An Eighty Percent Solution

Measure Performance—Phase Two



Nanogate noted with dismay the smooth, confident way that Taste Dynamics strutted into the meeting, just a few seconds late. Days like these he missed the cool confidence and skills of Mr. Marks. Taste Dynamics wouldn’t be so smug if he released Mr. Marks correctly.

“My apologies for my tardiness,” Taste Dynamics announced. “I needed last minute data to report.”

“Don’t let it happen again,” Wintel reprimanded. “Now let’s get started.”

As part of his personal training, Nanogate long ago cured himself of fidgeting in boring meetings, but the patience behind the calm façade he never managed to cultivate. The meeting dragged into two full hours of routine matters—forcing legislation change of employee taxes in the US, lowering the basis on EU coinage, raising the mortgage rates on Io and a planned strike on the Ceres mining colony. Nanogate took no notes. He barely noticed.

“Now to the action against the Greenies. Taste Dynamics, you have the floor.”

“Since our last meeting, there have been no actions against the assets of Taste Dynamics. I spent the extra few moments before the meeting to double-check my data. It’s confirmed that in the last week we haven’t had a single act of sabotage or assassination attributed to the GAM throughout the entire corporate network.”

“That is exceptional news,” Nanogate mouthed mechanically.

“Yes. I believe we should continue our higher meeting frequency for another month to be sure this danger has passed.”

“Agreed. Any opposed?”

“Before we move on to another topic, I want to announce an added bonus.” Taste Dynamics all but twittered with excitement. “As we know the unique RNA sequence of the disease, we’ve kept a covert surveillance on all of our internal nets and as many external nets as we could. It paid off in a big way. We located a doctor doing work for the GAM. Through him we can squeeze whatever remains of their organization.”

“Excellent work. The eighty percent solution we originally proposed may end up being one hundred percent.”



* * *



“Body Removal. I’m not getting your video.”

“That’s because I’m not transmitting, Adriana. This is…”

“I recognize the voice, Tony Sammis.” The liquid nitrogen in her voice came through clearly. “You have no further business with this condominium organization unless you wish to pay the balance of your forced sale. I believe the amount is…”

“That’s not why I called.”

“Then this conversation is ended.” She hit the cutoff button.

“But I’m not done,” Tony said, sliding up behind the fat black woman in her closet-sized office. Shifting her weight in surprise caused the chair to creak. “I wouldn’t turn if I were you,” he added, putting the tiny machine pistol against the rolls of fat where the back of her neck belonged. “Just keep facing the screen.”

“How did you…”

“Get in? Come now. I feel hurt. I’ve been defeating the deadly in-depth defenses of corps lately. You don’t think I can break into the security office of a condo complex?”

“You’re a Greenie?”

Tony remembered something out of an ancient flatie. “Smile when you say that.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

“You know I c-can’t give you back your condo,” she stammered desperately. “I don’t have any c-cash and…”

“Oh, fark, Adriana, I don’t want any of that. I just need the answers to some questions.”

“Ask away,” she said with an overabundance of nervous cheerfulness. “I’ll answer anything you want. I don’t have a death wish, and you do have the upper hand.”

“Oh, by the way, if you’re waiting for the fast response from the emergency signal you sent out, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you.” Tony watched the huge expanse of her shoulders slump in resignation. “I’ve layered your office with an old-fashioned Faraday cage—a metal lattice that blocks all signals.

“Now, I really don’t want to hurt you. I really only want you to answer questions. If you play your cards right, no one will ever even know you answered them.”

“OK, what do you want to know?” she conceded in a much more surly tone.

“Who put the nab on my flat?”

“Miss Carmine.”

“You wouldn’t do it just on her say-so.”

“No. She came in with some corp bodyguard…”

“’Bout 130 centimeters, white, whipcord muscles, and wearing only yellow liquid latex?”

“That’s the vaper. Anyway, she handed me a notice of lawsuit against you.”

“C’mon, Adriana. We both know that wouldn’t have quite done it either. What tipped the scales?”

“A rather nice roll of bills and the threat of a vape against me.”

“That would do it. I know how difficult a price on your head makes life. OK, I think that’s all I need. By the way, just how much do I supposedly owe the association?”

“Giving bad news to a man with a gun isnnnnnt…” Because of the bulk, her head barely tilted. The contact agent on the muzzle of his gun should keep someone of her bulk out for no more than five minutes. Tony didn’t waste a second, slipping out through the hole he’d cut in the water closet wall. His own bodyguard stood patiently in the hall waiting for him and fell in behind Tony as he walked.

“Bathrooms again,” Tony said. “Such an obvious security failing. Glad I put security in the commode long before this.”

“Augustine,” Tony went on, calling on an open line through his percomm.

“You get what you went for?”

“Yup.

“Carmine?”

“Yup. Carmine again, although this time we had a corpie escort.”

“Bodyguard?”

“Yup. Same vaper. I think it’s time to move on my ex. Pleasant thought. I’m sure not too many get the chance for such revenge. Any word from Jock?”

“He called not ten minutes ago. She moved, but he doesn’t have her new flat.”

“OK, Augustine, you’re the ice jockey. Follow the money. It must’ve left some trail. It should lead right to her.”

“Bloodhound on the trail.”



* * *



The small pump room reeked bitterly of raw crude oil and mold. The defunct Alaskan Pipeline’s abandoned pumping station offered a safe meeting place. Prior to the GAM scouts who found it, not a single person stepped foot inside for the better part of two decades. The dampness clung to every surface, and the tiny 60 watt incandescent bulb barely cut the gloom.

“We’re here to discuss…” Sonya stopped to take a breath. Her words were extremely labored. Her breath capacity fell off each day as the disease now fully involved her lungs. This environment helped her not at all. She knew her time measured itself not in weeks, months or even years, but days…maybe even hours. She took as large a breath as she could before continuing. “…the future leadership of our organization. I choose not to vote…as a veto. My vote will count exactly...the same as everyone else.

“Just so we’re clear…Suet, Martin, Tolly, Colin, and Jonah are all too ill to vote. Linc, Andrew, and I are all showing frank symptoms…but are clear-headed enough to cast a valid vote. “Discussion?”

“Shouldn’t you speak first, Sonya?” Linc asked weakly over the telecomm.

Sonya leaned back against one of the smaller pipes in the room, rusted and far larger around than she. “I’m reserving my right to speak last.”

Augustine spoke up first. “Tony has performed every function that Sonya has. His plans have passed every test we can throw at them, especially those that really count. They work. He directed us down a path that has us looking at victory. I nominate Tony for leader.”

“Victory?” Andrea took the fight up instantly. “We’re all dying…all except Tony. I’ve got the disease now. According to Sonya I have less than a thirty percent chance of living through it. I don’t want the man who killed us leading the rest of the team right into the corporate maw. I think he should be vaped, not elected leader. I for one won’t let this team be in any more jeopardy than it already is. I suggest Frances for our new leader. Her combat and planning experience in the Metros makes her an ideal candidate.”

“I really don’t want this opportunity,” Frances rebutted. “And while I don’t feel quite as vehemently as Andy, I have to agree with her opinion of Tony. I personally don’t care if Tony is guilty or not. Even if we rebuild our cadre, I don’t know how he can lead us without making us sick.”

“Even if I were to live,” Linc said, “I wouldn’t go back to our old, sloppy, hit-or-miss tactics. That isn’t any reflection on Sonya, but Tony has put us on the right path. Can Frances implement Tony’s direction? Possible. But I don’t feel comfortable that she can improvise or adapt to changes.”

“I haven’t spoken up much because I understand and respect all of your feelings.” Andrew grimaced in pain. “I’m afraid of what’s ahead of me, but I believe in Tony. He saved me more than once. I’m not likely to forget that.”

The conversation died with the sides clearly drawn. Sonya’s fears found their way up from her soul and spilled in this room. The pain in her body manifested in her dream torn asunder.

“Tony, do you have anything to say?” Augustine prompted, her eyes widening and her face attentive.

“I don’t.”

Sonya gave the tiniest of smiles, knowing Tony couldn’t resist the opportunity to talk. Pain in her abdomen wiped the pleasure in less time than it took to experience.

Despite his claim otherwise, Tony spoke anyway, just as Sonya knew he would. “Those against me feel I’m a menace, whether I acted with malice or not. Despite their feelings, I intend to prove to all my friends here, not just those behind me, that I never intended to do anything but help this group to its objectives. I never aided, planned, or agreed to be some kind of biological bomb.

“And one last thing—I never wanted to be leader. I’d rather have all your good will…your friendship.”

A long pause followed. “If there are no more comments…” Sonya waved for Augustine to continue as she bent double, wracked in a coughing fit.

“Aren’t you going to speak, Sonya?”

She violently shook her head back and forth as she bent over, hacking like a fifty-year smoker of the old tobacco sticks.

“Sonya is calling for a vote. This vote is to be secret. I would’ve made it electronic, but people might’ve thought I’d hacked the election. Instead, you’re each being provided a bag containing one each of three different colored marbles.” Augustine wrote in chalk on the least abused of the ceramcrete walls as she talked. “Here I have a bag. I will come by and each of you can drop one single marble into the bag: red for Tony, blue for Andrea or a clear marble if you abstain. Linc, I’ve got a mechanical arm here programmed to drop a marble for you. Just push one for Tony, two for Andrea, or zero for abstain.”

Augustine moved quietly around the room collecting the marbles. With each, a sharp click echoed through the room as the glass orb hit one of its brethren in the black velveteen bag. When the last person dropped their marble, Augustine rolled them around and dumped them into a dish for all to see. Four red, four blue and two clear balls rolled around.

“It appears we need more discussion,” Sonya said optimistically.

Three hours and six votes later, they still needed more discussion. The vote changed to five red and five blue, but the debates didn’t cause any other alterations.

“Linc and I are too tired to continue. We’ll resume in two days,” Sonya said stiffly as she barely kept the pain from lashing out at her friends.



* * *



Tony started, awake in a strange bed as his percomm shrilled its urgent tone against his skull.

“Good morning?” Tony said, craning his neck around to find the time in the massive room of the Seattle Grand Hilton. The clock proclaimed him correct by a little over seventeen minutes.

“All right, Tony, I have what you were looking for,” Augustine said without preamble. “Carmine went up.”

“Sorry, I’m still groggy. Not too much sleep in the last few days.”

“Yeah, I’ve been on dazers myself for over a week.”

Tony realized why Augustine’s abrupt manner seemed more like a burn when he talked to her lately. “OK, I think I’ve finally got my head screwed on straight.”

“Carmine went up.”

“That’s what money will do for you. Where?”

“Denny Towers, Penthouse Two, Seattle.”

“Figures. That bitch loved status. Denny Towers. Rubbing elbows with all of the who’s who of the government, film industry, and business. She has to be wallowing in that lifestyle.”

“One more corpie wannabe.”

“I think she may have bypassed the corpie stage and gone right to owner, but we’ll see. Denny Towers, eh? How convenient for me. That’s only about one TriMet hop from here.”

“I thought you might feel that way. Security codes to the building and her flat coming on separate line to your handheld.”

“Thanks. Talk to you later when I have something.”

“Time for a late night visit?” Gregori asked from the darkness.

Tony flipped on the light to find one of his bodyguards sitting in a chair on the other side of the room. “Where did you come from?”

“You don’t think Sonya just pulled two people at random out of the woodwork, do you? Can’t protect someone from another room.”

“Yes, you are quite good. I expected you were, or you wouldn’t be welcome in the Family. But I’m off on Greenie business now. Why would you want to stick?”

“Two reasons. One, we were hired to protect you, whatever you were doing. And two, while we work for the Family, our sympathies lie with your organization. Who do you think introduced Sonya and Jamie initially?”

Tony smiled. “OK, Greg. Are you up for breaking some laws?”

“Just tell me which ones, sir. Will we need my partner, Tuan?”

“Doubtful. For that reason I’ll probably not need you, either, but always nice to know I have some backup.”

“Yes, sir.”

“First stop is an all-night bowling alley,” Tony said, getting up and dressing, so intent he missed the odd look he got from Gregori.



* * *



“How can we come to a compromise?” Augustine asked before Andrea and Frances even got seated.

Sonya thought a meeting of the key members of both sides might break things free. She vowed to herself not to speak. Even as she did she hacked hard enough to cough up blood.

“You do know all we have to do is wait,” Andrea said as sweat rolled off her brow. She mopped it about every three seconds with a damp towel looped over the back of her neck.

“Wait for what?”

“The first one that dies will break the deadlock.”

“That’s gruesome.”

“What the hell, I’ve got it too. Besides I don’t see that there’s any middle ground. You want Tony to lead. We don’t.”

“Even if he’s innocent?”

“We’re split on that, but there’s no way he could possibly prove it.”

“Actually, we have a source that may prove it.”

“No chance!”

“He’s after it tonight.”

Frances held up an arm to interrupt. She got it in spades. Her long-sleeved shirt slid up exposing pox covering a good portion of her arms. Sonya reached out for the diseased limb, but Frances flinched away.

“That puts a new spin on things,” Augustine said. “You want us to choose someone to lead us who’s likely to die?”

“Who doesn’t have some symptoms?!” Andrea barked.

“Martin came down with a fever and muscle aches last night, and Jackson is in his bed shaking with chills. That only leaves you, Augustine, and Christine that haven’t shown any signs.”

“I have a suggestion,” Sonya croaked. Her voice wouldn’t stand the strain. As it was she could taste the blood at the back of her throat. She scribbled something down on a small whiteboard and handed it to Augustine.

“She says for us to pick someone without the disease as interim leader. If Tony can prove his innocence, then we have another vote.”

“Well, we aren’t going to vote in a lunatic, as much as I love Christine. That only leaves you, Augustine.”

Sonya nodded profusely.



* * *



The laughing outside the door announced their presence long before the electronic chirp approved entry. Carmine and a couple staggered in, wearing as little as the public would tolerate. Carmine’s tiny blue crochet dress made 6 centimeter-wide bands down her body until they met at her crotch and then flared into a tiny skirt. The other two wore less.

“Noth mush of a housekeeper are ya, Carmine?”

“What happened?” Carmine looked around at the contents of her living room strewn around the floor.

“I guess that would be me,” Tony said from a chair in a still-shadowed corner of the room, like something out of an old dime-store novel.

“Tony?”

“Whoz t’is Tony fella? Thought we was going to have some fun,” the drunk man said, slapping Carmine on the ass.

“Shut up.”

“For once I have to agree with her. Why don’t you both just be on your way. I have nothing I want from either of you.”

“You Nil,” the other woman screeched. “Get outa here!”

Tony slowly revealed his hand from around the edge of the seat to show his flechette pistol. The couple disappeared faster than free food at a mission. Carmine edged her way over toward the door as well.

“Don’t, Carmine. I don’t mind killing them both to get at you. I also don’t mind cutting your legs off to get at what I want.” Her eyes met his as if searching for a cue. Tony heard the ding of the elevator. It opened and closed before Carmine made her choice.

Her emotions opened up like a flatie to him. The thought of seducing him discarded itself almost immediately. “You’ve grown tough, Tony.”

“A lesson you taught me.”

“Likely true. So if you want to kill me, why haven’t you?”

“I’ll be honest with you, Carmine. I only want information. You give me what I want and I’ll walk out and never come back.”

“Do I have much of a choice?”

“Well, you could keep me talking, hoping your bodyguard will come in here and protect you, but you’d be waiting a long time.”

“Killed him, eh?”

“Nope. He’s just incapacitated. You don’t have to worry about your deposit on him. Since he’s not around, I suppose next you might think about edging over to the cupboard for the shotgun or maybe the laser behind the bar.”

“No chance, eh?”

“I don’t think so, but you might surprise me. You did once before.”

“Well, can I at least sit down?”

Tony tilted his head in assent. Just as she started to sit on the couch, Tony spoke. “Not there. Over on the Windsor chair.”

“Boy, you don’t trust anyone, do you?”

“Yes I do, Carmine. I just don’t trust you specifically. Trust is earned.” The seductive way she stretched her legs reminded him of other times.

“I’m dead if I tell you, Tony. These aren’t the kind of people you metro on.”

“If you tell me, you can run. It can work.”

“And return to living like a Nil?”

“Or I can start torturing you now. I could just kill you outright, but that doesn’t get me what I want.”

“I can’t turn and you know it. Isn’t there any way we could make some kind of deal?” Her hands sensuously stretched down her fishnet stockings and back up, lifting her tiny skirt. Tony’s gun went off almost before the dull glint of the ballistic plastic barrel came out from underneath her skimpy clothing. Carmine’s body reflexively jerked, firing off a single shot as she died, gouging a hole a meter in diameter in the ceiling.

Gregori slammed through the outer door almost in time with the shots. Tony watched as it took several seconds for him to gestalt the room. Finally, the shoulders loosened, and his stance became more dignified and less professional.

“Damneditalltohell,” Tony said all in one breath, idly waving the end of his gun around. As bad as Tony’s aim had been, he had put thirteen separate tiny projectiles through her torso. “I thought I could convince her to give up the information. I guess we’ll have to try it the hard way. Get the cleaver from the kitchen.”



* * *



“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You carried that thing all the way from Seattle?” Augustine remonstrated as she stared at the decapitated head lolling around inside Tony’s brightly colored bowling bag. As a devout Catholic, she added the murder to the growing pile of sins to confess.

Assuming the GAM actually were close to completing their lifelong quest, she might have to finally fulfill her promise to Mary and return to the confessional for the first time since she took up the terrorist mantle. It scared her in a distant way. But, like anything, first things first.

“What if a Metro or TriMet pig decided you looked suspicious?”

“Two normal guys on their way for a bit of bowling after a hard day in the factory?” Tony said. “No Metro would’ve bothered to stir off their lazy ass.”

“Even a random sweep.”

“They didn’t.”

“Obviously. You’re still here.”

Having done the net raid to get the information, Augustine knew the woman looked somewhat attractive before Tony’s ragged job of decapitation.

“Tough-necked bitch. Just like when she was alive. It took six blows with a cleaver and another few more with the butcher knife.”

Augustine shrugged. Murder was murder no matter how grisly. She only needed the brain intact. The brutal treatment by her friend bothered her not at all.

“So what can you get from her?” Tony asked.

“About sixty years, if I remember my criminal code correctly. Of course, decapitation might be considered special circumstances, in which case we’re probably looking at life.”

“Augustine, I’m not joking around here. What kind of neural reconstruction can you give me?”

“She...it’s been dead less than an hour?”

“’Bout seventy minutes,” he said after consulting his chronograph.

“Remember that neural reconstructions aren’t terribly detailed even when done at death,” she cautioned as she draped a fine gossamer net, whose every junction glowed brightly, over the top of the head. “Over an hour? I wouldn’t go looking for the magic bullet here, especially as this isn’t the Metro Crime Analysis Unit.”

“Some chance is better than none.”

“OK. By the way, Tony, we need to talk about something else.”

“Can it wait? Every minute those neural pathways degrade.”

“OK, but as soon as I’m done.”

Tuan and Gregori both sat stiffly on her sofa, taking care not to recline against the homemade afghans that covered the back. As she worked, Tony paced around her net cradle. At one point Augustine wondered if he’d wear a track in her Berber or accidentally smash into her antique Crate and Barrel coffee table.

While three of her mental tracks sorted the milky and broken images into something usable, one track watched as Tony examined the solidos of her family—five children and eighteen grandchildren at last count, although Millie was pregnant with twins.

Tony frowned at the family reunion solido they took at Mickey’s Grove. He waved his hands over the prayer candles lit in front of each picture as if he couldn’t believe they were real.

“The last of the images drained out of the skull. Here’s what I have.” Tony raced back into the stark world of direct wired electronics. “I know you don’t care about the techno-babble, but I did manage to arrange the neural memories into a visual image similar to a solido and do a probability fill on those parts that can be deduced from previous or past frames.” Augustine typed in the air with her eyes rolled back in her head. “I have to warn you that this is still pretty crude.”

The images of the dead woman’s memory blossomed into the room around them, magnified significantly. They skipped and shook like a bad memory string.

“I’ve downloaded everything I could get. As usual, the storage required for such a download in all sensory dimensions is bloody huge. I’ve taken the standard measures of ignoring smell, taste and touch and have focused in on parts you might find relevant, from the first meeting of you two to present.”

Tony rubbed his nose like it itched. “You can fast forward through most of that until mid-October, when they betrayed me.”

With her right hand, Augustine turned a pseudo-control in the empty air. The former life he sometimes shared with Carmine flew by at a phenomenal rate.

“She kept another lover,” Tony said. He reacted less than a computer memory bank to a random datum. Augustine recognized the Wilted Rose.

“Slow down.” She once again manipulated her pseudo-controls with her right hand, and the images slowed to only double speed. With her left she synched and engaged the audio.

“Her apartment.” Tony said as the speed became really watchable.

Through the images they heard a knock at the door and Carmine went to open it. Tony gaped as a short whipcord man in lemon yellow tights stood in her doorway.

“Carmine Peligran?” the voice squealed. Augustine again dialed down the speed as Carmine’s vision nodded in the affirmative. “Did you know your boyfriend has an animal in contravention to the law? And he practiced medicine without a license?”

The picture faded to black but the audio continued. “Come in, please,” she said. They heard the door closing but the visual faded into a blurry and milky paste. It cleared enough to discern the slight bodyguard leaned back into a big black armchair.

“We want you to spurn Tony Sammis and we’re willing to sszzzrk to do so. I’m sure you’ll find solace with your other partner and a wad of credit slips.”

“Why?”

“I’m not exactly at liberty to say, although I’ll tell you truthfully I do not know.”

“OK. I know what you are and who in general you represent.” She held up a hand to ward off the protestation. “I don’t know specifically, but you’ve given me enough to guess. You don’t ssss about Tony’s pet or that he saved one old frump, now do you? .. you? ..you? .. you? .. you?”

Augustine frantically attempted to compensate but the bodyguard’s response got covered completely. “Then what are you after?”

“My instructions are that we wish to drive Tony completely out of his ssssurroundings and into the world of unlicensed and unrecorded individuals.”

“You want ssssssssssskr a Nil. I grok it.” While only seeing it out of her eyes, they could tell she leaned back on her divan like some Egyptian princess. The point of view showed that she rolled her eyes up in her head for a few moments. “I want one hundred eighty thousand a year plus level two medical, three years’ minimum.”

Augustine actually looked at Tony, but he didn’t flinch as he watched his former lover pull a Judas on him.

“Miss, we’re looking at a one-time payment of say sssjjjjkrr…his simple act.” The video became less blurred and the clarity returned with a vengeance.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t quite explain. You will find me useful in a number of ways. First, given the right funding I’ll torpedo Tony in several ways. I know the right people to pull his credit, auction his house, and snub him at all of his hangouts, some of which you may miss. I might even be able to get him arrested.”

“No, thank you, miss. We don’t wish him arrested, although based on my instructions, all of those other items could have value. Would you be able to reject him so effectively and completely?”

“For one eighty, I sure would. Sure, he was handy. But what is any one man? I can get those by the truckloads.”

“Remarkable attitude.”

“Then do we have a deal?” she asked, thrusting out her hand to seal the deal.

“As I said, Miss Peligran, I don’t have the authorization for such an extravagant change in plans. However, your forthright attitude and embellishment to the request might have some future value to my employer. I will pass them on.”

“But not with your endorsement.”

“That’s not my decision. I leave such matters to my employer.”

“Very well. When will I hear from this person of substance?”

“Before the day is out, miss. If you will excuse me, I have other arrangements to make.”

Augustine snapped up the speed as Carmine spent a good portion of that day pacing around her living room. Tedious to watch. The memories snapped back to normal speed when Carmine’s percomm went off.

“Carmine here.”

“Miss Carmine,” came a smooth baritone voice. Augustine grabbed Tony’s eye as they looked at one another at the same time. The educated tones held their own distinction, one familiar to both of them. “Your offer tested my curiosity. I will be honest in saying I’m not often intrigued.”

“Tony can be just the first of many assignments I can help you on.”

“All right, I agree to your terms. I’ll give you a drawing account for each, umm, client I send your way, based on its difficulty. Any of the account you don’t spend on the job is yours. I won’t offer any additional sum, except in cases of extreme opportunity or a mistake in my judging the difficulty of the case. For Mr. Sammis, I offer an additional fifty thousand. Welcome to the payroll, Miss Peligran.”

The rest of Carmine’s memories showed nothing they hadn’t already determined, although Tony watched Carmine’s last moments intently. It was like watching oneself be murdered.

“I don’t know if this will sway the rest of the GAM, Tony,” Augustine said, snapping off the recording. “It’s convincing, but not definitive.”

“I know. By the way, you mentioned you wanted to talk to me about something.”

Augustine adjusted something on her computer mainframe that didn’t need adjusting. Then, for good measure, she wiped off the dust accumulation. She didn’t know how to share what she absolutely had to share.

“Sonya reached a political compromise about the leadership of the group,” she finally managed.

Tony sat down on the arm of the sofa, facing her. There was no rancor in his face. It seemed more tired than anything.

“Not unexpected. Who got the bag?” Augustine cocked her head to one side. “Oh, come now. I’m not naïve,” Tony continued. “After that session yesterday, I knew there was no way to put me in without the efforts you and I just did, assuming they paid off perfectly. They didn’t. Even if they had, some of them wouldn’t accept it.”

“An incredibly astute judgment.”

“Worse, I don’t even want the farking job.”

“Huh? You’ve been fighting like you wanted it as soon as Sonya announced she was ill.”

“Do you want to know why? I personally hate the political in-fighting. The thought of taking the job makes me want to puke. But I made a promise to Sonya. She sees me as some kind of super weapon that will bring her dreams to fruition. Between you and me, though, her dreams of open fields, rainforests, and free-roaming bison is a world of the past. There are too farking many people. We can’t wish them away.”

Tony’s statement almost pulled Augustine from the net completely. She furrowed her brow as she refocused on the six different tracks her net-self worked down. “Then what are we fighting for, Tony? You’ve always known. I think the rest of us have lost our way. I don’t even know anymore.”

“Simple. We’re fighting for representation. Our government—no, not the one in Washington, but the one that really runs things—is an oligarchy. It’s a group of people making decisions over the lives of all of us without our input. Everyone in the world knows the corps run things.”

Tony, warmed up now, wasn’t about to stop. “The United States broke away from the England of several centuries ago for taxation without representation, for the right not to be seized either economically or bodily at the whim of a tyrant. Take what happened to me as an example. The corps decided it. They planned it. They did it. Was I asked? No. Did I do anything wrong? No. They did it to silence the people, the Greenies, from actively protesting their rule.

“But it’s a moot point. I doubt I’ll ever be the leader unless a good portion of the opposition dies, in which case there’s no group anyway. It’s never easy to prove what’s in one’s heart. So who got left holding the bag?”

“I did.”

Tony gave her a genuine smile that encompassed his entire face. “I’m sorry for you, dear.”

“I have to admit I didn’t expect that reaction.”

“Posh. You’re my friend. Leadership is never an easy thing, but I’ll help you with it any way I can.”

An attention-interrupt:percomm broke up the conversation. “Hold that thought. I have a percomm coming in.” Augustine lifted a pseudo-control of an imaginary old-fashioned percomm receiver to her ear.

“Augustine,” croaked Sonya. “I need you to link me to the entirety of the membership.”

“Hold one.” Augustine reached for a pseudo-control of an old rolodex and plucked cards out, pressing them into the percomm. One by one those cards lit up. “Go ahead, Sonya, I’ve put you on percomm with the entire GAM.”

Sonya’s voice cracked roughly. “Suet died last night at twenty-three thirty. She died quietly and without any additional pain.”

Tony stood abruptly. Snuffling, he paced as tears leaked gently from his eyes.

“Preparations are underway and the ceremony will begin promptly at noon tomorrow.”

Tony’s legs gave way beneath him and he dropped to the floor in a sitting position. The slow leak turned into a cascade over his cheeks.

Augustine ignored anything else. She unhooked and went down to him, wrapping him in her arms. She thought to comfort him until she realized her own vision also blurred. They sobbed together in one another’s arms.



* * *



“Few of you knew Suet’s burial wishes,” Augustine began, dressed in a black floor-length gown with a high neck of white lace. It made a perfect background for the puffy redness of her face and the trail of fresh wetness down the sides of her cheeks.

Tony threw six kinds of fits when Augustine told him part of the political maneuvering required him to remain away from all funerals excepting Sonya’s, if that came to pass. He sat in a tiny room watching everything via solido. Sonya sat in the front row, a bloodstained handkerchief covering her mouth.

“I was one of the few who earned her trust enough for her to share,” Augustine continued. “She ran away from her humanity because of the pain it inflicted upon her. She feared moving to her next life forever being the machine even more. She exacted two promises of Sonya and me.

“First, to ensure her body was rehumanized with its original parts. She stored the original ones in cryo for this very purpose. She rests here now as before she became more than human. When I’m done I’d appreciate it if you would all pass here and say your final farewells to the woman you never quite knew.

“Second, she didn’t wish to be shoved into the nearest calorie reclamation bin. She wished to be buried. I know this ancient custom isn’t practiced anymore. However, some years ago, Suet purchased this actual plot of land for her ever after. I don’t think any of you can imagine the cost involved. Even with our relative riches now, any one of us would be hard-pressed to come up with that amount. She worked twenty long and hard years to come up with the cash.

“I once asked her why she did it. She told me of the peace it gave her, knowing where she’d rest. Knowing that there’d be flowers or grass or even weeds left of her when she passed. So insecure in her place in life, she took comfort in what the next life might bring.” Augustine finally faltered. She cleared her throat as she wiped the tears away. With a white linen handkerchief she blew her nose.

“Suet was a solid friend and rock in our sea of constant change. She will be missed.”

Tony panned the camera over to the casket just as others began to file by. He never would’ve recognized the plain, mahogany-haired girl cradled in jade-colored silk. She was the iconic girl next door. She was the one never beautiful in a sophisticated way, but still wholesome. Through his watering eyes, Tony managed a laugh.

“Wholesome! What a description of Suet. She would’ve roared laughing if she heard that.” Tony remembered some of the less than wholesome activities they had shared. He remembered her breaking the neck of one security guard with her fast-as-lightning tentacle by wrapping it right on around and lifting. He remembered her tender lovemaking. The strength and ruthlessness of her body rendered gentle and tender, even if it was just friendly fornication.

He also remembered her attempts at bowling. She couldn’t decide whether to wrap her tentacle around the ball or try to bowl with just a tentacle in one hole. But either way she had fun trying. Tony lay down on his bed and consciously gave in to one final fit of self-pity. Even though it would be his last for Suet, it wouldn’t be his last with so many more friends left who wouldn’t live another two weeks.

“Goodbye, my friend,” he managed through the sobs.



* * *



“Colin just passed,” Augustine told Tony over his percomm.

He barely reacted. Jonah and Beth yesterday, Tolly this morning and now Colin. Numbness overwhelmed him. So often did he now remotely attend services he didn’t bother removing his black suit.

“I also have found the proof you and I have been looking for,” Augustine added, almost as an afterthought.

“Really?” Tony made an effort to come out of his lethargy enough to care. Too many of his friends dead. All his dreams shattered.

The front door to his suite opened. Christine entered.

“Hello, Christine. Welcome. You want a drink? I’m thinking about getting drunk myself.”

As usual the slight woman said nothing, but sauntered right in like she owned the place.

“Tony, how did Christine know where you were staying? I don’t even know that,” Augustine whispered over the percomm.

“Don’t know.” He turned his attention to his guest. “If I remember correctly, you drink Dewars on the rocks, Christine.” Tony poured.

Christine walked over with her left hand cupped to receive the glass. A twinkle in her eyes made it look like she was laughing. Tony didn’t understand mirth with all the emotional pain they shared.

“Tony, I don’t like this,” Augustine commed. “I’d be very careful if I were you.”

Tony caught only one glimpse of ravening silver as he handed over the drink. He felt the blade bite in his gut. His breath stole away. The pain radiated outward. The glass fell. He gasped.

Time slowed to a crawl as ice cubes and orange liquor spilled from the tumbling glass. His own blood sprayed all over Christine’s front like red dye bursting from an overfull balloon. Slowly her arm withdrew the blood-coated knife. An intellectual side of Tony’s brain managed to be detached enough to find the knife fascinating. He’d seen its like—only two centimeters wide but a full seven long, faintly curved and sharp on both sides.

More random thoughts filled his head as the smell of his own bile filled the air. The glass hit the carpeted floor and bounced slowly like something out of an off-world film. The liquid shot off to either side, denying that it could be absorbed by the fabric.

“Christine!” Augustine shouted as the link between Tony and Augustine suddenly included the assassin’s percomm. Tony couldn’t understand Augustine’s anxiety. Christine’s second thrust caught him just between the first and second rib. The knife, so smooth and sharp, didn’t grate on his ribs but rather slid smoothly between them like they were two tour guides.

“Christine, he didn’t do it! I have the proof!” Augustine shouted.

Nerves pounded Tony’s brain with emergency messages that it continued to ignore like an ostrich with it head in the sand.

A new voice began playing over the percomm.

“Summation of minutes of meeting October. New plan to use and discard an unwitting employee to destroy Green Action Militia approved.”

Christine looked puzzled, withdrawing the knife, her hand coated in a red glove of blood.

“That’s from the personal log of the chairman of Taste Dynamics. No doubt. One hundred percent proof positive. I just found it today.”

For Tony the pain couriers finally found their destination. Time exploded to normal speed as he fell over into the arms of his attacker and friend.



* * *



From her medi-chair Sonya looked down into the room where a doctor performed brutal and ancient invasive surgery on a covered body. “He has to make it,” Sonya said, her voice harsh and barely over a whisper.

“He’s a fighter,” Augustine said.

Sonya could see her own dark, rheumy eyes reflecting off the gallery glass, wondering how long she could continue her own losing fight. “I hope he’s tough enough,” her voice rasped again. “What did you do with Christine?”

“I have her locked up in the new safe house we were just setting up. No one knows about it except me and Linc.”

Sonya just nodded. “He has to make it.”



* * *



The message, almost as old as computers itself, “Are you sure? Y/N,” blinked on Nanogate’s desk terminal in the dark. He’d waited until everyone cleared the building before doing his own bit of corporate sabotage, this time to himself.

His finger hovered over the Y button on his terminal. Just one stroke away from erasing any proof of his collusion with the Greenies, and yet he hesitated.

He couldn’t remember how many years it had been since he felt good about anything he did for a living. His personal credit numbers soared. His power over those around him grew. He gained satisfaction from these things, but they didn’t make him happy or feel good. Smug was the closest emotion he could really compare.

In fact, he couldn’t ever remember being happy about anything, except his brief work with the GAM. At the time he thought he felt relief that he’d saved Nanogate. But it was more.

He resolutely smashed the Y key. Personal survival. Feelings came a distant second.

Snarling, he shoved everything from his desk, ignoring the crash of the irreplaceable Chihuly lamp.



* * *



“She must not have liked you, Tony-boy,” Augustine said to Tony as he struggled to regain consciousness.

He looked around to see Sonya lying in the bed next to him, Linc sweating profusely in an overstuffed chair in the corner, and the remains of the action committee crammed in, standing or sitting around in a bedroom he didn’t recognize.

He tried to say something but no sound came from between his chapped lips. Christine handed him a cup of water. He hesitated only a moment before taking the rose-colored plastic cup. He’d already be dead if she’d wanted him to be. He nevertheless watched Christine’s eyes as he drank.

“Sorry,” Christine said.

Tony started at this. Christine didn’t apologize for anything to anyone.

“Yeah, Christine’s an artist with a blade. She never misses her target,” Augustine expounded. “One thrust to the heart or the liver and the target is done. She only tortures those she really hates. She caught you through the intestines and into the kidney, but you were lucky—the damage didn’t require an organ replacement. Her second thrust punctured your left lung.”

“Sorry,” Christine repeated. Every head in the room turned toward her.

“Grrrk,” Tony croaked and sipped the water again. Carl chuckled. “Thank you for coming. What’s the occasion? I’m sure I’m not nearly in as bad shape as some of you.”

“We collectively, as a group, owe you an apology.”

“I should think so,” Tony said mockingly holding his hand over his wounds and medical incisions. Everyone laughed except the normally aloof Christine.

“Not quite, but close,” Andrea continued. “I meant that we should have never doubted you. The one damning piece of evidence in my eyes, Nanogate knowing your name, makes sense, now. We won’t doubt you in the future. I hope you’ll accept our apology and leadership of the team, what’s left of it.”

“I accept.” Tony looked over at Sonya and smiled.

She smiled back as she closed her eyes. Her head settled back against the pillow and her chest rose one last time. What had been the background chirp of her heart monitor became a shrill whistle prompting the pounding of medical feet.