“Somewhere near the office Leahy wanted Lolly to operate from,” I said.
“How do you know?” Worm asked.
“The missing man from Leahy’s group is there to take care of Lolly, while the rest of them deal with the rest of us,” I said.
“What does that mean?” Lob asked.
“It means Leahy is setting us up as patsies. He’s been building a frame around us from the get-go. When the authorities look into this they’ll see you four are hackers and I was pumping Ned Browne for info on the BluCorp system. The maps and blueprints of the place are in my office, or they were supposed to be. He probably has more on top of that. Maybe he’s supposed to get the data for Arc Tau. Maybe he’s going into business for himself. Either way he’ll let us take the fall, but I imagine we all die once we give them the data and get blamed posthumously. That’s the smart play,” I said.
“Fell, I mean, Leahy could dupe the data and turn it and us over to BluCorp and walk away a hero. Sell the duped stuff later,” Worm said.
“Maybe,” I replied. “Muckle might suspect something was up if that happened. Besides, we might sing once we were in police custody. Some smart investigator might believe us. If Leahy was smart he’d just kill us and take off with the data once he’s got it. That’s not going to happen now.”
“You have a plan?” Lolly asked.
“Yeah. I’m thinking we try and get Leahy and BluCorp’s thugs to tangle with each other. We slip out while they’re occupied. I’ll think on it,” I said sounding a lot more confident than I felt. “You do what you have to do inside the computer.”
“Psycherspace, man.”
I sighed. “Whatever.”
I used the data reader to look over the blueprints and maps of the compound and surrounding area, trying come up with something that might keep us alive until morning.
“Hey, RR?” Lob said.
“Kinda busy. What?”
“Those people the BluCorp assholes kidnapped, the Savans. Is their location worth anything considering our situation?”
Twenty thousand credits, that’s what they were worth.
“You know where they are?” I asked.
“Yeah. They’re in this compound like Fell—Leahy said. I could pinpoint them if you want. I’m waiting on Worm and Hap to get their shit together,” he said with a smile showing under his visor.
“Fuck you, Lob. We gave you the easy task,” Hap shot back.
“It’s a storage area,” Lob said. “Building number... six, room two.”
I looked at the map. We were less than a hundred meters away from the building.
“How many guards do you see?” I asked.
“Two in the room with them and four outside the room near a door.”
Too many. A one man rescue was impossible. Weaver could get a tac team in here, I thought, but I preferred to be gone before then.
“Keep tabs on it, if you can,” I said.
“Guards going under your location in fifteen or twenty seconds, guys,” Lolly said. “Lay off the chatter.”
A short while later she said, “Clear.”
“We’re set,” Hap said. He dug into the left pocket of his jacket and brought out a handful of datasticks. He held them out toward me.
“Take these, RR. We may not have enough onboard storage. There’s a lot of shit in here. A lot.”
I took the sticks and set them beside the data reader.
“Do I plug these into your head?” I asked to the snorts and guffaws of the hackers.
“No, dude. There’s a slot on the front of the reader. Switch’em out when I tell you.”
Hap took in a deep breath and let it out as I put one of the sticks into the port on the reader.
“Going in,” he said.
“‘Bout time,” Lob said with a smile.
About a minute passed before any of them said anything.
“I’m moving data to the stick, RR. It’ll be full in a minute or so.”
A minute or so later, he told me to put in a fresh one.
“There’s a ton of info swapping going on between BluCorp and some info brokers somewhere in North Africa,” Hap said.
“Any sign of a guy named York’s involvement?” I asked.
“Some dude named James York acts as a courier. You know him, RR?”
“Not personally, but that tidbit fills in a big hole.”
“Real complex,” Hap said. “I don’t how it all works, but BluCorp is trading Gulf City government data, rival company data, all kinds of shit. They’re swapping information, using it to fuck over their competitors, and some other shit I don’t understand. Way over my head. It looks like they’ve made a lot of creds doing it though.”
“Any of the city data classified?” I asked.
“Gimme a sec... yeah, most of it I’d guess.”
Not that it helped us just then, but if we could get out of there alive that information might get us off the hook.
“Shit,” Worm said. “Defense program, Hap.”
“I see it. Fuck, it’s a Buchanan. I don’t recognize the protocols.”
“Try and whirl it maybe?” Worm asked.
“No, not without knowing what we’re dealing with. Doing it wrong would be the same as the Buchanan sacking you,” Lob said.
“Lob, drop what you’re doing and join us,” Hap said. “We got maybe a minute before we get goggled and maybe another thirty before we’re ronked.”
I had no clue what they meant by that, but I took it to mean they were on the verge of trouble.
Lob grimaced. “But the accounts... damn it, I’m on my way.”
“Put in a new stick, RR,” Hap said. His voice sounded strained, like he was doing physical labor.
“What do I grab?” Lob asked.
“Those sectors,” Hap said.
All three hackers looked stressed, their heads twitching back and forth every so often.
“It’s almost on me. Do I evade or bail?” Worm asked.
“Bail, dude. If that thing catches you we’ll have to carry you out of here,” Lob said.
“I’m gone,” Worm replied. He lifted his visor and leaned back against the wall. He looked at me as he pulled the plug from his skull. “Fuck. That thing damn near had me.”
“Would that Buchanan physically harm you?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “Knock your wits loose. Like getting hit in the head I imagine. You ever get hit in the head?”
“A time or two.”
“Fuck. They know we’re here,” Hap said. “My fault, Buchanan pinged me.”
“Nah, he tapped us both, Hap,” Lob said. “No way to avoid it. They’ll shut down the system. Grab and go.”
“Another stick, RR. I gotta jet, Buchanan’s on me,” Hap said. “They might could track us to our point in meatspace and cack us. I’m gone.” He let out a loud sigh and his shoulders slumped as I placed another stick in the port. He took off his visor and stared at the rooftop for a few seconds. “I’m not sure what we got, RR. We were just snatchin’ and grabbin’, throwing everything into storage. We can sort it out later,” he said in a tired voice.
“They’re shutting the system down,” Lob said. “They got security scrambling, but they don’t know where we are.”
“Get out, Lob,” Hap said.
“Will do. Checking something... I’m bailing.”
Lob pulled his visor off and unplugged the wire from his skull, the shook his head violently. “The Savans only got two guards now,” he said. “BluCorp has all their other security people scrambling.”
“We can’t do anything about the Savans now. Even if we got them out of the building, we’d never get them out of the compound.”
“Lob’s not joking about security,” Lolly said. “There are guards running around like ants and they are putting together some kind of drone near the security center. The same kind the SecFor flies on the edge of Sowtown.”
“SDAR’s,” I said. “They’re small, for low alti
tude work. They aren’t legal for civilian use. Show’s how serious BluCorp is taking this.”
“What the fuck does that mean, SDAR?” Hap asked.
“Security Drone, Armed, Remote-controlled.”
“Fuck,” Worm said. “Can we evade it?”
“Maybe. If we can find a hiding place before they get the thing up. We have to pack up and move, now. Lolly, you shut down the commo beam. They may have sensors that can see it. When it’s clear we’ll put the receiver back up, go it?”
“Got it,” Lolly said. “There are guards moving everywhere groundside so stay quiet. Good luck, guys. I’ll be watching. I’m gone.”
My earbud suddenly hissed with static when she cut the coms. I looked at our position and saw the hackers had everything packed up well enough to be able to move.
“Follow me,” I said quietly.
I went around the corner of the wall where we had been sitting and headed left, trying to stay quiet while crossing the gritty surface. Located diagonally across the roof was a bank of four large air conditioning units set two by two. I led us over to them. The units were set into steel and plascrete pads, the sides covered in plylar, a thermal insulating material.
“Get between the units here and drop the gear,” I said as I put my shotgun and the data reader on the rooftop next to one of the humming A/C units.
“How do we hide from a flying drone on top of a roof?” Hap asked.
I pulled my belt knife from its sheath. “I’ll show you. Follow my lead and we’ll be fine,” I said locking the blade into the open position. “Get your roll of screw tape out of the bag,” I said to Lob as I removed the one from my shoulder bag and tossed it onto the roof near him.
I cut the plylar along the edges from the facing sides of the air conditioners where we were going to hide.
“Tape these between the units,” I said to the hackers handing them the large pieces of insulation I had cut loose. “Like a roof. First here where we will hide, then over there,” I said pointing at the other two air conditioners.
“How is this going to work?” Worm asked.
“I’d explain but we’d be caught before I was finished. Make it neat.”
Worm shrugged his shoulders and went to work.
I repeated the same removal of plylar from the other pair of air conditioners, then knelt and cut the two rectangles in half. By the time I was finished the hackers had completed their job.
“Here,” I said passing two squares of plylar to Hap, “you and Worm enclose the space under the roof you just put up. Box it in at the ends.”
I picked up the other two pieces of plylar. “Lob, you’re with me.”
In no time, we had the sheets in place, leaving a flap to crawl under to gain access into our hiding position. Once we were all inside, we made ourselves comfortable.
“You think this will work? What if they have thermal sensors?” Hap asked.
I opened my mouth to speak.
“Won’t they see what we did up here? They’ll see the changes, we’re fucked,” Worm said.
“That is plylar,” I said pointing at our new roof. “Thermal insulation. These air conditioners are blowing heat up in the air through the vents on top. They will never see anything with sensors, thermal or otherwise. As for the reconfiguring job we did, well, I doubt they have any HVAC techs on duty to tell them something isn’t right. Got it?”
“HVAC?”
“Heating, ventilation, air-conditioning.”
“Smart, RR,” Lob said looking at the outer-facing portion of our shelter. “You know, we can set the receiver right here. I could see Lolly’s position when we were taping this thing up. We wait for the drone to get clear and we can get an update on what the security guys are up to.”
I nodded “Keep an ear out for the SDAR. They are anything but quiet,” I said.
“Hey, RR?” Hap said.
“Yeah?”
“If Leahy isn’t Security Forces, what do we do with the data? Give it to the cops or the real Security Forces?”
“No,” I said with a shake of my head. “The newsies. That idea you three had about selling it like Leahy was going to do, drop it,” I said looking at each of them. I could see by the look on their faces they had thought about it. “That shit is radioactive. It’ll get you killed if you hang on to it for too long.”
The sound of whirring blades became audible over the hum of the air conditioners. It was the SDAR, flying low. We heard it pass by, then the sound faded away. After a few minutes, it passed by again, a little closer this time and headed the opposite direction from its last pass.
“They have it flying a patterned search, flying very low,” I said. “That’s good for us. It means they don’t know what they’re doing. It will fly from one end of the compound to the other, moving a small distance laterally each pass. With it flying low makes it easier for us to evade, less area it can take in with its sensors, plus it’s predictable. Once it gets far enough past us we set up the receiver.”
“While we wait I’m going to skim over what I have on storage,” Hap said pointing at his head.
“I’ll do the same,” Lob said. “Worm, you keep an eye and an ear out while we poke around.”
“You got it.”
The SDAR continued its passes back and forth over the compound.
A few minutes later Lob grew pale and grimaced. “Fuck, man. Guys, you need to see this,” he said.
He pulled his plug with the connection wire out of a pocket and handed me one end of it. “Plug that into the data reader and put in a fresh data stick.”
I did as he asked.
“What is it?” Hap asked.
“Give me a second. There. You guys plug into the data reader and look at sector 776-2A.”
Hap and Worm leaned over and passed me their connections. A minute later they both said “Fuck” nearly simultaneously.
“They killed somebody,” Hap said. “They showed a video of it to the Savans.”
“Can I see it?” I said.
“Yeah,” Hap said, “I duped it onto the datastick in the reader.”
He repeated the sector identifier and I brought it up.
“That video is kinda long,” Lob said. “We can scan stuff like that in a few minutes because it’s almost like it’s thought for us. A memory almost.”
“I’ll show you the highlights,” Hap said.
The video was well over thirty minutes long. The kid used his head to access the file on the data reader. He flashed forward and played a portion on the reader’s screen, then flashed to another, then another, until I saw and heard enough of the video to understand what happened. He never missed a beat. He was like an editing machine with a brain.
Looking at the video it was obvious the Arc Tau contractors had been grinding on the Savans for a while. If you know what to look for you can see it. Nothing physical, but it was trying for them, of that I was sure. BluCorp wanted them on board, to get with the program. They were pressuring Charles for the identity of the girl who knew everything. Savan couldn’t give it to them even if he wanted to because she didn’t exist. The mercs eventually gave up, thinking Charles was unaware a nonexistent woman heard him talking. They never asked about the phone call made on Sarah’s phone, and he didn’t volunteer it.
The last part of the vid showed Muckle talking with the Savans. They still wouldn’t agree to go along with BluCorp, but when the mercs showed the pair a video of Alex Foster’s assassination they caved.
I understood why. The vid within the vid showed a pair of masked men in a hotel room, almost certainly in the Republic of Havana. Alex Foster was on his knees with a man on each side of him. There was a data reader set up on a bed facing him. Lawton Muckle’s image was on the screen, and he was interrogating Foster by remote from the comfort of his office in Gulf City. Muckle kept assuring him that if he cooperated he would live. Muckle was lying of course. When he was finished with his inquiry, he put a finger to his temple and said, “Finish him.” Th
e merc to Foster’s left put a pinbeam pistol behind Foster’s left ear and fired before the lawyer could react. Quick and quiet.
“The board will be happy you fulfilled their wishes so efficiently. Get yourselves out of there and back up here to Gulf City,” Muckle said calmly before logging off. The mercs picked up the reader, then shut off the video recorder, and presumably left.
The video terrified the Savans. Neither was equipped to deal with the situation. With Arc Tau thugs and the man who ordered the assassination standing in front of them, they didn’t stand a chance. Muckle looked smug when they agreed to do whatever the BluCorp board wanted.
I looked at the hackers and could see that the video shook them up as well.
“Those are the kind of people you’ll have after you if you try and sell the data we have. Maybe they send people a lot nastier than you saw on the vid. This needs to get out into the public eye. Once it’s out there BluCorp will try for spin and damage control because the cat is out of the bag instead of trying to snuff us. You get me?” I said.
They all three nodded.
“How do we get out of this?” Hap asked.
“Kid, we stay alive only as long as that info is ours or it goes public. If Leahy gets it, we’re dead. Those three guys he has with him—”
“Same kinda guys that killed the man on the vid, right?” Worm said.
I nodded.
“You have a plan to get us out of here without BluCorp or Leahy fucking us up? Lob asked.
“Yeah. We need to know what the security situation is before we make any concrete decisions.”
“You think the drone is far enough away for us to see if we can talk to Lolly?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll put the receiver up. She ought to be watching.”
Within a few minutes we regained contact with Lolly.
“Pretty neat trick with the air conditioners,” she said.
“Yeah. I thought he had gone idiot on us at first,” Hap said as he smiled and glanced at me.
Lob told her about the Foster murder. I was sure he wanted his sister to understand the type of people we had to deal with.
“What do you have in mind, RR?” Lolly asked.
“Let me get some things sorted out. Is there any way to take out Leahy’s commo and other electronic gear?”
The Lowdown in High Town: An R.R. Johnson Novel Page 24