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Joy knew right away she did not belong. She knew it the moment she stepped into the door of the safehouse and saw the looks on everyone’s faces. Some were annoyed by her presence, though to her relief most just looked indifferent. To Dallas’ credit, he greeted her with a smile and a handshake but even she could see it on his face. Her presence wasn’t an ‘Olive Branch’ like Locke had tried to make it sound, more like a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.
That was fine. Her job wasn’t to make friends, it was to make sure that no one took advantage of Bain’s disappearance to attack crime.net . Which is why she was outside despite the cool February weather, sitting on the frame of the van she drove in, sifting through the site on her laptop. A handful of updates and changes had been made since the first time she had dug her fingers into the files, but for the most part, it was the same. Constructed by either a genius or a madman. She remembered the first time she told Locke that after the first three months of trying to hack into the system. He had roared with laughter.
He wasn’t laughing as loudly when it took another three months to finally do it. She scrolled a few lines down, then her eyes left the screen and moved upward as she felt someone approach her.
“Hey.” She recognized the man immediately. He looked a little like Dallas, just younger, which made his codename easy to remember.
“Houston.” She replied back, then looked back down at the computer. She scrolled a down a few lines, then realizing she still had eyes on her, looked back up. Houston was staring. She fidgeted a little, “You need something?”
“Uh, just checking out the van.” He said pointing. Not that he needed too. “It’s uh...very...very plain.”
“Yeah. Just hijacked it.” She said. Houston looked at the van again, then back to her.
“Just hijacked it?”
“Yup. Grabbed it on the road, loaded all my crap into it.” She paused, “Started making some weird noises on the way here.”
“Huh. Probably nothing serious, but, I can take a look if you like?” Houston said. “I kinda do all the mechanic stuff around here.”
“I know. Dallas already gave the details.” Or at least the ones he was willing to share. She praised and after some seconds added, “But don’t bother it’s fine. Don’t plan to take it anywhere, just eat, sleep, and work in it.”
“Seriously? Locke ain’t even gonna make us set up a room for you?”
She shrugged. “Locke I like doing things my way. I want to sleep in the van, I sleep in the van. Now if you don’t mind I got work to take care of, so why don’t you go do... not talking to me or whatever..”
She heard Houston grumble something about ‘not living up to her name’, but paid it no mind as she went back to her digging. After several long minutes, she sighed and stretched out her neck. “How the hell does someone work with this mess?”
As the saying goes, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Or in Joy’s case, a stir-crazy madwoman. She groaned as she lay on the floor of her van. How long had she been working on her laptop? If her calendar was telling the truth, three days straight. She needed a videogame break. She sat up, looked at her unplugged computer and the boxes lying next to it, and tilted her head.
To her surprise, she never finished setting up her entertainment system. Putting the laptop away, she slid herself over to the boxes. She opened one and a wide grin formed on her face. It wasn’t her big gaming PC, but if she could get her monitor set up and her Switch plugged in, she could relax, enjoy some Splatoon 2. She grinned at the thought, then realized maybe an online game while hanging out in a safe house full of criminals probably wasn’t the smartest idea in the world.
Mario Odyssey was a better choice . She hadn’t played that since she beat the darkest side of the moon. She pulled her Switch out of the box, set up the dock and plugged everything into where it was supposed to go. She leaned against the car door and grinned as she turned on the console.
Nothing happened. The screen turned blue but didn’t move to the Switch menu. She pressed the power button again. Then one last time. Still a blue screen. “The hell?”
She groaned and dropped the joy-cons and pushed herself over to the system. She checked the power cable and the connection to the monitor. Everything was fine. Just to be certain she pulled the switch out of the dock and pressed the power button. For a split second, she got a little flash of light, then saw the battery icon in the top right corner of the screen blink a few times before the system turned off again. Dead battery. Expected. She played the thing on the road while driving to the safe house.
But if she was getting that, it meant the dock wasn’t getting any power.
Joy put the switch back in the dock and double checked her makeshift set up one more time. She then looked at the seat. “Huh, I wonder…” She fumbled over to the front of the van and after digging into her jeans pulled out the keys. She jammed them into the ignition and started it up.
Immediately a loud bang was heard and Joy jumped as she saw fire. “Shit!” She climbed out of the driver's seat and stumbled out of the vehicle. “Guys? Help! Someone! Badass in Distress!”
To her relief, a decent number of the gang were at the safe house. Chains and Dallas helped put out the fire and then push the van into the garage. Sydney and Clover were watching the scene, in amusement and bewilderment, respectively. The latter had asked if Joy was alright before asking, “What the fuck did you do?”
Houston was the one who answered. “So, I don’t know how, but you blew up your battery.”
Sydney looked at Joy and repeated. “The fuck did you do? Try and build a spaceship.”
“No!” She rolled her eyes, “I just wanted to take a break so I plugged in my Switch and it wasn’t working so I thought, ‘let’s start the van, see if that give it some juice, cause Mario ain’t saving the damn princess by himself.’”
“I have no idea what she just said,” Clover said looking at Sydney, who laughed.
“I do. And I don’t buy it. I know jack about electronics but I doubt that tiny thing would make a battery explode.”
Joy pouted and crossed her arms. “No shit you genius! Switch’s specs are lower than the Playstation 4, even when it’s docked and at full power. It might be able to survive a thousand-foot drop, but it’s not gonna make anything go ‘boom’.” Joy said, her tone making it sound like she was stating the obvious. Which only had everyone looking at her like she was crazy. “What?”
Dallas shook his head, “Alright. Just...where did you say you grabbed this van?”
“I found it.”
“ Where did you find it?”
“On the road.”
Dallas let out an exasperated sigh. Never had someone tested his nerves and his need to resist having a cigarette until now. “Can you please be specific?”
Joy pouted. “Alright, I found it in some dump in New Jersey. Guy was gonna strip it and smash it, told him I’d buy it off him. Not like it was gonna be used for actual driving after I got here. Why?”
“That might explain a few things.” Houston said, “Probably a design flaw or something. The thing was probably a ticking time bomb. You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt.”
Joy winced then looked at the others, shifting on her feet. “So, what are we going to do?”
“Houston? Can you fix it?” Dallas asked. He scoffed.
“We’d have better luck just replacing the thing.” Joy gave him a disapproving frown which he sighed too. “Alright, I’ll see what I can do. I'll order some parts and they should be in in a couple of days. She can’t stay in here until I got it in working order though.”
“Guess that’s it then.” Dallas looked at Joy, “We’ll get you a room set up while Houston’s-”
“No that’s not necessary!” She shook her head, “Uh, I’ll just crash on the couch. A pillow and a few blankets...it’ll be like I was never there!”
The spare pillow and blankets Dallas had given her made for a nice fort she could hide under. She had seen the others gawk at the sight at first, Chains, in particular, seemed amused by it. She had to admit she was beginning to warm up to Chains. Probably because while he was teaching her how to clean her new AK5, they ended up talking about games. He apparently really liked military shooters and Left 4 Dead. Keeping it in mind she wondered if maybe they could play a little once she got her computer set up and they both had some spare time.
She stopped playing Mario when she felt her stomach rumble and wondered if there was leftover pizza. She poked her head out of her tent and was greeted with Hoxton’s snark. “Well look who’s decided to grace us with her presence.”
She ignored him and climbed the stairs to the kitchen. There was leftover pizza from the previous night, so she grabbed a slice and excused herself as quickly as she arrived. Dallas and Duke were talking about something that she decided in an instant she was not interested in.
She climbed back down the stairs and crossed the lounge to her tent. “Going back into your castle princess?” She stopped and turned to Hoxton, who had a shit eating grin on his face. She flipped him off and turned and walked the other way.
Somehow ended up in the garage. Houston was working on her van, seeming to be lost in his work. Joy tilted her head as she saw his work shirt had black spots on it. She took a bite of her pizza and took a few steps forward. A looked inside to see what was under the hood and tilted her head. A lot of stuff she had no idea about. She thought for a second then said. “So!”
The moment she did, Houston jumped. His eyes were wide. “Shit! Don’t do that!” He said. “Scared the crap out of me.”
Joy raised an eyebrow, “Seriously?” She took a bite of her pizza, “Big scary Payday Gang member don’t like being snuck up on?”
“You ever been grabbed by a cloaker?”
“No.”
“Trust me. The first time you’re jumped, you’ll freak when people sneak up on ya.” He said. Joy took a bite of her pizza. “Don’t eat over the van.”
Joy took a few steps back. She finished her slice and tossed the paper plate behind her. “So, whatcha doing?”
“Trying to salvage what’s usable in this piece of shit. Also, we're getting you new tires.”
“Why? Told you I wasn’t gonna-”
“Never know when you’re gonna need to get out of here.” Houston told her, “British shit-for-brains keeps acting like we’re safe out here, but you never know. Especially with Bain not around to cover our asses.”
Joy shrugged, “Whatever happens, Locke can take care of it.”
“Yeah yeah.” He said, “No offense to you or the guy, but I don’t exactly trust either of you. Nothing personal, just still some bad blood from Alaska.”
“Whatever.” She looked over the van and after a few seconds said, “It needs a paint job.”
Houston paused and looked up at her. “A paint job?”
She nodded, “Something that’s more...me. Black. No purple. No wait...purplish black. Oh yeah, that’s good. With stars. A galaxy. Yeah!”
Houston stared at her as Joy hurried over to Sydney’s workstation and began digging through her things until she found several cans of purple paint. She grinned as she popped one open and then groaned in disappointment. It was too light. She shoved the lid back on the can and grabbed another. This one, when she popped it open, was the shade she was looking for. Now she just needed black paint - a lot of black paint - and...
“Hey, Houston! Where’re the brushes?”
Houston grumbled as the brush of black paint hit the van. He turned to Joy, who was sitting on the floor of the garage playing with her handheld. “Why am I the one doing this?” He asked. She looked at him.
“You like working on vehicles. You’re working on the vehicle.”
“I do maintenance . That doesn’t include painting them.”
“Who the hell painted that one then?” She pointed to their usual escape van, “Looks like someone tried to color it like the mystery machine.”
“That was Wolf,” Despite his complaints, Houston resumed painting. Not like he had much to do until the new parts for Joy’s van came in. But still, it was annoying. He looked back at her and then the system she was playing on. “So, uh, whatcha playing anyway?”
"Just doing some post-game in Mario Odyssey .”
“Mario huh?” He repeated, “Man that takes me back. I still remember when Dallas gave me an N64 for my 14th birthday. I’d play Mario 64 on that thing every day I got home from high school. Shit was big at the time.”
She looked up at him, “You played Mario 64?”
“And Zelda.”
She leaned forward, suddenly interested, ”Which one?”
“Uh, both, I think.” He paused, “Yeah both. One was good, the other sucked.”
“Seriously? Which one?”
Houston paused again to think, “Uh, the weird one with the time travel and masks.”
“You thought Majora’s Mask sucked?!” Joy shouted so loud that it made the man stare at her in surprise. She then scoffed, “You officially have shit taste.”
Houston almost laughed at the bluntness. “I have shit taste? Well, forgive me for being pissed the game barely lasts two hours.” Houston told her, “Seriously, how the fuck are you supposed to beat it in that time?”
“You aren’t?” She suggested, “You’re supposed to do as much as you can before the moon falls, then play the Song of Time, go back, finish your next set of tasks. You pick and choose your priorities, your side quests, what masks you need and-”
“See that’s the problem.” Houston stopped her, “You gotta make a goddamn schedule for it. Maybe some people like that, but for me, I’d rather just go from point A to point B, kill some monsters, get the damn stones or whatever and move on to saving the princess. Don’t got time to replay the same areas fifty million times in a row...”
Joy opened her mouth to protest and was sorely tempted to call him a ‘casual’ but she stopped herself. Everyone had different tastes and not everyone enjoyed the things she did. So after a bit of musing, she asked, “You ever try playing the Song of Time backward?”
Houston stopped smearing paint on the van and looked at her. “Play it what?”
“See. You play it backward like this…” Joy pushed the right buttons on her 3DS. The two were taking a break - more like Houston was taking a break - and sitting at the man’s workstation, “...and boom. Most problems solved.”
“You gotta be fucking kidding,” Houston said. He noticed the timer at the bottom had slowed down. So did the people.
“Yeah, doing this you can move around the map quicker.” Joy said, “But it does have a downside. Scripted events move slower. It really is everything except you slowed down. Good for travel, just remember to play it again to make time move normally again.”
“Well it helps but it still sounds fucking tedious,” Houston grumbled. Joy scoffed but decided not to argue with him or anything. He had turned his attention to the boxes that were stacked at the far end of the garage. “So, that’s all your computer stuff.”
“Computer stuff, games. Game systems.” Joy said, “That one there contains my NES and it’s games. The one above it my SNES and N64. Above that, the games for both. Then my Gamecube-”
“Christ you have a lot of shit,” Houston wasn't sure if he should be impressed or not. He pointed to the boxes, “And you play all those?”
“Not at once. And some of them I haven't touched yet. I'll get to it someday. Or not.” Joy handed Houston her 3DS. “So, wanna play?”
He held a hand up and shook his head, “I’ll pass. Thing looks too small for my hands.” He looked at the boxes then her, “You mind if I check out your stuff?”
Joy shrugged and he got up and to her stuff. She went back to playing her 3DS, continuing her casual stroll through clock town. She did not engage in it long and hearing Houston laugh made her jump by a mile. “Of course you’d have this.” He said. Holding up a copy of a Gamecube title that anyone who owned the system was familiar with. She laughed. The box was her copy of Super Smash Bros. Melee . “This one here. It’s a classic. Best in the series.”
“ Smash WiiU was better.”
“Never played it, but I doubt it.” He laughed, “My bro, Dallas, was more a guy who liked to watch me play stuff, but I got him to play this a few times. I kicked his ass every single time! He hated it cause I always played Peach. He hated the idea of me kicking his ass with a character in a frilly dress.” He sighed. “I kinda miss playing with him at times. Those were...mostly good days.”
Joy listened, looking down at her handheld system. She closed it, got up from her seat, and walked over to the boxes of games, which Houston was still going through. She picked up the copy of Melee and held it up so he could see the box. “Wanna play?” She asked.
“Huh? Ow!” Houston winced as Joy bopped the box lightly on his head.
“You wanna play?” She repeated, “I bet your frilly dress ass can’t beat me.”
He scoffed and shook his head. “I haven’t played this in years. Of course, you’ll kick my ass.” He paused, “But...sure, why not? We just need to try and steal the TV from that British shitbag in the living room...”
Joy groaned. She had barely been around a week and already she disliked Hoxton. However, thinking of TVs she did recall there was a large monitor in another part of the safehouse and an idea struck her like that. A smile crossed her face. “Meet me in your brother’s office tonight.” She pulled some boxes off the large pile and began diffing through her consoles for her Gamecube and controller. She pulled them out and looked at Houston. Then her van. Then she put them down and shoved Houston toward the vehicle. “Don’t just stand there, my van isn’t going to paint itself.”
She grabbed the system and controllers and hurried out of the garage. Houston watched her leave, dumbstruck, then reality hit and he looked between the door and the van. “Hey! I’m not finishing this by myself!”
No answer except Hoxton telling him to shut up. Houston sighed and decided he was done doing anything with any vans for the day.
It was nighttime. Joy shut her laptop and poked her head out her makeshift tent. With the exception of Duke doing some late night reading, everyone else had either gone home or gone to their bedrooms. She crawled out from her hiding spot, game system and game in hand, and took to the stairs. She grinned as she saw Houston on the balcony. “Great you showed up!” She said, then in a deeper voice added, “Let’s go!”
Joy skurried passed him and into Dallas’ office. Houston followed her inside and watched Joy put the game system on the floor. She fiddled with some cables and then the main monitor went black. Houston felt dread at that moment, “What are you doing? If Dallas finds out we messed with his TV-”
“Relax! He’s not gonna find out.” Joy plugged in and turned on the Gamecube, crossed her fingers, a nervous look on her face. It took a few seconds - and one reset - but a familiar beep as a purple cube began to move on screen began to show and she sighed in relief. She then held out a controller to Houston. “Don’t just stand there, get over here.”
Houston’s first thought was if Dallas found them they were both going to be screwed. But grabbed a chair hiding in the corner and dragged it over. He took a seat and grabbed the second controller. “You can fix up all this when we’re done right?”
“Easy. It’ll take me more time to clean up than it will to kick your ass.”
He shook his head. “We’ll see about that.”
Joy pressed a button on her controller, selecting melee , the announcer shouting the same word. Houston fiddled with the controller, trying to get his hands used to it. He looked up at the screen as he heard Joy pick her fighter. “Pikachu?”
“Pika Pika.” She chimed, her voice cracking as she pitched it up.
“Please don’t do that.”
She rolled her eyes, a cheeky grin on her face as she brought her attention back to the screen. She was all smiles when Houston selected Princess Peach. “Alright, so you want a timed match or...”
The two agreed on the type of match, the items they were using (which was easy. All items off) and the stage.
Ready…. Go!
This game's winner is…
Houston’s face fell as he heard the game’s announce scream ‘Pikachu’. Then Joy’s joyful glee and laugh made him grumble. “Winner! Woo!” She gave him a playful slap in the leg. “Still think you can outpace me.”
“Rematch. Right now.” Houston demanded. Joy laughed. “Keep laughing, I’ll get you this time.”
“Yeah right! Keep trying, I’ll just keep beating you.”
“I think she’s right bro.” Another voice in the room made them both jump and turn around. Dallas was leaning against the entrance to the room, shaking his head. “I thought I told everyone not to touch my fucking TV.”
The two were in shocked silence before Houston found his voice. “...How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to see Joy here kick your ass five times.” Both their faces turned red, as Joy mentally calculated the time. They had done six three minute matches and she won each of them. Dallas had been watching them for roughly fifteen minutes. Their field leader’s chuckle brought them back to him. “So, you two having fun?”
It took several seconds for Joy to process the question and then say, “How much trouble are we in?”
“Can you fix this mess when you’re done?” He asked. She nodded vigorously. “Then I’ll let it slide tonight. I haven’t seen Davie have this much fun in a while.” It took Joy a few seconds for her to realize Dallas was referring to Houston. She turned right to him. Houston’s face was bright red.
“You really gotta call me that in front of her?”
“She’s gonna find out eventually.” A grin crossed Dallas’ face as he opened one of the draws of his desk and pulled out a bottle with a glass. “I did come in here to tell you we need to head out but this brings me back a bit. Don’t mind me, I’ll watch.”
Joy’s eyes widened as she remembered something and she crawled over to Dallas’ desk, hands resting on the top. “You should play with us. I have a third controller hiding in a box somewhere.”
“I’ll pass.” He said, getting a pout from the youngest of the group.
“Come on. Please?” She begged. He gave her a sideways glance, looked at his glass, then without missing a beat, downed the entire glass in one swift motion. Houston brought a hand to his forehead and shook his head. Dallas put the glass down and licked his lips. Then pointed to the door.
“Go get it.” He said. Joy squeaked and hurried out of the room. Dallas poured himself another glass, which Houston got up and took from him. “Hey.”
“One is enough.” Houston said, “God forbid I’m carrying you into the apartment.”
Dallas gave him a look then waved his hand. “So whatcha think?”
“About what? Her?” Houston asked. The look Dallas gave him answered his question. He shrugged. “A handful. And a bit weird, but compared to Sydney, she’s pretty damn normal. You sure she’s the one that hacked Crime.net?”
“Confirmed it with Locke when he introduced us to her.” He said. His eyes moved to his glass. “Okay seriously, give me back my drink. It’ll be the last one for the night.”
“You promise?”
“When I say it is, it is.” He held his hand out and Houston gave it to him. Dallas took a long sip, then sighed as he lowered his glass. “This is going to be a very long year. Talking with Duke, I can just tell.”
“...yeah, but...doesn’t mean we can’t find a little good in it, right?” Houston asked. They heard loud footsteps as Joy rushed back up the stairs and into the office.
“I found it!” She then hurried over to Dallas and shoved the controller into his hand. “Put your glass down, take this. It’s wireless, so no vibration, but-”
“What the hell is this? How do you even hold it?!”
Houston sighed as he watched the scene in front of him and heard Joy’s laughing at his brother’s expense.
Dallas gave up after one round and simply watched as Houston and Joy continued to play together, making smart remarks and taunts along the way. Finally, it got late enough that they needed to wrap things up and played one last match.
Houston won that one, Joy sneakily throwing it so he could go home with a look of smug satisfaction on his face.