Part the fith
Mel breaks into the silence cast by an incoming host of angels and coughs meaningfully. Bonky looks up and Mel taps a tastefully manicured nail on her KronoMeeta. Bonky takes the hint and drains his cup noisily, spilling only half down himself in the process. Meanwhile Mel is taking her leave of Jen, hugging her close for an instant and kissing her affectionately on the cheek.
She breaks off and beams at Bonky. “Armour time?” she inquires sweetly.
“OK.” Bonky catches Jen up into a bear hug briefly, upsetting a pile of papers and sending them spinning into chaotic disarray. Jen smiles gamely and returns the embrace, beating feebly on the Stormer’s massive back when she’s had enough of the not inconsiderable pressure he is exerting.
“Got something for you!” she manages to gasp, not a little melodramatically. Bonky drops her and extends one massive hand to help her up off the floor.
“A present?”
“Yup. Wait.”
And she is gone, briefly, into the other room that leads off of the living room. Bonky stretches and finds if he stands in just the right place he can touch both walls and see right out of the window, down to some kids playing catch down below. He watches them idly as they run, shriek, throw, run, shriek. A ‘low’ threat he thinks to himself, automatically. He knows there are some technical terms, but ‘low’ ‘middle’ and ‘high’ usually do just fine. Bonky becomes aware of something standing in front of him. He looks down.
Jen stands in front of his chest, holding a box made of Karma Paxstuff, a material that resembles cardboard but that is as resilient as hard plastic and keeps itself clean. Mel recognises the look on Jen’s face as somewhat sheepish and makes for the door, pretending her phone has gone off. Bonky looks at the box being offered him and takes it from his friend with a curiously delicate movement. He examines it for a moment: a fairly uniform brown colour with a couple of small logos on. Nothing remarkable, certainly.
Jen coughs and turns a little pink. “Um, its just something I thought you should... I mean I wanted you to...” she trails off and Bonky waits patiently for her to find the words to continue with. He waits. He shifts his weight slightly; the floor creaks and settles. On the floor below a little dust trickles into the KoolFlakes of Nigel Thecklestone who coughs and splutters his way through the rest of his breakfast.
A moment passes like this, and maybe two, before Jen finds what she wants to do. She presses a small raised area on the lid of the box and it petals outwards, revealing the contents. She smiles, first at the box, and then at Bonky.
Bonky looks at what his friend is giving him and would turn pale if that were part of his genetic makeup. As it isn’t, he merely sits down with a thud, still holding the box, and sending more particulate down to rest on Nigel’s cereal. A long, thick, concave ceramic plate lies inside the box, adorned with straps and fastenings and what looks like three quarters of a glove. It is a dull silver in colour and looks discreet; deadly.
Bonky swallows, looks Jen in the eye “But this was yours. You had it customised. I can’t use it.”
“I customised it some more, Bonky. It’ll fit you now. I want you to have it.. I... I don’t think I’ll be needing it.” Jen’s eyes are downcast now, not meeting Bonky’s gaze at all. “I’m not coming back to the squad, B. I can ’t. I’m not... I can’t.”
“But Jen, why not?”
“C’mon, B, we’ve been through this. Drop it, ‘k?”
“Yes Jen.”
Inside his head Bonky thinks to himself that it was just a couple of fingers and Karma could fix those in a jiffy, they would even be better ones but silly Jen won’t let them operate on her. He knows, however, better than to push this subject with his friend, as it seems to make her sad when they have an argument. So instead he takes the object out of the box and puts it on. He remembers the first time he saw Jen using it, and remembers what she called it. ‘Custom-GASH-fist-with-integral-auto-injector’ she said, and Bonky learnt it off by heart.
The weapon has been modified extensively, and feels as light as if it weren’ t there to the Stormer, indeed in its inactive state it might as well just be a dull grey plate of thin armour attached to his forearm. Bonky only chuckles as he remembers the first gang member who made that mistake, saying things to Jen and holding onto her.
He activates the GASH fist and two wickedly sharp curved blades spring from the ceramic casing in an eyeblink, vibrating, shrill in the quiet of the room. That ganger had had such a funny look on his face. What little was left of it. There are two tiny pricks as the injector system comes online and self-tests; tiny tell-tales wink on to count the number and intensity of charges left.
He jumps up, tries a couple of experimental swings, and Jen ducks. She pats him on the ankle and suggests that perhaps weapons check should be performed on the ready line and not before. He nods, mesmerised by the smooth action and light weight of his friend’s gift. Bonky retracts the blade and hugs Jen again. She looks into his eyes, then away, then says,
“You... you deserve it, Bonky. I mean it. You’ve been a good friend to me. Just because my SCL’s on the slide doesn’t mean you shouldn’t benefit from what... skills I have.” She smiles wryly. “Now go meet Mel, I think she must be tired of talking to her imaginary friend.”
Bonky wrinkles his brow and scratches his nose, slightly confused, then waves to his friend and leaves Jen’s flat.
She watches him go, a little weary, a little sad. She looks around her, smiles slightly, and returns to her half finished coffee and the morning TV.
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