Koko Takes a Holiday

by Kieran Shea

  “You were wondering what? Leave me alone.”

  “Hold on a second, will you?”

  “I don’t care if you’re a retired security or not, if you don’t beat it in five seconds, I’ll drop you.”

  What? Five seconds? Holy—what was this woman’s deal? Here he is, just trying to make her day, just trying to be nice, and she wants to kick his butt? The chips, Flynn thinks. Right. Quickly tell her about the chips.

  “Listen, do you, um, do you want my credits?”

  “What?”

  “I said, do you want my credits? My winnings.”

  The woman scrutinizes Flynn. Looks him up and down. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Look, buddy, I’m not interested, okay?”

  “But I’m serious.”

  “As am I. What the—who are you? Is this more of your sorry attempt at flirting with me?”

  “No, it’s not flirting at all. I swear it.” Flynn slowly holds up one hand, and with the other he carefully reaches into his front pocket. He grabs a fistful of his chips and holds them out in his palm for the woman to see. “Here. Take them. Take them all. For real, I swear. It’s not a joke. It’s kind of hard to explain, but I’m sort of celebrating tonight.”

  “Celebrating? What do you mean, celebrating?”

  “You know, my retirement.”

  “What kind of idiot celebrates his retirement by giving away credits to a complete stranger?”

  “I guess I do.”

  “Drinking seltzer back there at the table and making conversation—I’ll lay even odds you’re blotto. Sheesh, who goes around doing something like this? Are you mental or something?”

  Well, Flynn admits to himself, there is that.

  “No,” he says. “Well, not entirely. It’s just that—if you could just listen to me for a second—I kind of made a promise to myself earlier tonight. I made a promise that if I won big at the casino I’d give at least some of my winnings to someone in need. I know it sounds sappy, but I thought, you know, maybe help somebody as a gesture of good will.”

  “A gesture of good will?”

  “Yeah. Are you familiar with the concept of karma?”

  “Come again?”

  “I said are you familiar with the concept of—”

  “I know what karma is.”

  “So you know what I’m talking about, right? The law of moral causation? Jeez, I know it must sound stupid, but I’d just really like for you to have the chips. You seemed pretty angry back there when you lost, so you’re probably in an unfortunate financial situation, am I right? Think of them as a gift. From one human being to another. You never know, maybe some of my luck has rubbed off on them. They might be able to turn yours around.”

  The woman’s tension eases a smidge, but she still gives the impression she’s ready to break his neck or worse. One of the casino patrons who’s stopped to watch the confrontation, a man duded up in furry jodhpurs, speaks up. “Hey, I’ll take them if the little lady doesn’t want ’em.”

  Flynn whirls around and jabs a finger at the man. “Fuck off.”

  The sudden wrath in Flynn’s face makes Furry Jodhpurs draw back and disappear. The rest of the crowd follows the man’s lead, deciding it might be for the best to disperse and move along.

  When Flynn turns back, the blue-haired woman is pointing a finger at herself.

  “You want to give your chips to me? Me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s the angle?”

  “No angle. Look, I totally understand if you’re embarrassed.”

  “I’m not embarrassed.”

  “Then here. Just take them.” Flynn scrunches his palm closed and turns his hand over, nodding for the woman to take the chips from him. The woman doesn’t delaser her lock on his eyes, but gradually she extends one of her arms. Flynn takes a cautious step forward and smoothes the chips into her open palm.

  “There. See? Was that so hard?”

  She takes a step back. “Kind of a weird way to stack your karma, don’t you think?”

  “Well, when I say I’m going to do something I like to see it through.” Flynn looks around. “So, um… you want to, I don’t know, get a drink or something?”

  The woman hoots. “See? I knew this was some kind of ruse. Freakin’ creep.”

  “Hey, I’m a perfect gentleman.”

  “Sure, a perfect gentleman all hot and on the make.”

  “That’s easily twelve hundred credits I gave you right there.”

  “Oh, so now I’m, what? Some kind of whore? Forgive me if I don’t fall all over myself in gratitude, but what happened to all that karma jive you were just on about?”

  Flynn looks down, blushing again. “You’re right. This is really stupid. Forget it. Forget I even asked.”

  The woman relaxes her shoulders, rolling her eyes and head in the same motion. “Oh, c’mon. That’s it? That’s the best you’ve got? And here I was starting to enjoy our witty repartee. You’re just going to quit? Man, I was actually considering your offer.”

  “You were?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. But let me ask you something. Free credits aside, if you’re supposedly celebrating tonight shouldn’t, I don’t know, your colleagues be giving you some kind of send-off or something?”

  Flynn offers a weak smile. “Well, they did give me a nice card.”

  “A nice card?”

  “Well, a card and a bottle of discount hooch.” Flynn figures it might not be best to mention the massage-parlor coupon his fellow deputies gave him.

  “Got to say, that sounds pretty pathetic.”

  “Yeah. My former employers are not exactly known for being generous. Hell, I’ll be lucky if they even transfer my final credits to my account.”

  “So, tell me… do you always suck this bad at picking up women?”

  “I suppose that depends on your answer. Am I down for the count?”

  The woman tapers her eyes and shakes her head. “Look, you seem like a really nice guy, albeit a tad odd. And I’m not really one to look a gift horse in the mouth. But I’ve got to tell you—”

  Flynn presents a hand. “I’m Jedidiah, by the way.”

  “Huh?”

  “I said my name is Jedidiah.”

  “Jedidiah?”

  “Yeah, Jedidiah Flynn. Although most people just call me Flynn because Jedidiah is really sort of a pain in the ass to pronounce.”

  “Hmm, Jedidiah. Not Jed for short?”

  “Nope. Not Jed for short. Just Flynn.”

  Sighing, the woman shakes her head and warily takes his offered hand in her own. As she squeezes, Flynn is more than a little surprised and intimidated by the intensity of the woman’s grip.

  “I know I’m probably going to regret this,” she says, “but all right. Nice to meet you, Flynn. People call me Koko.”

  EXIT THE FAT MAN

  Swaying in his paraplegic swing, Juke Ramirez sweats like it’s nobody’s business.

  Between heaping spoons of honey-flavored prik khee nu mash and deep siphons from a jumbo jug of Diet Orange Quake, he eyeballs the three sour-pussed women standing before him.

  Juke isn’t a fool. Just shopping for black-market weapons on some vague, happenstance referral? Please. Ocular implants, the blunt statures and squared-off shoulders, plus the neck-banded redhead… it’s no great mystery who this surly trio is after.

  To ease his nagging conscience, Juke tells himself he’ll warn Koko right after the women leave his shop. However, for now potential credits are in play, and it is in Juke’s nature to run both sides of any and all fiscal opportunities.

  Juke burps into his fist and chortles. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any of the Styer models you’ve mentioned in stock,” he says, “but if we close a deal this evening, how about I include some strat-sled coupon chits to make up for it, hmm? Perceptive women like yourselves, up here and on the go in the Second Free Zone, strat-sled rentals might come in handy, yes-y
es?”

  The redhead with the neckbands sets down a small pulse gun she’s been examining as Juke picks up three chits from the table. Plugging them into the towered workstation next to him in succession, he downloads the strat-sled coupon verifications as the redhead cocks a hip.

  “Let me ask you something…”

  “By all means,” Juke answers merrily. “Fire away. It’s the customer’s right to ask as many questions as she wishes. I do love making my special clientele happy.”

  “Yeah,” the redhead says, trailing off. “You haven’t by chance happened to sell any weapons to a female aboard recently, have you?”

  Juke pauses. “A female?”

  “Uh-huh. Someone like us who looks like she’s been around? About yay high. Long dark hair, probably tan?”

  Juke remembers Koko’s new frisky blue shag, so he feels secure in thickening his bluff. He taps a finger against his chin contemplatively. “Well, let’s see… I do recall selling a Daewoo Precision T-278 to an elderly female recently. But that was, oh, some days ago. A refined, sophisticated lady. Exceptional taste in collectibles.”

  “No. This would’ve been in the last few hours.”

  Juke busies himself with some disassembled housing on a metal table to his immediate right. “Oh, well, then I’m afraid not,” he says. “No, you three have been, ahem, my only customers in quite some time. Alas, there’s not much interest in weapons up here on Alaungpaya these days, but I do keep myself busy. Plenty of hobby-game maintenance, you know. Rarely a shortage of that type of tedious work with the kids’ novel cravings nowadays.”

  The redhead glances back at her companions. “Oh, I so don’t like it when people lie to me…”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The redhead turns back. “You. You’re lying. I can tell. So, why don’t we stop wasting each other’s time. Where is she? Where is Koko Martstellar?”

  As the redhead asks this, bit by bit Juke slides a hand to the panel switches affixed to the right side of his paraplegic sling, searching for the remote controls for his wall-mounted security measures. Juke is fairly certain the weapons are still online, but given the threatening tone of the redhead’s voice he wants to be sure.

  All three see Juke’s move.

  As the other two women dive for cover, the redhead springs deep and soars through the air. Flying like a spread-eagled amoeba, she lands and latches onto Juke’s front and shatters his nose with a quick head-butt.

  The hammer blow to Juke’s nose is a starburst of pain and a delta wash of blood squirts down his sweaty face. Swinging with him on the sling, the redhead reaches around and squeezes Juke’s neck in the crook of one arm while her other hand digs beneath his robe into the deep, ample folds of his flesh. Her fingers grip the lower edge of his rib cage, and Juke bellows like a stuck bull. The programmed weapons on the shop walls whine and revolve on their hydraulics, effectively unable to target.

  “Shut those off,” the redhead hisses.

  Hot tears trickle from the corners of Juke’s eyes. He flaps his meaty arms and slaps blindly at the controls as the redhead digs her fingers deeper. The pain in his side is excruciating, unlike anything he has ever felt before. Like five canine teeth set on bone.

  Juke finds the weapons’ kill switch and, on command, the weapons on the walls lower and lock off with simultaneous, loud clacks. He weeps.

  “Please! Just take everything! Just take it all! There’s more, much more in the back.

  Whole crates of weapons, an entire arsenal if that’s what you’re after, just don’t—”

  “Where is Koko Martstellar?”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about!”

  “This is so unproductive.”

  With a twist, the woman yanks back and two of Juke’s ribs snap like brittle roots. Juke nearly blacks out from the veritable supernova of pain and wishes with all his might he just would.

  “GAHHHH! Wonderwall! Oh God! Oh God! Martstellar booked a room at a place on the loop called Wonderwall! For the love of—please let go of me!”

  “What did you sell her?” the redhead demands.

  “What?”

  The redhead switches arms, grabs the ribs on Juke’s other side, and holds on as he squirms. Five more precise teeth set on bone.

  “Weapons, fat boy. What did she buy off of you?”

  “One knife. One knife and a gun. Please—”

  “What kind?”

  “What?”

  “I said, what kind?”

  “A Sig Sauer. The knife was a lightweight stiletto model. Iberian.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it, I swear. She’s traveling light. She didn’t have enough credits for anything else. She may even have gone off-barge by now because I gave her a strat-sled coupon too. Please, that’s all I know, I swear. She told me she booked a room over at Wonderwall.”

  The redhead stares into Juke’s greasy, beseeching eyes. She appears to relax and releases her hold on his ribs.

  Oh dear God, Juke thinks. Maybe if he just gives these women everything. Maybe then they’ll let him be. Juke wants to tell them he could help them, but with the throbbing pain and immobilizing fear washing up and down his body he has trouble finding the words.

  Sure, he could help them. Juke could help set Koko up, maybe even help them lay a trap for her. He could talk her into coming back here or perhaps advise them on the best place to ambush Koko over at Wonderwall. Let her think she was safe, and these three psychopaths could squash her like a bug. They’re in the game; they can be bargained and reasoned with. Of course, he owes Koko nothing. All of this? Koko’s problems? This was none of his affair.

  Juke feels woozy as he dares a peep into the redhead’s cruel eyes. He offers a look begging that he is not one above betrayal. The redhead nods and pats Juke’s damp, bloody cheek.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  There is a sliver of a moment when Juke believes that he is in the clear, that all is forgiven, that these women want nothing more from him and that something unspoken has been worked out. But then it’s as though someone has thrown a soft switch and hurled his soul into a dark abyss.

  The last thing Juke hears is the crisp snap of his own neck.

  EMBRACE ON THE FEEDS

  EMBRACE CEREMONY PROMO FEED—0:30

  CLIENT: Alaungpaya Oversight Collective—Second Free Zone Host Barge Class Vessel Alaungpaya

  PRODUCTION ENGAGEMENT: 2516-Spring/Summer Current Hemispheric Cycles

  VISUAL FEED 1: PANNING IN SUCCESSION, SERENE FACES LIFT THEIR HEADS HOODED IN EMBRACE CEREMONIAL ROBES. WOMEN, MEN, CHILDREN, YOUNG, OLD, DISFIGURED, MIXED RACES. FACES SHOULD BE STRONG YET TRANQUIL, LOOKING OUTWARD, RESILIENT AND STEADFAST.

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 2: SHAFTS OF SUN BREAKING THROUGH HEAVENLY BILLOWING CIRRO-CUMULUS CLOUDS. CAMERA SWEEPS FROM ALAUNGPAYA’S STERN TO THE CROWN WHERE DEPRESSUS GROUP HOLD HANDS IN CIRCLES ON THE STILL-SEALED, TRANSPARENT EXTENSION PULPIT PLATFORM. CAMERA PANS OVER THE FACES OF LOVED ONES IN THE WITNESS-SEATING WINDOWS AROUND THE EXTENSION PULPIT. CAMERA PANS UPWARD TO THE SUN BREAKING THROUGH THE CLOUDS.

  AUDIO: THE SOUND OF GENTLE, HOLLOW WINDS. FAINT, SLOW VIOLINS PLAYING SOFTLY. ONE BY ONE, ORCHESTRAL INSTRUMENTS JOIN THE VIOLINS. MUSIC GROWS MORE TRIUMPHANT.

  VISUAL FEED 2 (CONT.) FADE IN—LOGO: EMBRACE

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 3: OVERHEAD SHOT OF ALAUNGPAYA’S EXTENSION PULPIT AS THE TRANSPARENT SAFETY SEALS ARE DRAWN BACK AND EMBRACE PARTICIPANTS RACE INTO THE AIR IN THE OVERPOWERING RUSH OF WIND, BLOWN TOWARD THE PULPIT EDGE IN ONE MASS. THE LEAP BEGINS.

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 4: THE FACE OF ONE EMBRACE PARTICIPANT (FEMALE), WIND IN HER HAIR, EYES DAZZLED WITH JOYOUS RELIEF. (DISOLVE INTO A CLOUDLESS BLUE SKY. FADE IN LOGO): EMBRACE

  VOICEOVER: (Whispering) Time to Embrace is now (INSERT COUNTDOWN TIME) [PROMO NOTE: Feed Embrace promo will sync with updated schedule times and approved flight status.] Good spectator seats are still available. Contact Alaungpaya Valet Services for witness-seat
pricing and availability.

  GIMME SOME SAKE, GIMME SOME SNACKS

  Koko’s cheeks are chipmunked with food.

  “Wow,” she says, muffled, and then swallows. “Got to hand it to you, Flynn. When you’re right, you’re right. This place? They lay out some really great chow.”

  Delighted by her enthusiasm for the meal, Flynn admires Koko’s profile as he neatly lines up his chopsticks on the outer rim of his plate. The restaurant they’re in is an inexpensive Indo-Pac-Rim joint just off the starboard side of Alaungpaya’s central casino, with red walls and drapes of gold metallic bunting across the ceiling. The restaurant has two long seated bars framing an oval dining area with a forty-seat capacity. Small-plate menu options. Tanked micro-fish sashimi. Synthetic game skewers. Lots of soy noodles with fortified insect mash on rice. Upon entering, Koko said the zesty aromas of charred lemongrass, smashed garlic, and powerful chilies were making her mouth water, and she and Flynn elected to eat at one of the bars. Flynn knows one of the cooks behind the counter, a hulking Asian-looking fellow, and Flynn and the big man joke as he sets dish after tasty dish before them. The cook even sneaks them a free carafe of high-priced sake on the sly. They’ve nearly finished devouring a warm, fermented mechi-katsu plate, and Flynn feels remarkably sober with the food. He raises his cup.

  “To my retirement,” he says.

  Koko wipes her mouth with a balled-up napkin and lifts her own sake.

  “To your retirement.”

  They tap and sip.

  “So,” Koko asks, “what’re you going to do now?”

  Flynn sets down his cup and shifts on his stool. “Huh? Oh, you mean now that I’m retired? That’s a really good question. I’m not sure what I’m in for, actually.”

  Koko uses a chopstick to lance a cube of tempura off one of the plates in front of Flynn and pops it into her mouth.

  “You know, there’s plenty of corporate syndicate outfits looking for seasoned security pros if you’re interested. I mean, have you thought about a little part-time work like that? Re-civ worker oversight and the like? Pretty boring work, but the pay isn’t too shabby.”