In the dark of the bedroom, Rico capped off a bottle of Nutrimax tonic water and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. With his Jikku eyes, he watched Piper grope around at the side of the bed, then slip carefully under the covers. Her face was a grayish mask. She turned her back to lie on her side.
Rico reached out to smooth a hand over her hair.
"You"re still angry with me," she said softly.
"Maybe," Rico admitted. "But tomorrow we might be dead meat,"
"Yes ... you"re right. Please excuse me."
A moment pa.s.sed, then she turned toward him and snuggled in against his side, laying her head on his chest. Rico ran his hand over her hair some more. It was smooth and soft like silk. "I don"t wanna lose you,"
he said. "That"s why I got so burned."
"You were right," Piper whispered. "I was wrong. I"m so ashamed."
"It couldn"t be helped."
"Jefe, I don"t know ..."
It wasn"t worth worrying about, not now. "L Kahn ain"t gonna be too happy when we give him the news."
"That is true."
"I don"t know about this one, chica. I didn"t like it from the start. Maybe it"s like you said. We"re just doing what somebody wants."
"We can think about that tomorrow."
"Sure. Tomorrow."
The van rushed down the transitway, shifting lanes, veering from side to side, bypa.s.sing other traffic.
Rico glanced to his rear for about the fourth or fifth time, finding it hard to keep his mind where it oughta be.
Piper shared the rear bench with Shank, but she didn"t seem any more aware of him than anyone or anything else. She had her axe in her lap, her head down-turned. Her long, curling black hair had slid in front of her shoulders, obscuring her face. She was past yesterday"s trouble, the embarra.s.sment he"d caused. Probably, she was praying. Talking to the kami again. Rico wished that didn"t make him so uneasy.
There had been a time, before he met Piper, when no one he knew paid any heed to G.o.ds till death was right around the corner, staring them in the face.
He"d known Piper for almost five years now and he still wasn"t used to her praying.
Getting old. Obsolete? Maybe he"d been born that way. A couple of centuries too late. Into a world where honor meant nothing and a man"s pride could be measured by the caliber of his gun. He figured he had some life left in him, regardless. Never mind what that slitch Ravage said.
"This gonna be a charity job, bossman?" Shank said gruffly. "Or we gonna get paid?"
"We"ll get paid," Rico replied, lowly.
Shank and the team would get all they were due, and not just their share of the up-front money, even ifRico had to reach into his own pockets. Right now, the money was the least of his concerns.
Staying alive, at least a step ahead of the opposition, was the number one priority. After that came money. Somewhere in between staying alive and getting paid came his personal resolve to do what had to be done, find Surikov a new home, get the slag"s wife busted out so that neither of them would be trapped in the ferrocrete fist of their corporate overlords. Rico just thanked his luck that he had a team he could rely on. Otherwise, everything went to scag, right out the window.
The transitway surfaced into Sector 10.
Time to get serious.
20.
The slag in the elaborate red uniform frowned in puzzlement as Filly and Rico got out of the big blue and white sedan and moved across the sidewalk toward him. Filly didn"t know his name, but she sized him up at a glance. Doorman. Very decorative but probably not a threat to anybody. Maybe a little basic training in security procedures, such as how to call for help when something bad came down.
Filly motioned at him with her chin. "Security super."
"Right inside," the doorman replied, waving a thumb at the transparex-fronted lobby of Forty East Seventy-third. "What"s the name?"
"Rasheen. Mo."
"Thanks."
The doorman smiled and nodded and put his key to the lock that set the double transparex doors to the lobby sliding open. Filly stepped on inside, Rico at her right. She took the lead because she knew the drill.
She"d spent nine years on patrol with Winter Systems in the Bronx. She knew the procs, the lingua, and most importantly the att.i.tude-casual, matter-of-fact, like she had every right to do whatever the h.e.l.l she was doing and there was no fragging question about it.
The lobby was big and open, a dunkfield worth of carpeting, small gardens in the corners. A broad, semicircular counter sat at the rear of the s.p.a.ce. The slag seated behind it wore the dark gray uniform of Fargo Security. He smiled and stood up as Filly and Rico approached. From his position at the security desk, the guard could have no trouble seeing the sedan at curbside, marked for the NYPD, Inc., or the matching uniforms worn by Rico and Filly.
"Hoi, chummers," the guard said, still smiling.
"You Rasheen?" Filly inquired.
"Yes, that is right. I am called Mo. Is there something for which I can help you officers?"
"Got a little problem," Rico said, as Filly walked around to the rear of the security counter.
"I am very sorry to be hearing that," Rasheen said, glancing back and forth. "How can I be helping you, please?"
The rear of the security counter was one big console equipped with monitor screens, two keyboards, and a suite of other controls. Those controls had complete override authority for the street doors to the lobby and the lobby doors to the elevators. No one got through the lobby unless the guard here tapped the appropriate key. Piper could commandeer the console from the matrix, but that wouldn"t stop Rasheen here from calling a security alert.
Every guard on site carried a radio. Rasheen had a portable right on his console. Also, Fuchi internal security had a.s.signed a special detail to watch over Surikov"s wife up on the thirty-fifth floor. That detail would go on full alert if they caught even a whisper of strange things happening. One radio call about a malfunctioning security console would do it.
Filly stepped up beside Rasheen, and "said, "Turn and face the wall."
"We got a warrant," Rico said.
Rasheen went wide-eyed. "I am begging your pardon-"
"Do it NOW Filly ordered.
"Please explaining to me-!"
Filly grabbed Rasheen"s arm and twisted it. That made him turn to face the wall or lose the arm.
Rasheen turned. Rico came around and relieved Rasheen of his sidearm and various defensive weapons.
Filly forced Rasheen down to his knees and applied handcuffs.
"You must be erroneously arresting me!"
"I don"t think so."
"Please letting me call my director!"
Rasheen would not be calling anybody.
The building at Forty East Seventy-third Street on Manhattan"s Upper East Side was called the CrystalBlossom Condominiums. The mainframe running the building"s utilities and monitoring security functions was a Fuchi machine, but had only the most tenuous of connections with the machines installed in the Black Towers of Fuchi-Town. It was operated by the Manhattan Property Management Corporation, a Fuchi subsidiary. Code Orange security. That was tough, but not nearly as tough as the Black Towers" Code Red cl.u.s.ter.
The System Access Node to the Crystal Blossom mainframe looked like the anteroom to a bank vault.
The iconic room was gray, the vault door gold. This was standard matrix imagery and it indicated little or nothing about the security status of the system beyond.
Piper entered the node with her masking utility on-line. The guards in their sky blue Fuchi blazers didn"t react at all to her presence. From inside her jacket, Piper drew out a huge magnifying gla.s.s and examined the guards" program code. The guards-mere access IC-still did not react. Piper drew out a pair of glowing red and green lollipops the size of tennis rackets, each winking with the legend, in orange, ENTRY REQUEST. She held the pops out to the guards, and now they noticed her. They looked at the lollipops and accepted them. And began licking them.
They would continue licking forever-caught in a virtual loop.
Piper drew out a pouch, marked Movable Holes. The hole she selected took the form of a slim black disk whose diameter was about equal to the height of her iconic self. She slapped the disk against the vault door. READY began winking in neon red at the center of the disk. She stepped through-through the hole, through the vault door-and into the dataline beyond.
She had the entire Crystal Blossom system under her command in something just under a millisecond.
It was more than just "too easy."
Kami save them. It seemed impossible.
The doorman started tapping on the transparex doors out front and lifted his hands as if to ask what was going on. The doors wouldn"t respond to his key. That would be Piper"s doing.
One of the elevators dinged, and a uniformed guard came walking into the lobby. He was dark-skinned like Rasheen and the look on his face immediately turned to shocked surprise.
"What is happening here?" he asked, voice lilting wildly up and down.
Rasheen blurted something in some foreign lingua.
The newcomer stopped, looking back and forth. "Why have you arresting my brother?"
"Come"re," Filly said.
"Answer please!"
Something from the security console started bleeping. Filly let Rico worry about that. She stepped toward the newcomer, Rasheen"s "brother." She laid a hand on the b.u.t.t of her sidearm. Any normal corporate would take that as a hint and act accordingly. "Don"t give us any trouble," she said adamantly.
"Put your hands on the wall and shut up."
"You"re not arresting me!"
The slag went for his gun.
Filly lunged forward, seized the guard"s gun arm, and pounded a shock glove-covered fist into his face.
That quickly, she had a full-scale brawl on her hands. The shock-glove treatment didn"t seem to affect the fragger. She twisted his arm and slammed him back against the lobby"s rear wall. The slag managed to tug his gun free of its holster. Rico stepped up on her left and rammed a fist into the guard"s mid-section just as the gun detonated.
All this just to keep up appearances, the likeness of a legitimate arrest by police, to keep that special detail up on thirty-eight unawares.
The roar of the gun affected Filly like the peel of a siren. She felt the adrenaline surge even as Rico staggered back, turning half a circle. She went animal. She pummeled the guard. She slammed his elbow back against the lobby wall to maybe numb the gun arm, and then tugged the pistol out of his hand. She rode him down to the floor on his chest, dragged his arms behind his back, and applied a pair of cuffs.
Panting for breath.
Looking for Rico.
The bossman stood leaning against the rear of the security counter. He shook his head as if to clear it.
A dark spot was forming around the tear in the thigh of his right pants leg.
Fragging great.
When the elevator doors slid open, Bandit had the spell waiting, held in the palm of his hand. He saw the lengthy corridor stretched out ahead of him and the two men in dark suits standing near a door on the right. Bandit opened his hand. A noise like an alley cat shrieking arose quick and raw from the distant endof the corridor. The suits looked, and a pair of thumps sounded from Bandit"s left and right. The thumps were from Shank and Dok"s automatics. The bullets they fired were not lethal, but the pair of suits up the corridor slumped to the floor anyway.
Not dead. Just unconscious.
Shank and Dok hustled up the corridor. Bandit followed along at his own cautious pace. He saw nothing of any interest in the corridor. Shank motioned for him to hurry.
The door marked 35-8 slid open. Shank and Dok hustled inside, automatics thumping again. Bandit followed. A small, richly decorated foyer led into a luxurious living room. Another suit lay sprawled on the floor of the foyer. Bandit followed Shank and Dok into the living room, running his eyes around, taking in the wealthy furnishings: paintings, drapes, vases, bonsai, crystal goblets, deluxe trideo with simsense. All very deceptive. A mundane could probably live here for years and never realize that he or she was actually living in a crete and plastic coffin, all but cut off from the essential energies of the universe. A quiet exclamation came from another room. Nothing to worry about.
Bandit considered the situation, then took a small, velvety pouch from his duster pocket and laid it on an end table. The pouch contained the extracted essence of a number of herbs and roots used in ritual magic by mages. Bandit had once thought that the combined essences might prove valuable for him, but the expectation had turned out to be false. Useful perhaps for a mage, not for a shaman.
It would make for a fair exchange.
Steinberg was staring at some bowl game on the trid. Tsugaru looked sound asleep, sprawled on the sofa. Steva Karris glanced at her wrist chrono for the fifth time this hour and mentally began ticking off the seconds.
There was nothing more boring than sitting watch on some corporate property, especially one that never went out, never left her a.s.signed corporate quarters, for chrissakes. Steva didn"t know the woman"s name, didn"t even know if she had a name. It was like playing night.w.a.tch for some out-of-the-way corporate facility of dubious interest to anyone. A big yawn. That wasn"t to say that she wouldn"t do her d.a.m.nedest to protect Fuchi corporate property. She"d just be a little more excited about it if she had some idea that she"d been posted to a job that made a difference.
Her wrist chrono dinged. She looked up as Devoe came up the hall from the bathroom. "You"re on."
"So soon?"
Steva nodded toward the foyer. Devoe knew better than to argue. He straightened his suit and headed out.
Abruptly, he was back, whispering urgently, "Alert! Alert! Status five! Code Red!" - Karris grabbed her Ingram SMG and lunged for the foyer, the others close behind.
Dok had met some wildly sculptured biffs in his time, but this one was the most outrageous he"d seen outside a Tomikon bordello. She was built for s.e.x. Every curve shouted it.