“I can’t believe I never have to go back to Ackerman.”
“Oh Charlie, oh no. You have to go back.”
“What?”
“Don’t you see? If you don’t, they’ll come looking for you.”
“I, but—”
“Charlie, this is not negotiable. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you—not for a few weeks, but since you said you were going to quit working, I had to. Your coming here every night is bad enough, but as long as they think you’re going to pay them back, they don’t care. If you stop going in to work, they’ll come here, and in force. They’ll arrest people, bring them in, start asking questions.”
“I’m sorry, Kate. How can I go back? I am not a colleague anymore. I can’t live that life.”
Her eyes were sad. “I understand. But you have to anyway. You said that you wanted a way to redeem yourself—for Sarah.”
I knew what was coming.
“You have no idea,” she said, “no idea how hard I’ve worked to convince them to let you keep coming here. I’ve been cut out of nearly all of the decisions—they won’t talk to me or come here to meet with me. And that’s okay, but I can’t give you any more.”
“This is cruel.”
“I know,” she said. “Let’s go back together. I’ll live at your place. But you can’t stop going to work or meeting with Linus. If you’ve been looking for a way to prove yourself, this is it. You have to go back.”
She would go back with me, too. I knew that. That arrangement would help. But she was the only beautiful thing in my life.
I would go back to Ackerman. I would do carry the burden for Sarah Aisling. I had asked for the chance to be like her, to take risks like her, to stand up for what I believed. But I had wanted to do so on my terms. Would that life were like that, challenging us in the time and place of our choosing. No, I had to go back to Ackerman, precisely because it was the last thing I wanted to do.
“How long until the crash?” I asked.
“There’s no way to know. As it gets closer we’ve gotten better at pinning it down. Our best guess is it’s about four to eight weeks away. But a single bad market fluctuation could catalyze an entire catastrophe overnight.”
I shifted uncomfortably.
“We’ll know a day or two before it gets bad. That’s why I’ve been having you stay here at night. At the first sign of serious trouble in the market, you should come straight here. We go to the bunker together. Once they seal it up, Ackerman will never hurt us again.”
I had survived two bombings already, and now I saw myself getting entombed in the center of Capital City while the economy itself detonated.
She put both hands on my face and looked me in the eyes. “If you don’t get out of the city, I will go in,” she said. “I will find you. Do you understand me? I will not leave you out here alone.”
“No,” I said. “You’d never find me, and I don’t want you to miss the vault. Whatever happens, I’ll be okay if I know you’re safe.”
“I’m not going into the vault without you.”
“No, Kate. It’s a deal-breaker. I won’t go back unless you promise me that you won’t come after for me.”
“Once they close those doors, they’re not opening for decades. Promise me you won’t miss it.”
“I won’t.”
Chapter 16
I sat at my desk, massaging my right leg. It ached, and I could tell even before I checked the weather futures that we were in for a storm. There was a hurricane coming, and everybody was hustling to finish as much work as they could before hunkering down for the night. It was hard to fake interest in a single storm, no matter how big it was. Bernard, Corbett, Leoben, all my colleagues were huffing around, trying to negotiate supplies to last a couple of days in case the power went out. In a couple of months they’d all be corpses. They’d have no food, no water, and no electricity. The building would be a mausoleum.
I logged into my terminal. I found an escrow credit of 13,861.44 caps, for emergency mitigation services rendered at the café. I also found a press release, which read that a Kabul suicide bomber attacked Atlas Square, but was shot and killed before he could reach his target. A preliminary investigation showed that spies inside Ackerman had helped him infiltrate the square undetected. Already the CEO was preparing proposals to ferret these traitors out, and was personally going to oversee a new economic offensive against Kabul Coffee.
I still hadn’t received my commission from my Aisling report.
I had only managed a few reports by lunch. I had always said that nothing was worse than administrative paperwork. But paperwork under the futility of an impending Armageddon, that would crush the spirit of even the stoutest of actuaries.
“The storm won’t be that bad,” scoffed Corbett. “These people. You need battery backups, backup routers, generators. They call themselves professionals? The whole city could go dark, and I’d still be working. Nobody here is dedicated, not one iota.”
Bernard hastily ripped open a bag of candies and sent them flying all over the room. With a grunt he fell to his hands and knees and began picking them up, popping the occasional one into his mouth when he thought nobody was looking.
“Bernard, that’s disgusting!” Corbett said. He turned to me. “I saw you at the café yesterday. Didn’t want to trouble you. You had one hell of an afternoon. How did you like our crafting of the incident? I hope it meets with your approval.”
I nodded.
“Oh, they’re going to add a two and a half percent levy to cover the war,” groaned Bernard. “How will I ever cope with it? I’ve barely got enough to live on as it is.”
“Cope?” Corbett said. “You should be counting your blessings, you ungrateful pig! Not many CEOs could wage an effective war at two and-a-half percent. Christ, Bernard, Charles was nearly killed. These Kabul people are maniacs. All this over coffee? Obviously they can’t handle legitimate competition. We need to kill them all, every one. Hell, we should have done this last month! How do we expect to stay competitive if we let some piss-ant company like Kabul walk all over us?”
“Oh, there are plenty of ways to get ‘em without having to charge me a security fee,” grumbled Bernard “I don’t go to places like Atlas Square precisely for this reason. Let the HighCons deal with HighSec, if they’re stupid enough to all gather in one spot!”
“They have a right to have a place of their own, where they can engage in civil discourse and debate. What are you, a communist? Your lack of sympathy for your own colleagues is disgusting!” Corbett exclaimed.
“Takashi could have done better,” Bernard said.
“What?” stammered Corbett.
“I mean… well, you know what I mean. If I were advising Takashi, I’d have told him to just let Kabul in. We have got bigger fish to fry.”
“You’re a coward, Bernard!”
“That’s it. You called me a pig and I let it go because you’re a colleague, but no more. I’m going to sue you for slander!”
I returned to my cubicle. I found a memo reminding me that colleagues who left their windows open during the storm would suffer stiff fines, and that any equipment damaged as a result of a lightning strike would be the sole responsibility of the owner. As I tossed it into the trash, Corbett snuck in behind me.
“Charles, old boy, I have something for you. I was going to give it to you yesterday, but….”
“Not now.”
“Twenty caps. You can make a mint on this. Come on, you know I’m good.”
I shook my head.
“Okay, ten caps, but I won’t go that low next time.”
I took the offer.
“Leoben is retiring. He’s gone.”
I could make a few caps off that, for sure. Leoben was a department head. A day or two before retirement, managers would always fire their staff and auction off the most valuable equipment, boost short-term profits, goose the stock before they sold their options. I thanked him, but if Corbett knew, so did everyone e
lse—it would be too late to get in on it. Besides, what would be the point?
It had only been five hours and already I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t endure another week, let alone a month or two.
Maybe there are signs. If I can predict more accurately, figure out exactly when this is going to happen....
I worked inside the firm, with far more access to information than Kate and her colleagues. I was sure I’d be able to get better insight on when the collapse would hit.
The futures market, I figured that was the way to tell. They placed completely unregulated bets on the future value of commodities. The only people who made any money were the ones who researched like crazy, cheated better than the next guy, or had insider information.
I browsed Ackerman’s stock and futures prices. They were all within the norms, no hint of the coming crash. Some wackos were making outrageous bets on Ackerman suddenly collapsing or rising meteorically, but people did that every day. I checked to see if Linus’ name showed up on any bets anywhere—if anyone would know where Ackerman was headed, he would. Nothing.
When the crash hit, it was going to be fast.
I was sick of not being able to see clearly and turned on the master cubicle light. I refocused my efforts, checking the futures of oil, water, air, even of CEO Takahiro Takashi himself. I found nothing unusual.
“What the hell are you doing?” cried Bernard, bursting into the cubicle. “You’re wasting light!”
“I’ve paid for it.”
“It looks bad!”
“Fine, if it really means that much to you, my wallet is on the desk, take a twenty.”
His eyes lit up. He looked around suspiciously before snatching a twenty.
I was getting nowhere. By the time the crash was big enough to be reflected in futures, it would be too late. The answer was the phantom trades. That would be the flashpoint where the crash would hit first.
“Is… is that trading stats?” he asked me.
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing?”
“Trading.”
“On the Ackerman floor? Oh my god,” he laughed. “What do you know about Arbitrage? You’re going to get killed. I swear, I’m going to short your futures. I’ll make a killing! You’ll owe Ackerman for the rest of your life.”
He walked out laughing. My futures—in all the excitement I had fallen out of the habit of checking them.
When I did I nearly fell out of my chair. Once worth more than forty caps apiece, they were down to little more than two cents.
Ackerman knew.
If they were just upset that I had been visiting LowSec, I’d expect a loss of about five or ten caps. But the whole Arbitrage division—Christ, maybe even all of Ackerman—had decided that I was a bad bet. It was impossible to know how much they knew about Kate, or our Republic. But the consensus on the trading floor was that I had no future.
Retention was probably already surveilling me. They wouldn’t let my stock fall to nothing without finding some way of getting their money back. But now that I had checked, I knew, and whatever value I had to them was over.
They’d be coming.
If they arrested me, I was dead—if not on the gallows, then starving in jail after the crash.
I swept my keyboard and terminal completely off my desk and jumped up on top of it. I could see over the partitions to the elevators. The doors were opening, and several men wearing the fine suits reserved for Retention agents walked onto the floor. They spotted me, and I ducked back down.
I would have to get out of Capital City. My only immediate advantage was that the maze of seventh floor cubicles was almost organic. Divisions and partitions were constantly merging and splitting. Years of dodging Bernard in that labyrinth had taught me every recess, every nook.
I grabbed my ledger and burst out of my cubicle. The nearest fire exit was around the corner and down the hall. I caught a colleague as he was coming from his office, knocking him back through a partition, tossing papers everywhere. In the chaos I grabbed another partition and brought it down into the hallway.
I reached the exit and waved my ledger over the terminal.
“Charles Thatcher,” chimed a gentle computer voice. “Please remain where you are. Authorities will be with you shortly.”
Already my ledger had been disconnected. I wouldn’t be able to open doors, make electronic business transactions, or even get past the most elementary security.
I saw a mail clerk. I ran towards him, and, sprinting over his cart, slipped my ledger into one of the side pockets.
I turned into another cubicle, and crashed through another partition. It fell in a heap with two more, and I clambered through them and down the aisle. This mess would slow Retention down, but nothing would stop them.
I reached the snack room, where I found a number of colleagues. Bernard was up to his elbows in freshly purchased chocolate bars.
“Charles? What do you want?” he said, spewing wafer crusts from his mouth.
I grabbed his tie and pulled him into a punch. I hit his face—once, twice, then a third time. He squealed and fell back, blood pouring everywhere.
“You stole my twenty, you fat bastard!” I cried, reaching into his suit. I pulled out his wallet and took all the cash in it, but as I did I also snuck his ledger, and quickly slid it into my own pocket. I tossed the wallet onto him.
“I catch you near my things again, and you’re dead!” I shouted, giving him a kick before running out. With any luck, the brutality of my attack would keep him from noticing his ledger was missing.
As I made my way toward the elevators, a commotion broke out ahead of me. I ducked into a tiny corner—an awkward space made from the juxtaposition of two cubicles that weren’t quite lined up, like a hole in the universe. I heard the pounding of feet, and watched as two agents ran past me towards the break room.
I dashed to the elevator. Waving Bernard’s ledger over the terminal, the doors opened, and I clambered inside. I jabbed the lobby button again and again, suffering agonizing moments waiting for the doors to close. They did, and I began the slow ride down all seven flights.
It was stupid to take the elevator—at any moment security could lock it off. But the stairs were located on the other side of the building; I’d never have made it. At last the doors opened at the lobby. I hurried past the guard at Simon’s old desk and ran out into the courtyard.
The sulfur was already strong in the air, and the wind was picking up. I jogged to the main thoroughfare, where I was able to flag down a cab.
I piled in. Bernard’s face flashed on the driver’s terminal, but he didn’t bother to look at it.
“Where to?”
“The Galt.”
The cab pulled away and merged into the traffic. With any luck they’d be following the mail cart for a little while.
I had a few moments to myself, and that’s when I noticed the pain in my chest. I clutched it, and once again reached for my pills, which I had long thrown out.
I’m not dying. It’s in your mind, push it out.
I repeated it over and over. Every panic attack feels as if it’s the last one, as if this time it’s a real heart attack. I could see the sky, the open air, but somehow felt like I was back at Allenhurst. I wondered if I was still there, under the weight of the building. Maybe I had never gotten out, the years since just the hallucinations of a dying man.
Am I alive?
I took deep breaths. The running was over, and I’d be safe once I snuck into the Galt, at least for a little while.
I certainly didn’t want to go there—a public place. My first instinct was to head straight to Kate’s. If anybody could hide me, she could.
But I had no idea what Ackerman knew.
I had been acting suspiciously for some time, giving Corbett, Bernard, and even Linus reasons to report me.
If they knew about Kate, they might be waiting there for me. If not, I could lead them there. Hopefully they were headed to LowSec in fo
rce, trying to get there before I warned her. With some luck, they would draw enough attention that Kate and her friends could all escape to the vault, where nobody would see or hear from them for half a century.
And that was the rosiest end I could imagine.
Retention could have paid Bernard to drop a fake report in my lap, on the off chance they might make some cash, especially if they were already wary of me. But it could have been far simpler than that. Maybe they’d disseminated hundreds of fake Aisling reports across the territory, and then set up a rental office to see who stops by.
The plot seemed too intricate, too complicated. No doubt that’s what Evans thought.
I arrived at the Galt. I figured Bernard could pay for expedited service, and I passed through security almost immediately.
I sat at a computer terminal and began looking up my futures. If they had been going down steadily over the last week or so, I might have a reason to hope. But if they fell immediately after meeting Kate, my fate was pretty much sealed. I got into the Ackerman database just fine, but all of my records had been restricted, and Bernard’s ledger didn’t have nearly enough credit to get around it.
I leaned back in my chair. If they hadn’t figured out by now that I had his ledger, they would soon.
Then I remembered the phantom trades.
If everything had been a setup from the very beginning, I could live with that. I’d be reclamated for sure, but that would be fine. It was the not knowing that was tearing me up. I could live with the lie. I couldn’t live with the doubt.
If I could find the phantom trades, then the world was coming to an end, but Kate had been real, and she might have escaped. If they weren’t real, then there was no collapse, no Republic, no citizens—just the diabolically brilliant minds of Ackerman Retention, a species of man that could both love their corporation while at the same time lambast the absurdity and hypocrisy of it all.
The Water Thief Page 15