Fade to Black Read online

  People were weak. Few had the means to combat the tyrants of economic politics, fewer still had the will, the strength of spirit. Too many had been crushed and ground into dust by the steel and concrete jackboot of the megacorporations.

  Something had to be done. The megacorps had to be stripped of their power and pared down to size.

  People had to be given back control over their own lives and the life of the world in which they lived-the very planet all metahumanity depended on for survival.

  Tears streamed down her face as finally Piper shouted, pounding on the arm rests of the kneeling bench with her gloved fists.

  It left her feeling cleansed, strengthened, empowered.

  She was doing all she could. Almost every night. She only prayed that, in the end, her efforts, combined with that of many hundreds, even thousands, would be enough to save the ravaged Earth.

  When she stepped from the booth, the narrow church was nearly deserted. The sunset service had ended some time ago. Only a few stragglers still sat in pews facing the altar and, above it, the enormous vid display of the Whole Earth-white clouds, blue ocean, and brown soil-ringed by the green yin-yang arrows, cycling eternally, representing the cyclical nature of life. Piper brought her fingertips together, forming the Globe with her hands, then bowed and turned to go.

  A priest in robes of the four cardinal colors-white, blue, brown and green-awaited her at the rear of the Church. He was known as Father John, as were all priests of the Whole Earth Church. Piper did not know his real name, but that did not matter. He formed the Globe and bowed as she approached. She did likewise.

  "There's a special meeting tonight," Father John said, quietly. "Our brothers ask that you attend." This came as no surprise.

  Practically anyone with any skills at all would be continually in demand somewhere in the Newark plex. Newark had an excess of per diem meat. "Excess people," they were called. The special meeting to which Father John referred would undoubtedly be a meeting of the group known as Ground Wave, the local cell of the Green 4800, an organization of international scope. Ground Wave had need for deckers, ones with the proper perspective. Ones with Piper's degree of experience and skill were needed desperately.

  Piper bowed, and said, "I'm sorry, Father. Please excuse me. I cannot attend this evening."

  "I trust you've not had a change of heart."

  "Of course not." The idea was almost insulting. "I have other obligations."

  "What other obligation is there but to the restoration of the Whole Earth?"

  That was something Piper could not argue, for Father John would not understand. Life came with many obligations. One might be paramount, but the others could not simply be ignored. She needed money, for instance, if only to eat, if only so she might continue to further the cause. "This is very difficult," Piper said, again bowing. "You're right, of course. I wish I could explain further. It is my fault. Completely my fault. Please excuse me."

  Father John hesitated, then nodded. "I presume we may count on you again in the future?"

  "Of course." Piper bowed, trying to conceal her expression, her struggle to suppress her annoyance.

  Father John seemed intent tonight on irking her or on afflicting her with guilt. Of course he could count on her in the future. She'd been working with Ground Wave for more than a year. Piper had more experience with anticorporate activity than anybody in the group. Unfortunately, she was used to this kind of talk. Used to people speaking presumptuously and rudely. Used to people with immensely egocentric personalities.

  People with the viewpoint that whatever happened to be right for them must be right for everyone. She attended frequent cha-no-yu, the tea ceremony, if only to remind herself that some people, anyway, were at least basically civilized.

  "Dozo, gomen kudasai," Piper said, excusing herself, bowing and forming the Globe. "I must go now, Father. Good evening."

  Father John bowed and formed the Globe. "Good night."

  The street outside was busy. A veritable river of people flowed steadily along the sidewalk. Traffic filled the narrow roadway, barely moving at a crawl. Garish neon and laser adverts in Japanese and a dozen other Asian languages climbed the fronts of buildings as high as nine or ten stories. Piper made her way up the block and joined the crowd waiting at the corner with Custer Avenue.

  Abruptly, a man wearing the signature red and black suit jacket of the Honjowara yakuza stepped off the curb and into the road, blowing a shrill blast on a whistle while extending his arms out fully to both sides.

  Traffic halted. Piper moved with the crowd that flowed out and across the street. A number of people loudly praised the Honjowara-gumi as they passed the man in the red and black jacket.

  "Domo arigato," the man said politely, bowing in response to each laudatory remark.

  Yakuza, Piper knew, might be vicious gangsters, but they were also very conscious of their public image. The Honjowara-gumi had made this part of Sector 6, Little Asia, centered around Bergen Street, one of the safest hoods in the plex. They performed many public services and would allow no one to abuse their citizens. Gangs and other criminal elements entered the district at their peril.

  Piper continued up the next block toward Hawthorne, but only as far as the intricately carved synthwood door of the Holy Savior Buddhist temple.

  As she turned toward that door, another man in red and black abruptly stepped up beside her, tugged the door open for her, and bowed, saying, "Dozo ... Allow me..."

  Piper bowed to the man. "Domo arigato gozaimasu." As she stepped through, the man slipped past her, tugged the inner door open, and bowed, saying, "Dozo."

  "Domo arigato." Piper bowed and stepped inside. An acolyte of the temple escorted her to a small chamber where a Buddhist priest waited. For a donation of ten nuyen, the priest led her in a brief prayer ritual and then gave her a quick lecture on the Buddha nature as exemplified by Christ, a lecture she did not really want to hear but felt obligated to endure. She had trouble with Buddhist teachings, even those of the fairly innovative sects of the Newark metroplex. She didn't really believe in any mystical enlightenment-that was her problem. Most people she had encountered in her life seemed all but oblivious to even the most basic truths of their everyday routine. To suppose that even a major event like death would shock them into some form of "enlightened" consciousness required a leap of faith that was beyond her. Still, this was a part of the sorrow of existence. The teachings of Buddhism and the Whole Earth Church had much in common, most notably the emphases on the cyclical nature of life. Piper felt obliged to seek her own enlightenment even if she did not entirely believe in the concept. Perhaps belief could not truly come until enlightenment was achieved.

  When the lecture ended, she went back outside, then through the sliding transparex doors into the Shinto shrine next door. This visit cost her twenty nuyen. Shinto priests were very worldly and always more expensive than their Buddhist counterparts. The priest went through all the usual routines, moaning, chanting, caterwauling, shaking rattles and waving wands, ringing bells and gongs and blowing whistles.

  For her money, Piper had evil influences chased away and gained the assurance that the local kami would look favorably upon her. She sometimes found it difficult to believe that any real kami would inhabit a plex like Newark, but even that was easier to accept than the lectures of the Buddhists.

  Back on the street again, she walked down to Watson Avenue. Rico waited there.

  "You okay, chica?" he said, looking past her right.

  "Yes." Piper nodded. "Fine." She slipped a hand onto his shoulder and kissed his cheek. Any greater display of affection would not have been appropriate. Rico preferred to keep his eyes and mind on his surroundings.

  "Take care of your duty okay?" he said, glancing down the side street toward Chadwick.

  "Yes," Piper said, nodding.

  "How's your axe?"

  He meant her cyberdeck, not her guitar. Piper didn't have a guitar and, in fact, had little interest
in music. Certain of her ancestors had reputedly been great music-lovers, among other things, and that had been enough to turn her off music for good. "I had a roach in the node."

  Rico frowned, glancing at her. "What?"

  "A geometrically replicating virus."

  "Yeah?"

  Piper hesitated, gazing at Rico, trying to read his sphinx-like expression, then took a deep breath and said, "Roaches duplicate everything in memory, themselves included, till there's no more room left, this one got into my operating code and ... it started laying eggs. That's why I kept getting locked out. Memory was jammed. I couldn't power up. I had to jack in with another deck and go over everything with a microscanner."

  Rico turned to look up toward Hunterdon Street. "Guess that's why it took so long."

  "Well, yes."

  Most of a week, in fact. That wasn't long, considering she'd had more than a thousand megapulses worth of onboard code to review, not to mention forty gigapulses of off-line storage. In fact, with only a couple of smartframes to help her, it was a miracle she'd finished any time this year.

  "But you got it fixed, right?"

  "Yes, it's fine, jefe."

  Rico nodded, but then three men in red and black jackets emerged from the crowd around them and came to a stop facing them. One bowed, glancing at Rico, then asked Piper in rapid Japanese, "Excuse me, is this person troubling you?"

  Piper blinked. The question seemed remarkably presumptuous and offensive until Piper realized that Rico was the only Hispanic-looking person-the only non-Asian, in fact-that she'd seen for blocks. The heavy automatic pistol holstered at his hip didn't do much to help matters. Piper bowed, very briefly, saying in rapid Japanese, "Please excuse me. This is my personal guard, assigned by my employer. Thank you for your concern."

  "Ah, I understand." The man bowed. "Excuse us for intruding."

  "Please think nothing of it."

  The three men moved off. Rico, watching intently, said, "What was all that?"

  "Honjowara clan is busy today. We should go."

  "No guano."

  At the corner they took the stairway to the underground. A narrow corridor flanked by small shops and booths led past the entrances to the Bergen Street subway, rumbling like thunder and rank with oily smells, then on past the entrance to a parking garage, and then on to the truck and taxi lanes near the underground transitway. The familiar, battered gray and black Landrover van waited right there, along with Thorvin and Shank.

  They had a meet to get to.

  5

  At the heart of the beast...

  Market Street, Sector 1.

  The burnt-out ruin of the old county court building stood opposite the shining twelve-story tower occupied by Omni Police Services and associated corporate agencies. Everywhere Rico turned his eyes, the charred, the gutted, and the wasted mingled with the bright and glittery. An addict who'd probably traded his legs, one arm, one eye, and an ear for highs "Better Than Life" lay sprawled on the sidewalk in a simchip-induced coma, while trippers in glinting neo-monochrome and flashing crystal jewels sashayed by.

  Black limos and gangers riding on whining plastic choppers shared the roadway, roaring past the stripped-down wreck of an old CMC stepvan and other derelicts rusting in the gutters.

  Overhead, a help with winking lights thumped through the hazy, smog-veiled darkness.

  Devil take it.

  Time to focus, Rico told himself. The rest of the team was in position, and he was as ready as he would ever be. Rico didn't like getting Piper into something like this, didn't even like her being on the street, where anything could happen, but she'd insisted. She demanded to be in the game personally, in the flesh, whenever she might do some good. Rico admired courage like that, especially in a woman. But it didn't stop him worrying.

  He wore a long black duster to cover the heavy auto holstered at his hip and the extra magazines on his belt. He drew a black bandanna up from his neck to cover his face as far as the bridge of his nose, flipped up the duster's collars.

  The club was just around the corner on the tail-end of Springfield Avenue. Running across the gleaming black front of the place in subdued gold lettering was the word Chimpira. That was Japanese. A joke. Piper had explained that the word came from other words meaning "flimsy gold". Cheap punks. A slick and mean veneer, but take away the clothes and the attitude, and nothing remained. What made it a joke was that all the cheap punks who used the main floor were nothing but a cover.

  Trolls guarded the main entrance, and a small crowd of yakuza cutters kept watch on the trolls. The presence of the yak muscle meant that the big boys, the real powers in the Newark plex, the ones who had named the club, roust be meeting on the top floor. It also indicated that one or more of the vehicles lining the curbs or the windows in the buildings along the street would be occupied by U.C.A.S. feds: F.B.I., Secret Service, whatever. Surveillance teams. Techs and vidcams. Watching the comings and goings. The feds had been trying for years to get at the heart of the organizations running the plex. It was a losing game.

  Rico walked to the black tunnel of the main entrance. The razorguys standing around, including the trolls, all wore something obscuring their faces: shades, scarves, bandannas, a variety of Halloween and theatrical masks, some glowing in the dark. That was the style. You didn't go to Chimpira with a naked face.

  In the dark shade of the entrance stood a slag wearing a broad-brimmed hat, black trench, and a mask like a cartoon mummy. The odd pins and devices stuck to the lapels of the slag's trench coat had nothing to do with Chimpira-style, or any other kind of style. Unless it was arcane-style.

  Surveillance mage.

  As Rico approached, one of the trolls put out a hand nearly the size of a cinder block, and growled,

  "Whaddya want?"

  "Got biz."

  "You a cop?"

  "Frag that."

  "What's the biz?"

  "Private."

  The mage nodded.

  "Twenty, cred."

  Rico handed over a certified credstick.

  The troll motioned him past. "Have a great effin' night."

  Angst-rap thundered through the entrance tunnel. Trids along both walls advertised pachinko, simsense, whores, and anything else a body might crave. Money talked, guano walked. At the end of the tunnel waited a pair of biffs wearing only skimpy gold chains over their glossy sable skin. They smiled and cooed hello as Rico stepped through the sliding black doors into the club's interior.

  "Welcome to Chimpira," flashed a laser display. "Visit our Simchip Suite for the Ultimate in Simmertainment!" The music only got louder. Lights flickered and flashed. Fractal displays on the walls sparkled with kaleidoscopic color. And this was just the front room, like a lobby. A hexagonal counter occupied the center of the space. The biffs there had hair of flaring incandescent light, changing from red to yellow and green and shaped like short, stubby worms crawling all over their heads.

  Five passages like enormous, grotty tubes led from the room in five different directions. Rico took the one all the way to the right. The walls of the passage throbbed with light, like a vein. Scarlet fog flowed around Rico's legs. At the end of the passage waited a white biff wearing silvery spandex and fingerless gloves and boots to match. Silver-studded bands ringed her ankles, waist, wrists, and neck. Her eyes were like violet pits, infinite, her expression like stone, emotionless. Her hair looked like white fuzz, shorn practically to the scalp. She had a fine figure, slim but shapely and obviously well-conditioned. Rico paid her figure little attention. Too dangerous.

  She was called Ravage. Rico had seen her around, had heard talk about her. She walked the razor bodyguard, courier, collection service. She was supposed to be teflon slick, fast enough to blur. People said she didn't bother with merc guns because she had all she needed under her skin. Boosted reflexes, skillwires, cyberspurs, maybe an implanted pistol. How much damage could this lithe body actually do? Rico wished he had more than just guesses. If she had a gun with her
tonight it didn't show. She stood with feet planted and spread wide, her arms at her sides, her head erect, alert. Violet pits aimed right at him. Rico paused about two steps away.

  "You solo?" Ravage said.

  "Your guess."

  "My guess is you're obsolete, old man."

  There was nothing in the voice, no malice, not even a shade of menace. It didn't matter. What she said didn't matter. Not from a woman, it didn't. A woman who talked like her didn't merit respect, or anything but a straight estimation of the dangers she might pose. Rico lowered his eyes to the modest prominence of her breasts, then to the juncture of her legs. That was his reply. Ravage didn't seem to notice.

  "Road kill," she said.

  Rico forced a grin. "Anytime, muchacha."

  "Soon as I'm free."

  She turned her back and started walking like Rico didn't worry her at all. The studded bands around her body caught Rico's eyes. Some of those studs could be optical pickups. Ravage might well have a 360-degree cyberview of the world. Chipped to the max and fluid as a snake. Nothing would surprise him.

  She led him onto a low balcony overlooking the club's main floor. Ranged along the right were softly backlit alcoves outlined in glaring neon. Ravage paused at the fifth one down, and Rico got his first look at L. Kahn.

  He sat behind an oval table, on a semicircular bench seat that filled the rear of the alcove. The alcove's subdued lighting cast his face and front in shadows, but only until Rico's Jikku Shadowhunter eyes adjusted. Low-light augmentation with glare compensation pulled L. Kahn's sculptured features out of the shade. He looked Amerind, with maybe a touch of Black-Af blood. A thick black wave of hair dangled down over one side of his forehead. Skinny braids hung in front of his ears. He had heavy brows, a substantial nose, and a broad, full-lipped mouth. His medium brown suit looked pure Armante. The jacket's thin collars rose into massive flanges that curved up and over his shoulders. A cloak curled around his sides, concealing his arms above the elbows.