An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (19 page)

Tony suddenly stretched higher in his chair
.
He’d
almost forgotten that the kitten had been hers
.

“I see that you did
.
I give it to you as a gift of the love you showed me
.
Just care for it as much as you did me
.”

A tear formed in the corner of Tony’s eye
.
“But
I’m
going to lose it all
.
I’ll
have no way to care for myself, much less…
”
Tony trailed off because of the monitors that surely
recorded all that went on in
the room
.

So like his own mother, this old woman drew him out and soon Tony told
his
entire story
.
She listened, without surprise, as the tale unfolded
.
With remarkable strength and speed, she grabbed one of his
hands
and pulled it beneath the covers
.
Her skin
felt
rough against his
.
Something
press
ed
across the palm of his hand as she began speaking in
loud
,
agitated tones.

“You
’
re a criminal
!
Get out of here
!
How could I have been talking to such a louse
?
No, lower than a louse.
NURSE
!
Get this vermin out of here!” She released his hand gently and with her eyes, much softer than the tone in her voice, she gestured for him to the door
.
She smiled brightly at him for all of two seconds until the orderly entered
.

Tony’s mind whirled with all the incongruities
.
It took several milliseconds for realization to dawn.

“Get this filth out of here!” she screamed, coughing heavily
.
“
He’s a cat lover and probably grows his own vegetables
!”

“Sir, if you
’ll
please step this way,” the bribed nurse said, softly
.
“We can’t have our patients disturbed
.”

“I understand
.
I don’t want anyone upset
.
I’ll
leave
.
My apologies, ma’am
.”
She turned away from him as he left
.

He waited until he fully exited the hospital before looking at his hand
.
Written there
,
in ink
, he found,
“
GAM,
Sonya,
ground level
, Arcade Aerobics.”

Realization dawned
at
its own pace
.
He glanced up in the direction of his benefactress
’s
room and shook his head slowly back and forth
.
She had offered no name and asked him no name in return
.

* * *
 

A servant, dressed in traditional coat and tails, rang a tiny silver bell and entered the Mars room
.
Conversation ceased as he silently marched the length of the room to the heart-stirring beat of
“
Ride of the Valkyries
.
”
There he delivered a tiny slip of handmade paper to his master and exited in the same manner as he had entered
.
Nanogate
very deliberately opened and read the note
.

“A tiny interruption if you please
.
I believe we have a break
.
In the GAM project, our subject has made contact
.

“Unfortunately
,
the primary contact, an old woman in the hospital, has died before we could question her
.
The subject disappeared from his usual haunts shortly after his interview with her
.”

Cautious smiles accompanied his next statement
.
“Phase two appears to be complete.”

Implement
—
Phase
Three

T
he remains of asphalt streets, obsolete with the advent of lift
vehicles
, now only served as potholed walkways
.
The usual overcrowded throngs
that populated them during the day
had
retreated
long ago to the relative safety of their homes
or hovels
.
A myriad of colorful characters took their place
.
An
undocumented body mechanic
glanced
hopefully in
Tony’s
direction
,
but
just as quickly
looked back to his portable lab
, working
on something that looked vaguely like a human leg in vermilion
.
A
not-so-proficient pickpocket accosted Tony
.
“Lay off, weeble,” Tony said, backhanding
the
young boy who grabbed him in the crotch to distract him
.
The youth staggered briefly before fleeing the scene, his middle finger extended above his head in a universal gesture.

Half a dozen
burns
gather
ed
together in a doorway
halfway down the street
,
laughing quietly
at nothing much
.
A ubiquitous ground-level drunk heaved his lunch
into the
alley
,
prompting half a dozen rats
to scurry
out
and
partake of the unexpected bounty
.

“What am I doing here?”
Tony
asked himself
outside
an establishment whose
ancient neon lights
declar
ed
it
“-
rcade Aerobics
,” the first “A” conspicuously dark
.
Further down the street
,
t
wo junkies pummeled a
normal
-
looking citizen w
ith a
meter and a half
length of corroded pipe and size fourteen boots
.

“Good place to be chewed up and spit out
.”
Tony
took
a deep breath and marched across the street
. Without hesitation he
open
ed
the door that might
alter
his wrecked life
even
further
.

A
low
-
resolution
recording of surf sounds and beach birds matched the
dust
-
covered
plastic palm trees
which
nominally
shaded
the foyer
.
Fake coconuts littered a heap of sand against a grainy solido of
a stylized
Pacific Ocean
.
Broken
scan l
ines
in the bad representation added
electronic gibberish
horizontally
.
In a merchant stand ostensibly made of grass and bamboo
,
a fit young woman bearing a Star of David tattooed on her bald head
didn’t quite ignore him
.

“May I help you?”

“I’m looking for Sonya.”

“Reeeeally, corpie,” she said, drawing it out almost in an insult
.

“
Ex
-c
orpie
, actually
.”

“Suit yourself
.
You wanna sign up for Advanced Pilates?”

“
Uh
, sure
.”

The young woman laughed without smiling.
“You couldn’t
even
do the elephant
,” s
he
added,
smirk
ing at him.

“I guess I’ll show my ignorance about the topic
,
because I have to assume you
aren’t
talking about having sexual relations with extinct African beasts
.”

Once again she offered a mirthless laugh
.
“No
.
So I’ve now ruled out that you want Pilates
.
What do you really want, corpie?”

“I told you, I’m looking for Sonya
.
Someone said I could find her here.”

“Look, I don’t have time for anyone that doesn’t want to enroll in classes or become a member of the gym
.
There ain’t no Sonya working here
.”

“What if I were to give you
a hundred
greens
.”
Mentally he hoped he had the money on him
.
He didn’t think she’d take a credit chip
.
His worry dissipated almost instantly.

“Get nilled, Metro.”

“
I’m
not a cop,
pizda
.”

“Sure you ain’t
.
Even if you were, I don’t nark out anyone
.
Besides
,
I don’t know no Sonya
.”
The young woman’s eyes lost focus
in the
age
-
old look of someone concentrating on her neural interface rather than the here and now
.
A square-jawed face strutted in to the reception area clad only in
a
thong
,
bristling with
more muscle than a prize
fighter
.
The bulky man nodded as he strode behind the shack and through a door that magically buzzed just before he touched it
.

Without missing a beat, Tony reached for his wallet
.
“I’d like to join the gym
.
Can I have a tour
?”
Her eyes lost the
glazed
-
over look
and got hungry
.
“I’ll even put down a deposit.”

“Nonrefundable.”

“Of course
.
Will sixty do it?”

“One hundred
.”
The
five
plastic bills Tony found in his pocket evaporated like a teaspoon full of water
on the sun
ny
side of Mercury
.
Tony turned and
pushed the door the young woman absently pointed
toward
, just
as
it buzzed
to let him in
.

In marked contrast to the facility’s
scummy lobby and ground-level location, a
surprising
panoply of
shining,
high
-
tech bio-mechanical exercise equipment greeted Tony in the basketball-
court
-
sized floor space
.
After his bold move to get into the gym, Tony looked around
,
drawing a blank
as only four people
occupied
the exercise area and none of them really fit his mental picture of a Sonya
.

The square-jawed face stood in front of a free weight stand, buckling a wide Kevlar belt around his middle
.
As Tony entered, the square jaw
smiled
enough to show a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth that belonged in
the maw
of a shark rather than a human
.

Three dissimilar individuals clustered around a juice
-
steroid bar chatting
among themselves
.
An exotic young woman, who looked like something out of
a
combination mercenary
/
porn rag, would draw anyone’s eyes
.
Her legs bulged
thirty centimeters
thick
of gem-like green
po
lymer
.
I
n place of
her arms waved a pair of tentacles of the same material,
flexing in multiple
direction
s
.
Twisted emerald tiles overlapped on her buxom torso
,
giving her a sensual
,
reptilian look
.
Only her head seemed human, sporting short red and orange hair like
overlapping
waves of fire
.