"Think of the future. Think of your unborn son. There is nothing for us here..."
"My family is here. My holdings are here. My life is here."
"Locked into the safety of someone else's estate? This is not life!"
"At least I have something here. On Proxima, I have nothing."
"We could join Fengyueda... My service track affords me certain things..."
"My dear, it is not comparable, you know that. And why would they even want me? My service track ties me to their competitor."
"Look," she said, flashing the contents of her cred wallet.
Her partner gaped in shock. "Where did that come from?"
She wrapped her arms around him, stepping forward slightly. "Don't tell me you haven't thought of it..."
He shook his head as if trying to make sense of what had escaped his notice. She made herself comfortable against him anyway, chin digging gently into collarbone and eyebrows furrowed deviously.
A sigh passed between them. A thin sound against neck musculature. Then she tilted her lips up, kissed him softly on the cheek.
Her voice became barely a breath on the air. "Remember how you always called yourself mine? Remember when our moms were alive, how much fun we had together, how happy I made you? How good our days were? What the world has become in just our short lives... It will not get better, and you know it... What will the world be when our son is our age?"
"I do not understand you... Don't you care about your home, your family..."
"I do,” she said, “More than anything. Our children should never grow up inside of these walls." Her voice started wistful. Tears trembled just beneath her eyelashes. "Let's take them somewhere nice and live our way through whatever years lie ahead."
"But... but I don't belong anywhere else." The same place was safe enough and secure enough; it seemed foolish to think otherwise. Yet there was something about the logic of running to a better world and beginning anew, creating a home where he didn't have to keep struggling harder every day just to hold onto what they had.
The downwards pressure is slow and insidious but will yield all but a certain outcome, he mused. The entire midscale has already been shoved into destitution, their franchised holdings a noose. The low end of the topscale will be next, as the scala below us don't have anything left to wring from them...
Was it not me that a decade ago implored the family to jump on the chance to move to Barnard's Star? Now our opportunity to live with our people amongst the stars is forever gone... We won't live to see another ship...
Still, to abandon his own kind was a step he was unwilling to make.
"I am not going to leave everyone I know...", Ervin said, his words laden with finality.
"Then I am sorry," she whispered. "But we don't have a choice..."
Ervin looked upon her face, and understood the deeper meaning. His voice turned to a whisper.
"Dear God... Wanzhan, what did you do..."
"I merely sold out a long overdue fatcat to the Fengs."
His blood ran cold; then came an icy flash of understanding. He locked eyes with her. "You mean... The missing director, don't you... All that stuff on the media, it's all your doing?"
An uncomfortable little smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "Well, not just me... But yes."
" I thought you were an operative for JS! You're supposed to be on our side..."
"But I am, my dear, and I always will be. You are merely overstating the scope of what constitutes 'our side'."
Ervin trembled, merely thinking of the consequences made him dizzy.
"JS losses are in the billions! They will hunt you down and find you! And my entire family will be shunned!"
"But they don't know yet. We have a way out... And I already have a third of the cred and the good standing with Fengyueda... "
Knowing he had no other options, Ervin hastily fled the room, frantically thinking of all the things he had to do, and the very little time he had left.
Wanzhan watched him go, a faint smile playing on her lips. Retreating to her private chambers, she set in motion the next stage of her long-cultivated plan. She opened the secret encrypted terminal hidden away in her vanity, calling her JS contact at the corp intel division.
"Information pertaining to Director Saadeh," she spoke in a rapid, staccato voice. "Subject killed. Perpetrator: Feng Guiren, Fengyueda HR subdirector. Last known location: Kimberly, Southpac. Sending a datafile containing definitive evidence now."
"Well received. Please stand by while we update the case...", the voice on the other end said in a similar brief voice.
Such a shame I couldn't pull this off sooner, Wanzhan lamented. I can scarcely imagine what the bonus for this kind of info will be. But it will come too late...
"We are escalating at Kimberly," it finally sounded from the far end. "Transit and standby on site, but do not get involved until deployed..."
Wanzhan was well aware of the operational situation at Kimberly, the kind of assets intel would be deploying and the kind move they were planning to make.
"Requesting to be involved. I can mark the target."
"You still have eyes at the compound?"
"Affirmative."
A short silence followed.
"You have been deployed at Kimberly. We require a vehicle ID."
"Understood."
"Anything else?"
"Negative," Wanzhan said, closing the connection.
===
Ben ran his hands across the terminal, his fingers sweating, his hands shaking.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
There already is no way back now, he knew. Time was against him, and his only hope would be to move fast enough before Accounts was on to him and shut him out.
Transactions flashed across the screen, disappearing one by one as orders closed. Ben eyed them nervously.
Not fast enough, he worried.
A message flashed in the communicator at the bottom of the screen.
Come on…
The communicator blinked incessantly.
With a sigh, Ben realized that not answering would only draw more attention. He took the call.
"Good morning, mister Woodward," a pleasant, young voice rang into his earpiece from the other end.
It was Shevyl of Internal Affairs. Certainly not the first person he had expected to show an interest.
Ben knew her and her department by reputation - not exactly snitch, given that in collusion she was extremely unreliable due to divergent interests between departments, although her influence exceeded any possible issue of morality. More important, though, was that without actually revealing to anyone that she was dealing wetworks, she also served as messenger to shady companies behind transactions. In sum, quite powerful, someone with the means and connections to take him out, and fast.
"How are you doing today, Shevyl?", Ben said, putting up his jovial face.
"Oh, just dandy, Mr Woods", Shevyl answered cheerily. "Your work went splendidly last night, such helpful tips on common mistakes leading to accounting infractions… Ahh... Nothing like following directions properly…"
"Ah ah, yes indeed.", Ben smiled. "Just the job description required really."
"…oh yeah, sure thing," Shevyl replied blandly, obviously dissatisfied. "Now tell me, what is going on at your end? That's a very irregular volume of market calls you're making right there..."
To himself, Ben wondered if he ought to hit the 'end call' button. More transactions completed in the other window, and three more messages popped up in their wake.
His heart sank when he realized Accounts was amongst them.
He mustered all the energy he had left and smiled broadly to the young woman in the comm window.
"Just restructuring some of the franchise's assets to be better positioned for the property auction later tonight, as requested… Hopefully everything goes smoothly."
He felt sick and guilty, knowing this might push matters over the edge. As the logs were not pushed yet, there wasn't enough information for Internal Affairs to leverage against him personally. Unless Shevyl picked up on a hint of stress and pressured another department to start digging on their behalf.
Accounts nudged itself to the foreground.
Ben's thoughts raced. Shevyl couldn't really know if the restructure was legit or not unless Legal reviewed the transaction log and compared it against his franchisor's standing orders... Right? Accounts would be the far more dangerous of the two, its auditors probably already on top of this. With the ability to cross-reference anything he'd say, he knew it would be a matter of minutes for him to be found out.
Thanking the cut-throat competition between the siloed departments of the franchise's internal divisions for the first time in his life, Ben quickly marked himself as busy, sending a message to Accounts that he was already on call with IA. The pinging relented for a brief moment, until Ben realized that Accounts had scheduled a call to follow automatically the moment he'd drop Shevyl's.
"Hmmm, I see," Shevyl murmured. "But who cleared all of this? Something tells me you haven't completed the full scope risk assessment on these transactions..."
I have to keep her talking until the trades are closed, Ben realized. Keep her talking, without getting found out...
Ben quickly swept through his contact list, finding to his relief that the person he was thinking about was listed as unavailable.
"Wanzhan Sekhon did," Ben bluffed. "Personal attaché to mister Feng Guiren... I thought everything was cleared two days ago..."
"And you followed instructions diligently too," Shevyl hummed pleasantly.
Shevyl needed justification, rather badly. To Ben, it sounded awfully familiar. Of course, everything would soon come crashing down once the logs were pushed anyway, but for now, as long as he kept Shevyl talking, Ben could act freely. Not likely that Accounts was going to cut him off without a conversation and risk accidentally upending a high profile strategic acquisition, pulling the wrath of some topscaler or another.
Forcing a shrug, he sat waiting impatiently, glancing at his transaction status window from the corner of his eye. What do I say now? He tapped his toe idly. Wait again? Play along? Harder to lose credibility playing off weakness instead? Another few seconds ticked past by; whew, thank goodness she fell silent for so long because she can't seem to catch on—no doubt scrambling, looking for clues in private databases.
Finally, Shevyl hovered her hand uncertainly and spoke quietly, breaking Ben's train of thought as gently as possible.
"By the looks of it though, sir, uhm, since there seems to be some unanticipated fallback penalties associated with asset disposition agreements..."
What is she on about, Ben wondered. What fallback penalties?
"...I'm afraid there may be some additional overhead charges incurred due to the peculiarities of these operations—"
You got to be kidding me...
"...unforeseen liabilities for which the actual costs cannot easily be forecasted at present, but Internal Affairs will happily mitigate for you, at a rate of 3.2% per misstatement deemed relevant during audit period once investigations begin..."
Ben could barely control a grin. At any other time, being singled out by a crooked IA agent trying to fleece money would mean serious long-term headaches for sure. Almost certain to return later, they'd be divulging surprising new methods to mislead financiers and inspectors alike while raking in the extra revenue courtesy of fines and overrides.
Shevyl wasn't wrong; the damages were real, quantifiable, and definitely happened. Except this time, IA was spectacularly misjudging the scope of the fraudulent activity Ben was in the process of pulling. Not only had he executed the deal flawlessly under the table, a second-by-second game plan to cover tracks had come together seamlessly.
As Shevyl continued rattling off numbers, Ben counted down the transactions in the open window. Numbers fluctuated with every command issued, occasionally rising slightly even after Accounts cut off further credit. Within three minutes, the portfolio showed zero balance. Desperately, he hurried through confirmation requests and sent them. Every single one succeeded except number 103492, currently awaiting the final confirmation request. Nearly six million credits worth of currency...
Losing track of how much damage each action had done, Ben focused on finishing his main goal.
Finally, the last transaction closed. Ben frantically fired the script that he had prepared for the occasion, funneling all the funds into a single account, all to make a single purchase.
"I'm sorry Shevyl," Ben said. "I have an urgent issue here, do you have a moment please?"
Mere seconds later, the computer locked him out.
"What the...", it sounded, as deputy manager Wong flustered out of the reception area, half panicked.
"We've been zeroed out?", another voice stammered in disbelief.
Chaos erupted on the floor, as Ben tried to act surprised, denying involvement, placating others, all the while slowly inching himself in the direction of the exit.
More faces gathered around the water cooler, some visibly shaken. While his staff had previously been eager to suck up to him, a handful doubted Ben's innocence, convinced somehow he knew something about what was going on. Ben visibly saw this realization ripple across the cubicles like a wave, people shifting allegiances instantaneously and without a spoken word. Many workers assumed the worst – Ben Woodward was either incompetent, criminally minded, or in league with a competitor. And, he was a scale or two above them, with the shackles that had made that a fact abruptly coming off.
"No no, don't do that," Wong squealed, but the men paid her no heed.
As his former subordinates covertly or openly began to close in on him, Ben came to the realization that he would not make it to the door. He just managed to hit the panic button on his wrist before he had to duck under a punch. Ben spun around and fled down the aisle, just as a person barged through the door.
Mike only needed half a second to understand what was going on.
Ben stumbled. A sprawl of hands reached for him, grabbing him by his arms and collar, kicking him as well while shouting vulgar threats into his ears. Before anyone else could react, Mike was onto them, backhanding one of those surrounding Ben in the face, sending blood gushing from his mouth.
Four of the assailants released their grip and stood back, but the fifth proved unrelenting. Mike quickly took him out with his taser, then dragged Ben to his feet and out of the door.
"Good for you that we maintain a no-refunds policy and your corp paid today's fees in advance," Mike said through the hustle and bustle brought upon by the arrival of the first lunch shift.
"Yeah," Ben answered, hunched over and panting. "Sorry to say, this will be your last day."
"I know. Scheduling already reassigned me. Got another daytime gig at Hinosun plaza."
"Ah, not too far then," Ben answered absently.
Mike urged him onwards as the suffocating blanket of fog closed around them, until he felt certain they were not being followed.
"I see you have purchased an extension for today. Mind briefing me?", Mike said.
"I will," Ben answered. "Just take me home first."