Xero took a breathe and suppressed the automatic flush of rage she experienced after he mentioned Trina and the wild goose chase he sent them on to find the Ketocillin.
“It’s hard to say—all I know is that if she dies, I can’t promise to keep my crew under control,” she said.
“I certainly don’t bear any of you ill will. As a token of my appreciation for acquiescing to this latest gig, I will also try and help think of ways we might be able to get your friend a lung transplant. Even I can’t promise anything, but I will do my best,” he said.
Xero was too hungry to resist, and she started shoveling ham into her face with her fingers. Xed tried to hand her a fork, but she waved him off. He stared at her with a look of mixed horror and fascination.
“We’re real monsters down in the pits—forks are a luxury, don’t you know?” she said around a mouthful of greasy pork.
“You certainly have character,” he said.
“So what did you bring me here for?” she said. “You wanted to pretend like we’re having a nice business lunch or something?”
Xed poured himself a glass of water and took a swig. “I did in fact want to discuss our future business arrangements. Now, I know you haven’t seen any profits yet, considering the…creative way in which you handled the situations in New Orleans and San Antonio, but there is a huge profit to be gained. Enough to let you expand your territory across the whole Southwest eventually. The load of Alphamine you brought today alone will bring in several million,” he said.
“And you would like to expand your reach out to domes across the country,” she said.
“That is correct. I think you’ll be happy to know that you were very well-received as a band. With my marketing efforts and the real popularity of your music, we could have new customers in domes across the country just within a few months,” he said.
Dollar signs didn’t light up in Xero’s eyes, but she couldn’t help but be tempted by the cash and the fame, two of her favorite things. Xed was a lying, manipulative asshole, but his skill at coercion was impressive, and he had in fact gotten them access to many things they never would have been able to reach on their own.
“You hear anything else about Calavera or what’s going on with all the terrorism and rogue skeletons,” Xero said. “Conveniently, we didn’t run into any trouble on our latest travels.”
Xed shook his head slowly and took another small sip of water. His eyes were empty and expressionless, the ultimate poker face. “No. Sadly, I have failed in gathering any additional intelligence. The skeletons are eluding my capture. Calavera trained them well,” he said. “You’re sure you haven’t heard anything from her?”
Using her fingers, she fished a scoop of mashed potatoes directly from a large bowl on the table and sucked it into her mouth. “No. Nothing. And I’ll be honest—until we figure out how to save our friend and locate our other missing crew member, I really don’t give a shit,” she said.
They studied each other for a moment, both knowing that they weren’t being totally honest with each other, and coming to a silent agreement to let it go.
“Well then, I suppose that’s all there is to say on that for the moment. It’s your call now how we should proceed,” he said.
She said nothing and stared him right in the eye, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. After swallowing another wad of ham, she reached a greasy hand out and wrapped it around his tie, leaving oily streaks across the clean fabric. Using the tie, she pulled him towards her face and jammed her tongue, slippery with pork fat, deep into his mouth. He resisted for a minute, and then kissed her back, the tips of his sharp canines biting into her soft tongue flesh.
Xero kept his head captive by holding onto his tie, like he as a dog on a short leash, but he pulled back an inch, caught his breath, and said, “You’re rather dirty. Care for another bath?”
CHAPTER 31
The hotel reminded her of an old world bed and breakfast, but they were thankfully granted the kind of privacy such institutions didn’t typically afford. Other than Xed’s security task force keeping any government spooks off their trail, they were blessedly free of any disturbance. The room was styled like a rustic dude ranch—pastel desert scenes adorned the walls, and the bedposts were made from raw wood. She had to give it to Xed for his peculiar sense of style.
Neptune and Radar were leaning against a back wall while Milo sat on the bed staring at something in his hands.
“So? What’s the verdict?” Xero said.
“We did it. We have the drug,” he said and held up a large vial filled with a milky liquid. His voice was shaky and his face was filled with sadness.
Xero swallowed another swell of anger. How dare someone fuck with her crew, even if in the end that person was God. Xero didn’t actually believe in any gods or goddesses for that matter, but she did believe in convenient scapegoats.
“We were able to make extra too, just in case anyone else happens to come down with this shit again,” Neptune said.
Radar gestured to a collection of vials that were staged on the bathroom counter behind him. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but doing it this way, by using the reagents and that really fancy lab equipment Xed got us access to, we actually ended up with a little surplus of this stuff. It’s probably worth a fortune, but the value of keeping this on hand is immeasurable,” he said. “Beautiful engineering in that lab—haven’t laid my eyes on anything like that in years.”
“Xed’s not really as bad as we’ve made him out to be. In some ways he may have done us a favor—for all we know Trina may have already been headed to this point anyway, and now we have excess Ketocillin to use in another emergency,” Xero said.
Milo’s fist closed around the vial, and she could see his knuckles turn white and his veins bulge as he gripped the glass. “How dare you say that! After we get back from here we should cut off all contact with that monster. He killed Trina!” Milo said and began crying again.
Neptune came around and put one hand on his shoulder and extracted the vial with her other hand. “Hey, calm down there buddy. Trina’s not dead yet, and if you’re not careful you’re going to break that damned vial,” she said.
Milo kept crying, but she safely put the vial back on the counter with the rest of the others.
Xero frowned, hating to see her normally composed and sanguine colleague breaking apart at the seams. “It’s not over yet. As much as we don’t like him, we can’t cut off contact just yet. He’s promised to help us get a transplant for Trina if we keep working with him. Now, I know that he’s not trustworthy, and that he has fucked around with us, but in the end he has still held up his end of the bargain,” she said.
Radar squinted at her from across the room. Her green hair was still damp from her romp with Xed, and the wet strands of her overgrown Mohawk flopped down across her forehead like pieces of nuclear seaweed.
He scowled. “You goddamn cunt, you fucked him again, didn’t you?” he said and marched across the room, stopping just inches from her face. He sniffed the air. “You smell like him, you dirty slut. How could you?”
Xero stood her ground, not flinching or moving. “You know what dude, I like you, so I’m not going to kick you in the fucking nuts, but this is your only warning. You talk to me like that one more time, and I guarantee that you will regret it,” she said, her voice flat, her eyes blank like the contract killer she sometimes became.
She looked down and saw small sparks dancing at his fingertips. Xero looked back up again and met his eyes, daring him to do it.
“Radar. You touch the boss, and you’re going to be in a world of pain. Back off,” Neptune said, pulling the laser out of her pocket.
Radar stood there, his hands flashing with electricity, Xero refusing to break his stare. With a grunt of frustration Radar finally squelched the sparks, and with a loud popping sound the current stopped flowing. He trudged to the other side of the room to the corner across from where Milo was sti
ll weeping, and folded his arms.
It was going to be a fun ride back to Tucson.
CHAPTER 32
The sky was dark and clear, clearer than she’d ever seen it before. Stars she never even knew existed splattered against the black canvas of the night sky. They were up high enough that they had escaped much of the pollution that typically clouded their view of the heavens. The dark sky law active in the city below kept any light pollution from obscuring their view, and it was not surprising to Xero that Kitt Peak had once been an international astronomy research station.
It was freezing, and despite heavy layers of insulated black clothing Xero could feel the cold ripping through her legs and eating away at her toes. She clenched her teeth against the painful cold and gripped her laser tight to avoid dropping it from her numb fingers. As she gazed at the hypnotic stars, she saw a bright object moving slowly across the sky. At first she thought it was a shooting star, but after it remained hanging in the air, slowly gliding along at a leisurely pace, she realized it was a satellite. It was an even rarer find, considering there were almost no satellites left in the sky after the great harvest, and one was rarely in a place with clear enough air to see much of any astronomical phenomena.
“Pinche cabrón, stop fucking around and get inside here,” Calavera said.
“I’m coming, it’s not like you haven’t been missing in action for weeks or anything,” she said.
She followed the dim outline of the short woman across a cement patio, past an abandoned observing dome, and inside an old building. The glass doors were cracked, but still intact, and she carefully closed them behind her, thinking of the rushing winds that would follow them inside if she were to finish punching out the fragile material.
Calavera flipped on a switch and the room flooded with red light. “Red light keeps your night vision going, and it’s harder to see from a distance. I learned something up here,” she said.
The room looked like a small museum or tourist center, with what looked like the remains of a gift shop, a lecture area with chairs, and some small educational exhibits. It was hard to tell how old everything was in the dim red light, but posters were hanging by corners from the wall, the gift shop had been ransacked, and there were leaves and debris spread across the floor. It had been abandoned for some time.
“I didn’t know this place was even still up here,” she said.
“You have no idea the kind of deals I had to make to get in here—the Tohono don’t let people onto their lands for almost any reason, and even us skeletons have never wanted to bother them. They’ve been on these lands longer than anyone,” she said, and Xero respected the woman more. The Grease Weasels and everyone from their territory knew that going onto the Tohono O’odham lands southwest of Tucson were forbidden. Native American cultures had survived things over the centuries that few other groups could comprehend, and in these times of desperation, that was something to be respected.
In the red light Xero could faintly see shiny spots where someone had put clear tape over the cracks in the door, and she was glad for the extra wind protection. Just getting clear of the wind chill raised the temperature by a good ten or fifteen degrees. Calavera stripped off her rigid skeleton helmet, revealing her tattooed face underneath. Most of the recent sugar skull tattoo designs were clean and filled in with bright solid color that she could see as solid dark marks in the glow of he red light, but the older tattoos were faded and barely visible in the diminished light. She’d been at this for a long time.
She took a second to untangle her curly black hair and stowed the stiff but foldable headgear into back pocket of her jacket. “Follow me—the labs are in the back,” she said.
Xero was still wary of being attacked, but she had the laser ready to go, and relying on her good intuition about people’s behavior, she was fairly sure that Calavera was still on her side. At least she hoped that she was right—if she got jumped by a bunch of skeletons there would be no help coming for her. She’d left a note for the other Grease Weasels about needing to attend to some business after receiving the communication from Calavera. Neptune would be furious when she found out Xero had gone off on her own rogue mission, but Calavera had been insistent that only she come. The tribal leaders wouldn’t allow anymore outsiders onto their land, and asking to let Xero on had already been a stretch.
The light change was shocking. They opened up the door to a backroom that looked like it had once been a planetarium at one point in time, but had been gutted for use as an extended lab space. The elongated space ran into what had probably been a fabrication room for telescope construction, and bright halogen lights flooded the light-sealed room. The red glow of the outer visitors center stopped once the door slammed behind them.
Her retinas burned with the influx of light, and when her eyes finally adjusted she still had to blink a few times before accepting what she saw.
“You sneaky bastard!” she yelled and ran forward.
“Sorry about the secrecy,” Argon said around the muffle of Xero’s arms. They gave each other a long, sincere hug.
Argon jumped when Calavera snuck around behind him and spanked his ass hard. “Ay, Papi, stop fooling around with other women,” she said.
Xero took a step back and eyeballed Argon. “You’re shacking up with this lezzie chola? I don’t know what to be more surprised about—the fact that you’re fucking this puta, or the fact that you’ve been living in a secret mountain lab for the past month,” she said.
“Oye, watch it there,” Calavera said. “Don’t be jealous because he likes my sweet ass better than yours.”
Xero made and exaggerated eye roll. “Fine by me, I’ve got enough man troubles right now as it is,” she said.
Calavera widened her eyes. “You got a boyfriend? I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said.
Argon was actively blushing. “Look, as much as I’d love to sit here and girl talk with you both, we have some serious shit to deal with,” he said.
“Damn right. This bitch wouldn’t tell me a fucking thing about what’s going on, other than it’s something to do with Xed. Believing that slime ball Xed is up to no good is not hard to imagine, but I’m going to need some details here guys,” Xero said.
“You look half frozen. Why don’t I bring you something hot to warm up with and we’ll go over everything?” Argon said.
Xero shrugged. Her hands were still feeling like polar bear tits. “I’m never one to argue against creature comforts while the world burns down around you.”
“Yeah yeah, sit your ass down while I get you something to drink. Babe, come help me carry stuff,” he said to Calavera and Xero had to shake her head at the term of endearment. That was one relationship she never expected.
They came back with big steaming Styrofoam mugs full of cheap instant hot cocoa that very well might have been there since the center closed down. The powder clumped on the surface of the hot water, and Xero didn’t want to think about how long ago the place had been shut down, but she was grateful for its pleasing aroma and the sensation that it brought back to her fingertips. Argon had them sit down in some of the intact theater seating in the old planetarium.
“So here’s what happened,” Argon said, but Calavera interrupted him.
“Espera, let me tell it first,” she said.
“Experience has taught me not to argue with armed women,” Argon said and Xero laughed. She’d probably beaten on him a few too many times.
Calavera punched him in the arm anyway and some of the hot chocolate splashed onto the floor.
“Alright, so you know me and you and just made a deal, and everything was cool, you know? Well, one day I get contacted by this guy, this Xed. He wants to make me a deal too. He says I should join him because he’s planning on taking over the domes, you know like killing everyone inside of them like they did in the Australian genocides. Said he’s going to use some rare poison gas that you can’t defend against, can’t use gas masks with because it’s absorbed
through your skin. He said he wanted me to join him because I had good soldiers that would help the cause, and we could be partners in the revolution. Then he gave me some spiel about oppression and race riots and some other history shit. Guy’s a real whack job. I tell him to shove it, and of course he tells me that I’ll be sorry, that he’ll steal my army from him anyway. I thought he was crazy, but turns out I was wrong. A lot of my crew were mad about the peace treaty with your territory, and that was all he needed to steal a bunch of them. When my own turned against me, I had to go into hiding,” she said.
“Oh shit, so the attacks against me, he was using the skeletons to make me distrust you, make me more likely to side with him in defense. I’ll give you this—your skeletons are tough ass fighters. Almost took me out a few times—annoying as fuck,” Xero said. She took a sip of gritty hot chocolate, savoring the warmth and trying to ignore the texture.
She laughed. “Yeah, I train some tough ass vatos. We don’t fuck around. Not everyone turned against me, of course, just the real shit bags. Everyone has a price,” she said.
“Thankfully Xed couldn’t find that price for everyone. When you left for the domes, some of Calavera’s real crew along with some of the traitors both showed up. I might have gotten iced if some of them hadn’t helped save my hide. They knew that we were allies, so they helped me escape from the flats and back out to one of Calavera’s safe houses,” Argon said.
“We needed to stay hidden because Xed’s got eyes and ears everywhere, but I managed to get some information from a few of my skeletons that went double agent. Picking up dork boy here was a real great find cuz I figured we needed to decide out what to do about this chemical attack that supposedly has no defense. I got a sample of the chemical from one of my double agents so this guy could try and figure out what it is and how to beat it,” she said.
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