“Do you know the most dangerous characteristic a man can have in our line of work?” Amatto asked Thorn. His bruised and battered hands turned over the newly gifted revolver. The sheen of the metal matched the pristine watch inside his vest pocket. Amatto allowed himself to gaze off into the distance. A subtle lingering purple hue clung to its last ounce of life signifying the end of another long day. The winds would soon hit them. The rest of the Dust Devils were busy making camp. Charred wood gave hint to the fire taking life. That was Thorn’s job, but he had been granted freedom tonight - a privilege allowed only on the first night of your full admittance to the ranks.
“If I had to guess, being a coward,” Thorn said. Amatto offered back his pistol, and he holstered it. Amatto gave a hearty laugh before cracking a smile. Thorn mindlessly took his weapon and holstered it before allowing himself to fidget with the watch inside his pocket. ‘Is it not?”
“That’s the answer of the young. You’ll learn with time that cowards are always the ones to live.” He paused, allowing himself to take a serious tone as he continued. “Being comfortable. That’s the most dangerous characteristic of this life. The second you let yourself get too comfortable, you’re dead,” Amatto said without emotion or malice. He stated it as if it was one of the divine facts of life because to him, it was. Thorn allowed the words to hang between them. He knew Amatto would get like this at times. He would pull Thorn aside and pass along these supposed life lessons hidden behind the riddles of a rambling old man. “You know how many of the greats died in their own bed from old age? You don’t have to answer that one. I’ll tell you, none of them. Men like us don’t get comfort, we don’t get to pass peacefully surrounded by those which we love.”Amatto stopped.
Thorn took the chance to try to lighten the mood, “You’re really selling this life, you know,” he joked. A soft smile cracked on Amatto’s face. He continued to stare at the dying light of day before fully coming back to reality.
“Eh, it’s too late for you anyway. We’d hunt you down now if you tried to run. Granted, you’d get past most of them, but ain’t a thing you know which I did not teach you. I’d find your ass,” he jested with the boy. “All I am trying to say is this: the second you stop learning and evolving, you’re dead. Someone faster, smarter, and more divisive will come and their iron will strike you before you have a chance to get them. You can have this life for a long time or you can have this life for a short time. What defines that is when you get comfortable.”
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The stench of his own breath filled Thorn’s nostrils. While the Roe twins were masters of toxins, they never had been competent at how to properly apply them. The aerosol grenades had been a tactic they had grown comfortable with over the years. Mass application of their toxins gave risk to themselves, but the twins always seemed to have a kink for getting high on their own supply. A rebreather and goggles had been a simple acquisition. Thorn was relieved that Parker and Preston had not built upon the aerosol design he had shown them all those years ago.
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A metallic clatter rolled across the floor and a neon green hued smoke started to intertwine overpowering the original charcoal cloud. “Thorn,” Parker sang from somewhere within the clouds. Her voice bounced and echoed, unable to be exactly located. “I should’ve known you’d be on our tail. You always did like staring at it.. If only you’d have had the courage. We could have been something awfully special,” she said, a sickly sweet stench clung to her words.
Thorn stayed secure behind the table. Moist humid air filled his lungs as his rebreather purified the toxins in the air, the filter was starting to fill the strain. Their toxic cloud was lasting too long. They were heavier than before, the smoke clung and trapped itself inside the walls. Even with the window being busted, it stayed trapped inside with all of them. He had to make a move. The filter would give any minute. He swung his repeater over one shoulder and rose to one knee. The swirling vortex of neon green and charcoal danced in harmony. “Why the lack of courage now? We both know you’ve practiced some grand speech. You and Amatto always had that in common ,” Parker said, he dialed into the position. He started to creep towards her location, but her voice started in the opposite direction. “Then again,” he turned to face her. His back facing the broken out window. “You two also seemed convinced you were the only ones learning new tricks.”
He had little time to react. A giant fist appeared trying to crater into his chest. His robotic arm blocked the blow, but he was sent flying through the broken front window. He tumbled across the pavement outside before catching his footing.. “God damn it, Preston!” He heard Parker screech. The frustration burned through the fuse that was her temper. “In what fucking world, does that help us?”
“I wanted to end it,” a grizzled deep voice declared. Thorn took his lever action repeater off his shoulder and ready himself for their appearance. The toxic cloud started to leak out of the bar. He waited. Nothing.
Preston, or what Thorn assumed was her, broke from the smoke. He had never found her to be his type of woman. Now, he did not know if he could even say if she was still of the same species. The towering figure maintained a few of the same features: roman nose, dyed blonde hair, and look of disdain for him in her eyes. Outside those elements, she was no longer Preston. Her skin had turned a sickly pale translucent white. Its only contrast being her main arteries glowing a metallic red bulging as if they were about to break through her paper thin skin. He gave his final four shots. Preston stopped in her tracks and looked down at her chest. The bullets began to be expelled from the wounds which they had created. Thorn jerked all three of his pistols free and gave a rapid volley. They rung off her without even making a dent.
Without a second thought, broke off to the left towards an alley. A blur came into view and his instincts took over for him. He rolled dodging a knife aimed for his throat. As he recovered, he took sight on what could only be Parker Roe.
She had always been the smaller of the twins - a standard upper class definition of pretty: rail thin, with sharp facial bones, petite almost pig nose, and teeth whiter than pearls. This version of her in front of him was a wire. She sprung on him again with two knives in hand. He dodged the first with no room to spare and had to grab the second to stop it from cutting open his innards. His left fist clocked her on the jaw. She fell like a sack of rocks.
Quickly, he turned back to Preston expecting her onslaught of blows, but she stood no more than fifteen yards away from him. A man slung over her left shoulder and a modified single handed minigun in the other. Thorn’s eyes darted down to Parker then to the alley. Behind Preston, Thorn saw the siren strobes starting to shatter the darkness. He looked back down at Parker. She would have to wait for another day. His right foot drove into the ground and he made his way into the alley living to fight another day.
