Counterweight (19 page)

“You’re the
Tauhentan
,” she asserted firmly.

“I’m
a
Tauhentan,” he replied with a smile.

Tiny curls tumbled as she shook her head. “You came to help
us.”

“Min!” A loud voice, tinged with relief, caught her
attention. “Gods, you had us worried!”

A slender young man with pale skin, probably a Krorian,
hurried over, relief evident in his features. He eyed Cal. “Thanks, friend,” he
said with a tired smile. “She knows not to wander off but you know what kids
are like.”

“No problem,” Cal assured him. “You’re a lucky man.” He
smiled down at Min.

“You’re not dressed like the average NRW,” the father
commented. “I noticed you walking past earlier…”

“I got out-bid,” Cal replied simply. It was a common enough
reason for a registered worker to lose his home. The company leased out huge
blocks of apartments to brokers who then leased smaller blocks to sub-brokers.
Those brokers were allowed to evict a tenant at any time and often did when a
higher bid came along for a home unit.

It was a system that drove housing prices to the edge of
affordability. Only the wealthiest could afford full-sized home spaces and they
set the prices through their own bids. The effect trickled down to the smallest,
one-room homes, where bidding was fiercest.

The difference between sleeping behind a locked door and
sleeping on the street represented the biggest jump in status. Many small
families had bankrupted their accounts to secure a room they’d only lose a week
later.

“My sympathies,” he said gently. “It’s not so bad down here.
Folks look out for each other. If we had a bigger say in how things are run,
perhaps some of the space folk sleep in could be turned into rooms.” He let a
hand rest on Min’s head. “Maybe… one day…”

Cal was beginning to wonder if he’d lost his touch. That
young man from 3428 had seen straight through his cover identity and now this
young girl and her father seemed to know who he was.

Still, he
was
dressed in a manner that contrasted
with his surroundings and it
was
known that the one behind the unrest
was a Tauhentan, at least among the members of the movement.

This man seemed to be a member.
One day
might be a
relatively common phrase but the tone used by the Krorian indicated more than
the simple words. 

Now came the tough decision. Should he give the
counter-sign? Cal was looking at a long, uncomfortable night but he still had
credit; he wouldn’t starve. It involved a risk as well – confirming his
identity, even to a follower.

This man obviously knew the sign and counter-sign but there
was the chance he might be a mole. Despite the discomfort ahead, it wasn’t
worth running the risk. He looked down at the little girl’s face.

He realized it wasn’t the risk to
himself
he was
concerned about.

Over the last few decades, he’d noticed the growing change.
His first assignment had been a steep learning curve but he’d at least been
able to distance himself from his recruits. 

As the years wore on, one planet blurring into another, he’d
found it increasingly difficult to plan the inciting incident that would plunge
those worlds into chaos. The recruits became people.

It was a lot harder to watch people risk their lives. They
had friends, families…

Children.

Every time he started a revolution, he quietly slipped away,
moving on to the next world. Every time he felt like a traitor to those who’d
helped make it happen.

He smiled sadly at the father. “One can hope.”

The man moved off with his daughter and Cal watched them go.

Despite his misgivings, he was still considering options.
The tempo was increasing on its own right now but it could easily melt away.
Without any input from Cal or the movement, the unrest might cease and the
young Krorian might be able to raise his daughter in peace.

But it would be a hopeless peace.

Cal shook his head. He was in danger of becoming a true
believer – never a good thing for an operator. He needed to concentrate on the
task. Push this world past the point of no return and then get out before they
shut down the elevator.

He had caches of explosives stored in lockers all over the
city. His systematic weakening of the sensor network outside the city meant the
company had no way of tracking how much explosives he’d been using as a
prospector/surveyor.

He’d been taking small amounts of Composition-15 home every
shift and he’d managed to build up a large stockpile or, rather, dozens of
medium-sized stockpiles. Anyone in his senior cadre could quickly access the
lockers, which also held a variety of deadly tools. Items such as the plasma
bows used by maintenance workers to quickly open steel conduits could be deadly
in the wrong hands.

He lied down against the grimy glass panels that kept
children from scampering under the atrium railings. His bag made an
uncomfortable pillow with the detonators poking him in the side of the face.

He could see a family bedding down for the night at the
outer end of the alley. A tattered blanket, no doubt a prized family
possession, was brought out by the father as the mother lied down, her back to
the wall. Their son lied down in front of her, snuggling back into her for
warmth, while the father threw the blanket over them, sliding under the edge
himself with practiced ease.

Alien planet or not, this was what Cal hated most about
unrestricted capitalism.  He wasn’t fool enough to think humanoids could
make a system like communism work – it was just as open to corruption, plus it
tended to reward apathy – but he strongly believed in limits for corporate
power, preferably in the hands of the workers themselves.

The two parents trying to sleep under their prized blanket
were almost certainly hard workers. Both probably spent sixty percent of their
lives at work and yet they had nothing to show for it.

There were company officials who lived in obscene opulence.
They had antique writing utensils whose cost could house this small family for
a year. Officials who attended a few meetings, toured the facilities and
otherwise stayed out of the way of the flow of goods.

At least half of them could disappear overnight and
production would continue uninterrupted. It might even improve as managers and
supervisors were freed from the inevitable cascade of meetings that always
followed any of their meaningless decisions.

How did someone as useless as that deserve so much when
these two desperate parents could barely feed their child?

There were several restaurants up topside where a single
meal cost a year’s wages for a laborer. Patrons dined in lavish surroundings,
served by Dactari waiters. Their plates were whisked away by Dactari bus staff
and they could, for an hour or so, pretend they were in the high district of
Xo’Khov, the Dactari capital.

Such places were popular refuges for the useless. Places
where they could display their wealth. Callum grinned as his eyes finally began
to close.

He could take that away from them.

He started awake, shaken out of a dream where he was back in
Calgary being kicked by two military policemen after he’d been caught. The pain
in his ribs was too real to be a dream and he realized a magister was standing
over him. He rolled to a seated position, clutching his bag protectively, as
any NRW would.

“I said show me your hand,” the magister growled.

“Alright, alright,” Cal slurred, coughing loudly. He moaned
and suddenly lurched forward to one side of the magister, his left hand
clutching the magister’s black-clad leg. His face was inches from the ground.
“Oh Gods! I’m going to be sick!” 

“Get off me, you scum,” the magister exclaimed with disgust.
He aimed a kick at Cal’s head.

Cal went sprawling, senses reeling from the impact. He had
to get up before the company lawman could scan him. He had to run…

“Hey, where’d that motherless clone get to?” An angry voice
carried out from around a bend in the alley.

Both Cal and the magister turned to look. Two more magisters
had been rousting the young Krorian family and they were looking around the
bend as well. The young father caught Cal’s eye and gave him a slight shake of
the head.

“I loaned him my second blanket,” the voice continued, “and
he’s run off with it!”

If that didn’t seem like a likely suspect, then nothing did.
Cal’s magister raced for the alley entrance, rounding the corner just behind
the two who’d been roughing up the Krorians.

Perfect timing. Cal hadn’t liked his chances – half asleep,
sore ribs, a fresh kick to the head – he wouldn’t have made it very far, even
with some helpful surprises along the way. He looked over at the small family.

The father was looking back at him. The Krorian mouthed the
words
one day
. He gave a barely perceptible nod as the shouting
magisters raced across the pedway bridge above them.

Even though he hadn’t been certain, the young man had taken
a risk to protect Cal, organising a wild goose chase for the magisters.

One day soon,
Cal mouthed back. He leaned over and
picked up his bag, pulling out his work tablet. A few quick taps and he had the
right menu. He shifted his gaze to the young man.
Very soon,
he mouthed
with a grin. He looked up to where his favorite magister was standing in the
middle of the bridge, waving one of his fellows up the north-side pedway.

Without taking his eyes off the black-clad man, he stabbed a
finger down and the small initiator charge on the back of the magister’s leg
detonated. The force was sufficient to take his right leg off from the knee
down as well as shatter his left knee. The glass panel between him and Cal was
suddenly splattered with blood and the unfortunate Dactari fell like a
screaming sack of rocks.

Cal raced away from the alley, wanting to ensure the chase
didn’t come back to haunt those who’d helped him. He pulled out another
initiator charge designed to set off the relatively stable C-15 charges. The
small detonators were encased in a sticky material, much like a gecko’s feet.

It took hours to master the art of throwing the small
charges. The thrower had to hold the small device so that it rolled off the
fingers in the right direction. If you got it backwards when it really counted,
you’d be lucky if you only blew off your lower arm.

And it really counted now. The level above was set back from
this one and one of the magisters decided to risk a broken leg and vaulted the
upper railing to drop in Cal’s path. The lawman’s lips curled in an evil grin
as he pulled out his weapon.

Cal returned the grin as he hurled his own weapon. The
one-inch-diameter ball left his hand without complaint and adhered itself to
the magister’s tunic. The timer, initiated as soon as the device left Cal’s
hand, had only four seconds on it and two of those had already passed before
the lawman even realized that anything odd was taking place.

He was just looking down when the small charge went off.

It wasn’t as efficient as the magister’s weapon of choice
but it was certainly effective.

Cal raced past the grisly mess and ducked down a side alley
he’d explored before choosing his resting place. He knew it branched off into
several turns and it offered multiple opportunities to change levels. He had
planned out escape routes in a number directions and this was one of the
best. 

He slowed to a walk, glancing over his shoulder before
taking a right turn into a branch that was wide enough for sleeping spaces on
both sides and a walking path down the middle. He picked his way past the
sleeping NRW’s – it was too deep into the side of the city for them to have
heard the small blast – and reached the tertiary conduit trace he’d checked out
earlier in the evening.

The trace was roughly a square meter in cross-section and it
was a carbon girder box that ran through matching holes in the floors, carrying
power and data through the city.

Squeezing his medium frame through the narrow spaces of the
girders was difficult enough but he also needed to bend his body into the
narrow interior space left between the various conduits as he pushed his way
inside.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he finally slid his head through
the gap and he was entirely inside the cage. Now it was a simple matter of
climbing down as quietly as possible. Few were willing to sleep directly in
front of the trace for fear of the effects of electromagnetic exposure but he
could still draw attention if he went clambering down the trace at top speed.

He’d gone down two levels and was just moving below the
third when he heard approaching boots. He only had seconds. As quickly as he
dared, he maneuvered below a bundle of incoming conduits, edging to the
adjacent side of the trace so he’d be concealed beneath the downward-curving
bundle of lines.

Peeking up between the jumble of wires and thick conduits, he
could see a shadow falling across the lines above. A head pushed through
between the carbon members of the girder and looked straight down at him.

Cal remained absolutely still, not even blinking. He fought
the urge to reach into his bag for another detonator and the struggle was so
all-encompassing that he almost let out an involuntary sigh of relief when the
head turned to look up the trace.

Killing him here would be a clear indicator of where he’d
been. If the magister failed to withdraw his head before it exploded, conduit
damage would trigger an alarm, bringing a horde of eyeballs his way.

As he watched, the magister turned his head back to the side
and withdrew it through the small triangular opening.

Cal took stock. Two magisters had been killed in this
neighborhood. They’d have back-up on the way to beat the bushes. Though he was
tempted to remain where he was, it would only get progressively harder to leave
the area. With a quiet sigh, he emerged from beneath the bundle of cables and
resumed his descent.