Gordon resists the urge to snap off a sharp retort. This game, whatever game is being played, isn"t going to be won by alluding to Fuchi"s power. It"s going to require a degree of care and caution. "Let"s say I"m interested. What then?"
"We deal you in."
"In on what?"
"The tech that busted the Fuchi grid."
Gordon takes another drag of his Platinum Select. He keeps very calm. He didn"t come to the command of Special Administration covert operations by racing his pulse every time somebody held out a carrot. In fact, the moment people start offering him things he might want, he asks himself who"s trying to scag him and why? The problem, in this case, is that the Fuchi grid was actually penetrated and no one is supposed to know about it, no one but the people he knows he can control. "Who"s got this tech?"
"We do."
"And who would you be?"
Machiko-san"s image briefly re-animates, saying, "Where do persons such as yourselves, computer specialists, confined for many months in isolation, acquire the resources to purchase a corporation"s entire debt?"
That adds more or less ma.s.s to Gordon"s suspicions. "So you"re on Neurocomp"s special project."
"We are the project," Ja.n.u.s-face replies.
And that adds more or less ma.s.s to another of Gordon"s suspicions. "And you"re willing to give away this hot new tech."
"We keep Neurocomp. We"ll give you the project data and the rest of Nagato"s outstanding debt."
"You"ll give me Nagato debt. You hijacked Nagato debt." Using funds hijacked from Fuchi. Transactions like that would stand up for about ten minutes in a session of the Corporate Court. Stolen funds buy nada. The court would issue a mandate authorizing Fuchi to take any necessary steps to recoup its losses. Nagato debt would revert to its previous owners.
"Are you planning to sue, Mr. Ito?"
Gordon says nothing. He is mildly rea.s.sured, though, to learn that Ja.n.u.s-face actually knows his name. It"s some slight evidence that his desktop wasn"t picked completely at random from the Fuchi grid. Another indication he isn"t dealing with gutterpunks.
"Remember, you"re vulnerable, too."
"Tai No Sen."
"Wiz. What"s it mean?"
"Literally, to wait for the initiative. One of Miyamoto Musashi"s three methods of forestalling an enemy attack. Feign weakness." Gordon takes a drag of his cigarette, and adds, "Ask Machiko-san about it. She"ll explain."
Ja.n.u.s-face says, "We are much more interested in what you have to say about our proposal."
Naturally.
Obviously, what they want is for Fuchi to validate their hijacking of Fuchi funds. If Fuchi says no theft occurred, then the decker"s transactions acquiring Nagato debt are valid to the nth degree. When the dust finally clears, they come out owning Neurocomp legally. The real question is why do they want Neurocomp! What is Neurocomp worth if they give up the data on the special project? Neurocomp"s collected a lot of first-rate people over the last few years. What else have they got going on?
"Let"s see if I understand this. I give you license to take Neurocomp and whatever the corp"s got going, and I get the debt on a corporate infrastructure that"s equivalent in Fuchi terms to small change."
"You also get the tech that busted the Fuchi grid."
The point is like a match applied to the nape of Gordon"s neck. It pains and there"s no minimizing the pain. The Neurocomp special project has apparently developed a technology sufficiently advanced to allow a cadre of deckers to challenge the best on the Fuchi private grid. A tech that"s just possibly an order of magnitude beyond anything else on the planet. With tech like that, Fuchi could go anywhere. The Special Administration could conceivably invade any host and carry off the secrets of any corp. It is without a doubt a dream come true. And there is just one problem with it. The fatal flaw.
The truth might come out. Gordon"s own manipulations of Fuchi funds might be discovered if anything about these deckers" so-called "demonstration" is made known to anyone. Fuchi Internal Security would certainly launch an investigation given only half an excuse. They would inevitably uncover enough to bury Gordon, if not also the entire Special Administration, as it presently exists, because that is how the Sixth World works. Once one thread is discovered, the entire cord unravels, and Gordon is unwilling to give up that single thread.
The people on top would gladly accept any deal to get this new tech. If certain revelations forced them to dispense with Gordon it would be viewed as a necessary expense.
What should he do? How does he answer the deckers" proposal? Say yes? Then everything goes to s.h.i.t. Say no? If he turns the deckers away, if they know how vulnerable he really is, they go to somebody else, someone without Gordon"s reservations, and they"ll make a deal in about two minutes. They"ll provide detailed data on their runs against Fuchi mainframes to prove their worth. And then nothing on the Fuchi grid or in the Special Administration datastores will ever be secure again.
He has to decide what the f.u.c.k is really going on here, and how to salvage this situation and come out of it alive and intact. Think, dammit. Think.
One point comes to mind.
"Why are you talking to a Serpent?" Gordon asks.
The image of Machiko-san re-animates. She says, "I am here to expedite the re-acquisition of Nagato Corp debt."
"Is that supposed to mean something?"
"We are conducting an auction," Ja.n.u.s-face says. "Between you and Nagato Corp. Whoever bids first wins."
That doesn"t sound right.
Senior GSG do covert action for Chairman Honjowara, Gordon knows that very well, but not a job like this. Not for stakes like this. Machiko-san was raised a warrior. If Honjowara knew the stakes, if there really was an auction going on, Honjowara would be there himself, or be represented by one of his senior advisors, probably a committee of senior advisors.
And that means the deckers are lying. There"s no auction. Gordon looks to the screen, the image of the Serpent, Machiko. She is the key. The warrior. The selfless defender of Chairman Honjowara and Nagato Combine. She"s talking to the deckers, probably inside the Neurocomp facility, but why? Has she followed the clues Gordon offered her to their final destination? Has she deduced the ident.i.ty of the parties behind the buy-out of Nagato debt? Could she be even now confronting the deckers? accusing them of corporate treason? preparing to, what? cut them off from the Matrix?
What in Christ is she thinking? What will she do when faced with the imminent destruction of the very foundation of her whole world?
It means taking a gamble.
Gambling that the deckers will play Machiko-san the same way they"re playing him. "I need authorization from my director," Gordon says. "Two minutes."
"Two minutes may be too long," Ja.n.u.s-face says.
Gordon rises and walks through the door to his outer office. His entire exec protect detail is waiting on the far side of the doorway. His deputy and his deputy"s deputy and the chief of his special operations staff and the rest of his senior staff are all standing there, obviously tense and alert, and they all seem about to start talking at once except Gordon immediately slashes a hand across the front of his throat.
No one says a word.
Gordon looks to his watch. He waits for one minute and fifteen seconds to tick past, then returns to his private office and sits at his desk. Ja.n.u.s-face is still on-screen.
"You"ve got a deal," Gordon says. "I"m authorized by the chief of Fuchi America to negotiate an immediate transfer of every property involved. Money"s no object."
"You"re got a quick mind, omae."
"I know a sweet deal when I see it."
40.
"I don"t think so," says SmoKe.
Machiko looks back to the wall-sized display screen. "What you think is of no significance. You will be detained. Your access to the Matrix will be eliminated. In due course, you will be questioned by the Security Service. You would be wise to consider the likelihood that ultimately your fate will be determined by Chairman Honjowara."
The decker"s neochromatic icons on the display darken and fade into blackness. They give no reply. Machiko puzzles over this, but then the deputy VP turns to the GCP project director, saying, "See that Machiko-san"s instructions are carried out at once."
The project director bows, looking pale, and turns to the door. Only the door does not open. The man, hastening to exit the room, impacts the door with surprising force and staggers back, wobbling. Machiko takes three steps and catches his arm. The others, the deputy VP, the two Security Service guards, help to maneuver the man into a nearby chair. He is bruised and unsettled, but not seriously hurt. In another few moments he and the others are all wondering about the door.
The guards make a cursory inspection. A small red bulb beside the door indicates that it is locked. The deputy VP himself works the lock"s keypad, but the door remains locked. One of the guards keys a telecom, but that is not working either. Machiko opens the commlink on her left vambrace, keys the code for Nagato Corp operations center, but is answered only by static.
The deputy VP checks several of the consoles lining the room. His expression rises from puzzlement to disbelief to apparent amazement. "It would appear that nothing in this room is working."
"How is that possible?" Machiko asks.
The project director, frowning intently, looks from the consoles to Machiko, then to the wall-sized display screen at the head of the room. "The entire facility is computer-controlled."
"Are you saying that the GCP deckers-"
"Good guess, orruie."
Machiko looks to the display at the head of the room. The deckers" neochromatic icons are back. "You will surrender control of this facility"s systems at once."
"I don"t think so," says SmoKe.
"Do not compel me to take extreme measures."
"You don"t want to do that," says NodeBoy. "You wouldn"t like the results. We"ve got all the hole cards. We own the game. Here, check it out."
A secondary window opens on the display screen, presenting an image of Gordon Ito. He sits in a tall-backed chair, a wall of windows behind him, the lights of Manhattan and the Jersey sh.o.r.e clearly visible. "I"m authorized by the chief of Fuchi America to negotiate an immediate transfer of Neurocomp," Ito-san says. "Money"s no object."
The image freezes. Machiko holds herself motionless. Why do the deckers show this sequence involving Gordon Ito? Does it mean that Ito-san has been manipulating events, the true force behind the deckers" revolt, since the beginning? "Please explain yourselves at once," Machiko says lowly.
"Null sheen," says SmoKe.
"We"re negotiating a change in ownership," says NodeBoy. "If you try to interfere, we"ll throw the whole load of Nagato debt into the deal. And you can flush your precious Nagato Combine down the nearest squathole."
Machiko stands immobile, feeling as if rooted to the floor. She finds NodeBoy"s explanation difficult to understand and all but impossible to accept. Only a few minutes ago the GCP deckers were claiming to be engaged in a b.l.o.o.d.y revolution to escape corporate control. Now they are negotiating the transfer Of Neurocomp to Fuchi ownership? To Fuchi Industrial Electronics"! She cannot believe that, cannot believe they would even suggest it, for it makes no sense. The only way that it would make any sense at all is if they are using the device of a traitor or enemy, a tactic of delay, a maneuver intended to deceive, a lie designed to forestall any action that might unhinge the deckers" plan.
Why use such a tactic? Because they need time. There is timing in everything. The timing here is especially crucial. How much time do they need? Minutes? Perhaps only seconds?
What is their true plan? What could they be doing to accomplish their stated objective of "taking control"? Could they be negotiating with Gordon Ito, with Fuchi, not for ownership of Neurocomp but for the entire body of Nagato Corporation?
Could it be anything but that, given their depraved disregard for the many lives they have spent, the blood shed, and the malice they bear Nagato Combine?
"You would destroy Nagato Combine?" Machiko asks.
"In a nanoflash," SmoKe replies.
The path then is clear. The deckers have the power and the motivation to destroy, and the blood they have shed more than proves their willingness to commit any crime, any treason, any evil, no matter how diabolic. What they are actually doing is no longer of any importance. Machiko must act. She must do as she has been trained to do. She must remember the Way, and the Way is death. Inexorable death. Stamp both feet to the earth and pa.s.s through a wall of iron. Do not consider victory or defeat. Consider only that the enemy must be destroyed.
"I will give you one chance to surrender."
SmoKe begins howling with laughter.
Machiko turns to the broad wall of windows overlooking the floor of the GCP lab. She lifts her SCK M-100 SMG from her side, tabs the safety, and squeezes the trigger.
The savage clattering of the weapon gives rise to a deafening tumult: the crashing of shattered transparex panes, shouts and screams, the sudden blaring of alarms. Machiko does not pause to look back, for she knows what she will see, knows it intuitively. She will see the two executives looking at her in astonishment. She will see the two Security Service guards watching in alarm, perhaps seizing the grips of their sidearms, but hesitating to draw, unsure of what to do. She did not take the time to explain her intentions, could not reveal her intent to the enemy, and now she must live with that and the likely consequences.
"COVER!" she shouts.
As she thrusts herself at the shattered pane before her, she hears the rapid stammering of an autofire weapon, the ruthless noise of an Ares single-barrel machine gun. She does not have to look. The sound comes from directly behind her. The door to the room has opened and the weapon pod mounted in the ceiling of the corridor outside has unlimbered and opened fire.
As she dives through the shattered pane, toward the floor of the lab, bullets pound at the armored fabric of her overvest. An electrostatic screen that a moment ago did not exist snaps on, clawing past her waist and hips. The bullets batter her flesh even as electrostatic energy stabs through her nerves like ten thousand electrified razors.
The pain can be muted, injuries suppressed, yet the screams rising from the room at her back close around her heart like a savage crushing fist.
Forgive me .. .
She cannot let herself hear it.
The floor of the GCP lab is now two, three meters beneath her, coming up fast. She has only instants. She holds the SCK out before her, gripped in both hands. She points the weapon at the center of the three tanks filled with their murky blue fluids and dark humanoid shapes. She sees the figures in white coats scattered about the floor of the lab, some turning, looking toward her, looking terrified or filled with horror or paralyzed by shock and astonishment. The first one is just opening her mouth to shriek or shout as Machiko again squeezes the trigger.
The bullets smash at the center tank. The walls of the tank seem almost to bulge outward, before exploding.
"Nnnnnnnoooooohhhhhh! " rises one voice.
Machiko sees the humanoid shape still hanging suspended in the ruptured tank-amid arrays of tubes and wires-twitching and shaking under the a.s.sault from her SCK.
She has just enough time to see the murky fluids that gush from the sides of the ruptured tank flickering with spectral blue flames.
Then, she lands.
She lands badly, amid crashing console screens and cables that fill the air around her with blazing showers of sparks. She tumbles to the floor and seeks shelter beneath the front ledge of a console. The facility"s computer-automated weapons systems pursue her even here, to the white-tiled floor of the lab.
Off to her far right another door stands open and another ceiling-mounted weapon tracks her, and now she feels the pounding against her feet, her legs, her hips. She rolls backwards onto her feet and flips herself bodily over a console that appears lined with nothing but row after row of touch-sensitive keys. Shards of metal and shattered plastic shower the top of her head as she lands on toes and fingertips behind the console.
Two meters to her rear a man in a white coat slowly spins and spins, wounds erupting like red puckered sores in a line from his right shoulder down to his groin.
Machiko rams a fresh clip into the SCK. The pain is getting more insistent. She is aware of at least half a dozen minor wounds that will eventually require medical attention. The impact of her fall, the electrostatic barrier, the bullets-it is all adding up. How much more she can take is not a calculation that matters. She will go on till either the enemy is crushes or she is dead.
Without warning, a new enemy attacks. Machiko feels their paranatural power filling her belly with the frigid chill of fear even as their sudden, shocking howls seize at her limbs and body, trying to slow her down.
Then the hounds are upon her. Barghests. Like Neapolitan mastiffs, but larger, heavier. Barghests are used by the Security Service in many Nagato facilities. Why they come into this lab and attack her, Machiko does not even attempt to guess.
The beasts impact her side. Ma.s.s and momentum combine to drive her sideways against a console burning with graphic displays. Machiko"s katana sword flashes downward, cleaving the neck of the beast that rips at her right thigh. She twists and heaves and flips the beast gnawing at her left arm over the ridge at the rear of a console, snapping its spine.
Blood streams from her wounds like veins of death.