Page 95 of Exit Strategy

Thankfully, after my brief stint as a piece of living room table literature, my antics were not violent, and no one earned a black eye from me, no sprains, strains, or bruises.

All in all, that was well enough.

No one had mentioned anything funny about my time under the influence so maybe most of those things I was remembering hadn’t actually happened, and were only dreams, or morphine fantasies.

We waited for something to happen.

There was no follow-up strike team from New Eden. There was no follow-up from DHS or the Coast Guard, but then the captain mentioned that all the things he had done to get them involved and on the scene, had been anonymous. Even Sadie and Kyle’s presence had been covered and accounted for. There was nothing against a little survivalist roleplay out in the woods.

The thought was weird, but for some reason, I could see them out by my cabin, pretending the world had ended and they were the only people left. There was something actually kind of appealing about that.

I didn’t want the world to end, but I did want to live a good deal apart from it.

The counterattack came three days after Madeleine Oberisk cracked three ribs and left me with a bruise the size of a dinner plate. Anyone else would have gotten an email over it, but since Arik hadn’t allowed Callie to have one, New Eden had to post their legal missives in the LA Times. It was buried in the business and announcements section and detailed in fine print that Calanthe ne Hardy Rex was officially estranged from her husband and that Arik Rex was filing for separation. In retaliation for domestic assault and sexual infidelity, she was divested of any and all legal rights to alimony or any other compensation.

The captain’s web trawler programs sniffed the article out.

The next article didn’t need a web search bot to find, it was on the bottom of the front page.

“It’s a smear campaign,” Callie said, looking at the screen. “They’ve decided that I’mfair game, and no longer offered any of the protections of New Eden.”

“You’ll be safe,” I said, “I promise.”

“It’s not something that a fist or a gun can stop,” she said. The captain nodded, sagely.

“So, what do we do?” I asked. “We don’t just let this happen?”

“We let Fallout’s lawyers and people do their job. They’re desperate if they’re swinging like this. Once those subpoenas have struck home, then Miss Callie follows suit, filing criminal and civil charges against the lot of them,” the captain said.

“And that’s it?” I asked.

“Pretty much,” the captain said.

“Her fate is in the hands of… lawyers?” I asked. I could almost taste bile. “They’ll ruin everything, leave everyone broke, and congratulate themselves on a court case well wasted.”

“What would you do?” he asked.

“Punish the people who hurt her,” I said, my hands balling into fists.

“Lad, are you going to go try and kill Mister Hollywood action star, and the leaders of a multinational environmental crusade?” he asked. He knew I fucking wanted to.

“I already had that chance, and didn’t,” I said.

“You were thinking,” the captain said. “Keep thinking and be patient.”

* * *

I felt completely useless.

Ribs broken, a good chunk of my retirement plan finances were just gone – my cabin apparently had a tree laying through it. Despite everything surrounding me in the captain’s house, all the wealth and conveniences, I felt something growing on me. A restlessness that was pervasive, like a fungus.

Just because I had nothing to do didn’t mean everyone else was just sitting around. The captain seemed to stay relentlessly busy. He would spend hours at his multi-screen workstation, doing all the different things he did. I watched a little, as he did his business investing, moving things, buying, and selling. It seemed whatever money he had; it didn’t stay in one place long.

I did a little of the same, getting my own finances sorted back out. I thought I had been clever digging into the cryptocurrencies, but in a day, the captain caught up to where I was, and in another day, passed me. I took what he found and put it to good use. Flipping a few of my precious CryptoCoins to cash let me start throwing money at interesting investments, some jackassy, some legitimate. I never really knew which was going to take off. I had lost money on things that seemed like sure bets, and then made bank off the dumbest fucking shit I could imagine.

Kyle, Sadie, and my Calanthe were remarkably busy.

They were constantly going to this place and that place, speaking with people, lawyers, giving affidavits and briefings to legal teams. There were seemingly endless meetings with Tate and the Fallout people. There was a divorce lawyer team who Kyle had convinced to work on some sort of delayed payment.

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