FountainCorp Security

by Watson Davis

  "So, the Gorovitz Family?" I slid the mug closer, staring into my beer. "They own The Wayward Daughter?"

  "Yeah, could be one of theirs." He scratched his head. "They run all the brothels and casinos around here. Hell, you'll find Gorovitz fingerprints on most things in this colony."

  I peered into his eyes. "Any dive in particular I should check out."

  "The Fortunate Son." He shrugged, throwing his arms out, pursing his lips. "That's the nicest place they've got. You will have a better chance of getting out alive, and maybe you'll learn your lesson and take my advice."

  An alarm buzzed. My chili dog was ready.

  I said, “Maybe I should get that to go.”

  # # #

  Lights reading "Fortunate Son Casino" flashed above the yawning opening of the doors, a series of giant arrows pointing to a glass front, a broken turnstile type of door with regular doors on either side. A large man sat on a stool before one door, wearing a black suit and goggles, the black light armor suit looking more like a fashion choice than a uniform. Before the other door, a woman in a similar black suit and goggles lounged against the black wall, concentrating on the nails of her left hand.

  Something about that door.

  Something about that door made my lungs ache, my heart race, and my palms sweat.

  I sauntered past the place, shoving the last bit of the chili dog into my mouth and trying not to choke myself, tossing the wrapper into a pile of trash heaped up on top of an overflowing trash bin. I leaned against an almost clean section of wall farther down but not so far down I couldn't maintain surveillance on the Fortunate Son's door, licking the last vestiges of cheese from my fingers.

  I waited, watching, studying.

  A miner staggered up to the Fortunate Son's door, hair slicked back, baggy suit patched in places, caked with filth everywhere else. He stood before the doorman, spreading his arms out while the doorman ran his hands up and down his torso, up and down his arms and legs. The doorwoman brought her right hand up to her temple, looking back at the miner but not moving any closer to him. The doorman bent forward, looking around the miner until the woman shook her head in the negative.

  The doorman spoke to the miner, motioning for him to move on, to take his business somewhere else. The miner didn't seem to like the response, his face clouding, his movements becoming more animated as he spoke.

  The doorman and doorwoman returned to their original poses, ignoring the miner, acting like he was not worth their attention. That is, until the miner grabbed the doorman's collar, snarling, his lips pulling back from his teeth. The doorwoman responded instantly, darting forward, a tase club extending from her forearm, striking the miner from the rear.

  The man convulsed, his body stiffening, toppling.

  The doorman left his seat, seized the miner by his belt, and dragged his body aside, dumping it into a nook between buildings, throwing him in unconscious.

  People scurried over to him, people dressed in rags, people bent, crooked, shattered, twisted, their faces gaunt and gray, their skin covered with smudged grease and oil and things I didn't want to know about.

  To my right and left, the same sorts of people—men and women, old and young, huddling up for warmth and protection—had shuffled to within a hand's breadth of me, without me even realizing the threat. I stood and they cringed away from me, glaring up with suspicious eyes, eyes expecting my attack, my cruelty, expecting pain to be inflicted.

  I strode down the street, my attention on the Fortunate Son, on that door like the entry to the pits of hell, the worst kind of entry—so innocuous, so mundane, so easy to dismiss. Step after step, each one more difficult, a voice in the back of my head demanding I turn around, demanding I run, I weaved my way through the debris, the crowd, right up to the door, the overhanging sign flashing above me like it was aiming at me, about to crash down on me.

  "Hold it right there." The doorman stood, barring my path to the door.

  I did not trust myself to speak. I glared at him and spread my arms.

  He ran his hands over me, a few centimeters off the surface of my suit, stopping over my chest, his eyes hardening. The woman left her post, her boots clicking on the checkerboard-tiled pavement.

  I judged her distance, preparing to dodge her tase club.

  "Give me the gun." He held out his hand, palm up.

  For Nemesis’ sake, I forgot about the TG-37. I slid one hand in my jacket, drawing the gun out by its barrel, nice and gentle, and handed it over, not taking my attention off the reflection in the wall of the doorwoman behind me.

  He nodded.

  The door to hell opened before me.

  # # #

  “I’m sorry about this mess, Edmund.” Admiral Gentili shook her head, sitting across the desk from him. “But you’ve got two soldiers missing, and one of them is the chief suspect in a major terrorist attack against FountainCorp. I’m going to have to sit you down until we figure this out.”

  Edmund nodded, sitting on the edge of the seat, his lips pursed. “I understand.”

  “Take some time off and decompress.” Gentili leaned back and folded her hands in her lap, her face unreadable. “You’re a good leader, your team loves you and would follow you anywhere.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He looked down at the carpet, trying to breathe normally.

  “We’ll absorb your team into the others, get them filled up,” she said.

  “Thank you, ma’am. They’re all good soldiers. All of them.” Edmund stood, an emptiness inside him, not knowing what to do or where to go.

  “Yes, well”—she rose, offering her hand—“you are dismissed until further notice.”

  # # #

  I stepped forward, trying to peer into the inky darkness, to see into the casino, the hair on the back of my neck rising, telling me I didn’t want to enter.

  "We're not going to keep the door open forever, chikki," the doorman said. "Go in, or get out."

  I nodded. My insides quivering, I walked through the door, jumping when it sealed shut behind me.

  I followed the hallway down, with no other option available, following the raucous sounds, a miasma of buzzing and beeping, of laughing and screaming, of victory and defeat, of blaring music with a beat like a jackhammer. The hallway sloped down at an angle, making it awkward to walk, the carpet on the deck black and spongy.

  How do drunk and messed-up people make it out at all?

  Lurid posters leered down from the walls showing what must have been popular dancers and upcoming attractions. I pushed through the double doors at the far end, entering into a blinding explosion of light and sound. I closed my eyes, raising my arm to cover them, blinking and trying to recover my vision, to give my eyes the chance to acclimate.

  I wandered through the aisles between the slot machines, most of them empty, past a few tables of men and women playing poker, a couple of tables with blackjack dealers sitting on chairs before empty tables, all the way to the back, to the bar.

  One man sat on his stool, a round white plate piled high with nachos before him, his eyelids fluttering, his head balancing on his hand, his nose getting closer and closer to the top chips covered in cheese and guacamole. A couple of miners knocked back shots, hands moving as they spoke to each other, their voices loud and animated but not angry. A thin woman sat smoking, her glaringly red mouth pinched together and her blond hair glittering with sparkles, her skintight red dress hugging her hard angles, her thin legs sticking out of a red lace tutu. Something about her sickened me, bothering me like an itch underneath armor, but I ignored her.

  I brushed the back of my hand over the red faux-leather seat of a bar stool even though it appeared clean, just to be sure, and slid onto it, settling my forearms on the curved wooden bar, looking at the bottles stacked up against the mirrored back wall, with the lights shining down into them making the liquor inside sparkle like gemstones.

  A clear-eyed bartender slapped a square napkin and a cup of nuts in front of me; a black tatto
o snaked up his hand, under his cleanly pressed white shirt, up out of his collar, from his neck up around his ear and onto his cheek. "Whatcha drinking?"

  "Any Martian beer?" I scanned the wall for options.

  "Martian?" He rubbed his chin, glancing over his right shoulder. "Um, Monoblack—"

  My hand shot up, stopping him. "Monoblack, definitely."

  "Right up." He grinned and walked away.

  I swiveled the chair around, resting my right arm on the bar, looking back at the interior of the casino and noting the exits, the employee-only doors, a few other passageways winding away from the main floor closed off with red velvet ropes, noting the people, the security, the casino staff who acted like they were playing but who were plants, egging the customers on, making them spend more.

  The bartender ambled back, a mug in his hand, a white froth of suds on top. He placed it before me. "I put it on your tab."

  "I've got a tab? Thanks." I saluted him and took the mug in my fist, closing my eyes to enjoy the dark pleasure of the stout, an almost caramel sweetness. I hummed with bliss.

  I sat for a bit, taking my time, no rush, milking my mug, enjoying every drop of the brew while I studied the room: the tables, the games, the people. Bored young men and women worked for the casino, clean-cut, made up to appear plastic in their perfection. They carried trays with glasses of liquor, bottles of suds, and steaming tacos and nachos to the bleary-eyed customers concentrating on tossing all their money away, gambling with what little money they'd saved up, and spending money they hadn't even made yet. I waited for the bartender to return, raising a finger toward him when I caught his eye.

  "Yeah?" he asked. "What else can I get ya?"

  "I'm new here." I stretched over the bar toward him, trying to pitch my voice just for him. "I expected other kinds of entertainment to be offered here, more sensual stuff, like with strippers and massages and shit."

  "Well, there's always…" He motioned with his head, and pointed with his eyes toward the glitter-haired woman at the end of the bar, a smile on his lips.

  I shook my head, a smile spreading across my face. "Not the sort of action I'm looking for. I was thinking someone a little younger. A lot younger, actually."

  "Seriously"—he leaned in toward me, pitching his voice a fraction above the background noise—"she's in charge of that side of the business. Be nice to her and she’ll be nice to you." He stood back up, tilted his head toward the woman, and moved away to serve another customer.

  I finished off the last of the beer in my mug, took a deep breath, and approached the woman, walking around the snoozing man and sliding into the chair beside her.

  "Hi." I smiled at her, looking at her face for the first time, seeing her for the first time, recognizing her. My smile collapsed. “I know you.”

  She turned toward me, her eyes narrowed with animosity, with pent-up fury, white powdered makeup blanketing her face, hiding the network of lines, hiding the splotches of radiation damage and poor dietary choices. The corners of her lips pulled back and up in more of a sneer than a smile.

  "Can I help you?" she said in a high-pitched, sugary voice that grated against my nerves like the squeal of an air leak in your suit when you are all alone in space without a patch.

  I stood staring at her, my mouth slack, a roaring in my ears to match the roaring in my heart, to match the roaring rocketing up from the base of my spine, the muscles in my body shaking with forgotten rage. "Mercedez?"

  "Yeah?" she huffed, glaring up at me with contempt, a smirk on her lips. “Well?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out, only every muscle in my body quivered.

  She rolled her eyes in exasperation, in a pitiful martyrdom. "Do you want something?"

  Yes.

  I wanted something.

  My right arm looped around, a big, wide arc—a foolish move against most opponents, but generating a lot of power—rolling through the twist of my hips, with the mass of my body. My right palm, with all that power behind it, struck her at the base of the skull, driving through her head, moving her head forward and down, to send the side of her face straight down into the curved part of the bar.

  Her glittery blond wig flew off, flittering in the stale air-conditioned air to collide with the man dozing over his food, who screamed, his nachos flying up into the air, and launched himself back to land and scrabble crablike on the floor away from the bar, shrieking with terror.

  Mercedez bounced off the bar, her body slipping down between her chair and the bottom of the bar. I spun, striking her in her snarky little face with my elbow, her nose giving way, the impact flipping her bodily over the stool.

  I landed on top of her, heaving my full weight into her, her ribs cracking beneath me. I ground my knee into her back, right into her spine between her shoulder blades. I raised my arm back, clenching my fist, preparing to punch her in the head, to hit her over and over and over and over until my fists broke.

  The lights above me exploded, raining sparks down on my head before I could strike. I dodged, throwing myself forward, then bounced to my feet and spun to face the bartender.

  "I think it's time for you to leave." He aimed the shotgun at me.

  Mercedez lay on the floor, not moving. Four guards circled me.

  "Escort this bitch out." The bartender gestured with the barrel of the gun toward the door. "Feed her to the scavs."

  # # #

  The pinging and buzzing of the casino retreated behind me along with the two guards who stayed behind, the closing of the double doors almost silencing the noise. My nerves tingled, the skin between my shoulder blades prickling as I waited for someone to take a shot, my attention darting back and forth between the two guards at my elbows.

  I stomped up the dark hallway, leaning forward against the downward slope, the two security guards not touching me, not saying anything, just silently escorting me up the walkway.

  My best chance at a lead, and I blew it. Totally and completely lost it. Just like Azucar.

  The doors leading to the street opened, a sliver of brackish light that grew as we approached, the doorman and doorwoman waiting outside. I stepped out, the two door guards moving toward me, the woman's arm straightening with the tase club extending from her forearm. The guard on my right reached toward my arm, to secure my biceps and hold me still.

  I threw myself into him, grabbed his wrist and twisted, launching him toward the doorwoman, using him as a shield and a weapon, gaining an opening, a gap in their ranks, a moment of surprise. I darted through the breach and I sprinted down the street, ducking and dodging in between surprised civilians who tried to jump out of my way, and around the second corner.

  I raced through the alley, finding a dead end, and skidded to a stop before I spun around.

  Four security guards waited for me, lined up two by two in the narrow space between two buildings; pipes spewed clouds of gas and steam, and a fine mist fell from a leak somewhere above.

  "You must be one stupid cunt," the first guard said, the one I'd used as a shield. He pulled a knobbed glove onto his right hand and switched the power on, the glove humming.

  "There's no need for this." I inched toward the lot of them, tucking my chin down, shifting my weight to my back foot and letting my hands drift up, palms toward them. "Mercedez and me, we go way back. An old hate. You guys back off, and we can consider the matter settled," I lied, knowing this war was just getting started.

  The other guard in front rushed me, head down, arms spread wide, looking to tackle me, to take me to the ground and grapple. Leaping to meet him before he expected me, I brought my knee up and connected with his face, my palm slapping his ear. I knocked him aside, keeping my head up and my eyes on the other opponents.

  The first guard pressed in, throwing a punch. I twisted, capitalizing on the momentum of my palm strike and my forward motion to dodge inside his attempt. His electrified glove skimmed by my left shoulder, sending a painful numbness spreading down into my biceps, bu
t I continued my spin, flinging my right elbow around into his throat.

  He fell on top of his friend, who already lay on the ground, his hands clutching his shattered nose, blood streaming through his fingers. The first guard's electrified glove struck his friend in the back, and the man's body contorted, his head rising up and back out of his hands, and he screamed in agony.

  The doorman and doorwoman remained, stalking me, eyes squinting, looking for their opportunity, not wanting to duplicate their compatriots’ mistakes. I stomped down on the first guard's face, making sure he would not make things difficult later.

  "Like I said"—I shifted back into my stance, extending my right hand out, my left hanging limp at my side—”we can call our accounts even here. Score settled. Debts satisfied. Or I can kick your fucking asses."

  "Your life would have gone easier if you'd taken your beating like a good citizen." The doorman reached into a pocket in the chest of his suit, pulling out the TG-37 he’d taken from me earlier. He pulled on the cartridge eject, making sure a slug loaded into the chamber. "But no, now you're going to pay with compound interest."

  "That weapon belongs to me." I skipped forward, a quick movement that surprised him ,and he jerked the gun up, tilting his hand to the side, firing without aiming.

  I lunged inside his arm, striking up into his unarmored chin with my palm, picking his entire body up off the ground in the moderate artificial gravity; his teeth snapped together, slack fingers flinging the TG-37 to the side where it bounced off the wall.

  The woman raised her club, electrical arcs crackling up and down the shaft, bringing it down at my head like an ax. I rolled forward, diving at her and driving my shoulder into her armored midsection, doing no real damage, even as her club smacked the doorman in the shoulder, his body convulsing behind me.

  I smashed her backward into the wall, dashing her into a cluster of pipes. I bounced back, reaching out to grab her, but my left arm hung useless at my side so I pushed myself forward again, upward, wielding the crown of my skull as a weapon, slamming into her chin.