Five
FIVE
Isako’s hand moves reflexively to the weapon on her thigh, but she doesn’t draw.
“Why would he do this?” Even as she voices the question, she knows the answer.
It’s like Minto said. Forest Greves liked to be unconventional, to challenge assumptions and break norms. He took joy in doing the unexpected. He did it dramatically this morning in front of the whole Company, and he’s doing it now from beyond the grave.
“I believe,” Minto muses, “that he simply didn’t wish to leave you a ronin.”
Did the man succumb to a fit of softhearted insanity?
He was torn up about the two hundred members of Astrocom that had to be dismissed.
Greves must’ve thought he could, at the very least, give his loyal atier a fighting chance to keep her position.
He figured, quite rightly, that she would win in any contest of longknives.
He didn’t know it would be at the expense of her former apprentice.
Sherae’s jaw is set. She takes a step toward her old mentor, eyes blazing with indignant determination.
She’s on the second extension of a Principal contract and was no doubt expecting the offer of an Exclusive right about now, not losing her job to a rival contractor she’s already decisively defeated in the divisional war and who is now, by some inexplicable sick irony, contracted to her client. Isako would be pissed off, too.
But Isako notices the slight, telltale tremble in the younger atier’s longknife hand. Sherae’s scared. She’s not sure she can win, not against Quickblade, who taught her everything she knows about the longknife.
Girl always did need to do a better job of believing in herself.
Director Minto looks between the two longkniveswomen, the smooth impassivity of her face revealing nothing.
Synthbodies are wired with tens of thousands of motor-control connections, but they lack subtlety in the tiny facial muscles.
“Director Greves left me an unexpected and generous gift. My atier is less experienced, and she’s made missteps during her time serving me.
It would only make sense to weigh the available options. ”
Sherae flushes darker. All it’ll take is a slight nudge of her hand for there to be blood in the garden.
Despite everything, Isako feels a stir of pride. Sherae’s old-school, like her. Not like some atiers these days whose longknives are for nothing but show. This one was trained up right, if Isako can say so herself.
Isako pulls her hand away from her triggersheath.
“Sherae’s already proven herself. Whether she can defeat me with the longknife doesn’t matter.
She steered SatOps to victory and she has years of client service ahead of her.
I won’t bid for the position.” To add finality to her words, she crosses her arms, making it impossible to draw quickly.
Uncertainty flickers across Sherae’s face. She looks to her client.
“The choice isn’t yours to make,” Minto replies with a delicate shrug.
“Under the allowance for unusual disruption of business caused by a divisional merger, I’ve asked the Agency for thirty days to resolve this violation of policy.
The Partners have granted my request. It’s my prerogative to use this time to evaluate both candidates before making a decision. ”
“Then I request permission to resign.”
Sherae’s mouth falls open and her hand drops away from her weapon. “Isa—”
Isako’s glad the words came out so easily and that, in the immediate aftermath, she doesn’t feel any doubt or fear. In fact, the relief she experiences is like the feeling of sitting down after standing for too long, or taking a long piss after you’ve been holding it in.
She hasn’t been speaking of it out loud, even to herself, but the decision has been hovering right in front of her ever since she crossed the last names off the DTE list and walked out of the Oxygn Bar.
All the indications have been there, unsubtly pronouncing that the final chapter of her storied career is coming to an end.
Maya growing up, the divorce from Tai, losing the war, her body constantly assailing her with reminders of her age, and this morning, the incontrovertible closing argument, as if delivered by fate—Greves taking the final walk without inviting her along.
Resigning is just a part of life, like her kithfather used to say. To live is to die.
Isako holds Minto’s inhuman gaze. She’s not about to let the jarbrain see anything other than steadfast intent.
Contractors can’t resign from the Company without their client’s permission, or the permission of the Agency if they’re ronin.
Since Isako is still, bizarrely, technically on contract, Minto must agree.
The director fingers the circular gold badge at her neck and the small silver key that hangs next to it. “Resignation is an honor not afforded to every contractor.”
“Do you deny that I merit it?”
“No. But I could still refuse.”
“You could,” Isako admits, keeping all feeling out of her voice. “But how would that benefit your division?” Minto would have to be a fool to retain an old atier who doesn’t want to work over a young one who keenly covets the job.
A long moment of silence during which it seems even the sound of flowing water and the songbirds in their cage have quieted.
“It’s inspiring,” Minto says at last, “to meet a contractor who’s truly committed to client service and the good of the Company.”
Old jarbrain bitch, Isako thinks.
I’m not resigning for you or even for Greves.
I’m not doing it for the Agency or the Company.
I’m old, and I’m exhausted of this work.
I had a good run. Time to step aside, let others have their shot at it.
I tried to give every one of my apprentices the best start I could, and youngsters like Sherae deserve their chance to make a name and a living for themselves the way I did.
Maya doesn’t need a ronin for a mother. She’s got a bright life to lead and heights to climb.
She’ll get my entire resignation bonus, and that’ll make things a lot easier for her starting out.
Maybe I wasn’t there for her as much as I wanted to be over the years, but I always provided, I always did my best to give her every opportunity I could. That’s what I can keep doing.
Isako says nothing.
Director Minto manipulates the wallscreen, dismissing the amended client contract and pulling up a different document, one that Isako recognizes immediately as a standard notice of resignation.
Minto fills in Isako’s name, then adjusts the bonus even higher than the results of the usual formula, to a generous amount equaling four years of full-time contract employment at senior atier rates.
Isako doesn’t question it; she’s not going to pretend she doesn’t deserve every bit of that scrip.
Sherae averts her eyes. Still a bit soft, that one.
A shiver of anticipation runs up Isako’s spine.
She’s been through this dozens of times, from the other side.
She’s witnessed ordinary wagefolk like Dew Loren, who never went through the grueling licensing tests of an atier, still display fortitude when given the chance.
It seems perfectly fitting that she should finally get the chance to do the same.
Isako steps forward to the screen, raising her hand to the signature field.
“Not yet.” Minto taps a date into the document. Not today’s date, but one thirty days hence. “I’ll grant you permission at the end of the period I’ve negotiated with the Agency.”
Isako draws back, indignant. “I already said I won’t take Sherae’s position.”
“I have work that needs to be done discreetly outside SatOps.” It’s impossible to read emotion in those bright green artificial eyes, but Isako can sense smugness.
“That overdramatic windbag Greves granted me a boon that I’d be foolish to pass up.
After you carry out one last assignment successfully, I’ll release you from Company employment with all the bonuses and benefits you’re entitled to from your long career. But only after.”
The director flutters her pale fingers and the document shrinks away. The white wallscreen flickers and is once again the picturesque illusion of a window looking out on a gentle, sunlit field with butterflies darting over it.
So this is what Minto intended all along.
She knew Isako wouldn’t kill Sherae. She took advantage of Greves’s stunt and the unrest from the merger to legally employ two atiers for five weeks, and no one else in the Company knows about it.
She has a secret ace up her sleeve to play however she likes.
Isako’s mind spins angrily, like a gear off its chain.
She’d like to give Savannah Minto the middle finger, turn on her heel, and walk out, but that would be breaking contract.
She’d still be a ronin, but entirely unemployable even as a freelancer.
If she resigns illegally, she’ll lose the right to an eventual burial and nameplace, and Maya will receive nothing, not a single scripbit, only shame.
Can she go to the Agency for intervention? No chance. The Agency won’t step in between a contractor and a client unless there’s a policy violation, and Minto’s already figured a deal with the Partners.
An orange cat saunters out from behind a planter full of ferns and winds itself around Minto’s legs, purring.
Isako stares at the creature in disbelief.
She’s never seen one of the animals in the flesh, only in media and as simbeasts.
Cats were domesticated on Earth to control rodent populations in agricultural areas, but there’s no rodent problem here on the top floor of SatOps headquarters.
Savannah Minto made a special requisition from the Genebank and had the animal created solely for her own enjoyment.
A resource-consuming pet, like the fish and the birds.