Strictly Business

Chapter 18

Computers are prone to numerous mishaps. There are many such mishaps that can occur, and one of the most famous is the Blue Screen of Death. As if it were straight from a horror movie, the BSoD (as it is often abbreviated as) suddenly pops out and scares the living bejeebies out of you. And then you have to restart the damn computer. It's a fear that every computer owner shares, and it's completely justified, because when it boils down to it - hot damn, the BSoD is just plain terrifying.

Surprise, surprise, then - that the Blue Screen so aptly calls themselves that. A shortened version of the full name (Blue Screen of Death), the hacking syndicate aims to intimidate and instill fear into the government through their electronic attacks.

Thing is, I'm not here to be intimidated. I'm here to make a certain Cable hide in a corner until he cries himself silly, and tells me what I need to know.

And there I sat, in Cable's office, with a gun in my hand, and a grenade in my pocket. A tripwire ran across the doorway behind me, rigged to a couple of explosives so that if anyone tried to deter me from my interrogation, the whole room would explode. What a blast. Literally.

I waved the gun. "So tell me, Cable, what did the Duke really hire you to do?"

He eyed it with a look of fear on his face. I know that look. It's the look of someone who'd do anything to stay alive. And here I was hoping Cable cared more for his own life than he did for the Duke's. His fingers fidgeted with the desk, and he brushed away a line of sweat burrowing onto his forehead.

"Um, uh...do you really have to wave that thing around?" he asked. 

"Oh, this?" I said, pointing to the gun, "No, I don't, but I just like to. Makes me feel...bad."

"Makes me feel bad too."

"Don't worry, the trigger won't slip," I assured him, and then fired a shot into the ceiling just for the hell of it.

He ducked, his heads clasped firmly onto the back of his head and he began making whimpering noises, similar to those of a dog. Seeing a grown man act like a dog was a new experience. New experiences are always good. "Oh gee, my hand slipped. Sorry. Promise I won't do it again."

And then I shot the ceiling fan.

You should've seen the look on his face when he started screaming.

"Oh my god! Okay! Okay! Stop! I'll...I'll tell you, okay? But the Duke's gonna kill me. Just, y'know, stop waving that thing around. It's freaking scary."

I laid a hand on his shoulder, the gun pointing downwards at the desk. The door behind me was shut and the tripwire bomb was still intact. "The Duke's only going to kill you if he isn't dead by then."

He looked up, slightly reassured. "He's....dead?"

"No," I replied, "but he will be."

"I'll...be happy if he's dead, but uh," his expression seemed conflicted, "we had a deal."

"Yeah, I'd like to know more about that." I paused for a second to emphasise the dramatic tone of the last word, "deal." Playing it cool is a thing I do. I like to play it cool.

"Okay, okay...he wanted Gangers dead."

"Don't we all."

"I mean, like, he didn't want to do it, because, y'know he's a corporation head and all, so he can't afford to lose image on it, but like-"

"If you stopped hesitating, this would go a lot faster."

"Um..."

"See?"

"Uh, okay. So he wanted us to do it, but we didn't want to take the blame for killing an Industrial Division lead, so we devised a plan to set up the government for the fall."

"And what was the plan?"

"You know those ID chips they introduced a few years back? Well, since they're hardwired to the brain, we figured we could manipulate the military soldiers into shooting him."

"So just HOW do you program something like that?"

"It's easy, actually. The ID chips sense each other when someone else with one comes into proximity, and since Gary was an ex-Solar soldier, if we set up some Lunar soldiers to go crazy when Gary was nearby, they'd end up killing him, see?"

"Wait, so you programmed every Lunar soldier to go into a frenzy when they sensed a Solar soldier nearby?"

"No, I mean...god, that would be terrible for the city. We only tracked Gary's schedule - like which buses he took, which trams he rode, where he lived, and then we used the data to collect a list of Lunar soldiers that did similar things - like Lunars that rode the same bus every morning, and y'know, stuff like that."

The jigsaw puzzle in my head slowly fitted together. So when Sola was attacked...it was because he just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. He rode the same bus as Gary, and the mad Lunars mistook him for Mr. Gangers.

"My god," I suddenly exclaimed.

"What?" said Cable.

"It's...coming together."

"What is?"

"The...the everything."

The everything. I sounded stupid at the time, but when you thought about it - if the chosen Lunars that had their ID chips rewired went crazy around Solars, and this was all a plan brought together by the Duke and the Screen to kill Gary...then why was the Duke meeting with Gary in the first place? He wanted something from Gary, and then he wanted to leave no evidence behind. And Gary was evidence. But what did he want from Gary?

He wanted someone dead. No, not SOMEONE. He wanted some people dead. The Nagoshi clan have a feud with the Kasushitsu clan, and they both conspire against each other to claim the other's spot in the Kakei council. The Duke wanted Gary to do something that would end up with my family dead. 

And even though I didn't care much for my family, having hardly knew them (and Debra, in particular), they were still family. Besides, I couldn't let the Duke carry out his plan. Nor Gary. They were both targets. And my family was technically my clients - and I have a responsibility to protect them. Some call it accountability. Others professionalism.

I call it strictly business.