Murder Inc.: A Sci-fi Thriller: Book 1 (2 page)

Charlie Billings slipped through the elevator doors and pressed the button for level twenty-eight. He faced the mirror and adjusted his tie. Standing a flat six feet tall, Charlie smiled at his appearance. He worked out every day to maintain his weight at a trim one hundred and eighty pounds and decided he should be proud of it, reflecting on his excess weight as a teenager. That meant finding time in his busy schedule to work out, but the memory of ridicule motivated him.

He was halfway to the twenty-eighth floor when the tone in his ear signaled an incoming call from his implant phone. He’d just had his implant chip replaced after the mandatory two years, but the connection to his ear was breaking up intermittently. This time, it worked, though. A soft voice spoke into his ear informing him it was Tom Bright, his colleague and good friend. Charlie gave the voice command to answer.

“Tom,” he said. “I’m almost at the office. Can I call—?”

“Don’t bother going there.” Charlie sensed the panic in his voice. “Meet me at Fullerton’s bar right away.”

“Okay.” A frown creased his forehead. “Give me five.”

“Don’t wait Charlie. You’re going to want to hear this.”

Charlie rode the elevator up to twenty-eight and then pressed the button for the ground floor, biting his nails as he considered what Tom had said.

Tom and Charlie had begun working at the company with a few months of each other. They were paired up at one of the early training sessions on the complex interworking of the company structure. Their love of beer and football had ensured a swift bond. Tom had snuck ahead in the executive stakes, and Charlie trusted him more than anyone else.

The call had to be about Dom Curwood. He’d been missing for three days now. Charlie and Tom, and most of the office, had speculated over his whereabouts; murdered or runaway were the popular choices. For Charlie and Tom though, his position—and more importantly, his condition—had greater importance.

He left the elevator on the ground floor, and contemplated taking his car, or even a company driver, to Fullerton’s Bar, but his vehicle would be too difficult to find parking for in that section of town, and the company would monitor the driver. No, he’d have to go on foot, a proposition that unnerved him. It wasn’t often he walked the streets of Lower Manhattan anymore, even with the protection the company afforded. He preferred the newer places closer to the office, in the throes of the city, lit with bright lights, and frequented by men and women in flashy suits.

As he passed out through the wide glass doors, Charlie made his way to a man sitting at the edge of the building. The man sat there most days, and most days Charlie would hand him a note of some monetary description. Although the man was a beggar, and the city encouraged people not to support them, Charlie couldn’t resist. When he’d been a boy, his parents had sponsored an African child. Those programs no longer existed, yet Charlie felt like he should continue the tradition, but preferred to keep his money in his own country—specifically on the streets.

The man greeted Charlie with a gracious wave and thanked him several times.

“Have a great day, Billy,” Charlie said, smiling as he walked away.

“You too, sir,” Billy said, in a hoarse but cheerful voice.

Charlie glanced up at the building that had been his place of work for two years. Dull light flashed off the windows. It wasn’t the largest building in the city, but it radiated
something
above the others in its glittering splendor. Maybe it was because he knew the kind of activities that went on within. Most buildings had faded to a smudge of their former luster. The Janefield building though, still twinkled under any lighting.

Away from the building, the humidity of early summer sniffed beneath his tie and low cloud sucked energy from the day. They promised rain, but Charlie knew it would sizzle and steam off the hot road as quickly as it came. Cars moved along in an orderly fashion, governed by their mostly automated drivers at a controlled speed. Watching them from the sidewalk reminded Charlie of the stories his father told of a time before regulated traffic kept vehicles at a constant speed—improving traffic congestion—throughout the city. But there weren’t as many cars now, his father always added, less wealth and a thick band of underprivileged the major contributors.

As he broke away from the busier section, the hard soles of his expensive shoes clicked on the concrete, attracting attention. A man wearing a long coat and pushing a small cart paused, looking up at him with gaping abandon. A young girl, dressed in drab pants and an oversized black jacket, sneered. Others, of similar social class, offered the same stares. He walked faster.

Eventually, as thick drops of warm rain began to fall, splattering the potholed street and causing steam to rise, he reached the bar. The smell in this area was pungent, old, and he twisted his nose as he climbed the first crumbling step.

The bar, named after a man who had travelled from Northern Ireland in the 1860’s, was built in the previous century, when wood—before the regulations on deforestation—and brick had been in greater supply. Charlie leaned into the door, and it pushed it open with the ring of a soft bell. Shadows, as he had suspected, greeted him in every corner, a streak of ancient, shiny wood covering the bar. A tall, bearded barman dried glasses with an old dishtowel. No robots here. The elderly, mostly lower class, converged on these sorts of places, wanting for memories of a world that had moved on.

Charlie let his eyes adjust to the light, peering through the odd cloud of smoke. The clunk of billiard balls sounded from the rear, where three or four old timers hunched over the table, glasses of beer between wrinkled, wiry fingers. They stopped and stared at him as though royalty had just entered. The barman smiled. An ancient LED television hung from the roof in the corner showing a baseball game from yesteryear. Charlie found Tom sitting in a booth near the back wall, footing tapping with nervous energy, smoke wafting in lazy swirls around him courtesy of the man next door.

Charlie slid into the spongy seat. “Tell me,” Charlie said. “What is it?”

Tom stared at an untouched soda in front of him. “We were right,” Tom said. “It’s started.”

A coil of uneasiness unfurled in Charlie’s belly. He knew. Jesus, he knew, but he asked anyway. “What?”

“Dom’s dead.”

“No.
No.
”

“They found his body this morning. Saying it’s suicide.”

Charlie looked up sharply. “Suicide? That’s bullshit.” Tom nodded. Charlie felt the life rush out, and he slumped back in the seat. “He predicted this.”

“I don’t know whether I can do it anymore.”

“The job?”

Tom frowned. “Not just the job, but the worry of it all. It’s changing, Charlie. I like Fox, don’t get me wrong, but he’s losing control. Bad shit is happening. Makes me not want to work there.”

“We go out into the real world, we’re no longer protected.”

“I know—as if they’ll let us leave, anyway.”

“I told you early on we should have done a runner.”

The bell over the door rattled and a middle-aged man in denim jeans and a faded brown leather jacket entered. He glanced their way, and headed for the bar.

Tom put his face in his palms and rubbed both eyes, as if trying to purge the badness of the situation. “All the goddamn money… the cars… the parties… the
girls
.”

Charlie glanced over at leather jacket, now seated. “No girls for me. I’m happily married.”

“We should’ve known it would all come back to account.”

“Do you look at the names?”

“No.
Never.
” Tom touched the base of the soda glass. “You?”

“Yeah, just to make sure I don’t know anybody.”

“You’re braver than me,” Tom said. Silence lingered. Finally, Tom said, “I understand the need for it all. I do. But I can’t do it anymore. I need to find a way out.”

“You think they know we’re talking?”

“Maybe. Dom talked about leaving all the time. Maybe they heard him.”

“Do you… think Dom could’ve killed himself?”

“
No
way.
”

“What if it just got too much for him?”

Tom shook his head. “They might say that because Charlotte died.”

Charlie swallowed; his throat suddenly dry. “You think they killed her as a warning?”

“Dom thought so.”

“Jesus, what if Samantha…”

“Don’t be silly,” Tom said, finally sipping at his soda. “She’ll be—”

Charlie jumped. “But that’s what they do. They kill our wives and families if we don’t comply. How many people over the years have suffered the same?”

Tom lapsed into further silence, rotating the glass between his fingers. Charlie glanced towards the bar and found leather jacket looking at them. Maybe he was a company spy.

“We should leave,” Charlie said, tipping his head towards the bar.

Tom nodded. They stood. “You think Fox had anything to do with it?” Tom asked after washing down his soda.

“No. He’s one of us. I’ll bet my life on that.”

“You might have to.”

“What about… Jennings?”

Tom narrowed his eyes. “He has been acting strange lately. Closing his door a lot. And he’s never there. I was going to mention it to Fox.”

“You should. You know what he says about reporting odd behavior.”

“Not for the VP of Operations.”

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t think it matters.”

“Oh, fuck, man. What a mess.”

Bryan Fox stood at the wide window of his den looking out beyond the house lights into the darkness. He’d taken to standing at windows and looking out at the world in thought more lately. Once upon a time, life had been too busy to bother. It seemed to have slowed down in recent times. Or maybe that was just him.

His image stared back in the window’s reflection. He’d aged well, even avoiding the typical cosmetic improvements most middle aged people embraced. He still had his own thick streak of grey hair and he supposed even if he began to stoop in old age, being six and a half feet tall had its advantages. Clean shaven with a trim grey moustache helped keep up appearances, too.

He stood a moment longer, the thirst for liquor growing deeper until it got the better of him. Where was the damn android with his glass of Scotch? He turned away from the window and almost ran into it. One of their three robots—or ‘Bot’s, as they were colloquially known—stood before him with a glass of amber liquid on a tray.

“Glenfiddich, single malt, 2015 vintage,” it said in its British butler voice.

Fox took the glass. “Thank you, James.” He silently thanked the Gods, too, for his wealth, and the ability to continually acquire alcohol. The government had placed it on their harmful foods and liquids register in the mid-thirties. For the common person to drink at home, one needed big money or deep connections. It was another item in the long list of things the government had deemed harmful to consumers and so had limited supply, or in some states, banned it entirely.

Fox sipped, rolling the scotch around in his mouth as he walked back to his desk, enjoying the drink’s smoothness. He would need more of it on this night. It was a time for consideration, in light of developments he hadn’t expected.

He sat in his ancient chair and rolled back to the desk. It had taken him years to find one of the roller-wheel style leather executive chairs from the early part of the century. Much of the “old technology” the world had once so heavily relied on had been recycled, its components reused in every imaginable way. He leant back, allowing thoughts of Dominic Curwood to fill his mind. Curwood was dead. One of Fox’s senior executives, a man that had been with him for a long time, upholding similar values and objectives along with a desire to make the world a better place. Jennings, his Vice president of Operations, had called Fox a little after six that morning and confirmed what they had begun to suspect following Curwood’s three-day absence. That he was indeed dead.
Suicide,
Jennings had said.
A large volume of pills for various ailments, no longer available over the drugstore counter
. Although, as Fox knew, anything was available if the price was right.

Curwood had been a good operator; well experienced, psychologically strong, and coping with the recent death of his wife.
Or perhaps not.
Suicide indicated otherwise. Jennings had played the point about Curwood’s wife with a strong hand, but Fox wasn’t so sure. There was apparently a note; Fox would read it.

He swallowed another mouthful, reminiscing. The company had gone through a bout of suspected suicides back in ’39. Fox almost lost his job. A struggle for power raged, though he had never proved they were murders. Something told him it was more of the same, and that things were changing again. He needed to speak to Jennings and find out what had transpired.

Fox had other worries. The quarterly business reviews were imminent. Six consecutive periods of diminishing returns meant his time was running out. He'd tried a host of strategies to lift the division’s revenue and curb expenses, but somehow, the profits had continued to dwindle. He'd demoted people, promoted others, and further incentivized his staff. Nothing, it seemed, would fix the declining top or bottom line. Despite years of excellent results, Fox knew that previous performance mattered little. Every month was a new month and a new budget, new income and profitability to acquire, the amounts always increasing, even if ever so slightly, and with one condition—deliver or they would replace him with. It was ruthless, yet so were the company's actions, one couldn’t exist without the other. If he didn’t turn it around soon,
they
would, and he wouldn't be the only one to suffer.

The truth was he knew how to lift the revenue, but wasn’t prepared to use such
tactics. He supposed the meant he was no longer the right man for the job; at least not the way Chekov wanted things run. Fox had wondered increasingly over the past few years; the question had arisen numerous times—often late at night, when sleep eluded him, after the effects of the whisky had faded, and Piper had drifted off to sleep. Was his time as CEO up? Should he get out before his reputation and the life he had built crumbled around him? If he was honest with himself—and he was only truly so in the dark recesses of midnight—he had considered that question for some time.

Two things prevented him from deciding: of all the men he had met carrying out similar roles over his long tenure, he knew of only a handful that were still alive. What had happened to the others he did not know; however, those surviving had all resigned on successful terms. The other concern was his family—Piper, his sons— Jonathan and James, and their extended families. Fox knew, despite the contractual assurances of his life beyond the company, that people outside its realm lived a different life. He would, in all likelihood, lose the protective blanket upon his departure, and then his number—or Piper's, or one of the grandkids'—would come up and they would become a statistic amongst millions of others. Would he risk his grandkids, Sarah and Daniel?
No.
He couldn't do that. He had worked his whole life at this wretched gain; not for the money or the rewards, but for the safety of his family. That was the truth. Guarantees were worth the price of guilt; he had made his peace many years ago. The moment Fox raised the question of his future with his superiors that existence was in jeopardy.

A sound drew him from thought. Piper was leaning against the doorway in her nightgown. His sensory perceptions were dwindling.

“Are you okay?”

He looked at her for a long time. They had been together for forty-one years, and she wasn’t the kind of woman easily tricked, especially when it came to his moods. “So so.”

She walked from the doorway towards him; even after so long, she still possessed a sensual movement that had attracted her to him all those years ago. “What is it?”

“Trouble at work.”

She frowned. “I’ve noticed.” Fox raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been there almost as long as we’ve been together. You’d think I’d have worked out your moods by now.” She considered what to say next. “Will it blow over this time?”

Fox wanted to nod; wanted to assure her it would blow over and that she didn’t have to worry. He wanted her to continue believing as she had all these years, still oblivious to his real business. But the time for lies and deceit were up—at least for further such doings. “I don’t think so, my love. This time I think there might be some trouble I can’t fix.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

He waved it off. “Nothing I want to bore you with.”

“You don’t bore me. I love hearing about your job—what little you tell me of it.”

“You know that everything I’ve done; all the long hours and travel have always been for you and the kids.”

“Of course. You’ve given us an incredible life.” She narrowed her eyes, a deeper expression of concern washing over her beautiful features. “And we’ll have a wonderful life if you decide to retire. You’ve only got a few more years.”

“I regret working so much. I really do.”

She came to him and they embraced, sweet and gentle and the kind of touch that can only exist after a lifetime of love. “Well, whatever happens, whatever you do, I’ll be by your side.

“You know, even after all these years, I’ve never loved you more.”

Piper frowned. “What a sweet thing to say, Bryan.”

For once
, Fox thought,
the truth.