by Leo Champion
She preferred having artists and musicians as neighbours, herself; leave the work shit in the office where it belonged. But this part of the Annan was a nice neighbourhood, and the apartment itself was a large two-bedroom designed for social entertainment. Jean-Noel hosted gatherings at least twice a month, United Nations people mostly – she’d been invited to a couple, but actually being involved with the filthy-even-by-Intendancy-standards politics, meeting the people he spent their dates talking about backstabbing and manipulating? Hell no.
“I’ve been waiting all night for this,” she murmured as the door slid open, pressing her hot body into his. As soon as the door slid closed he turned to kiss her, which was all the impetus she needed to grind herself hungrily against him, hot and wet and finally going to be satisfied…
“We should undress properly first,” said Jean-Noel, breaking the kiss and leading her toward the master bedroom. Like the rest of his apartment it had been fashionably designed by a name-brand interior architect; trendy furniture and popular art on the walls. He redid it, at considerable expense, every three or four years to stay fashionable, and employed an interior maintenance service to keep it that way. The place looked straight out of a fashionable magazine shoot, with never a single out-of-place object anywhere. She’d always considered it sterile.
Right now she did not care. She pushed Jean-Noel toward the neatly-made queen sized bed, ready to rip his clothes off…
He gently pushed her away. “Chanel, baby. Let’s take care of our valuable garments, shall we?” He started to carefully undo the buttons of the baby-blue jacket.
“For fuck’s sake, it’s a special-holiday outfit that will be obsolete tomorrow,” she hissed.
“It’s the principle, Diana. And don’t be so rough with your own,” he frowned as she shrugged the pink jacket down off her arms, dumping it on the floor on top of her shoes.
Out of courtesy to him, almost shaking in frustration, she took more care as she undressed the rest of the way, folding the items of clothing and placing them carefully on a chair. She was still naked and itching on his bed for more than a minute while he finished carefully disassembling his outfit in a methodical way that wasn’t even enjoyable to watch.
“Take me!”
“I have permission, right? Let’s get our consents recorded on implant,” Jean-Noel insisted.
She sighed. Should have expected this, it did happen every time. She brought the text of a consent declaration into her field of view, carefully enunciated every syllable with her implant running on record, to both be saved to her own files and a copy transmitted to Jean-Noel’s. It took several minutes and this was really killing her mood.
“Would you prefer the lights on or off?” Jean-Noel asked.
“Just get into bed please!”
“I’m just making sure we’re doing everything right. You’re an exquisitely beautiful woman and I don’t want to upset you.”
Argh!
* * *
“Jean-Noel dear, you know you can get a little more… vigorous if you want to.”
Jean-Noel planted another soft kiss on her lips while his hand petted her left tit again – gingerly and carefully, like an expensive antique made of thin china.
“You’re a precious and beautiful lady, Diana. I’m afraid of hurting you because I care about you.”
Jean-Noel, she thought but did not say, I do not spend twenty-plus hours a week in the gym so as to be fragile. I do not get my ass kicked repeatedly on the mats in order to be weak. Maybe there are some chicks like that, but I have made myself into titanium and fucking steel!
Jean-Noel worked out just enough for it to show, but for him it was more a social thing; Crossfit sessions with his co-workers. It would have destroyed his ego to actually say so, but she was approximately a hundred percent certain that she could bench twice what he could, despite his having fifteen centimetres and ten kilos on her. His muscles were weak balloons; hers were taut steel springs!
“Just… come on,” she urged as he moved on top of her. Finally! “Fuck me, Jean!”
He began to gently thrust inside her; he was well equipped but his motions were hesitant and unsure. It was agitating her desire, not resolving it – there was just enough sensation and pleasure that she could tell how much she was missing. Come on, she urged him mentally – harder, rougher, faster, fuck me like men on the streets do!
Four and a half minutes later he was finished, the man spent inside her having done no more than wind her up further. He snuggled against her taut and frustrated body, gently kissing her cheek while she stared at the ceiling, hoping her aching frustration wasn’t evident.
Jean-Noel was a good man; he was handsome and well-endowed and meant well. He was virtuous and nontoxic, a deferential and cooperative social animal who checked his privilege and played well with others. He was the perfect group member; the problem was that she at heart was an absolute individualist.
It had taken her years to acknowledge that fact, that her personality was inherently unsuited to the society she’d been born into. Had she been born on the lower floors she would probably have become a you-know or fled to the streets; as it was, she lived in constant fear of making some slip that would get her purged. Some people played the Intendancy game naturally; for her it had always been a forced façade that she hated but endured for the sake of her family.
Her mind went back to this evening’s double killing. Bomb your fucking raff, huh? And the fucker had probably known it at the end – she certainly hoped he had, anyway.
Absently it occurred to her that she’d taken out not just the Reverend but also his heir. Was there a clearly designated number three? Maybe, but not every tenement went that far.
If there was not – and often there were multiple people in the #3 slot – then there would probably be a power struggle, the invasion of the precinct on hold until then. In avenging the bomb victims, she might have unintentionally bought more time for that crazy pigeon-turned-boss.
She would be very curious to see what the man might do with it.
Chapter Twenty
“You know,” Kimberli Karstein observed to the others around the boardroom table the next morning, “I really did not expect anyone to take us up on those bounties. Not for the token we were offering.”
“You said they were found in an alley behind the markets,” said Hammer. “They went for a walk and some opportunist saw them?”
“Walking through an alley with no bodyguards? I’m skeptical,” said Karstein. She lowered her voice. “I got email from an anonymous source, I suspect one of the exiles’ servants – they’d have my snitch email address.” There were Exchange-style computers in the Independent Hotel. “They told me the two didn’t leave the hotel and they were probably killed on-premises. Someone got past all that fancy security and the Independent may have dumped the corpses out there for the sake of appearances.”
“So what does that mean for us?” Marder asked.
“Same source tells us that there’s a power struggle going on – Colonel Roger Garson, the Rev’s younger brother, and Captain Daniel Garson, his second son, are both claiming to be the new Reverend and ignoring the other. What it means is that we no longer have immediate invasion hanging over our heads.”
“Good. Very good. Lock, how’s production going?” asked Hammer.
“Better than expected,” the production manager said. “Turns out that giving authority to the people who actually do the work… motivates them. Most of them have started individual performance plans for their workers, and we’re already looking at an improvement from how things were.”
Don Karstein frowned but said nothing. None of the others at the table seemed to have an opinion.
“Very well,” said Hammer. “Adjourned; get about your business. I’ll be reviewing your guys this afternoon to see how training is going, now we have some time.”
“Can I see you afterwards?” Lock asked.
Hammer nodded.
*
* *
“The clerks and technicians, now managers,” the production manager said, “want to hire people.”
“What’s the problem?” asked Hammer. “If they can afford to, they can.”
“No, Boss Hammer,” said Lock. “They want to hire people from other tenements. We need more of the skilled people – more of the scavengers who really hustle at their jobs, and it goes up the supply chain from there.”
Hammer shrugged. “Permission granted, of course. If they can afford to, they can.” How was this even worth his attention?
“They’ll be crossing precinct lines,” said the production manager.
“Security considerations,” said Hammer. “Fine. Let them rent apartments from the people who now own them. That’s why I gave the residents their ownership. They can make whatever tenancy arrangements they want between themselves.”
“Security considerations are why I’m bringing this up with you, boss. The neighbouring tenements are going to object.”
Oh, Hammer realized. “The neighbouring tenements don’t want your managers, in my name, snapping up their best people. And they’d rather object than offer a better deal.”
Lock nodded.
“How about they kiss my lean brown airborne ass, then. Because if threats are the best argument they have against our giving better deals to their best and brightest?” He grinned. “I’m training up a military for a reason. They want a war, I took this job expecting a war.”
Although really, the Rogersons or the Lonsdales or South Bowery weren’t going to declare war on him simply because his now-managers were poaching their neighbours’ best clerks, right.
Right?
* * *
On the ground floor of the building that Hammer knew he needed to rename from ‘the Chapel’, the precinct had a sort of courtroom. Hammer sat behind a high judge’s dock, on a comfortably padded chair; there were witness stands and sections for the accuser and the defender, and rows of seats facing them to observe. Steep stairs from a prisoners’ dock led to cells below.
It had been the old First Company’s job to guard and staff events like this, but all the former raff of the new First Company had seen the inside of this room at some point in their lives. Most of them seemed uncomfortable with the authority they were assuming, and Hammer noticed Lieutenant Hamill conferring with the squad sergeant at times. The other four squads of the company were practicing hand to hand drills with each other under Jacopo Benzi, who Hammer had told to personally make First into a competent fighting unit as soon as possible.
One at a time, Hammer resolved disputes and settled arguments. A lot of the petitioners were plant and store managers, wanting Hammer to order a supplier to continue something at the old price, when the supplier complained that wasn’t enough to cover their costs.
“Work it out between yourselves,” he said in most of the cases. “Get the stuff elsewhere if you can’t. Or sell elsewhere. You’re working with cash, use it.”
There were more legitimate issues. Some plants had relied on trade with the Changs, which had been cut off. New deals had to be made, but the Lonsdales were friendly enough and South Bowery didn’t seem to care who was running the small precinct to their north.
Still, it took into the afternoon for the line of petitioners to finally meet its end. At the very end was a lanky, coffee-colored man in a tieless suit. Hammer didn’t recognize him as being from inside the tenement.
“Mr. Hammer,” he said when it was his turn. It looked like he’d deliberately held himself to the end; the only people in the room were him, Ali Benzi and the First Company guys turned bailiffs, and the middle-aged clerk who’d recorded judgments under the Reverend and so far as Hammer was concerned, could continue doing so for him. “Can we speak in private?”
“What about?” Hammer asked.
“You might prefer I said that in private.”
“Search him,” Lieutenant Hamill suggested.
“Sorry,” Hammer told the guy, “but that seems like a reasonable precaution.”
Slowly the man reached under his jacket and took an automatic pistol from his shoulder-holster, placing it on the stand in front of him.
“That’s all I’ve got. You can check me if you want,” he said.
“Giovetti, Ronson, pat him down and make sure,” said Hamill.
“There’s a consulting room right back there, Mr. Hammer,” said the court clerk.
Hammer led the man into that room, closed the door.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m from the South Bowery Neighborhood Association. We’re here for the vig.”
Hammer nodded slowly.
“How much?”
“Fifty grand.”
Hammer curled his lip. “That’s a lot of money.”
The man shrugged. “Pay it or we fuck you up. Right now we don’t give a shit whether it’s you in charge or the Reverend. We give a shit about getting paid.”
“And what do I get for this money?”
“We don’t fuck you up,” said the man pleasantly.
“If I’m paying protection money, give me some damn protection.” South Bowery was bigger than the Changs and his precinct combined. Kimberli Karstein had said they had almost a thousand full-time fighters, and only internal politics – and mutual protection pacts amongst neighbors – had kept them from swallowing those neighbors.
“We’re staying out of it. Reverend paid us vig, now you pay us vig. You don’t want to pay, we’ll put the Reverend back. One or the other of them.”
So the SBNA was aware of the present war between Colonel Roger Garson and Captain Daniel Garson. Hammer noted that for future reference.
“We have twelve companies,” the South Bowery man said slowly, “poised on the Bowery ready to move north and depose you. Unless I come back with fifty thousand cash on me or notice that it will be forthcoming within the day, they march.”
Hammer swallowed. He wasn’t sure the precinct had that level of cash available. But he certainly didn’t have the numbers to stop six hundred men…
“Ali, find Lock,” he said into his radio. “We need fifty grand or an Exchange order for the same amount, right now. Now.”
Lock’s response took a couple of minutes.
“I’m sending Marla to the courtroom right now with a locked briefcase, code 119241. Twenty thou cash and an Exchange order for the rest, boss. She’ll be there shortly.”
Hammer allowed himself to exhale while he sized the South Bowery man up.
He can’t seriously have six hundred men on call constantly, can he?
Twelve times fifty grand was a lot of vig. Down the line, that was going to be a problem…
* * *
“There’s a friend here to see you,” Ali said.
Hammer, in his office finishing some pizza, was still breathing hard from the near-miss twenty minutes ago. Six hundred men poised to take me down – and I had no idea.
Kim Karstein was going to have to do a better job as intelligence officer or hand the position over to someone who could.
But he put the pizza crust down and stood up to welcome Marla Cowan as she came in. The olive-skinned, dark-ponytailed woman with two gold hourglasses on her shoulder, the emissary of the neighbouring Lonsdales, smiled as she saw Hammer. The last time they’d met had been during the coup, when she’d wanted assurance on behalf of her boss that he wasn’t going to be another Spartacus.
He wasn’t sure whether he’d kept that promise, but the fact was that his neighbours in the brown and red uniforms hadn’t intervened during his coup when they could easily have. So there was that.
“I assume you’re not here to demand my head,” Hammer said.
“No,” said Cowan, and extended an envelope. “Councillor Lonsdale asked me to deliver this.”
Hammer opened it. It was quality paper stamped with a red wax seal, and it formally invited him and a guest to a party being held at the Lonsdales’ ballroom Thursday night.
“Short notice,” he ob
served. “But I’ll be there.”
* * *
A convoy of raff pulling carts loaded high with unsorted trash from the Washington Building was coming past the East Houston Street free road, where Second Company was drilling. The convoy’s guards, two squads from Third Company, watched the stumbling Second Company people without much envy. Nobody, Hammer knew from his time as one, liked drilling. Standing guard was easier – not as much sweat and nobody shouting at you.
The soldiers were drilling anyway, since preparing for stand-up fights was how you won them.
“Company, form line!” Kim Karstein shouted.
Stumbling and uncoordinated, the fifty men who had been standing in squad columns, spread themselves out to make a line two men deep across the free road. Jacopo Benzi, next to Hammer holding a stopwatch, slowly shook his head.
“Not good. They’re still taking twice as long as experienced troops should. While they’re futzing around in a real fight, there’s fire coming in and maybe a charge if they’re not prepared.”
“A third of these guys hadn’t touched a musket until Sunday,” Hammer said.
“And it shows. We have a little time, at least…”
“I hope,” said Hammer. “And they are getting a little better.”
“Second Company is going to be out here all day until these raff and streetgangers learn the discipline they need,” Kim Karstein assured them as she came up. Dressed for the field, she was wearing a black steel breastplate and a helmet whose visor was presently up.
“How’s attrition been?” Hammer asked.
“Four raff, two clerks and six streetgangers have dropped out or been sent back,” Karstein said. “We’ve replaced them with volunteers from the irregular reserve.”
“Maybe try squad-level drills first,” Jacopo Benzi suggested. “Get them used to the basic commands, then add the squads up.”
Kim Karstein gave a slight nod. “Yessir.”
