“Happy to hear that. How about you show me yours, I’ll show you mine?” she said.
“Seems like as good a place as any. Oh yeah, also I forgot to mention to you. There’s a message I’m supposed to pass on to you,” he said.
“Oh? From Xed?” she said.
Alamo walked forward a few steps and leaned in. “Gal named Calavera. Says you’ve gotta meet her ASAP in El Paso. If I were you, I wouldn’t let on to your friend Xed about that little bit of information, if you know what I mean,” he said.
“Oh shit,” Neptune said.
Milo walked forward to stand next to Xero. “You wouldn’t happen to know if she’s with another associate of ours, would you?” Milo said.
Alamo shook his head. “That I don’t know anything about. All I got was that one message, but given the current climate, what with everything going on in Yuma, I would keep all this under your hat. Ya’ll got a crew member missing?” he said.
“Yeah. Missing or dead,’ Milo said.
“Sorry to hear that,” Alamo said. “Best of luck to you. If ya’ll need anymore help, you let me know. Any friend of Sanchez is a friend of mine. Now once our business here is done, I can give you a good Tex Mex Meal and set you up in a nice hotel, but I have this feeling you might want to be carrying on right through to El Paso,” he said.
Xero looked at her weary companions. Radar was spotlighted by a beam of light coming down from one of the high windows of the old chapel. His creased face was weary but steadfast. Ready. She inhaled deeply, smelling the old clay and lingering smell of decades of tourists traipsing through the room.
“I would love to take you up on that offer of a hot meal, but you’re right. We need to move on to El Paso. Just out of curiosity, how did you clear this place out?” she said.
“Ah, well this is a government holiday, so it was shut down anyway. But this is my territory, as you may have guessed, so it’s real easy for me to put on lockdown. Plus, it’s sad to say, but ever since regular tourism travel between the domes has stopped, not many people come through here anyway. It’s better for ol’ Bessie here at least—less foot traffic keeps ‘er from falling apart,” he said.
“Good to know,” she said and exhaled. “Let’s get ‘er done then.”
CHAPTER 28
Lucky for them, El Paso was just in the pits, no dome bullshit to deal with, and similarly there was no need to deal with Xed to gain access. Given what they were finding out about Xed, it was looking like they were all thinking what no one wanted to say: maybe somehow Calavera knew what had happened to Argon.
It was a long slog through some harrowing country, but they were all energized by the new appearance of Calavera and the promise of being able to use the two reagents to synthesize viable Ketocillin. Milo wasn’t totally certain it would work without getting access to a real lab, but their ghetto tests at least indicated that the reagents they had were in fact genuine.
Originally, El Paso and Juarez had been totally separate territories like Tucson and Nogales were, but after Calavera left Juarez, the two territories had all but formally merged. Mexico and the United States were still technically two countries, but with the governments unable to actually police the borders, the only real distinctions were the ones enforced by the various cartels positioned along the border pits. She’d been on good terms with Juarez and El Paso in years past, and with their relationship with Calavera officially shorn up, there was no reason to expect anyone to cause a ruckus over their presence. In general, Xero tried to keep peaceful relations with neighboring regions whenever possible. It made for much better business.
When they pulled into the El Paso border area, things had changed. There used to be a dirty but at least orderly security checkpoint that Anita, the previous territory leader, ran well despite their impoverished resources. What they saw when they pulled up reminded Xero more of what Juarez looked like at the turn of the century—a total war zone.
Smoke was rising up in small plumes from dozens of places against the dirty skyline. Many of the grey buildings were crumbling, and though some of it looked like the wearing of time, other buildings had clearly sustained recent damage. When they approached the checkpoint, their cargo vans were swarmed with soldiers. Their grimy clothes and stricken faces told Xero that they had been in the thick of it, probably for days. If they had retained any cargo in the vans, she would have been on high alert for a supply raid, but as it was, they just needed to keep themselves safe—not something Xero was worried about now that she had a functioning team again.
“Stay in the vans. I’ll go out and talk to them first. If shit starts looking foul, you know what to do,” Xero said.
“I’ve got you covered,” Neptune said, patting a spot in her jacket where she had stowed the illegal laser.
After leaving San Antonio they had finally changed out of the nasty concert gear from days before and back into more combat-ready clothing since they weren’t planning on doing anymore dome surfing. They were all in Army drabs, cargo pants, and tactical boots. Xero actually preferred to travel in more style than that, or at least with more functional armor, but at least they were more mobile and ready for a fight this way.
Two soldiers in full gear, complete with old world gas masks approached her.
“We know who you are,” the one on the right said. “She’s not here, and if you know what’s good for you, you won’t be here either.”
“Shit,” Xero said. “Skeleton attacks?”
“What do you think?” the one on the left said.
“They’re looking for Calavera. We were given orders to funnel you guys her way if you came by, but then as you can see, things went to shit. Calavera bailed, and so should you. Get out of town. If they’re looking for her, they may be looking for you, and we don’t need anymore shit here. Leave before we need to make you,” the other said.
“Fuck. We don’t want anymore trouble either. We’ll be moving along now,” she said.
After climbing back in the vehicle, she relayed the information to the rest of the crew.
“Sorry guys. I thought this was our chance to finally get our hands on Calavera and get some answers. We don’t know where she ran to, but maybe we’ll get lucky and she decided to come on back to South Tucson. Let’s get back home, start trying to cook up the Ketocillin, and put together one big fucking bitch hunt,” she said.
CHAPTER 29
Xero was in the control room, fiddling with some of Neptune’s gadgets to make sure she wasn’t missing any transmissions from Calavera or other important parties, when she heard a loud crash.
“Fuck! Fuck this organization, fuck Xed, fuck that cunt ass Cajun bitch, and fuck this goddamn bowling alley!” she heard Milo yell from the front of the building.
The banging continued, and Xero ran out of the office. Milo’s face was redder than his hair, and tears were streaming quietly down his face as he lobbed bowling balls down the restored lanes. He was tossing them like they were shot puts and as they landed in the old wood, big craters opened up underneath the heavy balls, dotting the lanes like someone slowly poking holes in Swiss cheese by hand.
“Whoa there buddy,” Xero said. “Calm down and tell me what happened.”
Milo spun around, a neon orange bowling ball clutched in his right hand, ready to throw. Xero put her hands up in a gesture of surrender, but Milo was too emotional to notice Xero preparing to disarm him. She snatched the ball from his hand and simultaneously dodged behind him, grabbing his collar and sweeping a leg across his feet. He landed safely with his ass in one of the white bucket chairs, too stunned to say anything.
Footsteps pounded across the room as Neptune’s compact body lurched out of another office. “What the fuck is going on out here?” she said when she saw the destruction on the lanes. She was wielding a machete and jabbing at Milo and Xero.
“Everyone just calm the fuck down. Neptune, I love you, but if you ever shake a fucking machete in my face again, I will shove it right up your ass,” X
ero said, still holding the neon bowling ball.
Neptune lowered the machete but didn’t drop it. She put her free hand on her hip. “Look boss, I don’t care who’s the causing trouble. Even if it’s you having a full on freak out I gotta put a stop to it, comprende? And it looks like you got caught red handed ruining my fine craftsmanship,” she said, motioning to the destroyed lanes.
“It’s not me, obviously,” she said and pointed down to Milo who had begun sobbing openly, his head buried in his hands.
“Oh Jesus. Milo, dude, what’s wrong man?” Neptune said.
Xero put down the bowling ball and put a hand on Milo’s back. He knocked it away with quick smack that echoed down the lanes. Neptune started to raise the machete again, but Xero motioned for her to drop it again.
“Just give him a minute,” Xero said.
They waited, but Milo wouldn’t even raise his head, and the sobs were coming in waves that traveled up through his body like small earthquakes.
“Yo boss, you think we oughtta give him a sedative or something? He’s fucking lost it,” Neptune said, poking the machete in his direction for emphasis.
“Dude, stop pointing that thing at him like he’s going to go all slaughterhouse on us. It’s fucking Milo for fuck’s sake,” she said.
Neptune shrugged. “Milo might not look like much, but he’s got some fighting chops on him still. I’ve seen people go crazy in this desert and just start stabbing people for no reason. I don’t let anyone get the drop on me—not even my own mother,” she said.
Xero rolled her eyes. “Okay fine, just watch where you point that thing—seeing as how Milo’s going to have a hard time sewing himself up if you get twitchy and run him through,” she said.
Milo seemed to be oblivious to both the machete pointed in his direction and the conversation they were having about him. Xero tried to get his attention several more times, but he just sat there, his sobs growing more hysterical by the minute.
“Keep an eye on him, but don’t stab him,” Xero said and walked into one of the back bedrooms. She came back with a groggy Radar in tow.
“You really want me to do that?” he said. “What’s gotten into him?”
Xero dragged him across the floor until he was adjacent to Milo. “I don’t know, that’s what we need to find out. If it’s something really dangerous, we might need to know sooner rather than later,” she said.
Radar scratched his head dubiously. “Okay, if you say so,” he said.
Neptune cocked her head, trying to figure out what they were talking about, but the answer came before she had to think for too long. Radar put a hand on Milo’s shoulder and before he could knock it away, his body jumped, then stiffened. Radar grabbed Milo’s other shoulder and laid him across another chair so that his upper body was supported between the two seats. He wasn’t unconscious, but he was stunned enough not be able to move, and he stopped crying.
“Did you just shock him?” Neptune said and looked at Xero. “You’re worried about me stabbing him, but you tell Mr. Robot here to light him up like a Christmas tree?”
“It was just a mild shock, he’ll be fine,” Xero said.
Milo was breathing at a more regular pace and after shaking his head back and forth a few times, he tried to sit back up again. Radar tried to help him, but he shied away from his touch. “Thanks, I’ve got this,” he said in a quiet, shaky voice.
“Sorry about that,” Radar said.
Milo ignored him and just looked straight at Xero. “It’s not working. It won’t work—it can’t work. I can’t make it. I don’t have the equipment here to make it happen,” he said.
“The Ketocillin?” Xero said.
He averted his eyes before answering. “Yes. I can’t make it here. We need equipment that they would only have in one of the big fabrication labs in one of the domes that still has a manufacturing industry. The two reagents are authentic, but I can’t get the molecules to fuse without some fancy equipment that we probably never had out in our shitty academic labs,” he said.
Xero squatted down on her heels till she was eyelevel with Milo. “It’s not over yet. We can find a way. We’ll figure something out. There’s always a way,” she said.
Milo hung his head and shook it quickly, his hands shooting up to spastically clench tufts of hair. “That’s not the only problem. Her lungs are too damaged. Even if we were to get her the Ketocillin today, it would be too late. She would slowly die if we couldn’t figure out a way to repair her lungs too,” he said.
“Look Milo. One step at a time. We can’t make the decision just to let her die—not while she’s not able to make that decision for herself. We get the drugs, we kill the fungus, then we figure out what to do next. In the meantime, you can look into other options, but we don’t just give up. Got it?”
Small tears were leaking out of his eyes again, but he held it together and gave her one hard nod.
Xero returned his nod and said, “Good. Grease Weasels never give up.”
CHAPTER 30
It wasn’t something that anyone wanted to have to deal with. After the last run to Phoenix went so spectacularly badly, it was the last place any of them wanted to travel. Knowing what a pain in the ass Xed was being, none of them wanted anything to do with him either, but they had little choice. The normally tranquil Milo was on edge, and as a group they resolved to keep him out of contact with Xed during the excursion. Ever since he’d come back from their trip out east to discover Trina’s lungs had become irreparably damaged, he had been a total mess, alternately full or rage and catatonic. Xero had been hesitant to even use him in the band just in case he had a full on meltdown, but Xed had insisted that they really needed a full band in order to make the gig believable. The Phoenix dome had always been a lot more regulated than some of the smaller domes, and they had to move cautiously, even with Xed’s support.
The gig passed without incident, but the crowd could obviously feel their half-hearted efforts—no one wanted to be playing music with such dire consequences sitting over their heads. Even if they managed to synthesize the Ketocillin, if they didn’t think of some other way to repair her lungs, she would die anyway. Milo seemed to think that even a rapid healing process wouldn’t help her out due to the extent of the damage. The only thing that would really help would be a lung transplant, and that was one of the most difficult things to get ahold of. Due to the number of individuals dying from lung disease, most corpses didn’t yield viable lungs, and only the highest of political diplomats or other similarly important dome figures were ever viable to them. Xed said that even he couldn't help her out with that one, unless the right circumstances came along, and she could be long dead before something like that happened.
After making it through the concert itself, Xero sent everyone back to the hotel Xed had set up for them on the edge of town—close, but not too close to his own domicile. She gathered that it was far enough out of the center of town to be less monitored by the feds and close enough to Xed that he could keep an eye on them. Xero volunteered to go deal with Xed while the rest of them waited for someone to transport everyone to a lab facility.
Once a black car dumped her at Xed’s porch, he opened the door just before she knocked. He was wearing another button up shirt, but this time he was dressed all in black, save for a plain white tie making a long skunk stripe down his chest. His dress pants were pressed with perfect pleats, and he wore shiny black shoes.
He pushed his square glasses up his nose. “So nice of you to join me again,” he said.
“You know, it’s just right across the street from us really,” Xero said and followed him inside the house.
“I figure that you’re hungry, so I put out a nice spread for us,” he said. Over his shoulder she could see his dining room table spread out with piles of food, like it was an old world Thanksgiving.
Xero curled up her lip in an exaggerated smirk. “You think that something like throwing a little bit of food my way is going to make me forge
t the fact that you’ve been fucking with us this whole time?” she said but followed him to the table. The smell of the food was intoxicating—they hadn’t eaten all day since they had skipped the usual government checkpoint at the Casa Grande flats and instead pressed on through straight to Phoenix.
“Not to be rude, but I think you may find it easier to discuss business once you’ve eaten something and are feeling better. I have a good feeling that your friends should be leaving for the lab very shortly, and given the fact that I’ve managed to get you access to a top notch facility, I have confidence that they will be successful with synthesizing the Ketocillin. I’ll add that in my services I’ve included high-level security that should keep anyone from being discovered,” he said.
“Is that a threat? What did you bring me here to discuss?” she said.
He smiled and sat down at the head of the table in front of a whole roasted ham. He motioned for her to take a seat next to him. Lured by the food, she reluctantly complied.
He laced his fingers together on the table. “I’m sorry you’re thinking of it that way. It’s not a threat at all. If I wanted to get you apprehended, I could do that at any time, independent of the lab access. Getting your business associates thrown in jail is just bad business,” he said.
Xero looked back and forth between him and the ham. “As big of an asshole as you are, I have to respect your slimy cutthroat business practices. It cuts both ways, but I can see why you’ve been so successful,” she said. As much as she hated him for manipulating her crew, she still saw elements of herself in him, and it was narcissistically appealing.
“In our line of work, certain compromises are inevitable, right?” he said and began piling ham onto her plate. “I’m sorry about your friend, but it sounds like she was going to be in hot water even if you’d gotten the Ketocillin delivered in a more timely fashion, am I right?”
Under Dark Sky Law Page 22