by Mel Odom
Skater knew that was true. Passcoded deltaware was specifically designed to keep execs loyal to the home corp. Someone who knew he would face a series of painful operations to replace all the cyberware in his body would be a lot less likely to jump the corporate ship, and more tolerant of the corp line. Getting cyberware installed wasn’t a pleasant experience, nor was getting used to it. Every new piece changed everything a chummer knew about his own body.
“Still, who’s to say it wasn’t done in components and this guy built his system up one at a time after he got free of the corp he was working for?” Elvis asked.
“I do,” Archangel said. “Your augmentations weren’t done at one time. When you have work done, especially upgrades and new systems, what is the doc’s first concern?”
“Whether he’s going to get paid,” Wheeler said.
The attempted levity brightened the room for only a moment, then quickly faded. Skater knew they were all tense and running scared. Fuchi’s presence in the current biz placed a heavy weight on their next few moves, and the chron was ticking down fast on the operation.
“Linkages,” Elvis said. “Whether one system is going to be operational with another.”
Archangel nodded. “All of Caber’s linkages are fully integrated. There’s been no adjustments, no add-ons to the mods, no recalibration of existing systems to make them compatible with new installations.” She raised an arched eyebrow. “Does anyone know how often a full-body make-over is performed outside the corp levels?”
“Not very fragging often,” Wheeler growled. “We’re talking macro bucks here, omae.”
“Pardon me if I don’t understand the elucidation,” Trey said, dusting his hands and pushing the pile of pistachio hulls away. “But I thought we assumed from the DocWagon involvement that Caber was corp-issue. Why is this important?”
“Because if he was running high in the corp echelons and his deltaware was supplied by Fuchi—or any of the other major corps, for that matter—it would have probably been encoded for use with that corp only. When I tied in with the subsystems diagnostics interface, I didn’t find any of the coding I expected.”
Trey spread his hands. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“To oversimplify it,” Skater said, “an encoding in the delta-ware is sort of like a maglock. If you have the key to that maglock, you can get in. If you have a key to another maglock, you can’t. The major corps—Fuchi, Aztechnology, Saeder-Krapp, etcetera—use archived programming in the deltaware only at the top levels of their ops to keep access to those areas down even among different divisions. Caber would have been a good candidate for that because of the espionage ops he was involved with.”
“I’m aware of the passcode protection,” Trey said. “It’s why some extractions at corp levels that high have gotten so expensive. Those execs have any number of surveillance apparatus built into their bodies.”
“If a passcoded exec is taken from one corp and recruited to another corp, his or her systems have to be pretty much gutted and re-installed before he or she becomes of use to the new corp,” Skater said. It was also one of the chief reasons that black-market cyberware suppliers didn’t deal in deltaware.
And most shadow clinics weren’t set up to handle installation or repairs for it either.
“That takes months,” Elvis said, “when you’re dealing with delta ware.”
“And in the meantime,” Trey said, “the recruited exec is pretty much dead weight?”
“Exactly.”
“Headhunters,” Duran said, gazing at the monitor. “That’s what they call the corp black ops teams or the shadowrunners who specialize in exec extractions. The word’s come a long way from how they used to use it.” He gave an orkish grin, baring fangs. “Guess that old saying about the more things change the more they stay the same is true.”
Trey nodded toward Norris Caber’s diagnostics read-out on the monitor. “The anomaly you discovered in this man’s systems was the lack of such encoding.”
“Yes. His system is a tabula rasa. A blank slate. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“We don’t have a way of knowing how long Caber had gone missing,” Duran said. “Maybe the corp he worked for—and for the moment we’ll assume it was Fuchi—erased the programming themselves. Joker was in deep somewhere. Whoever was pulling his strings might not have wanted a signature left that would trace back to the corp.”
“It’s not that easy,” Archangel said. “Once the programming’s on, it becomes a part of the linkages. What you’re thinking of is something like an uninstall utility.”
“You’re sure they don’t have them?”
“I’ve never heard of one.”
Trey chuckled, then looked around at the others. “What’s not being said here is what that utility would be worth to a corp.”
“Enough to fragging geek the lot of us trying to get it,” Wheeler said. “Then piss on our ashes to make sure we’re never found.”
“That’s assuming we get caught,” Trey said. “Whatever else can be said about our current situation, we do happen to be in the middle of it. Our only realistic option rather than proceeding would be to buzz turbo and drop out of sight.” He paused for dramatic impact. “If that’s even truly possible at this point.” He glanced at Skater. “Jack?”
Skater shifted Emma, pulling her down into his arms. Her weight against him reminded him of everything he had to lose; whether he pursued the run or whether he gave it up. Provided he chose to run with Emma, as far and as fast as he could from whatever heat Deja could and would pull down on him, he needed the flexibility a lot of nuyen gave a chummer to vanish from the playing field. Nothing else he had a lead on could turn the kind of nuyen he’d need for that, and nothing else appeared as dangerous. By rights, Deja was the least of his present worries, but she held the most direct threat toward his daughter. If he chose to bow out of the run, he’d still be short of the necessary money to make Emma and himself disappear.
Skater looked at the others. “I’ve set up the meet with the Johnson for tonight. If we get more information, we’ll be better able to judge where we stand.” He paused. “Unless there’s anyone who wants out now.”
They were all silent for a time. Archangel broke it.
“And what do you think we should do, Jack?” she asked. Skater wanted to tell them they should go for it, but he knew that was him answering for them out of his own needs. He wasn’t objective. He shook his head. “It’s not for me to decide.”
“Wrong, kid,” Duran growled in a low voice. “It is for you to decide. You’re the team leader. You’ve laid out runs for us before. We all get a vote, but you always take the first one when it’s down to the wire. Me, I trust your instincts.”
Skater gazed at the ork and grinned thin, cold, totally devoid of mirth. “You were with me out there earlier today. You know what’s going through my head. I’ve got my own agenda.” Duran smiled happily. “Don’t see anything wrong with a guy being properly motivated, kid. Being a professional’s one thing, but I like working with someone who’s got a damn good reason to lay his hoop on the line.”
Trey, Wheeler, and Elvis silently agreed. Only Archangel was unreadable.
Skater looked at her. “How about you?”
Her gaze was frank and intense. “I want to know if you’ve made up your mind about Emma. What you’re going to do with her.”
32
The silence that followed Archangel’s question about Emma deepened quickly and uncomfortably.
“Archangel,” Trey said quietly, setting his wine glass aside, “I think—”
“No,” she said with force, without turning from the lock she held with Skater’s eyes. “I didn’t ask what you thought, Cullen.” She was polite, but her tone offered no room for negotiation.
“Actually, it’s none of your business,” Skater said. He was aware that the answer came from anger rather than the cool detachment he wished for. He didn’t like being unprofessional, but
he also thought it was an unprofessional question. “She’s my daughter.”
“A few months back,” Archangel said evenly, “you asked all of us to risk our hoops to get her for you. We did.”
“Maybe you should cut Jack some slack here,” Elvis said quietly.
“Slot off,” Archangel said just as quietly. “I’ve got a right to know. So do you.”
“Why?” Skater demanded. “Because of all the biz that went down a few months ago? Drek, how long am I going to owe that to you? Because if it’s going to be awhile, let’s agree on a price and let me pay it. I don’t need this drek.” Archangel’s features softened and a sheen filled her eyes. “Fraggit, Jack, it’s not because of what happened a few months go. That has nothing to do with it. It would make as much sense for any one of us to figure out who had saved whose hoop last on a run. That’s all history. What I’m looking at is going on right now.”
“I can’t help your feelings,” Skater started, “this is my prob—”
“It’s not about my feelings,” Archangel said irritably. “It’s not even about Emma’s. It’s about yours, and you’re so damn mudbrained you can’t see that.”
Skater tried to say something, then realized he didn’t know what he could say.
“You lead this team, Jack,” she said. “And we follow you. Sure, it doesn’t have to be that way, but that’s the way all of us want it or we wouldn’t be here. When you took Emma on, we knew there’d be some changes. There were. We’ve adapted. We’ve pulled our weight, and we’ve pulled yours when you were worried about your daughter.”
Her words hit Skater like a slap in the face. He’d been on his own, responsible to no one, for years. He wanted to say something, even if it was only invective straight from the simmering cesspool that had leaped full-blown into his mind. But he didn’t trust his voice. He made himself glance around at the other members of the team. Wheeler and Trey looked away and wouldn’t meet his eyes. Elvis shrugged helplessly in silent support. Duran’s gaze was flat, implacable.
After awhile, Skater found his voice. “Maybe it’d be better if we just shelved this arrangement here. You can make your own decision about the meet with the Johnson and handle it yourselves.”
“Chill, kid,” Duran said. “That’s not what she’s getting at.”
“Frag off,” Archangel told the ork. “I know what I’m trying to say.”
“Look,” Duran said, swiveling on Archangel and leveling a forefinger in her direction, “you’ve got a point worth discussing, but you’re over-reacting. You’re not as neutral in this as you believe.”
Crimson spots stained Archangel’s cheeks. “I’m not overreacting.”
“Yeah,” Duran grunted, “you are. You’re emotionally involved.”
Archangel folded her arms over her breasts, momentarily at a loss for words. “He won’t listen,” she told Duran.
Skater stood and watched, not believing what he was seeing. Years of working together had forged a limited but strong relationship between all of them. Not getting to know too much personal history about each other had been a good thing. It was personal histories that destroyed most teams, even the good ones. He’d learned that early and believed in it strongly.
“He doesn’t understand what you’re saying,” Duran said. “He’s not ready for this.”
“Then when?” Archangel demanded. “After he’s made a decision and it’s too late to do anything about it? Is he going to be ready then?”
Skater decided in an instant that he didn’t like the discussion being conducted like he wasn’t even there. He took a step forward.
Duran pinned him in this place with a bleak gaze. “Lady’s right, kid. You gotta know so we can know. Wish it coulda come at a more convenient time.”
Skater barely controlled his frustration, amazed at the confusion that filled him while at the same time expecting it. “You have to know what?”
“What you’re going to do about Emma,” Duran said. “Why?”
“Because, kid, whatever decision you make, it’s gonna affect how you hold yourself, how you conduct yourself, how you see yourself. How you think when you’re out there eye-deep in drek with the rest of us. Hell, it’d be easier listing the things that decision wouldn’t affect.”
“If there are any,” Archangel said.
Skater looked at them, from elf to ork and back again. Elvis stood and reached his big arms out. “Let me have Emma and I’ll tuck her in.”
Skater let the big troll slip his daughter away from him, feeling strangely numb and on fire all at the same time.
“It’s not our feelings I’m concerned with, Jack,” Archangel said softly. “You get so occupied with everything that’s going on around you that you don’t take your own feelings into consideration. Just like this morning: you were almost ready to believe that Emma would have it better with someone else than with you. You didn’t even consider that someone else might be worse than she could ever have it with you. You talked about the way Emma was young enough that she wouldn’t know the difference if someone else raised her. But someone would know the difference. You would know.”
Skater stared at Archangel, understanding finally and yet even more at a loss in some regards. It was easier looking at a decision like that as if it would be something final, never to be thought of again.
She stared back, putting it to him. “How would you feel about giving her up? Not just at first, but weeks, months, and years after the fact?”
Over Archangel’s shoulder, Elvis was just disappearing into one of the bedrooms. Skater felt the emptiness in his arms, the weight of where his daughter had lain against him.
“I can’t do it,” he said. He looked around the room, wondering who was going to be the first to register displeasure. They all looked at him, including Elvis who was returning from the bedroom. “Whatever it takes, I’m going to keep Emma with me. And if you want me out, I’m out. There’s no reason to bust up the team.”
In the silence, he waited for the objections to his announced decision to surface. When none did, he was both relieved and surprised.
“Well,” Duran said a few ticks later, “now that that’s been dealt with, let’s talk about tonight’s meet with the Johnson. Figuring out a way to get in and out with our hoops intact will be a lot more fragging fun and less tense.”
* * *
Almost two hours later, Skater slotted a certified credstick in a public telecom beside the Staffer Shack near their doss and punched the LTG of Kestrel’s current message drop. He listened to the recorded message, basically stating that Hiroshima Bob had been summoned to a higher calling and would no longer be operating Hiroshima Bob’s Domino and Arcade Emporium.
He selected the chosen words, did the mental conversion from letters to numerals, and had the second number in seconds. Then he punched in a series from the numeric pad, knowing Kestrel would do the conversions at his end and call back in ten minutes if everything was still safe at both locations.
He walked back to join Duran in the shadows beside the building. With the cold air breezing over them in sporadic gusts of increasing frequency, he was grateful for the long jacket he wore.
Even lounging against the building, acting like the only thing that concerned him was staying warm for the next few minutes, Quint Duran looked dangerous. That was a blessing, however, because the thrillers were out in force now, pack predators weaving through the streets searching for the weak and the infirm who’d been caught out in the sprawl after nightfall.
They shared the silence between them for a moment, listening to the sounds of the plex battering the buildings around them. Voices carried in the chill air, raucous and raw, challenging each other and their own mortality.
“You want to tell me what happened back there at the doss with Archangel?” Skater asked.
“That lady knows more about self-control than any of us, I suspect.”
Skater didn’t know how Duran could say that, but then he wasn’t sure what kind of
relationship the others had enjoyed with each other before Larisa’s death had forced them to get to know each other better. He was also surprised to find that he was uncomfortable with that thought. “That doesn’t tell me why she busted my hump so hard.”
“Look, kid, there’s no reason to get your pecker in a knot,” Duran said. “Personally, I thought you were doing fine. Holding your own in spite of all the drek about what to do with Emma and the problem of this Deja.”
“Why didn’t Archangel?”
“You’d have to ask her.”
Skater looked at the ork. “Okay.” Then he turned away.
As soon as he did, Duran turned slightly toward him, not exactly at Zen state anymore. “Okay?”
“Okay, I’ll ask her.”
“I really wouldn’t recommend that, chummer.”
“You just did.”
“No.” Duran’s reply was flat, brooking no argument. “What I said was if you wanted to know what she had in her mind is that you would have to ask her. Never once did I say you should.”
“Would or should,” Skater said. “I don’t see a problem either way.”
“You wouldn’t,” the ork said, “and probably at this point you shouldn’t.”
“You saying there’s a difference?”
Duran nodded. “Some difference, kid. The kind you get when you compare bean shooters to grenade launchers.”
“You’re not making things any clearer.”
“I know.”
“If she doesn’t think I can handle—”
“Take my word for it, kid, that’s not the issue on the nuker at the moment.”
Skater glanced over at the telecom, willing it to beep so it would give him sanction from the thoughts whirling inside his head. “If you ask me,” he said, “Archangel acts like she’s got some personal issues too.”
Duran hesitated just a second, then nodded. “I’d say that sums it up.”
“But she hasn’t bothered to tell anyone.” Skater paused. “Unless she’s mentioned it to you.” Some of the anger melted away then as curiosity and concern took its place. “Not me.”