17th August 2011Cass’s work had a kind of easy cadence to it. When induction was complete, the main thing she’d grasped was that there were a bunch of companies all under one umbrel, and her branch of it was cheerfully branded on her payslips as ‘Liberty Financial Solutions’. An organisation kind and holistic enough to provide a living space to all its junior analysts (albeit in a dorm bloody miles from the nearest decent nightclub or pub). Other than the somewhat grating ‘not being able to leave the area of the rurally located office’, except to go to the local vilge, which seemed to be entirely filled with people from the office, her life was pretty much acceptable. And, the location encouraged her to spend more time at work which her employers seemed to think of as a positive. At the end of the day, she was still alive and that was more than could be said for Josh. The noise of that lone gunshot still pyed in her nightmares. It was also more than could be said for a few of her other former colleagues who’d also disappeared when they’d either failed in some way or other, or had suggested too vocally that they might like to explore other job opportunities.
Cass had decided that she wouldn’t make that mistake. She was, however, increasingly concerned about what would happen when her ‘contract’ expired, as she was pretty certain they weren’t going to be fond of leaving loose ends. And she’d never, ever, heard from anyone who hadn’t had their contract extended. Even the people transferred to other Sovereign-owned companies seemed to go suspiciously quiet very quickly. So while she wanted to escape, and as soon as possible, she wouldn’t be sharing that.
Still, mostly her analysis seemed to be confined to discrediting various activists or politicians, finding links that could be used to make ‘progressive’ or ‘green’ politicians look dodgy. It was, as she told herself repeatedly, a damn sight better than spending at least a decade in prison on what - in retrospect - were jumped up charges. Her allocated solicitor had been shit, and her case brought in front of a judge she strongly suspected of working for the group. She also occasionally wondered if strings had been pulled before she got there to make sure there was no hope of a reasonable sentence. More leverage to pull her in.
Well – she tapped the desk rhythmically – at least this should be fun. Some Conservative peer who - shocking absolutely no one - had turned out to be a pervy weirdo church member who’d got careless. In this case she’d presumably be priming the ground for some bckmail. Not like the st target - she’d seemed like a genuinely reasonable person who’d made a few unfortunate mistakes. With a bit of work from, she guessed, the financial team here those mistakes had got a lot bigger, and now that target was working for them quietly undermining the progress she’d spent most of her life trying to achieve. Quite a coup for the conservative movement: her sudden transition to being right wing. It was sad how quickly these people turned given the right motivation. Although, Cass noted, here she was.
This one was a bit of an oddity though. Someone who she’d have expected to be ‘on team’, as her direct supervisor liked to say in a revoltingly chipper way. She tapped away, hunting through documents and finding links that others would often miss, sketching out the links that would be most damaging and how to best leverage them for a variety of outcomes. As she idly clicked through a series of what she now considered rather tame photos, several of which she marked as being ideal to be maniputed, she wondered what he’d done to provoke the ire of her employers. Maybe he failed to get some important bit of legistion through and that’d cost them money.
No. Best not to think about it too much. That way lies a shallow grave, at best.
She let out a slow quiet breath. Concentrate on the job at hand. Be the best at this, whatever the fuck this is, and maybe they’ll keep you alive long enough to escape.
It’d taken a while, but her superiors had seemingly noticed her ability, and she’d realised the people she was tasked with… the thought stuck for a moment before she admitted it… the people she was tasked with destroying; they’d gotten more powerful. Not really surprising. She felt a slight nausea at the thought of this continuing to escate. Of the people whose lives she’d decimate on the way to keeping herself alive. Was she really any better than them?
But she’d also noticed that since that first day with the Reverend Jackson – and his failed attempts to motivate a group of ambivalent te teens and young adults with American style evangelicism – the emphasis on the hands-across-the-ocean nonsense with those bible-thumpers had become stronger. That and a hell of a lot more pressure on dealing with the ‘green’ side stuff. Momentarily her mind skipped to wondering who was funding all of this, before she reined it back in.
Shallow grave, Cass. Shallow grave.
