An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (9 page)

“Yeah, I heard the Rose staff paid the Metros a bit extra so they wouldn’t show
,” said the lithe woman in a voice barely louder than bedroom-talk
.
 

“Now
,
that’s a job
.
I should
’
ve been a cop
.
People pay you when they want you to do something and they pay you when they don’t
.
I hear the protection money in The Hills alone quadruples your pay.”

“Quit yipping
.
You had your chance like all the rest of us to take the Civil Service
t
est in high school
.
I remember your friend
,
Bill
,
quoting you as saying, ‘
I’
m not going to sit around for twelve years at some
diddly
-
paying job until I can earn the real credit
.
I want it now!’
Sound familiar?”

“It does
.
But I said it when we graduated
Oregon
State
, not high
school
.
But the offer from
Nanogate
just seemed too good to pass up
.
Now I’m not
so
sure.”

Carmine got one of
her I’m-right-now-shut-up looks on her face.
“
Velcro your mouth and
enjoy the music
.
At least pretend
you’ll
miss me from
your
bed tonight.”

“What
?
Where will you be?” he said, trying but not really succeeding
to keep
the three-year-old whine from his voice.

“Sorry, business trip to
Tycho
City
.
I told you about it a week ago
.”

Despite the incredible beat of the music, Tony decided that his evening just tumbled into the gutters with the rest of the burns and filth
.

“Yeah, and what happened to that frumpy old baggage you helped in the TriMet?”
Carmine
questioned
, deftly changing the subject.

“I don’t have a clue
.
No one called, so I might be in the clear.”

“Good
.
That scare should teach you not to try to be Mister White Knight
.
It doesn’t line the credit account.”

“Probably right, but you wanna hear something even more strange
?”
Tony leaned forward over the table
.
He looked surreptitiously around
.
The volume of his voice dropped at least in half before he said, “She was carrying a box with a cat in it.”

“Eww!” Her face wrinkled up in disgust
.
“Can’t stand the things
.
Saw one at a zoo once
.
Filthy creatures
.
Fur everywhere in its cage
.
Should grind them all up for sausage
.
You ran it into the recycle, right
?”

Carmine’s unexpected reaction stopped Tony
.
He fully intended to tell her the entire story and now she frightened him
.
“
U
h
…r
ight
.”
Perhaps Carmine’s unanticipated trip profited him more than the loss of his bed companion
suggested
.
Certainly tonight, of all nights, he
’d
have his hands full with Cinnamon, the name
he’d chosen
for his new charge
.

For the next two hours he drank sparingly, unusual in and of itself, and listened to the
band’s
reverberations
.
Tony took the time to examine Carmine in a new light.
Since fifteen she
’d
painted his life in some way
.
She sympathized with him while he lived out the letter of the contract to that bloodsucker
,
Pricilla
.
She stuck with him t
hrough the six years of his
b
achelor
’
s
d
egree, another three for his
m
aster
’
s, his apprenticeship at
Nanogate
, and three years of seventy-hour weeks
trying
to make manager
.

They shared fluids and beds anytime they could manage, but he didn’t love her
,
and she repeated, as often as
he’d
listen, that she didn’t love him, either
.
Tony never considered offering even a temporary marriage contract
.
They kept each other comfortable in bachelorhood as friends with many privileges
.

Carmine’s prejudice now colored his views of her
.
Her normal warmth
suddenly carried the heat of a
n icicle
and
her
jocularity
sliced like
a knife edge
.
Tony couldn’t understand how she could even begin to harm anything as cute and loving as Cinnamon
.
A parsec of space suddenly
warped in
between them.

Anyone who paid attention from
the
outside
could easily spot
this one-sided gulf
.
Tony moved with the music without hearing it
.
He hardly said two words
in
as many hours
.
Carmine spent her time too engrossed in the band and watching the antics of the patrons to notice Tony’s lack of banter
.

About eleven
,
Carmine turned abruptly and planted a bright red kiss on his cheek
.
The self-heating lipstick stained and warmed his
flesh
.
“Gotta run, honey-bunny
.
Just enough time to get to Black Field
.”
Carmine parted the curtain and jumped down from the booth
.

For the first time
, Tony
realized
her beautiful body hid something callous
.
While she might not know it
yet
, this time she
’d
walked
right
out of his life
.
H
e
grimaced as he wiped the still
-
warm lipstick from his face.

The Bananas finished their set
.
Tony looked around
.
While several acquaintances danced to canned music, for the first time none of them, male or female
,
could erase the cold emptiness he felt inside
.
He climbed down from his booth, to the pleasant surprise of a latecomer that just happened by the choice club real
estate.

“Going home so soon, sir?” Jock asked as Tony exited into the relative quiet of the street
.

“Yeah
.
Carmine had to run off to Tyc
h
o.”

“Yes, sir
.
I saw her leave.
”

“Yeah, I’m just not feeling in the party mood tonight.”

“Well, you be extra careful tonight, Mr. Tony
.
There
’
s a level three riot just beyond the TriMet stop.”

“Thanks, Jock
.”
Absently
,
Tony wondered if Jock gave Carmine the same information
.
He gave his head a little shake of irrelevance
.

“You might also want to avoid the TriMet Hub tomorrow morning.”

“Oh
?
What’s up?”

“Dunno, sir
.
But I wouldn’t want you to get hurt
.
Duck, sir
.”
Tony ducked just as a large metal projectile
bent on mischief
sailed over his head
.
Jock deflected it with his arms, not giving it another thought
.
Tony looked back to see three young kids running away into the darkness followed closely by two Metro officers
.
Just punks trying to get their kicks and maybe make a name for themselves.

“TriMet, eh
?
Where do you keep getting this information, Jock?”

“Oh, I hear things,” he said with a shrug that accentuated the biomechanical interface.

“Well, I won’t press
.
You have a good night, Jock.”

“You, also, Mr. Tony.”

Tony avoided the small riot, probably over
food
rations, only
twenty minutes later
to encounter a mugger at his condominium door
.

“Give me everything!” shouted a man sporting an
un
kempt beard and wearing clothes that should
’ve
been condemned
.
He carelessly
waved
around an old Sony Blackburn laser pistol
.
Tony barely broke stride as he pointed his left hand toward the man
.
A trio of tiny dart-like projectiles burst out of the end of his index finger at just below the speed of sound
.
The would-be assailant collapsed into a pool of filthy rags
,
bleeding out of a
16
centimeter
hole in his chest
.
Tony nudged the pistol away from the reflexively jerking hand
,
shaking his head sadly. Another
welf decided he couldn’t make it on the welfare rolls and tried to augment his pathetic income by murder
, home invasion
,
and robbery
.

“Just because you can’t see a weapon, doesn’t mean your victims don’t carry one,” Tony muttered in a derisive tone
.

Without a second look at the horrific mess or the fecal stench that now arose, he opened his door to hear Cinnamon’s tiny scratches from the bathroom, where he
’d
kept her during the day
.

“I’m coming, Cin
.”
As he locked and bolted the entry, he had a stab of fear.

What if someone
had
heard her
?
They could
’
ve called the Metros
o
r maybe even Interpol
!
His trepidation lasted all of about three seconds
.
He checked the entry log and his
personal
security measures
, finding
no evidence that his privacy had been invaded
.
Nope, nobody was here
.
We
’
re safe.

“What a day
!
” he said.
“
I’m so
—
” he yawned wide, “
—
tired
.”
He kicked off his shoes, stripped his socks
.

Tony released Cinnamon, playfully nicknamed Cin, from temporary prison
.
The tiny cat stropped his ankles, followed quickly by licking his bare toes. “Stop that, Cin
.
It tickles
.”

Cinnamon looked up at him as if she understood
.
She lifted her tail and bounded off to some mischief
.

“That’s right
.
I’ll make supper
.
Maybe you need some food.”
Tony walked into the tiny kitchen and put a meatloaf, peas
,
and potato dinner from the freezer into the flash oven
.

“
Percomm
Condo Association, Body Removal
.”
The solido of a heavily muscled woman came into view over the counter in his kitchen
as he pulled out a replacement for the shredded finger-cap in a miscellaneous drawer amongst spare Velcro straps for his shoes.