Just Compensation
Page 31
“This ain’t a war.” Andy point out.
“Try downloading reality, kid.” Furlann suggested to him.
Strange words, Tom thought, for someone twisting reality to suit her own needs.
>>WFDC LIVE FEED
-[08:00:01/8-30-55]
DEECEE AM MORNINGRIDE WITH JESS BOK [BOKX-345]
Bok: “Good morning, good morning, GOOD MORNING! So, how’s it feel out there, all you Morningriders? You all happy to be back in the pack, doing the old bumper-to-bumper crawl in to work? Honk if you’re happy!
“Sounds like there’s a lot of happy people out there. Keep them pearlies showing, Morningriders. Chief Commissioner
Ericson promises that Metro will be back in service by Monday at the latest. Let’s hope so, we need to get these amateur commuters off the road and back on the rails where they belong. Just kidding, all you first-timers.
“Hey, friends. I know you’re all headed for the old grind, but don’t forget to open up a sidebar or slip on the old walkie-talkie-man at ten for Sherry Bentfield’s Our Town and Country. Sherry has got a nova-hot guest today: none other than the hero of the hour, Captain Rita Furlann of the Thaumaturgic Corps. That’s right! The lovely lady who saved all our behinds from old General Runaway Trahn will be telling you the real story behind the media blips, and yakking direct with you on the WFDC ‘Commune With You’ lines. Be there! Hey, I know I’m gonna be listening.
“Till then, keep your eyes out for blocked roads around pockets of unenlightened Compers. Even though the FedPols and Army are getting help from concerned corporate citizens like Telestrian Industries East and Saeder-Krupp, there are still holdouts out there who haven’t gotten the message, or the PTTS gas. If you want to avoid those little trouble spots, give us a call for the latest datafeed updates, small charge applies.
“Remember, we’re in business to get you there.
“We’ll cut over now to Johnny Willard, who’s been promising us relief from this hot sticky for weeks. Johnny just told me that this time the weather imps are going to come through. Chiptruth, Morningriders. That’s what he said. Hey, Johnny—”<<<<<
25
Tom killed the car’s radio as he took the off ramp at Glebe Road. He was almost at his destination and, having gotten out of the traffic, didn’t need the distraction. Besides, he was tired of listening to the propagandists working so very hard.
He had no trouble finding a spot in a parking lot behind the site. The building wasn’t a courthouse, or even a police station or military installation, but it was where he was going to give his formal statements on the matters of the last two weeks. It looked like an ordinary office building, and maybe it was, most of the time; its identifying sign had been removed recently. Whatever it had been, today it was where the President’s Special Commissioners were meeting. Tom had already spent days answering questions; today’s exercise was a mere formality. They’d promised him that after today he could get on with his life.
He wasn’t the only one scheduled to appear before the Commissioners. Another vehicle, an old, dark blue Toyota Epsilon four-door, pulled into the lot. Markowitz opened the driver’s door.
“Good timing.” he said.
Andy and Kit got out of the back. The car shifted noisily on its springs as the fourth passenger got out, a bulky ork in a trench coat and slouch hat as out of place in the sultry morning heat as a swimsuit on a battlefield. Chrome glinted from beneath the ork’s brows. Tom had to take his eyes off the ork as Andy came bounding up to greet him like a long-lost brother. Which, in a way, he was.
“Nice uniform.” Andy said. “But you really ought to buff up the other decorations to go with the new one.”
Tom looked down at the Presidential Citation star. Andy was right; it didn’t look as though it belonged. Tom didn’t mind. The disparity between the old and the new suited him. After all, Furlann had a star just like his, gotten in the same ceremony when Steele had pinned this one on Tom’s chest. So much for the Citation being a badge of honor. He put it out of his mind.
“What’s with the ork? Where’s Cinqueda?”
“She was add-on.” Markowitz said. “Shamgar’s a regular. Say hello, Shamgar.”
Shamgar glowered without a word. Once Tom would have taken such insolence as a personal affront, or ignored it as unimportant. Today he saw that the ork’s attitude was directed at Markowitz and the situation. Tom could understand that and sympathized with it, but he found it odd sympathizing with an ork. But the ork hadn’t been a part of what had brought them here as the other street samurai had. “What about Cinqueda’s statement?”
“She believes she’s already made it.” Kit said.
Cinqueda hadn’t talked to the Commissioners at all. If she wanted to let her recording stand for itself and not back it up, it was her call. He’d respect her choice. She’d more than earned that respect.
As they entered the building, Markowitz said, “You hear the latest? Christian Randolph was drugged by Confed insurrectionists. They took over his Compensation Army as part of a plan to stir up trouble in Washington and terrify the populace into looking south for salvation. The Confeds wanted to use the government’s failure to quell the riots as an excuse to nab North Virginia and the sub-Potomac region of the Federal District—for the safety of the people, don’t you know. Randolph had the poor fortune to become their puppet. The drugs induced megalomania and drove him over the edge. That’s where all that wild rhetoric he was spouting near the end came from, and it’s why he did that no-one-takes-me-alive immolation at the Block. Very sad story. He was an honest man, if somewhat naive.”
Tom wondered about that. “Is it true?”
“Who knows? It’s raised a lot of sympathy for the Compers. The legitimate Compers, that is. Congress has decided to settle on the compensation claims that brought Randolph and his marchers to Washington in the first place. Ten cents on the dollar.”
“Doesn’t seem just to me.” Andy said.
What was justice?
The collusion between Telestrian and the Confeds was being buried, in the light of the corporation’s decision to arm its security forces with a full suite of non-lethal and low-lethality riot control gear and to put those forces at the government’s disposal for stopping the violence. How could one fault such civic-mindedness and public spirit, especially when it prompted other corporations to do the same? The influx of manpower alone would have been enough to quell the rioters. It was the help that Tom had sought from them and been refused. Now it washed away their sins. Justice!
While they sat in an office, awaiting the Commissions’ pleasure, he asked, “Any new word on Governor Jefferson?”
“Yeah.” Markowitz said. “You want what’s going to go out on NewsNet, or the truth?”
Tom sighed. “I suppose it was too much to hope for, that there would be only one story.”
“Much too much to hope for.” Markowitz agreed. “Officially, Jefferson’s dead. Actually, he wasn’t aboard the Orion when it went down. He’d gotten word from a source in Trahn’s headquarters that his venture in revising geography wasn’t going to be allowed to go to completion. He knew he was playing in the rough boys’ league and decided to find a rock and crawl under it.”
“So where is he? Atlanta?”
“Don’t know.” Markowitz shrugged. “If he ran south, he’s stupider than I thought. The Confeds don’t like spending money without return, and Mr. Jefferson ain’t worth anything compared to Governor Jefferson.”
The Commissioners interviewed Tom last. When he came out he was surprised to find the others still present.
“What do you do now?” Markowitz asked.
“Short term? Have lunch.” Tom was hungry and it was well past lunch time.
“Okay. We’ll buy.” Markowitz said. “But actually, I was thinking somewhat longer term.”
Longer? Tom wanted to see his grandparents. Talk to his grandfather. “Finish my leave.”
“So you’re thinking you’re goin
g to stay in?” Andy asked. Actually, Tom hadn’t thought about it. It hadn’t occurred to him to think about it. The Army had been his life for so long that he just didn’t think about living any other way. “It won’t be easy.” Markowitz said.
“And what we just went through was?"
“Not the same at all. Trahn has friends, who won’t like what you’ve done.”
“Right now, Trahn hasn’t got a friend in the country. Nobody was his buddy, nobody talked to him, nobody hung with him, nobody shared his politics, nobody knew he was going to do what he did, and most of all, nobody ever heard of Plan Rational. It looks like all of Trahn’s rational friends were too rational for him. They cut their losses and dumped him as soon as it was obvious he was going down.”
“Like Captain Furlann?” Andy asked.
“Very much like that.” Tom agreed sourly.
“They’re not going to change their stripes over this.” Markowitz said. “Taking Trahn down bought you enemies.”
“Maybe so.” But was that so bad? His grandfather had told him that a man was measured by his enemies, not his friends. If Tom had made enemies of people who believed what Trahn had believed, that was okay. Justice of a sort, even.
* * *
Andy pulled Markowitz aside as soon as he could. “I think you ought to drop it.”
“Why? I’m just getting started.”
“Tom’s made his decision. He believes he has a place. I don’t want you to take that from him.”
“It was your idea to try to get him to go freelance.”
“So I was wrong. Some people aren’t made for the streets.”
“Oh?” Markowitz sounded suspicious. “Are we talking about him or you?”
“Him.”
“So you’re not going back to Telestrian, now that you’ve been cleared in the run against the Montjoy project? Isn’t that why you traded the Jefferson files back to them?” Andy hadn’t known Markowitz knew about that. He might know the fact, but he needn’t know the reason. “Go back? I don’t think so! So what if they cleared my name? Andy Walker is still officially dead.”
“Doesn’t take much computer power to fix that. They can give you another identity if you ask.”
“Oh, they’d give me another identity, but I doubt it’d be one I’d like. From what I picked up on the Shadowland net, Osborne’s a vindictive guy. If I go back, my identity will be mud. I could end up really dead. Hey, I got their number.
“Right now, I see opportunities in other places. For example, Marksman, your team doesn’t have a decker or a rigger, and I do both. You need me.”
Markowitz took some more convincing, but in the end he agreed. And why not? After all, Andy was a shadowrunner.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert N. Charrette has written over seven novels, selling more than half a million copies all over the world. The extraordinarily well-received and popular SECRETS OF POWER TRILOGY: NEVER DEAL WITH A DRAGON, CHOOSE YOUR ENEMIES CAREFULLY and FIND YOUR OWN TRUTH alone garnered sales of over 350,000. These books launched the Shadowrun® fictional line, following Sam Verner across the globe and telling the technomagical tales of his coming to grips with the new Awakened World in which flesh and machine commingle.
Charrette has also written several books for FASA’s BattleTech® universe of awesome battle machines, including WOLVES ON THE BORDER, due to be re-released in the summer of 1996, and HEIR TO THE DRAGON slated for re-release in the fall of 1996.
He had a hand in creating the Shadowrun® game universe and spent his early career as a game designer, art director and commercial sculptor. Currently he is developing other settings for fictional exploration, including tales set in another realm of revenant magic as chronicled in A PRINCE AMONG MEN, A KING BENEATH THE MOUNTAIN, and A KNIGHT AMONG KNAVES, a trilogy published by Warner Books.
Charrette currently resides in Virginia with his wife, Elizabeth, who must suffer his constant complaints of insufficient time as he continues to crank out the novels as well as sculpt the occasional collector’s miniature. He is active in a living medieval history group which reenacts English life in the late fourteenth century. He also keeps abreast of the latest developments in dinosaurian paleontology and pre-Tokugawa Japanese history—two of his favorite topics.
Copyright
ROC
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Roc, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
First Printing, January, 1996 10 987654321
Copyright © FAS A Corporation, 1996 All rights reserved
Series Editor: Donna Ippolito Cover: Jim Thitsen
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