IAh015: Can’t believe you’re leaving us.
IAi547: Deal’s not done yet. Anyway you know why.
Yes, Ho-is knew why. Clayton Ricker was merciless to 547, constantly threatening to have him tortured to death, and because the Organization was acquiring Andro-Heathcliffe and not the other way around, Ricker would likely retain his power position after the merger. Andro-Heathcliffe had new bioengineered buildings, however, and was hiring a new class of security for them it called Whites. White agents would work exclusively inside the massive structures, and they would even operate with Federal authority. The new order would handle all hands-on security issues inside the buildings, and, most importantly, it would not report to Ricker.
IAh015: We know why. Hope you make the cut.
IAi547: Thanks. Sorry to go, if I do.
IAh015: Yeah, yeah.
547 had seen his raw scores, delineated into five categories, but had no idea if they were high enough. Detachment was a strong area, in spite of his personal vendetta against Sett. So was Dedication, though all Unnamed were at the top of that metric, anyway. His best score was for a category they called Propriety, which was clearly a desirable trait for someone armed to the teeth and working permanently inside an office building.
Right now, though, there was the hunt. Sett was close, and now they had his place surrounded.
Dr. Chelsea’s lab, already operational during construction at the new Amelix structure
“You haven’t answered my messages, Dr. Chelsea, so I came to see you in person.” The man’s name and credentials appeared in Chelsea’s EI: Dr. Francis Schew, Team Leader of the Amelix Internal Dynamics division, doctorate degree in workflow analysis.
“I cannot possibly be pulled into another task force, doctor,” Chelsea said. “I don’t care how important you feel the mission might be.”
“You don’t seem to understand, Dr. Chelsea,” he said. “With eighty-two unexplained suffocation deaths in the last two days, I’ve been given emergency authority, carte blanche, to investigate. I can and will pull anyone I want onto this task force, and your skill set is essential. No known toxins, no physical damage of any kind, and yet they all just stop breathing. We suspect sabotage from another organization, and until we figure out how it’s happening, you are a member of this unit, subordinate to me.”
To Chelsea, the Rat Gods’ strategy was obvious. They were culling the human population within Amelix, the same as a lab manager might cull a collection of animals, or the way supervisors culled their departments through Departings. At this point, the Rat Gods were still evaluating their interests, trying to decide whether any humans would prove necessary to them. They were eliminating those humans who consumed resources without providing anything rats could use, such as the group that had all died at once in the marketing department. This man, this Dr. Schew, was actively investigating the Rat Gods’ handiwork, making him a legitimate threat to them, though a puny one. He would certainly be dead within hours.
But please, please not here. I don’t want to have to explain a body, or get rid of a body, or have anyone else come to this lab and see all the rats here. Please?
“Of course, Doctor Schew. I’m sorry if that sounded callous. Certainly I’m as concerned as anyone about those tragic losses of company assets. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
“Thank you for being reasonable, Dr. Chelsea. I’ll see you at the meeting in … twenty-three minutes.”
The rat behind him did its little dance, ensuring that those words would be the last he ever spoke of his own free will. It climbed up his pants and into the pocket of his Corporate Green uniform.
Chalk Bar, SLiD 8, the Zone
Sett downed another vodka shot, leaning close to be heard over the music.
“Ricker had more cash and more …” He pointed in Dok’s direction with the empty shot glass. “More of everything else, going into this war,” he said. “Fine. So now he’s in with McGuillian. But that doesn’t mean we have to do this merger! If this is our only option, we’ve already lost.” He set the shot glass down on the table.
Sett hoped his team’s presence made Coiner and the Fiends as uncomfortable as the Fiends made them. In the few months since Sett had arranged this amazingly profitable deal with them, allowing them access to the area in exchange for money, weapons, and information, he’d never once seen Coiner let his guard down. Even now Sett could see crazy Brian Samurai’s sword and a real, honest-to-God Federal rail gun across his back. Just looking at the thing sent a chill down his spine.
Coiner would sit like that all night, wearing those weapons as though he was perfectly comfortable, when he couldn’t even put his back against the chair. He’d set his workhorse rifle, an old M-16, to lean against the edge of the table. It was all very deliberate on Coiner’s part, and effectively intimidating. Sett had felt compelled to take his jacket off, displaying his twin high-cap Colebra automatics in response.
Sett turned slightly away from Coiner but kept him in peripheral vision. “I got a good thing, here, Dok,” he said. “This whole fucking district is mine. My father sees how much intel I’m bringing in, not to mention the steady flow of cash, and we’ve only been open a few months! Every Zone worker needs a mountain of documentation just to come work here, and the most important document of all is my authorization to let them pass through the gates, valid one day at a time. I have to replace about five percent of my work force every week; that’s how violent the rest of the Zone is now. They beg me to let them sleep here on the floor so they don’t have to go home. With that kind of motivation, I don’t even have to pay them much. See? That’s power.” He slapped the table, his gigantic hand resounding like a battering ram.
He poured himself another shot. “A fucking king! Not for long, though. I built this myself. What’m I gonna be now that my father is merging with the evilest company in the world?”
“I guess that’s a risk in a world where people control each other like that,” Dok said. “You may not always be on the right side of the deal.”
Sett was listing to one side and began to lose his balance. He sat straight up in his seat and steadied himself with both palms on the edge of the table. He could still see remains of the glowing tattoo which had been imbedded in Dok’s forehead during their time with the subjects. A few seconds under a laser had eradicated Sett’s own mark, but since Dok’s had been crudely treated with homegrown bactrofungicides, a constellation of tiny dots still glowed above his brow ridge. “Control? I saved these people.” Sett paused as he realized he was slurring his words. He made a particular effort to enunciate when he continued. “This is the way the world works.”
“Yeah, you save them every day.” Dok said. “That’s what your father’s new partner says about his workers.”
“Fuck you. I give people jobs,” Sett said. “This guy, this Dr. Muun guy, is heir to the first company ever to distribute goods from North Korean prison camps. He now holds the contract for the entire country of North Korea, and he’s known as the man with twenty million slaves. We’re the same? You think I’m the same as him? Fuck you.”
“You talk to me because you know I’ll tell you the truth, Lawrence.”
Dok’s emphasis on the name was deliberate, to remind Sett that he wasn’t quite what he was pretending to be.
Sett extended his left forearm on the table and pulled up his sleeve. Scars were rare among Golds, and his disfigured arm proved he had street credibility the other Unnamed would never have. He locked eyes with Dok as if to ask “remember this?”
“You think I’m just some rich boy who doesn’t understand suffering?” He gestured toward a random window. “I’ve been down there. What this is, it’s just the way of the world.”
“Lawrence, if you’re going to try to pretend you don’t profit from slavery I’ll tell you you’re full of shit. You have women begging you, in tears, to let them stay here and work as whores instead of going home to the war zone. You’re right to fear this Muun guy
; if he has twenty million slaves, he’s basically just adding you to his collection. But that’s all you do, too. He has a better economy of scale, but you and he have the same business model.”
Gunshots sounded downstairs on the main floor. Not the sporadic ones of local hoods they’d often heard when Sett had first claimed dominion in this district, and not the terrifying shrieks of Federal weapons. These were the efficient three-shot bursts of Unnamed Executives. Sett leaned toward the railing and swept his head side-to-side, scanning with the glasses around the bar, but couldn’t get a face ID on any of the attackers. Four of them were firing into the spacious barroom from the lobby.
A loud blast, slightly longer than a UE three-shot, sounded next to him, and then did so three more times. All four attackers dropped. Coiner stood at the railing, still aiming his weapon, not the rail gun but the assault rifle. There was a moment of silence as Sett joined him there, aiming down with a pistol in each hand and checking his EI for more information.
Readout from the security cameras in the area showed zero approaches; evidently the attackers had counter-surveillance tech.
Sett manipulated his EI to speak to every Williams Unnamed in District 8. “No question who it is, but are we confirmed yet? Numbers?”
“Yes, sir. Positive facial ID of Ricker/McGuillian/Andro-Heathcliffe Unnamed, matched to our own recognizance data, coming in from District 9. We’ve partially flanked them on the inside edge of their approach but that point’s in danger of being overrun. Whatever they used on the main cameras also confuses the glasses so we’re just going on firsthand sightings, but we believe roughly four hundred Unnamed attacking our one hundred sixty-four here, sir. Your Fiends are fighting them now, though, sir, and cutting them down hard.”
“Huh,” Sett said. Nothing sobered him up faster than warfare.
My Fiends. Ha.
There were so many three-shot bursts firing that it sounded as if a loud and sporadic dance drumbeat were still playing downstairs. Listening, he realized the dance music was actually still playing, too, to the twenty or so dead customers littering the main room, as well as the few who might still be alive and hiding somewhere. Punctuating all of this were the long, loud blasts from Fiend weapons, from an unsettling number of hidden locations all around them.
Three Williams Unnamed appeared, the other three of Sett’s team. “Company protocol is to evacuate leadership, sir,” one said. He led them into a back office where, hidden beneath a cabinet that slid away to one side, a narrow stairway spiraled down into darkness. Sett went down first, with Dok and Coiner, and the other Unnamed from Sett’s team fell in behind them. Sett activated the light on his glasses for Dok’s sake, brilliantly illuminating their way down even though it would have been safer to use the night vision feature instead. The stairs were walled off from the main floor and descended to a tunnel which ran beneath the building. The tunnel connected directly to the adjacent building where Sett and Dok had reconnected.
Having lived underground so long with Eadie, both Dok and Sett were able to move through the tubes as smoothly as cockroaches, even now, when Dok’s form was still wasted and frail from living on the streets and Sett had been enhanced to an Unnamed body three times the size he’d been back then. Perhaps those handicaps were what allowed Coiner to keep up with them.
Or maybe Coiner is terrifyingly good at everything. And intel says the New Union outnumbers our Unnamed, possibly by a lot.
Sett pushed it out of his mind. Right now the threat was coming from Ricker’s thugs. There would be time later to consider how dangerous the Fiends might be.
They wound their way to the now waist-high opening in the other building’s basement. The rubble and other passive defenses had been removed so Lawrence and other Unnamed could pass through easily, replaced with a single self-aiming gun just inside the room. It tracked them as they entered, but returned to aiming at the entrance when it recognized the code emitted by Sett’s glasses.
“Wait here, Dok,” Sett said. “Ricker can’t get vehicles into SLiD 8 so we’re going to chase them out using ours. You’ll be fine here. Coiner, you can do as you like, of course.”
“Dok is still our asset and I’m supposed to keep him safe,” Coiner said. “We’ll be here. I’m still expecting to meet with you and your father about that merger and how it will affect our arrangement.”
“I’ll take you to him as soon as we deal with this problem,” Sett said.
“Here’s good,” Dok said. He lowered his voice. “You know this raid is probably intended to nab you, right, Lawrence? What other explanation could there be? There’s nothing else here to for them to take that would justify this kind of cost in lives and other resources. You’re still going to turn around and deliver yourself?”
“You suppose I should save myself for Dr. Muun?” Sett climbed the basement stairs into the loading dock where they stored the armored truck, unlocking and starting it through his EI.
Scaffolded/Wrapped Construction Site for New Amelix Building
Zabeth Chelsea relaxed in the Rat God’s Thrall even as she spoke at this meeting with Kessler and Keiko. The rat had left her full capability to speak and work for now, but she could feel it monitoring her actions through the tiny corrections it applied here and there throughout the day.
A surge of anxiety and claustrophobia struck Chelsea, and her body trembled. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard she thought she might feel its fibers tearing apart. She had never had panic attacks until recently, but now they were striking with increasing frequency and intensity. All she could think about in these moments was her desperate need to escape, to flee the building and free herself from the omnipresent forces that now controlled every aspect of her existence. The Thrall swelled to suppress the panic, as it always did, at least to the extent that she could get on with her work. The nausea and trembling used to subside after a few hours, but the attacks were now happening so often that she never fully recovered.
“Doctor Zytem has again expressed satisfaction at how well the prototype preconditioning programs have worked in protecting our employees from the schizophrenia outbreak,” she said.
The rat let her stroke Kessler’s head gently. “He loved the mammalian ear hairs we re-engineered to vibrate and produce sound waves, and yours are the perfect words to have our walls whispering, Dr Kessler.” She presented him the back of her hand, and he grasped it with both of his, pulling it gently to his lips. Lowering her voice, she said, “You are a master of the rules of men, pet. But never forget that I have mastered nature. And you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. There was no edge to his voice, only acceptance.
She gazed into Keiko’s blank eyes. “And you, too, dear.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Keiko said.
“Dr. Zytem is pleased, and so am I. Amelix Integrations now has a one hundred percent Accepted workforce that is invulnerable to the schizophrenia outbreak, and these new structures Grow the preconditioning tech from the moment they’re created. We have helped Amelix to gain a tremendous advantage over our competition.”
Keiko’s face showed she was lost in ecstasy at the thought, as were they all. It was quite easy to make Keiko ecstatic, though. Kessler had done such a wonderful job creating this pet, and now Chelsea had claimed dominion over both Keiko and her trainer. Kessler had surrendered to Chelsea detailed records of the process he’d used in her training, so now Chelsea had the ability to tweak Keiko’s behavior to match her own desires. It might even be possible to replicate Keiko in a new subordinate.
Or many new subordinates.
Management was a heady experience.
Keiko’s impeded ability to piece together stories made her significantly more docile and easier to control, but also rendered her incapable of simple tasks like organizing past events into a logical timeline.
Chelsea realized she was stroking her own cheekbones as she stared at the girl. She cleared her throat. The rat had allowed this. Had it interpreted her sexual urges
as work?
Perhaps they were.
“There’s much more,” she said, “and not all good. It’s feared that another sort of epidemic may be spreading among us. I’m sure you’re aware of recent incidents where Accepted employees have suddenly and inexplicably attacked other workers in the CBD. This savage behavior arises without warning or provocation, and members of every company in the district have been involved in these assaults, both as instigators and victims. The aggressors are apparently overcome by an irresistible impulse to kill others around them, from whatever company, even their own. While we Accepted were somehow protected from the schizophrenia outbreak, this spate of violence seems to work the other way. The people we would expect to remain the most dutiful and disciplined are the ones most prone to these psychotic breaks.”
Chelsea felt a surge of panic at the thought of Accepted-on-Accepted violence in the CBD. She realized there must be some connection between the violence and the Rat Gods, but it was a struggle to keep that idea in focus. The Rat God caused the Thrall to intensify, just enough to balance out the panicky feeling. Chelsea and the Rat Gods were learning about each other, growing together.
“To protect our human assets from external violence and, with the help of our new preconditioning tech, better prevent outbreaks internally, this building and its clones around the world are now scheduled to become operational Amelix workplaces, fully one hundred eighty days before the original plan. That’s fourteen days from now. To accomplish this, all of us will be moving aboard immediately. Sleep schedules will be replaced with wave manips and additional conditioning programs to replicate sleep, thus reducing actual resting hours from six down to two per day, testing our emergency protocols. I’m told this will take some getting used to, but the technology prevents any loss in efficiency. The buildings will remain unsealed but heavily guarded until the last of the employees and other raw materials are brought aboard and housed. At that point, the buildings will be sealed in order to test their design and life support systems, and are expected to remain secure and self-sustaining for a period of two months. Hopefully, during this time whatever has been triggering the violence will have been addressed.”
The Book of Wanda, Volume Two of the Seventeen Trilogy Page 31