past the Widowmaker and the fabrication line, and keyed the bay door for bay four, which I had decided would be the new designated parking spot for the G240.

The door climbed its track, and the morning light poured in, carrying the ambient rumble of the Ringroad overpass directly above and the chemical-tinged air. I walked to the G240, pulled the driver's side door open, attempted to drop into the seat, and immediately said something that would have gotten me an earful if Mom had been within earshot.

"Mothefucking son of a bit-mhmm why the fuck ma?" The seat was practically touching the steering wheel. Mom had the driver's position adjusted so far forward that my knees would have been inside the dashboard if I had continued my attempt to sit down without moving it first. I reached under the seat, found the adjustment rail, and slid the seat all the way back until I knew my legs would have enough room to exist without filing a complaint.

I adjusted the mirror, which was aimed at a height that would have required me to be sitting in the trunk to use effectively, and then I settled in, connected to the Galena's ECU through my Neural Link, and brought the engine up. The motor hummed to life beneath the rusted hood smoothly. I let the engine warm up for about a minute before rolling it out of the bay and into the lot, the tires crunching on the cracked asphalt.

As I did so, I saw Judy walking toward the building from her apartment, an empty cargo crate in both hands. I stopped the car and popped the trunk. Judy walked around to the back, loaded the crate in, slammed the trunk shut with more force than required, and then walked up to the passenger side and dropped into the seat.

"Morning," she said.

"Morning," I said, and pulled out of the lot onto the road. The drive toward the Badlands border took us through the Northside industrial corridor, past the Watson Bridge interchange, and down the Ringroad South toward the city limits. The morning traffic was light by Night City standards, which meant I only had to change lanes aggressively eight times instead of the usual twenty or so. Judy had her boots up on the dashboard within the first two minutes, which I chose not to comment on.

From what I had learned about this chick, she was not the kind of person who waited for permission to be comfortable in a space she occupied.

"So," Judy said, adjusting her position in the seat.

"Your mom."

"What about her?" I said.

"Is she always like that?" She asked.

"Like what?" I asked her, raising my eyebrows.

"Embarrassing? Nosy? Convinced that every human being I interact with is a potential romantic interest?"

"All three," Judy said.

"Yeah," I said.

"She's been like that as long as I can remember." Judy let out a short laugh.

"That sounds about right." Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"She means well," I said.

"She just... her filter got fried somewhere in the last couple of years, and now everything that passes through her brain exits her mouth at approximately the same speed without any quality control applied to the process."

"I think it's kinda nice, actually," Judy said, and her voice carried something quieter underneath the amusement.

"Having someone who gives enough of a shit to embarrass you. That's not nothing." I glanced at her. She was looking out the window, watching the skyline thin out as we approached the city limits, and her expression had shifted from the comfortable, teasing ease of a moment ago to something more reserved.

"Yeah," I said.

"It's not nothing."

"Also," Judy said, the quieter moment dissolving as the grin returned, "the goldstar lesbian thing? With Lourdes?"

"We don't need to revisit that," I said.

"No, no, I think we do," Judy said, pivoting in her seat to face me with the delighted energy of someone who had been holding this in since yesterday and was unable to contain it any longer.

"Because your mom told a lesbian she just met, within thirty seconds of meeting her, a story about another lesbian who married a man. As a conversation starter. That's not just oversharing. That's a competitive sport. She should get a trophy."

"Yeah? So she can display it proudly?" I asked with a chuckle.

"On the mantle," Judy agreed.

"We don't have a fucking mantle," I laughed.

"Well, from the bit I gathered about your mom, I bet your ass she'd build one," Judy said.

"Specifically for the trophy." I started laughing despite myself. The image of Mom constructing a mantelpiece specifically to display a trophy for competitive oversharing was so accurate that resisting it was impossible.

"For the record," I said, once the laughter had subsided enough to let me talk, "I'm pretty sure that she does like you. The interrogation is how she shows affection. If she didn't care, she wouldn't have said a word."

"That's a terrifying metric," Judy said.

"Welcome to my world," I said. We drove in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the engine humming steadily under the hood. Traffic thinned as we passed the Rancho Coronado exit, and the urban density began giving way to the sun-bleached sprawl of the city's outer edge. That was when I glanced down at the fuel gauge and watched my Kiroshis tag the reading in my overlay. CHOOH2 Level: 11%. Estimated Range: 14. 2 miles.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I said.

"What?" Judy asked.

"My mom forgot to fill up the tank," I said.

"We're running on fumes." Judy looked at the gauge, then at me, and the grin that spread across her face carried the delighted energy of someone who was thoroughly enjoying the ongoing saga of Santiago Reyes and his perpetually complicated relationship with his mother's domestic habits.

"The woman who tried to play matchmaker with a lesbian didn't fill up the car," Judy said.

"Shocker." I pulled off the highway at the next exit, following the nav to a CHOOH2 station on the edge of a commercial strip, about half a mile from the Badlands border. It was a standard four-pump setup with a small convenience store attached, which probably made most of its revenue from synth-snacks and energy drinks sold to nomads and truckers passing through the city's perimeter.

The pumps were old, the concrete was cracked, and the station's overhead canopy bore a Petrochem logo that had been sun-bleached to a pale ghost of its original corporate green. I pulled up to a pump, killed the engine, and looked at Judy.

"Want anything from inside?" I asked.

"Grab me a NiCola," she said.

"The green one, not the red."

"You got it," I said. I stepped out, connected the CHOOH2 nozzle to the Galena's fuel port, initiated the fill through the pump's payment terminal, and walked into the convenience store. The store was small, fluorescent-lit, and populated by a single cashier who looked like he had been standing behind the counter since the early 2040s. I grabbed a green NiCola for Judy, a can of sparkling Real Water for myself, and a bag of synth beef jerky.

I paid and pushed through the front door back into the morning sun and into a junkie who was at the G240's passenger side, hunched over the door handle, his fingers working at the latch with a twitchy and uncoordinated urgency. The junkie was thin and visibly chromed with budget-grade chrome, not that I was doing any better, but that shit he had on had been installed badly and maintained worse.

The RealSkinn around his right forearm was peeling away from the housing in patches, exposing the corroded metal underneath. Through the window, I could see Judy in the passenger seat, her left hand raised with the middle finger extended at full deployment.

"Hey!" I called out. The junkie's head snapped up, and he turned toward me with a jerky, over-rotated motion. It was as if his Kerenzikov had been fried by whatever he was putting in his veins. He took one look at me, at my height, the bag in my hand, the expression on my face, and then he did the thing that junkies always did when confronted by someone larger than them, which was reach for the only leverage they had left. He pulled a knife.

It was a cheap folding blade with a chipped edge and a handle wrapped in duct tape, and he held it in front of himself with a shaky and unfocused grip.

"Yo, you know where I can find some Black Lace?" he asked, the words coming out in a rapid, slurred cascade.

"I need some Black Lace, choom. You know where I can get some? Just tell me and I'll leave." I tilted my head.

"Nah, I don't use that shit."

"Bullshit," he said, the knife wavering in front of him like a compass needle trying to find true north.

"You gotta know. Everyone around here knows. Just tell me where I can find some and we're good."

"I don't know where to fucking find Black Lace," I repeated.

"Now get the fuck away from my car."

"You lying motherfucker! I'll gut you right here," the junkie said, and took a step forward with the knife extended, his eyes wide and glassy, his jaw working against the chemical interference that was currently making his decision-making process even worse than it already was.

"I swear to God I'll fucking do it. I'll gut you right fucking here." I set the bag down on the pump island beside me without much of a hurry. Then I reached behind my back and pulled the Malorian Overture from my waistband, letting it hang at my side with the barrel pointed at the ground.

"I don't know where you can find Black Lace," I said, my eyes narrowed, and my voice dropped even further than it already was.

"But I do know where your brains are going to end up splattered in about five seconds if you don't get the fuck away from my car." The junkie looked at the knife in his hand and then at the Overture in mine. The chemical fog in his brain parted just enough for the remaining functional neurons to perform a basic threat assessment and arrive at the conclusion that the person holding the bigger gun was going to win this exchange.

"Fuck you," the junkie said while sounding like a little bitch, yet still wanting to have the last word in our exchange. He folded the knife, shoved it into his pocket, and turned away, shuffling across the station lot in a slouching, muttering curses as if he was arguing with God about the unfairness of his circumstances. I watched him until he cleared the lot, tucked the Overture back into my waistband, grabbed the bag, and got into the car.

Judy was looking at me with both eyebrows raised and the NiCola already open in her hand, which she had apparently retrieved from the bag through the open window while I was having my conversation with the local pharmaceutical enthusiast.

"That was smooth," she said.

"I try," I said, starting the engine.

"The voice drop was a nice touch," she added.

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, to which she nodded.

"Why, thank you. I've been practicing." We looked at each other for a few seconds, and then both of us started laughing at the same time. It was a release of adrenaline that had nowhere else to go, and the shared recognition of what had just happened was simultaneously dangerous and absurdly stupid.

"Black Lace," Judy said, wiping her eyes.

"He tried to shank you over Black Lace."

"It's only nine-thirty in the morning, too," I said.

"Night City, baby," Judy said, cracking up again.

"City of dreams." I pulled out of the station, merged back onto the highway, and continued toward the Badlands border with a full tank.