Stat Crusher - Neon Lights, Cheap Spirits, and Street Brawls
Rain had stopped by eight o’clock, leaving the asphalt along District 4 looking like wet slate under the buzzing neon tubes. Marcus Cross drove an armored, long-wheelbase Marauder SUV, its three-inch bulletproof glass muffling the bass-heavy pulse radiating from the district’s retro lounges and underground betting parlors.
Mason leaned his forehead against the passenger window, his mouth slightly open as they passed a three-story glass front where holographic banners flickered over armed bouncers.
“Man, look at that place. A bowl of real beef broth over there probably costs two hundred credits. Two hundred! My old man grinds beans for three days to clear that much.”
“Get used to the lights, kid,” Marcus said, steering with one hand over the leather-wrapped wheel while tapping a cigarette against the dash.
“You’re Tempest Lodge now. Twenty grand a month base pay for Tier-3, half a million for Garrett’s tier. You keep looking at menu prices like a slum scavenger, people are gonna walk all over you. Operators don’t count pennies.” Mason flushed, adjusting the collar of his stiff new guild track-jacket.
Garrett sat in the back seat, his gaze fixed on the passing concrete bastions separating District 4 from the high-rent sector. In his past life, he’d come to this same strip after signing that trash Tier-3 contract with Azure Sky, feeling small, out of place, and terrified of making a wrong move. Tonight, the neon glare just felt loud.
The Marauder pulled up curb-side outside a two-story brick structure decorated with warm, incandescent Edison bulbs spelling out Millennium Lounge above a heavy oak door. A six-foot-six bouncer in a Kevlar vest nodded to Marcus, pulling the door wide without asking for IDs. Inside, the air smelled of roasted malt, tobacco smoke, and seared meat.
The lodge wasn’t styled like the modern high-tech Citadel bars with their chrome walls and digital projectors; it was built like a mid-2000s retro saloon from before the Great Calamity. Dark mahogany paneling, leather booths, brass railings, and a small wooden stage near the center where a girl with short hair was strumming an analog acoustic guitar, singing a pre-impact folk song about red dust and open highways.
Marcus led them to a booth near the edge of the stage, flagging down a waiter with a wave of two finger-joints.
“Bring a rack of roasted wolf loin, two pounds of spiced dire-beef, some salted walnuts, and a crate of cold local lager. Put it on my scout expense account.” The food hit the table in five minutes.
Mason didn’t wait for an invitation; he grabbed a mug, slammed down half a pint, and went to work on a rib with both hands.
“That’s it, eat up,” Marcus chuckled, pouring his own glass.
“First rule of the guild: eat when there’s meat on the table, drink when the tab ain’t yours, and keep your knuckles hard.” Before Marcus could finish his second draft, a heavy hand clapped down on his shoulder.
“Cross! You sly old bastard, I heard you pulled two kids out of the North District dump today.” The speaker was a thick-necked veteran scout named Hugh, his chest stretching a faded Tempest leather vest.
Behind him stood three teenagers in pristine, custom-fitted Tempest warm-ups. Leading them was a tall boy with slicked-back hair, dark eyes, and an aloof, razor-sharp jawline—Tristan Rhodes, High School No. 1’s top prospect and Tempest’s newly signed Tier-1 recruit.
“Hugh,” Marcus grinned, leaning back.
“Thought you were scouting the private academies in District 1.”
“I was. Pulled Tristan here,” Hugh gestured proudly to the tall boy.
“Tier-1 contract. Top physical marks across the board. Hear you got yourself a heavy-striker and a Tier-2?”
“Something like that,” Marcus said casually, shooting a quick glance at Garrett, who was quietly peeling a walnut shell.
Hugh slapped the back of the booth.
“Listen, there’s a poker game running in the VIP backroom. Warlord Vance and some guys from Boreas are playing high-stakes. You in?”
“Always,” Marcus slid out of the booth, turning to Garrett and Mason.
“You guys stay here, eat, drink, don’t break the glass. Keep it under three hundred grand and it stays on my tab. Anyone tries to give you grief because of your district patch… don’t embarrass the Lodge.” The two scouts vanished down a dimly lit hallway toward the VIP rooms, leaving the five recruits standing around the booth.
Tristan Rhodes didn’t ask for permission. He pulled out the head chair at the end of the table and sat down, crossing his long legs. His two followers—a Tier-2 named Blake and a Tier-3 named Mark, both from High School No. 1—flanked him like bodyguards.
“So,” Mark opened, his eyes scanning Mason’s grease-stained fingers and Garrett’s plain black t-shirt.
“School No. 6. I heard your licensing board gives out Tier-2 contracts if a kid manages not to trip over the strike pad during physicals.” Mason set his beer glass down with a dull, heavy thud.
“What’s that supposed to mean, prep?”
“It means,” Tristan spoke up, his voice smooth, cold, and entirely unhurried,
“that district quotas force the Lodge to take a few mercy signings every year to keep municipal funding open. It’s fine. Just don’t get underfoot when real training starts next month.” Blake smirked, leaning against the booth wall.
“Yeah. We heard No. 6 had some kid who almost cried because he got a hundred on a biology paper. Textbook junkies don’t last three days once they cross the Wall.” Garrett took a slow sip of his lager.
The beer was bitter, cold, and stung the back of his throat. He set the mug down, looking straight into Tristan’s dark eyes.
“Some kids pass written papers because they studied,” Garrett said, his tone conversational.
“And some kids fail the Outland practical because the first time a Rank-E boar snarls at them, they mess their trousers and forget which end of a combat knife goes into the hide.” Blake’s smile vanished instantly.
“Who the hell are you talking to, slum trash?”
“I’m talking to the room,” Garrett said, leaning his chin on his palm.
“You got a problem with the seating arrangement, or did your scout forget to buy you a kid’s meal?” Mason burst out laughing, a loud, booming bark that made two veteran Operators at a neighboring table turn around to look.
Tristan’s jaw tightened. He didn’t shout or reach for a glass, but his fingers twitched against his lap.
“You’ve got a mouth on you for a Tier-2 from the north blocks.”
“I’ve got a signature on a Tempest contract,” Garrett replied, his Bronze-Peak mind-core giving him a hyper-clear view of the subtle twitch in Tristan’s right shoulder muscles.
“Same as you. Only difference is, nobody had to pay my old man’s municipal precinct to get me through the front door.” Mark took a step forward, his knuckles popping, but Tristan raised a single hand to stop him.
“Save it,” Tristan said, his eyes darkening as he caught sight of a large group stepping through the lounge’s main entrance.
“We’ve got company anyway. Wyrmslayer’s here.” Garrett turned his head slightly.
A dozen recruits in dark red Wyrmslayer jackets were pushing their way past the bouncer, lead by a broad-shouldered senior recruit with a scarred eyebrow. Walking right behind him, wearing a dark red windbreaker and a nasty, hateful grin, was Julian Drake.
Glasses clattered as a heavy, square-bottomed bottle of hundred-and-twenty-proof grain alcohol hit the mahogany table, sloshing amber liquid over the polished grain. Raynor
“Thunder” Drake stood right behind it.
He was a broad-shouldered Rank-3 heavy-striker pushing six-foot-two, his red Wyrmslayer Syndicate windbreaker stretched tight over thick biceps, a faint silver lightning bolt tattooed right down the side of his neck. Behind Raynor stood Julian, still holding his bruised jaw, his eyes small and mean in the dim yellow amber light of the lounge.
“Tempest recruits having a quiet night?” Raynor grunted, his voice sounding like two dry bricks grinding together.
“Heard you boys pulled some big numbers over at School No. 6. Thought we’d come over, pour a friendly toast, make sure there’s no hard feelings about district quotas.” Tristan Rhodes didn’t even look up from his plate.
He sliced off a thin piece of seared wolf loin, chewed slowly, and swallowed before speaking.
“Table’s full, Drake. Go drink at the bar.”
“Don’t be like that, Rhodes,” Julian chimed in, stepping around Raynor’s elbow with a sneer that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out two heavy, glass pint mugs, slamming them down next to the bottle.
“We’re all registered operators now. Same district, same night-shift patrols once we hit the Outlands. My cousin Raynor here just wanted to show the slum boys how real men settle a score.” Mason paused with a beef rib halfway to his mouth, his brow furrowing.
“That’s raw grain alcohol. That stuff’s sixty percent pure ethanol, you idiot.”
“What’s the matter, Gable?” Julian mocked, grabbing the bottle and pouring straight to the brim of both glass mugs.
The harsh, paint-stripper smell of unrefined Northern Fire immediately cut through the greasy scent of roasted meat at the table.
“Can’t handle a real drink without your mom holding the glass? Or maybe your buddy Cole wants to take the challenge for you?” Garrett watched Julian’s hands.
His Bronze-Peak mind-core was humming, sending out microscopic, invisible tendrils of kinetic awareness that picked up every twitch in the air. As Julian leaned over to slide the left mug toward Garrett, his fingers twitched. A tiny, chalky white pill slipped out from under Julian’s thumbnail, falling silently into his own glass.
An anti-intoxication tablet. A high-grade bio-neutralizer that broke down alcohol enzymes in under three seconds, turning a pint of lethal moonshine into slightly bitter spring water. Julian was planning to pretend to gulp down a full pint of fire-water, watch Garrett choke or refuse, and then laugh him off the floor while looking like an iron-livered legend in front of the veteran scouts in the VIP balcony.
It was a cheap prep-school trick. Garrett didn’t say a word. He didn’t even smile. Under the gloom of the table, his mind-core gave a microscopic pulse. A invisible silver tendril of telekinetic force darted across the wood like a striking viper. Before the chalky white tablet could fully dissolve in Julian’s glass, Garrett snatched the dissolving mass out of the liquid, dragged it invisibly through the air beneath the table rim, and dropped it right into his own mug.
The fizz was completely silent under the loud acoustic guitar strumming on the stage.
“Well?” Julian challenged, lifting his mug and grinning through his swollen teeth.
“A pint each. Bottoms up, Cole. Prove you aren’t just luck and a broken strike-pad.”
“Sure,” Garrett said quietly.
Julian tilted his head back, opening his throat to down what he thought was harmless, neutralized water. Garrett lifted his own glass and took three long, steady gulps. Thanks to the stolen pill, the liquid going down his throat tasted like lukewarm tap water with a faint hint of peppermint. Julian, on the other hand, got two full seconds into a massive, unhesitating gulp before sixty percent pure industrial-grade ethanol slammed into the back of his un-neutralized throat.
His eyes bulged out of his head. His windpipe seized like a locked engine.
“Gah—! KKK-HK!” Julian’s face went from pale to deep, suffocating purple in half a second.
He tried to force it down, but his stomach revolted with violent, involuntary force. He didn’t even have time to turn his head. A massive, projectile spray of half-digested steak, stomach acid, and burning grain alcohol erupted straight out of Julian’s mouth, plastering Raynor
“Thunder” Drake right across the chest and neck.
“WHAT THE—” Raynor roared, jumping backward so fast his chair flipped over with a loud CRASH.
Julian collapsed to his knees, clutching his throat, retching violently onto the floorboards while his eyes streamed with tears and snot. The burning liquor was coming out of his nose now, making him wail like a stuck pig.
“Jesus, Julian!” Mark yelled, jumping back to avoid the splash zone.
“You can’t even hold your liquor?!” The entire main hall went dead silent.
The girl on the stage stopped strumming her guitar mid-chord. Garrett set his empty glass back down on the mahogany table with a soft, clean clink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Tastes a little weak,” Garrett observed, looking down at Julian squirming on the floor.
“You sure your dad bought the good stuff?”