Koko Takes a Holiday (16 page)

“Considering?” Delacompte asked. “For the best considering what?”

Delacompte couldn’t be serious. Considering what? Hello? Your gargantuan screw-up back in Finland, you dumbass.

“Look,” Koko answered brusquely, “we’re cool, D, okay? Everything’s cool. Just forget it. All that stuff that happened back in Helsinki was just one of those things, you know? Some BSGD.”

Bad shit, going down.

Delacompte squawked. “Helsinki? What the hell are you talking about, girl? By Helsinki you mean Helsinki fucking Finland? When were you in Finland? Sorry, I’ve had some SMTs recently, and there’s a whole bunch of stuff I can’t recall…”

SMTs?
Well, shit
, Koko thought. Selective memory treatments. That explained Delacompte’s confusion. Not that Koko blamed her. Hell, who wouldn’t sign up for selective memory treatments given the fact that Delacompte—

A massive, rolling explosion shattered to the right of Koko’s rooftop position. When Koko turned her head back, she saw that the explosion had taken out an entire floor of an adjacent office building. Crouched with her bazooka, she duck-walked to the south end of the roof, a silhouette moving fast and low in the smoke.

Another follow-up fizzle of squelching static and Delacompte’s voice sliced into her skull again.

“Take a guess where I am now,” she teased merrily.

“I really don’t have time for this, Big D. Could I, like, patch you later to catch up or something?”

“C’mon, take one little guess.”

Koko leveled the bazooka in her arms on a ventilation unit. She aimed at the advancing throngs below and fired.

“I don’t know. Mombasa?”

“Try about ten thousand kilometers east-northeast. You remember that time when you said you thought you could run a bar?”

* * *

Oh, yeah.

I so remember now.

Bitch.

In a burst of speed, Koko cross-draws the Sig from the holster inside her jacket and levels the sights at her own reflection.

Daring and staring back.

At the bar, Flynn looks relieved and positions himself next to his stool as Koko makes her way back across the room. Cheerfully, Koko holds her chin high.

“Well, either you aced your civil courses at whatever passes for a security academy up here,” she says, “or whoever raised you had a shred of class.”

Flynn laughs. “The latter. I’m one of the engineered populace.”

As she takes her seat, Koko’s eyes widen. “Oh, yeah?” she says. “Engineered? Hey, me too. Were you bred up here or in one of the collectives down below?”

“Up here. Been skying in the confederacies most of my life. How about you?”

“Came out of one of the Oceania cooperatives. Humble beginnings—rolled right into basic at seventeen and never looked back, really. Count yourself lucky you were bred up here. Not a lot of exciting labor options for conventional re-civs bred down below.”

Flynn wags a finger. “Ta, ta, commercial efficiency is for the greater good…”

“Yeah, yeah. You sound like a public service announcement on the feeds. Given the choices for menial waging down below, a life policing re-civ order seemed the best option for me.”

“And now you’re loving life as a bartender. Wow, life sure does have a way of working itself out, doesn’t it?”

“That it does.”

“More sake?”

“Please.”

Flynn picks up the white bulbous carafe from the bar and pours a generous dollop of the rice wine into Koko’s cup. Placing his hands together, he mutters something and bows slightly over her poured drink. He picks up the cup and hands it to Koko.

“What was that?” she asks.

Flynn gives the carafe to Koko, and she pours him a serving.

“What was what?”

“That bowing stuff.”

“Oh that. It’s supposedly Japanese. My cook buddy over there, he’s a stickler for dying languages. He told me I’m supposed to show sake a little more respect and say something profound. Gave me a whole spiel of grief while you were in the head. Apparently he thinks I’m not reverent enough.”

“So, what does it mean?”

“What? Oh, honestly, I forget, and he just told me a minute ago. Hang on a sec, and I’ll find out.”

Flynn flags down his friend, and the big cook and Flynn confer across the bar. Koko can’t hear their low exchange over the surrounding restaurant noise so she rotates on her bar stool and checks out the room while they talk. Out of habit she takes in everything in a pattern. Evaluates the layout. Tracks her eyes over potential cover and exits. There is a large unobstructed view of the passing crowds outside the restaurant and occasionally there’s a curious glance from a patron considering the bill of fare posted near the restaurant’s entrance. Seems like most people in the place are abuzz and having a good time. Across the room, a couple claps with delight as their waiter proudly hands over two skewers of blazing meatballs.

Flynn brushes Koko’s hand. When she turns back to face him, he holds up his cup.

“
Au now a wakari no hajimari
.”

Koko snickers. “You sound like you’re choking. Try saying that ten times fast.”

“I’d rather not. Roughly translated, it means ‘to meet is the beginning of parting’. Kind of a thought on the transient nature of things.”

“Pretty deep for a chef.”

“Well, like I said, the big guy is a sucker for dying languages.” Flynn’s eyes drift left for a second and then return. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“When you were active—I mean, back when you were working for the multinationals—did you have to wear one of those,” Flynn scratches his temple, squints a bit, and looks past her shoulder again, “one of those imbedded contraptions?”

“You mean an ocular implant? Yeah, sure. All militarized personnel do. Mine was one of the original series and a bit on the clunky side, but I had it surgically removed when I finished up. Why?”

“Did it hurt?”

“Not really. After the adhesives set into the cranial bones, you sort of just get used to it. Like I said, I had mine removed when I cycled out. Why?”

Flynn polishes off the rest of his sake. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that there’s a woman with one over by the entrance, and, man, she looks like she wants to burn this whole place down.”

Koko’s spine turns to ice. Instinctively, she slides her right hand under her jacket, eyes drawing inward.

“Inside or out?”

“Pardon?”

Her voice is steady and low. “The woman by the entrance. Is she inside or outside the restaurant?”

Flynn casually bobs right and then bobs back. He studies the look on Koko’s face. “Is something wrong?”

In less than three seconds, Koko’s brain falls through the angles of the restaurant, cover, and possible collateral damage. Her heart slams in her chest.

Good God
, she thinks.
Get a hold of yourself.
Ocular implants aren’t all that uncommon—hell, plenty of militarized personnel travel in the Second Free Zone all the time. An imbed means nothing.

But what if it’s the redhead? No, Flynn would have described her like that right away; those neckbands make a big statement. Then again, could it be a second agent? Beneath her jacket Koko depresses the safety on the Sig.

She needs to look to be sure. A distraction, shit, she needs a distraction.

While she knows she might regret it, Koko settles on the play. She leans over toward Flynn and places a hand on his knee.

“Kiss me,” she says.

Flynn blinks at Koko as though he’s not heard her correctly.

“Come again?”

“I said kiss me, Flynn. Kiss me.”

Flynn dithers so Koko doesn’t wait for him. With a rush Koko leans closer and presses her lips to his. To encourage him, she zooms her resting hand quickly up his leg and cups his crotch.

Flynn shudders and stiffens beneath her hand. Koko responds by giving the bulge in his pants an upward stroke. Hot and slightly sour from the sake they’ve enjoyed, Koko’s tongue bores into his mouth. Deeply.

As their tongues intertwine, Koko hooks a leg around Flynn’s hip, covering his Beretta. Meshing her body into his, she angles them backward to the point it feels she might topple the both of them right off their bar stools. Koko’s hand leaves Flynn’s crotch and slides around to the holster on his hip.

No matter what, if this is a go Koko sure as hell is going to have two guns.

Koko cracks an eyelid and takes in warped reflections in the bar’s decorative chrome. Slowly and clockwise, she shifts both of their bodies around on their stools.

Focus, Koko.

Imbedded ocular. Find it.

More funhouse reflections turning in the bar’s chrome and glass.

Turn, turn.

Koko thinks she sees the shoulders and head of someone moving away—short hair and built, but she can’t be sure. From the back she knows there’s no visible proof of an imbedded ocular, as even the most archaic devices lay close to flat against the skull.

Was it the woman Flynn said he saw? Hard to say, but it definitely is not that redhead with the neckbands. Aw, hell. Koko asks herself what she’s still doing here. She needs to move.

Koko breaks off their kiss. As she tries to slither away from Flynn, to her surprise she discovers Flynn is now holding fast to the flesh of her ass. Koko has to clear her throat to get his attention.

Flynn opens his eyes.

“Wowza.”

Koko reaches around her back and pushes down on his arms until he lets go.

“Hey, Flynn?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t by any chance live close by, do you?”

Flynn raises a hand for the check.

This is going to be so easy, Mu thinks.

Look at these two. Arm in arm, not a shred of care in the world. Like a couple of lovebirds out for a post-dinner stroll.

Suckers.

Mu is totally positive they didn’t make her at the restaurant. A close call, yeah, but luckily she turned around at just the right moment and became another unexceptional head in the
Alaungpaya
hordes. No, these two have no idea they’re being followed. No idea at all.

Mu hangs back and allows some of the people along the promenade to buffer the distance between her and her targets. She falls in behind a pack of chatty teens whooping it up, getting their evening party on.

What the hell?
Mu thinks.
What is it with this Martstellar?

A few hours ago she goes all tiger-on-tiger with Heinz and now the woman decides it’s okay to pick up a little man meat for some shift and shake?

Well, the file did say Martstellar had gone soft. All that oversexed living down on The Sixty. Not to mention the guy she’s with is packing heat. The fat man said she was low on credits. Maybe she’s looking to score another weapon. Whatever. Girl is a total loser, and she’s totally in Mu’s sights.

Now if only these two would take a small detour. Yeah, that would be choice. Perhaps slip into another bar. Someplace dark. Mu could just sidle up behind them and slit both of their throats with one speedy pull of that blade she took when they killed the fat man. Let both their bodies fall and take their eyes while the life drained from them, maybe take an extra ear each.

Oh, yeah. That would make things so easy.

Mu is about to update the others on her location when a personal audio message crashes in via her ocular.

Oh, who the—Now?
Now
? Damn it to hell…

The audio patch is from Mu’s grandmother.

“Bootsy, dear?”

Mu attempts to sound upbeat and cheerful as she taps in to respond.

“Hey, Nana…”

Mu’s grandmother is ninety-six years of age and has no idea what Mu does now. To be honest, it has been more than a wearisome inconvenience for Mu to conceal her secondary career and new identity from the old woman all these years, but Mu has always been afraid that if her grandmother knew the truth of what she now does for a living or how she’s changed her name it would crush the old woman’s heart. Mu’s grandmother was so proud of her when she played football for the South American Coalition, and after she retired from professional sports it thrilled Grandmother no end that she went back to school to pursue a professional degree. Her grandmother actually believes that Mu is now an accountant. A bit of a half-truth. Balancing ledgers for the powerful, only with a quick hand of death, all under her new alias, Loa Mu.

“I’m not bothering you at the office, am I, dear?”

Looking over and past the shoulders in front of her, Mu twists through the crowds with her eyes locked on her targets ahead.

“No, Nana,” Mu says. “You’re not bothering me at all. I’m just, you know, crunching the numbers, your busy little girl as always. Are you all right? Is something wrong?”

“Well, I hate to trouble you at work,” her grandmother says, “but I’m having trouble with my medical payments again.”

Mu sighs. “Nana, I think I took care of that.”

“You did,” Mu’s grandmother says. “Well, you told me you did anyway. But my health axis administrators, they’re saying they never received the credit transfer for my last two treatments.”

This news pisses Mu off. She’s been handling all the mind-numbing ins and outs associated with her grandmother’s recent medical condition and is certain she received confirmation of receipt of payment for her latest treatments. Why those data-pushing, lazy-ass, little—

“Did you check your advocacy representative’s records, Nana?”

“I did,” the old woman answers. “But they said the same thing. They said the credits haven’t shown up in their account silos. Of course, now they won’t let me schedule a time for my follow-up treatments because they say I’m carrying an insufficient balance. I’m very worried, dear. My tumors feel funny.”

As much as she loves her dear old Nana, Mu doesn’t have time for her reedy prattling. She notes that Martstellar and her armed friend have dropped out of the flow up ahead. Quickly, Mu takes cover behind a three-dimensional advertising hologram shooting upward from the deck. Easing her head incrementally around the hologram’s projection, she sees that Martstellar and her man-panion have stopped to be part of a small crowd waiting for a lift. Both of them look upward as a lift slides down the inner atrium wall to their location.