Season 1, Episode 4 - The Microwave VIII - "The Revere Arcade"

Lynn gulped.

The Revere Arcade could be found about a five minute walk away from Manabi Station in the northwest side of Elizabeth Pond. It stood imposingly in front of Lynn, who had never felt smaller before.

It really does look like a little anarchist biker fiefdom thing, she realized.

A couple of youths smoking cigarettes loitered around outside the Arcade, wearing blue jackets with the letter R stitched on their backs. There were around a dozen motorcycles parked outside of the arcade, all arranged in a neat row. Lynn didn’t know anything about motorcycles, but judging from all the shininess and decorations on them, she supposed Babs’ gang must have placed a lot of time, care, and money into their rides.

The Revere Arcade itself looked medium-sized. The roof was colored orange, and through the windows, Lynn could see kids playing a number of arcade games imported from the Pan-Asian League. Lynn remembered one time in class when Dan Turner explained to her, waving his arms around in enthusiasm, about how Yokohama was the site of the world's fledgeling, revived electronics industry. Or was that Shenzhen? Lynn knew one produced the new wave VHS tapes and the other produced video games, but couldn't remember more than that. Lynn also knew one was in China, and the other was in Japan, but which was which? She never really was one for geography, especially considering both of those countries were usually collectively referred to as the Pan-Asian League nowadays. A news article about a Shenzhen factory being busted for illegal child labor came to her mind; Lynn supposed many New England factories regularly got busted as well.

The area around Manabi probably was once home to a lot of child labor, too. Simply put, this corner of the Pond was not one of the best areas in the district. The incoming development that went alongside the expansion of West Narragansett Technical Academy pushed the poor of Elizabeth Pond to the district’s edges. Northwest Elizabeth Pond looked rundown and decaying; Lynn saw desolate streets and decaying brick apartments with shutters closed; she heard the random barking of dogs in the distance.

And behind it all stood the incomplete Dunn Corporation Electric Factory complex, whose construction had destroyed countless neighborhoods. Scaffolding covered the massive building, some of the it reaching all the way to the top of a lonely smokestack against a rolling patch of gray clouds.

Lynn breathed in deeply. Okay Lynn Falls, stop wasting time by thinking in circles. Remember who you're doing this for. Just gotta go in and out. You’ve converted all your meal tickets into money and you’ve emptied your Brady Bank. It should be enough.

Ignoring the stares of the loitering youths, Lynn braced herself and entered the arcade.

The inside of the building looked normal enough. The floor consisted of a purple carpet, with rows of arcade games arranged in several lines across the store. As she searched for the skeeball, she passed by kids playing Dogger, Packer-Man, Ultimate Smackdown Viral Arcade, and a variety of other knock-off versions of pre-Unleashing games. Seeing a number of tough-looking kids sitting around a smoky table, playing a dice game with real money on the line, made Lynn feel a little more worried.

At last, she found the skeeball area. A large, muscular girl with short brown hair and wearing a patchwork blue jacket leaned against the machine. Whenever a kid played and the machine let out tickets, the kid gave the girl a cut of the tickets, like some sort of theme park tributary system.

The girl noticed Lynn approaching and stared her down.

“Uh...hiya,” Lynn greeted, trying to keep her voice cheerful.

“Twenty percent of the tickets here go to me,” the girl informed Lynn, her arms crossed, a toothpick hanging from the corner of her mouth.

Lynn rubbed the back of her neck. “Ahaha, well, you see, I’m actually interested in, uh, you know...overclocking.”

The girl’s expression didn’t change. “You ain’t a cop, right?”

Lynn chuckled nervously. “Ahaha, no, I’m not a cop.”

“You got money?”

Lynn nervously reached into her wallet and displayed some crisp bills.

The girl took a couple. “Consider this a finder’s fee,” she explained, putting the money away in her own pocket.

“Um...okay.”

“Follow me.”

Lynn did as instructed, following the beefy-looking girl towards the employee’s only section of the store. Inside, they entered a hallway, and the girl gestured toward a kitchen area to their right. A tough-looking boy Lynn’s age sat at a wooden table and drank from a frothy mug of ale.

“Wait here,” the girl instructed. “Gonna run some background on you first.”

“Um...okay.”

While the girl headed further down the hallway, Lynn nervously took a seat at the table, across from the boy.

Lynn ran her finger along the boy’s palm. “Samuel...under the full moon a year from now, you’ll meet the love of your life!”

Samuel pumped his fist. “Hell yeah!”

The girl reappeared back in the kitchen. “She’ll see you now.”

Lynn nodded, knowing it was probably better not to ask questions.

“Wait, wait!” Samuel cried out as the two girls left. “Will we have a daughter and then a son and move to the hills of New Hampshire like I’ve dreamed about?”

Lynn would have to answer his question another time. She followed the girl down to the end of the hallway, then up a pair of stairs. Following another hallway after that brought them to a lone room, locked with a metal door, with an even beefier guy with short black hair guarding it.

“Marty, this is her,” the girl explained.

Marty crossed his arms imposingly. “Mallory, I know damn well who it is. You said you were bringing a girl up here to buy, and now you’ve brought a girl up here. You think I can’t put two and two together? What, yeah, I have some trouble with geometry, but that’s with Xs and Ys and sometimes two Xs and two Ys in the same equation, not putting two and two together. And I can damn well put two and two together. It’s four.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Go fuck yourself? Go fuck myself? Are you seriously telling your goddamn commanding officer to go fuck himself?”

Mallory looked like she had been through this routine many times. “Marty, we’re a biker gang, not some military organization. Just because you guard the door and drive the truck doesn’t make you higher in rank than me. There’s no ranks, except Samuel’s rank as Chief Petty Bitch.”

“Mallory, I hear one more peep out of you and you’ll join him there! I swear to God, listening to your voice is like listening to nails fuck a chalkboard!”

Marty collected himself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t swear in the presence of a lady,” he said, gesturing to Lynn. He opened the metal door. “Please, come on in.”

“Um...okay.”

Lynn entered the room, Marty closing the door behind him. “I swear to God Mallory, disrespect me one more goddamn time and I swear...”

The door closed and all the sound from outside vanished.

Lynn gulped and looked around. She stood in some sort of...office? It actually looked pretty neat. There were filing cabinets, a few potted plants, and on the wall hung a large painting of a drooping jack pine by some old artist named Tom Thompson. And there, behind the desk, sat the boss.

Babs leaned back in a raggedy leather chair, a thick cigar hanging from the corner of her mouth. She wore the same blue letterman jacket as her underlings did, but the front of the coat was unbuttoned all the way down, revealing the white undershirt beneath it. Her flaming red hair was in the usual ponytail, and her face looked relaxed, as if she was in complete control of everything and everyone, probably because, when she was in this room, she was.

Removing her hands from the back of her head, Babs opened them wide in front of her, outstretched. “Lynn! Heeeeeeeeelllo!”

Lynn felt uneasy. Even though they were in the same class at school, even sat close to one another, they had never talked before. “Uh, hiya, Babs. Thanks for having me."

"Oh, it's no problem," Babs said jovially. "How about that biology quiz, huh? Quite an asskicker. And to think, I cheated off of you! I had high expectations for you, Lynny boy."

"Ahaha...yeah."

Babs leaned back in her seat again, placing her hands back behind her head once more. The cigar never left her mouth; Lynn wondered how Babs kept herself from coughing or choking on the smoke. “So, Lynn, what can I do for you?”

Lynn found herself struggling to say the right words. Am I really committing a federal crime by buying banned products from the worst country in the former United States?

“First time buyer?” Babs supposed, her smile still easy. “Understandable. We got a lot here, so take your time. Is it drugs? Something to pick you up when you’re feeling down? We got lactose, lecithin, five kinds of aspirin and other kinds of medicine.”

Lynn still didn’t know what to say.

“Oh, apologies. Maybe English isn’t your first language? I can get my men who speak Mexican.”

Lynn blinked. She was doing this for her best friend.

“I’m here to buy a microwave,” Lynn said as coolly, calmly, and collectedly as she could – that's how they would do it in the movies after all, right? “I need a New York Minute.”

Babs let out a long puff of smoke. “Ah, a New York Minute. You see, that’s a real popular item nowadays. Got a lot of buyers interested, and not a whole lot of product. Demand’s high, supply’s low...you know what that means in business, right?”

“Uh...it costs more money?”

Babs smiled. “Check out the big brain on Lynn Falls. How can you still be that smart and fail a biology test? Well, I shouldn’t ask that, considering I didn't even study. But don’t worry, there’s a way we can fix all of this.”

Lynn nodded, sweating slightly.

“How much money you got?” Babs asked.

Lynn displayed her collection of bills, slightly smaller now that the girl had taken her cut.

“Did Mallory skim you down?” Babs asked. Lynn wasn’t sure if she was supposed to say yes or no, so she sort of just stood there uneasily. “Ah, it’s alright, she skims everyone down," Babs informed her. "And then, at the end, I skim her down. It’s the circle of life and kumbaya and all that jazz, don’t-cha-know.”

Lynn did not really cha-know.

“Unfortunately, even if she didn’t skim you down, we’d still have a problem. A big problem, yessirree.” Babs rubbed her fingers together. “Minutes are big money now, and you, my friend, don’t got enough. But don’t worry, there are ways to make that up.”

Lynn looked uncomfortably at a well-lit couch near her.

“What? No! Not like that,” Babs clarified. “You’re gonna pay me in three different ways. First, your money. Second, you make me a study guide for the biology test retake. See? That’ll help you too, because if I fail after using your study guide, I take your kneecaps. Not because I'm upset that I failed, mind you. I'd only be upset because education is the most important thing of the world. Don't deprive yourself of opportunities, Lynn Falls. Treat practice like a match and a match like practice."

Lynn couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

“Third, and this one’s the real kicker," Babs concluded. "We’re picking up a supply of New York Minutes from a local smuggler who’s been hoarding them here. But a mission like that requires a lot of muscle. And that’s where you come in.”

Lynn tugged at her collar. “M-me?”

Babs nodded. “You come with us to the deal. You just gotta sit there and look pretty and tough while the deal goes down. Don't worry, you look plenty pretty and tough to me already. And if all goes well, then you don’t really gotta do anything. But if all goes not so well, then you help us secure the microwave, whatever it takes.”

“W-whatever it takes?”

Babs nodded. “I know you only unlocked your powers over the summer. Put them to good use for once. And you only transferred here at the start of the semester. Just like me. So this will be a good chance to see the Pond, even its less glamorous, but no less human parts.”

Lynn didn’t know that Babs only arrived at the Academy this semester. So how did she become the leader of a bike gang in that short of a time? Was it just her strong personality?

“Oh, and by the way,” Babs continued. “You mention the deal to anyone else. You mention the gang to anyone else. You mention any of their names or powers to anyone else. You mention meeting with me to anyone else. You mention anything, anything at all about anything that transpires this weekend to anyone else, I’ll kill you, plain and simple. Got that?”

"Um...okay."

Lynn gulped.