Book Read Free

Pie Box 1

Page 21

by George Saoulidis


  Name

  Billie Tyson

  Alias

  Bobo

  Strength

  3

  Speed

  2

  Strategy

  1

  Sexiness

  1

  Cup Size

  AA

  Augmentations

  27%

  Team

  Lasses

  Position

  Enforcer

  Wins

  104

  Losses

  64

  Income

  7500

  Sponsorships

  None

  “Hephaistos’ balls, Pickle! She’s too expensive for us,” Hector said. “Even at a modest yearly income rate, it’s what, 90k? We can’t pay that much.”

  Pickle smirked and bopped her shoulder with his. “I know stuff.”

  “I was sure of that, but what could it be that would make her cheaper to get?”

  “They’ve worn her out. She’s very patriotic and normally wouldn’t even think twice about leaving the Lasses, but I think she’s tired of being the hatchet woman for them. And check out her augmentations, she’s one serious injury away from being disqualified.”

  Hector digested the new information. “Okay, you’re right. As much as it pains me to say it, all we can afford are damaged athletes on their way out.”

  Pickle snorted, “I knew that, don’t know why it took you so long to figure it out!”

  “Pickle, screw you. Now, tell me how we can get her.”

  “Oh, we like her already, do we now?” Pickle teased in a silly voice.

  “Hey, if you say we need her, then we need her.”

  The Lasses walked into the field at that moment. The crowd cheered, the opposing fans booed and got a series or rude gestures from the girls. These were no delicate Pinups, these were actual warriors. Every single one augmented to the brink, cradling their foam weapons with grace, armoured to the brink with utilitarian protection. Bobo walked in carrying a q-tip.

  “Holy fuck, she’s terrifying,” Hector breathed out. A tough slab of meat and cyberware, lean and powerful. She had a broken nose, sad eyes, her head shaved on one side and hair ends dripping red on the other as if she had just dipped them in fresh blood. Covered in augs and tattoos, she moved like an apex predator. Not with feline grace, but something more akin to the terrifying jaws of a crocodile that could snap shut and kill in a single blow.

  Hector followed her deliberate walk towards the field line. He bit his lips, tapped on his leg. He really wanted to slap some armour on that body.

  Pickle grinned beside him and spoke through clenched teeth. “Okaaay... I can tell you approve.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Tell you what to do next?”

  “Sure.”

  “The owner is right there, Stu McCready. I think he’ll be somewhat hesitant to part with one of his girls, and they are his girls, mind you, but I think he can rent one out. We’ll slip in the buyout offer later on.”

  “Butter him up, good plan. What can we offer?” Hector said, feeling kinda excited now. He was starting to see what all the fuss was about.

  Pickle blew a raspberry. “Can’t you tell? He appreciates good armour. Give him a discount or something.”

  “So we gear up our competition? Isn’t that a bit stupid?”

  “It’s just business,” Pickle shook her head in a ‘duh’ expression. “And we’ll be lucky if we ever match up against the Lasses, they’re a great team.”

  Hector nodded a few times, mulling it over. “Talk about armour, rent out an athlete. Seems doable.”

  “You can catch up with Stu after the match. Let’s enjoy it a bit, I promise you their plays are always worth it.”

  DROP NINETY-FOUR

  Billie breathed in slowly, then exhaled. She seemed bored, but she was the exact opposite. She was fed up. She reverted to her standing orders, covering the qwik, as usual. They scored once, then lost one point. They got the feel of the match, so Stu sent her a target in her team’s AR.

  The tall Chain.

  Billie sighed. She didn’t ask for this.

  “Stu, please, cain ey nae do this, just this time? I cain just skelp her, pin her down, keep her there.” She subvocalised the words and they were carried to everyone in the Teamspeak.

  “Bobo, this is your job. Do you wanna let down the rest of the girls, hm? Do you wanna disappoint me?” Stu said.

  Billie slumped her shoulders. She unfocused her eyes, keeping everyone in her peripheral view.

  The opponents charged, going in for a swift score by trying to overwhelm the Lasses. Poor idiots. The Lasses promptly pinned everybody down and they opened up a path for Billie to just casually walk up to the remaining Chain. The tall girl spat a curse at Billie, which didn’t sting at all, she convinced herself. Then the tall lass spun her Chain in a practised motion around her body and sent it straight at Billie.

  Billie sighed. She raised her q-tip, positioning it in such a way that the ball of the chain would wrap around it without touching her, then tugged once, bringing the tall girl off-balance. The poor lass had to step forward to stay upright.

  “I’m sorry,” Billie whispered.

  Her target within reach, Billie brought her q-tip down on the lass’ foot, putting her full force on the narrow edge of the staff.

  Crunch.

  The boot did practically nothing to protect her.

  Second and third metatarsal fracture, possible fourth as well. Clean break. They’ll take six to eight weeks to heal. Until then, the foot will be bruised and reddened, causing enough pain that it will be impossible to walk, especially on a tall lass such as this one.

  She collapsed on the field, completely taken out of the game.

  “It appears we have another ‘inexplicable’ injury next to Bobo, yes I’m doing air quotes here, ladies and gentlemen and variations thereof,” the commentator said.

  Billie bowed her head, looking away. She didn’t wanna be known for this.

  “The medics are in, and I think she can step on that foot. Yeah, she can! Oh, no, scratch that, that’s a hard ‘nope.’ The medics are carrying the two-metre tall babe and a preliminary scan shows that she is... out of the match. Ouch, no Chain, that’s bad. It seems they’ll have to play with all enforcers for now. That will make the Lasses’ life a whole lot easier.”

  DROP NINETY-FIVE

  Hector went next to the door to the gynaeconitis and kept his gaze down, being discreet. He shouted to the girls inside, “Hey, can I speak with Bobo?”

  The girls murmured something and after a long moment, Bobo walked out, rubbing herself with a towel, her armour taken off. She hadn’t showered yet, she had a sheen of glistening sweat on her skin and it was all from the exertion. “Aye? Who are ye?”

  Hector smiled at her and offered his hand. “I’m Hector Troy. I have a new team, and I wanted to know if you’d like to play with us.”

  Bobo stopped wiping her neck and stared at him, frowning, and very much not shaking his hand. “And why are ye asking me? Stu is the yin who makes the call.”

  Hector shrugged. “I wanted to see if you wanted to first. Again, we’re a new team, but I have Pickle on board, you might have heard of her as Patty Roo, and she hand-picked you out.”

  Bobo kept on frowning, and wiped herself in the armpits. Hector inhaled the musk, it was familiar to him. The materials used in most armours were pretty much the same for the inside layer, and they let the same scent on the body when worn for hours, sweating all over. There were porous materials and nanovents for airflow, but no matter how high-tech you made it, it was still a human body encased in a protective shell. Being a bit smelly was a small price to pay for one’s personal safety.

  And now, the familiar scent plus the glistening muscles made for a rather unexpected reaction coming from Hector’s body. He was ashamed to think that he was acting like a teenager outside the girls’ locker room. He discreetly repositioned him
self to hide his boner and hoped it wasn’t that visible.

  Bobo sniffed loudly and kept on staring at him. Hector kept his mouth shut. He had learnt that from his father, he had made the offer to close the sale, and he needed to shut up, to fight the human instinct to fill the gap in the conversation. Actually, this time it wasn’t that hard to keep it shut, since before him was a predator-girl sizing him up and he was standing leisurely inside her reach. All the documentary images of crocodiles snapping their jaws and tearing up their prey came to his mind all of a sudden.

  After a long moment, she opened her mouth. He noticed that she tended to open it and breathe through her mouth, since her nasal airway was practically blocked. He found that tiny detail very cute. “If ah say nae, you won’t even bother to ask Stu?”

  “If you say no, then, no hard feelings,” he shrugged. “I tell you ‘good luck,’ and hope to see you around.”

  She sniffed again, eyeing him for another long minute.

  He kept quiet, but his eyes kept darting down to her body.

  She raised a strong finger at him. It was bruised and it had definitely been broken at some point and hadn’t bonded properly. “I wilnah be yer hatchet-woman.”

  Hector agreed with a deep bow. “I’m okay with that, you’ll only do whatever you’re comfortable doing.”

  She eyed him again, her jaw clenching. “Fine,” she said nasally with her accent, sounding like ‘fein.’

  Hector leaned forward, cupping his ear. “I’m sorry? Is that an ‘okay?’” There really was quite a bit of commotion coming from the rooms back there, and her accent didn’t help.

  “I said, fine,” she tsked and repeated the word clearly, keeping her mouth open in a slightly annoyed expression.

  “Great!” Hector said, clapping his hands together. “Now, where can I find Stu?”

  She rolled her eyes and pointed at the back.

  Yeah, Hector got why she scoffed at the question of Stu’s whereabouts.

  Simply put, he was having victory sex.

  The unmistakable sounds coming from his administration office were loud and clear, and Hector sat there in a chair. He stared at the corner of the room, as both he and the assistant tried to ignore the lovemaking behind the door.

  “I can come back later,” he hushed, scrunching up his face.

  “It’ll be no more than three minutes longer,” the assistant said with confidence, glancing at the corner of her veil for the time.

  “Really?”

  It was less than that.

  Stu came out of the door, pulling his pants up and looking flustered. He wasn’t a young man any more, but he was certainly kept in good shape, albeit with a beer belly. “Hello, hello!” he said loudly and shook Hector’s hand. “New team owner, eh? Come on in.”

  The Lassie that was servicing him rushed past them, half-dressed and holding her clothes in a bundle on her chest. Hector tried to stay out of her way and not to stare. He succeeded, because his veil didn’t have time to even register a target for the owner’s-app to pull up her stats. Hector only caught a glimpse of a very perky redhead, and then went in. The office was normal, a cold office-space put on loan by a corporation, and a futile attempt of a traditional man to make it a bit hospitable. It was littered with bric-à-brac from the McCreadys, and plenty of trophies and photographs, both holos and actual printed ones. But, to Hector’s surprise, they weren’t the same as Nicomedes’.

  These looked like happy family pictures, birthdays, achievements. The trophies were those of various prizes the Lassies had won over the years that had nothing to do with Cyberpink or Jugger, Hector saw a skiing trophy, third place, proudly placed in the front. Another trophy for a Mathlete tournament, that one was first place.

  Hector instantly decided he liked the man.

  “Please, sit,” Stu said and offered a whiskey.

  Hector accepted it but wasn’t going to drink more than a sip.

  “So, Troy. I’ve heard some things about you cooking up a new team, or what?”

  “Yeah!” he chuckled, feeling relaxed. “I honestly have no clue how that happened!”

  “You’re telling me?” Stu exclaimed, laughing out loud. “I just went from one day of making my fabrics and doing my shipping to owning a bunch of nagging, screaming, bleeding lasses. Nightmare, I tell ya!” And then he winked theatrically.

  “I’m sure. Yeah, pretty much same here. Tell me, how do you keep a handle on things? Out of all the teams I’ve seen so far, yours is by far the one I aspire to the most.”

  Stu puffed his chest. “Kind words. I try, I try... Look, it fell on my lap too, I didnae know how to run a team,” he said, the last part of the sentence with a self-mocking tone. “I wasn’t planning on it either. I was already a fan, sure, who doesn’t like hot babes kicking the shite out of each other? But my cousin was the one who started it, then got his head blown off, passed two girls on to me. I didn’t know much at first, but I learnt quick. Then I expanded, bought the shops on the block, gave the lasses some space to run in. This is a tip that’s worth gold from me to you, they’ll drive you nuts if you don’t give them their space. You think five of them is a lot? Try fifteen. Trust me. Expand.” He pointed his finger at Hector with meaning.

  “I won’t forget it,” Hector said and took a sip of whiskey. It burned as it trickled down his throat, making him want to cough. “Good bottle,” he said, his breath caught.

  “It is, right?”

  “I’d like to come over some time, see your team headquarters. Is that alright?”

  “Are ya kiddin’ me? You’re welcome any time! The lasses love having people over, there’ll be a magnificent spread of food waiting.” Stu nodded and expressed himself widely as he spoke.

  “Great! I’ll take you up on that offer. Now, for the matter at hand, it’s kinda urgent for me.”

  “Go on.”

  “Can I lease Bobo for my team?” Hector said, and then shut his mouth.

  Stu leaned back on his chair and eyed him for a long moment. Then he pressed a button on a device, an intercom -- he had a frickin’ archaic intercom -- and spoke to his assistant. “Ask Bobo if she’d be willing to relocate, love.”

  “She’s already packed up and ready to go, Stu,” the crackling voice said.

  “Oh. I see.” Stu let the button go. Hector could have sworn the man looked a bit hurt. He eyed Hector again, a bit more calculating this time. “Standard contract?”

  “Of course,” Hector shrugged and kept his gaze.

  “You’ll take care of her, aye?”

  “As if she was my own,” Hector assured him.

  “Okay then,” Stu said. He pressed the intercom button again. “Love, bring me a standard lease contract, will you?”

  The perky assistant brought in a piece of paper.

  A piece. Of paper.

  “What’s this?” Hector exclaimed.

  “A contract. We’ll sign the digital shite as well, but this is between us men. We sign in the real world, and it goes in that safe right there. Is that a problem, Troy?” he frowned.

  “No! I just didn’t expect it. Lemme see,” Hector said, and received the paper.

  DROP NINETY-SIX

  The drive home was awkward.

  “So... I guess we’ll put you in my room for now,” Hector said and felt Bobo tense up in the back seat. He glanced at her from the rear-view mirror. “No, don’t worry, I have a cot downstairs in my workshop. It’s for when I have some alloy that needs constant supervision and I need to get up multiple times per night and check the readings, otherwise it gets microfractures- You don’t really care for this. Anyway. I’ll stay there, the top floor is all for you girls.”

  “I... see. Alright.” Bobo seemed to relax a bit.

  “So!” Pickle said, clapping her hands. “Tell us, Bobo, how do you feel about coming to join our team?”

  Hector glanced at the rear-view mirror. Bobo was looking awkward, even more so than before, glancing from one to the other. “I... Uh... I
dinnae...” she stuttered.

  Hector chuckled. “Bobo, relax, you can just-”

  A heavy smack on the windshield and suddenly a spiderweb pattern appeared on it. Hector’s eyes went wide and he floored it, driving down on Alexandras’ Avenue and picking up speed.

  “Whit happened?” Bobo asked, arms stretched while trying to hold herself on the seat.

  Pickle had already taken out her pistol and looked out the passenger window. “We got shot at.”

  Bobo exhaled. “Oh, thank Artemis’ virgin twat.”

  “Are you relieved we got shot at so you could avoid a personal question?” Pickle squeaked, frowning and aiming at something. She was leaning outside and her butt was on Hector’s face, bobbing around as the car swerved and she repositioned her weight.

  “Weil...” Bobo held her head between her legs as Hector drove the truck like a madman.

  “Girls? Focus, please,” Hector shouted at them, running a red light. He pushed Pickle’s legs out of the way so he could change gears. They sped past Panathinaikos’ Stadium with its green and white stripes.

  Pickle said, “I am,” focused her sights, and shot once. Twice. The car chasing them screamed on the asphalt, the shot-out tires grinding out sparks and forcing it to decelerate. It swerved away and another car crashed into it.

  “Who was it?” Hector asked, daring to look over his shoulder for a single second.

  “No clue. Saw two men inside, but they could be anybody,” Pickle said calmly and sat back down on the passenger seat.

  Hector was sweating all over. He looked sideways at Pickle. “How the fuck are you so calm right now?” His heart was still pounding in his ears and his hands were shaking, so he squeezed the steering wheel as much as he could.

  Pickle shrugged. “Practise.” She turned her face to him, and added, “Jugger. You get used to the adrenaline rush.”

 

‹ Prev