“I’ll let you guys join the Confederation. You can list yourselves on the Boards. Raise a ton of money. And advertise and hire yourselves out to the Confederation members.”
“How’s that different from now?”
“Now you can’t do any of that stuff. Now you’re just nobodies.”
He was silent.
“You think this might work? We’re not bulletproof like you.”
“Hide behind the Royal Wing. They’re fighting for a pardon—and they’re probably lousy with guns anyway and you don’t want them accidentally shooting you in the back.”
“You’re a crummy salesman.”
“You know I got infinite money, right?”
“Yeah, but you’re not giving us any.”
“Tell you what, I’ll rush your application through so you can be members right away. Issue some bonds on the Boards.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Talk to some of the other gangs. You know Cole-Kainen and his gang? He’s got a bunch of stores.”
“Yeah, we did security for him once,” Busange said.
“He listed stock after he joined the Confederation, fifteen percent ownership in his company. He told me in four days he raised almost a half-million thumbs.”
That got his attention.
“Where did he get all that money?”
“The city!”
This was clearly a topic he didn’t understand. Which was fine, I didn’t really understand either.
“But where is it coming from? Is it you?”
“No. There’s billions of thumbs floating around. Think how many people are on this station. You want a piece of that or not?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Well, the new requirement is you got to be in the Confederation to be on the Boards.”
“I just don’t know how easy it’s going to be to train your Royal Wing… Militia.”
“You’ll find a way.” I saw he was about to argue or add more, but I cut him off.
“I think we’re done here.”
aRj’in wore a pleasant smile and smoothed his hair as he sat at my table.
He looked back at all the people waiting and hoping to see me, as if to let them know he got in on his own merits.
“Do you have any word on who has been hiring the feral kids?” I asked him.
“I do. I do,” he said, keeping his voice low. “It’s a pretty dangerous area as you know, so we had a tough time. What we finally did was get people in the buildings nearby watching, and when we saw someone go in, we had another team on the ground follow them once they left.”
“Well?”
“We lost them twice. Didn’t get a good look and… I’m not confident on the descriptions my men gave. But we managed to track two this week. Two men. Colmarians.”
“At the same time?”
“No. They each went in alone on different days.”
“Did your men see a kind of robot with four arms?” I asked.
“That’s the thing that offed Peush, right?” aRj’in asked.
“Yeah.”
“We’d notice him for sure. No, didn’t see him.”
“Did you see the Colmarians hiring the ferals?”
“No. No one can see that unless you’re standing right next to them. And no pack of ferals is going to let you stand right next to them. These two people walked in, plain as day, and walked out thirty or forty-five minutes later. Unharmed.”
“So either they got really lucky or they were hiring them,” I said.
“That’s what I think. Anyway, my men followed them. And, well, they lost them. But I can tell you where we last spotted them.”
“Go on.”
“Hank Block.”
CHAPTER 61
aRj’in described the men who had hired the ferals, but they didn’t immediately match anyone I knew. I didn’t pretend to know all my Kommilaire’s faces perfectly, however.
It was disturbing info.
Perhaps this was what Zeti had meant by being betrayed. Were my own Kommilaire working against me? What could they gain by giving jobs to feral kids? I could see gangs using them against other gangs, but not Kommilaire.
The next day it looked like we had scooped up all the worst vagrants and junkies from Deadsouth, soiled their clothes to oblivion, multiplied them by fifty, and then dumped the stinking mass on Hank Block.
My glorious Militia was here.
The Murderers were helping corral them and equip everyone with one of Delovoa’s security belts.
People were petrified of the devices and wanted to know exactly what conditions would cause them to detonate. I told them that it wasn’t their concern and if they did their jobs correctly, they had nothing to fear.
They especially had nothing to fear because Delovoa hadn’t made the belts. They were basic synth bindings with no special properties at all other than being cheap. That was the power of Delovoa’s name that it could turn a thin strap of synth into a virtual mind control device.
The women from the Royal Wing weren’t singing any longer, they were screaming obscenities at their former husbands and captors. It made an appropriate background noise for our first training session.
I decided against guns fairly early. These were the absolute dregs of society who had been incarcerated with other dregs of society on a prison colony for years. Many of them were mentally unbalanced, to use a kind description.
Not only were they no good with firearms, and not only did I not have enough to give them, but they would likely start shooting one another or me or the buildings or the imaginary voices they spoke to.
“I thought we would be better armed,” Uulath said, concerned.
“Let’s start off with these… staves,” I said, embellishing their weaponry.
It was hard to arm them. There were so many. There weren’t enough knives or axes or swords on the station. So we got tubing that carried electrical wires. We had lots of that. It was a very hard, durable plastic about an inch in diameter. We cut them into sections four feet long and handed them out as makeshift clubs.
This was going to be a tidal wave of insane people carrying sticks who had been promised freedom if they killed enough bad guys. If I was a bad guy and I saw this body coming at me, I would have a strong desire to not be so bad, and in the opposite direction.
I got on my heavy lifter and we took off. The Murderers marched at the rear of the column and were to let me know if anyone broke off or misbehaved.
I estimated there were a little over four thousand in the Belvaille Militia. Only about a hundred people didn’t join from the Royal Wing and it was because they were too old or sick to safely travel.
Looking back at them didn’t give me a lot of confidence in their abilities. But the cynic in me realized this was at least one way to deal with the Royal Wing population.
Of course, if they figured out those belts didn’t do anything they’d just run off into the west and meld with the feral kids.
I had word that the Sublime Order of Transcendence was fighting with the Olmarr Republic about forty minutes away.
Both factions had essentially gone berserk. When Peush was murdered by 19-10, the Republic started beating on anyone that was in their way and organized. I guess their goal was capturing the election if and when it came about—or they were just angry.
The Order dropped the cutesy act and mobilized their army, which was the most well-equipped force on the station. I couldn’t dream of giving my Kommilaire the weapons the Order possessed.
The Republic was far more organized and far more numerous, but the Order had more money and more support.
But neither of them had the Belvaille Militia, which emerged several blocks from the skirmish.