Binding foxgirls, p.3
Binding Foxgirls, page 3
When I reached my apartment building, a metal structure with a bluish tint that stretched high into the sky as far as I could see up into the surrounding gray clouds, a doorman in a navy blue form-fitting uniform opened the door for me with his cybernetic arm. Once inside, his partner pressed the elevator button for my floor. Air cars whooshed past it, and billboard lights beamed down on it, casting various flickering green, magenta, orange, and everything in between lights down on the shiny building.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Joch,” the elevator attendant said after the cybernetic enhancement on his left eye confirmed I was who he thought I was. “I trust that your workday is going well.”
“It is, thank you,” I said, swallowing again to push away my anger over what I’d learned about TelCorp. This was definitely not the company my father had envisioned.
The building was extravagant, the best in Termina. There were individual private hot tubs on every third floor, and if I ever needed something, I could call the concierge downstairs and have him get it for me. The roof had a great patio on it that stretched across the length and width of the building, covered in astroturf, sand, and replicated palm trees to create a beach-like atmosphere.
I’d inherited my apartment from my father after his death and had lived there ever since. I had an entire floor all to myself, and I’d painted the walls black, so it was great for sleeping. The carpet was the same bluish-green as the light back in the binding room, and in the past, that had comforted me. Now though, I felt even sicker at the memory.
I was a minimalist guy, so my apartment was pretty empty and clear of clutter. I had sleek charcoal-colored granite counters in the kitchen and an excellent professional-grade holovision player in the living room. Aside from that and the ridiculously comfortable bed complete with Dyna-Sleep upgrades, there wasn’t much else around. The place was soundproof in case I need to perform any bindings there, though I never had. My father had seen clients at home sometimes when I was a kid, but TelCorp didn’t really do that anymore. It wasn’t official enough for their tastes.
My favorite feature in the apartment was a long window stretching across nearly the entire exterior wall and giving me a full view of Termina. I could see air cars zipping across the sky and the high-speed rail trains running across the skyline, as well as all the buildings and streets in a ten-mile radius. There were billboards flashing holo-ads all over the place, mostly for binding corporations and featuring foxgirls like Cindra making kissy faces at the passersby. I could even see TelCorp’s main headquarters off to my right, a thin, tall building stretching even higher into the sky than my apartment complex. At the top of the tower was TelCorp’s logo, the slanted T surrounded by a half-circle. Elias Berg, the CEO’s, office was right at the top of the T.
I thought I might throw up looking at all of it, especially the billboards, now that I knew what I knew. I pulled on the black shade and covered the entirety of the window, something I had never done in my entire life. I was almost afraid the shade wouldn’t work anymore from lack of use, but it did, and I was glad I didn’t have to see even a hint of those advertisements or TelCorp anymore.
I turned my back on the window and walked over to my father’s old office off to the back of the apartment. I almost never went in there and hadn’t in years. It had been left largely untouched since his death when I was young. I looked in there every once in a while, just to feel closer to him, but I never really sat down or did anything in there.
But now, I had information to find. There was no way my father knew about TelCorp’s new direction with its bindings. That had to have happened after his death, and some of his records were bound to show this.
My father was almost as minimalist as I was, so the office was pretty clean. There was a long, clear desk against one wall with a shiny black filing cabinet behind it. I walked over and pulled open one of the filing cabinet’s drawers.
There wasn’t much paperwork in there. Most stuff was digital nowadays, but I knew that my father liked to keep his most important documents in paper form. He didn’t like to tell people this, keeping it between him and me so that, in the event that someone wanted to change his most important records, they wouldn’t know the physical versions even existed. There, right where I remembered seeing it before, was his final will. I pulled it out and read it.
I’d never looked at the paper version before, just the electronic one that was read after the funeral, but it was the same as what I expected. It just didn’t make a whole lot of sense in light of the new information I had been shown. I fell back into the desk chair and sighed. Why would my father hand over his company to a guy who wanted to go directly against his vision for the company? It just didn’t make any sense.
I had to go see my father’s lawyer. Well, I guess he was my lawyer now. I hadn’t really needed him for anything since the will was enacted. But I had to be careful. Alerting anyone to the fact that I knew all this stuff about TelCorp performing nonconsensual bindings would be unwise at this point.
I headed back to the elevator and went back down to the ground floor, where the doorman hailed an air car for me. The long blue car was shiny and new looking with a glass top so you could take in the whole of the city with just a glance.
“Kain Hayter’s office,” I told the driver as I hopped in the back. He nodded, and we zipped up into the sky, close up to all those nauseating billboards. I knew I could darken the glass, so I didn’t have to see them anymore, but as I found it strangely satisfying to watch the TelCorp building disappear behind us. Once it was out of sight, I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, not wanting to have to look at any more binding advertisements. The flickering lights from the ads, other passing aircars, and high-speed rails lit up my closed eyelids, a constant reminder that this newfound dark side of my city was just yards away.
It didn’t take long for us to get to Hayter’s office. It was housed in a tall black building (but not nearly as tall as TelCorp). It was full of lawyers, of course. I paid the driver and walked up to the front door. I waited a few moments for the autoscanner to recognize me as a client and then headed inside when the doors opened.
The floor was wet inside from the rain pelting down outside. Other clients must have dragged it in since the last time the cleaning bot had been through here. There wasn’t a whole lot of character to the building. It was just a collection of offices for rich people’s lawyers. It was a mix of black and gray, and the lights flickered just like they did back in the binding room. I took the elevator up to Hayter’s office on the tenth floor.
I walked up to the secretary, clicking away at her desk right outside his office. She managed the whole floor, and she recognized me immediately.
“Mr. Joch,” she said, clearly pleased. Whenever I came along, it usually meant money for everyone. “What can we do for you today?”
“I need to meet with Hayter,” I explained. “It’s urgent, just kind of came up. That’s why I didn’t make an appointment.”
“Oh, you never need an appointment here with us, Mr. Joch,” she beamed, pushing her wide spectacles upon her sharp nose. “I’ll just go get the client that’s in there now out, and he’s all yours.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary.” I waved away the suggestion. People always wanted to inconvenience others to accommodate me. It made me kind of uncomfortable. “I’ll wait.”
So I sat down outside and waited for Hayter for about half an hour. I kept looking at my black and purple smart PearWatch. TelCorp would be expecting me back soon to report on my latest binding and take another assignment. My stomach sank all the way to the ground at that thought. I never wanted to perform a binding again.
When Hayter was finished with his other client, he led him out and then gave a start when he saw me. He was dressed in a slightly oversized dark gray suit that didn’t look quite as formal as his job seemed to require. He was old, with gray hair and a bit of a potbelly, and always struck me as a bit nervous and awkward despite his stature in the business community.
“Nic,” he said, visibly surprised. “What an unexpected surprise. How may I help you?”
“I just have a few questions about my dad’s estate,” I said as I followed him into his office. Unlike my father’s office, Hayter’s was full of clutter. There were books, old E-pads full of electronic documents, and even papers scattered everywhere. An old brown couch sat up against the wall, and a window overlooked a particular provocative billboard featuring a foxgirl getting bound to a rich client. I did my best to look away from it, but its magenta light spilled across everything in the room.
“Oh, really?” Hayter asked, sitting down and picking at his scruffy gray eyebrow as he often did. “What is it you’re wondering exactly?”
I watched the man carefully over the pile of stuff on his desk. For the first time, I wondered if there was a reasonable explanation for his nervousness when we met. Like maybe he was a giant fucking liar.
“His will, how many of those did he have before he died?” I asked as casually as I could manage. Then I leaned back on the couch, draping my arms across the cushions, and crossing a leg over my knee. “I mean, he must have had a lot of them over the years. He had a lot of stuff.”
“Why, yes, of course,” Hayter continued to pick at his eyebrow as his eyes darted around the room nervously, “but I’m confident that his final will was the one most suited for his untimely death.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” I agreed, flashing Hayter a grin. I definitely didn’t want to give him the impression that I was onto what TelCorp was doing. If he was working for them, I didn’t want him reporting back. “It’s just that, well, I’ve been of age for a while now.”
“Of course, my boy, of course,” Hayter said, doing his best to smile back at me. “I hear you’re TelCorp’s top binder now. I never expected any less of you, I must say.” He pointed a finger at me as if to congratulate me. But I just felt like throwing up again at the reminder that I’d probably performed more bindings for TelCorp than anyone in the company’s history, including my father. Even he got started at an older age than I did.
“Yeah, that’s the thing,” I said, uncrossing my legs and leaning forward for emphasis. “I’m pretty great at my job, and this is my father’s company. You see, I’ve been angling for a promotion to the board for a while now, and it just doesn’t seem to be coming. As far as I’m concerned, TelCorp’s my company by rights. So, I’m just wondering…”
“If there was anything in any of your father’s wills to indicate that it should be handed over to you in due time. Of course, of course, I would expect nothing less of you than this sort of ambition, Nic. You’re just like your father.” Hayter wagged his finger at me again. He looked relieved in a way, dropping his hands from his eyebrows and giving me a slightly less nervous smile. This only further solidified my suspicion that something more was going on here.
“Exactly.” I leaned back and crossed my legs again. “I’m glad we understand each other.”
“Of course, of course, my dear boy,” Hayter said. “But I’m afraid that there is nothing in any of your father’s wills about passing on TelCorp to you. You were so young, you see, and so was he for that matter. Mak Joch never expected to die so young. Such a terrible thing, a terrible loss, I must say. I think of him often.”
“He really didn’t say anything about me?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Not in any of the wills, or any of your meetings? Nothing?”
“Well, of course, your father wanted all of his possessions to pass on to you, you know that, Nic,” Hayter said, doing his best to look sympathetic. “And he spoke many times of how much he wanted you to take over TelCorp when the time came. But again, he didn’t expect to die so young. And you were so young yourself….” He looked at me with what he must imagine to be sympathy as he repeated this.
“But there was never a conversation about any kind of provision for it to be handed over to me? Not ever?” I asked, pressing him as hard as I thought I could without drawing any unnecessary suspicion. “That strikes me as a bit off. I mean, I am his son, after all.”
Hayter’s eyes darted around the room again, as if he was hoping an answer to my questions would come running out of the walls. Then, as if a lightbulb went off in his head, he looked straight at me and answered.
“Of course, he hoped that you would take over, Nic, in due time,” Hayter said with a renewed sense of confidence. “But it was never a guarantee. You were young, remember? There was no telling what you would want to do with your life, what your talents would be. Mak wanted you to prove yourself, just like he did in his time, and that is exactly what you’re doing now.” He wagged his finger at me again and broke into a wide smile.
“I guess that makes sense,” I said, nodding slowly and looking around the room. It was possible that Hayter was telling the truth, but either way, clearly, I wasn’t getting any answers from this guy. I’d have to come back and take a look for myself. For now, I had to keep working to convince Hayder that I was just a greedy heir looking for his way to the top. “I’m just getting frustrated, you know? I want to move up so badly.”
“Of course, my boy, of course, you do.” Hayder sighed and leaned back in his ratty old desk chair in relief. “I would expect nothing less of you, as I said. You’ll get there, I know you will. Just keep working. The board understands that TelCorp is rightfully yours, I’m sure of it.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said, smiling as I clapped my hands together. Then I stood up to leave. “Just one more question before I go. Elias Berg. He seems to be taking the company in some different directions. I’m not sure my father would approve…”
“Why, what do you mean by that, Nic?” Hayter asked, picking at his eyebrow again in response to this question.
“I mean, before we did so many different kinds of bindings,” I explained nonchalantly. “I remember that from when I was little. Now, it seems like all my bindings are for the foxgirls. It’s just kind of weird, is all. It seems like Elias is leaving a lot of the old market untapped.” Hayter looked relieved at this question, and I was confident that I hadn’t overplayed my hand.
“Ah, I’m afraid most bindings are that way these days, Nic,” he said. “You know that. As for untapped markets, perhaps that’s something you can look into when you do reach the top. But I will say that in our last conversation, your father indicated that he wished for the company to focus on foxgirls. He even indicated as much in his will, the part with the instructions that went to Elias Berg when he took over. The foxgirls may be a singular market, Nic, but it is a profitable one.” His eyes darted in the direction of the billboard at this, and I could have sworn his eyes bugged out a bit, and his cheeks flushed as he gazed over the scantily clad woman.
I nearly did throw up that time.
“Of course,” I said, smiling. “I can see that. By the way, is there a copy of that part of the will that I could look at? Just for curiosity’s sake, of course.”
“Oh, Nic, I wish I could help,” Hayter shook his head, “but that portion of the will was for Elias Berg’s eyes only, just like the portion regarding you is not to be given to anyone else. But I promise what I’ve told you about its contents is true.”
All the more reason to break in and see for myself later that night.
“Of course, I don’t doubt you,” I said, doing my best to put on a sad face. “It just might make me feel closer to him, you know. To read some of the things he’s written. I go back over everything I can get my hands on of his. I lost him so young, you know. I barely knew him.”
Hayter’s blue eyes softened at this. “Oh yes, I remember, Nic, and I really do wish I could help. I’m sorry for your loss, as always.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, waving goodbye and turning to leave.
I glanced up at the surrounding security cameras, all trained on the door. I’d have to be careful whenever I came back. Come in through the windows. It was a good thing I was trained to be stealthy, just like I was trained to fight.
When I exited the building, I made sure to look at all the security cameras, memorize where they were and where they were pointed. On the outside of the building, I walked around to the side and looked up at the foxgirl billboard. There weren’t any cameras in that direction. Perfect.
4
I had the air car driver take me straight to TelCorp from Hayter’s office. They’d be expecting me back to report on my latest binding and to take my next assignment.
I used the ride to think about what I was going to do next. Clearly, Hayter was lying. That much was obvious from his strange demeanor. The question remained as to how deep into it that Hayter was himself or if he was just another one of TelCorp’s lackeys. I resolved to return soon through the window and find out for myself. I’d have to wear a disguise, something to keep any cameras from picking up on my identity. But even so, it would be best if they didn’t pick up on me at all.
After all the questions I came around asking today, I’d be top on Hayter’s list of suspects in the event of a break-in.
Evading the cameras should be simple enough, given that the ones in Hayter’s office only pointed at the doorway. If I could get in through the window while staying away from any of the other cameras, maybe hop down from the nearby billboard and stay in the back half of the office in my search, there was a good chance I could get by undetected.
But the question remained as to what I could do about the foxgirls. I knew one thing, though, there was no way I was letting this keep going, and there was no way I could bring myself to perform another binding when I knew the women hadn’t consented. The problem was that I couldn’t risk exposing myself by freeing all these girls when I still had work to do within the company. Freeing individual foxgirls was one thing, but bringing down the entire operation was another.
