by Simon Archer
“I noticed that, too,” Kira mused. “They all seemed… uncomfortable… scared, even,”
“That’s exactly what it was like,” I said, pointing at her. “They were uncomfortable with the whole thing, even wary.”
“Well, except for that cyborg guy,” Kinley scoffed. “The one who represents our district, supposedly. He seemed pretty proud of himself the whole damn time.”
“Yeah, but not right away,” I continued. “At the beginning, even he seemed like he was freaked out about something or other. And when we talked… I don’t know. Something was just off about the whole thing like he was putting on a charade. It didn’t feel genuine at all like he was just a better actor than the other guys, so he covered it up well during the proceedings.”
“You do tend to have a hunch about these things, Nic,” Cindra admitted, “but I don’t know. From the look of things, it sure seemed like that guy had it in for us.”
“I know it did,” I said kindly, “but he always seemed genuine about wanting to help you out before. People with cybernetic implants aren’t exactly treated the best, either. Not that it’s the same, they do choose to get those things after all, but it’s a weird subculture that most everyone looks down their noses at. He seemed like he got where we’re coming from better than most.”
“If you say so,” Cindra said, though she still sounded skeptical. “I still don’t like the guy.”
“I don’t either,” I agreed. “Hell, I don’t even like any of ‘em anymore, but something’s off. This wasn’t just about them changing their minds after ‘careful consideration.’”
“Ugh, they used that language?” Kinley scrunched up her face as if she was smelling something particularly putrid. “Ewww.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, I know. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“Did any of them act like this before?” Kira asked, ever the level-headed one. “There wasn’t any indication that any of these people disagreed with the direction we were pushing things?”
“I mean a few of them, sure, but those were just the ones we couldn’t manage to find other candidates to run against, or if we did, our candidates weren’t successful.” I was still stricken with disbelief about the whole thing. We’d been so meticulous in our oversight and planning here. “But none of the ones I talked to, and none out of the vast majority of the people we selected for this Parliament gave even the slightest indication that something was up.”
“They can’t all have played us,” Malthe said, sitting down next to me and slumping his shoulders. “I mean, I swear, Nic, I checked all these guys out the best I could, and I didn’t stop once we decided to back their runs for office. I’ve kept close tabs on them the whole time. There’s been nothing to indicate any of this.”
I knew Malthe was serious because he used my real name instead of calling me ‘boss.’
“It’s okay, man,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I totally get you. If there was something to find, you would have found it. You just don’t fuck up, not when it comes to this stuff, anyway. Even if you did, what are the odds you’d fuck up every single time like you would have to have done for today to happen?”
“I know, it just doesn’t make any sense,” Malthe sighed, shaking his head, dejected.
“Can you pry into them some more, mainly for their communications today?” I asked him gently. He tended to be pretty hard on himself, so focusing on something productive might help him. “I talked to every one of them just yesterday afternoon, and everything seemed fine, so it would have to have been after that.”
“I checked in on each of ‘em one last time yesterday, too,” Malthe said glumly, “and I already took a look at everything from this morning. There’s not a single thing to be found, I swear, Nic.” He looked at me desperately and then at each of the foxgirls in turn, almost like a scared puppy who was afraid he’d disappointed his owner.
“Don’t worry, Malthe, we know you did everything you could,” Cindra said, leaning down and giving him a quick hug from behind. “We don’t blame you for anything.”
“Yeah, no way this one’s on you, man,” I reassured him. “You know, you guys will probably yell at me for harping on the point, but I think that this must’ve had something to do with those people who employed those clients, the ones who seem to be totally off the grid.”
To my surprise, none of my friends groaned or rushed to shoot that idea down. I’d been kind of obsessed with the secret organization for a while then, but maybe now that things weren’t going so well for us anymore, they would actually listen to me.
“Yeah, that thought actually crossed my mind, too,” Malthe said, running a hand through his hair nervously. “It freaks me out that there’s someone out there that I just can’t find.”
“Yeah, it was easy to pretend they didn’t exist when things we’re going well, but now that it’s all gone to shit, I think it’s worth taking a closer look,” Kinley added.
“Awesome, I’m glad we’re on the same page,” I said. “But at the same time, we’ve already looked pretty damn closely. I’m not too sure what else we can do to hunt them down.”
“That’s true,” Malthe said. “When that first guy had Kira, I did everything I could to track his employer down. The same with you, Kinley, but I just couldn’t find a damn thing. It’s completely crazy like they don’t even exist in the digital world.”
“Which is practically the whole world, nowadays,” I opined.
That was difficult to fathom. In modern Termina, everything revolved around technology, except for maybe binding. And even then, technology was involved when it came to getting around clients’ cybernetic implants and finding clients themselves. It had been that way for a helluva long time, at that. All of recorded history that I knew of, anyway. It was hard to grasp that there might be someone, or worse, multiple someones, out there who didn’t engage with that world at all.
“It’s eerie, really,” Malthe mused. “It’s almost like we’ve forgotten how to exist without the tech, so now that we need to find someone who operates without it, it’s pretty much impossible.”
“Kind of like those paper records at Serenity General,” I said, thinking of how Malthe had found the proof about my dad’s and Mat Sung’s murders at Elias’s hands in a hidden room in the hospital morgue. “Remember, I pressed Elias about that before he died, and he just kept evading the whole thing, even when he’d been worried about some strange, unknown person threatening him the day before.”
“And I couldn’t find any records of that threat, either,” Malthe reminded me.
“That’s right,” I said, getting excited. I was almost sure of it now. This had to be the answer. Whoever these people were, they had to be the ones behind all of this.
“I mean, what’re the odds that there are two secret organizations operating off the grid and trying to mess with TelCorp?” Cindra asked, echoing my own thoughts.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “It just wouldn’t make any sense for someone else to be behind it all. It’s the simplest explanation.”
Cindra placed her hands on her hips. “So, what should we do?”
“Lin and Clem keep messaging me,” Malthe said, looking at his smartwatch forlornly.
“I know, me too.” I pulled my own watch up. “And everyone else.” I had even more messages now, from Clem, Lin, and the rest of the new board.
“Do we have a meeting then?” Kira asked, looking around uncertainly.
“I don’t know,” I murmured as I thought this over. “I mean, we need to have one, that’s for sure, but I don’t know that we should clue everyone in on what we’re thinking. Not yet, anyway.”
“Why?” Malthe asked, surprised, but Kinley already knew what I was thinking.
“Because there’s no way to know whether any of them are working for these people,” she said, almost in a whisper. She looked down at the table and tapped her fingers on it nervously, as if ashamed for even voicing this possibility.
“
Exactly,” I said, and the surprise on Malthe’s face grew.
“You don’t really think that any of our people could have been involved with this?” he asked incredulously.
“I don’t think so, but we can’t really know for sure, can we?” I retorted, also a bit ashamed. “I want to trust them, I really do, but I trusted the Parliament members, too. And hell, Elias trusted me, didn’t he? How’d that work out for him?”
“I guess not great,” Malthe admitted, “but that’s different, isn’t it? I mean, Elias was kind of an idiot there at the end, he admitted it himself before he died. You know what you’re doing.”
“Which is exactly why I’m not going to make the same mistakes he did,” I said, more sure of myself now. “I don’t think Clem, or Lin, or any of them could really be involved with any of this, but I’m not going to take that chance. I know I can trust you four because we’ve been through this whole thing together, but we have to be careful.”
“So what do we tell people?” Kira asked, looking even more uncomfortable now.
I knew she and Lin had become good friends, and I empathized. I felt the same way about Clem, after all.
“We tell people a version of the truth, that we don’t know what actually happened,” I said. “That we’re confused and blindsided. We don’t mention anything about suspecting this off the grid group. If it comes up anyway, just say you shot that idea down again, and I’ve finally let it go.”
“Will they really buy that?” Cindra asked, shooting me a skeptical look.
“That I dropped it? Maybe, maybe not,” I admitted, “but they’ll probably buy that you guys still don’t believe it. The point is that we don’t tell anyone about this group. At all.”
“Even our families?” Kira asked, and she looked even more upset now, her voice starting to crack. “They’re even more scared than we are, Nic.”
“I know,” I said, averting my eyes from hers. I couldn’t bear to look at her, knowing what I was asking of her. “And I’m sorry, but we can’t let this get out.”
“I trust my family,” Cindra said, her voice hard.
“And so do I,” I said, forcing myself to look straight at her, so she knew I was serious. “But this could get them hurt. They could slip up and tell someone, or some bastard from this secret org, corp, or whatever they are could come after them to get intel on us. It’s just safer if they don’t know anything.”
“But these people could come after our families anyway,” Cindra continued. “They won’t betray us. I trust them not to.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t it be easier to hide them away, try to keep them safe?” Malthe asked. “Like we did last time.”
“We never know how people will act under pressure,” Kinley said darkly, “even the people we love most.”
“And they’re more likely to be pressed by these people if they actually know something,” I agreed. “Besides, Malthe, you didn’t exactly hide Cindra’s family. Sticking them in your run-down office and telling law enforcement they were there doesn’t really count.” I laughed, trying to lighten the mood.
Malthe gave me a weak smile. “I guess so, but at least they were away from that shack where the TelCorp binders kept bugging them. I felt like I was doing something.”
“You were,” Cindra assured him, squeezing his shoulder. “I know they felt much better there with you, away from the slums.”
“But they’re not slums anymore,” I reminded them. “They’re great big houses, just like those old billboards TelCorp used to make to make us think that the foxgirls lived in luxury. They have the best security system in the world down there. You designed it, after all.”
“That’s true.” Malthe smiled wider now. He wasn’t happy, but he was doing better. “Plus, I’ll be there with them in case something happens.”
“What’re you talking about?” I arched an eyebrow. “What happened to that apartment we built for you?”
When we revitalized the south side, we built a new apartment complex based on my own downtown, where Malthe’s office was, and he got the first pick of places. We’d also made sure to renovate his office. That place was a fucking death trap. Even though he resisted a bunch of the changes at first, he relented when I let him approve every repair personally.
“It’s still there,” Malthe assured me. “I just… moved in with Cindra’s folks.”
“Why?” Cindra asked, flabbergasted.
He just looked at her sheepishly.
“Wait, no way!” she said as realization dawned on her. Then she smacked him on the shoulder.
“Yep,” he said, grinning broadly now.
“You got back together?” Cindra asked, her mouth hanging open. “No fucking way.”
“Yes, fucking way.” Malthe leaned back and feigned insult. “Why can’t I ever get the girl?”
“You can, just not my sister,” Cindra laughed. “I thought she was done with you.”
“Well, I guess I just won her over with my charm,” Malthe said, straightening his tattered old jacket, clearly pleased with himself.
I burst out laughing. “Your charm? That’s a good one.”
“Hey, just because I’m not dashing like you doesn’t mean I can’t have my own appeal,” he countered even as he laughed right along with me.
“I guess so… It’s just that she seems so…” I started, my voice trailing off as I didn’t know quite how to put it.
“Hey, opposites can attract,” Malthe said. “It happens.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I guess so.”
Honestly, I didn’t know Cindra’s sister Avil very well. We’d only met a few times, and she always seemed pretty hardened and put off by my very existence. Out of all the foxgirls’ family members, she was the one who was the wariest of me, like she was afraid any minute now I’d take everything back and say it was all one big hoax to give TelCorp even more control over the foxgirls and the south side.
“So, when are you moving in?” Cindra asked, trying to keep a straight face. I exchanged a glance with her and grinned. She found this just as funny as I did. I pretended to cough to cover up another laugh.
“Already did.” Malthe straightened his jacket again, clearly very pleased with himself. “Moved all my stuff over last weekend.”
Cindra placed her hands on her hips in mock disappointment. “And when exactly were you planning on telling us about all this?”
“We wanted it to be a surprise,” he explained, “and I wanted to get settled in first. We were going to have you all over this Friday to break the news and celebrate, but given what’s happened…” His voice trailed off for obvious reasons, and we all deflated a bit. Just for a moment, it had seemed like things were happy and normal like they were supposed to be.
“Hey, well, there’s no reason not to celebrate now,” I said, punching him playfully in the shoulder.
Malthe raised his eyebrows at me skeptically. “Really? You can’t think of any reason people may not want to celebrate right now?”
“All the more reason that we probably should,” I said. I checked my watch, both the time and the messages. “It’ll take our mind off things. We should probably head down to the south side, anyway. Clem and Lin are down there checking on the construction project, and they’ll want to talk to us. The morning’s practically gone already.”
“What about the board?” Kira asked, always the practical one. “People will be expecting a meeting.”
“Let’s schedule it for tomorrow,” I sighed. “Give people a chance to digest everything, give us a chance to gather more information. Send a message out to the effect of, ‘We know everyone’s probably very worried and upset about recent events, but we want to make sure we have all the information before convening a meeting. Continue as normal for now.’”
“Okay, but I’m not sure how much they’ll buy that,” Kira warned.
“Well, they’ll have to,” I said. “They’ll probably just think I’m so upset I don’t want to deal with the whole thing.
Which isn’t exactly untrue, but whatever. I’m sure you’ll think of some way to respond to their messages.”
“There will be messages,” Kira warned. “A lot of them.”
“And Clem and Lin will have questions,” Malthe added.
“We’ll just have to dodge them,” I said with a shake of my head.
“But I trust Clem and Lin,” Kira murmured.
“So do I.” I gave Kira a soothing hug. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be wrong, and I don’t want to cause a panic until we have concrete information.”
“I don’t like it any more than you guys do,” Kinley sighed, leaning against the back of one of the dining room chairs, “but it’s just the way it has to be for now.”
“Emphasis on the ‘for now,’” I said. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out soon enough. We’re good at this, after all.”
“I guess so,” Malthe said, running a hand through his hair again. “On the air car ride down, I’ll get to work trying to find these guys again.”
“Keep looking for Beaufort while you’re at it,” I suggested. “He’s our one definitive link to these guys.”
“Maybe,” Cindra said, though she sounded skeptical. “But shouldn’t we look down other avenues?”
“I didn’t say not to pursue other leads,” I pointed. “Just don’t abandon this one.”
“You got it, boss,” Malthe said, smiling at me. “I’ve got you covered.”
“I know you do,” I said, returning the gesture as I pulled up my watch. “I’m messaging Clem and Lin to let them know we’re coming.” I looked up to Cindra and Malthe. “You should probably do the same for your folks. Let’s get down there and see what’s up. I wanna get the hell out of the north side, anyway.”
“Reporters will be crawling all over the place,” Kinley warned. “How should we get an air car without telling them where we’re going?”
“I know a guy,” I said, sending another message on my watch. That air car driver I’d given a bunch of credits to live off of while the city went to shit a few months back was always available to transport me quickly and discreetly.