Deadman Switch

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I'd been sitting at the window of my small cubicle for nearly an hour, listening to a Joussein symphonaria and watching the intricate drift of sunlight and shadow across the city from a hundred twenty stories up, when the call I'd been expecting all morning finally came. "Gilead? You in there?"

"Yes, sir," I replied, turning off the music with a wave of my control stick and standing up. The Carillon Building's intercom speakers were very good, and I had no trouble discerning the excitement and anticipation in my employer's voice. With Lord Kelsey-Ramos, that could mean only one thing. "I take it the raid is nearly finished?"

He snorted, just loudly enough for me to hear. "Is it that obvious?"

"It is to me," I said simply.

He snorted again. "Well, you're right. Come on in."

"Yes, sir." Stepping across the starkly plain room—kept so by my own request—I set the control stick down by the player and crossed to the second of the room's two doors. "Gilead Raca Benedar," I told it, speaking distinctly. The voicelock was a slightly ridiculous precaution, here in what amounted to Carillon's inner sanctum, but I'd long since stopped feeling annoyed by it. Paranoia, in one form or another, was one of the many burdens of wealth.

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