Sixteen #2
“To necessitate outside aid or evacuation and thus force an end to the punishing blockade.” Isako hasn’t had the time to study all the available information in detail, but that was the conclusion of the official Company investigation based on a preponderance of security documentation.
Waterboy starts giggling and coughing again.
“Uchi’s people did a fantastic PR job, from top to bottom.
If anyone fucked with the airshield system, it wasn’t us.
It was Uchi’s loyal field bosses following orders.
Their families were all given huge bonuses that weren’t made public, did you know that? ”
It’s hardly surprising that a division would heavily compensate the relatives of wagemen who lost their lives defending against violent obstructionists. That alone isn’t evidence of a nefarious cover-up.
Then again, the official Company line is that there were no survivors from Field 93, and that’s apparently proving to be untrue. “So how did you survive?” she asks.
“We were running out of water, like I said. There would’ve been fucking riots if we didn’t do something.
A group of six of us managed to bribe our way through the blockade to raid a research station.
We left four hours before the airshield came down and then everyone inside died.
Bonus! We ended up with plenty of water and supplies for ourselves.
” The smile he gives her is creepier than a jarbrain’s, slick with the black humor of a man who’s seen enough death to find it hilarious.
“What happened to the other five survivors?”
“You know the answer to that.” He’s still smiling in a way that makes Isako think he really is unhinged.
“Terminated for workplace obstruction. Evicted from Company property for policy violations. Sent into Waiting. Whatever Companyspeak you tracs use for—” He draws a hand across his throat and makes a schnick sound.
“Get rid of any inconvenient voices that might tell another side of the story during the sham Company hearing. One hundred and twenty-nine dead already, why not round up?”
“But you escaped.”
“I guess I got lucky. Or maybe”—he waggles a mocking finger up at the sky—“there’s some reason the gods of old Earth are looking out for little ol’ me.”
“Can you substantiate any of your claims with reliable evidence that could prevent Sandbar Uchi from being confirmed to the Board?”
“Oh, there’s evidence,” Waterboy says with a shrug. “Or there was . Uchi’s people made sure it disappeared, just like the survivors. Even if you could find it, making it public isn’t stopping that son of a bitch.”
Isako is reluctantly inclined to see his point.
Even if more information was unearthed at this late time, it would be easy to claim it was doctored or falsified.
Uchi’s already been exonerated by an official investigation and Company hearing.
A person can’t be put through a review twice for the same infraction.
It’s an old rule that dates back to the principle of double jeopardy.
Admissible evidence or not, the fact that Waterboy exists and five other survivors were eliminated means there’s a lot more to the Field 93 incident than what was reported, and Sandbar Uchi is capable of going to great lengths to keep it under wraps.
“Obviously,” Waterboy says, “the only solution is to kill him.”
Isako’s eyebrows rise as she eyes the man cautiously. How serious is he? It’s hard to tell; Waterboy seems to vacillate between genuine conviction and grinning irreverence. “The assassination attempt on Uchi last year,” she says. “What do you know about that?”
“Didn’t you hear?” He leans forward conspiratorially. “The two heroes— oops , I mean, perpetrators who were caught and terminated for the car bombing claimed they worked alone.”
Waterboy slides a shit-eating grin at the two freelancers standing off to the side, like a child far too obviously pretending to keep a secret in front of his parents. The man in the overalls shifts uncomfortably at the sudden attention, but the woman crosses her arms defiantly.
Isako looks between them and Waterboy. “You’re United Freelancers.”
She’s hardly surprised. United Freelancers is just the latest iteration of the same old thing that’s been around since the Great Silence began—a passionate, loosely allied, and dysfunctional oppositional coalition of anti-Company agitators, anti-terraformist extremists, anarchists and extinctionists, badge-class abolitionists, and religious zealots.
People like them are the reason the Prosperity Revolt occurred and wiped out nearly half of humanity on Aquilo.
Even the name United Freelancers is unironically ironic, suggesting an organized workers’ brotherhood for those kicked out, dropped out, or opted out of actually being workers.
Arms still crossed, the woman stares Isako down. “So what if we are? Are you planning to file a report with Cityhab Security?”
“Why would I bother?” Isako meets the glare expressionlessly. “My client wants Sandbar Uchi gone as much as you do.”
She wouldn’t be saddled with this assignment at all if the assassination attempt had succeeded.
Uchi being dead is certainly one way to prevent him from being confirmed to the Board.
If United Freelancers orchestrated the plot to kill Uchi and is planning to try again, that would be good to know.
It would be awfully convenient if she could get them to accomplish her objective for her.
But they tried and failed before, and Isako has low confidence they could do better the next go-round.
Uchi’s bound to have improved security measures.
These disorganized freels have no inside allies and are vulnerable to being caught and terminated at any time.
Another ineffectual, half-baked attempt would only sway public sympathy toward Uchi and cause SoCon GasPro to go into high alert, making her mission near-impossible.
She probes, cautiously, “Next time around, you need a better plan.”
Waterboy kicks his feet as he swivels the chair. “Problem is, he’s a jarbrain now. Practically impossible to kill a jarbrain, isn’t that right?” He eyes Isako questioningly.
“It’s difficult,” she agrees. “Second stagers can’t die from poison, suffocation, or blood loss.
If you take off a limb or stab them through the chest, they can be repaired.
But we call them jarbrains for a reason.
The brain can’t live without its casing and support system.
And no one’s ever been successfully recorporalized a second time.
So if they’re blown up, beheaded, or otherwise too damaged, they die just like the rest of us. ”
Waterboy nods sagely. “Sandbar Uchi is a piece of shit who deserves to face justice for all his sins. But”—he steeples his stubby, chapped fingertips together—“only small-minded people are motivated by vengeance. I’ve got another, greater calling.”
“And that is?”
“To spread the truth to those who need to hear it.” He gestures magnanimously around himself as if the Old Warehouse is his church and the freelancers his congregation.
“You mean the truth about what happened at Field 93? Why didn’t you go to the Companynet press? Or ask to testify at the official hearing?”
“And accomplish what, besides being discredited and killed?” Waterboy’s blue eyes are pinprick bright.
“The Field 93 disaster is meaningless. Just a footnote in history. Like the Utilities Strike, the Transit Rebellion, even the Prosperity Revolt. This whole city is built on bones. Every street, every building, every park is a monument to death.”
“Nameplaces are an honor. They remind us of those who came before and who willingly offered their place to the next generation.” She hears the words roll off her tongue automatically, before remembering that she’s not instructing one of her trainees.
She’s here to get information, not to argue with a freelancer.
“Another Company lie that the masses accept in order to make their lives bearable. All because the truth is too fucking bitter to swallow.” Waterboy gets a faraway look in his eyes.
“ We don’t belong here. We were never meant to be on this godforsaken rock.
Like frogs in the fucking desert, kept alive by curious keepers holding a glass jar.
The Great Silence wasn’t an accident any more than Field 93 was an accident. History has been correcting a mistake.”
“You want people to just give up on living?”
Waterboy runs a tongue over yellowed teeth. “I want to break the jar.”
All right, then. So he’s one of those . An extinctionist. She supposes that it’s to be expected. The trauma this man went through in Field 93, followed by life as a badgeless, hunted man living on the fringes of society, was clearly enough to loosen several screws.
Waterboy lowers his voice as if sharing a secret. “Look around. What do you see here? A bunch of badgeless detritus. Wagemen past their expiry date. Cowards hoarding vital resources. What if they were to wake up, and realize they’re so much more than that?”
“Like what?”
“Like an army.”
Isako leans forward slightly. The tiny, sudden motion is enough to make Waterboy flinch involuntarily, and that makes her smile.
She drops her voice to match his. “I’m not interested in your revolution.
But I do intend to stop Sandbar Uchi from gaining any more power.
If you and your buddies can help me do that, then maybe there’s a way we can work together.
” She’s not sure that’s true, but she wants to plant the seed.
The enemy of an enemy is a friend—or rather, a potential tool. “Think about it.”
“You’re in the jar, too, you know.” Waterboy wiggles as if delighted. “Suffocating along with the rest of us, but you help keep the lid shut.”
Isako stands; there’s nothing more to learn here.
She makes her way back through the Old Warehouse, eager to get out.
The two freelancers accompany her, to make sure she gets to the exit and doesn’t take any detours.
“I don’t trust any trac,” the woman growls at Isako’s back, as if in threat.
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re no better than your jarbrain masters.
But I knew folks in Field 93. Someone’s got to make that fucker Uchi pay.
If that’s going to be you, then we’re on the same side. ”
Isako slides the woman a dubious look. “Waterboy isn’t on anyone’s side.”
“People listen to him,” insists the man. “He has a story they need to hear.”
“One that puts you on a collision course with the Board of Directors.”
“We’re done hiding,” declares the woman. “Let the Company try to get rid of us. Most of us are past our grace periods anyway. The only way we bring about change is if people know who we are and what we stand for.”
It makes sense that United Freelancers would be active among the badgeless of the Old Warehouse.
And naturally, they’d claim the sole survivor of Field 93 as one of their own.
But there are other people living here who didn’t sign up for any violent cause, who’re just trying to keep their heads down and survive. Children , for fuck’s sake.
“You’re playing with fire,” Isako mutters. They pass two upright steel storage lockers with bright red hazard warnings painted on them. “And explosives, apparently. Not that I’m surprised you’re flouting policy, but I’m surprised you’d be so reckless about it.”
“What does it matter to you?”
“It doesn’t.” She answers without turning. “It’s no skin off my back if you accidentally blow this whole place to smithereens, or if you draw enough attention to get yourselves terminated. It doesn’t concern my client, so it doesn’t concern me.”
“You know what I don’t get about you tracs?
” sniffs the pale man in overalls. “You’ve got no reason to love the Company that treats you like second-class citizens, but you’ll literally die for the directors who make it run.
More of you end up badgeless than anyone else, but you’re so damn loyal to the Code that fucks you over.
All for a chance to climb past the rest of us. ”
Isako doesn’t bother to reply. The man’s right.
A lot of contractors do end up badgeless, but most of them do the respectable thing.
They resign with Agency honors. They don’t claim entitlement to resources past their due or, worse yet, take their bitterness and anger out on society.
As for the atiers who are capable and deserving and loyal, the ones who make it to the highest level—they share in the abundant successes and rewards of their clients.
At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
How it should’ve worked for her.
How it should’ve worked for Martim.