10250 Santa Monica blvd. 90067.
AMC 15
Theater: 03
Row: T – V
Seat: 9 – 11
Method: panic
Status: bp 56/35
Disposition: Roll collection
“Well, duh” Andrew mumbled to himself as he bounced from the desk chair. Andrew, always working on one secret project or another could never ignore ‘The Bat Phone’ when it sent an electrical signal right to his heads-up display. This was the third collection emergency this year.
Andrew now in a dead sprint yelled to Car “DOOR OPEN! Nav AMC 15 Century City! Maximum safe speed.”
“Hello, Andrew. How fast would y…”
“Maximum safe speed. Ignore lights.”
C.A.R. took the mag rail route designed especially for commuter trains. This, of course is strictly verboten and will result in permanent death if mistimed. But, C.A.R. knew what she was doing – though not sapient – C.A.R. was programmed with an faux AI complete with decision trees unequaled in marketplace counterparts. This was a special project of the s0matic Corp and as the Chief Operating Officer, Andrew had the keys to the kingdom and to C.A.R.
Andy was the fixer and sent for the recovery team, which, tonight, would be Mara and David. Andy was blithe to be working with such smooth operators. He did suspect they were dating for the past three months, though it was impossible to prove because they are very impressive. He wouldn’t need to make the scene – he would instead peel off when he got to the theater and support Trayvon with whatever he needs.
He arrived at the theater in about 20 minutes. One great thing about LA is your only ever 20 minutes away from anywhere. Need to get to the Getty? Take the 10 East to 405 North – 20 mins. Need to get to Staples Center? Take the 110 North and exit on James Wood – follow the asshole in front of you to see the Kings lose again – 20 minutes. Need to get to The Abbey from Paramount Studios 4 miles away? Take Melrose Westbound and make a right on Robertson – 20 minutes.
“PosDNW” was the first message from Tre. It was an abbreviated code that let Andy know they were in the clear for a clean extraction. Extractions were rarely ever clean. If there were witnesses they could be fooled, but sometimes they had to be bought. Even witnesses you bought didn’t always stay bought. So, you’d have to continually visit them to remind them of their NDA and of the payment agreement. We learned you can never just one-and-done pay a person and expect them to stay quite. But, a monthly payment… most people keep their mouths shut. We call it a consulting fee and it’s set up through a privately funded corporation – not even a shell, there’s no link to s0matic whatsoever. There’s the corporate paperwork, a fake identity, bank account, and that’s it. Cash is deposited, payouts are debited and witnesses are monitored.
Very rarely do you have to have to discredit somebody. Discrediting is a lot less taxing on the soul than threatening somebody. We tried that a couple times with abysmal results. If you’re going to threaten somebody with physical violence, you have to actually be willing to carry out the battery portion of the assault. Violence was never really our thing – but we can discredit you, pull your funding and make you damned near unemployable until the cows come home. Why is this important? Because when the founder of a s0matic corp’s body is rolled out after being shot to death in a Century City cheap theater on a Tuesday night – people ask questions. Questions like “Why was the arguably most powerful business leader in the world going to this theater?” and “Who would want to kill Jacob?” and “Didn’t he know corn-nuts are loud and have a dry-choking scent?”
This news must never reach the headlines and that’s why we pay out about a million dollars a month so far from our “discretionary” fund – yeah, we thought that was clever, too.
