Koko the Mighty (22 page)

Wire drags a fluorescent orange rescue raft by its lifelines out of the breakwater and up the flotsam-strewn shoreline. Letting go, she totters backward in a complete drunken circle before she falls over.

Fried.

Kaput.

Smoked.

In other words, Wire’s entire essence defines the X in
exhausted.

With Geiger-counter intensity, her teeth clack nonstop beneath her purplish lips. Trying to get up again, she immediately collapses back down in a revolting pile of uselessness. As she hits the ground, a jagged rock tears the macerated flesh of her hands, but she’s past the point of caring—so soaked, dazed, and cold.

Turns out, Wire’s misgivings about the Surabayan black marketers cannibalizing the safety features on the Goliath were unfounded. Once she ejected, ancillary charges from the back of her seat deployed—
PU-CHA-BOOM! PU-CHA-BOOM!
—and the violent jerks of two parachutes were a portentous relief. As her plummet slowed, Wire was so pleased she nearly did a fist pump. However, her euphoria didn’t last. Battered by strong winds, the parachutes insufficiently filled, seconds later the collision with the ocean’s surface tension knocked her silly.

Seeing stars was nothing new to a woman in her elegant trade, but seeing stars as she rapidly sank underwater undeniably was another story. Fortunately, Wire had the presence of mind to control her panic, but then one meter became eight and she felt sure she was going to drown.

As she fumbled with her seat harness, her death’s imminent reprieve came in the form of a muted belch beneath her legs and a flurry of rushing bubbles. Sensors in her seat registered her depth penetration, and releasing super-compressed air into inflatable bunting, the floatation measures shot her to the surface. Wire hit the air just in time to see the Goliath soundlessly slice into the ocean several hundred meters off. No fiery soufflé or thundering shockwave from exploding debris, just a single momentary
pssshhh
, and like a long-extinct leviathan the Goliath was gone.

Not knowing how long the inflated bunting would keep her seat afloat, Wire quickly unclipped her harness and kicked free. The bunting kept everything buoyant for about ten additional seconds before it too slowly vanished, dragging the parachutes down like a giant, matronly brassiere.

Looking around, Wire spotted a circular rescue raft fifty meters off to her left that had also deployed when she jettisoned. Equipped with a battery-enabled signal light lashed to a cleat, the raft was drifting away from her at a frightening rate. Wire clawed after it, and five aching minutes and half a gallon of swallowed seawater later, she swung herself inside.

After falling from that height she was fortunate she didn’t have a full-on concussion. She quickly unfolded a collapsible paddle secured to the raft’s ribbed air chambers and took her bearings. She couldn’t afford to lose sight of the coastline in the dark, and having her ocular’s night vision engaged she locked onto it.

People misjudge distances at sea. What appeared to be a reasonably attainable paddling span to the shore stretched into a nauseating three-and-half-hour ordeal. Huge foaming swells, heavy winds, and spinning currents on top of a counterproductive tidal retreat whittled away her gains. Blindsided by a rogue wave, she capsized, and it took her nearly twenty minutes to right the raft, locate the floating paddle, and stroke on.

Now Wire is finally on marginally dry land. Physically drained, however, she knows the worst danger is still close: stage-two hypothermia. If she reaches stage three, her core temperature could drop below sustainable level, and if that happens she’ll only have hallucinations to keep her company on a very quick slide into cardiac arrest.

You’re okay
, she tells herself.
You’ve been in worse situations.

Suck it up and remember your training.

Keep first things first.

Without warning Wire’s whole body spasms uncontrollably, and she upchucks a hot wash of vomit and seawater. As she cups some of her splattered purge to her face to feel some of her own fading heat, she fears she may already be seeing things. The vomit dripping from her fingers looks like tiny yellow flower petals.

Wire slaps at her tactical suit and finds the temperature controls on her left side. A depressed button and soon warming and wicking measures start to dry-cure her flesh.

She flops over onto her back and stares up. Not a single star in the sky.

After a few more minutes of rest, Wire wills herself to get up again. She lugs the raft farther up the shoreline and sets it over a trio of boulders: an impromptu shelter. After a brief pick through the trashy flotsam, she finds some flammable plastics and wet scattered wood. She uses a laser flare from one of her vacuum-packed worst-case-scenario kits to build a small fire. The laser flare is capable of indefinite burn time, so she stuffs it in at the fire’s base for maximum effect.

Wire squats down beneath the raft and draws off her wet boots and socks. She shivers in the smoldering red glow.

F-f-f-first things f-ffffirst…

Get warm, get dry. But then what?

Get moving. Locate Martstellar’s sub.

She taps the side of her skull and pulls up the coordinates of the last transmission downloaded to her ocular. Given her bail out and the lengthy paddle to shore, she’s actually amazed: Martstellar’s submarine is barely ten klicks south of her position.

Wire draws out her Sig Sauer sub-compact from one of the vacuum packs along with her other supplies. She inventories everything to keep her mind occupied, fieldstrips the Sig, and then waits for her socks and boots to dry.

“I must say, she certainly is a handful,” Dr. Corella says.

Post-Koko freak-out, Sébastien came down to the infirmary with a parcel of Commonage clothes for Flynn. After a brief and stern discussion out of Flynn’s earshot, Sébastien suggested that the doctor help Flynn dress, and now Flynn and Corella have moved to a conference table in one of the infirmary’s auxiliary rooms for privacy. The two men sit across from each other and sip water from plastic cups. Still visibly shaken from Koko’s looting outburst, Dr. Corella continues.

“Tell me, has Koko always been this way?”

Flynn takes a sip of water from his cup and sets it down. “I’ve only known her for a few months, but let’s just say she can be a little unpredictable.”

Dr. Corella drums his fingers on the table. “Well, it seemed best to let her do as she wanted.”

“This whole experience has been very troubling for her. Can you tell me what she took? I’m sure I can get it back for you.”

“Let’s see… she took a bunch of opioid gel capsules and an aerosol tube of synthesized Xaniaphic-17, I believe.”

Flynn whistles and shakes his head. “Man…”

“Is there something I missed?” Dr. Corella asks.

“Missed? With Koko?”

“Yes. Is she in some sort of pain?”

Flynn shrugs. “In a manner of speaking, yeah. But then again I suspect we’re all in some sort of pain in our own ways.”

“Ah. You’re a philosopher.”

“Hardly. It’s just the way things are.”

“Well, I suppose we’re all born into a losing struggle. But still—back to Koko—does she really know what she’s doing with those things? Medicines like that, they can be quite dangerous if not handled correctly.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine.”

“But she isn’t—what I mean to say is, I realize you’ve had your issues because of the traces in your blood samples, your Depressus and the Second Free Zone and all that, but she’s not—”

“Looking to eighty-six herself? No, trust me. Suicide is about the last thing on her mind.”

“I see. But I imagine she has other issues.”

“Whatever she took it’s recreational. Purely recreational.”

Dr. Corella nods and turns his cup between his hands thoughtfully. “Soldiers… all that death and destruction, the constant exposure to violence. I know her kind are ameliorated from birth to handle the burdens of such employments, but substance abuse isn’t exactly uncommon.”

“She’s not a junkie, if that’s what you’re implying. Or even depressed. Besides, she’s not even a soldier anymore. She hasn’t been one for quite some time.” Flynn takes another sip of water. “If the Commonage had a bar I’m sure Koko would have left your supplies intact and found herself a private cubby to drink herself into a funk. To be perfectly candid, I know she has a penchant to smoke a little crinkle flake now and then, but no, she’ll be all right. She’s just blowing off steam. Again, I apologize for her behavior. It’s my fault. I pushed some buttons I probably shouldn’t have.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, are you two…”

“
What
?”

Dr. Corella lowers his head. “It’s really none of my business.”

Flynn smiles. “Wow, it’s that obvious, huh?”

“Well, I had my suspicions.”

“Koko thinks we’re in a tight spot. She really doesn’t like being here.”

“No doubt,” Dr. Corella says. “But what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yes. I’m curious. How do you feel?”

“My leg feels almost new.”

“No, not that. I mean, your leg wound is healing marvelously, right on schedule. But the other thing you just mentioned; do you feel you’re in a tight spot? Humor me. On a sliding scale, tranquility-wise between one and ten, do you feel more at ease? Do you like being here, generally speaking?”

Flynn looks at the table surface. He has a fitful awareness that he probably should withhold his thoughts and views of himself, but viscerally he senses portions of his willpower giving way. It’s strange, but his mind and body are so relaxed, so mollified, so completely at ease he almost feels outside of himself. For the life of him he can’t remember feeling so profoundly mellow and agreeable. And Dr. Corella? Well, he doesn’t look like the sort of man who’d betray intimacies, so Flynn’s willpower soon disappears completely. Oh, what’s the big deal? Aren’t doctors supposed to do that? Keep a trust and be a confidant with a patient and his secrets? Maybe. Flynn remembers how minutes earlier he felt substantially troubled by how he flubbed keeping things close to the vest and divulged quite off-handedly to Dr. Corella a few of his previous experiences as security deputy back up in the Second Free Zone. Flynn had to stop himself, knowing Koko would be livid with him for telling the doctor anything, but now it seems he doesn’t care one way or the other. Anyway, Dr. Corella was so nonplussed by his babbling hubbub, and during their talk he’s been genuine with all his concerns. It’s like they’re old friends.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Flynn answers. “I don’t know. I tell you what, though, what you and Sébastien have shared, how you’re choosing to build a way of living that’s rational and sane out here, one could do worse. So ease? Yeah, sure. This place feels pretty grounded to me.”

Dr. Corella smiles. “Grounded is a very good word. And how about content? Again, on a scale from one to ten.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe a nine?”

“Splendid.”

Neither of them say anything for a minute. Flynn finishes his water and then leans his arms across the table, open palmed.

“I know you’re busy man, Doc, and I want to thank you for saving my life. The staff here, Sébastien, even though you don’t know anything about us and even with Koko’s outrageous behavior, you’ve helped. In this day and age, that means a lot.”

“You’re welcome. I swore an oath.”

“Oh, yeah, that hippo thing, right?”

Dr. Corella shifts forward. “
Primum non nocere
, the Hippocratic oath, correct. But it’s not just that, Flynn. It’s much more. It’s something that maybe Koko, because of her background and how she was bred for combat, is incapable of accepting. You see, Flynn, with specific guidance Commonagers here have successfully adapted to a model of how life was designed to be. Not an arrangement based on commerce, stratified beliefs, waffling loyalties or appalling states of anomie—they’ve taken to the responsibilities of a community. They’ve chosen a new path.”

“Tough stand to take considering the rest of the world.”

“Perhaps at first, but adjusting to such a path is quite easy if only with a certain… nudge. If you don’t mind me saying, I think you’re responding so well to it all because you were once a policeman.”

Flynn laughs. “I guess I took an oath too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Uphold order and keep the peace, courtesy and regard for everyone, and blah, blah, blah. Seems sort of ridiculous now.”

Dr. Corella’s smile broadens. “You know what? I think that now you’re better you should allow me to show you around and introduce you to some people here. Would you like that?”

The doctor’s invitation feels irresistible, and a conflation of exhilarated sensations expands and fills Flynn’s body. A state of giving over subjugates his sense of self like a warm, reassuring film, but strangely it feels okay, moreover,
right.

“You know, that sounds pretty great,” Flynn replies. “I think I’d like that very, very much.”

Just after a hazy, rotten yolk spread of dawn, Wire douses her fire, deflates and stashes the life raft, and starts picking her way south in the direction of the last known coordinates of the stolen submarine.

All along the shoreline, it’s slow going. There are huge rocks, clotted tidal impasses, obscene nests of garbage in tangled clumps. Plastics of all shapes and sizes seemingly everywhere. With each section she traverses, she carefully examines all corners and blind spots, above and behind her, before she advances. Sensibly, she takes things a hundred meters at a time. Now in the Nor’Am prohibs, this is not the time to play things slack, but it feels great to be moving again.

Rounding a cove shortly before thirteen hundred hours, Wire finally tastes gravy. Latched on a grouping of barnacled boulders like a gigantic amoeba, the turtled submarine sits just ahead. She takes cover behind a washed-up steel kettledrum two hundred meters north of the vessel.

Waiting for signs of life, she gives her study of the submarine and the surrounding area a patient half hour. No movement, no smoke, no sounds except for a few wheeling gulls alighting on the hull and rocks. Employing the enlargement functions on her ocular, Wire surveys the area for potential tripwires and booby traps. She deliberates whether she should wait until dark to make her move, but anxiousness trumps her reservations. She might as well get on with it. Daylight is precious, and she might need it.