Fade to Black (30 page)

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He'd been slightly more than a day without any sleep.

No big deal. He'd gone a lot longer than that in Bogota and Panama City, some years ago. The smart soldier knew to grab a few zees any time he had the chance.

Not enough furniture to go around, but Shank didn't mind the floor. A carpeted floor was a lot better than a bug-infested hole in the ground ...

Now if Marena Farris would just shut up ...

The worst of it was that their situation would probably improve if Farris got things her way. Thorvin had spotted the Executive Action Brigade coming after their asses in North Caldwell, Sector 20, and Rico suspected that the E.A.B. had been hired as their backup and that Fuchi had done the hiring, maybe through L. Kahn. If Fuchi got what they wanted, they might be content to let bygones go by, call off the backup, and forget it.

If not... Well...

There'd be plenty of time to catch up on sleep when it ended, whichever way things ended.

"I want you to stay with Farris."

Piper ran her hands up over Rico's chest to his shoulders, then leaned her head against his chin, his neck. "What if something goes wrong?" she said, softly. "You might need help."

"You're a decker. Not a cutter."

"I can shoot."

"If things go that wrong, one more gun won't make any difference. And I need you to watch Farris anyway."

"She's not going anywhere."

"That's the point. She's our responsibility."

Of course he would feel that way. Piper decided not to argue. She knew less about guns and fighting and had less experience with either than anyone on the team. That made her the obvious choice to keep watch on Marena Farris.

Rico and the rest of the team were ready within an hour, suited up, weapons checked, and heading out to the van. Rico put a pair of cuffs on Marena Farris' wrists and another pair on her ankles. "That's so you don't get into any trouble," he explained.

"Please don't go through with this," Farris said. "This meet. It won't work."

Rico hesitated a moment, then said, "It's already done."

Piper followed him to the alley door, there for one last embrace. "Be careful,
jefe,"
she murmured.

"Always," Rico replied.

Once he had gone, Piper had nothing to do but sit in one of the armchairs and wait and worry. She held an Ares Special Service, but doubted she would need it. In all likelihood, no one would be coming to rescue Marena Farris, and Farris didn't seem like the type to try and break free on her own. This only emphasized Piper's feelings of uselessness. Tonight's meet had no need for a decker. She could jack in and monitor police activity, but the police, as usual, would probably prove to be irrelevant. She could try and infiltrate the Prometheus mainframes, in case Prometheus tried a double-cross, but the chances of her learning about that from the matrix seemed close to nil. Corps kept records on almost every aspect of existence, but documents on any illegal or quasi-legal operations were likely to be hidden away in Code Red datastores, or in some node isolated from the corporation's mainframes.

About the only thing she could do was pray, ask the kami to be kind. Before she could decide where to start, Marena Farris said, "I know you must mistrust me, but I want you to know that I'm grateful for the way you've treated me."

Piper felt a twinge or irritation. It was hard to look at Farris and not feel something like that. The woman appeared every bit the swank corporate whore, sophisticated and yet slutty. Impossibly over-developed. "I don't need your gratitude."

"I've often heard stories that make runners seem like wanton criminals," Farris said. "I know that some are brutal killers. That's obviously not the case with you and your people."

"Why are you talking like we've done you some big favor?"

"I'm still alive, aren't I?"

"What does that matter to me?"

"It could matter a great deal, depending on how things go."

"What things?"

"The meeting tonight with Prometheus."

"What do you know about it?"

"Probably more than you suspect." Farris paused to shake back her hair, then met Piper's gaze with an intimate look, an expression that pleaded to bridge the distance between them. Piper did not believe that look, not for an instant. Nor did she believe the sudden change in Farris' voice, which grew shockingly soft.

"It's easy enough to see what you think of me. I know you probably don't trust me. That's why I haven't said much concerning what I know. I'm not just some little psychologist or some cosmed-sculptured biff.

I've had access to some very proprietary data. I'm worth a lot more alive than dead."

Piper sneered. "No one's planning to kill you."

"Your man told me that already."

"Then it's true."

"He's a good man."

"The best."

"Good people are hard to find. Their beliefs put them at a disadvantage. They have to be very good at what they do, and they have to be well-informed, or bad things happen."

"Why are you telling me this?
Corporate."

Farris hesitated, smiling, but managed to make the smile look reluctant, almost painful. "You're right,"
 
she said. "I am a corporate woman. Through and through. But if this meeting with Prometheus doesn't go right, I want you to remember that I warned you. I warned your man."

"So?"

"If I were you, I'd be afraid."

Piper briefly considered the gun held casually in her lands, then looked at Farris, and said, "Why should I be afraid?"

"How much do you really know about Prometheus Engineering?"

"You tell me. What should I know?"

"You may not know enough. That's my point."

Piper lifted the gun and pointed it at Farris. The Ares was loaded with soft ammo, but Farris could not know that. Like most guns, the Ares could fire either soft or hard ammunition. "I want you to tell me everything you think I should know. Everything that's pertinent."

An anxious look came over Farris' face. Her lips faintly quivered. She swallowed, and said tentatively,

"Are you going to shoot me if I don't?"

Farris described herself as a "corporate woman." She was employed by one of the most unprincipled despoilers of the Earth that humanity had yet created. Answering her question took hardly any thought at all. "Give me an excuse."

"Your man won't like that."

"My man doesn't like many of the things I do. That's my problem. Your problem is what happens between now and when he comes back."

"Yes," Farris replied, "I can see that."

"Good. Now talk."

Farris talked.

* * *

In the van, Shank looked at the flute, frowned and said, "Hoi, Bandit. Where's your sword?"

Bandit said, simply, "It's not my sword anymore."

"Huh?" Shank said. "What'd you mean?"

Bandit replied, "It's not my sword anymore."

Shank wondered about that.

27

The Willow Brook Mall lay just across the Passaic River, putting it just beyond the border where Sector 20 of the Newark plex met the western extent of the Patterson-Passaic sprawl.

The mall had three strategic aspects: it attracted slags from the plex as well as burbies from the corporate out-lands, it straddled the confluence of several transitways and limited-access highways, and its parking fields went on forever.

At two a.m., Field 17D in the northwest quad was deserted but for a few scattered sedans and one black Toyota Elite limousine. Rico scanned the limo from a distance, checking the registration tags. Elites were as common as water, even in the Newark plex, but this wasn't L. Kahn's limo. Same model, different year.

"Think we'll make it?" Shank asked.

The time for worrying was over. "Ask me later."

"Nice answer, boss."

Shank put the Renault-Fiat Eurovan in gear and drove ahead. The rest of the team was in Thorvin's van, parked a safe distance away. They would stay out of sight, parked among other vehicles, until certain preliminaries had been satisfied.

Rico keyed his headset, and said, "We're moving."

Thorvin acknowledged.

Shank steered the Eurovan into field 17D and brought them to a halt about two spaces away from the waiting Elite. A few moments passed, then the rear door of the limo opened and a suit got out. He didn't look like nothing special, average height and build, medium age, dark gray suit and gloves to go with it.

Standard corporate style. The style made the slag a real Johnson, anonymous, the perfect front man for a corp. You might see him a thousand times a day on the street, but you'd never remember him because nothing about him was at all memorable.

A second suit appeared, standing up on the far side of the limo. This was no Johnson. Rather, it was the suit's security man, a prime cutter.

Rico got out and met the suit midway between the van and the limo, pausing about two steps away, near enough that they'd both be in trouble if anybody got stupid. They hooked each other over. The suit motioned very briefly with one hand, glancing toward Rico's hip. He spoke with a voice as bland as his looks. "Mall security might spot that shooter of yours."

"We ain't gonna be here that long."

The suit nodded vaguely. "You have the merchandise, I presume?"

"You got the juice?"

The suit slowly drew open one side of his suit jacket, revealing the heavy automatic holstered under his shoulder as well as the plastipak of certified credsticks in his inside breast pocket. "The price as agreed in certified sticks."

"I wanna check 'em."

"First I see what I'm buying."

"You see, but you don't touch until I check the sticks."

The suit nodded, letting his jacket swing closed, and said simply, "Agreed."

Minor points, but even minors points counted here. In this game, nobody trusted nobody and even a little slip could push the panic button and bring out the shooters. Rico didn't mind letting the slag see Surikov.

He could "see" him from five or ten meters away. He'd be unlikely to try anything, if he had anything in mind, till the range narrowed a bit. Step by step, slow and careful-that was the game plan, the accepted procedure.

Rico keyed his headset. "Ready."

Thorvin acknowledged.

Momentarily, the van came rolling up. Thorvin stopped it, according to plan, on the far side of the Renault-Fiat Eurovan from where Rico stood with the suit. When Filly and Dok emerged with Surikov, they stepped out in front of the Eurovan just far enough to show Surikov's face.

"You're very careful," the suit remarked.

"It pays," Rico replied.

"Once you've checked the credsticks, I want a DNA and retina scan."

"My man checks your equipment."

"That's fine."

Checking the suit's credsticks didn't take long. Rico had a portable verifier on his belt, not a stock model. Piper and Thorvin had put the unit together. Piper said the unit's integral chipware would detect phony bank encoding to a very high degree of certainty. That was good enough for Rico. He slotted the sticks one by one into the unit, waited for a pair of soft beeps, then passed them back to the suit. The sticks passed inspection.

Another slag emerged from the Toyota Elite. The suit introduced him as a technical aide. The aide showed Rico the pack of scanners he intended to use on Surikov. Rico motioned Dok over. Dok checked the scanners with gear of his own.

"Standard equipment," he concluded.

"Your man goes with my man," Rico said to the suit, "checks the merchandise, reports to you, then we make the swap."

"Agreed."

The final check took about a minute. The aide returned and gave the suit a nod. "Bring me the merchandise and then you get the sticks," the suit said.

"Right."

Here was the moment that counted. Rico took a quick look around. The suit's cutter hadn't changed position. The parking field around them looked clear. Thorvin wasn't giving any alerts based on readings from his own equipment or anything Bandit had to say. The assumption, then, was that everything looked chill. Rico motioned for Dok and Filly to bring Surikov forward. Their steps, scuffing against the pavement, seemed really loud. They moved slowly, at a measured pace. Seconds stretched out long.

"That's close enough," the suit said, lifting a hand toward Surikov, palm out. Then the slag's forearm jerked and something like a shotgun roared, and Rico realized the sleazebag had a cybergun implanted in his arm.

That explained the gloves. The glove on the right hand covered the firing port. The glove vanished with the roar of the cybergun and a flaring red tongue of fire.

As the roar began to fade, Rico had the Predator from his hip holster gripped in his hand and coming up, coming on-line, and putting a red targeting indicator on the suit's face.