An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (32 page)

Sonya watched as her people took to him as one of their own after so little time
.
As one, the group jumped up and down as Tony scored his first strike
.
Hugs were shared all around
.
 

O
ne fly
swam
in the ointment
.
Andrea failed to hide her dislike of the newcomer
.
He seemed confused
by
the antipathy
,
but tried hard to work around it with very limited success.

When Tony finally worked his way through the team to herself, he asked her about her low tech lifestyle
.
To her surprise he honestly listened to her answers and could debate the benefits and costs
.
Within a few minutes Sonya realized his
natural
charisma even worked on her
.

“What more could one leader ask for?” she chided herself mentally
.
Despite her best judgment, Sonya found herself warming
to him as more than just another member of the team, but as a friend as well
.

* * *
 

“Is the operational tempo always this high?” Tony asked from the back of a brightly painted panel truck dubiously labeled
“
The Party Bus
—
Birthdays, Bar Mitzvahs, Weddings, and All Other Occasions.
”
He crouched next to a
huge
bomb that all but filled the
9
meter cargo bay
.
“This is the third attack this week.”

“Sometimes we don’t do anything for weeks or even months,”
Jackson
explained
from the passenger seat
.
“But sometimes we have only one chance at a target, like today
.
This
one’s
like a sign painted by God
.
No one turns off their surveillance grid without a backup.”

“So where are we going again
?”
Something nagged at Tony’s subconscious about
anything
being this open.

“Will you shut up back there,” Andrea barked from the driver’s seat
.

Tony didn’t understand the continuing animosity from the diminutive, red-haired thief
.
He’d been friendly with all the team members and gotten cautious approval even from Sonya
.
Andrea didn’t make any effort even for common courtesy
.
Tony felt her eyes following him more often than not in the few quiet moments the team shared since his acceptance
.

“That’s enough,”
Jackson
said
.
“I know you don’t like Tony, but that’s no reason to be rude
.
He did save
Colin
’s ass
.”

“Old man, I’m not going to get into this with you.”

“That’s right
.
We have a job to do right now
.
Park your high horse so we can do it professionally.”

“Yes, SIR.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, either, young woman.”

“Seventy seconds for grid deactivation,” Tony offered.

“We
can
tell time
!
Hell
,
I don’t even know why
you’re
along
.
The explosives in the back of this thing are powerful enough to bring down the whole building
.
All we have to do is park and walk away
.”

“I suggest we merge into the Yelser Airway for three blocks before cutting back,”
Jackson
offered in a feeble attempt to change the subject
.
“We don’t want to get there too early and be seen driving around the block.”

“Gotcha.”

“Now a left onto the Em-El-Kay
.”
Tony’s senses perked up
as
they rounded the corner
.
Memory flooded back in an instant
.

“What was that address?”

“Fucking shut up about it
.
We know where to go.”

“God
damnit, t
ell me the fucking address
!
”

“101 North Martin Luther King,
e
ighty
-
fourth level
,” came the snappy reply.

Tony’s mind went into overdrive
.
“Fuck
.
We can’t do this
.
It’s a trap.”

“What do you mean, corpie
?
Augustine dug this out
.
No one gave it to us
.
How much better can you get than to knock off a g’damned data center for Unified Petroleum?”

“I tell you
,
it’s a trap
.
Even Augustine said
it’d
been the easiest hack she’d had in years.”

“Talk fast,”
Jackson
insisted
.

“It’s a trap
.
UP is under the
Nanogate
umbrella
.
When I worked security
,
I signed off on a number of construction changes
.
This was one of them
.
The power was inadequate
.
Just by accident I noticed later that the space
was
to be converted into a day care
and
nursery school.”

“Bullshit,” Andrea
countered
.

“No,
it’s
true.”

“
That’s
nothing but a load of crap
!
”
Andrea
hissed
.
“We have a bomb to deliver and I, for one, am
not
going to let Sonya
down
again.”

Tony could just make out the determination on her face
.
He
realized nothing he could say would change her mind
.
He changed
tactics abruptly
.

“
Jackson
, we can’t let this bomb kill children.”

“Even if
you’re
right, corpie,” Andrea said again, spitting out the epithet, “
they’re
just corpie kids
.
It’s another blow against the corporations
.”

Jackson
said nothing but Tony could hear him breathing heavily
.

“Here comes the building,” Andrea
announced
as she pulled up into the loading zone
.
“Get ready to scoot.”

Tony didn’t know where he found the courage
.
He knew it would probably end his association with the GAM, but he couldn’t abandon his own principles
and
allow the Greenies to commit suicide
.
He pointed his gauss finger right at Andrea’s head
.
“None of us are getting out
.
We’re
going to fly this bomb right back where we started.”

“And if I get out anyway?” Andrea said, slowing to park.

“Then I’ll put a hole in your head the size of
the Philadelphia Crater
.”

* * *
 

“That corpie threatened to kill me
.
I want his head
!
”
Andrea
demanded
, standing as far away from Tony as the small storeroom allowed
.
Several of the
team
held their
weapons
ready,
but didn’t know where to direct
them
.
It pleased Sonya that the guns pointed only at the floor
.

“I’m telling you
,
it was a trap
.
If killing me will make you feel better about not blowing up a school full of little kids, then go ahead.”

“Fuck you, corpie.”

“Knock it off
!
”
Sonya yelled
.
Everyone turned to her in amazement
.
She forced her emotions down three notches and continued more sedately
.
“
Jackson
, please tell me what happened
.”

“In short, Tony blew the op claiming it was a trap
.
He claimed inside knowledge that our target was a day care, not a data center
.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Andrea went on
.
“We had
—
”

“Andrea,” Sonya interrupted making her voice as cold as a breeze on Io, “I’m trying to understand
.
Until I do I can’t make any decisions
.
So shut the fuck up!” In an attempt to break up the disaster this promised to be, she had broken two of her own rules
—
no yelling and no profanity
.
It bought at least a modicum of stability to the chaos
in shock value
.
Silence held as Sonya closed her eyes and took four deep cleansing breaths.

She opened
her eyes
to see Andrea with her arms crossed over her chest and her mouth pursed up with the look of a
four-
year
-
old saving up more spit
.
Tony’s visage wore
a
look
of resignation
.

“Now, Tony, why would killing children be a trap
?
I mean
,
I
don’t
like the idea any more than anyone else
,
but it doesn’t seem to be a risk to us.”

“That’s where
you’re
wrong
.
I tried to mention this to you before but no one really listened
.”

Andrea opened her mouth, but closed it as
Tony
gave her a glare.

“Well you definitely have our attention now,” Sonya said, her voice back to her normal imperturbable levels.

“
OK
.
Look at it from a guerilla warfare perspective
.
We gain strength from the common folk
—
money, protection and recruits
.
They are trodden and spit on by the corps
.
They look to us as their
heroes
.
We’re
Robin Hood and her Merry Men
.
What would happen if those same people looked at us as a threat
?”

“…their hear’s and their min’s,” Suet muttered.

“What was that?”

“I think she said, ‘…their hearts and their minds
,
’”
Linc said.

“Yes
.
Something I remember from some
’
raining as a mercenary in
Africa
.
We foun’ ways
’
o win the hear’s and min’s of the peeps
.
This jam covere’ shi’
may
be yanking the peeps from us
.
They’re yanking the foo’, clothes an’ roofs away
.
Peeps run from us, no’ with us
.
Maybe even Nils.”

“That’s right,” Tony took up again
.
“I mentioned that killing people might be a danger to us
.
Look at the
corps’ propaganda
from our
last few actions
—they’re
already exploiting this
,
painting us as the bad guys
.
You’ve seen it already
.
Augustine, what are the net polls on us running?”

“About three percent less favorable across the board.”