Behind him, he heard sporadic gunfire as his Teamsters assaulted the dormitories of the sex slaves that Marko had made so much money from. The faint, yet satisfying screams of overseers and pimps played like the calls of terrified night birds as throats were slit, or bodies riddled with projectiles. Every time a slave was freed, his army grew by one.
The radio on his hip chirped and chattered with updates. The Z-Streeters had just secured the Front Street landing platforms and the mass transit station. Mickey Targa’s squad just locked down the labs in the chemical quarter.
Everything was going well. For now.
He had planned this day for years. In one way or another, he had been imagining this for his whole adult life. But he had never truly allowed himself to believe it would come to this. Now, he watched his enemy’s citadel burn; while his men and women fought in the streets and alleys below to seize control of the entire Big Woo criminal apparatus. They were off to a solid start and he had Roland Tankowicz to thank for that.
Marko’s army had been decimated by Roland’s assault. The Boss of Big Woo had held control over his territory with a scant hundred and fifty men. They were of course backed up by whatever army the Combine wanted to throw at them, and fear of that eventuality had kept the gangs in line. Even with minimal manpower, Marko’s men were well-equipped, well-trained, and well-paid. Their advantage had been modern guns, body armor, and a fortress to hide in. As a whole this had been more than sufficient to hold the territory for a very long time. At least until a certain massive cyborg and a small woman from Uptown had wandered into Billy’s parking lot marketplace.
Roland and Lucia had crushed Marko’s best men and killed the man himself, right on time and according to plan. The snake was now headless, and a headless snake is no snake at all. The united support of all the Big Woo gangs followed Marko’s demise, and the now Teamsters had grit and numbers on their side. That intimidating fortress was currently a smoking wreck packed with cowering disorganized bullies. There was little enough to fear about terrified bullies who fought for money. Less when those bullies had lost a third of their strength and all of their courage in just under an hour. When he compared the remnants of Marko’s enforcers to the thousand or so highly motivated gang members on his side, Billy McGinty liked his chances just fine.
From his vantage point, it was easy to see the frenzied activity inside the compound. Black-clad men ran in uncoordinated furor from walls to buildings and back to walls again. Terrified thugs fired weapons at shadows and shouted meaningless instructions to other men, who weren’t listening, anyway. Every few seconds, one of Billy’s people would toss a grenade over the wall or take a random potshot at one of the scurrying figures inside the walls. That was all it took for the few well-placed troops to keep a small army confused and hiding. The manpower expense was a small price to pay for keeping those fools occupied while the real battle was fought elsewhere.
Marko’s men had fallen back behind the safety of the walls when Roland had started smashing things, and this left the streets almost entirely undefended. That had always been the plan because there was nothing in Umas that Billy wanted. It would make a great base of operations later, but had absolutely no strategic value for the time being.
The panicked men inside did not understand that while they scampered about in terrified impotence, billions of credits in criminal infrastructure was changing hands just outside the walls. The dregs of Marko’s troops flailed about, blissfully unaware that the balance of power in Big Woo was undergoing a tectonic shift while they waited in huddled terror for reinforcements. Billy figured it probably take three or four days for the Combine to finally grasp what had happened this night.
Billy McGinty and his Teamsters were playing the long game. What they needed to do was to lock down the labs, the warehouses, the brothels, the garages filled with vehicles, and the tons upon tons of product. If all went well, every bit of contraband, every smuggled weapon, and every gram of illegal narcotics would be under his control by morning.
The chatter from his radio was all good news on that front: his people kept checking in, one by one, to report that they had achieved their objectives.
The radio on his hip relayed the news in clipped, practiced shorthand: The brothels and dorms were secure. Another supply cache had been liberated. Sixteen more trucks were under gang control. Billy could taste victory, but he knew better than to start celebrating just yet.
Billy allowed himself a small, private, surreptitious smile. Marko’s men could run and hide in Umas all they wanted, the war was being won out in the streets of Big Woo. Billy’s streets.
Our streets, he corrected himself.
They were winning, and it made Billy happy and scared at the same time. This was a big thing to undertake, and he hoped he was ready for it. Secretly, he feared he may not be. Then his reverie was interrupted by the crunch of gravel under giant feet on the rooftop behind him.
Billy didn’t turn, he knew who it was from the heavy footfalls alone. Then the big man spoke.
“Hell of thing you’ve started here, Billy.”
“Yeah,” Billy was uncharacteristically taciturn tonight. There were no jokes at Roland’s expense and no sardonic wit.
“Lucia and I destroyed the servers and records in there on the way out. It will take the Combine weeks to sort out what happened and where the assets are,” Roland moved up and stood next to gang leader, “I estimate that we killed twenty-one of his men and seriously injured another thirty or so. They won’t counter-attack until they get reinforced from some other territory.”
“I know,” Billy’s voice was small and pensive, “I have eyes inside.”
Roland nodded. This was not surprising. A military man to his core, Roland finished his debriefing anyway, “It will be Flint’s crew from the Sprawl, most likely,” Roland felt a strong desire to help Billy as much as possible. Marko’s rule of Big Woo had been a litany of petty tyranny and a bitter testimony to what evils could be accomplished by greedy men with no morals. Roland’s own complicity in allowing it tasted like bile in his throat, and his guilt drove him to make amends the only way he knew how.
The next few weeks would be very hard on the residents of Big Woo, and Roland could not be there to help them through it. It would be their fight to win or lose, but Roland was sure he knew who he was rooting for; and he had never been above cheating. “Flint’s boys won’t be any tougher than these guys. You can handle them if you play it smart. When the Board realizes that you’re holding the supply chain? Well, then it will be mercs from the Uptown crews. Maybe frontier guys if they get desperate.”
Roland paused to watch Billy’s face, looking for signs of fear or hesitation. He saw none, “Be smart when that happens, Billy. They will have cyborgs, armatures, heavy weapons. Get the supplies and get underground before then.”
“I know,” McGinty said, the quip soft and small. A lot of his friends would die, and he knew it, “We will wait them out. When the money stops flowing, the Board will negotiate. We aren’t trying to commit suicide, here.”
Roland looked back over the burning compound below him, “No one ever is, McGinty.”
“I know,” he repeated a third time, still softly.
They watched in silence for a moment, listening to the sounds of revolution and mayhem as they built to a heady crescendo around them.
Then it was Billy’s turn, “How’s Lucia?”
“Exhausted,” that was the least of it, “she burned the candle hard in there, really pulled her weight like a pro.”
“She’s something else, isn’t she?” Billy chuckled.
“You ain’t shitting me, McGinty,” Roland shook his head, a wry smile cracking his stoic veneer, “she is something else entirely.”
“Is that why she’s in trouble? Why they grabbed her dad?”
Roland thought about his answer, there was still so much he did not know, “I can’t really say. There’s a connection, but I’m not convinced it’s about her spe
cifically. The smart money says it’s about what her father knows.”
“And what does he know?” McGinty was prying now, but he was a man who had learned to look for angles, even in places there might not be any.
Roland wasn’t ready to tell Billy the whole story, but he felt he owed the red-headed gangster something, “Her father is probably the smartest man in biotech right now. The problem is that he has an acute case of the ‘moral fiber’ disease. He wants to help people, so he has refused to do weapons or military shit for a long time. I suspect someone is trying to make him change his mind.”
Billy’s head shook in wry acknowledgement, “It’s always something like that, isn’t it? Try to do the right thing, be a good person, and then bad people shit all over you.”
McGinty barreled ahead with that thought, suddenly vehement, “You try to build something good, you know? Try to do right, try to make good in a shitty world, and what happens? Some fucker with money, or guns, or lawyers swoops in and shuts you down or takes what’s yours. What the fuck does a guy have to do, man?”
Billy was mad, now, “So fuckin’ Lucia’s dad doesn’t want to make shit that kills and they fucking kidnap him and go after his kid?”
“Yeah. That’s about the size of it, I figure.”
“Shit. We get one good genius who doesn’t want to produce murder-machines, and this is what happens to him?” Billy shook his head, not noticing Roland’s jaw clench at how close to home the diatribe was hitting, “Fuck all those fuckers. We need to hit back.”
Roland gestured to the chaos all around them, “I think we just did.”
“Fuck yeah we just did,” Billy snarled, then shifted gears, “Did you get what you needed in there?”
Roland nodded, “Yeah. We know where our guy is, now.”
“How bad?”
“Bad. Uptown office park. Right on the edge of the Sprawl. Tactical fucking nightmare.”
“Can we help?” Billy also felt like he owed something. This was the most ridiculous collaboration in the history of insurgency, but it was working so far. He had already fulfilled his part of the bargain, but sneaking two people into Umas felt like poor coin indeed against what Roland and Lucia had done for his people.
“I don’t think so,” Roland sighed, “It’s a goddamn Corpus Mundi black site for biotech research.” He shook his head, “Didn’t even know they had those.”
Billy felt his first genuine smile of the night coming on, “Those places sure do use a lot of pharmaceuticals, don’t they?”
Roland scowled, “I honestly have no fucking clue what they use. Why?”
Billy turned back to the city, “I dunno. If I had a secret biotech research facility that I had put lots of creds into keeping a secret, I can’t imagine how I might come across all the drugs and shit I’d need without blowing the secrecy.”
Comprehension took root in Roland’s brain, “Oh. Shit. Don’t tell me you can get in?”
Billy’s answer was slow and measured, “Not directly. We really only run recreational drugs out of here. But when it comes to smuggling, all the good talent is from Big Woo.” He slapped Roland on the arm, wincing when the unforgiving armored appendage stung his fingers, “I’ll call some guys who could get into a nun’s panties without her ever knowing they were there.”
“That’s amazing. Thank you.” It was all Roland could think to say.
Billy shrugged, “Shit’s going to be very hard around here for a few weeks. If I am going to make this shit work, I’ll need friends. Friends who can punch through walls and take down entire gangs when they have to. Friends who aren’t so afraid of the Combine that they shit their pants at the very mention of the Board.”
Roland nodded assent, “Friends like me.”
“Yup,” Billy was pensive again, “Are we friends, Roland?”
“I’m warming up to you.” Roland couldn’t hide the smile in his voice though. Friends like Billy were good for a guy like Roland to have, and friends like Roland were good for people like Billy to have, “But take care of these people, Billy. Do right. Build something here, and you can count on me for anything.”
“Of course, man. That’s what this is all about.”
“Good, because if you fuck these people over I’ll kill you twice. Don’t ask how. It’s a top-secret cyborg thing. We know shit,” Roland’s tone was jovial, but Billy suspected that he wasn’t really joking, “Weird cyborg shit, McGinty.”
Billy’s radio squawked again, excited voices reporting that the overland route checkpoints to the Sprawl had just been secured. Big Woo was shut off from New Boston now. There was no way for anyone to get in.
And no way for Billy McGinty and his ragtag group of revolutionaries to get out.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Let’s tally it up, shall we? Marko is dead. Big Woo is burning. An entire division of my organization has been crippled. Do you mind explaining and feel free to use tiny words so I can fully comprehend, exactly how your little bounty hunt has suddenly resulted in a loss to my organization of… how much, Laura?”
The stern brunette in the slate-grey suit consulted a DataPad for the briefest instant and responded, “We estimate 130 million credits, sir. Plus or minus twenty-five.”
“Thank you, Laura,” the silver-haired man in slacks and a white silk dress shirt replied warmly, “So Mr. Fox, please, do explain this to me.”
Fox, for all his greasy corporate charm, was more than a little uneasy. Pops Winter was a tall, spare, regal specimen. Piercing blue eyes sat deep under craggy white brows, and his gaunt features and sharp cheekbones lent an air of the diabolic to his face. His casual appraisal of a 130 million cred loss was all the more chilling for the quiet acceptance that accompanied it. Pops always spoke in a cool, calm, baritone. Never agitated, never angry, but always reserved and poised. Why be otherwise? The fortunes of great and small men rose and fell upon his words, so there was never a reason to be excitable. Lions, Pops had always told people, did not get distraught over the actions of the sheep. The old gangster had always made certain that there was never any question as to who was the lion, and who was the sheep. It was a flawless facade of effortless arrogance.
Fox envied it.
Leland Fox was feeling all kinds of sheepish. He had made three very serious errors already in dealing with the Ribiero family, and it looked like the third had finally gotten the attention of the most powerful crime lord in the Solar System. This was not a man you wanted doing your quarterly evaluations.
Fox catalogued his screw-ups. First, he had failed to secure the daughter when he picked up Dr. Ribiero. Both he and Johnson had underestimated the good Doctor’s reticence to revive the Golem program’s work on symbiotic nervous systems. The good doctor, optimistic fool that he was, had been convinced that the armature approach would have circumvented Ribiero’s moral objections. Johnson, of course, had been dead wrong.
Second, he had sent Dawkins in to grab the girl without involving the Combine. How the hell was I supposed to know to do that? Fox whined to himself, I don’t deal with kidnapping on regular basis! At least he got the windfall of Dawkins’ injuries out of that blunder. Now at least he had a pilot that could make the armature live up to the lofty promises he had made getting the whole project approved in the first place.
Adding off-world mercenaries to the mix before consulting the board had further cemented this screw up.
And now, making things infinitely more complicated, Lucia Ribiero had found the last goddamn Golem to hide behind, and the two of them had just declared war on the entire Combine. Fox was not even sure if he wanted to tell Pops about Lance Corporal Roland “Breach” Tankowicz. This deceased Marko character had been entirely unaware of Roland’s capabilities, which meant they all probably were. There was nothing to be done about that now. If Fox told them everything he knew about the Golems, the Board would only get even more pissed at him for not telling them before. Knowing that Breach’s involvement was possible is why he had called for
all this expensive help in the first place.
Why couldn’t they just let me handle it? Fox griped to himself.
There was no point in going down that road though, and Fox accepted that unfortunate reality with frustrated resignation. The pudgy manager had been at this game for close to thirty years, and at this point he counted himself an accomplished executive. Though confused by the Combine at first, he felt he was figuring them out now.
Criminals are territorial and egotistical pricks, Fox mused while contemplating Pops’ words. The ambitious company man had run afoul of that by not bringing the Board in early enough for them to make some money and preserve their petty domains. Operating a criminal enterprise like kidnapping and extortion without the approval of the board had been a huge mistake, Fox understood that now, but he had deadlines and he needed to move forward with or without the crusty objections of these bronze-age plutocrats.
Personal feelings notwithstanding, Fox appreciated the care with which he needed to tread here. Pops could have Fox killed with a nod of his head, and the old demon would never see the inside of jail cell over it. Internalizing that had been the hard part, but there was a silver lining to that particular cloud: if these idiots wanted to break their teeth trying to bring down a monster like Breach, then that wouldn’t ruin his day one bit.
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