Koko the Mighty Read Free Page B

been bred in one of the collectives and applied for such training, desperately hoping for field work—all that squashing of the de-civ ilk and shoring up economic interests and such—but his practical test scores indicated he lacked a certain amoral fortitude to serve as an active duty solider or law enforcement officer. A squeamish washout the recruiters said. Though he marginally passed the physical examinations, the recruiters were adamant Britch needed to perform without mercy to be of value as a soldier or policeman. Three months of extensive virtual-reality training pretty much ferreted out his lack of brutal grit. Crushed, Britch protested and begged for another chance, but the recruiters told him no way. However, they did inform him he wasn’t completely worthless. While Britch didn’t have the coldblooded makeup to be a full-time policeman or soldier, his cognitive assessments demonstrated he’d prime attributes for administrative duties.
    It was so humiliating. Reluctantly, Britch took the offer and to his surprise he discovered, in time, that the recruiters were right. Purchasing and actuarial logistics were the robust pillars of his ken, and for a spell Britch secured work as a quartermaster for long-haul projects in quarantined resource regions. Regretfully, though, with his ass parked behind a desk ninety percent of the time, a freakish genetic anomaly in his thyroid kicked in and prompted a dramatic if not startling weight gain.
    Britch had always been a mite pudgy, but his sudden monstrous growth spurt was something else. The cataclysmic megalo increase in weight whittled away at the tenuous underpinnings of his fragile ego, so to counteract the condition he first sought out medical options and then attempted to bulk up with weights. Both solutions, however, only seemed to aggravate his problem, and Britch finally decided to take his condition in his stride. He defended a position that it did not matter how he looked because his intrinsic values rested with his managerial proficiencies.
    As things turned out, several of the Custom Pleasure Bureau’s recruiters took notice of Britch’s fastidious knack for logistics and sought out his expertise. Naturally, in person the CPB and The Sixty’s personnel recruiters had their reservations regarding his physical detriments, but they hired Britch anyway with the assurance they wanted him for his talents at cost-slashing, supply management, and the like.
    For six months on the resort Britch hardly needed to remind himself how good he had it. Honestly, a job on The Sixty Islands? One of the most lavishly insane resorts on the planet? Some people would murder for a slot. Working air-conditioned days at the resort headquarters, shuffling the provisions hither and yon and burnishing the bottom line—life was sweeter than sweet and more than cushy. But then SI management made a shift in policy. All security personnel (no ifs, ands or buts) were now required to pull patrol assignments regardless of their responsibilities.
    For Britch, the sudden policy deviation was awful. Hoofing about and keeping an eye on people having the time of their lives was a sheer burden on his knees, not to mention insulting. He requested several times in writing for permanent excusal from patrol tasks, citing unabashedly that it was imprudent waste of his obvious strengths. Management did not appreciate his candor, and as punishment they upped his patrol count and drastically reduced his pay by half.
    So now he’s being tagged with a priority BOP summons from Dispatch. Britch considers forwarding the call to one of the other officers also on patrol duty this evening and scans the crowds for someone else to lay the call off on. Dropping his spent kebab skewer in the sand, Britch sucks his fingers and keys the epaulette mic again.
    “Clarify event specifics, over.”
    “Initiating camerascope playbacks to your data tab now. Non-simulated shooting. SI saloon facility, one Martstellar,