Koko the Mighty (24 page)

Gammy whimpers.

“Hey!” Koko snaps. “What’s your problem, man? Gammy did great out there. If anything the big girl deserves a biscuit.”

“A biscuit?”

“Yeah!”

“Don’t tell me how to discipline my synthetic. And killing those de-civs, you’d—you’d no right to do that, not even in self-defense.”

As Gammy gathers her dense frame at her side, Koko cruises right up to Sébastien. “Let me clue you in on something, chief. Despite whatever dove-like bosh you and your brethren here like to purport, de-civs are parasites and you damn well know it. You yourself called them miserable creatures before. True, the end results are rough to look at, but I’ve slightly more experience in dealing with their kind.”

“Of course you do, massacring people for a paycheck.”

“Oh, give me a break. You—glassing about here like some lofty paragon of virtue, reel in your phony outrage for a second and deal with reality. Stop being such a coward.”

“Oh, and I imagine being a coward is something you know all about seeing that you’re on the run from The Sixty Islands.”

Koko doesn’t flinch. She’s not at all surprised that Sébastien has figured out her and Flynn’s situation.

“Oh, now we’re getting down to it. Great, how long have you known?”

Sébastien shoots his cuffs. “Shortly after your arrival. I’m not an idiot, you know.”

“So what else have you got on us?”

“For one thing I know that your former employers, the Custom Pleasure Bureau, recently submitted an insurance claim indicating one of their maintenance submarines had imploded on a deep-water dive. They listed you and Flynn aboard.”

Taken slightly aback by this revelation, Koko racks her brain.

What the—why would the CPB do something like that? Does that mean she and Flynn are off the hook
? No way, it couldn’t be.

One of the fallen Commonagers has a compound fracture sticking out of his arm at a graceless angle and he screams. Koko sees Flynn helping Dr. Corella get the man up, and when he pauses to offer her a disappointed look, her stomach sinks. The adrenaline rush from the fight is wearing off, and the opioid gels’ effects are now coming back, but hard. Hot-skinned and brain cotton-feathered, she gives her head a clearing shake. Ingesting two and half capsules—what was she thinking?

Sébastien starts to move away from her.

“Wait,” Koko says, “those de-civs could launch another attack.”

“Don’t be absurd. That group is probably halfway down the coast by now.”

“You don’t know that, Sébastien.”

Dr. Corella crosses over to them. “My God, how did this happen?”

“They levered open the tunnel gate,” Koko explains. “Actually I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before.”

Dr. Corella stares at her. “Can it be fixed?”

Koko cries. “Fixed?! Oh, right. Fix a gate. Lah-dee-dah. Why don’t you just hang up a big sign that says ‘Come on in and eat us alive.’ Your defenses need to be shored up immediately.”

Sébastien addresses the doctor. “How many are hurt?”

“Six. I think,” Dr. Corella replies. “Some larger cuts and a few broken bones, but most are just badly shaken up. Good God, Koko, you killed those de-civs with your bare hands?”

“Damn right, I did. And if your partner here hadn’t destroyed my weapons, Gammy and I might’ve finished the rest of them off.”

Dr. Corella swivels his head to look at Sébastien. There is a long, tacit exchange between the two men, and Koko waits for one of them to say something. When neither of them speaks, she throws up her hands and starts off.

“Goddamn it, I for one am not going to just stand by and line up for being a hot lunch.”

Dr. Corella stops her. “Hold on…”

“What?”

“You’re right,” Dr. Corella says.

Sébastien’s eyes darken. “
Doctor
…”

“No, Sébastien, she’s right. We need to do something. We must. It’s imperative, and we’ve come too far. There’s too much at stake. And anyway, you told me you’ve arranged transport for Koko, did you not?”

“I did. What of it?”

“Well, I think we should listen to her. Ask for help.”

Sébastien looks as if he’s about to spew. “You want to take
her
advice?”

“Do you really think we can afford not to?”

“But we’ve never had an incident like this before.”

“What if Koko hadn’t been here? What if these de-civs do try to attack us again?”

“They’re gone, this is upsetting the variables.”

Koko looks at Sébastien. “What variables?”

Dr. Corella steps between them. “Koko, do you really believe those de-civs will attack us again so soon?”

“It’s possible,” she says. “Sébastien here said they were part of a larger group.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning this could’ve been a test to see if this place is adequately defended. I’ve seen the tactic before.”

With his Adam’s apple sliding, Dr. Corella cracks. “So what, ah, what do we do?”

“You mean other than overnighting a shitload of firepower which, of course, isn’t possible because of your stupid no-fly zone lift window?”

“Yes, other than that.”

Koko blows out a breath. “At a minimum the gate needs to be refortified and barriers need to be put in place. After that… I don’t know. Maybe cordoned barricades all the way around the walls.”

“Can you show us?”

Koko tongues her cheek.
Well, well, well… you’ve got some nerve, you fucker
. To actually think when the shit is filling up hot and deep there’s essentially something called fair equivalence in the world. What a load. Never one for philosophy, Koko’s viewpoint (above portions of the private military code of conduct) has always been—me, mine, and screw the rest, no matter the outcome. Her priority is to protect Flynn and herself first. Maybe it’s the drugs, but damn—it does feel kind of good to have the tables turned.

“Why should I?” she asks.

“Self-preservation? We helped you first.”

“Immaterial.”

“Please?”

Koko’s eyes switch to Sébastien. “I’m going to need a lot of hands.”

Dr. Corella looks gravely at his partner. “Sébastien?”

“What?”

“Surely we can get the Commonagers to pitch in.”

“I can’t believe we’re even discussing this,” Sébastien murmurs. He tries to keep his composure, but when he looks at the wounded, the trouble, fear, and irritation in his eyes belies what’s left of his resistance. Begrudgingly, he nods.

Gammy circles, settles, and looks up at all of them. When Koko bends down to scratch Gammy’s withers; the synthetic jumps up and gives her face a huge, happy lick.

“It’ll be dawn in a few hours,” she says, pushing Gammy down, “so we need to take advantage of daylight. It’d be stupid to try for us again tonight, and once we start on the barricades, who knows. Maybe Sébastien is right. Maybe they’ll move off. Sébastien? Whoever was in the initial search party that found us I want to talk with them. Get a feel for just how many of those de-civs are out there.”

It took Wire the rest of the afternoon to ascend the cliff face above the sub’s wreck site and half of the night to clear most of the sawed-apart shells of the sprawling, overgrown ruins she discovered above.

She continues her advance carefully. As with earlier along the shoreline, she searches for clues and deliberates whether to hole up in the rubble and wait for daylight, but an inner nagging permeates. Whoever picked over the stolen submarine still has to be close by.

Checking the stars between drifting clouds, Wire ventures into the woods just after midnight. A scant five hundred meters in and her ears pick up distressed voices in the formidable growths. Wire promptly takes cover in a shallow, loamy gulch behind a tangle of fallen timber as the voices draw near.

“Trick! Wait! Trick, wait up!”

“C’mon, we got to fall back and regroup!”

Wire slides her Sig out of its holster and checks the readout on the housing—a cold, digitized green. The voices grow louder and branches crunch when two men crash past.

“So we southin’ for Sin Frontera now?”

“Grum, will you shut up! I got to think!”

Sin Frontera?

Wire recalls something about the alleged independent de-civ settlements in the deserts in the southern prohibs—wild, spurious tales. But if these two galloping nitwits are talking about Sin Frontera, what in the hell are they doing way up here? They might be the scroungers who gutted Martstellar’s sub, and one just said they had to fall back to regroup.
Fall back from what and regroup with whom?
Wire’s cooked ocular is giving her a massive gem of a headache, so she downshifts her thoughts to immediate tactical concerns and tightens her grip on the Sig.

The two pass by oblivious, and Wire eases up from behind the fallen timber to track their movement. Two men for certain, one short and dark-skinned and the other outlandishly ursine and bushy-faced. The two move northwest, and when their lead increases to a safe trailing distance, Wire keeps low and follows. The bigger man carries on.

“We lost Jasper! That woman killed Foo and Ashida! Oh, man, poor Mooch! Do you think that dog be behind us?”

Dog?

“See? I told you that place was easy pickin’s, didn’t I?”

“Easy pickin’s? They kicked our butts, Trick!”

“No, did you hear them? Practically begged us to stop. If it hadn’t been for that split-tail and blue dog…”

Minutes later, Wire can see the copperish flickering of a campfire and she halts. Crouching low, she picks her way closer and the outline of a small encampment comes into view, set in a looped arrangement with draped plastic rain tarps and crudely patched tents. It’s not a big group, maybe a couple dozen sallow-faced men, women, and children, but it’s difficult to take an accurate headcount because everyone keeps shuttling in and out of the shadows. An afro of mosquitoes whines around Wire’s head, and she fights off the urge to swat the cloud lest she give herself away.

Wire duck-walks right and hides in a fanning clump of licorice ferns. Fragments of fevered words filter out to her through the camp’s extraneous background noises, and it’s hard to hear everything, but soon she hears enough. The one named Trick strides toward the campfire and grabs a wooden spoon from a pot. He dips the spoon into the cauldron and shovels a sloppy, hot scoop of beans into his mouth, just as Wire charges into the clearing with her weapon up.

“Nobody move.”

Stooped and careening around, the little man spits out the beans and drops the spoon. Pulling a knife from his waistcoat, he snaps it open and everyone in the camp freezes in mid-step. Wire steadies her aim.

“Drop it,” she says.

“Who be you?”

“I’m the one with a pistol pointed at your face, that’s who I be.”

“I ain’t droppin’ diddly.”

Wire eases her right index finger off the Sig’s trigger guard. “Drop that knife or it’s piñata-time, buddy. I won’t say it again.”

She watches as the man called Trick spreads his fingers and lets go of his blade. The jackknife impales the dirt at an angle.

“Good,” Wire says, “now kick it into the fire.”

Reluctantly, Trick does as Wire orders and the blade lands short of the campfire’s rim of rocks. Wire’s good eye slims.

“You can’t be that dumb.”

“Take it easy, lady.”

“I told you to kick that knife into the fire.”

“Okay-okay…”

A follow-up kick and the blade skips into the flames. Wire adjusts her stance.

“Who’s in charge?”

“Depends on who’s askin’. You be one of them?”

“One of who?”

“From that compound east of here.”

Wire shakes her head.

“Okay, then I be boss here, right-right. Name’s Trick. That burly lug be Grum. If you ain’t from that compound, then who you be? You lost or somethin’?”

“Give me a weapon and headcount.”

Grum blurts out, “Twenty!”

Wire and Trick sling their heads at Grum.

“We’ve just got some sticks and junk,” Grum continues, “but we got no for-really weapons and such, not unless you count that knife Trick just kicked into the fire. We’re northerners, out of the Canadian territories. Southin’.”

“Sin Frontera, huh?”

Grum looks puzzled. “Um, yeah. We don’t want no trouble.”

Wire waves her Sig. “Everyone line up in rows in front of the fire. Get on your knees. Cross your legs behind you and lace your fingers on top of your heads. No sudden movements or I’ll kill you all. Do it. Do it now.”

No one waits for Trick’s permission, and they all do as Wire says. Beyond their rank bodily odors, Wire can smell their fear. The one named Trick is the last to acquiesce. She’s seen his kind of heart-eating arrogance before, and it’s time to take out the alpha. Stepping forward, Wire backhands her pistol against his face and a wet crack seals Trick’s compliance. He folds to the ground with a rasp.

Wire moves back and modifies her stance. When everyone is in place, she runs her eyes back and forth over the faces and then sets upon Grum.

“Twenty, you say? Looks like you’re lying and lying to me right now would be a bad thing, big boy.”

Grum stammers, “N-n-no, I swear, this be it. Be everybody or at least what’s left of everybody. We lost a few people earlier.”

“So, I heard.”

“What?”

“I’ve been listening to you two imbeciles whinge on for the past ten minutes back there in the woods. For the record, when you beat a retreat keep your voice down. Everybody hold still and keep your mouths shut.”

As the group attempts to remain as motionless and silent as possible, Wire fine-tunes her hearing for any movement in the campsite’s edges. After a full minute without so much as a rustle or broken twig, she’s satisfied no one is taking up flanking positions on her or hauling ass to escape. She relaxes her posture.

“I’ll be the one asking the questions here out, got it? You scumbag de-civs play nice and answer true, nobody dies.” Wire motions to Grum. “You. Yeah, you. Don’t look away from me. Since you were so obliging before, I’m putting you on point.”

Grum drags a finger down his chest. “Me?”

“Yeah. There’s a lot of line with your tarps and tents, so I’m going to give you a job. Gather up as much of that line as you can and tie everyone’s hands. Drag that knife out of the coals and cut the line into sections. That should speed things along.”