Growing up in his childhood home of Fredericksburg, Tommy Sunday had liked tacos. Then the Posleen came and Fredericksburg went, and it was off to the Ten Thousand and then to Armored Combat Suits — also known as ACS. The Ten Thousand’s rations had been what they could get, and had been chosen primarily for their nutritional adequacy with taste a poor second consideration. Afterward, in ACS, the suit rations were decent, but just didn’t quite achieve real tacohood.
Before he and Wendy “died,” they had managed to transfer and hide enough of their FedCreds in discreet investments. That had made real tacos, and a lot of other things, affordable despite the Bane Sidhe not being real generous with the salaries.
He tried to restrain the twinge of disappointment as he looked down at his plate. These did not exactly live up to his standards of real tacos. The corn tortilla was genuine enough, as were the refried beans, cheese, and veggies. But the beef-flavored textured tofu left quite a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, it was that or chicken, and in Tommy’s expert opinion, the only thing worse than tofu tacos was chicken tacos. And he’d rather eat his meat ration as roast chicken for dinner than have it chopped up in his taco only to face the inevitable tofu tonight. Anyway, he understood. He and Wendy could afford what they could afford because of the exorbitant salaries, by most normal standards, paid to ACS in the Posleen war and carefully invested by his wife, who had turned out to have quite a knack for buying and selling antiques.
After the Fredericksburg landing, his then-girlfriend’s old hobby of researching local history had become… untenable. A move to Franklin Sub-Urb and an abortive attempt to contribute to the war effort as a firefighter had followed. Then the Sub-Urb got eaten. After escaping that as well, Wendy’s faith in the stability of any particular town or city had been severely shaken. By the time the war ended and they had married and settled down, she had diverted her love and her skills to the history of objects of a much more portable nature.
After Fleet returned, organized Posleen resistance had been overwhelmed by strikes from orbit. What had been left was a colossal cleanup job.
Tommy had been in Bravo Company, 1st of the 555th, under Iron Mike O’Neal — Papa O’Neal’s only son. In the worst of the war, in the most desperate of the battles, Bravo Company had always been where the fire was hottest.
In the cleanup phase, the suits’ superior mobility and robustness had made the Company a juggernaut that had rolled right over any surviving God King that even attempted to begin rebuilding a technology base.
So he’d been discharged after five years of global cleanup sweeps to find, surprisingly, that the money he’d been sending home to Wendy since the return of Fleet — as much to keep her out of another Sub-Urb as anything — had not only not been expended, but had been doubled.
He’d done code for Personality Solutions after the war, when the experience of veterans with the AIDs inspired a fad of ever newer and fancier PDA’s. The salary hadn’t been anything like his ACS pay, but he and Wendy hadn’t exactly been surviving on hotdogs and peanut butter. Until the Cyberpunks recruited him, and then the Bane Sidhe had arranged his and Wendy’s “deaths” and they had come inside.
Since then they’d augmented his salary with carefully managed investment income. But most inside operatives weren’t so lucky. The medical and dental were unbeatable, but the chow left a lot to be desired. Which brought him back to the lousy tacos.
Tommy squared his shoulders and looked around the cafeteria for familiar faces, grinning when he saw Martin and Schmidt sitting at an only slightly wobbly round table next to the braided ficus in the corner. He had shared a couple of training classes with Martin in his early years inside, and the two had found they shared a love of chili slaw dogs and an obscure prewar burlesque film. He would have loved to sneak up on the extremely ordinary-looking black man and say something smart, but he wasn’t the least surprised when he only made it halfway.
“What the hay-el kind of man wears pantyhose to a movie?” The man’s head didn’t turn, but his rich tenor rang out across the room.
“Hey, Lips, man, you know you love it.” Tommy grinned and took his tray over, setting it down and grabbing a chair from the next table over.
“You guys aren’t going to do weird things with your elbows, are you?” Schmidt was short. At about five foot seven, with straight blond hair that looked like somebody had piled a double handful of straw on his head, Schmidt’s rejuv let him pass for about fourteen. In some environments, a kid in a jean jacket and ratty backpack was less conspicuous than any adult.
“Just because you don’t appreciate classic cinema, George…” Levon had turned in his seat and offered his hand as Tommy scooted up to the table. “Hey, Sunday, how the hell are you?”
“Doin’ all right. Not so unhappy to get out of the house for a week or two,” Tommy admitted.
“Oh? I thought you and Wendy were the original perpetual newlyweds,” Martin said.
“Wendy is the love of my life; she’s just always a bit cranky at this stage. She’ll be glad to have me out of her hair for a while, and by the time I get back she’ll be herself again,” he said.
“Geez, it’s like you two have it down to a science.” Schmidt looked down at the slab of tofu formed in the shape of a T-bone steak. He frowned and grabbed the black pepper, shaking on enough to cover the fake grill marks before slicing off a piece and taking a bite, chewing glumly, “Damn, I can’t wait to get back out into the field.”
“Well, damn, they’ll let anybody in here now.” Jay set his tray down and hooked an empty chair over with an ankle.
“Blade man! Long time no see,” George grinned, offering a hand to the other man.
“Blade man?” Tommy asked. “Do I want to know?”
“Oh, back in high school, Jay here was unbeatable at Boma Warrior. Never figured out how he did it, but our junior year, it was probably the coolest game in the library.” George topped a bit of the tofu steak with some of the hot corn relish on the side.
“I knew a guy who worked on that. You know on the sixth level where you go around a corner and get swarmed by a pack of carnivorous mini-lops? I put him up to that.” Tommy shook some Tabasco on his taco, took a bite, and added a few more shakes.
“That was you? That was wicked cool, but every once in a while one of those mothers would have a switchblade and be just impossible to kill…” Schmidt pushed at a stray bit of tofu with his fork. “Man, I can’t wait to get back out in the field.”
“What, I never figured you for being as eager as all that?” Jay chuckled disbelievingly.
“Not that, Jay. You have to admit the food’s better. As to the other, somebody has to do the dirty work. The cops don’t take out the damn Elves’ trash. So, cosmic janitor, that’s me.” He grinned easily. “You don’t have a problem with Sherry marrying blue-collar, do you, old man?” He quirked an eyebrow at Martin, looking out through the hair that had fallen across his eyes again.
“Be a bit late if I did. And a little less on the ‘old,’ if you don’t mind.” Levon took a big bite out of his cheeseburger, manfully ignoring the almost complete lack of beef in the fried patty.
“By the way, ’scuse me if I’m treading on sensitive territory, here, but what’s the deal with Cally? The rumor mill has been unreal,” George asked, looking at Tommy.
“I dunno, man. You probably know more than I do. All they told us was to grab our gear and haul ass to catch the shuttle.” He shook his head slightly. “I haven’t seen her, and Papa O’Neal said not to ask. And he was wearing his ‘don’t fuck with me’ look.”