The Beam: Season Two (73 page)

“Sorry, Dom.” A smile entered Omar’s voice. “Dominic, this is Katie.”
 

“Kate,” said the woman.
 

“And Katie, this is Dominic.”
 

Dominic extended a hand. “You can call me Dom.”
 

“Super,” said Kate. She took Dominic’s hand and gave it a cursory shake.
 

“Jimmy you know.”
 

Dominic and Jimmy grunted at each other. Dominic continued to stand over the blonde, suddenly realizing he must look like a vulture. There was an empty chair beside her, so he sat. The chair creaked as he lowered himself. The woman stopped picking her teeth and moved on to eyeing Dominic suspiciously. He met her gaze.
 

“What?” said Kate.
 

Dominic blinked then returned his attention to Omar, who’d cleared his throat. He saw that Omar had extended his hand. Dominic considered ignoring it again, but then saw the edge of a packet in it. Omar wasn’t trying to shake his hand. He was trying to hand off.
 

Dominic snatched the dust and pocketed it.
 

“How much?” said Dominic, reaching into his pocket.

Omar waved a hand. “Don’t sweat it. Bundle it in with tomorrow’s shipment.”
 

Dominic looked around. Now
Omar
was the one being too loud, and none too subtle.
 

“Should we talk in private?” said Dominic.

“We’re under a Cone of Silence here. Nobody’s hearing this.”
 

Dominic eyed the woman.
 

“You don’t need to be shy around Katie,” said Omar.
 

“Kate.”
 

“She’s got nothing on you, champ. She smuggles dust for a living. On her last run, she killed a federal inspector.”
 

Dominic looked at Kate.
 

“He tried to stick his dick in me,” said the woman.

“So your little dirty laundry doesn’t mean anything to her,” Omar continued. “And as slippery as you think I am, you feel sure that I’ve already told them everything anyway, right? Including that you’re a cop. A captain, actually.” Then Omar glanced at Kate.
 

Kate tossed her chin toward Dominic. “Try to pin me, and I talk about this meeting here,” she said.

“I’m not going to pin you,” said Dominic. “I’m…”
 

“Let’s get this all out in the open,” said Omar, cutting Dominic off. “We’ve got a bit of a problem. But more than that, our problem is just a symptom of something larger.
Three
larger problems, in fact.” He pointed to himself, Kate, and Dominic in turn.

“Four,” said Jimmy.
 

“You’re a henchman at best,” said Kate.

“Fuck you, bitch,” Jimmy retorted.
 

“…and a loose end in need of trimming at worst,” she finished. Then she smiled, but the grin was sideways. Predatory, like a crocodile’s. Seeing it, Dominic’s eyes flicked from Jimmy to Kate, from Kate to Jimmy to Omar. Something had transpired in the group before Dominic’s arrival, and whatever it was had established power in Omar’s and Kate’s corners. Dominic saw the way Omar was looking at Kate and realized something interesting: The power wasn’t just being shared by Omar and Kate; it was being shared
equally
, like partners. He’d never seen that from Omar.
 

Jimmy looked away, pouting.
 

“I’ve been running dust for years, but for me it’s always been another rung on the ladder. Kate? Well, let’s say that though she’s an exceptional smuggler, she’s got other aims and is eager to see them realized. And you, Dom. You been buying my dust, but it’s not dust you want. It’s solutions. If you could have the solution without having to handle the dust, all the better.”
 

Dominic found himself thinking of Leo, up in the mountains. The Organa leader was trying to wean off of Lunis and seemed to be managing, albeit slowly and with a fair share of pain. Leo — the old man Dominic thought of like a father and whom he’d betrayed to the NPS. Did Dominic have Leo’s breed of strength inside himself? Omar was right; he just wanted the Organa issue solved and would love to be free of Lunis’s gritty gray hold, if weaning were possible.
 

“Only a fool keeps hammering away at means instead of occasionally looking upstream to the ends,” Omar continued. “We could keep talking about how to improve our little threeway — getting Katie cleared back up to the moon to retrieve the rather large shipment she left behind…”
 

“And live to fight another day,” said Kate, a tad defensively. Her eyes took on a hawklike look, lips narrowing into something pursed and beautiful.

“That she left behind
with good cause,
but that she left behind
nonetheless
.” Omar held his hand up toward Kate. “And we could see about increasing shuttle runs, bribing the right people, and getting that machine running. Dom would get the dust where it needed to go. But to what end?”
 

“I can’t have an unsteady supply. You get me this shit tomorrow, and
that
is what we need to discuss — how to make sure this never,
ever
happens again.” He wanted to rub his forehead and say he was too old for this shit, but it was too on the nose.
 

“Well, that’s part of it, Dom,” said Omar, settling into his usual persuasive, companionable tone. Dominic could almost see the conversational ball sliding into Omar’s court, where it always seemed to land. “And that’s the
dominant
part of it all for you. But what helps us helps you. You want more secure suppliers, right?”
 

Slowly, knowing it was usually a mistake to grant Omar a point, Dominic nodded.
 

“What makes us secure is not having to rely solely on dust trade. Right now, we got a straight line, and it’s like a string of old-timey Christmas lights. Your grandmama ever have ‘em?”
 

Kate rolled her eyes.
 

“Well, mine did. Ancient. Old poor black lady below the line? Shit. Grandmama and her friends never got rid of anything. These old lights, they ran on AC. We had to get a converter. And they were shit. One bulb went out, the whole string went with them.”
 

“This is charming, sweetums,” said Kate.
 

“Point is, that’s us. One little problem on the moon, and the whole operation stops. There’s tons of little links that have to happen just so. We’re using the moon elevator, right? But what if we could use shuttles?”
 

“You want to get clearance for private launches on dust runs?” Kate laughed. Dominic found himself entranced; even sarcasm looked good on her.
 

“Just an example.” Omar raised one hand and used the other to tick off possible choke points on his fingers. “The elevator. The inspectors. Ground transport on the moon. One primary runner because we never seem to have two worth using. One supplier. And one major client.” He pointed at Dominic.
 

“I’m your main client?” The idea shocked him. He’d thought he was one of thousands, all large and buying in quantity.
 

“Shit, Dom,” said Omar. “Know your drug. You run in dust, so you’re a dust-head yourself. But you remind me of Jimmy, who only drinks White Russians and doesn’t even know it’s a girls’ drink.”
 

Jimmy looked over as Omar barreled on.
 

“Yes, major client. You think dust is a street drug? It’s a hippie drug. It don’t sell worth shit unless it’s to the granolas. That’s the dust trade: from the moon to Organas. But that’s just another weak spot in Grandmama’s old Christmas lights. What if something happened to your buddies in the mountains?”
 

Dominic found himself thinking of Leo, Austin Smith, the NPS, and the bug he’d planted in Leo’s house before returning to DZ.

“The money stops, that’s what. We can get product but can’t sell it. All you care about is having supply. Katie cares about money. I care about power, and answers.”
 

“Answers to what?” Dominic asked.
 

“Well get to that,”
 

“For the record,” Kate cut in, “I don’t care about money as much as you think. I just want my life back.”
 

Dominic looked at Kate, wondering what that meant. She seemed to blush and look down, as if she’d said something she shouldn’t have.
 

“Whatever,” said Omar. “All I’m saying is that none of us want a dust supply chain. We want what that chain currently gives us. It’s all a means to an end. Now, we’re three smart cats with a set of truly unique skills. So I say we address immediate needs — ” He tipped his head toward Dominic. “ — and then we stop thinking ‘means’ and start aiming straight for some ‘ends.’”
 

“Omar, if you don’t get down to…” Kate began.
 

“I was in the joint back in the day. Flat 4,” said Omar, his eyes on Dominic. “When I was there, I met a cat named Craig Braemon.” Then, speaking to Kate: “You know the name Craig Braemon?”
 

“Criminal,” said Dominic. “Robber baron.”
 

Omar turned then pointed at Dominic.
“Capitalist.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” said Kate. Then, probably because she’d dealt with Omar and his bullshit before, she turned to Dominic for the answer.

Dominic felt his breath hitch as she turned her beautiful face toward him, then stuffed it down. “When the NAU switched over from dollars and pesos to credits, Braemon was the project head at the actuarial firm checking the books. He skimmed off the top the entire time, making himself stupid rich.”
   

“He saw inefficiencies in the system,” said Omar. “Any successful person needs that ability. To see need where it’s not being filled. To see better ways to do things than they’re currently being done.”
 

“To exploit inefficiencies,” said Dominic.
 

“See,” Omar countered, “motherfuckers like you have given that word a bad name. ‘Exploit.’ It means to see and use, not to make a bunch of orphans sad and piss on unicorns.”
 

“Took what wasn’t his.”
 

“Took what
nobody else was going to claim,”
said Omar. “I owe Craig a lot. He was like a mentor during my incarceration in 4. Taught me everything I know.”
 

Dominic laughed, but Omar ignored the insult and kept speaking.
 

“You
of all people will get this, Katie,” said Omar. He emphasized ‘you’ in a way Dominic didn’t entirely understand. “What Craig did was to exploit — to
use
— small changes in the currencies as he was fitting credits to their values. There were two major variables. Three currencies, all adjusted against each other by the day and all of which the respective governments were unwilling to freeze — partly out of pride, I’m sure, but partly because of how fragile the economies were back then. On top of that, there was the conversion from each currency into credits. The matrix was constantly shifting, and this was before AI, so accountants had to track it with old-world software.”
 

“I’m bored,” said Kate. “Get to it.”
 

“Remainders,” said Dominic. “There were remainders on every conversion, and Braemon kept them in his pocket.”
 

“Like an observant opportunist, taking what was right there in front of him,” said Omar.

“Like a criminal,” Dominic added.
 

“Like the kind of person we’d all do well to model,” said Omar. “All of us are criminals here. Don’t you forget your place in this group, Dom, as the big cop who let it all hang out.”
 

“Is that a threat?”
 

“I don’t know, Dom. Is it?”
 

Dominic leaned forward. Kate raised a hand. “Look, if we’re going to get into a dick-measuring contest, I want in.”
 

Dominic looked at Kate.
 

“I don’t see what any of this has to do with anything,” she said, apparently deciding not to comment on her lack of penis. “Black Liberace here was in the joint with some white-collar rip-off. So what?”
 

“That’s the fun part,” said Omar.
“How
he did his time. He was there for six months, which was way less than he should have done in any universe. He called it a ‘show.’ It was, too. You know how the Flats don’t have guards? That’s mostly true, but there are always people coming in and out. For Craig, they were like butlers. Or concierges. They brought him a huge monitor and an isolated Internet hub. He mostly did his time just streaming movies into an apartment that was way,
way
too swanky to have been left alone in a Flat city. None of the other stiffs doing time there bothered him for some reason. He was there as a slap on the wrist because someone had to do time when it got figured out. But you know what was never fully investigated? Where the money went. And you know what happens if you try to search for the mechanism of credit adjustment today? You’ll come up empty, guaranteed. But nobody asks. It’s like they know not to. Craig said he wasn’t working alone, told me about an upper crust, who controlled everything.”