Wolf and Raven s-32

by Michael A. Stackpole

  "No!" I slowly started drifting toward his silicon altar. "Have you seen what TAB did on Westlake?"

  Benbrook paused as if unable to remember the project or unable to comprehend why I would mention it. "That was the construction division. They are not my concern. Irrelevant."

  "Very relevant, Mr. Benbrook." I channeled the Old One's growl of outrage into my voice. "You are seeking to destroy something when you could make it all so much better. You are blowing a perfect chance to do more than just develop one new division."

  His hawk-stare bored in at me as he slowly sat. "Explain."

  As he called my bluff I panicked for a half-second. The Old One came to my rescue as he translated all the demographic statistics into his own view of the world. Suddenly I saw Seattle as it must have been before men set foot on the continent. The Old One and his brothers knew where the deer would drink. They knew what plants would flower or bear fruit when-attracting animals for the hunt. Had it been in their power they would have created more tree stands to keep their animals safe in the winter and more meadows to feed them in the summer.

  "It's fairly simple, really," I said. "You can rebuild sections of the Denny Park area. Encourage people who will even up the demographic mix to move in. You'll have your own little population from which to draw focus groups. You can have your own stores where you can test product placement. You can employ some of the people and raise or lower their income to levels appropriate for whatever you want to test. You can create your own little world and it will pump out streams of data for you to analyze, all the while saving money."

  His face had begun to become positively animated as I started to talk. I thought I almost had him with the "streams of data" line, but something changed. The light in his eyes died. Settling his angular, skeletal body into his chair, he became an electronic spider again.

  "Projections show the cost of building up that area will be more expensive than wiping out the Ancients."

  I drew the pistol. "Factor in the cost of your own funeral."

  He slowly shook his head. "Employee contract, page two, section six, paragraph three prohibits one employee from threatening another with deadly force."

  "I quit."

  "Now that I think of it, your suggestion has some merit."

  I nodded solemnly. "Those expenses can be charged back against the fees of clients who use your market testing. And you can make the changes through the construction divisions, guaranteeing the head of that division a tidy profit on the construction work, while the work is done at a below market rate for you."

  Benbrook's head started bobbing in time with music that I could not hear. "Yes, that could work. As you said, I would have focus groups and store fronts to test product placement." His eyes flicked up at me. "These people would have children and I would have to educate them, correct?"

  "You better believe it."

  "Excellent. We diversify into children's products."

  I winked at him. "You build schools and sports facilities. You improve Denny Park and…"

  "And we create sports leagues for employees. We get them exercising, which will cut health insurance costs. And they will all be wearing clothing they buy from us that has our trademark names emblazoned on them."

  "Now you're cooking."

  He stopped hearing me. "And we create Brandname Loyalty Indoctrination Centers. We inculcate the children in the ways of only buying our products. We can wire every home for closed-circuit televisions that will display our ads…"

  His eyes started to glaze over orgasmically, so I cocked the pistol and brought him out of it prematurely. "Hey, Sparky, you also have to pay the Ancients to patrol the area so no one can infiltrate it, right?"

  Benbrook hesitated, then nodded. "We can get them uniforms…"

  "Do you really want to see what they would do with uniforms?"

  "No, perhaps not. Plausible deniability can cut liability." His eyes went blank for a moment, then he smiled. "Yes, I think this has a higher profit potential because of the retail sales and the information development angles. It will work."

  "Good for you." My eyes narrowed and became the same silver shade as the wolf's-head pendant I wear at my throat. "Listen, Moses, there's only one more thing you have to do before you can lead your people to the promised land."

  "And that is?"

  "You want to adjust the environment of a profit center because the psychographics are set to take it into a negative growth curve." I gave him a smile that was all mayhem and arson.

  "That sounds unsatisfactory. I'm sure, in return for your service here, I can do something about it." His hands hung in space as if poised over the keyboard. "Explain."

  I smiled. "Ever heard of a place called Jack O's Lantern?"

  I breathed in and got a nose full of noxious vapor that convinced me someone was burning tires for warmth in the middle of the Jackal's Lantern. Of course I couldn't see that far into the place, but I felt happy enough that I was willing to stumble blindly toward the back. Lucky for me, a blond waitress name Pia saw me groping about and slipped her arm through mine.

  "The elves said they were waiting for you, Wolf." Despite the black makeup turning her face into a nightmare pumpkin mask, the smile she gave me made my socks roll right up and down. "I can be softer than she is, and I'm much prettier than he is."

  "No disputing that." I returned her smile. "It's business with them, darling."

  "All work and no play will make Wolf a dull boy."

  "And you're the whetstone that will sharpen me up?"

  "We can rub our bodies against each other and see." She laughed lightly as we reached the back of the bar. "A Henry Weinhard's for you, Mr. Kies?"

  "In the bottle, no glass." I slid into the booth across from Sting and Green Lucifer. "Anything for you?"

  Sting shook her head and Pia vanished into the billowing cloud of smoke. Green Lucifer wrinkled his nose, looked around, then snarled at me, "Why did you demand we come to this dump?"

  "I wanted to see you in your natural habitat."I glanced over at Sting."Here's the deal: TAB is going to rebuild some housing in your turf and generally upgrade the Denny Park area. They'll pay you to keep things under control. The new housing will go half to folks already there and half to people they bring in."

  As Sting considered what I had told her and Green Lucifer practiced his "I'm mean and nasty" look on me, Pia arrived with my beer. I saw she'd written her number on the napkin she put beneath the sweating bottle and I gave her a wink. I twisted the cap off the bottle with my left hand, drank, then set the bottle down again and frowned at Green Lucifer. "Well, pay her." He blinked his big elf eyes at me. "What?" "And tip her well, too. I'm a big tipper." Pia smiled and gave me a wink. "Thank you, Mr. Kies." Green Lucifer became obstreperous. "If you think…" Sting nudged him with an elbow. Grimacing, Green Lucifer pulled out a couple of credsticks and started to sort through them for one sufficiently big enough to pay for my beer. A light cough from Sting added a pair of twins to it and all three ended up deposited on the tray Pia carried. With a broad smile and a nod of thanks to Sting, Pia retreated from sight. I drank a bit more. "What do you think?" Sting's eyes narrowed into lifeless amber wedges. "Do you think the deal will be honored for a long time?" I shrugged and my left thumb traced the letters of my name in the table. "If they invest in the project as they are supposed to do, yes, they will stay there for a long time. If not, we'll know soon enough to forestall more trouble of the type you've been through. It's chancy, but if Raven thought it was going to blow up in our faces, he'd not have asked you to meet me here. Is it a go?" Sting nodded her assent.

  "Good." I started to smile and feel proud of myself, but Green Lucifer went and spoiled it. His face scrunched up as if he were about to throw a temper tantrum, but then the expression eased everywhere except around his eyes. "And now the minority report?"

  "I just want one thing from you, Kies." He hissed the last letter of my name like a snake. "Who was behind the plot to kill us?" I sh
ook my head. "Not part of the deal. You hired us to stop them, not mount them on a trophy wall."

  "You needn't worry, we'll do our own killing," he sneered at me.

  "Hey, Greenie, this is the real world." I let the Old One growl through my throat as I rubbed my right hand over my silver wolf's-head pendant. "Any of us with Raven are willing to do wetwork, but not to salve your ego. So, chummer, you've got what you've got."

  "What I've got is an anti-elf racist protecting more of the same." He balled his fists and hammered them down on the table, nearly upsetting my beer. "We've had people dying out there. We've had elven blood running in the streets. Someone has to pay."

  My eyes started a slow shift from green to silver, with the black Killer Rings circling the iris. "Someone is paying. TAB is paying a wergeld that will make things better for your people."

  "Tell that to the dead."

  My right hand contracted into a fist. "I've seen the streets run with blood, chummer, and I've leaked my fair share into them, too. It's damned easy to call for blood when you aren't going to be the one shedding it. And you can't tell me, Greenie, that a single death at TAB will make life better for those who live in Denny Park."

  He started to reply hotly, but Sting stopped him. "Your deal is acceptable and, if TAB upholds its part of the bargain, we will let the matter drop." She glared at Greenie, and he nodded his head as much as his stony rage made possible. "We are indebted to you and Raven and even your friend, Dempsey."

  "Raven will send you a bill," I said, smiling, "and you probably already have a message from Dempsey waiting for you at your crib." I used the bottle cap in my left hand to scratch a tenth line beneath my name, then snapped Green Lucifer's head back with a right jab. He bounced off the rear of the booth, then his forehead dented the table just before his unconscious form slid beneath it. "I, on the other hand, consider us even."

  Designated Hitter

  The pitch came screaming in at 153 kph, but the black man's bat whipped around yet faster. With a bone-breaking crack the baseball shot away like a satellite planted on top of an Ares booster rocket. I watched the white pellet sail off on its ballistic arc through the Seattle Kingdome's still atmosphere. It dwindled and disappeared over the top of the Dominion Pizza sign out at the 131-meter mark. The center-fielder just waved at the ball as it flew by.

  I clapped appreciatively as the hitter left the batting cage. "Damn, Spike, that was a shot. One thirty-one and it cleared the fence clean."

  Jimmy "Spike" Mackelroy smiled broadly. "Yeah, I got good wood on that one." He flipped the bat around and thrust the knobby end toward me. "You should take some cuts, Wolf."

  I choked out a gasp-laugh. "I don't think that would be such a good idea, Spike. The last time I hit a ball I was using a broomstick as a bat and we were playing on asphalt, not this fancy astroturf." I toed the plastic grass with my right foot. "Besides, your pitcher's throwing them faster than I like to drive, and his curve practically pulls a U-turn out there."

  Spike draped a massive arm across my shoulders and steered me toward the batting cage. "Practice is almost over and there's no one in the Dome here who will laugh at you." He slapped me on the back. "You're in a uniform. You might as well do some hitting."

  As much as I wanted to protest that if I was hitting I couldn't be keeping my eye out for trouble, the little kid inside me desperately hungered for the chance to step up to the plate. "All right, you've got a victim. You aren't recording this, are you?"

  "Wolf, I wouldn't do that to you?"

  As I shucked the navy-blue Seattle Seadogs training jacket1, Jimmy got me a batting helmet. "Strap this on. You're not chromed, are you?"

  "Nope. The only chips in me are the nachos we had for lunch."

  Handing me the helmet, he flipped a switch on the back that started a little green LED blinking. I pulled the helmet on and noticed the faint green glow tinting the full faceplate. The helmet had been fashioned of high-impact plastics and didn't feel particularly heavy, even though I knew it contained batteries to power the faceplate.

  "Wolf, take a look at this." Jimmy picked up one of the baseballs that had squirted under the batting cage's canopy. He held it under a small lamp built into the batting cage. As he rotated it slowly, I saw a purplish grid play like faerie light over its white horsehide. On the helmet's faceplate I saw a nearly life-size simulacrum of the ball, complete with grid, track along with the ball's movement.

  "The helmet tracks the ball?"

  Jimmy nodded and slowly stood. "Up there, in the roof, there's an ultraviolet light projector that provides the illumination for the grid to show up to our eyes-or, in your case, on the helmet's faceplate. In the case of most jacked hitters, the helmet would interface with the hitter's biosoft and send an impulse that would direct his swing to connect with the ball. In your case you'll get a projection of where the ball will be, but you have to use your own judgment as to when to swing."

  1I had actually planned to refer to the Seadogs as the Mariners in this portion of my memoirs, but the word-processing software Valerie set me up with seems to be determined to avoid use of the word Mariner.

  I heard some laughter and looked over toward the bullpen. The pitchers had gathered to watch me, no doubt certain they'd see someone yet worse than themselves at the plate. In the two days I'd been around the team, they'd given me something of a wide berth, which I didn't mind. The last thing I needed was a bunch of practical jokers trying to give me a hotfoot while I was trying to figure out how the team was being sabotaged on their pennant run.

  Just before I stepped into the batting cage, I looked up at the mound. The practice pitcher had been shooed away by a tall, stocky player with a pug nose and broad grin. I turned back to Jimmy. "You guys have been planning this, haven't you?" I pointed toward the mound in an imitation of a gesture my pitcher had once made famous. "I may not be the world's greatest baseball aficionado, but even I know Babe Ruth had a hot hand on the mound."

  Jimmy shook his head. "Don't worry. Ken's not wired from those years."

  Babe plucked a ball out of the basket behind the mound. "C'mon, Wolf, they never let me pitch. You aren't afraid of me, are you?"

  I let a low growl rumble from my throat as I dug in on the left side of the plate. "I just hate southpaws, that's all, Babe."

  He reared back and threw.

  The helmet picked up the ball as it left his hand. In an instant the computer dropped a box around it, then drew a line straight from that original box to a point low and tight across my knees. A series of green boxes then plotted the course of the ball as it actually came in. The direct line readjusted itself as the ball began to break, but by the time I'd seen and tried to digest all the information, the pitch thudded into the batting cage.

  Up on the Scoreboard someone toted up a strike. Giggling sounded from the dugout, and the outfielders slowly started trotting in. Babe beamed and armed himself with another baseball.

  "Don't let it get to you, Wolf." Jimmy's voice soothed some of my embarrassment as I tightened my grip on the bat. "Just relax. When you see the first line, take a cut. You'll get a piece of it. The helmet is tough for all of us."

  "Yeah, but you get paid to do this."

  Babe's second pitch came in and I knew I'd seen that track before. I stepped into the ball, but I didn't quite manage to get all of my bat on the carbon-copy pitch. My hit popped straight up, then shot back down as the ball ricocheted from the cage's steel skeleton. I jumped back and dodged it.

  More laughter from the dugout started my cheeks burning anew. A second strike appeared on the score-board and someone triggered a computer graphic showing a cartoon figure swinging and missing bigtime. One of the pitchers flopped over onto his back as the breeze from my cut reached him.

  You do not have to tolerate this, Long Tooth,the Old One snarled in my head.Let me give you my quickness and strength. Then you will show them.

  I shook my head. Ringing the practice field, four watcher spirits monitored the area f
or magic. For me to invoke the Wolf spirit in a real game would result in my being ejected from the league forever. Here, in practice, it would attract unwanted attention, and it had been agreed upon earlier that such a thing was not a good idea.

  I held my hand out to Babe and backed out of the batter's box. "Ever have a desire to burn one down the third-base line into those clowns?"

  Jimmy chuckled under his breath. "Yeah, back in double-A when I was starting out. Pitchers can be hell on you because they're out in the bullpen without adult supervision most of the time."

  "I know. When I was out there earlier they were teaching me how to spit." "Now there's a skill for the Fifth World." Jimmy hooked his fingers through the netting on the cage. "What would you do if Babe was shooting a gun at you?"

  "I'd shoot him back."

  "Same dif here, only the bullet is bigger and you're sharing it with him."

  "Gotcha." I reached up and turned the helmet off. "I think I'm set now."

  "Go get 'em." Jimmy waved at the outfielders to back up. "Longball hitter stepping up, boys. Get on your horses."

  Babe wound up and delivered a solid fastball. It came straight down the pipe and I swung all the way through the ball. I was late on the swing, so the ball hooked out into foul territory, but it was a long way out in foul territory. That surprised Babe because his next pitch came in high, leaving the count at 1 and 2 on the Scoreboard.

  "Wolf, this'll be his curve. Tight, golf-shot it."

  Just as Jimmy predicted, Babe's curve arced in and broke down. I stepped out and snapped the bat around, connecting rock solid. The ball exploded off my bat and passed just above Williams' glove as the third baseman leaped up at it. Beyond him it skipped off the turf and tucked itself into the corner of the outfield.

  Behind me Jimmy chuckled. "That's a double for sure, maybe even a triple. You've got good wheels."

  "You're being generous."

  "Never going to fit undercover, Wolf, if you don't brag a bit."

  "Just taking my lead from you, Jim."

  With the rest of his pitches, Babe kept me honest, but I got pieces of more than I missed. As he began to tire and I got into my rhythm, stroking the ball felt really good. Finally, as we both agreed it was to be the last pitch, I pointed toward the outfield. "This time I'm serious."