Link
"Man, your bass is intense."
"Yeah, you could kill somebody with these sound waves."
"This is some boss shit."
"That's how I like it."
"Hey, nice."
I am gratified. The car -the Prowler- isn't mine, of course, it belongs to the organization's, the Syndicate. That doesn't matter though, I can use it, and if it impresses those guys back there, and that vixen next to me, it's all good. The bass is making the whole car shake, the windshield and mirrors are wavering like rippling water, and we can all feel the vibrations in our bodies, reverberating through our bones and into our guts like a revelation. People outside the car hear it too, people who stop and stare, or smile at it, or turn away and hurry back through a door or an alley, depending on affiliation. It's okay, I'm not out on official business tonight anyway, just going out to have a good time. Somebody's gonna die tonight, that's a given in this city, but it doesn't have to be me, and I don't have to be the one to pull the trigger.
"I always cut through that parking lot," the vixen next to me remarks as we shoot past a bar, rattle through an unpaved area that separates its parking lot from our destination and pull around into a parking spot. I smile at her, but say nothing. I think there was a reason she chose to sit up here next to me, and not back there with those other two. We all pile out, four of us, me, her, the guy in the trenchcoat with the stuff and his friend, the human. It's early, so the parking lot is mostly empty. A couple of guys are standing up on the second floor, leaning on the railing, watching us. A nod gets a nod back, so we're cool to head around to the side.
There's not much back here, the side of the building with a stairway, a fence, a little shed marked with warnings not to light fires near it, and the ass-end of a bunch of commercial businesses out the other way. Somebody's bike with a bottle full of red something is chained up under the stairwell. There's about a thousand cigarette butts scattered around. Overhead the clouds are making interesting patterns, swirled and streaked by passing aircraft and launching starships. Nobody's around. I sit down with the vixen near the bottom of the stairs on one of the steps, the guy with the stuff leans up against the wall, and the human sits up on the banister.
He gets out the lighter and the bag, pours some stuff out into it, lights up, and take a thick drag, passes it on. The vixen takes the next hit, inhales, passes it on. I take it between two fingers, put it up to my mouth, watch the smoke curling out of it, inhale. The stuff burns bright, and I feel the smoke punch me in the back of the throat, fall down my esophagus like a drunk tripping down stairs and crash into my lungs -which is weird, because I'm pretty sure the two aren't connected. It's some boss shit. I choke, just stop myself from coughing, pass it on, and get it out of my lungs and mouth as fast as I can. I love doing this, but I hate actually smoking it, from a pipe anyway. Gravity bongs, joints, vaporizers, me and them get along just fine, but I never met a pipe I liked.
Human takes it, and it gets around to the guy with the stuff again. The pipe's done by this point, so he shakes it out, ash floating away on the wind, and packs it again. We go around again, and I take it better this time, more controlled, not hard, and I do fine. Beside me the vixen's eyes have gone all half-lidded, and she starts leaning against me. I entwine my tail with hers and lean my head on her shoulders. Her fur smells nice.
"Better go up."
"Yeah."
We're in the hookah bar now. I always call it the hookah bar, even though it's really a coffee shop, they don't serve alcohol here. Hell, they don't even let you smoke your own stuff in here, hence the smoking outside. We all get around a table in the corner, near the floor where they put a bunch of pads and pillows, and I lie across one side and the vixen is on the other and my head is just a few inches from hers. The hose starts going around.
I've always liked smoking from a hookah; it's the only form of tobacco smoking that's widely tolerated in the Kitsune Empire, probably because it doesn't make things smell like shit afterwards. Exhaling out my snout, I hand it off to the next guy and look up. There's a new poster there, a human in a gas mask, Confederate I guess, standing there with a rifle. It reads "This man is your friend -He fights for freedom." It's half falling off, held up by one tack, a piece of gum, and prayer.
"Yeah, right," I mutter.
"What?" The vixen's got her eyes open and is looking over at me.
"The poster," I nod at it. "We kicked their asses in the war, and now they fight for us? Is that how it works?"
"Practically," the guy with the stuff smirked. "You know they're here because they didn't want to fight no more? The Navy could have taken this system fine, but that's when the Confederates came to the peace table. And we made them our bitches."
"I would have liked to see that," the human chuckled.
"I don't know why we can't all just get along," the vixen said, a bit sadly. "I had a cousin who died fighting the Archians. I don't get it. There's more than enough territory and resources for both our nations."
"I dunno," I said. "Sometimes...I just feel like this is all being directed somehow. Y'know, guided. Like there's a bunch of guys somewhere making this all happen and getting to decide who lives and who dies and all that shit."
"What...like, gods or something?"
"No...sorta. Like gods with limits, I guess. With rules. Like a game."
"A game you play with nations and billions of people at stake? What kind of sick fuck would do something like that?"
"I know people who would do that."
"Yeah, but, imagine if it were true."
"So...like, what? One guy per nation?"
"Something like that."
"I think there's some pretty shitty guys up there then, given the nations I've seen."
"I wonder what our guy is like, then?"
"Weird."
"Weird?"
"Weird."
"Yeah."
"I dunno. I mean, my life is pretty good. What if I owed him that?"
"I guess we'd all owe him that, right? Like, all this expansion and prosperity and ass-kicking and shit."
"That would be some pretty boss shit."
I had to agree.