Niki covered the mic on her phone. "Yeah?"
"Our ride's here. Speare has reservations for us in the Aria. I guess as a job well-done gesture?"
"Maybe." She grimaced. "Or maybe he realized there is a benefit to putting your people in a hotel that doubles as a casino that makes most of its money from people gambling. Either that or maybe he got a special group rate. Do they offer any benefits for DOD operatives?"
The man shrugged. "Hell if I know. But we should get going. Maxwell won’t wait for long. He got a hefty bonus and he's aching to spend it on some prime rib."
She laughed. "All right, let's get moving. Why didn't you get a bonus, though?"
"It's a timeline situation. We started working for the DOD at different times, so the years of service anniversary falls on different dates for us. Idiotic bureaucracy is what it is."
"Right. Start the car. I'll be right there."
Jansen nodded and jogged to where Maxwell had already started the vehicle.
Niki pulled her hand away from the microphone. "Okay, sis, I need to get going."
"Yeah, it's adorable that you think putting your hand over a phone's mic still keeps the person on the other side from hearing. I'll talk to you later?"
"Not if I kill you first," she muttered before she hung up. It wasn’t a good idea to be the one to get between Maxwell and his prized prime rib. Besides, Taylor would put the three of them through their paces over the next couple of days to familiarize them with running and working in the suits he’d sourced for them. Any opportunity for relaxation and enjoyment they could get their hands on before the taskmaster got his hands on them was worth it.
The drive into Vegas had its unique brand of breath-taking qualities. Despite the sheer amount of greed and backstabbing she knew was happening, there weren't many sights in the world quite like entering the Strip. People who were some of the most talented at catching the human eye and not letting go had put work into making every building there a masterpiece.
The Aria certainly fit that description. A valet already waited to open the doors for them and took the keys to the SUV from Maxwell's hands as they stepped inside.
"These digs are a little more…" Jansen let his voice trail off as they headed to the front desk.
"Opulent." Niki finished his sentence for him. "The word is opulent. Vegas is the capital of the over-the-top luxurious hotel stays, and not many people would complain about that when their rooms are comped by the DOD."
The man nodded and stopped at the front desk, where the receptionist smiled in greeting. "Hi, we have reservations under the names Maxwell, Jansen, and Banks."
"Of course. One moment while I check those."
The woman behind the desk typed the names on her computer and smiled, but with a hint of confusion. "I'm sorry. I have a reservation for Trond Jansen and Tim Maxwell, but I don’t see any reservations under the name of Banks. Hold on one moment. I'll talk to my manager."
She pressed a button next to the phone and in seconds, a man with balding hair and a cheap suit hurried from an inner office. "Hi there. Ms. Niki Banks, correct? You'll have to follow me. There was a small change in your reservation."
Niki narrowed her eyes. "I'm sorry…is there a problem?"
"Problem? Heavens no! It's only that your reservation was upgraded at the last minute. If you'll join me in the Sky Lounge, we'll get you checked in lickety-split."
Jansen mouthed the two last words as she gestured for them to check in.
"I don't suppose you could tell me who upgraded my reservation?" she asked as the concierge ushered her to the lounge.
"Of course, ma'am. Naturally, we tend to not share such details, but the gentleman who arranged it said he wanted to surprise you. He mentioned something about you two being involved and that this was a way to show—and I quote—that he means business."
"I'll go ahead and assume that this was done through McFadden's Mechs?"
He paused. "No, but the man who made the arrangements said his name was McFadden. Taylor McFadden. He stressed that this was not a business arrangement but rather quite personal.”
She smirked and held her bag a little closer. "Sleep in a beautiful suite tonight, for who knows what tomorrow will bring?"
The concierge kept the smile firmly on his face, but there was a hint of a twist in his eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"
"Nothing. Never mind. Look, I've been on a plane all day, so I don't suppose we could simply fast-track the whole check-in process?"
"Naturally. That is the function of the Sky Lounge. Right this way, ma'am."
He proved true to his word and the process was even quicker since there was already another credit card waiting on the file for her reservation. In under a minute, she was whisked up in a private elevator to one of the largest hotel rooms she had ever seen.
"Holy shit," Niki muttered as she gaped at her surroundings. "It's bigger than my house."
The concierge had nothing to say to that. All she could do was stare through the massive windows that overlooked the Strip.
"If you need anything—anything at all, at any time of the day or night—call me on the hotel line." He bowed stiffly at the hip before he turned away and returned to the elevator.
Opulent was the only word she could think of to describe the suite. Everything was bigger and more impressive than it needed to be. The small coffee table next to the window was already laden with gift baskets filled with chocolates and other treats, as well as an ice bucket with a bottle of Dom Perignon chilling inside.
A selection of other drinks stood near a placard with the extensive room service menu available.
Niki doubted that she would peruse the menu yet, but the bottle seemed to look at her invitingly.
She put her suitcase next to the bed and stripped out of her clothes. In a few minutes, she slipped into one of the complimentary bathrobes while the tub filled with hot water. It had been a while since she let herself soak in a bath, and she wanted to do it right.
The bathtub was set into the floor and a few small steps enabled her to slip under the warm, bubbly water. A couple of different surfaces provided space for her to put her full glass down as she settled into the somehow cushioned surface.
The gentle water jets had already begun to press into the sore muscles of her back and shoulders and made her groan audibly as she slid a little lower into the water. With a sigh of contentment, she closed her eyes and simply enjoyed the luxury Taylor had provided for her.
As her arms spread wide, they bumped into something and her eyes jerked open. Another gift basket that she'd missed was set beside the tub. She picked up the sheet of paper left on top and smirked when she read the note Taylor left for her.
For all your sore muscles, past, present, and future, it read, with a small winking emoji. He'd asked them to provide it with the note too. The guy had some fucking balls to him.
"Maybe that's what attracts me to him," she muttered to the bubbles. "I like me a ballsy man."
Chapter Two
The Mojave Desert was a little too cold for comfort at night, and the chill lasted into the early morning.
Still, he’d always liked the cold over the heat. The fact that he had moved to Nevada of all places showed how great he was at thinking these decisions through.
But the idea of working for the next few years and selling McFadden's Mechs to the highest bidder didn't sound like something he would do in the end.
Then again, Taylor thought as he pressed the accelerator down in the four-by-four, maybe he wouldn’t still be alive then.
"What's the matter?" Vickie asked and nudged his arm from the shotgun seat.
"Is it weird that I haven't written a will?" He didn't much like the question and he scowled as he leaned back in his seat.
"Why…why would you have written a will?"
"Because I don’t exactly live a safe life. In the end, if something does manage to kill me, I don't have any next of kin to claim everything. If I don't have a
will, it'll end up in a court or a bank or something and everything I've done will go to nothing and no one."
"Well, if you were ever to write a will…" She tapped the armrest lightly with her nails. "Who would all your shit go to?"
"You guys. McFadden's Mechs is yours as much as mine, and that would need to continue."
She turned to face him. "Well, that's obvious enough, but I'm talking about your personal shit. Like, I assume you have a decent amount saved for a rainy day—all you former military guys do—and if you don't have any next of kin for that to go to, it'll end up in the hands of whatever bank you have it in. So I'm asking you, as a friend, where do you want all your personal assets to go?"
Taylor gave her a sharp glance. "What you're asking is how much I'll leave to you."
The hacker shrugged. "Well, I didn't want to know that outright, but sure, let's go there." She turned and faced him fully, her eyes wide and a cheeky grin playing across her lips. "If you die, what will I get?"
He couldn't help but laugh. "Have you always been this greedy or is it a more recent development?"
"More recent. You know how they say that getting a substantial sum of money doesn't change a person's personality but only amplifies it?" She fixed him with a teasing look and after a few seconds, leaned closer and nudged him in the arm with her fist again. "You know I'm kidding, right? And I don't want you to even think about not being around for the long haul."
"Yeah, I know." He smiled and shifted to nudge her shoulder with his fist in response. "But yeah, you're probably as close to next of kin as I'll have. You and maybe—hopefully—Niki. And I feel like I might owe Jennie something for everything. Bobby will probably be the executor, so he'll get a good amount too. But aside from that…yeah, this is a little depressing to even think about. But it's the kind of shit you have to consider just in case."
"Fuck that. I will live forever and you will too, Tay-Tay. We're this close to the technology granting people eternal life." She held her forefinger and thumb up less than a centimeter apart.
"Yeah, there’s a small problem with the technology that's supposed to help us live forever."
"What's that?"
"It happened to grow a big fucking jungle in the middle of the Sahara. I'm sure it won’t be a problem for you, right? Since we'll live forever."
"Well, yeah, semantics. They should find a way around the murderous monsters any day now."
Taylor nodded. "Yeah. I'm it."
They pulled off the main street and proceeded down a handful of dirt roads into the desert, where the tough terrain turned rocky and hilly. After about ten minutes, they drove into an open area well hidden from the highway.
The rugged, inhospitable area was more or less what Taylor had been looking for, and the seclusion was not a bad idea either. He couldn't help but admire the wilderness around them. It had remained almost completely untouched by humanity for the past few years since the train yards and the warehouses had been abandoned.
"All right, folks!" Taylor called. Tanya, Niki, Elisa, Vickie, Maxwell, and Jansen had already dismounted and began to equip themselves with the suits he had brought or those Bobby had loaded in his truck. "This location is mostly abandoned and about fifteen klicks from the Vegas city limit. It used to be a way station into the west of the country where numerous trains passed through, but things have changed. The world moved on and left us with a primo area to get to know our suits. Get dressed up because the dancing will be fun."
"Fun for who?" Maxwell asked, already mostly finished with strapping his suit on.
"For me."
"I wish we could have ended up in the nuclear testing sites," Vickie muttered. "But the military is still all like 'but the radioactivity will kill you' or 'how did you get this number' about it."
Taylor grinned. "Well, I guess it's up to us to use our imaginations and make this as fun a place to train as they would have been."
"And by our imaginations, you mean…"
"Mine, yes."
They all suited up and the training in their little improvised obstacle course in the warehouse had helped them become a little more familiar with moving in the suits. Still, they were a long way from the natural motions he needed to see from them.
Vickie jumped from one foot to the other and tried to show off a little, but all he could see was the fact that she had too much lag between her movement and the suit's. She was adjusting to the slower reactions, which was okay for training, but it would get her killed in the field.
She jogged to where he stood. "So, what will we do today?"
"Adjust your suit's reaction sensitivity for one thing."
"But I'm still getting used to it on this setting!"
He nodded. "That's the problem. That quarter of a second of a delay will get you killed. The closer to your reactions the suit is, the quicker you'll pull the trigger. I don't need to tell you that the person who pulls the trigger first is usually the one who walks away, right?"
"Unless you miss, which is what higher sensitivity would do for me."
"Unless you train for it." Taylor winked and nudged her arm. "You got this."
The hacker scowled. "Ugh, fine, I'll do it, but don't you laugh at me if I trip over my feet again."
"Pinkie promise. Hold that thought. Why…how did you… If Elisa is here, who's covering our phones? I thought you found someone, but I only now realized that no one arrived and there are no new people on our security system."
She looked at him with a carefully blank expression. "I…I did find a temp. There's a shortlist of people we trust so I called in one of those."
"All those people are here. Except for Jennie. You don't have Jennie on the phones at the shop, do you?"
Vickie looked aside and refused to meet his eye. "I…Desk. Desk is there—in a way—taking all the calls and making recordings for us to listen to later if we want to. Elisa said she wanted to get a little work done in her suit and would I be a good manager if I didn't let her go to the training she wanted to attend?"
"Huh." He grunted. "That's surprisingly mature of you. I don't know what to make of that."
"I'm simply that awesome?"
"Awesome enough to adjust those sensitivity settings to a more combat-friendly level?"
She mumbled something he couldn't hear but he assumed was a curse on him, his family, and his cow and he moved to where Niki seemed to struggle a little with the suit she wore.
"You look uncomfortable," Taylor noted.
"Hi there, Captain Obvious," she snapped.
"That's Major Obvious. I was promoted. But that's neither here nor there. Why the hell are you uncomfortable? I thought you were the one who had a little training? I need to have you as the teacher's pet who helps everyone else get with the program."
"Fuck no." She moved the suit around her hips. "These new suits are…well, suffice it to say that I'm a little outside of my comfort zone."
"Well, that's what the training is for. Once you've expanded your comfort zone, the suit will feel like it's a second skin and merely an extension of your body. And that will give you, like…fifteen different kinds of edges."
"You do realize that the metaphor falls apart there? Knives aren't supposed to have more than two edges."
"Ninja throwing stars?"
"Is that what you think of me?" She cocked an eyebrow. "As a shuriken?"
"You are whatever you need to be in the field of battle. The thing that keeps you alive when you fight ever-evolving monsters is the ability to evolve yourself. Now, get your ass moving. In fact, everyone get your collective asses moving. We have training to do!"
They were already responding. Taylor could already feel the naked heat of the sun beating down on him. He was tempted to join them in the training, but he would see far more of their technique and capabilities if he watched them from afar. Bobby would push them from the front lines.
Besides, it would let them bond over being annoyed with him.
"Come on, guys!" he shouted
over the comms where he was now seated in front of the computer that Vickie had set up for him to monitor all the suits’ functions. "The day's a-wasting and you're all standing around! Do you want to know how to kill fuckers with those suits or not?"
He grinned when he imagined all the scowls in his direction, but it was difficult to feel bad. His workout was scheduled for later in the day, and with Bobby upping his game, Taylor needed to be ready to explain a few bumps and bruises. Hopefully, being at the front lines would tire the fucker out somewhat.
Niki leaned on her knees and dragged in a slow breath. The memories of Taylor's gift of a luxurious hotel room with a nice bubble bath were long gone. All she could think about was how goddammed hot the sun got in the Mojave. There was no sunburn thanks to the suit, but she wouldn't complain if the rest of her life was spent in the comfort of an air-conditioned office.
"No, that's not true," she whispered and moved the suit slowly to give her aching muscles a little time to recover.
"What's not?" Bobby asked and removed his helment. The man didn't look fresh—at least not from the redness of his cheeks—but he didn't look as tired as he should have.
"I'm…talking to myself. Hold on, Bungees, is Taylor pushing us harder than he needs to for some reason, or is this more or less how you guys were trained?"
He shook his head. "It's definitely not the way we were trained."
"So he's putting us through our paces for no reason?"
"I didn't say that. We were trained as regular military. It was then something of a shock when we went into the Zoo, one that all of us had to get used to or die trying. I think he's trying to develop a training regimen that prepares people to head into the jungle. Believe me when I tell you that I've been as tired as you feel right now. I'd rather it was in a safe training environment than out in the middle of a fight for your life against a horde of critters out for your blood. Conditioning is important out there, or do you think that Taylor is some kind of freak who’s like that naturally? That he didn't have to work for it?"
Monster In Me (Cryptid Assassin Book 8) Page 2
