Ex-KOP Page 6

  Another minute of the respirator's incessant hissing and wheezing passed before she spoke again. “It's not this … room that makes … me feel trapped. … And it's not … this limp useless b—body, either. … It's being … trapped inside of me … that I c—can't stand.”

  The photos were coming out grainy—all the better. Gave them that undercover feel. I clothespinned the first one, no easy task single-handed, but I managed. I was used to doing most things with my left.

  I kept working, moving prints from tray to tray, holding my right hand clear to keep the wrappings dry. It was such a tedious process, developing pictures from actual film. Hard to believe this was once the way it worked. Lucky for me, there were still a few hobbyists out there who liked to do things the hard way, the predigital way. If I hadn't been able to find film, I never would've successfully built a camera low-tech enough to be undetectable by an offworlder.

  I hung what looked like the best of the batch, the devil poking and choking that whore. That had to rate some good coin. Even if the offworlder was nobody important, it would score strong on shock value.

  I felt a headache coming on—always happened when I spent too much time in the red light. Knowing it would be a while before I could turn the other lights on, I decided it was time for a little break. I took a hit off my flask and cleared a place to sit, tossing a stack of pic rejects on the floor. I'd have to watch my sloppiness when Niki came home in a few months. It was finding pics like these that sent her tailspinning in the first place.

  It had been one of my highest payouts. There was a local pol who I'd heard had a thing for young poon, the younger the better. I tailed him for less than a day before I spotted him picking up an underaged hooker on one of Koba's many Kiddie Korners. I followed them to an empty lot and snapped a few shots through the window of his car.

  I'd been careless and left the pics out when I left the house. Niki found them and went off on a pain-pill binge, popping herself vegetative. I found her halfway to dead with one of the pics crumpled in her hand. It wasn't until after a screaming-fast ride to the hospital and a thorough stomach pumping that I smoothed the pic back out and saw why it sent her free-falling. I cursed myself for not noticing the resemblance the pol had to Niki's daughter-raper father.

  When they released her, I spent an entire month at home to be by her side. I thought she was doing better, getting over the shock of seeing that picture and the memories it brought back. She was getting to be her old self again. I thought it was safe to start working again. I was a shitty nursemaid anyway.

  I'd started with small jobs, the kind of thing that would only take a couple hours a day. I couldn't be positive that she was stable so I dropped a biomon into her hair when she was sleeping. The thing was top of the line. It crawled down to her scalp and burrowed under the skin. It didn't have much capability, but it was practically microscopic, next to impossible to detect. I could call into it anytime and get a report on her movements and vitals.

  That was how I knew she'd jumped off a bridge. That was how I'd been able to get to her so fast, fast enough that the docs were able to revive her—she'd only been dead for fifteen minutes.

  They were able to rejuve her brain, but practically everything else had to go—both legs, the rib cage, a half dozen organs, and a hip joint. I could've saved a bundle if I'd bought all used parts. Used parts were common enough. Lagarto's poor would often have their organs harvested in order to pay for their funerals, not that there'd be much left of the body to bury after harvesting. There were plenty of organs around, just not many people who could afford to pay for the transplant surgery.

  But I didn't want to take any chances with used parts. Not with Niki. Niki wasn't going to get a hophead's liver or a glue-sniffer's lungs. No fucking way. This was Niki we were talking about. This was the Niki who could look into my eyes and see more than a broken-down thug. This was the Niki who had been by my side for all these years as I waded through the river of shit that was my life, right there with me, step after foul step. And she'd never pinched her nose. Not once.

  I'd made it clear to the docs that she'd get nothing but top-notch parts. They grew everything fresh from Niki's own DNA. Piece by piece, they rebuilt her. The only thing she still needed was the spine to pull it all together. Then they could pull the air tubes and seal up her chest. That done, a couple months of rehab and she'd be fully healed.

  The phone rang. I picked up—voice only. I didn't want a holo in my red-lit bathroom ruining my prints. “Yeah.”

  “Guess who, boy-o?”

  My nerves rattled when I recognized Ian's voice. My vision went redder than the darkroom. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “You got my message, didn't you?”

  I looked at the cast on my hand. “Loud and clear.”

  “Good. Meet me at Roby's. Midnight.”

  seven

  NOVEMBER 31, 2788

  THE nightlife on Bangkok Street was in full swing. Being midnight, it was late enough that everybody had a good buzz going, but still early enough that you didn't have to step over puddles of vomit. I weaved through the crowd out front of one of the clubs that was taking advantage of the rainless night by putting a bathtub full of shine on the street with a handwritten sign advertising a bottomless cup. For a thousand pesos, you get a tin cup branded with the club logo that you can use to self-serve a scoop of the white mash. Once you've sucked out the last of the alcohol, you dump the mash and go back in.

  I moved down the block, stepping over the little piles of mash, my gut on fire. I wasn't sure why Ian wanted to meet with me, but I felt compelled to comply. There was something in his voice, something in the way he asked if I'd gotten the message that told me I had to. I pushed my rage to the back of my mind. I put a lid on my boiling stomach. I needed to be thinking straight.

  At Roby's, I was stopped by the bouncer. He was done up in gladiator garb—boots, skirt, and one of those helmets with the upside-down brush on top. At the mention of Ian's name, he ushered me inside where fiendish music dug into my ears with its reverbed drone. I struggled to see; my eyes were slow to adjust to the near-black lighting. The place was small, no more than twenty tables. Over the floor, pantyless dominatrices rode swings that hung from the ceiling. On the stage, three Roman centurions with strap-ons play-whipped a bare-breasted woman tied to a stake.

  The tables were occupied with offworld clientele, all of them showing off their artificially enhanced perfection. The men had milky skin stretched over weight-lifter bods. Their faces all had piercing eyes and laid-back smiles that were underscored by strong jawlines. And the women, they all showed off their no-end-in-sight legs, which were topped by hourglass waists and a pair of melon tits. A couple tables of offworlders were morphed out into some seriously freaky shit. I saw a snake-headed medusa, a dude with a bat's head, a lobotomy-scarred zombie …

  “Quite a show.” The words barely registered over the music.

  I turned toward the voice. It was Liz, Ian's squeeze. Gone was the cool elegant woman my eyes were glued to at The Beat, and in her place was a kinky librarian. Her eyes were framed by horn-rims, and her hair was pulled up into a bun held together with a pair of slender spikes. She was out front with her cleavage, her breasts overflowing a studded black leather bra only partially obscured by a half-unbuttoned white blouse. She took me by the good hand and led me past the bar and into the side room, her hips swiveling beneath a conservative plaid-print skirt that had been cut to show some not-so-conservative thigh.

  “Ian will be along soon,” she said as she gestured me toward a table made to look like a medieval rack surrounded by bar stools. I took a seat at the end with the gears. She slid onto the stool next to mine and waved for drinks. “I'm Liz.” I could hear her clearly now, the music reduced to nothing more than the pounding beat.

  I peeled my eyes off Liz and scanned the windowless room. The lighting was brighter in here. The walls were castle gray with black lines painted on to make it look like it was buil
t from stone blocks. The ceiling was black with a pair of moss-covered chandeliers assembled out of what was supposed to look like human bones. Around the perimeter, upended skull sconces sprouted electric candles with flame-shaped bulbs. I counted four cops at a corner table. I spotted Hoshi, Ian's finger-cracking accomplice, who toasted me from across the room, his date sitting in a mock electric chair at the head of the table.

  “Ian told me about you,” said Liz as the drinks arrived in goblets.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “He said you used to be a cop.”

  I nodded.

  She picked up one of the rack's four iron cuffs and slipped her hand through it like a bracelet. “He said you were close to Chief Chang.”

  “That's right.” From the goblet, I took a sip of brandy and was irked by the metallic taste from this cheap Henry-the-Eighth shit.

  She pulled her hand free from the shackle, rattling the chain it was attached to. “Is it true that you used to be the chief's enforcer?”

  I answered with a question of my own. “Why does Ian want to talk to me?”

  “He didn't say. He just said that I should keep you company until he gets here.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “A long time,” she said with a playful smile. “I heard you once beat a man to death.”

  It was more than once. Again, I changed the subject. “Who's that guy?”

  Liz followed my eyes to an offworlder sitting with a young cleavage-popping local. They were seated at an operating room table with a holographic autopsy-scarred corpse on top.

  “That's Horst. Why do you ask?”

  “He's been staring at you.”

  “How do you know he's not staring at you?”

  It wasn't so much what she said that made me smile. It was more the way she looked with that big girly grin, totally at odds with her naughty librarian getup. “Who is he?” I repeated.

  “Just a businessman who likes to hang out in clubs like these.”

  The offworlder's body was so perfect that he looked plastic, like he was some mannequin come to life. He was definitely watching me now, our eyes meeting uncomfortably. He held up his goblet in a long-distance toast. I toasted back, taking another sip of brandy that tasted like it came from a can. I set my goblet down on the rack, wondering if they'd used real blood to stain its surface.

  The offworlder came walking over with his powder white skin and his inky black hair. He was wearing pressed black pants with a billowy white shirt and a black cape that left him looking two fangs from a vampire. He gave the back of Liz's hand a little peck and slipped into the chair next to hers. He held his hand out for a shake, and I brandished my shaking splinted right.

  “My,” he said as he took his hand back, “looks like you had a bit of an accident.”

  “Something like that,” I responded.

  “I'm Horst Jeffers,” he said with a barely noticeable offworld accent.

  “Juno Mozambe.”

  “It's nice to meet you, Mr. Mozambe. I hope I'm not intruding. I just saw you and Liz talking, and I thought I'd introduce myself. So tell me, what is it that you do, Mr. Mozambe?”

  “I'm between gigs.” An uncomfortable silence followed as he waited for me to elaborate. I didn't. Instead, I turned the question back on him. “How about you?”

  “I'm a businessman,” he responded, matching my ambiguity with some ambiguity of his own.

  “What kind of business?”

  “I'm in tourism.”

  He was still being vague, but I let it drop.

  He turned to Liz and eyed her up and down. “You've really outdone yourself, sweetie. I just love this getup.”

  She accepted the complement with a coy smile.

  Sweetie? I thought she was Ian's sweetie. I asked, “How do you and Liz know each other?”

  “We run in the same circles, she and I. Over the years, we've gotten to know each other. Quite well, I might add.” He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. Liz pecked his cheek in response.

  I remembered what Josephs had told me about her: a woman like that's not exclusive.

  I took a sip of my brandy and must've made a face because he said, “Tastes awful, doesn't it?”

  “Like shit.”

  “Don't you love this place?”

  I took a look around the room. “Not bad, I guess.”

  “No, not Roby's,” he said. “I mean Lagarto.”

  “It's home.”

  “Have you ever been offworld, Mr. Mozambe?”

  “No.”

  “So few of you Lagartans have. Have you ever wanted to?”

  “No.”

  He turned to Liz. “Now there's a man who knows what he has. You could learn a thing or two from him.”

  Liz rolled her eyes at him.

  Horst laughed an easy, flawless laugh. “She's been after me to take her up with me.”

  Liz turned to me. “I'd like to see what life is like in the stars. What's so wrong with that?”

  “You're not missing anything,” he said to her. To me, he said, “She won't listen. I'm amazed how many of you Lagartans sit down here feeling sorry for yourselves, thinking life is so great up there, but I'm telling you, I'd rather be here. If it weren't for my business calling me up a few months a year, I'd live here full-time.”

  “And just what is it that you love so much about Lagarto?”

  “Lagarto is real. You don't know what it's like to live inside a metal tube your whole life, where water comes from a faucet instead of a river, and food comes in plastic packages. Life up there is overrated. It's all so artificial. Do you understand me, Mr. Mozambe?”

  I nodded politely as my brain tried to reconcile the fact that these words were coming out of this mannequin-man.

  “There's no weather up there,” he continued, “none of this fantastic rain. It's always the same temperature, and the air tastes the same every day. It's a sterile existence in space, a miserable, sterile existence.”

  Liz chimed in with a challenging attitude. “If it's so bad up there, then why haven't you all moved down to the surface?”

  He put his hand over Liz's. “Because people are fools, my dear. They're so used to their disinfectants and their antibacterials that they can't get over the thought of breathing unfiltered air. They think that if they come down here they'll get sick on the water, or catch a nasty case of the rot. Some of these people haven't seen an insect in their lives, and you can tell them all you want about the marvels of bug spray, but they won't listen to you. It's only the adventurous spirits that make the journey. To me, you haven't lived until you've taken a dip in the Koba. You don't know what life is about until you eat meat from a monitor lizard that you killed yourself. And the people? I love your people.” He kissed Liz's cheek. “They have so much character. They live with the faces their parents gave them, with all their glorious imperfections. They get wrinkled when they get old, and they wear their scars proudly instead of having them erased. Your women carry their babies to term instead of gestating them in tanks. You see how impersonal a practice that is? How can a mother truly appreciate her child unless she's gone through the pain of childbirth?”

  I said to Liz, “When did you say Ian was getting here?”

  Horst looked offended. He wasn't used to being interrupted, but I didn't care. I was sick of hearing his bullshit. All that crap about us having “character,” and here he was pawing all over Liz, a drop-dead beauty. If he loved our “glorious imperfections” so much, then why wasn't he cozying up to some cross-eyed, acne-scarred, big-nosed, frizzy-haired, flat-chested gimp?

  “Ah, I didn't realize you were waiting for Mr. Davies,” he said. “I'm sure he'll be along any minute, Mr. Mozambe. Sorry for rattling on the way I have. I'll leave you be.” With that, he stood up and went back to his autopsy table and sat next to his cooing cooze.

  Liz had a slight grin on her face.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “He's not used to being
put in his place like that.”

  “You like seeing him put in his place?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What does he do?” I asked.

  “He already told you. He's a businessman.”

  “Do you and he … ?”

  “We used to. He was a lot of fun. But I ended it before it got serious.”

  “You sure he got the message? It looked like he was trying to tell me something, the way he was getting so close to you.”

  “He gets a little jealous from time to time.”

  She ran her hand across the rack's surface and began fiddling with the shackle again. I found my eyes moving from one rack to another. She caught me in the act and smiled naughtily, fully back into her kinky librarian persona. I felt a good kind of stirring in my stomach that made its way down into my pants. For the first time in forever, I felt intoxicated on something other than booze.

  The sight of Ian strolling in slapped me sober. He stopped to peck Liz on the forehead and dropped onto a stool to my right. Finding myself caught between a man and his flirtatious girlfriend, I rejected the guilt that wanted to creep in—this fucker broke my fingers.

  “Good to see you, boy-o.”

  I answered with silence.

  Ian gave Liz a leave-us-alone nod.

  “Nice meeting you,” she said to me as she stood. She moved off to the doorway and leaned against its frame, peering out onto the main floor.

  I took my eyes off her and squared them on Ian. His hair was slicked straight back from a high forehead perched on top of wild eyes. What happened to this guy? It was like he was a different person. I couldn't see any sign of the meek momma's boy I'd known in the past.

  I asked, “What do you want?”

  “You like to get right to the point, don't you, boy-o. Can't say I blame you. You must be on the edge of your seat wondering what it is I want from you. Here's the thing, Juno. I wasn't thinking things through when we got together this morning. It's not everyday I get a chance to lay some muscle on a legendary badass, you see what I'm saying? I couldn't help but get all caught up in the fun of it.” He winked at me. He actually winked, the fucker.