Jack. Come over here a second.
Look, Cougar’s her own person. I met her when I was literally at the end of my rope, thanks to Toecutter’s gang, and she cut me down and gave me water when she could have taken all the gas outta my tank and left me to rot. She has an idealism and an integrity that should be completely extinct by now, and I have no idea why she felt moved to raise this kid with me except for the fact it happened and felt more natural than anything else since Chelsea shit the bed. All I know about Coug from before we met is what she’s told everyone else here. I know her history predates her cuttin’ my rope by two decades at least, but she never told me any of it and I never asked. She knows about as much about me, for what that’s worth.
Anyway, if you two have a history, it’s no skin off my dick. Ain’t none of us sprung outta the cabbage patch last week. But if you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from her all day it’s because she’s been drunk off her ass with the top latched up, then passed out over her SHITGO interface, ever since you started making noise about the past. I’ll speak for myself and say that I think she’d appreciate that speechifying you made about trust, and why we gotta look out for each other because of what this world has become. I might add that what the smarties call Enlightened Self-Interest doesn’t take much enlightenment these days. Mechanics need us, and we need Mechanics. Dwelling on the finer points of that will only get us squintin’ askance with mistrust at each other, and you and I both know that that’ll get us all killed.
Focusing on staying at 100% repaired condition is all right for now, but we don’t know what the future holds. Right now we can afford parts, if barely. What if parts start gettin’ tough to come by up the road? What if the next junkyard charges 30LP for a parts package? At that point, we’re gonna need to think about what we wanna do. Maybe, for lack of parts, the whole Trust-The-Mechanics-Or-Don’t-We goes away, and we have to enter an engagement at something like 40% condition. Limping into a fight isn’t my preferred entrance, nor is it anyone’s, but if that situation arises, we’ll just spend our LP on SPeed-upgrades, if we think gettin’ in-and-out or past the bad guys quickly will save our bacon. Or maybe it’ll seem like ARmor improvement is a better investment. Or maybe we just decide to shoot the shit outta everyone with upgraded FirePower, and maybe go out in a blaze of glory.
I tellya, Jack, it’s a mistake to assume that what we’ve been through, and what we’re just about to go through, are in any way indicative of what’s ahead. Has it gotten harder? Sure. Is it gonna keep getting harder? Probably be a good idea to assume so, but there’s no way to project whether it’ll get easier first, or if we’ll simultaneously encounter low-risk low-reward missions directly alongside high-risk high-reward ones. I mean seriously, Junior, do you think this whole thing is some kind of game?!
Whatever. I just think we need to move forward with the right attitude. If we assume we’re fucked, then we’re fucked. But if we prepare for being fucked, and yet operate under the assumption that we can pull all this shit off if we give it our best shot… I believe we’ll have our best chance of pulling it off.
Yeah, Blazer Vincent Peale, that’s me. Kiss my ass.
Now, if you wanna work through some issues with Cougar and this past of yours, that’s your own funeral. But I’ve known her long enough to figure this out: you hurt her bad. And I don’t like that one bit.
But that’s not my business. She’d tell me if she meant it to be otherwise.
You give her time and space. And you watch what you say.
She’ll deal with you in her own time. And in her own way.
