The Courier (San Angeles) (7 page)

D
EVON TURNED HIS
comm unit on as he reached Level 6. The signal didn’t make it up to his office, so there was no point in having it powered on in there. It beeped before he even had a chance to slip it back into his pocket.

A single message showed on his screen. He touched it with his finger and held the unit up to his ear.

“Hi Bro, how’s it going. Could you do me a favor and follow up on that gift for Mom? Call me when you get the chance. See ya.”

Devon didn’t have a brother; the only family he had left was his mother. He let the cool night breeze, man-made on Level 6, wash over his face before he turned and began to retrace his steps back to the office. It was dangerous using the same route twice, but the computer-generated entrance for tomorrow was on Level 7, and he didn’t have time to get there.

The phone message had originated from the assistant director. It was a code they had agreed on long ago. If a call came in from his brother, he was to get to his office and contact the assistant director as soon as possible. The rest of the message was just garbage, used to cover their tracks by filling the message with random junk. If the call was too short or too long, the corporate computers would probably flag it. According to Devon, the average comm message was 7.73 seconds long. Any message left in that range, plus or minus half a second, would most likely be lost in the noise. But not to his systems. The noise is what they fed on, finding tidbits of information all over the Net and piecing them together into a coherent structure.

Devon retraced his steps and entered the maintenance corridors between Levels 6 and 7. A meter from his office door, he heard the quiet sliding and clicking of the locks, and metal sheeting rose to expose the entrance. His body’s signature had been read when he was thirty meters from the room, and it was confirmed every three meters after that. Any major deviations would have kept the room locked and the sheet metal covering the entrance, making it look like the rest of the machinery and ductwork in the area. The same would have happened if there had been any other people within the thirty-meter radius.

Devon closed the door behind him and heard the faint rattle of the metal dropping down to conceal the door again.

He sat down at his desk and the displays. They’d powered up when he entered the room and showed the usual data. The high priority column now had the courier issue displayed in bright red. Devon picked up the hardwired phone.

“Devon,” he said.

“Mr. McBride. Sorry for asking you back so late.” The voice on the other end didn’t pause. The typical empty reply was not only not
necessary, it was unwanted. “I need more information on the courier situation. What do you have for me?”

“I’m checking now, sir.” Devon flicked the courier item to his other display and read the information. “I have some secondary and tertiary information coming in. The system flagged it with an eighty percent probability rate of pertaining to the courier, sir.”

“Yes.”

“I also have some primary information on the courier. His name, sorry, her name is Kris Ballard, age sixteen, though her birthday is next month. A meter and a half tall, brown hair, brown eyes. She’s been a courier for Internuncio Limited for about a year. Internuncio has access up to and including Level 5. They had Level 6 quite a few years back, but lost it due to the inappropriate behavior of one of their couriers. Do you want me to follow up on that, sir?”

“Not yet, what else do we have?”

Devon read the information on the screen. “She lives in Level 2 Chinatown, on top of a fish market, she’s been there about six months. Secondary information shows SoCal Black Ops operatives in the area. Local monitoring indicates some sort of altercation in an alley near the market, with possible Taser usage.”

“Local monitoring? We have an operative in the area?”

“Sorry, sir, no. Local monitoring in this case indicates comm traffic and verbal pickups placed by ACE representatives,” said Devon.

“Continue.”

“Secondary data also indicates a white vehicle being driven by a young girl leaving the area at high speed.”

“Do you have an ID on the vehicle?”

The van line item was plain black text, indicating the computer had no information on it. “No, sir, I’m unable to track it.”

“What about the girl?”

“The system’s getting that information now, sir. Some of the government databases have been resecured, and it’s taking time to get the information we need.”

“Then how did we get her other information so fast?”

“Vehicle Registrations, sir. A low priority system that hasn’t been converted yet.”

“Get on it. I don’t think we have the time, Mr. McBride.”

“Yes, sir.”

The line shut down. Devon hung up the phone and allocated more of the computer’s resources to tracking and finding out about Kris Ballard.

I sped down the street to the Level 3 ramp, squealing the tires on the way up, and stopped just at the top. A small group of boarders lounged near the exit, either waiting for more of their friends to arrive before they rode the ramp down, or the last group to leave before the end of the day. I opened the van’s door and jumped out, leaving the keys, and moved to stand in the glow of the headlights.

“Hey, guys, who wants a van?” I shouted. I figured if the van was traced, the boarders could have it. If they were caught, they wouldn’t know anything, except for where they got the damn thing, and Quincy would let them go.

The boarders stopped talking, looked up at me, and started walking closer. I moved, placing the body of the van between me and the oncoming boarders. Once I couldn’t see them anymore, I darted toward the nearest building and ducked into a shadowed doorway. I heard the van’s side door open and rattle shut again in its tracks, and the tires squealed on the concrete as it sped away. My knees buckled
underneath me, and I slid to ground, my back pressed into the darkness. I waited, the steel bars of the door pushing through my jacket into my back, struggling to breathe. I’d been holding my breath, waiting for the boarders to take the bait. Now that they were gone, it was time for me to move again. I pushed against the bars, rising to my feet, and left the meager protection of the doorway to head back to Level 2.

Lights flashed up the ramp wall, followed by the sound of a racing motor. I sprinted back to the doorway I’d just abandoned, wishing it was deeper in the shadows. The vehicle stopped on the ramp just shy of the Level 3 exit before moving closer. A plain white van. It was quickly followed by another. The two vans sped off, following the route taken by the one I had handed off to the boarders.

Why the hell had the vans stopped midramp? Did they let someone off, someone to watch for any returning traffic? Did they somehow know I’d ditched the van and was planning on heading back down? Shit, what the hell was going on? All I knew was if there was someone on the ramp, I had to move. Now. My hand went into my pocket, fishing for Oscar, before I remembered. He’d been with me a long time . . . the only thing I had to remind me of what I’d lost. Now even that was gone.

I put my helmet on. Habit had kept it on my arm during the wild drive here. I dropped the visor and began to scan the area. The real-time traffic data was useless, so I turned that off, but kept the comm tuned into the police bands and used the lid’s visual enhancers to look into the dark places. If the guys following me had one of these, I was fucked. Hell, they probably had infrared scanners. My stomach churned as the fear, temporarily pushed away by adrenaline, twisted its tentacles into my gut. I felt more exposed than ever. The best my helmet could do was to use the available light to look for potential road hazards; it wasn’t designed to be used as a night vision system.

Keeping my helmet on, I moved farther away from the ramp. There was no way I was going to use that one again. Walking to the next down-ramp late at night wasn’t my idea of a good time, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had to get back to somewhere I knew, somewhere I could hide. Only one place came to mind, and I shuddered at the thought.

The next down-ramp was about fifteen kilometers away, which meant a little over a couple of hours before I got there, longer if I stuck to the shadows. The good news was it was an express, skipping Level 2 entirely, and it dropped me right on the edge of my old Level 1 neighborhood. I took the Taser out of my jacket and checked its charge. Empty. Maybe if I held it, it might give anyone second thoughts.

The sound of another vehicle coming up the ramp forced me into an alley. I watched from behind a pile of stinking garbage as a blue hatchback zipped down the street. I must have kneeled in the alley for close to half an hour, alternating between being convinced Quincy was waiting for me to move and knowing he was nowhere near.

When I finally left the alley, I headed away from the path the vans had taken. I skulked through the shadows, dashing across the open spaces to the next dark pool, where I stood still, looking around to see if I had been spotted. The only sound I heard was my own footsteps echoing down the empty alleys and streets. The first time my jacket scraped against the side of a building, I jumped, thinking someone was creeping up behind me. Thoughts of the night’s events kept rolling through my head, the pieces falling into place where they could. The more I tried to figure out what happened, the deeper a cold shaft of fear jabbed into my brain. I went over it one more time.

Okay, Dispatch gives me a late delivery, no big deal. The pickup
is a pain in the ass, but again, no big deal. The drop-off was totally fucked. How did you even do that to a man? Wasn’t there bone and shit in there to stop that? The image of Quincy’s face thrust into my head. I was sure I’d never seen him before, and I was usually pretty good with faces. Was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time? No, no, that couldn’t be it. Quincy had asked where the package was. They were there to get the package. It could have been any courier, they didn’t give a shit that it was me. Did they? If they didn’t care, then how did they track me back to my place? Dispatch wouldn’t give that information to a client. Besides, no one was at the depot this late at night, so what the fuck?

Wait a sec. When I left the drop-off, Quincy had come running out of the building and pointed something at me. I thought maybe it was a gun, but there were no shots. What if it had been a comm unit?

Somehow, the idea didn’t comfort me.

If the guy had butchered someone, run down five flights of stairs, and had the intelligence to not shoot at a moving motorcycle, but to grab a picture instead . . . That definitely sounded like a pro, not some hack job trying to grab an unknown package. These guys—Quincy—knew what was in the package. And when it was going to be delivered. How the crap did they do that? Then again, if they could figure out where I live from a snapshot of my bike, they might be able to track courier logs as well.

The thought sent a shiver up my back.

That meant big money. And big money meant the corporations. I was royally fucked. I had to get rid of the package, and let them know I didn’t have it anymore. If they had feeds into the courier system, then in theory all I had to do was return the package to Dispatch and disappear for a while. But then would the next courier get hit? Would it be Howie? I didn’t want others to die because of me.

At the top of the express ramp to Level 1, I’d made up my mind. First, I needed a place to hole up for the rest of the night. Not that there was much left of it. I checked the time on my helmet. Christ, the walk here took almost twice as long as it should have. Tomorrow, I would return the package to Dispatch and give a full and detailed account of what happened. They wouldn’t send another courier after that, and I’d disappear while everyone figured out what to do. Find a place to stay for a couple of weeks. My hand reached into my pocket again, searching for Oscar, wanting to hold him for luck. I stopped before sliding my hand in too deep, mad at myself for not remembering. And being so weak.

I crept down the ramp, sticking close to the walls, and entered Level 1.