Shilloh did not lift her head off the bar, but she also didn't raise her gun. Despite her restraint, no shower of angels came down to announce her sainthood.

  "Is his dick long enough that I could choke you to death with it?"

  "Yeah! Me and two others."

  "Like if I lined you all up ear to ear?"

  "Nope! It's massive. I'm saying two others, even if you lined us up human centipede style."

  "One, party foul. No bringing that up in pces where anything is ingested or imbibed. Two, do you frequently find yourself ass to mouth, O'great cinema aficionado?"

  A stool scraped, and Shilloh knew the crazy woman from Nick's store had sat beside her, though she kept her head on the table.

  "Addressing point one: fair point. Please, forgive me," the woman's voice changed just enough that Shilloh could tell she had turned to talk to the bartenders. "Could you please get two of today's special? One for me and one for the girl lying on the bar like a Japanese ghost struggling to climb out of a TV. Thanks."

  "Two," the woman continued, "as long as I'm at the head of the congo line, I think it could be negotiated. Three, did you see what I did there with the TV thing?"

  "I mentioned you being a cinephile, and you reference The Ring?"

  "Yeah!"

  "Dope," Shilloh said blindly, holding up a fist that was immediately and emphatically bumped. The insane dy made an exploding sound, and Shilloh dutifully made the correct hand 'explosion' gesture.

  To be fair, knowledge of movies actually took some effort if you were out on the frontier like them. Back in the cities, there was enough urban development that life was pretty high-tech and easy. Simir to before M-day in a lot of ways. But, if you were living on the frontier, with dangerous cryptos or dangerous people making the basic maintenance of roads difficult, let alone the actual shipping of valuable goods, you had to commit. Old movies and media tended to be easier since they were avaible on DVD, VHS, and all the other formats one might be able to luck onto in the middle of nowhere.

  "Hey," the crazy dy asked," do you think I could bring back the phrase Dino-mite?"

  "No, the cycle has not yet come full circle."

  "Groovy?"

  "Groovy never died. The amount of charisma it took to pull it off just increased."

  "True. True."

  The new gsses of wine showed up, and Shilloh finally lifted her forehead off the bar and took a sip. She thought it was nice. Which didn't mean much. She could tell the difference between what was below twenty dolrs and what was above. But anywhere north of sixty dolrs a bottle, she stopped being able to guess how expensive it was. Mostly because wine over eighty dolrs tasted like shit, but she was willing to accept that it might be her untrained pate and total unwillingness to give a damn about nice wine, since giving a shit might make her dislike actual affordable stuff.

  "Cheers!" chirped the other woman.

  “Salud.”

  “Prost.”

  “Kampai.”

  That went on for a while in as many nguages as they knew.

  After they moved on, Shilloh admitted that she couldn't tell if the wine was shit or not. The woman, Birch Genandoah, agreed. Birch also thought she understood why her name made Shilloh ugh so hard, but she very much did not.

  "So, not to be rude—"

  "Perish the thought," said the insane, short woman with a sort of fierce and liberated madness in her eyes.

  "But I'm pretty sure you're not here to seduce me. Not for yourself and not as a stand-in for Nick."

  "Could I have seduced you for myself?"

  "Not with wine. Tell you what, though, if you ever find a tequi bar and feel like buying, then I'll give you a chance."

  Birch took out her phone and clicked a few buttons before saying, "Note to self. Buy a tequi bar, female condoms, and a CD with the song Cotton Eyed Joe looped for six hours."

  "Interesting song choice."

  "I heard a joke about someone who made a mix CD titled Songs to Eat You Out To, gave it to their dy friend, and then revealed that it was just seven hours of that song."

  Not drunk, but definitely not willing to pretend to be normal anymore, Shilloh nodded sagely. "Perfect joke. Lovely mix of making me wince, but also making me want to ugh."

  "I know, right! Can you imagine the tongue with that song on? It would be like someone trying to strum a banjo at four times regur speed."

  Not knowing how to respond, she just raised her gss and said, "Cheers."

  Birch drained her gss and ordered something less expensive. Shilloh contented herself with a sip.

  "Like I was saying, you're not here to seduce me. So why did you choose to sit here?"

  "Ehh, I was bored. Dropped in. Saw you. Thought the dick jokes would be entertaining. Also, I was curious."

  "You're curious, eh?"

  "We back to me seducing you?"

  "Not till the check clears on the tequi bar."

  "Damn. In that case, I was curious because over the course of the day, I took a few covert trips to Nick's store and shifted all of his picture frames, so they were a little off-center—"

  "Dastardly."

  Birch inclined her head in regal acknowledgment but didn't stop speaking, "—and while I was helping with the store, I noticed you walking with both Nikko and Wade Raslow."

  Shilloh felt some of her cheer retreat and looked at the other woman suspiciously, "And?"

  "Well, Nick said you're good people. He doesn't say that lightly. Plus, Wade is very interesting, but Nikko is a garbage human."

  Shilloh's back straightened, and her jaw clenched. She did not take kindly to such grandiose, dismal of someone who had been kind to her. The bar's ambiance and what little rapport had been built from their banter evaporated in a heartbeat.

  "Excuse the fuck out of me, what did you just say?"

  "I said Wade seems like he has hidden depths and that Nikko is the kind of person who I hope falls down a well and nds asshole first on a lubed coat tree."

  "Where do you get off judging people like that! Nikko is weird, and awkward, and probably having a lot of self-acceptance trouble that's keeping him in the closet. Still, he hasn't done anything wrong!"

  Birch cocked her head, grabbed the stem of her wine gss—pinky out—and crossed her legs with a palpable sense of drama, "Yeah? What about all the drug dealing?"

  There was a beat of silence. "The wha' now?"

  "Drug dealing. You know los drogas.”

  "No," Shilloh said, horrible realization sweeping over her.

  "You didn't know?"

  "No!"

  "Well, that just about expins that," Birch said, sipping her wine with a satisfied and distinctly superior slurp. "God, I love being me."

  "He's never tried selling drugs to me."

  "Course not. You're a supplier. Shouldn't get high on your own supply."

  She was about to protest that she didn't sell any drugs, could never sell any drugs when she remembered their conversation earlier this morning.

  "This is mortifying," she said, putting her face in her hands.

  "Bet he talked to you about 'business' a lot. Wanted to know if you needed money?"

  The cartographer nodded miserably.

  "He ever refers to himself as an 'entrepreneur?'"

  "…Yes. And then he asked me to tell him the best pce to buy poppy seeds from."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. But I also helped him buy cucumber seeds! That and other stuff for his herb garden too!"

  "Did you ever see his cucumber pnts?"

  "…No."

  "That's probably because he only wanted to show you the cucumber in his pants. Heyoh!" she lifted her gss in a little cheer to herself and continued after taking a not very dy-like slurp of wine." Anyway, he ask you a lot about poppies? Maybe if you would grow some for him?"

  Her silence was answer enough.

  "Sweety, and remember I say this with all the love in my heart, do you think he might have been talking about his 'herb' garden (Birch winked dramatically and made a smoking motion with her hand) and not an actual herb garden."

  Shilloh made a sound like a toucan's death rattle.

  "Come here. Come to Mama, you sweet, beautiful idiot," Birch said, pulling her into a hug. "It's alright. I've got you. Does it make sense why Kora hates you now?"

  Shilloh stared into Birch's eyes with mounting horror.

  "Oh wow. This is better than I could have imagined. That's his on-again, off-again sidepiece. Everyone at the Market, including Kora, has seen how often he takes you out for coffee and tries to hold your hand."

  "I thought Kora just hated cats and didn't like me because Fraulein kept coming in with me!"

  "Oh, she's absolutely the kind of bitch I could see hating cats. But in this case, it's about being catty." Birtch ughed at her own pun.

  "Stop," Shilloh cried, thumping her forehead against the counter again. "My self-esteem can't handle it. I don't want to be the dumbest person in the bar. Please, I need you to tell me something you've done that's dumb too."

  "Can't. I'm awesome."

  "You have to have something you regret!"

  "Nope! I don't think that feeling is in my emotional lexicon. I'm mostly just a kaleidoscope of boredom, greed, lust, and sudden impcable urges for Mexican food."

  It took several minutes, more grumbling, and Birch urging her to 'bring it in and find comfort in the bosom,' but Shilloh (sort of) mastered herself.

  "Thank you for telling me this, Birch. I'm sure this must have been awkward for you. I owe you one."

  There was a moment of silence.

  "Stop it."

  "What?"

  "Stop being sincere. I was having fun."

  "I guess, I'm sorry then?"

  "No, you're supposed to ask me if your pain is funny so I can get a line in."

  "I mean, I can. But it would be dumb. I'm already certain that this is hirious from the outside looking in."

  "Hey! I said to stop."

  "Ooookay. Uhh, I don't know then. What do you want to talk about?"

  Somewhere in the back of the room, a table full of cackling older women lifted their gsses into the air and yelled, "To the windows!"

  Immediately and as loudly as they could, both Shilloh and Birch lifted their gsses and bellowed, "TO THE WALLS!"

  The original table shrieked and whistled.

  But she and Birch stared at each other, hands slowly lowering.

  "To the sweat drip down my balls?"

  "Now all you bitches crawl," Birch mumbled the rest of the song lyrics back to her.

  The shorter woman cussed, barely stopped herself from smming her hand against the bar, and angrily ordered another gss of wine.

  "Damn it! Well, you've gone and done it now."

  "Found a mutual interest in cssic pre M-day music?"

  "Yes!"

  "I'm sorry?" said Shilloh.

  "Shut up. We're friends now—which I'm pissed about—and I don't like my friends doing that."

  "Doing what? Apologizing for not decoding your cryptic bullshit?"

  "There you go again! Uggggh. Fuck. I was just bored. I didn't want to get another friend. But you HAD to go and fuck it all up."

  Birch gred. Shilloh stared.

  Finally, Shilloh cleared her throat and mumbled, "CrazyBitchSayWhaa."

  The other woman dropped a few bills on the bar, grabbed her hand, and started hauling her to the door. "Shut up. I'm upset, so now you must cheer me up and dance with me."

  "Cause we're friends?"

  "Yes. Don't rub it in."

  "I still need to drive home and get up early."

  "It's fine. I'll call the others. You will dance with me until they arrive, and then you can pass the torch."

  "What others?" she said, trying to slow down.

  But Birch didn't let her. She just kept walking, Shilloh's wrist still in her hand. "The rest of our friends."

  "Wait!" the cartographer jerked herself free of the other woman just as they passed outside the doors. "Don't pull me around like that! Fraulein might get pissed. Also, you need to expin yourself real fucking fast. I'll lean into a bit and support a joke, but that doesn't make me a pushover."

  Birch turned, tapping her foot with a sour expression. "Fraulein? The cat Kora hates?"

  On cue, the bobcat slinked out from the shadows and carefully arranged herself on the cleanest patch of road she could find. Her fur was more striped than earlier in the morning, and she had more of the cssic lynx look.

  Birch stared at the big cat, then back to Shilloh, "This your familiar?"

  "No, she's a wild-ass lynx who adopted me. Also, sorta Nick."

  "And you think she would cw me if I pulled you around?"

  "Yes. She's a cat. She thinks all humans are deaf and profoundly dumb. She decided that I need her protection and guidance."

  Birch mulled this over for a second, her foot still tapping with impatience. "I mean, she's not wrong."

  "Hey!"

  The other woman waved her aside and crouched down until she was at eye level with the big cat—though she stayed several prudent yards away.

  "You, madam, are cool as fuck. And it's making it very hard for me to justify leaving Shilloh out of my gang."

  Fraulein tilted her head without seeming unduly bothered.

  "You like Nick?"

  "More than anyone else," Shilloh muttered.

  Birch hmmed, her mouth caught in little mew of thought.

  "Fine. Fraulein, you're in. Welcome to the gang. Bring your underlings. I'm taking her dancing, okay?"

  The big cat lifted a leg and spent a moment licking her coochie, foot pointing ballerina-like towards the sky. Then she got to her feet and slinked off.

  In typical cat fashion, she just so happened to rub against Birch as she walked past. Though she acted like it was an accident, Shilloh didn't miss how her stubbly tail arced back, as if to curve around the shorter woman's legs.

  "Sluts," Shilloh said, resigning herself as Birch grabbed her hand and recommenced dragging her away. "Sluts the lot of you."

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