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Roland Tankowicz had been in many uncomfortable places in his life.
He had once been submerged in an ammonia tank while battling pirates on an automated fuelling station. On another occasion, he had been forced to await rescue when trapped under a million tons of ice during operations on Enceladus. He had even been through a three-day battle on a planet whose atmosphere was composed entirely of various foul-smelling and corrosive sulfur compounds.
All these myriad experiences, while sublime and sundry in nature and each possessed of their own discrete horrors, shared a single element in common:
Every one of them would be preferable to where he was at this moment.
The room was dim, and a miasma of smoke and haze redolent of a dozen different intoxicants hung in the air. Though obviously not the case, it seemed the oppressive grey fog hung motionless, frozen by the sheer physical tension that permeated the very atmosphere of the place. A great round table dominated the center, and around it sat eleven very hostile and enormously powerful people. The angry and important individuals were arguing enthusiastically, and the crosstalk, threats and denunciations had begun to get out of hand.
This by itself would not have customarily made Roland uncomfortable. A cursory examination of Roland’s life would reveal to even the most casual observer a distinct penchant in the man for finding himself amongst angry individuals of power. One more group of malcontent warlords or businesspeople would not add much to his normal portion of stress, but these eleven individuals constituted an altogether different story.
Unfortunately, around that plain, nondescript wooden circle sat the Board of Directors for The Combine. Together, this august assemblage represented the largest criminal enterprises in the solar system. That any single Board member wielded far more wealth and political power than was prudent for individuals of such dubious moral character was a foregone conclusion.
In concert, this motley crew was responsible for, or complicit in, virtually every act of criminal depravity that occurred in New Boston and the surrounding Megalopolis. By extension, because New Boston was the largest and most profitable marketplace on Earth, the collection of criminals wielded more power than anyone on Earth except for a few large mega-corporations and the Planetary Council itself. It was a very simple dynamic: New Boston controlled the Anson Gates, so New Boston controlled the interplanetary economy. The Combine controlled all illicit activity in New Boston and thus possessed unprecedented influence and power. These were very influential people, they were mad, and they all hated Roland Tankowicz. Roland, being a stubborn misanthrope, refused to allow his discomfort with the extraordinary nature of his current circumstances to show of course. Weakness meant death with this estimable assemblage.
No, there would be no display of agitation. Roland was a professional fixer and that meant he was the guy you called to fix problems like the one that brought them all together. Furthermore, he was a Dockside fixer, and Dockside fixers were the most critical type.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Roland attempted to seize control of the discussion. His voice was a booming bass that rattled windows when he chose to apply it. This room had no windows, so such theatrics remained unavailable to him. “Please remember the nature of this meeting and let’s just try to stay focused on the topic at hand. You can argue with each other later. Preferably when I am not on the clock.”
The more reasonable members of the board chuckled at his nerve. The newer members became irritated by the perceived lack of respect. Older, wiser Bosses understood the situation with greater clarity than the more recent generation. Roland overrode the protestations with a voice like thunder, “This is Dockside, folks. I’m pretty sure you all know what that means. If you don’t, understand that you do not want me to be the one to educate you.”
Just south of The Sprawl, Dockside was home to the huge docking stations where cargo shuttles unloaded the enormous freighters perennially orbiting overhead. Anson Gates brought these giant ships to and from exotic planets all over the galaxy, and the riches inside those cargo holds all had to get through Dockside first.
This made Dockside sacred and neutral ground. “No gangs run Dockside. It has no Boss. You are all just businesspeople right now and you will respect that. You are all aware of why.” Or they should be, the large man mused. There was too much potential risk to the economy, both above board and below it, to tolerate any instability around the docks. “You are all getting fat on the gravy train of interstellar commerce, and nobody gets to fuck with that.” Roland wasn’t sure if the lecture was necessary, but some of the Board members looked like they might need the reminder, “Since nobody can trust anybody else to play fair, nobody plays at all.”
Gateways Incorporated, who had title to the Anson gates, had made it quite clear that any sign of interference with the docks from The Combine would result in conflict on a scale that only a galactic mega-corporation was capable of bringing. It was a losing proposition for everyone, and so an uneasy balance had evolved in Dockside. A balance that had been very profitable for one Roland M. Tankowicz.
Roland had made Dockside his home entirely on a whim after leaving the army thirty years ago, but his presence had since become part of the landscape. Dockside had been a wilder place in those days as the lack of direct oversight from The Combine had left a vacuum for smaller groups of opportunistic types to run amok. The towering new resident valued his peace and quiet very highly, and purely out of that desire he had set to quieting his noisy new neighborhood. Roland’s reputation and influence had soon smoothed over many of the borough’s rougher edges, much to the delight of Gateways and the varied shipping cartels.
This was a polite way of pointing out that Roland killed anyone who disturbed the tranquillity of his home. His skill in making problems go away became legendary, and the petty criminals and minor players that operated in Dockside began to employ him to mediate disputes before they got too bombastic.
It was imperative that Dockside maintain enough order to prevent the Corporate types at Gateways from coming down from Cambridge to manage things themselves. Small-time rackets that kept their heads down and didn’t mess with the docks got left alone. Periodically, some enterprising group would get ideas about setting up something more serious. Then, either The Combine or Gateways would hire Roland to go “fix” it.
Dockside subsequently thrived as the red-light, no-questions-asked, good-time area to frequent if your proclivities meandered past the threshold of strict legality. Since The Combine stayed out of Dockside, prices stayed reasonable and for the most part the smaller gangs kept trouble to a minimum.
For this reason, Roland was pleased that the meeting was not technically about him at all. His name would most certainly come up, and no one there would spare him any compliments he was sure, but he was not technically the subject of this unprecedented meet-up. The tense, terse, and clipped conversations revolved almost exclusively around a certain scruffy red-headed gang leader from a wretched slum just outside of the New Boston Megalopolis called Big Woo.
Said red head, one Billy McGinty, was sitting at the table as well. He wore a crooked smile and his eyes sparkled with unrestrained glee at the mounting consternation of the Board of Directors. For their part, several board members were gamely trying to terrify the street thug into returning the entire narcotics and smuggling infrastructure the cocky bastard had usurped from them.
Roland let his thoughts drift back six weeks to when he had helped Billy accomplish this unparalleled coup d’état by stalking and killing the Boss of Big Woo. Marko had been a disgusting and petty man, prone to fits of rage and extreme cruelty. Roland had crushed his skull with a single blow, and the Board had lost a sitting member and an entire territory in the span of just a few hours as a result. When one considered that the Big Woo turf also housed virtually all the narcotics production for a three-hundred-mile radius, the loss amounted to a staggering sum both in cash and in the universal currency of respect. Other gangs and rackets followed suit, and in a few short weeks The Combine had lost control of narcotics, prostitution, and money laundering operations for half of the New Boston Megalopolis.
At first, The Combine had tried to take it all back by force, as was their way. They had found, to their dismay, that hunting street-smart criminals on their own turf was harder and more expensive than they had thought. The Big Woo gangs had no chance of beating Combine muscle in a straight fight, but their guerrilla tactics and stranglehold on profit centers were costing The Combine dearly in both credits and blood. Life in the Woo was reduced to a miserable apocalyptic war-zone, but that was only slightly more of an inconvenience than life in the Woo had always been.
Yes, Roland mused to himself, these guys are pretty pissed off.
Wade Manson, who controlled the corporate and industrial quarter of The Sprawl, was pounding the table and spitting a diatribe of threats and promises, guaranteeing terrible horrors to come if McGinty did not immediately release his hold on Big Woo. Manson was supported with vocal enthusiasm by Jimmy Richter, who was the Boss of the retail district north of Uptown called Malldown. Both these sectors had suffered horribly when Billy had shut off the narcotics.
When the prostitution rackets joined the cause, things had grown much worse for them. Which is not to say the other regions fared any better. The Uptown zone, broken out into Cambridge, Summertown, and the Old Fen Way was insulated by the extreme wealth of its residents; but no drugs and no whores had driven those deep-pocketed customers into Big Woo and away from The Combine in search of relief. The Combine was bleeding cash at an enormous rate, and spending more reacquiring Big Woo was starting to look like bad business.
McGinty took the insults and threats in stride and waited for the two thugs to spew their venom until it was momentarily spent before he responded. When he spoke, it was with a measured, confident baritone that delivered his message with poise, if not the eloquence of an educated kleptocrat.
“Gentleman, I have lived, worked, and struggled in Big Woo my whole damn life. I built the biggest crew and ran the best rackets out of there. I made you fuckers a ton of money and what did you do for me and mine? For the last twenty years, this Board has seen fit to leave my people under the control of goddamn Marko.”
Several Board members winced slightly in response to this. Mark Anthony Johnstone had been the Boss of Big Woo because Big Woo was dirty, poor, and disgusting. Marko had been the only man willing to run it because the lawless unregulated nature of the slum had allowed him to indulge his Caligulan tastes unrestricted. Billy elaborated what they all already knew, “That fat piece of shit enslaved our kids, raped our people, and treated our whole town like his own personal playground. Every one of you was just fine with that because our suffering made you all rich.”
The red head’s eyes flashed with rage, “So don’t waste one more molecule of oxygen threatening me. None of you can make our lives in Big Woo any worse than you already have.”
He barked a humorless guffaw, “Fuck. We can happily survive on one fiftieth of what you pricks need, so don’t expect us to sell ass or dope through you anymore. Not without a seat at the fucking table, anyway.”
A lean, silver-haired man across the table silenced the sputtering responses from the Board with a single raised hand. Pops Winter was the Chairman, and a man who had watched more than one criminal empire rise and fall in his more than a century of life. This was a veteran criminal genius, a man who had toppled governments with a nod of his head. Pops Winter, to put it bluntly, was the sort of bogeyman that other bogeymen checked their closets for before going to bed at night. No one knew where he had come from or what he had done before founding The Combine, and no one was brave enough to ask. A predator’s coal-black eyes sat impassive in deep crevasses under sharp silver brows, and he returned his hands to their folded position on the table.
“Is that what this is about, Mr. McGinty?” The question was posed in a quiet, authoritative tone, betraying no hint of either approval or disdain. The eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch, “A seat at the table?”
The room was silent. The room was always silent when Pops asked a question.
Billy McGinty met those eyes squarely. Well aware that he was outmatched, Billy was relying on the one advantage that he had over all the bosses. He and the Big Woo gangs had had nothing to lose, and The Combine had much at stake.
“No.” Billy was playing a dangerous game, but Roland knew that growing up in Big Woo was as dangerous a game as any. Billy had certainly played it better than most. The scruffy gangster held his ground and pushed back, “It’s about a whole new fucking table.”
If Roland had expected the room to explode with shouting and consternation at this proclamation, he was disappointed. All eyes were glued to Pops Winter, and no one wanted to speak before he did.
The faintest origins of a scowl appeared on the Chairman’s face, “I’m afraid you will have to be more specific in your demands, Mr. McGinty. But I caution you, do not assume that your position constitutes an insurmountable advantage. Bravo to you and yours for your initiative in seizing control of our more profitable apparatuses, but we are more than capable of constructing new ones.” The proto-scowl hardened into a tiny, confident smile, “The board is not above breaking Big Woo entirely and starting over from scratch, if we must.”
Roland knew that this was not an empty threat, but he also recognized that Winter was talking about a multi-billion credit loss and open warfare with another incorporated territory. The Combine would go to great lengths to avoid this. Civil war is always bad business.
Billy didn’t flinch, “Do what ya gotta, but we can dump the product so cheaply and still get by that the whole marketplace will shrink to nothing before you break us, Pops.”
The informality drove a silver eyebrow up another inch, but Pops Winter was not so easily riled, “So what do you want, Billy?”
McGinty leaned back, affecting an air of nonchalance, “It’s not what I want. It’s what we are going to have, one way or the other.” Pops smirked at the temerity of a street thug dictating terms to the Chairman, but he indulged the man just to see what it would take to assuage him. The remainder of the board held their collective breath.
“It’s gonna be a marketplace, man. No kickbacks, no bullshit. You come to the Woo and we sell you shit. Supply and demand will drive the prices, and everyone pays market rates. That’s it. No fucking boss, no hierarchy, no thugs walking our streets and no more fucking with the selectmen.”
Pops considered this. A competitive marketplace would crush the profit margins, and he was not keen on commodity pricing engendering bidding wars between various territories. He chose his bosses based upon managerial talent and ruthlessness, not business acumen. This marketplace idea would cause a lot of friction between board members.
“And how will you manage to protect this little enterprise of yours without us?” Pops countered, “You may not realize exactly how many different threats to our actions we deal with every year. There are other organizations, both on-world and off, that routinely attempt to subvert our operations. They will see you as a weak link and you will be targeted most enthusiastically.”
Billy snorted, “We had twenty years of Marko, and we are handling ourselves just fine. With our own revenues, we will be able to look to our own protection, thanks just the same.”
Pops turned his gaze to Roland, “I suppose that will fall to you then, Mr. Tankowicz?”
It was a loaded question. As a fixer, Roland was expected to be neutral until his services were secured. This had meant that Roland had worked for all manner of people over the years, including the Board. As long as they paid, he represented them as best he could. Sometimes that was as simple as securing a safe, neutral meeting place like this one. Sometimes that meant cracking skulls.
If Roland threw in with McGinty, he was telling the board that he was off limits to them. A line was being drawn in the sand, and everyone wanted to know on which side of it he was going to stand. They were all acutely aware how Marko had died.
Twelve sets of eyes looked up at Roland, straining necks to match his nearly eight-foot height. A grey tailored suit did nothing to mask the impossible bulk of his exaggerated musculature, and his hairless head was wreathed in shadow as his height firmly ensconced his face in the layer of smoke and vapor close to the ceiling. Roland was not above employing his bizarre physicality to intimidate, and he subtly flexed his back to strain the seams of his suit.
“First of all, my services have already been secured to procure this meeting space. You are all here under my guaranteed safe passage, and you will leave here under the same.” No one had brought weapons or bodyguards into the meeting. Such was the nature of Dockside neutrality and Roland’s reputation.
“While I have undertaken actions against The Combine and combine assets recently, those were in direct employ of a client, and were predicated by a serious breach of protocol by parties related to this board.”
Heads nodded. Roland’s moves against Marko had been based on a kidnapping obliquely related to Combine business. While no one was ever supposed to take out a Boss without authorization, a lot of other rules had been broken during that time, and no party present was entirely blameless. Roland continued, “Actions were taken to rectify this, and Marko got dead as a result.”
He leaned forward and placed his hands on the table. The half-ton of military hardware that constituted most of Roland’s body drew groans of protest from the wood, but the table held.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Board, I understand very well that you don’t want to give anything up to McGinty. I understand that anything other than total victory means losing respect with your constituents and competitors. But let’s be realistic. There will be no winners in an open war with Big Woo, and the idea of a mercantile system for distribution is overdue.”
Roland started to hear grumbles from the Board, but Pops was silent. Roland continued nonplussed with the murmurs burbling across the table, “It would be best for all of us... and I do mean all of us.” The looming fixer paused to make conspicuous eye contact with everyone in the room, “If an accommodation can be reached without me having to choose a side.”
Manson could not control his frustration and blurted, “Fuck accommodation! This is fucking unacceptable! You want us to just say bye-bye to our profit margins so some uppity street shit can shake us down?” His eyes were wide, and he pounded the table in impotent rage, “Nobody’s afraid of you, Tank! You think you can just tell us how to run shit? Fuck you! I will call in a goddamn million Cred bounty on you right fucking now!” The fat man whipped out his comm, “Then let’s just see who is in charge of shit!”
Several gasps and one chuckle were audible as Manson began to key up his terminal. Roland looked to Winter, “Mr. Chairman?” he inquired archly.
“Manson, put that away before you make any bigger an ass of yourself than you already have,” Winter never raised his voice, but his irritation was palpable.
Manson looked up at Winter, then over to Roland.
“Safe Passage, Mr. Manson,” Roland intoned drily, “can be revoked if you threaten my person.”
“I’m not afraid of you!” Manson blurted, with absolutely zero conviction whatsoever. Roland’s hand shot out faster than the eye could follow. Wade Manson looked down to see his hand, still gripping his comm, enveloped in a fist the size of a melon.
“Neither was Marko,” Roland quipped and squeezed.
Synthetic muscles rolled and flexed under the thin linen of Roland’s jacket, and Wade Manson screamed as both his hand and his comm crumpled under the impossible force of that grip. Roland released the man, and the Boss sat down with a heavy thud and cradled his shattered appendage. A hundred shards of plastic had been driven though both sides of it, and blood flowed freely in red streams that puddled on the table.
Pops sighed wearily and rubbed his forehead, “Well, that should be quite enough excitement for today I think. The Board will consider Mr. McGinty’s terms and vote on alternatives to open conflict. In the meantime, we would ask that Mr. McGinty begin releasing product to us at wholesale pricing. Let’s say, twenty-five percent below street value?”
There were nods of assent around the table. Twenty-five percent was half their former mark-up, but it was not too terrible.
McGinty nodded, “I can release product, but you will have to negotiate with Madame Madeleine for prostitutes.”
Pops sighed, “Of course,” then to Roland, “I would like to secure safe passage and neutral ground for another meeting in one week’s time to present our counterproposal. Are your services available?”
“At the usual rates,” Roland nodded.
Then the wall exploded.