Spice, Static, and Solo Runs

The flickering neon coyote of El Coyote Cojo buzzed like a dying insect, its green light pooling over chipped Formica tables and vinyl booths patched with duct tape. Carl slumped at the bar, his Lexington disassembled into components he'd cleaned three times already. 

Mama Welles watched him from behind the counter, her gold Saints necklace catching the light as she polished a glass with military precision. The air smelled of stale synth-whiskey and burnt tortilla chips, a scent that clung to the bar's cracked leather seats like a bad memory.

"Bored out of my skull, Mrs.Welles," Carl groaned, chin propped on his palm. "No gigs, no eddies. We'll be chewing synth-paste by next week."

"Ay, mijo—since when did quiet nights become a curse?" Mama Welles chuckled, sliding a plate of fries toward him. The grease sizzled audibly, the seasoning a suspicious glitter of irradiated sea salt and powdered chili flakes that might've been scraped off a Maelstrom grenade casing. "Eat. Before your face gets stuck in that pout."

Carl's gloom evaporated. "The spicy ones!" He snatched a fry, crunching loudly—then froze. His eyes widened as the heat hit his tongue like a rogue microwaver. "Holy shit! Did you deep-fry these in a fusion reactor?!"

"Language," Mama Welles said mildly, pouring him a glass of synth-milk. "And no. Just a touch of Heywood hospitality."

Across the bar, Oliver cautiously poked at a fry on Carl's plate. It burst into flames. "Uh… Carl? Since when do fries come with afterburners?"

"Since Mama decided to weaponize potatoes," Carl wheezed, chugging the milk.

Jackie leaned over, plucked a fry, and popped it into his mouth. "Pfft. Weaklings. Tastes like my abuela's Sunday salsa." He chewed smugly for two seconds before his chrome jaw unhinged, steam hissing from his neural port. "¡Coño! Did you fry these in hellfire?!"

Mama Welles smirked. "Sí. Hellfire and love."

A week into their partnership, the trio had burned through five gigs:

- Scav Den Cleanout #1: A rat-infested warehouse in Watson where they'd found a kid's braindance chip buried under a pile of discarded synth-lungs. Carl kept it, though he'd never admit why.

- Data Recovery: A NetWatch ICE nearly fried Jackie's neural port in Kabukicho. They'd escaped by tossing a smoke grenade into a Tyger Claw gambling den as a distraction.

- Joytoy Extraction: Ended with Oliver hosing down a Pacifica alley with his Copperhead while Jackie threw a chromed-up Valentino through a noodle stall.

- Courier Run: A "simple" delivery to Santo Domingo that turned into a firefight with Maelstrom, who showed up with a rocket launcher and a grudge.

Carl treated downtime like a jammed pistol slide—something to brute-force into compliance. While other mercs blew eddies on joytoys or synth-coke benders, he'd already funneled yesterday's payout into upgrades: Subdermal armor webbing on his forearms and a smart-link grafted to his optic nerve. The armor itched faintly beneath his skin, a constant reminder of the 50,000 eddies he'd burned to survive the next firefight.

"Dude's got a brain modded for combat stims," Jackie muttered, swirling synth-whiskey that smelled like burnt plastic.

"More like a cyberware glitch," Oliver countered, watching Carl dissect a fry like it held encrypted data. "Normal mercs take a breather after a payout. This guy? Already pricing new iron before the blood dries."

Their banter died as Mama Welles' glare cut through the bar's haze. "Jaquito Welles!" She slammed a glass down hard enough to rattle the tequila bottles. "You kiss your mama with that death talk? Nunca again, entiendes?"

Jackie froze, mid-sip, his Saints necklace clinking against the counter. "Sorry, Mama. Just… slipped out."

Oliver's holo buzzed—a priority alert from his sister Sandra. He downed his drink, the ice clinking like loose bullet casings. "Gotta bounce. Sis's back in town."

"Tell her I said hi." Carl called through a mouthful of fries.

"Only if you promise not to start a gang war before sunrise," Oliver shot back, vanishing into the neon-soaked streets of Heywood, where the glow of Valentino murals bled into the shadows of crumbling megabuildings.

Jackie's holo lit up seconds later—a message from Misty, his current girlfriend and part-time tarot reader. "Duty calls, hermano." He tossed a handful of eddies on the bar. "Try not to adopt any stray cyberpsychos while we're gone."

Carl stared at his empty plate. The bar's ambient noise—the hum of faulty neon, the clink of glassware, the low thrum of a Nomad ballad—suddenly felt oppressive. He pushed back from the bar, the stool scraping against the floor like a knife on bone.

"Walk or ride?" Mama Welles asked, already knowing the answer.

"Walk. Need to clear my head."

The streets of Heywood welcomed him like an old wound. Cracked asphalt bit into his boots as he stepped into the night, flickering holos for Arasaka-approved antidepressants casting ghostly light over graffiti that read "NIGHT CITY EATS ITS YOUNG." 

The air reeked of ozone and burnt soy-paste, a Scav's discarded hypospray glittering in the gutter like a discarded promise. Above, a Trauma Team AV streaked across the smog-choked sky, its searchlights slicing through the gloom like scalpels. A stray cat hissed from a dumpster, its eyes glowing cybernetic green.

Halfway to Watson, his holo buzzed, the vibration cutting through the hum of distant traffic. Three sharp pulses against his wristbone. The interface flickered, the caller ID scrambled into jagged static. A voice cut through the encryption, stripped of humanity by a military-grade vocal modulator. "One hour. No-Tell Motel. Five thousand eddies. Solo."

The words hung in the air, colder than the nitrogen mist swirling around a Scav organ freezer. "Be there or be obsolete."

Dead air followed—not even the hiss of a disconnected line. Just the ambient growl of Watson's streets and the Kenshin's electromagnetic coils cycling up in his palm, its targeting reticle blinking crimson in his peripheral vision.

Carl's neural interface pinged—a location marker bloomed in his vision: No-Tell Motel, a relic squatting in Watson's industrial sprawl. Its reputation lingered in the air like rot: 87% hourly rentals, 13% organ-legging operations.

He thumbed the JKE-X2 Kenshin at his hip, its weight foreign yet familiar. Yesterday's upgrades itched beneath his skin—the subdermal armor flexing like second-layer muscle, the smart-link feeding targeting data to his retina. Fifty grand of "don't fuck with me" baked into my bones.

The motel loomed ahead, its flickering sign buzzing HOURLY RATES! DISCREET SERVICE! A black Villefort Alvarado V4F sat out front, windows tinted blacker than a Maelstrom's soul. Carl hesitated, the Kenshin's grip slick with sweat. Oliver was off with his sister. Jackie with Misty. Let them rest.

Somewhere in Little China, a braindance chip labeled The Old Man and the Sea waited in his apartment for the weekly replay. But first—a corpo with a death wish and five thousand eddies on the line.

Carl stepped into the smog-choked night, the Kenshin's grip warm in his palm.