Fade To Black Part 9

Cables along both sides of the shaft began to move. A low-pitched humming carried down from above. Rico's microchip-enhanced vision drew the image out of the darkness. The elevator above them was descending, dropping down fast from something like the eighth floor. It didn't stop till it was just centimeters above Rico's head, about half a ton of metal just hanging there, waiting.

They went to work.

This elevator car, like most, had a solid steel floor designed to absorb impact. Cutting a hole through that would take time, minutes they couldn't afford. The run was already twenty minutes old, fifteen from first penetration. By the odds, they didn't have much time left.

A soft electronic tone sounded inside Rico's headset, followed by Piper's voice: "Time is zero-one-two-eight." That was a warning, and it echoed the warning of Rico's own instincts. It meant that things were happening in the Maas Intertech computers that would inevitably lead to some kind of alert condition. Not right this minute, but soon enough. When it happened, whatever happened, they'd better be on their way out.

The strap now connected to Rico's body harness ended in an industrial-grade suction cup. Rico slapped the cup against the bottom of the elevator, pulled the cup's metal latch and locked it. The cup flattened out against the steel of the elevator. Rico bent his knees till his whole body weight pulled on the cup. It held.

The moment the rest of the team was ready, Rico keyed his headset. "Time check.""Time is zero-one-two-nine." The elevator hummed and ascended. The floor of the shaft fell away quickly. Hanging from a single thin strap, having nothing to grab on to if the suction cup or strap gave way helped make it seem that way.

Two stories up, then three. The saucer-shaped drone Thorvin had running followed them right up the shaft, hovering maybe a meter beneath their feet. Rico looked up, but there was nothing to see but the flat steel plate of the elevator. Four stories, five, then six. Almost there. Rico drew his Ares automatic. At his right elbow, Filly did the same.

Seven stories.

"Stand by for landing," Rico said.

The elevator slowed, then stopped, perfectly positioned. They hung directly in front of the doors to the ninth floor. Rico braced his feet against the edge of flooring at the bottom of the doors and lifted the Ares, gripped two-handed. Filly Mowed suit. A moment pa.s.sed, then several more. The doors didn't open.

Shank grunted. Impatient.

Maybe half a minute went by, time they couldn't afford to lose. Either Piper was having serious problems in the matrix and couldn't spare the time to pop the doors, or there was another problem. Maybe people in the hallway outside. Maybe security personnel. Maybe an alert had been declared.

The only way to find out without risking more radio traffic was to get- "A man and a woman," Bandit said. "Up the hall. On the left."

"What're they doing?" Rico asked.

"They're bored."

"Bored like guards standing watch?"

"Maybe."

Rico gave it a minute. They couldn't afford to do anything that might give them away, but neither could they wait. Someone would find the techs they'd put down. Someone would notice an elevator apparently gone out of service. Someone would consider a bunch of seemingly unconnected events, have a sudden flash of intuition, and hit the PANICb.u.t.tON. The longer they waited, the more likely that became. It posed a danger to Piper as well. A decker could die in the matrix. And this was a cla.s.sic case of how that might come about.

The minute ticked off. Nothing changed. Rico made the unavoidable decision. "Right. We advance.

Four, take left, I take right. Two and Three, stand by to jump."

Filly acknowledged.

Rico keyed his headset "Alpha, pop the doors on my mark. Counting two, one, mark."

The doors slid smoothly apart, revealing the hallway beyond, extending out maybe fifty meters.

Standing in front of a doorway about halfway along on the left were a male and a female in loose-fitting gray suits and black mirrorshades.

As Rico brought his Ares into line, his smartlink put a gleaming red triangle over the male's chest. The auto thumped once. Filly's auto thumped at nearly the same instant. The male fell to his knees, then rolled onto his back. The female went down like a bag of rocks.

Thorvin's drone flashed past, humming.

Dok and Shank swung themselves forward, planted their feet on the floor of the hallway, popped their harnesses and then knelt down, training their automatics up the hallway to provide cover.

Once they were set, Rico followed them out, with Filly close behind. The two of them then turned back to tug Bandit clear of the elevator shaft. Filly reached out and popped Bandit's harness. It was a few precious moments, but that couldn't be helped. Bandit tended to do things in one of two ways, like an expert or a dunce. Left to himself, he'd probably hang there under the elevator for a couple of hours before figuring out how to get out and then actually getting around to doing it.

Rico reminded himself, not for the first time, that the shaman's strengths far outweighed his weaknesses. And everybody had weaknesses. It was built-in.

Inside the brilliant cube of the Engineering CPU, a window outlined in green suddenly opened and the giant eye of a Watcher program gazed straight into Piper's face. Things were starting to happen now, all over the Maas Intertech computer cl.u.s.ter. The power failures she had ordered had been noticed.

Programmers and technicians were trying, without success, to get into the engineering mainframe. The security CPU had doubtless put the cl.u.s.ter on pa.s.sive alert. It knew something serious was wrong, but it didn't know what. It needed more data.

The giant eye gazing into her face was evidence of that.

Piper drew a balloon from her jacket pocket, stretched it, blew it up, and tapped it toward the Watcher IC. The balloon undulated and expanded. The Watcher's eye drifted aside to avoid it, but couldn't. Theballoon speeded up, enveloped the Watcher, then just held it. The watcher's eye moved back and forth, but drifted slowly and steadily upward-inside the balloon-toward the glaring white ceiling of the node, then just hung there, immobile.

"Security CPU requesting node-to-node interface," the chief engineer icon reported.

"Denied," Piper said. "Lock out all external systems."

"Affirmative."

The clock was running down.

12.

The door to Condo 9-B shot open just in front of Rico's face. He stepped through and aside, dropping into a crouch. Shank followed. That was just being careful. Bandit reported the condo empty except for the master bedroom.

Two occupants. One male, one female.

Their target had company tonight, and that was no surprise. The corps could be real generous with perks. If Surikov had lacked the means or just the plain luck to find some companionship on his' own, the corp would probably provide whatever kind he required. That was how the corps worked. Threaten your spouse if you don't do the job and serve up wh.o.r.es when you did. Whatever got them what they wanted.

That was it, The bedroom door snapped open. Shank went first and Rico followed. A hazy, orange-tinted light surrounded the bed like a veil. Two bodies moved there. Rico's vision overlays showed him the contours of the bodies right through the veil of light and the liquid satin bedsheets. Male on top, female below.

Even as Rico brought his Ares to bear, the female looked right at him, gaped, and put a hand to her throat Rico saw the movement and guessed what it meant, but there was no way to stop her without risking hitting the man on top of her.

He couldn't risk the shot A soft bell-tone sounded. Red strips running up the corners of the room flared red. "A security condition has been initialized," a hushed female voice announced quietly from somewhere near the ceiling. "Remain calm. If this is an actual emergency, do nothing. Security personnel are responding. Do not be alarmed. If you have initialized a security condition in error, please dial one-one-one and identify yourself to the security supervisor." The slitch on the bed was wearing some kind of PANICb.u.t.tON around her neck. Now she smiled as if self-satisfied. The male looked back over his shoulder, jerked with surprise, and rolled off the female. "Three," Rico said.

Dok moved to the bed, put a burst injector to the female's leg, and fired. The slitch exclaimed, then went limp. Rico pointed the muzzle of the Ares at the male. "Identify."

The man looked about fifty, distinguished, thinning hair and close-trimmed beard stained with gray.

Some extra weight around the middle. Not a big man. Not a small one either. He gasped, drew a couple of panting breaths, stammered, "Surikov ... Ansell Surikov ..." He stole a glance toward the female, eyes wide with uncertainty, fear. "What is this? I insist..."

The vocal stress a.n.a.lyzer on Rico's commando-style watchband pegged too wildly for a good reading.

The slag was really worked up. Rico nodded at Dok, who started making his checks, a quick retina print and DNA scan. The checks weren't foolproof, just the best they could do under the circ.u.mstances. The correct patterns had come with L. Kahn's chip dossier. Running the checks took about half a minute.

"We're positive," Dok said. Rico nodded at Surikov and said, "Who's the Garden?" Surikov eyebrows jumped. He blurted, "That's my wife! How ..." A Garden of Earthly Delights. A private thing, Rico knew, between Surikov and his wife. He knew that from the chip dossier provided by L. Kahn.

"How do you know-!"

"We're here to take you home, Dr. Surikov," Rico said, lowering his Ares. "Home to your wife."

Surikov stared at Rico for several long moments, then rubbed a hand over his mouth and made an obvious effort to get hold of himself.

"You wanna go, right?"

Surikov hesitated, then nodded and said, "Just tell me how to proceed."

Rico pulled a pack from his belt, broke it open, and shook it out. A bright orange jumpsuit with built-in plastic shoes, all in Surikov's sizes. "Put this on. Make it fast."

While Surikov was doing that, Dok checked him out again. "Vitals're okay. You on medication?"

"No. Nothing like that."

"Let's do it," Rico said.

Bandit ran his eyes around the living room. The furnishings put forth a character of luxury and fine living, but that was a lie. The walls, drapes, sofas, carpet, the onyx sculptures and semi-holographic picswere all dead, made of plastic and other artificial, materials. There was nothing of life here except for the power and water running through the walls, and that was the vague clue to the truth about this room. It was not a fine s.p.a.ce for living, as it might appear, but rather a plastic container for corporate slaves, a sort of coffin, really. Just a bit over-sized.

There was nothing of value here, except possibly Surikov. Bandit turned to watch Rico and Dok hustling the scientist up the hall and into the living room. Surikov was worth a lot of money. That might buy valuable things.

Bandit slipped a hand into one of the pockets inside his coat. His fingers found a small silver figurine, like a man made of wicker. Something that might have value for a druid or a witch. It had no value for him and so he placed it on the small platinum-hued table at the end of a sofa. He would leave it in place of Surikov. The little wicker man. A fair exchange.

"Five, move it!" Rico ordered.

Bandit nodded understanding.

Five was his a.s.signed namecode.

Through the apartment to the hallway door, Rico hustled Surikov along at a brisk walk, but the man's physical condition was a problem. He wasn't young and he didn't exercise-that was in the dossier, too. He'd probably survive the stresses of the next few minutes, but anything might happen if he had to get really athletic. The plan was to avoid pushing the slag too hard until there was no other option.

"Time is zero-one-three-four," Piper reported via radiolink. That meant security forces were responding. Rico didn't need to be told. The voice still droning from the ceiling kept him keenly aware of the time trickling away and the danger, getting more real every second.

As Rico reached the door to the hallway, Thorvin's saucer-shaped drone shot off toward the end of the hall opposite the elevators. Shank and Filly dropped into combat crouches. Rico glimpsed the door at the end of the hall swinging open, and the sudden, dazzling flashes of the flare-strobes mounted on Thorvin's drone. Rico turned Surikov toward the elevators. A stun grenade detonated to their rear. Rico hoped it was from the drone.

Elevator Three West now waited in line with the floor, doors wide open. Rico let Dok hustle Surikov onto the elevator, then turned to look back down the hall.

The drone's strobes were flashing. Another stun grenade banged, and some slag in a uniform staggered back through the doorway by the stairs. Rico took aim on that doorway, Shank and Filly came charging up the hall and past his shoulders. The instant they pa.s.sed by, he turned and dove onto the elevator, and the elevator doors slid shut.

The drone would be left behind to delay and confuse on-site security forces. It was expendable.

The elevator rose.

Surikov was breathing hard and looking worried. Dok checked him again and burst-injected something into his arm. "Stay calm," Dok said. "We've done this before."

"I'm afraid I haven't!" Surikov blurted. "Tune is zero-one-three-six," Piper reported. That meant trouble. Maas Intertech had security forces on-site, but they were lightweights. The real trouble would come from outside. Kuze Nihon maintained a unit called Daisaka Security, and Daisaka's rapidresponse teams provided a back-up umbrella for all of Kuze Nihon's subsidiaries in the Jersey-New York megaplex, including Maas Intertech. Those teams, commando-trained and equipped, would be only minutes in arriving.

Rico wanted to be long gone by then.

Daisaka's uniformed forces wore flash that featured the likeness of the black annis ape, a very territorial creature who was known to overturn cars before ripping them to pieces.

The elevator slowed to a halt at the fourteenth floor. The doors slid open. A pair of men in light gray security uniforms stood there, right outside the elevator. For an instant the guards just frowned, but then abruptly reached for their sidearms. Shank and Filly's autos thumped simultaneously. Both guards fell.

Rico led the group out of the elevator and cut a sharp left. The door beside the elevator opened onto a narrow stairway that led directly to the roof.

Down out of the hazy orange dark of the night came an olive-green Hughes Stallion chopper running without lights.

They loaded up quick.

13.

The room was dark, but Rico's custom Jikku eyes turned the darkness into a dusty gray like twilight.

He eased himself out from under the covers, then up off the mattress he and Piper used for a bed. The building on Mott Street wasn't a regular doss, the furnishings nothing more than what they absolutelyneeded. A simple mattress was good enough to sleep on. A ragged old couch was good enough for sitting.

Rico walked over to the couch, then sat down and lit a cheroot. The tea still sitting in a cup on the low table before the couch had gone cold.

Piper's little slim-stemmed pipe lay in the ashtray next to the tea. Rico remembered how strange it had seemed the first time he saw her toting the thing. While running hot wire and other dirty games down in the Carib and South America, he'd seen women toting all kinds of smokers-but a pipe? That was different.

Piper said she'd picked up the habit from her mother, but she never talked much about her mother. Rico gathered that her mother was j.a.panese, and attracted to elves. Piper talked even less about her father, but what little she said usually came with a lot of acid. Rico had guessed that her father was an elf and about as treacherous as any corp. The few times she'd mentioned him, she always ended up talking about corps, and how none could be trusted.

The bedsheet rustled. Piper lifted her head, looking around, then rose onto one elbow. "Jefe?" she said softly.

"Go back to sleep, querida."

"What time is it?"

"Almost five."

The time didn't matter. He and Piper weren't on watch for another two hours. They'd gotten clear of the Maas Intertech facility, dumped the helo, and run around a while in Thorvin's van, checking for shadows. No pursuit had appeared. Sometime tonight they'd contact L. Kahn, exchange Ansell Surikov for the rest of their money, and be done with the deal.

"You should rest, jefe."

"I'm resting. Go back to sleep."

Runs like these were rough on Piper, Rico knew. She couldn't concentrate only on the matrix. She had to deal with the meat world, too. Security setups, progress of the penetration, coordinate things. Make sure the right elevator was at the right floor at just the right time. Give Thorvin a go, not early, not late, so the chopper and the ride home would be exposed for the least amount of time possible. It was a lot to deal with.