Thirty-Three
THIRTY-THREE
Twenty-six hours later, Martim staggered back into his apartment. It was night again. He stood in the shower, swaying wearily on his feet as the hot water ran down his back. He ignored the first price-increase chime, then the second.
Thea was going through recorporalization and would be for some time.
Whether she came out of it would be another thing.
Martim had done his part. He’d literally banged down doors to get everything in order so the surgery could proceed.
No one except for the Executive, the members of the Board, and Director Sandbar Uchi could’ve made something so unusual happen so quickly.
It was quite the feeling, to be able to place calls and walk into rooms as a stand-in for one of the biggest names in the Company.
No one turned down a meeting with him, not when he said, “I’m here on behalf of Director Uchi.
” People took orders from him, went out of their way for him.
He had wealth and influence he couldn’t have dreamed of a few years ago.
He had to admit it: He enjoyed the power.
Reluctantly, he got out of the shower and checked the Companynet newsfeeds.
They were all reporting on the shocking assassination attempt against Sandbar Uchi.
Two badgeless perpetrators had been arrested in connection to the bombing.
They claimed to have been working alone, but Martim didn’t believe that story for a second.
Ingredients for making car bombs weren’t exactly easy to come by, and the swift statement from United Freelancers was too convenient and smelled far too smug.
While we abhor violence, let this serve as a reminder of the grief and injustice that have gone unaddressed. Sandbar Uchi and all those responsible for the Field 93 massacre must be held accountable for their actions, if not by the Company, then by the people.
The online provocateur calling himself Waterboy was less diplomatic. “Company elites like Uchi get away with murder every day. A few people were brave enough to do something about it, and here’s the funny thing: They’re going to be the ones who’re called terrorists.”
Martim’s sense of weary satisfaction evaporated as quickly as the steam off his bathroom mirror. He shut off the newsfeeds with a snarl of disgust and paced back and forth in his living room in agitation.
Rain Kob picked up after Martim’s third attempt to reach him. “What do you want?” the man growled irritably.
“You didn’t finish the job,” Martim snapped. “Why is that guy still alive?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. Waterboy. He’s one of the strikers from Field 93. He’s taken up with United Freelancers and is publicly claiming to be the only survivor.”
“He’s looking for attention. Makes for a good backstory.”
“Waterboy’s anonymous posts and altered audio clips are a ninety-five percent match against samples of writing and speech from Elk Terrence, one of the names on the list of targets I provided you.”
A pause from the other end of the line, followed by a grumbling sigh. “You’re good at doing your homework, I’ll give you that.”
“What’s taking so goddamn long?” Martim demanded. “The man’s trying to make himself into a celebrity; it can’t possibly be hard to track him down. You didn’t have any trouble with the other six targets.”
Martim used to admire Strikebreaker. A year ago, he couldn’t have imagined speaking to a senior atier so rudely. But Rain Kob was contracted to do a job for SoCon GasPro that Martim had expected to be finished weeks ago.
“I found him,” Kob replied, unfazed by Martim’s anger, “but I’ve decided not to finish out the contract. Your client can keep the second half of the fee you would’ve paid me upon completion.”
Martim came to a dead stop in the middle of his apartment and struggled to find words for several seconds. “How could you do this to me?” he managed at last. “You’re Strikebreaker . You’re supposed to be the most reliable longknivesman out there when it comes to this sort of thing.”
“I told you before, I’m not doing that type of work anymore,” Kob replied, stony and unsympathetic, as if it was Martim’s fault for trusting him in the first place. “I made an exception that I shouldn’t have. But I warned you, kid. This is the edge life. People let you down.”
Martim couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
He’d played by the rules, done everything right.
He’d sought out the most qualified person for a necessary job and entrusted him with it, discreetly, without implicating the director in any way.
It wasn’t his fault that Rain Kob had chosen this moment to fail the Code.
That one failure was now publicly advocating for Martim’s client to be assassinated.
The next time someone took Waterboy’s urgings to heart and set off a bomb, it might be Martim standing nearby instead of Thea. He might be the one in the hospital with his gory insides exposed, and there wasn’t going to be another spare synthbody lying around.
“You’ve fucked me over, you know that? I could be a dead man because of you. I hope your conscience is happy.” He hung up and kicked over a side table, cursing Rain Kob to hell before stumbling into the bedroom and falling onto the bed.
He’d been running on adrenaline all day and was hitting a wall, fast. His head felt as heavy as a lead safe on his shoulders and his eyes were swollen in their sockets. He wanted, more than anything, to pass out for twelve straight hours.
But his mind refused to shut down and sleep.
It kept spinning uncontrollably, chewing on a dozen things at once.
What if he couldn’t protect his client? What if Thea’s rushed contract had an error and was nullified by the Agency?
What if, while dealing with the unexpected emergency, he’d forgotten something else important, failed to handle some other task he would be questioned about tomorrow?
With each anxiety-inducing question, the sense of certainty he’d carried throughout the day faltered precariously.
Uchi had told him he was irreplaceable. But if Martim fucked up, his client’s regard could vanish at a moment’s notice.
He’d be kicked to the curb, just like the others who’d come before him.
And then everything he’d been through—the licensing exam, landing the holy grail of Principal contracts, ordering the death of Elm Anders and those six other people he didn’t even know—all of it would’ve been for nothing.
That is not going to happen. He reached for one of the affirmations the Company therapy program kept suggesting he make a habit of repeating. You are the smartest, hardest-working, best-dressed motherfucker in the whole division.
Maybe it was the exhaustion, but this time, the words rang hollow in his head.
Martim reached into his bedside drawer for another sleepstim pen.
He hesitated when he realized he was down to his last one.
He rolled the dispenser between his fingers.
Overusing sleepstims was terrible for one’s health, especially when regularly combined with boosters.
He wouldn’t be able to get more either, not until next month.
He’d already reached the individual purchase limit and any further attempt would cause his ID to be flagged for risky behavior.
Next thing he knew, he’d be getting a call from Health Services checking up on him, requesting he report to a Company doctor for a health evaluation.
He did have the other stuff, though. The stuff from Vincent.
He’d met Vincent entirely by accident, ironically enough, in the pharmacy.
On one of his rare free evenings, he’d gone out to a bar on the other side of town where no one would recognize him.
All he’d wanted was to decompress for a few hours, maybe meet a hottie willing to spend no more than a night with him.
But he felt awkwardly out of practice at socializing with strangers, and worse yet, he couldn’t make himself stop thinking about work.
Reaching for a sleepstim to calm his nerves, he found his pockets empty, which pissed him off enough that he abandoned the night’s goals.
Standing in the aisle of the nearest pharmacy with half a dozen boxes in his arms, he’d heard a snicker behind him.
“You think you got enough?” Turning, Martim saw a thin, scruffy man with a soul patch beard and a too-knowing look in his mercenary eyes.
A gold amulet hung around his neck in place of a badge.
“Man, if you need that much, the shit’s no good. ”
“What exactly is your problem?” Martim asked.
“I don’t have one,” said the freelancer, “but you do. Let me guess—you’re cycling stims and boosts, but they’re not working as well as they used to, right?
” When Martim only stared at him, the man smirked and wrote his name on a coaster he’d apparently filched from the nightclub.
Reaching over Martim’s full arms, he slipped the piece of plastic into Martim’s front breast pocket along with a single-dose white injection pen.
“If you like it, come back next week, same time. Second floor of the bar.”
Vincent had appeared at exactly the right time, or the wrong time, depending on how you looked at it.
As it turned out, the dealer was useful in other ways.
Vincent moved in badgeless circles and heard rumors and gathered information that Martim told himself was the real reason it was worth making the trek across town to meet him semi-regularly.
Three months ago, he’d helpfully coughed up the suspected whereabouts of four of the surviving Field 93 strikers for a whole lot less than it would’ve cost Martim to hire a proper subcon.