by Lisa Smedman
"Do you speak Korean?" the woman asked.
Alma scanned through the menu of her headware memory. She'd loaded it with the contents of more than a dozen linguasofts that covered all of the most common languages in Vancouver: Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi, Hindi, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean, Spanish—even Salish, in case Mr. Johnson turned out to be a Full Blood.
"ye," Alma answered, switching to Korean. "I speak it."
"Choun," the woman said. "Follow me."
They walked through the changing room toward the whirlpool. A sign hanging from a mop propped in a bucket proclaimed it to be closed for cleaning and rechlorinating—the blond woman flipped aside the mop like a turnstile and entered. When they were both inside the tiled, echoing room, she shut the door and flicked on the whirlpool's bubble jets. Alma had to activate the noise filters in her cyberear to hear the woman's voice above the gurgle of the water.
"Tiger Cat says you're an expert at extractions," the woman said.
"That's right," Alma lied smoothly. "I helped with a run on PCI awhile ago." She watched for a reaction. If the woman knew about Gray Squirrel's extraction, she might also know the name of the woman who had framed Alma, and where to find her.
The blond woman merely shrugged.
"I asked Tiger Cat for someone who could pass in high-cred circles," she said. "Our target is heavily insulated by nuyen; he's going to be a tough one to access. But you'll pass as a society slitch. If it wasn't for Tiger Cat's endorsement, I'd swear you were corporate."
"Who's the target?" Alma asked, wanting to deflect the conversation.
The blond woman cracked a smile. "Not so fast, Cybergirl. I want to make sure you can deliver first. How do you take down your targets?"
Tiger Cat had warned her to anticipate this question. Some Johnsons wanted their extractions "chem free" and insisted that non-lethal magic be used; others wouldn't care if the target was delivered minus a limb. Alma hoped that the blond woman wasn't one of the purists.
"Gamma scopolamine," she answered. "I'll use a compressed-air injector. He'll never know what hit him."
The blond woman's smile was feral. "Perfect," she said. "That should prep him for us nicely. Just make sure you deliver him before his lips start to loosen. We'll want him at his most talkative."
Alma nodded. "Where do you want me to bring him?"
"I'll give you a number to call. We'll be ready to take delivery anywhere in the Lower Mainland. Once he's in our hands, I'll give your second payment to your laundry boy."
It took Alma a moment to figure out what the woman was talking about. Then she got it: the woman thought that Tiger Cat was laundering the credit, ensuring that it was untraceable. It was a nice touch on his part; it explained why Alma wasn't insisting on a personal transfer of credit.
Now that she was actually negotiating the details of the shadowrun, Alma suddenly realized that she'd have to carry it out. She hadn't allowed herself to dwell on the ultimate outcome of her actions, but now she found herself wondering what would become of her "target." She had a hard time getting Gray Squirrel's slashed throat out of her mind.
"Who's the target?" she asked.
"He's a financial advisor. Akira Kageyama."
Alma nodded, relieved that it wasn't someone she knew. She was familiar with the name—few in Vancouver weren't, after Dunkelzahn's will was read. She also had a vague idea of what Akira Kageyama looked like—she'd seen him once on the society channel but had never met the man. Although he mixed in corporate circles, he'd never attended a PCI function.
"Any more questions?" the blond woman asked. "Just one," Alma said. "After I've delivered Akira Kageyama and you've gotten the information you want, what happens to him?"
The blond woman gave a hard laugh that was answer enough. Whatever she had planned for Kageyama, it wasn't pleasant. She flicked a hand impatiently at Alma. "Give me your cell."
Alma checked it first and saw that the memo function was clear. Her nemesis, it seemed, had been too busy to send any more taunting messages. She handed the cellphone over and watched as the woman keyed a number into its autodial menu.
"What tag do you go by?"
Alma had considered a number of nicknames, but none of them seemed to fit her as well as the nickname this woman had just given her. " 'Cybergirl' will do," she said. "What should I call you?"
"Don't worry about that," the woman answered. "Just call the entry marked 'Johnson.' I'll be the one answering the phone."
She handed the cell back to Alma. "Tiger Cat said you could handle a rush job—that's why we're paying the big nuyen. You have until midnight tomorrow. If you don't manage to bag Kageyama before then, the deal is off. Chakbyol insa—goodbye."
Chuckling to herself, she strode out of the room, slapping the button that shut off the whirlpool as she left. In the sudden silence, Alma heard the faint beeping of a cellphone being dialed. Realizing that it must be the blond woman using her bracelet phone, she boosted her hearing just in time to catch a fragment of conversation: "—worry. We'll know where it is soon eno—" Then the voice was gone, lost in the clank of exercise machines.
Alma had the feeling that, after the blond woman questioned Kageyama, he'd be disposed of—permanently. Alma didn't want to be responsible for an innocent man's death. That would put her in the same gutter as the woman who had killed Gray Squirrel. But she needed this run—it was her window into Vancouver's shadowrunner community.
She hadn't realized that she might have to break the glass to get in.
Alma threaded her way along a floating walkway that bobbed and dipped with each step she took. Built from scavenged wood and kept afloat by a collection of styrofoam blocks, beer kegs and driftwood logs, it weaved its way like a sidewalk among the hundreds of small boats that were anchored in False Creek. Home to a motley collection of squatters, these ranged from small aluminum speedboats with jury-rigged tarps covering them to fishing boats and cabin cruisers; there were even a handful of aging yachts. Most were in rough shape and rode low in the water, their hulls crusted with barnacles and tendrils of seaweed, their rusted upper decks dotted with tape-patched windows and splashes of graffiti. There were also a number of houseboats, some of them little more than log rafts with decrepit prefab shelters or even tents perched on top of them.
Rain dappled the surface of the water to either side of the floating walkway, stirring up smells of raw sewage and oil. The boards underfoot were rain-slick and slippery; Alma wondered how anyone managed to negotiate them without a move-by-wire system. Those who passed her, however, walked along the unstable, slippery surface like sailors on a rolling ship. Only when she looked down and saw that the boards underfoot were perforated with thousands of tiny holes did Alma realize that they must be wearing cleats.
The squatters who lived here were a mix of races and metatypes, with a high percentage of orks and trolls—"yomi" who had been exiled from Japan in the 2020s after the first big wave of goblinization hit. They eyed Alma suspiciously through cracked windows as she went past; strangers weren't welcome here in the False Creek Floats. More than once, the city had tried to clean out the "floaters," the council police sweeping in and arresting as many squatters as they could get their cuffs on and then towing the boats away and sinking them well offshore. But somehow the floaters always got wind of the raids in advance, and only the slowest and least seaworthy craft were caught. The rest upped anchor and fled, scattering like dandelion seeds and then rooting themselves in tiny clumps all over the city's waterfront.
Eventually, after the floaters had reduced property values along several areas of the city, the council herded them back to False Creek, where they could at least be contained. The tribal police still made periodic raids, however, forcing their patrol boats through the maze of walkways and boats whenever the council ordered a crackdown on BTL chips, illegal immigrants or prohibited weapons, all of which were as plentiful as fleas on a rat in the False Creek Floats.
Alma at last saw the boat she was l
ooking for: a battered Surfstar Marine Seacop patrol boat with a superstructure pockmarked with rusted bullet holes. The holes must have been made by armor-piercing slugs; the metal armor on the boat looked several centimeters thick. The weapons had been removed from its firmpoints before the vessel was sold for scrap, and the current owner had replaced them with vidcams. Large patches of gray primer covered the boat's original Coast Patrol markings, visible now only as the slightly raised outline of a stylized killer whale. The boat's original spotlight and hailers were still in place, however. Hanging from one of the antennae that bristled from the upper deck of the boat were the two flags Tiger Cat had told Alma to look for: a pirate's skull and crossbones, and the red flag slashed with a line of white that meant "diver below."
Alma grimaced at the pun. According to Tiger Cat, the only "diving" this cyberpirate did was in the electronic waters of the Matrix. Tiger Cat had told her the man was one of the hottest deckers in Vancouver, but given the surroundings, Alma was starting to wonder about his credentials.
As Alma turned onto the walkway that led to the boat, its on-board cameras panned to follow her movements. At the same time, an ork stepped down onto the walkway from a raft and rolled one of the heavy blue plastic drums that filled every centimeter of its deck space onto the creaking boards. Diesel fuel sloshed from an opening on the top of the drum onto the walkway, which had sagged under the combined weight of troll and fuel drum until it was awash. The ork, who had a scarred, shaved head and eyes so small and squinting that it was difficult to tell whether he was Asian, turned and eyed Alma with a belligerent look.
"You got biz here, dirt-kisser? Or are you just down here slummin'?"
Alma stopped; the ork and his drum were blocking her way, and he clearly had no intention of moving. He stood braced as if he was ready to fight, ignoring the fast-food containers that washed gently back and forth around his hobnailed work boots.
The ork's timing had been too perfect; it was clear that he was intended as a first line of defense, to slow down unwanted visitors to the boat ahead. Alma had already spotted the comlink in his ear and the slight depression in his neck where a less-than-competent surgeon had implanted a subvocal microphone. The cameras on the patrol boat were just backup; this man was the eyes and ears—and muscle—of the computer hacker that Alma had come to see.
"I have 'biz' with Bluebeard," Alma answered, nodding at the boat behind him. "He's expecting me. Tell him Cybergirl is here." As she spoke, her left hand began to shake. As casually as she could, she shifted her posture so that it was hidden behind her back.
"Yeah? Well, you can tell him yourself—after I shift this drum." The ork leaned to the side for a better look at her concealed hand and then sneered, obviously thinking that he had intimidated her. "Now get your skoggin' little hoop outta my way."
He picked up the oil drum by its sling, balancing easily under its weight as the walkway rocked back and forth. His tiny eyes bored into Alma's, warning her that if she tried to stand her ground she'd get shoved aside.
Alma glared back at him, her move-by-wire system easily compensating for the rocking. Every security system had its protocols, and if she was going to pass herself off as a shadowrunner, she would have to jump through these people's hoops. She knew from her dealings with Tiger Cat—who had yet to interface with her except by cellphone—that shadowrunners liked to keep a safe distance between themselves and the rest of the world. Tiger Cat had warned her that Bluebeard was reclusive, shielding himself behind a wall of armor and tech. Alma had expected to be scanned, videotaped and chem-sniffed before getting on board the boat. She hadn't expected to have to run a gantlet of insults as well.
She wasn't about to back down—not with Bluebeard's cameras trained on her and the rain steadily soaking through her jacket. She suspected that the ork's belligerence was a test.
She liked tests.
Alma had already calculated the amount of give in the floating boards beneath her and the length of walkway beyond the ork. Crouching suddenly, she pistolled herself into the air. She landed—for just a split second—in a handstand with both hands on the ork's shoulders and then used her momentum to complete the handspring and land lightly on the walkway behind him, knees bent to compensate for the violent rocking her leap and landing had caused. Behind her, she heard a curse and a splash as the ork, unbalanced both by the fuel drum he was carrying and the sudden extra weight on his shoulders, toppled into the water. He came up sputtering and thrashing beside the bobbing drum, his face coated with diesel fuel.
"Fraggin' dirt-kisser!" he bellowed, scrambling with diesel-slicked hands for a grip on the bobbing walkway. "I'll push your face into a propeller for that!"
A chuckle erupted from one of the speakers on the patrol boat, and then a male voice spoke: Leave her alone, Stoker. She's right. I am expecting her.
A second later, Alma's cyberears picked up the faint whine of an electric motor and the muffled clunk of maglocks opening. A metal ladder near the stern unfolded itself against the patrol boat's hull.
Welcome aboard.
She climbed the ladder to the small deck at the rear of the boat. A square hatch in the rear deck opened smoothly on hydraulic lifts as she walked toward it.
Alma climbed down a ladder and found herself inside what looked like a dimly lit electronics repair shop. She had to activate her cybereyes' low-light vision to see anything; the only light came from the hatch above her, which was closing again, and from the spark-bright glow of red on/off indicator lights.
The interior of the patrol boat had been gutted, its separating walls removed to create one large space. Cheap metal shelving bolted to the walls held electronic parts of every description, and a host of tools dangled on spiral cords that hung from the ceiling. Gimballed tables tilted gently back and forth as the boat rocked. A profusion of computer equipment was spread across them, but there wasn't a single monitor screen in sight.
An enormously fat ork sat in the middle of the room on a reclining chair fitted with rollers. Fiberoptic cables were plugged into datajacks in his temples and into ports at the side of his head where his ears had once been. He was Asian, with black hair that had gone from receding to patchy, and fully cybered eyes with silver irises. A goatee straggled down across his bare belly to touch the faded sarong that was his only article of clothing. Mentally, Alma shook her head at his slovenly appearance. Tiger Cat had assured her that the fellow was one of Vancouver's top Matrix experts, but the man didn't have a speck of professionalism about him. He could at least have put on a shirt for this meeting.
Reluctantly, Alma took a step forward, wrinkling her nose in anticipation. But despite the man's size—he looked as though he only rarely moved from his chair—he didn't smell as stale as Alma had expected. The odor of linament lingered in the air, making Alma wonder if the hacker had a masseuse who kneaded the circulation back into his body while his mind was deep in the Matrix.
"That's close enough," he said.
Bluebeard was sitting with his chair turned partially away from Alma, his hands resting on a belly as massive as a Buddha's. He didn't bother to turn around while speaking to her, and his eyes seemed unfocused. Alma suspected that he was using the video cameras that were mounted around the interior of the boat to look at her.
Alma bowed in the direction of the nearest vidcam. "Thank you for agreeing to meet me in person."
He grunted and waved one hand in a jerky motion. "Tiger Cat can be very persuasive. He said seeing you would be worth my while. What kind of data are you looking for?"
"There's someone I'm interested in: a man by the name of Akira Kageyama. I need to know his movements, to find out where I can access him. My Johnson wants him extracted—by midnight tomorrow."
Bluebeard's eyebrows jerked up and then settled. "That's a tough order to fill without a starting point."
"I've got one." Alma reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a credstick and the business card that Ajax had given her yesterday. "I ha
ve some—connections—with the security industry. They tell me that Kageyama has used Priority One Security's bodyguards in the past. Priority One will have a record of where Kageyama went on those occasions, and when." Bluebeard's jowls quivered as he shook his head. "Priority One's been bought out by Knight Errant. If you want me to try and skate past their black ice, you'll have to triple your price."
Alma held up a zero-balance credstick whose optical chip had been wiped of all information save one vital piece, pulled from her own medical file: her DNA scan. She knew that Priority One would use the same scanning procedure that PCI did, taking a random sampling of the one hundred thousand genes in the human genome and looking for a one hundred percent match with that sample. The scan typically skipped the twenty-third chromosome pair, since the smaller Y chromosome found in men carried so little genetic information. That meant that it would miss the one difference between Alma's genetic coding and Ajax's: an XX instead of an XY chromosome pair.
"I have a way to bypass Priority One's Matrix security: a back-door key to their network," she explained. "That's why I insisted on coming here in person. This credstick contains a DNA scan of a Priority One employee named Ajax Penzler. I'm not sure what kind of clearances he has, but you should be able to use his ID to get into the employee scheduling system. Penzler himself may not have been assigned to bodyguard Kageyama. but someone else at Priority One will have."
Bluebeard's lips twitched into a smile. Alma knew what he was thinking: that she was about to hand him a master key to Priority One and a possible entry point to Knight Errant itself. What he didn't know was that the credstick included a program that would erase the optical chip after one upload of its data. Priority One's security would be compromised only until Bluebeard exited its system—which he'd need to do in order to tell Alma what he'd found.