Koko takes his hand, and Flynn’s skin feels warm and dry like sun-dried paper.
“Mmmm…”
“Shhhh. They’re taking care of you. You’re doing fine.”
Flynn licks his lips. “What… happened? I remember… I remember being in the sub and then being all wet. Man, I’ve been having the craziest dreams. Where am I?”
Better keep things digestible. “Our sub wrecked along the Nor’Am prohibs. It’s not C-GRAP, but I think we’re okay for now.”
“The prohibs?”
“Yeah, ol’ Northwestern United Shakes of Scare-merica.”
“But I thought… I thought you knew what you were doing.”
Koko sighs. “Well, we were doing fine, but then we hit a debris field while we were submerged, and the collision kind of messed up the sub’s steering. I’m sorry, but I did the best I could. Do you remember the storm?”
“I remember getting jerked around a lot if that’s what you mean.”
“Yeah, well, you were pretty out of it. Anyway, the bottom line is we’re both alive. We made it across the Pacific.”
“But not to C-GRAP?”
“No, not to C-GRAP. We were rescued.”
Flynn shuts his good eye and slowly licks the corners of his mouth.
“But by who? Where are we?”
“It’s complicated, but we’re at someplace called the Commonage.”
“I’m so confused…”
“I know, sweetie, don’t worry.”
“And tingly,” Flynn adds. “They gave me a shot before.”
Koko clears her throat and fingers away a tingle creeping near the bridge of her nose. “You dumb bunny, you’re probably too goofed up on painkillers to feel much of anything.”
Flynn grins slushily. “Mmm, s’good stuff, but that’s not what I mean. The shot… the doctor, Corella? He put it through my eye.”
“
Your eye?
”
“Yeah.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. He said something about sepsis.”
Koko’s ears burn. She bends forward and quickly kisses Flynn’s forehead.
“You get some rest,” she says straightening. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, and then I’ll see if we can get you out of here, okay?”
“Okay…”
As Flynn quickly fades off, Koko studies his face for a few seconds and the bandage on his eye, before she turns and rips back the surrounding curtains. Not far away just down the hall Dr. Corella is speaking with Bonn. A small analytic projection rotates in the air between the two men. Koko cruises through the display like a freight train.
“Okay, Doc,” she says, backing Dr. Corella up. “This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to give me a complete account of Flynn’s treatments, and I mean all of it. Blood work, that fucking eye injection, who here administered what, whatever you juiced into his system, right down to an itemized list of the manufacturers of his sutures and the width of the catheter shoved up his weenie, got it? You’re going to give me this in both printed and digitized forms right now, no arguments.”
Dr. Corella balks. “But, Koko, I assure you, everything we’re doing for Flynn has been—”
Eyes like bayonets, Koko metronomes a single index finger back and forth like a switch.
“Just get it. Now.”
Blasting across the Pacific sky at a smooth altitude of ten thousand feet, Wire heads north-northeast at hypersonic speed without a shred of trepidation behind her newly acquired aircraft’s controls.
Slope-surfaced and matted black for stealth, her new aircraft is a PAE Aerodynamics Goliath gunship. Primarily designed for long-range military theater engagements, the Goliath on first impression seemed a bit much for her needs, but now that she pushes the bejesus out of its twin fusion-powered thrusters, she’s happy she reconsidered the purchase. All said and done, with dueling quad-racks of ASM missiles and state-of-the-art pulse cannons, the Goliath is absolutely badass, nose to tail.
Wire’s munitions and clothes are stowed in a hold beneath the cockpit, but in one of her tactical suit’s deep cargo pockets she carries her evasion and worst-case scenario gear. Bifurcated and sealed in two vacuum-pack pouches, this gear includes: a blowout trauma kit; two laser flares; a multi-tool gyro-motion-powered flashlight; a tarry of synthetic energy protein (toasted coconut); a rack of five pulse grenades; and a holstered Sig Sauer sub-compact pistol flush-fit with an extended power magazine.
Wire has been itching to try out the Goliath’s pulse cannons and briefly she entertains a daydream of turning around and blowing by The Sixty, smoking every last inch of the resort just for spite. Yeah, lighting up those islands would be so satisfying. If she was lucky she might even take out that stupid fink Britch who deported her to Surabaya. But she left the resorts’ greater coordinates hours ago so now her retaliation will have to take the shape of a carefully crafted flowcode message she types into the Goliath’s comms.
Once her message is away, Wire checks her transoceanic navigational charts. Assembled, the lustrous arrays in front of her indicate a small commercial trawler up ahead, plugging northward across the sloppy seas at a steady twenty-eight knots. The vessel is of meager manifest value, hauling scrap metal destined for the offshore smelting rigs in the Sea of Okhotsk.
A closer examination of the charts reveals the nearest vessel to the trawler is over one hundred and ten nautical miles away. As the vessel isn’t connected to any larger commercial syndicate that might cause her any future concern, Wire dips the Goliath beneath the clouds and increases her speed.
Soon the trawler is within range. Seventy nautical miles out now and in the next second—fifty. With a sweep of her finger, she syncs the Goliath’s pulse cannon guidance systems to her newly repaired ocular, and half a second later a red-tinted overlay melts into her vision:
ACQUIRED
.
With a single blink of her eye, the pulse cannons fire. Strafing past, one of several rounds catches the trawler’s stern fuel tanks and obliterates the vessel in a molten fireball.
Fuck yes!
Wire streaks past the flaming smear on the ocean’s surface like a predacious black demon and pulls back on the Goliath’s stick, grinning. Dragging g-forces instantly engage her tactical suit stress functions to modulate her blood flow, and climbing higher into the sky, the Goliath finally stabilizes. Soon Wire thinks—
Oh, why the hell not?
She steers the Goliath into a victory barrel.
As the sun’s glinting orb spirals over the translucent rind of the canopy, Wire lets out a bellowing whoop. Flying higher still, she whoops some more.
Meanwhile, back on The Sixty, security officer Horace Britch sinks into a comfortable recliner and stares out the window of his residential quarters. The setting sun outside washes a golden shimmer across the ocean’s surface and burnished edge, and the cheerless, dreadnought silhouettes of several massive Second Free Zone lower orbital barges can be seen in the distance.
Speculating on what has happened to Wire, Britch wonders if the bounty agent is still amongst the living. He’s heard stories about how the poorest of the poor in Surabaya sometimes resort to cannibalism in order to survive, and he realizes the odds were certainly not in Wire’s favor. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone ahead and forwarded all of the records on Martstellar to her, but really—where was the harm? The Sixty and the Custom Pleasure Bureau’s board of directors elected not to pursue the matter further, so it was no skin off his nose. Britch felt a certain meager obligation to keep up his end of the bargain, if only as a final, insulting taunt.
Switching his thoughts to his extorted credits, he tests a cocktail of rum and muddled lemon in a glass and wonders if maybe he should’ve taken more. After all, executing such a reprehensible play with Wire was chancy. If his superiors somehow learned of his less than honorable gains, the act would be grounds for immediate punitive action. With disciplinary infractions all staff on The Sixty receive a three-count tally before lethal measures are addressed, but dear lord… the extra influx of credits… it was so worth it. A well-deserved, welcome dividend; something for life’s rare and precious luxuries for a change.
After Wire’s deportation, Britch spent his first dip into the purloined credits on hard-to-procure foodstuffs. The luscious quadruple-distilled Himalayan rum he so shamelessly watered down with lemon for instance, and the tin of tank-raised Ossetra caviar spooned onto butter-crisps on a plate at his elbow. Ever careful, Britch prudently used back channels and scrambled these expensive food purchases via his private off-world accounts. It felt thrilling to round out his personal larder frankly, and with little things here and there, as long as he doesn’t overdo it, he’s confident he shouldn’t attract any unwarranted attention.
As he leans over to select a caviar crisp, a ponging two-note at his door chimes. His quarters’ augmented intelligence systems advise him on the callers:
“Three visitors, Horace.”
Visitors?
Britch freezes. He has few friends on The Sixty (none at all, to be honest) and a chill drops through his stomach and shrinks his balls.
“Identify, please.”
Before the AI systems can reply, the locks on his quarters’ entry are bypassed—
kla-klack!—
and the door swishes inward with a reptilian hiss.
Getting up and turning, Britch sees three men. The first sports a slicked-back white pompadour, and the green rectangular badge fastened to the man’s lapel is bad, bad news.
“Good evening, Officer Britch,” the pompadour man says prissily. “Odin Riche, Chief Inspector with the SI Customs Office. Might I have a word with you for a moment?”
Britch doesn’t move. The two men with Riche he recognizes as novices in The Sixty’s security ranks. Hard, Gauleiter-like eyes and side arms at the ready.
“Um, I was just about to turn in,” Britch replies, placing the caviar crisp back on the plate near his recliner. “Not feeling all that well, actually. Is something wrong? What’s this all about?”
Riche starchily steps inside. “I’m sorry to intrude, but earlier this afternoon a distressing matter was brought to my office’s attention.”
Britch’s face goes sheet white. “Oh?”
“Yes,” Riche replies. “A flowcode message, actually, sent from an individual you recently handled for deportation proceedings.” Riche flashes a neat reef of tiny teeth. “As you probably know, our office typically dismisses such messages from patrons who’ve experienced untimely expulsions from The Sixty, you know, sour grapes and all that. But SI management is electing to adopt a more hands-on stance with following up on any and all complaints. Part of the quality control initiative the CPB announced last week. Did you, by chance, happen to read the quality control brief circulated?”
Britch drains the rum in his glass. His hand shakes.
“Um, I’m not really sure…”
“I see. Well, there are so many briefs circulating these days I can see how you might’ve forgotten. In any case, this deportee, the one who sent the flowcode message? She alleges that prior to her expulsion you obtained a significant amount of credits from her under great physical duress.”
Britch forces a short laugh. “That’s preposterous!”
“Preposterous or not, this is her assertion.”
“Can I see a copy of this alleged flowcode message?”
“By all means.”
Riche produces a datatab from his jacket and hands it over.
After taking the device, Britch reads a neat, single-spaced, typed paragraph. Twice. The details within are devastating.
Why that muscle-headed…
“Well?” Riche asks.
Britch hands back the datatab. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t true. It’s a blatant lie.”
Riche stuffs the datatab back into his jacket.
“So this is your position?”
“Of course it is my position!” Britch squawks. “Good lord, you know you can’t trust a person like that.”
“And why is that?”
“She’s a bounty agent. They’re not exactly known for their scruples.”
“Indeed,” Riche says, “but as you just read, the communiqué also listed violations of at least three security protocols.”
Britch whines, “Oh, c’mon. This Wire person is just raw because I arrested her before she took out her supposed target. Wild allegations like that—she only sent the message to get back at me because I was the primary on her infraction. It’s ridiculous. Nothing but sour grapes, like you said.”
Stepping farther into Britch’s quarters, Riche approaches the window and takes in the now darkening view.
“But this patron asserts you transferred credits from her to an off-world account. If this did occur, under the threat of death no less, it’s my responsibility to verify the accusation.”
“So?”
“So, once we received this message we confirmed some unusual purchasing activity from your own off-world accounts.”
Britch’s mouth falls open. “My accounts? But those, those are supposed to be private.”
“Are you assuming I’m not taking the new quality control initiatives seriously?”
“No, sir, I’m not, but—”
“Given your depleted compensation package, which also is no big secret I’ll tell you, these purchases were quite disproportionate to your means.”
“But I’ve been thrifty.”
“Thrifty?”
“I saved up and bought a few things to treat myself. It’s not unheard of.”
“At present the going market price for quadruple-distilled Himalayan rum borders on the insane.”
Britch deflates. Dancing shoes or not, his stonewalling jitterbug with Riche appears up, so now what? The little pompadoured twerp and his novice flunkies are going to escort him back to resort HQ for a disciplinary hearing? Great. That is just fucking great. They’ll probably stick him with extra patrol shift assignments and cut his pay again to send a message. They might even elect to sack him completely, the bunch of nit-picking jerks.
Riche then notices the plattered caviar crisps next to Britch’s recliner.
“Ooh, is this the Ossetra you purchased? May I?”
Britch sighs resentfully. “At this point, why not? Help yourself.”
Riche selects and slides a crisp into his mouth. Cocking an appreciative eyebrow, he emits a snuffle and then gently takes the empty glass with the smashed lemon from Britch’s hand.