Kind of help you ’t buy

  During his meteoric rise, meteori the sehat it ended with a big fug crash, Luke had amassed a pretty det k of ge. His bonus for the kills, paid out relutly per tract by AT, and his higher team-lead wage had been more than he could spend on his mem, and si was such a fug hassle to find a mem dealer with any Hardworld mem worth buying, his savings grew, despite his best efforts, and when he dropped into the Bliss den after his talk with Rory, he had enough mem to run at that light for weeks.

  Which is exactly what he did. Turns out, the void inhabited by that floating fleeing light, whatever it was, was just as cut off from everything as his personal realm, so AT was pletely uo tact him until he ran out of funds, maxed out his credit, and it out, miserably, in the high-roller’s suite of the bliss den.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  Down there Luke, up there Luke, and the extractor all had a feeling of déjà vu at hearing Car-Crash say those magical words for the unkime. Only down there Luke had anything to say about it.

  “Bliss den.” He said the words like delivering a death senteo himself. Car-Crash groaned.

  “Jesus! Well, I hope you weren’t too attached to your little coup. Whole things gos up.”

  His spirators, if you could call them that, had gotten spooked by his unreachability, and assumed the higher ups at steltion had solved their problem in a direct fashion by log Luke in a shadow cell somewhere, maybe even had him shipped off to Nightmare. AT ma had dohing to dissuade this belief, quite the opposite, and after summoning all avaible parties back to the iating table, had e to an agreement. Luke would be ighe hits would be left to steltion’s chosen, and as a sotion to the rebels, the top guns at A.T. would be guaranteed a B.S. slot on the boards whenever possible.

  Hands shook, smiles were forced, asses were kissed, and that was it. A week and a half ter, Luke rolled into the offid felt the ge in atmosphere. His team had been reassigo a new lead, and he was back to square ohere was still a slot oeam uhe new Lead, if he was ied, but if not, good luck getting any work with anyone else.

  But he was. He smiled at everyone, even Tenpound, like he was too stupid to know what “final-verbal” meant, and skipped off to the box.

  The crash team swung by his apartment, and he was o be found. His empty bedroom was bckout-curtained and lit only by the menu s of a flight simutor. Manuals and print outs of pirated PDFs and unframed flight hours certificates covered the three desks arranged around the frameless mattress and box spring. Dispatch called in a shaky voi every lihey had for him, trying to sternly warn him not to do what they were pretty sure he was about to.

  Sure enough, half an hour ter, Luke was sailing the skies in a hijacked police helicopter with a box renades in the copilot seat, and the city was breaking apart at the seams.

  His suspis that they would immediately put him on the lowest scale job they had were firmed whe a call on his personal cell.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey bro. This is Hamstar. you pick me up? I know who the target is.”

  Luke had nded on top of a parking garage as sirens and cruisers swirled below like a liquid rave and Hamstar climbed in. They had about an hour of fuel left as they rose into the sky.

  The target was in a caravan of seven cars, every member of the defense, heading out of the city. They didn’t know what to make of the attacker’s unusual strategy, but they had a safe house out iicks with belt feds and drones and 50 cal rifles. Luke’s only hope was to catch them before they got to it.

  And he did. With Hamstar leaning out the side, grenades in hand, Luke came down for a pass at the caravan.

  They made it on the boards all right, but not the main rung. Below the names of the five teams involved in the op, the killbox read “Null – iated”, meaning the target plead out of his bounty, but below that, the sizzle slot said:

  Hamstar: Fell out of a downed helicopter with a live grenade in each hand. Killed two. Disabled one vehicle.

  When Luke had been ing in for the kill, the defense had opened up with every gun they had, and Luke learned, or was reminded in the case of his Self, that police helicopters are not armored.

  Whe back, Tenpound called him into an office, one in the back er that Luke had never seen and which Tenpound seemed unfortable with, trying to decide whether he should sit in one of the chairs rung around the big desk, or stand off to the side of it. Finally, he decided on leaning against a file et that extended, strangely, from the floor to ceiling like a pipe.

  “Hey, good m. I’m Johnny Aceflush,” said the guy sitting behind the desk. He had a mask of polished e in the shape of a skull, with two red ruby spades glowing on his bck marble eyeballs.

  “Say, what if I told you that your days of running around in the Hardworlds were over, cause I got a ma position with your name on it?”

  “I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, sir.”

  Johnny Aceflush ughed, and told everyone else, Tenpound and a few reps, to get out. Then he id it out.

  “Mr. MOA,” (he pronou mo-ah) “That’s just what I wao hear. Now, I know you wanna run with the big guns, and sihis is off the record, we both know that closing deals is a no-go here at Ace Tactical. Strictly a blue balls outfit.”

  The skull's teethy grin seemed to widen.

  “Ah also know that you got a bad habit and a ton of debt. But, you’ve also got a lot of talent. A lot of promise. And though I run AT right now, that doesn’t mean I don’t have use for real killers in my other ventures. Here’s the deal.”

  The deal was that Luke sit back, shut the fuck up, and not make any god damned waves for six months, and most importantly, respond to every call promptly, no excuses (Johnny had assured him he didn’t care what his vices were, as long as they didn’t interfere with the bottom lihen when his yearly review came up, Johnny could fidently move him to another steltioure, of which he artner, where Luke could intern with an actual team, prove his drive, and most importantly, his willio listen and take orders, and then he would be on his way to a “beautiful career”.

  “But you gotta be a team pyer. You gotta show that you put yo behind you and put the job first. Its arguably a more important skill than just getting the bullets where you want them. Got me?”

  Luke had him the moment he opened his mouth, but he just nodded, and assured, and falsely apologized, and then that was it.

  Oh, and then the bombshell.

  “For the near future, yonna be driving only. You drop off yuys, you e back, you don’t shoot a damn thing. Show me you got restraint.”

  Luke nodded and assured and all that, and stepped out of the offito the same hall he had dropped out of his dreamworlds into minutes before, and knew with that whispering knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to find the office again if he tried.

  He was floating in the bck, trying to decide between his Realm and the Bliss den, stuck between the pull of two worlds, when Car-Crash called him.

  “Where are you?”

  “Just floating.”

  “Bliss?”

  “Not yet.”

  There was a silence. In that moment, up there Luke realized, everything after hung in the bance, just kinda sitting there in Car-Crash’s hands, something fragile and wobbling.

  In the end, he had closed his metaphorical gloved hands around it, and offered it up to Luke, putting him forever in his debt.

  “Well, I’m not sure I should be telling you this then. But before your little bender, I was talking to someone about you. He saw you on the boards and started asking.”

  “Asking what?”

  “About your employment situation, you know. About your professional mobility.”

  “Oh gee let me guess. He wants to hire me.” Luke said, all the suspi and pt of his current employers ing out in the words.

  “Mother fucker, if you knew who this guy was you’d already be in my face.”

  “So, who is he?”

  “He’s my mentor, you could say. I knew him before I gave up trying to be a trigger man.”

  “Ok, but who is he?” Luke was w why the fuck he hadn’t heard of Car-Crash’s “mentor” till now, and why he seemed so unfortable talking about him, like he might say too much.

  Car-Crash scoffed.

  “What, you want a name? Goes by Outw Eleven now. I could tell you his old name, but I know that wouldn’t mean anything to you. I could tell you some of the teams he was on, but those wouldn’t mean anything to you either, even if I wasn’t sworn to secrecy.”

  “Ok, so he’s a big shot. And he wants to hire me. Is that it?” Luke was feeling about as bitter as he ever had about this pce, and the idea that Car-Crash had some upper-crust patron ready to save his ass at the most opportuime sounded like dreamworld bullshit.

  Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried to crush it, there was a little part of him that knew Car-Crash was a friend, and that he was trying to help him out. This little guy, however, had not made his existenown in Luke’s words.

  “Yeah, that’s it, you fug asshole! Hey, you know how much I’ve had to risk my ass nurturing your rising fug star?”

  “Didn’t ask you to do that. I’m sure you saw a ticket to a higher paycheck through me, right? This big-shot guy isn’t trying to hire you, is he?”

  There ainful, silent pause.

  “You know what, I’ve been nothing but ho with you. I told you I’m not a shooter. I told you the pn was to tag along when you moved on to bigger aer things. And you were a-ok with it the me guess, you saw some fug flower or some shit that made you think of that bitch, and now you’re ag like one? You think you’re the first asshole to get stomped by a succubus in this pce? But whatever, fuck me, Poor you, everyone’s out to get you! But you know what? Fuck it! I’m not gonna be an asshole just cause you’re a little baby brat bitch! He wants to meet you at the Space Station, and I’m gonna tell him yood for six o’ clock! If you hold out on dropping into Bliss for that long, you’ll have the meeting of a lifetime, courtesy of me, and then you better be kissing my ass, and if not, then fuck off to your crack den and your boo-hoo brokeed bullshit!”

  Car-Crash’s shouting cut off suddenly, like he had figured out how to sm the phone on a telepathic call.

  Luke tried very hard to keep his anger up, to take every one of Car-Crash’s harsh words and rub them in his still open wounds, to kick up a pain that would drive him straight into the bliss den.

  But the anger dissolved in the radiation of something else, a knot of pure guilt, a deep childish sadness, and it took him a moment to realize it was a respoo the hurt in Car-Crash’s voice.

  His introspe reversed, and he saw in his mind’s eye all the times he had spent with the guy, all the things he had done, and tried to see himself from Car Crash’s point of view. A sad bliss addict. A thorn in the side of A.T.. A rising star. But he couldn’t see a friend. God that hurt. Luke had really taken the son of a bitch franted. For all the help and hand holding and neck stig out that the guy had done for him, he’d never been more than not an asshole to him, at best, and at worst…

  Luke checked his watch, a little glowi of digital hat appeared on his wrist at will, and saw it was 4 AWT. He pointed his face at the horizon and took off for the space station, his tears falling in a twinkling trail behind him.

  We may see Car Crash again, but some stories stay forever untold. ime, Old friends are new agai episode, Outw 11.