Twenty-Nine
TWENTY-NINE
Sixteen months ago
It was a tall order, when he was operating on less than three hours of sleep and hadn’t had time to shower or shave.
At least he’d made it back to his apartment long enough to change into fresh clothes: a clean white herringbone shirt, his favorite charcoal-gray vest and suit—nuwool, but high quality—under a double-breasted overcoat thrown over his shoulders.
He’d picked up his lucky burgundy scarf and then put it down again, choosing instead to drape his neck with black flannel plaid that better suited the somber tone he knew he would have to project, starting now.
The news was spreading by the second. It would be the talk of the entire planet within the hour.
Martim swallowed, trying to force moisture into his mouth.
Over the first half of his Principal contract, he’d worked harder and accomplished more than he’d thought possible, but he’d never dealt with a crisis of this magnitude.
How he handled the days and weeks to come would determine his client’s fate, and his own.
Remember: You were made for this. You are the smartest, hardest-working, best-dressed motherfucker in the whole division. It was the sort of cheesy affirmation the Company-provided therapy program would suggest he say to himself to keep the anxiety demons at bay—but hey, sometimes it worked.
He stopped at a beverage machine and filled two cups of imitation coffee.
They weren’t for him; caffeine—even the obscenely expensive real hothouse coffee that was stronger than coffa—had long since lost its potency, but fortunately he wasn’t tired anymore, thanks to the two blue pills he’d swallowed on his way out of the apartment.
Now he felt completely alert, hyperaware, as if the tips of his fingers and the roots of his hair tingled with a faint current of electricity.
The effect wouldn’t last, but he’d figured out how to cycle sleepstims and boosters for maximum effect.
He had a sleepstim pen tucked in his inside breast pocket to calm himself down and focus when the jitters and brain fog hit in a few hours.
Drinks in hand, Martim took a second to steel himself before entering the boardroom.
One day at a time. One hour at a time. One minute at a time.
The room was already crowded with people.
Subdirectors of every major function, gas field bosses rushed here by field car or jet plane or helicopter, experts from Internal Relations and Policy Compliance and Crisis Management.
Wide-eyed, exhausted and scared in equal measure, they focused intently on their screens or murmured to one another in muted conversation.
Martim saw, with satisfaction, that two seats remained empty at the head of the long boardroom table—the director’s black wingback and one other seat, left open for him.
He crossed the room briskly, triggersheath swinging gently with each stride, aware of the eyes that followed him.
Some of the division’s managers still viewed him with skepticism, a few with dislike, but at a time like this, no one questioned where he would sit.
Rocco and Thea were already at their usual spots along the wall behind their client’s chair, so the director could not be far behind. “Fuck Earth, just what I needed,” Rocco exclaimed, accepting the cup of coffa Martim offered and taking an appreciative gulp. “You’re a champ, Marty.”
“How’s he taking it?” Martim asked Thea in a low voice.
The two bodyguards spent more time with Sandbar Uchi than anyone else; they knew his schedule down to the minute, understood his habits and moods, and heard what was said in nearly every conversation.
Martim had decided early on that it would be to his advantage to be on good terms with them.
Small efforts like bringing them coffa were worth it.
Rocco and Thea often gave him advance warnings that afforded him extra time to prepare for his next encounter with his client and anticipate what Uchi might ask for.
Martim preferred to talk to Rocco, who sometimes cracked a smile and knew a lot of impressive coin and card tricks that he worked on to pass the long stretches of waiting that came with the job.
But Thea, who was humorless and hard to read, paid closer attention to what was going on in meetings and was more likely to give Martim useful information.
She smoothed a stray strand of hair over her ear and dropped her voice to match his. “He hasn’t said much, but he’s been up all night.”
“That doesn’t sound good.” A morose, sleep-deprived client was an unpredictable one. “How about you? Did you get any sleep?”
She took in his stubbled jaw and bloodshot eyes. “Probably more than you did.”
The bodyguard was taller than him and severe looking, the lapels of her black button-up crisply pressed, sandy-brown hair pulled back into a low bun.
She’d give off the air of a strict schoolteacher or a prison warden if it weren’t for the fact that her makeup was soft and impeccable, the warm-toned peach eyeshadow bringing out the gray-blue of her eyes.
According to Rocco, she’d gone through atier training but dropped out before the licensing exam because her proficiency in math wasn’t anywhere near what it was with the longknife.
And because SoCon GasPro paid well. Very well.
Thea made more scrip working as a midtrac for Sandbar Uchi than some atiers made in lesser divisions.
Martim had heard the bodyguard talk hopefully about being able to travel beyond the airshield someday; she kept a wish list of all the wonders of the world she wanted to see: Mount Hanji, the Nine Rifts, the Grand Ecology Center.
“Watch out for storm warnings,” she suggested.
Martim took his seat just as the back door opened and Sandbar Uchi entered from his adjoining office, a breakfast bar in one hand, a nutrition shake in the other.
The director regularly awoke at 0430, so this was a normal first meal of the day for him.
Ordinarily, Uchi was his most agreeable self early in the morning, but not today.
He threw himself into the chair and swept a bleak stare around the room at all the anxious, expectant faces.
“In my thirty-plus years in gas production, this is the worst thing that’s ever happened,” Uchi said bluntly, a tremor in his gravelly voice.
The people around the table absorbed the impact of his words with grave agreement.
The director cleared his throat roughly.
“There are going to be questions—a lot of them—about what happened and how this tragedy could’ve been prevented.
But that’s for later. Right now, we need to be thinking of the victims of this horrible accident, and their families. How many people did we lose?”
Martim spoke before the Human Resources subdirector could answer.
“One hundred and eleven have been found and identified so far,” he said, ignoring the woman’s affronted glare.
He’d probably stolen her best opportunity to speak up in front of the director.
So be it. Vale Morgan was a year away from retiring with a Company allowance and wouldn’t be a key figure in the division’s decision-making structure for long.
It was worth the risk of antagonizing her if it meant establishing himself as the calmest, most knowledgeable man in the room during a crisis.
Besides, he knew his numbers were more up to date than hers; he’d given himself access to the gas field security channels and had surreptitiously checked his screen mere seconds ago.
“Most of the casualties were strikers, but there were also thirty-one loyal wagemen still in the facility, including three field managers.”
“Mother most merciful,” Uchi whispered. “May they find peace in Waiting.”
Several people in the room made the blessing sign, sweeping cupped palms to their faces.
Martim did the same, but the harrowing images from Field 93 that he’d already seen circulating on the Companynet suggested anything but tranquility.
Bodies littering the streets and lying between the gas emission towers, curled into protective positions or sprawled with their hands to their throats, terrified faces chilled to blue, ice limning their hair and the lashes of their wide-open eyes.
Piles of corpses clustered around the entrances of buildings where they’d rushed to find heat and oxygen before the Vastness claimed them.
Tundra wind now howled like an angry beast through the unprotected ghost town, the stars crisp and visible, unfiltered by the airshield that had kept all those poor bastards alive.
As if it wasn’t already hard enough for Martim to get to sleep at night.
“Any survivors?” Uchi demanded, all his attention on his atier now.
“None that we know of yet. There are rumors a few strikers breached the supply blockade before the airshield came down, but no one has been located by the rescue parties.”
The director crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward, head bowed in grave contemplation between his broad shoulders.
No one else moved or spoke until Uchi raised his eyes.
“Life is precious on Aquilo. Any loss of it is an appalling tragedy,” he said roughly.
“Tonight we’ve been harshly reminded of how precarious our place on the planet is and how easily the Vastness takes from us. ”
Silent nods from around the room, tears wiped from the corners of eyes.
“That’s why all of us in gas production work so hard each and every day—so that in the future, we won’t have to fear this happening ever again.
We’ll set up a fund,” Uchi declared, “for the relatives of the thirty-one team members who stood strong during the crisis and lost their lives for it. And a communal nameplace should be established in their honor.”