by Kieran Shea
Guess CPB really wants this Martstellar bad.
Clink.
Heinz smiles slightly and eases back down on the gurney.
Now, if only this nurse here will show a little hustle on the pins she’ll clean up and go meet the pros.
PRESSURE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD
“So, Vice President Delacompte, you’re telling us that this vendor matter is being handled?”
There is a small, penetrating silence as the CPB board of directors’ projections look mirthlessly down at Portia Delacompte. Five men and five women in total; most appear as though they have been rousted out of bed by a bad smell, the jowly director from Buenos Aires in particular. For the last ten minutes the majority of the discourse has been a tête-à-tête with the jowly director.
“I’m expecting an update soon,” Delacompte answers finally. “But I am confident this situation will be resolved within a few hours.”
“How did this even happen?” the jowly director asks. “A pleasure vendor brazenly attacking resort security personnel out of the blue? Impertinence like this is absurd. How did this woman ever escape The Sixty?”
“The vendor in question used a contraband pod,” Delacompte says. “We’re not sure how she smuggled in the parts, but we believe she is now in the Second Free Zone and using the orbits as sanctuary, naturally.”
“What about The Sixty’s aerial defenses? Did you not engage?”
“By the time we realized what had gone wrong, she had cleared the long-range scope of our countermeasures. Nevertheless, I’ve authorized full incident containment and assigned a freelance operative for pursuit.”
The jowly director bridles at this development. “You sent a freelance operative into the Second Free Zone?”
“Yes.”
“Need I remind you, Vice President Delacompte, that our charter and commerce agreements with Second Free Zone confederacies stipulate—”
“Sir, I assure you this action will be discreet. You have my word.”
“Your word,” moans the jowly director. “I know all about your word. You know, Madam Vice President, this is by my count the second mismanagement incident on your current cycle.”
Delacompte is taken aback by this accusation. What? Her second incident?
“I’m sorry, but I think you are mistaken. I believe this is the first incident on my current cycle.”
“Well, then, let me refresh your less than precise memory. The ration hijackings last quarter?”
“Oh… that.”
“Yes, oh… that. That disaster took us nearly a month to clear up. If it weren’t for the trade elections clogging the feeds that particular week, international media interests would have had a field day with us. They might have ended up making those bloodsucking pirates into folk heroes. We were practically skinned alive buying up the entertainment rights on auction. And our CPB value hit? I don’t have the numbers up here on my prompts. What did we lose again?”
One of the projections, a withered-looking matron from Rome in a black-lace pillbox hat, mumbles, “Eight to fifteen on worldwide trade markets.”
The jowly director booms. “Eight to fifteen points!”
“Yes,” Delacompte says, “that incident was unfortunate. For all of us. But I believe we rebounded from that hit with a surge a week later, cross stratum. Several points higher than the downgraded analysts’ expectations, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Only because the CPB board here authorized a full blitz on the discounts and adjusted to resort prime fees immediately.”
“I disagree. Once we decided to hold public trials and allowed contest-winners to participate in the subsequent executions—an idea I came up with, I must add—I think the publicity of the whole affair strengthened CPB and The Sixty’s inherent value.”
Another one of the board, a drowsy-looking fop from flood-ravaged London, chimes in. “In Vice President Delacompte’s defense, I believe her assessment of the correction is accurate. We have gotten quite a bit of meat off that bone.”
The jowly director rolls his eyes to make his discontentment known to all.
Beneath the desk and out of the transmissions’ view of her, Delacompte slides out the green vial of Q from her jacket pocket. As inconspicuously as possible, she pries off the lid and pinches out a capsule. Slipping the vial back into her jacket, she rises from her desk and crosses the office to a long wooden credenza braced against the far wall. With her back to the airborne faces, Delacompte pours some ice water from a pitcher into a crystal tumbler and then, faking a curt cough, slides the capsule under her tongue and flushes it on its merciful way.
“So,” Delacompte says, turning, “if the ration hijackings actually helped CPB’s overall value and The Sixty Islands’ brand, wouldn’t this incident be the first blemish on my current cycle?”
The jowly director scowls. “Don’t be glib, Madam Vice President. All incidents affecting our inherent value are serious. You say you were just enforcing new amendments to the SI Decree Measures, the VDOMs, but this vendor… what did you say her name was again?”
“Koko Martstellar.”
“Right. This makebate Martstellar, she just turns around and starts killing our security staff willy nilly?”
“Well, she is former private military. And I mean, I do know the woman. Or should I say I used to know the woman.”
“And how is that again, exactly?”
“We served on several operations together back in my private military career. I was the one who recruited and hired her here, but I think she’s come unglued somehow.”
“Illuminate unglued.”
“Too much vice and ease is my guess. Reports of erratic behavior, other disciplinary issues, and quite a few customer complaints. It is an unfortunate personnel situation. Because she was my recruit, though, I feel a personal responsibility to make certain the entire matter is brought to a close expediently. This is why I approved dispatching an asset into the Second Free Zone.”
The feeds mute abruptly. In the weighty stillness, the board members transmit confidential messages to one another like school children passing notes in class. After a half-minute, the mute on the projection streams is released and the jowly director peers closer, his face looming large.
“Something is rotten here, Madam Delacompte. I don’t know what it is, but I am recommending a full reassessment of your executive commitment to CPB and The Sixty.”
“Wait—my executive commitment? Oh, no, no, no. My commitment to the CPB and The Sixty is absolute, directors. As all of you know, The Sixty is a massive operation and something like this? You must agree, a bump or two in the road with our day-today operations, this sort of thing can be expected.”
The jowly director’s face prunes. “Bump or two in the road, you say? Beyond the pirate incident, we’ve heard other similar dismissive excuses from you not too long ago, if I’m not mistaken. Need I remind you of the monkey attacks?”
Delacompte sighs. “Please, let’s not bring up the monkey attacks.”
“I will damn well bring up the monkey attacks!”
Delacompte squares herself. “With all due respect, director, those monkey attacks were a cybernetic anomaly. The subsequent inquiry exonerated us from all liability and proved this. And the monkey attacks’ relevance to this current situation hardly seem—”
“Oh, just shut up.”
More muted conferring amongst the directors. Delacompte isn’t exactly certain but when the sound is switched on again it appears one of the board members, the foppish one from London, has fallen asleep and is lightly snoring like a dog.
The jowly director’s face swells again as he leans further into the projection to make his point clear. He holds up one plump finger.
“I don’t have to tell you what this means, do I?”
Delacompte hangs her head. “No, sir.”
“Good.”
The transmissions cease, faces vanishing in the air like so many ghosts, and Delacompte plops down in the chair behi
nd her desk. After a troubled minute’s worth of sulking, she picks up the shiny gun left on her desk when Lee reported the Martstellar debacle to her earlier. Giving herself a push with a foot, she clocks around in her chair until she faces the large window behind her. Looking out the thick glass, she takes in the blockish structures and parapets of the Custom Pleasure Bureau’s central campus, the sylvan landscapes and pearly clouds further beyond. Delacompte asks her office’s environmental systems for music, and soon the rich, relaxing notes of gently stroked cellos fill the room.
Delacompte raises the gun in her hand and tracks a bead on an unsuspecting SI employee hastily making his way across an exposed walkway stretched between two nearby campus buildings. Taking a careful lead with her aim, Delacompte pretends to let off a round as the warm endorphin rush of her fresh dose of Q takes hold.
PUNCHING THE TICKET
Meanwhile, up above at Alaungpaya Security Services’ operational command, Jedidiah Flynn positions himself at one of the T-shaped duty pillars, jacks in, and starts to download his shift chronicle into the central security mainframe.
To Flynn’s right and left other security deputies like him are also downloading their chronicles at similar T-shaped pillars bolted to the deck. Plenty of griping and grousing on both sides. On his immediate left, a female deputy with a chiseled scar on her cheek repeatedly slams the heel of her hand into the side of the pillar in an effort to mitigate her frustration.
A bit drifty with his Depressus medications, Flynn checks the time stamp on the prompts. It’s only a few more hours until the Embrace ceremony, and he’s thinking about what he is going to do once he returns to his quarters on this, his last night alive. Finish packing up his meager possessions for charitable donations for sure, but then what? Maybe numb himself with the last of that aged beauty he’s been saving? Have a final fling down at Alaungpaya’s central casino? Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Get liquored up and bet recklessly. If he wins, maybe he’ll give away the last of his credits to some poor rube down on his luck and go out of this world as someone’s soused and generous angel. Flynn can almost taste the smooth aged beauty coursing down his throat, and he pictures the happy faces of the people taking the last of his credits off him.
Twenty minutes later Flynn has finished organizing the bulk of his shift download, and he grabs a lift upstairs to clean out his locker. Once upstairs, he finds next to his assorted toiletries in his locker’s top half a wrapped present replete with a bow and a red envelope. He unwraps the package and discovers a mid-priced fifth of beauty. Gutting the envelope, he finds a card signed by nearly everyone in Flynn’s division save for his jerk of a lieutenant and a few others who Flynn has always suspected kind of hate him for some odd reason. Lots of farewell best wishes on his upcoming jump. The card even contains a couple of doodles of sex acts, and when he shakes the envelope a coupon for a complimentary fellatio session at a massage parlor on the loop clatters to the floor. He picks up the chit and turns it over in his hands and studies the pulsing pornographic logo. Gee, how thoughtful. Kind of pitiful, but maybe there will be some fun on his last night alive after all.
After changing into his plain tan civilian coveralls, Flynn slumps down the hall to turn in his gear. The sergeant charged with collecting his official kit is a thick, brick-mugged hard case who over-juiced on frenetic physique tablets and now sits behind a wall of blast-proof caging in a globe of resentment for his troubles. When the sergeant speaks his voice is more than a little phlegmy, rough, and deep.
“Body armor…”
Flynn slides his lightweight chest protector across the counter through a partition cut in the bottom of the cage. The sergeant scoops the vest into a basket and checks Flynn’s file on the prompt display stationed on his left.
“Says here you were issued a Beretta J-X Gamma series.”
“Yes.”
“Hand it over.”
Flynn releases the grid chip on the weapon and gently lays it down. He pushes the grid chip and the gun, butt-first, across beneath the partition. The sergeant checks the gun and sets it aside.
“Two hooded uniform jumpers, one duty belt, ten restraining cuffs with pouch, three aerosol acid canisters, one retractable, lightweight impact truncheon, and a verification recorder with case.”
Flynn slides all the bundled clothing and devices across. The sergeant unclips the holster from Flynn’s duty belt and spins the empty holster back beneath the partition.
“You can keep your holster,” the sergeant says.
Flynn picks up the holster, a bit amazed. “Really? I can keep this? Seems you guys would want that back.”
The sergeant sniffs hard and spits between his feet. “Upgrades,” he says. “Those outdated holsters won’t handle the wider barrel on the new Beretta series they’re outfitting us with next week. Anyway, if you’re like most around here you probably have an extra piece at home, am I right?”
Flynn in fact does, so he nods.
“Consider it a parting gift.” The sergeant grins sarcastically.
“Oh. So, I guess you’re going to de-chip me now, right?”
“Hold out your arm and slide it under the bar.”
Flynn does as he’s instructed. The sergeant finds the black oval tattoo centered on the soft side of Flynn’s right forearm and sticks him with a reverse-suction syringe. Flynn feels a hot sting as the syringe pierces deep into his flesh. Suction pressurizes and his identification chip leaves his arm like a fat, buried tick. The sergeant tosses down a packet with an antiseptic pad, and Flynn picks up the packet and tears it open with his teeth.
Flynn swabs the oozing blood around the fresh, raw mark and remembers his upcoming suicide.
Antiseptic swab? In a few hours he’s going to leap to his death. Why does he even bother?
Setting the reverse-suction syringe aside, the sergeant inserts the grid clip into Flynn’s turned-in gun and frowns. With some irritation he tells Flynn that he is supposed to have more rounds loaded into the power grid clip. Flynn fashions a quick lie and says he hit the range recently and forgot to re-juice to the proper power levels. The truth is Flynn got bombed out of his mind a few nights back and, in a fit of self-pitying rage, decided to climb up a restricted topside platform. It was a foolish thing to do, going up top on Alaungpaya with only an emergency oxygen mask and without the full weighted safeties of a pressure suit, but the topside platform he selected is set into the barge’s hull kind of like a foxhole. Recessed staging areas are used by maintenance technicians doing external hull work and at the time he honestly didn’t care if he was sucked off into the sky, but he clipped into a safety harness anyway. It was ferociously cold up top, with a blaring wind, and he nearly blacked out. After all that effort, all Flynn ended up doing was taking pot shots at the silvery moon.
The Depressus afflicted, Flynn muses. We do many a rash thing.
The sergeant mumbles some more nonsense about not recharging after range time being a credit-punishable offense and adds that it’s no wonder Depressus-afflicted knuckle-shufflers like Flynn wash out of ASS. The sergeant then makes a notation in Flynn’s file on the prompt screen and tells him the full expense of a weapon recharge will be docked from his severance credit transfers. All in all it seems petty, but Flynn decides not to argue.
“You’re free to go,” the sergeant says.
“Thanks.”
Flynn turns to go, but stops. The sergeant looks up.
“What now?”
Flynn shrugs. “I don’t know. Good luck, I guess.”
“Good luck? What do you mean, good luck? Good luck with what?”
“I don’t know,” Flynn answers. “Good luck with the rest of your life?”
The sergeant leans back and snickers. Then he balls his fists and rubs them in his eyes, mimicking a crying baby.
Wah-wah-wah.
WHAT A PIG KNOWS
On the seventy-fifth floor of a skyscraper overlooking the Plaza San Martin in Buenos Aires, the jowly CPB director retrieves Po
rtia Delacompte’s and Koko Martstellar’s personnel files on his desk prompts. Predisposed to follow up meticulously on any and all suspicions in his business matters, the director scrutinizes the breadth of the two women’s capabilities and accomplishments.
To the jowly director’s dismay, it appears Vice President Delacompte was being truthful when she claimed Martstellar’s disposition tends toward slovenliness and depraved, impetuous distraction. Martstellar’s former private military career had as many demotions as it had commendations, with most reprimands attributed to reckless disregard to the conduct becoming a paid soldier. But if this Koko Martstellar is so scandalously irresponsible, why on earth would Delacompte recruit her to work on The Sixty, the crown jewel of CPB’s resorts?
Leaning into the prompt projections, the director soon stumbles upon a singular possibility: a hostage-rescue operation on a supercore drilling platform off Ghana.
De-civ rebel factions had taken over the structure and Martstellar’s actions, in the face of extreme duress, were awarded quadruple bonus credit payout under her contract’s valor clause. Using a variety of weapons and wounded after her team’s insert aircraft crashed, Martstellar managed to suppress the de-civ rebels, free the company hostages, and disarm a major explosive device rigged to cripple the platform. Martstellar also consolidated and provided medical aid to the casualties under fire for two and a half hours until reinforcements arrived.
One of the wounded on the Ghana platform that day?
None other than one Portia Delacompte.
Hmm. Interesting.
But would Delacompte really order an eliminative action on someone who once saved her life in the field? Well, perhaps the jowly director judged Delacompte too quickly. Maybe her executive commitment to CPB management is absolute after all. The jowly director takes a fresh cigar from the steel box on his desk and chomps the cigar’s tip between his teeth.
Maybe.
YOU, THE WE
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