Vasquez Bio, pt 1 - “Room service”
02 Mar 2020Jenette Vasquez
If you ask Vasquez where she grew up, she will lie in the form of a joke until you decide it would be impolite to ask a third time. If you do ask a third time she might change the subject. She’s grown quite good at getting others to talk about themselves. So good, that you won’t realize until the next day that you talked about yourself for the entire visit.Her story starts… or rather, restarts … just weeks after she died on LV-426 in the year 2179.
How, you ask? Let’s just say… Corporate espionage is nothing new. It's a prestigious line of work with a long and glorious tradition… for those who can afford an infiltration and extraction professional, that is.
For those who can’t afford the big leagues, they can drop down to the Corporate espionage minor leagues for a smaller fee and find someone on the inside with a certain… shall we say… moral flexibility.
But for a bargain basement price, if you’re looking for an easy backdoor into a huge multi-world conglomerate, like the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, look no further than a disgruntled employee who is desperate for money. And finding someone who fits that description at that company is like shooting fish in a barrel.
“But like I said,” Nedry continued, chewing his nachos noisily, “If you’re looking for an easy backdoor into a huge multi world conglomerate like Weyland-Yutani, look no further. I’m your guy.”
“You don’t inspire confidence,” the dark-skinned bald man replied calmly. His voice a smooth baritone.
He played the part well, Nedry thought with a confident smirk. The dark man was inside Nedry’s hotel suite wearing a dark suit and dark sunglasses, and sitting calmly across the coffee table in the center of the sofa with legs crossed.
“Look, you want the DNA samples or not?” Finishing his sentence before tossing another tortilla chip in his mouth and grabbing another.
The man in the suit took a breath, uncrossed his legs, and leaned forward, head between his hands and elbows on knees. He stayed that way for another round of Nedry crunching away on his chips.
“Oh my God that was stupid,” yelled the dark man, who suddenly lost his composure, removed his sunglasses and stood up, his voice pitched high with stress.
Nedry glared and tossed a nacho back onto his plate like throwing a dart, “What was wrong with that?”
“Nobody talks like that,” whined the man in the suit, tucking his sunglasses in his vest pocket.
“OK, OK… stop… Let’s start from the top.”
“This isn’t a fucking movie, ‘Nedry.’ ”
“I know it’s not a fucking movie, ‘Bob,’ but we gotta start somewhere. Stick to the script.”
“Dude, the buyers won’t operate off a script!” yelled Bob. “We are way in over our heads! And what the fuck is this ‘Nedry’ crap? I told you to keep it simple and memorable like Bing, or Ray.”
“Bing?” Nedry scoffed. “Ray? Nah, man, Nedry is the shit… It’s a Jurassic… fuck it… the reference would be lost on you,” Nedry crosses his arms defensively.
As if on cue the suite’s doorbell interrupted. The two men froze and stared at each other in panic for so long the doorbell sounded again before they sprung into action.
Nedry went to the door quickly and peered through the peephole. His shoulders relaxed and he turned to Bob, who was already rushing into the adjoining suite with the unfinished plate of nachos.
“It’s just room service,” Nedry called out to Bob. But it was too late. Bob quickly entered the adjoining room as-rehearsed and locked the door. Nedry shrugged and opened the door for room service.
A small, stunning Asian woman covered her smile as the door opened.
“You ...room a-service... order,” she said in a thick accent as she bowed toward the room service cart full of covered plates and bottled drinks.
“Well, hello,” Nedry responded flirtatiously. “Just put everything on the coffee table please.”
“Yes, yes. Okay. Thank a you.” She bowed her understanding and wheeled the cart of food and drink past Nedry with several nods and thank yous in a thick accent. Nedry grinned and slapped her butt as she passed. The young woman yelped and giggled but kept going.
Nedry risked a peek into the hallway outside. Empty. He stepped back inside, left the door open a few inches, and fished in his pockets for a tip.
The woman transferred the food and drinks to the coffee table as instructed and returned with the cart, stopped close to Nedry, and smiled, waiting for her tip.
As he handed her the cash, she took the money with one hand and quickly sprayed mace in his face with the other. Nedry shouted in pain as he grabbed at his face then stumbled backward into the door, slamming it shut under his weight.
Nedry’s screams of pain were so loud, Bob could hear them next door. He imagined half of the hotel floor could hear him. He heard Nedry cry out in pain, a door slam, and a thud like a body hitting the floor.
Then he heard his door to the hallway beep and open quietly.
“House a keeping,” came a woman’s thick Asian accent. Her smiling face appeared in the space between the door and the frame.
“No, no, do not disturb!” Bob yelled, “The sign says do not disturb!”
“Yes, yes, House a keeping ok. I clean for you.” A gracefully aging Asian woman entered the room and latched the door to the wall before gliding back to her cleaning cart in the hall. Bob could see there was no sign on the door knob. Hanging that sign was the very first thing he did when he checked in.
Bob started for the open door but stopped dead. The door across the hall opened, a large man exited the room, then stopped in the hallway beyond the woman’s cart as he stared stone-faced at Bob. He was clad in a tightly fitting security guard uniform and, judging from his ‘at ease” stance, had the bearing of a military man. His emotionless eyes stayed locked onto Bob.
The cleaning lady returned, clipboard in hand, closely followed by a smaller male security guard with a similar military bearing, who unlatched the door from the wall and locked it once it swung closed.
The guard turned to the cleaning lady. “Permission to clear the premises, ma’am?”
Without looking away from Bob, the cleaning lady rolled her eyes in annoyance, nodded, and waved her hand dismissively in the direction of the bedrooms. “Fine. Fine. Secure both suites,” the Asian woman sighed in perfect English.
Without a word, the small security guard drew a pistol and entered the bathroom.
“Have a seat, ‘Bob.’ “ The Asian woman took a seat at the coffee table and motioned for Bob to sit opposite. She scrunched her nose at the nachos and moved the plate to make space for her clipboard.
“Guest Restroom Clear,” the security guard moved swiftly into the bedroom.
Bob moved slowly to the sofa opposite the woman and sat. He watched her remove paperwork from her clipboard and place them in neat rows on the coffee table.
“Guest bedroom Clear,” a muffled call from the guest bedroom.
Bob cleared his throat. “It’s just the two of us, he doesn’t need…”
“Let him do his job. He gets twitchy otherwise,” the woman said without looking up from her task.
“Master bedroom clear,” another muffled call.
The woman finished setting out the papers. Bob noticed they were oriented so he could read them easily, “Ok, ‘Bob’ we are ready to begin,” the cleaning lady sighed.
“Master bath clear.”
The woman held out her hand, palm up, and stared at Bob expectantly.
“Kitchen and dining room clear.”
Bob sighed and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a fountain pen and placed it into the woman’s palm.
“This suite is clear,” the security guard called as he passed through the room and stopped at the door to the adjoining suite. He knocked rhythmically in what must have been a coded sequence. A coded knock from the other side answered immediately. The guard opened the door, slipped through, then closed and locked that suite’s adjoining door.
Bob caught a brief glimpse of the other suite as the guard slipped inside. Nedry was writhing on the floor and cursing loudly with his hands ziptied behind his back. When Bob’s gaze returned to the cleaning lady, she had already disassembled the fountain pen and removed the “ink cartridge” from the inside. She was cross referencing the barcode with the records on her clipboard.
“This one was a Colonial Marine,” she said.
“Yes.”
“According to this record, live stream data reported this Private Vasquez and her squad were confirmed killed but no bodies were recovered due to a massive explosion. Nuclear.”
“Yes.”
“This is a military cloning grade sample,” the woman smiled. “You boys weren’t lying.”
“Correct,” Bob’s voice was raspy with stress. “Drawn during boot camp and used to grow tissue, organs, and bone for the wounded.”
The woman gave Bob a withering glare. She already knew this. “No shit, Bob. That’s why we’re here.”
“Sorry.”
The cleaning lady shrugged and changed the subject. “You clearly have access to what we need so… you work for us now, Bob. You and ‘Nedry’ over there will keep your jobs at Weyland, continue to provide us with military clone-grade DNA as they are filed as deceased, and intercept before they are discarded, but will also fulfill any… special orders. Is that clear?”
Bob simply nodded. This had not at all gone as planned. Nedry had him envisioning an early retirement and tropical islands.
“You’re smart, Bob. I’m glad I was right about you. I doubt Nedry would have played this very well at all.” The woman nodded at the paperwork on the table, “Sign those and we’ll get you started on your exciting new career.”
As Bob signed his life over, a quick knock at the adjoining door rang out as it opened. The room service lady leaned against the door frame coughing and holding a wet face cloth over one eye. “This suite is clear,”she said between coughs in perfect English.
“What’s wrong with your eye?” the housekeeping lady asked.
“Never use mace in a fucking confined space, that’s what.”
“I told you not to use it,” The cleaning lady laughed. “And our ‘Nedry’? Is he ok?”
“Asshole is gonna shower,” she coughed with a wicked grin.
“Ok, then Why are you smiling?”
The room service lady snorted, restraining coughing and laughter. “I may have forgotten to instruct him on best practices for washing the mace off.”
The security guard appeared in the doorway behind the room service lady and nearly saluted the cleaning lady before remembering himself, “This suite is clear, ma’am.”
The room service lady removed the washcloth from her eye and glared at the man, shaking her head in disbelief, “I told you I already cleared it, shit head!”
Just then a scream of pain echoed from the master bathroom in the other suite.
The room service lady refolded her wash cloth and her good eye noticed Bob’s worry over his friend, then explained, “He’s fine. He just found out the hard way… if you wash mace off and it drains onto your junk ...it burns like a blowtorch.”
“You’ll wish you had a knife to cut your dick off,” finished the male guard, one hand adjusting his crotch with a sympathetic wince.
The cleaning lady waved her hand dismissively at Bob and the paperwork, “Keep signing, we’ve got an army to make.”
(To be continued)