by N M Tatum
Joel rolled to his side, unable to move from his prone position to sitting because of screaming pain in his spine. “Listen, lady—” His voice froze in the air.
Sam had stood somehow—apparently her body could be fueled by her disgust for the rich folk of Malibu even when it was battered and broken. Her mood lowered the temperature in the room by several hundred degrees.
Millie looked to have been flash frozen, the expression of panic on her face how she would be remembered for eternity.
Sam’s voice was quiet but full of menace. “You had a rat problem. Now you don’t. We did our job. You pay us.”
The guys had a feeling that wasn’t the first time Sam had given the speech. They also had the feeling it wouldn’t be the first time someone died after hearing it, should Millie be impaled on Sam’s sword.
Surprisingly, Millie mustered some fortitude. “Miss…Bug Kill, our agreement was for this job to be completed discreetly.” She gestured to the debris around them. “This is the opposite of discreet. You have violated our terms. If you pursue payment, I will forward the matter to my attorney.”
Sam reached for her sword sheathed on her back. “I will pursue payment.”
Millie bit her lip.
The guys tried to yell at Sam, but their voices died in their throats, their pleas coming out as only muffled gurgles. The flash of movement was so quick that Sam’s body seemed a blur. It was as if they could see straight through her. Then the air was tinted red. A fine mist of blood sprayed into the air and covered Millie’s face, adding an extra dimension to her smoky eye.
To Millie’s credit, she didn’t scream. A reluctant respect bloomed in Sam, even though the woman completely froze when the rat king landed on her foot.
“Guess it wasn’t as dead as we thought,” Joel said with a shrug.
Sam kicked the rat king’s corpse off Millie’s foot. It was like kicking a cinder block. Her reluctant respect for Millie grew.
The auditorium was eerily silent. Sam could hear her blood pounding in her ears, fueled by the adrenaline of a fresh kill. The pounding in her ears almost made her miss the next two words that Millie managed to force out her mouth, two words that she never would have anticipated hearing.
“Thank you.”
All of the Notches cocked their head like they must have misheard.
“Come again?” Joel said.
Millie swallowed hard. “Thank you for saving my life.”
The comment took them all by surprise, leaving them speechless. But what came next caught them even more by surprise.
Applause.
What began as the slow, rhythmic clapping of sarcastic admiration quickly grew to rapturous cheering. The Notches hadn’t yet noticed the mob of gala attendees sitting in audience facing the stage.
The team suddenly felt self-conscious, realizing they were onstage in front of a hundred people. Except for Joel. He bowed. Repeatedly.
“Thank you! Thank you!” He pointed to random people in the audience. “No, you’re beautiful. Yes, I am amazing. It was nothing, really. All in a day’s work.”
Millie’s mouth hung open, and she couldn’t be bothered to be appalled at her own low manners. Her face drained of color, and sweat formed on her brow. When one of the gala attendees approached her, she looked like a criminal at the gallows, her neck in the noose.
The attendee, a man with a thin mustache, unnaturally smooth skin, and dressed in a three-piece suit, took Millie’s hand. “Oh, Millicent, I haven’t had this much fun at one of these galas in ages.” He laughed heartily.
Millie’s frozen expression finally began to thaw.
“I’ve dreaded coming to these events because they’re all the same,” the man continued. “Hors d'oeuvres, cocktails, a bland buffet and then some bland entertainment like a string quartet. But this…” He pointed to the Notches and the dead rat king. “This is inspired. You’ve renewed my vigor, shined the dull off the social scene in this sector. Well done, Millicent.” He kicked the rat king’s corpse. “I can’t believe I thought that thing was real.” His hearty laugh followed him as he walked away.
“Well,” Reggie said, scanning the still roaring crowd. “That was unexpected.”
Millie, now free from the crushing disappointment and embarrassment she’d felt only moments ago, was a completely different person. She was again the woman with whom they’d originally met.
The change in demeanor was pleasant, but it left Sam feeling off. The smile and congeniality were preferable to the open hostility, but the smiles were fake. The hostility was at least honest. And this change made everything that Millie said now seem hollow.
“I apologize for my behavior,” Millie said. “As you can imagine, the situation was rather stressful. I may not have behaved in the best manner. To add heft to my sincerest apologies and gratitude, I will be adding a sizable tip to your compensation.”
Sam arched her eyebrow.
She wanted to say, “Oh, so we’re getting paid now? For the exact same job we had completed five minutes ago? Now that you know your rich friends aren’t running scared and gossiping about how horrible you are?” But she said nothing.
“Thank you,” Reggie said. He extended his hand.
Millie tried unsuccessfully to not look disgusted at the sight of it covered in rat blood. She almost reached for it but opted for an awkward little wave instead.
“A pleasure.” She met Sam’s eye, who was nowhere near impressed with Millie’s “generosity.” Whether she felt genuinely grateful for the job the Notches had done or whether she was just terrified of Sam, she added, “I also have access to all of the finest shops here on Malibu. I will let the proprietors of each shop know that you have been awarded access at my behest. Anything you need, please.”
Joel’s mind began to race. Malibu was a luxury station. All retail and spas and hotels. He thought of the automated pancake machines usually present at hotel breakfast buffets. The bathrobes. The miniature shampoos. He could scour the shops for days and still find things to pique his interest.
Before he could accept Millie’s gracious invitation, someone else told her what she could do with it.
“What would we need with any of this shit?” Sam twirled her sword, flicking rat king blood over Millie’s front, then sheathed her weapon. If she had a mic, she would have dropped it before walking off stage.
Cody jogged to catch up with her. “That feel good?”
Sam smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, it did.”
Chapter Ten
He could have been wearing fleece slippers right now. Free fleece slippers. And watching his pancakes travel down a conveyor belt. Pancakes that made themselves. Instead, he was wearing socks with holes in them and chewing on a protein bar.
“Can I suggest a change to the organization bylaws?” Joel asked the group.
“We don’t have bylaws,” Reggie said as he took a box of cereal from the pantry.
“We must come to a group consensus before rejecting glorious offers. For example, when a grateful client offers us free reign of her luxury space station.”
Sam slugged a pint of water. It dribbled down her chin as she spoke. “It wasn’t out of gratitude. She felt like an asshole. Because she was an asshole. She treated us like shit. Even after we saved her life, she was going to stiff us.”
“I don’t care,” Joel said. “I could have a pancake machine right now!”
Cody sat at the kitchen table with his bowl of oatmeal. “While we’re making changes to the bylaws—”
“We don’t have bylaws,” Reggie insisted.
“I would like to add that we must have a comprehensive debrief after each job,” Cody finished.
“Hard pass,” Joel said. “Sounds like a snooze fest.”
Cody was offended. “It’s the best way for us to learn from our missteps and get better at our job.”
“I agree,” Reggie said. “That’s a solid idea.”
“And I want to talk about what’s really happening with these
infestations,” Cody added. “About the conspiracy.”
“Oh,” Reggie said, sounding defeated. “Hard pass.”
Cody threw his spoon down on the table and shot Reggie a look of betrayal.
Reggie shrugged. “Sorry, man. I just don’t believe there’s a conspiracy here. We’ve run up against some crazy critters, sure, but that’s the job. And this job was just some regular pests.”
Cody scoffed. “Regular? Are you kidding me? We got outsmarted by rats.”
“Maybe that’s more indicative of our intellect than the rats’,” Sam said.
Cody stood from the table and paced around the kitchen. “I can’t believe you all still can’t see the pattern. There’s something here. I just can’t see the whole thing yet.”
Cody walked around the table, circling behind the team as they ate, making them uncomfortable. But he was lost in his head, speaking to organize his thoughts rather than to convey them.
“There’s a thread here. I feel it. Something connecting them. They don’t feel random. They feel…” He stopped behind Joel. His eyes grew wide with realization. “They feel like they’ve been organized by the same person.”
“An evil mastermind?” Joel said as he gnawed on his protein bar. “Oh man, you are really descending into paranoia now.”
“No, no, no, listen.” Cody wrung his hands, eyes becoming wild. “All these attacks share some things in common. First, tactic. Tainted crates sent to the target, sparking the infestations. Second, targets. They’ve all been competitors of Layton. I’m willing to bet they also share a motive, to eliminate Layton’s competition, though I can’t prove it yet.”
Joel raised a hand to interrupt Cody’s rant. “But we didn’t find any Layton crates on Malibu. There’s nothing tying Master Splinter to Layton. He was just a freak rat who spawned more freak rats. Paranoid speculation over.”
“We didn’t search for any Layton crates,” Cody pointed out. “Just because I can’t prove it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” He tapped his chin, talking to himself again. “We need to prove it. Proof, proof, need to get proof.”
Joel jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to Cody. “Anyone else worried about this? His rambling is getting crazier.”
“I got it!” Cody’s emphatic burst made Joel jump. “I know how to get the proof I need to finally convince you guys that this conspiracy is real.” He projected a list from his wristcom, scrolling through the names of major companies. Jasob. StrobeNet. He clicked on the last one and raised a corporate profile page. “Chrisoff is the last major competitor blocking Layton’s path to total domination. It’s a small company, way smaller than the other two in terms of market share and reach, but it has a firm standing. Its share rarely wavers. As long as it keeps that share, Layton will never take over completely.”
He scrolled through the profile page, highlighting statistics about the company’s performance and output. Then he clicked on the Careers page.
“We go undercover. I could falsify some identities. We get low-level jobs, interns or something, nothing that will garner any attention, and we gather intel from the inside.”
The prospect excited Sam. She’d always enjoyed subterfuge, often employing cover identities during her career as a bounty hunter. She enjoyed pretending to be someone else. But it wasn’t enough to gain her support of the idea.
Reggie stood, shaking his head. He spread his arms like he was trying to fly. “Whoa, okay, let’s walk this back. We are not detectives. We are pest control. Someone gets infested with bugs, they contract us to handle it. We go where the contract says. We do what the contract says. We are not playing spy.”
Cody started to protest but decided against it. He would have been wasting his breath. He dropped back into his chair instead, slowly sinking into it like his spine had turned to pudding. He picked up spoonfuls of oatmeal and let them slop back into the bowl. The others melted away from his awareness as he watched his food fall and rise and fall again, hypnotizing himself.
There must be a way to prove it, he thought. It’s so obvious. Why don’t they see it? They don’t want to see it, that’s why. They call me crazy. They’re the crazy ones for choosing to ignore something so painfully obvious. They just want to keep their heads down and do the job. Not me. I want to—
“Hello?” Joel waved his hand in front of Cody’s face.
The rest of the world came rushing back. By the looks on the others’ faces, Cody must have been out of it for a while.
“What? What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing much,” Joel said. “We voted on more changes to the bylaws. We’ve decided that you are our new mascot. You must now wear the full mascot uniform of Dave the Dung Beetle whenever on company time. Which, since we live on the company ship, is all the time.”
Reggie swatted Joel away like he was a gnat. “If we had bylaws, I would write one outlawing the use of bylaws as stupid jokes. Bylaws are serious. They form the foundation of constructive organizations.”
“Boring,” Sam said, her deadpan stare chilling Reggie to the bone.
Reggie brushed the comment off. “Fine, moving on, then.” He looked at Cody. “I just got a call. We’ve got a new contract.”
Cody perked at the news, the feeling of defeat eating at his insides ebbing. “Oh? What are the details?”
Reggie raised a preemptive palm to Cody. “Don’t get all worked up about it. Don’t go looking for things that aren’t there. It’s just a job. For a client. I guess they can be considered regular clients now. They reached out to us because they trust us. Because we did such a good job last time. Hey, maybe we should look into some kind of customer loyalty program. You know, like, the third infestation is free?”
“Boring,” Sam said, her stare not warming at all. “Who’s the client?”
“Jasob.”
Cody shot up from his chair, spilling some of his oatmeal on the table. “It’s another attack from Layton. We’re doing a comprehensive investigation this time.”
Reggie stabbed a finger at Cody. “No, that’s exactly what I just said not to do. We don’t do investigations. We do eradications.”
“What about customer loyalty?” Cody said. “Don’t we owe it to our repeat customer to get to the bottom of their pest problems? Or to at least show them we care by trying? I think it would go a long way if they saw us trying to not only eliminate their current problem, but ensuring they don’t have future problems.”
The argument made sense. The kind of sense Reggie could get behind. And he was always on the lookout for win-win situations. “Okay, you can take a look around once we’re there. But only in the process of completing the job. No side trips. And the contract comes first.”
Cody shook Reggie’s hand. “Deal. Where are we headed?”
“I’ll fill everyone in on the details in the briefing room,” Reggie said. “I’m finishing my cereal first.”
Cody’s eyes burned. He’d been scanning through files on Jasob and Chrisoff and Layton for ten minutes without blinking. His body wouldn’t let him continue without taking a break. Tears blurred his vision. He rubbed them until the burning stopped and stars danced across the ceiling over his bed.
He knew as much about the companies as he was going to learn through online research. He needed to visit them in person. Talk to the staff, the decision-makers. Someone was pulling the strings behind these attacks. And something about them kept nagging at Cody. The motivation. They could be purely greed driven. Eliminating the competition would open up Layton to windfall profits. Stakeholders could become the richest people in the galaxy. But corporate espionage tended to be subtler. Movements from the shadows, stock manipulation, blackmail. These attacks were as blunt as possible. They were designed to be visible and destructive.
They felt personal.
Which meant a personal motivation. Something beyond money. Cody needed to find out what that motivation was if he was going to untangle this mess.
Sam poked her head into the ro
om. “Reggie’s ready for his presentation.” She said it jokingly, poking fun at Reggie’s intense formality around the logistics and red tape of everything.
Cody sat up on his bed and scanned Sam’s face.
She began to squirm under his gaze, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the attention. “What?”
“Are you still with me? Do you still think there’s something to my conspiracy theory? That sounds bad. My theory about the conspiracy theory. You know what I mean.”
Sam shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, it’s too much to be a coincidence. I’m with you on that. I guess I’m just not sure how much I really care.”
Cody swung his legs over the side of his bed. “How can you say that? You know these attacks are deliberate, but you don’t care?”
Sam’s shoulder crept closer to her ears. “It’s rich people attacking other rich people, so they can get richer. I guess I just don’t care how they scheme against each other as long as they pay us.”
Cody’s head hung low. “That’s pretty cynical.”
Sam’s shoulders couldn’t climb any higher. “Yeah. Sorry. You saw how Musgraves was on Malibu. She was ready to screw us because she was freaking out about how her rich friends were going to react. We’d just saved all their lives, and she was going to report us and probably ruin our business. A tiny, insignificant thing to her. But to us, everything. And she would have done it without blinking.” She disappeared into the hall. “I can’t be bothered to care about people like that.”
It stung to hear, but Cody understood. He hadn’t thought of it that way, to be honest. He hadn’t thought much of the people at all. He was fixated on the mystery. The reasons. And figuring them all out. He wanted to solve the puzzle.
Reggie paced in front of the monitor in the briefing room like a general laying out wartime strategy to his troops. He clicked a button on a small remote, and a picture of a long, bland building appeared on the screen. It looked to be two stories tall and probably occupied a square mile of space.