"That disgusting old road?" said a harsh woman's voice. "Why would anyone want to go down there? You'd be killed for sure."

The voice belonged to an equally harsh woman. She was tall and elegant, with cheek bones so sharp you'd cut your finger on them, assuming she so much as let you near her face. She wore a long, shiny red robe beneath a heavy leather travelling coat, with jewellery of every shape and size adorning her ears, nose, fingers, neck, forehead, eyebrows and, if you believed the stories, a few more private places too.

"Nah, Lorry, ya got it all wrong!" replied Jeb, taking another swig from his pint of frothy grog.

They were seated in the Second Thought, a tavern at the heart of its eponymous trader's village that, quite to the original tavern owner's pleasure, seemed to have sprung up around it over the years. A thick crowd thronged outside the grubby tavern windows as locals and travellers alike wove their way through the myriad stalls and stores of Second Thought looking for a bargain (in order to fob the same product off at twice the price over in the next town).

Orsen smiled widely in a seat next to his travelling companion, his fingers wrapped around a pint glass of the same frothy liquid, but a steaming hot version. He didn't order it hot, but when the tavern owner poured his drink, it seemed to come out hot. Jeb had offered to swap for his cold one, but Orsen decided that a nice hot drink would be good on a chilly day like this, even if nobody knew quite why was hot in the first place.

"There aren't no bandits on the Back Road, Lorry," the boy smiled. "That's why we all use it. None of the tribes can be bothered trailing along it when there's better traffic along the Highway."

The gaunt woman seemed unconvinced. "So if there isn't enough traffic, where exactly do you expect me to be able to pass on the Great Word of Gachook, our Lord and Saviour?"

Jeb and Orsen exchanged a sly glance. The horrors of 80 Cu t were being drowned in the same mental catacombs as all the other horrors they had witnessed in life. Jeb winked knowingly at the woman. "Well ya see, ain't that just th' trick. We're headed t' a secret bar a ways down the Back Road. Smack-dab, it's called, an' ya won't find no bandits there. Bert hates the buggers."

Lorry's pale face frowned. She had what could only be described as piercing eyes. The kind of eyes that could bring back all sorts of awful childhood memories with just the slightest of rebuke. These eyes glanced around the Second Thought, making some of the other patrons duck out of the way in terror. Then the eyes fell back on Jeb, and his grinning, wrinkled face.

"A bar," she stated.

Jeb nodded. "Aye, best in the Waste if ya ask me."

"But we're already in a bar." She waved one of her elegant, bejewelled hands.

Orsen leaned forwards. "But it's a different bar!"

"Aye," said Jeb, "An' one ya ain't banned from preachin' in."

"So you wish me to pay you to take me to this ... secret bar, where you are confident there are individuals receptive to the Great Word of Gachook, our Lord and Saviour?" She drummed her long fingernails on the scrap-metal table.

"Err," said Jeb, briefly glancing at Orsen. The boy smiled back. "Aye," he continued. "They's plenty receptive. I've always thought, ain't that Bert receptive t' other people's ideas in her bar? Very welcomin' environment, if ya ask me."

Lorry stared at them both, showing clear disdain at the very notion of travelling together.

Jeb and Orsen grinned back innocently.

Her fingers drummed more on the table, then stopped.

"Fine, I shall take your word that this Smack-dab shall receive the Word of Gachook. Perhaps my Lord and Saviour is simply testing me."

"Excellent, excellent!" Jeb said gleefully, slopping his grog around with a wave of his arm. "Then all that we needs is for ya t' pay our advance fee for expenses an' that. We leave first thing tomorrow mornin'!"

* * *

"An offer I can't refuse?" Bert repeated, her brows knitting themselves together.

"Aye," Brown replied. He loomed above her, whatever constituted for a grin pricking at his whale mouth.

Bert narrowed her eyes. The little mechanics in her mind had given up now. They sat in a gloomy silence as steam poured around them. They wished that it was dry enough to eat a sandwich, but the steam was only getting worse. And it was turning black.

Phoenix smiled to himself. This was it, he thought. The crosshairs in his scope centred on that stupid red lightbulb head.

The traders sweated at various levels of profusity.

Meatsack trembled nervously, thinking about whether or not he should grab his favourite club and go help. But Berty told him not to. Don't get mad.

Brown's bandit horde readied their weapons and tried to look menacing. Some of them were even successful.

H2-149 didn't move.

"Why can't I refuse it?" Bert asked angrily.

Brown's head tilted to one side. "Because it can't be refused."

Now her upper lip twitched. Everything was twitching without her consent. She'd make a terrible poker player. "So what if I do refuse?"

"Well, ya can't." His voice was deepening, all niceties gently throwing themselves off the balcony.

"You said that, but what will you do if I do?"

"I don't think that'll happ'n."

"I'll refuse on principle alone if you tell me I can't," she said.

If rationalism, common sense and calming down could scream, they'd be red in the face by now. They'd go home to their wives, husbands or communal families later and complain about their short-tempered boss, and how she never listened to their good ideas. Their partners would say something comforting, and quietly suggest they look for new jobs. But they'd keep going back to the same job, scream at their boss, and probably be ignored. Because though Bert was certainly intelligent, the moment somebody threatened her bar or her folks, something burst. Maybe she wouldn't win the poker game of life, but with enough force of Bertrage, she'd make damn sure her opponents didn't win, either.

And this made something new flash across Brown's face. A momentary look of concern nearly made it to the stage, but a bouncer must have caught it first. The mass of his face went serious.

"Ernest!" he bellowed. And it truly was a bellow.

The bandit crowd parted to reveal a skinny, timid-looking man clutching a clipboard in his hands. Bert assumed this to be Ernest, the figure that Phoenix encountered along the Back Road. He didn't look so tough in real life. He didn't even have fangs, or claws, or muscles the size of your skull - which Phoenix had described him with. But what did this less-than threatening person have to do with the situation?

Ernest skidded to a halt by his lord's side.

"Ernest," Brown said. "What d' these people owe?"

The man raised his eyebrows and scratched at his chin. "Owe? Well, where t' start, sir?" He looked down at his clipboard with a frown, then at the ceiling, as though answers might rain down upon him from the gods of maths (who, in certain Waste circles, were known to be some of the most unforgiving and ruthlessly boring of masters). He licked the tip of his pencil and started scribbling. "First ya gots the gen'ral Income Tax, I reckons. Aye, aye thass a big one -scribble scribble- Then there's the new Road Levy so's we can repair the road out here and up t' Second Thought -scribble scribble- There's the gen'ral Protection Fee -scribble- which ya gotta have, ain't nobody who'd not want that -scribble scribble- An' I s'pose we should charge int'rest f'r havin' t' come all this way t' be threatenin' an' that -scribble scribble- We'll call that one 'Consultation' -scribble scribble- Then finally there be a Fine f'r the deaths o' our lads -scribble- either that o' someone goes t' jail -scribble scribble- Or I guess we throw 'em in the river -scribble- Cheaper than th' gallows, anyway."

Farmer Brown's throat rumbled. Or perhaps there was a thunderstorm brewing somewhere. One of those two things happened, anyway.

Bert stood listening to the man's ramblings. She didn't know what a Levy was, but it sounded like this lot weren't just here for a keg or two of grog. She angrily hoped that they would accept bullets as payment - and Bert knew a convenient way to deliver them. Why, she had a tool just for it.

"All in all..." Ernest continued, underlining something on his clipboard, "we're lookin' at about sixty-five per cents o' everythin' this bar made f'r the last fish-call year."

Bert, Phoenix and anyone else in the bar who understood that a percentage wasn't food gasped in horror - the type of horror that only Tax statements can bring.

"Sixty-five!" she roared, stepping forwards. "That's daylight robbery, that is."

Farmer Brown's evil grin stretched onto his face once again. "We're bandits, woman. Best ya not f'rget that."

They locked stares, causing a small high pressure system to fizzle between them. A trader once told Bert that it was probably two gods glaring at each other that caused the start of the universe so many millennia ago. They were probably married, too. You had to be married to have a proper glare off. That way you knew enough dark little secrets that you could cripple your opponen- err, your partner in an argument. But you also knew that they knew all of yours, so you kept your mouth shut and let the incredibly hot cold war continue. And then, at some point, planets happened. It wasn't a very good story.

Bert tried to formulate a response that wasn't just pulling a gun and emptying it into Brown's big ol' face as the bandit lord's smile condensed into a snarl.

"Now," he said, slowly, carefully, "send one o' yer lads out back t' fetch yer sixty-five fish-calls, woman, 'cause I'm not havin' some bar in the middle o' nowhere ruin me plans t' make this bit o' Waste something worth a damn." His body hunched over, lowering his head closer to Bert's height. His voice dropped in volume, from a bellowing comic-book villain to parents who are disappointed (not angry).

"Yer gonna cough up what ya owe, and yer gonna smile an' be nice about it, 'cause if ya don't, I'm gonna tear this place apart and use th' planks to' make me own bar next door." He paused, leaning closer. "An' I c'n use yer ground-up bones f'r the cement. So pay up or dare t' refuse me offer, woman. Either way I win."

As if on cue, Brown's retinue waved their various implements of killiness and growled like wild animals. Bert's robotic fingers couldn't physically tighten any further, and her pistol grip was squeezed so hard in her human palm, it would probably be bruised by tomorrow.

Phoenix, behind, took the cue to apply a feathery pressure to his rifle's trigger. In his head, he begged for the shooting to start. Pop, pop, pop, no more robot. The world would be a better place. Phoenix the hero, they'd say.

Maggie and the other traders were glued to the scene, unable to take their eyes away from it. This was better than one of Lord Ash's old radio plays, and felt a lot more realistic. And if the shooting started, they'd feel just how realistic it was.

H2-149 didn't move.

* * *

While all of this tomfoolery was going on in Smack-dab, further south along the Back Road, the corpse of a rabbit-like creature lay pancaked on the ruined asphalt. A team of small ants had gathered on the dirt-stained meat - local miners from the nearby colony. They'd been hired by Corpse Co. to pick at this corpse with their miniature axes for the next three days, leaving no scrap behind. It was good work for an ant, if you could get it.

But something approached.

It was a smaller rabbit-like creature. Or at least, it was a smaller rabbit-like creature, but now was technically bigger considering the rather horizontal nature of its one-time nemesis. The smaller-but-now-larger rabbit-like creature, which was known as Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds and Bringer of Shadows, eyed up the situation with deep suspicion. Was this a trick? Some devious ploy by Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds and Bringer of Shadows's arch nemesis to get him to lower his guard?

But when he saw a squished little hat jammed between two chunks of road, he knew that this was not so. The Great Behatted Enemy, Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind, had been defeated.

Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds and Bringer of Shadows slowly picked up the flattened hat in his paws and stared at it.

With some careful unfolding, he gave it shape again.

And put it on.

Now he was Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds, Bringer of Shadows, and Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind. He towered over the corpse of his fallen foe, and the future stretched out before him. There would be change to come, and great battles to be fought. But first, he needed to snack.

He looked down at the ants.

* * *

Bert's blue eyes were sparkling supernovas of anger, her face radiating their heat. Any last vestige of fear was washing away under the red floods of sheer, unadulterated Bertrage. Out in the Waste, she didn't care who did what. New bandit leader? So be it. Someone trying to play god? Fine with her, so long as it stayed out there. Because inside Smack-dab, there was only one god. And she sure as hell wasn't merciful. Not when you refused to pay for your grog, and especially not if you made threats.

"I hear your irrefusable offer, you bandit piece of shit," she stated, standing tall to meet his eye level, "and I refuse it."

Silence fizzled between their eyes.

Then noises happened. Noises and expressions. Particularly expressions.

Farmer Brown looked taken aback, as though nobody had ever defied him before. Which, considering his immense size, was quite likely true. But then his throat vibrated with a deep, ominous hum. It seeped out through the cracks in his lips as he stood back to full height, a sound that rattled out slowly but somehow still felt like it was booming. His ears started to glow like Old World lava lamps, his weight shifting onto his front foot - ready to pounce.

Bert and Brown were now in the most volatile phase of a Waste negotiation. Anger was long past safe human levels, and anybody present with any semblance of self-preservation would be finding an excuse to leave quietly. This was generally the moment where terms were sorted out the quickest, either because one person would cave or, more often than not, one person would cave ... the other person's skull in.

Seeing Brown's posture shifting to an aggressive stance, Bert finally drew her weapon. Brown's bandit entourage flinched and scowled in response, with the obvious exception of H2-149.

Phoenix sucked in a breath.

Meatsack trembled.

The traders leaned forwards.

...H2-149 did nothing.

Baring teeth the size of fingernails, Brown reached back with a meaty hand, going for his anvilhammer. But Bert straightened her arm, pistol highlighting the lord's skull.

"If you so much as fondle that hammer of yours, I'll give the word and everyone in this building will open fire. Play it smart, big boy, or I'll shoot you dead." She smiled grimly, finger on the trigger. "Either way, I win."

Brown glared at her, the rumbling of his throat silencing. "Ya wanna start a fight, woman?" he growled. "I think ya need t' look in a mirror, 'cause ya ain't half as tough as ya thinks ye are."

Bert snorted back. "Maybe I ain't so tough-looking, but I'm the one with the guns. Take a step, asshole, and see if you're faster than a wall of bullets. There are more than a few folk here who I reckon'd love to show you what happens when you steal from the good folk of the Waste."

Brown did nothing but glare, nostrils flaring. Then his hand slowly moved away from his hammer. The beast didn't step forwards.

Good, Bert thought to herself triumphantly. At least she was getting somewhere a little safer. "Here's my counter-offer, and do you know what? I think you'd be smart not to refuse it."

His eyes narrowed.

"How about you take your half-wit, dungarees-wearing bandit scum back to the truck you parked on my lawn and you fuck off back to where you came from. Or buy a drink, then fuck off."

The wind howled outside Smack-dab, rattling windows and whistling through cracks in the weatherboards as though it were quivering with fear. Bert couldn't hear it, anyway, with the blood rushing so loudly past her ear drums. All she could see was the hulking great bastard in front of her, and all she could feel was the pistol in her hands, aiming straight at his head.

Farmer Brown, seven feet tall, built like a Waste Beast, the bandit whose army just massacred the fort, lifted one of his Yeti feet to step forwards, but hesitated. His eyes were locked on the small-statured, robo-fisted bar owner before him - who is, supposedly, a pacifist, let's not forget - who clenched her bone-handled pistol like her life depended on it (and, to be fair, it did). The room around the duo was muggy with anticipation. Would a volcano explode in Brown's head and set him off on a smashy-smashy hammer spree, or would everyone get to wake up the next morning? The nervousness was so thick you could have stitched it together and worn it as armour. Bert's pistol could have balanced a feather.

A miniature cyclone swirled in and out of existence in front of Farmer Brown as he let out a long, slow breath. His stance relaxed, if only slightly, and he lowered his boot to the floor. "Alright," he said slowly. His eyes never left Bert's. "We c'n play it yer way, so we c'n."

Bert glared at him in silence.

"Keep yer fish-calls t'day, woman, but know this: I got an entire army all around ya, an' it'll only take a week t' bring 'em together. An' what will ya do then, eh? When all me boys come down on ya. Ya got no friends, woman, but I got plenty. An' we won't just be comin' f'r no measly sixty-five next time. It'll be yer pretty lil' head, then."

He paused for a moment, as if about to explode and say something else, but then a growl bubbled up from the pits of his gullet and he snarled, waving at the front door. His retinue began to file out, stomping on the floor in a final show of toughness. The lord himself paused as he ducked under the doorway, dust rolling past his feet. He turned and looked over his shoulder to stare down Bert one last time.

"Yer've made a powerful enemy today, woman," he said.

Bert sneered back. "It wouldn't be the first time, but here I stand."

Farmer Brown snorted and pushed through the entranceway, marching down the gravel path after his followers. Bert watched as, halfway down the garden, Brown stopped, looked back up at her, and then booted The Woman's statue with his thick, rubber sole. The statue toppled out of site, a grim, serious look on Brown's planetoid head.

Then the truck outside coughed to life, Brown squeezed into the cabin, and, with quite incredible disagreement, the machine rolled away.

Silence resumed inside Smack-dab.

Nobody moved.

The front door swung loosely open and shut in the wind.

Bert, finally, breathed out.

"Shit."

Her pistol began to tremble.

* * *

Aw man, he didn't have to kick over the statue as well! Bandits, eh? Dickheads, the lotta 'em. In support of The Woman's statue, please remember to Vote for this story and comment. May it bring her peace in her new dusty grave.

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