Acid Reign : Genesis
Chapter 16: Rivals

The blood-red sign for Johnny’s was barely visible in the darkness of the old parking structure’s bowels. There were all different kinds of transports parked outside the reticulated walls of the travel depot. Some were impressive, and some were little more than piles of metal with an engine. This was where the Runners ended their day.

A handful of people stood outside the de-radiation chamber, waiting for it to clear. One of the Runners was completely covered in a dark red ghille suit with hair-like tentacles reaching in every direction. Another one had padded armor with a high-tech filter mask that looked new. The other two had suits on that had been pieced together from gear long abandoned, and looked as though they might come apart at any moment.

An engine roared, and they all looked in Ripp’s direction as his car emerged from the darkness and settled a little away from the door. They all knew who’s Mustang it was.

Ripp stepped out, and the group waiting by the door made way for him. Not because they were scared, but they let him go ahead of them out of respect for the most sought-after Runner in the last fifty years. He was the best. Partly because of the fact that no one went out as far as he did, but mostly because of his ability to survive anything.

No one fought the hordes of Fringers the way he and Gus had, and no one was more favored by Johnny than he was. Of course, all of this had a lot to do with being trained by Johnny’s father.

Ripp acknowledged their respect with a simple raise of his hand and grabbed the door latch. The light on the outside panel immediately changed from red to green as if Ripp willed it to be ready for him.

“Thank you,” he said mechanically through his rad-breather.

Ripp closed the door behind him and stood while the air vacuum hissed, and compressed air cycled through vents in the ceiling.

He laughed to himself, remembering when a young runner prematurely took his rad-breather off before the cycle was done, resulting in burnt lungs and a shrunken voice box. It took months for the poor fellow to sound like something other than a small, excited child.

Ripp took his helmet off just as the lights in the chamber changed from red to green. His hair was matted, sweaty, and he looked exhausted.

The automatic door slid open and Ripp moved into a large storage room that held a dozen people’s rad-gear. He looked over at the old storage attendant who was fast asleep in a chair near the doorway and smiled. He stored his gear quietly trying not to wake the old woman and softly pushed through the spring-mounted doors into Johnny’s bar.

Ripp slipped past Johnny, who was turned around preparing drinks, spotted Gus and Lilly sitting at a table and headed over.

Gus kicked Lilly under the table.

“What was that for?” she whined.

Gus smiled, then looked past her.

“How’d it go?” he asked Ripp.

Lilly made room for Ripp. It was obvious that there wasn’t going to be enough room on Gus’s side.

“Didn’t find what I had hoped to, but there were CG Elites that showed up out of nowhere. That was fun.”

Ripp got settled and looked over at Lilly, who, as usual, was consumed with the social network on her Pigeon, mindlessly scrolling through the messages from the runner’s daily updates.

“There is nothing out there, at least on the surface, but I’m thinking we were right, something is going on. You said, ‘follow the power’.”

“Told you,” Gus said.

“Yeah, we’ll need to go back out after things cool down. Got some great gear off of em’ though.”

Gus chuckled. “Elites always have the good stuff. How many were out there?”

“Four.”

Gus paused for a second as he noticed the blood on Ripp’s shirt. “You ok?”

“Yeah, just a cut. How’d we do at the market?”

Gus got excited, and his worry for Ripp’s well-being changed to a childish smile.

“We made out pretty good, two-fifty for the converters, one-fifty for the gun and three hundred for...uh…” Gus looked around to see who was listening. “...that other thing.”

Ripp’s face lit up with approval. “We should change professions.”

Gus shook his head as an unwanted memory forced its way in. “Don’t think I could be a prostitute again.”

“Yeah, not what I was talking about,” Ripp said, making a sour face. “I really don’t want to picture that right now. What I meant was that we should just focus on that...other...thing.” he said, raising his eyebrows with each of the last two words.

“Ah, you mean the side business,” Gus said, winking. “Yes. Not sure what they do with them, but for that much money each time? I can live with not ever knowing what happens to those people.”

Ripp looked over at Lilly, who was obviously trying to look occupied, and softly nudged her. “Why so quiet Lil?”

Lilly looked up as if she had just noticed that Ripp was there and smiled an innocent smile.

“Hey, Ripp! How...”

“Lilly got shock rocked by Tooth’s boy on a baby con, and lost her score. So she put a fist in his face at the market today just before she pulled her Zeus machine on his playmate.”

Gus smiled as Lilly angrily shut her Pigeon down.

“Seriously? Couldn’t even let me ease into it? I really don’t like you right now.”

Gus’s smile faded when he saw the stern look on Ripp’s face. Lilly and Gus were ready for an explosion, but it never came.

“Yeah, I know,” Ripp said calmly, catching Lilly and Gus off guard.

“Nun gave me the heads up about the market. I figured it might have been over something like that.”

Lilly expected that there was going to be more, so she kept quiet.

Ripp leaned forward and looked at his hands. “You know I just smoothed everything over with Tooth right?”

Lilly sank in her seat. She could have dealt with Ripp being angry with her. She would have even preferred that he break something and yell at her in front of everyone, but the thought that she had disappointed Ripp was torture.

“I know.”

“Do you?” Ripp’s tone hardened.

“There are all kinds of bad Lil. Tooth is on the extreme end of ‘real crazy’ kill you, not just electrocute you bad. And he has been after our contracts for a long time.”

“I know. I’m sorry, I really am.”

Ripp shook his head slightly. Gus was about to interject, but kept his mouth shut when Ripp looked up at him.

“I said you weren’t ready to do contracts on your own and specifically told you that I would let you know when. What happened today just proved my point, and I expect that you see that too. Imagine if Puck was a Fringer.”

“He wasn’t,” she said under her breath.

“You need to sit out for a bit until you start taking all of this seriously.”

Gus bit his lip and raised an eyebrow, grateful he wasn’t to blame for once.

“Oh come on! Sit out? I can’t be...”

“Not up for discussion!” Ripp yelled.

Johnny’s got quiet. A couple of runners stared then looked away and returned to their drinks after Gus shot them a glance.

“You could have been killed. Simple as that. You are sitting out until I say you’re ready.”

“Think that might be too much? She handled herself pretty well in the market today,” Gus said, thinking he had helped somehow.

“And where were you when all of this was going on?”

Gus looked hurt. “Doing my job.”

“She’s part of your job,” Ripp shot back.

Gus threw his hands up in defense. “Okay I get it, we both screwed up, but there’s something else eating you.”

Ripp stared past them, ignoring Gus.

Gus knew the expression on Ripp’s face all too well; focused, calculating, and ready for violence. He looked back over his shoulder to see what Ripp was staring at.

Tooth had charged through the swinging doors with his rad-gear still on, saw Ripp and started to head over.

“Oh, man,” Gus said to himself.

Tooth was strong, and stood almost a head taller than most people, which added to his presence. His face was dark and shadowed in all the right places, resembling a demon in the flesh.

“A rat,” Ripp whispered.

Johnny stopped Tooth dead in his tracks with a large triple-barreled shotgun. Tooth stopped out of respect but didn’t seem concerned at all about Johnny. He looked down at the shotgun with little regard then set his eyes back on Ripp.

“Tooth, you start something in my depot and I’ll make sure there ain’t nothing left for your boy to cry over. Clear?” Johnny barked. She followed Tooth’s gaze over to a guilty looking Gus and made her own face of disapproval.

Tooth’s and Ripp’s eyes locked on each other.

“Ith clear. Juth wanna talk to Ripp,” Tooth said as he slowly pushed the barrel of the gun to the side. He raised his hands showing Johnny that he wasn’t armed and smiled a smile that was as loaded as her gun was. Johnny let Tooth walk by, but kept her barrel aimed at his back.

“How do, Ripp?” Tooth asked with a gaping smile.

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“Liddle gurly thook a theap thot at my boy. Here I wath thinkin’ you and me wath good?”

“We are good. Just a misunderstanding.”

Tooth squinted his eyes and twisted his head in agitation. He let out a deep breath as he tried to remain under control.

“No. I don’t think the mithunderthood.”

Ripp stood firmly. “The way I see it is that she just gave him a little taste of what he gave to her. Fair is fair right?”

“Fair ith fair and the Fringe ith home to balance,” Tooth said annoyed with the old ways. “I’m prepared to forgive the gun, but that Pigeon belonged to my boy. I bought eh for em with MY credith and I want it back.”

“Pigeon, huh?” Ripp glanced at Lilly, trying to make sense of the new information. “You bought it for him? He didn’t buy it from the score he stole from Lilly?”

Tooth smiled knowing he had the situation in his control now. “Yeth thur. I bought it with my crediths for him a couple of dayth ago.”

Lilly stared at the table listening and waiting for Ripp to stand up for her.

“Lilly, give back the Pigeon.”

Lilly shot up in her seat. “What?” she cried.

“Give him the Pigeon.”

“You can’t be serious? You know he’s lying!”

Tooth lost his composure and started to move towards Lilly.

Ripp stepped in front of Tooth. “Lilly. Now,” Ripp ordered as he kept his gaze focused on Tooth.

Johnny made her way through the crowd that had gathered behind Tooth.

“Thell your little flower, that the better watch who thee callin a liar.”

“Time’s up, Lil. Hand it over now,” Ripp said letting her know he was out of patience.

Lilly realized the whole situation was about to get out of control and she was to blame. She deleted her files, unlaced her new Pigeon and tossed it at Tooth.

“There’s a good lil’ flowuh,” Tooth hissed.

The silence in Johnny’s deepened, as Ripp got into Tooth’s face.

“You and me are good, Tooth. You got what you came for so, your boy and her are square, too, but if anything happens between you and her, you and me ain’t gonna be good.” Ripp moved closer. “I don’t care if Nun never gives me a contract again, I will kill you.”

Tooth grinned, and looked at the glass in front of Gus thinking of how he could push past Ripp, break it and slit her throat, but just as he was about to try, he stepped back with another idea.

“Take it eathy Ripp. Ith fine. You’re right. We are thquare. Thankth for your cooperathion.”

The tension was palpable as Tooth walked past Jonny and disappeared into the storage area.

Gus mouthed a sincere ‘Sorry’ to Johnny. She shot him back a, ‘don’t bring your baggage into my bar again’ look, and put her gun back behind the counter.

Lilly had never felt the gravity of the earth more than now.

“Sitting out,” Ripp said with a sideways glare.

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