Frank Kurns Boxed Set

by Natalie Grey

  Panic gripped Bobcat. If this technique was suddenly becoming popular, then it was possible Marcus and William might find out about it.

  The idea came to him in a flash: block the mention. He knew enough to get into the routers, and carefully began building a program that would block all pages with any mention of the oil. But, he reflected, that wasn’t quite enough…

  “May I ask what you are doing?” a computerized voice asked.

  Bobcat jumped. ADAM…he’d forgotten ADAM.

  “Uh…” He looked around worriedly.

  “There is no need to look for me. I am everywhere.”

  “That’s not reassuring,” Bobcat muttered.

  “Oh, dear. You appear perturbed. Is this my fault?”

  Bobcat considered. He had at first assumed that ADAM would fault him for his actions, but it appeared that the AI did not intend to chastise him.

  “I’m trying to make sure Marcus and William don’t steal my newest trick for the beer competition,” he explained.

  “You are worried that they will find the same trick on their own, or that they will learn it by watching you?”

  “By watching me.” Bobcat looked at the program. “Or that they will find it on their own,” he admitted.

  “Isn’t that unethical? You are denying them a valid technique.”

  “Well, yes…” Bobcat hunched his shoulders.

  “I think you should leave the webpages unblocked,” ADAM said after a moment.

  “Why?” He tried not to sink his face into his hands. He didn’t really want to hear a treatise on morality from an AI.

  “Because if you win the competition by denying others the same technology you have access to your victory will be meaningless, and you will come to have negative associations with the memory. Victory should be happy, not painful.”

  Bobcat looked around again.

  “I do not have a physical location,” ADAM reminded him.

  “Right, right.” Bobcat stared at the screen. “Thank you for your input. That was helpful.” He only narrowly managed to avoid using the phrase, “Surprisingly helpful.”

  With a sigh, he undid the blocks. Now anyone could find and use myrcene oil.

  “You had better hope Yelena is still impressed,” he muttered.

  Chapter 7

  Romania

  Andrei woke up in the forest alone.

  The fall evening was getting cold, and he was chilled. Shivering, he pushed himself to his feet and groaned in pain.

  He remembered—or more accurately was desperately trying to forget—screaming in terror, babbling answers to the wolf that had spoken to him, and seeing spots as he passed out time and again from fear.

  The wolf hadn’t been impressed with the lies he told.

  So he had told the truth. He had sold his employer out. Panic made his knees weak again.

  You did not sell out Ioan. Ioan killed people for disobedience and betrayal. Even talking back—hell, even a noncommittal look—was enough to earn a severe punishment.

  Sometimes, it was whispered, Ioan killed people who had done nothing at all. Andrei hadn’t seen it, himself, but he believed it.

  It was enough to make him think he should never have gotten mixed up in any of this.

  In fact, he was beginning to think he should get out.

  It was going to be difficult. He would need to get his grandfather to come with him, and Mihai was a man with a stubborn attachment to the town he’d grown up in. He would protest, but he had to come with Andrei. Ioan certainly knew where Andrei lived. He would kill Mihai in a heartbeat to make a point.

  As he stumbled back up the slope toward town, Andrei rubbed his arms to warm them, and tried to come up with a plan. His breath clouded in the cold air, and his brain was filling his thoughts with warm blankets and cups of tea.

  But he needed to focus.

  You didn’t run from Ioan without a plan.

  He would go in tomorrow, he decided. He would tell that weaselly Grigore that he’d managed to find out who was disabling the traps, and he’d killed him and hidden the body. Let Ioan hear that Andrei was a loyal servant. That way, when he disappeared they wouldn’t come looking for him immediately.

  Meanwhile he’d pay someone to help him and Mihai disappear. It wasn’t impossible, and Ioan would only spend so much time and effort to make a point.

  It was a good plan.

  At least, it had been a good plan until he came around the edge of the path into town and saw a black car idling by his house.

  The air seized in his lungs and Andrei heard himself whimper. Ioan was here, and he was waiting in Andrei’s house. That could not possibly mean anything good.

  Between that moment and his death, Andrei would deeply regret his next actions: he turned, and ran. His master-plan of a clever bluff was thrown aside, and he ran like a coward. He ran like an animal. He ran like prey.

  So they hunted him like prey. He heard the yell behind him as he plunged into the woods, heedless of the branches whipping past his face. He had no plan, he had only panic.

  Of course they caught him. They were used to people running and they let him struggle too, so that when he was at last dragged back to Ioan’s car he was exhausted and almost crying with fear. He had the chance to see Ioan’s merciless black eyes.

  Then they put a bag over Andrei’s head and the car lurched into motion.

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds

  Marcus made his way down the hallway of the Meredith Reynolds distractedly. He was mentally rechecking final proportions of hops as well as an exhaustive step-by-step list, and looked up periodically to make sure he didn’t trip over anything.

  It didn’t work perfectly as a system, but he only ran into two doorways.

  He thought he heard giggling as he crossed the open bay to his office, but thought nothing of it. The area was hardly deserted. It was only when he crossed the threshold that he realized the delighted giggles were coming from his office. Tabitha was bouncing excitedly on his office chair and grinning at him like a tiny lunatic.

  Marcus stopped dead. This seemed like an ominous development.

  In his experience, things that made Tabitha laugh were likely to end in catastrophe.

  “Can I help you?” he managed.

  “I got you a leg up in the beer competition,” she informed him smugly.

  “You did?” He grabbed the other chair and scooted it closer. “Tell.”

  She hiked her legs up to sit cross-legged and leaned back in the chair with a grin. “I hacked Bobcat’s emails.”

  Marcus froze. “You what?”

  “Yeah, apparently he got something called—”

  “That’s not ethical.”

  She frowned in confusion, “You were trying to do it. I saw the traces in the system. You tried to look, so I thought I’d help.”

  “No, I was going to look and I stopped.” Marcus looked around uncertainly, half sure he would see Barnabas hanging upside down like a bat in one of the corners. “I…want to do the right thing, although I was tempted to do the wrong thing.” He looked around again; Barnabas might still be listening. “But I didn’t,” he added, just in case.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “No one. Nothing.” Marcus settled back in the chair as smoothly as he could manage. “You were saying?”

  Tabitha was watching him like he was going crazy, and perhaps he was.

  Then she gave a very soft, “Aha.” “You’re worried about Barnabas.”

  “Shhhh!”

  She started laughing again, one hand over her mouth as she hiccupped with laughter.

  “You don’t need to be scared of him, I told you, he’s really sneaky.”

  “He keeps insisting that the only good way to do things is to focus on the fundamentals of brewing beer and hope that wins the competition!”

  Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Look, Bobcat nearly got all of you killed to get some special hops. William has hacked Bobcat. They’re both stacking the deck,
so why shouldn’t you?”

  “William hacked Bobcat? Aw, man.” Marcus slumped. “I’m never gonna win.”

  “Exactly!” Tabitha leaned over and patted his knee.

  “Comforting.”

  “Oh, for— No, that’s why I helped you with the hacking.” She gave him a sweet smile. “And Barnabas doesn’t have to know, does he? I won’t tell him.”

  “But…” Marcus rubbed his temples. “Oh, I don’t know what to do.”

  “It’s easy.” Tabitha gestured. “Look at the screen. Read the emails. Win the competition.”

  “I can’t just—”

  “Oh, but you can.”

  He wavered. He sneaked a peek out of the corner of his eye.

  He stood up so quickly his chair fell over backwards. If he stayed, he was going to look.

  “Where are you going?” Tabitha called as he walked quickly back across the bay

  “To have a beer!” he yelled back. “It’ll provide clarity.”

  “That is not how beer works!” She hightailed it after him, slamming the door behind her, and poked his arm for emphasis as they walked. “Look, if you’ll just listen—”

  “I’m not listening! Nope! Lalalalalalalala…”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. They got something called ‘myrcene oil.’”

  “Not liiiisteniiiiiing! Wait, what?”

  Tabitha gave him a smug look. “See, was that so hard? Myrcene oil. Ever heard of it?”

  “No.” Shit.

  “Well, all the emails are up on your desktop if you want them.” She gave him a sweet smile and glided off, leaving Marcus staring after her, wide-eyed with indecision.

  He looked at the office door. He looked after Tabby. He looked back at the office door. Then back after Tabby. Then he sank his head into his hands with a muffled groan of distress.

  He’d never even heard of this stuff. What was he supposed to do now?

  Romania

  Andrei barely managed to hold himself together as the car slid smoothly through the streets.

  Once, only once, he gave a little whimper and received a blow to the side that made him cry out. A second blow fell, and then another and another. The pain multiplied, each hit landing on tender skin until there was so much pain that it was beyond him to respond at all.

  He sagged onto the floor. There was only this moment, then the next one, and then the one after that. Each moment was filled with pain and since he could not see, pain was the only thing in his world. Each moment was indistinguishable from the next.

  He had the sense that time had disappeared entirely.

  He must have stopped crying out at some point, because a rough voice said, “That’s better. You make no sound unless you are asked a question, and then you will only answer the question.”

  Ioan’s voice, smooth and filled with contempt, added, “Are you capable of understanding that?”

  “Y-yes.” Opening his mouth meant that he wanted to let another whimper escape, but he pressed his lips together until he felt skin break and tasted blood.

  He couldn’t make a single noise or they would beat him again, and even this moment—filled with bruises, feeling every little jolt in the road—was better than being beaten.

  Ioan waited for a few moments as if hoping that Andrei would break again.

  But when he spoke, his voice was satisfied. “Good.”

  Andrei squeezed his eyes shut under the hood to keep back tears. He was afraid to do anything that would set Ioan off again, but he knew that this was just borrowing time. All he would buy himself was torture while they questioned him.

  And then they were going to kill him.

  He wished, not for the first time, that he wasn’t such a coward.

  “I still don’t know what to do.” Ecaterina sipped at an earthenware mug of tea and stared blankly at the wall of the kitchen. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Nathan looked out the window as Christina ran shrieking through the garden. When he looked back, Ecaterina was glaring at him.

  “What? What did I… What?”

  “What do I do?” Ecaterina asked him.

  “Oh.” Nathan considered his answer carefully. It was different to give this sort of advice to one’s spouse. “You should do what you think is right.”

  “What does Bethany Anne want me to do?”

  Again Nathan hesitated. Ecaterina had seen Bethany Anne in action all these years, but she did not run her own operations very often and was therefore unaccustomed to Bethany Anne’s style of management. If it could be called management, that was.

  Management sounded like something you did involving cubicles and toner cartridges, not shapeWechselbags.

  “She wants you to make a choice you think is right,” he said finally.

  “But what if I make the wrong one?” Ecaterina asked. Her voice was tinged with panic.

  Calm down? No, that wouldn’t go over well.

  “Uh…” Nathan took a large gulp of tea, burned his throat, and choked.

  Alexi pounded him on the back as he came by to take a seat.

  “Thanks,” Nathan managed. He looked at Ecaterina. “Look, here’s the deal. Bethany Anne knows that no one is infallible. If it were her operation she would kill Andrei and everyone else involved, but she trusts your character, and that you’re not stupid. She trusts that if you disagree with her there’s a good reason.”

  “But what if there’s not?”

  Nathan stood up and dropped a kiss on his wife’s lips. “There is,” he assured her. “I don’t know what you’ll decide to do, but I trust you and so does Bethany Anne. This is your home. I trust that you will make a sound decision, and I will follow your lead.”

  He nodded to Alexi as he left the kitchen. He hoped that Alexi understood that Nathan was not denying this was Alexi’s home, too, but trying to keep Ecaterina from simply doing what Alexi suggested.

  She would make a good decision on her own, he was sure of it.

  Alexi nodded back. He did understand. Ecaterina was part of a world that Nathan and Bethany Anne had not seen as much, and both were stepping back to let her lead the way—a good thing for a member of Bethany Anne’s team to be able to do.

  He tried to hide his smile, therefore, as his niece slumped back in her chair and grimaced.

  “What the hell do I do now?”

  Alexi sipped his tea and said nothing.

  “You too?” she accused. “Why is everyone so sure that I should make this decision?”

  “There’s no way to get through life without making decisions,” Alexi pointed out.

  Ecaterina shook her head in frustration, “Yes, but when I joined Bethany Anne’s team—”

  “As I understand it, you promised to be a part of an organization that does the right thing—however difficult that is.”

  “But every choice in this situation is the difficult one!” Ecaterina dropped her head into her hands. “How am I supposed to know which one is right by how difficult it is when they’re all difficult?”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no math you can perform to figure out which decision is the right one,” Alexi explained. “You have to trust yourself.”

  She said nothing, crossing her arms and sinking her chin onto them contemplatively.

  “I’m afraid that if I let Andrei go the way I wanted to, he won’t do the right thing from now on,” she admitted.

  Alexi nodded silently.

  “But I’m afraid if I kill him, he might have done the right thing in the future and now I’ve come in and condemned him for trying to keep his family alive. We all make mistakes…” Her voice trailed off as she remembered Bethany Anne’s definition of a mistake. “I’m trying to balance mercy with justice,” she said finally, “and I don’t know any of the probabilities that either is the right move. I know it’s not math,” she added hastily, “but I just… I wish I knew more.”

  Alexi nodded
again. “If it helps, I asked myself the same question many times when I would go to speak with people about their traps.”

  Ecaterina looked over at him with interest, and jumped when Ashur thunked his head on her thigh. She had been so involved in the conversation that she hadn’t noticed the gigantic dog padding into the kitchen. She scratched behind his ears absentmindedly and gave him a smile.

  “I don’t suppose you have suggestions,” she said to him.

  I suggest you keep scratching my ears.

  She laughed and obeyed. “I should have known that would be your answer.”

  There was a silence as they all pondered.

  “And here’s what I don’t get,” Ecaterina added. “The man who’s running all of this—Ioan, was it? Andrei is terrified of him. I always knew about men like that, but now I’m finding myself wondering why he does it. I understand what he does, I get how he controls them. But why bother about something so small as furs?”

  Alexi gave a rueful smile.

  “Some people seek control of others more than they seek money, child. This man has become deranged. He warps people like Andrei, he sweet-talks them about how it’s necessary to do the wrong thing sometimes, and then he binds them to him with absolute fear until they forget that this is furs and not a matter of life and death. To this man, his control of Andrei and the others is worth more than anything. Being questioned sends him into a rage.” He shrugged. “The furs are just today’s reason for him, and I hope you have the good sense to know you’ll never change that one. He’ll throw everything he’s got at you until you fall in line too, or you’re dead.”

  Ecaterina considered this for a long moment and then gave a decisive nod. “Okay, I’ve made my decision.”

  “Good.” Alexi smiled, “What is it?”

  “I’m going to hit Ioan where it hurts. I’ll see what Andrei does. If he’s willing to keep killing people and animals for Ioan, then we’ll have our answer about him, but we gave him a chance to run away and pick a different path. Maybe he’ll take that chance now that he’s been reminded it’s there.”