The voice in Delaney’s office PAN was routed through a filter, but her enhanced ears knew it was female. “You should stop what you’re doing. Right now. Or it won’t go well for you.”
The call disconnected a second later.
Renault sat on her office couch and looked up at her over the screens of his AR. “What?”
“That was interesting.” She immediately let the department’s trace programs do their thing before she relayed the message to him.
Renault smiled. “I think someone’s getting uncomfortable.”
“Yeah…” Delaney tucked a strand of hair behind a delicately pointed ear. She’d had them augmented when she was in her teens, when her parents moved from Georgia to Los Angeles. With pointed ears, her mother and father believed she could get further in Free California. And they’d been right. But only in certain areas closer to Tir Tairngire. “But even I think that was a childish thing to do. I mean…do they really think we won’t trace it?”
“Oh, I’m sure they do. And I’m sure that trace will keep you busy for several days, and you’ll never get anywhere.”
“Meaning it’s a way to keep us out of their hair.”
After Renault’s agreement, Delaney canceled the trace. Let them think their ruse worked, or let them wonder why it didn’t, either way, the fact that she didn’t take the bait will keep them a little preoccupied.
She pushed back from her chair and stood. Her back ached, and the cup of noodles she’d eaten…nine hours ago…was long gone. Delaney wanted a doughnut and a soykaf from the coffee shop down the street, but there just didn’t seem to be enough time to indulge.
Not yet.
Her assignment had been murdered under her nose. Technically, she was in for over 50,000 nuyen to a shadowrunner with ties to dragons—not that she ever planned on paying him. Apparently, there might be something even more sinister lurking around the Matrix than corporations spending lives chasing the all-powerful nuyen.
And yeah, she saw technomancers as just that. The same as everyone else.
Draco Powell. She snapped her finger to call up the holovid board she and Renault had been using to aggregate the information they’d accumulated over the past ten hours. In the center she had Kazuma Tetsu and this mysterious data that Wagner was so worried about retrieving. From there, all manner of lines spread out. To Wagner, to herself, to Draco Powell, to Mack and to a dragon, to Horizon, to Knight Errant, to Ares, where his sister worked, and to his sister herself, whose personnel file was still filled with indecipherable nonsense.
The one string that still didn’t make sense was Wagner’s reference to Caliban, and his insistence that she look into TechnoHack. Delaney hadn’t had time for games in years, and didn’t see how playing a demo could possibly help her now. And yet…Wagner’s reference kept nagging at her.
The square with Draco Powell’s name flashed. She tapped it, and the box expanded with old and new information.
“Just uploaded the intel I received from a friend in Manhattan on this little freak.” Renault rose to stand beside her in front of the holovid. On his right hand, he wore a set of five rings to manipulate their shared board. “Decided to go with what Wagner told you to do.” He moved the image of Powell to the left, and the information lined up in a stacked column with bullet points next to him on the right. “We don’t have a birth date on him, but it looks like he’s used the name consistently. Was employed by Renraku in Research and Development, and lived in the arcology when it went haywire. He’s labeled as one of the survivors, and cashed in on public sentiment to start his own investigation service five years later after honing—and registering I might add—his adept status as a magic user. He’s been cited a few times in Seattle, Denver, and a few small places in between for suspected use of blood magic, but nothing was ever proven.”
“Well, blood magic’s not illegal,” Delaney said. Just gross. “But how is he connected to the Tetsus? How does he fit into getting into Knight Errant or Horizon?”
“In ’72, he miraculously proved to a few higher-ups in Horizon that he could tell a technomancer from a non-technomancer. His accuracy was within ninety percent, which garnered him a job working within what we call their darker departments when Horizon tried to prove themselves to be technomancer-friendly.”
“And how’d he do that?”
“Don’t know at this point. Legally, he was on retainer as a private investigator and on the Horizon books, he investigated fraudulent claims. Which, of course, we know is fraudulent itself.” Renault moved a few of the bullet points up to reveal more of them. “Here is where it gets interesting, and it took a few bots to dig this intel out. About three years ago, Powell’s financials jumped—and I’m talking about some serious nuyen flowing into his accounts. He’s got three of them.”
Delaney leaned back on her desk and whistled as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Where did he get that? I know it’s not from working with Horizon.”
“No. In fact, his income there stopped around the same time. I haven’t been able to track two of the streams,” Renault tapped that bullet point of income, which expanded into three icons. Two had question marks on them, the third—
“Contagion Games?” Delaney stood up. “They make TechnoHack.”
“Which your boy Wagner mentioned in his letter to you. Contagion’s also been in the media a lot lately—and the press hasn’t been that great. So tell me,” he said with a glance at her. “Why haven’t they hired Aztechnology, the leader in public relations, to put a spin on their troubles? Since their repeated blackouts and monumental stack of player complaints, their market share’s dropped considerably. But they’re not losing nuyen.”
“Now how exactly are they doing that?”
“I’m not sure. At first I suspected subscriber fraud. Players have to sign up to pay a fee every month to play, and some of the more disreputable companies continue to siphon off nuyen even after the player cancels the subscription.”
Delaney looked at him. “Didn’t find that, huh?”
“No. And I looked hard.” He cracked his knuckles. “What I did find was this.” Renault tapped the projected screen again. Lists of green and red took up the entire area. He moved his hands closer together to shrink the lists so they would all fit on the screen.
“These are all names,” Delaney said as she stood and moved to the image.
“If there’s one thing I have to credit Contagion with, it’s that the original owner of the company set it up legitimately and registered the subscription base. By doing that, they protected themselves from spoofed accounts—kids wanting to hack in and play for free. It was easy to get the subscriber lists without having to go through Contagion themselves.”
“What are the red and green for?”
“Let me show you.” Renault moved his hands and she watched him type on his AR. The names shifted around, and all the red ones began blinking. “The red accounts belong to missing people.”
Her jaw dropped. “That looks like half the list.”
“It’s actually thirty-seven percent of the list of those who subscribed. And when I say missing—I mean physically missing.” He typed again. The list shifted to just the red names, which still took up the board area. Colors then moved to red and yellow. “The yellow names are those missing who were found deceased. Which worked out to about ten percent of the missing list.”
“What did they die of?”
“Coroners wrote a menagerie of things. Dumpshock, heart attacks, and a lot of neglect. They left their meat suits to rot while they played online. I haven’t gone through all of them yet. But this is what I wanted to show you.” He waved his hand and the list recompiled into bright green lists. “All of these names are missing, some of these names are confirmed dead, but what they have most in common, is that they are all registered technomancers.”
Delaney spun on him. “What?”
“Every name on this list coincides with technomancers who complied with their city’s reg
ulations, if required, and registered themselves. Or they were registered with Horizon. But, the fun thing here is I can’t get Horizon to acknowledge any of them. They claim lists like this are private, and they have no comment.”
“So you’re saying…all of these people logged into Contagion Games and died or disappeared.”
“Yes. And all of them logged in to a single game.”
She put her hands to her face. “TechnoHack.”
Renault typed in mid-air again in his AR, and the names shifted and moved until a single name came up.
Hitori Tetsu.
Delaney stared at the name.
He clasped his hands in front of him. “This is why I’m not surprised you got that call. Because I’ve been doing some digging, and after a while I decided not to be discreet. Not when I saw this correlation. Now, let’s take a look at this.” Renault moved his hands, and the board shifted again with three folders. One was Draco Powell, one had the name Ferdinand Bellex, and one was Miranda Sebastian.
“Bellex I recognize. He’s the CEO of Contagion. Been following him in the media.”
“He’s the CEO and the co-owner.” Renault pulled Bellex and Sebastian down. “When the company was founded, just before the Crash, it was owned by three friends and what looks like a girlfriend. Jesus Huerta, Morion Baron, and Radcliff Tolen, who was reportedly dating Miranda Sebastian.”
On a hunch, Delaney reached out and moved the names aside and typed in their last names. All three were reported missing. “Not dead—just missing.”
“All at the same time.”
“Miranda Sebastian isn’t listed.”
“No. After they disappeared, she sold the company to Bellex, who kept her on as CFO. Miranda’s still with Contagion.”
“Does that seem odd to you?”
Renault sighed, a deep, rumbling noise. “All of this seems odd to me. I don’t understand the whole thing against technomancers. Me personally? I’d love to not have to use the rings or a commlink or a cyberdeck. It’d make things so much easier.”
She had to agree with him. “And Powell is connected to this?”
“Seriously connected.” Renault pulled in Bellex’s folder. “But first we have to look into Ferdinand Bellex.” When he tapped it, nothing happened.
“There’s nothing there?”
“Up until the purchase of Contagion Games, there was no such person. Or entity. I can’t find financials, birth records, not even a Matrix signature. And as far as I can tell, no one’s ever actually met him—except for Miranda. There are vids all over the Matrix of him holding press conferences, of him speaking with people at Contagion, lots of hype about how the company has an upward growth—all the usual bullshit. But from what I can tell—” Renault shrugged. “I can’t find them.”
“What do you mean you can’t find them?”
“No office. Not like Horizon or Ares or SK or Knight Errant or even us. I can’t find any address of Contagion Games that physically exists. The address on their headers just points to some area along the coast. There’s nothing there. Either someone’s really good at not being on the grid—”
“Or they’re an AI.” Delaney’s AR came up with Mack’s icon in a new window. She held up a finger to let Renault know she had to take the call. He picked up his mug and headed to the break room. “Delaney.”
“We have a situation.”
I’ll bet you do. She stared at the icon and remembered the file Wagner had on Mack Schmetzer. She wanted to have a long conversation with him at some point about his past, but right now wasn’t that point. “There’s a breakfast diner—”
“No. I need you to come here.” He paused. “It involves a briefcase that wasn’t in black water.”
Delaney raked her fingers through her hair. She got his inference. Briefcase meant data, and the reference to Cole Blackwater was loud and clear. “Mind if I bring my partner?”
“The more the merrier.” Mack severed his connection.
Chapter Forty-Three
Unknown Location
Blackwater woke to a painful kick to his left side. Thinking he was still fighting, he cursed and rolled out of the way—only to slam right into a wall.
“Get up!”
Recognition pulled him out of his hazy stupor, and he rolled over onto his hands and knees, but his left elbow buckled, and he landed on his left side. Rough hands yanked him back up. Within seconds he was sitting with his back against a wall, staring into the ugliest face he’d ever seen. “Damn…not a mug I want to wake up to.”
“You’re no prize yourself.” Clockwork leaned back and sat on his haunches. He seemed alert and mad. But Blackwater assumed he was always mad. “I need you to wake up and think.”
Think. Heh…right. Blackwater carefully rubbed his cybereyes with the edges of his palms. Blinking a few times to adjust the lighting and reception, he took in the room around him. And that’s all it was. A room.
Four walls.
And he and Clockwork were on the floor. “What the hell—”
“That’s what I said. Our gear’s gone, my prize is gone, and nothing’s working.”
Blackwater checked himself with pats to his thighs, his hips, his chest, his upper arm—any place he usually had something strapped. Clockwork was right. He didn’t have his deck, his commlink, or his weapons. After a few colorful metaphors, he stood along with the hobgoblin and walked around the room, checking the perimeter. “What the hell happened?”
“The last thing I remember was a big black van cutting us off, then drawing my gun as the door opened, and then an ugly dude shot me. I’m assuming he shot you, too.”
“Yeah. With a tranq—so I’m guessing. You been awake long?”
“Not much longer than you. I’ve already yelled and beat on the walls. I can’t even find a freakin’ door.”
Blackwater blinked at that and did another check. Nope. No doors. Not even a seam. “I feel naked.”
“I feel trapped. Who the hell? This isn’t that team Slamm-0!’s with, is it?”
“I don’t think Schmetzer’s got a setup like this. Or if he does, he didn’t share it with me.”
Clockwork trudged to a corner and leaned back, folding his arms over his chest. “I’m guessing it was your bubbly personality that put him off?”
“Like you’re a drekking ray of sunshine?” Just because he wanted to, Blackwater banged on the wall closest to him. “Hey! What’s going on?”
“Please—there is no need to yell. I can hear you.”
Neither of them had expected an answer. They glanced at one another and moved to the center of the room, back to back. Blackwater hated not having a gun. They waited a few more seconds, and when the voice didn’t continue, Blackwater spoke up. “Schmetzer?”
Laughter echoed in the small room. “Hardly. If you would both move to Blackwater’s right…no, his other right…that’s good. Stay still, unless you want to remain in this room indefinitely.”
Blackwater and Clockwork exchanged glances, but they did as instructed. The wall in front of them slid to the side. He recognized the tall, pale ork as the one that had shot him from the van. Guy looked like he needed a hot meal or ten really bad. He was also holding a Manhunter, and gestured with it for them to come out.
“Please go with Shax. He has my permission to shoot you if he thinks you’re going to attack him. Keep the peace, and this should go smoothly and profitably for all of us.”
Another glance, and Blackwater followed Clockwork out of the room. They walked down a gray hallway with no doors, turned right at the end of that hall, then another right, then a left and then another left—until Blackwater lost track of where they were.
Finally, they stopped at a door and Clockwork turned the knob.
The three of them stepped into what Blackwater could only describe as a medical room. Or it looked like one. As he and the hobgoblin strolled in, he took in several metahumans in long black coats, the opposite of a doctor’s white coat.
They stood
near a row of what looked like autodoc tubes. Blackwater hated those things. They were too much like coffins. One of the reasons he’d taught himself how to fix his own hurts. As they walked past, he saw the docs were loaded with people. And every one looked like they were in pain.
This room emptied into an even larger room, carpeted, with wood walls full of holo-projections of global networks. Most of them were newsvids, others were playing shows Blackwater recognized. A few sitcoms, and a few of those unscripted shows he never watched.
In the center was a circular desk with a large chair.
So…maybe this was the person in charge. He no longer suspected this was part of Schmetzer’s people. No, this was another player. Someone with a lot of pull.
Maybe the one that killed had Wagner.
When the chair turned, the last person he expected to see was a dwarf.
“What the hell is this?” Clockwork said as he stood in front of the chair. “You interrupted our extraction?!”
The dwarf made a pained face. “That was an extraction? It looked more like kids arguing on the playground over who had the better toy.” The little guy’s tone was arrogant, and he had an accent Blackwater couldn’t place. “What you did was complicate things—but I do believe you also provided us with a Plan A we didn’t have before.”
“Screw you. There’s no we. You took my technomancer, didn’t you?”
“The young elf girl? Yes. I have her. She is presently going through an examination.”
Blackwater didn’t know why, but he actually got a bad feeling about that. Yeah, he’d had his own thoughts about giving her a good once over before she got sold, but the way the dwarf said that—just sounded bad.
Clockwork took a step toward the dwarf. “You give her back to me, and we’ll be on our way. She’s going to bring me some good nuyen. Nuyen I’m due from the last time she got away from me.”
“Ah. I see.” The dwarf nodded. “You work on anger and hair trigger reflexes. Your reputation, what I can find of it, also says you’re good with drones. Is this true, Clockwork?”
The use of his name made him step back, and he glanced at Blackwater before he narrowed his eyes back at the dwarf. “Who are you and what is all this?”
Shadowrun: Dark Resonance Page 19
