The background changed color, becoming a soft green. The sound of rippling water surrounded them. and streaks of darker green seemed to be streaming past. It was as if they stood inside a vertical tube of gently flowing water. Around them, floating in a circle about waist-height, was a ring of icons. The rabbit considered for a millisecond, then reached out and firmly grasped one shaped like a microscope. The icon shimmered.
Suddenly, Carla couldn’t focus properly. Everything around her began breaking apart, dissolving into a soft fuzz of broken squares. Back in the real world, she felt her fingertips start to tingle. And that frightened her. Black ice was designed to attack the decker himself, as well as his hardware. It would also attack his hitchers. But she’d been confident in Corwin’s ability to avoid any intrusion countermeasures they encountered, It seemed she’d made a mistake-possibly a fatal one.
Slowly-too slowly-Carla felt her real-world hand start to drift up toward her head. It moved at a painfully sluggish rate, a millimeter at a time, while her mind was whirling. She had to jack out, had to…
The world refocused. The rabbit was holding up a forefinger. On its tip, a child’s top spun furiously. It seemed to be creating a whirlpool in space that was gradually drawing together the polygons that had earlier been flying apart. At last it stopped. “Nasty,” the rabbit commented to itself. Then it pulled another icon from the pocket at its hip. This one looked like a cluster of numbers, tangled together, each a different primary color. The rabbit threw it at the microscope.
The numbers danced for a moment in the air, then three of them settled onto the microscope icon, sticking to its sides. The other numbers dissolved. At the same instant, Carla had the perception that she was shrinking, moving with great speed. The eyepiece of he microscope loomed in front of her like a huge, round portal-and then they were through.
They floated in a velvety black space. Around them, bobbing gently, were a series of rectangular off-white squares. These were standard file icons-modeled after he old-fashioned pieces of folded cardboard once used to manually store hardcopy. The top of each was marked with a small color bar.
The rabbit pulled out a sewing needle. Its thread was a series of words: LIGHT. SPIRIT. FARAZAD. SAMJI. The rabbit threw the needle like a dart, then watched as it punched its way in and out of the files, piercing each one and drawing the word-thread through it. When it had finished, two smaller file icons hung on the thread between the words. Like the larger files, each was coded with a color bar. The rabbit pulled what looked like a highlighting stylus out of its seemingly bottomless pocket and drew the tip over the bar code of the first file. The blocks of color turned into letters: PROJECT PERSONNEL.
The rabbit looked at Carla. “Upload?” it asked.
Carla nodded.
The rabbit tucked the file into its pocket. Then it used the stylus on the second file. More words appeared: LUCIFER PROJECT.
“Uplo-?”
A sudden flash of white light obliterated everything. Carla had the sensation of tumbling crazily in space. There was nothing to grab onto, no reference points. The entire Matrix and all of its graphic constructs had been instantly obliterated. She spun wildly out of control, knot of icy fear in her stomach. She was falling, drowning in a sea of featureless white, burning in an invisible white flame…
It ended as suddenly as it had begun. Carla was slumped over in her chair in the research department. Beside her, Corwin held the end of the datacord that he’d yanked out of the jack in her temple. His face was an ashen color, and had lost all of its usual cocky expression.
Both of them were breathing hard. For a moment, Carla was frightened that the intrusion countermeasure they’d run into had used a biofeedback loop to accelerate their heart rates out of control. She glanced up at the clock on the wall. Only ten seconds had elapsed since they’d entered the Matrix. It seemed like a lifetime.
“What the frag was that?” she asked. “Some kind ice?”
Corwin shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “It shut down everything in the sector-not just us.”
“Do you think it was-“
“Jus’ a sec,” Corwin cut her off. “I gotta check something.”
He jacked back into the deck and hunched over it, eyes unfocused. As the seconds ticked past, Carla saw his fingers tense once, then relax. Then his mouth dropped open and his breathing quickened. His eyes jerked back and forth rapidly, as if he were rapidly scanning text. Just as Carla was wondering if she should do something, he blinked and pulled the cable from his temple.
“Wow,” he said.
“What?” Carla was bristling with impatience. “What is it?”
“Whatever wiped us wasn’t ice,” Corwin said thoughtfully. “It was more like a virus. I edged back into the Mitsuhama mainframe, just to scan what was rezzin’ there. When I tried to access the research lab files again, guess what I found?”
Carla shrugged. She couldn’t even guess.
“Nada. Zilch. Static. A whole lotta nothing. The datastore for that sector is utterly clean, completely wiped. There wasn’t a single graphics pixel, not a single byte of data. And none of the programs were functional. That system is toasted. Gonzo.”
He paused. “Know what it reminded me of?” he asked.
Carla nodded. This time, she could guess. “The databanks at the U. of W’s School of Theology?”
“Yup. Exactamundo. Same effect exactly.”
“What about the files you uploaded?” Carla asked. “Did you manage to save them?”
Corwin tapped a button on his deck. With a soft whir, a datachip slid out of a slot in the side. “I got the personnel file,” he answered. “But the second file was erased, along with the rest of the lab data. The deck didn’t even have time to upload its name code.”
Carla cursed silently to herself. She’d been so close.
But at least she had a tiny piece of the puzzle now. She had a personnel file that should contain the names of the mages who’d worked on the project with Farazad. The information in their dossiers might give her some leverage during the interviews she hoped to conduct with them. And she also had what had to be the name of the research project: Lucifer.
It was a curious name for what Carla had assumed was a weapons research project. Lucifer was a Latin word that translated as “bringer of light.” It was also the name of the angel who was cast out of heaven and fell to earth in the form of lightning. That part certainly fit. According to the ork girl’s description of the spirit, it had looked like lightning as it launched itself into the heavens away from the body of the wage mage. One big bright flash of light…
She suddenly realized that her previous assumptions had been all wrong. Mitsuhama hadn’t been experimenting with spirits in order to use them as weapons. She’d let the fact that the spirit had killed the mage lull her into that crude conclusion. Instead, the research project had involved computers-Mitsuhama’s chief industry-all along.
Carla could feel her heart pounding in her chest. “Corwin,” she asked softly. “Is it possible for a spirit enter the Matrix?”
The ork shook his head. “No way. The Matrix is an artificial reality, nothing more than a series of computer-generated simsense impressions, while magic is inherently associated with living organisms. The two are completely incompatible; that’s why mages have such trouble with simsense. Regardless of what it’s actually made of, a spirit is a living creature And nothing living can enter the Matrix.”
“1 thought we just did.”
“Nope. What we did was download sensory data from the Matrix directly into our brains, through these He tapped the datajack in his temple while still watching the screen of the diagnostic unit. “We weren’t actually ‘inside’ the Matrix-we just perceived it as if we were. We were actually downloading coded pulses of photons, which our datalinks translated into signals our brains could understand and interpret. Whenever I seemed to he manipulating an icon. I was actually executing a command, uploading the information that would do the job. My neural synapses fired, and the thought was translated by my datalink into a coded burst of light that activated the program in my deck.” He paused, looked up for a moment at Carla. “You scan all that?”
“Huh-huh. But what if the spirit had a physical body that was composed of light?” Carla asked. “Couldn’t it enter the Matrix like any other beam of light, through a fiber-optic cable?”
The decker paused for a second, then shrugged “Maybe for a millisecond or two. It would just blast through at three hundred thousand klicks per second and be out again.”
“What would it look like?”
“Like a flash of…” Corwin looked up, his eyes wide. “So that’s what we saw,” he whispered softly. “Mega cool.” His deck lay ignored in his lap. He leaned forward, and the foam of the recliner squeaked slightly as it contoured itself to his new position.
“A creature composed of light would be one fragger of a virus,” he said, thinking out loud. “It wouldn’t be affected by any intrusion countermeasures, since they’re set up to attack the deck or the decker. It would be nearly impossible to detect, because it wouldn’t interfere with the other data transmissions. Light doesn’t interfere with itself unless the two beams are exactly in phase-that’s why a fiber-optic cable can carry thousands of commands and transmissions simultaneously. One more pulse of light down the tube wouldn’t affect it a bit. And it wouldn’t hurt the hardware-at least, I don’t think so. But there is one thing he spirit would do-it would sure mess up stored data.”
His gestures grew more animated. See, information is written on memory chips and hard drives by a beam of light, and read in the same manner. Individual pulses within the beam, as well as the light wave’s pattern of crests and troughs, are all part of the information carrying code. If a creature made of light suddenly surged through a data storage device, it would completely scramble the code that had been written previously. There’d be a whole new pattern laid down, none of it coherent. And that’s what makes this spirit so perfect as a virus. There’s no way to stop it from corrupting your data. Even if you installed a passcode system, any word or image you use is encoded as light. All the spirit would have to do is reconfigure itself to emulate the passcode, write-enable the datastore, and slide right in. Only a hardwired lock could stop it-and that involves completely locking the system away from the Matrix. It just isn’t economically feasible to do that.
“You’d have to have some way of directing the spirit. Otherwise, it would wipe out every file it passed through along the way. Maybe if you got it to home in on a keyword…”
“That’s it!” Carla said. “The spirit showed up in the research lab node of the Mitsuhama system as soon as you decrypted the name on the project file. It’s also wiped datastores at a theology school and a televangelist network, and keeps attacking a woman by the name of Luci Ferraro each time she tries to access any cormputer or telecom unit that’s linked to the Matrix. What do these four things have in common?” She smiled, pleased with herself for putting the pieces together and waiting for Corwin to do the same.
Corwin frowned, puzzled. Then he broke into wide, snag-toothed grin. “The word Lucifer.”
“There’s your keyword,” Carla concluded.
Corwin shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense,” he countered. “You say this spirit was developed at the Mitsuhama research lab. Why would they target their own facility?”
“As a test, maybe?”
Corwin snorted with laughter. “A test capable of wiping out their entire data-storage system? No way!”
“No, not a test,” Carla agreed. Then the answer hit her. “The spirit is trying to wipe out the files on itself. In the process, it’s erasing a lot of unrelated data-any file that contains the word Lucifer. But why does it feel the need to do that? It’s already killed the man who conjured it and become a free spirit. Even if it was once under someone’s control, nobody’s controlling it now.”
Corwin reached for his deck. “This is totally wacked. I’d better warn my chummers about-”
“Don’t!” Carla grabbed the ork’s hand. “Keep this to yourself, O.K.? At least until I’ve completed my story. That run you just did was on KKRU time and as an employee of this station, you have to honor your confidentiality oath. Agreed?”
Corwin sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Good.” She left him staring morosely at his deck and hurried back into the newsroom.
15
Pita sat in the basement room, stroking the white cat. She stared at the ray of sunlight that slanted through the broken window, trying to ignore the hunger that gnawed at her belly. She listened instead to the sounds of people moving through the store above her, to the traffic outside, to the purring of the cat in her lap. Without meaning to do so, she began to hum a ballad she’d heard on one of the muzak stations last week. She’d laughed at it when she first heard it; the song was some mushy thing, not a bit like the scream-rock she usually listened to. But humming it now somehow made her feel better.
She stroked the cat’s soft fur, concentrating on its texture in an effort to focus her thoughts. She was beginning to feel light-headed, dizzy. As her mind drifted, her body felt thinner, less substantial. All that existed was the dust motes, the sunlight the rumbling purr of the cat. Or was that the sound of her humming? The two had blended together in a gentle harmony.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the floor drifted away. Pita was floating, bobbing like a dust mote in the air. With a sense of wonder, she unfolded her legs from their crossed position and placed her feet on the floor. Through her legs, which had become translucent, she could see her body, still seated and leaning back against the wall. Her eyes had closed and her head hung to one side, mouth open. Her chest was still; it didn’t look as though she was breathing.
Amazingly, the sight did not frighten her. It seemed natural, right. This detached perspective was better, somehow, than confronting her own face in a mirror. From this angle, her wide face, jutting teeth, and broad shoulders seemed perfectly proportioned. She reached out to touch herself but overshot her mark, and her hand passed through the wall. Amazed, she drew it back. She could pass through man-made objects as if they were not there.
She looked down at her body once more. The cat, still curled in her lap, climbed out of its own body. Its ghostly form stepped delicately aside, extending each of its back legs in a spine-lengthening stretch. And then it began to change. It grew larger, sleeker, more supple. Its fur took on the pattern of a tabby cat, but with stripes the color of a rainbow. Its eyes began to glow, to turn into molten pools of gold. And its whiskers began to hum with a strange electric force, When the transformation was complete, it looked up at her and gave a faint, ghostly mrrow.
For the space of a few heartbeats, Pita was unable o speak. At last she was able to utter a single word: “Cat?”
The animal nodded. Then it turned and leaped gracefully onto a box, and from there to the window ledge.
Pita felt no fear-only a burning curiosity to see where this magical creature was going. She followed it, climbing up and through the wall as if it were not there. She had a brief moment of disorientation as her form flowed through the cement; she saw every grain, every particle. Then she was standing in the alley, beside Cat The animal gave a quick backward glance, then trotted around a trash can and into another wall.
Pita followed, her mind bubbling with laughter as she explored her newfound perceptions. She could walk through walls, or across a busy street while cars zoomed through her ghostly form. She was jostled once, when a passenger in one of the cars made contact with her, and found that trees felt equally solid. But she could, if she chose, climb a flight of stairs, her feet never once touching them. Or she could wade chest-deep through a floor, as if it were made of water. The only things that presented a barrier to her were those that were alive-people, plants, and the earth itself.
And the things she could see! Magical energies swirled and eddied about her like colored mists. In some spots she could sense strong emotional residues-here, in this intersection, someone had suffered great pain. There, in that room, was a bright sunburst of joy. The streets were alive with odd-looking, magical creatures. Some were the size of mice, with multiple heads and shimmering fur. They scuttled up the street or peeked out of drain holes. Other presences were more natural-and more alien. When Pita walked through a park, the trees, grass, and earth pulsed with life, with emotion.
Drifting along a busy sidewalk, she could clearly see the violet aura that clung to one of the men in the crowd. Looking closely at him as she passed, she saw his true form-not human at all, but a hideous, misshapen beast with reptilian scales and cloven feet. It exuded a miasma of hatred and anger. Pita circled warily around the creature, but it seemed as oblivious to her presence as any of the others she passed.
She followed Cat for sometime. She had no idea what streets they followed; she could see the signs, but the words on them were meaningless symbols. Some were angled scribbles, others were asymmetrical patterns of circles, triangles, and squares. She was able to roughly gauge her progress by keeping an eye on the Renraku and Aztechnology complexes. But although she could pass through walls with ease, she could not see through them. Much of the time, the buildings blocked her view.
Eventually Cat led her to an old, wood-frame building on the corner of a quiet residential street. It looked as if it had once been a Stuffer Shack; the sign over the front door was the right shape, even if Pita couldn’t read it. The windows were boarded up and the door secured with a chain and padlock. At some point in the past, a vehicle had collided with a corner of the building; large sheets of chipboard covered a gaping, splintered hole. Cat stopped in front of this boarded-up wall, looked back at Pita, then disappeared inside.
Pita followed, and found herself inside a large room. Dusty counters and broken display racks had been pushed against the walls, clearing a space in the middle. At the center of the room, Aziz lay sprawled on his back, arms and legs spread wide. His dark hair fanned out in a halo around his head, and the loose sleeves of his robe made him look as if he had angel wings. At first Pita thought he was dead. But then she saw his mouth working. He was chanting. Although it looked as though he were shouting, all Pita could hear was a faint whisper. His words were incomprehensible gibberish.
The floor was ablaze with a pattern of glowing, magical lines. It looked as though a cherry-red circle had been painted on the floor with neon tubing. Inside the circle were five straight lines, each a different color, that formed the branches of a pentagram. In each point of the pentagram a different symbol had been drawn. Aziz lay with his head in one of the points of the pentagram, his hands and feet on the other points. One of his hands clutched a lighted candle, the other, a lump of earth. A clear glass bowl near one of his feet held water, and an empty bowl was near his other foot. His head rested upon what looked like a jagged piece of window glass that had been placed flat on the floor. His eyes were focused on the ceiling; he showed no signs of realizing that Pita was there.
Pita heard a faint hiss and glanced down at Cat, Its multi-colored body was curved into an arch. Every one of its translucent hairs was on end, quivering. Its claws were extended, buried in the floor. It was staring-straight up-at a skylight in the ceiling.
Pita looked up. Now she, too, could see what had startled Cat. A spiral pattern was forming on the ceiling, swirling inward through the grimy glass to coalesce at the spot at which Aziz was staring. It was fantastically bright, as difficult to look at as the sun. In another second the brilliant light formed a tornado spout. It spiraled down, down, closer to Aziz. As it approached him, he chanted faster. A frightened look crept into his eyes. Face locked in a grimace, he screamed at the thing that had formed above his head. His face was awash with light. The candle in his right hand flared brilliantly, was consumed in one burst. The earth in his left hand turned to ash. Aziz screamed as blisters erupted on his face and hands, and turned his head aside, his eyes screwed shut. He seemed to he struggling, unable to move.
With an angry hiss, Cat turned and fled.
“Aziz!” Pita screamed. She flung up her arm to shield her eyes from the brilliant light. This was horrible. Aziz was dying, being burned alive by the same spint creature that had killed the mage in the alley. Pita was terrified. Yet she could not run, it wasn’t fear but guilt that held her fast. How many times in the past few days had she run out on someone, left them to die? Much as she disliked Aziz, she couldn’t add his name to the list. Not after she’d been responsible for his store being torched. Besides, she wasn’t really here-her body was back in the basement of the department store. Nothing could hurt her, right?
Praying that she was correct, Pita ran forward, her arm still raised to protect her eyes. She tried to leap across the glowing bar that formed the circle and crashed into an invisible wall. Stunned, she staggered back.
Pita heard a tearing, shuddering noise overhead, and looked up. The glowing spirit had drawn back, was spiraling against the ceiling once more. As Pita moved forward, it seemed to back away from her. Then it exploded outward with a brilliant flash, hurtling away through the skylight with impossible speed.
Aziz groaned, rolled over stiffly. He sat up slowly, blinking and holding his head. Squinting, he peered around the room. It didn’t look as though his eyes were working properly. The pupils were mere pinpricks. But then his head turned, as if he had sensed Pita’s presence. He crawled to his knees, fumbled toward her like a blind man. Then he stopped and held his palms to his temples. Pita saw a glow of magical energy coalescing about his head, centered on his eyes.
His mouth fell open. “Pita?” he gasped. “That was you? But what are you doing in astral space?”
Pita tried to answer, but found that she could not speak. Then she heard an echoing meow that called her mind elsewhere, and the walls of the convenience store started to waver. She felt a silent tug, somewhere behind her. Dimly, she sensed her body. It was weak, its heartbeat fluttery. She suddenly knew, with urgent certainty, that she had to return to it.
She turned and ran through the wall.
16
“Aziz! What happened to you? You look awful.”
Carla hurried toward the mage. His clothes were smudged with dirt and had a sooty, campfire smell. His face and hands were bright red and covered with weeping blisters, as if he’d suffered a severe sunburn. His dark hair was mussed and looked as if it had been hacked off short, just above the forehead. And his face looked odd. After a moment, Carla figured out why. Both eyebrows and lashes were gone. He stood in the lobby of the news station, dripping water onto the floor. Outside, the morning sunshine had disappeared and rain was sprinkling down.
He looked past Carla at the door that led to the studio. His dark eyes were watery, blinking. “Where’s the girl?” he asked.
“Who?” Carla’s mind was still trying to process what she and the decker Corwin had just uncovered. She’d been in the middle of scanning the personnel file they’d downloaded, rapidly absorbing every bit of information she could about the three mages who’d worked with Farazad on the Lucifer Project.
“The ork girl,” Aziz said. “Pita.”
“I don’t know. Masaki said she disappeared the night before last, around the time of the newscast. He was on the phone all day to the social services agencies and soup kitchens, but no one’s seen her.” She shrugged. “If you ask me, she probably got bored and went back to her street friends. Wayne said one of them stopped by just before she left.” She shrugged. “Maybe she just got tired of the colored dishwater that passes for soykaf around here. In any case, it’s good riddance. I don’t think that kid had taken a bath in-”
“I need to find her,” Aziz cut in. “It’s important. She’s the key to-”
“Have you seen yourself in a mirror?” Carla asked suddenly. “You’re a mess. And those blisters look painful.” She keyed a code into the door behind her, opened it, and motioned for Aziz to follow. Come on into the studio. There’s a first aid kit in the lunch room; I’ll put something on your burns. What happened? Did one of your spells backfire on you again?”
Aziz trudged after her down the hall. “Not exactly.”
Carla spun on her heel, suddenly guessing the truth. “Aziz! You didn’t try casting the spell from the Mitsuhama lab, did you? The spell you said it would be suicidal to try?”
“No.” Aziz shook his head and winced slightly as his facial skin tightened. “I tried something else. I wanted to learn more about the nature of the spirit Farazad Samji conjured. I thought it might be some new form of elemental. If the writings of Ko Hung were correct, I wondered if there was a fifth metaplane-one previously undiscovered. A metaplane of light. I figured that if I could find this metaplane, I’d be able to learn more about the spirit. And so I used a piece of window glass from the alley where the spirit apparently went free as a focal point for my meditation, and set out to find its native plane.”
“And did you succeed?” Carla asked. Despite her concern for Aziz, her reporter’s curiosity was aroused.
“No. As far as I can tell everything we’ve always believed till now is true: no fifth metaplane exists. Period. The spirit Farazad summoned isn’t from a new metaplane and it isn’t an elemental. It’s another form of beast entirely. I’m not even sure that we should be calling it a spirit, but it’s the only word that fits. By all the laws of magic, this creature shouldn’t even exist.”
He shrugged. “Whatever this astral entity really is, my attempt at an astral quest attracted its attention. Perhaps it thought I was trying to learn its true name, and tried to stop me. Whatever the reason, the spirit was drawn to me. It, uh… attacked me.”
“Attacked you!”
They were passing through the newsroom. A few of the reporters and editors raised their heads and stared curious1y at them. She took Aziz firmly by the arm and steered him toward the lunch room. Thankfully, it was empty. Pushing Aziz inside, she closed the door. She pulled the first aid kit out of a drawer, found the tube of burn cream, and twisted the lid off. Aziz sank into a chair and sat with his hands a few centimeters short of his lap, as if afraid that letting them rest on anything would hurt. Carla gently dabbed the cream onto his burns with a fingertip. The sharp smell of the ointment tilled the room. “Tell me what happened,” she urged.
“The spirit came close enough to burn me,” Aziz said. His dark eyes winced at the memory. “I thought I was finished-that I’d be cooked alive, like the fellow who died in the alley. But then I sensed someone trying to break my hermetic circle. The circle held, but the interruption disturbed the spirit somehow. It vanished-just like that.” He started to snap his fingers, then winced at his burned skin.
“I must have passed out for a second or two. When I came to, I couldn’t see anything. I thought…” He looked up at Carla, blinking his watery eyes. “I thought I’d been permanently blinded. But then I remembered my astral senses. I looked into astral space, and guess who I saw, standing just outside the circle?”
“Pita?” Carla asked as she gently applied the born cream to his face. “You mean to tell me you had her along with you when you were working your magic?”
“Not intentionally,” Aziz answered. “And not in the flesh. I tried to touch her, but couldn’t. She’d projected herself into astral space.”
“What?” Carla said incredulously. “How in the world could she manage to-”
“She’s a raw magical talent, I guess.” Aziz said with an envious sigh. “And powerful, too. I didn’t do anything to drive the spirit away. I was toast-literally-until Pita came along. She was the one who drove it away.”
Carla sank into a chair beside Aziz. “Wow,” she said at last. “That’s a story in itself. There’s more to that kid than meets the eye.”
“That’s right,” Aziz said. “And that’s why I want her with me the next time I try to find out more about this astral entity. She seems to have some sort of natural power over it. The thing fled as soon as she tried to penetrate my hermetic circle. She must have done something to banish it. I’ve got my suspicions about what it might have been, but it’s too unbelievable to be true.” He turned his hands over, flexed them slightly, and winced. Then he smiled at Carla. “That feels better. Thanks.”
Carla shook her head. “You’re crazy,” she told him. “That spirit nearly killed you. What do you want to mess with it again for?”
“Why. Miss Carla”-Aziz arched an eyebrow-“if you keep talking like that, you’re going to make me think you still care for me.” He reached out for her cheek with fingers that smelled of burn cream.
Carla jerked her head away, sorry now that she’d revealed her feelings. Aziz was the same stupid slot he’d always been, putting his quest for magical knowledge ahead of his own safety. Ahead of her.
The mage lowered his hand and sighed. “If anyone should understand, it’s you, Carla,” he said. “This is a brand new form of spirit. Something that’s never been seen before in the hermetic tradition. I’ve got to know more about it.” He tried to catch her eye. “It’s just like when you’re onto a big story. You have to follow it through to the end. Well, it’s the same with mages. Once we get our teeth into something we-”
Carla held up a hand. “I don’t want to get into that old argument,” she told him curtly. “I don’t have the time right now. I’ve got a news story to pursue.” She stood. “You can help too, if you like. But I don’t want to have to worry about you getting killed mucking about with uncontrollable spirits. I’d rather know you were tucked inside your shop, safe behind its wards.”
“That’s the other thing,” Aziz said slowly. “The shop. It’s gone.”
“Gone? You make it sound like it dematerialized or something.”
“There was a fire. Two nights ago, while I was gathering the materials I needed to cast the spell. The store was completely gutted. All those books…” His face crumpled and Carla thought he was actually going to cry.
“My god,” Carla said. “That fire on Denny Way. That was your shop? I was so busy putting the Matrix story together that I didn’t pay any attention to the trideo feeds that night. I’m so sorry, Aziz. I know how much the shop meant to you.”
“At least I had insurance,” the mage said bitterly. “And a hardcopy printout of the Mitsuhama spell,” he added, patting one bulging pocket. “The memory chip you gave me burned up in the fire.”
“I don’t think so,” Carla said slowly. She screwed the top back onto the burn cream, then toyed with the tube, unwilling to look Aziz in the eye. “There was something I didn’t tell you the morning we came to your shop. The girl who saw the mage die-Pita-was being chased by two yakuza when we caught up to her. They were after the chip. I didn’t think they’d still be looking for it after our story on the spirit aired. It should have been too late by then for them to continue trying to plug the leak. But I guess I was wrong. Maybe they thought there was something on the chip that would link the spell to Mitsuhama. They probably saw the interview I did with you, broke into your store, and set the fire to cover their tracks once they had what they’d come for.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Aziz. Really. I didn’t realize that this would happen.”
“So Mitsuhania sent its goons after the chip, did they?” Aziz frowned, then winced as the movement pulled his skin. “And you haven’t seen Pita for two days? That doesn’t sound good.”
“I thought you said you just saw her.”
“In astral form, only,” Aziz corrected. “Her physical body could have been anywhere. Even in the clutches of the yakuza. Maybe she came to me for help.”
Carla felt a stab of guilt. Maybe she should have kept a closer eye on the kid. But she was a reporter with a story to follow. Masaki was better at playing mother hen than she was. Let him fuss over the street urchin. “The kid’s probably fine,” she said in a deliberately reassuring tone, “Masaki has lots of contacts. He’ll track her down sooner or later.
“But there is something I need your help with. I learned the names of three mages who worked with Farazad on the development of the spell. If I can get one of them to agree to an interview, I can verify that the spirit was developed as part of a Mitsuhama research project. And maybe, in the process, I’ll find out more about how to work the spell.”
“What are the names of these mages?” Aziz asked, instantly hooked. “Maybe I know one of them. I’ve met a number of Seattle’s mages over the years, through the shop.”
Carla recited the names she’d pulled from the personnel file: “Evelyn Belanger, Rolf Hosfeld, and Miyuki Kishi.”
“Belanger. Hmm… Is she a big woman in her thirties, with dark hair and a soft voice?”
“I wouldn’t know about the voice. But the dark hair fits with the picture in her personnel file. Do you know her?”
Aziz nodded. “She’s a regular customer, although she hasn’t been to the shop in months. She was always looking for rare books on botany and herbal lore. She’s an avid gardener. And from the little she’s told me about her garden, I gather that it’s quite something. She moonlights by growing herbs and exotic plants for use in fetishes. I knew she was a wage mage, but never did ask what company she worked for. So it’s Mitsuhama, huh? No wonder she has so much money to drop or antique books.”
“Would she remember you?”
“Oh sure. I special-ordered material for her more than once.”
“Would she find it odd if you paid her a visit?”
“Not if I said I’d finally found one of the books she’s been looking for.”
“And could you find one on short notice?” Carla asked. “And deliver it this afternoon? And at the same strike up a conversation about the conjuring spell ‘some reporter from KKRU’ asked you to comment on?”
A sly grin stole across Aziz’s face. “I’ve got a book home that would be perfect,” he said. “It’s badly water-stained, and some of the pages are missing. I didn’t think that it would sell, so I’ve been scanning some of the undamaged illustrations and selling them on-line. But perhaps our wage mage would like to own the original art. The book is old enough and rare enough to interest her-despite its condition.”
“Perfect.” Carla clapped Aziz on the back. “Let’s go get it.”
The ruse worked even better than Carla had hoped. Evelyn Belanger was at home when Aziz called. She said she was working and was quite busy. Carla could guess why; after the system crash at the research lab that morning, the mages would have rushed home to see what they could salvage from their own files. But after hearing that an extremely rare herbals book was available at a cut-rate price and that a second buyer was also interested and might purchase it if she didn’t make up her mind quickly, Evelyn agreed to take a break and meet with Aziz later that afternoon.
Belanger lived in a modest wooden house, perhaps a century old, in Brier, a semi-rural section of Snohomish. Much of the district had been gobbled up by agri-business, but the area still contained a scattering of half-hectare hobby farms. Evelyn’s home was on one of those properties, but instead of a barn, her backyard boasted a large, flower-filled garden.
When Aziz showed her the book, Evelyn Belanger invited him to join her for a cup of tea and readily agreed to his request for a tour of her garden. She obviously enjoyed showing it off. Carla, listening from the sidewalk while cloaked in an invisibilty spell Aziz was sustaining, slipped around the house and in through a side gate. She caught up to the two mages as they emerged through a door at the back of the house and tiptoed behind them, careful not to knock anything over or brush against anything that made noise.
Aziz, too, had cloaked himself with a spell. His was a simpler form of magic-a mask that hid the reddened blisters on his face and hands. No sense in giving the game away too early; Evenly Belanger would probably be able to take one look at his injuries and guess what he’d been up to.
The backyard was large and parklike. Paths of natural gravel wound their way between garden beds and raised boxes filled with a profusion of vegetation. There were leafy bushes, variegated vines drooping over the cedarwood slats of the raised plant beds, fragrant-smelling herbs, and daisies with wide, sun-yellow flowers. Clumps of chives thrust up between the other plants, their purple powder-puff blossoms lending a delicate scent to the air. Wind rustled a patch of bamboo in one corner of the garden, and water gurgled in a rock-lined pond whose surface was covered with white-flowered water lilies.
Belanger led Aziz to two benches arranged at right angles to one another near the center of the garden, sheltered by a gazebo. She placed the tea tray on a table that stood between them, then motioned her visitor to sit down.
Wary of the crunching noises her feet made on the gravel path, Carla stopped where she was, a few paces away from the benches. Behind her, rain pattered gently on the leaves.
Carla looked around cautiously. She didn’t see any overt security-either technological or magical. Either Evelyn Belanger trusted her semi-rural neighborhood to be crime-free or she was confident she could protect herself with her magic.
Mitsuhama seemed to trust Belanger more than they had Mrs. Samji; there was no evidence of a watcher or paranormal guardian. The only animal present at the house was a calico cat that ran down the path to join Belanger on the bench. The animal’s whiskers twitched as it passed Carla and paused to sniff the air around her ankles. Fortunately Belanger didn’t notice the animal’s reaction.
Aziz sat on the bench and admired the garden, sipping chamomile tea and murmuring politely while Belanger described the various plants that grew around them. There was woad, the dye plant used by the ancient Celtic warriors to stain their bodies blue, and now popular with mages who specialized in combat spells. Mandrake, whose dark, forked root was used as a fetish in spells affecting the emotions-love spells, in particular. Pennyroyal, used in purification spells. And mistletoe and slippery elm, favored by both European druids and Native American shamans.
Belanger spoke lovingly about each plant, describing it in a gentle voice. She was a large woman, taller than Aziz and probably twice the weight of the rail-thin mage. She dressed in plain, earth-brown clothing. If she’d chosen, she could have been an imposing presence. But she had the soft features and quiet voice of a woman who took pleasure in sitting back and watching events unfold like the slow blossoming of a rose.
Aziz started to turn the conversation around to the events of the other night. As he did, Carla focused her eyecam and did a slow zoom on Evelyn Belanger. At the same time, she cupped a hand behind her ear so the pickup slaved into her eardrum would catch the soft voice of the wage mage. She boosted the gain a little and stepped up the filters, eliminating the faint patter of rain that came from the edge of the garden.
“… see me on the trideo the other night?” Aziz was asking. “I was interviewed by a reporter from KKRU who wanted my opinion on a spell formula that was written on an datachip she’d been given. The chip was ah… found… in the pocket of a mage who worked for Mitsuhama. His name was Farazad Samji. The reporter let me keep the chip so I could study the spell, and I’ve been trying to figure out the formula ever since. I thought that, since you worked with the fellow who had the spell, you might be able to help me decipher…”
His voice tailed off as he noticed the way Belanger's eyes had narrowed. “What makes you think I can tell you anything about this spell?” she asked.
Aziz gave a deliberately casual shrug. “The file was tagged with the Mitsuhama logo,” he lied. “So assumed it was developed at your lab.”
“Nice try,” the wage mage said softly. She reached for the antique book Aziz had placed on the bench and pushed it back at him. “1 was one of your regular customers, but I never did tell you where I worked. Who sent you here? The reporter?”
Carla cursed silently to herself as Aziz’s usual suave manner deserted him. At least he had the sense not to look around to see if Carla had suddenly become visible. That would have been a complete giveaway.
“No one sent me,” Aziz said, nervously licking his lips. “I just wanted to find out why Mitsuhama wanted the spell formula back so badly.”
His voice grew hard. “Did the goons your corporation sent after the chip tell you what they did after they found it? No? Well, they burned down my shop. All of those books-gone in a puff of smoke. Books I’d spent years collecting. Valuable books. Rare magical tomes. Gone. Destroyed.” He made a chopping gesture with his hand, then took a deep, shuddering breath. “Ignorant bastards,” he said under his breath.
“I’m sorry to hear about your shop. I really liked it. All of your lovely books…” Evelyn Belanger’s regret sounded genuine.
“I tried to learn more about the spell on the chip myself,” Aziz said. “In doing so, I managed to attract the attention of the astral entity that killed Farazad-with disastrous results, as you can see.” With a wave of his hand, he negated the spell that had been masking his blisters and red skin.
Belanger’s eyes widened. Then her lips whitened as she pressed them together. “You were lucky to have survived. Farazad was the only one who was ever able to control that thing, and it killed him just the same. What made you think you could do better, now that it’s a free spirit?”
“1 used… Hey, wait a minute.” Aziz sat up a little straighter, eyes glittering. “Farazad didn’t just summon the spirit and then lose control of it? He actually had it bound beforehand? Then how was it able to kill him?”
Evelyn stared at Aziz. For a moment, Carla thought she wasn’t going to answer, that she would simply ask Aziz to leave. But then she seemed to change her mind.
“Farazad said it wasn’t right to keep the spirit capive,” Evelyn answered. “Perhaps he was foolish enough to set it free.”
Then she sighed. “Whatever the explanation is, the secret of how to control the thing died with him.”
Carla frowned, uncertain what to think, If Evelyn was telling the truth-and seemed to be genuinely confiding in Aziz-none of the other mages who had worked on the Lucifer Project had been able to control the spirit once it was summoned. And this despite the fact that, according to their personnel files, they were more adept in the magical arts than Farazad had been. Somehow, only Farazad knew how to find the spirit, and he had held this critical piece of data back from his fellow researchers.
Refusing to keep the spirit bound and setting it free would have made sense, given Farazad’s Zoroastrian faith. He’d honestly believed that the spirit was a messenger sent by his god. Enslaving a holy messenger just wasn’t done; it was hardly something he’d want some other mage to do-even one of those involved in the spell’s development. At the same time, Farazad was a hermetic researcher, a man every bit as meticulous as his wife. He must have kept some notes somewhere, describing the process he’d used to bind the spirit. Perhaps Mitsuhama had assumed that these notes were on the datachip Farazad had intended to hand over to Masaki during his interview. That would explain why the corp had been so keen on obtaining the chip. Someone at Mitsuhama must have had their hopes bitterly dashed when it was at last recovered.
Aziz watched the other mage carefully as he spoke. “I can’t control the spirit that killed Farazad either,” he said slowly.
Belanger’s lips pressed together in a frustrated line. “But I know someone who can.”
Belanger drew a sharp breath. “You do? Who?”
Instinctively, Carla made a chopping motion at her throat-the on-air sign for “cut,” Don't let the cat out of the bag, Aziz, she thought furiously. Don’t tell them about Pita’s magical abilities or they’ll-Aziz waggled a blistered finger at the wage mage.
“That’s going to be my secret, for now,” he said smugly. “If Mitsuhama wants the answer, they’ll have to pay for it.” He held up a hand to still Belanger’s protest. “Not a lot of money, mind you. I’m not greedy. Just enough to put me back in business again, say, three hundred thousand nuyen or so. I’d like a new shop, one with a private thaumaturgical lab in back. I’m sure Mitsuhama can spare the nuyen. The corporation can draft a contract to bring me temporarily on board as a private thaumaturgical consultant, and make it all nice and legal. Just be sure to tell your bosses not to send their goons after me in the meantime. I’ll be more willing to cooperate without their ‘persuasion.’ ”
“How can I assure my superiors that you’ve actually got something to offer?”
Aziz tapped his burned cheek lightly. “I survived my encounter with the spirit, didn’t I? That proves that I-and my colleague-have some degree of control over it. The knowledge of how to do that ought to be worth something.”
“We’ll see.” Belanger tried to shrug casually, but the tension she must have been feeling was evident in the set of her shoulders. She rose to her feet. “Stay in touch. I'll let you know what the lab’s director says.”
Drek! Is that going to be it? Carla zoomed out for a head-to-toe shot of Evelyn Belanger escorting Aziz back through her garden. She still didn’t have the documentary evidence she needed to complete her story. Belanger had more or less admitted that the Mitsuhama research lab was the source of the spell, but hadn’t said anything direct enough to be used in a newscast. Aziz had been too greedy, and the other mage’s replies to his questions too vague.
Carla was tempted to make her presence known, to confront Evelyn Belanger with what they knew so far, and go for a gut-level reaction shot. But then she stopped herself. Belanger wasn’t the sort who could be startled into talking. Subtlety was the key here. But subtlety had failed.
Aziz and Belanger had reached the front gate. With a sigh, Carla stopped shooting trid and sneaked out along side path. She hadn’t gotten much, but perhaps she could use what she’d learned thus far. If she could arrange a meeting with one of the other two mages who’d worked on the project with Farazad, maybe she could entice one of them to talk. The interview would have to be set up quickly, before Aziz sold out the ork girl-if indeed that was what he had in mind. Carla didn’t think her ex was that devious, but then she hadn’t expected the curve he’d just thrown either. Was his offer to consult for Mitsuhama a spur-of-the-moment pitch, or had it been in his mind all the time?
Carla would have to ask him about that.
17
Pita picked her way through the crowd of chanting, clapping people. Hundreds of orks-perhaps even thousands-were seated in the Street in front of the Metroplex Hall, refusing to move. They had come out to join the Ork Rights Committee demonstration. The thirty-story office block they sat in front of, at the corner of Fourth and Seneca, housed the city’s council chambers, as well as the offices of the governor. It was closed for the evening; the elected officials and staff had gone home an hour ago. But that didn’t stop the protesters from shouting up at its blank, tinted-glass walls.
For several weeks, the Ork Rights Committee had been trying to organize a meeting with Governor Shultz, to voice its concern over the lack of Lone Star response to the wave of recent ork-bashings by the Humanis Policlub. Earlier in the day, twelve ORC members had forced their way into the Governor’s office and staged a sit-in. They’d been dragged out by Metroplex security guards and unceremoniously dumped on the sidewalk. Now ORC had mobilized their people in protest.
Pita had learned of the protest when she'd powered up an old trideo set she found in the basement of the building where she’d holed up last night. She had to keep the sound down low, and the screen had an annoying flicker. But she’d seen enough in the news stories about the protest to send a shiver of anger through her. No wonder the governor wasn’t willing to do anything she thought grimly, recalling the recent deaths of her chummers. The Lone Star cops themselves were doing the killing.
Although the story on the sit-in had been brief, it aired on a number of the trideo stations’ six o’clock newscasts. The most strident reports had come from the Orks First! pirates, who had interrupted he newscasts, urging Seattle’s ork population to “rise up out of he Underground and show Governor Schultz what you think about the way this city treats orks.”
Pita felt compelled to join in the protest. To say something. She owed it to Chen, Shaz and Mohan-her dead chummers. She had to be there. She’d be safe enough-just another ork face in the crowd. If the goons were still looking for her, it was doubtful they’d be able to spot her. And, being human, they’d stand out like sore thumbs.
Orks of every description-and a smattering of trolls, as well-were firmly in place in front of Metroplex Hall. Even the slight drizzle of rain that had started to fail wasn’t budging them. They completely filled he street in front of the building; at the edges, car horns honked angrily. Traffic had come to a standstill. A pair of cops tried urgently to sort out the snarl of vehicles, waving their arms and blowing whistles in futile gestures.
A woman holding a megaphone stood at the front entrance to Metroplex Hall. Pita recognized her as a member of the Ork Rights Committee. The woman was dwarfed by the statues of the Indian chief Seattle and Charles C. Lindstrom-first governor of Seattle Metroplex-but her amplified voice rang out as she led the crowd in a series of chants: “Orks unite! Demand your rights!” Behind her, Metroplex Hall security guards eyed the crowd through the triple-thick safety glass of he building’s main doors. The woman changed to a different slogan: “One, two, three, four. We won’t take any more! Five, six, seven, eight. The cops don’t come ‘til it’s too late!”
Pita gingerly stepped around seated orks, trying to make her way to the front, where the woman with the megaphone stood. The closer she got, the more tightly people were packed. She finally squeezed herself in a few meters from the front, and sat down between two burly men. The woman had begun a speech-Pita caught the words “priorities,” “inadequate presence,” and “Lone Star procedures.” She waited for a break in the tirade, occasionally waving a hand and at the time screwing up her courage. She hoped that the committee member would let her speak. She wanted to tell everyone how the Lone Star cops had gunned down her chummers. It would be even better than going on trid-here, the audience was live. Carla and Masaki at KKRU might have strung her along with false promises to do a news story on her friends. But these people-these orks-would listen. If only Pita could catch the woman’s eye…
The speaker paused, startled as something flew through the air a few meters away. A beer bottle smashed against the side of the building, painting the smoked glass wall with a trail of foamy liquid. She pointed her megaphone at the portion of the crowd from which the bottle had come. “Please!” she urged them. “This is meant to be a peaceful protest. Let’s keep it that way! We don’t want to give the police any excuse to-“
A few meters away from Pita, an ork leaped to his feet. He was in his twenties, with wild, uncombed hair, wearing a black leather trench coat studded with jagged bits of chrome. Waving his arms to get the crowd’s attention, he used the pause in the speech to start a new chant: “Bash back!” clap, clap “Bash back!” clap, clap “Bash back!” He alternately thrust a fist in the air in time with the chant, then led the clapping that punctuated the simple phrase. As people jumped to their feet to join him in the new chant, the woman with the megaphone tried to get the crowd back on track. But more and more people were picking up the younger ork’s angry chant, stamping their feet in time with it. At last Pita also clambered to her feet. It was either that or get stepped on.
Another bottle arced through the air. At one corner of the building, the crowd had moved forward until its front ranks were up against the building’s glass wall. They pounded on it with fists, sticks, and bottles, a wild drumbeat of anger that drowned out even the chants and claps.
Behind Pita, there was a sudden jostling as the now standing crowd surged to one side. She turned, stood on tiptoe, and tried to look out over the crowd. At one end of the street, Lone Star officers in full armor and helmets had materialized-as if out of thin air-and drawn up in a line across the street. Those in the front rank held stun batons, and were thumping them rhythmically on their shields. They advanced slowly on the assembly of orks, stepping in time with the thud of their batons. Behind them, other cops in riot gear held the oversized guns that were used to fire gel rounds. At least, Pita hoped they held gel rounds.
The sight of the gun-toting cops turned her stomach to ice. She let out a small whimper of fear. She had to get away. Now. Things were going to get ugly, and soon.
A Star drone zoomed around one corner of the Metroplex Hall. It flew low over the crowd of orks, broadcasting the same message over and over: “This is an illegal gathering. Please disperse. Return quietly to your homes. This is an illegal gathering.
A wave of people swept up the steps that led to the building’s front entrance, carrying Pita with it. The wave broke against the front doors, pushing Pita face-first into the hard, unforgiving glass. The woman who had been addressing the crowd from the step had disappeared in the rush forward, but a burly troll had grabbed her megaphone. “Open the doors!” he shouted through it. Hands poured on the locked doors. “Let us in!” inside the building, the Metroplex Hall security guards backed away from the door and looked at each other with uncertain glances.
Pita fought her way down the steps to the street. The bulk of the crowd was moving now, hurrying away from the advancing line of riot officers. But then an armored Star vehicle rumbled into their path. It rolled to a stop in the intersection, oblivious of the people who were scattering away from it in every direction.
Hatches opened, and Pita heard dull thumps as canisters were fired out. The canisters exploded against the pavement with a loud crack and immediately began to release hissing clouds of white vapor. Pita caught a whiff of it and blinked rapidly as her eyes began to sting. Tear gas.
There were screams and angry shouts as the orks realized they were hemmed in, with the line of riot cops on one side and the armored vehicle on the other. More bottles arced through the air, breaking against the armored vehicle that now blocked the intersection. Other, braver orks had wrapped T-shirts around their faces and were picking up the tear gas canisters and hurling them into the ranks of the riot cops. It was a futile gesture; the cops were masked as well as armored. From behind the cops with shields came the crack of gunfire as the second rank of cops aimed and fired gel-rounds into the crowd. People screamed, clasped suddenly bruised flesh, and jostled against each other.
The sight of the Star using their weapons terrified Pita. Tears were pouring down her face-either from the whiff of gas she’d inhaled or from simple fear. She fought to reach the edge of the crowd, to escape. Bodies jostled her from every side; hands grabbed at her or pushed her this way and that. Someone yanked her jacket, choking her. Someone else tripped over the curb, crashed into her, and nearly knocked her down. What had once been an organized, peaceful protest now was a maddened mob. Everyone-including Pita-had only one thought: escape. And none of them knew which way to run.
Pita balled her fists in frustration and sobbed. It was stupid of her to have joined the protest, to have thought that her presence would matter. She never should have come here. What good had it done? None. All the protest had done was give the cops an excuse to vent their prejudices against the “porkies.” To put them back in their place. To drive them back Underground, where they belonged.
A space cleared around Pita for a moment, allowing her to catch her breath. An ork boy, perhaps six or seven years old, was hunched on the ground, clasping a bloodied knee and trying not to cry. Pita turned to help him, then froze as the front rank of riot officers charged forward at a trot, batons raised. From somewhere behind Pita, a teenager with bright purple feathers woven into his hair ran forward, gesturing at the cops. An invisible force slammed into the shields of two officers, knocking them sprawling on their butts. Then one of the cops behind them aimed her gun, fired. Purple feathers and blood exploded as the gel round caught the teenager in the eye, shattering his skull.
Pita clenched her fists. “You fragging bastards!” she screamed, heedless of the line of shields bearing down on her. “Why can’t you just leave us al-“
She barely glimpsed the stun baton that cracked against her skull. Static exploded in her brain, and suddenly the pavement rushed up toward her. She slammed into the street and felt hands flipping her over roughly. As she lay blinking, cheek to the rain-damp pavement, dazzled by the spots that swam before her eyes, her arms were yanked back. Something tight cinched around her wrists. She saw boots, the cuffs of Kevlar pants-and then the cops were past her, waving their stun batons and running up the street. She lay on the pavement, fighting to control her heaving stomach. The dead boy lay only a meter or two away, his head leaking blood.
As her head slowly cleared, Pita realized how much trouble she was in. She was busted. And by the same fragging goon squad whose members had flatlined Chen. She closed her eyes and cried.
18
Carla stood just outside the line of yellow plastic ribbon that marked off the crime scene, straining for a better look. Inside the Lone Star barrier, two cruisers sat with lights flashing, illuminating the night with swaths of blue and red. Overhead, a surveillance drone took aerial pictures of the street, while on the sidewalk below it, plainclothes detectives bent over three bodies that had been covered with clear plastic sheeting to protect them from the drizzling rain. Other plainclothes officers combed the street, collecting shell casings and placing them in evidence bags.
The shooting had taken place in front of Underworld 93, a nightclub in Puyallup, a district of Seattle that was heavily controlled by organized crime. Two burly men in expensive suits-probably members of a local crime family-stood off to one side, observing the cops. Given the way things worked here, they’d probably get the details of the investigation before Lone Star did.
A few young bar patrons, dressed in trendy clothes, stood in a knot in the nightclub’s doorway, answering questions and pointing up the sidewalk to where the bodies lay. Music boomed out through the open door.
Despite her enhancements, Carla was unable to make out the features of the victims. Rain beaded on the clear plastic that shielded them, blurring their profiles. Smears of red obscured the rest. There was blood-lots of it-on the cement. There hadn’t been time for the rain to wash it away.
Carla lowered her umbrella, ducked under the crime tape, and approached the Lune Star officer who was keeping an eye on the handful of people who’d gathered in the street to watch the police at work. Given the area, he was probably on the take and wouldn’t be averse to a cash “incentive” to let her know what had gone down here tonight.
As Carla approached, he immediately turned to confront her, one hand on the stun baton that hung from us belt, “Excuse me, miss. Officers only. Please step back behind the…” As his voice trailed off, his head tipped to one side. With a gloved hand, he reached up and flipped open the tinted visor of his helmet.
Carla smiled as she recognized the face. Corporal Enzo Samartino. What luck! She’d done an interview with him a few months ago, when the Men of Lone Star pin-up calendar was released. The officers who’d posed for it had gotten into some hot water, despite the fact that the calendar was a fundraiser for the children’s wing of Seattle General Hospital. It seemed that Lone Star’s top brass didn’t like the idea of their officers appearing in nothing but cap and boots. Or maybe it was the creative uses to which some of the models put the Lone Star badge that had slotted the brass off. In any case, Enzo had provided Carla with some of the story’s best quotes. And he’d been the best-looking of the bunch. She shifted her umbrella back to get a good look at his thick, dark moustache and long-lashed eyes.
“Enzo. Good to see you again! What’s a good-looking fellow like you doing in a place like this?”
Enzo returned her smile and touched a finger to the visor of his helmet. “Just my job, ma’am.”
Carla laughed. “Me too.”
“Shouldn’t you be downtown with all the other reporters? Sounds like the orks are really mixing it up with our City Center detachment, outside Metroplex Hall.”
Carla shook her head. “Not me. I’m the day shift. I’m officially off.” She tipped her head toward the spot where the detectives were working. “I heard about this shooting over the scanner in my car as I was driving home. Given the neighborhood, I thought it was just another driveby. But then I heard the description of one of the casualties. Native American, left hand cybered and chromed, right hand tattooed with a black bird.
Enzo jerked a gloved thumb over his shoulder at one of the corpses. “That’s him. You know the guy? We’re still trying to get an ID on him, he wasn’t local. And all he was carrying was a generic credstick.”
Carla glanced at the figure that lay in a contorted heap on the ground. From the way the plastic sheeting dipped, it didn’t look as if there was much left of the fellow’s head. “He’s a shadowrunner who goes by the name of Raven. Runs with an elf with blond hair-a Caucasian male about thirty or so. But I don’t know his name.”
“We wondered who that was, The sergeant had him pegged as a passerby who got caught in the crossfire. So he was involved too, huh? Doesn’t really matter much, now. We sent him off by ambulance, but he was DOA at the hospital. He won’t be answering any questions.” Enzo frowned. “Those two weren’t friends of yours, were they?”
“Hardly. Just sources, that’s all.” She winked. “I only consort with those on the right side of the law.”
Enzo refused to be sidetracked. “So why the interest in them?”
“I’m just out ambulance chasing,” Carla answered. “Even though I’m off work, old habits die hard. Anywhere there are dead shadowrunners, there’s a story. What can you tell me about what happened here?”
Enzo chewed his moustache, then glanced back at the plainclothes detectives. “Is this an official interview? I can’t release names until the next of kin are notified. shouldn’t even be talking to you. If the Homicide sergeant finds out I let anything slip…” He eyed the woman who was directing the plainclothes officers, then glanced even more nervously at the two gangsters in suits.
Carla could see that she was about to lose the slight edge she’d gained. If she didn’t convince Enzo to talk in the next few seconds, he would shoo her back behind the tape, and she’d have to wait until the morning’s press conference to find out what had happened here tonight. If, that was, the local ganglords allowed any press release at all. The shooting might have no connection at all with the shadowrunners’ visit to her apartment. Or it might be a vital link in the chain that would lead to her cracking open the Mitsuhama story.
“Tell you what,” she said, deactivating her cybereye. “We’ll keep this strictly off the record. I won’t use your name, or record your image or voice, and I promise to sit on any names you give me until they’re officially released. I won’t pester the relatives of the victims, and I’ll give you whatever information I dig up that might help the Lone Star investigation.” She favored him with her most winning smile. “If the sergeant asks what you were talking to me about, you can tell her you were finally getting around to asking me out on a second date. Deal?”
She was amused to see the big cop was blushing.
“All right,” he said grudgingly. “I can give you a little, but you’ll have to talk to the detectives-on the record-to get the full story. All I know is that the runner you said was named Raven tried to force Victim Number One to take a walk with him. Victim Number Two intervened to keep his girlfriend from being dragged away. Somebody started shooting, someone else started tossing mana bolts around, and a few minutes later, all three were dead. Or all four, I should say, since the blond elf also seems to have been involved in this.”
“The names and occupations of the two victims?” Carla prompted.
“Victim One-a female human by the name of Miyuki Kishi-is a corporate executive. Victim Two-Akira Hirota-is a Japanese citizen who shares a Puyallup address with Victim One. Judging by his tattoos, he’s a real bad boy. A local yakuza. He and the suit make an odd combination, by anyone’s account. But as they say, love is blind.”
Enzo shrugged. “If you ask me, this thing looks like a lover’s spat that turned ugly. Except, of course, that shadowrunners and a corp exec were involved. That could add up to an extraction attempt.
“Now it’s your turn, Carla. You can’t tell me you just happened to show up here on your way home. You live in Renton. You got an inside scoop on this one?”
Carla forced herself to keep her face expressionless Miyuki Kishi! She was one of the wage mages who’d worked with Farazad Samji on the Lucifer Project. Not only that, but Carla had been on her way to pay her a surprise visit when she heard about the shooting on her scanner. She’d tried arranging an interview with Rolf Hosfeld, the other Mitsuhama wage mage, and hadn’t been able to get past his apartment’s security. And now her only other interview possibility was dead. Drek. It just wasn’t her night. Or Miyuki’s, either.
Presumably, Miyuki had remained loyal to Mitsuhama. By placing the lion-headed dog at the Samji home, she’d been trying to prevent the leak of the corps research project. And so it was highly doubtful that she’d arranged for her own extraction, as Farazad had. Even if that was the case, she’d have been a fool to arrange an extraction on a night that her yakuza boyfriend was tagging along with her. Which meant the attempted kidnapping had taken her by surprise. It was a genuine extraction.
Interesting, that it was carried out by the same two shadowrunners who’d planned to sell Farazad out to the Renraku Corporation. Presumably the runners had already sold Renraku a copy of the spell for conjuring the spirit by now-the copy they’d gotten from Carla’s apartment yesterday afternoon. A copy that was useless without Farazad’s knowledge of how to control the spirit once it was summoned.
Assuming Renraku was the “Mr. Johnson” behind this job, the corporation would have been slotted off at purchasing this incomplete package. Its execs would have demanded that the runners supply them with the missing piece of the puzzle; and the shadow-runners would naturally have assumed that one of the other mages who worked with Farazad would have the key. Too bad for them that the wage mage and her boyfriend had proved such a tough target. Still, the runners had known they were going up against a mage-even if they didn’t realize that a yakuza would be coming along for the ride. The money must have been good indeed.
Enzo was waiting for Carla’s reply.
“It certainly looks like an extraction attempt.” she answered. “The runners were probably after Miyuki Kishi because she works at Mitsuhama Computer Technologies research and development lab. She’d be a valuable target, with her knowledge of Mitsuhama’s research projects.”
Enzo’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know where she worked? I didn’t tell you that.”
Carla’s heart sank as the cop laid a hand on her arm and half turned toward the detectives. “I think I should call the sergeant in on this one,” he said. “You know three out of four victims-hardly a coincidence, if you ask me.”
“I don’t know Miyuki personally,” Carla told him hurriedly. “I’ve never even met the woman. I only recognized her name because of the story I did on an associate of hers-a Mitsuhama employee by the name of Farazad Samji, who died four nights ago. I was going to interview Farazad’s co-workers for the story that KKRU did on his death. Miyuki was one of those who worked with Farazad at the research jab.”
Enzo turned back to listen to her. He’d released her arm, but was keeping a close watch on her, as if worried she’d bolt away. “How did this co-worker die?”
“He apparently summoned up a kind of spirit. I don’t know how or why, but apparently it killed him. The spell Farazad used was recorded on a datachip, which an eyewitness to his death found in his pocket.”
“I remember now,” Euzo said. “The exec who died in the alley. I saw your story on it. So what’s the link? Why do you think what went down tonight was an attempted extraction?”
“The two runners who died tonight ah… contacted me… the day after our story on Farazad aired,” Carla said. She decided to blend truth with fiction. “They tried to talk us into turning over our copy of the spell formula, presumably so they could sell it to someone else. There’s a chance the spell was developed in the Mitsuhama lab, and that another corporation would pay big nuyen for it. But KKRU refused to deal with them.
“Raven and his elf pal seemed to want that spell formula pretty bad,” Carla continued. “Maybe they thought they could get it out of Miyuki. When you come right down to it, my conclusion that this was a corporate extraction is just a guess, really.”
Enzo stared at her in silence. She couldn’t tell if he was buying her story.
“Listen,” she added. “I’ll give you something if you agree not to ask where I got it-and not to tell your sergeant who your source was. Something that could help Homicide crack tonight’s case. If I give it to you, will you let me walk away without having to answer any more questions?”
Enzo folded his aims, considered a moment, then nodded. “All right,” he said at last. “But it better pan out. I know where to find you if it doesn’t.”
“It will.” Carla took a deep breath, then plunged on. It wouldn’t hurt to have the cops do a little investigative work for her. It just might shake something loose. “I have it from a reliable source that the two dead shadowrunners were working for Renraku. Assuming this corporation has other shadowrunners on tap-and in this city, where runners are easy to come by, that’s a given-there may be an attempt to extract another Mitsuhama wage mage. There are two more who worked in the lab with Farazad and Miyuki, Their names are Evelyn Belanger and Rolf Hosfeld.”
Enzo’s eyes widened. “You’re saying they could get hit next.” He reached for the portable radio at his hip. “I’d better call this in. Mitsuhama may want to contract for extra security for those two.”
Carla lifted the crime tape and prepared to duck back under it. “Promise you’ll keep my name out of it?” she asked. She shot a meaningful look at the two burly men in suits. “Since one of your victims is yakuza, there’s bound to be a little heat on this one. And I don’t want the yaks breathing down my neck. I don’t think it would be healthy.”
“All right,” Enzo answered. “As long as you keep quiet about me giving you the names of the victims.” He glanced at the two yaks. “For the same reason.”
“It’s a deal. And we’re still on for that after-hours interview. Call me in a day or two, O.K.?” Carla blew him a kiss and hurried back to her car.
19
Pita watched through the grimy, wire-renforced window of the Lone Star transport van as the vehicle backed up against a building with gray concrete walls and a large, metal-plated door. She swayed as the van bumped to a stop with its rear doors flush against the door in the building’s wall. Slowly, with a loud squealing noise, the building’s armored door slid up. Then heavy mechanical locks in the van’s rear doors clicked. The doors popped open a crack, letting in a slant of flickering fluorescent light.
A speaker in the prisoner transport section of the van crackled to life. A pleasant, well-modulated female voice emerged from it. “You have arrived at the Lone Star pretrial containment facility in downtown Seattle. Please exit from the rear of the vehicle in a quiet and orderly fash-”
One of the dozen orks who shared the back of the van with Pita roared, drowning out the rest of the instructions. Rearing up from the bench seat that lined the wall he aimed a booted foot at the speaker. The ork was extraordinarily flexible, able to keep his balance and kick high above his head despite the fact that his hands were firmly cinched together behind his back. But his foot just bounced off the thick, perforated plexiglass that protected the speaker, leaving only a dirty smudge.
“… will be admitted, one at a time, into the station’s booking room, where you will be processed before moving on to detention cells. Please proceed now into the arrivals bay.”
An ork in her twenties with a bioluminescent tattoo of a golden spiderweb decorating her bald head pushed the doors open with her shoulder and jumped out. “This is it, chummers. First floor: cyberware scans, retinal scans, blood tests, and DNA typing. A bargain at zero nuyen down, zero per month.”
The others broke into tired laughter, then shuffled forward with heads slightly bent to avoid the van’s low ceiling. One by one, they jumped down onto the cement floor of the tubelike arrivals bay. Pita, still a little woozy from the effects of the stun baton, stumbled. The woman with the biolum tattoo caught her and propped her up with a shoulder.
“You all right, kid?” the woman asked.
Pita nodded, not trusting her voice.
“Never been arrested before, huh?” the woman continued. “Well, don’t try taking a poke at a cop when your cuffs come off or tossing magic around. If you do, they’ll slap you into pulse cuffs or pull a magemask over your head.”
As the last of the prisoners clambered out of the back of the van, a voice came from an overhead speaker. This time it was male, but equally mechanical. “The outer door is about to close. Please stay well clear of the yellow line.” On the wall beside the door, a red light began to flash. A buzzer beeped softly in time with it. “The door will be closing in five, four, three, two, one…”
With the same ear-splitting squeak that it had given upon opening, the outer door slid down, sealing one end of the arrivals bay and hiding the back of the police van from view. Over the noise, the prisoners began to chant. “Hell, no, we won’t go. Tell Lone Star to let us go! Hell no…”
Their voices reverberated in the enclosed space, echoing back and forth. The orks stamped their feet in time with the chant, increasing the noise volume further. After a moment, Pita joined in, thumping one heel on the floor. Even though it wouldn’t get her out of here, shouting slogans with the other prisoners made her feel better. She felt protected by the small mob around her, defiant. It didn’t matter that one of the prisoners was bleeding profusely from a gash on his cheek and another was hobbling along on what was probably a broken foot. If they stuck together, fought back against the cops…
Pita suddenly felt a low vibration deep in her bones. All of a sudden her stomach felt as if it were being twisted by a pair of invisible hands. She doubled over, fighting the urge to be sick. She heard someone next to her heaving and then the pungent smell of vomit filled the air. Beside her, the woman with the bio-lum tattoo gritted something through clenched teeth: “Bastards. They’re pumping in low-frequency noise.” Then Pita lost her supper. Now she had to concentrate on her bowels, which felt as if they were full of ice water.
Mercifully, the vibrations stopped just before she lost control. The orks in the arrival bay straightened slowly, hands still clutching their stomachs. One or two were crying-either with fear or frustration-as they wiped vomit from their lips.
Pita spat on the floor, trying to get the taste of partially digested Growlie bars out of her mouth. The air in the tunnel was foul. She breathed as shallowly as she could; her stomach was still heaving. Given the fact that the floor had been clean when they entered the arrivals bay and now was slick with vomit, Pita’s group must have been the first of those arrested at the demonstration to arrive here. Or perhaps they were just the most vocal. She decided to be as quiet and non-confrontational as possible. Maybe the cops wouldn’t notice her.
The voice resumed its toneless instructions: “Please proceed, one at a time, into the inner airlock for processing. Please proceed, one at a time…”
This time, the orks moved silently forward. As the voice droned on they formed a line and shuffled, one by one, through a smaller door at the far end of the tunnel. The bald woman with the tattoo was just ahead of Pita. She offered Pita a big-toothed smile, then trotted into the airlock, head up, with a defiant step. With a soft sigh, the door closed behind her.
After a minute or two, it was Pita’s turn. She stepped nervously into the tiny space between two airlock doors. The door behind her slid shut, leaving her in complete darkness. She had the strong sense of eyes watching her, and felt a prickling sensation that raised the hairs on her arms. “Magic,” she whispered to herself; she’d become familiar with the feel of it, after the attack by the dreadlocked mage. They were doing something to her. What? She gnawed her lip with an oversized canine and prayed that this was only a harmless magical scan of some sort. She didn’t think they’d be able to detect her newly awakened magical abilities if she wasn’t in contact with Cat, but she couldn’t be sure.
Pita didn’t want to think of the other possibilities-that the cops might be messing up her mind, sapping her life energies, or… She forced those fears from her mind and strained her eyes, trying to see. But the blackness was absolute; she couldn’t even see the door that was a few centimeters in front of her. Why weren’t the cops opening it? She blinked rapidly, fighting back tears. Should she call out? Had they forgotten about her? Should she kick on the door with her feet or would that only make the cops…
The door in front of her slid open. Dazzled by the sudden brilliance of bright lights, Pita was unable to focus her eyes. Hands seized her arms and shoulders, dragging her out of the airlock. As she stumbled forward she heard the buzz of many voices and the humming of electrical equipment. Then she was pushed into a chair. Something attached to the back of the chair she was sitting on snugged against the back of her neck-a clamp of some sort, by the cold feel of the metal. Pita swallowed hard, wondering what it was for.
At last her vision returned. She looked around and saw that she was inside one of several cubicles that lined the walls of a central room where armed and uniformed guards stood watch. The walls of the cubicles were made of plexiglass, once clear but now scuffed and dirty. Through them, Pita could see a few of the orks who’d been with her in the arrival bay. Each was undergoing a different test at the hands of uniformed officers. Before she had a chance to look for the woman with the web tattoo, two officers strode into the cubicle. Pita cringed away from them, crushing her handcuffed arms into the hard plastic of the chair on which she sat. But the two barely looked at her. One forced her head into the metal clamp on the back of the chair while the other pulled down a camera that was attached to the ceiling by an extendible arm.
“Look into the retinal scanner, please,” one of the cops said in a bored voice. “And keep your eyes still, or it will take longer.”
“Don’t get cute and try to close your eyes,” the other cop added.
The scan took only a moment. The camera emitted a faint hum, and a flash of red dazzled Pita’s eyes. Then a baton-wielding cop hustled her to the next cubicle.
In rapid, orderly succession the cops took Pita’s photograph, pricked her finger for a blood and DNA sample, snipped a lock of her hair for some other obscure test. and at last took her fingerprints with an electronic scanner that was pressed to each finger and thumb in turn while her hands were still cuffed behind her back. Presumably all of the testing equipment was on-line; the only person entering data into a computer was the female cop who asked her name, age, race-as if that wasn’t fragging obvious-address, and next of kin. Pita was asked if she had taken any drugs and was warned once more of her rights. Then a bored-looking female cop wearing latex gloves frisked her, patting down her clothes. The cop removed everything from Pita’s pockets: her book on shamanism, the few coins she’d boosted after some drek-stupid customer had left a tip on a street-side restaurant table earlier that day, the silver ring Chen had given her that now was too small for her fat ork fingers-even a half-eaten Growlie bar in its crumpled wrapper-and heat-sealed these meager possessions inside a plastic bag. Taking a black marker, she wrote on the front of it: “Patti Dewar, PID 500387378.”
Pita locked her eyes on the plastic bag as it was set aside “When will I get my stuff back?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“No personal possessions are allowed in the detention cells,” the cop answered in an irritated voice. “These items will be returned to you later, after your first court appearance. If you make bail, that is.”
“But couldn’t I just have my-”
“Move along, please.” The cop was already looking at the next woman she’d be frisking. “Next!”
Glancing behind her at the plastic bag that held her stuff, Pita reluctantly let herself be directed to a door in a side wall. When it opened, she was met by two uniformed officers carrying stun batons. She moved in the direction they indicated, trotting quickly ahead to keep some distance between herself and the batons. She didn’t like the way one cop kept his thumb posed over charge button.
The corridor led to a row of cells. The first one held two scruffy-looking humans and a dozen female orks. The prisoners milled about, muttering angrily. They shouted catcalls at the cops herding Pita. The cops ignored them, turning Pita to face the barred door of the cells and applying something hot to the plasticuffs that encircled her wrists. She smelled burning plastic, and then her arms sprang apart as the cuffs released.
The cops motioned for the women inside the cell to move back, threatening to poke their stun batons through the bars at those who moved too slowly. Then they opened the door and shoved Pita inside. Before he could turn around, the cell door slammed shut behind her with a loud clang.
Pita scanned the other orks who shared the cell with her. Three of them had been with her in the Lone Star van and the arrivals bay. But she didn’t see the woman who had helped her earlier. Despite the physical proximity of the other women, she felt completely alone. Her eyes began to sting and she blinked to hide her tears. Don’t be such a slot-head, she told herself. You're in a detention center. Even if the cops who scragged Chen and the others do show up, they can’t do anything to you while you’re here. Taking a deep breath, she looked around.
The cell was maybe ten meters wide and deep. It was rapidly filling up; the cops kept bringing in more ork women. More than one had a bloody scalp or white patches where a stun baton had grazed her. A few seemed to know each other, and were greeted with a fist in the air and an Ork Rights Committee slogan. These women shouted and spat at the cops who escorted other prisoners past the row of cells and laughed in the cops’ faces when the cops called them “porkies.” Other prisoners-particularly those who were better dressed-seemed as dazed and confused by their incarceration as Pita did.
Pita glanced from face to face, looking for someone who would befriend her. Then she beard a ringing noise as something metal struck the bars of the cell.
“Hey, you!” a male voice said. “The young one. Turn around and face the door of the cell!”
Pita glanced over her shoulder. On the other side of the door, looking in through the bars, stood a cop. He wore the padded leather jacket and heavy boots of a patrol officer, as well as a helmet. Its shaded visor hid his eyes completely, making him look even more threatening. Somewhere behind it, a red light blinked on briefly; he must have a cybereye. Light gleamed off the chromed letters on the upper-right side of his jacket: 709.
Pita turned away, moving slowly to the back of the cell. There were more than two dozen women inside it now. If she could just hide behind some of them, she might avoid the cop’s gaze. Maybe-just maybe-he really was looking for someone else. But Pita didn’t think so. She was the youngest one in the cell.
She started chanting the mantra that had saved her in the alley, the night she’d hidden in the dumpster. Don’t let him notice me. Don’t let him see me. But then the clang of metal on metal made her jump and broke her concentration.
“Hey, you!” the cop said, louder this time. “The girl in the black jacket and torn jeans. Prisoner Number 500387378. 1 said turn around. Now!”
A clear space had suddenly formed around Pita. So much for the ORC slogans of solidarity. The “sisters” had abandoned her. Swallowing her fear, she turned to face the cop. She nearly fainted when she saw what he’d rapped on the bars with. His ungloved hand. It was made of articulated metal joints covered with gleaming chrome. She recognized the distinctive licking and whirring noise it made as he extended a finger, pointing it at her. It had made the same noise as he wielded the machete that had carved up Chen and her other two chummers.
The flutter returned to her stomach. Pita was certain she was going to be sick again. She put out a hand, hoping one of the other prisoners would sense her plight and rush to her side to support her.
No one did.
“Is this yours?” the cop asked. In his other, meat hand, he held the book Pita had stolen from Aziz’s shop. Pita opened her mouth but was unable to speak. She managed only a slight nod. Her eyes were wide and round, locked on the cop’s metal hand.
“Are you a shaman?”
“I-” Pita was unable to croak out any more. Her legs felt as if all the muscles in them had lost their elasticity. She was certain they would collapse under her at any moment.
“Where’s your thaumaturgy license?” the cop asked. “If you’re practicing magic within the city limits, you need a license.”
Pita almost laughed with relief. Was that all the cop wanted? To enforce some stupid little bylaw? Maybe he hadn’t recognized her, after all. The street where Chen and the others had been shot had been dimly lit. Perhaps the cops hadn’t gotten a good look at her through the tinted windows of their patrol car.
The officer cocked a metallic finger at Pita. “Come with me. There’s some special processing we’ve got do.”
Pita’s hands began to tremble. Had the cop emphasized the word “special”? What did he mean by it? She didn’t want to find out. She searched, desperately, for somewhere to hide.
But it was too late. The cop had already tucked the book under one arm and was opening the door of the cell.
20
The air wasn’t cold. Even so, Pita was shivering. She sat on the plastifoam chair that smelled faintly of stale sweat, her hands nervously kneading the worn fabric of her jeans. The room was small and absolutely bare, with concrete walls and a single green metal door. There were no windows. The only light came from a single halogen bulb set into a recess in the ceiling.
The cop who’d pulled her from the detention cell-the same cop who’d killed Chen-walked around Pita in slow, predatory circles. He paused only once, to turn off the camera that was monitoring the room. He hadn’t spoken since removing her from the cell, except to curtly direct her to this room. He’d flipped up the visor on his helmet, but what lay underneath was even worse: one cold blue eye and a cybernetic implant of glinting metal with a flat lens at the center of it.
Pita concentrated on Looking at the ground, not wanting to look into that face again.
Suddenly, the cop was in her face. “Hey, porkie!” he shouted.
Pita jerked back, then tried to hide the trembling in her hands by clenching her fists around the folds in her jeans.
The cop chuckled, low and soft. He paced once more around Pita, then stood behind her, where she couldn’t see him. But she could feel his eyes on her back.
“I asked you a question earlier.” the cop said in a soft growl. “Are you a shaman, or not?”
“No,” Pita whispered, not sure if she was lying. She wasn’t formally trained, after all. “I’m just a kid.” She tried to focus her mind, as she had earlier when controlling the yakuza’s thoughts. But all she could picture was Chen’s bloody corpse and the inhuman monster behind her leaning over it, hacking at it, dipping his cyberhand in the blood to smear a slogan on the wall…
“You don’t look like a kid to me. You look awfully… developed… for the age you gave in Processing.” He let the words hang in the air a moment.
Pita swallowed. What did he mean by that? She was big for her age-big for a human, that was, although not so big for an ork. But the human standing behind her was even taller than she was, and twice as muscular. And he had a cybernetic hand that could crush her skull Like an egg.
“You didn’t give an address.” He said it hard and flat, like an accusation.
“I don’t have one. But I used to live in Puyallup until…” Until I goblinized, she thought to herself. Until my parents threw me out.
“You’re a Barrens brat, huh?” he guessed. But he was wrong. Pita and her family had lived on the other side of the tracks, in a neighborhood where metahumans weren’t welcome.
The cop leaned closer; Pita could feel his breath on the back of her neck. “Well, you should have stayed in the Barrens. It’s gutterpunks like you who cause all the problems downtown. Panhandling, breaking into shops, cluttering up the sidewalk by sleeping on it in your filthy blankets, spreading lice and disease… What are decent people supposed to do when they see you kids hanging about in gangs on the streets, selling drugs and sex? My girlfriend is afraid to go out at night because of trash like you. But oh, no-you porkies just keep breeding like rabbits. Spilling out of the Barrens in a never-ending wave of degeneracy. It’s time somebody put a stop to it. Somebody with the guts to do what’s right.”
“Somebody like the Humanis Policlub?”
The words just slipped out. As soon as she said them, Pita cringed. She tensed her shoulders, wailing for his blow. But instead the cop paused-either to take a breath or to savor her fear-then started in on a new tack. “You and your precious committee want special rights, huh? And you think you’re going to get them by blocking the streets and tossing trash at our government buildings? You aren’t fit to sit in the gutter in front of Metroplex Hall, let alone walk in the front door and demand special treatment. Why don’t you porkers stay in the Underground where you belong?”
Pita sat through the tirade, shoulders hunched. She didn’t dare speak. Had she been human, none of this would be happening. She’d be safe at home! still attending high school, snug in her circle of friends. She hated being an ork-hated the way she looked. But not as much as this man did.
The cop strode around to face Pita and lifted her chin with the tip of his stun baton. He held the baton fully at arms’ length, as if using it to shift a piece of foul-smelling trash. “So tell me, kid. How do you make a living on the streets? By selling yourself?” His eyes were no longer on her face, but were scanning her body.
Pita felt a tear trickle down her cheek. She hated this man for what he was doing to her, for how he made her feel. Cheap. And dirty. She had sold herself-but only twice, and only since Chen’s death-for the drugs that had helped to ease her grief. Both times, it was to humans who looked at her much as the cop eyed her now, with equal mixtures of loathing and lust. Who wanted “something exotic.” Not someone-some thing. But what could she tell this cop? That she kept herself alive by stealing? He was probably just looking for an excuse to hurt her. Either with his stun baton, or…
She jerked her head back, finally finding the courage to speak. “You wouldn’t be doing this to me if I were human,” she said in a quavering voice. “The woman in the processing room said I get to see a lawyer. Well, I want to see one. Now.”
The cop laughed out loud. “The waiting list for public defenders is three weeks long,” he said. “But I suppose you’re talking about a real lawyer. How do you expect to pay for one, street trash?’ His baton slid down her body. “With this?”
“I get to make a telecom call,” Pita protested.
The cop rested the baton on his shoulder. “Yeah? Who to? You didn’t list any next of kin. Maybe your pimp, huh?”
Pita thought about what Chen had told her. He’d been arrested once, for shoplifting. He'd done a year in a juvenile detention center. She hoped the rules were still the same. And that this cop would follow them. “I don’t have to tell you that.”
The cop was still holding the book on cat shamans in his flesh hand. He smacked Pita’s face with it. “Don’t get smart with me, porkie.”
Pita rubbed her cheek. “I get one call,” she said stubbornly. She cringed as he raised his hand. But this time, he shook the book in her face.
“You get nothing until I say so. You’re a shaman, aren’t you?”
One telecom call, Pita thought desperately. Just let me make one call. She couldn’t think who she would call-who would possibly want to help her? Not her parents. Not the friends who’d deserted her when she began to goblinize. But if she could just get out of this room…
The cop waved the book at her. “We have a special processing procedure for shamans. It’s called the mage mask. It’s a tight plastic hood, with nothing but a mouth tube for breathing. With it on your head, you won’t be able to hear or see anything. And when the white-noise generator is turned on, you won’t be able to think, either.” He paused, and Pita could hear his cyberhand whining as he tightened his grip on the handle of the stun baton. “I think it’s just what you need.”
Pita closed her eyes, shutting out the room. If she could just find an excuse to get out of here, into an area where there were other people, maybe she could call for help.
One phone call. One phone call One phone call. She chanted it over and over in her mind, her lips whispering it silently. At the same time, she cast her thoughts out desperately, searching for Cat. Please. Cat, she cried. Help me. Please.
When the answer came, Pita nearly missed it. The touch was velvety soft, like a paw against her skin. A paw with claws sheathed.
As the invisible presence stroked her hand, an image came to Pita’s mind. Of a hand slipping into a velvet glove. All at once, she knew what she had to do. She had to slide-soft as velvet-into the mind of her opponent. To become one with his thoughts. To guide him gently, instead of attacking him directly as she had the yakuza back at the hotel.
Cat purred, conveying pleasure that the message had en understood. The touch disappeared.
Pita forced her thoughts outward, toward the cop. She imagined herself flowing like a ghost, slipping gently into his mind through his ear. When his thoughts started to boil past her in an angry torrent, she nearly backed away, nearly broke contact. His mind was a seething cauldron of hatred, filled with his urge to hurt her, to humiliate her. There were memory pictures there, too-of the view from inside the Lone Star cruiser of a group of four teenaged orks on a darkened sidewalk. Of watching one of them-her friend Shaz-throw a thunk of concrete at the vehicle. Of the cop’s partner-a man with the nickname Reno-smiling and squeezing the trigger that activated a machine gun built into the front of the cruiser. Of three orks falling, jerking like bloody puppets, while one ran off into the night. Of following the running ork, whose face merged in the cop’s mind with the face of every other ork he’d ever seen, ever hated.
With a start, Pita realized that this cop had not, in fact, recognized her. She was just a young meta he’d picked of the detention cell because she was smaller than the others and he thought he could bully her. He didn’t believe she had any magical ability at all and didn’t see her as a threat; he’d just used the cat shaman book as an excuse to bring her to this room. But the thoughts that whirled through his mind as he looked at her now-as she looked through his eyes at herself, cringing with eyes closed and mouth whispering as she sat on the plastifoam chair-made it clear that this wouldn’t help her. He didn’t care which ork he took out his misguided “vengeance” on. He only cared about making her too frightened to tell his fellow cops about it afterward.
Entering the cop’s mind had taken only a second or two. Pita changed her whisper, molding it to train of thought. Let the kid make one telecom call, she urged. It’ll look better that way. You can bring her back to the room later, in a few hours, when things cool down. It’ll look less suspicious that way. But if you don’t let her make the call, the guards in Detention will start to talk. They’ll wonder why the was taken from her cell. And why you’re not following procedure.
Pita was still inside the cop’s mind when she felt lips begin to move. “One telecom call.” He said it time with her whisper.
“One call, and then back to the detention cell you. We’ll continue this interrogation later.”
Pita rushed down the corridor toward the barred door that was all that stood between her and freedom. “Masaki!” she shouted. “You came!”
The reporter waved at her from the public waiting room. He was a most unlikely looking rescuer. His shirt was half untucked, and hung loosely over his chubby stomach. His wide cheeks were spotted with gray stubble, but even this wasn’t enough to make him fit in with the tough-looking crowd of orks, scragged out humans, and streeters who crowded the containment facility’s waiting room. He looked old and soft, his face too open and friendly. If Pita had seen him on the street, she would have pegged him as an easy mark for panhandling. But right now, she looked upon him as her knight in fragging shining armor.
She waited impatiently for the Lone Star guard to key the code into a panel behind the door. When it opened, she ducked through it quickly, still afraid that some fragger would change his mind and order her back to the cell.
Masaki half lifted his arms, as if expecting a hug. But when Pita stopped a few steps away, he dropped his hands. She gave him a nervous grin. “Uh, thanks, Masaki.”
The reporter nodded. He looked chill about posting her bail, but he’d probably want a more concrete thank you later. They all did. But for now, that didn’t matter. Pita was happy to see a friendly face-any friendly face.
“You were lucky the holding facility was full. They were eager to clear out a few detainees,” he said. “And lucky to have only been charged with a misdemeanor. If it had been anything more serious, they wouldn’t have let me post bail. Certainly not on the night of your arrest, anyway.”
“I know that.” Pita couldn’t keep the irritation out of her voice. Masaki sounded like he was lecturing her. Who did he think he was, anyway? Her fragging father?
“They said you could collect your stuff from the property office,” he said. “It’s down this way.”
Pita followed him out of the waiting room and down a corridor. At the property office, the cops made her sign an electronic signature pad before they gave back the things they’d confiscated from her earlier. Pita heaved a sigh of relief, seeing that the book on shamanism was included among her possessions. Her final mental command to the cop who’d tormented her had taken root, after all. She opened the plastic bag and took out Chen’s ring, the loose change, and the book, then dropped the bag on the floor. Let some drekhead cop clean it up.
“I’m parked in the visitors’ lot,” Masaki said. “Let’s go.”
Pita followed him outside, smiling as the door closed behind her. It was dark; it must have been close to one n the morning. The night air was cool and fresh; the light sprinkling of rain had washed much of the smog from it. Overhead, between the patchy clouds, a few stars sparkled.
Pita savored her freedom as they climbed the parkade stairs to Masaki’s car. The feeling was overwhelming, better even than being on Mindease. Except, of course, for the small tickle of worry she still felt. How long until that cop-Number 709-caught up with her again? It won't happen, she told herself firmly. He isn’t looking for me. He’ll find someone else to pick on. But she couldn’t be sure.
Masaki drove slowly, keeping exactly to the speed limit, despite the lack of traffic. Only after they had put several blocks between themselves and the containment facility did Pita think to ask where they were going.
“Back to my apartment,” he answered. “You can spend the night there.”
Pita gave him a sideways glance. “1 already have a place to crash,” she said carefully. “Just off Denny Way, near the highway. You could drop me there on your way home. Or I could walk if you don’t want to-”
“1 don’t think so, Pita. You wouldn’t be safe on the streets. You’re better off with me. For the time being, at least.”
“I wouldn’t he on the streets. I’d be-”
A note of irritation crept into Masaki’s voice. “Pita, I just paid five hundred nuyen to bail you out of that detention center. I think that gives me some say in where you’re going to sleep tonight. Or don’t you think so?”
Pita immediately fell silent. She stared out the window, suddenly very tired. She’d wanted to think that Masaki was a good guy, that she’d read him properly. Now she wasn’t so sure. She hadn’t been out of jail ten minutes, and already it was payback time.
The drive to Masaki’s place took about fifteen minutes. He lived in a highrise complex in Bellevue. The entrance to the parkade was through a double-doored security gate that required the driver to provide two separate retinal scans before admission was granted, and the lobby of the apartment block itself was watched over by a live guard, rather than the usual remote cameras. Pita decided that the building was designed either for the very cautious city dweller-or the very paranoid.
The fellow gave Pita a long look as she trailed through the lobby after Masaki. Why was he staring at her? Didn’t they allow orks in this building? Or was he just wondering what Masaki was doing, dragging in “street trash” in the early hours of the morning?
An elevator whisked them up to the twenty-fifth floor, Masaki led Pita down a corridor, carpeted with soft plush, to a door that bristled with yet more security features. He not only had to slide a magkey through the lock but also had to provide a voice sample and yet another retinal scan.
When the door was at last open, Pita reluctantly followed Masaki into the apartment. It was a little on the sloppy side-jackets that had been tossed on a coat rack had spilled onto the floor, and dirty dishes were piled in the sink-but it was a nice place, all right. Nicer than her parents’ low-rent condo, and certainly nicer than the streets. It must have cost him some serious nuyen. The furniture was a bit sparse; this place probably ate up most of his salary.
Masaki tossed his jacket on the pile and palmed a sensor in the wall, illuminating the bathroom. Then he turned to Pita. “I thought you might like to take a shower before… That is, to clean up a little.” He gave a lame shrug. “Not that you look dirty, but after being in jail, and everything, you probably want to freshen up. Ah… while I get the bed ready.”
Pita tried to keep her lip from curling. She’d barely walked in the door, and already he was propositioning her. And he wanted her clean. Given his cautious nature, it was a wonder he hadn’t asked her to take a test for VITAS too. “All right,” she said, stepping into the bathroom. He didn’t have to tell her to clean up-she couldn’t wait. But she flipped him the finger after hutting the door anyway. She’d show him, all right. she’d take a shower. Not a long one-she didn’t particularly enjoy getting wet any more. But she’d let the water run for a good long time.
Twenty minutes later, she cracked the bathroom door and peeked through the gap. Lying in the hallway outside was a pair of men’s pajamas-sloppily folded, but clean. Pita snagged them with a hand, shut the door, and tried them on. She’d thought they’d be too big; Masaki had quite the pot belly on him, after all. But they fit. And that only served to remind her of how large and ungainly she was.
She took a moment to comb her hair, not bothering to wipe the condensation from the mirror. Looking at the hazy reflection, she could imagine herself as she used to be. A big girl, yes. But with a narrow jaw, square white teeth, and without the pointed ears that poked out of her hair at odd angles. The only good part about her transformation had been the fact that her breasts had grown along with the rest of her. From the neck down-if you discounted the overly long arms and extra hair-she had the body of a grown woman rather than that of a teenage girl. Chen had always told her how beautiful she looked. But be was an ork, born and raised. How would he know what a real woman should look like?
Drek. There she went again, running Chen down. Running herself down. Pita silently chastised herself for what she'd been thinking. Real woman-hmph. Human, she meant. That was her father talking. She’d spent too many years listening to the hate that spewed from his mouth.
Wiping the mirror clean, she took a good long look at herself, trying to imagine what Masaki saw in her. Then she sighed. “Time to pay your dues, girl. All five hundred nuyen of them.”
Masaki was in the apartment’s living room, staring out of a floor-to-ceiling window. The view was of Lake Washington. Across the lake were the lights of downtown. It was easy to pick out the distinctive pyramid shape of the Aztechnology Pyramid and the towering Renraku Arcology.
Masaki had changed into pajamas, and as Pita entered the room, was yawning widely. Noticing her reflection in the window, he turned and cleared his throat.
“That was a long shower,” he said.
Pita was immediately on the defensive. “Are you worried it will run up your fragging electric bill?” she asked. “I’ll pay you back. For that, and the bail, too.”
Masaki laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The hot water is included in the rent. You can use all you want.”
Pita glanced down the hall, bracing herself for what was to come. “Which one’s the bedroom?” she asked sullenly.
“Last door on the left. If you need anything, don’t be afraid to wake me up. I’m a light sleeper, anyway.” He moved toward her, then gestured toward the couch. “You can sleep here. I’ve made up a bed for you.”
Pita peered over the back of the couch. He was telling the truth. The couch was piled with blankets, and a pillow had been placed at one end of it.
Masaki touched a sensor in the wall, dimming the lights. “Well, good night. I’ll see you in the morning.” He walked down the hall to his bedroom, shutting me door softly behind him. Pita shook her head in disbelief. Amazing. Masaki really was a nice guy, after all. Either that, or he found her so repulsive that…
She turned off the light, then burrowed into the blankets on the couch. Lying with her cheek on a pillow hat smelled of fresh laundry soap, she stared out at the Seattle skyline. She liked the sensation of being above things, of looking down on the streets from a height. Of Feeling clean, of curling into a tight little ball and snuggling down into blankets.
Sighing with contentment, she closed her eyes and fell almost immediately into a deep sleep.
Pita stared across the kitchen table at Masaki as he tossed two instant-breakfast packets into the microwe and set the timer. As they warmed up, he fished a carton of real milk out of the fridge. He sniffed it, made a face, then dumped the chunky white liquid town the sink. Turning to the cupboard, he pulled a packet of instant orange drink from the shelf and mixed up two glasses with water from the filtration unit.
“Not much of a cook, huh?” Pita observed. But she wasn’t really complaining. Not with the rich smell of reconstituted eggs and RealMeat bacon wafting through the air, making her mouth water.
“I don’t usually eat breakfast,” Masaki explained. “I just grab a Poptoast and a cup of soykaf, and eat them on my way in to the station. But since I have company, I thought I’d better get domestic and prepare a home-cooked breakfast.”
Pita had to smile at that one. Home-cooked? Still, it would be a better meal than she’d had in weeks.
The microwave timer pinged. Masaki took the breakfast packets out of it, peeled off the plastic film that sealed the top of each, and set one on the table in front of Pita. He handed her a fork, then sat down to eat the other one while it was still steaming.
Pita ate until the edge was off her hunger. Then she paused, trying to phrase the question she wanted to ask. She at last decided to be blunt.
“How come you didn’t try anything last night? Is it because I’m…” Pita was going to say ugly, but deliberately sought another word “… because I’m an ork?”
Masaki chuckled and activated a holopic that was held to the fridge with a magnet. “See him?”
Pita nodded, looking at the three-dimensional image. It was of a middle-aged ork, a burly fellow with blond hair and a full, curling beard. “Yeah.”
“That’s a picture of my partner.”
“Your what?”
“My boyfriend.”
“Oh.” Pita blushed. She’d been thinking of Masaki as a loser who didn’t rate a permanent companion. Now she realized that she’d judged him by appearances, something she’d just accused him of doing to her. It was funny, thinking of someone his age having a “boyfriend.”
She had one other question to ask.
“Carla’s not going to do the story on how Lone Star killed my friends, is she?”
“No,” Masaki admitted after a moment’s silence. “She’s not.”
“Will you?”
Masaki sighed and laid his fork on the table. “No, Pita, I won’t.”
“Why not? Don’t you believe me?”
“I do, actually,” Masaki said. “I believe what you told me over the phone last night. About recognizing the cop who gunned down your friends. He probably is a member of the Humanis Policlub. But we don’t stand a chance against Lone Star. You can’t take on a big corporation like that-not even with KKRU to back you up. They’re just too powerful. They’d find a way to spike the story before it even aired.”
Pita’s nostrils flared. “You’re a coward,” she told him.
Masaki kept his eyes on his breakfast. “Maybe.” He stood up and cleared the empty breakfast packets from the table.
“It’s useless trying to avenge your friends by taking a swing at Lone Star-even a verbal one,” he told her. “That corporation would erase you faster than yesterday’s data. The important thing now is to make sure that bad cop doesn’t get his hands on you again.”
“And what if he gets his hands on another ork kid?” Pita muttered. “Or on your boyfriend?”
Masaki ignored her and tossed the platters in the trash. “I’ll try to arrange a spot for you in a group home in Portland; I’ve got a contact down there who owes me a favor and who can probably put your name at the top of the placement list. Until the visa application comes through, you can stay here.”
“A group home?” Pita curled her lip. She wanted desperately to find a safe haven, but the thought of living in a city full of stuck-up elves and being bossed around by social workers repulsed her. Portland was part of the elven nation of Tir Tairngire, and she’d be even more aware of her physical size among that delicate and slender race. She’d rather stay in Seattle-right here, in Masaki’s comfortable apartment. What did he want to do, get rid of her? He had a boyfriend; maybe he was worried she would cramp his style.
Masaki was still rambling on. “… and don’t leave the apartment. You won’t be able to get back in through the door, and the guard in the lobby won’t let you back into the building if you don’t have a passkey. But feel free to make yourself at home. Use the telecom unit as much as you like, but keep your net browsing confined to the local telecommunications grid and don’t run up any long-distance charges.”
Masaki picked up his magkey and scooped his jacket off the floor. “I’ve got some errands to run. I’ll be back this afternoon. See you then, 0. K.?”
Pita didn’t acknowledge his goodbye or look up when the door closed. She was still burnt about the fact that he’d refused to do the story on Lone Star. If only Yao were still alive. He’d have run the story, then gleefully spat in the eye of any cop who tried to mess with him.
Pita went into the living room and powered up Masaki’s telecom. It didn’t take her long to find confirmation that Yao was indeed dead. On the Public Service Channel, she found a police bulletin, dated three days ago, that noted the shooting death of one ork, male, named Yao Wah. The cops speculated that it had been a mugging; Yao Wah was known to be a pirate broadcaster. It was thought that he’d been killed for his portacam; witnesses saw a troll carrying it away from the scene of the crime. The bulletin wound up with a short description of a suspect that would have matched ninety-nine percent of the trolls in Seattle. The bulletin made no mention of the real killers-the two yakuza who’d actually geeked Yao.
Pita stared at the telecom screen, tempted to dial Tokyo or Paris and chat for an hour or two with whoever answered the phone. She’d show that grumpy old fragger. Not run up any long distance calls, huh? She could bankrupt him in a single morning if she wanted to.
But she didn’t want to. Despite his cowardice, Masaki had been kind to her. He’d been kind to her last night, without any ulterior motive she could think of. He’d let her have the run of this wiz apartment with the awesome view. He’d trusted her. And Pita hadn’t been shown much trust. Not in the past two years of living on the streets. Shopkeepers stared at her, security guards watched her suspiciously every time she walked into a megamall, and pedestrians quickly stuck their hands in their pockets to make sure they still had their wallets when they passed her on the sidewalk. It felt good to have someone look at her without wariness and suspicion. It also felt so good to be clean and dry.
Pita switched on the trideo component, set it to the local broadcasts, and began flipping channels. She crossed to the couch, sank into it, and propped her feet up on the coffee table. She decided to enjoy the good life while she could. You never knew how long it would last.
21
Carla sat at a data display in the KKRU newsroom, scanning the stories that the Scan 'n' Sift program had selected, She'd broadened the scope of her search to include anything to do with Renraku Computer Systems. No telling what the cops had stirred up overnight.
She’d come downtown to the station’s offices. She could have uploaded the information onto her home deck, but she liked the feel of being in the newsroom, even on a slow Saturday, her day off. She found it difficult to work without the hum of the studio’s equipment, the overlapping chatter from the banks of the trideo monitors, and the ebb and flow of reporters’ voices in the background. In the quiet of her apartment it was hard to work up the adrenaline needed to chase down a good story.
And this would be a good story; she had no doubt about it. The system errors and data corruptions had spread, and were hitting different parts of the Matrix all the time. The crashes were increasing in frequency, They were no longer limited to systems that could logically be expected to contain files that included the word Lucifer.
The spirit was infiltrating the Matrix with increasing frequency, and seemed to be drawn to it on some sort of preordained schedule. Judging by the timing of protocol problems, configuration discrepancy problems, and system crashes, it was making its presence known once every hour. According to Aziz, the spirit wouldn’t like being inside the Matrix. In fact, it shouldn’t even be possible for it to enter the Matrix at all. The rigid organization of a computers light-encoding hardware would confine it, would twist it like a four-dimensional pretzel, then spit it out again. But like a moth to the flame, the spirit kept going back. It was in and out again in a mere nanosecond. But in that nanosecond, it could wreak a lot of damage.
So far only Carla, Masaki, and the young decker Corwin knew what the source of the “virus” really was. it wouldn’t be long before other reporters guessed, Carla ached to be first with the story. And to prove that Mitsuhama-the proud purveyor of the latest computer technology-was responsible.
“I said hi, Carla!”
Carla looked up as the voice finally registered as Masaki waving at her from the entrance to the newsroom. He crossed to his work station, still talking. “I didn’t expect to see you in here on a Saturday. I thought you had the weekend off.”
“I do,” she told him. “I just came in here to scan the…”
She bent over the display as a Department of Vital Statistics report flashed across it. She read only a few lines before whooping with delight. “Got it!”
“Got what?” Masaki asked. He rummaged through a cardboard box that he’d rooted out from beneath the of hard copy and datachips that littered his work station.
“Another piece of the puzzle,” Carla answered. “It’s Renraku. It looks like they’re experimenting with spirits and the Matrix too. And not doing too good a job of it, by the look of things.”
Masaki bent over to peer at the monitor. Carla snowed him the file the scanner program had tagged and downloaded. It was an obituary for one Gus Deighton, an employee of Renraku Seattle. He’d died suddenly yesterday evening at work. The obit contradicted itself, at one point noting that Deighton had died in a lab fire, but elsewhere attributing his death to “magical causes.” It wound up with a tribute from us boss, Dr. Vanessa Cliber, and mentioned that Deighton had been employed for seventeen years in the corporation’s Exploratory Sciences Division. He’d been just two months shy of retiring.
“I don’t see the connection,” Masaki said.
Carla gestured toward the graphic that accompanied the obit. It was a head-and-shoulders still of Augustus Deighton-a distinguished-looking elf with a high forehead, intense eyes, and a full head of hair.
“Exploratory Sciences is Renraku’s magical research division,” she explained. “And this woman-Dr. Cliber-is the director of computer operations for the whole of Renraku. Conclusion: the runners who broke into my apartment must have sold Renraku the incomplete spell. And now it’s cost another mage his life.”
Masaki was quicker on the uptake this time. “Does that mean there’s another of these spirits loose in the Matrix?”
“I don’t know,” Carla said. She quickly scanned the rest of the Renraku-keyword files. “Assuming the spirit was conjured within the arcology and that it got away from its handlers, the closest entry point to the Matrix would have been through one of Renraku’s system access nodes. But I haven’t seen a single report of any Renraku system crashes. Of course, that doesn’t mean anything; the corp would hush it up, and fast, if data was getting corrupted or parts of their system were shutting down. The last thing they need is a bunch of deckers storming the infamous black tower through some hole in the system.”
Carla stared at the display, thinking out loud. “Aziz said that most spirits that escape from the mage who conjured them return to their place of origin-they vanish back into astral space. Perhaps one in a hundred remain on the physical plane as free spirits. But if we do have another spirit like ‘Lucifer’ on the loose, the Matrix won’t be able to stand up to it. It’ll he the Crash of 2029 all over again.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Masaki asked. “Air a sensationalistic story that will make everyone in Seattle afraid to touch their trideo sets and computers in case a spirit jumps out and burns them alive?”
“What do you think I am-some tabcast muckraker?”
Masaki gave an embarrassed shrug.
Carla was astonished that Masaki had such a low opinion of her. Yes, she wanted this to be a big story, one that would shake people up. But at the same time, she wanted it to be hard-hitting and accurate, rather than merely sensationalistic, It was the only way to make NABS sit up and take notice of her-and give her that interview they’d promised.
“I want to do a story that will force Mitsuhama to take responsibility for the mess it’s created,” she told Masaki. “A story that will warn Renraku off before one of their wage mages makes the same mistake Farazad did. A story that will prevent a repeat of the Crash of 2029.”
She sat back, arms folded. What she’d just said bad sounded good. She almost believed it herself. But deep down, she was willing to admit that the real rush would come from seeing her sign-off at the end of a really big story and knowing that her name would be a household word for days to come. All over the fragging world.
Masaki grunted, and resumed his rummaging through tile box he held. “Yeah, well, the story is all yours. Carla. It became your story the night those yakuza shot at us.”
“They weren’t shooting at us. They were shooting at the kid.”
“Just leave my byline out of it, O.K.?”
Carla shook her head. “Anything you say, snoop.” She put an ironic emphasis on the last word. “Speaking of the ork girl, did you ever succeed in finding her? Or is she still out scuffing around the streets?”
“I found her,” Masaki said. “In Lone Star’s downtown containment facility. And it’s a good thing I did, too. She was in a tough spot. That story she told you about patrol officers shooting her friends-the one we thought was so far-fetched. I think it’s the truth.”
“What if it is?” Carla asked. “There’s nothing to go on.”
“Yes, there is,” Masaki countered. “She’s got the badge number of one of the chromer cops who did it, plus the name of his partner. The one who pulled the trigger.”
“Really?” Despite herself, Carla was intrigued.
“This could be a hot one. I can hear the lead-in now: ‘The Tarnished Star: Cop by Day, Humanis Policlub Basher by Night.’ ”
Carla could picture it, too. She still had the footage she’d shot of Pita that day she’d first come to the KKRU station. It would look great on trid. If the Mitsuhama story didn’t pan out, Carla could still score a few points by doing the Lone Star piece. She looked at Masaki out of the corner of her eye. “Are you going to pursue the story?”
“I don’t know.” He paused, and Carla thought she saw a guilty look cross his face. “Maybe.”
Drek. She’d have to move on this one as soon as the Mitsuhama piece aired. Otherwise Masaki would scoop it out from under her.
“So where’s the kid now?” she asked. “Still in jail?”
“She’s at my place. I just came down to the studio grab the things she left here.”
“Aziz is awfully keen to talk to her about…” Carla’s eyes widened as she saw what Masaki had fished out of the box. A credstick. And embossed on the side of it, in gold, was a logo. A Mitsuhama Computer Technologies logo.
Carla snatched the credstick out of Masaki’s hands. “Where did you get this?” she asked, her voice rising with excitement.
Masaki shrugged. “It’s Pita’s. While we were shooting her eyewitness take, she kept playing with the stuff in her pockets, making a rattling noise that her body mike picked up. I made her empty her pockets. The credstick was in them. Why? Is it stolen or something?”
Carla showed Masaki the logo, then turned the credstick so that he could see the magnetic keystrip down one side. “This is fragging unbelievable! This has been sitting here in our newsroom all this time, and you didn’t notice. There’s only one place the kid could have picked this credstick up-from Farazad’s body. And there’s only one door it could open. The Samji residence didn’t have a magkey system-just a thumbprint scanner. And you don’t put a corporate logo on a car key. So what’s left?”
Masaki had followed her train of thought. “The place where Farazad worked. The Mitsuhama Research Center.”
“Right.” Carla jiggled the credstick in her hand. “Care to join me in shooting a little unauthorized trid at the Mitsuhama lab?” she asked teasingly. She knew Masaki wouldn’t have the spine for it, but she couldn’t resist. Just as she had expected, his face went pale.
“Are you crazy?” His wheeze was back. “Not only that illegal-it’s dangerous. Mitsuhama’s security guards are rumored to be the toughest in the business, and their magical defenses are layers deep. You’ll be killed!”
Carla tucked the credstick neatly into the pocket of jacket. “Not if I have a good decker and a spirit backing me up,” she answered with a smug smile.
“I think you’re crazy,” Masaki said.
“You’re probably right,” Carla answered. “But if you want to get ahead in this business, you have to be willing to take some chances.”
22
Pita stared out the window of Masaki’s apartment, watching the gray clouds that were scudding low over the city. It was still early in the afternoon, but already the sky was quite dark. The first few drops of rain left thin streaks on the heavy plate glass window.
After a moment of silent contemplation, she turned back to Aziz. The mage was sitting on the couch across from her, trying to took casual. But Pita had enough street smarts to read the tension and anticipation in his slightly parted lips and twitching fingers. What she had to say was vitally important to him. The only thing she couldn’t figure out was why.
“How come you think it was me who banished the spirit?” Pita asked. “All I did was disturb your spell-casting when I tried to cross your magical circle.”
Aziz looked annoyed. “I’ve already explained that to you once,” he said tersely. “Your striking the hermetic circle was only part of it. It had to be that the spirit was affected by something you did or said.”
He leaned forward, pointing a finger at her. “Think, now. Did you say any words that might have sounded like a name? Did you make any gestures or think any thoughts that-”
“I’ve already told you everything I can think of,” Pita said. “I thought the spirit was going to kill you. I wanted to help. Cat led me to you. Maybe it-”
“That’s old ground,” Aziz said. “Your totem led you to me, nothing more. You said it had already fled the shop, which means it had nothing to do with driving the spirit away. It was of no consequence.”
“Why didn’t you go back and get your cat after the shop burned down?” Pita asked coldly. “Wasn’t it of any consequence to you, either?” Part of her anger was fueled by guilt. She hadn’t seen Aziz’s cat since last night-since just before she went downtown to join the sit-in. She hoped it was doing all right. That it hadn’t been run over by a car or anything.
Aziz ignored her question. “If you could just tell me what you-”
“Listen,” she said, cutting him off. “You’re the mage. You’ve done this stuff for years. I’m just a kid who Cat helps out from time to time. I only let you into Masaki’s apartment because 1 figured you wanted to thank me for saving your life, If I wanted to be cross-examined, I’d go back to fragging…” She swallowed, unable to complete the sentence, even though she’d begun it in jest. Not enough time had elapsed since her narrow escape from the jail and the cop who’d killed her friends.
“I am grateful that you saved my life,” Aziz said tightly. “I already thanked you for that. And you’re wrong about your magical abilities. You have a powerful talent-more powerful than you realize. I wish I…”
He made a dismissive gesture with one blistered hand. He didn’t have to say the rest; Pita could see the envy in his eyes. And that made her pause. Maybe-just maybe-she really did have a unique and powerful talent. If she really had driven away the spirit-something Aziz himself, with all of his knowledge of the magical arts, hadn’t been able to do-she had an edge. Something that made her special-something she could use to survive. Something that made her a better magician, in terms of her natural abilities, than the hermetic mage sitting across from her.
“Just humor me a little longer,” Aziz said. “It’s Important.”
“You promise you’ll put me in touch with that shaman you told me about?” Pita asked. “The one who will teach me to use my power?”
“I already agreed to that.”
“How am I going to get by in the meantime? I don’t nave a single nuyen.”
Grimacing with frustration, Aziz plunged a hand into the breast pocket of his robe. He pulled out a credstick, rose to his feet, and stalked over to the telecom unit. “Do you have a bank account?” he asked.
Pita just laughed. “Who, me? You must be fizzed.” Aziz plugged the credstick into the slot. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Not your street name-your real name.”
She told him.
“Date of birth?”
“July 19, 2037.”
Aziz keyed in a series of commands, muttering as he did. “Hmm. We’ll use Masaki’s apartment as your current address, and I’ll say you’re employed at my shop. That should do it…” He called her over and had her stand in front of the pickup camera, then told her to sit down again. After a moment or two, the printer scrolled out hard copy. He tore it from the unit and handed it to Pita with a flourish.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A statement from your bank account. Take a look.” Pita’s mouth dropped open. If this was true, Aziz had just opened an account at the Salish Credit Union and deposited one thousand nuyen in it. In her name. When she looked up, he was smiling.
“Let’s call that a deposit. There’s more where that came from, as long as you promise to work with me. All right?”
Pita nodded mutely. This really was worth a lot him. She wondered what his angle was-how he planned to capitalize on it. And whether the transaction was legitimate or just a drekking good con.
“O.K.,” she said at last. “Ask me anything. What do you want to know?”
Aziz cleared a space in the living room, then cast a quick spell with a flick of his hand. A glowing green circle appeared on the carpet. Pita blinked, hoping Masaki wouldn’t get slotted off at the mark Aziz had just made. But the carpet hadn’t looked all that clean to begin with.
“Let’s pretend that this is the hermetic circle I was using when I was trying to find out if there really was a metaplane of light,” he said, lying down on his back at he center of it and stretching out his arms and legs. I’m here, in the middle of it. I want you to approach me at the same angle that you did, yesterday morning, when you were in astral space.”
Pita did as she was told, positioning herself in a line with Aziz’s right foot.
“Now run forward, the way you did before. Hold your body exactly as you did then, and try to make the same gestures.”
Pita looked up at the ceiling, imagining the brilliant tornado of the spirit where the dusty light fixture hung. Then she held up her arm, as if shielding her eyes from it. “Aziz!” she shouted, feeling somewhat foolish. She ran forward and hopped over the green circle. She wondered whether or not she should mime falling over backward, but Aziz halted her before she could make up her mind.
“Stop right there!” He clambered to his feet and grabbed her right arm. He turned it over to inspect the underside of it.
“What’s this mark?” he asked. “It looks like a burn. Did the spirit touch you?”
Pita turned her arm to look at the red line that was painted like a slash across the inside of her wrist. The mark had faded, but the burn itched where the hair was starting to grow back. “Oh, that,” she said. “Yeah, it touched me. But not yesterday. This happened days ago.” Aziz's long, narrow fingers pinched tight around her forearm. “When?”
“The night the guy died in the alley. I was, uh… looking at him, and one of the beams of light coming of his mouth touched my arm.”
“Hmm.” Aziz stared off into space, his eyebrows knitted together in a tense frown. For a moment, Pita worried that he’d figured out she’d boosted stuff from the pockets of the dying mage, and that he’d call cops on her. But his mind was apparently on other matters entirely.
“That was the night the spirit attacked Farazad,” he said, thinking out loud. “The night the spirit became free. Hmm…”
“Are you going to let go of my arm?’
“What?” Aziz glanced down. “Oh. Sorry.”
Pita rubbed the spot his fingers had pinched. Then she looked again at the burn mark on her wrist, “You think this has something to do with it?”
“I do, indeed.”
“You going to tell me or what?”
Aziz gave her a coy look, as if deciding whether or not she could keep a secret. “Sure,” he said. “Why not? I'm going to need your cooperation with this, anyway. There’s no way around it.”
He took a deep breath and began to lecture, sounding just like a high school teaching program: “When a spirit breaks the control of the mage who conjured it and escapes, it sometimes remains in the physical world rather than returning to astral space. The moment of its escape is the moment of its birth as a free spirit. It’s also the moment the spirit attains its true name.
“A free spirit can be controlled by any magician-of either magical tradition-who knows this true name. The mage can use the true name to call, control, banish-or even destroy the free spirit. Or merely drive it away, as you did yesterday morning. The trouble is, finding out a free spirit’s true name is usually an impossible task.”
Pita frowned, completely lost. “I still don’t see what all this has to do with the mark on my arm.”
“I’m coming to that,” Aziz answered. He ran a hand over his hair, smoothing it back. “According to hermetic theory, the true name is imposed upon the free spirit by the astral conditions in existence at the time and place of its birth. It’s just possible that the spirit you saw was intoxicated by its newfound freedom and shouted its true name out loud as soon as it learned it.”
“But I didn’t hear anything. Not any ‘true name,’ anyhow.”
Aziz took her arm-more gently, this time-and touched a forefinger to the burn. “Yes, you did,” he said softly. “The spirit spoke in the only way it could- in pulses of photons. It inscribed the true name, there, in the cells of your skin.”
Pita looked at her arm, uncertain whether to believe him or not. It sounded incredible-a magical spirit writing its name on her arm with a ray of light. But at the same time, it made sense. Somehow she had driven the spirit away. There’d been no one else in the room at the time except the helpless Aziz; Pita had to have been the one with the edge. The more she thought about it, the more her skin tingled. It was like suddenly waking op to find that someone had implanted a cybernetic device in your arm while you slept. Her wrist felt as if it were no longer entirely her own.
“I thought you said the magician had to understand the name,” she said at last. “Well, I didn’t understand it. I didn’t even know about it.”
“But it was there, just the same, when you entered astral space. You carried the name with you. And you used it-albeit without conscious volition-as a tool to drive the spirit away.”
Pita thought about that a moment. “So, according to what you said, I can control this thing now? Can I make it do anything I want?” Visions of revenge danced in her head. She’d show that Lone Star fragger. She imagined the cop twitching on the ground, like a puppet with its strings cut while the spirit burned out his insides. It was a gruesome but satisfying image. One that brought a grim smile to her lips, exposing her curving canine teeth.
Aziz hurriedly dropped her hand. “Ah… yes. You do have the potential to control the spirit. But not without proper magical training. Control over a free spirit isn’t automatic. Once you’ve learned the spirit’s true name, you still have to best it in a test of wills. A battle that pits you against the magical force of the spirit.” He gave her a grave, serious look. “And make no mistake, this is a powerful spirit. It’s not one to be toyed with.”
“Promise me, Pita, that you won’t do anything rash. That you wont try calling it or controlling it without my help.”
Pita saw through him at once. The mage wanted to be part of this. He wanted to control the spirit himself, but he was going to need her to do it. He probably had his own revenge in mind-the yakuza who burned down his shop was a prime candidate.
Well, Pita would show him. If she was the one who could control the spirit, she’d be the one calling the shots. But not yet; she didn’t fully trust her newly awakened magical talents. She sure as drek didn’t want to wind up like the mage in the alley. Dominating a human mind was one thing. Dominating a magical creature of light was something else entirely. For the time being, it looked as though she was stuck with Aziz’s “help.”
“O.K.,” she said. “Deal. As long as you don’t make me call the spirit until I’m ready.”
Aziz gave her a thin smile. “Deal.”
23
Carla stepped out of the tour bus and looked up at the six skyscrapers that made up the Mitsuhama Computer Technologies complex. Setting the camera in her cybereye to wide angle, she began with a shot that included all six buildings. She would have liked to have filmed them earlier in the day-better lighting would have shown off the silver sheen on the plascrete walls and the gleaming black-tinted windows. But the skyscrapers were an impressive sight. even so. They would make a nice establishing shot to intro her story.
She zoomed in slowly on the public entrance to the central tower, gradually losing the manicured lawns and backdrop of Lake Washington, and focusing on the entrance to the Byte of the Future display. On either side of the automatic doorway, neatly groomed security guards watched the people flow in and out. In their peaked cloth caps and trim blue uniforms with the gold MCT logo on the breast pocket, the guards looked like bellhops at a glitzy hotel. They weren’t carrying any weapons or sporting any obvious cyberware, but it was a given that they were in constant touch with the rest of their team via commlink. They could call for heavy-duty backup in an instant if the situation warranted it.
One of the guards smiled and nodded at the tourists, occasionally kneeling down to talk to a child. But his eyes constantly scanned the crowd, even when he was talking to someone right in front of him. He might appear to be relaxed, but Carla could see that he was alert and ready for trouble.
The second guard scrutinized the crowd with steely eyes, not even pretending to be friendly.
Carla let the camera in her cybereye continue to record as she followed the other tourists up the winding path that led from the bus loop to the complex itself. That way, she’d be able to prove to Greer, her producer, that she’d actually penetrated Mitsuhama’s research lab. Assuming, that is. that she made it that far.
Instead of walking with her usual smooth reporter’s stride-which would only give her away-Carla meandered along behind the others, gawking like a tourist. The resulting footage would be jumpy, but as long as she maintained continuity. Greer would be satisfied.
There were fifty-six people in the tour group Carla had joined, including herself. This was the second-to-last tour of the day-the 5 p.m. excursion.
As she approached the entrance, she resisted the urge to reach into her pocket, yet again, to double-check that the datachip Corwin had prepared was still there. The security guards would spot the nervous gesture instantly. They wouldn’t know what it meant, and they probably wouldn’t find it threatening. But their attention would be drawn to Carla just the same. And she wanted to remain as anonymous as possible. She’d disguised herself, just in case anybody recognized her from the KKRU newscasts. She’d styled her hair differently and tied a scarf over it. The heavy-framed fashion glasses she wore gave her eyes an entirely different look.
A few steps ahead of Carla, Corwin’s girlfriend Nina and little brother Trevor ambled along with the other tourists. Trevor was just eight years old, but every bit as bright as his brother. And the girl, despite the fact that she was still in her early twenties, looked old enough for her role, especially in the clothes Carla had asked her to wear. Both had readily agreed to help out with this bit of subterfuge. The thought of doing something daring, just like his brother, had especially appealed to Trevor. His part would be a small one, entirely without risk. Carla just hoped that the kid had the brains and nerve to carry it off. He certainly had the acting ability; he’d appeared in ten commercials already as the token metahuman kid. He had a fetching smile, despite his oversize canines.
Trevor was pretending he didn’t know Carla. As instructed, he walked beside Nina, making a point of smiling and talking to her. The other tourists would automatically assume she was his mother.
Carla followed the others into the building. They bunched up at a second set of heavy glass doors that blocked access to the lobby proper. This inner entrance was manned by two more security guards. One stood on this side of the doors, directing the visitors to an automated flatscan camera that took each person’s picture, then spat out a laminated badge bearing the words VISITOR’S PASS and the date and time of the tour group’s arrival. The other guard stood on the far side of the glass door, looking on with a bored expression as visitors who were leaving the building dropped their passes into a machine that automatically scanned and counted them. Eventually it would strip the digital photographs and dates from the badges so that they could be reused.
When it was her turn, Carla smiled for the camera, then attached the pass it spat out to the lapel of her jacket by its metal clip. She followed the others through the inner doors and into the lobby itself.
The lobby had a floor of silvered metal that was etched with black in a pattern that resembled the circuitry of an old-fashioned silicon chip. Banks of escalators at the back of the lobby led up to the second and third floors, which housed the Byte of the Future displays. Each had a balcony from which visitors could look down at the patterned lobby floor.
The other floors of the skyscraper-and the offices they contained-were accessed by entrances elsewhere in the building, rather than from this lobby. Mitsuhama encouraged the general public to view its displays, but took a dim view of them wandering through its office space.
As she stepped onto the escalator, Carla could hear Trevor, behind her now, talking excitedly to Nina about the new SimSea exhibit. She allowed herself a small sigh of relief. The kid was playing his part to the hilt, making sure everyone noticed that he and Nina were together, and frequently calling her “Mom.”
Carla had been on this tour two years ago when doing an entertainment feature on a new series of games Mitsuhama had developed. It had been a fun piece; she’d strapped on the headset and was instantly transported into the cockpit of a fighter ship that was rocketing its way between the stars. They’d even gotten the feeling of zero-G right.
On that occasion, Carla had been an invited guest. This time, she would be a trespasser-no better than a shadowrunner. And Mitsuhama would be doing its best to evict her-by any means necessary.
The Byte of the Future display was tucked into a series of rooms that opened onto the second- and third-floor balconies. Dozens of adults and children moved back and forth from one display room to another, filling the air with their awed laughter. Behind the babble of voices, games beeped and chimed, automated announcements described the static displays and robotic vehicles whined and hummed.
The three Mitsuhama employees who’d been assigned to guide the 5 p.m. tour were waiting on the second floor. They did not wear formal uniforms, but all were garbed in corporate colors: blue slacks and a white shirt. Carla wore the same thing under her jacket.
Out of the three guides who would be leading the five o’clock tour, two were Asian. Mitsuhama might talk about being an equal-opportunity employer, but when you scanned the employee records-as Corwin had done earlier-the truth became clear. The corp showed a clear preference for hiring humans of Japanese descent.
As they split the tourists into three groups, Carla joined the group that would be led by a woman who was of approximately the same build as herself. Thanks to the cosmetic surgery that had given Carla’s face a Native American appearance, she could pass for Japanese-or, at least, for a Eurasian of Japanese descent.
She’d be a close enough match for the picture on the woman’s employee ID badge.
Carla kept to the back of the group as the hour-long tour began. The first stop was an exhibit of oversized, boxy computers from the late twentieth century. All of the machines were in working order, and each had an adapter that allowed it to access the Matrix in a clunky, glacially slow fashion. The exhibit showed the gradual advances in the computer industry, and concluded with an exhibit of the latest direct neural interface technology-all of it, naturally, designed and built by Mitsuhama.
Pretending to examine one of these state-of-the-art computers, Carla fished the datachip out of her pocket and slotted it into one of the multi-ports at the back of the deck. The program on it had been hurriedly designed, that very afternoon, by Corwin. Precisely one hour after it was installed, it would write itself onto the virtual memory of this computer. It would then execute in the background, uploading itself to the display hall’s central processing unit while it was running its batch maintenance programs. The system’s operator might notice a slight stutter in the computer, but would probably pass it off as a hardware sequencing problem.
From there, the program would find its way onto the slave nodes that served the Byte of the Future display and would drop, without a trace, the name Lucifer. It would then be only a matter of time-hopefully no more than a few minutes, but certainly no more than an hour-before the spirit dove into the Matrix again and was drawn like an angry hornet to those nodes, corrupting the programs as it sought to eliminate the files containing its name. When that happened, the system that ran the display area would crash. Every computer-controlled display, lighting panel, and climate-control device in the Byte of the Future exhibit would shut down. And that would provide just the distraction Carla needed.
After exiting the display of antique computers, the group wound its way through a variety of exhibits: autonomously guided vehicles currently being used in the Mars exploration program; war simulators used to train monotank drivers; simsense walk-throughs of CAD/CAM do-it-yourself architectural programs; animated-cartoon holograms that described the development of ASIST (emphasizing the minor role Mitsuhama had played in its development); and a gigantic, two-story-tall mockup of an optical data-storage and retrieval system. The kids loved that one; they got to slide through strobing tubes, pretending they were individual photons of light. By either bunching together or going singly, they could duplicate the pulses by which data was encoded and could trigger different sounds and holo images. Each group of children erased the data of the group who’d preceded them, writing their own combination.
Carla smiled. It was a bit prophetic, somehow.
The final stop on the tour was a large room that held a wide array of booths that displayed Mitsuhama’s latest simsense games. Here, the members of the tour group were first warned that they had to meet back at the bus at six o’clock, sharp, then were turned loose to spend the last fifteen minutes of their tour playing with the interactive displays.
It was time for Carla to make her move. Winding her way through the people who crowded the room, she nodded at Nina and stepped into one of the simsense booths. It was a multi-user display; there were enough headsets for six people to interact with the program at once. Fortunately, no one else joined them in the booth.
Carla handed Nina her badge. “You remember what to do, don’t you?”
The ork girl smiled. “Null perspiration, chummer. I just gotta drop it in the box.”
Carla winced. Like her boyfriend, Nina had the habit of using Street slang, despite her education. She took Nina’s badge and slipped it into her pocket. “Good,” she said. “Off you go, then.”
As Nina stepped out of the booth, Carla focused on the digital display in the corner of her cybereye’s field of view. It was nearly six o’clock. Time for her tour group to make its way back to the bus. And for Corwin’s program to start doing its thing.
Trevor was watching her from a few meters away. As she passed him, Carla gave him the thumbs-up signal they’d previously agreed upon, then slipped him Nina’s visitor pass. He smiled and winked at her, then waited while Nina headed for the escalators.
Carla took a deep breath to steady her nerves. This part was out of her hands.
She made her way to the balcony that looked down onto the lobby. She tensed as Nina approached the desk where they had come in. But the guard didn’t even look at Nina as she dropped Carla’s badge in the return slot, where a scanner automatically processed it. So far, so good.
Carla let a full minute pass after Nina had exited the building, then signaled to Trevor. He descended on the escalator, then rushed up to the guard who stood just inside the lobby. Carla couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she knew the script; she’d written it. He was tearfully asking the bored-looking guard who manned the scanner if he’d seen his mother, whom he had lost at the end of the tour. As proof, Trevor showed the badge his mother had “dropped” during her ride down the photon slide.
The guard would probably remember that an ork woman had just left the building, and might even match that woman’s face with the one on the badge. But because several other visitors had passed through the gate in the interim, he was unlikely to remember whether or not she had turned in a visitor’s pass on the way out.
Trevor’ s act seemed to be working. The security guard pointed outside, took the two badges from him, and dropped them in the scanner. Trevor gave him a tearful smile, then jogged out the building after his “mother.” As instructed, he didn’t look back at Carla and give the game away. Later, when security did a count of the returned badges, they would assume that all fifty-six members of the 5 p.m. tour had exited the building.
Now Carla just had to wait for her distraction to hit. When it did, the building’s security would get much tighter; the guards would immediately ensure that all visitors safely exited the Byte of the Future display. They’d be sure to retrieve a visitor pass from each person as he or she left the area, and to compare the number of passes collected with the number of visitors who entered the building that day. Assuming that none of the visitors actually did go missing when the spirit crashed the exhibit’s computers, all of today’s visitors would be carefully accounted for-probably within a matter of a few minutes. And by the time they were, Carla would be well on her way to the research lab.
She looked around for her tour group leader. The woman had gone back to the escalator to meet the six o’clock tour. As she assembled the group and gave them her memorized introduction. Carla followed discretely behind, careful not to let the woman spot her. There was always a chance she’d recognize Carla as a member of the last group and would start wondering why this “tourist” had missed her bus. Or that she would notice Carla wasn’t wearing a visitor’s pass.
The six o’clock tour made it all the way to the photon slide before the spirit struck. The first sign that it had entered the Byte of the Future computer system was when the music and holograms in the transparent tube faltered to a halt. Next, the overhead lights began to flicker. In rapid succession, a number of displays blinked out. The ventilation system blasted out a jet of overheated air, then made a grinding noise as its rotors shut down, and the speakers began to hiss with static.
No more than a second or two after the whole chain of glitches began, the second- and third-floor display areas were plunged into darkness. As a babble of frightened voices filled the air, Carla made her move. She’d kept a careful watch on the tour guide, who now was shouting at her group to remain calm. Carla headed straight for the voice and deliberately jostled the woman in the dark. At the same time, she snatched the tour guide’s employee badge. Given the mob of confused and frightened people the woman had to deal with, Carla doubted she’d miss the badge for some time. If she did discover it was gone, she would probably assume it had fallen off and was lying somewhere on the floor of the display area.
Carla shed her jacket and pinned on the employee badge. Then she made her way by feel to the photon tube-slide. It would be the fastest way to put some distance between herself and the tour guide. Just as she reached it, a handful of emergency lights-those powered by battery and thus independent of the main computer system-started to flicker to life. But these only dimly lit the area; there were still enough shadows-and enough confusion, among the milling visitors-for Carla to jump into the tube and escape unnoticed.
The slide down to the second floor took only a moment or two. Reaching the bottom, she clambered to her feet and headed toward an employees-only exit she’d noted earlier. A winking red light showed that the door’s magkey was still functioning. It was a simple slide-through pad, operated by its own battery system. Carla aligned the magnetic strip on the employee badge, then slid it through the slot. When the light flashed green, she yanked the door open.
The corridor it led to was well illuminated; it must have been on a separate control system. Carla pulled the door shut behind her and hurried down the hallway. A security guard rushed toward her, heading for the door she’d just come through. Giving him her most earnest look, Carla jerked a thumb at the door behind her. “We’ve had a systems crash!” she shouted. “The power is down and we can’t use the telecom system. I’m going to see if I can reboot the lights.”
The guard grunted out a reply as he rushed past. “It fragging figures. Whenever there’s a system glitch, it’s on my shift.” He obviously didn’t yet realize the extent of the “glitch.”
Carla slowed to a brisk walk as she rounded a corner. Unwilling to risk the elevator, in case the spirit had wiped its programming as well, she entered the first stairwell she found. She climbed eight flights, paused to catch her breath, then emerged onto the tenth floor, which housed a number of office units. Now it was just a matter of working her way to the building’s outermost corridor and finding the skywalk that connected it to the next tower.
Aside from the few security guards who rushed past her, few of the employees on this floor seemed to realize the chaos that had broken out several stories below them. The corridors were filled with the usual hum of conversation and background office noise.
After a few minutes of searching. Carla found the skywalk that led to Tower C-the “Chrysanthemum Tower.” This was the heart of the beast; unlike the other five skyscrapers, which rented space to a variety of different businesses, Tower C was occupied solely by Mitsuhama Computer Technologies. For this reason, it was under much tighter security than the rest of the office complex. Not only was there a gate and a monitor system at the point where the skywalk joined the tower, but a live guard as well.
The guard was a young fellow with sharp features and cratered skin. Japanese, judging by his surname. An oversized pistol hung in a hoister at his hip. Carla had been prepared for that; she’d expected to have to bluff her way past an armed guard or two. Rut when she saw the retinal scanner that was built into the badge-recognition unit, her heart sank. There was no way she’d get past that.
In another moment, the guard would realize that she wasn’t the woman whose name and scan code were on the badge. He’d demand to see some authentic ID, and would call his superiors to deal with the attempted intrusion. Things would be tense for a moment or two, but eventually, once somebody saw her press pass, they’d be forced to let her go. She was simply too well known, too public a figure, to rough up. The mythical “power of the press” would protect her. But it was still fragging disappointing to have come this far, only to have her plans fall apart.
Then Carla noted the way the guard was pacing back and forth in front of the gate. His manner suggested intense frustration. He reminded Carla of the security guard she’d encountered earlier in the hallway, and that guard’s grumbled comments. And that gave her an idea.
The young guard waved her toward the gate. When he read her employee badge he showed immediate interest. “I hear there’s some trouble in the display hall.” he said eagerly. It was obvious he wished he could be seeing a little of that trouble himself.
She kept her eyes on the ground, trying to work up some tears. As she slid the employee badge through the scanner, she dug a manicured fingernail into her other palm, deliberately cutting the skin. That did it. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Hai,” she said, giving the head bob that was the equivalent of an abbreviated bow. She’d decided to play the role of the demure, eyes-downcast Japanese woman to the hilt. She could do the accent perfectly, but she was taking a gamble, hoping he wouldn’t switch to Japanese. With luck, he’d be a nishi or sanshi, with only a poor grasp of the language. She’d only remembered enough of her high-school Japanese to order sushi, recite her name, and count to ten.
“Two members of my tour group were seriously injured,” she told the guard. “I have been called to give a personal report.” She sighed heavily, and let a tear trickle down her cheek. “Everything always happens on my shift.”
The guard nodded his sympathy and lifted the retscan unit from its cradle. Carla buried her face in her hands, pretending to be ashamed of her tears, and uttered a series of short, hiccuping sobs. “I never asked to be reassigned to the display hall. I should be in Accounting. That’s what I’m trained for. And now I’ll be fired!” She kept wiping tears from her eyes, deliberately getting her hands in he way of the scanner.
After one or two attempts to lift the ret-scan unit to Carla's eyes, the young guard gave up. “Go.” he said to her at last. “Make your report. And good luck.”
“Thank you.”
Carla waited until she was around the corner to break into a wide grin. She was inside! She focused on the icon in her cybereye’s field of view that would activate the file containing the map Corwin had downloaded on his most recent run into the Mitsuhama mainframe. The datalink to her cybereye let her read information uploaded to it. Now all she had to do was follow the map to the elevator that led down to the research lab. And hope that everything was going according to plan. Everything could still come unglued if she ran into any more security roadblocks. Or if Corwin ran into any ice. Or if the guard who’d just let her slip through his post without a retinal scan learned that an employee from the Byte of the Future exhibit had lost her badge. Or if…
Carla shook her head, chiding herself for letting her worries overtake her. The only thing now was to get as far as she could. And to keep the camera in her cybereye rolling. The chip she was using had plenty of memory, but if need be she had plenty more to spare.
24
Carla walked down the hallway, trying not to stare at the security cameras. The thirtieth floor of the Chrysanthemum Tower was an area of plush carpets, dark wooden doors that looked as if they were made of ebony, and expensive bio-luminescent lighting panels. This was the floor occupied by MCT Seattle’s middle management; gleaming chrome name plates, set in the middle of the polished black doors, bore the names of several of the people who’d been saying “no comment” to Carla recently. She resisted the urge to try any of the doors. The offices were sure to be well protected by sophisticated alarms and magic-activated intruder alert systems.
Since it was Saturday, only a few of the offices were occupied. The occasional office worker passed her in the hallway, but the normal hustle and buzz of a busy office complex was missing. Although Mitsuhama followed the Japanese tradition of expecting its employees to work copious amounts of overtime, few actually came in to work on a weekend in person; most put in the extra hours at home-based work stations.
According to the map in Carla’s cybereye, the elevator that led to the research lab was just ahead, around a bend in the corridor. She stopped midway down the ball and pushed open the door to a washroom. As she’d suspected, the room was not monitored by camera-at least, no obvious monitors were in evidence. It was probably wired for sound, however, so she went through the motions of flushing the toilet and washing her hands in the sink.
Carla pulled out her cel phone, switched off its visual pickup, and dialed a number. She heard a ring, a brief pause, and then another ring again as the call was routed through a series of telecommunications grids. If Mitsuhama security was monitoring this call by picking up its frequency from a remote scanner, they’d log it as being made from a rented cel phone to an auto body shop in Renton. In fact, the call was only being patched through that number-and from there, through telecommunications grids in Vancouver, Hong Kong, Seoul, and San Francisco-and back again to a Seattle residence, where the young decker Corwin answered the phone.
“Albert’s Auto Body,” he said. “Don’t get bent; we’ll fix that dent.”
Despite her nervousness, Carla smiled. She used the rough code they’d prearranged. “Hello. I’m calling about the car I dropped off this morning. The Mitsubishi Runabout with the dented side panel. Has it been fixed yet?”
“It’s fixed,” Corwin answered. “And the paint job is perfect. You can’t even see where we made the patch.”
“That’s wonderful,” Carla answered brightly. “I won’t be able to pick it up tonight; I’ve got a backlog of work to clear up. I have to be back at work in less than a minute. I’ll stop around tomorrow morning, instead.”
“Good luck clearing up that backlog. I hope you don’t have to work too late. See you in the morning.”
As she hung up the phone, Carla nodded. So far, so good. Corwin was inside Mitsuhama’s computer system and had successfully cracked the node that controlled the security cameras on this floor. The “paint job” he was referring to was a direct feed of a digitized image of Evelyn Belanger. Using the trid that Carla had shot of the wage mage yesterday, he’d stripped away the background of the garden and used only the cropped image of Evelyn walking. Feeding this back into the security cameras, he used KKRU’s sophisticated Movement Match graphics program to paint it over the image of Carla that the hallway monitors were picking up. if anything had gone wrong with the splice, he would have warned Carla just now. But everything was going perfectly. Anyone watching the security monitors would be unable to see the patch.
For her part, Carla had warned Corwin that she was less than a minute away from reaching the elevator that led to the research lab. Folding shut her cel phone, she tucked it in a pocket. Then she took a deep breath, braced herself, and stepped out into the corridor. She turned and headed for the elevator, keeping her hands by her sides, walking smoothly and not making any sudden or exaggerated gestures that the graphics program would have to compensate for.
Reaching the elevator, Carla stood so that the monitor cameras would be able to capture a clear shot of her as she pulled Farazad’s credstick from her pocket and plugged the triangular tube of plastic into the key slot that called the elevator. It was essential that Corwin get a good look at her, that this be timed perfectly.
As the credstick clicked into place, a pleasantly modulated voice came from a speaker mounted just to the left of the elevator doors: “This elevator is for the use of authorized personnel only. Please provide a voice sample.” It then repeated the instructions in Japanese.
This was the tricky part. Farazad’s security clearance would have been purged, immediately following his death. But Evelyn Belanger’s would still be on-line. And if Corwin was as whiz a decker as he claimed, he'd be able to squirt in a digital sample of Evelyn’s voice, pair it with the lock combination encoded on the credstick, and effect a match.
Carla waited, tension knotting the muscles between her shoulder blades as the seconds ticked by. If anything had gone wrong at Corwin’s end, an alarm would be sounding, somewhere deep in the bowels of the building. Mitsuhama security guards would be racing through the hallways, even now, with their guns drawn…
A soft chime sounded and a light above the elevator doors winked on. “Voice sample accepted,” the automated system told her. “Please remove your keystrip. Arigato.”
Carla let out a long sigh of relief as the elevator doors opened. She hadn’t heard it arrive-either it was very silent or it had already been waiting on this floor. She hoped for the latter-if the elevator had been on the floor that housed the research lab, that would have meant that someone had gotten off it there and not returned-there was only one exit from the research lab, as far as Carla had been able to determine.
She stepped into the elevator, turning slowly so the Movement Match program could patch in a clear, non-jerky image of Evelyn for the benefit of the monitor inside the elevator. The security camera was mounted just above the door, beside the digital display that gave a readout of the floor the elevator had stopped at. There were only two floors listed: the thirtieth-and “L” for Lab. There were no icons to press to select a floor.
The doors slid shut and the elevator automatically began its descent to the research facility, which was located deep underground, in the foundations of the building. Carla knew enough about magic to understand why this odd location had been chosen-the natural earth that surrounded and enclosed the research lab protected it from unwanted astral intruders. There were probably magical sensors in the elevator shaft, as well.
The elevator descended quickly, producing a fluttering lurch in Carla’s stomach. She’d loved riding in high-speed elevators as a kid, and still enjoyed the partial sensation of free-fall that they produced. Now that feeling was overlaid with another, stronger emotion-excitement. She was in! She had penetrated Mitsuhama security-with Corwin’s help, of course-and was about to shoot some trid of the very lab that had given birth to the spirit that was ravaging the Matrix. She was doing what few shadowrunners would have dared-penetrating a secret research lab. And enjoying every moment of it, despite the danger.
The elevator glided to a stop. Carla braced herself prepared to be confronted by a room full of researchers who would demand to know what the frag she was doing in their lab. She set her eye camera for autofocus and got ready to brazen it out as best she could. She’d keep the camera running, identify herself as a reporter, then fire off questions in as authoritative a tone as she could manage and hope for some good reaction shots.
But when the doors slid open, they revealed a darkened lab. The only illumination came from above and behind Carla, in the ceiling of the elevator itself. It painted Carla’s shadow in a dark puddle, just inside the large room, and only partially illuminated the large, open space that lay beyond it. Stale-smelling air wafted through the elevator doors; it was clear that the labs climate-control systems weren’t working. They’d probably shut down yesterday morning when the spirit wiped the lab’s data files and scrambled the computer’s programming.
An icon of a double-headed arrow appeared on the wall of the elevator, next to the door. Next to it were he words: HOLD DOOR and a Japanese character that probably meant the same thing. Carla hit it, then stepped out of the comforting light of the elevator and into the shadow-filled room. As she’d hoped, the elevator doors remained open behind her. They probably wouldn’t close again until the elevator was summoned from upstairs. If they did, Carla would know that trouble was on its way.
She activated the low-light compensator in her cybereye. Able to distinguish shape from shadow now, he did a slow pan of the dimly illuminated room. She didn’t bother with a voice-over; she’d splice that in later. The room was utterly silent; all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing. Even the back-round hiss of air conditioning was missing.
She was on her own now. With the computer systems in this area disabled, Corwin wouldn’t be able to monitor her. Instead of hanging around in the Matrix while she searched the place, risking an attack by ice with each second that ticked by, he would, at this very moment, be making the last few “adjustments” to the computer system that operated the building’s security cameras. Then he’d jack out.
The area held a number of work stations, separated from one another by chest-high sound baffles. Each station contained a chair, data terminal, and various personal effects-soykaf mugs, desktop holographs of family members, brightly colored plastic knickknacks, flatprint photos attached with sticky gum to the sound baffles, and various hermetic fetishes, including an ornate gold amulet and chunk of raw crystal. Carla walked around the room with a smooth, practiced gait, pausing to zoom in now and again on a particular work station. Beside one of the data terminals was a blown-glass vase filled with fresh flowers whose delicate scent filled the air. Carla guessed that this must be Evelyn Belanger’s work station. At another station, personal effects were neatly piled in a large plastic container. On top lay a holograph of Mrs. Samji. This must have been Farazad’s.
Carla took a moment to riffle through it, but found nothing of interest. The plastic container held only a soykaf mug, family holos, and other personal effects. She opened the drawers of the work station, checking them one by one. A light stylus rattled around in one drawer, and a few magnetic clips and a tiny triangle of torn hardcopy were stuck to the back of another. But otherwise they were empty.
The research lab’s data terminals and computers were state-of-the-art-Mitsuhama models, naturally. And all had been partially disassembled. Data chips had been yanked out, drives had been exposed, and diagnostic tools were scattered around. Some frantic salvage work had been done here after the lab’s computer system had crashed. Carla wondered if they’d been able to save any files.
Some technician had jury-rigged an independent lighting system for the lab-cables snaked from a compact fuel cell unit to the lighting fixtures overhead. Carla considered powering up the lights, but, instead picked up a flashlight that lay on the floor beside the power unit. Judging by the silence and stillness, there wasn’t anyone else in the lab. But just in case someone was working in a back room, she’d wait until she’d checked the place out before announcing her presence with a blaze of light.
Carla was in full investigative mode now. Gone were her earlier fears of the dangers Mitsuhama’s security systems might pose. She felt only a rising excitement at having finally achieved her goal. Now all that was left was to shoot as much trid as possible-and hopefully to find something that would make all of her efforts to get here worthwhile.
There was a door in each of the room’s side walls and one in the rear. Carla opened the door to her left and shone the flashlight inside. A washroom. She crossed to the other side of the room and tried the second door. It was a simple lunch room, with table, uncomfortable looking metal chairs, a soykaf brewer, microwave, and sink. A half-eaten bag lunch still sat on the table; a wrinkled apple and wilted-looking sandwich lay on a plate.
The door at the back of the room had a sophisticated-looking maglock but was open a crack, due to the electrical cable that snaked through it and into the hallway beyond. There were doors on either side of the hallway, all but one of them held open by the electrical cable that had been run throughout the lab. All of these rooms were dark and silent. The one door that was closed bore a warning in both black letters and Japanese characters: EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. WARNING. ALARM WILL SOUND. Carla wondered if the alarm was still working. If not-and if this door did lead up to the surface-this would make a good escape route if somebody surprised her in the lab.
The most interesting door was the one at the far end of the hail. It looked as though it had been lined with a layer of fuzzy green carpet. Set into the center of the door, at eye Level, was a heavy glass window a couple of centimeters thick. The scrollwork etched into the glass reminded Carla of the wards on the windows of Aziz’s shop.
The “carpet” that covered the door was in fact a dense coating of moss. Carla scratched a little of it off with the tip of a manicured fingernail. The door underneath was made of what looked like tightly pressed wood fiber into which the moss was rooted. Carla puzzled over that a moment, but then realized she was looking at something that mages called a “living wall.” The moss formed a natural, organic barrier through which astral creatures could not pass.
She couldn’t see much through the window; the thick glass distorted the beam of her flashlight. But at least she was able to satisfy herself that nothing was moving inside the room. Even so, she felt a shiver of trepidation as she reached for the doorknob. Was the moss designed to keep something out-or to keep something in?
She swung the door open, propped it with one foot, and shone her flashlight into the room.
Paydirt! The room was completely empty-just bare plascrete walls, ceiling, and floor. But on that floor, painted in jet-black lines that glittered as if the paint had been mixed with tiny shards of crushed glass, was a circle containing a pentagram. Carla recognized it at once from the diagram on the memory chip. It was the hermetic circle used in conjuring the spirit.
She shot a ten-second take from the doorway, just to make sure she captured it on film. Then she turned and headed back for the room with the power source. This was too good a shot to pass up. She had to have some light. In a matter of minutes, she had powdered up the fuel cell. A steady hum filled the air, and the lights overhead flickered to life.
Hurrying back to the room with the hermetic circle on the floor, Carla did a wide-angle take of the entire room, then walked a slow, graceful circle, panning the painted floor from all angles. Then she dragged in a chair, climbed on top of it, and did an overhead shot.
“Perfect,” she whispered to herself, pleased with her find. “Now let’s see what other goodies the researchers left behind.”
The first door she opened led to a storeroom that was crammed with magical fetishes and thaumaturgical supplies in neatly labeled containers. These didn’t add anything to Carla’s knowledge of the story, but the clutter of unusual items would be a great visual. She could get Wayne to superimpose a shot of herself over them later, introducing what she’d found in the lab.
The second door led to a board room whose walls were lined with erasable white message boards. All had been wiped clean. But at the center of the room was a long table with inset datapads. These were nearly buried by piles of hardcopy. The entire surface of the table was covered with papers, many of them wrinkled as if they’d been crumpled up into a bail and then smoothed flat again. Waste baskets lay empty on the floor, as if their contents had been dumped onto the table. Much of the hardcopy looked like garbage; there were paper food wrappers and even a few rats’ nests of paper that had already gone through a document-shredding machine.
Carla rubbed her hands together, delighted with her find. It was obvious what had happened. Faced with the loss of their computerized files, the researchers had made a desperate search through their waste baskets, hoping to salvage some of the data on their research projects. They'd had half of yesterday and all of today to do the job, and by now had either found what they were looking for or had at last given up. But they hadn’t bothered to clean up after themselves. And there was just a chance that a dedicated snoop could find enough for a story in what they’d left behind.
Carla pulled up a chair, sat down, and started going through the hardcopy printout.
An hour and a half later, she gave up her search. She’d skimmed all of the intact papers and found nothing. The shredded documents could have been pieced together with a computer matching program, but that would require hours of scanning time and equipment she didn’t have. Her earlier optimism had faded. She realized now that Mitsuhama wouldn’t be sloppy. The corporation wouldn’t have stopped at merely shredding incriminating documents. Anything good would probably be ash by now.
Carla leaned back in the chair, stretching. She’d been through every scrap of paper in this room, but still had the nagging feeling she’d overlooked something. Getting up from the table, she walked back to the room that held the work stations. She paused, lost in thought, in front of the one where Farazad had sat. Compulsively, she tugged open the drawers once more, even though she already knew that they were empty. As she opened the last drawer, her eye fell on the magnetic clip that was stuck to the bottom of the metal drawer. It was a child’s coy, a Mighty Mites face that smiled when Carla touched it. Beside it was a torn piece of hardcopy.
Carla leaned closer. The scrap of paper hadn’t moved when her hand brushed against it. it wasn’t just a tiny scrap-instead it was the corner of a larger piece of paper that had slid inside the crack where the back and bottom of the drawer met. Only the corner of it could be seen. Carla tried to move it with a finger. but found it was stuck. Instead she yanked out the drawer, turned it over, and pulled the hardcopy from it.
She let out a long, slow whistle as she read the crumpled paper she held in her hands. It was a memo, dated eight days ago-three days before Farazad Samji’s death. It was addressed to the lab’s director, Ambrose Wilks, and was signed with a wavering scrawl by the wage mage himself.
To: Director Wilks
Re: Lucifer Deck” (Farohad) Project
As per your direct instructions, I have summoned and bound the farohad. Despite my formal protests to the board of directors, and against the dictates of my conscience and religion, I have performed the tests you have required.
If anything, the results of these tests prove that the farohad is unsuitable for the project you propose. It is true that the light effects the farohad produces can enter the Matrix, although the extreme measures we go through to tap this energy seems to border on torture. By all indications, it would seem that, as suspected, magical entities cannot stand the pure technology construct of the Matrix.
While I can force the farohad to allow me to tap its energies, and through trial and error we have been able to transfer that concentration of light into the Matrix, I am unable to control it once the energy is in the Matrix. Please note this because it explains why we cannot control the effects in the Matrix. The speed at which the light moves is beyond our capacities and the capabilities of the best deckers we have. The spirit’s lack of cooperation makes training the farohad impossible. Our best brains alone cannot match the speed and short-lived usefulness of these bursts of pure light.
By its very nature, a creature composed of light must flow-it must remain in an active state. The farohad cannot “sit around” and wait for instructions. Nor can it remain within the Matrix for more than a nanosecond or two, at most. As a living spirit, it would completely lose its integrity if we tap too much of its elemental power, especially using so many technological systems. At any moment, the creature could dissolve and disappear.
It is thus impossible for the farohad to perform the function you wish it to. In theory, it should simulate the functions of a Matrix gopher program-one with unlimited access to data. It could bypass any intrusion countermeasures, seek out a keyword, reconfigure a portion of its body to exactly duplicate the data that contains this keyword, and return again to a computer to write that copied data on an optical memory chip or datastore. In theory. Obviously, in hindsight, this does not and cannot work. We did not foresee the inherent difficulties in forcing a magical creature into a pure technological construct. Even when we have tapped its energies, we have absolutely no control over the light. It will erase a memory chip or datastore instead of penetrating and copying the information. Without the human mind to understand the technology, we have set loose something, again in theory, that can destroy the Matrix.
I cannot in good conscience continue to subject the farohad to this torture, only to prove what we already know-magical entities cannot exist in the Matrix and that light travels faster than the human mind. I believe that with the data we have learned we may be able to use the farohad’s energy in the Matrix to create knowbots that function in a similar way-knowbots at least would be fully under our command. And from what I understand, our Software Division is very interested in what we have learned. If you approve this, I would be able to release the farohad. I cannot permit the farohad to die in captivity. I intend that it should he free-free to return to the paradise that is its natural habitat.
I have already outlined my opposition, on religious grounds, to the direction in which the Mitsuhama Seattle lab has taken my research. While I realize that my moral arguments cannot persuade you, I hope that the practical problems I have outlined above will do so. This project must be discontinued.
I cannot, in good conscience, continue this work. I hereby request a leave of absence, effective immediately, and a release from my contract with Mitsuhama.
Farazad Samji.
Automatically, Carla framed the memo with her cybereye. did an overall shot, then went to macro-focus and scanned the lines one by one so that they could be assembled later into a scrolling graphic. But even as she performed these mechanical functions, her mind was reeling. She’d jumped to the wrong conclusions not once, but twice. Mitsuhama hadn’t developed the spirit for use as a new form of para-biological weapon. They hadn’t even intended to use it as a virus-although it could certainly be put to that purpose, as Carla had done earlier in the Byte of the Future display. The corporation had instead been after the holy grail of magicians and deckers alike-an “interface” device that used magic as a bridge to the Matrix. They’d intended to use the spirit as an organic, magically based computer-as hardware and software in one. As a program that could ignore ice, enter any system freely, and use its own body to copy any data it found, no matter how much encryption was used to protect it. Had it worked, it would have been the ultimate stealth program and ultra-high-speed master persona control program, rolled into one.
Except that no mage or decker could control it.
And now its energy was running amok in the Matrix, randomly wiping data and crashing systems in an effort to get back at the man who had conjured it and forced it to enter the Matrix in the first place. The man who had presumably set it free, only to have the spirit turn on him and burn the life from him.
Carla stared at the project name: Lucifer Deck. Farazad Samji certainly considered the spirit to be an angel-a farohad. His boss had probably dreamed up the word Lucifer, putting a Christian spin on the concept. Lucifer, the “bringer of light,” the shining angel who later fell from heaven in the form of lightning and became Satan, lord of darkness. The name choice was both ironic and appropriate. The spirit-Lucifer-was indeed the fallen son; instead of serving Mitsuhama, it now was trying to destroy the corporation’s kingdom-the Matrix. It was, in every respect, as unruly and antagonistic an angel as the original Lucifer had been.
Carla folded the paper and slipped it into a pocket. That was it. She had what she needed. Her incursion was a wrap. But she’d been trained to be thorough, and so she peeked into the only other room she had yet to explore-a private office. Judging by its comfortable, overstuffed chair and plush carpet, it must belong to the lab’s director. If so, the work station it contained just might contain some other, vital piece of information that Carla could weave into her story.
The data terminal here, like those in the front room, had been taken apart and its central processing unit removed. Carla wasn’t going to get anything from it. And the rest of the room didn’t hold anything of interest; there was no enticing hardcopy lying about. She was just about to leave when she noticed an electronic daytimer that had fallen onto the carpeted floor, under the workstation itself. It was a micro-thin model, no more than a few centimeters long. Picking it up, she thumbed the button that activated it.
The tiny liquid-crystal screen on the top of the data-pad came to life, revealing a name and title in an ornate gold font: Ambrose Wilks. Director MCT Seattle.
Curious to see what the daytimer contained, Carla paged through its entries, starting with a date three weeks ago. To her mounting disappointment, she saw that all of the entries were personal appointments and self-reminders: Pick up Valerie after school. Lunch with Yuki, 2 p.m. Retirement present for Sabrina. No wonder the datapad had no log-in code. It didn’t contain anything incriminating at all. Still, she continued doggedly on through the entries, right up to today’s date. And then gasped when she saw the name listed there: Meeting with Aziz Fader, 6 pm. Alabaster Maiden Nightclub.
Blast that man! Carla had asked Aziz, after their visit to Evelyn Belanger’s home yesterday, about his offer to sell Mitsuhama the information it needed to control the spirit. He told her that he was just sending out feelers to see if the corporation was interested-that it would be a day or two, at least, before he’d learned enough about Pita’s magical abilities to make a serious sales pitch. He promised Carla he wouldn’t begin negotiating with the corporation until after she’d put her story to bed. But he’d been lying. He’d gone ahead and set up this meeting with the director of the research laboratory without even asking if it would slot up her story.
Had Aziz already sold out Pita, turning over this “key” to the spell formula to Mitsuhama for a large chunk of nuyen? More to the point, had he sold out Carla? Was he telling Mitsuhama, even now, how far she’d gotten with her story on their research project?
Carla was furious. She glanced at her watch. It was already nine o’clock; Aziz would probably be home from the meeting with Ambrose Wilks by now. He wouldn’t have stayed to party at the nightclub, even though it was a Saturday night. When Aziz was hot on the trail of a new magical formula, he was as much of a workaholic as Carla. He’d rush right home and pick up where he left off-and would probably work through the night.
Carla pulled out her cel phone and started to dial Aziz’s number. But then she realized what she was doing, and thumbed the Off button. The confrontation would have to wait until she was out of this place. The thing to do now was get back to the station and file the footage she’d just shot.
Still angry, Carla headed for the main room and shut off the fuel cell. She stood for a moment or two in the silence, debating which exit to take. The door marked “emergency” probably led straight to the surface. It would be the quickest way out. But she didn’t know what she’d find there. The carefully landscaped grounds were probably patrolled by security guards and bristling with hidden sensors. The smarter thing to do would be to go back the way she came. She still had the employee ID badge, after all. It wasn’t that late yet. She could just say she’d been putting in a little overtime, and stroll right out the front doors. But she had to check on something, first.
She used her cel phone again, this time calling a different number. Corwin answered on the first ring.
“Albert’s Auto Body. Wha’s’up?”
“I was just calling back about the Runabout. It looks like I’ll be able to pick it up tonight; I’ve finished work now. Can I come right over? Is anyone in the shop?”
“Just a minute. I’ll have to check.”
After a few seconds, Corwin was back. His voice held a note of self-satisfaction. “You sure can, ma’am. The shop is empty, but I’ll he here”
“All right. Thanks. Bye.”
She hung up with a satisfied smile. At least this part was going according to plan. Once again, Corwin had come through for her. Worried that the Movement Match program would be discovered if he left it in Mituhama’s computer system for any length of time, he’d wiped it as soon as Carla stepped out of the elevator. In its place, he’d rigged a simpler and less detectable “glitch.” He’d altered the programming of both the camera in the elevator and the side corridor on the thirtieth floor that led to it so that they were being fed a continuous loop of previously recorded data. According to the information provided by these cameras, both the elevator and corridor were now “empty”-and would remain that way, even when Carla passed through them. Carla would be invisible until she exited the elevator and turned the corner into the main hallway on the thirtieth floor. With luck, any security guards watching the monitors would assume that she had come out of a nearby office. She’d even mime closing a door behind her, to complete the illusion. With luck, they’d assume that Evelyn Belanger was still down in the lab.
At that point, it would only be a matter of getting out of the building itself. If something went wrong-if it came down to a serious confrontation with the security guards on the way out, she would give up the pretense, say who she really was, and rely upon her reputation-and KKRU’s pull-to get her out in one piece.
Carla stepped into the elevator and hit the icon that would take her to the thirtieth floor. When the doors sighed open, she strode out, anger at Aziz still bubbling inside of her. She’d show that…
She saw something move, and came to an abrupt halt. No more than five meters ahead of her, passing through the T-junction where this side corridor met the main hallway, was a gigantic, coal-black dog. It padded along the corridor, its claws making faint clicking noises. Twin jets of searing blue flame puffed from its nostrils as it breathed. It stood a meter high at the shoulder, on powerful, muscular legs. As Carla stood, frozen in place, it turned to look down the corridor at her with eyes that were like glowing pits of fire. Flattening its ears, it bared gleaming white teeth. It stood its ground blocking the corridor and staring at Carla with eyes that burned with merciless, fiery intensity.
For a heartbeat or two Carla stood, afraid to move. Then slowly, she backed away from the creature. She took one step, two-and found the closed elevator doors a hard and unyielding wall against her back. This corridor was a short one, with no other exits-a dead end. There wasn’t even an emergency stairway. She was trapped with a magical creature that might attack her at any moment. And she didn’t have the first idea what to do.
The cel phone was still in her hand. Carla considered her options, then slid a finger over to the redial icon and tapped it twice. As the phone automatically dialed Aziz’s number, Carla activated its video pickup. Mitsuhama might be monitoring the call, but if they were, the worst that could happen would be that they would find her sooner, rather than later. Before the hideous black dog tore her to shreds.
As the call went through, the tiny screen on the cell phone came to life. It showed Aziz hunched over a book, reading. He was busy scanning text with an electronic stylus and spoke without looking up. “Yes? Do we have a deal?” Then he did a double take as he saw Carla’s face on the screen of his telecom. “Oh, it’s you, Carla. Sorry. What do you want?”
Carla bit back her anger and spoke as softly as she could. “I’m in trouble, Aziz, and I need your help.”
“What’s wrong?”
With a trembling hand. Carla turned the cel phone lightly so that its visual pickup took in the slavering dog that had begun to slowly advance toward her.
“Holy drek!” Aziz exclaimed. “That’s a hell hound. don’t make any sudden moves, Carla. It’ll tear you apart.”
Thanks, Aziz, Carla thought. Just what I needed hear.
Aziz paused, then peered at his telecom screen. “Where are you, Carla? You aren’t calling me from the…” His eyes widened. “You’re there now, aren’t you?”
“What should I do, Aziz?”
Aziz gave her a worried frown. “It must be part of the building’s security system, Carla,” he continued. “Just hold still. Its handler will be along as soon as he sees you on the monitor, to call it off. If you don’t make any threatening moves in the meantime, you’ll be fine until he arrives.”
For a second or two, Carla was reassured. The hell hound had paused in its advance. It stood about a meter away from her now-still in a crouched position, ready for instant action-but for the moment seemingly content to stand and watch her. Even from this distance, Carla could feel the heat of its fiery breath. She didn’t want it to get any closer. She’d do what Aziz said-hold still until the animals handler came.
Then Carla groaned. “Its handler won’t be able to see me unless he has a telepathic link to the animal, Aziz,” she said in a whisper, moving her lips as little as possible. “The security cameras in this area have had their data re-rezzed. Unless someone is monitoring this cel phone frequency, nobody knows I’m here.”
“You’re in an office complex. Somebody will eventually come. Just wait where you are.”
Yeah, right. Wait until someone noticed that the hell hound was no longer on the monitors, and came looking for it. She might get out of here alive, but she’d lose her story. Mitsuhama’s security guards would discover the hardcopy in her pocket and realize immediately what she’d been up to. They’d probably be bright enough to scan for a cybereye, and when they found it, they’d take her chip with all of her eyecamera’s data on it. And that would be the end of her story.
There had to be another way out. Aziz hadn’t been any help at all. But perhaps if she…
Looking at the hell hound, Carla saw that it had stayed its advance. Slowly, a millimeter at a time, she raised her free hand toward the pocket of her jacket. If she could ease Farazad’s credstick from her pocket, maybe she could get the elevator doors to open again, with Corwin’ s help. She’d go back through the lab, take the emergency exit this time.
“I’m going to hang up now, Aziz. I have to call someone.”
“Be careful how you enter the numbers. Carla. The hell hound might think your cel phone is a weapon. It will be trained to attack anyone who…
Carla had stopped listening to him. Her fingers touched the fabric of her jacket. Now it was just a matter of sliding her hand into her pocket and-With a lunge, the hell hound launched itself at her.
Instinctively, Carla screamed and flung up her hands. The animal smashed into her, knocking her back against the elevator doors. Then she was down on the floor with the creature on top of her. Its baleful, glowing eyes stared into hers, and its claws dug painfully into her skin through the fabric of her clothes. The blue flames from its nostrils flared and ebbed, flared and ebbed, washing her face with waves of heat. It stood poised on top of her, mouth open, white teeth gleaming. Even as Carla’s natural eye filled with tears, she focused the trideo camera in her cybereye for a tight shot of the hell hound’s face. If she was going to die, she was going to die shooting trid. Her last shot would be a dramatic one. Even as her mind whirled with fear, a tiny part of it was writing the lead-in to the piece: “This astonishing footage was shot by KKRU reporter Carla Harris just seconds before her death.”
Aziz’s voice shrilled from the eel phone, which had fallen to the floor somewhere behind her. “Carla! What’s happened? Are you… alive?”
Carla choked out a sob. Aziz might have screwed up her story, might have already sold her out. But he was the only one she could turn to now. “Aziz,” she gasped. “Help!”
25
“You’re crazy!” Masaki shouted into the telecom unit. “The spirit is dangerous. It’s just as likely to kill Carla as to save her!”
A three-dimensional image of Aziz glared at the reporter from the projection unit of the telecom. “You’re wasting valuable time, Masaki. Bring the girl to the address I gave you. Now. Every minute counts.”
Pita rubbed the sleep from her eyes and sat up. She’d been sleeping on the couch in Masaki’s apartment and had only heard fragments of the conversation. Something about Carla, the spirit-and herself. She leaned forward, listening avidly.
Masaki shook his head at the telecom. “No,” he said firmly. “I’ll get in touch with the building’s security guards. They’ll call the guard dog off.”
“It’s a hell hound, not a guard dog,” Aziz spat back. “And what do you think its handlers will do when they find an intruder who’s compromised the security of a top-secret research facility? The security guards aren’t just going to politely ask who she is and then let her go. Any questioning they will do will be brutal. And if they don’t get the answers they want…”
“Carla’s a reporter covering a story,” Masaki countered. “The station will back her up.” His voice, however, held a hint of uncertainty. Aziz pounced upon it.
“She’s also someone who illegally broke into a restricted area of a powerful corporation, and that makes her no better than a shadowrunner,” he said. “Do you honestly think Mitsuhama cares about adverse publicity when it can downplay the incident as security guards who were ‘just doing their jobs’? And what’s to stop them from coming after anyone else connected with the story? You could be next, Masaki. Your byline was on the original report, too. You even did a stand-up for it, as I recall.”
The reporter wet his lips nervously. “I still don’t think that using the spirit is the right thing to-”
“What’s happening?” Pita asked.
Masaki turned, surprised to see her. He’d obviously forgotten she was there.
“Carla’s been trapped in the Mitsuhama complex by a hell hound. Aziz wants to use the spirit against it. He seems to think that if he can attract its attention again, you can control it. But that’s crazy. I don’t see how you could possibly help. Control a spirit that’s already killed one mage? Impossible! You’re just a kid with no formal magical training. I won’t allow it.”
Pita narrowed her eyes. Just a kid, huh? Yeah, just a dumb ork kid who could be shoved around by the police and shunted off to a group home when she became inconvenient. She pushed the blankets to the floor and stood up. Her eyes bored into Masaki’s. “I can so control it,” she told him in a level voice. She turned to the telecom unit. “What do you want me to do, Aziz?”
The mage spoke rapidly. “Remember the boarded-up Stuffer Shack you came to in astral form when the spirit was attacking me?”
Pita nodded.
“I want you to go there-in person-as quickly as you can. I’ll give you the address. I’ll meet you there and explain what we have to do. I’ve ordered a taxi for you. Tell the driver to hurry.”
Pita started to answer, but Masaki cut her off. “Never mind the taxi,” he told Aziz. “I’ll drive her.”
Pita stared at him. “I thought you forbade me to do this.”
Masaki said goodbye to Aziz, and tapped off the telecom. Then he sighed. “You’re obviously going to go through with this crazy idea, no matter what I say. You think I want to sit here, worrying about you and wondering if you’re all right? I intend to be there. In case anything goes wrong.”
Pita blinked, surprised. If the spirit refused her commands and attacked, there would be nothing Masaki could do. Except, maybe, get fried alongside her and Aziz. Perhaps the reporter really did care about her, after all. But there wasn’t any time for speculation. Aziz had told her to hurry. She scooped up her jacket from the floor and shoved her feet into her sneakers.
The drive to the shop was a quick one-traffic was relatively light for a Saturday night, and for once Masaki seemed more than willing to break the speed limit. He didn’t say a word to Pita, but instead sat in a tense silence, drumming the fingers of one hand nervously against the steering wheel. It wasn’t until they reached the boarded-up Stuffer Shack and parked in front of it that he at last spoke.
“Aziz asked me to bring this,” he said, reaching into the back seat and lifting out a portable trideo camera. “He wants to document this. I guess something rubbed off when he was living with Carla; there’s a little reporter in him, too.” He gave Pita a forced smile. She supposed he was trying to be funny.
Pita clambered out of the car and made her way into the boarded-up building. The convenience store looked much as it had during her astral visit to it. The counters and display racks were still covered with dust but the floor was swept clean. On it, a hermetic circle enclosing a pentagram was marked in faintly luminescent paint. Aziz knelt beside it, laying out earth, water, and a lighted candle in the angles of the pentagram. He looked up at Pita, then smiled as he saw the reporter.
“Thanks for coming, Masaki. Set your camera up over there, and then stay put. Whatever happens to us, don’t try to cross the hermetic circle. You’ll only make things worse if you do manage to break it-not to mention putting yourself in danger. And keep your camera rolling. If the spell fails, the trid may help me learn what did wrong.”
He waved Pita over. “You, Pita, will sit here, at the apex of the pentagram. Once you’re in position, it’s vital that you don’t interrupt the protective spell I’ll be casting or try to leave the circle. It’s best if you don’t try to move at all. Just close your eyes and concentrate on the spot on your aim where the spirit wrote its name. When you feel its presence, use the visualization techniques we talked about earlier, and form a clear image of Carla in your mind. Then picture the hell hound-a big black dog-and order the spirit to attack it. If it helps, you can speak the command out loud as well as in your mind. The spirit will be forced to obey you once it’s under your mental control.”
“What if I can’t control the spirit?” Pita chewed on her lip, feeling nervous. She was just starting to realize the danger she was placing herself in. Her earlier bravado and pride had evaporated, leaving her with second thoughts. She looked at Aziz’s heat-blistered skin, and scratched the itchy spot on her arm, remembering the sharp sting when the spirit had burned her.
“If you feel the spirit getting the better of you-if you find you can’t control it-then raise your arm and wave it away,” Aziz answered. “You’ve already banished it once. This time, you’ll be inside the hermetic circle. The simple act of raising your fist against it should be enough to drive the spirit away, as long as the force of your will is behind the action”
The force of her will. Now Pita was really nervous. Her magical powers weren’t, strictly speaking, under her direct control. She couldn’t be certain they would manifest themselves here tonight. She eyed the door, tempted to back out. As if sensing her fear, Aziz moved to close it, then secured the door with a chain and padlock. “We don’t need any interruptions,” he said.
He crossed to the hermetic circle and motioned impatiently for Pita to sit down. “Come on,” he said. “Carla’s life depends upon this. You don’t want the hell hound to kill her or the security guards to catch her, do you? We’re the only chance she’s got.”
Pita hesitated. She couldn’t tell if that was genuine concern for Carla in Aziz’s voice. From what Carla had said, she and the mage had been pretty close, once. But that had been years ago. Aziz’s story about Carla and the hell hound might be nothing more than an elaborate hoax, dreamed up by the mage to trick Pita into helping him to control the spirit. Carla might not be in any danger at all. But then Pita shook her head. That didn’t make sense. The spirit had nearly killed Aziz the last time he’d messed with it. He wouldn’t be willing to risk his own life again without a good reason. Would he?
If Carla’s life were really in danger, Pita was obligated to do what she could. The reporter might have lied about doing a story on how Lone Star killed Chen, but she’d saved Pita’s ass when the yakuza came gunning for her and Yao. Pita owed her one for that. Besides, Pita was curious. Could she really do it? Control a spirit that corp mages and other experts like Aziz couldn’t get a handle on? The thought of having so much power at her fingertips was tempting. Just let anyone try to call her “porkie” again with a spirit backing her up. She’d show them.
“Show me where to sit,” she told Aziz.
Masaki watched her from a corner of the room. “You don’t have to go through with this, Pita,” he said. The wheeze was back in his voice. “It’s not too late to call-”
“Keep quiet!” Aziz snapped. “If you call attention to yourself, the spirit might choose you as a target.”
Masaki swallowed, then moved so that a dusty counter was between himself and the hermetic circle. He adjusted his trideo camera nervously. A tiny red Eight came on. “We’re rolling,” he said.
Pita sat where Aziz told her to, cross-legged at the apex of the pentagram. She toyed with the laces of her sneakers as the mage positioned himself within the hermetic circle. He lay on his back, clutching a broken chunk of window glass and staring up at the store's grimy skylight, his head beside Pita’s feet. He cautioned Pita and Masaki once more about interruptions, then took a deep breath and began to chant.
Pita couldn’t understand a word Aziz said. She glanced at Masaki, moving only her eyes. Her arm itched, but she didn’t dare scratch it. Instead she worried the tip of her shoelace between blunt fingers, afraid to shift position.
Masaki gave her a nervous smile from the shadows. His face was seamed with worry lines, and his gray moustache was twitching as a tic tugged at his lip. Was it only Pita’s imagination, or could she see the reporter more clearly now? Something was shining in through the skylight.
Aziz just kept chanting, his voice droning a series of weird, harsh sounding words.
Panic began to claw at Pita’s gut as the interior of the Stuffer Shack grew steadily brighter. What was she doing here? Masaki was right. Despite any natural shamanic talents she might have, she was untrained. Just a kid, and way out of her depth. It took everything she had to fight back the urge to jump up and run.
Out of the corner of her eye, Pita saw movement. Not overhead, where the spirit would materialize any moment, but down low, in a corner by the floor. Was that moving shadow cat-shaped? Was the whirring of Masaki’s trideo camera really starting to sound like a purring cat? Or was Pita just going crazy?
Then she felt the brush of soft fur against her hand. Cat! The touch calmed her, gave her the courage she needed to resist getting up and running from the room. She flexed mental claws, preparing for what was to come.
Suddenly a bright spiral of light flashed overhead, throwing the room into stark relief. Masaki let out a horrified cry and threw up his arms, then ducked down below the counter, leaving his camera running. Aziz raised the jagged sheet of glass be held, chanting louder, stronger. He twisted his head away from the light, staring back at Pita and raising a finger to point at the ceiling. Then he squeezed his eyes shut.
The light that filled the room was painfully bright. Taking her cue from the mage, Pita closed her own eyes. She didn’t want to look up, to see the spirit looming above her. She could feel its heat on her body. At the same time, shivers ran through her, making the hair on her arms rise. Instinctively, she clutched at her forearm, squeezing the spot where the spirit had burned her, trying desperately to concentrate.
“Carla,” she croaked fearfully, visualizing the reporter’s face in her mind. She concentrated, adding the image of a huge black dog menacing the reporter. “Kill it,” she whispered fiercely. “Save her.”
The light strobed around Pita, dazzling her eyes with red spots, even through her closed eyelids. She could feel the heat beating against the top of her head and shoulders. Sweat trickled down one cheek. The spirit was pressing closer. It was coming for her, trying to suck her up into its spinning vortex. She couldn’t control it. She’d never control it. The thing would tear her body to atoms.
“Go!” Pita leaped to her feet, raising her burned arm. She pointed to the skylight, focusing her will in an arrow-straight line. “Go!”
At that same moment, Masaki began to scream her name. “Pi-”
Suddenly the convenience store lay far below her. She was a flash of light, streaking through the star-speckled heavens. Arcing up, then swooping down and skipping across the lake below. Flashing in a jagged ladder toward a series of six silver towers with black-tinted windows. Rushing in through one of those squares. Zig-zagging impossibly fast along a corridor that was more a boxy blur than a hallway. Coming suddenly upon a dark-haired woman, sprawled on the floor on her back, a huge black dog atop her, fangs a few centimeters from her throat. Arcing down, plunging in through the animal’s burning red eyes, sizzling them in an instant and piercing its brain. Then out again through its nostrils in twin white beams, so quickly that the animal had no time even to collapse, so quickly that the woman below it had not yet even blinked. Back through the hallway, back up into the heavens. Expanding into a flash that spread paper-thin over hundreds of kilometers, stretching ever outward into a sheet of lightning, waiting, waiting, while the nanoseconds ticked by with impossible slowness…
Pita’s mind sluggishly formed a thought. Control. Command?
She could sense the spirit’s impatience-its desire to flow, be free. And its anger. Somewhere below were fiber-optic cables, humming hardware, and knots of computer nodes that together spread an invisible mesh across the globe. The Matrix. A sticky spider web into which the spirit was forced to throw itself, compulsively returning over and over again. Break, it hissed at her. Tear.
Pita felt the creature’s anger blaze through her mind. There, it joined with her own. An image formed in her consciousness. A cop’s face, leering at her, twisted with hatred. A chromed hand. A patrol car, hissing through the night.
The spirit coalesced into a point, then shot down toward the city in a jagged streak of lightning. Pita watched from an impossible height as it zoomed down into the street where the beams of headlights crisscrossed, frozen like rays of ice. In through the tinted windshield of a police patrol car.
Through the glass she saw two frightened faces, washed with brilliant light. Their eyes were squinted tight, their hands thrown up as if to ward off a blow. One of those hands was chromed. The patrol car was just starting to spin in response to the driver’s panicked reaction. Kill? a voice whispered in Pita’s mind.
In the same instant, Pita heard an echo. A second voice had overlaid the first. It somehow seemed more in tune with Pita’s own thoughts. No, it whispered with a soft purr. Play.
Recognizing the voice of Cat, Pita tried to smile. She felt her brain start to send the command to her lips. The world she was occupying was moving much too quickly for it to get there. Yes, the first voice echoed, long before Pita could either agree or disagree with the suggestion. Play.
Fingers of light licked out at the two cops in the patrol car, searing their faces, crisping their hair, blinding them instantly. A part of Pita exulted, enjoying the fear and pain the spirit was causing. These were the two cops who had killed Chen, Shaz, and Mohan. She had them now, right between her paws. She could bat them about or rend them with her claws. She would draw their blood a little at a time and savor the taste of their scurrying panic.
At the same time, another part of her was repulsed. What was she doing? She’d ordered the spirit to kill the hell hound without a second thought. But this was torture. And it was ugly. Suddenly horrified at what she had become, she drew back violently from the scene that was unfolding…
Something snapped. A light blinked out in her mind. At the same moment, her muscles twitched her lips into a smile, at last obeying the command that her brain had seemingly sent hours ago. She opened her eyes on a darkroom, her mouth curled in a foolish grin.
“Pita? Are you all right, Pita?”
Masaki peered at her from behind the counter, eyes wide with fear. He clambered to his feet, then edged around the corner of the counter, one eye on the skylight. Beside him, the trideo camera was still whirring softly.
Aziz rolled over, groaning and rubbing his eyes. Then he jerked around to look up at the ceiling. “Where is it?” he asked suddenly. “Where’d it go?”
Pita sighed as relief made her body rubbery. “It’s gone. I let it go.”
Aziz clasped her knee. “Were you able to control-”
“Yes” Pita answered. Her arm was itching fiercely. And she was dead tired. The spell seemed to have taken a lot out of her. “Can I get up now?”
“Of course.” Aziz helped Pita to her feet and guided her out of the hermetic circle. “We did it!” he chortled, slapping her on the back. “We controlled the spirit!”
“You mean Pita controlled it,” Masaki interjected. He moved closer to Pita, then wrapped an arm protectively around her shoulders. Pita slumped against him, too tired to protest at him taking the liberty of hugging her. Actually, it felt kind of nice.
“Pita didn’t do it on her own,” Aziz said. “She’s not a trained-”
An electronic beeping in a corner of the room cut him off. Aziz ran over to it and picked up a cel phone. “Yes?”
After listening for a second or two he flipped the phone shut. “That was Carla,” he said with a broad smile. “The hell hound is dead. Carla’s a little shaken up, a little bloody, but she’s on her way out of the MCT building now.”
26
Carla twisted a scanning stylus between her fingers, trying to contain her anger as she stared down Greer. The scratches from her close call with the hell hound stood out as red welts on her hands. “What do you mean, the story is spiked? I got what you wanted-proof that Mitsuhama Computer Technologies was behind the spirit. I’ve even got a hardcopy document addressed to the director of their research lab, outlining the uses the corporation planned to put this tech to. I risked my drekking life to get it and nearly got mauled by a hell hound in the process. I spent all day yesterday-my day off-putting the piece together. I have footage of a hermetic circle in the Mitsuhama lab that matches the diagram on the datachip, and I obtained a collaborating quote from a Renraku source who admits that their corporation is also experimenting with Farazad’s spell. And all you can say is, ‘The story is spiked’? I can’t believe it!”
Greer leaned back in his padded chair, rocking uneasily back and forth. He seemed distinctly uncomfortable. Usually when he called a reporter in for one of his infamous “private conferences” he would bluster and roar like an angry bear. The whole newsroom would hear the dressing down, regardless of whether the door was shut or not. Normally, he and Carla would have gone at it tooth and nail, shooting at each other across the desk, and eventually-maybe-Carla would win and the story would air. But today Greer refused to be provoked. Instead he picked up his mug and took a sip of soykaf that had long since gone cold.
“You heard what I said,” he said gruffly. “The story’s not going to air. Drop it.”
“That’s insane!” Carla protested. “This story is huge. Not only does it imply that magic might be used to access the Matrix, but it foretells a possible repeat of the Crash of 2029. It’s a groundbreaking story-and ironic, too, Imagine a corporation secretly developing a magical spirit that could single-handedly destroy the entire information and telecommunications industry! You can’t bury a story like that! If KKRU doesn’t run it, somebody else will.”
“No they won’t,” Greer said quietly, staring at his soykaf as he swirled it gently around in its cup. Beside him, a wall-mounted monitor broadcast a super-heavyweight boxing match. The sound had been muted; the trolls on the monitor traded silent blows. Greer kept glancing at it. “Nobody’s going to-”
Carla was too wound up to listen. She rose to her feet, pointing her scanning stylus at her producer. “If KKRU won’t run the story, I know a station that will. NABS has promised me a reporter’s slot if I can prove my worth to them. I’ll jump ship this minute-and take the Mitsuhama story with me-if you won’t air it.”
That made Greer look up. He set his cup down as Carla stormed toward the door, and half-stood behind his desk. “Carla. Wait!”
Carla paused, one hand on the doorknob. “Well?”
Greer moved around the desk and laid a meaty hand on her shoulder. “I agree with you, Carla. One hundred per cent. It’s an excellent story-the best you’ve ever done. And Wayne’s done a brilliant job of editing. It really has punch. But I can’t run it, much as I’d like to, because-”
Carla didn’t wait to hear his excuse. “They got to you, didn’t they?” she whispered. She searched Greer’s eyes. “I don’t understand it, Greer. What could Mitsuhama possibly threaten you with? It’s not as though you have a family to worry about, or that you scare easily. You didn’t back down on doing that piece on organized crime in Puyallup, even though Jimmy Chin threatened to firebomb your car if it aired. What could Mitsuhama possibly have done to frighten you off?”
Greer’s hand fell away from Carla’s shoulder. His attention strayed once more to the monitor that was showing the boxing match. On the screen, one of the fighters fell heavily to the mat. Greer swore softly as the other boxer was declared the winner. Then he walked back to his desk and sat down heavily.
“They bought the station,” he answered at last. “The deal was closed this morning before you came in to work. Mitsuhama owns KKRU. They’re calling the shots now. And they don’t want the story to air.”
Carla frowned, a hot wave of anger rising inside her. “And you’re going to obey their orders?” she spat. “What have you turned into, some sort of corporate lap dog?”
Greer sighed heavily. “I know it stinks, Carla. But I can’t afford to lose my job. I’m due to retire in five years, and I’ll be relying upon the company pension when I do.”
“But you’re a trideo producer,” Carla said, unable to comprehend what she was hearing. “You make a good salary. Surely you don’t need the nuyen that badly.”
“Yes I do.” Greer’s wide cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I…” He pursed his lips, unwilling to finish the sentence.
All at once, the pieces came together for Carla-Greer’s obsession with sports, his constant bumming of drinks from other staffers at the press lounge, the tiny dump of an apartment that he lived in. She glanced at the monitor, then back at Greer.
“You gamble, don’t you?” Carla asked softly. “What did Mitsuhama do, offer to wipe your debts? How much do you owe?”
“A lot,” Greer muttered. He looked up with a sad, self-deprecating smile. “I guess I never should have taken that first job as a sports reporter. That’s when it started-with bets of just a few nuyen between friends. I’ve been throwing my money down the toilet ever since.”
“Oh, Gil.” Carla sank down into the chair in front of the producer’s desk. Her anger had suddenly evaporated into pity. “No wonder you work so much overtime.”
“Yes.” Greer had returned his attention to his cold soykaf.
Carla had been taken aback by the bearish man’s confession. She was saddened by the fact that Mitsuhama had found his weak spot and forced him to dance to their tune. Giving in would be galling for any newscaster. It was especially so for Greer, who cherished his reputation as a tough, no-nonsense newshound. She wanted to reach out, to comfort him. But now was not the time.
“I’m sorry about what happened, Gil,” she said, rising to her feet. “But it leaves me no other option. I’m taking my story to NABS.”
He looked up. “I tried to tell you already, Carla. NABS won’t touch it. No one will. Not if your byline is on it.”
Carla had a sudden premonition of impending doom. Slowly, she sat down again. “Why not?”
Greer looked even more embarrassed as he opened a drawer in his desk. “Given our modem technology, when digitalized images can be edited with a few strokes of a stylus, a news station has only its reputation to fall back upon. The public has to have utter faith that the images they’re watching on their trideo sets are the pure, unaltered truth.”
“Ultimately, it comes down to the credibility of the station’s reporters. If the reporters are perceived to be honest, the station is believed to be credible. But if the reporters are perceived to have compromised themselves in any way, to have lied about their stories-or to have questionable personal lives…”
He paused, and shut the drawer. He focused his attention on the unlabeled optical memory chip he’d pulled from it, refusing to meet Carla’s eyes.
Carla was afraid to ask what was on that chip. The ice water in her gut meant that her subconscious mind already knew.
“Our new boss gave this to me this morning,” Greer said, punching a button on his desk that wiped the boxing match and switched the wall monitor over to a closed-circuit playback mode. Then he got up and closed the blinds in his office window, shutting out the curious faces of the other reporters who were peering up from their work stations, trying to catch a glimpse of Carla’s dressing down.
“I know it’s a lie, Carla, and you know it’s a lie. But when the public sees the images on this chip and hears about your ‘shadow career as a porn star’ and how you kept it in the closet all these years, your credibility will be zero. Nobody will ever take you seriously again.”
Sitting down, he put the chip in the editing unit that was built into his desk and hit the playback icon. He deliberately turned his back to the images that blazed across the monitor. He hadn’t bothered to deactivate the mute, and for this Carla was thankful. She watched in horrified fascination as trideo footage of herself, locked in a naked embrace with Enzo-Mr. November of the Men of Lone Star calendar-filled the flatscreen monitor. After a few moments, she buried her face in her hands. Not only had Mitsuhama found Greer’s weak spot, they’d found hers, too. In spades. She refused to feel guilt for having made the recordings of her romantic liaisons. But she couldn’t help feeling regret-and anguished rage-while watching the trid that could spell the end of her career.
Greer reached over and thumbed the editing unit off. He popped the memory chip and slid it across the desk to Carla. “Here,” he said. “Take it. Wipe it clean. I'm sorry I had to see that. I’m not even going to ask if it’s real or not.”
Numbly, Carla took the chip. She recognized it immediately as the original recording by the scuffs on its yellow plastic case. Wipe it? What good would that do? This was only one chip. The shadowrunners who broke into her apartment had taken dozens of her “personal recordings.” Mitsuhama could have made as many duplicates as they liked of the chip, could be holding back a copy, ready to torpedo her career whenever they wanted to. And she’d never…
“Wait a minute,” Carla said, her reporter’s instincts taking over. “Who, exactly, gave you this chip?”
“Our new boss. John Chang. Head of Mitsuhama Seattle.”
“But the shadowrunners who stole this were working for Renraku,” she said, leaning forward. “That means the two computer corporations are working together to bury this story. But why? They ought to be at each other’s throats, in fierce competition to be the first to develop this new form of magic. If they’re working together…”
“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Greer said, looking pointedly at the memory chip in Carla’s band. “The story is spiked.”
“I realize that,” Carla answered. “But I can’t help but wonder what the sudden cooperation between rivals means. Even if the story never airs, I’d like to satisfy my own curiosity…”
The telecom built into Greer’s desk pinged softly, interrupting her thoughts. He answered it, activating its handset and holding up a hand for silence. After a moment, he handed the handset to Carla.
“It’s for you.”
“Who is it?” Carla mouthed, then put the speaker to her ear when Greer did not reply.
The voice at the other end of the line was polite but firm, with a hint of a Chinese accent.
“Ms. Harris?”
Carla didn’t recognize the voice. “Yes?”
“This is John Chang, vice president of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies' UCAS division, and the new director of KKRU News. I’d like to see you in my office, in the Chrysanthemum Tower. I believe you know where that is. Please report to me here. At once.”