“Can you break into their records and find out the lowest producing facilities in that zone? If the square footage is being used for their Chico project, then it can’t be churning out or moving as much product as the others.”
“I can try,” he said and cracked his knuckles.
It took two hours to find the production numbers buried in a tax form. No mean computer skills proved necessary to accomplish the task. Lucia laughed at the one tiny oversight that made the information they needed readily accessible in public records. One facility, located fifty miles south and a bit west of Dockside, produced barely a third of what similar farms did. It stood out as a glaring and obvious discrepancy.
Lucia laughed at the error in judgment. “Typical corporate accounting. Even when they are covering up a giant illegal operation, they just can’t help but try to save a thin cred. A smarter company would not have reported a loss on that plant just to save on taxes. It’s a mistake The Combine would never make, that’s for sure. Take a lesson from this, Manny. Never let accountants get involved with covert operations. The bastards have tunnel vision when it comes to tax breaks.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said with a smile. “I can guess what happens next?”
“You are going to scout it out.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Infiltrating an automated factory is usually easy,” explained Manny. “It’s no different from any other lightly staffed facility. Since hiding your presence from all those cameras and sensors is impossible, the trick is to convince the systems that you are supposed to be there.”
“And that’s easy?” Lucia asked.
“You’d be amazed at how far I can get with just a hard hat and a name tag, Boss. Unless it’s processing highly valuable materials, security is not usually all that inquisitive. If we tried to walk through a platinum mining facility or a fissionable element plant, then we might have some challenges.” Manny shook his head. “This place harvests potatoes, Boss.”
“Right. But this is also probably a front for a cabal of nefarious corporate bastards with some secret-squirrel paramilitary goons in the mix. How does that play into the plan?”
Manny acknowledged the truth of this with a wince. “It definitely limits our options. We will have to go in during the daytime hours and pose as some sort of inspector. They process a food product here, so regular inspections are part of life for them. That ought to get us into the factory, but it won’t do anything to move us to where the real stuff is going down.”
“And that is where, exactly?”
“Almost certainly underneath the main plant. All the factory operations do a good job of hiding their electrical use and material supply demands. To penetrate down there we will need a credentialed person who knows where to go.”
Lucia gave a tight nod, lips pursed. “Right. We’ll have to pick someone up, squeeze them, and then stash them so they can’t trip an alarm. Now that’s tricky.”
“Sounds about right,” the young man agreed with a sage dip of the head.
“What’s the first step?”
“A stakeout,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I need to see who is coming and going and look for a likely target.” A sad whimper followed. “Goddammit, I hate stakeouts.”
“Do you have an idea on what you are looking for, at least?”
“Not with any specificity, but I’ll know it when I see it.” His nervous grin acknowledged that he knew how unreliable that sounded.
Lucia could not let it slide. “Really? That does not fill me with confidence, Manny.”
“Infiltration is as much art as it is science, Boss. Some things you have to just feel out. You can trust my instincts.”
“I suppose I don’t have much of a choice.”
The young man actually snorted at this. “Sure you do. You can let Roland handle it. He could get down there way easier than me.”
Now it was her turn to yield a point with a wince. “Point taken, kid. At least your way doesn’t end with the destruction of all evidence, witnesses, and half the surrounding countryside.”
“Exactly. Just relax and let me do my thing, Boss.”
“All right, Manny. This is your omelet. Far be it from me to tell you how to go about breaking the eggs.”
The solution to the conundrum turned out to be far simpler than either of them had expected. A full day of boring reconnaissance passed first. Manny took a laborer’s shuttle out to the manicured landscape of the Plain Fields’ Comestible Production Zone. Finding a likely spot overlooking the Moosup River processing plant, Manny sat under a camouflaged blanket and watched. For a full day he lay in perfect stillness and cataloged every person who came or went from the building with a specialist’s eye for detail. He would have preferred to use a drone for this part, but there stood a good chance a drone would be detected. As was often the case in these things, the old ways proved to be the best. Instead of a small hovering robot that recorded everything on digital media, a young man sweltered under a blanket and took notes manually.
By the time sunset had cast the quiet agrarian landscape in purple shadows, the young scout had chosen his mark. The man wore the gray coverall of a facility engineer, but workman’s livery turned out to be the only part of the facade that worked. His uniform was clean, pressed, and in excellent order. His shoulders were broad and his arms large and muscular enough to strain the seams of his sleeves. The man walked erect and alert, his gait precise and athletic. While it was entirely possible this was just a man who liked to take care of his appearance and health, Manny did not feel this was likely. Every aspect of his target screamed military.
The burly ‘engineer’ left the plant at the end of first shift and boarded the employee shuttle for Dockside. Manny followed his balding head into the transport and took a seat behind him. When the man disembarked and shuffled over to a ride-sharing kiosk, Manny took this opportunity to slip a transponder into the shabby brown day bag slung over one square shoulder.
Then he waited.
When the transponder finally stopped moving, Mindy met him at the small-but-nicely-appointed apartment block where the engineer presumably lived. The lobby security panel yielded to Manny’s whims with resistance so pathetic it irritated the young man. A wave of his white bionic palm over the terminal was all it took for the suite of complex code-breaking tools buried in his prosthetic to disassemble the weak security AI that kept the drug addicts and street criminals from passing through the lobby.
The pair crossed through the vestibule without a word and moved to the stairwell. Less than a minute later, the door to apartment 301C hissed open and the two fixers surged into the room.
The bewildered man inside was half-undressed and thus taken entirely unaware. Manny assumed he was a competent operator by how rapidly he reacted to the sudden appearance of a tiny blond woman and a mysterious long-haired man. The coverall dropped forgotten to the floor as the target exploded into violent action as soon as his brain registered the intrusion.
Against Mindy, however, he may as well have been a recalcitrant child resisting his evening bath. The blond assassin casually caught the incoming fist and bent the arm behind his back. With a snarl, the man tried to twist away. Mindy reversed the hammerlock, transitioning to a shoulder throw that put him down hard enough to force the air from his lungs with a grunt. Before the downed man could recover, Mindy’s shin pressed on his throat while augmented muscles pulled on the still-captured arm. The engineer’s face went first crimson then pale as consciousness faded as quickly as the blood supply to his brain did.
Manny beamed. “I wish I had someone like you with me on Venus. Things are so much easier when you are around to help. How long will he be out?”
“Just a few seconds,” said Mindy. “Once the blood starts flowing again he’ll wake up. He’s gonna be woozy for a few minutes though.”
“Perfect.”
True to her word, the engineer stirred. T
he pair of fixers secured their mumbling victim to a handy chair with a pair of Denti-Kuffs before he recovered enough to resume spirited resistance. Once restrained, Mindy sped up his return to coherence with a few rough slaps across the face. “Wake up, buddy,” she taunted in a manner not at all helpful.
The man surged against his restraints for just a moment and gasped in pain and confusion when the tiny teeth of the cuffs dug into his wrists.
“Damn!” he grunted with a hoarse blast of air. He moved more gingerly against the bonds and added a soft, “Shit.” When his eyes came up to take in his captors, his face had already settled into a confused and dangerous scowl. He said nothing though.
“Hello, uhhh...” Manny consulted his comm for a second, “...Mark, is it?”
Still nothing from their prisoner.
“Mark it is, then.” Manny seemed unperturbed. “You’re probably wondering why we are here.”
Mark’s eyebrow rose, but he kept quiet.
“Right. Well, it goes like this.” Manny inhaled deeply, then blurted, “You are a paramilitary security operator helping to secure a secret cybernetics research facility hidden under that factory farm. Your employers are responsible for several high-profile murders in Dockside and we have been hired to put a stop to it. We need access to the labs and records under the farm and since you obviously have that, we are going to acquire your credentials and any useful information you might have.” Manny paused for breath, then went on. “You will notice I said, ‘we are going to,’ and not ‘we would like to,’ or ‘we intend to.’ This phrasing was intentional. My associate here—” he gestured to Mindy who immediately dipped in a deep curtsy, “—will have no problems securing what need from you, no matter how tough you think you are. Since we are both pressed for time and not savages, we are prepared to simply purchase the items in question at competitive rates.” He finished with a polite smile, “But honestly we don’t really care how we get it.”
The man in the chair fixed them both with an intense glare. Manny could almost visualize the calculations going on behind his eyes. After several interminable seconds, the man spoke. “How competitive are we talking? Even mercenaries have standards.”
“It will be enough to fake your death and restart as someone else, if your tastes aren’t too extravagant.”
“And if they are?”
“Then we’ll do it the other way.”
“Figures. If we are talking about two-hundred thousand, then I’d say we have an arrangement.”
Manny gaped at the ludicrous sum. “For that much we’d have a lot more than an arrangement, Mark. You would have to be extremely helpful to justify that. Magnanimous, even.”
“For that much, I’ll grab what you need and bring it out myself. How’s that sound?”
Manny paused, face impassive while his mind raced. The price was asinine, but what Mark was offering was worth far more. “That feels too good to be true, Mark. What do you think, Mindy?”
The little blond was decidedly sour on the idea. “He’s full of shit. We let him go, and he’s gonna go right to his superiors.”
Manny looked back to the captive security contractor. “Mindy remains unconvinced, Mark.”
The man in the chair did not look like someone who wanted to pick a fight. To Manny he looked frustrated and angry, with more than a hint of exhaustion thrown in the mix.
Mark confirmed those suspicions when he replied. “Listen, asshole. I get paid to walk around a food production facility all day and guard some shady-ass laboratory. It was supposed to be a real basic gig. I get to talking to the other guys in the squad, and we notice some weird shit. It ain’t kosher is what I’m saying. All of us were guys not hooked up with a crew. That feel normal to you? All of us being independent contractors when we got hired?”
“That is weird,” Mindy conceded.
“Damn right. There are these private corporate guys down there, too. They never come up to the plant but we see them around.” His gaze wandered over to Mindy, where he sensed a kindred spirit. “She knows the type. All the latest high-end shit and decked out to the balls with crazy gear?”
“I’ve been around,” said Mindy with a nod.
“Me? I ain’t stupid. I start to sort it out, quick. Me and these other contractors are window dressing, I figure. Just an expendable front being put up, so the place doesn’t attract the wrong kind of attention. I start to talk to the other boys in the squad, and whattaya know? They feel it too. We figure we are the ones gonna swing if anything goes down.” He shrugged as best he could while cuffed to a chair. “We’ve been hearing shit about a crazy psycho cyborg busting out and killing folks, NBPD dragnets, and now I got fucks like you busting into my apartment and roughing me up. I ain’t stupid and I ain’t a patsy, either. You bet your sweet ass I’m looking for the Goddamned eject button before this one blows up.”
His voice changed for a moment, adding an almost imperceptible pitch that betrayed fear. “I’m a two-time offender out on parole, here. I took the stupid gig thinking it was a legit posting. Fuck! I could end up back in the can if it turns out I’ve been working on any illegal shit.”
His confidence returned with a jolt as if he had caught himself saying too much. Now his defiance reasserted itself. “I got my merc card. I’m legit and I know my rights with the Order. If my current employers misrepresented the job, then I got no obligation to stick out the contract. Two-hundred large would fix my fucked-up life and set the whole squad up on Thorgrimm or Enterprise with a sweet gig. These aren’t bad guys, and I’d like to run my own crew for a change.” He leaned back in the chair and fixed both with an even gaze. “I’m ready to play ball, guys. Just not for chump change.”
Manny considered the offer. “What does my money get me?”
“You get me and the boys busting into the lab and stealing all the records that aren’t nailed to the floor. We don’t have the encryption keys, but we know who does. If we can grab them, we will. No promises. We will set demo charges in the most sensitive areas we can get to, but I got no clue how much real damage that will do. It will fuck up their operations for a while, that’s for sure. More than that, I can’t say. We ain’t gonna stay and shoot it out with those corporate soldiers, either way. This is a smash and grab. You get what you get, copy that?”
“I’m still listening.”
“That’s it. We hand the package off to you and we blast off for Enterprise thirty seconds later. Our business is concluded. Don’t call us, and we won’t call you.”
“Feels thin for two-hundred-K.”
“Fucking torture me, then. See how far you get with that.” The man smiled, because he knew what he was offering was far more likely to succeed than anything they could come up with. “Why put yourself out there with weak intel when you can just hire my crew to do the work for you? Pay my price and you’ll have your shit in forty-eight hours with no hassle at all.”
Mindy laughed out loud. “Already calling them ‘your’ crew, huh? You are a confident one.”
“We want out of this bullshit posting, but we want to get paid, too. The math is easy for us. I ain’t asking for any more than what we need to make a clean break and start over.”
“I’ll make a call,” Manny said. Then he turned to Mindy. “You mind keeping Mark company while I call this in?”
“Sure. Just don’t take too long.” She gave the restrained mercenary a malicious look. “You know what happens when I get bored.”
If this was an attempt to intimidate, it failed. Mark the mercenary did not appear the least bit worried. His eyebrows waggled energetically, and he smiled like an eel. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, sweet cheeks.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
He is going to kill me. I’m going to die.
The thought was an icepick driven directly through Kitty’s brain and left inside. There was no way for any other thought to be born, live, and die without colliding with this unrelenting terror at some point. Kitty had been tough her whole l
ife. She thought she could handle fear, but this time was different. Chico was different.
He had always been a monster, of course. Sadistic, angry, selfish and cruel, the triggerman barely approached what a generous soul might have ever considered ‘human’ under any definition beyond the technical. Now that his body matched his mind, Kitty experienced levels of anxiety beyond anything she had ever understood.
Bivouacked in Roland’s living room, Kitty was little more than a red-eyed mess wrapped in a blue blanket. She had not slept for more than thirty minutes since the attack. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Chico bludgeoning Mindy into the alley with those horrible gray-black feet.
The little woman had looked frail and tiny before the strength of Chico’s bionic limbs and malicious lust. In her nightmares, Mindy had not gotten away and Tank had never showed up. In her nightmares, Chico had done to Mindy what he always had done to her. Sometimes, she was Mindy in the nightmare, sometimes she could only watch. It always ended the same way though. Chico took what he wanted and made you thank him for it when he was done. It took Kitty an hour to stop vomiting after the first nightmare, and after that she had resolved to never fall asleep again.
This was how Mindy had found her after returning from her evening with Manny. The veteran assassin did not have a clinician’s eye for mental health issues, but she had more than a decade’s experience as both a professional killer and a mercenary. What she saw in Kitty’s bloodshot eyes was neither new nor shocking.
“Oh hell, Kitty,” she said by way of greeting. “Have you been awake all night?”
The grizzled, hard-boiled, tough-as-nails Dockside working girl burst into tears. It was the last thing she had wanted to happen. But the terror of the last forty-eight hours had been compounded by her lack of sleep and the existential dread of knowing Chico was still out there. There was guilt and rage and the overwhelming weight of shame to contend with, but more than anything she was just plain scared.
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