Thanks to Josh C. for valuable input! :)
Come the morning, I took a walk down Treasure Row.
That wasn't its official name, but it was what everyone called it. It was the financial district, centred around the Royal Bank. Enad Atner had founded the Bank, and in its time, it was a monument to the world of money and its movement. A crashing TIE fighter had wrecked all but its original facade, and while the interior was nearly rebuilt, in the interim the Bank had ceased to be the financial hub Enad had envisioned.
The Bank's functions had been snapped up by a number of independent financial firms. I hadn't been in any shape or frame of mind when I first left Earth to make provisions for my financial security Earthside - but Nick had gone ahead and set some up for me. In the end, I'd just had to sign a few forms on my last flying visit to Earth in early 2005.
For the last half-dozen years, the firm of Laets, Worrob and Geb had looked after my financial affairs, kept my taxes paid, and otherwise ensured that various authorities would not assume I'd died. The firm didn't hold all of my assets - I did have acess to a few numbered Swiss bank accounts as well, but they were more Nick's than mine. Still, when Nick had left Earth himself he'd passed them along in case I found them useful one day.
I suspect if I do call on those accounts, the results might well cause my flesh eye to pop out of its socket. Nick and Yarg were making out like bandits on their side-interests.
I ducked into the firm's discreet housefront, finding that the house inside was lavish and opulent. They'd renovated since I was last here, but it was clear they'd been doing well for themselves during their country's reconstruction. There were couches set up around a table with magazines strewn across it in tasteful disarray. None of them were actually called "Reading This Magazine Makes You Look Rich And Intelligent", but the intimation was clear. There was no branding or signage for the firm - either you were supposed to be here and knew what it was, or you weren't, and could push off, you unwashed peasant.
There was only one other person in the entire lounge, and that was the incidentally stunning receptionist sitting behind a large, ornate desk. She was the picture of efficiency, dark hair severely pulled back, wearing a business suit with an elegant headset on one ear. Her clothing, hair, makeup and posture were all immaculate, as if she'd just arrived from a full-body laundry. She was intently looking at a flatscreen monitor while her fingers danced across a low-profile keyboard. There was a phone on the table, one of the ones with lots of buttons, but there were no flashing lights and she wasn't speaking, so I assumed the phones were quiet.
I walked up to the table and stood at an at-ease posture, trying unsuccessfully not to stare at her. After a moment, she came to a pause in her typing and looked up at me. She didn't speak, but the precise quirk of her eyebrows asked, "Who are you, and why are you here?"
"Good morning," I said, and prided myself that my voice came out loud and clear, instead of the embarrassing croak I feared I'd start with. I felt very, very clumsily male in front of her, and painfully aware that I was underdressed for the occasion. I was wearing the same clothes I'd landed in two days ago - fortunately, in Mendellia, a cloak covers for a multitude of fashion faux pas. Faux pases. Faux pasi? You know, like going armed into what basically amounts to a bank. Which I'd also done. I suddenly couldn't remember if I'd deodorised that morning. Surely I had. Routine.
My mouth kept going even as my brain spiralled into meltdown. "My name's Josh Nolan," I continued as her eyebrows failed to shift. "I don't have an appointment, but I'm here to see Mr. Laets, if he's available."
Her eyebrows informed me how much of an oaf I was for expecting a man of Mr. Laets's exalted status to be available to see some cloaked nobody off the street. (In case you're wondering, I was very much of an oaf.) Her elegant mouth said, "One moment, sir, I'll see if he's in." She typed a little on the keyboard first, and after a moment, something she liked apparently appeared on the screen. She looked back up at me and smiled, which ran the risk of shoring out my artificial eye with dazzling dentistry. "Welcome back, Mr. Nolan," she said, and then, without looking, fiddled with her phone.
"I have a Mr. Joshua Nolan here to see you, sir," she said, smiling placatingly at me as she spoke. "The VIP client, yes sir, that's right. No sir, he has no appointment. Of course, sir. Right away, sir." She gave me a full-throttle smile, and I think I might have gotten sunburnt from it. "Mr. Laets will see you now," she said.
I may have mentioned that the receptionist was stunning. I thought I'd reiterate it here, as it relates directly as to why I didn't notice anything amiss. A man of high finance being immediately available to see a client who hasn't shown his face in a half-dozen years should have rung some alarm bells, but bells of a different sort were being rung instead.
She looked away for a moment, and her hand reflexively reached up to brush a nonexistent loose hair back into place. Her smile faltered, slightly, and she said, "The door on your right, sir." Eventually, the message percolated into my brain, and I smiled my thanks, giving a brief bow to back it up. That brought her smile back in full force, so I turned away before I was blinded.
I stepped through the door into an antechamber with two security goons standing by another door. The goons were in uniform, and while their buttons were polished and their epaulettes neat, they looked positively slovenly in comparison to the receptionist. Some of it wasn't their fault, of course - it's difficult to get a uniform that sits right over body armour and a shoulder holster. They nodded politely, and one of them opened the door for me. I nodded thanks, and went into Tonlliw Laets's office.
The office was opulent in the same understated way the rest of the house was. Laets himself had lost some weight since I'd last seen him, but was still a portly man. There was sweat sitting on his dark-skinned brow, even in the air-conditioning, but he smiled at me and waved me to sit. His smile was brittle, though - it never reached his eyes. Still, I walked in, the goons closing the door behind us, and I sat down. So that's when the trap was sprung.
There was a ruffle of fabric and the clicks of safety catches. I whipped my head around to find that the goons were training their guns at me. They were far enough from each other so that crossfire wouldn't be a problem for them, and far enough from me that if I tried to use one of them as a shield, I'd catch a few bullets first. Unlike the goons, I wasn't wearing body armour. I earmarked 'rush them' as Plan B, and looked back at Laets. "I'm sorry," said Laets quietly. "They have my family."
And people wonder why I'm paranoid.
A door concealed in the wall behind Laets opened, and a young woman walked through. She couldn't have been older than her early twenties, and I suppose she was pretty, but after the receptionist she looked outright drab. Her clothing was fairly nondescript, a jacket, skirt and shirt that straddled some line between casual and formal, but expensive-looking all the same. But what really held my attention was her blaster.
The blaster was pointed at me, which does tend to focus my attention somewhat. The other noteworthy thing about the blaster was that it wasn't any design I recognised. This wasn't impossible, sure, but its styling didn't even resemble any of the hundred or so most popular blasters in the galaxy - at least not beyond the basic 'point this end at the enemy' aspect.
"He's telling the truth," she said. "His professional ethics are admirable. We had to hurt his wife before he gave you up."
"Is she all right?" I asked Laets, trying to convey that I understood he was under duress, but the woman replied instead.
"She was not permanently harmed," she said. "And now, Mr. Nolan, I'll need you to slowly put your weapons on the desk, then move that chair back out of reach." Her accent was strange, like Agent Smith's in the Matrix. It seemed to orbit the globe a couple of times during each word.
I kept my eyes on her, and moved my hands very slowly. I reached carefully under my cloak and produced my trusty E-11, holding it by its butt. Holding it in plain sight, I disconnected the power pack, and placed both weapon and ammunition on the desk. I reached back under my cloak for my lightsabre, and used the opportunity to thumb the comlink on my belt to 'on'. I think I did it smoothly enough to make it look like I was just unhooking the 'sabre, but that's the problem with sleight-of-hand - you never can tell if you were good enough until it's too late.
I held up the lightsabre ritualistically, and placed it on the desk. I didn't have the time or the tools to disconnect its power source. She still didn't shoot me, though, so I took this as an encouraging sign. I began to move the chair, but she interrupted with, "I do mean all your weapons, Mr. Nolan."
I looked at her a moment, but she didn't seem to have the remotest bit of doubt. Damn it. I leant down, withdrew the holdout blaster from my boot, disconnected its pack and placed it alongside the other weapons. Then I went to move the chair away, and this time she let me.
She came around the desk and perched on it, keeping her blaster pointed in my general direction the entire time. She picked up my lightsabre off the desk, examined it, then pointed it away from herself and ignited it. She jumped a little at the snap-hiss, but once the pink blade stabilised, she waved it around, changing the timbre of its hum. She deactivated the blade and gave me a little complimentary nod. "Impressive," she said.
Her blaster hadn't left me.
"Well," she said as she settled on the desk. "You're a difficult man to get a hold of, Mr. Nolan."
"Apparently not," I said, with a glance over my shoulder at the goons.
"We make it look easy," she said modestly. "I would have much preferred to contact you on a cellular phone, but alas, you don't have one."
"Oddly enough, I'd have preferred that, too," I said, trying to keep my tone light. "Couldn't you have arranged for Mr. Laets to provide me with a mobile and called that?"
"We'd already gone to so much trouble, I thought we could at least give you the personal touch," she said with a smile. This wasn't the light-the-room smile of the receptionist, but a superior, knowing smile, a smile with undertones of smirk. But we were playing the game of 'let's have a polite conversation while one of us is at gunpoint', and I wasn't about to let her score all the points.
"Well, I'm flattered. Usually young ladies give me three days' grace before they start throwing themselves at me," I lied.
She laughed at that, a flattering courtier's laugh. "Forgive me for being forward, then," she said. "But I wanted to have an intimate chat with you, and I don't think we could have one in the Palace.
"Very well," I said. "Would you excuse us, Mr. Laets?" I looked over my shoulder. "Gentlemen? If we could have a moment?" I didn't for a moment think that it would actually work, but it was worth a try.
"You would leave us without a chaperone?" Ms. Blaster asked, feigning shock. "La, sir, what would that do to my reputation?"
"Ah, of course. I'd hate for anyone to think that something untoward was going on in here."
She laughed again, and gave me an encouraging smile. "Touche, Mr. Nolan. But please, consider our precautions a mark of respect for your ability."
"I'm flattered," I said again. "I should try to lead a less exemplary life in future." Her blaster hadn't faltered or drooped yet - she was in good shape. She was probably trained, then, and while the heels on those boots of hers were impractical for running, she could likely do some damage with them. Choice of footwear aside, she was a professional. The goons were either hers to begin with, or she'd suborned them to the extent they were willing to blow out some dude's brains at their workplace. Either way, I'd have my work cut out for me should things go sour. Hell, she was closer to the 'sabre than I was - work wasn't the only thing of mine that'd get cut out.
"We've come to make you an offer, Mr. Nolan. You have a very formidable reputation, but I'm afraid you're on the losing side at the moment." She looked smug for a moment. "I represent the future."
"You're a time-traveller?" I asked reflexively. The words left my mouth with little intervention from my brain, but I then realised that it was worth checking. I do, after all, live on a spaceship.
She frowned slightly at me. "Don't be flippant, Mr. Nolan. Mendellia's unfair monopoly on advanced technology cannot last. Humanity will reach the stars, Mr. Nolan, and this decaying regime can do nothing to stop it." The frown dried up and replaced itself with a little smile. "You're one of the few who has already been to the stars. Would you really keep those wonders for yourself?"
Wonders. Huh. Yes, there was some amazing stuff out there, but in some ways the galaxy at large was worse than Earth. Crime lords, slave traders, drug cartels, pirates, warlords, bounty hunters, mercenaries - and that was in the 'civilised' parts of space. But there's no denying that it's a thrill when you look up at an alien sky. "They're not mine to keep," I said, trying to make as neutral a response as I could get away with.
"Exactly," she said. "And yet for over a decade, Mendellia has been sitting on alien technology that could benefit the entire world. We could end our dependency on fossil fuels. We could combat climate change. We could revolutionise communications. We could feed the starving. We could colonise the solar system, not to mention other stars. We could claim our place in the galaxy." She shrugged in a manner I hadn't seen since Paris. "But instead, all we get is smartphones."
"And what do you want from me, then?" I asked. "I can take you to my ship, if that's what you want." I wasn't lying. I was perfectly happy to lead them to my ship. Just as happy as I'd be to see what the Ewoks would do to them. I wasn't going to warn them about the Ewoks – that sort of thing works best as a surprise.
"That won't be necessary," she said. "We are firm believers in enterprise. We have no interest in taking the fruits of people's labours from them, so long as they earned them fairly." Scratch the Ewok surprise party, then, I guess.
"You seem to know a lot about me," I said, "I mentioned my spaceship and you didn't even blink." I pronounced this like it was some shrewd observation. I much prefer people with weapons trained on me to think I'm dumber than I am. "Whereas I don't even know your name."
"How remiss of me," she said. "Call me Grace."
"You seem to know a lot about things that a lot of people have gone to a lot of trouble to keep secret," I said. "You'd make them rather depressed."
"My heart bleeds for those who would hold humanity back," she lied. "Since humanity's self-appointed protectors will not act to help us, then it falls to those with the will to make a difference. Nothing is more powerful than an oppressed people yearning to be free. The revolution is coming, Mr. Nolan. Are you on the right side?"
"So am I to assume," I said, "that you and yours were behind the attack on the Pacific Monarch?"
I can't boast about the conclusion - that pretty much happened the moment I'd seen an unfamiliar blaster in her hands. But risking saying it was a bit of informational calculus. If she was so well-versed in goings-on, she'd presumably know about it. If she denied it, that'd be a data point. The manner of the denial would be a data point – there might be another faction in play, or it might simply be the shocking revelation that she wasn't on the level.
By revealing I knew enough to make a connection between the Monarch and her people, it showed I was informed enough by her enemies to possibly be useful. This was important to establish as she'd mentioned making me an offer. Offers at gunpoint rarely have opt-out clauses.
Most importantly, it was plausible I'd know Galactic weaponry was involved in the attack from the aftermath. She would have no reason to assume that video had survived, which meant that her spin on the attack would be a data point she wouldn't know she was giving me.
I may not have a corkscrew mind like Nick, but I'm not stupid.
She gave me a condescending little smile before she answered, like I was a toddler who'd just used the toilet by himself. "Well done," she said. "You can have a gold star."
"I'd rather have my weapons back," I said.
"I'm sure you would," she said. "But it's an imperfect world."
"So imperfect it's necessary to massacre the crew of an unarmed freighter?" I asked. "Because I'd argue that better fits the definition of 'unnecessary'."
"Would that it were," she said. "But Mendellia would not have it. They have refused our overtures, and have proven unwilling to work with us for the benefit of humanity. Since they would not help us, we were forced to act."
"You killed every person on board. That's how you make a better world?"
She shook her head slightly. "Do you know what that freighter was carrying?"
"Industrial supplies, something like that."
She gave me a pitying look. "Is that what they told you? Oh dear. I'm afraid you're being played, Mr. Nolan. Your friends aren't giving you all the facts."
"They're giving me a damn sight more than you're giving me, Grace," I said.
"Of course," she said. "You're still affiliated with our enemies, Mr. Nolan. It would be foolish of us to reveal our hand so soon in the game." She waggled the blaster slightly. "But we're here to ask you to reconsider your allegiance."
Something gave me the feeling that if I said, no thank you, my allegiance is fine where it is, that I wouldn't be walking out of this room. Wait, I know what was giving me the feeling - the various weapons being pointed my way. Of course.
"If I were to reconsider," I said, with a significant glance at the goons behind me, "What would that entail? How would I express my new loyalty?"
"Information, for the most part. We'd like nothing more than to end the squabbling and join Mendellia in shaping humanity's future. But the future they have been shaping is not one humanity deserves. You and your colleagues have been engaged in the cover-up so long that it is a great concern to us that you appear to be regrouping. If you could supply information to allow us to bloodlessly neutralise them, then all of humanity would benefit." She gave a knowing wink. "Some more than others, of course, but that's always the wages of genius."
I ignored the genius bit. "Bloodlessly," I repeated. "So you won't ask me to raise my hand against them. They don't get hurt."
"Precisely," she said, and despite her apparent sincerity, at that moment I knew she was lying. This was an asset flip, after all. She was starting with the carrot - a better world, a peaceful solution – to get me to compromise myself. Then she'd be free to use the fact of my collaboration to blackmail me into more and more horrible betrayals. I'd be left with a changing deal, without a prayer of it not changing further.
But then, hidden behind her polite veneer, there was the stick. If I got self-righteous, or otherwise indicated to her that I wasn't going to play ball, she had her plan B. And that was presumably to shoot me, here in the capital of Mendellia, and demonstrate that the reach of her people is global, that nowhere is safe. And my corpse would be the delivery boy for that message. And then she'd shoot Laets and however many members of his family they had hostage, just for good measure.
But should I flip, then Laets and his family would be useful as hostages against my co-operation. They'd leave a threat hanging over them so that I wouldn't be lax in proving my new loyalty. Living as a hostage isn't a great way to live, but it sure beats being executed to cover somebody's tracks.
"One hundred million US dollars," I said. "That would make me seriously reconsider my loyalties."
She seemed taken aback, for a moment, but then she studied me more closely, sizing me up. "You'd join us for money?" I'd surprised her, which probably wasn't a good idea, in the circumstances.
"No, I'd join you for the chance to be doing the right thing, and for a stupendous amount of money." I gave her a companionable smile. After all, stupendous is the only amount of money worth considering, right?
"You're evaluating your input... rather steeply," she said carefully. "Do you honestly think you can be of that much assistance to us?"
I shrugged. "It's supply and demand. I've got very little conscience left, these days, and so its last shards are correspondingly expensive." I crossed my arms. "Besides, once your enterprise powers, feeds and changes the world, I'm sure a hundred million would just be a drop in the bucket for you. And it would still be a nice little nest egg for me."
She stared at me for a while, and I returned her stare blank-faced. I hoped I'd played that right. Expressing enough reservation that I sounded genuine, yet with a solid pragmatic foundation. But, like sleight-of-hand, you don't find out if it works until it's too late.
Eventually, she spoke. "Once, as you say, we rule the world, that would be quite easy for us. I would point out, however, that currently, we do not rule the world." She gestured with the blaster. "Our funds are not unlimited. So I have a different payment scheme in mind."
She reached into a pocket of her jacket and produced a mobile phone, which she tossed to me. "Keep that on you at all times," she said. With a twitch of her head, she indicated Laets. "Should you fail to answer when we call, one of his children will die. Should you not supply us information in a resonable time frame, one of his children will die. Should we not like the nature of the information, one of his children will die." She said it all calmly, matter-of-fact, like it was a simple business transaction.
That's when she smiled. "Should you hold up your end of the bargain, not only will Mr. Laets's family remain alive and well, we shall wire transfer a deposit..." she tilted her head. "...ten per cent? Yes, ten million dollars to an account of your choosing. That should be enough to keep you happy until we can pay your entire fee."
She stood up from the desk. "Furthermore, for the next five minutes, you and Mr. Laets will not say a word, not leave this room, and not attempt to contact anyone outside. Should you fail to follow this instruction, one of Mr. Laets's children will pay the price for your failure. We have eyes and ears in surprising places, Mr. Nolan. We will know if you try to betray our trust."
With that, Grace and the two goons hustled out of the room, with the goons keeping me covered as they left. I could have tried something, I suppose, but it wouldn't have just been me I was killing. So I watched them go.
I reclaimed my weapons from Laets's desk, only to find that he was glaring at me with a look equal parts anger and disgust. I realised that I had just, apparently, sold out his country in front of him. Like many Mendellians, Laets's patriotism was fierce, and I had just shown myself to be that lowest of all life forms. A traitor.
I couldn't speak, of course - I'd seen the bug that Grace had attached to the desk. But I did hold my finger over my lips and grab a pen and a notepad.
I started to write, realised it was in Aurebesh, then started again. "If I had refused, they would have killed your family. This was our only shot at keeping them alive." I showed it to him, and he scowled. I added, "I will make this right. I will not aid terrorists." He glared at me, and I shrugged, quietly tore the page free, folded it and stuck it in my mouth. Then I reclaimed my weapons.
And there we sat, staring at each other until the time where we could speak again.
I'd made no attempt to contact anyone outside the room in that five minutes. I hadn't needed to - Dis had already been listening in the entire time through the comlink. I was going to have to get the little guy to do some serious work for me to try to sort through this tangle, and I wanted to see this through to the end.
I've done a lot of unpleasant stuff in my career since the X-Wings landed in my backyard, but I've never held children hostage. I may not be a nice man, but I try to be a good one. Which is why when I find myself in trouble, I know there are people I can call on for help.
Grace said she had eyes and ears in unexpected places. Well, so do I.