by J. N. Chaney
I took a seat. His tone was conciliatory, not angry. Whatever he was referring to had nothing to do with my own extracurricular pursuits.
He stitched his hands together beneath his salt and pepper beard. “It’s troubling what happened to Vance. Nothing to do about it. He was in over his head and dealing with people that were sloppy. I told him it was bad business, but he said he could work it out.”
I smiled. “You could remove his arms and legs and Vance would still say he had things under control.” I bit my lip and balled up a fist. “It was his best and most frustrating quality.”
Mr. Kurns laughed. “Sounds like you knew him well. So, do you have anything specific for me?”
I considered the offer. Though the scope of the tone was broad, I went for the direct approach. “I need to know what kind of deals you have with Canton. How much he’s been allotted and where he squanders it. I know that his father’s company provides his school support, but I assume he has you double-dipping on that.”
Mr. Kurns shrugged and pulled up a file on his data pad. “Right to it, then, no cat and mouse about what each of us knows. I appreciate that. Canton spends money like he has an endless supply. Mind you, with the value of his father’s company, that isn’t too far from the truth. His father tries to cut him off from time to time, but Canton is resourceful.”
“No. He’s abusive. There’s a difference.”
Mr. Kurns flipped to a spreadsheet on the pad. “True enough.” He pointed to a section of highlighted lines on the spreadsheet. “See here? These deductions happened after his last cut off. He failed a bio exam, so his father stopped the transfers. He had me lift twice as much for what he called incentive and compensation.”
I saw another set of higher-end numbers. “What about these? Those seem to be even higher.”
Mr. Kurns shook his head. “That’s why you don’t over-reward and under-punish. Soon as he passed the next exam, highest grade in the class thanks to Vance’s provided answers, his dad upped his weekly by more than he took away.”
“What would happen, do you think, if Canton failed a test bad enough to fail the term?”
Mr. Kurns suppressed a glimmer in his eyes. “If some miracle arranged that, he’d head home for the break with no cash flow and an angry father. It might not stick, but it would be a helluva a slap to his shit-muncher ego.”
I had a thought about the shell game that Mr. Kurns ran with maintenance and supplies. “How do you deal with heavy shifts in cash flow between your two activities?”
He turned off the pad and stood up before walking to a rack of parts on the far side of the small office. “In the lean times, you make do. In the heavy times, you stock up on a few things. I’ve been doing this a long time and I know how to chart the winds, as it were.”
“And people that don’t have your experience?”
Mr. Kurns chuckled. “They start with putting in more effort to compensate for the right materials, and as it gets worse, they start blaming the supply chain. Eventually, they curse the tools that work for not being magical. They rarely notice they were the weak component in the system.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kurns. For the information, and the kind words about Vance. Please, go ahead and keep my weekly allowance.”
He shook his head and walked me to the door. “I appreciate the offer, Alphonse, but you keep what is yours and I’ll keep what’s mine. This conversation didn’t happen.” He gave me a broad wink and opened the door. “I’ll see what I can do about that hallway door,” he said as a cover.
“It has been bothering me since I arrived.”
I headed back to my room and began working on the next step for the Canton plan. I needed to get him a message that I could help him with his bio final. That would set him up for the failure I had in mind.
As for the Evelyn puzzle, Mr. Kurns had given me some insight into the maintenance world. Engineers thought they were smarter than the problems they encountered. They would be more prone to try and fix a problem with bad resources than admit they couldn’t.
If the supply of parts for the complex dried up, they would continue to operate and do work around that would lead to cascading failures. Union regulations were publicly accessible, so I checked through them. All essential systems were required to have redundancies and parts on hand. But they only needed to have one extra of anything. Even a cautious engineer would only have two.
Tampering with the supply chain would be difficult. Either replacing the shipments headed for the facility with broken parts that the engineers would work around or freezing their budgets to order just long enough to have them bottom out of the reserves seemed like the best choices. It would be difficult to do both without it being suspicious. Still, I had another wedge to open up the facility. The plan was becoming clear, bit by bit.
18
The next day, I was removed from classes early. My previous deception about the clinic appointment needed a second phase. The doctor I had scheduled an impossible meeting with to check up on Whiles had now officially started office hours. With my general lack of sleep and stress, it seemed like it would provide me with a good baseline for creating smoke screens in the future.
I hadn’t been to many doctors in my life. I knew what to avoid and practiced careful handwashing and general cleanliness. Disease was about happenstance and nobody was immune forever, but I had expressed proper caution in the past, which had kept me safe enough.
I proceeded to the gate and was stopped by Proctor Maevik with her usual confused wave/salute greeting. “Alphonse? You’re with me, no bus for a middle of day journey.”
I should have known that. Clearly, the sleep deprivation was wearing on me more than I was able to express. “Good to see you, Proctor Maevik.”
She frowned. “What did I tell you about using my last name? Cams will do. It really is alright. I’m staff, you don’t have to be formal with me like faculty.”
She walked with me back from the gate to the maintenance shed and the transport already set to go. I didn’t see Mr. Kurns.
“I was taught to use the name appropriate to the situation, nicknames and first names being for peers. You still hold a position of authority. I would hate to negate that.”
She sighed and got in the transport. “I don’t know if I should be flattered that you think being a glorified truant officer has authority or mad that you’re using it as an excuse. Either way, we have to be at the clinic soon.”
Maevik navigated the route there as quickly as she navigated her way through crowds. Despite the traffic, we arrived early. And since it was a clinic office, even somewhat late is still early. The Union might have the transports running on time, but medicine would always be a field that takes a lot of time and never runs true to schedule.
The admitting staff took my name and confirmed the doctor’s name. “Scheduled for 1:20? Well, it’s 1:10 now, so we’ll get to you as soon as the doctor is available. Take a seat”—they checked the paperwork—“Alphonse.”
I sat down and Maevik took up a position beside me. The waiting room was, of course, packed. We took the last two seats near the general clinic door. I was quiet, studying the faces of the other patients waiting. I idly diagnosed them based on their reactions and external symptoms. Or tried. It didn’t take long before I realized I couldn’t tell who was a patient and who was a supporter. Illness has a fear effect that masks true intentions. People simply don’t know how to act like themselves when faced with fear and apprehension. Too much instinct to maintain individuality for the most part.
A technician emerged from the clinic and checked a pad and then called out a name and a time stamp. “Broadkle? 12:40?”
Maevik sighed and I met her gaze. They were three people behind. The technician also caught her sigh and looked at us. There was a flash of recognition. “Captain Maevik? Good to see you. Are you here for an adjustment? Oh my, your wig is looking excellent. I knew that they would get you a proper fit.”
Maevik concealed a mi
xture of rage and embarrassment. “Alphonse, I’ll be at the transport. Lydia, everything’s fine.” She pushed through the door and exited in a hurry.
Lydia, the technician, looked horrified. She had broken protocol and made a terrible faux pas in drawing attention to Maevik in an open space. Not that anyone else in the space was paying attention. She fixed me with a look and then greeted Mr. Broadkle, then she escorted him down the hall and was gone for several minutes.
I returned to my deliberations on the actions of the waiting room people, but also considered what I had learned about Maevik. Lydia returned and sat beside me. “Are you a friend or relative of Camille?”
“No, I’m a student at Quintell Academy. Proctor Maevik is my escort for the clinic appointment.”
She looked chagrined. “I’m so sorry about before. I hadn’t seen her almost a year. We… knew each other before. Let her know I apologize and will accept any formal complaint she may want to file.” She stood up. “I have to get back to work.”
It was over an hour before I was finally called in. Predictably, my appointment took only the twenty allotted minutes as I explained my situation and he performed routine tests. My lack of questions and general ability to follow instruction made everything go smoothly.
Afterward, I returned to the transport to find Maevik standing outside at attention. She was visibly shaken by the experience, her usual open and jovial nature missing. She stood at attention with a cold, nearly robotic posture. I approached the transport and stopped before getting in. She watched me intently, not moving.
“The technician, Lydia, wanted me to pass along an apology. I would also like to apologize, Cams.”
She shot me a cold look then opened the door. I also entered the transport.
“Don’t give me that out of sympathy, Mr. M . . . Alphonse.” She struggled to land on a name for me. In the end, she sighed. The transport remained off and unmoving.
“I didn’t understand before how important the dynamic of authority and peer was to you,” I explained. “In there, Lydia exposed several secrets you don’t want known. I’m sorry that you had to go through that. But I will call you by the name you request, because that is respect. A formal title doesn’t define who you are, but how people should see you. An offered name says something about who you want to be. I see that now.”
She sighed and started the transport. “Apology accepted. Let’s get back to campus, Alphonse.”
As we moved out of the clinic area and onto the road, I had an idea. “We’re already out and it isn’t unreasonable for a student to request a comfort stop after a clinic visit, is it?”
She nodded. “Do you need to go somewhere? You don’t seem like the clinic bothered you.”
“No. I’m fine . . . it’s for you. I would like to buy you a cake and coffee.”
She laughed a dry chuckle. “I appreciate the offer. I’ll even take you up on it.” She turned toward the downtown area. Within minutes, we’d arrived at a hole-in-the-wall café. “This is my favorite,” she commented.
We exited the transport and put in an order, then sat down.
“Do you want to know the whole story?”
I considered what I already knew and what I didn’t, then decided it would be prudent not to blurt what I knew. “Anything you want to tell. I don’t need all of your secrets.”
She smiled, more herself in that moment. The coffee and cakes arrived. She was even a bit animated in accepting them. “This café is run by something of an expat. A former soldier living on a Union world. He’s an interesting guy. I was Union military myself. Stationed out in the rim worlds near the Deadlands.”
I nodded and enjoyed the coffee. It had a bit of spice to it.
“I was part of a search and recovery team,” she said. “Second in the chain under a tough nut of a commander, Jack Welder. He pushed us beyond what we thought we could do, which is good for a commanding officer. He also backed us when things went wrong and we lost people.” She sipped her coffee and enjoyed some cake. “Search and recovery is a difficult job. We were trained to extricate assets, usually black boxes and prototypes, occasionally pilots and VIPs, from extreme conditions—crashes on hostile worlds, accessing derelicts that had lost life support. Anything could go wrong, and we could lose our target or members of the squad.” She rubbed her right arm and I heard her shuffling her feet. “We were good at what we did. Even the missions that went poorly were rarely a complete disaster.”
I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer and interjected, “You lost the arm and both legs below the knee. From what Lydia implied, you also had some skull rebuilt that left you unable to grow your own hair. It looks natural, by the way.”
She fought for a moment to scowl or smile, settling on a pained grin. “I’ve noticed you do a good job of reading people. Surprised it took you this long to say anything.”
I put down my coffee. “I’m learning. To not upset people. You were reserved about your personal history. I didn’t want to take from you, Cams. The salute/wave you do. That is a brain issue, right? A programming mistake?”
Now she was impressed. “Yes. Whenever I want to greet someone, it goes to muscle memory and that memory spent fifteen years saluting, so it fights to do both. Both gestures access the same storage in the brain, and it comes out wrong.”
“The same with your feet then, the shuffling is you fighting to be still and to be ready at the same time?”
She frowned and took a heavy sigh. “No. That one is a remnant of their last action as they jerked to get me away from the hull breach that tore me apart. No matter what I do, somewhere in my mind, they’re always in motion.”
I had nothing to say to that. The losses I had faced in life didn’t mean anything. I didn’t care enough to mourn my parents, and though I missed Vance, it was nothing in comparison.
She drained the rest of her coffee and moved around the remaining crumbs of her cake. “Alphonse. Thanks for this. It was helpful. When you close yourself off but leave a way for people to get under your skin, it just leads to disaster, you know?”
I didn’t know. But I had a flash of inspiration.
It took a few hours of digging on the network, but my hunch paid off. Maevik’s situation gave me the idea and I had to run down the details to confirm it was possible. I sent Evelyn a message that night then headed over, hoping she would be ready for me.
As I approached the Cascade Gardens, I saw that she was waiting for me by the stoop, cigarette in hand. I gave her a cheerful wave, a bit too excited. I tried to calm down as I crossed the park.
“We’ll talk inside,” she said as she snuffed out the cigarette.
As usual, I gathered the butt as she opened the door.
Once we were inside the apartment, she sat in the wingback chair. “Alright, tell me what you have that’s worth interrupting me at this hour.”
I noticed that she hadn’t removed her coat at the door as she usually did. She also had a bit of the scent of wine on her. “You’ll want to get your data pad and take notes. It isn’t a simple solution,” I explained.
She perked up at that. “Go make us some tea in the kitchen.”
It was an odd request. I had never been further into her apartment than the sofa I was sitting on. I did as instructed and walked into the kitchen. The kettle and cups were in plain sight, so I did the preparation. I could hear her entering and then exiting and resealing her bedroom.
I took the tea back to the living area and sat in my usual spot. She was ready with her data pad.
“There are three major components to the plan,” I said.
She fixed me with her half smile. “Oh, nothing more elegant and one trick beats all?”
Her words expressed mockery, but her tone was one of admiration. “The three steps cover the major issues of entrance, guard patrols, and security bypass needed to get in and out cleanly.”
She nodded. “Drink your tea and walk me through it slowly.”
I poured myself a cup and cont
inued on. “The most important part is the infiltration route. Nothing was working when I tried to plot a path through any of the known entrances. The front door was an immediate problem; we wouldn’t even get through the outer bunker into the complex proper. The roof access only got us to the sixth floor. Service entrances ended with us being picked off and only hitting the fourth floor at best.”
She nodded and traced her finger over her pad, following my logic.
“I was puzzled by part of the construction of the basement into the sub-basement. These spaces are irregular in shape to the floors above. That meant they were built at a different time than the rest of the complex, apparently as part of a shelter years ago. A disused sewer line once connected to them but was walled off when the new complex was built.”
She lit up at that.
“I sent you an updated schematic with the sewer line,” I said.
She accessed the plan and her smile grew. “Well well.”
“It would take weeks to dig through the rock,” I continued. “It’s only fifty feet, but any drilling will arouse suspicion except for an hour between three and four when the maintenance team runs a check on their seismograph. While the system is calibrating, they won’t register any of the vibrations. Guards also check the entrances to the sewer line before and after the calibration. A driller would need to be down there for as much as ten hours for each hour of drilling to avoid detection.”
She made some notes. “And the other two steps of your solution?”
“To create as many windows of opportunity to defeat the security inside, you would need to starve out the supplies of the maintenance teams. This means cutting payment flow high enough up the chain that it started interfering with compensation for the workers and the suppliers. This will upset the maintenance teams and force work with inadequate supplies and parts.”
Again, Evelyn beamed as she wrote down information. “So that anything that went down when someone accessed the box, they wouldn’t know if it was intruders or typical problems. Interesting.”