“Carl, we always have time for singing.”
“There’re our people,” Jurgen said, pointing. I saw Imani’s wings in the very back. We started pushing our way through the crowd.
Other crawlers sat at various tables, all raising their hands in greeting. Most of the crowd were NPCs, and all were racers. The bartenders and the DJ were gremlins.
“That was ‘Tell It to My Heart’ by Taylor Dayne,” a surprisingly deep gremlin voice said as the song ended. “Thank you, Dekoki. I’m looking for the Minister of Blood-Letting. You’re up next, singing ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World.’?”
A skeleton wearing a pope-like outfit took the stage. The guy was wearing a necklace that appeared to be made of live bats. His name literally was “the Minister of Blood-Letting.” He was a level 98Dark Ghoul Papist. His team was called the Bleak Congregation.
“Hi, Imani! Hi, Elle! Hi, Louis! Hi, Britney! Hi, Florin! Hi, Bautista! Hi, Chris! Hi, two people I don’t know!” Donut shoutedat the crowded table. All around me, people smiled big and patted me on the shoulder, shouting congratulations for the end of Faction Wars.
Donut was watching the ghoul sing. “He’s a rather good singer. My goodness, he is very scary, though. That whole satanic look is quite disturbing.”
Imani laughed. She had a beer bottle in her hand, and I tried to remember if I’d ever seen her drink. She had a few drinks there, and she slid a beer over toward me. She also pushed a bowl toward Donut. It was just a regular Shirley Temple with extra cherries.
Elle grunted. “Yeah, that creep and his team are in our heat. The spooky doesn’t quite hit the same when you see their vehicle. They have that giant hot dog truck. The Wienermobile or whatever it’s called.”
Donut made a derisive snort. “Hardly dignified, but it’s not much better than our food truck. What did you guys get?”
Elle took a shot of something and slammed the glass. “Imani and I have some god-awful military vehicle that handles like a three-legged pig walking backward through a snowstorm.”
“You have a Mowag Piranha V,” Florin said. “One of the finest military troop carriers in the world. Amphibious already. You guys got lucky. Lucia and I have a goddamned tuk-tuk.”
“What the goodness is a tuk-tuk?” Donut asked. “That sounds like a monster from one of Carl’s nerd movies.”
“A tuk-tuk is also known as an auto rickshaw,” Prepotente said absently. He’d picked up a paper menu from the table and was reading it carefully. “They originated in Japan. The Mazda-Go was released in 1931. Before the collapse, it was one of the most widely used taxis in the world, especially in Asia. It’s an unfortunate choice for a vehicle. You two are in serious danger. I do hate it when they don’t list the soda choices on the menu. Where is our waiter?”
“How in god’s name do you know all that?” Elle asked Prepotente.
“Waiter!” Prepotente shouted at the gremlin behind the bar, who didn’t hear him. Prepotente made an exasperated snort, stood, and stalked over there, ignoring Elle.
“Shit, really?” I asked Florin, alarmed. Our food truck was bad, but it could’ve been much worse. A damned scooter was horrible luck.
Florin nodded. “Lucky we came in first place. Got a Golden upgrade, but we decided to go with three regular upgrades instead. We have a tech shield, all-terrain and vertical-climb tires, and a GPS upgrade. Hopefully we can win the next heat, too, and we can get some weapons for the thing.”
“How is Lucia?” Jurgen asked, leaning in. “And where is she now? How’s she acting?”
Jurgen had a pregnant wife named Heidi, who wasn’t really in the dungeon with us, even though he pretended like she was. She was up there somewhere in thekinderfacility on the surface along with Katia and presumably the 120,000 children that were stuck in Lucia’s head. Jurgen was a great fighter and had been more than competent as a general, but getting separated from his wife had obviously knocked his marbles about.
Lucia had promised to take a deal. Clearly that hadn’t happened.
Florin sighed. “She’s at the garage. Honestly, I’m a bit worried. Now that the dogs are gone, she’s been flipping personalities a lot, and you never know what you’re going to get. About 70% of the time, she’s her usual charming self and is ready to skewer me. But the rest of the time, it’s a random kid. I couldn’t get the story out of her why she didn’t take a deal. It’s her turn to drive next heat, but I hired a mercenary just in case. It’s about to get tricky.”
“You gotta try to come in first for every race,” Jurgen said, leaning in, suddenly dead serious. The man was like that, constantly swapping between happy and scarily intense. The man had been a ruthless and efficient force on the battlefield. “If it comes to crawler versus crawler, you let me know, and I will make certain the other team knows what they’re up against, and they know what has to happen. I’ll make them understand.”
Florin met the large barbarian’s eyes, and after a moment, he nodded.
“Can I come out from underneath the table now?” a new voice asked. “I want to meet Carl and Princess Donut.” It was the familiar, breathy voice of a soother alien.
Donut hissed and jumped about three feet in the air.
“What does ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mean, Linus?” Elle snapped. “Stay down there and keep your trap shut!”
“Yes, ma’am,” the soother said.
“Uh,” I said, peering under the table, “who the hell is that?”
“Don’t mind him,” Elle said.