by David Wong
“All right. How?”
“Are they organized?”
“It didn’t look organized.”
“It can be hard to tell from the outside sometimes. Chaos can be someone else’s goal.”
“Oh, wait, I just thought of a joke. Say the word ‘organized’ again.”
“Alonzo thinks a specific person is behind this. If so, we need to find out what their goal is.”
Zoey stared at the feed from the inn. Ambulances were on the scene.
“Do you think everyone got out?”
“Probably, crews were already on the scene when the fire started. I don’t have much hope for the building. I’m not saying it had no fire extinguishing systems, I’m sure it had something, but your father liked to invest in the parts of the building that boosted profits and inspectors used to be very easy to bribe.” He turned to Wu. “Arrange to switch to another vehicle, get us back to the estate.”
Zoey said, “What? No. We’re not done out here. We haven’t even solved our mystery.”
Will looked at her. “Are you sure?”
This was not asked in the way that, say, your mother would ask if you’re sure you don’t want dessert. It was asked the way you’d ask a scrawny mover if he’s sure your huge, expensive mirror isn’t too heavy for him to carry alone.
“Don’t ask me again.”
Will patched in the rest of the team again, the split screen taking over the main monitor. Everyone was in vehicles now, en route to somewhere.
“I want to know who’s behind this,” said Will, “and I want to know in the next five minutes.”
Budd said, “We just did a Bacon search on Blink of every unscrupulous rich asshole in the city—a list that, by the way, is longer than an elephant’s cocktail party anecdote—to see if anyone connected to anyone connected to one of them had ever interacted with Tilley. We got one hit, and it’s what I think you were about to say earlier, before we got interrupted. Two weeks ago, Tilley was seen speaking to an employee of Titus Chobb.”
There was a silence across the call.
Zoey said, “The Titus Chobb?”
Budd said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m just kidding, I have no idea who that is.”
Echo said, “He owns the Vanguard of Peace, which is now the largest private security firm in the city and is rapidly becoming the only one. He’s continuing to buy up all of the smaller firms, one by one.”
“So he has a massive personal army. Great.”
“Chobb travels with a jammer,” said Budd. “Any outgoing feed will get scrambled if the camera is within a hundred feet of him. All we have is this shot…”
Budd put a brief, looping clip of Dexter Tilley on the screen, looking sweaty and deranged, talking to a terrifying giant of a man. The giant had carefully mussed brown hair, blue eyes, and an elaborate asymmetrical beard. He was wearing armor that may or may not have been a Halloween costume.
Zoey said, “That’s Titus Chobb? Why do this city’s captains of industry aspire to be cartoon characters?”
Andre said, “No, Chobb is the greasy dude sitting at the table with his son way back behind them there. The giant is Chobb’s personal bodyguard, Dirk Vikerness.”
Will nodded. “This is what Alonzo was hinting at. He’s no fan of Chobb or the VOP in general.”
Zoey studied the giant, muscled bodyguard and said, “I suppose I have to go flirt with him, too.”
Will seemed to actually be thinking seriously about that. “Budd, you can get through to Chobb, right? See if he’ll meet me for lunch today.”
“It’ll just be you?”
Zoey said, “No, I’m going. If this Chobb character is trying to destroy my life, I want to look him in the eye.”
Will glanced at his watch. “All right, if we take the slow, extra-discreet route, that won’t leave much time.” After a beat, he said, “We need to get organized.”
“Otherwise we’ll end up like Tilley,” said Zoey. “Disorganized.”
Echo said, “What do you need us to—”
“Because he was missing his organs!”
“What do you need us to do while you’re up there?”
“Get security to the other properties,” said Will. “Nothing else burns today.”
“And get inside the Hub,” added Zoey. “Actually, can we just buy the Hub? It’s a fake world, what can it cost? We’ll buy it all up and shut it down, the trolls will hate that.”
Echo said, “I’ll, uh, look into that.”
“And what exactly do we need to be bringing to this meeting in the way of backup? This Chobb guy has an army, right?”
“He’s just a businessman who happens to own a private security firm,” said Will. “He’s ruthless but he’s not some kind of supervillain.”
“All right. So, where do we find him?”
“He spends his time floating above the city in a huge black zeppelin.”
12
Will had not been joking about that.
The big black blimp had once been a restaurant called Innerer Schweinehund. The passenger hold famously only had room for six tables plus a separate, tiny bar and then the kitchen. The chef, Werner Wolff, was a big deal, he’d had a popular Blink stream that was mostly just a camera looking down at the counter while he plated dishes. The man was an artist and a psychopath, working magic in his kitchen and then raging at staff and customers alike. Getting a table at his floating restaurant used to mean four years on a waiting list … or if you were Titus Chobb, you finally got frustrated with the wait and bought the restaurant, turning the dirigible into a company meeting space and Wolff into your personal chef.
Also, the blimp was “black” in the way a blinding spotlight is white; the surface was made of a special light-absorbing nanotube material that reflected no features or contours whatsoever. From the ground it was impossible to even grasp that it was a three-dimensional object, it just looked like a perfect hole punched in the sky. You could routinely find tourists staring up at it and blinking their eyes, thinking there was something wrong with their vision.
Zoey, Will, and Wu were told to board the restaurant from the rooftop of a building called Freya’s Palace (not one of Zoey’s, she’d asked) and were informed that the blimp would then take a leisurely hour-long circuit around the perimeter of the city. The airship was already perched on the roof of the sculpted marble tower when they pulled up. The building was all curves and flourishes (Zoey wondered if a woman had designed it) and from the ground, the attached blimp made it look like it was wearing a black beret. Inside, she found that Freya’s Palace’s interior seemed to be a gigantic spa complex for rich women, a silent space with customers shuffling around in white robes. They entered a glassed-in elevator that rose through a transparent tube surrounded by an aquarium, so that passengers could enjoy annoying exotic fish as they ascended.
Zoey put her hand into her jacket pocket and felt the tube of her mom’s stupid skin cream. She pulled it out, the little animated flower dancing on the logo. Guaranteed to give you the confidence of a … daisy? Still, she twisted out the petals and smeared it on her hands. Maybe it would stop them from shaking so much.
The blimp docked directly to a glassed-in enclosure on the top floor. As they stepped from the elevator, the black shape loomed overhead, blotting out the sun. They entered a narrow door to the airship’s passenger compartment and were met by the armored muscles of Chobb’s bodyguard, Dirk Vikerness. His beard was trimmed in the shape of a snake that emerged from his left sideburn and coiled around his mouth, ending where a normal mustache would stop. He had dazzling blue eyes and the expression of a man who knew they were dazzling. He wore sculpted yellow plates around his shoulders and chest, the armor flat black the rest of the way down. The company colors.
In an accent that sounded Swedish, he said, “Ah, you are here. I hear the fire at your building is nearly out. I am sure you wish you could be there, helping your people get to safety.” He focused on Wu and said, “I
will need to collect your weapons, I’m afraid. Blimp rules.”
Wu looked at Zoey for confirmation. She deferred to Will, who nodded. Wu turned over his katana, several blades, and a bracelet weapon he had mounted to his good wrist. Even then, Zoey was confident he hadn’t given up everything. She had her augmentation-control necklace, but couldn’t see Raiden scars on Vikerness. She figured he knew he could cave in somebody’s skull using only what genes and steroids had given him.
The weaponry now in his hands, the giant man said, “Thank you. Now we are going to be brushing up against our max weight; are all three of you under two hundred pounds?”
Zoey said, “Yes.”
Looking right at her, Dirk said, “Are you sure?”
Zoey had to crane her neck to make contact with those icy eyes.
“I don’t get it, is this how you flirt? If so, will you consider it a turn-off if I keep stopping to laugh at your beard?”
Will, sounding annoyed, said, “You’re keeping your boss waiting.”
“Of course, everyone’s time is important, I’m sure,” said Vikerness. He gestured them into the passenger deck. “Life is always shorter than we think.”
They were led to a table where Titus Chobb was already sitting. He was a small, oily man with dark eyes and graying hair that was shaved on the sides and swept over up top, a style designed to be combed with fingers after rolling out of bed. His outfit was khakis and a denim shirt, looking like he was ready to go out and supervise some landscaping work. His eyes said he was being interrupted from something he’d much rather be doing and Zoey guessed that he wore that expression twenty-four hours a day, even when sleeping.
Will said, “Titus.”
“I got another meeting at this time, client is waiting in the bar area, getting more pissed off by the minute. Make it quick.”
They took that as their cue to sit.
Before they could begin, Chobb said to Will, “And before we even start, let me make it clear that this meeting fulfills the favor I owe you. Whatever you’re about to ask me for, it doesn’t start from a place of me owing you a debt. Even that is being generous. The favor was owed to Arthur, not you.” He turned to look at Zoey for the first time. “Your father was a great man. Tragic the way it ended for him, but also inevitable. Men like him typically don’t die in their sleep.”
Zoey got the “Your father was a great man” stuff a lot, usually at functions with donors trying to get on her good side. Her father had impregnated Zoey’s mother, abandoned her, then all but threatened her with death if she pursued paternity. He had made his money by crushing the desperate and vulnerable like grapes in a wine press. Still, Zoey had developed an answer that seemed to satisfy everyone.
“He was passionate about what he believed in.”
The whole room jolted. As the airship pulled away from the rooftop, Zoey watched the world sink down from the side windows. Her stomach did a drunken backflip and fell flat on its face.
“When he died,” said Titus, watching the city drain from their view, “his vision died with him.”
Will quickly cut off any chance for Zoey to reply to this. “I know your time is valuable. And you know the context for this meeting.”
“I’m actually surprised you’re up here talking to me, rather than down there trying to quell the uprising. Getting big enough to make the news now. Scaring away tourists. Destabilizing our fragile paradise. Every empire is a house of cards, as you well know.”
“But business must be booming for you,” said Will. “Every mom and pop shop will want private security at their door.”
“Only if said security ensures a steady flow of happy customers who’re in the mood to spend money. If there is unrest in the streets to the point that everyone is afraid to leave their apartments, then a guy at the door with a yellow jacket and a machine gun isn’t going to make a damned bit of difference. When the money dries up, so will security budgets. No, my perfect scenario is a completely peaceful city and a populace who appreciates that only my services can preserve that peace.”
A completely nude woman with a body like an Olympic swimmer strode up. She was wearing white body paint, so that she looked like a Greek statue. Zoey wasn’t taken aback—she was familiar with the chef’s crew of servers, as they had also been a prominent part of Wolff’s streams. The woman placed a platter on the table and Zoey glanced over at Will to see if he’d ogle her as she walked back to the kitchen. He did not. Zoey did. A bit.
The dish on the platter looked like some kind of chilled bean thing, served on a misty tray of liquid nitrogen. Yep, this was a Chef Wolff dish, all right.
Will said, “So we all have the same goal, then. We need to quell this.”
“How do you intend to do that?”
“A two-pronged approach of showing force in the streets, and putting these ugly rumors to rest.”
Chobb raised an eyebrow. “You think that’ll do it, huh? That’s making me think you don’t even understand what this is about.”
“We were there,” Zoey interjected, “in the middle of the riot. Bricks hit the van. I’m pretty sure I get it.”
Chobb laughed and looked back at Dirk Vikerness, who was looming over his shoulder.
“What was it, ninety seconds?”
The bodyguard chuckled.
Chobb turned back to Zoey. “I said to him before you got here, I’ve never known a woman under thirty who could go more than two minutes without talking about herself.” To Will, he said, “You didn’t give her the standard ‘let me do all the talking’ speech on the way here?” Back to Zoey, “I’d explain it, but I doubt you’d be able to stay quiet long enough.”
Zoey bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. “Give it a try. I’m always eager to learn.”
Chobb carefully rolled some of the bean things onto some kind of fancy cracker, sprinkled some kind of orange crumbles on top, then dabbed it with a pulpy red sauce.
As he chewed, he said, “A long time ago, a capable, strong man, perfected by millions of years of natural selection, emerged from his cave.”
Zoey thought, Oh, god. He’s one of these guys.
“Then another strong, capable man—and it was a man, not a woman—walks up and says, ‘Help me build my hut and in exchange, I’ll help you hunt later.’ And the man said, ‘Sure, but I don’t trust your caveman brain to remember this favor, so write it down on a note. A piece of paper that proves that I did something great and that in exchange, someone must do something great for me.’ Those transferable acts of heroism are what we call ‘money.’ Each and every dollar represents a bold action from a talented, competent, hardworking man somewhere in the past. When that system is functioning as intended, no one is victimized, no one is cheated. It’s just an exchange of glorious acts, men trying to do the most good for others so that they can get the best in return, until the untamed wilderness is transformed into a flourishing paradise.”
He paused to assemble another bite.
“Where that all falls apart,” he continued, to Zoey’s dismay, “is when bad actors decide they don’t feel like doing the hard work of achieving greatness—learning a skill, building something. They would rather just sneak in under the cover of dark and steal someone else’s heroism. Or, out of jealousy, demand the government take it and give it to them. Or, when lazy children inherit a stack of heroism from their hardworking father, then demand that they themselves be treated as heroes. Do you know what the name of this restaurant means? ‘Innerer Schweinehund’?”
“‘Inner pig-dog.’ I used to watch Chef Wolff’s stream, back when this was a restaurant. Though it’s kind of weird he went with that when ‘Cloud Nein’ was out there.”
“The inner pig-dog is the laziness that haunts a man’s soul,” said Chobb, explaining the thing that Zoey had just told him she already knew. “The voice telling him to quit, to kick back, to have a beer, that nothing is worth doing. It’s the part of yourself we have to kill to accomplish greatness. Any man in the world who h
as built anything, or become great at something, bears a medal on his chest declaring that he’s defeated the schweinehund. And we bristle when we see anyone who gives in but still gets their share of the spoils.” He pointed his spoon at Zoey. “That is why they hate you.”
“Because I inherited my money?”
“Because every man can feel when things are out of balance. We are built to be sickened by injustice.”
“And here I thought people were mailing me rape threats because they’re psychopaths who get turned on by spreading fear.”
“Psychopaths persist in the species because women find them attractive, thus breeding more psychopaths.”
Zoey felt Will shifting in his seat, sensing the annoyance building in him. He had little use for these debates that Zoey was somehow constantly getting sucked into.
“Whereas men,” she said, “choose their sex partners based purely on moral virtue. Getting back to the original topic, what, in your estimation, would make all of this go away?”
“You’ve seen the video of when the North Korean government fell? The crowds tearing down that statue? That’s when the mob will be satisfied.”
“Only I’m the statue. So, what, I should retire? Take some money and go back to Colorado?”
“No, I don’t think that would do it. I think they need to topple you.”
“Speaking of Korea,” said Will, before Zoey could open her mouth, “you built all of this off of contracts you had over there. When you were with Odin’s Hammer. All that off-books work behind the border.”
“You were there.”
“I was. I saw the aftermath of your people’s work in Kaesong. I understand they were paid very well. Deservedly so. It can’t be easy to shoot a five-year-old child, they make for such small targets. Well, I guess it’s easier when they’re starving. And barricaded inside a school.”
“And now their surviving comrades, instead of starving in the streets, can dine at one of the four Chick-fil-A locations that just opened in their city. What’s your point?”
