by John Conroe
“Nah, that was last month. She’s with some musician now, I think,” Black said.
Ewww. Forty-something creeper agent was stalking Astrid.
“He’s known her since they were in middle school,” Davis said.
All four of them looked at me for a moment.
“Okay, so you fired five shots, then the building exploded,” White said, running the footage forward till flame blossomed out of four windows on the seventeenth floor.
“Just Tannerite and a small amount of acetylene. I had to slow down the UAVs that came my way.”
“You blew up your own sniper hide?” Yoshida asked, eyebrows raised. “Where were you?”
“In the elevator shaft, or rather, falling down it. Cable descenders,” I said.
“How’d you set off the bomb?” Yoshida asked.
“I had Ri- I had the Berkut shoot it,” I said, deciding they didn’t need to know I named the damned thing.
“You deliberately set up this whole shoot-and-explode thing?” Davis asked.
“I had like five seconds to come up with it. I was up there, getting that notebook computer for a client,” I said, nodding at the bubble-wrapped PC. “I had no idea Team Johnson would roll in behind me, and in the morning no less. What’s up with that, by the way? Is the show no longer really live?”
“Take us through it, kid. Start at the beginning,” Black said, ignoring my question, which was probably answer enough.
I spent the next thirty minutes detailing the whole thing, answering their questions and repeating my story at least four times. I did not mention the face I saw, the person who deliberately distracted a Tiger unit so that I could live. Mostly because I was having trouble believing it myself.
“Ajaya, I’m suspending your permit to go into the Zone,” General Davis said, ending the interview.
“What? Till when?” I asked.
“We’ll see. We have to review this information. It’s disturbing, you understand, to learn about this pet drone of yours,” the general said.
“Is that it or is it dependent on my teaching you guys how to do it?” I asked. They were so holding my access hostage.
“Hmmm, interesting question. We get back to you on that?” Black said.
“When?” I asked.
“When we’re good and ready,” Black said and then walked out, followed by Davis and White. Yoshida motioned me up and over to my gear. He started to hand me stuff and I began to pack it under his watchful eyes.
“You are a hell of a sniper, Ajaya,” he said after a few moments.
“Not really a sniper. Never served in the military or anything. Dad was the sniper,” I said.
“You are sniper, through and through. Five shots in what? Six or seven seconds. Improvising a shooting platform, escape route, and covering explosion, then exfiltrating an enemy-rich environment with a wounded leg? That’s a sniper, Ajaya,” he said with a grin. Then he clapped me on the shoulder and headed for the door. “Have a nice day.”
Chapter 8
It took another hour and ten minutes to get a self-driver and get back to Brooklyn, or at least our little beat-down section of it. Then I hobbled into the neighborhood precinct and checked in my firearms with the desk sergeant. I must have looked particularly bad because a lot of the cops were giving me funny looks and it’s not like I haven’t been in there a bazillion times.
Weapons load lighter (but not wiped out ‘cause I was raised Gurkha and always have my kukri), I limped the three blocks to our apartment building.
When Manhattan became no-man’s-land, the wealthy spread into the other boroughs, with many of them ending up in Brooklyn. We’d had to move four times in ten years because of rising rents. After Drone Night, the US and world economies dropped into recession, as I’ve mentioned before. But the rich were still rich, and they could afford to pay way more than the rest of us. My dad and Brad Johnson plowed most of their combined monies into the recovery business, even the newly salvaged money, because used armored vehicles cost like crazy. They pulled out just enough to keep our families going. Our living arrangements reflected that reality. Astrid and her family used to live down the hall from our first apartment. Now they live in Cobble freaking Hill.
After a couple of years came the breakup, as my mom used to call it. Originally, my father would infiltrate the Zone and then set up overwatch before Brad and JJ came barreling in in an armored vehicle to smash and grab. Dad shot a ton of drones that brought in a ton of bounties while the other two essentially looted. But the bigger, higher-bounty drones became less numerous after the first couple of years and Brad started to feel that my father’s sniper skills weren’t contributing as much as he and his son were. He adjusted the company structure without my dad knowing and suddenly just cut us out. Dad was a great sniper, not a great businessman.
We had to rebuild, which we did once I joined my father on incursions. We even stepped up to a nicer place. Then dad died and our income dried up again. So we moved to this place. When I started going back in, and particularly once I had Rikki, our money started flowing again. But this time, Mom and I agreed that we would build up our reserves and emergency funds to a level that would leave us independent if we fell on hard times again. Like today.
The front of the building was normal, except for a big, shiny new Tesla SUV parked in front. Unusual. On any given day, you’d see lots of Kias, Chinese FAWs and DFMs, Hyundais, even a couple of older Hondas. Only one Tesla. Hmm.
The elevator was actually working today, so my ankle was thankful as I rode up to the third floor. The door recognized me and unlocked as I approached.
“Mom, I’m home,” was my typical announcement but today I immediately heard voices in the living room so I stayed quiet, dropped my pack, and snuck up on the archway.
I peeked around the corner and almost dropped my jaw to the floor. Trinity Flottercot, daughter of media mogul Chester Flottercot, and, more importantly, executive producer of Zone War, sat in the easy chair that I often claim. My mother and Aama were on the love seat, and bracketed between Gabby and Monique on the couch was… Astrid. I haven’t seen her in our apartment in years.
“Ajaya, I thought I heard the door,” my mother said. She’s hard as hell to sneak up on. Something to do with being married to a sniper, I suppose.
“Ah, hi, Mom. Girls, Aama. Hi, Trinity. Hi, Astrid,” I said, eyes flicking past the producer to the star, then back to Mom. The smile that bloomed on Astrid’s face did something funny to my insides.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Mom said, frowning. That frown was because I was late and had worried her. Thank the government, Ma.
“Oh, I had to move slower than normal,” I said, unable to keep myself from glancing at Astrid. The freaking twins were sandwiching her and smiling like Cheshire cats. They love Astrid. Part hero worship and part family memories. In fifth grade, at the beginning of all that middle school shit that all kids go through, one of them had bragged about knowing her. It was near the beginning of Zone War and the show was already a hit. The other kids had mocked them mercilessly, calling them liars and other vile teenager shit, right up until the day Astrid came to the school with my mother to pick up the girls. Shit stopped then.
Astrid was a dutiful Johnson, but she had some rebel in her and had kept in low-key, quiet contact with my mother. Anything more would bring the wrath of Brad and Martin down on her head. She had probably paid for that one single school visit, but it had cemented my sisters’ reverence like nothing else could.
My mom glanced down at my legs and spotted the duct tape and wood stool splint. “What did you do?” she demanded as she launched from her seat, Aama right behind her. “Here, sit down,” she said, pointing to the love seat.
“Ma, I’m filthy,” I said, backing away a bit. Not my best look, I’m sure. Covered in dirt, powdered sheet rock, soot from the fire, dust, and unidentifiable shit from the tunnels. My stealth suit didn’t have to copy the ground because I was basically wearing it.
“Just a sprain, Ma,” I said.
“And just how did you sprain it, Ajaya?” Mom asked.
Across the room, Astrid looked concerned but Trinity’s eyes were popping like she was going crazy. The truth was she was probably jonesing for a camera to record all of this. Footage, footage, footage.
Trinity is about thirty, I think. Maybe mid-thirties. Only child of Chester Flottercot. Crazy good at finding trendy shows, with her penultimate production being Zone War. She’s always scared me a little. Her body is super fit, like she moonlights as a fitness guru, but her face is too severe, too sharp in its features to be on the other side of the camera. People use the terms foxy and vixen for hot women, but Trinity’s pointed chin and triangular face is very foxlike and I don’t find it attractive at all. Killer bod, though. I’ve met her maybe seven or eight times. Dressed in black, fitted designer jeans and some kind of black fashion t-shirt, her figure would turn heads. Walking next to Astrid, she might go unnoticed.
My childhood friend looked absolutely amazing. Knee-high boots with those stretchy-type jeans tucked in and a white blouse that was showing enough cleavage to erase a third of my IQ. Blonde hair loose and flowing over her shoulders, framing her face and those amazing blue eyes.
“Well?” Mom asked.
“Fell down an elevator shaft,” my mouth answered before my distracted brain could shut it down.
“You what?”
Shit. Now focusing on my mother, I nonetheless picked up the others leaning forward in the outside edges of my vision.
“Not really, Ma. It was a controlled descent… mostly.”
“Ajaya Gurung, are you telling me that when that floor exploded, you got blown down an elevator shaft?” Mom asked in her most dangerous, quietest voice.
“How did you know about the explosion?” I asked, attempting distraction.
Trinity snorted. I glanced at her. “Please. Over two billion episode views and climbing,” she said.
“Oh.” Mom was still waiting. “I was already in the shaft when the bomb went off. I just descended a little fast and some stuff bounced off my head and then I kind of slammed into the elevator car… a bit.”
“Just your head? Then nothing to worry about, Mom,” Gabby said, laughing at my predicament. I gave her an unimpressed raised eyebrow and then glanced back at Mom. Oh, need more damage control.
“Really, Mom, it went as well as can be expected. I’m fine. My ankle is a little shacked but otherwise no wounds or bleeding or anything.”
“Language, Ajaya,” she said.
“Mom, shacked is just slang,” Monique protested. I could count on the twins to back me if it came to freedom of expression. They were all about expressing.
“Short for shacking up, a euphemism for fornication, young lady, and not a word I want thrown about this house, got it?”
Barbara Gurung, linguist. Words mattered, especially when you spoke English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Nepali. That’s how she met Dad. Translating for the UN. Oh, and don’t even start about the first names—Barbara and Baburam. Heard it all before. Get over it.
Aama had pulled her ever-present Karda, the little utility knife appearing from somewhere in her clothing, and was systematically cutting off the duct tape. Mom peeled as Aama cut. I might have sucked in a breath when they pulled the boot off.
“God, AJ, your feet stink!” Gabby said, making a face.
Great. I glanced at Astrid. She smiled and crossed her eyes, tilting her head like the odor was killing her. I laughed. She could always make me laugh. But still.
“Mom, maybe I should just go shower first. Much as it pains me to say it, Gabby’s probably right,” I said.
Mom ignored me, peeling off the sock. Now it was her turn to draw a sharp breath. My ankle was pretty swollen, black and blue bruising starting to darken up all around it.
Astrid popped up off the couch. “That calls for ice. I’ll get it,” she said, heading for the kitchen. Always jumping in to help. Aama went with her. I heard them talking in the kitchen but couldn’t, for the life of me, make out their words.
“So, ah, Trinity. What brings you two out to our slice of heaven?” I asked nervously as Monique went and opened the living room window.
“Oh, I don’t know, Ajaya… maybe just the biggest single show in the history of the world,” she said with a vulpine smile.
“Well, it was a pretty nasty trap,” I said. Monique now had my boot held at arm’s length and was taking it out of the room.
I heard a light laugh behind me. “Honestly Monique, that’s nothing. Martin’s worse than that at his best and forget about JJ’s feet. Whew!” Astrid said. She came around in front and squatted down, placing a towel-wrapped bag of ice against my ankle.
“Ah, geez Astrid, I can do that,” I said, nervous to have her suddenly in my apartment and kneeling at my smelly, grime-encrusted feet.
“AJ, you fell down an elevator shaft protecting us. The absolute least I can do is put ice on your ankle,” she said, twisting her body into a cross-legged sitting position that appeared to be way more comfortable. It also left me looking down at her and, more distractingly, her blouse, the one with the top three buttons undone. Eyes behave, dammit!
“How did you know it was me?” I asked, glancing from Astrid to Trinity, which helped with the whole distracting view thing.
“Please! Four rapid-fire magnum shots from a high rise in like six seconds? Who else would it be?” Astrid answered, giving me her patented don’t be stupid look. That one had been directed my way virtually every day of middle school and the first two years of high school, before she got yanked out to be home tutored.
“It was five,” I said, because I always have to correct her when she’s giving me that sass.
“Five what? Shots?” Astrid asked, expression of disbelief telling me she thought I was pulling her leg. Not that I had a history of doing that or anything.
“First one was subsonic and suppressed enough that the falling glass covered it,” I said.
“Why and what?” Trinity demanded, almost coming out of her chair. Somehow I understood her and then I understood that my mouth had gotten away from me again.
“Because I needed the extra moment and I needed to drive away the Spider,” I said, much quieter.
“Spider?” Trinity and Astrid said simultaneously.
“A Spider CThree? You shot at a Spider CThree?” Trinity asked, scary intense.
“Yeah. It was on the Custom House. It set the trap. I shot its ocular lenses and it took off while I shot up the TK and the cable.”
“You could have killed it,” Astrid said. It was actually a question.
“No dear, he couldn’t. He needed every microsecond to fire all those shots and almost didn’t make it out before those aerial units would have been on him,” Mom said matter-of-factly.
“Just how much coverage did you get?” I asked Trinity. They all knew a whole lot about my shooting.
“The outer hull cameras went mostly unscathed. The live shots were crazy confusing but we immediately edited and replayed it. It’s been consuming the news ever since. Four networks wanted Astrid to be on camera today, but we sent JJ instead. We needed to be here,” Trinity said, smiling again.
“How many other people figured it out? Nobody really knows about me,” I said.
“They do now. Your name got mentioned on live air as the LAV was pulling out. The Johnson family certainly recognized your shooting,” Trinity explained.
