Chapter Thirty Seven

Valerie

Valerie is sitting in the back corner of the SSS bar, wiping a couple drops of beer off her face. This is the second time someone has managed to slosh shit on her from out of the blue. They’re going on the third day of watching the mission and the room is still completely packed. She was just about to go to bed, but then Aaron landed on the accumulation site and everything got crazy. She’s flat wrung out from merely watching.

Everyone is going nuts after watching him taking names up on the platform. After the first publicity boost from the press, SSS has somehow suddenly gone from mafia status, to legendary heroes. It’s embarrassing watching Sy hamming it up like he is. She can’t believe he’s releasing all of Aaron’s first person combat footage live. Luckily the signal latency has been long enough to not cost him everything. Whoever owns those robots could have easily relayed it right back to them.

The only reason she’s still in the room at this point is because she’s patiently waiting for a reporter to ask the obvious question of how he’s still alive. The whole world just saw the front of his helmet get ripped off in space, get mangled by two different robots, and kept on going. She cringes, thinking of the damage he’s taken.

For a second, she and Five catch each other’s eyes. She knows the cat is out of the bag too. When she look up at the projector again, it’s Aaron’s face up on the screen. She shakes her head and scratches at the top of her scalp. Her skin feels like it’s suddenly raised ten degrees, and she’s going to start sweating any second now. He’s got his entire damn helmet off and is examining it. He’s completely clueless that the world is watching. Behind him, both of the ships small round airlock doors are open.

She wishes she could get trashed right now. Sy had to have a talk with her about backing off on the sauce. As much as she wanted to tell him what she really felt, she wasn’t going to. She still isn’t married to the place, like the others seem to be. She strictly considers him to be her direct boss, and this is her place of work. He and everyone else can do whatever they want, but it’s time she play her cards differently. At least she has Five to sit and not drink with.

Watching her ex man-robot lover kicking ass on the television with his new girlfriend is really starting to drag her down. She needs to get out of there, but without making it look like she’s unsupportive. The look on her face hasn’t gone unnoticed. Five already understands, and it’s none of anyone else’s business, but she wishes people would leave her alone about it. No one says anything, but they don’t have to. She feels like that stupid lonely girl with her shitty ex boyfriend’s name still tattooed on her ass.

She watches Five zoning off, staring into the water in her glass. They’ve seen enough. There’s been no mention of Arma, which upsets her, and the news is starting to re-run, now that the good stuff is over. When they catch eyes again, Five shrugs and hops down off her stool. There’s a curious little smirk on her face.

“You know, I’m kind of glad we’re stuck down in the basement while Arma and Aaron have to do the scary stuff.” Her eyes are drawn to an aggressive looking focus. “Said fuckin nobody.”

She snorts out a chuckle. She loves how wiley Five is, given her youthful beauty and petite stature. “Hey, you got to go out and have your fun last week. I haven’t even been outside in… like two months! I don’t get to do shit.” She raises her eyebrows at Five. “What do I even do here anyway? All I’ve done all week is lock the door on the lab at night and secretly try to make the copy of myself more beautiful.”

She wishes she actually believed it would be her that got to enjoy the future she’s been working on. She’s been trying to not resent who she’ll be giving all her memories, secrets, beauty, and future to. All the effort has done is make her more disappointed in the way her figure is starting to lose its shape. The only solace she has, is knowing that a copy of herself would not take it for granted, and honor the sacrifices she has made. She plops her elbow on the little round table and runs her fingers in through her hair, letting out a depressed breath.

Five glances over her shoulders, to make sure no one is paying attention to them. “Hey, you wanna maybe go out’n… have some fun? Mmm?”

She raises one eyebrow at Five and looks around too. “What’a ya mean?”

Five puts her hands in her pockets and stands up on her toes. She points her chin forward. “How bout we take the li’l truck out?” She drops back down on her heels and shrugs”

“Hah, no way! Sy gets an alarm on his personal com every time the main door opens. Shit, I bet he gets an alarm any time I leave the lab.”

Five knows exactly how to get to her. “You know, Aaron just got in the big truck and told Sy to shove it. Now he’s got his own shuttle.” She sheepishly shrugs at her again. “Dad’s not gonna let your room till the investigators are dead, or you’re nice and safe in one of those black drives on the shelf downstairs.”

She knows exactly what Five is doing, but that she’s right too. She gulps down the last of the one beer she’s been grudgingly nursing for the last two hours/ She grimaces, being that it’s gone warm. She wipes her mouth off on the sleeve of her lab coat and slides the bottle away from the edge of the table. “Fine, but whatever happens, I’m definitely blaming it all on you.”

She pretends to look at the time on her wrist communicator and then walks out of the bar with Five, as if they have urgent work to do. First thing, she’s going to go do her hair, get all gussied up, and then they’re going to go and funk Welan city in the truck like real SSS untouchables should. They have a mind to dare any son of a bitch to mess with them this time.

After she puts some lifts in her hair, to give it a nice big western look, she pulls on her pair of tight white jeans, leather boots, and blood-red SSS t-shirt. While she’s putting a broad red stripe across the width of her eyes, from ear to ear, her cat Tom scampers into the room.

Five scurries in and quickly closes the door behind herself, all excited. “Hehe, I gotcha now fuzzy-but! He was hiding under the bed.” She scoops Tom up and buries her face in the white fur on his belly.

It makes her so happy to see this side of Five again. It’s been a long time since things have been enjoyable. She’s got her favorite smooth red and black leather pants on with the same kind of shirt on as her, except it’s the black one with the red logo. The red tennishoes she has on reminds her of how her sister would was so easily able to change up her look. With her athletic figure, and the way the tight t-shirt wraps around her perfect breasts, she kind of looks like a moto-girl.

Tom absolutely loves Five and rubs his face all over hers while she holds him like a baby. She coos to him and says “hee hee hee” while she tickles him and lets him paw at her face. She and Five have been a little distant lately, and it really lifts her up to see her like this. They’re really going to have some fun.

When the two of them sneak down the empty halls, and burst into the main hanger towards the truck, she finds herself in such a good mood. When she grabs a fist of the tarp over her truck, she pauses, knowing she shouldn’t be trying to pull a fast one on Sy like this. It’s fun and all, but it’s really not the way they should go about it. When she calls him up on her battle com, he’s smiling, and at least buzzed.

“Hey, uh, I haven’t been out in like, two months, and I need some air ok. Five and I are gonna put around in the truck for a little bit and blow off some steam. And yes I am completely sober. I saw you keeping track.”

She almost asserts that she’s not asking for his permission, but stops when she sees the gears actually turning in his head for once. When he looks back up to the projector in the bar, and then back down to her, she knows she caught him at the right time. He’s in a good mood, and a bold one too.

He cocks his head to the side, looking over at Five in her video feed. “You got two rifles with ya?”

“Yep, had the guys make a rack for em between the seats.”

“You get those vinyl’s I had the guys make for you?”

“Already on the hood.”

She sweeps her wrist communicator around to the tailgate, where the three glossy red lightning bolt S’s are on it. That makes him smile. Then she goes around to the hood and shows him the big red circle, with the lightning bolts and Space Security Services around the perimeter. It’s a good thing her truck was already black with the red war-plane style shark teeth on the front fenders.

“Damn that looks good! And you look damn good! And that damn truck sounds so good!”

Her face is blushing now. “Ok. Thanks Sy. We’ll be back in a bit.” She cuts him off and rolls her eyes at Five. “Let’s do this.”

She cranks the engine over with the pedal on the floor till it revs to life in a heart-pounding roar. While they revel in idling blower surge as it warms up, she and Five dust the truck off with soft rags to make sure it looks perfect. When they start buckling themselves in the seats, she finds her heartrate to be at least at one hundred.

Five’s already has her head leaned back in her seat and is basking in the sound of the crackling exhaust when she puts it in gear. The rear tires chirp when she lets the clutch out, and the truck scoots across the floor with each big breath the engine takes.

Mikel is on hanger duty tonight. She can tell by how tall and lanky he is as they head for the main door. He’s got two of the runners at his side, one on each side as the big sliders start opening for them. He runs his finger in a small circle when she approaches him, telling her to roll a little smoke off the tires. With an eager punch on the throttle, the rear end breaks loose, surprising even her. When the tires abruptly hook up, bucking them in their seats, she laughs at Five reaching up for her shoulder harnesses. She’s got a full tank, and they won’t be coming back till it’s about empty.

The first thing they do is head for the freeway, to open the engine up and get the tires hot. She’s been driving the truck since the day she and her dad built it years ago, but it still takes her breath away every time. Her mouth drops at the things that come out of Five’s mouth every time they blow the doors off another car. There’s never a shortage of shiny little electric pieces of shit that think they’re fast.

By the time they circle the rest of the way around Welan City, the sun has been eclipsed by the sky scraping metropolis, leaving them in the midnight darkenss of downtown. She had almost forgotten the colorful neon show of all the bright city lights. Crowds of people are nearly tripping all over themselves at the sound of her truck. It’s not every day that an extinct combustion engine like hers rips its way through the monotonous understreets of Welan City.

With the windows down, they patiently wait through each light with grins on their faces. Every once in a while, someone puts their fist in the air and shouts “fuck yeah” when they notice the SSS logos on her truck. It makes them feel really good, and proud to be part of what they are. She’s never really felt like she made the right choice until now. It’s a big load off of her chest.

After the truck starts to get a little hot in the slow downtown traffic, they start working their way back towards base where it’s not so crowded. Eventually, some punks start tail gaiting them, and keep following, even after a couple hard turns. Having had enough of it, she puts the pedal down through a red light to ditch them. That’s when the car’s red and blue lights turn on. It’s an unmarked car.

“Aw, son of a bitch!”

She doesn’t pull over immediately, considering whether to run or not. Her truck isn’t just for point and shoot driving. It’s got just as fat of front tires too, and can hold its ground better than anything the cops have. When she looks to Five, she finds her dumping a bottle of some kind of gel all over her forearms and is rubbing it everywhere with her hands.

“What the hell is that?”

Five looks at her with complete craziness in her eyes. “It’s the stuff! Who the hell do you think is behind us?”

“You think it’s them? We gotta get the hell outa here!”

“You do, but pull over first. I’m gonna get out.”

“What!”

“Yeah, How’d you think this was going to happen? Pull over. When I get out, I’m gonna run… then you’re gonna get the hell out of here.”

Five unstraps the communicator on her wrist, slips the small tracking device out of the bottom of it and crams it up her nose. Watching her do it makes her own eyes water. It’s hardcore. Five scrunches her face like she’s just done a line, and then starts unbuckling her seat harness.

She can’t believe she’s doing it, but slowly pulls the truck over to the curb like Five told her to. She doesn’t shut the engine off though. Sure enough, it really is Cris and Gerald behind them. Over the bull horn on their cruiser, Gerald calls out to her while Cris gets out and shines the light on his rifle through the back window of the truck. They know her name, and not because it’s on the registration.

“Valerie, get out of the car honey, or we’re gonna punch y’all full of holes.”

Five grins back at her as she pulls on the handle of her door. “Watch my tracker and send a runner for me when I make it start blinking.”

When Five gets out of the car, she puts her hands up over the back of her head like Cris tells her to. To give Five a chance, she ducks her head below the window, and rips the truck out of there, nearly taking the front wheels off the ground.

The second Cris takes his aim off of Five and points his rifle back at her, Five bolts for the dark alleyway with all the speed she’s famous for. Cris has no choice but to take off after her on foot, leaving Gerald to make chase in the cruiser. Even over the sound of the engine pulling as hard as it can, she can hear gunshots ring out in the alley back behind her. It’s like being punched in the stomach. She can’t believe what she’s done