Fade to Black

30

"Surikov is dead."

"No. He's not."

Farris looked scared, but she spoke in the dead-calm tone that people used when they know exactly what they're saying, and know that they're right.

Rico looked at the stress analyzer on his wrist. If Farris was lying, she was damn good at it.

A long silence followed. Farris' eyes never wavered, despite her fearful expression. Mentally, Rico ran down the short list of possible explanations. Farris could be lying. She could be nuts. Desperate enough to say anything or too far gone to notice. Even if Surikov had been revived, magically resuscitated, or his apparent death only some magician's illusion, Farris would have no way of knowing that.

Rico could think of only one other explanation and it wasn't a good one. Possibly, just possibly, he and his team had been not only double-crossed, but reamed right from the start. Tricked somehow. He didn't see how. "Surikov's not dead?"

"No." Farris shook her head.

"Then who was the slag we busted out of Maas Intertech?"

"Michael Travis. One of Ansell's research assistants." It didn't seem likely. "No way," Rico growled. "No fragging way. We had retina scans. We had fragging DNA scans,"

"Yes, but how did you confirm those scans?" Farris asked softly. "Based on data obtained from Fuchi?"

"I'll ask the questions."

Farris just watched him a moment. The fear in her expression seemed to mix with sadness, maybe regret "Not even Fuchi datafiles are immutable," she said. "The infiltrator program anticipated the possibility that certain relevant datafiles such as personnel files might be surreptitiously accessed. These files were altered. Datasets were exchanged. Michael Travis' retinal and DNA patterns were inserted into Ansell's files. The real Ansell Surikov, his codes and patterns, are now part of the datafiles that originally belonged to Michael Travis."

Rico said nothing. He guessed that what Farris was saying was possible, but she made it sound too easy. There was more to changing identities than just a swap of data in computer files. "Surikov's face is all over the datanets. He's been at conferences. He's been on trideo. People know what he looks like."

"Yes, that's true," Farris agreed, as softly as before. "And that is one reason why Michael Travis was chosen. He and Ansell have similar physical parameters. Similar physiques. Only a modest amount of cosmed surgery was necessary to complete the likeness."

Rico shook his head, tempted to sneer. "You can't cut a slag into a disguise like that. You can't make him a duplicate of somebody else. It's been tried. Surgery leaves scars. You can't cover up the traces. Not all of them."

"You're correct," Farris said. "Ordinarily, any surgery would be detected by a close medical examination. Precluding an attempt at deception. In this Case, however, it was possible to disguise the cosmetic alterations as necessary surgical reconstructions." Farris hesitated a moment, then said, quieter than before, "Ansell has always been something of a bacchanalian. And rather ^discriminate. It was a simple matter to modify his files to show an episode with Gray's Syndrome."

Rico grimaced. "That's real convenient."

"Efficacious. And therefore essential."

Gray's Syndrome was one of several virulent, sexually transmitted diseases that had arisen over the last five or ten years. People said it had come with the Awakening. Elves seemed to be particularly prone, but no one was immune. Gray's was nasty, though usually not fatal, given the right medical care. It corrupted a person's appearance. Made him or her look old and sick and deformed. And it happened fast, in just days. By the time a person realized he had it, his hair could be falling out and his teeth turning black and jutting out of his mouth like the fangs of an ork. The pain was said to be horrendous. Some people were transformed practically overnight. Some people, those who couldn't afford surgical corrections, killed themselves rather than go through life looking like some simsense-inspired horror. Some people just went insane. Rico supposed it would take a lot of surgery to restore a man from an episode with Gray's. That much cutting might well be used to cover the surgery needed to turn some slag into a near-duplicate of Ansell Surikov.

Clever.

"Okay," Rico said. "Say you made this slag Travis look like Surikov. He passes the scans. That doesn't make him Surikov."

"That is where headware comes in."

"Yeah?"

Farris nodded. "The base implantation involved some highly advanced bionetics to boost the cerebral functions. This provided a framework for implanting a new form of semi-organic skillsoft, the bionetic equivalent of personafix BTL, encoded with Ansell Surikov's persona matrix."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning that Michael Travis not only looked and acted like Ansell Surikov, he believed that he was Ansell Surikov."

"And nobody at Maas Intertech noticed that this slag Travis had all this drek inside his head."

"Ansell Surikov has numerous cerebral implants. Most scientists do. Michael Travis' implants were simply designed to conceal their personafix functions." A look like surprise passed over Farris' features. "Even I couldn't tell them apart. And I've had more experience with Ansell than merely as a psychologist."

"Which one are you married to?"

"Ansell. The original Ansell."

"So if Surikov was really Travis, why'd you try to kill 'im?"

Farris' expression turned sad, hurt. "I've already explained that. Everything I told you about Ansell applied to Michael Travis. Almost everything. Michael volunteered for the infiltrator program. He did it to spite me. We'd been having an affair. It didn't work out I only referred to nun as Ansell Surikov because, in effect, he was Ansell, functioning as Ansell. I believed that he had hired you to kill me. Ansell is quite capable of that, given adequate motivation, and Michael Travis' implanted persona overrides made him just as capable. I thought that my only chance for surviving would be to kill him first."

Rico almost didn't give a damn. He could see he wasn't going to catch Farris in any kind of lie. She had all the angles of her story worked out, whether this was chiptruth or pure fantasy. What worried him was the chance that her story was actually true, what that implied about all he had done, and what he ought to do next. "So if it's this slag Travis who got iced, where's the real Surikov?"

"That's what you and I must talk about."

"We're talking about it right now."

Farris dropped her eyes and shook her head. "We're talking about the past. I want to talk about the future."

"What future?"

"Ansell's future," Farris said. "And your future. And mine."

"I ain't got no future."

"Perhaps you do." she said quietly. "It's conceivable that I could give it back to you."

Rico watched Marena Farris intently. She looked about as uncertain and uneasy as ever, but now he didn't trust it, not nearly as much as before. A minute ago she'd been just a frightened woman telling a story he could either believe or dismiss. Now she talked like a person with a plan and Rico didn't like it. Farris was too smart-and too damn good-looking. She looked too much like the conniving blonde biff in every action-adventure flick he'd ever-seen. Biffs like that always had something up their sleeve to match what they had inside their shirts or pants. The words that came out of their mouths always made things perfectly logical, even if those words were sure to get you killed.

Farris' lower lip quivered. "I can help you," she said. "I'm not just a psychologist."

Hadn't she already said something like that to Piper? I'm more than I seem … Rico accepted that without question. "I know what you are," he said. "Get to the point."

"Of course," Farris said quietly. "The point is this.

Ansell isn't happy where he is. Fuchi Multitronics has put very tight limits on his work. He would like to go somewhere else, to another corp. If you were to help him get there, this other corp would reward you generously." Rico sneered. "You're dreaming, chica."

"No," Farris said, shaking her head. "No, I'd already begun negotiating on Ansell's behalf before you carried me away. Only a few days have elapsed. I could finish the deal by telecom. You could come away from this with a lot more money than you've got now, and I could probably arrange to get at least one group of people off your back. I could make that a condition of the deal."

"You're talking about Maas Intertech."

"I believe you've had some experience with Daisaka Security? The Asian woman mentioned that. Daisaka is linked to Maas Intertech through the parent entity, Kuze Ninon. I could arrange for them to be turned off."

"I slotted off Fuchi once this month by busting you out. I figure that's enough of a problem to live with."

"Yes," Farris said, nodding. "You've struck a blow against Fuchi corporate pride. They want you, but they can only hunt for you in so many ways, and the SIN-less are hard to find. But it isn't just Fuchi. Daisaka wants you, too. Isn't that so? And the more people looking for you, the greater the chance that someone will find you. I'm offering you the opportunity to drastically reduce the numbers of your opponents and to make some money that you might very well need in the days and weeks ahead."

"I should trust you to cut a deal?"

"Yes, you should," Farris said. "I have the most compelling reasons possible for dealing in good faith. I want to live."

"You know people at Maas Intertech?"

Farris didn't answer. She just stared at him. A couple of moments of that and suddenly Rico felt like he was facing the blank stare of a fixer, revealing nothing. It was almost scary. Who the hell was this biff really? Why did it seem like she knew more about things than any one person had a right to know? Surikov, Travis, the infiltrator program, details about Fuchi competitors… It made Rico wonder if she knew even more than she was saying.

Her gaze was like a promise, telling him that she had contacts, contacts that could make a deal, a deal that anyone in their right mind would grab at, if only to better the chances of getting out of this mess alive.

Rico didn't want to believe it.

A voice whispered softly at Bandit's left ear, saying, "Master, look."

Bandit shifted to his astral perceptions.

The bedroom now glowed softly with the radiance of life, the astral forms of Rico and Marena Farris, Bandit's own, and one other, a spirit. The spirit took the form of a large raccoon, but one that walked erect. It hovered behind Bandit's left shoulder as if to hide from the other astral forms in the room.

This particular sort of spirit was known as a watcher. It was a simple spirit capable of simple tasks. Bandit had assigned it to watch the astral terrain in the vicinity of the apartment.

"You've noticed something?" Bandit asked.

The watcher nodded vigorously, and extended a paw toward the wall at the rear of the room. Bandit looked at the wall, but saw nothing of interest. "Come swiftly, master," the watcher said. "Come and look! You said if I noticed anything strange… Well, this is very strange indeed!"

Bandit shifted to the astral plane, leaving flesh and bone behind. He wondered what the watcher had noticed. Still sitting cross-legged, he rose from the floor, turned and followed the watcher through the rear wall of the room and into the alley behind the building.

The night pulsed softly with primal energies. The auras of hundreds of people glowed dimly through the rear windows of buildings lining the alley. Other subtler gleamings of life showed here and there along the length of the alley-the auras of a rat, several weeds, birds pecking at a sprawling pile of garbage. Bandit took all of this in at a glance, and, seeing nothing of value, turned his attention elsewhere. Something else, something far more significant, demanded his attention. It tugged at his magician's sense with sudden violence-and held it.

Through the alley leading to the next block came tendrils of mana: drifting, flowing. Curling slowly forward like sinuous snakes, radiant with power. Rising, falling. Flowing up and down. Curving in and out. As the tendrils neared the back alley, they began turning outward, fanning out left and right, as if to proceed in both directions up and down the back alley, but then they curved back again as if returning to a single course.

Here was magic in the making, a long magic. Nothing else could bind the mana into such form or send it much beyond the limit of sight. Could this appearance be mere coincidence? Bandit doubted it. Long magic built up slowly, over the course of hours. It was a far more exacting magic than the manabolts and fireballs that fledgling magicians tossed off on the spur of the moment or amid the chaos of a gun battle. The leading tendrils of the spell seemed to be coming toward the building where Rico and the others had taken refuge. Even now those tendrils were crossing the back alley, slowly, sinuously snaking their way toward the wall through which Bandit had emerged.

A group of armed razorguys passing through the alleyways might have been a coincidence. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of razorguys in the plex and they all had to live somewhere. Magic and magicians were far less common. Uncommon enough to be rare.

What was the point of this sending? Bandit spent a short while considering this, assensing the spell being cast. It appeared to be a spell of detection, one designed to find a particular individual. What individual, he could not tell. Did this have something to do with Rico and the team, Ansell Surikov, or Marena Farris? Bandit wondered.

On occasions in the past, Bandit had in fact observed the sendings of other magicians, sendings that had nothing to do with him or anyone he knew or anything he was doing, but he could count those occasions on the fingers of one hand.

Always, it was best to be careful.

He returned to his physical body. Rico was crouched right in front of him, gazing at him steadily, questioningly. Bandit considered that questioning gaze, then said, "Trouble's coming."

"What trouble?" Rico asked, grimacing.

Bandit replied, "How bad do you want to know?"

Through the rear windows of the van, Shank watched the Asian slag turn in off the street and come hustling up the alley, walking fast, almost breaking into a ran. He didn't look like trouble, but his haste made Shank wonder. He was dressed like a cook: greasy white apron, shirt, pants, sneaks. If he had any weapons, they were under his hide and crammed in pretty tight. He was skinny to the point of skeletal. He might've just climbed out of a grave.

"What's this freaking piece of drek?" Thorvin said.

Shank grunted, wondering, tightening his hold on his compact Colt M22A2.

The slag kept on coming, hustled up alongside the van, then turned to the door of the apartment the team was using as a bolthole. He pounded on the door with a fist. Shank stepped out through the rear door of the van, stepped around the rear corner of the van, took one step further and put the muzzle of the Colt at the back of the slag's head.

"Be real careful," he growled, his voice low and menacing.

The slag froze, except to slowly turn his head. That head barely came up as far as the middle of Shank's chest. From what Shank could see, the slag looked surprised enough to be terrified, eyes open wide.

Abruptly, the door to the apartment swung inward and Piper stepped into view. Shank put a hand around the back of the slag's neck, about to push him inside, just into the hallway, to scope him out, but then the slag was looking at Piper and nodding and bowing the way Asians do, and Piper was bowing, too.

"Okyaku sdma ga kite imdsu!" the slag said. He spoke quickly and quietly, seeming excited. Shank wondered what the fragger was saying.

Piper's eyes went wide. "Doo yuu imi desu ka!" she said, breathlessly.

"Shookdijoo o mdtte indkereba narimasen hi!"

"Ara ma! Osore irimasu! Ddnata desu ka!"

"Nan-no shirushi ga yoroshii desu ka!"

They went on like that for a few moments more.

Shank looked up and down the alley. Nobody passing the street-end of the alley seemed in any particular hurry, no more than usual for this part of town. On the street itself, a sanitation truck rumbled by, workers in black masks, gloves and jumpsuits mounted on the truck's steps. For a night in Little Asia, for any part of the Newark sprawl, things seemed pretty quiet.

"Hai! Wakammasu! Domo arigato gozaimasu!" Piper said.

"Do itashimashite!" the slag said.

Shank lowered his weapon.

Piper bowed and the slag bowed, too. They both bowed again. The slag hurried back toward the street. Shank looked at Piper. She looked at him and said quickly, in English, "Shank, we must go. Get ready to run."

"Null sheen," Shank replied. "Run where?"

Piper stared at him wide-eyed, then suddenly shook her head and hurried back down the hall to the apartment. Shank shrugged.

Behind him, the van rumbled to life.