Perfect Dark: Second Front

by Greg Rucka

  When Cassandra DeVries appeared on the screen, however, any suspicions were immediately forgotten. She was an exquisitely attractive woman, even on the small screen, a porcelain blond with pale blue eyes and aristocratic features, made all the more so by her look of near reproach. Bricker’s surprise immediately turned to concern at the sight of her expression, certain that she was calling to admonish him for repeatedly bothering her, certain that she was about to kill the merger altogether. He hastily pulled the earpiece for the Z-sleeve free from his collar, fitting it into his ear.

  “Herr Bricker?” DeVries was saying. She spoke in German, but with an English accent.

  “Yes,” Bricker said. “Miss DeVries, thank you for calling.”

  On Georg Bricker’s sleeve, the CEO of dataDyne smiled.

  “I must apologize for the delay in responding,” DeVries said. “I’m still getting settled into my new position, I’m sure you understand. Do you mind if we speak in English? My German’s positively dreadful.”

  “Of course, yes—”

  DeVries continued, as if not hearing him, switching to her native tongue. “And you’ve had quite the day yourself, haven’t you? Beck-Yama can be very insistent indeed. I won’t waste your time, Georg—may I call you Georg?”

  “Certainly, yes, you—”

  “And you must call me Cassandra. I think, given the circumstance of the day, that a discussion about the merger sooner rather than later might be a good idea, don’t you? You’re in Seattle? Yes?”

  “At the moment, but I can—”

  “No, no don’t bother. The concert, yes. Listen, Georg, I’m sending my assistant to pick you up, she’ll meet you just inside the lobby of the arena. Her name is Joanna, she’s a lovely young lady, you won’t be able to miss her, hair like copper at sunset, that one. I was in Redmond most of today on business, but I’m at my retreat near Olympia now. Jo will bring you to me, all right? We can have a late dinner—well, I’m still on Paris time, so I suppose it’ll be, what, a lunch? Breakfast? We can discuss. All right?”

  “Miss DeVries, ja, yes, absolutely. I cannot thank you—”

  “Cassandra, Georg,” she said, smiling brightly. “See you in about twenty minutes, then.”

  The screen of the Z-sleeve went dark, then reset itself to standby mode. Bricker removed the earpiece, letting it retract into the collar of his shirt. The box had emptied, Candee’s entourage already making their way backstage. He shook his head, trying to clear it. The whole conversation had taken place so quickly, so abruptly, Bricker wondered for an instant if it had occurred at all.

  But it had, of course it had, and here was his chance to save Zentek, and he wasn’t about to keep Cassandra DeVries waiting.

  The woman who met him in the lobby was as described, but even younger than Bricker had expected, not more than twenty or twenty-one at the oldest. She wore black leather—pants, boots, jacket, even, apparently, her shirt—and the shock of pale blond—almost white—at her forelock seemed all the more stark for it, even against the red hair that, Bricker had to agree, seemed to burn like copper. Her hands were empty, and she showed him her palms even as she spoke.

  “Herr Bricker? CEO DeVries has sent me to bring you to her.”

  Bricker nodded, saying, “You are Joanna?”

  “Joanna Dark, yes,” the young woman said, her accent strangely exotic, as if unable to decide if it was English, South African, American, or from half a dozen other spots around the globe. “If you’ll follow me, please, I have a vehicle.”

  The woman, Joanna Dark, turned and led the way through the doors, stopping long enough for Bricker to reach her side. She rested a hand gently on his elbow, guiding him past the still-screaming throng of Candee Canes and the waiting assault of reporters without stopping. The vehicle was the latest luxury sports model from Royce-Chamberlain/Bowman Motors, a dataDyne subsidiary, sleek and black, and exactly what Bricker expected. Joanna Dark opened the door for him, hovering protectively.

  As he took his seat, Bricker glanced up, taking in the dataDyne Spire once more. There were lights splashing along the top of the structure, more than there had been before, and Bricker could make out lances of lightning in the sky beyond, a storm moving in. Lit by one of the flashes, for an instant, Bricker could see what looked like multiple dropships, hovering in a stand-off position.

  “Is that our escort?” he asked Joanna.

  The redhead glanced toward the Spire, then shook her head, grinning at him.

  “That’s something else entirely, sir,” she told him.

  They flew for all of fourteen minutes, Bricker in the passenger seat, Joanna Dark at the controls. She flew them quickly, following the proscribed route along what had once been the Interstate south, before banking off and dropping to near-treetop level. The light dome in the sky around them began to fade, then disappeared altogether, and in the illumination from the null-g vehicle’s running lights, Bricker could see an expanse of forest spreading out beneath them into darkness.

  He glanced over to his driver and realized that the young woman hadn’t looked his way once during the trip, focused entirely on her flying.

  For the first time, Bricker felt a swell of nervousness.

  “Where are we going, please?” he asked.

  “It’s a secure location, sir,” Joanna Dark answered. “I’m sure you understand why I can’t divulge that. We’re almost there.”

  “CEO DeVries makes her home in Paris, does she not?”

  “That’s correct, sir. But dataDyne has private retreats all around the world, as I’m sure you know.”

  Bricker nodded, looking out his windows again. The hum of the null-g engine shifted pitch, dropping, and he realized they were coming in to land. He adjusted his position in his seat, trying to get a better look around, and still, there was only darkness, the forest at night.

  Then the vehicle came to rest, and Joanna Dark disengaged the power, shutting down the car. She was out of the vehicle before Bricker could ask any further questions, and opening his door before he realized that he was becoming very afraid, indeed.

  “This way, Herr Bricker,” Joanna Dark said, offering him her left hand.

  Bricker hesitated.

  “If you’ll get out of the vehicle, please.”

  Bricker nodded, extended his right hand to take the young woman’s left. As he got to his feet, he saw her other hand, saw the gun in it, the metal barely shining in the darkness.

  DataDyne is going to kill me, Georg Bricker thought.

  And that was when his clothes tried to save his life.

  She shot him four times, square in the chest, and the vest held, but Georg Bricker found he couldn’t breathe. The noise from his Z-sleeve was tremendous, and he realized, in the way that people do when they have more adrenaline than sense running through them, that anything the device might be recording certainly would be inaudible next to the incredible sound of the alarm.

  He fell to his knees, and Joanna Dark lunged forward, seeking to take hold of him, and just as quickly she yanked her hand back, swearing in Mandarin. Bricker thought that odd, but as he struggled to his feet to run for his life, he thought that Joanna Dark was even odder.

  For a moment, the woman had stopped trying to attack him, wobbling almost unsteadily on her feet, the tetrodotoxin assaulting her central nervous system. As she struggled to stay upright, her form seemed to shimmer, the black leather losing its shine, her features blurring. The red hair turned suddenly to black, the tiny star-shaped tattoo on the side of the woman’s neck vanishing. Her shoulders grew out, broadening slightly, and at the same time, she seemed to lose height by as much as an inch, maybe two.

  For a moment, just for a moment, the pretty young Caucasian woman who had just shot Georg Bricker seemed to turn into a pretty young Chinese woman.

  Then Georg Bricker turned and ran for his life, crashing into woods, feeling the branches scratching at his exposed skin, snagging on his clothes. He slapped at the Z-sleeve on his forearm, try
ing to silent the awful screeching, and somehow managed to disable the audible alarm without poisoning himself in the process. Or maybe he had poisoned himself and his clothing had delivered the antitoxin already, along with the extra adrenaline that was making his heart pound in his ears, that was making the back of his throat taste like tin.

  He ran, stumbling, and fell hard, tumbling amidst wet fir needles and broken branches. He lurched back to his feet, paused for an instant with his hands against a tree for support, straining to listen. The noise of movement through the forest came to him, quick and light, and he knew the changing woman was now making her pursuit, that she’d shaken off whatever effects the poison had caused.

  Bricker resumed running, trying to think. He had no idea where he was, and while his Z-sleeve would have been more than happy to tell him the quickest route to the nearest road, he didn’t dare take the time to ask it. And there was no light, there was nothing, now, as if the whole world was growing dimmer. His chest ached, burning with each breath, and he wondered how badly the shots had hurt him. Bulletproof the vest may have been, but the blunt trauma was still precisely that. The adrenaline in his veins dulled his pain reception, and he realized that he could well have been running with cracked ribs and not have realized it.

  He fell again, this time harder than before, and when he tried to get to his feet again, he discovered that his right foot wouldn’t support him. When he went down the third time, the pain finally smashed through the epinephrine haze, and he screamed, his hands going reflexively to his foot. They came back slick with blood, and as he moved his eyes from his now gore-covered hands to look up, he saw the woman, a shadow in the darkness, unmoving, holding her gun pointed at his head.

  “Who are you?” Bricker’s voice was hoarse.

  The woman moved forward, and again he saw her as she had first appeared. Even in the darkness, the tinge of red hair was visible.

  “I told you,” she said. “My name is Joanna Dark.”

  “You’re not … you’re not dataDyne. Beck-Yama? But I saw DeVries.”

  The woman seemed to think that was funny, and laughed at him.

  “This is a hostile takeover,” she told him, readjusting her aim.

  Bricker swallowed, trying to find what was left of his courage, thinking that if he had a little more time, he and his suit could still escape.

  “Don’t I get any last words?” Georg Bricker asked.

  “No,” the woman who called herself Joanna Dark told him. “We’ve already taken care of that.”

  Then she fired once, into his head, and followed it with a second round, and Georg Bricker died before he had time to even consider what the young woman had said.

  CONFIDENTIAL—DO NOT FORWARD

  FROM: WAITS, LANDREW (VP PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGEMENT TEAM) [LWAITS@ZEEMAIL.CORP.NET]

  TO: ZENTEK FTE EMPLOYEES; INT SUBSIDIARIES; SENIOR MGMT TEAM

  SUBJ: CEO Georg Bricker, Zentek, and our future

  It is my sad duty to announce to all Zentek employees and subsidiaries that Georg Bricker, our Chief Executive Officer, died last night in the woods outside of Olympia, Washington (USA), the result of an apparent hiking accident.

  Mr. Bricker was famously energetic, and his enthusiasm for outdoor activity is well known to those of us who worked closely with him, and I can emphatically state that his guiding hand on the tiller will be sorely missed.

  I considered Georg more than just a colleague and mentor. He was my friend, and this news is a devastating blow to the Senior Management Team. His passion for excellence has been our guiding principle, and we are the poorer for his loss.

  Mr. Bricker was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1966, and he graduated summa cum laude from Universität Tübingen (the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen), a student of this august institution’s natural sciences program. This passion for science and nature led him to champion Zentek’s efforts in the personal biowear projects (including the critically praised Z-sleeve, among countless others).

  Mr. Bricker is survived by Greta Bricker, his wife of twenty-eight years, and two sons, Heinrich (22, an employee of Zentek’s Fiscal Responsibility Group) and Karl (20, currently attending Freiburg University). Our deepest sympathies go out to them. The family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to any of Mr. Bricker’s favored charities (see int.node/projectshare/approved-charity-fundmatch-roster/Bricker), and naturally Zentek will, as always, match your donations.

  Mr. Bricker was intently focused on the future, and that will understandably be a topic of discussion for all Zentek employees. Yesterday’s widely reported flurry of stock transactions and the unavoidable cessation of production in some of our transient product divisions, coupled with the untimely passing of CEO Bricker, has created several understandable but erroneous assumptions in the unregulated media, and even here within our own offices.

  To avoid unproductive rumors and speculation, it is the intention of the Senior Management Team to continue Mr. Bricker’s work and ensure that his commitment not just to our products but to our loyal customers and valued employees is undiminished. It is precisely this commitment that will lead Zentek into a bold new era, one which honors its architects and betters all our lives.

  For approved media statements, all employees are required to log in to the Senior Management Transition FAQ internal site (int.node/SMT_FAQ_v2021). (As always, failure to adhere to messaging guidelines therein is grounds for reprimand, reduction in job level, or termination.)

  Thank you for your cooperation,

  Landrew Waits

  Vice President / Zentek Public Relations, Perception

  Branding Team

  This e-mail contains/may contain proprietary information, and is the property of Zentek. It may not be distributed, forwarded, printed, copied or otherwise disseminated. Failure to comply is a crime (Sec. 11/1/7718.291 subsec. 022_V of the Treaty on International Intellectual Property Rights and Corporate Anti-Theft/Loss-Prevention) and can result in immediate prosecution and dismissal.

  * * *

  CorruptionNet—Ratting out the Corporate FinksTM since 2010.

  [FLASH!] ZENTEK CEO DEAD!

  //Submitter: EyEsPy102 (node: 132.191_1_ .…)

  Zentek CEO Bricker turned up ***dead*** yesterday. Official sources call it a “hiking accident,” but then, “official sources” always say stuff like that, don’t they?

  The timing of Bricker’s passing is certainly suspect. The Beck-Yama sharks have been circling Zentek for weeks and, thanks to hostile takeover rumors, Zentek’s stock skyrocketed. But something’s definitely up, since—despite stock values in the stratosphere—Bricker just downsized nearly 70,000(!) people.

  Bricker’s had a rep for being a generally decent guy (for a Corporate FinkTM), but his death, hot on the heels of the stock shenanigans and the downsizing, has *got* to raise some eyebrows. There’s something rotten in Denmark.

  Everyone knows that the Z-boys have been desperate for a success, and that their necks were on the block. Bricker’s always been a solid leader, but next to someone like dataDyne’s new top boss, he’s practically moving in reverse. So Zentek’s been rocked on its heels for sure, and the biz analysts are all saying the same thing: Beck-Yama is a shoe-in to snap up what’s left of Zentek.

  Here’s the weird part, though: The big B-Y missed out. A little bird inside the Core-Mantis OmniGlobal Mergers & Acquisitions team just leaked to World Finance Daily that **they** just gobbled up the controlling interest in Zentek. (Don’t ask where I got the news; if I tell you, I have to kill you.)

  Not sure what that means—or why Bricker was taken out. Was it CMO trying to snake Zentek out from under Beck-Yama, or did Beck-Yama hit Bricker, and just give CMO an opening?

  Anyone with more info should post it to the FLASHNEWS forum (node 111.297.3982, subdirectory BRICKER_HIT).

  \EyEsPy102 out.

  * * *

  Residence of dataDyne CEO

  Mlle. Cassandra DeVries

  #1 R
ue Marinoni Paris, France

  January 18th, 2021

  It had been almost two months since Cassandra DeVries had gotten a good night’s sleep. Almost two months of near-sleepless nights since she’d been named dataDyne’s new CEO, since she had been named Zhang Li’s successor. Almost two months since she had become the leader of the world’s largest hypercorp, since she had found herself one of the most powerful people in the world.

  If not the most powerful person in the world.

  Almost two months since she’d murdered the CEO of pharmaDyne, Dr. Friedrich Murray.

  There were good reasons for her insomnia, despite the fact that Cassandra DeVries knew that she was more exhausted—physically, emotionally, and mentally—than she ever had been before. At best, she was managing two, perhaps three hours of sleep a night; at the worst, she was managing none at all.

  On those nights, after tossing and turning in futility for an hour or more, she would give up altogether, deciding there were better uses of her time. Throwing back the handmade silk sheets of her new antique four-poster bed, she would rise and pull on a silk robe she had no memory of buying. She would cross the expanse of her bedroom to the door and step out, and the two dataDyne Shock Troopers standing post there would each snap to attention as if expecting a surprise inspection.

  Then one of the guards would ask, his voice positively deferential even behind the odd amplification of his full-face helmet, if there was anything dataDyne’s new CEO required.

  “Sleep,” DeVries would say.

  She would then begin walking the cold and nearly silent hallways of her very old new home, followed only by the whisper of transmissions passed from one guard post to the next as each accounted for her movements. Most of the time, she couldn’t even hear what was being said, but on occasion she would catch a word or two, and this was how she learned of the code name she had been given.