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.