Suzy Spitfire Kills Everybody

by Joe Canzano

  A sinking sound filled the cockpit as the lights went out. The life support systems switched off, along with the deflectors—and the ship surged to its absolute maximum acceleration.

  Ricardo’s eyes were glued to the glowing screens. He raised his fist in the air. “Woo-hoo!” he said. “Baby, we are flying!”

  Suzy also looked at the readouts and held her breath. They were accelerating—faster and faster. And the missiles were falling behind.

  Suzy felt a wave of relief wash over her. She threw her head back and laughed.

  Then she started switching everything back. They had reached maximum speed and that’s where they would stay—the beauty of spaceflight.

  Suzy looked over at Ricardo. She didn’t say a word.

  Ricardo grinned and said, “Good thinking.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re a good thinker. I’m sorry I said you weren’t.”

  “That’s okay, sometimes I don’t think—like when I said you were a pawn. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. Maybe sometimes I am.”

  They smiled at each other for a beautiful few seconds. Then they both leaped from their chairs to see how badly Maria was hurt.

  Chapter 37

  Blurr slammed Kryl’s knapsack down onto the top of the desk in his cabin. It was the only thing he’d removed from her dead body after the hangar deck had re-pressurized. The rest of her hadn’t seemed too useful.

  He was listening to the audio feed from the bridge, and he gave a disgusted laugh when Suzy and her crew escaped. I am a fucking amateur, he thought. Or at the very least, I’ve allowed myself to be surrounded by fucking amateurs.

  He sat down and put his head in his hands. He had to think and clear his mind. He had to ask himself who the hell was knocking on the door.

  “Come in,” Blurr said.

  Captain Banks walked into the room.

  Blurr briefly considered shooting him, but then decided to just shake his head.

  “Banks, why are you here?”

  Banks smiled. It wasn’t a big smile—more like a shadowy suggestion. He placed something on Blurr’s desk.

  “It’s from the Agency. Commander Klugler happened to be on Callisto and was able to respond quickly. It’s an approval for your interrogation of the prisoners—‘any method, at your discretion.’ Congratulations.”

  Then he flashed a big, straight-razor kind of smile.

  Blurr cocked his head. “Banks, are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “No, sir. I just thought you’d like to know.”

  “You mean now that the prisoners are gone, along with our best chance to find the AI—and because it’s all your fault for interrupting my investigation?”

  Banks shrugged. “It’s unfortunate they escaped, but they had inside help.”

  “Right. In other words, our super secure station had a spy on board for the last two years and now we’ve been completely humiliated. In fact, if there were a tournament for humiliation, I’d have an ass-shaped trophy sitting on my desk.”

  “Too bad. I suppose that trophy won’t look good in the reports.”

  “That’s true. A report that stinks like a turd is usually bad, Banks. But it won’t be in there because we’re leaving it out.”

  “We can’t leave it out. It’s part of the case and it has to be reported. In fact, I’ve already reported it.”

  Blurr stared at the ceiling. “You are one crazy motherfucker, you know that?”

  “I hadn’t noticed, sir.”

  “All right, fine. I never said you were a coward. But coming in here to rub my face in shit? How do you expect me to react?”

  “I expect you to act like a professional.”

  “A professional with a face full of shit?”

  “Yes, sir. Quite full.”

  Blurr almost laughed.

  “Banks, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Had what in me?”

  “The ability to be such an asshole. Really, I’m impressed. Maybe I gave up on you too soon.”

  “No, I don’t think so. We have different ideas about right and wrong.”

  “Really? I rescued you from a dog pound and you decided to bite me in the balls. Is that the kind of behavior you call ‘right’?”

  “I don’t owe you a life of crime, Blurr. I’ll be happy to return to my old job.”

  “No problem. I’ll send you back to your shitty job, with your shitty salary, and your shitty little pile of life insurance.”

  Banks leaned toward Blurr. “Is that a threat? Because I’m not afraid of you.”

  “It’s not a threat,” Blurr said with a sneer. “I’m just stating the obvious. And right now you’re still here to do a job—and that includes helping me catch these people who escaped because of your stupidity. I expect you to follow every order that doesn’t violate some sort of idiotic procedure. Is that clear?”

  Banks hesitated. Finally, he said, “Of course. I’ll do that—for now.”

  “Good.”

  Blurr sat back in his chair and said nothing for a bit. Then he took a deep breath and motioned toward the screen in front of him. “I see a report here. It looks like Aiko and Kryl might have had a romantic relationship, and maybe Kryl had Los Pocos connections. Maybe we were wrong in thinking that Suzy is a recent part of this plot. Maybe she’s been working with Aiko, Kryl, and Los Pocos for a while.”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Banks said with a grunt. “But her file shows no previous connection with that group. None of her crimes, none of her associations—nothing. In fact, I’d say she deliberately avoided them.”

  “The file could be wrong,” Blurr said. Then he blurted, “Of course!”

  “Of course?” Banks said.

  “Yeah! Of course she had Los Pocos connections.” Blurr suddenly felt light as a feather—maybe that’s why she turned me down! “She grew up right around their home base—so she was already working with some professionals. It makes perfect sense.”

  Banks frowned. “Based on the information we have, I think it’s highly unlikely—but it’s too bad you didn’t ask her. Maybe you were too busy asking her other things—things less relevant.”

  “They weren’t less relevant at the time!” Blurr snapped. “If you weren’t such an ass I would have asked you some of those questions. You can go now. In fact, get the fuck out of here.”

  “Getting the fuck out—sir.”

  Banks started to leave the room. Then he whirled around.

  “What happened to Suzy’s father, Antonio?”

  Blurr’s eyes flashed. “I killed him!” he spat. “He was interfering with my plans. Any more questions, Captain?”

  “No. Yes… What are you planning to do with the AI?”

  “Nothing that concerns you. You see, Banks, I’m not afraid of you, either.”

  Now Banks said nothing. He turned and left the room.

  Blurr settled back in his leather chair and laughed. Maybe that had been reckless—but it had felt good. Banks was a pathetic ‘law and order imbecile’ who’d never get anywhere, and it really didn’t matter what Blurr told him. Choccoban was a perfect place for someone like Banks to disappear.

  Blurr laughed again. He sealed the door and returned his attention to the knapsack.

  Chapter 38

  Maria was slumped over her smoldering console. There were reddish burns on her arms, and her hair was singed in several places. Overall, the burns didn’t look too severe—but she wasn’t moving.

  Ricardo shook her. “Maria, are you okay?”

  She opened her eyes. “Something exploded,” she said. “I’ll be fine.” Then she slid back into unconsciousness.

  Suzy ripped off Maria’s restraints and peeled away her scorched shirt. She saw caked blood and angry-looking puncture wounds on her upper chest.

  “Shrapnel!” Suzy said. “We’ve got to get it out.”

  “Do you know how?” Ricardo said. His face was pale.

  Suzy bit her lip.
“I know a little, but I’m no surgeon. It’s always bad when the doctor is the one who gets hurt.”

  “Yeah, but we have to do something. We have to!”

  Suzy had never seen Ricardo so close to losing his cool. She reached out and clutched his arm.

  “It’s all right, Ricardo. She’ll be okay.”

  Of course, Suzy had no idea whether or not this was true. But she was hoping—and not just for his sake. Her heart was beating fast. She really wanted Maria to make it.

  The ship didn’t have a sick bay but it did have a table in a corner of the lounge that doubled as a medical station. It was the place where Aiko had died. Suzy realized his body was still in storage in the ship’s hold.

  She ground her teeth. There’s no way we’re putting another body in there today.

  “Let’s get her on the medical table,” Suzy said. Her head was swimming.

  “Right, right!” Ricardo said. “And then what?”

  “And then—we do a scan. We see where the pieces are…and we see if we can reach them with the auto-surge.”

  The auto-surge was a component of the auto-doc, and it could perform basic surgery as well as emergency surgery. It was not standard on a civilian spaceship, but the Correcaminos Rojo was not standard. It was marvelously well-equipped and ready for trouble.

  They got her onto the table and strapped her in place. Suzy fired up the circuitry, and a collection of flexible steel arms swung out from the ceiling and the bulkheads—mechanical tentacles filled with saucer-shaped sensors and spiky antennas. Suzy’s pulse raced as she tried to think of what to do.

  Then she was activating the auto-doc and everything was whirring to life.

  The machine spoke. Suzy never thought she’d be so happy to hear the sound of an artificial voice—luckily, the voice was female, soothing, and professional. This was good. No doubt there were adjustable preferences for the doc’s personality, and the last thing Suzy wanted was some meatball doctor doing a comedy routine.

  “Hello,” the voice said. “I’m performing a scan. The patient has six pieces of metal embedded in her upper torso…scanning…no major arteries severed…scanning…undetermined number of capillaries severed or damaged…scanning…no major organs pierced…scanning…blood loss .33 liters…scanning…chance of life-threatening infection developing over ninety-five percent…scanning...I recommend auto-surgery at once.”

  “Do it!” Ricardo said. “Do it!”

  “The patient must be prepped for surgery.”

  “Do it!”

  “Auto-doc cannot perform proper prep. This must be done manually.”

  Ricardo’s eyes went wide with panic, and Suzy once again clutched his arm.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “We can do it. The machine will talk us through it.”

  Ricardo didn’t look so sure. In fact, he looked like a rabid animal—but then he took a deep breath and said, “Right. Okay.”

  The machine started giving instructions. They ended up quickly stripping off the remainder of Maria’s bloody shirt and bra and assisting as three self-connecting tubes attached themselves to her body. And then the machine began to operate.

  Suzy had seen this before on digital displays, but never right in front of her. With perfect precision, the machine’s razor-sharp scalpels made quick little cuts before the forceps descended from the swinging mechanical arms. One-by-one, they reached into Maria’s bruised and bleeding flesh and removed the invading pieces of metal.

  The spidery arms made incisions when they had to, and sucked blood when they had to—and supplied Maria with synthetic plasma as well as anesthetic. Suzy watched with the sound of her own blood pounding in her ears. She knew the machine was good, but she also knew that the best doctor couldn’t save a patient who was too far gone.

  But Maria wasn’t too far gone—not yet. Soon all the shrapnel was removed and the auto-doc was sealing Maria’s wounds with a layer of artificial skin. It was reducing the fluid flowing through the plastic tubes—and it was saying, “The procedure is complete but the patient should be monitored continuously. The patient should rest and seek evaluation at a medical facility.”

  Suzy felt like she could breathe again. She looked at Ricardo, who was smiling and watching Maria sleep.

  Suzy dimmed the lights over the medical station. She got herself some ice and a glass of whiskey from the bar before plopping down on the lounge sofa. For a second she envied Maria’s deep sleep.

  Ricardo dropped down beside her. He put his arm around her and smiled. “She’s gonna be okay,” he said.

  “Yeah, she is. I’m not surprised; she’s a tough girl. I’m glad she’s going to make it. She’s been a big help, and I know you two are close.”

  “Yeah, we are. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her. She’s been saving my ass since I was seven years old.”

  “Seven? What happened, did you get caught stealing a bag of cookies?”

  “No. I got found in a closet by the wrong people, and Maria killed them. She was ten.”

  Suzy said nothing while her brain absorbed the story.

  Ricardo sighed and rolled his head back on the couch. “My parents were killed in a gang war—a stupid turf battle. A couple of guys came into their store and shot up the place. We were just kids, but they would’ve killed us, too. Maria used my father’s gun and shot them both in the back.”

  “Wow,” Suzy said. Then she shook her head. “That’s crazy—sad, too. I mean about your parents.”

  “Yeah, I never really got to know them. But then Pablo’s father, who was a boss at the time, he helped us out. He was a friend of my dad’s. We went to live with my aunt, and he made sure we were okay, but we also got involved with the organization pretty young. As we got older, Maria tried not to get any more involved, and she tried to keep me out—but everyone around us was involved, you know? So it was hard, and we did get involved, and we’re still involved. We’ve seen some bad stuff, and done a few things I regret. I’ve always been the laid back one, and Maria is more serious and intense. But it’s just because she had to be… I never tell outsiders any of this stuff, but I wanted you to know.”

  Suzy was quiet for a bit. Finally, she said, “Thanks. I’m glad you told me.”

  She was sure the story was true, and she found herself pressing against him a little harder.

  He said, “By the way, there’s a dead body down by the engines. Don’t worry, I’ll dump it into space.”

  Suzy smacked herself in the forehead. “Loomis! Damn, I forgot about him.”

  “His blood is all over your clothes.”

  “Yeah. I guess I should change them. I should change my whole life, really.”

  “I know what you mean. I want a new life, too, but it’s hard.”

  “It can happen. You do what you can and hope for the best.”

  He shrugged. “What can I do, Suzy? I can fly a spaceship and that’s what I’ve been doing, but I’m not smart like my sister, and I’m not clever like Pablo—and I’m not as brave and crazy as you. I usually just clown around a lot and hope nobody notices my lack of talent.”

  Once again, Suzy was silent for a few long seconds. Then she put a hand on his knee and said, “Making jokes is a talent, Ricardo… At least I hope so, because all the kids at school used to say I was a clown. I was always the first one who wanted to fight, so they called me ‘Suzy Spitfire’—but I used to make a lot of wisecracks, too, so everyone used to say ‘Suzy, you’re killing us.’ They said I should become a comic and call my act ‘Suzy Spitfire Kills Everybody.’ “

  “I like it,” Ricardo said with a grin.

  “You have talent, Ricardo. You’ll change things.”

  “Maybe if I meet the right people—or the right person. Maybe someone like you, Suzy.”

  “Me? Am I the right person to put a guy on the path to goodness?”

  The arm wrapped around her shoulders squeezed her a bit more. “You’re good, Suzy. You’re as good as it gets.”

  Sh
e considered making a wisecrack but he put his index finger over her lips.

  “I said you’re the best, Suzy Spitfire. Don’t argue with someone you should be kissing.”

  Then he kissed her.

  It was a warm kiss, slow and long and steamy—and then it was a flurry of slobbering lips and twisting tongues, and hot, groping hands.

  Ricardo rolled on top of her. He ripped off his shirt, and Suzy saw his bruised and battered muscles. She pulled off her top and her skirt and her panties and let him see her purple splotches, her mistreated flesh, and the No Remorse tattoo spread between her shoulder blades like a pair of wings.

  For an instant, they were still. They were breathless, staring at each other with wide eyes. Then they dove back into each other like two people eager to drown.

  Chapter 39

  Andre Banks watched his wife’s face on the display and listened to the end of her message once again.

  “Andre, there’s a difference between a murderer and an avenging angel. I know she broke the law, but there are higher laws than the ones you enforce. Think about it… I love you. Get home safe.”

  He’d played the message ten times. The first time had been right before he’d interrupted the interrogation of Suzy and Ricardo, when Danielle had told him what she’d learned about Suzy and her family. She’d obviously believed the words of Suzy’s mother—who had made a typical declaration concerning her child’s innocence. Well, not really ‘innocence’—more like ‘justifiable guilt.’ But was it justifiable? By her mother’s admission, Suzy had committed an execution-style murder.

  Banks tossed his gun onto the nearby bed. So what? The girl had done a good deed.

  He sighed. She’d also committed a serious crime, along with other crimes. The subsequent incidents of armed robbery alone were enough to put her away for life. And where was Sergeant Loomis? He’d last been seen guarding Suzy’s spaceship, and now he was missing—presumably swept into space when the hangar had depressurized. But what would a more thorough investigation reveal? And why was he not ordering that investigation? Maybe because Loomis had gotten what he deserved.