Kandi looks down slowly at her knee, which Lucky Ricky is staring at fixedly, looking pale and horrified, gun wavering in his hands.
“Did you just try to kneecap me?” she says wearily.
“Oh shit,” Lucky Ricky whispers. “Oh shit. Yeah. You’ve got metal legs.” He looks up at her, kicked-puppy, with a terrible relief.
“You are the fucking worst,” Kandi tells him. “You know what happens now?”
He shakes his head dumbly.
“Casino security are on the phone to the cops now,” Kandi says. “And they’re gonna send SWAT for an active shooter. And they’re gonna turn you into bullet-sponge Squarepants.”
“No,” Lucky Ricky says, eyes huge. He shakes his head a little. “No, cuz you can fix this—”
“Yeah, you know what I’m gonna do?” Kandi says, and takes hold of his hands. He wriggles a little in protest as she lifts his arms, the muzzle of the gun sweeping up the length of her; and then it’s pointed obliquely skyward, over her shoulder, and Kandi lets all her breath out, slow and calm, takes the deepest lungful she can.
“NO RICKY NO I SWEAR THE WAITER WASN’T FLIRTING HE WAS ONLY BEING POLITE—!” she screams at the top of her voice, and ruthlessly, rhythmically crushes his hand until the gun stops firing and only clicks empty beside her ear.
“Oh fuck,” Lucky Ricky says.
“Yeah,” Kandi says, and shoves him away, tumbling into a corner of the room on his ass.
“No no no no,” Lucky Ricky says.
“You tried to fucking kneecap me,” Kandi says, and wrenches the door open. “Hope you feel lucky, punk,” and doesn’t so much as glance back, dashing in the direction of yelling and panicky sounds; throws herself in with the nearest terrified huddle crouched behind a row of slot machines.
“Oh my god, did you see that?” she demands in a high-pitched warble. “He had a gun! And a girl with him! I think he’s gonna shoot her! And she’s blonde and like she looks, like, sixteen, the fucking pervert—”
Eyewitnesses: they’re magic. So easily created with a little sleight of hand.
“Is that the cops?” Kandi adds frantically, clawing her way up an internet-connected water cooler to pretend to peer around it. The system-on-a-stick slots smoothly into the back of it. “Oh my god—” and lets them yank her back to the floor for her own safety, clings reciprocally to some hysterical Jen-from-HR type who’s finding Jesus and repenting her gamblin’ ways in real time, gets evac’ed along with the rest of them by casino security and the cops, huddles under a space blanket in the crowds behind the emergency vehicle barrier for a couple hours, has a perfunctory statement taken by the cops, offered a ride to hospital to get checked out, and shuffled back to waiting.
A couple of baffled-looking cops eventually come and ask for her by the fictitious name she gave them. “Can you come this way, please, ma’am?” and walk her some distance away into the gathering dusk, to the black bulk of a parked MOCOM.
“Special Agent,” one of the cops says, tipping his hat to Whisper, standing by it in a black suit and aviators, arms grimly folded.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Whisper rasps, tight-lipped. “I’m sorry I can’t divulge further details, but I’ll be sure to mention your cooperation in my report. I’ll take it from here; if you need anything further from her, please contact me immediately,” and hands them a business card which Kandi knows has only a fake name and a cell number on it.
“Special Agent,” the cop says again, gives the pair of them a wary look, and leaves them to it.
“Special Agent,” Kandi says, and waggles her eyebrows. Whisper takes off her shades to give her an incandescent look.
“Changed my mind,” Whisper says. “You are coming home whether you like it or not. Get in the fucking truck.”
“Okay,” Kandi says, reaching for the MOCOM’s side door, and Whisper grabs her wrist and takes several breaths as if she’s going to say something and stalls on getting it out.
“Malcolm Technical,” she says finally, not quite looking at Kandi, “owed me a favour from years back.”
It sits in the air.
“This whole thing—” Kandi starts.
“I knew you were here,” Whisper says, dropping her head to look at her feet. “I knew you’d get hired, if the right kind of job came up. She chased you for years, I didn’t want to just — I thought—”
“We work together well,” Kandi says wryly.
Whisper nods, inhales deeply, and raises her chin, if not her gaze.
“I’m not scared of you, Whisper,” Kandi says softly. “I know you’re not her. That’s not what — we are gonna talk about this, okay? We have to, this time.”
“Yeah,” Whisper says, choked, then, finally, tentatively, raising her gaze: “yeah?”
Kandi nods firmly. “So are we picking Bright up, or what?”
Whisper frowns. “Bright? He’s handling things back home.”
“I know that’s what you said, but—” Kandi thumbs toward the back end of the MOCOM, raises her eyebrows. “The bike rack—?”
A cackle of laughter interrupts them from the cab; Antsy sticks her head out. “Who do we know with a bike, asshole,” she says. “Oh my god. Just get in, both of you, before someone comes back with followup questions about your ID.”
Kandi meekly pulls open the side door.
“That’s for my bike?” she says quietly, to Whisper, who gives her a confused, disgruntled look.
“It was your idea!”
“Yeah.” It feels like the unclench of a muscle that she’d forgotten doesn’t have to hurt. Kandi takes a breath. “Yeah. Well.” She motions at the open door. “Ladies first?”
“Who’s my dog?” Whisper says, flat and unimpressed, eyes narrowed, and Kandi’s smile breaks through onto her face unasked. The hacker points with her chin. “Get.”
“Woof,” Kandi says happily, and gets.
