An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (44 page)

“Everything looks in place
.
Do you need an escort?”

“Only if you want to give me one
.
I’ve been here often
enough they gave me my own key,” he lied easily
.
“S
eems your plumbing contractor screwed up the power lines again.”

“
OK
.
Report back here before you leave
.”

“No problem
.
Short job
.
I’ll be out in an hour.”

Mr. Marks walked along his memorized route to a janitorial door
.
Using the electronic key he
had
brandished earlier
,
the door opened to his touch
.
He calmly opened his bag and placed a thirty thousand gauss
electro
magnetic lock on the door
to ensure his privacy
.
He extracted from his kit a fifty
-
centimeter, black-plastic stick
.
Flipping it open
,
once in each direction
,
he
tripled
its length
.
Expertly
,
he pulled it open, one
section
at a time
.
Each length popped up a perpendicular stick twenty centimeters long, each one on opposite sides of the pole from the previous
.
Once done
,
he leaned it against the wall
, making
a very serviceable ladder
.
Removing a laser saw from his pouch, he climbed up and began cutting a hole in the wall very near the ceiling
.

Seven minutes later he took a visual network tester and played it over the grouping of cables he
had
just exposed. It took thirty
-three
minutes to identify the right cables
.
Selecting that one pair
,
he released them from the bundle, routed them out to a
separate and exposed
plastic trough, and then
returned
the r
emainder
to their original resting place
.
With stolen
Taste Dynamics
sealing tape, he marked the hole he
’d
cut and the plastic trough, making it seem part of an official change
and approved by security
.

After sixteen minutes of miscellaneous cleanup
and removal of the protective magnet
, he dropped the last of his tools in
his
bag
.
Eight minutes later he walked out the gate with a wave to the guard
,
d
uty
for another day accomplished
.

* * *
 

“I therefore call this meeting to a close
.
Thank you all.
” Sonya nodded as they stood to depart.
“Tony, would you mind following me back home?”

Tony’s mind went immediately into overdrive
.
He’d never been asked to Sonya’s home
.
To the best of his knowledge
,
no one had
.
She’d been kind
,
but never really friendly
,
n
or
did she ever
seem sexually attracted
.
Anything she said to him normally would be said in front of the entire council
.
Why
the change
?
At least eleven people looked at him with
that same
question in their eyes
.

“Sure,” his voice betraying just a tiny bit of confusion
.
When Sonya turned, Tony shrugged
at
the assemblage.

He
followed
her
out to the slum of street level
.
She glided along the streets illuminated by the occasionally functioning streetlamp
.
Without moving
in
anything but a straight line
,
she seemed to dance amongst the fog and early evening darkness like a ghost
,
totally at one with the environ
s
.
Fearlessly
,
she walked past street level gangs and bands of w
h
elps who routinely dismembered their victims for their
two
-
credit implants
.
Less than a few weeks ago
,
terror
would’ve
overcome Tony at even the thought of escorting a young woman on a Portland street
,
other than those specifically patrolled
and kept relatively safe
for
the night
clubs
.
Instead
,
he strode comfortably at Sonya’s side.

While Tony tried to determine, unsuccessfully, if they were unnoticed or respected enough to be left alone, Sonya
suddenly
leapt high enough to chin
her way
up a rusted fire escape ladder four meters above the ground
.
It creaked ominously as she scrambled up arm over arm
.
Tony eyed the lowest rung
.
Sonya’s panther-like jump outstripped his capabilities
.
Without undue stress he climbed up on a nearby blue dumpster, freckled with the
ever-present
corrosion
of the
Pacific Northwest
, and with only a tiny jump managed the ladder
.
He unconsciously wiped the rust from his hand
on his pants
before entering through the window of her fifth floor apartment
.

For their enterprise, fifth floor approached perfection
—
too low for anything but street scum, but high enough to keep out all but the most ambitious of the Nils
and breakers
.
Tony wrinkled his nose at a pervasive musty smell
.
The single piece of furniture, an ancient leather sofa, held at least seven cats and four dogs
.
The heavily stained carpet held at least twice that number
.
Two of the cats came up to strop his legs
.
One of the small dogs chose that time to bark
,
but only a single yip broke his throat
.
Several of them came over to beg attention from Sonya
,
who managed to pet each of them and croon something Tony couldn’t hear
.

Despite the menagerie, Tony worried on that
one
-
word question like a bit of steak caught between his molars
.
Why?

Instead of asking, he made idle conversation.
“Nice security
.
Would they lick the invader to death
?”

“Despite all appearances,
they’d
protect this home fiercely
.
That
you’re
with me
,
and that
you’re
an empathic person
,
makes all the difference.”

“Empathic
?
Me?”

“Yes, even if you don’t understand why you feel uneasy around some people and warm in the glow of others
.
Yes.
Now c
ome this wa
y.” She
invited
him into
a
kitchen strewn about with equipment of various missions, past and present
.
Oddly
,
the animals stopped at the doorway as if barred by an invisible door
.
They didn’t invade the kitchen like
they’d
taken over the living room
.

“I didn’t bring you her
e
for that discussion
, however
.”
She shoved out a padded chair with its stuffing peeking through the cracked vinyl
for Tony
.
As
he
sat
,
she
pushed
away the parts on the table
, many of which crashed to the floor,
and
assume
d
her customary lotus
on the surface
.

“You have to be overflowing with curiosity
.
Let me just begin by saying that I’ve not brought you here on a whim.
You
’
ve become more than just another member of my organization, but really my right hand in planning and intentions
.
With
fourteen
extremely successful
personal
missions under your belt
and
the
planning of many, many more,
you’ve
earned not only my trust but that of the entirety of the GAM
.
You know nearly everything I know about our organization
.
I need to bounce a couple of items off of you
.
Items that have me concerned
.”

Tony
had
learned the hard way that c
oncern from the stoical Sonya usually meant a cosmic disaster
.
To have several
such concerns
meant nothing less than the end of the world. “Why not bring them up in council?
”

“I didn’t feel comfortable
discussing such things publicly
.
Morale is a fragile thing
.
It’s
been so long since we’ve had any
,
I want to keep it going and not risk fracturing it.”

“Sounds serious.”

“Perhaps
.
Let me start with the most obvious
.
Did you notice that we had three members missing tonight?”

“Yes
.
I sent Linc home yesterday
.
Must have the flu.”

“Hmm
.
I don’t believe
it’s
any form of influenza
.
He’s
running
four
degrees of fever
.
The other two are worse
,
with all the signs of dysentery.”

“How did they get that
?
In this modern era
?
We don’t have contaminated water
.
Even
most of the barrios have
good water
here in
Portland
.”

“They don’t have dysentery
.
They have the
symptoms
.
Each of the other two ha
s
been running at
both
ends
for three days.”

“
OK
,
so we have a bug running around
.
Even those with full medical don’t have a cure for the common cold.”

“I agree,
but
I have a
strong reason to believe
that this isn’t
any
common bug
.
You see
,
I have it as well.”

“What?”

“Yes
.
I’ve
had it for two days
.
You needn’t worry
.
I’ve isolated my body with
...
well
,
you
’d
probably call it a spell.”

“I hate to sidetrack you
,
but
that’s
a question I’ve had hovering
.
I’ve seen you do some very slick things.”

Sonya didn’t hesitate
.
She
must’ve
anticipated the question
.
“My mother was a witch and her mother before her
.
For all I know, probably her mother before that
.
Just let it be said that
I have certain abilities that are mostly personal or informational in nature.”