Sunday September 13th 2020  2256 hours<br/>Ellington District & Tammy's Tap<br/><br/>It was raining just hard enough to drive the average person off the streets.  Traffic had slowed to a crawl.  It wasn't a day to be out and about unless you needed to be and there were always a few of those.<br/><br/><em>I'm cutting this close.  I didn't leave quite enough time.  Knife and gun stay with the bike.  I'll hear the alarm before anybody can touch anything important.</em><br/><br/>A black<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">motorcycle</div><div class="spoiler_body">(https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/001/937/473/large/estela-villas-plaza-motorcyclerender3.jpg?1454863201)</div></div>pulled in to the curb in front of a small dive bar.  The crooked sign proclaimed in sparking neon that the bar was called Tammy's Tap.  The rider wondered for a moment if there was actually a Tammy that owned the place.  It certainly wasn't the mountain of target behind the bar.  The Nomad nodded to him and headed towards the table he'd been told to go to.  He wasn't trying to hide his jacket.  He didn't care who knew he was wearing an armoured jacket. If the bar man had any concerns about his newest customer's attire, he kept it to himself.<br/><br/>The Joygirl was probably reporting on them, using eye blink technology to report through her 'compact'.  Hiding in plain site.  Likely she was the most dangerous person in the place.<br/><br/>The nimrod broken doll-faced bitch who was dismissing the biker's concerns would feel like a fucking dumbshit when Marilee turned up on a steel tray, used up and tossed aside.  If her pack kicked Doll-Face to the curb, he'd make sure his pack knew better than to pick her up.  Packs protected their own.  She didn't deserve a place in one.<br/><br/>He returned his attention to the table.  Only a few minutes to prepare.  Not much time.  He wouldn't have time to sort the people he was going to be working with into their appropriate categories of useful or disposal, soft cover or hard target.  Hopefully that wouldn't prove too detrimental to his health.  With any luck, they'd be able to handle themselves, so he wouldn't need to protect them.  There was one person sitting at the table and the corner of his mouth twitched.<br/><br/>Solo?<br/><br/>He didn't look like it.  He couldn't have been much past twenty.  He looked like a kid, a rich asshole who'd been cosmetically altered to look edgy and yet still fit in with polite society.  Society could kiss his bike calloused ass.  Society could kiss the ass of every Nomad in existence.  He'd eat this fool for breakfast.<br/><br/>He wasn't much older than the solo looked by he wore his years badly.  He had European blood,  that much was evident from his thick jaw and broad face.  Brown eyes like liquid pools seemed to see everything.   He presented an air of utter confidence.   He was boldly wearing his Nomad colours, a dusty  brown leather Outback  jacket with one white arm.  There was a large straight white stripe painted across the back of the jacket.  The people who needed to know knew what the white arm and the white band meant.  Those that didn't could make any guess they wanted.<br/><br/>He pulled out a chair and deliberately sat with his back to the rest of the bar.  Some would think it was a sign if suicidal naivete.  He meant it as a sign that he trusted those behind him not to try anything.  It was meant more for the Nomads that the blonde of the bartender.  He was showing them that he had no stake or interest in their business and that he expected them to show no interest in his.<br/><br/>He looked at the pretty boy with hard eyes that sat on either side of a nose that had been broken more than once.  It was a face that would never win a beauty contest.  A rough, calloused reached out in what was probably an unexpected greeting.<br/><br/>"Butcher," he said, in a voice that sounded like German, rather than English was his native tongue.  "Armstrong pack.  You here for the job too, ja?"