»Data for sale; Medhall internal documents relating to dopadrine manufacture and distribution. Projected total output of all Medhall dopadrine production, specific route details for exports from Medhall Pharmaceutical Plant 43-BB, internal shift patterns and employee details for the same. Also included in the package is an analytical assessment of the data, in combination with a partially-redacted audio file of an interrogation, that posits potential criminal activity at Plant 43-BB, linked to the Brockton Bay criminal organisation The Chosen.«
- Bug (17:30:00/23-2-2070)
I cast out the bait, and it didn’t take long for the first fish to bite. The auction house wasn’t one I’d used before, when I’d sold scraps of data on open forums after a client decided they didn’t actually want to pay for my hard work, so I decided their exclusive right to the data they wanted didn’t deserve to be so exclusive anymore.
But that was all handled in regular chatrooms and message boards, little deals for little sums taking place over private messages because I was sure what I was working on was far too insignificant for anyone who actually mattered to worry about. The data I'd managed to lift from Medhall was different, and I didn’t want to rely solely on my own abilities to protect me.
So, inevitably, I’d turned to Labyrinth and asked her if she knew any sites that were secure while being popular enough to boost interest in the auction. I really shouldn’t have been surprised that Palanquin already ran their own site for exactly this sort of transaction; the organisation seemed a lot more... organised than my pop-culture knowledge of Shadowrunning would have me believe.
Faultline wasn't just some guy in the know, passing over Manila folders in the backrooms of a smoke-filled office, or gesturing with one hand to accent a briefing while the other poured a pint of beer with the precise froth to beer ratio that came from a lifetime of practice.
It was a lot more clinical than that; our fixer was a distant figure pulling strings and keeping a finger on the pulse of the Shadows through networks and intermediaries, and as Shadowrunners we only really saw the tail end of her efforts presented as a vetted client and a guaranteed job. It was a business relationship, plain and simple.
If the Palanquin itself was designed to lure in Shadowrunners and clients, like a peacock’s feathers lured in mates or a brightly coloured frog lured in poisoners and exotic junkies, the auction house was designed to appeal to a different sort of clientele and it had clearly been crafted by Labyrinth’s expert hands.
In style, it was Grecian in a way that reminded me of a temple, or perhaps a bank, with smooth polished stone, pristine marble statuary and great carved pillars topped by Corinthian columns.
But that was where the similarities to meatspace architecture ended. Labyrinth had clearly been given a free hand in designing this place, and she'd manifested that freedom in ways that only a digital or semi-digital creature can.
The columns were Escheresque; changing in size and direction in impossible ways, bending while remaining perfectly straight and level. The statues changed completely with only the slightest change in angle; a cavorting satyr atop a pile of gold seemed to dance a jig without ever moving, while a nude nymph pouring water from a jug into a fountain above her head bashfully covered herself no matter where she was viewed from. The space had no ceiling, with floors canted at radically different angles and linked by impossible staircases so that the whole structure resembled a sphere from which all comers had an unobstructed view of my message, which was presented on a carved slate that faced all angles simultaneously.
It was an absolute masterpiece, and every scrap of resonance, every dramatic flourish that had been woven into its digital stone seemed to hum with the promise of potential wealth.
I only wished I could have explored it further, but – microseconds after casting out the bait – someone had already taken the bite.
Or perhaps something would be more accurate. The persona that appeared on one of the floors – a balcony with an arched portico held up by two statues of women in stoles that, despite having the consistency and texture of stone, flowed in an invisible breeze – didn’t do so much as look around the room; its gaze was firmly locked on the prize.
It was an Agent; an autonomous program with the intelligence of a decidedly average dog. Unlike my Sprites, Agents were compiled by corporate code monkeys painstakingly programming its capabilities before packaging it up and selling it like any other piece of online software. Consequently, the Agent looked about as visually uninspired as it got; a not unattractive human woman in a slate grey suit jacket and skirt, who matched the stereotype of the dutiful secretary right down to her lipstick.
If I were asked to create a stock model for a personal assistant Agent, and to make it as mass-market generic as I could, that's what I would have designed. Except I recognised the Agent's code; it was a Mitsutama Consumer Technologies product, and its standard appearance was a Japanese woman in traditional dress. The underlying concept was the same, right down to the implicit sexism and objectification, but that meant that the Agent had been modified after its purchase. As paradoxical as it might seem this was someone – probably a corpo – trying to assert their individuality or community.
I couldn’t be sure, but I suspected this agent belonged to Medhall, and that it was tasked with trawling this sort of auction house and bidding on anything that contained its master’s name. Another handful of Agents arrived milliseconds later, drawn by keywords of their own. Most were as anonymously generic as the Medhall one, but one stood out; a target dummy in a Knight Errant uniform, no doubt drawn in by ‘criminal activity'.
The rest probably belonged to Medhall's competitors, looking for any scrap of advantage they could use to thwart the company’s seemingly inevitable progression to double-A status and true Extraterritoriality. Either that, or they were truly dumb programs that just hung around every auction to reserve a space for the metahumans who’d made the real decisions.
Not that they needed to bother. The Agents had arrived within seconds at most, but there was a fifteen minute gap between the host opening for business and the auction actually beginning. Not to mention that this event happened at the same time every day, so any idle speculators would already know something was being sold. I’d managed to snag top billing, but after me two other packets of paydata were being offloaded by other members of Faultline's network.
Several of the Agents – the ones not entrusted to make financial decisions themselves – flickered out of existence as they left the host, only a few of them being replaced by actual people – distinguishable by their customised personas of varying qualities that reflected the cost of the commlink that was projecting the avatar into cyberspace. Other personas came of their own accord; speculative buyers who were here on the off chance there was anything here they could resell.
Exactly sixty seconds before the auction began, a section of smooth marble flooring rippled as a figure emerged from it as if it were the surface of a still pool, liquid stone flowing like water over her equally-stone body. Labyrinth had clad herself in the garments of Justice; with a blindfold over her persona’s eyes, Hellenistic robes clinging as if they were wet – their marble texture growing somewhat looser to suggest they were rapidly drying in the air – and a set of scales in her hands that sloshed out liquid stone as the technomancer took a single step that launched her up into the centre of the space, where she floated beside the slab that contained my data.
Most of the audience were nonplussed, either because they’d seen this display before and assumed Labyrinth was just another Agent responsible for running the auction, or because they felt they had to keep a stony face to preserve their position in some social game.
As the seller, the Host’s rules rendered me invisible to all of them, and so I didn’t even try to hide my amazement at the sublime display of code involved.
“The auction will now begin,” Labyrinth spoke, her words timed perfectly to ensure that she finished the word ‘begin' at the appointed time, down to the millisecond.
Medhall's algorithm won the frantic, impossibly fast battle for the first bid; setting an insultingly low starting price of just one hundred nuyen – in case the auction hall is completely empty, I guessed. From there, an automatic lock prevented any bids from being registered for another second, to remove the competitive edge algorithms had over users.
I watched as the price steadily ticked up, climbing the ladder from two hundred and fifty to an even six hundred. Almost all of the bids were coming from the algorithms – only the metahumans who'd been specifically summoned by their Agents seemed interested, and even then some of them had already left the host.
But still, the price kept rising, and the first Agent dropped out of the race at three thousand nuyen as it hit the maximum amount of money it was allowed to spend on any one purchase.
It’s funny, I thought as I watched the number gradually climb, it wasn’t so long ago that seeing three thousand nuyen at once seemed like a pipe dream, but now all I can think is that it’s not that much, split five ways.
Still the number rose, slowly but steadily. Labyrinth didn’t visibly move as the bids came in, floating beside the slate as still as the statue she resembled. Instead, the scale in her right hand rose and fell as bids were matched and beaten. One by one the interested parties dropped off, some of them leaving while others remained to bid on the next lots, until there were only two participants left.
Both of them were Agents; the one that I thought belonged to Medhall and the other using a stock avatar that resembled an ork in Cossack garb. Shortly after the bidding rose above ten thousand, the Cossack shimmered as human hands took control of its tiller. The persona that emerged from the haze was a silhouette of a man, like a pitch black void in the air, and he continued submitting bids without comment.
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Labyrinth, however, did react. Her body remained still, but I could feel herself reaching out through the resonance, taking hold of the absolute control she had over the host. I understood why a moment later, as I received a message from the persona – which shouldn’t be possible right now.
»I will double the current price if you can end this auction in my favour, now. My time is precious, and I wish to waste as little of it as possible.«
- 30276043 (17:46:37/23-2-2070)
It was a blatant attempt to cheat the auction, but Labyrinth still hadn’t acted against them.
Is she waiting to see how I react? I thought, even as I wondered how to respond. I wasn’t sure what the best outcome was. Medhall would probably just bury the corruption I’d uncovered, but on the other hand this new mystery metahuman could be working for some criminal organisation and just wanted to know Medhall’s supply source so they could score some dopadrine.
Lisa would have tugged on the anonymous bidder's code until she knew everything there was to know about them, but that wasn’t an option with Labyrinth here – it’d be rude to break the rules of her host. So I thought about how Brian would act.
»Your opponent likely has a pre-set spend limit. If it's slowly approaching that limit, it will have the time to call a metahuman with greater authority. Like your Agent did. If you make a large enough bid now, the auction will close before that human can log on. In this case, money is time.«
- Bug (17:46:49/23-2-2070)
I felt Labyrinth's presence withdrawing back to her persona, as the anonymous bidder took a few moments to consider.
»Well played.«
- 30276043 (17:47:01/23-2-2070)
Labyrinth's scales swung with the weight of his bid, the total jumping up from eleven thousand five hundred to twenty five thousand. I watched, shocked, as Medhall's Agent sent out a frantic burst of data, but it was too little, too late. That was the limitation of Agents, I’d found. Their code was rigid; programmed. They only had as much intelligence as had been built into them, and there’s only so much people can build.
The other limitation was, of course, the metahuman one. Whichever Medhall suit the Agent messaged would have had to put on their cold-sim VR gear, dive into the matrix, request access to the Host and place a bid. Time moved faster in the matrix, and there was no way they’d be able to make it before Labyrinth's scales reached the base of their downwards arc.
Going once, going twice, sold.
The auction closed, the tablet drifting over to the anonymous bidder as the sealed data file opened itself up to them and them alone. He left just as abruptly as he’d arrived, and the auction moved on just as quickly as the next item was brought up, with another fifteen minute wait period to allow interested bidders to notice and congregate.
Labyrinth drifted away from the centre of the Escheresque sphere, disappearing back into the marble pool in the same way she arrived. But I could still feel her watching proceedings through the host, even if her persona had drifted into the metaphorical backrooms of the temple-bank, and when part of that host uncoiled to tug at me I turned to follow it, stepping through the intricately carved fresco behind me like it wasn't even there.
Labyrinth was sitting on a simple stone seat in the middle of a circular chamber. Her eyes were still covered by the blindfold, and her attention was drawn outwards. After a moment, I realised that both this room and the centre of the auction house acted as nexuses of data; places from which Labyrinth could take in the whole of the host at a glance. If this were a meatspace building, the walls would no doubt be covered in security screens. Instead, Labyrinth drew in strands of data directly, like a spider at the centre of a vast web.
She turned to look at me, blindfolded eyes meeting beady, insectoid orbs and seeing each other just as clearly. I was struck again by just how different she felt to anything else I’d encountered in the Matrix.
“It is good that you rejected his offer, and dissuaded him from violating this host's rules,” she spoke. “I did not want to act against another Technomancer.”
“But you would have?” I asked. “If I had broken the rules?”
“Certainly,” she said, and if she wasn’t such a creature of the Matrix she might have accented the gesture with a nod. As it was, I was stuck in the unusual position of being the most expressive person in the room. “I am responsible for this place, and for its rules. Faultline says it is good to have responsibilities. It keeps me from... drifting away.”
“She’s probably right,” I replied. “But this place feels like more than a host you’re responsible for. It doesn’t feel store-bought.”
“It is not,” Labyrinth confirmed. “I made it.”
My eyes didn’t widen, but I knew Labyrinth could see my shock in the resonance that made up my digital form.
“I didn’t know that was possible,” I replied. “I thought it took whole companies to make one of these.”
“It is not easy,” she replied. “Few have the capability, and selling black market Hosts is a significant secondary income for Palanquin. But if you are wondering how, then tell me, how would you describe the Matrix?”
I paused, thinking it over, before returning to a feature that had defined so much of my – or at least my father’s – life.
“It’s an ocean. Each host is an island nation, with its own customs restrictions and laws, and data and users pass between those hosts like ships. It’s not a perfect metaphor,” I clarified – for mom's sake. “The different grids are like dozens of oceans stacked on top of each other – and side by side – offering faster, better looking seas for a premium. But it’s good enough for poetry.”
Labyrinth allowed herself to nod.
“And what,” she asked, “lies at the bottom of this ocean?”
“Nothing,” I answered, as my mind conjured up an image of the black abyss beneath the floating hosts and glimmering data trails of the Brockton Bay municipal grid. “Just the void.”
“You are wrong,” Labyrinth spoke. It wasn’t a theory, or an idea, or another metaphor. It was a statement of fact, and something about her certainty scared me.
Labyrinth looked down at the floor as segments of the tiles that made up the circular room dropped downwards, forming a staircase that descended to a chamber hidden within this hidden security hub.
The room was small, containing two lit torches on the wall that flanked either side of a nondescript wooden door, with a maze-like pattern carved into its surface. It was guarded by two temple maidens, with ancient Greek armour worn over their white robes. Intrusion Countermeasures, strong ones. They carried a spear in their right hand and round shields in their left – with screaming faces painted onto them.
Labyrinth's face, I realised with a start.
“Most people call it the Foundation,” Labyrinth spoke, looking down at the door. “Your ocean metaphor is accurate enough; the grids are the water that sits atop the ocean floor, the hosts are islands rising out of the sea. But to make an island, one must grasp the ocean floor – the Foundation – and pull part of it up into the light, where it changes and becomes both more solid and more malleable. From there, it can be sculpted to suit my whims, or the whims of a client.”
“And every host has this connection?” I asked, and Labyrinth nodded.
“Every host needs it. The Foundation is what keeps hosts stable. No matter how small, they all contain some variation of this door, and they all guard it well.”
I looked closer at the door. It was a masterwork of containment, without any sign of what it kept out. Or what it kept in.
“What’s down there?”
“Madness,” she answered. “Beauty and horror more vivid than anywhere else, existing only when it is observed and constantly shifting at all other times. It is a wondrous place, and deadly for the unprepared.”
The floor rose again, the doorway to the Foundation disappearing back into its hidden chamber as Labyrinth rose from her seat.
“Thank you, Bug, for speaking to me. The others try, but they don’t understand like we do. No matter what they say, this is the real world. It is where we belong, even if our bodies force us into meatspace. But now, I must return to the auction. I will have a guide show you to the exit.”
Her feet left the floor as she rose up towards the ceiling, ready to repeat the display she’d put in before my paydata was sold. The money from that sale had already been transferred to me, minus a twenty percent commission, and once again I found myself holding a pay check larger than any I’d ever received. I’d have to split this one, though.
The sound of shoes on flagstones brought me back from frantic calculations of how much excess cash I’d have once I paid this month’s rent. Another temple maiden was approaching me, without the weapons and armour of the two below. Instead, her face was partially hidden beneath the hood of her white robes and, as I looked past the surface level icon to the code beneath, I saw that my guide was a piece of Patrol IC – tasked with roaming the host on predetermined patterns and keeping watch for anything suspicious.
I followed her as she led me through the appropriately labyrinthine backrooms of the host, past data caches, payment protection software and lists of contacts all disguised behind appropriate icons – racks of scrolls, woven filters catching rays of light, statues of winged messengers. Then I stepped through a wall, and I was back at the enormous temple doors that regulated entry to the host.
From there, a thought was all it took for me to drift back out into the open expanse of the grid, surrounded by a myriad of different personas and hosts. With Palanquin's physical location in the heart of a whole district of bars and nightclubs, the matrix around it almost hummed with the amount of traffic it saw, as those same establishments sought to draw in online customers and matrix-only establishments tried to improve their reputation by proximity.
Behind me, the auction house appeared in the Matrix as a stone fountain, a ring of Greek columns surrounding a statue of a nymph pouring an endless stream of water out of a pitcher. It was impossible to approach the statue; the gaps between the columns were cosmetic, and the moment someone with the right credentials crossed the boundary they would find themselves inside the Host. Thanks to Labyrinth's skill in the Matrix, anyone without the right credentials wouldn't even see the small fountain nestled next to Palanquin's online nightclub.
I loved the matrix, but I’d always found high traffic areas like this a little overwhelming. The constant bustle of personas and omnipresent hosts, AR objects and advirals seemed just as bad to me as the packed streets of the city below my apartment window. But since I’d started walking those streets, the idea of spending some time in the more social areas of the matrix suddenly seemed a lot less daunting. After all, if I was going to have to interact with people regardless, why not do it in the world in which I felt most comfortable?
But Labyrinth was right when she said that our bodies force us back to meatspace, and I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. So I let the matrix fade from view, and woke up to the aches and pains of mundane reality. Sure enough, I was hungry enough that my stomach had moved past growling and now felt like it was one step away from committing ritualistic suicide to grab my attention.
So I levered myself up out of the armchair and staggered across my apartment to the fridge, only to be confronted by bare shelves and two thirds of a six pack of beer sitting morosely at the bottom.
I reached for a beer, contemplating the eternal dilemma of buying takeout and eating quickly, or ordering a delivery from the local Stuffer Shack – which meant a longer delivery time and an extra ten minutes to actually cook something, but at least I’d have some food in the fridge for tomorrow – when I was saved from the mundane horror of my existence by a message from Lisa.
»Word on the grapevine is that KE are announcing AG’s arrest tonight. Want to swing by the loft to celebrate? We’ll order out, of course.«
- Tt (18:04:26/23-2-2070)
I looked around my apartment, before my eyes landed on the hand that was frozen halfway to the can of cheap beer. It might have been the easiest decision I’d ever made.
»I’ll head over and pick up some drinks on the way. I’ve got my own good news to share«
- Bug (18:04:31/23-2-2070)