Riotfish, Inc.: In Debt: Chapter 48

D’khara’s eyes opened, and his internal systems ran their startup sequence. He breathed in deeply, and for a wonder, didn’t cough it back out. His chest still felt tight, but his lungs were not actively campaigning against the rest of his body any more.

He sat up a little too quickly in his cot, making his head swim. He steadied himself, but realized that he didn’t feel terrible. As terrible. He wasn’t going to be running any marathons, but the cool blessing of not being filled with screaming pain washed him over with unspeakable contentment.

It was amazing what kind of perspective a couple days of pure misery could provide.

“Feeling better?” Dr. Navarre’s soothing tenor filled the tent.

“Yeah… yeah, I think so.” D’khara replied, turning around.

It was the same space-gray tent he had lived in for the past two days. Same sour smell of sweat over sweat and sickness, same cots, same table in the corner. Dr. Navarre sat at ease in the camp chair smiling slightly, with Little Timmy’s Kealans still slung over his shoulders.

“You’ll still need to take your medicine, of course,” Dr. Navarre noted, making a mark in his notebook.

D’khara grunted noncommittally, but pushed himself to his feet, stretched, and shuffled over to the table. Zipping open one of the amber packs, he dry-swallowed the two pills contained therein, and looked to Dr. Navarre for approval.

Dr. Navarre stared back at him.

“I’m glad you’re taking your vitamins, D’khara, but you still need to take your antibiotics.”

“What now?”

“Your antibiotics? In the box here? The ones I told you to take? For your illness?”

D’khara opened a small white box on the table, revealing a loose mass of brightly-colored capsules. He looked at the amber Pillpaks on the table, and then back at the box.

“D’khara, have you not been taking your medication?”

He realized, at that moment, that he had been taking vitamins the whole time he was sick. His shoulders slumped down in a defeated arc.

“I have not been taking my medication,” he admitted.

Dr. Navarre “tsk"ed briefly, made another mark in his notebook and bustled a couple pills and a glass of water into D’khara’s hand.

“Take these and get some more rest.”

D’khara could actually feel the mulishness well up in him, which pressed out onto his face in a familiar, set frown. He tossed the pills in his mouth and dry-swallowed those as well.

“I’m not going back to bed. I’ve rested enough.” He picked up his shotgun from the table, racking a round into the chamber.

“It’s time for me to get back to work.”

The Riotfish were debriefing on the porch of Daugereaux’ cabin. They’d met at the camp, but the porch had more seating, and was generally more comfortable.

Fleer sat at the top of the stairs, slumped and haggard. He’d spent the rest of the day and most of the night hunting, but the two black ops he’d taken care of in the afternoon were his only kills. He’d been on short sleep rations the last couple nights, and it was starting to catch up to him.

Daugereaux was in his rocker, as usual, and Ma was inside cooking something. Oliver sat on the floor of the porch, enjoying the light breeze brushing through, and Roger was scampering around the yard, chasing bugs. Maybe real ones, maybe imaginary. It was hard to tell.

“Roger, report. How’d you do yesterday?” Fleer asked.

“Pow! Pow! Two smileyfrowns,” Roger reported.

Fleer nodded, punching data into his datapad.

“Very good. Oliver?”

“Little Timmy and I eliminated two more,” Oliver reported, “and D’khara took care of another three.” Fleer glared at him. “Un… less he wasn’t supposed to,” Oliver amended, “in which case I got them.”

Fleer held his glare for a moment, but had to stop and rub his eyes.

“We’re out of time,” he said. “We’ve had a tremendous run against these guys, but I think our war is done. Sometime tonight, or maybe tomorrow, they’ll lift the comms blackout and call in some help. Once Cryocorp realizes what’s going on, well, they have enough money to bring in a much, much larger crew.”

“D’khara was saying he heard them using the radio. I mean, Little Timmy was saying.”

Fleer tried to glare again.

“Well dat’s some good news, ain’t it?” Daugereaux asked. “Now you can contac’ somebody, see if dey ready to lose dey war now?”

“Yes. Well, yes.” Fleer started spinning through his datapad, and his countenance brightened some. “That’s ideal. I’ll reach out to Tapstrike’s corporate headquarters, to see if they want to start talking about concessions. That will pause hostilities with Tapstrike, but Cryocorp can just call in another crew. To keep you and Ma Daugereaux safe, we have to take Cryocorp out of the mix.

“Now that Tapstrike will be backing off,” Fleer continued, “I’ll put together what we’ve learned about Cryocorp’s dealings, and farm that information out to a few contacts. They can start the media campaign. A couple days of seeding the data will get the groundswell we need for this information to go viral. When it goes up, Cryocorp is going to have a full-blown PR crisis on their hands. Investors will pause their funds to see how things shake out, they’ll be audited– yes, this could go very badly for Cryocorp. They’re already running cash-thin, and this will definitely delay the Harrigan brother’s ability to take back control of their company.” Fleer smiled thinly. “We’re about to bring their worst fears to life.”

Daugereaux had that firm, mirthless smile again.

“Blue dune buggy run?” Roger asked.

“That’s a great question, Roger. There are few enough of them that we might just be able to make a break for it. They’ve probably gone to ground, but they’ll be calling in backup soon. Mr. Daugereaux, what do you think? This is your contract extension. With the jamming lifted, we can get the word out about Cryocorp, but it also means they’ll be able to call in reinforcements. Our position here in the swamp has become much more dangerous. Would you be willing to evacuate now?”

Daugereaux nodded slowly.

“De point was to stop dat wickedness, and I think we done dat. How many of dem black ops you say dey got left?”

Fleer consulted his datapad.

“If my calculations are correct, there are only seven of them left.”

“So from forty-two down to seven. I got to say, I ain’t much like de idea of leavin’ dem behind us, but you make sense. We done pretty well against dem wicked men wit’ just de few of us, and I ain’t goin’ to axe you to do any more. Dat is going to put a mighty big crimp in dey company. And dey gon’ have trouble hirin’ back up wit’ a foofraw like dis on dey resume. And wit’ de inconveniencin’ we done to Cryocorp, I’d say we did what we set ourselfs to do. You boys earned every credit of dis contract, is what I mean to say.”

“Thank you, Mr. Daugereaux, that is very gratifying to hear. Now, we need to evacuate the area. Cryocorp may have already sent in for reinforcements, so we’ll need to move fast. How quickly do you think we can get Robby back in here for an extraction?”

“Mmmm, an hour-two-hours maybe. Depends.”

“Get on the horn and start him moving. Oliver, you and Roger go strike camp, and I’ll–”

What Fleer was going to do, he never got to say. The woods across from the cabin erupted in gunfire, raking across the front porch. Roger dove onto the floor, and Daugereaux scrambled out of his chair and through an open window into the cabin.

“Inside! Inside!” Oliver yelled. He picked up Roger and, holding him close, turned toward the front door. Two of the rounds struck home, penetrating Oliver’s flesh, and he grunted in pain. Hunched over, he shambled for the front door, but his vision was doubling. He shook his head and pressed on. Something soft rolled under his foot. He looked down to see that he had stepped on Fleer. A scarlet blossom was blooming rapidly on Fleer’s chest.

“Noooooo,” cried Oliver, his emotions suddenly bubbling to the surface. He grabbed Fleer’s leg with his free hand and, dragging him, squeezed through the door into the cabin, carelessly tearing the screen door askew and picking up three more rounds in the back for his trouble.

Once inside, he stood weaving uncertainly for a moment.

“Big fella?” Daugereaux asked from his position on the floor. “You feelin’ okay?”

“Ah’m… fine…” Oliver, staring unseeingly ahead, dropped Roger, who immediately clambered up into the rafters of the cabin. “Mr. Fleer, he… he’s hurt…”

“Well get down!” Daugereaux cried. “Don’t you know dey shootin’ in here?”

The gunfire went on and on, wood chips flying and walls popping holes to leak in more sunlight with every passing second. Oliver’s face was quickly going completely blank.

“Aw shoo, de big dummy gon’ fall, him.” Daugereaux hopped up from his position and crab-crawled away from Oliver as he started to topple.

Oliver swept backward and crashed full-length on the floor of the cabin, rattling every door in its frame. Pale green blood oozed out onto the floor beneath him

“I think dey foun’ us,” Daugereaux called up to Roger, who was in the rafters. “You got any idears?”

“Whizzle me pops, Mr. Pumpkin!” Roger called back.

“Dat boy,” Daugereaux muttered, “I cain’t never tell what he is saying.”

The gunfire rattled on for a minute more, and then stopped.

Unnatural silence ruled the air for about a minute. Daugereaux strained his ears listening for any movement.

“Dat quiet seems like a good thing,” Daugereaux whispered, “but I bet dem boys is workin’ up some new devilry for us, huh, chief?” Daugereaux asked Fleer, and only then noticed that Fleer hadn’t been moving. “May gah-dey-dawn, look at dis. I think he done gone and got hisself shot.”

Daugereaux darted over to Fleer to start some crude first aid.

“Ma!” he called. “You in de back? Bring me all de clean towels! We got a gunshot!”

Ma Daugereaux walked into the front room carrying a double armload of towels. Daugereaux busied himself applying pressure to Fleer’s wound. He raised one hand to gesture at Oliver.

“Roger! See if you can roll dat big galoof over on his face, he gon’ need him some towels, too!”

Ma Daugereaux hunched over and shuffled back to find some more towels as Roger dropped to the floor and started struggling against Oliver’s bulk. Slipping in the green blood spreading on the floor, he was unable to find the traction to roll Oliver over. As soon as he got, say, a leg up and over, an arm would slip down and drag Roger with it.

“Shoo, Roger, you come hol’ dis rag here. I’ll take care of dat big fella.”

Roger darted over and rammed his hands down on the bloody mess of towels as Ma Daugereaux shuffled back in. Daugereaux considered Oliver for a moment, then dragged Oliver’s left arm above his head. Grabbing his right hand, he stepped gingerly around the slowly spreading green puddle, pulling the arm across Oliver’s chest. Once in position, he gave the arm a mighty heave, and Oliver rolled over, neat as a pin.

“Dat is some tiny holes to knock down such a big fella.” None of them was oozing extremely fast, but one in particular was flowing steadily. Daugereaux shrugged and jammed a towel down on it. He was angling his body to put more pressure on it when a heavy grenade sailed into the window and clunked on the floor next to him.

“Bouse,” he said.

With a spry flick, he snatched up the grenade and sent it back out the window, where it detonated over the porch. Two more sailed in and rolled across the floor. Roger scooped one up and fired it back outside with lizardlike grace and speed. Daugereaux kicked the other across the room, where it rolled into the corner behind Ma’s stove. She was walking in with a another armload of blankets and bedsheets just as the grenade went off.

When the ringing in her ears had subsided, she took one look at what had once been her stove, and glared death at Daugereaux.

“Whatchoo want, woman? Dey throwin’ grenades in here!”

Roger’s return parcel had apparently struck too close to home, and no more grenades came in. Daugereaux, Ma, and Roger got back to work patching up the fallen the best they could.

An ominous clunk sounded on the roof, followed by a rolling sound, rapidly picking up speed, and then a small black cylinder dropped off the roof to the ground below, where it started fizzing and smoking.

Another landed on the porch.

“Ooooooooh,” Roger cooed. “Pretty.”

“Boy, you get your fool head down!”

“But… fire…” Roger’s eyes gleamed with adoration as the thermite grenade flared, burned a clean hole through the porch, and dropped hissing into the wet marsh below, throwing up huge clouds of steam.

“You dumb porro, don’choo know you cain’t burn nothin’ in de swamp!” yelled Daugereaux.

There were a few more minutes of silence while the black ops worked out their next approach.