Chapter 4
The kid blinks in surprise but then grins with a mischievous glint in his eye. He nods enthusiastically, “Wow. That sounds like a great idea.”
“Not so fast,” I say, stepping back. “We haven’t discussed terms yet. I’m willing to offer a seventy-thirty partnership.”
“Straight to the numbers, huh.” He says, surprised.
“Business is business.” I say and mean it.
“Those terms don’t sound... favorable.” He replies.
“It’s either that or you can wander the Paths until you figure it out.”
He narrows his eyes at me while thumbing his chin thoughtfully. The kid might be young but even he’s realized this is important. “Sixty-forty. That’s fair. I showed you the Paths after all.”
I shake my head, irritated at his naiveté. He has no leverage, no position to bargain from. Worse yet, he doesn’t even know it. It’s obvious he’s from a colonial society because no one from Gotham, or anywhere on Terra for that matter, would have tried to play such a weak hand. I didn’t need him, I could do the whole thing on my own. I could just walk away, leave him to his own devices. It should have been glaringly obvious.
The thirty percent I offered him was more than he deserved, by all rights he should have been a five or ten percenter. It’s about the top end of what the average stock bonus looks like for a highly placed corporate spy. Of course little old me has no corporate charter, no investors, capital, or anything for that matter. So by all rights twenty percent would have been fair. I offered thirty because I do want his cooperation. His own inexperience and gullibility is an asset for me, one which I’m unlikely to come across again.
But I don’t tell him about any of this. He wouldn’t get it. Out loud I say, “Listen kid, I believe you about this whole inter-dimensional business. Which is why I’m offering you an opportunity. But don’t push your luck. My world is built entirely on the corporate structure, where only the strong survive. You have no bargaining chips, no leverage. Take seventy-thirty and thank your lucky stars you met me. I’ll make you into one of the most powerful people in the world. Hell, in any worlds.”
The kid stops smiling and now he looks offended. “No deal. If anything, I’m the one with the leverage here.”
The kid’s stupid, I guess. Maybe partnering up with him is a mistake. I put my hand on my hips, subconsciously trying to make myself bigger. “Explain quickly. I’m about two seconds from walking away.”
“Ha. Be my guest.” He says, smirking contemptuously. Suddenly I wonder what I found attractive about him to begin with.
I throw my hands up, “Fine, whatever. Can’t believe I wasted a thousand dollars on your ungrateful hide…” I mumble as I walk away. I don’t even bother to look back.
Whatever. I have enough information to start my own company. Hell, I’ll just contact a few of my duplicates and get them to partner up. They’ll give me a less favorable deal but they’ll be far more capable, I think to myself. But for now, I need to get back to my dimension before they report me as a missing person. Sooner or later they’ll start canvasing for me and when I don’t turn up, they’ll write me off as another one of the freak’s victims. Unwinding that Pandora’s Box of paperwork will be a nightmare. I speed up and look for the nearest alleyway to duck into. I’m smugly confident that I know how to use the Paths now. Getting home should be cinch.
There, half a block away. A nice, quiet alley between two large shopping malls. Perfect. I stride purposefully forward, smiling to myself. But after a few strides, vertigo hits me and my arms come up as I fall to my knees. Suddenly I’m on all fours, dizzy and confused. I look up and see a building looming over me. It’s bisecting the sidewalk and people are walking in and out of the building as if it was a hologram or projection. I bring my hand up to the mirage, but my fingers meet solid stone. I stare at the people passing next to me but they keep their eyes averted. Not surprising, I would too if I saw a crazy woman in hiking gear in the middle of Gotham, kneeling and feeling at thin air.
“It’s about a block, I guess.” The kids voice comes from behind me. I cringe.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, getting to my feet. I brush off my knees and face him. His mischievous smile is back and I realize that I like him better this way. All surefire and cocky. Even if he can’t back it up…
“The radius.” He says, waving his arms in a circle. He stares at me expectantly but I still have no idea what he’s talking about.
“Huh?”
“You mean you really don’t know.” He lets his arms drop to his sides. “Si, you must be the dumbest smart person I know. You should have figured it out back in the alley, when we got boxed in. In fact, I was convinced you were the one who’d figured it out. But you really don’t know, do you…”
“Well what?” I say impatiently, feeling my face flush. The kid is enjoying this too much.
He shrugs. “I’m not certain about the specifics, but I have a good idea. It’s the Paths. They don’t let you kidnap someone from their home dimension. Once you take them, you can’t leave them until you put them right back to where they belong. What more, you can’t even travel the Paths unless they’re with you. When we got boxed in and I could only find an alleyway with you, that proved it. That and what just happened.”
Everything snaps into place then and now I’m really embarrassed. I feel my face flush burning red from the mortification. Gosh Si, who’s the country bumpkin now? I ask myself. The kid steps closer and I look up at him. He’s not much taller, but he has blue eyes. Really, really blue eyes. I think I could get lost in them. He has nice shoulders too and I feel my gaze linger along his midriff.
“So how about we start over. Fifty-fifty?” He asks.
I’m tempted. Maybe I should let him have the damn percentages, I think. After all, the kid’s much better than I gave him credit for. But no. I feel my features harden.
“No kid.” I shake my head, stepping back towards the phantom wall. It presses against my back, disconcertingly real. “I’m sorry, but I’ll never give you more than thirty.”
“Why?” He asks. I can see pain behind those blue eyes. My heart skips a beat and I’m confused. Why is he so upset? Hell, why am I so upset?
“We have a saying in my world, James. ‘You’re either the king or the horse.’ And James, I’m never ever going to be the horse. Not for you, not for anyone.”
“Why can’t we both be kings?” He asks hopefully.
“Because there can never be two kings. At least not in my world. And believe me on this, even if you don’t believe anything else I say; I am a product of my world. I will lead and you can follow. Either that or you can get out of the way.”
He steps back, his gaze clouding. His lips are compressed into a thin line, brows furrowed. He stands like that for a long moment, his face the reflection of a brooding thundercloud. But then, as quickly as it gathers, it dissipates. Suddenly his frown is replaced by a mild smile.
“I think I will take door number three.” He says.
It’s my turn to furrow my brows. “What is that?”
“None of the above. Plan C. Whatever you want to call a third option.” He says, waving dismissively.
“Go on.” I say guardedly. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m vaguely impressed by his ability to surprise me on an almost constant basis.
“I’ll partner with you, but I don’t want a percentage. Hell, you don’t even have to list me on any paperwork.”
I frown. He’s not making sense. “Without shares, you’re not a partner.”
He shrugs. “Says who?”
“Well…” I trail off. It’s true, the Intellect wouldn’t have jurisdiction in something like this. I could file corporate charters in a dozen dimensions… but so could he. In the end, neither one of us could ever really sue across world lines. Not without giving some very intimate explanations to a lot of people we probably wouldn’t want to involve. But still. “Uh, you know what I mean
. Either you work for a company or you don’t.”
“Well Si, I’m not going to be your employee but I’m willing to be a friend.” He says and hold out his hand to me. “If you’ll let me.”
I consider this for a moment. To my surprise I somehow feel relieved. This… This I could do. I shake his hand and smile. “Actually, I’m kind of glad. It wouldn’t have been as much fun with you as an employee.” I say, not realizing the implications until the words slip out. I feel myself blushing once again. I hadn’t blushed so much since I was ten years old.
“Oh?” He says grinning happily. “Good to know the ice queen has warm squishy center.”
“Bullshit.” I say, smiling.
I explained my theory. Basically the Paths work on a psychic basis. They have to. The kid ended up on the Paths after the trench coated assailant bumped into him, more specifically after he touched him. Something must have changed then, he was either marked or somehow tagged. Once that happened, his conscious desire to get away from his attacker allowed him to escape into the Paths. Then, when he needed to get away from other assailants, he gained an intuitive way of finding alleyways almost anywhere. And finally, after wondering the Paths for almost two days, when he needed to get somewhere he could find help, he bumped into me. It all makes sense in a metaphysical kind of way.
Once I figured all this out, it was a logical conclusion to assume that focusing intently on our desired destination would land us back in my home dimension in a fairly straightforward manner. After all, his vague desire for help dropped him with me. The systems that work the Paths are surprisingly subtle and capable.
“Wow.” He says, blinking rapidly and swiveling his head in both directions of the hallway. “I can’t believe we got here directly from the street.”
“It must have been the fact that we both concentrated. Double the effort, twice the results.” I say and key my door open.
We spill into my living room and immediately realize that this time I have proof that we’re in my home dimension. The LE’s been through my apartment. Furniture has been moved, my clothes have been rifled through in the closet and there is a large pink sheet of paper taped to the inside of my door, telling me to contact LE as soon as possible.
I order Twiggy to contact LE and soon I’m talking to the frowning visage of a Public Safety Sergeant.
“We’ve had men searching for you for over sixteen hours. Where in Athena’s name have you been?” He asks, looking both irritated and impatient all at once.
“I’m sorry Sergeant, I ran into… Well, him. I ran into him.”
That gets his attention. He straightens out and leans forward, “You had contact with Hostile One?”
“Yes. It was… Well, it was awful. He chased me down some alleyways.”
His eyes narrow. He’s not buying it. “Really. How did you get away? Citizens find it very difficult to avoid him. Especially in dark environments.”
“He was chasing someone else. The guy that attacked me. We split up, he ran one way, I ran the other.”
He nods, looking more sympathetic. He’d probably heard all this before. “That sounds like his basic pattern. Although he’s interested in the victims, his primary fixation is with the criminals. He always goes after them, even if that means giving up the other party in the process.” He says, the last part mostly to himself. He looks tired, angry.
“Yes, that’s what happened.”
“So why the long absence from the grid?”
I shrug again. “I was cold, wet and tired. I got lost in the alleyways and ended up on the other side of the city. By the time I got back I had to stop by a department store and buy some clothes. I was freezing and my clothes were practically see through.”
He shakes his head, his lips curling down. “That doesn’t mesh miss Andorra. We do not have a record of any purchases you’d made since your disappearance. We’ve been monitoring your credit line constantly.”
My stomach lurches. Shit. I was in a different dimension when I made those purchases. Those transactions that are made with a digidura use virtual dollars and are tracked unfailingly by the banking cartels. The money encrypted in my digidura was missing from the device, but it hadn’t made it to any local department store. It would be impossible to explain the discrepancy between the balance on the banking networks and on my digidura. The banking protocols are sacred, subject to the most intense scrutiny imaginable. If I wasn’t careful, I would have auditors from every banking cartel in the world beating down my door.
“Uh… I… Err…” I stammer, completely out of ideas. James is sitting on the couch, staring at me helplessly.
But before I can manage to gather my wits, something grabs the Sergeant’s attention off screen. He leans out of frame, his holographic projection sheared in half in a comical way. When he leans back he looks confused. “Uh, I’m sorry miss Andorra, it looks like that’s actually not your fault. It appears that your digidura was having a malfunction and failed to update the nets with your balance until about five minutes ago…” He trails off, looking off screen again. “There it is. Just as you said. You made a rather sizable purchase at CSR Inc. an hour ago. Lots of gear.”
I blink rapidly, relief flooding through me. “Yes. I was disoriented. I probably spent too much, but I was so scared.”
“But CSR is five minutes from your building.”
“As I said I was scared. Maybe you can keep cool with the freak chasing you down dark alleys, but I can’t. I was hysterical.”
The man looks at me skeptically. “Miss Andorra, I very much doubt you are prone to hysterics.” I open my mouth but before I can interrupt with an indignant retort, he raises his hand. “However, that’s not to say that I’m not sympathetic to what happened to you. In fact, I place the blame squarely on my own shoulders, along with department’s, for not having apprehended Hostile One until now.”
I wave dismissively. “No need to feel that way Sergeant. I heard what happened when they sent a division of Marines to flush him out of the sewers last year. There’s no way your men can succeed against someone who can take out a squad of DIA marines that are armed with electron pulse weapons.”
He sighs. “No miss Andorra, I guess not.” He pauses, staring off beyond the screen. After a moment he shakes himself back to the present conversation. “Anyway, you should thank your boss at DIA. Whoever he called upstairs had half the force out looking for you. That doesn’t happen for everyone.”
I’m surprised by this. So Pierre thinks I’m important enough to cash in some pretty big chips. “Oh. I see.” I reply lamely.
“Good night miss Andorra.”
“Good night Sergeant.”
But before turning off the connection, he leans back into frame. “Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Please replace you digidura immediately.”
“Oh. Okay.”
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