Soldiers of Fame and Fortune Full Series Omnibus: Nobody’s Fool, Nobody Lives Forever, Nobody Drinks That Much, Nobody Remembers But Us, Ghost Walking, 12 Book series...

by Michael Todd

Holly shook her head. “Where were you yesterday? We learned about how getting drunk and going into the jungle just might be a terrible idea.”

  Dan chuckled. “Oh, you heard about Jens Schulze and his band of misfits. Yeah, I had to do some work yesterday. I have been slacking, with all the stories coming out recently.”

  Holly sipped her drink. “That’s probably my fault. Sorry.”

  Dan wrinkled his nose, looking at her glass. “What in the hell are you drinking?”

  Holly looked down at it cross-eyed, the straw still in her mouth. “One of JB’s creations. He said it will take the stress out of my shoulders.”

  Dan smiled. “You’re going to be stumbling home.”

  Holly furrowed her brow. “I got this.”

  Dan laughed. “Mmhmm.”

  Holly looked at JB. “Okay, so tell us about this William P. Hickok.”

  Paula sashayed past JB, using her ass to bump him aside…and incidentally, closer to Holly. “Damn! You pulling that ghost story back out?”

  JB smiled. “She isn’t a ghost.”

  Holly’s eyes widened. “She? Wait, I’m confused. You said the name was William?”

  JB nodded. “That’s right. Her family wanted another Bill in the lineage, and she was the only child. So, just like any responsible parents wouldn’t do, they named her William and made her middle name Paula.”

  Paula pumped her fists in the air as she walked back past. “Woohoo. My hero. Us Paulas gotta stick together. We are a rare breed, I tell you. But I promise you this: every single one of us is hard-core in some way or another.”

  Dan tilted his head to the side. “But technically her name was William, not Paula, so would that make her a second-class badass?”

  Paula narrowed her eyes. “All right, smartass, you keep it up and I’ll take you out back. You know what happens out back?”

  Dan smiled big, messing with her. “Trash pickup?”

  Paula chuckled to herself. “I’ll show you trash pickup, asshole.”

  Dan glanced at Holly and winked, and they both looked back at JB. He shook his head and pulled his small stool out, sitting down carefully. “She may have had the middle name ‘Paula,’ but out there in the Zoo, she went by Wild Billie Hickok. Or just Wild Bill if she was in a suit. She would pull her hair back real tight, no makeup, and in that suit, you couldn’t tell if she was a man or a woman. She liked it that way, too. She wasn’t anyone to be trampled on, and most guys that bucked at her sex ended up with their own problems. Yeah, the only way you could tell it was her was the name ‘Hickok’ across her chest and the six-shooters strapped to her hips.”

  Holly smiled. “She sounds amazing.”

  JB smiled. “I guess you could say that, although she never thought of herself that way, I’m sure. She was just Wild Bill. She did her own thing, and nobody knew much about her.”

  Holly shook her head. “Didn’t she have a team with her?”

  JB tilted his head right and left. “Yes and no. She had a team of people who helped her in and out, but when it came to the Zoo, she went in alone, and no one on the outside knew what she went in to do. They speculated, of course, but in the end, she was a complete mystery. She would come into town, and not a single person would have any idea of what she had done in the Zoo. She never came out with Pita or anything. We never knew if she had died in there or had come out and just not told anyone, at least until the next time she would show up in town or at the Zoo.”

  Holly leaned forward, keeping her eyes on JB and sipping her drink. “So she was just this ghost who came, fucked shit up, and left.”

  JB shrugged. “We assumed so. I mean, no one knew what she did in there. There was never a wild, bloody trail of hell, and there were no firefights reported with her involved.”

  Holly leaned back. “JB, this doesn’t sound like a very exciting story. I mean, she could have been painting her toenails in there for all you know.”

  JB laughed. “Hold your horses. There is actually something to the story, okay? And I will just point out that Wild Bill was not the kind of woman who would paint her toenails. No, sir. She was the kind of woman who would sooner stab you in the eye than hold a conversation. At least, that was what all the guys said about her. Hell, there are still stories maybe once or twice a year. Someone swears they were helped by a lone mercenary, an American female who was too hard-hitting to be real.”

  Holly narrowed her eyes. “I’m assuming you were there when she first came to town?”

  JB smiled, looking into the distance with foggy eyes. “I sure was. She came through the American Gate, so it was widely believed that she was SpecOps, or totally black. Don’t know, but she had special armor. Now, I wasn’t there to see her, but this is what I’ve been told about the first time anyone saw Hickok: you couldn’t miss her. She was different from everyone else.”

  That day was particularly windy, and the sand blew in drifts across the desert floor. Wind funnels shot up on the horizon, swirling the dust around and dropping it in piles. The sun was as bright as usual, beating down on the dry, crusted earth. Wild Bill’s leather boots squeaked as she walked toward the gate. She had her hair tied back in a low ponytail, and her head was covered by a broad-brimmed brown hat. A black bandana was pulled up over her mouth and nose to keep the sand out, and the rest of her face was shadowed. She wedged her fingers in the belt loops on her pants.

  Her pistols hung low on her hips, and a rifle was slung across her back. She chewed slowly on a leaf from a Khat plant. Although normally people in Africa chewed it for its euphoria-inducing properties, she chewed it to keep her energy high and her need for sleep low, especially going into the Zoo. As she approached the tall, thick double-wide gate in the Wall, she squinted upward, then up some more at the doors topping out ten meters above her.

  Standing at the foot of the wall was the commander. He nodded at Wild Bill, and she tipped her hat back. Turning to look up at the team in the tower above him, he waved his hand in a circle above his head. “Area’s clear. Open the gates.”

  The gates made a loud clanking noise, squealing as they began to open. Wind blew through it from the other side, sending dust and sand straight at her. Wild Bill tilted the brim of her hat down and rolled her shoulders, waiting until the gates had completely opened. This was her first time through, but from the looks of it, neither the commander nor his team were surprised to see her. She didn’t say a word, though, just stood silently waiting her turn. When the gates reached their final position, they stopped, swaying slightly and creaking loudly.

  The commander looked to his right and whistled piercingly, swinging his arm in a circle. Before she took a step, Wild Bill looked over, watching a JLTV with a machine gun approach. She stood there patiently, waiting for it to get all the way through the opening before she turned back to the commander, who gave her a nod.

  Wild Bill sniffed and lifted the bottom of her bandana, spitting the Khat leaf onto the sand. She wiped the string of spit on the back of her arm and patted the covering back over her mouth and nose. She could hear the commander yelling to his team, but she kept her eyes straight ahead as she walked through the opening, which was now getting smaller. The machinery clanked and rattled as the gates slowly closed behind her. They didn’t move very fast, which was why her initial scan of the land was so important.

  When the gates were built, they didn’t think they would have to ever abandon them. They were made to keep the Zoo out, and the swinging doors weren’t there to close during a sudden attack. Hickok glanced at a row of guards standing at attention on the other side. They held M16s firmly as they kept their eyes on the encroaching greenery of the Zoo.

  She looked back down as she passed through and paused, reaching into her pocket. She pulled another leaf out of the bag, popping it in her mouth and biting down. She let out a deep sigh; the leaf had an almost instant effect, waking her up but keeping her calm. She knew she was a force to be reckoned with, but the plant confirmed it, keeping her on her toes. Wild Bi
ll shoved the bag back into her pocket and took a step forward, pausing as she heard a voice yelling down from the tower above.

  One of the soldiers leaned over and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Good luck, Hickok!”

  She slowly turned her head and stared up, not even blinking. Then she continued walking, her senses beginning to sharpen and focus on everything around her. She was outside the protection of the American side, so her wits and stamina were vital.

  “I’m a Hickok,” she muttered, too low for anyone to hear. “We make our own damned luck.”

  As she trekked through the sand, the wind blew harder, creating a haze around her. From the tower, she seemed to disappear into the distance, her tracks blown away after every step. Literally, it was like watching a ghost disappear into the desert. Like a ghost into the night, and she liked it that way.

  Chapter Five

  Wild Bill cracked her neck and tossed her hat into her duffel, then stood up and pulled her HUD over her head, snapping it into place. She stood at the Staging Area, staring into the thick curtain of vines in front of her. The smell of burning brush was on the wind. The men had stopped pushing back the Zoo for the afternoon since the wind was too high to control the flames. Wild Bill was out there all alone, getting ready for her first time going into the Zoo.

  “This is highly sensitive technology, so try to treat this with a little more care than you do most of your weapons,” her control’s voice said in her HUD.

  She sneered, hating the confinement of the suit. “Don’t worry, Marcus, I’ll treat your baby girl with care. I’ll even stroke her little metal chip just for you.”

  Marcus sighed. “Don’t go walking out on my woman now, Billie. She’s sensitive like that. You would just break her little heart.”

  Billie smirked with one side of her mouth. “The fact that you’ve put thought into this makes it even weirder. You named my suit, didn’t you?”

  Marcus cleared his throat but didn’t say anything.

  Wild Bill chuckled. “You did! Oh, tell me! What’s her name? Please tell me.”

  Marcus let out a deep breath, almost coughing out the name. “Aimee.”

  Wild Bill threw her head back and laughed, something she did around very few people. “Okay, Aimee. Don’t you worry, honey. I got you covered.”

  Marcus ignored her and continued with the briefing. “You are to enter the Zoo, following the trail marked in your HUD…”

  “You mean Aimee?”

  Marcus paused. “You will see two blinking lights within a few hundred yards of each other. These are downed suits. You need to extract the data from those HUDS, and if possible, retrieve the suits.”

  Wild Bill didn’t flinch. “And the bodies inside them?”

  Marcus swallowed hard. “Well, they are dead. Do what you need to do to get the suits, but the intel is the most important thing here.”

  Wild Bill heard a noise to her right and she turned to see several mercs taking off their gear. She hadn’t heard them come out of the Zoo. The leader of the group walked over to her and nodded. “You going in there alone?”

  Wild Bill just stared at him. “Don’t see anybody else, do you?”

  The guy read her last name on the front of her suit and shook his head, then turned and walked away. She waited there in the wind as the team jumped into their JLTV and sped out into the desert. The outer vines and branches of the thick jungle blew from side to side in front of her, but she could see the darkness within. She couldn’t help but feel a bit spooked. This was unlike any mission she had done before.

  Marcus came over the comm. “Your vitals are rising. Are you all right?”

  Wild Bill rolled her eyes. “I’m being tested. I’m fine. So, go in, retrieve the data, get the suits, and get out. Right?”

  “Right.”

  She adjusted her armor and began to walk toward the veil of vines. As she approached, she swore they parted for her, but she told herself it was just the wind. Blinking wildly, she tried to adjust her eyes to the shaded jungle as fast as possible. The wind had completely died, and she could feel the humidity set in. Her suit was equipped with a cooling mechanism that kicked in almost immediately. She put one hand on the butt of her gun and began to walk forward.

  She looked at the screen on her HUD, waiting for the map to come up. “You know, a map would be nice right now, Marcus. I really don’t want to just wander around this alien terrain all day, if you don’t mind.”

  Marcus was quiet for a moment. “There. Sent.”

  A map flashed up on the screen, but only for a moment. It flickered on and off, twisting and turning in her view. She sighed and beat the heel of her hand against the helmet. “Goddamn it, Marcus, the fucking thing is on the fritz again. I told you about this during training. This shit was supposed to be fixed and on point for this mission.”

  Marcus groaned. “Come on, Aimee, get it together. Hold on, let me see if I can clear it up.”

  Wild Bill sighed and looked at her surroundings as Marcus rebooted her system. The leaves were a vibrant green and large, and thick vines twisted up the trunks of the trees. Overhead, streaks of sunshine came down through the canopy and vines hung in a layer in between. Wild pink and orange flowers bloomed from the vines, making small high-pitched sounds like crying babies. Wild Bill froze, not liking that at all.

  She opened her mouth to bitch at Marcus, but the map flipped up on her screen and she was go again. Marcus clicked back in her comm. “There. That should do it. We’ll get the wiring and the system checked when you get out of there. Follow the map. And...question? When you get to the suits, if there are still bodies in there, what exactly are you going to do?”

  Wild Bill smiled. “You gut and skin it just like any animal. It ain’t nothing to it, once you’ve done it a thousand times because you needed to eat. This is practically the same thing.”

  Marcus shuddered. “I still have a very hard time believing you are Harvard-educated.”

  Billie walked forward, following the map. “Yeah, but you forget I grew up in rural Alabama. You can put Harvard in a girl, but you can’t take the redneck out of her.”

  Marcus chuckled. “I don’t know about that. I saw the pictures of you out of your gear in a dress for one of the galas. You would never think you’re out in the jungle, gutting and filleting or whatever it is you said.”

  Wild Bill chuckled and shook her head. “That takes a village, but I’ll do it when I need to.”

  She took a right turn through a clearing, trying to cut through the easier parts of the jungle. As she reached the other side, she tripped on a large, thick vine. She caught her balance and watched as the vine retracted, pulling back into a very large, bright purple plant. Its blossom was open, revealing circular rows of jagged teeth.

  Wild Bill cleared her throat. “What the fuck is that?”

  Marcus laughed. “’Feeeed me, Seymour.’”

  She shook her head. “Oh, hell no. Okay. Fuck that.”

  Marcus was still laughing. “It’s species F5632, or the man-eating plant. They are on the ground, and they hang from trees; they pretty much do whatever the hell they want to. A sample of the venom from their…”

  Wild Bill started to walk faster. “Venom. Nobody said shit about venom.”

  Marcus sighed. “Sure we did. In training. Just keep moving. The thing seems to be going to sleep anyway.”

  Wild Bill didn’t question that, just going through the clearing and back into the thick of the jungle. She kept her eyes peeled, making sure she wasn’t about to come face to face with another of those plants. The sounds of snapping branches and rustling leaves brought her attention upward, and she narrowed her eyes for a moment and waited. Suddenly an animal swung high through the trees and into the cover of the canopy.

  Wild Bill spun to the left, watching the bushes shaking as an animal ran in the opposite direction. “What was that? Did you see that?”

  Marcus rewound the footage. “Ah, primates. There are monkeys in the Zoo.
They are almost identical to Earth monkeys. They rarely cause a problem but have been known to throw poop when they are watching a fight. They also have very sharp teeth. Just keep going; they don’t like getting near humans with guns.”

  Billie stepped over a fallen tree and shook her head. “Okay, so far we have man-eating plants and alien monkeys. Not so bad. I...wait, what is that?”

  Billie squinted and stepped closer to what looked like a tuft of white fur in the leaves. She stopped as it picked its head up, showing glowing blue eyes and ears that were pointed like a cat’s. “It looks like a cute bunny-cat hybrid.”

  She slowly stuck her hand out and Marcus snapped, “Don’t!”

  The hybrid bunny leapt back and snarled, growing long dripping fangs. Its eyes flashed red, and it hissed wildly. Billie jumped back, and the animal ran off into the bushes on its hind legs. “Whoa. Fuck. Okay, noted. Don’t feed the wildlife.”

  Marcus scoffed. “Uh yeah, especially not your hands. Come on, you’re almost there.”

  Wild Bill continued forward, following the path through the Zoo without any more animal interaction. Still, she couldn’t help but feel that she was being watched. That something was out there, just waiting for her to fuck up. Fucking up wasn’t her style, though. She had been on hundreds of missions, things only a few people in the world knew about. This was just another one, and she wasn’t going to let some fucking alien jungle get the best of her.

  She picked up the pace, then slowed as she approached the blinking lights on her screen. Marcus stated, “They should be around here somewhere. Look for the HUDS.”

  Wild Bill narrowed her eyes and looked around, seeing a flash of reflective paint to the right. She hurried toward it and moved a layer of green leaves to the side. She noted that it didn’t seem as if any of the leaves had died. They all looked as fresh as the ones on the trees. As she moved the last layer away, she sighed. “Yeah, this guy’s not coming back to life.”

  Marcus made a gagging noise. “Get the chip.”