Chapter Five—Stakeout

Max and Staxx had sat for two hours at a bar in the Parade Park. There were palm trees, pools, fancy rocks that looked like natural formations from tectonic collision. The ceiling above projected ultraviolet light similar to that of the ideal sun.

“I feel like a stalker,” Kyle had said as he watched Kelly Hess swim in her bikini and then lay out in the sun.

John ignored the complaint. “Why go to Ela Luna Keys when you can have the palm trees and the sun right here?” he asked.

“Should have got those guns out of the arms locker,” Kyle said absently.

“No way,” John said. “Too many ways to get caught. We have to be in an out of here without turning ourselves into wanted felons.”

Kyle sighed. “Man, this sucks. I promised you there’d be shooting, too.”

So far they had visited this bar and the indoor sun spa called Parade Park while they tailed Laiwyn Scorr and Kelly Hess about, keeping a safe distance so as not to be spotted by his guards.

After Parade Park it was the opera house, but they didn’t stay long. Laiwyn broke off to do something else while Miss Hess went to the top decks which were a frolic of activity with more pools, sun rooms and neon night clubs.

They had followed her to those decks and now John was downing the rest of his beer just as Laiwyn went into the night club called the Roko’s Claw where Hess was no doubt partying.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Kyle complained. “Can’t we take a break, do our own thing for a while? Not like hussy Hess’s goin’ anywhere.”

“Our own thing?” John asked. “Like what?”

“You didn’t put that Akurr suite on for no reason did you?” Kyle was wearing a black leather jacket and a ridiculous pair of punked-out of sneakers that actually lit up as he walked.

John thought it was childish, but that was Kyle’s way with clothes. Upscale mixed with punk.

“So there’s this casino on floor twenty-three that I want to—“

“Oh no,” John said. “Once you’re on that floor you’re going to dig in like a Hegelian rock tick until you’ve spent at least a million dollars. Not happening.”

“I don’t want to join any of the games,” Kyle said. “There’s this dance that I want to see.”

“A dance?” John asked. “You’re the one who praised the gods Scorr and Hess left the opera house so early! What could you want with a dance?”

“Well…” Kyle began and trailed off.

“Oh, I see. That kind of dance,” John said. “I should have known you’d be after something that lacked any semblance of high culture.”

“Can’t I enjoy myself? We are on vacation.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you know, like when you leave work and go have fun?”

John pointed a finger at Kyle. “For one, what we do isn’t work, and secondly, we have a job to do.”

“See!”

“What?”

“You just said we have a ‘job’ to do, John. It is work. At least this time it is.”

John sighed as he surveyed the night club on the other end of the deck. This area was open and incredibly large. Where the Roko Claw was situated the environment was dark, conveying a sense of night, while here, at the bar on the side with the pools, it was perfectly hot and sunny.

If he let Kyle run around doing his own thing, there was a chance this could all get messed up. John’s partner, though a good planner, was often extremely indifferent about things, often forgetting them altogether for activities that were “more fun.”

The only reason why Kyle was able to stay on point with what Max and Staxx did was because it was fun, but also because he hated what he called the “overlords.”

Poor kid.

“We can goof off once we have Hess,” John said. “If you’re bored, I have an idea about how we can spice things up.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go break into Laiwyn Scorr’s rooms.”

Kyle laughed. “Do we even know what room he’s in?”

“Lexa will tell us.”

“Ah,” Kyle said, “Lexa, the still-clothed-holo-babe-sidekick.”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” Kyle said. “Let’s do this thing.”