Chapter Text
If Jet-Star was going to die, she was going to go down fighting.
The thought consoled her somewhat as she reloaded the battery of her zap, sliding the new cartridge effortlessly into the gun, and heard the satisfying click of it fitting neatly into place. She was relieved – although it had never happened to her, jamming her zap during a reload was an anxiety that lived in the back of her mind. Right now, with a laser beam clipping her right ear and singeing her curls, Jet was more grateful than ever that she kept on top of her zap maintenance. Even if it made the others laugh, waving their own shoddy, unkempt guns around as if they were toys, she understood the importance of being prepared. She could imagine Ghoul’s snicker: yeah, yeah, Jetty – save it for the Girl Scouts.
Back pressed against the door of the Trans AM, Jet rubbed the bead bracelets clasped around her wrist and murmured a quick prayer to the Phoenix Witch that she’d be able to get out of this mess. The heavens didn’t immediately open up and dump a deus ex machina in the sand, but she hoped the Witch heard her call. While the baby carriage was strong (Party liked to claim it was “bulletproof”, neglecting to mention the holes in the hood and the dents in the doors), it only provided temporary cover in a clap. If Jet had been quicker on her feet, she could’ve made it back to the driver’s seat before the draculoids got within firing distance. Now, though, there was no way to make a getaway without getting her head blown off in seconds.
Still, she couldn’t crouch behind the Trans Am forever. The dracs were getting too close for comfort.
Clutching her zap close to her chest, Jet ducked out from behind the baby carriage and stumbled to the left, quickly extending her arm to fire a shot at the nearest drac. There were six of them, too many to be a coincidence, and Jet had only managed to take down one before she’d crawled behind the car. Five were still on their feet, armed, and one was close enough for her to hear the strange inhuman growling sound that seemed to come from deep in their chests. It wasn’t human. Jet could imagine the heat emanating from underneath the mask, stinking of halitosis, and blowing across her face. The intimate burn of a zap being fired close to the body, burning a hole straight through the flesh. But she couldn’t let herself go there.
Two quick shots, boots slipping in the powdery sand, and Jet was closer to safety than she was a few minutes ago. The nearest drac took a hit to the shoulder and grabbed sluggishly at the wound with their right hand, dropping their zap into the sand. Bouncing off the tailend of the Trans Am, the other crippled a drac at knee-level and caused them to keel over as if they were made of flimsy paper. Physics, baby! While the creatures didn’t have any empathy for their allies – not rushing to check if their fellow draculoids were okay – they seemed to be confused by the sudden bursts of light. As Jet had expected, they weren’t intelligent enough to calculate where she would be emerging from as she jumped out from behind the baby carriage. Taking advantage of the moment, she darted towards the Dead Pegasus, which had seemed so close just a few minutes ago. If only there had been a decent parking space by the gas pumps.
She had no idea where the owners of the other baby carriages were, the ones that had been abandoned right outside the gas station. Had they already encountered these dracs and been less lucky than her? Or (and this thought filled her with a sense of dread) were these same draculoids all that remained of the killjoys who had come to Dead Pegasus before her? Stuffed into a mask and brainwashed to kill?
That would explain why Jet hadn’t seen any bodies littered in the sand.
Her mind elsewhere and the dracs in her peripheral vision, Jet was completely unprepared to feel the full weight of a body slamming into her and sending her sprawling to the ground. She hit the sand hard, not having time to break her fall or roll away, and the air was knocked out of her. When she tried to scramble to her feet, the mass of another body pressing down on top of her kept Jet from getting up, only managing a weak squirm. A kick of her legs. It reminded her, strangely, of when The Girl had been learning to crawl and was working on pushing herself up off her belly, only managing to flail her legs before falling back down. Back then, Jet had been gentle: oh, querida, did you fall? My poor bebê… Let me see those little hands. On the other hand, Ghoul had been encouraging, yet persistent: fuck yeah, Girlie, ya almost got it that time! C’mon, ya got this. Get ya ass off the ground an’ let’s get movin’, kiddo!
Now, Jet strained to pull her arms from underneath her and pressed her palms into the sand, thinking of her boyfriend’s stitched-up smile. Get ya ass off the ground!
There was a grunt from the other body, digging an elbow between her shoulder blades stubbornly.
“Shit, idiot–! Stay down!”
If it wasn’t for the flash of light indicating a laser beam passing over their heads, Jet might have ignored them completely. But she nodded and lowered her head, hair escaping from its ponytail and obscuring her view of anything other than the sand. There was also something recognisable about the gruff voice, which kept her from going against their orders: nobody from her crew, obviously, because they were all too far out to have made it here, even if they’d been alerted to the firefight early on. But it was somebody she knew, somebody she’d be able to place immediately if Jet was able to glimpse their face.
Head down, she only had a faint sense of safety to rely on. The fight was no longer in her hands, one-on-five, and her life wasn’t hanging precariously in the balance like it was a few moments ago. Somebody she trusted was here and, finally, letting her up off the ground. A hand grabbed the back of her nametag and yanked on it hard, pulling her upwards like a puppet on its strings, and ordered her to run!
Blindly, Jet did so, and trusted the other to push her in the right direction. Throughout the mad dash, the large hand didn’t stray far from her back and occasionally pressed between her shoulder blades to continue urging her forward. As if she needed encouragement.
They had covered most of the ground towards Dead Pegasus, the cheerful ‘open’ sign visible on the swinging door, when Jet’s hair was blown back out of her face and she was finally able to glimpse her saviour: a tall, broad man, dog tags dangling around his neck and blue streaked through his overgrown hair, grinning as they charged towards the gas station. The hot pink mask covered most of the damage the radiation waves had done to his face.
“Cherri Cola!”
The man glanced back at her, amused by her cry of surprise, and dodged behind the baby carriage parked at the gas pump for cover. His chest was rising and falling rapidly as his breath caught up with him, but still Cherri let out a soft laugh and turned to grin at her. It didn’t look like the draculoids had landed a single shot on him – but that was often the way with Cherri Cola, the best shot in the zones.
“The one an’ only, Jetty.”
She grinned back at him, despite the situation, and grabbed hold of his outstretched hand without hesitation. Darting out from behind the car, the two of them ran towards the building of the gas station and Cherri crashed through the door unceremoniously. The bell announced their entrance to the empty room. As soon as the door swung shut behind them, (and Cherri had dragged the magazine rack in front of it for good measure), Jet felt some of the tension leave her body and her shoulders slumped a little. For the first time since she’d left the lighthouse that morning, she was able to draw a full, deep breath.
Checking herself over quickly for injuries, Jet was relieved to find that she’d made it out of the fight unscathed, aside from a little blood where the laser had grazed her ear. She looked at the stark red that came away on the tips of her index and middle fingers with a sigh, then wiped them clean on her shirt. It would heal by itself. There was a fresh tear in the knee of her pants, but it would be easy enough to stitch up once she got back to the lighthouse. Nothing to worry about.
Cherri slid his zap back into the holster on his hip.
“Ya okay?”
Even though they weren’t the closest of their little group, Jet and Cherri had been good friends for over a decade now and she knew that the concern on his face was genuine. He was a great guy, who stuck to his principles and helped those in need, and Jet understood why half the zones fell for him. It didn’t do any harm that he was roguishly handsome, like he’d stepped straight out of an action movie.
She nodded. Echoing her body language from a few minutes ago, Cherri exhaled a sigh of relief and seemed to relax too, hand moving up to scratch at his sunburnt neck. Both of them had made it out of the clap without injuries: in the zones, that was a miracle in itself and Jet rubbed thoughtfully at her bracelets again. Thank you.
Maybe it was just a coincidence, but she swore the sun seemed to light up the room a little more.
“So, where’s ya back-up?”
There was a thump, as Cherri dumped his messenger bag on the counter and began to peruse the bruise-coloured shelves. Obviously, any essential supplies had been pilfered from Dead Pegasus decades ago, but there was an unspoken policy in the zones to replace the items on the shelves with whatever you could spare. A trading system of sorts, strictly anonymous. If you could afford to leave something behind, it was common courtesy to replace whatever you took – the same rule applied to the magazine rack. Between the handful of capable killjoys in the zones, there was usually something to browse in the gas station, (although there were a few assholes that blew through on occasion and cleaned out the place).
“Kobra went down to the racetrack. He didn’t tell you?”
“There a race today?”
“No, he’s just practising.”
She watched as Cherri took something off the shelf and turned it over in his hands, studying the battered action figure with some interest. It was obvious from the expression on his face that he was weighing up whether or not it was worth taking. Jet took the moment of quiet to tug her hair tie loose and scrape her hair back, securing it in a knot at the nape of her neck. After a minute passed, Cherri came to a decision and shoved the toy into the pocket of his nametag, replacing it with a can of Power Pup from his bag.
“Girlie has plenty of toys already.” Jet reminded him, gently, even though she found it endearing.
Cherri shrugged her off.
Since he was always visiting their home, spending almost as much time there as he did at the radio station, The Girl had come to see him as an uncle figure. In return, Cherri played with her for hours at a time: he roughoused lightly, sat through countless makeovers, and showed her how to make a mixtape. The two of them were close. Unlike Party Poison, Jet wasn’t jealous of their special friendship: she had grown up in a house full of people, with both older and younger siblings, and knew family relationships weren’t interchangeable. There was more than enough love to go around.
Now the danger had been placated – the dracs were still wandering idly in the distance, waiting for anyone else foolish enough to approach the gas station, but seemed to have forgotten about pursuing Jet – the two of them could pause and consider their next course of action. There was the matter of rescuing the Trans Am, of course, because Party would never forgive her for leaving their baby behind. Especially where anyone could get their hands on it. But, with Cherri Cola (of all people) here to cover her ass, getting home didn’t seem like a pipe dream anymore.
She perused the magazine rack while she waited for Cherri to finish sorting his supplies, flicking through the old issues of Murder and Android Sheep. A few original zines littered the racks, ranging from Cherri’s old poetry ones, to a political piece about pornodroids, to the latest issue of M&M&M, an art collective which included borderline disturbing material. There wasn’t anything that Jet hadn’t read already, not that it surprised her. Ghoul liked to joke that she’d read every book, magazine, and zine in the zones a hundred times over and, although she would argue that she wasn’t the biggest bookworm out here, there was some truth to it. The zones had limited reading material, as any joy could tell you, and growing up as a sand pup meant that Jet had seen it all. It was her only way of learning about the world beyond the California desert, life before BL/ind had taken control of everything, which she yearned to know more about.
Of course, her parents remembered what things had been better, having watched things grow from bad to worse throughout their lifetimes. And their parents – Jet’s grandmother and grandfather – had come to this country when BL/i was just a small start-up company, like any other business, and saw the desert for the first time when they were in their early 20s.
Hearing about her grandparents’ childhood, even if it was through secondhand accounts from her mamãe, was like reading a fantasy novel set in a faraway land. Jet struggled to comprehend that that other world could even exist, let alone that her own grandparents had lived in it. Six years old, curled on her mother’s lap, she had asked in bemusement: but what did they eat if they hadn’t invented Power Pup yet?
Her mamãe had looked at her with a sad, grown-up look that Jet hadn’t understood until later.
Usually, Jet told people she was Puerto Rican because most killjoys, with their limited geography, knew what that meant. But it was a little more complicated than that: her mother’s family hailed from Portugal, which was why Jet spoke Portuguese first and (due to her Puerto Rican father) Spanish second. English, despite being the one she spoke most often, was technically her third language. Jet had never been able to fathom why any of her grandparents had moved here in the first place. Although, she supposed, she wouldn’t have been born if they hadn’t: her parents were sand pups, just like Jet and her siblings.
Jet loved her life out here, unlike many of the joys who had been forced to flee Battery City. But she longed to learn about the world outside of her small, starved one. She’d heard her mamãe’s stories enough times that she could recite them from memory and had already demolished every piece of reading material that was available. Whenever she met somebody new, Jet wanted to hear about their experiences: what they’d seen, where they’d been, who they knew. She kept notes about the most interesting things she’d learned in her journal. While the others might tease, she couldn’t help dreaming of more than this. A bigger world. Maybe that was the reason she loved outer space so much.
“Ready to head back? Y’all are still at the motel, righ’?”
When she looked up from the magazines, Cherri was buckling his bag shut and slinging it over his shoulder again. He was devilishly handsome when he was in full ‘killjoy mode’, Jet had to admit, and, on occasion, she caught glimpses of what made joys of all ages mail in lovestruck poetry to his radio show. There was something about his expertise, combined with his age, and the old scars displaying how the zones had hardened him. But it disappeared in a flash, like a schoolgirl crush, and Jet nodded to him.
“Ya can take the lead, Jet-Set. An’ I’ll cover ya.”
Another nod as she moved the magazine rack away from the door, so it was no longer obstructing the exit, and checked that her zap was ready for action. Reliable as ever.
Some people said there was no closer relationship than that of a killjoy and their zap. While Jet wasn’t as obsessive about hers as others were, she thought the idea held some water. Jet had a respect for her old gun, which had stuck by her for years now, even if she refused to give into the badgering from the others about giving it a name. She hadn’t given her favourite stuffed animal (an elephant, passed down by her brother) a name when she was a kid – she wasn’t about to name a weapon.
Sliding the door open, the cursed bell jingled again and Jet caught her breath, wondering if it would alert the draculoids to the fact their prey was leaving the nest. But, if they were smart enough to make the connection, it didn’t show. Two of the three remaining dracs were wandering aimlessly in the sand – if they had been killjoys before, there was no spark leftover from their rebel days – and the other seemed to have mistaken a rat for a target. It kept shooting blindly into the sand, too sluggish to hit the skittish animal. As the two killjoys crept towards the Trans Am, Jet could only pray that they remained distracted.
When they were close enough to read the graffiti scrawled on the vehicle, one of the dracs jerked towards them suddenly and Cherri fired without hesitation, nailing it directly in the chest. As their comrade crumpled to the ground, it alerted the other dracs to their presence and Cherri fired again, his laser hitting another in the shoulder without taking them down. Jet felt a heavy hand on her back, shoving her forward, and she took the cue to bolt towards the baby carriage. She heard a third shot being fired but didn’t get to see where it landed, too focused on running across the sand without slipping.
Pointing her own zap backwards, Jet shot blindly and heard a gurgle that indicated she’d hit something inhuman, although she didn’t get the chance to celebrate. Relentless, Cherri gave her another push and she tore her gaze away, back to the car.
As they reached the Trans Am, Jet wrenched the door open and dived into the driver’s seat, jamming the keys in with the expertise of someone who’d been a getaway driver many times before. It wasn’t exactly the first time she’d needed to flee a scene quickly. She turned the keys and the engine grumbled pathetically, refusing to start up. Cherri, who had leapt over the door and into the passenger seat, shot her a frustrated look as if she was doing it on purpose. She tried again.
“Start the car, Jet!”
Equally as frustrated, she jiggled the keys: “It does this sometimes!”
“Whaddya mean?! Get ya damn baby carriage fixed!”
“Kobra’s working on it! Shit–”
“Drive, drive, drive!”
Thankfully, the car started this time without any problems (four really was her lucky number) and Jet peeled away from Dead Pegasus quickly. A drac, lopsided on a broken leg, lifted their gun and pointed it right at the windshield, preparing to fire. Expecting Cherri to fire his zap, Jet was startled when a hand grabbed the wheel and yanked it hard, causing the car to veer violently to the left and ram directly into the remaining draculoid. There was a sickening crunch as the body crumpled on impact: Jet expected it to bounce off the hood and go flying, like Kobra hit other cars on the race track, but it sank to the ground and made a worse noise as it was crushed by the wheels. She thanked the Witch they’d gotten the tires reinforced.
Once Dead Pegasus was fading into the static, Cherri pumped his fist in the air and let out a victorious whoop. His enthusiasm was contagious and Jet smiled, letting out a shaky laugh.
Despite the number of near-death experiences they lived through every day, she was grateful for each victory. Surviving a clap was always something worth celebrating. She made a mental note to head to the mailbox soon and say a quick prayer for the lost souls turned into draculoids, though she doubted their masks would turn up if she went back and combed the scene. Maybe the Witch would make an exception. Either way, Jet would do something to ease the guilt in her stomach.
“I mean, tha’ shot was fuckin’ phenomenal! Ain’t seen anythin’ like it!”
“Hmmm?” She had a tendency to tune out Cherri’s rambling.
“Ya takin’ down that drac wi’out even lookin’! Best shot I ever seen!”
The other joy slapped her triumphantly on the leg, eyes bright with the adrenaline of making it out of yet another fight alive, and laughed loudly. Cherri Cola was the kind of guy who earned a high from brushes from death, seeking out danger just for the sake of it. Jet never commented. Of all the highs Cherri chased, playing hero was simultaneously the most reckless and the least detrimental to his health.
He continued to jabber (Cherri never cared whether the other person in the conversation was listening) as he switched on the radio, fiddling with the dial until he found a decent station. It was playing something upbeat and don’t care-ish, although Jet didn’t recognise it, and it boosted Cola’s good mood even further.
Jet focused her attention on the route, eyes fixed on the road ahead, and hoped Ghoul would be home when she got there.
Chapter Text
When they pulled up outside the desolate motel building, there wasn’t anything immediately out of place or different. Live in the zones for long enough and your eyes become trained to notice the smallest changes: signs which have been knocked askew, a few more sets of tire tracks than there should be.
Jet was accustomed to casting a cursory glance whenever she arrived back at the lighthouse, making sure nothing had changed since she had set off that morning. She had learned how to spot the early signs of trouble before she had learned how to talk (although the latter had admittedly taken her a while).
Luckily, it didn’t seem like anything was amiss. The cracks climbing up the walls, the sign (which had been a victim to years of graffiti by now) advertising a long-dead business, and the thick layers of dust on the windows were all as Jet remembered. Ghoul’s neon green paint still decorated the lobby door. Despite Jet’s prolonged absence, nothing seemed to be wrong.
Just like there wasn’t anything wrong at Dead Pegasus? The small, negative voice prodded from the back of her mind, unable to let her forget how quickly and thoughtlessly she had driven up to the gas station.
“Looks like Kobes’ got back safe.” Cherri commented, unable to disguise the relief in his voice.
Turning her head further, Jet noticed it’s bike was leaning up against the side of the motel, the wheels coated in a fresh layer of sand. How had she not noticed it sooner?
Her eyebrows pulled together in a frown as she contemplated her second mistake of the day. Maybe she was getting sloppy in her old age – city folk might tease her for referring to 30 as old, but the life expectancy for killjoys was completely different – or maybe it was something to do with the recent hole in her vision.
It had been around six months since she’d lost her eye and Jet was still learning to compensate for the complete lack of sight on her right side. Never had jokes about her having a blind spot been so accurate. Especially when someone tossed her something and it soared past her outstretched hands, making all of them laugh. Recently, Jet thought she had finally adjusted to losing half her vision and most of her depth perception. But today’s developments worried her a little.
She killed the engine and jumped out of the driver’s side of the baby carriage, hearing Cola do the same across from her. In unison, the two of them walked towards the main entrance of the motel, a veritable stroll compared to the way they’d charged the gas station earlier. Jet pushed open the door and stepped into the main lobby, which had come to resemble a cloakroom-meets-supplies-store since they’d set up camp here.
There was laundry drying on the main desk, a radio set-up covered in hastily scribbled notes, and stacks of scrap metal in a lopsided pile. Ghoul and Kobra were always talking about setting up a real workshop for the two of them, but they were never in any one place long enough for it to be justified. The place was a mess – but Jet couldn’t help smiling as she stepped over a toy abandoned on the dirty rug.
“Kobes!” Jet called in the direction of the motel rooms, where she suspected her crewmate was probably fast asleep, “I brought you a present.”
There was a thump, followed by a groan, before one of the doors swung open and a zombielike Kobra squinted at her from the doorway. Judging by the fresh scar slitting its eyebrow in half, she guessed that he had fun down at the racetrack (it always joked that real racing came with a little hazard).
Kobra shot her an inquisitive look, questioning what his gift was, and Jet jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of his boyfriend, who was leaning against the reception desk. Whether Cherri was aware that his leg was resting against damp laundry (and that his camo pants were rapidly growing damp as a result) was up for debate. But it didn’t stop Kobra from grinning, pushing a hand lazily through his bedhead, and slinking over to plant a kiss on his lips. It would have been sickening, if it wasn’t so adorable.
Jet turned away from them, heart aching for her own boyfriend, and shrugged her nametag off to the murmured soundtrack of today’s races being discussed. She tossed it onto an idle chair and removed her sunglasses for good measure, folding them on top of her jacket. While Kobra might be able to get away with wearing sunglasses all hours of the day, due to its famously low vision, Jet suspected that wearing hers around the motel would make her look like an asshole.
“Any sign of the motorbaby?” Jet cut across their conversation.
She picked up the plastic toy car that was strewn across the middle of the room, waiting for somebody to slip up on it, and placed it safely on the desk. No doubt it would get lost among the clutter, leading to The Girl fussing later, when she realised that her toy wasn’t where she left it. But it seemed like a better alternative to somebody (she’d place her carbons on Kobra) falling and breaking their spine.
Cherri shook his head.
“She went with Party this morning. I guess they ain’t back yet.” Kobra offered, still fussing over his hair.
For somebody who was legally blind, it certainly wasted a lot of hours trying to make sure its hair looked just right. The whole thing was pointless anyway, since Cherri had seen him covered in a thin sheen of sweat and curled over a toilet with the worst hangover known to man, begging for the Witch to take him, and had remained firmly head-over-heels. Seriously. Cherri had watched him spout like a fountain from both ends.
“Did they leave a note?”
Without waiting for an answer, Jet wandered over to where their radio, plus the homemade additions Ghoul had fixed it up with, sat. She studied the collection of post-it notes. It was an easy way to communicate on days like today, when all four of them were running all over the place and didn’t manage to catch each other on their respective ways in or out of the lighthouse. They were all capable of reading and writing, impressive for a group of ragtag killjoys, so it was possible to roughly track each others’ whereabouts.
They had come up with the system early on, when Party had overslept and then freaked when they realised the motorbaby had gone AWOL. Since she had recently started to toddle around on her own two feet – spending hours stumbling from Jet to Ghoul to Kobra to Party, beaming with delight when they applauded her efforts – Party had become convinced she’d wandered away and straight into the path of some draculoids. By the time Jet and Ghoul had returned from the playground with the kid in tow, their fearless leader had worked themself into a fit of hysterics and insisted nobody touch their baby ever again. After they finally calmed Party down, they came up with the system of notes.
Unfortunately, what the proposed system hadn’t accounted for was the inability of a group of joys afflicted with ADHD to remember about the system in the first place. More often than not, Jet would find a nonsensical note scrawled in a hurry (after somebody remembered to leave one at the last minute) or, worse, a long list of mumbled excuses. She didn’t hold it against anyone, of course. But when one of the others had The Girl with them, Jet couldn’t help wishing that they’d come up with a better system than notes.
At least Ghoul was accounted for today, out scavenging spare parts for a new device he was building, and due back soon. There was nothing to indicate where Party had gone or when they’d come back.
“Hyper Thrust?” Kobra suggested.
“In the middle of the day? With a six year old?”
Waving a hand around vaguely, as if to question whether Jet had a better idea, Kobra turned his attention back to his boyfriend and peeled his obnoxious pink mask from his face. As much as Jet loved the two of them, both as individuals and as a couple, they could be incredibly easily distracted when they were in a room together. Cola has that effect on people, Ghoul had laughed when she pointed it out.
Turning her attention back to the matter at hand, Jet picked up the microphone they had hooked up as soon as they arrived at the motel and prayed that BL/Ind weren’t intercepting broadcast signals today. She wasn’t sure whether the fact she had been incredibly lucky so far today made her more or less anxious. Had Jet already used up all of her good mojo from the Witch? She rubbed her bracelets and pressed the button to broadcast a message across the radio waves:
“Jet to Party. Is the egg out of the nest? Over.”
It made her feel like a little girl playing at being a rebel when she had to use their silly codes, but it got the point across. Even if it did make Cola snicker a little. Party would know what she was talking about and, if they picked up the broadcast on the frequency they used, hopefully fire back a response soon. There was a crackle as she set the microphone down and took a seat behind the desk, letting a few moments pass before repeating the message again. After a few repetitions, to increase the likelihood of her crew hearing it, Jet switched off the broadcaster and waited to see if there would be anything from Poison.
She twiddled her thumbs in the meantime, itching for news about the kid’s safety, and half-listened as Cherri recounted what had gone down at Dead Pegasus. It had just happened – yet, the story had already been elaborated, doubling the number of dracs they’d taken on and making Jet’s (admittedly impressive) shot sound like it was the only reason they’d made it out of there alive. When Cherri was describing the blood and gore that had flown everywhere during the hit-and-run, Jet had to cut him off.
“Not that it isn’t a pleasure to have you here, Cherri, but weren’t you in the middle of something?”
It was a guess, but it was a smart one. Cherri Cola was prone to getting distracted in the middle of supply runs or scouting missions, wandering off to write a poem about a cactus he saw. It was unlikely he had happened upon Dead Pegasus by chance. As Jet had expected, his eyebrows furrowed for a moment and then shot up into his hairline, no doubt remembering whatever he’d been busy with prior to running into her. He swung his bag over his shoulder and turned back towards the door.
“Hey, Kobes. Are ya comin’ wi’?”
Immediately, Jet regretted her decision. She had no desire to hang around the silent motel, trying to find a way to occupy her hands and mind, until her crewmates returned from whatever they were doing. Although it was one of the better lighthouses – especially compared to the week that they’d spent sleeping on the sweaty, stained floor of Fuck Your House – the size of motel made it feel incredibly lonely. The rooms, lined up down the corridor, were a stark reminder that places like this were supposed to be full of people. The empty beds in each room were a reminder of the people who should be sleeping in them.
Jet had only been alone here for an hour or two previously but, even then, the hours had seemed to stretch out into days with nobody to talk to. Time passed differently in the desert. She had ended up wrapped in Ghoul’s bedsheets, grateful that they smelled like him, until she heard muffled voices entering the lobby.
Kobra shrugged and looked to Jet, his intense stare felt even through the shades.
“Wouldja mind?”
Swallowing her anxiety, Jet forced a smile and shook her head.
“The others will be back soon, anyway. Go on your date.”
It would have seemed insincere on anyone else, but the curl of Kobra’s lip was the equivalent of a genuine smile. He nodded in her direction, thankful. Couple time was something of a luxury when you rolled in a crew as close and invasive as theirs. Without another word, Kobra grabbed his nametag from the pile of discarded jackets and headed back outside, his boyfriend wrapped around him like he was nothing more than an accessory. Politely, Jet pretended not to notice the hand on her friend’s ass.
-
It was a well-known phenomenon that time passed differently in the desert. Some killjoys made light-hearted jokes about it around their campfires, not really taking the suggestion seriously. Others would ramble for ages (usually when they were a few drinks deep) about how no, dude, somethin’ is seriously wrong out here. Time’s, like, broken.
If Jet hadn’t experienced it for herself, she would be tempted to believe that it was nothing more than stoner talk. Or people beginning to lose their minds, after spending too much time with only the rolling dunes of sand and the occasional cactus for company. Or the heat. If her friendship with Cherri Cola had taught her nothing else, it was that waveriding produced one hell of a high. She’d once listened to him babble nonsensically about Wilfred Owen for five straight hours.
But, despite sounding like desert folklore combined with zoneweed, it was true that time out here was never consistent. It was erratic, untamed. Cola claimed that it was something to do with ancient magic and, as a descendent of the First Nation nomads that used to roam the California deserts, he should know.
As a woman of science, all Jet could say was that hours seemed to drip by slowly – like grains of sand in an hourglass – and spending them alone seemed to slow the flow even further.
When she had lived at home and ran errands for her mamãe, she’d once lost her way (how? She’d lived out here for her entire life and knew the zones like the back of her hand) and drifted aimlessly among the tumbleweeds for what felt like days. The sun had dropped in the sky, which she was grateful for because the sweat was leaking steadily from her pits and sticking to her shirt to her back, and there had been a hint of the evening stars beginning to bloom above her.
On returning home, frantic and close to tears, Jet had found that only an hour had passed since her mother had kissed her goodbye. Although her sisters had laughed and her brothers had teased, the experience had stuck with her. It made her uneasy. Recalling the memory was like a spider crawling up her spine and settling between her shoulder bladers, out of reach. Unshakeable.
Time wasn’t always slow, of course. Sometimes it felt like there was never enough time in the world and they – the Fabulous Four, as the other joys were starting to call them – were rushing towards… Something. Jet couldn’t say for sure what it was, but it felt final.
Time was running out at a rapid pace. They were racing towards some great final point, which only she seemed to be aware of. Everything was slipping away fast. Milestones seemed to come and go before she could process them: birthdays, anniversaries, the motorbaby growing into The Girl.
Jet had a strong conviction that she was losing time, missing her opportunity. She was filled with a throbbing anxiety that she needed to hurry up and do whatever it was that she was supposed to do, before it all blew up in her face. The End. Game Over. It seemed to be racing her. Or, maybe, she was just paranoid.
Sitting by the radio and waiting for Poison to shoot her something, anything, to let her know that they were alive and the kid was safe, fell into the former category. Time dragged its feet. She had to force herself not to look at where the radio displayed the time in mocking, boxy numbers or her nerves would grow worse.
Staring at a flirty post-it note Party had stapled to the desk, signed with a kiss, she reminded herself that there were plenty of reasons that they might not have replied to her broadcast. Maybe they didn’t have any way of replying. Maybe they had replied, just on the wrong frequency. Maybe they missed it completely. Maybe they would be home so soon, sending a message over the waves would be pointless.
But Jet couldn’t help the thought that kept popping into her head: she had the Trans Am.
Anywhere Party and The Girl could’ve gone, they would’ve had to make the journey on foot. Although she was a durable, strong kid, how far could a six year old realistically walk in the summer heat? They couldn’t have gone far from the motel, certainly no more than a few hours away. Yet, there was no sign of them on the horizon.
Soon, it was going to turn from day to dusk and the sun would disappear, meaning the desert would turn quickly from burning hot to freezing cold. Party knew how to survive out there, of course, and they would keep The Girl safe (if it cost them their own life in the process), but it shouldn’t have been something Jet even had to consider. There was no way that they had trailed far enough away, not on Girlie’s little legs, that they wouldn’t make it back by nightfall. Time continued to crawl onwards.
When the radio crackled into action, finally, it scared Jet out of her skin. She had been leaning against the palm of her hand, elbow resting on the desk, and dreaming up worst case scenarios for the rest of her crew: trapped. Ambushed. Captured. Tortured. Ghosted. Not necessarily in that order.
She was starting to drift into a drowsy, disturbed state close to sleep. At the startling sound, she snapped back into focus and straightened up in the old chair, removing her elbows from the desk.
“Come in, Lone Traveler–” That had been the name of the motel back in its heyday, when it was still functional and people stopped there on their way to Battery City. “– this is Dr D. The egg will be returned to the nest when Pony goes for a ride. Party in progress. Over.”
Jet snatched up the microphone: “Come in, D. What the hell do you mean, ‘in progress’?”
A few minutes of silence passed, while Jet imagined her words travelling up to the satellites on their roof and being flung into orbit, bouncing back down to earth. How fast was the speed of sound again?
Another crackle of the radio, followed by a snatch of stray piano music that must have been picked up from a city station, alerted her that a broadcast was coming in. She twiddled the dial between her fingers to make sure she didn’t miss a single word of it, watching the red needle spin and jerk like it was waving.
“Never look a gift horse in the mouth, Traveler. Keep your gun close. Over.”
As suddenly as it had come to life, the radio returned to static. The message was over. Still, Jet was reluctant to turn the device off completely, in case any more concrete updates came in.
It was obvious, more so from what Dr Death Defying hadn’t said than what he had said, their friend thought they were likely to be overheard. Whether it was scarecrows or other joys D was concerned about, Jet had no idea. But she was smart enough to know that inquiring any further might land them both in considerable trouble. Not to mention The Girl, who was safe for now, as well as the midnight runner escorting her back to the motel.
Jet hoped broadcasts being under surveillance was the only reason she hadn’t heard from Party, although Dr D’s words made her doubt it. In progress. She had no idea what he meant by that.
Pulling her zap from its holster, Jet rose from her seat and made her way across the dimly-lit lobby to peek through the windows that sandwiched the main doors. The glass was dirty, making it difficult to see much, but Jet didn’t think that she could see anybody (or anything) approaching them. Assuming any attackers would be blunt in their intentions, rather than sneaking through the back or one of the bedroom windows.
Not for the first time today, Jet wished that somebody was here with her. She couldn’t check any of the other potential entrances without leaving the most obvious one unguarded. Even turning her head to glance in a different direction was risky, due to her monocular vision.
She wished she hadn’t told Cherri to go, that she hadn’t allowed Kobra to go with him. More than anything, she ached for Fun Ghoul to return.
Nothing else came through on the radio while she was waiting, her entire body as tense as a guitar string wound too tight.
Eventually, she was drawn to the window again by a flash of light catching her attention. If she had blinked, Jet might have missed it – but she was on such high alert, her senses turned up to 100, she was hyper-aware of her surroundings right now.
Looking through the smeared glass, she spotted two figures approaching the motel and recognised the smaller, brightly-coloured figure right away. Even in the musky colours of dusk, Jet knew her motorbaby at first glance. The second one was taller, starkly white against the pink-purple sky, and seemed to glide along as if they were travelling on ice. Show Pony.
As the duo got closer to the door, she could make out the giveaway signs Girlie had been crying recently: red-rimmed eyes, tear-stained cheeks, and a soft pout (it made her look so much like Poison, Jet’s heart stung at the sight). She wasn’t wearing a bandana over her face, even though Jet had repeatedly told her it was important to do so in case of noxious air. However, right now didn’t seem like the appropriate time for a lecture, so Jet shelved the thought and opted instead to drop to one knee. She opened her arms wide.
“Tía Jetty!” The Girl cried out, sounding equally relieved to see her, and ran straight into her arms.
Careful of potential injuries, Jet wrapped her arms around the little girl and held her close, one large hand nearly covering the upper half of her back completely. She seemed so small in moments like this, so small and fragile it was borderline scary.
The Girl buried her face into Jet’s chest, creating a small damp spot on her t-shirt where she was starting to cry again. She downright refused to let her go, not even for the few seconds it would take to move inside. It was easier for Jet to slide an arm around her legs and pick her up with a small grunt, carrying The Girl inside as if she was an overgrown toddler.
Jet was reluctant to let her go either, still holding her precious cargo in her arms once they were inside.
“What the hell is going on?” She turned on Show Pony, baffled.
Now they were safely in the lobby, the radio assistant lifted xir helmet off xir head, shaking out a head of dark locks like xe was in a shampoo commercial, and tucked it under xir arm for safekeeping. Aside from the change of leggings – from blue polka dots to hot pink stripes – Show Pony looked exactly the same as the last time Jet had seen xem. Captivating features, tight clothing, and lip gloss that made xir lips sparkle in the murky, yellow lighting of the motel.
Well, Jet supposed that xe didn’t look exactly the same. The last time she had seen xem, Pony had been spread over the radio desk in the station with xir feet in the air (confirming xir painted toenails matched xir lipgloss), letting Cherri lick something off xir stomach. Dr D had been there too, although he seemed to be observing rather than partaking in the activity. Taken aback by what she was witnessing, Jet mumbled something about the bathroom sheepishly and bolted from the station.
Now, watching Show Pony pull a lip gloss out (of where?!) and look in the reflection of xir helmet to reapply it, Jet blushed as she thought of their last interaction. She wasn’t exactly prudish, but she hoped it was the last time she ever stumbled onto a threesome in the making. It would be a while longer before she recovered from the experience.
Pony smacked xir lips and let out a dramatic sigh:
“So, like D said, Poison’s totally missin’.”
“What–?!”
Jet’s surprise was twofold: firstly, that wasn’t what Dr D had conveyed over the broadcast at all. He’d said something about Party being ‘in progress’, which was clearly code for something (Jet wasn’t an idiot) but didn’t suggest any element of danger. There had been no obvious panic in his voice, like there should have been if somebody – if their leader – was missing. Secondly, how in the hell could Party be missing?
Sure, it wouldn’t be the first time they’d disappeared without warning, something they were prone to do after a joint or two. At parties held around a glowing bonfire, Jet often lost them for several hours before finding them sprawled in the sand, either with Ghoul or Kobra or a new joy they’d enchanted. But that was different: it had never caused her worry. It had never caused her fear. Because she knew, as well as she knew the sky was blue and rain was acidic, Party Poison would always return.
‘Missing’ was too passive a word to use. Too vague. It didn’t suggest somebody had kidnapped them, snatched up the leader of the rebels and forced them into the back of white BL/ind van. At the same time, it didn’t make it sound like Party had danced away with a joy (or several) and would be spending the night crashing at another crew’s lighthouse. There was zero sense of agency in the word ‘missing’.
It caused a sour taste in Jet’s mouth, a taste she had long ago come to associate with vomiting.
She swallowed hard.
“What do you mean ‘missing’?”
The Girl whimpered softly, pained, and Jet adjusted her arms so it was easy to balance the six-year-old on her hip. She gave the child a reassuring squeeze and shushed her gently, wanting to hear what Show Pony had to say. She couldn’t believe that Dr Death Defying had decided to deliver this news via one of his midnight runners, rather than issuing an urgent radio broadcast to the entire zones.
“We’re still gettin’ to the bottom of it, Jetty. Believe me – the station’s buzzin’ like a beehive right about now.”
Jet didn’t respond, waiting for xem to continue.
Tossing their hair back and popping a hip out, Pony seemed to take a moment to consider xir next words, as if xe was weighing up the reaction they might cause. Typical Show Pony. As long as Jet had known xem, (almost her entire lifetime), xe had always had a flair for the dramatic. Whenever Pony spoke, it was with the poise and drama of somebody delivering the lines in a cheesy television commercial.
“See, here’s what we know already. Pink Phantom picked up this critter wanderin’ around the zones, lookin’ like she was on the verge of a Britney Spears breakdown.” Xe gestured to the little girl, who let out another whimper and hugged Jet even tighter, “Says she got no idea what happened to Pois. They brought her down the station an’ we’ve been lookin’ for clues since then.”
“And you didn’t think to radio me until now?”
The sudden flare of anger caught Jet off-guard. She hadn’t expected to raise her voice like that, especially when it was directed towards Pony. Judging by the shocked expressions, nobody else had either.
Pony’s voice took on a defensive tone: “D radioed when he knew it was safe to. Witch, Jet, it ain’t like she was campin’ out at the Sisters of Mercy. She knows the station–”
“She should have been at home!”
Jet’s voice bounced off the walls of the lobby, echoing down the long corridor, and the complete silence of the building made it sound louder (and angrier) than she had intended. The Girl pressed her hands to her ears, not used to hearing her caregiver raise her voice like that. Although it wasn’t a brand new phenomenon, Jet didn’t like to yell unless it was necessary – to make herself heard over the sound of ricochet, to get someone’s attention before they stepped on one of Ghoul’s homemade landmines. She had learned to contain her anger until it was safe to release it. Out of Girlie’s earshot, preferred. The tight, hot fist currently clenching her internal organs in a chokehold wasn’t something that Jet was familiar with.
Now, she understood what Mamãe meant when she talked about her maternal instincts overriding everything else in the heat of the moment. This power had once given Jet’s mother the power to pull herself from under the wreckage of a car, fuelled by the thought that her babies needed her to come home. The same burning sensation made Jet want to scream at everyone who had endangered her baby.
She drew a deep, calming breath.
“I’m sorry, Pony. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.”
Still dazed by the turn in the conversation, Show Pony nodded, as if to say ‘apology accepted’, and continued like nothing had happened. Although, if Jet wasn’t mistaken, there was a slightly sharp note present in xir voice that hadn’t been there before.
“D’s had us out combin’ the zones for any sign of ‘em. Usually, they’re pretty easy to find, y’know? Ain’t gonna miss the Party Poison – that obnoxious red hair of theirs is like a beacon for trouble. But there ain’t been a single sign of ‘em. And we’ve been turnin’ over every rock.”
“What about security footage? Drones?”
“Chimp an’ Newsie are workin’ on it as we speak.”
Despite their earlier disagreement, there was a sympathetic look on Show Pony’s face. Of course, xe was a friend of Party’s too – everyone in the zones was a current, former, or future friend of Party’s, they had the kind of magnetism that drew people in. Not to mention, Pony knew what it was like to lose somebody close to xem, even if it was temporary. Xe had taken it particularly hard when Cherri had been snapped up and brainwashed into draculoidisation by BL/ind a few years back.
Show Pony reached out and rested a hand on the shoulder that wasn’t currently occupied by The Girl’s head, giving it a comforting squeeze. When Jet met xir gaze again, Pony was smiling empathetically at her.
“We’re gonna find ‘em, Jet. Don’t you worry your sweet little head about it.”
Coming from anyone else, the words might have sounded a tad patronising, but Show had a habit of speaking to everyone like that. As if xe was a celebrity gracing the rest of them with xir presence. Or a strange (step?) motherly figure. Dropping in pet names like ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’, even if xe was talking to the gruffest old man Jetty had ever seen. It was no wonder that they’d managed to sweet talk the radio station into keeping xem as an assistant, despite their work seeming to consist of skating figure-8s around the DJs and flirting habitually with anyone who happened to drop by.
Jet exhaled.
“Let me know if you need anything.”
With a nod, Show Pony removed xir hand and slipped xir helmet back over xir head, skating smoothly out of the lobby. Jet supposed xe was rushing back to the station to give D an overdramatic blow-by-blow of their conversation and rejoin the hunt for Party Poison.
The whole concept of Party being missing in the first place was still difficult to grasp.
Jet wished she could race out the door and start looking for them straight away. It seemed so wrong for her to sit around the motel idly and wait for the radio to crackle with information, while the rest of her friends formed search parties.
At the same time, Jet was the only member of the crew currently accounted for and they had a six-year-old who needed looking after, one who had been on the verge of tears for most of the day.
It was too early to justify tucking The Girl into the bed, even though Jet felt exhausted from the whirlwind of emotions that had been taking her by storm. She doubted either of them would be able to rest anyway. So, she carried Girlie back to her motel room and plopped her down at the desk. Although it wobbled whenever someone leaned on it to write, the desk was in reasonably good condition and they’d found an entire pad of paper stuffed into one of the drawers. Jet figured it had been for guests to use back when this place was functioning. She took out the pouch of various pencils and pens they’d collected during their travels around the zones, setting them down next to the paper.
“Drawing a nice picture might take your mind off things.” Jet told the motorbaby, knowing that it wouldn’t be enough to distract her from losing a caregiver and being abandoned in the desert.
She sniffed: “Gracias, Tía.”
Picking up the red felt-tip pen she’d been favouring lately, The Girl began to draw on the top sheet of paper, taking such care with her lines that Jet recognised Party’s mannerisms in the habit. The ache of their absence only grew stronger in her chest. The cautious drawing showed how much the motorbaby had grown up since they’d taken her in too: she’d gone from scribbling nonsensically all over the paper (the floor, the walls, herself) to making deliberate, obvious pictures.
While the kid focused her attention on her drawings, Jet slumped in the drooping armchair in the corner of the room and tried not to take it personally that the chair wheezed, like Kobra having an asthma attack, every time she shifted positions. She half-watched The Girl, offering encouragement whenever it was needed, and half-zoned out, trying to picture what the rest of the crew were doing at exactly this moment.
She figured that Ghoul must be totally in his element, so caught up in whatever he was collecting or working on that he had completely lost track of the time. The thought was comforting. Kobra, she was certain, would be frowning as he traipsed through the sand and searched for its elder sibling, thinking… Well, Jet was never sure what Kobra was thinking. At least, she reminded herself, Cherri would be at his side to offer support and keep its hand in his, unwilling to let go in case they lost another Venom Brother. And then, there was Party: in her imagination, a giant red question mark hovered over Party.
“Tía Jetty?” The Girl’s voice drew her out of her thoughts.
“Sí, queridinho?” Jet lifted her head from her hands and looked over at the drawing, “What a beautiful rainbow! I love all the extra colours you’ve added in.”
Even to her own ears, the enthusiasm sounded over-cheery and fake. It seemed obvious she was forcing herself to be positive, even as she felt anything but. If The Girl noticed that her excitement was half-assed, however, she was polite enough to not say anything about it. She had learned how to read the mood of the room. Often, Girlie was far more intuitive than anyone gave her credit for.
Her orange pen continued to scratch at the paper as she spoke, squeaking a little as she forced the ink out of it. Clearly, the pen was on its last legs following her thoroughly-coloured picture of the sand dunes.
“When is Party coming back?”
Although The Girl’s voice was casual enough, there was an undertone of urgency and worry. Jet wasn’t too surprised that she was anxious about the situation. Growing up in the zones, as Jet knew, meant growing up with the knowledge that life was never certain. Anything could happen. Anyone could go missing. But that didn’t mean that a sudden event couldn’t pull the rug out from under you, leaving you to fall.
Jet sighed.
“I don’t know, cariño. I wish I could tell you.”
“Do you think it will be tomorrow? Or the next day?”
In spite of her brightness and bravery, The Girl was still very young. Her timeframe of events showed her age. She couldn’t imagine a world where Party didn’t come within the week. She expected her favourite guardian to come home soon, ready to play and read to her and take her out in the Trans Am. Getting through a day without them – let alone several days in a row – was completely alien to her. How could she even begin to imagine a world where Party never came home at all?
“I don’t know…” Jet didn’t want to get her hopes up too high, “But everyone’s working very hard to make sure they come home soon.”
The Girl chewed thoughtfully on the end of her pen.
“What about Uncle Ghoulie? Is he coming back soon?”
Jet felt more confident answering that one.
“Sí, bebezinha. I’m sure Ghoul and Kobra will be home any minute,” Jet managed a small smile, for her benefit, “How could they miss the chance to give you a kiss goodnight?”
“Party’s gonna.” She mumbled, half-way between hurt and bitter.
Unsure how to respond to that – especially since she didn’t know if she could reply without her voice breaking midsentence – Jet hummed noncommittally.
Without a word, she handed the green marker to The Girl, having noticed it was lacking from her rainbow. She took the pen and resumed her drawing without saying anything else, although Jet noticed that there was an odd tension hanging in the air that she didn’t normally experience around Girlie. Of course, she’d dealt with hundreds of temper tantrums (she had been particularly fussy as a toddler) and the occasional sulk. But this silence was different from that: it was charged, somehow.
Jet was about to suggest they pack up the colouring things and play with something else until dinnertime, when she heard the unmistakable sound of the door in the lobby swinging open. Both of them sat up straight in their chairs, exchanging looks. Jetty got to her feet. She held up her index finger to indicate that Girlie should wait, until she’d gone to the lobby and checked who the visitor was.
She wasn’t sure which member of her crew she was crossing her fingers for: Party or Ghoul.
Chapter Text
“Did you find anythin’, Uncle Kobra?”
The youngest of the Fabulous Four wasn’t even fully seated on the end of the bed, when The Girl raced to him and hopped up to sit on his lap. While he grunted at the impact of a six-year-old – who flung herself onto him at full force – Kobra’s lips quirked upwards and he rested a hand affectionately on her back. Unlike Jet, he had a tendency to be more reluctant about cuddling.
Girlie seemed to read his body language and realise that he wasn’t in a snuggly mood, electing to sit (legs dangling) on his lap, rather than wrapping her arms around his neck. She could be very intuitive, Jet thought proudly. To soothe her distress, Kobra rubbed soothing circles into The Girl’s back.
Yet, it looked puzzled by her question. He scratched its head with his other hand, bewildered.
“What do ya mean ‘find’?”
“Like, clues and stuff! About Party…?” Girlie trailed off, noticing his confusion.
For the first time, Jet realised Kobra might have been living in blissful ignorance for the last few hours, if he and Cherri hadn’t elected to drop by the radio station. Witch. She had assumed the pair would be heading there, even if they completed a few errands first. The station was both Cherri’s home and workplace, making it the place he frequented more than anything else. He was rarely far from the broadcasting booth. Why wouldn’t he and Kobra be heading back there, probably to his bedroom? (Gross).
Watching Kobra’s forehead crease into a frown, Jet realised that she’d been wrong to assume where he was going or what he was doing. After all, Cherri Cola tended to be something of a wildcard.
Jet turned to look at him, managing to catch its eye despite both of them having poor vision.
“Party… Well, Party’s missing.”
She was expecting an explosion of emotion, a combination of pure disbelief, outrage, and fear. It wasn’t like Kobra Kid was the most expressive person on the face of the planet – particularly compared to the missing sibling in question, who always wore their heart on their sleeve. But Jet thought that anyone would freak out if they learned their sibling was missing.
If she heard one of her brothers or sisters had disappeared from the face of the zones, she would have broken down in tears on the spot. She would’ve sobbed and demanded answers. But Kobra surprised her again by retaining the slight frown on its face, pinching the bridge of his nose where his shades rested.
Even for the Kobra Kid, who was frequently teased about his neutral expression, it seemed like an under-reaction. He would always be something of a mystery to Jet.
“What do you mean ‘Party’s missing’?” He asked.
“Well, Show Pony–”
Before Jet could catch it up to speed, The Girl burst into tears: “S’all my fault, Uncle Kobra!”
She started to sob, with hot, fat tears rolling down her freckled cheeks. Temporarily, Kobra was occupied with patting her back awkwardly. Even if he was an incredibly thoughtful and kind person, he wasn’t always the best at consoling people in times of crisis – and small children were difficult for him to handle in the first place. When The Girl had been a baby, Kobra had always handed her off to someone else whenever she started fussing or crying. It hated the noise.
Jet was about to step up and lift Girlie off his lap, rescuing him from the warm, damp patch starting to form on his shirt, but he waved her away. Leave it to Kobra to constantly keep her guessing.
Keeping his composure, he murmured comforting words too lowly for Jet to make out the specifics and continued to pat The Girl on the back, moving to do the same on her upper arm. It took a few minutes to bring down the bawling to normal tears – the kind that usually came with Girlie’s nightmares or when she fell over and scraped her knees – and a little longer until she was just sniffling quietly, the occasional sob breaking through. Kobra bounced its knee, the rhythm seeming to help calm the motorbaby down.
“It isn’t your fault, princesa. It isn’t anybody’s fault.” Jet reassured her.
She shook her head, curls bouncing defiantly, but settled back onto Kobra’s lap without shedding anymore tears. Six-year-olds were capable of crying themselves out in a significantly short amount of time, in Jet’s experience. It was something that she was always grateful for when The Girl, (or her little sister Inez, if she was at home), threw herself into a temper tantrum. At least it was over much faster than when Kobra or Ghoul went into meltdown. Once Girlie had her thumb tucked safely into her mouth – a habit that she hadn’t grown out of yet – Jet was able to resume catching her crewmate up to date.
“An’ nobody has any clue where they went?” Kobra raised an eyebrow, “That seems hard to believe.”
“Girlie said that she turned around and they were gone–”
Quickly, Kobra leapt to their sibling’s defence: “They wouldn’t leave her on purpose.”
“I know that, Kobes.”
“They care about her more than anyone. Maybe even more than you.”
Although Jet knew it wasn’t an insult, she couldn’t help taking its words like a zap wound to the heart. They had to suppress the urge to argue.
Maybe Party was the one who had insisted on taking The Girl, back in the day. Maybe they were the one who continued to insist on their crew raising her, despite all the problems that came with it.
But wasn’t it Jet who fed and bathed her most nights? Wasn’t it Jet who sat with her for hours and combed through her natural hair, rubbing the oils she made herself into it? Party had half-raised their younger brother, it was true, but Jet was the one with experience: she had five baby siblings and had always been her mother’s favourite little helper. She’d had to teach the others how to change a diaper.
The bitterness that came with those thoughts left a bad taste in her mouth. Jet didn’t like the person she became when she was upset. Even if Party did care for The Girl more than anyone else – more than her – what did it really matter? It didn’t do anything to change their situation.
“I know. I know they wouldn’t leave her on her own like that,” Jet said, “That’s what makes me think that wherever Party is right now, they didn’t go there willingly.”
“Party could take anyone in a fight.” Kobra retorted stubbornly.
It was untrue and they both knew it. Party wasn’t the worst fighter in the world, but they worked better in a team and had a tendency to panic if they were caught off-guard. Plus, Jet had watched them lose a fight with a vending machine once. If Ghoul hadn’t used his quick reflexes to yank them out of the way, Party Poison would’ve been squished into a Party Pancake several years ago.
However, Kobra was upset about its brother going missing and nobody could fault him for that.
Like Jet said, if it had been one of her siblings that had disappeared without a trace, she would have been inconsolable. In comparison, he was handling the crisis incredibly well. If Kobra’s way of coping with the situation was diving headfirst into stubbornness and denial, she couldn’t blame him for that. Still, Jet wasn’t in the mood to argue, not after the day that they’d had.
Instead, Jetty reached out and plucked The Girl (who mumbled reluctantly) off its lap.
“Dinnertime, then it’s straight to bed for you.”
Maybe it was a little earlier than usual, but Jet figured that she had a taxing day.
-
Her guess was quickly proven to be correct, as The Girl didn’t even make it through her bedtime story before she’d fallen fast asleep, snuggled in her motel bed. Jet tucked the extra blanket (a late birthday gift from her Uncle Cherri, which she absolutely adored) around her, making sure that she wouldn’t get cold when the desert’s temperature suddenly dropped in the night. She left the door slightly ajar. Just in case.
When Jet passed by Kobra’s room, the door was closed and she could hear faint, muffled noises coming from within. She suspected it might be the sound of somebody crying, although she didn’t want to ponder it, and elected to give her crewmate space for a little while. Reentering the lobby, Jet reflected on her earlier wish for anyone to return home and how she’d completely pinned her hopes of feeling better on it. She thought that the reappearance of her crewmates would fix everything right away.
As she sunk into the desk chair, eyeing the yellow light seeping out from under Kobra’s door, Jet wondered how she could feel worse with two of her most treasured family members (and they were family to her) safely at home again. Usually, the presence of those in her life made up for the absences.
But today, everything was out of sorts.
She glanced at the digital clock of the radio, the dim red glow of the numbers confirming the sun had set now, and felt the familiar squeeze of her stomach.
It had started a few hours ago, when Jet had realised suddenly it had been a long time since she had last seen Ghoul. There was a strong sensation of a fist closing around her stomach and clenching tightly, her organ being squished into a space five times too small for it. She felt like she should run to the bathroom. Sometimes, the squeezing was accompanied by a burning feeling around her oesophagus and an acidic taste in her mouth, like she had just finished puking. Taking deep breaths or a sip of water was usually enough to placate the bodily reactions to her anxiety, although it was getting harder to reason away Ghoul’s absence as the hours stacked up. The short bursts of dread were starting to come closer together, barely giving her a moment to recover between them, and Jet exhaled shakily.
The longer it took for Ghoul to return, the stronger her suspicions grew: whoever had swept up Party Poison, causing them to vanish without a trace, must have taken Fun Ghoul with them.
It would have been easy enough to sneak up on him, especially since he was working alone. Likely, he was enraptured with whatever it was that he was combing the sand for. Parts, he’d said. Parts for something that he was working on. Whenever Ghoul was deep into the zone, his mechanical brain whirring to life and the cogs spinning rapidly, it was impossible for Jet to capture his attention.
Now and again, his attention span had been the butt of their crew’s jokes: by the way, Ghoul, since you didn’t say anythin’ to stop us, we sold all your old junk to Tommy. Once, Party had convinced Jet to help carry most of the scrap metal up to the roof of the motel and spent the afternoon giggling away in an armchair, while Ghoul stamped around in irritation. Eventually, Jet had relented to the pressure and shown Ghoul that they hadn’t really sold his collection of scraps and bolts. He had seen the funny side.
Although Ghoul could hold his own in a fight, he wouldn’t have had a chance if somebody had snuck up on him and stunned him with their zap. Or gagged him with a cloth to stop him screaming. Or– in the past, Jet had woken up, sweating like a pig, from a million different versions of this nightmare. It wasn’t worth dwelling on it during her waking hours too, especially since it only made her insides writhe around more.
The creak of a door startled her. But it was only Kobra leaving his room.
If there was any evidence of it crying – Jet knew that she shouldn’t intrude on his privacy by looking for the signs, but she couldn’t help doing so automatically – then it was obscured by the sunglasses balanced on his nose. Kobra had changed out of its race clothes, which had reeked of sweat and petroleum, and was wearing one of its older sibling’s shirts. Jet recognised the old white shirt they’d begged from a Mad Gear and Missile Kid gig, down at Fuck Your House, a few years back. The fabric was barely long enough to cover Kobra’s stomach, given that he was the taller one of the Venom Siblings.
Approaching the desk with a casual air, Kobra hopped up and seated himself on the edge of it, twiddling the dog tags dangling around its neck. Stolen from his boyfriend, no doubt. Covering itself with the belongings of people it cared about seemed to grant Kobra some security when it was upset.
“Hey, Kobes.” Jetty said softly.
Wordlessly, Kobra nodded to her and turned its gaze towards the lobby doors, as if it was expecting the rest of their crew to come crashing through it any moment. Whooping and hollering. Laughing. Party teasing Ghoul about his victory, by holding the spoils of war out of his reach and making him jump to get them back.
Thinking longingly of their friends, Jet pinched the beads of her bracelets between her fingers and made a wish on each of them. Despite being a sandpup, born and raised, Party only half-believed in the Phoenix Witch and was inconsistent in their prayers. Ghoul had grown up in the Catholic church, but was a serious believer and had grown more so since meeting Jet. Still, prayers and visits to the mailbox slipped his mind more often than not. Did the Witch look out for those who didn’t believe? Those who didn’t practise?
Jet realised she had cupped her hands together without intending to, her face pressed into the leather gloves that clad her palms and fingers, and rubbed her eyes. Raising her head again, she found Kobra was looking at her expectantly, as if it was waiting for an answer to a question. Shit. Whatever it was that he had said, she’d completely missed it. So much for being a good friend… And older sister.
“Come again?” Jet asked, apologetic.
“I said, ya should get some rest,” She couldn’t fault Kobra for looking smug, “You gotta be exhausted.”
Although Jet wasn’t usually stubborn, she shook her head and gestured to the radio.
“Waiting for news.”
“I can do that.” Kobra replied, so fast that he must have pre-empted her argument.
In spite of her aching head and heavy eyelids, Jet spent a while longer trying to make her case: not only was she older than Kobra, she was their medic and might be needed when the others returned. Plus, she needed to be there if Girlie woke up from a bad dream and cried for her Tía. For all of these reasons, it was vital Jet remained awake and close to their only means of communication as long as possible.
But she had never been good at arguing her side of things.
Back home, she had been the mediator between her bolder and louder siblings, trying to resolve the conflict rather than playing any role in it herself. She had been on the sidelines, pleading for them to stop, (please don’t fight, you guys!).
Even now, she broke up scraps between Party and Ghoul, picking them up by the scruffs of their shirts like misbehaving kittens. She pushed Ghoul and Kobra apart when they bickered, one hand on each of their foreheads to stop them shoving each other. When The Girl shouted in frustration at a caregiver, Jet delivered the lecture on how it might hurt somebody’s feelings.
When Jet had confessed to being a middle child, it had made the others laugh and fondly slap her on the back because it was so obvious.
Arms folded across its chest and a stony expression on its face, Kobra was unconvinced by her pleading. He sentenced her to bed with a surliness beyond his years, (one day he was going to make an incredible dad). It promised to check on The Girl and keep its ear to the radio deep into the night, in case someone caught a glimpse of their missing crewmates.
Kobra even offered to bring a pillow in and sleep at the desk, to make sure that it didn’t miss any 4am transmissions. Although, with the Venom Brother’s shared history of insomnia, it was unlikely that he’d drift off to sleep any time soon. Adding in the fact that its older sibling and best friend were both missing, Kobra would probably be wired for the entire night. Usually, Jet was a fairly heavy sleeper, who had few problems falling asleep in any place or position, and she suspected that even she would spend most of the night tossing and turning. Resting seemed impossible at a time like this.
Pulling the door to her room closed, Jet cast a final glance back over her shoulder.
Swinging back on the desk chair – in a way that would’ve made her mamãe start talking about the stitches needed to close up a head injury – Kobra looked bored as he refolded his skinny arms across his chest. He always looked bored, though. Jet had learned years ago that the uninterested expression on its face didn’t reflect what it was really feeling inside. From here, she could almost see the intense fear radiating off him.
The red numbers on the radio cast a low red glow on his skin, the entire desk being reflected in the dark glass of his shades. It didn’t inspire confidence in Jet, at that moment, to know that it was just the two of them left in the crew. Their own numbers had been cut in half in one fell sweep.
Only Jet-Star and the Kobra Kid remained.
-
It was mid-morning when the news finally came through, long enough for the alarm clock radiation to have settled across the sand. Jet had finished styling Girlie’s hair into two puffs on her head like she’d requested. She secured each one with a hair tie, humming the Portuguese lullaby that her mother used to sing while working on Jet’s hair, and looked up with a frown when she heard the radio crackle.
Jet was sitting on the floor, with the motorbaby propped between her open legs, making her unable to leap up at short notice. So, Kobra abandoned fixing his tape-deck to attend to the radio. It adjusted the dial a little before the message started coming through clearly. While he did so, Jet bounced her right leg impatiently.
It was difficult to make out the entire message, but a few words came through loud and clear, like ‘Party’ and ‘foot’. Maybe it was the hearing damage from the rock shows Jet used to frequent in her youth but she swore she heard the word ‘monkey’ several times. It said a lot about the radio station crew that she wouldn’t be surprised if they had somehow managed to acquire a monkey in the middle of the desert.
Once the crackling sounds of the static had died down enough to understand the broadcast, the three of them managed to catch the tailend of Newsagogo’s cheery voice:
“- down at the station! See ya soon, starchasers an’ motorbabies!”
As the words crossfaded into a punk song Jet didn’t recognise, she turned her head deliberately so that she was able to look over at Kobra. She didn’t know why she bothered, since he was wearing the same unreadable expression that she was accustomed to seeing 90% of the time. Ghoul had once teased that it wore that face even more than it wore its Batman underwear (Witch, Jetty missed him so much) which was a seriously impressive feat if it was true. Also, gross.
Finally, Kobra swore under his breath and kicked the leg of the wooden desk in a rush of rage.
“Zie couldn’t have repeated the message?!”
“Maybe zie did… Maybe it was repeated while we were trying to break through the static.” Jet mused, tapping The Girl on the back to indicate that her hair was finished and she could go play now.
Beaten-up rocketship already clasped in her hand, The Girl leapt to her feet and zoomed down the corridor of the motel, making enthusiastic ‘whooshing’ noises as she went. Jet smiled, in spite of herself. The rocket had been one of her most treasured toys when she was growing up (and, if she was being completely honest, still was now) and it warmed her heart to see Girlie playing with it too.
“Besides,” Jet continued, “We already know where we need to go.”
“We don’t have a fucking clue!”
In silence, they listened to the remainder of the broadcast, which consisted of three more songs and a traffic report interspersed in the middle. They’d have to stay off-track when they drove down to the station, since dracs were patrolling Route Guano and a few sightings suggested a scarecrow – the balding one, who favoured frills and dramatics – might be accompanying them. It would make the drive a little longer than necessary, unfortunately for their gas tank, but Jet preferred spending extra time behind the wheel to having her brains blown out.
As Newsie signed off, signalling the end of the broadcast, Jet wondered why zie was doing the segment. It was obviously not a real show – just one to cover for the earlier message, so that nobody would think anything was amiss if they picked up the broadcast on their own radio – but Newsie, as hir name suggested, usually delivered the news. Was there a reason that zie was covering for Dr D today? If anything, it would make the broadcast more suspicious to listeners that the usual DJ was missing.
Dr Death Defying was the one who handled shows like this, the ones that blended spinning records with traffic reports and coded messages meant only for killjoy ears. He’d granted the responsibility to his midnight runners in the past, Jet remembered, but it had been when he absolutely had to. As the ‘local’ medic, she’d once been called down to the station to check up on him when he had a bad case of zone flu. He could barely sit upright in his bed to sip from a flask of water, yet had still insisted on being helped into his chair and wheeled over to the desk to warn the zones about a potential upcoming scarecrow raid.
She shouldn’t jump to conclusions: there were plenty of reasons why Dr D might have asked Newsie to appear on the radio in his place, most of which were nothing extraordinary. Still, it made Jet anxious how uncertain everything had been during the last 24 hours. Routine was important to her and she liked her days to be as consistent as possible, no matter how difficult it was out in the zones. So many things had changed rapidly over the course of a single day and it made Jet stress, not knowing what could happen next.
There was a thump as Kobra’s foot made contact with the desk leg again.
He wore a look of frustration, face scrunched up as if the sun was shining right in its eyes, and it seemed to consider whether it was worth taking out more of his annoyance on the innocent desk. He took a deep breath and the wave of anger seemed to pass as quickly as it had arrived. Nonetheless, he looked guilty when he realised that The Girl was watching him too.
She was clutching her toy in one hand, perched on top of an armchair, and had frozen midplay. Kobra managed to force a smile and waved for her to carry on playing, before it came over and dropped on the floor next to Jet. He had once confessed to her about the huge emotions that raged inside of him, too big for his body, and how they burst out of him unexpectedly. As well as how he didn’t want The Girl to see him like that, out of control. Kobra wanted their kid to think highly of it.
Letting out an empathetic hum, Jet patted his knee.
“We’ll head down to the station, like Newsie said,” She said, taking charge of the situation, “Whatever’s going on, they know more than we do right now.”
Wordlessly, Kobra nodded and she took that as a sign to continue talking.
“Besides, it might be good to hang around some other people right now. Hey, you can see Cherri–”
Needless to say, Jet wasn’t expecting him to jump for joy at the idea of visiting his boyfriend, considering they had seen each other yesterday. However, the reaction she got was completely unexpected.
Exhaling a weary sigh, as if seeing Cherri was an impossible task that it had no choice but to undertake, Kobra slumped his shoulders and ran a hand haphazardly through his hair. The slight crease on its forehead was almost discernable and would have gone unnoticed by anyone who didn’t know Kobra well. Fortunately, Jet had known him for decades, enough time to learn to pick up on the small changes in his expression.
Seeing its reaction took her completely by surprise. Like any couple, Cherri and Kobra had their ups and downs (unlike most couples, these usually depended on one or both of them abusing substances for whatever reason) but they still liked to see each other.
Once, after they’d had an argument over Cherri’s latest waveriding relapse, Party had found them sitting with their backs to each other as they sulked. They were sitting back-to-back so they could still hold hands, even though they didn’t want to look at or talk to each other for a while. Out of their little killjoy cluster, Cherri and Kobra were one of the more stable couples. Despite this, Kobra had reacted to the idea of visiting Cherri like Jet had suggested taking a midday walk, barefoot, when the sun and sand were at their hottest.
“Did you guys… have a fight?” Jet ventured.
Kobra shrugged his shoulders, giving nothing away as usual. It was ridiculously hard to pry information out of him, whether he was being particularly stubborn or not, because Kobra wasn’t a chatty joy by nature. Sometimes, Jet wondered it was a side effect of growing up with Party, who rambled nonstop about whatever came to mind and would chatter to anyone who was willing to listen. Maybe Kobra had spent the first thirteen (or however many) years of its life without being able to get a word in edgeways.
Or maybe, the quietness was more comfortable for him. Jet was less outgoing too, so she could understand that, and it was why the two of them were usually content to sit in silence without it being awkward.
But there was something about this silence that was different from their usual companionship, something that Jet couldn’t put her finger on. It was almost… blunted. Rather than the lack of words being due to them not needing to say anything to each other, this was more about not wanting to speak about something. It wasn’t a shared silence. It was Kobra building up his walls and withholding information from her, deliberately. This was a silence for Jetty to sit in, like a lukewarm, shallow bath, by herself.
“It’s normal for couples to fight, you know. It’s part of being in a relationship,” Jet said, pausing for a moment before she continued, “Me and Ghoul fight sometimes.”
Of course, Kobra would know this – given that it spent most of those arguments on the other side of the wall, from the other end of the room, or even politely pretending not to be listening right next to them. It would be impossible for Kobra not to know. His hearing would have to be worse than Poison’s.
All the same, Jet had hoped that the confession would make it feel safer opening up about its own relationship issues. Still, Kobra gave her absolutely nothing to work with, its posture and expression unchanging as if she’d said nothing at all. It was like talking to a brick wall.
For a moment longer, Jet remained quiet, in case Kobra was gathering his thoughts before he replied. She didn’t want to cut him off by being too quick to speak. After another minute or two of complete silence had passed, she nudged her companion gently in the side and offered him a reassuring smile.
“You know you can talk to me about anything, Kobes,” She spoke softly, “I won’t judge you. No matter what it is, I’ve always got your back. Just… if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here.”
She wasn’t only talking about the conversation at hand. Usually, Kobra seemed to go straight to its sibling when it had something important that it needed to talk about, which was understandable. If Jet’s older sister had been part of their crew, she would have gone running to Izzy whenever she wanted to discuss anything. But, with Kobra’s usual confidante nowhere to be seen, Jet wanted to make it clear that she could fill their shoes if necessary. She was used to listening to Ghoul’s grievances and grumbles.
Kobra nodded.
“I know.”
It seemed the conversation had come to a natural close (though Jet actually had more questions than answers now) and Kobra held up a hand, which she tapped with her palm. It squeezed her hand and pulled her in for a quick ‘bro hug’, slapping her on the back with another hand, before releasing her again.
Not for the first time, Jet wondered if her crewmate had been a frat boy in another life – she’d read about them in a few of her books and seen them on the TV shows they had on tape. She shook her head with a smile, amused by the fact Kobra always managed to surprise her. Every time she thought that she had Kobra in a box, neatly categorised and labelled, it did something that threw her for another loop.
If asked, Jet would cite it as one of the many things that she loved about him.
Without discussing it any further, the two of them got to their feet and set about getting ready for the trip to the radio station. Jet prepared the motorbaby, making sure that she was reasonably clean and prepared for the perils of the zones, and strapped her safely into the backseat of the Trans Am.
Despite being their resident bike racer, Kobra liked to ride shotgun in the baby carriage and occupied himself with selecting a tape from his collection for them to listen to. The Smashing Pumpkins pumped out of the radio as Jet turned the key (a few times) to kick the engine into gear and turned away from the getaway mile, keen to avoid any more dracs. Any trouble at all, really.
Under his breath, barely audible over the sound of the engine, Kobra hummed along to the tape.
Chapter 4
Notes:
Even though this hasn't been updated for a long, long time, I still intend to finish it. All of the chapters are written, it's just taking me a while to finish editing them (more of a mental block than anything).
Thanks so much to Monroe (AKA Bonety) for motivating me to continue posting this. I hope somebody else is able get the same level of enjoyment out of this too (but I doubt it!)
Finally, don't forget to check out the amazing art of Jet-Star that my creator Brit did! You can find it here: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/BandomBigBang2023/works/49005679
Chapter Text
From the outside, the radio station was an unassuming, lopsided building. Jet always thought the building looked like a rocketship, especially if you tilted your head and squinted. The ‘door’ was a sheet of metal propped against the building. Nearby, a sign was hammered into the ground indicating that the condemned building was due to be demolished by Better Living Services. There had been a thick layer of dust on the sign for as long as Jet could remember. The greys and browns that made up the outside walls were covered in graffiti, especially Hot Chimp’s vibrant pink tags. The neon paint looked alien in the desert landscape.
Already, the radio station was a buzzing hub of activity.
Out front, the satellite van and the worn Jeep, both vehicles used by Dr Death Defying’s midnight runners, were static beasts. Jet parked the Trans Am next to them. A shock of platinum blonde hair was visible inside the van, where Hot Chimp was tapping away on something that resembled a computer (or a games console? A combination of the two?) inside. Chimp’s face was obscured by his hair as she hunched over. But Jet knew it bore as many metal spikes as his hot pink jacket, which was tied around their waist in the hot weather.
The Girl let out a joyous scream when she realised where they were.
Startled by the noise, Jet clapped her hands over her ears. She watched The Girl charge into the radio station as if there was an emergency – which, Jet supposed, there kind of was. By the time they arrived, the makeshift door was slightly ajar, so people could slip in and out easily. Hot on their kid’s heels, Jet gave a small wave to Hot Chimp and Kobra nodded. In return, the midnight runner pulled a ridiculous face at them.
NewsAGoGo zipped past them in the doorway, about as tall as Jet’s elbow, and yelled something indiscernible as zie raced towards the van.
Hot Chimp and NewsAGoGo shared an insane amount of energy. It was partially due to their diet of energy drinks and candy bars, which meant they were always hurtling around the zones at full speed. The other half was just their personalities. No wonder the pair got along so well. If Jet thought hard about it, she could recall maybe one conversation she’d had with Newsie where zie hadn’t gotten distracted immediately.
Both of them had lived at the radio station since they were teenagers. NewsAGoGo, who was the baby sister of Cherri Cola, had followed her brother out of the city as soon as zie graduated high school. Due to Newsie’s education, the midnight runners always insisted that zie was the brains of the group. In truth, zie was more like a baby sister to all of them. Except for Hot Chimp, of course, who had been head over heels since they’d gotten her first glimpse of NewsAGoGo. He was more of a typical DJ, spinning at parties and organising raves, but with a passion for street art. Like Jet, Hot Chimp had never been anywhere but the zones.
Inside the radio station was an explosion of colour and technology. The desks were stacked high with all the gear they needed for broadcasting and twice as much stuff that they didn’t need for anything at all. A Black Flag album was spinning on the record player in the corner, with records piling up beside it to be played next. Underneath the desk, a box of brightly decorated cassette tapes was spilling onto the floor.
“- and then, Tía Jet told me a bedtime story about the time you and Uncle Cherri got into a boxing ring!”
The walls were papered with posters, flyers, and old zines, making it impossible to see the ugly beige colour they’d originally been painted. A noticeboard was clogged with sheets of poems, postcards, and photographs. According to Dr Death Defying, the building had once been slated to be BL/I’s office outside of the city. They’d had plans to expand further, which had been halted by the Helium Wars. Since dropping the Pig Bomb and destroying the majority of the desert, it seemed unlikely Better Living would try to branch out again.
“Oh, yeah? Remind me which crew we got mixed up with in this story of yours.”
Against the back wall, a chunky computer was blue-screening. The other monitors were flickering from image to image of grainy desert CCTV footage. Dr. Death was sitting behind the desk in his wheelchair.
“With that crew! Y’know! The crew with the… the Hawkins… y’know! Can I have a dog for Christmas?”
The Girl was perched on his lap, chattering his ear off without pausing for breath. To his credit, D was paying rapt attention and seemed genuinely interested in what the kid was telling him. There was a reason that he was one of Girlie’s favourite uncles. It pleased Jet to watch the two of them interacting.
However, it always felt weird to see The Girl playing with Dr D or splayed across his lap. Back in the day, Jet had been the little girl who tagged along behind him. She’d spent hours turning over every item on his desk, asking for stories. Watching now, as her kid did the same, was jarring. It made her feel old. Ancient, even.
Dr Death Defying always seemed to know when somebody’s eyes were fixed on him. Even as The Girl continued telling her story, he sensed Jet looking in their direction and glanced up to meet her gaze. When he smiled, the crow’s feet around his eyes deepened a little. Jet felt reassured.
Gently, without cutting her off, Dr D hushed the small girl on his lap.
“Heya, Jetty. Kobes. Y’all got the message?”
“We sure did.” She said.
To her left, Kobra Kid nodded in agreement.
“Although, I’ve got to admit: we didn’t catch all of it.” Jet added, as an afterthought.
With a wave of his hand, Dr D waved Show Pony towards them. How Jet had missed the DJ’s assistant leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe, studying xir nails for potential chips, she had no idea. From the direction of the broadcasting booth, the glamorous midnight runner glided forwards (pausing to twirl around a pile of forgotten CDs left to stagnate on the floor) on xir ever-reliable roller skates.
“Pony will give ya the latest.”
Xe was wearing a pair of bedazzled jean shorts and a crop top which had once read ‘drac hunter’. The first word had been painted over and edited with a black sharpie, so that the shirt read ‘dilf hunter’. Jet wasn’t sure if she felt a begrudging respect for Pony’s commitment to zones’ fashion or flustered that she was going to have to explain the phrase to Girlie later. Maybe Jet even felt a little ashamed that she wasn’t so bold about expressing her preferences like that. She wasn’t embarrassed to be in a relationship with Fun Ghoul – she never had been – but she did prefer to keep it private from most of the killjoy population.
Obviously, Party and Kobra knew about them, as well as their other friends. But Jet was content to keep the details of her life among the people she knew best. It was no wonder that she was considered the most ‘boring’ member of the Fabulous Four. At least Kobra had the cheekbones and jawline to make his silence more ‘mysterious’ and ‘broody’ than ‘disinteresting’. Go figure.
“Before ya get ya hopes up, we ain’t found a trace of Pois.” Show told them.
Kobra swore underneath his breath and ran a hand through his tousled blonde hair.
“But we got Chimp an’ Newsie keepin’ a eye on security footage in case anythin’ turns up.”
Jet glanced towards the monitors that occupied the back wall of the station, watching dark, grainy images flicker across the screens. She wasn’t sure what it was about the cameras that made the zones look more like the setting of a horror movie rather than her home.
It was no big secret that they were under constant surveillance. Seeing the satellites passing overhead, easily mistaken for shooting stars, was a stark reminder that footage of their lives was being streamed directly to BL/I. While Jet had learned to be cautious of subterfuge, it had always seemed normal. After all, she didn’t know any different. But seeing the video feedback from various areas of the desert made it feel surreal.
When Kobra spoke, it was through gritted teeth:
“Tell me you didn't bring us down here to tell us you hadn’t turned anything up.”
There was a reason that it took its killjoy name from a venomous snake: he was dangerous when you made the mistake of pissing him off. Jet had seen him start (and finish) enough fights to be wary. On top of that, Kobra was always quiet. A nod or wink could always replace a spoken response. If something was important enough to draw a full sentence out of him, unprompted, it was enough to motivate a punch.
“There’s somethin’, alright,” Dr Death rolled closer to them, “Y’all recognise this?”
From the pocket of his nametag, he took out an object small enough to fit into his fist. Sitting on his flat palm was something that Jet could have recognised by touch alone, without even having to look at it: a length of cord strung with dark blue beads, about the right size to fit around a grown man’s fist. The reason that she knew the bracelet so well was because she’d made it herself. Slowly, as she watched, the cord retracted and the bracelet curled up in Dr D’s hand as if it was in pain.
A few years ago, Jet had stayed up late one night making it. She had worn her own good luck charm since she was small – even if it had needed updating every now and again. The first one had been made by her Papai to keep her safe. Rubbing the beads created a sense of calm, knowing the Witch was watching over her at that moment. Then, she secured it around Ghoul’s wrist to make sure he would be protected by the Phoenix Witch. Ghoul had rarely taken it off since, (although he claimed it was more to do with his love for Jetty than it was to do with the Witch). Seeing the bracelet lying limply in Dr D’s hand caused Jet’s stomach to twist violently. Goosebumps sprung up on her skin, despite the heat. It felt like stumbling across Ghoul’s grave.
If there had been any food sitting in her belly, Jet would’ve puked it up right there. She was grateful that she’d donated her portion of breakfast to Girlie. Even without anything lining her stomach, she tasted the familiar burn of stomach acid rising up into her throat and was forced to swallow it. Although the situation was drastically different from usual, and the reaction was involuntary, Jet resisted the urge to throw up. She didn’t want to fall back into her bad habits.
“That’s… Ghoul’s…” She said, in case anyone had any doubts.
Her voice sounded hoarse. It didn’t escape her notice that Show Pony was fixing her with a sympathetic look, as if she was wearing an ugly outfit or had an outdated hairstyle. Worse than that, The Girl was looking at her with big, dark eyes. They were shining a little, tears threatening to fall at any moment.
“Switchboard found it in Zone One, just outside the entrance to the city. Ya lucky it got picked up at all.” Dr D handed the bracelet back to her, though she was too stunned to do anything more than stare blankly at it, “Now, riddle me this: I thought Poison was the one who went missin’.”
Running her fingers over the beads (which were her signature colour), Jet couldn’t tear her eyes away from the piece of homemade jewellery. How many times had she held Ghoul’s hand, feeling their bracelets clink against each other? How many times had she laughed when he accidentally snagged it on the zipper of his jacket? It looked so alien now that it had been ripped away from her boyfriend’s wrist.
Her vision began to blur around the edges, becoming swimmy rapidly as her eyes filled up with tears. Until now, she’d been able to fool herself into thinking that Ghoul would be back any second. But feeling the weight of the beads in her hand made it impossible to ignore that something was terribly wrong here. She had to swallow another lump forming in her throat. It wasn’t that she thought crying was a weakness or something to be ashamed of. Despite the teasing she used to endure from her older brothers, Jet believed her capacity for emotion was a strength. But she had to hold it together, just until they worked out a plan.
Something had happened to Ghoul. No doubt, it was the same thing that happened to Party.
Kobra glanced sideways at her, waiting for her to jump in and either confirm or deny. There was a neutral, somewhat blank expression on its face. Unlike Jet, he didn’t let his feelings flow naturally. Kobra liked to bottle them up tightly, keeping them private, until the pressure became completely unsustainable. Eventually, there would be an explosion. When Jet didn’t say a word, Kobra fixed its gaze on the ground instead.
“Ghoul didn’t come home last night.” He said, “He never returned from collecting scrap metal.”
Dr Death Defying raised his eyebrows.
Although he had never scolded them, the DJ had a way of making Jet feel small and ashamed. Like she was a little kid he had caught scribbling on the walls with permanent markers. Knowing that Dr D was disappointed in her was infinitely worse than if he had been angry. Classic dad behaviour, Ghoul used to say. Apparently, Jet’s dad was something of an enigma when it came to parenting. Her mamaẽ did the majority of the scolding.
“An’ neither of ya thought to mention it? Honestly, y’all would forget ya butts if they weren’t attached to ya.”
There was a giggle from The Girl (because she was ten and there was nothing funnier than butts when you were pre-pubescent) who was perched on the desk chair at the back of the room and watching the security footage flicker. Her tears had already dried up, leaving streaks down her dusty face – but there was no doubt they would return later. Jet had forgotten that she was there and felt a surge of guilt. Maybe she should be attending to The Girl first? After all, she was very young and had already seen more than her fair share of trauma. Plus, she was Jet’s responsibility. It was hard to know how to balance the problems of everyone in the crew at the same time. Party Poison wasn’t flawless, but Jet was impressed they’d been able to manage it.
She cleared her throat, hoping that it would prevent her voice from breaking mid-sentence.
“Did Switchboard find anything else? A clue about where he went?”
If she was being realistic, Jet would’ve phrased the question a little differently: did they find any clues about what happened to Ghoul? Passive tense. But she knew better than to ask questions she wouldn’t like the answers to.
“Hot Chimp’s rakin’ through the footage we got of Zone One. The g–”
“Was Party with him?” Kobra interrupted.
Quickly, Jet’s eyes flickered to her crewmate. But, yet again, she couldn’t identify any obvious emotions from his facial expression or body language. Most people were difficult for her to read, but Kobra was in a different league altogether. She could guess that he was probably upset (or frustrated?) at the focus moving from his sibling’s disappearance. Another stab of guilt. Because whatever she felt must have been amplified for Kobra. While Party had always been like her sister, they were literally Kobra’s sibling. Poison had raised him. Since the Venom Siblings were orphans, they’d always clung to each other first and foremost.
“The good news is that BL/Ind ain’t broadcasted anythin’ about ‘em.” Dr D finished, “If they had the most infamous rebels in their clutches, they probably would’ve made a song an’ dance about it.”
“No news is good news.” Pony shrugged xir shoulders.
Kobra set his jaw. Judging from the fist clenched tightly at its side, it was resisting the urge to destroy any more furniture. Whatever he was thinking, the words were aggressive enough for him to bite back. They must have been venomous, if the dark look in his eyes was anything to go by – or maybe it was a trick of the light. Either way, Jet couldn’t blame him. If the biggest update on the situation was ‘no news is good news’, she’d rather have spent this time out there searching for her crewmates.
Before Jet could ask any follow-up questions, there was the telltale squeak of rubber soles outside as someone approached the station. She couldn’t help (half-heartedly) hoping that it was Ghoul, who had just been playing a bad prank on them. If you come back now, I’ll forgive you. Tell me it was a stupid joke.
If he and Kobra were in the midst of a fight, nobody had bothered to tell Cherri Cola about it.
He bounced through the doorway with his usual enthusiasm. Only at the last minute did he remember to duck under the doorframe and narrowly avoid giving himself a concussion. When Cherri reached the group, he slung an arm casually around Kobra’s shoulder and asked brightly what he’d missed. From underneath his arm, Kobra bristled a little. But he fixed his face and adopted his usual neutral expression, as if nothing was going on. Cherri didn’t even get so much as a shrug in response.
If Jet hadn’t been watching closely for signs of conflict, she might not have noticed that anything was amiss. It didn’t seem like anybody else had noticed the tension in Kobra’s shoulders and back. His entire body was tense like a predator about to strike. The juxtaposition between Cherri and Kobra was incredible.
“Jus’ givin’ these two the latest updates, Cola.” Show Pony said.
“Wi’out me?” Cherri pouted at xem, childish, and turned his head to plant a kiss on Kobra’s cheek, “Ya shoulda radioed ahead, Kobes. Coulda made sure tha’ I was here to meet ya.”
“To update me?”
The coldness in Kobra’s voice was visceral. Everyone felt the blow, not just Cherri.
Without a word, Jet straightened her spine to assume her full height. She had an inch or two over Cherri and wanted to remind him of it. Although she had no idea what was going on between the two of them, Kobra was her best friend; she would have his back, no matter what. If it needed backup in a fight (as much as she hated to fight with other killjoys) she wouldn’t hesitate to put Cherri Cola in his place. That was what it meant to be loyal to her crew and its members.
The grin on Cherri’s face twitched, threatening to disappear, and the muscles in his face seemed to tighten. It looked like more of a grimace now, obviously forced. Something else about his face seemed to be off too, Jet realised. Her eyes scanned his face, in hope of spotting whatever it was. A minute passed before she was able to work out the problem. It was his five o clock shadow, making him look rougher than usual. Rather than his usual scruff, a beard was threatening to grow on his chin. Cherri looked tired.
Slowly, he withdrew his arm from around Kobra’s shoulder. He hesitated as he did so, as if he was waiting for his boyfriend to protest, and looked put out when Kobra didn’t say anything. The silence hung thick and heavy in the air, nobody sure how to proceed without further upsetting the tentative balance in the room.
Jet looked to Dr Death Defying and his assistant, hopeful, but they looked as bemused as she felt. Show Pony laughed, trying to make light of the situation. But it sounded uneasy. Between her fingers, Jet rolled the beads of her boyfriend’s bracelet and considered what she should do next.
Everyone seemed grateful when Newsie came tearing back into the room, screeching with excitement. There was a collective sigh of relief: something was happening. Jet and Kobra scrambled to follow the young DJ back outside, crossing the short distance from the building to the van outside. If nothing came of this, Jet didn’t care in the slightest – she was just glad to escape the tense atmosphere of that room.
“Are you okay?” Jet asked, lowering her voice.
Kobra didn’t respond.
Considering the interaction she’d witnessed, she supposed that she couldn’t be too surprised that Kobra didn’t want to talk about it. She’d never seen him be so chilly towards someone, let alone Cherri. Although he grew frustrated sometimes, his explosions were always quick and heated. Like a volcano. The coldness radiating from her friend seemed unnatural, like a California snowstorm.
Instead of saying anything, Kobra took a cigarette out of its back pocket and held it between his teeth, pausing his step to light it before continuing on their way. Judging by the frustrated way Kobra exhaled smoke through its nose, he wasn’t happy with Cherri Cola. But what could have happened between them?
Cherri Cola was a good guy. There was a reason he had the population of the zones hanging onto his every word. At his peak, he had been a complete heartthrob. The radio station used to keep a separate inbox for the stacks of love letters he received on a regular basis. As he’d grown older, he’d mellowed into what Ghoul and Party had unanimously decided to be a DILF – despite the fact he didn’t have any kids of his own. Cherri’s worst crimes were being grumpy on occasion, usually when he got withdrawals (waveriding was one of the hardest addictions to kick), or being easily distracted. Neither of which seemed to frustrate Kobra before.
“We can talk about it when you’re ready.” Jet said, feeling a little put out.
They reached the van. Jet peeked inside to see Newsie and Hot Chimp crowding around a computer, still buzzing from whatever it was they’d found. She tried not to hold her breath, but felt her heart leap with hope anyway. On the screen, she could make out some dingy security footage of a patch of sand. Yesterday’s date was printed in red letters in the bottom-right corner. The time below it indicated that the video had been taken at 10:37am. She assumed, from the Better Living Industries logo stamped in the top-left corner and the angle that the desert was being filmed from (above), that Hot Chimp had secured this footage by hacking a satellite. Or a drone. It always paid off to have friends who were good with technology.
“‘S from Zone One.” Newsie informed them, hand in a bag of chips.
“How can you tell?”
“Got coordinates off the footage!” Hot Chimp boasted.
She opened her mouth wide and let his joyfriend throw a chip in, crunching it triumphantly. Hole in one.
Jet tried not to imagine what Ghoul would be doing if he was here: sharing snacks and jokes with the two other tech-heads, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the van. The three of them made a pretty good team when it came to computers or engineering. Ghoul would’ve tied his hair back into a loose ponytail to stop it from falling in his face, blowing his breath at the few stubborn strands that escaped. Knee bouncing and forehead creasing in concentration. Maybe he’d steal chips from Newsie or compare piercings with Hot Chimp.
“Watch the screen here.” Newsie pointed.
Hot Chimp played the footage, which had been slowed-down for their sake, and Jet watched as the camera panned over an empty desert. Suddenly, a flash of black and green passed over the sand, hard to make out from the top-down angle. It was easy to miss if you blinked at the wrong time. Maybe the drone had mistaken it as nothing more than a plant – otherwise, it would have moved closer to focus on the object. But Chimp rewound the video and paused it, so that Jet could peer closer at the screen.
It was Fun Ghoul.
Despite the weird angle and the graininess of the camera, it was obviously Fun Ghoul. The black was his mess of hair, although it was impossible to pick out the individual curls from the poor quality image. There was a patch on the side, where his hair was parted, that was lighter than the rest: he needed to plaster some more black dye onto his roots.
A few nights before he had disappeared, Jet had been holding him loosely in her arms (his head resting on the bump of her stomach) and had commented on the brown beginning to grow out again. She wanted him to let it, since she thought that his natural colour was pretty. Ghoul had whined and complained and dragged his feet. She missed him.
The bright green wasn’t an obnoxious desert plant. It was his Frankenstein mask strapped to his face, a stark contrast to his black hair. Since it was close to the city, Zone One didn’t have the noxious fumes those closer to the impact of the pig bomb did. It was safe to wander without a helmet or a face covering. But Ghoul was wearing his mask anyway. Whatever he was doing, he had been taking precautions not to be recognised.
Jet was relieved. She couldn’t guarantee that it was the green mask that had prevented the drone from identifying him as a killjoy, of course. Nonetheless, she was grateful he was using his brain. While she didn’t want to admit it, Ghoul’s tendency to charge headfirst into trouble had been on her mind since they’d realised that he was missing. She hated to think less of him like that. She knew that Ghoul would’ve been hurt and asked why she thought he was an idiot, when he was jus’ as smart as anyone else out here? But his righteous sense of justice could override his common sense, sometimes.
Ya gotta shoot first an’ ask questions later, especially when it comes to those BL/I fuckers.
While Newsie squeezed hir way out of the van and ran inside to tell Dr Death Defying the latest news, (living up to hir name), the remaining three continued to study the footage. Ghoul’s appearance was so brief that they had to rewatch it a few times, making a few guesses at what he might be doing in Zone One.
Jet’s explanation, taken from the note left at the motel, that he was out looking for scrap metal was dismissed by Kobra: there was no reason to stray so far from home when there was still so much closeby.
Then, Hot Chimp posited, maybe Ghoul had been intending to head into the city? Didn’t his parents still live downtown? Jet and Kobra shot the idea down immediately. Ghoul didn’t hate his parents but there was no way that he’d up and leave to see them with no warning. Plus, making a trip like that mean practically signing his death warrant.
“The underground!” Jet shouted, triumphantly.
Having returned from hir quest, NewsAGoGo screwed up hir face and clapped hir hands over hir ears, unpleasantly startled by the loud noise. Sheepishly, Jet mumbled an apology. Then, she turned to look at her crewmate. As usual, Kobra’s face wasn’t betraying a single thought. She waited for him to leap in and agree with her brilliant suggestion. He didn’t offer so much as a nod. Instead, Kobra raked a hand through its hair and combed it back into place, so that it wasn’t falling down on either side of his head.
“Could be.” He exhaled a sigh.
“Why would Gun Fool be headin’ underground?” Hot Chimp said, fiddling with the footage to blow it up even bigger on the screen.
That halted Jet’s train of thought. Weakly, she offered:
“. . . A new tattoo?”
Despite her confidence when she’d initially come up with the solution, Jet was already beginning to doubt herself. It wouldn’t make much sense for Ghoul to randomly ditch whatever he was working on and run off to the underground, especially without letting his crew know where he was going.
However, as Jet pointed out to the others crowding around and inside the van, nothing about this entire situation made sense. Two of their crew members had disappeared with zero warning, like they’d dissipated into thin air. With close to nothing to go on, why wouldn’t they make use of the one suggestion they did have?
A quick sweep of the underground, to confirm that Ghoul wasn’t trapped down there somewhere, wouldn’t do any harm. Since they had no other ideas, shouldn’t they at least try? Jetty couldn’t help feeling a little frustrated that everyone expected her to sit around and wait for clues to appear when her boyfriend and best friend were both missing. It was so unfair. Everyone else was allowed to charge headfirst into trouble whenever the urge struck them, but because Jet was the ‘sensible one’, (the ‘mother’ of the crew), she wasn’t allowed to follow her gut instinct. It seemed so unfair that she’d been boxed into the role.
Jet realised that she was on the verge of snapping and excused herself.
“I should go and check on The Girl.”
Squeezing between Kobra and NewsAGoGo, Jet hopped out of the vehicle and strode the distance to the entryway of the radio station. With each step, she felt like she was losing time. Tick tock, tick tock.
When reentered the station, Jet scanned the room to locate where her little girl (in the years that had passed since her mother had died, it had become impossible not to think of Girlie as hers) had gotten to. She didn’t spot her immediately and panic leapt up her throat. Had she managed to lose The Girl too? How could she keep failing again and again?
“She’s takin’ a nap in Cher’s room,” Dr Death Defying looked up from the map he was scouring, “Poor kid’s havin’ one helluva week. Though, it ain’t like y’ain’t havin’ the same one.”
Usually, Jet wasn’t so quick to panic. Dr D was right: this week was wreaking havoc on her.
He had spread an old map of the zones across the broadcasting desk, pushing all the radio equipment aside, and was pouring over it. The map was ancient enough that it still had other cities in California labelled, as if they hadn’t been consumed by Battery City years ago. The ones they didn’t claim had been destroyed.
Since the map was one of the few that they had, though, Dr D had adapted it to the modern geography with a series of coloured markers. As well as adding where the zone lines were, marking out the various lighthouses, and where the groups of dracs tended to form a cloud, someone had drawn the electromagnetic wall that fenced the city in. The entrance to the underground was in thick black marker. It looked like a black hole.
Jet knew the map well. When she was younger, she had been fascinated by it. So, she had spent hours lying on her stomach on the rug of the station and studying the busy map of her home. It seemed to transgress time. The thick black line which marked Route Guano had stayed the same, despite everything, even if the name had changed once or twice. Jet always found that reassuring. No matter what happened in the zones (the amalgamation of cities, the closing of establishments, the helium wars, the pig bomb, the demolitions, the collapse and resurrection of the mailbox) the same line would always lead straight to the main entrance of the city. Jet’s mother had driven that same road through the Californian desert. Decades earlier, her grandmother had done the same. One day, Jetty hoped her kids would travel the road too.
But if Ghoul never came back, her dream would be dead in the (non-existent) water.
“Come an’ sit, Jetty. Ya look dead on ya feet.” Dr D said.
It was definitely an order, not a suggestion. Jet did as she was told and pulled up a chair.
Show Pony, who was perching on the edge of the desk and covering whatever remained beyond Zone Seven with xir butt, let out a snort:
“Ya always did know how to charm the ladies, D.”
Dr Death Defying smiled, a little wryly, and shook his head.
“Jetty ain’t jus’ any lady. She used to call me Tío.”
Jet felt a slightly embarrassed blush was spreading across her cheeks and turning her face more red than pink. The age gap between Dr D and herself wasn’t even that large. It had become more obvious the older she got. Steadily, they had become more like peers. But she hadn’t known that when she was a chubby little kid in board shorts and a stained t-shirt. Back then, Dr D had seemed wise and ancient.
She had to admit, even now, he still seemed wise. And a little ancient, by killjoy life expectations.
“I want to investigate Zone One,” Jet said, firmly, in a way that didn’t leave much room for an argument, “I’m sick of waiting around for my friends to come home. And it’s not fair. If I was anyone else, nobody would be asking me to sit down and be quiet.”
To his credit, Dr D didn’t try to argue with her. He didn’t deny there was a silent double standard at play, which nobody else seemed to notice. Instead, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, hand passing over his scruffy beard a few times before he seemed to come to a conclusion. Dr Death Defying nodded.
“Ya righ’, Jetty. It ain’t fair. An’ if ya think tha’ ya boyfriend could be hangin’ around the underground, well– ya know the kid better than anyone else out here. If ya think ya gotta head down there, we got ya back.”
bonety on Chapter 4 Mon 22 Jan 2024 06:28PM UTC
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