Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===Card Sharks===


“Oh, cool.”  Venus sipped at her water again as the sounds from the part of the table where the cards were being played died down.  “I want to see this,” she said, standing up.

Jake and his friends were already neck-deep, and even Freya was looking a little sandbagged.  Farah had clearly already backed out, and was watching with awe.  The four hive boys were playing in almost complete silence.  With a speed that that a professional poker player could have met, Abram ditched two cards and picked two up, and before he had even seen them, or so it looked, had dropped a chip into the pot.  Jake flipped a few of his own into the pot and set his cards down simultaneously with the others.  Will won, and scooped up the chips as Jake shuffled and re-dealt, again in silence.

“It’s like watching a deaf person paint,” Farah said, staring at the display.  “Art in silence.”

“How profound,” Venus observed.  Dieter chucked in his hand as the others dropped bets into the middle so quickly it was hard to tell the exact amounts.  Their eyes were darting from face to face, barely even looking at the cards.  Freya folded too, and Jake dealt out replacement cards.  Will had barely taken his cards when Abram and Jake both flinched at some unseen sign and folded immediately.

“Wait, what happened?” Freya asked, bewildered.

“He made the flush,” Jake said in disgust.

“But…how could you tell what he had?  He only ditched one card, and you didn’t see what his hand was!” Farah exclaimed.

“I just kinda know,” Jake said.  “Will’s tells are kinda obvious,” he sighed.

“Screw you,” Will said, scooping up the pot again.

“I can’t even tell what they are!” Freya said.  “How much were you holding back when we were playing all summer?” she demanded.

“Not much, actually,” Jake said.  He sipped his water as Abram dealt.  “I can only really do this with guys I know.  But keep in mind, we played an hour and a half per day, for money, for four or five years.”

“Are you winning?” Venus asked, sitting beside him.

“I’m being bodied,” Jake sighed.

“What?”

“My body is being destroyed,” Jake said glumly.  “I’m so bad at this game.”

“Oh, you’re a martyr,” Alex said.

“Eh, you’ve only eroded somewhat,” Will allowed him.

“You guys are crazy good at this,” Farah said.  She suddenly grinned cheekily, drumming her metal hands on the table so they could hear them.  “I bet I could kick you all raw at Ratscrew, though.”

The hive boys stared at her hands awkwardly until she sighed.  “It was a joke.  You’re allowed to laugh.”

“Well, it’s also true,” Jake chuckled.  “Your reflexes are insane.”

“Well, yeah,” she said with a sniff of false vanity.  The loose bandana over her head and tie-dye shirt she had on were specked with tiny burns, no doubt from recent work in the forges.

“What have you been up to before your trip out, Farah?” Jake asked as he took his cards.

“Just tooling around in the shop, really,” she said.  “Bit of writing, just having fun.  I’m looking forward to going home, though.  I want to see Mom’s new digs.”

“She has a new house?” Jake asked, pitching his cards in and sitting back as Freya finally won a hand.

“Well, remodeled.”  Farah stood and stretched, lifting her shirt over her toned stomach for a moment.  “Must acquire further sustenance,” she mumbled, walking back to the buffet.

Jake won some of his losses back with an inside straight before she returned with a second plate of sausages and biscuit.  “So, you three, where are you from?” she asked brightly.

All three hesitated before answering.  “Uh…well, we’re from Tetra too, your Highness,” Will said on their behalf.  "We went to middle school with Jake at 19889.”

Farah cocked her head.  “What’s that?”

“It’s just the number of the hab block our school was in,” Jake supplied, dropping a fifty credit chip into pot.

The pretty cyborg nodded.  “Ah.  So when did you get time to practice?”

“At cards, ma’am?” Dieter asked.  He shrugged at her nod.  “Well, most kids in the habs don’t have personal voxes or anything like that, so we just entertain ourselves the old fashioned way.”

“Jake had a vox when he came to Imperator,” Farah remembered.

“Well, Dad got a discount on them because of where he worked at the time,” Jake said.  “It’s more about age than anything.  Most hivers have them by graduation.”  He pulled his new one out.  “Alex got me this for my birthday.  I guarantee the range on it is a thousand times the range on my old one.  You don’t need long range in the hives, there’s antennae in every structure.”

“Can I look at that, man?” Will asked.

Jake passed him the vox and Will flipped it open.  “Wow.  No kidding.  I can’t even tell what it is…” he said, trailing off.  “Who’s that on the background?” he asked.

Jake took the vox back and checked.  “Oh, that’s just a picture of me as a kid with my grandfather Eric,” Jake said.  “Hell, he probably hasn’t worn that uniform shirt in ten years.”

Will nodded.  “My dad was in the Praetors.  Field recon.”

“So was one of my uncles,” Dieter put in.

Farah smiled.  “Good on them.  Any of you considering military life?”

“No thanks, ma’am,” Will said, shaking his head.  “No offense, but the war’s over.  Life in the hive is dangerous enough, I just want to keep my head down and get a real job.”

“Why would that offend me?  I’m hardly a soldier,” Farah said.

Will hesitated, looking at the tiny Iron Hands embossing on her bionics.  “Well…er…”

“Your father’s Ferrus Manus,” Venus said drily.

“Oh, right, that part,” Farah said with a laugh.  “Eh.  All the Primarchs understand that half of the reason we were fighting in the first place was to give humans a place to live without having to worry about alien invasions.”

Dieter grimaced, but all three boys looked down to their cards.  Farah cocked an eyebrow, surprised by their sudden hostility.  “Did I say something?” she asked.

“Forget it, ma’am,” Will said.

“Please stop calling me that,” Farah said.  “I know it’s knee-jerk, but some of us don’t like it.”

“You say so,” Will said, dropping a chip into the pot.

Venus suddenly snapped her fingers.  “Hell.  Jake, do you remember if we brought the spare towels out of the cabin?  Or did we leave them in the dresser on the ship?”

Jake slapped his forehead.  “Nuts.  We left them behind.”

“Damn,” Venus grumbled.  “Well, the Navy gets free towels.  I’ll shop for more before we go.”

“Gonna need them, Kouthry’s pool looks pretty damn big from the holos,” Jake chuckled.

Morticia dropped into the seat beside Dieter and stared at the game as Miranda took Angela’s other side.  “Wow.  You guys do this a lot, don’t you?” she asked.

“Eight years running,” Will mumbled, staring at his cards.

“Yikes.”  Morticia caught his eye as he looked up to place his bet.  “Hi.  I’m Morticia,” she said.

Will started slightly.  “Oh!  Oh, yes, you were…right.  Hi, I’m Will,” he said.

Morticia half-smiled.  “Seen me in the news of late, huh?” she asked drily.

“Few times, ma’am,” Will admitted nervously.  “Glad you’re feeling better,” he said.

“Me too.”  She watched another few lightning-fast hands in silence.  “I didn’t see you on the basalt pillars with the others,” she said to Jake.

Jake shook his head.  “Like I told Hunter Hasskald, I don’t like fighting gravity.”

“What’s it like seeing actual snow?” Dieter asked.

“Unbelievable,” Jake said.  “I’ll never forget that.”  He shook his head at the memory.  “Man, you guys think the glare off the walls is bad, an entire horizon of snow…it was nearly blinding.”

“I can’t even picture it,” Abram said wistfully.  “But man…I didn’t even understand what was happening in the picture of the castle in the middle.”

Jake blinked.  “The castle in…oh, the Skarokk castle.  It was just us standing there.”

“I meant the sky.  Was it red?” Abram asked.

“Yeah, on Nocturne the sun is red and the clouds are blue,” Jake said.

“Wild,” Abram said.

“It was pretty disorienting, yeah,” Jake said.

“You’ll get used to it,” Venus said confidently.  “If nothing else, you’re used to the heat.”

Jake shook his head, picking up the next hand.  “That’s debatable.  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to handle the heat.  It was like sleeping in a furnace every night.”

Venus giggled.  Jake squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, grinning.  “Moreso than usual, that is.”

Remilia finished her own food and glanced at her watch.  “Ah, blast,” she muttered.  “Hey, Venus, can you give me a sec?  I want to ask you something,” she said, rising to her feet.

Venus followed her into a corner.  “Can you do something with this for me?” she asked her obsidian cousin, holding out the bottle cap from the drink Kines had given her.

Venus stared.  “A bottle cap?” she asked.

“Yeah, a keepsake from Chuck,” Remilia said.  “Can you forge it into a little pendant for me?  Just a little heart shape or something?” she asked.

Venus grinned, taking the tiny piece of metal.  “You bet.  Won’t get it done before you have to make tracks, though.  I’ll mail it to you.”

Remilia hugged her quickly, before walking back to the table.  “Well, folks, it’s been fun to see everyone, but I have a flight to catch to Alanaster,” she announced.  “See you all around, eh?”

Several of the other girls scrambled to their feet to offer up farewell hugs or advice as soon as she made the announcement.  Remilia accepted them all in turn, sadly exchanging her own farewells.