Under Dark Sky Law (24 page)

“Excellent. I’d like to offer my services as
your manager,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” she said.

“You heard me right. I’d like to help you
orchestrate your first trans-dome tour. Starting with a grand debut
in the magnificent city on the bayou, New Orleans,” he said.

At first she stifled a laugh, wondering where
the composed and calculating Xed had come up with such a crazy
idea, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that
it could actually work. Not many had ever gotten approval, but on
occasion very popular bands had been given dome access for
shows.

“You clever son of a bitch,” she said.

CHAPTER 21

It had gotten cold again. Technically it was
December, and traditionally even the desert was getting cold at
that point, but the climate had become so totally fucked up that
seasons had stopped meaning much of anything. The fact that it was
cold was almost comforting in a way. Either the environment was
healing itself, or they were headed for annihilation in the next
ice age.

Radar lay beside her, panting in the
dark.

“Hey, you’re lucid enough to consent, right?”
she said.

He flopped a hand on her chest, inches above
her breasts. “I don’t know if lucid is the right word for it, but
if I was going to get raped, I wouldn’t mind being your victim,” he
said and giggled.

“Ah shit, you’re still fucked up on A+. Now I
feel like an asshole,” she said.

“No, no, you’ve got it wrong.
I
felt
your
asshole,” he said, still giggling.

Xero rolled over onto her stomach. “Is this
what you’re really like?” she asked. “They say when people are
intoxicated on truth serums they reveal not just true information,
but their true selves.”

“You ever get shot up with this shit?” he
asked. She nodded even though she knew he couldn’t see it.

“Yeah, when we were in higher level test
phases, we’ve all at least tried the stuff we produce at least
once. In general I try to keep my people away from all the drugs,
but A+ is not one we usually have to make any special rules for. No
one wants a taste of that. We could actually probably turn a profit
selling it, but even we won’t stoop that low,” she said.

“I’m not really high on the A+ anymore
anyway. I had a really bad reaction, and Milo had to shoot me up
with a bunch of pain medications. Turns out robot circuitry doesn't
always play nicely with synthetic drugs,” he said.

“Sorry about that. At least your artificial
lungs probably helped keep you out of respiratory arrest…that
happens on occasion with A+. The name is a bit misleading—it’s not
so much an A+ experience as it is an F-. We’ve made a lot of stuff
though, and at least that stuff has its uses. Some of the shit
we’ve made has been just plain nasty,” she said.

“I’ve heard stories about you for years, way
back when I was just a wee mercenary,” he said, slurring his words,
clearly still intoxicated. “I heard you sold shit that rotted
people’s skin clear off their bones.”

Xero slapped herself across the forehead.
“Ugh, that’s not entirely wrong, but it is still incorrect. We made
shit that rotted people’s skin clear off their bones, but we didn’t
sell it. Someone stole the compound and started selling it
themselves. That was back in the early days when we didn’t have our
security together. It’s one of the reasons Neptune is so hardcore
about keeping our facility airtight,” she said.

“Good to know you’re not a total piece of
shit,” he said.

She smacked him in the leg. “That truth serum
works a little too well,” she said.

“Ouch. Man, watch it, I’m still overly
sensitive to pain from the A+,” he said and flopped halfway off the
bed trying to escape her. “How the hell long is the half life on
that on that shit?”

Xero leaned over and hauled Radar’s leg back
onto the bed and he yelled, “Jeez, you are brutal, didn’t I just
say everything hurts,” he said.

“You weren’t saying that when I was riding
your dick,” she said and laid back down beside him.

“That’s before the other stuff Milo gave me
for the pain started wearing off too,” he said.

She sighed. “You’re a big boy—you’ll live.
For what it’s worth, you passed with flying colors. Maybe Neptune
and Milo will start trusting my iron-clad character judgments,” she
said.

He chortled, a weird high-pitched crescendo
that burbled into the dark room and made Xero sit up on her elbows.
“You are still high as fuck,” she said.

“Lady, I don’t know about your iron-clad
character judgments if you’re shacking up with Xed. He’s one
twisted fuck,” he said.

Xero rolled over onto her side to face him
directly. “You didn’t say anything about having worked with Xed
before,” she said.

“You didn’t ask. And I never said that I’d
worked with Xed. I’ve crossed paths with him before, and ran into
some of his…work. It’s not pretty. I wouldn’t say I have the
cleanest reputation myself, but he’s someone I go out of my way to
avoid. Real sick fuck,” he said.

Xero shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t
know—I always appreciated a little artful sadism,” she said.

He groped for her and his uncoordinated hand
flopped against her naked thigh. “You’re not really a sadist.
You’re a pragmatist. Like me,” he said.

She scoffed. “You just met me. Trust me, I’ve
still got cans of whoop ass and sadism left to open,” she said.

“Xero, you’re infamous. And I’m observant. As
an independent operator I have to really know all the players out
there. I don’t get involved with outfits that don’t meet my
standards,” he said.

“Then how come you’ve never tried to get
involved with our organization before?” she said.

“There was no need. You never hire work out
to independents, and I never really need to go looking for extra
work. My services are always needed,” he said.

“So why follow me now? Why take this crazy
job?” she said.

He was silent, as though he were trying to
fight the lingering honesty effects of the A+, and she listened to
him breathing before he answered. “It seemed like an interesting
job, and you’re not a bad organization to be affiliated with while
all of this madness is going on. And…I like you,” he said.

She wanted to laugh at the idea of him
growing to like her, considering when they’d first met her skin had
literally been peeling off and she had shot half his travel
companions, but she valued loyalty in her crew, and it cemented her
decision to try and keep him on as a permanent team member.

“You’re part robot, right? Think you can
learn to play the drums?” she said.

CHAPTER 22

The restored plantation house looked
incredibly authentic, to the point where Xero actually found
herself inspecting wood grain and accent trimming to see if it was
in fact an original building. After seeing the polymer contours of
the building materials, she knew it was just another restoration
knock-off, but it was a good one, and the authentic wrought iron
lattice work on the front of the two-storied dark pink building had
probably been salvaged and repurposed from one of the washed up
remains of an old world plantation house.

They were sitting around the downstairs
parlor, decked out in their show gear, waiting for a prearranged
transport to come bring them to the venue. To match the dome’s
typically somber internal weather patterns and Victorian history,
and to keep something of a low profile, they had decided to go with
more subdued stage costumes—they were all wearing matching black
gothic clothes, with the two women decked out in dramatic lace
dresses and the men in long-cut tailored suits.

“Wow, I haven’t been to New Orleans since
before I joined the Grease Weasels,” Milo said. “I wish I could go
out and wander the French Quarter.”

Xero didn’t want to discourage him too much,
since he finally seemed to be thinking about something other than
the fact that this was their one shot to get Ketocillin for Trina.
The whole trip he had been unusually anxious and on edge. He had
left another trusted medical colleague in charge of Trina in their
absence—Xed had been insistent that they needed at least the last
three recognizable Grease Weasels in order to make the band story
believable, and with Trina and Argon out of the picture they were
already short on their core band members. Xero also wanted all of
them along for the ride because of how dangerous the trip
was—considering her recent luck with travel, she didn’t want to
separate the group anymore than necessary.

Milo said he was fine leaving someone else
with Trina, but that was clearly not the case. She had almost been
tempted to grab something from his medical bag and jam a sedative
in his thigh to make him settle down, but once they had actually
made it inside the dome without any significant incident he seemed
to be doing better. Voodoo, the black market connection for New
Orleans was difficult to work with in general, and had a specific
grudge against the Grease Weasels in particular, and New Orleans
had been totally off limits for more than a decade. Milo hadn’t
thought that Voodoo would even let them get past the front door,
let alone allow them to get situated, play a show, or do
business.

“Xed’s kept up his end of the bargain so far,
but I have a feeling Voodoo still isn’t thrilled about us being
here. I wouldn’t go wandering out on the town just to tempt fate.
We also still don’t know what’s going on with all the rogue
skeletons and the terrorist attacks,” she said. They’d been lucky
so far and had managed to travel without further incidents, but
until they found Calavera or obtained more information, they were
all in the dark about who or what might be a future target.

“I could care less about that bitch, but I
don’t want to fuck up our chances to save Trina,” Neptune said.

“Everything okay back on base?” Xero said.
Once they had gotten settled, Neptune’s first order of business had
been using a communicator that they had uncharacteristically been
allowed to smuggle into the dome. Neptune had been happy about the
first unanticipated perk of working with Xed, but she had not been
happy about leaving their territory without anyone there to hold
down the fort. Typically at least one person stayed behind in case
of emergencies.

“So far so good. We’ve got a good team of
people left back there,” she said with an even voice, but the
corner of her mouth involuntarily turned up into a smirk.

“But you’re still not happy about it,” Xero
said for her.

“Fuck no I’m not happy about it. I don’t
think any of us are comfortable with anything about this
situation—look at Milo, he’s going to freaking wet his pants or
some shit, but we don’t have much of a choice,” she said.

“Hey now, I’m doing just fine,” Milo
said.

Neptune leaned in towards Xero, “Can you
like, slip him a Xanax or something?” she said.

“So what’s the deal?” Radar said.

“You know you look good like that,” she said.
They had spray colored his hair a temporary bright red and smudged
eyeliner across his eyes like a raccoon mask. “You clean up real
nice.”

He rolled his eyes, and the whites swiveled
around in the big field of black makeup like googly eight balls.
“Not the weirdest thing I’ve ever worn,” he said.

Xero raised her eyebrows. “Sounds kinky. I
approve. Anyway, we do the gig, we make some noise, then we hotfoot
it over to the Café du Monde for some old world style beignets and
a meeting with a fucking mystical bitch,” she said.

“Mystical bitch?” Radar said.

“Yeah, before she became a dirty govie
sellout she was the Voodoo queen of New Orleans, back before they
revitalized the dome after the tidal wave washout. I don’t really
give a shit if she’s magical or not, but she’s definitely still a
bitch,” Xero said.

Neptune winked at her. “Takes one to know
one,” she said and Xero gave her a half hearted whack with her
thigh-high boots.

Milo gave them a skeptical look. “And we have
to try and convince her somehow that we’re good little citizens,”
he said.

Radar eyed at all of them in their Goth stage
costumes. “That should go really well,” he said.

CHAPTER 23

The venue had been a respectable size, and
Xero wondered how much of it was just Xed and how much of it might
be that they were actually that popular in the dome. It was also
strange to play a show in the middle of the day, but for whatever
reason that had been part of the agreement. Perhaps they had wanted
to have better visibility to keep track of their movements in the
event that anyone had tried to escape and wreak havoc in the dome
after the show. It didn’t really matter, considering the show
itself was just one giant ruse to begin with, but Xero couldn’t
help wanting to make sure that they had a packed venue and an
enthusiastic crowd. In another life, they could have just been
simple musicians living for their fans.

They had all coped relatively well in their
slightly reassigned instrument roles. Xero wasn’t used to playing
guitar and singing at the time, as they usually had more than
enough guitar players between Argon and Milo, but with Argon out of
the picture, she had to step up and take over Milo’s usual role as
rhythm guitarist. Milo had stepped up to take over Argon’s lead
guitar slot, and Radar did his best pretending to be a punk rock
drummer for the first time. Only Neptune enjoyed her typical role
as the bassist, but the crowd hadn’t seemed to notice or mind any
of their slight musical hiccups. Thankfully, punk was a fairly
forgiving genre.

As frivolous as it was, she found herself
wishing that it had been more like their gigs in the pits back in
the old days. Part of the fun was staying after and signing
autographs with their fans and celebrating a successful
performance. That was not booked into their zone pass schedule.
Voodoo had asked for them to be directly delivered to her doorstop
following the show, and that’s exactly what Xed had arranged.