“Why is it hardcopy?”
“’Cause someone, something, or some corporation is going around the grids looking for any information on what’s in the folder. Namely—” She furrowed her brow. “—you.”
“Me?” He set the box of noodles on the table and shoved the chopsticks inside. His AR kept flashing in his periphery. If he didn’t see what was happening, it was just going to keep bothering him.
Boss!
The golden origami swan appeared in front of him and he leaned back a second when it looked like she was going to hug him.
I already did. Most of it was redundant KE junk and I put it in a folder. But there’s something you need to see.
Oh, I’ll say. I made copies of the same things Silk and Netcat worked on this afternoon while you slept.
“Kazuma?”
He held up his hand as Ponsu gave him a clipped version.
That dwarf in Black’s office is named Draco Powell.
Several images of the man slid onto his AR’s desktop and he nodded.
Had. Yes. A wolf. The wolf was evil, Boss. Very evil. And it would have killed you if Powell told it to.
Kazuma put his hand to the back of his neck against the bandage there.
Yes, he did. He’s been messaging you, and I put the texts in that same encrypted folder. Apparently the dwarf tried to have him fired for killing the wolf, but a few of the other KE directors cleared him of any wrongdoing.
Ponsu moved out of view. Now you need to look at this.
A new window appeared in his AR. It was a video, sent to him from—
“Hey,” Silk touched his forearm, her way of bringing him back to reality. “They’re waking up.”
Kazuma pushed the window aside with an apology to Ponsu and a promise to watch it in a second. He blinked a few times as Netcat sat up and stretched. She looked over at Silk and him and sniffed. “Oooh…I smell kimchi.”
The guy in the hoodie put his head between his knees and moaned.
“Moon, you okay?” Netcat asked as she stood and patted him on the back.
“Yeah…I really need to exercise more.”
“I’ll say,” Silk piped up.
Moon sighed and stood. He was lanky and a few inches taller than Netcat, and when he pushed back his hoodie, Kazuma was surprised to see white hair.
“Hey.” Along with Netcat, Moon walked to Kazuma and offered his hand. “I’m Moon. Nice to finally meet Soldat.”
“Call me Kazuma out here.” He shook the hand and smiled at Netcat.
“You look a hundred percent better,” she said as she reached around him to grab his noodles and chopsticks. “Did Silk catch you up?”
“I think Ponsu did.” Silk finished her spring roll.
“Ponsu?”
Kazuma looked at the other containers and waited for Moon to choose one. Once the white-haired man picked his, Kazuma took one filled with fried rice. “My sprite. She’s registered. First one I ever made.” He continued to watch Moon. “You don’t have a datajack.”
Wow, he chided himself. Just blurt it out there.
“No. I don’t.” Moon smiled and started eating.
Netcat laughed. “Moon was an otaku when he was younger.”
“You were?”
Moon chewed and swallowed. His eyes were pale blue. “It lasted until I hit puberty…then it started fading. But mom wouldn’t let me get one till I was 18. A week before my scheduled installation appointment, I was online in a game when the Crash happened.”
Kazuma smiled. “And woke up a technomancer.”
“Yeah. Only I had no idea. I just thought my otaku abilities were back, just stronger. I didn’t tell my parents at first—because I didn’t know what was happening. Then when technomancers started filling the news…” he shrugged and dug into the container with his chopsticks. “I decided keeping the secret was better. Asked my parents for a commlink, and up until last year that was all I needed. When the new protocols got put in place, I splurged on a cyberdeck.”
“Do you use it?”
He smiled. “No. It’s too slow. And I can’t submerge through it.” Moon reached past Kazuma to grab a bottled water. “How many submersions?”
“Three.”
“I’m gonna go for my fifth soon as we figure this latest weirdness out.”
“You mean the dwarf with the technocritter wolf?”
Netcat snorted. “You remember that.”
He put his hand to his neck. “Hard to forget.”
“We need you to tell everything that happened to you since last night.” She held up a no-nonsense finger. “Including hacking the Annex host. No arguments. We’re all here because we want to know why a known technomancer hunter is after you.”
Kazuma stopped chewing and swallowed. “What?”
“I thought he was caught up.”
Silk waved Netcat away and grabbed another spring roll.
Netcat continued. “Draco Powell, the dwarf that set his sights on you, has a regular persona as a private investigator. Very successful in the Denver area. But his name’s also flagged in conjunction with missing known technomancers. He spent several years in prison in Aztlan, and his last known employer was Renraku.”
Renraku? Kazuma looked at each of them. “And he was gunning for me?”
“Oh, he was zeroing in,” Moon said. “The stuff Netcat got off his AR was just frightening. He had your history, your dad’s, your sister’s, and some guy named Morimoto.”
“Toshi was my mentor. My friend at Horizon.” Kazuma drank more water, then turned the bottle in his hands. “He trained me at Horizon, showed me how to gain trust.”
“He was a technomancer too, wasn’t he?”
Kazuma nodded. “Happened late for him. He said his augmentations prevented him from touching the resonance, but he could see it. In the Matrix. So he was the one that trained me, taught me to watch and listen before he died.”
“Hitori Tetsu,” Netcat said as her eyes unfocused, looking at her AR. “Artist, hired by Ares, contracted after her successful promotion billboard in Hollywood. Very well known and Ares considered it a coup when they hired her.”
“Yeah. She was happy. She and I were online when the Crash happened, and we both became technomancers.”
“Disappeared six months ago. According to the reports you filed, she was last seen out with friends and vanished.”
“Yeah…” Kazuma turned away. “That was easier to tell them. I really don’t know where she was or how long she was gone before she disappeared. We argued the last time I saw her. Hitori…wanted change. And she was into all—this.” He waved his hand to indicate all of them. “She got involved with TM groups, helped fight the system. She disappeared a few years ago, just after she was hired by Ares. I freaked out, hired a PI, and then she showed up again. She’d taken time off to submerge…then went to Brazil, then to Chiba, all to meet others like us. She wanted to help us, stop the ridiculous fear of us.”
“What was her online handle?”
“Fierce.”
Moon’s jaw dropped. “Your sister is Fierce? Oh, I had the biggest crush on her!”
Kazuma nodded. “She was popular. She went to Vegas. She was there when it all went down. Came and told me what she saw. I was angry at her for going there and putting her life on the line. I told her our father would be very angry with her. She stormed out of my apartment. I never saw her again.”
Silk stood and moved around to hug Kazuma from behind. He held onto her arms. “We’re going to find her.”
Netcat patted his shoulder. “First we find out why Powell’s after you. Though it might be because of your sister.”
Kazuma shook his head. “I’m not sure. It might.” He told them everything he’d done and what happened to him after arriving at work,
all the way to getting to Netcat’s car. “And you know the rest.”
“What was in that data you stole?” Moon asked.
“I don’t know. Given all the media attention, I decided to leave it alone.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s safe.”
“It won’t be if we leave it where it is,” Silk said. “I know you think that’s a safe place, Kaz, but whoever Powell’s working for has your name. You really think they’re not going to dig for your family?”
Kazuma smiled at her. “Oh, I’m sure they are. But the only thing they’re going to find is my father, and he lives in Chiba.”
“What about your grannie?”
“She’s not my biological grannie. She’s someone I met after my father moved us here, and she took Hitori and me in. I just call her Grannie.”
“That doesn’t mean they won’t find her,” Moon said. “You hide it with her?”
“Not with her, but on a private host she owned. Used it like a safety deposit box. Stored all her personal things.”
“You’re talking in past tense. She dead?”
“Yes.”
“We need to get that data and find out what’s so important about it,” Netcat said. “You said it flagged for you when you were doing a routine search?”
“Yeah. I was searching for certain keywords. And the host actually triggered when it hit Tetsu…and Caliban.”
“Caliban?” Netcat frowned. “What’s that?”
“Something a PI told me to be on the lookout for after Hitori disappeared again. Said it was dangerous. So whatever’s in that data, it has to do with my family and Caliban.”
Netcat looked at Moon, who nodded. “I’m on it. I just want to eat first.”
Boss…you need to tell them about this message.
Kazuma sighed and nodded. “Oh, I got something from HipOldGuy.”
Netcat nearly climbed on top of him. “You did? When?”
He glanced at the time stamp. “Looks like some time during the day… and it got re-routed a few times.” He looked closer at the path. “Actually, a sprite delivered it to my sprite.”
“Is it text?”
“No, a vid. Anyone got a protected commlink?”
Moon pulled one out of his bag. He gave Kazuma admin access and he uploaded it to the commlink. When they were done watching the recording, everyone was silent for a moment.
Finally, Netcat put a hand on Silk’s arm. “Moon…send that to Rox or Shyammo. Tell him where it came from, who it was sent to, and where it was recorded. In TechnoHack.”
Moon wiped his eyes and took the commlink back to his chair.
Netcat put her hands to her face. “We’ve got to find that data, and we’ve got to find out what the hell happened to HipOldGuy.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dive Bar
Los Angeles
Friday Night
Cole Blackwater was filtering through the drek his search app returned on names when someone slammed a beer down on the table in front of him. The mug of frothy, amber brew shone through the projected AR of his cybereyes, and he looked up to see the familiar face of Clockwork.
“Damn…I didn’t think it was possible for you to get any uglier.” The hobgoblin sat down behind his beer.
“And I didn’t think it was possible for you to smell worse.” Blackwater offered the hacker his hand, and the two shook over the table.
Clockwork’s appearance wasn’t unique when it came to the hobgoblin metavariant. He was a foot shorter than Blackwater, with a smaller build. His skin was light green, and Blackwater would’ve sworn the bastard had filed his teeth and tusks into needles. He was pretty sure they didn’t grow like that.
Usually hobgoblins had dark eyes, but Clockwork’s had the gleam of cyberization, and knowing him, Blackwater was pretty sure he’d spent an entire job’s salary on making them top of the line. He was dressed in his usual black vest, dark cargo pants, and black boots, with commlinks on his wrists. His RCC wasn’t visible.
Clockwork was high-priced, best contacted for specialized drones. As far as Blackwater knew, he had no conscience to speak of, and would sell his own mother if it paid well enough.
“Must’ve been close to get here in less than twenty-four hours.” Blackwater signaled his waitress for another soykaf.
“Had a client needed a special piece. I delivered it a few days ago—thought I’d hang around.”
“You hate Los Angeles.”
“Yes, I do.” Clockwork gave him a crooked grin, his needle-sharp teeth gleaming in the bar light. “So you better give me the important stuff up front. I said I’d meet you—I didn’t say I’d take it.”
He knew Clockwork meant pay. It was always about the nuyen. “If you take it, I can fit you with fifty Gs now, and then once we get the data, there’s a possibility of more.”
“No, no, no.” Clockwork drank half his beer. “You said there was a technomancer involved.”
“He’s the target. He’s got the data.” Blackwater went into a shortened version of the events of the past twenty-four hours.
When he was done, Clockwork narrowed his eyes. “You let a drek-ass ’mancer out-hack you?”
“He was already there,” Blackwater said. Damn, it felt like he’d said that a million times now. “He didn’t out-hack me.”
“But he got the data and he got away. Sounds like he did to me.” The hobgoblin drained the rest of his beer.
“Because he threw this huge tiger at me—”
“With butterflies.” Clockwork laughed.
“Drek. Now I wish I hadn’t told you that part. But I wanted you to know what we’re up against.”
“Chummer, that the only part makin’ all this fun so far.” The hacker’s demeanor changed to all business in a heartbeat. “So, someone in Wagner’s office hired your team to get the data at the same time he contacted you to get the data.”
Blackwater shook his head and scowled. “Yeah. It was just stupid. Wagner already knew someone had hired Mack’s team—I never asked how he did. He really didn’t want that data to get into anyone else’s hands.”
“And he said he was the only one who knew it was there?”
“He put it there himself.”
“And yet—” Clockwork smirked, which looked almost painful around his sharp tusks. “Someone hired this other team, and either this Tetsu guy knew it was there, or someone hired him, too.”
Blackwater frowned. “I never thought about that—someone hiring Tetsu to grab the stuff.”
“There are technomancer runners out there. They still haven’t made their name in the biz, but they’re growing. And I plan on wiping every last one I meet out. And you got no lead on him?”
“None. He’s got no living family in the UCAS. Dad’s in Japan. And his sister’s missing.”
“She a technomancer, too?”
“I guess. She went missing. When someone goes missing nowadays, that’s the first thing people think. Best I can tell is he was looking for her.”
Clockwork was quiet for a few seconds. “You have any idea what’s in this data?”
“No. But I figure if so many people want it, then it’s got to be valuable.”
“Which is why—” Clockwork stopped as the waitress came over with a beer and a soykaf. “This data is just as valuable as the technomancer who took it. Might be other technos that sent him. We need to know what makes this data important.”
“I’ve already been looking—and I got nothing.” He transferred a few folders over to Clockwork’s ID. “Tetsu’s got some serious holdings, loads of nuyen, but I can’t touch any of it. It’s heavily guarded in KE accounts, which even he can’t access while he’s under investigation.”
“So they think he’s good for Wagner’s death?”
“Not sure. I think they’re just playing it safe. There were pictures of what looks like him entering Horizon, but they disappeared.”
“Disappeared? Images don’t just ‘disappear’ in
the Matrix.”
“Well, these did. Even the story that had his name in it was killed. Can’t even find the wageslave who uploaded it.”
“Huh,” Clockwork shuffled through the folder, his AR visible to Blackwater. “Sister’s the only family?”
“Yeah. There was a grandmother listed, but I can’t find anything on her. It’s like she disappeared, too.”
“Maternal or paternal?”
Blackwater pulled up his file and scrolled down. “Doesn’t say. Just says there was a grandmother.”
“Does he have any other holdings? Property? Rentals?”
“No.”
“What about the sister?”
“She’s missing.”
Clockwork sighed. “Have you tried to retrieve her personal files? Did she have a residence? Where did she work? Surely someone else knew her other than her brother?”
“I got the sister’s address.”
“Then let’s go check it out.”
The two of them stood, and Blackwater paid the tab. “You think we’ll find something there?”
“I like to cover all my bases, Cole.” The grin on Clockwork’s face made Blackwater feel a little uncomfortable. “When I got a techno to score, it’s good to be thorough.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Horizon Archive Annex
Friday evening
Eight hours before building demolition
Powell’s techniques for investigating evidence were a little more specialized than the local law’s. The PCC cops and Knight Errant had come and gone, the Annex not a top priority on their list. From their frame of reference, a petty shadowrunner got capped, along with a few rent-a-cops. Nothing stolen. What was it to them? No national secrets were leaked out. What was the problem?
Two local cops remained outside the Annex’s front doors, one stationed at the back entrance, while Powell worked alone inside. He stood in the hall in the exact spot where the girl’s body had been found. He’d asked them not to clean the area, only to be told they weren’t. Why spend the man hours and expense when the building was scheduled for demolition?
Shadowrun: Dark Resonance Page 11
