Chapter 233: The Jumping Menace Requires Lunch

My first topside friend was hanging above a sign that said "No Climbing" while three enormous eel men crossed the road towards the food trucks. He dropped beside me without taking his eyes off them, then introduced himself as Lukas, local legend and public defender.

"He owes me sixteen dollars for a wrap and two drinks, so don’t let the public-defender bit confuse you," the cow woman said. She kept serving while she watched the eels approach a truck further along the row, where its owner hurried to close his cash box.

"I’m Matt, and I’d like to buy enough food to forget the last hour ever happened, preferably something deep-fried and served with a side of plausible deniability,"I told her. She looked me over before tapping the menu, apparently willing to accept money in place of a better first impression.

"My name’s Nessa, I’m thirty-eight, and I own the fryer you’re standing beside, so try speaking to me like you’ve both met a woman before. You can start by ordering something instead of blocking the window."

I ordered two wraps, and she added Lukas’s debt before he could defend the unpaid meals as community spending. He slapped the counter and declared that he liked me already, which was easy to believe when friendship had just cleared his balance.

[System: He’s got eight eyes and not one looking for a job, mate, but keep him around because somebody needs to look less employable than a flying snake.]

He has useful legs and a face that might get us through a door, which already makes him better equipped for errands than you.

Lukas asked whether the smoke was permanent while I took a closer look at the dark chitin on his forearms and the extra blue eyes around his main pair.

He was tall, blond and annoyingly good-looking, with clothes chosen by somebody who expected most conversations to end in a jump. When I said I lived in Twawi, he only asked whether the food was good, without acting surprised that a full beast had come from below.

That earned him more points than paying for his own lunch would have. We argued about skewers while Nessa cooked, although Lukas kept glancing towards the eels and shifting his attention whenever one of them moved behind a parked vehicle.

"Do you always watch other people’s lunch that closely, or have those three already disappointed you?" I asked.

The biggest eel wore no shirt, another had a red vest stretched across his chest, and the third had yellow shorts with something written across the back.

"They’re Electroids, and they like vendors who won’t call inspectors because their permits have problems," Lukas said. "I’ve chased them before, but they usually disappear before anyone agrees to make a complaint."

Nessa told him she was calling this time, then put her phone beside the fryer. I watched the red-vested eel rest both hands on the neighbouring truck’s shelf while the other two moved towards its sides, pretending they weren’t part of the same conversation.

Lukas fired a short web-line at a bin and pulled it out of the road. The strand smelled sweet, which interested me until Nessa warned him that his residue took three days to melt and wouldn’t be going anywhere near her serving hatch.

He tried wiping the web away with a napkin, then added another when the first stuck. By the third attempt, the bin looked as though it had surrendered to a very small war, and I asked whether the cleaning department knew where he lived.

"They’re the ones who named me the Jumping Menace, but I’m working on getting the title used in a more respectful way," he said.

Nessa handed over the wraps before I could explain how poorly his work was going. The first bite almost made me forgive the evening’s fine. There was hot meat, proper bread and enough sauce to suggest somebody understood joy, instead of assuming snakes only wanted frozen rats served with a pair of tongs.

[System: Look at yellow shorts, champ, because he’s touching the metal while his mate’s holding the other side, and I don’t reckon they’re testing the paintwork.]

You’re saying they’re about to charge the whole truck, so touching it would make us part of whatever those idiots call a plan. I stopped eating as blue sparks jumped between the shirtless eel’s fingers and the serving shelf.

The vendor’s nervous laugh ended when the truck flashed blue. He dropped behind the counter, and Red Vest hauled the cash box through the window while Nessa grabbed her phone and shouted the location at the emergency operator.

Lukas set down his wrap without looking at it, which told me more about him than his introduction had. I disliked losing dinner, but the fear on Nessa’s face made it clear this wasn’t just three idiots interrupting a meal.

"Stay away from the metal until we know how they’re feeding the current through it," I told him. He was already bending his knees, wearing the pleased expression of a man about to attempt something he’d only partly considered.

"I’ll take the cash box and pull their attention off the vendor, then you can do whichever scary snake thing works best,"

he said. His web struck the handle before I could ask why he thought we’d agreed on a partnership.

Coins scattered across the road as the box flew clear, and Lukas landed on the roof with far too much pride in the pose. He announced that the robbery was over while the shirtless eel looked up and spread both hands against the truck.

[System: Tell your new mate to get off the bloody roof, because his big hero moment’s about to come with grill marks.]

I shouted, but the first crackle swallowed my warning. Lukas tried to jump as his trailing web caught around the service rail, pulling him back onto the charged roof before his feet had cleared it.

His scream cut through the whole food row while fresh current spread across the metal, and I dropped my wrap as smoke poured from my coils. If I didn’t get him off that truck before the next discharge, my new friend wasn’t going to survive long enough to become annoying.