Dario blinked. He didn’t expect to have to deal with more problems in the underleveler situation. Quality Control had nearly recovered from the incident and corporate had been quiet. “Is this true?” Dario asked to the woman behind the counter.
She shook her head. “I cannot confirm anything this man said. Now if you please, I have other work to do.”
Antonio started forward but Dario held him back with a hand to the chest, stepping in front. “My name is Dario Anazao, corporate quality control manager for Regency BioTech. I may have a clearance higher than my associate here.”
The woman pointed to a scanner on his side of the glass. “Place your ident, please.”
Dario did so.
She tapped a couple commands onto a screen on her side, which Dario could not see. “No,” she said, “I’m sorry but I can’t give you any access into T.F.P.S. matters. If there’s anything else?” The woman asked, signaling dismissal.
Antonio seethed, looking ready to fight. As much as Dario’s head swam with concern, harassing this woman would only cause trouble. Something he and his department needed like a hole in the head. He forced a polite smile to the woman behind the counter. “No, that will be all, thank you. Come on, Antonio.” He motioned toward the door and started walking.
“You’ll be hearing about the way we were treated. I’m going to lodge a complaint. You can’t get away with keeping secrets from company officers,” Antonio said, defying Dario’s call to leave and tapping on the counter window.
The security guard moved toward Antonio.
Dario hooked Antonio’s arm and pulled him back. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Antonio stumbled backward. The security guard stopped in his tracks.
Dario dragged Antonio out the door, not feeling guilty in the slightest for the manhandling of his employee. One moment further and it would have spiraled into a situation where his father would have come down on him for his department’s actions—again. That wasn’t something he could afford, not when work was finally starting to go well.
Once through the doors, Antonio jerked his arm away. “Hey, what was that about?”
Dario frowned. He understood Antonio’s frustration. The company had practices that didn’t fit with the standards of how humanity should be treated, and very few people seemed to care. He wanted to know about this woman prisoner as much as Antonio did, but both of them had to keep out of trouble. “I know you’re pretty new to the corporate life. Just out of school last year, right?” Dario asked.
Antonio nodded, a skeptical look on his face.
“There’s a way to act to get things done, and there’s a way to act to cause a scene. It may seem like the scene is the way to go, especially when you’re getting stonewalled, but it never helped anyone,” Dario said. His own voice sounded eerily like his father’s. Was his position changing him into that kind of manager already? He didn’t have time to think about that for now. “I appreciate that you’ve taken an interest in the underlevelers’ safety. You saw how they were handled, and empathy for people in worse situations than our own is a good thing. Something security doesn’t seem to have.”
“Yeah.” Antonio glanced downward. “I did a lot of thinking after the riots and saw that you care for people that others don’t. I wanted to help.”
“I know you did, and you have. You found out about some woman taken prisoner here, right? Someone doesn’t want this information public, and they are willing to hide it behind a glass window with an armed guard. We can use that information, but we have to do it the right way.”
Antonio looked up at Dario again. “How? How do we make a difference?”
In some ways, Dario knew he should be troubled. Hidden prisoners. A subordinate who had a hot head and could have found himself in big trouble with the Trade Federation proper. On the other hand, this meant he could count on his team. Antonio and Jake both trusted him, and that empowered him to act. “Give me some time to think about it. But you found good information here. Just keep your head low and don’t cause any commotion, okay?”
“Okay,” Antonio said, looking only slightly mollified.
Dario nodded and moved on ahead to leave Antonio with his thoughts. There was something wrong with the company, perhaps the larger Trade Federation. It was systemic, and he didn’t know what to do. But Jake had seen situations like the underlevelers had with his own eyes. He would have ideas, and those ideas would form a plan.
Chapter 11
Bonding
S.E.S. Money Hauler
Local Date 1137.569
Joan leaned back into the seat rest in the cargo launch’s cockpit. Despite its contours, the seat back was stiff, uncomfortable for the length of the journey she’d be sitting here. Something made a thud, causing Joan to jump. She stared to the craft’s aft for a long period. Just her nerves, nothing to get worked up about.
It would be a couple of days still until they reached the Sol system. Stars passed by as blurred lines in front of her. That sight, at least, was relaxing. A few more hours of it and she may be able to find sleep just yet.
Yui and Trian hadn’t been as jolted by the sight of the alien enemy’s near mindless waves of destruction across Trantine X. Joan’s two companions had curled up in respective fold outs in the back compartment of the ship and fallen asleep. They had been out for a couple of hours, leaving Joan alone with the familiar quiet hum of the ship’s engines.
Joan looked at her handtab. She could reactivate G.O.D., talk to him like old times. A foolish question would be to ask the success probability of her mission, one in which she knew deep down the answer was nearly zero.
But even though she’d spent months alone with her AI before this, Joan felt far more alone now. She tapped the controls to activate her AI. “Hey, G.O.D.”
“Ms. Shengtu,” G.O.D. said.
Joan sighed in relief at hearing G.O.D.’s voice for the first time in days. “Doesn’t feel right being apart from you. Don’t know what to do with myself.”
“As you say. I’ve taken the liberty of running a self-diagnostic. My programming is currently eighty-five percent intact, but degrading.”
Joan frowned. “That’s not good. How fast are you degrading? Do I need to keep you turned off?”
“As of yet I have been unable to determine a cause or pattern to the degradation. Further analysis required.”
“I wish I could help. I—”
A knock sounded on the cockpit door behind her. Joan turned, shutting her AI back off with the command. “Come in.”
Trian ducked his head down. The door opened and he stepped forward. “Looks like the flight is going smoothly.”
Joan smiled up at him. “Yeah, it’s mostly watching the autopilot to make sure there’s not a malfunction. I put it on manual for fun sometimes, but not when we’re in the middle of a jump like this.” She motioned to the co-pilot chair across from her. “Have a seat. It’s getting boring anyway.”
Trian looked out the cockpit to the stream lights, blurred lines across the sky that looked like fireworks. “I don’t know that I could ever get bored of this view.”
“Trust me, when you’ve piloted long enough alone, it gets tedious,” Joan leaned her head back into her chair. “Though I don’t mind it, really.”
“Your file says you’ve been running salvage and smuggling operations as a freelancer.” Trian carefully slipped into the co-pilot chair. “Sounds like a tough thing to do alone.”
“Not as bad as you’d think. When I was in the military, I was never alone. Shared cramped quarters on the Destiny. Six to a room. That’s what I’d rather not repeat.”
“You didn’t like the military.” Trian furrowed his brow, studying her.
Joan laughed. “That’s an understatement. I’m not very good at following orders, for one. Though I held my tongue well enough. Gotta do what you gotta do to get by, you know?” She shrugged. “Problem was the pay was barely enough to survive. It was fine when I was on the ship, but looking for
ward to when I’d have my own living expenses, it did me no good. I didn’t want to be stuck when my tour was up.”
“I understand. Life can be difficult on the colonies. The Council doesn’t have the budget for adequate security, with a two front war going on,” Trian said. “But you had experience with Ms. Amitosa in the past, yes?”
Ah, so that’s what this visit’s about, Joan thought. She stared at Trian. He had salt and pepper stubble growing on his face, a couple of days worth. His face was impassive, as if he were simply curious. It couldn’t hurt to talk. It wasn’t as if any confessions here would matter in the Trade Federation. Joan shifted, acting as if she were checking the cockpit controls. In truth, she preferred not to look him in the eye for this discussion. “Yeah, she was one rank above me. Not directly in command, but enough authority to lord it over me.”
“Lord it over you?” Trian asked. He leaned toward her, cutting off her attempts to avoid eye contact.
“Yeah. She’d double check all of my work, every time, but wouldn’t all of the others. Pick on any small mistake I made. The sight of her was enough to get me angry. It didn’t come to a fight, but it came close—a little shoving—before we were broken up.”
“I see,” Trian said, his tone non-judgmental, in keeping with the expression on his face. “And she was part of the team that caught you stealing.”
“I was not caught,” Joan said defensively. It came out a little stronger than she had intended. Those words shouldn’t bother her, but she’d heard them enough that it was annoying. Her clients who looked into her background often cited that “fact” as reasons to skimp on her contract fees. Joan had corrected it one too many times.
“Then what happened?” Trian asked.
Joan shifted, recalling how it felt when the tribunal’s prosecution grilled her on the stand. Nowhere to hide. Just like now. “We weren’t stealing anything big, just leftover scrap—metal, burnt out couplers, things like that. One of the others, Ensign Kelley, had a contact network who picked up the trash from us when we reached port. It wasn’t hurting anyone, seemed like a good way to make money.”
“Your file says you were convicted of weapons theft, frag grenades,” Trian said. He didn’t sound accusatory, but more like he was gathering information.
“That’s because Ensign Kelley started to get a little bolder as time went by. His contacts demanded more. We kept providing it.” Joan turned her head away, staring out to the streaks of stars past the cockpit. “Truth is… I didn’t know he was going for the armory. He was caught. Ratted the rest of us out when he was faced with a reduced sentence. Yui was all too glad to help apprehend me.”
Joan remembered being approached by Yui, along with security, and the hard knee to the gut that the other woman delivered while Joan was held back. She’d sworn at the time to get Yui back for that. Anger welled inside her again as she recalled the events.
“Thank you for being honest with me,” Trian said. “Of course, I’ve heard Ms. Amitosa’s version of events. I will weigh each story equally in my assessment. Though, in reality it is irrelevant. What matters now is that we’re a team. We can’t have animosity between us if we’re going to survive in a hostile environment.” He placed a hand on Joan’s shoulder. “I don’t mean to sound condescending, but it’s imperative we succeed.”
“I know that,” Joan said, trying to tone down her defensiveness.
Trian drew his hand back, standing again. He kept his head low. “I believe you. Thank you, again, for sharing. We’ll work through this and rescue Commodore Zhang. If the Council places their faith you, so do I,” he said. “I should head back and try to get some sleep. You should, as well.”
“I’m just as comfortable falling asleep right here.” Joan forced another little smile toward him. “Have a good night.”
“Cheers.” Trian moved back into the cabin.
Chapter 12
Empowered
Regency BioTech Central Office, Mars
Local Date January 29th, 2464
“...and we’ve reached one hundred percent output again. Good work people. I mean it. We’ve worked tirelessly and made sure this would happen. All of your ideas were valuable. We’ll wrap up the meeting here if there’s no further questions?”
Several members of the quality control team in the conference room shook their heads, looking at each other. No one spoke up for a few moments, and then bodies shuffled and moved from their seats at the table. The team members filed toward the door.
Dario stopped Daniella deRiko with a soft touch to her arm. “Daniella, you really did great these last few days. I don’t think we’d be at half of where we’re at without your initiative,” he said.
Daniella smiled back at him. “Thanks, Mr. Anazao. Anytime. Hey, think I can take next Friday off? Put in a lot of fourteen hour shifts and could use a long weekend,” she said.
Dario cringed at the use of his formal name, but didn’t want to correct Daniella. “Of course, no problem.”
She gave him one more courteous nod before departing herself, leaving Dario with an empty conference room and a holodisplay of a graph of recent factory output from the underlevels. Behind that translucent image sat Jake Dylan.
“Good meeting,” Jake said. “I think you’re settling in fine. Everyone’s starting to respect you. Antonio Dalton looks at you as if you’re a god, and even Daniella’s settled into trusting your decisions. She was skeptical after the first night. Asked me if you seemed like boss material.”
“She did?” Dario asked, surprised by that admission. On the other side of the glass conference room wall, Daniella returned to the vast rows of cubicles outside the conference room.
“She did. I didn’t say anything because I try to hold people’s words in confidence, even to the boss. If you don’t, they can’t trust you, you know?” Jake swiveled in his chair, leaning back into it. The holodisplay hovering over the table obscured part of his face with the graphs of the last week’s output.
“Then why tell me now?” Dario rested his elbow on the table, and his chin on his fist.
“Because I wanted to make a statement to let you know that I’m on your side,” Jake moved from being hidden by the holodisplay to meet Dario’s eyes. “After our talk two nights ago, I realized that you need someone you can depend on as loyal. It’s tough for you, being in your father’s shadow. I know that he picked me, but he doesn’t have any special hold on me. I’d never met him before the interview. I wanted you to know that.”
Dario was speechless for a moment, taken aback. His assistant’s words gave him a warmth inside. It felt a lot like those rare times his father had voiced approval of his actions. “That means a lot to me, Jake. Thank you. I actually wanted to talk to you. I did some thinking last night and this morning, about what we discussed.” He hesitated.
The thought still made Dario nervous, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized he had to get the perspective of those laborers that Regency BioTech relied upon. He firmed his resolve, nodding to Jake. “I want to do it. I want to go. Can you really do what you said, with the idents?” He asked vaguely, but he had to be coy. The company’s conference rooms had hidden monitoring devices. They could have had a conversation somewhere else, but Dario wanted to get this off his chest.
Jake peered at him, seeming to understand that it wasn’t the safest place to talk freely. “You’re sure about this? I didn’t mean to pressure you. I only want to help you with your goals.”
Scrap it, Dario thought. He straightened in his chair and nodded. “Yeah, I’m dead sure. What’s the next steps?”
Jake motioned with his head for them to walk. His eyes shot to the recording and monitoring devices in the corners of the room. “I think we should return to work first, too much to do today.”
“Yes, agreed.” It was prudent to end the discussion here. Jake’s caution gave Dario comfort with the plan. Someone as diligent as he was would have better odds at ensuring those fake idents worked for thei
r potential travels off of the Central Office. Dario smoothed down his coat before standing and heading toward the conference room exit.
The two men walked through the rows of cubicles through the quality control department. Most employees wore VR glasses, looking in on different manufacturing facilities throughout the systems of the Trade Federation.
“This will take me some time,” Jake said. “What I’m going to need from you is all of your actual ident information. I need a scan of your handtab, your Secured Future numbers and pin, a retinal scan and a thumbprint.”
“That’s a lot of information,” Dario said as they walked.
“It is, and I understand if that’s too much for you, but that’s the information I need to create something impenetrable. Or, as you suggested, there could be big trouble. You understand?”
Dario nodded. “Okay, I can get that for you.”
Jake took note of his facial expression. “You’re nervous. It’s understandable, but I’ve got some data that should put you at ease that this is the right thing to do. Give me your handtab.”
Dario held out his wrist. The handtab’s screen lit up, activating. The other man lifted his own, keying in a couple of commands then placing it next to Dario’s. A transfer initiated, and a notification appeared in Dario’s oculars when it completed.
A quick scan of the contents revealed holos of millions of underlevelers living in terror, with no meaning, no purpose, struggling for basic necessities. Even the provisions the corporation offered did little good. The thumbnails all showed violence, anger, destruction. It wasn’t just the quality control factory. These kind of incidents happened regularly in the underlevels and outer worlds.
A flick of his eye pulled up a holovid labeled “Tragedy On Level Three.”
Hundreds of underlevelers formed a haphazard line at a sector’s corporate provision station. The Regency BioTech logo hovered and turned in the air above it. No actual people administered the provision, but several BioMechs flanked the area.
Star Realms: Rescue Run Page 8