An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov)

by Thomas Gondolfi

  “Agreed. You send your key to William Wenner, 1456 South Oscar Road, Beach City, Oregon.”

  “Our next call will be exactly four days from now at this same time. We will refrain from any attacks during that period.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I won’t say ‘You’re welcome.’”

  “I wouldn’t expect it.”

  * * *

  Not for the first time, Mr. Marks dressed in something other than his yellow tights. This time he wore professional overalls bearing the logo of Volt Electrical. Marks hummed off key as the Taste Dynamics security guard examined the work order Marks had fabricated just ten minutes before.

  “Everything looks in place. Do you need an escort?”

  “Only if you want to give me one. I’ve been here often enough they gave me my own key,” he lied easily. “Seems your plumbing contractor screwed up the power lines again.”

  “OK. Report back here before you leave.”

  “No problem. Short job. I’ll be out in an hour.”

  Mr. Marks walked along his memorized route to a janitorial door. Using the electronic key he had brandished earlier, the door opened to his touch. He calmly opened his bag and placed a thirty thousand gauss electromagnetic lock on the door to ensure his privacy. He extracted from his kit a fifty-centimeter, black-plastic stick. Flipping it open, once in each direction, he tripled its length. Expertly, he pulled it open, one section at a time. Each length popped up a perpendicular stick twenty centimeters long, each one on opposite sides of the pole from the previous. Once done, he leaned it against the wall, making a very serviceable ladder. Removing a laser saw from his pouch, he climbed up and began cutting a hole in the wall very near the ceiling.

  Seven minutes later he took a visual network tester and played it over the grouping of cables he had just exposed. It took thirty-three minutes to identify the right cables. Selecting that one pair, he released them from the bundle, routed them out to a separate and exposed plastic trough, and then returned the remainder to their original resting place. With stolen Taste Dynamics sealing tape, he marked the hole he’d cut and the plastic trough, making it seem part of an official change and approved by security.

  After sixteen minutes of miscellaneous cleanup and removal of the protective magnet, he dropped the last of his tools in his bag. Eight minutes later he walked out the gate with a wave to the guard, duty for another day accomplished.

  * * *

  “I therefore call this meeting to a close. Thank you all.” Sonya nodded as they stood to depart. “Tony, would you mind following me back home?”

  Tony’s mind went immediately into overdrive. He’d never been asked to Sonya’s home. To the best of his knowledge, no one had. She’d been kind, but never really friendly, nor did she ever seem sexually attracted. Anything she said to him normally would be said in front of the entire council. Why the change? At least eleven people looked at him with that same question in their eyes.

  “Sure,” his voice betraying just a tiny bit of confusion. When Sonya turned, Tony shrugged at the assemblage.

  He followed her out to the slum of street level. She glided along the streets illuminated by the occasionally functioning streetlamp. Without moving in anything but a straight line, she seemed to dance amongst the fog and early evening darkness like a ghost, totally at one with the environs. Fearlessly, she walked past street level gangs and bands of whelps who routinely dismembered their victims for their two-credit implants. Less than a few weeks ago, terror would’ve overcome Tony at even the thought of escorting a young woman on a Portland street, other than those specifically patrolled and kept relatively safe for the nightclubs. Instead, he strode comfortably at Sonya’s side.

  While Tony tried to determine, unsuccessfully, if they were unnoticed or respected enough to be left alone, Sonya suddenly leapt high enough to chin her way up a rusted fire escape ladder four meters above the ground. It creaked ominously as she scrambled up arm over arm. Tony eyed the lowest rung. Sonya’s panther-like jump outstripped his capabilities. Without undue stress he climbed up on a nearby blue dumpster, freckled with the ever-present corrosion of the Pacific Northwest, and with only a tiny jump managed the ladder. He unconsciously wiped the rust from his hand on his pants before entering through the window of her fifth floor apartment.

  For their enterprise, fifth floor approached perfection—too low for anything but street scum, but high enough to keep out all but the most ambitious of the Nils and breakers. Tony wrinkled his nose at a pervasive musty smell. The single piece of furniture, an ancient leather sofa, held at least seven cats and four dogs. The heavily stained carpet held at least twice that number. Two of the cats came up to strop his legs. One of the small dogs chose that time to bark, but only a single yip broke his throat. Several of them came over to beg attention from Sonya, who managed to pet each of them and croon something Tony couldn’t hear.

  Despite the menagerie, Tony worried on that one-word question like a bit of steak caught between his molars. Why?

  Instead of asking, he made idle conversation. “Nice security. Would they lick the invader to death?”

  “Despite all appearances, they’d protect this home fiercely. That you’re with me, and that you’re an empathic person, makes all the difference.”

  “Empathic? Me?”

  “Yes, even if you don’t understand why you feel uneasy around some people and warm in the glow of others. Yes. Now come this way.” She invited him into a kitchen strewn about with equipment of various missions, past and present. Oddly, the animals stopped at the doorway as if barred by an invisible door. They didn’t invade the kitchen like they’d taken over the living room.

  “I didn’t bring you here for that discussion, however.” She shoved out a padded chair with its stuffing peeking through the cracked vinyl for Tony. As he sat, she pushed away the parts on the table, many of which crashed to the floor, and assumed her customary lotus on the surface.

  “You have to be overflowing with curiosity. Let me just begin by saying that I’ve not brought you here on a whim. You’ve become more than just another member of my organization, but really my right hand in planning and intentions. With fourteen extremely successful personal missions under your belt and the planning of many, many more, you’ve earned not only my trust but that of the entirety of the GAM. You know nearly everything I know about our organization. I need to bounce a couple of items off of you. Items that have me concerned.”

  Tony had learned the hard way that concern from the stoical Sonya usually meant a cosmic disaster. To have several such concerns meant nothing less than the end of the world. “Why not bring them up in council?”

  “I didn’t feel comfortable discussing such things publicly. Morale is a fragile thing. It’s been so long since we’ve had any, I want to keep it going and not risk fracturing it.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  “Perhaps. Let me start with the most obvious. Did you notice that we had three members missing tonight?”

  “Yes. I sent Linc home yesterday. Must have the flu.”

  “Hmm. I don’t believe it’s any form of influenza. He’s running four degrees of fever. The other two are worse, with all the signs of dysentery.”

  “How did they get that? In this modern era? We don’t have contaminated water. Even most of the barrios have good water here in Portland.”

  “They don’t have dysentery. They have the symptoms. Each of the other two has been running at both ends for three days.”

  “OK, so we have a bug running around. Even those with full medical don’t have a cure for the common cold.”

  “I agree, but I have a strong reason to believe that this isn’t any common bug. You see, I have it as well.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. I’ve had it for two days. You needn’t worry. I’ve isolated my body with...well, you’d probably call it a spell.”

  “I hate to sidetrack you, but that’s a question I’ve had hovering. I’ve seen you do
some very slick things.”

  Sonya didn’t hesitate. She must’ve anticipated the question. “My mother was a witch and her mother before her. For all I know, probably her mother before that. Just let it be said that I have certain abilities that are mostly personal or informational in nature.”

  “Can you elaborate?”

  “I could teach it, but the training usually starts in infancy. Just say that I’ve usually got an ace up my sleeve in many situations that most won’t understand nor comprehend.”

  “OK, but that still doesn’t explain…”

  “My illness started as nothing but muscle aches, but I knew there was nothing normal about it. I’ve not been ill since a bout of measles at seven years old. This made me obviously suspicious. I’ve tested my blood and it’s positive for an unknown biological agent. It could be a naturally occurring mutation, but its targets seem a bit localized.”

  “I don’t think we should assume anything yet. We should give it a bit of time. We’re a small and closely knit group, after all.”

  “Well, I’m going to institute some quarantine procedures. All those that are ill will not be allowed to further mingle with the rest of our team.”

  “Seems logical no matter the cause. I don’t mean to sound belittling, but this sounds like an overreaction.”

  “So be it. I find it all too convenient, but we shall see.”

  * * *

  For their regular quarterly meeting, the cabal met in person in the heart of a private space station orbiting the Moon. That they alone occupied the station or had ever been on the station since its construction didn’t seem to faze these ten wealthy individuals.

  Living and sleeping in zero-gee, and the solitude no one ever got on Earth, rested one in a way no other relaxation could. Each had used it as a private retreat when the pressures of running a conglomerate climbed too high to withstand.

  The tiny conference room would’ve seemed cramped in any gravity, but in zero-gee the group lay out flat nearly head-to-head in a formation that resembled the points of a three-dimensional compass. Each kept notes on an electronic stylus tethered to podiums that stretched out from the wall. Tokyo Industrials and CNI, both uncomfortable floating free, strapped themselves to the same solid structures.

  “That brings us to the actions against the GAM,” directed Wintel, the chairman for this quarter.

  “Actions here have taken a radical change,” said Taste Dynamics, who gently drifted away to the right from her notes.

  “Agreed,” Nanogate said. “The actions against Nanogate have ceased, but the damage has been done. We are a ghost of our former strength. Our simulations show eight to ten years to reestablish ourselves even without any further attacks.”

  “That’s within the overall window of damage we predicted,” claimed ECM.

  Nanogate kept his face perfectly calm.

  “Actually, the change I wanted to report is that we are now the ones under attack,” Taste Dynamics explained. “As has been the norm of late, no one has claimed responsibility. Additionally, the attacks have been very severe and quite uncanny in their targeting.”

  “Please elaborate.”

  “We’ve lost seven shipments of a rare chemical required in the production of nanites, and even more importantly the new NAD, Neural Amplification and Disruption, weaponry. We’ve beefed up our security on these shipments, and miraculously no one made attempts on the last four we sent. This puts our finished goods deliveries to our customers behind by at least a full quarter, even if we reduce our own uses to zero. The cost in penalties alone is ruinous.”

  “Our original assessment of this was industrial sabotage, until someone succeeded in eradicating the formula for Pepsi. This formula is one of the most closely guarded secrets in my entire sphere of influence. Only three people, and one totally isolated and hidden computer system, knew the formula. All three of these people were killed within minutes of a large detonation which destroyed the computer system—a system whose location only three different people knew.

  “I don’t need to inform you of the magnitude of this loss. To hide this, we’ve started a spin on all the nets to get people ready for the new and improved Pepsi. However, every netwired pundit has plastered the real story over every black channel available. Sixty-three percent of the viewers believe the truth, not our spin coverage.”

  “Anything more?”

  “Dozens of attacks on key industrial facilities. All of this has happened within the last week. Our stock, as I’m sure all of you have noticed, has plummeted to a mere thirty-four percent of its former value. My people are telling me that the word on the street is that the GAM has made Taste Dynamics its prime target. And as in the past, massive puts distributed across many over-the-counter operations again gave the perpetrators a massive infusion of cash.”

  “Why the change?” Nanogate asked with a straight face. High stakes poker players could take tips from him. “They could’ve finished us off completely with just a bit more concentrated effort.”

  “Lack of prime targets?” asked CNI. “A group like this feeds on morale and success. They don’t have the will to follow through with their actions to completion. I venture they realized all they could pick on with Nanogate was crumbs and decided to go after more juicy morsels elsewhere.”

  “A plausible explanation,” Taste Dynamics reluctantly agreed. “I remain concerned that the damage to our fiscal structure seems a little too precise and convenient. Could there be inside information?”

  “That’s definitely something you should investigate,” said Bell.

  “Wait a moment,” Percomm Systems interjected. “Are you suggesting that someone in this room had anything to do with this?”

  “I made no such implication,” Taste Dynamics said with the blandest expression as she floated just a bit away from her designated place. Her body made gentle and unconscious movements to recover her podium and her notes, but her face didn’t waver.

  “That’s good. Without cooperation, we would not be able to function nearly as effectively.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Yes.”

  “I suggest in the interest of continuing our support of those affected by the GAM that we extend our open loan policy to Taste Dynamics,” offered Nanogate in a fine hypocritical glow.

  Taste Dynamics glared but said nothing.

  “Passed by acclamation.”

  * * *

  “Grab her left arm…I mean, tentacle…I mean, just grab it!”

  With a howl spawned from the deepest hell, Suet flailed again, throwing Tolly’s huge frame across the bedroom with predictable results in the centuries old home built with old-fashioned sheetrock.

  With the devastation left by a hurricane, the room bore holes randomly spaced about the walls, along with shattered lamps, torn bedding, and shredded bits of indistinguishable electronics littered about. One sliding closet door hung from a single point at right angles to its tracks, and the other had been broken roughly horizontally in half. The bed on which Suet lay only retained its two right legs, canting it to the left. The loose jade tentacle snapped across the top quarter of the battered but previously intact TriVid, shattering any semblance of form or functionality.

  This time Tony and Andrew managed to grab and hold down Suet’s right arm without damage to any party. The welts and bruises on everyone testified that they hadn’t been so successful in containing the chaos previously.

  “Augustine! Hurry up!”

  “Cracking body implants isn’t the easiest job in the world!” she snapped back from the other room. “Most of this is black market kludge. If I address the wrong command register, I could crash her completely!”

  “I don’t care! If you ain’t smart, Sheila, we’ll all be mush!”

  “Andrew, get this arm lashed down so we can try and control the other one.”

  “P’ease shu’ me off,” Suet pleaded in a voice weak and cracked by hours of screaming.

  “We’re trying, sweetie,”
Tony said softly. “It won’t be long.”

  “Oh, shi’! Here comes another one!” The screech of Suet’s voice mimicked the intensity and agony of tearing sheet steel in a high-speed vehicle crash.

  “Tolly, get up and grab that arm!”

  He made it by bare microseconds. This time, her body rocked in jackhammer-like strokes on the bed. Her hips lifted nearly 30 centimeters before crashing down each time. The third oscillation took off the remaining legs of the bed with the report similar to a pair of gunshots, milliseconds apart.

  Sonya, the newest arrival, bolted in from the front door. She chanted something as she ran full speed to the side of the bed. From one hand she cast a handful of dust at Suet’s vibrating form. All motion stopped instantly.

  “Augustine, that won’t last long,” Sonya announced as the others allowed themselves a brief moment to relax. “Get her implants shut down now!”

  “Two minutes,” came the slightly muffled reply.

  “This is no cold,” Sonya spat at Tony in the rarest display of temper.

  Tony looked at her, stunned, unable to think of anything to say in response.

  “What happened?” Sonya asked, forcibly calming herself down.

  Tolly took up the description after two deep breaths and a brief examination of a dinner-plate-sized abrasion on his abdomen. “I got a ring from Suet’s flat-mate, Sandy. Suet asked her to ring me up because she was having troubles controlling voluntary servos. I’ve meched for Suet in the past. I didn’t think anything of it until I came in and found Sandy lying on the floor with her neck broken. Then I put out the all- points alarm per doctrine. You know most of the rest.”

  “You were right about the illnesses, Sonya,” admitted Tony. “What’s our next step?”

  “Closest to this I’ve heard of is epilepsy, but gengineering cleared that up fifty years or more ago. When Augustine’s done, I’ll have her search the medical databases.”