Industry & Intrigue (65 page)

Luthais had attended several
public lectures of Tara’s during his time at the University of
Alkos. She was a
part-time professor in finance, while simultaneously
working a job running a bakery operation in the Industrial
district. She had innovative ideas about management and operations
that the university elite had frowned upon. It had seen her
relegated to the bottom of the pile for research grants and
promotions.

Luthais had liked her
ideas.
He
had taken one look at the wreck of the plant and after firing the
idiotic Gray, offered her the position of manager. She had
enthusiastically accepted. Her bakery business was successful, but
not lucrative enough to keep her living beyond a tiny apartment.
Between that and her academic role she had been mentally
exhausted.

In less than six months after
taking the position, she
turned the entire plant around. With excellent
organizational skills, new equipment, checklists and a far more
stream-lined production, she had been able to match and then
overtake the demand.

Not to mention that she had let
go of twenty percent of the workforce
, which had been able to save him on labor
costs and she had implemented new safety policies that had reduced
injuries and accidents by sixty percent. And now she had the plant
up to capacity with the demands of a full-scale war.

“
I don’
t know how you do it Tara. I’m damn
glad to have you here,” he said.

“
It’s what I
do
,” she
replied. “I’ve been ready for this day since you appointed me. I’m
hoping we can expand even further. Every day I’m getting calls from
the ministries of industry and war to check that I’ll be able to
give them what they need.”

“
How much more can we
expand?”
he
asked.

She chewed her lip while she
thought. They were cracked slightly. The air in the factory would
do that if you spent long enough
in here. “I think if we hire another
hundred more workers; over the next few weeks we could double our
output. That would allow us to go to twenty-four operation using
rotating shifts. The equipment will be working overtime, but as
long as we keep up with the cool down and quality checks it should
be able to handle it.”

Luthais grinned. It was exactly
what he wan
ted to hear. Tegan would be pleased, he was going to prove
his value to her. Something he desperately needed to do. She had
not been pleased to hear about his recent dalliances with a certain
CEO. She hadn’t ordered him to stop, but it was clear she would
make life difficult for him if he refused.

He could care less. Alyssa
Huntington was an attractive woman, even with their age
difference
,
and the sex with her had been delightfully energetic, but he had
never thought of it as anything more. Half of the thrill for him
had been the fact that she was married and he was getting away with
fucking her behind her husband’s back.

There were
plent
y more
fish in the ocean though, so he would stop seeing her, if only to
calm Tegan down. She was under a lot of pressure since father had
died and Luthais did not want to add to that. Not to mention he had
to make up for that assassination business. It had worked out in
the company’s favor, but his sister was still angry.

“
I thought you’d be pleased to
hear that
,”
said Tara. “With production like that we should keep Typhon cannons
as the main artillery piece for the imperial army. We have stiff
competition, with that new mechanized gun from
Huntington.”

Luthais
waved his hand in dismissal.
“It’s impressive to see in operation I’ll say that much. But it
hasn’t been tested in the real world by actual soldiers yet. For
all we know, the barrel could overheat or jam after firing off a
few hundred rounds. The artillery units have trained with our
cannons and are familiar with them. People stick to what they
know.”

Tara took a sip of coffee
fro
m the
steaming mug sitting in her desk. “If you say so. You would know
better than me, sir.” He noticed a hint of a snide smile on the
corners of her mouth.

He scowled, tapping his hand
against the smooth glass behind him.
He wasn’t aware that knowledge of his
affair with Alyssa had been so widespread. It was definitely for
the best to put an end to it. Tara would never say anything,
regardless of what she had heard. She was loyal to him, she had
proven that many times over.

He turned back to look over the
plant again.
He bumped his forehead against the warm glass and he
noticed something odd. There was a woman where she should not be;
where no worker should be. She was tightly positioned between two
sets of powder grinders and bent over. She was busy doing something
with her hands on the ground.

“
Tara, should that worker be
there?” he asked his manager and pointed down, his finger pressed
to the glass.

“
Hmm?” Tara looked over
at his questioning
glare. She stood up and walked around her desk to see.

As she looked
down
, he
asked “Isn’t that against safety policy to be between the powder
grinders while the plant is running?”

“
Yes, you’re
right
,”
replied Tara, confirming his suspicions. “She shouldn’t be in there
at all. Even if something had gone wrong, there’s no equipment or
controls between those parts of the plant. What in the hells is she
doing there?” She sounded as annoyed as he was now. He was glad he
still remembered how the plant operated. He had worked there
briefly during his twenties, and he liked to think he could still
remember exactly how everything worked.

Tara threw the folder in
her hands onto her
desk and marched out of the room. Luthais hoped she would give the
worker a piece of her mind. It was no good for employees to start
wandering anywhere they felt, especially if they ended up intruding
on the production or Creator forbid, damage the
equipment.

Luthais kept watching. The woman stood up
and slowly crept out from between the grinders. She furtively
glanced from side to side, as if to check that no one had seen her,
before stepping onto the main part of the floor that ran along the
grinders and towards the ball filling zone.

It wouldn’t help
her, both the
factory manager and the division head had seen her. He was glad he
had decided to install the window here. The fact that she was being
so cautious and trying not to be seen suggested that she was doing
something she should not have. If she had been a new employee who
had simply become turned around, Luthais would have been content to
let her away with a warning, but it looked as if she had a more
sinister motive.

He saw Tara walk up to the
woman and start yelling at her. He couldn’t hear anything, but he
could tell from Tara’s gestures that she was angry. The other woman
was tr
ying
to defend herself, giving off a vague half-baked excuse.

He took another glance over to
where she had bee
n. The area she had been bent over was an empty spot of
floor between the grinders. He could see a black rectangular edge
sticking out from below one of them. It did not like any piece of
equipment he recognized.

What if
the woman was corporate
saboteur? Typhon had no shortage of competition and the other
armaments companies would not hesitate to try something like
this.

Tara was
getting nowhere. She was still
arguing with the woman on the factory floor. This was insane, the
woman had been up to something sinister, he was certain. He stormed
out of the room, the humid heat of the plant air sticking to his
skin. He made his way down the stairs and could faintly hear Tara
and the woman arguing.

“
You c
annot go anywhere you feel like,”
said Tara. “We have health and safety protocols that protect the
plant and everyone working here. If one person decides to break
them, they could endanger themselves or others.”

“
Look, how many times do
I
have to
apologize. I was only-”

“
I’ll handle this now Tara,”
Luthais said as he came up behind his manager, stopping the woman
from finishing her excuse.

He stared at her,
anger on his face.
She looked like a typical factory worker, messy, brown hair, a
sooty face and soiled, grey, work clothes. But looks could be
deceiving.

“
Tell us right now what exactly
it was you put under the powder grinders and I promise that the
only charges you’ll face will be
financial rather than criminal,” ordered
Luthais.

“
What?” asked
Tara.

“
She’s a fucking spy and she
p
ut
something under the equipment. Tell us now, or you’ll be sorry you
ever heard the name Luthais Mordain,” he warned her.

The wom
an’s demeanor changed. She was not
pretending to be a know-nothing worker anymore. Her eyes darted
between the two of them and she licked her lips nervously. He had
her now and she knew it. She was trying to think how she could
offer to sell out to his side. Corporate espionage stooges often
did that when caught.

She gave the
m both a hardened look and
screamed, “For the revolution!” at the top of her lungs. Fire and
light exploded from the plant. Luthais senses were overloaded with
white light and deafening noise for a few seconds. Then he felt
something heavy hit him, knocking him to the ground, before
everything went black.

Chapter 65

The first Victor knew of
the bombing was
when one of his members, Oliver, came running into his meeting with
Eileen MacCuinn. Eileen was the leader of the Women’s Rights
Alliance, a feminist socialist group that had many connections to
his own. He had set up the meeting to convince her to lend him
support in his campaign.

The door
burst open, a panting Oliver
entering. The boy’s face was drenched in sweat, his black hair
sticking to his forehead. Victor was annoyed at the intrusion, but
Oliver wouldn’t interrupt unless it was important. Eileen turned
her head as well, her short-cut dark hair bouncing past her
shoulders as she did.

“
Victor, there’s been an
explosion at
the Typhon armaments factory,” said Oliver. The boy then
put his hands on his knees and bent his head over, taking in deep
breaths.

“
I’m sorry
Eileen
,”
said Victor and he stood up. “This sounds important.”

“
Of course
,” she replied. She didn’t
bother turning her head when she spoke to him. There would have
been little point. Eileen was blind in both eyes. It was the result
of an industrial accident and he hadn’t deemed it necessary to
probe her about it. She kept a thin strip of white fabric around
her head that served to cover them.

He had assumed whatever it was, had left
her eyes in an unsightly condition and asking her about it would
only be hitting a nerve. It was not how he wanted to start off the
relationship he hoped to build with her and her
organization.

He walked over to Oliver and
pulled him up gently. The boy had recovered from his exertion and
Victor looked at him directly in t
he eyes. “You wore yourself out to tell me
that? Why?” he asked.

“
Word going around the city
is
that is
the LRC that did it,” the boy replied. He wiped the sweat from his
face onto his dirty sleeves.

Robert
,
was Victor’s first thought.
What has he
done?

“
Word from who?” he
snapped. He needed to know exactly what had happened.

Oliver thought for a moment.
“People in the street,
the city watch. I came here as fast as I could
when I overheard two street vendors down at the waterfront talking
about it.” He didn’t get a chance to ask the boy anything
else.

“
The Blackwatch!” came a
loud shout from downstairs.

Victor heard a few startled
cries and the stomps of feet coming up
the stairs. He pulled Oliver back
from the door and pushed him to the other side of the room.
“Eileen, stay in your seat, don’t say anything,” he said and moved
to the door.

Several Imperial Branch
uniformed officers marched into the room. They
were followed by a man in an
expensive looking black and white suit. The man had a face like
cold, hard stone. He focused his blue eyes on Victor.

“
Victor
Shepard
?” he
asked in a smooth voice. “I’m Inspector John Graves. I need to have
ask you some questions.” His tone indicated he wasn’t going to take
no for an answer.

“
I’m right here,” replied
Victor.

“
It would be for the best if you
accompanied me to the station
,” said the inspector. He looked around the room,
but did not care about Eileen or Oliver as he quickly focused back
on Victor. “I’m sure a good citizen such as yourself, would be
willing to answer my queries.”