Preying for keeps

15

"Hi, this is Brynna. I'm either not home now, or I'm engaged in a sexual fantasy come true that you can only dream about. If you're a chummer, leave a message and I'll get back to you when I recover. If you're selling something, frag off and don't be gentle about it. Bye."

A beep followed.

Skater chose not to leave a message. He stood at the cube of public telecoms near Renton Mall's southern entrance, in the wide hallway sandwiched between 2Fast Arcades and Shiloh's, a specialty costume shop.

"She home?" Duran asked as he walked up with two Sloppies and two big soft drinks,

"No." Skater took one of the drinks and a Sloppie. "But I got her recorded message."

"So she's probably still around." Duran pointed toward the trideos stacked in the window further down the hallway at Matt amp; Matt's Trideo Concepts. "I was standing in line, I heard KTXX announce it was going live soon with some big news bulletin."

A locally produced syndicated talk show was on in a showcase window a few steps from where they stood. A handful of people were already gathered there, talking among themselves and watching the program.

On the screens, Perri Twyst, the host, was leaning intently toward her two guests. The trideo personality had widely spaced limpid blue pools for eyes, a strong chin, and a lime-green pageboy that emphasized her lean jawline and the earring in her left nostril chained to the ear on that same side. As usual, she wore faded jeans and a plaid Oxford button-down with the sleeves ripped out, emphasizing her street background.

"Knowing the resistance you would encounter trying to establish yourself in Seattle," Twyst was saying, "why would you be willing to undertake such a challenge?"

Her guests were the same elves Skater had seen on the trid in the Lone Star slam. He couldn't remember their names. Then, as the camera panned in for a close-up, block letters flashed onto the screen below the male: Tavis Silverstaff, CEO of NuGene, a biomed corp in Portland. He wore purples today, with a gold brocade that set everything off. His long fingers were wrapped around the head of a glittering cane, and his royal plum cape fell in cascades behind him across the plush chair. His smile was white and generous, totally confident.

"Because I believe we've got a good product," Silverstaff said.

"Fragging elf," one of the two young men to Skater's right said, "that's what he is. Ain't no man at all. Pointy-eared dandelion sniffer. Needs a little Order to bring him to the light, then he'd see."

The other young man laughed, clapping his friend on the back.

From the thinly disguised pun, Skater guessed that they were members of the Order, a white human-supremacy policlub. He glanced at Duran, but the ork was ignoring them.

"You've yet to unveil that product," Perri said. "But judging from NuGene's past work in pioneering tissue transplantation, and organ transplantation, organ transplantation, and reconstruction through biological agents instead of cyberware, I'd have to guess it must be something along those lines."

"Yes," Silverstaff said. "My father was a leader in introducing biomedial services in the Tir. Most elves don't like the idea of invasive surgeries except as life-threatening conditions warrant. But my father and his R amp;D teams came up with medical procedures, medicines, and tissue treatments that have saved and improved many lives. At NuGene, we've wanted to continue that."

"And you're going to try to develop that new market here in Seattle?"

"Ever since Portland shut down as a port city," Silverstaff said, "we knew we'd have to move on to become viable in the economic community again. Seattle is where the action is. People come here from all over the world. We want to be able to get our products and services to those who need them. Perhaps this will lead the way for other elven corporations. We elves of Tir Tairngire run the risk of becoming stagnant if we wall ourselves off from the world."

"Keep the pointy-eared little freaks at home if you want them to live," the other policlubber suggested. His friend high-fived him and they born laughed.

"And speaking of children," Twyst went on smoothly, "I'm told you're going to have an addition to your household."

The camera cut to Ariadne Silverstaff, her name conveniently filled in below her picture, too. She wore a conservatively pastel pink dress that echoed some of the purple from her husband's clothing. She touched her round stomach. "The doctor says any day now."

Twyst leaned back in her chair and faced the camera, making some glib comment about what a devoted couple these two were.

Silverstaff took up his wife's hand and kissed it. "Aye, but it is the touch of this fine lady's fingers that has captured the heart of a rogue."

"Frag." Duran whispered, "you can taste the NewSweet from here."

A caption suddenly appeared at the bottom of the trideo screens, announcing that a live transmission from downtown Seattle was about to be joined.

The policlubbers were more vocal in their denouncements and started yelling for the managers of the trideo outlet to change the channel.

"So what do you want?" Perri Twyst asked. "A son or a daughter?"

"Whatever it is, boy or girl, we will love the child. Our physician didn't want Ariadne traveling at this time…"

"…but I didn't want to be away from my husband's side," the woman added. "If the baby should be born here…"

"…we'll take that as a good omen for our recent efforts in Seattle." Sitverstaff said.

"That sounds great," Twyst said. "And you'll have to come back on the show and let us introduce him-or her-to the world. Please."

The canned applause was interrupted by the switch from televised show to a street scene. Chelsea Sable, KTXX Action Eye reporter, was dressed in a white low-cut blouse that left her shoulders exposed, and tight purple jeans that left little to the imagination.

The reporter was crossing the street against the traffic with her cameraman following closely behind. Cars had slopped and a few honked in mild irritation. In the background, the warehouse where the elves had brought Skater that morning had been roped off in yellow tape. Lone Star uniforms held the perimeters with automatic weapons.

Sable spoke in her normal tone, a sub-dermal microphone making her voice clear and resonant, "-you're joining us here live, at the site of what I've been told was a major gun battle today at noon." The reporter kept moving toward the police line. Three Lone Star uniforms broke from their posts and moved in an interception path. "However, investigating authorities declined to mention that in their reports earlier

The cameraman panned around the street, picking up the crowd that was starting to form. The KTXX mobile van was parked with two wheels up on the curb in front of Esoteric's Lore Store amp; More across the street. Going Out Of Business banners covered the tops of the two plate-glass windows.

"Come on," Skater said as he looked at the sea of faces the camera was picking up. He led the way into the trideo store.

The sales clerk behind the glass display counter was thin and angular His hair had been cut to leave three stripes that ran from his forehead to the nape of his neck. All the stripes were done in black and white.

"Something I can do for you, chummer?" the clerk asked.

"Can you record that?" Skater asked, pointing to the trideo showing Sable's telecast.

"I can sell you a recorder, or I can sell you a trideo set," the clerk said.

"If you've got something set up and ready to roll," Skater said, "I'm sure I can make it worth your while." He showed a credstick he'd recovered from one of his small stashes. "What do you think?"

The clerk reached up to a shelf behind him and popped a chip into the recorder sitting there. "KTXX, huh?"

"Yeah." Skater watched the screen, barely registering the security camera that locked onto him from the upper corner of the ceiling. He knew Duran had noticed it, too, because the ork stood with his back to the camera.

Sable was having no luck at all in crossing the police barrier. She talked to a plainclothes detective in the end. though, right before she got the boot. The warehouse was the scene of an ongoing investigation, the groundhound yelled at her, and there was no way the media was going to be allowed access. Sable and her production team retreated to the other side of the street. During all of that, the camera had been busy moving, scanning the crowd that had gath¬ered, partly out of interest and partly because the street was blocked.

In the middle of the reporter's explanation to the camera that she'd been tipped off about the shooting and mat it was possibly related to the jailbreak from Lone Star Security Services that morning, Sable's transmission was cut short. The channel went to a popular game show, already in progress.

"That's it," Skater said. "I'll take the chip."

The clerk nodded, popping his gum in careless abandon, and retrieved the optical chip from the recorder. "Pleasure doing business with you."

Skater nodded and pocketed the chip as he headed for the door. Outside, he made straight for the telcoms again. He connected to the illegal line Wheeler had arranged at Archibald's apartment.

Wheeler answered on the first ring. "Yeah."

"I need to talk to Archangel."

"Done."

"You want to tell me what's going on?" the ork said in a low voice that wouldn't carry.

"Faces," Skater replied.

"Faces?" Duran echoed.

"That newscast went out live and got pulled," Skater said. "If the fix is really in, there won't be any copies of that transmission to be had."

"So?"

"I'm here," Archangel said, sounding distant, like she'd just jacked out of the Matrix.

"We're at the Renton Mall." Skater told her "I just got a celebrity spot on a security camera in a shop called Malt amp; Matt's Trideo Concepts. I need to know if you can access it and bone the security system's memory."

"Shouldn't take more than a simple sleaze utility to get in and a chaotic crash and edit program to scramble their sec-cam files," Archangel said. "Does this have to be subtle?"

"No. Duran and I are clear. And if the security memory goes missing, there's nothing to tie us to the place."

"Jack." The decker seemed hesitant, then just pushed the words out. "I checked Larisa's med records. She had the baby three weeks ago at Harborview Hospital. It was stillborn. I'm sorry."

Skater felt the cold chill of an unexplained loss drift through him. "Thanks," he made himself say. He punched the Disconnect.

"What's this about faces?" Duran asked.

"Let's make ourselves scarce." Skater headed for the southern exit. Bright bars of sunlight slashed through the glass doors and lay in straight lines against the tiled floor. "There's an outside chance that some of the elves we braced today might have been nosing around the warehouse area during the investigation. If we can identify them for Archangel, she might be able to find out who they were."

"We stand still long enough, they're going to make a run at us. We could idee them then."

"If we could be sure wed live long enough to get it done," Skater said. "When the time comes to go up against these people, I want some aces in my pocket. I like moving."

Duran nodded. "Something to keep in mind, though: a moving target only has the illusion of being safe. Kind of fades away when you hear somebody yell, pull! And you figure out you're just another skeet"

Brynna Rose lived in the same three-story walk-up apartment overlooking Seattle University that she'd had when Skater had first met her over a year ago. The neighborhood was run-down in places, victimized by the students who haunted the area for cheap housing.

They left the car a block away and walked through a maze of dumpsters, broken and discarded furniture, and makeshift clothes lines that held sheets and other articles. From his two previous visits, Skater knew that, one way or another, the clothing would be gone by the time it was fully dark.

'Tell me who we're going to see," Duran said, walking around a vinyl-covered sofa with one end missing and a drunk passed out on it. A scrawny beagle perched on the drunk's chest watched them with baleful eyes.

"Her name's Brynna Rose." Skater paused at the bottom of the outside stairway and peered up. The landings were all small, peeling white paint over abused wood. '"She was a friend of Larisa's."

"And yours?"

"We weren't exactly big on sharing friends. The only time I ever came here was a couple of times when Larisa had to pick up some things. They roomed together for a while too. There was a guy who came into the picture."

"Still around?"

"No." Skater stopped on the third floor landing. Angry voices barely penetrated the door. One was male, and the other sounded like Brynna's.

"She's not alone tonight," Duran observed, stepping into position on the other side of the door. He held his Roomsweeper in both hands.

Skater leaned against the wall. The doorknob was within easy reach on his side. He scanned the landing. Besides the few plants on the wire stands in two corners and a WELCOME mat knitted in a floral design, there was nothing else.

He tried the door and found it unlocked. Glancing at Duran, he nodded. The ork touched the pistol barrel to his forehead in a salute.

The sound of a slap, flesh on flesh, slipped through the door. A woman screamed in pain and fear.

Skater checked his impulse to enter. Though night was falling, the air was still humid enough to leave him drenched in perspiration. Drops ran down his face. Slowly, he moved to peer through the security-barred window to his right. Beneath the window, a flowerbox bursting with yellow blooms held a whirling mobile of cockatrice in full flight on a slender metal pole.

Two men were inside the room with Brynna Rose. The woman was small, with short-cropped brunette hair and dusky skin that advertised her Thai heritage. She wore red synthleaiher pants that fit her like a second skin and a black halter top with one of the shoulder straps ripped loose. She was lying half on the lemon-yellow couch, one hand held to the side of her face where her lipstick mixed with her bleeding mouth.

Two men were in the room with her. Both of them looked like street talent, yabos or bagmen, used to fast, direct action. They wore Armante suits and expensive haircuts that would lend them anonymity in the corp scene, and respect while working the dives, maybe coming across like a blue crew.

One of them was dusky, similar to Brynna, but his features were clearly Amerind. The other guy was blond and thin, so pale as to be almost colorless. He held a silenced Manhunter in one hand like it was part of him, no expression on his face.

The dusky one reached for Brynna and yanked her around by the arm. Her face was mottled red in the shape of a palm print. Skater heard his name mentioned but couldn't make out the rest. Brynna screamed that she didn't know where he was. The guy drew his hand back to slap again.

Skater turned away, shutting down the anger till it was something he could use. He drew his Predator II and showed Duran two fingers as the slap sounded again. When the ork nodded, he closed the two fingers together, signaling that they were close.

"Do it," Duran urged.

Holding the Predator at shoulder height. Skater turned the knob and followed the door inside.