An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (25 page)

“Yeah, he’s a corpie
.
Corpies can’t be trusted.”

“Vape him and let’s get on with our
work
.”

“How could he possibly have gotten away from the Metros
?
”

“Yeah, none get away from the peelers unless they are one…”

“Like I said,
v
ape the…”

Sonya’s
slowly raised
hand stopped all of the discussion cold
.
In
a
voice barely above a whisper,
she said,
“Andrea, did you not go to the police when we first met
?”
The redhead sitting behind Sonya blushed
pink
all the way down
the v in her blouse
.
Sonya didn’t even bother to look up at the people in question but rather stared blankly
ahead,
letting her comments do all her work for her
.
“And Linc, didn’t you try to blackmail Suet? Jonah, weren’t you a Metro when they framed you for murder?”

“That was
—
” 

“And Beth, didn’t you try for a corporate bounty on
Jackson
’s head over there
?
My point is that very few of us started with trust in this organization
.
Trust must be earned in our business
.
Mr. Sammis earned his first piece today
.
And if that isn’t enough,
he’s
wanted by the Metros
.
Even if they didn’t post his picture
,
you know as well as I do that they have him on one of the seventy thousand
cameras
in that building alone.”

“But he can’t handle the work
.
He left his tucker in the cell.”

“And Andrew, how long did you retch after you shot Black Charlie
?”
Andrew squirmed under the full attentions
.
“How many nights
of
sleep have each of us lost for some of the horrible things
we’re
forced to do?”

“What do you possibly see in him, Sonya?” Arthur asked.

Sonya looked at a matronly woman with eyes looking like solid silver balls. 

“My run on the nets show skills in first aid, explosives,
and a stint with corporate security,” the elderly woman said, not looking at anyone in particular. “H
is physical prowess alone likely can be honed
.
He demonstrated leadership, individuality
,
and creative abilities in solving problems in his work.”

“And, if you haven’t forgotten
already
, he did save
Jasmine before any of this happened to him,” Beth said with empathy dripping from her voice. “He cares.”

“I still say it’s too big a risk.”

“He has a furry.”

“Enough,” Sonya interjected before the discussion fed on itself.
“How often have I been wrong
?
How often has a spy crept within our midst
?
Why do you think we don’t use the
formality of a
strai
t
jacketed cell system
?
You’ve all
seen that
I know
about people
.
E
nough of this,” Sonya said softly
.
“It serves no purpose
.
I’ve made my decision as our leader
.
Unless you wish to proceed to a vote of
n
o
c
onfidence, let Tony in
.
He has a right to be heard and give his voice to this council
.”
Sonya looked around confidently
.
Two of the ten looked like they had more to say but chopped it off, in one case with
the
look
of an obstinate
child and the other in resignation
.

Tony stumbled over the doorsill
and
staggered against a box that clattered loudly
.
Several members snickered
.

“Sorry,” Tony said pushing the box
es
back into place
.
Sonya stood with
a
silkiness of movement that belied the bones in her body.

“Welcome, Tony,” Sonya offered warmly, extending her hand
.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t have started on a
friendlier
note
.
I hope you understand
.”

Tony’s mind whirled as too many changes hit him one after another.
“I do,”
he replied,
gently taking her hand
.
Her
palm
,
callused in an unusual way
,
still felt exactly like a delicate ice sculpture
.
Impulse took him and he lifted her hand and gently kissed
its
back.

“Very cavalier of you, sir,” Sonya said only loud enough for Tony to hear
.
Then
, louder, she added
, “Let me give you some background.

“I lead our group in something similar to a parliamentary style
.
Everyone attending has an equal voice in decisions and a simple majority carries
.
As leader, I can change the decision by executive
veto
.
If I do, the team can bring a vote of no
confidence where a two-thirds majority would remove me from leadership.”

“How long have you been leader
?”

“Since we began action, twelve years ago,” she understated
.

“Oh
.”
A dramatic pause followed.

“Let me introduce you to the rest of our present team
.
You know Linc
,
but you may not know he was a private detective until he made the mistake of taking a
domestic abuse
case for the wife of a
senior
Metro officer
.
He’s had a price on
Linc’s
head ever since
.

“To
his
right is Suet, who you also know
.
At the tender age of seven, a couple of corpie teens on a lark took their limousine through the ground neighborhood
,
shooting anything that moved with flechette guns, including her Nil parents
.
She learned quickly how to live on the streets
.
I’ll let her discuss her enhancements when you get a chance to talk to her on your own time
.”

Tony waved tentatively at the emerald woman
, who didn’t respond or even glance in his direction.

Turning to her right, Sonya pointed to a slight, swarthy man.
“As head ranger of
Big
Basin
National Park
, Andrew tried to stop the expansion of the
San Fransisco
development
.
He put together a team to sabotage the lumber clearing effort
.
Unfortunately
,
his number two man was a police mole
.
Andrew
got away only by luck.

“Arthur is the small man to your left
.
His wife died from a lift car accident because of
cost
-
cutting by
megacorp
executives
.
Beth, sitting next to him, was a model until some corporate
alchemy
went awry
.”

Tony looked closely
, suddenly realizing why she seemed so familiar
. Yes
!
You used to be the Bingo Condom Girl!”

“That was a lo
ng time ago,” she all but purred
.

“Ahem.”

“Sorry.”

“Now,
Jonah
,
Frances
,
and Colin were all Metros
.”

Tony looked at the trio in surprise
.
He hadn’t expected to find ex-Metros in this company.

Sonya smiled briefly and continued.
“Jonah
, the redhead with the six gazillion freckles,
had
his
partner frame him for murder
.
Frances
and Colin, partners, both tried to be honest cops
.
You know what happens
to
those.”

“Tolly,” Sonya
went on
, offering a hulking blonde Adonis
for his consideration
, “came to us as a liaison from another social engineering group down under
.
Things are no better there
,
but his group disbanded
because of
internal
dissen
s
ion
.

“Martin wishes us to return as much of
E
arth back to nature as possible
.
Some would say he has the purest motives
.
Many of the rest of us are vengeance motivated.

“Christine, to your left, is one of the unusual ones amongst us
.”
The pretty, unaugmented teen stood less than
150
centimeters tall and massed less than
40
kilos
.
“Christine is what psychologists call a biological sociopath
.”
Tony scanned Cristine’s deadpan face and shuddered
.
“She enjoys killing and has a talent for assassinations
.
Her loyalty for the group has been tested and is solid, but don’t have sex with her.

“Across from you is Augustine
.
Tina is our resident
icebreaker
.”
Tony saw a woman
who,
if you
removed the wetwire jack from her temple
,
looked like
someone’s great grandmother with
silver orbs for
eyes
.
“
She’s
on the run from the time she almost got caught breaking into the
NaBiCo
executive
database.”

“I only wanted the Oreo recipe,” she
offered,
smil
ing
vacantly.

“Andrea,” Sonya
went on,
pointing at what appeared to be a twelve
-
year
-
old girl with the
natural
flaming
-
red hair that women would kill to have, “was an exceptional professional thief
—
”

“I still am.”

“My apologies
. S
he
is
a gifted thief
,
until she accidentally left some
DNA
behind when she lifted a Norman Rockwell from a corpie bigwig.

“
Jackson
had the misfortune of being the valet for
Goldstein of G
oldstein, Hammons
, Hammons
& Fun
k fame
.”
Jackson, an older, bookish black man, nodded
.
“He overheard something he shouldn’t have and reported it to the wrong cop
.
He escaped only by the skin of his teeth.

“Carl can’t attend tonight
but you’ve already met him briefly
.
Carl had the misfortune of being the victim of
a he-said-she-said
rape case involving the daughter of a very high
-
level corpie
.
That’s
bad enough even if
you’re
a regular slob, worse if
you’re
a genetically engineered dwarf.

“I guess that sums up our action committee
.
There are
many
other members
,
but they
aren’t
part of this executive staff
.
The less you know about those right now, the better.
”