The Pedestal (18 page)

I get in line at Kombal’s, a small but very good Indian restaurant. I’d like to tell you all about their food—how they’re one of the few places around that still slow-cooks food using pots and pans rather than hydration racks and tablets, for example—but I’m busy giving mister rhino my own inconspicuous looks. I don’t need anyone to tell me to keep him in sight; if a guy like that gets hold of me, I’m done.

And worse, so is Mitzy.

I eat my food with gusto, biting back the sour tang of guilt. I scan Arthur’s dirty file on my pocket terminal as I chew, seething at the number of revered names who have conspired to hold my company hostage. Abruptly, I set my fork down and blink; my mouth comes to a halt in mid-chew as a name chimes a tiny, barely discernible bell in my memory: Mannford Waters, GFL. I don’t recognize the man, but the company is more familiar than most.

Global Freight and Logistics isn’t just our top transportation provider, it’s also our sole vendor for atmospheric and interplanetary transportation. Anytime IDS develops new satellite technology—which happens annually, at a minimum—GFL is tasked with transporting our new hardware to the Unified Space Station for setup. The cost for this service is the single-largest expense on IDS’s books; when tax season rolls around, it never ceases to raise eyebrows with our auditors.

In a way, my awareness of this is why I’m so surprised to see GFL listed here—they’re already making a killing off us, so why the extra racket?—but as I think it through, some of the tangles start to come unraveled. It’s a given that GFL is extorting us along with everyone else on the list. But that may not be the end of it.

Now that the gloss of my trusting nature has begun to wear thin, it’s not terribly difficult to imagine that someone has been padding the freight charges all along. IDS is a relatively small company; for my theory to hold any water, I have to stomach the notion that someone I have known and trusted—for many years, in all likelihood—is a criminal.

Speaking of criminals: I glance around with startled, snapping movements, searching for my watcher.

But he’s gone. I’m not sure if I should be relieved or alarmed.

I’ve decided to warn Mitzy—2.0, that is. It’s probably a foolish plan, I know, and there’s no easy way to do it. If I knew her well, I might just send her an encoded contact request, wrapping a heads-up in code-speak—you know, the way they do in old spy movies? I doubt I’m clever enough to come up with any sort of encryption that would fool anyone and still make a bit of sense. Especially since I’ve only met her once; anything along those lines will only confuse her.

My next thought is to enlist a messenger—someone from her work, from her neighborhood, perhaps—to convey these sinister tidings. But again, I’m a victim of my limited experience with her; she might take it as a joke, or worse, a threat from me.

It seems the only way to communicate the depth of her endangerment and to be taken seriously is to do so in person. I’m loath to approach her, though, because I feel as though any contact with her might draw unwanted attention from Gunn. I know this is foolishness; Mitzy’s already in his crosshairs, after all. I don’t doubt for a minute that she’s being shadowed just as I am. If I don’t work something out soon, shadows will be the least of her problems.

Just as I did only a week ago, I board a plane to Vegas. None of the passengers strike me as particularly suspicious, but I’m no safer or more hidden here than on the ground. As long as my NanoPrint is in me, I’m a sitting duck. I check Mitzy’s daygrid every few minutes to make sure her schedule hasn’t been interrupted—my working assumption is that any abrupt change in her planner is an indication that she’s been threatened, or even abducted.

The plane ride ends without incident. When I step off the plane in Vegas, however, things quickly begin to fall apart. Suddenly, Mitzy’s daygrid goes blank; her schedule has been completely cleared. A few minutes later, as I’m headed toward her apartment on an empty tram—I guess most tourists prefer the posh comforts of a shuttle—her status abruptly switches to private. Maybe she simply detected my trace on her profile and has merely reacted as any sane woman would—who wants some creep following her every move, after all?—but given all I’ve been through today, that seems an awful lot like wishful thinking.

My heart is pounding so hard that it pulses in my ears, yet all I can do is sit on this stupid tram and wait. Its maximum intracity speed is thirty-five miles per hour, and—though fortune has found me alone in the vehicle—its snail’s pace is killing me. I’m seventeen minutes out and counting. If Gunn is as efficient—and ruthless—as his namesake implies, I’ll never make it in time. I feel tears gathering; my hands begin to sweat and shake. Coming here was a monumental mistake. I know that now.

Long before the tram even reaches her building, I sense that I’m too late. Giving credence to my suspicion, the already subdued magnetic propulsion of my tram flags—still a full block away—allowing an emergency shuttle to land and pass by at ground level, sirens blaring. My flesh screams to get away from here, because whatever fate has befallen Mitzy is certainly preparing to afflict me, too. Still, she might be injured—I can’t just leave her. As the tram regains speed, I coil by the door like a caged animal, poised to erupt the moment the door opens. But just as we approach the building, I glimpse confirmation that—for all my good intentions—I’ve doomed this poor woman. There she is, splayed across the entry steps in a pool of blood. Nearby, pedestrians are covering their eyes in horror, some crying and shouting. Paramedics are speaking to a bystander, who points to an upper story. Following the trajectory of his finger, I see the broken window through which this young lady was thrown for my rashness, my crank stupidity. The door to my tram opens and in rushes the sounds of weeping and unease, the coppery smell of death. I remain affixed to my seat. “Airport,” I whisper. The door swooshes shut and my tram takes off again.

Just as I round the corner and the building pans from sight, I begin to cry.

Nearing the airport, I begin to feel in my bones that I’m verging toward yet another mistake; they’ll be waiting for me there, and the time for negotiating has expired. I have nothing to lose now—and they know it—so their next move will be to take me out. I should be afraid, and I guess that on some level, I am. But more than fear, I feel anger—anger so great that it couldn’t possibly have originated from within me; it must have seeped into me right through my shoes, for surely I’m not capable of such murderous thoughts on my own.

A few blocks from the airport, I finally get my mind in gear. According to the nexus, there are three GFL docks in Las Vegas. Two are located at the extreme poles of the city, and I decide they’re satellite locations; I need the hub. “Global Freight and Logistics,” I say. “East Flamingo Road.” The tram slows and adjusts fluidly to our new destination. I’m momentarily grateful that I managed an empty tram today; there’s no forgiveness for indecision in a full tram.

The transportation facility is only a few minutes west of the airport. I wish I had more time to plan this, to work out the finer details. The Global Freight and Logistics sign peeks above the palm trees; it’s neon, just like everything in Vegas, and designed centrally around a slick logo depicting a vintage gridded globe with an airplane bursting from its core. I instruct the tram to deposit me at the fence line, and from there I hike to the office entrance. Inside, I approach a receptionist and ask if they’re hiring. They are always hiring, she assures me. I’m painfully nervous, because I’m flying by the seat of my pants.

Have I mentioned that I’m a terrible liar?

I have almost no idea what I’m doing here; my gut—which led me here so adamantly—suddenly has nothing to offer on the subject. The receptionist, a cute redhead with violet bands tattooed around her neck, asks if I would like to speak with the hiring manager. I agree that I would. Before I can second guess this sloppy ruse, a clean-cut black man five to ten years my junior approaches, sizing me up with every step.

“Terrell Webster,” he says in introduction, a lean, confident hand reaching to shake mine. “Wilson Abby,” I offer in return. An alias will do me no good—my NanoPrint will betray me, even in privacy mode. Our hands clasp, and at once his eyes lose focus; I can tell he’s checking me out on the nexus.

“Any particular reason you’re in privacy mode, Wilson?” he asks. There’s nothing threatening in his voice, but his eyes are wary.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I don’t want my boss to know I’m here, you know?” I say. My voice shakes slightly. As usual, my problem with lying has never been the lie itself, but the delivery. In this case, I’m lucky to have a legitimate excuse for being anxious. Surely a hiring manager has heard this line a few times before.

“Understandable. No sense losing your job just for weighing your options, right? Well, come on back and let’s talk.”

In his office, I try to spin as little yarn as possible, painfully aware of how hopelessly shady I sound. I can’t stay here long; any minute now, Gunn’s people are going to close in on my location. But I have an unshakeable feeling that my salvation lies here, somewhere.

I think what I need is a tour.

“So, how many docks do you have here?” I ask, leaning back in my chair and peeking out the office door, as if to procure a wider view of the dock.

“Five hundred in this building, but this is one of three on the campus. In terms of dock doors, this is the largest freight facility in the state.” I nod appreciatively and peek out the door again.

“How’d you like a quick peek behind the magic curtain?” asks Terrell with a conspiratorial wink.

Thank God.

The loading dock is massive. I feel as though I’ve stepped into a new world filled with crates and girder winches and automated forklifts. Terrell takes me down one side of the warehouse and points out some of the cutting edge technology they employ here—self-leveling pallets, cold-storage modules with redundant, self-maintaining temperature controls, and a bot for every task imaginable.

“This place is a modern marvel of ingenuity,” boasts Terrell. “The freight comes off the trucks on the east side of the dock, gets scanned at the doors, and our system automatically determines everything from there: what bay to stage the freight in, what sterilization procedures are appropriate—everything down to the best load pattern to maximize capacity for our outbound loads. Manifests generate automatically, and they’re extremely accurate. Then, the bots load it all out on the west side of the dock.”

“That’s amazing,” I acknowledge, though my gaze is locked at the end of the dock, where a series of small planes and spacecraft are dipping and bobbing under the weight of automated forklifts.

“You might notice a conspicuous lack of people out here, right?”

I hadn’t, though it’s quite obvious, now that he’s brought it up. “Yeah. I kind of expected a higher ratio of people to bots.”

He laughs, his chest swelling with pride. “This place can just about run itself; we’re the only transportation company in Unified America utilizing some of this technology. Not sure why—our competitors all have a death grip on outdated technology, like it’s their lifeline or something. They just don’t seem to get that manpower and brute force don’t cut it anymore. It’s only a matter of time before they go under.”

“Huh. I guess I have to ask, then: if this place pretty much runs itself, what exactly are you hiring for?”

“Good question. Let me show you.”

Terrell leads me toward the center of the dock. We wind through a labyrinth of freight racks, each stacked fifty feet high with pallets. “This is where people come in,” he says, pointing to a large bay of freight whose packaging has been disturbed—forklift holes, broken pallets, torn shrinkwrap. “Most of our customers load their own freight on dropped trailers; we just swing by and pick them up at the end of the day. Sometimes, this is what the freight looks like when it gets here.”

“So you guys repackage this stuff?”

“When we can; our guys survey the damage and determine what we can handle, and what we can’t. It’s really more about liability than capability, if you know what I mean.”

I don’t. I’m too busy sweating in my shoes, thinking that Gunn is going to step onto this dock and murder me in a matter of seconds. I need to abort this ill-planned tangent; I’m not sure what I was hoping might come of it, but so far I’ve only managed to waste time.

“Listen, Mr. Webster, I’ve gotta get back,” I say, trying to sound apologetic and hurried at the same time. The latter is easy to accomplish; I’m practically vibrating in my shoes trying to stifle the primal urge to run.

“Sure, I understand. Why don’t you give me a call when you have some more time to talk? We really could use some reliable help around here. Supposed to be someone working right now, but he was a no-show.”

“I hear you. Sounds good,” I say. We’re venturing single file back through the freight racks when Terrell suddenly stops in his tracks ahead of me.

“Can I help you, sir?” he calls out. I peer over his shoulders and feel my entire body tense.