Page 25 of Red Scale Daddy
That, for some reason, irritates me more than the gun.
Her head snaps to the side, but she rolls with the force and uses the turn to fling something small from her sleeve. It strikes the floor at the Kiphian’s feet and bursts into a cloud of glittering conductive dust. He looks down.
“Bad choice,” she says.
The baton discharges again.
The dust catches the arc and throws it back through his boots, up his legs, and into every regrettable decision he has made tonight. He locks rigid, teeth bared, eyes wide. Then he tips sideways and crashes into a table, scattering cards and drinks.
Roma breathes hard, one hand braced on the bar. A red mark is blooming along her cheek. Her eyes are bright, furious, alive.
I stare at her.
She glares back. “What?”
“You carry conductive dust in your sleeve?”
“You don’t?”
Loklo points at me. “To be fair, he mostly carries poor judgment in bulk.”
Pell groans on the floor and tries to crawl toward his fallen pistol. I step on his hand. Bones shift under my boot. He stops crawling.
“Who sent you?” I ask.
He spits a curse.
I press harder.
“A creditor broker,” he gasps. “Harl Venn. Dockside.”
Roma wipes blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her glove. “Venn sold the debt illegally.”
Pell laughs weakly. “Take it up with him.”
“I intend to.”
I crouch, grab Pell by the collar, and haul him high enough to meet my eyes. “No, you don’t. You intend to crawl out of here, tell Venn that Shot in the Dark is not a hunting ground, and reconsider every ambition that brought you into my evening.”
Pell swallows. “Fine.”
“Fine is what people say when they have learned nothing.”
Loklo appears with a fusion-block crate, empty thankfully, and nudges the Fratvoyan with his boot. “Should I pack them to go?”
“Alley,” I say.
“The alley is becoming crowded.”
“Stack them.”
He sighs. “Hospitality is dead.”
Roma pushes away from the bar and straightens her coat as if she has not just turned a sleeve full of dust into a weaponized physics lesson. Her hand trembles once before she curls it into a fist. She thinks I do not see.
I see.
She adapts. Not smoothly at first. Not naturally. But when forced, she burns through surprise fast and turns whatever is in reach into leverage. Compad flash. Foot placement. Conductive dust. Listening when I call left instead of arguing herself into a bullet.
