Rebel (The United Federation Marine Corps)

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  Tamara finally broke her silence with, “Well, roomie, I thought I’d heard it all. But you, you take the cake. I’m truly amazed.”

  “So you are OK with that? I mean, I’m a murderer.”

  “OK with it? Michi girl, I am freakin’ impressed, and rather jealous. You struck back at the assholes when all anyone else does it pass out leaflets and jabber at rallies. You took matters into your own hands and got some revenge for your beau. But it’s not over now.”

  “It’s not?” Michi asked.

  “No fucking way. You and I are going to do it again!”

  Chapter 10

  “You really expect to attract attention in that?” Tamara asked Michi, pointing at the baggy sweats and oversized cozy Michi had put on.

  “What’s the matter with what I’m wearing?”

  “You look like the marshmallow man. You’ve got the curves, so use them,” Tamara said.

  “I’m not putting on rentgirl rags, if that’s what you mean. I’m going to need to be able to move. And we don’t want to attract too much attention anyway. Secrecy, right? In-and-out like phantoms, right? Wasn’t that what you said?”

  “Oh, my innocent little Michi,” Tamara said sarcastically. “Look at my bammers,” she told Michi, turning around and pointing at the black, molecularly-thin tights that were currently in fashion. “Shows my ass, right? But still, not flashy enough to attract attention unless some guy is right behind me. With your sweats, Georgina O’Merkhin herself wouldn’t turn a head,” she said, referring to the current flavor-of-the-month holo sex-kitten star.

  “We need to get one of them to want to come with us, not bore one to death. Go back to your room and put on a pair of your dance tights, at least. And put this on,” she added, reaching to the floor and picking up one of her small tops that she had dropped there.

  “Really?” Michi asked, dangling the top from one finger. “Don’t you think it’s a little small?”

  “Of course it is, girl. You’ve got a little more to stuff inside than I do, but so what? You want him to be thinking about something else before you go all highlander samurai on his ass.”

  Michi laughed out loud at that. “Highlander samurai?”

  “Yeah, I thought of it last night. Brills, right? You’re First Family, and Clan. You’ve got them both by birth, and samurais are pretty kick-ass.”

  Tamara was excited, and her voice was a pitch higher than normal. The thought of going out and jumping a jack had hyped her up.

  Michi went back into her room, slid off her sweats, then rooted around her dance kit for a pair of clean tights. All were dirty, so she took the pair with the least amount of smell and put them on. The top Tamara had given her was another story, though. It was tiny! She pulled it over her head and worked it down, trying to put everything in place. She took a quick look in the mirror and almost took it right back off. It didn’t cover much of anything, and while not a prude, Michi was still Clan, and as such, she was not as open as her roommate. In the end, she just zipped up her cozy, hiding the mini-top from view.

  “That’s better,” Tamara said as Michi came out. “Let’s go get this done.”

  Michi was still hesitant about this “mission,” as Tamara kept referring to it. Last time, she had been running on emotion and a mindless drive for vengeance. Now, she wasn’t as driven. Killing the jack had extinguished part of the flame that burned within her. She had never envisioned actually killing a man, but now that it had happened, she was nervous as the two left the apartment and started downtown.

  This was not a “kill” mission, however, as she had stressed to Tamara. In the first place, killing the jack before had been a fluke. Unless you used a weapon of some sort, killing with one blow almost never happened, despite what was shown in the flicks. It took endless pummelings to have the potential for death.

  In the second place, Michi realized that she really didn’t have the stomach for it. She hated the jacks and all they stood for, but killing someone took a person into another realm, one to which she really didn’t want to travel. Michi still clung to her past self: the dancer, the treasured First Family girl, the student, the fiancé. She liked that life, and she was afraid of the violent undertow which threatened to sweep her into a darker, more sinister world.

  Without Tamara, she probably would have never ventured out again like this, eventually going back to her family and apologizing. She knew they would embrace her return. Instead, she was following her half-crazy roomie out into the night to jump a jack. Maybe she was the half-crazy one for agreeing to it.

  They made their way towards the Gut again. The lack of working surveillance vaulted it to the top of their preferred hunting grounds. The shrine Michi had used before was on the other side of the Slab, so this time, they stopped a few blocks short of the Gut, gave each other a kiss on the cheek as if parting (for the sake of any surveillance recordings), and then split up. Michi went into an industrial parts store where she changed cozies in the toilet before coming out and walking into the Gut itself.

  There was an old statue of some ancient Scottish hero in the middle of the Gut, a testament to when this was a high-end neighborhood. The fine townhomes had fallen a long way into disrepair. Michi stopped at the foot of the statue and waited for Tamara.

  “You want Light?” a furtive voice whispered to her.

  Michi ignored the bundled person, unsure if the pusher was a man or woman, young or old. She kept glancing around, wondering how long she should wait. She felt far more vulnerable this time than before. She knew it was all in her mind, but that didn’t make her feelings any less impactful.

  Tamara finally sauntered up in a bright pink cozy with silver spangles. She stood out like a bird of paradise. The rentgirls and boys tended to the colorful, but Tamara put them all to shame.

  “Not too conspicuous there, are you?” Michi asked as they met up.

  “Don’t you ever read the spy novels?” Tamara asked. “With all this glitter, who’s gonna remember my face?”

  “If we’re planning this based on novels and flicks, then we’re in trouble before we even begin,” Michi grumbled without acknowledging that what Tamara had said made sense, garnered from a fictional spy story or not.

  The two women started aimlessly walking, trying to look like they fit in. The Gut was not totally devoted to activities that pressed the boundaries of legality—or broke right through them, for that matter. The office buildings in the center of town rose to the west of the Gut, and some of the newly renovated condos so high in demand were just to the east, so the upscale workers simply walked through the Gut to and from their condos. It wouldn’t be long before the real estate on which the Gut perched would be taken over to build more condos, coffee shops, and hookah bars.

  At this hour, most of the workers were already snug in their condos. There were some stragglers, however, mostly people who had stayed for dinner or to put in the late hours in their attempt to rise through the drek to the upper echelons of power. They walked with their heads down, ignoring the jetsam and flotsam that flowed throughout the Gut. Michi wondered if they were afraid that if they looked, they’d see a fellow worker indulging in what the Gut had to offer.

  “Check this out,” Tamara whispered before flouncing up to one head-down walker.

  “Hey there, stud, you up for a drink?” she asked the man who merely put his head down further and sped up his pace.

  “Told you this stuff works,” she said to Michi as she came back, using one hand to sweep over her pink cozy. “I know that guy. He hit on me last year at one of our recertification courses.”

  Michi had to stifle a laugh. Tamara was one surprise after another. The girl had no filter.

  They wandered about the Gut for over an hour, dismissing several prospects for various reasons ranging from one jack’s wedding ring catching the light as he walked his rounds to another being joined by two more jacks just before the two hunters closed in.

  Michi had felt uncomfortable when they first
started walking. The Gut was not the kind of place she ever really thought she would be exploring. But as they hunted for a victim, she forgot about the seediness of the hunting grounds as her excitement started to take over. She had always been competitive, but this took it to a new level, one that quite frankly gave her a rush.

  A few years ago, a cousin had come back on leave from where he served as a captain in the Marines. At a family gathering, he had started on his “sea stories,” as he called them. He had been in the fighting during the Trinocular War, and to the rapt attention of the younger cousins, said that the thrill of combat was addictive, that nothing else matched up to it. At the time, Michi thought that was just bluster, but as she searched the warrens for her prey, she thought she just might understand what he’d been trying to say. Michi had been reticent about Tamara’s mission, but now that she was on the hunt, she was eager to get to it.

  “Over there, at your eleven o’clock,” she whispered to Tamara, when she finally spotted a likely target.

  “Eleven freakin’ what?”

  Eleven o’clock. Like in the flicks. Twelve is right in front of us. Eleven is ahead and just to the left. Over there, across the street.”

  “Why didn’t you just say that instead of going Hollywood on me,” Tamara grumbled. Then, “Ah, I see what you mean. Mr. Jack seems interested in us.”

  “Mr. Jack” was a thirty-something, lower-level security specialist, based on the patch on his shoulder. He was a little old for his rank, and Michi saw something in his eyes as he took in the two women that made her positive he was the type to throw around what little authority he possessed.

  Tamara immediately started crossing the street, and Michi had to hurry to catch up. The jack’s eyes lit up as the two walked up to him.

  “And what are you two ladies doing out and about this fine evening?” he asked them as Michi could feel his gaze peeling off their cozies as he openly looked them up and down.

  “Nothing, sir,” Tamara said. “Just out for some fun. Crunching actuarial numbers all day is so boring, and we need a little excitement.”

  With a number of insurance firms downtown, that little comment could throw suspicion in that direction, if it came to that. Michi had to give her roommate props. Michi hadn’t even thought to come up with a backstory.

  “Excitement? Plenty of places for that, ladies. The Gut, though, can be a little rough for office girls.”

  “Oh, me and Stacy like it rough,” Tamara said with a throaty laugh. “Maybe you know someplace, though, where we can go to find something exciting?”

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” he said with a laugh.

  “Oh, you security guys are supposed to know all the naughty places, right? Where things happen? Maybe one where we could go but that’s not, too, well, dangerous?”

  The jack was eyeing both of them. Michi wondered if she should have unzipped her cozy a little, but doing that now would be too blatant. They had to tease this fish before setting the hook.

  Michi was glad Tamara was the one doing the talking. This wasn’t her style. Michi would rather have simply called out the man and gone at it. Finesse was not something she had in her bag of tricks.

  “What about her?” the man asked Tamara, pointing at Michi.

  “Oh, she’s a quiet one, she is, out in public, but get her behind closed doors, she’s a tiger,” Tamara told him.

  “Well, can you help us? Where should we go? But remember, we want it naughty, but not where we’re going to get in any trouble. You know how the insurance companies are about moral standing.”

  The jack seemed to be considering it for a moment before making up his mind. He got on his radio and said, “Helmon, I’m taking my 30 now. You’ve got it.”

  He turned to Tamara and said, “Yeah, I know. I run this section,” which Michi knew was a gross exaggeration, “so I know all the places. But two ladies like you can get into trouble getting there, so I’m going to escort you there and let them know you’re under my protection, OK?”

  Hook set.

  “Oh, you’d do that?” Tamara asked excitedly. “Stacy, you hear that? I told you this would be sparking!

  “Lead on my knight,” she said, taking the jack by his arm. “I’m so excited.”

  “You excited too?” the jack asked Michi over his shoulder.

  You don’t know how much, she thought.

  Michi didn’t know what the jack had planned. It was doubtful that he would have actually led the two into danger, and 30 minutes wasn’t much time for anything. He probably wanted to impress them with his importance and then set up something after he was off duty. It didn’t matter. The guy was slimy, and Michi felt her endorphins kick in.

  The jack led the two down Julian Street, which was far too open for Michi to strike. She wondered if she was going to have to fake the need to take a pee when the jack turned down a smaller alley.

  “This is a shortcut, so don’t be too scared,” he said, full of self-importance. “I’m here with you, but don’t try this way alone.”

  Michi decided she hated him. Not that hating him was necessary, but it added a certain spice to what was going to happen.

  Halfway down the alley, Michi coughed twice. It was corny, but that was their signal.

  “Oh, my shoe’s coming undone,” she said, stopping and bending at the waist as if to tie her shoe.

  The jack stood over her, taking an unabashed look at her ass.

  “Hey, jack,” Michi said.

  The jack looked up just as Michi’s roundhouse kick caught him flush on the side of his face. The jack stumbled, but didn’t go down.

  “What . . .?” he started, coming back with his fist cocked to swing at her.

  Michi leveled a front kick at his stomach, missing and hitting him on his chest harness, but knocking him back a full meter.

  “You bitch!” he gasped out, looking at Michi with unveiled hate. He swayed as Michi just took in the sight, all hesitation about their mission now gone.

  She should have attacked again and closed the deal instead of admiring her handiwork. He stepped back and reached for his Jamison, pulling it out. Michi tried to close the distance, hoping to connect before the woozy jack could pull the trigger. She was afraid she would be too late.

  She just started to leap into a superman punch when the jack crumbled in a heap. Michi was so focused on him that she didn’t realize what was going on. It took her a moment to take in Tamara, all 40 kg of her, standing above the jack with a truncheon in her hand. She had a huge smile on her face.

  “That was fucking brills,” she said, looking down in awe at the weighted leather club in her hand.

  “Who’s the samurai now, sister?” Michi asked, totally taken off guard.

  Nowhere in their admittedly spotty plan had Tamara been involved in the fighting. She was supposed to set it up and Michi was supposed to close the deal. And where had that nasty truncheon come from?

  “Where did you have that thing?” Michi asked.

  “My bammers leave nothing to the imagination, but the cozy’s pretty loose. And like I told you, no one gets past the glitter.”

  “I gotta give you cred,” Michi told her. “I think you saved my ass.”

  “I think I did, too! You may be the Samurai Highlander, but I can sure be your robin,[8]” she said. “Every hero’s gotta have her robin.”

  “OK, you’ve got the job.” Michi said as she nudged the jack with her foot.

  He was breathing smoothly, to Michi’s relief.

  Some freedom fighter I am, she thought. Happy when a target lives.

  She bent over and took the Jamison out of its holster. She looked it over for a moment before sliding it inside her cozy.

  “Uh, as my second robin duty, you do know that you can’t fire that. It’s keyed to that guy’s bios.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “And if you power it up, they can track it to you.”

  “What, you think I’m stupid?” Michi said as her hea
rt fluttered.

  Actually, she hadn’t known either of those two pertinent facts. She had even thought about trying the first Jamison out after she had gotten it home. If what Tamara was saying was true, and Michi was sure it was, she would have had a platoon of jacks descending on her house, ready to take both her family and her into custody. First Family or not, murder was a capital offense.

  “So why do you want it?” Tamara asked.

  Michi knew she should have put it back, but she was not going to back down. It was the MacCailín stubborn streak.

  “Just as a souvenir, nothing more.”

  “OK, it’s your call,” Tamara said.

  Michi instantly felt bad. “Her call” would bring the weapon into Tamara’s condo.

  “I’ve got a place I’ll ditch it for safekeeping. But I want to send a message that this wasn’t some random mugging. Shall we get out of here?”

  “Yeah, that’s probably a pretty good idea,” Tamara said before walking over to look at the unconscious man.

  Michi thought she might kick the man, but instead, she leaned over and kissed him right on the lips.

  “It’s only fair,” Tamara said with a shrug before the two left the alley.

  They made their way back to the statue before silently splitting up. Michi sat down on the statue’s base, just a citizen taking in the sights. Tamara was supposed to leave first, but after surreptitiously ditching the pink cozy, Michi watched her approach two young salarymen. Within a minute, she had her arm hooked around one of them as they started off. She looked back at Michi and gave her a wink before getting into a deep conservation with her new companion.

  Michi didn’t know how far Tamara was going to take it. She did like her fun, and she had been pretty hyped after hitting the jack, Michi knew. She also realized that a man and a woman leaving the Gut together would be less conspicuous than two single women leaving. Was Tamara merely using the guy as camouflage, or was he going to be her release of pent-up energy?