Going Shogun (7 page)

Forklift obliges.

“I’m only talking to you because
you’re friends with LX.  Understood?”

We nod.  I’m curious as to how LX
knows someone as Off Paper as The Minotaur, but I’m not about to ask.  At least
not until this stop sign turns green.

“Now,” says The Minotaur, “how did
you get in the front?”

Forklift says, “We freeroamed the
door with a lifted profile.”

“What?” The Minotaur says.

Forklift starts to speak, but I
clarify instead.  “We used an ID card Forklift stole from a dead gonzo.”

“Explain,” he says, pausing. 
“Please.”

“We went to go meet with LX tonight
and wound up finding a dead body in his apartment.  No clue what happened, but
we think LX might’ve killed the dude.”

“We?”

“Me and Forklift.”

“He’s Forklift?” he asks, pointing.

“Yep.”

“And you’re?”

“Chris...er...Brick.  Whatever.  And
she’s Bingo,” I say, taking her hand.  Her fingers are freezing as she
intertwines them with mine.  I try to imagine the body heat I have coursing
down through my arms, into my palm, warming her.  “Forklift took the gonzo’s ID
card, and once we found out where you were from Mr. Androgyny, we used it to
get in.  We’re hoping it won’t bring the Board Agents down on you, but we
didn’t have much of a choice.”

“It’s fine,” The Minotaur says.  “That
access box only works for in and out with an R14 ID card.  It’s not
Board-monitored anymore because I rerouted the ping signal.  It’s there for
show in case an Intern Agent happens to stop by for a mando Door Check.  But
I’ll need to have a talk with Andy.”

“Good,” I say.  “Sorry about sneaking
in and everything.”

Forklift says, “LX was our main
go-to, and since he felt privy to walkabout, he figured he’d point our compass
toward your magnetic.”

The Minotaur says, “What?” with the
same confused expression I’ve had on my face many times.  He looks at me. 
“Does he always talk like that?”

Bingo and I answer, “Yes.”

I say, “He means LX left us a
message to look you up.  Maybe he thinks you can get us what we need.  What we
were gonna pay him to do.”

“Which was?”

Forklift says, “Turn our playpens
into penthouses with a razzmatazz R15 skatepunk on some of Wishful Thinking’s
eateries.”

“Forklift,” I say, with a parental
tone.

He sighs.  “Okay. 
Lo siento
.”

I lead Bingo over the couch and she
sits down.  I take a place on the armrest beside her.  I say, “Here’s what we
got.”  The Minotaur holds his position steadfast.  “Forklift and I work at this
restaurant called Wishful Thinking.  You’ve heard of it, right?”

“Yes,” he says.  I see a flicker of
eye-movement that momentarily settles on Bingo again, then he quickly looks
over at Forklift.  “I pay someone to bring me Butter Tea Brownies.  I’ve been
trying to find the recipe.”  Amazing.  Even a specter like The Minotaur is addicted. 
And I’m instantly aware that I must have a deeper supply of good karma than I
thought and I go shrewd businessman on him.

“Then you’re in luck.  We’ve got
this plan.  It’s a little R15 because rolling a boulder up the Sisyphus Ascension
hill takes too long.  But, basically, what we want to do is steal all of
Wishful Thinking’s recipes and sell them on RollerNinja so we can take the cash
and start up our own restaurant.”

The Minotaur grins at the mention of
RollerNinja.  It’s his first sign of an emotion other than wary apprehension.

“We were gonna pay LX to get us a
usable IP address, access codes to post the recipes, and the timeframes when we
could do it.  Plus, we need some way to broadcast the info to the general
public so they can get to RollerNinja and buy the recipes.  The money goes into
a fake account and we’re rich.  We can afford what we were gonna pay LX, if
you’re interested.” 

“That’s it?” he says, and I can’t
tell if it’s mockery or genuine astonishment that that’s all we’re asking for. 
Given the breadth of the request, I’m going with cynicism.

Forklift, never one to let the
moment marinate, edges up on the couch cushion and says, “So how ‘bout it?”

The Minotaur pries his feet loose
from the floor and moves over to the television, props himself up with one
hand, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other.  The subtle sixth of my
six senses feels a revelation coming.  For whatever reason, the floodgates
open.  Sometimes a guilty conscience can’t hold onto the guilt any longer, like
it’s been gripping at a ledge with its fingertips for days, years even.

He says, “If Andy told you where I
was, then you probably know I’m an ex-Board Agent.  I’ve been off the crew a
while now.  Two years, maybe.  But it’s so intense, it stays with you.  We used
to have this acronym.  ‘AFC.’  Anything For Control.  It was unbelievable, some
of the stuff we did.  Black ops and undercover missions so far Off Paper.  You
ever heard of the Supers?”

I don’t know what this has to do
with anything, but I’m guessing it’s leading to something.  “Huh-uh,” I say,
and amazingly, Forklift looks down at his feet, shakes his head as well.  I
thought he was so interconnected that he knew what each Board Member had in his
bedside nightstand.

“Super BAs.  Elite agents.  Highly
intelligent.  Ruthless.  Emotionless.  Ones that The Board sends out to take care
of people like me, take care of things that aren’t supposed to show up in the news,
you know.  Hide the things that would give the impression that The Board didn’t
have power over their own Ultimate Directive.”  He grins a disbelieving grin,
shakes his head.  “God.  AFC.  I know it’s hard to tell by looking at me, but I
used to be a Super.  They don’t always pick the conventional people.  Those
big-muscled goons stand out in a crowd.  I mean, you could be a Super.  Bingo
would be perfect.  She’s small.  Inconspicuous.” 

The three of us chuckle at this
suggestion.  It’s not even a conceivable possibility that Bingo would be
perfect.  She’d build a trebuchet and launch herself out into the ocean before
she’d
ever
go work for The Board.  And he doesn’t mention Forklift
because, well, he’s
Forklift
.  That’s a no-brainer.

The Minotaur says, “So, yeah.  I was
a Super.  At least until I refused orders to take a vocal Rescinder’s child
hostage.  They slapped me with a C-status and tried to lock me up, but I escaped. 
I’ve been in hiding since.  And I chose to trust LX because we both had the
same objective and he was too dumb to know better.  Smart hacker, but not so
good with the way the world works.  We’ve been trying to bring down Lewis and
Clark for about six months now.  I’ve never even met him in person.  Just
communication through some underground hacker networks.”

“Why were you trying to bring them
down?” I ask.

“Taking out Lewis and Clark was my
main assignment while I was On Paper.  I got close so many times but never
found the right angle.  I saw them, once, but it was from a distance and was
never able to find them again after that day.  And then once I got booted, they
sent word through a few different channels and tried to recruit me.  I said no,
mostly because I was pissed that they’d escaped me for so long.”

I scoot closer to him on the arm of
the couch.  “They tried to recruit you?  What happened when you said no?” 

“They got offended with their
holier-than-thou attitudes that a once-mighty Super BA would turn them down,
and they’ve been trying to find me and turn me over to The Board ever since. 
That’s the biggest thing.  Mostly it’s testosterone rivalry that’s now a matter
of principle instead of purpose.  They wanted LX too because he’s just barely
good enough to be on their shit list.  They like to eliminate the competition. 
He mentioned yesterday he had some side project that would give us a strong
advantage, like seeing the end of the chess match from ten moves out, and he
was supposed to tell me about it tonight.  I didn’t expect this to be it,
truthfully, but it all makes sense now.  Giving the general public access to RollerNinja
will set off enough red lights on The Board’s sensors to put some serious
handcuffs on Lewis and Clark’s operation.”

“So you’re greasy?” Forklift asks.

The Minotaur smirks and says, “AFC.”

***

We spend the next two hours with The
Minotaur, working over plans and schematics, figuring out how everything is
going to work.  Forklift knows what’s going on, but I’m totally lost, so I
chill, literally, with Bingo under the blanket.

Turns out, and I don’t know why we
didn’t think of this already, all we need to do to get the info out to every
living soul with internet access is freeroam The Board’s system and sandblast
them with an official-looking mass email.  Spam recipes, so to speak. 
Non-literal, of course.  The original SPAM, that magnificent, glorified brick
of meat, is one of the few remaining delicacies that Wishful Thinking has yet
to touch.  Too expensive.  Too rare.

Since everyone with internet access
is required by law to check emails from The Board as soon as they arrive,
The Minotaur figures that if he sets up a timed
posting of the email that coincides with the satellite passing, that has a funhouse-style
system of backdoors, trapdoors, wobbly mirror redirects, and scary clown faces
that’ll fire off simultaneously, it’ll give us enough time to reach about 75%
of our audience before the high class Board gonzos figure out what’s going on
and are able to negate it.  One would hope for 100%, but wish in one hand, and
spit in the other, then see which fills up faster.

As it stands, as long as we get back
to The Minotaur by 3AM Friday night/Saturday morning, he’ll have time to work
the code and then we’re rolling in the haystack.  That should give us enough
leeway to pull our shift at Wishful Thinking then shimmy back inside to wrap
our soon-to-be-rich paws around the Excalibur of all recipe books.

Forklift uses his fingers to bang
out what sounds like an Of Mice and Mental beat on the order-in-chaos desk as
The Minotaur quietly ponders some mess on the screen, tolerating the phalange
onslaught.  A small red box beside the monitor crackle-sizzle-pops itself awake
and a voice barely stronger than a ghost hunt EVP says, “All agents, all
agents.  Code 1848.”

Forklift’s ears perk and the
drumming stops. 

A brief moment of trepidation slips
in on me, and it feels like a spider trickling down my side.  The penal code
number sounds familiar.  I say, “That’s not what I think it is, is it?”

Forklift lolls his head around to me
with the grace of a sleepy baby and says, “Waylay the kimono, Frau Brick.  Decomposition
bakery could be anywhere.”

Bingo nudges closer.

The Minotaur ping-pongs a glance between
the two of us.  “Let’s take a look.”  He turns back to the monitors, scatters
out a series of keystrokes.  A bright blue screen shows a list of data that
mostly looks like Braille written in binary, and apparently The Minotaur can
decipher it.  “Board Agents deployed...murder investigation...an apartment on
High Water Road...belonging to one Langdon Palmer Malig.  Alias Duckboy.  Alias
Hot Rod.  Alias Skywanker.  Alias...LX.”  He lets that simmer for a breath,
then adds, “And the plot thickens.”

Years are divided into months. 
Months are divided into weeks.  Weeks into days.  Days into hours.  Hours into
minutes.  Minutes into seconds.  The amount of time beyond that is the time it
takes a sphincter to go starfish when you realize something terrible is about
to happen.  I can almost hear the internal vacuums collectively being created
around the room.

Forklift laughs.

The Minotaur exhales.

Bingo inhales.

I whine, “You gotta be kidding me.”

Forklift leans back in his chair,
calm as an R2 on one of Wishful Thinking’s Chamomile Chardonnay IV drips.  “
So
not sugar,” he says, and I know it’s the only sign of stress we’ll see from
him.

The Minotaur says, “No reason to
panic yet.  You didn’t leave anything behind that would connect you to the
scene, did you?”

I answer, “We tried not to, but our
fingerprints and DNA are probably scattered all over the place.  I mean,
seriously, there is no way we could’ve gone without breathing for fifteen
minutes.”

“No big deal there.  That whole
thing about us...uh, I mean them, being able to find somebody after they’ve
breathed on a surface is urban legend.”

Forklift says, “Yes!” and pumps a
fist.  “I knew it.”

It’s a little odd and a little too
overexcited, because he’s usually right on top of stuff like that.  I
acknowledge, and move on.

The Minotaur says, “Don’t get too comfortable. 
They can match you with a strand of hair or a flake of skin if they manage to
find it.”

Bingo goes, “Yeah, seriously, Forky,
think hard.  Did you guys forget to wipe anything down?  Run your fingers
through your hair, maybe lick a spoon or something?”

“I might’ve rubbed elbows with an
inanimate or two, but it’s not like I white-on-riced a pillow,” he says, then
asks me, “You, Brick?”