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

by Harmon Cooper

  THIRTEEN∞

  After a very full day of processing, Nelly was quickly assigned an isolation cell in the Dangerous Female Criminals Block (DFC) at the ADX complex in Colorado. Most of the inmates in DFC were kept away from the general population of the prison.

  The first day had been the hardest. Nelly’s windowless cell was three meters long by two meters wide. It featured a stainless steel combination sink-toilet, a table and a single stool. There were no sharp edges in the cell, nothing to facilitate suicide. Cramped didn’t begin to describe the condition that Antimeria’s ex-wife now faced.

  Like everything else, the food was courtesy of the low-bid contractor. It met stringent FCG Adult Minimum Daily Requirements for protein, carbohydrates, fibre, vitamins and minerals. It looked exactly like moistened dog kibble and didn’t taste like much of anything at all. She was still in the Orientation Program, which meant that she wore white scrubs instead of the general-issued orange. It also meant that she wasn’t allowed to leave her cell in DFC for a two-week period, a new method utilized in federal prisons since the 2050s.

  According to incarceration experts, the Standard Solitary Confinement Program allowed for a prisoner to adjust to the condition of the cells and to quickly come to grips with his or her place in prison society. Statistically, it also diminished the new inmate’s susceptibility to gang recruitment and inmate-on-inmate violence.

  The sounds of the other inmates were more frightening than the constricting nature of the cell. At night she heard other inmates talking to themselves, screaming, crying, praying, and beating their heads against the wall. Her nights were also peppered with the squeaky footsteps of the female guards, who strutted down the hallway like bitchy little roosters. The guards slipped her a tray of slop three times a day; other than that, they left her alone.

  She still had yet to fully wrap her head around the fact that her ex-husband had just pulled some strings to get her here, that Antimeria and his butt-buddies had this type of power! The thought of killing him crossed her mind numerous times. It gave her hope, an ultimate goal.

  The first thing she planned to do once she was freed would be to get Noah and baby Rebel back. The second thing she’d do would be to kill Antimeria. From there, she’d move on to the rest of the people who placed her here, such as Sauria, the true puppet master if there ever was one. She’d get him too, if only she could get out. With her iNet access blocked by the iNet scramblers in ADX, it was impossible to know if the pollute-hazy Meme had received her message. And besides, what could the addict actually do? How could he get her out of here?

  She finally broke down sobbing the second night, hard enough to send a ripple of emotion through her body. Curled on the concrete bed, her knees tucked to her chin, Nelly finally came to grips with what it meant to be truly and unequivocally fucked.

  FOURTEEN∞

  Sitting alone in a room with a mask and I get to thinking about what’s happened and what’s passed.

  Yeshi is still gone and damn if I don’t want her here right now. A bosom to rest my head on would go a long way in calming the bleating voices ping-ponging in my skull. No medicine is as good as a breasty place to rest one’s overstuffed cranium. Doctors order many things but rarely do they order some quality time with a pair of mammary glands. Yeshi, phone home!

  Me: Where are you droid of my dreams? I’ve offended Madoka and now I’m locked on the third floor until you return. Boo-hoo.

  I wait patiently for a reply message. Another tug of the pollute masks brings me two shades closer to la la land, two stones closer to crumbling my Zen stack.

  No answer. Woe is me, alone is Meme. Ignore the fact you’re feeling dephlogisticated and get your shit together. Time to focus on the mission at hand – Operation Rescue Nelly.

  How do we get Nelly out of a maximum security federal prison? How do we get back to America under the nose of the FCG, get Nelly and her baby to safety without being fileted by MercSecure reps? Think you barmy piss-artist! My God if things haven’t become complex and the night is still young, nubile and vacuous!

  (Inhale, exhale.)

  Time for a new thinking cap. I press the pollution mask to the top of my forehead, determined to come up with something, determined to be a contributing part to whatever it is that will happen next.

  The first part of the solution comes to me like a slap on the ass from a wet towel – Noah. In my almost stupor, I place a call to Nelly’s personal assistant using my Anonymous One moniker.

  “Hello?” Noah chirps. His video feed appears on my eyelids. He’s slightly pixilated, but it’s him. Foppish Noah I barely know ye with your Alex eyeliner and your hair blonde and your cravat vibrant.

  “Can you speak in private?” I ask. He’s in someone’s house standing in a nursery. “Disable all trackers, tracers, feeds, message boxes and whatever else you may have to monitor this conversation.”

  “Who is this?” he asks, his voice rising slightly.

  “The one and only … ”

  “I don’t know anyone named that,” he says.

  “Dammit, Noah, is everything disabled?”

  “It is now.” Nelly’s baby – yes the baby I birthed! – is in his arms. He rocks the baby slightly as I speak.

  “It’s Meme.”

  “Impossible!” he whispers. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “So are you,” I remind him. Last time I saw Noah was in an Italian restaurant, black liquid dripping from a hole in his chest. “I guess both of us are more immortal than we originally anticipated. Hold on.”

  I pull the pollute mask over my face and take a quick sip. Take the edge off or die trying, am I right?

  “Where are you?” he asks.

  “I’m somewhere far from LA with Yeshi.”

  “Both of you are alive? This is wonderful news! You two are such an adorable couple. I was sure you’d both been terminated by … them.”

  “Well, they tried but we’ve managed to get them back. Earlier today, we broke into MercSecure headquarters and got information on Nelly’s whereabouts.”

  “Federal prison … ”

  “ADX in Colorado in the Dangerous Female Criminals Block, cell 007. Yeah, no bueno.”

  “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

  “I’ve been … busy with some shit. Look, I owe it to Nelly to get her out of there. I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet, but I’m going to do it. Can you get a message to her?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Noah said. “It’s so horrible what these men have done! Rebel needs her mother!”

  “Rebel? Oh, the baby. I thought her name was Esperanza … at least that’s what Carloza wanted to name it, I mean, her.”

  My mind drifts away for a moment, to the time I spent in the hospital after giving birth to the baby in the back of an aeros as it crossed the US-Mexican border. Hard to believe that was only a week ago. The thought of childbirth makes my groin ache – even with a peter I can’t forget that feeling of being ripped apart by a little baby head. Never again. And to think I was the one who actually wanted to go through with it! See? We do get smarter with age.

  “The baby’s name is Rebel, or at least that’s what I call her,” he says. “Antimeria wants to name her after his mother, Mondegreen.”

  “Well, that’s a shit name. Listen, Noah, I may need your help in the near future. We have to get Nelly out of there. She got me out of LA and I plan to return the favor. I don’t know exactly how we are going to do it yet, but we’ll do it.”

  “You should contact Manuel … ”

  “Who?”

  “He’s the person who took over for Carloza after Nelly killed him.”

  “Nelly killed Carloza?”

  News to me.

  “Actually, she killed Carloza in Tyro’s body after she switched back to her own body.”

  What? My pollute trance makes this last sentence difficult to interpret. “So, she’s in her original body now?”

  The image of Nelly’s body steeps
me. Her curly brown hair, her delicate skin, her thin bones and blue veins visible on her white arms – what a delicate little monster!

  “Yes, she’s in her original body. I don’t know what she’s eating in there, but I’ve been worried sick Meme! Worried sick ... ”

  “ANONYMOUS ONE!”

  “I mean, Anonymous One.”

  “Better.” My eyes dart across the room. I swear something black and cloudy just twisted in the corner near the bookshelf that attacked me earlier in the form of a lit Leviathan. Whirling atoms, demon ones or possibly a Japanese oni has come to feast upon my soul. “And you think I should contact this Manuel guy?”

  “That’s exactly what I think … ”

  “But doesn’t he know that Nelly killed his boss? I mean, he may be pissed.”

  Noah quickly explains what happened at a curiously named hotel in Tijuana.

  “Let me get this all straight: Rinchi and another rep came to the hotel to rescue Nelly. They took a man named Manuel as a hostage and installed him as Carloza’s replacement after putting a DL agent in his spine. As this was happening, Nelly-as-Tyro switched with Carloza and she killed him.” I take a quick breath. “Only to be captured, alongside you and the baby, by Rinchi and this other rep with white hair. Sound about right?”

  “That’s exactly what happened.”

  “Who’s writing this stuff?”

  “What do you mean?” he asks. “I can send you video feeds if you’d like proof.”

  “Just send me whatever video feeds you have on Rinchi. I have a feeling Yeshi would like to see it.”

  “Will do.”

  “Also, send me this Manuel guy’s contact, if you have it.”

  Noah says, “I don’t have his contact, but I do have the contact information of one of the doctors who used to work for Carloza. He’ll be able to get it.”

  “Fine, forward it to me as securely as possible. I’ll contact him tomorrow.”

  “Oh, this is so exciting! We are so going to do this!”

  “Keep telling yourself that, Noah. Nice cravat, by the way.”

  “Really? You like it? I was worried that it was a little too flashy, a little too, ummm, what’s the best way to describe it? In-your-face? Not exactly that, I mean, it isn’t trashy or hood-ratty or anything, is it? I wanted to go for hood-rich more than hood-rat. Okay, maybe it is a little too in-your-face, but still—”

  I disconnect the call and place the pollution mask back on my skull.

  FIFTEEN∞

  The Humgun came out of her ear and the knee off her neck; a booted foot immediately replaced the knee.

  “You really came all the way here to do this?” Rinchi asked the boot.

  Keva had her covered with a grenade launcher, which seemed rather pointless; if Keva let one go, it would kill them both.

  Rinchi twisted her head and quickly scanned Big Number One’s vitals. Keva was more or less calm. “People have been talking about what you did to me, schlampe.” She raised her weapon and fired a shot at a building nearby. The explosion sent pebbles and hunks of concrete spinning into the air.

  Rinchi knew she needed to buy some time. She could activate her Tesla Discharge, but that would leave her stuck in Baghdad. Only Allah knew what the beady-eyed merchants and arms dealers would do if they came across her body. “How did you know I’d be on this road?”

  Keva shrugged. “I have my sources, namely Clove.”

  “Clove set me up?”

  “Clove doesn’t like you, but he does like money. We made the deal, oh, about thirty minutes ago. I was going to whack you at the airport, but after you were sent away this presented itself as a better opportunity. So here we are, or should I say, here I am.”

  Rinchi tried to push herself off the ground, but Keva dug the heel of her boot even deeper into the Humandroid’s neck. “You know, droidie, I like looking at you from this perspective. It’s nice to have you under my boot, where it’s easiest to manipulate you. I must say though, you definitely aren’t cute in a burka. Al Omid knows you’re essentially a ladyboy, doesn’t he? I mean, technically, you could be wearing a toga just like the rest of the royal fucking frat boys.”

  Whine-grind-THUD! Whine-grind-THUD!

  Both reps looked over at something large and mechanical rapidly approaching them. It was a monstrous Baba Yaga-looking contraption. The long, thin legs were modded with salvaged military and construction equipment parts. The body of the towering mechanism was bulbous and covered in sharp edges. One of the arms was shaped like a large hook and the other was a combo grenade launcher and machine gun. The tea kettle-shaped head bristled with optics and lenses and sported an industrial steel-cutting laser emitter on a flexible stalk.

  “A Comsuit?” Keva asked, her modded silver eyes flickering. She lowered her weapon, watching the five meter tall machine take another step towards them.

  “Lots of mods,” Rinchi said. “Likely Human driven.”

  “Well shit!” Keva took her boot off Rinchi’s neck. “This changes things a bit.”

  Squinting, MercSecure’s top rep aimed her grenade launcher at the Comsuit.

  “Adjust your trajectory to about an eighty-three degree angle,” Rinchi said, “and try for the top; it may not be as heavily armored.

  “Thanks mom, but this isn’t my first rodeo. There were shit-tons of these things in Syria, all controlled remotely.”

  Keva fired three grenades.

  Cha-thunk! Cha-thunk! Cha-thunk!

  The grenades connected with the Comsuit, and detonated with sharp, flat cracks. The smoke cleared and the Comsuit lurched forward.

  “Well damn.”

  Rinchi shouldered her PHASR, the Lightsaber option already selected. A quick scan of the Comsuit didn’t reveal any particular weak points, so she targeted a leg to knock it over and deny it mobility. The laser beam flared off the Comsuit and lit up the dust motes around it.

  “Damn,” Keva said. “We need to get behind it. Just like that fucker at the hotel in Mexico.”

  The Comsuit returned fire. Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

  The projectiles shed their casings, revealing four sparrow-sized anti-personnel tracking grenades.

  “Scheiss! Run!” Keva shouted over her shoulder, but Rinchi was already in motion. The grenades dispersed; two locked on to Rinchi, two gave Keva their full attention.

  Rinchi blasted past a kebab stand and through an alleyway market. Her reunion with Keva had fully occupied her attention; she’d forgotten that there were civilians around. People scattered in all directions, screaming as they clutched their bags and bundles to their chests.

  “Khalas! Khalas!” a man shouted as he broke away from Rinchi.

  The Humandroid charged through the alleyway market, leapt over a vegetable stand and snaked around a wheelbarrow full of shriveled potatoes. The tracking grenades stayed on her like rats on rice, whining and hissing.

  She looked for somewhere to lose the songbird-sized packages of flying death. They were too close for her to spin around and zap them out of the air; if they didn’t get her when she stopped, the shrapnel would.

  She rounded a curve that opened into a cross street just as a car crossed in front of her. She did a Hollywood ninja-style ‘jump-over-the-roof-of-the-speeding-vehicle’, hit the ground in a shoulder roll and kept going.

  BLAM!

  The leading tracking grenade had connected with the car; the second continued its pursuit as she sprinted further into the alley. Rinchi looked up, noticing the clothes lines stretched above her crisscrossing between balconies. She jumped on top of a broken air conditioner unit and vaulted from there to a bulky electrical junction box.

  The tracking grenade angled upwards to follow her and gained ground as it continued its pursuit.

  Cat-like, Rinchi ran along the railing of the balcony; the grenade was almost on her.

  She tossed her body between two heavily laden clothes lines, hit the ground and ran back the way she’d come. The flying day-spoiler made an actual
Immelmann turn, angled down to follow her, and flew smack-dab into someone’s freshly washed bedclothes. The grenade pulled the sheet free of the clothesline, tangled, hit the ground and detonated.

  Rinchi ducked into a doorway and flattened her back against the door; the notched wire shrapnel zipped past her.

  Rinchi: I’m clear; where are you?

  SIXTEEN∞

  Tim7 makes an appearance in my hallucination. A red carpet rolls from some black box in the sky and he steps down, a cane in his hand and a top hat on his head. Twirl that cane you dandy coprolites!

  I wish.

  No, my hallucinations aren’t that ridiculous and yours shouldn’t be either. So to recap: I’m not watching Tim7 parade down a spiral staircase, but I am watching his face morph in and out of my mind’s eye. Yes, Tim7, my old client who threatened to detonate the kilogram of industrial blasting compound he’d secreted in his chest cavity. So why Tim7 pray tell? Why does this Humandroid continue to haunt me?

  Aside from the fact that he was right, aside from the fact that I’ve personally witnessed what he was saying through Yeshi’s transmogrification – remember, you can take the therapist out of his office but you can’t take the therapist out of the therapist – I still don’t understand why our last interaction continues to plague me.

  Sit still and focus you obscene unsayable son of an unnamable unmarried gypsy zit-picker!

  (The words of Hemingway never felt fresher.)

  Copy thyself, scan thyself, upload thyself, unload thyself, question thyself, heal thyself, sacrifice thyself, relieve thyself, refresh thyself, advise thyself, press reset and see if you can start the game over. If only life had a reset button. If only it were that simple to repair our innumerable mistakes. If only.

  If I could start the game over I wouldn’t have body-switched with Tyro. There! I said it! I would have let myself die at the hands of Yeshi’s twin and I wouldn’t be in Japan sitting alone in a room with a mask waiting and watching as time wades past. Nelly wouldn’t be in trouble and significantly fewer people would be dead.