Rage & Fury

by Darryl Hadfield

  “Some fuckin’ fairies did,” said a ganger. “They got Mit, burned him so bad we had to throat him.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Tav,” said Hoshi.

  “Some airbornes are shitheads,” said Hammer. He nudged Santos, who remembered and began making semi-flirtatious moves at Hoshi. “Not us. We need some guys we can work with. Had the impression you guys were hard-core.”

  Hoshi’s lip curled. His fist clenched. This sort of thing was, by some streeters’ standards, an insult that was worth killing or dying over.

  “You think we’re not?”

  “I think you are, man. Think I’d have come down here with shit for you if you weren’t? We get contracts. I been playing around. Thinking a bit, as I said. Airbornes can do shit. Streeters can do shit. Do shit well.”

  There were murmurs from the gangers surrounding them.

  “Fuck yeah.” “Like men, too.” “Do her.”

  It was difficult to keep from glancing around at the source of those words, at the armed gangers on all sides. He kept his focus on Hoshi.

  They’re no threat. Show fear and they become a threat, he told himself. Don’t show fear.

  “So how about working together?” suggested Hammer. “We get you a radio. Pay for it from your share of the money from the first jobs.”

  Hoshi’s eyebrows went way up.

  “You talking about cutting us in on some airborne money?”

  Hammer had to restrain a grin. Yeah, he knew that’d appeal to the streeters.

  “I’m talking about you earning some money. Not airborne money. Combined-arms contracts. Streeters and airbornes kicking ass together.”

  Hoshi was silent. One of the gangers behind Hammer might have been about to say something, but Hoshi gestured firmly with a hand for the man to shut up. A smile spread across the streeter leader’s face.

  “Ain’t never heard of that before,” he said eventually.

  “You’ve heard of it now,” said Hammer.

  “I seen you training. Dropping rocks and shit in the street and on rooftops. You’d want us to do like that?”

  “Training’s how you get hard. My outfit’s hard `cause we train hard. Try new shit. See if it works. Sometimes it does. More you train, less you bleed. And the more sweet tricks you figure.”

  “This one of those sweet tricks, airborne and streeters working together? With a radio?”

  Hammer nodded, curtly, once.

  “Maybe you’ll do us a favor, get us some of that ex-plo-sive shit an’ Molotovs?” suggested Hoshi. “For fuckin’ with them sewerscum. Give `em some shit right back in where they live.”

  That got loud murmurs of agreement from just about every ganger in the room.

  “Cut you in on some of that, yeah,” said Hammer.

  For a few moments, Hammer allowed himself that vision of streetganger squads running on the assault. Backed by organized, disciplined sniper teams in the buildings above them. Strafing airbornes in the sky above them. Anti-airbornes higher in the sky, circling protectively and reporting intelligence by radio.

  Dangerous, reactive, competent and intelligent. Raising him, Hammer, higher and higher, like a glider spiraling up on powerful outtake thermals…

  Perhaps it was something in Hammer’s eyes that got Hoshi’s attention.

  “Get out. Allaya. Now,” he said to his gangers.

  “Huh?” asked a couple.

  Hoshi got to his feet and reached for the blade on his back.

  “Get the fuck. Outta dis room. Now.”

  They moved out. Hoshi pushed the door closed.

  Hoshi sat back down. Leaned over the table at Hammer.

  “You airborne motherfuckers, you get this sort of food every day. Right?”

  He motioned with his head at the half-eaten salami and the whisky bottle.

  “Yes,” Hammer said.

  Maybe the earlier stuff was just preliminary. The necessary looking-tough-in-front-of-his-gang thing. Now we’re getting down to serious business.

  “You get girls like that,” he said, looking at Santos.

  Santos simpered and undid the top button of her blouse.

  This works, and she’s his.

  “Uh-huh,” said Hammer.

  “And you’re serious about this shit. Working together. This ain’t some kinda trap. Don’t figure how it could be. You got no shit with us.”

  “No,” said Hammer. “Why should I?”

  “To get more pie for yourself.”

  “I want a bigger pie,” said Hammer flatly. “A much bigger pie. We’ll be allying with other streeters. Other airbornes. Under my command. Working together.”

  Hoshi said nothing. After a moment, Hammer decided to go on.

  “This ain’t gonna be a fuckin’ walk on the fuckin’ roof,” he said. “More like a walk in the Park. Gonna be a lot of intense fighting. You’re gonna risk getting killed. Over and over. You’ll train until you fucking bleed, then you’ll get up and train some more. But it’ll pay off. We’ll take control of tenements. You’ll have other gangs ally. Under you. There’ll be girls. Tenement girls.”

  Hoshi started to smile.

  “Man, I like what you’re talkin’ about here. You fuckin’ mean it, don’cha?”

  “Why d’you think I wouldn’t?”

  “Because it’s fuckin’ weird, is why. It ain’t normal. But then that look, man. Ain’t never seen anyone look like that on his face. You see something. You got a plan.”

  Hammer nodded, once.

  “I want in on this. I’m gonna have my gang try it. Try what you’re saying. When you want us to start?”

  “Tomorrow, maybe. We got a contract in Hell’s Kitchen. Recurring contract. This could be the start. We’ll give you air cover across the way if you need it.”

  “You really think this could work?” Hoshi asked. There was no tough gang-leader here any more. Hammer sensed a little kid, desperate and hungry and wanting to live longer and aware that most of his age-cohort was already dead.

  And how many other guys like that are there on the street?

  Airbornes lived glorious, well-fed lives and when they died, it was usually quick. Altitude multiplied by nine-point-eight meters per second compounding until a final bloody impact in the wreckage of a shattered glider. When they lived, they tended to live well by streeter standards. Regular food, booze, sex and money.

  The despair he, Hammer, felt, had to be unusual. For an airborne. Or so he’d always thought. Maybe it was more common amongst the streeters.

  How many more people feel this way but don’t see a solution? How much more despair and unhappiness is there out there – and how do I catalyze it into motivation and obedience? How many more people have problems – real problems – that I can provide a solution to? In exchange for helping me rise?

  A smile spread across Hammer’s face. He looked Hoshi in the eye.

  “Fuck yeah it’s gonna work,” he said.

  * * *

  “You’re really planning to build an empire?” asked Parasite an hour later. They were sitting around the common-room table, eating before the mission.

  “Yes,” said Hammer flatly.

  “How?”

  “You heard how. It’s not important right now. Think we’re gonna succeed in building shit if we fuck up tonight?”

  “Well, maybe. Doesn’t have to be with those West Tenth guys, y’know.”

  “Let me rephrase this, Parasite. Think we’re gonna succeed in building shit if we’re dead?”

  “No, but—”

  “Look. We could spend hours talking about how great it’d be to rule all of downtown and half the East Side. I know, because I’ve daydreamed enough about that kind of shit myself. Living in the arks, ruling the city, whatever. And you’ve told that one story about the time you robbed the markets, enough times that I know you like that kind of glory.”

  Parasite nodded. The others of the gang were listening intently to the exchange, no longer eating.

  “Daydreaming
means taking your eyes away from what really counts. Look over the horizon and you’ll forget the next step. We need to do the next step right. Then the step after. Someday, yeah – in ten years you’ll be Mayor of the fuckin’ West Side. Think about that on a bombing run and you’ll be a bad memory in ten years. Think tactics.”

  “Wind seems fine,” said Ubi. “Forecast’s right, for once. Mostly. Says the windsock.”

  “OK, so we go as planned. North-northwest. Parasite, you said you wanted to try One?”

  “Yeah. To learn. For when you’re up on top directing strategy. Practice now.”

  Practice was always good, Hammer agreed silently. Although the reason he’d let Parasite take the lead this time was that he was going to be Six, carrying a load of Molotovs to dump into whatever chasm the others had blasted open with their collective ninety pounds of nitroglycerin. And to survey the damage, if possible.

  Then they’d come back here, if necessary. Pick up another three of the enormous – four-gallon – thirty-pound bombs that they’d so expensively bought and painstakingly taken over. And do another pass. Just to make sure.

  It would make Dmitri and his boss the Councilor very happy if Don Vito’s headquarters was reduced to a smoking wreck. Making the Councilor happy was a very, very important thing to Hammer now. They were giving him opportunity and that would lead to more opportunity. Especially with Hoshi on-side.

  Ruling Manhattan could start with West Tenth.

  He stomped that thought down as irrelevant. Equally irrelevant, right now, was the idea that he’d need more airborne recruits. Another wing, three more guys, would be about right. But that was for later, when they got back.

  Streets of New York City – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076YP1NT9 !