Pass the hollow points, please

  They found the bar and grill twinkling in a mostly vat shoppier, floatiweete bck pin of a poorly lit parking lot with slices of car shiu it here and there, and the vast purple-e twilight darkening above, broken in pces by sodium bulbs the color of melting evening.

  Lindsey met them in the parking lot, brand new Hayabusa and fresh clothes, fwless makeup. She looked like she was already celebrating a job well done and her smile was still burning off the adrenaline from the fight with the MG. As they found their seats at a window booth, Gradie wondered aloud what there was left for them to do.

  “Wait for Boss and miss dy to finish the job,” Luke said. “Then cyber girl will send one of her little bots in, and boom.”

  “Hopefully,” Lindsey added.

  EP remihem in the earbuds to watch their opsec, so Gradie kept quiet after he ordered, and watched the Saturday crowd stream through the door, remembering the screaming people fleeing the firefight after the PKM had opened up. They wore it on their faces. It could never happen to them. Two shootings iy-four hours, but surely the third would be far away.

  The table disappeared beh all the food. Ptters of ribs, brisket, cole-sw, Potato Sad, fries, sauces and pickles, surrounding Lindsey’s chi fried steak pte like a siege. The brightly colored drinks stood like Christmas trees in a flood. When it was all done, Gradie could have ughed out loud at the idea of eating iherworld.

  A guy at the bar ked the news ov, like a se out of a cheesy eighties movie, and there was the SUV, riddled with bullet marks and all of its doors open. It felt like seeing an old friend on Cops.

  “It was all over in about ten minutes, police said today, about the absolute age that erupted near downtown this afternoon.” The newscaster ce barely crackled out of the speakers, but Gradie read the closed captions iereotypical boung rhythm. Footage of the interse rolled across the s, then it cut to the tru top of the hill, dripping blood and shell gs.

  “That’s fu nuts!” Luke said, and someo the bar looked around. Sam snickered into her margarita.

  “Gunmen armed with automatic mae guns, military grade assault rifles—” Luke ged over his drink. “— and bulletproof vehicles, exged deadly fire that turhis street near downtown, into a war zone.”

  The camera stopped on a handful of graphite colored shell gs ying on the ground near one of the cars.

  “They shot us with fug steel case ammo?” Philip said in their ears, the segment eg behind him.

  “Disrespectful,” Luke said softly and shook his head.

  “Over fifteen gunmen are dead at the se. Three officers were killed, and one is in critical dition. Shogly, police have made no arrests but are still looking for at least two people believed to have some e to the shooting.” Coopers mug shot came up on the s.

  “It all started when the man at the ter of yesterday’s deadly shootout was released on bail. Cooper Davidson was arrested on burgry charges Friday at his work, when a gunfight erupted that left twelve people dead, including four police officers, and many others wounded.”

  Gradie got still as the faces of the dead came up on the s. The drink was heavy in his hand. Whies were Hardworlders? Whies would never wake up anywhere? Even if they were Spirits, wasn’t it death for someohat Self was gone forever. They just went to sleep one night and never woke up, and here he was drinking a gin and tonic. Celeste’s face joined Cooper’s on the s, clearly taken from some Instagram vanity shot. It stood out of toh the rest of it.

  “Police say they are not charging Cooper or the woman, who posted his bail and was with him at the time of the sed shootout, with any crimes as a result of the shootings, but they do ask that they turn themselves over to the police for questioning, and their safety, as well as the safety of the unity.”

  The newscaster rambled about cartel violehe president, and something about an update at ten, and the possibility of a curfew and checkpoints, before they broke for a ercial. It didn’t seem like there would be any other story featured, and Gradie hoped the cheesy local dealership ad would st forever.

  He looked back at the table until the question broke out on its own.

  “Do yall think this pce is real?”

  Luke made a kind of wing sound that felt like “maybe”, Sam smiled at him like she was waiting for a pune. Lindsey looked at the tv behind him and got an expression of uanding.

  “You don’t o feel guilty about them. The ones who dropped into them would be more at fault than anyone.” Her words didn’t do much for him, but her tone and the way her eyes let something out that they seemed weary of holding, made him feel he wasn’t alone in his thoughts. That was enough.

  “Not that it matters,” she tinued, after a long pull on her drink. “Despite what boss thinks, this pce probably does after we leave,” she said, stirring her drink.

  “What?”

  “That’s what all the old-time guys think. Our sciousness being here is what gees it. Without us, it does.” She waved her bck tipped fingers at the room.

  “Well, I hope yall didoo much,” Michael said in their ears.

  “I’m getting a bad feeling—” Luke started.

  “s at a distributioer. He snuck it in a returns pallet.”

  “So, I guess Zoey’s got her work cut out,” Luke said hopefully.

  “This has to be hands-on.”

  “I fug k,” Lindsey said, and picked up her water cup for the first time sihey sat down.

  “Coulda told me,” Luke said at her forehead.

  “By the way, Joey,” EP said. “They got your prints off the SUV.”

  Lindsey spilled ice water into her p.

  “You didn’t drop in ?” she hissed.

  “Oops.”

  “Fug space cadet!” Philip ughed in their ears. Gradie couldn’t help but wonder if he would have been ughing if it had been Gradie’s name on the BOL.

  “Probably have your face all over the nine-o cloews,” EP said, not sounding nearly as amused as Philip.

  “I guess I wasn’t pretty enough for the six-o’clock,” Luke sighed.

  The waitress came over aried to hide his face by looking straight down at his phone. She had been giving them knowing looks all night. After one refill, Luke had pointed out that she probably thought they were on a double date, and Lindsey had done absolutely nothing besides precisely f green beans and make a king sound itle bowl that seemed the perfect pitock Luke. Sam had ughed loudly in a way that made Gradie want to quote Shakespeare, but he had decided to put brisket in his mouth instead of his foot.

  Now, the waitress looked around the table, asking about how the bill would be split, giving out smiles (or in Luke’s case, frowns at the top of his head) and trying to gauge how the two new retionships she seemed to feel she had a hand in f were progressing. It looked a lot like someorying to gather facial features for a future posite sketch, but Lindsey and Sam didn’t seem to mind. They smiled at her, maybe hoping their faces would overwrite Luke’s in her memory.

  When she was gone, Luke stood up.

  “I’m going to take a shit. I hate shooting on a full tank.”

  “Shut up!” Lindsey hissed. Sam giggled, boung, and tipped her gss towards her face. The salt fshed under her eyes like diamonds. Gradie looked at the sweating i his gss regretfully. Was it the gins fault she looked even cuter than usual?

  “Time to switch to water, babe,” Lindsey said like an older sister. Sam turned her head slightly and raised one eyebrow, still drinking. It proved to be too much multitasking and she spilled margarita down the front of her jacket.

  “Shit!” She pulled the damp part of her shirt away from her chest, and Lindsey saw Gradie staring.

  “Hand her a napkin,” she snapped. He did, and Sam took it from him with a stare like she had caught him trying to rob her.

  He just smiled at her, then leaned bad got on his phone. EP had sent some info on the DC. He tried to roll his mind over it, like pushing a dog’s fato the carpet, and make it believe that the youts and notes were more deserving of braihen geing a “what if?” where Sam spilled a whole pitcher of margaritas on herself. When Luke got back, the Sam in his head was wringing her sweater out and winking at him, while the one across from him sipped ice water like medie.

  in the Hardworlds. ime, that endless bck ribbon py tricks on your mind, and py hell with your Spirit. episode, Road Trip.