Write my name in bullet holes

  While Ace Tactical’s position as tracted professional pawn sacrificers expined a lot of weirdness at the office, there was ohing that itched at the back of Luke’s mind, unresolved.

  “Why not let A.T. get a kill on a while? Throw a dog a bone? Probably wouldn’t even have to pay them extra, the way these fug tracts—”

  “Ner man always gets top payout, but that’s not the issue,” Car-Crash said. “They’re worried about the boards.”

  After Luke had first gotten his name, Car-Crash had mentiohat Luke had earned his “first slot on the boards” and enced him to go look it up. Luke had assumed they were some kind of Ace Tactical morale boosting tactid quickly ged the subject.

  He had been very wrong.

  “Jesus, no,” Car-Crash said, solemnly, after Luke admitted his misuanding. “The Boards are one of the great traditions. Every job is posted, in some fashion, on the boards.”

  “Posted how?”

  “Well, you got the team he name of the Hardworlder that made the kill, and a sed slot for honorable mention, or best sizzle.”

  “Sizzle?”

  “Uh, like a sizzle reel, I think is the i move basically. Like oime I was on there for h a Police Bearcat. Somethiraordinary usually besides the kill.”

  “So, steltion wants their guys on the boards. Why? Isn’t it just Hardworlders who care about it?”

  At that, Car-Crash got all solemn again, and spoke in that tone of someone who had seen somethiiful tarnished.

  “Wish that it were, be better that way. But at the end of the day, the boards are data, and all data will be assigned a price, eventually.”

  “What?”

  Car-Crash sighed and rolled into a position that let him talk at the hazy void-horizon while dipping one hand in the flowing crystal stream that ran among the rocks and soft grass and lilies.

  “The boards are a live log of all the jobs going at any given time. I mean, of course there are some bck jobs not posted, I’m sure, but a good analysis of the boards tell you who’s getting jobs, who’s winning them, and who’s not. Long story short, they’re used to determine prices.”

  “So, steltioheir dudes on the boards, and they charge a higher fee, but what about A.T.?”

  But Luke khe answer before he even got the words out. No wonder he could barely afford his own mem while other Hardworlders were driving luxury crafts and tearing up the resort worlds.

  “A.T. gets the jobs and pay steltion assigns them. Crash teams are a y, but you want to keep them partmentalized from your main squad for opsec. They’re a shell team. Staffed by rejects and addicts who won’t be believed if they go running their mouths, and won’t make it on aeam if they jump ship anyway.”

  Car-Crashed raised one dripping hand, letting the water catch the dreamy sunlight in micro starbursts of rainbow, and then, for some reason, crossed himself.

  Theurned on Luke.

  “Which is why you gotta get the fuck away from Ace Tactical.”

  Luke’s first question was going to be, how, but another one jumped in front.

  “What about you?”

  Car-Crash smiled, and there ain and ughter in it.

  “Oh, I’m a special case. Wao be a Hardworlder ever since I knew what it was. But every gunfight I’ve ever been in has gone pletely tits up. So, at the moment, having fallen through various filters into the silt bed that is Ace Tactical, I’ve had a sort of personal e to Jesus moment. Realized my skills lie elsewhere. Now I’m just trying to figure out how best to use them before I give A.T. the finger.”

  Luke rolled that around, imagined Car-Crash dropping his pistol or missing. Something clicked, and he smiled.

  “Is that why you chose car crash? Did you get your first kill in a, uh, vehicur fashion?”

  “We fawhat story aime. Right now, let’s discuss how yoing to get out of dodge.”

  “Ok. How?”

  “By getting your name on those boards as much as possible.”

  It was Luke’s turn to look out at the horizon.

  “Oh, bro, easy.”

  Car-Crash cackled, and the extractor shot off like the sound was a gunshot. Had this been a movie, here would have been a good spot to queue up whatever song the montage would be pying against, and Luke sehat Dr. X had something equally cheesy in mind for the final product. But he didn’t care. This was one of his favorite parts. He tried to lean bad enjoy it, at least until that bck storm in the distance made ndfall.

  With Car-Crash’s help, he smoothed things over with A.T. ma, assuring them it had only been eager curiosity and not any kind of hey-wait-a-minute sense of injustice that had spurred him to look ihe big sausage making mae. They grumbled, they yelled, they had him sign a warning, and then he was ba the job.

  The pn was to py it safe. Be the best crash team lead he could be, get moved up to that team 1 slht uhe operators, then rack up a few spectacur kills before they could make the necessary personnel moves to run jobs without him, then when he was finally delegated to whatever the Hardworlder equivalent of the mail room was, he would start shopping for a eam. Car-Crash said he knew a few who hated steltion enough just to take him out of spite, and maybe hire Car-Crash along with him.

  But, something came up. Looking back, it was an unavoidable stroke of luck.

  It was a te job. e evening dying under purple clouds, out over the power lines and oak leaves floating above an indistinguishable north Texas suburb. Target was in a safe house, snug as a bug in a rug acc to dispatch, with a rolling gate aractable spike strips on the driveway. It was a two-story new build, a brick box with bck window ss that promised mae gus. Luke’s team had already wasted themselves in car crashes and police shootouts, so the assault team asked him if he wao e with.

  Sure. Of course, ten seds into the radio chatter he khe score. There was no bag in their future. They would fall on the safe house with a bunch of noise like a bad Halloween decoration, the target would take to the road, and then steltion’s chosen would make the kill. He let them give him his job, breaking into the neighb house and shooting from the upstairs bedroom, and theed his radio.

  He slinked into the backyard of the neighb house, then got real close to the fence, moving his face bad forth in front of the cracks until he had the entire back yard mentally mapped. Ohe gunfire broke out, big belches of automatic sprays that surely hit nothing but bricks and air, he went up and over and came down in a dead still crou the middle of a cluster of wild privet.

  And there it was. On a crete sb of covered parking under a sheet metal roof, o old propane grills and half pallets of roofing supplies. A dusty early oughts Honda civic with extra dark tint with an old mud staiarp half over it and, Luke noticed, not a spec of dirt on the gss. The tires had tread as deep as a floor models. The route from the back door to the sedan was covered, obscured from both sides, and cleared out methodically through the junk piles.

  The py revealed itself in his head. His team had spent the half an hour befo time talking about the big, armored SUV that had rolled into the garage. It would break out A team style and barrel dowreet, while this little armored nondescript wagon rolled smoothly out into the alley and off into the night. It was a risky py, ohat relied oackers over zealousness and poor surveilnce. Which made it perfect against Ace Tactical.

  But, they hadn’t ted on Luke.

  Do you think the other Hardworlding teams are on to steltion's game. Damn right they are, and in this business, no one is too big to fail. ime, Luke trades blows with an anization that might be mile than he expected, and his sanity falls on the line. episode, Reaper.