An Eighty Percent Solution

Adjust Plan for Desired Results



“Sonya left this special message to be viewed by all of us prior to her funeral arrangements,” Augustine said to the assembled throng from the pulpit of the hospital’s church. She wasn’t happy with the security arrangements, but they were the best that could be arranged on short notice. The lights dimmed as the solido began.

“Welcome, my friends,” Sonya said in a cheery voice that didn’t match the crowd’s mood. “I know you’re all saddened at my passing, but let me assure you I went with my heart cheerful and knowing the hope I leave behind. Carry on the battle. Don’t let it end, not for me, but for yourselves.

“If I have any one regret in this entire world, it’s that I never produced an heir to pass on my teachings. Not enough time or temperament to suffer a life partner.

“I do request that you don’t put my body through the city’s recycling. I’d rather be recycled into pet food. Please let me feed my pets rather than the multitude of people I’ve already given my life to protect.

“I want to thank all who contributed to my wonderful life! Without you it wouldn’t have been nearly so great! Until we meet in the next world, farewell.”

Sniffles and outright sobs could be heard from the audience. Tony, from his levitating medi-bed, wiped tears from his eyes and nothing could hide that fact. Augustine’s own vision blurred and she blew her nose loudly.

To Augustine’s amazement, Tony stood up carefully, with one hand on the wound in his gut. She hoped all the biodegradable staples and quickheal they patched him up with would hold.

“Sonya gave me a life when mine ended,” he said firmly. “She gave me a home when I had none. She gave me a family I never knew I was missing.” He shrugged off Tuan as he tried to hold him up on one side.

“Sonya did this for all of us. We were strays she brought into her home, just like the menagerie of pets she kept, who, by the way, Augustine has agreed to take care of.”

She nodded to the group, managing a smile.

“Sonya wished us to carry on our fight,” Tony went on. “I want to know how long each of you have been fighting? Augustine?”

“Six years.”

“Jez?”

“Three years.”

“Peter?”

“Eight years.”

Augustine wondered where Tony was going with this. It didn’t take a vernacular semanticist to feel the pitch coming.

“I’ve only been at this a few months, and frankly I’m tired of it already. I’ve already lost six of my dearest friends and likely will lose even more. As your new de facto leader, I don’t want to fight this war any longer.”

It took several moments for this to sink in. Augustine’s venom at the bare statement burned in her gut. The grief turned to rage. All she wanted to do was get her fingernails into his eyes. But then she saw the grief on his face and she forced down her emotion.

“No, I don’t mean I would let what we’ve accomplished die,” Tony continued. “I want this as much as any of you. I mean I see an opportunity to leave Sonya a successful legacy. I see an opportunity to end this war by the end of next month…in Sonya’s name. I think all those we have lost will rest easier if we succeed.”



* * *



“Jock! Good to see you again,” Tony said affably, though the tone didn’t come through well as he had to shout over music so loud you could almost see the ripples in the air.

“Mr. Tony. I see you got the establishment to let you back into the Rose.”

“Just a little emotional blackmail. Then again, it might have something to do with the head I left in their office. C’mon in. I need to talk to you.”

Jock looked uncertainly at Tony and his two companions. Tony saw him hesitate just a moment before swiveling into the booth next to Christine and letting the sound barrier fall back into place. He gave Jackson’s heavily sweating brow a look.

“The management already told me to come down and talk to you, or I’d still be at the door,” Jock said in preamble. “I don’t need no trouble, Mr. Tony.” Jock tapped his ear. “I like you, but I do have to look out for number one.”

Tony laughed. “Jock, I’m not stupid, and I don’t want to get my friends—you, in this case—into any trouble. I’m certain the management is listening in on this conversation—if they have any brains at all, that is. The oversized owner of this establishment was mercenary and slow, but stupid never entered my mind. If nothing else, having Carmine’s head staring at him from his desk would have been enough to make him wary.”

Jock looked at Christine and Jackson as if to try and verify the gruesome story. Jackson nodded.

“Look, I need to confirm that you work for Protection, Inc.,” Tony asked.

“Yes, sir, I do. But I work for them under the table. No records. Remember, I’m…”

“A Nil. Yes, I remember, Jock. Hopefully that won’t matter too much longer.”

Jock tilted his head with questions in his eyes.

“Can you get me into a meeting with your senior officer?”

“Maybe.”

“Would this help?” Tony said, sliding a 3 centimeter-high stack of plastic credit slips across the table.

“That would do it.”

“I thought it might. Also, do you know anyone that works for Vape Security?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need to talk to their head officer as well.” Tony slid over another stack of bills.

“I can make those things happen, sir.”

“I knew you could,” Tony said sliding over yet a third stack of bills. “This is for you.”

“You don’t have to do that, Mr. Tony.”

“Yes I do, Jock. Here are two notes, each with the time, date, and location of individual meets.” Tony handed over three slips, two stuck together as if to appear as just two passed hands.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll make it happen.”

Tony walked out, Christine and Jackson at his side. The moment they reached the outside air, Jackson turned with eyebrows raised. “What was on the third note?”

“What third note?” Tony asked.

“I was dealing seconds before you were born,” came the reply. “You weren’t bad, but not good enough to make a living at it, though.”

“OK, you caught me.” Tony shrugged.

“Are you going to tell us anything about what’s going on? The rest of us have been on edge waiting for the last two weeks while you healed enough to move about.”

“OK, I’ll tell you this. The first two were just as described. The final card bore only the line, ‘Purchase as many puts on major corporations on next Friday as you can.’”

“We move on Friday? What’s the target?”

“You will find out next Wednesday, just like all the rest. I need to talk to the heads of those security firms, and one other, first.”

“If I were childish, I’d say that Wednesday is still ten days’ off.”

Tony smiled as he pushed through the street level crowds. “You’re right, that would be childish.”

Christine, as always, said nothing.



* * *



Nanogate sat quietly in his study in a 1960s leather wingback chair. No one kept him company. He clutched the report on the acquisition of Marineris Mining in his left hand, unread. His eyes tracked only the dance of lint specks in a shaft of sunlight through his skylight.

Not a single GAM incident had marred his daily reports in over a week. His corporate espionage reports told him his competitors weren’t circling around the lamed Nanogate as he expected. He didn’t know which report worried him the most. The lull reminded him of the quiet of a six-year-old coloring on the walls, a teen with his first narcostick, or that calm just before a squall’s first gust.

His sense of self-preservation, honed over many years in the cutthroat world of the corporations, screamed at him to do something—anything. He couldn’t think of a thing to do about either of the negative reports. Picking up the single malt scotch, he sipped it gently, brooding over his lack of choices.

It was times like these he particularly missed Mr. Marks. Marks and Nanogate existed in symbiosis, where Mr. Marks’s advice often complemented his own. It was a rapport he didn’t share with his new bodyguard.

Staring off into space, he noticed the sudden dimming of the light just before he simultaneously heard and felt a drop in air pressure signifying his floating home was no longer airtight.

An impressive man, clad in canary yellow tights, dropped rapidly through the perfectly round hole in the skylight to a rough landing three meters in front of him. The muscles bulging on muscles, so typical of steroid replacements, made the bodyguard a caricature of a human. A tiny Adonis-like face perched between massive shoulders reaching all the way up to his ears. On top of all that, the intruder wielded a wide-field gauss gun with apparently expert skill. Before he finished standing, he leveled it directly at Nanogate’s chest.

“Ah, a visitor,” Nanogate said, not moving from his chair. “I do have a door and an appointment secretary, you know.”

“I’ve come to deliver a message,” the unknown bodyguard said in a tone intended to cow any victim.

“Percomms work, too.” Nanogate nonchalantly took another sip of his scotch.

“This one requires your death.”

“So melodramatic. So who wants me dead? No, wait, let me guess. I like guessing.”

The bodyguard said nothing.

“If it were the Greenies, they wouldn’t have bothered to talk. They would’ve just planted a bomb or shot me from some distant window.

“If it were one of my underlings, they’d be too terrified to confront me, and even if they got the nerve, they would’ve just shot first and asked questions later.

“If it were one of my family, I would’ve expected poison, or perhaps electrocution in the bath—I hear that’s very popular now.

“Hmm…that only really leaves my contemporaries. As I’m guessing, I would say you represent that bitch, Taste Dynamics.”

The bodyguard inclined his comicly malproportioned head. “Well, she did say you’d probably figure it out, so I’m not concerned. She offers you a bargain.”

“Oh, goodie,” Nanogate incongruously said, bouncing up and down like a kid who just got a surprise present.

“Tell her how you set up Taste Dynamics, and she’ll leave your fortune to your family. If you don’t, she’ll strip them to Nils. You, of course, die either way.”

“Hmm. I’ll have to think about this one.”

“You have ten seconds.”

“Oh, I won’t need that long. It figures your oversexed boss would pick someone that looked like Adonis with the subtlety of a wounded buffalo. Tell your boss ‘piss off.’”

The gauss gun didn’t hesitate. It showered innumerable fragments of metal outward at just short of the speed of sound. Not fast enough.

Almost instantaneously, a cylinder slammed down, ripping a hole in the ceiling plaster, crushing an antique end table and indelibly compressing the carpet in a circle less than a meter around Nanogate’s chair. The weapons fragments buried themselves in the ballistics barrier’s impenetrable skin.

The bodyguard looked stunned. Belatedly, he fingered his grav belt, but ceramic composite shutters, stronger than any metal, slammed closed over the skylight.

A thick mist started to rain down into the room as trillions of nanites cascaded out of nearly invisible sprayers. The bodyguard writhed and wiped frantically as his skin took on a metallic sheen. He took another wild shot at his target, with predictable results.

“I’ll send your remains to Taste Dynamics,” Nanogate said as the nanites continued to eat the intruder, from the neck down, one molecule at a time.



* * *



That one of the highest members of the American Mafia chose such opulent surroundings still gave Tony pause. Knowing his host, the brilliant gold of the new wallpaper may have been just that—true gold. Priceless works of art replaced the previous priceless works of art like some sale gallery’s rotating stock. The previous Roman theme had been replaced with a Louis the Fourteenth sunburst in the carpet and boulle woodworking in the walls. Even the chair bore fantastic marquetry within its simplistic, straight wooden lines of the period.

“Welcome back, Tony,” Jamie said, sliding onto a lounge chair wearing only a long, flowing dressing gown that left no illusion as to her natural red hair.

“Ah, you learned my real name.”

“Not difficult with the newly elected leader of the GAM. Sonya was a naughty girl. She led me to believe you were less important than you are.”

“You knew Sonya’s real name also.”

“She knew that I knew. It was a game we both played.”

“Hmm. In either case, my notoriety seems to be preceding me.”

“Fame, not notoriety.”

“Whichever. Both can be dangerous for a guerilla.”

“I won’t debate that with you. The corporations already know your name, so what’s the harm?”

“Good point.”

“I’d offer you something for brunch, but I can tell you’re a man of action and not one to be put off by the civilities of life,” Jamie said, stretching out her long legs to be admired.

“Perhaps in the future we can investigate those civilities, if you’re so inclined. However, right now I beg your pardon in that I’m short of time.”

Jamie sketched a Marilyn Monroe pout on her face. “Well, if we must. Pray tell, what business can be so pressing?”

“I’d like your organization to delay any of the Portland Metro responses to a specific area for a period of two hours.”

She looked at him almost incredulously before she threw her whole body backward on the lounge and laughed in a deep, throaty way.

“Have I said something funny?” Tony inquired in all seriousness.

This seemed to only cause the young woman more mirth. The new bodyguards in the room even took notice of their employer’s antics.

“Yes, quite. I can see why Sonya kept you around. You’re quite an amusing fellow.”

“I can assure you I’m quite serious.”

“Then in that case it would cost…say, twenty million,” Jamie said, throwing out a number in such a way as to make it obviously out of reach.

“Let’s make it twenty-five million instead to cement a new friendship,” Tony said in a declarative tone. “Would you like cash or a cashier’s credit?”

The mirth instantly left Jamie’s face. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Where would you get that kind of credit? We used to have to discount to Sonya just to keep her armed.”

“We’ve come up in the world. Looks like your sources aren’t quite as effective as you thought.”

Jamie sat looking deeply into his eyes, all hints of the siren gone from hers. Her eyes now only held hard, cold business.

“Tony, remind me never to play poker with you,” she remarked after a moment.

“As you say, miss.”



* * *



Tolly died late Tuesday night, bleeding out through every orifice. Fortunately, he had suffered a major stroke first thing in the morning, so the mental release came long before his body’s gruesome death. Fear and anticipation warred with one another Wednesday morning when Tony brought the team together in Sonya’s apartment.

“Why are they here?” Andrea pointed at the knot of four Greenie members who normally didn’t sit with the action committee. “Mark only does supplies and Susan is in fundraising…not that we need much of that anymore.”

“Wait,” Linc noticed. “They’re the rest of the members that are sick. Let’s see what Tony has to say.”

“Good morning,” Tony said as cheerfully as possible. “I won’t beat around the bush. You’ve all come here to hear the plan I have—a plan that could end this war. It isn’t the perfect solution, but then I don’t believe there is such an animal.”

All eyes focused on him. His words held magic. They would listen to their witch doctor.

“Our objective is the council of CEOs.” The eyes of his audience offered no clue to what they thought. “They meet two days hence, Friday, at fifteen hundred right here in Portland’s own Powell’s Tower. This council doesn’t even give themselves a name, so I certainly can’t think of one, unless you want to borrow ‘Axis of Evil.’”

A smattering of chuckles proffered themselves. Andrea’s hand went up.

“Yes, Andrea?”

“We can’t get to them. We’ve examined such a plan long before you pointed us to fiscal targets rather than executives.”

“Minor correction to that, Andrea. If I recall, in the past the plans were nixed because the cost would be too high. I read your own write-up on that proposal. You said, ‘While possible from a theoretical sense, the cost would devastate the ranks of the GAM action committee. This makes it infeasible.’”

“That sounds about right.”

“Well, I’m here to tell you that the cost hasn’t dropped. The plan will require every operative we have and then some. Worse, I anticipate there will be two teams of three and a lone individual who’ll be in this on a suicide mission basis.”

“Seven lives lost? Are you insane?”

“Yes, seven lives plus incidentals. I anticipate the total cost at considerably higher myself. I’d say more like nearly twelve. And to answer your question, yes, I might be insane, but please listen to my plan. I’ll accept your judgment.”

“One other question. Why are we going after executives again? Won’t others just fill their place?”

“That is a recognized feature of the plan. The security on these men is fierce. They’re guarded by a phalanx of army droids posing as innocuous security bots and by a squad of fast-attack dragoons always on standby during one of the council’s meetings—not to mention the Metros themselves.

“All the security and alarms for this meeting place are run off an isolated system, not touching the net in any way. It’s an isolated system, so it can’t be hacked. In addition to this, we have the physical security. The only access is through a one-person grav portal. To use the portal you must give a visual, DNA, and electrical characteristic scan. The grav portal won’t function for anyone but the head executives. If you do somehow succeed, at the top are both automated weapons and live guards all programmed to shoot anyone who doesn’t belong. In addition, there are two private security firms, rotated among seven on a random basis, who are on speed alert to any incursion in this area. They’re authorized to use deadly force.

“Now, through the help of Augustine’s capabilities, I’ve learned which security firms are on protection detail Friday. I’ve dealt with each of them individually. Neither knows what our target is. One will have a mysterious power outage Friday at fifteen-twelve. The other will have their receiver sabotaged. I’ve also found a way to deal with the Metro response.

“There’s only one way we can take out the on-site security teams, both live and robotic. They must be ambushed just as they deploy from their bivouacs. The robotics can only be stopped with an EMP. We have a pinch that’ll do the job. It can’t be done remotely, so the problem is whoever sets that pinch off will likely die in the ensuing conflagration. With the right equipment and explosives, the live group should be killed easily—however, their location is such that it’s doubtful the team could escape before backup can arrive.

“That leaves the grav lifts. We can rig it with the right combination of hack and illusion so that we can get past it, but there’s no way we can take down the guards or the robotics going up individually, unless one of us is a suicide bomb.

“Once on the grav platform, we’re effectively at the meeting room. Just a couple of locked doors. Did I mention that all of this has to happen within seconds of one another or the guard teams will seal the top of the building and jettison it into orbit where the leaders will be removed by another fast response orbital craft?”

“It is an expensive plan,” agreed Andrea after a moment’s consideration. “As you said, it’s suicidal in many phases. You still didn’t explain how this will end the war, though.”

Tony smiled and explained for two short minutes. Before he even asked, the eyes of every person, sick or not, volunteered for the suicide missions.



* * *



“Ma’am, this package was delivered addressed personally to you,” the security guard said, holding out a nondescript cube-shaped box, 40 centimeters on a side.

“So? It can’t wait?” Taste Dynamics snapped.

“Ma’am, per standard protocol we scanned the box. It contains no explosives, no active electronics nor any molecular technology. It does, however, contain a human head.”

“Really? I’m intrigued,” Taste Dynamics purred. “It isn’t every morning someone delivers such a unique item. Is there a return address?”

“No, ma’am. It was mailed from a branch office of the actual US Post Office that doesn’t even have surveillance cameras.”

“Curiouser and curiouser. Who belongs to this head? Did I know him or her?”

“We couldn’t make that determination without opening the package, ma’am. It’s addressed to you.”

“Well then, open it up.”

The guards snapped the imperv loktite strips and popped the lid off. The box held Adonis’s face, captured in mid-scream.



* * *



Tony kneeled next to the grav chute as Augustine wired into the local computer. He reached over and shook Linc’s hand. Linc, wearing a suit of molecular explosives, nodded and smiled. He gave Tony a thumbs-up sign and smiled even wider. Tony had picked carefully for the three suicide missions, not taking anyone who didn’t show frank symptoms of the two virus. Even knowing this, he regretted sending any of them to die.

Augustine gave an OK with her fingers and pointed to the grav tube. She then gave two innocuous clicks over the mission frequency. Linc closed his eyes for a moment. He took a deep breath, pulled out his automatic and walked into the entrance. Tony watched as he disappeared up the tube at blindingly high speed. Tony spared enough time to hope that Linc would shoot that quickly up to heaven, or whatever eternal reward he deserved.



* * *



“Which brings us to the excellent news of our actions against the GAM,” Taste Dynamics said, her face twisted into a sardonic grin. “For another week we’ve had zero actions against our facilities or people.”

“Our projections tell us why this is happening, but do we have any intel?”

“The operatives we do have in the field report hearing rumors of key GAM members dying, including their leader. Even better, the rumor on the street is there’s a power struggle among those left.”

“This is excellent news.”

“This means that the number of actions from the GAM in the future will be reduced?”

“Perhaps even eliminated," she said, sparing a cold look at Nanogate. Nanogate didn’t even flinch. Hers was not the first assassin to fail against him.

“I suggest we keep this on the agenda…”

“Advisory,” came a pleasant computer-generated voice. “Stocks of all major corporations experiencing significant drop in value based on broad sell and put activity.” That program would only activate in the case of a ten percent or more drop in all major stocks.

“What?”

The room echoed with a resounding boom. Dust filtered down from the ceiling and one window cracked afterward with a loud report.

“This facility is under attack,” said the same soft, but obviously artificial, female voice. “Please remain calm.”



* * *



Tony counted on his fingers. Before he reached eight, the building shuddered and flame licked briefly down the tube. Ignoring the incendiaries, Tony jumped into the grav tube just in time to hear two almost simultaneous tremors. One would be Andrea setting off the pinch. The other would be the opening blast against the response team.

His guts sank to the floor as the grav tube flung him upward. They then slammed into his mouth as his ascent slowed. Even before he arrived, a sweet stench of burnt flesh mixed with the acrid odor of smoldering plastic filled his nose. Tony scrambled for a perch as a black gaping maw, partially obscured by smoke, replaced the customary landing ledge.

Several small fires that had been computers, notepads, or even a table burned fitfully. Nothing else remained of the room except heaps of smoldering biologic. One of the mounds moved slowly, crawling in a seemingly random direction. Tony walked up, put his gauss carbine to the indistinguishable mound and pulled the trigger. The lump stopped moving in a sickening splash of something between liquid and solid.

Christine landed from the grav chute one second behind him and Augustine just seconds after that. Arthur brought up the rear a few seconds later. Tony had already moved toward what had been the doorway. The door itself lay askew halfway down the hall. Tony wouldn’t need the explosives he brought to gain entry.

The four of them marched in an open diamond formation, with Tony leading, into the meeting room. Seven of the ten most powerful people in the solar system already stood, looking for something to do, or some way to escape. The other three just gaped.

“What are you—” one of them sputtered.

Tony interrupted with a blast from his gauss gun into the ceiling. Christine and Augustine stood beside him covering the council.

“I beg your attention, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry for the theatrics, but I needed your attention. It’s time to change your little cabal here into a positive force.”

“Welcome, Tony,” Nanogate said. “You were very effective.”

Christine shot the man in the fleshy part of the arm. His scream and subsequent whimpering stifled anyone else from making comment.

“Oh, quit whining. She only nicked you. Trust me when I say she could easily have chosen to remove a single testicle had she taken it in her mind.”

Completely out of character, Christine smiled.

“Now that we’ve settled that, I want you all against the window, facing out at our fair city. And before you think you’re only buying time until the cavalry arrives, we’ve neutralized everything, including the Metro response. If you look out, you might just see the police involved in a riot at the Main Metro complex itself.

“Now that I’ve taken hope from you, I will give it back. Behave and your families will live.”

One woman half turned toward Tony, but froze as Christine’s weapon swung about to point at her head.

“That’s right,” Tony went on. “We have each of your families ready to be vaped. We have trigger teams shadowing all of them, including yours, sir, on their holiday on Io. Now, I want you each to announce which corporation you head.”

Each went in turn from one end to the other. Wisely, none of them hesitated or protested.

“Good. Now I’ll answer the question put to me earlier by Nanogate. Yes, I was a very effective weapon for this council. Your plan worked, after a fashion. You’ve decimated the ranks of the GAM.”

“So this is revenge?” Percomm Systems spat back.

“No. If this were revenge, I’d have tracked down how to hurt each of you the worst,” Tony said as he paced up and down the line. “Torture your daughter, maybe?” he asked one executive. “Or maybe make your grandson a vegetable?” he said walking by another. “How about removing the genitalia of your lover and giving it to your wife? Bottom line, this is the start of something new…perhaps tainted by just a smidge of justice.”

“So you want to kill us and take over?”

“Hell, no,” Augustine laughed as she answered.

“I have to agree with my colleague. First off, we don’t have the experience to run your companies. Your successors would soon oust us. Even if we could, we don’t want this kind of power. We do, however, want those who exercise supreme power to be answerable to the people.”

“How are you going to do that?” Wintel asked. “You can’t post a guard on each of us twenty-four/seven to make sure we behave.”

“True. We can’t. But then our actions against your corporations have made each of us very wealthy. So wealthy, in fact, that we’ll be funding multiple independent watchdog organizations, each with enough capital to start a small army. Remember how easily our small organization got to you. Think of how easily someone could do it with military hardware.”

“So you’re going to let us live?” CNI asked.

“Well, that depends. We obviously can’t kill you all, or we lose our object lesson here. But then letting you all go would lose its impact. You’d eventually think it was a fluke and try to do something stupid.”

“So what does it depend on?”

“This pretty young lady here is going to draw lots. Those drawn will be killed outright. It isn’t a perfect plan, but then none is. I honestly don’t know how to restore full public responsibility. I leave that for you to decide, knowing that we, and many like us, will be watching. Note that some of them won’t quite have our patience.”

“Why would we just stand still and wait to be killed?”

“First of all, do you think even the ten of you, unarmed, could overcome four trained, armed guerilla fighters? But, more importantly, if even one of you resists, we will kill each and every one of your families. That includes any wife, parent, child, lover, friend, pet, or bastard within two generations.”

The executives fidgeted but said nothing.

“Christine, if you please. Oh, and did I mention, we’ll be drawing eight names…exactly eighty percent.”