2xs

by Nigel Findley

  Instead, I looked over the premises. I guessed the grounds to be over ten hectares in area, artistically laid out and reminiscent of an ancient British baronial home- or, at least, of the modern conception thereof.

  To the left of the house was a tennis court, while to the right, the perfect lawns extended right down to the edge of Lake Washington. A dock of ferroconcrete extended out from the shore, at the end of which was moored a motor yacht, twenty-five meters if it was a centimeter. The place was a potential security nightmare, what with its long shoreline, but I was sure the owner had taken the appropriate precautions.

  The house itself matched the grounds. Constructed of what appeared to be rough-hewn gray stone, it was the image of a nineteenth-century manor home, right down to the faux turrets and the coat of arms over the blackened-oak front door. I tried to guess the value of the place, but gave up. More than five million nuyen, definitely, but how much more? '

  My human escort gestured politely toward the front door. I nodded in gracious acceptance of the invitation, and started walking. Both business-suited legbreakers took up positions one step back and one, step to left and right. Under other circumstances, I might have enjoyed having two such attentive sidemen.

  Not now, of course. As I climbed the three steps to the front door, the two SMG-wielding sec-guards snapped to attention. I raised an eyebrow in surprise. Exactly what the frag was going on here? This visiting-dignitary drek bothered me.

  The door opened as I approached it, and I stepped into an elegant entryway of dark wood, with rich burgundy carpeting. Another black-uniformed sec-guard stood just inside the door, again standing at perfect attention. Two medieval suits of armor flanked the hallway. No sooner had I passed between them, followed by my huge escorts, than a loud electronic beep sounded behind us. When I spun to look, red lights were glowing behind the visors of both suits of armor. The sec-guard at the door hurriedly hit a button, killing the lights and stilling the electronic tone. For a moment I wondered what was going down, then realized the beep had sounded just as my minders had walked between the suits of armor.

  Weapon-detectors of some kind, no doubt.

  "Just a moment, please," the big human said, and stepped in front of me. The troll remained behind.

  When the human asked me to please follow him, I didn't have much choice.

  He led me further down the hallway, then through a door to the right and down a flight of stairs. To the torture chamber in the basement? I wondered. We turned a corner, and I realized I was right in a way.

  I stood in the doorway of a large, brightly lit area, filled with heavy equipment that looked both threatening and familiar. It took me a moment to recognize the gear: a Nautilus III circuit over here, a Swim-Ex in the far corner, a couple of massive Ultra Gym units. I was in an exercise room that would put the vast majority of health clubs to shame.

  One of the Ultra Gym machines was operating. In the middle of its pumping hydraulic arms and reciprocating cams, I could see a human figure. "Mr. Montgomery, welcome," the figure called out, A strong male voice, as steady as if the owner were ensconced in an easy chair and not exercising his guts out. "Please, come over. I hope you haven't taken offense at the, shall we say, irregular manner of my invitation, but I didn't think you'd accept if I offered it through normal channels."

  I walked closer, noting that my two bulky minders remained at the door. Drawing nearer, I could see my "host" a little better. A middle-aged man, but with the physique of a twenty-year-old, probably about my height and build. Short salt-and-pepper hair worn in a conservative, subtly spiked cut that revealed the datajack in his temple. Strong face, with a commanding, aquiline nose and cold eyes. With a shock, I realized I knew him. Not personally, of course, but as a "Mr. Johnson" for whom I'd done some recovery work a year back.

  The man must have seen the recognition in my face. He smiled. "Yes, we have met," he said, "but I didn't give you my name at the time, for, er, obvious reasons. It's time to remedy that. I'm Jacques Barnard, Mr. Montgomery. Senior Vice President of Yamatetsu Corporation. I'm currently in charge of our Seattle operations."

  He smiled. "I hope you don't think it rude if I don't shake hands, but I'm in the aerobic phase of my workout."

  "I know just what you mean," I said levelly.

  Barnard chuckled. "I think I'll enjoy our conversation," he remarked. Then his smile grew broader as a thought struck him. "I have two Ultra Gyms," he said. "Perhaps you'd care to join me."

  I was about to decline, then thought, what the frag? If I was going to die, I may as well die fit. "Why not?" I sat on the saddle, put my feet on the pedals, and cinched the belt around my waist.

  "I'd suggest level three," my host said modestly.

  I glanced over at the control panel of Barnard's machine. He was running level eighteen, out of a possible twenty, and his timer was just clicking past ten minutes. I grinned at him and also selected level eighteen. Hell, he was two decades older than me. I grabbed the handgrips and squeezed the trigger.

  I'd never used an Ultra Gym before, and within the first ten seconds I swore I never would again.

  Imagine doing a fast cycle of chest press, biceps curl, shoulder press, lat pulldown, while simultaneously alternating leg press and thigh curl, with a troll drill instructor forcing your limbs into the right motion, then leaving you to deal with the weights yourself. I thought I was going to die. I released the trigger, and the machine grumbled to a stop. Without meeting Barnard's amused gaze, I reset the controls to level three, and squeezed the trigger again. Much better.

  "It takes some getting used to," Barnard remarked.

  "Yeah, right," I paused, then asked the big question, "Just what is it that you want with me?"

  Barnard was silent for a moment, as if getting his thoughts in order. "You did good work for me last year," he said at last. "I appreciated your professionalism and your, shall we say, discretion. I thought perhaps I might have need of your services again in the future, so I... well, I decided to follow your subsequent career." He chuckled. "I hope you don't mind having a fan, Mr. Montgomery." Again, his voice was steady, totally unaffected by his exertion. The man was phenomenally fit.

  "Go on," I prompted.

  "As I said," Barnard continued smoothly, "I followed your career, continuing to be impressed by your abilities. It pleased me that you managed to stay out of the clutches of Lone Star. That would have been such an ignoble end to your career."

  "So you had me watched."

  "Certainly," he answered easily. "I was surprised, alarmed and, yes, disappointed when I learned that you were implicated in the murder of Miss Yzerman. Of course, that was when I still believed you might be guilty of the crime." I glanced over at him, met his cool half-smile. "That's right, Mr. Montgomery," he continued. "I'm now convinced that you're not guilty."

  "I don't suppose you'd care to tell Lone Star that?" I suggested.

  He laughed. "If I thought they'd believe me, I might. Besides, my own opinion is based solely on the fact that you seem to be so interested in finding the real murderer."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Professional interest?" he said. "You could call it that."

  He thought about it for a moment. "Do you know what a watcher is?"

  I didn't really, but I did remember Greybriar mentioning the word. "Some kind of spirit," I answered.

  He nodded. "I've had a watcher, er, watching you for the last couple of days. A relatively simple matter, since we've met before and I've had the chance to assense your aura. Although," he added with a chuckle, "I did have some difficulty persuading the little fellow to take up the task again after he was chased away by an apparently rather daunting free spirit."

  That had to be Amanda. I was silent for a moment as I pondered the implications. "I didn't realize you were a mage," I said at last.

  "Oh, I just dabble. More a hobby than anything, though it is sometimes an advantage in business."

  Barnard paused, and for almost a minut
e the only sound was the whirring and hissing of the Ultra Gym machines. Finally, he said, "You seem to have developed an interest in Yamatetsu Corporation. Can you tell me why?" Now we were down to the serious drek. Everything up to this point had been simple preliminaries, verbal fore-play. Now we got down to biz. "Curiosity," I said.

  Barnard chuckled again. He chuckled very well, it made him sound almost harmless, like someone's friendly uncle.

  "Slightly more than that, I'd say," he came back. "You've been looking into Yamatetsu in general, our Integrated System Products division in particular, our , SPISES product, relationships between ISP and the military. You even tried to find out more about me personally. Let's see, have I overlooked anything?"

  I killed the Ultra Gym, extricated myself from its mechanical guts. If I was going to get ground mentally, I didn't want to be worn down physically as well. "That just about covers it," I told him..

  "Not really," he corrected gently. "I recall you also had a rather intense interest in Crashcart and even in something called 2XS. You've been busy. And, oh yes," he said, "one Theresa Montgomery as well, but I assume that's personal and not biz. Your sister, I think?"

  "What exactly do you want?" I asked again. The timer on Barnard's machine beeped, and he released the trigger, climbed out. One of the urbane leg-breakers at the door tossed him a towel, which he draped around his neck. Out of the machine, he stood a centimeter or two shorter than me, but his confident manner made me feel he was taller. "That is exactly my question to you, Mr. Montgomery." Barnard's voice was quiet, without a trace of threat. "What is it that you want? And why are you digging into my business? That makes me very uncomfortable."

  "Why is that?" I asked. "Have you got something to hide?"

  "Of course we have something to hide." His voice was calm, his words merely a statement of fact.

  "Show me a successful corporation that doesn't have something to hide. In most cases, as in ours, it won't be something illegal. Why should it be? We generate sufficient revenue through totally lawful means, with no risk of legal consequences.

  "But that doesn't mean we don't want to keep our secrets-investment strategies, strategic plans, confidential joint ventures. Trade secrets, products in development, new technologies not yet ready for release. When we discover people-like you-who seem extremely interested in our business, we always wonder why and who hired you to do it. Our competitors, perhaps? Many shadowrunners make a good living from industrial espionage. I have to wonder if you've decided to follow that career path as well."

  "No industrial espionage," I said carefully.

  "A personal matter, then?" I didn't answer. He stepped closer to me, and I could feel a sense of cool determination about him. Not direct menace or intimidation, but the impression that I'd better not cross him if I wanted to walk out of here alive.

  "Listen to me, Mr. Montgomery," he said. His voice was level, almost casual, but his eyes burned into mine. "I bear you no ill will, quite the opposite, in fact. As long as you're not working on something that will be detrimental to my interests. If you are, I strongly suggest you drop the matter. There are always other clients.

  "I want you to level with me, tell me what you're working on." He gave me a chilly smile. "Call it a fair exchange for my not taking the easy way out."

  I knew exactly what he was talking about. If he suspected that I was making a run on Yamatetsu, the simplest solution would have been to geek me. Problem solved. That simple solution was still all too available to him, of course. Quickly I mentally reviewed what I could tell him, what would satisfy him without giving everything away.

  "I'm trying to get out from under," I said at last. "Like you said, Lone Star thinks I flatlined Lolita Yzerman." He nodded, politely interested. "I think she died because she overheard something she shouldn't have." I took a deep breath: here goes. "I think she found out something about 2XS." I paused, watching his eyes for a reaction.

  There was none. "Yes, 2XS does seem to be a scourge on the street," he remarked casually. "But why your interest in Yamatetsu?"

  This was the difficult connection. "I knew a little bit about ISP and SPISES," I went on. "I suspected a connection between the two." His lips curled in a cold half-smile. "Yes," he said quietly, "I suppose there is a superficial similarity between the technologies. And so, of course, you concluded that the evil, wicked, nasty corporation was dumping 2XS onto the street to inflate our already excessive profit margin. Is that it?"

  I shrugged. "Without the sarcasm, yes."

  Barnard shook his head. "We do have an excessive reputation, don't we?" Then he became serious again. "Listen, I'll tell you this once. ISP's mandate is to develop and market SPISES booster technology to the military and to other similar markets in North America and around the world. Do you have any idea how big that potential market is?"

  "Not really," I replied.

  "Ballpark figures, in the billions of nuyen. And with no risk. The technology works, and by the time the first contract's signed, everything will be solidly protected with patents and registrations through the Corporate Court in Geneva-Orbital. In comparison, what does a 2XS chip cost? Two hundred nuyen?

  Three?"

  "Five."

  He looked mildly surprised. "So? But that's street price," he went on. "The manufacturer would probably net about a tenth of that. Fifty nuyen per chip. And how many chips would one addict be able to slot before burning out? Fifty? No, call it a hundred, although I'm sure that's a massive exaggeration." I could see where he was going with his line of logic. "Total net, five thousand nuyen per addict. Not much return, Mr. Montgomery, particularly when you factor in the very real risk of legal, er, complications." He looked pensive. "It makes me wonder why the manufacturer even bothers.

  "No," he said, "I assure you ISP is involved in SPISES, and SPISES only. That's more than enough to keep the division totally occupied for the next decade." He sighed. "Of course, you're not going to believe me on that. Maybe you'll believe Dr. Skyhill."

  "Huh?" I said, or something equally cogent.

  Barnard grinned. "Dr. Adrian Skyhill, managing director of Integrated System Products Division, and a top-notch scientific administrator. I'd like you to meet him tomorrow. See what it is ISP's really working on. I'll have his secretary call you with the time." He paused, his smile broadening. "I suggest you bring someone along who understands bioengineering and can ask intelligent questions."

  I looked at Barnard steadily. "Why are you doing this?"

  He shrugged as he turned away and wiped sweat from his brow. "As I said, I bear you no ill-will, and I recognize and respect your tenacity. You're on the wrong track, but if I don't convince you of that, you'll keep digging into my business. That would be unacceptable, forcing me to take some other kind of action that would be distressing to both of us." He looked back at me, and I saw something else in his eyes. "I like you, Mr. Montgomery, and it's possible that you can help me out again in the future." Barnard glanced at the two suited pros and nodded. I was being dismissed.

  But I wasn't quite ready to be dismissed. "One last question, Mr. Barnard."

  He glanced at me, obviously annoyed. When he dismissed someone, he expected the person to go.

  "All right, Mr. Montgomery, one last question."

  "What's the connection with Crashcart?"

  "Officially it's owned by ISP," Barnard answered brusquely. "As such, it's basically autonomous. I know little about it and care less. Is there anything else? No? Then perhaps we'll talk again sometime in the future." He turned away, very pointedly, and headed for a door that presumably led to the changing room. I turned, too, walking slowly toward my minders.

  Before Barnard could leave, a phone mounted on the wall beeped stridently. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw the veep curse and hurry over to pick up the phone. "Barnard," I heard him say, then after a moment, sharply, "What? Damn it, we'll handle security ourselves. Send the Evanston team to ABT now, and ..."

  "Mr. Montgomery, it's
time to leave." The troll stood beside me, and his voice-even his breathing-drowned out whatever it was Barnard was saying. Trouble in Chicago, apparently, and also apparently none of my business.

  "You're right," I told the troll, "time to leave." I followed my bodyguards out, feeling very much like an unarmed knight who, for some reason, had been permitted to walk unscathed from the dragon's lair. I also continued to have the strong sense that more was going on than I understood.

  But there was no fragging way I was going to ask Barnard about it.

  Chapter 19.

  Yamatetsu's ISP Division is located on Creso Road close to the shores of Spanaway -Lake in Fort Lewis. Beautiful area: hundreds of hectares of lush evergreen forest, largely untouched by the horrors of what we laughingly call "civilization." Driving into Fort Lewis is like driving back in time, back to the turn of the century and beyond, back to when Seattle was a "city" and not the megalopolis, not the sprawl, it is today.

  Creso Road winds down into those woods, leading to a manicured little industrial park. Unlike similar parks elsewhere, or the god-awful Free Enterprise Zones I saw on a visit to Quebec, this place seemed almost in harmony with the terrain around it, not just a blight inflicted on the land by people who didn't give a frag. I knew there had to be serious security, but no fences or guard-towers were visible from the road, and the buildings themselves were low-profile, blending into the contours of the land. The only downside was the frequent assault of man-made thunder, the titanic ripping noise of tortured air as UCASAF trainee pilots brought their ESA Stilettos in low over the threshold to play touch-and-go at McChord Air Base.

  Jocasta settled herself more comfortably into the passenger seat of her Hyuandai-AMC Harmony. "I feel like I'm on vacation," she remarked gazing around at the scene.

  I didn't, but nodded anyway. I appreciated that she trusted me to drive her car, but I missed Quincy's mods. Next to my pseudo-Jackrabbit, any other car seems brain-dead.

  After my interview with Barnard, the two suit-clad minders had driven me back to the Hilton to pick up my car. When they dropped me off, the troll handed me a business card that showed only the name Barnard and an LTG number. "Mr. Barnard instructed me to give you this, in case of... contingencies. He trusts you'll have no cause to use it, however." I decided I'd carry it close to my heart like a talisman.