“I think we need to try for a snatch job,” Roo said the next morning.
Charles looked up from playing tug-of-war with the puppy. He was holding a shoelace in one hand while the animal scrabbled around, throwing his whole body weight into trying to get it away.
“We need a lot more equipment for that,” Booker said.
“The payday’s bigger,” the other man pointed out. “And remember how easy it was last time? Not to mention the mission we just completed. I mean, this is practically a walk in the park for us.”
“The risk is much higher for a fauna job. Also, the last fauna job we did, Prince somehow drew other Zoo life away from us by sending a bunch of other teams on a wild goose chase,” the Brit reminded him.
“No creature wants to be yanked from its den, but I have a feeling all the Zoo animals want to try to prevent one of their own from leaving,” Charles said.
“Oh, come on, you pussies. It’s not so bad. Think about the payout.”
The other two men exchanged a look.
“Look,” Roo said. “We do this and we really will be creating a reputation for ourselves. We can do as many pansy-ass grazing missions as you want, but the real grit is in the fauna. You know that, I know that, everyone in this whole fucking camp knows that. We do enough critter jobs successfully, and people will be throwing money at us and banging down our door to have us work for them.”
“Fine,” Booker said. “Charles?”
The American shrugged. “Why not?”
Roo grinned. “Knew you two wankers would see the light. Now come on, let’s pay Dan a visit.”
“Pay him a visit. Ha-ha,” the Brit said.
“Pun not intended.”
The supplier was standing at his table when they walked in, almost like he was waiting for them. Like he knew they were coming. Then again, he probably always looked like that. Everyone always came crawling back to him to equip them.
“Gents! Back for more?” he asked, grinning broadly at them.
Booker suppressed the need to roll his eyes. Roo, however, did not.
“We’re going to need equipment for fauna capture,” Charles said.
“We want a tranq gun, one of those electric nets, a collar, some traps, and small, medium, and large containment crates,” the Brit said, ticking the items off on his fingertips.
Dan nodded emphatically. “Right. Sure. Got it all. Give me a second and I’ll bring you everything you need.”
He grabbed a wheeled cart and disappeared to find the items requested.
“How much are the containment crates?” Booker asked when he returned.
The supplier looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, there’s the three different sizes, so they’re all different. Let’s start them off at sixty and go up from there.”
The Brit gripped the back of his neck. “What’s the price for one of your bigger nets?”
“I’ll have to go see what I have back there,” Dan said. When he returned, he had also retrieved a banged-up, jerry-rigged flamethrower. Charles eyed it and then looked at Booker.
“How much is that POS?” the Brit asked, indicating the flamethrower.
“This one isn’t as nice as the one you saw the other day. So let’s say fifty,” the man said.
The American cut his gaze to his teammate again, who was already shaking his head.
“No flamethrower. But you can have two WP grenades.” He ran a finger under his nose with a sniff. “Jesus, I sound like my mum. When did I start sounding like my mum?”
“Your mom let you have grenades when you couldn’t have a flamethrower?” Charles asked.
“No, smartass. She let me have the flamethrower instead of the grenades,” he retorted with a grin.
The other man rolled his eyes and allowed a small chuckle while Roo laughed.
“You going back to check with Franco for a fauna job?” the Aussie asked after he’d caught his breath.
Booker shrugged. “I thought I might suss out some of the corporate gigs. See if they’d toss us a bone. If nothing comes up, I’ll go back to Franco’s tomorrow and we’ll get something then.”
The established companies had sleek pole barns with logos and long lines out the door. Like Lampton, they all seemed to have their own fleets, armories, and research teams. Each company seemed to be a self-sustained empire, each rushing to colonize the Zoo.
Booker started with the Lampton building. He didn’t ask them for a job, but he established it as a point of reference as he wandered further into the Warehouse District of the French Quarter.
He stopped at a company three warehouses down from Lampton. The side of the giant pole barn was painted with the symbol of a phoenix. Matching logos adorned the armored vehicles that were parked in front.
“What do you want?” a heavily armed guard asked. He stopped Booker from getting closer than fifty feet from the building’s entrance.
“Just looking to see if there are any jobs,” he said nonchalantly.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah? What’s your name?”
“Booker. I’m with Bohica Warriors.”
“Huh. Never heard of you.”
“We’re new.”
“Right. Who did you work with before?”
“How do you know there was a before?”
The guard laughed, a dry and wheezing laugh that sounded painful. “Because no one strolls in here and is successful without being under someone else’s thumb first. Hell, no one ever gets out from under someone’s thumb. It’s all the same.”
“Did a job for Lampton but didn’t continue with them due to some insurmountable differences. Then there was Prince Akachukwu. Now there’s just us,” he said.
“Move along, bud. Now I remember I have heard of you,” he said, motioning Booker away with the muzzle of his machine gun.
He didn’t ask what the guard meant, mainly because he didn’t like machine guns aimed at him. He was sensible that way.
He worked his way through the Warehouse District. The same conversation played out with various deviations. The result was always the same—get lost. Some people used words, some actions or threats, or simply flat-out laughed at the idea that he and his company were at all employable.
After the sixth company turned him down, he was beyond frustrated.
“Why?” he asked the guard who’d just told him to get off the company’s property.
“Why? Shit, man, you pissed off the wrong woman. Now get the fuck out of here before I have to move you myself.”
So, it was all Shira’s fault they couldn’t get a corporate job. Yet. Booker believed it was yet because he knew the capabilities of the small team they’d created.
“What are we going to do about that?” Charles asked after he gave them the recap of his fruitless day.
He shrugged. “Nothing. For now. We’ll just stick with Franco. See if we can sniff out any other third-tier deals. I’m not worried.”
“The next job’s going to be big,” Roo said.
“What makes you say that?” the American asked.
He tapped a fingertip to his nose. “Intuition. My whole family’s got a bit of the psychic in us.”
“Right, and my godmother is the queen,” Booker muttered. He stretched out on his cot.
“I’m bloody serious. Our next job is going to be fucking big. Just wait and see.”
“All right. I won’t hold my breath, but all right. Let’s just call it an early night, yeah? We can get a good start in the morning and hit the ground running,” the Brit said.
His teammates agreed.
Sleep didn’t come easily. Anticipation hummed through them.
Charles, in an effort to work off excess energy, did one-handed push-ups and played with the puppy at the same time.
His teammates gave up pretending to sleep and watched, joining in rolling a small rubber ball Charles had picked up for the puppy.
“We should give it a name,” Roo said.
“Pretty sure it’s a he,�
� the American said.
“Did you check?” Booker asked.
He shrugged. “Don’t need to. Don’t want to. It’s a he. And if anyone’s naming him, it's me.”
“Fine. You can’t just call him puppy and then dog when he gets older. He needs a name,” Roo said.
Charles thought about it for a few moments. He watched as the puppy tried, and failed, to leap over Booker’s outstretched leg as he sat on the floor.
“Thor,” Charles announced. He scooped the puppy up and held it at arm’s length, staring into its big chocolate-colored eyes. “I’m going to call you Thor.”
“God of thunder,” Roo said. “Nice.”
“I approve,” Booker agreed.
“Like I need either of your approval to name my dog.”
“No need to get persnickety about it,” the Brit retorted.
Charles shrugged and put Thor back on the ground.
Roo rolled the ball past the dog toward Charles. The three men expected the ball to roll right past the animal because he was all awkward puppy energy and could never seem to get his legs under him properly. But he pounced on the ball with a ferocious growl.
“Fast learner,” the American said, impressed. He scratched behind one of Thor’s ears while the puppy slobbered on the rubber ball.
Chapter Fourteen
The Harvesters Camp
Booker was up just before the sun and back standing in front of the door. He nodded at the two guards who nodded back. He waited for Franco and the other dispatchers to come out of the building and assign missions. Booker was beginning to get a feel for the routine that happened. He showed up first, then other team leaders straggled in. They stood apart from him, each drinking his morning coffee or chain smoking. They talked shop and easy pleasantries that were built on a mutual respect and understanding that, at any time, they would stick a knife in another’s back to get ahead. It created an ever-present tension to remind them they weren’t co-workers. They worked for themselves and needed to look out for their teams, first and foremost.
The novelty had begun to wear off, but he was still being ignored. He knew they discussed him, happy for the neutral distraction. He could tell no one took him seriously. Booker was used to this from strangers and knew he didn’t have the imposing physique someone like Charles had. He was wiry, but he was confident with the punch he packed. The Brit hadn’t lost a fight in a long time. Most of the time, he didn’t need to fight. He was confident in his physical ability and wasn’t afraid to get violent, but he liked to talk his way out first. But he wouldn’t be walked over.
It took about half an hour for all the team leaders to show up. Everyone eyed the door expectantly. After the conversations had mostly died down, the door opened, and the clipboard-wielding dispatchers walked out.
Four jobs were announced—one flora and three fauna. Booker didn’t get any of them.
“There’s always the Bowser mission,” Franco reminded the team leaders in front of him. There were a few snorts of laughter and a couple of scoffs from the remaining men.
“Bowser? Like from Mario Bros?” Booker asked one of the team leaders standing next to him.
The man nodded. “Don’t ask me why they call it that. The creature looks nothing like Bowser. Though that would be pretty badass. No, it’s like top top-level.”
“Top-level?”
“Yeah. Some stupid impossible shit.”
“It would be a huge payout,” Franco said, overhearing the conversation.
The team leader laughed. “Right. Too bad dead men don’t collect.”
Booker stood there and continued to be passed over for all the other jobs. Franco still didn’t seem completely sold on the validity of their team, so the jobs went to his more trusted contractors.
Finally, he was the only one left. He weighed his options—either go back and tell Charles and Roo they were unemployed for another day in a row or take the stupid impossible mission.
“Franco,” he said before the man could entomb himself once more in the building.
“Yeah?”
“We’ll do it.”
“You’ll do what?”
“The Bowser mission.”
The dispatcher looked at him, pulled out his scanpad, and fiddled around. He flipped the screen around and showed him. The display presented an image of a giant lizard-like creature. It had three heads, each with glowing yellow eyes and long, forked tongues. Strings of saliva hung from its jaws. Its neck was long and thickly-muscled and attached the heads to a wide body with six legs, each tipped with massive claws that promised to cut through flesh like a hot knife through butter. Finally, the tail rose up above the three heads with a stinger on the end that was reminiscent of a scorpion’s. The combination of grizzly body parts created a menacing animal that he didn’t feel a great desire to meet.
“You still want it?” Franco asked.
Booker nodded, his lips pressed into a line. “A job’s a job.”
The man shook his head. “Your funeral. I’ll send you the last known details on it. Oh, and it needs to be brought back alive. Unconscious would be ideal, obviously. But if it’s been dead for over thirty minutes, it will no longer be a viable specimen. Got it?”
“Got it. Bring it back unconscious, but not dead. If dead, not longer than thirty minutes. Sounds totally doable.”
“You’re one over-confident motherfucker.”
“Not over-confident. Just confident.”
“Whatever you say. Good luck, you’ll need it.”
“Did you find anything?” Charles asked when he returned to the storage container.
“Yeah, I did. It’s not going to be easy, either.”
“What is it?” Roo asked.
Booker pulled up the image of the creature and showed it to them. Charles grimaced and the other man swore.
“Please tell me we can bring that ugly bastard back dead,” the Aussie said.
He shook his head and repeated the information Franco had given him.
“Sounds hard,” Charles said, “but not impossible.” He rolled his shoulders, then cracked his neck for good measure.
“It has three heads,” Roo pointed out.
“And?”
“Fucking three heads, Charles.”
The other man shrugged. “There are three of us. Now I think that evens the odds a little, don’t you?”
“We’re going to need a bigger net,” Roo muttered. “And bigger guns.”
Booker stood and stretched. “We should head out now. It’s going to be a bit of a trek to get where this guy was last seen. Might as well start now.”
“I’ll need to find someone to watch Thor. Can’t take him with us yet,” Charles said.
Roo glared. “See, this is why you should’ve let it be. We didn’t have to worry about finding a babysitter before.”
The American shrugged, then picked Thor up and held him in front of his face. “Don’t listen to the grumpy man. He isn’t fooling anyone pretending not to like you.”
Thor wriggled happily in his hand. Roo’s glare deepened.
“Where are you going to take him?” Booker asked, inspecting his MP5 piece by piece.
Charles hunched on the edge of his cot. He put Thor down and watched as the puppy tried to dig a hole through the bed he’d made.
“Do you think the bartender would take him?” he asked.
The Brit raised an eyebrow and Roo snorted.
“Right. So, no?”
Booker pushed the mag home with a click that sounded like finality. “No.”
Charles pursed his lips. “Dan?”
“The twat charges a fuck-ton for taking things off his hands. Imagine what price he’d fix on taking care of something,” Roo scoffed. “Who’s going to pay for that?”
“I will, jerk,” the American said, leveling his own glare at his teammate.
The other man held his hands up in mock surrender. “All right, Goliath. No need to get your dander up.” He grinned.
&nbs
p; Charles sighed and scooped Thor up. He tucked the puppy in his hip pocket, then grabbed Thor’s things that lay scattered on the ground. “I’ll be back.”
Dan was playing a game of solitaire when he strolled in. He looked up and grinned. “You here for the flamethrower? I’m keeping her tucked away, just waiting for you to claim her.”
“Unfortunately, not today. I’m here for a favor,” he said.
The man pursed his lips. “A favor, huh?”
He nodded.
“What sort of a favor are we talking here?”
Charles pulled Thor out of his pocket and set the tri-colored puppy on Dan’s table. He stared at him and the puppy stared right back. Then, Thor crouched and leapt forward to try to gnaw on his hand. Dan pulled it hastily out of reach.
“Where’d you get this thing?”
“Rescued him. Some jerkoff abandoned it to die.”
“And you want me to watch it?”
He nodded.
“I don’t do anything for free,” Dan said. He gave Thor a tentative scratch. The puppy flopped onto its back, begging for a belly rub. The man obliged him with a rueful smile.
“Wasn’t expecting you to do it for free. I just can’t take him with me into the Zoo. Not until he’s older, anyway.”
“I’m not saying yes, and I’m not saying no. Just needing the facts. You know how long you’ll be gone?”
Charles shrugged. “It’s a bit up in the air at the moment. Definitely a few days. Hopefully no more than a week.”
“Fuck, a week? What the hell are you doing?”
“Bringing back some three-headed thing.”
“Sweet Jesus, you idiots doing the Bowser mission?”
He grunted confirmation.
Dan shook his head. “I don’t want to be stuck with the fur ball. I like dogs as much as the next man, but I don’t want that sort of responsibility.”
“You won’t be stuck with him. I’ll be coming back.”
He looked at Charles for a long moment, then he looked at Thor, who was trying to work out how to get off the table.
“Fine. I’ll watch the fleabag.”
Reprobates (The Bohica Chronicles Book 1) Page 14