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  The kid relaxes a mere fraction beneath Flynn’s hands. “Right-right,” he says, “’kay-o. So, um, like, me? I’m on errand for my mother for the chem-macy ’cause my mother be sick and need her pressure pins, right-right? So I come out, out of that chem-macy right over there, and this danger smoke? This totally hot, danger smoke—me can’t help myself but heavy goon.”

  “The first woman.”

  “Right-right. The first woman. Like I say, total danger smoke. Got her this long black hair, shorty-shorts, and boots. Can’t miss me a high sexy danger smoke dressed like that, for sure.” The kid gives Flynn a conspiratorial roll of his hips. “Don’t know about you, officer, but for heavy credit maybe she be the type tug me jam-spout for clear, right-right? Knock a little shift and shake?”

  Flynn needs to flatten the kid’s raging hormones but quick.

  “Let’s just keep use of slanguage to a minimum, all right? First woman, second woman. And don’t say danger smoke, okay? It’s derogatory.”

  “Derogatory?”

  Flynn sighs. “Offensive.”

  “Oh. Right-right. Sorry.”

  “Really. We’ll be through in a minute and you can be on your way. Just cooperate and speak clearly, okay?”

  A tremble sends a rolling creak through the boy’s plastic slicker. “Right-right. So, I’m doing my errand thing and the first one, the danger, err, the first woman? She go lefty, yeah? She go all lefty and down that access tunnel right over there. Then this second danger smo—I mean, this second woman? Big redhead with the neck chokers. That one follow the first quicky-quick right after. And I’m, like, minding my own, but then when I pass by the tunnel? Me gets a goon all proper. Yeah, that it’s all going off speedy-like. Like mega boom.”

  “The altercation.”

  “Yeah-yeah,” the kid says. “The altercation. Full-on tiger fighting, that. I mean, I’ve seen plenty of full-on tiger combat before on the media feeds and on my hobby games and such, but never for real and never for real up close like that for sure. My mother, she won’t let me go all spectator at real tiger fights ’cause of my old man forbid. Both front and say going to the real tiger fights rot my bean. And my old man? My old man, he be down below in India for re-civ rebuildin’ and just me and my mom living on Alaungpaya. My mom, she’s a dealer in the casino so you’d think she’d be all kinds of stretchy since she works the floor as a table skipper, but no way. Those tiger fights, my mom say, those tiger fights are real sin. Kind of crazy religious she. New One Roman Church of the Most Holy Liberator and all that. Not me, though. If you ask me, full-on tiger fighting is hot. You ever watch the tiger fights, officer?”

  Flynn grinds his teeth. God, he thinks wearily, this incident reporting is for the freaking birds. Why this statistical garbage couldn’t be handled by some rookie is beyond him. For the love of God, here he is… his last couple of hours left as a security officer, hell, his last few hours alive at all, and he’s acting like some kind of glorified meter ward.

  For nearly ten years Flynn has been rising through the security ranks aboard Alaungpaya, and life as a lawman has been pretty much a fair deal. Steady advancement. Plenty of respect, if not tepid admiration, from most of his fellow officers. Flynn was even nominated for sergeant-at-arms at a local security fraternity chapter a couple of years back. But of course that was before his diagnosis—a full-blown case of Depressus—and Flynn’s fall from favor and grace since has been utterly degrading.

  When he was first diagnosed with the dreaded affliction, Flynn debated whether to use his knowledge of Alaungpaya’s access codes and take matters into his own hands. In the past, at least, that’s what a real man would do. Pitch himself right off some restricted staging deck and be done with it. But as a security officer Flynn knows and respects Second Free Zone law. Private Depressus suicides are now prohibited in the confederate orbits with personal estate forfeit penalties assessed at one hundred percent. Even though he has little to his name, Flynn still likes to think he has some semblance of a soul and has a few charities in mind.

  His lieutenant, on the other hand, was hardly sympathetic when Flynn leveled the bad news.

  * * *

  “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me, Flynn. Really? Depressus?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  “Perfect. That’s just perfect. Damn it to hell, are you sure?”

  “The ship doctors seem fairly convinced, sir.”

  The lieutenant looked away and then back at Flynn. “So, how far along are you?”

  Flynn rolled one shoulder and then the other. He stood as tall and courageously as he could. “A few weeks,” Flynn replied. “Barge docs told me they patched a notice advising divisional personnel and they were, in turn, supposed to inform you of my situation and medications. The docs also said if I keep on the meds I might be able to cycle out the quarter. I’ve already locked in an open reservation for Embrace, but I’d really like to keep working as long as I can, if that’s all right with you.”

  His lieutenant threw a stack of folders down on his desk.

  “Give me a number.”

  “I’m sorry, sir? A number?”

  “Yeah, give me a number. A timeline. Like, how long do you got? Two months? Five weeks? What’s your prognosis?”

  “I’d like to keep working as long as I am able, sir.”

  “That’s not an answer. Look, Flynn, I know this has to suck for you and all, but I need to be honest with you here. I’ve seen plenty of Depressus cases in my time, and believe me, you sad sacks of uselessness just go from worse to pathetic to the point I want to shoot you in the head myself. I’m running a division here, deputy, and if you haven’t noticed it’s a division on one of the largest residential barges orbiting in the Second Free Zone. The last thing I need is one of my own flaking out and losing his marbles on some Alaungpaya civilian or breaking down in tears. So, hey, do me a favor here. Give me a number I can work with.”

  After a few seconds of mulling it over, Flynn said, “Does a month sound okay?”

  His lieutenant scowled. “Pull your file and encode your resignation today. You’ve got two weeks. Officially I’m putting you on statistics for the remainder of your tenure until termination.”

  * * *

  “I don’t watch the tiger fights,” Flynn says, instantly regretting engaging with the kid’s passions.

  The kid gasps and rocks back on his heels. “Don’t watch the tiger fights?”

  “No,” Flynn answers. “I don’t watch the tiger fights.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “No.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know, I just don’t.”

  The kid slouches, still unable to contain his disbelief. “But why? Me, I can’t help myself but heavy goon at those tiger fights. Grrrrr, they the bestest.”

  Flynn has had enough. Quickly he slips his left hand around the kid’s head and presses the recorder hard into the side of the boy’s skull. The intensity of his grip and the edged pressure from the small device hurts like hell and Flynn knows it. It feels good to Flynn to inflict a little pain, and once more he feels dark waves of misplaced, Depressus-fueled rage bubbling up inside. The kid gets his focus swift.

  “Hey, man—take it easy!”

  “I don’t have time for this, son. What happened?”

  The boy winces. “Right-right—ow! So, that big redhead? Sh-she goes after the first woman at speed and attacks. And that first one? She like knows that redhead be coming at her so she drops sideways with a kick and bounces that redhead right off the walls. The redhead hits the ground and next the first woman drops, like, a zillion elbows rapid, like, all over on her. Never seen such speed. I can’t be sure, but I think she might’ve broken that redhead’s leg.”

  “Did the redhead scream?”

  “Nah, but she be done for sure, you bet. Hallelujah chorus and done. Then—drong! The other woman start to mark her.”

  “Mark her?”

  “C’mon, man. See, t
hat’s what I’m talking about. If you ever bothered to goon the tiger fights, now, you’d know.”

  Flynn recalls hearing something about the fighters’ sadistic traditions.

  “Did the first woman bite out the redhead’s eye?”

  “Didn’t look like it to me,” the kid answers, squirming. “But that other one? She looked up and saw me gooning straight at her. Freaked me all out. Kind of thought for a second there she was going to attack me, but then she turned and dropped down one of those plummet chutes back there. The second one, I think.”

  Flynn skeptically eyeballs the access tunnel and the plummet chute mouths along the walls. On Alaungpaya, plummet chutes are used to provide convenient deck-to-deck transitions. But no one really uses the chutes that much anymore because the twisting, one-way tubes are dank, poorly lit, and sticky with trash. For the nine-billionth time in his wretched life, Flynn wonders why visual verifiers aren’t on Alaungpaya’s commercial decks. Screw the whining about freedoms and personal liberties, not having visuals in sectors like this is just plain stupid.

  “What happened next?” Flynn asks.

  “I run and report it straight up. Then, like, ten minutes later you come.”

  “What about the redhead? A messed-up leg like you say, I don’t think she could have gotten far. Did you see where she took off to?”

  “No,” the kid answers. “When I run and report it and wait for you, she was, like, gone. Maybe she took a plummet chute too.”

  Flynn releases the kid’s neck and steps back. Grumbling, the kid makes a big show of rubbing the indentations on the side of his head.

  “Is that it?” the kid asks.

  “Yeah,” Flynn answers. “That’s it.”

  Flynn puts a header of miscellaneous on the incident record file and presses the save icon. So a couple of hard cases go at it, what does he care? The two women are not around now and only this goofy-looking kid here is the wiser. Without visual documentation to confirm the boy’s story, who can honestly prove this incident even happened?

  But Flynn knows the kid is telling the truth. Emotional fluctuations on the recording device don’t lie. An assault was committed, and following up on it is still his duty. But as he chews it over some more, he decides to let the whole misadventure pass and erases the file.

  Statistical beat, his ass.

  Flynn holsters the recording device on his duty belt and then droops his uniform’s hood over his head.

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” Flynn says. He shoos the boy away. “Now, do me a favor, kid, and get lost. Your mother needs her pressure pins.”

  GOONING ON THE FEEDS

  TIGER FIGHT “SEA RAGE BONANZA XVI” PROMO FEED—0:30

  CLIENT: Tiger Fight Federation International, TFFI PRODUCTION ENGAGEMENT: 2516 Spring/Autumn Cycles N/S Hemispheres

  VISUAL FEED 1: (OPENING GRAPHICS) IN HAMMERED, RUSTY STEEL—EACH LETTER OF THE TFFI LOGO DROPPING INTO PLACE LIKE A HEAVY ANVIL. TFFI LOGO BLOWN AWAY IN A BLINDING FIREBALL. ZOOM FROM THE LINGERING SMOKE, THE WORD—PRESENTS—AGAIN, BLOWN AWAY IN A SECOND, MORE EXPLOSIVE, FIREBALL.

  AUDIO: LOUD EXPLOSIONS

  [CUT TO] (LOGO): SEA RAGE BONANZA XVI

  VOICEOVER: (WOMAN–HUSKY–VOICED, SEDUCTIVE) Your wait (pause) is over!

  AUDIO: POUNDING DRUM BEATS, HYPER-PACED MUSIC, THE DEAFENING ROAR OF CHEERING TIGER FIGHT FANS.

  VOICEOVER (CONT.): TFFI’s Sea Rage Bonanza XVI! Friday, June 6th! Live! Credit broadcast feeds 88–138. Goon it!

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 2: RAPID MONTAGE SHOTS OF VARIOUS TIGER FIGHT MATCH ACTION. MAN-ON-WOMAN. WOMAN-ON-WOMAN. MAN-ON-MAN. BODY BLOWS. COMPOUND FRACTURES. TEETH SPLASHED WITH BLOOD.

  AUDIO: SOUNDS OF FLESH-ON-FLESH FIGHTING, AGONIZED SCREAMS, DEFIANT WARRIOR ROARS.

  VOICEOVER (CONT.): On the deck of European Alliance Carrier Forseti… the most anticipated, multi-match tiger-fighting spectacle ever assembled. An all-star lineup including twelve-time Golden Band welterweight champion Jinx Belskaia and South American Central Jujitsu Institute takedown champ Carlos “Soul Killer” Marta. Their last match was a draw, this time it’s to the death!

  AUDIO: MORE HYPER-PACED MUSIC. HEAVY DRUMS CLIMBING TO CRESCENDO.

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 3: HIGHLIGHTS OF SOME OF BELSKAIA AND MARTA’S MORE VIOLENT FINISHES. (Note: TFFI Authorized Visuals only.)

  VOICEOVER (CONT.): Watch as former warriors from across the world take their grudge matches to a whole new level. Twenty sponsored tiger fights on the Sea Rage card in all! With weaponized zip rounds! All live! All action!

  [CUT TO] VISUAL FEED 4: SIDEBAR OF FEED CHANNELS SCROLL RIGHT AS ADDITIONAL MONTAGE OF FIGHT ACTION AND KILLS ROLLS. INCLUDE AERIAL SHOT OF PREVIOUS SEA RAGE EVENTS ON THE EUROPEAN ALLIANCE CARRIER FORSETI.

  VOICEOVER (CONT.) One hundred percent certified combat and murderous mêlées! Goon your heart out as up-and-coming fighters fresh from the syndicate enlistment obligations clash and claw their way to glory on the open seas! Friday, June 6th! Be there!

  [DISSOLVE] VISUAL FEED 5: THIRD GARGANTUAN FIREBALL FILLS THE ENTIRE SCREEN.

  AUDIO: MASSIVE, ROLLING EXPLOSION.

  [Note: Translation budget covers all remaining languages and surviving Chinese dialects (Mandarin, Wu, Min Nan, etcetera.)]

  FLYNN, THE EXIT INTERVIEW

  ALAUNGPAYA SECURITY EMPLOYEE—FLYNN, JEDIDIAH—C-CLASS. BADGE NUMBER: 2294; SFZ Citizen Identification 821612403; Mandatory Exit Assessment: Case #363-737-E/Recorded for Archive Retrieval/Date: 7.1.2521 Current Cycle

  PERSONNEL ASSESSMENT AGENT: What is your primary reason for leaving Alaungpaya Security Services, Deputy Flynn?

  JEDIDIAH FLYNN: [Inaudible]

  PAA: Deputy Flynn?

  JF: You’re not really asking me that, are you?

  PAA: Just answer the stated questions, please.

  JF: I mean, wouldn’t something like that be in my file already? God, you know damn well why I put in my notice. My lieutenant practically held my hand when I encoded my resignation.

  PAA: This may be true. However, the archive needs linear cohesion, deputy. Please, just state the reason for your resignation for the audio record.

  JF: Fine. I have Depressus. Linear cohesion happy now?

  PAA: Yes. And for what it’s worth, let me offer you my condolences. I know how this must be difficult for you. Now, then, first things first. Are you lucid this afternoon, Deputy Flynn?

  JF: What do you mean?

  PAA: Are you clear-headed? Are you on any heavier-than-normal medication or substances unknown that might affect your answers today?

  JF: I’m still on duty.

  PAA: Yes-yes.

  JF: I’m still a security officer for the next twenty-four hours.

  PAA: Yes, but your file indicates you have been reprimanded twice for overindulging your medication levels in recent weeks. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I also know it’s not uncommon for personnel to throw caution to the wind so close to termination.

  JF: Look, I’m fine. Basic even dosage and barge-medical-approved. I know the rules. All that stuff? I was going through a rough couple of days and made a mistake. What, you want to give me a blood test right now, is that it? Wipe my tongue and take a saliva sample?

  PAA: We just want perfect linear cohesion for the archive.

  JF: Yeah, right.

  PAA: Please calm down.

  JF: I’m calmed down.

  PAA: Deputy Flynn, let me be frank. While I sympathize with your distress, yours is not the first Depressus security case I’ve interviewed. I fully understand how normal discourse can cause aggravation and induce radical temperament fluxes in those with Depressus. I repeat, I mean to cause you no grief this afternoon. So if you simply answer the questions succinctly and with proper composure, we’ll be done with this in no time.

  JF: [Inaudible]

  PAA: What?

  JF: Just how many questions are you going to ask me anyway?

  PAA: Mmm. Fifty, give or take.

  JF: [Inaudible] />
  PAA: How’s that?

  JF: Nothing. Just forget it.

  PAA: Good. Now, then, let’s move on with some basics. In your own words, what was most satisfying about your position as a deputy for Alaungpaya Security Services?

  JF: Nothing.

  PAA: Nothing? Come, come. All those years of service, there must be something you found satisfying.

  JF: Well, maybe some of the respect, I suppose.

  PAA: Excellent answer. Good, good.

  JF: Some of the camaraderie. Helping people out of bad situations, you know, stuff like that.

  PAA: I see. And what during your tenure did you find the least gratifying?

  JF: Besides the fact that you guys should seriously consider changing the name of Alaungpaya’s security force? I’d say the least satisfying would be the compensation.

  PAA: Of course you do realize Alaungpaya Security Service personnel are some of the highest-compensated law-enforcement officers in the Second Free Zone.

  JF: Oh, come off it. Some of the highest paid? We both know for a fact the compensation assessment for Alaungpaya security bites the big one. It’s laughable even with last year’s benefit upgrades. And I should know—I’m in the union.

  PAA: Again, I must caution you about your tone of voice.

  JF: My tone of voice? My tone of voice? You know what? Get bent.

  PAA: See, the direction you seem so insistent on taking this—

  JF: What? Can’t I even express myself openly anymore outside of a doctor’s office? Or is speaking my mind forbidden now too? I just don’t like the fact that you jerks have to do some kind of post mortem on me and I haven’t even killed myself yet. Damn it… [Inaudible] See? This is what I’m talking about. Shit, I knew I should have just opted for uploading this crap instead of doing an exit interview in person.

  PAA: That was your choice.

  JF: My choice. None of us have a choice.

  PAA: Is something wrong, deputy?

  JF: [Inaudible]

  PAA: Deputy? Are you all right?

  JF: No, wait. I’m okay. I’m sorry. I just need to breathe for a second or two. Hold on.