by Michael Todd
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Sal muttered and swigged his beer. “Can we move the conversation on?”
“No, I think we need to delve a bit deeper into your psyche there, Salinger,” Courtney said.
He grinned and shook his head. Over time, he had grown accustomed to the way they talked to him. He didn’t mind, though, not when it came to Madigan and Courtney because he knew they had his best interests at heart.
It wasn’t like he couldn’t show his face around there anymore. The story about how he’d fought with Kennedy and lost had spread to most of the Staging Area, but the fact that she was something of a badass had already been well known. So instead of a wimp who lost a fight to a girl, he was the dumbass who picked a fight with someone who was clearly more experienced than he was. He’d only been around the Zoo for a couple of months as his battalion was part of the rotation that the army had put in place.
It still stung when he entered the bar and there was almost a collective silence when everyone saw him come in. None of his teammates were around, which meant that he would probably drink on his own for the moment.
A few comments and snickers were tossed behind his back, but at least they kept it among themselves. He would have to throw a punch at anyone who brought the subject up to his face, and as he was fresh out of the hospital, he didn’t really think he could carry a full-on brawl.
Besides, getting into two fights in as many days would probably have him banned from the premises, and drinking at home was a lot sadder than drinking alone at a bar.
Brandon made it to one of the seats in the corner and waited patiently for the bartender to see him and bring his drink. His beer arrived as someone took the seat next to him.
“Corporal Alfonso Brandon, right?” the man asked.
He didn’t look up from the frothy glass in front of him. “Who’s asking?”
“Someone who has a proposition that you might be interested in.”
The corporal turned to see who had spoken. It was a man in an expensive suit with an equally expensive haircut. A newcomer to the Zoo, he realized, who stuck out like a sore thumb. He had a faint accent, but not enough of one to confirm where the man was from, only that he wasn’t American.
“Sorry, pal, I already have a job,” he growled and turned away. Hopefully, the man would take the hint and leave. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with someone who tried to poach him.
“Believe me, I am aware of that,” the man said with a chuckle. “What I want would not replace your current employment but would rather be more…extracurricular. I need someone—or a few someones—and would pay a small amount to simply be pointed in the right direction. And even more for…let’s say more comprehensive help.”
Brandon looked up from his glass and narrowed his eyes. In the darkness of the current lighting, it was difficult to really read the man beside him. That said, he could certainly do with the extra cash. He had a couple of gambling debts back home that needed attention once his tour was over.
“What do you need a guy like me for?” he asked, still wary.
“Well, I’m new around here,” the man explained, “and the Zoo ended up a lot more unpredictable than I expected. Sure, I could buy armor and go out with other teams, but if I can find someone to do that for me, it would save me time and effort, as well as money.”
The corporal sipped slowly as he studied the man. “How much time, effort, and money would I save you?”
“That would be entirely up to you, corporal,” he said and glanced around quickly, “although it should be noted that what I’ll ask you to do won’t be entirely…within the realm of morality, if you take my meaning.”
Brandon wasn’t the kind of guy to turn his nose up at money that could be earned in a less than moral fashion, although he had a feeling that the man beside him knew that. He’d probably already done his homework and cherry-picked him.
He smirked and shook his head. “I have the feeling you already know that won’t be much of a problem.”
Sal dropped onto his bed. When the reservations had been made, he hadn’t known what accommodation would be required, so he simply requested a room each for the three of them. So far, Courtney had spent most nights in her family’s home, which was the case tonight as well, and Kennedy had spent every night in his room.
She insisted that rooms for all three of them hadn’t been a bad idea since they all needed some space for their individual stuff, even if the beds weren’t used.
“We could always sleep in your room instead of mine,” he said as she flopped down on the queen-sized bed next to him.
“Why would we do that?” She turned onto her stomach to look at him.
“Well, it seems that whenever we sleep together, it’s always in my room,” he pointed out and stroked her hair gently.
She smiled and leaned into his hand. “Well, yeah…but it’s not so surprising. I’m generally the one who initiates our time together, which means that I always come to you for sex.”
“As nice an ego boost as that is,” Sal said, “I think I should initiate more in the future.”
“You won’t have any argument from me,” Madigan replied with a chuckle. She pulled him closer and pressed a kiss to his lips.
Sal grinned and shifted to prolong the kiss. “You know, I have a dream—”
“It’s called a wet dream, Sal.” She grinned, sat up, and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“Ouch,” he replied. “No need to be nasty. No, I think that, since we’re in California now anyway, and… Well, Courtney said that she’ll be busy handling her family’s business for the moment. There’s a local display of all the new suits of armor that will go on the market next year, and since we have a very complete sample, we might be able to look around and find out who’s already making armor with this new metal.”
Madigan narrowed her eyes.
“Plus, we get to look at all the new sets of armor and weapons that will be used in the near future,” he added with a grin.
“How romantic,” she said with a chuckle. “You sure know how to get a gun bunny all hot and bothered.”
“Gun bunny, huh?” He smirked.
“That name does not leave the bedroom,” she warned and leaned in closer to him. “Although you can feel free to make frequent use of it within those restrictions.”
“Noted,” Sal said, wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and pulled her against him. “We still have contacts with those development companies. We could call them tomorrow, get an entrance for those displays, appeal to your…bunny-ness, and maybe do a little research while we’re out there.”
“It sounds like a plan to me,” she consented with a smile. “It’ll have to be tomorrow, though.”
“Agreed.”
Chapter Twelve
Tales of Heavy Metal’s work to help develop software for Zoo-based suits had spread among the development companies. In addition, the word was that they’d recently received a massive influx of funds when they brought back the first live specimen from the jungle and therefore had money to spend.
Sal made sure to manage expectations and told the people whom they called that they weren’t looking to buy any new hardware immediately but wanted to research what would be available next year. The stories about how they intended to increase their numbers meant that any company-wide purchase would be hefty, and they would be able to pay the lofty prices for top-of-the-line material.
Four companies were contacted, one of which Sal recognized. Pegasus had actually won the impromptu auction that they’d run for Shuri, the panther cub they’d brought back from the Zoo. He’d never heard much from them afterward, although Kennedy had visited the containment unit where they maintained an open study on her and told him that the tiny thing had grown by leaps and bounds and her fangs had already come in. They made playing with her difficult, but that didn’t stop Kennedy.
“Dr. Jacobs,” someone said as they entered the flashy building. “Sergeant Kennedy. So nice of you to jo
in us this afternoon.”
Sal looked at the man who almost jogged over to talk to them. After two meetings with a couple of other companies without any success, Sal began to feel that he knew the type of person whom they would talk to. Mid-level sales reps were always the same—mid-range suits, clean and bright, surgery-enhanced smiles to make them as welcoming as possible.
They weren’t important enough to have the attention of any of the CEOs or vice presidents, which was kind of the idea, Sal mused. Their primary purpose was to find who used the new metal discovered out in the Zoo, which in turn would give them a lead as to who they should look for to find the source. He definitely didn’t want anyone to think that they were anything but a couple of Zoo-runners in need of new suits.
“He’s not a doctor,” Kennedy was quick to say as she was the first to shake the sales rep’s hand.
“And she’s not a sergeant,” he countered.
“Right,” the man said and looked confused. “Well, my name is Andrew Murphy. I’m junior vice president of sales here in the Pegasus San Francisco branch, and I’ll give the two of you a view of what we’ll have on sale next year.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Murphy,” Sal said with a smile and shook his hand firmly. “Things have become increasingly hairy in the Zoo lately, and we’ve been hard-pressed to keep up with it. I’ve actually recently returned from a visit in there where we ran into a giant lizard that almost had me for lunch, so you could say we’re very motivated toward safety.”
“And we’re more than happy to accommodate you,” Murphy responded with a practiced smile as he guided them over to the elevator.
Some fifteen minutes later, they made the rounds through the research and development facility that was housed in the building, which was the combat armor developers’ answer to Silicon Valley.
Sal kept his eyes peeled for any sign of cutting-edge metallurgy, but so far, all they saw was a group of former military engineers who designed weapons and vehicles for use in the Zoo. He noticed a couple of designs for JLTVs similar to the ones he’d seen the Russians use, which showed that they were miles and miles ahead in terms of vehicle development, but otherwise, nothing of real value caught his attention.
He suppressed his disappointment and continued to chat amiably with their host until they reached the section where Pegasus developed armor. On a basic level, he had little interest since he didn’t know much about the suits in general. That job fell to Kennedy, who was absolutely like a kid in a candy shop. She asked about specs and release dates as they moved forward and almost completely forgot about Sal, who hung back. This was deliberate, not because he wasn’t interested in what they had to talk about—which, of course, he really wasn’t—but because he was more interested in what he could find when he wasn’t babysat by a sales rep.
After a cursory look to confirm that he was unobserved, Sal came to a stop beside one of the models that had been put up for display. The confidential tag on a folder in front of it which meant that the display was obviously not meant for them, but he surreptitiously retrieved his phone and took a couple of pictures of the design. He slid the device quickly into his pocket when he heard footsteps returning from the direction in which Kennedy and Murphy had gone. What he had done was probably illegal, but so long as Murphy thought that they were clients and there weren’t any cameras around, he would probably get away with it.
“You should have checked for cameras first, idiot,” Sal murmured and scanned the area as quickly and as subtly as he could. Thankfully, there was no sign of any security hardware. He was aware that no obvious indications didn’t mean that there wasn’t any, but he was smart. While he couldn’t talk to women who hit on him, what he could do was bullshit his way out of trouble.
It was part of his charm, really.
“How soon until this baby hits the market?” he asked. Murphy tried to keep his fake smile in place as he scrambled to get the file out of sight and motioned for someone to wheel the display out.
“Oh, this is still in the hardware development stage,” the man said but his façade had cracked ever so slightly. “It should be another two or three years since they still have considerable kinks to resolve.”
A couple of aides moved into view and received a few harsh words whispered at them by their boss as they moved the one-fourth-sized model out of the room.
“It’s not that we are worried about the two of you,” Murphy said and quickly assumed his role as salesman once everything was squared away. “It’s simply that with all the patent laws out there changing, we don’t want to give one of our bigwigs a coronary by leaving a project in progress out for anyone to see and make copies of.”
“Absolutely,” Sal said with a nod. “We completely understand.” He didn’t, not really, but when it came to salesmen like this, there was no point in saying otherwise. They liked to explain things to people whom they thought knew less than them about something. Talking was what they were paid to do, and if they got too deep into it, Sal knew that they would hear about the man’s high school football team in short order.
All he wanted to do now was get out of the building.
“Well, Mr. Murphy,” he said and shook the man’s hand again as they reached the lobby once more. “We had another visit scheduled to one of your rivals this afternoon, but with the prices you mentioned, I don’t think we’ll attend that visit. This is a competitive place to work with, I’ll say that.”
The man looked inordinately proud of himself as he shook their hands. “Well, you should probably visit them anyway. If they can give you better pricing, be sure to give me a call. I’ll see what I can do for you.”
Sal held his broad and friendly smile for so long that his face began to hurt. It disappeared quickly as they stepped out of the building. Kennedy followed his lead and kept in step with him until they were out of earshot.
“We’re not visiting the last company?” Kennedy asked. “I was kind of looking forward to that.”
“Sorry,” he said and meant it, but he handed his phone to her. “But I think we saw all we needed to see here.”
He unlocked the device and guided her to the pictures he’d taken of the suit.
“Does that look familiar?” Sal asked.
“Well, the design is very similar,” Kennedy conceded and tilted her head as she studied the image. “But there’s a reason for that. Sometimes, designs are developed in different locations simply because they’re the best.”
“That’s not what caught my eye,” he said and zoomed the picture into an area on the display that showed a layered framework of the inner workings of the power armor technology, as well as the wiring.
“That…” Kennedy started, and as her voice trailed off, he continued for her.
“That’s a shot for shot remake of the piece of armor that we have,” he told her. “Of course, all the wiring’s gone and what’s left is the armor, but you can see the slots that the whole thing is based on, and…that’s it. Unless Pegasus stole the designs, that leg that we have back there is theirs.”
“Shit,” she muttered and shook her head.
“And what’s worse,” Sal continued as they opted to walk in the bright, sunny San Francisco afternoon instead of taking the town car that had been hired for them. “What’s worse is that Pegasus put out the five point four million for Shuri. That means that, whatever games that we play here, we’re already on their radar.”
She nodded and lowered her head for a moment. He knew her well enough by now to know that this was what she looked like when she considered her options. Their options. There was a lot that he was good at, but this was far out of his league. He was worried that it might be out of her league as well.
“Have you heard from Courtney yet?” he asked once the silence had dragged on long enough for it to be awkward.
“Yeah,” she replied. “She’s tied up with the lawyer all day but said she’d meet us at the hotel restaurant for dinner.”
“Okay, good.” He n
odded. “Because I think we’ll have to break it to her that we might have to head back to the Zoo.”
“Do you think she’ll be okay to leave all her family businesses unattended?” Kennedy asked.
“Probably not,” Sal said, “but with all the trouble that we could potentially be in, I’m inclined to wonder whether the decision to leave Gutierrez alone to deal with whatever fallout comes from this is a good idea.”
“Speaking of fallout…” she said and moved the conversation forward. “These guys make this armor with this new-fangled metal and are obviously testing it out since we found what I assume was a failed test in the form of a human leg. So why hasn’t there been any talk in the military channels about it? What are they trying to hide? And what would they be capable of if we get caught too close to their turf?”
They were all good questions to which he had no answers. From the way she turned to look in the direction from which they had come, she didn’t seem to have any answers either or believe that he did.
Chapter Thirteen
In this day and age, there was almost no reason to actually go out and fish. Games were available if you wanted to enjoy the experience and supermarkets provided a guaranteed haul with far less time and effort.
But nothing in the world really replaced the sensation of sitting beside a lake for hours on end, poles in hand, and shooting the breeze with your best friend while snagging a couple of lookers to put on the grill for dinner.
That was the idea Bill had used to entice his friend Jim, which led to a five-hour drive that started at six in the morning. They took another hour to find and set up their preferred spot, which meant that it was almost midday by the time they finally sat down to fish, and by that time, the heat was almost unbearable. The Arkansas summer proved to be far hotter than anyone had thought it would be. That, in turn, enticed a horde of mosquitos and other insects to be the veritable plague they were anywhere else in the world. The insect zapper could only eliminate so many, and so the now disgruntled friends sat in the rising temperature and tried to make an hour last forever.