Binding Foxgirls III

by Simon Archer

  “Oh, not just yachts,” she said. “All kinds of ships. Though now that you mention it, it hasn’t happened a lot lately. This was the first one in a while. But that’s just kind of hostile territory, we’ve always figured.”

  “Okay, what kind of ship was it?” I asked. “What was it doing out there?”

  “Oh, I think there was some night guard who was late for his shift,” she said. “Just a small ferry to take him out there. Didn’t think much of it, though it’s always a shame to lose people.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “So basically, you’ve lost a ship going to the Void the same general time that the break out was happening there.”

  “I never thought of it like that, but certainly,” Jami said thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess so. Like I said, we’re used to it. Didn’t think much of it.”

  “I understand,” I said, getting more excited by the minute. “How many people do you think it could hold? All the guys they broke out?”

  “Oh no,” she said with a laugh. “That’s just a small boat. Wouldn’t get very far, and I saw on the holovision that you lost at least a dozen guys. That boat wouldn’t hold more than three or four.”

  “And it didn’t come back to shore?” I asked. “You’re certain of that?”

  “Certain as I can be,” she said. “Which is pretty darn certain. We’ve got cameras set up all along the shoreline. Would’ve seen one come in, there’s no doubt about it. I always look hard for ‘em, and I gave the footage for that night over to you guys anyway.” I looked to Malthe to confirm the accuracy of this. He nodded.

  “Yeah, I looked over it, and there was nothing,” he said.

  “What about the shoreline around the Void?” Clem asked. “Did you have any cameras there?”

  “Yeah, but they were all destroyed along with the ones in the prison,” Jami said sadly. “Too bad, those were brand new cameras. We finally got some funding once the prison got up and running.”

  “I’m… sorry to hear that,” I said. “So you don’t think this boat could’ve carried the guys who broke out somewhere else?”

  “Somewhere else?” she repeated. “What do you mean, somewhere else? If you mean somewhere like the north side, I don’t think so. As I said, the boat was small. Only made for a short voyage like from here to the Void.”

  “Okay,” I said, giving her a warm smile. “I think that’s all I need to know. Thank you. And, uh, if you don’t mind, please don’t tell anyone else we stopped by. This is a… sensitive issue, you understand.”

  “Sure thing, dude, I hope you find your guy or whatever,” Jami said absent mindedly, her focus already back on the papers on her desk.

  I led the rest of my team and Iggy back out onto the docks.

  “Listen here, Iggy,” I said, taking the man’s arm gently. “When’s your next trip out?”

  “Huh?” he asked. “Oh, you mean with the cargo? Later today.” I exchanged a look with Cindra. I could already see in her eyes and our bond that she was on board with this decision. They all were.

  “Okay,” I said. “Who else is going with you?”

  “Oh, it’s just me,” Iggy said, to my surprise.

  “Just you?” I repeated. “You’re going to do it alone?”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve been doin’ this for years,” Iggy said as if it were nothing. “That little ship out there can’t hold much. Sometimes I bring one of the new guys with me, help train him, but not this time. Just me and the sea, just like it’s meant to be. They don’t trust a lot of guys to make runs alone like that, but they trust me.” Iggy stood up a little straighter and puffed out his chest at this as if he were very proud of this.

  “That’s… impressive,” I said, exchanging another look with the foxgirls. I got the sense I wasn’t the best one to make this particular request. Kinley, understanding my meaning immediately, jumped in to make the save.

  “Well, Iggy, what would you say about having a little help this time?” she asked, crossing over to him and linking her arm with his. “A little company to keep you from going crazy out on the sea.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Iggy said, scratching his head again. “I’ve never really gotten lonely out there, per se. I love being out there in the great blue ocean….”

  “What I mean is, Iggy,” Kinley tried again, interjecting herself into his thoughts. “We need a ride out to the next continent. And we were wondering if we could hitch a ride with you.” Iggy looked predictably flummoxed by this request.

  “You wanna go elsewhere?” he asked, incredulous. “But why?”

  “Well, we think we can find the guy we’re lookin’ for that way,” Kinley explained. “But you’re not going to tell anyone about that, right?”

  “Uh, no…” Iggy said. “Your secret’s safe with me, girls, of course, but I just don’t understand why you’d think this Achilles character was out there in the first place instead of still here in the city.” Kinley looked at me, and I told her with my eyes and through our bond what to say.

  “Well, you just let us worry about that, okay?” she urged him. “You just give us the ride and let us handle the rest.” Iggy looked around at all of us, still confused as could be.

  “Well,” he said, scratching his head one more time. “I suppose it couldn’t really hurt if you really wanna go. There’s enough food in the cabin for all of us to last awhile, and there are a couple of extra rooms down there, too.”

  “It’s a plan then,” Kinley said, smiling up at him. “We’ll meet you back here this afternoon for your voyage, okay? Just not a word of this to anyone.”

  Iggy blinked at us as we turned to leave, still obviously confused as could be. “Sure thing, girls, whatever you say.”

  “What are we going to tell the media?” Semra hissed in my ear as we made our way back to where the air cars were waiting for us.

  “I don’t know,” I said, pulling out my E-pad. “I’m calling an emergency board meeting. We need to discuss this, figure out how best to proceed.”

  “Who all’s going?” Semra asked. “All of us?”

  “We’ll decide that in the board meeting, too,” I said.

  The foxgirls didn’t like this answer.

  “We’re coming with you, remember?” Kira asked, her eyes pleading.

  “There’s no fucking way you’re leaving us behind, Nic,” Kinley said, her eyes piercing straight through me.

  “This isn’t even a discussion,” Cindra informed me, stopping in her tracks and swiveling to face me with her hands on her hips, which she always did when she meant business.

  “I know, I know,” I said, holding up my hands as if to say I’d given in. “I’m not even going to bother trying to argue with you about that anymore. Besides, you could come in handy. The question is who else to take.”

  “Oh,” Cindra said, not having expected this answer. “Okay.” As usual, she didn’t seem to know what to do when I didn’t put up a fight like she’d been preparing all day for this argument and hadn’t expected me to just give in like that. She probably had, now that I thought about it.

  “Right,” I said. “So we’ll just discuss this at the board meeting. It shouldn’t take too long to get there, the streets are deserted. Gunnar and the other driver and fly as fast as they like.”

  By then we’d reached the air cars. The foxgirls, Malthe, and I ducked into Gunnar’s vehicle, while the others went to the one behind it.

  “Good to see you back all in one piece,” Gunnar said, looking relieved as we took our seats and shut the doors behind us. “Where to this time, Mr. Joch?”

  “We’re headed back to TelCorp headquarters,” I told him. “Do you think you can get us there faster than usual?”

  “I’ll do my best, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said with a grin, sweeping up into the sky at an accelerated rate. “That’s the one good thing about all this. I’ve got the streets all to myself.” And so we watched as the ocean disappeared behind us, and the tall skyscrapers of Termina’s nightclub and financial distric
ts rose on the horizon in front of us.

  12

  The reporters were still all clustered around the front of TelCorp headquarters, though there were fewer of them now.

  “Just drop us off away from the building again,” I instructed Gunnar, rolling my eyes when I saw that the throng of reporters was still there. “There’s no reason to sick them all on you this time.”

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said with a sigh of relief. I messaged Semra to tell her driver to do the same.

  Gunnar swept the air car down and tucked it in an alleyway about a block away from the nearest reporters. They were so focused on TelCorp that they didn’t bother to turn and notice us landing, and we were far enough away that they wouldn’t notice who was inside, anyway.

  “Thanks, Gunnar,” I said as I exited the vehicle, watching as the other air car swept down to follow Gunnar’s lead.

  “Should I wait here for you, Mr. Joch?” he asked. “Will you need me again today?”

  “Um, yes, I think so, if you don’t mind,” I told him. “We’ll just have one last trip for a long while, I think.” Gunnar narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously.

  “What does that mean, Mr. Joch?” he asked. “You’re not in any trouble now, are you?”

  “No more than usual,” I said with a hollow laugh. “Do me a favor and take some time off after today, okay?”

  “I’d be more than happy to, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said, sounding relieved at this if still a little concerned for me. He was a good guy, Gunnar.

  By then, Semra, Clem, and Lin were all approaching us from where they left their air car.

  “What’re we going to do about these damn reporters?” Clem asked as the second air car swept off, leaving only Gunnar behind to wait for us.

  “We’ll just have to press past them again,” I said sourly.

  Clem made a face.

  “Well, I don’t like it any more than you do, but there’s no other way in,” I told him. “Just no one say anything, okay? Let me do all the talking. Plus, Semra’s good at scaring those leeches.”

  “Damn straight I am,” Semra said with a grin. “It’s one of my many talents.”

  A few of the reporters in the crowd had noticed us by then, and almost as one, the entire throng of them came running at us. I groaned as several cameras and microphones were stuck in my face. Again.

  “Now hold on, we need to get in our building,” I told them, holding up my hands to show we came in peace. “We need to get to our workplace. I promise you we’ll have an update for you in an hour or two.”

  This sent some excited murmurs throughout the crowd.

  “Mr. Joch, do you have any comment on the allegations that you no longer have Termina’s best interests at heart, and that Achilles Tibor was actually trying to protect the city from your plans to destroy it?” a particularly smarmy little guy with a press pass around his neck asked me, jutting a microphone dangerously close to my face. I pushed it away with as much restraint as I could muster and gave him a very fake smile.

  “You can’t possibly take those conspiracy theories seriously,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the nearest camera. “It’s madness. We all saw with our own eyes and on our holovision screens the havoc that Achilles Tibor and his people wreaked on the city of Termina in recent weeks. We are doing everything in our power to find him and bring him to justice for this most recent offense. Everything else is just white noise, as far as I’m concerned.”

  And with that, I started pressing against the mass of people, slowly but surely making my way to the door, with the rest of my team following close behind me.

  “Move out of the way, or we’re going to release a smoke bomb and call law enforcement on you for clogging up the streets,” Semra barked as we made our way through the crowd. They acquiesced reluctantly, afraid of her as ever. Semra never gave across the impression that these were empty threats. She meant business.

  The crowd continued to watch us as we made our way to the elevator, pressing against the transparent front wall of the building. One even tried to slip inside with us, but I grabbed him by the arm and gruffly thrust him back out into the crowd, shutting the doors tight behind me and holding them until the automatic lock kicked in.

  “I fucking hate those guys,” Clem spat.

  “They’re just doing their jobs,” Kira said, though she gave the reporters a particularly dirty look as we walked away from them.

  “Well, they’re not any good at their jobs anyway,” Kinley said, and we all laughed.

  The rest of the board was waiting for us in the board room, already at work since early that morning.

  “What’s going on, Joch?” a businessman named Pace asked when we walked in the door. “The news stations are all accusing us of trying to destroy the city.”

  “I know,” I said darkly, taking my seat and indicating for the others that came in with me to do the same. “Just don’t pay them any mind. They have no idea what they’re doing, anyway.”

  “Don’t pay them any mind?” a friend of Lin’s from the non-profit sector named Bel asked, incredulous. “We’re losing public support! Have we made any ground on finding Achilles Tibor? Because that’s the only way I see any of this getting any better.”

  “Relax,” Lin told her friend. “We’re working on it, and we do have some news. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have called you here.”

  “But have you found him?” Pace asked sharply. All eyes were trained on me now.

  “No,” I admitted. “We haven’t found him yet. But we have a decent idea of where he is. Or at least, where he isn’t.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Pace asked, shaking his head is a combination of confusion and frustration.

  “Okay, so before I tell you any of this, I need you all to promise me something, okay?” I asked, looking around the room at everyone.

  Some of them hesitated, but they all nodded in the end.

  “All right,” I said, nodding to them in turn. “I need you to promise me that you’re not going to tell anyone outside this room about anything that I’m about to tell you, no matter what.”

  “That’s already the policy, isn’t it?” Bel asked, her eyes wide with concern.

  “Yes, but I need you to really promise me this time,” I explained. “I’m choosing to trust you all with this sensitive information this time because I’m really going to need you on my side in the coming days and weeks. So I need you to keep this all secret, even if you think I’m completely insane. Which you probably will to be fair. Okay?”

  “You’re scaring us, Nic,” Bel said.

  “Just spit it out,” another board member, an associate of Pace’s named Granger, said.

  “I need you to promise me first,” I said. “Each and every one of you.”

  And so they did. I went around the whole room, one at a time, calling on them each in turn. And they each swore to me that they would keep this secret.

  “And I will know if you break my confidence,” I warned them one last time after I was done making my rounds around the room. “I will know, and you will face the consequences.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Granger asked. “Are you gonna throw us in the Void?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Nothing like that. It’s just that I really need you to stick with me here. And you will be fired, and I will make sure no one hired you again. But TelCorp doesn’t control the government anymore. I can’t throw you in prison for breaking my confidence. But I can end your careers and livelihoods. Not to mention that if you did blab about this, you’d be hurting this city and its people immensely.”

  “Okay, okay,” Pace said eagerly. “Just spit it out, man, you’ve got us on the edge of our seats.”

  “Right,” I said. “So, we don’t think Achilles Tibor is in Termina.” One after another, all of the board members’ mouths dropped open, all around the table.

  “What?” Pace asked, almost laughing but thinking better of it at the
last minute, though I still noticed and gave him a piercing look. “Where could he possibly be then?”

  “He’s somewhere else in the world,” I said. “On one of the continents, most likely. Although I suppose it could be another island. Are there any other islands left? It doesn’t matter, never mind.”

  “One of the continents?” Pace repeated, laughing for real this time. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am,” I said darkly. “I’m damn well serious, and you’d do well to listen to me. He’s not anywhere on Termina or the Void. Not on the surface, not in the tunnels. We’ve looked everywhere. You all know that as well as anyone.”

  “But Nic,” Bel said, shaking her head in confusion. “No one goes anywhere else in the world. No one except the shippers, that is, and they’re only there for a short time.”

  “Think about it, though,” I said. “Where better to hide from us than where we would never think to look? And then there’s the matter of what Achilles said to me that day when I captured him. There was more to the world than just Termina, he said.”

  “Didn’t we agree he was just taunting you?” another board member named Stel asked. “He was just trying to mess with you when he knew he was defeated.”

  “That’s what I thought before, too,” I said. “But he wasn’t defeated, was he? He found a way out. And there’s no trace of him, and there’s a ship missing that went to the Void that night. It’s all adding up to him being somewhere else, somewhere we would never think to look.”

  “But why?” Granger asked. “Everything worth having is here in Termina.”

  “Why is it that we think that?” I asked, looking around at them each in turn. “Why is it, really? Because that’s what we’ve always been told? Or is it something else, something more sinister. Is there a reason that that’s what we’ve always been told?”

  “You sound like a nutter from Serenity General’s psych ward, Joch,” Pace said, and he was looking at me very strangely as if he really thought I was sick or something. He probably did. I should’ve expected a response like this. Honestly, it was a miracle no one had tried to put me in a straightjacket yet.