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  Chapter Nineteen

  Feeling bitter about the news of their newfound fortune was unsettling. But Joel couldn’t help but feel that Cody’s announcement that they were now filthy rich had stolen his thunder. Joel was really excited to unveil his Rapoo teeth-enhanced gear. But, no, Cody had to go ahead and announce that they were millionaires now.

  Thanks a lot, Cody.

  But Joel got over that feeling real quick. “Are you fucking kidding me? Because I will straight up murder you. I will feed you to my alien dog if you are fucking with me right now.”

  Peppy tilted his head.

  “This is not a joke.” Cody raised his hand like he was taking an oath. “The auction just closed. I’m finalizing the details with the winner right now.”

  The ground was suddenly unsteady beneath Joel’s feet. He wasn’t sure if the engine had sprung a leak and begun filling the ship with fumes, or if he was maybe having a heart attack. Maybe he was already dead, because this couldn’t be real.

  “I’m going to finish up.” Cody ran out of the room.

  “We need to gear up,” Sam said, gesturing to the stack of stuff on Joel’s table. “The buyer wants to close the deal as soon as possible. Cody’s setting up a meeting right now. But I know this guy. Know of him, anyway. He’s an enforcer, most likely working on some big fish’s behalf. He’s not a guy you want to mess with or take lightly.”

  Joel’s zeal over his new creations reignited. “Awesome. Then now is the perfect opportunity to use our new toys. This may be the last chance we get to use them.”

  Reggie tilted his head. “Why? You just made them.”

  “Because after we get this money, I fully intend to by my own mech suit. I think we should all get one.” His face lit up. “They could transform and merge into one giant robot. Then we could defend the galaxy or whatever. We could even hunt down a few more ShimVen queens. Blowing that last one up from the inside wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped it’d be.”

  Sam squeezed her temples as she sighed. “You guys today. Try to stay on topic.”

  “Right. Sorry.” Joel pointed to the dented pipe in the corner of the room. “As you can see, since we’ve yet to acquire the funding for laser swords, which I’m fully endorsing, by the way, we must still rely on punching and kicking and head stomping. So I’ve gone ahead and made all those things easier.”

  He showed off Reggie’s diamond knuckles. Then Joel strapped on a vest, one of the flimsy pieces of body armor they’d acquired, and told Reggie to punch him. Reggie seemed hesitant to do so, though only slightly.

  He put on the diamond knuckles and punched Joel square in the heart. Joel stumbled back, but to Sam’s surprise, his chest didn’t cave in.

  “I reinforced our body armor with diamond tooth shielding. These things will stop most anything. Well, they’ve stopped everything I have onboard to test with.” Joel lifted a pair of knives from his table, tilting the blade to catch the light. They sparkled like stars. “I’ve coated the blades of these guys for me and Cody.” Then he had Reggie draw his ShimVen pincers and show them off. “Did the same for those.” Finally, Joel pointed to Sam’s sword. “If you’ll let me, I can do the same for you.”

  Sam touched the hilt of her sword. She’d grown attached to it and didn’t like the idea of anyone touching it. But she wasn’t handing it over so it could be used or played with… It would be improved, made more effective.

  She undid her belt and handed the sheathed blade to Joel. “Take good care of her.”

  He smiled. “I know how to treat a lady. Coat them with diamonds then watch them tear people’s heads off.”

  Cody’s voice came over the general comm channel. “Meeting’s set. We’re rendezvousing with Chuck Wagon on a terraformed asteroid about an hour from here. I’ll let you know when we’re close.”

  Reggie cocked an eyebrow. “Chuck Wagon? Is the buyer a short order cook?”

  “It’s a nickname,” Sam said. “Because he has a habit of turning people into meat.” She pointed to her sword. “Have that ready by the time we reach that asteroid.”

  Joel saluted. “No problem. I’ve got something else I’m cooking up for you, too. I think you’re really going to like it.”

  The asteroid was called Ludlow. A boring name for a boring place. About thirty years before, thousands of asteroids had been terraformed as part of a concerted effort to expand livable space in the galaxy. It had been a big deal, apparently. A lot of hype and money had gone into it. Then everyone realized that living on an asteroid would be a terrible idea. Asteroids were small, self-contained, and fast moving. It was like living on an island, except the sea was infinite, and gravity fluctuated on a daily basis for unknown reasons.

  Scans showed that Chuck Wagon had already landed. Cody could only pick up the ship, though, not Chuck or his crew. Sam warned that he would roll in with an entourage and likely have people either waiting on his ship, or hiding out somewhere ready to ambush them.

  The excitement of being millionaires dulled when the team realized they still needed to seal the deal, and the buyer was a total asshole. But at least it gave Joel the opportunity to show off his new toys.

  Cody landed the ship in the only clearing on Ludlow, fifty-square-meters of dead farmland on the outer edge of the abandoned colony. The team huddled in the cargo bay before disembarking. They’d armed themselves, but weren’t planning to walk out there with their guns aimed and ready. They strapped them on and let them hang, close enough to use, but not initiating the threat. Then they tucked their blades into their belts. Reggie donned his new gloves and took only the semiautomatic.

  Sam tested her blade; it sang as she sliced the air. She said nothing, just nodded and smiled to Joel as she sheathed it.

  He took that as the highest compliment. “Wait,” he said to her as the others exited the ship. “I worked up one other toy for you. It might be my favorite.”

  The surface of Ludlow was Earth-like, but felt like a knockoff. Like opening Transforming Hero Robots on Christmas morning when you were expecting Transformers. It sort of looked like Earth, but it smelled different and felt different, and was just unsettling.

  Chuck Wagon’s ship, a midsized warship twice the size of Sonic with at least ten times the firepower, was parked at the opposite edge of the clearing. Between it and Sonic stood Chuck and three of his men. Chuck was a mountain. Most of his face was hidden under a thick, black beard, which was probably for the better. If his eyes were any indication as to the nature of the rest of his face, then it wouldn’t have been pleasant to look on. His arms were thick and all muscle. He had a gut, but under the layer of fat was enough muscle that he could have been a very successful NFL linebacker.

  Reggie hauled the wagon of teeth, moving slowly to ensure that none toppled off when he hit a bump in the road. Cody and Sam followed.

  Chuck Wagon opened his arms. “Welcome to Ludlow, butthole of this corner of the galaxy.” He pointed to the wagon. “Those are the shiny things I paid for?”

  “You haven’t paid for them yet,” Reggie said.

  Chuck Wagon smiled. “Very true.” He waved over one of his thugs, who brought him a tablet. Chuck Wagon tapped on the screen a few times. “There, the funds should appear in your account any second.”

  Cody refreshed the page a few times. When the amount changed, he frowned and showed it to Sam and Reggie.

  “That’s only half,” Reggie said.

  Chuck Wagon nodded and smiled. “Yes.”

  Reggie seemed lost, like maybe he was having a different conversation than the mountainous man. “So where’s the other half?”

  “You’ll get it once I get my shiny things. The first half was a show of good faith.”

  Sam stepped forward, her hand on the handle of her sword. “It’s not good faith. It’s a simple exchange of payment for goods. You ordered a product. You pay for the product first. That’s how it works.”

  “Maybe at Wal-Mart,” Chuck Wagon said. “But this is an asteroid i
n the anus of the universe. There’s no store security to taser me if I try to stick an iPhone down my pants. Just two parties trying to work out a deal. I pay, you give me my stuff, I pay the rest. That’s how this works.”

  Sam took another step, the metal of her blade beginning to show.

  Chuck Wagon waved to his men. “If you take another step, I’ll show you how else this can work.”

  His men reached for their weapons, the blasters hanging on their hips. Sam smiled. She didn’t have to do this… They had a plan, and she knew it would work. But she just had to try out her new toy.

  She rushed forward, catching Chuck Wagon and his men by surprise. A haggard looking man to Chuck’s right managed to draw his blaster before Sam reached Chuck—as she’d hoped he would. She flicked her left wrist, triggering the mechanism that looked like a bracer strapped on her forearm. Spiraling outward from the center of the bracer, several metal plates fanned out and locked in place to form a shield. It glistened, coated as it was with the Rapoo enamel.

  The haggard man fired, but Sam barely felt the impact of the blast. It was a small tickle on her forearm. The haggard man felt more than a tickle when Sam drove the butt of her sword handle into his face.

  Chuck Wagon hadn’t been able to pull his blaster from its holster before Sam put her blade to his neck. She pressed, causing blood to bead along the edge of her sword. Chuck dropped to one knee, but he didn’t drop his smile. The three men around him had drawn their blasters and trained them on Sam. Another four men marched into the clearing, carrying heavier guns—scatterblasters and automatic weapons.

  “Let’s try this again,” Chuck Wagon said.

  A red dot appeared on Chuck’s forehead.

  Sam smiled. “Yes, let’s.”

  One of Chuck’s thugs pointed to his forehead. Chuck looked up, but was unable to see anything.

  “Our sniper’s got you painted,” Sam said. “Now, you can transfer the other half of our credits, or he can paint this turd of a rock with your grey matter.” She withdrew her sword from his neck and stepped back.

  Chuck Wagon contemplated his choices. He wondered whether it was a bluff, just some trick with a laser pointer. He wondered if the sniper, if he was real, could make that shot from wherever he was posted. In the end, he decided that it wasn’t worth risking his brains. He gestured for his men to holster their blasters.

  “Well-played,” Chuck said, standing. He tapped on his tablet again. “Funds are going through.”

  Cody refreshed the screen a few times. The amount doubled. He made a conscious effort not to gasp at the balance now sitting in their account for fear of looking like a total noob. Though, he could afford to look like a noob now. He could afford just about anything.

  He mustered his best tough guy voice. “We’re good.”

  “Then get back to the ship,” Joel said in their ears. “If they decide to rush you, I won’t be able to pick them all off before they get to you.”

  Reggie pushed the wagon of teeth into the waiting hands of Chuck’s goons. Then he extended his hand to Chuck. “Nice doing business with you.”

  Chuck’s beard twitched as his jaw tensed. That tension spread from Chuck’s face to the entire clearing. A brief moment where anything could happen. The deal could fall apart. They could all go down in a blaze of stupidity.

  Then the big man took Reggie’s hand. “You too.”

  Reggie turned his back to Chuck and his men. His gait said to the men behind him that he was calm and collected, but his face told the Notches that it was time to haul ass back to the ship.

  Sam took a few steps backward, not comfortable turning her back to Chuck, or maybe just letting Chuck know that she was ready, should he decide to alter their deal again. She turned after a few paces and followed Reggie and Cody.

  Once they were up the ramp and inside the cargo hold, Joel packed up his rifle and dropped through the access hatch. He landed with a thud next to the rest of the team.

  They stared at each other. Speechless. Breathless. Still.

  Then Cody tore ass out of the cargo hold and made for the bridge.

  “Strap in,” he said over the general comm. “We’re getting off this rock before Beardy tries to take his money back.”

  They rocketed off Ludlow, filthy rich.

  Chapter Twenty

  One does not celebrate becoming a millionaire every day. So, when one does, he must do so in an exceedingly indulgent manner. Step one: food. Step two: booze. Step three: laser swords and jet packs.

  The Notches didn’t make it past step one, but that didn’t squelch their desire to celebrate. They didn’t dare venture too far to find a suitable place like a video game bar, with Sonic on the verge of exploding. So they ventured to the nearest place they could find: a rest stop space station on one of the more popular trading lanes in the sector.

  The station was nothing special. It’d be difficult to tell it apart from any of the other rest stops on the lane. Places to fill your face and empty your bladder. The options were mostly fast food joints or prepackaged meals from the convenience store, but the team chose the one diner on the station. Despite its location, it received solid reviews. A diner had to try to be really terrible. Standard greasy fare was all they were after.

  They were surprised to find that the diner had changed owners and had changed significantly from its online profile. It was more than a standard greasy spoon; it was a full-blown themed restaurant now. The façade was decked out in chrome and neon lighting. The waitstaff wore bowties and poodle skirts. Classic fifties cars were on display inside. The booths were covered in red vinyl.

  Sam cringed when the hostess greeted them. The girl’s level of chipperness far exceeded Sam’s max capacity. But she bore it because she saw the menu. The diner boasted the biggest burgers in the galaxy, and it was more than a hollow brag… They were quadruple pounders, as big as Reggie’s head.

  The Notches sat in a booth and ordered their food. The liquor wasn’t flowing, but this was all the celebration they needed. Their newfound wealth was like pure adrenaline shot straight to their hearts, but they were also tired. They’d been working nonstop for weeks. This was their first real break, a life-changing one, and all they wanted to do was eat some huge burgers.

  Joel felt oddly old, sitting in the vinyl booth, picking over the menu. There was a time he would have insisted they find a bar, or at least a liquor store, and drink themselves into oblivion to celebrate a score like this. That time had been just last month. He still would have preferred to do some gaming, but, absent that, this was fine.

  “I’m going to eat myself into a coma,” Joel said.

  Cody laughed. “Go for it. We can afford to revive you. Or keep your brain alive inside a robot body.”

  Joel shook his head. “No robots. You can genetically manufacture me a body. Clone this one, and just keep popping my brain from body to body.”

  “Seriously?” Sam said with a smile. “You wouldn’t want to make some improvements?”

  “What’s to improve?”

  “You don’t want me to answer that.” Sam laughed into her water glass.

  The waitress dropped a round of sodas on the table.

  Reggie picked his up and held it out to the others. “Notches, I think this moment requires a toast.” Cody, Joel and Sam raised their glasses. “We took a risk buying Sonic and venturing out on our own. We’ve almost died more times than I can count. We got swallowed by a planet-sized bug. Thugs have tried to stab us in the back. This isn’t at all what we thought we were going to do with our lives. But I’m glad we’re doing it. And I wouldn’t want to be doing it with anyone else.”

  They clinked their glasses together and all said, “Cheers!”

  The silence that followed was filled with something Sam couldn’t name. Not awkward, but not easy the way it was most times with the guys. For the first time since meeting them, she felt compelled to fill it.

  “Why do you guys call yourselves ‘Notches’?”


  The question seemed to catch Reggie off guard. Maybe it was the asker more than the question. It took him a moment to recall the answer. “I think we were in eighth grade? Chatting with each other while gaming. It must have been Joel who was saying it… I wouldn’t have been.”

  “Saying what?” Sam asked.

  “Bitches,” Joel said. “I was calling Reggie and Cody bitches because they were playing like shit and getting us killed. Anyway, the chat kept autocorrecting ‘bitches’ to ‘notches’. After a while, we just started using ‘notches’.”

  Sam’s eyes widened with realization. “Oh, I like that better than the story I’d made up.”

  “Why?” Cody asked. “What did you think the reason was?”

  “I assumed it had something to do with conquests. Like notches on your belt.”

  The guys met her with blank stares.

  Reggie said, in his most uncomfortable voice, “You mean, like, sex?”

  Joel groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You don’t have to sound like it’s so far out of the realm of possibility.”

  Reggie shrugged like he didn’t get it. “It was out of the realm of possibility. We were in eighth grade.”

  “It stayed out of the realm of possibility throughout high school, too,” Cody added. “It only neared the realm of maybe when we got into our twenties.”

  Joel slapped his forehead. “Dude!”

  Sam laughed easily. Not at them, like Joel feared. She appreciated the openness and honesty; so much of her life had been a front. To survive on the streets, to survive as a warrior and a mercenary, was to put up a front at all times and act like you were the toughest around. A crack in that front opened you up to challenges, and challenges meant losing jobs or getting a knife in the back.

  “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said. “It’s a relief. I’m glad my story was wrong. Sex shouldn’t be a conquest.” She wanted to change the subject and saw that the guys also wanted her to. “How long have you guys known each other?”