Into the Shadows

by Jordan Weisman

  "My boss doesn’t appreciate frag-ups, love."

  Tikki feigns mild exasperation, like maybe she’s about to blow up. "Boss? What boss? What are you talking about?"

  "You heard of Conway, maybe?"

  She’ll ask the questions. "Who set you up?"

  "My guess is it was Conway."

  "Yeah . . She acts doubtful. "Your own boss."

  Hogan coughs, nods. "You might say I’ve been on the down side of the organization lately. Luck's been runnin’ against me, you know?"

  "Pretend I don't."

  Hogan looks at her as though trying to discern just how much she really knows then goes into another fit. like he might choke up his lungs. "It’s like this." he finally rasps. struggling to clear his throat. "You got a dirty job, you pick someone you ain’t going to miss. I don’t know, maybe this pak was supposed to get ripped off. The one thing I know for sure is that nobody but my liaison with Conway knew when I was meeting Freise. That’s Conway’s number two man I’m talking about. There ain't no way in hell anybody outside the organization could’ve known about the meet unless that was part of the plan. Get my drift?"

  This makes no sense. "Conway was acting as agent?"

  "Love, Mr. Conway don’t work no other way except as agent on somebody else’s biz. That’s the name of the game."

  "Why would Conway buy a thing, then have it stolen?"

  "Ain’t his money." Hogan shrugs. "Pass enough legal tender and he’ll do whatever you want."

  An interesting concept. "Tell me about the trog."

  "Orkie scum," Hogan says, coughing. "A real rock’n'roller, love. Teeth filed into points. Leather and chains, the whole bit. Had an orange hi-top for hair. Kind of spiky."

  "I want a name."

  Hogan hacks a bit then says, "Don’t know the bastard's handle. But I think he might be one of Prince’s trogs. He looked kinda familiar, like this go-boy I seen once with Prince. Second-rater. I guess."

  An interesting bit of speculation. She presses Hogan some, and toys with his wounds, but his story remains unchanged. She feels inclined to accept what he says, however fantastic it seems. Hogan does not appear the type to suffer agony merely for the sake of a lie. Rather, he is a little man, a delivery boy, who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and may have to pay for that with his life. Seems to be a lot of that going around.

  She leaves him his pretty gun.

  * * *

  The room is like something out of the Forbidden City of the last Emperor of China, with a definite Japanese influence as well. Gleaming lacquered screens stand in all four corners of the room. Luxurious velvet drapes swathe the walls. The carpeting is lush. The furniture, however, is sparse, sitting low to the ground and of a plain and unadorned style. Also placed around the room are some swords in a darkwood rack, painted ceramic pots, a couple of paintings, fake flowers, and a large golden mask that looks like some mythical oriental monster. The atmosphere is redolent with such a calamitous mix of scents from incense, bath oils, smelling salts, and perfume that Tikki must struggle to resist sneezing.

  There are no windows, and the lighting is dim.

  She stands facing Prince, who sits cross-legged on an enormous glittery pillow, behind a small wooden table laden with gold platters bearing a variety of meats. He is ugly even for an ork. He is also, among other things, quite obese. His lustrous satin clothing is gaudy, perhaps indicating that Prince equates power with ostentatious displays of wealth.

  At the right of the table kneels one of Prince's geishas. She wears a kimono and looks mostly human, but smells like an ork. To the left of the table are a matched pair of Barghests: one black, the other white.

  Holding the leash on the hounds is an ork known as Studs. This one is well over two meters tall and built for smashing down walls, ripping open doors, and taking people apart. At a glance, Tikki would guess he is cyber-augmented. The clues are vague and indefinite, but she trusts her instincts. There is a certain lack of depth to Studs’ eyes and a kind of mechanical awkwardness to his commanding posture. There is also a strangeness about his scent that she has come to associate with the artificially enhanced.

  Prince motions her in from the doorway and asks, as he gnaws some meat from a large bone. "What do you want?"

  Her reply is forestalled by the hellish-looking hounds, which react the moment she enters the room. They are not fooled by her human appearance. They smell the Tigress.

  The black one snarls and snaps at her viciously, Struggling to break free of its leash. The white one retreats slightly, alternately snarling at her and looking anxious. The nearer she moves to Prince, the more viciously the black one snaps, and the more cowed the white one becomes.

  Studs, the bodyguard, crouches down and half-chokes the black one into silence.

  "You were saying?" Prince inquires.

  "Lose her."

  Prince glances up from his meal, then dismisses the female with a shrug and a wave. Tikki has recently come to the opinion that neither joy boys nor joygirls are to be trusted, human or otherwise. They are all snitches. She waits for the ork to leave.

  "Somebody skived some property off a guy named Hogan. I want it back."

  "This property belonged to you?"

  Tikki shakes her head. "BioDynamics."

  Prince grunts and goes on with his meal. Tikki is hardly surprised. Prince is a trader, a dealer in contraband and other hot property. He will not give anything away just for the asking. To get something from him requires an edge for bargaining. "How much are you prepared to pay for this property?" he asks.

  "Pay?" she replies.

  Momentarily, Prince looks up, then looks down again and visibly tenses. This is because she is gazing at him steadily, unblinking, through eyes like slits. She does not so much as twitch a muscle. She is a statue, hard as stone. There is a definite scent of menace in the air.

  The weaker of the Barghests lets slip a whimper.

  Studs the bodyguard slowly folds his arms across his chest and lays his hand over the butt of the pistol slung beneath his shoulder.

  None of this matters to Tikki. She is here for a purpose and will have that purpose satisfied. If she is forced to violence, no mere gun and no mere dog is going to stop her. Prince should be keenly aware of this. Everyone knows that Weres are very hard to put down, and still harder to kill.

  "This must be a personal matter," Prince says quietly.

  "Very personal."

  Prince slowly lifts a hand to gesture at Studs. "Striper is our friend. We will resolve this matter peaceably."

  Studs lowers his hand from the gun butt.

  Prince watches her a moment, then smiles. "Perhaps you are here about the commodity recently misplaced by Dominick Freise. This datapak."

  Sweet talk is one of Prince’s specialties.

  Tikki nods.

  "Yes, I do seem to recall that the unfortunate Mr. Freise had an untimely encounter with an expanding head bullet. Filled with mercury, wasn’t it? Forgive my curiosity, but how did you get past the man’s guard?"

  Tikki growls, "Get real."

  "Of course." Prince pauses to smile. At least Tikki assumes it to be a smile. The over-sized lower canines make the expression vaguely resemble a threat gesture. Prince, of course, has no need of such signs. If menace is desired, that is why he has Studs. "I happen to know about this article you seek. Perhaps we could make an arrangement."

  "Talk, man."

  Prince folds his hands across his big belly, fingers linked together. "I had word that a certain valuable article could be obtained very cheaply at a certain time and place from a man. Let us say his name is ‘Hogan.’ Naturally, as a dealer, I’m always alert for any bargains that might come my way. I engaged a person to act as my agent, to pick up this article. That is where my problem begins. If you were willing to help me solve my problem, I would be willing to help you with yours."

  "What does that mean?"

  "You need information," Prince replies.

&
nbsp; "You’re proposing what, exactly?"

  Prince purses his lips very briefly, then says, "It would appear that my agent has gone independent. I would like very much to meet with this person and express my dissatisfaction. However, there are complications. This person must be sought out and I have other matters requiring my full attention. If you would agree to bring this person to a place I will designate, I would be willing to divulge this person’s identity and tell you what I know of this person’s whereabouts."

  "What about the pak?"

  "I have other business that is more likely to earn high profits. I cede the pak to you in return for this agent of mine. And some future consideration."

  "What consideration?"

  "Why, your services, of course."

  They haggle a bit over this, but Tikki knows her position is not that strong and she must give up more than she likes. The unfortunate fact is that she does not have Castillano’s Trackers at her beck and call and so she needs at least a few clues to get any closer to this datapak. "A deal."

  Prince smiles and nods.

  * * *

  Finding prey is always a matter of following signs, catching scent, chasing a trail or tracks, or questioning people who know. And there are always people who know.

  The ork with the datapak is called Slash and he is hiding out in the Zone. This is the part of Seattle that some call the Puyallup Barrens or "Seattle South." It is unlike any other part of the city, a maze of narrow alleys, like winding lanes, and crumbling tenements. There are no police patrols here. What would be the point? Predators wait on every corner, down every alley, beside every shack and tumble-down bar. Many of the people who live here do not even exist in the legal sense of the word. One may buy an assassination for as little as twenty nuyen, for a drink, or for nothing at all. There are always crazies who kill merely for the kick. The only laws that apply here are those governing the nightly struggle for survival. The quick, the strong, the cunning— these have the best prospects. The weak and the feeble, the overly civilized, those who attach too much value to life, their chances range from slim to none.

  By hiding out in the Zone, this renegade ork person has done something incredibly stupid, for the Zone is one part of Seattle where Tikki may hunt as freely as any tigress in the wild. Holding nothing back.

  Over the course of three nights, she goes on a rampage. Word travels swiftly. Striper is out for someone. Stay out of her way. She is in her facepaint and leather and people who displease her are getting hurt. Even the unruly gangs of youths and their contraband AK97s and fragmentation grenades back off when they see her coming. She wants to know about Slash and will do anything to get what she wants. She snares one man around the neck with a braided wire garotte and drags him down into a tenement basement for interrogation. She catches another outside some nameless bar and runs him bodily into a wall. She menaces another with a knife and another with a five-story drop to the street. The tactics of intimidation are familiar to her and she is well-practiced in them. No one stands in her way.

  Her hunt comes to an end in Ghoul territory. Perhaps Tikki must give Slash credit after all. This part of the Zone is mostly deserted, the buildings abandoned, night or day. because people fear the place. The Ghouls who infect the area are scavengers who eat anything and everything, including the flesh of their own kind and the decomposing meat of the dead. Their stench is horrendous. It is rumored in some quarters that the Ghouls are, in fact, the dead returned to life, but Tikki considers this just so much drek. Things that are dead smell like they are dead and do not get up and walk around. Ghouls are merely a particularly repulsive form of animal, like some humans. Ghouls are despised for their disgusting habits and are outcasts. They also have a keen sense of smell and recognize a powerful predator when One comes around.

  They do not interfere with her.

  According to her information, this Slash is hiding with some female companion near the old chemical plant. An abandoned factory building sits adjacent to the site. Tikki picks her way across the rubble-strewn ground and enters the factory through a rear door. She is absolutely certain of being on the right track. She smells food and sweat and excrement on the air. She also hears a few things that remind her of animals mating, which only makes her smile.

  Orks make wonderful prey. They are so impulsive that they forget their circumstances and do foolish things. True hunters always take advantage of other creature’s mistakes. That is the nature of things.

  When she steps into the doorway of the small basement room near the furnaces, Slash and his female partner are naked and rutting away like one or both are in heat. It is interesting to watch. Their mutual objective appears to be the disembowelment of the female. As they enter the moments of most profound enjoyment, Tikki steps up behind them and lowers the barrel of a Konoco Combat Master twelve-gauge semi-automatic shotgun to the back of Slash’s neck.

  "Be very careful."

  Slash holds himself motionless. The ork beneath him catches her breath and looks to her lover. "Striper."

  "Right," Tikki says.

  Anyone hearing that name and feeling a gun at the back of his head knows exactly how to behave.

  She is not forced to explain.

  Instead, she gives them a present, a pair of stainless steel cuffs. These go onto the wrist of their choice and are secured to one of the smallest pipes crossing the back of the room. An animal of the wild might gnaw off a hand to get out of something like that, but she doubts these two have either the determination or discipline to do it. Slash begs her to release them. The female pleads and sobs.

  "Who put you onto Hogan?"

  "Prince!" the female exclaims. "Prince did it! it was all his idea! Right, Slash? Right?"

  Slash agrees.

  It is nice to hear something definite for a change, to hear one thing confirmed by another.

  On the floor is a camo-colored bag, like a small backpack. Inside is a black plastic box, flat and rectangular, much like a vidtape. It is marked in bold red letters: Data Storage Module. There is a subscript explaining that exposure to extremes of heat or cold may damage the parts inside. Tikki slips the pack into the pocket of her trench coat, then pauses to marvel briefly at that. The thing is really much smaller than she had imagined, never mind Castillano’s description.

  The only thing that bothers her is what she is to do with it. Maybe she could just give it back?

  No, that’s stupid.

  Nothing could ever be that easy.

  * * *

  The Squid lives in a third-floor factory loft overlooking the Seattle police car dump and wrecking yard in Redmond. Not a prime neighborhood.

  Squid does not answer his door, now or ever. This is a chore for his live-in mate, Giselle. Giselle is a dwarf, which makes her shorter than the average oriental, and big-boned and broad. To Tikki’s eye, she is not unattractive, just different. She opens the door, thrusting back a lustrous mass of intricately woven blonde braids, and fairly shimmering with an abundance of gold and silver jewelry. "Ah, Striper," says Giselle.

  "Need to see Squid."

  Giselle nods. "He very busy tonight."

  Tikki hands over a credstik for five hundred nuyen.

  Giselle smiles and nods, then motions Tikki inside. "Maybe not so busy. We go see."

  Squid is the original console jock, a ghost in the Grid, probably the leading decker in Seattle. All he really cares about is blowing security codes, breaking into proprietary systems, and hijacking other people’s data. Getting him to make a run or to check things out is mostly a matter of paying Giselle enough to act as intermediary. Giselle may not know drek about computers, but she does know about biz. Newcomers pay premium prices. Regular clients get discounts. People Giselle knows and likes pay only the basic rate, like a door fee, and there is no haggling later over additional charges.

  Squid is in his room, as usual, seated at the center of a mass of modems, keyboards, console displays, graphic analyzers, maybe a million individual indicator
s, and several other bulky items sprouting wires and cables all over the place. He is an odd-looking specimen of man: dark, short, and rather dumpy. His scent is definitely human, but his physique more suggests a dwarf. Like Giselle's his hair is woven into many braids.

  Upon catching sight of Tikki, his first words are, "Where’s your face?"

  "Left it home." She is traveling incognito. Her hair is brown again, with a few light sprays of blonde. Her face is untouched except for a few meager bits of makeup. She looks very much an ordinary human female, except maybe for a certain hardness about the eyes. She pulls the datapak out of her pocket. "I want to know what it is."

  Squid takes the thing in hand and looks it over. "It’s an R.S.U. Model 12 Datamation Mass Memory Core. Pretty standard."

  Tikki shakes her head. "I mean, what’s on it?"

  Squid is matter-of-fact. "Let me check it out."

  Once he jacks in, there is nothing to do but sit and wait. Tikki takes a seat on the cushioned bench by the door. Giselle turns on the little Sony trid hanging on the wall, then joins Tikki on the bench, but not too close. Tikki keeps half an eye on the trid and half an eye on Giselle and all that silver jewelry. Silver, of course, is one of her least favorite things.

  It is some time before Squid pulls the jacks from his neck and turns in his chair to face her.

  "This is a report on a heavy-duty genetic research project by a company called BioDynamics. Project Meta. Lots of graphs and formulas."

  "What’s it about?" Tikki asks.

  "Well, the idea seems to be to create a new subspecies of human. Something called "Uruk-hai." It’s supposed to be physically superior. A kind of super-species."

  "Did it work?" Giselle asks.

  "I think so," Squid says, sounding less than certain. "There’s a lot missing from the file. Scratched right out of existence. What I could pull back out of the void was pretty scrambled. Some serious math. Chemical equations."

  This is all very nice, but what does it mean? "You mean the file is incomplete?" Tikki asks.

  Squid nods.

  Why would some person make the file incomplete? An incomplete datafile is probably as useful as a stillborn pup. "This is stupid."