by Mel Odom
"But even the way those files were protected in the freighter's system told us it was a prize worth going after," Archangel said.
"Okay," Duran said, "we agreed we had a target. What about Larisa's info? Where did it come from?"
"She was looking for frag-you money," Skater said with a conviction he suddenly felt. "She got hold of some information she knew I could use-she knew what I did even if she didn't know who I did it with-and she thought she could cut herself in for a percentage."
"You gave it to her," Trey said.
Skater nodded. "Until this, I never had a reason not to trust her."
"She was holding out on you, though," Duran said.
Skater turned the possibility around in his mind. He didn't like it, but it felt right. Larisa had been scared at the end; he knew that as well as he knew his own heart was still beating. "She was frightened," he said softly. Then repeated the conjecture with more conviction.
"But she was obviously doing okay," Elvis said. "That Bellevue doss didn't come cheap."
Skater glanced at Archangel. "Have you checked out her numbers?" He was sure Duran would have asked Archangel to chip whatever she could about Larisa when he'd called the team in.
Archangel nodded. "Prelim's done. Some things I'm still chasing. Considering her income from four months ago, she was living well past her means."
"Can you trace the rent transfers?"
"I can try."
"Do it." Skater put his cup on the low table in front of the sofa and returned to the kitchen long enough to pick up packets of salt, pepper, ketchup, and sugar. Archibald had evidently frequented McHugh's. because they all bore the fast-food restaurant's logo. "Any luck with the files we boosted from the Sapphire Seakawk?'
"No. I've run some home-grown edit utilities with a decrypt cocktail to crash any scramble IC, and an evaluate program as an after-dinner mint. If I can crack any of the files, I may be able to find some bits that will give us more to work with. But I'm certain it's not all there."
Skater placed the salt packet on the low table. "Makes you wonder if it was all there to begin with."
Duran leaned forward. "What are you saying?"
Skater pointed to the red and white salt packet. "O.K., just to simplify things. Let's say we're the salt." He placed the black and gray pepper packet a few centimeters above the salt. "This represents the elves-Tir Taimgire-and their interest in recovering the files we stole."
"Damage control?" Elvis asked.
"On the surface, I think so. The people who broke out of Lone Star seemed to be more interested in getting those files back than anything else."
''Means they're worth something to someone," Trey said. "Which, incidentally, could work in our favor."
"If we live to collect," Wheeler put in-
"True, chummer, but let's look at this optimistically." Trey shifted, then leaned forward' and tapped the pepper packet. "What if we tried selling the files back to the elves? Cut out the middle man?"
"If it comes to that," Skater said, "maybe we will. The downside is they'll find out fragging quick that we don't have all the files. In which case they're going think we're either trying to stiff them, or that we didn't have them to begin with, or that we're just trying to get them off our backs to make another deal."
"Either way," Elvis said, "we stand a good chance of getting our hoops flushed down the tubes so they can bury this."
"It also keeps us from tracking down whoever set us up to begin with." Skater looked around the table as he placed the ketchup packet below the salt. "Personally, I want a shot at whoever it was. They killed Larisa and. by proxy, they killed Shiva. Someone's got to pay."
"I agree," Duran stated. "The elf and troll who tried to scrag Skater outside SybreSpace, they're connected somewhere. Probably to whoever was pulling your girl's strings."
"Dion and Shayx," Skater said. 'They might be working for a guy named Synclair Tone. He and Dion came up out of the Barrens together. A chummer's trying to find out more for me right now." If Kestrel would only return his call.
"I can make some discreet inquiries into Tone's affiliations." Trey said. "Some of my own contacts wouldn't mind trading info for some handy little trinkets I could whip up for them."
"Do that." Skater put the pink sugar envelope down, equidistant from the pepper and ketchup. "This here's the yakuza. I'm not sure where they fit in yet, but we can't ignore them."
"Not with them hunting us," Wheeler said.
"Even if we were able to cut a deal with the Tir Taimgire folks," Skater said, "the yaks just might think we kept a copy of the files as a bargaining chip for some later opportunity. There's a good possibility they'll keep coming at us unless we get certain closure on this."
"I'll look into the yak angle," Elvis said.
Skater nodded. "Outside of those three groups, we're also up against the best Lone Star has to offer, as well as every street hustler who figures on chiseling a piece of our butts." He stood and let his eyes travel over the faces of the others. "Could be our best bet is to do a quick fade and forget we ever heard of Seattle."
"Me," Duran said, "I never liked running from a fight, and I absolutely hate being set up."
"As for myself," Trey said, "I've become accustomed to a certain lifestyle in this town, and that lifestyle has been augmented by our various forays. To venture from here would mean losing that."
Wheeler and Elvis echoed the sentiments with reasons of their own.
"I'm in," Archangel stated simply.
Skater guessed that whatever past she was hiding might not be quite so easily lost if she had to pull up stakes and go elsewhere. "Archangel will do some fishing in the Matrix for any card we might play, while Trey checks out Synclair Tone and Elvis does the same for the yaks. We need an ops base, plus a bolthole in case things turn nasty."
"This place?" Wheeler obviously didn't like the idea.
"For the moment," Duran said, "this is as good as it gets."
'I'll see what I can do," Wheeler said. "You ask me, though, this is the end of the road even for losers."
"And transport," Skater said.
"What kind?"
"Ground and air. Keep it ready to jump." Skater turned away and walked to the kitchen. He took the stuffed bear from the table and brought it back to Trey. "I need to know about this."
The mage took the stuffed animal, absently wiping at the soot stains. "You serious?"
"Yeah." Even though his mind was racing, planning and counter-planning, shooting him onto an adrenaline edge. Skater felt the cold fear that came from touching the bear.
"Whose was it?" Trey asked.
"That's part of what I need to know." Skater told him about finding the stuffed animal in Larisa's apartment.
"You think it belonged to the child?" Trey asked.
"If there was one," Skater said. "If it was hers."
"Was it yours?"
The question hung out there, naked and blunt. "I don't know," Skater replied. "I don't think so. Larisa would have told me."
Trey stood up, shaking the wrinkles from his cloak. "I'll need some things. Paper. Something to mark with. I'll be back." He laid the stuffed bear on the table and walked into the kitchen.
Skater looked over at Archangel. "There may be hospital records on the birth."
"I'll check."
"And if the father is named-"
"I'll let you know." Her face never changed expression.
"What are you going to be doing all this time?" Wheeler asked.
"Looking through Larisa's life. Trying to figure out as many of the things she didn't tell me as I can." Skater looked at the ork. "You'll cover me because I can't grow eyes in the back of my head. If she was lying to me, her friends will try it too. I can't keep my eyes on them and watch to see I don't get my hoop fragged at the same time."
Duran nodded.
Returning from the other room. Trey pulled the bird-embroidered rug from the plascrete floor, then sat with his legs crossed.
He ripped up a McHugh's paper bag till he had a flat surface to lay on the floor. After putting the stuffed bear in the center of it, he used a green pen advertising a bank service to mark sygils on the paper at six different positions around the stuffed animal.
"You've never seen this child?" Trey asked.
"No." Skater shook his head.
"A shame. That might have helped. Still, I'll see what I can do." The mage closed his eyes, his arms relaxed on his thighs. After a few minutes, he opened his eyes and looked over at Skater. "There was something. Maybe. It moved so quickly that I'm not sure. The spell would work better if I knew the child's name. Give me something of yours."
Skater thought a minute, then handed Trey the Predator.
Trey put it into the circle, then inscribed a new sygil over three pre-existing symbols. Then he closed his eyes again. Minutes passed. Perspiration dewed across Trey's broad forehead. This time his shirt was drenched and he slumped after coming out of his astral search.
"The child's alive," Trey said in a frayed voice. "But she's either very far away, or is being warded by someone. If I had a more secure connect, I'd be able to tell." He pushed himself to his feet. "As to whether she's your daughter. Jack, I can't honestly say. I was able to reach her, but I don't know if it's because she's yours, or because of your connection with her mother."
"Thanks for trying."
Trey bowed his head. "Of course."
Skater returned to the bedroom and gathered the synth-leather bomber jacket. He slid into it on his way back out, adjusting the Predator so it couldn't be seen. "You ready?" he asked Duran.
"Yeah." The ork stood up, cracked the knuckles of his gnarled hands, and went to the door.
Skater pulled on the driving gloves Elvis had brought him, not totally surprised to find that the fingers and palm edges were lined with macroplast armor, turning them into a not-too-modest set of dusters. He went out the door, driven by a need for vengeance that would have shamed a fallen angel. Duran followed.
It wasn't about profit anymore. Not all of it.
14
"Kestrel," Skater said into the public telecom, "this is Skater. When you get this message, give me a call back." He read off the number with difficulty because it was sun-faded and weather-beaten. "I'll be here five minutes, then I'm smoke." He tapped the Disconnect, then walked down the street to join Duran leaning against the wall around the corner.
The ork looked completely at ease. Dressed in a modest suit and wearing wrap-around Whitelaw sunglasses, he could almost have passed for a corpgeek waiting for an after-work dinner date. Both of them were bone-tired from lack of sleep, and both were using stimulants on top of sheer willpower to keep going.
The telecom chirped two minutes later, and Skater was in motion at once. As he rounded the comer, he spotted two thrillers dressed in the Cutters green and gold making for the cube. They were a salt and pepper team, a white female with spiky blonde hair and a shiny cyberarm, and a black male sporting a goatee and an open shirt revealing a pornographic chest tattoo of a troll abusing a sheep.
"Call's for me," Skater said.
The two gangers wheeled toward him. The black guy shoved his hand inside his shirt and grabbed something, but he made no move to pull it. Finger razors shot out of the girl's cyberarm, complete with a long elbow spur.
The telecom beeped a second time.
"I think you got that wrong, wackweed," the blonde said. "This is Cutter turf. That phone belongs to us. You'd best be on about your business."
Cars passed on the street. It was getting dark. Even in daylight the inner city was no place for someone to stop unless they had a fragging good reason, and went fully armed.
"Your choice." Skater said softly, still moving forward in a straight line. He opened the bomber jacket, letting them see the Ares Predator in its shoulder holster under the coat. "I'm prepared to die for that call. How about you?"
The male ganger released his weapon and stepped back. "Chill, Pebbles," he told the girl. "Let's pack it in. He's got a yabo over his shoulder. This drek don't mean nothing to us." He caught her flesh and blood arm and gently tugged her after him.
Her face set in angry lines, the girl whirled suddenly and dragged her razors across the window of the collectibles shop next to the telecom cube. The sharp points left scars in the glass.
Keeping one hand on the Predator, Skater tapped the Connect key. "Yeah," he said.
"I found out it was you who called," Kestrel said, sounding like he was talking from the bottom of a well, "you could have knocked me over with a fragging feather. I heard about you getting busted by Knight Errant and getting passed over to Lone Star. I also heard you escaped."
Skater had heard about the escape as well, sandwiched in between more trideo reports of the so-called laughing death disease. An ork woman working at a fast-food restaurant had gone berserk and attacked her own leg with a kitchen knife, then sat on the counter throwing her toes and chunks of flesh at the customers, all the while giggling tike a little girl. There was also more footage on the fire at the Montgomery Building in Believue, and the terrorist bombing at Sea-Tac International Airport that morning. But not a peep about any dead elves being found in a warehouse.
"I need help," Skater said.
"If you're still in town after all the drek that went down," the fixer said, "you need your fragging head examined."
"What have you found out about the yak who's after me? Dokai something?"
"Masaru Doyukai." Kestrel said. "All I know is that he's still looking, and he's offering big nuyen to anyone who can finger you."
"What's his interest?"
"Still haven't scanned it, but the guy must be getting desperate. He put the squeeze on some stoolies in the area, killed two of them and put another in the hospital to make his point. Hasn't exactly endeared himself to the locals."
"Stick with it as best you can without getting caught in the middle," Skater said. "I'll pay for your time."
"Have you got a stash besides the one you had down in the Caribbean?" the fixer asked.
"Why?" Skater couldn't be sure the call wasn't being traced.
"The new idee I fixed you up with?" Kestrel said. "Lone Star got it. I tried to get into the accounts as soon as I heard they nabbed you. I wanted to shift them around so you'd have something if and when you got out. I got some of it, but not much."
"The rest of it?"
"Evaporated, chummer, absorbed back into Lone Star's legal acquisitions. Frozen till you can prove you're not guilty of any infractions of the law."
Skater felt a cold emptiness swell up inside him, threatening to envelop him. For eight years he'd been running the shadows-and that was a long time to survive in this biz- hustling and dodging bullets on every bit of action he could sign on for. There'd been a vague plan, an amorphous dream of getting out of the sprawl and the biz, but more than anything else, he'd been buying the security he'd never known.
Now it was gone, taken away.
"I've got some set aside," Skater said in a tight voice. "What I can't pay you immediately, I'll make good."
"Sure, sure," Kestrel said. "Bui I'd feel better if you were on your way out of Seattle right now."
"Can't," Skater said. "Somebody stuck it in me and broke it off. I can't be sure they're going to crawl off my back anywhere unless I can get them off. I'll be in touch," He hit the Disconnect.
Duran looked ai him. "That look on your face, can't be anything but bad news."
"I moved my money around, getting ready to shake this town," Skater said. "But Lone Star seized my accounts. I've still got some put by in a few others places, but I'm going to be sucking air real soon."
"Tough break." Duran fell into step beside him, sweeping the street with his gaze. "But don't forget we're all in this together, kid. We pool our resources, we'll get by. Bet on it."
"We already arc," Skater said.
15
"Hi, this is Brynna. I'm either not home now, or I'm engaged in a sexua
l fantasy come true that you can only dream about. If you're a chummer, leave a message and I'll get back to you when I recover. If you're selling something, frag off and don't be gentle about it. Bye."
A beep followed.
Skater chose not to leave a message. He stood at the cube of public telecoms near Renton Mall's southern entrance, in the wide hallway sandwiched between 2Fast Arcades and Shiloh's, a specialty costume shop.
"She home?" Duran asked as he walked up with two Sloppies and two big soft drinks,
"No." Skater took one of the drinks and a Sloppie. "But I got her recorded message."
"So she's probably still around." Duran pointed toward the trideos stacked in the window further down the hallway at Matt amp; Matt's Trideo Concepts. "I was standing in line, I heard KTXX announce it was going live soon with some big news bulletin."
A locally produced syndicated talk show was on in a showcase window a few steps from where they stood. A handful of people were already gathered there, talking among themselves and watching the program.
On the screens, Perri Twyst, the host, was leaning intently toward her two guests. The trideo personality had widely spaced limpid blue pools for eyes, a strong chin, and a lime-green pageboy that emphasized her lean jawline and the earring in her left nostril chained to the ear on that same side. As usual, she wore faded jeans and a plaid Oxford button-down with the sleeves ripped out, emphasizing her street background.
"Knowing the resistance you would encounter trying to establish yourself in Seattle," Twyst was saying, "why would you be willing to undertake such a challenge?"
Her guests were the same elves Skater had seen on the trid in the Lone Star slam. He couldn't remember their names. Then, as the camera panned in for a close-up, block letters flashed onto the screen below the male: Tavis Silverstaff, CEO of NuGene, a biomed corp in Portland. He wore purples today, with a gold brocade that set everything off. His long fingers were wrapped around the head of a glittering cane, and his royal plum cape fell in cascades behind him across the plush chair. His smile was white and generous, totally confident.