I wasn’t fast, wasn’t fit, but the bathroom was cramped, the corridor was worse and my legs were long. Speed didn’t matter when you only had to take two steps and when your bones were closer to stone than calcium those steps carried the force of a freight train.
My head was dropped, my horns thrust forward in deference to some ancient instinct buried deep in my genes, where they’d laid hidden for the millennia between the Fourth World and the Sixth. That instinct’s thematic opposite was already curled into a fist; my cybernetic arm drawn back to drive a solid mass of alloys and polymers into whatever was left un-gored.
The demon didn’t make a sound in response, didn’t even look fazed as I charged. I had half a second to take in her arrogant posture – her arms and her head tilted slightly in a gesture of naked contempt – before her legs folded beneath her as she dropped into a squat. Above the waist, her body was as still as a statue, even as she swept her leg out in a kick that should have been impossible in a corridor that narrow.
It connected with my left ankle an instant before my foot made contact with the floor, twisting it just enough that I stumbled and fell. The momentum of my own charge, coupled with my unbalanced run, drove me forwards into the wall in a pile of limbs. I barely managed to shift my weight enough to take the blow on my unaugmented shoulder, rather than getting my horns stuck in my bedroom wall.
Pain radiated through my body from the point of impact, even passing down the length of my cybernetic arm as a sympathetic phantom. Below me, I glimpsed the ninja through blurred eyes as she rolled out of the way of my collapsing body, finally uncrossing her arms as she pressed off the carpet and somehow twisted her body up into a cartwheel that put her on her feet again.
My own ascent felt slow and ponderous, but as I pressed a hand against the wall and pulled myself to my full height I found some of my confidence returning to me. It was another little biological trick; there would always be a feeling of power that came from looking down on someone two feet shorter than you. It helped drive the animal panic from my brain; helped me think this through like the Shadowrunner I was supposed to be.
The demon wasn’t fazed, of course. She leant against the wall, her hand resting on her hip as she looked up at me.
“C’mon, deckhead,” she drawled, her voice distorted a little by her mask. “I need to vent some anger and your lanky ass is the perfect punching bag.”
“You screwed up,” I snarled, as I took a lumbering half-step towards her. Some drool had leaked past my right tusk, knocked out of my mouth when I’d slammed up against the wall. I reached up and wiped it away with my cybernetic. It came away blue; I’d caught a whisker with the motion. “You think you’re in control? Think you can just jander in here and fuck with me!?”
All at once, I cut every light in the apartment and wacked every speaker up to full, broadcasting a blare of staticky noise that blew out the systems in three appliances not meant to handle anything more intensive than a gentle beep. I was already running, watching the heat-blob in front of me as it flinched for just a moment, baffled by the sudden absence of light and outpouring of noise. This time my run was steadier, my arms outstretched in front of me.
My hands made contact with her waist, digging into the material of her taksuit as I squeezed the sparse flesh and taut musculature beneath. Idly I was reminded of snakeskin; the surface of the suit was patterned with almost indistinct hexagons. It was nothing more than an afterthought; the sum focus of my mind rested on the forward motion of my legs as I flung myself forward, lifting the ninja bodily off her feet only to slam her back into the ground as I toppled onto her.
Moving on instinct, I drew my fist back and drove it forward with the noiseless momentum of artificial joints and tightly-woven bands of synthetic muscles. I was aiming for her face, ready to knock the false teeth out of her mask’s mocking grin, but she somehow managed to see the blow coming, twisting her head just far enough out of the way that my fist was instead driven futilely into the floor, where it cracked the boards and let out a mechanical squeal in protest.
At the very instant my fist made contact, I let our an involuntary wheezing gasp as the air was driven out of me. I bent double, my head dropping enough to see her heat blob of a hand withdrawing three fingers from my gut. It felt like I’d been shot.
The next blow to hit me came from a clenched fist driven into my side with enough force to roll me off her and onto my back, panting and wheezing as I glared up at the ceiling. She was tall enough that I suspected she was an ork, but she still hit far harder than she had any right to.
She’s an Adept, I realised. The thought almost passed through my mind without comment; whether her punches were imbued with magic was irrelevant next to the fact that they fucking hurt.
I flicked the light back on, filling the heat-blob of her shape with colour. She was standing over me, her hands back on her hips as she leaned down to meet my eyes with the black void of her lenses.
“Now that you know where you stand,” she said, stepping one leg over me and sinking down until we were almost eye to eye, “you’re gonna answer my question.”
I tried to rise, but my core felt like it was on fire and a swift jab to the shoulder had my head bouncing back off the carpeted floor. With her other hand, the adept reached for a long pouch on her belt, unbuckling it to reveal the head of a wicked-looking metal and polymer tomahawk. The sight of it was enough to draw out some last reserve of adrenaline.
I sprang into action, my arms sweeping up to grip the adept by the shoulders even as I found enough strength to throw my head forwards, driving a horn into her mask with the crunch of fracturing ceramic. She reeled back, reflexively driving a punch into my brow that knocked the wind out of me, my grip on her shoulders immediately falling slack as the world span.
I staggered to my feet, grabbing the side of the couch to haul myself up as I watched her blurred shape reach up and remove her mask, letting it dangle down her back along with the hood it was attached to. I couldn’t really see her face, just a blob of dark skin and the vaguest impression of a loose bun of hair.
Then she kicked me, lifting her leg impossibly high to plant her boot directly on my sternum. It was enough to send me reeling back into the couch, and to topple the couch itself so that I rolled over and back onto the floor in a tangle of limbs, bashing my hip against the side of the coffee table. The adept closed on me, her tomahawk drawn.
“Where the fuck is Brian!?”
“B… Brian?” I wheezed through the pain and the shock. “Brian!?”
Wherever the conversation would have gone from there, it ceased in an instant as the room was suddenly bathed in an eldritch light, the colour of a lighthouse reflecting off fog. The glow coalesced in the centre of the living room, right between furious adept and sprawling technomancer, taking shape first as a vaguely-feminine form before more and more details began to materialise.
“Lisa?” I stammered through the pounding of my skull, as the full details of the… apparition became clearer. Lisa’s astral form wore the same trenchcoat as she did in the real world, but beneath it her body was adorned with shamanic sigils and carried a tattoo-like image of a snake slithering over her skin.
She flashed me a wink, then turned to look at the adept – whose grip on her tomahawk had only tightened.
“Hey, Aisha,” she drawled. The name was like a shot to the head. Brian’s sister. “Long time no see.”
“You’ve never seen me before!” the adept – Aisha – shouted back. “Don’t think you can fucking scare me, either! I know how astral projection works; you can’t touch me, you see-through bitch!”
“No, Bitch is the cyborg,” Lisa retorted with a predatory smirk. “I’m Tattletale, and she’s Spider as of a few hours ago. But seriously, all that time you spent watching us and you never guessed I might watch you back? I keep track of all my friends’ sisters.”
She moved closer to Aisha, drifting up slightly so that she was looking down at the ork.
“Good thing there’s only one, huh? Makes it easy. How is life in that little anarcho-punk commune of yours, anyway?”
Something in Aisha snapped. She snarled, her arm moving faster than I could see as she flung her tomahawk at Lisa, the blade passing through her incorporeal body before embedding itself in my wall. My head had begun to clear; I could see naked grief spread across Aisha’s face as her mask shattered. She looked like she’d been crying.
“Okay…” Lisa’s tone was uncertain; that clearly wasn’t the response she’d expected. “Guess I touched a nerve.”
“Where… the fuck… is my brother!” Aisha ground out the words, her voice low and dangerous. Her hand was drifting towards her gun. “He hasn’t been home in three days!”
“…which means you’ve been at his place for three days,” Lisa said, her voice a lot more muted. “What happened?”
“He’s in the hospital,” I jumped in; Aisha looked like she was about to see if she could throttle a ghost, and I knew it was a small leap from that to shooting the only soft target in the room. “He was seriously wounded on our last mission, they’re operating on him now. He’ll be okay, but it’ll be a few days before he’s out.” Some of my anger crept back into my tone. “Why the fuck couldn’t you just ask me that?”
“Fuck…” Aisha sighed, completely ignoring my last question as her shoulders slumped and she seemed to grow visibly tired. “Explains why you’re sporting a new arm, I guess. Fucking bastard.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, though from the look Lisa gave me it seemed I’d stepped on a landmine.
“Who the fuck does he think he is!?” she shouted back at me. “What kind of asshole gets shot for a living but acts like he’s a fucking wageslave with an eight to six counting beans!? Where the fuck does he get off telling me to come to his place if I’m in trouble?!” She beat against her chest to emphasise the point, her anger morphing into dismay.
“Aisha,” Lisa began, much more softly. “What happened?”
“Who shot him?” she snapped at me.
“The Chosen,” I answered. Aisha’s face twisted into a scowl. One of her fists was clenched so tightly I thought she was going to tear the glove of her suit.
“Those skinhead cocksuckers…” Something seemed to shift in the way she was looking at us. I wondered if we’d just jumped across to the other side of a line in her estimation. “You too, huh? Whole lynch mob of them burned down my ‘anarcho-punk commune,’ you smart-mouthed pixie.” The last word was directed at Tattletale, who took it in her stride.
I sighed. “So you went to Brian’s place because he has a spare room for you only for him not to show. But why ambush me?”
“The rest of your crew lives together. They’re a harder target.”
“But why ambush me at all?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head. “Where’s my gun?”
“Under the fridge. Trick for hiding things from a troll is to go as low as possible.”
“Of course…” I trudged over to the fridge, getting down on my hands and knees as I struggled to get my arm low enough to fit into the narrow gap between the fridge and the floor.
“So that’s what he sees in you,” I heard from behind me. I blushed, once again glad that grey skin didn’t colour. My fingers brushed against the trigger of my Executioner, before I managed to get enough of a grip to pull it back out.
“Fuck off,” I snapped, half-heartedly, as I staggered to my feet and set the gun down on the kitchen countertop. I’d been deliberately avoiding thinking about Brian like that since before the last job. At first it was because I didn’t want any distractions going in, but since everything went South I’d been avoiding thinking about it at all. I couldn’t even be sure he’d still be interested after such a traumatic event, or even if he’d really been interested in the first place.
“Your brother’s in the CrashCart hospital,” I said, as a way of changing the subject.
“Shadowrunning pay that much, huh?” she asked, taking the bait. I had a feeling the best way to deal with Brian’s sister would be to keep a stock of conversational shiny objects on hand to distract her.
“We’re moving up in the world, but this came from a deal,” I explained. Lisa looked at me like I’d already said to much, but I was starting to have an idea. “You look like you’re doing well for yourself too; that stealth suit can’t have been cheap.”
Aisha snorted. “Burned most of my savings on it, then the Chosen burned the rest.”
“You snuck in here alright,” Lisa said, her tone contemplative. I think she’d realised what I was going for.
“Taking candy from a baby,” Aisha countered with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I climbed up to your balcony just to make it interesting.”
“We’re on the thirteenth floor.”
“And?” she asked, with a shit-eating grin on her face. “What, you scared of heights?” She stepped in close, making a point of craning her neck to look up at me. “You didn’t seem the type.”
I was about to snap back a response, but Aisha abruptly stepped back from me and, very deliberately, fell backwards onto my armchair, ending up with her hands behind her head and her feet kicked up on the armrest.
“So,” she began. “I figure I’ll hang with you guys from now on.”
“You figure?” I said – almost snarled.
“That’s what you were building up to, right? I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m not a moron. Any team would be lucky to have me; I’m hot stuff, in more ways than one.”
The statement was accompanied by a sweeping gesture that took in her whole body. I decided then and there that there was something I really didn’t like about Brian’s sister. Her confidence bordered on arrogance in her actions, her skills, her sexuality. What made it worse was that she was right on all counts; I’d already been thinking that we needed an infiltrator only to have one drop into my lap, and even though her body had been toned by an adept’s exercise routine, it was clear that she’d still have been beautiful even without much effort on her part.
Damn, that family has good genes.
“Right,” Lisa nodded, though there was a wry look in her ethereal eyes. “I’m sure it’s all on us. Not like you’re desperate to find a new community and keep close to your brother, yeah?”
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The same hand that had swept down her body twisted to flip Lisa off, but Aisha didn’t deny it.
“You’re right,” I nodded. “We do need an infiltrator.” I crossed my arms; I wanted to look stern, drawing up half-remembered memories of mom telling me off for booking it across the road when she’d come to pick me up from school and almost being run over by a box truck. “But if you’re going to stick with us, you’re going to have to be a team player. We’ve got no room for lone wolves.”
“Who died and made you boss?” Aisha snapped back. “You’ve been with them for like five minutes.”
Your brother, I almost said, before I stamped the impulse down with no small amount of guilt.
“Brian’s in the hospital right now because we went up against an overwhelming enemy without a decent plan. We hoped for the best and we got burned. I’m the one with the link to all the cameras, with the picture of the whole operation. I’m the only person in the crew who can see everything, and that means when shit hits the fan, you listen to me. Do that and you’ll earn back your burned savings in a flash.”
I was trying to project the same absolute confidence Aisha seemed to exude so effortlessly, but I couldn’t stop my eyes from flicking over to Lisa. More than anyone else, she could undercut my words in an instant. I knew that I was right, knew that our failure in the last operation had come from a lack of knowledge and control, that I was in the best position to provide both, but Lisa was the one who brought me onto the crew in the first place. She could cast me out or knock me back into my place with a single word. Instead she just stood there, her ghostly projection completely unreadable.
In the end, Aisha broke first. “Sure, whatever,” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. “I’ll play ball. This is the part where I’d turn invisible and fuck off, but you cracked my damn faceplate.”
“Switch on your comm, I’ll transfer the repair bill,” I said – I was so flush from cash compared to where I had been a few months ago that it seemed a completely trivial thing to offer – “but as an advance only, understand? You pay me back after your first job.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she almost rolled off the couch as she sprang to her feet, pulling her mask back up over her face. “I’ll send you my account details, soon as I figure out how.”
She made to leave, though not in the way I was expecting. Instead of taking the front door like a normal person, she put her cracked mask and hood back on, retrieved her tomahawk from my wall, and slid open the door to my balcony, stepping out and vaulting over the side like it was a completely normal thing to do. As she went, I saw a simple comm wink into existence. It was a trivial matter to hack into it and add my contact details, along with the rest of the team’s.
The moment I was sure she was out of earshot, I turned to Lisa.
“Are you okay with this? You said I needed to step up, but I don’t know if this is what you meant.”
“You’re doing fine,” she answered. “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting you to be so pragmatic. She might annoy you, but Imp has a skillset we need and she has a reputation of her own in certain circles.”
“Imp?” I asked, before another thought took its place. Brian had no idea where his sister was. “He doesn’t know you’ve been spying on her, does he?”
“No, he doesn’t. And he won’t.”
“Why not tell him?”
“If I had, he’d have been down at that commune every night asking after her, but all he’d have accomplished would be to drive her away. I’ve always been an empathetic person, Taylor, but nobility teaches you to wield empathy like a weapon. I understand what makes people tick; how they’ll act when they’re nudged in certain ways.”
“Did you nudge me, too?” I asked.
“Ever since our first conversation,” she answered, frankly. “Can you honestly tell me you aren’t better off now than you were then?”
I frowned. She was right – I’d even acknowledged as much earlier that day – but it was still an unpleasant thought.
“You’re shaping up to be a confident and decisive leader, but I think I work best as the power behind the throne.”
“The throne?” I asked. “Aiming a little high, aren’t we?”
“We’re Shadowrunners,” she answered with a shrug. “Reckless overambition is kind of our whole thing.”
Abruptly, something like a whole body shiver seemed to pass through her translucent form, which frayed and faded like a persona running on a bad connection.
“Sorry, omae, I can’t stay out any longer. Astral projection is taxing as hell.”
“I get it,” I said, waving her off. “Thanks for the help. Now and… before.”
She flashed me a wry grin that seemed to linger as the rest of her faded, like she was my very own Cheshire Cat.
“Never been thanked for manipulating someone before. Catch you later, Spider.”
With that, she disappeared, leaving me once again alone in my apartment. The quiet was suddenly stifling, the lack of any noise or activity allowing weariness to seep back into my bones. Reflexively, I reached out in the matrix and made sure my apartment was secure again; Aisha had tricked the lock on the balcony, exploiting some mechanical flaw that I couldn’t affect, but I could draw down the storm shutters and engage their magnetic locks, cutting off the night-time glow of the docks.
I skimmed through icons both familiar and unfamiliar, linking each one to their proper place in my apartment, the neighbouring units, building management systems out in the halls and the one personal area network that was completely out of place.
“Oh shit!” I exclaimed as I undid the lock on my front door and threw it open. The first thing I saw was the shotgun barrel pointed at where the lock had been. Rachel looked like she was a microsecond from firing. Instead, her optics flicked up to take in the empty room.
“Thanks, Rachel,” I said, “but I’ve managed to get the situation under control.”
“Good,” she nodded, an optic flicking back towards the elevator in what seemed like an uncharacteristic hint of uncertainty. “Can I wait here for a while? I think building security called Knight Errant.”
“Of course, come in,” I said, closing the door behind her even as I dug deep into the apartment block’s camera database. It was trivially easy; I used to lay up at night practicing how to hack the building’s network, which meant I had more marks on it than any other system in the city.
Each mark acted as an anchor point onto which I could tether myself, pulling up footage of Rachel storming through the lobby past the one half-asleep guard who jolted up at the sight of a chromed-up killer with a shotgun held ready in her hands. I could have edited the footage to make it look like she was never there, but instead I simply deleted the files outright. Let Knight Errant think this was some Chosen hit with an amateurish off-site decker.
In meatspace, Rachel had wandered into my living room, her shotgun resting on her shoulder as she took in the space. I was getting better at reading the few expressions that crept past her inhuman optics; she was deeply confused.
“Not what I expected,” she said, turning back to me.
“It was my parents’ place,” I answered, shrugging. “I didn’t pick the décor.”
Rachel simply nodded, apparently satisfied with that explanation.
“Listen,” I began, picking the couch back up and slumping down onto it. “You should know, the intruder was Brian’s sister. She’s a pretty good adept and she jumped me looking for him. I made her a pitch and she agreed to join. Sorry for not running it by you beforehand, but you and her won’t get on. I’ll see if I can talk to her before you meet, warn her to tone it all the way down.”
Rachel sat down opposite me, in the armchair I used when I dove into the matrix. It took her a while to say anything; I could see her optics whirring minutely in silent thought.
“She’s good for the team?”
“She fills a niche we don’t have,” I answered. “Right now, we’re only really tooled for brute force. We can infiltrate – we proved that in the dopadrine job – but it’s not what we’re geared around. Imp will give us options.”
“I won’t drive her off. Don’t expect me to make nice.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I leant back, smiling. “Honestly, Alec’s the one that worries me. With you, I knew a warning would be enough, but both Aisha and Alec are the type to enjoy needling people. They’ll probably be at each other’s throats by the end of the week.”
I sighed, feeling the weight of one problem building on another. Things would be so much easier if I thought more like Rachel; I could focus solely on the big-picture practical problems, instead of trying to force my introverted brain through one social issue after another.
“Doesn’t matter, I guess, so long as it improves our chances in the field. We can’t afford another job like the last one.”
“Brian will keep them in line,” Rachel answered.
“Really?” I was surprised, both at the suggestion and that Rachel had said it.
“It’s what he did before you joined,” Rachel answered. “Kept Alec from bugging Lisa, made sure I knew when I was malfunctioning.”
“Yeah, well, he might not be the same person when he gets out. He’s been through a lot, and believe me when I say I know how badly an experience like that can affect someone.”
She didn’t seem convinced, but I knew that was just because her own experiences had changed her into the sort of person who can’t understand something like that. She’d retreated into a cold, logical world where every piece of a machine either functions as expected or is broken, with no states in-between.
“Looks like the pawns have arrived,” I spoke up, breaking the silence. Through the lobby’s camera I had a good view of a quartet of officers in taksuits and face-covering helmets making their way over to the lone guard at the desk, each one of them armed with a rifle.
The guard – an overweight ork with a ratty old revolver tucked into a shoulder holster – spoke to the officers for a few minutes, then gestured for one of them to come behind the desk as he pulled up the CCTV footage on the monitor. It was kind of funny watching his eyes boggle as he realised the files had all been wiped, even as the Knight Errant officers suddenly became a lot more interested. I watched their outgoing comms as they radioed the situation back to control, then waited for them to get their marching ordered from whoever was directing operations that night.
“Any trouble?” Rachel asked.
“We’re all good,” I replied, shaking my head. “I gave them just enough trouble that they’ll leave us alone.” I smiled, as an old memory floated to the surface.
“Did you know that Knight Errant commanders are evaluated by metrics that measure whether their expenditure on crimes is worth the value of those crimes in their contract with the city? Hunting down a lone gunwoman in an apartment block is fine when she’s making a lot of noise and you can follow her on CCTV, but it’s not worth the cost if she’s keeping quiet and has outside Decker support. There’s a whole book about it back there.”
I threw a gesture over my shoulder towards the bookcase containing ‘Militarised Policing or Military Police? Understanding Knight Errant.’ It was one of mom’s favourites, published by some independent printer I’d never heard of and distributed solely to small speciality bookstores that existed in quiet streets far from the main roads.
“And there they go,” I said with a satisfied smirk as the officers filed out of the lobby, switching over to the exterior camera as they got back into their bulky patrol four-by-four. “K-E are running double strength patrols because of the gang war, but that means that each car is costing twice as much in terms of pay.”
“Why not send them out in pairs and accept the higher risk to cut costs?” Rachel asked.
“Not how they think. Culturally, they’re an army. They treat policing like it’s a counterinsurgency; if it gets too hot, hunker down in your forts and move out in force to break up the largest pockets of resistance. You’ve got to remember that when things get desperate, Knight Errant will always prioritise its own interests – and those of Ares – over its contract with the city.”
I was pretty much regurgitating something mom had told me one night when I’d asked her what she was reading. I’d been too young to really understand what she was saying, but I remembered it all the same.
Rachel simply nodded. I could almost trace her thought process as she corrected her knowledge of what Knight Errant’s machine was built to do, reformatting all the inconsistencies into something that functioned for a different purpose.
“How are you holding up?” I asked, changing the subject.
“One Doberman is parts now, to repair the rest. Most of the damage to the van was just dented panels, but the rear axle had microfractures and needed replacing. The Steel Lynx still needs work, but I don’t have the parts yet.”
“Can you source them? If not, I bet someone in Palanquin can point you in the right direction.”
“I have a contact,” she answered.
“And yourself?”
“Undamaged.”
Not what I meant, but I trust your judgement.
“Good. Things are changing, Rachel. Not just with us. Calvert… he’s got plans. I don’t know if he can cripple Medhall – I don’t even know what a crippled Medhall looks like – but I get the feeling that this gang war is just the start.”
“They always have plans,” Rachel shot back, placing a strange emphasis on the word. “They don’t matter so long as you can adapt.”
“Roll with the punches, huh?” I asked. I knew from my stolen memories that it was what Rachel had been doing for her entire adult life, and probably before. “Thanks, Rachel, you’re a good listener. You should be able to sneak out the back, now. Take the fire stairs at the far end of the hall and I’ll unlock the emergency exit for you.”
I watched through the cameras as Rachel made her way down the thirteen flights, even as I followed the irresistible lure of my bed. I almost made it, too; I'd undressed and pulled back the covers when I felt an incoming message pressing at the edge of my simulated commlink. I would have ignored it if it was from anyone else, but I'd logged the number as ‘Mr Johnson,’ which meant it deserved a cursory glance at the very least.
»Please contact me when convenient to discuss the next stage of our arrangement.«
- Number Withheld (00:41:16/24-3-2070)
Getting one last email in before leaving the office? I thought, spitefully. Well, fuck you too.
I called his number, even as I sank back into my bed and crossed my arms behind my head. One benefit of using my brain rather than an actual commlink was that it had no camera, so I couldn’t do a video call even if I wanted to. Our serpentine client picked up after three point four seconds – though I realised in that moment that I had no idea how he answered a call. Eye tracking? Voice activation? Paying someone to press the screen for him?
“Spider,” his voice came through loud, clear and disappointingly awake. “You did strike me as the type to burn the midnight oil, as the expression goes.”
“I can’t say it’s mutual. I figured you’d keep office hours. You racking up overtime?”
“I did not reach my position by counting hours. When my work here is done, I will take the gratitude of my corporation somewhere warm and dry. While I am in this city, however, I will work as long as it takes to see events resolved in my favour.”
“Okay,” I answered, making a mental note not to even consider small talk. “What do you want us to do, bearing in mind we're still a man down?”
Something seemed to shift in the matrix, smothering the line between us in a fog of data. Calvert’s security spider was layering an additional level of encryption over the call. I reached out in turn, but couldn’t spot any unseen observers or trickling data leaks.
“Alabaster has painted a suitable picture of Medhall’s connections to the criminal and political world, but I still require more information on the corporation’s leadership.”
“Which, more particularly, means Max Anders,” I countered.
“Precisely. Medhall is autocratic; understanding the corporation means understanding its patriarch. Max Anders’ inner circle is beyond my reach, but that does not make him unreachable.”
He paused for a moment, as if catching his breath.
“Medhall’s data network was not created in-house. As with most corporations of its size, Medhall lacked the capital and expertise to develop their own software. Instead, they have a long-term lease on their hosts, outsourced software and database support, and an exclusive communications network.”
“Who’s their MSP?”
“Renraku. They have a reputation for neutrality and trustworthiness whose foundations are well-earned. Ideal for the corporate executive who has to keep in contact with members of his board, local political figures and local underworld figures all from the same commlink.”
“So you want me to hack his work comm?”
“No. I want you to hack his personal commlink.”
“Why?” I asked, unable to keep the confusion from my tone. It just didn’t make sense. “Why not target the business through the man? Hell, why not wait until tomorrow and set up a meet with all of us?”
“Because that is what most suits my goals. I did not contact you to discuss why, I contacted you to warn you, specifically.”
“Warn me? About what?”
“My own investigation has uncovered that Anders keeps his family on the same mobile data plan. It will likely be the standard plan for someone of his wealth; all messages end-to-end encrypted, unlimited worldwide data. Renraku calls it the ‘Myo’ package, after the lords of secret knowledge in the Shinto faith. It is their most closely-guarded commercial network.”
“I’ve dealt with complex networks before,” I said, a little insulted. I wasn’t an amateur.
“You have not ‘dealt with’ Renraku. The security protocols used by any member of the Corporate Court would already be beyond anything you have experienced, but Renraku’s main strength lies in computer technologies. They created Deus, the first AI, and even after his insanity they still recruit wild AI for use in matrix defence. It would take a team of deckers to breach the network from the outside. Even then, the breach would be noted and the clients alerted.”
“I take it you have some sort of plan?” I snapped. I didn’t appreciate him regurgitating whatever one of his advisors had told him.
“Unlike other corporations, Renraku is divided geographically, rather than categorically. This means each division needs to have its own physical office supporting their global communications network. The North American office is in Boston, where it is suitably positioned to poach disgruntled NeoNet staff.”
“I see where you’re going,” I said. “Infiltrate the site somehow, get access to the network’s local node by spoofing the correct credentials and work the system from the inside.”
“Precisely. You understand why I’m contacting you now; as talented as he is, Grue’s skills are not suited to this task and I do not care for any needless delay.”
“Then make your offer,” I said. “I’ll pitch it to the others in the morning and get back to you.”
“Forty-thousand.”
Twenty less than the last job, but it’s also less obviously suicidal.
“Make it forty-two thousand. We have a new member – an infiltrator – and it splits nicely six ways. And send me everything you have on this site.”
“Fortuitous timing. Very well, Spider. Now, if you will excuse me, there are other matters that demand my attention.”
Without waiting for a response, he hung up and the line went dead, the security spider reeling back in his encrypted wire. I compiled everything Calvert had told me into an email, gave it to a courier sprite with orders to deliver it to Tattletale, Bitch and Regent at eight AM and finally pulled up the covers, slipping away into a deep sleep filled with unremembered dreams.