"Oh God forbid!" my mother cried.
"I need seventy-five solars," I repeated calmly. "Are you going to give it to me?"
"Answer me!" my father roared. "Have you gone back to that gang?"
"That's none of your damn business."
Infuriated, he started towards me. "No daughter of mine is going to talk to me like that. I'm going to give you the spanking you've had coming for seventeen years."
I drew my whip and slashed him down the side of his face and chest, cutting his shirt half open. He sat down with an unbelieving expression and fingered the red welt. He looked at me through glazed eyes, almost in a state of shock, as I rewound my whip.
My mother broke the long silence. "Here, Vera. Here are your seventy-five solars. We never want to see you or hear from you again."
News of our gang wars rarely appears in the adult press. I guess they're afraid the publicity might encourage more teenagers to join up. But the colonial struggle with Sirius had ended, and there wasn't much else happening in the Solar System just at that time, so our raid on Io made the headlines.
GIRLS BLAST BOY HIDEOUT
Callisto fleet bombs, strafes
Io base in bloody juvenile gang war