Chương 61: KK2 - #14 THE GHOSTS OF BABYLON (2/4)

Ada Grant, a. k. a. Flatline, a solo offering her metal arm to the highest bidder, waved back. Ali and I have known the emotion-free street mercenary since childhood. Five years older than Ali, she used to be our baby-sitter; and perhaps an awful role model compared to a monk like Félix Koviràn.

"Check this out! Bambi and the Beast!" A second person had emerged from the driver side as the tinted window went down. It was a jovial little human with plump cheeks and an improbable pair of apple green wired glasses. Satori's techie talents were as remarkable as his bowl cut and purple shell suit. He was the one who installed the terminal on my human's wrist for free. The self-taught engineer had also designed Ada's headset incorporating a microcomputer allowing the merc to use a state-of-the-art sight assist.

That evening, as usual, Satori was behind the wheel of his Chrysler Voyager inside which he invited us.

"Ada? Shall we recover those zokus' FID?"

"Nah. Not even worth stepping out of the car, amore," Flatline joked without cracking a smile as the flying vehicle regained height to reach the dense air traffic of the city. Below, the scene of the shooting was already back to normal. As the witnesses vanished, intoxicated passers-by hopped over the corpses. The cleanup teams or the NBPD would find them the next morning. The Yamaha, meanwhile, has already been stolen.

"What two space daredevils like you are doing here?" Satori asked before turning down Pearl Jam on the radio.

"In these interesting times, it isn't very recommended farting around Saturn's orbit!" The jolts of the flying car made Ali turn green, white—then green again. Suddenly, she vomited for the second time. The fingers on her lips managed to filter out the bigger pieces before our friend handed her an empty XXL cup of instant noodles.

"We wander towards the Kuiper's fringes," I replied after sincere apologies for my partner's behavior.

"Ali wanted to come back here to see Félix first."

"Oh—alright. That explains why we found her drunk as a lord", said Satori, my ultimate master in terms of sarcasm.

"The task is quite delicate," I reported.

"Yeah—I guess," Satori went on.

"Family is sacred. Do you want us to drop you at T. G. before Bambi could manage to ruin my new carpet?"

"I'm f—fine! I f—feel better! Sorry…" Ali stuttered, raising her head to wipe off her clammy forehead.

"What are you guys up to tonight? I ain't gonna leave while we haven't seen each other in ages!" A Police van brutally grazed our right wing as the high-speed airway started to snake its way between the mega-buildings. As explained by Satori, floating roadblocks were installed around the adjacent business center. Flatline opened the mini fridge occupying the empty space between the two front seats.

Her mechanical arm seized a Pocari Sweat and handed it to Ali as she started clarifying why they were around: "We were on our way to the Trump Business Tower, downtown. We have to pick up a small banker named Khelil. The mission is to keep him warm for the night until the guy he's supposed to be managing the cash flows flees like a chicken to the other end of the system."" Easy run, easy cash!" Satori added. The gas engine valves purr.

As the boulevard began to unclog itself, the engineer made his way, honking like a true Neo-Babylon's driver. Aware of his talents, I knew he probably used his share of viruses to divert nearby vehicles after hacking the Navstar GPS.

"Bankers aren't famous for their pleasant company so, maybe you guys could tag along." We agreed and Satori led us to the foot of the decrepit Trump Tower. It was a sordid four-hundred-story office tower with exterior elevators and freshly installed anti-suicide windows. Even a ficus tree under stero-fertilizer wouldn't survive in this hostile environment. After Ada left to put on hand on Khelil, I joined the former computer scientist as copilot; leaving Ali to her collection of hangover pills.

With the insulin shot hanging from her arm and the peroxide inhaler on her nose, she looked more like a low-cost station drug addict than a bounty hunter. Ten minutes passed and, the mechanical limb around the neck, a banker with a purple face followed our beloved mercenary on the way back. The engineer asked my partner to open the van's doors and welcome our new guest.

When the suit could finally breathe, he flooded us with questions in Levantine Arabic—an old language still used by certain ethnic groups that formed Titan's melting pot.

"We gotta delta," Ada ordered despite staying as calm as a monk.

"Our friend wasn't the only one working 'cocaine-fueled' overtime on a Saturday night." The Chrysler took off before slaloming between the buildings. As we went higher, several salarymen fell from the rooftops before being chopped off by safety nets.

"Weather forecast: the stock market is going to crash on Monday morning. And one of these suckers will land on my roof. Let's get down," the computer scientist suggested. On our way, new police cars monitored the traffic. They were flying with deployed wings equipped with machine guns.

"We need to be at our employer's penthouse in Babel. We have half an hour to grab the cash before this moron takes the final shuttle to Shangri-La." Almost rendered inaudible by the flapping of the wipers, an alert emerged from the computer embedded in the counter block. One of Satori's special programs reported a vehicle shadowing us for a few minutes. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"The red Skyline GTR?" Ada guessed.

"I noticed it in front of the tower. What does the plate say?"

"No network," I replied, seeing the terminal remaining silent at the command typed by Satori." Kuso!" he cursed.

"The cops are pumping all the bandwidth!" But the Nissan's red frame blended in with the ground traffic just ahead of us before entering the Chinatown tunnel. Although suspicious, the two mercenaries decided to continue their journey.

"Can you check the 'off-line emergency guidance system'?" Satori asked Ada, while joining the aerial road again. This one slowly took the old paper map that Ali held and helped Satori through the megablocks of the Babel labyrinthic residential district. Our childhood suburb had changed a lot. In its center, black skyscrapers resembling the fingers of a titan's hand closed on a new GladiaTrucks stadium shaped like a globe.

The insane complex overlooked the brown water river and the slums that separated the neighborhood from Tannhäuser Gate where my partner wanted to go a few hours earlier. Here was her father.

"Where are we flying?" the banker complained, for the first time in Solarian.

"I assure you that you are mistaken!" Flatline calmly shoved her rifle under his square-patterned tie.

"Look at that. Gordon Geckko lost his desert accent. Be careful and stop complaining, though. Or my blond girlfriend could throw you out. You're gonna plunge faster than yesterday's stocks."

"Why me?" Ali retorted after finishing her third soda brick, which had given her a second breath.

"For you would, you psycho!" Satori replied. The minivan started a new climb after crossing the access road to the stadium. The fuel consumption indicator turned red when the vehicle passed the 230th floor above the gray clouds. The engine suffered but reached the sought-after apartment, a vast penthouse with a swimming pool and a personal tiki bar.

"Nice crib!" Ali commented.

"Indeed. Come with me, Lee," asked Flatline. She jumped out of the car, leaving the door open. While the others were guarding the hostage, I accompanied Ada to meet the mysterious patron named Julio Marco Ruben Rubero. According to the solo, this sub-leader of the Janeiros gang had falsified the balance sheet of his shady traffic and feared that his Jefe would discover it thanks to Khelil, the banker and guest of honor." Señor Rubero!" Ada yelled, making her heart jump to 50 beats per minute—a new record for her.

"Crap. This succhiacazzi had sworn to be there." Smashing the patio's window with her metal hand after Satori checked that the alarm was disconnected, she allowed us to enter the apartment.

"No one seems to be here tonight," I said.

"Apparently," my companion replied while bypassing the giant bed I jumped in.

"But tell me, Lee... How is it going with Ali? She seemed different. I saw her smile. You managed to do something outta this wildling?"

"I did my best—Félix asked me to."

"Are you sure? I followed your fierce ride through the media. You guys have been busy lately… But I don't think that fame is what the old man wished for." I smiled shily. I expected this lecture.

"He wanted us to live the way we want… free from everything—including the past."

"You're preaching to the choir…" Ada bantered.

"Just be careful."

"How about the others? Did you stay in touch with Doc'—or Tomy?"

"The little Omnibot works in a bar above the clouds of Venus," Ada went on while opening the door.

"But I haven't heard from Doc' in years. I think he passed away."

"Probably. His chronic pneumonia may have caught up on him." Facing the kitchen, the living room was as empty as it was flooded with light. The imposing CRT television had remained on. The static snow buzzed. Its millions of parasites were reflected on the cocktail glass placed on the coffee table in Formica and ceramic. Slouched on the tropical sofa, a brick of cachaça in hand, a shadow confronted the TV set." Señor Rubero?" Ada asked again before activating the lights, almost breaking the switch from anger.

"You could— porca miseria." Flatline could witness an atomic blast that she wouldn't even blink. But that wasn't my case. The scene taking place in front of me really "barfed me out" as my partner would say, because Julio Marco Ruben Rubero had been skinned alive. There was blood everywhere, from the carpet to the fan." Arrivederci the dollar-credits…" Ada sighed, sitting on the table in front of Rubero's corpse.

She then picked up the few bills his murderers had been kind enough to shove into his sockets before leaving.

"What did they do to his eyes?" I asked, inspecting the trickling body for clues as Flatline informed our friends in the van by radio. Still talking to Satori, the solo shook the glass she picked up on the table, waving the two globes floating in the sugar cane alcohol.

"Sickening…" Satori's voice emerged soon after from Ada's helmet after she boosted the volume for me: "Let's skip the fact that a blue Peugeot full of Janeiros just passed by. There's a slight—tiny— tiny problem with Khelil, guys." Ada moaned loudly at this unspoken attempt at euphemisms: "Random guess. Bambi threw him out of the van." The techie laughed, but denied it.

"We could be in more serious trouble," he continued.

"Because we didn't catch the right banker!" For the first time, Ada appeared to be annoyed. She sighed again before kicking the cachaça brick. It burst against the front door, which showed no signs of breaking in. Proof that Rubero knew his attackers or that the electronic security of his apartment required an update.

"Not the right banker? I don't understand," she said.

"The FID has identified him."

"It's not your fault," Ali reassured her.

"There are at least ten Khelils working at the Trump Tower. And three A. Khelil…"

"I am Abdel Khelil! Not Aahad! Not Ahmed, you racist loons!" cried the banker.

"I am a citizen of Titan… with rights! I will call 911! I will sue you! I will—""Oh," reacted Ada. And we left the bloody crime scene for good.