Night's Pawn (28 page)

Chase shook his head. "No, thank you. I'm just looking."

The old man nodded. "Take your time. If you need any help, just ask."

Chase gave him a small smile as his eyes roved over the shelves. "Thanks, I will." Chase knew he probably wouldn't need help. He was fairly familiar with the kind of items the shop carried, or rather she had been, and he'd learned from her. He winced. A minute ago he'd been out in the rain bemoaning the raising of spirits, and now he was inside helping them along.

"You all right?" the old man asked.

"Yeah," said Chase. "Just memories.".

The Indian cocked his head. "That bad?"

"No, not so bad."

"Painful then?"

"Aren't they all?"

The old man seemed surprised. "Even the happy ones?"

Chase nodded. "When they remind you of things you've lost." He looked away, his gaze falling on a old barrel. From it jutted a half-dozen rain sticks. He picked one up and tilted it. The beads inside ran along its length, filling the store with the quiet, calming sound of falling rain.

"Perhaps you should be happy you have them at all," the Indian said, then grinned. "That's from the Big Book O' Old Indian Sayings, page one-eighteen, in case you're interested."

Chase tilted the stick again and smiled. "I know. I've read it."

"I had a feeling you had."

Chase looked up, puzzled. "Really?"

The old man shrugged. "Most who come in here seem puzzled or surprised by at least one thing on the shelves. Not you; they reminded you of other things. Things other than what they were."

Chase nodded. "They sure did." He put the rain stick back in the barrel. "Thanks for letting me look." He turned and started to leave.

"You should buy something," the old man said.

Chase stopped and turned, smiling. "Oh?"

* * *

Cara was asleep when Chase got back to the loft. He'd wanted to talk to her, to see if there was anything more she knew and that he'd missed. Dancing Fire counseled against it.

"This is the first she's slept on her own since she got here. I'd be surprised if she's gotten much rest before this."

"What do you mean?" asked Chase. "She's done nothing
but
sleep. And it sure as hell is hard to wake her sometimes."

The shaman leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "She's been asleep, sure, but she hasn't been
sleeping
. She's been dreaming—nightmares, bad ones. Very deep ones. You can only tell if you watch her aura. But she does not sleep."

Chase looked across the loft to the room where Cara was, hopefully, sleeping. "She's getting better then?"

The shaman nodded. "I think so, but I'm not a doctor or even a true healing shaman. I suppose you could say she's starting to reach some kind of balance within herself. What that balance is, and what it's between, I can't say."

"Thanks," said Chase. "I appreciate what you're doing."

The shaman shrugged. "It's my job, but you're welcome anyway." He paused for a moment. "I had a cousin, outta Sioux City, who got mixed up with BTLs. 'Dreamers,' he called them. Anyway, he had it bad, real bad. The chips drove him mad, and then they killed him."

Chase stared at the shaman, expressionless.

"But your friend is different," Dancing said. "At first glance I'd say she has it at least as bad as my cousin, but it doesn't sound like she had that much of a habit. Real chipheads spend
days
wired to their fraggin' decks. What she does have, though, is something that's keeping her from slipping away."

"What do you mean?"

"My cousin had nothing to cling to," Dancing said. "He'd completely lost his grasp on reality, had nothing inside to sustain him. She's got something, something hard and something sharp within that won't let her slip away. Whatever it is, she's got ahold of it and is using it to pull herself back out."

The shaman turned his gaze to where Cara lay sleeping, dreaming. "Chip-truth, though, chummer. I don't know if that's good or bad."

24

Chase and Janey Zane were sitting in a battered Toyota Monarch sedan a few blocks from the Renraku Arcology. A kilometer above them, on the 258th floor, was the West Garden where that night the corporate elite were gathered to greet a new addition to their number. Chase would be there, too, but for entirely different reasons.

"This reeks of a setup," Janey said.

"Sure does," said Chase. "I never like it when there's only one option available. That's why I'm not trying to bring Cara in with me. Who knows what might happen?"

"Remember, if you have problems, get to a window on the north facing."

"I remember."

Static crackled in Chase's ear for just a moment. He adjusted the earphone he wore, a standard corp accessory for the man he would be tonight, though the electronics inside his were far from standard. Liam Bough's voice came over the ear piece, which had been set up to operate more as a radio than a phone. "Scout One, this is Scout Three. In position. Over."

"Roger, Scout Three. Over," Chase replied. FastHack had slipped Bough into the arcology a few hours earlier, having placed him tactically some floors below the party in the guise of a maintenance man. If the things went off according to plan, Chase would see him briefly, but would not be in real contact with him or any other member of the team while inside the arcology. Their radio system was sophisticated enough that Chase wasn't worried about Renraku security breaking it before he could get out, but the arcology's security systems were sure to pick up the presence of any unauthorized transmissions from within the building. If Liam was on top of things, he'd have transmitted that last message from as close to the outer wall as possible. There, the security people would have a hard time figuring out whether it came from inside or outside the arcology.

It was time to check on the rest of the team. Janey, he knew, was in position. "Scout One to Scout Three, report. Over," he said.

After a quick moment, Dancing Fire's voice came on the line. "Scout Three here. In position. No problems. Clear view. Over." Dancing and a small team of breaking and entering specialists had taken their places in an office building that gave onto the north facing of the arcology. If Chase got into trouble, Dancing was another option for escape.

"Roger, Scout Three. Over," said Chase. The audio pickup built into the top button on his chic, high-collared shirt allowed him to sub-vocalize with minimum chance of anyone nearby overhearing. To them it would sound like a mumble, if anything.

He turned toward Janey. "Looks like we're ready." She nodded, able to hear everything over her own earphone. "Scout One to Scout Four, report. Over."

FastJack's voice filled his ear, digitally clear. "Scout Four. The main Renraku clusters are active, but nothing to be concerned about. There's some opposition present, but nothing serious. I'm in the lower-level security cluster and will watch for your arrival. By the way, I've added that augmentation rider you requested to your personnel record. Over."

"Roger, Scout Four. Will advise when we get started. Over."

Janey looked at him. "Augmentation rider?"

"I had Jack append the fake file he dropped into the Renraku personnel record to say that I've been in an accident and had some internal reconstructive surgery. I was concerned about security sensors picking up what I do have."

She nodded. "Makes sense. Liam wasn't sure if you had any or not, beyond the datajack. He's usually good at telling."

Chase smiled. "My stuff's unusually well-concealed." Movement on the street attracted his attention. A group of wage slaves, probably returning from dinner or a movie, were approaching the arcology. Chase adjusted his clothing. "We're rolling. Once I catch up to the group, let Jack know."

"I will," said Janey. "And be careful."

Chase was halfway out of the car. "Always."

The Renraku group was a mixed bunch of Asians and Caucasians. Chase cut across the street and matched their pace just slightly behind them. He wouldn't actually get close to them until they reached the arcology's entrance, not wanting to risk any of them being members of, or acquainted with, people in the department this ID connected him to. Renraku had thousands of people working in the arcology and the odds were low, but it was a risk he didn't want to take.

To his surprise, the group bypassed the arcology's main entrance and began to walk toward one of the smaller ones. He'd have preferred entering through the harder-to-monitor main elevators that adjoined the massive public mall. He was close enough to the group, however, that anyone watching their progress via security camera would think him part of it. If he broke off now it would look suspicious.

A few in the group glanced back and nodded at him, but none spoke. Chase relaxed a little. They must all be members of the same department and he, being unfamiliar, was obviously from a different department. They wouldn't talk to him.

He was following the group up a short ramp toward an employee entrance when Bough's voice came over the earphone. "Scout Three, dogs are loose."

Bough had spotted members of the Red Samurai, the elite of Renraku's security guards. Chase wasn't surprised. They were bound to be out in force for an event like this. He was glad, though, that they'd been spotted. He'd have been more worried if they hadn't.

The group filed through the entrance, one by one flashing their IDs toward the security sensor. The ID, about the size of a business card, contained small microprocessors that the security system could read. The security computer cross-referenced and compared the information on the cards with the info in its own databanks. Only on a perfect match would a person be permitted to enter.

Chase held his own card up to the sensor as he passed. He wasn't sure where they'd gotten it, but when Janey gave it to him that morning, she'd assured him that Jack had already encoded it with all the necessary information. It was one of the best he'd ever seen, and he wondered whether it was a forgery or a doctored original acquired through some shadowy means.

A red light came on as the security system scanned the card. The lone guard at the door glanced over wearily, comparing the image that the system generated on his monitor with the actual face before him. Chase was disguised slightly, enough to throw off any casual observers who might know him by his picture, but not enough to fool a sophisticated image-recognition system or anyone who actually knew him. Chase smiled and the guard frowned slightly. Good nature was apparently not the norm among Renraku employees.

Finally, the guard's second monitor flashed with data. After a quick glance at it, he motioned Chase through. Chase nodded again, and attached the card to his jacket's breast pocket, where it hung by the adhesive on its back.

Beyond was a short hallway and a bank of elevators. The group he'd been following was gathered waiting at one of them. Chase walked past them toward the executive elevators at the end of the bank. He felt the group watching him as he approached the elevator whose doors opened immediately in response to his card. He stepped in, then turned and gave them a smile as the doors shut silently. Rank, no matter how artificial, had its privileges.

The elevator, however, wasn't empty. A Japanese man in a Renraku service uniform stood there at attention, one hand near the elevator's control board. "Good evening, sir," the attendant said. "Your floor?"

"MIS."

"Would that be one-seventy-nine or two-forty-two, sir?" the attendant asked.

Chase looked at him like he was a fool. "Two-forty-two."

"Of course."

Chase felt the gentle acceleration of the elevator and knew it was traveling even faster than it seemed. In no time, the car began to slow, then came to a silky stop.

The doors opened. "Have a good evening, sir."

Chase ignored him and stepped out into the corridor, turning left, per Jack's earlier instructions. On either side of him were huge rooms filled with rows and rows of cubicles. Finally, he came to a set of double doors that took him into the domain of Management Information Systems.

He rounded another corridor and passed a small maintenance cart and a worker who'd pulled a wall panel to do some work on the air conditioning system. The maintenance worker ignored Chase as he passed and Chase ignored him, too. They were both right on schedule.

Chase spotted the door he wanted and stepped up to it. The door's sensor recognized the presence of his ID card, approved it, and unlocked itself. Chase pushed the door open and stepped quickly through, making sure it swung open as wide as it could. Behind him, the maintenance man, Liam Bough, reached in and slowed the door's closing.

Chase went up to one of the room's always-active computer terminals and quickly inserted a datachip into the primary data slot. As the system read and accessed the chip, he typed the access code FastJack had given him into the terminal. Then the terminal began to execute a series of instructions and commands fed to it by the datachip, given exactly as if someone were actually using the machine, complete with errors. It would run like that for two hours, finish up, log its "user" off using the same passcode, and eject the chip.

As the terminal ran, Chase turned and slipped out the door just as it was closing. Bough had slowed it down enough to give him time, but hadn't wanted to slow it unnaturally in case some aspect of the Renraku security system monitored how long doors remained open. They knew the system kept track, via ID cards and the door sensors, of which employees went through which doors and how long anyone stayed in a room. Certain sets of matched circumstances would alert the system to a potential security problem.