Profiteer

He was sitting up and felt a paralyzing pain through his body as something slammed into his back. He swung the carbine around, firing. He spun fast enough to see the woman swinging the chair at him before the rifle’s beam sliced her in half. The chair still managed to slam into his right arm as the woman’s corpse folded over in front of him. Levy heard a crack and didn’t know if it was his arm or the chair.

 

For a few seconds the only sound was moaning from behind him.

 

Levy looked down and saw the reason he couldn’t feel his left leg was that most of it was gone below the knee.

 

Strangely, that didn’t upset him.

 

In fact, he laughed a little and told the woman folded over in front of him, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

 

Well, he was here. In a few minutes they were going to come for him. He fired into the elevator to keep that from being too easy.

 

That accomplished, he only had one thing left to do.

 

Slowly, Johann Levy began to drag himself toward the edge of the dome, all the time praying that Colonel Dacham was out in the open somewhere down there.

 

<>

 

* * * *

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

 

Market Crash

 

 

“It ain’t over until the fat lady’s dead.”

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

 

“The popular method of pacifying a tiger is to allow one’s own consumption.”

—Li Zhou

(2238-2348)

 

 

07:48:00 Godwin Local

 

From what Dom saw of the office building, it was deserted. GA&A obviously had yet to restart commercial operations. Floor two was empty of anybody, including security patrols—

 

But then security had another problem at the moment.

 

Every time Dom passed by a window overlooking the landing quad—for security reasons, every GA&A building only had windows facing in toward the complex—he could see the backlit behemoth of the Blood-Tide surrounded by ground troops.

 

Dom quickly came to an office that fit his requirements. One of the benefits of having the floor plan of the GA&A complex in a computer inside his skull.

 

This second-floor office used to belong to Cy Helmsman, Dom’s late veep in charge of operations. This particular office had been both RF-secured and given priority access to the GA&A network.

 

The office building was a U, cupping half the landing quad. Cy’s old office was right in the center of that U, and normally it had a commanding low-angle view of the entire GA&A operation through its double-height picture windows.

 

That view, however, was dominated by two of the Blood-Tide’s main drives. The view out the window was like looking down the throat of a double-barreled volcano.

 

Dom looked out and thought of the caverns honeycombing the mountains between Godwin and Proudhon. He smiled briefly.

 

“While there’s life, Klaus ...”

 

Dom slipped behind the desk and powered Cy’s terminal. This office was hardwired into whatever data lines survived in the complex. It took Dom less than thirty seconds to realize that the invaders had barely touched the original equipment.

 

“Why, Klaus,” he whispered to himself, “you’re being paranoid.”

 

Even though there was still 20% of the processing capacity left aboveground, Klaus’ people had done their best to avoid any of GA&A’s old computers. Everything they used on the site they must have hauled in and coded themselves. It seemed a waste of resources to Dom.

 

However, it did mean that the system he was plugged into now was just about how he’d left it. His personal codes still worked, and while GA&A’s original computer system had been disconnected from every sensitive area—such as the security system and what was left of the perimeter air defenses—it was still linked to the base communications network. Dom supposed that the marines had their own communications and weren’t worried about the old system being compromised.

 

Dom set the commands up and paused—

 

He didn’t have to do this. He could still slip out of here.

 

Dom queried his onboard computer. He had eleven minutes before Ivor bugged out.

 

No, Dom thought, I can’t let this go on. I can’t keep running—

 

Can I?

 

Dom flipped open the audio circuit on the holo in front of him, and his voice went out over every comm channel wired into the GA&A complex.

 

“Klaus.”

 

Dom waited. He thought he could hear a commotion from outside, on the quad.

 

He walked over to the window. It was somewhat dangerous, but the quad was floodlit, and the office was dark. He knew even enhanced vision couldn’t see through the mirror-tinted glass, especially in the veep suites.

 

“Klaus,” he repeated, keeping his voice level. His broadcast was going out over the PA system, the intercoms, the closed-circuit holos—everywhere. It was disorienting hearing his voice vibrate the window in front of him.