Preying for keeps

34

"Do you realize the kind of risk you're asking Lofwyr to take?”

Skater looked at Elschen's dark image on the telecom screen. The sasquatch leaned forward, her fangs visible at the corners of her mouth. He suddenly remembered the dragon's taloned claw snapping shut in front of his face.

"Yes, but there's no other way to handle this."

He was in the living room of the suite, pacing, working off the nervous energy.

"If it were up to me," the sasquatch said, "you'd be dead just for daring to ask him to do this."

Skater didn't say anything, not wanting to antagonize her further.

"He'll do it, though, because he concedes there's some worth in the venture. But if you're wrong, human, I'll take care of you myself. And death won't be merciful." Elschen's image dissolved with a quick disconnect.

“Well,” Trey said from the other side of the room, "that apparently went well."

Skater let out a tense breath. He couldn't wait to return to some semblance of his life before the raid on the Sapphire Seahawk. He clicked on the trid, which was set to NewsNet's financial reporting channel.

"Did he go for it?" Wheeler asked, looking up from a steering dog-brain he was working on.

"Yeah." Skater studied the stock quotes running across the bottom of the screen.

"I can freeze it on ReGEN's stock prices," Archangel offered.

Skater nodded.

She worked with the remote control and locked in the information about ReGEN.

The price was holding steady at 113 nuyen a share, with trading primarily sporadic. McKensie's buyers, the ones Ariadne had identified, were quietly snatching up every stock they could. There'd been a report that even with the deflated interest in the stock, more certificates might be placed on sale before the close of day. Skater intended to make it happen.

Five minutes passed in silence as they waited to see what would happen. Then ten. At twelve minutes, the stock prices and the number of units moving started to go up. Four minutes more and units were moving across the board like they were jet-propelled, the going price jumping to 729 nuyen.

The financial channel broke for a special report, going on location to Wall Street. An excited female elf in a conservative black business suit talked over a dull roar of noise. Behind her, a cluster of people were standing and yelling in front of a huge video tote board that showed current stock prices as well as rotating advertisements from a battalion of corporations. "ReGEN, a little-known stock offered by NuGene out of their branch operation in Seattle, bottomed out yesterday after a small showing over the last few days. But now renewed activity has breathed life back into it. Saeder-Krupp announced only minutes ago that they're interested in purchasing the stock at above-market prices. Needless to say, fierce trading has begun." She went on about Lofwyr's economic prowess and a bit of the corporation's history, and mentioned that the dragon's activities rarely became public knowledge until long after he'd accomplished his aims. No one knew where the present tip on Lofwyr's interest had come from, but it had been confirmed.

When Skater turned off the trid, ReGEN had climbed to 1,024 nuyen a share. It wouldn't last for long, but it would be enough to make any future purchases by McKenzie extremely costly.

He glanced at Ariadne, who was sitting in a chair apart from the group. "It's showtime," he told her.

She nodded.

"Remember, let me do the talking. No signals, no words. You do anything to tip your husband off, and I figure out a new way to get McKenzie, and the two of you can go hang."

"I understand," the woman said.

"Ready?" Skater asked Archangel.

She sat next to her deck, ready to jack in. "Make your call. I'll be along."

Skater punched in the LTG number for Tavis Silverstaff's private line, then moved over to the window and peered out. The anxiety he'd been feeling for the last few hours as they'd put everything into play was thrumming inside him. Seattle lay spread out before him, alluring in the daylight, gleaming and shiny for the most part. Only the shadows betrayed the rot and decay that infected it.

The screen flickered to life and Silverstaff himself answered the call. He looked tired and drawn.

Skater had deliberately left the return vid portion of the call off. "I have your wife," he said, not wanting to waste words.”

"I want to speak with her."

Skater glanced at Archangel sitting slumped at her deck; she was obviously hard at work. Duran stood beside Ariadne with his arms crossed, a big pistol showing on his belt. The ork nodded.

Crossing the room, Skater punched on the vid display so that Ariadne Silverstaff was visible to her husband. "One question." the elf said, "and that's all. Or I terminate the transmission."

Silverstaff's voice was hoarse with worry, but he wasn't about to walk into a trap. "On what day did you accept my proposal of marriage?"

Ariadne didn't hesiiate, but fresh tears filled her eyes. Her own voice cracked when she replied. "June. June tenth."

Skater switched off the vid. "Convinced?"

"Yes. What do you want?"

"For starters, I want you to sell another seven thousand shares of ReGEN stock to Saeder-Krupp," Skater said. "You'll find the offer registered in your office by the time I end this call. It's a fair price. You're being offered the market price before the bottom dropped out yesterday."

Silverstaff answered almost at once, even though he had to know that selling that much more stock was going to seriously cripple his chances of maintaining control of the company. "Done. You're working for the dragon, then?"

"Indirectly," Skater said. "I've cut a deal with him. Mainly I'm working for myself."

"You said this is the first thing,'" Silverstaff reminded.

"I'm not going to ask you to turn over that stock transfer contract until I can put your wife back in your hands."

"When?" Silverstaff asked.

"Tonight," Skater answered. "Midnight." He stared across the intervening chasm of buildings and saw the monorail gliding by in a silvery streak four stories above the streets.

"Where?"

"I'll be in touch and let you know." Skater punched off the power, then looked over at Archangel.

She stayed slumped for a few seconds more before coming back to the physical world. Reaching up, she plucked the jack from its slot in her temple. "He was being monitored," she said.

"McKenzie?" Skater asked.

"I couldn't be certain," she answered. "I had to work to trace the bug. I figured if McKenzie did have a way of keeping tabs on everything that's going on at ReGEN, he'd have a dump file. Some stepped-up smoke and mirrors utilities got me into the ReGEN system so I could locate the file, but I had to do some heavy-duty sleazing to track the source down. The number picking up the bug is an import business called the Hidalgo Republic Trading Company."

Skaler nodded. "Did they trace us?"

She shook her head. "No way. With all the relocate programs I had layered against your call, a decker would have taken hours to get through."

"McKenzie or someone else may recognize my voice if audio was made of the call," Skater said. 'That would work in our favor, actually. But they still won't know where we are." He went over to the telecom again, punching in the number for one of Kestrel's message dumps.

The fixer was back in touch in less than two minutes.

"Hidalgo Republic Trading Company," Skater said. "I need to know who owns it."

"I'll get back to you," Kestrel promised, breaking the connection with a click.

Quickly and efficiently, the team started making their preparations. Everyone knew the waiting was over and the countdown had begun.

Three hours later. Skater stood in the doorway of the room where Emma lay sleeping, quietly watching the child. Her features were so much like Larisa's it hurt. Her hair was black, like his, and so fine he could see through it, but her doe-shaped eyes were Larisa's. She slept on her back, one pink-fingered hand knuckled up to her mouth. Her pointed ears looked longer than most elves' and were plastered against her head, running toward the crown. Elvis had fed and changed her only minutes ago, then dressed her in the yellow sleeper she wore now.

She looked so small, so frail and vulnerable on the big bed.

And Jack Skater was more afraid of her than anything he'd ever faced.

"Is she sleeping?"

He glanced over his shoulder at Archangel. "Yeah."

Archangel joined him in the doorway. "She's a pretty child. Jack."

"I thought I was just prejudiced."

Archangel smiled. "No."

"What are you going to do with her?"

'Tonight?" Skater asked. "Elvis has arranged for some troll chummers to take care of her. They'll stay here. No one has a fix on this doss yet. If we make it through the meet with Silverstaff and McKenzie, we should be okay."

"I knew about that," Archangel said. "I meant what are you going to do with her once this is all over?"

"You must be feeling awfully optimistic."

"You didn't answer the question."

Skater looked at the sleeping baby. "Larisa asked me to take care of her. No one's ever asked me to take care of anyone. And I've never asked anyone to take care of me."

Archangel looked at him quietly, and he could feel her eyes on him. But he didn't know what she was thinking.

"I don't know if I can do it."

"Do you want to?"

"I don't know that either."

"Guilt's not a reason to take something on," Archangel said. "Feeling responsible is a somewhat stronger reason, but it's still not one that's going to help you through the hard times. And there will be hard times."

He nodded. "It's going to take some time to sort all this out. I wasn't expecting any of it."

"Whatever it is," she said. "You'll make the right decision."

"If everything comes off the way we've planned tonight," Skater said, "Ariadne and Silverstaff should get out of this in one piece. I could leave her with them. They've got more to offer her than I do."

"Do they?" Archangel reached out and laid cool fingers on his cheek, turning his head to face her. "Do they really?"

"He's the head of a corporation. They're a couple. They wanted a baby. They don't live in the shadows with each heartbeat dependent on how quick your next move is or whether or not you can smell a setup. Are you forgetting I'm the frag-up who got us into this jam in the first place?"

"No, I'm not forgetting. But you had no way of knowing how it would turn out."

Skater gave a shrug of hopelessness. "I'm just trying to survive.”

"That's the first and biggest adjustment anybody has to make. You've got that edge, Jack. Something inside you wants to live so fiercely that you've got the strength to do it. That's only one of the things I admire about you. Not all of us have that edge."

Skater didn't know what to say when he saw the unshed tears glimmer in her eyes.

"You're a builder," she said. "Your survival instinct is only part of that. Whatever you need, whatever Emma needs, you'll find a way to get it. You haven't lived outside your own skin because you haven't had to. But that child in there, she has the power to make you live from the best of yourself."

"Yeah. Maybe you're right."

"I am right." Archangel turned away and crossed her arms over her breasts, bringing the icy cool back to herself. The tears went away, still unshed. "As for the Silverstaffs, NuGene is no longer his. They're a couple, for now, but the secrets they're going to have to carry around, even if we're successful tonight, may be more than they can handle, no matter how much they love each other. And even though they say they wanted a baby, they never had the guts to do it on their own. A child would have been another secret they'd have had to protect; not a baby. And the shadows? The shadows can reach out and take anyone down at any time. You know that."

Skater turned her words over in his mind, his gaze fixed on Emma. There was a lot to think about. When he turned to Archangel once more, she was already gone.

Ariadne had been asked to return to her room and stay there while they finished gearing up for the run. Not once had she asked to see the baby. Skater thought about that and it hurt. He remembered the little boy who'd been left in the Council lands, waving goodbye to his own mother, abandoned to strangers. The memory brought a tightness to his chest that was overwhelming, but he knew he couldn't leave this baby. He felt the ties that bound them. What he didn't know was if giving in to those feelings was going to be good for her.

He crossed the room and sat down on the side of the bed, careful not to wake her. He ran a finger along her arm, watching how her soft skin pinked up at his touch. He stopped at her hand, marveling at how small it was up against his finger.

"How about you?" he whispered. "Do you think I can pull this off, too?"

Her hand came open for an instant, then curled tightly around his finger when he froze, trying to stay still and not wake her. She hung on to him tight.

And he let her.

Kestrel's call came in an hour later, just before eight. It was brief and to the point. "Hidalgo Republic Trading Company is a front for the Seattle Mafia to move contraband around. But Conrad McKenzie pulls the strings."

Skater thanked the fixer and hung up. Elvis, Wheeler, and Duran were already hours gone, taking care of the setups they needed at the meeting site. After he told Archangel and Trey what he'd just learned, he called the others over the commlink, letting them know the op was green.

By ten, Archangel had finished with her part of the mission and presented Skater with an ebony credstick.

"It activates with a cellular scan that registers your DNA," she said.

"Silverstaff has it too?"

"Along with your passcode."

Skater took the slender rod and slipped it into his shirt pocket in a protective case.

"It's loaded with everything I could think of," Archangel promised. "I've got attack utilities programmed into that credstick that'll bring most portable decks to their knees, backed by mirror utilities and a shield program that should buy me the time I need. I also layered in browse and decrypt utilities that will get me to the files and break them into information I can use almost immediately. The deception and sleaze utilities are some of the best' stuff I've ever written. Seconds after that credstick slots into a reader, the programming will unleash a virus that will create a node slaved to my deck that temporarily establishes itself as their system's CPU, giving me control of their deck for a minute or two until the IC reacts and dumps me back out. It should be enough to get what we need."

"We're going to find out soon," Skater said.

At eleven thirty-two. Wheeler called and let Skater know everything was set. The troll chummers of Elvis arrived a few minutes after that. While Trey gave them their orders concerning Emma and Synclair Tone, Skater called Tavis Silverstaff. Once again he left the vid function off.

Archangel jacked into her deck.

"Have you got it?" Skater asked.

"Yes," Silverstaff said.

"You're familiar with the monorail circling the inner city?”

"Board it at the King Street Station at twelve-oh-seven. Car eight. If you leave now, you can make it."

"How will I know you?" Silverstaff asked.

"I'll know you," Skater promised. "And you'll know your wife." He broke the connection and glanced over at Archangel as she surfaced from her deck.

"Hidalgo Republic Trading Company again," she reported. “They were there from the beginning."

Skater nodded as Trey brought Ariadne into the room. She looked tense and nervous. All of them were dressed in the stolen orange repair suits worn by monorail maintenance crews that they'd gotten from a fixer Trey knew.

"Let's do it," Skater said, and led the way to the private elevator.