Authors: Warren Hammond
I checked the time again—any second now. Where the fuck was Froelich with my ten unis?
Wu kicked at a gecko. “How long is this thing going to take? I need to call my wife and tell her when I’ll be home.”
“You kidding me?”
“She worries when I don’t come home on time.”
“Fucking unbelievable,” I muttered loud enough to be heard. I couldn’t be bothered with this shit. “Tell her you won’t be home. Tell her to use a vibrator.”
His scowl made the scar on his forehead dip. “Some husband you must’ve been. No wonder she decided to off herself.”
Without thinking, I snatched hold of his shirt and yanked his scarred face up to my own. “You watch your fuckin’ mouth!”
Wu was grinning in my grasp, enjoying the fact that he’d gotten to me. What he’d said was true enough. I
had
been a bad husband. And had I been a better one, Niki might not have done herself in.
But that didn’t mean I was accepting opinions on the matter, especially from Paolo-fucking-Wu.
A door opened and the woman bodyguard came out. Maria was her name.
She froze when she saw me. I must’ve looked ready to kill. Probably because I was. Snapped back to my senses, I remembered that we were likely being watched from the windows above. I released the bastard. It didn’t look good to have anybody see us fighting among ourselves. With a self-satisfied smirk, Wu brushed at the stir of wrinkles my fist had left on his chest.
“I came to help,” said a tentative Maria. “Where do you want me?”
Before I could answer, the lights went out.
Looking up, I tried to calm myself by taking a moment to look at the thousands of tiny pinpricks of light twinkling in the sky. That was the good thing about these power outages. You could see so many stars when the city lights went out. The only good thing.
“Um, can I ask a question, boss?” asked Lumbela.
It took me a few seconds to respond. “Talk.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We wait.” A riot was about to start. Of that I had no doubt. The only question was whether the storm would drift our way.
I stepped out of the alley and into the street. Weeds bent under my shoes. This street was overdue for a good scorching. The Lagartan jungle was a persistent bastard. Inch by inch, street by street, the weeds and vines slithered across the pavement and up the walls, relentlessly seizing territory from a lazy population. You could slash it, and you could burn it, but you could never stop it. Once the roots dug in, you couldn’t get rid of the shit.
I heard my crew complaining behind my back. No matter. They could bad-mouth me all they wanted. My roots had already dug into them.
I looked off into the darkness and listened. I could hear people above me. They were leaning out their windows and venting their frustration. This was a city that had had enough.
For ten minutes, maybe longer, I waited, my senses tuned to the nervous energy all around me. People milled about, curiosity seekers and troublemakers, their voices anxious and agitated. I heard the sound of crashing glass in the distance. I caught a whiff of smoke from an unseen fire. They were getting right after it tonight.
Running footsteps. I flicked on a flashlight and caught sight of a young punk sprinting my way. “They’re coming!” he yelled. “They’re coming.”
Forgetting we had a gal in the mix, I called to my crew, “We’re on, boys!” I aimed my flashlight at Kripsen and Lumbela. “You two set up a fireline right here at the alley mouth.” Fireline was cheap but effective. You just squeeze out a thick bead of gel and light it. It would burn hot, and it would burn tall. With it, you could create a firewall of the literal variety.
Freddie Lumbela shook his black head, his skin a few shades darker than your typical Lagartan brown. “No can do, boss.”
I shined the flashlight directly into his face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He used a hand to shade his eyes. “These cans of fireline are used up. This is the fourth riot we’ve worked this week.”
“You couldn’t swap those cans for new ones?”
“KOP ran out. They’re getting more shipped in next week.”
“Yet you two decided to keep carrying empties around?”
“It’s in the regs for riot gear. We’re required to carry fireline.”
Holy hell, where did I find these humps? I played my flashlight across their tense faces. This would be so much easier if I had my ten uniforms.
“Okay. Here’s how we’re going to do this. I want a single line. Spread out wall to wall to cover the alley mouth. Nobody gets into this alley, got it? Use any force necessary. And you two put some flashlights on the ground and aim ’em up at us. We want people to see us when they come barreling around the corner.”
“Hey, guys,” said a voice holding a flashlight up to his face. Froelich. “I’m not too late, am I?” His shaved head was beaded with glistening sweat, like he’d really raced to get here. He wasn’t breathing hard, though. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was just trying to make it look good, stopping off on the way to dump a cup of water over his head.
“Where are my uniforms?”
“Just a minute behind me.”
I told him to get in line. No time to ream out the late bastard.
I took my position, Maria to my right, Wu to the left. I leaned toward Maria and took a sneeze-worthy blast of perfume up the nose. “You know you don’t have to stay. Chicho doesn’t pay you enough for this.”
“I’m staying.” Her voice was firm enough to put any argument to rest.
Things were heating up on the street. I couldn’t see much, but I could hear plenty—hustling feet, fierce shouting, more shattering glass. Lase-fire crackled upward, a red beam stretching seemingly up to the stars themselves. I pulled my lase-pistol from my waistband and clutched it tight in my left. I pressed the weapon against my heart, where everybody would see it. I tucked my shaky right into my pocket to keep it out of sight. Damn thing was a nuisance.
We held our ground as the voices thickened, more and more of them all the time. People tried to stay clear of us, but it was getting harder as the sheer size of the crowd forced their collective movement wide. Kripsen and Lumbela stayed active with their shocksticks, and Maria took to waving a lase-blade from side to side.
People flowed past like a river of angry white water. Our line held firm as the crowd inched closer and closer. Aiming at the ground, Deluski squeezed off a long burst of lase-fire, scoring the pavement with a searing stream of heat, forcing the tide to dance back to a safe distance.
Six of Froelich’s uniforms finally arrived and filled the gaps in our line. Still not quite the show of force I was hoping for, but it was enough to convince the eyes watching from above I still held sway over KOP.
My plan was finally coming together.
A pair of teens charged. Wu drove the butt of his weapon into the face of the one on the left. The teen staggered backward, his hands to his face, blood oozing out from between his fingers, and then, just like that, he was sucked back into the angry tide, disappearing in the dark of night. I blocked the other teen with my body. He threw a punch at me, the eyes in his flash-lit face aflame.
I took the blow on my cheek and felt the sting of the shot, but I knew it was nothing serious. The kid had no meat on his bones. I swung my piece and caught him on the ear. At impact, the feral quality in the kid’s eyes instantly disappeared. It was like the demon that had possessed him was suddenly exorcised. Just a scared child now, couldn’t be more than thirteen or fourteen. I couldn’t let him stand there. We needed to keep this area clear so we wouldn’t get overrun. I shoved him backward. Had no choice. He lost his balance and fell under what seemed like hundreds of feet.
A fire broke out in the spice shop across the street, the madness of the mob scene now illuminated by a hellish, flickering glow. I looked for the kid, but couldn’t find him. I hoped he’d managed to pick himself up.
Already, I knew the kid’s face would stick with me. I had a helluva photo album going in my mind, the mementos of a lifetime of brutality. Over the years, the faces’ features had faded, all of them meshing and mixing into little more than a brown-skinned blur, but their expressions … I remembered their expressions—shock, fear, disbelief, hatred, humiliation …
Begging faces. Bleeding faces. Broken faces.
Quite a gallery.
I’d never escape the violence. It was clear by now that I was damned to spend the rest of my days repeating the pattern over and over. Served me right. A bastard like me didn’t deserve anything better.
I just had to trust that some good would come out of my mission to take back KOP. It might take years, but when I succeeded, Maggie Orzo would become chief. My on-again-off-again partner wasn’t corrupted like the rest of us. A chief like her would make a difference. I couldn’t let myself doubt that. Not ever.
And besides, I couldn’t imagine my life without the mission. With no Niki and no mission, I’d be left with nothing but emptiness.
I looked up and down our line. Kripsen and Lumbela were holding their ground, acting like real pros. They’d had plenty of practice the last couple weeks. The rest of my crew were doing the same, finally proving their worth. Even Maria looked confident. Chicho had scored himself a winner.
I tried to process what my eyes were taking in: a gang of punks with clubs, a woman with a baby cradled in one arm and a stolen chicken flapping in the other, an old man swinging a lase-blade at geriatric speed. Looters were everywhere, their arms overflowing with swag.
Shit started to rain down from the windows above the street, bottles and plates, chairs and lamps, all of it crashing down to the pavement from three, maybe four stories up. They were trying to protect their homes by heaving whatever they had handy down on the rioters’ heads. The mob scattered. People ran for cover, tripping and trampling.
I’d never seen anything like this. The scene before me was so … so
raw
.
I felt an unusual spark down deep, down where the emptiness was centered. I puzzled at it for a while, wondering what it was. It grew stronger, this strange feeling gaining power inside me. I felt it emerge from the murky depths.
It spoke to me. It was calling me, drawing me into the madness.
Not since Niki died had I felt anything so pure. I let myself indulge the feeling. Magnificent relief washed over me. Gone was the guilt and the self-pity. Gone was the pain. Gone was the burden of the mission.
I couldn’t believe I’d missed it all these years. The secret to life was so simple. All this time, all I’d had to do was surrender.
Dizzy with euphoria, I dropped my piece and stepped out into the glorious insanity.
Heading into the eye of the storm, I stole a look over my shoulder. My bewildered crew members watched me go. Nobody made a move to stop me. They didn’t care if I got myself killed. I’d be doing them a favor.
I’d be doing myself a favor.
My senses were alive, my skin tingling. I felt the winter breeze pull at my hair. I felt the battered pavement under my soles. It was beautiful, really, the way the pits and ripples dipped and arched, like somebody had made a sculpture just for the feet to appreciate. Shattering ceramics sprayed my legs. I turned toward where they exploded. Even in the low light, they looked like starbursts. The last few stragglers stumbled about, some of them bloodied, all of them covering their heads. A brandy bottle exploded nearby, the spray jumping high enough to dot my cheek. I smelled cinnamon and cumin and anise, the flaming spice shop exuding odors like a magnificent stew.
I closed my eyes, savoring the aroma.
I reached for the sky, inviting the worst, and waited for the end.
three
A
PRIL 21, 2789
A
LAUNCHING
spacecraft rattled the windows. My lids peeled open. I was on my sofa, and curiously, I was still alive.
How long had I been here? The emptiness had hold of me now. It wasn’t so bad, really. I couldn’t feel anything when it held me. I just wanted to sleep. In fact, I should be sleeping right now. I closed my eyes and shut out this godforsaken world.
* * *
My phone jingled. Had to be Maggie. I’d blocked all other calls.
I wondered if it was day or night. It didn’t much matter, but I was curious. The Big Sleep could really screw with your sense of time.
I let the phone take a message. Maggie’s holo lit up the room. I could see colors moving through my eyelids.
“Juno, it’s me. It’s Maggie. Hey, I’m running late for dinner.”
Nighttime. Definitely nighttime.
“Listen, can we push it back a half hour? Let me know.”
Right. Dinner. Forgot about that. Lucky she called or I would’ve been a no-show. I fumbled for the phone, and in order to keep my half-asleep voice under wraps, I texted a response:
No problem.
And then I unblocked other calls.
I checked the time.
Fuck me.
Even with the extra half hour, I didn’t have much time to get ready. I dropped my feet to the floor and stretched my arms up for the ceiling, my muscles aching, my head still swimming with the tail end of a fading buzz.
I lifted myself off the sofa and stumbled down the hall without looking at the bedroom door. I didn’t go in there anymore. Too much Niki in there—clothes, shoes, jewelry, hairbrushes with long strands of black hair trapped in the bristles,
her
hair. And the smells, the perfumes and creams and lotions. No, I didn’t go in there anymore. I couldn’t.
Making it to the can, I watered the mold-lined bowl, then stepped into the shower and started rinsing away the stink of an all-night booze binge. A bandage washed off my bicep. I looked at the gouge on my arm. Not bad. It should heal up nicely if I could keep it clean. Amazing that was the only damage. Deluski and Lumbela were the ones who’d saved me. Lumbela paid the price, his melon taking a hit from what looked like a flying teacup. The resulting spray of shattering ceramic peppered my arm, one shard taking a good slice.
I remembered them pulling me back to the alley, both of them ducking, me walking upright, lost in a world of my own.