It was late in the workday and night had already descended, swallowing the city in brake lights and the glitter of skyscrapers. Most of the office workers at Styx, data analysts and the like, were filtering out, piling on big winter coats, mittens, scarves, and cumbersome gloves to brave the cold before sweating it out on the choked, lumbering subway.
Shane and Quinn waited in minimalist chairs, staring at posh modern art, while the personal assistant buzzed for Ms. Bhattacharyya. “Your five o’clock is here.” Though Styx mostly dealt in short selling, the boss was always looking for intriguing opportunities, particularly venture-seeding women entrepreneurs. CNN played on a flat-screen, images of the homeless crisis raging across the country as California shuffled around those dispossessed by its megafires and DHS used the opportunity to deport immigrants back to their violent, disintegrating countries in Central and South America. Victims of the Great Eastern Flood were set to lose their FEMA trailers in two months’ time, with President Love promising relief and Republicans drawing a line in the sand. Tens of thousands were still living out of cars and tents anyway, what was a few more? Finally, the assistant swept each of them with a wand before showing them in. “No phones?” the assistant asked.
“We knew not to bring them,” said Shane.
“Can’t be too paranoid these days,” said Archie Bhattacharyya, smiling as though it were a joke. Upon shaking the woman’s hand, Shane experienced a moment of shock at her brutish Long Island accent. “And please, call me Archie.”
They took their seats, declined bottled water, and the assistant finally left. Bhattacharyya took a seat behind a smudge-free glass desk. Only a computer screen, a keyboard, and a wireless mouse appeared to float midair. She was an attractive woman, short blue hair rising off her scalp in a gelled pompadour with metalloid-skeletal earrings dangling from her ears. Her crisp green blouse and furrowed skirt looked of money and taste, which was in such contrast to all the diphthongs she left strewn in her sentences.
“When I received your message, I had to ask myself, ‘Now what on God’s blue earth would possess these ladies to blow up our safeguards, waltz right into my office, past cameras, past my entire staff, to sit down for a face-to-face?’ ” Every vowel had an extra syllable. Safegawwds was particularly irksome. Bhattacharyya flicked a hand, so that a gold bracelet came unstuck from the meat of her palm. “There are only two answers, really. Either you’ve been found out, and you came to establish a rapport before you start wearing a wire, or something’s gone wrong with our venture, which I’m supposed to be insulated from.”
“Right,” said Quinn, who sat confidently with her legs crossed, hands clasped on her knee. “It’s that second one. We need to execute a corporate realignment. A new strategy for—”
“How did you find me?” Archie cut her off. Quinn’s boot scuffed uneasily against the carpet as she slid upright to improve her posture. She began stammering an explanation. Shane tried to help.
“I narrowed it down until I was absolutely sure,” she said.
“That’s opaque.”
“A few years back,” she explained, “I saw a set of our codes with this address. It was just a matter of figuring out…” Shane swallowed and shifted her road-trip-sore butt in the chair. “It was luck, mostly.”
Bhattacharyya nodded. “So you’re making moves. Come directly to Mama for cash. Why?”
“You have to see it from our perspective,” said Quinn. “Kai is using his access to control tactical decisions. Meanwhile, Shane here is trying to raise a kid and plan these operations, and by keeping us siloed from the other cells, Kai has the entire—”
“Excuse me, Ms.—I’m sorry, I know that wasn’t your real name.”
“Call me Quinn.”
“Quinn,” she said, the vowel pancaking out for an eternity. “Excuse me, but I don’t give a good goddamn fart about who slighted who at the company picnic. Skip the editorials.”
Quinn began to object, a vein rising in the center of her forehead, her composure cracking, and Shane simply spoke over her.
“One of our members was going to turn himself in.” Bhattacharyya’s eyes switched to her, and from that point forward, they did not return to Quinn for even a glance. “He felt guilty over the deaths in Washington.”
“Turn himself in? To the Feds?”
“Who else. He was going to come forward. So we did something about it.”
Bhattacharyya arched an eyebrow. “What did you do?”
“What had to be done. It’s best if you don’t know.”
Archie Bhattacharyya finally appeared to have nerves. She cleared her throat, recovered.
“Does Kai know?”
“No. Not yet.” Shane nodded, stern and thoughtful. “I guess my question is: Are you actually a true believer in what we’re doing? Or did you just see a financial opportunity?”
“Are you actually suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” she asked. “That I risked my life and freedom to get rich in a spectacularly complex manner?”
ARCHIE Blondie made her want to upchuck all over that cheap biz-formal wardrobe. This other brassy bitch was all right, though. Archie had read every book or article on body language and comm ever written and firmly believed she could deconstruct anyone after sitting across from them for just a minute. Because the plump lady didn’t look like she had any balls when she walked in, Archie was surprised and impressed to find her voice and eyes strong. She could tell the woman had a vision.
“Short selling has been lucrative for you. If you can believe in a cause and get rich off it…”
“You’re trying my patience, missy.”
“I’m not judging. Like Quinn said, we’re here to recruit you.” Bhattacharyya sat back, breathing deeply through her nostrils, and splayed her hands for Shane to continue. “We have three autonomous cells in operation now, and with a bit more money, we can have two more up and running in the next year.”
“All well and good, but the way things are going, they’ll sooner take a nuke to the Constitution then let you hit another target. I have contacts in D.C. who tell me Love is going to twist the nuts off people to find 6Degrees. He’s going to see how far PRIRA can go.” She laughed cheerily and swiped a quick hand through the shimmering blue of her hair. “Boy, this shit is unbelievable.”
“That’s why we want to change tactics,” said Shane.
“To what?”
Shane gestured to Quinn, who seemed to once again realize she was part of the conversation and dipped a hand into the breast pocket of her jacket, removing a scrap of paper. She handed it to Bhattacharyya. She read it carefully, her eyes scanning down the list.
“This is…” She searched for a word. “Ambitious.”
“They’re about to escalate,” said Shane. “So will we.”
THE LIST Archie consciously made sure not to swallow her spit in front of them. She didn’t want to hand it back too fast and forced herself to hold on to it a beat longer even though she felt like it might actually burn her hand. This shit was pure brick titties, as they said just down the LIE.
“How long would this take to put together?”
“Hard to say. Eighteen months at least. Maybe more. It has to be simultaneous and exact.”
She handed the scrap back to Quinn, who pocketed it. “Let’s say I’m interested. What do you need from me?”