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

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Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set) Page 45

by Harmon Cooper


  “I’ll come in with you,” she said, “and wait on the floor below yours.”

  “Honey, you don’t need to do that.”

  She kissed him on the cheek, locking her eyes with his. “I know I don’t, but it will make me feel better.”

  “Feel?”

  What is she talking about? She’s a Humandroid!

  “Please, Sauria, I don’t ask for much.”

  “That’s fine,” he said as his driver descended into the designated aeros lane. Sauria’s security detail was in an SUV aeros behind him. His detail landed first and fanned out from their vehicle, which took off and began a slow orbit of the building. Sauria’s stretch aeros landed in the cleared space and disgorged him. He took a step towards the aeros lobby and turned, just in time to see Heidi step out of the vehicle. She placed her hand on his arm and he escorted her towards the entrance.

  The security detail increased their interval, giving the two some breathing room. Sauria knew he was being monitored right now, and he didn’t want to seem too intimidating. Sure enough, Bill sent him a message as soon as he entered the 18th floor aeros lobby.

  Bill: Quite a bit of security.

  Sauria: Don’t worry. The company has assigned them to me since our Japanese headquarters was penetrated. They’ll be staying down here.

  Bill: That’s fine. FYI – there are Pinkertons in the hallway outside my room.

  Sauria: Security is important these days. My personal assistant has requested to come with me. I’ve told her several times to stay in the aeros, but she can be persistent. She will get off on the floor below yours. I don’t want it to seem as if I’m bringing any sort of back-up.

  Bill: That’s fine. She doesn’t need to get off on the floor below. She can wait outside my room.

  Sauria: Thanks for that.

  Sauria and Heidi approached the elevator. It was a cylindrical affair, a merging of steel and glass that was as beautiful as it was fast. They were on the twenty-fifth floor in a matter of moments. The door slid open to reveal three Pinkerton guards waiting for them. Sauria turned to Heidi, “I want you to stay outside the room. I’ll make this as quick as possible.”

  “Okay.”

  Two of the Pinkertons moved forward as Sauria stepped out of the elevator. One of the guards waited for him to exit, before quietly taking his place behind the CEO of ExEx and Heidi, Sauria’s lover and personal assistant.

  They reached Bill’s door and the first guard knocked. “Sauria of ExEx is here, sir.”

  “Let him in.”

  The man opened the door and was just about to let Sauria in when his hand came up. “I need to check you first, sir.”

  “By all means,” Sauria said, “but you may want to do that at the elevator next time. If I had some sort of weapon on me – which I don’t – I could have used it by this point. Remember, I’ve been in the security business for a long time.”

  “Duly noted, sir,” the Pinkerton guard said. He was polite, professional in the way that only ex-military behaved. Sauria made a mental note to get his information at some point and offer him a job at MercSecure. He liked hiring ex-military – they were always on time and were trained to kill efficiently. He quickly sent an iNet message to Lorem Ipsum and cc’d Heidi.

  Sauria: Heidi, get the contact information of the head guard using a vitals scan. Transfer this data to Lorem Ipsum. Lorem, I think this guy would make a good rep. It’s a hunch, but we can put him to the test. Also, it always is nice to poach someone from Pinkerton.

  Heidi: Done.

  Ipsum: Got it. I’ll forward the info to the appropriate channels.

  “He’s good,” the first Pinkerton guard said. “You may enter now, sir.”

  FORTY-TWO∞

  “Sauria.” Bill Bleak came forward with an extended hand. Sauria shook it, smiling as best he could. There was no sign on his face or his body that Bleak had been assaulted the previous night. This struck Sauria as odd; he was familiar with Rinchi’s work and this shouldn’t have been the case.

  “You’re healing quite nicely,” he said.

  “Yes … ” Bleak touched his face. “Last night was horrible, but I wasn’t as beat up as I should have been. Definitely not as bad as my security detail was on the rooftop.”

  There were two chairs facing each other in the center of the room. Sauria settled his bulk in one of them; Bleak took the other.

  “You said that one survived?”

  The Tech Icon nodded sadly. “Yes, Max, the team leader had all his limbs blown off. He’s in intensive care now. He’s going to be at least a clean cut by the time this is all over.”

  “That’s just terrible. This … this Anonymous Group!” Sauria could feel himself getting angry even though he knew the truth in the matter; a good actor always believed the emotions he conveyed.

  “They really did a number.” Bleak ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t know this was what you were up against. If I had known … if I had known, I wouldn’t have given you so much grief yesterday during lunch. My apologies.”

  “We have different politics, Bill,” Sauria said in a fatherly tone. “There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, I’d be concerned if everyone had the same politics. There is nothing more American than the freedom of choice, the freedom to choose which of the two candidates a person likes the most, the freedom to choose from a wide variety of restaurants that all serve similar food, the freedom to choose where you live and how you live once you live there. I digress… the point is, I champion the freedom you exhibited yesterday.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that.” Bleak shifted in his seat. “Let’s get down to business. What do you know about the Anonymous Group?”

  Sauria quickly sent a message to Lorem.

  Sauria: Transfer everything we have to Bleak.

  Ipsum: Done. Also, I’ve just received information about something that happened in Colorado. Nelly has disappeared, or at least her body has, earlier today. Data switch. The prison was waiting until they searched the entire facility and the surrounding areas before sending an alert to us.

  Sauria: What? Not now! Keep an eye on it. Let me handle this and then we can move onto that.

  “Is there a problem?” Bleak asked.

  “Nothing … ” He rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “There is always, always something to handle. Anyway, back to the situation at hand – I just transferred everything we know to you. We think that the Anonymous Group is large; there may be thousands of members. They’ve taken their name from an early twenty-first century group of rabble-rousers that liked to leak stuff during the early days of the internet. We don’t know who their leader is, but we think it may be one of the two people that infiltrated our Japanese headquarters. These people are dangerous, Bill. They may be the worst thing the FCG has faced in a long time. It’s too early to tell, but it could very well be the case.”

  “Thanks for the documents, Sauria.”

  “No problem, Bill.”

  “Now it’s my turn.” Bleak smiled wickedly.

  “Your turn?”

  “You really are a fucking moron, Sauria.”

  “Excuse me?” Sauria shifted away from Bleak.

  “Do you really think I don’t know it was MercSecure that nearly killed me last night? Do you really think I don’t know about the female Humandroid who broke into my room and tried to get information out of me?”

  “What are you talking about, Bill? Get hold of yourself!”

  Sauria: Make sure Clove is in position!

  Ipsum: Affirmative.

  Bleak stood, his hands clenched at his sides. “You and all your cronies are going to pay, Sauria. You hear me!? I’m personally going to see to it that every one of your goons is locked away in a maximum security prison and left to rot for lying to the American people. How many people have you personally ordered dead? How many innocent people has MercSecure killed!?”

  “Relax, Bill, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Bleak wa
s seething now, seconds away from snapping. “I want to show you something, Sauria.”

  “Bill, sit down and let’s discuss this calmly!” Sauria’s hands were instinctively up now.

  Bleak opened the desk drawer near him and pulled out a modded Humgun.

  “That’s an illegal weapon, Bill!” Sauria tried to stand, but his legs suddenly felt like jelly.

  “Your little assassin left it here last night.”

  “Bill!”

  Sauria: Now! Now! Now!

  Ipsum: Unable to comply. Clove is taking fire from an unknown number of assailants; I say again Clove is taking fire from an unknown number of assailants.

  Sauria: What? How … how!?

  “Please Bill!” Sauria was finally able to stand, albeit weakly.

  Bleak took a step closer to Sauria, his back to the front door of the room. “You see what happens,” he said. “You see what happens now when you FUCK with the wrong people? You can’t always play chess with other people’s lives you fat, miserable piece of shit!”

  Sauria collapsed to his knees; Bleak pressed the muzzle of the Humgun hard against his skull. He registered the sound of gunfire in the hallway. Heidi!

  “Good, get on your knees for me, pig; that’s exactly where you belong, exactly where the oppressors and obfuscators, the robber barons and power-mad manipulators belong.” Bleak scraped the muzzle down Sauria’s face and mashed it hard against his lips. “Open your mouth like a good little bitch.”

  Sauria did as instructed and Bleak shoved the end of the Humgun inside. “Good, I’ll make this quick.”

  A sword of coherent light scythed through the front door, separating Bleak’s head, shoulder and gun arm from his body. Sauria fell backwards, the Humgun stripped from his mouth as he hit the floor. Another discharge blasted into the room and hit Bleak in the head. Sauria heard the crackling of electricity, smelled the ozone, felt the surge of his own fear.

  The door kicked open. Heidi lunged into the room; she had a fist-sized divot blasted out of her right shoulder; her arm hung limp and useless.

  “Sauria,” she said taking a step closer to him.

  “I’ve been hit!” he cried.

  She fell to her knees next to him, performing a vitals scan. “Just relax, you’re panicking. You haven’t been hit. Breathe slowly, dear.”

  “Bill … Bill tried to kill me,” Sauria coughed. “Kill me!”

  “Bill’s not human,” she said as she continued to scan his vitals.

  “What? What do you mean not human?”

  He sat up, his vision blurred, and looked over to Bill, whose upper half was lying face first on the floor. The back of his head was now a smoldering crater.

  “A decoy!?” Sauria shouted hoarsely. “A Humandroid decoy!” He slammed his fist against the carpet, wincing as a pain spread from his opposite shoulder across his chest. He gasped for breath as a bayonet twisted into his heart.

  Heidi hovered over him, her eyes dilating as she performed another vitals scan. “Take deep breaths, Sauria, deep breaths,” she said with genuine concern in her eyes. EMS is on the way.”

  “What’s happening to me?” he asked, coughing up globs of frothy spit.

  “You’re having a heart attack, dear. Don’t worry, I’m here, I’m here.”

  FORTY-THREE∞

  Nelly could hardly contain her excitement now. She had been free for two hours, riding in the back of an aeros with highly tinted windows driven by a Humandroid driver whose only word to her had been Congratulations.

  Colorado to Arizona, a trip of snow-tipped mountains and scattered forests; some happy-go-lucky painter had mastered the art of landscapes and happy little trees had lent God a hand. And the air, oh the air, cold air but still, not prison air, not trapped air, air that had been circulated inside a facility designed solely for housing those deemed most deviant by society – and rightly so on many accounts, but not Nelly. No, Nelly, whose life chip information now identified her as Gloria Pilar, she had been unjustly cast inside a cell and worse, a coffin inside a wall.

  She squeezed her fists together as they passed over the Arizona border. Still Stateside but soon, she’d be in a position to see to those who did this to her, to see to those who think it is their duty to control the world, their duty to wring from it all that they can; dividing the plunder and pissing in the eyes of the nameless, faceless, countless masses that support their industries.

  Antimeria. Sauria. Others.

  Nelly would personally see to it that they were eliminated, and this feeling of angry, vengeful power directly contrasted with the austere beauty outside the aeros window. Nelly knew that what she felt at that very moment was the purest freedom a human could ever experience, a freedom straight from the source.

  Noah: I’ve been trying to reach you! I finally got the name from Meme. Your info is listing you as Gloria Pilar now.

  Nelly: I will always be Nelly. I’m glad to see Meme came through.

  Noah: We’re getting closer to Aqua Prieta. Oh Nelly! I am so incredibly happy right now. Ha! I have Rebel in the back and …

  Nelly: And?

  Noah: Antimeria. I’ve dosed him with Truth XO.

  Nelly: Antimeria is with you?

  Fury boiled inside Nelly and she kept it down by twisting in her seat, focussing again on the beauty that sped past her aeros.

  Noah: Don’t be angry! We need him to get across the border.

  Nelly: I’m going to kill him.

  Noah: I suspected as much. Might I make a suggestion?

  Nelly: What?

  Noah: We may be able to get information out of him. It might be useful to keep him alive until we can get what we need. I’m sure Manuel would approve.

  Nelly: I have to ride in the car with him all the way to Mexico?

  Noah: Yes, unfortunately. I should probably warn you – he is very loopy at the moment. He’ll be this way for the next fifteen hours or so, but it will help us get information out of him.

  Nelly: Get the information you need now, as you drive. Have Meme feed you questions if you need it. Antimeria is a HedgeRoth manager. He doesn’t have the same power as Sauria. I seriously doubt he’ll know anything. As soon as we get to Mexico I’m going to kill him. There is nothing you, Manuel or Meme can do to stop me. Nothing!

  Noah: Understood.

  _∞_

  Noah placed a call to Meme as he sped towards Aqua Prieta on the highest airlane above Arizona.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said instead of hello.

  “Who is it?” Antimeria shouted from the backseat.

  “Quiet … sir.”

  Antimeria pretended to zip his mouth shut.

  “What’s happening?” Meme asked.

  Noah: I’ve switched to iNet because Antimeria is in the car with me.

  Meme: Got it.

  Noah: Nelly wants to kill him.

  Meme: And that’s a problem how?

  Noah: Initially, I was on board with Nelly on this, but now I’m thinking we should keep him for a while. He’s got to have all kinds of useful information about Sauria; I mean they’ve been besties since high school.

  Meme: Let me confer with my associates.

  “Hey! You’re quiet up there.” Antimeria pressed his fat face against the window. “Wow-ee! We’re high up! Arizona, right? Are there any songs about Arizona? Can I access iNet and look, Noah? Pleeeeeaasse?”

  “No! Sit there and shut up.”

  “Yes… Noah.” Antimeria slouched in his seat and gave the baby a comical look.

  Meme: After you’ve crossed the border, put him in the trunk.

  Noah: And what about Nelly?

  Meme: You probably don’t want to put her in the trunk.

  Noah rolled his eyes and made the noise – the one that teenage girls make when their stupid, dull, boring, oppressive, un-hip parents exasperate them most intolerably.

  Noah: Everybody’s a comedian these days. I need solution, not an unhelpful smart aleck-y remark, thank-you-very-much.
How do I keep her from killing him?

  Meme: Easy there, big fella. Keep him in the trunk, keep her up front with the baby and tell her that she can kill him as soon as you get to the hotel. We’ll keep them separated, and it shouldn’t be an issue.

  Noah: I understand.

  FORTY-FOUR∞

  Nelly’s driver lowered his aeros to a charging station on the outskirts of Aqua Prieta, Arizona. He saw the exchange vehicle, a black aeros sedan with border immunity plates, and dropped next to it.

  She was out of the aeros before it was fully grounded. The driver’s door on the exchange vehicle swung open and Noah sprang out. He bounced up and down, flapped his hands and squealed, “EEEeeee! It’s really you!” he scooped her up and hugged her tightly. “Oh my Glob, what happened to your face!?”

  A feeling of calm rippled through her limbs. Noah was the same as always, tight little suit with a cravat, eyeliner around his left eye and his hair slicked back, dangling over his ear.

  “Noah!”

  He pulled away, keeping his hands on her shoulders. “You look … ”

  “Don’t tell me, Noah.”

  “Let’s get you fixed up,” they said together, laughing.

  “I know, it is bad, but I think I can recover in a week or two. Prison is … ” The horrors splashed across her mind’s eye and she bit her lip.

  “It’s okay, dear Nelly, everything will be better once we get to Mexico.”

  “Antimeria.” Her grin changed to an angry grimace.

  “About that … ” Noah said as they walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle.

  Noah: I don’t have any weapons, just my arm PHASRs.

  Nelly: I want to do it myself.

  Noah: I figured as much. I’ve already contacted Meme at the hotel. They have an array of weapons waiting for you. Once we cross the border, we’ll stuff Anti in the trunk.

  Nelly: Why?

  “You’ll see…” Noah opened the door and Nelly heard a shout from the backseat.

  “Nelly, is that you? Holy hell! You look like shit! Did someone punch you in the face? How are you, dear?”

 

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