"And?"
"Have you ever been to a wrap party, Jack?"
"No."
"They’re real wizzer, a guaranteed wild time to be had by all. Pure chaos."
Jack smiled. "Are they now? Well, well."
* * *
Samuel Cortez lives well.
Janey Zane squiggled her bare toes in the deep pile of the carpet and all but squealed. "'Can you believe this!"
Raphael glanced at her once and then resumed studying the desk-top terminal in front of him. "Janey, please keep looking. We’ve only got another forty minutes before building security comes to check on us. If we aren’t refitting the vermin control system across the hall when they check, they just might get a little suspicious."
She sighed and looked around the plush condo. "Do you think I missed my calling? Can you imagine living here?"
"It took us two whole days to nail Cortez's schedule." Raphael iooked over at her. "Would you really want to live that way? It’s one-seventeen. You should just be starting lunch."
She stopped moving. "You're right. I’d want to jump off a building within a week."
Raphael smiled and began to dig into the terminal with a pair of logic probes. "Now, that’s the spirit. Check the master bedroom."
She pulled on her slip-shoes and padded off across the room. The bedroom was a step down, like all the others off the main living area. Tans and browns greeted her as she entered and scanned the room once. Fashionably sparse, it was typical modern Amerindian and beyond the affordability of 80 percent of Seattle. Having done this work before, Janet moved automatically into her pattern for careful room searches. The usual places failed to reveal anything. Most of the dresser drawers yielded only what one would expect in the way of expensive clothes and accessories. In the second to bottom drawer, however, was something different.
Woman’s clothing, fairly new, but of a slightly lesser quality than Cortez’s lay in the right half. It consisted of little more than a couple of changes for someone a few centimeters taller and a few sizes larger than Janey. There was nothing else there.
Raphael entered the room, his work on the terminal done. Carefully, he began to move around the room, magically attuned senses reaching into the deepest, darkest corners. searching, probing. Cortez was a neat-freak, and his apartment reflected it.
In the walk-in closet, Janey found shelves of designer shoes, shirts, suits, and sport clothes. On the upper shelves, however, were boxes and bags of fashions more appropriate for a night in the darker sections of town. She doubted Cortez had ever gone, but it was interesting to know he’d been tempted.
She spent some time going through a box of old, irrelevant records that he kept for no apparent reason, but discovered nothing of value. Raphael had just called out to her that they only had a few minutes when she found the bag.
Way back in the closet, stuffed behind some empty leather luggage embossed with the prestigious "LTS" logo, was a simple gym bag showing years of use. Janey worked its velcro carefully and began to go through it. After a moment, she called to Raphael.
"What do you have?" he asked, squatting down next to her.
The pinlignt attached to her headband flicked its beam into the bag. "How about an HK 227 SMG, S variant, with external smart-gun link and headset?"
Raphael blinked. "You're joking."
"Not me. Six clips for it, and a selection of normal and flechette ammo still in the boxes. A pair of defensive airfoil grenades, and a rather wicked looking laser pistol that I think is Japanese-made."
"It would appear our Mr. Cortez likes to do more than just jockey his desk."
"Promotion through superior firepower," said Janey, the pinlight flicking into Raphael’s eyes as she glanced at him.
"Anything else?"
"No, not that I can see." She paused a moment, running her hand around the inside of the bag. "Wait! The bag’s got a reinforced bottom, and I think there’s something under it." Leaning forward, she dug with her fingers until the slight bulge she had felt came free. She brought it out into the light.
It was a small square of light blue rice paper folded around a tiny, hard object. Janey’s gloved fingers moved quickly to unwrap and expose the prize.
"A pin," said Raphael. Small, round, and silver, it bore a single tiny sapphire, but no other markings.
"What is it?" asked Janey.
Raphael carefully placed it in the palm of one of his black-gloved hands. "I’m not completely sure, and we don’t have the time to deal with it here."
He stood up carefully and quickly began to rummage through his pockets.
"What are you doing?" Janey asked.
"If Jack was in the system. I would have him digitize an image of the pin through the security camera, but he’s not."
Janey giggled. "Too busy pretending to be junk-fax."
Raphe was still digging. Finally, he pulled out a small box the size of a cigarette pack and walked over to the nightstand. "I'll do it myself and bring the digi-still to Jack."
He placed the pin on the table and held the small box about half a meter above it. Within moments, a trio of laser beams pulsed over it in sequence. Red. Green. Blue. When it was done, the box had stored a color, 3-D digitized image of the pin. It was an old device, one that had originally been used to duplicate silicon semi-conductor and integrated circuit patterns many years before, but it still found an occasional use. He handed the pin back to Janey.
"What do you think it is?" she asked, wrapping it up exactly as she’d found it.
"Janey." he said, not smiling, "you don’t want to know."
* * *
Life is far from fair. Samuel Cortez sits having lunch, eating a twenty-nuyen plate of pasta and seafood while I munch down a krill-sandwich and try to have a coherent conversation with a rigger-girl whose mind is blocks away in an RPV. Admittedly, the rigger-girl is far more attractive than the ugly guy sitting with Cortez.
"I’m on a hardline for the job come tomorrow. No question," Cortez says between bites. The sound is perfect and the image on the video screen in front of me is jitter-free. Allyce Zephyre is one of the best. If you need a watch-over, she's your gal. I glanced over at her. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed. a double spiral of opti-cable trailing from the ceramic jack behind her left ear down to the rigger-box in her lap. Her eyes were open and staring, but she didn't see me or anything else in the room.
"There's nobody else around that can handle it," continued Cortez. "Once your people do their job, we’re in. Chip-truth." He dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, and then reached for his tall waterglass.
"Allyce," I said, as Cortez’s lunch companion replied. "We’re on track, Sam. No hassles on that. Tonight we take—" And that was all Allyce and I heard before the audio cut out, replaced by a dull, throbbing hum.
"Damn," I said looking over at her and raising my voice. "He moved the waterglass."
"I see that." Her voice sounded oddly forced. "I figured he would eventually. Give me a second."
Sixteen blocks away, its urban camouflage hiding it in the shadows of the Carnation building, a Catalano 625-VS surveillance drone responded to Allyce’s cybernetic commands. The small infrared laser mounted on it shifted to re-target Cortez’s waterglass as he put it down again. Fractions of a second after he removed his hand, the laser was once again measuring the minute vibrations that the voices of Cortez and the other man made in the glass. A second laser targeted the nearby guardrail, measured the frequencies of the wind vibrations present in it, and filtered them out of the main signal. The transmission was more than clear enough for reception by the equipment in the hotel room. A high-definition video camera recorded the conversation internally, but beamed back a low-res picture for immediate viewing.
"We’re not going to be able to hear anything until the water and the ice in the glass settle," said Allyce. "We’ll have to lip-read off the hi-def recording later."
I nodded, but a noise in the corridor outside had attracted my attenti
on. I let my hand slide down to the Ingram smart gui; on my thigh and felt the cool electronic pulse as my palmpad made contact. The targeting spot came up to the center of the door as the small beeper on the table next to me chirped lightly twice. I relaxed a little.
The door opened, and Raphael and Janey entered, the razorgirl first, as usual putting her grinning face where she knew my targeting-spot would be. The elf was a few steps behind, i’d been surprised a few months back when Janey first told me that Raphe was an elf. Physically, he was right, but. he lacked the distinctive cartilage points on his ears. All Janey knew was that they’d been that way since Raphe was a kid in the Barrens. I never asked him.
"Howsa, boy and girl. Hope thingsa been hoppin’," said
Janey, plopping down on the bed, much to Allyce’s confusion.
"Not a chance," I replied. "Cortez's been shooting his mouth off to some guy. but nothing worth repeating." I tilted the flat-screen toward her. We still had no sound.
"Any idea who he is?" Allyce asked.
"Nope," said Janey.
"Wonderful. Find anything at Cortez’s?"
"Yup. A weird little pin that had a lot of firepower stuck into it. We digi-pixed it, and Raphe’s gonna have Jack check it out."
Raphael had gone into the adjoining room and I could hear him working the Sony terminal next door. Odds were he was downloading the digi-still and sending it to Jack. I was about to go in and ask him if he had any idea how long we had to keep the Cortez-watch on when all hell broke loose.
Without warning, the video image of Cortez and his guest exploded into hard static. Allyce moaned loudly, her eyes rolled up into her skull and her body locked rigid. Moving without thinking. Janey grabbed Allyce as she began to vomit, holding her head over the edge of the bed to keep her lungs clear. All signals from the RPV had stopped dead, and we were getting "no carrier" indications on the monitoring screens.
By the time I looked back, Raphe had jacked Allyce out and was holding his palms on either side of her head. The power was with him and I could feel it as he began muttering and rotating his hands in opposite directions. With Janey supporting her, Allyce gradually began to relax, her irises showing again and her muscles relaxing. Janey glanced back and forth between me and Raphe, the worry and concern showing clearly in her face. I felt stupid. I had done nothing to help.
Raphe released her, and stepped back, blinking madly, letting Janey support Allyce alone. "Liam," he said catching his breath, "what happened?"
While all this was occurring. I had not moved. "We lost the RPV, Raphe ... I really don’t know."
He looked at me a long time, then nodded and knelt down alongside the bed. "Allyce," he said softly.
She turned her head slightly and let Janey finish cleaning her off. She smiled slightly, and I felt my guts tear into themselves. "What happened?" Raphe asked.
Allyce closed her eyes, and kept them shut while she spoke, her words slurring slightly. "Bughunter. Saw him too late,’ was all she said, but that was enough.
I cursed loudly, and slammed my fist hard into the vid screen, creasing it. Bughunters were a random element all RPV riggers had to deal with. For whatever reason, there were a group of crazed people determined to geek any RPV they spotted, regardless of whose it might be or why it was around. Normally, they used regular antivehicle missiles, but the real cruel bastards used a special type of AVM called a "zapper," Instead of an explosive warhead, the zapper worked like a Taser gun, on impact pumping a couple thousand high-amp volts into the RPV, shorting it out completely. This destroyed the RPV, and sometimes the shock-current would set up a signal feedback loop that would brain-toast the rigger at the other end. The key was to get the rigger jacked-out as fast as possible after the zapper hit. I didn't, too busy trying to figure out what was going on.
It wouldn’t happen again.
* * *
Close to 1:00 a.m. a long, black Mitsubishi Nightsky stopped at the curb. Before the chauffeur could gel around the car. one of the passenger doors opened and Witt Lipton got out. He motioned offhandedly to the chauffeur, who looked too nervous for his own good.
Witt removed his credstick from his pocket, reached up, and inserted it into the small plug to the right of the flat black macroplast shield. Electrons flowed, his identity was confirmed, and the shield lifted to reveal a sophisticated banking auto teller. Within moments, it glowed into neon life. Witt stepped in and the shield descended around him. A vid screen high above him showed a wide-angle view of the outside Numbing music began to play.
His position was verified, and the directional speakers angled down for his ears. "Good evening, Mr. Lipton. and thank you for using the First Tribal Bank of America." came ttie cheerful female voice,
"It’s where my money is. honey. "
"Would you like to conduct a transaction, Mr, Lipton?"
"Yeah, sure ... I guess."
Two video screens lit up in front of him, bathing him in their sickly blue-white light. He had his choice of 180 related transactions.
"Um, can I have my active checking balance."
"Yes, of course. One moment please."
A few moments more than usual passed, and he glanced up at the external video feed. The chauffer waited almost calmly, leaning gently against the Nightsky’s polished fender. Witt was on his way home, and the car was empty inside, as usual. He sighed. The machine spoke.
"I’m sorry, Mr. Lipton, but your account has been closed."
"WHAT!" Gasping for air, he leaned in closer, the better to read the line of flashing zeros.
"There is a flag attached to the file that states your account has been absorbed by MegaMedia for daring to think about skipping out on them."
"I don’t understand. ..."
"You’re cleaned out, chummer. Blanko, bust. Ripped clean. They’ve called back the limo. You’ll have to walk home."
Witt staggered backward into the shield, causing it to bounce slightly. The characters on the transaction screen began to flare and then slide randomly about. They swirled until finally they formed the visage of a wildly grinning young man. He laughed, his voice shifting from girl-synth to what passed today for his real one.
"Lord Witt, I can’t believe you fell for that."
Lipton stood unmoving for a moment as the truth seeped in slowly. His face reddened. Slamming his fists down on the console, he shouted, "Damn you!" The screens jittered a moment. "Don’t ever do that to me again!"
"Well, Witt, I told you to meet me here. What did you think I’d do, crush myself in there with you? Believe me, it ain’t my style."
Lipton leaned heavily against the teller, his breathing pattern slowly returning to normal. "All right. I'm here. What do you want?"
"It’s not what I want, Witt, it's what Brilliant Genesis wants. They’re worried that you might be having second thoughts."
Lipton chuckled slightly. "No way. I’m gone. Those people are scum; they’ve just shaved a week off my production schedule."
"That’s too bad, Witt," said Jack. A pause. Then, "So how's Honey'7"
"Honey?"
"Honey Brighton. You did just have dinner with her."
"Well, yeah."
"The fourth time this week, if I read the limo dispatch files right. Real slicker places you been going to."
"So?"
"So, Brilliant Genesis is worried you might be having second thoughts."
"I just told you I’m not."
"Goldman also told Alzar he wasn’t going to nuke Tripoli, and we all know what happened next."
"Hey. Jack, what is all this drek?"
"Nothin’ personal, Witt, from my end. The boys paying the bills just want to be real sure. In case you didn’t know, they’ve already blown close to a quarter of a million nuyen on you already.
"Probably on your phone bills."
"Ha! There ya go, Witt. Think of it as a big joke and you'll keep you brain ticking longer."
"Right .
"Now about Honey ..."
> "What about her?"
"How come all the dinners?"
"I don’t know, I guess ... I mean, well, she’s a friend."
"How come she’s saying yes?"
Excuse me?"
"Sorry, came out wrong. Honey’s a simsense star, right?"
"Right
"So she's only supposed to date other simsense stars, media types, you know, high-profile studs."
"So?"
"So, she's definitely not supposed to be seen at a fancy public place with a tech-type, even one that’s got a bit of a public rep."
"I guess
"So why has Honey Brighton gone out with you six times in the last two weeks. Witt? Inquiring minds want to know Jack."
Witt said, "she asked me."
* * *
There are predators in the world who sit in their tight, dark holes, waiting for prey to wander too close. Sometimes, though, they sit deliberately in the path of their prey, hoping to fudge the odds a bit. Today, we’re the predators, and Cortez’s lunch friend is the prey.
He's a tough one, I’ll give him that. And paranoid, too. He knows the dodges and places to slip the maybe tails. We’ve followed him twice, and twice we’ve blown it. If we had more time, we’d try him again, but we don’t. So says Raphael. The only way we managed to tag him at all was when he met with Cortez. All we had to do was follow Sammy, and we’d find the mystery-guest. To know more about Mr. Cortez, we needed to make him, especially after losing the hi-def recording of their conversation when the RPV got geeked. Cortez did call him "George" once. We had that.
It was early morning, only hours after a quick, hard rain, and George was leaving Cortez's condoplex after a breakfast meeting. Cortez was still upstairs, and would be for another fourteen minutes. He didn’t leave for work until seven-twelve. We’d considered bugging Cortez’s apartment when Raphe and Janey had been there, but decided against it. In Cortez’s desktop terminal. Raphe had found an auto-bill command to Lone Star Security for apartment washing. Sam had the pros sweeping his place for bugs every other day. People don't do that for no reason.
Into the Shadows Page 19
