400 Boys and 50 More by Marc Laidlaw

on ground; now we are close to the low end of Fun City.
    “This way.” HiLo points past broken hives. I see codes scripted on the rubbled walls: Galrog signals?
    “Wait,” goes Jade. “I’m starved.”
    There is a liquor store a block away. We lift the door and twist it open, easy as breaking an arm. Nothing moves inside or on the street as our lights glide over rows of bottles. Broken glass snaps under our sneakers. The place smells drunk, and I’m getting that way from breathing. We find chips and candy bars that have survived under a counter, and we gulp them down in the doorway.
    “So where’s the Galrog hideaway?” goes Jade, finishing a Fifth Avenue bar.
    Just then we feel that little deep tug. This one whispers death. A team is letting us know that it has us surrounded.
    HiLo goes, “Duck back.”
    “No,” goes Slash. “No more hiding.”
    We go slow to the door and look through. Shadows peel from the walls and streak from alley mouths. We’re sealed tight.
    “Keep your blades back, Brothers.”
    I never smashed with Galrogs; I see why Slash kept us away. They are tanked out with daystars, snappers, guns, and glory-stix. Even unarmed they would be fierce, with their fire-painted eyes, chopped topknots a dozen colors, and rainbow geometries tattooed across their faces. Most are dressed in black; all are on razor-toed roller skates.
    Their feelings are masked from us behind a mesh of silent threats.
    A low voice: “Come out if you plan to keep breathing.”
    We move out, keeping together as the girls close tight. Jade raises his flashlight, but a Galrog with blue-triangled cheeks and purple-blond topknot kicks it from his hand. It goes spinning a crazy beam through his dark. There is not a scratch on Jade’s fingers. I keep my own light low.
    A big Galrog rolls up. She looks like a cognibot slung with battery packs, wires running up and down her arms and through her afro, where she’s hung tin bells and shards of glass. She has a laser turret strapped to her head and a snapper in each hand.
    She checks me and Jade over and out, then turns toward the slickers.
    “Slicker HiLo and Slicker Slash,” she goes. “Cute match, but I thought Soooooots were hot for girlies.”
    “Keep it short, Bala,” goes Slash. “The blocs are smashed.”
    “So I see.” She smiles with black, acid-etched teeth. “Hevvies got stomped next door, and we got a new playground.”
    “Have fun playing for a day or two,” goes HiLo. “The ones who squelched them are coming back for you.”
    “Buildings squashed them. The end of the ramming world has been and gone. Where were you?”
    “There’s a new team playing in Fun City,” HiLo goes.
    Bala’s eyes turn to slits. “Ganging on us now, huh? That’s a getoff.”
    “The Four Hundred Boys,” goes Jade.
    “Enough to keep you busy!” She laughs and skates a half-circle. “Maybe.”
    “They’re taking Fun City for their bloc—maybe all of it. They don’t play fair. Those Boys never heard of clean fun.”
    “Skud,” she goes, and shakes her hair so tin bells shiver. “You blew cirks, kids.”
    Slash knows that she is listening. “We’re calling all teams, Bala. We gotta save our skins now, and that means we need to find more hideaways, let more slickers know what’s up. Are you in or out?”
    HiLo goes, “They smashed the Soooooots in thirty seconds flat.”
    A shock wave passes down the street like the tail end of a whiplash from center city. It catches us all by surprise and our guards go down; Galrogs, Brothers, Soooooot—we are all afraid of those wreckers. It unites us just like that.
    When the shock passes we look at one another with wide eyes.
    All the unspoken Galrog threats are gone. We have to hang together.
    “Let’s take these kids home,” goes Bala.
    “Yeah, Mommy!”
    With a whisper of skates, the Galrogs take off.
    Our well-armed escort leads us through a maze of skate trails cleared in rubble.
    “Boys, huh?” I hear Bala say to the