“So you see, the railroad came through *here* instead of Lordsburg. The village thrived — in the ways it could. You have saloons, you have hotels, a mercantile store, a brothel of course. And actual *residences*, not just tents thrown up on a hillside. A living, breathing town, like it should be. All powered by The Void over there, tucked safely away in a barn with a big sign warning everyone away like a nuclear accident. Better outside than inside — right Barry?” She laughed, remembered his dream of her arrival before it actually happened. The bed was a bathroom.
“Yeah, right,” he said, somewhat irritated that was brought up but also still in awe of what Hucka D. had achieved. Bringing a whole ghost town back to life. She was indeed a spiritual warrior.
“And here, my dear friend, my dear *lover*, is *our* residence. I hope it’s to your liking.
Calm before the storm we have here, because bikers would arrive soon. And amongst them, disguised as one of their kind but definitely not: Johnny Cage again. He’d tracked them down, thanks to the voidometer he knew would come in handy one day despite the prohibitive cost, bankrupting him at the time, even. He decided he wouldn’t eat for the next year, and, voila, in the black again by March April’s May. And then he’d been bought out by a bigger and crookeder outfit because of its presence upon him, implanted in his neck as it were so no one could get at it without death. He’d booby trapped his whole body to make sure that didn’t happen. If he went, so did the surgeon trying to slice it out of him, so did the *device*, more importantly, which was growing in value by the weeks, days, months. Enough of that… back to the story.
(to be continued)