Free An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) by Thomas Gondolfi

unknown, life .
    “I’ll make this right.”
    * * *
 
    Night herself held too obvious a danger . It caused decent and semi-decent people to guard themselves carefully . It gave hunters a place to lurk . It also gave camouflage and life to the hunters of the hunters .
    T he night gave rise to a backward kind of danger . With the predators that stalked the night dropping off to sleep and the daylight denizens not yet stirring, the afternoon provided, as it had for centuries, the perfect cover for the trade of thief, mugger, or in this case, terrorist.
    Direct sunlight never soiled the shadow of the lower barrio . The weak sun fought its way through the g ray smog and ubiquitous mist, just barely chasing away the darkness of the night. Sonya left her apartment wearing a black, white , and neutral pattern - disruptive cloak . She ’d made the cloak herself four years ago, weaving cat hair and energy together for a simple efficacy . While not quite as good as light - bending clothing used by the military , it served its purpose — to make the wearer unnoticed and anonymous . As an added bonus, cloaks held the distinction of being nearly the universal slum outer attire, keeping occupant and cargo reasonably warm and dry . A large sombrero bundled up her long , brown hair . The hat’s excessive brim and a green surgical mask covered a good portion of her face .  
    Fortunately , Sonya preferred walking . By losing good people, t he GAM learned years ago that lift - buses and taxis used automatic sensing equipment . They detected most high - order explosives, firearms of any caliber, and most edged or thrusting hand weapons . As a result Sonya had a four-hour walk east into the Pearl District, across the nearly rusted- through Steel Bridge —an ancient relic valued only as a tourist attraction to show people what life was like before lift vehicles . All this because the Metros objected to her cargo — fifteen kilos of high - explosive devices .
    A thick cloud of some noxious chemical hugged the ground like an early morning fog . Sonya’s presence parted the worst of the mist for a meter in either direction, repelled by the energy - laden fibers of her outerwear . The few people who milled aro und the ground level streets in the afternoon light in Lower Portland were as dangerous as working with explosives in an oven . As a rule, they all had the capabilit y to either deal with troublemakers or to be troublemakers themselves . The vast majority bore outward signs of heavy artificial body augmentation with metallic arms, ablative armor , or even artificial eyes .
    While many would be frightened if the Greenies succeeded , Sonya’s mind instead drifted to what she hoped to remake of this world — one where green plants thrived, instead of withering sickly . A world where animals roamed freely , living as they should . A world her great , great grandmother would recognize, not this burn t- out, overpopulated place without hope . A place where justice came not from the credits in one’s purse but from men equally to all other men . A world where not being registered in a computer wasn’t a death sentence .
    Any movement in any of those directions would be welcome . Her jaws clenched tightly and her fists formed and released .
    Every single day the megacorps committed new atrocities . Governments couldn’t stop them as th ey learned to bend to the will of the highest bidder, either in the form of cash or threat . The last holdout to this corruption, England , finally knuckled under to Advanced Biometrics when they promised to poison three major cities, including London , if the Genetics Freedom Law passed . Since then it had bec o me business as usual . Examples included China ’s sale of absolute mineral rights of the Province of India to Materials Matrix Corpo ration for an undisclosed sum , or the Russian Coalition ’s transfer of one third of all their nuclear devices to Priory Unlimited to prevent a war with the Czech