Tunnel Rat Chapter 236 (Patreon)

A difficult chapter, mostly conversation, hindered by Milo's paranoia and fear of saying too much, and Belinda being kept sequestered most of her life. Send me feedback if something feels off.
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"Hi"
"Hi"
With opening statements out of the way, Belinda and Milo settled down to an awkward silence. Finally, after sitting in silence for a moment, she started. "I'm guessing you know something about my Uncle Victor? And that worries you."

Milo took a deep breath. "I know a lot about your Great Uncle, Victor Seimovich, and his activities. You can find out a lot about him with a computer and a little logic. The question is, really, how much do you know about him?

"I know he isn't the best person. No, ignore that. He's a bad person, but he's always been good to me. I heard a lot about him when I was younger. He talked with people on the phone or to his employees that followed him around. Always in Russian, and they just assumed I didn't understand. It was a fun game I played until I understood what he was talking about. Are you worried that he's in the habitat? He hardly leaves his apartment; I think people are watching him now. Something big happened before he came here."

Milo picked up a rock, considered how useless throwing rocks at a stalactite was, and threw it anyway. "You can find out about it if you go look. It was a huge operation for Interpol. Thousands of people were forced to work in Mark 2 pods doing work online for long periods, and some died. Thousands of people. And he was the one at the top who profited. Don't take my word for it; you can find it. They were even using this habitat for part of it."

Belinda stared at him. "Oh, shit! Please tell me Big Butch wasn't part of that. Was he hurt?"

Milo shook his head. "No, he'd have been in the next wave or two. A lot of the people they used first weren't from this habitat. But they were expanding fast. But it could have been him. It could have been anyone in this hab. And Victor wouldn't have cared."

"But Daddy is doing something like that! The idea behind Manpower is people in pods working for corporations! Is he involved with Victor? Or doing the same thing?"

"No. But I think he's copying what Victor did but trying to make it legal. He has to use Mark 7 pods, which help, not hurt, the people in them, and they have a contract. I'm not worried about Manpower. I'm worried about Victor Seimovich and you."

Belinda smiled a bit, happy that someone worried about her. "Worried about me, how? I'm the only family Uncle Victor has; he won't hurt me."

Milo just tossed another rock.

"Talk to me. Why are you worried about me?"

He sighed. The damned knots weren't going to cut themselves. "You turn eighteen soon. What happens then?"

"That's why you don't have to worry about me! My trust funds have enough money in them that I can live independently and take care of myself!" Even as she said it, she realized how much she was waiting for that day.

Milo turned to her and thought hard about what he would say. "And what if, for medical reasons, a court declares that you aren't capable of handling that much money? That for your own good, you need a permanent guardian? Someone who can now access your trust funds and care for you. What then?"

She'd thought a little about that. "If daddy tries that, I'll fight him. A broken body doesn't mean a broken mind. I've passed enough courses by now to have a college degree if I wanted. A court would see that." Milo was staring at her, waiting. "You're worried about Uncle Victor? Aren't you? He's not my guardian; Daddy is. Why would Victor get involved?"

"Because Victor is a bad man, trapped in a bad spot, and you have half of the wealth of the old family. His money is gone; yours is in trust funds. With enough money, he can make all his troubles disappear and be powerful again. Don't think of him as Uncle Victor. Think of him as someone who lets people die of starvation while trapped inside faulty pods. And worse. Don't underestimate him."

Eyes wide, she shook her head back and forth. "No, that doesn't make sense! I don't have that much money! Daddy has control of most of it now, and I don't care. When I get the ten million dollars in my trust funds, I can do what I want. But that's nothing compared to what Victor used to talk about. He laughed at 'mere millionaires'; he had billions before he lost it."

"Your father is lying to you. Victor is lying to you. Maybe for good reasons? I'm not good at how family and money work. I'm still figuring that out. But there are records of financial transactions that give hints. Even at a low estimate, your father was worth 150 billion dollars when he died. Your mother was even richer. You are the only heir and get it all when you turn 18. Unless someone decides you aren't competent."

She sat, staring at him. Milo stared into space for a moment. "I just sent you the files. Reports from financial advisors, magazine profiles on your parents, and investment strategies that involved their companies. This is all public. All known. They hid it from you and isolated you as much as possible."

Belinda leaned back against the rock wall, thinking. That was a stupid amount of money. Wasn't it? But Milo wasn't good at lying and was so upset he was vibrating. He was trying to keep his promise to be truthful to her, and he was worried. Was he telling the truth? Probably. She'd have to look at what he sent her, but she was conscious of how controlling her stepfather was and how little contact she had with people outside her bodyguards and doctors. He had moved them a lot, and she'd lost the few friends she had made. She could only hang out with her new friends because Eric had pushed Daddy hard to keep his promises. Now that she thought about it, he didn't even like her being online in the game.

Her thoughts turned to Milo or Ghost. The second name fit better in some ways. She knew little about him, but some of what she did know didn't make sense. He was smarter than she was but younger. He should have been on one of the professional gaming teams, but he lived in the habitat. And then the Claw Master deal. How had he learned about the company? And he understood what the gloves did and how they worked. Most people in the hab couldn't program a food processor. She knew she couldn't.

Briefly, she considered that he might also be after part of her money. It was a stupidly large amount. But she thought about the gloves and how she was being paid to test them. He was too, and everyone else, and suddenly Big Butch and Mama had jobs, and a school was being put in the hab. Who was behind that? The mysterious Claw Master sponsoring her events, and Milo's team is coming out of nowhere to win them. She took a deep breath and tried to sort out all the mysteries, but nothing made sense except for one thing.

"You're hiding a lot of things, aren't you?"

Milo threw a rock at a stalactite and then another.

"Right. Not talking again. Got it. You warned me about Victor and Daddy and what they might do to declare me incompetent to manage my money. I get it. But there's more. A lot more! What's the problem and why won't you talk to me? Is it something about Claw Master? Some sort of NDA? I'm not going to say anything. I've only got six friends in the whole damned world, and you're one of them. I'm not going to betray your trust!"

Milo set down the next rock. "No lies. Promise?"

"Yes. I promise. No lies."

"You signed an NDA to use those gloves and wanted to know more about them and why they help you. I'm trying to do that. Part of that NDA says that Claw Master can ask for your medical records from the database kept by the A.I., Wally. When you asked me to figure out how the gloves helped you, they tried to get your medical records. What they saw was faked. All your records show you as healthy, with nothing wrong. Someone has rigged your pod to match the medical records submitted already, and all of them show not one thing wrong with you. That made me wonder why. Maybe your family is very secretive and wants to keep your treatments private. I don't know. But I know what they are doing is illegal and hiding your problems. Without the medical data from your pod, the Claw Master people don't know what is going on with the gloves, and how they help your arms. And I worry about something else."

Now, Belinda was getting angry. Angry at her father. It was just like him to do this. Keep control of her and keep secrets. She had all the best doctors, or so he said. But did she? "What else are you worried about."

"Declaring you mentally incompetent would be tough. All a judge has to do is talk to you. But what if something happens to you physically? You get worse. Have a mysterious relapse. They control your records. You've lived in different countries. What happens when some night you disappear, and we don't know where you are? All they have to do is add a drug to your pod to knock you out, and they could move you like a piece of cargo where ever they need. Pay a judge or a government to side with them, and you never wake up. It's been done before."

The bottom dropped out of her world. She hadn't played in weeks because of a problem with her new drugs, and now she wondered. She got better, then worse, in a constant cycle. Was it real?

Milo continued. "Now, take that scenario and keep going. Who knows you? Who could sound an alarm about a missing heiress and something suspicious happening? How hard would it be to get rid of some people living in a habitat? Who would notice? It would be tempting to Victor, and that's who I'm worried about, to cover his tracks, just like he's done before."

Belinda nodded. She knew only too well how often that had happened. Victor had said so himself. It hadn't seemed real before, just like something in a movie. Now? She felt horrible.

"You're worried Victor will come after you, and Butch, and all the rest. I can see that. But I promise. I PROMISE I'll do anything I can not to let that happen! I won't let Victor do something to you."

That was enough for Milo. "I need your permission to get your medical data from your pod and make some modifications to it. Then I can start figuring out the truth about your medical condition. There are people who can help. They helped me already. I need to talk to them about you more, do you trust me with that? They can protect you from Victor or your father if they try something. I will as well."

That brought a smile to her face. "Yes, I trust you with that. And I have a great idea. Daddy promised me a clubhouse and a party. I'm going to find Uncle Eric and get him on board with my idea, and all of you can come over to my place to play games, eat cheesy-chili-corn-dogs and play the video games we won. Daddy doesn't like the idea, so I won't ask him this time. It will be great!"

Milo nodded to her. "That works." He'd been planning to sneak through the tunnels into her section and do the work after he jiggled the security cameras. He was a little disappointed, actually, but her plan had food and games.

She stood up and reached out a hand to Milo. "I like this; let's keep talking. But I'm starving. There are some places to eat by the docks; we can have a nice lunch together. We can even have some fun on the way. There's a gang war going on, and I hear people are looking for you. I need a good fight to work out some frustrations."