Perfect Dark: Second Front Read online

  “What you gave us on Zentek.”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you keep getting this information?”

  Ke-Ling laughed again, and this time Fan allowed herself to join him. Carcareas tried to keep smiling, but it was clear to Fan that it wasn’t because she was amused.

  “It’s all there for the taking, Signora,” Ke-Ling said. “You just have to know where to look.”

  “We know where to look,” Carcareas said. “We have the best programmers and hackers in the world working for us—”

  “No,” Fan said, still laughing. “No, you don’t, or rather, you did, and you will again, if you meet our price. But the best don’t work for CMO. You’re looking at them right now. Right here, and right down there.”

  Fan pointed again to the courtyard, where her siblings were now assisting the Core-Mantis drivers in their process of unloading. There were a lot of cases, silver metal shining in the daylight.

  “If you want the best, you have to pay for it.”

  “How much?” Carcareas asked.

  Fan furrowed her brow, as if thinking, though in fact she was simply buying time. The figure had been determined over a week before, during the final stages of the Continuity’s planning.

  “Two point three billion dollars,” Fan said. “And three cents.”

  Carcareas snorted.

  “In cash,” Fan added.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Two point three billion dollars in cash?” Carcareas said. “I’m not certain there’s that much currency in circulation.”

  “Actually, there’s over eight hundred billion American dollars currently in circulation,” Ke-Ling offered, helpfully.

  “See?” Fan said. “Not so difficult after all.”

  “It’s far too much.”

  “No, it isn’t, and you know it. We are willing to give Core-Mantis OmniGlobal the ways and means to bring Beck-Yama International to its knees. You and your sisters will have gone from being the third-largest hypercorporation to being the second in the space of a week, and large enough to seriously consider challenging dataDyne for its top position.”

  “And that’s where you’re heading with this, is it?” Carcareas asked.

  “DataDyne must die.” Fan said it as a matter of fact, nothing more, as devoid of malice as she could manage.

  “Why?”

  “That is not your concern, Signora. It is enough for you to understand that the corporation of our father was our father. He was a genius, and a visionary. Without him, there can be no dataDyne.”

  “Two point three billion?” Carcareas asked.

  “And three cents,” Ke-Ling said.

  “And three cents.”

  “Correct,” Fan said.

  “I’ll have to take this to the directors.”

  “The offer is valid for twelve hours.” Fan looked down at the inner courtyard once more, saw that the last of the cases had finally been unloaded, opened, and checked. “We appear to be finished.”

  “So we do.” Carcareas considered, pulling on her lower lip with her teeth for a moment. Then she turned to face Fan and her brother, and offered them a bow once more. “Thank you for your time and your offer. I’ll see you receive a response as soon as possible.”

  “Ke-Ling will escort you out,” Fan said. “If you want, you can have sex with him before you leave.”

  Carcareas stared, and Fan turned away, following the path down to the inner courtyard, the sound of her laughter bouncing off the stone and the snow.

  “Did you?” Fan asked her brother when he finally joined her and the others by the fire pit. The Overlanders with their drivers had departed, and once again, they were alone in the home of their father.

  Ke-Ling grinned, then looked over at the line upon line of open cases, each filled with currency. “What should we do with the money?”

  Fan laughed once again, feeling elated, full of anticipation and desire, of love and hatred. She leaned forward and grabbed her brother’s shoulders, kissing him on the forehead.

  “The same thing we’re going to do to the world, Ke-Ke,” she told him. “Burn it. Burn it all.”

  * * *

  Beck-Yama InterNational’s Zentek

  Takeover Bid Fails

  The Beck-Yama Giant Stumbles

  By Pieter von Beck, Staff Writer, World Financial Times-Independent London (FT-I)

  Hypercorporate powerhouse Beck-Yama InterNational suffered a series of setbacks this week, culminating in a staggering 22% drop in stock value and a 13% decline in overall liquid assets. Industry analysts and angry shareholders have scrambled to sift through public disclosure forms to divine the source of Beck-Yama’s current woes, which seem to center around the disposition of beleaguered and foundering competitor, Zentek.

  “They started off well in the Zentek takeover process,” said Wall Street analyst William Bassett, senior partner at the financial management firm Bassett-Wallace-Green. “But they were slow off the mark when [Zentek CEO] Bricker passed away, which allowed Core-Mantis OmniGlobal to move in and claim the prize.”

  Other analysts point out the series of unfortunate system failures and other IT infrastructure problems that slowed Beck-Yama shortly after Zentek came into play. Insider reports indicate widespread network failures, which many theorize were the work of an aggressive hacker effort—a large-scale denial-of-service attack—which crippled Beck-Yama at the critical moment.

  Beck-Yama’s official position, as portrayed in a flurry of media alerts and press releases, is that the system failures were “unrelated to our ongoing expansion efforts, and the unfortunate interruption of Beck-Yama’s plans to partner with Zentek in a long-term, synergistic relationship.”

  Whatever the cause, Core-Mantis OmniGlobal’s stock has skyrocketed with the official announcement of the takeover of foundering Zentek. CMO stock has shot up almost 31%, and global public-perception and approval ratings have climbed to levels that, as of this writing, have only been attained by dominant hypercorporation dataDyne.

  Industry experts predict that the Zentek fiasco is far from the last word in the current fencing match between CMO and Beck-Yama. “CMO has to quickly and efficiently fold Zentek into their current organizational structure, and even more rapidly bring Zentek products to market, in order to show the Zentek brand has long-term equity and consumer appeal—a considerable challenge, given Zentek’s dismal showing in the marketplace in recent years,” said Bassett. “And Beck-Yama will not take the Zentek acquisition lying down. Look for fireworks between them in the near future.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Independent World Financial News

  Corporate Watch: Beck-Yama

  InterNational

  Beck-Yama CFO Suffers Fatal Heart Attack

  Dateline: Tokyo, Japan

  22nd January 2021

  Chief Financial Officer for Beck-Yama InterNational (WORLDAQ: BYI) Shin Matsuo died this morning, the victim of a severe heart attack while dining in Tokyo, in the famed Ginza district.

  Mr. Matsuo had been dining in the private banquet facility of Kyubei, a popular and long-established restaurant, when he collapsed, complaining of severe chest pains.

  Several bystanders rushed to assist Mr. Matsuo, and one woman—seen in the accompanying photographs—stayed by his side through the ordeal, and attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. This unidentified Samaritan was seen applying first aid until a Beck-Yama First Response Care Team arrived.

  Emergency responders attempted to stabilize Mr. Matsuo but were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead at Beck-Yama/Jutendo Hospital at 3:40 a.m. local time, of an acute myocardial infarction.

  Chief Public Relations Officer of Beck-Yama InterNational/Tokyo Sazaki Nobekazu issued a statement this morning, confirming Mr. Matsuo’s death and issuing a request for information leading to the location of the unknown young woman who attempted to assist.

  “Beck-Yama InterNational app
reciates the efforts undertaken by this young woman and wishes to reward her for selfless actions,” said Mr. Nobekazu. “In addition, we are offering a modest reward to anyone who can place us in touch with her.”

  The unknown young woman is described as being in her early twenties, with a slim, athletic build and red hair (possibly with a streak of white or blond). Anyone who can identify her is requested to contact a Beck-Yama InterNational Public Relations liaison via the corporate Web site.

  * * *

  dataDyne Executive Safehouse

  37km ENE of Nelson, New Zealand

  January 22nd, 2021

  The safehouse had been built in what, Cassandra DeVries had to believe, was one of the most beautiful, isolated, and defensible places she had ever been in her life. Facing roughly northeast, built into the mountainside, it afforded a view—once again through bulletproof glass as clear as cut crystal—of the South Pacific and its vibrant blue waters. Trees, heavy with leaves and lush with life, grew on all sides, and were she to actually make the three-quarter-mile walk down the stairs from the house to the beach, she’d have found fine sand baked by the warmth of the sun.

  The house, too, was without compare. Larger than she’d expected, given Velez’s descriptions and the accordant haste with which it had been constructed, with plenty of open space to work or relax. An indoor pool, three sun decks—one on each level—four bedrooms, not including her own master suite. And once more, everything in her closets had been made for her, chosen in her styles, her colors. The sheets on the bed, once again, were silk.

  It would have made a grand spot for a secluded vacation, for a little time away from the office, and perhaps she could even have convinced herself that was what she was having, but for two things. The first was the security, of course. At least 160 Shock Troopers were on duty at all times. They patrolled the perimeter in constant motion, directed by a command post buried inside a hardened room that had actually been dug out of the mountainside. They stood on post in twos or fours at every access point, at every door into the house, at the ends of each and every causeway. They patrolled the water in null-g hydrofoils that traversed from beach to wave and back again in perpetual sweeps. They manned sniper positions in the nearby mountainside. They worked anti-aircraft and missile defense platforms on all sides.

  If it wasn’t Velez at her side during her every waking moment, Cassandra had at least two Shock Troopers in Velez’s stead. Things had progressed to such an extent that, when she needed to use the toilet, the bathroom was swept and cleared of possible threats first.

  That was the first thing.

  The second was that she couldn’t actually escape “the office.” She was the office, and though she was secured in her safehouse, the work still found her. The papers still arrived. The video conferences—now with her location carefully concealed and interference buffers riding the communication wave to keep her position from being triangulated—still occurred on schedule. The calls continued.

  It struck her, as she emerged from her morning shower on her third day at the safehouse to find Anita Velez once again handing her a towel, guarding her even as she bathed, that her fury at Daniel Carrington had nothing to do with his possible desire to end her life. No, she was furious at him for an altogether different reason. He was costing her time—time she could not afford to waste.

  Because, while the work continued, it continued at a much slower pace. Security demanded it. Papers had to be screened. Calls had to be rerouted. And personal meetings were out of the question, at least according to Velez.

  She was growing so frustrated and so angry, she had half a mind to grant the proposal Velez had put before her during their flight from Paris.

  She had half a mind to tell Velez to go ahead and kill Daniel Carrington.

  From the time she’d left her home in Paris to the time she was loaded aboard her personal low-orbit transport, less than eight minutes had elapsed. The motorcade had come to a screeching halt, null-g engines laboring with their effort, at the dataDyne airfield adjacent to Charles de Gaulle, and as quickly as Velez had bundled Cassandra into the limousine, she was being bundled out of it and onto her aircraft. They were moving again even before she was in her acceleration couch, and she had only just managed to get her harness fastened before the transport switched from null-g to booster.

  They’d launched into the dawn above Paris with Cassandra looking out the port-side window to see two more transports, identical at least on the outside to the one she was riding in, taking to the sky. Velez, buckled into her seat opposite, was using a headset to speak to the pilots, and that was when the decision was made to head to New Zealand. Glancing out the window again, the dataDyne CEO watched as the other two transports peeled away, each of them pursuing a different flight path.

  She’s honestly worried we’ll be shot out of the sky, Cassandra thought, and that made the sadness, the anger she was feeling all the more acute. That she should now have to fear Carrington this much, that she should now literally be afraid for her life because of the one man she had ever given her whole heart—it was almost unbearable.

  And if Anita Velez had stopped to consider that at all, Cassandra knew, the older woman would never had done what she did next.

  They were cresting orbit, the daylight again turning to darkness, the stars suddenly coming visible, when Velez unfastened her harness and half-stepped, half-floated to the seat beside Cassandra’s. She reached into her jacket, removing an envelope, and handed it over.

  “I am requesting your authorization for this,” Velez said.

  The envelope was unsealed, and Cassandra removed its contents to find two perfectly typed pages, what Velez had labeled a “conops,” or concept of operation. Cassandra knew what it was, because she had seen it before, though she reread it anyway, just to make certain. The document outlined a mission Velez needed CEO approval to undertake, and in the document, the CORPSEC director had carefully listed, point by point, the logic underlying the proposal and the net gain for both dataDyne and Cassandra herself, should it come to successful completion. As a proposal, it was immaculate, both in content and presentation.

  The main thrust enumerated Carrington Institute operations against dataDyne and the resulting costs to dataDyne in both personnel and material. According to Velez’s research, Carrington Institute operatives had been responsible for the deaths of upward of 375 dataDyne employees, most of the deaths the result of firefights with CI operatives. The document then went on to point out, succinctly, the fact that this pattern of behavior was no doubt going to continue, all the more so given Daniel Carrington’s involvement with the situation that had brought Cassandra to power. The conclusion regarding Carrington himself was declarative and simple: he meant to destroy dataDyne, no matter the cost.

  The proposal, finally, concluded with the simple request:

  For the reasons listed herein, and given the high probability of continued aggressive action from the Carrington Institute, its agents, and Daniel Carrington himself, it is concluded that the Carrington Institute presents a clear and present danger both to dataDyne as a whole and to Dr. Cassandra DeVries, CEO.

  Thus, it is respectfully proposed that an operation be undertaken to neutralize this threat: to wit, destroying the Carrington Institute’s ability to fight; destroying the Carrington Institute’s will to fight; and destroying the Carrington Institute’s ability to potentially recover and assume these actions once more in the future. It is thus concluded that the most efficient and tactically precise means of effecting this goal is the neutralization of Daniel Carrington as an adversarial force with extreme prejudice.

  Cassandra read it twice over, the first time with a growing anger that made the second reading necessary. The changes to the document since the last time she had seen it were minor. Finished, she turned to face Velez.

  “No,” Cassandra said, and she handed the document and the envelope back.

  “Madame Director—”

  “No, Anita. I
will not give authorization to assassinate. My answer remains the same. The discussion is closed.”

  But it wasn’t, not for Velez, and for the first time, Cassandra saw the other woman lose her temper.

  “This should have been authorized the same day you became CEO, Madame Director! You are being foolish, you are being sentimental, and you cannot afford to be either, not any longer! This man”—and Velez held the envelope up in her fist, as if holding Carrington by the throat—“wants to destroy you, me, and dataDyne, and he has made that intention plain. He has the means, he has the will. He is our enemy, and we cannot suffer him to continue unopposed!”

  “I said no!”

  Velez sat back, looking hurt, looking bewildered, as if she had discovered, suddenly, that the person she had been speaking with all along hadn’t understood a thing that had been said. “Why? Why won’t you do this? Why won’t you protect yourself? Why won’t you protect us?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Madame Director, this is a defensible, inevitable action. He has brought it on himself.”

  “I have the blood of one man on my hands,” Cassandra snapped. “I don’t need the blood of another!”

  Velez had stared at her, and for a moment Cassandra felt a pang of sympathy for the hurt she was seeing in the other woman’s eyes. Then, without a word, Velez replaced the proposal in its envelope and the envelope in her coat, and returned to her seat.

  They said nothing else to one another for the rest of the flight.

  That had been four days ago. Four days of the beautiful safehouse, of Cassandra DeVries’s beautiful prison. Four days of working in an office with her secretaries speaking to her from holographic monitors while Shock Troopers stood by, still as statues and serious as the grave.