Tomorrow's Money (We All Go to Hell)

Chapter Five

It was dawn when Skull woke up the next morning. A flashlight was being shown down on her face, and based off the smell of coffee mixed with vodka along with the hissed "Kobra, stop being freaky and wake Mass up" above her, it was a quick deduction to figure out who stood over her.

"Hey, Poison, how's it goin'?" she mumbled, knocking the flashlight out of his hand and flipping over.

"I'm alright, yourself?" the older Killjoy responded, reaching down and yanking her up by her shoulder. "C'mon, we're gonna rescue Beam."

Skull shrugged off his hand and looked around, her eyes adjusting slowly to the dim light.

"Heyyy, baby." She saw Fun Ghoul's short form crouched over Cellophane's sleeping body. "You know what I wanna do?"

"Ghoul," Jet Star reprimanded from the front flap. "Leave him alone."

Skull knew how Cel was when he was tired. "Mmm?" he sighed.

She saw Ghoul lean down to whisper something, then heard his self-amused giggle as Cel sat straight up, whirling to face the older man.

"Jesus, Ghoul," he mumbled, blushing profusely.

"Sorry, babe," Ghoul smirked, standing and making finger guns.

By now, Skull was awake and standing. Poison was shaking Toxic's shoulder while ignoring Ghoul's interest in a sleepy Cel, and Kobra was still hovering around Mass. She moved over to where Battery was curled under a heap of blankets and nudged her gently with her foot.

Battery mumbled something unintelligable.

"Ya gotta get up now, Batt. We're gonna go find Beam," Skull said softly, looking down at her friend. Beam's disappearance had been the hardest on Battery, who was practically the young Killjoy's sister. Or mother. Or both. "Okay?"

She nodded tiredly, slipping out of her blankets and extending an arm to let Skull pull her to her feet.

"Cel, get the bikes ready," Jet was ordering, handing cans of Power Pup to a yawning Mass and Toxic. "Skull, you got enough detonation?"

Skull reached for her black denim jacket, its pockets packed with bullets, blades and explosives strong enough to blow half the continent. "I could use a few more."

Behind her, she felt Battery move over towards the row of mountd blasters on the tent wall, pulling both her green rifle and Skull's black modified hand pistol down and checking their energy levels. "Skull, you got a charger?"

"Uh, probably in the hutch," Skull tossed a black energy pack to her friend. "You good?"

Battery nodded. "I got backup if I need it."

Skull smirked.

"Alright, ladies, let's blow this," Ghoul said, coming up behind them. "We've got a kid to save."

By the time the bleeding sun was finally cresting well above the Killjoys' heads, they were miles and miles from the tent. The steady hum of the bikes' motors combined with the cool morning air slowly expanding under the heat of the desert was waking Skull more completely, her senses sharpening as the sky did. She could smell Poison's cigarettes apart from the smoke rising from some nearby camp, hear the difference between Mass's rusted back tire and the squeak of sand mice as they darted into their holes.

In the front of the pack, Cel was tapping at the engine monitors. The bikes were usually Beam's speciality, but Cel knew enough to be able to tell when the energy levels of the bikes were lowering. "Anyone know of a power station near here?"

"There's a cafe abouy eighty miles from the tent," Kobra offered. "I've stopped there once or twice coming back from the city."

"We should be close, then," Cel replied, squinting into the horizon.