by Simon Archer
Binding Foxgirls
Book 2
Simon Archer
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
14. Achilles Tibor
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
28. Achilles Tibor
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
35. Achilles Tibor
Author’s Note
1
“To new beginnings!” I cried.
The top of the champagne bottle popped off and went flying through the air, hitting Malthe in the shoulder. The skinny little dude in shabby garments rubbed his arm, disgruntled. Foam fell all over my fingers and hands, making them sticky, but I didn’t care. I was laughing, as was everyone else in the TelCorp board room, as I filled everyone’s glass in turn, walking around the round, charcoal-colored table to do so.
“Hear, hear,” Malthe said, bringing his glass to his lips and attempting to take a drink, but he was thwarted by the bubbling foam, which dripped down his chin and fell across the front of his characteristically ratty shirt. We all laughed even harder then.
“Typical,” Cindra said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes, her dark red hair and bright eyes glistening with humor, as she was smiling just like the rest of us.
The table was full and full of energy, no less. I sat at the head, where former TelCorp CEO Elias Berg once sat, flanked by foxgirls Cindra, Kira, and Kinley at my sides. The three foxgirls had had their souls bound to mine when I overturned their other bindings to sleazy TelCorp clients. They hadn’t consented to the procedure, you see, and that discovery pushed us down the tumultuous adventure that led us here. Cindra’s sister’s ex-boyfriend, Malthe, sat to Kinley’s other side. The private eye might be physically clumsy, but he was the best damn hacker the world had ever seen. These four had all helped me overthrow Elias and take my murdered father’s company for myself nearly three months prior.
The rest of the table was populated by a smattering of allies from within and without TelCorp ranks. My old friend, another binder named Clem, was sitting next to Kira, his dirty blonde hair a little longer than it used to be, but otherwise, he had the same baby blue eyes and broad shoulders as always. When he realized how poorly the foxgirls were treated on the south side of our city, Termina, the news shocked and dismayed him, and when I’d told him the full extent of the problem after I killed Elias, he jumped at the opportunity to be a part of the solution.
Also on the board was a young human woman named Lin Sung, the daughter of Mat Sung, a member of Termina’s Parliament who TelCorp had murdered for working with my father on behalf of the foxgirls. When I tracked her down, she’d told me she’d always suspected her own dad’s death was suspicious and was quick to join forces as our fathers had.
A smattering of other TelCorp employees and friends of Malthe and the foxgirls rounded out the group. They were all handpicked and named to the board when I revamped TelCorp after I took over and fired everyone who didn’t agree with our mission. I’d had quite a few of them imprisoned, too, when I learned that they had known the extent of TelCorp’s malice and done nothing to stop it.
As easily as law enforcement could be bought in Termina, some crimes and evidence were too much for them to ignore.
“Well then, what’s next?” Clem asked, beaming.
“Next?” I laughed. “We just finished a massive construction project in which we remade nearly the entire south side of the city. Don’t you just want to relax for a little while?”
“I guess so,” Clem shrugged, “but there’s a lot more work to do, I’d expect.”
“More?” Cindra scoffed. “We’ve done a helluva lot already, haven’t we? In addition to rebuilding the south side, we’ve remade the entire Parliament, passed better legislation to strengthen existing laws protecting us foxgirls, sanctioned the other binding corps for not going along with the strengthened laws, made law enforcement larger and more independent, as well as better at actually doing their jobs.” As she rattled off this list, Cindra counted each task on her fingers, propping her feet up on the table nonchalantly. “Not to mention redoing the company’s entire business model and offering new services to replace lost revenue from nonconsensual bindings. I can’t think of what else we could possibly have to do.”
“Right, well, I’m sure we’ll think of something else to do now that we’ve finished this project,” I said, sitting back down in my seat at the head of the table and sipping my own champagne, much more elegantly than Malthe, I might add. “But for tonight, let’s just enjoy the moment, shall we?”
“Absolutely,” Clem agreed, but he clearly didn’t take the hint. “Tomorrow, I want to head back down to the docks and check on the final construction. I don’t want anything to go wrong. These people have lived in terrible conditions for long enough, and I want to keep being there personally to build trust and relationships with the community over there.” There was a familiar excited gleam in his eyes, one I’d seen over and over again past the last three months. He’d taken to his new role very well.
“Sounds like a plan.” I held up my glass to him. “Congratulations, all.”
“You have to remember, it’ll take a while for everyone to trust you again,” Kira pointed out, her bright blue eyes piercing right through me, her red hair falling around her next, framing her small face. “I mean, for a long time, our people have seen TelCorp as the source of all our problems. It’ll take more than a construction project to win them over, even a big one like this.”
Clem nodded thoughtfully, and Kinley leaned forward to speak up herself, her dark ponytail falling over her shoulder, her tail flipping and curling up behind her.
“And our people are pretty suspicious, too. At least ten people have told me just this week that they’re afraid the whole project is just an excuse to bribe them into complacency, and they are worried people will start to disappear again.”
“Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” one of the other TelCorp employees I trusted enough to promote to the board, a binder with long blonde hair named Semra, said. “If we wanted to keep using the foxgirls, we just would. There’s no need to bribe them.”
Kinley shrugged. “I didn’t say it’s rational, just that this is how a lot of people are thinking right now. How would you feel if your whole life you’d lived in fear of this evil conglomerate and then suddenly they started acting all nice and wanted your support? Wouldn’t you be suspicious of them?”
“I guess so.” Semra shrugged, but she didn’t seem convinced.
It would take a while for TelCorp employees to get used to all this. Clem was the exception, not the rule, but I’d chosen to promote Semra because I saw the potential in her. As the only female binder during Elias’s tenure at TelCorp, she’d had a lot of obstacles come in her way as she progressed through her career. I thought she more than anyone else would sympathize with the foxgirls’ plight.
“Well, soon, people will realize that things are changing here in Termina permanently,” I said, smiling at both Semra and Kinley. “I think a
lot of people on both sides of the city, and both sides of the debate, think this is just a phase. That we’ll go back to our old ways when we see how much potential money we’re losing. But they’ll figure out what’s what soon enough.”
“Smooth sailing from here, then, huh, boss?” Malthe asked, propping his own feet up on the table and resting his head in his interlocked hands. He seemed to have managed to finish off what remained of his champagne without harming himself any further.
“I hope so,” I said, “but let’s not speak too soon. We still don’t know who those mysterious people who those two TelCorp clients worked for are. And something still tells me that they have something to do with all this, because of how they were able to destroy all that guy’s tech and everything. Plus, the other binding corps still hate us. We can’t discount the possibility that they could make some trouble for us if they really want to.”
“But will they?” Lin asked. “Will they really? What incentive could they have to do that? They could lose their license and be disbanded altogether.”
“Don’t discount the motive of profit in any business venture,” I reminded her.
Lin had come from the nonprofit industry, and while her experiences there were invaluable to us, sometimes she was a bit naïve about how businesses like TelCorp operate.
“Yeah, we’ve already caught a couple of these bastards doing bindings in the streets.” Cindra shook her head and grimaced at the thought. “They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want, which is just more money to line their metaphorical pockets. We’ll have to keep crushing them and chasing these small-time binders that keep popping up now that the bindings corps can’t do much for that market anymore.”
“Sure thing,” I agreed. “We should expect to see even more of these people as time passes. While you’re right, Lin, that the other big binding corps have a lot to lose trying to perform illegal bindings, they have other revenue sources to pursue, even if they don’t like it. These small-time guys are just going to keep popping up, trying to fill the void we left when things changed.”
“And there’s a reason they’re small-time,” Clem added. “These guys couldn’t cut it at TelCorp or any of these other big companies. So while trying to perform bindings, they end up just splintering people’s souls and driving them mad. That just makes matters worse.”
“Exactly,” I said, remembering a particularly nasty incident the week before that left a foxgirl dead and a client in a coma. “I’m afraid a big piece of our job will be tracking these guys down and cleaning up their messes since law enforcement doesn’t employ binders. They have to outsource that.”
“Good thing we’ve found other profit sources,” Semra said flatly. She wasn’t the most expressive person. “Otherwise, we’d be screwed, and the black market would just run everything from now on.”
I grinned. “Yep, but don’t worry. There’s no sign of business drying up. Just like my dad always said, there’re always ethical ways to make money. These new construction projects alone are going to bring in a helluva lot of revenue from people who suddenly find the south side more desirable. Not to mention Malthe’s hacking skills beefing up everyone’s security.”
“Not to mention that our relationships being broadcast all over the nets have given people an increased interest in good old-fashioned legal bindings,” Cindra said dryly, rolling her eyes. After we took over TelCorp, the eager masses just ate up watching Cindra, Kira, Kinley, and I make the rounds on the talk shows trying to explain everything that TelCorp was up to now. But they were even more interested in our relationship.
“Yeah, and bindings are actually up this month,” Clem said, shaking his head. “Unbelievable. Elias’s rolling in his grave.”
I flashed everyone a smile. “That’s incentive enough to keep this up.” It was good to be able to be myself at work again, not hiding everything like I was in Elias’s last days as CEO.
“Not to mention all those wrinkled old fools rotting away on the Void,” Serma added with a smirk, referring to all the old board members I fired after Elias died.
The Void was an island off the southern coast of Termina. I hadn’t even known it existed until we found it by chance when we were looking over the docks after Elias died, and the foxgirls recognized it as where they were held by their clients before their bindings. The island’s existence certainly explained why Malthe hadn’t been able to track it down. TelCorp had gone to great lengths to hide its very existence, to the point where there weren’t any digital records of it to speak of and no physical records that we’d been able to find either. It was the perfect place to hold all the former board members and binding corp employees who’d known all about the nefariousness of the industry and didn’t seem to give a shit.
“It’s so poetic knowing that the prison where we were all held between being captured and being bound is now holding everyone who put us there in the first place,” Kinley said, giving a low, sardonic laugh.
“No doubt,” I agreed. “I’m glad we didn’t shut that place down after all. It’s way more interesting this way.”
“Exactly,” Malthe agreed. “Plus, I don’t like there being anything in Termina I don’t know much about. And since the Void is off the grid and I wasn’t able to find it before, I like that we control it now. If we shut it down, someone else might just take it over and use it to their own ends.”
I turned to Malthe. “Speaking of which, I’ve been wondering about something ever since we found that place. Do you think it’s related in any way to those clients’ mysterious employer?”
“Might be,” Malthe said, chewing his bottom lip as he considered this. “I hadn’t thought of that before. I guess there wouldn’t really be a way to know, considering the whole thing is off the grid, and so is whoever that employer is.”
“Why do you care so much about these people, Nic?” Kira asked innocently. “They haven’t popped up again and don’t seem to be getting in our way.”
“Yeah, maybe they don’t even exist in the first place, and those two clients were just weirdos who thought they were big-shots and wanted everyone to think they were,” Clem suggested.
“But if that were the case, they wouldn’t have been able to cover it up so well,” I said, pressing my case. “TelCorp would have seen right through it and made them disclose the real source of their income. Plus, Elias was afraid and acting really strange before we killed him. That wasn’t because of me. He admitted he didn’t suspect me at all until the last day, right before I killed him.”
Kira mulled this over for a moment. “Yeah, I guess so. I just don’t see why you talk about it all the time.”
“I just don’t like not knowing things,” I explained. “It makes me really uncomfortable. I want to know what’s going on in my own city, especially after I was kept in the dark for so long by Elias and TelCorp.
“Plus, we still can’t find that second client,” Malthe added.
“Exactly,” I said, pointing at him. “Isn’t it weird that we can’t find him anywhere? Even using every resource at our disposal, including the best hacker in the world? His image should have been blasted everywhere by now.”
“Why does Beaufort even matter?” Kira asked, giving a little sigh. I understood her reticence. This guy had kidnapped her and tried to make her his slave, after all. She probably would be perfectly happy to never think about him again, but it still bothered me. Sure, he was a vegetable after that botched binding I put him through, but he was still connected to everything that had happened. As much as I wanted to hide Beaufort from TelCorp before, I desperately wanted to find him now.
“Because he’s connected to this entity, the one we can’t find,” I explained. “And it’s precisely because we can’t find him that I think we need to. Something’s up. We should’ve found him by now, or at least his body.” I shrugged at my grim implication. “He couldn’t last long like that unless he had someone looking out for him.”
“Maybe he is dead.” Cindra shrugged, a
nd it wasn’t the first time that one of my friends had suggested this. “It would make sense, after all. I mean, maybe he made his way to the south side and fell in the docks or something. Or perhaps he was eaten by some animal. You know, like a vulture. There are some of those on the outskirts of the city.”
“But there would be footage of that somewhere, wouldn’t there?” I asked, growing impatient. It really did bother me not to know what was going on in my own city. “It’s not like there aren’t cameras in every corner of this place. And how would he have made it all the way to the outskirts of the city, or even to the south side at all? Kira and I left him in an alleyway in the heart of the north side. Where’d he go? Where’d he disappear to?”
Clem shrugged helplessly. “It’s not like he can hurt us, right? I mean, he is the intellectual equivalent of a potato after that binding you gave him.”
To prevent the police and TelCorp from finding out that I’d taken Kira from Beaufort, I’d tried to bind him to myself, so he wouldn’t squeal. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a binding chair anywhere in sight, and so the binding fractured the guy’s soul. Not that I cared much about what happened to him, but it would have been nice to have interrogated him properly.
“Yeah, but doesn’t it bother you guys?” I asked. “Not knowing, I mean.”
“I guess,” Cindra said with a shrug, “but we don’t dwell on it like you do, Nic. Things are going great. Why obsess about some fringe group that probably has nothing to do with us, anyway?”