Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Forty-Eight

Blake Leathersby wore workout clothes, spandex shorts and a ribbed Union Jack tank. Colliding with his chest was like having an airbag deploy in my face—a stiff, sweaty one.

"Oh!" I said, barely keeping my feet. "Sorry, I didn't see you."

As he stepped back to consider me, one of his trunk-like legs struck Yves Pomeroy—and Yves wasn't able to keep his feet.

"Excusez-vous," the older man snapped, a jumble on the floor. "One should watch where one steps."

Leathersby didn't offer a hand up. "One should be sturdier than a blade of grass. I'm coming from the gym. Might check the place out yourself—add some muscle mass, Colonel Blimp."

I didn't get the reference, but Yves puffed up as though he'd taken a slur broadside. I was happy to hang back as a spectator. Leathersby hadn't seemed to recognize me, the wig and prosthetic doing their job, but why push it?

Yves said, "We French place less value on brawn for brawn's sake."

Leathersby sniffed. "Could be that explains why we English paste you every time it comes to war."

Fabienne Rivard, hearing the commotion, walked to her door and jerked it closed with evident irritation.

Yves fixed the lay of his linen shirt. "You should know: I was kidnapped again. In America this time."

"No kidding? Get fed any corn this time? I'm told they like their fatties over there, yeah?"

The Frenchman refused to dignify the questions with a response. "As vice president of executive security, have you no pride? No desire to fulfill your duty?"

Leathersby chuckled—a gruff, cruel bark. "What can I say? I do my best, but it's a lot of nutjobs wanna see your old bones gone..."

He resumed up the hall, emitting a gust of odor from his armpit. I followed Yves the other direction, forcibly loosening my gait, trying to look natural.

I couldn't believe such naked aggression in the halls of a multinational conglomerate. If I had have seen a thing like that working for Rainey Personnel and reported it? The company would've been off the client list by the time I turned in my week's timesheet.

"He's awful," I said.

"Quite," Yves agreed.

"The guys said was a mercenary—he only did certain jobs for Rivard. What was that talk about vice president?"

Yves steered us around a corner. "Fabienne has recently installed him in a full-time role. The man is a bully in meetings. He makes crass gestures when a decision goes against him. He is the very worst of his country—and each day this Anarchy continues, his stature grows. He thrives like..." Yves's face curdled. "...like mold—some poison mold which feeds off darkness and ignorance."

We reached the elevator bank. Yves faltered at the button panel, still flushed from the confrontation, taking several seconds to master his palsy. Finally he managed to push Down.

Inside the car, he said, "This is why we must go! Go, and find the truth!"

Enterprise Software occupied the sixty-first floor. I expected some Space Age facility, sleek machines with transparent or neon-colored innards, but the accommodations were unspectacular. The computers looked liked any PC I might've been assigned working reception, and their kitchenette featured a chips-and-candy-bar vending machine and drip coffee maker with brown-stained pot.

The engineers, likewise, seemed run-of-the-mill. Yves introduced me to his principal software architect, Gaspard, a spindly man who kept honking into a tissue.