by M. D. Cooper
Instead of going back the way they’d come, they took a winding route through back alleys and lots that didn’t have security cameras.
“I feel kind of disappointed,” Trey said as they walked.
“What? Why?”
“It was an exciting plan. I was ready for anything. But it went so well that nothing happened. No running away, no fighting. It’s just kind of another day.” He hurriedly added, “Not that I’m complaining. It just isn’t what I expected.”
“You expected to fail? Wow.”
He chuckled. “Our luck isn’t always the greatest. That’s all.”
“Well, that’s true. But sit tight. Things will definitely get exciting very soon. Once Shepherd comes home and finds that device, word will go up the chain quickly, and spread out to the people who matter. And then we’ll have everyone right where we want them.”
He swiped some sweat out of his eyes. “Wherever that is, I hope it has climate control.”
“I don’t know exactly what this next bit will look like,” she admitted. “All I know for sure is that things are going to heat up.”
* * * * *
The flame Reece and Trey had lit didn’t take long to touch off a chain reaction of impressive proportions.
Four hours and fifty-two minutes after planting the fake bomb, Reece had an incoming message from Raya.
She quickly ended her call with Tabitha to answer the Donnercorp fixer.
“Raya, how nice to hear from you. I hope that means you’ve turned something up.” Reece smiled innocently, as she would have if Raya could see her.
“It does, but it’s not what you mean. I think it could be related, though.” Raya sounded worried.
Good.
“Hang on, what? I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“There’s something going on,” Raya said. “I don’t want to talk about it on here. Can we meet?”
“Of course,” Reece answered. “Just tell me when and where. You’re okay, aren’t you?”
“Yes. For now. Can you meet us at the Debtor’s Haven in two hours?”
Reece checked the time. “Yeah. But who is ‘us’?”
“I don’t want to say on here. But it’s someone who’s having the same problem you are. Be careful, okay? I don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It is.” Raya’s voice held a grim note.
“I’ll be careful,” Reece promised. “You do the same.”
“I’m always careful. See you in two hours.”
The connection closed and Reece grinned at Trey. “It worked. Everything’s in motion now.”
Trey stared into space with a thoughtful look. “I feel like that should be good news. And yet, I’m suddenly compelled to check the status of my last will and testament.”
Reece smiled. “Funny. But I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
“No?”
“Nope. I doubt it’s legal to leave everything you own to a monkey. And you don’t even own much.”
Trey made a sound as if he’d been punched in the gut. “Now that’s not nice. But I bet there’s a way to put my estate into a trust that will pay for Dex’s care.”
“Probably. But that’s a thought for another day. I need to call Marky and tell her we’re going to need her back room.”
“There’s a back room?” Trey stared at her in surprise.
“Yep. It’s not often used, and most don’t know it’s there, but sometimes privacy is key.”
“So we’ll have this meeting, we fixer types will put our heads together and figure everything out, then we can hand that information over to Rexcare and get our raises. Right?” He wore an innocent expression, but he wasn’t fooling Reece.
He knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
“We might need to do a few more things in the middle of that story to connect the beginning and the end.” She opened a connection to Marky. “Now hush, I’m on a call.”
* * * * *
Trey and Reece were already seated in the backroom at Debtor’s Haven when Raya arrived.
As Trey rose to greet her warmly, Shepherd entered the room. He looked a little less sullen than usual. An attempt on one’s life will do that. Reece remembered it well, since it had happened to her so recently.
After a round of greetings and an introduction between Trey and Shepherd, they all sat.
Shepherd wasn’t bad looking, objectively speaking. He had about ten years on the rest of them but hadn’t aged badly. His selfish attitude had always been what had put Reece off.
He and Raya exchanged an unreadable look.
“I guess I’ll start,” he said. “A couple hours ago, I found a pulse bomb in my kitchen. It had attempted to detonate but failed. Lucky for me, or else I’d either be dead or looking for a new place to live. Either way, someone had hoped to kill me. I called Raya right away, and she told me that something similar recently happened to you two.”
“Yeah,” Trey agreed, “but the one in my apartment actually went off. We barely got out in time.”
“It doesn’t bode well that the event wasn’t covered in the news streams,” Raya said. “Even if no one had been close enough to it to notice, the building would have recognized it and reported it.”
“Which means,” Reece added, “that someone big covered it up. And that implies that someone big planted the bomb,” She looked to Shepherd. “And, presumably, yours.”
He nodded, looking grim.
“The question is, who?” Raya asked. “Shepherd says you two haven’t worked on anything and have nothing in common. That means the only connection is that you’re both big four fixers. And that means that we all could be targets.”
Reece nodded. It was exactly the conclusion she’d hoped Raya would make. “We’re working on a case now that could be related, but Allied Solutions—who we thought had been the ones to target us—has nothing to do with it. So, I think this is something different.”
“What could it be?” Trey asked, looking from one of them to the next. “Or, more importantly, who? Who would stand to gain by getting fixers out of the way?”
“Rival companies,” Shepherd said. “Allied Solutions or Donnercorp. Or maybe someone hoping to make it a big five.”
“I agree that we’re looking at major players,” Reece said. “Do either of you have any close contacts with Allied Solutions you could talk to?”
“I have one.” Shepherd bit his lip. “Won’t be easy, but I think I can convince him to do a little looking.”
“Make sure he knows that someone seems to be taking aim at fixers. Maybe that will motivate him,” Raya suggested.
“Maybe.” Shepherd nodded. “But what about you? Will you look into Donnercorp?”
Raya shifted uncomfortably. “I will, but only because I don’t believe we’re involved, and I want to be able to eliminate us as a suspect so we can move on to likelier targets.”
Reece studied her. Raya was worried, but Reece couldn’t tell if it was worry over what Raya might find, or the possibility of being discovered while looking at things she shouldn’t.
Trey added, “We have our assistants combing through everything, looking for some kind of connection. There’s got to be something. Everything on Akonwara is signed in triplicate and archived for all eternity.”
Raya’s lips quirked at the edges and even Shepherd looked mildly amused.
“Is that how you see Akonwara?” Raya asked.
“In a way,” Trey agreed. If you’re interested in my anthropological perspective of life in Machete, why don’t we meet for dinner sometime to talk about it?”
Reece turned her head and stared at Trey. Did he really just ask a woman out with four of them sitting at the table, discussing vital strategy?
Yeah. He had.
She wasn’t sure if he was an idiot or a genius.
Raya looked like she might be thinking along the same lines. “That would be interesting. We should try to fit it in
once we have this situation under control.”
Trey nodded, pleased.
Reece ignored this side conversation, preferring to get them back on track. “I recommend staying somewhere else. Somewhere secure. And doing a sweep for any devices whenever you’ve been away. We’re already doing that.”
She looked from Shepherd to Raya.
Raya nodded. “I have a place I can go.”
Shepherd frowned. “I guess I’ll sleep in my office at Pritney-Dax. It’ll give me a chance to do some investigating there, too.”
Trey arched an eyebrow. “You think your company might have tried to kill you?”
Shepherd tugged at his earlobe. “I sure hope not. But like Raya said, it’s better to check it out and prove that they’re in the clear.”
“We did the same,” Reece said. “Rexcare was the first place we looked. So how long do you need before we meet again? The sooner we figure this out, the better.”
“Day after tomorrow,” Raya decided. “Even if we don’t have anything, we can get updates on what everyone is checking into. I think it’s important that we stay in close touch. If something comes up, we can meet sooner.”
They all nodded.
Trey let out a breath and everyone looked at him, waiting for him to say something.
He shook his head quickly. “Sorry, just thinking about what a mess all this is. If we’re good here, I think I’ll go out and see what they’re playing at Marky’s table.”
He shifted his attention to Raya. “Do you play?”
Reece wasn’t sure, but she thought maybe she caught a hint of flirty subtext. It was hard to tell with Trey.
Raya didn’t seem to be sure what to make of it, either. “I like games. But not tonight. I’m going to go right back to the office and start working on proving that Donnercorp isn’t the one that made attempts on your lives.”
“Yeah, that would be inconvenient, wouldn’t it?” Trey asked.
Raya smirked. “It really would.”
Reece looked to Shepherd. She didn’t want to, but if the four of them were going to work together on this, she had to treat him with a modicum of courtesy.
Talk about unintended consequences.
“What about you?” she asked.
Thankfully, he shook his head. “I’ve never cared for gambling. I don’t have anything against it, but I just don’t have the knack to be any good at it. Besides, if I’ll be sleeping at the office, I might as well follow Raya’s example and get some work done.”
“Okay. Two days. Let’s take care of this.” Raya nodded as she stood, somehow keeping her stylish, expensive suit wrinkle-free and looking perfect How did she do that?
The rest of them stood, too.
“We’ll let you know if anything potentially significant comes up,” Reece promised.
They said their goodbyes and that was that.
Trey turned to Reece. “Are you staying for some gaming?”
“Nah. I’m not really in the mood. I’ll go back to Smooth, maybe work a bit with Sequoia and Reggie. They’re almost where they need to be. I assume you’re staying?”
“Yeah.” He scratched his jaw. “I could use something to occupy my attention for a bit.”
“I’ll let Dex hang out with me.”
“Great.” He opened the door. “Be careful going back.”
“You be careful too.”
He flexed his forearms and hands. “Always am. That’s one good thing about being a weirdo here. I’m always on my guard.”
That was more sad to Reece than funny, but she put on her game-face. “I’ll see you later, then.”
He gave her a little wave.
As she stepped out into the hot, blazing night, she gave up a little prayer to the ancient gods she’d never believed in. “Please let all this be over in two days.”
SOLUTIONS
DATE: 05.14.8948 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Ohiyo, Akonwara
REGION: Machete System, PED 4B, Orion Freedom Alliance
Reece was tempted to stop at the Ringtoad after leaving Debtor’s Haven. Following a minute of indecision, she decided not to. Kippy had been kind of melancholy last time, and while there was no one she cared about more, she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to hash out whatever was bothering him. Hopefully in a few days, she could give him her undivided attention.
That was what friends were for.
She missed him, though. She liked going to see him every night, and seeing him at her house some days, too. She missed watching his long fingers work as he mixed and poured drinks, and she missed his laugh.
For a second, she even missed the stretches of time when she merely did strategic work for Rexcare. No fighting or shooting or getting shot at or bombed.
Maybe Kippy was right. Maybe she was getting a little old for all that.
Or maybe she just needed a vacation.
Yeah. That was it.
Right, then. She rested her head on the seat of the taxi and watched the streets and buildings go by. She’d do a couple of Code Red practice runs with her trainees, then get Dex. She could play the ‘Oh what a surprise, I had no idea you were there!’ game that he liked so much, in which he ducked behind something and then popped out again, and she pretended to be surprised.
She had to smile at the disconnect. What she really wanted was to go to the Ringtoad and live her normal life, and instead she was going to a liquor company’s headquarters to sleep in an office and entertain a monkey.
Life was strange sometimes.
* * * * *
Reece was just drifting off to sleep when her overlays flashed with an urgent message. She accessed it, and saw it was from Raya.
Because she valued her sleep so much, Reece keyed very few people into her Link to be able to wake her, even with an urgent message. Raya was one of the precious few.
Reece sat up. She was in her pajamas, but they were presentable enough in a situation like this. She looked around for Dex, then remembered he was sleeping with Trey that night.
She considered waking him anyway, then decided to wait. No reason for them both to lose sleep, until she knew what Raya wanted.
When she let Raya in, she found that the woman’s professional exterior was marred by a grim frown.
Reece didn’t introduce Raya to Reggie as the two women went by, though the guy’s expression showed curiosity.
She’d have to talk to him about that later. A corporate-level security person would never show such a keen interest in visitors. If he wanted to work his way up, he’d need to improve on that.
Reece chose a first-floor conference room, closed the door, and gestured for Raya to sit.
Raya didn’t. She crossed her arms and leveled a hard look at Reece. “No one’s after fixers. I’m certain of that. What I don’t know is if you know that. I kind of suspect you do.”
“You’re right,” Reece admitted. “I was after whatever you found instead.”
“What makes you think I found something?”
“Because you know it’s not an assault on the fixer profession. You haven’t had time to slowly eliminate all the possibilities of that, which means you discovered something that made it not necessary to do. Proof of something else.”
Raya didn’t move, and her expression didn’t change. “You’re right. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to share that information with you.”
“It’s Donnercorp, right? Whatever all this is. Otherwise, you’d just tell me.”
Raya ignored the question. “So the pulse bombs were a lie?”
“The one set in Trey’s apartment was all too real. But we planted the one in Shep’s place. I needed to provide you with a reason to help us.”
“You could have just asked me.”
Reece shook her head. “You wouldn’t have helped.”
“You’re right. So what makes you think I’ll help you now?” Raya stared at her, unblinking.
“I don’t know that you will. I hope you will. I suspect I already know what’s going on, but without you to confirm the details and track down the specific person involved, I’ll be shooting in the dark.”
Raya leaned against the wall behind her, arms still crossed. “And what do you think is going on?”
Reece didn’t hold back. “I think Donnercorp is trying to crush Allied Solutions by making Rexcare think Allied’s attacking them.”
“Why would Donnercorp do that? We’re already Rexcare’s biggest competitor. Allied and Rexcare don’t directly compete at much.”
Reece sat. She was tired, and she wouldn’t look as impressive as Raya leaning against the wall and acting steely, since she was still wearing her pajamas. “Because Donnercorp does compete with Allied, and with Allied out of the way, Donnercorp could finally eclipse Rexcare and become the number one of the big four. That would be worth a lot.”
“It would,” Raya agreed. “If that were what’s going on.”
“Are you implying it isn’t?”
“I’m implying that I have no reason to give you that kind of detail on my employer. Actually, I’m saying it outright. What could compel me to do that?”
“Well,” Reece said thoughtfully, “there’s the fact that I’m already pretty sure that’s what’s going on. And you can be certain I’m going to report it to Rexcare. Which means Allied isn’t the company that will go down. Not only will Donnercorp fail to get Allied out of its way, Rexcare will be on alert and put resources into damaging Donnercorp.”
“They’d do all that based on your speculation?” Raya asked.
“Yes.” Reece stared her down, unblinking. Whether her statement was true or not, she wasn’t even sure herself. But she counted it as more likely than not.
Raya lifted her chin. “What are you proposing?”
“Rexcare has a problem. Donnercorp has a problem. Allied has a problem, too, and it doesn’t even know it, not that either of us cares about them. But since we’re the primary fixers for Rexcare and Donnercorp, we have the opportunity to do something really special here, if we work together.”