EXCERPT

“As soon as you’re born, you go through crap. And there’re different categories of crap. There’s general crap, like working and paying bills, puttin’ up with bad bosses, and female crap, like
having men expect you to massage their ego. And I suppose there’s male crap,
but I couldn’t tell you what it was. Maybe needing women to tell you what a
good job you did. Then there’s religious crap. Crap you go through if you’re a
Christian, Jewish, Muslim, shaman even,” !Dana@root said. She crouched on one
knee behind a bush, one eye closed, one eye viewing a copse of trees through
the sight of a crossbow.

“Shaman crap. I know that,” Krell said.

“Crap we have, D-Root, but you have to admit, we haven’t had to pay bills in a long time,” Mo-B said.

“Don’t be fooled. The government is taking taxes out of our so-called hazard pay as we speak,” 3Victoria said. “To pay for President Alkar’s war with the Ghivites.”

“And they underestimated the hazard, if you ask me,” !Dana@root said. “Gotcha.”  She released the bolt. It hissed in the air and hit the target, who had just
emerged from the copse. Blood rivuleted from his left flank and he wailed an
unholy howling, which diminuendoed to whimpering.

“He’s down!” D-root said.

“Looks like your boyfriend was right,” Krell said, taking off, running toward the fallen prey.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” D-root said, yelling after Krell.