by Kai O'Connal
Keandra found one bug embedded in the drawer of the nightstand. She borrowed one of Lance’s knives to pry it free, stuffed it into her pocket, and tossed it in a trash can when they got back down to the lobby. At least the room was clean now. They’d need to check it when they returned, to make sure an overzealous maid hadn’t noticed the bug missing and planted a new one. It was a downside of not having your own place, but they didn’t have time to look for a more permanent location. Not to mention doing so would cost more funds than they had readily available, unless they wanted the transaction tied to a SIN that Mr. Johnson probably knew about by now.
The next item on the agenda was a place called The Invisible Needle. It was a tattoo parlor specializing in supplying the general public with legal drugs for medical or recreational purposes. According to Keandra’s research they also had a shaman on staff, someone who might be able to do something about her shoulder without waiting for natural healing to take its course. By the time they arrived, the sun dipped low enough that some of the buildings cast shadows long enough to cover the street. It was a bit of a culture shock, being in the center of a city without towering skyscrapers on every side. Sacramento almost appeared short and flat compared to Seattle.
People still milled about on the streets, providing crowds that both comforted Keandra and put her on edge. At first, she tried to get at least a passing glance at everyone to see who might be interested in her, but trying to keep track of that many faces was an impossible task. She knew her actions bordered on paranoia, and she needed to slip back into her standard comfortable state. She was somewhere new, but the task at hand was the same. She could handle it.
They walked into The Invisible Needle. A beefy ork sat in a chair near the front window, getting something etched on his right pectoral. The needle buzzed and the alcoholic odor of an antibiotic solution filled the air. The tattoo artist bent over the ork, focused on her work and oblivious to the sound of the doorbell when Keandra and Lance entered.
Another woman worked behind the counter, an elf with fully inked arms featuring curling designs creeping up the side of her neck to frame her jawline. She smiled at the newcomers.
“Welcome to The Invisible Needle. What are you looking for?”
Lance turned his head to the side, checking out their surroundings as well as the street behind them. When the woman got a glimpse at the serpentine eyes inked into the back of his head, she let out a low whistle of admiration.
“Nice work. You get that done around here?”
Lance half-grinned. “No, back in Seattle. I know an amazing artist who works on the pier. It makes for a nice serene view while he works on you.”
“Sounds amazing. I’ve never been to Seattle. What’s it like?” From the way the woman leaned further across the counter, her intentions were obvious.
Keandra stood off to the side, letting him work his charm. Instead, she looked at the collection of herbs stocked on one wall, organized in small jars, all labeled with a steady hand. She didn’t recognize half the plant names, but that didn’t mean much. Horticulture had never been her specialty. She did, however, recognize a couple of the drug labels on some jars of powder.
The woman behind the counter laughed and then disappeared into the back, leaving Lance alone. He gestured for Keandra to come over.
“They have a shaman, and he’s currently on staff. Heidi said he’ll come out to look at your injury and see if there’s anything he can do for you.”
“I trust you’ll be okay waiting while we get this taken care of?”
She winked at her companion, and he shook his head.
“I have learned a thing or two after accompanying you all these years. I have no interest in her, but being friendly certainly does help us with our own objectives.”
Keandra raised a mock-questioning eyebrow, eliciting a flash of a glare from Lance. She laughed, unable to keep a straight face, but pleased to have gotten that much of a reaction out of him. By then, Heidi returned with another man beside her.
He was also heavily tattooed, but mostly on the back of his hands and across his scalp. He extended his hand to Keandra, making sure to reach for her good arm.
“Nice to meet you, Keandra. My name is Carlos. Please, come have a seat in my clinic and we’ll see if I can do anything about your shoulder.” He waved her into the back room.
Keandra followed him around the counter and into the hallway beyond. He took the first door on the right, leading her into a small office with a medical table pushed up against the far wall. A surgeon’s light suspended over the table, connected to the wall by a metallic arm. The close corner had a desk with a terminal and several fetishes lined up in a row.
Carlos pointed to the table, and Keandra climbed up and sat on the edge with her feet hanging free. Carlos turned on the light and pulled it down so it shined over his shoulder in her direction. Keandra squinted, turning her head so she wasn’t staring into the glare.
He took her arm, lifting it gently from where she had it curled against her body for protection. He extended it, testing the range of motion to see where it caused her pain. When he lifted it past the level of her chest, the pain flared, making her hiss. He lowered it immediately, and put his free hand in the crook of her shoulder. He lifted it once again while applying pressure. The pain flared up with more intensity, and Keandra had to resist the urge to jerk her arm back. A gasp escaped before he released the pressure.
After his initial examination, he let go of her arm and she lowered it back to her side. She reached across her body and began massaging the joint, trying to relieve some of the lingering tingling sensation.
Carlos moved to stand in front of her, looking down in full clinical mode and nodding as he spoke. “The good news is it doesn’t appear to be broken. You still have most of the mobility in your shoulder. You have good muscle tone, and seem capable of manipulating it on your own. These are all good things. Most importantly, this means that I can fix it for you right now.”
“How much is that going to cost?”
“Two hundred nuyen.”
Keandra pulled out her commlink to transfer the funds. Once Carlos verified the transfer, he picked up one of his fetishes and walked back over to the table.
“Lie down, please.”
Keandra fell back and stared at the ceiling. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Carlos place the fetish on her arm and then lift his hands above her, palms up. The feathers tickled her skin, and she smelled the leather now that it was only a few centimeters from her face. Carlos called on the spirits for their assistance and their energy, mumbling the prayer so softly and quickly it didn’t sound like individual words.
A soft yellow glow surrounded the fetish, reaching out into her shoulder, warming it. At first it felt odd, but the sensation quickly transitioned to one of comfort and peace. It reminded Keandra of when she was a child and would spend summers at Discovery Park, lying in the grass and staring up at the sky. The warmth spread through her body and she resisted the urge to close her eyes.
Then the glow disappeared. It was not subtle or gradual—one second it was there, and the next it was absent. She shifted her head to look at Carlos. He pinched the bridge of his nose and then dropped his hand, the smile back on his face. He picked up the fetish and put it back on the table. “You’re all done.”
Keandra sat up and tentatively rolled her shoulder. It didn’t feel stiff or sore at all. She straightened her arm at her side and lifted it, expecting the pain to flare up, but now she could make a complete circle with no heat inside the joint. If anything, her left shoulder felt better than her right. She hopped off the table and gripped Carlos’s hand.
“Thanks for that. It feels like new.”
“It is what I do.”
When he let go of her hand, his smile faded, and he just stared at her for a moment. It lasted long enough that Keandra grew nervous and shifted away from him.
“I feel the need to let you know something,” he finally said. �
�The spirits see bad things for you.”
23
“What do you mean?”
Keandra started running down her emergency mental checklist. Her gun sat tucked into the holster under her arm and was loaded. She believed she could draw it before Carlos grabbed one of the fetishes off the table. Then again, that assumed he needed one at all. Lance was out in the front room. If she called for him, it wouldn’t take him long to get here. But she had no idea what Carlos could do.
“The spirits told me you were in danger.”
“Uh-huh.” Keandra took another slow step back, dragging her back foot across the floor to make sure she didn’t trip over anything. She shifted to the side, checking to see if she could work her way around Carlos if she needed to.
“It’s true. They warned me of a shadow, chasing you through the darkness, biting at your heels as you stumble through the woods, trying to find your way. The branches snag at your face and your clothes as you break through, trying to run from the black that is darker than night itself.”
Keandra glanced at the desk and saw that the terminal was up and running, displaying a warning that her SIN was wanted for criminal behavior. It must have happened when she transferred funds—some type of automatic report. Given the fact that Carlos had healed her, rather than trying to subdue her when she was on the table, she relaxed and smirked.
“The spirits told you that? Would that be the spirits in the Matrix?”
She nodded at the terminal behind Carlos, and he glanced over his shoulder. When he saw the display was visible, he shrugged and sat back on the corner of the table, taking care not to bump any of the fetishes.
“You can’t blame a man for trying. My job is thirty percent magic and seventy percent theatrics. People will pay more if they believe everything comes from some mystical spirit guardian. It sounds a lot better than saying ‘your SIN got flagged by the Matrix.’ Besides, sometimes the spiritual aspect really helps put others at ease in ways practical fact can’t.”
“Fair enough. But the question is, what are you going to do about that notification?”
Carlos shrugged again. “Give you a head start? We don’t get involved in such things, unless it’s a serious crime or against someone that matters to us. We treat anyone who comes in needing help. I won’t cover for you, though. It isn’t worth the risk. But you should have a few hours before that notification catches the attention of someone who might actually do something about it.”
“Thanks. Now we need to get going.”
Keandra walked out the door and Carlos made no move to stop her, instead turning to his terminal and going back to work. When she reached the front room, she shot Lance a look as she passed by him. He excused himself from his conversation with Heidi and followed her out the door.
Out on the street, Keandra walked as fast as she could manage without breaking into a run. Lance kept up with her, asking no questions.
She knew spending money was going to be a risk. There was no way to transfer it all onto certified credsticks in time, so they had to use those for the big purchases—things like the hotel room. Things that would tell Mr. Johnson exactly where they were if they were tracked. For small purchases, like getting her shoulder fixed, they needed to tap into their accounts. She hadn’t expected them to be flagged already. Clearly this Mr. Johnson had more power than she had anticipated. Not for the first time, she wondered if he might work for a triple-A.
So what could they count on him knowing? He would’ve known they were on the train. No way would his people have missed the witnesses from the car when the train was forced to stop. He also knew they were in Sacramento, or at least that someone was spending money from her account there.
If she had to guess, a strike team would already be in the area, or trying to get permission to enter CalFree. Even if they weren’t in Sacramento already, she and the others had only a few hours at best before someone was actively hunting them on the ground here. Then again, that was assuming Mr. Johnson didn’t already have someone here on retainer.
Hopefully, Paz and E-jekt had ditched the truck and used their share of certified credsticks to acquire a new vehicle. Assuming that was the case, Keandra could think of nothing else that would lead Mr. Johnson to their location. But being in the city meant they would need to be careful of surveillance systems.
Keandra ducked into the alcove of a store window, blocking the display but also getting out of the path of foot traffic. She pulled out her commlink and accessed it while Lance slid up next to her, keeping an eye on the crowd around them while her eyes were focused on the AR space.
Keandra nodded. One problem taken care of. It might not be a complete solution, but it might buy them the time they needed. As long as they didn’t attract any undue attention and Freyr was as good as he seemed, they should remain untracked.
Her commlink alerted her to an incoming message from E-jekt.
Keandra and Lance went back to the hotel, taking an indirect route and walking through the thickest crowds. Keandra kept her face focused on the ground, not so much that it looked suspicious, but hopefully enough to make it hard for her to be recognized. She also pulled her hair loose from her braid, letting it cover most of her face. Freyr had said it might take some time to do his part, and right now Keandra didn’t think there was such a thing as too cautious.
When they returned to the room, Paz and E-jekt were already there. Paz lounged on one of the double beds, somehow managing to take up the entire surface area despite her small stature. By contrast, E-jekt stretched out on the other one with his ankles crossed and his hands clasped on his chest, barely taking up half the space. They both looked up when the door opened, Paz with a hand on her rifle.
Keandra collapsed onto the bed next to E-jekt, sinking into the mattress as she threw her hands back and stared at the ceiling. He looked over at her and raised an eyebrow. She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow. The little amount of rest that she’d gotten last night hadn’t been sufficient, and she knew if she kept lying down, she’d soon feel the need to sleep.
“Right. So you got a new vehicle. I assume you made sure it couldn’t be traced back to us and already took the necessary steps to disable the manufacturer’s anti-theft features.”
/> E-jekt furrowed his brows and wrinkled his nose; she held up her hand in a placating gesture.
“I need to ask. I know you know how to do your job, but we all need to stay on top of each other just to make sure we don’t let anything slip through the cracks. Moving on. What were you able to find out about Gildhall Construction?”
“They’re a family-owned company, rumored to have Yakuza ties. They’ve been in business for four generations, always passed down from father to son. Based on the outskirts of Sacramento, where they have some land they use to store their own equipment and a lot of their own supplies. They’ve been responsible for building approximately twenty percent of all the city’s current infrastructure that’s less than a hundred years old.”
E-jekt pushed himself up so he could lean against the wall. He projected an AR display showing a satellite view of Sacramento. An area in the northwest corner flashed and then the view zoomed in, close enough to show individual buildings and machines like excavators. The property hosted one main office building and a separate warehouse. As they watched, the view shifted, coming down to show a three-dimensional angle.
“Pretty standard for a construction company. Lots of machinery and the warehouse has a bunch of materials in it: glass, concrete, steel, whatever. I don’t know what’s stored in there right now, but it doesn’t really matter. Our target is this central building. It’s where all of the business happens.”
Once again the view shifted, moving so the construction vehicles and warehouse were out of sight and it looked like they were standing in the parking lot in front of the building. It was three stories tall, with one main double-door entrance and two single-door entrances on either side. Judging by how many windows adorned the front wall, it looked like every office had a window. The entire front entrance was covered in mirrored glass all the way to the ceiling.
“All the entrances require RFID chips to enter. Guests can bypass the entrance by speaking with the receptionist working at the front desk. Once you’re inside, there’s no automated security I’ve been able to find on record. I’d bet they have cameras, but beyond that, I don’t think there’s anything.”