Page 17 of Mongrels United
If he really thought he should look inside.
Did he want to? That was really why he was sitting on the floor, ignoring the mess around him.
Whatever was inside the box should probably stay there. He should recycle the box, seal up the compartment and fail to mention to the landlord that it was there. No one else would ever find it, if they didn’t already know it was there. It was only because Nash had been born sneaky and had grown even sneakier over the years, that he’d found it at all. It had been very well hidden.
And that was the problem, right there. This box and the compartment it was in didn’t match with what he knew of his father. Nason Wheelock had been unpleasant, lazy, and unambitious—ironically, all faults he’d constantly assured Nash werehis.
Nason wasn’t a man who kept unbreakable boxes in hidden holes. Not the man Nash knew. Apparently, he didn’t know his father as well as he thought he did. Had Nason died thinking this secret would never be uncovered?
Given what the old man had thought of Nash, it probably never occurred to him that Nash would find the box.
It was that realization which let Nash pick up the box and rest it on his knee so he could get at the inputs. There was a secret in here that his father had taken to his death. As wrong as Nason’s judgement was of Nash, perhaps Nash had been just as wrong about Nason.
He needed to find out.
He pulled out from his inner jacket pocket the soft wallet of tools he always carried with him—a habit formed many years ago that still came in handy even in these days of luxury and soft living. He chose the finest pick and a secondary lever and went to work on the inputs.
It took ninety-eight seconds for the seals to click open. He was out of practice.
He put the tools away, put the box on the floor and opened the lid.
For a moment, acute disappointment touched him, for the box was nearly empty. The degree of his disappointment told him how much he had been hoping to find out he was wrong about the old man, that whatever hidden life Nason had lived would….what, exactly? Redeem him?
“People don’t get to redeem themselves,” Nash told the empty room. “That’s just in fairytales. They get to live with the shitty consequences of their sins, which is just the way it should be.” He’d made his own peace with that fact, a long time ago.
He picked up the little bag sitting in the back corner of the box. It was a dull brown, worn fabric, and about the size of his palm. It closed with a drawstring.
He shook it.
A barely heard rattle. Something was in it. From the lightness, he had guessed it would be empty.
Curiously, he opened the bag and tipped the contents onto his hand.
Tablets. About fifty of them, half the size of his thumbnail. Unmarked, white compressed powder, the kind that Camilla liked to acquire from dark sources—yet another reason she liked Nash’s company. He knew everyone who knew how to make tablets like this.
“Damn, Nason, you took uppers?” he said to the room, a smile forming. The old bastard had needed a prop, after all.
He pushed the tablets back into the bag. He’d get them checked out. They were not of a shape he’d ever seen before—and he’d seen plenty. If there was another supplier setting up, he wanted to know about it. Maybe he could slice himself a cut of the business.
Nash got to his feet and shoved the bag into his jacket. He recycled the empty strongbox, then glanced around the apartment. There was nothing here that he remembered from growing up. Nothing he wanted, anyway. He would tell the landlord to sterilize it and take the credits, just as he planned.
As he had already intended to head for the Aventine, anyway, Nash walked briskly straight through the Wall District to the main markets of the Aventine. No one ever bothered him, even when he walked alone. Not anymore. They wouldn’t like the consequences if they did, and they knew it.
The chemical processing administration office of the tiny science institute was in the tower corner of the Aventine. It was remarkable how luxurious the accommodations could get when graft and bribery were liberally applied.
Nash didn’t like scientists as a general breed. He’d met too many rotten ones. He had several of them on a financial leash, willing to jump at his whistle. Far too many of them he’d seen stuff their spreadsheets with fake transactions to cover the bribes they took. Nash had paid of scientists to buy babies for couples who wanted a child and didn’t want to play the ship wide AI lottery to be granted one.
He’d bribed others to falsify test results, or produce completely fake test results. Still more would make psych or physical recommendations for people trying to qualify for work—although it had been years since he had been asked to arrange that.
No, he would never trust scientists, even though having them to hand made life a lot smoother.
Engineers, on the other hand, were a whole lot harder to bribe. Generally. There were rare exceptions, but engineers, on the whole, were well respected for a reason.
Nash wound his way toward the corner tower, then up the lift shaft to the sixth floor. The top floor, of course. Only the best for Djuro Rim.
Rim was in his laboratory-office as usual. He was always working, even this late in the day. He smoothed down his wrinkled coat when he saw Nash. Possibly wiping off his damp palms. “Hyson,” he murmured, his voice strangled.
“How’s Anny?” Nash asked. Anny was Rim’s life partner. She had a gambling problem, which was how Rim had come to Nash’s attention. Rim had been willing to do just about anything to clear his partner’s overdue note.
