Chapter 18 #2
Fischer, who breathes at least partially through his skin, watches as Skotch heads away from the water, back towards Saint Frances.
“Sister, I’m really sorry, I need another favour.” He’s thought it through. Found his best options have him tracing a circle to where it all began. “Can you put in another call for me?”
Communications between Gehirner are surprisingly patchy.
There’s a makeshift network of data resources and connections, but they’re piecemeal and unreliable.
Guilds are jealous of their channels, and humans didn’t really intend for their unseen Little Helpers to be chatting on the phone every minute of the day.
Didn’t really foresee that their animal infrastructure would self-generate the sort of complex society that might need it.
Hence there are occasional hubs of connectivity, like Uwe’s little cyborg holdout, but very few official points of contact.
A few guilds are wired into the network, and probably you can put a call out to the farms, which is something Skotch has no intention of doing.
And then there’s his old friend. Because one place that Saint Frances can get a reliable line to is Embassy Plaza and HengZeico.
Because Skotch has no intention of marching into Das Uzcogeb?ude and putting himself in Benson’s shadow, but at the same time he sees that somewhere between his former employer and his embassy staff friend is his last roll of the dice.
The final chance to find a happy home for displaced possibly genius mice.
Before he goes, he tracks down Herr Fischer again, still dabbling his feet in the water.
“If he wasn’t trouble, your lot wouldn’t be interested in his wellbeing,” he points out, jabbing his snout at the frog. That broad regard absorbs his ire without flinching.
“The problem with animals like Herr Bandit,” Fischer says lugubriously, “is that one can take the animal out of the company, but not the other way round. Herr Bandit knows it’s a bad world, but thinks it’s as good as it gets.
If Herr Bandit believed in better then perhaps he wouldn’t be so scared of change. ”
Saint Frances has made his connection and he has two terse conversations with two very different and opposed powers. At the end of which he has what promises to be a fraught dinner date at the B?renhaus and a last throw of the dice to find somewhere for Meece.
The tourists at Embassy Plaza are having a field day.
It’s only tourists, really, who cluster at the windows of the B?renhaus to watch the funny little animals sit on stools and have dinner.
Local Neuwieners don’t care for it, really.
It’s not a novelty, maybe. More than that, they are part of a compact even if they don’t know it.
Being reminded of the presence of the Gehirner underfoot and in the walls and all over, it doesn’t sit well with them.
As though they, too, are dedicated to upholding Rule One even though they don’t know it exists.
To visitors, though, Gehirner are one of the great fascinations of green city life.
Brits and Chinese, Italians, Americans, they all take photos of the tea party.
They see just the cute. Here is a raccoon and a possum, a tanuki and a turtle, and they’re all having a delightful tea party together like they just stepped out of a children’s book.
While on the other side of the glass, the Gehirner are talking serious business.
Talking in Furze, because none of the other three speak Shojen’s native Henge, but other than that, they’re all foreigners.
And Skotch hadn’t really thought Benson would actually haul his bulk out of Das Uzcogeb?ude himself.
Had expected some slick Uzco negotiating team to pitch up, Business Raccoon and Legal Possum at your service.
It’s the old man himself, though, chewing on a slow-burning stogie, and Maria with a spiker shoved into her super in case of trouble.
Although probably Benson’s tank has plenty of lethal surprises if some guild or gang thought his death was worth the appalling weight of mausgelt the turtle’s worth.
They had to shift some stools, for sure, but the staff of the B?renhaus are nothing if not obliging. Benson’s motorised demi-fishbowl is shunted right up to the table, and the turtle has his foreclaws grappled over the rim, looming down on everyone like a monstrously bulky priest in a glass pulpit.
For his part, Shojen sits and sips green tea. Tanuki are big animals. He’s not too overshadowed. Sitting next to him, Skotch looks a little like Shojen’s brought his kid to work. Maria, theoretically the muscle, is the smallest at the table, which plainly rankles with her.
“You’ve got some big words, to call us all the way out here, Skotch,” Benson says.
His wrinkled neck stretches down and he crops at the shredded meat on his plate.
The B?renhaus is one of the few places a Gehirner can eat real food legitimately, because the tourists don’t want to see them tucking into ration bars made of separated dead Gehirner.
“Chief,” Skotch says, “you’re not getting me into Uzco Towers without a gun at my back right now.”
“It’s almost as if you don’t trust me,” Benson says, playing for wounded.
“Let’s just say there’s been a breakdown of employer-employee relations,” Skotch tells him.
“I’m going to advance this conversation a little,” Benson says.
“Just to save everyone a slice of their allotted lifespan. You’ve got the mouse.
Despite taking our pay, you’re on the fence about handing him over.
You’ve been speaking to communists and crazy people and they’ve filled your skull with talk.
So now you’re stuck in the middle of just about everyone and you don’t know what to do.
Even though just about anyone involved will make you a very rich raccoon if you hand the squeaker over. ”
“Dead and rich just buys a good funeral,” Skotch points out, and honestly it probably doesn’t even do that. It’s not as though the Separation Plant runs a VIP service. “And you?”
Shojen, here as unofficial representative of HengZeico, Uzco’s great rivals as foreigners seeking influence in Neuwien, tilts his head.
“The account of your position fits our own understanding precisely,” he says.
Sips his tea. Manages to look apologetic out of the corner of his eye. “You’re in a bind, my friend.”
“So let’s see if we can cut the knot,” Skotch offers. “Come on, Benson. Chief. Straight answers for once. Everyone knows what the deal is with Meece except me, it seems like. He’s going to poison the whole city, overthrow our human masters, make the Maulers’ day? What’s the deal?”
He reads the table, then, or as best as he can.
Maria doesn’t know, he’s pretty sure. Just muscle after all, and why tell her anything that might get in the way of her pulling the trigger?
Benson absolutely knows—Skotch isn’t quite sure when the button dropped for the turtle, but it switched the assignment from live to dead or alive between Skotch getting hired and him getting marched in after Fitch died.
Shojen is still and stiff on his stool too, for a moment just a stuffed tanuki, a toy.
While Skotch has been chasing about, some amount of knowledge has come to the Gehirner of HengZeico too.
“Sometimes,” Shojen says diplomatically, “the knowledge of what a thing is can be as dangerous as the thing. The knowledge that a thing exists. The threat of it.” His eyes meeting Benson’s for a moment. A common understanding from two opposing poles of the corporate spectrum.
“I’d say that nobody wants the change that mouse will bring. How he’ll shake up everything. Spit in the eye of Rule One,” Benson says. “But you’ve met the sort of people who do. You happy with your new friends, Skotch?”
“So you’ve come down on the dead mouse side of things,” Skotch notes.
“It seems safest. And when someone at my elevation is worried about the stakes, that ought to give you pause,” Benson says.
Skotch is about to throw it all over then. He’s here, in this company, because he had a backup plan should Benson tilt that way. He looks to Shojen, his mouth already open to make the offer. You take the mouse, then.
The tanuki won’t meet his eye. Dad has some bad news for son. “My friend,” he says, “this is not a propitious time.”
A twisted moment. Skotch feels the ground shift under him. “Your people…”
“As a representative of HengZeico,” Shojen says, meaning not the human company but the guild of Henge that they engineered, “we would obviously be happy to receive the mouse. Most likely he would be offered a place back at our head office in Osaka. Most likely you would not see or hear from him again.” Shojen’s snout tilts lower.
Ashamed, Skotch reads. Both at what he is and isn’t doing.
“As your friend I advise you to seek other options.”
Benson laughs, a harsh, crooked sound from deep in his heavy body. “It’s a hard world full of moving parts, Skotch. You get soft, you get chewed up between them. You’re still on retainer. Bring in Meece and at least you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing those Country Club types won’t get him.”
Outside the window, tourists take pictures of the jolly animals having their picnic.
Skotch isn’t quite sure where he’s heading, when he leaves.
Just away, mostly. Away from Shojen, who’s plainly been overruled by his own superiors.
Away from Benson’s massive, grinding presence.
And when he hears feet pattering after him, he reckons that one or other faction have decided that he’s become surplus to requirements and they’ll find the hidden mouse up his sleeve or something.
It’s Maria. They’re in the well-travelled spaces edging Embassy Square, plenty of respectable animals going about their business. Doesn’t mean she won’t shoot him down and take the consequences. Uzco has deep pockets after all.