An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov)

by Thomas Gondolfi

  “No, it’s true.”

  “That’s nothing but a load of crap!” Andrea hissed. “We have a bomb to deliver and I, for one, am not going to let Sonya down again.”

  Tony could just make out the determination on her face. He realized nothing he could say would change her mind. He changed tactics abruptly.

  “Jackson, we can’t let this bomb kill children.”

  “Even if you’re right, corpie,” Andrea said again, spitting out the epithet, “they’re just corpie kids. It’s another blow against the corporations.”

  Jackson said nothing but Tony could hear him breathing heavily.

  “Here comes the building,” Andrea announced as she pulled up into the loading zone. “Get ready to scoot.”

  Tony didn’t know where he found the courage. He knew it would probably end his association with the GAM, but he couldn’t abandon his own principles and allow the Greenies to commit suicide. He pointed his gauss finger right at Andrea’s head. “None of us are getting out. We’re going to fly this bomb right back where we started.”

  “And if I get out anyway?” Andrea said, slowing to park.

  “Then I’ll put a hole in your head the size of the Philadelphia Crater.”

  * * *

  “That corpie threatened to kill me. I want his head!” Andrea demanded, standing as far away from Tony as the small storeroom allowed. Several of the team held their weapons ready, but didn’t know where to direct them. It pleased Sonya that the guns pointed only at the floor.

  “I’m telling you, it was a trap. If killing me will make you feel better about not blowing up a school full of little kids, then go ahead.”

  “Fuck you, corpie.”

  “Knock it off!” Sonya yelled. Everyone turned to her in amazement. She forced her emotions down three notches and continued more sedately. “Jackson, please tell me what happened.”

  “In short, Tony blew the op claiming it was a trap. He claimed inside knowledge that our target was a day care, not a data center.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Andrea went on. “We had—”

  “Andrea,” Sonya interrupted making her voice as cold as a breeze on Io, “I’m trying to understand. Until I do I can’t make any decisions. So shut the fuck up!” In an attempt to break up the disaster this promised to be, she had broken two of her own rules—no yelling and no profanity. It bought at least a modicum of stability to the chaos in shock value. Silence held as Sonya closed her eyes and took four deep cleansing breaths.

  She opened her eyes to see Andrea with her arms crossed over her chest and her mouth pursed up with the look of a four-year-old saving up more spit. Tony’s visage wore a look of resignation.

  “Now, Tony, why would killing children be a trap? I mean, I don’t like the idea any more than anyone else, but it doesn’t seem to be a risk to us.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I tried to mention this to you before but no one really listened.”

  Andrea opened her mouth, but closed it as Tony gave her a glare.

  “Well you definitely have our attention now,” Sonya said, her voice back to her normal imperturbable levels.

  “OK. Look at it from a guerilla warfare perspective. We gain strength from the common folk—money, protection and recruits. They are trodden and spit on by the corps. They look to us as their heroes. We’re Robin Hood and her Merry Men. What would happen if those same people looked at us as a threat?”

  “…their hear’s and their min’s,” Suet muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “I think she said, ‘…their hearts and their minds,’” Linc said.

  “Yes. Something I remember from some ’raining as a mercenary in Africa. We foun’ ways ’o win the hear’s and min’s of the peeps. This jam covere’ shi’ may be yanking the peeps from us. They’re yanking the foo’, clothes an’ roofs away. Peeps run from us, no’ with us. Maybe even Nils.”

  “That’s right,” Tony took up again. “I mentioned that killing people might be a danger to us. Look at the corps’ propaganda from our last few actions—they’re already exploiting this, painting us as the bad guys. You’ve seen it already. Augustine, what are the net polls on us running?”

  “About three percent less favorable across the board.”

  “See? They’re already making an impact with pure fabrication. What would happen if they really had gotten us to kill a bunch of kids? They wouldn’t even need their talking heads to say anything. The blogs, the hack parlors, and tweets would be full of it. We’d be the Manson family. The very people we count on would turn against us. We wouldn’t last a month.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” Andrea said, breaking her silence. “No one threatens me. We’re a team!”

  “Hold on, Andrea,” Tony said quietly. “I’ll concede your point. We are a team, and I acted badly, but I didn’t see any other way to get your attention. If you want to beat the crap out of me, go ahead. If you all think I should be expelled, go ahead. At least I saved the cause.”

  “We only have your word for that, you f—”

  “Not exactly,” Augustine interrupted. “When I heard Tony’s thesis I went back and did some additional net work. He may have a point. I didn’t even need to hack and I’ve found any number of references to that location being “Bumble Bee Day Care.” Worse, it’s for low to no income families.

  “I don’t like to admit I’m wrong any more than anyone else, sister, but if anyone’s to blame, it’s probably me. I didn’t cross reference the address I got in the hack. I just assumed it was correct.”

  Sonya almost sighed in relief as Andrea’s shoulders dropped a bit. The ochre didn’t drain from their leader’s face, however. She wasn’t home free yet.

  “I’m going to have to agree with Tony’s observation,” Sonya said calmly. “We’re a guerrilla fighting force. If you aren’t in tune with your people, you’ll soon find yourself in the hands of the Metros. I also have to agree that Augustine probably dropped the ball.” Before Andrea could muster up an interruption, Sonya put up her finger. “That does not, however, deal with Andrea’s grievance. Should some kind of sanction be placed against Tony?”

  “What the fuck?” Colin spurted. “You’re all agreeing he saved our collective asses—AGAIN, I might add—and you want to kick him out or worse?” Colin moved over to stand protectively in front of Tony. “I for one will go with him if he leaves. He risked his own ass to get me out of a jam. You all can suck Nil juice if you think I’m going to put up with that.”

  “I don’t think anyone was suggesting anything quite that drastic,” Frances offered diplomatically.

  “Like hell I wasn’t,” growled Andrea. “He’s a fucking menace.”

  “Folks, we need to calm down,” Andrew said, moving over in front of Andrea, but facing everyone else. Sonya imagined she was watching some schoolyard game where the two captains chose sides.

  Sonya looked into the face of each of her team members. Because of her anger, Andrea hadn’t realized she’d already lost. Sonya felt her only hope lay in dictating a solution to give everyone enough time to cool down. She hated the role of disciplinarian.

  “Enough. And I do mean enough from all of you. Tony, I have to say that I appreciate your abilities. At the same time, I’ve never seen this kind of polarization within our action committee. We’ve always been united. This gives me serious reservations about us as a team.”

  Sonya didn’t give Andrea enough time to make an ass out of herself by preening. “Andrea, I’ve never seen such childish, intransigent behavior. I can’t even begin to wonder why you’re so unfairly prejudiced against Tony. Oh, I can understand being angry about having someone threaten you, but knock his block off. I know you can do it. You don’t talk about pushing him out where we lose his abilities and let the Metros murder him.” She paced back and forth, looking at the floor.

  “If you were children, I’d make you shake hands. You aren’t. Andrea, I can’t make you like Tony. Tony, I can’t make you
less of a natural force.

  “This is my final word—”

  Tony interrupted by thrusting his hand high.

  Sonya closed her mouth on her next words. “I thought I already told you this isn’t a classroom. You don’t need to put up your hand to speak.”

  “Sonya, I think I need to get this in before you finish. I’m afraid I need to ask everyone some probing questions for my own peace of mind—otherwise your pronouncement may be moot. I don’t know that this is the right time, but I don’t think I can wait any longer.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What are we trying to accomplish with our actions?”

  Sonya felt stunned with the question. She wasn’t the only one. Several seconds passed before anyone spoke and then they all spoke at once in a cacophony.

  “Bringing power back to the people…”

  “Returning the balance of nature…”

  “Makin’ the bloody corps listen to the law.”

  The simple answers dissolved the room into even more chaos. Tony held up a hand to quiet the babble as everyone tried to get everyone else to agree with their viewpoint. While he didn’t get the respect that Sonya normally received, he did get eventually get their attention in the end.

  “You can’t even agree why you’re getting together and killing people.” He received nothing but puzzled looks. “Why should I stay committed to you as a group, other than my personal loyalties, when you commit the murder on a wholesale scale but can’t even decide why you’re doing it? Oh, sure, the megacorps do it daily, but you’ve held yourselves up to be better than they are.”

  Sonya barely noticed the silence as her own mind whirled around his challenge. She spoke first. “Why do you fight, Tony? It’s been almost two weeks now. Do you know why you kill?”

  “I’ll be honest. At first I killed to stay alive. I can’t quite claim self-defense, but that’s as close as any. I then realized this is almost the only true comradeship I’ve ever known in my life. In this short time, you’ve all touched me.

  “But I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided I have some morals. Now I’ll only kill to bring about positive change. I don’t see things moving toward any change at the moment. That probably means you’re going to feel you have to murder me to keep me from talking, but that’s the way my heart and soul is pulling.”

  Somehow Tony made Sonya feel dirty, just with a few well-chosen words about something she’d spent most of her life building.

  “You only bring up more things nee’ing answers,” Suet said pointing a green tentacle at him. “How ’o we make tha’ change? We though’ we were.”

  “This world is run by the corps. That isn’t right. There are no checks and balances. The rich run everything and there’s no way to get rich because they rig the game against it, unless you want to become just like them.

  “I’ll be honest. If I go forward, I do so to remove the current people from power. I don’t know what needs to be righted, other than that.”

  “How?” Frances said seriously. “We’ve been fighting the megacorps for years. Talking doesn’t work. All they recognize is violence.”

  “Nothing wrong with violence,” Tony said quietly. “Just stop killing people.”

  Seven people all opened their mouths to interject, but Sonya’s hand stopped them. “Tony, I think for all our sakes, except maybe our loving lady, Christine, we’d stop killing in an instant if we had another way.” Nods went around the room. At this moment Sonya realized how the tenor of the room shifted from confrontation to expectation.

  “It’s simple, actually. Let me ask some rhetorical questions. What does killing corpies do for us?” Before anyone could answer he went on. “Frankly, nothing good. There are always thousands who are willing to not only climb over the corpses but to perform sex acts with them to fill their now-vacant positions.

  “Killing hurts the corps not at all. They’ve learned a lesson. You see in the nets. Killing now helps them and works against us. They make us into the evil ones.

  “Now ask yourselves, what drives the corporations?”

  “Profits,” Andrea offered, her anger seemingly gone from even her posture.

  “Power,” Collin offered.

  “So how do we hurt the corps and not hurt ourselves? Step right up. Three tries for a quarter,” Tony said in all seriousness.

  Once again Sonya broke the tableau Tony had created. She began to see light through the fog over her brain. “Target and destroy visible corp assets while reducing the kill count to as close to zero as possible.”

  Murmurs of assent floated through the room. Sonya felt an energy unlike any since the GAM’s birth.

  “You just won a kewpie doll. Better than that, the targets we’ll be picking will have little to no protection. Who protects a warehouse except from thieves? Who protects a manufacturing plant? What about a mine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I like that!”

  “And now that I know you’re paying attention, I have a few more ideas. Right now you pick your targets by those who present an opportunity. I think that by a better selection process we could make each target work for us double, or maybe even triple.”

  Sonya just raised an eyebrow at him. Everyone else now politely or respectfully hung on Tony’s every word.

  “Look here. By attacking across all corps we’re draining only twenty ccs of blood out of each of them. We’re down in the dirt as far as their bottom line goes. Now, what if we were to focus our attacks on just a single corp?”

  “Crashing marke’.”

  “Their board of directors would have a fit.”

  “Take the tucker out of the bag!”

  Augustine pointed out the practical in Tony’s idea stream. “We could also make a fortune. Place ‘puts’ on the companies we target, and when the price plummets, we sell our puts and finance even better actions.”

  “Yes, now you see it. This would add even more pressure on the corporations. With a little luck it could cause some of the weaker ones to declare bankruptcy, removing them from the scene entirely.”

  The room stood silent for several full minutes. Sonya’s own heart leaped. “I never thought I’d live to see it happen,” Sonya said finally. “Do we even need to vote on this?”

  * * *

  Nanogate’s nine-month-old grandson, Michael, giggled as he bounced up and down on his grandfather’s knee. Drool flew most everywhere as the infant simultaneously decided to eat his fist. Everywhere included Nanogate’s antique Armani lounging gown. Nanogate smiled. His eldest son married an intelligent as well as beautiful young biochemist. They gave him a grandson to carry on the family name. What wasn’t to be pleased about?

  “That’s a good little boy. Ride the pony. When you get old enough I’ll buy you a real pony.” Nanogate gave the giggling child an extra bounce and wiggled him side to side.

  “So that b… that gentlewoman from Taste Dynamics told the truth about starting her little experiment before I proposed our Greenie solution?”

  “That’s correct, sir,” Mr. Marks said, standing at ease in the center of Nanogate’s home library. Scores of actual bound books lined the walls of a room ornate with real leather furniture, hardwood floors, and an authentic wool rug, dyed maroon red. Mark’s neon yellow tights clashed badly with the ancient décor.

  “Want to play airplane instead?” Nanogate swooped the boy up and down without leaving his wingback chair. “But she lied about authorizing action.”

  “That is correct, sir. I liberated a copy of her personal notes. You will find it appended to my report. In short, it appears your action jogged her memory. Three days later she authorized one Michael Upton to proceed with an action he proposed three months earlier.”

  “I guess that isn’t a big surprise. I probably would’ve done the same thing.” The baby suddenly got rather quiet even though still flying about. “And what results have they seen?”

  “The answer to that didn’t come easily, but good research always wi
ns out. Apparently Mr. Upton has a fascination with trains. I managed to come into possession of a vintage B&O locomotive and flatcar in T-scale he needed for his collection. I swapped him for the information.

  “The action was in two parts. The first involved intense propaganda, most of it fabricated, pointing to the evil ways of the GAM. The goal of the propaganda was simply to drive a wedge between them and their support base.

  “The second action involved disguising a daycare for the underprivileged as a prime target in several nearly open files on our network. The Green Action Militia did, in fact, read out the data as projected. The perpetrators of the hack are conjectured, of course, but the GAM rarely misses data of that nature in the open even if they didn’t themselves do the raid. It approaches a near unity probability that they ended up with the data, one way or another. However, nothing happened.”

  “She was going to let them blow up a bunch of children?”

  “Yes, sir. She deliberately set them up as bait. If I might be allowed an opinion, I believe it’s as if she would’ve murdered them herself.”

  The baby let out a noise, somewhat approaching a grunt before starting to coo and giggle again. Nanogate wrinkled his nose at his grandson’s latest offering. “Susan,” he said, “would you please come get your son?”

  As always, his servants, listening in to hear his slightest whim, got the message passed. Within a minute the mahogany doors opened and a beautiful blonde, not quite back to her perfect size six, sauntered in, heels clicking staccato on the floor.

  “Certainly, Father,” she said, picking up her baby. “Did little Mikey make a doo-doo?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call him Mikey. It’s Michael.”

  “Yes, Father.” She turned and left, cooing to the baby. The doors closed behind them.

  “Have we come to that, Mr. Marks? Killing children? Never mind, don’t answer that. I guess it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Who knows how many I’ll be killing in the next few days.”

  Nanogate stood up and walked to a stack of books on his desk. He picked one up and pointed it absently at his bodyguard. “So it sounds like her primary action is dead in the water before it even gets started. And the other is a pipe dream. Good news. I can use that against her.”