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Roland stepped onto the promenade at Enterprise Station and looked around. The main commercial deck of the sprawling space station was a circle one mile in diameter and it was crammed with restaurants, shops, bars, clubs, and even a large botanical garden. The ceiling was a projected sky complete with a sun that followed Greenwich Mean Time and wispy clouds that meandered across the giant domed screen. Music played softly and all manner of folks were out enjoying the diversions of Enterprise Station’s thriving economy while they awaited their Gate schedules.
It was bright and idyllic and it was Roland’s least favorite kind of place. It wasn’t that the concourse was thick with surging masses of people and even a few aliens. Dockside was often crowded on a summer weekend, and that was OK with him. It wasn’t the lights and noises, either. He often enjoyed a stroll along The Drag when times were good, and this place was no brighter or noisier than that.
It really boiled down to the type of people that were milling about. Roland tried very hard to be objective when it came to judging people. After all, he was hardly in a position to judge anyone. There was more blood on his hands than most, and he’d prefer not to be judged for it. The galaxy needed all kinds of people to work, and these were definitely ‘all kinds’ of people. But he could not pretend that many of them did not disgust him. He didn’t really understand why, and since Lucia really wanted him to grow emotionally, he spared a moment to think about it. Why did he hate these people so much? They all ranged from “reasonably well off” to “nauseatingly rich” for the most part, but that wasn’t it either.
But the evidence was all around him. He had already identified a junior councilman in a boutique that sold items costing three times the politician’s annual salary. Not fifty feet further down, Roland could make out a security guard shaking down tourists from some far-off frontier colony. His ears caught the strains of an ultra-rich couple arguing over which astronomically expensive restaurant to eat at, oblivious to the servant struggling and stumbling with the freight load of shopping and luggage behind them. But the pièce de résistance was the pair of wealthy corporate-types discussing the prices for thirteen-year-old girls at various stations they had been to. No, it wasn’t the conspicuous wealth, or the noise that bothered him at all.
Rich people just suck, the old soldier grumbled to himself, get them away from governments and police and the threat of actual consequences, and they all turn to shit.
But he knew that wasn’t entirely correct either. Don Ribiero could afford to behave like one of these people, and if he had allowed his genius to be used for weapons he’d be much richer than he already was. But Don had never turned into a self-serving jerk. So, blaming the money was lazy and spurious. Roland was a simple, concrete thinker and the solution to the dilemma presented itself with his habitual straightforwardness.
Being wealthy doesn’t make them awful, being awful was their default state. Being rich just means they get to be MORE awful than poor people.
He followed the thread of the idea a little further, Dockside is full of awful people, but without big money to spend, they just never get the chance to be dicks on this level. Money amplifies everything, including asshole-ery. Not being the type to get absorbed in philosophical ruminations, that was as much thought as he intended to give the matter.
He wasn’t sure he had resolved anything since ‘I don’t like these people because they are jerks’ was hardly the sort of epiphany that shook the firmament of the human spirit. But he had work to do, so he shelved the matter and put a lid on his discomfort.
Lucia’s ability to navigate the byzantine meanderings of corporate interconnections had garnered him a few leads on how to hunt down the purveyor of those assassin ‘bots. He needed to make inquiries at several law offices here on Enterprise that had poorly hidden connections to The Brokerage. If he did his job properly, he might just convince someone there to point him to the culprits or at least move him up the chain to someone who could. Roland could be very convincing, but his usual methods for securing information would have to be applied with a judicious hand here on the Station.
Enterprise Station’s status as an independent protectorate came via a series of interconnected trade agreements and treaties. This did not make it a lawless place, because that would be bad for business. But it was not directly under the control of any governmental agency. To that end, the various corporations that exploited its status as a free trade zone all paid into a fund that provided Enterprise Station with a private security force second to none. That contract was currently held by Pike’s Privateers, and the galaxy’s most famous mercenary group took both the job and their reputation very seriously.
The result wasn’t so much as ‘law and order,’ as it was ‘safety and security.’ The security forces were not in the business of writing citations or breaking up felonious rackets. Their purpose was primarily to ensure that treaty conventions about free trade practices were not circumvented and that street-crime was kept under control.
That meant Roland could be pushy and even a little rough, but if he started disrupting trade or causing too much damage, he would likely be looking at a brawl with a few hundred highly trained special operators, several heavy cyborgs, and enough firepower to grind him into techno-organic powder. This was not an issue of ego, it was just common sense. Roland was as tough as anyone in the galaxy, but wise old soldiers did not pick fights with Chris Pike’s crew if they wanted to die of old age.
A brisk walk to the far side of the Promenade brought Roland to the business district which was decidedly less idyllic than the retail zone he had just exited. Brightly lit hallways extended for miles in a labyrinth of intersections and corners. Helpful screens and maps dotted the concourse, so at least getting lost was nearly impossible. Roland found the Law Offices of Heigl and Jones in less than ten minutes of walking, marking the first bit of good luck he had enjoyed all week.
He keyed the door chime with a meaty thumb, and a screen lit up with the image of an iron-faced woman seated behind a desk. She smiled cheerfully with her mouth, but none of the deep lines on her face moved at all. Bored eyes stared blankly into the camera as she intoned with the drone of endless repetition, “Welcome to the law offices of Heigl and Jones. Do you have an appointment?”
Fortunately, Roland did have an appointment. Lucia had often observed Roland’s almost pathological hatred of closed doors. It was as if the act of attempting to bar him entrance to anything enraged him. He was designed specifically to breach fortifications, and she would tease the big man by positing that someone must have buried a super-secret subroutine in his brain that made him want to crash through every locked door he encountered.
It was all in fun, but Roland had to admit he just plain liked smashing through doors that people thought would keep him out. I can be kind of a dick, sometimes, he admitted without self-reproach, such is life.
But instead of sending the door flying with a well-placed fist, he simply answered with his best smile, “Yes. Mr. Tankowicz to see Ms. Jones. I have a ten o’clock, I believe.” Roland’s best smile was no better than the flinty receptionist’s, but a brief consultation with the schedule confirmed that he did, in fact, have an appointment and thus duty demanded that she grant him access.
The door hissed open and Roland stepped into a lushly carpeted and richly furnished office lobby. The receptionist waved him to a chair, took a second look at all seven-and-a-half feet of him, and changed her mind, “Wait right here, please. Ms. Jones will be with you in a moment.
Roland nodded politely and waited. He waited ten minutes, then fifteen, and then twenty. Roland had arrived precisely on time, as his personal commitment to military discipline required, and the waiting was beginning to gnaw at the edges of his better nature. He understood that a few minutes’ delay was often the unavoidable circumstance of living in a universe of infinite probability, but courtesy demanded some explanation. He remembered Lucia’s advice on how to handle these situations, and just as she always listened to him when it came to combat, he always listened to her when it came to business.
“I’m sorry, is Ms. Jones indisposed right now? I can’t help but notice that we are behind schedule.” Lucia had been explicit about this sort of thing. ‘We are behind schedule’ implied that everyone was in the same boat, and no one was at fault. ‘She is late’ would be an accusation. It was the sort of subtlety Roland was terrible at, but he was learning.
The iron maiden at the desk looked up, “Ms. Jones will be with you shortly. We appreciate your patience.”
Roland smiled back and nodded, teeth clenched. At that moment, the door to the office opened and a large man in casual clothes wearing a light jacket that did not conceal his shoulder holster very well strode into the lobby. He was nearly as big as Roland, almost seven feet tall, and had musculature to match. His hair was a brutally cropped fuzzy disk that screamed ‘ex-military’ and he walked with a light step and casual grace that indicated either a high degree of overall athleticism or perhaps a few body-mods.
Probably both, Roland appraised the man.
He winked at the receptionist, gave Roland an evaluating look, and walked directly to door marked “Melissa Jones, Esq.” and opened it without knocking. He disappeared into the office and the door slid closed behind him on near-silent glides. Roland let the situation percolate in his mind before deciding what to make of it. Before he had sorted out his opinion on the matter, the receptionist interrupted his reverie with, “Ms. Jones will see you now. Please go right in.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled, less polite than he should have been.
The office of Melissa Jones, Esq. was large and opulent. From the ornate wooden desk to the framed artwork on the walls, everything in it was designed to impress the people who walked into the space with equal parts value, beauty, and flamboyance. It was calculated and obvious and it had no effect on Roland whatsoever, except perhaps to annoy him.
The big man with the crew cut was standing behind the lawyer, casually leaning against a bookshelf with arms folded across his enormous chest. The posture was meant to appear casual, but Roland could see that the position also kept his right hand conveniently close to the butt of the pistol under his jacket.
“Please sit down, Mr. Tankowicz,” the austere woman behind the desk said politely, and gestured to a chair in front of her desk. Her hair was just starting to silver, and she was dressed exactly the way Roland assumed a lawyer would dress: dark suit, expensive but not flashy. Sensible shoes.
“I think I’d rather stand,” Roland grumbled, looking at the ornate but far-too-flimsy chair she had offered, “I think your furniture may prefer it that way, too.”
A twitch at the corner of her sharp mouth seemed to indicate wry amusement with his predicament, and she replied graciously, “Of course. Jerome, here”—she gestured to the armed man behind her—“often struggles with adequate seating as well.”
Jerome grinned, “Nature of the beast, eh, big man?”
“Preaching to the choir,” he responded amicably.
Jones interrupted, “Mr. Tankowicz, I must say, I was very surprised when Gateways said you would be coming to see me. I do not currently count them among my clients, so I am forced to wonder why they sent an individual of your”— she smiled archly—“...’profession’ to my door. And all the way from Earth, too.”
Roland could hear the quotes around the word ‘profession’ when she said it. “I am expanding the scope of services I offer my clients. I now provide general investigative assistance in addition to my previous offerings.” Roland wasn’t sure if that was the answer she wanted to hear, but he was a terrible liar so he often just told the truth and dealt with the consequences as they came.
“I see. So, which of these services brings you to my office? Investigative or...” she let it hang, and Roland watched Jerome’s jaw tighten.
“I really only offer three services right now. Investigative assistance, third-party arbitration, and the last one. That’s the one you don’t want me to say and the one that had me cooling my heels in your lobby while we waited for Jerome to show up.” Roland bared his teeth in what would have been a grin if it was not so terrifying, “Pro-tip, Jerome. Be on time. It speaks to your attention to detail as a professional.”
Jerome scowled, Roland went ahead anyway, “I have been retained by Gateways Inc. to secure information pertaining to a shipment of new-model androids that arrived at Farragut Shipping four nights ago. I have the bill of lading and manifest information if you want it.”
Jones did an admirable job feigning confusion, “Mr. Tankowicz, I do not work in shipping or in androids, I simply don’t see how I can help you.”
Roland was prepared for this, “I understand, Ms. Jones. Allow me to illustrate how you can be of assistance. The company that shipped the androids in question was a shell. It has no employees and only one officer. That officer is on the board of another company, which is also a shell with no assets and a nebulous filing status under a Galapagos charter. That charter was issued under an agreement with a third company that has holdings in four systems under four different trade agreements. Do you begin to see how you can help yet?”
“I am afraid you have me entirely mystified,” she responded flatly.
“I’m sorry, maybe I am being too circumspect,” Roland composed himself, “The individual or individuals who purchased and shipped those androids exist somewhere in a vast web of interlocking companies, charters, and trade agreements. This web was deliberately constructed to hide elements actively working against assets of several of my own clients, including Gateways. I have been retained to locate and eliminate those elements. Since I am aware of your relationship to The Brokerage, and you are aware of my relationship to both Gateways and The Combine, it is in both of our interests for you to facilitate my mission.”
The lawyer was no longer feigning professional courtesy, “I fail to see, Roland, how helping you against a client of The Brokerage is in my best interests.” The words came laced with malice under an icy layer of contempt.
Roland relaxed a little. This was less like a business meeting and more like dealing with mobsters, which was a thing he was very comfortable doing. “It’s in your best interests, Melissa, because I know that there are six other lawyers on Enterprise who do the same job you do. I know that the next one I talk to will help me, or maybe it will be the one after that. It’s hard to predict these things, but eventually one of you will give me the information I need.”
“Is that a fact?” Jones almost seemed amused.
“Yes,” Roland was confidence personified.
“And what makes you so sure?” Arrogance oozed from the lawyer.
“Because none of you understand what you are dealing with, and they will all underestimate me exactly the way you are.” He stopped her response with a raised hand that made Jerome flinch, “You are not ready for the kind of war you are in the middle of, and you don’t understand what is going to happen if I don’t get to the people I am looking for. I am not being coy, and I am not threatening you. I’m telling you how this works so you can make an informed decision.”
He paused for a breath, “Telling me what I want to know is the only way to get out of the shithole you are in. A shithole, by the way, you don’t even know about. A shithole you are not equipped to escape on your own.”
Melissa Jones was not accustomed to being talked to this way. Putting an expensive suit on a street goon didn’t magically make him anything other than a street goon, and she had put up with enough, “Oh, go to hell,” she said dismissively, “Jerome, throw him out of here.”
Jerome was fast. Roland could have stopped the man, but he was here to make a point. Jerome cleared the desk in a nimble bound and sent a wrecking-ball body blow toward Roland’s midsection. Roland’s skeleton and other internals were just over ninety percent repaired, and Roland was actually looking forward to this.
It was clear that Jerome had spent some time in the boxing ring. The punch was delivered with technical precision and aimed at a part of the body that even tough men kept protected. The strike connected flush against the spot where Roland’s liver would be if it wasn’t squished into an armored carapace and underneath a thick layer of reinforced techno-organic muscle fibers. If Jerome had been aware that this was one of the most heavily armored portions of a heavily armored war machine, he might have chosen another target. Roland had absorbed blows from industrial-class heavy cyborgs with minimal injury, and no quantity of muscular augmentation was going to make Jerome strong enough to cause much damage at all.
Unless you were talking about damage to Jerome that is.
The bones of that hand, both large and artificially strengthened, splintered like candy canes when the superhuman bodyguard’s muscles drove them into the armored behemoth. Jerome screamed in surprise and pain as he stumbled away clutching his ruined hand. Roland pursued him with one forward step and casually flicked Jerome in the forehead with two fingers, snapping the man’s head back and opening a cut. The bodyguard tried to regain his footing and sidestep away from Roland, and the cyborg rewarded him with another two-fingered rap to the chin that sent him stumbling into the desk.
Jerome tried to push Roland away with his good hand, hoping to create some distance. Roland simply grabbed his wrist, pulled him close, and flicked him across the bridge of the nose, breaking it.
“I haven’t even closed my fist yet, Jerome. Call it quits whenever you want.” Roland took no joy in pummelling someone he outclassed by this much, especially because Jerome was just a guy doing his job. Offering to stop the beating was a professional courtesy.
“Get him out of here, Jerome!” Jones yelled, sounding scared.
Jerome looked out through the curtain of blood covering his eyes and took in his employer and his opponent. His good hand began to creep toward his weapon, but Roland was not having it.
“I wouldn’t, buddy,” he warned, “trust me.”
Jerome did trust him. He put up his hands in surrender and backed away, “I’m out, Jones,” he said, “this shit is obviously above my pay grade.”
“I appreciate it, Jerome,” Roland acknowledged, “and for the record, you were outclassed from the start. You registered?”
“Yeah,” he gurgled through the blood in his mouth.
“I’ll make a note that you fulfilled your contract obligations in the logs, no matter what she says.” He jerked a thumb at Jones, who appeared equal parts terrified and furious.
“Thanks, man. I’ll leave now.”
“There’s a thousand Creds in it if you make sure the receptionist hasn’t called security on us yet,” Roland called after the fleeing bodyguard.
“Sure thing, Boss.” Jerome called back.