Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set)

by Harmon Cooper

  “Representative Hajime ocular feed,” Lorem said to the large holoscreen. A black image with textured hints of light appeared on the screen.

  “What the fuck is this?” Sauria asked. “Where is his ocular feed?”

  “This is his ocular feed.”

  “Why is it black?”

  “His eyes are covered by something.”

  “Tell him to take it off!” Antimeria began pacing. “I want to see the bastard that did this. I want to see the terrorist that has caused so much turmoil for … um … for our country!”

  “Relax, Anti.” Sauria smiled and the folds of his lips disappeared into his droopy cheeks. “Do we need some entertainment to calm you down?”

  Antimeria looked up at the darkened screen and shook his head. “I need something, that’s for sure. To think, I’ll get my property and my baby back tonight! It’s just … one of those days I guess.”

  “You seem overwhelmed,” Sauria said.

  “Not exactly, this is just a lot to take in.”

  Lorem closed his eyes and opened a direct link with his personal secretary. “Company entertainment, two; pollution masks, three. Pronto.”

  Sauria nodded. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Lorem.”

  “Can we get an audio feed on Hajime? I’d love to hear what’s happening.”

  Lorem said, “Hajime is semi-retired. He has maintained his number five position because of the number of problems he solved as a full-time employee during the 2070s. Some of the measures that are installed on our newest representatives aren’t installed on Hajime, including override controls and DL agents. If they were, he’d likely find a way to disable them.”

  “That doesn’t seem like MercSecure.” Antimeria sat back down, placing both elbows on the table.

  “It isn’t.” Lorem’s bushy eyebrows narrowed. “That’s why this is Hajime’s last mission. He refuses to comply with company protocol; he’ll be discontinued after he terminates Meme. Representatives eight, twenty and twenty-two are in Tokyo now. They are tracking him as we speak.”

  “So you’re going to kill Hajime as well?”

  “We don’t kill,” Lorem reminded Antimeria, “we resolve.”

  Sauria cleared his throat. “Today is a new day for MercSecure, and its sister company, ExEx. It’s also a new day for the FCG, MercSecure’s biggest shareholder. Today we rescue your baby, install ourselves in Carloza’s organization to profit from Walliburton, take down a known drug lord, capture and execute Meme and retire a representative who is holding the company back. It is a good day indeed.”

  “What about Yeshi?” Antimeria asked. “What will you do with her?”

  “Oh, we have something in mind for her,” Lorem said with a chuckle. “Something that will surprise even you. Shall we catch up on the hostage rescue then?” He turned back to the holoscreen. “Return ocular feed Representative Keva.”

  The screen switched to Keva’s feed. “Representative Rinchi bottom screen.”

  Rinchi’s feed returned as well.

  “Live entertainment will be here shortly,” Lorem said. “As for now, sit back and enjoy the show.”

  THIRTY∞

  “You are a lucky motherfucker, Manuel,” Keva said as she led the single-armed man up the flight of stairs. Knowing that the main elevator was likely rigged with multiple booby-traps (common amongst drug overlords who lived in hotels), Keva and Rinchi had to figure out another way to get to the penthouse on the top floor. Luckily, they could take the stairs to the floor directly beneath the penthouse. From there, they would do exactly as Manuel did earlier – cut a hole in the ceiling.

  Manuel said, “Bitch, you are stupid if you think I’ll do anything for MercSecure or the FCG.”

  Keva laughed. “You’d be stupid not to! MercSecure will let you keep your pathetic life. You’ll be the leader of Carloza’s organization, rich beyond your wildest dreams. What’s the saying? Ah, here’s one on iNet: Quien quiera peces, que moje el culo.”

  “I don’t want fish you stupid puta.”

  _∞_

  **Portions of the following conversation took place in Spanish at the same time Keva and Rinchi were blasting their way through the floors below Carloza’s private penthouse. These excerpts have been translated by the late José Alberto Del Castillo Cabeza Mercedes Acosta III for our monolingual audience.

  “Looks like they’re close.” Carloza-as Nelly ran his hand through his long hair. “Three floors down now.”

  “We need to get out of here.” Nelly-as-Tyro said. She was still in the chair in front of the drug kingpin with a sheet covering her lower half. They had been watching a holoscreen of the mercenaries advancing for the last ten minutes. Carloza didn’t seem as concerned as he should be. His designer pollution mask was pushed to the top of his head, ruffling his long hair.

  “The angels of death flutter their wings around my skull,” he said in a melancholic tone. “I can see them now; I can feel the air beneath their wings. Soon. All this will be over soon, and I must make my peace with the world.”

  Nelly glanced down at her k-bracelet. She still needed two minutes for her legs to become operational again. She had also downloaded an app that forced a body-switch, if she could find a body-switcher somewhere in the room.

  Carloza has to have one.

  “Black wings surround me and Lucifer polishes his sharp teeth and licks his bloodied gums. He sinks his poison canines into my neck and I cry out to him in my mother’s tongue, the words my grandmother shrieked on her deathbed – Ay! Lucifer son of the morning! I’ve given you your just dues! Lucifer son of the morning, take me out of here!”

  Nelly looked at the Humgun held tightly in Carloza’s hand. He’d been aiming it at her for the last fifteen minutes, rambling on about heaven, hell and everything in between. He was a theological nightmare, a cesspool of delusional creeds.

  Nelly quickly logged into iNet and opened a GoogleFace chat window.

  Nelly: Noah, where are you?

  Noah: I’m one floor down. What’s happening? The doctors left.

  Nelly: Have your limbs been replaced?

  Noah: Yes, but no e-skin. Also, they’ve made mods.

  Nelly: Mods?

  Noah: They’ve installed retractable PHASRs on both of my arms, the kind that Humandroid soldiers have. I hate them!

  (He quickly sent her a picture of the PHASRs protruding from his forearms.)

  Nelly: LOL. They look awesome.

  Noah: I’m not a combat droid!

  Nelly: You are my combat droid.

  Noah: My Nelly, my beautiful Nelly. Have you changed bodies yet?

  Nelly: I should be changing bodies soon. Carloza has gone crazy. Death is all around him … or something. I shut down the k-bracelet and I’ve been waiting for the last hour for my legs to reactivate. I’ve been pretending to smoke pollutes with him and I’m a little lightheaded, but I’ll be fine.

  Noah: Oh no! What do you want from me? How can I help you? Anything dear!

  Nelly: I need you here now, right this minute. Before these two women mercenaries get here. I need you to get the baby. If you hurry, we can blast our way out of here before shit hits the fan.

  Noah: So that’s why the doctors left.

  Nelly: Sync with the hotel’s video feed and you’ll see for yourself.

  Noah: I didn’t think of doing that. Oh! Where would I be without your savvy advice?

  Nelly: You said you are strapped in, correct?

  Noah: Correct.

  Nelly: And you have newly attached PHASRs?

  Noah: I simply detest them! They make my arms look like … Popeye! Do you know this reference?

  (He quickly uploaded a photo to their private message screen.)

  Nelly: Never heard of him. Don’t worry about your arms, they’re retractable. Listen, I need to go … Carloza is standing. Use your PHASRs to free yourself, find the baby, and get up here.

  Noah: How?

  Nelly: Figure it out.

  Noah:
I don’t have any pants!

  Nelly: Neither do I.

  Noah: I’m on my way!

  Nelly looked back at Carloza. Tears were now streaming down his face. He set his Humgun on his desk and turned his chair away from her. Her eyes darted around the room again. There must be a body-switcher in here somewhere.

  THIRTY-ONE∞

  “Almost there,” Keva said, her Humgun to the back of Manuel’s neck. “Keep moving, hombre.” Rinchi was in front of Keva, firing up the stairwell. Occasional return fire peppered the walls surrounding the three.

  Rinchi: Flash-bang.

  “Watch him.” Keva pushed Manuel into Rinchi and she latched onto his arm.

  “Pinche puta androide,” he said under his breath.

  Keva looked up the stair well, aiming her grenade launcher through the open space that connected all the floors. Cha-thunk! Cha-thunk! Cha-thunk!

  Two flash-bang grenades discharged above them followed by the smoke grenade.

  “Your turn,” Keva said.

  Rinchi: My turn?

  “You want to get your kill count up, right? Run up there and finish those fuckers off.”

  Rinchi silently moved up the flight of stairs. She took Carloza’s men out one by one, locking onto them using thermal imaging via her ocular enhancements. Their thermal signatures stood out against the cooler background of the room, making them easy targets.

  As she eliminated the enemy, something about the ease of the operation started to worry her. It should have been much harder to get to the boss of an enormous drug cartel. The people opposing Keva and Rinchi hadn’t even been drug-thug gang-bangers of junior varsity quality.

  She zapped another luckless, panicky pendejo who broke cover, dropped his weapon and tried to run. There was something amateurish about the whole shebang, something that just didn’t feel right. Although Rinchi couldn’t quite recognize this feeling of premonition (she’d heard people say the phrase countless times), she could sense something big was about to go down. Rinchi: All clear.

  Keva: Wow, I’ve trained you well. Hold position at the top of the stairs, just in case someone comes through the door. I’ll bring our little Mexican compadre.

  Rinchi: Got it.

  Keva: You are as boring online as you are in person.

  Rinchi: Got it.

  Keva joined her moments later. She shoved Manuel into the wall, pressing her Humgun to the back of his head. “Is there anything we should know about in the other room?”

  Rinchi saw a slight grin twitch across Manuel’s face. “Fuck you.”

  “Wrong answer.” Keva cracked the back of his skull with the butt of her gun. “Want to try again?”

  “Fuck. YOU.”

  Rinchi: I can get him to speak.

  Keva turned to her. “You want to give it a shot, droidie?”

  Rinchi: Step behind him and kick him in the back of the knees. Hold his arm behind him, and pull his chest back.

  Keva: Yoga?

  Rinchi: Much worse.

  Keva: Maybe you aren’t so boring after all!

  Keva did as Rinchi instructed. Manuel slid down the wall and landed on his knees. She twisted his arm to lock his elbow, bending him so that his chest was stretched wide.

  Rinchi unsheathed her knife.

  Manuel got the message immediately and struggled to get to his feet. Keva put more twist on his arm, pushed him forward and banged his head against the wall before bending him back into position.

  Rinchi: Tell him to stop moving or this will be worse.

  “I’d knock that shit off right now if I were you, joto.”

  Rinchi squatted in front of Manuel, looking at him eye to eye. She’d seen that fear before; she’d also seen how close it was to pleasure. She ripped his shirt open, exposing his tattooed chest and belly. He was shaking now, his eyes filled with terror. She put the tip of the knife in the soft hollow under his chin, pushed it in hard enough to draw blood. Manuel tried to flinch away from the knife by leaning back hard against Keva, who kept up the pressure on his arm. With her other hand she hooked two fingers into his nostrils and pulled his head back against her. She felt him shaking and grinned slowly, savoring his fear.

  Rinchi dragged the knife down his torso and he whimpered as she did this, trying his best not to shake. With a flick of her wrist, Rinchi made it clear that the pressure on the knife could easily increase if he moved.

  Rinchi: Ask him if he is ready to talk.

  Keva laughed. “Tell us what you know about Carloza’s penthouse.”

  “Fuck… you… both…”

  Manuel was doing his best to keep his cool now. He got a grip on his terror – not completely, but enough to bring his racing heartbeat down some. Rinchi looked at him, cocking her head to the right. It was clear he’d been tortured before. She pressed the knife deeper into his chest and a muffled grunt lodged in his throat. The knife was a few millimeters in now, enough to cause a nasty scar – if he survived.

  Rinchi pulled the blade past his stomach, curving around his belly button, stopping just above his belt buckle. She glanced up at him once again, using a look she’d perfected during her time as an escort. It was a powerful gaze that made most men melt; a seductive visage she usually used before gobbling their cocks. Manuel’s eyes went wide again.

  Rinchi slowly unzipped his pants.

  Keva: The higher-ups are contacting me. They want to know what you’re doing. What should I tell them?

  Rinchi: Tell them I won’t kill him.

  Keva: Done.

  Rinchi reached in and grabbed his cock. She flipped it out unceremoniously.

  “A grower not a shower!” Keva laughed.

  Rinchi placed the blade next to the head of his penis. She looked up at him as if to ask, am I doing this right?

  “Fine!” he gasped.

  She pulled the blade away.

  The words spilled out of him. “The next floor has a surgical room as well as weapons turrets on the ceilings in the main hallway. There are two elevators. The first is rigged, the second is private. Carloza has one guard whose body is… is like yours.” He nodded backwards at Keva nervously. “Half-human, half-Humandroid. His name is Arturo. That’s all I know.”

  “We’ll just shoot through the ceiling. No need for elevators.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t shoot through the ceiling. You won’t get through it with the tech you have now. It’s reinforced.”

  Rinchi placed the blade just under the helmet of his penis. It was amazing how important this lump of replaceable flesh was to men. She circled the blade around his limp shaft, until it was directly next to a large blue vein.

  “There are six turrets! That’s all I know, I swear!”

  Rinchi re-sheathed her knife and stood. Keva let go of Manuel, who immediately went to work shoving his shrunken member back in his boxers with his good hand.

  “See,” Keva said, “that wasn’t so hard. After all, you work for us now, remember?”

  Manuel simply bowed his head in shame.

  THIRTY-TWO∞

  Apparently Yeshi and I are rich, or at least we will soon be richer than we are at the current moment. Time to make it rain. It’s worth noting that there’s nothing wrong with having no money, unless you live in a society completely dependent on it. Like us. Like you. Like everyone you know. Like everyone who has come before us and everyone who will come after. Just think – at some point, our grandchildren will be in as much debt as we are (unless of course I’m talking to the one percent – in that case, congratulations on your sound breeding and marvelous investments skills). We are money as much as we are carbon and oxygen. Say it with me: our nostrum lacerates our shared prophylaxis.

  “The man who is going to data-switch with you has transferred a considerable sum to your Brazilian bank account,” Hajime says for the second time.

  “Why?”

  Nothing brightens my day like cold hard cash. Money appears to have an effect on my pulse, and I wonder briefly if Yeshi has p
icked up on it.

  Hajime bobbles his basket-head. “The man has been a lifelong investor. I should probably say this: his shares in several mutual funds haven’t fully vested yet – they won’t for a few more years – and he doesn’t want the excess going to his wife.”

  “So I’m not rich then?”

  My deep and heartfelt sigh seems to fill the room. Yeshi laughs.

  “Well, if you stay alive, you’ll eventually be rich. He’s already sent a lump sum to you, which is essentially the accumulation of his dividends for the year. You’ll get this type of payment yearly, not unlike a trust fund. Ten years from now, you’ll have access to his various investments.”

  I’m a lucky motherfucker and I know it, even if I have to survive for ten more years until I can really sit atop a pile of cash, shooting lightning bolts from my fingertips at the plebes – a dark fantasy. I can’t wait to join the ranks of those who finger the world – a dark reality.

  “Why is he transferring it to me, anyway?” I ask as the three of us exit the room. We step into a hallway that I can barely remember lumbering through the previous night. “Do people normally pay the person they’re data-switching with?”

  Hajime shrugs, or at least it looks like he just shrugged. It is hard to see his body in the dimly lit hallway. The basket on his head doesn’t help either. Part of me truly hates that damn basket. Part of me wants to rip it off his head and kick it into the alley. There must be a better way to reach supposed enlightenment, a way that doesn’t involve woven plant fibers.

  “Sometimes people pay, other times they are paid. There is no defining trend. I don’t know why he is transferring his investments to you. You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

  “Good to know.”

  We approached the entrance lobby and a Japanese Humandroid attendant bows to us and says goodbye in a drawn-out way. Hajime turns just in time and whips some sort of weapon out of the opening of his sash. “Back away!”