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One NIght in Paris, Texas	By : TheByronicMan Category: M through R > Newsflesh (trilogy) > Newsflesh (trilogy) Views: 1163 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Newsflesh Trilogy or any of the related published works. I do not make any money from this story. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or living dead is coincidental.

Chapter List
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The alarm went off a bit too early and I was seriously tempted to just shut it off and go back to sleep. I'm pretty much always tempted to do that, which is why my alarm clock is on the other side of the room instead of next to the bed. Having to get out of bed to go turn it off makes it more likely that I'll stay up. Once the annoying sound was gone, the tantalizing smell of fresh coffee wafting from the kitchen told me I'd remembered to set the timer. I followed the aroma, and a couple of cups had me feeling ready to face the day.
It was time to get dressed. I was meeting with a client later, so I needed to look tough and competent. I headed back to the bedroom and worked my hair into one long braid down my back while I contemplated my closet. The day would be too hot for full field gear, so I went with boots, jeans, and t-shirt, topped with an alligator-hide jacket Rob had given me for my last birthday. The jacket was lined with Kevlar and had chainmail at strategic points, so it would give me enough of a zombie-hunter look to reassure the client. If I left it open in front, I wouldn't melt whenever I had to leave air-conditioned comfort.
Thus attired, I left my apartment and took the elevator down to the garage level. The elevator operates on the roach motel model, you can enter freely but have to pass a blood test to exit. If you fail the floor opens up and you plunge into a bleach water pool in the basement. The idea is to make false positives survivable and to avoid a “kill them all” approach to mixed groups of infected and living people. The theory is that because zombies can't swim it will give the uninfected a chance to get away. The concept hasn't caught on, and this is the only building I know of that uses it.
In any case, I passed, and the elevator disgorged me a short distance from my car. I'd only had it a few months, a previous client who owned a car dealership had given it to me as a bonus for quick work, but I was already in love with it. It was a 2039 Dodge Rampage, with the speed and handling of a sports car, the cargo space of a light truck, and enough power to plow through a small pack of zombies. Not that I ever intended to take it out in the field, but it was nice to have the capability in case of an outbreak close to home. I climbed in and started it up, waited impatiently to get through the exit gate, then burned rubber down the street to the loop.
I made good time. The highway was built to handle pre-Rising rush hour traffic, but these days most people telecommute so the road was almost empty. I took the exit for Austin Highway and a few minutes later I pulled up in front of my office. It was a gift from my parents when I went into business, and I was grateful to have it. My folks had made a killing in real estate after the Rising. The value of property near large cemeteries plummeted once the dead started walking, and my parents bought up a bunch of it at bargain prices. Once people got it through their heads that the long dead weren't going to claw their way up out of their graves, and that cemeteries with their long sight-lines, fences, and lack of crowds were among the safest plots of land in a city, values went back up and my folks cashed in. This lot was wedge-shaped, with the widest end facing the cemetery and only a narrow frontage on the main road, so they never could get their asking price for it. I placed my hand on the test unit next to the front door, and after it showed green I entered the former pawn shop that we'd converted into office space.
Riki was sitting at the receptionist desk and put down her taco as I walked in. “Good morning, Jenny. That was a lovely wedding, when will it be your turn?”
“I gotta find a man first. Is our client here yet?”
“No, she's not due for half an hour.”
“Let me know when she gets here.”
Noriko Tamura was a brilliant auto mechanic. She learned the trade in the Army and then opened her own shop when she got out. Riki sold her business and retired a few years ago when she hit 50. She promptly got bored and started looking for part time work. I met her through Rob, her military experience made her the best choice for keeping his LAV in good running order and making the modifications he wanted. I hired her to maintain our vehicles and fill in as receptionist.
I made my way to the conference room and found that this was one of the rare occasions when everyone was here on time. We exchanged greetings as I snagged a couple of chorizo and egg tacos and sat down, trying not to grimace at the camera in the corner. Rob and Lance had talked me into doing a webcast reality show on Rob's site, and our newest client was the first one to agree to filming. I wasn't too hot on the idea, but the extra revenue and advertising could be useful. So we had cameras set up all over the place, plus some unobtrusive ones to attach to our clothing. Mine was waiting at my place at the table, and I sighed as I clipped it to my jacket. As I ate, I looked around at my team.
To my right was Lance Heinrich. He used to be an Irwin, one of Rob's betas. When Lance and I started dating, he decided to change careers. Unfortunately our relationship didn't survive working together. We stayed friends, and still fell into bed together once in a while when we were both single, but he had a new girlfriend that looked likely to stick around. Having both been trained by my brother, we made a great team in the field.
Next around the table was Gilbert Dominguez. A licensed private investigator, he soon got bored mostly doing low level work for the agency that first hired him and tried to strike out on his own. But most of his clients saw the large muscular exterior and discounted the agile mind behind the brutish facade. When I first posted an ad looking for a trained investigator willing to go out and hunt zombies, he applied within minutes. A number of women, me included, were disappointed to learn that he's gay. His husband is a chef and the main reason nobody is late to work when it's Gil's turn to bring breakfast.
Sitting across from me was Ashley Pierson. She was dentist until a bitter ex-boyfriend falsely accused her of molesting her patients under sedation. No charges were filed, and no patients accused her, but the damage to her reputation was severe. When I approached her seeking dental records of a patient of hers that I had been hired to find, she was trying to hold her practice together while taking post-graduate classes in forensic odontology. We got to talking, and I realized that it would be handy to have someone who could verify identities from dental records before transporting the body all the way home. When I pointed out that she could earn more working for me than she would in a police forensics lab, she immediately signed on.
Seated to my right was Daniel Kane. He was an EMT until he showed up for work drunk one too many times. Getting fired shook him up enough to start dealing with his alcoholism. He's pretty well convinced that I'll shoot him if he gets drunk in the field, and we usually operate well away from the nearest bar or liquor store. I wasn't sure about hiring him, but he proved his worth one time when the subject we were tracking turned out to be alive but injured. Dan was the only member of my team to skip the wedding reception, the open bar would have been too much temptation.
I was just licking the last of the chorizo off of my fingers when Riki called on the intercom. “Miss Castillo is here to see you.”
“Okay, send her in.” We all stood as Riki ushered in a young woman, my age or a few years older. Her skin was paler than her last name would suggest, and she was wearing a skirted business suit that was clearly custom fitted, expensive but understated. That outfit was probably worth enough to pay a good chunk of our fee, a good sign in a client.
“Miss Castillo, I'm Jenny Philips, and this is my team.” I made introductions, then added, “Please take a seat.”
We all sat down again, with the client placing a memory stick and a folder of printouts on the table in front of her. I said, “What brings you here today?”
She took a deep breath. “My father, Antonio Castillo, is missing, probably somewhere in or around Paris. He was due back over a week ago. He's been late before, but he always calls. I haven't heard from him since he first got there.”
“I presume you mean Paris, Texas, otherwise we can't help you.”
“Yes. My father is a salvage hunter. He goes into abandoned areas and recovers valuable items with the permission of the legal owner of the property. He then either delivers it to the owner for a fee, or sells it and gives the owner a share of the proceeds. Sometimes he will pay the owner up front for the right to keep anything he finds.”
“And that is what he was doing in Paris?”
“That's correct. He was asked by the descendants of a cotton magnate to recover heirlooms, jewelry, and a stash of gold and silver coins from their former family home. My father also bought permission to go through a nearby storage facility. He approached the owners of other homes in the city, but I don't know if they agreed to allow him access.”
“Do you have the addresses?”
“Right here,” she said, tapping the folder, “and a complete list of the items he was asked to recover. I have all the requested documents listed on your website except for the dental x-rays. His dentist was unwilling to give them to me.”
Ashley said, “Guess I know what I'll be doing this morning.”
“Yep. And if professional courtesy doesn't work, I'll unleash the attorney on him.” I turned back to the client. “Does your father go out alone?”
“No, he takes four men with him. One is a locksmith and safe cracker, the others take turns loading and watching for zombies. I will pay the additional fees if you bring them back as well.”
I spent the next hour asking Miss Castillo more questions, with Gil chiming in now and then. He's a better interrogator than I am, but clients prefer to deal with the woman in charge. Finally I presented her with about a ream of documents to sign and accepted her funds transfer for our retainer.
After escorting the client out the door, I turned to my team. “Okay, y'all know what to do. We'll meet back here at lunch for a progress report.”
Lance, Gil, and Ash headed to their offices, while Dan and I went out the back door to the old repair shop facing the cemetery. The first bay door was open and Riki had the front end of the RV pulled into it. We went inside, and Riki's feet were sticking out from under the front bumper. With a successful retrieval on this case, we should be able to put in a proper mechanic's pit for her.
“Is there a problem, Riki?”
Her muffled voice came from beneath the RV, “No, just an oil change. It would have been due before you got back.”
“What would we do without you?”
“Walk a lot.”
With a chuckle, Dan and I climbed into the RV. The test unit was off because we weren't in the field, but we still had to go through the entry lock one at a time. Dan went first, and by the time I was inside he was already inventorying his medical supplies. I opened up the gun safe and loaded all the rifles into a rolling case. Everyone was responsible for their own handguns and any extra weapons they chose to carry, but I maintained the rifles. I took the guns across the lot to the second garage, which we had turned into an indoor range. It was barely forty feet from the shooting line to the end wall. That was enough space to verify that they were sighted in properly, but if any of the sights had been knocked out of alignment I'd have to go to a commercial range to sight them back in.
I laid the rifles out on a work bench. Six 10mm carbines with laser sights, zeroed at fifty yards. They took the same ammo and magazines as our handguns, making it convenient to share between team members when necessary. I also had a pair of M14s for longer range shooting, with variable power scopes sighted in at 200 yards. I set up a target at the far end of the range, then clamped one of the carbines into the bench rest. I adjusted the rest so that the laser dot was centered on the bulls-eye and fired a three-round group. Checking the target, I found that the rounds left a ragged hole just a bit larger than the bullet diameter a fraction of an inch above the bulls-eye. I measured the difference and found that it was exactly where it should be for bullet drop to bring the rounds on target at fifty yards. I repeated the process with the other carbines and they all passed. Both M14s also passed, with the rounds striking just below the center of the target because at that short range they were still rising towards the first zero point.
We had gotten in a case of ammo and I needed to test that to make sure it worked properly. People who can afford my services can also afford the added biohazard precautions and fees to hold a viewing of the body of their loved ones before cremation. Our contract specifies that we get a bonus if the client has a viewing, so it's in our financial interest to deliver as pretty a corpse as possible. That's why we carry Glaser Zombie rounds, even though I don't entirely trust them to do the job. I selected one round at random from each box and loaded them into a magazine. Then I set up the targets, which were cleaned and sterilized human skulls filled with ballistic gelatin. A little morbid, maybe, but nothing makes for a better test than real bone. I was just sliding the magazine into a carbine when Ashley walked in wheeling her portable digital x-ray scanner.
“Hang on, Ash, I'll just be a minute.”
“Okay.”
I took aim and fired a round through the forehead of each skull, then I went up to examine them. They looked right from the outside, just a neat round hole through the bone and no exit wound. Had these been subjects, a mortician could apply a little putty and makeup, and no one would be able to tell there was a bullet hole. Next step was for Ashley to check how well they worked on the inside. I sat at the bench and starting stripping and cleaning the rifles while she went to work.
“Any problems with the dentist?”
“No, he was very cooperative. He had everything collected and ready to send when I called, he just needed to be sure he was covered legally.”
“Then why'd it take so long?”
“Well... He also asked me out tonight.”
“Have fun and don't stay out too late. We leave at dawn.”
“What makes you think I accepted?”
“If you'd turned him down you would have been out here sooner.”
“You got me there.”
We worked in silence for a while, then Ashley handed me a tablet displaying a series of x-ray images. Glaser Zombie rounds are designed specifically for head shots. They're made as a hollow brass jacket packed with small lead shot. The jacket cuts a hole through the skull, slowing down abruptly and splitting apart once it penetrates. The denser lead keeps going, spreading out in a broad cone through the brain matter. Ideally, it will reduce the brain to mush without exiting the other side and spraying infected blood and tissue everywhere. Judging by the x-rays, these all worked just fine and would probably have been one-shot kills in the field. Unfortunately, you can't always get an ideal shot, so we all carry standard hollowpoint rounds as well.
“Looks good,” I said.
“Yep, and my gear is working too.”
Another advantage of using real skulls for ballistics tests is that it gives Ashley a chance to calibrate her x-ray machine. Being able to take dental x-rays in the field has saved us some time and trouble more than once.
“Going to have any trouble identifying Mr. Castillo?” I asked, as Ashley sat beside me to help finish cleaning the rifles.
“He's had so many cavities filled that I could probably do it by eye.”
“Did you get records on the others?”
“Yep, they all went to the same dentist. From the amount of work they've had done, he can afford to take me someplace expensive.”
I laughed and we got back to work. We finished up and stashed everything back in the RV, then headed for the offices.
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One NIght in Paris, Texas