by Kieran Shea
CLIENT: Global Resource/Syndicate Deployment Initiatives, LLP (GR/SDI)
PRODUCTION ENGAGEMENT: 2516 All Hemispheric Seasonal Cycles
VISUAL FEED 1: BLACK SCREEN.
AUDIO: THRILLING, TRENDY BEATS AND/OR MUSIC CUSTOMIZED TO FEED BROADCAST MARKETS/AGE/DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETS—POWERFUL SOUND, RAGING TO EARDRUM-TEARING CRESCENDO.
VISUAL FEED 1 (CONT.): BLACK SCREEN SLASHED AWAY TO REVEAL RAPID, ICONIC, MIXED STILL AND MOTION MEDIA IN LUSTY, SAFFRON TINT—ALMOST SUBLIMINAL NIGHTMARISH
FEEL. (Note: Client Suggested Inclusions: Third and Fourth North America and Middle East Smartwars with catastrophic regional devastation imagery, satellite scans of once-dominant political/economic centers marred, smoldering radioactive infrastructure ruin (Beijing, US/California/New York, Eastern Mediterranean, etc.), body-count clocks, riots and upheaval, etc.) AS AUDIO VISUAL CRESCENDO CLIMAXES CUT TO BLACK.
AUDIO: SILENCE (hold—5 seconds).
VISUAL FEED 2 (CONT.): BLACK SCREEN SLICED LEFT TO RIGHT BY EYE-POPPING GREEN LINE (HORIZONTAL) WIDENING. AS GREEN BAND GROWS, THE BAND FRAMES A DAZZLING MOSAIC OF FULL-COLOR MIX IMAGERY/MOTION—THE CORPRATE AND SYNDICATE MERCENARY EXPERIENCE. DE-CIV COMBAT ACTIONS, INTENSE FIELD-TRAINING PYROTECHNICS, MARKET-TAMING MISSION ENGAGEMENTS. (Note: Client requires footage of “happy” soldiers, solidarity imagery, payday pillaging, and the like. Please review attached creative brief for additional specifics.)
VOICEOVER: We are the peace. We are the order.
VISUAL FEED 2 (CONT.): FRAME OF THE CORPORATE AND SYNDICATE EXPERIENCE MORPHS INTO EARTH SEEN FROM OUTER SATELLITES.
VOICEOVER: Think you got what it takes to be “the we”?
VISUAL FEED 2 (CONT.) PAN FROM EARTH TO THE SUN. SUN FILLS THE SCREEN. DISSOLVE AND FADE IN GR/SDI LOGO.
VOICEOVER: If born in the collectives, contact your re-civ labor-assignment professional recruiter. A message from Global Resource/Syndicate Deployment Initiatives, its worldwide re-civ alliance nations, and your future.
MEETING THE TEAM
Agents Wire and Mu whip off their sunglasses. The lenses of the sunglasses are shiny and green like the backs of dung beetles, and Wire’s voice sounds as if she’s just gargled a glass of shattered shale.
“Where is this problem child?”
Heinz and the two additional agents are in the buzzing pandemonium of Alaungpaya’s main arrival and departure terminal just outside of baggage claim and customs. In bellicose mannerisms and dress, Mu and Wire are practically carbon copies. Tight, olive-toned bodysuits and smooth, no-nonsense black assault shoes. Five foot even with ocular implants affixed to their temples and hair shorn convict-close. Heinz suspects Mu is engineered South American descent and Wire possibly a genetically engineered variation of Southern Mediterranean or perhaps Portuguese. Both women are blocky with cut muscle.
God, Heinz thinks, I must look ridiculously feminine compared to these two stacked cans of homely, brawny butch. Heinz pulls her ample red hair back and lets it fall generously over her sharp shoulders and then notices with some disappointment that no skin or finger trophies dangle around Wire’s or Mu’s thick necks. So much for their files’ descriptive accuracy.
Self-consciously Heinz touches the drying bandage over the bite mark encircling her left eye.
“Martstellar is still aboard,” she begins.
Wire adjusts her bearing and sneers churlishly. “And just how are you so sure?”
Heinz shifts her eyes and places her hands on her hips. “Because no scheduled transports, merchant vessels, or personal craft are allowed off Alaungpaya until post-Embrace. They just gave the notice. You two are lucky you even landed. Your shuttle was one of the last arrivals, and the whole to-and-fro grid up here is now on lockdown until the Embrace ceremony concludes in a few hours.”
“Embrace ceremony? What the hell is an Embrace ceremony?”
“You know, the Second Free Zone mass suicides? Depressus?”
“Oh, those yahoos.”
“In any event,” Heinz says, “before you two arrived I bribed a barge tech and scoured all outgoing flight manifests and transport logs archived since I came aboard. There’s no record of a Martstellar departure. It’s a pretty safe bet that she’s still hiding out on Alaungpaya.”
Wire glances at Mu and then both of the women look back at Heinz. Wire clears some of the sedimentary rock fragments from her throat and speaks teasingly.
“Gee, Heinz, so what happened up here, huh? That simpering little twit down at SI HQ gave us the rundown. This Martstellar, she’s supposedly a has-been, and you’re still up and about sucking air? How the hell did that happen? Your file made you out to be death’s glammed-out little sister.”
Heinz’s face flushes. “Martstellar got lucky is all,” she says. Once again, the shame of her brutal takedown burns, and she starts to raise a hand to touch the triangular bandage above her eye.
Wire giggles. “Set her teeth on you, huh? Wow, that has got to suck. Hey, don’t sweat it, big red. Me and Mu are up here now, and this Martstellar? Trust me, that woman’s heartbeats are numbered.”
Mu takes a step forward and tosses a heavy rucksack at Heinz’s feet. The rucksack is black nylon with multiple zippered openings and thick buckled straps, identical to the ones Wire and Mu have secured to their own shoulders.
“What’s this?” Heinz asks.
“Your gear,” Wire says. “That suit Lee said your guns were confiscated on Hesperus 6 so we thought, you know, we’d bring you some gear. One reinforced plasma HK U-50, a Ruger combat application GPPG sub-cutter with collapsible polymer stock and sniper bipod stand, half a dozen pulse grenades, one thermal-imaging scanner, an uplink skimmer, plus a whole boatload of extra power clips. Happy birthday.”
“Gee, you shouldn’t have.” Heinz crouches down and unzips the rucksack. She takes a look inside. “Any body armor?”
“What, you think we’re made of credits? Get your own.”
“Some birthday.”
Heinz picks up the rucksack. She swings it over her shoulder and starts to limp away as Mu and Wire put on their sunglasses and follow behind her. Soon all three agents are walking as a unit through the crowds.
Past the outer arrival and departure area, they turn right down a glowing hallway and find a lift available to take them down to Alaungpaya’s commercial levels. A cheerful young man in a waiter’s tunic looks late for work as he attempts to board the lift with them, but Wire steps forward and shoves the man backward with such force he hits the far wall and is knocked unconscious.
The doors to the lift whisk shut. As they begin their rapid descent, Mu and Wire can’t contain themselves any longer. They crack up.
After they finally get a hold of themselves and calm down, Wire coughs and asks, “So, where do we start?”
Heinz looks straight ahead at their reflections in the lift’s closed doors.
“I’ve been kind of sidelined getting my leg all fixed up, but the nurse who cleaned my pins post-op swore black-market weapons can be had on Alaungpaya, so I asked around. Apparently there’s a fat man aboard. Some hustler with a hobby-game-maintenance front on Deck 7. Goes by the name of Juke.”
LAST NIGHT OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
Bent at a blackjack hoop and considerably less intoxicated than the hordes around him, Flynn is up several thousand credits and he can’t believe his luck. To be honest, it kind of pisses him off.
Doesn’t that just beat all? The last few hours of my unexceptional existence winding away and now a streak of decent fortune finally falls my way?
Figures.
The blackjack dealer, a female uniformed in the orthodox manner for the Alaungpaya casinos (neutral gold tunic and kufi hat), is maybe a year past forty. With soft facial features, she offers Flynn a tight, saccharine smile as she moves a pile of winnings across the table toward him. Flynn takes his winnings and starts tidily arranging the credits in his growing pot. Albeit slightly addled from his Depressus medications and a few quick shots from that bottle o
f aged beauty he’d been saving back in his quarters, Flynn entertains a fleeting notion. This dealer? She might be the mother of that dopey kid who reported that fighting incident earlier today. Like an inquisitive terrier, Flynn angles his head and strains to see a resemblance. He supposes it might be possible. Then Flynn notes the possession beacon on the dealer’s wrist pulsing out its dull bioluminescent strobe just below the surface of the skin—a warning of disease.
The dealer is a former prostitute.
Wait, didn’t that kid say his mother was crazy religious?
Yeah, but can’t former prostitutes be religious? Flynn argues with himself. Pious fundamentalist types pimp those feel-good turnaround stories all the time, especially those New One Roman Church of the Most Holy Liberator nuts.
Ah, don’t be so judgmental. Besides, what does your opinion matter now anyway? In a few hours you’ll be dead.
Flynn tosses the dealer a chip as a gratuity and the gesture is met with a brisk bow, immediately forgettable. Flynn indicates he wants a pass on the next hand and continues organizing his winnings. The dealer alerts the other players that Flynn is sitting out the round, and Flynn flags a floating hospitality robot. He orders some seltzer on ice, thinking maybe with his Depressus medications he should watch his intake on the sauce lest he end up passing out and missing Embrace. With a sizzle, the hospitality robot dispenses his nonalcoholic beverage into a plastic cup and then glides away to the next thirsty customer.
Swishing some fresh bubbly water in his mouth, Flynn turns his attention back to the table and watches the other players’ winnings rise and fall on the next two hands. Soon a second and much skinnier dealer appears behind the first. The replacement table skipper is a bit on the androgynous side of the equation with his taciturn air and lip gloss, and Flynn wonders if the man lost all of his sense of humor as a child. Flynn pins the dealer swap-out as a bad omen, so he scoops up his winnings, stuffs the chips into his pockets, picks up his drink, and shoulders through the bodies toward the deeper, pricier pits at the casino’s heart.
As Flynn moves through the crush, his eyes roam over the people heading past. All the disconsolate faces etched with angst, anger, and exhaustion. The pricier tables at the casino’s center mean bigger risks. Flynn knows if his mental state was anywhere close to normal he would never have the guts to try his fortunes at the higher-staked tables, but acquiescing to suicide does have its advantages. A last-ditch hardening of nerve.
I am Jedidiah Flynn.
Former Alaungpaya security deputy and one of the Depressus blind and brave.
Bring it on, people. I die at dawn.
Flynn drops out of the flow and selects a table on his right garlanded in festive tinsel and spot-lit in soft rose. Sensing his presence, a jolly-looking dealer welcomes him and motions to a vacant stool.
“New player, new player,” the jolly-looking dealer announces. “Coming in, coming in. Blackjack 5000, Blackjack 5000. Yeah-yeah, right-right.”
Flynn greets the other players with a smile and a few quick nods of his head and plants himself on the empty stool. He takes another pull on his seltzer and sets the drink down on the felt. To Flynn’s immediate right is a petite woman with a shock of spiky blue hair, dressed in a black bodysuit. The woman gives Flynn a quick appraisal and the vague scent of cinnamon and chemical smoke pirouettes toward him. Flynn catches the woman’s assessing eyes when she laughs softly to herself.
“Something funny?” Flynn asks.
The woman glances across the table at the other players.
“Funny?” the woman replies. “Oh, no. Nothing funny at all, lawman.”
Flynn’s eyes flick to the dealer and to the other patrons awaiting their cards. He taps the first cards dealt his way and glances briefly down at the Beretta hanging off his hip.
After leaving ASS operational command and heading back to his quarters, Flynn had caught a shower and poured himself a few stiff drinks while he dressed in his best jumper. He was almost out the door before he turned around and found his spare weapon, the one the sergeant who had collected his gear had assumed he owned. He slid the spare Beretta into the now outdated ASS holster the sergeant let him keep and clipped it to his belt. Even though he is officially retired, Flynn’s carry permit is still valid for twenty-four hours and for some reason he felt sort of naked going out for his last evening unarmed. The truth is, he has always felt wearing a gun to be a habit and part of his identity. Of course the added benefit of having a gun on you is people tend to give you a wide berth and show you some respect. Flynn has to admit, it’s not the first time he’s been made.
“Good guess,” Flynn says. “Actually, to be perfectly honest… I’m sort of retired.”
“Retired?”
“Yeah. Today was my last day on the job.”
“Congratulations.”
Flynn shrugs. “No big deal.”
“Kind of odd, though,” the woman says, “you still toting in public like that.”
“Well, my open carry permit is still valid.”
The woman peers at her cards. “Drinking man, sporting a weapon with all these credits around, I don’t know… kind of risky, don’t you think?”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about me. I’m a professional.”
“Right.”
“And this is seltzer, if you must know.”
“Sure it is.”
Flynn holds up his cup for her to inspect. “Take a whiff.”
The blue-haired woman raises a hand, “No, no. I believe you.” She lifts her chin and licks her lips as she continues to check her cards. “Beretta Gamma series, right?”
Flynn plants his forearms on the table and peeks at his hand. Folds.
“You know weapons?”
The woman answers with a sly smile. “You might say that.” The woman folds too. “Private military training can be hard to shake. You kind of learn to size up hardware pretty quick on sight.”
Now Flynn is definitely intrigued. But this woman, she’s so slight. She doesn’t carry the hardened edginess Flynn has seen in other militarized types who’ve fought for the restructuring efforts. Self-assured without question, but all in all she seems kind of… nice? Maybe the multinationals were recruiting more of the minxish sylph-type for their operations nowadays. Then again, with his medications and the few drinks he had earlier, maybe his judgment is off. Aw, hell. What does he know.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Flynn says, “what, uh, sort of work have you been involved in?”
The woman puffs out a bored sigh as they watch the action and wait on the next round of cards.
“Oh, this and that,” she answers. “Did a bunch of forward combatant stuff. Quick-response inserts for M&As, environmental crisis support in devastated de-civ hot zones, and blah, blah, blah. Got traded around a lot, you know how it goes. But, like you, I’m retired. I left that life behind me a long time ago.” With a beat of her chin, she motions to his gun. “Those itty-bitty Berettas are standard security issue so I pegged you for law enforcement straight up. Medium-round capacity. A good, basic service weapon. Tried one once or twice. They have some loose nip on the recoil when you crank the levels, but the durability is a plus. You can bury those Berettas in a vat of mud, rinse them off, and they’ll still fire.”
The jolly-looking dealer clears his throat to get Flynn’s attention, and Flynn physically has to shake the look of curiosity from his face. The other players are glaring at them. They both wave a pass as the woman beside him laughs, all throaty and coy.
“I clean up nice,” she says.
“No argument here.”
“Ooh, are you flirting with me, officer?”
Flynn feels his face go red. “Flirting? Me? No, not at all. Just being friendly is all. Sorry.”
“No need for sorries. It’s okay if you are, it’s just that… well… I’m kind of busy here.” She rolls her eyes, indicating the game.
“Oh, right.”
Another hand is dealt and Flynn glances
at her as she pokes out her cheek with her tongue in concentration. Flynn notices a weak floating sensation in his stomach, and the feeling spreads upward to his chest. Flynn hasn’t been with or felt attracted to a woman for quite a long time and is actually a bit stunned by the sensation. Is it just his medications stewing with the aged beauty he downed back at his quarters or is it actual desire? Oh, good grief. Is her judgment of him correct? Is he really flirting? He’s going to kill himself in a few hours. Good lord, man, get a grip, Flynn thinks. Get a grip.
But as the game’s hands progress, Flynn can’t help himself. He ends up exchanging more idle shuttlecock chit-chat with the woman. They both win big on a few rounds, but after losing hard on a reckless triple split, the woman bangs her fist on the table and lets fly a string of virulent obscenities at the dealer. The dealer quickly reminds the woman of the casino’s rules for decorum and she burns him an icy look and abruptly shoves off.
Flynn watches the woman weave away from the table and into the crowds. Suddenly a powerful, impulsive urge strikes him, and he makes a quick decision.
You planned on giving away your winnings to a stranger tonight, right? Man, she seemed so pissed off. What the hell, why not try to brighten her mood?
Cramming his chips into his pockets, Flynn apologizes to those remaining at the table. Then he jogs to catch up.
“Hey!” he calls out. “Hey! Wait up!”
The woman turns and, in an instant, all of the easygoing and cavalier manner she displayed earlier dissolves from her features. As Flynn approaches the woman drops back and braces herself into a ready position.
Flynn slams on the brakes and holds up both of his hands defensively.
“Whoa! Wait a second, take it easy.”
The woman’s eyes are hot, and her hands are balled and tight, ready to swing. Expecting some kind of a confrontation or worse, passing casino patrons spread out and muster to watch.
“What do you want?”
Flynn lowers his hands to his sides. “Listen, I know this is going to sound kind of bizarre and out of the blue, and I know you don’t know me, I mean, we just met playing cards back there, but I was wondering—”