Interludes: Jackie, Pedro, Adam
"Oh Misty," Jackie sighed as the pair looked out over the rooftop parapet at the sprawling city below, around, and above them from their plastic patio chairs, "I'm so damn tired. Juan's been running my ass ragged with gigs ever since Boss Campo put him in charge of cleaning up all those dead Tyger Claws."
"I heard about that on the news. They said a rogue AI got ahold of a bunch of police drones and attacked a big biker rally." Jackie's girlfriend nodded.
"No, that was Juan." my brother corrected and reached out to take her hand, "You remember hound-tipping as kids?" Misty nodded again, "Well, Juan took it a step further with what he called the drone rodeo. He'd leap off a roof and land on patrolling police drones and reprogram them. Apparently he kept all the drones he ever caught and beefed them up. Used them Sunday night to battle it out with an army of Tyger Claws that showed up at El Coyote Cojo to kill him. Me and mom too."
"Jackie!" Misty shouted and squeezed his hand, "Is that why you haven't been returning my calls?"
"Why I had to show up incognito too." He indicated to his black hooded poncho, "Don't want to find out what the Tygers would do to you if they found out it would hurt me."
"Jesus, Jackie." Misty moped as her countenance fell.
"The city sat down the Boss with the shot callers in Japantown, offered them both big payments to keep them from open war in the streets, but I don't think its going to last. Not with the way Juan's been acting since he found out what the Claws did to his choom Ralph. Cut him and his mom up in front of their building. Juan auctioned the bodies he was told to clean up to Scavs and Maelstrom, put a vid of it on the net. Bagged and tagged them all then rolled a powerball cage to select five randos at a time to sell as a billet."
"That's disgusting." Misty's face pinched from the description of the act, "Doesn't he realize that the Tygers will never stop trying to kill him?"
"He don't care." my brother shook his head, "Says they weren't going to quit anyways, so might as well be a real bastard about it. No need to keep things civil. Plus the eddies he pulled in, says he can't wait to do it again. Apparently the psychos running Maelstrom love him."
"That's definitely a bad sign." Misty murmured.
"I know." Jackie sighed again, "On the plus side, Juan's paid off his loan and sleeps on a big pile of eddies. Guy's been swinging some crazy big deals recently, sold all the vehicles to a buyer down south and has an army of gang chooms working in sweatshops turning the smart guns into mini-turrets that he's selling to the gang's associates to protect their homes and business. The guy is a corpo shark in cholo skin. They never see him coming, I swear. It's all 'Orale ese, check this out.' and then he's walking away with a fat stack of eddies and everyone is all smiles. That guy."
"I don't want you to die, Jack." Misty tugged on his hand, "What can I do to help?"
"Just keep quiet about our relationship for now." Jackie told her, "With the number of Claws he dropped, they're going to be looking for anything they can use against Juan and the people he cares about. May be you could…"
"Jackie." Misty interrupted.
"I know." My brother made a contrite face, "You gotta take care of your dad, but maybe you could convince him that it would be best to move to Heywood."
"It won't happen. He won't leave the apartment. It's got too many memories he refuses to let go of." Misty shook her head.
"Tch." Jackie hissed in dismissal but acquiescence.
The pair continued holding hands and softly talking about less stressful matters for many hours that night.
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Pedro tented his eddies stage side while he nursed his drink and watched the next 'Scholarship Recipient' working the pole with mesmerizing grace and moves that confused his mind and made his pants tight.
This trip to the strip club was the official establishment of the Ralph G. Lopez Scholarship Foundation in which he and his chooms would help put hard working girls from the hood through college. It was certainly better than saying they were going out to forget about their dead homie by watching bouncing tits and shaved pussy dancing around all night.
Small Juan was busy chatting up some petite little thing while Big Juan was off with a pair of big asses grinding on his face, protected from pink eye by his cybernetics.
Ralph's death hit Pedro harder than the Juans. Ralph had been his best friend since they were in elementary school and his partner in crime. Sure he was annoying as fuck, but the guy was loyal and brave too. Pedro needed to make the Tyger Claws pay for what they did to his choom and to Ms. Lopez too.
But what could a teenage ganic dropout do to a gang as powerful as the Claws? Even with their masters shut out of North America physically, the strongest gang in the city still receive more support in a month than the Valentinos received in their entire existence. It would be a hopeless situation, the kind that festered in a man's heart bitterly, but Pedro knew the best chrome hound in the city.
Big Juan somehow managed to sniff out preem schematics for his cyberware, what's to stop him from finding an edge for his chooms? Chooms currently swim in eddies for their parts in his various schemes. Pedro knew that if he remained a side character in his own life's story then bad things would keep happening to him and to the people he cared for.
It was time for the boy to chrome the fuck up and become the man he needed to be.
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"Who the fuck is that?"
Adam Smasher when asked about Juan D. Welles, probably
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Big thanks to all the homies that have been hitting my ko - fi page. Yall make me feel like a professional author. Much love chooms.
Lotta people were hopping for some interludes so I chose a couple of the characters close to him to do it with as Juan hasn't really gotten to the point where bad guys shout his name in rage when things go wrong as we got to see with the Adam Smasher snippet.
Here's a picture of Juan and Pedro from the game, I didn't find them till after I wrote them, but God himself decided that my OC chooms needed to be in the game.
You can support me and my family at
ko - fi . com / jmanm