“Ragnar and I are good friends as well as business associates. We are both disappointed that you and Marjaana insist on this juvenile rivalry. It has always been our hope that the both of you would be friends. I would appreciate it if you could make an effort in that direction.”
Natalya crossed her arms. “That ship has sailed. And it would help if she wasn’t such a massive bitch.”
Walter sighed and reached down to a tablet, idly scrolling a spreadsheet. “Natalya, it is time to grow up. Like it or not you are an ambassador for my hotel chains. The tabloids are eating this story up, and they are making it into a scandal. I know that it is considered a rule these days that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but your activities reflect on my competence as a parent and as a leader.” He looked up and fixed his gaze on her. “Considering the current situation with your mother, the last thing this family needs is any more drama.”
Natalya’s mother was currently residing in an alcohol rehab center someplace in the middle of the Eurasian continent, about a thousand kilometers from anywhere that could be considered fun.
“I don’t see how insisting that the laws of this country are followed is creating more drama. It’s the people who break the law, like Marja, who make the drama.”
“Yes, let’s talk about illegal activities. I got a call from the CEO of peeper yesterday. Can you imagine why he would call me?”
Natalya shrugged innocently. “He wanted business advice?”
Walter chuckled and looked back down at his tablets. “He has made a number of unfortunate decisions…but no. He had a formal complaint from Ragnar about a strangely timed bug that manifested itself during your graduation party. He has his best engineers working on it. They fixed the bug, but there is speculation that it may have been exploited.” He looked back up at her. “You do realize it is illegal to hack into someone else’s software, don’t you?”
Although she didn’t show it, this news worried Natalya. She had the utmost faith in Metronome’s talents, and he had assured her the hack was untraceable, but even the smallest possibility that this could get back to her made her nervous.
“I’m glad you think so highly of my abilities,” Natalya said flippantly, “but hacking is hardly one of my things.”
Walter made a dismissive wave in the air. “I’m not going to dance around this. You will drop all charges against Marja, period. At some point in the future, after both of you have cooled down, we will have a public social event with both of you present. And you will be civil. I’m not going to spell out the consequences if you refuse—all I’ll say is that you will have a hard time staying at the cutting edge of fashion if you are doing all of your shopping in thrift stores. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work.”
Natalya did not move. She watched her father ignore her as he went back to his spreadsheets and graphs. Her impulse was to stay there until she got her way, until she found some angle to bend her father to her will. But she saw no angle, she had nothing.
I have nothing now, but I will when I have 3CV. Oh yes, I will be a force unto myself.
“Of course Daddy,” Natalya said sweetly. “Of course I’ll drop all of the charges. We need to have compassion, even for someone like Marjaana Kekkonen. Compassion, after all, is one of the Three Core Virtues.”
Walter looked up quizzically at his daughter as she turned around and walked out of the office.
Chapter 17
Angel “Two-Guns” Martinez sat at the table of an outdoor café across the street from the stucco façade of Escandaloso, a swanky restaurant on Slat 3. She was sipping a cappuccino, seeming to be staring into space in her blackened wrap-around smart glasses. She looked like a typical well-heeled professional in a black sports coat and a florescent green fedora that covered most of her short black hair. She was glad that fedoras were back in style, it just feels right to go on a surveillance mission wearing a fedora.
This surveillance mission was not official.
Two-Guns was a police detective, and the person she was following was her boss, Captain Bates. Following another cop required old-school police work, actually keeping someone in sight without being seen. In order to maintain law and order, even the average beat cop had the ability to access the city’s surveillance grid and face recognition software. Early on, this had caused problems within the police force as any cop with any sort of beef with any other cop could track their movements and potentially learn incriminating facts about them. As a consequence, there was now a software block against monitoring any police officer who was off-duty.
Two-Guns and Captain Bates were off-duty, and so was Officer Dorothy Willis.
Captain Bates had taken Two-Guns to Escandaloso on their first date. A Captain’s salary was good, but not that good, so she had been suitably impressed. She had also been impressed by the room he had rented at the adjacent Hotel Escandaloso.
Fraternization with a direct superior was against regulations, and they had kept their affair a secret. The forbidden nature added to the excitement, and at first Two-Guns had considered it just an exhilarating ride with no future. But lately she just couldn’t stop thinking about the Captain, as silly as she felt about it, and had even considered transferring so they could come out in the open with their relationship. She hadn’t discussed that possibility with Captain Bates yet, but she suspected that he might have guessed her intentions. She was scared of bringing it up, afraid of his possible reaction, and the possible rejection. But then she started noticing how Captain Bates was acting around Dorothy, and she started to suspect the worst.
Captain Bates had entered Escandaloso at 15:34. Dorothy had entered at 15:44. He was probably just finishing his French onion soup by now. Two-Guns guessed that Dorothy had gotten the Caesar salad.
She now knew, and as she took another sip of her cappuccino she wondered why she was still sitting there. She knew, and that should be enough, enough to know that it was over between her and Captain Bates, that it had always been just a fling, that her heart needed to become just that much more stony and hard.
But that wasn’t how she rolled.
It took all of her self-discipline not to get up, walk through the front door of Escandaloso, go over to their table and pour his Blue Moon beer onto his face.
Jesus, the prick could have had enough balls to at least tell me.
Her cappuccino was empty. Really, she had no more excuses to stay. Time to shit or get off the pot. She decided she would pay the bill, stand, and let her feet choose what would happen next. Would they walk to the slat elevator? Or would they walk toward the restaurant? She honestly didn’t know. She tapped on the table to bring up the bill.
That’s when she heard the automatic gunfire. The first burst lasted about three seconds, followed by a second quick one.
She looked at the waiter who was standing between tables holding a tray of coffee mugs. “Get down!” she yelled at him as she ducked under the table. “’Puter, give me an overhead map now!”
An overhead view of Slat 3 appeared in front of her. With her hands she zoomed in to her position then slid the map north to around where she heard the gunshots. She heard two more quick bursts of fire and simultaneously saw the muzzle flashes on the map that was generated from real-time surveillance footage. She tapped on the shooter’s image and said “Enemy, combat HUD.” The map became a smaller image in the upper edge of her vision, showing her position at the center in blue with the shooter in red.
She reached behind her back, beneath her sports coat, and pulled out her Pappy’s Kobra 1911 pistol.
The screams had started. Two-Guns rolled out from under the table, bounced to her feet, and ran toward them. There was a burst of fire and one scream got cut off. The shooter was walking out onto the street, into the open. Two-Guns kept close to the store fronts as she ran towards him, which slowed her down as she had to avoid tables and decorative bushes. The shooter’s assault rifle had considerably more range than her 1911. He was eighty meters away. Her HUD kep
t a tally of identified casualties. Five, now six.
A camera sight was affixed onto the muzzle of her pistol. It kept in communication with her smart glasses, providing cross-hairs where she aimed. When she got to sixty meters she stopped, aimed, and fired two quick shots.
She could see that he was wearing a bulky white HAZMAT suit with a hood and clear visor over his face. She was afraid of what he was wearing underneath that HAZMAT suit. Both shots hit and he staggered away from her, but retained his footing. He spun to her direction and fired. It was a wild shot, impulsive with no fixed target. She dived behind a pretzel cart. She hoped he hadn’t seen her—his rifle could tear the cart to ribbons. He obviously had body armor, there was no way she could get through it with her .45s. She had to hope that reinforcements would be coming soon.
From her HUD she saw he was now walking down the middle of the street in her direction. She touched the red figure on her HUD and said “Visual.” A small screen appeared next to the map showing a close-up side-view of the shooter. He was putting the assault rifle stock to his shoulder and taking aim. He had figured out her location. She bunched up her body at the end of the pretzel cart closest to the store fronts. He fired.
As metal shards flew out of the side of the cart she leaped up and ran toward the closest building, a small gift shop. She could hear the bullets striking the cobblestone behind her as she ran to the glass door that slid open automatically. She dived in. The glass behind her shattered as she rolled onto the floor. The girl hiding behind the counter screamed.
Two-Guns stood and said “Police! Stay down!”
A male voice spoke through the speakers in her glasses, “Detective Martinez, what’s your status?”
“Active shooter, coming my way. AR-20 assault rifle, full auto. Body armor. I have a 1911. No effect. What’s your ETA?”
“Helix security arriving now. SWAT in two minutes.”
Two-Guns saw two blue dots on her map moving in behind the shooter.
“Fuck!” she shouted. “Tell security to fall back! What the fuck!”
On her HUD she saw the shooter turn around. She ran through the shattered door, pointing her pistol in front of her. “Get cover! Get cover!” she yelled.
The Helix security guards were rushing down the road on their Segways. The shooter fired a burst at one and then the other. Two-Guns ran out onto the road, into the open, firing at the shooter as she ran toward him. He staggered away from her and spun around. She fell to the road flat and aimed for the face. Forty meters. She fired.
His head jerked back and he fired into the air. He shook his head and pointed in Two-Gun’s general direction and fired. She could hear, no feel, the bullets whizzing above her. He then reached up to his HAZMAT hood and pulled it off. A military grade combat helmet was underneath, a black visor covering his entire face. He stopped firing and kept shaking his head.
He then lifted the visor.
Two-Guns fired a single shot.
The shooter fell flat on his back. He twitched once and then became still.
Chapter 18
Two-Guns entered the police station to applause. She walked between the aisles of desks, everyone standing as she went past, clapping their hands. Some people were chanting “Two-Guns! Two-Guns!” She felt embarrassed, she felt unworthy, she thought about the two Helix security officers dead on the ground.
There was a total of six dead, four wounded.
She played through the firefight in her mind again and again. She should have gone for a head shot right away. She should have assumed he was wearing body armor under the HAZMAT suit. Her shot that hit the visor had cracked it and distorted the shooter’s HUD, obscuring his vision. That’s why he had lifted it. One of the CSI guys said that a standard 9mm round would probably have been deflected off the visor without damaging it.
You gotta love the good old .45.
Captain Bates was in his mid-forties, but he looked ten years younger, keeping himself trim and fit, as Two-Guns was well aware. He had great hair—he kept it about as long as he could get away with in his job and it bounced and waved as he walked—just a few streaks of grey in the brown to confer the right amount of paternal authority. Two-Guns watched the hair as it approached her, its owner smiling with hand extended.
“Great work Detective,” the Captain said as he vigorously pumped her hand. “Great work, very impressive.”
Two-Guns forced a smile and said “Thank you sir.”
After several more minutes of back-patting and congratulations the Captain took her aside and led her down a hallway to the Blank Room. The metal door to the room slid open and scanners remotely searched their bodies for recording devices. As they found them they sent out commands to shut down any recording activity. All legal recording devices could be forced off remotely when entering government sanctioned Blank Zones. If anyone had an illegal recording device and it was detected, an alarm would go off and the authorities notified.
The Blank Room was used when people wanted to speak in absolute confidence, like skittish police informants or lawyers conferring with their clients. It was furnished only with a table and four chairs. Two-Guns sat down, Captain Bates sat across from her.
“Don’t you think people will think it’s fishy that you brought me here?” she asked.
“No, nothing fishy about me giving you some confidential advice before you’re debriefed.” The Captain’s avuncular expression was gone, he now looked dead serious. “So, you’re about to become very popular—the media is going to be hounding you for the next few weeks. There are going to be requests for interviews and you are going to be asked again and again about what happened up there…and they are going to dig for every detail, every thought, every emotion you had. It’s going to be exhausting. I just want to make sure that you’re prepared for all this. All of our resources are at your disposal; media consultants, psychiatrists, everything you’ll need.”
“I appreciate that Captain.” She always called him Captain, even in private, even during sex. Even the most commanding title could become an intimate pet-name with the right breathy inflection.
“And you know I’m here for you.” He reached across the table to grab her hand, but she pulled it away.
If he had suspected before what she had been doing on Slat 3 today, he knew now.
His face became noticeably paler. “Angel…I…I’m sorry. We always knew it was just a good time, right? Just having fun. I mean it was great, it was a great, great time. It’s…” he was at a loss for words.
“Is it because I have a penis?” she asked bluntly.
“Oh no, no! Not at all. I love the penis. It’s really opened up all new experiences for me. Really, the penis is great.”
“Dorothy doesn’t have a penis.”
The Captain drummed his fingers on the table. “No, no she doesn’t.” He stood up, turned away from her, ran his fingers through his remarkable hair, and then turned back around. “It was getting too intense. I could tell you were starting to feel something more and I…I was feeling something more. I was starting to care about you more than I should have. It scared me. And Dorothy was just…just…I was scared of us, of caring too much.”
She wanted to believe him. She really did. If he did have these feelings then she could transfer, and they could become a legit couple. Move in together. Get a dog, go to public functions.
But there was one thing that she couldn’t forget. One thing that she couldn’t forgive.
“You stayed in the restaurant,” she said coldly. “There was an active shooter a few hundred meters from you—you, a police officer, a police captain, and you stayed away from the scene. You and Dorothy both. Even after it was over, you stayed away from the scene. You were there, you could have helped. I know you were armed, you always carry. Together we could have stopped him before the Helix security arrived and…and…”
His hand was now rubbing his mouth and chin. “Listen, I wasn’t there, okay? I wasn’t there. You know what this could do to m
e. I wasn’t there, Dorothy wasn’t there.”
“Someone is going to ask me what I was doing on Slat 3. Why I just happened to be there. It’s not my usual hang-out. ‘Hey Two-Guns, by the way, what were you doing at the Helix? Kind of rich for a detective’s salary. What twist of fate put you on Slat 3 to stop the shooter?’ And Captain, if they do, I’m not going to lie.”
“You can’t…you…you’ll ruin me. You know that, don’t you? You’ll ruin my life. I wasn’t there, is that so hard?”
Two-Guns fixed her eyes on his as she stood. “I can’t even believe I thought I was falling in love with you,” she said and walked out of the room.
Chapter 19
Conrad was waiting for Sergei on Slat 4 of the Helix in front of a men’s clothing store called Stone. He was leaning against a large irregular block of granite that must have weighed several tons. All Stone outlets had a similar block of granite in front of them, it was their trademark. Sergei had texted him and said that Natalya, in her continued effort to make up for her past bad behavior, had wanted to provide Conrad with some new clothes. Conrad was insulted—he texted back that he was busy that day, although that was a lie. Roz had no work for him and he had just planned to play Blood-Raker. Conrad hated to lie, but if he had been honest and said I don’t need your fucking handout, rich boy, it probably wouldn’t have gone over well. And he was surprised that anyone was allowed on the Helix considering that there was a freaking shooting here yesterday.
Sergei then had texted that Natalya was hoping that she, Terri and Conrad could hang out more this summer, and while it might reflect the shallowness of the world, the places where she hung out at did require a certain standard of dress. Besides, she thought he would look hot in some of the latest fashions.
When it all came down to it, Conrad simply wanted to spend more time with Terri.
So now he leaned against an oddly out-of-place block of granite, waiting for Sergei. He was wearing his usual attire of a t-shirt, jeans, sneakers and his cheap smart glasses. He hadn’t checked to see if there was a dress code for going shopping to conform to the current dress code, but he wouldn’t be surprised. While he didn’t quite like Sergei, he couldn’t help seeing him as a human being, despite being the product of obscenely out-of-whack privilege.
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