It was somewhat more difficult to cut the teeth out than when I was on the surface, but for the purposes of mucho dinero I persevered. -Okay, Brekko, tell him to turn off the Interdiction for about ten seconds at 6:57 mark.-
-Relaying,- my vastly amused Ghost Knight /replied. I /heard him chuckle a moment later. -He says it’ll be done. Two minutes!-
-What’s that laugh for?- I /asked, curious.
-He wanted to know if there was another way you could get out. I told him there sure was, and after she gets out of the gullet of the wurm that ate her, is forced to dig herself all the way up to the surface, and then walks all the way back to where you are, what do you think she’s going to do to you?- he /sniggered. -Corp stiffs are all the same!-
I /gave him a thumbs-up as I rolled my eyes. I probably could dig my way out of here... hmm, cut off the jaws, align my Nimbus through them, and vajra-spin my way through the ground as the innate power of the jaws opened up the way, just have to be ridiculously tough enough to ignore the erosion and inhumanly strong enough to keep the jaws in place, sure I could...
He didn’t want to exert himself to blip a localized Interdiction INSIDE the safe zone, surrounded by other Interdiction fields. *^%$ lazy corp bastards...
---
Chalice exerted power, and my location in space was reset to an earlier place in time relative to the planet, that last part being VERY important. I blinked back into location right next to the wurm I’d had to leave sitting atop the scree when I was eaten. It was still there, amazingly enough, with a lot of dust and rocks on it. Well, I suppose it was a bit too big to be swallowed whole by the big one, and maybe the big wurm didn’t want to be revealed that long. Something that big was likely fairly cunning...
My Band lit up with incoming messages no longer screened out by interference from the stone, and I smoothly replied to all of them as I began to drag the multiton carcass forwards again. Yes, yes, I was alive. See, location right here, same as before. I was dragging out the first wurm, the second one was quite large and now dead and sitting down in Tunnel 22b17 over there, you can probably pull it out if you get a digger bot down there with a crane and haul line, and –
Mother-f!
I turned around again.
-There’s a third one!-, I /messaged off with a curse, and the next mid-large one exploded out of the scree and lunged at me.
-------------
East Fill Supervisor Piedro Choken was displaying all his bright white polished teeth and a wide smile. It was matched with beads of sweat at my expression. He’d seen the pics his aide had sent him, showing me hauling two sand wurms up out of the scree with massively clawed hands. Each wurm was as thick as I was tall, their jaws gaping limply wide, and he truly had no desire to mess with me.
Three wurms, the biggest one sitting down underground. He had wanted to contest that claim, and then I had pulled out the biggest sand wurm Nexal he’d ever seen.
“Ten feet in diameter.” My emerald eyes were narrowed to slits of blue and gold fire. “Its movements would’ve triggered on any seismograph worth the name. I can see confusing the other two for one another, but the big one... you deliberately repressed it.
“The only reason for doing that is it ate a bit too much stuff that you couldn’t explain, and you needed time to replace them or make other excuses for their deaths. It’s probably been here for at least several months longer than the little ones the workers spotted.
“I believe that if I call up your boss and the local union rep and recommend that they should do an immediate audit of men and materials, they’re going to find some major, major problems down there with the fill crews and machinery.
“Then they’re going to shoot you and your immediate subordinates, and not hand out death benefits.”
His white smile was looking very strained at the moment. “That is a very good story,” he breathed out. Drip, drip, drip.
Diaz was looking ready to act. The fact I was completely ignoring the threat he represented wasn’t making the borg any calmer.
“So, what would you like me to do for you? I certainly wouldn’t want any unnecessary rumors to be spread around...” he continued in best slime fashion.
“First of all, I’m going to report the full extent of what I killed here to My Queen, who is going to CC all your higher-ups and report your glowing support of my operation,” I began calmly. He swallowed.
“A three-meter wurm is big news. They’re going to go looking for damage, so you’re going to have to get on it and make it all look more recent, and try to blame the rest on the other two wurms. Whether or not you succeed is up to you.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“You’re going to get a big bonus for dealing with such a major threat before it could get any worse than it did. You’re going to generously donate that bonus to the families of the dead men you’ve been covering up, and going to do it openly and publicly. I expect to see it on the Boole. I imagine the company will even match or increase it, if you give it enough hype.
“You’re going to pay me the full value of those three carcasses’ salvage value as a bonus for my extraordinary performance. You should have no problem sending down a bot to retrieve the big one, and you can wave it around as a sign of your competence when you pull it out.
“Do that right now.” Numbers flicked up on my Band, shifted over to his neural feed and the breakdown... it was an honest number, and he only hesitated a moment before he approved it.
“Lastly, you’re going to retire within one year, with every subordinate that knows about this, too, because in one year and one day, a packet of information indicating what really happened here is going to arrive at Corpsec, and I imagine your auditing department is going to be disappointed in you... and the Scythilians are probably going to want to have a close, meaningful chat with you.
“You probably seriously want to consider retiring on another world. As they are probably going to cut your pension, I imagine you’ll want to take the cash-out option and take a job with a competitor on a complete shit world somewhere so they don’t bother putting a price on your head and chasing you down. You’re going to need some time to get far enough away, so it’s probably best for you if you do that REALLY fast.”
I leaned forwards as his smile really faltered. “Oh, and tell your successor to call me first, before this type of thing actually becomes a real problem next time.”
“Of-of course.” His smile was so forced it looked like his face would break.
“Now I’m going to leave. And if you try to do something as stupid as send workers, security, bots, or drones after me, I’m going to turn right around, come back here, and cost the company a lot more money killing everyone in my way but you. I’ll leave you alive just so the company can make an example out of you.” I leaned in closer. “Months, maybe years worth of examples.”
Drip, drip, drip... I could smell the fear coming off him like a wall. Having a 40+ Charisma and an Intimidation check at 50+ going off on him was going to give him nightmares for years.
As was only appropriate. Corporate slime, only your best interests at heart, climb the ladder and be successful today!...
------
I could have run back, but instead I just ventured to their closest Teleport Focus, and went directly back to the city from there. I really wanted to go overland to all their Foci, so in case of emergency I could pop directly in at any of them in the future if need be, but maybe on the next trip.
I knew who they’d be calling for the next problem, after handling this one so quickly and thoroughly.
I walked off a Teleport Focus in Janus Prime, ten miles from Habberblok. There were closer Foci, as they were scattered at five-mile intervals atop the Spires that towered over the bloks, but I never used the closest one. I waved a hundred credits into the fee machine, and the door slid back and I stepped out, surprising some wealthy and very much more pricily-dressed people waiting in a line to use the Departure Focus there. A number immediately went Boole-diving for my identity, as people who could teleport, or pay for teleporting, were all going to be some manner of mover and shaker.
Of course, that would also get out the fact that I could teleport, but in a world with Interdiction Zones, being able to get where you wanted every time with teleportation was a pipe dream. Traveling via teleporting was watched as or more closely than any other mode of travel. Only short-range teleporting between Interdiction zones was unwatched, or in Underspire, where range was so shortened it didn’t matter so much, and an error would generally merge you into durasteel and kill you instantly, so it wasn’t done casually.
Of course, you could pop around all you wanted to outside the city, and I was definitely going to be upping my Lived-Line outside the city now that I had my Class Three license!
---
Arriving at Habberblok, I went up to 161, which was basically my digs, went into the expanded chambers I’d pounded out of dozens of smaller apartments (well, it had been practice for my Ghost Knights getting their Star Cores, actually, pounding out all them walls), gathered together a bunch of tables, and began to lay out my spoils.
Ten wurms worth of teeth. Twelve Nexals of assorted sizes, one with a fire bias, one with poison. Normal Sand Wurms might have an Earth bias to theirs, and three of them actually did, but if they didn’t, they still tended to be half as big again as their size and power would normally have.
They were the only reason most people would deign to hunt them, since getting the teeth was so damn hard.
I sorted them by wurm, laying them out in the exact pattern I’d taken each of them out of their jaws... which took a lot of tables. When I was done, I and tens of thousands of ghosts looked at the glittering array of wealth laid out there.
If a Ten knew I had this here, they might even dare coming into this place to try and steal it all.
I could sell all of them for top credits literally within minutes. Even the ones only an inch long were prized for psionic circuits, used in neural-linked power armor and high-end datajacks. The major ones, six inches or more, were lusted after by Ten Mindblades across the galaxy.
Now, I had to determine what I was going to keep, what I was going to sell, and what I was going to give away.
I also had to carve them up, as mucho appropriate bling would be coming my way if they were already carved up. I’d literally be making a thousand credits an hour doing the work.
Man, I really needed to get myself some help. There was just so much work to do, and I couldn’t just wait around while everyone was laboring to get to Seven and stacking modifiers to do high-end work. And I knew just where to go to do so...
----------------
-I’d like to buy two hundred and fifty-six birthing/cloning vats.-
Philius /blinked at me in Markspace. -That’s a rather impressive order.- Cloning tech was generally used for organ replacement, although high-end psis might use it to get a new body for themselves. It was never quite as good as the original, but youth often made up for it.
Birthing vats were similar to those used by the undergangs, used to mass-produce intelligent family members from birth to whatever age was desired. They came with knowledge implanting tech so a lot of tedious education could be skipped, directly imprinting the newborn with the desired knowledge.
-Yes, and I’ll need clearance for them. However, I won’t be needing them on a continuous basis, per se.- I frowned as I thought further. -Then again, I might...-