Tomorrow's Money (We All Go to Hell)

Chapter One

Ten years later.

"Get up, because I swear if I have to wake you up one more time, it will be with a bullet through your head."

Toxic blinked. Sun filtered in from the worn, orange cloth of the tent around her, but a dark feeling still stalked her. It wasn't an unusual way to wake up- living with Skull had its reprecautions- but this feeling, though it wasn't new, wasn't natural.

"Jesus Christ, it's like she tries to be annoying sometimes," Skull muttered, moving across the 20-by-20 tent.

"I think it's cute," Battery smiled over her energizer at the card table set up in the opposite corner. Toxic blushed.

"Cute? It's irritating. And incredibly inconvinient." Skull kicked the lifeless form of blankets that was Cel. He curled into a ball in response. Skull kicked him again, harder this time. The figure rolled away from the blankets in apparent anguish.

"Dammit, Skull, not with your boots on!" Cel complained.

Skull smirked.

The front flap to the tent opened, and Mass appeared, her black hair flying behind her in the desert wind. "Bad day to be out. Huge storm coming in over the Zones, and it's looking worst around us. Wind and thunderstorms, you know what they say."

Battery leaned over the table to flick on the radio.

"-around 11:00 today. So keep it cool, and look alive for the day. This next song goes out to our Killjoys, who won't be following my advice today. Mostly because they're stupid, but in the spirit of the day, we can blame it on morality."

"Great." Battery leaned back into her chair as the post-hardcore song trickled through the chipping speakers. Her straight hair was growing, the electric blue ombre dye growing more and more perfect every day.

"Doesn't matter." Skull was by the big china hutch they had set up near the table, replenishing the bullets in her black leather jacket's pockets. "You heard him. Killjoys don't rest."

"One day off isn't gonna hurt," Cel moaned into his pillow.

"She's right," Toxic commented. Skull stuck out her pierced tongue at Cel's hidden face.

"You're gonna need the bikes, then."

Toxic looked over to the old green couch set next to the front flap and under the screened-in window. Beam was reading a book, not bothering to look up as he talked. "Let me know when we're going and I'll get them started. They'll be able to make it."

Cel finally rolled himself out of his blanket. "It's coming at eleven? We should leave soon."

"Not before breakfast." Mass slid into the bench next to Battery, grabbing a can of Power Pup and pulling off the cover.

Toxic dropped back against her blanket, the sand soft beneath the tent. She tried to remember what she had been dreaming about, what had caused the darkness in the pit of her stomach, but there was nothing there. What had been so important?

A roaring of engines brought her back. All six Killjoys looked up toward the window as the sound of the motor grew. Toxic instinctively reached for her blaster; out of the corner of her eye, he saw Skull and Cel do the same. Battery reached under the table for the poison darts she kept all over the tent as Mass pulled a detonator from her pocket. Only Beam, still with his book in hand, stayed motionless.

The front flap opened again. Toxic clicked her gun back.

"Jesus, it's just me." Kobra Kid smirked as he stepped inside. "Who the hell were you expecting?"

"Anyone." Mass let her detenator drop carefully to the table. "We're pretty popular."

"You wish." Kobra grabbed a can of Power Pup from the hutch and popped the lid. "Going anywhere?"

"Recruit mission near the City," Toxic replied, getting up at last after unloading her blaster.

"Another one?"

"We're not even allowed in most places," Cel smirked. "BL/ind has everyone there pretty oblivious."

Better Living Industries did indeed have a greater portion of control over the continent. Ever since the Great Fires of 2012, the corperation had been bleaching out everyone who didn't fit with their rules of acceptance. Toxic had been a Killjoy ever since she stumbled into Jet Starr after a month of living alone in the desert after the Fires, though it hadn't been until Skull Cyanide and Cellophane Violence had joined up with the group when they were all fifteen that she had really started doing anything. Battery Cola had found them on her own, and Acid Mass had been recruited that same year. As for Bullet Beam... he had been more of a rescue than a recruit. It wasn't a particularly popular topic.

"Still. Twice in one week is pushing it." Kobra dropped to the couch next to Beam, giving him a fistbump as he did.

"Like your brother wouldn't do the same," Skull said.

"My brother's an idiot. Dr. Death Defying said it himself." Kobra grinned. "But he would be proud."

Skull nodded defiantly, her dark red dyed hair bouncing lightly.

Kobra opened his mouth to say something. Just then, the front flap opened again, and Party Poison himself appeared.

"Speak of the devil," Kobra muttered.

"Good morning to you too, babe." Poison shook his hair out of his eyes, looking around the tent with quirked lips. "Look alive. We've got company."