Galaxia

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “Told you this stuff works,” she said to Michi as she came back, using one hand to sweep over her pink cozy. “I know that guy. He hit on me last year at one of our recertification courses.”

  Michi had to stifle a laugh. Tamara was one surprise after another. The girl had no filter.

  They wandered about the Gut for over an hour, dismissing several prospects for various reasons ranging from one jack’s wedding ring catching the light as he walked his rounds to another being joined by two more jacks just before the two hunters closed in.

  Michi had felt uncomfortable when they first started walking. The Gut was not the kind of place she ever really thought she would be exploring. But as they hunted for a victim, she forgot about the seediness of the hunting grounds as her excitement started to take over. She had always been competitive, but this took it to a new level, one that quite frankly gave her a rush.

  A few years ago, a cousin had come back on leave from where he served as a captain in the Marines. At a family gathering, he had started on his “sea stories,” as he called them. He had been in the fighting during the Trinocular War, and to the rapt attention of the younger cousins, said that the thrill of combat was addictive, that nothing else matched up to it. At the time, Michi thought that was just bluster, but as she searched the warrens for her prey, she thought she just might understand what he’d been trying to say. Michi had been reticent about Tamara’s mission, but now that she was on the hunt, she was eager to get to it.

  “Over there, at your eleven o’clock,” she whispered to Tamara, when she finally spotted a likely target.

  “Eleven freakin’ what?”

  Eleven o’clock. Like in the flicks. Twelve is right in front of us. Eleven is ahead and just to the left. Over there, across the street.”

  “Why didn’t you just say that instead of going Hollywood on me,” Tamara grumbled. Then, “Ah, I see what you mean. Mr. Jack seems interested in us.”

  “Mr. Jack” was a thirty-something, lower-level security specialist, based on the patch on his shoulder. He was a little old for his rank, and Michi saw something in his eyes as he took in the two women that made her positive he was the type to throw around what little authority he possessed.

  Tamara immediately started crossing the street, and Michi had to hurry to catch up. The jack’s eyes lit up as the two walked up to him.

  “And what are you two ladies doing out and about this fine evening?” he asked them as Michi could feel his gaze peeling off their cozies as he openly looked them up and down.

  “Nothing, sir,” Tamara said. “Just out for some fun. Crunching actuarial numbers all day is so boring, and we need a little excitement.”

  With a number of insurance firms downtown, that little comment could throw suspicion in that direction, if it came to that. Michi had to give her roommate props. Michi hadn’t even thought to come up with a backstory.

  “Excitement? Plenty of places for that, ladies. The Gut, though, can be a little rough for office girls.”

  “Oh, me and Stacy like it rough,” Tamara said with a throaty laugh. “Maybe you know someplace, though, where we can go to find something exciting?”

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” he said with a laugh.

  “Oh, you security guys are supposed to know all the naughty places, right? Where things happen? Maybe one where we could go but that’s not, too, well, dangerous?”

  The jack was eyeing both of them. Michi wondered if she should have unzipped her cozy a little, but doing that now would be too blatant. They had to tease this fish before setting the hook.

  Michi was glad Tamara was the one doing the talking. This wasn’t her style. Michi would rather have simply called out the man and gone at it. Finesse was not something she had in her bag of tricks.

  “What about her?” the man asked Tamara, pointing at Michi.

  “Oh, she’s a quiet one, she is, out in public, but get her behind closed doors, she’s a tiger,” Tamara told him.

  “Well, can you help us? Where should we go? But remember, we want it naughty, but not where we’re going to get in any trouble. You know how the insurance companies are about moral standing.”

  The jack seemed to be considering it for a moment before making up his mind. He got on his radio and said, “Helmon, I’m taking my 30 now. You’ve got it.”

  He turned to Tamara and said, “Yeah, I know. I run this section,” which Michi knew was a gross exaggeration, “so I know all the places. But two ladies like you can get into trouble getting there, so I’m going to escort you there and let them know you’re under my protection, OK?”

  Hook set.

  “Oh, you’d do that?” Tamara asked excitedly. “Stacy, you hear that? I told you this would be sparking!

  “Lead on my knight,” she said, taking the jack by his arm. “I’m so excited.”

  “You excited too?” the jack asked Michi over his shoulder.

  You don’t know how much, she thought.

  Michi didn’t know what the jack had planned. It was doubtful that he would have actually led the two into danger, and 30 minutes wasn’t much time for anything. He probably wanted to impress them with his importance and then set up something after he was off duty. It didn’t matter. The guy was slimy, and Michi felt her endorphins kick in.

  The jack led the two down Julian Street, which was far too open for Michi to strike. She wondered if she was going to have to fake the need to take a pee when the jack turned down a smaller alley.

  “This is a shortcut, so don’t be too scared,” he said, full of self-importance. “I’m here with you, but don’t try this way alone.”

  Michi decided she hated him. Not that hating him was necessary, but it added a certain spice to what was going to happen.

  Halfway down the alley, Michi coughed twice. It was corny, but that was their signal.

  “Oh, my shoe’s coming undone,” she said, stopping and bending at the waist as if to tie her shoe.

  The jack stood over her, taking an unabashed look at her ass.

  “Hey, jack,” Michi said.

  The jack looked up just as Michi’s roundhouse kick caught him flush on the side of his face. The jack stumbled but didn’t go down.

  “What . . .?” he started, coming back with his fist cocked to swing at her.

  Michi leveled a front kick at his stomach, missing and hitting him on his chest harness, but knocking him back a full meter.

  “You bitch!” he gasped out, looking at Michi with unveiled hate. He swayed as Michi just took in the sight, all hesitation about their mission now gone.

  She should have attacked again and closed the deal instead of admiring her handiwork. He stepped back and reached for his Jamison, pulling it out. Michi tried to close the distance, hoping to connect before the woozy jack could pull the trigger. She was afraid she would be too late.

  She just started to leap into a superman punch when the jack crumbled in a heap. Michi was so focused on him that she didn’t realize what was going on. It took her a moment to take in Tamara, all 40 kg of her, standing above the jack with a truncheon in her hand. She had a huge smile on her face.

  “That was fucking brills,” she said, looking down in awe at the weighted leather club in her hand.

  “Who’s the samurai now, sister?” Michi asked, totally taken off guard.

  Nowhere in their admittedly spotty plan had Tamara been involved in the fighting. She was supposed to set it up and Michi was supposed to close the deal. And where had that nasty truncheon come from?

  “Where did you have that thing?” Michi asked.

  “My bammers leave nothing to the imagination, but the cozy’s pretty loose. And like I told you, no one gets past the glitter.”

  “I gotta give you cred,” Michi told her. “I think you saved my ass.”

  “I think I did, too! You may be the Samurai Highlander, but I can sure be your robin,” she said. “Every hero’s gotta have her robin.”

  “OK, you’ve got the job.” M
ichi said as she nudged the jack with her foot.

  He was breathing smoothly, to Michi’s relief.

  Some freedom fighter I am, she thought. Happy when a target lives.

  She bent over and took the Jamison out of its holster. She looked it over for a moment before sliding it inside her cozy.

  “Uh, as my second robin duty, you do know that you can’t fire that. It’s keyed to that guy’s bios.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “And if you power it up, they can track it to you.”

  “What, you think I’m stupid?” Michi said as her heart fluttered.

  Actually, she hadn’t known either of those two pertinent facts. She had even thought about trying the first Jamison out after she had gotten it home. If what Tamara was saying was true, and Michi was sure it was, she would have had a platoon of jacks descending on her house, ready to take both her family and her into custody. First Family or not, murder was a capital offense.

  “So why do you want it?” Tamara asked.

  Michi knew she should have put it back, but she was not going to back down. It was the MacCailín stubborn streak.

  “Just as a souvenir, nothing more.”

  “OK, it’s your call,” Tamara said.

  Michi instantly felt bad. “Her call” would bring the weapon into Tamara’s condo.

  “I’ve got a place I’ll ditch it for safekeeping. But I want to send a message that this wasn’t some random mugging. Shall we get out of here?”

  “Yeah, that’s probably a pretty good idea,” Tamara said before walking over to look at the unconscious man.

  Michi thought she might kick the man, but instead, she leaned over and kissed him right on the lips.

  “It’s only fair,” Tamara said with a shrug before the two left the alley.

  They made their way back to the statue before silently splitting up. Michi sat down on the statue’s base, just a citizen taking in the sights. Tamara was supposed to leave first, but after surreptitiously ditching the pink cozy, Michi watched her approach two young salarymen. Within a minute, she had her arm hooked around one of them as they started off. She looked back at Michi and gave her a wink before getting into a deep conservation with her new companion.

  Michi didn’t know how far Tamara was going to take it. She did like her fun, and she had been pretty hyped after hitting the jack, Michi knew. She also realized that a man and a woman leaving the Gut together would be less conspicuous than two single women leaving. Was Tamara merely using the guy as camouflage, or was he going to be her release of pent-up energy?

  Michi watched Tamara go into a bar with the man, waited another 15 minutes, and then got up and slowly made her way out of the Gut. She was still pretty jazzed, and as she walked home, she was already planning her next strike.

  Chapter 11

  “Saint Chuck’s ass,” Tamara said as they watched the news feed. “Is that because of us?”

  The feed showed riot-geared jacks rounding up people in the Gut. As indentureds didn’t have the credits to play there, other than a few moonlighting on the service side of the equation, most of the people getting rounded up were free citizens.

  “Do you know who I am?” screamed one florid-faced middle-aged man in the background behind the reporter. “I’ll have your job,” he said before being dragged off in zipties, anything else he had to say lost to the feed.

  Their jumping of the jack the night before had gone unreported on any news feed, but this was a new development. Jacks tended to keep their hands off free citizens. They had full enforcement rights over anyone on the planet, theoretically even to the company execs, but this type of round-up just wasn’t done.

  “It has to be,” Michi answered. “They’re telling us, you and me, I guess, that they are going to play rough.”

  “I don’t think people are going to stand for it. Don’t they need probable cause to arrest people like that?”

  “I think so. I’d have to take a look at the charter, though,” Michi said. As a First Family, Michi had never much considered how the law was upheld on Kakurega.

  “So maybe we need to lay low? No more missions for awhile?” Tamara asked.

  “Lay low? How about lay off. We hit them, but I think we’re done. Let’s take this as a victory and leave it at that, OK?” Michi said as she watched the jacks haul off person after person.

  “Quit? Completely? Some Highland Samurai you are?” Tamara grumbled, but without conviction.

  Jumping a jack had seemed to be an adventure, a way to strike back. But they should have known the security forces wouldn’t just meekly stand by while their own were targeted. One could have been a freak occurrence. Two, and two where Jamison’s were taken, were a pattern, one that the jacks had to address. They had to know that they were arresting people who had nothing to do with the attack on the jack. Oh, maybe they thought they could get lucky and find the culprit during interrogation, but this was a message, pure and simple.

  You don’t mess with Propitious Interstellar’s security forces.

  Chapter 12

  Michi’s feet hurt as she made her way down Hallison Street. She had spent two hours at the studio, the first time she’d danced since Franz was killed, and her feet had paid the price for her absence. It was a good hurt, though, a familiar one. And familiarity was what she sought.

  She’d had enough of hanging out at Tamara’s condo and wanted to get a taste of her old life. She’d stopped by her family’s house first, ostensibly to pick up some personal belongings, but in reality, it was just to see the place. Her parents weren’t home, but as she sat in the kitchen munching on some of Talla’s raspberry-mint tarts, the family maid let her know that her parents talked about her, and that they would welcome her back.

  She was tempted to just stay until her parents came home. She wanted to turn back the clock, to go back three weeks when she had a fiancé, a life she loved, and no worries. But Franz was gone, and nothing was going to bring him back. She chatted with Talla, eating a few more tarts than she should have just to prolong the visit. Finally, though, she left and went to the studio.

  A few of the others welcomed her back, and Melinda expressed her condolences on Franz’ death, but most of the dancers there left her alone. Most probably just didn’t know what to say, she knew, but still, Michi felt ignored. Michi lost herself in her positions, dancing until her feet cried for relief. She stopped and sat up against one of the mirrors, listening to the thuds and squeaks of the feet of the other dancers on the studio floor, smelling the familiar odor of human exertion. The smell, more than anything else, resonated with her, reminding her of the life she wanted back.

  She tended to her feet, put her cozy over her dance clothes, and left the studio to make her way back to Tamara’s. She wished she still had her Sullivan. A cold wind was picking up, and it would be a 45-minute walk on aching feet until she got there.

  She tightened up the cozy hood around her face and neck, put her head down, and walked into the wind, lost in her thoughts. It would be so much easier to just go home and apologize. Unfortunately, she had a stubborn streak that wouldn’t let her forgive and forget that easily. She had lost her love, and her family didn’t seem to care.

  With her hood up and her mind wandering, she didn’t notice the growing crowd noise until she came around the corner and into Prosperity Square. Surprised, she stopped to see what was happening. There had been several protests about the wholesale arrests over the last few days, but this had a much more organized feel to it. There had to be 400 people in the square, all protesting Propitious Interstellar. Quite a few people had placards decrying security force heavy-handedness, and more than a few held aloft placards with Franz’ photo on it and the date of his death.

  That hit Michi hard. She felt his loss every day, but she had never come out in public forcing people to remember him. Yet here, at least 20 people were carrying his image, not letting the jacks forget what had happened.

  “Excuse me,” she said, appro
aching an elderly man who was carrying Franz’ photo. “Where did you get that?”

  “Up there,” he responded pointing to the right of the crowd and down 8th Street, one of the streets that radiated out from the square. “It was a shame about the young man, so I chose this one.”

  Michi looked to where he was pointing, but she couldn’t see anything. She thanked the man, and then walked in that direction, leaving the square itself before spotting a van, the back doors open. She shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was Cheri at the van, handing out ready-made placards. Michi made her way through the crowd and approached Cheri.

  “Can I have one of those?” she asked.

  “Sure, which one?” Cheri asked before looking up and seeing who was asking. “Michi! It’s good to see you again. How are you holding up?”

  Michi neglected to mention that they hadn’t seen each other at Cheri’s request, not hers.

  “I’m fine,” she said instead. “I’m surprised to see this going on, and I’m even more surprised to see Franz’ face being carried by so many people. You could have told me.”

  “Oh, Michi, dear. We didn’t want to bother you. Franz’ loss was shocking, and it hit so many of us. And now, with the jacks abrogating the charter and arresting people without probable cause, well, more and more people are getting involved. We need to show Propitious Interstellar that they can’t run roughshod over us.”

  “No, it’s OK. I just wish I’d known,” Michi said. “Well, can I have one of those?”

  “Oh, of course, dear. Let me get you one.”

  Cheri reached into the back of the van and brought one out, handing it to her. Michi stared at it for a moment before recognizing the photo. It was one she had taken herself at a picnic. Franz was smiling at her, looking younger than his years. Michi choked back any reaction as she took it, wondering where they had gotten the photo.

  “Come on back when we break up, OK? We can catch up on things,” Cheri said.

  Michi took the sign and held it up, walking back to join the crowd. She edged into the back, only then noticing the line of jacks arrayed in front of them. This looked eerily like how they were positioned before Franz was killed, and she momentarily took a step back.