Chapter 14
“And you’re sure you understand the new responsibilities we’ll be entrusting you with?”
“Yes, sir.” Bernardo Ervins remained in attention, as he had been for the last fifteen minutes.
“Very good, Captain Ervins. Executive Chairperson Petrova trusts you explicitly with this task. She signed off on your promotion, you should know. Additionally, your predecessor will be here momentarily. Your first task will be to relieve him of his command.” Thorne stood opposite the desk from his new subordinate, but faced the glass overlooking Valhalla to take in the afternoon sun. A smirk colored his face. “The coalition has need for immediate response. You will lead an experimental task force that, if successful, will become the right hand of the coalition. Would that be acceptable to you, Captain?”
“Yes, sir,” Ervins shuffled anxiously on his feet, a look of enthusiasm quickly concealed. Thorne observed his new security chief’s reflection from the glass. Standing at only a little under six foot and slightly scrawny, Ervins was not what you would expect for a security officer. He carried himself like a jurisdictional officer, but had none of the experience. His track record, though, told a story of impeccable loyalty. What Ervins might lack in size he more than made up for with blind faith in the cause of his employer. In addition to his young age, Ervins sported a militaristic zeal for corporate enforcement. He’d been placed on probation twice for excessive use of force during interrogations and Thorne thought he could mold Ervins into a formidable tool. Like the grand swords of battle, forged with the finest materials of the old world by old world smiths, Thorne would mold Ervins into a weapon unlike any the coalition had seen before.
Because at the end of the day, Thorne reasoned to himself, the coalition would fail because it was toothless. Corporate Security was a joke profession; he’d seen the footage of rotten fruit being thrown at Global Energy security during environmental of class awareness protests. His plan for Ervins was different, though. Ervins would become a rogue element for the coalition, more specifically, for Thorne. With the knowledge that the coaltion was backing their movements, Ervins would lead a ruthless team of commandoes into whatever hell the coalition needed simply because they asked.
“Most excellent. That will be all, Captain. Please wait in the lobby until your former captain arrives.” Ervins marched out and the door slid closed behind him. That oaf should be here by now, where the fuck could he be. Growing impatient, Thorne dialed Morehouse’s mobile terminal to inquire his whereabouts.
“Almost there, sir,” Morehouse said as he answered the call. “Had a slight delay summoning the scramjet, but am T-Minus four minutes from your office now.” Of course, Thorne knew it had been an unreasonable request to bring the Terra Harvest security chief all the way from Skyreach, but Morehouse was under orders from Petrova to acquiesce to any of Thorne’s commands, so the moron was on his way to his own termination meeting on the other side of the world. Depending on how he took it, Thorne thought he might even rescind the use of the scramjet to get Morehouse home and make the bastard foot his own bill. That will teach him to waste corporate finances, Thorne thought vengefully to himself. The grin hadn’t left his face, his eyes locked on to a Terra Harvest holo-ad on a neighboring tower. Thorne hoped that Morehouse would take this meeting poorly.
“Mr. Thorne?” Morehouse asked from the terminal. Thorne had forgotten he was on the line.
“Yes, yes, very good. Please hurry,” Thorne said with non-chalance, hiding the hatred he’d cultivated for the security officer. Morehose would learn soon, though, as he looked down the barrel of Thorne’s retribution for his incompetence. Thorne ended the connection and straightened his appearance in the reflection from his window, carefully adjusting a stray hair. Feeling under his desk, Thorne checked to ensure that the object he had concealed was still in place. He ran his hands over the cold metal lump and his heart fluttered as he thought of the task to come. Quiet down, there butterflies. Everything would be worth it in the end, Thorne knew. He traced the lines of tape with his fingers, careful to feel each square to ensure that the adhesive strip would hold.
Satisfied with the infrastructure of his plan, Thorne now sat in his chair and swiveled back out to the window. Realizing that his hand was drinkless, he turned back around poured himself a finger of bourbon from his desk drawer and spun back to his endless consumption of the Valhalla Cityscape. A reward for his clever planning.
Your days dwindle, Anya, he thought to himself, downing his drink. Petrova was insolent. Old school. Arrogant. She thought that because she came from old money then her place in the world order was secured, that no one would ever dare threaten her. What was she doing with her power, though? Spaceflight development? Disease research? What a waste of the power she’d accumulated. Thorne remembered an exercise in his leadership academy where the class conducted a role play exercise as the coalition. Climate Storms have intensified, brainstorm a solution and draft a coalition response to the growing threat, the professor had streamed to the holo-board. Through subtle manipulation of his classmates, he’d managed to consolidate power over two-thirds of the “coalition” and had convinced them to increase industrial zoning on the surface before the professor had broken his power monopoly, insisting that true power resided in the collective, not the individual, and that Thorne needed to consider his colleagues needs as greater than his own. Now, though, there was no professor to hold him back, no rules to govern his next move - Thorne was the rules. We play for keeps, toots.
Thorne’s assistant sounded on the terminal’s active line to inform him of Morehouse’s arrival. As Thorne reached to give his affirmation to their entry, he stopped. “Hold them for one second, please,” Thorne said. Grabbing clumsily for the bottle of liquor in his desk drawer, he prepared a small shot to muster himself further. As the sting gave way to more courage, Thorne buzzed his assent for his guests to join him, his right hand tracing the chilled impersonal outline of a pistol stuck to the underside of his desk.
Ervins entered first, followed by Morehouse. Ervins’s face carried the smug confidence of a cadet who’d scored their first kill. Morehouse communicated defeat with every move. His chin lower than usual, his pace slower than normal, he didn’t even enter the room fully, coming to rest just inside the door.
“Gentleman, we have a situation on our hands,” Thorne began as the two security officers approached his desk. Ervins struck to attention in the identical place he’d occupied earlier, hands behind his back. Morehouse, now leaning, crossed his arms and rested his full weight on the wall and observed Ervins with the interest one observes a pet that’s learned a new trick. Morehouse shook his dead as he looked down to the floor.
Raising his gaze to Thorne, “Who’s this?” Morehouse asked, his right thumb windmilling forty five degrees to gesture to Ervins. “Local tattle tale?”
“In due time, Adrian,” Thorne stood and raised his hands together in a prayer motion as he pointed the apex of his bony fingers at Morehouse. “But first, I must provide some context to this discussion. After all, we’ve brought you all this way.” Thorne placed both hands on his desk and leaned forward into the fixture as he looked up to address the two men.
“We have a situation, gentlemen. International secrets of great importance to the coalition have fallen into the wrong hands. This much, Adrian, you are aware of. I was tasked personally by the coalition to bring this cell of insurgents to a quick halt. This much, Adrian, you are also aware. Specifically, there was an individual employed by your company, Terra Harvest, with ties to that cell of insurgents that a security team on Skyreach was ordered to apprehend. That individual escaped two separate attempts at apprehension and we currently do not have any whereabouts. Additionally, that individual killed another member of your team. Am I correct up to this point, Adrian?”
“Yes, sir, I believe that sums it up, but -”
“Shh, shh. A simple ‘yes, sir’ was all that I needed,” Thorne said, exposing his sharp lateral incisors. “Ervins, I believe you have something to say to your commanding officer?”
Morehouse pushed himself from the wall and approached the desk as he spoke. “Now wait a minute, what is this?”
Ervins turned to his superior officer and began to relieve him of his command. “Captain Adrian Morehouse. Per Terra Harvest Security Amendment Two Seven…”
Morehouse shouted over Ervins’s continued recitation of the code. “Do you even know what you’re doing? You arrogant shit! You’re going to kill us all, do you know that?” Thorne grinned back at him, hands still on the desk, face turned up to look at him menacingly.
“…and as being unfit for command, you are hereby relieved of your duty and are thanked for your service.” Ervins saluted his former commander and rotated back to face Thorne again. His boots clapped against the linoleum as he completed his movement.
A few seconds passed. Morehouse looked stunned as he tried processing what had just happened.
“Oh, we’ll need your badge and gun, as well,” Thorne said mockingly.
“Fuck you,” Morehouse said, turning to leave the office. His hand was on the door to leave.
“Sir, what is -”
“Not for you, Bernardo,” Thorne cackled. “Oh, Adrian? Thought you might like this.”
Morehouse turned to look back at Thorne, but instead found himself looking down the barrel of a high caliber novelty pistol, the kind that the old cowboys used to carry.
The shot echoed in the small office, threatening to break the glass with its volume. Thorne dropped the gun to his desk and raised his hands to his ears in pain. Ervins was shouting something to him, but he couldn’t hear what he was saying. Morehouse lay twitching at the office door, blood pooling on the floor underneath him and running underneath the office door. Thorne saw Ervins turn and run out into the office, careful to avoid the puddle of blood.
The gun was louder than Thorne had anticipated. As his hearing returned, Thorne first heard his assistant screaming. That assistant of his must have been terrified, but a small price to pay for the effect that this dramatic move would have on his new chief of security. Let’s catch her rolling her eyes at me again. Realizing that he’d dropped the gun rather harshly, Thorne adjusted his attention to the weapon resting on his desk. The gold plating was unmarred, and the delicate engraving and intricate carvings along the handle, barrel, and stock remained immaculate.
Ervins stepped back into Thorne’s office to consult his employer, but stopped in his tracks when he notcied that Thorne was polishing the gun with a cloth he’d procured from his desk. “Sir, with all due respect, I cannot say that I would have advised you to do that,” Ervins said when he finally found his voice. The kid’s face was sweaty, and Thorne observed a slight tremor in his hands as they rested at his side. Ervins had passed the final test. Thorne was prepared to kill Ervins too, if he’d needed to, but Ervins had demonstrated the necessary spinelessness that he needed to make great things happen. The yuppy watched his superior officer get blown away, right in front of him, and still spoke with the abating maneuver of a bureaucrat fresh from academy, using terms soft terms of “advice” and “sir.” All Ervins needed was the right orders, and Thorne was fervent to provide them.
“Attention, right now, Captain Ervins!” Thorne screamed. Ervins scrambled to an attentive salute in front of Thorne’sdesk. In his hurry, he stepped in Morehouse’s blood and two bloody footprints tracked his progress to the desk. “Captain Ervins. You will not be paid to think. You will be paid to act! There is a steep price for failure, and the coalition is watching you. Do I make myself clear?”
“Clear as Valhalla, sir,” Ervins replied sternly. His knees grew shaky and he was having trouble holding the attention, but he persisted, and Thorne found that he respected Ervins even more now. The kid was about to cry, but he was not going to break a salute in front of his commanding chairman, by god.
Thorne looked down at Ervins’s bloody footprints and smiled. A deep belly-laugh began tumbling out of him. The haze from the gun had settled, but a smokey odor of gunpowder remained. The screams from the assistant in the lobby had regressed to a dull cry. Tears streamed down Thorne’s face as he laughed. As unexpectantly as the laugh began, it stopped. The smile slowly straightening back to thin red lips, Thorne looked up from the blood on the floor, evaluating Ervins’sshoes, pants, shirt, and then locking into his eyes with a souless grip. “Get the girl.”