An Eighty Percent Solution

Tony ripped off the filmy stuck to his door. He read it as he let the door sniff his wrist for epithelials.



From: Council Crest Tenant Association

To: Tony Sammis, Owner of 115-16d

Pursuant to clause 17 subsections j through n of the Organization Code (section IV of your Conditions, Covenants and Restrictions) your property will be placed under forced sale at the next available auction.

Proceeds of the sale will pay, in order: auction fees, Council Crest Tenant Association penalties and expenses, and lienholder fees and loan balance. Any additional funds or balance due will be forwarded to your electronic address and/or account.

In order to expedite this sale, please remove your belongings no later than this Saturday or CCTA will have to resort to employing a professional eviction service as an expense incurred within the sale of the property.

We regret having to take this action but your lack of character and willful flaunting of civil, criminal and moral codes makes our community a lesser place to live.



Sincerely,

Association President,

Rosa Cleveland

cc: Portland Metro Police



“I wonder who else can spit on me.” Tony would’ve laughed if it weren’t so tragic. The equity in his home would easily be eaten up in the vastly inflated fees and charges. There’d be nothing left for him, and as a cherry on top they’d probably present him with a balance due bill.

“Music, classical.” Tchaikovsky filled the room. As Tony let Cin out of the bathroom, tears welled up in his eyes again, but this time didn’t quite escape. Cin brushed against his legs. Tony picked up his new friend and held her tight.

“At least I have one friend. And maybe Carmine. Maybe she just needs to get to know you so she won’t think of you as sausage.” Purrs and a rough tongue across his nose made him smile weakly.

“My job and home both taken,” he said to Cin. “I’m surprised they didn’t kill me outright. It would’ve been faster. I didn’t even get to tell my side of the story.” The ramrod Tony received involved only standard operating procedure for those his society deemed misfits or criminals. He’d seen and approved of it in others. Now they turned it upon him. All of a sudden its injustice rankled.

“I guess that makes me a hypocrite,” he muttered. “Well, girl, I can fight this. I think it’d probably cost me somewhere around forty thousand credits to get my case heard in front of a judge. Then another quarter million to get any kind of impartial judgment.

“Now with all this severance pay Nanogate’s throwing at me, I probably could scrape that much together by begging and borrowing from friends, maybe a loan from the labor union and another from the Justice Department.” He watched as Cin toyed with a thread from an antique wool throw rug. “But what am I going to do in the five years it’ll take to get to trial? What would I live on? Where would I live?”

Tony picked up Cin when she managed to pull the thread into a runner. He looked her right in the face. “Worse, my case isn’t all that powerful. Oh, possession of a personal vehicle and resisting arrest would be easy to beat, but practicing medicine without a license—that’s a horse of a different color. I’ve got several hundred people, not to mention the TriMet sensors, willing to testify that I helped save the old woman, but that’s about it.”

The kitten licked his nose and gave him a nondescript meow. He put the kitten down. She wobbled off to find more fun, the runner forgotten.

“Even if the court rules in my favor, nothing would happen. Nanogate and Council Crest Tenant Association would be bound to do nothing. My only compensation would be an almost clean record—almost, because there’d still be those who think I bought the verdict.

“I guess then I could try and find another position with another corp, but it’s very unlikely anyone would take a chance on me. Knowing Mitch Anson, he took out a full page ad in the Post, the Times, and every third-hit banner on the net about my morals. So the odds of getting a new job rank right up there with getting a nice warm wind on Pluto.”

A crash issued from the kitchen. Tony went in to find an open cabinet, and Cinnamon sitting in amongst pots and pans scattered on the floor.

“Hmm. Seems like you’re having an interesting adventure, Miss Cin.” He began picking up the cookery.

“I guess I could just accept what’s happening. My money and status will be sucked away. All I can do now is go dig in a mine or something equally pleasant. And that’s assuming I could find something at all. I’d have to live on welfare in a commune—or worse, a relocation camp. No health care, recycled food to eat.” Tony continued to confide in the cat and shuddered as he put away the last pot.

“Another choice, if you can call any of these choices, is to chuck everything and out-migrate. But, most colonies require specific skills or a huge quantity of money—more than I’ll ever see in my lifetime. The only other choice I’ve got is to settle on one of those colonies where you need genetic and prosthetic manipulation just to survive.

“And then there’s being boxed, probably the worst of the choices…”

Getting on the floor with Cin and dragging a sock around as bait for her fun, Tony considered his other options. “If I cashed out, I could disappear as a Nil—with no identity and no status. I could do that before they sold my home. But as a Nil, I’ll have no rights. Anyone could take my property or my life away, just because they felt like it.”

The rest of the day drifted by. While listening to the soothing vocals of the legendary Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso, he slapped some mayonnaise on bread, following it with salami, turkey, and some accidental horseradish. He ate it silently, eyes glazed over, not even tasting his mistake. Cin sat patiently on the table next to him and nibbled at the tidbits he fed her.

“I could look at this as a unique opportunity, if you want to call it that, of deciding the course of my life. How often do we get to choose our future? Rarely. Then again, what would I choose if I could?” Tony grew silent for a moment as Cin pounced on one of his dirty socks.

“Let’s be honest. I want a penthouse home, above the pollution level, a wife, a mistress, and enough clout to own my own limousine. I want to be able to control everything and everyone around me.” Tony realized the truth about himself when he heard it. Until yesterday morning his mind had brimmed with that exact future, just like any other good corpie. “And if I could, I’d put everything back the way it was.

“But that was yesterday,” he rationalized. “I’m not one of them any more.”

To the recorded sounds of a Martian sandstorm he did two loads of laundry, in typical male fashion—throwing everything in until he had a full load, totally ignoring the color and fabric. Cin rummaged in clothes Tony piled and perched on top of the warm dryer between attacks. Tony didn’t notice. He turned on one of the ever-popular daytime dramas, but not a single scene registered.

“So many people really don’t know what they’ll live and die for, Cin,” Tony said sometime around ten p.m., a serious look on his face. His mind held the clarity of the air after a summer thunderstorm. “I certainly didn’t know what I stood for until just today. I stand for life, else I wouldn’t have even tried saving the old woman. I stand for justice, else I would’ve taken you, you escaped miniature rug, and flushed you down with the rest of the dinner leftovers. I may be hypocritical, but I think that’s about it.

“What I don’t know is what to do about it.”

Tony lay down on the couch. Cin climbed up to his chest and settled down for a nap. He stroked her softly and scratched her under the chin and around the ear. The problem, as Tony lay there getting more and more resolute, was that he hadn’t the foggiest clue how to accomplish any of his budding lofty ideals. Cin purred loud enough to finally drown out the solidoset.



* * *



Sonya clung precariously to the wall of the Colonization Unlimited Building, some seven hundred meters from the slums below. Luck had followed her thus far. By climbing the wall itself, using a plant extract cum adhesive created in her own container garden, she managed to avoid all notice. Windows she avoided as much as blank stone, and iron was her friend. Her cloak, plus a few muttered words learned from her proctor, altered the perception of those random few who saw her. To them, she became nothing more than a window washer, or a pigeon, or maybe even a stone gargoyle—anything but a strange woman climbing the side of a building, bent on who knows what kind of mischief.

The drain on her body and her mind, in keeping up her mental guise during the three-hour climb, showed in her labored breath, aching muscles and a migraine starting just behind the right temple. Her trek wore on her much more than expected. She needed time to rest and recover. Sonya glanced through a nearby frosted window into a bathroom where dark shapes moved within. Highly unlikely there’d be continuous DNA or explosive detectors inside. She promised herself just two minutes.

Her research hadn’t included whether this corp had unisex bathrooms like most companies. Sonya timed the actions of a glass worker’s tool with the flow of dark shapes within. When nothing moved, the tools reached behind the molding and released the pane as if she’d been doing it her entire life. A fugitive’s upbringing provided one with all manner of useful skills. With exaggerated care, she pulled the window out on its slides. This made just enough room for her to slip inside, every muscle in her body poised for fight or flight.

She dropped silently to the floor in a crouch as she scanned the peach-colored room with overstuffed lounging chairs. By the mock chandeliers and an abundance of well-lighted mirrors, Sonya obviously found herself in a ladies’ powder room. With no other movement or sound nearby, she relaxed a little. She pulled the window back into place using a suction cup on the inner pane. With the window set in place but not fastened, it could’ve been blown out by a strong gust, so as a bit of insurance, she set a tiny bit of putty in one corner.

She slipped into a stall and sat. As her body relaxed, her mind continued to work. Her target occupied this same height level so when she returned to scuttling like a spider on the outer wall, she merely needed to crawl around the corner to place her present. With that thought in mind she closed her eyes and opened her mind. She let mnemonics roll quietly off her tongue as her mind surged outward.

Near her objective she sensed four guards and one executive limousine with driver. As usual, they each carried repeating weapons, though she couldn’t make out the type. Sonya rarely worried about such things. If they discovered her, four months of work on this setup would be for naught, even if she escaped. That would hurt more than anything they might do to her body or mind.

The sounds of two women entering the bathroom broke her from her mental journey. Their high heels echoed in the tiled bathroom. “Did you see Rhonda with George?”

“Yeah, she was all over him like a ground-level girl.”

“As if you can’t tell, that little bitch is sleeping with him for the promotion.”

“She’s sleeping with him?”

“From what I heard she’s moved in with him.”

“Weeble it all! If she’s really sleeping with him, I guess that means I’ll never get that job. I’ve been working for three years for that spot and now some bed dancer is going to get it! What is that, her third manager this year?”

“Fourth, not counting the two she’s been seen with from Masterson Controls.”

“Gads, I hope she goes over there. It’ll get the slut out from under our heels, and I can’t imagine working for her. I’d probably just claw her eyes out.”

“You won’t attack her, but you won’t like working for her either. At least she’ll be gone soon. All she has to do is find a bigger boss to sleep with and she’ll be out of your hair.

“Personally that wouldn’t be so bad, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand another year in this position. Marvin is such a beastly manager…”

The conversation faded as the bathroom door opened and closed once more. Sonya might’ve listened, but something got lost in translation. The conversation went beyond her comprehension. Oh, she understood the words and the meanings, but couldn’t understand how people subjected themselves to such things. She couldn’t understand the lure to maintain that mockery of a lifestyle.

Her strength returned enough to finish. Before anyone else invaded her temporary sanctum, Sonya worked her way back out the window, replacing it as skillfully as she’d opened it. It wouldn’t do for anyone to even suspect that she’d paused there.

A breeze whistled in from the east, insistently plucking at her clothes as she eased around the corner of the building. While always careful, she slowed even further because of the wind. She pulled flat against the surface to prevent the air getting between her and the wall, where it might increase its grip upon her.

Corporate guards were paid to be alert, and generally succeeded. Her approach needed to be exceedingly careful in order to maintain the effectiveness of her protections. She needed a painstaking hour of creep-and-stop to cover the last hundred meters. The two guards exchanged banter but took no notice of the shadow, or the sign, or the stonemasonry that barely moved along the wall.

Anticlimactically, Sonya’s act of sticking the pipe bomb above the executive entrance compared to playing with clay in kindergarten. Just pressing the device into place caused no problems, entailed no additional risks. She sweated with tiny but continuous efforts as she eased her way back around the corner.

The danger passed quickly with the corner between her and the only real threats. Her fatigue also flew as she could now move much more openly. She used her tools once again to open the window of a vacant office. Now it didn’t matter if anyone caught her, as the most they’d do is kick her out of the building. Once safely inside, she mumbled a few words, rubbed a red powder across her lips, dripped yellow paint into her hair, put a pea into each cup of her bra and wrapped a length of ivy vine around her waist, cloak and all.

Unlike her cautious entrance or the long, slow sojourn around the building’s perimeter, not one single person failed to note Sonya illusionary façade as she left. Men drooled and women narrowed their eyes jealously at the overly buxom blonde with full, cherry-red lips and the kind of hourglass figure men have lusted after and women have coveted for millennia. Sonya appropriately swayed her hips and gave cold stares to the few men who dared approach her. Once out the primary exit and onto the lift-bus, she became even more untouchable.

Now, waiting was all. Sometimes that was the hardest part.



* * *



Tony dreamed of a night with Carmine, sealed inside a luxury hotel room surrounded by hot and cold running delicacies of both the flesh and palate. The two of them spent a fortune on a bacchanalia where they indulged in every way possible—women, men, and some who were in between.

“Open up under Civil Code Fourteen-eighteen, paragraph J! Metro officers identifying themselves and their right to enter.”

But every time Tony got close to Carmine herself, she giggled and slipped away, leaving someone else in her place.

“If you do not open the door, we have been authorized to override the command sequence.”

Tony bolted upright. He had thought the melodramatic voice an annoying, if simple, part of his dream. Intending to step down from his bed, he instead tripped getting up off the couch. Disoriented though he was, he knew the Metros couldn’t be allowed to find Cin! Where was she…?

“I’m on my way! Keep your helmet on!” Tony shouted as he scrambled about, looking everywhere he could see. “I’m in the back room and getting dressed. I’ll be there in a second.”

The kitten didn’t want to be found, so Tony hoped she’d remain that way. Sweat crept over his scalp as he opened the door. Two Metros towered over him in full black riot gear, faces fully obscured. “Out of the way,” came the voice sonically enhanced with seven hertz anxiety infrasound. One of the pair slammed Tony aside with one power-assisted arm, briefly pinning him against the entryway. Even without being able to see his back, Tony could feel the bruises forming. “We have a right to search and seize chattels upon your premises.”

Tony panicked to do something to deflect an all-out search for whatever they were looking for. With sudden purpose, he spun to face the fair protectors of Portland. “Your authorization?” he barked.

While the blank face-mask gave no emotion, Tony got the distinct impression he both amused and annoyed the man. Massive ebon fingers held out a recording crystal the size of Cin’s paw and dropped it to the carpet. Tony picked it up as the armored policemen went into the bedroom.

“You can’t be too sure these days,” Tony offered feebly. “You never know. Fake cops and all.”

The solido crystal went into his player and a solido image sprang forth in the middle of the room. Carmine’s image, life size, spoke to him from behind the faux wood desk he’d given her as a present on her last birthday.

“Mr. Sammis, or whatever your real name is, I had no idea you were such a deviant. I don’t know how you could’ve deceived me for so long, but I must’ve been seven kinds of fool for having trusted you with any part of my life.” Crashing sounds issued from the bedroom. Carmine leaned forward over the desk and shook her finger at him, like scolding a naughty schoolboy. Some part of him, despite her reaction to his news about Cin, still had hoped she would be the anchor in his life, just as she’d been with every other disaster. Instead she chose to inflict even more abuse.

“It’s obvious I can have no more to do with you, so I’ve sent the police to retrieve my things. Don’t interfere with them, for I’ve paid them well to make it unpleasant if you resist.” The image carried a feral smile.

“Do not attempt to see me. Do not attempt to contact me. Do not attempt to contact anyone we know. If you do, I’ll have the Metros return and show you real justice.

“My skin crawls to think I ever let you touch me. You must’ve been quite pleased to get a nice real girl like me into your clutches, you pathetic Nil. Have you no shame? But then your kind rarely does.

“May your skin burn from acid fog at ground level.” The solido image gave him a universally understood and despised gesture before winking out. One of the Metros chose that moment to return to the room. Seemingly at random he picked up a lead crystal lamp and smashed it to the floor.

“What the hell are you looking for?” demanded Tony.

“We have everything but one item—necklace, Black Hills Gold, with double grape cluster and differing colored leaves.” Tony had worn it since his time with Carmine in college. It had been reciprocation for him giving her a friendship ring. Without a thought, he snapped its tiny chain from his neck and held it out to the cop.

“There is your f*cking item. Now get the hell out!”

“Sergeant, I’ve got it. Let’s make jet-tracks.”

“Rog-O.”

Tony watched as the two walked out the door with an armload of booty, some obviously Tony’s own property. They didn’t even bother to close the door after they left. Tony heard a muted hiss from under the couch. Cin only now gave her opinion of their unwanted guests.

“I agree.”



* * *



Sonya violated her own prohibition on technology in her home with one item, an old-fashioned FM radio. If she played with the dial just right, she picked up one hundred eighty-five stations in the metro-Portland area.

She sat at her dinner table with a ball of gray fur in her lap and listened to the seven o’clock news report. As usual, the news depressed her, but she must know if everything went according to plan before she took credit for the action. Her favorite, Plutonia, purred and kept her company while the headlines were read. The tiny, still unnamed Chihuahua sat shivering on the tabletop side by side with her Pomeranian, Maxine. Sonya smiled at it and placed a kiss on its tiny nose. She made only the fourth headline story.

“In sadder news, four bombs detonated on the Colonization Unlimited Building in downtown today. Seventy-three confirmed dead and one hundred eighty-six others injured.

“Police refuse to speculate if this bombing had anything to do with recent GAM actions. Chief Adams, is this related to the other bombings?”

“How can I tell? We haven’t had any time to run tests, talk to informants, or even get their call to confirm it—”

Absently Sonya wondered if four actually went off. Were they censoring the total number, or that a corporate exec met his maker? Sonya imagined the cruel way she’d just killed seventy-three (or more) people, and the destruction wreaked by her bombs. She had reconciled herself to this course long ago. Wars like this weren’t clean and neat—lawyers had claimed the cleaner kind of warfare centuries ago. Her deeds of death and destruction didn’t warrant a smile, but as hard and demanding work, they did. She grinned and set Plutonia on the floor.

Sonya switched off the radio and walked out her apartment door once more. Her next task wouldn’t work up any sweat.



* * *



Tony found himself awakening much later than his norm, once again on the couch. His body crawled and itched like his poor days back in college—sleeping in his clothes, no shower, stubble on his face, too much stress. He walked back into his bedroom.

His bedding was filled with glass fragments from the antique mirror which once had hung on the nearby wall. Smashed splinters of the chest of drawers lay sprawled about the floor, the jewelry box and what had been its contents spread all over the room.

“Bloody Metros,” muttered Tony. “I’ll bet they just enjoyed the hell out of this.”

Cin padded behind him, sniffing only at the odd bit of fluff strewn about the floor. Tony trundled into the bathroom to find, placed neatly on a clear spot on the bathroom vanity, the friendship ring he’d given Carmine. The once meaningful trinket now sat just slightly pushed into a small pile of human excrement. Obviously the Metros made deliveries as well as pickups. Carmine’s message didn’t need a solido sign.

“It figures she’d think up something so tasteless,” Tony said, using some toilet paper to brush the entire mass, ring and all, into the toilet. That part of his life disappeared with a simple flush.

He needed nearly three hours to make some semblance of order out of the chaos of his home, all the while bantering back and forth with himself and the kitten, as the mood suited him.

“I don’t know why I bother. They’re still going to take my home away.

“But then I guess I still need to have somewhere to stay.

“How could they be so callous?

“The solido of mother, ruined…

“Cin, don’t play with the glass!

“What could they possibly have been looking for in there?”

Each broken item he swept into the garbage set the muscles in his jaw dancing to a dark tune. With everything he placed back into its proper place his fists clenched tighter.

“Radio, news.”

“…dder news, four bombs detonated on the Colonization Unlimited Building in downtown today. Seventy-three confirmed dead and one hundred eighty-six others injured.

“Police refuse to speculate if this bombing had anything to do with recent GAM actions. Chief Adams, is this related to the other bombings?”

“How can I tell? We haven’t had any time to run tests, talk to informants, or even get their call to confirm it.”

“So you have no ideas?”

“Sure we have ideas, you moron. But we aren’t stupid enough to give them out where anyone can hear—”

Action crystallized within Tony as he stalked out of his home, leaving Cin loose inside.

For the first time in a dozen months, the clouds above parted and allowed in the silvery light of the moon. This omen lightened Tony’s mood slightly but didn’t stop his flight. He jumped onto the first lift-bus that showed up at his condo’s platform. By chance it happened to be the same one he usually took down to the Rose Quarter. Out of sheer habit he exited the bus near the Wilted Rose. But this time the scenery took on a whole new meaning.

In the past he unconsciously lorded over everyone in this slum. Now he clung just a precarious rung above the people here. A male prostitute flipped his long hair back and batted his brightly painted eyes. A street performer played his antique guitar to the tune of “Stairway to Heaven” and nodded to each person passing. Three beggars sat patiently holding signs proclaiming their inability to find work and starving families. Three hucksters tried to sell him imitation Rolex watches, guaranteed-not-to-break condoms, and bed-space in a local abandoned warehouse. Two recycled food vendors competed with one another for the few credits which could be made on that end of the street just outside the zone patrolled strongly by the Metros.

The people and class changed as he got closer to the Rose. The hookers were cleaner and prettier, the merchandise a bit more upscale—or at least better disguised knock-offs. And Jock stood as the usual intimidating doorman for the Wilted Rose.

“Howdy, Jock,” Tony said, as he saw that one friendly face. A massive alloy arm came out and barred his way into the club.

“Sir, I’m afraid I have special orders dealing with you. You are not allowed to enter. The staff has reports of you bothering Miss Carmine.”

“Excuse me, Jock? How long have I been a patron here?”

“I have my orders, sir.”

“Has everyone gone mad? I’m not a criminal! I’m an ordinary guy.” A tiny hesitation crossed Jock’s face with the barest humanity flickering to life, and Tony pounced on the opening. “Why are they doing this, Jock?”

Jock waved a few other patrons into the club, and then looked around surreptitiously before lowering his voice by at least half.

“Sir, had it been anyone else, I wouldn’t have given it another thought. But you’ve been good to me with a kind word and a smile. It didn’t seem to matter to you that I was a Nil.”

“Why should it?”

“It shouldn’t, but stop sidetracking me. I don’t know all the details, but what I see happening to you has all the earmarks of a top level megacorp hose job.

“Miss Carmine showed up at the club yesterday and talked to the boss. She passed him a stack of bills that even I couldn’t tear in half.” Jock lifted a velvet rope and passed another high class couple into the loud venue. “About ten minutes later I got my orders to keep you out. You add it up, sir.”

“Where would Carmine get that kind of money?”

“That’s what I mean, sir. Someone’s paying to put you down and that usually means the resources of a corp. I shouldn’t say any more. I’ve probably said too much already.”

“OK, Jock, I’ve got just one more question for you, please. Do you know how to get in touch with the GAM?”

“Sir?!”

“Sorry, I just thought you might know.”

“They’re violent. I don’t want any part of that.” Tony had seen Jock tear off the arm of one man for not responding to a less than subtle hint to leave a lady alone, and shoot another through the neck when the welf pulled a stun grenade. Violent or no, Jock didn’t know. Unfortunately.

“Jock, you’ve been a true friend. And for that I’ll always be grateful. I may look you up after I get myself settled.”

“I’d like that, sir.”

“You can knock off that ‘sir.’ I’m just plain Tony now.”

“OK, Tony.”

Tony didn’t offer him any money. What Jock had done was for friendship, and paying him would’ve convinced Jock that Tony was just another one of the masses—out for himself only. Tony knew it and Jock knew it. They parted honorable men, as only honorable men know how.



* * *



She knew the disposable percomm call would be traced. The Green Action Militia had learned from an ex-Metro, one of their own now, that it took one minute, fourteen seconds to trace such a call under the best of circumstances. Thus the GAM kept all calls under forty seconds and delivered their message crystal to a different person every time.

“This is the GAM,” she stated succinctly. “If you want to hear our statement, you will retrieve the recording crystal from the women’s restroom, fourth stall from the end, on your third floor. You have until someone flushes.”

Sometimes to mix things up they called anonymous tip hotlines, and once a media lawyer. The delivery location changed as well. Sometimes it arrived in place of the morning paper, and other times it might steer a person through seven levels of scavenger hunt.

They used only standard Fuji commercial recording crystals from a different supplier each time, picking a random device from each lot. Sonya purposely left her right pinky fingerprint on each crystal so they knew exactly whom they were dealing with. As no one had a name to match to that print or her epithelial DNA—except on other crystals—she stayed as safe as any other Nil.

Sonya dropped the ring comm to the ground and crushed it with her heel. To make certain, she stomped it three more times. She moved immediately to the edge of the not-yet-complete level 144 TriMet platform in downtown Corvallis. For security’s sake she needed to be at least a full 600 meters from this place in under a minute, the top response time of even Interpol.

The average Metro response time fell into the dismal category of days, but she had to assume they’d set a trap this one time and somehow knew exactly when she would transmit. With her survival—and that of the whole organization—at stake, Sonya played to win.

She took the easy way to get away quickly from the platform—she jumped. Her stomach once again reminded her that this wasn’t her favorite of tricks. The nausea never quite elicited regurgitation, but it always came close. Her mind silently counted to nine full seconds before her fingers wove a pattern in the air.

As she landed, at almost ninety meters per second, her body lit up like a miniature sun. The brightness receded rapidly, though she still glowed as she walked away. Waves of heat distortion also wreathed her as the kinetic impact energy flowed away. The few people at ground level who observed the flash or her new thermal aura chose wisely to mind their own business. People with that kind of power at their disposal didn’t make good victims.



* * *



The opulence of this meeting room matched, if not exceeded, the previous. Despite imports from Mars costing nearly ten thousand credits per kilogram in shipping alone, a Martian lacquered-sandstone table, weighing close to a metric ton, dominated a room of orange, rust and umber. The ten matching hand-carved chairs sat arranged for the powerful individuals in attendance. Vivaldi played in the background as they entered to take their seats.

“I want to thank you all for the change in venue,” said one. “I hope you will be comfortable here. If there’s anything my staff can provide, you have but to ask.” If sacrificing a live virgin would’ve been the whim of even one member, the staff would merely have asked what sex and hair color, and the blood would be spilled before the request went cold on the guest’s lips.

“Thank you. The first order of business is the GAM Initiative,” announced Nanogate as they all took their seats. “Phase two has moved quite according to plan, with another unexpected bonus. The girlfriend not only was bought to stay out of the way but to actively participate in our plan. This reduces operational security risks considerably. The motivation was first order greed.”

“Have there been any contraindications?”

“Only one. A single employee of the subject’s normal bar told him that he believes it’s a corporate plot. As this is intrinsically obvious, it doesn’t warrant further action.”

“And that employee?”

“Nothing. We don’t want to alarm the subject—he’s already skittish enough. The employee, a bar tough, is a Nil, so I propose no action against him.

“I call for a vote. Opposed?” Silence was his answer. “Then there is nothing further to report. Oh, one minor item to note. Once the subject has contacted the GAM, we’ll almost certainly be unable to monitor his actions as we are now.”

“Then how are we going to be able to gauge his effectiveness to plan?”

“Only by observing the results. Clearly this falls into the ‘results oriented management’ category defined in the late twentieth century. It’s not nearly as effective as our current invasive management techniques, but it’s the only course open to us with this scheme.”

“Agreed. I suggest we move on to the next topic.”

“I’d like to bring to your attention New Zealand’s proposed execution of one of Taste Dynamics’s midlevel managers for the industrial accident of May third. It’s a message of sorts that I suggest we respond to vigorously…”



* * *



Her breath wheezed as her chest went up and down steadily in deep sleep. A tribute to his fast thinking, Tony thought. His visit held no rationale, not even the merest whisper of a reason. It took quite a good deal of time and effort to find her, not to mention the three-hundred credit bribe to have a nurse let him in.

No different than any other hospital room for the last three centuries, the stuffy room smelled of alcohol and bleach. The cramped space held only a single horribly uncomfortable bed and two equally uncomfortable straight back chairs in sickly green. Odd instruments clung to the off-white walls like lichen adorning an undersea rock. Her standard hospital issue blue gown could’ve been on any patient all the way back to antiquity. It split down the back and barely covered the hip nearest him. A small plastic tube from the wall dumped oxygen right into her nostrils.

She held all the changes of his life together like a keystone. Save a life, lose your own. Some dark, twisted force seemed to have manipulated that equity around to apply to his life. While probability played a cruel role, he felt more at work than mere fate.

He sat quietly, barely moving. His own breathing matched in rhythm to that of the old woman in the bed. A nurse came in to take blood pressure and temperature readings as if she didn’t trust their remote monitors. Tony slipped the nurse another hundred for good measure. A dull ache behind his eyes pulled at his thoughts, but none coalesced.

Some time later, before the sun lightened the sky enough to call it morning, the patient’s eyes flickered open. Groggily, the woman looked over at Tony as the sleep fled from her eyes. “Do I know you?” Even as she said it, her expression started in realization. The volume of her voice matched the early morning hour. “You’re from the bus! They said you saved my life.”

“I just did what my grandfather taught me.”

“I could sue you for malpractice, you know. I’ve had five lawyers a day in here trying to get me to do just that.”

Tony sat silently. He had nothing to offer.

Her eyes softened. “I have absolutely no intention of doing so. I just want to know why you risked yourself. No one else would have.”

“Maybe that’s why. There are too many ‘no ones’ in this world and not enough ‘some ones.’ I wanted to make mine count.”

“You are a very odd man.”

“I’ve never considered myself all that odd.”

“Well, perhaps unusual would be a better descriptive.”

Tony looked into her wizened face. It held only honesty. Wrinkles and age-spotted hands showed her veins beneath the thinned skin. He realized he’d never really seen an old person. Oh, they were around, but he’d never really looked. They just blended into the background.

“I guess you could call me unusual,” he admitted. “Is this bad?”

“No, not at all. The world needs unusual people.” She sighed for a moment before continuing. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but did you know I’m going to die anyway?”

Tony instantly saw the futility of his sacrifice in a blinding flash.

“Of course you didn’t know. How could you? I have a rare disease in my liver and I’ll be dead within the week. I can feel it pulling at me now, deep inside.”

This interview had played itself out in Tony’s head much differently on his way here. He must regain control. He needed to look into her eyes as he asked his question. Tony felt that he’d know if she were telling the truth. On this one thing he must be positive.

“Do you know why they’re doing this to me?”

“Doing what?” Nothing but surprise wrinkled her face. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t know. It’s all coincidence.” Tony’s shoulders slumped and he turned away.

“I don’t understand.”

Tony decided to spare the woman the grief he held like a poison within him. “It’s nothing,” he said, turning back with a smile on his face. They sat quietly looking at one another for a few moments.

“I am happy to have met you, sir. It is rare to find someone so…sure of himself.”

“I’m not all that sure.”

“You are. You just don’t see it from the outside. You see only your own insecurities, your own problems, your own ‘if onlys.’ The face you project to the world is much stronger.”

“I wish I could see that sometimes.”

“You will in time. Take it from someone who’s been there and back.” The woman could see the doubt on his face. “Trust. I see the world hasn’t yet beaten it from you. I will trust you so that you can trust me. Did you pick up my parcel?”

Tony suddenly stretched higher in his chair. He’d almost forgotten that the kitten had been hers.

“I see that you did. I give it to you as a gift of the love you showed me. Just care for it as much as you did me.”

A tear formed in the corner of Tony’s eye. “But I’m going to lose it all. I’ll have no way to care for myself, much less…” Tony trailed off because of the monitors that surely recorded all that went on in the room.

So like his own mother, this old woman drew him out and soon Tony told his entire story. She listened, without surprise, as the tale unfolded. With remarkable strength and speed, she grabbed one of his hands and pulled it beneath the covers. Her skin felt rough against his. Something pressed across the palm of his hand as she began speaking in loud, agitated tones.

“You’re a criminal! Get out of here! How could I have been talking to such a louse? No, lower than a louse. NURSE! Get this vermin out of here!” She released his hand gently and with her eyes, much softer than the tone in her voice, she gestured for him to the door. She smiled brightly at him for all of two seconds until the orderly entered.

Tony’s mind whirled with all the incongruities. It took several milliseconds for realization to dawn.

“Get this filth out of here!” she screamed, coughing heavily. “He’s a cat lover and probably grows his own vegetables!”

“Sir, if you’ll please step this way,” the bribed nurse said, softly. “We can’t have our patients disturbed.”

“I understand. I don’t want anyone upset. I’ll leave. My apologies, ma’am.” She turned away from him as he left.

He waited until he fully exited the hospital before looking at his hand. Written there, in ink, he found, “GAM, Sonya, ground level, Arcade Aerobics.”

Realization dawned at its own pace. He glanced up in the direction of his benefactress’s room and shook his head slowly back and forth. She had offered no name and asked him no name in return.



* * *



A servant, dressed in traditional coat and tails, rang a tiny silver bell and entered the Mars room. Conversation ceased as he silently marched the length of the room to the heart-stirring beat of “Ride of the Valkyries.” There he delivered a tiny slip of handmade paper to his master and exited in the same manner as he had entered. Nanogate very deliberately opened and read the note.

“A tiny interruption if you please. I believe we have a break. In the GAM project, our subject has made contact.

“Unfortunately, the primary contact, an old woman in the hospital, has died before we could question her. The subject disappeared from his usual haunts shortly after his interview with her.”

Cautious smiles accompanied his next statement. “Phase two appears to be complete.”