Night's Pawn (18 page)

She shrugged and pulled the chip from its slot.
Against the Hive
, she said. "Euphoria's last one."

"Any good?"

She shrugged again. "Could have been more realistic, I suppose, but the action stuff and the effects were wiz. The ending is kinda rough to take, though."

She was looking at the chip in her hand and turning it slowly, end over end. "Something bothering you?" he asked.

She didn't answer, just continued turning the chip and looking at it.

"Okay," Chase said finally. "Blanchard told me we should be ready to go again in about an hour. I'll be inside if you need me." He turned and began to walk toward the rear of the
Rapier's Touch
.

"Did they have to die?"

Chase turned sharply at Cara's words. They weren't quite what he'd expected. "Who?" he asked, but then knew the answer. It should have been obvious.

She looked away, but he could read coldness and anger. "The soldiers."

"Unfortunately, there was no other choice."

"No other choice?" The tone of her voice rose with her gaze. "We could have let them
live
."

"And if they had,
we
might be dead right now."

"
Might
be dead. They definitely are."

Chase took a step toward her and held out his hands. "Look, there's no point in arguing this. What's done is done."

Her mouth tightened and she shook her head. "It's that easy for you to just let it go? What about their families? Don't you care—"

Chase cut her off, letting his own voice rise. "Of course I care. I regret every death I've ever been connected with. Do you?"

Cara had been about to snap out more angry words, but his last comment stopped her. She blinked.

"You seemed to deal pretty easily with the 'accidental' deaths caused by your friends' political statements." He took a step forward, his hands clenched now. "Do you think about them, Cara? Do you think about those 'accidents' dying, suddenly and for no reason they could imagine? Do you think about their families?"

Cara blinked at him again, and her mouth worked silently as her face danced with emotions she couldn't entirely control. Chase knew he should stop, knew he should let it be, but he didn't. There were things about who Cara Villiers was and had done that ate at him. He'd ignored them for the girl she'd once been. Ignored them until now.

"Have you ever thought about those families hearing that someone they loved had survived the explosion, might even have survived the fall to the ground, only to drown, to
asphyxiate
, in the chemical foam that had been spread there to save her life?"

He raged at her, though his voice was barely louder than a whisper, his face almost pressed against hers. She'd stiffened as he leaned in, her eyes wide and frightened, but could not move.

"Do you ever think about the fact that she couldn't unbuckle the seat belt because her arms were broken? Do you think about her mouth being so filled, so choked, with the foam that she couldn't sing her songs of power? Does it bother you that her beloved Eagle, her fucking totem, let her die falling from a fucking plane, from the fucking sky, so that a bunch of buttholes could make a point to the airline about the construction of a new terminal near an eco-safe zone on a different continent entirely?"

As the words had run away from him, he saw something settle in her. Something he'd said had connected and her face lost some of its fear. The fright was still there, but now it was backed by what could have been understanding. Her left arm spasmed, her hand flexed, and she pulled it to her lap and held it there. The energy fled from him, and he glanced away. His own body was stiff, almost shaking, as its artificial portions sought to do what they'd been built to do: remove the threat, stop whatever caused him such pain. The source of the pain wasn't here, though, and he hadn't been there when it might have mattered. He looked down, away, then took a step back, trying to regain control of himself.

She took a deep breath. "I… I didn't know," was what came out first. "It wasn't us. They never…"

He didn't bring his face up, but his eyes locked with hers. She seemed almost calm, much more controlled than he, but her skin had blanched nearly pure white. "I know," he said. "Do you think I'd have helped you if I'd believed you were even remotely responsible?"

Cara looked away, said nothing.

He stood up and focused on controlling his breathing. He'd let his anger dominate him, something that hadn't happened in a long time. There were times when letting it happen was necessary, but this certainly wasn't one of them.

"I kill only when I have to," he said, "and by god I carry every single death with me. Just say the word and we'll stop now. I'll take you wherever you want to go, and that will be the end of it."

"And my father will die…"

"Maybe. Maybe his guards will stop it, maybe one of them will do it. Maybe a lot of things, Cara. The question is, is it worth it to you? Can you live with doing what has to be done?"

She was quiet for a while, almost long enough for Chase to take that as her answer. Then she turned and looked up at him. There was that something in her eyes again, that something he couldn't name.

"Yes," she said finally. "I can."

15

Gordo looked at Chase out of sunken eyes. Leaning into the shaft of white light from the reading lamp over Freid's position, his already thin face looked almost skeletal. The long fingers of one hand played absently with the stubble on his cheek. "What the frag was that all about?"

Chase looked back, away from his datadeck, which was attached to a notebook computer, and wired to the T-bird and the small satellite dish set up on the desert floor. "Old anger, misplaced blame and all that shit." He shifted slightly to stop the small ache that was beginning to set in from squatting.

Gordani nodded. "Is there going to be a problem?"

"On the trip?"

The pilot nodded again.

"No." Chase sighed. "At least I don't think so. Things'll probably stay quiet for a while." He looked at the liquid-crystal display of the small computer. A flashing blue cursor demanded his attention. "God knows I don't have the energy anymore."

"Look, I know who she is," Gordo said.

"Oh?" Chase let his gaze wander slowly over to the other man.

The pilot smiled. "Don't even
try
to start scamming me, chummer. I know it ain't my damn business, but I'm just letting you know that Death comes knocking, I know what the biz is."

"That makes one of us."

"Church, I'm serious."

Chase nodded. "I know you are, but it's not your deal. Besides, if Death has a bigger gun than me, maybe you don't want to know about it."

"Maybe, but I think you'll get the job done. And when you do maybe you can put in a good word with her father, and then make sure the word works its way down to whoever it is that doles out Fuchi's freelance assignments. We'd be mighty pleased. Who knows? Maybe Blanchard would even give you a pass on that dinner you owe him."

Chase laughed. "I'll think about it. Now, let me sit there."

"What? You need to sit to think?" Despite the jab, the pilot slid out of his seat, dropping into the one Cara had occupied earlier.

"No," Chase said, "but I do need to get some circulation back in my legs."

Gordani's eyebrows rose in mock surprise. "You mean to tell me you've still got your own legs?"

"Yeah, and if you'll let me work on the biz you don't know anything about I might let you keep yours."

The pilot stood as tall as the T-bird's low ceiling would let him. "Hey, no problem, it's only my fragging LAV. I'll just go and sit with Freid, if I can find wherever you threw her out to. I could use the warmth."

Chase ignored the last part. "You do that. I'll fire one of the guns when I'm done."

"Great. I'll let Blanchard know so he's not too surprised." Gordani worked his way to the rear of the vehicle and out the rear access door. He closed it behind him, but not completely. If something happened, he wanted to be able to get back in fast. Chase didn't blame him.

Chase reached out and pulled the dataline cable from its pouch on his datadeck and uncoiled it. He connected one end with his own datajack, and the other with the deck itself. He willed the piece of microtronics to life.

Instantly, a menu of choices superimposed itself in the air before him, fed directly into his mind by the data-deck's simsense circuits. It was only visual at this point.

He commanded the deck to validate its connection to the portable computer, initiate the satellite-tracking programs in its memory, and position the satellite dish at the most appropriate target. The databanks told him that the satellite was a Pueblo Infonet VII in geosynchronous orbit over Phoenix. According to the records it normally handled educational traffic to and from Pueblo schools in outlying areas. He suspected that it also carried transponders to handle more covert traffic, but he had no use for those. Besides, they were probably protected by many of the same systems that protected the more sensitive, ground-based Pueblo government systems. Chase didn't want to frag with any of that. The relatively low-band width educational channels would serve him well enough even though they'd be unable to handle a full Matrix interface. He'd have to resort to an icon interface, which he would cybernetically command through his own deck. An interface was still an interface, however, and in case of trouble he'd lose precious nanoseconds as the system worked through it. Chase commanded his deck to link up with the satellite.

The link was nearly instantaneous, but Chase could sense the lag in the connection procedure between his system and the satellite. He'd forgotten about this distance-and-processor lag and had never run the Matrix while having to deal with it. He was suddenly pleased he wasn't running full Matrix. The cumulative delay between the interface and the satellite would have been enough to throw him off completely. An experienced decker, someone like his former teammate Lucifer, or even Lachesis, would have no problem. He, however, was nowhere near their class. The satellite's onboard routing system responded and the words hung in the air before him.

> > > > > [Welcome to the Pueblo Education Services Information Network. Please input your passcode now.] < < < < <

He dropped his hands to his lap and used his deck's cybernetic link to issue commands. The keyboard on the personal computer would only have slowed him down more. He initiated a program he'd won nearly a decade ago in a private game of blackjack in Atlantic City. It might be ten years old, but the program had been custom back then and so Chase didn't doubt it would be up to the task now.

The program spoke to the satellite, lied and cajoled it into believing he was some poor, sick child calling in from home for the day's assignments. The system gave him entrance.

Chase commanded his program to again fool the system into giving him unrestricted access to its capabilities. As he suspected, the satellite had a secret system, but his program was smart enough not to try and deceive those circuits. Instead, he routed his signal to a ground station in downtown Phoenix and hooked into a longdistance telecom line. In his mind he dialed Teek's number in Manhattan.

The number rang, and he initiated one of the trace-detection programs his deck held in memory. It appeared as a small window hanging within his field of vision, just next to the status readouts for the deck and the connection. It flashed **CONNECTING::: NO TRACE DETECTED** in cool blue letters. If anything changed, he'd be ready.

Fed to him by the deck, the number rang again clearly in his head, and he mentally tensed. He expected some surveillance on Teek's line. Whoever his enemies were, he figured they must have discovered his connection to Teek by now. The moment someone answered, the trace would engage and Chase would be ready to trigger his own programs to stomp on it.

The line's dead sound changed and became an open hollowness. "8219," Teek said. Chase didn't answer. He waited.

**LINE ACTIVE: ::NO TRACE DETECTED** "8219," his friend's voice repeated.

**LINE ACTIVE:: :NO TRACE DETECTED** "Hello?"

**LINE ACTIVE: ::NO TRACE DETECTED**

Damn, thought Chase, as he mentally toggled the system to accept voice input. "Teek, it's Church."

"What the hell? You using one of those other phone companies again?"

"No, it's just a strange connection. But I haven't got time to talk. Anything going on concerning me or that I should know about?"

A moment's pause, and then, "No, nothing that I've heard."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, very. Want me to ask around?"

Needlessly, Chase shook his head. "No, don't bother. But if you do hear anything, send it to this electronic mail address. Ready?"

"Ready. Go ahead."

"D-E-N dash five-three-zero-three-zero-eight-six-two passcode CAVER, all capitals, and put an end code of Priest on it. I'll get it."

"Hey, I recognize enough of that to know you're walking straight into Hell."

"Or Heaven, as the case may be. I look on it as rather appropriate."

"Good luck. Next one's on me."