Tails You Lose (26 page)
After a minute or two of fussing with the dryer, the redhead ushered the troll out and left the shop herself. Hothead got up from his seat to hang a "closed" sign on the door and pulled down the window blind.
"The pirate says you're looking to make a patch with another runner," he said.
"You scan that right," Alma said, slipping into the street slang that she'd studied. "She goes by the handle Night Owl. I'm assembling a team for a run, and I want her on it. I understand that you're her fixer. I'd like you to set up a meet between us—I want to suss her out."
Flickers of red crept into the flames that jetted from Hothead's scalp. His yellow-irised eyes took on a knowing look. "If you want to know Night Owl's capabilities, I can give you the rundown. If you want more, I can give you that, too . . . for a fee."
"When you do a run with a stranger, it's good to know the skinny on them: that's always been my policy. Night Owl appeared out of nowhere three months ago. I didn't think much of it at first—runners do fades all the time from one city to another and take care not to leave a datatrail behind. But I started wondering about Night Owl the day I picked up her so-called 'night-vision goggles' and saw that they were nothing more than ordinary rain goggles with clear glass lenses. So I asked myself why a runner would want to hide the fact that she's got cyberware. A few nights ago, Night Owl accidentally let slip a byte of data about herself. I did some digging. The results were . . . very interesting. But they'll cost you. My price is sixteen hundred nuyen. Firm."
Alma couldn't believe her luck. Was Hothead offering her information on who Night Owl really was? Did he know that she was a Superkid? If his data was legitimate, Alma could finally solve the riddle that had been plaguing her and might be able to clear her name, return to PCI—and save her own life.
She could only just afford the price he had named: her savings account had just under seventeen hundred nuyen in it. Hothead's information might prove to be worthless—but Alma couldn't afford to take that chance.
"Sold," she said. Then she paused, as a paranoid thought struck her. Had Hothead
known
how much she had in her savings account? Had he seen through her disguise and realized that she wasn't really a shadowrunner? If he had, it didn't seem as though he cared. Shadowrunners were notorious for backstabbing each other. He'd just proved the old adage: there is no honor among thieves.
Hothead lifted a credstick reader from the counter of the shop, slotted into it a blank credstick he'd pulled from his suit pocket, and handed the reader to Alma. A minute later, the transfer was complete. Alma pulled the credstick out of the reader and held it up so the fixer could see the balance readout on its side.
"Let's hear what you have to say."
Hothead sat forward in his chair. "The data Night Owl let slip was about her father. He suicided in a rather unique—and overly thorough—manner, by hanging himself with a monofilament wire around his neck. Death was as instantaneous as if he'd guillotined himself."
Alma nodded, mentally putting the pieces together. The rogue Shadowrunner must have been talking about Night Owl's foster father.
"According to the Boston police reports, the body was found by a girl—Night Owl, although this obviously wasn't the name she was using at the time." Hothead paused; it was clear he was going to stretch his story out for all it was worth. Alma didn't care—it gave her time to digest what she was hearing. Whichever one of the Superkids Night Owl was, she'd obviously been placed with a foster family in Boston, the same city that the Superkids were reared in. Given what Ajax had said earlier about the deliberate scattering of the Superkids, Night Owl had probably been the only one placed so close to home.
"What was the girl's name?" Alma asked. Hothead's flames danced above his head. "We'll come to that in a moment," he said. "It's not as interesting as what comes next."
Alma was inclined to disagree, but she held her tongue.
Hothead pulled a slim yellow cigarette out of the breast pocket of his suit and held it above his head until it ignited. Taking a long draw, he let out a cloud of clove-scented smoke.
"Night Owl was part of a genetic experimentation program called the Superkids," he continued. "Its aim was to produce a 'super race' of humans whose bodies were genetically tailored to accept cybernetics. Seven 'batches' of children were created with varying degrees of success. Several of the children spontaneously aborted due to deformities that were accidentally introduced during the gene splicing, and others were 'terminated' when they 'failed to meet performance standards.' In other words, they were flatlined as infants or toddlers when it turned out they weren't quite perfect."
"No!" Alma gasped. She shook her head, refusing to believe it. Poppy would never permit such a thing. Nobody from Batch Alpha had ever been "terminated." A dozen children had been born, and a dozen children were raised to maturity in the New Horizons creche.
Alma suddenly realized that Hothead had paused in his narrative to stare at her. She quickly amended her comment. "That's horrible—that they killed children, I mean."
"Yeah—too bad, so sad." He flicked ash from his cigarette onto the floor. "But that's the corporate mentality for you. Today's flawed product is tomorrow's ashes."
He took another draw on his cigarette and continued. "The Superkids project was run by a UCAS-registered corporation known as New Horizons. The company doesn't exist anymore. In 2040, after one of the Superkids committed suicide, child protection workers launched an investigation of the project. The breeding program was shut down through a court order, and the existing Superkids were apprehended. Things get a little fuzzy after that—there are a lot of records missing, presumed deleted. But a police report from that year fills in one of the blanks.
"The 'father' that Night Owl mentioned—the one who suicided—wasn't her father in the conventional sense. His name was Michel Louberge, and he was the CEO of New Horizons Incorporated. According to the police reports, he suicided in his office; Night Owl was the first Superkid to stumble across the body."
Alma sagged back in her chair. She suddenly felt queasy, as if her stomach were filled with cold sludge.
All of these years, she'd believed what her foster parents had told her: that Poppy had died of a heart attack. She just couldn't bring herself to believe that he would commit suicide. He'd always seemed such a happy, loving man. An image jumped unbidden into her mind: the only true father she'd ever known lying dead at the foot of his desk, his severed neck pumping out a wash of dark red blood across the carpet, the dull thud of his severed head as the door of his office hit it when it opened. The head rolling away like a ball . . .
Alma's left hand began to shudder violently. When Hothead stared at it, Alma was glad; it meant that he wouldn't see the tears she was fighting so hard to hide. "Sorry," she said, clearing her throat, which felt like it was filled with cotton. "I've got TLE. It hits me at the damnedest times."
"That bites," Hothead agreed. "You'd better get a chopdoc to fix you before you seize up."
"I plan on it," Alma agreed. She was relieved to have steered the conversation onto less emotionally explosive ground. "That's why I'm putting together this run. Cybersurgery is expensive."
When her hand had finally stopped shaking—this attack lasted two minutes and seven seconds—Alma handed the credstick to Hothead, repeating the question she'd asked earlier. "What was the girl's name?" Hothead's fingers closed on the end of the credstick. "She didn't have one," he said. "To the 'mengeldocs' of New Horizons, she was a letter designation: Batch Alpha, Child AB. Her nickname was Abby."
Alma let out a slow breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Now she knew: her guess had been correct. It was Abby who was going under the name Night Owl—who had framed her. She let the credstick go and watched as Hothead tucked it into a pocket. "What surname did Abby's foster parents give her?"
"She was adopted by a couple in Boston: Brad and Erin Meade."
"What happened to her after that?"
Hothead waved his cigarette in a dismissive gesture. "The story gets less interesting from that point on. Abby Meade went on to college, got a degree in recreation training, and was contracted by the UCAS military to provide fitness training to Navy SEALs. She was on leave in Frisco when the big one hit and was presumed dead after the hotel she was staying in pancaked. And there the datatrail ends."
He took another puff of clove-scented smoke. "Short and sweet, I think she took advantage of the quake to fake her death and do a fade. What she did between 2051 and three months ago, when she started running the Vancouver shadows, is anyone's guess." He leaned back casually in the oversized chair, a glint in his eye. "So, Ms. Johnson, does that satisfy your curiosity about Night Owl?"
Alma nodded, not bothering to acknowledge the fact that he'd seen through her attempt to pose as a shadowrunner. Only one thing still mattered. "I want to meet with her."
Hothead's flames flickered as he tipped his head, his eyes assessing her. "If a tissue sample is what you want, I'm sure I can fix it for you."
It took Alma a moment to realize what he was alluding to. Then she got it: Hothead thought she was representing a corporation that was interested in cloning the Superkids. She shook her head. "I just want to talk with her."
It was a lie. In order to prove her innocence, Alma would have to deliver Abby into Hu's hands.
"All right," Hothead said. "I haven't seen Night Owl around much these past few nights, but she usually hangs on the Drive. If you want to find her, try a restaurant called Wazubee's. She usually janders in there around midnight. Just one thing, though: you tell her that I set her up, and you're as good as dead. You got that, Ms. Wei?"
Alma blinked, startled by his use of her surname. She wondered how much more information Hothead had been able to uncover about her—and who he was selling it to. She wondered if blackmail attempts would soon follow. If they did, she could kiss her career in the security field goodbye. But right now, clearing her name at PCI and getting the corporation to halt the countdown on the bomb inside her head were much more pressing issues.
Slowly, she nodded her head. "I got it," she said.
* * *
Alma spent the hour that followed her meeting with Hothead mulling over the shocking news of how Poppy had actually died. She drifted back up the escalator to the SkyTrain platform and boarded the first train that came along. She rode it back and forth across the city, staring out at the rain. The gray skies overhead and trickle of nature's tears down the windows matched her mood.
Only when the PCI building slid into view for the third time did she realize that she was riding the train she normally took to work. She stared longingly at the sprawling complex, thoughts of death filling her mind like a dark, heavy cloud. How she wished that she could turn back the clock to the day before Gray Squirrel's extraction. If only she could have seen the extraction coming and prevented it, he might still be alive . . .
She stopped herself. That sort of thinking was counterproductive. She needed to focus on the here and now, not on what might have been. She pulled her cellphone out of its belt clip and stared at it, debating the merits of calling Hu to report what she'd found out so far. The head of PCI security had cast a vote of confidence in Alma, that day outside the boardroom when he told her to call him as soon as she uncovered the truth behind Gray Squirrel's extraction. She'd come close to telecoming him several times since then but had always stopped herself. Telling Hu that the extraction had been carried out by another Superkid wasn't enough—not even now that she knew that Superkid's name. An accusation and name alone didn't constitute "proof"—she needed concrete evidence. Hu had drummed into her a sense of professionalism, a thirst for thoroughness. Nothing short of bringing Abby down to PCI in restraint strips would do.
Tonight at midnight, gods willing, Alma would do just that. She'd stake out the restaurant from across the street, follow Abby until she found a place to waylay her, and administer a dose of gamma scopolamine. She had to assume that Hothead would tip Abby off. But Alma had confidence in the training she'd received from the Justice Institute and the skills she'd honed over twelve years of security work. Even if Abby was looking for Alma, she wouldn't see her.
Alma replayed what the fixer had told her about Poppy's death, running it over and over in her mind until she convinced herself that it was really possible. Poppy hadn't died of a heart attack. He'd killed himself. Just like Aaron.
No—not just like Aaron. The Superkid had jumped off the top of the New Horizons building, and Poppy had slit his throat with a monofilament wire.
Once again, Alma paused to correct herself. No: not slit his throat. Poppy had sliced his head clean off . . .
Alma caught herself, recognizing that she'd subconsciously mixed together in her mind the way Poppy had died with the way in which Gray Squirrel had been murdered. The realization nagged at her a moment longer, and then she saw a second parallel:
Akiko, who was on death row in a Texas prison, had also killed her victim by slashing his throat. It had to have been more than mere coincidence: studies of identical twins who were separated at birth and reared independently of each other kept turning up lengthy strings of correspondences. Twins—nature's clones—married partners with the same names, chose the same professions, had the same hobbies and even bought identical pets and gave them the same names. The Superkids had been reared as a tightly knit unit for the first eight years of their lives. It made perfect sense that, when it came to murder, they'd have the same modus operandi.
