Black Madonna

1

The Englishman was surprised to find himself in Chiba. He'd worked for Renraku before, of course-he numbered virtually all the megacorporations among his clients-but it was the first time he’d been obliged to travel from his Manhattan base to talk to a Johnson. Luxury suborbital was what he’d expected, but why did they want him in Chiba? The limo they sent to meet him had the usual darkened windows and armored paneling, even a life-support system built into its formidable carapace. He was met at the airport by four troll samurai, including the chauffeur, and even that seemed excessive. They know something I don’t, he told himself.

Though almost thirty, Michael James Sutherland still enjoyed a reputation as one of the finest freelance deckers on the planet. Diplomatic and discreet, he got paid not just for what he could do, but for how he could do it and how he could keep his mouth shut afterward. A tall, blond, elegant man, he levered himself carefully into the passenger compartment of the limo, but it had more to do with an injury to his back than any show of dignity. Two years before Michael had taken a bullet to the spine that just missed paralyzing him for life, and he now had to wear a special corset for support. He’d briefly considered a silver-topped cane to ease the pain of walking. It would, certainly, have enhanced his carefully fostered image and his perfect Saville Row suit, but he’d eventually decided against it as just a little too over the top somehow.

Marveling at the absolute silence of the Phaeton’s ride, Michael arrived fifteen minutes late, at the door of a restaurant that must surely cost the better part of five million a year in rent just to keep the door open, given Chiba’s overcrowding and the prodigiously wasteful use of space within. Each table was cocooned in its own curved walled partition complete with cunningly designed acoustic shielding and sliding plastic and alloy doors.

I don’t know what it costs to eat here, Michael thought, but it must be a few hundred just to draw breath.

“Sam Kryzinski,” the balding man said to him as he entered the swishing doors of Space 17. “Coordinator of Matrix Security. Pleased to meet you.” The handshake was a little limp and definitely sweaty. Michael put aside his dislike of the man. It wasn’t relevant to the matter at hand. Whatever that would turn out to be.

“We have a minor problem,” the American began, mopping his brow with a silk square as he perused the menu. Gleaming crystal glasses of absolutely pure water already decorated the crystal-topped, lacquered table. Orchids nestled in tiny, exquisitely decorated ceramic bowls.

“I assume so or else I wouldn’t be here,” Michael said evenly, sipping at the cool water and casually flipping open the menu. There were no prices. He hadn’t expected to find any. If you had to ask, et cetera.

“Best sushi in Japan,” Kryzinski informed him. “The seven-spiced seaweeds are something else, too.”

“I’ll take your advice” the Englishman said smoothly. “Now why don’t we have a look at the contract?”

“There’s a disclaimer and a confidentiality agreement,” the American replied defensively.

Michael gave him a look that verged on the pitying. “If you really needed me to sign those, I wouldn’t be here,” he pointed out. “You know what I’m going to cost you, more or less. You know what you’re getting for your money, more or less. Can we please dispense with the formalities?”

“It’ll make me feel better,” Kryzinski said fervently.

“If you wish,” Michael said with a very slightly affected sigh. Accepting the documents, he plucked a silver fountain pen from his inside jacket pocket, initialed each page with his delicate, calligraphic hand, and signed the last page. Kryzinski was about to take them when Michael jerked the documents our of his grasp with a mildly theatrical gesture.

“Now I’ve signed them, I think I’ll read the small print, old boy,” he said mildly. “I’ve worked for Renraku before and I trust them, but it never hurts to know that one’s trust is well placed.”

For the first time, the American smiled a little and relaxed slightly. The doors swished quietly open and a Japanese waiter, clothed in incongruous and almost-perfect English butler’s attire, silently appeared to deposit a tray of appetizers. Tiny portions, mostly seafood, perfectly arranged and with exactly the right array of microscopic bowls of dips and sauces; three types of chili, ginger, plum, two strengths of soy, and a creamed tarragon for those not wholly reconciled to Oriental tastes. Chilled saki and miniatures of Dom Perignon, with linen squares to swath the corks and silvered stoppers to preserve the aeration for the slower drinker, completed the service.

“I took the liberty of ordering appetizers,” Kryzinski mumbled as Michael continued through the small print. The waiter had already vanished.

“Wonderful,” Michael replied impassively, ladling a first small portion of bean sprouts and white fish with a smear of ginger and plum onto his plate. He ignored the chopsticks and settled for the silver spoon. If you can’t do something well, don’t do it at all, he thought. Stuff the chopsticks.

“We’ve suffered a certain violation of our computer systems,” Kryzinski said carefully, watching in fascination as Michael, mouth still and eyes closed, allowed the contrasting textures of the crisp vegetable and soft fish to entice his senses. The sauces were perfect, sharp enough to stimulate the taste buds and smooth enough to warm the throat.

“Um-hum,” Michael vocalized through closed lips as he allowed the last of the mouthful to slither down his throat. Whatever the job was, lunch was just fine. He set his spoon back on his plate and reached for the quarter-bottle of champagne. He wrapped the cloth around the cork and twisted the bottle to extract it slowly, with the proficiency of the habitual champagne-drinker. A gentle hiss of escaping carbon dioxide and the biscuity delight of Dom Perignon’s bouquet prefaced the pouring of perfection into his fluted glass. He took a first sip of the drink and gave the sigh of the satisfied hedonist appropriately pleasured.

“An intrusion into the second-level CPU here at Chiba,” Kryzinski continued. “An instantaneous system crash.”

Michael was instantly alert. “For how long?”

“Some fifteen seconds.”

“Any warning?”

“Absolutely none.”

“I shall need a complete sysmon report.”

“The system monitoring was rendered inoperative.”

“Really?” Michael was impressed.

“Until the end-state of the crash. We have end-state reports for the systems and all peripherals.”

“If there was no warning, you presumably have some end-state data. Did your decker leave any message or demand?”

There was just the lightest hesitation on the American’s part. Though sensing it immediately, Michael hid it behind the act of spooning more food onto his plate.

“There’s been a monetary demand. There was also an icon left within the system. A signature, if you will. Someone’s ego getting oversized,” Kryzinski said contemptuously. He handed over a chromalin, glossy and almost wet in appearance. The Englishman’s eyes narrowed at the peculiar, strangely familiar image lying on the silk tablecloth before him.

“This is a rum do,” he said finally.

“Unfortunately it’s the only lead we have,” Kryzinski said miserably.

“What?” Michael jerked his head up. “There must be more. Surely you must have gained something from system traces. No one could have gotten into and out of the system and promulgated a CPU crash, even at second level within your system, without something more than this.”

“It’s all we’ve got,” Kryzinski said, an edge of irritation creeping into his voice.

“Fine. That’s wonderful,” Michael said through gritted teeth. Liar, he thought; you have more than this. You’ve got to. All those billions and a staff second only to Fuchi and you can’t trace a crash? Bull.

His elegant fingers turned over the chromalin, and he gazed intently at the image. The body was naked hands crossed over the genitals, the right hand gripping the left wrist; a man’s body, lean and gaunt. The image was monochrome, and it looked odd, like a photographic negative. Startingly, atop the body was the image of a face that was not in negative, or so it appeared at first sight. Then Michael realized that the oddly smiling face gazing out at him was that of a black woman. She seemed to have some kind of headdress or crown, and there were dark streaks on the forehead. Likewise, there were dark streaks, droplets, on wrists and feet and what appeared to be a ragged tear on one side of the chest of the torso, low down and near the hip bones.

“You must already have some data on this,” he said.

“Not much. The crash was only twenty-four hours ago.”

“Then give me what you have so far.”

Kryzinski hesitated. “We want you to work up a report on what you can ascertain from it.” he said slowly.

“Don’t play games,” Michael said angrily.

“I’m not,” Kryzinski shot back. “It’s simply that I have to be able to demonstrate to certain other parties that you have the investigative skills that are vouched for elsewhere in the company. Please bear with me. And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you not to show this to anyone.”

It sounded weak, but Michael was intrigued. His reputation was good with Renraku. They’d paid him nearly three and a half million nuyen over the last four years, and if someone was suddenly having doubts, it had to be up there at the highest levels. That told him he wasn’t being given everything the corp knew, and that didn’t mean just about the iconic image he was staring at. Second-level CPU systems? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m out of here to do some checking on my employer, he thought.

“Do we have a time limit?”

“The demand for payment specified the second of May,” Kryzinski told him. “We need whatever you can get as fast as possible.”

“Well, then, bugger lunch,” Michael said amiably. “I’m sure they’ll put it in a doggie bag for me. I’ll eat on the hoof.” He was about to get up from the table when he realized there was still a glass worth of champagne remaining. He fastened the silver stopper over the neck of the bottle and slipped it into his pocket, and then deposited the chromalin into his briefcase.

“I’ll arrange it,” Kryzinski said at once.

He’s glad to see the back of me, Michael thought. This is a man under extreme duress. How interesting.

“Oh, and the advance on expenses, please. If you would be so kind,” Michael said smoothly as he carefully flicked some imaginary crumbs from his lap as he stood up. The American reached into his briefcase and handed over the credstick without a word.

“Ivory-handled, now that is tasteful,” Michael said appreciatively. “I shall run out of pockets to store your largesse, Mr. Kryzinski.” With the boyish smile that still somehow disarmed any irritation people might sometimes feel toward him. Michael Sutherland turned on his Italian-shod heel and headed for the exit.

Within thirty minutes, he’d checked into a coffin hotel and slipped the seemingly featureless gray disk into the vidphone, canceling the vidlink and scrambling the signal and its origin hopelessly.

If Renraku tries to trace this, he thought with a grin, the decaying Strontium-90-based random switches will tell them I’m in Bogota one instant and Johannesburg a millionth of a second later. And while I was calling my Aunt Agatha in Peru to start with, it was my financial adviser in St. Petersburg that same split-second afterward.

The signal engaged and he heard the familiar rich Welsh voice of an old acquaintance. a member of the British House of Nobles; a politically powerful man, and one with financial interests pretty much everywhere in the world.

“Geraint, hello,” Michael said affably. “How’s Laura?”

“I have no idea. Don’t you mean Dinah?”

“I can’t keep up with your affairs,” Michael lamented. “Look, I think I’m into something extremely interesting. Crashed Matrix systems. Big-time. I think we should talk.”

“Where are you now?” The voice had just an edge of Concern to it.

“Don’t worry,” Michael reassured his friend. “In Chiba right now, but I’ll be back in Manhattan before you can say, ‘Renraku hired me’. I’ll call you from there. Oh,” he added as if in afterthought, turning the chromalin over in his fingers, “Do we know someone who knows weird drek?”

“What type of weird drek, exactly, did ‘we’ have in mind?”

“Occult stuff. Obscure religions, hermetic. Who can we trust?”

“Well, there’s Serrin,” Geraint, otherwise known as Lord Llanfrechfa. “Of course. Where is he?”

“Just emerging from wintering in a castle I own in Shetland,” Geraint told him. “With his wife.”

“Ah, yes,” Michael said, chuckling gently. “My own ex, I do recall. That was a most peculiar business. Still, it all got sorted out in tke end.”

“I don't think I wish to know the intimate details,” Geraint said dryly. “Anyway, that’s enough for now. Call me when you get back. No, leave it until tomorrow. It’s the early hours of the morning here, you troublesome wretch.”

“I’ll leave you to get back to Dinah. Another blond, I presume?” Michael cut the connection before the Welshman could hurl an insult of his own. Grinning, pocketing the quantum scrambler, he called for a cab and began to make plans.

Money’s good, he thought. When I get back I’ll dial up that code Kryzinski gave me and collect the hundred thou deposit. They’re buying me for the next couple of weeks, almost, and I’m worth it.

But it’s a lot upfront.

Second-level CPUs?

Yeah, right.