Like a Boss

by Adam Rakunas

  “Hey, what about us?” said Henriette. “Your brothers and sisters in Solidarity?”

  “Today, there’s enough money to go around,” I said. “But that also means everyone goes back to work, right?”

  The people mumbled to themselves.

  “Jesus, I’ve seen more vitality in a management trainee convention. Are you a bunch of lifeless Big Three drones?”

  “Hell, no!” yelled Henriette. A few of her siblings and the Freeborn joined in.

  “And are you gonna stand around while the Big Three wait for us to tear each other to pieces?”

  “NO.” Wagon Wheel and his crew joined in this time.

  “Are you ready to remind those Big Three fuckers that they don’t own us?”

  “YES!”

  “Are you ready to get the hell back to work and earn?”

  “YES!”

  “Then get your asses in gear! Go, go, go!”

  They cheered and marched up the street, the Freeborn swept up with the Union people. Ethylene gave me a wink as she followed her family. I grinned and kept grinning, even as I pulled up my bank account and saw the tiny dent in the balance. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

  Someone tapped my shoulder. I turned around and saw fifty more people lined up. “You covering benefits, too?” said a middle-aged man with one eye. He had a baby in a sling across his chest.

  I took another look at my balance and swiped it aside. “Sign in, and let’s see what you’re due,” I said, doing my best to smile. It didn’t work.

  By the time that fifty had filed past the terminal, I was down another twenty grand. I was also good and furious after seeing the payments that people hadn’t gotten: injuries on the job, pension installments, childcare. All the basics that the Union had been formed to provide, and Letty had let them slide for a week. People hadn’t saved because they hadn’t needed to. When there were hurricanes or cancelled orders, we came together to get through them. Hell, we had had criminals and lunatics in the Executive Committee before, but even they kept the cash flowing. No one starved. No one got left behind. Seeing these families who’d worked their asses off getting screwed over…

  I walked to Shire Square where I found a hundred people standing around the terminal. I didn’t say a word. I just marched right to the terminal and logged in. Out went the yuan by the thousands. The words of Romas Landry, the crusty guy who taught contracts negotiation back in B-school, rang in my head: Any problem you can solve with money isn’t a problem at all. Two years ago, spending this money would have felt like pulling teeth. Now it was the most natural thing in the world. It was going to make everyone’s problems go away.

  I worked my way southeast, stopping for the ever-growing crowds to spit and swipe. Money flowed like water: it gushed into the accounts of people owed back wages, and it huddled behind dams for release at the end of day’s shifts. I left a wake of open storefronts, raucous buyers, and people who were not killing each other. There was also a crowd of a few hundred people who had attached themselves to me. They didn’t ask for anything or make any declarations. I got it. They just wanted to come along and see what happened next. So did I.

  When we turned onto Asa Randolph Avenue, a group of fifty people waited for us. They carried lit torches and machetes. I saw their shirt fronts glitter in the firelight, and I didn’t have to get closer to know they all wore glass Temple pins. I slowed, and my crowd slowed with me.

  “We don’t want a fight,” I called out. “It’s time to go back to work.”

  A woman at the head of the Temple mob shook her head. She was the one who had led us into the murder house. “We’re going to cut you all down.”

  That sent the people behind me into a fury. There were shouts of Hell, no! and You first! and a whole lot of other babbling bullshit. I turned around and glared until I got silence. It took a while, but the shushes soon overwhelmed the shouts. I looked back at the Temple woman. “No one’s getting hurt anymore. I don’t know what Letty told you, but it’s over. She’s going to be done, and you’ll likely be going back to Maersk.”

  She sneered. “We are never going back there.”

  “You’re going because you broke the law,” I said, loud and clear. Inside, my guts churned. We may have outnumbered the Temple mob, but those machetes could cut down too many too fast. Everyone else would get crushed in a panic. “And you’ll go for whatever else you’ve done this week. We’re going to make sure of that.”

  “You got no evidence,” she said. “And you won’t have any now.” She tapped her temple, and a shout came from behind me: Dammit, my pai! It rippled through the crowd. Letty had pulled the plug again.

  I took a step forward and blinked hard. “I’m recording you right now. Whatever you do to me, it’s going to come back at you. You cut me down, you blow me up, it’ll be on the Public for everyone to see. You want to risk that?”

  She laughed. “You think we really care about you? About any of you? We busted our asses to get here, and how does the Union repay us? You sent us to that fucking rock to rot!”

  Well, that probably has something to do with whatever crimes you committed, I made sure not to say. “Then why not come with us?”

  She gave me a side-eyes glare. “Where?”

  “We’re going to the Union Hall to kick Letty’s ass.”

  Now everyone in the street started talking. “We are?” said a man behind me.

  “You bet we are,” I said. “Because… you know, I’ve been talking about this bullshit for the past day. You want to know why? Ask around. I’m heading there right now. You want to come with? Come with. You want to cut me down? Do it another day. I got work to do.”

  I walked up to the woman. She patted the flat of the blade against the palm of her hand. “I’m still going to cut you down,” she said. “That’s what I got paid for.”

  “Then I’d rather you find another line of work,” I said. “There’s not going to be any room for any more thuggery.”

  She sneered. “Someone always needs to be cut. You’re about to do it yourself. You match my price, and I might even–”

  I kneed her in the groin. She doubled over, and I managed to slap the machete out of her hand before she caught her breath. She stood up, murder in her eyes. I took a swing, but we both knew it wouldn’t do anything but piss her off. I got a fist in the stomach and what little food I’d had that evening splattered on the pavement.

  I heard the machete scrape. All I could think of was the taste of bile, the way my body locked up, how this angry, angry woman was going to kill me and start another riot after I had paid so much goddamn money to avoid one. I looked up and saw her smile as she raised the machete…

  So I punched her in the groin. Hell, a kick had worked the first time.

  This time, she held on to the machete as she took a step back. She hissed something that sounded like “Fuck you,” but it was hard to tell from the way she had clamped her lips together. She pointed her blade at the crowd, and they charged in a screaming, roaring mass.

  The whole street exploded in a mass of white.

  TWENTY-TWO

  At first, I thought it was a tuk-tuk bomb. What a lovely way to go: instead of getting chopped to pieces by Letty’s thugs, I was blasted to atoms by one of her bombs. It was a great-smelling death, at least. The scent of vanilla hung heavy in the air. Just as well I could only see white fog. This had to have been my brain’s way of masking the terror of death: by making everything smell like a milkshake.

  Something nudged my side. “Padma? Is that you?” It sounded suspiciously like Soni.

  I couldn’t move, but I could breathe. The fog cracked in half, and Soni looked down at me. She was in a patrol uniform a size too big, and a streak of grime slashed across her face. “Sorry we took so long. Everyone got so hung up on getting paid that I had to remind them they weren’t getting a dime until they went back to work.”

  “‘We?’” I said, reaching for her hand.

  Soni pulled me out of a
cocoon of hardened riot foam. A hundred cops stood in the streets, all of them in regular patrol outfits. None of them had riot armor, but they were all cradling cans of foam. Behind them were fifty or so white, fluffy lumps, like clouds that had plopped in the middle of the street. “Two precincts’ worth of my best people. I’ve got another two spreading out around the city, opening up station houses, patrolling.” She smiled. “You know. Doing the work.”

  “Is that going to be enough?”

  She rubbed her head, now shaved smooth. “Depends if you’re really going to try and kick Letty’s ass or not.”

  “Trying is for amateurs,” I said. “I’m a goddamn pro.”

  “Right.” She grabbed a cop and told her, “Get me another fifty people, fast as you can.”

  “What made you come around? Back in Bakaara–”

  “I was wrong, okay? I was wrong, and I didn’t want to admit I was wrong because I am also a goddamn pro.” She cleared her throat. “I let you down. I let the city down. My gut told me Letty was up to no good, that having everyone stand down was a stupid, bone-headed mistake, and I followed her instructions. I did as I was told.” She spat on the ground. “When I Breached, I told myself I was done with that.”

  “You were thinking about your people.”

  “You’re all supposed to be my people.” She looked away and pulled off her badge. “I don’t deserve this.”

  “Bullshit.” I put my hand on her shoulder. To her credit, she didn’t snap it off at the wrist. “Put that back on. People need to see their police out here. By the way: good move on having everyone wear their street uniforms instead of the riot gear.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, I didn’t think it was good for us to look like an occupying army,” she said. “Also, I didn’t have enough equipment for everyone. All the assholes who didn’t report in apparently raided the precinct houses for supplies, including all our armor. Oh, and that” – she pointed at the encrusted convicts – “is the last of our riot foam.”

  “Well, keep that to yourself. Speaking of which, is your pai back on?”

  She waved her hand from side to side. “Service has been weird.”

  “Letty has a backdoor.”

  “Into the Public?”

  I tapped my temple.

  Soni made a weary face. “So she knows about the foam. And everything else we’ve talked about.”

  “I’m working under that assumption. I have to admit, it’s kind of liberating to know your nemesis is watching your every move. No need to hide. She can see us coming.”

  “You realize that gives her an incredible tactical advantage over us, right? A dominating, crushing advantage?”

  “I do, but I’m at the stage where I’m past being angry. Now I just want shit fixed. I think everyone else does, too. Speaking of which, you want your people to get paid?”

  Soni laughed. “Sure. Who wouldn’t? You think Letty can make our payroll?”

  I shrugged. “If she wanted to, sure. But I can take care of you guys right now.”

  Soni narrowed her eyes. “You’re serious. That’s never a good thing when you’re serious. What did you do?”

  “I sold the distillery.”

  Soni’s face froze for a good thirty seconds before it curled up in anger. She grabbed me by my shirtfront. “You. Did. WHAT?”

  “I had to, Soni! Rallying the people didn’t do squat. They wanted to get paid!”

  “Oh, so you took it on yourself to become the chair of the Finance Committee? Jesus, here you are again, making a big, stupid decision without thinking about the consequences.”

  “Seeing how doing nothing has resulted in fires, bombings, and maniacs with machetes wandering the streets, I figured it was worth the chance. Besides, who’s gonna get hurt by this?”

  “You, stupid!” Soni let go of me. “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve only cared about getting that distillery. Two years later, you’re selling it? What is wrong with you?”

  “It wasn’t the distillery,” I said. “It was the rum.”

  Soni groaned. “Look, I dig a mojito as much as the next girl, but–”

  I took her hand. “WalWa broke my brain, and the only thing that keeps it unbroken is Old Windswept. That’s why I wanted to buy the distillery, Soni. Tem Ropata came up with this whole ritual thing, and it works. Remember all those times I’d get spacey and weird?”

  She smirked. “Show me one person on this rock who isn’t like that every now and then.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to hug her or slug her. “The rum has this psychoactive affect, and it keeps me sane. I only take a finger a night. That’s it.”

  The smirk faded. “Hold it. I have seen you ripped to the gills before.”

  “Sure, on someone else’s booze. And has it ever been before six o’clock?”

  “Why six o’clock?”

  I shrugged. “It’s just when Ropata said to do it. That’s all. No magic, but it works. And it works because of this place.” I laughed. “Holy shit, I finally realized it. Ropata had me figure out my place in the universe, and it always starts here. Wherever I am, I’m always on Santee, in this city, as we’re spinning away through space.”

  “Are you okay?” said Soni.

  “No,” I replied, “but I know one thing that will make me feel better.”

  “Does it involve going to the Union Hall?”

  “You bet your sweet boots it does. But first, you all gotta get paid.”

  “You’re damned right we do.”

  The police wages were slightly higher than everyone else’s, seeing how they got hazard pay on top of their usual salaries. “Letty declared a state of emergency two weeks ago,” said Soni.

  “That was a pretty quiet declaration,” I said, sending money to the last of her officers. “Great way to spin up dissension in the ranks. Maybe she really is some kind of Ghost agent.”

  “I have no idea what she is,” said Soni. “None of my Freeborn contacts wanted to talk about her.”

  “Freeborn… oh, God, Onanefe. What happened to him? We need him to rally the Freeborn. Or to stop them from doing something equally as stupid as our people.”

  “He’s okay,” said Soni. “Got a detail guarding him.”

  “A good one?”

  “No, Padma, he’s being watched by crooks and assassins.”

  “Hey, at this stage, I have to double-check. Can you get him to meet us at the Hall?”

  She waved one of her officers over and passed the message. “He’s probably going to bring friends,” said the cop.

  “Good,” I said. “I think that’s the only way this will work. Shall we?”

  It was a different march from the ones that had happened earlier this week. There were no signs, no slogans chanted. There was none of the giddiness, either. We just walked, picking up people as we went. Soni and the police faded into the midst of the growing mass, breaking up fights and helping people who stumbled. It was six kilometers to Brushhead, and I kept falling behind to pay more people. People broke off as we passed their job sites: network towers, manhole covers, half-finished houses. The tone was somber without being funereal. We were done celebrating and fighting. Now it was time to get back to work, starting with the little job of overthrowing our own government.

  Nobody talked, which was good because it let me focus on what little leverage I had. There was plenty in the Union Charter about how to remove a standing president, including processes for times just like this (i.e. the What To Do When The Prez Has Gone Mad With Power subclause). The problem is that they all required a relatively functional city to make them viable. Even if everyone got back to their jobs tonight, it would take weeks for Santee to come out of its coma. That would give Letty plenty of time to regroup as the city bled through its supplies. Plus: she had bombs.

  I slowed at every corner to make sure there were no tuk-tuks parked on the street. I shuddered at the putt-putt of backyard cane diesel engines. Of course, Letty could have ordered the Jennifers to turn every singl
e object in the city into something explosive. I had no idea how long she’d been cooking up this scheme or how much boom-boom she’d made and stockpiled. With Saarien consulting, she might have carved out a gigantic munitions factory beneath the Union Hall. The first thing I had to get out of her was the locations of all her bombs. Well, the first thing right after I figured out how to get anything out of her.

  The streetlights flicked on as we turned south onto Solidarnoœæ Street. A hundred people stood beneath the pale blue glow, the tired lines on their faces made deeper by the shadows. Onanefe stood in front of them, hands in his pockets.

  “The casual look works for you,” I said. “Like you just happened to be hanging around with nothing to do.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve always got something to do. I just choose to look good while doing it.”

  I embraced him and clapped my hands on his shoulders. “I could really use your help. Yours and every Freeborn you can reach.”

  He nodded. “You know you got me. You got my crew. Everyone else I’ve talked to, they’re still not sure. There’s a lot of talk of just fading into the kampong while the city burns.”

  “But they’re still here.”

  Onanefe smiled. “People also want to see how this plays out. The wind smells like there could be a new deal in the air.”

  “There will be,” I said. “There has to be. It’ll be a lot of boring, unsexy work, but I’m going to make it happen.”

  “All by yourself, huh?”

  “Why not? I already made one big stupid choice today, and it’s working out pretty well so far.”

  He surveyed the crowd. “That is a fine mob you’ve got for yourself.”

  “I’ll have you know this mob represents a cross-section of Santee society from every trade, demographic, and bar.”

  “What do you plan to do with this assembly?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe we’ll sit down and sing songs. I heard that worked on Dead Earth.”

  “I heard that resulted in people getting blasted with fire hoses and attacked by dogs.”

  “I like my version better. Besides, whatever we talk about isn’t going to be the plan, ’cause Letty can see and hear everything.”