by Piers Platt
“Why?” Nkosi asked.
“I want to pay him a visit,” Rath replied.
“You’re trying my patience. I have no idea what his name is.”
“You can look it up, right?” Rath persisted.
Nkosi scowled at him, then waved a hand at Feykin. The Chief of Operations opened a personnel database, and ran a search query to find the record.
“Kin Haas. Tarkis Police. He’s inactive, for what’s it worth.” Feykin peered closer at the screen. “Dead, apparently.”
“Happy?” Nkosi asked. She smiled at Rath, but her eyes were as cold as ice.
“Yeah, actually. I hated that guy. But I have one more question,” Rath said. “Has the Group ever paid a contractor who reached fifty kills?”
“What? What do you care?” Nkosi asked.
“Call it morbid curiosity,” Rath shrugged. “I’d just like to hear the truth, just once, from the director of the Janus Group.”
Nkosi arched her eyebrows. “When this is over, you will have the distinction of being the first contractor to ever get paid.”
“And why is that?” Rath asked.
“You know why,” she told him.
“Humor me.”
“If we actually paid off every contractor that beat the odds and made it to fifty kills, this organization would barely turn a profit. So we kill them, and recycle their cybernetic implants … and we make money. Lots of money.”
“How do you live with that lie?” Rath asked her.
“Easily. Unlike you, I sleep soundly knowing what we do. I think society is far better off without a number of ultra-wealthy serial killers running free. No offense.”
“None taken,” Rath told her. “Instead the galaxy is stuck with just one rich sociopath – you.”
If Nkosi was offended, she gave no hint of it.
“Well, I think it’s time we moved to the roof,” Rath said.
“The roof?” Feykin asked.
“I’ll hail an air taxi from the landing pad,” Rath told him. “And if you’ll all accompany me, I’ll give you the location of my two friends once it arrives.”
They rode the elevator to the roof in awkward silence: Rath, Paisen, Feykin, Nkosi, and three guards. Paisen, stony-faced, glared at Rath the entire time. He did his best to avoid looking at her. A brisk wind greeted them when they stepped out of the elevator, whipping across the open roof. The gravel of the roof crunched under Rath’s feet as he led them to the landing pad where Nkosi’s air car was parked. He surveyed it appraisingly, one hand in his pocket.
“I think I’m going to skip the taxi and just borrow your air car.”
“The hell you are,” Feykin told him. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense—”
Nkosi held her hand up for silence. “Relax, Feykin. It’s a small price to pay to have him gone.”
And you probably have a way to track your air car, which would make finding me that much easier, Rath thought.
He held out his hand to Nkosi. “Director. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
Nkosi hesitated, eyeing Rath with disdain. Then she grasped his hand in return.
Game on.
Rath pulled her in hard, yanking the pen out of his pocket with his other hand. In one swift move, he twisted Nkosi, facing her toward the guards and slipping an arm around her neck. His other hand held the pen to the soft spot on her right temple. With a cry of alarm, the guards leveled their rifles at Rath, but he shielded himself behind Nkosi. He could hear her heart beating wildly.
“This is a flimsy pen,” Rath told the guards, “but I’m pretty sure I can punch it through her skull.”
Rath looked over at Feykin. “Tell them to drop their weapons.”
“Do it,” Feykin told them. They complied.
“Uncuff her,” Rath said, nodding at Paisen. The guard closest to her fumbled with the key for a second, then she was free. She picked up one of the auto-rifles, and casually butt-stroked Feykin in the face, knocking him to the ground.
“Get in the car, Paisen,” Rath told her. “No time for that.”
She shot him an angry look.
“There will be more guards on their way – just get in the car,” he repeated. She relented, jogging over to the air car and taking the pilot’s seat.
Rath backed up to the car, pulling Nkosi with him. “You bastard,” she hissed. “The deal is off.”
“Mm,” Rath grunted. “Funny how often deals get broken around here, isn’t it?”
“You can rest assured,” Nkosi promised him, “we’ll have a new message out to all contractors the minute you’re gone. We’ll find you – both of you. I will take every contractor off regular duty and send them after you. I don’t care about the money you stole—”
“The money you owed me,” Rath corrected her.
Nkosi ignored him. “The entire might of this organization will be focused on you. I’ll see that they torture you for the rest of your life.”
“We’ll see,” Rath said. “First, I would worry about the police.”
“The police?” Nkosi frowned.
Rath pushed her away and climbed into the air car, slamming the door. Paisen revved the engine and then threw the car into gear, climbing vertically off the roof.
She shot him a wary look. “Don’t for a second think I’m grateful about what you just pulled – it’s a shitty plan. Sure, we have some cash, and maybe a few minutes’ head start, but I’d trade all that money for the headquarters building burned to the ground. The Group’s still very much alive and kicking, and now they’re pissed. Really pissed.”
“They’re about to have bigger problems. Take us to the spaceport, I’ve got things to take care of.”
“What things?”
“Just fly,” Rath told her. He punched the air car’s control panel, and dialed a number on the speakerphone.
“C4ble, you still with me?”
“Yeah, police net went bonkers about five minutes ago, FYI.”
“Good – Martin must have gotten through to IP.”
“I’d say so. Multiple cars inbound, you want to head southeast to stay outside the cordon they’re setting up.”
“Southeast, thanks.”
Paisen adjusted their course, frowning. “Who is that?”
“A friend of mine,” Rath said. “Same guy who helped me find you. C4ble, how’s the program?”
“I’ve got access to all the systems you listed. The databases are big, but I’m uploading them now. Dasi sent me a note – she already posted your audio visual feed, apparently it went viral. She’s standing by for the database link. I’ve got Beauceron’s number to send it to him, too.”
Exasperated, Paisen threw the car’s auto-pilot switch on, and then turned to Rath. “Just what the hell is going on?” she asked.
* * *
In the control room, a tech found an ice pack for Feykin’s bloodied nose. Altaras hurried over to Nkosi, a worried look on his face.
“Director, we may have a problem.”
“In a minute. Are you tracking 621 and 339?”
“Yes, ma’am. But the police are headed here, responding to a bomb threat in the building. They’ll be here in two minutes.”
“So?” she asked. “Draw some cash, and transfer it to our informants. The police can search the rest of the building, just make sure these floors are not disturbed. Bribe them, Altaras – the same as we always do.”
“Ma’am … the accounts are showing zero balance.”
“What? Which accounts?”
“All of them.”
A tech two rows over stood up, urgently raising his hand. “Supervisor, I’ve got an external user accessing the contractor communications suite!” he shouted.
“What? How?”
“We’ve been breached. I’ve got IT looking for the source now. But the external user is blocking access on our end – we can’t talk to the contractors at all.”
“What are they sending?” Nkosi asked impatiently.
“Wait one,” the tech told her. “It’s to all contractors, looks like a video file. Pulling it up on the main screen.”
The screen showed Nkosi in her office, facing the camera. Rath’s voice emerged from the speakers.
“… but I have one more question,” they heard. “Has the Group ever paid a contractor who reached fifty kills?”
On the screen, the recording of Nkosi frowned. “What? What do you care?”
“Call it morbid curiosity. I’d just like to hear the truth, just once, from the director of the Janus Group.”
“You have the distinction of being the first contractor to ever get paid.”
“And why is that?” the recording asked.
“Oh god …,” Nkosi breathed, watching the screen in horror.
On screen, the recording of her continued: “… if we actually paid every contractor that beat the odds and made it to fifty kills, this organization would barely turn a profit. So we kill them—”
“Shut it down!” Altaras screamed.
“I can’t,” the tech replied, “it’s already been sent. We’re just accessing the file.”
Altaras put his head in his hands. “Jesus Christ. If … maybe if we can get another message out in the next few minutes, we can spin this right. We can say you were lying, under duress—”
The tech broke in, “Sir, I’m trying to access biometrics links and audio visual feeds, but they’re all down. We can’t talk to the contractors, we can’t even monitor them.”
Nkosi grabbed Altaras by the arm. “Get me out of here.”
He looked at her in confusion.
“Now, Supervisor – before the police arrive.”
“I can’t, ma’am: Tower Security has the building on lockdown. Elevators, fire exits – everything’s shut down as an emergency measure because of the bomb threat. Your air car was the last way out of here.”
A tech ran up, and handed Altaras a datascroll. “This was broadcast three minutes ago,” she told him.
Altaras’ face fell. He hit Play on the screen.
“Breaking news,” the reporter on the datascroll read, “a video circulating the web is grabbing the attention of people across the galaxy. The video shows individuals that appear to be associated with the infamous Guild, engaged in a heated debate over blood money. The Guild was once thought to be a mere urban legend, but the footage has now been augmented with a massive data dump, that includes named lists of alleged Guild agents within the government and Interstellar Police. It is appearing more and more likely that the Guild is a real criminal organization, and it is located here, in Wayhaven.”
Altaras dropped the datascroll onto a desk, and locked eyes with Nkosi. In the distance, they heard the sound of approaching sirens.
* * *
Nkosi’s air car settled down on the landing pad next to the Hurasu. Paisen rubbed at her eyes.
“Go over it again. One more time,” she told Rath.
“You don’t trust me?” Rath asked.
“After what you just pulled, probably never again, no.” But the edges of her mouth turned up in the ghost of a smile.
“Okay,” Rath said. “The data drive had a virus on it. I bought it from C4ble for one of my final Group assignments, and I kept a copy, just in case. It’s a mimic program, once you plug the drive in it stays inactive and just observes, but every program you use, it learns to use, too. Do I have that right, C4ble?”
“That’s technically inaccurate in a number of ways, but it’s essentially right,” the hacker replied over the phone.
Rath rolled his eyes. “So Feykin plugged it in, and the program started up. Everything Feykin accessed, C4ble got access to. Their financial accounts, their contractor communications links, and their informant database. He emptied all their accounts, took everything they had. C4ble, how much did we get?”
“Hold on, they’ve got investments all over the place, they were still being transferred last I looked. Okay, here it is.” The line went silent. “Holy. Shit.”
“What?” Rath asked. “How much?”
“One hundred and eighty-two billion dollars. Billion, like, with a ‘b.’ ”
Rath took a deep breath, and then exhaled noisily. He looked over at Paisen. “Split it with you?” Rath grinned. “Fifty-fifty?”
She guffawed.
“Less my ten percent,” C4ble pointed out.
“You’ve earned it,” Rath agreed. “And now we’re even, by the way. You can forget about those kills I owed you.”
“Yeah … I’m definitely taking the money instead. But how the fuck am I going to spend eighteen-point-two billion dollars?” C4ble asked, rhetorically.
“Let’s come back to the money,” Paisen said.
“Okay,” Rath agreed. “I also had Feykin access the informant database. C4ble just copied that, and sent it to Dasi and Beauceron. Dasi was monitoring my feed, and while we were in with Nkosi, I sent her a message asking her to post all the evidence publicly, along with the link to my live feed.”
“You put all of that up on the internet?” Paisen asked.
“Well, Dasi did, but yeah,” Rath said.
“She posted it to the Senate press pool forum,” C4ble told them. “And pinged all of her old press contacts. Every media agency in the galaxy picked it up within minutes.”
“Good call, Dasi,” Rath observed. “Helps to have a PR specialist on your team. C4ble sent all of it to Beauceron, too. I knocked him out before coming after you, but he was dead set on contacting IP, so I imagine that’s what he did as soon as he woke back up.”
“So the cops have all the evidence, and your video feed, too?”
“Yeah, and more importantly, they have the informant list. The entire world knows who takes bribes from or recruits for the Group. Now they can’t hide behind their dirty cops.”
“You slick son of a bitch,” Paisen grinned at him.
“Wait,” Rath told her. “There’s more. After Feykin sent the communication to all contractors saying we were no longer a threat to the Group, C4ble cut off their access. They can’t send another message … only we can.”
“And I did,” C4ble chimed in.
“Right. I was recording everything from the moment I walked into the building. C4ble just sent that recording to every active contractor.”
“So when you asked Nkosi if any contractors had ever been paid …,” Paisen started.
“… I just wanted all the other contractors to hear the truth for themselves, straight from the director,” Rath finished.
Paisen leaned back in her seat. “So even if they re-establish communications, nothing the Group says could convince the contractors to believe them. They’ll never accept new missions, not after learning that ‘Fifty for Fifty’ is all a lie.” She turned to face him, eyes wide. “Rath, they’re going to be pissed, just like us. They’re a huge threat to the Group … the Group’s going to shut them down – kill them remotely via their hemobots, to neutralize the threat.”
“C4ble?” Rath asked.
“Already covered it, just like you asked. I deleted all their tracking and cybernetic links.”
Rath smiled. “Headquarters can’t do anything. Those contractors are free and clear. No audio visual feed, no hemobot links – no way to track them, no way to shut them down.”
“You should see the goddamn circus going on at the Surat Khan Tower right now,” C4ble reported. “I’m watching it on the news. The police are on scene, they have the place surrounded. But the media is there, too. Looks like a few of them got there at the same time the cops did.”
Paisen held up a hand, and counted on her fingers. “They’ve got no money. The entire world knows about them. Their informants and recruiters are about to get arrested. They’ve lost their army of contractors. And they don’t have the senators protecting them anymore, either. They’re just a handful of supervisors and techs – and one really pissed off director – stuck in a building.”
“With the world outside clamoring fo
r justice,” Rath agreed.
“What about Beauceron?” Paisen asked.
“Martin? Martin’s going to go down in history as the one good cop that had the guts to bring down the Guild. I’m hoping that’s enough for him to forgive me for knocking him out again. And breaking my promise to let him arrest me.”
Paisen cocked an eyebrow at him. “You mean to tell me you’re free of the Guild, a fabulously wealthy man, and you’re not going to turn yourself into the authorities?”
“I thought about it …,” Rath confessed.
“Jesus.” Paisen rolled her eyes.
“… but I don’t plan on killing anyone else, and Martin knows that. After today’s work, I think my slate’s pretty much clean.”
A slow smile played across Paisen’s lips. “So, what now?”
“What now?” Rath threw his hands up. “My plan took us up to getting back to the Hurasu; I didn’t think any farther than that. In fact I think I’m done making plans, forever.”
Paisen laughed. “Fine. I’ll take it from here. C4ble, it was a real pleasure.”
“Uh, same here,” the hacker replied. “Kind of the understatement of the century, but thanks, guys. If you ever need anything ….”
“We’ll find you,” Paisen told him, hanging up. She pointed to the Hurasu. “Let’s get on board.”
“I’m thinking a long vacation, somewhere isolated,” Rath said, climbing out of the air car.
“I hear Fusoria doesn’t get many visitors,” Paisen joked.
Rath laughed. “No. Someplace warm.”
Paisen glanced at him as they walked up the Hurasu’s cargo ramp. “You still want to find a doctor when we get off-planet? Get that head erased?”
Rath frowned, and turned to look back at Wayhaven in the distance. “No,” he said, after a time. “I think I’m going to want to remember this.”
25
Dasi signed her name on the datascroll, and then scanned her fingerprint next to the signature. The attendant checked it briefly, then moved down the row of white chairs to the next person. Dasi watched, quietly. The line of chairs reminded her vaguely of gravestones.
That’s because you were just in a cemetery, she told herself. She shifted nervously on her seat. I hope Khyron liked his flowers.