Company Man 1.0 --Introduction-- by Patrick Hurh
copyright 1994
I'm writing this introduction to preface the archived Company Man
files that Hubert Bartels has graciously agreed to house as a
separate file on the Chatsubo archives (catalina.opt-
sci.arizona.edu/pub/chatsubo). This allows new readers to ftp the
whole series easily and old readers to ftp the series to fill in any
episodes they may have missed. If anyone needs only one or two
episodes and is adverse to downloading the entire series, please feel
free to e-mail me (hurh@fnal.fnal.gov) and I'll send them to you.
Company Man was written over the period of about 10 months or so. It
was originally started as a simple exercise to train my writing
talents in two ways. One, to keep me writing on a consistent basis
and, two, to write a little more quickly (turn off that damn internal
editor!). The exercise quickly snowballed due to reader interest and
my own active imagination into a long and complex story told in short
episodic cliff-hanger-like installments.
The pulp series format was an attempt to keep my writing flowing
without worrying too much about literary content (cliche's, stupid
metaphors, or shallow characters). I just wanted to train myself to
write greater than, at that time, 300 words per hour! Thus, the
series is very pulpy and not too deep. The only recurrent theme that
could require a lot of reader thought is that of trust versus
loyalty.
The original posts included my own comments and acknowledgments on
each episode. I did not save these comments so the episodes archived
here are 'stripped' of such notes. Of those comments I only remember
a couple of acknowledgments listed below:
- Tae-Guk Station's architecture is based loosely on Greg Bear's
Thistledown from his book _Eon_.
- The acro-dogs in the Vortex Hall are inspired from similar
creatures from one of Iain Bank's 'culture' novels (_Consider
Phlebas_, I think).
- Terminology such as 'vid-screen' was lifted from numerous PK Dick
short stories.
All characters and plot devices are generally original (as much as I
can tell; my imagination is doubtless an amalgam of other authors),
including the concepts of Arachniware, acceleration gel, and Lake
Miowa ;-)
The series is probably best read in sittings of only one or two
episodes each, making for good noon time reading. Taken all at once,
the cliffhangers are probably too annoying.
Please excuse typos and minor continuity mistakes. I have not
rewritten the series for this archive. These are the episodes as
they appeared when I posted them. I'm sure you can find a lot of
faults if you look for them.... Just take it as an enjoyable read.
I hope you enjoy Company Man, and please send any and all comments to
me via e-mail (hurh@fnal.fnal.gov). BTW, the exercise worked on
point two (I'm up to 1000 words an hour), but failed on point one....
Writing is still the most painful pleasure I can put myself through.
--patrick.
7-14-94
____________________________________________________
Company Man 1.1 by Patrick
Hurh
copyright
1993
The report of the small muzzled pistol was almost indiscernible
over the thundering slams of the battering ram against the outer door
of the containment lock. The man struggling to get his legs into a
bulky pressure suit suddenly straightened his lanky body, his arms
finally jerking the bottom half of the suit on in a spasm.
"Fish!..." he cried, and then tumbled forward. Blood from the small
wound in his back seeped through soiled orange coveralls.
Kwanchaan leaped forward at the downed man and curled his
finger around the sweaty trigger again. This time much more
confidently than the last. "Don't call me Fish," he said softly and
another muffled pop was lost amongst the noise in the small lab field
room.
Kwan turned quickly to look at the inner containment lock door.
Its massively reinforced steel was not shuddering yet. Security must
still be battering the outer door. That gave him some time at least.
He passed his fingertips over his closed lips, brushing them slightly
in thought.
Surveying the room for useful equipment was almost useless. He
didn't know what most of it was for. Kwanchaan's eyes rapidly darted
from one brightly lit mechanical device to another. One entire wall
was full of refrigerated cabinets, the transparent cabinet doors
revealing row after row of petri dishes. He started towards them and
then halted hesitatingly. What good would the tech be if I'm going
to die trying to get out of here. He looked at the other body in the
room. Dr. Roberta Gonzales was on her side in a pool of blood. He
crossed to her quickly and bent down to look at her face. She was
indeed Gonzales. "No Gonzales, no tech, and no god damn way out... I
am truly fucked," he said outloud. He straightened upright and gazed
stiffly at the booming door. The slams were louder now and
accompanied by the screech of metal ripping each time the ram
extricated itself from the outer door. This wasn't how it was
supposed to go.
Kwan stood still listening to the rhythm of the crashes and
screams of battered steel. What the hell was he supposed to do? His
hand holding the pistol began shaking uncontrollably. His breath was
short and shallow. Eyes open wide, he twirled about the room
searching for anything that could help him. An incredible crash
echoed through the lab room and suddenly he could hear voices of the
spiders that were searching for him. He knew they were through the
outer door. He started to babble, "Oh shit, they're through the
door. Shit, shit, shit. They're through the fuckin' door...fuck."
He threw the pistol wildly at the door and covered his mouth loosely
with one hand. He ran back to the half-suited figure on the floor.
Kwan continued to mumble obscenities through the curled
knuckles of his hand as he pulled at the inert body on the floor with
an outstretched arm. The death head of Scott rolled at him as he
turned the body over. The bullet from Kwan's second shot had exited
the head just above the eye, tearing much of Scott's forehead away
with it. "Fuck."
Kwanchaan looked away from the citizen's face aghast and
towards the pressure suit clumped at his midsection. The suit!
Scott was doing something to it when Kwanchaan set off the alarm.
And when the spiders came knocking at the outer door, the fucking
traitorous hacker had yelled something about ditching Fish and
started to pull the thing on.
He pulled the suit from Scott's long white fingers and wrestled
it off the dead legs frantically. His mind grasped at the action of
getting into the pressure suit. No matter how irrational it seemed,
it was something he could understand how to do. Kwan pulled off his
boots with a sucking sound and stuck his feet into the leg openings
in the suit. The suit was about five sizes too big, but that made it
easier for him to dive into it.
The inner door was now cracking open with each impact of the
security spider's ram. Kwan glanced at it and quickly gave up on
trying to thread his hands through the suits arms and into the
strange shaped gloves he felt there. He reached down and managed to
zip the suit up from the inside almost to the neck of the suit. The
suit was so big Kwan's head didn't even reach the inflatable head
bubble. His eyes were level with the chin switches in the stiff
bottom half of the helmet bubble. He stared at them as the lights
went out in the room. The tremendous blows of the automated ram must
have jarred the overhead light circuit.
Kwanchaan stumbled in the oversized suit with his arms folded
up inside the torso. The free flexible arms of the suit flapped with
his struggling motions and swept small tools and devices off of
neighboring lab counters. The debris hit the floor in a clatter
amidst sudden silence. The battering ram had stopped when the lights
had gone out. Kwan tried to turn to face the door. His left foot
trod on the flipper like boot of his right foot and he crumpled to
the floor with a thud. He listened.
Although the suit and partially destroyed door heavily muffled
the voices of the spiders, Kwan could still make out a word or two.
Something about emergency lighting. He smiled in the darkness. The
idiots still didn't know that Scott had hacked their entire phys ops
system, just leaving a shell of life support and faulty indicators.
Still that got him nowhere. He was still dead unless he could figure
a way out. Somehow he did feel safer hidden in the suit though. He
jerked his body around until he lay on his side in a fetal position.
A dull glow of yellow light filtered its way in through the
deflated helmet bubble above his head. "Shit," Kwanchaan whispered.
A flurry of spider voices and the pounding of the ram began again.
By the sound of it, the door would give way soon.
Kwan stared at the darkened forms of smooth chin switches
before him. They were so close to his face he couldn't even focus on
them. He had no idea what they were for, but he hoped one of them
powered up the suit somehow. He snaked one of his hands up next to
his face. In the constrained neck of the suit, he had to smash the
back of his hand against his nose in order to just touch the bottom
of one of the switches. But he couldn't extend his hand enough to
flip it.
The pounding of the ram ended in what sounded like a small
explosion. The inner containment door finally gave way and crashed
to the floor.
Kwan froze in the suit as the room was entered by the spider
security team. He saw streaks of light through the helmet bubble as
the spiders splayed the room with ultrasonics and the glow from hand
held flashlights.
"Got two positives down!"
"Make that three!"
"No that's the drill suit..."
Kwan heard rushed footsteps in the room and scuffles as bodies
were prodded.
"Looks clear to me..."
"Shut up, Forrester. That's my decision."
"Well, there isn't anywhere to hide in this room. All the
cabinets are transparent and the venting system is interlocked for
chemical isolation."
"I said shut up, dumb shit. No one puts down their guns 'til
we identify these two Yellows."
The one called Forrester piped up again. "How do we know
they're Yellows?"
The spider team leader, "'Cause who else would be all the way
out here for fuckin' spiderware except the Cat. Now go check that
suit out, Forrester."
Footsteps neared Kwan's head. He heard the rustle of the loose
double polymer helmet material inches above his head as Forrester
prodded it with his gun. Kwan bit his lip to keep from yelping.
"Nobody home here, boss."
Forrester backed away from the suit, his footsteps merging into
the other shuffling noises of the spiders as they looked around the
empty room.
"Shit," the leader spoke. "This one's Doctor Gonzales... The
other Yellow must still be in here."
Boots suddenly broke into a frenzied scuffling as spiders
searched for targets. Kwan tried reaching one of the chin switches
again. He could almost reach it...
"The suit! It's..."
Kwanchaan punched his hand upwards as hard as he could. The
switch flicked over. The suit popped and suddenly inflated with air
launching Kwan off the floor with a start. He could hear guns firing
into the floor below him. He thrust his hands into the now
unobstructed arm holes of the suit. His left hand grabbed some sort
of control and squeezed impulsively.
The suit shot around the room on its one of its attitude
thrusters. It crashed into wall after wall as Kwan pumped the hand
control spasmodically. He could feel ribs crush and blood was
already flowing from his nose into his eyes. He could hear screams
from the spiders. Some were shot from their own cross fire as he
ricocheted about the room. His head jammed into another of the chin
switches and a he felt rather than heard a great roar from the middle
of his chest. His chest seemed to collapse from the roar and he was
flung backwards against a wall. Kwan stopped pumping the attitude
control and for a moment all seemed silent.
Moans from a couple of men left alive in the lab room combined
with a low creaking sound to create an eerie wailing noise. He
realized he was doing most of the moaning. He shut his mouth and
tried to start crawling away. But it was too painful to move. The
deep creaking was joined with a high hissing sound. A sound that was
easy to identify. He heard one of the spiders call out weakly,
"Breach..." followed by the faint scrabbling sounds of the soldier
trying to reach the containment hatchway. The low protestations of
the station's hull continued to grow. Popping and cracking sounds
joined the wail of the hull in staccato counterpoint. Kwan tried to
move again. Searing white hot spikes stuck in his chest. He started
to moan again as the hissing increased abruptly.
The explosion of the hull into the vacuum of space was
incredibly loud... and short. Kwanchaan felt himself lift from the
pressure of the deck beneath him and rush towards the unseen breach.
He craned his neck and peered out the top of the pressurized suit in
time to see a ragged burnt hole blur by him as he sailed into vacuum.
Then everything was silent. Without the air to carry the mayhem to
his ears, he could only hear his own raspy breathing as he passed
out.
*************************************************************
Warm rivulets of water cooled rapidly as they ran down his bare
back. He stepped from the chromed shower stall and grabbed a plush
white towel from one of the wall racks. The towel was stitched with
the words, "Peoria Hilton", in thick black threads. He opened the
door of the bathroom a handbreadth to allow the steam from his shower
escape into the cool climate control of the hotel room. Not wanting
to wait for the mirror to uncloud on its own, he pulled a fresh towel
from the rack and swabbed the wall sized surface. He glanced at his
reflection for just a moment before using yet another towel to dry
his dark hair.
He let his small frame dry slowly, hips wrapped in the last
bath-size towel, as he combed through his thick hair and brushed his
bright white teeth. The cold air of the bedroom invaded the small
bath and evaporated the last sheen of water from his body. His light
brown skin broke out into a dimpled surface of tight goose pimples.
He shivered slightly and hurried from the bathroom, satisfied that he
had used all the towels the hotel had left for him.
He ignored the blinking message light on the vid-phone console
and quickly crossed to the neat pile of clothes he had laid out the
night before. He pulled on bulky but loose fitting pants, pleats
running from the waist to well below the knees. He covered his torso
with his only white linen shirt, extravagantly expensive. He
buttoned its ancient buttons with care and, as he tucked the tails
in, appraised the line of the shirt's cut in the mirror over the
dresser. His wide, flat feet slipped into a pair of foam insulated
black boots which slowly constricted as the heat from his body
triggered the foam's shape memory. He added accessories to his
groomed outfit. A black belt with a gold buckle, gold plated
cufflinks and a bright yellow neck tie, narrow and stiff.
He crossed to the vid-phone console next to the bed and punched
up his messages. His fingers adjusted the knot of his tie as he
listened. The first message was audio only.
"Message One for.... Mr. Kwanchaan Vishnu Phadwahji, Junior
Executive of Product Development, Caterpillar Enterprises. Issued
by.... Caterpillar Personnel Placement Department. Received by
Peoria Hilton Message service at.... 06:20:56. Security encryption
level... zero. Subject..."
The voice cut short as he tapped the button to forward to the
message itself. The voice resumed.
"Mr. Phadwahji, please report to the Personnel Department,
Cooler briefing room, at nine o'clock this morning for discussion of
possible job placement. This meeting is mandatory."
The box issued a small squawk and the blinking message light
went out.
Kwanchaan Vishnu Phadwahji grabbed his suit jacket from the
back of a chair and slipped it over the smooth texture of his shirt.
He turned quickly on his heel and headed out the door. He hadn't
really needed the reminder of his meeting this morning. After all,
it was the entire reason for him being in Peoria at all. The first
step of his surely illustrious career was going to be taken in just
under an hour. His steps down the carpeted hallway were measured but
unhurried. He had learned in recruit school how to walk with
authority but without seeming rushed or overly determined.
Recruit school had taught him many other skills as well. Five
years of military like training and loyalty swearing in the Chicago
school had groomed Kwanchaan into an excellent example of fresh, new
company talent. He felt like his life had started there and not in
Bakersfield, California twenty-six years ago. He was born a United
States citizen and was sent through the US public school system by
his second generation mixed race parents. They were true patriots.
Even while the entire neighborhood went corporate, his parents, the
ever astute and unwavering Drs. Phadwahji's, stuck to strict US
doctrine. They would never give up on the nation that gave their
parents the opportunity to start all over again in the grand USA with
nothing but a dime in their pockets and the rags on their backs.
Meanwhile, Kwan's friends transferred to corporate schools,
participated in corporate youth leagues and were treated for the
inevitable scratches of youth at reputable corporation run hospitals
and trauma centers. Kwanchaan learned US history from fifteen year
old textbooks... books, for god's sake! He paid fees taken out of
his low allowance each week to play in the Yamaha Summer Little
League until he got his nose broken by a not so random wild pitch.
And when he was taken to the Yamaha Trauma Center by mistake, he was
refused at the nurses desk and had to wait outside the concrete
bunker of a building for three hours in sweltering heat for his
father to come and set the crumpled nose himself in the back of their
ten year old station wagon.
After his parents divorced, his mother revoked her US
citizenship and became a renaturalized citizen of the new Unified
Korea nation, Kwanchaan made up his mind to betray his country and
join a company as soon as he was of legal age. Unfortunately this
also meant he would have to become accepted into a recruit school of
a major corporation. He buried himself into his studies for the last
two years of his high school life. He discouraged friendships with
his citizen classmates and followed the exploits of his favorite
corporations in the trade magazines which he hid under his mattress
as a normal boy would squirrel away pornography. Kwan missed most of
the adolescent experience and he blamed it on the US government for
its seeming educational ineptitude and his father for his unflinching
patriotism. Most of his high school memories were painful ones of
rejection and boring, mind numbing memorization. His acceptance
into the Cat Company College was the reward. A reward without
benefit until today.
Today he graduated. The past five years were filled with
grueling mental and physical exercises and tutorship, but today it
was over. Not with the pomp and circumstance celebration of a
nation-state graduating their spoon-fed students to take the places
of their parents in a welfare state, but with the quiet efficiency of
a well-oiled corporation.
Gone are the days of barracks living, dawn exercises and
personality inventory exams, Kwanchaan thought. Gone are the hours
of struggling to keep control of a young platoon of recruits, the
back-stabbing conferences of psychological manipulation, and unending
polygraph sessions.... Gone is the hated nick-name of 'Fish'... Here
is the first hour of my new life.
Kwanchaan walked up to the closed elevator door and pushed the
button at its side. He glanced at the floor indicator above the
button and counted silently to seven, in time with his pulse rate. He
strode forward just before the doors opened. His entrance was
perfectly timed. The doors peeled open just as his left boot swung
through the air between them.
There was no one in the elevator. Kwan turned to watch the
doors sweep closed and said, "Lobby." The inside of the doors were
chromed brilliantly with only small local distortions of the
substrate metal near the bent corners of the doors to mar his
reflection. He studied himself for a moment. The meeting coming up
was not only his graduation but his first job assignment. The
assignment would be based on the needs of Cat and his recruiters'
opinion of his capabilities. Many executives' careers had been
broken before they started by a bungled first job. Kwanchaan could
not let that happen to him. He had worked much to hard for this
chance. He wondered what jobs would be trusted to a rookie
executive. Probably something mundane without much responsibility.
Cat probably left the defector and merger missions to the more
experienced executives.... like Jim Hawthorne, the infamous
Arachniware executive. Someday, Kwanchaan thought, someday.
Kwan peered at his reflection in the doors. His thoughts of
Jim Hawthorne made him selfconciously aware that his chosen outfit,
down to the linen shirt on his back, was a poor imitation of the
picture he saw of Hawthorne in the last issue of Inside Trader. He
was sure that Hawthorne's face in the picture was not his real face,
but the clothes were certainly cut with class. "Well, what's good
enough for Jim, is good enough for me." He slipped one hand into the
oversized jacket waist pocket smoothly and leaned back against the
elevator wall, modeling the suit in the doors' reflection.
The elevator had almost descended to the lobby level. Ten more
seconds, his internal clock told him. Kwanchaan knew that this
meeting was going to go smoothly. He had thought of everything, as
usual, and he had packed all necessary paperwork and other related
data in his leather bound data pouch the night before. He patted his
chest to assure himself of its existence in his jacket pocket. It
wasn't there. An irrational panic began to sweep through him. He
went through his other pockets in rapid order. All his pockets were
completely empty. He must have forgotten to put anything at all into
his pockets before leaving his room. His panic ebbed as he realized
he still had 54 minutes before he had to show up at the Caterpillar
complex across the street.
Kwanchaan Vishnu Phadwahji stared ashamedly at his own
reflection as the doors opened to the hotel lobby. His face bore a
peculiar shade of red as he strode forward with mock confidence
towards the lobby desk to politely ask for a spare key.
Company Man 1.2 by
Patrick Hurh
copyright 1993
Kwanchaan's pain started with a sneeze. The sneeze startled him out
of his state of grogginess and forced him to open his eyes. The pain
was deep in his gut and, as he explored it, continued out from his
torso in fading waves to his extremities where it beat and crackled
in small fireworks of intense pinpricks. His view of the stars
outside of the bubble helmet was tinged with red. At first he
thought it was just the fine spray of bloody mist from his sneeze,
but as he struggled to look beyond the foreground mess he realized
that he was spinning wildly end over end and the crimson pool at the
edge of his vision was the blood still _in_ his body, forced to his
head. His arms were splayed out over his head, pulled by a couple
G's of centrifugal acceleration. He stared at the blurry mess of
stars whirring by and wondered why he wasn't dead yet.
Grimacing, Kwan pulled his heavy hands down from above his head
towards his hurting body. As he pulled them in toward his center of
mass, he began to spin more rapidly. His vision grew even more dark
and crimson. When his arms were at about shoulder level, he passed
out again.
**************************************************
Sweltering heat and stagnant air had, over the years, spawned a
thick miasma which assailed Kwanchaan's entire person with a clinging
pungency. The smell of Peoria. Risen from the depths of Lake Miowa,
the stench was not the direct product of industrial plants and sewage
treatment facilities, but rather, the lack of. When the earthquake
of '93 hit, just after the peak of the Great Flood, the course of the
Mississippi was altered cataclysmically to pound into new territory
east of its millennia old banks. When it found the already furrowed
seed of the Illinois/Fox rivers, it sprang along the new path,
slicing a mile wide furrow through Peoria and filling the basin of
land from there to its old habitat with dark murky water. Lake Miowa
was born (although mainly contained within the original borders of
Illinois) and another Great Lake, this one already filled with septic
tank sewage and pesticide runoff, forced topographers and
cartographers back to their CRT's.
Kwanchaan stepped off the Hilton's stoop and ignored the cabbies
and limos that lit in front of him. He gracefully sauntered around
the chromed bumpers and bleeding tail lights to reach a center weed-
covered median in the center of the hotel's driveway. He looked
across the street at Caterpillar's newly rebuilt headquarters.
Yellow walls glowed a shimmering golden sheen under the morning's
unrelenting sun. He patted his chest once again to ensure that his
data pouch was secure and stepped off the curb and down into a dank
underpass beneath the furious highway.
After stepping down three short flights of wooden stairs ('Sorry
for the inconvenience,' glowed a dozen fluorescent signs), he reached
the card reader which controlled access to the underpass. Cat tape
card already in hand, Kwan zipped the card through the reader's thin
slot and proceeded into the seeping tunnel.
By the time he got to the other end, his tape card was safely in
his data pouch and the pouch was back in his yellow jacket's inner
pocket. Kwan stepped into the tawny lit elevator awaiting him and
said, "Personnel."
The Cooler briefing room wasn't named for its cool climate
control. The room was just a couple of degrees cooler than the
outside air that was breezing in through the cracked windows that
lined the west wall of the room. The secretary who had ushered him
in said something about aftershocks, but after fifty years?
Kwanchaan looked out over the rebuilt and expanding city. The Cooler
was on the twentieth floor (second to the highest floor in the
building since new building codes refused permits to any buildings
over 300 feet) and he could spy out the hastily poured gray-micro
levies that had saved the city from complete destruction. Still, the
city was an exploding shambles. "Why control a mega-corp from
here?," Kwan thought. Even though Chicago was reduced to less than a
million people packed onto a twenty mile swath of land between the
Fox and Lake Michigan, it still offered more in the way of culture
and refinement than pork-fed Peoria.
Kwanchaan sighed and turned from the window toward the expanse
of a heavily lacquered oak conference table. Twenty more seconds,
his internal clock told him. He pulled a cushioned chair out from
the table and sat down with his legs crossed, european style. He
rubbed the small beads of nervous sweat from his upper lip with a
quick flicker of his finger tips and leaned back.
The hiss of the door exactly at nine o'clock did not surprise
Kwan. Of course his administrators would be at least as punctual as
he was trained to be. A short, pudgy woman trod heavily into the
static room. She glanced at Kwanchaan superficially and dropped into
a facing chair. She wore a yellow smock/moo moo affair with a brown
scarf tied about her flat head, smashing her curly, mousy hair, like
a terri-cloth headband. Although Kwanchaan could tell it was pure
silk.
"Mister Pad-woah-gee, I presume," she belted out in syllabic
bursts. "Sorry to only be 'just on time', but the pedway is out from
my usual sector of this rathole."
"That's quite all right, sec. I'm pleased just to be here."
Kwan couldn't quite make out if she was really this informal by
personality or if she really held some position of great power, or
both. He had used the pronoun of secretary to be on the
conservative.
"I'm Secretary Goldbreath," she emphasized 'goldbreath'
lubriciously and withheld a snicker just after saying it. "But you
can call me Goldie."
"Yes, sec.... I mean... Goldie."
"Good. I knew you could do it." Goldbreath stared at a point
just above Kwan's left nipple for half a second, then continued,
"Just between you and me, Fish-nu... I've looked at your recruit
school record and your personality inventories and I like you.
You're straight company line, innovative and skinny too."
Kwanchaan was flying high, a stupid grin breaking on his face,
until he heard the last comment. He puffed out his meager chest
perceptively.
"You...," Goldbreath continued, "you, I'm going to give a
special assignment. One that will try every ounce of your tired
little rookie ass." The yellow tent on her shoulders rustled as
Goldie leant forward plop her elbows on the edge of the table. "If
you want it..."
Kwan had bent forward and placed his own arms on the table when
the Secretary had done the same, almost unconsciously and definitely
conspiratorially. "Yes....," he whispered with a half growl in his
voice. "I want the job."
"I thought you'd say that." Goldbreath reached into some hidden
slit in her robe and withdrew a small sheaf of papers, folded once
lengthwise, and bound together with a green rubber band. She slapped
the package on the table. A small bright yellow diskette slid out
halfway from the folds of paper with the impact. "Here's the job.
Simple really. Infiltrate the Spindle Station, pick up Roberta and
high tail it out."
Kwan covered the documents lightly with his small hands and
looked at her. "Uhh... What do you mean: infiltrate?"
"Fish-nu... fish-nu...," Kwan flinched at those sounds. "Don't
you know what Spindle Station is?"
"It's an asteroid mining station."
"And who is it run by?..."
"The spiders... uh.. I mean Arachniware corp."
"Good. So what's your question?" Goldbreath leaned forward
even further until her trachea was so stretched out along her ribcage
that her breath was noticeable as audible wheezes.
"Uh... What am I supposed to do?" He thought he knew what he
was supposed to do, but this was defection and merger talk. A rookie
couldn't possibly be entrusted with this kind of thing.
"You are supposed (...wheeze...) to infiltrate Spindle
(...wheeze...), pick up Doctor Roberta (...wheeze...) Gonzales, and
bring her back (...wheeze...) HERE!" Goldbreath fell back into her
chair. The table creaked as she dragged her arms along it.
"But what about a team to help me?" Kwan whined.
"It's all in the package." She blinked down at the pile under
his hands. "Recruit some of the citizens recommended there..."
"Citizens?," Kwanchaan peered into her small eyes. "I can't
work with citizens... they don't have any loyalties!"
"Their loyalty is the money and the chance to let their
patriotic morality fly out the window for the sake of the job." She
intoned this like an incantation. "They'll do what you want, if you
know how to ask them."
Kwanchaan picked at the edges of the folds of paper in front of
him. He looked up at the Secretary, sighed, and then slowly
collapsed from the front edge of the chair into the cushioned depths
of the high back chair. He knew this job was over his head. Way
over his head. How could they ask a junior executive to do this.
Either they really liked him or he was being set up for a fall.
Either way he had to do the job or he was fucked.
Secretary Goldbreath inhaled suddenly, "Well, that's it. I'm
heading back to my slightly cooler sector." She eased out of the
chair, one buttock at a time. "You have an expense account set up on
your Cat PIN and the rest should be self-explanatory." She pointed
at the papers on the table and turned to exit the Cooler.
"Wait!," Kwanchaan called. "What if Gonzales doesn't want out?"
Goldie turned back slowly with a placating grin on her face.
"She's the one that contacted us. Of course she wants out... If she
changes her mind, kill her and take whatever prototype tech you can
and get your skinny oriental ass back to Cat!"
Kwanchaan stared at her, stunned.
She turned quickly and walked toward the door. When it didn't
hiss open as expected, Goldie stopped just shy of it and cursed,
"Fuckin' shit hole." She uplifted a heavy hand and slapped it open-
palmed against the door. The door chugged into operation and
haltingly slid open. Goldbreath started to walk through the doorway,
hesitated and then quarter-turned towards Kwan still seated at the
conference table.
"By the way... Happy Graduation," she threw called over her
shoulder and exited. The door slid shut behind her, her sweaty palm
print riding it back to stare at Kwanchaan.
Yeah, Kwan thought, happy fucking graduation...
**********************************************
Pain woke him once again as he twirled through vacuum. He saw
the stars swim blindingly face across the polymer of the bubble
helmet. He groaned and winced at the sound. What was he doing still
alive?
Kwan had to stop this spinning, so he could stop the blood
pounding in his head. He realized his hands were splayed out above
his head, pulled there by the incessant flipping. He struggled to
pull them in. The more he pulled them in, the more he had to
struggle. The lights were flashing faster now... His vision turned
dark...
Company Man 1.3 by Patrick Hurh
copyright 1993
He fired the right hand attitude jet again, about a one second
spurt. Something was wrong with the left hand jet. He just felt a
kind of high frequency vibration with no discernible effect when he
squeezed its trigger. He doubled up his short body and uncurled it
again as quick as his pain would allow. His head floated back up
into the bubble helmet, his hands letting go of the attitude and
other digit controls at the ends of the suit's long arms.
Kwan's spin had slowed to an inching crawl. It had taken him
about a half an hour of flipping toggles and squeezing strange
cushioned levers to achieve, but he took fatigued satisfaction in
this accomplishment. He watched stars slowly rotate about him. The
station that had spit him out would float into view every so often
from the left and disappear to the right. It was still brightly
reflecting the sun's light, solar panels spread out in long backward
jointed arms. From this distance it looked like a metallic spider
poised on a dark wall of stars... not menacing, just poised, ready
for action. Hard to believe that probably everyone on it was dead or
dying.
His chest and gut didn't hurt so much now. He had found a
glowing red cross symbol just above a chin switch. When he flipped
it moist pressure surrounded his entire torso region with a hiss.
The constriction was comforting and Kwan hoped it had stopped any
external blood loss and he was sure that it also acted like a giant
derm. A warm anesthetic swept through his body, leaving him a little
giddy but calm.
Unfortunately with the medic cocoon wrapped around him, he no
longer floated freely within the expanse of the suit. He had to kick
and fold his legs in strange gyrations in order to transport himself
between positions where he could reach the digit and attitude jet
controls in the gloves and where he could look out of the bubble to
observe the external effects of his blind adjustments.
Kwanchaan winced and shrugged his shoulders to move him back down
to the controls. He had only a few more to experiment with in the
right glove before he had tried them all. He inserted his hand in
the large glove, carefully avoiding the large palm squeeze lever,
that one had precipitated the original breach. His fingers slid into
a stiff framework of hinged plastic and webbed polyamide. He
immediately bent his two smallest fingers until he felt the framework
lock into a toggle position. He removed his hand, bent fingers
barely managing to slip out of the toggled position, and kicked his
way back up to the helmet bubble. Nothing looked different.
His eyes scanned the indicator lights above the chin switches.
Something bright stabbed at his eyes from the extreme edges of the
bank of lights. As he turned his eyes to look, he heard the hiss of
the attitude jets and suddenly he was spinning in space again. He
quickly looked back to the center of the helmet and he heard the hiss
again. Slowly his rotation stopped, attitude jets firing short
bursts of static in percussive patterns. He now saw, floating in
front of his face a very fine and light gridwork of green lines. As
he turned his head to see if it extended beyond his immediate range
of vision, the suit began to turn again accompanied by the sound of
thrusting jets. "H-U-D," Kwan muttered, and then smiled.
He looked back down at the chin switches, surprised that the suit
didn't track the vertical motion of his eyes. Actually it made sense
when he thought about it. He didn't want to be flipping somersaults
every time he looked at a chin switch or status light. Small
floating beads of sweat and blood collided into his open eyes for
about the tenth time. He blinked the sticky moisture away and
worried for the tenth time if the suit's air system had been damaged
in the escape from the spiders.
His eyes refocused on the status lights. The one that sported a
small, dimly flashing icon of a red audio speaker had him bothered.
He wasn't able to discern any hint of a communication system except
for this and if it was indicating that it was damaged, his chances of
being picked up by a scavenger or rescue ship were slim. Especially
this far from the mining station.
Kwan squirmed his way towards the top of the suit. The attitude
jets hissed as his eyes cast about the helmet until he tilted his
head upwards and the tracking beams lost his eyes. His shoulders now
touched the underside edge of the stiff collar ring and he doubled up
his legs to anchor the suit's position relative to his body. Then,
clamping suit material between his legs, he pulled the suit down with
his legs and up and out with his right arm until his elbow was free
of the suit's arm. He relaxed and pulled his arm all the way out of
the arm hole and straightened it against his body. The bulky cocoon
about his torso constrained his freedom but he still had enough room
to maneuver his right hand down to the orange coverall's thigh
pocket. He reached into it and fished out a thin but exceptionally
long pen.
Kwan visualized the writing pen in his hand as he grasped it and
pulled it back towards the empty sleeve. The golden fountain pen was
about ten inches long with small depressions along its smooth sides
near the tip, where grasping fingers would hold it.... did hold it.
Kwanchaan remembered the fingers that the pen was molded for and
choked back an involuntary whimper of guilt-ridden grief. He winced
and pushed his arm back through the suit's sleeve.
His chest began to throb again after he had finished. He could
feel the damp cocoon readjust itself after his strenuous activity.
Too much more of that and the cocoon would probably knock him out.
Kwan shrugged his head back into a good central location within
the helmet and stared at the center of the displayed grid to steady
the suit. He looked to his left along the grid and could feel the
jets kick in and start him spinning.
The station swam into view again, this time looking even smaller.
Kwan tracked the station's image with his eyes until it was centered
on the grid floating in front of him. He then carefully snapped the
focus of his eyes to a position exactly three grid divisions to the
right of the grid and station center. The jets twirled him around
slowly. Kwan started his internal counter and concentrated on only
staring at that particular crosshair intersection on the H.U.D grid.
When the station rotated back into view and crossed the center
grid mark, Kwan stopped counting at just over eleven ticks. He
repeated the process with the same result. Finally he doubled his
counting speed and counted to eleven again as he stared at the grid
mark three from center. When he reached eleven, this time staring
out into space away from the station, he snapped his eyes back to the
center grid position. Keeping his eyes rigidly fixed on the
intersection of those central fine green lines he reached down with
his right hand toward the right palm squeeze switch. He extended the
pen from the ends of his fingers and felt it contact the soft bulb of
the switch.
Kwanchaan took a deep breath and released it slowly. Then, he
shoved the end of the pen into the palm switch. A roar of vibration
swept through him centered on his numbed chest. He saw the faint
flicker of a blue flame erupt from below his line of sight, but he
didn't dare look down and lose his H.U.D. mark. Moist globules of
blood and sweat fluid splattered against the inside of the bubble
helmet in front of his face. The splashes congealed incredibly
quickly into small pools, surfaces rapidly vibrating with the
acceleration. One by one, red status lights and indicators came on,
flashing and reflecting off the internal surfaces of the helmet. He
released the pressure on the bulb.
The roaring stopped. His chest was ablaze with new pain. He
ignored the flashing lights and chin switches and shifted his gaze to
the left. The left attitude jets did not come on. He tried the
other direction, haphazardly rolling his eyes to the far right. The
suit jerked him around quickly, the station flew by before he could
look at it. On the second time around he was able to look at it, but
without the left attitude jet he realized he couldn't halt his
spinning. He watched it rotate out of his sight again.
The cocoon felt suddenly tighter on his body, and warm too. Kwan
watched the station pan around him again, this time his vision was
blurry and his eyes couldn't keep up with it. The painkillers from
the cocoon pulled him down into a warm moist haven. The last time he
saw the station pass by, he tried to convince himself that it looked
just a little bit closer. Then he closed his eyes.
****************************************
A deep electronic bell rang as a giant translucent sign lit up
over the dance floor. The sign's glowing surface was imprinted with
a thick-lined stick figure of a dress frocked woman. A rumble of
soft voices and quick steps then ensued as dozens of dress clad women
crossed the polished wood floor to pick out their partners for the
next tango. Dour faced men leaned against the pit walls surrounding
the dance space and allowed themselves to be pulled by their arms
away from their perches to the open floor, all the while never
seeming to quite make eye contact with the women that just selected
them. The women, too, seemed content to stare just over the shoulder
of their somber faced companions even as they embraced stoically for
the start of the dance. Music swelled to fill the tango hall, deep
beats at the pace of a slow slavic ballad accompanied by a subtle
spanish influenced melody. The dancers commenced a shuffling pattern
of steps which only slightly resembled the passionate tango that
Kwanchaan was familiar with from old movies. A deep female voice
began to sing lyrics that, although sung in a language he could not
understand, reminded him of the melodramatic and tragic verses of an
American country-western song.
Kwan walked slowly around the peripheral balcony and looked down
upon the heads of the melancholy, shuffling crowd. He was looking
for the head of an old class mate of his from recruit school. One
that had made it out of school when he did, but not because he
graduated.
He stepped around a small group of men gulping vodka from tiny
thick glasses. Even the drink did not seem to lighten their spirits.
They stared at Kwan as he walked around them, but when he looked back
they averted their gaze quickly to the ground. The scowls on their
faces looked unfriendly but not directed at himself or anything in
particular. The furrowed brows and set chins seemed chiseled into
their features. Kwan wondered if anyone in Oulo ever smiled.
He continued his way to the far side of the hall. The music had
finished now and the tango partners were on their way back to their
respective gender-divided sides of the floor. From this vantage
point, Kwan could scan the line of men waiting for the next dance to
start. Everyone looked so similar. But it helped that Scott was
young, probably about fifteen years younger than most of the crowd
here. His youthful smooth skin stuck out amongst the other weathered
and lined faces. Kwan spotted him almost immediately and headed for
the nearest stairway down to the dance floor level.
As he came off the bottom step, the deep bell sounded again.
Kwan looked up at the glowing sign hung 40 feet above the dancers.
This time it bore a defrocked stick figure, the international rest
room symbol for a man. Kwan pushed through the crowd of women lining
his side of the floor. A few muttered something at him, but most
simply moved aside and looked away from him. He hit the open floor
only to confront a ragged wall of uncertain men walking towards him.
A few looked surprised to see a man amongst the female participants,
but most ignored him in a manner that was getting to be annoying.
Kwanchaan strode through the approaching dancers and then to his
left searching for Scott's bearded face. His short height amongst
these people didn't help him in his search at all. He crossed the
floor quickly to the opposite wall and almost jogged along its length
to the spot he had spied Scott at from the balcony. He wasn't there.
He most have gone to the women's side to pick a tango partner.
Kwan turned and saw a sea of couples embracing for the start of
the next tango. He waded out into it a bit and spied Scott's head
somewhere in the middle of the crowd. He hurried towards it
wondering who exactly Scott had clutched to his chest. The drones of
the next song began to echo through the hall. The couples started
shuffling.
Kwan kept catching glimpses of Scott and his partner bobbing from
the middle of the floor, but every time he tried to approach a
swaying couple would cross in front of him. He was as polite as he
could be in side stepping most of them, although he did manage to
bump quite a few of them in the close quarters. He could feel the
permanent scowls of those he had trespassed burrowing into his back.
Finally, he worked his way into arm's reach of Scott's turned
back. He called out to him, but the music was loud and most of the
dancers seemed to be in some sort of melancholy trance. Kwan reached
out to grab Scott by the shoulder, but missed as Scott led his
partner a few shuffles further away. Just as his arm extended,
another couple slid into Kwan sharply. He stumbled and almost fell.
Righting himself, he bumped into another dancing pair that had
slipped into the open space Scott had left. He cursed frustratedly
under his breath and skirted around the interfering couple quickly
and strode up to Scott and his tango partner.
Kwan reached out with both hands, grabbed a shoulder of each of
the duo and forcibly separated them as he yelled, "Sco...".
He was cut off by the forehand slap of Scott's partner. Kwan
looked at her, surprised and she scowled back at him. At least he
had finally gotten someone to look him in the eyes, he thought as she
drew back to strike him again. A rumble in the crowd arose as she
slapped him again. The music jarred to a halt and the dancers near
Kwanchaan slowly stopped shuffling and looked toward the commotion.
Kwan folded his arms in front of his face in an effort to deflect
anymore incoming blows.
"Scott?"
"Is that you, Fish?," a deep but hesitant voice asked.
Kwanchaan peered through his arms at Scott. "Yeah, it's me." He
saw Scott turn to his irate tango partner in front of him and mutter
something indecipherable. Whatever he said, it seemed to calm her.
Kwan lowered his arms completely and readjusted his skewed
jacket. Scott turned to him, grinning widely.
"Good Lord!," he beamed. "What's a Fish like you doing in
Finland?!"
Company Man 1.4 by
Patrick Hurh
copyright
1993
The two men approached the front stoop of the wide, low cabin.
Its exterior walls were constructed of long thin logs set
horizontally in graying mortar. The transit train they had just
stepped off of shuddered behind them as whirring flywheels
transferred their stored energy to the track. They heard it pull
away.
"So this is your place?" Kwan gestured in front of them.
"Well, actually it belongs to Finland. They let me live here
while I'm in the geo-nation."
"And when you're outside the geo-borders?"
"I rent from whatever nation owns the land..."
"Or corporation."
"...or corporation," Scott sighed and stopped just before the
high step to the deep porch. Kwanchaan joined him there in silent
contemplation. During the twenty minute ride into the forested hills
outside Oulo they had kidded jovially and traded Cat quips to cover
the awkwardness between them. But now that they were off the loud
train and surrounded by the silence of the cool evening, it seemed to
be too hard to avoid.
"What have they got you doing, these days?" Kwan asked.
"Oh, not too much. Running credit checks and tweaking census
programs... hopefully they'll let me start checking up on the likes
of you soon."
"I thought they'd stick you right into that coming from a
corporation recruit school."
"No, unfortunately it's because of my Cat affiliation that they
don't trust me with stuff like that yet. I could be a double agent
in their minds... Sometimes I play the part just for the fun of it."
Scott grinned and climbed up onto the porch. He walked over to a
wooden bench and sat.
Kwanchaan followed him and sat a couple of feet down from him.
"What's the deal with the tango stuff?"
"What do you mean?" Scott looked at him, smiling in the darkness.
"That stuff back there?"
"Yeah. I knew tango halls were popular in Finland, but I always
thought it was more of a party thing. Those guys just kind of looked
dead or depressed or something."
Scott chuckled. "Well, that's how my countrymen are, I guess.
We're just a lot more private up here... long seasons of light and
dark... most of our needs taken care of by the government and no real
initiative to get out and 'make it' on the outside. We just kind of
like it here and hope everybody minds their own business."
"That's not like you though, or the other Finlanders I've met
around Chicago."
"Most Fins you meet outside of the geo-nation haven't spent any
appreciable time here. They are usually naturalized citizens.
Although I was born here, most of my childhood was spent jumping
around from school to school in North America."
Kwan contemplated this as they sat there. Forest branches
creaked as they bowed lightly with the brisk wind.
"Still it's so odd to see so many people take a passionate dance
like the tango and do it so morosely."
Scott laughed loudly. "The passion is still there. We just
don't show it the way you do."
"What I wanna know is why you were there."
Scott's reply was like a verbal sigh, "Not much else here to do,
but tango, drink and talk on the net." Scott stood up and headed
toward the door. Kwan stopped him with a word.
"Don't."
"What?"
"Don't talk like your life is over. It's only been a few months
since you were... discharged. You'll get back on your feet. After
all you asked for it..." As soon as Kwan said it, he knew Scott
wasn't going to let it go by, so he just trailed into silence.
"I didn't ask for it," Scott said softly. "You turned me in,
Fish."
"You wanted me to. You had to... You knew that if you told me,
I'd..."
"I should've known you'd blame this on me! I told you because I
trusted you. More than anyone else in the platoon... more than
anyone else in the company!"
"You told me because you wanted out. Period. If you knew me as
well as you thought you did, you'd have seen the outcome."
Scott sat down on the bench again. "I don't think I really had a
choice. I had to tell someone or I was going to lose my mind. I
thought you'd understand."
Silence again.
Kwan spoke hesitatingly, "Did you ever have... feelings, for me?"
"I had feelings for all you guys, Fish! How could I not? We
were all a family. We worked together, ate together, fought
together. If I didn't have feelings for all of you , we... you would
never have made it through."
"No, I understand that. I meant, you know... personal."
"I couldn't let myself. I had to close that part of me off.
Some people called me half of a man when I left... but in reality I
was half a man when I was denying myself from who I really was...
am." Scott looked at his hands in his lap. "I love you, Fish. But
not as a lover, just as a friend."
"That's cool." Kwan couldn't help but sound a little relieved.
"Hey!" he continued with mock anger. "Stop calling me Fish!"
"You get what's coming to ya, Fish," he grinned back. "Let's go
inside and get something to drink."
"Fuck yeah, but none of this vodka shit. Beer!"
"Do we have a choice?"
"Shit."
As the evening progressed Scott tried to bring up the subject of
his discharge again and again. It was obvious he wanted to explain
his feelings of betrayal and furthermore explain his reasoning behind
hiding his true self from his best friend for three years. But
Kwanchaan wouldn't join in talking about it. He didn't want to talk
about it. The best way to avoid feeling uncomfortable for Kwan was
to just ignore the issue and continue on as if nothing had really
happened between them. The only comment Kwan made on the subject was
that Scott could probably find a corporation that openly allowed bi-
sexual executives in their ranks. Scott however seemed to be
resigned to hacking for Finland for at least the near future.
Besides he couldn't legally revoke his citizenship for another five
years.
Actually when Scott had first opened up to Kwan during their last
days of recruit school, Kwanchaan was secretly pleased. He was
pleased that he had so thoroughly gained the confidence of someone
using the executive mind tricks that they both were learning at the
time, and he was pleased to discover a useful secret about someone
close to him. Kwan liked Scott a lot, but he himself trusted no one
to the extent Scott was willing to. He had thought, and still
thought, that Scott was a little naive and definitely too easily
persuaded. In fact Kwanchaan looked at their friendship at the time
simply from the perspective of building up a dedicated and loyal co-
worker that would come in useful at a later date in his career. Like
now...
"So does Finland do any poking around the Spider's web?" They
were sprawled out in neighboring chairs set around Scott's impressive
looking net terminal.
"Uhh..this wouldn't have to do with work would it?" Scott asked
conspiratorially.
"Of course not. I would never involve impartial Finland in dirty
corporation biz!" Kwan mockingly exclaimed. "But if you were
interested in what an average junior executive is assigned for his
average first job for an average yellow corporation, I may be able to
give you some average clues... in exchange for a little friendly
poking around."
"Aha! I knew you just didn't come here to catch me dancing a
tango with a fat Olga!"
"Tango with Olga, sounds like a great name for a band." Kwan
chortled and took another chug off of the unlabeled vodka bottle.
"Jesus, this stuff stinks..."
Scott dropped a data egg out of one hand. "Hey, if you don't
like, don't drink it." He reached for the bottle with his free hand.
Kwanchaan pulled it from his reach.
"Hey, man! You're driving, not me!" Kwan gestured at the large
screen overhead, then laughed and relinquished the bottle.
Scott grabbed it and started to tip it to his mouth, then
hesitated. "You know, if this is gonna get serious, I better slow
down." He set the bottle down by the neck on the floor and picked up
the data egg again. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the
overhanging screen. "If you want to get to know the dirt on a corp,
you know where you go?"
Kwan shrugged and said the ubiquitous, "Where?," and picked up
the almost empty bottle.
"You go to the nearest competitor."
"And who's that?"
"Why our good friend, the fuzzy yellow Caterpillar." Kwan leaned
back in his chair at those words. Scott started to squeeze the data
eggs in both hands. The overhead view of a paused video game was
quickly replaced with flashing text. While still maneuvering the
mishmash of servers on the net at this hour, he said, "You still got
the same access codes?"
"Yeah. Of course... no wait, I did get a new PIN with the dat
for this job."
"Well, give it to me. And just what is your rookie assignment
anyway?"
When Kwanchaan finished giving Scott a synopsis of his meeting
with Goldbreath and his brief analysis of the little information
given to him on the yellow disk, Scott just kept staring up through
his stere-optic glasses at the display. He punched a few more chords
on the eggs and the entire screen glowed yellow with four foot high
letters spelling CAT. "Something sounds fishy to me, Fish."
"That's why I'm here... and lay off the fish stuff. I'm really
trying to get that behind me."
Scott grunted and then lay still. Kwan put his stere-optics back
on and lay back in his seat also. The room they were in had a pit
dug out from the center of the floor. They sat in large adjustable
cloth chairs, both leaned back almost flat at the moment. The black
data eggs in Scott's hands were connected via thick cables to a low-
profile deck which sat on a short pedestal at one end of the pit.
The deck's front face was blank except for one tiny glowing red LED.
The only other light in the room came from the large flat screen that
hung directly above the two chairs. It was only about five by eight
feet in area but it was hung only four feet above their heads. The
glowing letters snapped into eerie perspective as Kwan settled back
in his seat. He tilted his head toward Scott but couldn't make him
out with the glasses on. "You still awake over there?"
"Yeah, jus' thinking.... Listen you may call this paranoid, but
an extraction, a high level defect and merger, isn't rookie stuff.
Something very serious is going on and I'm not sure I would trust any
of the information you received from Goldbreath or anything else from
Cat until this all over."
"I know... But what I don't know is how to know when it's over."
"You may never know."
Scott started pumping the eggs again. The letters crumbled away
and were replaced with a small blinking cursor way up in the right
hand corner of the screen. Both heads tilted to look at it. A few
clicks from Scott's hands and the cursor grew in distinct steps and
repositioned itself to a more central location on the screen. The
cursor rapidly flitted across the screen leaving simple ascii in its
wake. Kwan recognized the words.
CATERPILLAR LINK UP SERVER>>>>WHISKER<<<<AUTHORIZED STUDENT
ACCESS ONLY
"Shit, Scott. What's the old school network going to do for us?"
"I may be able to convince it to let your old log-on work."
"So?"
"Any information you get with your new PIN will definitely be
tracked. They may even load it with info they _want_ you to see....
As long as I can get on the damn thing, I may be able to hack my way
to some useful information."
"But I've already used the new account from my data pouch."
"Good... then maybe they won't be looking for you so hard
elsewhere."
As Scott talked, he was also rapidly manipulating the eggs. Kwan
could just catch the words, ACCOUNT EXPIRED, every couple of seconds
as the text flew on the screen.
"Shit," Scott slowed after a few minutes. "Time to pull out the
heavy hitters." The screen flashed again and the original display
seemed to swing away on the flat screen. It was still visible but
just flattened by extreme perspective. In its place was a vast plane
of colored and pulsating cubes. Some taller than others, they
stretched out in a dynamic cubic ocean.
"What's this?" Kwan asked.
"This, Fish my friend, is Whisker. But just visualized
differently. All the different cubes correlate to different data
access ports that are being used at the present time. Most of it is
probably just through flow. But some of it consists of students
happily hacking Whisker and trying to learn how to serve the great
Cat better."
"Like we used to."
"Like _I_ used to."
Their viewpoint began to swoop in closer to the plain of virtual
data.
"So what's the plan?"
"If I can find a suitable, gullible student, I just may be able
to set you up an anonymous account." Scott smiled in the shifting
light.
"But you're not in yet. How can you set up an account on a
computer you can't access?"
"I don't, I have the kid do it." Kwan opened his mouth to ask
more, but realized that he probably wouldn't understand anyway. Not
that he thought he couldn't understand, but when he was in school he
had specialized in other areas of 'hacking', namely mind hacking.
Better let Scott do what he was good for. If I wasn't such a good
social engineer, Kwanchaan thought, I'd never have coerced him to
this point anyway.
"Ahh.. here we go," Scott said mischievously. "Kid probably
thinks he's just going through a required hacking exercise before
dinner." A small central cube blew up to fill almost half the
screen. Scott whispered something and the cube inverted it's color
patterning. Pounding the eggs at his sides, Scott navigated the
viewpoint of the screen down below the plane of the cubes and started
to follow the strand that extended from his chosen cube. It would
have been impossible to follow among the thousands of like shaped
cords that hung from below the cube plane surface except for the fact
that its altered color made it stick out like a piece of black
spaghetti. Scott followed the strand from one pulsating clump of
strands to another. Finally he clamped onto the strand just outside
one of these data junctions with an animated device that looked a bit
like an insect's curling antennae. "OK, kid let's see what you're
doing." Scott hit a chord on his left egg emphatically.
The colored screen blanked out and left a display similar to the
initial Whisker log on screen. Indecipherable text rapidly filled
the screen. "Bin hex," Scott muttered, "What's the boy up to?" Kwan
took off his glasses and tilted his head at Scott. He could see
Scott's lips moving quickly. The text flashed dully off the
polarized lenses in his stere-optics. Suddenly his large jaw clamped
tightly and his data eggs erupted in a fury of clicking. Kwan
returned his gaze to the screen and slipped on his glasses.
At least now there were some recognizable words on the screen.
Words typed in a thin column on the right of the screen interspersed
with nonsense characters. Kwan could make out, "ACCOUNT" and "PIN
NUMBER" and "REPEAT TO VALIDATE". But they were gone before he could
assimilate them all.
Scott took a pause from the chording action and spoke, "I'm a few
steps ahead of him, but he's pretty fast..." More clicks from the
eggs. "I restructured his paltry hacking exercise into a standard
hack for the Whisker server. He thinks..." Scott had to pound out a
few more chords. The text on the screen jumped through a few
iterations. "He thinks he's just doing an exercise, but I'm leading
him through a step by step hack to the Whisker's OS command line..."
He fell silent. The screen blanked totally out overhead. Then the
blinking rectangle of a cursor came back on in the corner of the
screen. "OK, he's in. Now to get him to do what we want."
Scott went back to rapidly chording command sequences into the
opened channel. Kwan could imagine the Cat recruit sitting, pimply
faced in front of a terminal surrounded by a dozen other learning
hackers, swearing over the homework assignment due the next day. The
kid probably thought he was a fucking gibson cowboy, setting up phony
accounts on a make-believe server.
"There you go, Recruit James Thompson Hawthorne. Your new
Caterpillar account is open and waiting for you."
Kwan sat up and grinned. "No fucking way! Jim Hawthorne?
What's the password?"
"Spiderspawn," Scott ominously voiced with a snicker. They both
erupted in laughter.
After they calmed down, Scott took off his stere-optics and
looked at Kwan. "You know you are in some serious shit here, Fish.
And you've probably only got this account for the night, at the most
until the kid's tutor calls up his solution off of disk tomorrow."
"Yeah, we've got some serious hacking to do."
"We?"
"Come on, Scott. I need you now. I can't wade through this shit
and come up with anything meaningful. If you're really my friend,
you wouldn't have brought me this far just to stop now. This could
mean my career... or at worst, my life."
Scott put his glasses back on and leaned full out in the chair.
He sighed heavily, "Well, against all better judgment I don't think I
can turn you down when you put it like that.... But on one
condition."
"Name it."
"I get to call you Fish from here on out, with no objections."
"Deal."
Company Man 1.5 by Patrick Hurh
copyright 1993
The spinning playground merry-go-round is painted in swirling
gradients of orange, dull at the center and glowing yellow along its
outside edges. Kwan sits in the middle of it and looks out dizzily
between the cold iron bars that slope up and out away from him. He
sees whirling greens and whites beyond the seemingly still handrails.
A wave of nausea overcomes him and he is afraid he is going to be
sick again. He grabs the rails tighter and peers out to the edge of
the rotating carousel. The rusty steel disk he sits on seems to tilt
wildly with respect to the blurred horizon. The children hanging on
to the outside railings, squatting like young gorillas with their
buttocks hanging out in the open wind, all turn their heads to look
at him. Their faces are warped and drawn out and.... taunting. His
old classmates are pointing at him and chanting, "CITIZEN!" at the
tops of their lungs with malice. Their voices come slow in speed and
low in pitch. His nausea increases. A bobbing face pops up beyond
the edge of the children's spinning ring, the smiling face of Johnny
Hawthorne. As he runs to catch up with the edge of the merry-go-
round Kwan feels his heart leap. His friend is here to help him, he
thinks. He sees Johnny reach out to grab the iron bar closest to
him. Kwan gets to his knees and screams, "Hawk!.... help me!" But
Johnny does not leap on and clamber his way to pull his best friend
from the derision of the others. Johnny, instead, continues to run
with his hand on the playground carousel's railing, pushing the huge
spinning disc even faster. Kwan hears the others whoop in delight.
He sinks back to his terrified, braced position in the center. He
watches as Johnny Hawthorne looks back directly into his eyes, mouths
the word, "Fisshhh," slowly and then gives the iron bar a final
shove...
Kwan woke with a start. His legs kicked out straight while his
arms rapidly snapped to his chest. Only the stiff suit kept him from
pulling a groin muscle. Still, his chest cried out with the sudden
movement. He felt the medic cocoon tighten again.
He blinked with watering eyes at the glowing switches blinking up
at him from the neck of the suit. He gazed up through the bubble and
saw Spindle station slide by from right to left. It was definitely
larger than before he had passed out. Hopefully he had hit the
trajectory without much error, but at this distance, he could still
float right by Spindle, missing it by several miles, and into the
asteroid belt beyond. He could only hope to be noticed as he neared.
Kwanchaan groaned again and shut his eyes. There was nothing he
could really do but wait it out. He thought back on his dream.
Typical, he thought. The only one I can count on is myself... and,
at least so far, this insane space suit. He opened his eyes again.
Out of all the blinking monitor lights the only one that really
had him curious was the orange one directly in the middle of the neck
display. It was placed a little out of line with the rest of the
lights and switches, and a little crooked too. It looked as if it
didn't belong there. The symbol on its face was the ancient
'propeller' icon for nuclear radiation imbedded within another
equally terrifying icon, three intersecting circles. Kwan studied
the odd combination of symbols, the new symbol for molecular
nanotechnology surrounding the old symbol for nuclear radiation. It
didn't make sense.
Kwan contemplated this inconclusively as his eyes drifted halfway
shut. Spindle station drifted across the thin crescent of his vision
again and again as he fell once more to sleep. He understood the
individual patterns of the icons but not the juxtaposition. And why
would either be on a spacesuit?
*****************************************************
Air brakes hissed as the gleaming white train jerked to a stop.
A tinny female voice spoke crackling nonsense at the line of waiting
pedestrians. It was indecipherable with the boosted decibels of
scratchy treble. If Kwan was wearing his data pouch ear receiver he
would have heard the voice clearly announcing this train to Victoria
Station. No matter, he knew where it was going. All but a few
trains went to Victoria Station from Heathrow.
A warning beep accompanied the extrusion of aluminum walk plates
from under the still closed doors of the train. The grooved plates
clacked lightly in unison on the edge of the concrete platform.
Kwanchaan raised his eyebrows. He could see this new tube system was
going to take some getting used to. The doors rumbled open and he
stepped into the fluorescent lit interior.
Although the inside of the train car was respectably clean, the
jostles Kwan received from other boarding passengers laden with
luggage from their recent plane flights reminded him of earlier
incarnations of the ancient underground system. The doors shut with
another warning ping and stale recycled air filled Kwan's nostrils.
He found a seat along one side of the car between an oriental couple
coming home from a vacation, the surrendered realization of returning
to their mundane reality displayed across their tired faces, and a
bland businessman who carried nothing but a small, gold clasped book.
Kwanchaan looked directly ahead at the opposite wall of the train
car after he was seated. He carefully avoided the eye contact of the
people across from him in the age old tradition of subway riding.
There weren't any windows on the new car. They were replaced by
moving pictures of some sort, kaleidoscoping images of pastel
colors. Boring, but entrancing enough to capture the gaze of a
wearied traveler.
The pull of the train as it rounded a curve caught Kwanchaan by
surprise. He hadn't even realized they were moving yet. Quite a
difference from the old system. He glanced at the people across from
him, a lanky woman in a sun dress with a small boy next to her. The
boy was looking directly at him breaking the no eye contact
tradition. Kwan smiled at him and the boy stuck his tongue out at
him in return. The child was about eight years old and wearing a
blue uniform of some type. It almost looked like an old public
school uniform, complete with rounded cap. The boy looked hot and
uncomfortable in it. He reminded Kwan of another boy. A boy named
Johnathon Hawthorne who had been Kwanchaan's only friend for over a
year of his life.
Kwan closed his eyes and hugged his yellow blazer closer to his
chest. He could feel the data pouch in the jacket pocket. He
remembered Johnny Hawthorne as his head bounced along with the other
passengers as the train went over a rougher section of track.
Johnny had been one of the only last hold-out citizen children
that Kwan knew during his childhood. Kwan's father and Johnny's
father had become quite close even though Johnny's father was a
British citizen on his father's native American soil. They got along
because they were the only parents left in the small Bakersfield
residential neighborhood that didn't join up with a corporation.
Both Kwan and Johnny were ribbed by the other corporation children
for remaining citizens. They went to poorer schools and couldn't go
to the corporation parties that the other surrounding families held.
The two outcasts became defiant though and proud of their
differences. They formed a sort of rebel duo. Kwan knew that he
could always trust Johnny to be around for him.
Kwan sighed in the plastic train seat. Johnny would still be
with him today if his own father hadn't come between them. Kwanchaan
still didn't know what had come between his father and Johnny's, but
whatever it was, it tore the families apart. Kwanchaan's mother left
his father shortly there after and, before Kwan knew it, he was
waving a teary eyed goodbye to Johnny as a moving van pulled away
from in front of Johnny's house. Kwanchaan had begged his father to
send him to corporation school along with Johnny but his patriotic
dad would have none of it. "An American school is good enough for an
American kid, god damn it!" his father had yelled. "I won't have you
turning traitor on your country like Jim Hawthorne did on his!" Kwan
had cried himself to sleep that night. He knew it was all his
father's fault. If he had a real father like Johnny's things would
be different.
Kwanchaan roused himself as a loud tone issued through the train
car. It stopped just long enough for an amplified voice to announce,
"Entering Wind Jammer audible range. Please take proper ear
protection precautions. Caution. Entering Wind Jammer audible
range. Please take proper ear protection precautions." The constant
tone began again.
All around him people were pulling out small ear plugs and
placing them in their ears. The little boy across from him tried to
escape his mother's grasp, but the young woman managed to shove
something that looked like cotton in his ears. Next to him, the
business man placed his book in his lap and simply placed his hands
over his ears. Kwanchaan hastily did the same as he heard a deep
whoomp crescendo. The low thump was followed by a tremendous clap
that made Kwan jump along with the British boy across from him.
After a second of silence, people started to remove their earplugs
calmly. The little boy pulled at the cotton in his right ear using
both hands. Kwanchaan lowered his hands hesitatingly. His ears were
ringing slightly and it was several moments before he realized the
warning tone had stopped.
Kwanchaan dug through his memories to explain what he had just
witnessed and came up dry. He pulled his data pouch from his jacket,
opened it and began to access its online database. He blinked as he
realized that there was an incoming message blinking priority yellow
on the small active matrix display. He punched it up in a hurry.
Looks like this 'Wind Jammer' business was just going to have to
wait.
The message was from Scott. That much was obvious from the
server addresses that he had bounced the message off of. But why not
just contact him directly?
"Your brother's wedding brunch is confirmed.
Something's fishy in Finland, must be in the nets.
Here's beer in your eye.
compromised.
Gotta go
--Maki"
Kwanchaan stared at the nonsensical message on his data pouch.
What the fuck was this? Either Scott was just playing a joke, was in
trouble because of their little fun on the net last night, or coded a
message because he thought Cat was listening to his data pouch
transmissions. Probably the later... but what if the message didn't
come from Scott at all?
Kwan stared at the message a while longer before committing it to
memory. No matter how he decoded it, it either didn't make sense or
it didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. He thought back
to their searches last night and shuddered involuntarily. He cursed
himself for losing control and looked around the train car to see if
anyone noticed. The little boy was picking his nose and staring back
at Kwan.
Kwanchaan smoothly put the data pouch away and velcroed the
pocket shut. He reviewed the information they had uncovered.
By retrieving low priority mail messages that had been discarded
but not disk erased by the Whisker server, Scott and Kwan had pieced
together a marginal sketch of what Cat knew about recent Arachniware
activities. They knew from Arachniware press releases that the
spiders were delving into nanotechnology, especially terra forming
and habitat construction nanotech. This was quite a departure from
Arachniware's usual line of biochip implants known as spiderware.
The announcement had made waves not only amongst competing
corporations but also amongst the anti-tech crowds who viewed
nanotechnology through mataglap-colored glasses. The dreadful
consequences of mataglap far outweighed the benefits, they claimed.
The Arachniware press releases also mentioned the pioneering work of
Dr. Roberta Gonzales, the subject of Kwan's defection and merger
operation, and her successful efforts to completely avoid the
mataglap syndrome through superior nanoprogramming and reverse
transcripting technology. All of this was well documented in
Goldbreath's original data disk.
What they also found, however, were seemingly innocent
conversations between Cat operatives discussing the ease by which
Gonzales could be extracted from Arachniware. Normally conversations
such as these would be disk destroyed and even their message logs
encrypted and hidden, but the light hearted boastful attitude of
these messages obviously revealed that the message originators were
merely talking in jest or in a hypothetical situation. Still, both
Kwan and Scott thought it was strange to leave any incriminating
evidence on disk. Kwan came up with an explanation before Scott did.
Perhaps Cat _wanted_ to put Arachniware on alert for the defection
and merger. It didn't make a lot of sense, but it sure seemed like
Cat wanted Arachniware to know that an extraction of Gonzales was at
least being considered.
If this assumption were taken a step further and coupled with the
strange assignment of a rookie exec to an unusually high level
clandestine operation such as a defection and merger, it became
obvious that Kwanchaan was most likely being set up for a fall. For
what purpose, Kwan and Scott could only guess, but Kwan's intuition
was that he was expected to make a lot of noise trying to extract
Gonzales from an Arachniware trap resulting in the spiders holding
him high on a pole so the whole world could see of what evil
Caterpillar was made. In other words, a diversion. A big, fucking
fake move...
Realizing this just made things worse, not better. Kwan couldn't
choose _not_ to take the assignment. If he didn't do what was
expected of him, he would be squashed flat. Besides he actually did
feel loyal to Cat. He wasn't going to turn traitor on them like he
had been betrayed all his life. He'd just have to try to figure out
a way to get on Spindle Station and extract Gonzales that would work,
regardless if the spiders knew he was coming...
Kwanchaan knew the train was about to reach its destination when
the other passengers began gathering their luggage and straightening
in their seats. It frustrated him not to know where they were
getting their clues from. He could barely observe a slowing
sensation and there didn't seem to be a noticeable change in the
noise level of the surrounding machinery. He frowned, disconcerted.
A warning bing sounded and then the doors slid open.
Kwan stepped out into a dingy Victoria Station. Crowds hurried
down the platform to be the first on the escalator maze to their
individual destinations. Kwanchaan stood still to get his bearings.
He wanted to simply get to the train station proper and catch the
Intercity 125 to Swansea. He scanned around for a sign to follow.
He spotted one that read, "To all trains" and headed in that
direction.
It seemed like a thousand people all wanted out of London at that
moment. The pedways were crowded with sweating travelers and
commuters. Kwan tried to push forward through the swamp of
pedestrians for a moment and then resigned himself to leaning against
the sticky handrail of the pedway. Posters for bad theatre and bad
food trailed by him as the conveyor carried him down the hot tunnel.
A party of reveling football fans passed on the nearly empty pedway
next to Kwan, traveling in the opposite direction. Long red and
white knitted scarves were wrapped around their necks. Arsenal, Kwan
thought absently.
The pedway let out to a short platform, still surrounded by tiled
tunnel walls, that ended in a steep escalator up to the train
station. A pile of people was gathering at the inlet to the
escalator. It seemed fewer people could fit on the ascending
escalator than were being dumped onto the small landing by the
pedway. Either that or the crowds of people were hesitating slightly
before continuing up the moving staircase. Regardless, Kwan felt
himself pushed from behind into the thickening crowd of commuters
struggling to find purchase on the emerging stairs of the escalator.
He excused himself to the back of a gray haired head that he had
just bumped into and attempted to move to the side of the escalator
entrance point so he could try hoofing it up the steep concrete
stairs that ran alongside. Something was stuck to the bottom of his
left boot. It felt like a piece of paper. He shook his foot to try
to loosen it. No good. He looked down and saw that it was the front
page of a newspaper. He lifted his foot and bent over at the waist
to pick it off when he was bumped from behind.
The shove sent Kwan hopping across the landing, one hand holding
the paper on his shoe, the other flailing wildly to keep his balance.
He careened into the stairwell next to the escalator and twirled to
present his backside to the sharp cornered stairs. He sat down on
the stairs with a solid thud. The paper ripped from his boot and he
held it up in front of his face, exasperated.
He suddenly noticed the greasy figure sitting next to him on the
stairway. A bum who had been sitting there all the time. Kwan
stared at the man. His faded brown trenchcoat blended into the
concrete stairs; his head was covered with a soiled sweatshirt hood.
Kwan broke into a smile and tried to hand the man the paper.
"Here," Kwan yelled over the noise of the piled up crowd.
"Here's something to read."
The grimy man's wrinkled face peeked out from within the hood.
"Canna read!" he grinned. "Keep't, ya got a lon' journy heada ya!"
"What?"
The man just shook his head and waved backhanded at Kwan.
Kwan sat for a moment and then started to wad up the paper. A
badly smudged picture of a spider-like structure caught his eye. He
smoothed out the tabloid page across his knees. Spindle Station.
The contrast rendered the image almost incomprehensible but Kwan knew
it was definitely Spindle Station. Overlaid across the edge of the
photo of the asteroid mining station was the artificially highlighted
profile of a pretty blond woman's face. Kwan jerked his eyes up to
the headline. In gigantic point font it screamed,
Patricia Spindle Flaunts Playboy Boyfriend in Uncle's MegaCorp
Millionaire Face!
Kwan smiled and proceeded to fold up the used sheet of newspaper
and looked back over at the bum. The grizzled man leaned against the
tunnel wall. It was impossible for Kwan to tell if he was even awake
with that hood pulled over the his face.
Kwanchaan stood, slipped the folded paper into his jacket waist
pocket and, in the same motion, fished out a 20 dollar coin. He
dropped it into the hooded man's lap. He turned and started up the
long stairwell at a slow measured pace. His breathing fell into a
rhythm with his steps. By the time he arrived in Swansea to
interview Jerri Sergei, he was certain he would have it all worked
out.
******************************************
Kwanchaan stirred from another disturbing fit of dreams to gaze
blurry eyed at Spindle Station as it floated by. The station was
traveling on a diagonal, skewed path across his field of vision. He
blinked slowly. His rotation must have precessed slightly, his
sluggish mind told him. He closed his eyes again. His chest was
definitely hurting more now and it was feeling much warmer too. He
felt like he was hugging a heated basketball to his torso. It was
almost comforting....
He shrugged slightly and drifted off......
Company Man 1.6 by Patrick
Hurh
copyright
1993
Jerri set the cup of tea down when the vid-phone chirped at her
from across the parlour. She uncrossed her legs and scooted her
Queen Anne chair back from the tea service in front of her. The
chair caught slightly on the oriental rug beneath it and she was
forced to ungainly muscle the chair back. She really should have the
rug removed, but in her tiny flat there was no place else to display
it and she really enjoyed showing it off when prospective employers
stopped by.
She stood and smoothed her cotton dress over her upper thighs.
The vid-phone had chirped several times now and, by her calculations,
was ripe for answering. It just didn't do to let people know you
were eager to answer a machine just because it beeped incessantly at
you. She crossed to the small wood shelved communication center and
punched on the connection. As the caller came on line she smiled
slightly and put on her professional face.
"Sergei Social Engineering. Jerri here," she beamed at the CCD
iris.
"Ms. Jerri Sergei?" The video display remained a dull blue
color.
"Yes, this is she. What can I do for you?" Jerri reached
forward quickly and hit the caller ID button. She never appreciated
being watched without being able to watch back.
"Recently you received a call from a Mr. Stephan Fish," the
rough male voice spoke quickly, "concerning an employment
opportunity?"
"Excuse me?"
"A man who introduced himself as Stephan Fish has recently
contacted you in regards to a job he was offering," the caller
placatingly explained. "We know this because he works for us. We'd
like to..."
"Hold on now," Jerri interrupted. "First off, I don't know what
you are talking about. Secondly, who the hell are you referring to
by 'we'. And thirdly, I don't appreciate talking to a blank
screen." The digital readout under the video display blinked on,
showing a caller ID number. Jerri recognized it. The number was an
anonymous phone server. She could eventually figure out who this
was, but only after doing a lot of digging and definitely not while
she remained online with this bastard.
The caller coughed out a reply, "Listen... number one, we have
transcripts, recordings and logs of you talking with Fish, so quit
the ignorance bit... number two, all you need to know about 'we' is
that 'we' can make sure you never work for a corporation again... and
number three, I'm so butt-ugly that I don't want to scare you by
showing you my face. Now, personally I would just love to put a
little red line through your name and get a disk later of your
digital screams, but as a company man, I'm going to have to give you
a message first."
Jerri cocked her head slightly at this and then softened her set
chin. "Well, in Chicago that line might work, but here in the
Queen's England, we generally only use threats as a last resort.
They tend to reveal too much of the identity of the caller."
"You don't know who I am," the voice blurted out, suddenly
conscious of his accent.
Jerri let silence take its toll.
"Stephan Fish called you about a job." This time the words came
hesitant and unsure. "We know he called you. He might have told you
his name was something else... but, in any event, we don't want you
to work with him. This could be profitable for..."
"You don't have records of any call," Jerry stated.
"Yes, we do..." stammered the voice.
"If you did, you would know what name he used...
hypothetically."
"Er... Listen. Things will get very bad for you if you work for
Fish...."
"I don't know who Fish is! But I know who you are. Go bugger
off back to Peoria, you yellow-bellied pussy. I worked for you guys
once and I never will again! So even if your Mr. Fish did approach
me, you have nothing to worry about anyway... Good day, Mr. Company
Man, and might I suggest a refresher course in hostile personal
communication skills."
She cut off his reply by punching out on her vid-phone. The
caller ID number was still flashing beneath the blue video display.
She stared at it for a moment and then pulled the qwerty keyboard out
of its niche and began typing. She had to start the macro running
that would trace the intruding call and request the British
government net to grant her digital immunity from the originator.
One of the nice advantages of being a citizen, she sighed.
When the macro was initiated, Jerri replaced the keyboard,
slapped the vid-phone on auto-answer and walked quickly to the hall
stairs that led up to her bedroom. She had to hurry to get ready for
Mr. Stephan Fish's visit.
Kwan settled into an empty double seat facing the front wall of
the coach. The train car was an older model. It was probably one of
the original passenger coaches that had been converted from rail to
lev thirty years ago. The plexiglass window on his right was fogged
and scratched and, although obviously re-upholstered, the foam of the
synth-cotton lined seat under him had been molded to fit the lowest
common denominator of a human's backside. Kwanchaan sighed, after
the commotion of Victoria Station, the relative quiet of the
environment within the train was soothing.
The ragged tabloid paper rustled in his pocket as he moved to
more comfortable position and reminded him of his desperate need for
a workable plan. Scott had set up this interview with the Sergei
woman after they had exhausted their search of accessible Cat files.
"She can diagnose and manipulate better than you," Scott had retorted
when Kwan voiced his desire to go it alone. He still felt that under
the present circumstances he should try to handle it without drawing
others within his circle of confidence. Even involving Scott seemed
to overly threaten his desired independence. He'd only agreed to
meet with the Britisher because he needed something to do while he
thought up his plan. And as it turned out, the serendipity of the
journey itself could pay off in a very big way.
Kwan pulled the newspaper's headline page from his pocket and
pulled it taut in front of his eyes. In typical tabloid fashion it
only included about five sentences of text on the crowded front page
after the screaming headline and photo. The story was no doubt
continued after the breast baring beauty on page three, which he
didn't have the fortune of possessing. No matter. Kwan reached in
his jacket and slipped out his data pouch.
Scott's message was still displayed on the screen when Kwan
touched it to life. He wondered at it again. If he was a complete
paranoid fanatic he should probably stop using the net personality of
Stephan Fish completely. But, although Scott had him convinced last
night that Cat had it in for him, this morning it seemed more and
more like a dream. Cat wouldn't let him down like that. There must
be a rational explanation for all this. Besides if Cat found him
snooping around the data files of Patricia Spindle, they probably
just thought he was doing a thorough job of researching his
assignment.
Kwan went ahead and logged onto the data net as Fish. Funny,
but he never had a hard time with the name Fish when he thought of it
as a phone personality he controlled on the nets, just when someone
else said it to his face. He used the touch sensitive screen to run
searches in the major global data havens for Patricia Spindle,
starting from the most recent entries. As the data pouch sent its
request to the nearest net server he found his eyes drawn back to the
profile of Patricia's face which he had set on the seat next to him.
She was amazingly beautiful but with her face displayed an
intelligent nonchalance that served to disarm him. But it probably
wasn't her original face, Kwan told himself.
The data pouch vibrated dully in his hand as his data search
began to yield information. Kwan heard the tiny molecular disk array
buzz up to speed as the incoming data rapidly overflowed the
available RAM. Titles of articles arranged themselves quickly on the
small screen, font sizes rapidly down sizing until at least 50
percent of the titles could be seen. The articles ranged from
newspaper and tabloid stories to fashion layout credits from several
pop magazines. Apparently, Patricia had something to do with the
high-profile market of young designer clothes. No wonder he hadn't
heard of her before this. He punched up one of the fashion layouts
to start with. Kwanchaan always liked to start with something
intuitive when performing background research on people he may end up
manipulating.
Unfortunately the article he had selected consisted mostly of
graphics which took a long time to download. The captions of the
photos came through almost immediately however:
"Native Cybergoths are shown here in their natural surroundings
clad in Pat Spindle's new line of spiderwear. As her previous
spiderwear collections, this one makes extensive use of her Uncle's
spider_ware_ biochips to animate ultra-light polymer fabric."
and:
"Fiery Reds and Glowing Greens combine in this contrasted pair
of outfits to create a feeling of didactic eclecticism. Once again
Spindle utilizes the spiderware chips, this time to oddly shift the
tones and hues of the thermal chameleon pant suits."
and:
"Thin chains of beryllium-copper flex in discordant harmonies
over the smooth sheen of Spindle's latest evening gown. Unisex in
design and practicality, this gown is the only Spindle-fit in the
collection unveiled at the Saigon show that relies on the natural
forces of air and gravity to give it life."
Kwan grimaced but decided to hold judgment on Patricia Spindle's
fashion sense until after some of the photos were downloaded. He
picked two photos to start downloading and then switched the data
pouch back over to its search mode screen. He called up the factual
biography of the rich niece. It would be short, as most biographies
of mega-corp families were, but Kwanchaan thought it would be good to
at least brush up on the official data.
The train began to move, sluggishly at first. The coach groaned
as it lifted on its cushion of opposing B fields. The door connected
to the neighboring train car ahead of Kwan flapped open noisily.
Kwan jumped slightly in his seat and his hand went reflexively to the
stun-gun trigger on the side of his data pouch. Hanging on to the
opened door handle was a middle-aged woman dressed in a pea-green
overcoat and black oriental flats. She smiled at Kwan and gestured
over her shoulder with a thumb, "Smoking Car."
She stepped fully into the coach and closed the door behind her
carefully but lacking in precision on the gently swaying train.
Kwanchaan eased the safety back on the stunner and smiled back at the
woman. She disappeared behind him as she chose a suitably distant
seat from Kwan.
He sighed and looked back at the data pouch and skimmed through
Patricia's biographical data. She was the daughter of Phillip
Spindle's sister, who had never married. Patricia carried her
mother's first name as well as her last; Patricia's mother had died
shortly after her daughter was born. This might mean complications
from child birth but somehow Kwan doubted that Patricia Spindle
senior had carried the baby to term herself. He tapped with his
middle finger on the mother's name. The screen faded into the
biography of the mother. Kwan was right, the mother's death was
listed as due to natural causes.
Little Patricia was probably fertilized from a frozen egg...
probably after her brother had hit it big and gave her the money to
afford it. He wondered how old the venerable Phillip Spindle was
himself. At least as old as Arachniware mega-corp itself, and that
ran back about three-quarters of a century. Kwan backpedaled the
data pouch to Patricia junior's biography.
Patricia was presently twenty-eight years old and was the
principal designer and producer of her own line of fashionable
designer clothes. She had never married and never published any
written material although she held several degrees in literature and
the fine arts from several specialization schools. Kwan doubted if
they were all real degrees. Some people are just born into it, he
sighed. The vacuous smile on the biography's accompanying duo tone
image solidified Kwan's silver-spoon perception of Patricia Spindle.
He glanced back at the tabloid photo on the seat next to him.
The profile shot made her look so much more knowing and seductive.
Amazing what black and white can do for a face, he muttered.
The first of the two photos he had requested was finished
downloading. It was the 'Cybergoth' picture depicting Patricia's
'spiderwear' designs. The dithered image probably could not do the
colors justice, but Kwan could see well enough that the clothes were
out of the ordinary. Members of the fashion elite Cybergoths were
gathered around a small bon-fire lit in a wet, dark alleyway. The
orange flames reflected as slick highlights on the surrounding brick
walls. The goths posed as if in motion but somehow Kwan knew that
they were standing still for the photographer. Their arms, and
sometimes legs, were lifted in strange contortions that emoted stiff
anger and remorse. The crimson fabric draping their naked bodies was
obviously moving. It seemed to float about each pale human form in
thin coiled strands and broad curving sweeps. Nowhere did the fabric
actually seem to be touching flesh. The lines of the fabric subtly
echoed the lines of the bodies, putting a softer edge to the anger
and emphasizing the remorse. Bits of the fabric had floated too
close to the fire and had lit into small flames which seemed to
descend towards the hot pyre instead of flying upwards in the
generated thermals.
The data pouch display signified that an animated version of the
photo was available to download, but Kwan had neither the time or the
memory storage to take a look at it now. He glanced again at the
Cybergoths. He wouldn't describe what he saw as clothing, but he was
strangely attracted to the image. Kwan wondered if this attraction
was more attributable to the designer or the artist that photographed
it.
Kwanchaan shook himself from his intent stare and returned the
data pouch to search mode. He quickly found and punched up the
article corresponding to the tabloid headline he had picked up. Kwan
highlighted the text without reading it and sent the data pouch
searching for similar texts. He then scanned the tabloid article
quickly and found only a few paragraphs worth noting:
"The mystery man Palatable Patty has chosen for her romping
visit to Tae Guk Station is none other than Raymond Stone, the owner
of Rolling Stone enterprises. Perhaps Patty is getting a little
worried about her wrinkles and wants to get in good with the
rejuvenation experts at Rolling Stone. Or perhaps she is just taken
with the idea of having a boy-toy more than twice her age!
Regardless, Patricia's father is not taken with anything Raymond
Stone has gotten his hands into. Nameless Sun sources have informed
our professional writing staff that Mr. Spider himself, Phillip
Spindle, thinks of Raymond as an 'incompetent playboy' and describes
Rolling Stone enterprises as on the brink of economical and
technological disaster. Raymond Stone's reply? "I don't think we've
ever met." Witty as always Raymond..."
and:
"Prankster Patty herself has told Sun reporters that Raymond is
a flirt and a laugh and Tae Guk Station is just the place for them to
finally get into a good argument over. And we know what she means by
that! Tae Guk is known for its black market nano gaming halls and
meat puppet clubs. Very techno-goth and very unlike Raymond Stone.
Raymond, referring to Tae Guk Station, said, "Sounds like a real
adventure, and there aren't too many of those left in this
world...I'm always up for an adventure, especially if Patty is
involved." What a true romantic, Raymond..."
Kwan tapped on the words 'Raymond Stone' and 'Tae Guk Station'
and then started scanning the new information the data pouch had
gathered on Patricia's upcoming trip to the pleasure station.
Raymond was too good to be true. If Patricia Spindle possessed the
mentality to be truly interested in this guy, it would be a cakewalk
to turn her romantic attentions to himself. And if the opposite was
true and she was just playing with Raymond for the sheer decadent fun
of it (which is what Kwan silently wished to be true), it would make
it all that much easier for Kwanchaan to gain her confidence.
He flicked on the time display at the upper right hand corner of
the data pouch display for a half-second. He had about 37 minutes to
finish his research and complete his plan. Kwan already knew where
Jerri Sergei could fit in and, if she was as good as Scott believed,
this defection could really turn into a finesse job. One that both
Cat and the spiders wouldn't be expecting. For the first time since
Goldbreath's office, Kwan finally felt in the groove. He would pull
this off yet.
Kwanchaan commenced tapping on the data pouch screen, pursing
his lips every few seconds as the bytes all fell into place.
Company Man 1.7 by Patrick
Hurh
copyright
1993
"What do you mean its gone?" Phillip Spindle barked at small
video
screen. The shrunk face displayed there was a map of fear and dread.
"We searched Spindle around the area of the nano-lab pod and
used
drone ships to scout a one kilometer radius volume as you suggested,
but we
haven't found the suit yet... sir."
Phillip groaned and looked over the edge of the flat screen
unit,
staring at nothing. The plane dipped suddenly in a small pocket of
turbulence and then stabilized. Engines wound back up to speed,
barely
audible in the elaborately furnished and insulated cabin. He
returned his
gaze to the monitor. "Keep searching. You have to find that suit.
Suspend rescue efforts. Place all available staff on the search
detail!"
"Yes. We are... we will do that." The despair on the spider
officer's
face seemed to increase a notch. "Sir? The vacuum pull of the
breach
could have shot the suit out well beyond..."
"I am not interested in that," Spindle interrupted. "Just find
the
god damn suit!" His thumb punched one of the many fat buttons spread
out
on the flat workstation surface before him and the young officer's
face
blinked out.
It was replaced with a profile view of the plane's pilot.
"ETA, pilot?" Spindle demanded. He was eager to get to the
space
port.
"Twenty minutes, sir." The pilot looked calm and untroubled.
His
eyes flicked down at the instrument panel and then back up to the
forward
windscreen.
Spindle hit another button, this time a large screen hung to his
right
flickered on. He twisted his lean body slightly to view it. The
dark
leather of the chair creaked softly with his body's adjustment. As
the
contrast sharpened, a deep field of stars became visible. At the
center
hung Spindle Station, a badly damaged Spindle Station. Overlaid
across the
bottom of the image in white letters flashed textual data revealing
magnification factors, viewing direction, distance to focal point and
other
optical information. Right now, Phillip couldn't care less about
optics.
He really even didn't care about the damage to his station. He was
obsessed with finding the nano-suit. If that got out into a public
habitable region or, in another sense, 'out' into the media, his
entrapment
plan could backfire and Arachniware could be implicated in a mataglap
production conspiracy. That had destroyed corps in the past and
probably
would again.
He zoomed the viewing drone's image into a close-up of the
station
with a small flexible joystick inset into the mahogany framed
workstation's
smooth surface. An uncoordinated flurry of small drone ships and
powered
suits roamed the station in the area of the breach. Although the Cat
perpetrators had disabled the station's phys-ops and emergency
circuits in
order to hack the security system, the localized breach was at an
extremity
of the station and the twists and turns of the halls and corridors
that
connected it to the rest of the installation had acted as baffles to
the
out rushing air. Several astute troops were able to don their
pressurized
suits in time to avoid severe injury. Many spider workers who
survived had
been out in the belt, piloting mining ships and experimenting with
new
bio-chips. All had been called into activity at the moment the
breach had
occurred.
Spindle watched as small drone ships attached themselves to
towing
braces of the station's frame. The drones' small drives winked on and
off
to equilibrate the station from the small velocity it had acquired
from the
breach. A chime sounded and the smaller display screen blinked
rapidly,
the pilot's profile image oscillating with that of an incoming
message
image. The image was that of the spider officer on Spindle.
"Video on. Monitor one," Phillip stated. The small central
monitor
faded out the pilot's face and re-solidified on the lieutenant's
image.
"Sir, we found one of the assault spiders which confronted the
Cat
operatives in the nano-lab."
"I hope he's dead," Spindle spoke with mild anger.
"He is..." the officer continued, "although his battle tech
spider
recorded the nano-lab fight."
"Is the suit visible?"
"Uh... you'd best see it yourself. I'm patching the video
through
now, sir." The screen blinked blue and then a grainy pixelated image
replaced it. Overlaid text stated the encryption standards and
levels
being used. The white text blinked out and the image began moving.
The frame of the video kept jerking rapidly as the spider
operative
whose head gear they were looking through jumped into the darkened
lab
room. White beams of light shot out from hand-held torches below the
camera's viewpoint. Thin white cross-hairs in the center of screen
focused
on petri dishes, lab counter tops, and eerily shadowed machinery.
The
spider was searching for targets. The camera suddenly snapped down
to a
suited human figure sprawled on the floor. The cross hairs flashed
red. A
rifle barrel sprang into view, drawing an instant bead on the fallen
form.
The cross hairs flashed red and then green. Dark stains spotted the
figure's coveralls. The cross hairs returned to white. The view
hesitated
and then jerked around about 120 degrees settling on a close-up view
of a
hand of another body outstretched on the floor. Most of the body was
hidden behind the vertical edge of a dark cabinet.
"Sound?" Phillip called to the officer on Spindle.
"That couldn't be recovered," came Nelson's reply.
The view from the spider's head gear dropped in a blur and
seemed to
roll quickly leaving swirling afterglows on the monitor. The
vertical edge
of the cabinet tilted into view from a different perspective. The
cross
hairs flashed red again as they centered on an immobile face. The
grainy
face of Roberta Gonzales.
"She was, of course, dead," the voice from Spindle Station said.
The camera jerked around offering views of the floor and other
spider
troopers. Things seemed to have calmed. The view panned to the
right
revealing a trooper poking at something bulky with the thin barrel of
his
weapon. The suit.
Spindle leaned closer to the monitor, his breathing coming
quicker.
The trooper in the image retreated casually from the collapsed suit
on the
floor. He raised his torch hand in the air and started to shrug his
shoulders. The view panned back to the left, jerkily, to focus on a
central spider figure. Phillip sucked in a quick breath as he viewed
the
assault spider in its full battle tech. He still felt pride and awe
at
what his Arachniware could accomplish. The black and white image
caught
the silhouette of the spider with it's long arms moving rapidly in
unison,
simultaneously targeting on alternate targets, while the head, clad
in
streamlined armor with widely bifurcated stere-optic goggles, calmly
turned
oblivious to the jerking precision of its appendages. Its muscles
were
tuned to respond to the battle-tech input without bothering the brain
of
the human except for command decisions. The spider team captain
suddenly
gestured with its torch hand and dropped to his knees.
Suddenly the view swung back to the suit, cross hairs strobing
red.
The rifle barrel flew into view and flashed. The screen flared
white.
When the camera came back on line, Phillip, sitting in his leather
chair,
no longer felt like he was witnessing the actual events within the
room.
The collage of images were too disjointed and without reference.
Small,
dark objects flew about the monitor display incoherently. The camera
seemed to focus randomly on other spiders, the floor, the petri
dishes and
once on the suit that now seemed to be careening about the room.
The video froze on that image. The officer's voice came back on
line.
"That's the last clear image we have. As you can see... someone
or
something was in the suit."
"What?"
"Someone was in the..."
"I heard you!" Spindle passed his hands through his white hair.
"Was
it Cat?"
"Most likely..." The officer sounded scared.
"How did they get in there? I thought the lab was sealed off!
The
whole god damned pod should have jettisoned the instant you sensed
Cat
finally got here!" He slapped the polished wood in front of him.
"We set
this whole thing up and you're telling me Cat just waltzed in and
made off
the suit?!"
"They used some very.. uh, unique approaches." The voice was
trembling now.
Spindle smiled at his manipulation of the obsequious lieutenant.
Things were not quite going as he planned but were still salvageable.
If
the missing suit was really in the hands of Cat and not just floating
off
into space, the double entrapment just may work after all. He
focused on
the still image of the suit on the monitor and realized the scared
spider
was hiding behind it. He quickly snapped a finger on the signal
interrupt.
Immediately the networked workstation re-established the link to
Spindle
Station, this time the Lieutenant Nelson's sweaty face looked back at
him
instead of the pixelated image of the suit.
"Unique approaches? I hope you use some unique approaches to
get that
suit back..." Spindle trailed off as the officer on screen cocked his
head
distracted.
"Sir? Scanners indicate some rather large masses, almost
certainly
industrial ships closing quickly on the station."
"Is the defense perimeter still up?"
Hesitation from the spider.
"Is the defense perimeter still up?!"
"Yes, it's up. But we can't spare the drones to defend it..."
The small screen on Spindle's workstation began to flash again.
The
flashing images this time signified highest priority.
"Christ!" Spindle cursed. "You," towards the young officer,
"stay on
audio, bug-mode only. No input."
"Yes sir."
Spindle tapped a few of the macro buttons and said, "Monitor
one.
Video channel scan." The image of the plane's communication officer
solidified on the display.
"Sir, I have an incoming call from Chairman Rostenkowski of
Caterpillar. All check sums clear and intercorporation encoding
signatures
are green."
Phillip Spindle sat stunned for a moment. He hadn't expected to
be
contacted by the head Cat himself. He blinked and then began to
smile
craftily. Perhaps even this could be turned to his advantage.
Phillip turned to his view of Spindle Station still displayed on
the
large monitor to his right. He manipulated the joystick and the view
widened appreciably to encompass about a thousand kilometers around
the
station. He spoke, "Put him through on audio only."
Silence for a moment, then he heard a cough and Rostenkowski
spoke.
"Phillip? You there?"
"Yes, Dan. I'm here. Came to gloat, huh?"
"I... I'm not sure what you're talking about." Of course he
wouldn't.
Danny knows as well as I that this dialogue is probably being
listened to
by every major corporation player, Spindle thought. His fingers
danced on
the macros silently. Several orange boxes appeared on the large
display of
the star field.
"Hmmm, well why did you call then? Just a friendly hello?"
Spindle
flicked a few buttons and the orange boxes centered on Spindle
Station
"Phillip," Rostenkowski said gravely, "We know Spindle has
suffered a
great damage of some type. I want to assure you that Caterpillar has
taken
no hostile action against you. In fact, due to the severity of your
situation, I have sent several of my nearby mining ships to Spindle's
domain to assist in your rescue efforts. You have no ships close
enough or
large enough to handle the salvation of your workers."
Spindle manipulated the joystick again centering and zooming the
view
on a dense cluster of boxes on the periphery of the screen. Quickly,
the
sight of several yellow behemoth ships filled the large monitor. Cat
construction ships.
"Dan, you do not have permission to enter Spindle's defense
perimeter.
I repeat, any intrusion of our defense perimeter will not be
tolerated."
"Phil, listen to yourself. This is already becoming a media
circus.
You will not survive this if the public sees you deliberately letting
people die simply because you can't let down your corporation guard."
The word, media, caught at Spindle. He suddenly realized that
besides
other corporations listening in, the media was probably hanging on
every
word. He spoke with mock haste, "Dan, that's not what I meant. Any
deliberate offensive action against Arachniware and Spindle Station
will
not be tolerated. Of course your ships will be allowed into the
region of
space to help with our already speedy efforts of rescue."
"I knew you would agree."
Phillip could imagine Danny grinning to himself in his yellow
terricloth bathrobes he always wore in public. He smiled to himself
also
and added, "But I remind you that any action resulting in the injury
of
Arachniware personnel or equipment will be met with severe reprisal."
"Understood. I am sending the order to proceed into your
perimeter."
"Goodbye, Dan." Spindle punched the interrupt button. "Fuck!"
he
yelled for the benefit of the overhearing Lieutenant Nelson and then
tapped
Spindle Station back on-line. Before he could utter an instruction
to
Nelson, the young officer was chattering at him.
"Sir, I didn't want to break in your conversation with Chairman
Rostenkowski, but we found the suit!"
Phillip barely hid his dismay. "Is it... damaged?"
"Uh... we haven't actually picked it up yet. It's actually
several
thousand kilometers out from station coreward, but it's heading this
way
quickly."
Phillip relaxed. It may fall into Cat's hands yet. He looked
at the
lieutenant, wondering if he should trust him and ensure the suit's
theft or
carry on the deception for a while longer to utterly convince Cat
that the
theft was truly a theft. Better to continue the deception, he
thought.
Besides it was a lot more enjoyable.
"How do you account for the suit's return, lieutenant?"
"I.. I don't know. Whoever was in it must have steered it back
somehow." The officer's brow was lowered in thought. "I'm sure it's
the
same suit, 'cause it's EM signature matches the last sig on record
for that
suit."
"I'm sure it is too," replied Spindle. "Listen. You have to
retrieve
that suit. It is imperative that you put all available drones, fully
armed, in the path of its oncoming trajectory."
"Yes, sir."
Spindle looked up at the video drone display. It was tracking
the
blocky yellow ships as they crossed the defense perimeter. He zoomed
out
rapidly, looking for the little orange box that must be surrounding
his
nano-suit. He couldn't find it. Probably too small to reflect the
light
necessary. "Sure is one hell of a resourceful exec."
"Sir?"
"Nothing. Do you have the trajectory of the suit computed yet?"
"Sir, the suit is going to miss the station by several hundred
kilometers... If it stays on its present trajectory it will arrive in
the
midst of the oncoming Caterpillar rescue fleet in about fifteen
minutes."
Spindle's blue eyes lit up for a half second and his thin right
leg
began to bounce in an anticipatory jiggle. He rapidly covered the
instinctive actions with a mask of despair. "Shit!" he groaned.
"Sir?"
"Send everything out after that suit. Bathe it in ultra-sonics
to
knock out whoever's inside and grab it. Do not let Caterpillar even
near
it! Use force if necessary..."
"But the Cat fleet may not even know it's coming if they aren't
looking for it," Nelson objected.
"Oh, they're looking for it all right.. they're looking for it,"
he
lied. "Just make sure they don't get it!"
"Yes, sir!"
Phillip punched the vid-phone off and leaned his chair back for
landing. "Just make sure they see you fighting for it, Nelson," he
sighed
to himself. "Just make sure they see you fighting."
Kwanchaan struggled his eyes open slowly and squeezed them shut
again.
Moisture came forward reluctantly from his tear ducts to lubricate
them.
He tried again. This time the colored flashing lights that woke him
came a
bit clearer. Kwan raised his hand for about the fourth time to wipe
the
mist from his helmet bubble ineffectively. The obstructing matter
was
congealed on the inside surface of the bubble.
At first Kwan had thought that the flashes of light were from
the
suit's chin switch panel. But after squinting at the panel, he dimly
ascertained that the light was coming from outside his suit!
Obviously
something was going on out there and from the frequency and color of
the
brilliant flashes Kwan thought it looked like he was floating in the
middle
of a full scale stellar war.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard he concentrated, his cocoon
drugged
mind and dry eyes could not piece together a coherent picture of what
was
going on. Kwan could see angular objects flickering in the staccato
lighting that must be ships, but he couldn't make out who they were
or even
if there was more than a few of them.
A tingling sensation went through his legs. He could feel them
drift
off even further than they already were from the cocoon's
medications. He
tried to move them to assure himself that they were still there. If
they
were, he received no positive indication. Sonics, his mind thought
detachedly. I'm being wiped with sonics. Kwan looked up through the
helmet and peered for something he could recognize. Strobing images
of the
red wetness inside the helmet backlit by the glowing metal wounds of
surrounding ships confused him. This is like being born, he thought
almost
incoherently.
Suddenly a shape did seem to make sense.... or rather, a color.
As
several quick bursts of plasma charges collided into the warring
ships,
Kwan glimpsed the huge bulking mass of a freighter just overhead. It
glowed bright yellow in the white flares. Yellow...
Another sweep of sonics froze Kwanchaan's lips as they were
about to
mouth the words he had just thought. He stared, open eyed at the
bottom of
the gold behemoth. He imagined the yellow hue even when the
afterimage had
long faded from his unseeing eyes.
I'm yellow, he yelled in his thoughts to the passing ship, I'm
yellow...
********************************
It was hard to tell. Her hair could have been tinted just a
shade
darker than blonde, but it was really hard to say. Kwan looked at
the back
of her head as she poured another cup of tea from the gleaming silver
pot.
He wondered if she had slightly drugged the tea to make her look more
attractive or if she was wearing some type of aphrodisic perfume.
No, this
feeling is not one of lust, he thought. This feels more like... like
excited contentment.
Jerri had answered the door with a rustle and a smile. Her
cotton dress had rustled with the breeze from the old-fashioned
hinged door
and her lips had smiled shyly without a glint of teeth as if he had
already
somehow complimented her just by being behind the door when she swung
it
open.
Scott was right, she was good. Twenty minutes into a
supposed
interview and he, the interviewer, somehow felt like the interviewee.
Kwan
quickly chastised himself for so easily falling for the tricks of the
trade
that he himself was trained in. It just seemed so genuine coming
from
Jerri. There was no harm in going along for the ride, at least just
for
the duration of the interview. He stopped wrestling with his
emotions and
tried to turn on his analytical mind when she turned back to him and
set
the white porcelain cup of tea on the arm of his chair.
She returned to her chair, faced him squarely and said,
"So,
Stephan, you work for the big Cat?" She smiled at the flicker of
surprise
that crossed his face. "You don't mind me calling you Stephan, do
you?"
"Not at all Ms. Sergei." Kwan emphasized the 'Ms' rather
loudly.
"I understand your confusion. My yellow jacket must look quite
familiar
to the corp conscious. But I must assure you that I am strictly
working on
my own in this.... well, except for a certain Finn, whom I believe
you
know."
"Ah, yes, Scott. Such a sweet man. We've worked together
before, although very distantly. I actually have never met him in
person.
Never thought he'd end up working for the Cat though..."
"He doesn't. And neither do I... but look, it doesn't
matter who
I work for..." Kwan uncrossed his legs and leaned forward toward
Jerri.
"...I am interviewing you for a job. This job will require secrecy,
cunning and intelligence and, more than likely, some physical
prowess.
Scott has emphasized that your talents in social engineering would
compliment my own. I hope I can trouble you for a little more
information
than that."
As Jerri began her reply, Kwan brought the fingertips of
his left
hand up to his lower lip, elbow resting on the chair arm. He felt
like he
gained back part of his role as interviewer with his last statements.
He
barely heard Jerri's first words as he traced the edge of his lip
with his
fingers.
"I am well aware of the secrecy and 'cunning', as you so
dramatically put it, required by most of my employers. I hope you
will
respect my privacy and not demand a list of previous jobs or
particular
talents." Kwanchaan was listening now. "My reputation may be soft
spoken,
but I am willing to do anything that a job requires. No questions
asked...
even as to who I am working for. Except in this case, I know you are
working for Caterpillar and I've made a personal commitment to avoid
working for Yellows wherever possible."
Kwan let a pitying look cross his face. "Jerri... What can
I
say? If you really didn't want this job why didn't you let me know
over
the vid-phone? It would have saved a lot of trouble and expense...
and all
because of the blatant association you made of my yellow jacket and
the
Caterpillar Corporation." He began to get up as he sensed her
reaction to
his nonchalance.
"Wait... I _know_ you work for Cat," Jerry spoke quickly,
"not
because of your coat, but because of a message I received today from
someone at Cat who offered..." She cut herself off abruptly. Damn
it, she
thought. He caught me. He had turned his apparent desperation for
her
services, which she had been trying to cull to fruition, back on
herself.
She tried not to sound too anxious as she continued. "Tell me about
the
job you have in mind."
Kwanchaan's brain seemed to split into four distinct trains
of
thought. At the most basic level, he relayed the basics facts as to
the
type of job (defection and merger) and his preferred job method
(finesse)
to Jerri, leaving out all references to Arachniware, Caterpillar and
the
other personalities involved of course. He could fill her in on all
those
if she decided to take the job. On a more cognitive level, he
wondered
what could have been the subject of Cat's supposed message to Jerri
that
had convinced her to at least consider working for Cat. Scott had
even
particularly warned him about her great aversion to Caterpillar. On
the
top most and paranoid level of his mind, Kwan asked himself how the
hell
Cat had been able to track his movements down to Jerri Sergei? And
why
would they be contacting her so obtusely? They must have tracked him
to
Scott's and then... Ahh... Scott's electronic message and his hack of
Whisker must fall into play here somewhere. He recalled the strange
message from his memory:
"Your brother's wedding brunch is confirmed.
Something's fishy in Finland, must be in the nets.
Here's beer in your eye.
compromised."
Noting that Cat's trace of his whereabouts and plans most likely were
only
possible through the careful tracking of his network trails under the
name
of Stephan Fish and possibly by tracing the hack of Whisker back to
Scott,
the message seemed to gain some clarity. Obviously, 'fishy....in the
nets'
must refer to Scott sensing something or someone poking about his net
identity files.... probably looking for Kwan. 'Fishy' could also
refer to
Kwan's false net identity of Stephan Fish... The strange indentation
after
the last w