The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Chapter 5: Comrades at Arms

As the sun peered over the eastern horizon to announce the dawning of another day, Mordecai grimly pushed open the door to an all-night donut shop called Tim Horton's. He had noticed earlier that the city seemed to be festooned with them. After the battle at Curly's and launching the storm in the alleyway, his resources had been severely depleted. He needed to refuel.

The tired looked sales clerk behind the counter looked up as the man in black approached, his thin, sallow face worn. Having seen the worst Calgary's varied and colorful nightlife had to offer during his regular night shift, he didn't even bat an eyelid to see such a big and powerful man dressed entirely in heavy black leathers and clothing, wearing sunglasses at this time of the morning.

"What can I get you this morning, sir?" he asked softly, fighting the impulse to yawn as he dusted some powdered sugar off his stained uniform tunic, woven in hues of brown and cream.

"Two dozen of those," Mordecai immediately replied without removing his sunglasses, pointing to one of the many racks of freshly made donuts that were still steaming from their recent departure from the fryers. The man in black was lucky enough to get the morning's first batch.

"And an apple juice, all to go." The clerk nodded and, taking a cellophane sheet in his hand, he began to bundle the glazed donuts into a cardboard box. As he worked, he spoke over his shoulder, his voice a raspy baritone.

"Taking breakfast to the people in the office, hey? Your turn?"

"Something like that," Mordecai rasped in reply, struggling to hide his own exhaustion. He glanced out one of the many windows lining the shop's walls. He had felt the chill sweep through the air just before he stepped into the shop, a cold wind blowing out from the city's core. The psionics of the Brotherhood were working on something big.

There was no doubt in the big man's mind that it was in response to his running battle last night. The Brotherhood didn't really impress him as an organization that would sit still for that sort of thing. Combined with what he was fairly confident Braddox had passed back to the mysterious Preacher about his unwillingness to toe the Brotherhood's party line, and it was a sure bet that they were coming after him. There was no sense in being unprepared for it.

The clerk finished filling a second box with the remainder of the donuts and, closing it, he placed it beside the first box, already sitting on the counter beside the cash register. Tired fingers then rang in the sale.

"That'll be seven twenty five," he announced hoarsely after the numbers finished jumping around in their tiny windows and assumed their final amounts. Mordecai nodded and fished out a money clip from an inside pocket.

Removing the burnished steel clip from the thick wad of bills, the man in black peeled off a ten-dollar bill in Canadian currency as the clerk retrieved a bottle of cold apple juice from a cooler sitting at the counter's far end. He dropped it onto the counter top just as the bottle slid up against the boxes and returned the clip to an inside pocket, the massive wad catching several eyes inside the shop as the smattering of customers and the clerk alike blinked in astonishment at the size of it.

Shaking his head, the clerk scooped up the bill and quickly made change.

"Eight, nine, and ten," he counted back and, dropping it into his coat pocket, the man in black picked up his donuts and juice and quickly strode towards the door, ignoring the clerk's tired farewell.

The young man watched as the big man stuffed one donut, then another into his mouth before he had even reached the door, and shook his head.

"Man, that dude is going to have one helluva sugar rush after downing all those donuts!" he muttered, looking down to close the register's cash drawer. Looking up again, he found the doorway and the street beyond oddly empty. 'Eh? Where the hell did he go?'