Sanctioned

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  He turned and looked at Brock and Pieter. “Are you all okay?” Mo asked, brushing Pieter down with his gun-free hand. Pieter was nearest to him, and in the scuffle had gotten cobwebs on his atmosuit.

  Brock was the one to respond. “No, we are not,” he told him. “Getting shot at isn’t in my job description.”

  Mo leaned in. “No, it wasn’t in mine when I first started, either.”

  Brock looked at him incredulously.

  Mo, relaxing and oblivious to his social faux pas, put his gun away. The elevator arrived, and he held the doors as he ushered the others in. “But you know, I don’t mind it. We get free dental if we agree to carry a weapon…”

  Brock clenched his fists by his side and resisted the urge to thump the guy. Pieter was revelling in the win of being able to stun the guy that had attacked them.

  Maya was the last to step into the elevator. Her dominant thought in that moment was figuring out how the hell she was going to tell this story later when they got back to base…

  Iantrogen Offices, Downtown Spire

  Jessica flicked frantically through the reports she’d been receiving during the morning. Her legal team was buzzing around in the conference room down the hall, but the constant interruptions— together with the influx of terrible news every five minutes— had her beyond irritated.

  She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Scotch. Not her first choice. She would have much preferred a martini, but the effort and waiting that she would have to go through to acquire one right now was beyond what she could tolerate.

  “Ms. Newld”, another interruption poked its head around her door.

  “Not now!” screamed Jessica, her wits fried.

  Her assistant didn’t disappear, though. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Newld, but the building is being evacuated.”

  Just then, about a third of her security detail came barging in past the assistant and started ushering Jessica out of the office. “What in the name of my ancestors is going on?” she demanded at the top of her voice.

  The assistant was whisked away.

  The security team leader stopped short of grabbing her arm, but encouraged her towards the door. “Ms. Newld, there is a security breach. We’re under attack. Please come with us,” he explained as succinctly as he could.

  Jessica couldn’t understand what was happening. “It’s the middle of the day. Are you telling me that Bates girl is coming in here, in broad daylight, with all these people around?!”

  The cardboard officer took his weapon from its holster and glanced back towards the door. “Ms. Newld, I’m afraid she’s already here. We have to leave,” he told her firmly.

  Jessica felt hands on her arms, and her weight being lifted from the floor. “I can walk!” she shouted.

  The team leader released her arm. She rearranged her clothing and tried to gather herself. “Lead the way,” she told him, smoothing her hair, and picking up her compact mirror. It was one thing to be caught unaware in one’s workplace for an assassination; but it’s something else to have to stare down Molly Bates with her hair all dishevelled.

  The security team led her out through the open plan offices, sweeping their weapons and muttering instructions and updates on their internal comms.

  Jessica marched along, checking her appearance and following the guard in front of her, careful to communicate in her walk that she was not afraid. Once she was satisfied with her look, she popped the compact into her jacket pocket.

  Halfway through the cubicle sea of the sales department, the entourage stopped dead. A second later, there was the sound of a stun gun discharging, and the slump of a body hitting the ground.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Jessica looked around, desperately trying to see where the threat was coming from. “I know it’s you, Molly Bates!” she shouted out across the now silent office.

  Another stun discharge and a slump.

  There were three guards left. One in front of her, one in the aisle to her left, and one to the right. They were silently scanning the area, watching for any signs of movement.

  Suddenly the one on her right fired.

  She called ahead to the leader. “Where are your reinforcements?” she hissed.

  He quietly spoke back to her. “On their way, ma’am.” He turned back to face ahead in the direction they had been moving, and suddenly grunted, and hit the deck.

  Jessica looked up and there was Molly Bates, holding a piece on her.

  “Well, if you wanted an audience with me, you just had to ask,” said Jessica coyly, trying to maintain the appearance of being in control.

  Molly barely batted an eyelid. “It wasn’t an audience I was seeking,” she replied calmly. “It was all-out destruction… which, frankly, was well underway before I even stepped foot in the building.”

  The rest of their onsite team will be here in three minutes.

  Got it. Tell Crash.

  They’ve just put in a call for a full squad of thirty, who will be coming from offsite. They are fifteen minutes away.

  Okay. How many do we think are still left in the building?

  Maybe ten - not including their general building security.

  You mean donut eaters with guns.

  Exactly.

  Okay. We might be all right.

  Molly started walking slowly toward Jessica, her weapon trained on her chest. “You will no doubt have seen that your trusted board of directors have been selling off your subsidiaries faster than you can say ‘caramel mocha’…”

  Jessica’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose I have you to thank for that?”

  Molly shrugged. “In part. Although, it’s been a long time coming… someone figuring out how you’ve structured your evil empire of Estarian exploitation.”

  “Oh, please,” Jessica retorted. “Do I really need to listen to this? I take it you’re here to kill me. To make a point? To serve as a warning to all the other corporations that don’t pay out indefinitely on every single disease known to Sark?”

  Jessica took a breath, folding her arms in indignation. “I’ll have you know that I and my family have built up these institutions to make the Sark system a better place for everyone. Yes, we make money… but that was never illegal.”

  Molly couldn’t resist getting into an argument with the beastly woman in front of her. “Yes, it’s difficult to do anything illegal when you manipulate the legal system to suit your own ends; when you pass laws that make you richer and richer, as you actively exploit the very population you claim to serve!”

  Jessica rolled her eyes. “Come, come now, Ms. Bates. I had you down as more than just the common activist. Surely you have something more than this?”

  Molly stopped in her tracks, and stood almost too casually. It made Jessica nervous. “Actually, I do,” Molly told her.

  “As you may or may not know… the price of your company’s shares is directly correlated to not just the number of smaller companies you own and control, but also the mechanism of buying or selling them. To be clear: when you sell them, the share price goes down. A lot.” Molly took half a step forward, her weapon now by her side. “One might even say it plummets,” she added.

  Molly, the remaining security detail is going to be on our location in ninety seconds.

  Okay, call for our own backup. We’re leaving soon. Have the pods ready by the windows.

  Jessica’s face had paled. “Ah, you hadn’t realized that.” Molly smiled. “So what you may not have figured out yet, is that a total of 168 of your subsidiaries have been sold off, or are currently in auction.” Molly took another half step. “Now, I don’t know what happens when more than one subsidiary is sold, but, at a guess, I’m going to assume that the share price is going to go down more than just ‘a lot’.”

  Jessica had taken a couple of steps backward, physically losing her balance as she tried to absorb the information. She grabbed onto one of the cubicle partitions.

  “In a few ho
urs, the authorities are going to cease trading shares in Iantrogen because the stock is effectively worthless. And that will be the end of the Newld Empire. Dismantled and destroyed.”

  Jessica stumbled and fell to the ground as Molly advanced a few more steps. She raised her gun on Jessica, and Jessica’s eyes widened.

  “Go on, just do it! Kill me! Get it over with, you little wench!” Jessica cried out.

  Molly lowered her weapon. “Oh, no, you misunderstand me,” Molly sneered, finally getting to exorcise her pent-up wrath at the injustice that Jessica had been perpetrating. “I’m not interested in killing you; I just wanted to destroy everything that made your life worth living.”

  Molly turned, and started walking away from a petrified and sobbing Jessica.

  Okay, we’ve got incoming.

  Molly could hear the rest of the security team coming in through the corridors on the left hand side of the open plan office. Straight away, she could hear Crash picking them off as they came through the door closest to him. Molly hurried over to help firm up his position. Standing behind a pillar, she too opened fire.

  Oz, see if you can get Sean and Jack here. And Joel. If more reinforcements are on their way, we’re going to need some backup ourselves.

  Roger that.

  Molly swung around the pillar and fired stun rounds, taking out a security heavy with each shot.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Andus safe house, Spire, Vættaborgir and Hellisgata

  Maya followed the three guys down the dimly lit passageway. Even Brock seemed to have gotten a spring back in his step.

  Mo glanced back at the group. “It’s not much to look at, but inside the apartment, it’s pretty comfortable. You know, nice white furniture, fully equipped kitchen...”

  The group kept walking, the sound of their footsteps being absorbed by the dark, brick walls as they made their way closer to where Andus had holed up.

  “Yeah,” Mo continued, as if he were a real estate agent giving them the tour, “and then we bring in food… Whatever you want. Mr. Andus just tells us what he wants that day, and we bring it. Fresh-like.” He paused, and spun round as if confiding a secret. “And booze,” he winked at Maya at the back of the group. “Whatever you want,” he insisted, as he turned and kept walking.

  They arrived at the door, and Mo got his key pass out of his jacket pocket. “This is the override,” he showed them the strangely shaped key fob. “In case we need to get in.”

  He knocked on the door. “Mr. Andus?” he called.

  Turning back to the group, he showed them the retinal scan panel on the door access console. “He uses this. But obviously that won’t work for us,” he grinned.

  There was movement inside the apartment. Mo knocked again, and called out, “Mr. Andus, there are some people here to see you!”

  He started accessing the panel with the key pass. “I’m coming in. No one is armed. Well…” he chuckled, “except for me.”

  Mo opened up the door to find Andus standing in the middle of the apartment in a vest and boxers, a gun feebly pointing at the intruders.

  Mo made his way through the door, his hands out to show he wasn’t a threat. “Sorry, Mr. Andus. These people are the new owners, and they wanted to speak with you,” he reported.

  Andus looked perplexed. “What are you doing, letting them in here?” he demanded, vexation filling his very being and replacing the fear he’d originally been experiencing.

  Mo gently stepped further into the room; now with one hand on his holstered weapon, the other out in front of him, palm to the floor. “It’s okay, Mr. Andus. These people are the new owners. They’re not here to hurt you.”

  Mo turned back to Maya and with a jerk of his head signalled for her to come into the apartment. Maya stepped bravely past the two boys who were obscuring the doorway, mesmerized by the sight of either the apartment, or of Andus in his underpants.

  Maya took a couple of steps inside, drawing Andus’s attention. He lowered his weapon without considering he was giving up. His face was crumpled in confusion, and probably lack of sleep.

  Maya’s voice rang through the sparsely furnished apartment. She was firm and commanding. “We’re the new owners of this building and your security establishment,” she explained. “My name is Maya Johnstone, and these are my associates,” she casually waved her hand at Pieter and Brock still standing in the doorway. “We are currently taking control of this and all properties in your groups. The paperwork is being dealt with by your lawyers-”

  Andus exploded. “I didn’t sell anything!”

  Maya nodded politely, and then continued. “I’m afraid that under planetary law, assets are automatically sold off in order to meet the debts in the portfolio. Your legal team has been working around the clock to make this happen since, well… I’m sure you’ve seen the news.”

  Andus’s mouth dropped open and his face relaxed in shock. “News? What news?” he asked weakly.

  Maya did a sympathetic head tilt, only partially succeeding in keeping her sarcasm out of her voice. “Oh, have you not been paying attention? Your company has crashed in value. As of three o’clock this afternoon, your personal net worth is less than zero.” She smiled a rather devilish grin. “You should probably check in with your people. She paused, glancing over at Mo briefly. “Before they’re not your people any more,” she added.

  Andus blustered, trying to find a response.

  Maya continued. “In the meantime, though, we’ll need you to vacate the premises. Immediately, that is.” She turned to leave, seeing the grins on the faces of Pieter and Brock as they hung onto the doorframe, watching the whole scene play out like a comedy sketch. She turned back, suddenly remembering something. “You may want to put some pants on first, though.”

  And with that, she stepped back out into the hall as the boys erupted with laughter, high-fiving her and patting her on the back.

  Brock grinned. “Molly wasn’t kidding when she said you had this one handled!”

  Maya smiled. “Yeah, come on. Let’s get out of here. Our work here is done.”

  Maya led the way back down the passageway, followed closely by Pieter and Brock. Mo made his excuses to Mr. Andus, and indicated in the direction of the door.

  “I… I should, er,” he shuffled a little to the door. “I’ll let you find your pants,” he added, then turned and left too.

  Andus stood exactly where he had been when they entered, watching them leave.

  Aboard the Mini Empress, Somewhere over the Navanah Desert

  Jack looked around the cockpit. “Shiiiiit, this is one sweet ride,” she beamed.

  Sean smiled. “It is. She doesn’t have gate capabilities like her big sister, The Empress, but she has almost everything else. Plus, she’s easier to maneuver for the kind of surface work we’re going to be doing today.”

  Jack was still admiring the array of controls.

  Sean glanced over as he brought the ship lower into the atmosphere. “See if you can familiarize yourself with the controls for the weapons. Under the artillery section,” he indicated with a wave of his hand at the panel in front of her. “From memory, I think we’re pretty much loaded with everything we’d need.”