The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [106]
Because it’s not a TV. It’s a flat-screen PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition.
They can’t be that dumb. It’s got to be a trap, I gibber to myself. Not even the clueless cannon-fodder-in-jumpsuits who staff any one of the movies on the shelf would be that dumb!
Or would they? I mean, they’ve got me locked in a broom closet on the bastard’s yacht and everything else is conforming to cliché, so why the hell not?
I randomly pull one of the DVDs down from the shelf—it’s Thunderball, which seems appropriate although this yacht makes the Disco Volante look like a bath toy—and use it as an excuse to run my fingers around the rim of the TV. There’s a slot for discs, and then, just below it, the give-away: two small notches for USB plugs.
Bingo. Okay, they weren’t totally stupid. They took the keyboard and mouse and locked the PC down in kiosk mode with nothing but a TV remote for access. With no administrator password and no keyboard and probably no network connection they figured it was safe. You figured wrong, I admonish them. I push the disc eject button and a tray pops out, and I stick the movie in. Returning to my chair I pick up the cummerbund and bow tie and drop them on the desk in front of the TV. What else? Oh . . . I pull on my jacket, frown, then casually take the pen from my inside pocket and toss it on the desk. Finally I sit down and spend the next five minutes doing the obvious thing in the most obvious way imaginable, just in case they’re watching.
I’m about ten minutes into the “Making of . . .” documentary feature when suddenly the door opens. “Mr. Howard? You’re wanted upstairs for a breakfast meeting.”
I turn round then stand up slowly. The guard stares at me impassively from behind his mirrored aviator shades. The uniform hereabouts tends towards black—black beret, black tunic, black boots—and so do the guns: he’s not actually pointing his Glock at me right now but he could bring it up and nail me to the bulkhead faster than I could cover the distance between us.
“Okay,” I say, and pause, staring at the weapon. “Are you sure that’s entirely safe?”
He doesn’t smile: “Don’t push your luck.”
I slowly move towards him and he steps back smartly into the corridor before gesturing me to walk ahead of him. He’s not alone, and his partner’s carrying a cut-down Steyr submachine gun with so many weird sensors bolted to the barrel that it looks like a portable spy satellite.
“How much is he paying you?” I ask casually, as we reach a staircase leading back up to owner territory.
Beret Number One grunts. “We got a really good benefits package.” Pause. “Better than the Marine Corps.”
“And stock options,” adds the other joker. “Don’t forget the stock options. How many other dot-coms offer stock options for gun-toting minions?”
“You can’t afford us,” his partner says casually. “Not after the IPO, anyway.”
I can tell when they’re trying to fuck with my head; I shut up. At the top of the stairs I glance over my shoulder. “Door on the left,” says Beret Number One. “Go on, he won’t bite your head off.”
“Unless you make him eat his hash browns cold,” adds Beret Number Two.
I open the door. On the other side of it is a large, exquisitely paneled dining room. The table in the middle of the room is currently set for breakfast and I can smell frying bacon and eggs and toast and fresh coffee. My stomach tries to climb my throat and chow down on my sinuses: I am hungry. Which would be great except I’m simultaneously exposed to an appetite-suppressing sight: two stewards, the Billingtons, and their special breakfast guest, Ramona.
“Ah, Mr. Howard. Would you care for a seat?” Ellis smiles broadly. Today he’s wearing one of those odd collarless Nehru suits that seem to be de rigueur for villains in bad techno-thrillers—but at least he hasn’t shaved his head and acquired a monocle or a dueling scar. Eileen Billington is a violent contrast in her cerise business