An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (33 page)

“See
?
They’re already
making an impact with pure fabrication
.
What would happen if they really had gotten us
to
kill a bunch of kids
?
They wouldn’t even need their talking heads to say anything
.
The blogs, the hack parlors
,
and tweets would be full of it
.
We’d be the Manson family
.
T
he very people we count on would turn against us
.
We wouldn’t last a month
.”

“I don’t give a damn,” Andrea said, breaking her silence
.
“No one threatens me
.
We’re
a team
!
”

“Hold on, Andrea,” Tony said quietly
.
“I
’ll
concede your point
.
We
are
a team
,
and I acted badly, but I didn’t see any other way to get your attention.
If you want to beat the crap out of me, go ahead
.
If you all think I should be expelled, go ahead
.
At least I saved the cause.”

“We only have your word for that, you f
—
”

“Not exactly,” Augustine interrupted
.
“When I heard Tony’s thesis I went back and did some additional net work
.
He may have a point
.
I didn’t even need to hack and I’ve found any number of references to that location being
“
Bumble Bee Day Care.
”
Worse
,
it’s
for low to no income families.

“I don’t like to admit I’m wrong any more than anyone else, sister, but if anyone
’
s to blame
,
it’s
probably me
.
I didn’t cross reference the address I got in the hack
.
I just assumed it was correct
.”

Sonya almost sighed in relief as Andrea’s shoulders dropped a bit
.
The ochre didn’t drain from
their leader’s
face, however
.
She wasn’t home free yet
.

“
I’m
going to have to agree with Tony’s observation,” Sonya said calmly
.
“
We’re
a guerrilla fighting force
.
If you aren’t in tune with your people
,
you’ll
soon find yourself in the hands of the Metros
.
I also have to agree that Augustine probably dropped the ball
.”
Before Andrea could muster up an interruption, Sonya put up her finger
.
“That does
not
, however
,
deal with Andrea’s grievance
.
Should some kind of sanction be placed against Tony?”

“What the fuck
?”
Colin
spurted
.
“
You’re all
agreeing he saved our collective asses
—
AGAIN, I might add
—
and you want to kick him out or worse?”
Colin
moved over to stand protectively in front of Tony
.
“I for one will go with him if he leaves
.
He risked his own ass to get me out of a jam
.
You all can suck Nil juice if you think I’m going to put up with that.”

“I don’t think anyone was suggesting anything quite that drastic,”
Frances
offered diplomatically.

“Like hell I wasn’t
,” growled Andrea. “He’s
a fucking menace.”

“Folks, we need to calm down,” Andrew said, moving over in front of Andrea, but facing everyone else
.
Sonya
imagined she was
watching some schoolyard game where the two captains chose sides
.

Sonya looked into the face of each of her team members
.
Because of her anger, Andrea hadn’t realized
she’d
already lost
.
Sonya felt her only hope lay in dictating a solution to give everyone enough time to cool down
.
She hated the role of disciplinarian.

“Enough
.
And I do mean enough from all of you
.
Tony, I have to say that I appreciate your abilities
.
At the same time
,
I’ve never seen this kind of polarization within our action committee
.
We’ve
always been united
.
This gives me serious reservations about us as a team
.”

Sonya didn’t give Andrea enough time to make an ass out of herself by preening
.
“Andrea, I’ve never seen such childish, intransi
gent
behavior
.
I can’t even begin to wonder why
you’re
so unfairly prejudiced against Tony
.
Oh
,
I can understand being angry about having someone threaten you, but knock his block off
.
I know you can do it
.
You don’t talk about pushing
him out
where we lose his abilities
and let the Metros murder him
.”
She paced back and forth, looking at the floor.

“If you were children
,
I’d make you shake hands
.
You aren’t
.
Andrea, I can’t make you like Tony
.
Tony
,
I can’t make you less of a natural force.

“This is my final word
—
” 

Tony interrupted by thrusting his hand high
.

Sonya closed her mouth on her next words
.
“I thought I already told you this isn’t a classroom
.
You don’t need to put up your hand to speak.”

“Sonya, I
think
I
need
to get this in before you
finish
.
I’m afraid I need to ask everyone some probing questions for my own peace of mind
—
otherwise your pronouncement may be moot
.
I don’t know that this is the right time
,
but I don’t think I can wait any longer.”

“Go ahead.”

“What are we trying to accomplish with our actions
?”

Sonya felt stunned with the question
.
She wasn’t the only one
.
S
everal seconds passed before anyone spoke
and then they all spoke at
once in a cacophony
.

“Bringing power back to the people…”

“Returning the balance of nature…”

“Makin’ the bloody corps listen to the law.”

The simple answers dissolved the room into even more chaos
.
Tony held up a hand to quiet the babble as everyone tried to get everyone else to agree with their viewpoint
.
While he didn’t get the respect that Sonya normally
received
, he did get eventually get their attention in the end
.
 

“You can’t even agree why
you’re
getting together and killing people
.”
He received nothing but puzzled looks
.
“Why should I stay committed to you as a group, other than my personal loyalties, when you commit the murder on a wholesale scale
but
can’t even decide why
you’re
doing it
?
Oh, sure, the
megacorp
s do it daily, but you
’
ve held yourselves up to be better than they are
.”

Sonya barely noticed the silence as her own mind whirled around his challenge
.
She
spoke first
.
“Why do
you
fight, Tony
?
It’s been almost two weeks now
.
Do you know why you kill?”

“I’ll be honest
.
At first I killed to stay alive
.
I can’t quite claim self-defense
,
but that’s as close as any
.
I then realized this is almost the only true comradeship I’ve ever known in my life
.
In this short time
,
you
’ve all
touched me
.

“But I’ve changed my mind
.
I’ve decided I have some morals
.
Now
I’ll
only kill to bring about positive change
.
I don’t see things moving toward any change at the moment.
That probably means
you’re
going to
feel you
have to murder me to keep me from talking
,
but that’s the way
my heart and soul is pulling
.”

Somehow Tony made
Sonya
feel dirty, just with
a few well-chosen
words about something she’d spent most of her life building.

“You only bring up more things nee’ing answers,” Suet said pointing a green tentacle at him
.
“How
’
o we make tha’ change? We though’ we were
.”

“This world is run by the
corp
s
.
That isn’t right
.
There are no checks and balances
.
The rich run everything and
there’s
no way to get rich because they rig the game against it
,
unless you want to become just like them.

“I’ll be honest
.
If I go forward
,
I do so to remove the current people from power
.
I don’t know what needs to be righted
,
other than that
.”

“How
?”
Frances
said seriously
.
“We’ve been fighting the
megacorp
s for years
.
Talking doesn’t work
.
All they recognize is violence.”

“Nothing wrong with violence,” Tony said quietly
.
“Just stop killing people.”

Seven people all opened their mouths to interject
,
but Sonya’s hand stopped them
.
“Tony, I think for all our sakes, except maybe our loving lady
,
Christine,
we’d
stop killing in an instant if
we had
another way
.”
Nods went around the room
.
At
this moment Sonya realized how the tenor of the room shifted from confrontation to expectation.

“
It’s
simple, actually
.
Let me ask some rhetorical questions
.
What does killing corpies do for us
?”
Before anyone could answer he went on
.
“Frankly
,
nothing good
.
There are always thousands who are willing to not only climb over the corpses but to perform sex acts with them to fill their
now
-
vacant positions
.

“Killing hurts the corps not at all
.
They’ve learned a lesson
.
You see in the nets
.
Killing now helps them and works against us
.
They make us
into
the evil ones.

“Now ask yourselves,
what
drives
the
corporations?”