"We keep the peace around here, you know? Drive off raiders for the next four blocks. If you don't want to pay a really modest amount for safe crossing, you can go to the Tappan Zee a couple miles north. Or try to wade one of the tunnels. Then again... If I got supplies from somewhere else, I wouldn't need to take tolls."

"If you lowered the toll, less people would detour around your bridge."

She scoffs. "The numbers don't support that. We have a bunch of regular customers doing trade and deliveries and scavenging in the inner city. They can afford it. But if I lower the price for feeling sorry... Then everyone else invents a sob story, and the trader gets mad that his toll's still the same, and it's a disaster."

"Everyone's an economist these days," Zeke mutters to Jo.

Jo splorfles.

Marla insists, "The world is new again. Carpe diem! Isn't pursuit of money, like, an American right?"

She's showing remarkable courage, standing confidently in front of three vampires.

"My family's German." Okay, so her mother just happens to be from Saxe-Coburg, but who's quibbling?

"Suure. Anyway. Miss Resplendent Vampire Queen, are you going to kick me off my own bridge and take my stuff and not charge tolls? Or can we find some kind of compromise? 'Cause asking me to reduce my income without offering some supplies or some security is kind of bossy."

"Fine, fine, I'll talk to Nick about it. But he'll probably want like, free access or something."

Being responsible suuuuuuucks.

"Nick's the other vampire? The one that's not here? He's got a good head on his shoulders..." She looks a bit wistful.

She's annoyed, but she's not sure why.

"Yeah, he does. Probably why he has a shop and not a bridge."

"Society doth not consist of one business alone, Your Resplendence."

Jo has just acquired teasing material and she's really trying not to show it.

"I bet he only uses bridges out of social responsibility."

"Maybe he doesn't want to look like a crazy Punker queen."

"Crazy punker consort."

"Oh, you have a cruuush on him? Gonna marry him? That's why you got so mad at Marla just now, isn't it?"

"Yes! Okay, yes! I picked him from the herd, I get dibs!"

"Knew it~! Now you just have to make him realize it."

"I think he does realise. Would explain why he's so easy to fluster."

"I'm still here," Marla says, rolling her eyes. "So - I get solar panels and hydroponic stuff or something else about as useful from someone, or I don't lower the toll."

"Fine, sure. And try to be nicer to people." The last part is layered with a little compulsion.

Marla makes a sarcastic 'heh' sound at this, but she does look thoughtful.

"Super-Punker-Queen, away!"

Jo follows her, somersaulting and grinning.

Poor Nick is being bugged a lot by his fellow vampires.