Chapter Thirteen – What Old People Say

Chapter Thirteen – What Old People Say​

“With the Great Tinder Crash of 2024, the world of online dating suffered terribly, with people suddenly forced to try finding people to date and meet out in meatspace.

Paradoxically, the number of children born in 2025 was twelve percent higher than the previous year.”

–Excerpt from Dating in the Modern World, 2027

***

The Fury lurched as Gomorrah put it in park and shut the car down. “Alright,” I said. “Raccoon, Franny, stay in the car.”

“You need me!” Raccoon said before I’d even reached for the handle.

“And I’m coming too,” Franny said.

I shifted so that I was looking back, which wasn’t easy to do while in power armour. “Alright, Rac first. Why would we need you here?”

Raccoon swallowed, but she was a brave sort, so she tightened her fists and stared me in the eye. Or my helmet’s eyes–close enough. “You don’t know much about the Sewer Dragons. Some of them are assholes, some of them are a bunch of cunts, but some of them are alright. So you need someone to tell you which ones to off.”

I considered it for a moment. “I was just going to walk over there, threaten some people, then murderize my way to victory. It’s really late… early, whatever.”

Gomorrah sighed, the long-suffering sort when a more adult-y person knows a kid’s right and doesn’t want to do something about it. She reached down to the console between the chairs, and pulled open a lid with a hiss of compressed air.

A whitish haze floated out of the compartment she opened, and Gomorrah reached in to pull out a thin can with the words ENERGY DRINK stenciled on the side. “Here, one for each person coming,” she said as she handed me a can, then tossed one to Racoon.

Franny, pointedly, didn’t get one.

“Where’s mine?” she asked.

“We haven’t determined if you’re coming yet,” I said, guessing at Gomorrah’s intentions. Hell, if Franny was Lucy, I wouldn’t bring her into some den of depraved lunatics either.

“So I’m coming?” Raccoon asked over any protests Franny could make.

I slid the energy drink between my legs, glad the armour kept the chill at bay–beyond a vague impression of coolness–and reached up to undo my helmet. “Yeah, you can come. We’ll get you a better mask, though, you’re not equipped for this kind of thing. Actually, maybe we could give her a screen, let her do overwatch?”

“Holy fuck, what happened to your face?” Raccoon asked.

I blinked.

Usually, if people had issues with the scarring on the side of my face, they made it known when I met. Then again, I wasn’t usually wearing a full-face helmet. “Fire shit,” I said.

“Cool! Like from an alien?” she asked.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” I said. “Lost my eye and everything. This one’s a cybernetic one.”

“That’s pog as fuck.”

I stared. “Where’d you pick up ‘pog’?”

“I thought that’s what people your age said,” Raccoon said.

“Well, that’s horrific,” Gomorrah said.

Franny cleared her throat and leaned forwards until she was on the edge of her seat. “Why, exactly, can’t I come?” she asked.

“Because you need to keep Raccoon company,” I said. “Rac, we’ll let you use, uh… there’s a screen somewhere in this car. You can use it to see what’s going on. Gomorrah and I, I at least, will feed you video.”

“Awesome,” Raccoon said.

“I’m not a babysitter,” Franny hissed. “And you can hardly keep me here.”

“We can literally keep you here,” I said.

“Cat,” Gomorrah warned. She turned towards Franny while I popped the tab on my drink and took a sip. It was… really plain. Water with a tiny hint of a fruity after-taste. Then I felt an electric shiver run down my spine, and I blinked my eyes feeling fully awake. “Franny, I’m… I’m not just Delilah.”

“You’ve hardly changed that much,” Franny said. “It’s been what, three months?”

“Yes, Franny, three months. A very long three months, where I became a saint, and where I’ve done a lot. I’m not the same Delilah, dammit.”

“If Sister Clarice heard you now,” Franny said.