An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov)

by Thomas Gondolfi

“Well, you can believe it this time.”

  “In that case, how about I investigate and provide you with a quote and a timeline?”

  “That would be perfectly acceptable. This is excellent tea.”

  “Darjeeling. We have some being grown illegally in India and brought over. Another cup?”

  Cin lifted her face from the bowl and proceeded to clean her face contentedly. “No, thank you. We really must be moving on. We have many other stops to make.”

  “Yes, we thank you for your hospitality,” Tony offered.

  “Well, Michael, if I’m not stepping on Dian’s toes, I’ll offer you even more hospitality,” Jamie said in a voice both sultry and low.

  Tony shook his head just a fraction. “Thank you, no. We do really have to be going.”

  “A shame. But come back any time.”

  Fifteen silent minutes later, Tony and Sonya walked side by side, back to the decay that was ground level. Both tried to speak simultaneously.

  “Why didn’t you take her up on it?”

  “Why did we go there?”

  They both laughed. “You first,” Sonya insisted.

  “Why did we go there? We didn’t get anything out of her. And if you think she’s going to come up with a quote for us, you’re crazy. There’s no way she can get that info for us. Despite her serene hostess façade, her inability to deliver was written all over her.”

  “Of course it was. That’s what I was testing for, actually. Normally, she just quotes a very high price for something and we politely dicker. Even she didn’t think she could get the information. And if she can’t, no one can. That’s what I needed. No backdoors for Augustine.”

  “Too bad. We could use the direct information.”

  “Yes, she’s been asking for years. This is the first time we’ve had the resources to even pose the question. By the way, don’t let her vamp attitude make you think less of her. She runs the most pervasive Mob family around.”

  “She did seem a bit casual.”

  “It’s a defense mechanism. No one initially gives her the credit for her intelligence and her ruthlessness. Be that as it may, I had two other reasons for my visit. The easiest was to convey that our financial wherewithal has improved. That will get us better service and attention in the future.”

  “And the other?”

  “To introduce you to her, of course.”

  Measure Performance—Phase One

  Linc and Tony worked side-by-side in what passed for the militia’s armory, an abandoned automotive service garage at ground level. Linc’s bald head beaded with perspiration that also rolled down the side of his face. “Hot in here, isn’t it?”

  “Are you nuts?” Tony asked. “It’s November, we had a high of ten degrees today, and I’m ready to set fire to this dump just for some heat.” Tony watched Linc wipe a thick layer of moisture from over the top of his head with his forearm before preparing another explosive charge. Linc’s face didn’t have any of its normal healthful vigor, but instead wore a mask of white mottled with pink. “Maybe you’re pushing too hard?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I can work the long hours. I want to win, and now that we can finally see some successes, I’m just a little eager.” His outburst drained what little color remained in his face.

  “Linc, let this one go. What is this, your ninth mission in seven days? I’ll pick up someone else for this one. Christine’s been itching to do something, seeing as we’ve all but nixed her specialty from further field operations.”

  “Well, I must admit I’m not feeling very well.”

  “You don’t say? OK, sorry for the sarcasm, but I really think you should call it a day. You don’t look so good.”

  “You sure you can do it without me?”

  “Yeah. Walk in the park compared to the risks we were taking when I first started this show.”

  “Well, OK. Thanks, Tony. I’m going to go lay down.”

  * * *

  Nine miniature solidos once again sat on the matte black surface of Nanogate’s desk.

  “We’ve heard enough of your complaints. These impromptu meetings are dangerous and costly.” Several others nodded.

  “We did agree to meet more often. We’re meeting remotely only in deference to Tokyo Industrials and Unified Textiles, who could not alter their travel schedules.”

  “Yes, quite right. Taste Dynamics, please refrain from changing the topic. We shall now continue, with Nanogate having the floor.”

  “I’ve brought this to your attention previously, but now things are becoming perilous. All of those companies in my linked directorate have fallen under attack. Sixty separate incidents over two weeks. Our cash reserves are dangerously low. If it continues it may force us to close our doors…all of them.”

  “Your poor foresight is not our concern. Why are you whining when—”

  “Gentlemen,” CNI interrupted, “There is a perfectly simple solution to everyone’s troubles. This effort was supposed to be a shared risk to us all. As it’s been directly affecting only one of us, I suggest we all provide unsecured loans to weather these issues.” Most of the quorum nodded.

  “Passed by acclamation.”

  “A practical solution,” offered Wintel, one of the more conservative of their group. “This will get you past the worst of it. If you’ll refer to our simulations, you’ll see the weapons should begin to be felt any time now. We’ll see an easing of this area steadily for the next three weeks.”

  “I don’t believe this body really understands the gravity of the situation. Two more weeks of this will cause a significant portion of our directorate to declare insolvency. Three weeks would completely destabilize not only my administration but also the corporate fold I control. This could easily cause a ripple effect that would impact you as well. My simulations show a fourteen percent chance of catastrophic failure, a twenty-nine percent chance of a system-wide depression, and a further thirty-eight percent chance of recession. My data is available to any who wish to examine the validity of the simulations.

  “With these thoughts in mind, I would like to propose something more than just loans. Loans only temporarily prop up what has become a sinking ship. I propose we each assume an equal share of the losses. I ask for a vote.”

  Nanogate knew what the outcome would be before it even showed. The world of finance bred cutthroats, not altruists. They couldn’t see or smell the danger to themselves for the blood in the water. Most of them were already deciding how they could snap up pieces of his company for the biggest profit.

  Eight nays carried the vote.

  “Thank you for your time, gentlebeings. I must prepare what I can and determine what loans I’ll need from each of you.”

  Without fanfare he terminated the connection. His single button push summoned Mr. Marks in his yellow vinyl. “I have another job for you.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  * * *

  “As we—I mean, Tony—predicted,” reported Beth, “we’ve been experiencing a large influx of not only volunteers, but warmth from the community, where just a short while ago we were beginning to see signs of support erosion and in some cases even hostility.”

  “Excellent. With that and our next steps in place, I call for new business,” Sonya said. As one the group remained silent. “Well, in that case, I have a new item. This one’s a two-edged sword. We’ve been contacted by the head of the Nanogate syndicate.”

  “How did he find us?”

  “There were two messages. Both found their way to me. The first Augustine ferreted out when she spent last weekend trying to break into another Nanogate mainframe level. There in the open for even the most moronic of icebreakers to find was a message addressed to the GAM.

  “The second came to us from the brother of one of our current members. I won’t mention who, as he or she would be embarrassed to admit they have a corpie as a sibling. Somehow, the Nanogate sent us a personal message buried as an implant in the man’s brain. The details are lengthy
, but after they fired the man he came to his brother for help. Our medical probes, the same ones you each were subjected to, discovered it easily. Both conveyed exactly the same message, word for word.

  “He wants a percomm meeting at a specific time. He assures us there will be no attempt to trace the call. There’s no reason for the call given. It’s signed with the CEO’s DNA.”

  Tony fingered a crack in the upholstery as he considered Sonya’s words. “That really is a basket of snakes,” he remarked after a moment.

  “Why go ’o such ’engths?”

  “Yeehaw! We got him on the run. He must be desperate.”

  “You think he might want to negotiate a peace?”

  “Or buy’n time to fix his stuff.”

  “Or even it could be a trap.”

  “I congratulate you all,” Sonya agreed. “I came up with exactly the possibilities you proposed.”

  “So why chew with him?”

  “Well, he tipped his hand with this message,” Tony answered excitedly. “He gave us info we didn’t have before. He knows we’ve infiltrated his nets and he knows the people they’re nilling are coming into our fold. And, perhaps even more interesting, he’s contacting us in a clandestine manner.”

  “True. Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “If you don’t mind, Sonya,” Tony said, waiting for her nodded approval. “Well, let’s take each option in turn. Option one: We have him on the run and he wants to negotiate. If he is, he knows he has to offer something sweet to make us lay off. I think we’d be foolish not to at least listen to an offer.”

  “Yeah, righ’. We ge’ more from him than we’re sucking up now!”

  “Agreed. Option two: We have him on the run and he wants to buy time. Again, I think there’s no loss in listening. If it’s a ploy for a stall, we can always ignore it.”

  “And we can shove it up his arse if it’s shonky.”

  “Times two on that comment,” Colin added.

  “OK, OK. Option three: It’s a trap. I think ninety percent of avoiding any trap is knowing it’s there in the first place.”

  “And then we can shove it up his arse.”

  “Goes ’ouble for me.”

  “OK, Suet, I think we understand your sentiments,” Sonya said.

  “What about risks?” Jackson offered, almost as if scripted.

  “Well, if we decide to go through with it, we can limit the damage by isolating the person making contact. Take one of the new recruits and limit their knowledge of our organization even further.”

  “Agreed, but then we’d limit our ability to have a dialogue.”

  “Not necessarily,” Linc offered from his professional knowledge. “Have that someone, a cutout, physically tie two phones together receiver to transmitter. The person would only be needed to dial the number and put the phones together. Additionally, we could also use multiple cutouts before the call goes through. It’s such an old dodge I don’t think anyone would think of it.”

  “Yes, and I’m certain Augustine could monitor a trace. Even if successful, the manual percomm links would deny anything but a signal to process for comparison on other lines.”

  Now Sonya took her time thinking. “Any other risks?”

  “We could put everyone on watch duty to make sure if someone does show up we have time to escape,” Jonah offered.

  “Well, then I call for a vote,” Sonya said. “All opposed?” No hands showed. “I guess just as a formality…all in favor?” Everyone thrust up their hand.

  “Carried. The call time is set for tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Better sooner than later. Set it up. Jonah, you set up security. Linc you handle the cutouts. Tony will be our voice.”

  * * *

  At one time in her early youth, Sonya learned to isolate a single nerve in her body and heighten or deaden its input, a survival trait. She sat in a lotus, nude, in the center of her meditation room with her eyes rolled up in her head. She searched inside her body for groups of nerves to deaden to attenuate the pain. Her head throbbed in a way she couldn’t seem to control.

  One by one she turned off the nerve endings until she couldn’t feel anything of the outside world, but the pain remained. Many years ago her mother had taught her how to encapsulate illnesses and since then she’d never been sick, but she remembered some of those feelings—the loss of control, the pain and the lack of well-being, just like her body’s responses now.

  She turned her sight inward. For a brief moment she just relaxed and rode on the flow of her bloodstream, trying to adjust her senses to her new state. The pulsing motion, timed with each pump of her heart, started to make her nauseous. She contemptuously turned off those neural inputs, an oversight and lack of focus.

  It took several more seconds before she got her bearings and realized she now navigated through her kidneys. Everything looked in exceptional health. She flowed along out of the kidney. Ahead she sensed a foulness. As she floated further down, the blood pathway became clouded with necrotic cells, obscuring her vision. As she rolled into the liver, lesions spotted across its width, with entire branches clogged in an all-out war between her body’s immune system and the cause of the damage.

  Breaking her consciousness from the easy flow of the bloodstream she fought through tissue to worm deeper into the liver. She stopped next in one of the more virulent patches, visibly expanding before her. Healthy tissue and body defenses fought a losing battle as the invaders left naught but the dead and dying in their wake. She’d never seen anything move so quickly.

  Sonya encapsulated the infectious patch in a gossamer bag, allowing new defenders to rush to the defense. In the past this gave her body the ability to not only defeat the disease but to learn from it and become protected for the next time, just as a body is supposed to learn. But this time she watched the new defenders die just as fast and her isolation expand like a balloon continuing to be inflated. The rate of expansion slowed to a crawl compared to its previous rampage, but it continued. Sonya put more of her personal strength into the enclosure. Still it expanded. She poured even more power into it. Still it expanded.

  For the first time in many, many years, fear touched Sonya’s mind.

  Adjust Plan

  Over the next hour, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of civilians, a single pony nuke or cyphod chemical bomb could’ve destroyed up to ninety-five percent of the GAM membership. They lounged inconspicuously in doorways, drank coffee in terrace bistros, drove lift-trucks in racetracks around city blocks, and even patrolled the street level. Not one felt comfortable in their role as lookout. Every one of them nursed second thoughts and fears about this mission. Each one put every other thought and effort into watching for the precursors of a trap. Reports from them all came into Augustine’s neural net, every one of them comfortably negative.

  “All clear, Tony. Make the call.”

  Pushing one single button engaged the complex network of blind percomm connections and duplicitous network jockeying. In an age of crystal clear audio connections, this one scratched and crackled with odd noises.

  “It’s your nickel,” Tony said. While the elaborate system synthesized his voice, no one had any illusion that it couldn’t be broken. They all agreed Tony should act as the GAM voice in this meeting. Only Tony and Augustine sat in presence even with all the precautions they had taken.

  “What the hell’s a nickel?” wondered the voice on the other end of the line.

  “A historical unit of currency. Ancient slang for ‘you initiated the call, so get on with it.’” Tony looked at Augustine, who shook her head. No tracing attempts hit the line or any intermediate connection.

  “True. Thank you for your contact. I know the risk you are taking. My people have assured me that you are not tracing the line and I’m sure you have done the same.”

  “So we have the minimum amount of trust. Trace or no, we won’t stay on line long. Spill it.”

  “Very well. I propose that y
ou call off your attacks on Nanogate and its affiliates.”

  “Getting that close to shutting your doors?” Tony immediately regretted the jibe. It might limit his opponent’s candor.

  “Frankly, yes. Call me a survivor if you wish, but I’d like to go on surviving.” Everyone listening, in person and remotely, took a brief pause at the admission.

  “Well, we aren’t going to just stop. Nanogate is a legitimate target in our eyes. What are you offering in return?”

  “A new target.”

  “We’ve got hundreds of juicy targets.”

  “Not with inside information, you don’t, no matter how good a wire jock you have.”

  “What specifically are you offering?”

  “I will provide you detailed information that will allow you to take this attack to one of the other major conglomerates. This information will include areas of sensitivity, detailed intelligence, and aid in obtaining even more information to make your attacks safer and more pointed.”

  Tony’s mouth gaped. “How do we know you aren’t setting us up?” he counterpunched weakly.

  “You don’t. What assurances will you give me that you won’t attack both firms under my care and these others?”

  “You have a valid point. If we agree, what’s the next step you propose?”

  “I propose three future meetings that will provide you with the information I’ve promised. Each time I will provide more sensitive information, assuming I see the aggression against my companies cease.”

  “Agreed,” Tony said, not even looking to his compatriots.

  “We need a secure method of communication for these three meetings.”

  Without prompting, Augustine scribbled a notation on a piece of paper and handed it to Tony, who read and processed the information swiftly. “We’ll each send the other a two-gig encryption key for each meeting. By using both keys in alternation, we can limit the attack to brute force only. The keys are to be hand generated. No computer—not even an isolated system—is to be involved. Send your three keys to General Delivery in Tucson, Arizona, in care of Jefferson Thomas.”