The green neon sign that hung outside the Veteran’s Center was the newest part of the building, and it was thirty years old.

I’d started going there before I’d even met Rooker, or Kane, and many of the old vets knew me from when I was no more than a kid, just old enough to serve them drinks.

I won’t say listening to their stories made me want to join the service, but it sure helped me locked down the decision. I wanted to give back, just as these men and women had. It didn’t matter how often they themselves told me it was a bad idea.

Now I knew they were right.

It had been a horrible idea. I spent eight years learning to be an American Infantry scout. I was burning the candle at both ends just to fight corporations from different countries, over enterprises that are worthless now.

And all I got for it was an expensive addiction, and soul full of scars.

The only shining light was a country ass white boy from Atlanta who took me under his wing and trained me to survive. Staff Sergeant Rooker had been solid. A true mentor and friend.

We both left the service at the same time, and I followed him straight into Professional Tactical Solutions. But, I never forgot my roots.

“Abbs!” some of the old timers called as I wheeled myself toward my traditional corner table. Here I wasn’t some cripple because everyone had their scars. I was just one of the old vets, even if I was only in my mid-twenties.

Everyone around me was missing something, a leg, hand, eye or piece of their soul. We were all wounded war fighters. No one paid a second’s attention to the ailments we suffered.

“I told the VA hospital guy to take his prosthetic and shove it up his ass. I waited four months just to see him, then he wants to chat and set me another appointment for six months to get measured for a new one. How many fucking times do I have to go in there to get a replacement? We just don't get the respect we should,” Gerry, "Lefty" Tucker, an old navy boy, was saying for the hundredth time was I passed his table.

“They are getting you the Synth-Skin version now?” I asked and John Young, an old Marine shot me a look for encouraging him to keep on with rehashing the story.

“Damn right they are. I told that kid doctor I needed the best. I fought for this damn country, back when it was one, and they owed me the best! I gave my left arm, for fuck’s sake. I deserve it,” Lefty said.

"They'll never pay for it Lefty, now be a dear, and hush it will you? All your Bull shit is putting me off my gin fizz," Jessica said with a raise brow.

"I've got something in the works, you just wait. A big settlement from the fucking government, I'm getting in on the class action lawsuit-"

“Language!” Bellowed a grizzly looking old hard ass of a former marine yelled, and Lefty's mouth snapped shut.

“Sorry Gunny,” he said, but the others were all grinning.

Gunnery Sergeant Crandall Shank was the chapter president and tended to run the place like drill instructor. Still presenting a sharp high and tight haircut, in dark silver, a fit if aged physical presence and eyes hard enough to crack a diamond, he demanded respect, and got it.

“What are you having, Abbs?” He asked, a little smile touching his lips as his eyes dropped from the glare he’d slammed into Gerry.

“Gin rocks,” I said and knew those eyes were now on me and not exactly thrilled.

“Darling, you are too young and pretty to be drinking bad gin at 1700 in the evening. Hell, whatever happened to you serving me whiskey while you drank cherry cola and listened to us all tell bullshit war stories?”

“Gin got cheaper than cherry cola,” I laughed and tossed my credit chit on the table.

“Only here, and I am starting to think that’s a bad idea. If I didn’t have to earn money for The Range, I wouldn’t keep this pit going,” he scoffed.

“It was always a bad Idea, you should retire and get away from this place. Remember when old General Vernon used to get shit face drunk and piss in the corner? I think that’s the same plastic plant over there, ” Everyone laughed and even Gunny had to hide his smile.

“Then he would run around saying, ‘My piss was the only thing keeping those plastic plants alive.” Jessica, a refined lady in her mid-thirties and a former Army medic, added in, and kept the laughs coming.

“Rooker called. He said to remind you that you have a meeting in his office at 1800, you know if you showed up,” Gunny said more quietly, and immediately my face burned with anger.

“That piece of Shhh,” I glanced up at Gunny and cut off the rest of that word as his eyes narrowed at me.

“He’s trying to get me back on the job. I told him I would think about it, so he should have known better,” I said as a young man walked over and sat down the gin.

Being casual, I slipped the bottle of Sertra-Modafinil tabs from my coat and dropped one of the small blue pills into my palm.

“I’ll think about? Is that how you say, ‘no’ these days?” he asked, and I realized that is exactly what I’d been thinking.

Popping the pill into my mouth, I grabbed the drink and chased it with the bad gin. The nasty stuff was a cut above what Seth had tried to steal, but it still tasted like pine needles and bad decisions.

"You still on those?" Gunny asked with a scowl.

"Only if I need to focus. If I'm going to have to deal with Rooker, I'll need all the military grade, "wake up" I can get," I explained, trying not to sound defensive.

HIs light blue eyes fixed on me until I started to squirm a bit.

“I’m going to explain this to you kid, not because you deserve my time and attention, but because I like to hear myself talk. You need to get back in the saddle and ride that damn horse.”

“Wait, what?” I asked confused, but Gunny just kept talking.

“When you were a kid, this might have seemed like a great place to end up, but it isn’t. It’s a place where the ‘has been` and ‘never were’ come to relive some glory days that will never see again.

They can laugh and drink and puff up their chests one more time and pretend like their life isn’t a total dumpster fire. But it is.” Gunny said, perhaps too loudly because others were paying attention, and the room took a dark turn.

“I don’t need this bullshit from you, Gunny, or anyone else. I’ve done my time and I paid my price! You don’t know-“

“Oh, cry me a river, hell if everyone here whined as much you do, I could sell beachfront property on the ocean of tears.”

“I got a condo to sell you by the water!” Lefty called and the bar laughed a bit too loud at the lame joke.

“Everyone here has paid the price, Lefty’s got no arm, Jessica’s got some kind of cancer that keeps coming back, and Bill over there had his balls shot off by a pissed off grandma in Hong Kong,” Gunny berated me.

“Ball, I only got one shot off, I still have the other one.” Bill offered as he raised his glass.

“No one cares Bill, even your ugly ass wife wouldn’t have sex with you after that little monster you two created the last time,” Gunny glowered.

“That monster is your grandson!” Bill objected, but the crowd was all booing him and tossing popcorn, as they enjoyed the show Gunny was putting on.

"Oh shut your mouth, Bill! I should have shot you when you showed up with Dynah, but Jessica talked me out of it," he growled,

"Don't listen to him, dear," Jessica said in a cultured way that was distinctly out of place for the Range. "Dynah was a saint, Mark is a good boy, a man now really, and Bill, well you're a a bit slow, but we all love you," Jessica said with a glimmer in her emerald colored eye.

"Don't listen to her Bill, she's a minx whose claws are in everything and everyone, That's what happens with old spies they get old and mean. That's why I divorced Jessica, she's easy on the eyes and hard on my hearing!" Gunny bellowed good naturedly, and the crowd roared.

Gunny laughed with them for a moment, then turned and looked right back at me seriously,

“There isn’t one of us in here that wouldn’t take a second shot if it were possible. We all have our old gear and collect weapons, knowing we’re never going to see action again. Not one of us, and there you are with every chance in the world, and you’re just pissing it away. It stinks!” He growled, but I was already passed being mad at him.

“I’m a paraplegic, so of course I piss in a bag, and yeah it stinks!” I shot back and grabbed my gin and knocked it back.

The bar exploded in laughter, and I had to smile at how well I played out the comeback. Gunny didn’t look impressed.

“Kid, I’m serious. You’ve been coming in here for years, and when you asked me to help find that kid, you know, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to help. But we have heard nothing, and you can’t go on like this forever. Do this old man a favor and go hear out Rooker.” He said sternly, but his eyes were pleading with me.

Something inside me snapped and I didn’t like where this was going anymore. “For fuck’s sake Gunny!” I complained, but the group was having none of it.

“Language!” they screamed, but I knew I was going to go hear Rooker out. But then, sure as hell, I was coming back for a drink.