04: Plausible Deniability

Nico's sitting at his desk, crunching a fingernail in his teeth, contemplating suicide. Not seriously, of course, but merely entertaining the thought, toying with it. Right now he’s thinking how nice it would be if the office ‘scraper he worked in were suddenly hit by a rogue VTOL. Or perhaps if a nuke were detonated a street or two away. Hell, he’s willing to settle for a truck to simply run him down while he’s walking home.

His thoughts won’t stop turning. Twisting. Convulsing. Like a bed of furious eels, pulsating swirls of humiliation and anger flashing through the folds. He wants to go back to the bathroom and cry again – but if he does it so soon the company chip in his palm will deduct another ten-percent penalty from his day rate, and Mother’s subscriptions are expensive. So instead he’s sitting as his desk trying to breathe away tears, hoping no one notices that he’s not actually doing any work. He’s an idiot. How could he fall for a sex worker? That has to be one of the dumbest tricks in the book, of course Jalan was nice to him, of course it felt like they had a real connection – that’s what the fox was paid to do.

Jalan’s probably not even his real name.

Idiot. Fucking dumb stupid dumb idiot. Nico leans back in his seat, the interlocking joints on the back of his chair squeaking in protest. The seventy-eighth floor of Northpoint’s central office ‘scraper is abuzz with activity, but that’s nothing new. Bryce is yelling at some reverse-financed intern, gesturing furiously at a screen as spittle flies from his lips. Pattison is yawning back in his seat, a bulky grey phone cradling one ear like a lover. In the back Margie’s pushing toward the elevator, no doubt worried the whole office knows that she’s stepping out for a smoke, even though she ‘quit’ four months ago – they all do.

None of it matters. It’s all so pedestrian, so immaterial. Blinking away his stupor, Nico stretches his fingers towards a pen resting only inches from his paw. After a brief wiggle of protest, the thing jerks suddenly toward him, as if he’s yanking it along on an invisible string. It doesn’t even fly into his paw, that’s how shit of a tether he is. Instead, the recalcitrant pen careens lazily toward him, rolling threateningly close to the edge of his desk. Nico snatches it up just in time, twirling it in his fingers.

When they aren’t dwelling on what an idiot he is for falling in love with a prostitute, Nico’s thoughts go to that strangely enigmatic wolf he met a few nights back. Alaska. A good name, if a bit unusual. It has bite to it, a nice shape and flow, satisfying to say. Alaska. Those crisp green eyes stick in Nico’s mind. So does the shiny synth-fur that ran along each one of his muscled arms. Not to forget the way he’d been hovering over a hundred-foot-drop like it was nothing, head cocked back in the rain like he was sunning himself on a beach in Ibiza. Nico wonders what it would be like to be so powerful, to be strong enough to lift a whole person with TK, to be able to see others like him through the smog of the city. Ability like that was so rare - one in a thousand, no, maybe one in ten thousand. Nico was weak with the power but most people weren’t much stronger.

Still.

Just thinking about Alaska feels dangerous, wrong, and Nico can’t quite work out why.

Leviathan, he thinks, retrieving the matte black business card from his pocket, letting the light slide across the smooth metal. He still has the hexadryne patch in there too. He meant to throw it away, but after tending to Mother he’d simply forgotten. Now he doesn’t want to. The two items are totems, physical reminders of a time when he was excited to tell Jalan how very much in love he was. He doesn’t pull the hex patch out, but he can feel the slight weight in the pocket of his trousers. What is it exactly? He wonders, eyes snapping back to the business card. To that one cryptic word – LEVIATHAN, and the address beneath.

Revolution. That’s what Alaska said.

“What’s got you so glum, huh sport?” Nico flinches, guiltily stuffing the card back in his pocket as he looks up at the new voice. Bryce always talks like this, throwing around those endearing yet condescending terms such as ‘sport’ and ‘champ’ as if they were candy. Covertly, he’s talking down to you, but you can’t say anything, because he’s ‘just being friendly’ – and that’s a sentiment backed by HR. The fur on the ferret’s head is slicked back with too much gel, and he’s nursing a mug of something dark - maybe coffee, maybe rum, but knowing Bryce both options are equally likely.

“Me? Just reviewing the...” Nico’s eyes scan across his monitor, wincing at the over-stuffed inbox of his company email. Even as he checks it the counter ticks from 2111 to 2112. Half of it’s from Northpoint itself, most of the rest is spam. After an agonisingly awkward moment, Nico finally pries a case name from the slosh of company memos and phishing scams. “Uh, Ferguson case, I mean, you know how that one was. Nasty stuff.”

“Oh, hell, do I?” Bryce agrees, nodding even though he probably has no idea. He leans against the cubicle opposite Nico’s, slurping up a sip of his maybe-coffee. Now Nico’s betting rum – it’s only eleven in the morning, but that doesn’t have much bearing up here. Bryce sniffs. “You heard about Harrison then?”

“Harrison?” Nico’s not even sure which one of them Harrison is. Maybe the guy with all the Neo-Orthodox shit on his desk? “Maybe, nothing much. I don’t really keep up with gossip. Why, what happened?”

Bryce’s face crinkles into a frown, and he tsks. “It’s not gossip, buddy, I mean geez when you say it like that it sounds so... juvenile. It’s office politics, and we know it’s always good to keep your ear to the ground. So to speak.”

      “Yeah, juvenile, ‘course.” Nico replies, grimacing. Bryce isn’t quite Nico’s boss, but he is technically above him. The ferret’s what most would call management-adjacent, and he was Nico’s mentor when the red panda first started out with Northpoint. A certain amount of ass-kissing is expected. “So, uh, what’s the current... political climate... regarding Harrison?”

“Well. I didn’t tell you, but Praxid said he’s dating that bore, Alison-something. You know she already fucked Bateman? That clown?”

Nico laughs, because he’s supposed to. “You don’t say?”

Bryce snorts through his next sip of maybe-coffee. “Right? Jesus fucking Christ, I mean doesn’t anyone in this office have any Goddamn self-respect?” He shakes his head, as if there isn’t a good man left in the world. Nico’s pretty sure a secretary was fired once for claiming Bryce had grabbed her ass as she reached across him. But that would be gossip, and gossip’s just juvenile. “Glad we got some people round here like you, huh?” And Bryce slaps Nico on the shoulder.

“Me?” Nico asks, as innocently as he can muster, as if he didn’t spend all of last night building Japanese mecha models in his underwear, his work broken up only by sporadic fits of uncontrollable sobbing, and his time spent tending to Mother. “Sure I don’t know what you mean, Bryce.”

He wants to scream. This is a contender for the most pointless conversation he’s ever had, and he has to suffer them about twenty times a day. It never ends, Alaska was right – is this it?

“Oh, I only mean you’re a good guy.” Bryce shrugs, staring deeply into his mystical Schrodinger’s coffee. “Don’t cause trouble, reliable, don’t make an idiot of yourself by fucking people you really oughta know better than to.” Nico would never do something that dumb. He just falls in love with men that he pays to fuck him. “And I mean, Alison? That skank from collections?” Bryce gags.

“Yeah, huh, what a piece of work,” Nico replies, though now he’s not sure he’s ever met either Harrison or Alison. There might not even be an Alison. “So... did you just come by to discuss the, er, politics, or is there something I can do for you?”

“I wanted to bring this to your attention,” Bryce says smoothly, as if it’s no big deal, proffering a manila folder like he’s some kind of magician. He belly-flops it onto Nico’s desk, and the red panda gingerly fingers it open. The stack of pages inside is thin, and from his cursory looking-over Nico’s guessing they’re client profiles. “I thought a good guy like you might wanna look.”

“And what am I looking at, Bryce?” Nico asks, glancing up at the slick ferret. He knocks back the last of his maybe-coffee-maybe-rum, sniffs, wipes a paw across one nostril, then simply grins. Nico flicks the paper. “Italian refugees, dubious record, an address outside the seawall... open-shut case right?” Flat denial, it’s always easier bullying poor people. Oddly, Nico’s always noticed how they seem to have the highest premiums of anyone. Ninety-seven percent of the time the Northpoint insurance division doesn’t pay out, but when it does, it pays big. The high claims draw in the greedy poors who don’t know any better than to hope they lose an arm and get set for life. If you believe people like Bryce, they deserve the scorn, it’s their own fault really, should have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and gotten a job that doesn’t exist. The whole thing makes Nico’s hide itch, but if he doesn’t have a job then he won’t be able to afford all of Mother’s game subscriptions – and then he’d have to actually talk to her.

He shivers, only briefly.

“You’d think so, yeah,” Bryce says, waggling a finger in the air. “But I’ve been struggling with this account for months now. I’m pretty sure it’s a scam, but I can’t prove it.”

“What’s the claim?” Nico asks, frowning. Scams were pretty common, but stupid in his estimation. Even if you managed to pull it off, there was no better way to have a corpo fixer pay you a visit than by half-legally stealing from one of the Big Five.

“Same shit as always, Bateman ate-it-up. The prick.” Bryce scowls, first toward Bateman, and then down at his empty mug. “Coffee’s shit here, but I can’t stop drinking it.” Ah, so it was coffee. “Claimants live near a Rextrom assembly on the west side, you can imagine the demographic. Locals say they’ve got people coming through all hours of the day, junkies maybe, or gunrunners? Their place is in the thick of Whitewall territory, so who knows?” Nico knows the name Whitewall, vaguely, it belongs to some uber-vicious gang that’s been getting traction online, mostly with hardcore nationalists that love cars. There’s some kind of species component to it too, he’s relatively sure. Either they hate wolves, or they’re wolf supremacists, one or the other.

Not like it really matters.

“Alright, fine, fine,” Nico says, holding up his paws to stop Bryce’s pitch, or at least slow it. “They’re junkie gunrunners, whatever.” They were probably normal people, but how would that be any different to his regular cases? “Why are you bringing it to me?”

“That’s the thing about you sport, you always cut to the quick, no bullshit.” And Bryce hunkers down right next to him, voice dropping to a husky whisper. “So I bumped into Erica from upstairs the other night at McClouds, and we shared a smoke, right?” Meaning they did lines of coke in the club’s bathroom, though actually saying that probably counts as gossip, and not politics. “And she was going on and on and on about how cold and icy they’re latest promo is. He’s a real asshole by all accounts, no good at all. She reckons Yuri’s looking for a softy for the next bump-up, but not a bleeding heart. He wants a nice guy, but one who gets shit done, and that’s got me written all over it, right?”

“Yeah, right,” Nico agrees, resisting the urge to sigh. The only decent thing about this conversation is the fact he hasn’t thought about Jalan for almost all of it, Bryce is simply too much of a raging asshole to be ignored. “Nice guy Bryce, that’s you.”

“Exactly!” Bryce hisses, lips peeling his smile up even further, revealing another tooth on each side. “The thing about this account though,” and he stabs a finger on the open folder, “is that they actually have a half-decent claim, fucking pricks. Now I know how to beat it, but I need someone else to paw it over to me, so I don’t look like a totally cold-blooded cocksucker.”

“Well that isn’t you at all, so it makes sense,” Nico adds, but Bryce isn’t even listening.

“All I’m asking is you back me up, sport,” Bryce says, reaching up and squeezing the back of Nico’s neck. It’s meant to be affectionate – he thinks – but mostly it hurts. “Maybe mention the fact they’re illegal immigrants in from Italy? Give me an in, so I can at least look like I considered it, but that I’m half against the idea, least in fronna Yuri.” Nico gets it, the truth simply won’t do at all. “If you do, and then I get that promotion... well, someone’s gotta fill my old shoes, might as well be you, huh?”

“You’d recommend me?” Nico asks. He can’t help it, his eyes go to Bryce’s office. Bryce’s office with a door.

“You give me this,” Bryce flicks the dossier closer. “And I’ll do more than recommend you. I’ll tongue their assholes so well you’ll just slide right into that position without so much as a second thought against it.”

“Fine, fine,” Nico replies, snatching up the dossier. He tries not to let the excitement bleed through his words. A promotion. He’s never had a door before, only cubicles. A full office, a nine-percent pay increase. He might be able to get a part-time carer for Mother. He could finally get that Himalayan Attack-Wing-Delta set he’s been drooling over for the last few months.

Oh no, he thinks, almost laughing. I’m gonna need more paint.

He could go back to Vlad’s Promise too. He could buy a night with the most expensive boy there, maybe even two of them. Nico could parade them around the bar, keeping them dressed in nothing but tight jockstraps. He could see how Jalan would like that.

It won’t make him jealous. Another voice says. The only thing he’ll be envious of is the payday. And can you blame him? You don’t have any feelings for your clients, how is it fair to expect any different of him? For a second Nico’s sure he’s about to start bawling, but then he pulls his panic under control.

“When’s the meeting?” Nico asks Bryce, who’s already standing and looking away.

“Looks like... right now,” Bryce says, taking Nico by the arm and tugging him bodily to his feet. The panda blanches, stumbling as he follows the agitated ferret into the board room. Right before they step inside the giant glass cube, Bryce slaps him on the chest and whispers, “just feed me the option, okay? Don’t steal my thunder, kiddo.”

Nico nods, and then they’re inside. They call it the cube because that’s what it is, a huge frosted-glass meeting room in the dead middle of the floor, as if letting the peons see their betters hard at work will make them forget how disgustingly incomparable their salaries are. The other men – and they are all men – are stuffy and uptight, vulgar in their mannerisms, but slick too, like spilled oil. They’ve all got the same look as Bryce; too much gel in their fur, a super narrow tie, rolled sleeves on their button-up shirt, no blazers.

Yuri, the head of Northpoint’s claims department, sits at the end of the table. He’s a stalwart komodo dragon, reclining in his chair like a great Czar of Old Russia. Flared heating lines stretch across his shoulders and collarbone, no attempt made to hide the orange veins, as if he’s daring people to comment on them. His artificial tail is made of carbon fibre interlocking joints, like the back of Nico’s office chair, only ten million times the price.

Yuri’s a big fish in the Northpoint pond, but he’s no titan. Though it has a feeder wedged in every pie, Northpoint is at its core a pharmaceutical company. It’s why the insurance department was one of the first expansions it made, once the company relocated to Anchor City – health just made sense, and then it made money. Now they peddle everything from painkillers, to heat seeking missiles, to those ugly shoes worn by rappers one time in an eight-second viral video. Regardless, as head of the insurance division Yuri Kisaramoto is still a big deal. One word and he could probably have Nico killed.

“Let’s not waste our time here,” Yuri’s saying in a scraping voice, before anyone else has even finished sitting down. He’s watching Bryce like the ferret’s a meal. “The Thessler-Vanderstrom account. This case has been open for nearly eleven months now, I’ve had two sisters get pregnant and lay their eggs in the time it’s taken us to decline these people. So. Bryce. What is the hold up?” He folds his claws like he’s making a tiny temple. Nico supposes they’re supposed to worship in it.

“The Thessler lawyer,” Bryce says, smoothing back the fur on his head, wiping the excess gel on his slacks. “She’s a real bulldog, and I say that figuratively – she’s a horse.” He pauses for laughter that doesn’t come, and Nico resists the urge to cough. “Well uh, anyway, they keep maintaining that the claimant had no reasonable knowledge, that there were no signs, no warning memos, all that business.”

“Well, it hardly looks good on Rextrom if they have signs up all over the bloody shop.” A lean hawk named Ferguson says, one long leg crossed over another. A platinum-plated Neodox cross hangs around his neck, broadcasting a small holographic sigil to anyone who has entoptics hugging their eyes – which they all do. “I hate defending the competition as much as the next guy, but we don’t have warning signs up on our factories. It’s simply bad for business.”

“It’s common sense, honestly,” chimes Olaf, a portly badger. “Just because runoff makes pretty colours doesn’t mean you should be playing in it. You live near a factory, you wear a mask outside and filter your water, everyone knows that.”

“Can’t damage our image in the name of safety,” Nico adds, but much more quietly.

“Exactly!” Bryce exclaims, seizing control of the room again, pointing at Nico and then at Yuri, before thinking better of it and hastily retracting his paw. “A fact I continually make to this woman, but she just isn’t hearing it.”

“Stubborn bitch,” Ferguson mutters under a breath, swishing some tonic water in his beak.

“I mean, the nerve on her, defending her client like that,” Nico says, sighing ruefully. Bryce gives him a wink. Nico wonders exactly when he’s supposed to jump in to assassinate the Thessler’s character.

“They want court, which is obviously out of the question,” Bryce says, throwing his paws up. A public trial is almost worse than having to pay out, the socials would jump on it, keyboard warriors DMing one another to the death over something they won’t leave their house to do a thing about. Nothing real would happen, but bad press and headlines might affect stock, and even a point-five-percent dip is to be avoided like the plague, the company would rather pay out - and the lawyer probably knows that. “I’ve been trying to make the case that they’ll lose but... this lawyer, I hate to be glib but she can’t let a dead horse die.” Another pause, another silence. Bryce recovers better this time though, he’s never been a very funny guy. “Unfortunately, the courts have been very favourable towards parents lately.”

Wait, these guys have kids? Nico thinks, glancing down at the dossier, left shut on his lap. He hasn’t even read most of it, he has no idea what this case is about, and yet Bryce expects him to just sign away these people’s future? What if they were really hurt, what if they needed that money?

But they always need the money, and you always say no anyway.

“I’ve always said it’s unfair,” Olaf grumbles. “When Helena and I split, they took bloody everything from me, just cause she’s the woman! Got a third’a my super, got my kid six weeks outta seven, even took my fuckin’ Jag. Man’s world, my ass.”

“Amen to that.” Ferguson laughs, lounging in his seat. “Serves you right for trying to bag one with good looks and a personality. You got greedy. I mean whaddawe always say?” He laughs a great chuckling laugh, the quiet wispy goat to his side joining in tentatively.

“If you’re ever fucking desperate and pathetic enough to actually need to talk with a woman instead of mounting her, you better pick an ugly one, because--” Olaf starts it, and then they both finish it together. “--there are no hot girls with good personalities!” A chorus of laughter cascades around the table edge, though the komodo dragon remains unmoved.

Nico doesn’t miss it when Bryce catches Yuri’s gaze, throwing in a nice soft shake of his head. By Bryce-standards it’s the subtlest move Nico’s ever seen.

Quickly, Nico leafs open the dossier and subtitles. He checks the QR code at the corner, letting Clancy pull up the file for him.

Oh, shit, he thinks. He was wrong before – the claimant isn’t a parent, it’s the kid. Monzcatto Thessler, parents call her Monzy. The file’s extensive, Bryce’s had a fixer do some decent work on this one. Monzy Thessler’s eight years’ old, and she’s in a school with a pretty decent reputation, for Cistern. She was diagnosed with leukaemia a year back, and the family doctor is claiming Rextrom’s local assembly-line was the cause.

Nico glances to Bryce. No wonder the ferret needs him to help kill this case, whoever does will look like a monster. Northpoint’s workers are heartless, but they aren’t dead.

“So what are your options here?” Yuri asks. “We need to close the account this month, Bryce. One way or another it’s starting to drag on the books, the board will ask questions soon enough.” The board of a Big Five company. In Anchor City they might as well be gods, and they are to Yuri what he is to Nico.

“Oh agreed,” Bryce replies eagerly, licking his lips as he glances at Nico, as if mentally preparing himself to give that hole-tonguing he promised earlier. “I’m just hitting walls; I mean I want to help these guys, but I can’t shake the feeling that something’s off here.”

Nico wilts in his chair, Bryce’s gaze burning a hole in him. He did agree to help. Could he really go through with it? Chemotherapy, radiation treatment, it all came with costs – the file says the Thessler family is already down nine-hundred thousand points in debt from Monzy’s sickness alone. With the money their claim would payout Monzy could get top-tier care, flush the cancer out in a matter of weeks. Hell, if that didn’t work, the pay-out was high enough they could just cut out everything that was dying and replace it with hardware. Better to be a cyborg than dead.

“You’re saying we should pay out, even though you suspect foul play?” Yuri asks. The room is dead silent now, and Bryce’s eyes are screaming at Nico, demanding his help. Nico doesn’t want to say anything, doesn’t want to hurt this girl’s chances.

But what choice does he have? If he says nothing and Bryce doesn’t get the promotion, the ferret will blame him, without a doubt. Nico will have made a management-adjacent enemy, and that’s a dangerous thing to have. Bryce you fucking snake, tricking me into this. No wonder I didn’t get a chance to read the file before we walked in. If he doesn’t help, Bryce will load him down with tough cases. He’ll try to force Nico to recommend paying out, and badmouth him to Yuri and his cronies every chance he gets. Nico would be out within the year.

On the other paw... Nico subtitles the picture of Monzy Thessler, against his better judgement. She’s a cute thing, a little bear with a tiny yellow bow tucked between her ears. The old photos of her playing are gorgeous. The recent ones have half her fur missing in great patches, her once plump and healthy young body withered and sagging, IV-drips and feeding bags all running in and out of her like she’s a fly caught in the middle of a spider’s web.

He can’t do this.

But maybe I don’t have to help Bryce’s case, while still doing what he wants. Nico nods to himself, swallowing the lump in his throat. That’s all he needs, a little plausible deniability, enough of a screw-up he could claim it was a mistake, that he didn’t realise quite what Bryce wanted. He’ll still eat shit for it but it won’t end his career, and Monzy might get help. He glances at Yuri. The komodo is looking for a soft touch, maybe he’ll take mercy on the kid.

“Well, uh, I noticed something,” Nico adds, shuffling the dossier so he has something to do. For a moment he is struck by the image of Patricia Townie, shuffling her own rejection report as if it’ll make the papers turn out different. Is this the same? No, Nico decides, he has some control. If he does anything good in this job, let it be this, that little girl will be set for life if Northpoint pays out, so what if his career takes a tiny hit?

Not like any of this matters.

“Let’s hear it then,” Bryce asks, leaning forward expectantly. Nico bites his lip. This is a dangerous game he’s trying to play, but this girl needs his help.

“I was looking through the file,” Nico starts, pretending to open the dossier. “And I couldn’t help notice the Thessler’s history. They’re refugees, fled here during the Italian insurrection a few decades back.”

“Terrible business that,” Olaf says, shaking his head.

Ferguson dips his beak sombrely. “Oh yes, right awful stuff.”

“Refugees, you say?” Yuri asks, cocking his head. His gaze makes Nico squirm, heat flushing around his neck.

“Y-yes!” Nico pushes, seizing the lifeline. “Their apartment is in Cistern, and I think as well as their main jobs the parents have a few side hustles, so they can make ends meet. They’re deeply in debt, to pay for their daughter’s care.” He tries to make it sound sad. This is his chance, his chance to not fuck everything up like he did with Jalan. To actually do something right. “I guess, I mean they came here with... nothing. Maybe they’re desperate.” He has to let Yuri connect the dots on his own, Nico can’t be seen to be too on their side.

Come on, come on, take the bait. Nico forces his jaw to unclench, he has to look innocent for Bryce, like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. She’s a little girl for fuck’s sake Yuri.

Olaf and Ferguson have gone silent, and Bryce is narrowing his eyes. Does he realise what Nico’s doing?

“Hmm, good find,” Yuri added, eyes glazing over in a way that told Nico the lizard was subtitling. “It’s Nico right, Nico Mercier? You’re a client-liaison agent in Bryce’s department?”

“That’s correct, sir.” Bryce answers for Nico, sniffing sharply. “But I mean, who knows what those two get up to now? We can’t just give out payments to every scam artist with a decent sob st--”

“Were they ever officially recognised as asylum seekers?” Yuri asks curiously, the way someone might ask about the weather. Nico’s heart skips a beat.

“Um...” Bryce subtitles before answering. “No.” He pauses, grinning as if realising something. “No, technically they’re illegals.”

“I think the daughter was born here,” Nico adds quickly.

“Immaterial.” Olaf scoffs.

“Filthy bludgers.” Ferguson spits the words. “I’ve got nothing against immigration, ask anyone Yuri, but it’s got to be done the right way. The legal way.”

“Oh, undoubtedly.” Olaf nods.

Yuri’s wearing a thin smile, more of a grimace on his sagging scaly face. “Bryce, that’s a very useful note you’ve got there.”

“Standard client research, sir,” Bryce replies humbly, even bowing his head and pretending to blush. “I didn’t want to stoop to it, but since Nico mentions it...”

“I’ve an old friend in ICE National.” Yuri waves a paw as if that’s nothing. “Ever since they were privatised things have become remarkably smoother. I’ll make a few phone-calls, and we’ll have the parents on a flight back to Sicily by the end of the week.”

Nico blinks, feeling worse than ever. “And Monzcatto?” He asks meekly.

“Who?” Olaf says.

“Their daughter,” Nico replies icily. “The one sick with cancer?”

“No lawyer will represent a child without a guardian.” Yuri explains slowly. “The parents will be deported, and ICE will pass young Monzcatto over to one of the child service conglomerates, who can seek out a foster family and appoint an appropriate guardian for her. All of this will take a lot of time however, and I sincerely doubt any contracted guardian will have the stomach to re-open the account. Even if they do... she’s a very sick girl, and that’s quite a ways down the track.” And Yuri shrugs.

Nico swallows, mouth dry. A little girl’s life, and he shrugs it away.

“Terrible, just terrible,” Olaf says, clutching a fist at the injustice. “Why couldn’t they have followed the law?”

“Nothing we can do,” Ferguson interjects, nodding. “We all want to help, but this is about legality. We can’t provide payouts to illegals, we’d be making ourselves liable.” As if the Big Five are liable to anyone or anything.

“Can’t help everyone,” Bryce says, shaking his head. “Damn shame. I just knew there was something suspect. If only they’d come here legally.”

I could go to a journalist, Nico thinks, as the others begin to get up and make small talk, the meeting apparently concluded. I could tell them the truth. That Northpoint deported two refugees who fled the Italian civil war just so they didn’t have to pay-out on a kid with cancer. He immediately kills the idea. Even if he could manage to get hold of a journalist stupid or brave enough to go after one of the Big Five, which was doubtful, the company would have half a dozen excuses loaded and ready to go. They’d deny the connection with the ICE corpo, they’d blather about legality and technicality, and a fixer would drown Nico in the docks.

They’d say they didn’t know Monzy was about to die, that they were only following their contractual obligations, that they had no choice – Nico had provided that much for them on a silver platter. Northpoint have their story, the company’s reputation was safe – that was all that mattered.

Maybe Alaska had a point when he said they had to burn it all down. Is that what Leviathan is? A group fighting against this kind of thing? Nico could certainly understand why they were so angry at the corpos, and at the world. He’d just helped sentence a sick little girl to a lonely death, all so a multi-trillion-point company could avoid paying out on her insurance plan. Worst of all they were getting completely away with it.

All because Nico gave them a little plausible deniability.