An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (34 page)

“Profits,” Andrea offered, her anger seemingly gone from even her posture
.

“Power,” Collin offered.

“So how do we hurt the
c
orps and not hurt ourselves
?
Step right up
.
Three tries for a quarter
,”
Tony
said in all seriousness.

Once again Sonya broke the tableau Tony
had
created
.
She began to see light through the fog over her brain
.
“Target and destroy visible
c
orp assets while reducing the kill count to as close to zero as possible
.”

Murmurs of assent floated through the room
.
Sonya felt an energy unlike any since the
GAM’s
birth.

“You just won a kewpie doll
.
Better than that, the targets
we’ll
be picking will have little to no protection. Who protects a warehouse except from thieves? Who protects a manufacturing plant
?
What about a mine
?”

“Yeah.”

“I like that!”

“And now that I know
you’re
paying attention, I have a few more ideas
.
Right now you pick your targets by those who present an opportunity
.
I think that by a better selection process we could make each target work for us double, or maybe even triple
.”

Sonya just raised an eyebrow at him
.
Everyone else now politely or respectfully hung on Tony’s every word.

“Look here
.
By attacking across all corps
we’re
draining only
twenty
ccs of blood out of each of them
.
We’re
down in the dirt as far as their bottom line goes
.
Now, what if we were to focus our attacks on just a single corp?”

“
Crashing marke’
.”

“Their board of directors would have a fit.”

“Take the tucker out of the bag!”

Augustine pointed out the practical in Tony’s idea stream
.
“We could also make a fortune
.
Place ‘puts’ on the companies we target
,
and when the price plummets
,
we sell our puts and finance even better actions.”

“Yes, now you see it
.
This would add even more pressure on the corporations
.
With a little luck it could cause some of the weaker
ones
to declare bankruptcy, removing them from the scene entirely
.”

The room stood silent for several full minutes
.
Sonya’s own heart leaped
.
“I never thought
I’d
live to see it happen,” Sonya said finally
.
“Do we even need to vote on this?”

* * *
 

Nanogate
’s
nine-
month
-
old grandson
,
Michael
,
giggled as he bounced up and down on his grandfather’s knee
.
Drool flew most everywhere as the infant simultaneously decided to eat his fist
.
Everywhere included
Nanogate
’s antique Armani lounging gown
.
Nanogate
smiled
.
His eldest son married an intelligent as well as beautiful young biochemist
.
They gave him a grandson to carry on the family name
.
What wasn’t to be pleased about
?

“That’s a good little boy
.
Ride the pony
.
When you get old enough I’ll buy you a real pony
.”
Nanogate
gave the giggling child an extra bounce and wiggled him side to side.

“So that b… that gentlewoman from
Taste Dynamics
told the truth about starting her little experiment before I proposed our Greenie solution?”

“That’s correct, sir,” Mr. Marks said, standing at ease in the center of
Nanogate
’s home library
.
Scores of actual bound books lined the walls of a room ornate with real leather furniture, hardwood floors
,
and an authentic wool rug
,
dyed maroon red
.
Mark’s neon yellow tights clashed badly
with
the ancient décor.

“Want to play airplane instead
?”
Nanogate
swooped the boy up and down without leaving his wingback chair
.
“But she lied about authorizing action.”

“That is correct, sir
.
I liberated a copy of her personal notes
.
You
wi
ll find it
appended to my report
.
In short
,
it appears your action jogged her memory
.
Three days later she authorized one Michael Upton to proceed with an action he proposed three months earlier
.”

“I guess that isn’t a big surprise
.
I probably
would’ve
done the same thing
.”
The baby suddenly
got
rather quiet even though still flying about
.
“And what results have they seen?”

“T
he answer to t
hat didn’t come easily, but
good
research always wins out
.
Apparently Mr. Upton has a fascination with trains
.
I managed to come into possession of
a
vintage B&O locomotive and flatcar in
T
-
scale he needed for his collection
.
I swapped him for the information.

“The action was in two parts
.
The first involved intense propaganda, most of it fabricated, pointing to the evil ways of the GAM
.
The goal of the propaganda was simply to drive a wedge between them and their support base
.

“The second action involved
disguising a daycare for the underprivileged as a prime target in several nearly open files on our network.
The Green Action Militia did
, in fact,
read out the data as projected
.
The perpetrators
of the hack
are conjectured,
of course
, but the GAM rarely misses data of that nature in the open even if they didn’t themselves do the raid
.
It approaches a near unity probability that they ended up with the data
, one way or another
.
However
,
nothing happened.”

“She was going to let them blow up a bunch of children?”

“Yes
,
sir
.
She deliberately set them up as bait.
If I might be allowed an opinion, I believe
it’s
as if she
would’ve
murdered them herself
.”

The baby let out a noise, somewhat approaching a grunt before starting to coo and giggle again
.
Nanogate
wrinkled his nose at his grandson’s latest offering
.
“Susan,” he said
,
“
w
ould
you please come get your son
?”

As always
,
his servants
,
listening in to hear his slightest whim
,
got the message passed
.
Within a minute the mahogany doors opened and a beautiful blonde, not
quite back to her
perfect size six,
sauntered
in, heels clicking staccato on the floor
.

“Certainly,
F
ather,” she said
,
picking up her baby
.
“Did little Mikey make a do
o
-do
o
?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him Mikey
.
It’s Michael.”

“Yes,
F
ather
.”
She turned and left, cooing to the baby
.
The doors closed behind them.

“Have we come to that, Mr. Marks
?
Killing children
?
Never mind, don’t answer that
.
I guess
it’s
a case of the pot calling the kettle black
.
Who knows how many I’ll be killing in the next few days
.”

Nanogate
stood up and walked to a stack of books on his desk
.
He picked one up and pointed it
absently at
his bodyguard
.
“So it sounds like her primary action is dead in the water before it even gets started
.
And the other is a pipe dream
.
Good news
.
I can use that against her.”

“Anything else pertinent to report?”

“Not that I can think of
,
sir
.
The details are in my report.”

“
OK
.
Thank you for your efficiency, Mr. Marks
.
Oh, and make sure the cost of those trains gets into your expense report
.
I know from experience just how expensive those models can be
.
My
son’s
a railroader
.”

* * *
 

Mark Linderheim
, sixteen and a student
working his way through
Oregon State
University
,
busied himself restocking
Doritos when the first customer of the day
,
that being a relative term as they were open
twenty-four
h
our
s, entered
the store
.
An attractive woman in her thirties
moved directly to the counter
and stood
there
waiting for him
.
Probably just wanted a pack of narcosticks or some lottery tickets, Mark thought
.
He tucked the last of the bags on the shelf and took the empty delivery crate with him back behind the counter.

“May I help you?”
he asked affably.

“I’d like to place one hundred puts
of
twenty
-
three credits per share on
Nanogate
,
”
replied the lovely customer.

“No problem, ma’am,” Mark said, punching the numbers into the computer
.
Just another version of the lottery,
he
thought to himself
.
Some people thought it gave them airs to play such risky ventures in business rather than
take
the equivalent risk in the lottery
.
Didn’t matter
.
Odds didn’t change
.
Either way provided ample ways for idiots to throw away their money
.
“That
’
l
l be
ninety
-
four credits
,
”
he announced flatly, keeping his feelings to himself.

The woman opened her Coach bag and drew out a
hundred
-
credit note
.
Per company policy
,
Mark waved a
forgery detector
over
the bill
until the green light and the oh
-
so
-
annoying female voice sensuously offered, “Valid
.”
Mark made change without another word and meaninglessly offered the woman a nice day.