An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (40 page)

“Message for Mitch Anson.”

“What?” said a voice from beyond the door as it opened
.
“Who knows
—
”

Greysky released the
tiny
spoon of the implosion grenade
.
“This is a gift from your former employees
.”
He flicked the fingertip explosive into the oval
opening
and slammed the door down on the surprised face.

Greysky felt the muffled
explosion
conducted through the street
.
He walked calmly away
,
already mentally spending his commission.

* * *
 

“So where are we off to this grand morning?” Tony asked brightly
.
For
Portland
at ground level, the day positively shined
,
with the barest of moisture drifting in the air and no clouds to speak of
.
The near silence of the time after night owls lay slumbering and the day seekers hadn’t quite emerged gave a rare pleasant experience
.

As nothing came without its polar opposite, the brightness highlighted the filth
.
Nearby,
a discarded washing machine on its side
rust
ed
itself into oblivion
as it
spill
ed
rotting garbage from its insides onto the cracked pavement
.
The quiet allowed Sonya to hear several insects vying for the muck
.
The smell of fresh sewage, free from the rain
, wafted up
.
Sonya sketched a little frown with her mouth, not because of the smell but rather the question
.
An experienced terrorist wouldn’t have even asked
.
He or she
should
trust their leaders and just follow
.
Despite Tony’s exceptional ideas and directions for the GAM
,
he still avoided embracing the lifestyle.

“Have I said something wrong?”
Tony inquired after she didn’t reply right away.

As they walked along,
Sonya ground off the burrs of her short fingernails along the
walls of the
ground
-
level masonry
like some gigantic emery board
.
She chided herself for her annoyance
.
“No
.
I just sometimes forget
.
You’re
so sophisticated in some ways and so downy fresh in others
.
Remember the tired old line from the
old
flaties
, ‘I could tell you but then
I’d
have to kill you?’”

“Yes.”

“Well, whenever you
ask
a question
,
you should think about whether you really want the answer
.”
She watched Tony’s face get thoughtful
.
He learned well, she thought to herself
, when he learned
.

It wasn’t as if she ignored the trio of heavily modified muggers lounging in the inset doorway, she just didn’t care
.
The three marched out, one drawing a modern variation of nunchaku, two short steel bars with a chain between
.
One
sported an
ancient police baton and the other a makeshift club
.
She knew they intended to kill
.
It didn’t matter
.
Before Tony even noticed their approach, the trio, as one, found an overpowering urge to head to the local bar for a frosty brew
, all
thoughts of mayhem erased, for now.

Tony hitched the shoulder
pack
back up
,
prompting a plaintive mew from within.
“Sorry, Cin.”

“She travels better than most cats,” Sonya said over the rather loud buzz of an ancient motorized bike that rushed by in a cloud of petroleum smoke
.

“I guess
she’s
still young
.
OK
, if you won’t tell me where
we’re
going, can you at least tell me what
we’re
going to do
?
I don’t even have so much as a pea shooter with me.”

“Good
.
Less to be found
.”
A shiver of happiness ran through her
.
She took a childish delight in teasing him
.
Food vendors began to flock the early morning streets, beginning their raucous calls for customers in twelve different languages from Hebrew to
Esperanto
.
Tony frowned
.
He opened his mouth as if to speak and then closed it
.
“We
’
re off to meet the
Family
,” Sonya said
,
taking pity on her friend
.

“Whose family?”

“The Family
, with a c
apital ‘F’
.
At least
that’s
how
they stylize themselves again.”

“Got it
.”
Tony once again opened his mouth and closed it suddenly
.
He did learn
.
“Ever been married?”

“Married
?”
She snorted
at the thought as much as the sudden change in subject
.
“Like any man or woman would have me
.”
She turned into an arbitrary building and started up the steps
.
Long ago she learned that in their line of work randomness foiled more mishaps than it caused.

“Why not
?
You
’
re attractive
,
in a lean tigress kind of way.”

“Check six,” she whispered back on the first landing
.
She felt no one
,
but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist
.
She faded into a doorframe, pulling her cloak tight about her to mask her presence
.
It didn’t work against cameras
,
but living people easily let their senses overrule their common sense
.
Tony continued up the second floor chatting as he went.

“Of course you aren’t my cup of tea
.
I wasn’t offering myself as a potential mate, termed or otherwise
.”

Tuning out her partner as he moved away, Sonya felt the building move gently beneath her feet and through the fingertips that she rested on the doorframe
.
The white noise of movement which engulfed her includ
ed
eight different sexual escapades, three couples arguing about credit, one weapons discharge, seventy different breakfasts, a myriad of mice and insects,
six
aerobics classes and too many other things all too jumbled up to make sense of
.
What she didn’t feel was someone tailing
.
No one took the steps
coming
up
behind
her
.
No one dashed ahead to get into a building in front of her
.
Flowing out of the shadows
,
she dashed up the stairs to rejoin her comrade
.

“So?”

“No one following.”

“No
.
Why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Why haven’t you ever been married?”

“I guess I’m attractive in my own way, but I’m a hermit
.
Having someone around me all the time would send me off the deep end
.
My personal privacy is too important
.
I don’t want anyone to have control over my life.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way
.”

Sonya snorted again
.
She
stepped around a wino living on the fourth floor landing.
“
And you
’
re an expert?”

“Well, no
.
But my parents managed to make it work.”

“Without getting in each other’s way
?
Without integrating themselves in each other’s lives
?
I don’t believe it,” she snapped
as
shrilly
as Tony remembered ever hearing her
.

“Wow, the way you say it makes it sound like a virus or parasite
.”

She took the time for a cortico-thalamic pause, that brief moment between stimulus and response
.
In her case it took five floors, and two building transfers
.
Finally, she replied in her normal
,
mellow tones.
“Sorry, but you hit one of my soap box topics,”
she explained,
jabb
ing
the call button of an old
-
fashioned elevator with particular vehemence
.
“I like my life
.
I don’t want to change my life
.
Anyone I add to it would change it.
I’ve watched friends get married
and
in almost all cases become miserable, or change into someone I wouldn’t want to call a friend
.”

To her surprise, Tony said nothing
.
She entered the elevator and pressed the combination for the eightieth floor
.
“Like most witches
,
I suppress my urges for domesticity or other entanglements with
the companionship of
my pets.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you angry,” Tony finally offered, somewhere around the forty-fifth floor
.

“You didn’t
.
It’s
just that assumption that someone has to have someone else to be a full person
—well, it
drives me crazy sometimes.”

“I was just trying to make conversation
.”

She really didn’t even hear him.
“If I have one regret
,
it’s
that I won’t have anyone to pass my gifts to
.”

The elevator door opened onto two imposing men in bodyguard yellow before Tony could continue dig
ging
into even more uncomfortable territory
.
One stood like a white, weathered mountain with an obvious Russie heritage
, t
he other his
polar
opposite, slight and fast,
with
the cast of the southern Asians.

“Hi Greg
,
Tuan
.
We’re here to see the Jamie.”

“Yo
u’
re supposed to come alone,” one barked
.
“You know the rules
.”
The other guard stood at attention
,
holding his flechette gun in a perfect diagonal cross of his bare chest
.

“Pish and tosh
.”
Only one as massive and tall as
Greg
could stare down at Sonya
.
She locked eyes with him and didn’t let them go
.
It took only
a
minute
.
She felt
Greg must be slipping.

“Well, give us some warning next time,” the guard said finally, giving up the staring contest.

“If you didn’t have us spotted at least ten minutes ago, I’d be surprised.”

“Whatever
.
Climb in,” he said
,
pointing at the portal of a scanning machine like they use at spaceports for carry-on luggage
.
The
entrance
on this end fed into a blank wall and came out somewhere beyond
.
Sonya jumped up onto the conveyor belt
and
lay
down
without a second thought
.
She remembered her trepidation the first time and hoped Tony handled it well.