I holstered my weapon and then dug my sat-com out of my pocket. It was time to give Naak a call.
Chapter 7
“It took you longer than I would have liked, but you came through eventually. I’ve got to give you that,” Naak said. His tone was almost magnanimous. I had never heard of him acting like anything other than a complete and utter asshole, so I was somewhat taken aback. I did not let my surprise show on my face though. I did not want to give him an excuse to become adversarial with me. A cooperative Naak would help make for an easier end to this ordeal.
Naak had come quickly after I had called. Doctor Watkins and Mister Timmy had come with him, which was inconvenient, but there was no sign of his grindle bodyguards and that was a positive development. Now, the four of us were just inside the mouth of the hive, near the grumbling generator and the dormant drone-killing cart. Doctor Watkins was obviously hostile, staring at me with unmasked contempt. Mister Timmy was impassive, as usual. He was standing a couple paces behind Watkins, his weapon-arm hanging down by his side, his head turning back and forth, scanning the surrounding area for threats. I stood several paces away from them, my eyes locked on the two blue workers, my hand up near my shoulder holster in case they decided to do away with me now that I had served my purpose.
Naak had a very different demeanor. Ok-Lem had apparently been a greater threat to him than he had originally let on. He was obviously relieved. He was almost giddy. He paced back and forth beside us, his bright red body quivering with excitement. He never strayed far from the cart. He seemed to be delighted by the dead drones and the cart was where the largest concentration of them lay. His eyes were another matter. His two big eyeballs and all of his little ones darted over every inch of the chamber, all independently of each other, as if he was trying to get a look at each and every one of the drones I had slaughtered. He had his four arms in front of his body, his two pairs of claw-like hands clutching and rubbing at each other, like he was a miser gloating over a pile of gold. I was not certain, the sagisi were such a rare and alien race that nobody was an expert on their mannerisms, but I could have sworn that he actually giggled a few times.
“So... Naak,” I said after he had been pacing for several minutes. “Would you like to take a look at the matriarch? Or should I say ex-matriarch?”
Naak made that weird sagisi giggle-noise again, a series of raspy, guttural exhales that sounded like a cross between coughing and hocking loogies. “Absolutely. Nothing would please me more,” he said.
We moved across the chamber. I took a winding path, trying to avoid stepping on too many corpses. Doctor Watkins and Mister Timmy followed close behind me, walking where I walked, like soldiers following the leader as they tried to navigate a minefield. Naak did not take a winding route. He cut straight across the chamber, stomping drone carcasses flat as he came upon them and seeming to thoroughly enjoy himself as he did so.
I put Naak out of my mind for the time being. He was happy and he would be even happier when he saw Ok-Lem’s body. Then he would subtract my payment from the debt I owed to the Nemesis Group and this job would be officially concluded. I did not need to worry about him at the moment, but I did have to worry about Doctor Watkins and her sidekick. I had come up with a plan during the time between when I had made the call to Naak and when he had arrived at the hive with his two pet blue workers in tow. Phase one of that plan involved picking a fight with Doctor Watkins, one of the most dangerous creatures on-planet.
“Hey Watkins,” I said. “Remember when we last saw each other, back in the Sheriff’s Office, when you were talking shit about how I wasn’t going to finish the job? What do you think now, asshole?”
She did not respond. I glanced back at her, a smug smirk stamped across my face, but she remained silent. She kept walking, a few paces behind me, glaring at me with her dark, angry eyes. I had suspected that she was going to be on her best behavior when Naak was around, but the rage in her eyes suggested that her best was not all that far removed from her worst. That was an encouraging sign.
“I think I understand why you were so adamant about having me finish the job,” I said. “It needed to be done and you couldn’t do it. That’s why you needed me... because even with all your ruthlessness, all your fancy science, and even with that pet cyborg fuckboy behind you... you weren’t good enough.”
“You’d better shut your fucking mouth, Jobs,” Doctor Watkins said. Her voice was low and absent of emotion, almost monotone, but the fact that she had spoken at all proved that I was getting to her. It would only take a little bit more.
I stopped in front of the gaping hole that had been the narrow passageway before my industrial explosives had done their job. I turned around to face my three companions. Naak was beside me, his numerous eyeballs still rolling every which way, giggling to himself whenever one of them happened to fall upon some previously unseen element of devastation or carnage. Doctor Watkins was two paces away, her fists clenched at her sides, her dark eyes blazing. Mister Timmy was one pace behind her, his blank silver un-face aimed at a spot somewhere above my head, his weapon-arm pointed at the floor.
I casually moved my hand a little closer to my shoulder holster. The very tips of my fingers dipped beneath the lapel of my trenchcoat.
I looked at Naak, keeping Watkins and her sidekick in my peripheral vision. “Why did you even bring her here?” I said. “She couldn’t get the job done when the hive was alive and kicking. Now that this place is a mass grave, there’s nothing to protect you from... so she’s doubly useless.”
Doctor Watkins’s face scrunched into a snarl. Mister Timmy’s head pivoted downward, pointing his silver un-face straight at me. His weapon-arm moved in a blur.
I was ready for the attack. My hand was moving the instant Mister Timmy twitched, plunging into my coat, seizing my revolver, and drawing it, all in one fluid motion. We both locked on to our respective target at the exact same instant. Mister Timmy’s weapon-arm was aimed at my head, sporting an energy-pulse attachment powerful enough to vaporize me from the waist up. The barrel of my revolver was a foot away from Doctor Watkins’s face, aimed right between her dark eyes.
“What the hell is this shit?” Naak said. “Put your guns down! You can kill each other after I see Ok-Lem’s body!”
“Fuck you, Naak! I’m done putting up with this junkie scumbag fuck!” Doctor Watkins said.
It was obvious that they hated each other. Like so many other business relationships on-planet, the Nemesis Group had banded together to accomplish shared goals, but that did absolutely nothing to overcome personal animosities. I was happy to see that theirs was alive and well. I had been counting on it.
“You’ll do as you’re told, Watkins!” Naak said. “You work for the Nemesis Group and I sit on the Board.”
“I signed with the Nemesis Group to manage security operations, not to be your personal brown-nosing yes-man,” Doctor Watkins said.
I jumped at the opportunity to throw more fuel on the fire. “Don’t you mean, yes-lady?” I said.
“I swear to fucking god, Jobs. You are one smartass comment away from being blasted in half,” Doctor Watkins said.
“I’ll blow your face out the back of your head before your little fuckboy gets the shot off,” I said.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Doctor Watkins said. “I’m willing to risk it just to obliterate that asshole mouth of yours.”
“I cocked an eye at the sagisi standing next to me. “Is this how your Nemesis Group conducts business, Naak?” I said. “I accept a contract, I hold up my end, and then you sick your blue workers on me when it’s time to pay up? You have got to be the least-professional black work organization in the entire motherfucking galaxy.”
“Last warning, Jobs! Shut the fuck up!” Doctor Watkins said.
“That’s it!” Naak said. “Watkins! Pack up your cyborg and get out. I’m finished with your insubordinate attitude.”
“I’m here to protect you,” Doctor Watkins said.
> “The hive is dead. There’s nothing to protect me from,” Naak said. “Do as you’re told and maybe I won’t talk to the rest of the Board about reviewing your contract with us.”
Doctor Watkins’s eyes darted back and forth, from me to Naak to me to Naak. Then, after several moments, she shrugged and Mister Timmy lowered his weapon-arm to his side. They turned and began to walk out of the hive.
I lowered my revolver, but I did not holster it. I kept it pointed downward, aimed at a spot on the floor three feet in front of me. Doctor Watkins and Mister Timmy went back the way we had come, taking a zigzagging path through the drone corpse minefield. They passed my cart, still buried in bodies, then they passed the generator, still grumbling away as it pumped unnecessary power into the hive. They stepped out of the mouth of the hive and disappeared into the crowd of pedestrians moving to and fro along the corridor. Only then did I return my weapon to its holster.
I led Naak across the honeycomb chamber and through the doorway, into the inner sanctum. He was quieter now, not giggling at random displays of carnage or devastation. The altercation with Doctor Watkins had put a damper on his good humor. He followed me through the maze-like interior of the inner sanctum, past snot-stalactites and around booger-pillars, until we reached the central area where I had killed Ok-Lem.
Naak’s good humor returned with a vengeance. All of his many eyeballs turned toward Ok-Lem’s corpse, panning over her sagging bluish flesh and her multitude of limbs, splayed out at odd angles, and her shattered head, leaking brain matter onto the floor. He scurried across the area and bent over the corpse, making that weird sagisi giggle-noise as he went.
“That’s right! That’s right!” Naak yelled at the body. “You fucked with me and look what happened! Nobody fucks with Naak! Nobody!”
“So... are we good?” I said.
He turned back toward me. “Oh yes... we are very good,” he said.
He raised one of his arms. The tiny back cylinder that housed the projector-component of his sat-com implant extended from his forearm. The same holographic image I had seen in his office appeared in the air above it, once again reminding me of the astronomical debt I owed to the Nemesis Group.
He lowered his head and spoke into the black cylinder. “Nemesis Group-Solomon Jobs contract zero-zero-zero-one complete. Execute payment. Red rate multiplied by three point five. Confirmation code: Naak one-one-seven-three-nine.”
The holographic numbers blurred as my fee was subtracted. The total came back into focus an instant later. The number was slightly lower, but still ridiculously astronomical. The sight of it did not exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. However, I did get a few warm and fuzzies because I had completed the job. That meant, for the moment, I was wide open to execute any other job that happened to come along.
“This contract is over. But, as you can see, you will be working for us for a very long time,” Naak said. He extended his arm toward me to emphasize his point, moving the hologram a little bit closer to my eyes. “The Nemesis Group owns you and, after seeing what you pulled off here, I must say that you are a very valuable piece of property.”
“Well... la-dee-fucking-da for you,” I said. I pulled out my revolver, leveled it at Naak’s outstretched arm, and fired. The hologram vanished as the bullet obliterated the tiny black cylinder and shattered the sat-com implant. Naak howled in agony. His forearm was broken in two. It dangled from the rest of his arm, attached only by a thin scrap of flesh. Naak cradled his wounded limb, screeching in pain, oblivious to anything else.
“He’s all yours!” I shouted.
The sound of heavy footsteps came from within the shadows of the snot-stalactites surrounding the area. Ok-Mel emerged from behind a booger-pillar.
“You couldn’t have done this without killing my mother?” she said.
“I told you... I had to finish Naak’s job before I could work on yours,” I said.
She held out a wad of money. It was damp and flecked with droplets of purple goo from whatever orifice she had pulled it out of. I took the money, pinching it between two fingers in order to minimize my contact with that mysterious sagisi body fluid, and tucked it into a pocket in my trenchcoat.
“Look on the bright side,” I said. “This way, you don’t have to build a whole new hive.”
“Get out of here, Solomon Jobs,” Ok-Mel said. “Next time I see you, maybe our interaction will be amicable, or maybe it won’t.”
I made my way out of the inner sanctum. It was easy to navigate the maze of stalactites and pillars... this was the sixth time I had traveled that route. Naak’s screams echoed all around me, morphing from screams of agony into screams of terror and then into screams of half-and-half.
I stepped out of the doorway and sealed the steel grating behind me.
Chapter 8
The cart was all fucked up. It felt like it was barely holding itself together as I drove it down the Promenade. The alignment was way out of whack. It was pulling to the right, but not at a constant rate. Sometimes it pulled a little bit and sometimes it pulled a lot, like something underneath the chassis was coming unscrewed. I could not figure out how hard I had to yank the steering wheel left in order to stay on a straight course. The cart was always either drifting right or jerking left. It seemed like the sweet spot in the middle simply did not exist. The engine was acting funny. It revved and coughed and sputtered and, no matter what unnatural noise it happened to be making, its horsepower was nothing like it had been before my little diversion. I had unbolted the rebar cage and dumped it back at the hive but, even without all that extra weight, it always felt like the engine was struggling to put out enough oomph to move the cart forward. And, as for the headlights... I had hit that switch once out of curiosity. The cart had started bucking wildly and making a sound like a little human girl being tortured with hot irons. I quickly turned those fuckers off and I never let my hand go anywhere near that switch again.
The pedestrians on the Promenade gave the cart a wider berth than they gave to most vehicles. I chocked that up to the fact that the thing was a mobile sagisi-residue repository. I had managed to clear all of the whole drone corpses off of it, even the few that had stuck to its frame like burnt meat, but there was nothing I could do about the putrid goo that coated the cart like a glaze. Many of the drones had exploded, showering the cart with blood and guts. Those innards had cooked on the electrified cart and now it was covered with a semi-translucent layer that was mostly gelatinous, a little bit runny, a little bit charred, and one-hundred-percent fucking disgusting.
The drive from the hive to the Sheriff’s Office had been an endurance test. The gelatinous coating reeked like overcooked meat that had been eaten and then puked up again. I wanted to plug up my nose but it took both hands to manipulate the steering wheel, to keep the cart from veering too far off course. My arms ached from the constant effort. Every so often, a piece of drone that I had failed to remove earlier would vibrate loose, shaking the cart as it fell off, forcing me to expend even more energy to keep the fucking thing from veering off and crashing into a wall... or a pedestrian. There was a trail of drone heads and drone legs and various drone organs leading from the mouth of the hive, down the corridor, up the Big Staircase, onto the Promenade, and down the main thoroughfare, like obscene breadcrumbs in some supremely fucked-up fairy tale. But the worst part was not the trail of drone parts or the putrid stench or even my aching body... the worst part of this ordeal was the fact that I had managed to clean some of the gelatinous goo off of the driver’s seat, but not all of it. I was sitting in a glob of liquefied bug guts. By the time I arrived on the Promenade, it had soaked through my trenchcoat and was beginning to permeate the seat of my coveralls. I could feel my butt beginning to get damp.
I wanted this ordeal to be over. I wanted to go back to my office and blast enough synthetic opioids into my system to obliterate every last thought in my head. But, before I could do that, I had to return the cart to Anton. Mercifully, I could see t
he door of his office a couple hundred yards up ahead.
I drove into the Sheriff’s Office, parking the cart just inside the doorway that led back out onto the Promenade. I climbed out of the driver’s seat, took a minute to pull my gooey clothing away from my dampened ass, and then walked deeper into the office. I stopped a few paces from the open set of blast doors that marked the midpoint of the outer office.
“Anton!” I called. “I’ve got your cart!”
“Stop yelling, asshat,” Anton said. He walked into view. He must have been at his desk, in a little alcove on the protected-side of the blast doors.
“That was fast,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you for at least—” His eyes fell on the cart and the words died on his lips. He stood, frozen, in the space between the open set of blast doors, staring at the ruined mess I had made of his vehicle.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the wad of money Ok-Mel had given me. It was still clammy and purple from her mysterious body fluids. I split the pile in two, tucked one half back into my pocket and held the other half out to Anton.
“Thanks for the loaner,” I said. “This should cover repairs... and cleaning.”
Anton took the money. He grimaced slightly when his fingers closed on the soggy cash, but then his expression quickly reverted back to stunned and staring.
“Okay. Good talk. See you later,” I said. I turned and began to walk out of the office.
I was about to step through the outer doors when Anton broke his silence.
“You know... I really fucking hate you sometimes,” he said.
I turned back to look at him. “I know,” I said. “I also know that you’ll get over it.”
He nodded. “Yes, I will. But this one is going to take a while.”
I nodded back. “Give me a call when a while has passed,” I said, then I turned and stepped out onto the Promenade.
Odd Jobs 2: Solomon's Code Page 8