Severance (32 page)

“Things will look better with your support.”

Reynolds tented his fingers and flexed them back and forth. “Maybe.
Maybe not.”

“Don’t pull any punches, Stan,” Lady Cathy said. Kinsella did
everything he could not to roll his eyes.
Lady.
Not actually a
title, barely even a description. “We liked you when you were in charge, Eric,”
she said. “And you aren’t in charge of shit now.”

I’ll take charge of caving your head in with your own
severed arms
, Kinsella didn’t say, his face a mask of serenity. “I’m in
charge of a lot more than you think. And I haven’t failed you guys yet,” he
said, unleashing his winningest grin. “Three elections in a row.”

“That’s what the last guy said,” Lady Cathy observed. “He
won three in a row as well. Would have kept winning too, until he didn’t.”

Kinsella pushed back his chair and stood up, a signal to
Bletmann, lurking at the edge of the room. Time to take charge of the situation;
he was losing them. And he really did need their help; all of the slush funds
and caches attached to the mayor’s office had been frozen. He had already
started drawing on his own collection of physical loot, built up from a
lifetime of public service. But he would need a lot more for what he had
planned. “Okay,” he said, “I get it. I’m down now. You like winners, and I don’t
look like much of one.” A few of the less subtle weather vanes nodded. “But let’s
be frank. I’m cheaper to bribe than the other guy. Has he returned your calls
yet?” He watched everyone’s reactions, a mixture of confusion and annoyance.

From down the hall, the sound of a door opening, followed by
sputtering protests from one of Reynolds’ servers. Moments later, Hogg strode
into the dining room in full security regalia, every metal and hard plastic
surface on his uniform shined to a deep luster. Beneath his outward expression
of mild shock, Kinsella bit his tongue.

“Mayor Eric Kinsella, I’m here to place you under arrest,”
Hogg said, his voice firm and not at all wooden.

Kinsella stood up straighter, shoulders rolling back, gut in
a little. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

“And I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter,” Hogg
said, rushing, trampling Kinsella’s show of defiance, diminishing its impact.
You
idiot.
Kinsella glared at the security man, who was now looking decidedly more
nervous than his position would imply.

It had been too much of a stroke of luck to not use him like
this. Kinsella had always suspected there was something a bit funny about the way
security officers behaved. Too deferential. Too eager to please. He knew he was
accustomed to the snake pit of Argosian politics, where everyone’s motives ran
ten layers deep. Most people were surely more straightforward. But there was
something about security officers that went way beyond ‘straightforward,’ and
after some quiet research early in his first term, he eventually figured it
out. They
had
to follow orders. It hurt them not to. Most of the navy
geeks were the same way. It was something bred into them, something Helot and
his predecessors must have been doing for generations.

A useful fact to know, though Kinsella had never found a way
to take advantage of it; security officers didn’t normally report to him. It
required a damaged one, a chance encounter with a reject looking for a new
home, for him to put his theory to the test. And damned if he didn’t seem to be
right. Hogg would do anything he said, conduct any act asked of him.

But no amount of asking could get him to act well.

“What you’re doing is illegal,” Kinsella said, knowing he
would have to carry the show on his own. “This is an illegal attempt to silence
this ship’s legitimate civilian government.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hogg said. He
seemed to remember he was supposed to be physically menacing the mayor, took
two steps forward, then stopped abruptly, remembering that by this point he was
now supposed to be doubting his purpose.

Strictly speaking, Kinsella did have the less challenging
role: defiant self–righteousness. Barely a role really, for him. “It’s also
wrong,” he said, his voice strong. “You’re destroying this ship. You know what
Helot’s doing,” Kinsella said. “You know what’s going to happen to us.”

“I still have to arrest you.”

“
Even
if it’s true, you still have to arrest me?”
Kinsella said, filling in Hogg’s misspoken line. “So, you admit it?”

Hogg hesitated. “I didn’t say that.”

“But it is true, isn’t it? Helot is planning to split the
ship.”

This was the tricky part; there was a certain salesmanship
necessary to handle the next exchange. “So, what if it is?” Hogg finally said.

Kinsella shook his head. “So, what if it is?” he repeated,
turning to survey the room. Dim faces stared back at him. Kinsella held his
breath, waiting.
I think we got ’em.

“Are you two rehearsing a play?” Lady Cathy asked.

“What?” Kinsella said.
Or not
.

“You are clearly rehearsing a play,” Reynolds said, “though
I don’t know why. Nor why you didn’t rehearse it before you got here.” Chuckles
down the length of the table. “Was this supposed to impress us, Eric? Having
some fake security officer try to arrest you?”

Kinsella held up his hands. “Well,
obviously
. But he
is a real security officer.”

“I am a real security officer,” Hogg acknowledged.

Reynolds looked Hogg up and down, and wagged his head back,
seemingly unsure. “He does look like a security officer,” Lady Cathy said, her voice
a bit breathy.

“No, look,” Kinsella began. “Yes and no. This isn’t what it
looks like, except it is a bit.”

Reynolds interrupted him. “You were actually able to bribe a
security officer?” he asked. “I’m impressed. I had no idea you had this kind of
sway anymore.” The weather vanes murmured and nodded. Kinsella blinked,
completely stunned. “Look, Eric. You’ve got a good point about the other guy
not really playing ball with us. So, yes. I’ll help.” Reynolds looked around
the room. “
We’ll
help. But you’ve got to cut it out with this crazy ship
splitting stuff. It’s completely insane. No one’s buying it.”

“Okay, sure,” Kinsella said, not believing his luck. He directed
a pointed glance at his costar, but could see Hogg didn’t need to be told when
to shut up.

“And this little skit is a great idea,” Reynolds went on. “It’s
classic you. Just maybe, you know, get a real fake security officer next time? I
think the fake ones might be more convincing.”

§

Many people noticed the large, bulky object Griese and Ellen
carried down the street. But they were all locals, unlikely to tattle on them.
And by that point, almost all of the security sensors had been shot out on the
third level, following a dedicated few days of work by a group of goons in
Kinsella’s growing militia. They would do the same on each level in turn, but
had been told to make the third level a priority, presumably because it was the
fastest level to move around on, and Kinsella was tired of his selection of
wigs.

So, they were pretty sure they weren’t noticed by anyone
official when they entered the service entrance of an art gallery, the main
floors of which extended up to the garden well. Once inside, they picked their
way to the rear staircase of the building, hefting their load upstairs. When
they reached the uppermost floor, they found an unmarked door, which opened to
reveal the roof access staircase. Climbing this, they emerged on the roof of
the gallery, facing the north, the bulk of the gallery’s roofline blocking
their line of sight to the south. Crouching, they picked their way across the
roof to the spot they had observed from across the garden well, an odd
architectural feature which created a fold in the roof permanently in the
shade.

There they unrolled the garish carpet that concealed their
load. Long, bulky, and matte black, any observer at any time in human history
would immediately recognize it as something nasty. A boxy frame mounted on a
low profile tripod, with a thinner rectangular block extending out the front,
surrounded by a series of other protrusions sprouting out in a seemingly
careless manner. This was a smart rifle, as ugly as it was rare.

Smart rifles were an Earth invention that had immigrated to
the Argos about halfway through Argos War I. While a computer–assisted rifle
was useful on Earth, on the Argos it was absolutely necessary for anyone who
wanted to shoot something further away than they could yell. In a spinning cylinder,
where the very concept of gravity was openly mocked, the ballistics of a
projectile weapon became incredibly complicated. Bullets followed long,
spiraling paths, making accurate shooting over distance an impossible task.
Several friendly fire incidents during that first conflict provided grim
illustrations of this. A smart rifle was capable of compensating for all these
insanely complicated ballistics with the help of a small processor and some
extremely accurate sensors. Because the ship hadn’t sailed with military
hardware, the smart rifles on board the Argos were all makeshift, designed from
first principles and cobbled together using whatever components were available.
Only three had survived the first war, none of them fired in anger since.

They carefully positioned the rifle in the darkest part of
the shadow, Ellen setting up behind it. Griese lay on the other side, his
terminal in front of him with its sensor on maximum zoom. For ten minutes they
lay there, slowly scanning the aft wall of the garden well.

“I think I got one,” Griese whispered.

“What?” Ellen asked, her voice tight.

“I think I got one,” he whispered, somewhat louder.

Ellen rolled her eyes. “Darling, you are looking at
something over a kilometer away. You could scream ‘SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT IN THE
HEAD!’ and no one but me would know.”

“The whispering felt appropriate.”

“Where is it?”

“Eleven o’clock, maybe a third of the radius out from the
center. Just underneath the light panel.”

A few tense seconds passed while Ellen maneuvered the rifle
around, searching. “Got it,” she finally said. Through her scope she could see a
dark patch just underneath the blinding glare coming off the light panel. The
security sensors at street level were small, only practicably detectable with
special terminal programs. But the ones mounted in the garden well, like the
one she was looking at now, were much larger.

Ellen centered the crosshairs on the boxy shape. She tapped
the target lock button and watched as
CALCULATING…
appeared on the
viewfinder. After a couple of seconds, a blue arrow appeared on the right hand
side of the screen. Tilting the rifle to the right and up a bit, she chased the
arrow a few degrees until it disappeared and a blue reticule appeared on the
scope, superimposed on an otherwise unremarkable piece of wall. She lined up
the crosshairs with the reticule. “I love this thing,” she said, smiling. She
rubbed the sweat off the palm of her right hand. “Okay. 3…2…1…go.” She pulled
the trigger.

The rifle burped out a ‘pwwwww–schwack’ noise, followed by a
sharp crack, as a series of magnets propelled a lump of ferrous metal out of the
barrel at twice the speed of sound. Immediately after firing, she panned back
to the security sensor, missing the impact, seeing a cloud of debris floating
in the lowered gravity of the upper well.

“Nice shot,” Griese said, watching the same scene beside her
on his terminal.

She winked at him. “Damn right it was. You set ’em up, I
knock ’em down.”

“I’ve seen it happen many times in other contexts,” Griese
agreed. He looked back down at his terminal and began searching for their next
target.

There was no real reason for blowing away security sensors
other than to satisfy that particular type of boredom that people with really
large guns often experience. A boredom possibly enhanced by frustration that
they were unable to help their two friends, currently trapped in medium–to–high
danger. A brief message from Bruce had let them know he and Stein were safe–ish,
and that they needn’t worry, but if they did want to worry, they might busy
themselves by distracting Helot.

Three shattered sensors worth of distraction later, Griese
looked up from his terminal. “Hey, they have more of these, right?” He patted
the body of the smart rifle, its case warm to the touch.

Ellen looked up at him. “Yeah, probably. Why? Ohhhhhh,” she
said, getting it.

Quickly they scuttled back into the shadows, dragging the
rifle with them, until they reached the cover of the roof access stairs. There
they slumped against the wall, breathing heavily, adrenaline pumping.

“I mean, I don’t know that they’d actually shoot back at us,”
Griese said.

“No. They would,” Ellen said. She pounded her fist into her
thigh. “Just give them an excuse. They would have no hesitation at turning me
into a widow.”

Griese gasped, mock shock on his face. “Why would they shoot
me? You were the one with the gun.”

Ellen smiled sweetly. “This time. It’s your turn next.” She
patted his shoulder, then smiled. “I love you.”

“That’s a dirty trick, lady.” He looked at her sternly, shaking
his head at the coy expression she was trying pull off. “Don’t you pout. I mean
it,” he added, shifting over, propping his knee up over her leg. “I’m very
upset with you.”

“Mmhmm.”

§

Stein woke up with a start, wondering why she was so
uncomfortably warm, before remembering where she was. She groaned. A fugitive
living in the ship’s lungs. She sniffed. With a very smelly co–fugitive not far
away.

She rolled over to look at Bruce, who was still messing
around with the little maintenance robot. In his hands, he had a funny–looking
tool he was apparently trying to bind to the robot’s manipulator. “What is
that?” she asked.