Under Dark Sky Law (28 page)

Xed had a thing or two coming to him. They
needed to make sure that San Antonio was ready for them, but Xero
had a feeling that they already knew. Once they had cleared the New
Orleans dome, she had Neptune fired up a communicator. She had
wanted an engineer in each vehicle so Radar was saddled up with
Milo in the rear while she led the way in the front car with
Neptune.

“Once you get a transmission started, you
give me the mic so I can give him a piece of my mind,” Xero
said.

“You always get to have all the fun,” Neptune
said and handed the communicator over to Xero.

“Hey there partner, methinks we’ve got a few
things to talk about, don’t you?” Xero said once the communicator
had clicked through.

“I got word that you left the city. I trust
everything went well?” Xed said.

“Cut the fucking crap, Xed,” she said. “I
can’t believe you’re still trying to play innocent with me.”

“Why, whatever are you talking about?” he
said.

“You’re lucky you’re a few states away right
now or I’d give you a good kick in the nuts. You fucking knew that
we couldn’t get the Ketocillin from Voodoo. You fucked us over,”
she said.

“That’s not true. I was under the impression
that they had the full drug ready to go. I’m sorry to hear you
weren’t able to obtain the drugs that you needed,” he said.

“Yeah, you’re so fucking sorry, I’m sure. How
convenient that we now have a reason to keep working with you,
right? Xed, I’m not a moron. Well, you may have fucked us over, but
your deal got screwed at the same time. We gave the Alphamine away
for free. Okay not quite for free, but in exchange for the
Ketocillion reagent,” Xero said.

Neptune cupped her hands and directed a shout
of, “Fuck you, asshole,” into the communicator. Xero glared at her
and Neptune just shrugged like she couldn’t help herself.

“I’ll ignore that for now,” Xed said.

“If you want us to compensate you for the
profit lost, I can do that just to avoid a fight. I don’t really
care about the money right now,” Xero said.

“It’s fine. Right now the distribution itself
and breaking into the new market is more important anyway. First
one is always free, right?” he said.

“That is in fact what they say,” she
said.

“Good. No harm done then. So, as your new
manager, I’ve already made arrangements for you in San Antonio. I
have a show booked as a cover. You brought the extra product with
you, right?” he said.

“Yeah, we did. How convenient that you
recommended carrying excess cargo,” she said.

“It always pays to be prepared,” he said and
gave them the details of how they would need to proceed while they
were in San Antonio.

“Wow, you’re so organized, it’s almost like
you thought about all of this in advance,” Xero said, the sarcasm
dripping into the communicator.

“I look forward to hearing about your musical
and business successes in San Antonio,” Xed said and signed off
before Xero could hit him with another sharp reply.

She turned to Neptune. “I knew it. I knew
that fucker would already have things ready to go in San Antonio.
He knew we’d want to book it back to Tucson as soon as we had the
Ketocillin—this is a convenient way for him to make us set up
another distribution point and get into a new market while we’re
out this way. Remind me to punch him in the face, but not till
after we cure Trina,” she said.

Neptune stared out across the road into the
green mass of swamp land that they were slogging through at a
steady pace despite the uncooperative terrain. Xero preferred
things to be drier. “Hey Xero,” Neptune said. “You notice
anything?”

Xero sighed and took her eyes off the road
for a second to make eye contact with Neptune. “Yeah, I have. The
skeletons,” she said.

Neptune unconsciously flexed her right fist.
“We’ve conveniently had no skeleton attacks since we started
working with Xed. Before you shacked up with him you were getting
hit with skeletons like there was a Dia de Los Muertos blowout sale
going on,” she said.

“Funny how that’s been working out. Until we
get our fists around that Ketocillin, we play ball with Xed, but
we’re going to need to have a serious meeting after we get back
from San Antonio. New shit has come to light,” she said.

CHAPTER 27

San Antonio seemed to be doing a lot better
than New Orleans. The whole city had a festive air, and it struck a
nice balance between the wild old city she had known in years past
and the cleanliness and order she was accustomed to seeing in all
of the modern domes. She had always preferred what she considered
to be the real Southwest—Arizona and New Mexico—to any area of
Texas, but maybe a night or two in San Antonio wouldn’t be so
unpleasant after all.

It was hard to tell how much of San Antonio’s
River Walk was original and how much of it had been reconstructed,
but it looked good as new. Hotels, restaurants, and shops lined the
sunken banks along the San Antonio River, and little red boats
carrying patrons floated up and down the slow moving water. Whether
or not Xed had planned it that way, they were scheduled to play a
gig right on the River Walk without having a chance to clean up or
rest. They had taken turns catching some sleep while making the
drive out there, but no one had had any proper sleep, rest, or
substantial food since before they had played their first gig in
New Orleans. No one wanted to perform under those conditions, but
everyone was eager to make the contact with Alamo, get the
Ketocillin, and get the hell out of there.

Fortunately, they were all still wearing
their concert attire from the previous night, and being dirty and
run down just added to their gothic punk aesthetic. It wasn’t the
biggest of shows, but in the limited space of the River Walk, the
crowd filled up the area fast and increased the hype. Capacity was
reached quite quickly and after playing their first few songs
people were ringing the upper railings around the region, hanging
over the river trying to see what was going on down below. If Xero
hadn’t been so tired and antsy to get the show on the road and
finish the deal for the Ketocillin she would have loved the
attention. San Antonio didn’t seem like much of a punk city, but
either someone had paid them all off, or they had genuinely enjoyed
the show.

They still hadn’t received information about
where they would be staying that night, or when and where they were
supposed to meet up with this Alamo character. It felt like Xed was
trying to make it seem more like something that had been planned
last minute, even though they were all certain he’d had this event
scheduled all along. They didn’t have to wonder for long—as soon as
they played through their last song, an army of handlers descended
to usher them up a set of stairs and into a black SUV.

They were all being stored in the back of the
SUV, a piece of dark glass separating the front from the back cabin
so that they weren’t able to see the drivers. Neptune and Xero were
in the front again while the boys sat in the backseat. You could
feel the road weariness in them, the sweat and dirt showing on
their faces, on their clothes, and in their scent.

Neptune slapped a palm against the tinted
barrier. “Hey! Yo! Where are we going?” she said.

A male voice came over the intercom and said,
“To the Alamo, of course.”

They all looked at each other. The theme of
hiding in plain sight was certainly carrying over between the
remote cities, but it was still an odd concept to them. In Phoenix,
everything was watched like a hawk, and business of this sort would
need to be conducted in super clandestine locations—in ignored
ultra underground back alleys that even Xero might think twice
about walking through at night. However, since Xed had his
government connections, the idea of getting everything done while
sitting in plain sight was nothing short of genius if it was
well-managed. If suspicion was ever thrown on one of their double
agents they could just claim to have been meeting with one of the
city’s hottest new bands.

When the car came to a stop someone came
around and let them out of the vehicle. The sun outside was
intense, digging into their retinas and momentarily blinding them,
but when their vision cleared they found themselves standing in
front of the monolithic structure of The Alamo. As Xero understood
it, it was one of only a handful of national landmarks to have
survived so long without having to be completely rebuilt.
Impressive. It’s adobe face raised defiantly into the sky, a symbol
of the rebel spirit that the state had held onto for hundreds of
years. The famous monument was strangely deserted, and there were
no tourists or even passersby seen milling in front of the old
chapel.

They were ushered inside the empty landmark
and quickly found that it was a good fifteen degrees cooler than
the outside. Even though it was winter, San Antonio was baking.
Traveling so much was giving her a broader perspective on the
climate differences across the country, both in and out of the
dome. She was glad that the Grease Weasels were prepared to handle
just about anything in terms of weather anomalies. Having the old
university campus to mess around with gave them an additional
advantage of years of experiments and notes from defunct labs with
research in a variety subjects, and climate change was one they had
their eye on.

They stood inside the inner area of the
Alamo’s chapel, their escorts quickly abandoning them and closing
the door as soon as they left. Xero watched the wedge of sunlight
shrink to nothing as they exited through the front. From the back
exit another man entered and Xero could see the grass from the
gardens in his shadow before the door also shut behind him.

“Howdy there. Welcome to San Antonio,” he
said. He was a short man, but stocky and built. He was dark
skinned, with a white mustache and a matching white cowboy hat. He
almost looked like he could have been a Wild West Impersonator, as
it looked like he was wearing a Sheriff’s costume.

Xero stepped forward to shake hands. “I
assume you’re Alamo,” she said.

“The one and only,” he said, a big grin
spreading out underneath the mustache umbrella.

Xero coughed slightly. “Not to be rude or
anything, but isn’t this whole meeting a little bit, like, meta?”
she said.

Alamo just stared at her. “Beg your pardon?”
he said.

“I just mean…never mind. Pleased to meet you.
Thank you for the warm welcome. We could definitely use the break,”
she said.

Alamo looked over the group—Xero stood out in
front and the other three fell into line behind her, casual
looking, but a closer look reveled that they were tensed, ready for
anything. “You guys do look like you done come out the wrong end of
a donkey,” he said. “Well, sorry to take time out of your busy day
and all, but I figured we’d get things squared as soon as
possible.”

“I really like the way you think,” Xero said.
“I think we’re going to get along just fine, but I wanted to know
one thing—is there a reason you decided to meet us in such a public
area?”

“You may not believe me, but this is probably
the safest place we can meet. They don’t call me Alamo just for the
hell of it—this has been my territory for almost a decade. I’m the
ruler of this area, and, today also happens to be a holiday. No one
was going to be in here, so why not? Safest place I can think of,”
he said.

“I suppose that does make sense,” she
said.

“Glad to hear it. Can’t say I’m out looking
for extra trouble or nothing like that. I think I’ve got something
you want, and vice versa. Should be simple, right?” he said, and
seemed genuine.

“Absolutely. Actually, you know what, I don’t
know what kind of deal you were promised before, but I’m willing to
give you our cargo for free, if we can get additional verification
of your reagent. There’s no way we can go back home without that
medication, and extra insurance would mean that much to us,” she
said.

“I did in fact hear that you need this stuff
real bad. I also hear you’re a friend of a close associate of mine,
Sanchez,” he said.

Xero’s eyes lit up. “Yes, I am on good terms
with someone named Sanchez. If you’re talking about him this way,
I’m assuming that he’s back in good health? They don’t tell us
lowly pits people anything,” she said.

Alamo looped his thumbs through his vest.
“You betcha. I wouldn’t say he’s right as rain, but he’s definitely
not going to kick it any time soon. Last I heard, that fact is
mostly due to you. If you hadn't been around, I hear he would have
been dusted,” he said.

“Not to brag or anything like that, but yeah,
we got into a sticky situation. Sanchez did everything right, but
someone got the drop on us, and we had to do whatever we could to
get out of there. I’m glad he made it out alive,” she said.

They looked at each other, scanning retinas
and irises for signs of deception. When they both reached an
internal agreement, they gave a mutual nod. A little bit of trust
and honesty could go a long way in the right situation.

“Your deal is more than fair, and I can
provide whatever documentation or proof that you need to make sure
my product is pure. I promise you, the reagent will work. It will
take some work to get this particular compound back, but it will be
worth it. Mix them right in front of me and test them for all I
care—I guarantee you that it will work,” he said.

“Excellent. We can even do a small test here
if you’re able to provide the right equipment. Not that we don’t
trust you. I’m sure you’re on the up and up, but our last trade
mission didn’t exactly go so well. When we’re satisfied that we
have the right reagent, we’ll leave you the cargo. First one is
always free,” she said and grinned.

“Indeed it is. I did hear that you had some
trouble up in New Orleans with Voodoo, but that’s not surprising.
There’s always trouble with Voodoo. New Orleans is a hard territory
to deal with, whether you’re on the inside or the out. Here in San
Antonio, we’re a lot more laid back and civil,” he said.