Книга: GHOST TALKING

GHOST TALKING

SOLDIERS OF FAME AND FORTUNE BOOK SIX

H

C H A P T E R O N E

olly pulled herself up onto the edge of the desk in JB’s and

swung her feet back and forth. She looked around the room

and realized that he had actually cleaned and organized it a little

since he was banished to the background. The books were lined up,

the papers on the desk were neatly stacked, and a new stand-up

lamp filled the space in the corner.

She watched him as he lowered himself into his office chair which

was still positioned in the middle of the room. He grimaced as he

pulled his leg forward manually. Holly shook her head. “That bad?”

JB glanced at her as he situated himself. “It sure isn’t getting any

easier, that’s a definite. I don’t know if it’s worse or if it’s simply

because I’ve run out of things to focus on beyond this leg. At least

before, I was up and around, moving it and getting some exercise

in.”

Holly lifted her eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I’m sure there will be plenty

of people to kick the hell out of Dodge by the time you’re back.”

JB chuckled and rubbed the top of his leg. “If I ever get back.”

She shook her head. “Don’t say that. We are working hard. We

will figure this all out and it’ll be good. I promise. You’ll come back as

spry as ever.”

He smiled, but it was forced. “I am coming to terms with my life,

Holly. Sure, I hope to raise hell here for a lot longer, but I also know

the reality of what is going on here. Something is taking me over,

trying to cut me short, and we have no idea what it is.”

Holly sighed and looked at her dusty boots. “Try to keep your

spirits up. It’s imperative.”

JB went to say something else but there was a knock on the door

and it creaked open before either of them could respond. Paula

looked in hesitantly and then huffed as she swung it wide. “Damn, I

was looking for free porn. You two are as boring as trying to explain

sex using Legos.”

Holly rolled her eyes. “How many times do we need to remind

you, Paula? There is no sex going on back here.”

Paula crossed her arms. “Obviously. I see that now, but it doesn’t

mean a girl can’t hope and dream. Maybe that’s all you need, old

man. Maybe it’s simply a really bad case of blue balls. One good

push and you’ll be all better.”

JB looked over his shoulder and shook his head. “If it were that

easy, I could take care of it myself.”

Paula shivered. “Too much information.”

He shrugged. “You started it. I was just saying.”

The woman looked at Holly. “The bar is filling up. I could use

some help soon.”

She nodded. “Okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes. If anything

happens before then, yell down the hall at the office.”

Paula gave her a thumbs-up, stuck her tongue out at JB, and

closed the door. He slapped his hands on the chair and groaned. “I

got this. It’s time I got moving—might make my leg feel better

anyway.”

Holly gave him the look and pushed his shoulder down. “I don’t

think so, boss. I got this. You seriously didn’t listen to a thing I said,

did you?”

JB chuckled. “I tend to be stubborn.”

She shook her head. “Yeah, well, that’s not okay. I told you. Rest

and keep your leg as healthy as possible until I can come up with an

answer for all of this. In the meantime…”

Holly looked in her bag and rummaged around to finally pull out a

small amount of blue liquid in a vial. She handed it to JB, who looked

at it with his nose wrinkled. “Poison already? I wasn’t ready to go

yet.”

She rolled her eyes. “This is what you need to at least get off

your lazy ass for a few more days or weeks. It will hopefully give you

a boost and start to fight whatever is trying to take you down. At the

least, I hope it will strengthen your resistance and maybe slow the

process down. I’m not sure what the dose should be, but this is all I

have at the moment, so it will have to do. I’ll need to make more

later, but I don’t have the ingredients yet. Drink it, eat it, whatever

you need to do to get it in your system. And don’t make me go

through all this work only so you can stubbornly pour it down the

drain or something. I will find out. Your life is worth saving.”

JB nodded, palmed the vial, and held it in his hand as if it were

made of gold. He wasn’t even sure what to say in response.

He looked at Holly for a moment and smiled. “I think now that you

know my dark secret, it’s time I revealed something else. Something

a little more personal.”

She raised an eyebrow. “If you start taking your clothes off …

well… I don’t know, but let’s keep it PG-Thirteen at the most.”

JB shook his head and laughed. “Not that. I have to admit that

when you first came into the bar, I realized how special you were. I

usually don’t tell that many stories, but I hoped to use them to entice

you.”

Holly giggled and closed her bag. “I have to say it’s one way to

get me interested in a date. Although I would have thought it was the

drinks.”

He leaned his head back and laughed loudly. “Actually, I hoped

that you might want to take the bar over. Your memory…”

Her straight lips curled up into a smile. “So you wanted me for my

mind, not my body. I have to admit that is very creative. There are

millions of women out there who would love to hear those words

from a man’s mouth.”

JB put his hand to his cheek and blushed. She smirked and

shook her head. “You, sir, are one in a million.”

He looked at her with shining eyes. “Funny, I thought the same

thing about you and Billie. You girls get something in your head and

you don’t stop until you get it done. I think I knew that about you from

the beginning. It’s nice to actually see it in action.”

Holly put her bag on her shoulder but remained seated on the

desk. “That’s one thing people have always counted on me for. If I

am given a task I really care about, they know for sure it will get

done. One way or another, I will find this cure. But I would like it to be

sooner rather than later so we can heal you.”

JB rubbed his leg. “I think my preference would be sooner as

well. Not only for the pain but for the relief of pending doom. It’s

funny how even outside the Zoo, the place still follows me around.

It’s like a nagging ex-girlfriend who won’t leave you alone.”

She cringed. “I never had one of those, but I’ve had friends who

have. They send you creepy notes and show up randomly at your

house. Well, hopefully, we can kick this ex-girlfriend to the curb

before too long.”

He leaned back in his chair and held the vial up in front of him. “If

you had told me that in the future, I would drink the very thing I

risked my life to get for companies, I would have laughed in your

fucking face. But here I am, hoping for a miracle out of the carnage. I

wonder how many people will die before this bullshit is over.”

Holly shook her head and focused her gaze on her boots. “I don’t

know. I hope not many, but from how fast I heard that jungle is

growing… Well, we should be doing our own research. We can’t let

the companies control our futures. If one of us gets it first—whatever

they are trying to find—then maybe it will take the competition away.”

JB scoffed. “Or increase it. They won’t be secretive about it. They

will get a taste of the money and hunger for the goop like it’s crack.”

She released a deep sigh. “The drug of the future collected from

the petals of plants.”

“And the spines of dinosaurs,” he added.

Holly smiled. “It would be nice if the spine goop was the same as

the petal.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “The spine might not be, but I heard that

the sacs that hold it on the beasts are as pure as pure can be.”

She tilted her head as she considered that. “It—”

A loud bang and a roar of laughter interrupted her train of

thought. Holly closed her eyes, jumped off the desk, and walked

toward the door. “I better get out there before Paula murders

someone. And about the bar… I think I’ll simply try to heal you

versus being the adoptive owner of FUBAR.”

She threw her bag down in a small cubby in the hall before walking

out into the bar. As she grabbed a couple of glasses and took them

to the side, she raised an eyebrow at Paula who was sweeping up

the last of a broken glass and didn’t look happy about it. “I told JB for

years to put non-slip shit back here but no, he had to be a hard ass. I

nearly broke my tits and then wasted a good shot of bourbon.”

Holly giggled. “It’s all right. Let’s get through this rush.”

Paula nodded and let out a deep breath, and the two hurried

through the backed-up orders she had written down. After Holly had

handed over the last of the drinks, she glanced toward the end of the

bar. Dan smiled and waved at her. She returned the greeting and

grabbed a glass on the way to pour his usual.

“Look who it is. I thought you had completely bailed on me.” She

set the glass in front of him and put her hands on her hips.

Dan chuckled. “Nope. I’d never do that. I’ve been busy filling

orders. There was an onslaught recently due to the corporations

putting out special bonuses. What in the world are you doing behind

the bar? You look good back there, don’t get me wrong, but I

expected to see you in your normal chair.”

Holly glanced at her chair, which was still empty. She leaned

forward and talked quietly. “JB still isn’t fully recovered from being a

bit sick.”

He looked at her with concern. “Oh no. I hadn’t realized he had

fallen ill.”

She shrugged. “He’s on the mend. I’m giving him some relief in

the meantime.”

“I bet it was forced relief.” Dan chuckled.

“You know JB. He would work with a severed arm.”

He laughed. “Or head for that matter.”

“Very true.” Holly wiped her hands off on the towel.

A group of guys walked in and Holly nodded in greeting. She

approached and took their orders, poured the drinks, and processed

the payments. Several of the newcomers were talking but her

thoughts were stuck inside her own head. She tried to figure out why

the chemicals were working the way they were. It didn’t make any

sense, which meant she hadn’t seen the whole truth.

She finished serving the group and began to wash dishes.

Without realizing it, she talked to herself out loud. “If you see a result

but nothing you can see would give that result, maybe what you see

isn’t the full picture.”

A loud huff caught her attention. “Kind of like when a bartender is

too preoccupied with stupid shit to take a patron’s order.”

Holly raised her head slowly and narrowed her eyes. “Excuse

me? I don’t think I deserve to be spoken to in that manner.”

The man chuckled and slammed a ten down on the bar. “You’re a

barmaid. You shouldn’t actually think about anything. Now bring that

ass over and get me two fingers of whiskey. If you’re lucky, I’ll forget

you were useless for a moment and possibly leave you a tip.”

She studied him carefully. While she had never seen him before,

from the look of his clothes and tanned skin, he wasn’t new to the

Zoo. “I think you have missed something. We are not your slaves,

and when you come into this fucking bar, you respect the people

who work here. Get it?”

He sighed. “You simply don’t learn, do you? When you do

something more than pour drinks and give guys hard-ons, you can

bark orders to me. Until then…my drink.”

Dan clenched his fists. “You need to watch what you say to the

lady.”

The man glanced at him and stood to tower a good foot above

Dan. “Are you the new barkeeper’s keep? Why don’t you shut your

God damned mouth and enjoy your whiskey before I shove that

glass up your ass?”

Dan pounded his fist on the bar and stood. “Now, wait a minute. I

don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you need to check

that bullshit in at the door.”

The stranger chuckled and opened his mouth to speak. At that

moment, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He spun and looked up…and

then up some more. “What?”

The Death Dog from a couple of days before flexed his chest

muscles. “I think you need to go. This is FUBAR, and JB doesn’t

allow any shit with the ladies.”

The guy jerked his thumb over his shoulder and scoffed. “Please.

She’s a bar slu—”

Too fast for the man to react, the Death Dog slugged him hard in

the stomach. “I think you need a lesson in manners.”

He grabbed his stomach and dropped to his knees as spit

dribbled from the edge of his lip. His face was bright red and his

eyes bugged out in surprise. Everyone in the bar had stopped their

conversations and began to walk forward to show their support for

the regular.

The Death Dog grabbed the man by the back of the neck and

picked him up. His feet barely touched the floor as he pulled him

along toward the door. Three of the other guys flung the front doors

open and stood aside.

“Heave ho!” the Death Dog yelled as he tossed the man out into

the street.

The stranger, still red in the face from the punch, hit the ground

and rolled to a stop at the edge of the sidewalk. A hummer roared by

and sprayed sand over him. He coughed and choked as he rolled

onto all fours. The group behind the Death Dog now stood in the bar

once more and put their hands up and cheered loudly. Holly pushed

through them and walked outside to stand beside her protector.

She chuckled and shook her head as she fixed the stranger with

a hard look. “JB would give you three days before he allowed you

back. But I’m not nice. You get a week, and if you come back with

those manners next time, you get to taste soap.”

The two headed back inside and slammed the doors behind

them. Holly curtsied at the round of applause and moved behind the

bar. JB stuck his head around the corner with a frown and she

whipped her towel at him. “Get back to your cave, man. Can’t you

see the women rule the world out here?”

JB shook his head. “That ain’t any different than any other day,

no matter what these lugheads think.”

Dan laughed and raised his glass. “Ain’t that the truth. They let us

think we have something to rule, but the women pull all the strings,

no matter what we might try to tell ourselves. Are you feeling better?”

JB glanced at Holly, who winked. “Yeah, but I’m forcibly

restrained in my office dungeon until Doctor Doolittle and her partner

over there deem me healthy enough to work.”

Dan cleared his throat when he caught a look from Paula. “Well,

you better go back because it’s obvious they are not playing today.”

JB looked at Holly. “I’m gonna head upstairs to my place and get

some rest in my bed.”

She nodded as she poured a drink. “I’ll check on you in a bit…

don’t forget your meds.”

JB pulled the covers up to his chest and leaned his shoulders

against the headboard. He coughed and covered his mouth with a

tissue. As he removed it, he noticed some blood. He wiped the rest

from his lips and shook his head before he tossed the tissue into the

wastebasket.

From a nook in his nightstand, he pulled an old photo album and

rested it in his lap. “Paper doesn’t go dark when you run out of

battery.”

He flipped it open and a small smile played at the corners of his

lips. “Although you were on top of the world here, weren’t you,

Gabbie?”

JB chuckled as he looked through the pictures one page at a

time. Afterward, he drew a deep breath and leaned his head back

against the headboard. “Fifteen seconds later, we were running and

gunning for our lives. That’s when the big fucker burst through the

brush a little farther down the valley. It didn’t take long for it to turn

and bolt toward us…”

His voice trailed off as his mind replayed the memory in his head.

He trailed his fingers slowly across the photographs and wished

things were different.

A

C H A P T E R T W O

manda sat at her workbench with a magnifying piece to her

eye. The table lamp shone directly on her hands. Carefully, she

used her tweezers to move one of the wires to the side before she

clamped the metal ends and twisted them. She picked up a small

plastic cover and squinted as she placed it slowly on the twisted

ends. Once she’d tucked them inside, she let her shoulders relax as

she finished the small amount of work remaining on that piece.

With a deft movement, she twisted the cap on, smiled, and spoke

in a low voice. “Good job, Amanda.”

She feigned pride as she put the part back together completely.

“Why, thank you. It’s all in the wrist.”

Amanda stood and put her loupe on the table. She walked to a

suit propped up on a medium-sized mannequin, clipped the piece

back in place, and drew the large armor covering over the chest.

Fumbling in the back of the suit, she located and pressed one of the

switches. The suit immediately began to make a purring sound and a

small green light flickered on the outside. Amanda stood back, gave

it a quick study, and ran her finger over the place where a divot had

once existed but was no longer there.

She brushed her hands clean and stretched to click the suit off

before she grabbed the HUD, placed it carefully in a cushioned box,

and sealed it up. The sticker on the outside read, Heavy Metal

Special Order. They usually did their own stuff, but every once in a

while, they came to Amanda for something specific. She sat at the

table and pulled her paperwork closer to make notes on the sheet.

As with every order, she took meticulous notes so that if there was a

concern, everything was well documented.

“I know,” Amanda said and continued with her paperwork, “that

locks are merely inconveniences to you. I know they are simply little

round circles that stop you for only a moment before they allow you

to enter a room with or without permission. It must be such a hassle.”

Hickok smirked and leaned against one of the mannequins. “You

have no idea. Sometimes, I wish I could simply burn all the doors

down.”

Amanda smiled, signed her name at the bottom of the paper, and

slipped it into an envelope. “But I can imagine that you walk in on

your fair share of things no one wants to see. For example, I could

have been on a hot date whom I was taking good care of during my

lunch break. In you walk and see us in the throes of passion beside

the hot metal rods all around us. It would be quite embarrassing for

you. For me? Not so much. I’ve always been something of an

exhibitionist.”

Amanda looked at Hickok with one eyebrow raised. Billie shook

her head and ran her finger down the chest of the mannequin. “You

haven’t had a date, much less a hot date, for three weeks.”

The armorer’s mouth hung open and her eyes narrowed. “What

do you call bringing Jennifer home on Friday night?”

Hickok waved her hand back and forth. “All right, I guess she

counts. If you leave after breakfast, then I would say it was a pretty

successful date. Especially if you leave looking like twisted hell.

Shoes on the wrong feet, shirt on backward, something.”

Amanda smiled and shook her head. “You’re a nosy bitch, that’s

what you are. Did you take any video? Because I’ll pay good money

for it. I was spectacular that night.”

Hickok raised both eyebrows and yawned. “If you say so.”

She stopped, stood, and turned toward the other woman. “I was

magnificent. Don’t even try to act like I wasn’t. And you didn’t answer

me about the video.”

Billie cleared her throat and walked to the pile of boxes stacked

at the side. “Man, that’s a lot of work. Are these finished or waiting to

be serviced?”

Amanda pursed her lips. “Finished. You did videotape us, didn’t

you? You sick bitch. I bet you play that shit while you walk around in

the Zoo. To the right in your HUD is a list of man-eating creatures

and to the left is me, performing my master dance.”

Hickok looked at her slowly. “You are really full of yourself.

Besides, if I did that, it would be broadcast to my whole team. I

would never do you like that.”

For the next ten minutes, she skirted the question and never

actually revealed whether or not she’d taped Amanda and her date.

The armorer didn’t think she would do something like that, but then

again, she was as sneaky as hell and had nothing to do with her

time. Hickok finally sighed and nodded toward the box in the corner

labeled Bitch.

Amanda laughed. “You know, I had to label it something

inconspicuous.”

Billie nodded. “Right. They would have simply thought it was a

box of your stuff.”

She faked a belly laugh, walked to the box, and flipped the lid off.

“Your shit is fuuuucked up, sister friend. Just saying.”

Hickok smacked her lips together. “Yeah, we went over that

before. Crazy hard to fix and I gotta find a secret co-op to do the

repairs. So, what did you find out?”

Amanda glanced at her and bit the inside of her lip. “I’ll tell you if

you tell me where the video is that you taped of me and Jennifer. All

you got to do is reveal the truth behind those lying eyes.”

Billie sniffed. “I know I don’t have lying eyes. I was trained to pass

any test given by any entity. These eyes are completely clear. How is

your conscience these days? You seem awfully worried about that

video.”

The armorer cleared her throat and snarled. “I have a fine

conscience. Things simply didn’t work out with her, that’s all. Nosy

bitch.”

Her companion chuckled. “Seriously, what did you find out about

the suit?”

Amanda sighed and sat at the table. Her voice lowered

automatically as she talked. “I was able to talk with Salinger Jacobs

privately. And trust me, he won’t tell anyone about the armor.”

Billie narrowed her eyes. “I assume not since I already spoke to

him.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know. Anyway, Salinger explained to me

some of what I need to know to fix the armor. They let me borrow

some of the advanced tools.”

Hickok rubbed her hands together. “Good, then you got this,

right?”

Amanda put up her finger. “Not quite. I still need to take the armor

over to Heavy Metal to do the work. It’s way too much for my

machines.”

The woman groaned. “Where any number of guys will roll around

and poke their heads in. They see armor like this and they will

instantly want to know who it belongs to. They gonna want to touch it

and shit. I can’t have people asking questions. I’ll have to mull this

over.”

Amanda stood and put her hands out. “Look, I know you’re

freaked out by this. You have every right to be. You’ve stayed hidden

for a really long time. But I swear your armor is safe with me. And if it

comes down to it, I’ll die protecting it. With Salinger knowing how

important this is, he will have my back too.”

Billie began to pace as her mind raced. I know you would kill me

for doing this. Hell, you’ll kill me when I come back online and tell

you I let someone fuck with your baby. Hickok wasn’t stupid. Her ops

guy would lose his mind. Unfortunately, though, there was absolutely

nothing he could do for her now. He couldn’t fix it himself and she

couldn’t go into the Zoo without it. The tracking had stayed on, and

for all her people knew, she was there on some secret mission. Her

ops guy covered up the rest.

After several moments of contemplation, Hickok nodded. “All

right, I’ll let you do it. The only thing is, while you work on it, you

must be careful. If you have to disconnect the locator system, it can

only be offline for exactly twenty-three minutes. When it reaches

twenty-four, a silent alarm goes off to people way higher than my ops

guy. He can’t cover for me then. They won’t understand why I would

be here in the first place, and secondly, why my gear is being worked

on.”

Amanda furrowed her brow. “Okay, I’ll write that one down. So

you are okay with me doing this? It shouldn’t take long once I get it

there.”

Billie gave her a side glance for several moments. “Yeah, get it

done. I have to get back into the Zoo as soon as I can. In the

meantime, I have other ways to conceal my identity.”

The armorer clapped her hands. “Good. I haven’t had anything to

test my skills on since I left Heavy Metal.”

She turned her back and began to walk toward the box.

“Sometimes, you need to be in the right place at the right time. Just

like JB and Gabby were when you stumbled out of the Zoo…”

Amanda didn’t turn and there was nothing but silence. “You think

you’re all-knowing. I’ve heard the stories. Sometimes, things work

out right, and I think this is one of those times. Don’t you?”

When she did turn, Hickok had gone. She looked right and left

before she dropped her hands to her sides and shook her head.

“Damn. That bitch better have locked the door on her way out.”

She sighed and went to check the door which was, in fact,

locked. Once she’d dimmed the lights in the shop, she pulled Billie’s

armor out and laid it across the table. She ran her hands over the

dents, rips, and divots in the armor plating. She had never seen a

material like it before. From the outside, it looked like steel, but when

she held it in her hands, it was malleable.

Still, it had sustained severe damage. “Damn, that duo bear must

have been a monster. Or, like so many other times, they adapt right

before our eyes.”

Amanda moved her hands down to the belly armor and peeled it

back to check the suit beneath it. Everything there was still intact. As

she went to put the armor down, she paused when she noticed some

kind of writing on the fabric. She grabbed her magnifying glass,

clicked the light on, and tried to get a better look. It was handwritten,

not etched in, and really, really small.

She muttered quietly as she tilted her head back and forth in an

effort to read what it said. “Some secret to unlocking the potential of

the universe, maybe?” she mumbled in irritation. “Billie’s true identity

like the way dudes write their names in their underwear?”

Using the larger magnifying glass now, she continued to study

the writing. Her brows pulled together, and she looked around the

shop to ensure that Billie hadn’t snuck back in. Printed by hand

under the armor were the words Marcus & Isabelle 4-Ever.

Amanda stood and scratched her head. “Who the fuck is

Marcus? And who the fuck is Isabelle? I wonder if that’s Billie’s real

name. But wait, her name is actually William Paula Hickok… This

shit keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

She lowered the armor once more and decided that keeping the

lovebirds on the armor to herself was probably the best idea for

everyone. It was doubtful Billie knew they were there and whoever

Marcus was, he hid it well.

“I can’t wait for a fucking vacation.”

H

C H A P T E R T H R E E

olly rolled her neck to ease the stiffness as she stood behind

the bar and faced the register. Paula walked up and put some

money in the drawer. “Re-stock and clean some dishes for me and

you can roll. You are working your ass off at a job you actually

weren’t ever hired for. You are a hero, girl.”

She chuckled and rubbed her wrists. “Are you staying longer?”

Paula nodded. “I checked on JB a little while ago and he was fast

asleep. I didn’t want to wake him, so I figured I would push through—

at least until he stomps down and demands that I go home.”

Holly looked at the schedule. “But that means you’ll work all the

way until tomorrow night ʼcause you’re on the floor tomorrow.”

The woman shrugged. “I called in one of the other girls. It

shouldn’t be too crazy during the daytime tomorrow. I’ll get some

sleep and come back in tomorrow evening for the night crew.”

Holly nodded. “Well, if you need anything or JB doesn’t come

down, call me and I’ll come back.”

Paula smiled at her. “I appreciate it and might take you up on it.

For now, I’ll wolf something down in the kitchen before you leave.

You got this for a minute?”

She nodded. “Hell yeah, go eat. There is barely anyone here right

now and Old Man Tuttle is passed out on the bar again. I’ll leave him

there for now.”

The barkeep chuckled. “Probably a good plan. He gets handsy

when you try to move him.”

Paula walked into the back and Holly turned as three gentlemen

entered the front. They were all dressed in khakis and polos with

Shou Industries on the front. She smiled, not knowing who they

were. “Hey, guys. First time here?”

One of them smiled. “Yeah. We are from the Chinese side. We

heard this was the place for a drink.”

She nodded with a grin. “What can I get you?”

All three ordered a beer and she emptied the bottles into glasses.

As she brought them over, the guys talked amongst themselves. “It’s

very different over here. I can see why someone would want to steal

priceless information from us.”

The guy beside him shook his head. “Yeah, but this was a

professional. The only reason we knew about it was because of that

extra security measure we put on the sensitive information. Anytime

someone takes a download off that server, it prints a report. We don’t

usually get reports since downloading is by executive order only, so

this one stood out.”

The third man took a sip of his beer. “And no one was caught on

video. It’s insane.”

Holly tried to listen without being obvious. She knew exactly what

information they were talking about. Billie must have gone to that

side to gather the intel she needed for the salve. But what were they

doing on the French side? Did they have leads?

She took the payment for the beers and set the change down.

“Are you boys thinking of switching to this side?”

They chuckled. “No. We work for Shou Industries. We’re only

here to do some research of sorts.”

One of them narrowed his eyes. “You’re a bartender. I bet you

hear all kinds of stories and gossip back there. Did you hear of

anyone stealing any top information from our side?”

Holly chuckled. “No. And with the clientele that we get in here, I

can’t see anyone actually pulling that off.”

The men looked at Old Man Tuttle as he snorted and shouted

before he fell asleep again. Holly lifted an eyebrow. “Case in point.

But if you’re here for a while and I hear anything, I’ll definitely let you

know.”

Just then, Paula entered and Holly smiled before she moved

casually away and packed several glasses on the shelf. She went

about her duties, washed the rest of the barware, and filled the beer

cooler. When she was done, she grabbed her bag from the cubby in

the hall and looked toward the door that led up the stairs to where JB

lived. Part of her wanted to check on him, but if he was resting, that

was a good thing. Besides, she knew Paula wouldn’t let too much

time pass before she went to make sure he was okay.

“Call me if you need me,” Holly said as she walked out from

behind the bar.

Paula waved. “Get some rest, honey, or you’ll wake up looking

like me.”

She laughed as she opened the front door and glanced back over

her shoulder. “My hair never has that kind of volume.”

Holly hurried through the streets toward her apartment,

exhausted. She unlocked and relocked the entrance door and

jogged up the steps. The front door was locked, so she figured she

would be alone but that was definitely not the case. As she opened

it, she saw Billie sitting at her desk studying.

She rolled her eyes and closed the door. “Honey, I’m home.”

Hickok put up her hand but didn’t look up. “Sorry, do you need

the desk?”

Holly yawned. “Nope. But I do have an interesting story to tell

you.”

Her visitor raised an eyebrow and looked warily at her. “Oh yeah?

What?”

She sat on the edge of the bed with her hands in her lap. “I was

finishing up behind the bar and three guys came in wearing Shou

Industries polos.”

Billie blinked and turned back to her work. “Oh yeah? What were

they doing over here?”

Holly laughed. “I think you know. Someone stole sensitive

information from the company and they were only able to figure it out

because a secret security measure tripped when the person

downloaded the information off the secure servers. It printed out a

report, but no one saw it until they came in. They said they will install

alarms linked to that now.”

Billie grumbled. “If Marcus had been in my ear, those securities

would have been taken care of.”

Holly smirked. “Are you still mad at your ops guys?”

“Guy, and yes. The asshole could have helped me, but he was

too much of a pussy.”

“Hey, at least he is helping where he can.” Holly shrugged.

Billie sighed. “I guess. So do they have any suspects?”

Holly rubbed her hands together. “As of right now, no. From what

I overheard, the company thinks that maybe it was some research

and development spies from Russia or China.”

Her companion scoffed. “Please, those Russian spies couldn’t

sneak in somewhere like that. Did they get any video of me…uh, the

person?”

She snickered. “No, they called you the ghost. They said the only

way they knew you were there was because of the download. Of

course, they didn’t think for a second it could be an American.”

Billie furrowed her brow in displeasure. “Why do you say that?”

“A comment one of them made and the others laughed at. He

said they should check the American side. Another one laughed and

said, ‘No way they were American. They aren’t that good.’”

Hickok gripped the back of the chair hard. “Fucking assholes.

Pretentious fucking assholes. I’ll give them Americans aren’t that

good.”

Holly laughed. “Calm down, Rambo. You know how other

countries can be about Americans.”

Her companion regarded her with a deadpan look. “Did they say

anything else?”

“Actually, yeah. They said that there were no fingerprints and it

was strange because the circuits were messed with.”

Billie tilted her head to the side. “The circuits?”

“Yeah. They said the cameras went out in succession. But then,

when it came to the top-security hallway, there wasn’t even a

whisper of anyone entering or exiting the room. They said there were

no windows in that room either so there was no way they could have

come from the outside. They are starting a search of the duct

systems to see if they can pull any evidence.”

The other woman snickered quietly. “Circuit problems…ha! Idiots.

I knew that tech was genius.”

Holly looked at her inquisitively. “What tech? So you weren’t

messing with circuits?”

“Of course I wasn’t. I didn’t have access or time for that. But I

have my ways.” Billie chuckled.

She shook her head. “Ahh, top secret James Bond tools, right?”

Billie pointed her finger at her. “Precisely. I only wish I had one of

those fucking cars he has. They are never that cool in real life. Most

of the time, I end up in the back of a bread truck or some shit like

that.”

Holly smiled. “So you think you’re in the clear?”

Hickok waved her hands in disdain and turned away. “Hell yeah, I

do. They have no idea what they are looking for and they won’t find

anything anyway. I am a professional. We should be in the clear.”

“What ya studying?” She stretched her arms in the air.

Billie closed her notes and rubbed her face wearily. “Just shit that

will help me get what I need. I am going out, though.”

Holly yawned as she stood and walked toward the bathroom. “I’ll

probably collapse into a coma so I can recover in time for my shift

tomorrow.”

She closed the bathroom door but kept talking. “As soon as I

have a moment of non-zombielike reflexes, I’ll continue my research

and notes. It all kind of jumbles together for me at this point. My eyes

get tired and the next thing I know, I’m passed out on the desk,

drooling. It’s not a pretty sight.”

Holly flushed the toilet and washed her hands as she studied her

exhausted face in the mirror. This trip to the Zoo had turned into

something way different than what she’d expected. Hell, she thought

she would only be there a couple of days and now, she had an

apartment and a job…kind of. She liked bartending but remembered

why she had been so happy to get out of it when she finished

college. Long hours, assholes, and the stench of old beer seeping

from her pores every day. It was not at all glamorous, no matter what

people thought.

She opened the bathroom door. “Where are you going?” she

asked as she paused and looked around the room.

All of Billie’s stuff was cleaned up and stowed in the corner and

she was gone. The door had all the latches locked from the inside

and a calming silence had settled in the place. A long, brown-haired

wig lay draped over the top of the chair in the corner. Holly furrowed

her brow and walked toward it, picked it up warily, and held it in front

of her, completely shocked.

“She wears a fucking wig…what the fuck?”

Carefully, she replaced the wig over the chair, stepped back, and

stared at it as she realized she had no clue what Billie actually

looked like. Suddenly, wild images skimmed through her head, most

generated from what she’d seen in Mission Impossible movies with

fake skin and voice changers. Then she shook her head. Use your

brain. JB wouldn’t have recognized her if that were the case.

Holly turned and shook her head, then noticed that in the other

corner, almost completely hidden from sight, was Hickok’s backup

helmet. She raised an eyebrow and wondered for a moment if she

could maybe slip it on and see exactly who Billie was. On impulse,

she took a step toward the helmet but stopped.

Wringing her hands, she climbed into bed and groped for the light

on the nightstand. “Get it together, Holly. You put that thing on and

you will have accidentally started a game of Global Thermonuclear

War. Go to bed before you hurt yourself, or someone else…like an

entire country.”

The air grew cooler and cooler as the night descended rapidly on the

town. The wind had died down, so the air was breathable for the first

time in days. Piles of sand pushed up against the hastily built

buildings, blown in during the days before from the wide-open desert

that led to the looming canopy of the Zoo. Streetlights glowed along

the blocks but Hickok liked to stick to the shadows. She weaved in

and out of the alleys, moving quickly and without notice. No matter

how different she looked, she didn’t want to be remembered. It was a

hazard of the lifestyle that she lived.

There wasn’t anyone out on the streets as everyone would

already be at the bars or home sleeping. When she turned the

corner out of the alley, she pulled her hood up over her head.

Strands of wild, red, wavy hair escaped from the sides and hovered

just below her shoulders. She shoved her hands in her pockets, put

her head down, and paid little attention to her surroundings. There

was no need to risk drawing attention as she knew what was around

her and exactly where she was going. She knew how the men in that

town thought, and she would be fresh meat. Without a doubt, she

would be noticeable to them and to the French army, who liked to

patrol the streets at random as if they had any control over the

lawlessness of the town.

Suddenly, her senses flared. She could hear the faint shuffling of

two sets of boots over the sand-strewn cement sidewalk. The stench

of heat and sweat was vaguely covered by a sharp-smelling cologne.

She slowed her steps and raised her head as she approached a

shadowed area ahead. As she stepped into it, she disappeared from

sight.

The two guys walked forward, looked right and left, and stopped

inside the dark corner. They both wore older clothes covered in dirt

from the Zoo. Their teeth had obviously not seen a toothbrush in

years, and their hair was shaggy and greasy.

“Where the fuck did she go?” one of them asked and continued to

peer around him.

The other shrugged his shoulders. “Fuck if I know, but she

headed this direction. I seen her come right through here. She

couldn’t have gone far. None of these shops are open.”

The first guy slapped his hand to his leg. “Damn, she’s hot. I’ve

never seen her around here before.”

“Which means she ain’t never seen us.” His comrade put his

finger to his nose and smiled.

Suddenly, the street light to their left went out and left them in

complete darkness. “What the—oomph.”

The other guy put his hands out and squinted to see better. “Rod

— Ugh.”

Nothing but rustling and grunts issued from the darkness. A small

shriek and the crunch of a bone was followed by absolute silence.

Billie pulled her hood up and shoved her hands back in her

pockets. She stepped over the two bodies and continued down the

block, humming softly.

H

C H A P T E R F O U R

ickok used her skills and moved silently through Holly’s door.

The room was dimly lit and the bed covers were all tangled.

Leaving her boots by the door, she grabbed her wig, flipped her head

over, and put it on before she pulled on her coat. She looked around

the room and her gaze settled on the desk. It was apparent Holly

couldn’t sleep like she’d thought she would and had gotten up to do

some research. It couldn’t have been very exciting, though, since

she had passed out with her head on the desk.

Billie chuckled, walked quietly across the room, and looked at the

laptop. Carefully, she undid the cord, picked it up, and carried it to

the bed. She sat on the edge and set the laptop in her lap, then

scrolled to the top of the screen. Holly had done a hell of a lot of

research, and she’d taken notes thoroughly and even simply enough

for Billie to understand most of it.

She pulled her legs up and read some of the notes out loud.

“Initial reports of G5009, better known as goop, revealed a similar

base concentration of water, hormones, minerals, and nutrients like

xylem sap. It was shown through the study of one intact Pita plant

that the goop also directs plant process much like photosynthesis

and respiration, releasing both oxygen and carbon dioxide, very

similar to the plants we know on earth.”

Hickok was surprised by this analysis. She had never thought

that anything in the Zoo would be close to anything on earth. She

continued reading. “Further microscopic studies of G5009 have

revealed a much deeper basis of life. The cellular structure of the

substance is unlike anything on earth. The strands of DNA do not

create a helix but instead, wind through, ever changing and moving.

The roots of the Pita plant also expel this goop, moving it through the

soil to the edges of the containment. This led scientists to believe

that the goop is distributed throughout the entire Zoo. The

reconstruction of injured or dead Zoo animals may be connected to

the amount of goop in the soil below them. This study was not

included in documents.”

Billie sighed and closed the laptop. “So the goop may have the

ability to repair injuries or even bring Zoo animals back from the

dead through concentrations in the soil. So what would pure goop do

to a human?”

She looked at the sleeping Holly and stood to set the laptop

carefully on the desk. Softly, she ran her hand over the woman’s

back and pulled her arm up and over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s

get you into bed.”

Holly barely opened her eyes and simply nodded and stumbled

forward until she reached the bed. She wrestled the blanket back

and fell into it, absolutely exhausted. Billie pulled the covers up over

her. “Get some sleep, kid. We need that brain working at full speed.”

Holly rolled over in the bed and looked at her phone. Paula hadn’t

called so she’d either saved her the trouble or JB came down and

took over so she could get some rest. Holly hoped it was the latter.

Paula was wearing herself out with both work and worry. She was a

good friend to JB, but Holly didn’t want to see her run herself into the

ground.

She sat up and shifted to dangle her legs over the edge of the

bed. Absently, she looked around and scratched her head when she

couldn’t recall going back to bed after she’d woken in the middle of

the night. She had thought sleep would find her instantly, but as soon

as she laid down, her mind was all over the place. The last thing she

remembered was trying to stay awake as she read the research.

A quick glance at the desk assured her that her laptop was

present and closed. Billie’s things were still in the corner, but she

didn’t see her anywhere. Holly shrugged and pushed off the bed,

dragged her feet over to the coffee maker, and set it up for pure life.

She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten out of bed without it automatically

being made. When she pressed the button on the front, nothing

happened. Furrowing her brow, she followed the cord back and

found it unplugged for a charger instead.

Holly narrowed her eyes and looked up when she heard Billie’s

voice from the bathroom. She plugged in the coffee maker and

headed to the door, where she propped herself against the frame.

There was Billie, buck naked, on the edge of the tub. Her normal

long brown hair cascaded over her tits. Her legs were crossed, and

she waved her hands in the air as she flipped through things in her

HUD.

Billie was saying something, but it was all muffled inside her

backup helmet. Holly cleared her throat and the woman looked at

her with surprise. She chuckled. “I won’t lie. It’s weird as fuck to walk

into my bathroom and see someone in nothing but her birthday suit

and a metal helmet. It’s like some freaky kind of fucking cos-play or

something. Like I’m sure if I took a picture and posted it online you

would be a hero in the nerd world.”

The other woman said something else into the helmet before she

pulled it off her head. She looked exactly like she had the other times

Holly had seen her, only without her normal five layers of clothing.

Holly drew a deep breath and tossed Billie her tank top and panties

that were folded on the sink. “Do you think maybe when you need to

charge something you could not touch the key to my existence?”

Her companion looked at her, confused. “I don’t know what you’re

talking about.”

Holly thumbed calmly over her shoulder. “The coffee maker. Most

days, I can’t even sit up without the automatic timed creation of the

perfect elixir of life.”

Billie chuckled as she shrugged her clothes on. “Yeah, sorry

about that. I didn’t want to overload the other socket and your laptop

was plugged in there.”

Holly nodded and left the room, and the other woman followed

her. “Did you see my notes?”

“Yeah. I mean, I read the very beginning part about how they

thought goop was like tree sap at first.” Billie yawned, grabbed her

hoodie, and dragged it on.

She chuckled. “Yeah, until they realized that the minerals were

nothing that had ever existed on earth before.”

Hickok wrinkled her nose. “Will that make it hard to come up with

the elixir for JB? I mean, how are you supposed to be able to

combine things and figure out the dosage if the chemical

composition is not known?”

Holly poured two cups of coffee and handed one to her

companion. “Well, it’s not that untouchable. After going through the

different minerals and such present in the goop, I was able to

compare their composition with things here on earth. There was, of

course, nothing exactly the same, but there were some very similar

to each other. From that, I can figure out the most likely reactions of

those minerals and compounds. Of course, it’s still a guess because

we don’t really know, but it should be pretty damn close.”

Billie blinked at her. “So basically, you match the alien shit with its

closest earth twin and that helps you understand how it will work for

JB?”

She swallowed her sip of coffee and already felt more awake.

“Yep. Pretty much. I had a tiny bit of goop from a couple of petals I

held back from the mixture I gave JB, but it’s hard to really see

anything from that. I have a lot of partial compositions.”

Billie scratched her head in evident confusion. “Why is that?”

“Because when we pull the petals from the plant, we essentially

stop the flow of goop and tear it apart. At a very low level, of course.

So I get partial things. I can probably figure out a lot more of the

benefits of some of the chemicals present but I need more goop.

And by more, I mean a lot.”

The other woman sighed. “How are we supposed to get that?”

Holly raised her finger and flipped the laptop open. “One of the

large animals—the one with the goop on its spine. Well, the goop

there is different, but JB told me it’s pure. I did some research and it

turns out he was right on point. The sacs of production in these

animals is like pulling a patch of whole Pita plants. Of course,

production stops when you pull them, but you get a significant

amount of goop.”

Billie narrowed her eyes. “And which species exactly are we

talking about?”

She drew in a deep breath. “That’s the thing. It’s the sacs behind

the skull of the dino, the one with the huge fucking teeth and

relentless need to kill any human it encounters.”

Her companion took a gulp of her coffee and glanced down at it.

“I feel like I’ll need something stronger than coffee by the end of all of

this. So I need to get a giant-ass dinosaur creature, kill it, and

retrieve sacs of goop from behind its skull?”

Holly gave her a toothy grin. “Yep. That’s pretty much our best

option for this whole thing.”

Billie pointed at the picture. “So where are the sacs exactly? Are

we talking base of skull, sides, underneath?”

She shook her head. “Oh, God, no. You wouldn’t be able to get

them unless the creature is very dead. From the notes in the system,

the dino skull is some foreign material that they have not been able

to penetrate thus far. It has an open spot in the skull on the top of the

head and then unscaled areas of its chest, which is how you kill it.

You have to aim for the right place.”

Hickok cleared her throat and almost sounded nervous. “Okay,

show me where the sacs are and how I get to them specifically.”

Holly retrieved a small disk from her bag, placed it on the table,

and connected it to her laptop. As it flashed on, a 3D version of the

dino popped up. She turned it with her hand and pointed to the right

and left of the back of the skull. “So, one is on the right and one on

the left. There are scales there but they are relatively easy to pop off.

After that, be careful when you cut in. Its flesh under the scales is

about an inch and a half thick. If you go too far, you’ll rupture the

sac.”

Billie nodded and studied the images closely. “And are the sacs

open?”

She shook her head. “From the specimens they have pulled,

there is something like a shut-off valve inside the sac. When the dino

is injured, it seals closed. That means you can cut it at the top and

through the connecting tube and you should be fine. I would take

some sort of bottle so that if it leaks out, you can catch it. Otherwise,

put them in two cases and in your pouch. That will protect them.”

“How the hell will I find one of these sonsofbitches?”

Holly laughed. “You could always grab a Pita plant and pull it out

of the ground. I hear they don’t like that too much.”

She looked at her companion to see if she was laughing as well

but all she saw was a thoughtful expression. Holly put her hands up.

“That was a joke. A bad one. You aren’t supposed to think about it.”

Billie smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “Relax. I’m daring,

not foolhardy.”

Three Days Later

Hickok stood in front of the table and examined her suit. Amanda

stood on the other side, her hands clenched, nervous as Billie gave it

a once-over. The armorer pointed out the different things she’d done

to make the suit wearable. It looked almost as good as new.

Amanda passed her the helmet. “The HUD didn’t need any work

really besides some scratches on the display that I fixed. The armor

took me a couple of attempts. It’s a different material to anything I

have worked with before. I was actually able to do the whole thing

without turning the suit off at all. There shouldn’t be any warnings to

your higher-ups.”

Billie held the helmet in her hand. “Oh, there was a fritzing of the

screen in this thing. I’ve dealt with it every time I get one. They all

seem to have the same issue. It not only drives me nuts, but it is

dangerous as well. It gets distracting and I end up taking the thing off

in combat situations. That alone can be deadly. Did you happen to

detect anything in it like that?”

Amanda pulled her notes and read through them before she

snapped her fingers. “Yes. That’s right. I forgot about this part. I

looked through the electronics and noticed a lot of manipulations of

the boards and such. One specific wire was inserted but it wasn’t

secured. The only thing I can think of is the memory system and

personality of your AI was changed so much that whoever your tech

was didn’t want to re-solder the wire every time. Unfortunately,

between the heat and the movement on your head, it slips off and

causes a fritz.”

Hickok snarled. “Marcus is an ass.”

Amanda gave her a sharp look. “Marcus?”

“My ops guy, why?”

The armorer cleared her throat. “No reason. Anyway, I soldered it

in, so you should be good.”

Billie snickered. “He’ll love that.”

Amanda picked the suit up. “Here, give it a try. I want to make

sure nothing has altered the way it fits you. Oh, and I looked at your

measurements versus the suit and I created a little more extra room

in the bust area. I don’t know how you weren’t suffocating from your

own tits in there.”

Billie put the suit on, zipped it up the back, and rolled her

shoulders. She snapped all the armor down and moved around.

“Holy shit.”

“You like?”

The woman chuckled. “This bitch was supposed to be perfectly

fitted to me. But yeah, I can definitely feel the extra room. My tits

thank you, Miss Amanda. They have felt squashed for so many

years I didn’t know how they felt with room to breathe. I imagine this

is how women felt when it was no longer socially necessary to wear

a corset.”

Billie turned, gathered her weapons, and connected them with

her HUD. She went through all the necessary connection

sequences, then holstered them and flipped her rifle onto her back.

She held the helmet and nodded.

Amanda was relieved. “Where to now?”

The woman tapped her helmet. “Time to go back in.”

H

C H A P T E R F I V E

ickok pushed the vines to the side and looked around the Zoo.

It was daylight this time. There was no way she would go into

the jungle looking for a dino in the dark. That would have been plain

stupid. She had her guard up and watched for anyone who might be

out with their teams, but the place was big enough that she could be

out there for days and not run into anyone.

She shoved another curtain of vines away and stepped forward,

not seeing the wriggling beneath her. A vine twisted quickly, up and

around her ankle, and pulled her off her feet.

Billie hung upside down in the air, her arms dangling down.

“Fuck. God damn it, you bloodsucking leech. Put me the fuck down.

Now!”

The creeper moved swiftly to swing her through the air and stop

abruptly above a large orange plant. Its blossom opened, and large

rings of teeth snarled below her. Billie groaned and drew the dagger

strapped to her leg. She heaved upward and swiped the blade

across the vine. Immediately, it released her and she balled herself

up as she fell. The moment she landed, she flailed to grab a nearby

limb and dragged herself to the side and onto the ground before the

flower snapped shut.

She rolled, slid to a stop, and roared defiance. Then she leapt to

her feet and lunged at the plant to slam the blade of her dagger into

it over and over again. The plant struggled and hissed for several

moments. When it finally became motionless, Billie stood over it and

allowed herself a few more blows. “You fucking bitch. Trying to kill

me when I have shit to do!”

After a few seconds of heavy breathing, she stopped and

stepped back to look at the pulverized plant in front of her. Satisfied,

she nodded and turned but stopped dead in her tracks as she faced

off with a tall, skinny animal. Her HUD flipped through pictures and

paused on what looked like a cross between a stick bug and a

praying mantis.

Billie jumped back, grabbed her pistol, and fired four shots

directly at the insect. Its limbs flew off and it bounced back and forth

before it dropped to the ground in a heap. Without thought, she

pulled her short sword from her back and cut its head off. “I

remember. You bitches like to come back to life. Let’s see you do it

without a head.”

She shoved the short sword back into its sheath and sighed as

an earth-rattling roar echoed through the air to her right. “Really?

Three in a row?”

Instinctively, she yanked her rifle around to the front and spun on

her heels to face the beast. It stood nearly ten feet tall and had large

arms and legs that seemed to be covered in sparkling black rocks.

Its eyes glistened bright blue, and its mouth was ridged with rows of

sharp teeth. “Holy hell, what the fuck are you?”

She pulled the trigger but the bullets simply bounced off its head.

It roared loudly and bounded toward her. She slung her weapon to

her back and bolted, knowing there was nothing left to do at that

point but run.

As she moved, she looked back and saw the beast simply take

trees down with its massive body. Billie picked up speed when she

saw light through the jungle ahead from what she assumed was

some sort of clearing. She sprinted forward, jumped on top of a

fallen tree, and launched herself into the open area. From her

landing position on one knee, she turned and looked up slowly.

All around her, a team of mercenaries battled jags and other

creatures. They all froze, stared at her for a split second, then looked

beyond her as the ground rumbled beneath their feet. Even the

animals paused and shrank back at the sound. Billie stood and spun

to face the stone beast as it slammed into the trees at the edge of

the clearing and toppled them to the side. Everything and everyone

gasped, and the smaller creatures retreated into the jungle in an

attempt to avoid contact with this monstrosity.

The mercs around her backed up and blasted their guns at the

beast. It roared, brought its foot up, and stamped it hard into the

ground. Billie narrowed her eyes when she saw that beneath it, from

its crotch to its asshole, there was no stone. It looked like regular

animal flesh.

She rolled her eyes and groaned. “Great. Exactly what I wanted

today.”

Hickok dragged in a deep breath and ran toward the creature,

dropped to her knees as she got close, and slid between its legs.

Without looking, she jammed the barrel of the rifle upward, fairly

certain she had shoved it straight up the rock man’s asshole.

Billie groaned before she pulled the trigger and blasted a threeround

burst straight up its ass. Its arms and legs wavered and she

yanked the gun back and hurried away from behind it and into the

edge of the clearing. The boulder-beast groaned and wailed as the

stones on its body crumbled and fell. The mercs stood in

bewilderment and simply watched as the animal slowly collapsed,

looking more like a rockslide than a body.

She stepped quickly into the shadows and left the mercs there

alone with nothing left to fight. Taking care to make little sound, she

turned and moved rapidly through the woods. She stopped at the

edge of a small gulley and slung her gun onto her back, grimacing at

the smell that emanated from the barrel. “How the fuck can I find one

of those big dino assholes?”

She breathed heavily and studied the jungle on the other side of

the trench. Growing in a stream of light was a large patch of Pita.

The Heavy Metal team from the night of the “ghost” stood in the

clearing and eliminated any small creatures that still attacked. None

of them said a word, not even sure what the hell had just happened.

It would definitely be a story for the ages if they could get their asses

out of the Zoo in one piece.

The leader slashed his dagger through a small, rat-like creature

with sharp, jagged teeth. It slid off his blade onto the ground in a

puddle of blue, gloppy blood. He shook his head, ready for a drink.

“All right, team, let’s finish this up. We need to head to the Pitas and

then get the hell out of here so I can get a God damn drink. This day

keeps getting stranger and stranger.”

The comms in their helmets crackled and the faint sound of a

woman’s voice faded in and out. The leader of the team straightened

and squinted his eyes as he tuned his comms and tried to figure out

what she was screaming about. Suddenly, as if from everywhere

around them, the unmistakable sound of a dino roared through the

trees and shook the branches. Everyone dug their boots in and

grabbed their guns as they scanned the tree line.

Over the comms, the woman’s voice became clear. “Heads up! It

seems like I got company. Find places to hide! Stat!”

Billie held the Pita plant, roots and all, in her left hand as she slashed

her short sword across the neck of a jag. The beast hissed and

growled, stumbled back into the plants, and spilled its blue blood

over the beautiful petals of the life-giving nectar holders. It tried to

pull itself back to its feet, but its legs were weak and wiggled like Jell-

O before it finally collapsed with a final breath.

She turned to her right and groaned as the second jag lunged

toward her. It struck her hard in the chest. Her left hand swung wide

and the Pita plant flew free. The animal and woman rolled across the

ground and destroyed one plant after another. The pheromones

sprayed widely and hung in the air. She grunted as she searched the

ground beside her for her sword while she held the beast’s snarling

jowls away from her.

When she turned her head to the right, she saw the sword barely

an inch from her fingers. “For Christ’s sake. This is what happens

when you fuck with pussy. It attacks and leaves you defenseless.

Luckily for me, I always carry extra protection.”

Hickok scrabbled at her side and drew her pistol from the holster.

She rammed her other hand into the jag’s chin and forced his head

back. Quickly, she raised the gun and pulled the trigger to blast half

its head off its shoulders. Flesh and blood splattered everywhere,

and the jag fell back without even a twitch. Billie rolled over and

grabbed her sword before she crawled to the Pita plant which still

laid on the ground.

She wiped her sleeve across the front of her helmet to clear her

field of vision. “I need fucking windshield wipers on this damn thing.”

After she’d stuffed the Pita into her pack, she cinched the top and

slung it onto her back. Now it was time to find that damn dino and

get the fuck out of the Zoo. She holstered her weapon and put her

sword on her back before she pushed to her feet. “Come out, come

out, wherever you…”

A loud roar shook the core of her chest and she looked up to see

the eyes of not one, but two dinos lurking in the bushes to the right.

“Okay. That’s more than I expected.”

She opened her comms slowly, knowing there were teams out

there. “Anyone who can hear me. Get your asses out of the Zoo. We

got incoming and it’s not small. Attention all teams—”

The larger of the two dinos rumbled out of the edge of the trees

and put its scaled head back to roar as loudly as it could. The ground

shook, and the trees rattled so hard even the birds were startled into

instant flight. Billie raced through the woods with the unmistakable

thunder of the dinos close behind her. She screamed into her

comms. “Heads up! It seems like I got company. Find places to hide!

Stat!”

Billie hurdled a fallen tree and caught a glimpse of the beasts as

they tore through the thick growth. The blue goop glowed all the way

up their backs. “I guess they decided the locusts were only fucking

overkill…”

She pulled her rifle around and slung her arm behind her to blast

bullets at the dinos. The one in the front tripped slightly when a bullet

pierced the soft underbelly. Billie somehow ran, dodged, and fired all

at the same time. The beast in the lead began to limp slightly and

she knew it might be her only chance. She stopped and yanked a

grenade from her side, then waited several seconds for the creature

to rear back and roar again. When it did, she pulled the pin and

lobbed the grenade as hard as she could. It arced through the air

and straight down its throat.

Billie’s eyes went wide, and she spun to dive behind a large fallen

tree. She covered her ears and felt the rumble as the grenade

exploded. A spray of flesh and blood blasted over her head and

dripped down the trees in front of her. When she turned and looked

back, the bottom half of the dino dropped with a mighty thud. She

pumped her fist but stopped short when the larger of the two

barreled through the mist of blood.

“Fuck, this shithead is fast.” Billie grabbed her weapon and

sprinted away again.

She stumbled into a clearing and realized it was the same one

she had fought in. Bodies of different creatures lay all around her,

including a large pile of rocks. Fortunately, it looked like the others

had gotten her message and cleared the hell out of there.

Hickok turned quickly as the dino burst through into the clearing

and stopped. Both human and beast breathed heavily, neither of

them ready to run again. Instead, they both moved slowly and

cautiously and circled one another.

Billie narrowed her eyes and slapped her chest. “Okay, you big

bitch, let’s do this.”

She drew her pistol and dug her feet in. The dino roared angrily

and lowered its spiny head as its tail slashed violently back and forth.

As she began to run toward it, she heard a chorus of war cries. All

around her, mercs jumped out of their hiding places. They unloaded

their weapons at the creature and blasted the shit out of it. Billie

leapt high, grabbed one of the spikes, and swung herself on top of

the animal. She fired downward to direct her bullets into its brain,

careful not to hit the sacs.

The dino had no chance and roared loudly as it crashed to the

ground. Billie flipped her gun and holstered it, slid down the head,

and grabbed her dagger. She ran her hand over the back of the

creature’s scalp until she found the edge. Very carefully, she sliced

through the flesh and found the first sac intact. She cut the tube a

few inches lower and removed it. Just as carefully, she repeated the

process on the other side, retrieved a plastic container from her bag,

and put both sacs in it.

She put the container in her bag and straightened with a brief

glance at the mercs who all stood there staring at her. Billie chuckled

and waved, jumped off the other side, and disappeared into the

forest.

The mercs stood immobile in front of the dino, not even sure what to

do at that point. After a minute or two, a couple of them began

tapping the spine to obtain what they could to sell to the government,

who wanted the samples. The others merely stood and reloaded

their weapons while they tried to decide whether what they had just

seen was for real, or if they’d been fooled somehow.

One of the men shook his head. “Who the hell is that woman?

I’ve never seen her before and her suit was wild.”

The merc next to him reloaded his weapon. “I don’t know, but I

think I’ve decided to ask her out.”

His friend frowned and turned toward him. “Dude, you’re gay.”

He chuckled. “Tell me something I don’t already know. I’m as

perplexed as you are at how turned on I am.”

The Heavy Metal team leader cleaned the mud off his boots. “It

looks like the ghost in the dark may not have simply been an old

legend. It seems we have a veteran on our hands, boys.”

One of the team members spoke through on the comms. “Do you

think that’s—”

The leader shook his head. “We don’t know. But she sure as fuck

deserves a place on the wall.”

H

C H A P T E R S I X

olly touched her fingers to her temples and began to massage

them. She leaned back in her chair and blinked her eyes a few

times in an effort to get rid of the headache she had from staring at

the computer screen for too long. Her research had taken her down

a rabbit hole. For every new thing she figured out, a shit ton of

research came along behind it. The open tabs on her computer had

reached double digits.

The data from the research facility was insane. She had two

computers open, one with the spreadsheets up and one to take

notes. The data made public seemed wildly different than what she

now looked at, but the company had facts to back it up. Holly didn’t

know if this was on purpose or if the public info was merely old.

Either way, the amount of information she had to consume was

worse than graduate school. Not to mention that everything that went

in, stayed in. She didn’t have the luxury of filtering out unnecessary

information, one of the pitfalls of an eidetic memory. There was

literally nothing she couldn’t remember, and she felt like her head

was about to explode.

She slammed her hands on the desk and roared, “God damn it.

Why can’t these assholes put everything into one common fucking

space? Why do they have to have one stat in one place, and a

different one somewhere else? How do they get anything fucking

done?”

Holly pushed up from the desk and walked to the fridge, threw it

open, and grabbed a beer. She opened it and took a long sip. “Great,

now the Zoo and its science are driving me to fucking drink. Just

what I fucking need right now.”

She walked back to sit at the desk. Setting the beer down, she

took a deep breath and rolled her head back and forth. “Okay, get it

together. You can do this. It’s only numbers and science. You are

good at both. Separate it. Make it make sense.”

After another sip, she scrolled through the next page of data from

Shou Industries and read about the components found in the dino

sac that had been retrieved. A small bell tolled on her laptop and she

glanced over to see an incoming email from the company she

worked with. Holly wrinkled her nose and clicked on it.

It was from Rod but copied to the corporate board. Holly, we

have tried to contact you the last few days. We know you are in

the Sahara at the Zoo and want to make sure you are safe.

Please let us know how your research is coming on. We are

anxious to get this contract started.

Holly clicked out of the email, rolled her eyes, and decided the

best course of action was to ignore it. She would eventually respond

to them, but right then, in that moment, they simply made her want to

scream. With JB dying a slow and painful death at his apartment,

they seemed like the least important people in the world.

She needed more time and more ability to do the research with

thorough testing. It was important to be able to test her theories and

have her work tested by other scientists. She needed to know she

wasn’t making some terrible mistake in her theories because she

was exhausted from sitting in a tiny apartment in the middle of the

desert. Holly knew there was a fear of the Zoo at the back of her

throat, and that might be affecting her actions as well.

All the wishing for extra time was useless, though. Time was the

one thing she didn’t have. At that moment, she heard the familiar

tread of boots across the floor behind her. Holly turned quickly as

Billie approached, looking tired but definitely not as beat-up as the

last time she’d gone into the Zoo. “Hey. Good to see that you made it

back. How did it go?”

Billie grunted as she lifted her bag up onto the kitchen table. She

put her hand out and waved Holly over. Carefully, she extracted the

plastic container and set it on the table. The two sacs were perfectly

intact inside. “And as an extra bonus, I brought you this full Pita. It’s

kind of beat-up but you might be able to save her.”

Holly’s eyes went big as she took the sacs to the fridge and put

them inside. Then she picked up the Pita plant and looked at the

beautiful shimmering leaves. “Wow. I definitely learned how to take

care of one of these in the research. I’ll go out in a little bit and get

everything I need.”

The other woman dropped her bag on the floor and grabbed a

bottle of beer from the fridge. She twisted the cap off and tilted it

back without a word. Holly lifted her eyebrows. “That bad, huh?”

Billie swallowed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“No, not that bad. Well, that’s a lie, it was nuts. But it doesn’t matter, I

got what was needed. How are you doing? Is it coming along?”

Holly groaned and rolled her eyes. “There is so much damn

information. I’ve tried to take as much as I can in as fast as I can but

it’s almost overwhelming, even for me. The challenge that I face is

simple. I need more accurate information, more specific information,

or I need more time to figure it out on my own. And unfortunately, I

don’t think time is on my side on this one.”

Hickok rubbed her hands over her face. “What kind of information

are we talking about here? More research?”

Holly wrinkled her nose. “I have plenty of research. If it’s

something new, then sure, I’ll take it. My biggest problem is I don’t

know some of the testing procedures. I also want to see what has

happened when some of this stuff has been tested on other people

or animals.”

Billie nodded. “I guess that might be good information to have. It

might help JB.”

“Yeah, that and who knows what could happen? I could make

him into an alien Zoo zombie or something. That would be insane.

Then what do we do? Release him in the jungle or chop his damn

head off? I don’t think I would survive a zombie invasion.”

Her companion chuckled. “You are tougher than you think, my

dear. All you gotta do is swing. After the first few, you would be

surprised how easy it is.”

Holly frowned as the ramifications of that seeped into her tired

brain. “How would you know what a zombie— You know what?

Never mind. I don’t want to have nightmares when I go to sleep

tonight.”

Billie smiled. “I wouldn’t do that to you. So you need more

information.”

She sat in her chair and leaned her head back. “I need the clock

to stop. Do you have any gadgets in your bag of tricks that do that?”

The other woman shook her head and drew a deep breath. “I

have a lot of cool shit but unfortunately, stopping time is not

something that’s been okayed for our use yet.”

Holly opened her mouth but shut it again, knowing not to ask.

“You definitely live a wild life, woman. Seriously, I didn’t know what

you were thinking pulling a Pita out there.”

Billie shrugged. “I had fought a man-eating plant, a stick thing, a

rock man, and two jags. I was ready to get the fuck out of there. I

would have had four sacs but I kind of blew one of the dinos to bits.”

She laughed slightly deliriously. “Poor thing.”

“Try poor me. That thing was wild. It tried to fucking eat me like

Jurassic fucking Park.”

Holly opened her eyes and looked more seriously at Billie. “So

what do you think? What do we need to do?”

“Well, there is a main research and development building for the

American side of Shou Industries. It seems like I’ll have to pay that a

visit.”

Holly picked up her head. “Where is that?”

Billie smiled. “The good old US of A. Back on home territory,

somewhere I haven’t been in a very long time.”

Amanda stood in her workroom in front of a table at the back and

blinked at the pile of armor which sat there. She didn’t even know

what to say and had walked in that morning to find it there. It wasn’t

in quite as bad shape as the last time, but it was definitely fucked up.

She groaned and rubbed her forehead as she wondered when

Billie would roll in and ask for help. Like clockwork, she heard

footsteps behind her.

Her visitor smirked. “I see you found my drop-off. I figured since

you weren’t in yesterday when I got here you were done for the day

and didn’t want to wear it upstairs. It kind of has pieces of different

animals all over it.”

Amanda ran her finger across the goo and shuddered. “That’s

fucking disgusting. What did you do? Blow something up?”

Billie put her finger out. “Bingo. And I killed a jag right on top of

me.”

The armorer sighed. “I have been in the Zoo several times and

never have I seen gear fucked up like this. At least not with a live

body in it.”

She smiled. “I’m not in it. No one is.”

Amanda gave her a look. “You know what I fucking mean.

Usually, when gear is this bad, we’ve removed a dead body from it

first.”

Billie shrugged and leaned against the table. “I had a hard

mission. I mean, I killed quite a few asshole animals in that thing

yesterday. I was pretty impressed it came out in one piece.”

She flicked a piece of flesh off the armor. “Kind of. But you

brought back a whole bunch of pieces of something else. I guess we

can hose this bitch off, though. Thank God we have gloves to work

with. It smells bad too. Like a dead old person.”

Hickok burst into laughter. “Yeah, it does kind of smell like that.

But what do you think?”

Amanda raised an eyebrow. “I’m gonna need more than a ball

peen hammer and a couple of hard whacks. But yeah, Salinger will

approve it. I’ll need to pay him this time, though. He was cool last

time and might not say anything this time, but when it comes down to

it, he has a business to run.”

Billie nodded. “Of course. I don’t expect anyone to do anything for

me for free. I simply waited for you to tell me how much. I’m sure I’ve

got enough. If not, I’ll steal something he can use.”

She raised an eyebrow at Billie. “Kinda free with that skill set,

huh? I guess it fits perfectly with being able to magically break into

locked doors without ever unlocking them. I guess if I could do that, I

would probably do it all the time.”

Her companion rubbed her boot across the ground and avoided

her gaze. “Honestly? I’ve never had to use it for a good cause. At

least, I can’t remember a time where I did. I’ve never asked my

controllers the reason for my jobs. Trusting that they make the smart

decision was kind of forced into you. We don’t have a moral

compass in our line of work. We do what we’re told, turn, and move

on to the next job. We wait for our instructions and we are done.”

Billie coughed to cover up a slightly uncomfortable feeling at

telling Amanda that. She never talked about it and tried not to think

about it. The truth was, she didn’t know how many people she had

screwed over. She didn’t know how many people she had killed who

were actually good people. But to think about it would drive her

absolutely insane. Marcus had told her early on to put those

thoughts out of her head and turn herself into a killing machine. So

that was what she’d done, and she was glad that she had.

Amanda watched her for several moments, knowing she was

deep in thought about something. She pursed her lips and tried to

decide whether or not to ask the question that lingered on the tip of

her tongue. “It sounds like a stressful way to live. I think too much, I

guess. I don’t think I would be built for a job like that. I can kill Zoo

animals all day but the thought of killing another human or stealing? I

don’t think I could bring myself to do that. I’m not judging you at all.

You’re different than me, in a lot of ways. I would definitely like the

toys, but the secrets and the loneliness? That isn’t for me.”

Billie drew in a deep breath as Amanda’s voice broke into her

thoughts. “Yeah, well, this job isn’t for everyone. In fact, it’s only a

good fit for a few. That’s why we’re ghosts. We are lost to society

and work the edges of the shadows.”

Amanda smiled. “I have to ask you…what exactly is it that you

guys do? Is it government work?”

Hickok pushed away from the table and pointed at her suit. “Let

me know when you have that back, okay?”

She started toward the door and the armorer put her hands up.

“Really? That’s how you’re going to roll out? You won’t even give me

a hint of what you do? Is it like Big Brother shit? Or are you like Men

in Black? Rolling around flashing people with your stick thingy and

taking down dumbass aliens?”

Billie laughed and turned toward her. “We save the future so

humans can exist.”

Amanda slapped her hands together. “You can time travel, can’t

you?”

The other woman simply chuckled as she walked through the

door and disappeared. “You watch way too many movies.”

She sighed and leaned back against the table, then smiled and

shook her head. “She is so hard-core.”

Looking down, she realized that her hand was in a pool of sticky

blue blood. She grimaced as she lifted it and strings of goop webbed

between her fingers. She flung it and grimaced when it stuck to the

floor and hardened. “Well, that’s never going to come out. I guess it

fits.”

Accepting the inevitable, she grabbed a bucket of soapy water

and a brush with a sigh, laid out the suit, and went to work to get the

thing as clean as possible. Chunks of dino fell to the ground as she

scrubbed harder. “It looks like a fucking meat market in my shop

now. This is definitely not the way to bring more business in.”

H

C H A P T E R S E V E N

ickok went hurriedly through her large pack, the one she

carried all over the world. She couldn’t take everything with her,

but she didn’t want to go unprepared. This trip to the US was

specifically to get the information that Holly needed. Sneaking in and

out in the desert was one thing but doing it on American soil where

protection was ramped—that was a whole other story. Not to

mention that she did it off the grid without any help from her people

in the least.

She looked down at her phone to see a message from the van

driver, slapped the flap of her pack closed, and put her hood up.

Hurrying out, she locked the apartment door behind her and headed

to the corner. She had an envelope of cash ready for the man, who

made a special trip for her. Because she couldn’t risk anyone else

seeing her, he would get her through the gates and drop her at the

base, then leave as if she had never been there.

The ride, shoved behind some boxes in the back of the van, was

uncomfortable. It got her in, though, and without any witnesses, so

she wouldn’t complain. When they reached the restricted area of the

base, he drove her to the side and dropped her in the shadows. Billie

waited for him to drive off, removed her jacket, and shoved it in her

bag. She stood, pulled her hair into a tight, low bun, and grabbed her

military cover out of the bag.

She tugged her uniform into place and checked her pockets for

her ID. It was all fake, of course, but no one would ever be able to

tell. She had to get on a military flight that was headed to the base

where Shou Industries’ American research facility was located. No

other place would have the kind of information she needed.

Billie headed toward the front gate and stopped. The guard

studied her quickly and saluted the officer pins on her lapel. “ID,

ma’am.”

She smiled sweetly and took it from her pocket. He glanced at it

and handed it back. “Have a good evening, ma’am.”

Hickok didn’t say a word, merely nodded and headed into the

base. She knew exactly what flight she needed to take and had

spent the morning studying the layout of the airfield. The only thing

that she thought might be a little tricky was getting inside it. They

didn’t let just anyone in, but she couldn’t figure out what military ID

was necessary to be admitted. She was fully ready to jump a fence if

she needed to, though. Absolutely nothing would prevent her from

getting on that flight.

As she approached the check-in area to the airfield, she saw a

young soldier with his ID in his hand. She headed nonchalantly his

way and looked up at a passing plane as she deliberately rammed

into him. Her arm came down and knocked his ID onto the ground.

“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

The kid immediately stood at attention. “It’s quite all right, ma’am.

The planes are pretty cool to watch.”

Billie smiled. “At ease, soldier. Let me help.”

She bent, retrieved his ID, and looked quickly at the insignia on

the upper right-hand corner. “Sorry about that. You have a good

evening.”

Quickly, she turned and walked away as she slid her fingers into

her breast pocket and drew out a very similar ID. She’d known she

would probably need it and was glad she’d grabbed it. Once through

the gate, she followed the lines of people walking up and down the

halls. To her right, she could see Bay Three, closest to the building.

As the door to the outside came up on her right, she made a quick

turn and stepped out onto the side of the airfield.

She took her time and inched around to the back entrance of the

bay. Cautiously, she opened the door slightly and peeked inside. An

Airbus A400M sat there with the back hatch down. It was the perfect

plane, used mostly for cargo but able to carry people in the back.

She would be the only one there since the trip was to drop arms and

equipment. It would fly directly into the base and land around

midnight. It was a long flight, but nighttime was the only time she

could get into the building.

Billie snuck into the back door and flattened herself along the wall

as she moved forward. She found a stack of pallets and hid behind it

to watch the soldiers through the slats. They had almost finished

their load-in and pushed large jacks of pallets into the back. She

could see a good amount of space left open as a walkway that led to

the back of the plane. Everything was tightly secured, and she

wouldn’t have to worry about being crushed to death if the plane

suddenly hit some sort of insane turbulence. The last thing she

wanted to do was to be injured in the middle of the whole thing.

One of the soldiers looked at his clipboard and raised his thumb

up in the air. A light flickered on at the front of the bay and all the

soldiers left the area. The back hatch of the plane began to churn,

and Billie took her moment. Looking rapidly from side to side, she

hurried through the bay and jumped up onto the closing door. She

slid down on her ass and ran through to the back where she ducked

down behind one of the large pallets. When the door was firmly

closed, a red light lit the area and Billie exhaled a deep breath, sat

down, and leaned against the wall.

After a few minutes, she opened her pack and pulled out a

thermal shirt and a sweater. She removed her military jacket and put

them on. She knew they would pressurize the cabin, but most likely,

it would get fucking cold back there. That done, she found a ski

mask in the front pocket of the bag and dragged it on. Rubbing her

hands together, she leaned back and prepared herself for the bumpy

ride from the bay to take-off. They didn’t make seatbelts for

stowaways. It wasn’t the first time she had done it, and she kind of

liked the silence. It definitely beat being stuck on a commercial flight

between an old person and a woman with a baby.

The plane shuddered beneath her with a loud buzzing sound as it

pulled out of the bay and onto the runway. From back there on the

floor, she could feel every pebble that the wheels ran over. Her ass

bounced up and down on the steel beneath her. “Good thing I got

junk in my trunk,” she told herself with a chuckle.

The plane turned and paused in preparation for take-off. She

hooked one hand around the straps holding the pallet and with the

other, grabbed the metal beam above her. As the plane took off, she

tightened her grip and gritted her teeth. No matter how many things

she did or how many dangerous situations she got into in her career,

she always hated taking off in a plane. There was no fear of falling

from the sky, merely the feeling of leaving the security of the ground

below that got her every single time. By the time the plane had

straightened out, though, she had released her death grip on the

strap and beam.

Billie exhaled her relief. The air had already grown much colder.

She leaned back against the wall and pulled the collar of her jacket

up around her neck before she grabbed her bag and opened it. After

rummaging through the contents, she located and extracted a large

bag of beef jerky. Smiling, she opened the bag and took a big whiff.

Jerky had somehow become her favorite food, something she

couldn’t take into the Zoo with her. It was too smelly for most

operations too. It was her treat, a celebration for not getting killed

while getting on the plane.

The journey was hours long and Billie did everything she could to

keep herself busy. She ate far too much jerky, mostly out of

boredom. When she was done with that, she pulled a paper and pen

out of her bag and began to jot down notes on what she would do

when she returned to the base. That quickly turned into her simply

doodling for a few straight hours. She mostly drew Marcus, usually

with some sort of robot body or weird robot dick. It amused her no

end.

When the plane finally landed, she waited for the doors to lower

and the wave of soldiers to pull out the cargo. When they moved off

with the first load, she scurried out of the aircraft and off to the side,

having already removed her ski mask and situated her uniform. It

was easier to walk around the base in a uniform than in civilian

clothes.

She hurried out the side door and across the base as she

glanced quickly at her watch. By her estimation, she had

approximately ninety minutes to get in, out, and back to the hangar

to take a commercial plane back to the Zoo. If she missed the flight,

she might not make it back at all. The sky was dark overhead and a

cool breeze blew across the southern base. Everyone not on watch

or unloading planes was in their barracks fast asleep, including the

civilians who worked at the Shou American building.

Billie hurried around to the side entrance of the building and

hunkered down in the bushes. She shimmied out of her military

uniform and folded it neatly before she stowed it in her pack. When

she stood, she was dressed in a light blue spandex suit that covered

her from head to toe. Calmly, she pulled the hood tightly over her

head and stretched her arms. The downside was that this version

didn’t cover her face, but if she dealt with the cameras, that wouldn’t

be an issue.

She pushed the bag under the bush and strapped one gun to her

side in case. It had become standard that she never went into a live

situation without at least one piece on her body. She never knew

when things could go wonky. While she didn’t want to make any

waves, she didn’t intend to die either. Still, she knew the risks and

was willing to take them.

Billie looked back and forth and moved quickly to the side door

and used her keycard to unlock it. The numbers flashed, and the

door clicked. She opened it barely enough to squeeze the small box

inside and pressed the button to direct the EMP toward the cameras.

She looked around the corner, saw them all off, and hurried inside.

She had picked the side door because of the close proximity to

the room she needed to reach. Taking care to keep her body low,

she maneuvered through the halls. All the cameras could be shut off

and no silent alarms would sound. Once inside, she ducked and sat

down at the computer. She already knew the username and

password as she had gotten that information from a source before

she left.

Quickly, she typed the information in, pulled her drive out, and

inserted it in the tower. She clicked the download button and looked

at her watch. She had exactly ten minutes to get as much off the

computer as possible. At that point, she would have to disconnect

and head back to the plane. Luckily for her, the American computers

seemed to download faster than the Chinese ones, which was

surprising.

Billie sat in the chair and tapped her foot nervously, hoping that

everything would go as smoothly as it had in town. She didn’t want to

blow her cover on American soil. She looked around the desk and

narrowed her eyes at a picture of a balding man with his blond wife

and three blond children. She was definitely a ten, while he was

more a three. “Marrying for money. You still did it with him, you crazy

slut.”

She chuckled dryly and shook her head. “I’m so glad I never had

to make that choice. I’d be poor as shit with some dumb artist.”

The screen changed on the computer and she ejected the drive

and stashed it in the small zipped pocket on the front of her suit. It

hadn’t even taken the full ten minutes. She stood and situated

everything as it should be. She had barely reached for the door

handle when an alarm sounded through the whole building. “Shit!”

Billie wanted to make a break for it but knew she had to be smart.

She moved back through the corridors and killed the cameras as she

went. If she got out, she didn’t want to leave a trail behind her. They

already knew that someone was stealing their information. That was

enough for her.

She turned the corner and stopped, then backed into a small inlet

where there was a door to some offices. Her heart thudding, she

peeked around the corner. Two security guards, their guns out,

rushed down the hallway. Not only did they know someone was

there, they knew exactly where she would be. Billie looked at the

camera, which flashed green, and quickly turned her back. That was

three seconds too long of her face on tape.

Hickok had been in tight situations before, but it never got easier.

Forcing herself to remain calm, she dragged in a deep breath and

pulled a button from her pocket. She held her breath and pressed it.

The two strips on the front of her suit flickered but immediately went

dead. Her eyes widened and she smashed the button again, waiting

for a reaction. There was nothing. The special abilities of the suit had

failed her at the worst possible time.

She grumbled, “I blame Marcus for this shit. One hundred

percent, it is his fucking fault.”

The guards drew closer and closer and she could hear their

footsteps move toward her. If they turned the corner, they would find

her hunkered down in a blue spandex suit. Not only would that be

tragic for them because she would have to kill them, but it would be

horribly awkward for her. “I wonder if my ass looks big in this thing.”

Billie squatted and put one hand on her gun and the other on the

button. When the officers were barely a few feet away, she closed

her eyes and thumbed the button over and over again. “Come on,

don’t fail me now.”

T

C H A P T E R E I G H T

he officer stepped forward in front of the doorway and looked

down. He bent and picked a scrap of paper up off the floor and

looked at it. It was blank, so he tossed it over his shoulder and put

his hand back on his gun. His partner looked from side to side as he

shined his light into the corners.

The first man shrugged. “I don’t see a soul. We know they have

to be here somewhere. What? Is it a ghost downloading shit all over

the company?”

The other officer scoffed. “It’s no ghost. It’s a person and you

know what people do best?”

They looked at each other for a second and nodded. “They make

fucking mistakes.”

The second man put his flashlight on his utility belt. “That’s right.

They make fucking mistakes. And whoever this is, they’ll make a

mistake eventually.”

Billie opened her eyes, looked down, and realized that the suit

had finally decided to work. Her entire body was invisible to the

guards. In reality, it wasn’t invisible, of course. It simply picked up the

images around it and mirrored them to make her blend right in. She

had to sit as perfectly still as she could, though, or the thing would

flicker and give her away.

She moved her hand slowly away from her gun and scrunched

her eyes shut while she tried to keep her balance. Her calves burned

wildly as she squatted on her toes. The officers were still behind her,

shooting the shit like they didn’t have her to catch. This is why

criminals run free in this country.

One of the two tugged at his belt. “Yeah, I think whoever it was

made it out. They got the guys outside on rove now. I think they

pulled the dogs too, but I’m not sure. Whatever it is they stole must

be some really good shit.”

His companion laughed. “Shit, if I was stealthy enough, I would

have done it. I bet the secrets in this place are worth millions. Better

than the shit salary the company pays.”

They both chuckled. “Come on, let’s go check the cameras.

Maybe we’ll get lucky or something.”

They walked forward together and around the corner. As soon as

they were out of sight, Billie exhaled a deep breath and stood,

wincing at the strain in her legs. “I need to work my legs more. That

was fucking miserable.”

She turned and looked down the hall as she directed her EMP at

the cameras. They all went red and she high-tailed it out of there,

heading straight for the side door she’d entered through. She

needed to move fast. That little chat session had cost her valuable

time to get to her plane. It was the only way she would get out of

there without getting caught or having to go rogue, Now that they

had her face, it would only be a matter of time until her people found

out.

Cautiously, she opened the back door and slipped outside,

looking right and left. She hurried through the grass and over to the

center garden of bushes where she had left her bag. Relieved, she

clicked the button and deactivated the effect on her suit. It was tight

and pulled at her neck, something she hated about restrictive

clothing. The sound of pounding feet caught her attention and she

dropped to the ground in the cover of the bushes. She looked

through the branches to see three officers run past, one on his

comm.

The man held the speaker to his face. “Have we ID’d her yet?

Fine, call me when we have.”

Billie sighed. They knew someone was there, and they knew she

had to be close. She had to get the hell out of there. Staying low, she

rolled over onto her back and pulled the hood off her head. Carefully,

she unzipped the front and wiggled herself out of it. She retrieved

her military uniform from her bag and did her best to not get too dirty

while she inched back into it. It had to look presentable in order to

get her back onto the base and to her plane.

When she was done, she balled up the spandex suit and looked

at it for a second. “Marcus will fucking shit a brick but I can’t have

this on me.”

She bit her lip and rolled her eyes before her gaze settled on a

storm drain at the end of the bushes. Quickly, she crawled toward it

and tossed the suit down into the drain where the water caught it.

Marcus would simply have to design a new one, preferably without

heart-stopping glitches in it.

When she was done, she packed her bag, put the drive in a

secret compartment untraceable by x-ray, and checked the area

before she stood and headed off to the woods behind the compound.

She knew she could sneak through there and emerge at the fence to

the airfield. If she was lucky, she would be able to cut across and join

the rest of the people in the airport like nothing had ever happened.

Billie reached the edge of the tree line and paused for a moment,

forgetting it wasn’t the Zoo. She chuckled at herself as she moved

silently through the leaves, a skill that had saved her ass more than

once. As she approached the center of the wooded area, a loud

shout echoed and two flashlights flickered over the trees ahead.

The officer thought he’d spotted something, but it was simply a

bird. “Get your asses moving. This asshole is out there somewhere

and they have our information. Fucking Russians.”

She snickered internally and waited as they ran past her, not

more than a hundred feet away. When they were out of sight, she

breathed deeply and pressed forward. She knew from the blueprints

of the base and the maps she had looked at that this stretch of

woods was narrow. She could see the lights of the airfield shining

through the trees ahead.

She took another step but stopped when she heard loud

crackling in the leaves. She rolled her eyes and ducked down to

press her back against the tree. Two officers hurried forward ahead

of her, combing the area. Billie shook her head. “Damn, you are

some loud motherfuckers.”

They were certainly too loud to hear her snark under her breath.

Again, she waited until the morons were out of sight before she

made her way toward the edge of the woods. She stood behind a

tree and looked back and forth. No one else was in sight. Carefully,

she stepped into the opening and ducked down into a crouching

walk toward the fence. Large metal poles held up each fifteen-foot

section with a round of barbed wire at the top. It didn’t look like the

most inviting thing she had ever seen.

She knelt and opened the front secret compartment of her bag

and retrieved a set of wire cutters. “It’s a good thing I don’t do things

the hard way. Worker smarter, not harder.”

The light from the tower swept the grounds and she paused,

resting her back against the pole until it passed. The tower wasn’t

looking for her, but if they saw her out there, they would definitely

alert the security team that was already trying to track her down.

She raised the cutters and opened them wide. Before she could

press down, though, a whistle and a light from her right on the other

side of the fence alerted her to company. She straightened, hid

behind the pole, and moved to her left as the guard drew closer and

closer. He stopped with his back to her and got on his comm. She

glanced over and saw her cutters in the grass.

Billie bit her lip, eased into a crouch, and slid her hand over

slowly to snatch them and yank them back in front of her. They were

barely out of view when the cop turned and shined his light into the

woods in front of her. “Yeah, I checked the area. Ain’t nobody out

here. I’m coming back in. Personally, I think the company has an

inside guy. They keep having these thefts with no evidence of

anyone there. Did they think maybe it was a hack job?”

She nodded, impressed by his idea. He walked back to his truck

and drove off down the service road. Billie returned to the fence, held

the wire cutters at the ready, and clipped a small hole in a matter of

seconds. She tossed her bag inside and eased slowly through the

opening, not wanting to snag her clothes on anything. It was

imperative that she look put together when she reached the building.

She ran along the dark, shadowed edges until she reached the side

door of the airport. It was the smoking area, but luckily, no one was

out there. She straightened her uniform and put her bag on her

shoulder.

Using her reflection in the window, she checked her appearance

and flicked a leaf out of her hair. She pulled her cover from the bag,

put it on her head, and opened the door to walk inside. No one even

noticed her as she entered, probably assuming she was simply

another disgusting smoker coming in from a break between flights.

The airport at this base was different. She had flown in there and

would fly out, but commercially. It was an airport on the base for

military and family as well as cargo planes. They were all in one area

together, coming and going through the terminals.

Billie had made sure to secure a ticket and had it tucked in her

bag. Actually, she had several, unsure of who she would have to fly

back as. There were people everywhere—families with children,

military men coming and going on leave, and the general airport

crowd. People sat at the bars and restaurants, talking and oblivious

to anyone around them. She had almost forgotten what it was like to

be a normal person in a normal airport. Then again, she was fooling

herself. She was anything but normal at that point.

Her expression carefully unruffled, Billie presented her normal

military ID and her boarding pass to the attendant. They checked her

bag through the security checkpoint and smiled as they handed it

back to her. “Have a nice flight, Lieutenant Rosier.”

Billie nodded but said nothing. She tucked her ID into her jacket

pocket, slung her bag on her back, and walked forward with her

head slightly lowered. As she passed the security desk, she cleared

her throat and stepped to the side. They couldn’t see her, but she

could hear them.

One of the guards at the desk handed the other a piece of paper.

“Apparently, this broad robbed Shou. This is the only photo they

have of her.”

The other man squinted his eyes at the picture. “It’s kind of blurry.

Have they gotten her ID yet?”

His colleague chuckled. “Apparently, even recognition software

doesn’t pick her up. They are referring to her as the ghost. Anyway,

you’ve seen her face so keep your eye open for her.”

Billie turned her back as the guard left the station. She looked at

the signs, moved quickly through the people, and made a right turn

into the restrooms.

The old woman’s short, white curly hair bounced back and forth as

she pulled her bag onto her shoulder. She gripped her cane tightly

and moved with a slight limp in her right leg. A little girl looked at her

and smiled sweetly. The old woman smiled in response and patted

the girl on the head. “Such a beautiful little girl.”

The child’s mother smiled. “Thank you.”

The woman looked up at the clock on the wall and down at her

watch. “Oh, my. Well, I better get these rusty old legs in motion or I’ll

miss my flight.”

She giggled internally as she moved out into the crowds of

people. While she limped forward, she withdrew her boarding pass

from her bag, looked at the gate on the ticket, and studied the

numbers above her. “Gate 14, Gate 15, ah, there it is. Gate 16.”

Two officers hurried through the terminal and studied the faces

around them. “She has to be here somewhere. The cameras saw

her come in.”

The other officer groaned. “There are so many people. She could

be on a plane already.”

His colleague bumped into the old lady and knocked her slightly

off balance. He steadied her apologetically. “I’m so sorry, ma’am.

What gate are you going to?”

The old woman pointed to the one in front of her. “Such long lines

these days.”

The officer gave her a warm smile, took her by the arm, and led

her to the front of the line. “This young lady needs to board first.”

The flight attendant took her ticket. “Enjoy your flight, ma’am.”

The old woman grinned. “Oh, I can’t wait. I love to fly.”

She walked slowly down the terminal and kept to the side so

people could pass. Her cane thumped along the carpeted walkway

until she reached the door of the plane. The flight attendant helped

her to her seat and reached for her bag. “May I put that in the

overhead bin?”

The lady clutched it to her. “Maybe when I get back. I need to use

the restroom.”

The flight attendant led the way, and the old woman closed the

door behind her and latched it. She set her bag down and rolled her

neck to ease the tension. She lifted her old wrinkly hands to her face

and groaned. Her fingers dug deep into her flesh and she began to

pull. As she did so, her skin rolled down over her nose and to her

neck.

Her gaze moved to the reflection in the mirror and she smiled.

Hidden beneath the old woman’s face was Billie, disguised so well

that they had welcomed her with open arms onto the plane. Riding

back with that hot mask wasn’t her idea of luxury travel, but it was

the only thing she could do to avoid discovery. As she rolled the

mask up and pressed the edge down beneath her wig, a smile crept

over her lips.

She grabbed her cane and shook it in the air. “Grandma just got

wild. Take that, Shou, you fucking dicks. Oh, I mean, you young

whippersnappers.”

Billie chuckled and bent over slightly as she adopted a more

serious expression. She opened the lavatory door and wobbled

down the aisle to a seat between an old man who gave her a wink

and a woman with a child. She grumbled as she put her cane under

her seat, “Just my fucking luck.”

H

C H A P T E R N I N E

ickok leaned back in her chair and held her bag in her lap,

looking very much like an old nanny. The old man next to her

smiled and eased his chair back. Billie cleared her throat and leaned

toward him. “Don’t get too close, old man. I have a cane.”

He did a double-take and turned his head to the other side. Billie

smiled and unzipped her bag. She tapped the secret compartment

inside to confirm that the drive was tucked snuggly and safely away.

Holding her bag tightly through the rest of the trip, Billie allowed

herself to fall in and out of sleep. When the plane finally started the

descent, she sat up quickly and ran her fingers over her face to

make sure her mask was still in place.

The plane landed smoothly, and she exited, still using her cane

but moving a little faster. This airport was not bustling, and the smell

of the Zoo was prominent. She hurried into the bathroom to change,

knowing an old woman out there would get more than a few stares.

When Billie emerged, she had a bright smile plastered on her

face. She looked familiar but still not like herself. A bright blonde wig

was tied to the side in a low ponytail. She had added some cheek

and jaw prosthetics and applied a thick coat of makeup. That done,

she buttoned her uniform, choosing the skirt and heels this time

instead of the dress pants. It definitely wasn’t the disguise that would

keep her under the radar, but no one had a clue she was anyone

other than a hot blonde military officer. That was the idea to get out

of the base and to the van.

She giggled her way through the small building and out to the

gate of the base. The guys watched her walk through but no one

stopped her. She turned the corner and dropped the smile when she

saw the van parked down the street in front of the cigar shop like she

had instructed.

Billie walked up to the driver, who straightened and cleared his

throat. “Well, hello there. How may I be of assistance?”

She rolled her eyes and slammed the second envelope into his

chest. “It’s me, you idiot.”

He blinked for a moment and then exhaled noisily as he nodded

toward the back. She looked around and jumped in. The driver

eased the vehicle forward and made his way off the base. There was

no need to hide this time. No one would stop them until the border,

and even then, the driver knew the gate guard. Billie was anxious to

get back and pass the information she had to Holly. It was of the

highest priority and she had definitely been through enough to get it.

Once the van was safely out in the desert, Billie pulled out her

regular clothes and laid them on the floor. She held the handles at

the roof of the van and began to strip, removing the wig and

prosthetics and replacing them with her brown wig and usual

clothing. She grabbed a package of wipes from her bag and rubbed

them across her face to erase every last bit of makeup. She hated

the way the stuff felt, and unless she was on a job, she did

everything she could to not wear it.

When she was done, she sat and clicked her phone. There

weren’t any messages yet, but she knew it wouldn’t be long until

they tried to track her down. Her face might have been blurry in the

picture, but she wasn’t positive one of her people wouldn’t recognize

her. They would never ID her—she really didn’t exist in the eyes of

the country—but she was still concerned. They had to know at that

point that she was at the Zoo, which was fine because they

obviously didn’t care. As long as she didn’t have an assignment, she

was free to be wherever she wanted. It was when she started

breaking rules that things could get ugly.

Going to the States was the riskiest of all because they had such

strict rules and were able to track her at any time. Most of the

operatives who worked with her stayed away from the States unless

they were assigned there. Billie knew it was imperative that her

people not find out she was there working on an unapproved

operation that lifted valuable information from people who probably

paid their bills. She would definitely be released and probably killed.

Billie tapped her fingers on her leg and looked at the different

disguises. She still felt bad that she’d tossed the blue suit, but had

she been caught, that would have been incredibly hard to explain.

Another reason she’d left her suit behind was that they would be

very confused by it. The main reason, though, was because of the

tracking system inside it. They would assume she was at the Zoo,

and it would keep them off her trail for a little while at least. If they

saw her there, they wouldn’t have any reason to look unless she

gave it to them.

Marcus had promised to do what he could to help with what she

was doing. It was the first time in her life she had gone rogue. He

knew that it had to be important. And while he could fudge some

small data like where exactly she was and what her movements

were, he couldn’t go as far as the U.S. They would catch on to that in

a heartbeat and he would be decommissioned even faster than Billie

would be. She knew he would never survive without his lab and toys.

She tapped the bag where the drive was again and reminded

herself exactly why she was there in the first place. JB needed to get

better. He needed people like her and Holly, and even Paula, to go

above and beyond to find a cure for whatever the hell was attacking

him. Had it been left up to him, he would have continued to struggle

until he died. The innovation she and Holly had come up with could

not simply change his life, but many others as well…if they could get

it right. That was why the information on that device was so damn

important. It held the secrets to saving lives.

Billie was so used to taking lives that she didn’t know how to deal

with saving them. “Fucking morals, rolling up deep on you every

time. Turning me into a fucking softie.”

She shook her head and allowed a smile to move over her lips.

When she clasped her hands together, she felt the strain of the scars

forming on her shoulder. She could still remember the first one she

had gotten on one of her first trips in when she had fallen during a

fight and had been bitten by one of the nasty little rodents. She knew

she would eventually have to go back in there. Billie laid her head

back against the box behind her. She’d thought she was done with

the Zoo and that the organization she worked for had their fill of it.

She hadn’t gotten assignments for the place for a very long time.

It was an exhilarating place to be, that was for sure, but not really

her cup of tea. Not that she honestly thought it was anyone’s favorite

place to be. The place tried to eat everyone who got near it. She

started to think, though, that the Zoo might be her future, especially if

she was caught in what she was doing. It would be the only place

she could go and still make a living.

She shrugged and examined her hands, then tilted her head to

the side and began to laugh. Her hands were still old and wrinkly.

She had forgotten to remove the prosthetics. When she held them in

the air, she could see every single wrinkle. Part of her wanted to

keep them on to freak Holly out. She understood now why people

looked at her strangely at the base. It wasn’t her tight skirt so much

as her ninety-year-old hands on a twenty-something body.

The van slowed and moved through the gates of the French

town. The driver pulled up in front of the apartment and she hopped

out and nodded to him as he drove away. She heaved her bag onto

her shoulder and scratched her forehead. The guy walking past

slowed and stared in horror at her old lady hands.

“Grrr,” Billie growled as she raised her old hands up like claws

and scared the kid down the street.

She laughed as she opened the office door and headed up the

stairs to the apartment. As always, she unlocked the door with her

skill and walked inside, waving her hands around. Laughing, she

stopped and looked around when she realized that Holly wasn’t

actually there. She was, in fact, acting like a complete idiot in an

empty condo. For some reason, the lack of people to laugh at her

was more embarrassing than if the whole place had been packed

with hot men.

Billie walked to the desk and looked out the window. Holly was

still at FUBAR, working her shifts. She unpacked her stuff from her

bag, peeled off the old lady hands, and set them up on Holly’s laptop

to look like they were typing. She snickered as she stood back and

studied her handiwork. While she really liked messing with Holly, she

wasn’t quite sure why. Probably because she gave it back just as

hard. She didn’t take Billie’s shit and didn’t let her have an attitude.

Nobody but Marcus put up with it, and even he turned off comms

once in a while to get away from it. Holly seemed right at home with

her morbid sarcasm.

It was refreshing. Still, common sense overrode the humor and

she removed the creepy hands. Holly was working and likely

wouldn’t appreciate the weird when she stumbled home.

When her bag was empty, she opened the secret compartment

and withdrew the drive. She walked to the computer and bit the

inside of her cheek. They had two computers, but one was

connected to the internet and the other had been there long enough

to be untrustworthy. She tapped the drive against the desk and

thought about what she had just pulled off to get the damn thing.

“Leave it to me to pull off an awesome heist then not be able to use

the merch stolen.”

She sighed and shrugged as she slid the drive back into the

secret compartment. Deciding that she needed a really long, hot

shower, she grabbed a towel and went into the bathroom, As soon

as she turned the shower on, though, she knew that might be asking

more than could be delivered. The water was almost cold, and she

hurried through it so she could get warm again. Even in the middle of

the desert, a cold shower was the last thing she wanted.

She crawled out pruny and almost frost-bitten, snatched up a

towel, and dried off. Her tired face looked back at her from the mirror,

and she took her brown wig with her into the main area after she

peeked out of the door first to make sure Holly hadn’t come back in.

She was still alone, so she took her time getting dressed and drying

her hair.

When she felt all back to normal, she grabbed her keys and

whistled her way down the steps. Amanda stuck her head out the

door and narrowed her eyes. “You are awful cheery. Who did you

torture to death?”

Billie laughed. “I only ever torture myself these days. It’s a

shame. I was pretty good at it.”

H

C H A P T E R T E N

olly waved goodbye to Paula, opened the door, and walked out

into the night air. She pulled her feet along beneath her,

exhausted yet again. She hadn’t seen JB all day, which made her

think things were getting worse. Paula had, of course, checked on

him, but he didn’t come down at all. She looked both ways and

crossed the sandy street and up on to the curb. It was the only time

since she’d moved that she wished she was still in the hotel. It was

only two blocks closer but that seemed like forever when she felt as

tired as she did.

She kept her head low as she walked forward and barely noticed

the alley beside her. Billie walked out and hurried forward to draw

level with her. “Hey there.”

Holly jumped, grabbed her chest, and turned to the other woman.

“Holy fuck! What in the hell are you doing? You have got to stop

jumping out at people.”

Billie smirked. “And you need better situational awareness. I

could have pulled you into that alley and done horribly wonderful

things to you.”

She grumped, “And you need some fucking manners!”

Her companion shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Was it really

that bad?”

Holly snapped her head toward Billie and narrowed her eyes. “I’m

walking home, minding my own business, and you pop up like some

leprechaun and scare the shit out of me.”

She flailed her hands all around and Billie had to duck to avoid

them. “And let’s not even go into you always busting into places,

skipping the locks and shit,” Holly continued. “It’s like you have zero

regard for personal space or privacy, for that matter. I’ve kept my

mouth shut up to this point, but you go too far. Every time. You are

that girl. The one who always steps over the line.”

Billie raised her eyebrows. “And are you sure this whole outburst

is only about me scaring you?”

She did a doubletake and stuttered, “Do not psychoanalyze me,

woman. I am allowed to be pissed when you almost make me shit

my pants on the street corner.”

Holly tried to skirt the question, knowing full well that only one

percent of her frustration toward Billie was for the right reason. In

reality, she was relieving stress and worry about both JB and Hickok.

There was so much going on, and so much of it was completely out

of her control. She hated being out of control with a passion.

She finally took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, it’s not all

about you. But some of it is.”

Billie smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “Trust me, I

understand completely. The difference is I’ve had the chance to

whale out my fears and worries on some animals in the Zoo. You

bottle it all up and work yourself to death in the meantime. Don’t

worry, I’ll try to stop jumping out at you all the time.”

Holly nodded as she reached the front door of the shop. She

opened her bag and stuck her hand inside to search around for the

keys. Billie stood to the side and leaned against the building to give

her the space she needed. She could tell Holly was about to blow.

After about five minutes of searching and practically pouring her bag

out on the sidewalk, she groaned and tilted her head back.

The other woman leaned forward cautiously. “What’s the matter?”

She looked at her angrily and gritted her teeth. “It seems that in

my tired stupor, I locked myself out of the apartment.”

Billie stuck out her bottom lip. “Do you think Amanda is still up?”

Holly scoffed. “Yeah, right. She is out when she gets done at the

office, unless there is liquor offered, of course. I can’t wake her up.

She will be so pissed. Besides, I don’t even think she’s in town.”

They both stood there in an awkward silence for several

moments. Finally, Holly sighed and moved back. “Please, be my

guest.”

Hickok smirked and stepped in front of her. She hunched her

shoulders forward to hide what she was doing. Holly tried to look

around her, but it was impossible as she made sure to block her at

every angle. She wasn’t about to give up one of her most prized

secrets.

After a few seconds, she looked at Holly and smiled widely as

she pushed the door open. They climbed the steps to the apartment

door but before Holly could say anything, Billie held her hand up and

allowed the keys to dangle from one finger. Holly grabbed them from

her. “You bitch. You had the keys the whole damn time.”

Billie shrugged. “You left them in the apartment and I came to

give them to you, but you lost it on me for walking out of the

shadows like my nature compels me to do.”

Holly ignored her and walked into the apartment as she threw the

keys in her purse. She walked to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of

water, then another one to hand to Billie. Her companion gave her a

look and reached past to grab a beer instead. “What do I look like? A

health nut?”

She dumped the water bottle inside the refrigerator and rolled her

eyes. “You are something else. Seriously. You are like the thorn in

my thumb. You are the sun when you are trying to drive and it blinds

you.”

Billie lifted both eyebrows. “And you are the biggest downer I

have ever met. What the hell is wrong with you tonight? I mean,

you’re usually cynical and angry, but this is deep.”

Holly stared at her, blinking as she took that in. “Thanks for that.

How was your trip? I didn’t expect you to be back so soon.”

Hickok chuckled, walked over, and grabbed her bag. “Yeah, well,

there was a little hiccup and the silent alarm is no longer silent. And

my toys had a hard time.”

“Did you get caught?” Her eyes went wide.

The other woman lifted her eyebrow. “If I did, would I be here

right now?”

Holly shook her head. “Oh yeah. I’m really fucking tired. My brain

is only half working at the moment.”

Billie reached into her bag and pulled out the drive. She handed it

to Holly. “I think I got everything that you will need to do your

research. There are even manuals on the procedures in here.”

Holly went to take it, but Billie pulled it back. “You can’t put this on

any computer that is connected to Wi-Fi. You have to use one that

has never and will never be connected.”

She tapped her foot impatiently. “Yes, we’ve had this whole

conversation before. Thus, the air-gapped computer.”

Billie shook her head. “It’s been here too long. It’s been

searching, and you never know what could have happened. We

have to be as safe as we can be with this stuff. They will track me

down and kill me in a heartbeat for this information.”

Holly raised both eyebrows. “Jesus, I feel like I got hooked up

with the mob.”

In response, Hickok brandished a new air-gapped computer.

“More like you got hooked up against the mob.”

She handed her the small laptop. “Never been used and needs

the Wi-Fi set up, so don’t do it. Cancel anything that tries to get you

to do it.”

Holly groaned and snatched the laptop and drive. “I got it, relax.”

She sat at the desk, started the computer, and canceled

everything about Wi-Fi. Satisfied, she opened the drive and sifted

through the thousands of files that were on there. After about ten

minutes, she pushed back from the desk and looked at her

companion. “This is all mind-blowing information but it’ll take me

days to collate all of it.”

Billie walked to her bag and picked it up. “No problem. It’s a lot of

fucking stuff. I have to go back and do a mission. I can’t be gone

much longer without having the full force of my people come down

on my shoulders. I will be gone probably about a week to ten days,

tops.”

Holly nodded her head. “Got it.”

Hickok hesitated. “How is JB?”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “He’s not doing good. He doesn’t

come downstairs anymore and mostly lays in bed, sleeping and

watching movies. Paula says he is in a lot of pain and is very weak.

I’ll move as fast as I can, and I need you to get back as fast as you

can. In my estimation, JB should last at least another couple of

weeks…I hope.”

Billie walked forward and put her hand on Holly’s shoulder. “We

got this. You can do it. Remember how smart you are and how you

are putting it to really good use. Okay?”

Just then, they heard Amanda come in downstairs. Billie smiled

and nodded. “I’ll be back soon.”

Amanda had only come in for a moment and then ran out to get

coffee. Billie went down and let herself into the shop where she

settled herself on one of the tables. She looked around at all the

orders that piled up and hoped the woman wasn’t neglecting her

business for her. The door to the shop opened and Amanda entered

with a coffee.

She didn’t even look at her visitor. Clearly, she already knew she

was there. “I got your baby back.”

Billie jumped down from the table as Amanda approached and

removed the suit from the box. She held it up and pointed to where

all the dents and divots used to be. “Then I went into the electrical

system, and without shutting you down, I rewired a few things. It will

give you better ventilation inside. There is also a self-cleaning action

on your visor now. You call for it and the outside will clean itself with

a mixture of liquid and heat, no wipers needed.”

She chuckled and held it out in front of her. “That is really great,

Amanda. I didn’t realize you could continually do such awesome

work.”

The armorer looked at her in surprise. “Why not? Have I not

shown you already I am one badass bitch?”

Billie laughed. “I suppose you have.”

She tossed an envelope to the woman. “There, that’s double. It

should cover Salinger’s cost and give you the same amount if not

more.”

Amanda put the money down on the table. “I know this is for JB.”

Billie stopped and looked at her. “What?”

The armorer folded her arms. “I know JB is sick and you and

Holly are trying with everything you have to cure him. JB is one of

the most awesome people I have ever met. I can’t possibly take

payment when you are doing all this to save my friend’s life.”

She smiled and pushed the envelope closer to her. “Too late.

Take the money. If JB were here, he would tell you to take it.

Besides, I see you’re behind now. Hopefully, that can lessen the

blow from it.”

Hickok stripped down right there and pulled her suit on. She held

her HUD under the arm. “I’ll be back. Keep an eye on Holly for me.

She’s worked her ass off and then comes back and tries to find a

cure.”

Amanda studied her. “Yeah, yeah, watch after Holly. I have to say

something though…”

Billie raised an eyebrow. “What?”

The woman shook her hand. “Damn, you are hot in that armor.”

Amanda smirked at the flirt. Billie cheesed, put her helmet on,

and pressed a button on the side. Amanda tilted her head and

opened her mouth to wish her well, but before she could, Billie

disappeared right in front of her eyes. The woman’s mouth dropped

open and she stepped forward, expecting to bump into her, but there

was absolutely nothing in her way. “Holy shit!”

Six Days After Hickok’s Return

Holly clicked the light on at her desk and opened her diary. She

took her favorite pen from the drawer and untwisted the cap. While

she was as tired as she had been before, the adrenaline that rushed

through her had blocked that exhaustion. She had worked non-stop

on a cure for JB. First, she had taken some of the goop from the Pita

plant and continued to make an almost daily concoction for him to

drink. He did it without hesitation, which she was very thankful for.

The only problem was how oddly they were reacting. It wasn’t

necessarily a negative thing, merely a little confusing. She jotted

down the different chemical reactions and how they worked together

in her diary. This was a more personal view of the healing process.

She had her scientific notes, but she knew that there was more to life

and healing than simply the chemical reactions.

She continued writing about JB’s status. I am starting to believe

that I might understand the unique areas that help when using

the goop concoction. It is not like human ointments or salves. If

you have an injury on earth, you put the cream directly on the

cut. For the goop, the way it gets in you only matters when you

inject it directly into a wound. For JB’s case, the wound is

basically his entire system.

Holly pulled the slip of paper next to her over and glanced at the

numbers. A blood test from two days ago reveals some serious

changes to JB’s health. Not only does he seem to be going into

a small remission, but his intestines and other mandatory body

pieces are mending faster than ever imagined.

She picked the pen up and put the end of it against her teeth.

She was very optimistic when she wrote, but in reality, she wasn’t

sure if what was happening was a remission or the organism gearing

up for an even bigger attack. She put the pen back to the paper. The

percentage of odds is still unknown and JB continues to live

each day, one day at a time. He has grown more accustomed to

being exiled from labor, but he still pushes himself harder than I

fear is healthy. If the remission is indeed happening, he will

have that time in the future. I will check on him later to confirm

his lack of symptoms and physical change in health. On the

opposite side, when the check-in occurs, we may find that the

disease has actually returned. At that point, we will have to look

at the next training option in line.

Holly hated writing the word if. She wanted JB to be cured and

she had to believe the medicine was finally working, but she didn’t

want to get her own or someone else’s hopes up. When it came

down to it, she had to know for certain because if she ignored the

negative, that could be what killed him.

She cracked her neck and continued writing. Research is far

from over. It is a revolving door of exploration. The deeper I

delve into the research, the more questions I have. I am

currently still looking into more of the attributes of the goop. It

came to my attention that currently, the purest forms of the

substance come either directly from the Pita plant or from the

sacs located at the base of the brain of a dino. I do not know

how long that will be the case. The resource does seem to be

finite.”

Holly looked out the window and leaned her head on her hand.

She needed to find more of the right kind of goop. She tried to find

an acceptable balance between treating JB and doing the tests that

needed to be done in order to come up with the right treatment for

him. At the same time, though, she couldn’t keep sending Billie into

the Zoo to collect more samples for her.

The woman was brave and strong, but she stood as much

chance of being killed in that place as anyone else. The last thing

Holly wanted to see happen was for her to go in exhausted and

never come back. But at the same time, if she didn’t send someone

in, JB would get worse again.

Holly sat there and pondered the dilemma, thinking about

different mercenaries she had met along the way whom she could

use to get more goop. They would have to be trustworthy, and they

would have to have a reasonable budget. She wasn’t hurting for

money but at that moment, she was pretty much working pro bono.

Shelling out hundreds of thousands like the corporations did to

retrieve the stuff was way out of her league.

She stood and walked to the coffee maker, reached behind it,

and plugged it into the wall, chuckling that Billie had unplugged it

again. Once she poured herself a cup of coffee, she began to pace

the room. There were so many men and women fighters, but she

wasn’t sure which one would be the absolute best to get what she

needed. She was the one who knew the specifics and she was the

one who knew where to find them.

Suddenly, Holly stopped in the middle of the floor and stared into

the distance. Her eyes bugged slightly, and her heart began to race

wildly. She took a deep breath and cleared her mind. It took effort to

calm herself, but she wanted to think through that same idea in a

logical and unemotional manner. She put her coffee down and stood

tall as her bravery kicked in. “Shit.”

Holly released a wild breath and ran her hands through her hair.

There was only one right decision to make, and it wasn’t finding

mercs to do the job. She looked out the window into the far distance.

“I’ve to go into the Zoo.”

A U T H O R N O T E S - M I C H A E L ( T O D D ) A N D E R L E

J A N U A R Y 1 6 , 2 0 1 9

THANK YOU for not only reading this story but these Author Notes

as well.

(I think I’ve been good with always opening with “thank you.” If

not, I need to edit the other Author Notes!)

RANDOM (sometimes) THOUGHTS?

Presently (like right now as I type this) I am jamming out to

Rob Zombie.

He isn’t someone I’ve been accustomed to listening to in my life,

as his persona wasn’t something that drew me in. I liked his Dragula

song a lot, but for whatever reason, I NEVER went and tried his

music out.

Well, thanks to Apple Music (or your streaming service of choice),

I downloaded a metric shit-ton of his songs and learned that his

music was WAY more normal than his look. And I love the grooving

guitars.

A lot.

I can see why he went into movies as well. He brings a fair

amount of layering of audio clips to the music that gives them a slight

film-score feeling to me. With the driving beat on some of them (that

I can see being played in clubs … Hell, probably was) I feel like I’m

arriving to the Rob Zombie club decades late.

It’s better that I got here at some point rather than never.

Time to crank up Dragula.

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AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS

One of the interesting (at least to me) aspects of my life is the

ability to work from anywhere and at any time. In the future, I hope to

re-read my own Author Notes and remember my life as a diary entry.

One Night in Bangkok (or 5…)

So, I was chatting with author Jonathan Brazee yesterday, asking

about Bangkok. (His wife Kiwi is from this country, and he lived here,

and I believe they have a home somewhere in this country.)

I asked him what I should go see… Here was his reply (copied

here without permission. Cause I’m sure someone will rat me out,

and why should I waste giving them the opportunity?)

The Grand Palace is a cultural must-see, but pay no attention to

the guys outside who will tell you that it's closed for some sort of

royal ceremony. That is a scam for them to offer to take you to a gem

factory while you "wait for the palace to open again." There is a very

odd forensic museum if you have the stomach for it. Ayuttaya, which

is an hour outside of town, is impressive (there are tons of tours

there, or you can take a taxi). If you want a good steak, go to El

Gaucho or the steakhouse at the top of the Marriott. The floating

market is nice, but it is a ways out of town. I don't know if it is worth

it.

I told him I read “blah blah El Goucho…”

Apparently, steak gets my attention like palaces, museums, and

floating markets do not.

I’ll save his comments about the sex / night life for some other set

of Author Notes ;-)

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Ad Aeternitatem,

Michael Anderle