Chapter 6
Knowhere, The following day.
The arranged return meeting at Knowhere resulted in Nomad’s netrunner digging up the information he’d paid for quickly. Jon wasn’t sure he expected such a quick turnaround, but he appreciated having results before the Agency sent him after Masri. It would help frame his state of mind for that interaction to know just how involved Masri was, if at all, in Sam’s death. Find the dirtbags who smoked Noriko was icing on the cake.
The loud metal and synth music assaulted his ears as soon as the black suited human door Arthur allowed him inside. Purple and red lights spun, rotated, flashed and strobed. Dozens of patrons gathered inside, some enjoying a vice like a drink or the latest street drug. Some talked biz, like he planned to do, as he made his way through the throng of bodies, passing the same latina he passed yesterday. She bumped into him without even noticing him. He did, however, notice her. She had long jet black curvy hair. She was a little shorter than he was. She carried herself with authority and certainty.
She didn’t strike him as a former soldier like himself. But her gait and posture said she was no stranger to violence and knew how to project strength. The clenched fists said she was angry about something. The unending string of curses in Spanish that flowed past her lips only confirmed the point. She tore through the bar like a hurricane till she passed through the door again and out of sight.
“Sometimes I can’t help them all,” Nomad said from behind him.
Turning to face her, she gave an indifferent shrug and gestured to her roost in her booth, flanked by her muscle.
“You can’t help her? What did she want?”
“Heat. Serious heat. The kind you’d come across if you raided a MaxTac depot. But I’m no fool, and that’s heat I don’t need on my back. MaxTac doesn’t play games with dipshit outriders trying to boost their gear. So no. I can’t help her.”
“Then let’s talk about me. Can you help me?”
Nomad grinned, gesturing for a drink from one of the men who looked like he lifted more iron in a day than Jon had his whole life. She activated her display and flicked something his way. A beat later, he downloaded a file. The runner even included a written report, photos, and logs from the Haltech runner who ghosted Noriko. He did a quick scan through of the documentation. Nomad sat patiently on the other side of the opaque report, tending her drink. A pleased look on her expression.
As he read, he felt his stomach fall away. That same sensation when you fall or watch someone else fall from a really high position. Something about the brain sympathetically reacting to it as though you’re experiencing it, too. It was a familiar sensation due to his time in the army jumping from aircraft.
A contract runner working for Aegis, a subcontractor for Haltech carried Noriko’s murder out. so Haltech’s finger prints were effectively all over the attempted cover up and the act of killing Sam. He felt a pang of regret for Noriko. Reminding himself she would have gotten involved with or without his help was little consolation. She was dead for getting caught in his orbit.
“Don’t do that,” Nomad warned.
“Do what?”
“Blame yourself. Whatever those corpo motherfuckers did, it wasn’t your fault.”
He glanced up, an eyebrow cocked. “How would you know?”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Nomad’s gaze fell to the contents of her glass. A long island, by the look of it. Hard of the booze and light on the filler. Her lips twisted into something of a frown. Her gaze went distant, like she was peering into a memory a century old.
“Let’s just say I’ve got experience with them. None of it good. I swore after that to stay out of their way and try to cut myself out a slice of life here. And then you came along.”
“What do you mean?”
“You remind me of you when I was younger. I was a lot like you. Principled. Morals. Shit like that. But it’s all just extra weight they’ll use to pull you down. Beat you down. So take it from me. Don’t let them use that as a weapon against you. Do like you said you were going to. Go find the motherfuckers responsible for this? And burn it all to the ground.”
He finished his brief scan over the data and saved it, closing down his interface and focusing on her. Nomad leaned back, clearly no longer interested in engaging with him. “We’re done here unless you got more biz.”
Taking the cue, he rose to his feet, giving her a stiff nod. He felt the throbbing bass of the music beating at his back as he strode out of Knowhere, patting Arthur on the shoulder as he left.
“Mr. Masters,” Arthur said as Jon passed by him.
Making his way down the steps into the parking lot surrounded on all sides by grimy piss soaked alleys laced with perfume and weed, he approached his car. The lot was bathed in darkness both of the night, and the deep shadows cast on all sides by the massive multi-story buildings flanking Knowhere. On his way, he saw the Latina standing next to an outrider’s car. She approached him. “You look like the capable type. I need some work done. It’ll pay.”
“Sorry, not a merc. Actually, a govie. Just came for some info.”
The woman nodded, looking dissapointed. “Right. My bad,” she said, turning to return to the truck.
Jon tucked himself into his car and sat for a moment. He was sitting on a lot of bombs right now. First? That a corporation actively murdered his friend. A government employee. Second? It then actively tried to obscure an investigation. Third? The Agency seemed to be ok with this. He didn’t know how many within the Agency were backed by this. Which meant for now he wasn’t sure if he could trust Raven or not. He hated that idea, but for now, he needed to be smart about this and play his cards tight to his chest. He sighed, cursing at the crushing weight of the task left to him by Sam.
He didn’t want this or even ask for it. His life had made some kind of sense before Sam’s death. Sure everything was fucked up, but he at least thought he had some control in it. Now he wasn’t sure he had control over anything. That feeling of powerlessness was almost crippling. Nomad was right. They would try to drag him down and bury him. He had to fight. That was something he knew how to do. He’d been fighting his whole life, and in ways he realized, it made him exceptionally dangerous to the corporations. They had inadvertently shaped him to be the perfect weapon against him. And then, they’d broken his trust in the one thing keeping him from running roughshod on them. Using this sudden infusion of steel and rage in his nerves, he dialed Raven.
“I’m ready.”
“Report to the depot in an hour to gear up and get on your flight. I won’t be meeting you for the debrief. You’ll get one in country from the safe house,” she paused, her expression twisting unreadably in the portrait holo in his hud.
“Jon?” she asked.
“Still here. What is it?”
“Be careful over there,” said Raven.
“No promises.”