It’d been a while since she had her shit pushed in, but in Lita’s defense, the bastard had it coming. Among the few pleasures the hippie-punk could maintain in her new line of resistance work was frequenting a good underground bar. Among the few displeasures were the drunken oafs who played grab-ass. And as everyone knows, when one fist starts flying, soon dozens follow and the birds and bees of barroom brawling begin anew.
By the end of the glass-smashing spectacle, Lita came out with a couple of good cuts, a kinda-sorta limp (would have to get that seen to) and the first black eye she’d enjoyed in a long while. The scraggly tan wolf who tried to get a piece of her had to be carried out by his street-racing pals stretcher-style. They flipped each other the bird before Lita stuffed herself back behind the Red Devil’s wheel.
“Shame too, he looked good before I got to him.” she muttered. “At least you know how to treat ladies nice, doncha Little Man?”
The blood-red Bug responded with a roar of his V8, and she in kind by nuzzling the wheel. She was ready to dump the clutch and peel away from the crush of wolves leaving the gin-joint when the strangest set of words she’d heard in ages hit those eternally perked ears of hers.
“Bills no less than 50s, gold in the back. 349. Easy haul. See ya in 24.”
The jaw that did the hushed flapping belonged to a white wolf in a loose, button-down shirt. She matched the words to the muzzle’s lips as he crossed the rear-view mirror’s line of sight. Strolling alongside was your standard issue gray civvy in standard issue garb; that trendy white pantsuit jogging getup the digital bitch called “fashion” this week. They strolled off into the crowd and were gone to the city’s cobalt mists, but the thought lingered in Lita’s mind.
“Bills? The fuck they mean bills?”
Haven ran on state-issued credits for frivolities, and any gold was usually saved for utilities, not securities. Either these thieves were just sold a helluva bridge or something strange was going down in the Haven economy. She peeled out of the parking lot and got on the horn with the first hound she could think of.
“AYO, URBIE! WHAT’S CRACKING?”
“Say Mack,” Lita quizzed. “How many scores you make before shacking up with me?”
“Well if I recall,” the biker hollered, “did about twenty-or-so raids. Just grocery shopping. Jail-breaking synth stations for gas, the usual off-the-grid stuff.”
“Ever go in for cash?”
“The fuck I need that old American money for?” quizzed Malten. “Fuck anybody right in the head need it?”
“Well get your ass down to the pad and I’ll lay it out.”
When the burly, one-eyed biker made his rendezvous at the Creed’s HQ, he still couldn’t figure the scheme out.
“50s and 100s and gold in the back.” he muttered, kicking a leg up against the wall. “And the job’s halfway through the 300s tomorrow night.”
“Not that it’s any shit off my snout,” Lita cut in, “but you see what I mean? They wasn’t exactly announcing it to all the world either, so consider my ol’ eagle-ears lucky I guess.”
“Well it’s definitely your kinda weird,” Mack winked with his good eye. “Two thieves in for some good ol’ fashioned bank robbery like Uncle Sam used to make. Whatcha think they want the dough for anyway? If the bills exist?”
The hippie-punk picked herself up off the battered old couch and started pacing the room.
At least she tried.
“Shit!” she seethed, flopping back onto the couch, “damn leg needs a bit of splint, now don’t she?”
“The hell you do?” Mack asked.
“Beat the crap out of a jackass while I was drinking at Raleigh’s” came the blase answer. She rolled up her jeans and taped the first flat stick she could find to her leg. “There, so long as my paw can still flap the clutch, we’re all set.”
Once she fixed her pants and steadied herself, she was able to start pacing peg-leg style.
“Now back to Fingers and Nosey. Maybe they got a collector who digs Old World cheddar. Warehouses got all sorts of artifacts from way back when. Maybe the gold ain’t government-issued but vintage too. Maybe it’s a honey pot. Not for me but for them. Someone told them about a good score and is planning to rope two dopes. Something a little more tactical you can’t just dump a bunch of autocops.”
Mack nodded, but something still didn’t click. “Could be. But if they’s stealin’ for someone else, what they gettin’ back? You can do a lot with gold.”
“And you can’t do shit with paper in this town,” Lita added. “Everything’s on card. It’s gotta be for something other than what it is.”
“Well, only one way to find out.” the tall dark biker smiled. “Stakeout?”
“Stakeout.” Lita grinned. “Here’s hoping the leg kicks out before then.”
It hadn’t, but that didn’t matter tonight. Lita and Mack were sitting tight in her crimson-colored Beetle with a set of binoculars staring at District 349’s designated warehouse. If the thieves held to their word, they had beaten them to the punch by an hour and would just have to wait and watch them score. If things went well, they’d watch them run off with a huge bundle and would scope out the rest of the warehouse to see where the goods were stashed. If the honey pot theory held, they’d get the hell out of Dodge to beat the autocops.
About a half-hour later, a white Class-B hovercraft came humming along in all its tubby, bullet-shaped glory and out stepped the hounds of the hour. Both the white and gray thieves came dressed in tight-fitting black cloak suits. The second their boots hit the ground, they vanished from sight.
“Oh, they’re good,” Lita grinned. “If I wasn’t so good at killing the creeps who use them, I’d get one myself.”
Mack looked bemused. “Probably should get a few for your boys. Y’know for the big ticket missions.”
“Oh yeah, we’s working on it.” the hippie-punk replied. “Just getting ‘em from outta town is all.”
Once the warehouse door closed “by itself,” the waiting game was on. For the first five minutes, flat nothing with a side of zilch. Five after that, however, something was up.
“They decloaked,” Mack observed, passing the binoculars to Lita. When she got a look herself, she realized just who was standing by the window in silhouette.
“Nah, he’s a beefy SOB,” the hippie-punk replied. “Those bastards might have some company coming down from the upper floor.”
Sure enough, in another minute’s time, there came a sudden
BANG! BANG! BANG!
And with that, all hell broke loose.
Even through the warehouse walls, the muffled echo of “oh shit” could be heard in the streets as gunfire was exchanged. The warehouse door swung open again, the glitching, static-hazed outlines of the thieves stumbling into their hovercraft and bolting from the scene. Whatever they carried came not in chests or the containers available to them in the facility, but in a cloaked bag slung over one of the wolves’ backs.
“Classy.” Lita smirked. “Like a fucking comic strip out here. They oughta slap a dollar sign on the side and go running off to the Bank of Money for their next one.”
“Well there’s your old-time copper to match,” Mack added, the one-eyed biker catching sight of the exasperated guard in a navy blue uniform. The slim tan wolf on duty was visibly winded as he bolted through the store and looked out down the now-empty street. He threw his hat down in frustration and ran back inside.
“Well he’s gonna have to call the cops,” the hippie-punk observed, “and I don’t wanna be here for that.”
She fired up the Red Devil and slunk out the alley’s back way. It was gonna be a long shot with the lead given, but there was still a good chance she could tail the hovercar.
It was a delicate dance between finding the bastards, keeping pace, and keeping distance. It was during this tango that the duo kicked around all sorts of questions back and forth.
“You think a silent alarm was tripped?” Mack began, checking his pistol.
Lita shook her head. “Knowing how the old bitch ain’t running so hot, maybe that warehouse’s automated security wasn’t up to snuff, hence the good old-fashioned guard on duty. How much do you think they got in the sack?”
“For a 10-minute job and one big bag they’re stuffing it in? If they moved quick, probably dumped a few cases worth of paper--maybe five tops--and probably a case or two of gold. Depends on if they had the codes to get into them or if they broke the locks. Seeing how easy they slipped in, one of them musta gotten the right access keys or knows a thing or two about hacking.”
“Well, at least we’ll see where they’re taking it, that should be them.”
Sure enough, there were those beady red taillights hanging off the white-bodied machine. They were a fair way up the street and Lita wanted to keep it that way. She didn’t expect a same-night drop (should it happen) but a chance to see just how these fellas played on the road.
The hovercar glided along at a nice, inconspicuous pace, either oblivious or incredibly careful about the ostentatious gas-guzzling machine rumbling along half-a-block behind. At least they weren’t trying to shake Lita yet which was good enough for her. After a couple of blocks, however, it was clear they were biding time.
“Shit, we’s about to lap this quarter,” she realized, wincing between gear shifts.
“Is that leg still holding?” Mack asked.
The hippie-punk shrugged and patted her knee. “Yeah, just a little stiff from the sittin’. I’ll give him this next left, and I’ll take the straight.”
No sooner had she said that, she caught the hovercar whipping back the way it came and gunning straight down the street once more.
Bolting out of the side street were five of A.C.E.S’s autocops, the slick silver-and-black hovercrafts in full attack mode.
“Guess we gotta buy ‘em some time.” Lita grimaced. She hit the gas and opened the Red Devil up. Mack was already on the ball, his Colt .45 swung out the window, ready to light up every last one of those floor-mounted engines. The blood-colored Bug tore down the street, passing each and every last one of the autocops before turning to Mack with an ultimatum.
“If you don’t wanna go deaf,” she added, digging a spent casing out of her pocket, “grab some earplugs from the glove-box.”
The one-eyed biker cocked his head. “Whaddya--oh… that bad, huh?”
“Yup.” she replied, biting the bullet.
The second they were in, Lita slammed both sandaled paws down on the brakes and swung the Red Devil around. The shrill shriek she let out as she buried the clutch could shatter glass. Fortunately, Mack was too busy lighting into the autocop’s engines to notice. Though he was a tall sonofabitch, the relatively low-riding Red Devil made the shooting gallery a cinch as the bloody Bug carved his way through the fleet, drawing them away from the thieves as they vanished further and further into the night.
The Red Devil swerved round for a second pass, Lita’s fangs clenched around the brass as she ran through the gears. When Mack finally polished off the last hovercraft, the silver machine sent crashing into the pavement in that brilliant blue fireball of theirs, he turned back to see the pained hippie-punk still grinning and bearing it.
“Jesus shit, Urbie, you turning blue too!”
“No shish Sherlock.” came the reply through gritted fangs. “Hang on.”
When she swung the Bug around one final time (and fired off a few more “fucks” for good measure), they were only met with an empty street and the light haze of Haven’s infinity beyond the horizon.
Mack popped the plugs out of his ears. “I think we can still catch them if we’re quick enough.”
Lita shook her head and popped the bullet out of her mouth.
“One,” she began. “Fuck me, that hurt. Two, this oughta buy us some cachet with ‘em. I’ll run the license plate when we get back to HQ, just so I know who the hell I’m chatting with. Unless it was stolen, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“I’m driving.” Mack cut in.
“Like hell!” Lita shot back.
“Look, leave it to the guy rocking an iron horse for a living to tell you to not go running around on a broken leg. If I gotta, I’ll knock your ass out!”
“And like hell to that shit too!” the hippie-punk barked.
She was out cold with one slap.
When Lita came to, she was back on the couch in the rec room while the burly, leather-vested biker was hunched over the computer, typing away with two half-gloved index fingers.
“I’m the only bitch who’ll say it,” she groggily began, rubbing her cheek, “but thanks for that, Mista Connery.”
Mack chuckled. “Never was a pimp, but the hand works just the same.”
“We’re a weird little setup, ain’t we?”
“There’s always worse,” he replied. “Besides, I got your deets from the Red Devil’s camera. White Class-B #H39478K belongs to Kieran Hall, your gray fella in the jumpsuit.”
Lita pulled herself up to take a look at the profile image from across the room.
“Yup, that’s him. Fella likes to keep his whiskers grown out it seems.”
“Now what do we do with this?” Mack pressed.
Lita went to get off the couch, only for the sharp stab of pain to lay her flat back.
“First, see if his address is there on file. Second, now’s as good a time as any to let the heat die down.”
“Pendergrass #408 up in District 565.” the biker replied. “And you’re damn right.”
The rest of the night was spent fooling around as they tended to do when they got together, though Mack was a little gentler than usual for obvious reasons.
For the next few days, laid up in HQ, Lita was able to do some digging on the potential use cases for cash in the New World. Setting aside all the arts-and-crafts stuff--collages and material in mixed medium projects--it seemed as though its use of currency could pretty much willed back into existence. If enough people said it worked for them as legal tender, it did and that was that.
“Well that explains why credit pretty much is the way it is,” she shrugged to herself.
It was said that the cash’s value was initially backed by metals like gold. If their dynamic duo managed to grab plenty of both, they could fire up a second economy alongside Haven’s nominal one.
“But why?”
It was the question she couldn’t crack, not without meeting the thieves.
Once the leg was finally healed up, she hightailed it up to the 500s and pulled up to the back of Pendergrass Apartments. The art deco-styled complex was being given the five-star treatment by either A.C.E.S. or a doting landlord because everything was polished to perfection. She took the elevator to the fourth floor and looked for Room 408. When she found it, she braced herself.
Pleasedontbedead, Pleasedontbedead, Pleasedontbedead, she thought to herself. It was kinda awful it was the first thing she thought of, but plenty of the wolves she met with had a nasty habit of turning up that way. She knocked on the door and waited patiently. After the clatter of a half-dozen locks coming undone came the turn of a key and, at last, the parting of the door. And thank God, he was alive indeed.
Kieran Hall, a gray wolf no older than 30, stood there in that same white getup from a week ago and stared blankly at the dark scruffy denim-clad chick in front of him.
“Long way from home it looks,” he remarked in a smooth tenor. “What can I do ya for?”
Shit. What’s my story?
“You didn’t happen to be at Raleigh’s a week or two ago, did ya?” Lita answered.
Kieran nodded. “For a drink, yeah. Nice place too before that crazy row happened.”
Lita chuckled as she held her hand above her head and pointed down at herself. “Well, I was the crazy bitch who teed that off.”
The gray wolf’s jaw slackened. “I’m not on your hit list too, am I?”
“Oh hell naw,” Lita smiled, “Just wanted to chat with you for a bit. You looked cute, and you sure as hell more polite than the bastard who pinched me.”
That loosened the hound up. “Tell ya what, how about a free drink inside and we can gab for a bit.”
That was just what she wanted to hear. He helped Lita into his warmly-lit apartment. It was a pretty cozy pad all things considered. He certainly used his credits wisely in how he furnished it, and there were no immediate tells of his thievery. No proudly displayed works of classical art, no solid gold candlesticks. Just lots of nice wooden shelves and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, including the main synth module for generating meals in lieu of an Old World oven and fridge.
Although, he did keep the drinks in their own case in the living room, chilled to perfection. Lita picked a spot on the couch and eased herself down out of habit and waited as the host whipped up the drinks.
“One of the few things I like doing for myself, everyone’s got ‘em,” Kieran chuckled to himself. “If I didn’t, I’d go out of my mind and start stirring shit up for the hell of it.”
“Smart hound,” Lita winked, taking the glass from him as he passed it over. “My shit’s on the as-needed basis. Do right by me, everything’s kosher.”
She flicked her snout before taking a sip; she’d been good about catching poison by scent and figured it couldn’t hurt to be cautious. Nothing struck her as out of the ordinary, and that went double for the flavor that hit her lips.
“Hey, fruity!” she grinned. “Goes down smooth too.”
Kieran took his seat next to her and gave her glass a clink with his. “I could drink it like water if I didn’t set limits. How are yours?”
“Well I drove here and I gotta drive home,” Lita answered between sips, “so I won’t go crazy here if that’s what you mean.”
“Nah, I like a chick who has some sense,” the gray wolf nodded. “Though I’m surprised you don’t just let the autopilot take over when you want to live it up.”
“Well you got your drinks, I got my driving.”
Kieran gave a nonchalant shrug before raising his glass again. “Fair play.”
“What ride you got?” Lita quizzed.
“Class-B MK V, pearl white,” came the reply. “Floats almost as smooth as this sherry cobbler goes down. How about you?”
“Weeeell,” the hippie-punk began, “I’m a bit old-fashioned y’see.”
“Let me guess, you went for the E MK II,” Kieran cut in. “I mean, it’s still a good way to get around. And so long as you don’t mind manually doing the firmware updates, you’re never that far behind.”
“Not quite. Can you keep a secret?”
“You always tell strangers these?” her gray host replied.
“Only if they’re cute enough.” she answered with a lil-ol-me grin. That schmoozed him all over in the right ways.
“Alright, I’ll keep it,” Kieran chuckled, leaning in. “Lay it on me.”
“I got me a ground car. Four wheels flat on the ground. Runs like a dream for being 500-years-old.”
Kieran let off one mighty whistle at the sound of that. “Shit, always wanted one of those since I was a kid. Where did you get it?”
“That, unfortunately, has to stay with me and the fella who found my Little Man.”
“Oh c’mon, what can I do to get the deets?” the gray host pleaded. “How much you want for ‘em?”
Now there was a lead if ever there was one.
“Buddy, I’m not short of cred at the moment.” Lita chuckled. “That hound deserves to keep his peace for even sneaking that devil in for me.”
“I got something better than cred,” Kieran shot back with an impish grin. “Wait here.”
He bolted from the couch and right into his bedroom. It was a coin toss as to whether he would come out with a wad of cash like an old-time coke dealer or gold bars like a maniac.
The silver automatic he produced instead was quite the surprise.
“Hey, slow your roll,” Lita soothed. “I didn’t know how much it meant.”
The gray 30-something cocked his head in confusion before realizing the faux pa. “Oh shit, my bad. Didn’t mean to flag you. Chamber’s clear anyway, and besides, this is from my airsoft collection.”
Lita’s ears perked up in disbelief, her red eyes shot wide with surprise. “Hollup, how do you get a solid-ass silver airsoft pistol?”
“I’m afraid that’s gotta be where I draw my own line.” smirked Kieran. “But is it a trade?”
The solitary blink Lita gave said it all.
“It’s genuine metal,” he added in a sing-song tone, “You can do anything you want with it, melt it down for all I care.”
“Buddy,” Lita began, pulling herself together,“whatever you did to get that, clearly you wouldn’t want me to smelt it. Secondly, what the hell did ya do to get that? Rob a bank?”
“Well not a bank, more like a--heeeey, waitaminute!”
“That’s all I wanted to know.” Lita cutoff, barely containing her laughter. “Homie goes raiding a warehouse for Old World cash and trades it for a solid-silver airsoft pistol.”
She was almost doubled over when she saw her white-suited host raise his hands above his head. “Oh no, tough guy.” she giggled, getting up from the couch and pulled his hands back down. “I’m the lil’ ol’ lady in the red Bug who bailed your asses out.”
It struck him all like a ton of bricks. Next came the obvious. “Why’d you come up here then? You want in on the take?”
“Oh hell naw,” Lita grinned. “I just wanted to know what you could buy with Old World cash in a New World city. Keep the cash, keep the automatic. Hell...I think I might just be able to get you a real hot rod after all.”
Kieran’s brown eyes lit right up. “Really?”
Lita nodded. “Let’s just keep this as our nice little secret. And if I need anything from the markets you’s playing in, I’ll give ya a ring.”
At first the gray hound was willing to shake on it, but instead, he was met with the mother of all snogs to the snout, and in five days time, a well-worn but well-built ‘68 Camaro with a note on the seat.
“Must be fed and walked daily, don’t go showboating in front of the fuzz, but most of all: have fun. XOXO - Lita.”