Danger Money (15 page)

"Make a beeline for the city, it's on a ninety six degree heading. And pull the fuse numbered four under the radio. It's a remote tracking beacon." He grumbled, "you'll never get away you know."

"Hell, you don't even know what I'm running from!" I growled.

"You're one of those escapees from the penal mines!" He growled, "So don't think I don't know who you are! They got news out on you folks all over."

I stopped zipping him up for a second, "Did they have any pictures?"

"A few, but none of you that I recall."

I let out a sigh of relief, "That ain't what I'm running from. If it was, you'd have been dead long ago. I'm a company spy that got blown, and if I get caught with what I know, I'm dead. Plain and simple." I finished zipping him up and let him stew on that.

It didn't take me long to go over the vehicle. I found the fuse he was talking about, and another tracking device he hadn't mentioned. I shook my head at that, you couldn't trust anyone these days it seemed.

The ride to the city was uneventful, I thanked providence for that. Once there it was a simple matter to simply transfer in through one of the Airlocks.

Imbreum
City
was way too large to monitor all the locks effectively. Also, this time I remembered to disable any telltales there may have been on it. Once inside I dumped the suit, unzipped my friend, then made him suit up and leave. Once outside I jammed the lock so he couldn't get back in, and as I had disabled all the radios I knew I wouldn't have any trouble from that quarter for a while.

Then I literally ran and hid.

It took me two more hours, but I was finally able to get myself deep into the city. I had kept the Bear's coveralls and credit chain, so I didn't stand out too badly. I was even able to buy myself another coverall in the first fifteen minutes, which I figured were safe. Once I made it to an empty hall deep in the city, I opened an Airway shaft and crawled inside. I'd have to do something about my stink soon, but first I laid down and slept for the first time in days.

I woke up slowly, I knew where I was and what I was doing. My watch told me it was twelve hours later, but I didn't feel guilty about over sleeping. I changed coveralls, dumping the Bear's, but I kept the ident chain. I wouldn't be able to use it, but I'd be more conspicuous without one. Then I slipped quietly back out into the hallway and moved off like I belonged.

Next what I had to do was get a shower, I probably smelled and looked pretty bad. Hopefully everyone would think I was just coming off shift. The problem was money however, fortunately I had food for a few days yet, even if it was emergency rations. But I'd have to start making some changes quick. Crypto accounts were illegal on the Moon and Earth, so I couldn't even tap into a bank.

What I ended up doing was going up to one of the entertainment areas, and rolling a drunk Leopard. I swapped I.D. chains with him, then got myself a room. I didn't have the heart to let him get found out however, they might mistake him for me and kill him. So I dragged him in with me, took my shower, got myself straightened up, and got a few hard credits out of his account. Then I gave him back his bracelet and left him asleep on the bed. He'd wake up later on with one hell of a headache and no idea what had happened.

It would have been safer to kill him, true. But my conscious had finally found its voice for the first time in my life and I just couldn't do it.

Then I went and found myself a pay terminal, and locking the booth I paid for ten hours time and went to work.

I was able to access my dummy accounts without too much trouble, and I immediately started to look for clues. On my last job the approval had come from the same place as before, which was still not normal company sources. I looked through all the other files I could find, or crack, and found that in the last three months ninety percent of all assignments had that same number.

Those assignments didn't really make sense either. I downloaded a list of all the targets, and what information I could learn about them, then sent out a request for information on my own last three targets to some of my net friends. Next I started a search on Siedman. Six hours later I was still looking. I had found out that he was transferred out one day before we were hit. At his own request! I also found out that the hit had been carried out by the Earth government, I had thought that the people in armor had looked human, but I only gotten that one glance.

Continuing along I learned that casualties had been high, many staff members had been killed in the attack, a lot of Human ones too. And the company had been able to put some distance between itself and the division, but not enough.

Looking further I found that the Senator I had hit was still alive, and expected to recover, but not fully. Too much nerve damage from the bio-engineered poison I had used. Several other corporations were being accused of maintaining hit squads of their own, but only mine had been raided.

Eventually I decided to make an attempt at my own personal account, but found it gone to my surprise. Then I went back to check some of the accounts I had raided just a few hours earlier for the information on the targets, and I found those being destroyed as I watched. Somebody had sent in a virus, and it was specifically going after the accounts which contained that code number I was so interested in.

On a hunch I logged into one of my front accounts deep in the companies secret computers back on Earth. I didn't go there often, the lag was a royal pain. And getting there from this public terminal took a bit of skill as well. Once there I took a chance and sent a message to an account that was as secret as they come, a corporate vice-president's. I had found it on a lark one day, using information I had stolen off a desk a long long time ago. The message was simple: Who is TU952-4RIZ99E?

That was the ID I had seen on all those orders. One which I had not been able to uncover no matter how hard I looked. I had cultivated that company official by sending him important information every once in a while. Eventually he started asking me questions. I didn't always know the answers, but I had never asked him for anything. Maybe now I'd get some payback.

I went back on the net then and looked for the reason for the raid. The Earth government was saying that it was a response due to pressure brought on by the people from the amount of innocents being killed. Insiders said it was due to a highly placed government official being wounded, and a close personal friend being killed. My last target no doubt. And corporate rumors among the trenches of the different corps was that Earth was just trying to grab more control over the Corporations and the other settled worlds.

After spending an hour wading through all this I decided to call it quits and get some sleep, it was late now with most people off shift. As I got out of the booth and walked by a news prompter I was startled by an unexpected sight: My face!

I quickly bought a copy and ran off to my hiding place in the air shafts.

Activating the device I looked over the feed. It was a still picture of me alright, taken in a briefing room at a low angle. Fairly recent too. It didn't take me long to backtrack the angle in my mind and figure out who had taken it.

Jaime.

The story itself was a fabrication, but that didn't matter. It said I had gone berserk and killed several people, two Humans included, and that I was free on the moon somewhere. I was glad they had lied on that part, if they had told the truth, who knows how many assassins would have been on my trail. They mentioned several of the others that had escaped with me as well with pictures of the same type. They had similar stories, all ones designed to cause us to be shot on sight.

I wonder if anybody on the moon wondered why there was such a sudden outbreak in violent crime?

But what confused me was where the stories came from. It couldn't have been Corporate, they would have used our Corporate ID photos which were kept on Earth at Headquarters. But the story had been supplied by the government, which had been informed by my Corporation of our transgressions and subsequent escapes. Jaime worked for the Corporation, or rather for Siedman, I realized. But
he
did work for the corporation. That's where the pictures came from originally.

So was somebody high up selling us out? But not high enough to access our personnel records? Or was this just Jaime pulling her own strings? Was Siedman involved? Why would he be though? He had gotten out the day before the strike, I realized. Maybe he was involved too. It was obvious that Jaime was, and it couldn't have been just her spite for me, the pictures of the others were there too.

The biggest question was however: Now what? I was out on my own and I didn't know who I could contact in my company. I had a contact that went back to my base, which was now destroyed. It may have been re-routed to another spot, Corporate Intelligence was unaffected by this whole turn of events, being located on Earth itself. I had a feeling though that I had been left to my own devices on this one however. The company was trying to put as much distance between itself and my old division as possible.

So going back was out for the moment.

I couldn't stay here either. My face was being spread all over the moon, and the spotting pattern on a Leopard's face was as individual as a finger print. I couldn't even risk going to buy dye at this point. Earth was out, period. For that matter so was any other place in the Solar system.

That left the colonies. Odds were that my description would not have gone out there, after all I couldn't book passage on a ship as a morph. Our travel was highly restricted in the Earth's system, and I didn't even have an ID bracelet to buy a ticket. But that got me thinking, and suddenly I had an idea. And there was really only one place to go of course.

I went back to the computer booths late the next evening. I was just about to turn the corner when I decided to peek first. I ducked back quickly when I saw the peace officers standing guard. I then spent the rest of the night getting the same result at every terminal I went to. The net was tightening I guess, they wanted to make sure they got all five of us before we got away.

So I'd have to act fast.

I staked out a place by one of the Morph bars, and waited for my prey. One showed eventually, a monkey tech who was still carrying his equipment from his day's work. He was inside only about an hour, so he was still fairly sober when he came out. I nailed him as soon as he was out of sight of the entrance. Taking his gear I stuffed his unconscious body behind a vending machine then split.

He hadn't much in tools, but he had a pocket computer, which was what I really wanted. Back in the vent work I found an access panel to one of the cable runs. A little splicing and I quickly was on line. I accessed one of my dummy accounts, then got the shipping schedules of all the local Corps. After finding the ones going where I wanted, I spent six hours hacking into their cargo manifests. I found one leaving in thirty hours with exactly what I needed.

Next I wrote a quick little note, and got it logged onto a fast packet that was due in system in the next 24 hours. My message should show up before I did, hopefully. I just hoped I wasn't asking too much.

I cleaned up my mess, and headed for the locks next. I knew the Monkey had to have been found by now, I just hoped nobody was thinking what I was. They were of course, all the locks where under heavy guard, with everyone going in and out being checked.

"Damn!" I muttered and snuck back off.

I was kicking myself for not keeping that suit I had, and didn't know where to get a new one. Things were not looking good, that's for sure.

I found a quite spot and took a breather to consider the angles. Well, I thought, let's split this out. First I need a suit. Second I need to get out. Sounds easy enough huh?

It was early in the day now, so I went to the Animen quarters and started breaking into rooms. Not that easy, even if they were all empty. I didn't find anything, they had taken their suits with them.

So who would have a suit that they might not be wearing?

Tourists! Of course!

I made for the hotels just as fast as I could, which wasn't very. I got as close as the city air shafts would take me, and I saw that they were under guard too.

The Hotels that is.

Nothing serious, but I think they were afraid of a hostage situation. What, with four or five escapees running about I figure the paying guests might have been a little nervous. But I was getting desperate, I had about twenty four hours to get to that damn warehouse and do my thing. I was still wondering what I was going to do when suddenly all the power went out. And I do mean all. I quickly made for the back entrance I had been watching while the emergency lights started coming up. I made it through the door before the guards on the door figured out what was going on.