The cool ambient lights surrounded Ren and his friends in a blue glow as they sat around a hibachi grill. Ren and Maxis sat opposite of each other on matching blue sofas, smacking their lips at the sounds and smells of freshly grilled meat.
A red hue colored their cheeks, and the faint smell of alcohol mingled with the sizzling meal before them. Ren had been eyeing a particular slice of beef for some time. To his dismay, Maxis had his sights set on the same strip.
The two glanced up at each other for a moment.
"So it's come down to this," Ren said, hiccupping.
"Heh. You're no match for me, small fry," Maxis said, smirking. "I've got years of fitness on my side. What have you got?"
"A brain, for starters. Oh, and wit."
"I'm sure that's what you tell all the girls."
Sunny munched on a graham cracker, amused by their playful jabs. It'd been a busy week, and Sunny missed seeing Ren and Maxis go at it like this.
Ren and Maxis clacked their chopsticks together. The food would be done in five, four, three, two…
The match was over in an instant. Ren was fast, but Maxis was faster.
"As I said," Maxis taunted, "fitness, my man." He rubbed the slab of meat between the chopsticks, clicking his tongue.
Ren sighed, looking to his left.
"Oh, shit! What the fuck is that?" Ren bellowed, pointing at something to his left. Maxis's head snapped around, and that was all Ren needed to seal the deal. Whipping his sticks through the air, he snatched the succulent beef from Maxis's hand, nearly causing Maxis to drop his utensils. In Maxis's hubris, Ren found victory.
"Like I said; I got a brain." Ren completed the remark by stuffing the beef in his mouth and sighing in contentment. "Good thing there's other, smaller pieces for you to chew on."
"Bastard," Maxis grumbled. "Playin' dirty."
"Not my fault you weren't paying attention, bro." He shrugged.
Sunny giggled.
Maxis settled for a smaller slice of beef and slurped it up. "Strange, though," he said, continuing the conversation from moments earlier, "that the insurance company is working as quickly as they are. I thought this shit would take a month or two minimum."
"Yeah," Ren said, the remnants of irritation boiling his blood.
"Sorry about June, by the way."
"Don't be," Ren said in a more aggravated tone than he intended, "it's not like she got hurt or anything."
"Thankfully. But still. That's gotta be irritating."
"Yeah." Ren snapped his sticks together before snatching up another piece on the grill. "Yeah, it is. She's got a lot of nerve getting all pissed off at me for what I do, then turns around and pulls a stunt like that."
"I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it, yeah?" Maxis took a drink of his beer and set it beside him. "She's always had trouble understanding that sorta thing."
"Only when it applies to her. She's just as frail as anyone else. Just wanna know what the fuck is goin' on, ya know?"
Maxis nodded sagely. "I hear ya."
"God, it scared me shitless when Sigg called. You don't open a conversation by going, 'oh by the way, the bar got shot up.' You start by tellin' the guy his sister is okay. Then," Ren gestured like he was moving something over to the table beside them, "you tell me about the shooting. Fuck, man."
"I take it the two of you are still arguing about it, then?"
"Yeah. She doesn't get it."
Maxis nodded, and the two continued to pluck away at the grill in silence, Sunny occasionally grabbing strips of her own. She mostly preferred to stick with her graham crackers.
"Any news on the Lurker?" Maxis asked. "Seemed like Scales was willin' to pay good money."
"Kinda, I guess. Got docked pay because I contaminated the sample," Ren said with exaggerated air quotes and a mocking voice resembling the doctor. "I don't know how the hell he expected me to get him liquid without ruining it somehow. I wasn't exactly expecting the whole damn Lurker to be gone."
Maxis frowned. "The whole thing? Just like that?" He scoffed. "And no one reported it?"
"Nothin' that I've heard," Ren shrugged. "The whole thing is really fucking weird, man. This thing wasn't like the Lurkers I've seen before. There was something different about it. Hard to put my finger on it."
"Liquid?" Sunny asked, gulping down the meat she grabbed off the grill.
Ren stared off into the distance for a moment and thought. The way he figured it, Sunny was there the entire time. Considering what happened, she seemed pretty well adjusted, so what harm would it be to divulge some information?
"Weird stuff. Don't remember seein' it when we killed the ugly fuck." He clapped his chopsticks together, gesturing for Maxis to take the last piece of beef. Maxis shrugged while Ren thought. "Didn't look like anything I'd seen before. It was shiny and full of rainbows or some shit."
Maxis snickered. "Iridescent, you mean?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever. It was like gasoline or something, man. Real weird shit."
"You're sure the thing didn't bleed that stuff?"
"No," Sunny answered, shaking her head, "it didn't. I saw. Ren did a bunch of damage to the Lurker. Nothing irid… irideecent?"
Maxis groaned. "Iridescent. Big word. You can just call it rainbow stuff."
"Rainbow stuff," Sunny said, nodding. She leaned against the sofa and pulled her legs close to her chest. "Stuff like that was around my papa's train accident."
Fat chance that's a coincidence, thought Ren.
Ren's instincts told him there might've been something of a connection between the two incidents, but he wasn't about to tell Sunny that. The last thing Ren wanted to do was stir up memories of her old man. The kid had enough on her mind, to begin with. And besides, the truth of the matter was that she'd likely put two and two together on her own.
Ren tried to think of something to throw Sunny off the trail.
"A dumb coincidence," Ren said.
Ren and Sunny locked eyes. He knew that stare from a mile away. Ren glanced at Maxis, and thankfully, Maxis appeared to get the hint. She didn't believe a word that was coming out of his mouth.
"I think Ren's right. Probably not," Maxis said before draining the rest of his beer.
"How come?" Sunny asked.
"Well, trains got gasoline and all kinds of other colorful black gunk around," Ren explained. "It would make sense that the stuff is around an accident like that." Ren caught Maxis rolling his eyes. He had no idea why, but he decided to keep going with it. "There's no way the two things have anything to do with each other."
Sunny hummed and stared at her shoes as she rocked back and forth in thought. Hopefully, Ren's words would be enough to deter her.
Maxis flicked his head toward a nearby pool table. "Wanna play?"
"Yeah." Ren stood up and made his way over. "I'm feelin' restless, anyway."
"It's the new arm, man," Maxis said, following him. "That thing startin' to feel natural at all, by the way?"
"Yeah, oddly enough." Ren rolled his shoulder and grabbed a pool cue from the rack behind the table. "Starting to feel like it belongs to me. And hey, the Jitter Mark isn't there anymore, so I'll take it."
"Glad to hear it, bro." Maxis grabbed a cue of his own and rubbed the tip with a block of chalk before tossing it to Ren.
"I don't need this."
"You know how it is. Dad's rules. Don't let him catch you not usin' it."
Ren sighed and chalked the end of his cue before placing it on the table's edge. "How you wanna do this?"
"Standard stuff, I guess. Banking a ball earns a point. Double if you wanna call a shot."
Ren cricked his neck to the side. A game of Pool was just what he needed.