Binding Foxgirls III Read online

  I made my way through the desks and into the elevator which whistled and whined as it made its way all the way down to the ground floor. Flickering green, blue, and purple lights followed me all the way down, and through the see-through walls, I observed exactly what I anticipated.

  A throng of reporters pressed up against the glass front doors of TelCorp headquarters already, banging on the windows and watching closely for me to appear. I imagined they were at my apartment building, too, waiting for me to show up, unsure of which building I was currently in.

  “Hello, everyone,” I said, bursting through the doors and out onto the front doorstep nonchalantly. The crowd quickly made room for me on the doorstep which had been covered with reporters until I showed up. Predictably, they all started talking at once.

  “Mr. Joch, do you have any comment on the break-out of Achilles Tibor at the Void late last night or early this morning, depending upon the report in question?” the nearest reporter asked, practically shoving a microphone in my face.

  “I was very sorry to hear of the incident,” I began. “I must join with Prime Minister Halit in assuring everyone that Termina’s finest are on this case already. TelCorp will be working closely with law enforcement and Parliament to get to the bottom of this issue and bring the offenders to swift and proportional justice.” I raised a finger. “However, I wish to clarify some of the Prime Minister’s points and say that while it is clear that some kind of terrible mistake was made when it came to security at the Void regarding this incident, I have full confidence that working together, we will be able to address the issue.”

  “Do you attribute the failure of security to the transition from TelCorp to government control on the island?” another reporter asked.

  “I’m not sure what to attribute it to yet,” I said, before quickly clarifying. “You have to understand that we all just found out about this mere moments ago. It will take some time for us to do the necessary evidence-gathering and come to any definitive conclusions. I will say that the presence of both TelCorp and government guards would have given me more confidence in the Void’s security, not less, though it’s possible that there was some kind of slip up due to the transition.”

  “What would you say to those with concerns about Achilles Tibor and his associates running free in the city?” another reporter asked, and looking around at all the reporters’ faces, I realized that for once they weren’t just hungry for the story and looking to stir up drama. They were scared, and they were right that pretty much everyone in the city probably was, too.

  “It’s important to remember that in the binding civil war, every single one of the binders that Achilles Tibor had at his disposal was killed,” I reminded them. “We bested them, and the only binders who remain in Termina are at TelCorp. They’re on our side. So even free, Achilles has far less brute force and strategic acumen at his disposal than he had a mere ten days ago.”

  “If that’s true, how is it that he managed to break out of the most secure prison in the world, as Prime Minister Halit referred to it?” another reporter asked.

  I suppressed the aggravated sigh I so wanted to let out. “That is an excellent question, and I won’t lie and tell you that I have an answer. Achilles Tibor is an extremely dangerous man, but the others who were imprisoned with him are low-level brawlers and other street thugs used as cannon fodder in the recent battles. And while he’s an incredibly intelligent man with an unparalleled strategic mind, he’s not much of a physical fighter himself. He looked to others for that, and those others are dead.”

  “So what are you going to do about it, Mr. Joch?” the same reporter pressed.

  I raised my hands to indicate this would be the last question I would answer. “As I said, we’re going to be working tirelessly to make sure that isn’t the case until we get to the bottom of this. We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again now. In the meantime, it’s important that every citizen of Termina follows law enforcement’s advice and directives to keep themselves safe, and it’s also important not to panic. We have our best people on this. And our best people are the best people.”

  With that, I turned to head back inside. I wanted to end on a positive note before any of the reporters could jump in and try to monger up any more fear. This was going to be an interesting week. I’d had a lot of those lately, but that just meant that I was ready for whatever was coming.

  Or at least I thought I was.

  4

  I took the elevator all the way back up to the top floor, but this time, I didn’t go back to my office. I needed to go to the board room, which was almost hidden behind the binder desk room off to the left. A swipe of my ID card at the door let me in. I allowed only the select few TelCorp employees who were members of the board to go in there.

  Behind the first door was an extra layer of security, a long, cylindrical bronze hallway leading to another giant metal slab of a door. I scanned my ID card again to open that one, as well. It roared open with a low banging sound, as the door was heavy for yet another layer of protection. The board room itself consisted of a long, round bronze table to match the door, as well as a bunch of tech hung on wall racks for us to use. The main reason for the security was to keep what was discussed in the meetings themselves secret, not because we had anything critical hidden there.

  No one else was there yet, which I’d expected since I hadn’t seen anyone try to get past the gaggle of reporters yet, and because I was the only one in the office early that morning. That was the one thing in my leadership style that I modeled after Elias Berg. Coming in really early in the morning gave me the peace and quiet I needed to get things done and prepare for the day ahead. Apparently, that also helped me be around when a crisis struck.

  This was the second time in a month I’d gotten an early morning phone call with news I did not want.

  There was some activity in the room, though. Service drones deposited the catering for the meeting on the table. They carefully set out trays of pancakes, bacon, sausage, waffles, and fruit of all sorts that filled the room with a more-than-pleasant aroma. That’s when it hit me that I hadn’t bothered to eat breakfast myself with all that was going on. So I sat down to do so at long last. I made myself a plate and dug into some waffles, piled high with strawberries.

  Just then, the door clunked open again and the foxgirls, Cindra, Kira, and Kinley, came streaming through, closely followed by Clem and Lin, another TelCorp binder I’d come through the ranks with and a non-profit worker I’d convinced to join us when I took over the company. The foxgirls’ furry features and fiecer eyes turned on me, and their fluffy tails flicked in the air behind them, and I felt warmer just seeing them.

  “Malthe should be here in a few minutes,” Cindra said, rushing to sit down next to me. Her motions were quick with worry and concern etched across her fine features. “He got a late start.”

  “Doesn’t he always?” I grinned. Malthe was a good guy, but he was a real dumbass sometimes. Lucky for him, he was the best hacker in the world.

  Cindra didn’t laugh, however, which must’ve meant she was really worried. She never missed an opportunity to poke fun at her future brother-in-law. Her fluffy fox tail flicked in the air nervously as her dark auburn brows furrowed together in concern.

  “What’s going on, Nic?” she asked, turning to face me. “Why is this happening again?”

  I could feel in our bond, the one I’d made between us in the spirit world when I freed her from a life of enslavement to a TelCorp client, that she was more worried than she had been since that first fateful day we met.

  “It’s not happening again. It’s just another hurdle.” I squeezed her hand reassuringly. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to figure this out. We always do, don’t we?” I gave her a small smile, and she smiled back weakly.

  “I know,” Cindra admitted. “It’s just that I really wish we didn’t need all that for once. That, for once, things would just go according to plan.”

  �
�Now that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?” Clem’s voice boomed as he came up next to her and snatched a pancake off a nearby platter, folding it and shoving it into his mouth whole. Then he took his regular seat on the other side of me and propped his feet up on the table.

  “Life’s more interesting this way,” he said through a full mouth as he swallowed the pancake.

  “Interesting?” I laughed and shook my head at him. “Interesting is how you got that beamer.” I pointed to his blackened and bruised face, healing slowly from a wound he’d taken from one of Achilles’s goons down in the tunnels where Tibor Enterprises used to be hidden.

  “Fair enough.” Clem shrugged. “If that’s the price I pay for interesting, so be it.”

  “You weren’t singing that tune a few days ago,” I noted. The whole operation in the tunnels freaked out my friend after our first venture down there had gone so horribly wrong.

  “The passage of time’s given me perspective.” He shrugged and reached for another handful of pancakes, and we all laughed then, even Cindra.

  Then there was another clunk at the door, and the rest of the board filed in, except for Malthe, who was still missing. He had a long trek from his home on the south side, even without getting a late start to the morning.

  “What’s going on, Joch?” Semra, a trusted binder who had helped us find Achilles the first time, asked me, her long blonde ponytail whipping out behind her in characteristic fashion. She was a hard person, but damn, she was good at what she did.

  “That’s what we’re gonna need to find out,” I said grimly.

  “No hiding anything this time?” she asked, giving me a pointed look.

  “No hiding anything this time,” I promised, and she and the others who’d come in with her looked satisfied. The last time, my main group and I had kept some things from the rest of the board, just in case anyone was working for our enemies. But they had all turned out to be trustworthy, thankfully.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Semra asked, sitting down next to me. “You do have a plan, don’t you, Joch?” She gave me another one of her pointed looks.

  “That’s what we’re here for.” I flashed the whole table a grin. “But first, help yourselves.” I gestured to all the food arranged on the table, and they all slowly, tentatively started to fill plates for themselves from the assorted platters. We barely got started when Malthe came bursting in the room, out of breath and hunching over his knees.

  “I got here as fast as I could,” the skinny, nerdy little man panted, a streak of dirty blonde hair misplaced across his thin face. “Sorry. I… stayed up late last night.”

  “Don’t you always?” I chuckled, arching an eyebrow at him. The hacker had a penchant for getting his best work done at night.

  “Yeah, I just…. I’m sorry,” he panted again, holding a stitch in his stomach with his hand. “And then all the reporters… they practically accosted me outside.”

  “That’s what they do,” Kinley said, rolling her eyes. “I wish we could just throw the lot of them in the Void.” Several others murmured their assent to this.

  “We need the press,” I reminded the board. “They keep people informed, though I agree they could be a bit less sensationalistic about it.”

  “A bit?” Cindra repeated, and it was her turn to arch an eyebrow at me.

  “Okay, maybe more than that,” I laughed back at her. Then, to Malthe, who was still keeled over, his hands on his knees, “Sit down, catch your breath. We’re just getting started. You didn’t miss much of anything.”

  “Okay,” Malthe said, his breathing still labored. “Okay.” He pulled out a chair and slumped down in it in his usual seat between Kira and Kinley. Kira poured some water for him, and he took it gratefully.

  “So, how d'you all get past the reporters?” I asked the room. “I was down there a bit ago, and they’d practically surrounded the place.”

  “Well, we made them make a path for us,” Cindra said. “They hammered us with questions, but we just deferred to your statements from earlier.”

  “Semra just barked at ‘em for us,” a male board member, a corporate guy named Warin, said, jutting a thumb in Semra’s direction. “They didn’t bother us much after that.”

  “Sounds about right,” I chuckled. Then, turning back to Cindra, “You saw me on the holovision earlier? How’d I do?”

  “You were fine.” She shrugged as she bit off the tip of a strawberry. “Didn’t say much, but you were fine.”

  “Well, there wasn’t much to say.” I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “We don’t have much info yet, but Halit was really fucking things up with his interview, even more than usual.”

  “Yeah, that was pretty rough,” Cindra said, gritting her teeth out of embarrassment for the man. “So, that’s really it? We really don’t know anything other than what the media knows?”

  “Nope,” I said, my lips popping at the end of the word. “Law enforcement doesn’t know anything. Every single person on the scene was killed, including the remaining prisoners, and we don’t know how or why. I’m going to talk to the medical examiner at Serenity General later, see if they come up with anything.”

  “What about security footage?” Malthe asked, as bewildered as the rest of us.

  “That’s your job,” I told him. “Try to find some, if you can, but the chief told me the tech just disintegrated. It sounds like what happened to me when I rescued Kira from that client Beaufort’s place, the one who worked for Achilles. When I tried to get rid of the footage of myself in his apartment, the second I even touched the equipment, it disintegrated in front of my eyes. It was nuts.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Malthe swung his laptop out of the bag at his hip and began to type furiously on it.

  “You’re the best, mate,” I told him before turning to the rest of the board. “So our first priority is to find Achilles.”

  “What about figuring out how he got out?” Kira asked. “Isn’t that just as important, considering how weird it all is?”

  “It is,” I said as I considered this point, “but it doesn’t really matter if we find him, does it? He broke out for a reason, right? So we want to stop him before he does anything else that endangers this city or anyone in it. He’s done enough damage.”

  Kira nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”

  “So, where do we think he is?” Clem asked. “The tunnels?”

  “Maybe….” I mused. “He left pretty abruptly, given that we literally tore him out of his bunker. He never thought we’d get that far. Maybe he left something down there, or he just wants to go back for whatever reason. It was his home for a couple of decades, at least.”

  “But the tunnels are practically destroyed,” Kira reminded everyone. “Nic and Clem collapsed a good chunk of the south side tunnels the first time we went down there, and the whole north side portion got caved in during the last battle. We’re only starting to repair them. So, how could he be down there?”

  “Right, so how’s the restoration going?” I asked Clem and Lin, who were in charge of TelCorp’s construction projects for the city. “How far have we gotten? Would he be able to get down there if he wanted to?”

  “Maybe…” Lin said, her voice trailing off as she thought this over. “We’ve been working on the entrances first, and the piping that blew up during that last battle, of course. People on the surface need that, too. It’s possible that he might have managed to get down there. What do you think? You’re on the ground more than I am.” She turned to Clem.

  “Well, he could maybe get through one of the entrances on the far north side of the city that didn’t cave in as much,” Clem said, nodding slowly as he thought this over. “We’ve cleaned up a lot of the surface level wreckage down there, but it would still be slow going getting anywhere he wanted to go. All the places of note we’ve discovered are closer to the center of the north side, under the financial district where we are now.”

  “What have you found?” Semra asked sharply.


  “Lots of paper records,” Clem explained, “but we can’t make heads or tails of much of it. Ask Malthe, here.” He gestured across the table at the hacker, whose nose was still buried in his laptop.

  Malthe barely looked up from his screen. “Huh?”

  “Tell them about the paper records from the tunnels,” Clem prodded patiently.

  Pretty much everyone knew that when Malthe was absorbed in something, he wasn’t going to be able to multitask or pay attention to anything else that was going on. We didn’t mind since he did such great work when he was focused.

  “Oh, right.” The hacker shook his head to clear it as he looked up from his laptop screen. “Yeah, I can’t figure any of that shit out. It’s like a ton of information, but we need context to know what they’re talking about. Reminds me of those phone calls we intercepted between him and his employees on the surface. We know what they’re saying, but it just sounds kind of empty, you know?”

  “Can you give an example?” I asked him.

  He nodded. “So, for example, one’s just a giant list of names. Pages and pages and pages. Thousands of them. But there’s no record of those names anywhere in our digital files. Or, for another example, there’s this document that talks about this project and goes on and on about the organization’s progress on it, but it’s all vague platitudes, no specifics, nothing to allude to what the project’s actually about.”

  “Can I see that one?” I asked him. “I’d like to know what it actually says.”

  “Sure thing, boss.” Malthe turned back to his laptop screen and began to type away. “I’ll pull it up. I scanned everything into the database.”

  “Is that secure?” Semra asked sharply. “What if they break in here to get those papers back?”

  “Secure as it’ll ever be.” Malthe grinned. “Plus, we burned the paper copies. They won’t be getting anything from us. No one will.”