Fade to Black

15

The van glided through the back streets of Rahway, straddling the border of Sector 13. The gloomy dawn resembled twilight. The ancient buildings flanking the road cast dark shadows. Rico knew this part of the sprawl as the Dead Zone. Nobody lived here but ghouls and wandering gangers and the odd slag on the run. There was no power and no water but what people found for themselves. The badges didn't hardly know the place existed, and that was probably good for them, the cops. The fog from some long-ago metaphysical catastrophe rolled forever through the streets. Devil rats, some as big as small dogs, peered from the alleys and out of the windows of abandoned buildings. The only light came from the fires in metal storage drums or seeping down from the sky through a pall of dark clouds.

"Freaking dust devil!" Thorvin growled.

A swirl of fog evolved into a storm of dust and grit rattling against the sides of the van. Rico glimpsed a series of grotesque shapes, faces, contorted bodies only vaguely human, flowing over the windshield and around the van like ghosts, but he knew these were just an artifact of the storm. Metaphysical FX. A token of the Dead Zone. It passed as swiftly as it had come.

"Status," he said.

"Clear," Thorvin growled. "Freaking clear. I got a fouled intake port, but we're freaking clear."

The van rumbled and turned across the road and slowed, descending a steep ramp into a sublevel garage. The garage door trundled down behind them. "Building okay?" Rico asked.

Thorvin nodded. "It's clean."

Rico looked toward Bandit, but didn't bother asking for confirmation. Magicians didn't like using magic in this part of Sector 13. Too much static. That was what Bandit said. Rico took his word for it. "Set the watch," he told Thorvin.

"It's set already," Thorvin grumbled.

From the outside, the building didn't look like much, two stories of crumbling brick with rusty-looking steel shutters over every door and window. The appearance was deceiving, though. The place was a fortress, equipped with sensors, offensive and defensive systems, all capable of independent, computer-directed operation. No one would have to stare out any windows here. The building and its automated systems would stand guard for them.

Rico watched his team pile out of the van. Two hours' sleep hadn't done anybody much good. In any run you reached a point where the adrenaline made you think you could go on forever. But close your eyes and relax for a moment and fatigue washed over you like a floodtide. The abrupt departure from the Mott Street safehouse and the wild ride outta there, like a run through a war zone, hadn't helped.

Predator 2 in hand, Rico led Shank on a quick sweep of the building. The place was clean. The van was clean. Every member of the team was clean. And now Surikov was clean. For sure. Checked and rechecked and declared safe.

Surikov had been the problem. Maas Intertech had implanted a microtransmitter into the back of his neck, then somebody had homed in on that electronic snitch's signal to find him. Guano like that sounded simple enough, but it presented the always image-conscious corps with a potential image problem. Regardless of the truth, the corps liked to avoid being portrayed as oppressive tyrants monitoring and controlling every aspect of people's lives.

That Maas Intertech would take a risk on that score implied that either Surikov was more of a heavy jammer than anyone had admitted so far or else the corps were getting more protective than ever of their assets.

Rico blamed himself for not expecting that. The unexpected was an integral part of the game. You planned for what you could and hoped and prayed that nothing important slipped by or that you could fix it before somebody got wasted!

Dok had removed the transmitter, null sheen. Rico had tossed it into the rear of a pickup back in the transitway. Now maybe they'd have some room to breathe. A few hours, anyway.

Thorvin headed into the sublevel utility room to bring auxiliary systems on-line. Rico sent Filly and Shank to the kitchen to get out food and supplies, and Dok and Surikov into the main room, the living room, to lax out Then he slid an arm around Piper's waist. She met him with a kiss. "I need you to check the newsnets," he said. "Find out what's happening."

"I understand, jefe."

No need to explain that she shouldn't do anything that might get her signal traced through the matrix. She understood that this building around them was their bolthole. This was where they ran if they got into trouble. It was never used unless the primary safehouse got blown. Only Thorvin had been here more than a handful of times, and then only to install the security systems and get the place functional.

Piper moved down the hall to the telecom room. Rico checked that the toilet was working, then stepped into the living room. Surikov was collapsed on the sofa, slumped deep into the cushions. He didn't really look bad for a guy his age and weight. A little tired, maybe a little overwrought. Dok was checking him over. He looked up as Rico lit a cheroot.

"Where are we?" Surikov asked.

There'd probably be no harm in telling Surikov that, but Rico had more to consider than just Surikov. He had to think about tomorrow, all the tomorrows he and his crew might ever have. Surikov was on his way home. No way of knowing what he might say to security people when he got there. No way of knowing who might eventually hear what he had to say. Better to tell him nothing, no more than he absolutely had to know. Today's corporate friend was tomorrow's enemy, and ultimately you had to consider all the corps enemies. Corps and corporates served only one master, the almighty nuyen. That was their only loyalty. "We're safe," Rico said. "All you need to know, compadre."

"What… what happens now?"

"We sit tight. You relax. You got nothing to worry about."

"I'd feel better knowing something of your plans." Surikov hesitated, looking anxious. "What happens next, I should say. As concerns me."

Rico guessed questions like that were natural. No man liked to feel powerless. If Piper was any standard by which to judge, women didn't like it either. "It's like this," he said. "We make final arrangements to hand you over. Then you go home."

"I take it you're the leader?"

Rico nodded.

"We haven't been introduced."

Rico took a deep drag on his cheroot and slowly blew the smoke out through his lips. "Numero Uno," he said. "Number One. That's what you call me."

"I see." Surikov didn't seem too sure about that. Mostly, he seemed anxious. "I'd like to talk to you about… about my going home, as you call it."

"What about it?"

"What 'home' are you referring to?"

The point grated.

It had been no big deal to find out where Surikov used to work before he got snatched by Maas Intertech. Surikov had an international rep in biotech and cybernetics, headware design. Piper hadn't needed to go any further than the public databases to dig out his whole history. He'd been working for a subsidiary of Fuchi IE. called Multitronics until Maas Intertech decided to recruit him without the option of saying no.

What Rico didn't know for certain, could never know for certain, was where Surikov was really headed. By all indications, he was heading straight back to Fuchi Multitronics. If the run had been intended as a snatch, if Surikov wasn't really "going home," L. Kahn would have been smart enough to tell Rico to go slot, then simply find another team of runners eager for nuyen and not so particular about how they got it.

Rico had taken that as he was working assumption, but it didn't mean he liked making assumptions.

"How much do you know of my background?" Surikov asked abruptly.

"I know where you been. Why?"

"Are you aware that I was kidnapped?"

"Get to the point."

Surikov hesitated, lifting a hand to the back of his neck, the bandage there. Dok had given the slag a local while removing the snitch, so Surikov should be feeling no pain. Maybe the bandage was itching. "I was with Multitronics Labs most of my life," he said. "I grew up under the Fuchi banner, you might say. I'm a company man. I received my baccalaureate at Fuchi University. I hold advanced degrees from several prestigious polytechnic institutions-"

"The point," Rico said.

"My point is that, as you're probably aware, I'm considered something of an authority on intracerebral design, bionetic augmentation. My work is on the cutting edge. To keep that edge, to properly conduct my research, I must have complete freedom." Rico clenched his teeth. "Yeah?"

"If you're planning to return me to Fuchi Multitronics, you'll be doing me and my work a grave injustice."

A corporate bad-mouthing his own corporation. How many times had Rico heard talk like that? He could count the occasions on one hand. He'd made dozens of runs like this one, and in practically every case the object of the run had been delighted to hear that he or she was going home. The way some of them talked, there was no better place on earth to live than inside the steel fists of giants like Fuchi, Aztechnology, Saeder-Krupp, whatever…

But now, anger swelled. Rico spent several moments glaring at Surikov, trying to control his temper, his frustration. He felt the heat rise up the back of his neck and he wanted to snarl, but he forced himself to take a long, deep drag on the cheroot and to blow the smoke out slowly, like he wasn't hardly thinking about getting mad. "I asked you if you wanted to go," Rico said lowly. "Now you're telling me what? You don't wanna go? You wanna go back to intertech? You wanna go independent?"

"Easy, boss," Dok said quietly.

"I want an answer."

Surikov rubbed at his mouth. His eyes were open a little wider than normal. His face looked a bit red, but the color wasn't anger. Some kind of upset, like he was rattled or flustered. Like a woman. "Let me explain," he said a bit breathlessly. "I realize you've taken great risks. On my behalf. I'm grateful, very grateful. I only wish you could have been fully informed of the problem, as I see it, before you began. You see, the Maas Intertech program for research is nearly as arbitrarily restrictive as Fuchi Multitronics. That's my point. Neither of these corporations are appropriate sponsors for the kind of pure research I'm attempting to do. They've held me as a virtual prisoner. They've used me as just another corporate asset!"

Rico took another long, slow drag of his cheroot. It didn't help. It didn't keep the acid out of his voice. "Maybe you'd like to go to the Carib. Sit under a palm tree. Maybe I should go to Camden or Atlantic City. Play some fragging keno. Wait for the axe to fall."

Surikov looked confused. "I'm sorry, I don't-"

"Mass Intertech belongs to Kuze Nihon. They're almost as big as Fuchi I.E. They're a little slotted off at us right now. You're talking about skanking Fuchi, too. You better have a damn good reason."

Surikov said, "Prometheus Engineering."

Rico had heard the name before. Prometheus was major league. It had a seat on the Corporate Advisory Board that ran Manhattan. It also had a 100-story tower like a DNA spiral on Manhattan's west side, which came with a double-A security from NYPD, Inc. "What about it?" Rico growled.

"Take me to Prometheus," Surikov blurted. "Make any kind of arrangement that suits you and your comrades. Demand some payment. A finder's fee, perhaps. Their director of research should leap at the chance to get me on her staff. She runs a very enlightened program. She understands the importance of basic scientific inquiry. Her researchers have free reign."

"And what about your wife?"'

"We could take her too. We would have to, in fact."

Rico nodded slowly, taking another deep drag off his cheroot. Surikov's only problem was that he was insane. "Maybe you'll tell us where we can find your wife. Maybe you'll help us bust her out."

Surikov didn't get the joke.

Dok sat very still, almost motionless.

Rico turned and walked out.

A quick scan of the virtual bars that served as the bulletin boards and rumor pools of the Newark telecommunications grid, the underground grid, yielded Piper some news.

Hours after their run on Maas Intertech, systems throughout the megaplex were still on active alert.

Half the ramjammers on-line were whooping it up, delighted by the certainty that someone had cut pure ice, pulled off something big. The other half, those with biz to conduct and runs of their own to make, were less than thrilled.

Vaux Hall Pirate News yielded two particularly cogent details: heavily armed Daisaka Security forces were cruising the streets of Newark, and a full description of Thorvin's van, including registration tags, had gone out over the regional law enforcement networks. Piper thought that important news, but not threatening, at least not necessarily.

Newark was not like other towns. Omni Police Services had learned that lesson. Daisaka Security would soon find out for itself, if it didn't already know. Its forces would inevitably discover a whole legion of petty monarchs who considered various sections of the plex to be their private kingdoms. Triad bosses, gangers, yakuza, the maf-none looked kindly on intruders.

Little Asia, Sector 6, was itself a patchwork of competing elements, and the competition often grew fierce. Each element had soldiers to back its claims. All had access to the most menacing of weapons. Daisaka would inevitably find itself facing the prospect of armed conflict, little wars for control, and that was good, for it would keep Daisaka busy.

As for the description of the van… Thorvin was downstairs at this very moment repainting the van and changing the registration tags. This particular van had a number of separate identities, all duly integrated into the appropriate state databases.

Piper smiled and jacked out.

The room around her returned, four blank white walls with a Samsung office telecom, an armchair, and the re-diner beneath her. The telecom had two lines: a hard line into the local telecommunications grid plus a line to the satellite dish concealed on the roof. Her modified Excalibur cyberdeck lay across her lap.

Rico sat in the armchair, taking on his cheroot and looking dissatisfied. Piper took her slim-stemmed pipe from her belt pouch, packed in some tobacco, and lit up.

"What's the scan?" Rico asked in a voice like a low growl.

Piper gave him a quick summary of what she'd picked up, then said, "You look unhappy, jefe."

"We're fragged."

"Why?"

"Surikov doesn't wanna go home."

"Why not?"

"He says he don't like Fuchi Multitronics any more than Maas Intertech. He thinks he'll be more welcome at Prometheus Engineering. Thinks he'll be free to do things his way."

"Corps and freedom are mutually exclusive."

"The slag don't see it that way."

Piper shrugged. "We have our down payment Our expenses are covered. Let Surikov fend for himself."

"We're responsible."

"No one's responsible for a corporate but other corporates."

"The slag's a scientist."

"That makes him nothing more than a sophisticated form of product designer. He's a suit. We owe him nothing."

"We busted him out, querida."

"Yes, and that was a favor."

"A slag like him won't never cut a deal on his own. He's a babe in the fragging woods.".

"Then let's give him to L. Kahn and be done with it."

"He doesn't wanna go."

"I don't care what he wants."

People who lived the life defined by the corps deserved the same ruthless brand of indifference the corps accorded the rest of society. The corps had proved that a thousand times over: defiling the Earth, poisoning people, wrecking whole economies, condemning entire nations of people to lives of poverty, disease, and abject misery-whatever suited corporate objectives.

A wise man once said, "Let us drink the blood of the enemies of humanity." Foremost among those enemies, in Piper's view, were the corps. Not even the treacherous swine of Tir Taimgire equaled the corps, in terms of sheer villainy. Elves at least had some respect for the Earth.

"You're talking like a real killer," Rico said.

"I should weep and sympathize?"

"I know you better than that."

"We'll be shagged if we don't turn Surikov over. Fuchi has long arms. They'll find us and kill us. Or use us as test subjects in their biotech labs."

"There's worse things to die for than a man's freedom."

"Jefe, I don't want to die for a damn suit."

"What about honor?"

"I don't want to talk about honor."

"We took a man's life in our hands. You're saying we should just walk away."

"I'm saying we should complete our contract."

"And the hell with honor."

"We agreed to turn Surikov over."

"We didn't agree to a snatch. And that's what we're doing if we make Surikov go back to Fuchi. 'Cause that's where he's probably going if we give him to L. Kahn. We're forcing him against his will."

Piper leaned her head back against the cushions of the recliner. Her lover's code of conduct, his honor, his morals, would get them killed one day. She'd known that for a long time. She accepted it because acceptance was part of love and she could not help loving Rico. She had always hoped to someday subvert him, take some of the self-righteous shine out of his moral code, if only for the sake of survival, but her influence in that regard had been negligible. It was a testament to Rico's wit and savvy and his ability as a leader that they'd been able to stay alive as long as they had, despite his code. "Talk to me, chica."

"I should give up everything for a suit?"

"I ain't asking you to give up anything. If you want out-"

That made her angry. Rico knew better than to talk like that. "Where you go I go," she said sharply. "If you want to get yourself killed, then I'm dead too." Rico smiled. "You got cojones, corazon." Love talk at a moment like this. It twisted her insides.

It made the hidden truth that only she and Rico knew ride up to the forefront of her thoughts on a tide of foaming emotion. The money she earned from runs like this gave her the means to fight the real fight, the war against the corps, the war to save the Earth before it was totally destroyed. She could face the prospect of death in that cause-had already done so and would do it again, and willingly-but to risk dying for something as despicable as a suit, a man like Surikov, whose life work only made the corps more money, that was almost too much to bear.

Rico came and perched on the arm of the recliner and drew her into his arms. She welcomed his embrace. She admired his courage. She wished she had his strength. Now, she could only think of all the things they would be giving away in trying to accommodate Surikov, and it brought her grief.

Where Surikov found his home was not the only issue. There was another problem that had to be fixed if the man was truly to be free.

Any fool could see that.