DISCLAIMER: I don't own Cowboy Bebop; Sunrise Inc. does. I do, however, own this original story.
Life in the Fast Lane
By the Lady Razorsharp
Part 5: Staccato
Blowing and burning, blinded by thirst
They didn't see the stop sign, took a turn for the worse
She said, "Listen baby, you can hear the engine ring--
We've been up and down this freeway
Haven't seen a goddamn thing."
--The Eagles
As odd as it sounded, life settled into a predictable routine after the Syndicate took over. Katia loved to wander the rooms of the finely appointed flat she and Asimov had been given. They had a maid that came twice a week to clean and dust, but sometimes Katia gave her a thousand woolongs and told her to take the day off. The maid, an older woman who knew well the ins and outs of working for gangsters, took the money and reported her usual hours on her time sheet. To her credit, she never mentioned anything about teaching the young mistress of the house how to iron Asimov's shirts or how to make a bed with hospital corners.
In the evenings, Katia waited breathlessly for Asimov to come home from this meeting with security or that appointment with his superiors. When she heard his key in the door, she bounced up from her seat and rushed to meet him, welcoming him home as master of the house with a long, loving kiss. Sometimes they never got past the front door, and ended up making love in the foyer. Other nights they managed to drag each other into the plush comfort of the bedroom, tumbling among the silk pillows and linen sheets. Then there were evenings, like tonight, when Asimov told her to dress up; they were going out.
'Going out' didn't mean a date; it meant throwing one of their parties. Katia sometimes joked that they were like some demented parody of Amway, but tonight she sighed unhappily. Katia sighed and reached up to run her fingers through Asimov's tousled brown waves. "Do you know what day this is, Asimov?" she asked.
He held her tight against him and kissed her cheek. "No," he murmured against her skin. "Should I?"
She pulled back to fix him with a 'you-don't-get-it' glare. "It's been a year since we met. Don't you remember?"
He smiled and shook his head. "I don't stop to think what day it is anymore," he said. "Life goes way too fast for that. Besides, why do people need to do that, mark days and weeks and years? The only thing we need to be concerned with is that we're here together now."
Katia frowned. "Well, I think it's important. I was going to order Chinese and have it be just the two of us here tonight." She pulled away from him to stand at the window, worrying at her thumbnail with her teeth.
"What are you complaining about? It's always just the two of us here, every night." Asimov put his hands on her shoulders. "Now go put on your dress, dollinka. We'll be late."
They ended up going to not one, but three parties that evening. After each party, Asimov called his supplier, who sent someone to replenish their store of ampoules. Katia never saw the man's face; the syndies always told Asimov to drive to some deserted part of town and wait for a call. Then when the call came, Katia would see the black car, hidden in the shadows of some old bridge or tumble-down factory, and Asimov would get out and exchange the cash cards for more Bloody Eye. After a brief discussion, Asimov would get back in the car and drive away, acting as if the ampoules had simply appeared in Katia's lap.
A week later though, something was different. Katia was wearing her 'maternity dress', an outfit that was half an inside joke between them, and half an ingenious way to conceal the large amount of Bloody Eye they were transporting to the party. On the way to the pickup point, Asimov was grim-faced and silent. He was sweating, and that alone seemed strange to Katia; Asimov's cool exterior had become his trademark in the business. The few of his co-workers that Katia had met always remarked that Asimov reminded them of some old film star who affected an air of danger just below the surface.
"'You gotta ask yourself: do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?'" They would tease him and laugh, and Asimov would just smile. Katia wanted to try the joke on him tonight, make him laugh and release the thick tension in the air, but she knew better.
"When we get there," he gritted, "you watch me. You listen. And for God's sake, keep your eyes open." He flicked his gaze to her briefly, watching as she smoothed the rounded swell of her 'belly'. "Why do you keep doing that?"
"Hm?" Katia glanced down and saw her hand as it unconsciously strayed to the curve of her dress. "Oh. Sorry. It's just natural, I suppose."
Asimov turned his attention back to the road. "Whatever gets you off," he shrugged.
If you only knew, Asimov, Katia thought, watching the bloodshot eyes and sweaty face of her beloved. What would you say if I told you I might have to wear this dress for real someday soon?
He swung the car into a deserted parking lot in the shadow of an overpass. The spiky forest of disused lightpoles bristled against the topaz glow of city lights in the night sky. Traffic noises from the overpass were muted in this desolate stretch of cracked, weed-grown asphalt, making the clump-clump of car doors seem loud in the expectant silence.
Asimov pressed something cold and hard into her hand below the view of the windshield. "Here. Don't shoot yourself in the foot."
Katia swallowed a gasp as she looked down to see a semi-automatic pistol in her hand. "I know how to use it," she retorted softly.
"Yeah, and you can't hit the broad side of a space cruiser. Just keep it handy." He opened the car door and prepared to get out.
He had given her a gun. He was nervous. Something was very wrong here, and panic got the best of her. "Asimov!" she hissed, grabbing at the hem of his duster. "What are you going to do?"
He leaned back in and stuck his finger in her face. "Don't. Blow. This." He grabbed her chin, fingers digging into her cheeks. "Do you hear me?"
She yanked away. "Fine. Go get yourself killed, if that's what you want."
He grinned. "I love you too, dollinka."
In the glare of headlights, Katia watched as Asimov approached the contact. A large shopping bag changed hands, and the two conversed briefly. Then, in the blink of an eye, there was a bright flash and the contact spun away to fling himself on the hood of the car. Katia gasped as the headlights illuminated his face; it was a boy who couldn't have been more than eighteen. The boy's deep green eyes fixed on Katia's face for a moment, then glazed over with the sheen of death as he slowly slid off the fender.
A bullet pierced the windshield, and chunks of glass fell on the dashboard. Katia dove down in her seat, then stuck her head up for a brief moment and squeezed off two shots in the direction of the moonlight glinting off the other car's window. There were shouts and more sounds of car doors opening, but Asimov's gun barked twice. The shouts became pained screams, then gurgling rattles and heavy thuds.
Asimov threw himself into the seat and wrenched the passkey in the ignition. "Did you see that? Did you see the looks on their faces? They never knew what hit them, greedy syndie bitches," he snarled as they tore out of the parking lot.
They were on the freeway before she was sure that only words--and not her dinner--would come out if she opened her mouth to speak. "When were you going to tell me about this?" she asked. Her voice was cold and steady, and the sound of it surprised her.
"The less you know, the better," Asimov grated, manhandling the car across the lanes.
"No!" Katia spat. "This is my life too! I need to know if you're going to get yourself shot in the head one of these nights!"
Asimov's voice was full of unbridled fury, confirming to Katia that he had done Bloody Eye that evening before they left. "Just shut the fuck up, okay? You made me miss the fucking turnoff!" He swung the car in a wide, squealing arc, running the wrong way on the striped zone and clipping one of the sand-filled crash barrels. With a gritty splash of sand, they burst onto the offramp, scattering cars left and right as motorists tried desperately to get out of the way.
"That's just great, Asimov," Katia yelled. "Now everyone on this bloody freeway is calling the cops!"
"Shut up! I'm trying to get us out of here!" He yanked the steering wheel and pulled into a dark alleyway. He killed the lights and shut off the car, not bothering to retrieve the key. "Pop the trunk and get out," he barked, as Katia pressed the trunk release button in the glove compartment.
"Asimov, I don't understand," Katia began, thinking it wise to gentle her voice a few notches. "Our life was just fine. Weren't you happy?"
Asimov pulled two suitcases out of the car and wrapped the shopping bag around the mass of clinking vials of Bloody Eye. "Here. You know what to do with these." Katia turned away to stuff the bag under the foam rubber 'pregnancy', and Asimov shut the trunk. "I thought you wanted to go to Mars," he said.
"I do," Katia nodded, smoothing her skirt back down, "but I was sort of getting used to our little place."
Grabbing up the suitcases, Asimov led her out of the alleyway. "You were getting used to being bossed around by these syndicate punks, who told you when to work, how much to sell for, and how much you were getting paid?" He shook his head. "Maybe I should have left you there, if you liked it so goddamned much. Maybe you'd find some rich bastard who'd pay to keep you in that dump." They reached the street, and he set the suitcases down on the sidewalk and smirked at her. "Yeah, I could just see some fat syndie fart making you his woman."
Katia sighed; her time at the bathhouse had taught her that men were little boys who liked to watch, and Asimov was no different. "So, where are we going?" she asked, glancing at the passing traffic. "The syndicate will be after us, and the ISSP isn't going to be far behind."
"I've got a buyer on TJ who's interested in the whole lot," Asimov breathed, as he held out one hand to hail a cab. "Thirty million woolongs for the whole kit and kaboodle, and we'll never see another drop of this stuff again."
A cab slid up to the curb. "And you're sure this is gonna work?" Katia asked.
"Where to?" the cabbie, a muscle-bound black man, called out the front window.
Asimov chucked the suitcases in the trunk, then helped Katia into the car as if she truly were eight months pregnant. "Spaceport," Asimov nodded.
"You got it." The cabbie glanced in the rear view mirror. "You guys married?"
Katia stayed silent, but Asimov grinned. "That's where we're going, to New Vegas. Gonna have one of those Elvis guys marry us, isn't that right, dollinka?" He leaned over and gave Katia a passionate kiss.
The cabbie laughed. "Congrats, my man. Looks like you got the cart before the horse, though, if you know what I mean."
Katia didn't smile. "Just a little," she murmured.
Nodding, the cabbie turned onto the spaceport road. "Same thing happened to me and my lady. Now I've got four babies running around tearing up the house. Still," he sighed, "I love 'em all. If my lady said yes, we'd have a dozen of 'em."
"Just turn off here," Asimov said, when they were in the industrial area around the perimeter of the spaceport.
The cabbie turned around. "You sure? It's a three-block walk from here, and I'm sure your lady won't like that a bit."
"She's fine," Asimov said, getting out and tugging Katia with him. "Get the bags, would you, dear?" he asked, and Katia's eyes widened as she saw him reach into his coat. When she saw the glint of the gun, she whirled and went to stand behind the open trunk lid.
"Hey," she heard the cabbie say, "what the--"
Pop, pop, went the silencer on the gun, and the shell casings tinkled against the pavement. An instant later, Asimov was beside her, pulling suitcases from the trunk. "Let's go."
Walking slightly ahead so Asimov wouldn't see her tears, Katia silently said an old Orthodox prayer for the four now-fatherless children, as well as the one forming under the mound of Bloody Eye.
