Chapter 11:
- Kurtie Feels Miffed
- The Advent of the Squishies
Scene
Kurtie tripped into her upstairs office, drunk on anger and tears. That thieving bitch! And Byrie had let it happen, even after everything they’d talked about earlier. No, it wasn’t his fault – that bitch had witching in her eyes, and Byrie was just a man.
She fell into her chair and it slowly rotated.
But Cormick had let it happen! No, it wasn’t his fault, either – he was the sacrificial bull she was leading to slaughter on her altar – he didn’t know which way his nose was pointing unless someone was tugging at the ring in it.
But that thieving bitch had swooped in and grabbed the ring right out of her hands, right before. Right before! Kurtie had been working on Cormick for four years, and the bitch comes in the night before! Kurtie’s teeth ground so hard they hurt, but that was okay. That bitch would be feeling the pain soon. Kurtie would find Cormick’s address and tell him a thing or two about the bitch who … something. She would think about it later.
For a moment, she toyed with the irony that she had never been to his apartment. Her seduction of Cormick had always involved luring him back to her own prepared lair, where she knew all the tricks, knew where all the goodies were hidden. Ah! She might have something of his downstairs, and she could take it over to his place, and … She’d think of how to turn that trick when she got there.
She pounded the wake button on her screen with too much vigor, but the screen knew better than to complain when Kurtie was in a mood. It sprang to life in compliant silence.
There were messages waiting for her, possible news leads. She perused the list with vague disinterest – she’d already sent in her resignation letter, after all. Almost everything was about the migration off-planet: itinerary changes, general advice, things like that. Dana could just cover those herself, now. Bitch. There was an unopened category at the bottom of the list, called “Turnbull Red”. Hrm… It looked like the company had bought the rights to the planet post-migration, but arrived early and started hassling the queues at the spaceport. Whatever. Her ride off-planet was strapped tandem in Cormick’s lap. Even if that snake had hired the ship, Kurtie still had a valid ticket for her seat.
Hmm. One message was marked “Urgent Priority”. Okay, fine. Click.
Kurtie laughed, and looked at the message again. Then she laughed harder. There were three faces, captured by security dots and extrapolated and re-rendered to slowly rotate. The images were grainy, but she had a good eye for faces. The shape of the faces didn’t mean anything to her. That could change with a few bioplaz inserts. But those witching eyes…
The middle face was the bitch.
She selected the face and printed it to her renderator. This was too good. Hmm… but maybe she was dangerous. That’s what the dispatch said, in big red letters. They’d killed two dozen security personnel at the spaceport, and wounded at least as many innocents. She really was a bitch! Cormick hadn’t stood a chance. At least not against her wiles. She could only hope the woman would be stupid enough to try some violence on her man. Kurtie laughed and opened her cooler door to search for an alcohol.
Okay, so she couldn’t go there tonight, or she might end up a pretzel – or worse, a pretzel full of holes. The bitch was dangerous, and she had two dangerous friends. But if she sent these Turnbull Red people… Who were they, anyway? She pulled up another window. A Weapons Group? No, no – that wouldn’t work… Cormick might end up full of holes, too, no matter how good he was, and she wasn’t interested in that at all.
No, tomorrow, after they left the apartment… She could separate them after they left the apartment, and those Turnbull girls could have their bitch, and Kurtie could have her bull. Kurtie drank her alcohol and made plans.
Scene
A Turnbell Red Bootboy stood at the City boundary, peering out through the dozen or so meters of snow that the city lights illuminated. A road in the city became a truck trail beyond the gates and twisted off to some god-forsaken place that these god-forsaken snowballers wouldn’t give two squirts about another day from now. The Blackbie Boots they’d relieved of this post in the afternoon had been only too happy to turn over their charge.
His finger teased the trigger on his rifle. He’d been warned to watch for entrants at the gate, but last he heard the spaceport parties had already marked the target. So he was just waiting. Waiting in the cold, and not being paid enough to wait in the cold. He was barely being paid enough to wait in the “comfort” of his bunk onboard the ship.
“Private Norugu!” There was no reason why he should be the one outside in the cold. “Private!” He turned away from the black-meets-white horizon, toward the gatehouse where his subordinate was warming her hands. “Private, your shift! Get out here, Norugu!”
The Bootboy trudged back toward the gatehouse. The movement of the light from the window said the kid Norugu inside was ignoring him, not sleeping. That meant she was due a good kick in the shins, but no formal demerit. “Private!”
He reached the doorway and stopped short. Norugu was sprawled on her belly on the floor. A dark red puddle spread out from beneath her chest. Her gun was retracted to her shoulder strap. There was a dark figure crouched on the table in the back of the room.
“Shit!” He snapped his own gun from his shoulder.
He saw a shadow in the air above him, and just glanced another shape before his throat was warm and his vision grayed. He knew he had gotten off a few rounds, but they were too quiet for anyone to hear. His fingers felt for his transponder, but they were feeling too heavy to move just now.
It wasn’t that important, anyway. He didn’t really feel like a fight. He felt like melting into that warm puddle spreading beneath his back. His whole body felt so heavy, so tired…
The Blue-Yellow-Blue Ninja cleaned his forks in the snow and moved past the Squinty’s corpse into the shadows of the city. Behind him, his nephew left the all-clear beeper for his cousins. Squinty ears were too tinny to hear it, and their eyes too squinty to see the dozens of shadows that would slip in behind his team.
All around the edges of the city, similar beepers were inviting his brethren to the Dance. “REVENGE!” “WEALTH!” That’s what the beepers sang.
The Ninja saw the path he’d memorized into the heart of the city; it was sufficiently shadowed. He signaled his nephews to follow in his steps, and led the way to their mission-point. He was well pleased. Glory be to the Families! Glory be to the General-Father! Tonight was the beginning of a Great Retribution.
