He didn’t have a towel handy—when was the last time he’d done laundry anyway?—so he just wiped his face with the back of his hand and headed for the kitchen.
He grabbed a mug out of the cabinet, one of the few Lisa hadn’t taken when she’d split, and punched the power button on the coffee maker. He glanced idly about while waiting for his coffee to finish brewing, his thoughts already working to try and figure out how he was going to find the money to get a drink, and that’s when he saw it.
A business card, propped up against the salt shaker in the middle of the cramped little counter he used as a kitchen table. The crisp, clean whiteness of the card stood out against the sweat-and-food-stained surface of the counter top.
What the hell?
He stalked over and picked it up.
Limbus, it said.
It was followed by what he took to be the company slogan—“We Employ”—and a telephone number. But it was the last and final line of the card that really caught his eye.
“You are running out of time,” it said.
Nate scowled down at it. Running out of time? What the hell did that mean?
He flipped it over, hoping he might have scrawled something on the back to remind him of where he’d gotten it or what the company actually did, but there was nothing there. The back of the card was blank.
He racked his brains for a minute, a not insignificant task given how hung-over he was, and was just about to give up when a face floated out of the recesses of his memory.
Charlie.
Just like that the floodgates opened.
He remembered he’d gone to Julio’s hoping to find something with legs and a pair of tits to shack up with for the night, and had run into Charlie instead. It had been Charlie who’d given him the card; Charlie who’d told him that there was work available, if he wanted it.
Work.
The word was like a beacon in the night, jarring him from his apathy and setting his heart to beating again. He glanced around the hovel he was living in and mentally winced at the depths to which he’d sunk. He’d lost his edge, lost his drive, and this was where it had gotten him. It was time to turn things around, to get moving again. No more of this self-pitying bullshit. It was time to start living again.
Work.
That’s what Charlie had said. There was work available if he wanted it.
Damn right he did.
He turned the card over again, looking for an address, but didn’t find one. He noted with a start that he had read the last line incorrectly the first time around; he must be more hung over than he thought. Instead of telling him his time was running out, the line below the telephone number actually read “You won’t regret your decision to join us!”
Yeah, we’ll see about that, he thought.
He turned to the comm unit and punched in the number. It rang only once before a cheerful female voice answered it. “Limbus—We Employ. Will you be joining us, Mr. Benson?”
The connection was voice only, no video. Nate wondered if he was talking to a real person or just a computer simulacrum.
“How do you know my name?” he asked.
“Your comm unit identified you when you called in to our offices, Mr. Benson.”
“Oh, right.” Nate felt stupid for even asking. Of course the unit had identified him; all comm units used broadcast identification as a default setting.
A little paranoid, Nate?
He didn’t bother answering himself.
“Are you still with us, Mr. Benson?”
Nate cleared his throat. “Yes, yes I am. I’m calling about a job opening.”
“Of course you are, Mr. Benson. It would be my pleasure to serve you.”
As it turned out, they were doing interviews all day in one of the corporate buildings downtown. Nate booked an appointment, wrote down the address, and then, after disconnecting the call, went to look for something to help his hangover.
*
Two hours later he stepped off the slidetrain and slipped through the crowds lining the platform, headed for the nearest exit to the street beyond.
He’d made himself look as presentable as he could. He wore a clean pair of jeans and a reasonably new button-down shirt under a light jacket to fend off the light drizzle that was falling.
This section of New Manhattan was all corporate high-rises and company-owned businesses. Everyone he passed on the street was wearing the latest fashions and he drew more than a few curious stares as he moved through the crowds in his far more humble attire, but he didn’t care. He was here about a job and the rest of them could go take a flyin’ hike for all he cared.
The address he was looking for turned out to be a one hundred and twelve story building several blocks from the train station. He checked with the robodirectory when he arrived and the squat humanoid-looking construct told him the offices he was looking for were located on the seventy-eighth floor. Gravlift eighteen was the easiest way of reaching that destination, he was told, so he sauntered off in that direction.
Once on the correct floor, it only took him a moment to find their offices at the end of the hall; the titanium plaque on the front door displayed the company name in letters a foot tall.
As he reached for the door handle a feeling of unease unfurled in his gut, a sense that if he went through that door things would be irrevocably changed, and that brought him up short, his hand hanging there in mid-air as if he’d forgotten what to do with it. For a moment it seemed he wasn’t going to go through with it, that he was just going to stand there indefinitely, but then he shook himself all over, like a dog shedding water from its coat, and the feeling passed. He grabbed the door, pulled it open, and stepped inside.
He found himself in a large reception area. A row of leather chairs lined the wall to his left while a desk stood to his right. Both were empty. Beyond the desk was an open door, which Nate assumed led to an inner office.
He took a seat, assuming the receptionist was in the back office area and would no doubt return momentarily. He had only been there a few minutes when he felt someone’s gaze upon him. Looking up, he started with surprise to see a bald-headed man in a dark suit staring at him from the open door behind the receptionist’s desk.
“Hi,” Nate said, his heart thumping at the man’s sudden appearance. “I’m Nate Benson. I have a two o’clock appointment.”
He guessed the man in the suit was somewhere in his late forties, which would make him about a decade older than Nate. He was tall and rather thin, with long fingers that reminded Nate of a piano player he’d once seen at an after-hours club in the Holy City, but unlike that piano player this man’s suit was impeccably cut and probably cost more than Nate made in a month.
On second thought, make that two.
The man didn’t say anything, just nodded once and waved for him to follow before disappearing back through the open door.
What the hell?
Nate got to his feet and did as he was told. The doorway led to a short corridor that ended in a large, corner office, an office almost as large as the reception area itself. A desk that looked as big as the Titanic stood in one corner and behind it sat the man in the suit. In front of the desk was a single, empty chair.
While Nate took it all in, the man said, “What can I do for you?”
“I’m here about a job? You know, for an interview?” Nate said.
The man nodded. “Of course, you are. Please, have a seat.”
Nate pulled out the chair and did as he was asked.
The man looked him over, nodding to himself as he did so. He opened the top right drawer of the desk, removed a slim file, and then closed the drawer before placing the file carefully on the desk in front of him. The recruiter—that was how Nate was beginning to think of him—opened the file and began reading.
Nate opened his mouth to say something, but the man cut him off, holding up a finger in a “wait-a-minute” gesture without looking up from his paperwork. Nate’s mouth closed with a snap.<
br />
The man continued reading for another moment, before looking up at Nate.
“You spent six years in the military?”
“Seven, actually,” Nate replied. “Is that a problem?”
The man smiled. “Not at all. Just trying to get a better understanding of your background, that’s all.”
Another quiet moment as the recruiter continued to study Nate’s file. Or, at least, that’s what Nate thought it was. He was impressed that they’d managed to assemble a file on him so quickly when he’d only just called for the appointment a few hours ago; that was efficiency, that’s for sure!
“Extremely high marks in small unit tactics, hand-to-hand combat. And an Expert Marksman with a rifle,” the man said. “Were you a sniper?”
Nate shook his head. “Long Range Recon.”
The man nodded, made a note in the file, then set it aside. “Did your friend Charlie tell you what it is we do here?” he asked.
Nate shook his head. “Just said there was work to be had, if I was interested.”
“And are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Interested?”
“Of course I am! I’m sitting here, ain’t I?”
Nate winced, instantly regretting his tone. His anger and impatience was going to cost him a shot at a legitimate job and he had no one to blame but himself.
Damn your mouth, fool!
But, to his amazement, the recruiter didn’t seem to hear. He simply smiled in Nate’s direction and said, “You seem to be particularly well-suited to our program, Mr. Benson.”
“And what program is that, if you don’t mind my asking.”
The recruiter shrugged. “We … solve problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
Another shrug. “Whatever kind need fixing.”
Nate leaned back in his chair, frowning slightly. He’d come in looking for a job. He’d asked a straightforward question about that job and instead of being given a straightforward answer, what he was getting was the kind of double-talk he hadn’t heard since the time he and his team had run cover for that pair of Defense Intelligence Agency spooks during the fall of Jerusalem. If they couldn’t tell him what the job entailed, how did they expect …
Wait a minute!
He ran through what he’d seen so far, mentally comparing each element against a checklist he’d developed after years of working in clandestine ops. From the office address in a high-class business district to provide an atmosphere of success and privilege to the unremarkable front man with a face you’d forget five seconds after seeing it, it all pointed to one thing.
Limbus was a front!
It had to be. Nate would bet his left nut it was nothing more than a shell company set up to give them a public face, a sense of legitimacy, while the real work went on behind the scenes, hidden from prying eyes.
The recruiter had said it himself, hadn’t he? You seem particularly well suited to our program. Nate had a certain specific range of skills, skills that weren’t all that useful in your typical corporate setting, and it was for that very reason he’d been having trouble finding work since being discharged. He could defuse a bomb with a paperclip and a pair of salad forks in less than ten seconds or sneak into an enemy encampment, cut the leader’s head off his shoulders, and get out again before anyone even noticed something was amiss, but he didn’t remember seeing a spot for those particular skills on the last few dozen job applications he’d filled out.
If he was well suited to their needs, that meant …
Nate let out a slow, lazy smile of his own. “Ah, I see.”
The recruiter cocked his head to one side. “Do you now?”
“I do. I really do.” Nate wondered just which agency was running the show here. It didn’t feel like the DIA, but then again, that was exactly the modus operandi that those boys used all the time. They were specialists in making it look like some other agency was responsible throughout the entire op. That way, if things went sour, they had plausible deniability and could let the other agency take the heat while their people slipped quietly away into the night.
It really could be anybody, though; the World Federated Government had far more clandestine agencies than the average citizen suspected or even imagined. From the Unified Police Agency (UPA) to the Federated Transportation and Safety Administration (FTSA), the possibilities were practically endless.
Not that it really mattered. One branch of the government was as good as any other.
“So then, are you requesting employment with us here at Limbus?”
Requesting employment? It seemed an odd way of putting it to Nate, but yes, that was essentially what he was doing, he guessed.
He nodded.
The recruiter shook his head. “I’m sorry. I need a verbal answer.”
Nate frowned. Guy was a bit of a stickler it seemed. Fine. “Yes, I am requesting employment.”
A sheaf of papers appeared and was placed on the desk in front of him.
“This is our standard contract and corporate non-disclosure agreement. Details all the usual benefits. I need you to sign here, here, and here.” The recruiter placed a pen on the desk next to the contract.
Nate glanced at it. Twenty-something pages of typical bureaucratic legalese; made him dizzy just looking at it, never mind trying to understand. No way was he reading all that crap. He was only interested in one item and he found it under subsection 21-F Compensation. He took a look at the number listed there and then picked up the pen and signed where he’d been asked.
The recruiter positively beamed. “Excellent! Welcome aboard, Mr. Benson. If you would follow me, please, we’ll get you started.”
Nate was surprised. “Now?”
“Yes, now,” the recruiter responded, his mouth twisted into a slight frown. “Or did you have somewhere else you needed to be?”
Nate heard the threat, loud and clear.
“No, no. Now is fine. Nothing like getting started right away to learn the ropes.”
The recruiter seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Quite right,” he said at last.
Nate followed him out of the office and down a hall to what turned out to be a cutting-edge medical suite. An examination table stood in the center of the room with a medibot suspended over it. Consoles lined the walls, the computer screens on them currently dark.
After the recruiter moved to one of the consoles and input a series of commands, the medibot surged into life, reminding Nate of a giant mechanical spider. It sent a chill up his spine at the sight.
He didn’t like spiders.
Positively hated hospitals.
This was not, he decided, going to be fun.
“Please disrobe down to your undershorts and climb up on the examination table,” the recruiter said, his attention on the command console before him.
Nate looked doubtfully up at the mechanical arachnid above the table and then back over to the recruiter. “Do you know how to operate one of these things?”
The recruiter slowly turned and stared at him.
Didn’t say a word; just glared.
Nate took the hint, disrobed, and climbed up onto the table.
In ten minutes he’d had his blood taken, his brain waves recorded, and been scanned all the way down to the molecular level. As he dressed he considered the fact that his new employer now knew everything there was to know about him physically; had the technology existed they could have created a physically identical body double.
Nate wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“This way, please.”
The recruiter led him out of the office and down the hallway to the same elevator he’d arrived in. Nate knew better than to say anything while out in public, where it might be overheard by any number of listening devices planted by competing organizations, so the short trip up to the ninety-seventh floor passed in silence.
They emerged from the elevator and moved down the hall to a door near the far end. A silver scanner w
as embedded into the wall next to the door. The recruiter fussed with the keypad for a moment and then stepped to the side, out of the way of the device. “If you don’t mind …” he said, looking at Nate expectantly and indicating the scanner.
“Of course.”
Nate stepped forward and placed his hand in the center of the scanner.
There was a sudden, sharp buzzing sound and a pale blue light flared briefly under his hand before the door beside him opened with the sharp click of a releasing lock.
With a wave of his hand, the recruiter—what the hell was his name anyway?—ushered Nate inside.
He found himself in a long hallway with doors on either side. The recruiter led him to the fifth door on the left where they repeated the business with the palm lock. The office suite just beyond contained a slim storage locker, a restroom, and a personal farcaster unit.
Farcasters had been developed ten years ago by the scientists in the Defense Research Agency and had yet to see even limited use among the civilian population. Owning one was a capital crime, punishable by forty years of hard labor.
The government gets all the cool toys, Nate thought with a smile.
The recruiter walked over to the locker and opened it. Inside was a change of clothing—a dark-colored suit, a shirt, tie, and dress shoes—hanging from the locker’s only hook. On the shelf above were a hypoinjector unit and a personal beeper.
“Listen carefully, please, as I’d prefer not to repeat myself,” the recruiter said, as he handed the beeper to Nate.
“Notification of a new assignment will come via this personal computing device, or PCD. You are to report to this room at the time indicated on the page. The farcaster will already be programmed with the proper coordinates and you will use it to travel to and from your destination.”
He reached for the hypo, handed that to Nate.
“Inject yourself with the hypo, then change into the …”
Nate interrupted. “What’s in the hypo?”
Limbus, Inc. Page 14
