by Michael Todd
“Deal,” he said. “So long as I get to make you say, ‘Oh God,’ for other reasons later.”
She grinned and tilted her head with a challenge in her eyes. They had been at the bar for the past couple of hours, but Sal had spent most of it getting connected with the teams that would head out into the Zoo in the near future. Over the past couple of months since they’d broken away and started to work on their own, they’d had to rely on running the jobs with others. It meant a profit split with them too, but when the alternative was to go in with only the two of them, it wasn’t much of a choice at all. The Zoo grew more and more dangerous the larger it became.
Sal realized that the flush in Kennedy’s cheeks wasn’t only from her attempt not to snort beer out her nose. She’d actually been drinking all this time.
He didn’t blame her. Despite all his personal rules, he wished he’d been drinking too.
“Look,” he said finally and glanced at his own beer, which was only half empty despite the fact that he’d nursed it over the past few hours. “I need to get back to my place. There is paperwork to do, and I think I need a nap. So…unless you call me earlier, I’ll meet up with you at three, okay?”
Kennedy nodded. “Sweet dreams. And…paperwork, I guess.”
Sal chuckled and moved to the bar where he indicated for the bartender not to serve her anything else. The man nodded and tapped his nose as Sal made his way outside.
Chapter Seven
Madigan tilted her head as she watched Sal leave. He was…different. She’d had other boyfriends before. There had been a couple of military guys, but she found that they got really defensive with her very quickly. Either that or they felt slightly emasculated by a girlfriend who was in the special forces. Actually, when she thought about it, there were a couple who hadn’t even been in the military who had felt that way. Men either reacted like that or had some sort of fetish that involved domination by a warrior woman or something along those lines.
It creeped her out. None of them saw her as Madigan. She always meant something else to them.
Sal was different. And she thought that in the best way possible. He was wrapped up in that quick-working little mind of his, and while there was sexual chemistry between them, he seemed more willing than most to let that be an isolated part of their relationship. When the sex came up, it was fun and it was good, but it never invaded the rest of what she’d come to regard as a really great friendship.
Until now. She tilted her head and stared at her glass. He’d made a sexual innuendo, and she hadn’t given him any shit for it. Maybe she had drunk too much. It was barely a quarter past midday, and she had already downed three beers. No, it took a lot more than that to get her drunk.
Maybe she had merely adjusted to that side of their relationship. Nope, it couldn’t be that. It might be that the beers had landed in an empty stomach. She chuckled and took another long sip from the glass. Whatever the reason, she was comfortable around Sal—and more importantly, he seemed to be comfortable around her. Now that she’d come to know him and all his little oddities, that was probably the most impressive thing she’d seen all year.
Considering the year that she’d had, that was saying something. Between her visits into the Zoo and… No, that was pretty much it, but that still set the bar high. Madigan smiled as she leaned back in her seat. He was comfortable being his weird, odd self with her. For some reason, thinking that made her feel a gentle tingle in her body. Not necessarily sexual, but not necessarily…not.
She finished her drink and turned toward the bar. As she raised her hand to ask for another one, she noticed someone she recognized on one of the stools. The woman sat alone, and her short blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun. She had the look of someone just out of the Zoo, too. Madigan wasn’t sure what it was—relief mixed with exhaustion, maybe.
“Dr. Monroe?” she asked and leaned closer to her. The woman looked around, seemingly uncertain as to who might be talking to her as she nursed what Kennedy assumed was a Jack and Diet Coke. It took a few attempts before Monroe realized who was speaking and turned to look at her.
“Sergeant Kennedy,” she said with a smile and pushed off her stool. “So nice to see you again. It’s been a while.”
“It’s just Kennedy now,” Madigan said and gestured for Monroe to join her at her table. “Well, Madigan Kennedy.”
“Oh, right,” the specialist said with a chuckle as she took the seat Sal had vacated. “I heard that you had struck out solo. And doing a pretty good job of it too, if the rumors around the base are to be believed.”
“Well,” Madigan said with a shrug, “not ‘solo.’ I’ve worked a lot with Salinger Jacobs. He’s actually the brains behind this whole thing. I’m the muscle. I don’t think I would have been able to figure it out by myself, although I’m certain that it’s the same for him.”
Monroe’s laugh sounded odd and almost forced. “Oh, right, I remember. Jacobs—not doctor, just Jacobs.”
Madigan pointed at her and laughed. “I’d completely forgotten that. It’s hilarious.”
The specialist chuckled softly. “Has he actually managed to get his doctorate yet? Personal experience in a place like this is almost certainly a shoo-in for any doctorate committee out there. Just saying.”
Kennedy nodded. “I mean, I know that he’s finished his thesis—”
“Dissertation,” Monroe corrected.
“Right, what did I say?” she asked as the bartender brought another pint for her. He looked at Monroe’s almost empty glass and she nodded at the unasked question.
“Thesis is usually for BS or master’s degrees,” the specialist said and watched the bartender whip her up another drink and bring it to the table in under thirty seconds. “A dissertation is usually longer and is required when applying for a doctorate.”
Madigan nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. Anyway, I think he has already finished his, but he said something about having to go back to the States for some sort of discussion and he wasn’t ready to leave yet.”
“Yeah, I can understand that.” Monroe sipped from her straw. “I mean, it’s not every day that they bring anything other than fully-fledged doctors out here. And since he’s not tied down to some doctorate commission or anything like that, he’s essentially free to turn his dissertation in whenever he pleases. You know, within reason. Besides, he’s young. He has time before people ask what he’s doing with his life.”
“Well, he’s doing pretty great for himself, I’d say,” Madigan said. “I’m not going to lie. When I was his age, I’d probably have been willing to kill to make as much money as he makes now.”
Courtney chuckled. “No shit? What kind of money, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Kennedy inclined her head as she contemplated her answer. Her brain felt a little fuzzy, but when she thought about it hard, the details came back to her. She couldn’t imagine that it would be a bad idea to lay out the details of their situation to someone like Monroe. While she didn’t necessarily trust the woman, it wasn’t like she would give away state secrets or anything like that.
“Well, we do the usual trips into the Zoo,” Madigan said. “You know, collect the flowers and stuff, and a couple of companies offer bounties for his depiction of the flora and the fauna in there. It’s not that much money, I suppose, but it’s not much more work than he would do otherwise. It’s his field of study anyway. I’m basically his gunner and make sure that he doesn’t get eaten while he hunts down science or whatever.”
Monroe smirked, and the ex-sergeant chuckled. She knew that it was a lot more complicated than that for Sal, and she was sure that they would have many conversations about how much more complicated it was. And for her part, she liked to let him talk. He was passionate about that sort of stuff, and while she had a decent understanding of what he was talking about, having him talk about what he was good at was miles better than the stupid jokes he tried to come up with when his mind was idle.
“Anyway,”
Madigan said as she returned to the track of the conversation.” Yeah, that’s the bread and butter, but we’ve had a lot of outside contracts from people to test weapons and armor and software for suits and armor. They need people who’ve actually been in the Zoo. Not only gunners, since they need some specialists’ input there too.”
Courtney nodded and leaned back. “So, since you guys already have a specialist, I don’t suppose you’d need any more on your team? Do you need someone else to join your little start-up?”
Kennedy set her pint down on the table. She traced her finger thoughtfully around the lip of the glass. “What do you mean? Do you mean you?”
“It’s been on my mind,” Monroe said with a shrug. “I’ve never actually worked here on a government contract, so it’s never been secure. They want me to stay since I’m one of the people who’s been here the longest, but they continually change my contract. And if I want to work here for the company, I have to accept the changes that they make, even when they put in some clauses that aren’t…well, they aren’t made with my well-being in mind.”
“Your company’s screwing you over,” Madigan said and put her own honest opinion forward to simplify the situation. “Got it.”
The specialist laughed. “Yeah, pretty much.” She took another long sip from her drink and winced as the alcohol hit her system. “You’d think with all the screwing over that I’ve had during the past few years that I’d be the most satisfied gal on base, but lately it’s been…all screw, no orgasm, you know what I mean?”
Courtney made a face, a little surprised at herself because she didn’t usually talk this way. She was generally much more civilized with her language, but there was something about Kennedy that made her feel comfortable. While she’d never been particularly foul-mouthed, she wasn’t exactly a nun either. The more the expectations of her increased in the workplace, the more she adjusted her language to fit what she’d always thought a doctor should sound like.
But as she sat there and talked with someone whom she knew had no preconceived expectations of her, and with a fairly substantial serving of alcohol in her system, she felt comfortable to release her sailor mouth without any inhibitions.
It seemed like Kennedy was shocked by her language too. The woman leaned back in her seat and laughed out loud as she nodded.
“That’s actually a very fair assessment of the situation,” Madigan said with another chuckle. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll steal that line for later use. I’ll make sure to put you down as a source.”
Courtney shrugged. “It’s not like I’ll trademark it or anything. Steal away.”
“You might want to consider trademarking it,” Madigan said with a laugh. “I mean, if your company screws you over like this, you should probably look out for yourself as much as possible, you know what I mean?”
Courtney smiled. “Yeah, I guess. It’s not like I want something for nothing, you know? I’ve put a lot of work into this place, and I have done so for a while now. Recognition isn’t my style, but I’d still like to be paid fairly for my efforts.”
“You know what?” Madigan said forcefully and leaned forward in her seat. “Screw those guys. Not literally, of course. They don’t deserve your assets.” She grinned and put emphasis on the first half of the word. “You should drop them and come work for us.”
“Yeah,” Courtney said with a laugh. “Simply drop my contract, rip it up in front of those motherfuckers, and strike out on my own like you and Jacobs.”
“Hey, you could come work with us,” Madigan said and held her hand up before Courtney laughed it off. “I’m serious. You’re one of the best in the business. Anybody would be lucky to have you, and I think Heavy Metal deserves some of that kind of luck.”
“Heavy Metal?” Courtney asked and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, yeah, that’s what Sal called the company,” Madigan explained. “I’m still not sure why, but hey, we can always change it later. Nothing’s written in stone here.”
Courtney nodded. “Are you serious? It seems like you guys already have a specialist on your squad, so if you need any new additions, it makes more sense that you should bring in a couple of gunners, not another specialist.”
Madigan shrugged. “Sure, Sal’s a pretty good specialist. He’s also a really good gunner too, so it’s more half and half. Since I’m dedicated to the gunner side of the business, we could always afford to have someone balance it out on the specialist side. Besides, it would be really cool to have an actual doctor on the team and not some wannabe.”
“Hey, come on,” Monroe said and took a moment to finish her drink off. “Jacobs is one of the best in the business too, PhD or no PhD.”
“That’s fair,” Kennedy agreed with a nod. She finished her own drink and placed the empty glass on the table. “Although his ego doesn’t need any further inflation, so I will deny ever having said that.”
“You won’t hear a word from me about it,” Courtney said. She wanted to make a joke about something else of his that might need inflating, but all things said, no matter how drunk she was, she simply wasn’t that kind of person.
“In all seriousness, though,” Madigan said as their empty glasses were replaced with full ones. “It’s always worth a shot. Since we’re still a start-up, you’d be one of the founding members, and if Sal can pick up some more of the gunner-ing, maybe we’ll have a place for you to take up the full-on specialist role, you know?”
“I’ll think about it,” Monroe said with a smile. “I really will. So far, all I’ve done here is sell my mind. It’s time to move into something that I actually care about.” She took a sip of her drink and nodded. She’d been drinking for a little while and the alcohol had moved past the initial impact toward steady inebriation. That was how she knew it was working.
“Besides,” Madigan continued, “there are many other benefits to working with Salinger Jacobs other than his brains, you know?”
Courtney leaned forward and tried to pretend that this wasn’t a topic that had been on her mind since the conversation started. “Oh, yeah, I wondered about that,” she said and kept her voice deliberately casual. “I’ve heard here and there that you and Salinger are an item.”
Kennedy shrugged. “It’s nothing serious. We work together and we like each other. Since we spend a lot of time together, it made sense, you know?”
It didn’t make sense to her, but she nodded anyway. “So, you two didn’t start anything until after you started working together?”
“No, it was a little before that, actually,” her companion said and shook her head slowly.
“I mean,” Courtney pushed, “I kind of threw myself at him after that first mission, but he wasn’t interested. Honestly, he blew me off that first time.”
“Really?” Madigan asked. “I went to his place later that night, and he seemed plenty eager to join in.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kennedy nodded. “I’m certain he thought that I was a wet dream that first time, though. He’d already gone to sleep and was on pain pills. He was in a bad way after that first mission.”
“I remember that.”
“Yeah, I thought that he wouldn’t believe I’d gone there, especially if he wasn’t all there.” Courtney leaned in closer, not wanting to miss a detail. “Anyway, I left him a pair of my panties to let him know that it actually happened. Even then, it seemed like he was afraid to talk to me after that—like he didn’t want to bring it up. It took another visit to his place to get him comfortable with the fact.”
She laughed. For some reason, this fit with her mental image of the man. “Leaving your panties behind, huh? That’s a neat trick. So how was he?” she asked.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” Madigan said. “Most younger guys have some…well-documented problems, but he managed to steer clear of those while still being very…young and energetic. Ten out of ten would fuck again.”
Courtney laughed, and Kennedy s
mirked as they raised their glasses and clinked them together.
Chapter Eight
Anderson watched the captured video of the mission. He still wasn’t happy with it. The boys had fulfilled their objective as well as could be expected from them, but the armor hadn’t performed as advertised.
It was top-of-the-line, no disputing that. It was also groundbreaking in that these suits were touted as the first power armor in which the power covered the entirety of the armor. It was honestly rather impressive considering the advantages this could have in the field. Anderson would have liked a good look at the suits before they were tested out there, out of professional curiosity more than anything else. Folks in the field relied on IT geeks to operate effectively. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust those guys, but they weren’t the ones who were out there and who risked their lives.
Despite all that, Anderson couldn’t shake the feeling that his boys used unfinished products. They were the guinea pigs required for the people in high rises in New York to satisfy their investors enough to put these things in production. He’d been told that the software and hardware had been put through extensive testing before the mission, but if this was the first real field test and it involved live fire, there were a lot of questions that he would raise with his superiors when he got back.
He knew what they would say. All’s well that ended well, and so far, the field tests had gone spectacularly. The new software proved incredibly useful, even if it needed a few tweaks here or there. He thought specifically of the long-distance software that had a couple of bugs that involved the distance reader. It wasn’t something that couldn’t be worked around. In fact, it had been, because a couple of the longer shots had required the members of Green Team to make some calculations of their own before taking their shots.
That particular scenario had involved shooting bounty hunters on some dirt bikes, so it would have been difficult to call one way or another. Survivors had not been a part of the mission, and so they’d taken their shots and made the kills required.