Rinchi’s eyes widened. “Keva?”
“Yes, our top representative. After you’ve met her, the two of you will take a MercSecure hyperjet to Tijuana. You should be at Carloza’s hotel within the hour. A driver is waiting outside. Any questions?”
“What about Meme and Yeshi?”
“Don’t worry,” Lorem said. “When you complete this mission, you can head to Japan first thing in the morning.”
_∞_
Sauria finished his glass of wine and set it on the table. Having been the person Meme had originally hit in the pollution bar a few weeks back, he was the cause of this whole fiasco. Of course, no one thought of him this way, especially Antimeria, who was quite fond of his old friend.
“Keva will give her a run for her money,” Lorem Ipsum finally said. He scooped a lump of mashed potatoes into his mouth. Some of the mash stuck to his upper lip.
“Good,” Antimeria said. “She’s been a little … brazen lately.”
Sauria laughed. “Well, you tell a Humandroid with pent-up rage to kill humans and she goes all out – what else did you expect?”
“Did you see what she did to Grier?” Lorem asked. While Lorem was the CEO of MercSecure, he technically worked for Sauria, who held nearly forty percent of the company’s shares. (The rest was held by the FCG through various umbrella companies.) ExEx was more or less a sister company of MercSecure, which focused on elaborate forms of execution, including small population bases. As it turns out, the paid execution business was only a small portion of their yearly revenues. Most of their net income came from security services, app-based weapon manufacturing and genetic engineering research.
“You tell me, Lorem,” Sauria said, “is it something that I’d like to see?”
“Long story short – she strung him upside down using some form of bondage kit and slit his throat. She bit off one of his fingers too and stuck it up his nose. His secretary discovered him hanging over a pool of his own blood and had a small heart episode – she’s currently in a hospital in Lower Manhattan.”
“Well,” Antimeria folded his hands over his lap, “at least she’s being taken care of.”
“Our mission statement isn’t to give people PTSD,” Lorem said.
“So pairing her with Keva is a disciplinary method then?” Antimeria asked.
Sauria laughed. “You haven’t met Keva, have you?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
Sauria grew serious. “I’d be scared to be in the same room with her. MercSecure booby-trapped her major Humandroid components with plastic explosive charges we can remotely detonate if she jeopardizes corporate personnel or property.”
Antimeria’s eyes skipped across the room to the piano player. He was now playing a piece by Eric Satie. “Why doesn’t she just cut them out?”
“She can’t,” Lorem explained. “We’ve installed them in a way that prevents her from tinkering with them; if she does, they’ll detonate.”
“She’s practically a Humandroid,” Sauria chimed in. “Sixty-percent Humandroid.”
“Sixty-seven,” Lorem said. “About the only parts of her that are human are her torso and her brain. Even a portion of her skull has been replaced.”
“My God. How old is she?” Antimeria asked.
Sauria said, “She’s nineteen, younger than your wife.”
“Ex-wife. How long as she been a representative?”
“Since she was twelve,” Lorem said. “She was one of a bunch of little girls abducted in Berlin and taken to the Middle East as sex slaves. She worked for a couple years in Syria, and slowly trained herself to kill her abductors. Long story short – MercSecure was hired by a wealthy German family to recover the girls. Our Hostage Rescue Team arrived at the brothel in Damascus just after she made her move; they found approximately forty bodies, and enough body parts for four or five more. Keva was covered in blood, sitting with her knees pressed to her chest.”
“And you took her in?”
“We had to,” Lorem explained. “She killed everybody – the other girls too. At first we thought she’d turned feral, and some of the psychologists that worked with her still believe this. The only thing she was interested in was killing. She also liked to collect body parts of the people she’d killed, which grew problematic after she killed one of our doctors using a pen.”
“How did she do that?”
Lorem hunched over and said, “She told him she was having problems writing an essay and he leaned over. She grabbed his face and shoved the pen into his nose, through to the back of his head.”
“She was that strong?”
“She didn’t look so strong, but appearances can be deceiving. Apparently, to strengthen her hands, she sat in front of a clay wall for hours, pounding away at it and wiping the blood on the ground. She hid this from her captors by wearing black gloves. After she killed the doctor, we had an executive meeting and decided to put her in the field. Keva is now our number one representative.”
“How many … ?”
“She’s resolved close to six thousand issues over the last six years. She’s used her money to upgrade her body with Humandroid components.”
“So she’s just replacing stuff then; she wasn’t injured or anything?” Antimeria asked.
“Well her left arm was actually cut off when she was about seventeen by a South African merc who was obsessed with blades. From that point forward, she began replacing parts, including her entire lower half.”
“Why?”
“It makes her stronger, faster, better. She’s had mods and upgrades. She can do things normal humans can’t,” Lorem said.
“What will she do with Rinchi?” Antimeria asked.
“This will be a learning experience for Rinchi. Meeting Keva will give her a glimpse into the true power of a top-tier representative. She might require some repairs after the mission is completed, but Rinchi will be better because of it. It’s good for employees to know their place in an organization.”
TWENTY-ONE∞
Rinchi followed a man in a black suit and a thin black tie into MercSecure’s West Coast office. Their headquarters were on the East Coast, but most of the representative operations were handled from LA because of their worldwide clientele. Even with high-speed advanced aircraft, it was easier and quicker to get to Asia, South America and parts of the Middle East from California.
The west coast office was shaped like a large ring, walled with curved glass and topped with state-of-the-art solar panels. Parking spaces surrounded the ring for people who drove ground cars; floating about fifty meters above the parking space was the aeros parking lot complete with escalators that anchored to the main offices. The floating parking lot was powered by reverse turbines, both providing the lift necessary for the parking lot to stay afloat and the power needed to keep it going.
The MercSecure driver waved his security badge at an oval door. His ID was approved and the door irised open. The man led Rinchi down a long hallway with frosted glass walls and glassed-in Romanesque columns filled with servers. The apparent security was minimal, which made her realize that the entire place was being monitored remotely. A dozen blinking red lights on the ceiling confirmed this. They took an elevator to the fifth floor, and the MercSecure driver led her to an oval-shaped conference room.
“Do I wait here?” she asked.
“Keva will be here shortly. Your aircraft is waiting out back. She’ll brief you on what to do next.”
“Got it. Will she have a change of clothes? I assumed I was going to dinner tonight.”
“She’ll have everything.”
The door slid open and the man stepped out. Rinchi stood in front of a thick window that was clearly blast-proof. Small wires threaded through the window, anchoring the frame to the glass. She straightened her dress, realizing that she was moments away from meeting MercSecure’s top representative. Further, the woman was originally human, but had now passed the fifty percent mark when it came to bionic replacements. Thi
s would be interesting.
“You’re number two-four-seven?” a girlish voice asked.
Before she could complete her turn to face the voice, a small device latched onto Rinchi’s chest. Her body shot forward onto the table with her hands spread wide. The magnetic force made it nearly impossible to turn her head. She felt a compression in her chest – her ribs were beginning to break free from her spine.
She’d been issued a few apps upon being hired by MercSecure – apps meant for Humandroid soldiers. One in particular converted her bio-electric energy into a large discharge capable of clearing the floor of an entire building. The Tesla Discharge would disable her, but it would do much more damage to the people on the receiving end.
Rinchi was seconds away from activating the Tesla Discharge when the magnetic force suddenly let up. She pressed herself off the desk and into a defensive position. A woman stood at the other end of the room with her arms crossed, laughing.
“Planning to fight me?” Keva asked.
MercSecure’s top representative had long white hair and modded silver eyes. Her shoulders were flesh, her arms were bionic. Her chest was enlarged, but it was still made of flesh and silicone. Her lower half was all Humandroid. The young woman was beautiful, but there was something completely off about her, something entirely alien.
“You can’t do anything to me,” Rinchi said defiantly, “but I could throw my knife into your chest and cause considerable damage.” She dove for her purse and was face-planted on the table – the magnetic pull had returned.
“I’m controlling you with an electromagnetic sticker that I planted earlier. If you’d scanned the room when you came in, you would have noticed it.”
“I’ll activate my Tesla Discharge,” Rinchi said through gritted teeth.
“No need.” The magnetic force let up and Rinchi stood. She instantly placed her hands on the small device still affixed to the front of her chest.
“Don’t touch it.” Keva walked around the table, stopping a few inches away from Rinchi. She grabbed Rinchi’s crotch.
“What are you—?”
“Ah, so you really are a ladyboy! A former escort. A whore turned killer, yes?”
Rinchi turned her body away but Keva held tight. “I’ll rip it off,” she said with a faint smile. “I know it won’t hurt, but you’ll have to get it repaired.” Her hand traveled up to Rinchi’s ample breasts.
“Getting better and better,” Keva said. “Who knows where this technology will lead us in twenty years? It’s not even the twenty-second century yet!”
“Please stop touching me.”
Rinchi calculated the speed she would need to bring the back of her hand down on Keva’s neck. She could do it, especially if the representative let her guard down.
“I’d like to feel it for a moment, if that’s OK with you. I always wondered how real these things felt.”
Keva thrust her hand under Rinchi’s black dress, wrapping her hand around her penis. “It feels real enough. No pubes, though. How do you make it large? Do you just tell it to grow?”
“I can kill you right now,” Rinchi said as she performed a quick vitals scan on the woman. “I’m faster and stronger than you.”
Keva’s other hand quickly found its place on Rinchi’s neck. “If you were faster and stronger than me, you would have stopped this from happening.” She began squeezing her hand and Rinchi felt some of the flesh cables in her neck constrict.
“Open your mouth.” Keva squeezed tighter. “Now.”
Rinchi opened her mouth.
“Good. Now stick out your tongue.”
Her tongue came out of her mouth. She was strangely unafraid of Keva, more curious than anything. What would this less than half-human do to her? Why did she want to see her tongue?
“Let me touch it.” Keva’s other hand, the hand that had been in Rinchi’s panties, clamped around her tongue. “I guess it feels real enough.”
MercSecure’s top rep stepped away and the magnetic force slammed Rinchi back onto the table with her tongue still sticking out of her mouth. Keva sat on the table next to Rinchi, crossing her legs. She picked up Rinchi’s purse and began rummaging through it. “Ah, this was what I was looking for.” She took out the tactical knife. “I’d like to keep your tongue, if you don’t mind. I really don’t feel like chatting during our little trip.”
Keva lowered her hand and quickly sliced off Rinchi’s tongue. Again, there was no pain associated with this, but it didn’t mean Rinchi wasn’t pissed. It would take a MercSecure Maintenance and Repair technician at least an hour to undo the damage because the entire tongue unit had to be replaced, as well as a portion of the oropharynx.
The big dog in the room held Rinchi’s tongue between her thumb and pointer finger, dangling it in front of the droid’s face. “Try and talk.”
The magnetic pull on her body let up and Rinchi stood. She opened her mouth and said, “OOIME OOING OOO RHEEL OOO.”
“How cute! Did you just say you were going to kill me? Well that may be so, but you’re not going to do it today.”
Rinchi threw a punch but Keva caught it. She came in close, nose-to-nose. “Listen you fuckwit, don’t get in my way during this hostage rescue, got it? They want you to have some experience in rescuing a hostage and I want you to keep your mouth shut. Can we make this happen? Let me ask your tongue.” She looked at Rinchi’s tongue. “Can you shut the fuck up for the next few hours?” She held it up to her ear and pretended to listen. “You can? Good.”
Keva dropped the tongue in a pocket on the front of her representative outfit. “Now, follow me and we’ll get you some tactical gear.” She gave Rinchi a flirty grin. “Maybe I can help you change.”
TWENTY-TWO∞
Keva led Rinchi to MercSecure’s flight platform in the center of the circular facility, on a round tarmac pad. Sitting in the middle of the tarmac were six Super Osprey hyperjets, the unlikely bastard children of helicopter and supersonic jet aircraft. Powered by two Rolls Royce AE 1925 engines, the Super Ospreys took off via rotor blades that flattened into wings once the craft was airborne.
Keva looked back at Rinchi with a toothy grin. They both were in MercSecure field outfits, which were blue and highly resistant to most small arms projectiles. They incorporated milspec nanotube matrix body armor with lightweight composite strike plates, and featured an optical thin film overlay that reflected and diffused the beams of most man-portable directed-energy weapons – and particularly important in Rinchi’s case – Humstun devices.
Based on the M-35 Individual Airburst Weapon System (IAWS), Keva’s weapon of choice fired 15mm grenades and could switch grenade types at the touch of a button on the forestock. The attached twenty round magazine carried a mix of frag grenades, flash-bangs, smoke grenades and electromagnetic pulse discharge grenades. She also had a modded Humgun capable of firing both bullets and short electric discharges, which disrupted the nervous system.
For her part, Rinchi had a PHASR (Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response) rifle that featured a neuromuscular incapacitator – essentially a stun gun. It also incorporated a variety of laser formats, from a nominally non-lethal disorienting strobe to a high-output, tightly focused beam that could cut a Main Battle Tank in half, known as Lightsaber mode. She’d installed the user’s manual as soon as she’d been issued the weapon, which elaborated on the weapon’s design and its little-known capabilities. Like Keva, she had a modded Humgun holstered at her hip.
Keva slapped her ass as they approached the nearest Super Osprey. “Nice pop!” she yelled over the roar of the engines. Rinchi turned to her, thought otherwise, and turned back. Within moments, they were in the air. It took longer to climb to cruising altitude than it did to make the flight to Tijuana. They were flaring for landing before Rinchi could even get comfortable.
The hyperjet touched down at a private airfield ten kilometers away from Carloza’s hotel. As the craft settled, Keva made eye contact with Rinchi, licked her lips and rubbed her
crotch.
Rinchi looked away from Keva, waiting for the sign to disembark. Keva’s foot brush against hers and she ignored it.
Moments later, they stepped onto the tarmac in Tijuana and were greeted by a blistering pink sun. It was more or less the same temperature in Mexico as it was in LA, but the scent was off. Rinchi could smell a number of things, including raw sewage, burning chemicals and coal smoke. While a small portion of Mexico lived like pharos, most people huddled with their families in shanty towns and overcrowded apartments, working at plants that manufactured goods for the United States. After all, it was even cheaper for US companies to pay Mexican laborers in Mexico than it was to build and maintain a Humandroid workforce.
“Wow, even the air is shittier over here,” Keva commented. “What do you think? Oh that’s right, you can’t talk.”
The sound of the hyperjet died down as Rinchi got into a slick black aeros, sliding her PHASR so it sat across her lap. Keva hopped in next to her and pressed the barrel of her Humgun into Rinchi’s neck.
“I can end it right here, you know?”
The driver, a man sporting a crew-cut and the ubiquitous MercSecure black suit, looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Ms. Keva, place your weapon back in your holster. Part of your contract for this mission is to avoid damaging company property.”
“Not fair!” Keva kissed Rinchi’s cheek. “Later, okay?” She began moving her hand down to Rinchi’s lap, resting it on top of her PHASR. “Your gun is blocking your cock.”
The driver sighed. “Ms. Keva, let’s keep this professional.”
She looked down at the grenade launcher across her lap. While the driver moved to the location, Keva ran her hand along the shaft of the gun, twirling her fingers. She pretended to flick the grenade selector switch on the forestock.
A message appeared on Rinchi’s iNet screen.
Keva: Do Humandroids get periods? Oh wait, you’re half man. Well, I guess you don’t.
Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set) Page 24