by Lisa Smedman
9
Observing
Alma woke up slowly, stretching the stiffness out of her muscles. She checked the time on her cybereye—8:12 a.m. exactly—and then activated the clock's countdown function a second later, even though she knew what the reading would be: 27:47:59. She refused to succumb to the gloom that came with the knowledge that time was running out and focused instead on the progress she'd made. Today, at 11 a.m., she would meet with the fixer Hothead. Assuming he gave her the information she needed, it was only a matter of time—hopefully not too much time—before she caught up to the rogue Superkid and proved her innocence.
She rolled over and saw that a red light was winking on her cellphone, indicating that there was something in its daytimer that required her attention. Instantly alert, she swept the phone up and flipped it open in one smooth motion. Keying the memo function, she braced herself for what she knew she would find there: a message from the shadowrunner Night Owl.
This time, the message was neither a taunt nor a warning but an acceptance of her invitation.
I'LL MEET WITH YOU, AL, ON ONE CONDITION. THERE'S SOMETHING I WANT—SOMETHING THAT COULD MAKE A LOT OF KIDS' LIVES HAPPIER.
IT LOOKS LIKE WE BOTH RUB SHOULDERS WITH AKIRA KAGEYAMA. SMALL WORLD, ISN'T IT?
AKIRA'S GOT A PIECE OF JADE WITH A CHINESE COIN INSIDE IT. THE JADE HAS THE CHINESE SYMBOL FOR HAPPINESS ON IT. DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH THE JADE; I JUST WANT THE COIN. IF YOU MANAGE TO BOOST IT, TAKE THE COIN TO THE GOLDEN PROSPERITY BANK AT THE CORNER OF BROADWAY AND NANAIMO, AND PUT IT IN A SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX—NOT ONE WITH A COMBINATION LOCK, BUT ONE WITH A KEY.
Having reached the end of the message, Alma stared at her cellphone, elation and doubt warring inside her. The rogue Superkid had agreed to a meeting—but what she was asking for in return might not be possible. This coin that Night Owl wanted was obviously something of value—probably a rare coin that was part of Kageyama's collection of antiquities. In order to obtain it, Alma would either have to purchase the coin—an unlikely prospect, given her account balance—persuade Kageyama to lend it to her, or "boost" it, as Night Owl had suggested.
But all three options boiled down to the same problem: once Night Owl had what she wanted, there was little reason for her to follow through on her promise of a meeting. No, the better course of action was to go to the meeting she'd already set up with Hothead, in the hope that he would provide her with the data she'd need to run Night Owl to ground.
* * *
Alma rode the escalator down to the street level of Broadway Station, bracing herself for the panhandlers and dealers she knew she'd find there. She'd only visited this part of town a few times in all of the years she'd lived in Vancouver. She didn't like it much. Commercial Drive might be touted by some as the cultural highwater of Vancouver, with its trendy shops, ethnic restaurants, real-coffee cafes and theatrical venues, but it was also a hotbed of criminal activity. Its bright murals and exotic window displays made it more cheerful than the concrete grime of the Downtown Eastside, but the number of BTL and drug deals going down on the colorful sidewalks was the same. The number of illicit dealings between shadowrunners—known in street slang as "shadow biz"—was said to be just as high.
As Alma wound her way past the panhandlers and the petty thieves who hissed at her to buy their counterfeit SkyTrain tokens, she saw a grim reminder of what a life in the shadows could lead to, just outside the glass windows that fronted the station. Lying on the sidewalk in the rain was a young elf who had just died of a BTL overdose, judging by the way the police were pulling back his black knitted hat to inspect the chipjack in his temple. Alma zoomed her cybereye in for a closer look and saw that the chip he'd overdosed on was still slotted in the jack. The kid must have only recently come into some credit, judging by his ragged appearance. His pants were made from bubble wrap, and his cyberhand looked as though it had been ready for the scrap heap years ago. He'd probably gotten the credit by breaking into someone's car or home. Alma shook her head in disgust and turned away.
She made her way through the crowds of commuters to the Kaf Kounter, ordered a cappuccino, and checked the clock in her cybereye. It was 11 a.m., precisely the time Hothead had agreed to meet with her. The "fixer," as he was known in shadow slang, had been easy to track down. Bluebeard had recognized the name at once and for a small fee had agreed to get in touch with him on "Cybergirl's" behalf. So far, it seemed, the contacts Alma had made by going through the motions of a shadowrun extraction were paying off. Now she just had to hope that Hothead actually showed up.
The minutes dragged by, and the rain continued to fall outside the station. At the five-minute mark, Alma began to get restless. At the ten-minute mark, a violent trembling in her left hand caused her to drop her cappuccino. She ordered another and held it in her right hand. At the fifteen-minute mark, a dealer tried to sell her BTL chips. She gave him a surly look and told him to "frag off." At the twenty-minute mark, the station's secguards paused to eye her suspiciously as they made their pass through the station. Alma smiled to herself, pleased with the reaction. She'd deliberately dressed down for this meeting, in slashed leather pants and a faded urban brawl fleece jacket. She'd restyled and bleached her hair so Hothead—who as Night Owl's fixer would be in regular, constant contact with her—wouldn't spot the resemblance between the two women. Alma didn't want him tipping the shadowrunner off that her "twin" was looking for her. Not when she was so close . . .
Hothead finally appeared at twenty-three minutes after eleven. Alma recognized him at once by the flickering blue flames on his scalp as he scanned the people who stood at the coffee bar. She'd never in her life seen a more ridiculous-looking implant, but she managed to keep her expression neutral. She drained her cappuccino and set the cup upside down on its saucer: the signal they'd agreed upon. The fixer winked an eye that was either cybernetic or covered with a bright yellow contact lens and pointed at one of the tiny shops that lined this level of the station: a Beautiful Horns aesthetics parlor. Alma nodded and followed him.
Hothead ambled into the salon and tossed a credstick at a red-headed human who was blow-drying the polish she'd just applied to a troll's curving horns.
"Hoi, Meg," he smiled at her. "I'll need the shop for a few. You just about done?"
"Just finishing up, Hothead, then it's all yours." Hothead sat down in the shop's second chair—a troll-sized seat that caused his feet to dangle above the floor like a child's. He rocked it gently back and forth as he waited for the redhead to finish with her customer. Alma squeezed in past the aesthetician and leaned against a back counter covered with scrollwork tools, tubes of paint, sheets of gold and silver foil, and a multitude of designer-label horn polishes and split fillers.
After a minute or two of fussing with the dryer, the redhead ushered the troll out and left the shop herself. Hothead got up from his seat to hang a "closed" sign on the door and pulled down the window blind.
"The pirate says you're looking to make a patch with another runner," he said.
"You scan that right," Alma said, slipping into the street slang that she'd studied. "She goes by the handle Night Owl. I'm assembling a team for a run, and I want her on it. I understand that you're her fixer. I'd like you to set up a meet between us—I want to suss her out."
Flickers of red crept into the flames that jetted from Hothead's scalp. His yellow-irised eyes took on a knowing look. "If you want to know Night Owl's capabilities, I can give you the rundown. If you want more, I can give you that, too . . . for a fee."
"What do you mean?"
"When you do a run with a stranger, it's good to know the skinny on them: that's always been my policy. Night Owl appeared out of nowhere three months ago. I didn't think much of it at first—runners do fades all the time from one city to another and take care not to leave a datatrail behind. But I started wondering about Night Owl the day I picked up her so-called 'night-vision goggles' and saw that they were nothing more than ordinary rain goggles with clear glass lenses
. So I asked myself why a runner would want to hide the fact that she's got cyberware. A few nights ago, Night Owl accidentally let slip a byte of data about herself. I did some digging. The results were . . . very interesting. But they'll cost you. My price is sixteen hundred nuyen. Firm."
Alma couldn't believe her luck. Was Hothead offering her information on who Night Owl really was? Did he know that she was a Superkid? If his data was legitimate, Alma could finally solve the riddle that had been plaguing her and might be able to clear her name, return to PCI—and save her own life.
She could only just afford the price he had named: her savings account had just under seventeen hundred nuyen in it. Hothead's information might prove to be worthless—but Alma couldn't afford to take that chance.
"Sold," she said. Then she paused, as a paranoid thought struck her. Had Hothead known how much she had in her savings account? Had he seen through her disguise and realized that she wasn't really a shadowrunner? If he had, it didn't seem as though he cared. Shadowrunners were notorious for backstabbing each other. He'd just proved the old adage: there is no honor among thieves.
Hothead lifted a credstick reader from the counter of the shop, slotted into it a blank credstick he'd pulled from his suit pocket, and handed the reader to Alma. A minute later, the transfer was complete. Alma pulled the credstick out of the reader and held it up so the fixer could see the balance readout on its side.
"Let's hear what you have to say."
Hothead sat forward in his chair. "The data Night Owl let slip was about her father. He suicided in a rather unique—and overly thorough—manner, by hanging himself with a monofilament wire around his neck. Death was as instantaneous as if he'd guillotined himself."
Alma nodded, mentally putting the pieces together. The rogue Shadowrunner must have been talking about Night Owl's foster father.
"According to the Boston police reports, the body was found by a girl—Night Owl, although this obviously wasn't the name she was using at the time." Hothead paused; it was clear he was going to stretch his story out for all it was worth. Alma didn't care—it gave her time to digest what she was hearing. Whichever one of the Superkids Night Owl was, she'd obviously been placed with a foster family in Boston, the same city that the Superkids were reared in. Given what Ajax had said earlier about the deliberate scattering of the Superkids, Night Owl had probably been the only one placed so close to home.
"What was the girl's name?" Alma asked. Hothead's flames danced above his head. "We'll come to that in a moment," he said. "It's not as interesting as what comes next."
Alma was inclined to disagree, but she held her tongue.
Hothead pulled a slim yellow cigarette out of the breast pocket of his suit and held it above his head until it ignited. Taking a long draw, he let out a cloud of clove-scented smoke.
"Night Owl was part of a genetic experimentation program called the Superkids," he continued. "Its aim was to produce a 'super race' of humans whose bodies were genetically tailored to accept cybernetics. Seven 'batches' of children were created with varying degrees of success. Several of the children spontaneously aborted due to deformities that were accidentally introduced during the gene splicing, and others were 'terminated' when they 'failed to meet performance standards.' In other words, they were flatlined as infants or toddlers when it turned out they weren't quite perfect."
"No!" Alma gasped. She shook her head, refusing to believe it. Poppy would never permit such a thing. Nobody from Batch Alpha had ever been "terminated." A dozen children had been born, and a dozen children were raised to maturity in the New Horizons creche.
Alma suddenly realized that Hothead had paused in his narrative to stare at her. She quickly amended her comment. "That's horrible—that they killed children, I mean."
"Yeah—too bad, so sad." He flicked ash from his cigarette onto the floor. "But that's the corporate mentality for you. Today's flawed product is tomorrow's ashes."
He took another draw on his cigarette and continued. "The Superkids project was run by a UCAS-registered corporation known as New Horizons. The company doesn't exist anymore. In 2040, after one of the Superkids committed suicide, child protection workers launched an investigation of the project. The breeding program was shut down through a court order, and the existing Superkids were apprehended. Things get a little fuzzy after that—there are a lot of records missing, presumed deleted. But a police report from that year fills in one of the blanks.
"The 'father' that Night Owl mentioned—the one who suicided—wasn't her father in the conventional sense. His name was Michel Louberge, and he was the CEO of New Horizons Incorporated. According to the police reports, he suicided in his office; Night Owl was the first Superkid to stumble across the body."
Alma sagged back in her chair. She suddenly felt queasy, as if her stomach were filled with cold sludge.
All of these years, she'd believed what her foster parents had told her: that Poppy had died of a heart attack. She just couldn't bring herself to believe that he would commit suicide. He'd always seemed such a happy, loving man. An image jumped unbidden into her mind: the only true father she'd ever known lying dead at the foot of his desk, his severed neck pumping out a wash of dark red blood across the carpet, the dull thud of his severed head as the door of his office hit it when it opened. The head rolling away like a ball . . .
Alma's left hand began to shudder violently. When Hothead stared at it, Alma was glad; it meant that he wouldn't see the tears she was fighting so hard to hide. "Sorry," she said, clearing her throat, which felt like it was filled with cotton. "I've got TLE. It hits me at the damnedest times."
"That bites," Hothead agreed. "You'd better get a chopdoc to fix you before you seize up."
"I plan on it," Alma agreed. She was relieved to have steered the conversation onto less emotionally explosive ground. "That's why I'm putting together this run. Cybersurgery is expensive."
When her hand had finally stopped shaking—this attack lasted two minutes and seven seconds—Alma handed the credstick to Hothead, repeating the question she'd asked earlier. "What was the girl's name?" Hothead's fingers closed on the end of the credstick. "She didn't have one," he said. "To the 'mengeldocs' of New Horizons, she was a letter designation: Batch Alpha, Child AB. Her nickname was Abby."
Alma let out a slow breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Now she knew: her guess had been correct. It was Abby who was going under the name Night Owl—who had framed her. She let the credstick go and watched as Hothead tucked it into a pocket. "What surname did Abby's foster parents give her?"
"She was adopted by a couple in Boston: Brad and Erin Meade."
"What happened to her after that?"
Hothead waved his cigarette in a dismissive gesture. "The story gets less interesting from that point on. Abby Meade went on to college, got a degree in recreation training, and was contracted by the UCAS military to provide fitness training to Navy SEALs. She was on leave in Frisco when the big one hit and was presumed dead after the hotel she was staying in pancaked. And there the datatrail ends."
He took another puff of clove-scented smoke. "Short and sweet, I think she took advantage of the quake to fake her death and do a fade. What she did between 2051 and three months ago, when she started running the Vancouver shadows, is anyone's guess." He leaned back casually in the oversized chair, a glint in his eye. "So, Ms. Johnson, does that satisfy your curiosity about Night Owl?"
Alma nodded, not bothering to acknowledge the fact that he'd seen through her attempt to pose as a shadowrunner. Only one thing still mattered. "I want to meet with her."
Hothead's flames flickered as he tipped his head, his eyes assessing her. "If a tissue sample is what you want, I'm sure I can fix it for you."
It took Alma a moment to realize what he was alluding to. Then she got it: Hothead thought she was representing a corporation that was interested in cloning the Superkids. She shook her head. "I just want to talk with her."
It was a lie. In
order to prove her innocence, Alma would have to deliver Abby into Hu's hands.
"All right," Hothead said. "I haven't seen Night Owl around much these past few nights, but she usually hangs on the Drive. If you want to find her, try a restaurant called Wazubee's. She usually janders in there around midnight. Just one thing, though: you tell her that I set her up, and you're as good as dead. You got that, Ms. Wei?"
Alma blinked, startled by his use of her surname. She wondered how much more information Hothead had been able to uncover about her—and who he was selling it to. She wondered if blackmail attempts would soon follow. If they did, she could kiss her career in the security field goodbye. But right now, clearing her name at PCI and getting the corporation to halt the countdown on the bomb inside her head were much more pressing issues.
Slowly, she nodded her head. "I got it," she said.
* * *
Alma spent the hour that followed her meeting with Hothead mulling over the shocking news of how Poppy had actually died. She drifted back up the escalator to the SkyTrain platform and boarded the first train that came along. She rode it back and forth across the city, staring out at the rain. The gray skies overhead and trickle of nature's tears down the windows matched her mood.
Only when the PCI building slid into view for the third time did she realize that she was riding the train she normally took to work. She stared longingly at the sprawling complex, thoughts of death filling her mind like a dark, heavy cloud. How she wished that she could turn back the clock to the day before Gray Squirrel's extraction. If only she could have seen the extraction coming and prevented it, he might still be alive . . .
She stopped herself. That sort of thinking was counterproductive. She needed to focus on the here and now, not on what might have been. She pulled her cellphone out of its belt clip and stared at it, debating the merits of calling Hu to report what she'd found out so far. The head of PCI security had cast a vote of confidence in Alma, that day outside the boardroom when he told her to call him as soon as she uncovered the truth behind Gray Squirrel's extraction. She'd come close to telecoming him several times since then but had always stopped herself. Telling Hu that the extraction had been carried out by another Superkid wasn't enough—not even now that she knew that Superkid's name. An accusation and name alone didn't constitute "proof"—she needed concrete evidence. Hu had drummed into her a sense of professionalism, a thirst for thoroughness. Nothing short of bringing Abby down to PCI in restraint strips would do.
