Koko Takes a Holiday (31 page)

“Don’t—” Flynn says.

Finding the outline of a grenade, Delacompte flicks the device’s armament button. With her last ounce of strength, she lifts her head and bares her teeth.

Flynn squeezes the trigger. The suppressed blast from Koko’s gun vaporizes Delacompte’s skull in a thick red spew and throws her backward, but he’s too late. The armed grenade spools out onto the ground like a top.

Flynn turns and bolts toward Koko. It feels as though he has an eternity stretched out before him, and somehow he believes he can actually beat the grenade’s countdown. But, of course, he’s wrong. The protracted moment peels away in an ineffable wallop of noise and heat. Flynn is raised up—up and up and up. To his continued amazement, Flynn’s legs keep pumping through the air. He feels light as a feather, finally an angel in a world all afire.

Flynn wonders if he’ll ever come down and imagines he’s already dead. But reality comes with a terrible jolt when his feet brutally strike the ground.

His legs buckle beneath him. His ensuing tumble and spill scrapes skin from his body as he draws his hands over his head.
Oh, God… are my arms still attached?
Hair. Flynn thinks he feels hair. That’s good, that means he’s still—oh shit,
I’m still alive
? Broken ground strafes all around him. He can’t breathe.

When the worst passes, grayish dots cloud Flynn’s vision and it takes all his effort to inhale. Smoky air and a cough. No sound now except for the swooning tolls between his ears, an ache worse than any migraine he’s ever experienced. Flynn’s gut goes cold as images beat through his vision.

Smoke. Blackness.

Humid morning sky. The swirling red and electric blue lights from emergency craft pulling close.

More blackness.

The open hangar. Jot’s and Hoon’s septic ship.

Black, black, black.

Then the sour whiff of roasted human flesh, and Flynn snaps to consciousness. Strange hands fall on his chest, his shoulders. Groping.

Flynn pushes the hands away and rolls to his side. Using his elbows to fulcrum his legs, he drags his body forward. It turns out Koko is much closer than he thought. A mere meter and a half later, Flynn collapses by her side.

The strange, groping hands continue in their attempts to draw him away, but Flynn fights them. He leans his body over Koko and warm droplets roll off his face and plink on her battered, upturned cheeks. Is it his own blood? His tears? Flynn can’t tell, and he doesn’t care anymore because Koko is smiling up at him.

He leans in close.

Flynn kisses Koko’s bloody mouth.

THE SIXTY ISLANDS PROMO “HOT STUFF/PF SPOT”—0:30

CLIENT: Custom Pleasure Bureau—The Sixty Islands

PRODUCTION ENGAGEMENT: 2516 All Seasonal Hemispheric Cycles

AUDIO: GURGLING OCEANIC SOUNDS, SHIFTING SAND

[FADE IN] VISUAL FEED 1: UNDERWATER, THE ROLLING BACK OF A BREAKING REEF WAVE. AS THE WAVE TUBES, A NUDE SURFER IS SILHOUETTED IN THE WAVE’S MOVING SURFACE. THE NUDE SURFER DRAGS HER/HIS HAND ACROSS THE WAVE FACE AS A CYBERNETIC TIGER SHARK CRUISES BEHIND IN PURSUIT. CAMERA TRACKS UP, BREACHES THE WATER’S SURFACE, AND MOVES FORWARD ACROSS THE BREAKWATER TOWARD LAND. ON THE BEACH AHEAD, A SIMULATED EXECUTION IS IN PROGRESS ON THE SIXTY ISLANDS. A GUILLOTINE PLATFORM TOWERS ABOVE A THRASHING, HALF-NAKED CROWD OF SUNTANNED SPECTATORS.

AUDIO 2: AGGRESSIVE, LOUD MUSIC. DRUMS.

[CUT TO CLOSE-UP] VISUAL FEED 2: GUILLOTINE BLADE AS A HOLDING PIN IS JERKED FREE. THE BLADE FALLS.

[CUT TO CROWD SHOT] VISUAL FEED 3: CHEERING EXECUTION SPECTATORS FROM BEHIND THE SHOULDERS OF A BLACK-HOODED EXECUTIONER HOLDING UP A BEHEADED SKULL BY THE SCALP. CAMERA PANS OVER THE CROWD AS THEY HOIST SPEARS AND ROAR.

[FADE IN] VISUAL FEED 4: GORGEOUS, MONTAGED IMAGERY OF EXECUTION SPECTATORS* DANCING. THE DANCE MOVES OF THE SPECTATORS SOON MORPH INTO SOME OF THE MOST DEPRAVED, INGENIOUS SEX ACTS IMAGINABLE. QUICK-CUT MONTAGE BUILDS AND VISUALS ARE INTERSPERSED WITH RANDOM SIXTY ISLANDS DEBAUCHERY AND VIOLENCE. FACES BEYOND THE CREST OF DESIRE. EXPLOSIONS—EVERYTHING MOVING FASTER AND FASTER TO A FRENZIED, ANIMALISTIC CLIMAX. [*NOTE: Not actual SI patrons, models preferred for montage.]

[CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 5: BLACK

AUDIO 3: WHIMSICAL MUSIC—STEEL DRUMS, SLACK KEY GUITAR, ETC.

[FADE IN] VISUAL FEED 6: THE SIXTY ISLANDS logo.

VOICEOVER: What are
you
waiting for?

(BEAT)

VOICEOVER (CONT.) The Sixty Islands—paradise found.

Oh my, our Koko-sama be flying truer than true now. Yes-yes. Jump-up proper, she be on all freaky and high-happy these days. And we be new-fresh recruits for her, and all of us, we got lotsa, lotsa work to do.

Hey, big re-opening coming up a week out no less. Oh, we creamy with excitement, but we sweat plenty to get ready.

Me love my new boss, Koko-sama. Some of the other boys and girls and tranny
rae-raes
not so much. Koko-sama be big sugarhoney and take care of us all on the kind, right-right? Not that we ungrateful tummyachers ’cause we on The Sixty, man! Drong! The Sixty! Big dream come true even if we all be whoring for the credit ching-a-ching-a-ling.

Koko-sama still be limping with the great white cane like when she done come down to Melbourne to recruit me and me mates. Koko-sama say her stumpy walk and stick soon be gone with all the physical pump and jump we all do. Koko-sama, she be big bad on keeping us all fit, you bet. Customers like the lovey talent prime, she say, so all of us, we get up at first light and run forever in the beautiful island jungles. We lift fallen trees and heavy stones and even chase them syntho-piggies for bacon and barbecue. Like the last of the old fish in the big salty, we even swim every day a bunch too. Beats mining rock and dodging hook and claw back in Oz, but The Sixty chiefs also want us all healthy-planned whores now.

Master Flynn be waiting on two more shipments of good liquor before he say we got us a full bar. Me, I like Master Flynn. Good boss. He go on proper like how customers on SI need tasty options, so a full working bar is a must-y. Got us a purification still for refining cheap liquor for big parties too. Handy thing, that. Keep all the bad liquor on the yum-yum.

Master Flynn, he a funny one. Don’t mess with any of Koko-sama’s whores ’cause he and Koko-sama be special lovers like. Hear he used to go big boo-hoo up top, and me done seen them bodies fall from the clouds on the feeds a few times. Sad stuff, but Master Flynn, he be much high-happy now too.

Yeah-yeah. We all got lots and lots of work to do.

Koko lifts a hammer from a nylon tool belt secured around her hips. Her pink T-shirt is saturated dark with perspiration, and the muscles beneath her camouflaged shorts shine brown.

She steadies a four-inch carpenter’s nail against a large, carved wooden sign on the siding above the tin porch roof and readies herself to drive the nail home. Her mirrored goggles flash with the sun as she twists her head back.

“You’re sure it’s even?”

In rolled khaki cargo pants and an unbuttoned white linen shirt, Flynn squints up to check the sign’s alignment. Even with Flynn’s own pair of sun goggles the potent light on The Sixty is so fierce it makes him feel like he’s getting punched in the face over and over. Hell, the sign looks even enough, Flynn supposes. Why Koko can’t wait until the much cooler dark to hang the final touch on the new building is beyond him. It’s a modest, purlin structure. Eleven rooms with a bar and café area and a small winged alcove arranged with tables of chance. It looks just like one of those airy tropical places Flynn remembers seeing on the history feeds. Tall open windows with slatted hurricane shutters and lazy ceiling fans fashioned to resemble round palm fronds. The rear of the building opens up onto a large grass-plotted patio sliced down the middle by a stone-lined lap pool with a regenerative spa on the far end in the shape of a heart. Heavily scented citrus trees surround the patio area, and just beyond the area an electrified wire fence corners off the property—a measure to keep the islands’ half-and-half synthetics from disturbing the guests.

“Bang away,” Flynn says with a magnanimous wave.

Koko turns back and pounds the nail between her fingers. Limping sideways, she pounds a few more nails in place. Sweat flies from her skin as she swings, and she doesn’t miss her mark, not once.

Koko’s hair is now back to its original deep black shade and has grown out some, feral and unkempt. When she’s finished, she drags her sun goggles down from her eyes and hangs them loose around her neck. After loping across the roof, she straddles her boots on either side of an aluminum ladder and drops down to join Flynn. Together they admire her handiwork as he hands Koko her white walking cane. Soon the sign’s solar-powered lettering begins to flicker, and one word glows in a radiant, cobalt blue.

SALOON

“What do you think?”

Flynn slides his sun goggles up to the crown of his head.

“Simple and direct,” he says. “I think it looks pretty sweet.”

Koko grins. “Yeah, I think so too.”

Flynn shuffles his bare feet in the sand. “I still can’t believe we’re doing this, though.”

Koko angles back slightly and playfully slaps his arm. “Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport.”

“Yeah, you say that, but I don’t know. I still don’t trust those CPB bastards, despite their assurances…”

Koko huffs. “Oh, will you stop it? The CPB board know I’m more valuable to them alive than dead. Even with my being Delacompte’s quasi-accomplice way back in Helsinki, they realize it was all her madness in the end. You were right, Flynn. I’m irrelevant. After all that went down, CPB needs a good spin on the narrative.”

“Still—”

“Still what? Honestly, Flynn, I know you have a real hard time seeing the good in things, but everything is back to where it should be. Both of us have been cleared of any charges, and I got my life back. Hell, we both got our lives back. And you? C’mon, man, just look at you.”

“What about me?”

“Do you need me to spell it out? Off those stupid meds, looking all tan and buff. Your so-called Depressus symptoms are all but gone. You’re a whole new person. You’ve a brand-new life ahead of you. A life of noble purpose.”

“Pimping whores and slinging booze? Hardly noble purposes.”

“There are worse things.”

They stand and regard the sign some more.

“Besides,” Koko says, “you really make me tingle.”

Flynn arches an eyebrow and laughs. He lunges lustfully for Koko’s waist, and she spins into his arms.

“Really, I make you tingle? Is that what you call it? Woman, I’ll have you know you have me walking cross-eyed and sore-cocked. I’m surprised I can still get out of bed in the morning and walk a straight line.”

Koko giggles. “Aww… it’s all part of your therapy, lawman. All part of your therapy. You’re finally coming around to what living is really all about.”

She pinches his cheek and hobbles off. As Flynn watches her go, he once again finds his feelings all a-twirl for Koko. Is he in love with her? Maybe. Such loopy sentiments and affections have always seemed impossible and unreachable for Flynn. All he knows now is he doesn’t really care if he is or isn’t in love. The woman is nothing short of amazing.

With the shamble in her caned gait, Koko pops her way up the building’s short steps, crosses the broad porch, and slams the batwing doors inward. Immediately she starts giving orders to all the whores assigned to last-minute preparations inside.

Flynn looks up and reads the sign on the building once more. Shielding his eyes, Flynn gazes beyond the building and past the tree line. Thick slates of weather are brewing in the sky, and it appears an afternoon thunderstorm is on the way. A web of cloud-to-cloud lightning crackles on the horizon as miles higher and further in the distance a lone Second Free Zone barge creeps through a rising orbit. Even at that range, Flynn can see the navigational beacons on the barge’s hull strobe, twinkling on and off like dying stars.

Indeed
, he thinks,
there are worse things.

Meanwhile, a mere three hundred meters south of the new building, a clump of glossy leafy vegetation rustles and parts and a small orange lizard switches out into the open road. Another one of the resort’s countless synthetics, the lizard stops and raises its shiny diamond-shaped head before it darts off into the dark brush on the road’s opposite side. A moment later, a second creature emerges from the parted vegetation. Standing and stretching from a long bush squat, the second creature adjusts a pair of sunglasses over her ocular imbed, draws a HK U-50 from a leg holster, and patiently waits for the bearded man to head inside.

Ultimate Sanction.

The bounty agent known as Wire walks slowly toward the bar.

Foremost, the most heartfelt appreciation has to go out to Stacia J.N. Decker at the Donald Maass Literary Agency for believing Koko had the onions to go the distance. In that vein, I also wish to express my gratitude to Cath Trechman and everybody at Titan Books for their tireless dedication and can-do professionalism with this book.

No one gets a book published alone, so big, pumping thank-you handshakes with extra hand sanitizer to my ever-widening hoop of writing comrades, ass-kickers, and first readers, including Greg Bardsley, Stephen Blackmoore, David Cranmer, Steve Weddle, Chris F. Holm, Benoît Lelièvre, Cameron Ashley, Dan O’Shea, Chris Rhatigan, Jimmy Callaway, John Hornor Jacobs, Keith Rawson, Ruth and Jon Jordan, Karen E. Olson, Patti Abbott, Frank Bill, Bob Randisi, Sophie Littlefield and (of course) the big, crinkly dog—Ed McCarthy. A special tip of the hat goes out to Anthony Neil Smith for pushing back on some of my early forays into speculative fiction, and Jed Ayres deserves at least a six-pack of beer because he saw Koko’s potential way back at NoirCon 2010.

Naturally, I also wish to thank my wife and family for always being there for me. To say you mean the world to me falls short.