Ordnance

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  “Respectfully, Mr. Chairman, I must point out that Corpus Mundi was and still is bringing in their own assets to handle this issue. While I apologize for our inadvertent breach of protocol in doing so, we never wanted any of your assets to be at risk.”

  It was gamble, taking this tack, but he figured that Pops would respond better as long as Fox was negotiating from a position of strength, “We are, of course, mortified that you have suffered this inconvenience, but Corpus Mundi cannot be responsible for losses your organization suffers when attempting to collect a bounty.”

  The old man’s eyebrow rose to such a lofty height that Fox wondered if it would pull away from his head. The measured baritone was flawless, even a little incredulous, “Mr. Fox, do not insult me by assuming I am blind or stupid. You have a very serious, very dangerous game afoot and you have been keeping us in the dark about it.”

  Fox doubled down, “It is not the policy of Corpus Mundi to comment on or disseminate information pertaining to our research projects until they—“

  “Oh, shut up, Mr. Fox,” Pops had a sardonic smirk on his face, Fox stopped talking, but forgot to close his mouth.

  “You think this is some sort of negotiation? Or perhaps a parlay of some kind? It’s not.”

  The satanic old man was grinning with a relaxed grace. It was the grin of a man who has already won a battle that the other side did not realize had started. “Mr. Fox, I have as much stock in your company as your CEO. Corpus Mundi runs twenty-five million credits through my organization a year. I bought and sold ten executives more important than you before I ate lunch today, so please spare me the corporate obfuscation.”

  This was not a development Fox wanted to hear. He felt the first trickles of cold sweat under his nice suit. Pops didn’t let the squirming man of the hook, “I made some enquiries about you and your current project, Fox. I suppose, since you and I are now so closely acquainted that I can tell you that those are not the sort of enquiries you are accustomed to.”

  That satanic smile never even twitched, “Your people are neither as loyal nor as smart as you think they are, young man. Neither, it seems, are you.”

  Fox ground his teeth at the insult. If Pops noticed this or cared, he did not show it.

  “So, let me tell you, Mr. Fox, that when I found out how badly this ‘Better Man’ thing was going for you, I had two competing thoughts. Can you guess what they were?”

  Fox was startled to realize Pops had asked a question, but he tried to keep his voice even and salvage his position of strength, “I couldn’t speculate, Mr. Chairman, but I don’t think you — “

  “It was a rhetorical question, Mr. Fox,” the older man interrupted, and then sighed like a teacher with a particularly stupid student. “My first thought was to expose you to your board of directors and then have you tortured and killed as an example to any other emerging executives with more ambition than sense. The Combine will not be bullied by anyone, even Corpus Mundi.” He shook his head slowly, “Your company may have more money, but my people will do things that yours won’t. Money is a powerful motivator, but fear is always better. I seriously considered using you to make that point Mr. Fox.”

  Fox was sweating profusely now. The point about fear was well taken, and the old bastard knew it.

  “But then I thought about what would be the best outcome for my people, and that led me to this conclusion,” a pause to go to a cabinet and refill a brandy snifter from an ornate crystal decanter turned into a tortuous interlude. Pops was delighting in dragging out his point to maximize Fox’s discomfort. That Fox was aware of this ploy did nothing to ease the tension he ultimately felt. A sip and a sigh of satisfaction before Pops continued, “I concluded, Mr. Fox, that if I did that, I’d never get my 130 million credits back, nor any of the interest owed on it.”

  A goddamned shakedown? Fox almost smiled at the puerile simplicity of it. No matter how fancy Pops Winters wanted to act, he was a street thug at heart, and some things just came naturally to him. This was an exploitable weakness as far as Fox was concerned, but this was obviously not the time to go after it. His immediate goals were far less ambitious: first and foremost on that list was getting out of the building in one piece. Winter smiled, but it was feral and merciless, “When you get this Dr.—uhm—“ he looked over at the stone-faced woman, “… Laura?”

  “Ribiero, sir.”

  “Thank you,” he turned back to Fox, “When you get Dr. Ribiero to incorporate his designs into your armature, the latest estimates and forecasts indicate that the resulting contracts will be worth hundreds of billions. Be advised, Mr. Fox, that you now have a very enthusiastic new booster for your little program. About 130 million credits worth of enthusiasm, I’d estimate. Laura has assembled the appropriate shell corporations that will appear to supply your project with parts and expertise. She will send over our schedule of invoices. Please pay promptly, our Accounts Receivable office is legendarily… thorough.”

  Fox wasn’t sure how to consider this development, but it appeared likely he was going to live “And what sort of services are you going to provide?”

  Pops laughed so explosively he almost lost his brandy, “I promise not to have you killed provided you keep paying, first of all.” He wiped his mouth with a wry chuckle, “but far be it from me to not deliver value to a paying client. You may consider all further efforts to secure Ms. Ribiero authorized and draw from our current talent pool and intelligence network as necessary.”

  Fox sighed. This had not gone well. But he wasn’t dead and the project could continue. It wasn’t a victory by any stretch, but at his point, Fox considered any meeting he didn’t get tortured and killed at to be a successful one.

  “Obviously, Mr. Chairman, your terms are acceptable,” he tried to sound respectful, but failed.

  Winter sighed again, “That was never in question, Mr. Fox. Laura will show you out.”

  He contemplated his next move as he and the severe assistant rode the lift back to the ground floor. Upon exiting, he attempted a polite “Have a nice evening,” to the taciturn brunette, but he found himself talking to her back before the first word could be spoken. Thus, it was in grouchy, petulant silence that he walked to his waiting car.

  The Better Man Project could not support another 130 million credits in expenses, so he was going to have to trim some fat from the budget. He could only hope that the invoice schedule was not too aggressive. The Combine Accounts Receivable department did in fact have something of a reputation, even among those not normally associated with that sort of business. Fox was very much invested in not having to deal with them.

  He really needed that girl. Don Ribiero would not budge or break; that much was obvious. Fox had already figured out that it was no coincidence that Lucia had found Tankowicz, so the old bastard was self-assured and smug in his daughter’s safety. Fox could find no flaw in that logic. He had been a minor project manager for Project: Golem, but he had seen everything. He knew what just one Golem could accomplish, and Ribiero was right to be confident.

  Fox wasn’t stupid either, and that’s why he had sent out to Galapagos and Thorgrimm Station. These mobsters were just not going to cut it. At least they recognized that now and would let him handle it.

  Too bad it cost me 130 million plus interest to get them to realize that.

  Fox went straight home and then straight to the liquor cabinet. He had two squads of mercenaries arriving in the morning, and there was little hope for him getting any sleep tonight, now. Tomorrow was going to be a very long day.

  At least it’s probably not going to be any worse than today though, the pudgy man reassured himself.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lucia’s eyes fluttered open, and she was greeted by overwhelming brightness that blinded her at first. Confusion followed as she tried to reconcile the bright light, scratchy blanket, lumpy mattress and bizarre clothes that she was experiencing.

  Then, with plodding slowness, comprehension and orientation r
easserted themselves. She was on a cot in a one of McGinty’s safehouses. She was wearing weird clothing because she had strapped on body armor and raided a mobster’s compound. There was the dim recollection of murdering of a major crime boss as well.

  That, she admitted to herself, was one hell of a Saturday night.

  Once again, her mental agility and the speed with which she was acclimating to the new paradigm of her existence was just a bit frightening. It was like her brain was reorienting to the increased levels of stress and gaining new skills as fast as it needed to. She had always been a quick learner, but this bordered on the ridiculous. It was enough to make her suspect there was far more to her neurological upgrades than just speed, balance, and coordination.

  But then why couldn’t she shake that sense of imminent panic though? It was always there, waiting for her concentration and focus to slip, ready to flood her with the hundreds and thousands of tiny niggling anxieties that her souped-up brain could now process at many times the speed of a normal person. Why didn’t Dad fix that part? She lamented, Why is that still there?

  It was a question that would have to wait until they got him back. She spared herself a moment of fear and sadness for her father, trapped and held prisoner by the largest corporation in the world. She hoped they weren’t torturing him. Would they torture him? Would he break? Why didn’t he just give them what they wanted? Is he still alive, even?

  STOP that!

  She caught herself before it was too late, but only just. She focused on the combat breathing Roland had showed her: four second inhale, four second exhale. Ten cycles. No cheating. She took three tries, but she got her heart rate down and eventually pushed the panic back to its normal resting place as a bunch of buzzing alarms at the edge of consciousness. It was the best she could do.

  That was when the hunger hit her. She was starving. Roland had not exaggerated how many calories she would burn up in a prolonged fight, and it felt like her stomach was trying to digest itself. She stood up from the bed and prepared to go in search of one of McGinty’s terrible burritos.

  Before she could get that particular mission started, however, there was a knock at the door.

  “Yeah, come in,” she called absently, mind still fuzzy with sleep and hunger.

  The door opened and Roland hunched through it with uncomfortable grunts. Nothing was built to his size, here.

  He started to talk and stopped. Lucia threw him a quizzical look, and then followed his eyes. She could not contain a laugh of pure malicious glee when she realized what had happened.

  “Eyes up, soldier!” she barked in her best drill sergeant’s voice, and Roland snapped his head up and stared with military intensity at the center of her forehead.

  “You didn’t expect me to sleep in the body armor, did you?” she teased him. Lucia was wearing only the tiny cotton shorts and thin tank top that she had worn under her clothing for the raid. Both were simple and practical, but also very form-fitting by necessity. The ensemble was adequate for preserving her modesty, but even Lucia had to admit, there was really very little left for the big man’s imagination to fill in. Lucia was not entirely unaware of how physically fit she was, and as a woman she was quite pleased to see that she could still drop a man’s jaw from time to time. She was neither insecure nor immature; and men had ogled her often enough in the past for this situation to be far more humorous than anything else.

  For her, anyway.

  Roland was uncomfortable in a charming way though. She appreciated that he was polite enough to want to avoid being rude and delighted that he was confident enough to want to look, anyway. It was also nice to see he was sensitive to the reality that she may not want to be looked at.

  Lucia, in an instant of playful cruelty, decided she wanted to be looked at. Mostly for the humor value of making a half-ton war machine squirm like a teenage boy, and partly because, she liked it when he looked at her that way. It was one of the more human things he did, and it reminded her that there was a scared, angry, and very real person under all that hardware. She had also noticed that he only seemed to look at her that way. That too, was very appealing.

  Oh god, she thought to herself, I really do kind of like this one, don’t I?

  At first, this had made very little sense to Lucia. Roland was absolutely nothing like the men she preferred to date. She had always liked handsome, witty, urbane men. She liked artists, and thinkers, and men of letters. Roland wasn’t any of these things. At least, not like the others were, anyway.

  Roland wasn’t stupid, that much was obvious. But he was neither witty nor urbane under even the most generous definitions for either. Neither was he particularly handsome in any way she could articulate. He wasn’t ugly, per se, but he was just too big, too blocky, and too bald to make a girl’s head spin.

  She pondered her bizarre attraction to this man while he stood there vibrating with tension. It wasn’t his looks, and it wasn’t his style. There was the whole tough-guy thing, but that didn’t really account for her fascination, either. Lucia had many male martial arts and weapons instructors over the years, and every one of them had been tough as nails. But while she respected it; that was never what had impressed her much in a man.

  No, it was something about the inevitable sincerity and implacable reliability of the man. Roland did what he said he would and didn’t lie about what that was going to be. When something needed to be done, Roland simply did it. If he had something to say, he said it. It was a different kind of interaction than the usual, and it felt nice.

  Being around a man who was attracted to her usually meant navigating a whole series of steps and maneuvers designed to convince her that the man was worthy of her attentions. Lucia was positive that Roland had never once done that sort of dance. Roland didn’t seem like the type to court a lady in the traditional sense under any conditions. Even when Lucia teased and flirted with him, he simply said what he needed to say and told the truth.

  It was obvious to Lucia that Roland was interested. Just watching him struggle with where to look made that painfully, hilariously clear to her. The big goon had demonstrated absolutely no ability to mask his attraction, even when he tried. Somehow, he had combined the confidence of a bullet-proof cyborg with the obtuseness of a man who obviously had no clue how to interact with people outside of his preferred environment. When the fear and apprehension caused by his physicality was added to that formula, the result was a strained respectful discomfiture plagued by moments of lustful yearning. It was all very noble, in its own maddening robotic way.

  It’s working on me, she acknowledged wryly. There was good news at least; he was terrible at this and so she got to torture him. Lucia could be a little mean that way.

  Roland attempted to escape the trap he suddenly found himself in, “I can come back in a few minutes,” he mumbled and turned to leave.

  “Don’t be silly, just give me a second, you prude.” This was going to be fun, “Served in wars all over the damn galaxy but gets all flustered over a girl in her underwear, sheesh.”

  “Most girls aren’t very comfortable around me. Didn’t get a lot of chances to practice my military comportment at sorority pillow fights.” Lucia suspected he may have been trying to be funny, but there was real pain there. She realized that Roland’s body probably meant that most women were more terrified of him than anything else.

  That’s a shame, she thought, he doesn’t deserve that.

  “But,” he went on, turning his head a respectful ninety degrees, “I do try to be gentleman.” That was the worst thing he could have said. Lucia had a competitive streak a mile wide, and this was now officially a contest: her sex appeal versus his composure. She intended to win it.

  “Fine. I’ll get dressed. Hold on.”

  She turned away from Roland and went over to the bed to retrieve her clothes. She knew it was immature, and she knew it was mean, but she made sure to bend at the waist and linger just a few seconds longer than necessary to pick up the discard
ed items. The tiny shorts, only barely adequate for proper coverage under normal conditions, crept up her thighs even further, exposing the curve of her buttocks below the hemline.

  She swore she could hear the muscles in his jaw clench when she did it and stifled the urge to celebrate the small victory. Military discipline be damned; the big bastard had looked.

  She straightened and stepped into the fatigues, then made no small a show of shimmying them up over her muscular thighs and the graceful sweep of her hips. The pants were more than loose enough to not require any wiggle at all. But now that she had him where she wanted him, mercy was not going to be part of the equation.

  Now for the shirt, and another, long slow bend to retrieve it, followed by an exaggerated arch of the back to slide her arms though the sleeve holes. The tank top stretched and strained in all the appropriate places, and with a final toss of her hair, she knew she had won. She didn’t even bother to button the shirt. This had been way too easy.

  “You know,” the low voice grumbled, “I can dilate time, too.”

  Lucia smirked at him, face beaming with coy innocence, “Yes?”