Liquid Cool

by Austin Dragon

  The recovery room where the gang leader, Blue Pill, lay was also overflowing with other rabbit gang members, but these had their masks off. Caucasian Rastafarians! That’s what the Riot Gear Rabbits were—White guys with dreadlocks.

  Blue Pill lay on his bed, dressed in a hospital gown, with tubes and wires attached all over his body. There was also a tube in his mouth, and I wasn’t a doctor, but his arms and legs were burnt horribly.

  One of the rabbit gang members, who was furthest away, pushed through the others to stand about two inches from my face. “You don’t look like a Hippo.”

  “I’m from the outside.”

  “Everybody knows that. Why are you on the inside, inside here?”

  “I need Blue Pill’s help.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Red Rabbit is a psycho and needs to be taken down.”

  “Why? That don’t tell us anything. Why do you want to take him down?”

  “He orchestrated a friend of mine getting killed by the police. You may have heard of it. That shootout on Sweet Street.”

  “We heard.”

  “How this Red did it, I’d also like to know, because my friend would never have done it voluntarily. He never even touched a gun, then he goes gun-crazy, and all these weapons magically appear in his hands.”

  “Maybe Red told him to do it, and if he didn’t, he’d hop over to the guy’s family and brutally rabbit-kick them to death. Maybe he used drugs on him. Maybe he used machines. Red seems to have many Up-Top machines in his possession, besides his lightning rifle. You seem to want everything wrapped up in a nice little bow for you. Sometimes, you don’t get all the answers, and that’s life.”

  “Then, since you don’t seem to know, that’s another reason to find and take him down. He may make you go gun-crazy against your will and take down your own men or even your boss, Blue Pill, here,” I said. “Red Rabbit is our public enemy number one.”

  All I knew about this Red was what Box had told me, but from the look of the rabbit gang members’ faces, they agreed with what I had just said.

  “How can we help?” he asked. “As you can see, Blue Pill isn’t a conversationalist anymore because of Red.”

  I looked at Blue Pill and said, “I only have a few questions. Then, I’ll get out of here, so you can rest. Third degree burns ain’t no joke.”

  Blue Pill blinked his eyes to acknowledge me. I looked back at his main man.

  “Why is Red still alive?”

  The question surprised him, and he looked at Blue Pill for a moment. The rabbit gang members in the room were waiting for an answer, and that’s why he was nervous, so I decided to help him.

  “I ask, because I know you’re getting everything ready to finish him off for good, but I don’t want to get in between any gang war.”

  “He’s protected.”

  “Protected?” I asked.

  “We don’t know how, but he’s protected by the Feds.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We have sources everywhere.”

  “Where did Red come from? Who is he?”

  “He was a Rabbit years ago. Always a hothead and untrustworthy. He tried to take control of the gang back then, but White set him straight. Sent Blue Pill after him, so he could ‘see things as they really are’.” His way to describe the violence.

  “Set him straight, how?”

  “Broke every bone in his arms, legs, and neck,” the main man said with pride. I had to remember I was among vicious human animals.

  “You turned him into a cyborg,” I said.

  The fact didn’t please any of them.

  “How long was he gone?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Do you know where he was all that time?”

  “He disappeared. We never expected to see him again. Then he returns. He wasn’t Red back then, but he is Red, now. And connected with the Feds. We don’t how he did that.”

  “He’s an informant for them?”

  “That’s what protected by the Feds means.”

  “Why would he do that?” I asked. “How big is the Rabbit gang that he controls?”

  A sore subject for them. “He controls all of it, except for us. We’re loyal to Blue Pill, and we don’t care if he has a hit out on us by other Rabbit crew members. There’s going to be Red blood in the streets. I can promise you that.”

  “If you know he’s a police informant, then wouldn’t his Rabbit crew members know that? Why would they follow him?”

  “Yeah. Why?” the main man asked.

  My head was trying to make sense of what made no sense, but I wouldn’t figure it out here, as my eyes caught the glimpse of a jumbo roach crawling on the ground in the corner.

  “My last question—where does Red stay in Mad Heights?”

  “Only outsiders call it Mad Heights. You should at least pretend to be an insider. We can tell you where to find him, but it won’t make any difference.”

  “Why?”

  “His lair is so fortified that you’d never get to his front door alive. We can’t, and we’re after him.”

  “And he’s protected by the Feds.”

  “That only means he’ll never be arrested, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use whatever means to take him out. Isn’t that what you said you wanted to do?”

  “It is. After I do one thing, first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Rescue the little girl the psycho kidnapped.”

  “Red is psycho, but no way he’d do something like that. Not his style. He kills things. He doesn’t kidnap them and keep them around. Your intel is faulty.”

  “It’s in the news or don’t you read.”

  “The news. All the lies fit to print. That’s faulty, too.”

  “Tell me where he is, and I’ll go see for myself.”

  “Then you’re going to need a lot more than good intentions and a couple of fat Hippos to get into Red’s lair. Did you pay them yet, your Hippo bodyguards?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You know they’re going to leave you behind to die, right?” the Rabbit said with a grin.

  They were grinning at me, even half-dead Blue Pill in his bed—with their stupid, oversized rabbit buck-teeth.

  Chapter 46

  Chief Hub

  FINALLY, I COULD GET the hell out of that nasty place. It was interesting how, in one part of the world, people went about their day with water flies flittering around, and in another region, the mere sight of a baby jumbo roach or puddle slug meant a work stoppage. I was proud to be in the latter group. Everyone in the clinic, obviously, was born in a barn—if such places existed on the planet anymore.

  I made my way down the stairs, going straight down the center of people sitting and smoking or sleeping on either side. I moved as quickly as my legs would allow, without tripping and falling. Then, dashed though the clinic waiting room, because I could see no more nastiness. I was too fragile. Out the main entrance, I sighed a deep sigh of relief as I looked up to the cloudy sky.

  Sometimes, in life, you are cosmically drawn to a place or person, but you can never articulate why. My eyes shifted to a third floor corner window in the building directly across me. There stood, watching from the open window, a rabbit-masked guy. But somehow, I knew it wasn’t a Blue Rabbit lookout. I knew it was Red Rabbit; I’d swear to it.

  If Red was here, it could only mean one thing. I couldn’t be so lucky that on the same day I was associating with real known gang members (Punch Judy didn’t count) that I was about to get caught in the middle of a gang war.

  He was watching me, and I knew what he was thinking: why am I staring at him with a look of recognition. Yes, we had never laid eyes on each other before. Then he receded into the darkness of the room, and I couldn’t see him anymore.

  I snapped out of my vigil and looked to see that my two Hippo bodyguards were nowhere near the main entrance. They were gone! I quickly scanned the crowds and glimpsed the two fa
t Hippos about a dozen feet away.

  “Hey!” I yelled at them.

  They knew who was yelling at them, and they looked back at me with smirks. They would seriously ditch me in the middle of Mad Heights unprotected.

  For a brief second, I was on the exact page of everyone on the streets; I was running. Then, I realized that I was running one way and everyone else was running the other. It was like a twisted game of musical chairs where everyone knew what to do, except for me.

  I looked ahead and saw them, dozens of young men with black airbrush paint around their eyes—a tell-tale sign of an animal gang member—and their matted dreadlocks. Just as I noticed it, the Caucasian Rastafarians donned their rabbit masks in unison and ran at me, drawing weapons.

  Casually, I moved out of the way. I knew they weren’t after me. The Red Rabbit Gang was here to wipe out the remnants of the Blue Pill Rabbit Gang. A final showdown. Above me, I heard sounds I had never heard before and looked up. A hovervan was firing at the seventh floor with laser-cannons! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Immediately, I heard glass breaking, and laser rounds showered the attacking hovervan from the sixth and eighth floors.

  My eye noticed something dive off the roof of the tower. I couldn’t tell what the black shape was. It looked like a giant, black hockey puck. It descended like a stone and crashed on the roof of the attacking hovervan. A second later, the vehicle exploded. The hovervan was a ball of fire, with burning bodies falling to the ground with chunks and fragments of the vehicle. I was not interested in being under metal rain.

  Fortunately, I had an impeccable sense of direction and decided I could run to the Hippo hovervan before they could lift off and ditch me. So, I ran. Something told me to look behind me, and I did. Running right after me were the two street punks my Hippo bodyguards had previously scared off. But now, I was alone.

  I had no idea what these two planned to do to me. Mug me? I wasn’t about to stop to find out, so I turned into the alley the Hippos took me through to get from the dark back alleys to the main streets. I double-timed to the end of the alley, just as the two appeared and started after me.

  When I was a police intern, I remember one of the instructors saying to us, in one of their many, boring classes, “It is never permissible to shoot first and ask questions later.” Hell with that! I pulled my piece and shot the first one in the leg. The punk collapsed, and the other grabbed and dragged him back the other way and around the corner. Then, I heard yelling, but I couldn’t make out their words.

  Behind me was the dim streetlight, the only thing that pierced the darkness. I needed to move closer to see if the hovervan was still there. I turned back to look up the alley, and a dozen men appeared, all shooting. One shot barely missed my ear. I pulled myself back and shot around the corner wildly. I heard yells, grunts, and splashing on the wet ground. I then sent another volley of gunfire their way and ran to that streetlight.

  Since it was not my lucky day, the Hippo hovervan was long gone. I was so screwed, and all I could think to do was step back directly out of the light. What was I going to do, now?

  As I stood there trying to think, I had a very strange sensation. I felt I wasn’t alone in the secluded dark back-alley. It was more than that. I felt I was surrounded by people—lots of people. It was weird, because I couldn’t see or hear anything, but the feeling was overpowering.

  I couldn’t ignore it. I flipped my pop-gun into the dark. The brief second that the pop-gun blast fired, showed me that my instincts were terribly right. Three men were hit by the pop-gun blast and fell back with grunts. They were all wearing some kind of leather outfit that covered even their heads.

  I fired my piece all around me, like I was mad, because I was going mad. Every random shot in the dark was hitting someone! Who were all these people?! I kept firing. I had no idea how many people there were, but they were all around me.

  A spotlight turned on above me, and these dark alley people scattered into the night, but I kept shooting at them. I would never shoot someone in the back, but I ignored my rule. A message had to be sent loud and clear: Don’t mess with me.

  It was the Hippo hovervan. The side door opened, and one of them grabbed me and threw me into the middle seat. The door closed, and the vehicle jetted away into the night sky.

  When you called a woman a hot mess, it meant one thing. When you used the phrase for a man, it meant something different. I was a hot mess, sitting there, stewing in my own anger and germophobia. Five words repeated over and over in my head: “I want to go home.” I did not want to say or do anything else. But life would not allow any such peace.

  We drove until they illegally air-braked the hovercar to the side. I had seen more criminality and violence in this single day than I had in almost 20 adult years of life. No wonder those in the crime world had such a short shelf life. It was amazing they lasted as long as they did. The two Hippos in the front seat turned around.

  “You owe us the other half of the money,” the one in the passenger seat said.

  Here we were, hovering twenty or more stories in the air. They’d pitch me out of the hovervan if they had even an inkling they wouldn’t get the rest of their payment. They didn’t care that they gave me only half the bodyguards I hired and left me behind to get killed by three different groups. But they would say quickly, “We came back for ya, didn’t we? You’re alive, aren’t ya?”

  “You know where to go,” I answered. “The video-booth. I call for your money there.”

  The Hippos watched me before turning back around. The hovervan lurched and dipped a few feet before flying forward. I heard a shotgun cock in the seat behind me. If it was meant to scare me, it worked, but I kept my composure.

  We arrived in Wharf City and pulled up alongside a line of public video-phone booths. I got out; three Hippos got out, too, and walked with me. But instead of picking up a phone receiver, I just raised my arm.

  A sidewalk johnny nervously appeared from behind the booths with a bag in hand. He threw the bag to me, and I threw the bag to one of the miserable, fat cyborgs. The sidewalk johnny backed away. I stood there and watched them with a big frown on my face. One of the Hippos shook the bag as if he could really tell if it was all there with a simple shake.

  “Nice doing business with ya,” the main Hippo said.

  I knew any words out of my mouth, with the mood I was in, would most likely get me killed. I kept my mouth shut, noticing that my sidewalk johnny “friend” had vanished already. The three of them chuckled and hopped back into their hovervan and sped away into the sky traffic.

  I ran.

  My sidewalk johnny’s other job was to keep a pre-paid hovertaxi waiting and ready, which he did. I ran to it and jumped inside quickly. We arrived at the Concrete Mama, and I ran inside, past all the lobby johnnies to the elevator. I ran out of the elevator to my apartment—9732. When I was in, with all the locks locked, I could feel my normalcy returning.

  When you have a city in a region with more water than the oceans, the government wants you to waste water. “Take five showers a day.” “Take a shower every hour.” I still couldn’t grasp that there were still people in this city, who showered only once a week, not even daily. I was not into soaking in body detergent, anti-bacterial, anti-germ suds. Whatever filth it dissolved off your skin, you’d be sitting right in the middle of it. I never understood the bath thing. My fave was a super shower of lukewarm water, shooting out of the main floor and ceiling vents, and side nozzles, blasting out waves of hot steam. My super sauna shower. I knew I’d be in my bathroom for at least 90 minutes.

  Was I being a big baby? Or was the danger of the day not to be taken lightly, and I was right to be unnerved? That was the internal debate I had to resolve. I was a detective now, so I had to expect to frequent bad places, like Mad Heights, occasionally, on a case. I couldn’t melt each time.

  Who were those leather-suited people in the dark attacking me?

  The question popped into
my head. I had never experienced something so crazy. All these people standing in the dark around me. What the hell! I had to find out who or what they were, or it would bug me forever. Phishy would know.

  My beautiful shower was over, and I got into the nicest, cleanest, fluffiest white clothes, and then I glided over to my bed. I dove in and pulled my super-fluffy comforters over me, and that was it. I was in for the day. I was not leaving this bed. I was traumatized, and I needed time to regenerate, as the saying goes.

  Turn off the video-phone!

  I jumped out of the bed and ran to it. It rang.

  The call was one of Run-Time’s VPs—the West Indian one. Run-Time’s Carol Num meeting was on. Suddenly, my planned day had been re-planned.

  I wouldn’t know until much later that my mad time in Mad Heights put me further ahead in the story than anybody else.

  At Let It Ride headquarters, Carol revealed what she revealed, and Run-Time revealed what he did, especially by not saying things directly. One of Run-Time’s VPs would take Carol home. The other would take me to Metro Police with part of the Run-Time entourage.

  “Mr. Run-Time will meet us there,” his West Indian VP said.

  It was me, her, and four other people who loaded into a waiting Let It Ride Enterprises hoverlimo that seemed longer than my own apartment. We got comfortable; the VP sat across from me. All of them were sitting across from me.

  “Mr. Cruz, if I may, and I don’t want to offend you…”

  “What is it?” I asked the VP.

  “If you could let Mr. Run-Time do the talking?”

  “Who are we going to talk to?”

  “It will be a private meeting of the Chief of Police, his top aides, and the Mayor’s liaison will be there, too.”

  “What about the police detectives handling Carol’s case?”

  “They won’t be there.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’ve briefed their superiors.”

  “That makes me very uncomfortable,” I said. “When I was a police intern, back in the day, I quickly learned the only thing the superiors do is sit at a desk, laugh at the Police Chief’s jokes, and stand behind him when he gives a press conference. What’s different today?”