"Those Goddamn Fish"4

In keeping with the spirit of the game I have not looked the ten cards drawn.  This will play out in the ordered they were pulled.

Chapter One

Those Goddamn Fish

    Most days he could almost forget what had happened.  The din of explosions and screams, the acrid scent of burning metal and flesh, the tang of ozone from fried electronics.  All of it buried under a layer of pills, booze and ash.  There wasn't much left on television any more, just a smattering of pirate broadcasts that came and went about as often as the electricity.  The radio had been looping warnings and government broadcasts for weeks. Most of the time he sat on the broken couch staring at the static's endless flickering, occasionally interrupted by bandanna faced radicals and cartoons from last century.  He didn't know who was broadcasting the toons, but he liked them.  Even without sound they offered an escape.

    Eventually, as it always did, his gaze shifted to the kitchen.  The one sickly bulb hanging above the splintered table.  The table was empty, save for one heavy glass bowl, the home of those goddamn fish.  He wasn't sure if they had names, he only ever referred to them as "those goddamn fish".  It was nearly two months ago when he first saw those goddamn fish, blubbing stupidly in that heavy glass bowl.  They were a prize at Ernie's Electrocade, the run down arcade he spent most of his free time at.  Ernie's let you smoke inside and if you were on good terms Ernie might let you have some booze, or a job.  A job was the reason he was there that night, he had just finished a delivery for Ernie and was waiting for the credits to hit his stick when she walked in.  Thin and dirty from the streets with short hair dyed a myriad of neon hues.  She didn't say a word as she began playing Skeeball on the machine at the end of the bar where he was perched.  She had the look of someone living on the skids, alternating between alleyways and capsule hotels as credits allowed.  Her eyes didn't have the haunted look of the hunted or abused and he was fairly certain he could see the handle of a springsteel baton poking out from under her jacket.  He kept his eyes on those goddamn fish while casting sidelong glances at the newcomer.  If that was a springsteel baton there was no sense in angering the owner, in the right (or wrong) hands those batons could break bones as easily as glass.

   Ernie appeared behind the bar and gave the newcomer an appraising glance.  "Here's your credstick" Ernie rasped as the stick slid across the bar.  He finished his drink and was almost to the door when a cacophony of bells and whistles stopped him in his tracks.  The newcomer had hit it big at Skeeball and tickets were vomiting from the tarnished slot.  She gathered up her winnings and dropped them on the bar.  It was then he heard her speak for the first time, "I'll take the fish".