“Look. You wanna ask me to the fuckin' dance already instead of trying to peek up my skirts?”
Nothing. Not a big talker, her stalker.
“ ‘Cause, y'know, if you're too chickenshit to give me an invitation, I'm just gonna go with the football captain, that motherfucker is dreamy and I hear he's got a dick like a goddamned science experiment.”
Nada but tree shadows, all the way down the block. Nothing — and then, three or four houses down, a shape stepping out into the street. It stands there on the curb, watching quietly, silhouetted against the ashtray sky. The sharp, familiar scent of a lit cigarette punches through the stale air.
“Rhye? Is that you?”
But it's not the figure speaking to her. This voice comes from behind, one she's been wanting to hear ever since she plugged in. Her breath snags barbed wire. She half-turns to look back over her shoulder, against her better judgment.
“Holy shit, Rack! Where the fuck are you, man? I've been looking all over the place for you! Are y — ”
“No, look, look, Rhye, you need to get out of here. You need to get out of here right now. I made a huge mistake, I underestimated the security protocol, and she's going to come after you, too, if you don't go. Don't worry about me. Rhye?”
The shadowy shape is walking towards her. Rhye's pretty sure it's not out selling cookies or spreading the word of the Lord. “That's assuming I know how to fucking get out of here without you, man,” she says. Her hands are already on her guns. “And what the fuck do you mean by she?”
The purposeful walk has turned into a wolf-trot. The light still isn't great, but she can see now that it's a girl. About her height, about her build, same hair color, same way of moving —
Wait. Wait just one fucking minute.
“Rack? This security program. I'm just, like, seeing my subconscious or some bullshit again, right? Right?” The other woman is running now. “Because if you've done what I think you did — ”
“I, uh… ”
Motherfucker.
“… I may have cribbed heavily from existing source material, yes.”
The woman grins as she sprints. Still has both of her eyes. Four years ago, maybe? A copy of her at her most bitter and burned out, thirsty for blood and not caring whose.
“Let's do this, then,” she says, sighing, and then there's no time for talk anymore.
So there's this skin-job kid that gets adopted by one of those high muckity-muck Ganymede mobsters. He isn't exceptionally bright and he sure as hell ain't a looker, but Don Whoeverthefuck has a bug up his ass 'cause his biological clock is tick-tick-ticking away like a block of C4 is tenderly bearhugging his testicles. Old fart needs an heir. All those years of pushing baby carriages into traffic ain't gonna count for shit if he doesn't have an heir to pick up the slack when his heart valves do their last dance with the extra-lard pork belly. He throws some money around, which is how he's solved every other problem in his bloated life, and hey voila, instant son. The boy is dumber than a sack of skullfucked squirrels, but that just makes him fit in with all the real Mafioso squirts that came from ballsacks and bad decisions.
Things go on swingin' as they usually do. Little Johnny Electronuts gets in his share of trouble, but Daddy is always there to yank his ass out of the fire with greased palms or greased dicks or a carefully administered dose of goon muscle to somebody's knees and groin. Then, one day, kiddo gets the idea that he's some kind of fucking hacker. He's nineteen and he's better protected than the Virgin Mary's holy of holies and he's got a chip on his shoulder and a hard-on in his lucky rocketship underoos just crying to fuck something up. He tries to bust his way into a rival family's black box so he can crow about it to all his knuckle-dragging script kid buddies. This is what is known in the business as a Giant Fucking Mistake, 'cause the security system in this motherfucker was set up by another motherfucker by the name of Rack, and Rack is a goddamned super genius when it comes to that sort of thing. It grabs the kid by the short hairs almost as soon as he plugs in and slams the door behind him, and when the Don's cavalry comes busting in to save his ass, their nuts land squarely in a bear trap. His consciousness is all locked up like a gold bar inside a treasure chest. They've got the box, but nobody seems to be able to get through to the toy inside.
Nobody but the motherfucker who designed the system in the first place, that is. They offer him money. They offer him a lot of money. And less because of the money and more because he likes a challenge, Rack bites.
And that's where things get fucked up.
Dodge for dodge and feint for feint and bullet for bullet they come together, the woman that was and the woman that is. The Not-Rhye is laughing like a kid at the circus as she spins her hand-cannons, laughing and twisting and breathing in that gunsmoke that turns your snot black like she's a barracuda and it's seawater. She doesn't give a shit whether she lives or dies and Rhye knows this because it used to be her, and she suddenly realizes, with something like shock and something like mild disgust, that this is no longer a truth that applies. Something inside Rhye wants to make it out alive, wants to go home to the shitty-ass flat with the bullet holes in the air conditioner, wants to taste bourbon and cigarettes and go right on living alongside that dumbfuck brainiac like she has every day for the past five years. Dangerous. Very dangerous. The moment you start wanting is the moment you slow down. And the moment you slow down —
Not-Rhye lands close enough that Rhye can smell the burning wire and ozone stink of her over the reek of cordite and hot metal. She flicks one of the pistols like a gecko lapping up a mosquito and it coughs emphysema and tuberculosis and Rhye's cheek is laid open to the bone even as she rolls behind a row of trash cans, ears ringing like pulled fire alarms. She's a fucking idiot. She should've been scrapped at construction. She's going to die here, soft and stupid as a human cop, and Rack is going to be trapped inside this box forever. The mobsters are going to be fucking pissed when nobody comes back. Good. Fuck 'em, and fuck their wives and moms and childhood pets for good measure.
“Were you trying to hit me, or did one of those pink flamingos do something to piss you off?” she says. If she can irritate Not-Rhye into making a mistake she might have a chance. Anything is worth a shot. “The neighbors are gonna talk, y'know.”
No response. Too smart for her own good. God damn she wishes Rack had held a less flattering view of her when he programmed this fucker. “Oh well. We'd have made shitty Home Owners Association members anyway. Rack! You alright?”
“I think so. I wasn't exactly expecting this to happen when I went in. I thought — ”
“That was your first fuckin' mistake, Rack baby. You do too much of that anyway.” She rubs her blistered, lead-stained fingers clean on her cargo pants and digs for a fresh magazine. “Is there any way for me to disable her easier than giving her brain airholes?”
You could hear a gnat fart in the pause that follows.
“Rack, say something before I come over there and do some kinky shit to your ass with this gun barrel, please.”
“… I don't know,” he says. “I think I can do it, but you'll have to free me up first.”
“Fuck a row of baby ducks, is that all? Lemme send Little Miss Red Rover a fuckin' engraved invitation to move her psycho ass to a new neighborhood and I'll be right over with a bundt cake and a goddamned meat loaf.”
But she's already tensing to spring back into the line of fire, because of course she is.
Up and at ‘em, knocking the bins over clitter-clatter like a fuckball of feral cats, and sure enough there's her shadow racing to greet her, four years younger, one eye richer, and meaner than a limp-dicked drill sergeant. No time to fire off a good shot; she says fuck it and goes ahead and launches herself straight into the other woman's knees and down the two of them tumble in a muddy heap of fists and flailing motorcycle boots like a pair of overturned shot glasses, the world reduced to rubber soles squeegeeing shins and knuckles glancing off grittywet concr
ete. Rack's yelling something. Little-known fact, though: It's pretty fucking hard to focus on anything but the task at hand when the task is trying to club your teeth out with the handshake-end of a pistol. She dodges the blow and it glances off her temple instead with a hollow thwonk. Gasoline stars and flat-tire sparks shimmy-shake across her vision.
No fucking way I'm blacking out. Her bone-sickle grin hangs overhead, the last thing so many other unlucky motherfuckers have seen at the end of a fight. Rhye focuses on that sliver, wills the darkness back with clenched fists and a gas leak hiss. The thing with her smile is still laughing, but it's not some kind of mad villain cackle. She sounds like she's having the time of her life.
“What the fuck are you laughin' at, dumbshit? See something funny?” Not the wittiest thing to ever rasp its way out of her nicotine box, but whatever. Wit's the first thing to go when you've just gotten pistolwhipped in the side of the head so hard your brain thinks it's being skullfucked to death by a rhinoceros. The grip comes down again, misses her by an asshair, and judo-chops the pavement so that little bits of gravel spray up like buckshot.
If the girl-slash-security-system-that-was-her is sharp and not a dumbfuck, she'll use these precious seconds to turn her guns around and shoot Rhye in the face, like she's wishing she had just done herself. But oh, glory of glories, blessed be the almighty fuckin' cockiness of youth. This little asshole right here — with her two dead eyes and her don't-need-nobody jock walk — curls her lip back in an are you fuckin' serious sneer and swallows the bait deep.
“Aw, come the fuck on, man!” she crows. “You can't fuckin' tell me the thought of actually going up against somebody who can give you a fair fight isn't gettin' you all tingly in your grandma-bloomers! Why the hell else would you come here? For him? Fuck's sake, I'm you, aren't I? You live for sweat running under your tits and blood splattering your face, not some soft-hearted fuckhead can't tell which way a magazine loads.”
Is that what he thinks I thought? Shit. There's a nasty little spoonful of glass to chew on. No time for guilt, though.
“You got one part of that right, sister,” she says, and jams her thumb into the girl's left eyeball. It's all executed in one smooth motion: jabtwistpull. And then she's rolling across the wet ribbon of tarmac while her not-self flails and shrieks gurgling stray cat curses, rolling and back on her feet and bringing up her guns to make an end of this, but even in a considerable amount of pain the other her is fast in an unnatural, make-the-flesh-of-your-ears-crinkle sort of way, slither-snarling back beneath the rainy evening's skirts before Rhye can give the triggers a good hard prom-night fingering. She starts to go after her, blood boiling.
y'know what? A little voice in her head, the one that sometimes says things like are you sure getting into that gimp's windowless white van is a good idea? or maybe we should go get that festering bullet hole checked out, or, of late, don't punch Rack in the face, the poor bastard hasn't done anything to deserve it this time. In other words, her inner killjoy.
What?
Fuck pride, man.
And just what is that supposed to mean, exactly?
Pride is for jackoffs who aren't being hunted from the fucking shadows.
“Shut the hell up.” She says this aloud in a hissed whisper; hopefully the security system will laugh herself to death at Rhye having a conversation with her invisible friend and that'll be that. “We're fine. I can do this by myself. I don't care what Rack says.”
Pride is for people who don't have other people depending on them…
Rhye snaps to a halt like the bullet she's been expecting just drilled her brain a peephole.
… So why don't you try trusting your partner for goddamned once and get over there like he asked? Remember what we're here for.
“Go fuck your own ass with a fish-hook dildo.” Her shoulders are slumping before she's halfway through the word “fuck.” By the time she reaches “dildo” she's made a u-turn and is vaulting the sagging picket fence that separates her from the back-alley leading to Rack, feet thwap–thwap-thwapping the blacktop. She listens for the echo of a pursuit, but all she can hear is Rack's voice reeling her in and her own one-woman ticker-tape parade careening down the path.
Warm. Warmer. Red-hot, veering back off the pavement, crashing through briars and dead weeds and old tires like she's back in basic, up and over another splintered, gap-slatted privacy fence as weather-worn as a beer can in the ditch. It's not a pretty postcard that greets her — more weeds, more broken glass, a swimming pool filled with water the color and consistency of baby shit. Rack is there, though, tied up on the patio, and that qualifies it for Garden of the Fucking Century, so far as Rhye's concerned. She's down and off her perch and across the yard before she can remember to lazily saunter in like she doesn't give a fuck.
His face is a bloodied bedsheet, haunted eyes staring out from behind the bruises and stubble. Rhye wipes the blood from his split lip and they exchange a quick you cool? glance before she sets to work on the knotted ropes. It's not some romantic, lovey-dovey, kiss your boo-boos BS; it's just the kind of thing good partners do for one another.
“Been playing in Mommy's bondage closet again, Rack-baby?” Tsk-tsk. “You got a lotta 'splaining to do if we get out of here alive, my friend.” She spares him another look from under her cocked brow, trying to keep it cool and even, wanting him to maybe twist in the wind a little. His expression is all thousand-yard stare and nervous bird herk-jerk, sheepishness and syrupy adoration. Portrait of The Nebbish As Grateful Penitent. He looks like he stuck his hand down a secretary's panties at the office holiday party, got a handful of tentacles for his troubles, and wanted her all the more for it after that initial moment of cold water surprise. “For now, though,” she finishes, after re-locating her tongue and remembering how to use it, “we need to figure out a way to clean up this goddamned mess. No, sorry, my bad: Your goddamned mess, 'cause I sure as shit don't remember giving you permission to turn my personality into a fucking security module. Can you see me? You're lookin' right at me, so I'm pretty sure you can see me.”
“We synced up as soon as you stepped into the area,” he says. “The chip, you know?” Rhye finally snake-charms the ropes into giving way and he pulls his hands free, rubbing each wrist gingerly. You could take fingerprints with the tired smudges beneath his eyes. “I always wanted the interfaces to work together. Yours is one-of-a-kind, but I gave mine a tweak, so — OW! What the heck was that for?”
“It's lucky for you that we're friends, asshole. Anybody else pulled some shit like this and I wouldn't just sock 'em in the ear. How's this gonna go down? Talk quick. She's way too quiet right now and I have no idea how long that's going to last.”
“It's… tricky.”
“Tricky? What exactly do you mean by ‘tricky'? Did you or didn't you say you could disable that fucking thing if I got you free?”
“I did say that, yes.” Rack stretches the last word out until it wobbles, full of more quivering “but” than a strip club. “I can give you a kill switch. Implementing it may require a little footwork, though, and I'm not sure how that will play out, considering our… environment.” He waves a hand to take in the garden, runs the other through his hair, and ends up looking like an insomniac hedgehog.
“Well, considering our only other option is getting bullet-fucked to death by a pissed-off, admittedly foxy-fine bit of code, I'm open to anything. What do I need to do?”
“We'll need to execute two operations at the same time, and even then it doesn't have a 100% chance of working. I hadn't allowed for this. I can be sort of an idiot sometimes, as you are probably aware.”
Seeing him slumped there staring at his hands feels like defeat, and she'll be fucked if she gives up that easily after coming this far. She punches him in the shoulder. “Hey, none of that sadsack shit. You fucked up. Everybody does. If you're gonna wallow in it, I might as well've left you up there with your brains as pretty pink wallpaper. What the fuck will tryin
g hurt, right?”
And that gets a slow, crooked half-smile out of him, which is all she really wants right now. It's like her heart just snorted a line. “You're right, of course,” he says.
“Goddamned right I am.” She offers him her hand. “C'mon. Let's do this thing.”
Their palms meet with an awesome partnerly slap.
Now, this is where Rhye expects him to pull something cool out of his pockets — a couple of little red buttons, maybe, or a bundle of dynamite. Instead, he blanches. His hands fly up to his throat in the universal oh shit, I'm choking gesture. For a horrible fistful of seconds she thinks she's going to have to do the Heimlich (and how the fuck does that work, anyway? Is that the move where you grab the other person from behind and give them a rough humping?) but thankfully he shakes whatever's in his throat loose on his own. Something small and heavy bounces off the toe of Rhye's boot. Another, like a fat brass raindrop.
She reaches down and carefully picks up two 9mm bullets, bright as change in a gutter.
Rack peers down at the lumps of lead and metal he just hairball-horked onto her boots. If he wore glasses she just knows he'd be adjusting the fucking things for a better look. “Huh. I guess it makes sense that they would take this form.”
“So these are, what, special? Magic bullets?” They feel like normal rounds. They even smell like 'em, which is to say, metallic. She rolls them between her fingers, warm from the heat of her hand. “Kill switches, whatever the fuck you called 'em?”
“Correct. Ideally you'll discharge both simultaneously, shutting down the security system completely.”
There are pros and cons to knowing somebody — really knowing somebody, how their face looks when they cry or come or drool in their sleep. Rhye understands what Rack means immediately: You're the fighter, you're strong, so of course you'll take care of this on your own. She could say no. She could open up her chest with a scalpel and let him see the tender bits — I can't do this alone, she's too good and I care too much and quite frankly I'm scared shitless, for you and for me — or she could tell him, hey, clean up your own goddamned mess, I ain't your fuckin' nanny.
The Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters Page 8
