by Simon Archer
Finally, I came, filling her up, and she came in short order, too, convulsing and writhing in my arms, letting out a series of soft moans. I pulled her in closer to me and wrapped my arms around her, settling down beside her on the bed.
“Can I stay here tonight?” she whispered when she’d gathered herself again.
“Of course,” I said, brushing a stray strand of dark hair out of her eyes and caressing her cheek. “You can stay as long as you want.”
I think it was the best night’s sleep I’d had in years. And I was going to need that rest tomorrow. But for that moment, I didn’t have a care in the world. I didn’t need one.
28
Achilles Tibor
I paced back and forth in my office, trying to process the news I’d received earlier this evening. No one was taking my call. Not one person in Parliament was taking my call.
Nic Joch must have gotten to them. There was evidence enough of that in the digital logs. My employees had seen the call he’d placed to Lucianus Halit, but they hadn’t been able to listen in on it. Just like they hadn’t been able to listen in on any of the calls or read any of the messages at the city’s biggest binding corp since Joch had taken over. Pathetic.
That meant one thing and one thing only. Somehow, Joch had found someone better to help him than I had found to help me. Or worse, Joch himself was better than me. But that wasn’t possible. No one was better than me. Not one soul. Not even Mak Joch himself. I’d bested him, after all. I could best his son, as well. And I would.
I swiveled on my heels and pulled out my phone to place one final call. I scowled at the call history. The police chief hadn’t taken my call either. Joch must’ve gotten to him, too, though there wasn’t any record of that. Or he’d just spoken to the Prime Minister, who in turn had gotten everyone to fall in line with the TelCorp agenda. Somehow, that was even worse.
At least Halit wasn’t actively working against me. He just wasn’t interfering on my behalf anymore. Oh well, I’d kill him, anyway. Actions had consequences in my city. Other people’s actions, at least.
I dialed my employee, the one I’d put in charge of the conglomerate. I’d already forgotten his name. It didn’t matter. My assistant kept track of things like that. I had bigger things to worry about, more important information to remember.
“Mr. Tibor,” the man said cooly when he answered the phone. “I’ve been expecting to hear from you.”
“Oh you, have, have you?” I asked, keeping my voice just as calm but deadly, always deadly.
“Yes, after the holo-cast this evening, I imagined you’d be wanting to get in touch with me,” he continued, unfazed. Maybe I’d chosen wisely with this one.
“And why’s that?” I asked him.
“Well, things have gotten rather out of hand, haven’t they?” he asked, still cool as a cucumber, as they say. “We must devise some way to regain the upper hand.”
“Interesting how calm you are about all this, considering that it’s your men who failed today,” I said, narrowing my eyes, glaring daggers at the charcoal-colored wall since I couldn’t melt this employee of mine with my eyes. He was better than Elias Berg, at least. That much was clear. That imbecile practically wilted the second his burner phone even buzzed, he was so afraid of me. That didn’t bode well for his ability to neutralize this threat, in retrospect. Perhaps this man, no matter how annoyingly calm and collected, would fare better.
“I don’t like to waste time dwelling on what’s gone wrong,” he explained. “I prefer to worry about how to fix it, and then simply get it done.” I smiled despite myself, the corner of my lip curling upward before I realized what it was doing.
“I like that,” I said. “I like that quite a bit. You and I might get along better than I expected, Mister… What was your name again?”
“Theo Cuso,” he said. “I’m a longtime employee. I assure you you won’t be disappointed in my work.”
“Make certain that I’m not,” I warned.
“I intend to do just that,” he said, and I thought I could hear ice cubes clinking against the side of a liquor glass on the other line. Just my kind of man, after all. “Now, what should we do about this mess in which we find ourselves, Mr. Tibor?”
“It’s time for a full frontal assault,” I said. “We need to jump on Nic Joch while he’s still crippled. Do you have the manpower for that?”
“I’ll make the manpower for that,” he said as if we were just having a casual conversation. “I must say, I agree completely with this course of action. We’ll end them first thing in the morning. That should be long enough for my men to collect themselves. And if it’s not… well, let’s just say they won’t be my men for much longer.”
“Excellent,” I said, smiling again, broader this time. “That’s just what I want to hear, Theo. I think this is the beginning of an excellent friendship.”
“Oh yes,” he said, the ice cubes clinking again as he took another drink. “I think so, too, Mr. Tibor. Now, if I might not make a suggestion…”
“Yes?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “I’m listening. Just make it good.”
“As I said, if I may suggest, I believe that Nic Joch and one of his lackeys managed to break into our tunnels last night, is that correct?” he asked pleasantly as if we were discussing some unusually sunny weather.
“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t like to be reminded of that incident.
“Yes, an unfortunate occurrence, to be sure,” he drawled. “Now, if I might suggest, since TelCorp knows of our… underground dwelling, this might be an opportunity for you to retreat to your bunker, Mr. Tibor.”
It wasn’t a question. He wasn’t asking me. He was telling me.
“Oh, you do, do you?” I asked, my voice flat. “I have a lot of important work to be done, Mr. Cuso.”
“Of course, and because of the nature of our… organization, if you will, you can do that work right from the comfort of your bunker,” he continued. “I only suggest because you are such an important asset to us, Mr. Tibor, and because I don’t wish you to be caught unawares should Nic Joch come knocking.”
“I thought our plan was to prevent that from happening,” I said, narrowing my eyes and glaring at the wall again.
“Yes,” he answered, seemingly unconcerned by my change in tone. “And I’m going to do everything in my considerable power to make sure that doesn’t happen. But you see, Mr. Tibor, I’m a risk-averse man. I don’t like surprises. I prefer to take all necessary precautions. And with you, I wish to take even less risk, for the good of the organization, of course.”
I couldn’t deny his logic, though I couldn’t shake the feeling that this man was angling for my job, trying to get me out of the way, so he was front and center in the organization I had spent my life building.
“Very well,” I said at long last. “But I will be keeping very close tabs on events on the surface.”
“I would expect nothing less,” the man said, his ice cubes clinking one last time before he clicked away.
29
Bright and early the next morning, before the sun had even begun to rise, I and my employees all crawled out of bed and assembled in the living room of Cindra’s family’s house. Or at least, some of us assembled in the living room. The rest spilled out into the kitchen and the backyard and stretched up the winding stairwell and all around the balconies on the other floors of the house.
“Thanks for getting up this early with me,” I told them, to a few disgruntled grumbles in response. “And thank you even more for your dedication to this company and to this city yesterday. I’m sorry that I have to ask the same from you today.”
“They’re coming after us again?” someone I couldn’t even see asked, incredulous and clearly more than a little scared judging by the tremble in his voice.
“No,” I said, taking a deep breath and preparing myself to break the news to them. “Or at least, not that I know of, anyway. But we are going after them.”
“Okay, okay, come on, come on,” I said. “I know none of this has exactly been pleasant. But we need to take our turf back. The conglomerate hasn’t recovered yet from what happened yesterday. How could they, we completely creamed them?”
“They kind of creamed us, too,” someone called out.
“Hey now,” I said defensively. “We’re all better than that, and we damn well know it. I’m giving credit where credit’s deserved. You guys kicked ass yesterday. And we’re going to kick ass again today. There are no ifs, and’s, or buts about it. As I’m sure you all know by now, the government’s not working against us anymore. We’re past all that. It’s just the conglomerate and us now. And you guys win that fight, every damn time. Am I right, or am I right?”
I surveyed the room again. The grumblings continued, but they were decidedly more excited now, as my employees got caught up in the fervor and the thrill of the situation we found ourselves in, just like I’d hoped they would. Just like I needed them to.
“Okay, guys,” I told them, speaking louder to make my voice rise above the growing commotion. “We’ve called the air cars back to take us up to the north side. When we get there, we’re going to take our headquarters back-- No, wait, we are going to take our headquarters back. Because we… you… have what it takes. Binders, stick with Clem and me. Stay out front. Keep the conglomerate binders away from the doors. Tech guys, go with Malthe, he’ll tell you what you can do. Med people, follow Kira to the third floor, she’ll run point on keeping everyone safe. That should pretty much cover everyone, I think.”
“Wait, so you’re just sending us straight back to TelCorp headquarters?” a particularly snide looking binder asked me nearby. “After we went to all that trouble to get out the first time?”
“I’ve solved for that,” Malthe said, raising his hand in the air lazily. “I’ve got these giant tank things now. The binders saw ‘em yesterday. They can come to lift us out by air through the windows if it comes to that.”
“But it won’t,” I said sternly. “It won’t come to that, because we’re prepared this time. We know they’ll try to go for the power, try to distract us by making weird attacks we don’t anticipate. Well, we can anticipate that much. Strike them where it hurts first, and fast, before they have a chance to do anything dicey. You guys are better than they are, mark my words. We’re better than they are. And we have equal numbers now. This will be better than the last time. It has to be.”
“And if it isn’t?” another young man, the one who’d had his leg crushed by a tree the day before, asked from his position sprawled across the couch, his leg still slowly healing. “What then?”
“Then we regroup,” I said, giving him a small smile. “But it will be different. We know what we’re getting ourselves into this time, at least.”
“But most of our tech’s protecting the foxgirls and the south side,” another employee remarked, almost sourly, but before I could respond, she corrected herself, holding up a hand to stop me from replying to her. “I know they need it. And they need it badly. And I don’t deny that or want to deny them that protection. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t still be here goddammit. But it’s just another piece of the puzzle that doesn’t inspire much confidence if you catch my drift.”
“Yeah, I get it,” I said, my face softening a bit. “And we will have some drone help. Not much, but some. But remember, we took out more than our fair share of their drones yesterday, too, not just other binders.”
“Right, we can do this, crew,” Clem agreed, pumping his fist in the air. “One last stand for our city.”
“Don’t say last,” Kinley said sardonically, elbowing him in the ribs.
“I mean one last stand before we crush them!” Clem corrected himself, smashing his pumping fist into the palm of his other hand for emphasis.
“Alright, men, let’s go,” I said, nodding curtly. “You know your assignments. It’s time to get on top of this shit.”
And with that, I led the pack out to the awaiting air cars. I climbed into the first one with the rest of my main group. As usual, Gunnar was driving.
“It’s good to see you, Gunnar,” I told him, and I really, really meant it. It’d felt like a lifetime had passed since he dropped us off before that last battle on the south side, promising to pick us up when it was all over. Well, of course, he didn’t, because the government blockaded the area between the north and south sides of the city.
“Oh, it’s good to see you, too, Mr. Joch,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Especially all in one piece. For a minute there, I thought you guys were toast.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Clem said, though I could tell by the curl of his lips that he was joking.
“Well, we’re here now,” I said. “Did you make it back okay to the north side last night, Gunnar?”
“Yeah, I sure did,” he said, running his hand through his stubbly hair as he shot the air car back up into the atmosphere. “Just beat the chaos you guys started. That was pretty crazy, with all the law enforcement out there and all. Couldn’t believe what I was hearin’ when the Prime Minister said he was callin’ the whole thing off. Could you believe that, Mr. Joch? These are crazy times. Crazy, crazy times. One minute’s one thing, the next minute’s the complete opposite!”
“Is that how everyone’s feeling about all this?” I asked him. “Just normal, everyday people, I mean?”
“Oh yeah, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said, his eyes lighting up in a way that told me he was honest. “Everybody just wants this all to be over soon. Nine of us would be out here if we didn’t have families to feed. Well, after those tips ya gave us last night, we don’t need to be anymore, but we wanted to do y’all another solid.”
“And we appreciate that,” I assured him. “And we’ll make sure none of you have to work again until this is all over. Plus, it should be over soon anyway, if things go according to plan.”
“Really?” Gunnar asked, his eyes lighting up with hope. “Gosh, that’d be good. My kids haven’t been outside since before this all started. It’s not safe.”
“We’ll do everything I can,” I promised him, exchanging a look with Clem. I knew everyone was nervous about today. Fuck, even I was nervous. But we had to do it, anyway. We had to end this thing once and for all. And if we didn’t, we didn’t deserve to run a powerhouse like TelCorp, anyway.
The north side looked… darker somehow, than it had when we’d left the day before. Maybe part of it was the thin layer of smoke in the air, probably leftover from the battle the day before, pushed by the wind all the way across town.
The other part was that it was empty somehow. But not completely empty like it had been during the whole law enforcement frenzy when Cindra, Kira, and Kinley broke away from their clients a few months back. There were still some people on the streets this time, and there wasn’t the same frenzy of service drones to get supplies as there had been before. But somehow it was even eerier, seeing the streets almost empty as opposed to completely empty, occupied almost exclusively by brawlers and other unsavory types who weren’t just indifferent, but gleeful in response to all the unrest going on right now in the city.
“Weird, isn’t it?” Cindra asked, peering over my shoulder out the window of the air car and looking down to the streets below, echoing my own thoughts. “I’d almost prefer them to be empty. It’d feel safer that way, somehow.”
“I know,” I said darkly.
“Where do you want me to drop ya off?” Gunnar asked when we were getting closer to the financial district. His voice sounded nervous like he was afraid of what my answer would be.
“You can let us out down the street from TelCorp, a couple of blocks away,” I told him, and his shoulders relaxed at this news. “Tell the other drivers they can do the same.”
“Thank you, Mr. Joch,” h
e said, his voice full of relief. “They’ll be thankful, I’m sure.”
“Is it pretty crazy up here, still?” Kira asked him from Cindra’s other side. Clem was in the front seat, while Kinley, Malthe, and Lin had to take another car with some of the other TelCorp employees, make sure they got where they needed to go.
“It is, I’m ‘fraid to say,” Gunnar admitted, shaking his head some more. “People keep tryin’ to loot your building, Mr. Joch. We’d have tried to stop ‘em, but it… well, it would have been…” I held up my hand to stop him.
“There’s no need,” I said gently. “No one expected anyone to do that. We left the building defenseless. It’s okay. Now we need to take it back from them. That’s our job, not yours.”
“Of course, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said, smiling weakly in the front mirror back at me. “It just hurts to see everything you and your dad worked for gettin’ disrespected like that.”
“I know,” I said darkly. I’d been trying not to think about that, to focus on the foxgirls instead, on each task at hand. But now the task at hand was to take back what was mine. Or at least make it look like that was what we were trying to do.
A few minutes later, Gunnar pulled down out of the sky and landed in a screeching stop in an alleyway below, tucked a couple of blocks away from TelCorp headquarters. From the sky, I could barely see the top of the slanted T TelCorp logo stretching up into the smoky sky. From the ground, I couldn’t see it at all anymore, the city even darker that day than it was usually.
“Thanks, Gunnar,” I said as I turned around to watch out the back window as the rest of the air cars following behind us lined up and began to deposit the rest of my employees onto the side of the road.
“No problem, Mr. Joch,” Gunnar said. “You just holler if ya need anything else, ya hear?”
“Will do, man,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt and patting him on the shoulder. Then, turning to the rest of the air car’s occupants, “Let’s finish this thing.”