Ben Chaney - Son of Sedonia

“Mother fucker, admit it! You messed up!” shouted a voice in the Boss’s upper room. “Now you gon’ have to pay for that shit!” The Black Hoods rushed inside with pistols drawn. Matteo ducked behind the big one.

“Whoa whoa whoa! Y’all some nervous thugs, brother, I’ll tell ya that!” the voice said. Both Hoods relaxed, holstered their pistols, and took the drinks that were handed to them. Suomo looked much like Matteo remembered, only now wearing finely-sewn baggy clothes of bright white and navy blue. Gold and silver bracelets clinked on his wrists as he spun a long, smooth stick. He leaned over a thick table topped in green and aimed the stick at the shiny round balls that sat there. Matteo cocked his head at the strangeness of it. The balls clacked as they struck one another, sending two on the far end into corner pockets.

“Hell yes, you gon’ pay! Ha HA!” Suomo laughed at another well-dressed T99 seated by the bar, likewise holding a long smooth stick. The man shook his head and took a drink from a brown glass bottle.

“My man, take a seat on the couch over there, I’ll be right wit’chu,” Suomo said, spotting Matteo in the doorway. Matteo turned to see the L-shaped couch in the corner and the three incredibly hot girls who sat on it. Their tight bodies sank into the soft, shiny red cushions. One of them patted an empty space for him. He tensed. The girls in Oki’s gang had made fun of his dirty clothes. He tried his best to brush himself off and summon some courage. At last, he willed one foot in front of the other, turned, and lowered himself between two of the girls. His heart seemed to pound up into the back of his throat. At least none of them got blue eyes .

“Ooh, what happened to your poor shoulder?” said one with short raven hair and long smooth legs. She traced the scar tissue with a fingertip. Goosebumps spread down Matteo’s shoulder, chest, back, and arm.

“I—I, uh,” his voice shook. It was a counter-top falling from a garbage scow. I was digging through the Pits for food. The truth sounded ridiculous. Pathetic.

“It was an EXO.” The words came out on their own. They seemed to work. All three girls listened now, and the blonde made a show of gasping.

“You’re so brave! I dunno what I’d do if I was face-to-face with one of them.”

“Yeah… up… close ,” the raven haired girl rubbed her bare leg on his.

“YEAH! THAT’S RIGHT! Pay up, fool !”

Matteo jerked at Suomo’s victory shout, and his shoulder cracked a girl under the chin. Her teeth made a loud ‘clack.’

“Oh shit! Shit, I’m s-so sorry! Are you okay?” Matteo babbled. The raven-haired girl rubbed her chin and moved her jaw side-to-side. The other two girls couldn’t stop cackling.

Suomo ignored the noise. He collected his winnings and walked over to the couch.

“Aight, y’all, take a walk. Gotta talk with my man here,” said Suomo. All three got up. The two uninjured girls turned and waved a giggling goodbye to Matteo as they walked out the hatch. He wanted to sink into the couch.

“ You are Jogun’s little brother!” said Suomo. Matteo sat upright at the name. Suomo grinned. “Yeah…I thought so. ‘Cept damn , boy, you grew up ! Got strong. That’s good little brother, real good.” Suomo snapped his fingers and the big Hood at the door brought over two short glasses filled with brown-red liquid and ice. Ice! Matteo took the glass. Studied it. Felt the coolness of it. He took a sip and swallowed. The burning in his throat shocked him, taking his breath away. He fought down the urge to cough.

“ Jo , man…miss that motherfucker, I do. Good dude to have at your back. Smart. Honest. Loyal . Been what? 6 years since they grabbed him?”

Matteo nodded.

“Damn…but look at’chu, man! He was always so worried about what’s gon’ happen to you, and here I just saw you knock that fool Oki in his skull with his whole dumbass crew watchin’!” Suomo pointed to the monitors on the wall. CCTV footage streamed in from places all over the club, inside and out. Suomo took a swig of his drink.

“Takes stones, kid…big ones. But anyway, yeah. What’chu got for me?”

Matteo leaned up and looked at his bag by the door. Suomo, drink in mouth, waved for it to be brought over. Matteo took it and pulled it open. Switches, copper wire, batteries, and pipe all clattered around. Suomo reached in and took out a light switch.

“Nice work, little brother. Clean strip job. Nothin’ bent, twisted, snapped…solid.” Suomo tossed the bag to the Black Hood.

“Get a Runner to take that on over to Oki an’ his crew tomorrow. Teach that fool some respect.”

“Wait—” Matteo stuttered. Suomo raised an eyebrow at him. “The bag…it was Jo’s.” Matteo’s chest tightened. Interrupting a T99 boss was bad enough, but trying to block a command… Suomo just nodded and looked him square in the eyes.

“Yasin.”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Get the parts from the bag, tally ’em up, and pack ’em separate for Oki. Make sure all Matteo’s belongings are returned to ’em.”

Yasin turned and walked to a table to obey.

“Thank you—,” said Matteo.

“Uh uh,” Suomo said, “No need for that. Jo was family. Still is even if he’s dead. That makes you family, little brother.” He planted a finger in Matteo’s chest. Paused. Springing off the couch, Suomo walked over to the green-top table and grabbed the stick he’d set there.

“But Jo must’ve told you that. Never seen nobody cared more ‘bout his family. Which brings me to my next question: why ain’t I seen you around ’til now?”

“I—I just…wanted to make good on my own,” the half-truth hung in the air a minute. Matteo searched Suomo’s expression for doubt. Didn’t see any.

“See?!” Suomo shouted around the room for all to hear, “What we have here is a real man, gentlemen! Takin’ responsibility for hisself! Buildin’ his own shit from scratch, now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” The others smiled and nodded in agreement. “Not like y’all bitches, just hangin’ around beggin’ for a handout and a pat on the motherfuckin’ back!” The smiles faded. Suomo’s appeared, full of glinting, shiny metal.

“But all that’s different now, little brother. You did your time in the Pits and now you a man, brought home by God to his brothers. You believe in that shit? ‘Course you do.” Suomo tapped out a line of red powder on the glass table by the couch. Snorted it.

“Jo always bragged ‘bout how smart you was. How you could fix anything in the house, remember things told to you once, or even tell what he was thinkin’ sometimes. Could use a man like that when I take a crew over the Border.”

The words made Matteo’s head snap up. His jaw dropped.

“You been there? To the City? How’d you get past the Border? What’d you see?” The questions poured out of him. Suomo chuckled.

“Damn, kid, Jo told me ‘bout that too: Little Matteo, always goin’ on and on about The Big City. We ain’t been yet, but we workin’ up to it. Plenty of factories and ports to raid on the other side. That somethin’ you think you might be interested in?”

A stream of possible events and scenarios streamed through Matteo’s imagination. The stealth flight over the Border under a cover of darkness. Stealing into churning factories to dismantle exotic machines. Climbing into a port-yard to hijack containers of treasures from across the world. EXOs hunting him down like a stray dog. Killing him with an Augmentor boot to the skull. The vision soured. Jo’s bloody face pleaded with him in his mind’s eye. He shook it off. The seeds… the slow way … he could die tomorrow chasing a measly nine-point-eight grams.