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

by Harmon Cooper

  “Enough,” Murika said. “The Comsuits are waiting for us at the private airfield in Tijuana. We can discuss the pros and cons of DM 96ers on the way over. Everyone is using ocs here, right?”

  “I do,” Rav said. “My right eye.”

  “Both eyes,” Rinchi said.

  “Both eyes,” Walt said.

  “Left eye,” Beyoncé said last. “But y’all know I don’t like admitting that shit.”

  “Good, review the hotel layout during our flight and keep the floor plan in the corner of your ocular display. For the three of us going in, MercSecure has weapons waiting for us in Tijuana.”

  SEVEN∞

  Get to the chopper!

  I suppose, get to the armored aeros transport vehicle would be more apropos, but you get the picture. We are trying to get the fuck out of Tijuana because MercSecure is gunning for us. This is precisely how Dr. Hewman put it in a message he sent me over iNet about fifteen minutes ago. Apparently, he has someone on the inside and true to his nature, he said he would explain more once we arrived in Havana.

  “They’re getting closer,” Yeshi says, her eyes darting back and forth as she scans air traffic reports on iNet. We’re in the hotel’s private elevator moving to the top floor. Rebel, Noah and Nelly are already there waiting for us. “The reports update every two minutes, which means they may be here any moment depending on how fast they’re moving.”

  “Damn, we better get cracking!” I say, the cigar still in my mouth. Might as well go out like a jefe.

  The elevator door opens and we exit into a small clear area. Some of Manuel’s thugs move about, getting into various positions. One man is literally strapped to the teeth – a Leak-based weapons system that fires PHASR beams through neuronal transmissions (say that three times fast!) is attached to his helmet. Another has a pollute cigarette in his mouth that is almost completely ash by this point.

  “What the fuck took you so long?” Nelly is still in her Killer T-shirt with Noah behind her, the baby over his shoulder.

  “I was packing!” I say, waving my luggage at her. (I borrowed an eel leather suitcase from Carloza that has a sticker on it which reads: collate la pinche Boca.)

  “Meme, you are such an idiot.”

  “What? Who goes to Cuba without a couple of guayaberas? I’m trying to blend in here!”

  I do a quick turn, pointing my thumbs at two vertical rows of closely sewn pleats running up the back of the shirt.

  “You’re a black man in a Japanese man’s body who is trying to blend in with the Cuban natives … ” A grin almost forms on her face. Almost.

  “Come on, Nelly. Besides, aren’t you excited to meet the guy who rescued you from the Italian restaurant while you were in Tyro’s body?”

  “Thanks for reminding me – I had almost forgotten about it.”

  “That was horrible.” Noah says. He has changed cravats, springing for something a little more tropical.

  Yeshi interrupts all of us to say, “We need to hurry. They will be here any moment.”

  I blink my eyes shut and send a message to Manuel.

  Me: Good luck.

  Manuel: These mother-rapers got the best of me last time. They won’t this time. We’ll hold them off. Let me know what we can do to support you once you arrive in Cuba. I may take a trip to Havana myself when I’m done here.

  Me: You the man. Keep your head down and your jockstrap on.

  Manuel: Same to you, Amigo. I’ll be in touch.

  “Let’s go!” Yeshi grabs my hand. “Look!”

  A black aeros is heading our way, the sun reflecting off its polished hood. Surrounding the aeros are two Comsuits, their contrails visible.

  “It’s them!” Noah cried. The hand that wasn’t holding baby Rebel comes to his mouth.

  “Noah – give me the baby and get ready to use your arm PHASRs if you have to,” Nelly says. “You might have to protect us!”

  “Oh, dear!” Noah, who is still in a sleeveless suit, hands baby Rebel to Nelly. The child – technically my child but I’ll let that slide for a moment – appears to be fast asleep.

  Manuel’s men quickly form a perimeter as we load into the armored transport. The inside of the vehicle is quite large, easily twice as large as the inside of an aeros limousine. For my part, I take a seat with my back to the driver, next to Carloza’s pollution mask rig that he had custom installed.

  “You aren’t serious!” Nelly says as I unhook the mask. The mask is a standard affair, the same mask that they have at the bars back in LA. I am familiar with it and happy to find an old friend in such a distressing moment.

  “When in Rome … ” I place the half chewed cigar in my shirt pocket. I’ll get to you later.

  “They’ll be here in thirty seconds.” Yeshi takes a seat next to the window, watching as the MercSecure reps approach the rooftop.

  “Everyone strap in!” Nelly says.

  With no baby seat, she has to hold Rebel to her chest. “Go! Go! Go!” she shouts at the driver, banging her hand on the side of the aeros transport vehicle. The vehicle has two drivers, one at the back and one at the front – just in case. One of the drivers responds in English.

  “We’re lifting off now!”

  The aeros kicks into the air at the same time MercSecure arrives, guns a-blazing. Manuel’s men are dying just about as quickly as they’re returning fire. Bombs over Baghdad – everyone here is an Outkast!

  Let’s be as clear as we’ll ever be, Reader. If I’m going to die here today, I might as well die high.

  Boom! Bang! Shit! Puta Madre! Boom! Bang!

  A whopping great explosion buffets our aeros, and with that, the pollution mask goes over my face and pollutes appear on the polypropylene lenses:

  Vassago White Comma Puss N Boobs

  2Girls1Cup Poisonous Nike Toadstool

  Jaeger Black Blow Up Sheep

  Calvin Klein’s Bieber Little Peter

  BCBG I.C.U.P.

  As bullets and lasers whiz by (oh my!), I select Bieber Little Peter and the pollute distributor plays a midi version of La Cucaracha, which is loud and obnoxious, yet somehow soothing given the severity of my current situation.

  “Sorry everyone!” I say as the rooftop shrinks beneath us.

  Inhale, exhale and let the battle begin.

  Through the polypropylene lenses, I watch as Yeshi pays close attention to the reps now returning fire on the rooftop. Two Comsuits – Manuel’s – zoom over us as we sail off, loud enough to rattle the ceiling. Yeshi’s mouth drops open.

  “That’s her!”

  “Who?” I ask, my voice muffled by the pollute mask.

  “Rinchi. She’s on the rooftop!”

  EIGHT∞

  “Yeshi.” Rinchi said, watching the armored aeros transport lift off in a cloud of dust and grit and trash. Still, she could see her twin Humandroid in that moment, starring at her from inside the vehicle.

  Rinchi: I need a Comsuit. Rav or Beyoncé you’re out.

  Beyoncé (tagging Murika): Shit I’m trying to hold them off and you giving me orders? WTF droid?

  Murika: Rinchi, you are part of the inside team. That’s an order.

  Rinchi: I have unfinished business.

  Murika: That’s an order!

  Rinchi ran along the side of the rooftop through a hail of bullets. She aimed her PHASR at the transport aeros as she ran, and connected with a blast that shattered one of the passenger windows. One of Manuel’s Comsuits flew alongside the rooftop, scissoring towards the MercSecure reps, and with inhuman speed Rinchi calculated the angle at which she’d need to jump to connect with the Andromeda M31.

  Her feet hit the ledge of the rooftop and she was off, catapulting her body at the flying Comsuit.

  She landed on the Comsuit and immediately hooked her legs around the Andromeda’s arm. The operator jerked to the left in an attempt to buck her off. Rinchi held tight and pried at the shoulder of the Comsuit with her tactical knife, using the same technique Keva had shown her in Iraq,
albeit with much more urgency.

  Rav: What the fuck are you doing!?

  Beyoncé: Bitch don’t go all rogue now!

  Lorem Ipsum: Rinchi this is a direct order. Return to the rooftop.

  Rinchi (to Ipsum): I spotted Yeshi, Anonymous Two. I say again – Yeshi has been spotted. Anonymous Two.

  Ipsum: Go! Go! GO!

  _∞_

  “It’s her!” Sauria said as soon as he got the feed from Rinchi’s ocs. “It’s her!”

  “I’ve told her to go,” Lorem Ipsum said excitedly.

  Sauria was now in MercSecure’s private medical ward located in the executive underground bunker beneath their ring-shaped headquarters in Cali. He was watching a holoscreen alongside Lorem Ipsum and Connard Branleur, president of the Business Executives for National Security Lobbying and Consultancy Group. Sauria was supposed to be lying on the bed, but he was sitting on a sofa instead, not wanting to appear weak in front of his subordinates.

  Branleur, a handsome man with thick white hair and blue eyes, stared with interest at the holoscreen. In the corner feed was Yeshi’s pixilated face, which had a web of light around it indicating that the Datatective program was searching video feeds worldwide for matches. The main feed was currently streaming Rinchi’s ocular video, which showed her twisting in the air as she attempted to gain access to an enemy Comsuit. The jitteriness of the video made it slightly nauseating.

  “It looks like she’s riding a rocket!” Sauria said in a fatherly tone. MercSecure had about two dozen Humandroids employed as representatives. None had Rinchi’s testicular fortitude; she’d just launched herself off a rooftop onto a flying enemy Comsuit and was attempting to commandeer it.

  Sparks sprayed in her ocular display as Rinchi continued to cut into the Andromeda’s access seal.

  “She’s going to do it,” Connard said in near disbelief. “Damn! She is going to do it!”

  Sauria said, “Make sure this video is saved on the MercSecure training module board. Other reps need to see this.”

  “Duly noted.” Ipsum’s eyes blinked as he sent a quick message to his secretary.

  “She’s in!” Connard said.

  Rinchi reached inside the Andromeda as it curved towards the ground. She punched the operator in the back of the head, popped the emergency harness release and threw him out of the suit. The video became shaky as she jumped into the Comsuit and took control.

  “I wish Antimeria could see this,” Sauria said under his breath, watching as Rinchi flew the suit after the fleeing aeros transport vehicle.

  Ipsum feigned a smile. He knew very well that Antimeria may already be dead, but he didn’t want to explore the idea in front of his superior, a close friend of the HedgeRoth Manager.

  “We’ve got you now, Yeshi,” Sauria mumbled, “we got you now.”

  Ipsum said, “We need to get a tracking drone on that transport vehicle, just in case Rinchi can’t take it down. I’ll alert Rav – he should be able to launch one.”

  NINE∞

  With the window shattered out, baby Rebel crying, Noah e-shitting his britches and Yeshi trying to get a grip on the action outside the aeros, there is only one phrase coiling through my mind, one phrase that allows me to make sense of all that is happening around me: Life’s a bitch, then you die, that’s why we get high, you never know when you’re gonna go.

  Yes, being on the verge of death has inspired the vulgar Nas-quoting vulture within, but seriously, if this is the way I’m going to go, then F it. What else am I supposed to do? Beat a MercSecure rep to death with Carloza’s eel leather suitcase? Another sip off the pollute mask and I’m good, watching the violence unfold before me like an action movie or something.

  “There’s a Comsuit on our tail,” Yeshi shouts over the roar from the recently smashed window, “and Rinchi is the operator!”

  It strikes me as odd that I’ve never met Rinchi, not even in the hallways of the office I used to share with Tyro. Or maybe I have but I don’t remember. The therapist in me wants to know what makes her tick, what makes her so different from Yeshi. The more logical side of my brain wants her as far away from my little faux family – Nelly, Rebel, Noah, Yeshi and maybe Manuel – as possible.

  “The baby!” Noah shrieks like a limp-wristed pansy. “This is so horrible!”

  Yeshi says, “Nelly, get to the other side of the vehicle and protect the baby! Noah, get to the broken window now! Meme … ”

  I’m sure I look like an idiot puffing away on Bieber Little Peter while Armageddon rages on outside our aeros transport vehicle. Unfortunately, I have no weapons and as you may recall, I’m not really that good with guns anyway.

  “Meme, stay where you are!”

  “What do I do!?” Noah shouts.

  A blast hits the aeros transport and the vehicles drops altitude. Turbulence follows as we return to the appropriate airlane. “We need to use your arm PHASRs!” she tells him, pulling his arm over to the shattered window.

  “I’m too frightened to fight!”

  “I’ll fight for you!” Yeshi says. “You have to trust me!”

  The aeros transport shifts as flames lick its side. Noah and Yeshi move to the shattered window and Noah sticks his arm out.

  “Get ready!”

  Noah’s eyes are closed and Yeshi’s are open, scanning the air behind the vehicle for Rinchi’s Comsuit.

  Yeshi fires two shots, using small electric discharges to take control of Noah’s arm PHASR.

  The air whips by the transport vehicle. Everything is a blur aside from the action taking place in front of me. I glance from the battle to Nelly, who’s holding the baby close to her chest and praying. I suppose I should be freaking out too, but I’m feeling too medicated to worry. Not exactly wasting away in Margaritaville, but pretty damn close.

  Yeshi fires another shot from Noah’s arm PHASR.

  “Did you get her?” Noah cries, his eyes still closed.

  A blast hits the vehicle and we drop several feet. Methinks we are fucked, but I still have pollute-infused hope that we’ll make it out alive. Further, I can’t be held responsible for the apathy emanating therefrom.

  “Stop her, Yeshi! Stop her!” Nelly screams.

  Bitches get stitches! I want to yell, but my voice is muffled and my mouth doesn’t want to open. Everything is moving in slow motion now, codeine-dipped action.

  “I’m overheating!” Noah whines, as Yeshi fires twice more.

  “Switch arms and hold still!” comes Yeshi’s response.

  “Oh Nelly!” Noah glances over at his owner, his face strained and his eyes wide. “We’re going to die!”

  “Quit whining and hold still!”

  I’m lightheaded now, my arms tingling as the vehicle lifts higher in the air while my eyes are fixed on Yeshi, the only thing keeping me alive these days. She looks hella-hot as she holds Noah’s arm PHASR out the window and fires on Rinchi. The discharges are blue, edged with tiny electric swirls with a core that is almost turquoise. They light up the interior of the aeros transport vehicles, sending tentacle-like streamers writhing across the ceiling that remind me of Trolli Sour Glow Worms.

  Yeshi fires, waits, fires again as Noah whimpers.

  For some reason, I start to get an erection.

  Two more blasts in quick succession, and …

  “Got her!” Yeshi says.

  TEN∞

  “Holy … ” Branleur covered his mouth, his eyes wide with excitement.

  “She’s one of our top reps,” Sauria said proudly. “Hand-selected by myself, and … Antimeria. I hope to God he’s still alive.”

  The Live feed on the holoscreen had Sauria bubbling with excitement. In the video, Rinchi was flying above the aeros transport vehicle in a hijacked Andromeda Comsuit. A trail of black smoke was clouding the image of her feed. Nelly, Noah, Antimeria’s baby and Anonymous Two – Yeshi – were definitely in the vehicle. There was no telling who else was in there.

  “Has Rav shot off the tracking drone?” he
asked.

  A new screen appeared in the bottom right corner, showing a blinking light moving over Tijuana.

  “Yes,” Lorem Ipsum said eagerly. “We’ll be able to track them if Rinchi doesn’t succeed.”

  “She’s going to land on top of the transport vehicle … ” Branleur said. “This is … is … ”

  “It is everything my company stands for and more,” Sauria said with a fish-eating grin.

  _∞_

  Rinchi’s ocular display lit up with range and targeting data as orange lights flickered in front of her face and various annoying audio cues reminded her of her altitude and power status. She fired a few short bursts from the Andromeda’s PHASRs, which sparkled off the aeros transport vehicle’s anti-radiation coating.

  The anti-radiation coating on her hijacked Comsuit wasn’t holding up as well.

  The damage indicators were lighting up like a festive holiday tree and the systems failure warning blared with annoying persistence. The crash bars had deployed, but the air bags hadn’t – yet – and the computer hadn’t initiated the emergency landing override. The suit still had some go left in it.

  Rinchi planned to use every last little bit.

  The suit fought to maintain altitude and forward velocity, even as it got zapped again. She planned to drop onto the aeros, secure the Comsuit to the aeros with the curved combat manipulator, execute a dynamic entry and neutralize all the hostiles – although she thought of it as hook on, get in, and kill ‘em all!

  She only had one shot to latch onto the vehicle’s rooftop.

  ELEVEN∞

  A crash and a quake tells me things have taken a turn for the worse and that Scooby’s Gang, with me the Scoobster – because I so enjoy my snacks – are in for some hella-day spoilage. This gets me thinking as to who would make a better Daphne, Nelly or Yeshi, as both are hot and both aren’t exactly Velma material. Noah is obviously Shaggy sans the bong and weed breath; Manuel could be Fred as he is our fearless leader. So who would make a better Daphne? And fuck Scrappy-Doo because we all know that little bastard was put in the show for commercial purposes á la Ewoks in Return of the Jedi (the recent remake, not the original). On second thought, I guess Rebel could be Scrappy because she’s small.