Chapter 20
Between the two men holding guns was a man who looked like he owned the place.
Eyes bluer than a clean river and a chin that could double as a sledgehammer, he had the looks of a high-towner who’d paid to have perfect features.
I disliked him already. When he smiled, it was so welcoming and warm, I almost smiled back.
Lyra stood taller, almost preening, as he approached.
The man motioned to the armed guards with him. “I’ll be fine. You both go take a break.”
One gave me a side glance, but they obeyed. I didn’t take my eyes off them until they’d disappeared behind yet another door.
“It’s about time,” the newcomer said to Talon, but he didn’t sound angry.
“Don’t blame me,” Talon said. “Sleeping Beauty here needed a nap.”
Interesting. I detect that he has a military-grade amp although it is not functioning.
“You’re over two days’ late,” the other man said without seeming to notice Lyra or me.
“Oh, that. Well, I was still wrapping up the other thing. And before you ask, it’s wrapped up, so I’m going upstairs to make myself a much-needed martini,” Talon replied.
The man smiled, touching Talon’s shoulder. “We’ll talk later.”
Talon shot him a knowing glance before tilting his chin in our direction. “I’d tell you two to stay out of trouble, but I think I’d just be wasting my breath.” With that, he walked away.
The newcomer turned his smile on to Lyra. “Good to see you again, Lyra.”
“It’s really good to see you.” They shook hands, and Lyra said, gesturing toward me, “Kynan, this is?—”
“Cal Bennett,” he finished. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I’m Kynan Kade.” He shook my hand, and I noticed that he had calluses. That surprised me—he looked too pretty for calluses. “Let’s go to my office. We have a lot to talk about.”
As he led us through the large room, I glanced across the screens in case Byte could glean anything useful.
With its latest upgrade, it could do most of its spy work wirelessly, which made me think it was scanning whatever networks they were running off here to satiate its curiosity.
More likely, it was prepping another upgrade to launch with the galaxy’s worst timing.
I rarely felt anything when it was doing whatever processing it did—only when it was really sucking up my energy.
I didn’t know much about amps, but I’d never heard of amps pulling energy from their hosts before.
Amps were just tiny computers wired into brains, giving a specialized encyclopedia of knowledge, with the more expensive amps able to connect to networks to access even more information.
I didn’t get an encyclopedia, and so far, Byte has been an amateur at connecting to networks to access data for me.
But I had to admit, not feeling like I was at death’s door was nice for a change.
I was willing to sacrifice some energy for that…
not that I was the biggest fan of the sudden need to devour more than an entire gang of half-starved teenaged boys could eat.
Curiously, the analysts in this room are attempting illegal entry into corporate systems, specifically Softbiotics systems. Rather than copy what I can from their copies, I’m analyzing their in-house programs. Most are rather elementary—such as brute-force attack programs—but there are several programs that are surprisingly adequate.
Twelve humans in here have engineering amps, which likely performed much of the better coding.
We entered Kynan Kade’s office. It was more spartan than I expected.
There was no desk, just a single round metal table and four black plastic chairs in the center, and a cot off to the side with a neatly folded blanket and pillow stacked on top.
A small cart stood with a pitcher of water.
The walls were bare except for a door. I wondered if it was another false closet with a hidden passage to yet another room.
Kynan poured three glasses of water and handed us each one.
The water was clearer than anything you’d find in Dreswick.
Solace Moon had clear water, too, but it had a metallic taste that I didn’t like.
I took a drink and noticed that it had no flavor whatsoever, and I took a longer drink.
Then he took a seat and gestured for us to do the same, and we did.
The chair was stiff, and I wiggled to get more comfortable, only to give up when I realized that wouldn’t be possible.
“I’m sorry to hear what happened at Solace Station,” Kynan began. “I didn’t find out about the traitor until after the fact. But I’m glad you made it out okay, and hopefully, the trip was worth it.”
Lyra pulled out the small drive. “You were right about Dr. Katz. She’d been collecting data on Softbiotics since even before she reached out to you. Hopefully there’s something in here that you can use.”
He smiled, taking the drive. “I’m sure there is. Thank you for putting yourself in danger for the cause. And for bringing Cal here.”
“Listen, I’m not some suitcase Lyra was hauling around. If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be,” I said. Did I want to be here? I wasn’t sure.
Kynan’s eyes snapped to me. “You’re not a suitcase, and I appreciate that you trust us enough to come here.
You’ve been through a lot in a very short time.
But if it wasn’t for my people and our resources, you’d be with the enforcers right now…
or at least your amp would be in their hands, and you’d be dead. ”
He has a valid point. You weren’t doing very well on your own.
“No one does anything for free, so how about we just skip right to the part you tell me exactly what you want from me… or should I say, my amp,” I said.
“I can respect that.” He steepled his fingers before continuing. “I don’t know how much Lyra told you, but this resistance doesn’t exist to be merely a thorn in Softbiotics’ side. We’re here to gain TerraSoft-11’s independence from them.”
“That’s a little hard when they own this planet and the three moons above our heads,” I pointed out.
“It’s nearly impossible. We have to convince the board that this planet and its moons don’t make enough revenue to balance its risks, and I have to do that without them dumping all this in a sale to another corporation,” he said.
“That’s why we’ve been moving so carefully.
We’d never be able to operate fully without notice, so a riot here and there makes them think we’re simply a group of disgruntled low-towners demanding better living conditions.
If they truly knew our goals, they would’ve sent every enforcer they had at us years ago.
We’ve been lying low, building up our assets.
Another few years, and we’ll be ready to take a stand against them. ”
“Until their ally corporations come running to help out,” I pointed out.
Kynan shook his head. “The corporatocracy is failing. Corporations have become so cutthroat that they don’t even pretend to get along anymore.
Only the smaller companies would help, and they’re small enough they wouldn’t make a difference.
The big guys will wait until Softbiotics is out to roll in and try to take over. We’ll need to be ready for that.”
“You’re confident,” I said.
“I’ve seen it first-hand,” he said. “I worked security management for this entire system. I’ve seen their strengths—and their weaknesses. I also heard about other uprisings in other systems.”
“Yeah, we all heard about those. They were quashed… badly,” I said.
“Not all of them. The news doesn’t show the successful ones. Did you know there are systems out there that bought out their ownership rights from their corporation?”
I hadn’t heard that. “And you think you can buy rights to TerraSoft-11?”
“Yes. They’ll accept our offer once we show them the cost of maintaining rights isn’t worth it.”
“It’s a numbers game,” Lyra said, speaking for the first time.
“Yeah, but those numbers you’re talking about are human lives,” I countered.
“Lives will be lost whether we do something or not, but our goals are to minimize loss of life and focus on Softbiotics’ loss of infrastructure. This planet is one of their poorest performers in terms of revenue. There’s no way they’d rebuild factories here.”
That’s a rather optimistic view. There are thousands of variables to take into account, many of which would skew the probability toward Softbiotics offloading their loss to another corporation.
I agreed, so I brought it up. “And that’s when they decide to sell to someone else who’s even worse than what we’ve got now.”
“They won’t—not if we can play our cards right,” Kynan said with confidence.
“And you’re sure about that?” I asked.
He nodded. “I am. They won’t sell because that would take too much time—they’d have to have at least two disappointing earnings statements before they found a buyer, which would lower the sale price to bargain basement level.
Whereas we’ll make them an offer right after we hit them, giving them the best offer they have a prayer of receiving. ”
I thought about Kynan’s plan. “In my experience, sucker punches don’t always turn out the way you expect, especially when sucker punching someone who’s a whole lot bigger than you.”
“It will work,” Lyra said. “We’re careful; we have a plan—it will work. We’re lining up the pieces.”
I couldn’t tell if she was trying to convince me or herself.
But what she said made me think of Grandmother telling me about what happened to plans the moment you implemented them.
Grandmother spouted a lot of words of wisdom—and the older I got, the more I realized how pretty much everything she’d told me was true.
“A plan, huh? And what will happen the moment something goes sideways?”
She pursed her lips.
I turned back to Kynan. “And where do I fit into this plan of yours?”