by Lisa Smedman
He waited until the medic utility had finished its work. Then he opened the body bag's zipper-and was relieved to see that his graphics-recognition capacity had been restored. Peeling the body bag away from his body, he stepped back into the iconography of the sub-processing unit and surveyed the field of battle. Now he could see the previously invisible land mines that were the jammer IC. This time, he would be able to avoid them.
The tank was visible again, and was rattling away from him. But it took only an instant for it to pinpoint its prey. One of its rear-mounted targeting lasers found Red Wraith and locked its ruby-red cross hairs on his chest. The turret whipped around one-eighty degrees in a motion so fast the barrel of the cannon ghosted, and Red Wraith was looking down into the cold, dark muzzle of the cannon.
Just the way he wanted it…
Red Wraith reached up with his ghostly hands, yanked his head from his body, and hurled it into the gaping maw of the cannon. Darkness engulfed him. He had a sensation of sliding, spiraling along the cannon's rifled interior…
Then his head exploded. He was a swirl of numbers, characters, symbols-strings of programming that wormed their way into the metal of the tank, penetrating its algorithmic armor and seeking out its core programming. One of those datastrings found the sub-routine that the IC used to analyze its sensory input in order to coordinate its targeting and damage-assessment systems. The datastring spiraled around that sub-routine, creating a tiny loop that connected it with another. Then Red Wraith shifted his perspective back to the new head that had materialized on his persona.
The cannon belched flame and smoke. A projectile composed of tightly knitted code emerged from the muzzle, flashed toward Red Wraith in a streak of light-and passed harmlessly through his ghostly body. Then it arced up, over-and slammed into the tank itself, exploding with a bright flash.
The tank fired another projectile. And another.
Red Wraith didn't even flinch. A total of six explosions rocked the tank, and then the cannon fell silent and the projectiles stopped. The cannon barrel turned left, right, then the laser targeting sights suddenly blinked out.
As the tank rumbled forward across the corrugated metal floor, Red Wraith neatly sidestepped it. The tank continued until it struck one of the solid rectangular blocks that represented datastores within the sub-processing unit, drew back, changed its orientation slightly, then butted against it a second time. Only after a number of jarring impacts did the tank lumber away-only to get caught against another datastore.
Red Wraith nodded in satisfaction. His customized attack utility had done its work. The link it had created between the two sub-programs had caused the data corresponding to the location of Red Wraith's persona to be skipped. Instead it was replaced with the data that represented the tank's own position within the sub-processing unit. Unable to lock onto its intended target, the tank's attack bypassed Red Wraith's persona, leaving the decker's MPCP undamaged. Instead it attacked the programming of the blaster IC itself, rendering the IC blind to the icons around it.
Although it had been defeated, the blaster IC was still up and running. It would give the appearance of being fully functional to any sysop who ran a diagnostics check on this sub-processing unit.
One thing was still bothering Red Wraith, however. When he'd run his analyze utility, it had identified the tank as gray IC, an intrusion countermeasures program that attacked the deck, rather than the decker. But what if that had been just a mask? Military computer systems usually were protected with black IC. "Killer" IC, deckers called it, since the biofeedback it induced could flatline you.
And Red Wraith, of all people, should know you can't judge a killer by his cover.
He did not experience any of the warning signs usually associated with lethal biofeedback. That was because the cranial bomb that had nearly taken his life seven years ago had done extensive damage to the mesencephalic central gray matter in his brain. As a result, he was no longer able to feel physical pain.
The bomb also severed his spinal cord at the second cervical vertebrae. In the bad old days of the twentieth century, this would have left him a quadriplegic, immobile from the neck down, dependent upon a breather machine and moving about in the world in a wheelchair equipped with an archaic sip and puff computer interface. But modern medicine had allowed the docs to revive him, even though he was clinically dead when the trauma team found him. Cybersurgeons had rebuilt the fragmented vertebrae with plastic bone lacing and replaced the transected axions of his spinal cord with a modified move-by-wire system. Occasionally, his limbs spasmed out, but at least he was mobile. Most of the time.
Red Wraith initiated a customized medical diagnostics utility that was programmed to do a quick scan of his meat bod. A series of condition monitors appeared in front of him. Heart rate, blood pressure, blood-oxygenation levels, and respiratory rates were all normal. His cybereyes and ears were still functional, as were his blood and air filters, his toxin exhaler, and his adrenal pump.
All that cyberware-as well as the fingertip needle with its compartment of deadly toxin in his right forefinger and the subdermal induction datajack in his left palm that he used to access the Matrix-had been installed courtesy of the UCAS military. His handlers had made him into the perfect killing machine, used him to assassinate key political figures during the decade of political unrest that followed the Euro-Wars, then slagged him with the cranial bomb they'd hidden at the base of his skull when his services were no longer required.
Or tried to slag him.
The cranial bomb had been defective. It had taken Red Wraith to the brink of death. For more than a minute, he had been clinically dead. But fortunately, he'd been in Amsterdam when the bomb was activated. And fortunately, he'd secretly purchased a platinum-class contract with the Hoogovens Groep Clinic. The Daf TraumaVaggon had gotten him to the clinic in time.
The doctors hadn't known who their patient was-all records of the human named Daniel Bogdanovich had been erased long ago from public databases, and, given the cybereyes, retinal scans were not an option anyway. But their patient's credit had been good. And so the cyberdocs did what had to be done to save his life.
Daniel settled in Amsterdam afterward. It was as good a place as any to call home, and the houseboats on the canals provided accommodation that was cheap and private. He didn't venture out much; suffering a spasmodic episode in public was not his idea of a fun time. Instead he spent most of his time in the world of the Matrix, a world in which the icon that was his "body" never failed him. A world in which the encephalon implants they'd used to repair his damaged brain gave him a distinct edge.
He had chosen Red Wraith as his on-line handle and constructed his persona in the image of a particular form of ghost known as a wraith. According to superstition, a wraith was an apparition that took the form of the person whose death it portended. And that pretty much summed up Red Wraith's previous career.
In his role as cyberassassin, his most important asset had been his ability to infiltrate his target's home, headquarters, or place of work. He did this by "becoming" the target through a combination of disguise and technological mimicry. All assassins prepare by acquiring as much information on the target as possible, and Daniel had taken this to the bleeding edge. Into the datasoft link in his skull he slotted not only chips containing the target's personal data, but also chips comparable in function to an activesoft. These contained programs that overrode Daniel's own emotional responses and motor skills, allowing him to precisely duplicate the target's behavioral quirks, speech patterns, and emotional reactions. Like the wraith for which his on-line persona was named, Daniel became a mirror image of his target-an apparition whose arrival portended the target's death.
Part of the function of the headware memory system that accommodated the data from the skillsofts had been to suppress Daniel's own long-term memories, so that he could not give information on his past hits, if apprehended and magically mind-probed. He remembered his current mission-who he was
to assassinate, where, and when- but remembered nothing prior to the start of that mission. As for his memories previous to becoming a UCAS assassin, only flashes and fragments remained. He knew that he had been based out of UCAS SEACOM and that he had once lived in Seattle. As for his personality… well, all he had left was the chip he'd slotted on his last job. His own, original personality was like an erased chip, wiped clean by the installation of the datasoft link in his skull.
But fragmentary memories occasionally surfaced. And one of those fragments-the memory of a woman-was what had gotten Daniel through, had given him the will to come back from the brink of death after the cranial bomb nearly killed him.
When the Daf TraumaVaggon team had found him, Daniel was clutching a holopic of her. His mind held equally tightly to the memory fragments of her that remained in his wetware. The memory of her face: high cheekbones and sparkling green eyes framed by auburn hair. Her name: Lydia. Her relationship to him: lover, friend, wife.
But the rest was missing. Daniel had no idea where the pair of them had lived, no idea where Lydia might be today. He desperately wanted to touch the smooth skin of her cheek once more, to stare into the eyes that had once burned with such intense love.
But the only way he was going to do that was if he accessed his old personnel records, found out where she had been living on the day that he'd "died." Seven years had elapsed since then, but there was still a good chance that Lydia was alive, that her current address could be traced once he had her SIN. It wouldn't even matter if she were in a relationship with someone else; if she had forgotten all about him. Red Wraith just wanted to see her one last time…
He'd been preparing for this datarun for seven long years, honing his skills as a decker. Now he was one of the best. And he had reached his goal. Or nearly…
Red Wraith turned his attention to the datastore. It was shaped like a metal ammo box with a large hasp on one side. A marquee of stenciled block letters flowed around the ammo box: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The analyze utility he'd used on this datastore earlier had triggered the attack by the blaster IC. But it had also alerted Red Wraith to some white IC that he now would be able to deal with.
He clenched his hand in a particular motion and a scalpel appeared in it. Studying the hasp that sealed the ammo box, he slid the blood-lubed blade of the surgical knife into it and turned it slowly, feeling the resistance. The action triggered his cyberdeck's defuse utility, neutralizing the data bomb that was attached to this datafile. The hasp broke apart into pixels that shimmered and disappeared, and the ammo box swung open.
A cyclone of swirling alphanumeric characters rose from the box. Red Wraith triggered his browse program, sought out the file that bore his name. Names spiraled past his eyes, too quickly to read. The As, the Bs…
The cyclone stopped, frozen in place. Paydata! Bogdanovich, Daniel. Red Wraith reached out and seized the name, felt raw data stream through him as the personnel file downloaded into his cyberdeck. Then he released the cyclone. It spiraled downward, neatly compressing itself back into the ammo box. He closed the lid, and the hasp reappeared.
He glanced at the tiny red numbers that logged the amount of time he'd spent on this run: forty-seven seconds; local time 09:46:59. It was time to jack out of here and scan the data he had so painstakingly acquired, to solve the mystery of his past life…
09:46:15 PST
(02:46:15 JST) Jackpoint: Osaka, Japan
Lady Death smiled as she put the finishing touches on her virtual sculpture. The icon that hung in front of her was a perfect duplicate of her own Matrix persona: long, dark hair drawn up in a bun at the back of the head, skin a pure, dead white as if drained of blood, face with red accents on the lips and cheeks. It was dressed in a flowing white kimono-the color of mourning-patterned with glowing red dracoforms.
The image was drawn from kabuki-the overly formal, traditional style of Japanese theater whose feudal tragedies played so well as simsense. Lady Death's icon was that of a woman who had committed shinju-double-lover suicide. Which was both appropriate and ironic…
Satisfied with her high-resolution double, Lady Death sent the icon out into the Matrix. While it dutifully logged onto AS/NIPO-TOK-5673, the telecommunications grid that was home to one of Tokyo's many cramming schools, Lady Death would be elsewhere. The icon was merely part of a mirrors utility that would fool her guardians into thinking she was logged onto the juku. She even had an excuse to explain why she had awakened at the unusual hour of just before three a.m. to study. This was university entrance exams week, and the Osaka telecommunications grid was jammed from five a.m. on. She was just getting an early start to her cramming.
The icon disappeared into a system access node. At the same moment, her cyberdeck's masking program activated, throwing up a shimmering haze that rendered her actual persona almost transparent.
Beside her, a miniature lion, seemingly made of folded origami paper, sprang into being. It stood quivering on clawed feet, as if sniffing the air. It inclined its head slightly toward where Lady Death hung, its glowing yellow eyes shifting back and forth as tiny red numerals scrolled across the spot where its pupils should have been. Then its nose snapped around as if picking up a stronger scent. It leaped into the SAN and disappeared with a papery, rustling sound.
"Desu," she whispered to herself. "The trace program has been fooled. Time to go."
Still maintaining her masking program, she pushed aside the painted cloth banner that hung in front of her. In that one motion she exited from her family's private LTG into the Shiawase Corporation system itself.
The system was patterned after a kare-sansui garden, but with high-tech imagery overlaying the traditional elements. Instead of following a Western-style, right-angled grid, data flowed in sinuous curves reminiscent of raked sand. The ripples fed into the fiber-optic roots of the miniature bonsai trees that were the system's datastores, or flowed around the clear glass boulders that represented sub-processing units.
At this early hour, the system contained only a handful of deckers. Their icons were scattered across the huge expanse of landscape that stretched out on either side of Lady Death-tiny, human-shaped figures that swam like tadpoles through the datastreams below.
Lady Death plunged downward, toward the raked-sand plain. In an eyeblink she was inside a datastream, surrounded by the pea-sized grains of sand that represented individual packets of data and moving rapidly amidst the flow. She came to another SAN, this one sculpted to resemble a temple gate with ornate brass scrollwork and dark, heavy wood. She pushed it open, stared at the more conventional grid of right-angled neon lines that lay beyond, and entered the address of the LTG she wanted to access. Then she flowed through the door and into the rigid Western-style grid of the Seattle RTG.
The database she sought was a fansite devoted to manga musk. Like the two-dimensional animated cartoons of the previous century from which it took its name, manga music was over-the-top-devoted to action, color, and spectacle. The singers who fronted its bands wrapped their music in cartoonish elements, using a blend of illusion magic and high-rez graphics technology to produce incredible spectacles.
The manga music fansite offered free simsense downloads-home recordings done by fans at live concerts. These allowed other fans from around the world to experience the thrill of seeing their favorite bands perform live. Many of the simsense recordings were crudely edited, or were marred by having been shot by fans who were jazzed on amphetamines or hallucinogenic drugs. But it wasn't the experience of seeing her favorite singer that Lady Death was after. She wanted to find out where Shinanai was. Perhaps one of the fans had seen one of the underground, unauthorized concerts that Shinanai was rumored to be secretly giving in UCAS.
Shinanai-the legendary lead singer of Black Magic Orchestra. Shinanai, the woman whose name meant "deathless." Shinanai's image was burned into Lady Death's memory: tall, thin, with nearly translucent white skin and silver-blonde hair shaved high over elven ears but long in the back
. A delicate tracery of luminescent blue face paint accentuating high cheekbones and piercing aqua blue eyes. Black leather pants, cinched tight with straps and buckles from ankle to thigh. Red mesh shirt covered by a black leather jacket with its sleeves cut out. Fingertips, each and every one bearing the tattoo of a grinning skull. And a voice that could howl as raw as a shadowhound or sing as sweet and pure as a synthesized flute.
Shinanai was just one of many aidoru-singers who were idolized by Japanese high school students. But to Lady Death, Shinanai was everything-and the only aidoru worth thinking about. She had an intensity, a way of mesmerizing you and stealing your heart away with just one smoldering, shiver-inducing look. And so Lady Death-or Hitomi, as she was known in the meat world-had slipped away from her guardians and sneaked backstage to meet Shinanai in person. Captivated by the singer's magic, she had run away from home and school and family to become Shinanai's lover.
Or at least, she had allowed Shinanai to love her. It had been enough simply to allow Shinanai to embrace her, to stroke her skin, to kiss her lips with a passion that Hitomi had never felt before. Shinanai neither asked for nor accepted physical stimulation in return. Instead Shinanai drank of Hitomi's soul.
A little too deeply. When the shadowrunners who had been hired by Hitomi's father caught up with Hitomi, they found her on the blood-soaked bed of the hotel room in Seoul that Shinanai had vacated moments before. Hitomi had died of blood loss after Shinanai had drunk deeply from her femoral artery, letting the passion-pumped blood flow until Hitomi expired. For Shinanai was a vampire.
The runners' shaman and medic had been able to revive Hitomi, to pull her back from just over the brink of death. He said her ki was strong, despite the fact that the vampire had been supping upon this life force. But Hitomi knew that her will to live came not from any physical or psychic strength. It was simply that she could not bear to die and never see her beloved aidoru again. She had walked away from the brink of death by choice.