Under Dark Sky Law (30 page)

The gig passed without incident, but the
crowd could obviously feel their half-hearted efforts—no one wanted
to be playing music with such dire consequences sitting over their
heads. Even if they managed to synthesize the Ketocillin, if they
didn’t think of some other way to repair her lungs, she would die
anyway. Milo seemed to think that even a rapid healing process
wouldn’t help her out due to the extent of the damage. The only
thing that would really help would be a lung transplant, and that
was one of the most difficult things to get ahold of. Due to the
number of individuals dying from lung disease, most corpses didn’t
yield viable lungs, and only the highest of political diplomats or
other similarly important dome figures were ever viable to them.
Xed said that even he couldn't help her out with that one, unless
the right circumstances came along, and she could be long dead
before something like that happened.

After making it through the concert itself,
Xero sent everyone back to the hotel Xed had set up for them on the
edge of town—close, but not too close to his own domicile. She
gathered that it was far enough out of the center of town to be
less monitored by the feds and close enough to Xed that he could
keep an eye on them. Xero volunteered to go deal with Xed while the
rest of them waited for someone to transport everyone to a lab
facility.

Once a black car dumped her at Xed’s porch,
he opened the door just before she knocked. He was wearing another
button up shirt, but this time he was dressed all in black, save
for a plain white tie making a long skunk stripe down his chest.
His dress pants were pressed with perfect pleats, and he wore shiny
black shoes.

He pushed his square glasses up his nose. “So
nice of you to join me again,” he said.

“You know, it’s just right across the street
from us really,” Xero said and followed him inside the house.

“I figure that you’re hungry, so I put out a
nice spread for us,” he said. Over his shoulder she could see his
dining room table spread out with piles of food, like it was an old
world Thanksgiving.

Xero curled up her lip in an exaggerated
smirk. “You think that something like throwing a little bit of food
my way is going to make me forget the fact that you’ve been fucking
with us this whole time?” she said but followed him to the table.
The smell of the food was intoxicating—they hadn’t eaten all day
since they had skipped the usual government checkpoint at the Casa
Grande flats and instead pressed on through straight to
Phoenix.

“Not to be rude, but I think you may find it
easier to discuss business once you’ve eaten something and are
feeling better. I have a good feeling that your friends should be
leaving for the lab very shortly, and given the fact that I’ve
managed to get you access to a top notch facility, I have
confidence that they will be successful with synthesizing the
Ketocillin. I’ll add that in my services I’ve included high-level
security that should keep anyone from being discovered,” he
said.

“Is that a threat? What did you bring me here
to discuss?” she said.

He smiled and sat down at the head of the
table in front of a whole roasted ham. He motioned for her to take
a seat next to him. Lured by the food, she reluctantly
complied.

He laced his fingers together on the table.
“I’m sorry you’re thinking of it that way. It’s not a threat at
all. If I wanted to get you apprehended, I could do that at any
time, independent of the lab access. Getting your business
associates thrown in jail is just bad business,” he said.

Xero looked back and forth between him and
the ham. “As big of an asshole as you are, I have to respect your
slimy cutthroat business practices. It cuts both ways, but I can
see why you’ve been so successful,” she said. As much as she hated
him for manipulating her crew, she still saw elements of herself in
him, and it was narcissistically appealing.

“In our line of work, certain compromises are
inevitable, right?” he said and began piling ham onto her plate.
“I’m sorry about your friend, but it sounds like she was going to
be in hot water even if you’d gotten the Ketocillin delivered in a
more timely fashion, am I right?”

Xero took a breathe and suppressed the
automatic flush of rage she experienced after he mentioned Trina
and the wild goose chase he sent them on to find the
Ketocillin.

“It’s hard to say—all I know is that if she
dies, I can’t promise to keep my crew under control,” she said.

“I certainly don’t bear any of you ill will.
As a token of my appreciation for acquiescing to this latest gig, I
will also try and help think of ways we might be able to get your
friend a lung transplant. Even I can’t promise anything, but I will
do my best,” he said.

Xero was too hungry to resist, and she
started shoveling ham into her face with her fingers. Xed tried to
hand her a fork, but she waved him off. He stared at her with a
look of mixed horror and fascination.

“We’re real monsters down in the pits—forks
are a luxury, don’t you know?” she said around a mouthful of greasy
pork.

“You certainly have character,” he said.

“So what did you bring me here for?” she
said. “You wanted to pretend like we’re having a nice business
lunch or something?”

Xed poured himself a glass of water and took
a swig. “I did in fact want to discuss our future business
arrangements. Now, I know you haven’t seen any profits yet,
considering the…creative way in which you handled the situations in
New Orleans and San Antonio, but there is a huge profit to be
gained. Enough to let you expand your territory across the whole
Southwest eventually. The load of Alphamine you brought today alone
will bring in several million,” he said.

“And you would like to expand your reach out
to domes across the country,” she said.

“That is correct. I think you’ll be happy to
know that you were very well-received as a band. With my marketing
efforts and the real popularity of your music, we could have new
customers in domes across the country just within a few months,” he
said.

Dollar signs didn’t light up in Xero’s eyes,
but she couldn’t help but be tempted by the cash and the fame, two
of her favorite things. Xed was a lying, manipulative asshole, but
his skill at coercion was impressive, and he had in fact gotten
them access to many things they never would have been able to reach
on their own.

“You hear anything else about Calavera or
what’s going on with all the terrorism and rogue skeletons,” Xero
said. “Conveniently, we didn’t run into any trouble on our latest
travels.”

Xed shook his head slowly and took another
small sip of water. His eyes were empty and expressionless, the
ultimate poker face. “No. Sadly, I have failed in gathering any
additional intelligence. The skeletons are eluding my capture.
Calavera trained them well,” he said. “You’re sure you haven’t
heard anything from her?”

Using her fingers, she fished a scoop of
mashed potatoes directly from a large bowl on the table and sucked
it into her mouth. “No. Nothing. And I’ll be honest—until we figure
out how to save our friend and locate our other missing crew
member, I really don’t give a shit,” she said.

They studied each other for a moment, both
knowing that they weren’t being totally honest with each other, and
coming to a silent agreement to let it go.

“Well then, I suppose that’s all there is to
say on that for the moment. It’s your call now how we should
proceed,” he said.

She said nothing and stared him right in the
eye, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. After
swallowing another wad of ham, she reached a greasy hand out and
wrapped it around his tie, leaving oily streaks across the clean
fabric. Using the tie, she pulled him towards her face and jammed
her tongue, slippery with pork fat, deep into his mouth. He
resisted for a minute, and then kissed her back, the tips of his
sharp canines biting into her soft tongue flesh.

Xero kept his head captive by holding onto
his tie, like he as a dog on a short leash, but he pulled back an
inch, caught his breath, and said, “You’re rather dirty. Care for
another bath?”

CHAPTER 31

The hotel reminded her of an old world bed
and breakfast, but they were thankfully granted the kind of privacy
such institutions didn’t typically afford. Other than Xed’s
security task force keeping any government spooks off their trail,
they were blessedly free of any disturbance. The room was styled
like a rustic dude ranch—pastel desert scenes adorned the walls,
and the bedposts were made from raw wood. She had to give it to Xed
for his peculiar sense of style.

Neptune and Radar were leaning against a
back wall while Milo sat on the bed staring at something in his
hands.

“So? What’s the verdict?” Xero said.

“We did it. We have the drug,” he said and
held up a large vial filled with a milky liquid. His voice was
shaky and his face was filled with sadness.

Xero swallowed another swell of anger. How
dare someone fuck with her crew, even if in the end that person was
God. Xero didn’t actually believe in any gods or goddesses for that
matter, but she did believe in convenient scapegoats.

“We were able to make extra too, just in
case anyone else happens to come down with this shit again,”
Neptune said.

Radar gestured to a collection of vials that
were staged on the bathroom counter behind him. “I know this isn’t
what you want to hear, but doing it this way, by using the reagents
and that really fancy lab equipment Xed got us access to, we
actually ended up with a little surplus of this stuff. It’s
probably worth a fortune, but the value of keeping this on hand is
immeasurable,” he said. “Beautiful engineering in that lab—haven’t
laid my eyes on anything like that in years.”

“Xed’s not really as bad as we’ve made him
out to be. In some ways he may have done us a favor—for all we know
Trina may have already been headed to this point anyway, and now we
have excess Ketocillin to use in another emergency,” Xero said.

Milo’s fist closed around the vial, and she
could see his knuckles turn white and his veins bulge as he gripped
the glass. “How dare you say that! After we get back from here we
should cut off all contact with that monster. He killed Trina!”
Milo said and began crying again.

Neptune came around and put one hand on his
shoulder and extracted the vial with her other hand. “Hey, calm
down there buddy. Trina’s not dead yet, and if you’re not careful
you’re going to break that damned vial,” she said.

Milo kept crying, but she safely put the
vial back on the counter with the rest of the others.

Xero frowned, hating to see her normally
composed and sanguine colleague breaking apart at the seams. “It’s
not over yet. As much as we don’t like him, we can’t cut off
contact just yet. He’s promised to help us get a transplant for
Trina if we keep working with him. Now, I know that he’s not
trustworthy, and that he has fucked around with us, but in the end
he has still held up his end of the bargain,” she said.

Radar squinted at her from across the room.
Her green hair was still damp from her romp with Xed, and the wet
strands of her overgrown Mohawk flopped down across her forehead
like pieces of nuclear seaweed.

He scowled. “You goddamn cunt, you fucked
him again, didn’t you?” he said and marched across the room,
stopping just inches from her face. He sniffed the air. “You smell
like him, you dirty slut. How could you?”

Xero stood her ground, not flinching or
moving. “You know what dude, I like you, so I’m not going to kick
you in the fucking nuts, but this is your only warning. You talk to
me like that one more time, and I guarantee that you will regret
it,” she said, her voice flat, her eyes blank like the contract
killer she sometimes became.

She looked down and saw small sparks dancing
at his fingertips. Xero looked back up again and met his eyes,
daring him to do it.

“Radar. You touch the boss, and you’re going
to be in a world of pain. Back off,” Neptune said, pulling the
laser out of her pocket.

Radar stood there, his hands flashing with
electricity, Xero refusing to break his stare. With a grunt of
frustration Radar finally squelched the sparks, and with a loud
popping sound the current stopped flowing. He trudged to the other
side of the room to the corner across from where Milo was still
weeping, and folded his arms.

It was going to be a fun ride back to
Tucson.

CHAPTER 32

The sky was dark and clear, clearer than
she’d ever seen it before. Stars she never even knew existed
splattered against the black canvas of the night sky. They were up
high enough that they had escaped much of the pollution that
typically clouded their view of the heavens. The dark sky law
active in the city below kept any light pollution from obscuring
their view, and it was not surprising to Xero that Kitt Peak had
once been an international astronomy research station.

It was freezing, and despite heavy layers of
insulated black clothing Xero could feel the cold ripping through
her legs and eating away at her toes. She clenched her teeth
against the painful cold and gripped her laser tight to avoid
dropping it from her numb fingers. As she gazed at the hypnotic
stars, she saw a bright object moving slowly across the sky. At
first she thought it was a shooting star, but after it remained
hanging in the air, slowly gliding along at a leisurely pace, she
realized it was a satellite. It was an even rarer find, considering
there were almost no satellites left in the sky after the great
harvest, and one was rarely in a place with clear enough air to see
much of any astronomical phenomena.

“Pinche cabrón, stop fucking around and get
inside here,” Calavera said.