Steel Rain Page 6

  Machiko bows. "The Chairman has said that we face many enemies. The ancient masters have written that, in such cases, the warrior must draw both sword and companion sword and assume a wide-stretched attitude. The warrior should sweep the eyes around broadly and attack. To wait is bad. Cut to the left and to the right. Drive the enemy together, and when they are piled up like fish on a string, cut them down without giving them room to move."

  The Chairman seems to spend several moments considering this. "And how may this strategy be applied?"

  "Chairman-sama," Machiko says. She bows deeply. "Draw the companion sword. While Nagato Combine's regular forces utilize routine channels of investigation, allow the GSG to utilize other resources."

  "You propose to investigate?"

  "To seek the truth, Chairman-sama. The truth of our enemy's sword."

  "Do you propose to make use of gangster tactics?" Machiko breathes. She breathes twice deeply, and determines to hurl herself upon the sword of the Chairman's question as though she were already dead. "Chairman-sama," she says. "I propose that we are already at war. Our enemy makes war on us. We must find and defeat this enemy or face destruction."

  "You speak as a warrior."

  "I do."

  The Chairman gazes at her with an expression like adamantine steel: hard and wholly unyielding.

  It is many long moments before he gives his reply.

  10

  The interior of the building is like a maze, and it's dark. Neona's mirrored Porsche shades turn the black of night into twilight, but that's all. There's no lights, no jazz in the sockets. She finds a bank of public telecoms on one dusty, graffiti-layered wall, but the vidscreens are dead and the datajacks are red and brown with corrosion.

  She nearly shrieks when she sees a cockroach almost half the size of her foot crawling onto her sneak. But instead she merely jumps half a meter into the air, trips, falls, then goes scrambling, gasping, fighting the fear, back the way she came.

  She's safe here. Safe as it gets. The corridors are strewn with every kind of litter and devil rats rustle everywhere—but there's no people! No cutters, no freaks. No jackboys or razor-punks to give her a hassle. No slags trying to shag her and no trogs wanting to tweak her condition a little nearer slab city.

  She finds a stairway of steel rising to an elevated gangway. The rusted steel creaks and sings with every step, but the gangway holds. Both sides of the gangway are lined by narrow doors like locker doors, and abruptly she realizes where she is: a coffin hotel. Abandoned, derelict. Left for dead in the devastated wastes of the Zone. The Slag Heap. Somewhere in Long Island's County of Suffolk. It's buff perfect. Absolutely jewel. She pushes and kicks at doors till one slides open. The space beyond is a black pit, probably big enough to lie in and not a millimeter more, but that's all she needs. Exactly what she needs. She pulls the rickety metal door shut to keep the bugs out and feels her way around. There's a small tridscreen, a thin mattress, a couple of blankets, all the comforts of home and all she'd dare ask.

  She sits, pulls the blankets up over her knees, and leans back into a corner. She's hungry, but she'll survive. Once she gets to the city she'll figure a way to sleaze some nuyen. The gray nylon carrypack she holds clenched to her stomach contains a macroplast-shielded Fairlight invader, and with tech like that she's sure to find work slurping data or busting code red or some fragging thing. She just needs some sleep. A minute to breathe. Stumbling through the Zone half-crazy with terror and buzzing on adrenaline wears a body out. She feels like she's been running for days. Probably running around in circles. Give her the trons of the local telecommunications grid and she'll find her way home in a flash, like the 'Lectron Angel she is, but throw her meat body into the Zone and she'll freak. She ain't meant for this kinda squat.

  She closes her eyes and suddenly she's in a dream, the nightmare that's been looping through her head ever since she met this slag called Gamma. As real as simsense and as chilling as roaches climbing her spine. Someone's got her tied down on a bed of cables writhing like snakes and he's prying open her skull. Microtonic tools clack and clatter and whiz and the air smells of solder and burning skin and she feels the truth turning her stomach and churning through her bowels. He's putting a deck in her head—a cranial cyberdeck! Now it opens a plate in her skull every time she needs an upgrade, new memory, more processing power. Now it's risking frying her brain every time she test-drives a new component. No way, no fragging way!

  She wakes up shrieking.

  And abruptly cuts it short.

  The gangway outside is rattling. The door to her little cranny crashes open and there bathed in a pale shade of moonlight is one of Gamma's cutters, a big mother-reaming razorpunk like out of a combat biker trid. Neona squeezes back into her corner and looks frantically around, but there's only one way out. She searches the dark, her mind, her pockets for any kind of a weapon, but she already knows she's got nothing.

  "Kept me up all effing night," says the cutter. "Let's go, jackhead."

  "Don't... don't hurt me," Neona whimpers.

  "Move it, slitch!"

  She's shaking so hard she can't hardly stand up. The cutter reaches through the doorway and catches the back of her neck and jerks her ahead, through the doorway and onto the gangway. She stumbles and gasps and snivels so loud it echoes, and then turns and rams the hard macroplast corner of the Invader's casing into the cutter's groin. Terror makes her strong and quick.

  The cutter shouts in pain, and he roars "Fraggin BIFF! " but her feet are slapping the gangway to match the pace of her hammering heart and she's down the stairs to ground level before she has time to think about breathing.

  She hears other shouts, rattling equipment, pounding boots. Which way? Which way out? She runs and runs, tearing down passageways, scrambling around corners, banging through doors, tripping and sprawling over mountains of litter and junk. Moonlight glares into her eyes. She scrambles through a jagged hole in a concrete wall and then tumbles down a pile of debris.

  When she wakes, she's lying on her back. Her breath is rasping and her nose feels broken. She can't move. Her head's pounding like it's under a fifty-ton pile driver. The crescent moon fills her eyes, burning like a white phosphorus incendiary charge. She can't see the hands holding her wrists and ankles, but through the burning glare of the moon she can just make out the slim figure towering over her, leaning on his mage's wand like a cane.

  "Why did you run?" Gamma asks.

  She struggles, tries to break free, tries twisting her head around to catch sight of her Fairlight Invader, but it's no use. The hands are too strong, the moon too bright. Already, she can feel Gamma's fingers walking up her spine like a thousand little roaches, forming into a glove, a glove that gives a little tug and makes her straighten her head, a glove that squeezes down slowly, slowly, slowly, till she's sure her skull's going to split under pressure, and the pressure builds and builds, till it's too much, too much to withstand.

  "Angel, why did you run?" Gamma asks.

  She nearly blacks out. It's hard to think. Hard to remember. The pressure eases a little, but it hurts. Oh, frag, it hurts'. She'd do anything to stop that hurting. Anything at all.

  "We have an agreement."

  She's grunting, trying to answer, to nod.

  "Haven't I treated you well?"

  "Sorry . . ." She snivels. "I'm sorry . . ."

  "After everything I've done for you."

  The pressure eases. She's panting, gasping, breathing. She remembers, too. Everything he's done. When she was bone busted and broke, Gamma took her off the hard-core streets of the Bronx, gave her Matrix work. He gave her space in his doss. He's lining her pockets with fifty nuyen an hour. Why did she run from him? Is she crazy? Brain-fried? She's had it worse, a lot worse. Shick, Gamma's treated her jewel. "You're an ungrateful little wretch."

  It's true, but so hard to admit. "Always been . . ."

  The glare of the moon subsides. She catches sight of Gamma's head, the buzzcut hair,
the impassive Asian features. He smiles softly, faintly, but she can see the subtle sadness in his eyes, the hurt from her betrayal. "I understand," he says in a voice grown tender. "You've had a great deal of hardship. Hard luck. You're so used to running, slot and run, isn't that right? You're afraid to stop running even when you're safe. You're always afraid Mr. Johnson might be just a step behind you."

  The mere mention gives her a shiver of nerves. She steals a quick glance around with her eyes. It's been a couple of years already, but she's still running from that job in Miami. How could she have forgotten that? Her Mr. Johnson turned out to be dirty. The Miami job was a setup. She got some wiz tech out of the deal, but her chummers all got dusted. She barely escaped with her life. She made it through Philly, Baltimore, New York City. Now here she is on Long Island, the Zone. Hiding with Gamma. Hiding in the Zone. Her and Gamma and his cutters.

  What was she thinking? She's got jack for brains. Run from Gamma? Is she blasted? totally scrambled? Gamma's the only chance she's got. Gamma said so and it's true. "Sorry," she blurts. "I'm sorry."

  "Let's go back to the doss, all right?"

  She chokes back a sob. "Jewel."

  The cutters help her up. She's a little unsteady. She feels like she's got bruises all over her body and a trickle of blood slips out of her nose. One of the cutters hands her the Fairlight Invader, a little dusty but no worse for wear. Gamma cradles the back of her head and gently presses a kerchief to her nostrils till the trickling blood comes to an end.

  "I really care for you a great deal," he says softly.

  Neona closes her eyes, and whispers, "I know."

  The Leyland-Rover van waits in the street, just on the other side of a pile of rubble. Neona moves through the sliding side door to one of the bench seats behind the bucket up front. Gamma sits beside her, slips an arm around her shoulders. It's a comforting feeling. Reassuring. She's going home, and she's exhausted. All she wants is sleep. One of the cutters takes the wheel. The others take the bench in the rear and the van starts humming, moving out.

  It's a long slow ride. Around piles of debris cast down by crumbling buildings. Through streets full of burned-out hulks and stripped-down junk. Past forests of withered lifeless trees and oceans of gnarled twisting vines. Ponds and puddles with a stench so strong it burns the eyes. Whirling dust demons. The cutter at the wheel sends them banging through ruts and potholes and bouncing over sprawling debris, but he does not turn on the headlights. The fog curls and flows everywhere. Never shine headlights into the fog, not this fog. It attracts bad things.

  A low brick wall appears on the left. It supports a sign. An old black sign with faded white lettering. Neona's seen it in daylight and knows how it reads: "King P Psy Ctr." She doesn't know what that means. She knows that the buildings lying just beyond, on both sides of the rutted road, look ancient, medieval, big brick castles with bars on the windows and metal gratings over the doors. Maybe a hundred years ago, this was some kind of psychic research center, or maybe a gov lab. It looks like the kind of place where a person could scream and scream and never be heard. A place where razorguys in black synthleather burn holes into people's brains with burning metal brands.

  It gives her shivers.

  But it's safe. It's home.

  They pull around to the rear of a building and park. One of the cutters tugs open a heavy metal door and Neona precedes them all inside, down a flight of stairs to a broad open space: the "commons," they call it. Mostly it's just doss space for the cutters Gamma keeps around: cots, a table for eating, and other accommodations. Neona's telecom and couch are right in the middle of things.

  As she enters, Neona spots the only other girl she's seen with the group. Her name is Poppy and she's kind of a cutter, with cybereyes and hand razors. She's also Gamma's girlfriend. Now, though, she's lying on a cot on her back like she's unconscious and her face is a purplish mass of bruises.

  "What happened to Poppy?"

  "She took a fall," Gamma says. "But don't worry. She'll be more careful in the future."

  That's reassuring.

  11

  The AC Plutocrat spends a brief eternity settling onto the aeropad. Gordon Ito is up and standing by the side hatchway door before the rotorcraft actually touches the pad. A small crowd of people rush to arrange themselves around him. An anxious-looking female steward stands between him and the door.

  "Do it," Gordon says, finally.

  The chopper's rotors are still pounding the air outside, thumping rapidly, but the steward turns and shoves at the door. One of Gordon's exec protection specialists adds a quick thrust and the door jerks open, admitting a cyclone blast of wind.

  Gordon thrusts his hands deep into the pockets of his platinum-hued trench and moves briskly down the steps to the aeropad. People run to move out ahead of him: the chief of his personal security detail, two physical adept protect specs, his confidential assistant. The latter all but shouting into a wristfone to be heard above the gale of wind.

  The aeropad sits atop Tower Five of Fuchi Industrial Electronics' monolithic shrine to economic tyranny, soaring two hundred and fifty stories above the Manhattan streets. The wind always rages up here. Gordon knows that better than most. It howls and rushes chill and ruthless over his cheeks. He feels its bite as a matter of routine.

  Double transparex doors slide open before him and he strides into the aeropad transit lounge. White-gloved Fuchi hostesses bow and intone the usual insipid greetings. The rhythmic thumping of the Plutocrat's rotors resounds against the lounge's floor-to-ceiling windows, pursuing him as far as the elevator.

  By the elevator waits Bucky Freese with an urgent expression and a mouthful of potentially disastrous remarks. Gordon cuts him off with a two-word snarl.

  "Not now."

  Idiot.

  Freese is a freak with a head full of wire, a talent for decking and damn little else. The checked sports jacket he wears over his Stuffer Shack tee and striped cargo jeans provides the only hint that he belongs to one of the most powerful megacorps on the face of the planet. A uniformed security guard starts dressing him down for not displaying his Fuchi badge prominently.

  Gordon snaps his fingers, gestures. The guard desists. Freese joins the small crowd on the elevator.

  "Uh ... Mr. Ito?"

  Gordon's confidential assistant does the honors, turning to Freese, glaring at him, then saying, simply, "Shut up."

  Freese blinks widened eyes, but shuts up.

  The elevator doors slip closed. The elevator hums, descending, descending briefly, and slows to a halt. The doors slip open. The uniformed guards posted to the hallway outside straighten their posture as Gordon and his small crowd move out. At the end of the hallway, Gordon turns right and he and the crowd enter his personal preserve.

  As he steps through the door to his office suite, his platinum blonde senior exec sec and the protect spec who watches over her are both on their feet.

  "Get Donelson," Gordon says.

  No one wastes words. The exec sec turns to her telecom. The techs with the security detail start sweeping for invasive electronics. The security mage goes into astral overwatch mode. Gordon snaps his fingers and his confidential assistant provides a Platinum Select cigarette and a flame.

  "Mr. Xiao called," his exec sec informs. "I'm to tell you he called for you in Boston—"

  Gordon cuts that off with a sharp gesture. He already knows about the call. Just another move in a game that has yet to fully unfold. Gordon had been in Boston early this morning, well over eighteen hours ago, handling a special matter for Xiao, a matter that only makes him wonder why the head of the Fuchi Special Administration had wanted his chief of operations away from the office. Whatever it is, it's sure to be different. Something so far unmentioned, of course. Something Xiao does not want Gordon to know about. At worst, it bears a direct relationship to the reason for Gordon's hasty return to the towers, and that would be very very bad.

  Donelson, Gordon's deputy, comes through the do
or from the east side of the office suite. "I want status on Chrome Horse. Fifteen minutes."

  "No problem."

  Chrome Horse is a special op against Xiao. A fact-finding op. It pays to keep informed.

  Donelson goes out. The chief tech with the security detail steps up. He shows his open palm. Lying on his palm is something about the size of a fleck of dandruff.

  "Looks like another IntSec model, sir. They seeded the carpet. We'll be clean in a few moments."

  Fuchi Internal Security. They never quit. Gordon's got the tech to neutralize the really sophisticated techniques applied against his office suite, so IntSec keeps trying this primitive shit. Seeding his carpet. They managed to get a bug into his exec sec's clothes a few weeks ago. Gordon's got an op running in response to that, too. Payback is a bloody slitch and he'll see that they pay in quad. IntSec's problem is that they're jealous of his budget, his overt budget, those portions they've managed to find out about. What worries him now is the budget that no one knows about, the shadow budget, for the ops that no one approves, because, regardless of how things go, no one really wants to know.

  He takes a drag on his Platinum Select and starts snapping his fingers. The techs rush it. The senior tech sweeps Bucky Freese and Gordon as well, and says, "All clear, sir."

  "No calls."

  "Understood, sir," replied his senior exec sec.

  Another sec has a cup of his brand of Brazilian coffee steaming inside his private office. He motions the sec and the techs and bodyguards out, then motions Bucky Freese inside.

  Behind his gleaming onyx desk, the doors sealed, security tech on, Gordon turns in his high-backed synthleather chair to face the broad unpaned window overlooking the Hudson. He sips his coffee and draws on his cigarette. He considers Freese, shifting nervously in front of the desk, never really at ease without a datajack in his head. The key to the man is tech. Computer tech. Hardware or soft, it's all one big toy. The more powerful the toy, the greater his interest. Give him a specialist group with access to some of the most powerful toys in existence and he'll only want more of the same. Give him the freedom to play with his toys and he'll swear his undying loyalty.