Bend Back

Bend Back

“We took the switch car out around New Cairo. Coming around the turn so fast the bumper threw sparks a foot left. We were hot, heavy loaded with a cargo of fresh synthetic organs.

Ben leaned out of the window and let his clawhammer throw ceramic at the lead Blackfoot. He hit, score on the grill, and sent the whirling lights left of center. I grinned like I do each time I see him pop cop tops. I grin a lot.

Another notch on the on the ‘hammers stock later and we pull hard into San Leone with a law tracer tearing up the grit to our rear. The receiver and his Goboys are up the road waiting to catch.

My eyegear microzoomed and I see the public toilet look that tells me they didn’t expect the Blackfoot escort. The braindry Goboys are flash fast with their bioguns and start spitting burning plasma at the badge parade.

The front of the switch dipped, hard right, and dug into the cheap crete road. There was whirling, a blur of shapes, and a sensation of flight before everything was all curtains.

I woke up thinking bendy like, showtime. Slowly the cheers of the crowd became the cry of a bird. I opened my eyes and stared into the face of death. Death and time. Death as a black winged bird. I gave up and let my self slide back into the dark pool.

I felt a sharp pain between my eyes and I sat up swinging. The startled caw of a scavbird, and furious flapping panicked me. After a flurry of hidden spiderweb antics I realized I wasn’t being topped. I remembered what had happened, as I took in the scene of twisted wreckage and human parts.

Moving towards the crime pile, I found Ben’s Clawhammer and retrieved it for him. I approached our car and stopped to look at Ben’s head, I retrieved that for him as well. After a few more steps I stopped and looked at poor Ben.

“Balls.” I threw the head as far as I could and shouldered his gun. The streets of San Leone were butchers market sale day and grilled. I found the extra cerammo and the rest of Big Ben in the burning, battered switch. There were a lot of people who weren’t getting a valentine this month.

As that part of the tranjob was a fail, I went to the receiver and took his paycase. I stood stork in the empty street and changed up my ‘sitch. There I was with half a mill in paper, a fully loaded Clawhammer mark seven, in the middle of fukback Nowhereton. I had little to shite in choice, so I just began booting down the gritway. That’s when you trolled me, why I look like a shitstick, and why I need a ride”

He watches me with tin doll eyes as he licks the spittle from his lips. Eyes keep stitching down to the paycase. Drag off the cig.

“Now…I have a big gun, an angry bird, and fifty miles to HQ. The buzzing in my head tells me to kill you, or give you half the leaf in this case. Which do you think I should do?

The drybrain tea farmer opens the door, I climb in, and we head off. A minute later and I am driving down the road watching a meat sack being eaten by crows in the rearview.