Noah’s Lightsaber blast zapped through the open elevator door, narrowly missing Keva and Rinchi. His accuracy was due to the installed autonomous targeting array – no skill required.
Both assassins hit the floor before the photons faded.
Rinchi returned fire with a wide-beam stun blast. Keva landed on top of Manuel and used him as a meaty Hispanic boogie board, kicking out of the elevator and zipping across the floor like a Teflon otter on a downhill mud bank. Rinchi was half-a-heartbeat behind her as she kicked out to the right.
“Stay down!” Keva said to Manuel, shoving him to the floor, maneuvering him around so she could use him as cover. With her Humgun, she fired a warning round directly over Noah’s head. “PUT THE BABY DOWN AND YOUR HANDS UP! DO IT NOW! NOW, NOW, NOW OR I WILL KILL YOU!”
Rinchi had moved off to one side and was covered down behind a stone statue of an Aztec Eagle Knight. If Noah tried anything, she would shoot his legs off and take the baby from him once he was down. It took her all of a tenth of a second to determine that Noah was a girlfriend-hairdresser-confidant model Neunbolt with modded arm PHASRs. She knew he’d do anything to protect the baby, so she was ready to ground and pound.
“You are Noah, aren’t you?” Keva asked.
“Y-y-yes … ” He still had his arm pointed at her, ready to blast.
“Noah, point that fucking thing away from me! We’re here to rescue Nelly, the baby … and you.”
“Rescue?” Noah seemed confused.
“Yes. Rescue. NOW POINT THAT FUCKING THING AWAY FROM ME! LAST CHANCE!”
Noah gave a sharp little intake of breath, squeaked “Sorry,” and lowered his arm.
“Okay, good. Where’s Carloza?” Keva asked, relaxing a little.
“He’s … ”
Baby Rebel started crying. “There, there … ” Noah began stroking the baby’s head with his unskinned Humandroid hand. “You stunned Nelly,” he complained under his breath. “That wasn’t very nice.”
Keva sighed, rolled her eyes, and lowered her weapon. “Yeah? Well welcome to big-boy school, Tinkerbell. She’s lucky we didn’t do anything else. Besides, she’ll be fine shortly. Let’s cut to the chase – you’re coming with us. I’ll even let you hold the baby if you don’t cause any trouble.”
Nelly, lying on the ground near the elevator, started twitching back to life. She moved, putting her hand to her head. She took the whole scene in at a glance and immediately reached for Carloza’s Humgun, which lay on the ground, barrel facing the elevator door.
Keva kicked it away before she could reach it. “Nelly, you’re coming with us too.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Nelly asked, glaring at the white-haired woman.
“MercSecure representatives, and is that any way to talk to your liberators?”
Nelly cringed as she sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. “You’ve done a shit job – I already liberated myself.”
Keva locked eyes with Rinchi. “Move to the room upstairs and confirm Carloza’s death. Send the feed to Lorem.”
Rinchi rolled out of cover and made her way up the stairs, taking two steps at a time.
“Blast a hole in that mural while you’re at it,” Keva said, referring to the Diego Rivera piece. “It’s too busy for me.” She turned to Nelly. “So, are you ready to come quietly little princess?”
“Come quietly? Am I under arrest?”
“You’re free to do what you’d like, as long as it involves taking this elevator to the top floor with us and returning to America.” Keva looked down at Manuel, who was starting to crawl away. “Señor Manuel, this is where I leave you, head of the organization. Don’t forget about the DL agent in your spine. If you try anything … boom.”
“Good job, Nelly,” Keva said, after she received the confirmation message from Rinchi upstairs. “You saved me the trouble of killing Carloza myself. Now I can get home in time for a warm bath. Noah and baby, move to the elevator.”
“Her name is Rebel,” Nelly said defiantly.
Keva pressed her gun into the small of her back. “Whatever. Don’t try anything stupid, or I’ll have Rinchi laser your legs off. Antimeria probably won’t mind.”
“Antimeria?”
Nelly’s expression changed as she realized what needed to be done. It was a long shot, but there really was no other solution. As she waited alongside Keva and Noah for Rinchi to return from Carloza’s upstairs office, she quickly sent a GoogleFace message to Meme, the man who was ultimately responsible for this mess.
Nelly: Meme, I don’t know where the fuck you are or if you will ever check your messages, but you owe me. I’ve been taken by Antimeria and MercSecure. They will likely disable my iNet access soon. You will find me through Noah (Hdroid #959728). Please help.
FORTY∞
“Why did you kill him?” I shout.
I’m on my feet, fumbling with the tiny toy gun that Yeshi gave me. Sure, it’s pretty simple to use, but that doesn’t mean I am anywhere near qualified to use it. In fact – and this realization comes to me as I point the gun at Hajime – I’ve never actually shot a real weapon before (unless you count virtual entertainment weapons, which you shouldn’t –which seriously, you shouldn’t).
“Put it down, Meme.” Hajime turns to me, the weapon at his side. The basket is on his head again. If he wanted to kill me, he would have done so already. “Besides, the safety is still on,” he says. “I told you, you have to press and hold the button on back of the gun for it to work. Then squeeze the trigger. Also, you should probably find a better place to keep it. Maybe a shirt pocket or something.”
Carloza was wearing a loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt when we switched bodies a couple days ago (who’s counting?). I’m still in the shirt and should probably change soon. I drop the toy gun in my shirt pocket and ask, “Why did you do it? Why did you shoot Ogawa-san with … with a Humgun!?”
“A modded Humgun,” he reminds me. “Real Humguns only work on Humandroids.”
Yeshi answers for him. “He works for MercSecure. He had you data-switch with Ogawa-san, and then he killed the man who had your data. He sent proof to their representative headquarters in California. Now MercSecure and ExEx think Meme Lamar is dead, and Ogawa-san got his wish to die.”
It dawns on me what has taken place and my eyes fill with the light of comprehension (or at least I imagine them filling with light). “Two birds with one stone? Damn, that’s clever!”
Basket-head nods. “I’ve known for a while that they were going to forcibly retire me as soon as the next mission came up in my region. MercSecure has done this before. Corporations like these suck a person dry – I’m surprised more people aren’t shriveled before they die, man or machine.”
“So you aren’t going to kill me then?”
“No, and on paper, I’ve already killed you.” He points down at Ogawa-san. “He had your data; you are officially dead. Congratulations.”
“But … ”
“Movement outside!” Hajime crouches and aims his weapon at the front of the house. “Yeshi, take Meme to the other room. It’s me they’re after.”
FORTY-ONE∞
Yeshi lugs me away as windows smash at the front of the house. Weapon blasts tear through the thin walls, filling the air with bits of paper and splintered wood. I scream (yes, like a schoolgirl) and Yeshi shoves me to the ground.
“I’m going to help him!” she says.
“Yeshi no!” I say, latching onto her leg. “You … you don’t know how!”
A small explosion rocks the floor. It sounds like all hell has broken loose because it has. Yeshi’s now at the entrance to the room holding a weapon – it looks like a pistol but again, I’m no expert. She bends at the knee, waits for a moment, and darts into the hallway.
Of course I start crawling after her, afraid to see what will happen next. Of course I’m stupid enough not to stay put, to stay where I am, hidden in some murky backroom cluttered with discarded golf clubs and caddy bags. Of course I’m in t
he hallway seconds later, crawling on hands and knees like a toddler in search of a lost pacifier.
A sudden pain surges through me as a boot crushes my spine. The air deflates from my lungs; my body presses against the wooden floor. The man is over me a second later, on his way to the ensuing melee. A laser discharges into the hallway through the man’s neck, dropping him like a side of GM beef. A fan of cooked tissue splashes against the wall. Dead motherfucker right there. The slop of his throat drips down the wall creating something that resembles a bleeding rose, abstract violence.
Move it, Meme! I press myself back up to my knees, wincing as the pain ripples through me. Damn if it doesn’t feel as if I’ve been crushed by a bloated Statue of Liberty. I keep my eyes closed as I crawl beside the dead man, as I inhale the smoke curling off his wound.
The living room looms in the distance, so close but so far. I get a view of the action and it fills me with more fear than any entheogenic pollute ever could. Yeshi shoots left, towards the kitchen, and Hajime is next to her with a large gash on his left trapezius, revealing his metallic flesh cables. The basket is off and the look on his face is cold, calculating. No fear present.
Thunk! With the sound of a meat hammer smacking into a rolled rump roast, something hits Yeshi in the chest and she falls to the ground. “No!”
The scream gets lodged in my throat. I instinctively cover my head with my hands. My erratic movement causes the toy gun in my shirt pocket to spill out onto the floor. I look up seconds later to see Yeshi on the ground, dead to the world. My fingers wrap around the gun and I unlock the safety.
FORTY-TWO∞
A woman now stands over Hajime. She’s a tall gamine in a black balaclava with a Khardash-ass and some type of mercenary body armor that blurs her curves. She’s aiming her gun at the Humandroid’s head. In the seconds it takes for me to inch closer to them, she’s already blown off his right arm and taken another shot at his left, leaving it dangling by a fleshy-looking cord.
Hajime says something to her and she shrugs. Realizing that it’s now or never, I aim the toy gun at her neck. Use the gun like a laser pointer. I pull the trigger and swipe my hand, slicing her head clean off. No bloody squirting like a slasher flick – the laser cuts, cauterizes, and her head hits the floor at about the same time as her body.
I toss the gun away, freaked out by what I’ve just done. You murderer! The thought leaves a sour taste in my mouth – it’s not exactly something one puts on their résumé. Hajime looks at me incredulously.
“Are there any more?” I ask, my voice crackling over my parched throat.
“No.”
Somehow, I pull myself to my feet and step into the cluttered room, just in time to see Yeshi stirring.
“You’re alive!” I’m overwhelmed with joy. “Yeshi!”
She has her hand on her chest – the same place she’d been shot earlier. There’s nothing to indicate she’d been shot. No entry point, no blackened e-skin, nothing.
Something isn’t right.
“Yeshi…” I say, not comfortable with the look in her eyes.
“Stay away, Ogawa-san!” Hajime says.
To my horror, she points her gun at Hajime and blasts a hole in his face before he can say anything else.
Yeshi turns to me, the blacks of her eyes no longer visible.
FORTY-THREE∞
A Humandroid escort sat in Antimeria’s lap, grinding her ass against the front of his pants while he watched the violence unfold on the holoscreen. All had been accomplished: Meme and Carloza were dead. His soon-to-be-ex-wife and his baby were on their way to LA. The data bug had worked, and Yeshi was now under the control of MercSecure. In fact, at that very moment, Yeshi had just finished blasting a plum-sized hole through (former) Representative Hajime’s face.
“Got him,” Lorem said.
“Is that Carloza’s body?” Sauria asked, intently watching Yeshi’s ocular feed. His pollution mask, a one of a kind Prada mask made from distended skull of an ibex, rested over his forehead. “Tell Yeshi to check his data.”
Lorem said, “Scan target data.”
The name Takashi Ogawa appeared on the screen.
“What’s happening?” Antimeria wrapped his hands around the escort’s waist and moved her to the left. She playfully looked over her shoulder, licking the front of her teeth.
“It’s the Japanese man that Meme switched bodies with,” Sauria explained. “The man is now in Carloza’s old body.”
“I see.”
“What should Yeshi do with him?” Lorem asked.
“Kill him,” Sauria said with a wave of his hand. “We might as well wrap this all up. Besides, body-switching is illegal, especially in Japan. There have been a lot of casualties today; we’ve lost three, no four, representatives. What’s another death?”
“Engage target,” Lorem said.
By this point, Meme-as-Ogawa-as-Carloza was already running in the opposite direction.
“This should be an interesting chase,” Sauria said. The top three buttons of his shirt were open, revealing a handful of scraggly white hairs covering his reddened chest. The escort in his lap slid down to her knees in front of him. “Do you gents mind?” he asked, glancing down at her.
Neither Antimeria nor Lorem answered. Antimeria was too engaged with the escort on his lap and Lorem was too busy monitoring the holoscreen.
_∞_
The MercSecure aeros lowered onto the runway, next to the company’s private hyperjet. Three armed men stood near the aircraft, ready to facilitate the transfer of Nelly, Noah and baby Rebel back to America. Night had begun settling outside the window of the vehicle; the sparkling homes of the impoverished masses glittered in the mountains surrounding the airfield. The lights made Rinchi’s reflection visible in the aeros’ window. She looked deeply into her own eyes, as she had countless times before. Soon.
“Let’s go.”
Keva got out of the aeros first, followed by Nelly and Noah, who held the sleeping baby against his chest. The ends of the droid’s white coat fluttered in the wind as he moved. Rinchi noticed the concerned look on his face and wished she could slice it off. Noah was a pathetic Humandroid, weak, foppish and too complimentary – she’d wanted to choke him on their ride to the airfield. He didn’t deserve his newly modded body.
Keva stopped in front of the airstairs that led up to the private hyperjet. She turned to Rinchi.
Keva: Keep an eye on Noah. If he raises his hands, blast them off. I don’t care if you hit the hyperjet in the process.
Rinchi nodded and stepped back.
One of the MercSecure employees walked up the metal airstairs, clearing the way for Nelly and the others to follow. He took his place inside the jet, ready to put Nelly in the prisoner’s quarters that had been built into the back of the aircraft cabin. The roar of the hyperjet’s idling engine increased.
Nelly walked up the airstairs, her head bowed. Noah and the baby followed. After the droid reached the top, the two other MercSecure men boarded the aircraft and secured the hatch.
Keva watched as though she hadn’t a care in the world, her hands on her hips.
Rinchi: See you in LA.
Keva turned to find Rinchi’s PHASR aimed directly at her. Before she could react, Rinchi stunned her and sent her straight to the ground.
“What are you doing?” the aeros driver standing behind Rinchi shouted. He fumbled to get his Humstunner out of his pocket.
“Stop!”
Rinchi hit him with the neuromuscular inhibitor as well, sending the man twitching to the runway.
The Hyperjet taxied away from the action on the ground. If the pilots noticed, they didn’t care – best not to get involved with squabbling reps. Rinchi unsheathed the tactical knife and crouched in front of Keva’s fallen form. She gripped the deadly woman’s white hair, adjusting her head so the tip of her chin rested evenly on the smooth pavement. Moving quickly, she pressed her blade into Keva’s clenched mouth and pried it open, pinching her
nose to keep the mouth ajar. One fluid slice later, and she held Keva’s tongue between her fingertips.
Rinchi stuck the tongue in her pocket and turned to the waiting aeros.
FORTY-FOUR∞
The chase. I’m scrambling through the house trying my damnedest to get away from Yeshi, who has gone mad, who is trying to kill me, whose eyes have rolled into the back of her head, who is after me like a wolverine on crack, who may not love me anymore! Egads!
“Yeshi!” I scream over my shoulder. “What the hell are you doing? Stop!”
No answer. It takes me all of two seconds to open the back door of the house. I flop into an alley that separates Ogawa-san’s home from the home next door. My foot connects with a small collection of potted plants, sending pretty little flowers cartwheeling into the air.
A shot from Yeshi’s weapon speeds past my face, dinging into the metal railing of a low hung balcony. I yelp, as if that will do any good. Yeshi no! Please no! I’m too afraid to look behind me, too afraid to raise my hands and surrender. I press into a vending machine and spring around it, my foot connecting with a recycling bin.
Glass breakdances onto the street like a shattered kaleidoscope. Carloza’s shitty fat body isn’t really meant for long distant sprints, yet I’m running again, as one is prone to do when their life is at stake. I turn a corner, narrowly dodging another bullet.
Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set) Page 30