‘Will they attack?’ I asked Mrs Tillwater. I could see her shake her head as the answer came back over the net.
‘No, they’re just letting us know whose neighbourhood we’re borrowing.’
We’d reached the crowd of cyberbillys and I saw them both. I glanced to my left and saw Rannu making his way round that way; I glanced to my right and saw Mudge. I let Mrs Tillwater and Pagan go ahead of me and kept my head down. Morag was next to me. Buck was straddling a low rider, revving it. Gibby was kneeling down next to the engine, fiddling with it. The pair of them looked up as we approached. Neither had their masks on, just plastic sunglasses, though their faces were largely covered by beards anyway. Buck nodded at Mrs Tillwater, then I saw Gibby look to my left – he’d made Mudge. A word passed between Gibby and Buck. Gibby stood up, both of them reaching for their old customised,44s. I came round from behind Mrs Tillwater, the Mastodon in one hand, the Tyler in the other. I couldn’t use my shoulder laser because of the radiation duster.
‘Don’t do it!’ I shouted. Mudge had his SIG drawn and was moving in on the pair, the fully automatic pistol levelled at Gibby. Pagan and even Morag had their pistols in their hands but kept them down waiting to see what the crowd was going to do. Rannu had disappeared somehow despite being the only Nepalese present. He suddenly appeared again, one of his Glocks levelled at Buck and Gibby, the other held down at his side ready to fire into the crowd if need be.
Mudge was still moving up on Buck and Gibby. He didn’t look happy. I wasn’t either. I could still remember them flying away from us, leaving me standing with the corpses of two of my friends. Mudge walked up to Gibby and wrapped his hands round the ex-pilot’s greasy dreadlocks before digging the barrel of the gun painfully into his skin.
‘Hello, Gibby,’ Mudge said. ‘Jakob, we only need one of these cunts to talk, right?’
‘Calm down, Mudge,’ I said. The crowd was edgy. I was sure that weapons were being drawn out of sight. The cyberbilly closest to me tried to pull a cut-down pump action out of her duster. I moved the Tyler to cover her. ‘Do that and I’ll turn your head to steam,’ I said. ‘Okay, everyone, just take it easy. We just want to talk to Buck and Gibby.’
‘I don’t,’ Mudge said helpfully.
Except for Mudge, who wants to torture them to death,’ I muttered to myself. There were a lot of Commancheros here and lots close by. If it came down to gunplay it would get futile very quickly.
‘Jakob,’ I heard Morag say. I didn’t like the tone in her voice. ‘Ow, fuck!’ I turned round to see Mrs Tillwater with an automatic held to Morag’s head. It looked like she’d just bitten Morag’s ear through the hood of her poncho – I could see it bleeding through the material. I moved the Tyler to cover Mrs Tillwater.
‘You have been told once,’ she said evenly. The suburban matriarch gone, she was all military commander now. ‘They are Crawling Town; you are not. Now lower your guns,’ she ordered. More of the Commancheros had their weapons in their hands now.
‘Fuck her,’ Mudge said. ‘Shoot her in the head.’
‘I will eat her,’ Mrs Tillwater said, and I believed her. I lowered my weapons. Rannu and a relieved-looking Pagan did the same. Obviously Mudge didn’t. The cyberbilly whose head I’d threatened to turn to steam tried to take my Mastodon out of my hand. She found herself lying on the ground with my foot on her throat.
‘Let’s not get carried away here. We lower ours, you guys lower yours, and we’ll see if we can make it through the next ten minutes without any of you getting killed,’ I said. Always negotiate from a position of strength, even when you obviously don’t have one. Mudge still had his gun levelled at Gibby.
‘Mudge!’ I said. I saw one of his eyes swivel towards me. Finally he lowered his gun. I turned to Mrs Tillwater.
‘Now let her go,’ I said, holstering my two guns. Mrs Tillwater released Morag, who spun away from the serial killer as she was putting her automatic back in her handbag.
‘What did you have to bite me for?’ Morag demanded.
‘Sorry, dear,’ Mrs Tillwater said unapologetically.
Morag punched her. It shouldn’t have connected with a vet like Tillwater, but it did. I guess she hadn’t been expecting it; I know I hadn’t. It was hand-to-hand stuff from Morag’s softskills but she’d obviously been practising enough that her body had properly integrated the software. She caught the side of Tillwater’s jaw with her fist and knocked her back a bit. Tillwater’s head snapped back and she looked furious, as did Morag. I got ready to draw my pistols but Mrs Tillwater just smiled, nodded at Morag and turned away.
‘Hell, that was tense,’ Buck drawled. Mudge pistol-whipped him so hard it knocked him off the bike. Even I cringed as the bike hit the concrete, scratching the electric-blue paint job on the alcohol tank. Gibby helped Buck pick the bike up.
Buck was bleeding from the mouth. He spat out blood and a tooth. The crowd was getting restless again.
‘What the fuck!’
Gibby looked at the ruined paint job. ‘Fuck this! Everybody kill these people,’ he said. Weapons were drawn again.
‘Buck, Gibby,’ Mrs Tillwater said, as if she was talking to two naughty boys, and she kind of was, ‘both myself and Papa Neon would appreciate it if you would talk with Jakob and his friends.’
‘But look what they did to my bike!’ Buck moaned. Mudge didn’t help by grinning at him.
‘Everyone!’ Mrs Tillwater said to the Commancheros. ‘Shall we give these old friends some time together?’ Then she turned to me. ‘I’ll be just over here with all of Buck and Gibby’s friends, so I want you to play nicely,’ she said sweetly. ‘Understand?’ All trace of sweetness gone.
I nodded. ‘Everyone put your guns away,’ I said over the tactical net. Eventually even Mudge holstered his SIG.
‘Come on, everyone,’ Mrs Tillwater said, as if she was organising a picnic.
‘We ain’t going nowhere,’ one of the Commancheros said. ‘Who the hell are you to tell us what to do?’ Mrs Tillwater walked over to him. He towered over her.
‘I’ll come and find you and we can talk about it tonight?’ she said and then smiled up at him. I was pretty sure I saw him blanch behind his goggles.
Finally, once everyone had stopped being macho, the five of us were left alone with Buck and Gibby. Gibby at least had the common courtesy to look a little nervous. Buck just looked pissed off.
‘We need to talk,’ I said to the pair. As soon as I opened my mouth Buck revved the engine on the low rider, drowning me out. ‘That’s pretty childish,’ I said, and predictably he revved the bike again.
‘Fuck it. Let’s shoot him and torture Gibby,’ Mudge said as my audio dampeners kicked in to drown out the bike engine’s throaty roar.
‘We’re wasting our time,’ Pagan said and again the bike engine was revved.
‘We don’t want to talk to you. Fuck off an leave us alone,’ Gibby said. He was looking pretty scared. I didn’t think it was because of us.
‘You know Rolleston’s going to find you sooner or later,’ I told him.
‘Yeah, because of you, you fucker!’ he answered.
‘Rolleston’s always known where we are,’ Buck said angrily. ‘And that was fine as long as we didn’t talk to anyone.’