by Peter Tylee
Nothing.
The database scan came back clean. No tampering. No copying. A few data accesses, nothing more. It was therefore impossible to determine where the hack had originated. The hacker could have even been somewhere inside the UniForce network,such as a bounty hunter or an assassin using a valid data access code.
The fatigue was getting to him. He needed a decent sleep. Instead, he reached into his top drawer and popped three Xantex-prescribed stimulant tabsules, which he used for short bursts of intense activity. He always kept a water bottle on his desk, one with a cyclist’s cap. He pulled on the plastic nib with his teeth and squirted water into his mouth before tossing the pills to the back of his tongue and swallowing the lot.
Right then,he thought, a manual scan.He searched the logs for suspicious timestamps. Nothing. I need help,he thought with a snort of disgust. Asking his team for assistance would mean leaving his office for the first time in 28 hours, other than for food or urination. His team had the good sense not to disturb him when he’d been slogging away at something important all night.
But then he found something in the last log. That’s strange…It was the in mail system, which wasn’t business-critical and therefore explained why he’d taken so long to examine it. With a surge of excitement and drug-induced energy, he bounded through the network and scanned the mail servers for anything unusual, delving into the logs with a scowl of concentration.
His heart skipped a beat when he dug the hacker’s message out of a backup serverthat he’d installed to resurrect e-mail for anyone foolish enough to delete important messages.
Oh my god…
He jerked to his feet, desperate to spread the warning and prevent a tragedy. But in his haste, he forgot about his implant and the wires connecting him to the computer snapped taut. The leads wrenched on the fragile plastic socket that surgeons had delicately connected to his brain. It roughly yanked the clip from his head and splintered his mind with an instant migraine. Then the welcome relief of unconsciousness engulfed him and his limp body collapsed to the floor.
*
The Raven snarled menacingly at the cityscape. He glimpsed it matrix-like through the grate against which he was pressing his nose. He was horizontal, tucked into the cramped space between floors, built for laying cable and air-conditioning ducts. The air smelled stale and musty, something that further soured his mood. His target was just below, pottering around his desk – a sheep unaware of the wolf that was stalking it. Or in this case, the Raven.
He laced a hand around his sickle, its razor-sharp blade more than enough to slice a throat from ear to ear. In the Raven’s hands it could lop a target’s head clean off. He’d done that only thrice and each time he’d enjoyed the thud of a human head hitting the ground and watching as the decapitated body twitched in shock before obediently lying down next to it. Why don’t I use the sickle more often?he wondered. The nanotoxin from his Redback didn’t leave such a gory mess, but the result was smelly.
Today he favoured the blade.
The bloodier the better.He needed to compensate for his earlier fear and lashing out at the hapless – but deserving – sheep always made him feel better.
He implored his mystic protector for an omen. A favourable omen.He’d never received an unfavourable omen, but he’d once waited over a month before abandoning hope that his vision would ever come.He was starting to cramp and he wanted the task done. Yet the Raven would never dare renounce his faith by acting without a blessing from the spirits. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
Just then, a faint tingle started to develop at his temples and he grinned in wicked anticipation of the release that was soon to come. About time too…
*
Paul Savage was muttering the speech repeatedly under his breath, practicing the various nuances he could project with his voice. He wasn’t as stupid as Jackie believed; he knew his forte was appeasing the shareholders. Inwardly he shrugged, it was a job and he was close to retirement. Why should he exert himself when all he had to do was serve his time? His heart palpitated when he remembered that he might end up in a wheelchair before he could enjoy his retirement, but there was a time and a place to contemplate everything and this wasn’t an appropriate moment.
Already his mind was wandering and soon he was gazing out his window at the San Francisco skyline, the speech held limply between thumb and forefinger. So many people.He was tired and looking at the city always made him acutely aware of his age. It was somehow appropriate that he spent his last moments reflecting upon his achievements in life. He didn’t hear the ventilation grate open above his desk and his degraded hearing couldn’t detect the squeak of leather boots as the rogue bounty hunter lowered himself to the ground.
His eyelids opened for the last time and the problems plaguing his inner ear were solved when an icy blade severed his head from his shoulders. The slash was quick and brutal and it was all over before his aging nervous system could send pain signals to his brain for processing. He had just enough time to open his mouth in surprise,though he didn’t understand why he couldn’t draw breath and he had no vocal cords to speak. By the time his head clunked to the carpet and came to rest facedown on the plush woollen fibres, the life in his eyes was gone. His body jerked vertically for two extra seconds before dropping like a sack of potatoes. It twitched on the ground as his heart kept pumping, sending diminishing jets of thick blood squirting across the room. A spray of red on the windows was already oozing to the floor and soaking through the carpet into the underlay. Paul’s skin peeled away from the fatal wound and a cross-section of his spine was a lesson in anatomy for whoever discovered the body. His head – amazingly – escaped most of the gore. It resembled a frightened child, cowering in the corner.
And so Paul Savage met his death the same way he’d bluffed through life – without really knowing it was there. The saddest part was, despite his age, there were many things he would’ve done differently if he’d known the 16thof September 2066 marked his death.
*
The Raven kicked the corpse in the ribs, swearing at it for marring him with blood. He’d forgotten that neck wounds bled explosively. He’d failed to store that titbit of information in his cyborg brain and paid the price for trusting his human faculties to remember. Now I recall – this is why I use toxin.He therefore dedicated several fields in his crystal-core to preserve the memory and avoid a mess in future.
Nano-technology made memory cheap and the Raven had more than a trillion terabytes available. The ignorant twits at Global Integrated Systems had said he’d never fill it in a lifetime. But they say the same thing every few years, don’t they? And every few years they prove themselves wrong.They hadn’t factored how much memory total human integration would require. Every six atoms in the Raven’s crystal-core defined a decimal memory cell. The designers thought it would be more logical to store the data in base-ten rather than base-two for smoother assimilation into a human brain. The Raven would have preferred twice as much memory, three times, or infinite. Yet regardless of his desires, he had a fixed amount and had to manage his memory just like everyone else. He’d deleted the sickle-equals-blood memory because he thought it was something his human mind would never forget.
He flicked his hand to shake off the worst of the gore and wiped his face on a fistful of tissues borrowed from a box on his target’s desk. After five minutes of preening, the remaining blood was beginning to dry and crack.
Without blood in its capillaries, the corpse’s skin looked blue. How much blood can fit in one person?he wondered. That was another detail he hadn’t stored in crystal-core.
He wiped his sickle on the back of Paul Savage’s suit and slid it into the sheath at his belt. Next, he loosed his harvester, the instrument he needed to extract his victims’ vertebrae. Itlooked similar to a can opener. He used it to slice through Paul’s clothing and was surprised to see a festival of tattoos marching across his shrivelling skin. They wouldn’t have looked out of place in a g
angster’s bar and he wondered whether his target had once been a hippie, or a bikie, or a hippie-bikie. It tickled him with amusement while he plunged the harvester into a carefully selected patch of skin and dug for the appropriate groove in Paul’s spine. With a wrench of the handle he felt spinal disks tearing and bone grind against bone. Then the vertebrae slipped through the incision, impaled by the Raven’s harvester.
A quick scan confirmed he’d extracted the correct spinal segment and he dropped it into an opaque plastic container. He slipped it into a special pocket he’d sewn into his coat and secured it with a Velcro tab.
He scanned the murder scene with a calm finality before exiting the target’s office and heading for the bathroom. He needed a mirror to wash the encrusted blood from his face. Amen, the Raven thought solemnly. He always intoned it after an assignment as thanks to his spiritual protector. It couldn’t hurt to stay in the good graces of the spirits. Who knows? Maybe that will speed things up in future.
With a composed aplomb, he strode past several security agentsand stepped calmly into a portal before retrieving the appropriate number from PortaNet’s database and coding his destination.
After a pop and a gush of air, he was on a different level of the same building. He marched to the collection counter and slapped his plastic container in front of the clerk, stating simply, “Apprehension from the Raven.”
She was familiar with the Raven. All the clerks were. She knew he only ever returned a plastic box containing certain parts of his targets’ anatomy. Once, he’d handed her the festering testicles of an unchipped man, along with some heart tissue that’d burst from the victim’s nanotoxin-infected chest. The Raven had invited her to perform a DNA test to prove it was the correct man and serenely walked from the room to await payment. Three collection clerks staffed the counter and they all abhorred the Raven. They talked about him in their staffroom and sometimes had a kitty running on who’d be unlucky enough to get him next. Today it was Rena Scanlon’s turn and she suppressed a smile because she’d bet on her own ill luck. The pool had been growing too. Three hundred and five Credits if I’m not mistaken. Not a bad bonus for a day’s work.
“Okay, MrRaven.” Rena’s delight at her windfall quickly evaporated when she turned her attention to the dark green container he’d planted before her. “Who’ve you brought in today.”
“A special assignment,” he replied, his voice deep and husky. He spoke the way Rena expected such a ruthless killer to speak. “Something from the bounty co-ordinator.”
“Okay,” she said again. She accepted it on face value, though she’d met Michele Roche and doubted she had the intellect to requisition the Raven for a special assignment. She scanned the box and turned deathly pale when the chip’s owner appeared on her screen. Her heart pounded behind her eyes and her vision began to fade until she remembered to keep breathing. A naturally sceptical woman, she scanned a second and then a third time, denying the evidence. How’s that possible?A bleak expression clouded her face when she recognised what the wet blotches on the Raven’s black clothes actually were: blood.
“One million Credits I believe,” the Raven said, waiting for her to key the details into the database and initiate the transfer to his chip-linked account.
“Is that a threat?” It was the only explanation Rena could understand, that somehow this was an act of extortion. She wasn’t about to let this thug intimidate her, not while there were two security guards in the room. The Raven had a gruesome record, true, but they were trainedsecurity personnel. It was their jobto protect her. She felt safe sitting behind her counter.
He cocked his head to one side, unsure why she wasn’t processing the transaction as usual. “No.”
Rena, an experienced clerk, knew when to capitulate to her superiors. She didn’t have the authority to handle the situation herself. “You said this was a special assignment. That it was from the bounty co-ordinator?”
“Affirmative.”
Something’s going down.Rena pushed back from the counter and reached for the phone, holding up an index finger. “One minute, sir.” She dialled Roche’s internal extension and waited with a nervous tick in her left eye.
“Michele Roche speaking.”
She even sounded brainless. Either she’s the dumbest scrubber in America or she’s pretending to be stupid as cover for a takeover.Rena had never heard of anyone masterminding a takeover like this, but she supposed it was possible. “Yes this is Rena Scanlon at collections, we’ve got an issue here that needs your attention, ma’am.”
“What is it?” She sounded irritable.
“There’s a top level hunter here who says he’s collecting for a special assignment you sent him.”
“I didn’t do that,” she said, reluctant to move from her office.
“Ma’am you’d better come and take a look for yourself,” Rena said, remaining understandably firm.
She sighed into the phone. “Fine, I’ll be there in five.”
Rena replaced the receiver and smiled sweetly at the Raven. “The bounty co-ordinator will be here personally to deal with the results of your special assignment.” She wished he’d take the container off the counter, she knew there was a spinal segment inside and it irked her. It was even more tormenting to know it had come from their CEO. I wonder whether he’s still alive. Can someone live without part of their spine?
Michele, still reeking of cigarette smoke, portaled into the room and tried unsuccessfully to shield her fear upon discovering the Raven was the problem. Her thoughts turned immediately to the exclusive lists she’d double sold and she wondered whether he was there to complain. “What is it?”
Rena motioned with her hands, inviting Michele to inspect the catch-of-the-day.
Michele had a distorted hourglass figure – smallish breasts but a whopping arse to make up the difference. She unerringly wore tight black skirts that made the bulge even more pronounced and high heels that caused her to walk bent at the waist. So when she wore a white shirt the combination made her look penguin-like, especially since she had to waddle because of the restrictions imposed by the skirt. She had blue eyes, pride at being an Irish descendent, and a wild streak running through her otherwise empty head. Yes, Michele thoroughly deserved the nickname the clerks sniggered behind her back: the Retarded Penguin.
She gasped when she read the details on Rena’s monitor and turned ghostly pale at the words ‘unauthorised apprehension’ flashing in red. “Who told you to do this?”
The Raven’s patience was quickly fading. “You did.”
“No I didn’t,” she retorted, stunned.
“I have your e-mail,” he said, willing to forward it for their inspection. He’d done the work and now intended to collect the promised one million Credits.
Michele slapped a hand to the phone and dialled Jackie Donald’s number.
“What?”
Great, she already sounds pissed.“Hi Jackie, it’s Michele.”
“Oh hi Michele.” Her tone transformed immediately, conveying the smile she couldn’t deliver in person. “What can I do for you?”
“We’ve got a problem.” Michele didn’t know how else to put it and she was desperate to contain the rumours that were already darting around the company. “Can you come to the collection counter?”
“Give me a second.” She hung up.
Twenty seconds later Jackie was marching to the crowded counter. “What’s going on?”
Michele answered reluctantly, “He’s come to collect for apprehending Paul Savage.” She swallowed before continuing in a grave tone, “He says he was working on a special assignment from me, but I didn’t tell him to do this.”
No, I know you wouldn’t.Jackie enjoyed fucking her but she knew Michele wasn’t smart enough to think of something like that. “And this is all that’s left? Whatever’s in this box?”
“That’s him,” Rena answered. “His chipanyway.”
“Where’s his body?” Jackie demanded directly of the Rav
en.
“In his office where I left it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What’s your name?”
“The Raven,” he replied, trying not to gloat in superiority.
Jackie outwardly groaned but was inwardly delighted. Perfect! It’s the perfect way to remove Paul Savage and appease the shareholders. It’s an explanation they’ll understand.Of course, she didn’t intended to tell them a bounty hunter had murdered him, only that he’d died. Maybe I’ll cite a heart attack, or tell them about his medical condition and allow them to draw their own conclusions.There were several ways to die from inner ear bacteria: falling from a roof, falling in front of a train or car, suicide… But there were two sides to any coin and a shadowy frown crept onto Jackie’s face. First, what am I going to do with this freak?
“Shall I show you the message I received,” the Raven asked, feeling the need to defend himself. “The bounty was for one million Credits.”
“It’s true.” James Ellerman had dragged himself to the counter, unnoticed by everyone except the Raven, who observed everything. He was pressing two fingers to his implant and the pain throbbing through his skull had wired his left eye shut. He felt he might puke at any moment but important developments were afoot and he had to explain his hand in them.
“You know what’s going on here?” Jackie pierced James with an icy stare, her initial pleasure at no longer having to deal with Paul Savage blown away by the apparent complexity of the situation.
He nodded with effort. “Yes.”
“All right.” Jackie swept a hand around the room. “All of you, to the conference room.”
“Me too ma’am?” Rena was finishing her shift in fifteen minutes and hoped Jackie wouldn’t expect her to join.
“No.” She saved her most threatening gaze for the collection clerk. “But if I discover rumours circulating about this I’m going to hold you and the other clerks responsible.” She paused to let the threat sink in before adding, “Do you understand me?”