An Eighty Percent Solution Part 25

Tony panned the camera over to the casket just as others began to file by. He never would've recognized the plain, mahogany-haired girl cradled in jade-colored silk. She was the iconic girl next door. She was the one never beautiful in a sophisticated way, but still wholesome. Through his watering eyes, Tony managed a laugh.

"Wholesome! What a description of Suet. She would've roared laughing if she heard that." Tony remembered some of the less than wholesome activities they had shared. He remembered her breaking the neck of one security guard with her fast-as-lightning tentacle by wrapping it right on around and lifting. He remembered her tender lovemaking. The strength and ruthlessness of her body rendered gentle and tender, even if it was just friendly fornication.

He also remembered her attempts at bowling. She couldn't decide whether to wrap her tentacle around the ball or try to bowl with just a tentacle in one hole. But either way she had fun trying. Tony lay down on his bed and consciously gave in to one final fit of self-pity. Even though it would be his last for Suet, it wouldn't be his last with so many more friends left who wouldn't live another two weeks.

"Goodbye, my friend," he managed through the sobs.

"Colin just pa.s.sed," Augustine told Tony over his percomm.

He barely reacted. Jonah and Beth yesterday, Tolly this morning and now Colin. Numbness overwhelmed him. So often did he now remotely attend services he didn't bother removing his black suit.

"I also have found the proof you and I have been looking for," Augustine added, almost as an afterthought.

"Really?" Tony made an effort to come out of his lethargy enough to care. Too many of his friends dead. All his dreams shattered.

The front door to his suite opened. Christine entered.

"h.e.l.lo, Christine. Welcome. You want a drink? I'm thinking about getting drunk myself."

As usual the slight woman said nothing, but sauntered right in like she owned the place.

"Tony, how did Christine know where you were staying? I don't even know that," Augustine whispered over the percomm.

"Don't know." He turned his attention to his guest. "If I remember correctly, you drink Dewars on the rocks, Christine." Tony poured.

Christine walked over with her left hand cupped to receive the gla.s.s. A twinkle in her eyes made it look like she was laughing. Tony didn't understand mirth with all the emotional pain they shared.

"Tony, I don't like this," Augustine commed. "I'd be very careful if I were you."

Tony caught only one glimpse of ravening silver as he handed over the drink. He felt the blade bite in his gut. His breath stole away. The pain radiated outward. The gla.s.s fell. He gasped.

Time slowed to a crawl as ice cubes and orange liquor spilled from the tumbling gla.s.s. His own blood sprayed all over Christine's front like red dye bursting from an overfull balloon. Slowly her arm withdrew the blood-coated knife. An intellectual side of Tony's brain managed to be detached enough to find the knife fascinating. He'd seen its like-only two centimeters wide but a full seven long, faintly curved and sharp on both sides.

More random thoughts filled his head as the smell of his own bile filled the air. The gla.s.s. .h.i.t the carpeted floor and bounced slowly like something out of an off-world film. The liquid shot off to either side, denying that it could be absorbed by the fabric.

"Christine!" Augustine shouted as the link between Tony and Augustine suddenly included the a.s.sa.s.sin's percomm. Tony couldn't understand Augustine's anxiety. Christine's second thrust caught him just between the first and second rib. The knife, so smooth and sharp, didn't grate on his ribs but rather slid smoothly between them like they were two tour guides.

"Christine, he didn't do it! I have the proof!" Augustine shouted.

Nerves pounded Tony's brain with emergency messages that it continued to ignore like an ostrich with it head in the sand.

A new voice began playing over the percomm.

"Summation of minutes of meeting October. New plan to use and discard an unwitting employee to destroy Green Action Militia approved."

Christine looked puzzled, withdrawing the knife, her hand coated in a red glove of blood.

"That's from the personal log of the chairman of Taste Dynamics. No doubt. One hundred percent proof positive. I just found it today."

For Tony the pain couriers finally found their destination. Time exploded to normal speed as he fell over into the arms of his attacker and friend.

From her medi-chair Sonya looked down into the room where a doctor performed brutal and ancient invasive surgery on a covered body. "He has to make it," Sonya said, her voice harsh and barely over a whisper.

"He's a fighter," Augustine said.

Sonya could see her own dark, rheumy eyes reflecting off the gallery gla.s.s, wondering how long she could continue her own losing fight. "I hope he's tough enough," her voice rasped again. "What did you do with Christine?"

"I have her locked up in the new safe house we were just setting up. No one knows about it except me and Linc."

Sonya just nodded. "He has to make it."

The message, almost as old as computers itself, "Are you sure? Y/N," blinked on Nanogate's desk terminal in the dark. He'd waited until everyone cleared the building before doing his own bit of corporate sabotage, this time to himself.

His finger hovered over the Y b.u.t.ton on his terminal. Just one stroke away from erasing any proof of his collusion with the Greenies, and yet he hesitated.

He couldn't remember how many years it had been since he felt good about anything he did for a living. His personal credit numbers soared. His power over those around him grew. He gained satisfaction from these things, but they didn't make him happy or feel good. Smug was the closest emotion he could really compare.

In fact, he couldn't ever remember being happy about anything, except his brief work with the GAM. At the time he thought he felt relief that he'd saved Nanogate. But it was more.

He resolutely smashed the Y key. Personal survival. Feelings came a distant second.

Snarling, he shoved everything from his desk, ignoring the crash of the irreplaceable Chihuly lamp.

"She must not have liked you, Tony-boy," Augustine said to Tony as he struggled to regain consciousness.

He looked around to see Sonya lying in the bed next to him, Linc sweating profusely in an overstuffed chair in the corner, and the remains of the action committee crammed in, standing or sitting around in a bedroom he didn't recognize.

He tried to say something but no sound came from between his chapped lips. Christine handed him a cup of water. He hesitated only a moment before taking the rose-colored plastic cup. He'd already be dead if she'd wanted him to be. He nevertheless watched Christine's eyes as he drank.

"Sorry," Christine said.

Tony started at this. Christine didn't apologize for anything to anyone.

"Yeah, Christine's an artist with a blade. She never misses her target," Augustine expounded. "One thrust to the heart or the liver and the target is done. She only tortures those she really hates. She caught you through the intestines and into the kidney, but you were lucky-the damage didn't require an organ replacement. Her second thrust punctured your left lung."

"Sorry," Christine repeated. Every head in the room turned toward her.

"Grrrk," Tony croaked and sipped the water again. Carl chuckled. "Thank you for coming. What's the occasion? I'm sure I'm not nearly in as bad shape as some of you."

"We collectively, as a group, owe you an apology."

"I should think so," Tony said mockingly holding his hand over his wounds and medical incisions. Everyone laughed except the normally aloof Christine.

"Not quite, but close," Andrea continued. "I meant that we should have never doubted you. The one d.a.m.ning piece of evidence in my eyes, Nanogate knowing your name, makes sense, now. We won't doubt you in the future. I hope you'll accept our apology and leaders.h.i.+p of the team, what's left of it."

"I accept." Tony looked over at Sonya and smiled.

She smiled back as she closed her eyes. Her head settled back against the pillow and her chest rose one last time. What had been the background chirp of her heart monitor became a shrill whistle prompting the pounding of medical feet.

Adjust Plan for Desired Results "Sonya left this special message to be viewed by all of us prior to her funeral arrangements," Augustine said to the a.s.sembled throng from the pulpit of the hospital's church. She wasn't happy with the security arrangements, but they were the best that could be arranged on short notice. The lights dimmed as the solido began.

"Welcome, my friends," Sonya said in a cheery voice that didn't match the crowd's mood. "I know you're all saddened at my pa.s.sing, but let me a.s.sure you I went with my heart cheerful and knowing the hope I leave behind. Carry on the battle. Don't let it end, not for me, but for yourselves.

"If I have any one regret in this entire world, it's that I never produced an heir to pa.s.s on my teachings. Not enough time or temperament to suffer a life partner.

"I do request that you don't put my body through the city's recycling. I'd rather be recycled into pet food. Please let me feed my pets rather than the mult.i.tude of people I've already given my life to protect.

"I want to thank all who contributed to my wonderful life! Without you it wouldn't have been nearly so great! Until we meet in the next world, farewell."

Sniffles and outright sobs could be heard from the audience. Tony, from his levitating medi-bed, wiped tears from his eyes and nothing could hide that fact. Augustine's own vision blurred and she blew her nose loudly.

To Augustine's amazement, Tony stood up carefully, with one hand on the wound in his gut. She hoped all the biodegradable staples and quickheal they patched him up with would hold.

"Sonya gave me a life when mine ended," he said firmly. "She gave me a home when I had none. She gave me a family I never knew I was missing." He shrugged off Tuan as he tried to hold him up on one side.

"Sonya did this for all of us. We were strays she brought into her home, just like the menagerie of pets she kept, who, by the way, Augustine has agreed to take care of."

She nodded to the group, managing a smile.

"Sonya wished us to carry on our fight," Tony went on. "I want to know how long each of you have been fighting? Augustine?"

"Six years."

"Jez?"

"Three years."

"Peter?"

"Eight years."

Augustine wondered where Tony was going with this. It didn't take a vernacular semanticist to feel the pitch coming.

"I've only been at this a few months, and frankly I'm tired of it already. I've already lost six of my dearest friends and likely will lose even more. As your new de facto leader, I don't want to fight this war any longer."

It took several moments for this to sink in. Augustine's venom at the bare statement burned in her gut. The grief turned to rage. All she wanted to do was get her fingernails into his eyes. But then she saw the grief on his face and she forced down her emotion.

"No, I don't mean I would let what we've accomplished die," Tony continued. "I want this as much as any of you. I mean I see an opportunity to leave Sonya a successful legacy. I see an opportunity to end this war by the end of next month...in Sonya's name. I think all those we have lost will rest easier if we succeed."

"Jock! Good to see you again," Tony said affably, though the tone didn't come through well as he had to shout over music so loud you could almost see the ripples in the air.

"Mr. Tony. I see you got the establishment to let you back into the Rose."

"Just a little emotional blackmail. Then again, it might have something to do with the head I left in their office. C'mon in. I need to talk to you."

Jock looked uncertainly at Tony and his two companions. Tony saw him hesitate just a moment before swiveling into the booth next to Christine and letting the sound barrier fall back into place. He gave Jackson's heavily sweating brow a look.

"The management already told me to come down and talk to you, or I'd still be at the door," Jock said in preamble. "I don't need no trouble, Mr. Tony." Jock tapped his ear. "I like you, but I do have to look out for number one."

Tony laughed. "Jock, I'm not stupid, and I don't want to get my friends-you, in this case-into any trouble. I'm certain the management is listening in on this conversation-if they have any brains at all, that is. The oversized owner of this establishment was mercenary and slow, but stupid never entered my mind. If nothing else, having Carmine's head staring at him from his desk would have been enough to make him wary."

Jock looked at Christine and Jackson as if to try and verify the gruesome story. Jackson nodded.

"Look, I need to confirm that you work for Protection, Inc.," Tony asked.

"Yes, sir, I do. But I work for them under the table. No records. Remember, I'm..."

"A Nil. Yes, I remember, Jock. Hopefully that won't matter too much longer."

Jock tilted his head with questions in his eyes.

"Can you get me into a meeting with your senior officer?"

"Maybe."

"Would this help?" Tony said, sliding a 3 centimeter-high stack of plastic credit slips across the table.

"That would do it."

"I thought it might. Also, do you know anyone that works for Vape Security?"

"Yes, sir."

"I need to talk to their head officer as well." Tony slid over another stack of bills.

"I can make those things happen, sir."

"I knew you could," Tony said sliding over yet a third stack of bills. "This is for you."

"You don't have to do that, Mr. Tony."

"Yes I do, Jock. Here are two notes, each with the time, date, and location of individual meets." Tony handed over three slips, two stuck together as if to appear as just two pa.s.sed hands.

"Thank you, sir. I'll make it happen."

Tony walked out, Christine and Jackson at his side. The moment they reached the outside air, Jackson turned with eyebrows raised. "What was on the third note?"

"What third note?" Tony asked.