An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (21 page)

“We cou
’
crash his
f’at
n’see if he’s go’ a furry,” said the green woman
.

“Not a bad suggestion, Suet
.
When
we’re
done here
,
I want you to check it.”

“We ain’t gonna let him speak to Sonya?
”

“You know how she is,” the green woman identified as Suet said without a single lisp
for a change
.

“Yeah, you don’t screen her
and
she’ll
turn you
into a lizard
instead
,”
Carl
mentioned,
pulling a monofilament blade from his proportionally small pocket
.
“
Linc,
I say we
screen her and let her give me the order to whack him and shove him into the sewer
.
”

“Already did
.
Instead of killing him
,
she wants to meet him in person.”

“What?!”

“Wack
y
bi
a
ch
.
Why
ya no’ make her
screen
him
?
”

“Do I look stupid
?
I mentioned that possibility
,
but she insisted
.
I told her she was crazy
.
You know Sonya.”

“Only thing I know about her hollowed
-
out head is she slug-thinks sometimes.”

“How soon before the drug wears off?”

“No’ sure
.
I jus’ gave him
everything
.
No’
know his me
’
abolism.”

“Ain’t no matter.”

“True
.
Let’s strip and scan him,” Linc the bartender commanded.

“If’n he go’
even a finger nail file you
may
jus
’ ha
f
f
a
’
ell Sonya
he go’
an acci
’
en
’
.”

Tony let his body slump back to the floor, a much more natural state considering the tingling across most of his muscles
.
The rasping of Suet’s
monochromic
tentacles against his skin
a few moments later
nearly broke his façade
.
The mechanical arms made short work of his clothing without the niceties of unfastening them
.
Despite the rush of air against his bare skin, Tony remained still
.

“Scan’s
’one
.
He’s got an ancien
’
min’
jack and a
mech han’
with a three
go
gauss gun with
very shor’ range
.
A self
’
efense gun
, but
’
ook the ammo
.
He wasn’ aim’n for Sonya with tha’.”

“
He coulda if he
got her close enough to use it
.
I still say vape him.”

“We see,” said the female voice as Tony felt the tentacles around his throat
.
Certainly those green monstrosities could snap his neck as easily as a pretzel
.
Instead he felt
another tentacle around his waist
.
They
lifted
him and almost as quickly dr
opped
him
a meter
or so to
collapse in the bottom of some container
.
Even through his closed eyes he could see the frail light being stolen away
.
Opening his eyes
didn’t change his visual information input
—
darkness
.
A cursory touch examination defined his cage well enough
—
a
cylindrical
plastisteel shipping container
, usually used for carrying liquids
.
Muffled, the conversation continued on outside
.
He caught the meaning even if he missed every fifth word or so.

“Suet and I will take this one with us
.
You check his apartment and then call us
.
I’ll drive us around for two hours
.
That should give you enough time
.
If there
’s
no
cat
then this one will fall out of the air truck
.
Sonya can punish me if she wants, but we’re going to keep her safe.”

“Agreed
.”

After a rough loading onto a vehicle, Tony searched with his bound hands, rubbing over the entirety of the interior
.
He felt nothing but smooth surface with no purchase, no weak point, no opening, and nothing to use as a tool or weapon
.
He leaned back and sensed the
truck’s motion,
but the ride flowed so smoothly he often couldn’t tell if they moved or not, much less the direction
.

With his options exactly zero, he followed the advice his grandfather once gave him
.
“Tony, if you ever find yourself in a position that you can’t do anything…sleep.”

* * *
 

“Wake up in there
.
There’s
no way the drug
we
slipped you last
ed
five hours
.”
Tony recognized the juice-tender’s voice
—
Linc.

“I’m awake,” Tony muttered groggily
.
“Why do you want me awake if you aren’t going to let me out?”

“There
’s
someone here that…” 

A low and pleasantly feminine voice
interrupted.
“Let him out
.”

“But
you’re
too important
—
”

“Let him out,” she said in a calm but firm voice
.
Quickly the barrel upended, dumping him none t
o
o gently onto a carpeted floor that smelled of urine
.
“But that other one
.
He’s
a bounty hunter
.
We are well shut of him.”

“Hey, I’m not a bounty hunter,” Tony heard muffled from another barrel identical to his own
.
“You can trust me
.
I can prove
—
” 

The bark of some
high
-
tech weapon
sound
ed
,
followed
by silence
.
Tony tried not to think what that meant
,
but
his mind fantasized a suitabl
y terrifying
outcome
in spite of itself
.
At that mome
n
t Tony decided his nakedness would be fine until they decided he should have something to wear
.

“Thank you, I think,” Tony said finally
.
He put his feet beneath him, but
decid
ed
that sitting on the floor he posed a lesser threat
.
While others stood closely behind him, Tony only had eyes for an extremely tall, gaunt woman who decided on only half a hairstyle, the other side of her head bare of anything but undecipherable glyphs
.
She wore a simple, white
linen dress that didn’t disguise the tattoos covering the majority of her body
.
He wouldn’t have given her a second look if
he’d
bumped into her on the TriMet, but here she unconsciously demanded attention
.
Tony found his body and mind reacting in unexpected ways.

“Welcome, Tony
.
I’ll
be blunt and hope you will be as well
.
I so dislike wasting time
.”
Each
Hispanic
-
accented word rolled off her tongue as if precisely cut by a laser
.
Tony managed to close his mouth and nod
.
“Good
.
I’d
offer you some clothes
,
but no matter the outcome
,
you won’t be here long enough to offend anyone’s dignity.”

“Why am I here
?”

The woman with skin the color of
well
-
polished oak looked at him with the contempt one reserved for someone
who’d
passed gas in the confines of the TriMet.
“Why don’t you tell me that?”

“I was told I could find Sonya at the Arcade Aerobics
.
As they talked about you while I was trussed up and nominally asleep,
I’ll
assume that you
’
re Sonya.”

“One must guess and guess correctly in life to survive,” she said cryptically
.
“You have exactly one minute to tell me why you wanted to speak to Sonya
.
If I’m not convinced,
you’ll
not only
not
be allowed to speak to her, you can join that bad rubbish over there
—
or worse
,
we might just bury you alive.”

“I have to say that normally
I’d
be afraid of such talk
.
I probably
would’ve
even
been offended by such outright threats, but this
hasn’t
been an ordinary
few
day
s
.
To be honest
,
that seems like the sweetest thing anyone
’s
said to me
.
OK
.
You said be blunt, so I will
.
In brief
,
I want to join the G
reen Action Militia
.”

He ignored the chuckles
.
Every instinct screamed that he
must convince the woman in front of him, not the clowns behind him
.

“Why should we trust you
?
What reason do we have to trust you
?”

Honesty before deceit, Tony thought
.
“You shouldn’t
,
and you have none
.
I could give you a song and dance about the crap thrown at me
over the last two days
,
but it could just be another corpie setup to try and trap
—
”

“
We
have to move,” said a voice behind him
.
“
If he’s bugged
,
your time is up
.
They’ll
be onto the Faraday cage gimmick if
they’re
quick
.”

“I must say you haven’t given me much, corpie
.
I won’t lie
.
My inclination is to have you disappear.”

“Don’ be
quick
,” came the dangerously silky voice of the green-gemmed girl
.
“He has a furry
.”
Sitting on her left tentacle rode Cin bearing all the dignity of the Egyptian cat goddess, Bast
.

“Cin!”
Tony exclaimed.
The brightly colored cat jumped down and marched properly over to her person
.
She brushed up against Tony with an air of ownership before examining the rest of the room’s occupants.

The tattooed woman bent down to offered her finger to Cin
.
The calico sniffed it
daintily
and gave it a gentle lick before returning to grooming
her reddish coat
.
“A very han
d
som
e
creature.”