PRIVATE Red Scare

[Evi "Dustoff" Ashford]

"Oh, fucking come ON, Kara!" The second the other woman in her passenger seat mentioned spending their one day together at a different bar, Evi jerked the wheel to pull over, ignoring the sequence of honking horns and screeching brakes as Night City traffic stopped and started around them. Unsurprisingly, her companion didn't meet her gaze.

"I-I just thought maybe it would be nice to hang out somewhere else for a change." Kara stammered out, suddenly much more fixated on the concrete and neon outside the window.

Evi scoffed, shaking her head with a bitter laugh. "Right, I'm sure you did. At a Valentino bar, of all fucking places? Are you fucking stupid?"

"I'm sorry, I–"

"Fuck you, sorry." Evi rolled her eyes, throwing her car into gear. "We'll go. But no fucking bitching when I have to flatline somebody."

The rest of the drive was spent in tense silence, interspersed with curses as they were inevitably cut off and got into a near-accident more than once along the way. By the time they finally parked in the rundown lot Evi was already ready to leave, and now she had to worry about watching her back the entire time they were there. And she'd need to cover up on top of that; this wasn't the Chrome Cross, and there weren't many friends of the Legion in Vista. She rummaged underneath the driver's seat for a moment, finally pulling out a black and red neo-military jacket - not exactly subtle, but it would cover up the tattoo on the back of her neck.

Once it was pulled on she stepped out of the car, tapping the grip of her pistol to assure herself it was there as she waited for Kara. When the other woman emerged from the passenger side Evi walked towards the main entrance of the bar without looking back, stopping just inside the entrance to scope out her surroundings before making her way to some back corner booth. If she had to waste her time in some Valentino shithole, then she was at least going to make sure she wasn't going to get shot in the back doing it.

Before Kara could sit, Evi gestured in the direction of the bar with a hand. "Get us a couple beers, yeah?" She watched the other woman walk away for a moment before leaning back in the booth with a sigh. What a fucking waste.

 

[Cameron "Camshow"]

"Choom, stop going on and on about her - shit ain't ever going to happen" Trojan nursed the side of his face with the broseph, rubbing the cold glass against his black eye, "daddy's little moon-girl is gonna wise up real quick and realize you look better under a boot - and NOT in the good way."

"Oh get off it, mate, you don't get it - there was somethin' different about this one."

"Oh yeah, really? Was it the fact she let you get close enough to smell it" Trojan took a swig of his ale, then went back to nursing his face. Cam just scoffed and through himself back into his seat, heaving a heavy foot into the leg of his friend's chair hard enough to shove it a few inches, "hey, hey! Watch it man!"

"Fuck you, mate. You're just jealous, that's all."

"Jealous?! Of what? Your weird fucking fantasies of doing some alien corpo?"

Cam crossed his arms, indignant, "no - jealous that the only place you can get any is a hole in a computer."

Trojan laughed, but stopped short of howling laughter on account that his face felt like it was going to peel off if he did. "Oh, right - fuck you man. Just because I don't give it to every groupie that strolls up to the stage-"

"-Fuck you, Luna isn't like that"

Trojan continued without missing a beat, "-in fact - you keep trying to bark up this corpo bush you are gonna end up jacked into a computer too. The one they are using to torture your mind for eternity."

Cam sighed and leaned into the table, palms flat on the table. Sometimes Trojan was too goddamn zealous, even for him. "Look, mate. So what if I do like her? Don't mean nothing-"

"-Don't mean nothing? HA! Sure okay-

"-No I mean it like this, what does it matter, yeah? I say, what is some more punk, fuck-the-corps-shit than teaching a natural-born daughter how fucked up this shit is?" silence. Cam looked up from the table. Trojan wasn't looking at him anymore and his gaze had turned to something else, something cold and dark, something like he hadn't seen in the man for a long time.

"Troj? What is it?" he followed his friend's gaze to the other side of the bar and spotted two women. The first thing he noticed was that one of them was far more attractive than her bald friend, with the tats and piercings to boot. The second thing he noticed was that this wasn't the first time he'd seen Trojan glare daggers at someone bald and wearing red. The attractive woman was wearing a black tank-top that showed off more than her fair-share, but her friend was wearing a black and red neo-militarist jacket.

"Fuck me, what are they doing here? You know that bald one?"

"No" Trojan's voice was like ice, "the one with black hair"

"The hottie!? The fuck mate, how do you know her?"

"Bitch is in one of The Movement's deathcore bands. Double Tap or some shit." The Movement. Fuck, it was never good when Troj got so worked up he used that name for Red Chrome, this woman must have sent him back somewhere nasty.

"Well fuck, what do you wa-

Before he could finish, Trojan was up and walking towards the pair. Cam cursed and quickly stood, giving chase to his friend just as he was flung his legs over a chair across from the women, slamming his drink down hard on the table.

"Well, well. Didn't think Red Chrome was brave enough to get so far away from The Red Room nowaday. What, did Harper finally sell The Chrome Cross out from under you, Kara?" Cam quietly took a seat next to Trojan, trying his best to not to look worried. Fuck. He ever knew her name. This was going to be fucked up.

 

[Evi "Dustoff" Ashford]

It couldn't have been more than three minutes after Kara returned with a drink for them both that they were interrupted. In the seconds after both of them invited themselves to sit Evi shared a look with the other woman that said more than words ever could. This was why she didn't bother with any place outside of Legion territory, and she wasn't about to let that be forgotten after this. Kara would be the first to break the silence, somewhere between uncertain and annoyed. "Hi, Trojan."

Why did she know that name? Evi narrowed her eyes, tapping her chrome knuckles on the table. Then it came to her. Kara had told her about him one night, he'd been laced once upon a time before making a decision that was usually the last thing most people did, unless they were getting passed off to Maelstrom. She'd never figured why this was one of the few exceptions, especially not with the shitty band he was a part of. He was more of a liability than any of the psychos.

When the other woman didn't say anything more, Evi took it upon herself, placing her bottle down deliberately on the table just before she spoke up. "That's right, I do know you." She looked directly at Trojan. "Used to be you were all boots, guts and laces." Her knuckles rapped the tabletop again. "Too bad you pissed that all away, maybe you could've been worth something by now."

Her gaze shifted to Camshow, and she took just a half second to size him up. "This the output you run around with? Doesn't look like he could kick his way out of the pit." She smiled at Cam, but there was something unsettling about it in her eyes.

Before the tension could boil over she picked up her beer and took a pull, keeping it in hand this time and using it to gesture across the table. "You're what, some kinda punk rockers now, right? Must be really making a difference." She felt Kara shift uncomfortably next to her, but ignored it. It'd been her idea to come here in the first place, these were just the consequences.

 

[Cameron "Camshow"]

Much to Cam's surprise, Trojan didn't say much while the bald chick went on and on. He decided he shouldn't say much either, not until he got brought into the fray.

"Hey, now! Shaving your head like a stripper's bollock don't make you any bit tough"

That finally made Trojan laugh - laugh so hard he slapped the table. Once he was done, he took a long swig and smiled at the one he didn't seem to know.

"Guts and boots and laces...and blind stupid devotion...and lots of wild nights in Kara's bed" he peaked at Kara, then back to the bald woman, "I doubt she's the one that gave you that shiner though. You make a habit of getting your ass kicked by the 'undesirables' or is she your escape from getting your ass beat by your other half?"

He took a one more swig, "just wait until she gets comfy enough talking with your head between her legs, then she'll let you know how she really feels."

 

[Evi "Dustoff" Ashford]

From the corner of her vision Evi saw Kara's brow furrow, and this time when she spoke there was an edge there that hadn't been present before. "Trojan," Kara made certain to make direct eye contact, "Stop it."

It was an interaction Evi made silent note of. Then she took another drink, indicating his own black eye with a tip of the bottle before she spoke, "Not looking so good there either." Barely a glance at Cam, "And I know he doesn't hit that hard."

This time she gave Cam her full attention, leaning forward to set her drink on the table. "Ripped clothes and a shitty haircut don't make you tough either. Laces, though…" She gave Trojan a knowing look, "He ever tell you what it takes?" It was a rhetorical question that she didn't give either man time to respond to. "There's a reason they're red.

"It's like Harper always says, right, Trojan?" A beat passed, and she flashed a wicked smile. "'Anyone can die for a cause. Only the strong will kill for it.'"

 

[Cameron "Camshow"]

"Shy about it, huh? She must not have the tongue to make you squeal that much..." The anger was plain on Trojan's face but, Cam had know him for years now. There was something deeper in the way his eyes shimmered and narrowed, in the way his mouth curled. This woman had hurt him. Hurt him bad.

Then the shaven nut-sack started her yapping again, going on and on. Then she mentioned the laces. Trojan didn't like to talk about the laces, hell, he didn't like talking about his time in Red Chrome almost at all. Not that Cam could blame him, being a nazi-fuck wasn't exactly something to be proud of - even if they sometimes scraped the edges of the problem when they spoke. Despite that, on the nights when he drank too much before a show, he'd say things.

Dark things. Things that sometimes didn't make a lot of sense. Things he cried into his whiskey or rum or whatever he could find laying around. Cam knew enough to know that getting your red laces was a bad thing and you had to do a terrible, awful thing to get them. He knew Trojan had his laces. He didn't want to know how or who, truth be told he was afraid to know. In the end, it didn't matter. Trojan had proven time and again he wasn't that guy anymore and Cam knew it. Despite what he'd said at the club where he met Luna, he knew that. He felt like shit for even having insinuated it.

He was about to say something that was probably stupid when Trojan cut him off, "He knows...but there's something else you don't know. Something I don't think you'd ever grow the balls to learn."

Trojan's voice was cold now, his words quiet and thin like a razor - eyes locked on Dust unblinkingly. "You know what it takes to get in, imagine what it takes to get out. Harper talks his bullshit about killing for the cause, being strong. Well, take a walk past the memorial wall at the Chrome Cross sometime. Ask the names how far Harper's shit got them when I wanted out - see what they fucking say back."

He let the words hang for a moment, "Your girl-toy can only stick her hand up your output now because I felt something more than a hard-on for her back then. I'm giving you two the chance to fuck-off back to The Reich now because I'm a better person than I was then."

"And no, I don't think I'm that tough. I just think the Catholics around here won't be too happy to hear your goosestepping bullshit. Might decide to do something about it."

 

[Evi "Dustoff" Ashford]

There was silence for a period of time that felt as though it lasted much longer than it did in reality, where Evi stared right back at Trojan and didn't say a word. Part of it was weighing her options, but deep down she knew it wouldn't be worth it to start a fight here. Not for any danger to her personally, but for how it had the potential to impact the work she did. It would put heat on them for no good reason, and she'd only been out of the pen for a few months as it was. But she still thought about it.

"No, I think you are that tough." She didn't break the stare yet. "Or used to be, at least." Another one of those silences, but this one didn't linger quite as long. Then she smiled again, but something about it didn't quite reach her eyes. "But relax, we're not here to slammit on anybody." Her hands raised in mock surrender as she shifted in her seat, her disposition seeming to shift slightly as well as she leaned back.

The only ex-Lacers she'd ever spoken with before all belonged to Maelstrom, but he was more interesting than that group of psychos. More dangerous, too. It didn't surprise her that he and Kara had apparently had a fling - it wasn't like her relationship with the other woman was exactly exclusive. What interested her more was what went on between them outside of the bedroom, but she doubted Kara would tell her anything even if she asked. It was always fuckin' something.

"No, we're only here because she," Her gaze cut sideways to Kara for a split-second, "Wouldn't shut up about wanting to go to a different bar. Told her it was a fuckin' stupid idea, but," She shrugged, "What can you do."

 

[Cameron "Camshow"]

Cam was shook up now. The whole time he'd been in night city, all the years he'd spend with Trojan, all the brawls and fights and news reports. Never, never once in his entire goddamned life, had he ever seen a laced in Red Chromer give up like that. If he didn't know better he would have turned to Trojan right now and screamed what the fuck?! Instead, he took the moment to butt in.

"Fuckin' hell it was a stupid idea, what you gonna do - go to Santo next? Grab a cuppa'?"

Trojan chuckled, but didn't really acknowledge him - instead he kept his eyes on Dust, shifted to Kara for a beat, then back to Dust. Cam watched all three of them, but something in Kara's face caught his attention. The shaved ball sack was tough and mean, even when she was giving in she had a bitch-look on her face. The hottie though? She looked something else entirely. She looked scared. Real scared.

"They must be making you boots smarter nowaday - figured you for a Lacer with the chrome dome, but you must be something else" he scratched his chin for a second, "which makes it even more surprising that you'd stop into a Catholic-run joint instead of telling Kara to fuck-off and hit the Chrome Cross anyway."

Then he turned and held up four fingers to the bartender, "Hey, give us four glasses and a bottle of your shit-tier tequila"

"What the fuck?" Cam heard himself say it before he realized he had said it, "this is the club all over again. First you want the nazi's out, now you want to buy them a drink?"

"Who said I'm buying? Besides, I think baby goose over here is going to play nice. Right baby goose?"

 

[Evi "Dustoff" Ashford]

Despite herself, Evi laughed drily. He was funny, she'd give him that. She might not have minded keeping him around if he'd still been laced in, but now? Well, she was willing to see where this went for the moment. It wasn't like the Chrome Cross was too far away, and if they'd wanted to start something by now they would have. This was some kind of uneasy peace, for however long it lasted.

It was easy to tell how nervous Kara was without needing to look over at her, but she glanced in that direction anyway when Trojan did. Evi couldn't tell if she was nervous because of the totality of the circumstances or whatever their new drinking buddy kept alluding to - probably both. The look in her eye told the other woman it was a conversation they'd be having later, and she left it at that for now.

"Not worth the fight." Whether she was talking about the argument with Kara or present circumstances was difficult to say. "And fuck no, I'm not a Lacer. They're a pain in my fuckin' ass most of the time." The tone she used suggested it was a plight she didn't entirely despise, but nor was it something she enthusiastically enjoyed. They were her kids, or the closest she'd ever get to it, and motherhood of any kind was a labor - of love, or otherwise.

Evi reached out to snatch her bottle, draining the last of it and replacing it on the tabletop. "So," She looked between the two of them now, "I know who he is, used to be laced in before leaving the Movement for whatever this is." Her attention shifted to the one who'd been quiet by comparison, though none were as much as the woman next to her. "What about you, then? Seems like a shit place to immigrate."

 

[Cameron "Camshow"]

Cam scowled at the woman, not that she was wrong exactly. Night City would be an awful, no good, shit place to immigrate under most circumstances - but not when the alternative was dying in some military mandated starvation zone back in London. But she didn't get to make that point. "There are worse places to move - and you tend to get away from white trash nazis down in the south city" of course there was 6th street to contend with down there and they had their own bag of issues. From what he'd seen though, they were ten-times more chill than any of these fascist pricks. Sure they loved Uncle Sam like a real uncle and some of them had...choice opinions on immigrants - but that was more something you put up with sometimes when you around them. For every racist bigot in 6th Street there were ten shouting him down and giving him a right kick in the nads - for the stars and bars club hate was an symptom you put up with.

For Red Chrome it was the whole fucking point. There were no voices shouting the hate down, unless it was down the throats of anyone close enough to hear. To be Red Chrome was to hate people. Hate was their disease and violence was the symptom.

And no matter what the "mainstream" of the movement said, they hadn't moved past any of the same old talking points. Sure the heads of the group and anyone in their direct sphere talked about hating "just" the Japanese and "just" the exotics and "just" the corpos - but that wasn't the full picture of it. If you hated someone and threw your arm up for Harper, they'd tolerate you if not celebrate you. He'd seen it himself in some of their splinter gangs down in Santo. The only two true rules of Red Chrome were worship Haper Graham and hate whoever you want, just don't get in the way.

"They're only a pain in the ass because you are a glorified babysitter" Trojan pitched in as the drinks arrived, "when you indoctrinate a daycare, you tend to have clean up a lot of baby shit."

 

[Evi "Dustoff" Ashford]

"Yeah?" Being called a nazi was old news, and Evi didn't feel any which way about it except that it was a stupid fucking insult that wasn't really much of one at all. "Lots more slant and zoo-biter bullshit too, but I guess you wouldn't mind that scene." For all the hate in her words, Evi just smiled at him. To tell the truth of it she didn't really give a shit who he was, but seeing as how they were both part of the same shitty band it wouldn't be difficult to find out. This here told her more than anything on the Net would, anyway.

There was a lull as the drinks were delivered, and she grabbed her glass, swirling it before taking a sip. Almost immediately she pulled a face, swallowing down the burn and setting the glass back down. He'd asked the bartender for shit-tier tequila, and damned if they didn't deliver. It was nothing she usually drank, and nothing she would again after this.

Trojan's words were waved off. "The real babysitting is the fucking Prospects. Most of the Lacers aren't too bad. You remember, right?" A seemingly innocent question, but the look in her eyes said she knew exactly what she was doing by asking it. "They're not bad kids, just need discipline." She glanced just slightly in Cam's direction with her last words.

Her knuckles tapped on the table almost thoughtfully, and she watched Trojan for a moment. "What is this, anyway?" She gestured between the four of them. "Your friend doesn't seem like he wants to be sitting here, and I know you don't." A beat passed, not quite enough time for a response to be formulated. "Interesting choice, that's all. Most people who cut their laces and live don't come back around."

Evi leaned back to pull a pack of cigarettes from her front pocket, lighting one for herself and keeping the pack on the table - whether it was on offer for the men across from her was difficult to say, but she wouldn't stop either of them if they reached for one. When Kara reached for one with a trembling hand she passed her lighter, but didn't turn away from the pair across from her as she awaited a response.

 

[Cameron "Camshow"]

Cam gave up trying and rolled his eyes, leaning back into his seat and turning to Trojan inquisitively when the woman asked what this was all about. He was just as curious as she was, to be frank. He saw little reason they should be wasting time jabbering with some skinhead who stumbled into the wrong bar - they should have been popping her a fresh one on the other side of her head and sending them on their way to wade through Valentino territory. Trojan didn't even look mad anymore though - more amused with is cheeky smile and casual way he emptied his glass and poured another.

"Didn't cut and run just to be afraid of you asshats the rest of my life" Trojan shrugged as he filled his glass to the rim with tequila, "besides, I know all about R.C.L and your tough girl act. Truth is your best stompers are what few vets you managed to wrangle up and the rest are dumb teenagers and twenty-somethings who don't have the eds to put their Vendit shotguns to practice. If it wasn't for how much people hated The Claws, you'd barely have enough people to hold onto what you have."

R.C.L had grown, there was no mistaking that, even after Harper zeroed the old guard. But the truth was still the truth. Red Chrome had less vets than 6th street, less chrome than Maelstrom and less tech than The Claws - none of those things were ever their strong suit. What R.C.L had that the other gangs didn't was loyalty, hatred and extremism. You could get a lot more done with a few pipe bombs and suicidal fanaticism than you could with more chrome than bones, but with a weak stomach for anything that didn't put eds in your own pocket.

"If you're fucking Kara, then you know that the only thing holding the Lacers together is rock music and pamphlets they can barely read" he spun his glass and watched Dust through the swirling liquid inside, "the fact that your still sitting here, being civil, means you aren't just some Lacer drunk on bullshit promises and bad rock."

 

[Evi "Dustoff" Ashford]

"Maybe." For the first time since they'd sat down Evi didn't seem to have a more immediate retort, but that changed quickly. "But I think you know better, that it isn't just about them. We give people a cause and a way to fight back, give kids that don't have a home somewhere they can sleep at night. It's about showing people what the real fucking problem is, and what they can do about it." And many times that sense of agency was more meaningful than anything else.

"The Tyger Claws are a symptom, sure, but the problem is bigger than some street gang. You already knew that." The tip of her cigarette burned brighter as she took a drag, eyeing Trojan as she exhaled. He didn't actually care about any of this, she knew better than that. And even if he did, he'd been around long enough before by the sound of it to know all the talking points already.

There he went again with the Lacer comment, and she rolled her eyes. "No, I'm not. Haven't been for a couple years now." If she had to guess, he was trying to figure out where she fit in the hierarchy he remembered, but she wasn't going to give him an easy answer. Not that what she did for the Movement was much of a secret, but it wasn't something she went around advertising, not outside their borders especially. He'd need to do better than that.

"You must not know as much as you think, if you're having this hard of a time with it." She raised an eyebrow, watching him through the slight haze that lingered in the still air of the bar. "Let's make it interesting. Why don't you tell me what you think I do, and I'll let you know if you're getting warmer. Wouldn't be any fun if I just gave you all the answers."