JanePtinum

  “Damn, alright.” Cassie grumbles, as if the meeting is just an inconvenience for her. Which, I guess it is. “What’s this about?”

  “I’ll tell you in a second.” Vince responds.

  Corax is already on my shoulder, so I stand up and the two of us follow Cassie and Vince into the hallway.

  We take a short walk next door to Ivy’s room where Vince opens the door for the three of us and stands aside.

  Ivy is, predictably, already inside and rexing on her bed. Cassie and I take a seat on either side of her, and Vince pulls up a chair.

  “Alright, so now what’s this about?” Cassie asks impatiently.

  “First, how are you feeling Cassie? How soon until you’re good to fight?” Vince asks instead of responding.

  “Doctor says two more weeks until I can fight normally, but my gun hand is functional.”

  “Alright, that’s perfect. We need to wrap up a loose end.” Vince says mysteriously.

  Cassie raises an eyebrow at him. A silent conversation pys out across their faces. Cassie’s face lights up with her realization.

  “Fucking finally! Screw it, let’s go now!” Cassie jumps to her feet with excitement.

  “Are you going to fill the rest of us in?” Ivy asks, although I get the feeling she already knows, and she’s just asking for me and Corax’s sake. Unless this is what Corax and Ivy talked about, and I’m the only one out of the loop?

  “Trust me, I’m right there with you, but we can’t leave now. Silver is still putting some cogs in motion.” Vince tells Cassie firmly, and she finally sits back down. “Alright Little Blue, I owe you a story.”

  Vince dives into his history, giving an abbreviated story of him being a raider with Mara, friendship with Silver, and finding Cassie. I let him finish his story before saying anything.

  “Ok.” I’m not in any position to judge someone for their past actions. I had a chance to stop the end of the world and chose wrong. How can I be mad at his choices?

  “That’s it?” Vince asks with disbelief in his voice.

  “Yeah. You’re not that person anymore, so that’s the end of it. And I’ve made a big mistake too.” Although mine is worse. If even I’m allowed to continue living, then he has every right to move on from his past.

  “Well alright then.” Vince lets out a breath in relief, guessing correctly that I don’t want to share. “To make a long story short, Mara has been extorting money from Silver for months, that’s why the food has been so cheap. We finally get to put an end to it.”

  “It’s about fucking time we put that bitch down.” I have no idea how Cassie sounds so excited.

  “It sure is. The earliest point where her couriers have been seen is in Vegas. We’re heading there after two more storms and are on our own to pick up the trail. I have a few old friends I can try, but no guarantees if any of them are still alive. Any questions?”

  “What do we do if these friends of yours are dead?” Ivy asks. “Any backup pn?”

  “Make new ones.” Vince shrugs. “But I’d be surprised if they aren’t still around.”

  “How are we getting there?” Cassie asks, suddenly far more serious.

  “Through the Southern Pass of the Rockies, and west to Vegas. We’ll be driving by the grand canyon if you want to-”

  “I don’t.” She says firmly.

  “Alright.” Vince doesn’t push her on it. “The pn is to drive straight through. Silver is sending Lucas and his crew with us until the halfway point. They’ll carry extra batteries and supplies for us.”

  “He really agreed to that?” Cassie asks.

  “Yes. Although you’ll have to ask him yourself if you want more information. Anyone else?”

  “Yeah, I have a question.” I say kind of awkwardly. Everyone else seems like they’ve done this sort of meeting many times. “How do Corax and I need to act?”

  “Vegas is mostly wless, the two of you can be yourself. Although, st I was there AI were in high demand. Always make sure at least one of us can see you, and don’t go funting the fact that you’re alive.”

  “Ok.” Not having to worry as much will be nice for once, even if I will still have to stay on guard. At least if I screw up, the punishment is only getting myself captured, and not everyone I know killed. I can live with that.

  “Anything else?” Vince asks.

  Everyone stays quiet, although I can still see Cassie fidgeting. She still wants to ask something, but I don’t think she wants to do it with us here. Or probably just me.

  “Ok good. Silver is pulling out all the stops for this and they’ve already ok’d a handful of AI Tech for all of us. Ivy, you’ve got some interesting bullets. Little Blue, you’re getting a brand new harpoon. Cassie, you’re getting decoy grenades and a nearly silent pistol. Corax, Sonia made a harness for you to drop tiny explosives from the sky.”

  Both Corax and Cassie’s eyes shine with excitement.

  “What are you getting then?” Ivy asks Vince.

  “Just a lot of boring useful stuff. Pstic explosives, trip mines, incendiary grenades. That kind of thing.

  “I see you’re not taking any chances.” Ivy says with a small grin.

  “Nope. Any other questions?” Everyone remains silent. “Alright. Cassie, I’m guessing you want to talk?” A quick gnce at her face answers his question. “Little Blue, Corax, try to get down to the range when you can. If you need help I’m sure Ivy is willing. If you need me we’ll be in my room.”

  Vince stands up and heads into the hallway, closely followed by Cassie.

  “Well, do you need help?” Ivy asks.

  “Corax and I can handle it, thank you.”

  The two of us head downstairs. Along the way I focus on letting all sound wash over me. I don’t acknowledge it, don’t process it, just let it pass through my mind and be forgotten. I might be getting better, but I don’t think I’m good enough to hear gunshots yet.

  The two of us enter the range. It’s mostly abandoned, every avaible scrapper is probably out in the wastes still. Jade is behind her desk as always, and cracks the door next to her open for us. I walk through, feeling the pressure from every trigger pull. I’m ok. Just keep taking one step at a time.

  The pressure lessens substantially once I close the door behind me. I can see Jade try to say something, but I have no idea what. The three of us take a few steps deeper into Jade’s backroom before I dare to let myself hear again.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t hear, what was that?”

  “Nothing important. So I heard you lost my guns.”

  Uh oh.

  “I’m really sorry about that.” How can I make this better? “You’ll be happy to know that I made good use of the harpoon at least. I saved myself and Corax, and made all of the scrap Vince brought back avaible.”

  “All that scrap only means we’re barely even on costs.” She walks through the isles, takes the st harpoon off the shelf, and marks it down on her sheet of paper. “I guess that’s what it’s for though. Here.”

  I wordlessly sling it over my shoulder.

  “Same loadout as st time. Two 9mm pistols, 102 total rounds split evenly between armor piercing and hollow point, and six seventeen round mags.” As she calls out each item, she pulls it off the shelf, marks it down, and hands it to me.

  I slide the pistols into the holsters on my vest and throw the rest into my backpack. I don’t need to deal with loading them now.

  “Now for the fun part.” She finally reaches the back of her small warehouse, where a small harness system ys on the table. “If you would.”

  Corax flies to the table before she can even finish her sentence. He stands tall and proud waiting for Jade to put it on him.

  “So here’s how this works. First, he steps in here, and puts his head through this loop. Then these two loops go around his wings, and buckle across his back.” Sonia walks me through the steps without actually touching Corax.

  I think she’s afraid to get too close to him? He does have a pretty hard bite, to be fair.

  Putting the harness on him is surprisingly easy, and it’s in pce within seconds.

  “Next, there are these four metal grabbers. These small charges go in each.” She holds up what looks like a miniature pipe bomb, painted with stripes of bright yellow and bck, with a string coming out of the front. “The string goes here, neatly packed into a pocket where it can’t be pulled. All Corax has to do is to pull any of these four quick releases to let it fall. Once it falls ten feet, the string will be ripped from the pipe, priming the grenade. From there it’s out of your hands, and hopefully in the hands of whoever you’re trying to kill.”

  “That seems simple.”

  “Apparently it was a bitch to get working consistently. These are duds, give it a try.”

  I hook four of the pipes into Corax’s vest, making sure the strings are secured and safe. Even if they are duds it’s good to make sure I know how they work.

  Corax immediately takes off when the st one is connected. The warehouse has just enough space in the rafters for him to weave between beams. He drops one at the far end of the building, just in case it’s actually a live bomb.

  Once he’s sure it’s safe he flies over me. He has shockingly good aim already, if I hadn’t caught his second one, it would have hit me square in the forehead. The third and fourth hit the ground at nearly the same time right at Jade’s feet.

  “I think it works.” I tell her.

  “Good. these are the live ones, do not get them mixed up.” She hands me eight tubes painted the color of sand with a cap on them, containing the string safely. I carefully pce them in my bag.

  “Thank you.” Corax says as he nds on my shoulder.

  “Mm-hmm. Feel free to practice, but I have to get back to work.”

  Corax doesn’t hesitate to take her up on her offer, and does a few more test drops. My only worry at this point is trying to make sure he doesn’t waste all his bombs at the first possible moment.

  Eventually he nds on my shoulder, incredibly satisfied. The two of us return to my room and begin to rex once again.

  JanePtinum