Blood Ties

by Robert J. Crane

  “Thank you for being clear-headed in that regard,” I said, which was a hell of a thing to say, right up there with, “Thanks for not being a huge dick.” I didn’t say the latter, though.

  “Some people are just a little too involved in their own worries,” Chapman said, grinning impishly. “When you’re focusing on solving the big problems like we are here, it’s easy to get in your silo when anything bad happens. You start looking at the outside volleys as attacks and don’t worry as much about identifying the enemy and differentiating it from the source of the problem.”

  “Well, I’m just here to do my job,” I said. “And while I’ve got you here—any idea what this thing was after?”

  Chapman shook his head. “Twelfth floor is the meeting area. We don’t really have any work going on there; it’s more of a departmental clearinghouse and congregational space.” He fussed with a screen built into the top of his desk and brought up a blueprint of the building, swiping to the floor in question. “See? Auditorium, meeting rooms—”

  “That’s why it looked like a convention hall.”

  Chapman smiled. “It helps to keep these things internal. Who wants to rent a theater for a company-wide meeting? What a waste of time.”

  “Or you could, and I’m just spitballing here, do a company-wide address on a livestream,” I said, deadpan. “It’s this new tech thing that people are doing now. Maybe you haven’t heard of it out here in Silicon Valley. I know you’re kind of backward and provincial.”

  Chapman actually laughed. “That’s legit funny. We did actually move to more of a livestream format in our early days, once we’d gotten past the ability to house everyone in one space on our old campus. But it lacks that personal touch, you know? Our business is about connection—”

  “Digitally, yes,” I said.

  “—and believe it or not, seeing people in person, in the flesh, is a lot more connecting than doing it over a livestream. There’s a humanizing factor that’s not entirely present on a screen.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I’m familiar with the research about not seeing people as human on the internet.” That quirked his eyebrows up. “Listen, is there anything else on the twelfth floor of note, tech-wise? Or on a neighboring floor? Maybe he was headed to thirteen or fourteen?”

  Chapman slid his fingers casually over the interface. He really had a babyface, smooth, clean and free of wrinkles. It was like they’d promoted a child to be the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world. Except he’d built it himself. “Here’s his path,” he said, and suddenly we were on the lobby entrance. Chapman staked a finger right there, then climbed his way up through the technical blueprint of the building. “Went right through marketing, advertising, graphic user interface—” His finger kept climbing.

  “He didn’t take the elevator,” I muttered, watching the path Chapman traced.

  “Which is a shame,” Chapman said, “because we can lock them down.” He glanced over at me when I shot him a questioning look. “They’re the latest, designed to modern standards vis-a-vis metahuman security. A highly contained lockbox, essentially. If he’d gone in there, we’d have him contained right now, ready to hand off to you.”

  That caused my own eyebrows to arch. “That can’t have been cheap.”

  Chapman shrugged. “Protecting my people is very important to me. I was assured we were prepared for this type of scenario. The fact that this happened...well, it’s very disappointing.” He shook his head.

  I peered at the path he’d traced with his finger. It wasn’t subtle, either, a beeline in one direction, through walls, through floors. Grendel had crashed his way through Socialite’s offices just like he’d done with QuantiFIE back in Queens. Staring at the path, I felt like I could make a logical conclusion to it given his heading...

  Pushing Chapman lightly aside, I slipped my own fingers over the interface and completed the straight line Grendel had plowed from his entry at the lobby all the way up to a strange, blank space in the design of the pyramid. As I did so, I watched Chapman stiffen, his perfectly clean—probably plucked—eyebrows forming a dark V. “What’s that?” I asked.

  Chapman chewed his lip for a second before answering. “That’s Research & Development.” He looked over at me. “It’s the secure space where we keep all the projects we’re working on.”

  I tapped my finger against it on the map. “So what would Grendel want from there?”

  Chapman’s eyes got blank for a moment. “I don’t know. We have twelve projects running in there right now with half a hundred more that have been scrapped or abandoned over the years. It’s experimental research, the type of competitive edge improvements that drive our business forward. Advanced algorithm experiments, basic AI—it could be almost anything.”

  I stared at it, trying to make a clear puzzle out of a whole lot of gobbledygook. “Well, whatever you’ve got in there, Grendel wanted at least a piece of it.” I sighed, once again no closer to the answers I needed to put this whole mess together. “And was willing to kill his way through your whole organization to get it.”

  57.

  “I really do appreciate your efforts here,” Chapman said as the elevator slid back down from his office to the conference floor. “You put your life on the line for my people, and trust me, I’ll note my approval to my friends—your bosses—back in Washington.”

  “That’d be great,” I said, probably a little blandly given that he had a lot of juice that could make my life easier. “It’d be nice if they’d get off my back every now and again.”

  “Well,” Chapman said, back to impish, “can you really blame them wanting to exercise some oversight over someone like yourself?”

  I tried not to bristle at that. I failed. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Chapman chuckled. “Just me reflecting on the fact you have a tendency to upset people.”

  “Well, I do like rattling a cage or two,” I said. “If you can find someone to do my job that’s less confrontational, I’m all in favor of handing over the reins.”

  That made Chapman’s eyebrows rise again. “You’re not happy with your current position?”

  “The position is fine,” I said. “The work is important. My issues are with the process.”

  “I can understand where someone with your personality might clash with the established order,” Chapman said, putting his hands in his pockets like some cocky prick.

  “Yeah, I guess the ‘established order’ has problems with the way I do things sometimes,” I said, trying not to provoke a fight.

  “When you bring a Gatling gun into a company’s offices,” Chapman said, staring straight ahead, “it might be a sign that you’re pushing the envelope.” Now he looked at me sidelong. “And it might unnecessarily inflame a few people, locally, at least.”

  “What can I say? I focus more on getting the job done than ruffling feathers.”

  “I’ve heard that about you,” he said as the elevator dinged. “And now I’ve witnessed it. Tell me, have you considered maybe smoothing off some of the rough edges around your personality? Trying to ‘get along’ a little more? Might help your job performance.”

  “Well, I did attempt a correspondence course through a charm school,” I deadpanned. “But they’re withholding my diploma until I stop cursing a blue streak during their classes. Maybe someday I’ll graduate and be just the belle of the ball.”

  Chapman smiled tightly. “Well, it’d be a start, I suppose, graduating anything.”

  Okay, that pissed me off. “We can’t all be fortunate enough to get a full ride to Stanford and feel completely cool with blowing it off to chase our dreams. Some of us have to work for a living to keep you privileged types from getting your corporate headquarters ransacked and your spines pulled from your bodies.” I took a step closer to him. “Just think where you’d be without your spine in your body. Why, you’d be like a quivering jellyfish, unable to say what you really mean to people. Forced to disguise your sneering
disdain for uneducated cretins through thinly veiled jibes rather than saying them like a grownup.” I turned my back on him as I stepped out of the elevator and almost ran into Friday, who was leaning against the wall just outside. “The hell?”

  “Oh, hey,” Friday said. He looked like he was trying to be casual, but also in a lot of pain. Again.

  “Are you waiting for me?” I asked.

  “Actually, I’m waiting for him,” Friday said, nodding at Chapman as the CEO stepped, a little carefully, out of the elevator behind me. “We have things to discuss.”

  Chapman’s eyebrows went into the stratosphere this time. “We do?” He looked at me with great uncertainty, then back to Friday. “Who are you?”

  “I’m an influencer and a power user of your network,” Friday said, pulling a wadded-up piece of what looked like a gum wrapper out of his pocket. “I have some design features I’d like to request.”

  Chapman’s face scrunched up, going from surprise to confusion to slight irritation and back again, so swiftly. “I’m not really taking suggestions right—”

  “First,” Friday said, reading straight off his gum wrapper, “I need a feature where people who are being saucy little bitches can be slapped accordingly through their device. Included is a list of the people I feel deserve first honor once this is implemented. Maybe you can shock them a few times during the beta, I don’t know.”

  I glanced at the names written on the gum wrapper: Valerie Griffith, Greg Vanatter, Stephanie Rose McDonnell, Julia Fritts. “Who are these people?” I asked.

  “Championship Shitposters,” Friday said. “And perfect test subjects for a bitch slapping.”

  Chapman boggled at that for a few seconds, but managed to get his mental footing fairly quickly, I thought. “Ours is a digital platform. I don’t know how you could implement that sort of...thing.” He said the last with such disdain you’d think he was talking about poop he’d gotten on his shoe.

  “It’s pretty simple, really,” Friday said airily. “Maybe an electrical shock or something through the phone or mouse or touchscreen. That’s as good as a slap. Or at least good enough for our purposes here.”

  “You know,” I said, “I realize it’s basically impossible, but I actually like that idea, personally. Sometimes shit-talkers really need a good slap so they remember that there are real-world consequences for running their stupid mouths.”

  Chapman met my gaze and looked pained for a second. “That...is not a feature we would implement, even if we could. We’re into minimizing harm, see—”

  “No,” Friday said, “you’re into bitchifying the world, you mean.”

  Chapman did not answer back quickly this time. His eyes shifted around, processing what Friday had said. “That’s...not a word.”

  “It is,” Friday said. “Because I just made it up, and it’s totally kittens.”

  “Come on, Friday,” I said, seizing him by the sleeve and tugging him away. “Let’s leave Mr. Chapman to his very serious business.”

  “But I have like ten more suggestions here—” Friday said, yanked off balance by my move. He clutched his guts as I pulled him along, and barely managed to stay upright. “Okay,” he whispered, pain just seeping out of him.

  “Oh,” I said, pulling a Columbo and turning around one last time. “Could you, perchance, give me a list of the projects you keep in that black vault that Grendel was going for?”

  Chapman’s eyes went wide. “Absolutely not. And even if I did, you wouldn’t understand what they were.”

  I felt a sloppy, placid smile come across my face. “Of course I wouldn’t,” I said, the color red seeping into my vision.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Chapman said.

  “If I may ask one last question,” I said, keenly aware his security was all on high alert at this point, watching me, fingers lingering around the triggers of their weapons, ready to pull them and go to town on me if things kept trending downward in this conversation, “where were you during this entire...incident?”

  “I was following lockdown procedures,” Chapman said, drawing himself up and adjusting his shirt. “In my office, with the door closed.”

  “All aquiver, I’m sure,” I said, keeping that smile just draped across my smug face. “With worry for your people, I mean.” And I dragged Friday out of there, leaving Chapman without a clapback, the look on his face worth whatever blowback might come from Washington at his behest.

  58.

  “I don’t think he was very happy with you,” Friday said, stutter-stepping his way along, partially bent over as he hobbled along the concourse.

  “Are you operating under the delusion that I give a damn what some flaccid Silicon Valley wanker thinks of me?” I asked, rolling my shoulder to see if the numbness had left yet. It hadn’t, but it was getting better.

  “I don’t know, man,” Friday said, “I feel like you should worry at least a little. You know what they call these guys out here? The ones who run things?”

  “‘Dipshits’?” I asked. “‘Maladjusted turds who probably deserved to have their lunch money stolen while receiving their daily atomic wedgies’?”

  “No, but that’s a great name for them,” Friday said, then looked around quickly. “In private, I mean. But no, they call them...‘The Masters of the Universe.’”

  “They better watch out or Mattel is going to sue their asses for ripping off their show and toy brand.”

  “Heh, that show was totally kittens,” Friday said. “Hey, wasn’t it before your time?”

  “I have Wikipedia, Netflix, and a lot of free time between cases,” I said, not slowing down, making him keep up with my hurried pace. We were now passing the auditorium, and I could see Veronika lingering near the door, an EMT helping her with a wad of gauze held to her forehead. Phinneus, Kristina and the dude with the exceptionally hipster taste in clothing were all lingering nearby like the world’s most obtrusive and poorly matched set of backup dancers.

  “Heh,” Friday said, still clutching his side. “Look at those guys. They look like a terrible music group from the early 2000s.”

  I cringed, and he caught me, so I felt compelled to say, “Yeah, I was thinking something similar.”

  “You know what I was thinking?” Veronika called to me from behind the wad of gauze the EMT was taping to her forehead.

  “No, but I have a feeling I’m about to hear it,” I said. “At full volume, no less.”

  “I was thinking I wouldn’t be suffering a near migraine right now if not for your pet moron,” Veronika said, pushing the EMT’s hand out of the way. She looked really hot under the collar, mostly at me for some reason.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what you want from me. I didn’t hit you. You can tell by the whole ‘still being alive’ thing.”

  “You may have everyone else on the planet convinced you’re an unstoppable badass, Nealon,” Veronika said, “but I’ve seen you at your worst. You can’t blow smoke at me—”

  “Veronika, I’m an FBI agent,” I said. Not being a dude, she didn’t feel the need to get all up in my face like a gangsta while she was slinging her anger and offering the start of some threats. She did it at a distance, smartly.

  “Like I give a shit,” she said, now on her feet. “Because I’ve always been such a stickler for abiding by laws.”

  “You might want to start, at least around me,” I said. “I’d really hate to have to arrest you.”

  “Try it, Nealon,” she said, her hands glowing blue. “Because I’m in the kind of mood where I wouldn’t mind burning a fresh hole in you.”

  “Wow, that was kind of hot,” Friday said. “I think that was a metaphor for lesbian stuff.”

  “It’s not a metaphor for anything, dunce,” Veronika said, and shoved her hand into the wall behind her, burning through it with plasma, then dousing the heat.

  “You’re just lucky that damage to private property isn’t a federal crime,” I said, nodding at the hole she’d just left. “Other
wise I’d have to drag you in right now.” Her eyes burned at me. “Stay out of my way, Veronika. You and your little crew of private mercs.” I looked at each of them in turn. “I don’t have any beef with any of you, but if Veronika tries to lead you into lawbreaking in my path, you should really disregard the bullshit she’s spewing about me being weak and remember what’s happened to all the mercenaries who came before you. Because you all seem nice, and it’d be a shame if you ended up on the wrong side of the soil.”

  “Also, we would kill you,” Friday said. “With our fists. Except Veronika. Because she would probably enjoy fis—”

  I elbowed Friday in his wounded ribs and heard the breath go out of him before he could complete his breathtakingly tasteless statement. “Stay out of trouble and I’ll stay out of your way as much as possible.” I started past them, but didn’t dare look away from Veronika, whose cool had officially been lost.

  “This ain’t over, Nealon,” Veronika called after. “We have a job to do. I’m bringing in that Grendel, over his dead body. And that of anyone else who gets in my way.”

  “Then I guess we both know where the other stands,” I said, walking backward away from her, still keeping my eyes on hers. “But when you get in my way, you better be ready. Because in spite of my current job, I’m still not much for taking prisoners.”

  “And I’m not much for taking shit,” Veronika shouted after me.

  “Me neither,” I said, but a lot quieter.

  “I don’t understand either of you,” Friday said. “I’m all about taking shits.” He clutched his stomach. “I think I feel one coming on now, in fact.”

  “Try not to do it on yourself—or the limo,” I said, putting on a brave face in spite of what had just happened. Veronika was no pushover. Neither were Phinneus or Kristina, and I suspected that skinny jeans dude was right in their category, toughness-wise.

  Which meant now, not only was I facing Grendel, but at least four of the hardest metas around.