Into the Shadows

by Jordan Weisman

  Adios, amigo. Let me know when you're going to be in town, and I’ll do vice versa, though technically I’m always in town. (Smile, dummy, it’s a joke . . . )

  Fast Jack

  * *END* *

  The condoplex smelled of recently poured plasticrete and the money that put it there. Cross stepped carefully to one side, avoiding the paint sprayer as a pair of workers walked by carrying a large strip of black steel molding. The foyer where he stood was large, but not much was visible because of the protective sheets and drop cloths hung throughout. What he could see, glimpses of marble and silver, looked like the area might have been remodeled within the last few months.

  "You understand my concern, of course, don’t you, Mr. Cross?" she said, adjusting one of the plastic sheets to better cover the table beneath it.

  "Of course, Mrs. Tyler. Paint sprayers can be messy." Surprised, she turned toward him. "What? I was referring to my daughter."

  "Oh, I’m sorry. Would you mind if we moved to another room? The smell of adhesives is getting to me."

  She nodded. "Of course. That’s why I moved into the Ritz during the renovation." She led him into a large sky-lit den. One wall was all glass, giving a view of the Sound. The opposite wall was all mirrors. He’d guessed which was which.

  "Mrs. Tyler, your daughter is well beyond the age of consent; she is her own woman," He walked slowly around the room as he spoke, while Mrs. Tyler took a seat near the window.

  "I am very much aware of that," she said, "but I don’t believe she is in full control of her faculties. Her husband’s death was quite a blow to her, you understand."

  "I can imagine. They were close then?"

  She shifted slightly in the chair. "Why yes, of course. What makes you ask that?"

  He shrugged. "Anything might be important." He’d stopped in front of what appeared to be a genuine Kincho acrylic and crystal. The sculpture, nearly as tall as he was, was of a traditionally garbed Japanese woman metamorphosing into a bird. It was magnificent.

  "You like it, Mr. Cross? My daughter commissioned it from the artist, who is a friend of ours. The woman is done in my daughter's likeness."

  "It’s quite good. How long ago was this finished? I don’t see a date."

  "Less than a year."

  "What makes you think your daughter is having problems?"

  "We were always close, very close. But now I barely hear from her. She never returns my calls or those of her old friends."

  "Old friends?"

  She nodded. "Yes, she’s recently begun associating with a different group of people. I don’t know anything about them, never even heard of them."

  "How long has she been ‘associating’ with them?" Cross asked, turning toward her.

  "About eight months, I’m told. Right after she came back from her prep school reunion. Their tenth."

  "You said you’d never heard of these new people. You know some of their names, then?" His gaze lingered on a row of framed holopix standing on a shelf across the room. He moved toward them.

  "Yes, well, one at least. A Candace Vignell. The only reason I know is that about a month ago a friend of mine happened to be at the same restaurant where my daughter was dining with that woman and a few others. My friend chanced to catch the name on the reservation screen."

  "I see. These are holopix of your daughter? Cross picked one up, a group shot, and turned to move it out of his shadow.

  "Yes, at various ages. " Mrs. Tyler said. "I will, of course, get you a copy of the best one."

  "Thank you." He glanced up at her quickly. "This one is—?"

  "Her final term photo. You remember I mentioned the reunion. The Marriane Hills School. It's a preparatory academy in California Free State. Are you familiar with it?"

  "Actually." he said, "I am. I have a friend who went there."

  * * *

  Reality cascaded into oblivion and the Matrix rezzed into existence around him. He was down low, along the baseline, mixed in with the home and cheap data systems, but hanging high above him were the megalithic constructs of the Seattle megacorps. The Fuchi Star and Aztechnology Pyramid were both clearly visible from where he was, as were parts of the Renraku construct not blocked by the hundreds of other smaller systems that filled the local telecom grid.

  Unlike some others, Cross normally didn’t mind traveling the Matrix. But he never stayed for long. It was too enticing, too real.

  He used a cheap cyberdeck he’d picked up during a run a year back. It wasn’t powerful enough for any real decking, but FastJack had gone in and reprogrammed the chips to boost its neural interface protection and strip out the corporate ID tracings. It got the job done.

  The route was already in memory so Cross tapped the Execute button and the programs did the rest. The path took him up and clear of the low-and mid-level system constructs, all of them based on the same repeating, standard iconography that marked a system owner who couldn’t afford custom-sculpting. From here he could clearly see most of the LTG. and even more clearly, his destination: the Mitsuhama pagoda.

  He accelerated effortlessly through the nearly invisible datapath and then swung wide as the deck brought him in low. He knew little about the Matrix and decking, but figured that when the Mitsuhama construct nearly filled his vision, odds were he was within its sensory perimeter. He could see data packets and bundles and the occasional persona icon entering through various accessways around him. He could even spot the figures of the guardian security systems flanking those gateways. Nothing came after him, however. Nothing responded to his presence.

  Moving vertically, he passed the first tier of the building and vectored in over the sloping roof. Ahead, standing between a pair of giant neon green pillars stood a figure unaffected by their glow. Cross involuntarily dipped toward the figure, slowing down.

  "Pretty wiz, Jack," he said, landing next to the persona icon of his friend. Cross knew that he himself appeared as a slightly stylized, graphically generated image of his meat self, but one that was obviously computer-created. Jack, on the other hand, looked as alive and breathing if he’d just stepped off the street. A slight wind blew through his short brown hair and tugged at the edges of the brown military-style jacket he wore. A simple white and gray shirt, black pants, and boots completed his image. ‘"You know, I've seen you looking this way more than twice now. People might think it's your usual look."

  Jack shrugged and smiled. "Maybe it is, sometimes."

  "I hear there's some guy in town who's decking with a period Jack the Ripper icon these days. Better watch out the world doesn't confuse you two."

  "Not likely. Besides he and I have talked. He’s odd, and it's wiz. The deck, I take it, worked fine?"

  Cross nodded. "I'm here, aren't I? And nothing came out to eat me when I arrived, so. . .

  Jack smiled again. "Hey. the yaks may have street savvy, but in the Matrix their deck-boys are jokers. I’ve got this system rigged so deep I could probably walk through eight of its levels with a marching band accompanying me. Getting you cleared for Mitsuhama’s perimeter IC was like cooking a chip. Nothing to it."

  "I’ll take your word for it. Did you turn up anything?"

  "Sure did." Jack reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a glowing red sphere that he tossed over. Cross grabbed for it and stared.

  "Um, great. What do I do with it?"

  "Put it in your pocket and your deck will know to accept the cross-load from me."

  Cross placed the sphere in the pocket of his digitized long coat and noticed that the glow vanished as soon as he did so. His image wavered for a brief moment as the actual data passed between them. Jack's icon never flickered.

  "There’s more in-depth stuff in the file, but I'll give you the news-flash version. Candace Vignell’s family is one of the new French aristocrat families than can trace their maybe-blue bloodlines back a couple of hundred years, nudging and fudging all the way, to somebody of supposed noble blood. So, since a few DNA strands might actually have d
ropped a couple of branches down the family tree they, therefore, are important too.

  "Her real family name is Lauren, but Mom and Dad stripped that from her when she was nineteen, about twelve years ago. Punishment for getting pregnant by a radical poli-clubber who was wanted by the police for a series of Euro-bombings.

  "They shipped her off to California, under an assumed name, to a stylish prep/finishing school on the coast called—"

  Cross’s icon raised its hand toward Jack. "The Marriane Hills School?"

  Jack laughed. "Better watch it, Brandon. There are little stopwatch icons dancing around your head as we speak. I gather you’re developing connections?"

  Cross’s image shrugged and he stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. "Some. Go on."

  "Right. Anyway, she did her time there for four or five years—I can’t remember, but it’s in the file—and then ran the L.A.-Hollywood party circuit for a few years before getting involved in a scandal involving twin simsense stars, a corporate exec, and a giant go-motion dinosaur—"

  "You’re kidding."

  "Nopers. It’s in the file. There’s even a grainy two-d photo. Riotous stuff. Anyway, that pretty much ended her sojourn there. After that she spent a couple of years in Denver."

  "Did you ever see her there?"

  "Denver’s a big town, Brand."

  "Never mind."

  "Resuming . . . she got her butt out of there fast when the Sioux Sector cops posted a warrant and a bounty on her for giving half a dozen diseases to some local politico. She ended up in Seattle."

  Cross winced. "Why aren't I surprised?"

  "Because you know she’s in Seattle now, and my story had to end up there eventually?"

  "Go on."

  "Resuming, she soon surfaces as a regular habitue of the Pulse, the terminally chic simsense parlor in Bellevue. Instant local celeb, cult of personality, the whole bit. Then, suddenly, about a year ago, zap. Nothing. She’s gone. Gone from the parlor scene and gone from her flat. Everything. Supposedly a whole drekload of people looked for her, but they must have had soy for brains if they didn’t find her. All she did was move into downtown Seattle—Queen Anne Hill."

  Cross nodded. "So she suddenly went straight. Cleaned up her life and became a pillar of the community."

  "Well, not quite. Clean and straight, apparently. Pillar, I’m not so sure about. Instead of being the life of the party, she now barely has one."

  "What? A party?"

  "No. cyberhead, a life."

  "Ah."

  "Fairly reclusive, rarely seen in public, she’s got a place at the Omnipark condoplex in Queen Anne. You might be familiar with it; Knight Errant runs security. She does maintain financial contributions to various upscale charities and societies and occasionally even attends their functions. She runs with a tight group, all female, from various backgrounds, but all upper-class. Some of their names are in the file."

  "Ellen Tyler-Rand one of them?"

  "Her name never cross-checked, and I kept a careful watch for that. The only connection was that Rand's husband died at the Pulse and Vignell hung there a lot."

  Cross stuffed his hands into his pockets again, then looked down, surprised at the action. "What the hell. ..."

  Jack laughed again. "You like that? I programmed the deck so that when your EEG starts that ‘Hmmm, I’m thinking’ pattern, your icon puts its hand into your coat pockets."

  "Oh, great. What other little quirks did you code in there. Jack?"

  "Nothing you need worry about, but I’d stay away from good-looking ladies while you’re in here."

  "Jack, if I ever catch you meatside—"

  "You’d have to stand in line behind a couple dozen other chummers who also want to thrash me."

  "Yeah, so I've heard," said Cross, laughing. "Anything else?"

  "The rest is in the file, but you pretty much know it."

  "Great. Now to get back I just execute the return sequence, right?"

  "Nope." Jack had grown still.

  "No?"

  "No, it won't work until I feed your deck the release command. I piggybacked a remote-command virus along with that data packet."

  "And why is that. Jack?"

  He sighed. "Because we're not done yet, Brandon."

  "I see. I take it that’s also why I can no longer feel anything in my hands, or anywhere else? Full sensory shunt?"

  "Exactly. I electronically dropped by Janey’s earlier to say hi and she told me that you’ve become a kind of recluse yourself."

  "I don’t want to get into it."

  "Well I do, and I think you need to. You waved the rest of us off , Brandon, and we listened to you. Lynx didn’t. She’s responsible for her own actions."

  "Goodbye, Jack."

  "You can’t leave. I’ve instructed your deck to cut out all tactile nerve responses so there’s no way you can jack out," Jack said, beginning to pace between the pillars. "You can’t feel your fingers on the command keys. You can’t tell when your hand is on the connect-wire. And I trust you enough to know that you decked in from someplace private, no one watching, like I asked."

  Cross shook his head. "I don’t have to touch anything to jack out. I figured you’d try something like this, so I wrapped my leg around the power cord. All I have to do is thrash—" Reality returned to Brandon Cross with the crack of a neurological whip. His vomit trashed the deck.

  * * *

  "Martin, tell me something I don’t know." Cross’s headache was fading, but the wail from the house band, something called Mercy Killing, was threatening to revive it. He decided he hated crash bands.

  The ork shrugged his shoulders and tried vainly to adjust his great bulk into a more comfortable position. "Next time, Brandon, let me choose the meet spot, okay? These chairs are for anorexic dwarfs."

  "No way. Last time you picked the place, I suddenly found myself trying to justify why I hadn’t goblinized to a half-dozen of your closest, alcohol-drenched friends."

  The ork laughed loudly and smiled, the bristles he called a beard rustling audibly. "Touche, chummer."

  "So, is there anything at all that you can tell me about her?"

  "Nada. She’s an odd one. Goes through the motions of life, but doesn’t seem to live it. Very insular, only her and the group of six she’s always with."

  "Only those six?"

  "That’s it. No others, except on the most casual level. Those seven women are their own world."

  Cross looked up. "Seven?"

  The ork smiled. "Yup, I made the same connections. No indications of magic, though.

  "I did find something else, however. FastJack would seem to be slipping if I was able to turn it up through my contacts at Lone Star and he wasn't."

  "I'll bet the fact that you are Errant’s liaison to Lone Star had nothing to do with it."

  "Of course not. They told me because they liked me," Martin said. "Anyway, what I was able to turn up was that Ms. Vignell’s name showed up in two separate missing person’s cases in the last year."

  "Oh, really?"

  "Yepper. Danielle Alcene-Davies, the wife of a VP at Saeder-Krupp dropped off the face of the earth about six months ago, and Kyra Shon, supervising director of marketing for the Seattle News-Intelligencer, vanished about four months back. Both are still missing."

  Cross nodded. "How did Vignell factor?"

  "She was listed as an acquaintance of both women."

  "Thin," said Cross. "I'll bet half of Seattle’s upper crust were also their acquaintances."

  The ork laughed. "Quite possibly, but I wasn’t name-matching for everyone."

  "Point. Nothing more than that?"

  "No. Nothing."

  A waitress passed, eyed them both speculatively, and then continued on. She paused briefly at a nearby table and tried to interest two burly customers in some soykaf. They declined. attempting to look as inconspicuous as possible. Cross grinned.

  "So when’d they saddle you with the escort, Martin?"

&n
bsp; The ork snorted. "Been policy for a week. If you’ve got a command post, you’ve got a pair of shadows. Word came down from Detroit following the After Hours fiasco."

  "Any luck IDing the trigger?"

  "Yeah, get this; it looks like Eric Ward was hit by a stray."

  "Spirits, you’re kidding."

  "Nope. Our ballistic boys and Lone Star’s both confirmed it. The sniper’s target was a guy named James Yoshima, an exec at the Natural Vat corporation. Eric just happened to be walking out of the club at the same time."

  Cross shook his head sadly. "Damn. Figures, though. He had, what, two years before he got out?"

  "One and a half. They tagged the triggers. Two shadowrunners named, get this, Smilin’ Sam and Johnny Come Lately. Lone Star took them down hard; I saw the bags myself. Pair of punks. For their sake, I hope there’s a hell. Something smells, though. The boys can’t finger it yet, but . . .

  Cross nodded and waited until the waitress had moved on and the muscle had gone back to staring at her. "And the other thing?" he asked.

  Martin sighed. "The only reason I’m doing this is because I trust you, Brandon. I trust your judgement, always have. I don't like being asked to yank data from the company that pays my bills, especially since you are one level above persona non grata in certain circles."

  "Believe me. Martin, I understand. And I appreciate it." The ork snorted. "You damn well better. Before I tell you what I turned up. you got to promise me something."

  "Sure."

  "As soon as you can, you tell me what's going on."

  "This has nothing to do with Errant, I’m—"

  "The frag it don’t, Brandon. The second you asked me to run the data, it had everything to do with Errant. That and the fact that a certain ranking lady of our mutual acquaintance is in Vignell’s mystery group is reason enough. I ’in in the security chain, Brandon. It’s my job to be paranoid."

  Cross nodded. "All right. If it becomes relevant, I’ll bring you in."

  The ork smiled and leaned back. "Deal. I ran the names you gave me. Nothing on Ellen Tyler-Rand or Candace Vignell, but I already told you what Lone Star had on her."

  "And nothing on Kristen Worthly?"