<b>Roo'd</b>

# Roo'd

Previous Contents Next

# Chapter #31

Tonx made a few more calls before he hung up and tossed the phone onto the dirt of the parking lot. He’d pulled the chip from the phone so at least his call record should be gone in case anyone picked it up. Esco had returned to the car and was watching Baby run take-offs and landings with the black wasp bot. Poulpe was doing something with the mix kit, but he couldn’t see what in the shadowed inside of the car. As Tonx walked back towards them Esco slid forward, stopping him a dozen feet from the car.

“A word, man” he said, delicate fingers splayed level to the ground.

“What up, Esco” sighed Tonx. “You get word from your boss?”

“No. No, we didn’t. We just got to hold tight with you and the Frenchman. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to know where we’re going. You follow?”

Tonx sized up the slightly larger man. Esco’s shoulders were loose, his knees bent. He looked and sounded like he was talking about the weather, or a sports game he didn’t care much about. But there was a certain carelessness about him that reminded Tonx of Mil. He was comfortable. Too comfortable.

The moment hung in the hot air, silent. Tonx sighed again.

“No” he said.

Esco rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet, twice.

“Yes” he said, his eyes not leaving Tonx’ face. “You’re going to tell us where we’re going, my friend. It’s not a choice.”

“I tell you and we’re all worse off. It’s better you don’t know.”

“That’s not the business agreement” said Esco.

“It’s the way it is” said Tonx.

They stood for a long moment, still and silent.

“We got to know something, man” said Esco, quietly. “You would want the same if you were in our place.”

“You know it’s a bad idea” said Tonx. “You know it’ll make things complicated.”

“Doesn’t have to” said Esco.

“But it will” said Tonx. He turned and spat in the dust. Neither of them moved. Behind them Baby landed the flier and started packing it into the trunk of the car. The sun fell on them hard from overhead and the wind kicked up a little, died again.

Tonx sighed. “We’re going to Mexico, motherfucker” he said.

Baby slammed the trunk shut twice, the rusty latch failing to catch.

Later, when they’d all gotten back in the car and driven for a while, Poulpe leaned forward and quietly asked Tonx why they were going to Mexico. Esco’d looked at Baby, Baby had looked at Tonx, and Tonx had looked back at Poulpe.

“You don’t ask that” he said. “We’re keeping you safe. I’m getting us somewhere we can do that. The less you all know until then, the better.”

“I am not sure that’s in my best interest” said Poulpe, his accent drawn out, nasal.

“It’s in your best interest that if one of us gets caught and tortured, we can’t say where you are” said Baby, his hands still for once. “It’s in your best interest that if you get caught you can’t tell them where we are before we track you down.”

“Then why was it so important that you gentlemen know?”

Esco and Baby shared a glance. Tonx stared out the window, driving.

“We still don’t know shit” said Esco. He leaned forward and snapped on the radio, tinny country songs in Latvian or Swedish rolling out through the punctured speakers. The road went by beneath them.

Hours later, and Esco was driving. Tonx and Poulpe sat together in the back seat.

“So why risperidone?” Tonx asked. Poulpe hadn’t proven to be a very charming guest, but Tonx knew from their long correspondence that the man was brilliant. More important, he knew that very soon he might need him.

Poulpe licked his lips with the tip of his tongue before he replied.

“My former employer used a specific chemical addiction to assure my loyalty. While I thought I had found a solution it was clearly an insufficient dose. After your friends here treated me to a variety of chemical cocktails my neurochemistry began to go through withdrawal. The risperidone helped combat all of these effects.”

He smiled thinly at Tonx.

“Fortunately you were there in time to catch one of my lucid moments and administer the correct dose.”

Tonx shrugged.

“You seemed to be arguing with yourself about it. Suggested amilsulpride, but in a tweaked-out voice. I went with the risperidone.”

Tonx had kept his voice light, but Poulpe pasted on an imitation of a smile as soon as he mentioned amilsulpride. There was something wrong there, something out of sync with the man that made Tonx’s throat tight.

“Delusional talk” Poulpe said. “Nothing to worry about. Now, I seem to recall that we communicated some time ago about using prions to stimulate acceptance of new RNA sequences. Have you learned any more about that?”

The rest of the conversation was just biz.

Previous Contents Next