An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (15 page)

“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 t
o 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
.
S
he 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
.

H
er research
ha
dn’t
include
d
whether this corp had
uni
sex 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 releas
ed
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
,
ev
ery 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 m
ock 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
in
ner 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 s
he 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
…
”

T
he conversation faded as
the
bathroom door opened and closed
once more
.
Sonya
might’ve
listen
ed
,
but
something got lost in translation
.
The conversation went beyond her comprehension
.
Oh, she understood the words and the meaning
s
, 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
t
here
.

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 g
uards were paid to be alert
,
and generally succeeded
.
Her approach needed to be exceedingly
careful
in order to
maintain the effectiveness of
her protection
s
.
She needed
a
painstaking
hour
of
creep
-
and
-
stop
to
cover
the last
hundred
meter
s
.
The two
guards exchanged banter but took no notice of the shadow, or the sign, or the stonemason
ry
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
.
S
he sweated
with
tiny but continuous efforts
as
she eased her way back around the corner
.