Koko Takes a Holiday Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Fun is King

  Let’s Hear it from the Boywhore…

  Dismal News Comes A-Knocking

  Fifteen Minutes Later, at SI HQ…

  Heavy is the Mantle

  Can a Girl Get a Break?

  Welcome to the Second Free Zone

  The Lawman Cometh

  Gooning on the Feeds

  Flynn, the Exit Interview

  Why so Blue?

  Going Down

  Juke’s

  Re-Evaluate

  Mercy is for Suckers

  Pressure is a Four-Letter Word

  Punching the Ticket

  What a Pig Knows

  You, the We

  Meeting the Team

  Last Night of the Rest of Your Life

  Exit the Fat Man

  Embrace on the Feeds

  Gimme some Sake, Gimme some Snacks

  Koko, Indisposed

  Cover Me

  A Mu with a View

  Into Flynn’s

  Well, Gee, this is Awkward

  Moving Out

  Peddling the Faith

  Kneel before you Rise

  Team Wonderwall

  On the Move

  Travel Arrangements

  The Junior Executive Waits

  Travel Arrangements, Part 2

  Cover Blown

  Now What?

  Waiting on Flynn

  Pursuit

  Outward Bound

  On the Feeds

  Third Strike

  This Just in…

  Up Front

  Taking Lumps

  Right-Right the Course

  Details, Details

  Flight to Fight

  Damnatio Memoriae (and then Some)

  Mistakes

  Welcoming Party

  Incoming

  Taking up Position

  On the Ground

  Out for Blood

  Oh, Fucking Come on Already

  Prayers

  Showtime

  Missed

  Gimme, Gimme… More and More

  Let’s Hear it from the New Boywhore

  Into the Great, Near Future

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Coming Soon from Titan Books

  Coming soon from Kieran Shea and Titan Books

  KOKO THE MIGHTY

  (June 2015)

  KIERAN SHEA

  KOKO TAKES A HOLIDAY

  TITANBOOKS.COM

  Koko Takes a Holiday

  Print edition ISBN: 9781781168608

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781781168615

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd 144

  Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: June 2014

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2014 by Kieran Shea. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Did you enjoy this book? We love to hear from our readers. Please email us at [email protected] or write to us at Reader Feedback at the above address.

  To receive advance information, news, competitions, and exclusive offers online, please sign up for the Titan newsletter on our website:

  WWW.TITANBOOKS.COM

  TO ALL THE INSPIRED FLAMETHROWERS

  I HAVE KNOWN—BURN, BABY, BURN.

  “ICARUS FELL. BUT, OH, WHAT A TAN.”

  BATHROOM GRAFFITI

  FUN IS KING

  THE SIXTY ISLANDS PROMO—1:00

  CLIENT: Custom Pleasure Bureau—The Sixty Islands

  PRODUCTION ENGAGEMENT: 2516 All-Seasonal Hemispheric Cycles

  VISUAL FEED 1: CAMERA DRAWS IN FROM SATELLITE VIEW, FLIES OVER THE RENOWNED TROPICAL ISLAND RESORT—THE SIXTY ISLANDS. SMOOTH PAN CONTINUES UNTIL CAMERA DIVES TOWARD A FLAWLESS BEACH LAGOON WHERE A LOIN-CLOTHED MAN POSES PROVOCATIVELY. EXTREME CLOSE UP. HE PURSES HIS LIPS WHILE LOOKING DEEPLY INTO CAMERA LENS AND THEN SAVAGELY RIPS INTO A HUNK OF BUTCHERED MEAT. CHEWS.

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 2: FOOTAGE OF ISLAND EXPLOSIONS. ISLAND ORGY MASSACRES. PULSE-GUN FIRE. CRUMBLING BUILDINGS. GENERAL MAYHEM ON THE SIXTY ISLANDS.

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 3: KOMODO DRAGON SPRINGS ON A CRYING BABY.

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 1 (CONT.): MAN UNFASTENS HIS LOIN CLOTH REVEALING A MASSIVE ERECTION.

  AUDIO: UPBEAT MUSIC

  [FADE IN] VISUAL FEED 4: VARYING ATTRACTIONS ON THE SIXTY ISLANDS.

  VOICEOVER: If there is true adventure in what’s left of your soul, THE SIXTY ISLANDS is the one place to indulge your holiday junket passions! A manufactured archipelago engineered on reinforced tectonic plates, THE SIXTY ISLANDS teems with attractions and luxuries found nowhere else on the planet. Whether you seek romance, prefrontal cortex obliteration, simulated death consumption, or the ultimate eco-destruction escapade for your family, you will find what you are looking for on THE SIXTY ISLANDS. Yes-yes, here-here!

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 5: AERIAL SHOT ROTATING ABOVE THE SIXTY ISLANDS. [NOTE: No maintenance, power-plant turbines, or SI waste scuppers visible.]

  VOICEOVER: A nature-lover’s delight, THE SIXTY ISLANDS has taken great pains to hyper-grow protected, unspoiled environments of extreme beauty and abject hostility. And you can destroy it all! Experience firsth and the primal delights of corporatism’s progressive power and Earth’s blessed rush to rebirth.

  [SIDEBAR, RIGHT] VISUAL FEED 6: RATE FEES SLIDE BY IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES WITH REGIONAL CREDIT FLUCTUATIONS, PENALTIES, AND RESTRICTIONS. AS RATE FEES REACH CONCLUSION, SIDEBAR WIPES RIGHT.

  VOICEOVER (CONT.): Riot with dangerous synthetic beasts, relax with indiscriminate slaughter, indulge in sexual lawlessness and pestilent disease fantasies. Yes-yes, you can have it all! Vigorous regenerating schedules and cyborg augmentations are designed to accommodate your maximum pleasure and release.

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 1 (CONT.): HEAVILY ARMED WOMAN LASHES A CHAIN COLLAR AND LEASH ON THE NOW NAKED MAN. THE WOMAN WINKS AT THE CAMERA. COUPLE WALKS OFF DOWN THE BEACH AS THE WOMAN CUPS THE MAN’S BARE BUTTOCKS.

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 7: SUNSET. WHOLE JUNGLE FORESTS DETONATE.

  VISUAL FEED 8 [LOGO ZOOM]: THE SIXTY ISLANDS!

  KEY OF SMALL, UNREADABLE DISCLAIMER TEXT. [READ AND SCROLLED RAPIDLY]: This message is from the Custom Pleasure Bureau. To travel to The Sixty Islands you must be over sixteen or have signed guardian’s or warden’s consent. Not accessible from de-civ hot zones, the resettled South African Colonies, or quarantined resource regions. All re-access laws apply from the Second Free Zone. Member Earth Syndicate Alliance-TC 34-AOP.

  LET’S HEAR IT FROM THE BOYWHORE…

  So the dead Kongercat raiders who were in the bar? The ones who called themselves Ying Fong and Chuòhào? You bet them nasty dakini re-civs, but them foolish. Them no expect my Koko-sama. Be on The Sixty for carnival and all wasted on bi
g liquor and high-happy with shift and shake, thinking them be better than her, but those two be dead wrong. Koko-sama upright alphamama. Koko-sama see many-much fighting and swing the big guns long time before her working on The Sixty proper. Koko-sama shoot them dakini re-civs straight up so now there be red scrambled eggs everywhere. Blood all over floor. All over damn bar.

  Koko-sama say to me, she say, “See, Archimedes? Stashing that big pulse gun upstairs was a smart move. I mean, phew, did you see how those two Kongercats’ heads burst apart?”

  Oh, Archimedes see that plenty all right. Like a couple of wax gourds that. When Koko-sama hear me shout there be big trouble in the bar downstairs, she zip out of her room all angry-like and waste no time, no way. Take that big gun from the trunk on the landing and warn them two troublemakers to behave and be peace-like, but them no listen. Draw nasty on my Koko-sama. Big mistake that, you bet. Koko-sama cut them two baddies down.

  Me sop up some squishy red goo with a sponge and carry the bucket outside. Koko-sama say she want me to splash the bloody water in the street ’cause Komodos like the dirty water. Them dragons hiss and crackle and slurp up that water, you bet. Funny buggers. Like all huff and scruff on The Sixty—the bats, the itty-bitty boars, the frogs and birds—them dragons half animal, half machine.

  Me go back inside.

  “When you’re done cleaning, make sure you scrub out the mop bucket with a squirt of bleach, okay, Arch? Just don’t go overboard like last time. Maybe half a shot glass’s worth. The flies are on that muck already, and we sure as hell don’t need no more mosquitoes laying eggs and spreading disease.”

  “Yes, Koko-sama. Bleach in bucket.”

  “And cage up the good liquor when you’re through.”

  “Got it. Cage up the good liquor, right-right.”

  “And take a shower.”

  “Yes-yes. All good scrubby.”

  “Atta boy…”

  Koko-sama blow me a kiss then and throw back her hair. Me like that. How her long hair fall in a beautiful dark wave.

  Supersexy, my Koko-sama.

  * * *

  Koko Martstellar watches Archimedes sleep beside her in bed and blows out a plume of crinkle-flake smoke straight at the room’s ceiling fan.

  Yeah, so things got a little out of hand tonight, she thinks. Big deal. Koko knew an incident like this was bound to happen sooner or later. All of The Sixty’s pleasure vendors have been hurting of late, what with the instability in the lower trade markets tamping down discretionary income and all, but honestly, what was the CPB HQ thinking? Opening up The Sixty Islands to the Kongercat re-civ ilk—what, just because they’re flush with credits and can afford it? Not to besmirch the heavily promoted ceasefires and the internationals kowtowing to re-civ play niceties, but those freaks are just plumb crazy.

  After crushing out her smoke in a halved husk of a coconut on the nightstand, Koko leaves Archimedes in bed and slips on a pink silk kimono. She leaves her bedroom and tramps downstairs to check the incoming messages on the bar’s central register. The news on the projection prompts is as bad as she expected. The Custom Pleasure Bureau is sending a security detail around in a few hours. The communication indicates it was their intention to be there sooner, but Koko’s brothel operation is built on one of the few SI islands without a connecting bridge system. ETA 9:00 am, sharp. Huh. For a fleeting moment, Koko rues not letting those two re-civ Kongercats just have their way.

  Koko had been going over the books in bed upstairs when Archimedes cried out for her that there was a problem in the main bar. Archimedes has always been a bit of a fusspot, so Koko figured the boy was merely out of fresh ice or grenadine or something. Not the case at all. Koko stalked right out of her bedroom and instantly knew the score. As her fellow mercenaries used to say back on deployment, the two Kongercats had jacked up a total BSGD situation.

  Bad shit, going down.

  Kongercat re-civs are pretty easy to distinguish from the run-of-the-mill SI patrons, what with their hereditary facial lesions, papery skin, and Chinese heritage. Generations of excessive radiation exposure from smartwars and general malnutrition have a way of muddying up the breeding, and those two were no exception. Loud, too. Eight drinks into a mean-drunk loud. The women held knives to two of Koko’s best boywhores’ throats, and from the look of things, they were raising their elbows and getting ready to saw.

  Koko didn’t hesitate. On the landing outside her room, she kicked open the bamboo trunk braced against the railing and snatched up the Belgian sub-cutter. A hell of a weapon—favored for street-sweeping action. Of course, when those two re-civs saw the huge gun in her arms they drew sidearms concealed beneath their vests. Expected, of course, and a quick finger-squeeze and a wipe left to right was all it took.

  Oh, well. No matter. Portia Delacompte will have her back on something like this. A self-defense infraction with a couple of former hostiles on The Sixty for carnival? Are you kidding? Portia Delacompte has seen plenty of bad craziness with the likes of such savages herself, and Delacompte knows how these BSGD scenarios go.

  Ten years Koko’s senior, Portia Delacompte hung up her own mercenary spurs years before Koko. Traded in her weapons for spreadsheets, went corporate, and sharked her way up through multiple leisure-syndicate postings until Delacompte landed the cherry gig of all cherry gigs—Executive Vice President of The Sixty Islands Operations. It wasn’t long after this wild success that Delacompte reached out to her old comrade, and at the time it was an offer that was, as they say, hard for Koko to refuse.

  Run her own brothel and saloon on The Sixty? The most expensive and violent pleasure resort on the planet? Color Koko grateful. She took that opportunity with both hands and feet. Koko figured she was more than a tad overdue, actually. After all, she’d yanked Delacompte’s fat out of the fire on more than one occasion, and after that one terrible night back in Finland, Koko just assumed things had finally found their way of working themselves out.

  It isn’t such a bad life running a brothel. Keep the customers well-oiled with the hooch, manage the games of chance, and pair up guests with whomever they desire from her roster of sexual pleasers. Nearly an equal split between haimish work and a snoozing hammock routine. It beats making planetary regions stable for long-term capital concerns, that’s for sure. Most evenings Koko even kicks off early and finds herself joining the party.

  Standing at the bar, Koko reflects upon an earlier time when she and Delacompte were out fighting for the multinational conglomerates. They had been on a re-stabilization mission for ElektroCorp and were pinned down beneath marginally radioactive debris near the obliterated ancient seaport of Sanya. A former noodle-manufacturing facility. Jejune, Koko had been a few years into her service, but one bombed-apart industrial landscape looked pretty much like any other to her. Initially, things had gone well on the mission. But then, in a blink of an eye, everything went straight to hell. With two operatives from their brick killed, she and Delacompte ended up cut off from the rest of their unit.

  * * *

  “Hey, Delacompte,” Koko said, “has ElektroCorp even looked at the recon saves we uploaded? Their pre-op barrages scorched out everything, and this whole sector is toast. What’s the big deal with this place anyway?”

  Delacompte was using her tactical knife to cut a chunk of amphetamine chew from a block she had removed from the flak rack on her compression suit. Delacompte handed a wedge of the sticky black chew to Koko and then slabbed off a chunk for herself. With her thumb, Koko crammed the chew into the feeding gate below the chin on her helmet. After a short disinfectant spray, the inner seal on the helmet’s feeding gate opened and Koko fished out the potent gunk with her tongue. Like gnawing on a burnt hunk of rubber. Amphetamine chew was vile-tasting stuff, but it sure as hell kept you focused when you were in the shit.

  “Real estate,” Delacompte answered, waving the barrel of her KRISS F9 pulse rifle slightly. “All this? This area is a prime shipping quarter. Grind it out and dump the scrap of
fshore, bring in the prefab hardware, and ElektroCorp can be online for immediate manufacturing and distribution in a year flat. This is all about emerging markets, Martstellar. These de-civ Kongercat gang lords know the investment value, and the short of it is they think they deserve a piece of the action.”

  “Friggin’ bottomfeeders.”

  “That they are. That they surely are.”

  Koko shifted her legs. “I hate to break it to you, D,” Koko said, “but we’re kind of on the worse side of screwed here.”

  A sneer slithered across Delacompte’s lips. “No, we’re not.”

  Delacompte’s blasé contradiction floored Koko. “What? What do you mean, ‘no, we’re not’?”

  “Just that,” she answered. “We are not screwed. Not entirely.”

  Koko looked left and then right. “How do you figure? One, we’re outnumbered. Two, our unit is fragged and down multiple heads. And, three, we’re at least an hour from any sort of evac from ElektroCorp.”

  Delacompte sheathed her tactical knife on her belt. Chewed thoughtfully.

  “You’re not framing the big picture, kid,” Delacompte said. “Look, Davidson’s and Kamiński’s bricks are holed up right over there near the waste tanks on either side of the gap framing the Kongercats’ position, right? You and me, we’re going to lay down a diversion and draw them out. That’s how we’re going to play this.”

  Koko uneasily ventured a peek over the pile of rubble in front of them and then hunkered back down.

  “Um, I know you’re point on this mission, D, so no disrespect here, okay? Those are some long freakin’ odds.”

  “Have a little faith,” Delacompte said.

  A little faith? Screw faith, Koko thought. The data streaming into her ocular implant told Koko both Corporal Davidson’s and Corporal Kamiński’s bricks were down two mercs each. That meant, including their own two casualties, the insertion team was short six heads in total. Davidson had their entire unit’s medic under her wing, for crying out loud, and the medic’s beacon indicated that the medic’s body was now in four, count them, four separate pieces. Additional bio sweeps also indicated the Kongercat de-civs were in a spiraled thatch formation of at least three hundred, dug in at fifty-seven meters in front of their position. True, the Kongercats’ weapons were antiques and they couldn’t hit water falling out of a boat, but this was their ground. All they had to do was let fly, toss a few IEDs, and the whole ElektroCorp mission in Sanya was cooked.