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Rice clicked her teeth together, “thought” a moment, then smiled wide. “Nah,” she said. “Not really workin’ for me, as an offer. Care to try again?”

“Listen, little miss gay-’til-grad—”

And now Rice could feel Horatia’s nails really start digging in—but fuck it, her blood was up, and if she had to die today, she just didn’t feel like doing it while sucking anybody’s dick (metaphorically or otherwise). “Oh, fuck you

, little mister Aryan Brotherhood-’til-parole,” she snapped back, a contemptuous sweep of her hand taking in both Big and Lil’s multiracial faces at once. “Your White Power click-pals know exactly who you got carrying the weight for you, out here? or do you just skip conveniently over that part, come contact visits day?”

“Hey, insults. That’ll make me want to cut you a break.”

“Dieter, who the fuck do you even think you are, aside from the guy who couldn’t cook up a new drug if somebody made you deep-throat an Uzi? Get out of my damn place!”

DD flushed (creepily deep, even given his colouration); he cracked his neck from side to side, then said, with remarkable restraint—

“Make me.”

—and shot Rice, right in the chest.

Horatia’s shriek was louder than the bullet’s impact itself, and weirdly more painful. Rice lost her balance and fell backwards, like she’d been punched hard in the ribcage. Her ears rang. The light felt heavy. As she lay there, she saw Big Trey and Lil Trey moving slow-mo past her to grab Horatia in a double arm-lock, hauling her down right on top of Rice’s body. DD was blabbing on, thick and dying-battery deep, about “teaching” somebody some fucking thing, while Lil Trey undid his pants; Big Trey had put his weight on Horatia’s shoulders, holding her down on top of Rice’s body. Horatia flailed, scratching at Lil Trey’s eyes, and got a backhand in return that looked like it almost cracked her jawbone.

Oh, you don’t hit her. Ever.

Without thinking, Rice simply reached up, grabbed Lil Trey by his ears and broke his neck with one sharp twist, yanking his head clean off like snapping a pencil in two. Carotid and jugular popped, spouting blood like a busted tap. With a single wordless cry, Big Trey fell off the stairs, base of his skull connecting hard against the floor; Horatia scrambled backwards up the steps, mouth gaping, glasses smeared with crimson. A second later, Rice had vaulted to her feet, Jedi-style, and kicked Lil Trey’s twitching body off the steps too before heading straight for DD at full-out stalk, ignoring the shots he kept pumping into her body until the gun ran dry, until she was close enough to lift him off the floor by his throat. As he dangled, gurgling, she leaned and hissed, right in his face:

“Now. Like I already said…you wanna try again?”

(Or what?)

—

Perhaps because he also spent much of his own time constantly caffeinated, DD seemed to get broken in to the whole Herbert West, ReAnimatED idea a whole lot easier than most other people—people not Rice or Horatia, specifically—might’ve. But he did have to work his way through it at least once, maybe just to hear it out loud:

“So…you’re all dead but not, ‘cause you been gettin’ high on your own supply?” Rice, leaning on the kitchen island counter as Horatia fussed around her, nodded. “Which means…you must’a been makin’ that shit out of shit that, like—makes you all not dead and shit.”

A snort: “Oh, you’re smart,” Horatia observed, not even vaguely sounding like she meant it. Switching over to Rice: “You do know what you’ve obviously done to yourself, I take it…”

“‘Obviously’? No, not really—and your bedside manner sucks, by the way.” To which Horatia just scowled, taking yet another blood sample (though what she thought she was going to learn from this one she hadn’t from the pint or so she’d already taken, Rice seriously didn’t know); as she did, Rice turned back to DD, snapping—“And as for you…seems to me like you got crew problems that go waaay beyond the whole total-lack-of-discipline thing.” She glanced significantly past him, first at Lil Trey’s bisected body, then over at the still-open door, through which the rest of his gang (all but Big Trey, now lying semi-concussed on the couch) had already booked. “So if you still want to get in on this with us—”

DD blinked. “What?”

Horatia wheeled back up from the microscope, jaw dropping. “Excuse me, what? He shot you, Rice!”

“Yeah, thanks—might’ve missed that, you hadn’t pointed it out to me.” Rice ignored Horatia’s near-purple flush and looked back to DD. “Like I was saying, the assholes who tore out of here, they’re your guys. What are they gonna say happened, once they’re back on the street?”

DD shrugged. “Nothing anyone’ll buy; shit, I’m lookin’ right at ya, and I don’t even buy it.” He scratched his head, oddly quizzical. “So, you like Wolverine now? Whatever happens, you just heal back?”

Horatia shook her head, impatience-quick. “Not how it works, not at this stage; the reagent builds a collagen-silicon neurocompatible tissue scaffold that sustains cells while they’re living, redirects around them when they’re dead or damaged....”

Rice yawned. “Tech, tech, techitty tech tech...”

“You’re not even listening to me.”

“Not as such, no. There a chase we can cut to?”

A slow, deep breath. “I’ll need more tests to make sure, but I’m guessing your whole nervous system is probably more reagent than living tissue now. But since inert cells means no reparative process—”

“—I can’t die, but I can’t heal. Meaning I’m stuck full of holes for...ever, basically.”

“I’d tell you to be careful with yourself from now on, but…” Horatia shrugged, helplessly, as Rice shrugged back: given.