The Beam- The Complete Series

by Sean Platt

  “You of all people will get this, Katie,” said Omar. He emphasized ‘you’ in a way Dominic didn’t entirely understand. “What Craig did was to exploit — to use — small changes in the currencies as he was fitting credits to their values. There were two major variables. Three currencies, all adjusted against each other by the day and all of which the respective governments were unwilling to freeze — partly out of pride, I’m sure, but partly because of how fragile the economies were back then. On top of that, there was the conversion from each currency into credits. The matrix was constantly shifting, and this was before AI, so accountants had to track it with old-world software.”

  “I’m bored,” said Kate. “Get to it.”

  “Remainders,” said Dominic. “There were remainders on every conversion, and Braemon kept them in his pocket.”

  “Like an observant opportunist, taking what was right there in front of him,” said Omar.

  “Like a criminal,” Dominic added.

  “Like the kind of person we’d all do well to model,” said Omar. “All of us are criminals here. Don’t you forget your place in this group, Dom, as the big cop who let it all hang out.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “I don’t know, Dom. Is it?”

  Dominic leaned forward. Kate raised a hand. “Look, if we’re going to get into a dick-measuring contest, I want in.”

  Dominic looked at Kate.

  “I don’t see what any of this has to do with anything,” she said, apparently deciding not to comment on her lack of penis. “Black Liberace here was in the joint with some white-collar rip-off. So what?”

  “That’s the fun part,” said Omar. “How he did his time. He was there for six months, which was way less than he should have done in any universe. He called it a ‘show.’ It was, too. You know how the Flats don’t have guards? That’s mostly true, but there are always people coming in and out. For Craig, they were like butlers. Or concierges. They brought him a huge monitor and an isolated Internet hub. He mostly did his time just streaming movies into an apartment that was way, way too swanky to have been left alone in a Flat city. None of the other stiffs doing time there bothered him for some reason. He was there as a slap on the wrist because someone had to do time when it got figured out. But you know what was never fully investigated? Where the money went. And you know what happens if you try to search for the mechanism of credit adjustment today? You’ll come up empty, guaranteed. But nobody asks. It’s like they know not to. Craig said he wasn’t working alone, told me about an upper crust, who controlled everything.”

  “Bullshit,” Dominic said.

  “Really?” Omar raised his eyebrows and smiled. “You’re a cop, Dom. When was the Flat prison system established?”

  Dominic shrugged. He didn’t know history and didn’t care.

  “Not until 2061,” Omar said. “I was in later than that, hearing about this in ’67. Now you tell me: How does a man do what he does, not get caught at the time — something that’s nearly impossible; ask an accountant — but then end up being prosecuted three decades later? I’ll tell you how: The way was greased. But then a reporter named Victor Harris dug up some bones somewhere in the ’60s and made a huge stink on The Beam about crimes recently buried — so much that the court had to make a wave toward putting Craig away for long enough to let public sentiment settle. It was a show more than anything else, and I think they even pinned him with something that was barely related to that stuff in the ’30s, but he did his time like a king and then left clean as a whistle.”

  Dominic shook his head. “So what? He was a rich guy. There’s no conspiracy, Omar.”

  This time, Omar shook his head. “Well, I think others in this group might disagree with you about that. There are rumors — strong rumors — that places like Xenia Labs are developing add-ons for that group, and that they really, really don’t want anyone below that top tier finding out about them.” He looked meaningfully at Kate then glanced at Dominic.

  “I heard you out,” said Dominic. “Now: Where will my dust be tomorrow?”

  “There is no dust, Dom.”

  Dominic felt his temperature rise. His fists clenched, digging his nails into his palms. He didn’t need this. Not today. Not now.

  “You heard me,” Omar repeated. “No use throwing a fit. You knew I was dry. I fed you my emergency supply after you got pinched then got you that small bundle you just took up. We haven’t brought a sizable shipment down in weeks. This last one was supposed to solve all the problems.”

  Dominic wanted to scream and throttle Omar. Earlier, he’d had a fantasy of killing the dealer and stealing his stash. There was no stash, but Dominic wanted to kill him anyway, just for the pleasure.

  “You piece of shit.”

  “Ain’t no point in cryin’ about it, Dom. You wanna buy the dust, and believe you me, I wanna sell it to you. I need the capital. Which brings us back to the issue on the table.”

  “You haven’t put an issue on the table!” Dominic blurted, bolting to his feet. “You’re just bullshitting as usual!”

  Omar shook his head then said very deliberately, “No, I’m not.”

  “You lured me here, promised me…”

  “I wouldn’t have ‘lured you here’ if it hadn’t been for our mutual benefit,” said Omar. “Sit the fuck back down, Dominic.” He was staring hard, all of his friendly demeanor gone. Dominic sat.

  “You’re a DZ police captain. That opens doors. Gets us into places we need to go.” Dominic turned to Kate. “And you? You’re exactly Craig’s type. I watched him cycle through all of Flat 4’s available women, and the only ones he took were tall, buxom blondes with an attitude. I left Flat 4 a few months after Craig. Then I looked him up because he told me to, said we’d do business. When I did that, I met his wife and his girlfriend.” Omar pointed at Kate and made a clicking sound with his mouth.

  “And what exactly are you hoping to get from this guy?”

  “What he told me about. The Beau Monde.”

  Dominic laughed. The rumor mills circulated the idea of a modern Illuminati like tales of Shangri-la. And here was this asshole Omar, trying to build a rocket so he could fly to Heaven.

  “It’s a real thing, Dom. You didn’t see what I’ve seen.”

  “Or what I’ve seen,” Kate added. Dominic looked over for answers, but Kate said nothing.

  “This guy’s such a friend of yours, why don’t you go talk to him?” Then, feeling chivalrous, he added, “…rather than putting the lady here in harm’s way.”

  “Oh, fuck yourself, Grizzly,” Kate said, rolling her eyes at Dominic.

  “Unfortunately, when I visited him at the end of my term, he turned out to be an asshole,” said Omar. “You know how people say, ‘Look me up when you’re in my town, and we’ll hang out,’ but they don’t really mean it, and then when you show up they look at you like you’re a dick?” He nodded. “Like that.”

  “So you’re bitter,” said Dominic. “Your precious feelings were hurt.”

  “Craig knows things. Things we should know, and that could solve all of our problems. Power and money for me. Kate gets…well, she recovers some status. You never have to worry about your dust supply again.”

  “Why wouldn’t I have to worry about the Lunis supply?”

  “Because based on what Craig told me,” Omar said, “membership has its privileges.”

  “It’ll never work,” said Kate. “There’s a huge flaw in your plan to track down your old buddy and seduce him into letting us into the club.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, your bait girl, for one.” Kate laid a hand across her ample breasts. “I heard that the last guy who tried to stick his dick in her ended up dead. And also, go fuck yourself if my part is playing ass candy.”

  “I’m sure you can be more creative than that. Persuasion through seduction, but without sex? I’m certain it’s possible.”

  “Oh, I’m not,” said Kate. “There’s one sure
way to get what you want from any man, no matter how dashing and carefree he is or used to be before certain changes.” She moved her hand from her breasts to between her legs, which she parted slightly. Dominic felt himself flush and turned away.

  He turned to watch Omar’s face, thinking he’d be defeated. Dominic didn’t want to play the game, and the girl, Kate, wasn’t willing to be exploited. But Omar’s face did what it always did when it was hurtling toward defeat: It shifted into the expression of a freshly hatched scheme. That was the root of Omar’s wily success: The man was always confident. Even when the situation was dire, Omar believed that everyone would find a way to do exactly what he wanted them to do.

  “Well then, I guess we’re done,” said Omar.

  Dominic watched the man settle back then begin inspecting his fingernails.

  “It’s too bad,” he continued, “because it really would have been an amazing team. Dominic has high-level Beam access, including permissions with City Surveillance.”

  Dominic opened his mouth to object, but although he didn’t have access to CS, it was only a call away. He’d had it briefly just a few weeks ago, when Isaac Ryan’s man had gone missing. And he did have worlds of access that the rest of the NAU (or at least those below Omar’s fabled “Beau Monde”) didn’t dream was possible. Captain’s access could be like a key in a lock. If Kate really had killed a federal inspector on the moon, captain’s access was the kind of thing that could make The Beam forget about it.

  “Kate here? She’s got a ton of talent. She’s pretty on the outside, but I know what she’s like on the inside, too. She can talk the skin off an apple and sell a Beamer his first nature hike. She’s got access to Beam add-ons that the rest of us can’t imagine. I hear she even knows where to find the fabled maker Ryu.”

  “Lies,” Kate said. But despite herself, she looked flattered. Dominic could see it on her face: the sort of pleasure that only a large ego could take in itself.

  “And me? I know Braemon and his weak spots. I can get us to him. I know he’ll talk because he’s talked before. I know how to create a favor in need of reciprocation. And that’s not to mention the other people I know — the vast network that only someone slick and oily like me can gather, right, Dom?” He flashed a smile. “But whatever. It’s not meant to be.” He flapped his hands, palms up, for dramatic effect, at Dominic and Kate. “I guess you can go.”

  Dominic had expected an argument. Omar didn’t just let things go. But if he was only going to be passive-aggressive? Well, it had taken him off guard. Kate too, judging by her expression. Omar had told them to leave, and yet both had stayed frozen, waiting for the punch line.

  “It’s been good doing business with you, Dom,” said Omar.

  “Wait. What…?” Dominic began.

  “And with you, Katie.”

  Kate looked at Dominic. Apparently, they weren’t just dismissed. They’d been fired.

  “What about the shipment?” said Dominic.

  “What shipment?”

  “The Lunis. On the moon. I…” he stopped then realized that debasing himself was all he had left. “…I need it, Omar. I don’t know anyone else. Not in time.” He sighed, realizing how humiliating it was for a DZ police captain to lay prostrate in front of a two-bit hood but no longer caring. “They’re out. They’re going to start killing each other.”

  “I can’t get the shipment off the moon.” Omar flicked his thumb at the woman. “Ask Kate.”

  Dominic looked at Kate then back at Omar.

  “Someone killed an inspector. The dust is bunkered, but the whole port will be locked down. They caught us off guard with a new detector, and now there’ll be more.”

  “A new runner then,” said Dominic.

  “Now hang on,” said Kate.

  “Someone who can get past security,” Dominic begged. “You can’t be stopping trade. You need the income!”

  “It is a shame.” Omar locked eyes with Dominic. “But without some sort of superior access, there’s nothing I can do.”

  Dominic’s shoulders fell. From the corner of his eye, he saw the same sense of resignation pass through Kate. They were as linearly arranged as the Lunis supply chain, as wired together as Omar’s grandmama’s lights. Forget about tying a knot; Omar had tied one already while no one was looking. Like it or not, they were already all for one and one for all — or they were nothing for none.

  Dominic looked at Kate. Once he got past the idea that he was, now, irrevocably a criminal and a stabber of backs, this really was the only solution that made any sense. You could do things the hard way because you were stubborn, or you could release the brakes and start coasting.

  “Okay,” said Dominic, making himself comfortable in his chair. “Tell me about Craig Braemon.”

  Micah stood with his hands clasped in front of his waist, palms brushing the fine fabric of his best suit. For Micah Ryan, the idea of a “best suit” was saying something. His garments cost several times more than those at the line made each year.

  The cube-shaped room — large and open, equal lengths of walls and ceiling height, painted a stark Beam white — always felt strange to Micah. He’d been to the White House a dozen or so times during his political career, and he’d never grown used to its oddity.

  The senate occupied one large wall, stacked high in pure-white cubbyholes in a ten-by-ten honeycomb. The fifth row from the top contained an extra cubicle, but the other ten were squeezed to match, creating an odd misalignment in what was an otherwise perfect grid. Each of the senators’ cubbyholes was fronted with black Beam glass, stark against the room’s pure white. Micah knew that the glass was entirely transparent from the inside, but even as he stared directly at it, he found the idea hard to believe. The senators were anonymous, their identities obscured for supposed reasons of incorruptibility. They were supposed to respond to the will of their parties, but they were still people with minds of their own. They could vote off-party for issues that affected the entire union if they wanted; their ability to do so required a level of trust that the NAU, so far, had seemed entirely willing to give. Even the senators didn’t know who each other were or how they voted. They received Beam feeds but could not be petitioned by private interests because it was impossible to reach them. It was supposed to be the perfect, impartial representative system, but Micah wondered if that were true. There might be nothing behind the glass, and Senate decisions might be made by an invisible emperor, deciding yes and no with a turn of his thumb.

  But of course, that wasn’t true either, because once a senator’s term was finished, he or she returned to circulation and was free to share anything they desired. That was when the world finally saw them. Many senators, with no alternative career to fall back on and used to an income far higher than most Directorate doles, wrote books or began speaking careers. There was no way to do that if they stayed in the closet.

  And of course, the party presidents typically came from the Senate. Shiloh Reese, the Enterprise president, had been a senator. The up-until-recent Directorate president, Quince, had been a senator. And of course everyone knew all about Carter Vale’s term in the Senate because he was loud and proud in his telling of tales and had been since he’d taken over Quince’s position as party head.

  Micah, standing behind President Reese with the rest of the Enterprise cabinet, looked over at Vale as he moved into position behind the lectern. The man was tall, dark, and handsome, like the hero of a storybook. He was attractive and compelling without being threatening. Ironically, most of the chatter on The Beam about Vale — from the low-rent Directorate camp, anyway — revolved around how he was “just like us.” The idea was absurd. As little as Micah liked to compliment his party’s opposition, Vale actually was handsome…whereas the average person singing his praises was anything but.

  Micah’s eyes moved to the side, to the group standing behind the new and charismatic Directorate President — a president who seemed to be claiming what should have always been his. Wher
eas Micah felt assurance and certainty in the Enterprise cabinet, he sensed uncertainty in the Directorate’s. Nobody knew quite what to think of the new chief, including his own advisers.

  That was another thing the populace seemed to love about Vale: He was playful, disobedient, and just a bit reckless. The word Micah kept seeing was “mischievous.” It was perplexing. Was mischief really something people wanted in a leader? But then, for Directorate, it made sense. None of them ever stepped outside of their boxes. Directorate, Micah thought, was a party of sheeplike safety. If you didn’t want to live and preferred to be coddled like an incompetent child while someone told you what to do, you joined Directorate. No wonder they wanted a bit of an outlaw at the helm. They had to realize what cowards they were, didn’t they? How could they not? And so having at least one among them who was handsome where they were ugly, charming where they were boring, and daring where they were afraid — who was, in short, everything they wanted to be — had to be comforting. They only had to believe that Carter Vale was Everyman, and all would be well. Because although he was nothing like them, he was just like them. And once Vale was all they wanted to be, they could displace, become the nothings they were, and settle.

  Isaac, near the front of the cabinet group for the cameras’ benefit, seemed oddly self-assured. Micah wasn’t used to seeing his brother any way other than nervous, beaten, or at least slightly afraid of his own shadow. It had to be the thing with Natasha, where Isaac had led the police to save her ass at her little attention-grabber concert like a fucking knight galloping in on his lily white horse. Micah had been against that concert from the start. If Natasha was going to be Enterprise, she should just be Enterprise. What did it matter what the Directorate thought? She was moving on. Moving forward. And Isaac? Did he think he was big shit because he’d saved her? The directions to send in the riot police must have come from the top. Isaac was a pawn, the same as Micah.

  For now.

  Micah reached up and adjusted his band tie across his neck, knowing how fidgety it would look if the feed was displaying his face. Micah wasn’t nervous, even though he looked it. Fuck Vale and his Everyman charm, fuck Natasha and her posturing, fuck Isaac and his heroics, and fuck the entire lazy, complacent Directorate. Fuck Natasha’s poor Enterprise fans.