An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (14 page)

“Each of you will carry two
.
I will carry only one but will be planting it in the most dangerous location
.
All of these devices
are
already armed and timed
,
so place them and get out
.
Just like last time
.”
The dirty
,
worn appearance of the
ir
clothing concealed their true nature as
the bombs disappeared within specially designed pockets.

“One last thing
. R
emember
,
they must be placed outside the building
,
or they
’
ll be detected
.
You have your assignments.”

“For Nature,” Martin
mumbled
as he shuffled off into the mist.
The others said nothing.

Each of them had to make their way up between
one
-
hundred
and
one
-
hundred
-
fifty
levels
—
or four times that number of meters
—
using
long
-
forgotten elevator shafts and
disused
, prelift
emergency stairs. Once in place, they
’d
attach the
homemade explosives
to walls, stonework, or
any
handy outcropping
using
a small
chunk
of
adhesive
putty
.
S
uccess would be determined by
a grisly count of dead and maimed
.

Shaking her head, Sonya
steadied herself for
her own task
.
Each team member carried their own weight
.
She couldn’t do anyone else’s job for them
,
or she wouldn’t be able to perform her own
.

Sonya mentally rehearsed her own assignment
, blanking out worries about dangers to her team
, human
losses,
or
the
chaos that accompanied her successes
.
Human and electronic security on a building as
bare as a billiard ball
made her target by far the riskiest
.
While the most
difficult
, it also
promised greater satisfaction,
for the structure she’d chosen
served as the
corporation’s
executive landing pad
.

Her green mask hid the smile of a predatory animal
.
Sonya liked most challenges
and the rewards they brought
.

* * *
 

Tony ripped off the f
ilmy
stuck to his door
.
He read it as he
let the door sniff his wrist for epithelials
.
 

From
: Council Crest Tenant Association

To
:
Tony Sammis, Owner of 115-16d

Pursuant to clause 17 subsection
s
j through n of the Organization
C
ode (section IV of your Conditions, Covenants and Restrictions) your property will be placed under forced sale at the next available auction
.

Proceeds of the sale will pay, in order: auction fees, Council Crest Tenant Association penalties and expenses, and lienholder fees and loan balance
.
Any additional funds or balance due will be forwarded to your electronic address and/or account.

In order to expedite this sale, please remove your belongings no later than this Saturday or CCTA will have to resort to employing
a professional eviction service as
an expense incurred within the sale of the property.

We regret having to take this action but your lack of character and willful flaunting of civil, criminal and moral codes makes our community a lesser place to live.

Sincerely,

Association President,

Rosa Cleveland

cc: Portland Metro Police

“I
wonder who else can spit on me
.”
Tony would
’
ve laughed if it weren’t so tragic
.
The equity in his home would easily be eaten up in the vastly inflated fees and charges
.
There
’
d be nothing left for him
,
and as a cherry on top the
y’
d probably present him with a balance due bill
.

“Music,
c
lassical
.”
Tchaikovsky filled the room
.
As Tony let Cin out of the bathroom
,
tears welled up in his eyes
again
,
but
this time
didn’t quite escape
.
Cin brushed against his legs
.
Tony picked up his new friend and held her tight
.

“At least I have one friend
.
And maybe Carmine
.
Maybe she just needs to get to know you so she won’t think of you as sausage
.”
Purrs and a rough tongue across his nose made him smile weakly
.

“My job and home both taken,” he said to Cin
.
“
I’m surprised they didn’t kill me outright
.
It would
’
ve been faster
.
I didn’t even get to tell my side of the story
.”
The ramrod Tony received involved only standard operating procedure
for those his society deemed
misfits or
criminals
.
He’d seen and approved of it in others
.
Now they turned it upon him
.
All of a sudden its injustice rankled
.

“
I guess that makes me a hypocrite
,” he muttered. “
Well, girl, I can fight this
.
I think it
’d
probably cost me somewhere around forty thousand credits to get my case heard in front of a judge
.
Then another quarter million to get any kind of impartial judgment
.

“Now with all this
severance pay
Nanogate
’
s
throwing at me, I probably could scrape that much together by begging and borrowing from friends, maybe a loan from the labor union and another from the Justice Department
.”
He watched as Cin toyed with a thread from a
n
antique
wool throw rug
.
“But what am I going to do in the five years it
’
ll take to get to trial
?
What would I live on
?
Where would I live
?”

Tony picked up Cin when she managed to pull the thread into a runner
.
He looked her right in the face
.
“Worse, my case isn’t all that powerful
.
Oh, possession of a personal vehicle and resisting arrest would be easy to beat, but practicing medicine without a license
—
that’s a horse of a different color
.
I
’ve got
several hundred people
, not to mention the TriMet sensors, w
illing to testify that I helped save the old woman
, but that’s about it
.”

The kitten licked his nose and gave him a nondescript
m
eow
.
He put the kitten down
.
She wobbled off to find more fun
, the runner forgotten
.
 

“Even if the court rules in my favor, nothing would happen
.
Nanogate
and Council Crest Tenant Association would be bound to do nothing
.
My only compensation would be an
almost
clean record
—almost,
because
there’d
still be those who
think
I bought the verdict.

“I guess then I could try and find another position with another corp
,
but
it’s
very unlikely anyone would take a chance on
me
.
Knowing Mitch Anson, he took out a full page ad in the
Post
, the
Time
s
, and every third
-
hit banner on the net about
my
morals
.
So
the odds of
getting a new job rank right up there with getting a nice warm wind on Pluto
.”

A crash
issued
from the kitchen
.
Tony went in to find an open cabinet, and Cinnamon sitting in amongst pots and pans scattered on the floor.

“Hmm
.
Seems like you
’
r
e
having an interesting adventure, Miss Cin
.”
He began picking up the cookery
.

“I guess I could just accept
what’s
happening
.
My money and status will be sucked away
.
All I
can do now
is go dig in a mine or something equally pleasant
.
And
that’s
assuming I could find something
at all
.
I
’d
have to live on welfare in a commune
—
or worse, a relocation camp
.
No health care, recycled food to eat
.”
Tony
continued to confide in the cat and
shuddered as he put away the last pot
.

“Another choice, if
you can
call any of these choices,
is
to chuck everything and out-migrate
.
But, most colonies require specific skills or a huge quantity of money
—
more than I’ll ever see in my lifetime
.
The only other choice
I’ve got is
to settle on
one of those
colo
nies
where
you need
genetic and prosthetic manipulation
just to survive
.

“And then there
’
s being boxed, probably the worst of the choices
…
”

Getting on the floor with Cin
and
dragging a sock around as bait for her fun, Tony considered his other options
.
“If I cashed out, I could disappear as a Nil
—
with no identity and no status
.
I could do that before they sold my home
.
But as a Nil, I
’ll
have no rights
.
Anyone could take my property or my life away, just because they
felt like it
.”

The rest of the day drifted by
.
While listening to the
soothing
vocals of the legendary Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso, he slapped some mayonnaise on bread, following it with salami, turkey
,
and
some
accidental horseradish
.
He ate it silently, eyes glazed over, not even tasting his mistake
.
Cin sat patiently on the table next to him and nibbled at the tidbits he fed her.

“I
could look at this as a
unique opportunity, if you want to call it that, of deciding the course of my life
.
How
often do we get to choose our future
?
Rarely
.
Then again, what would I choose if I could
?”
Tony
grew
silent for a moment as Cin pounced
on one of his dirty socks
.