Tetrahedrons in Space

New Chick

At some point, the sun had gone down and Wrench was still pretending to have trouble deciding between spending cash on a 1999 tower or a monitor from the stone age. Really, he was watching her out of the corner of his display. Usually, the pawn shop was manned by Derrick, a huge bearded guy who smelled like provolone, but this chick was behind the counter instead, long black hair and tight tank a far cry from the usual bald spot and stained charity shirt Wrench always had to stomach.
It'd probably been over an hour at least, but the girl never looked away from her phone, thumbing her way through a feed with eyes that didn't seem focused. It was only when his phone vibrated, a text from Sitara asking when he'd finally be done with Wrench Time, that he grabbed the monitor and hoisted it onto the counter. The girl snapped away from her phone instantly, a retail-smile on her lips. "Wrench, right?" Wrench froze, feeling suddenly as though she'd been well-fuckin-aware of him loitering the entire time. She continued before he had to respond, "Derrick let me know about your discount. No worries."
"Oh, nice!" He felt super claustrophic trying to figure out what the next social step was. "You, uh-"
She interrupted politely, aware of the awkwardness he was feeling. "Derrick's my uncle." She typed into the register as she continued, "I just moved down here from Seattle and he's letting me use his couch. So, uh," she leaned onto the counter, folded arms making herself a sight Wrench's display couldn't respond to, "what do you do with this shit?"
"Oh! I go smash it or blow it up or whatever feels right!" Happy carets appeared and the girl grinned openly, less cashier-like and a bit more human.
"Fuckin' cool. Any chance I could come watch some time?" That claustrophobia came back hard and Wrench felt a bit like a tornado, wondering if she thought it was one of those 'weird San Francisco' bits on MentalFloss or some shit, or if she actually wanted to come see him deface things. "I mean, unless it's one of those personal, angsty kind of things, which I totally respect."
Wrench smiled, despite himself. "Hell yeah. I have to get back to 'work,' so this baby'll just have to wait till tomorrow for a good banging, anyway."
"Awesome," she replied smoothly, grabbing his receipt and a pen. "Write down the place and I'll meet you whenever. I'd love to get some of this-" she motioned with her arms as though something was building in her chest "-feminine rage out, and that sounds perfect."
Wrench scratched down the address of his garage, only momentarily wondering if the girl was bait for some horrifying torture ambush, before hugging the monitor to his chest, making sure to shoot carets at her again before nearly jogging out of the store.
Outside, Wrench tossed the fucker into the backseat of Marcus's latest gift, a dented Baumsteiger with graffiti covering its dangling bumper, and threw himself into the driver's seat. Fuck, he forgot to ask her for her fuckin' name.
Great. Another cute girl he wanted to stare at. The waitress had been such a soul-sucking endeavor, and Marcus's instigation of Wrench and her finally talking had just made it end that much quicker. The waitress had been nice as fuck, like Wrench had expected, but the whole "auto-theft" and "corporate espionage" thing had made her grimace and tell him it was, "more than she could handle." He wasn't ready to hear that again. That was always the fucking reason he was single. He was 'too loud,' 'too destructive,' or just a good old 'too weird.' It could have made him cry, that tight feeling of anger and hurt in his chest, but he was far too macho to give into it while he was sitting in a car in public being stared at by tourists. Maybe later, he could get really hammered and think about suicide and, come morning, he'd be right back to normal...
And then he'd see that girl again and go right back to it. Awesome.
He spent the night on the couch in HQ, staring at the lockers. She'd been so forward, so obviously not-bothered by beating up old tech, so unaffected by his mask, like he was just any other guy staring at her from the corner of her uncle's pawn shop. She had huge tits, too, which was definitely something that made him nervous about seeing her again. She just had one of those black, Wal-Mart tank tops that did nothing when it came to determining how interested someone would be in slow-banging to deathcore.
Wrench rolled onto his back, sighing slowly. He couldn't be thinking about shit like that anymore. As soon as he saw that fucking look in the waitress's eyes when she decided she didn't want to even see Wrench outside of her workplace, he knew he had to put a stop to the bullshit. At Skelter, he had a nice fuck and moved on, and that's all he was going to do anymore, he'd promised himself. All this stupid clingy shit and boot-licking wasn't good PR for an anarchist, so that was that.
But he still had tomorrow hanging over his head. Come by after 1 xx he'd signed underneath the address. Maybe, he thought, she'd nut down and not show up. Or maybe she'd come by with a girlfriend and he could go jerk off on a rooftop without having to imagine swooning her. Maybe she'd turn out to be a plant by the FBI and he'd end up having to shoot her in a dramatic display of sexuality and anti-heroism.