West End Droids & East End Dames (Easytown Novels Book 3)
Page 25
The chase didn’t last long. The hoverskiff engines began to smoke, slowing the skiff. Then, forward momentum stopped and the pilot turned, lifting a rifle to her shoulder. A mass of long, brown hair billowed on the wind as Tanaz sighted down the laser rifle’s barrel.
I could tell how many rounds she fired, but the lead drone faltered and tumbled from the sky. Somewhere below, the falling remains would likely crush some unlucky homeless person. She turned the rifle on another drone, but it had closed the distance and I saw the telltale shining lines of the drone’s Taser as they arced across the void, slamming into her.
Tanaz’s body jerked spasmodically as the electric voltage coursed through her. She began to twitch, dangerously close to the edge of the hoverskiff.
And then she fell over the side.
The Taser lines stretched, suspending her in the air for a moment before the barbs ripped from her skin. I watched her body fall all the way to the ground until she landed in the middle of the interstate less than a meter in front of an oncoming car. The vehicle’s computer didn’t have time to adjust to the sudden appearance of a foreign object right in front of it and the car hit her at seventy-five miles per hour, basically liquefying her torso.
“I guess the trap worked,” I muttered.
“Too bad Landrum took one to the face,” Drake said softly. “He was a good cop. Didn’t deserve that.”
I wanted to say something both respectful and reverent of the officer’s sacrifice, but I couldn’t force myself to do so. It’d been a stupid move on his part to charge into an active shooter situation without any idea of what was on the other side of the door. It was a rookie mistake and it cost him his life.
After a few moments of internal deliberation, I decided on simply agreeing with my partner, “Yeah. It’s too bad.”
EPILOGUE: SEVEN MONTHS LATER
“Andi, we need to find a new insurance company. This one is raking my balls over the coals.”
“I’ll begin looking for comparable policies that allow for high risk activities such as chasing criminals, engaging in gunfights, taunting police officers, street brawls with drug addicts, associating with suspected crime bosses and prostitutes, as well as random, unimaginative home and office mishaps.”
“Ah… On second thought, let’s just keep the policy I have.”
“That’s probably for the best, Zach. It took several weeks of negotiations and more than a few omissions on the application to get approved for this policy. It would take considerably longer to obtain a new policy and with your lifestyle, you can’t afford a lapse in coverage.”
I leaned back in my chair and put my feet up on the desk, careful to ease my prosthetics down so I didn’t bash a hole in the work surface. After I was released from the hospital, I’d been put on administrative leave for a week and then given only a week to clear out of the NOPD. I’d done it in two days.
My severance package was not substantial, but even if I sat on my couch and ate street food all day, every day, I could have made the money stretch for a year without touching my savings. Instead, I used the cash to set up the Zachary Forrest Investigative Agency, LLC. My tagline was, “We take the cases the cops won’t touch!” and business had been steadily growing as the word got out that I took cases that normally nobody would touch.
Missing prostitute? Yeah, we do that. You suspect your husband is cheating on you with a droid? I’ll look into it for you. What’s that? Some asshole stole your drugs. Well, let me track them down and tell you where they are. No, I won’t recover them for you, but I can put you in contact with people who will do that too. You know, that sort of stuff.
I didn’t do anything illegal, but I also wasn’t under any obligation to report illegal activities that I stumbled upon during the course of an investigation. My clients seemed to like that part.
Outside, I could hear the bustling streets of Easytown from the third-story office I rented above The Mother Board, the cyber café where the juvenile delinquent Jewel worked at near the middle of Jubilee Lane. I’d been in the building for six months and I loved the location. It was an easy walk to several food skiffs during the day, and a quick jaunt to every strip club on The Lane after work. I set my own hours, decided what cases I’d take, and most importantly, did whatever the hell I wanted to, with whomever I wanted to.
I tapped my retro-style ballpoint pen on the small tablet of paper I always kept on my desktop. Right now, lying to my right, the pages of the notebook were flipped open to my latest case—one that should set me up for a couple of months.
A woman had come into my office last Friday. Mrs. Soriano was agitated and disheveled, and it wasn’t just from the rain. Her teenage son was in a band, a really shitty one if the demo vid I’d seen was any indication about their entire set, and missing. He was also into VR drugs, a known duster. He’d disappeared four days before and the cops didn’t have time for runaways.
I typically tried to avoid dusters. They usually either washed up on the shores of the Mississippi after a few weeks or wandered in from wherever they’d been holed up when they immersed themselves in the Cybersphere. Very rarely was there anything anyone could do for them, the allure of being able to plug in and live virtually in the internet without the real world interfering was simply too great.
Apparently, the drugs that took them there were pretty good too.
Mrs. Soriano had given me tons of information about her kid’s friends, his usual hangouts, and even who his dealer was. She’d seen the dealer’s name on her credfile a few times when her kid had hacked her account for drug money. Dusters were the smartest stupid people I’d ever known.
I’d taken what she gave me, cross-referenced it with street camera feeds and known duster safe houses. I found a kid who looked like hers from behind, but never got a clear picture of his face. I was positive it was him, though. The kid’s stride in the street camera footage matched vidfeed footage of him that his mother had provided. All I needed now was the credit authorization to clear from Mrs. Soriano and I’d go get her boy.
A soft beep from the wall behind me indicated a new message had arrived. “Andi, play the latest received message.”
“It’s a text file, boss,” she replied. “The sum of seventy-five thousand dollars has just arrived in your account. You will not have to dip into your personal savings to cover any expenses for several months with this amount.”
“Good news,” I said, groaning slightly as I lifted my legs off the desk and set them on the floor.
I tapped a button on the window frame and the clear, unobstructed view of The Lane faded away as the visalum frosted over with horizontal white bars, reminiscent of the old Venetian blinds my parents’ house had before it was destroyed in a hurricane.
What can I say? I have a nostalgic streak.
I lifted my shoulder harness off the back of my chair and shrugged into it. I patted the NOPD Sig Sauer I’d purchased at auction and checked the opposite side to ensure I had extra magazines. The Aegis went into its paddle holster on my hip, and my dark gray duster concealed everything.
I walked to the front door and popped the fedora off of its hook. Settling it down on my head, I checked my reflection in the mirror. Handsome as ever.
“Don’t wait up, Andi,” I said as I locked the door to my office behind me.
Two short flights of stairs and a reinforced door, then I was standing on The Lane as people moved back and forth in front of me like seaweed swaying in the surf.
I smiled. I was in my element. I was home.
THE END
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About the Author
A veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Brian Parker was born and raised as an Army brat. He's currently an Active Duty Army soldier who enjoys spending time wit
h his family in Texas, hiking, obstacle course racing, writing and Texas Longhorns football. He's an unashamed Star Wars fan, but prefers to disregard the entire Episode I and II debacle.
Brian is both a traditionally- and self-published author with an ever-growing collection of works across multiple genres, including sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, horror, paranormal thriller, military fiction, self-publishing how-to and even a children's picture book—Zombie in the Basement, which he wrote to help children overcome the perceived stigma of being different from others.
He is also the founder of Muddy Boots Press, an independent publishing company that focuses on quality genre fiction over mass-produced books.
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Discover more works by Brian Parker!
Easytown Novels
The Immorality Clause ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B01HWOH1VC
Tears of a Clone ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B01NBDUZSH
West End Droids & East End Dames ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B07436C21L
The Path of Ashes
A Path of Ashes ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B00XATPU9E
Fireside ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B015ONZOU8
Dark Embers ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B01CPSAI1A
Washington, Dead City
GNASH ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B01ACTBBZQ
REND ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B01AYEQRUI
SEVER ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B01C7VEMG2
Stand Alone Works
Grudge ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y5QS6J6
Enduring Armageddon ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B00XZA2UQY
Origins of the Outbreak ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B00MN7UFBW
The Collective Protocol ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B00KUZDY4O
Battle Damage Assessment ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B00PCND2RI
Zombie in the Basement ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B00H6DUXY2
Self-Publishing the Hard Way ~ www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNQCZ9I
Anthology Contributions
Bite-Sized Offerings: Tales and Legends of the Zombie Apocalypse
Only the Light We Make: Tales From the World of Adrian’s Undead Diary