by Jack Lance
Randall sat at the bar behind them as Bailey sat on the sofa chairs with the Sagar family. He hadn’t been offered a seat so didn’t presume.
Randall listened as they talked between themselves for a while. They were talking about Bailey and Bede Sagar, and how happy they were together, and some of the soppy things they had done together this week. It sounded like they had spent a lot of time with the children that had been saved from the now stigmatized escape attempt by South Syndicate, in which so many people had died. Randall hoped Bailey wouldn’t mention that Randall had been a key figure in it, since he didn’t need a stigma dragging his professional life down even further. There was no mention of it and eventually everyone was so drunk the conversation dried up and everyone started singing, taking to the microphone jacked to the holo-theatre at the side. The holotheatre had a tracing mirror of each singer as they took the mic, with the hologram made up to look like a famous figure or fun character.
The singing went on late into the night, until Randall was so irritated he truly considered thumping the lot of them.
Jayne wasn’t drunk, Randall had noticed. She had sipped her only drink of the night, and now was making excuses to leave. Bailey himself had drank like a fish, but stood up and skipped quite soberly around to Randall, who stiffened as Bailey said “Ok. Trial period over. I’ll take you on. Just don’t forget the interview is never over as far as I’m concerned, so stay sharp.”
“Err. Thank you very much.” Randall said, startled by this perfectly coherent conversation.
Bailey then turned and waved to Jayne.
“Let me see you to the tram.” Bailey said to her, and she walked primly around to them.
The three left the Sagars lying around on their seats with a couple on the floor, on the verge of passing out. Bede was slumped awkwardly in her chair with a vague smile on her face, too drunk to notice who was coming and going.
The three left the Sagar home and stopped for a moment as Bailey fiddled with a set of keys, and she and Randall watched as Bailey’s extremely expensive sports car rolled up beside them. He had apparently procured it at great risk to himself, from his home in South Syndicate before it had been plundered by the scavenging gangs, or so he had said.
Bailey then drove them from the village and the house on the hill, to an adjacent district. They got out at the bottom of a long flight of metal steps leading up to a tram platform, and left the car by the road.
Jayne and Bailey walked a few steps ahead of Randall as they climbed the drafty stairs.
“You like Bede?” Jayne asked Bailey,
“You will see soon, how much I love Miss Sagar.” he said.
“Ooh. Sounds exiting. Wedding bells?”
“Don’t presume.” he said. “I take it you need a wage? Thom Gubichayan called my phone a few times today.”
“Yes.” she said. “My home and my livelihood were all destroyed last week. Big fight between the local gang and Border Sec. It came out of nowhere. Very strange, actually.”
They made it to the top and stood on the dark platform. It was labelled as ‘Tram Station Y-4’ on a sign above them.
“I’ll take a chance on you, Jayne. You’re a good person and I respect that.”
“Thank you.” she said shyly, as a train rolled to a halt at the platform.
“Be at my main office first thing tomorrow. I will need someone to answer calls in my absence. I’m going away for a while and I’m not sure when I’m gong to be back.”
Randall twitched at hearing this. Did this mean he was planning to escape? It didn’t sound like it, so it had to be the other dome. There was nowhere else to go in a place of 20 miles diameter.
Bailey touched her shoulder and kissed her check, and then Jayne departed. Both Bailey and Randall watched her as they train carried her away into the tunnel, and then she was gone.
Bailey turned and walked past Randall, not looking at him and said “Warehouse A. Be there early tomorrow.”
Randall watched him make speed down to the car and race away loudly through the towering buildings. He stood for a moment in the petrol stinking place and then left also, on the next train to Thom’s district.
Machiavellian Doo-Wap.
Jayne made it back to the factory and closed the tall door behind her, shutting out the sound of the vulgar dogs.
She walked to the coat railing and neatly hung up her coat, then put her purse square to the side of the shoe cabinet. She took a step back and put her hands at her sides and stood a moment to compose, then turned and walked along the tall corridor to the living hall.
Finding nobody home, she undid and shook her hair, and walked to the seating beside the holotheatre wall. She turned on one lamp and sat at the corner most seat, beside one of the bubbling fish tanks, and sat with her hands on her knees staring forward, not thinking, but waiting for her thoughts to begin again.
After sitting a while she decided that the gang hadn’t come home when they said they would, and decided to go check in the weird storm drain.
Jayne walked around to the back of the factory, and down to the storm drain entrance, then held the bars of the grating while looking within.
She heard voices before her eyes adjusted fully to the darkness, and as the pool within came to sight she saw the gang talking to Bailey’s bodyguard, Flynn Randall who had apparently come this way too. She stood, not caring if they saw her, listening to their conversation.
Randall was sitting on one of the tall, metal siphon tanks with his legs dangling over the side, while Thom and Sorbe swam in the deep pool. The others skated between the curved walls of the tunnel, skimming precariously close to the edge of the water.
“You were right.” Randall said. “He’s definitely planning to escape. You should have seen it.”
“But Old Gang?” Thom said treading water. “He can’t possibly think he can trust them.”
“I don’t know what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s out of his mind, or just plain incompetent."
"Nah. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. Too many coincidences.” Thom said, and smiled as he noticed Jayne watching. “Welcome back, Lady.”
“Yeah.” she smiled and squeezed through the bars. “You talking about Aaron Bailey again?”
"Who else." Thom said while backstroking across the pool.
Randall looked a little nervous, realizing the conflict of interest.
“Oh relax, Flynn.” she waved a hand at him as she carefully stepped down to the wet floor. “Me and Thom know all about his little games. What were you talking about this time? An escape?”
Jayne sat down on a damp patch beside the pool and Thom stood up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, making her dress even wetter as she leaned her head back to rub against him.
Jayne didn’t care, so Randall noticed and said “Hmm. Didn’t see that one coming. Anyway, yeah he’s definitely helping Old Gang escape. Thom thinks he’ll go with them, cutting the rest of us out of the equation.”
“Did you expect him to cut you in?” Jayne shrugged, and Thom unlocked his arms and went back to swimming.
“It would be polite. We all work with him.” Randall said. “I mean what are friends for?”
“I wouldn't trust him with something so dangerous." Jayne said, then looked up at Randall where he sat over them. "So I take it you’re interested in that sort of thing again? You’re not scared of going back in The Shell?”
“I am scared of going back in The Shell, but I’m always interested in getting out of this ditch of a place. I don’t see anything I can sign up to with this plan though.”
“Oh,” Jayne turned her head to look at Thom, behind her in the pool, “I got that job. I’ll be filling in public relations while Bailey’s away.”
“And that’s another thing!” Randall yelled. “Where the hell is he going all of a sudden? You won’t believe what he was talking about with the Fincle fuckers.”
Thom waved his hand at him dismissively.
“The mo
re I hear, the less I believe he’s actually going out with OG. But if that’s all true, then you have to ask why is he so interested in them? They won’t have come up with a decent plan, so anything of any merit will have been provided by Bailey. So what is he up to? Where's the profit in any of this?"
"And what’s he doing in that warehouse all night every night?” Sorbe said from behind them where he waded.
"And now I think he's tried to set me up with Thom." Jayne said looking over her shoulder at him.
"And succeeded." Randal added with finality. "This is a mess."
“We're on top of this.” Jayne said quietly. “We suspected maybe he set up that attack the other day... but we haven't found any evidence yet right? I'll keep an eye on him but so far he's managing to pass himself off as an all round nice guy.”
She noticed Thom and Randall looking at each other.
“This rabbit hole goes deeper than you think, little girl.” Randall spoke first.
He pushed from the tank and sailed through the air, landing on the floor in his heavy boots. “Both me and this lot have noticed some irregularities concerning Aaron Bailey going way back to the first escape. We may be dealing with something none of us have ever encountered before.”
"What do you mean?" Jayne said squinting up at him.
Thom stepped out of the pool still wearing his wet workpants, and shook his hair while walking around to her. The other skaters continued to fly around the walls of the pool room, a little too close for Jayne’s comfort.
“Remember I told you I saved his life?” Thom said and squatted down beside Jayne.
“Sure thing.” she said shrugging.
“Well I found him outside the psycho wing, all beat up. I brought him into South Syndicate to recover, and within days he was in on the top secret escape plan. And within the week the escape had gone bizarrely wrong, everyone was dead, and South Syndicate was broken up by Border Sec and Old Gang. And strangely, he himself survives, with all the children involved, which he used to win the affections of the Sagar family, and the romantic affection of your friend Bede Sagar. All within a week of my bringing him back from the dead. All this and not to mention his identity theft of the Importer-Exporter Gen Colec, and now it seems a similar ID spoof within Old Gang territory. You see? This is bigger than just us.”
Jayne stared silently at Thom as he stood up and walked over beside Randall.
Mach Hadron skated around to where they were and skidded to a halt. He panted while speaking in his sharp tones “We’re not saying all of this is true. But if only half of it is true then we are right to be concerned?”
Jayne nodded definitely and said “Well I start work there tomorrow. You got me that job.”
Thom said “I know. But it’s the only thing I could get. And you agreed we should try and figure out his game with us, which you can see now is more than likely to be true.”
“You think he killed all those kids’ parents? To use them as bargaining chips?” she looked down, shaking her head slightly.
“We don’t know.” Randall said honestly.
“I've tried hacking him before. I paid someone in East Syndicate to steal the Colec company hard drive a while back. He couldn’t get close, and a little later he turned up dead. It's a dangerous game if we take it that far.” Thom said. "But if we steal his plans then we can take over the escape ourselves, and kick that bastard out of the equation."
“Interesting. And you think this data is stored on his hard drive? How can you be certain?” Jayne looked up.
“It will have records of his personal activities for one thing. And probably any other activity he’s been involved in, under the guise of company business, legal or otherwise. Gen Colec’s company is the perfect cover. We can take the rest by... more old fashioned means.”
“I see.” she said quietly. “Where is the hard drive?”
“In his phone. His multi-communicator.” Randall said.
“Why do you ask?” Thom said and walked to her. He held her hands while squatting beside her.
“If I try to steal it I’ll get caught.” she admitted.
“All you need to do is copy it. You hold a backup needle into it for a few seconds. Then bring it back home to us. Or email it to me over the phone. A master hacker like you is perfect for the job.” Thom winked.
She raised an eyebrow and looked at Thom.
“Then maybe I can help out.” she said.
The next morning Jayne had met Bailey on the dark, steam washed tram platform by the Sagar Warehousing building in the metropolis. They made for the nearby elevator cubicle and let it take them through to where she would be working.
The lights scrolled over their faces as the glass platform took them through the tunnels within the building, until eventually they rose slowly into a clear cubicle, and stepped out into the loading area on the opposite side of the warehouses to the offices.
It was a huge hall strewn with rail tracks. There were tall and broad rigs being first loaded with heavy goods crates and then slowly wheeling along two parallel tracks to the many massive openings into the warehouses.
Jayne was taken aback but pushed herself to follow as Bailey made his way quickly out into the place. She followed his steps across track after track and the concrete flats in between, until they came to the nearest warehouse opening. As they entered the main thoroughfare of the warehouse one of the huge rigs mounted the tracks behind them and rolled overhead. Jayne flinched slightly, and shook her head to stave off a swamped sensory dizziness.
“This is the main production route.” Bailey shouted to her over the howling machinery within the place. We load boxes of food, energy cells etc here and then redistribute to the villages as and when they’re needed. We supply directly to stores that require something a little less… robotic in their diet. And it’s quite a big market.”
“Is that all you do here?” Jayne said flatly.
Bailey smiled at her and said “You’ve been talking to Thom I take it. Well yes it’s true we do hold a limited amount of narcotics in the warehouse. Part of my cousins business was to distribute it to the smaller gangs to be sold on.”
“For East Syndicate?” she probed further.
“Well that is correct. But if it weren’t them it would be Old Gang and they cut their pills will all kinds of hell. It also helps keep the books freed of debt.” Bailey said honestly.
The rig had finished unloading it's steel containers onto the shelves and flew back over them as Bailey pointed to the far wall that was now in sight.
“It’s just up there.” he said and tapped her woollen sleeve, signalling her to make speed.
They walked to a rickety metal stairway leading up the wall to a door, that opened into the tall gulley containing the office units.
Coming from Warehouse A they entered the nearest side doors of its office unit and paused before a tasteful line of plants amongst the glow of a security forcefield. A square arch of metal stood in the middle, nano-scanning them as they walked through to the main offices. There were rows of desks here, some occupied by stern looking employees, and a couple of gaping windows looking out from the back wall over the main warehouse they had walked through.
There was a slow ticking clock in the office unit of Colec Import and Export. It was the first thing Jayne noticed on walking through the main door in the long wall of plants.
The clock stood by door to the head office, closed off with a boarded wall from the rest of the open tops. It had been built against the back wall with the center window all to itself.
Bailey stepped forward and knocked on the door. There was no answer so he opened the door and walked inside. There were two chairs facing each other at a desk below the window looking out over a gully between warehouse shelves.
Jayne stood and waited in the doorway, but found that Bailey was now somewhat ignoring her. He began sifting through the papers before him and looked as if he may soon become deeply engrossed in the work there.
Jayne coughed as she watched him and then took the initiative and walked in, closing the door carefully behind her.
Within the confined space, the ticking of the old clock ticked off each second of business, whether it be wasted or won. She had worked in a similar environment, a long time ago.
“Bailey?” she said impatiently, and Bailey smiled and gestured to the chair opposite him.
She sat and looked across at her new boss.
“Just get comfortable.” he said. “Then I’ll give you a list of names to run down. I need you to memorize who and what they are, for future reference.”
Jayne arranged the desk to clear enough space to work, and Bailey handed her a holo-pad, that extended to a holographic dish comprised of a screen and keyboard. It was a small arrangement, but after tweaking a few settings the screen was expanded by two times to be easier on the eye.
She spent the rest of the morning scrolling through the names of Gen Colec’s business contacts that Aaron Bailey seemed to have befriended in the months since he had stolen the business from him. Jayne now knew the alleged history of the company in which she now worked, so had no illusions about what she was looking at. It catalogued the taking in and shipping out of ‘candles’ that was undoubtedly the legal cover for narcotic pills.
Every so often Bailey’s multi-com rang, which he answered and relayed certain information to his contacts.
As lunch time neared, Jayne decided to usher things along a little.
“After lunch, maybe… I could do that?” she said, and pointed at the multi-com on the desk.
“You think you can take my calls?” he said with a note of sarcasm. “You don’t know anything about the business. What would you say?”
“I just mean I could answer, and hand it over to you. Like a secretary. Just to get me used to them.”
“When the time comes, I’ll get as much business out the way as possible, so you won’t have to deal with anything critical. And I won’t be away that long.”