by Lee Bond
Loyalty is easy to buy if you throw enough money at it
“Is there anything else on this guy, Reywin, anything at all?” Bolobo asked while he patiently tried to hack his way into the FHSB computer servers. He was doing his best to make the op amateurish, but it was hard going. After using next-gen avatar progs to tear everything but the most heavily protected systems into confetti, he’d lost most of the skills earning him the nickname ‘Icepick’ in his rougher days. And trying to make a superlative hack look bad? That took paramount skill. He could’ve been into the system in under five minutes without anyone being the wiser and he was rounding out the fifteen minute mark already.
Reywin, patiently working on guiding a number of blackEyes into place around Nickels’ new, palatial room at the Palazzo without flipping any Hotel alarms, shook her head. “Sa Gorton is trying a line-hack on the dat-servs back in Central, but like us, he’s having a hard time of things. Going black isn’t easy.”
Bolobo knew what Reywin meant. A high point in his career had been a black op to catch a crooked data systems manager for the Agency. Wired in at the very top levels of the Latelian monitoring system, the director had used the nearly limitless processing power to his own advantage, making him nearly impossible to catch. He hadn’t been a maniac out to destroy the world, just a man looking to make extra money –a lot of extra money- by selling secrets. To get the job done properly he’d been on his own with no support from Main Offices for four long, lonely months. It’d been a career bust and now he was basically doing the same damn thing. “What d‘you think?”
Reywin parked another blackEye in place and wiped a dab of sweat from her forehead. Whoever was working security at the Palazzo was a genius. There were sensors specifically tasked to detect and destroy undesignated spEyes seeded throughout the entire building –it was only because she was using Agency-built blackEyes she’d managed to get her cameras into place at all. One wrong move could still set the alarms off and there was nothing she could do to prevent that without revealing her operation. She was putting a lot of hope into the op. “You’ve read the files, same as me.”
“That’s not what I asked, si.” Bolobo grinned as his last avatar died an ignominious electronic death. The security systems determined the hack defeated, never noticing some of its own kernels had been rewritten with a backdoor program. He sent off a dozen more avatars programmed with various versions of the ugly hack and leaned back. In another five minutes, the backdoor would open and he’d be able to root around while the system deflected assaults from multiple locations. “You were face-to-face; you decided we’d go black and catch him. So you tell me.”
Reywin pushed her goggles up and blinked rapidly to clear her vision. “He doesn’t feel … right, Bolo. Something about Garth Nickels doesn’t sit well with me. Can’t explain it.”
Bolobo flipped through the coroner’s reports for Injiri Katainn, Firnkle, and Marko. “Other than the fact that he’s single-mindedly bloodthirsty? And far, far stronger than he ought to be? I mean, this Katainn guy … he’s got about fifty million dollars’ –Trinity dollars- worth of implants that’re going to make some Military geneticist a fortune. And he got turned into sauce.”
“Don’t forget he’s my prime suspect in those Portsider deaths.” Reywin set the ‘Eyes to ping their locations with a set of images, timing their transmissions to cycle out beneath the Palazzo’s monitoring waves.
Bolobo laughed. “The first group, sure. I agree he could’ve killed those four men and tossed them into the dumpster. It’s very definitely possible; that quartet were about as stupid and slow as a Latelian can be without birth defects. Our man is crafty like that. But the second group?” He’d gone down to the crime scene on Rey’s orders to poke around, using his status to deflect curious policemen. He’d stolen a spent round, taken around a thousand photos of the corpses. He’d even found the sniper’s nest for them. “Blood evidence on the scene indicates that someone was shot with the sniper cannon. Probably more than once, and before the Portsiders were killed. The only people I can imagine taking multiple hits with a sniper round like those ones are Goddies. Our boy would’ve died right there on the scene from blood loss.”
“Video footage from that ‘massage’ parlor shows Garth was on the scene before and after the attack.” Reywin persisted doggedly. “Blood evidence came back genetically neutral. Forensic teams swept Injiri’s room and found similar neutral samples. I’ve looked at all the other ginks in that hotel a thousand times over and the only one as sets my bells off is Nickels.”
“Rey, the sample sets are different. Yes, sure, okay, they share the same weird lack of markers, but other than that, they’re completely different. We’ve maybe got multiple people in that cluster of Offworlders with genetically neutral blood flowing through their veins… Whoah.” Bolobo blinked his eyes, read the data again, and flashed it over to Reywin. “Look at this.”
With over twenty years of field ops under her belt, Reywin had rifled through more bank accounts than she could remember. She’d seen organizations with more money in petty cash than she’d make in a lifetime, even if she lived to be fifty-two thousand one hundred and nine years old. No amount of preparation could ready someone for the shock of witnessing Garth’s financial strength. “What is that? Four hundred trillion?”
“Yes. In Trinity bucks.” Bolo killed the hack when the data was finished downloading and sat back on his haunches. “Deposit records come from every major system in Trinityspace, thousands of planets. Billions of credits at a time, starting from a few months ago until yesterday. This makes no sense. Why would a gink this wealthy come here and start stirring the pot? He should be in one of the Pleasure Systems rolling around with the other mega-rich, not here potentially getting flattened by a half-blind Goddie.”
“No…” Reywin’s initial supposition was that Garth was a Trinity spy. She’d spent two years training with Trinity agencies as part of an agreement between the AI and the Chairwoman, so she understood the mentality of Trinity agents well enough. Garth displayed all the characteristics of someone working deep undercover, but was it possible she was wrong? Was Garth just incredibly wealthy and equally suicidal?
Si Trumann walked up the short flight of stairs to the plateau where Bolobo and Reywin were working. Across the way, she could make out men and women having the time of their lives in one of the many open-air dining establishments the Palazzo offered. One day, if she were lucky, she’d be over there, too. “There is a call for you, si.”
Quizzically, Reywin checked her prote. “I don’t have anything logged.”
Trumann held out the small Q-comm that was a part of any good black ops goodie kit; one of the only surefire ways to ensure your conversations weren’t being monitored for blackmail at some later date was to use scrambled quantum communications. It cost a fortune and required hours of paperwork for each call, but it was the safest way to talk; one of the first and only right things they’d managed since going black was burying the official call indicator for the Q-Comm back at Ops. No one was going to know about this call until it was too late.
“No one knows we’re here.” Bolobo said, drawing his sidearm. He looked around nervously.
“Relax, Bolo.” Trumann drawled, handing the phone over to Reywin. “It’s not local.”
Reywin accepted the Q-comm with trepidation. “But that would mean …” She logged in to the call. “Si Reywin duFresne.”
The man on the other end of the line began talking, outlining what he would like to have happen and the extent of his gratitude. He went on for some time; going into great detail to ensure that what he wanted was clear. The man explained that not only would he be grateful in the short-term, but also that there was potential for long-term satisfaction. It all depended on the outcome and adherence to his requests. Then a number was mentioned.
It was a very large number.
And what the man wanted done was, essentially, what they were doing in the first place. The only differe
nce was that if they did as this man wanted, they wouldn’t be the ones … finishing things off. All she and the others would have to do was let it happen. And a disgusting amount of money would find its way into their bank accounts.
“I … all right.” Reywin ended the comm and looked at the two agents present. She swallowed convulsively for a few seconds, prioritizing her thoughts. “There has been a revision. Initially, the goal was to document Nickels’ actions, build a case against him, and kill him for endangering the lives of innocent civilians, then go to the OverSecretary with the news.”
Trumann was uncomfortable with the plan spoken aloud so brazenly, but she nodded alongside Bolo all the same
Bolo spoke up. “What’s changed?”
“An … outside party has requested that we simply watch him. That we accumulate as much data on Nickels as we possibly can, then hand that information over to a third-party contract worker.”
‘Contract worker’ was an agency euphemism for assassin. Neither Bolobo nor Trumann were stupid. They saw the writing on the wall. “Is there some sort of … expression?” Trumann asked.
“Yes.” Reywin smiled thinly. “A rather large one. For each of us, so long as we do our jobs properly.”
“How long until this contract worker gets here?” Bolobo asked.
“The man is traveling along military routes through Trinityspace. Presumably he’ll do the same on this side. No more than two weeks at the outside, possibly less, depending on the type of vessel he uses.” Reywin took her goggles off and dropped them into her kit. “The person I spoke with will be sending us an encrypted file with the third-party’s particulars as well as a much richer file on Nickels’ previous life. We will apparently need to make his arrival here on Hospitalis as smooth as possible. There will be … difficulties … in this.”
“What does that mean?” Trumann demanded. Because of the Offworld addition to the Game, entrance into the system was easier than ever. Over ninety percent of the Trinity meatheads wandering around that crap-infested Hotel were wanted criminals, some with fresh bloodstains on their hands.
“J… the man I spoke to didn’t say much, other than this Chadsik-al-Taryin fellow is … conspicuous.” Reywin’s prote chimed, drawing her back to the surveillance spEyes. “He’s on the move. Jimmish the cab driver must be on his way. Remember: we’re not going to do anything but watch and catalogue.”
“What if he starts killing people?” Bolobo asked.
“The level of gratitude is quite high, Bolo.” Reywin flashed a number to his and Trumann’s protes, nodding when their faces blanched. “And based on Jimmish’s extended family, it’s highly probable that any killing this man does will be Portsiders. If he does that, all he’s doing is clearing house for the other agencies, and that’s … that’s acceptable. Any Portsider deaths are incidental to our new mandate and a benefit to the greater Latelian need. Are we clear?”
Trumann and Bolobo nodded. Reywin was right. It was a very big number, and anyone killed would be Portsiders.
Everything was clear. Clear as money.
Reservoir Dogs Revisited
“So … tell me about your in-laws, Jimmy.” Garth asked from the back seat. At his feet was a huge duffel bag. In it were some of the supplies he’d asked the cabbie to buy what felt like ten million years ago; the titanium pitons and duronium wire had been slated for use in a jerry-rigged quantum baffle to hide Huey’s presence ... now they were going to be used in a manner definitely covered in the manual. He hoped it wouldn’t come down to that, though. His vague ideas for the baffle suggested he’d need every bit of equipment Jimmy’d bought and with his life complicated in the extreme by the Game’s reversal, Garth didn’t think he’d have the time to go out and buy extras. Having the stuff shipped to the hotel would only leave a paper trail too easy to follow, so that was out as well.
“Jamal and Aaron?” Jimmy shrugged. “They’re okay, I guess. All things considered.”
Garth smiled sadly to himself. Jimmy’d sold him out. It was okay, because maybe a tenth of a percent of honest guys had the stones to stand up to people like Jamal and Aaron. They were bad men who made good people hurt, and when a guy like Jimmy got forced to choose between an immediate threat and an Offworlder, the coin would always fall against him. It was honestly impressive that with everything going on in the last few days that Jimmy could still get his shoes on the right feet. “How long you been married?”
“Ten years.” When the cab began maneuvering off the high speed roads towards surface roads, Jimmy accepted control from the autopilot.
The residential sections were a hue and cry away from the bustling exuberance of the main cities, and as they drove through moonlit avenues, Garth took a moment to enjoy the solitude. Even though it was late at night, the way the streets and housing areas were set up showed the handiwork of those dastardly genius city planners in action once more. Even during the busiest part of the day, the suburban sections would stay quiet because the roads themselves only permitted so much traffic, and the distance between houses was enough to prevent backwash from noisy families. “How much do houses out here run?”
“Thinking of buying?” Jimmy asked idiotically.
“Welllll, I’m not really a white picket fence kind of fella, Jimmy, but yeah, it’d be nice to have a place to hide out in, to get away from the noise of the city.”
Jimmy, who sometimes got bone-crackingly bad migraine headaches from driving in Port City all day long, nodded seriously. You got used to the noise, managed to tune it out, but it never went away. He pointed through the windshield at a green and blue house further up the road on the left hand side. “That’s me.”
Garth shoved the duffel bag under Jimmy’s chair as best he could with his feet. As they got closer to the charming split-level house with its very own miniature relay node spiraling out of the roof, Garth saw a large industrial van parked in the driveway. Aaron and Jamal were in the house, lying in wait like trapdoor spiders, eager to earn more brownie points with their boss by delivering the prize.
And what a prize it was!
Waiting for Jimmy, Garth had finally figured out the last bit of the puzzle with the Portsiders. He wasn’t the focus at all. But he sure knew what was:
The Meadowlark Lemon.
More specifically, Huey, making the Portsiders financier a very big fish indeed.
Arriving hours behind the first rush of Offworld contestants narrowed the number of Latelians ‘in the know’ about the special nature of the Meadowlark Lemon to but a few. Working from the assumption that OverSecretary Terrance’s motives were what they appeared to be gave the politician a pass on any designs on stealing Huey; he was more interested in getting rid of Chairwoman Doans and using a ‘Trinity spy’ as a scapegoat than he was playing with a fancy toy. He might want one of his very own, but his pro-Latelian affectations would prevent him from grabbing one or even admitting it out loud.
Naoko Kamagana was automatically off the list. It was unthinkable to imagine a woman as beautiful and kind as her being involved with the Portsiders. Possibly a goddamn stupid thing to think, but there it was.
That left only two characters, once Mijomi was discarded; she wasn’t nearly smart enough to know someone dangerous. She probably smoked clove cigarettes and carved the eyes out of posters for fun and that was it. No, the two most likely people to contact the Portsider capo were either the AI-loathing Security Officer or the Customs Official who hated religiousness with, well, zeal. One or both of those two could easily call up the Big Man with the news. Nice, neat, plausible.
Now all that needed doing was discovering why the Boss Man wanted Huey badly enough to kill, badly enough to waste precious resources, badly enough to risk condemnation by his or her own government and most importantly, badly enough to piss off the most dangerous man on the planet.
Jimmy pulled into the driveway behind the van and climbed out. Garth followed suit, asking, “Everything okay, Jimmish?”
The cabbie looke
d from Garth to the house then back to the Offworlder. “Yeah. I’m just tired. It’s been a real long day, sa, and like you, I got to be at work early. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
xxx
Three miles away and at an altitude of four hundred feet, Reywin and the others watched Garth enter Jimmish Dorn’s home. Thermal scans identified eight males and one female spread throughout the house. Because they’d gone dark, they couldn’t get info from orbital satellites on who was inside without betraying their position. Reywin wasn’t worried; what bothered her -and more than she could articulate- was Garth’s willingness to walk into an obvious trap. She couldn’t figure the precise relationship between Garth, Jimmish and the Portsider goons, but even without knowing, it was painfully obvious.
What was the Offworlder planning? Why?
“Any local comm traffic?” Rey asked Bolo, who was hunched over his portable node-hacker. It was a far more powerful and insidious tool than the hack available on their proteii; it left no footprint, making it and them invisible.
“No, si. Everyone in a five-mile of that house is asleep. Like we should be.” Bolo cut the node-hack and looked to Trumann, who was resting idly in the gun pit. She’d painted a number of low-resistance points on the house and was putting the avatars through their paces to ensure minimum structural damage with maximal precision. “What’re you doing that for?”
Trumann shrugged. “Got nothing else to do, and besides, if this Nickels person goes off the reservation and starts eating people, he isn’t getting very fucking far.” She looked over her shoulder at Reywin to see if the boss understood she wasn’t kidding around, smiling triumphantly when she got the nod. Untold fortunes were all very well and good, but if you couldn’t sleep at night, what was the point?