by Michael Todd
One of the guys looked at Paula. “Hey, let’s have Holly do another drinking contest. She goes until she gets one wrong. When she does, she has to give it to someone at the bar. Paula makes the drinks.”
Paula looked at Holly. “What do you say? You up for it?”
Holly shrugged and turned to the guys. “All right, but if I win, every one of you has to tip us twenty bucks. If anyone stumps me, they keep the money.”
The people at the bar glanced at each other and each pulled out a twenty, setting it in front of her. “Fine, but we pick the drinks, tell Paula, and she makes them. Otherwise, you bitches will cheat up a storm.”
Paula threw her head back. “Ha! They got our fucking number, Holly.”
Holly gave the guys a thumbs-up and Paula made her way over to them, taking the first two drinks and jotting them down on her hand. They started out simple, giving her drinks like martinis, margaritas, and anything else they had heard of somewhere along the way in a bar. After about ten easy ones, they got out their phones, researching drinks to try to stump her any way they could.
Holly thought it was funny. They didn’t care if they lost their twenty bucks; most of them planned on tipping that much anyway. They wanted to be the one who got that smart Holly to mess up. They also found it incredibly hot to watch this young tanned girl behind the bar, taking shots and spouting off shit half of them didn’t even understand.
Number nineteen was harder than the others, but she got all of the ingredients. “And grenadine beneath the blue curacao.”
Everyone groaned. One of the guys put up his hand, handing Paula a ripped piece of paper with the ingredients on it. She lifted an eyebrow and shrugged, hiding from Holly as she mixed the drink. When she was done, she slid it over to her. Holly put one hand down on the counter and took a deep breath, starting to feel the effects of nineteen sips, gulps, and sniffs of liquor.
She put it to her lips and wrinkled her forehead. She went through the obvious flavors, the liquor, the fillers, and the bubbly Sprite on top. The guy shook his head. “One more ingredient you’re missing.”
Holly tasted it again, smacking her lips together. She opened one eye and looked at the people staring at her with anticipation. “Orange juice?”
The guy let out a loud buzzer sound from his throat. “It was grapefruit!”
The whole bar cheered and booed at the same time. Holly laughed and passed the drink over to the guy. “Well, I can’t be a winner every time, right?”
Paula smirked as she slid the stack of money toward him. He laughed and pushed it back to her. “Thank you. It has been a pleasure doing business with you.”
Everyone sat back down as Holly picked up a cheese stick and munched, looking at the handful of cash Paula had. “Holy crap, they would have kept going all day.”
Chapter Five
Holly walked through the bottom door outside of the shop and closed and locked it behind her. It was really late, so late that barely anyone was on the street anymore. Either they were home sleeping, in the Zoo camping, or at FUBAR, too drunk to realize it was time to go the fuck home. She looked up the stairs and let out a loud groan as she pulled her legs one at a time up the creaking steps. She put her key in the top door and kicked it open, dragging herself through and hitting the light switch.
She looked around and let out a deep breath, glad that she was finally home. She hadn’t worked like that since college. Not to mention she’d been half drunk all night, continuing to take shots with Paula so the buzz wouldn’t wear off and send her crashing to sleep behind the bar. She locked her front door and tossed the keys to the side, staring at the bed and then at the shower. Holly lifted the front of her shirt to her nose and grimaced, smelling the remnants of alcohol on her collar. Her hair was stringy and hardened from splashed juices, and her boots stuck to the floor as she walked.
She sighed as she peeled off her shirt and tossed it on the floor before going into the bathroom. The water was hot, and the pressure was good since Amanda wasn’t working below. She let the steam surround her and the alcohol rush out her pores. She had a lot on her mind, but at that point in the night, it was all jumbled to the point where she couldn’t figure out what was most important to focus on.
Holly finished up in the shower, taking her time to smell the sweet floral fragrances that came from her body wash and then lotion once she had stepped out onto the cold tile floor. She pulled on a pair of pajamas and took the time to blow-dry her hair. She hated a wet head in her bed, especially with sand blowing all over the place.
When she was finished, she let out an exhausted breath and headed to bed, falling face-first into the fluffy comforter. She groaned as she pulled the covers up over her and snuggled in, wrapping her arms around the extra pillow. It didn’t take long for her to pass out; the combination of alcohol and exhaustion had done her in. She slept hard, not dreaming as she usually did. Her mind had a habit of taking the things it remembered from the stories and reenacting them in her sleep. This night though, it was just hard slumber.
Several hours later she rolled over in the bed, reaching across and turning the clock toward her. She groaned, seeing that it was four in the morning. She lay there face-down in the pillow, wondering what could have possibly roused her from such a deep sleep. She knew she’d been out hard; the crust of drool on her cheek was prime evidence.
Just as she was about to curl up and fall back to sleep, she heard the squeaking of the desk chair across the room. She kept her head in place but her eyes opened wide, staring into the darkness. The chair squeaked again and Holly slowly turned over, looking at the dark silhouette of someone sitting in front of the window at her desk. She gasped and jumped from the bed, running across the room and flipping on the light switch.
As soon as she did, Billie swiveled around in the chair and gave her a huge smile. Holly grabbed her chest and stomped her bare feet on the ground. “God, don’t you knock?”
Billie chuckled, looking at the ceiling. “Door was open, so I figured you wanted me to come in.”
Holly stared at the door, the lock firmly in place. She put her finger to her mouth, replaying her steps when she came in. She swore she had locked the door, but then again, she’d only been half-alive at that point. She could have turned the knob on the dresser and thought it was the lock on the door. At that point, she wasn’t sure if Hickok was lying. Holly made a mental note to do better at locking it from then on. She didn’t know what kind of freaks could follow her back to her place.
After a minute of contemplation, Holly finally gave up, walking over and grabbing her robe off the back of the bathroom door. She slipped it on and then climbed onto the end of the bed, leaning her head against the poster at the end. She yawned loudly, suddenly remembering how exhausted she was.
Billie smirked. “You were sleeping really hard. There were a few moments of mumbles, but the rest was just snoring.”
Holly narrowed her eyes. “How long have you been here? And I don’t snore!”
Billie shrugged. “Whatever you say, princess. I’ve been here a little while. I got done with my research and figured you needed to know the details. I scoped out FUBAR, but you were already gone, and it was too quiet for me to sneak in and out without being seen.”
Holly rolled her eyes. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
Billie picked at a thread on her jacket sleeve. “Ghosts don’t get tired.”
Holly wiped her eyes. “Mmhmm. So, you have me awake and ready to go now...kind of. What did you find out about Salinger?”
Billie spun back and forth in the chair. “Well, I found out that Salinger does know that there are healing properties in the petals of the Pita plants. Apparently, when he was out with his team before Heavy Metal, he was able to make a serum of sorts from goop and saline, although he admitted it probably wasn’t as effective as it might be with only those two ingredients.”
Holly put out her hands. “That’s great. We just need some Pita petals and we will be all set. It shou
ldn’t take more than a few hours to make something like that.”
Billie shook her head. “Hold on now, I’m not done. He told me that in order to really cure something, to really give it what it needs, you have to take the goop from the whole plant. There isn’t enough goop in the petals of a few flowers to make a true healing solution for anything other than maybe a scrape.”
Holly slumped. “But that’s impossible. The only way you get a whole plant is by paying big money and having it airlifted out. I mean, even then you have a twenty-five percent chance of actually making it. I have money, but not that kind of money. How in the world did he get one out?”
Billie shrugged again, raising her eyebrows. “He probably took it and brought it out. I’ve heard rumors that he brought out a very young plant, one too young to produce the pheromone, then nursed it and grew it until he could extract from it.”
Holly slapped the bed. “We don’t have that kind of time. I mean, by the time the thing got big enough, even if we could keep it a secret that long, JB would be either an alien or dead.”
Billie reached in her jacket and pulled out a flask, taking a sip. “You know, you should really learn to calm those tits. You get so riled. It’s a problem, yes, I agree. Problems are good, though, because there is almost always a solution. We just have to figure out what that solution is.”
Holly looked up excitedly. “What about the beasts they call dinos? Those have goop in their necks.”
Billie shook her head. “I asked, but apparently it’s not quite the same as what comes from the Pitas. He didn’t know what would happen if we used that kind. Pitas have the pure stuff; the stuff we can use to heal him long-term.”
Holly bit the inside of her lip and hopped from the bed, beginning to pace. “So, what we need to even start this process is goop. According to Salinger, the goop is the key to healing, even though he isn’t really sure how it works. Not that he would know. He’s a biologist, not a biochemist. In any case, he has seen it with his own eyes.”
She paced back and forth but finally stopped, looking at Billie. “So, hold on…if he knows this, then these companies must know it too.”
Billie yawned. “What companies?”
Holly ignored her pretense of being uninterested. “The companies that have been paying money out the ass to get the goop and do research on it. They must know that the goop has the ability to heal people.”
Billie laughed. “Right, so I’ll just go over to one and knock on the door and ask them to share their findings with us. I mean, they’ll be more than happy, right?”
Holly groaned. “No. They’ll never share that with anyone. It’s probably the exact reason why my company has been hounding me to take the contract to go into the Zoo. They don’t care about flavors for their alcohol, they want the goop. Fuckers. Or maybe not... I don’t know anything at this point.”
Billie raised an eyebrow again. “There you go, being dramatic again. You are going to give yourself a stroke one of these days. I don’t know why you give two shits about these companies. Seriously, they don’t care about any of us. They didn’t collect the goop and do the research to help people. Please. Those sonsofbitches got it so they can make a payday and buy themselves more yachts and prostitutes. That’s what I never understood about some of these mercenaries.”
Holly sat back down. “They want a payday like anyone else. It’s the next gold rush.”
Billie shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. These people go above and beyond for the companies. Jump through hoops to fulfill contracts. They are loyal to the man, and the man would rather have shot them dead than actually pay out for some of those contracts. They hoped they would find someone good to get the goop but that they would only survive a couple of times. Then they wouldn’t have to adjust the rates and lose money. They could move on to the next die-hard rookie to get a few more gallons of their precious goop for them.”
Holly looked at her, surprised. “Man, for a person who is in some sort of merc business, you sure hate the man.”
Billie sighed. “I don’t hate the man, but when you’re in my line of work…”
Holly lifted an eyebrow. “Oh yeah, and what line of work is that?”
Billie ignored her question. “You meet a lot of powerful people who do terrible things with their money. Like the mercenaries, though, you usually turn the other cheek. You never know when that douche bag will be the next one paying your bills. But being loyal to them is just plain fucking stupid.”
Holly nodded, throwing up her fist. “Preach it, sister. Down with corporate America!”
Billie scoffed. “If you think it’s just America, you got another think coming. The majority of the wealth lies with families in royal bloodlines like the Saudis. They are the ones who control everything. The Chinese—they have the lockdown on the technology. They are the ones I think will crack the code of the Zoo first.”
Holly wrinkled her forehead. “The code?”
Billie looked at Holly with amusement. “Yeah, the code. The reason that the Zoo can be good for us. Not just the goop, but yes, the goop is the mainstay in the whole thing. We don’t know if this missile was an act of war or a gift. We see death as bad, so we assume it was hostile, but what if the goop is the secret to our existence? It would make sense.”
Holly cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “You sound kind of like a conspiracy theorist. You know, those tin-hat people?”
Billie chuckled. “God, if they knew what I know, the whole world would implode. Except for the damn Flat Earthers. They are just complete morons.”
Holly giggled. “So, if the information we need—the shortcut to helping JB—is with the companies, how are we going to even start to get our hands on it? I know just from being in the business I’m in there are secret departments of companies no one knows about.”
Billie smirked. “We shove the ball gag right in the metaphorical mouth of one of these bitches. We give them what they stole from the people.”
Holly pursed her lips. “You’re freaking me out with the ball-gag shit.”
Billie stood up and waved her hands around. “Don’t you get it? If they aren’t going to hand over information that will save lives, then I will take my ass to them and snatch it right out of their pockets.”
Holly immediately became wary. “Look, I want to save JB just as much as you and Paula, but I don’t know if stealing from one of these companies is smart. These people will murder for the rights to the goop. They will hunt down anyone who tries to fuck with them. We might save JB, but then the rest of us get a bullet in our heads while we’re sleeping.”
Billie waved her hands. “They’ll torture you first and then put a bullet in your head. Trust me, you’ll be wide awake for it.”
Holly opened her mouth to ask how she knew but thought better of it. She shook her head and put up her hands. “I just don’t want to go to prison or be murdered. That’s my concern.”
Billie smiled almost giddily. “If they won’t give us what we want when we ask, we will take it without asking. Trust me, I’m pretty sure I know who has the information you need, and hopefully they haven’t updated their security since the last time I was there…”
Billie’s voice trailed off, and she rubbed her chin. She was deep in thought, and Holly was slightly terrified about what was running through her mind. “Um, just how much stealing stuff have you done? And for Christ’s sake, who do you do this all for?”
Billie blinked and turned toward her. “I am a ghost for a reason. I don’t discuss what I do, what I’ve done, and who I do it for. I’ve never revealed the secret, and I never will. If you are too scared to help with this, I can find someone who won’t be.”
Holly swallowed hard and shook her head. “No. Calm down, Rambo, okay? I just was asking a question. Besides, you should always have a cautious one on the team to calm the situation.”
Billie laughed. “You’re right. My tech guy is usually that person. I guess you are his r
eplacement for the time being.”
Holly groaned. “As long as I don’t have to watch you do a weird striptease on a pole, I’m fine with that. I probably won’t be helpful until you get me the information, but hey, whatever I can do to save JB’s life…”
Billie rubbed her hands together. “Good. This shouldn’t be hard, and I should have your information in the next day or less. I just want to make sure you are ready to see it when it happens.”
Holly nodded, watching Billie gather her things and walk to the door. “Don’t tell a soul about what we talked about, not even JB. Do you understand? The future of this project will depend on it.”
Holly shook her head, holding onto the bedpost. Billie walked out, slamming the door behind her. Holly sank back down on the bed and sighed. Her eyes flashed to her door and she walked over, carefully tugging on the handle. “Locked! How the fuck does she do that?!”
Chapter Six
Hickok stood on the edge of town with her hood up and the bandana covering her face. She kept her head down, the wind blowing sand all around her. The sun wasn’t up yet, and she was right where her contact had told her to be. As she stood there in the cold desert morning, a large white cargo van came rolling through the empty streets. As it approached, the driver pumped the brakes and rolled his window down slightly.
Billie stepped forward and handed him an envelope of cash. He took it and thumbed through it before nodding toward the back of the van. She went around, the back door swinging open as she got to it. She climbed inside and grabbed the guy inside by the jacket, bringing his ear to her lips. “Tíng zài Shou-Canter gōngyè de biānyuán.”
The guy nodded and closed the back door, pushing her past several people pressed against the sides. The driver looked in his rearview window and nodded at Billie before taking off. The shuttle wasn’t one of the legal ones. It took people like her, and others escaping bad luck at the camp, over to the Chinese encampment. They weren’t too far away, and they would be released in different spots along the edge of town. There was Security at the gate, but they were easily paid off if you knew the right ones. Billie had instructed them to drop her at the far corner of the Shou-Canter Industry building. It was a joint Chinese and American company doing research on the goop.