She looked right into Jayne’s eyes. Jayne could feel Zelda sizing up Jayne’s entire history, all of her secrets, all of her fears, and her purpose. Zelda was protected. The thick cataracts hid everything. They merely reflected Jayne’s gaze.
Jayne didn’t have much patience for Burrett’s theatrics and Zelda’s, though on a smaller more innocent scale, were wearing thin. “I’m sorry, but Brielle is going to be okay. If only I could explain why I’m here, but you have to trust me. This—”
Zelda touched her finger to her forehead. “Shut up. You’re making my headache worse, and you didn’t let me finish. You’re very rude.”
That was a surefire way to piss Jayne off. What the hell was this woman’s deal?
Zelda sat up on the chaise lounge and faced directly toward Jayne. She unbuttoned her loose blouse, opening it to reveal the bare, tattoo-less space between her breasts. “I was terrified this space would soon hold a daisy, Brielle’s flower. Thank god, it will not. For that reason alone, I am choosing to help you. This space is for another flower. This space is for the Red Dahlia. Nova’s flower. The Red Dahlia is the only flower I want on my body. Do you understand?”
Jayne looked resolutely into Zelda’s blank eyes. Jayne looked, focusing, until she found the soul buried deep within. “I understand.”
Zelda’s sightless eyes reached beyond in turn, into Jayne. “She left us for a man, to work for a man, named Artimus. Gilded Garden’s Casino on Balcony. You’ll find her there. She’s a heavy, works the floor… Jayne, there are 7 planets in each of the 7 galaxies in our arm of the universe aligning on each of the seven days in this week. This occurrence will never happen again in our universe’s lifetime. Now is the time, there is no other. I am done helping you, I am done talking. Don’t let me down.”
And with that, Zelda laid her head down on the chaise acting as if Jayne had never entered at all.
Jayne stood up. “Thank you.”
Zodiac Zelda said nothing.
+++
Gilded Gardens Casino, Balcony District, Deep Wen, Headless Hope, Amaros
Jayne sipped her third margarita and set it down on top of the side of the roulette table. She didn’t want to finish it. In just a moment, she was going to need it for something more important. She had spent the last four hours and her last 275 credits since arriving at the casino.
But it was all about to pay off.
Jayne drunkenly pushed all her chips on to 21. The dealer held up his hands. “All bets are placed.” He spun the wheel.
Casinos were one of the few institutions left where you would find mostly analog technology. Most gamblers distrusted digital, holographic slot machines and roulette wheels.
The marble’s clacking rattled around in Jayne’s mind, aided by the tequila working its magic.
18.
An imaginary curtain rose before Jayne. Time to go on stage and knock ‘em dead.
Jayne grabbed her margarita and dumped it all over the roulette wheel and the dealer. “This is fuckin’ rigged!”
The dealer spoke into his cufflink without missing a beat. “Security at table ten.”
Jayne leaned over the table and scattered the chips all over the casino floor with one swipe of her arm. “I’ve been playing this stupid game for four hours and you’re telling me that marble doesn’t land on my number once? MY LUCKY NUMBER!”
Jayne looked up and saw security approaching. A big bald guy with a mustache. Wrong guy. Great, Jayne thought, now I have to drag this out. She turned to the retiree in a bucket hat next to her, who had been winning big most of the night. “Why’d you win so much, asshole!?” Jayne knew she was taking a huge risk and, likely, could blow her cover. But then again, out here in Headless Hope, out here where the rule of law was as far away as Techcropolis itself, the bigger risk was not taking the risk at all. “Fuck you!” She leaned on the old man hard, acting drunker than she actually was.
The bald security detail stomped around the table to Jayne. “Ma’am, you have to leave the casino immediately.”
Jayne looked up, and up, and up until she finally found the eyes of the unreasonably tall and muscular man. “Your head looks like my ass: magnificently round, hairless, and with an asshole in the middle of it.”
The bouncer placed a huge hand on Jayne’s shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two more security details emerge from the backroom of the casino. She glanced in the opposite direction.
Bingo. Standing in the shadows, the woman in black. Nova. Waiting.
Baldy squeezed Jayne’s shoulder hard. “I am giving you one more opportunity to leave, or I will physically escort you out of the casino.”
Jayne grabbed the bouncer’s thick wrist. “Escort this!” She twisted his wrist, and he immediately lost the ability to hold his grip. He yelped. Jayne spun him around and, realizing how top-heavy he was, simply knocked his right foot off-balance and he fell down hard against the roulette table, knocking the wheel loose from its axis.
The patrons at the table gasped, and a crowd was already gathering around Jayne.
She waited for the next two bouncers to approach, all the while keeping an eye on Nova, who was circling the outside perimeter of the casino.
Jayne gave herself a height advantage by hopping up on the table. She grabbed a chain-smoking woman’s Old-Fashioned and splashed it into the first bouncer’s face. She knocked him cold with a chop at the side of the neck. It took nearly her entire reserve of strength, but she stopped him from falling, and threw his massive hulk against the third bouncer fast approaching. He tripped, and toppled forward on top of the first bouncer, curled up on the floor rubbing his sore wrist.
Nova had sights on Jayne. Jayne knew this. She made a run for it, and Nova followed.
As Jayne vaulted herself over the roulette table, the crowd erupted into applause at the sheer display of athleticism Jayne had just used to defeat the casino’s notorious security.
+++
Jayne’s momentum as she burst out of the front door to Gilded Gardens nearly launched her over the balcony overlooking the entire city of Deep Wen below.
Jayne grabbed the railing, pushed herself back and spun around to see Nova, all of her, for the first time. Her features were smaller than Jayne expected.
Nova threw a punch forward, which Jayne deftly blocked. She was doing alright for having three margaritas, but she could feel the nauseating slosh of alcohol in her stomach. BAM, Nova knocked a blow against Jayne’s jaw with her other hook.
Oh, ok, Jayne thought, you fight dirty.
Jayne brought a knee up, which Nova shot down with both palms. She used the force to bring her fists back up and catch Jayne at the chin. Jayne bit her tongue. She could taste blood in her mouth, which dripped out as she spoke. “Who are you?”
Nova simply answered by twisting Jayne’s left arm around her back, and forcing Jayne’s upper-half over the edge of the balcony. Jayne spat out the blood quickly filling her mouth and brought her head back, resoundingly smashing Nova in the side of the face.
Nova fell onto her back. Jayne finally had the upper hand. “Who sent you?”
Nova wiped blood away from her nose. “Look behind you.”
“What?” Jayne turned to look back over the balcony. A task force on a hover-pad raised up and leveled themselves with the balcony. A cop, if such a thing actually existed in Deep Wen, raised a stun gun and blasted a paralyzing electric wave at Jayne, which passed through her body, right through her heart.
The world went black as she collapsed to the ground. Nova was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mabel Grumby Memorial Shuttle Port , Western Gate, Theron Techcropolis City Border, Amaros
Days earlier, Merry had waited outside the shuttle port until she saw Jayne’s shuttle take off and disappear over the horizon, disappearing behind the smog that encased Theron Techcropolis. Since the shuttle took off without a veritable army of law enforcement surrounding the shuttle port, Merry was confident Jayne had made it th
rough security.
“Excuse me, miss?”
“Who you callin’ miss, fleabag?” Merry spun around, when she turned and saw a shuttle security guard five feet wide, she bit her tongue. “Oh, sorry. I thought you were… not an authority figure.”
“If you’re not arriving to board a shuttle, I’ll have to ask you to leave. There’s no loitering at the shuttle port. Security risk.”
Merry nodded. “Just seeing my friend off,” She said as she hopped off the curb and headed to the row of taxis hovering by the exit lane. “Ain’t there room for any sentimentality in this hell world?!” That’s when she noticed the black cruisers parked at either end of the drop off area.
Wait, Merry realized, that guard didn’t have the Shuttle Security Insignia on his uniform. She turned back, but the guard was gone. The black cruisers pulled away from the drop-off area and left.
Merry opened the backdoor of a taxi and slipped inside. She sat low in the backseat. The driver, a three-eyed Bogdanzian, glanced with both pupils in his right eye at Merry in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”
+++
Fred’s Apartment, Calcian Court, L46, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
Fred just wanted to watch Kill ‘Em All 72, but Merry and Vlad had been arguing non-stop. They started during the very first fight scene when Byron Killem clutched the Senator’s baby close to his chest, keeping her safe while he manned a machine gun with his right big toe and threw grenades with his other foot, all the while hacking the navigation system of Doctor Knife’s Battle Fleet by agonizingly typing in code with his nose. Now they were half-way through. The Federation prison had officially pardoned Byron Killem for his gallantry against Doctor Knife. He had intentionally lost 100 pounds of muscle while in jail. This way, he could smuggle out Ulrich, a double-agent and software expert, barely five feet tall, who had been arrested for double-selling top secret military information on an auction site. Byron Killem knew he needed Ulrich to fight Dr. Knife once and for all. He waltzed out those prison gates without the guards suspecting that the mass under his shirt was anything more than his bulging pectorals.
Fred rotated the TV’s remote-ring on his finger to turn up the volume over Merry and Vlad’s bickering.
Vlad reached the end of a joint and popped the roach in his mouth. He swallowed, an old habit from his college days. “It doesn’t matter where we meet. I don’t care if we start holding council in a dumpster, but anywhere and everywhere is better than the office.”
Merry chucked her pizza crust into the box. She hated eating the crust, so she always left it for Fred. “Vlad, that’s easy for you to say. But you’re not taking into account that for me to do my job, we have to meet in the office.”
Vlad laughed. “Merry, I’m not going to stop you from going to the office. But I’m also not going to stop Geiger’s goons when you get arrested. I wish I could, but what about Jayne? I don’t think you’re taking her safety into account.”
That was the wrong thing to say to Merry. “Ex-fucking-cuse me? Did you really say that Vlad? Of course I care about Jayne! She’s my best friend!”
It was a quiet scene now. Byron Killem was at the graveyard where his best friend, Marissa Starbuckle who died in Kill ‘Em All 65 in a nuclear meltdown, is buried. Byron lays down lilies on the grave and says a few kind words in Marissa’s memory. Fred couldn’t hear a damn thing, so he turned the volume up.
Byron then pressed his hand up against the tombstone. The marble slab suddenly digitizes and scans Byron’s handprint. The grave beneath him began to lower itself into the ground. “Holy shit!” Fred yelled, trying to get Merry and Vlad’s attention. “Are you guys seeing this?”
The grave lowered deep into the ground, until it stopped inside of a massive, underground laboratory. And there, waiting for Byron, was Marissa Starbuckle. Fred gasped. “OH MY GOD! You guys! Look!”
But Merry and Vlad had all but forgotten about the film.
Merry grabbed the last slice of pizza. “We’re already being followed, Vlad. What’s the difference?”
Vlad pouted. “I wanted that slice.”
Merry spoke with a mouth full of food. “Oh, I’m sorry. Let me wipe this grease off my fingers so I can play the world’s smallest violin.”
Fred turned up the volume as Marissa started explaining the convoluted justification for her actually being alive. Vlad and Merry had no choice but to yell over the movie.
Vlad dropped the pizza issue and returned to the matter at hand. “It’s better to be followed than observed.”
Merry held her hands up, framing her face as if getting Vlad to focus on her words. “Vlad! We have turned that office upside down, right side up, inside out, sideways, longways, every which way but going back in time. We can’t find a bug!”
Vlad rolled his eyes and mimicked Merry’s actions as he yelled back. “All the more reason it is probably still there!”
“VLAD! STOP YELLING AT ME!”
“I’M NOT YELLING!”
Merry pointed to her mouth. “YES YOU ARE!”
Vlad pounded his fist into his hand. “NO I’M NOT! I JUST CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THIS MOVIE!”
Silence, except for a sudden explosion as the underground laboratory is attacked by Doctor Knife’s radioactive worm army.
Merry smiled at Vlad. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Vlad smiled back. “Only if you’re thinking that it took us way too long to think of this.”
Vlad and Merry nodded at each other, then high-fived.
Fred smashed pause on the movie. “Okay, whatever resolution y’all have reached, great. I don’t care. Can we please just shut up and watch this movie now?”
Merry settled back into the couch. “Absolutely Fred!”
Fred sighed and hit play. “Thank you.”
Vlad sparked up another doobie and started watching the movie. “What the hell? How is Marissa alive?”
+++
ISA Offices, Malicarsh Building, L46, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
Merry immediately regretted her and Vlad’s idea when Vlad showed up with his extensive catalogue of Jazz records.
He ejected an audio chip from the office’s system. Merry and Fred went silent per the new law of working in the office – no talking if there’s no music.
Vlad selected another audio chip and popped it in. Once the nearly arhythmic drumming began, Merry spoke. “What is with you and those audio chips? We can pull up any song we want at our finger tips, just a few taps on my tablet, but you insist on those big, bulky audio chips!”
Vlad held up the one-inch square chip and scoffed at Merry. “Sorry my generation cares a little more about quality than convenience. Nothing has a richer sound, more depth and fidelity than a good ol’ fashioned .mp3! I mean, listen to this!” The horns kicked in, a random cacophony of crescendos and denouement, each song bleeding into the next. Vlad air-drummed along. “This is Wayne Kaintuck, born with an extra finger on his right hand because of the radiation field on Planet Egat – hear that high hat!? Tts-ta, ta-tss, ta-ta-tss, ta-ta-tss? He can hit the brass that fast because of that sixth finger. That’s what I call destiny. Born to play drums, baby!” And he kept air drumming.
Fred cast eyes over to Merry. They both pointed in their mouths and pretended to gag.
Vlad stepped between Merry and Fred’s eyeline to cut off their conspiratorial mocking. “Alright, you two, get back to work.”
Merry laughed, “You get back to work, Vlad! I think this ancient recording will be fine without your air drumming.”
Fred pointed to Jayne’s desk. “I can’t believe this is necessary, but I’m separating you two! Vlad, go sit at Jayne’s desk. No talking.”
Vlad sulked to Jayne’s desk and resumed the task of matching the name of Yorgos Costas to as many travel, purchase, and transaction records as possible.
Fred reviewed all his contacts, taking record of weapons deals that included the make of gun the man in black used, a Gingham .38 which was, somewhat i
ronically, referred to on the street as a "deal breaker."
Meanwhile, Merry had discovered a new cross-coded construction of digital tracers. She found these by following the origins of the very first use of Yorgos Costas after the true Yorgos Costas’ death years earlier.
The erratic drumming of Wayne Kaintuck served as a pulse-pounding soundtrack to their frantic, mundane-seeming but truthfully life-or-death work.
As the brass kicked in, “This is Dizzy Keller Carson on trumpet and 8-Ball Williams on Sax, by the way!” Vlad quickly piped up to say, the sudden discovery of a melody by the jazz band guided the gang into a flow of work that felt potentially rewarding.
If Merry had learned anything from the now countless jobs she’d taken on with Jayne, it was that breakthroughs only happened when you’ve become convinced you’ve reached a fruitless end. That is, after all, what makes them breakthroughs.
Fred suddenly remembered what he would do whenever he couldn’t find the underground connections he needed to buy or sell. When in doubt, do it legal. He started running through the database, checking for Gingham .38 purchases at gun shops across Theron Techcropolis leading up to the day this whole thing blew up in their face.
And at the same time, Vlad noticed a brand new log-in connected to the digital tracer linked to Yorgos Costas. Of course, they suspected Yorgos Costas might, actually, be Burrett. If that was the case, this new little development was twice as interesting.
Vlad was so excited he raised his hand at first, like a school boy. Then he realized how silly that was and spoke. “Hey, hey, look. I’ve got a brand-new log-in on this digital tracer. It just accessed a VR link.”
Fred perked up. “Okay, interesting because I just found out a Gingham .38 was purchased at Vern’s Pawn Shop on… Level 20 three days before Jayne tailed the man in black.”
Exposed (Interplanetary Spy for Hire Book 2) Page 15