“Starting the op clock,” Whisper says in everyone’s earpiece, and Lucky Ricky instantly pouts like a little baby.
“I’m in charge!” he says, in a horrible little whine.
Kandi closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
”…Would you like to start the op clock?” Whisper says, deadpan.
“Yeah, I’m gonna start it! I’m in charge of this!” Lucky Ricky yells. “Start it!”
“Op clock started,” Whisper says, the clock’s digits continuing to tick up, uninterrupted, in the corner of Kandi’s vision. What the fuck, she can’t help dismally thinking, was Malcolm Technical thinking, letting these two uneasily cram themselves into one job, maybe he’s where this is wrong—
She really badly needs to stop fretting and get her mind on the job.
“Yeah!” Lucky Ricky hoots. “It’s go time!”
Kandi takes another deep breath, and opens the door to climb out of the passenger side of Lucky Ricky’s lurid car.
The plan — since its contact with Whisper — has two phases. Phase One: Kandi and Lucky Ricky walk in the front of Octavian’s and wander around like hapless punters. Lucky Ricky plays the slots a little, to look inconspicuous (to keep him from doing anything to ‘help’). Kandi plays arm candy, then excuses herself to powder her nose, and plants a system-on-stick in a USB port on any one of a number of pre-identified, inadvisably network-connected devices, depending which is most accessible, least conspicuous at the time. When it comes online, it connects an encrypted tunnel out of Octavian’s network to a temporary C2 server, which passes along Whisper’s various commands and payloads. Kandi and Lucky Ricky exit Octavian’s through the front door.
Thus having control of Octavian’s systems from the inside, they come back later through the back for Phase Two, via a Whisper-constructed lacuna in the security feed. They do a certain amount of physical B&E to misdirect attention away from the security system’s autoimmune problem, slip through the gaps in the internal patrol routine like they’re playing a bullet hell; Kandi knocks out a couple of unavoidable guys in and around the security vault itself; Lucky Ricky fills a couple of duffel bags with cash. They exit again.
Kandi really wishes she believed it’ll go like that. She adjusts her sleeves.
“Kandi,” Whisper says quietly in her ear, and if she didn’t already know, the private tone would tell Kandi this is just for her. “I’m trying — I’m not the Major. I didn’t come to say you have to come home, whether you like it or not. But this guy — seriously. This guy?”
Kandi huffs, brisk and audible. “Going off comms,” she says pointedly, since they’re not risking it for Phase One; the last thing they need is to get made as if they’re trying a card-table scam or some shit. She prises her earpiece out, puts it into its case, and stashes that in Lucky Ricky’s glovebox.
She scowls, climbing out of the car. As if she thinks Whisper is in any way like the Major, as if Kandi would ever suspect for a second that Whisper is here to burn her operation as some kind of toxic codependent recapture. If Kandi gets burned, it won’t be personal. They’re professionals. Whisper will be sorry, even, because of what they’ve — been. And Whisper says this to her when she can’t say any of that, when Kandi can’t defend herself or yell at her.
Talk about timing.
She slams the car door, stretches. The extent of her augments is obscured, a little, under a black cashmere turtleneck and tan slacks; lace gloves fashionably detract from her metal hands without looking like she’s deliberately hiding something.
“She cleans up pretty good, doesn’t she?” Antsy had said earlier, with a massively overdone show of innocence, nudging Whisper, and Whisper had glanced up from her computers for just a second. Kandi’s not sure Whisper looked at the outfit at all; just made eye contact, swallowed, and dived back into her work.
“Well, I think you look nice,” Antsy said, scowling sideways at Whisper.
“Thanks,” Kandi said, dry-mouthed.
Lucky Ricky grabs her elbow. “Come on!” he says loudly, and Kandi deliberately reminds herself to leave his fingers unbroken, lets him hustle her along.
Inside the casino, he keeps hold of her, keeps going past the slots.
“Lucky Ricky—” she says resignedly.
“It’s cool!” he says loudly, loud and false enough to get a couple of glances from passers-by. “It’s cool! We’re just looking for the bathrooms—”
Not the plan! she can’t snap at him, just lets him tow her around. Behind a row of potted palms and around a discreet corner, he still keeps hold of her, yanks open the sole accessible bathroom, bundles her inside. Catches sight of her dangerous face and hops back a step, hands high.
“Not all men, hashtag!” he says defensively. “Listen! I’m getting fucking fucked here, Saluki!”
“No you’re not,” Kandi says.
“They’ve fucking fucked me!” Lucky Ricky insists, and points around her vaguely. “What does that do?”
“What does — you mean the thing we’re here for?” She folds her arms. “I’m not the tech, Ricky. You’ve had plenty of time to ask what it does from the people who could tell you. Go get yourself a drink and call Gabriel if you want the paint-by-numbers—”
“Nothing happens without me saying so!” Lucky Ricky yells. “Tell me!”
“You know everything I do!” Kandi says. “It plugs in the network here somewhere, and it uses the security codes you got — somehow — to fix casino security so we can’t get caught later.”
“I don’t fucking trust it!” Lucky Ricky says.
Kandi gives him a long, silent stare, then reaches for the door handle. “Guess we can call this off and all go home, then,” she says flatly.
“Shut up!” Lucky Ricky shrieks, and flails about himself. She recognises what he’s doing and stops moving, without letting go of the handle; he finally wrenches a gun out of the back of his waistband and waves it in her general direction.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Kandi says.
“I’m getting fucked!” Lucky Ricky sputters, misting himself with spittle, eyes huge. He seems terrified of the weapon he’s pointing. “Fucking Malcolm Technical and the fucking Horse Whisperer and then there’s you and you’ve worked for her before and then you’re here and then she’s here and it’s all really fucking convenient! Fuck Malcolm Technical, he set me up! You’re a fucking plant! I shoulda known! You’re the fucking Horse Whisperer’s fucking Trojan....”
He trails off, bug-eyed, tongue-tied.
“Horse?” Kandi supplies, dry; listening, as best she can, to what’s happening in the corridor on the other side of the door. She’s pretty sure she can hear footsteps hurrying about.
“Fuck you!”
“Come on, put that down,” Kandi tells him, and Lucky Ricky hesitates as if he might, just for a second. He looks wild and distressed, as if he thought this through as little as he does anything, hadn’t really foreseen that pointing the gun would result in holding her at gunpoint.
“Fuck you!” he yells instead, and wrenches his arm downward, grabbing his free hand around the grip as well to steady himself, points it deliberately at her leg. “Tell me! Tell me!”
“What do you even think you’re gonna do?” Kandi says.
“Fuck you!” Lucky Ricky says shrilly, and shoots her, possibly by accident.
